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  “That’s good to hear. Girl, for a minute there I thought you were trying to leave me alone with that crazy woman!” Madison joked.

  “Maddie,” Joseph warned, although he secretly got a kick out of his youngest daughter’s ability to ruffle his wife’s feathers.

  “Come on, Dad. I sat behind you guys on the flight down here and all she did was talk your ear off the whole time about going after the manufacturer of Kennedy’s car. Then what’d she say? Oh yeah, she thinks somehow the state of Virginia is responsible for this. As if something they did or didn’t do to the roads caused Kennedy’s accident. I am surprised she doesn’t want to sue Mother Nature for the rain. I swear, she is a piece of work,” Madison fumed unapologetically.

  Joseph held his tongue, unwilling to go toe to toe with his daughter, especially when she was speaking the truth.

  “Madison, don’t upset your sister,” was all he said.

  “Oh, Dad, there’s nothing I can tell Kennedy about her mother that would shock her.”

  She had taken to referring to Elmira as only Kennedy’s mother as the two of them argued more and grew ever more distant. Kennedy’s attempt at a laugh came out as a wince as the ever-present pain intensified. Madison called for the nurse, who came in and turned the dial on the machine that released morphine into Kennedy’s system intravenously. Madison sat silently, holding her sister’s hand while sleep overcame her.

  Joseph looked on for a few minutes and then slipped out of the room to go and tend to his wife. Madison shook her head, keeping her thoughts to herself. For the remainder of that day, while their father returned periodically to sit in silence near Kennedy’s bed, their mother could not bring herself to return to the room. Madison knew that her discomfort came more from the unwillingness to accept that one of her children could possibly have a permanently damaged face and distorted body than any other reason their father tried to gesticulate. In the world of Elmira Daniels, there was no such thing as imperfection.

  Chapter 3

  Kennedy spent days in and out of consciousness, flying high on pain medication. As she slept, her dreams were filled with images of twisted metal and broken glass. The sounds of her screams combined with the whining screech of tires on wet pavement reverberated in her brain despite her desperate efforts to escape them. She held the taste of blood in her mouth and each time the pain relievers dissipated from her bloodstream, her bones ached and her skin stung as if she’d been dipped in acid. When alert, in the moments before a new dose of medication took control, Kennedy tried to remain positive, praying for the will to grow stronger.

  Her parents and Madison were staying at a Hilton Hotel about ten minutes away from the hospital. Madison jokingly whispered to Kennedy when they were alone, that while their parents loved her very much, there was no way Elmira would be caught dead in the Best Western directly across the street from the hospital. Kennedy laughed for the first time since the accident.

  “It’s so good to hear you laugh again, sis. Dad and I went to the auto body shop to check on your car. I hate to tell you this, but it’s totaled.”

  Madison laughed when Kennedy groaned at her news.

  “Hey, look at it this way—the fact that you walked away from the twisted wreckage of that car, figuratively, anyway, is a miracle. Let’s just count our lucky stars. Besides, when you get better, we’ll squeeze Daddy to buy you a cute little Aston Martin.”

  Joseph, Elmira and Madison stayed by Kennedy’s bedside in shifts for the first few days. Kennedy’s emotions were split between feeling an overwhelming need to have their presence at all times and wishing she could have a few moments alone, without her family, doctors or nurses surrounding her. This experience taught her that a hospital beat a mall for most crowded, hands down.

  “What happened to her?”

  Kennedy heard a deep voice rise above the usual hospital noises, but she lay still beneath the white blanket. It was very early in the morning and her family had not yet arrived for the day. She was being returned to her room after having a CAT scan performed, the second since her accident. The doctors were attempting to rule out any possibility of injury to the brain that may have gone undetected when she was first examined.

  Malik Crawford was working with a transport team from Stillwater Rehabilitation Center. They were at Annandale picking up a patient who was being discharged and delivered to Stillwater for continued care. Their patient, a wealthy magazine editor who’d suffered partial paralysis from the waist down as the result of a skiing accident, was waiting to receive discharge papers from his doctor.

  Malik had gone down to radiology to say hello to a buddy of his while he waited and was now waiting for an elevator back upstairs. His eyes were drawn to the woman lying on the gurney, her eyes wrapped in heavy white bandages. Long auburn hair framed her face like a halo and one of her smooth bronze-colored arms rested peacefully at her side. The other was bent at the elbow and covered by a pink cast. The rise and fall of her chest was the only sign that she was alive. Her body was long and slender and he immediately had the vision of a tall, shapely woman with the legs of a dancer. She was incredibly beautiful and instinctively, his heart went out to her.

  “Car accident,” the orderly said. “She’s doing much better than when she was first brought in, right Ms. Daniels?”

  Kennedy did not respond, hating the fact these people were talking about her as if she were some laboratory rat devoid of distinguishable feelings. Statements like his reminded her in no uncertain terms that, all in all, she was lucky to be alive. Of course, none of these people were living the physical and emotional hell she was living, but they still held the uniformed opinion that she should be grateful.

  “Her leg looks like it’s positioned a little too high…this can’t be very comfortable for her,” the voice said.

  Genuine concern echoed in his words, as if he felt somehow responsible for her comfort and care. She wondered if he were a hospital worker.

  Kennedy felt a strong hand under the bend of her knee. As the metal bar above the gurney from which her broken leg was suspended was adjusted, bringing her leg about ten degrees lower, she concentrated on the softness of the wide palm against her skin. The warmth from his touch remained on her leg after he removed his hand.

  “Godspeed on your recovery, Miss,” the voice said, just as her gurney began rolling off of the elevator.

  The sincerity in his tone struck her, yet still she offered no response. She felt the urge to say something to the man but was still so far from being sociable that she couldn’t make herself talk. She was thankful, however, because she did feel more comfortable after his adjustment. His voice stayed with her, its soothing timbre ironically finding its way into her soul when the pain was at its worst.

  Five days after the accident Kennedy was removed from the intensive care unit and transplanted into a private room. The fire in her skin had all but vanished by then and slowly she had begun to feel sensations other than the raw pain that had been her constant companion since the accident. The nurses and orderlies settled her into her new room with all of the machines and tubes still connected. When they left, her head and eyes still bandaged and taped shut, Kennedy believed that once again she was alone. She had grown accustomed to not being able to see anything through the thick bandages and had begun to learn to listen for sounds of life around her. Suddenly, she heard breathing and turned her head sharply in the direction from which it came.

  “Why didn’t I think to bring a camera? Darling, you look positively wretched.”

  The voice came from a corner of the room.

  “Skyy?” Kennedy cried.

  “It’s me…in the flesh,” Skyy answered, moving to Kennedy’s bedside and plopping down on the bed next to her.

  She took Kennedy’s non-bandaged right hand in hers.

  “I would have been here sooner, sweetheart, but would you believe there was not one empty seat on one stinking plane until last night?”

  Skyy leaned down and press
ed cool lips against the side of Kennedy’s cheek.

  “How are you?”

  “I’m feeling a lot better than I look, I’m sure,” Kennedy answered weakly.

  “Mmm, hmm. Well, my dear, judging from the slur in your voice, I’d say you’ve made friends with the Percocet fairy. That’s probably why you’re feeling so good.” Skyy giggled.

  “Actually, it’s Vicodin now and we are on a first name basis,” Kennedy said, a pained smile pushing through her lips.

  Skyy and Kennedy had been best friends since seventh grade at the all-girls boarding school they’d attended. They had been more like sisters than friends ever since they’d been paired together as lab partners in biology class. In a social circle that consisted of the Who’s Who in Young Black America, Skyy was the most real person Kennedy had ever met.

  Unlike most of Kennedy’s other friends, and herself for that matter, Skyy was not part of a legacy of doctors, lawyers and social debutantes. Her father was a self-made man who had made friends with the right people, and clawed his way into a brotherhood of the moneyed folks of North Carolina. No matter how hard he tried, however, there was lingering in him, his wife and their only child, an element of roughness of the Southside of Chicago, from which they had fled as soon as he could afford it when Skyy was twelve years old.

  While Skyy adapted to their new lifestyle of Bentleys and private schools, she never accepted or adopted the arrogance of the wealthy. When she and Kennedy first started hanging out together, Kennedy had attempted to draw her into her circle of friends, who were the prettiest, most popular of the girls, both black and white, in school.

  Seated in the cafeteria enjoying chef-quality meals of broiled salmon and steamed asparagus tips, the girls were whispering and teetering over one of the new additions to the school, a girl who was there on scholarship, whose hand-me-down outfits and GAP jeans made her stick out like a sore thumb amongst the rest of the Lacoste-wearing, diamond-studded young girls. Skyy had remained quiet, studying the girl who sat alone, eating her lunch beneath the cloud of adolescent snubs. All of a sudden, Skyy rose from her seat, picked up her tray and marched deliberately across the cafeteria. She stopped at the girl’s table, said something to her and then sat down. Kennedy and her crew were stunned and after that day, Kennedy had been told in no uncertain terms that she had to make a choice. It was Skyy or them. Today, she turned to face her friend’s voice, glad at the choice she’d made.

  “Where are your folks?” Skyy asked, tossing her hair over her shoulder.

  Kennedy wished she could see Skyy, wondering what transformation her friend had gone through during her latest jaunt overseas. Skyy had been in Italy for the past three months. The firm she worked with, Samage Designs, had landed one exclusive hotel or restaurant after the other and Skyy’s fresh eye and youthful approach to design was a large part of the equation. Travel was the thing that, once bitten, Skyy had yet to be able to shake. She loved packing up and hitting the road and for her, the farther the distance, the better. Before Italy, she’d been home in North Carolina for only a couple of months, having spent the prior nine months in Japan designing and implementing the construction of a five-star hotel in Tokyo.

  Each time she came back to the United States, Skyy was a different person. Once, there was a short, fiery red hairstyle, that, despite the shocking effect it had, actually looked fantastic on her. Another time, after a visit to India, she came home with her head shaved bald. These days, her hair having grown back to her shoulders, she rocked a permed layered style, colored jet-black. Her copper-penny brown face, with its slanted eyes and pixie nose, was sun-kissed and vibrant, bespeaking her strict vegan diet and rigorous exercise regimen.

  “They left yesterday. Daddy had to get back to his patients and Mother, well, you know Mother. She can’t stand living out of a suitcase,” Kennedy laughed.

  She didn’t need to let on to Skyy that she was glad that her parents had gone back home. Having them around worrying over her was as intense as the physical discomfort she was in, if not more. Skyy knew better than anyone how trying Kennedy’s parents could be.

  “What about Maddie? What’s she up to?” Skyy asked.

  “You know Madison…nothing new there. She was here, too, and was fighting with Mother as usual. Once I assured them that I was going to be fine, she hopped in her car and headed up to New York to visit Liza Penning.”

  After the young Daniels sisters had kicked Liza’s butt all over the summer camp that year, Madison and Liza had become best friends. Liza was now a stand-up comedienne living in New York City.

  “I’m sure Elmira was thrilled about that,” Skyy laughed.

  “Yeah, well, what can she do? Madison is a grown woman now.”

  “Yeah, grown and still living at home, sponging off of Mommy and Daddy. I don’t know why your parents don’t just cut her off. I bet you that would make her straighten up and fly right.”

  Kennedy considered Skyy’s words for a moment, and one moment was all it took for her to dismiss them. First, there was no way her parents would ever cut Madison off. The Daniels would walk through hell with gasoline cans strapped to their backs before they ever allowed one of their own to have to make do without or depend on others for their survival. Secondly, as much as Madison rebelled against them, she and Elmira were so much alike that not accepting her and her behaviors would be the equivalent of her mother turning against herself. No, Madison had yet to find that thing, if it existed, that would push her parents to the breaking point, although she’d come very close once or twice.

  “She promised that she’d stop back in to check on me by the weekend. If you’re still here, maybe you can talk some sense into her.”

  Both Kennedy and Skyy erupted with much-needed laughter at the absurdity of that one.

  “Yeah, well I’ll still be here by the weekend, but I damned sure won’t waste my breath talking to your sister about anything other than shoes and men.” Skyy smirked.

  Skyy stayed in town for the remainder of the week, spending the days seated by Kennedy’s bedside, reading to her. They finished the Eric Jerome Dickey novel Kennedy had been planning to read before the accident, as well as a half a dozen gossip magazines and the latest issues of Ebony and Essence magazines. They listened to the news on television every evening and the daily talk shows in the afternoon. Skyy fed Kennedy the nutritious, yet tasteless hospital meals that were delivered three times a day, and snuck in cheesecake and other sweets in between meals. It was also Skyy’s job to deliver the twice-daily medical updates to Elmira and Joseph, who threatened to fly back up to D.C. in a moment’s notice. At Kennedy’s request, Skyy kept them at bay with glowing reports of the patient’s progress.

  Kennedy was, in fact, improving. The bruises on her skin had begun to scab over and peel away. She could now move her left arm without feeling any pain, although she was somewhat limited by the full arm cast extending from the center of her right hand up to her elbow.

  Her shattered right knee was still held immobile, sealed tightly in a cast made of fiberglass and hanging from a trapeze above her bed. Skyy gave Kennedy a French pedicure, after sponging and applying lotion to her size nine feet. She did the fingers on both of her hands to match, trimming and shaping the nails first. Finally, she made her way to Kennedy’s hair, using a sponge and the aloe-scented latherless shampoo she’d purchased at a local beauty supply store. She combed the once glowing mane, freeing it of its tangles and dry patches where various liquids had settled since the accident. Carefully avoiding the bandages that were wound around the nape of her neck and across her forehead and eyes, Skyy parted Kennedy’s hair into small sections and wiped the shampoo through. Next, she brushed it until it began to shine again, braided it into a long, tight French braid and wrapped a ponytail holder securely around the end.

  She helped Kennedy change out of the ugly blue hospital gown that had been placed on her damaged body by the nurses into a pale pink, Victoria’s Secret nightshirt made of pure silk.
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  “Now, you’re beginning to look human again,” she remarked when she had finished her spa treatment.

  “What do you mean?” Kennedy exclaimed.

  “Girl, I hate to say this about my one and only best friend, but you were extremely torn up when I got here. Crusty, ashy and wild don’t even begin to describe the way you looked,” Skyy replied.

  As much as Skyy rejected the attitude of the bourgeois black class to which her parents wholeheartedly subscribed, she did appreciate the finer things in life. She was a woman of taste. The standards she set were high, but they were her own. She believed a woman should look her best at all times, but rejected the belief that good looks could only be achieved with a lot of money.

  “Oh, great Skyy. Way to kick a sister when she’s down,” Kennedy lamented.

  The hardest part of the past week had been the fact that she didn’t have the use of her eyes. She couldn’t wait until the bandages were taken off so she could get a good look at herself—her body and her injuries. From touching her face, she could tell that it was no longer swollen and with the exception of the gash on her forehead, which the doctor had told her had required twelve stitches to close, there were no other injuries to her face.

  Skyy had told her that the bruises to her arms and legs, as well as the scratches that had come from the broken glass, were all healing well. Despite this, she longed to see herself for herself. She was impatient for the moment she could look into a mirror, stare into her own eyes and confirm that she was really all right. She needed to see for herself that she had really made it through the worse ordeal of her entire life. However, she’d have to wait a few days longer. The ophthalmologist had conferred with Dr. Moskowitz, reviewing the initial X-rays and optical images taken of her eyes. They agreed that Kennedy’s eyes simply would need time to heal and that no medical interventions were warranted.