Ignite Me (The Annihilate Me Series) (8 page)

That’s the
thing, Brock,
I thought.
 
If I get involved with you, the question is whether I’ll have the focus
to do any of this.
 
I’m not so sure
that I will.
 
But I do know
this—I can’t blow this opportunity.
 
It means too much to me and my future.
 
And I’ll do anything in my power not to
blow it, even if it means I need to give up on getting to know you.

I looked up
from the screen and into his office and saw that, even though he was on the
phone, he was nevertheless looking straight at me.
 
I nodded at him—and then I turned
my back as I swung around in my chair, chose a few more of Blackwell’s red
folders, and again began to study their contents.

CHAPTER
EIGHT

It took me a
solid forty minutes to arrive home by subway, and when I did, I was relieved to
find that Rhoda was back from work.
 

When I stepped
into our apartment, I found her sitting on the couch in shorts and a tie-dyed
T-shirt, her plump bare feet resting in front of her on the coffee table while
she wiggled her toes in the air and said, “That’s right, Bessie.
 
Do your thing, girl—cool off
Mama.”

Bessie the air conditioner
was rattling the window with such force that I thought, if it were a person, it
would be smack in the middle of an anxiety attack.
 
But at least cool air was flowing freely
into the room, a blessing after being trapped in a sweltering, crowded subway
car and then having to walk several blocks in the late-afternoon heat in heels
before I finally reached our apartment building.

Exhausted from
the day, I dropped my bag on a side table, kicked off my heels in the
entryway—and half-expected my feet to send me a thank-you note because of
how much they ached.
 
With my
clothes sticking to me and my hair clinging to the back of my neck in ways that
grossed me out, I new that I literally and figuratively had to wash the day
off.

“Toots,” Rhoda
called out.
 
“Get in here and sit
down where it’s cool.”

“I’m afraid
that if I did sit down, we’d never dry off the sofa.
 
Let me take a quick shower first and
then we’ll catch up on our days.”

“About your
day,” she said as I came into the room.
 
“I’m sorry, Madison.
 
You’ve
had a shit go of it.
 
I don’t know
everything that happened, but I saw some of it.”

“Today can bite
my ass.”

“You haven’t
eaten yet, have you?”

“I haven’t, and
that’s probably a good thing.
 
If I
had, I would have just thrown it up anyway.”

“How are you
feeling now?”

“Overwhelmed,
but I’ll be fine after taking a shower.”

“If you’re
going to battle that old battle axe Blackwell, you need to eat.
 
So, how about if I order us a
pizza?
 
My treat.”

“When have I
ever turned down a pizza?” I said.
 
“And you’re right—I do need to eat.
 
Tony’s?”

“Where
else?
 
They’re not cheap when it
comes to the cheese, but they’ve also got the cutest delivery boys in
town.
 
Even though it’s only three
years before Barry and I will meet and fall into each other’s arms, I’m still
allowed to look because at this point, Barry doesn’t even know that I
exist.
 
He’s stuck with some blonde
right now.
 
Her name is either Irene
or Irena—I can’t get a read on it.
 
But in just eighteen months, he’s about to get a full read on
her
—and
dump her sorry, cheating ass when he catches her with another man.
 
Oh, how I hate that my man’s heart will
one day be crushed!”

“The world is
full of cheaters,” I said after I gave her a kiss on the forehead.
 
“I know that all too well.
 
But you’ll heal his heart.
 
That’s why the universe put you on this
earth, lovey.”

She looked up
at me with her sparkling brown eyes.
 
“Thanks, toots.
 
And by the
way, you smell like patchouli.”

“That would
just be the stink of sweat on me,” I said.
 
“Which I’m about to wash off.
 
I’ll catch you in ten minutes.”

*
 
*
 
*

When I emerged
from the shower, I felt cool and clean.
 
My hair was still damp, it fell straight down my back, and I wore
nothing more than a pair of black shorts and a white tank top.

“Someone’s a
bit chilly,” Rhoda said slyly when she glanced at my breasts.

I knew by the
tone of her voice that she was just trying to lift my spirits, and I was
grateful for it.
 
“Very funny,” I
said.
 
“This is the best I’ve felt
all day.”

She leaned
toward me after I sat down on one of the two overstuffed chairs facing the
sofa.
 
“Here’s what I say—when
our pizza is delivered, you need to answer the door looking like
that
.
 
If you poke that delivery boy in the
chest with one of those torpedoes of yours, we might get a freebie, because I
can tell you this—he’s sure as hell about to get an eyeful, and that
young man should have to pay for it in pizza.”

I looked down
at the two little tents protruding from my tank top and would have felt
embarrassed by them if it hadn’t been Rhoda pointing them out to me.
 
“Stop it,” I said.
 
“I took a cold shower—how do you
expect them to react?
 
They’ll calm
down in a minute or so.”

“Not with
Bessie blowing on them, they won’t.”

I cleared my
throat at that and got on with our usual end-of-the-day chat.
 
Generally, Rhoda wanted me to go first,
but right now I needed a distraction.
 
“How about if we discuss my day later?” I said.

“Are you sure?”

“I couldn’t be
more sure.
 
Tell me about your
day.”
 

“Today was
completely unremarkable except for one reading.”

“So, tell me
about it. . . .”

“Middle of the
day,” she said.
 
“Never saw it
coming.
 
In fact, I’ve never have
had anything like this happen to me before.
 
I had just finished lunch when this
older dude walked in.
 
And I’m
talking old—like ninety.
 
Or
maybe ninety-one.
 
Something like
that—I’m close.
 
Total
cutie.
 
Dressed in a light brown
suit, freshly shined shoes, his white hair slicked back as if he was going to either
a wedding or a funeral.
 
He had this
really charming, almost shy demeanor about him that was immediately
endearing.
 
I liked him at
once.
 
I also could sense that he’d
come to talk about his deceased wife, whom I knew at my core this man loved in
ways that all of us should be loved, Madison.”

“Is this story
going to make me cry?”

“Just let me
talk before the cute guy with the pizza gets here.
 
Because I’ve already seen him, and he’s
more than cute.”

“Go on.”

“So, anyways, I
was right.
 
All about the dead
wife.
 
He sits down opposite me,
says his name is Ed Nickerson, and asks me in this totally gentle voice if I am
just here to take his money, or if I really do have the kind of gift that might
put him in touch with his wife, who died thirteen years ago.
 
He told me that today was her birthday,
and that if my business was a sham, would I please take pity on him and just
tell him now so that he could go to church and talk to her there, like he
usually did.”

“What did you
say to him?” I asked.

“I told him
that Helen was already in the room with us.
 
And when I said that to him—oh, my
God, Madison—I thought
I
was going to cry.
 
Because he knew at that very moment that
I wasn’t a sham since I knew her name.
 
Through me, he knew that Helen was there with us, which she was.
 
I asked him if he’d like to stay, he
said that there was no way he was going to leave now, and then he took the seat
across from me.”
 
She paused—and
then threw up her hands.
 
“And
that’s when things went batshit crazy!”

“What do you
mean?”

“
I channeled
Helen!
”

“What do you
mean you ‘channeled’ Helen?”

“Her voice came
out of my mouth!”

“No, it
didn’t.”

“It did.
 
I swear it did.
 
First time ever, like I said.
 
I.
 
Spoke.
 
In.
 
Her.
 
Voice!
 
She completely overtook my body, which I
can only assume is a testament to their love for each other because that’s how
powerful her presence was inside of me.
 
Helen wedged herself in deep, and I was turned into her vessel.”

“What in the
hell did you say?”

“I didn’t say a
thing.
 
My trap might have been
yapping, but Helen had full control over what was coming out of my mouth.
 
It kind of freaked me out.
 
I knew that I could have forced her out
if I wanted to, but I didn’t because of the tears I saw filling Ed’s eyes.
 
And so I just gave my body over to her
and allowed them to talk to each other for the first time in thirteen
years.
 
Just thinking about what
happened is starting to make me get all weirded out again.”

“What did she
sound like?”

“Like a young
woman.
 
Probably the woman he wanted
to remember most.”

“I can’t
believe this.
 
What did they say to
each other?”

“It was mostly
Helen who did the talking.
 
She
wanted to reassure him that she still loved him, that he was the love of her
life, and that she didn’t blame him for putting her into a nursing home when he
could no longer care for her.
 
Over
and over again, she said that it wasn’t his fault.
 
He said, ‘You do remember me, then?
 
You really do, Helen?’
 
And she said that of course she did,
that she was with him every day.
 
She said, ‘I no longer have Alzheimer’s.
 
All of that’s gone.
 
What I have now is clarity and peace,
and my love for you.
 
You must know
that I love you, Eddy, and that I’m so sorry to have left you when I did.
 
It was too early for us, but what could
I do?
 
It was out of my hands.
 
And yet here you are with me now.
 
Finally—at last.’”

“Now, I am
going to cry.”

“I felt so
conflicted,” Rhoda said.
 

“Why?”

“Because I knew
that I was bringing Ed great joy and great pain all at the same time.
 
Joy from hearing the woman he still
loved and missed, and pain from not being able to reach out and touch her.
 
To kiss her and to hold her again in
ways that the rotten disease had denied him when she was still alive.”
 
She threw up her hands again.
 
“
And then Helen asked him to kiss
her!
”

“I can’t take
any more.
 
What did you do?”

“I did what was
right.
 
At that point, I knew that
my body wasn’t my own.
 
So, I let
him kiss me.
 
And when he did, he
wasn’t kissing me—he was kissing Helen.
 
His kiss was so soft, tender, and
meaningful, I could feel both of them coursing through me to the point that I
felt faint.
 
Helen said, ‘I need to
go now, Eddy.
 
I’ve already put this
young woman through enough.’
 
And
then Ed, who was a wreck at that point, said, ‘It’s your birthday, baby
girl.
 
Happy birthday.
 
I wanted to come here in hopes of
wishing you that, and to let you know just how much I love and miss you.’
 
She thanked him for coming, she told him
that she would love him forever and be at his side just as she always was, and
that one day in the future, they would be together again.
 
And then, just like that, she was gone,
and I pretty much collapsed in my chair.
 
I’ve never felt so drained.”

“What you did
for that man is nothing short of remarkable,” I said to her through moist,
blurry eyes.
 
“To be loved like
that?
 
Can you even imagine?”

“Yes,” she
said.
 
“I can imagine it.
 
I long for it.
 
And I know that you do too.
 
We all want the kind of love that Ed and
Helen continue to share, but so many of us are so cynical, we don’t believe
that we can obtain it.
 
And that
comes down to so many reasons—many of which are justified, some of which
aren’t.
 
But we have to hope for
that kind of love, don’t we?
 
We
need to press on and pray that we can be as lucky as Ed and Helen.”
 
She shook her head at me and seemed
undone by what had happened to her.
 
“Today, I had a profound experience that will stay with me forever.
 
It was that intense.”