Kiss of Fire (St. James Family) (29 page)

“
Why did you touch my fucking phone?!” he yelled back, his anger boiling over. He slammed his palm against the wall above her head, and she jumped.

“
I deleted it and it's gone and you can't watch it anymore!” Tears were welling up in her eyes now, and he pushed away, putting his back to her.

“
Fuck!” he hissed, throwing his phone across the room. It hit the wall and shattered into a million pieces. It felt good to break something, though. Really fucking good.

“
You know my husband cheated on me. I'm not going to go through that again,” she said, her voice hoarse and pained, and it only made him more angry.

“
I didn't cheat on you, goddammit,” he growled.

“
What do you call staring at another woman after you screw me? Huh? Is that not cheating?”

“
Hell no, it's not.”

“
Who is she?!” she screamed again.

“
Toni!” he spit out, and it felt good to have her name on his lips again.

“
Toni? Who's Toni?” He didn't respond, just stared at her. Brigid's eyes looked like they were going to bug out of her head at his silence. “Why do you have a video of this Toni on your phone?”

“
She's not on my phone right now, is she? My phone is fucking destroyed!” He almost laughed, the situation was so ludicrous.

“
She's beautiful. Tall. Skinny. A fucking dancer! How am I supposed to compete with that?”

“
Christ,” O'Donovan said, scrubbing his hands across his face. “I don't know.” He saw her face harden, and he knew he'd said the exact wrong thing. But all of the fight had gone out of him and he just didn't give a shit anymore. He could only think of Toni and how he didn't have a single thing left of her. He needed her to get through the day, he realized. What was he going to do without her?

“
You son of a bitch,” Brigid said, crossing her arms over her bra.

“
I'm in love with her,” he said, the alcohol making his tongue loose. He didn't know if he would have admitted it out loud, otherwise. But when he said it, it felt right.

“
What?” Brigid whispered.

“
I'm in love with her,” he repeated, his voice stronger this time. The beer haze around his mind was starting to clear, and for the first time in months, his anger was dissipating as well.

“
Goddammit,” Brigid cursed, disappearing back in the bedroom. He didn't follow her, just watched as she pulled back on her shirt and grabbed her purse off the floor beside the bed. “Why did you even start something with me?!” she yelled, stomping back into the living room. “I though this was going somewhere. I thought we were going to be something.” She shook her head, her whole body trembling.

“
Me, too,” he said, his voice low. “But we're not going to be.”

“
No, I guess not.” She turned and went to the door, throwing it open. “Fuck you, O'Donovan.” Then she slammed it shut so hard the walls shook. With a sigh, O'Donovan went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. He pulled out a beer, and cracked it open. He felt like shit for hurting Brigid, but he couldn't think about that right now. All he could think about was how the fuck he was going to get his girl back, in the quickest and most painless way possible.

Chapter 18

Toni rolled her suitcase down to the street early the next morning, took a deep breath, and held up her arm to hail a cab. She almost had a minor panic attack as she slid into the backseat, but she pushed past it, and got in. She clicked her seatbelt immediately and then sat back against the vinyl seat, willing herself to relax. She made it to the airport with no incident, although her hands ached from clenching them tight in her lap. As she climbed out at her airline terminal, she felt good. She felt like she'd accomplished something, even if it was something as small as riding in a cab. She said goodbye to Abdul, the cabdriver, and went on her way, like a normal person. It was time for her to stop being afraid, she decided. It was time to take control of her life.

Her flight landed in New Orleans on time, and her mother Marietta was waiting for her out in front of the airport, arms outstretched.

“
My baby,” she said, as Toni stepped into her embrace. “My baby girl, I love you so much.”

“
Love you too, mommy,” Toni said, patting her mother's back, and breathing her in, as she pressed kisses to Toni's cheek. Marietta always smelled the same, like big floral bouquets that were slowly rotting. She'd been wearing the same expensive perfume for Toni's whole life, and it reminded Toni of home – lovely on the outside, slightly unseemly on the inside, and quickly tiring when exposed to it for too long.

“
Alright, let's get going. I still have to stop at the store and get something for dinner. What sounds good?”

“
Whatever you want,” Toni said, already sweating as she followed her mother to her little white BMW coupe. Despite the sweltering Louisiana heat, Marietta St. James never left the house not dressed to the nines. That day, she was wearing a flowing sundress with a matching scarf tied around her neck and heeled sandals. She believed in always looking good for her husband, and always having dinner on the table for him when he came home from work. Ever since she'd gotten 'born again' in Toni's youth, she believed in being a 'helpmeet', which was a concept Toni still had yet to grasp. But most of all, she was a southern woman, and believed in always being polite and god-fearing. To say that Toni and her mother didn't always get along was an understatement.

They zipped through the city, the air-conditioning in the car the only relief from the sticky heat outside. They chatted politely about New York and how Nat's pregnancy was coming along. Toni was grateful she didn't bring up O'Donovan. She figured Nat had told their mother it was a subject to avoid. After a quick grocery store stop, they ended up at her parent's condo in the French Quarter, in a lovely old two story building with a courtyard that had been completely renovated. Toni planted herself on a stool at the counter, watching her mother start cooking, cutting up the onions and the peppers for the red beans and rice. She watched how her hands moved efficiently, slicing and chopping.

“Antoinette Louise, can you get me the butter?” her mother said. Toni had long since given up on begging her mother to use olive oil in lieu of butter, and slid off her stool to fetch it.

“
I'm going to Granny's after dinner,” Toni said, getting the ceramic butter dish from the side door of the refrigerator.

“
You can stay here, you know. The couch pulls out.”

“
That couch is lumpy,” Toni said, setting the dish on the  counter and leaning over her mother's shoulder, watching how she scooped the seeds out of the center of a jalapeno with a spoon.

“
I don't like you imposing on your grandmother. She's old and doesn't like her routine interrupted.”

“
She loves to have her routine interrupted,” Toni argued. “Are we talking about the same woman?”

“
She's very set in her ways,” Marietta continued, as if Toni hadn't said anything. “Although, she's had to cancel Sunday dinner the last two weeks because she didn't feel up to cooking.”

“
Is she okay?” Toni asked, shuddering as her mother dumped four heaping spoonfuls of butter in the cast iron skillet on the stove.

“
As far as I know. I took her to the doctor about a month ago, and everything was right as rain.”

“
Good,” Toni said, her thoughts drifting. The onions and peppers sizzled in the butter, and Toni watched them, wondering why she had to be such a brat about some things. Why did she have to be so adamant against learning to cook? She never had time to cook, but that was besides the point. She could have at least tried. After all, if she cooked for O'Donovan, at least he'd eat healthy. The thought put a smile on her lips, as she remembered the eggs he fed her, cooked with bacon fat. His diet was terrible, and she still worried about him, despite everything. But she was over him, she reminded herself. Seeing him with another woman had killed her love for him stone-dead.

“
A penny for your thoughts,” her mother said, stirring the pot with a wooden spoon.

“
Just thinking about work,” Toni murmured, lying easily. Her mother slid an arm around her shoulders.

“
I would love for you to come back down here with your mommy and daddy,” she said, squeezing Toni tight. “We miss you girls so much.”

“
We'll see,” Toni said, knowing it wasn't going to happen, but feeling guilty nonetheless. She missed her parents often, but the thought of being back under their thumb was not appealing to her. When she came home, she always felt like a child again, and she didn't like it. She was turning over a new leaf, besides. Toni St. James was going to start taking care of herself, even if it killed her.

After a pleasant dinner with her parents, where her mother fretted over Toni and her father like they were invalids who couldn't take care of themselves, Toni's father drove her out into the country to her grandmother's farmhouse, off the beaten path in the middle of nowhere. She didn't know how the house was still standing, it was so old and broken down. The porch sagged. The white paint peeled. The roof had a blue tarp over it, secured with bricks, to keep the rain out.

“She won't let me call out the contractor to fix that damn roof,” her father Rodrick said, shaking his head as they drove up the gravel driveway to the house, which loomed like a ghost in the dusky early-evening light. “I'm about ready to call in the brigade and force her to stay with us for a month.”

“
You should,” Toni said, glancing out the window. Nat had offered their grandmother help as well, and it was always refused.

“
Mama!” Rodrick called out as he pushed open the front door. The TV was on in the living room, as were all the lights.

“
In here, sonny,” Toni heard her grandmother call from the kitchen. Toni left her suitcase in the front room, hurrying into the kitchen. Her grandmother's eyes lit up as she saw her. “What is all this?” Granny exclaimed, her soft face crinkling into a smile. Toni enveloped her grandmother in a big hug, feeling a burst of real happiness for the first time in a long while.

“
Don't you remember? I'm here to visit for a couple of days,” Toni said, pulling away and glancing into the pot on the stove. String beans boiled with a ham-hock, and she could smell barbeque chicken in the air.

“
If it's trouble, Mama, she can stay with us,” Rodrick said, glancing into the oven, sniffing out the chicken as well.

“
No trouble, no trouble,” Granny said, glancing heavenward for a moment. “Now you get out of there. Acting like you ain't eat all day,” she continued, waving her son away from chicken he'd discovered.

“
I can't have a piece for the road?” Rodrick asked, lifting up the foil on the pan.

“
I suppose so,” Granny said with a chuckle. “Take one of those breasts, I guess.”

“
If you say so, Mama,” Rodrick said, flashing a wink and a smile at Toni. She rolled her eyes at her father. She didn't know how he could possibly be hungry, after her mother had forced them to finish all the food on their plates at dinner, and then insisted on dessert.

“
I'm going to put my stuff upstairs, okay, Granny?” Toni said.

“
Oh. Well, okay. You do that,” Granny said, eyes on the boiling beans as she stirred them. Toni grabbed her suitcase and dragged it up the creaky staircase. She rolled it down the threadbare carpet in the hallway, stopping at her father's old bedroom, where she often stayed. She turned the doorknob, opened the door, and almost screamed.

Her cousin Vivica jolted up on the twin bed, putting a quick finger to her lips.

“Shhhh,” she hissed. “Close the door,” she whispered. Toni followed the instruction, shocked. She hadn't seen her cousin in years, and Granny's farm house in the middle of nowhere was the last place she expected to see her. Vivica threw her long legs over the side of the bed, staring at Toni. Her hair was wild as ever, dyed a faded tawny blonde, with dark highlights. Otherwise, she looked almost exactly the same as the last time she'd seen her, whenever that was. Toni couldn't even remember. It had to have been when she was a teenager, she realized. What a trip.

“
What are you doing here?!” Toni stage-whispered, plopping next to her on the bed. She realized her cousin was wearing an odd outfit—a baggy pair of their grandpa's old overalls and a tube-top. But on her, it looked like high fashion.

“
I'm hiding out. You?” Vivica said, with a small smile.

“
The same, I guess,” Toni said. “How long have you been here?”

“
A few weeks.”

“
Hey, Toni!” They were interrupted as Rodrick called up the stairs.

“
Yeah, Daddy?” Toni yelled back, glancing at Vivica.