Diamond Girl

Chapter 10



I knew that my own personal cavalry had arrived before I left my room. At seven the next morning I could hear the nurses running around outside in the corridor like chickens with their heads cut off, talking in panicked whispers.

I wanted to give Aunt Georgia a little time to scare everybody into submission, so I took my time. I deliberately didn’t shower and I put on the rattiest of the three hideous yellow sweat-suits they had given me. Let her have an eyeful of what they had done to me here, let her see the girl that last year’s May Vanity Fair had called 'One of New York’s future reigning beauties'. I did pull my sleeves way down though; no use making Aunt Georgia wonder if I belonged there.

I gave my ugly little cell one last look and walked out into the corridor, pretending to be confused by the noise and raised voices.

It was all I could do not to lose it when I saw Aunt Georgia’s get up. She isn’t much taller than me, and she is New York thin, so most of the time in her jeans and t-shirts, which is her 'rebel heiress' look, she could pass for a kid herself, but not that morning. She was covered head-to-foot in white mink. She even had on this ridiculous oversized white mink hat that totally covered her hair, and her eyes were hidden behind a pair of the new D & G twenty-twenty-seven sunglasses I had been eyeing in Vogue, eyeing but not getting, because at nearly four hundred thousand a pair, I knew Daddy would kill me. Besides, the wait list was two years long.

I smiled fondly at Aunt Georgia. Leave it to her to land them before anyone else in New York.

She had added a few inches to her height wearing the most outrageous winter white suede boots I had ever seen. The whole look added about six inches and fifty pounds to her, making her resemble the world’s most glamorous polar bear. I ran over to her, and she gave me a quick one armed furry hug and handed me her forty pound silver messenger bag.

“Carey, thank God. Look inside this damned suitcase and see if you can find a pen. These idiots can’t seem to give me one that works. I am signing you out of here now. I can’t find it and my hands are full.” That’s when I noticed that she was holding the tiniest white poodle against her collar.

Before I could ask her, or touch the precious little creature, she said impatiently, “The plane’s waiting and I’m in a hurry, so let’s go. My God, what are you wearing and what is wrong with your hair?” She turned on the trembling nurses. “Don’t you people practise basic personal hygiene here? My niece looks hideous. Oh there, good, now where do I sign?” She waved her Grayson Tighe pen in their faces impatiently.

One of the nurses cleared her throat and spoke nervously. “Uhm, Miss Kelleher, we can’t let you take her. A doctor has to sign Carolyn’s release and it’s Sunday and well, uhm, could you come back tomorrow?”

My aunt laughed. “No, I couldn’t. Fine, if you don’t want me to sign, then Carey and I will be leaving. Carey, let’s go.”

She didn’t have to tell me twice. I stayed on her heels all the way to the elevator. One of the nurses half-heartedly mentioned security but her nerves failed her and she fell silent, gazing at my aunt’s white mink back with a star struck expression.

As soon as the doors closed, I tried to thank her but she shook her head. “Not now. Wait until we’re in the car. Oh, this is for you. Your father sent her, an early birthday get well present. Darling, isn’t she? Her mother took Best in Show at Cruff’s last year.” She handed me the tiny white poodle.

My hands shook. Daddy hadn’t forgotten me and my aunt must have cared too because she came, and both those things were overshadowed by the little trembling bundle in my hands.

I pressed her to my face. She smelled of Aunt Georgia’s light scent and her curls were softer against my skin than cashmere. I couldn’t stop the tears then. “She’s so beautiful, Aunt Georgia, she’s like a flower. I … you …”

I couldn’t see her eyes behind the fabulous glasses and she has never been demonstrative, no one in our family is, but she was kind to me that day, so kind.

“Carey, I’m terribly sorry about all of this.”

She waved her white hand around at the grim lobby we were in. I could see through the glass doors behind her that there was a giant pimp-mobile stretch Escalade with darkened windows idling at the curb. She caught my look and smiled, relieved no doubt that we wouldn’t have to have some awkward conversation about what 'all this' entailed.

“Oh isn’t that quite the automobile? It seems Topeka has a rather limited rental range in the limousine category. Apparently they cater to visiting rap stars, but I thought it went nicely with the overall statement I was trying to make. I channeled my inner diva for this caper. What do you think of my new look?” She gestured at her outfit and I had to laugh.

“Well, Aunt G, I think it’s different, considering you’re P.E.T.A.’s spokeswoman. If you wore that at home, I think you’d get a lot of coverage.”

She laughed too. “It’s terrible, isn’t it? I had forgotten I even owned this ridiculous coat and ...”

“And the hat, don’t forget the hat, Aunt George. You look very, uhm, dead animal chic.”

“Well, criticize all you want, Carey, but this look was huge in Aspen in the seventies. Anyway, I thought it would fly in Topeka and it did. Do you want the coat? It’s yours if you do. God knows I’ll never wear it again.”

“No thanks, Aunt Georgia. I’m all about P.E.T.A too, but if you wanted to hand over those glasses, I wouldn’t say no.” She pulled off the furry hat and swatted playfully at me. I shielded my poodle and we exchanged Kelleher dimpled grins.

“Sorry, Miss Kelleher, I am keeping the glasses. You girls!”

“Girls?”

Aunt Georgia’s smile deepened.

“Yes, girls. That was exactly what your fabulous little friend, the oldest Marin girl, said to me when I offered her the coat. She is really something, that child. Well, what are you waiting for, Carey. They’re in the car.”

There they were, sprawled out over the long back seat. They didn’t look all that out of place in the stretch Escalade, which was totally tricked out. It even had its own disco ball hanging from the ceiling. Milan is the kind of girl who belongs around a lot of bling.

She looked at me with her sleepy blue eyes and nodded a little. “And she’s back … Scoot over Christy.”

That was my entire welcome speech. I didn’t care.

Christy sat up long enough for me to cuddle up to Milan and then she layed back down with her head on my leg. Aunt Georgia stared at us benevolently, and if I'd had my way we would have driven back to New York just like that.

The plane ride wasn’t bad, though. The Kelleher company jet is pretty sweet as far as transportation goes. It’s a Boeing business jet and can seat eighty comfortably. Ours seats nineteen really comfortably. The board operates it and so it’s filled with little touches that they deemed necessary for maximum brain output while traveling to meetings in places like New Delhi where I think some of our drugs are made.

The walls are made of special leather and trimmed with crocodile, and the carpeting is some obscure pure wool made by three virgin sheep that live in a hut in the Himalayas. Just kidding, but it’s a nice floor covering, which is why Aunt Georgia shook her head mournfully when my baby poodle, who I had decided to call Petal, relieved herself on it.

The company plane doesn’t really belong to our family. It’s shareholder owned and operated, but we can use it anytime we want, and it’s definitely Aunt Georgia’s favorite because the board had purchased two of her weird paintings just for the jet. Daddy and the team have their own plane. It’s the same model but totally stripped down. It has to be to fly all the players. So the Lion’s plane seats sixty and is not nearly as nice, and none of the family really likes to use it because it reeks of Bengay, no matter how many times Daddy has the upholstery replaced.

I pretty much ruined the ride for everyone by breaking my ankle before we landed. One of the highpoints of my disease is that I have to pee about forty times a day. The brittle bone thing I didn’t know about until I came out of the bathroom and tripped over Milan’s outstretched legs. I sprawled over her and tried to catch myself against a seat back, which brought all my weight down on my ankle, and I heard a scary snapping sound and felt horrible pain right away.

I screamed and sat down in the aisle clutching my ankle.

Petal yipped frantically. Milan sat up and stared at me like I had gone crazy. Christy said, “Oh no,” her standard response to everything, and Aunt Georgia lost it and started yelling at our one flight attendant, Amanda.

Amanda hadn’t signed on for emergency medical or, from the look of her manicure, for much of anything but trying to snag a Kelleher board member, and when she looked at my ankle, she ran hand-over-mouth to the bathroom.

Aunt Georgia rolled her eyes and yanked open the cockpit door without knocking.

“Something has happened to my niece. Who of you two is a trained doctor?”

Milan had joined me on the aisle floor for support and I heard her choking laugh which she quickly disguised as a cough. The poor pilots looked at Aunt Georgia, terrified to be found lacking in medical degrees, and sputtered apologetically.

Aunt Georgia muttered about incompetence and, after a brief discussion about whether we should land at the next available airport somewhere in the 'God-forsaken middle of nowhere' or continue on to to New York, she told them she would handle it herself and slammed their door shut.

I’m sure those poor pilots would have been a lot less scared of a terrorist bomber than her. Aunt Georgia put the fear of God, and working for a commercial airline, into Amanda, and she and the girls got me settled onto the big couch at the rear of the cabin. Milan and Christy came back to sit with me, and Milan pulled out a joint, offering it to me for the pain. Aunt Georgia looked horrified and made a pointed gesture at the non-smoking sign mounted under the painting of Great Grandfather Kelleher.

Shaking her head in exasperation, she rummaged around her messenger bag and handed me two white pills, ordering Amanda to bring me a Pellegrino. The pain was making me shake and I swallowed them without asking.

Milan did though. “What are those?”

Aunt Georgia sighed. “Oh, Percodan, I think, or Vicodin. I don’t know. She’ll be fine.” Milan nodded.

“Why do you have them?”

Aunt Georgia looked at her narrowly. “Why not?”

Christy moved closer to me and stroked my hair until the drugs lifted me on a warm current and I started to relax. These pills of Aunt Georgia’s, I reflected, beat Klonopin and Halidol hands down. I would have to talk to her about obtaining some of my own later.

Sleepily I watched her and Milan as they settled down near me and began a game of backgammon. I could tell Aunt Georgia approved of my beautiful, cool-headed friend, and the admiration was clearly mutual, because right before I slipped the surly bonds of earth - as they say in the commercials - I heard Aunt Georgia ask Milan what she planned to be when she was older.

Milan stared around the lush cabin and looked at the white mink laying discarded on the aisle floor. She smiled at Aunt Georgia. “You.”