I roll my eyes. “Thanks, Bill.”
He smirks before continuing. “The team is having a raffle with the winnings going to a few of the players’ favorite charities. Plus, a group of kids from the area foster home will be coming to the football field for about an hour.”
I choke on my coffee.
Lilla pats my back.
“She’s okay,” she says to Bill. “Kids in need always choke her up.”
Bill’s hardly listening. “The foster kids are coming due to Dylan Wild’s charity—the guy loves helping underprivileged kids. So the kiddos will toss the football around with a few of the players, then they’ll form a line to get some autographs, pictures, and signed paraphernalia. Then they’ll get back on the bus for home—”
Home. He means their foster homes. Who knows how long these kids have lived there or how much longer they’ll be able to stay? A foster home isn’t a permanent home. No one knows that better than I do.
“…and the players will be free to drink and be merry until five,” Bill says. “That’s when everything shuts down and we’re home free.”
“Sounds great,” I get out.
Bill nods. “While you two are getting the party pieces in place, I’ll work on the business end of things—I want a contract signed with the Cougars before I step on that plane back to L.A. tomorrow morning. This last event better seal the deal—I had a date with Meagan this afternoon, and now we have to change the time.”
I so do not want to know about Bill’s love life.
But Lilla jumps on it. “That’s great, Bill. I’m glad you and Meagan are hitting it off.”
“Yep,” he says, and he actually sounds half-normal for a moment. “Seems better than my ex-wife, but you know…” He takes a sip of coffee. “It’s only just started. So time will tell. But there is a fire between us.”
“Seems like love is blooming in the desert.” Lilla winks at me.
I kick her under the table, but she’s not done.
“I love watching people fall in love. I wish you all the best.” She’s looking at Bill, but she grabs my hand under the table and squeezes it.
* * *
Bill’s bombshell is exploding on a loop in my head as I return to my room.
Foster kids are coming to the event this afternoon.
When the door closes behind me, I feel numb. So I do something I haven’t done in quite a while.
I pick up the phone and call my first long-term foster mother, Ilene.
Always an early riser, I know I won’t wake her up.
“Darling, how’ve you been?” she barks in a husky voice only someone who’s smoked two packs a day for thirty years can have. “Where are you?”
“On a business trip in Arizona,” I tell her. “Ever been here?”
“No, can’t say that I have. But my sister gave me a calendar of different places one year for Christmas, and Arizona was on it. Looked beautiful.”
“It is.” I sit in silence then, not having a clue what else to say to her. Really, I called just to hear her voice, to reassure myself there’s somebody out in the world who knows of my existence, who will recognize me as Jasalie Gordon, and who might be just a little bit sad if I were to disappear off the planet.
“It’s the same as always in Los Angeles,” Ilene says, trying to keep the chat going. “Smoggy and crowded.”
Sounds like her place when I lived there. Ilene liked collecting things—“I’m a collector!”—she said proudly, and whether it was kids, pets, or antiques, there was too much stuff in that one-story ranch house. There were four of us foster kids running around, the oldest fifteen and me the youngest. I lived there until I was eleven when Ilene broke her leg, and I was sent to stay with a new family.
After we hang up, I can’t stay still. I jump up and nearly run out of the room and to the elevator. When I reach the lobby, I walk quickly, praying I won’t see anyone.
Afraid paparazzi will be lurking out front, I go out the back of the hotel and take a seat on the stone wall facing the desert. I stare at the horizon until it’s blurry, and I realize I’d forgotten to blink. But once I start to blink, tears follow. I wipe my face with my hands, but the tears don’t seem to want to stop. They come down my cheeks like a waterfall, and I let them fall.
