Greer was dead to the world. The air conditioner in their motel room hummed, and the blackout drapes left the room as cool and dark as a cave. And then she felt a magazine bounce off her forehead.
“Cut it out,” she mumbled. “I’m trying to sleep.”
“I’m trying to sleep, too. But your damn phone keeps ringing. Either answer it or put it on mute,” CeeJay griped.
She sat up in bed and grabbed for her phone. It stopped ringing for a moment, then started up again. She didn’t recognize the number flashing across the caller ID screen, but it was an L.A. area code. Maybe it was somebody from Vista Haven?
She tapped the Connect button.
“Hello?”
“Greer. It’s Sean.”
“Sean?” She was still groggy.
“Sean, your mother’s downstairs neighbor.”
“Oh, right. Of course. Forgive me, Sean. I’m working down in San Diego and I didn’t get to bed until five a.m.”
“That’s okay. I’m sorry to have to call like this.…”
His serious tone made her shoulders tense. “Is everything okay there?”
“Not so much. I hate to bother you, and Lise will kill me when she finds out I called you.…”
She sat up in bed and clutched the phone tightly. “Sean, just spit it out. What’s happened? Did something happen to Dearie? Is my mom okay?”
“Oh, geez. I’m no good at this. Luis says I get hysterical. There’s nothing wrong with Dearie. I mean, not that I know of. This is about Lise. I don’t want you to be upset, but I guess it is kind of upsetting. They’re saying it’s a second-degree burn, which I guess is not as bad as first, but better than third. I always get that confused. I don’t know all the medical lingo.…”
“Sean! Just tell me what happened. Where is Lise? How did she get burned? Oh, my God. Was there a fire? Was she in a fire?”
“Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I’m babbling, I know. Okay. Calm. I’m calm. We took Lise to the emergency room for treatment and just got her home and tucked into bed. There was no fire. She was apparently cooking something this morning and burned her hand pretty badly. She decided to drive herself to one of those minute clinics at the drugstore. The thing is, as she was backing her car out, she totally crunched Luis’s car. We heard the noise and came running out.…”
“Nobody else was hurt? She wasn’t hurt in the accident?”
“No, it was just Lise. She said her neck hurt, but they’ve x-rayed it, and it’s fine. They gave her pain meds.”
“Oh, thank God.” Greer heard herself slowly exhale. And then another thought occurred to her. “Was she drunk? Tell me the truth, Sean.”
“No. We thought maybe she was, because she totally creamed the front end of our car, and she was so unsteady on her feet. I feel bad about thinking that.…”
“If she wasn’t drunk, what’s going on with her? You don’t think she’s taking pills, right? Lise never liked a lot of medicine. Surgery yes, meds no.”
“We were afraid it was something like that, too, so we kind of pulled the doctor aside and told him confidentially that Lise had, er, issues with alcohol in the past. So he asked her flat out, because by then he’d noticed during his examination all the bruises on her arms.”
“And what did she say?” Greer scrunched herself into a tight ball, with her back against the upholstered headboard. Her heart was beating wildly.
CeeJay sat up in bed, too, and she was staring intently at Greer.
“This is awful,” Sean said with a hitch in his voice that gave Greer a chill. Something else was happening, something really bad beyond a burn.
“What’s going on?” CeeJay mouthed the words softly. Greer shook her head.
“I guess we shouldn’t have been eavesdropping, but we were standing right outside the little curtained area where the doctor was, and we were worried about Lise. And we heard her tell him she’s not drunk, she’s got late-stage breast cancer.”
“What?” Greer’s hands were shaking violently. “That can’t be. Why would she say something like that? She doesn’t have breast cancer. I’d know if she did.”
“Breast cancer!” CeeJay whispered. “Lise?”
“I think she was telling the truth,” Sean said, his voice catching. “She told the doctor she’d been diagnosed with breast cancer a few months ago and because of the stage it’s in, there’s no point in chemo or radiation. The bruises on her wrists were from all the shots and blood draws for tests.”
Sean was babbling something about how sorry he was. Greer heard herself tell him that she’d be right over. No. No. No, this couldn’t be. Not Lise. Maybe she’d hit her head in the crash and confused the script of some recent audition with reality. It had to be something like that.
“Sean!” Greer said loudly. “Where is Lise right now? Did they keep her at the hospital?”
“N … no,” he stammered. “Like I told you, they discharged her. We brought her home. We didn’t know what else to do.”
“I’m leaving San Diego right now,” Greer said, spun into action. She was already pulling on clothes, tossing things into her overnight bag. “I’ll be there as quick as I can.”
“Good. That’s good. Luis had to go to work, but I’m right here in the apartment with her. I’ll stay until you get here.”
CeeJay was dressing, too. “I’ll drive you back,” she said.
Greer didn’t bother to argue.
* * *
Three hours later, they pulled up to Villa Encantada. “Want me to go in with you?” CeeJay asked.
“Thanks, but no. I’ll call you later.”
Greer paused briefly to examine the rear end of Lise’s cherished Mercedes, which was parked on the street. Nellie-Belle was a black ’91 500E that had been a parting gift from a rich boyfriend. Lise would be heartbroken once she got a look at the damaged rear end.
Sean met her in the courtyard garden.
“How is she?” Greer asked.
“Woozy.” He took a step back and surveyed her critically. Sean managed a high-end women’s boutique in the Grove, and freely shared his opinions about Greer’s lack of fashion sense.
“Don’t say a word,” she warned, trying to untangle her unruly locks.
Greer followed him up the stairs to her mother’s apartment. Sean paused outside the door. “I’d better let you go in by yourself. She’s not speaking to me or Luis, because we told her we know about the cancer and that we called and told you, too.”
She let herself into the apartment and was surprised to find Lise stretched out on the sofa, with a heavily bandaged hand resting on top of a blanket.
“Mom?”
Lise turned her head and Greer gasped.
Both her mother’s eyes were black and swollen, and her cheeks had red abrasions.
“Oh, Lise.” Greer sank down on the floor beside the sofa. Her mother managed a half-hearted chuckle.
“I’m guessing those two busybody queens didn’t tell you that the air bag in the Mercedes exploded in my face when I hit their prissy little Saab, right?”
Greer reached out and lightly touched her mother’s cheek. “Does it hurt?”
“Not as much as this.” Lise lifted her hand in the air and grimaced. “It’s throbbing like crazy. Second degree, my ass. This is at least fourth degree. Maybe fifth.”
Greer spotted two pill bottles on the coffee table, lying on top of a magnifying makeup mirror. She read the fine print on the label. “It says one tablet every four hours, or as needed for pain. Is it time?”
“Maybe. I’ve lost track of time. Those things make me loopy.”
“Take one anyway.” Greer shook a pill into the palm of her hand and held it out.
With effort, Lise swung her legs onto the floor and managed to sit up. Her face beneath the bruises was pale and bereft of makeup, and her limp blond hair needed washing. She was dressed in a shapeless pink T-shirt and baggy turquoise hospital scrubs with a drawstring waist.
“Put it in my mouth, and give me some water, will you? I just don’t have any energy. It’s the meds.”
Greer did as she asked, all the while feeling like a mother bird feeding worms to her nestlings.
Lise swallowed the pill and leaned back into the sofa cushions. “You don’t have to make a fuss,” she said. “It’s a burn, not a decapitation.” She held up her hand again, turning the white-mittened appendage this way and that, as though seeing it for the first time. “There goes my career as a concert pianist.”
“Your face is all beat to hell, too, in case you didn’t know,” Greer volunteered. Of course she’d seen the mirror, and she knew her mother had already closely examined her own face as soon as she’d arrived home. Repeatedly.
Lise managed a wan smile. “Good thing my acting career is all off camera these days, huh?”
“Mom? We need to talk about this cancer thing. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“None of your business,” Lise said. She yawned loudly and her eyelids fluttered. “Tired. Need to sleep.”
“Don’t play possum with me,” Greer said sharply. “That pill hasn’t kicked in yet. And I’m not leaving here until you give me some answers.”
“Suit yourself,” Lise said. She raised the arm with the wounded hand over her head and awkwardly rolled over, turning her back to her daughter.
* * *
Greer folded herself into the armchair facing the sofa. She picked up an outdated copy of Variety from the floor, but within minutes her own eyelids were fluttering. From the sofa she heard her mother softly snoring.
Hours later, she fumbled around in her pocketbook until she found her cell phone. She’d slept for nearly eight straight hours. Her cramped neck and back muscles protested as she stood up and moved around the room.
She went to the bathroom, and then into the kitchen. The room was a shambles. A heavy black skillet spilled burned eggs in the sink. Dirty dishes were piled in the sink, and the trash can overflowed with empty cans and bottles and cardboard and Styrofoam takeout containers.
Not like her tidy, chronically organized mother at all—but then the Lise snoring in the other room wasn’t much like her old mother either.
Greer did the dishes, swept the floor, and bagged up the trash, taking it into the hallway to the garbage chute. She went back to the kitchen and looked for something to drink. A glass of wine would have been nice. She opened every cupboard, poked in every corner, and was at once relieved and frustrated not to find a single ounce of alcohol.
Instead she sat at the tiny kitchen table and poured herself a glass of Lise’s orange juice. Then she reached into her bag for her cell phone and dialed CeeJay, who answered on the first ring.
“How is she?” CeeJay asked.
“Like you’d expect,” Greer said. “She’s got second-degree burns on her hand, and, oh yeah, her face is all beat to hell because when she backed into the neighbor’s car, the air bag deployed. You know how I was worried Lise was drinking again? Not so much. I know she’s sober because there’s not so much as a bottle of cooking sherry in her kitchen. Dammit.”
“Did she talk to you about the breast cancer?”
“Nope. I tried to discuss it with her but she literally turned her back on me. You know Lise. Denial is not a river in Egypt, it’s Lise Grant’s middle name.”
“Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry! What can I do?”
“I don’t know. I mean, nothing.” Greer took another sip of the juice.
“Hug her for me,” CeeJay said.
“I will.” Greer heard the toilet flush. “Look, I’ve got to go check on Lise. She just woke up.”
“I’ll see you soon. In the meantime, let me know if—”
“If I need anything. I know, babe. Thanks.”
* * *
Greer walked into the living room to see Lise slowly tiptoeing back toward the sofa.
“Caught ya,” Greer said.
Lise carefully lowered herself onto the sofa, wincing as her injured hand brushed the coffee table.
“This sucks,” her mother said plaintively.
Greer lunged toward the coffee table. “Let me get your pills.”
“No, not the pain, although that sucks, too. It sucks not being able to tie up my pants … or anything else a girl needs to do with her hands.”
“Oh.” Greer laughed. “I’ll help with your pants, but I draw the line at the other.”
“Ungrateful child. I did it for you.”
“I was two.”
“Guess I’ll just have to limit my fluid intake.”
“Can I get you anything? When was the last time you ate?”
“I was about to fix myself some eggs yesterday, you know, right before. They gave me some absolutely yummy applesauce at the hospital, but other than that, no, I haven’t eaten.” Lise gestured toward a stack of takeout menus on the coffee table, next to the mirror. “Don’t worry about cooking. Just order some delivery.”
Greer leafed through the stack. “Chinese? Thai? Mexican? Sushi? Pizza?”
“Whatever you want. I don’t have much of an appetite these days.”
She ordered pizza, reasoning that her mother could eat it left-handed. After Greer polished off half a pie, with Lise barely picking at some artichoke hearts, Greer bustled around the room, disposing of the dinner remnants, picking up papers, magazines, stray shoes, and dirty dishes. She found a sponge and wiped off the layers of crumbs on the coffee table, while Lise sat back and watched with growing annoyance.
“I wasn’t expecting company,” her mother announced. “Would you please stop that? You’re making me dizzy with all this energy of yours.”
“Fine.” Greer sat down on the armchair and pulled it closer to Lise’s. “You’ve slept, you’ve eaten, you’ve peed. Now talk to me. Tell me what’s going on with your cancer.”
Lise shrugged. “Nothing much to tell. There’s a lot of bullshit fine print in the diagnosis, but bottom line is, I’m dying of metastatic breast cancer and have been for some time. There’s nothing the doctors can do about it. It’s too late for any treatment. The proverbial horse is out of the barn.”
“That can’t be right!” Greer insisted. “Tell me everything.”
Lise sighed. “The doctor says the tumor is actually between the size of a ping-pong ball and a lemon. I prefer to think of it as a lemontini tumor.”
“Have they done a biopsy? Are you going to have surgery? Lise, you act like this is nothing. You’re scaring me.”
“Don’t be scared,” Lise said. “They did a biopsy. It’s malignant. And now they tell me it has spread to my lymph nodes and my lungs.”
“You’ve got to have surgery,” Greer said, panicking. “Right away. Chemo, radiation. Whatever it takes.”
“Too late,” Lise said. “It wouldn’t do any good. Anyway, I don’t want to be cut on. Chemo or radiation might buy me a little time, but so what? I don’t want to spend the rest of my time on this earth hunched over a toilet and watching my hair clog up the drain.”
Greer felt the tears rolling down her cheeks, unbidden. Lise pulled out a tissue and dabbed ineffectively at her daughter’s cheek with her left hand. She gave Greer a smile. “Okay? Can we talk about something pleasant now? Like when you’re getting out of my hair and going back to work?”
“How long has this been going on?” Greer asked, ignoring her mother’s jibe.
Lise took a drink from the water Greer had poured her. She fiddled ineffectively with a loose piece of gauze on the bandage.
Finally, she looked up at her daughter. “Awhile. I’ve actually been on pain meds for a few weeks. These bruises are from the shots.”
“I was afraid you’d started drinking again,” Greer admitted.
“I wish,” Lise said. “Right after the diagnosis, I went to the lobby bar at the Beverly Wilshire and ordered myself a gigantic martini. Took one sip and nearly spit it out. Seems I’ve lost the taste.”
“Why couldn’t you tell me? Here I’ve been thinking the worst about you.”
“What were you going to do about it? Anyway, I was coping. I haven’t even had to stop working, thanks to Lisette.”
“Lisette?”
“That’s my phone persona,” Lise said. “I started doing it after a girl at an audition told me how much money she made in a month doing phone ‘dates.’ I thought it was a hoot, so she hooked me up with her people. The money was great. I could work at home, make my own hours, and nobody has to know I’m actually not a nympho Swedish college coed.”
“When did you get diagnosed?”
“Six months ago. I’m like Bette Davis in Dark Victory only hers was a brain tumor. Did you know Ronald Reagan was in that movie? I think it was the last time I liked him.”
“What can I do to help you, Mom?”
“You got Dearie settled into the new place. That’s enough. There’s no need for you to parachute in here and take over my life. I might be dying, but I’m not an infant. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of my own affairs.”
“Which is how you ended up in an emergency room with a second-degree burn and a crashed car,” Greer pointed out. “Two crashed cars, counting Luis’s Saab.”
“One burn and a fender bender, that’s not so awful,” Lise said. “Anyway, Luis always parks too close. It’s as much his fault as mine.”
“You can’t keep living here by yourself, you know,” Greer said.
“Hey! Maybe I should just move in with Dearie at the snoozeatorium.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Greer said. “I just think you need to let me help out. First thing, I want to meet with your doctor, so he can tell me what we can expect with this disease. You know, as it progresses.”
“Absolutely not,” Lise shot back. “You are not my caregiver. I have been managing myself just fine without you. I don’t want you rearranging my life. I especially don’t want you rearranging yours.”
“I just want to understand what’s going on with you, and help out, you know, with the transition.”
“I’ll make the transition just fine. I’ve got this, Greer. And I’m not discussing it any further. So you might just as well get on with your life and your job search. How was San Diego, by the way?”
“Good. It was kinda fun working as a P.A. again.” Greer slumped back onto the chair, exhausted from the verbal battling.
Lise picked up the bottle of pain meds and stood. “My hand is hurting again. I’m going to bed now. You can sleep on the sofa tonight, but tomorrow, you go back to your own place, and you butt out of my life.”