Celia's Puppies (33 page)

“
I haven’t thought about
it,” Honey said. “I’m still not sure what I’m wearing. I think Mom
has something. I don’t know.”

“
Do you want to do your
own hair?” Sandy asked.

Honey fell silent. She’d never focused on
her hair, makeup or even looking anyway other than clean. She left
all of that to her pretentious mother and evil sister. But having
spent the last day with Sandy, Tanesha and Heather, Honey could see
that a few simple things made a difference. Tanesha smelled like
Vanilla and Cocoa Butter. Heather had sparkly lip gloss. Their hair
was beautiful, practical and, according to Jill, easy. Honey felt
like she had entered a whole new world.

“
Here’s what I’m
thinking,” Sandy said.

“
Ok.” Honey’s voice
betrayed her nervousness.

“
I think we cut it all off
in a kind of modern Mary Lou Retton page boy,” Sandy
said.

“
But…”

“
But it won’t lie well if
we leave it,” Sandy said. “Your hair is too soft.”

“
Exactly,” Honey
said.

“
We need to add a little
color to it to give it some structure – maybe a dark honey
color.”

“
Dark honey!” Heather
said. “That’s the color I need.”

Honey laughed.

“
Ignore her. Colors make
her very excited,” Sandy said. “I have a product that lies on the
hair so it gives fine hair a little more body. I don’t know if
you’d want it but I was thinking for the wedding we could match
some of MJ’s crazy red in the back. We’ll cut it out as it grows. I
bet your hair grows fast.”

“
It did,” Honey said. “I
don’t know what it will do now.”

Sandy shrugged.

“
But what will I
do...”

“
You’ll either come back
here,” Sandy said. “Or I’ll come to you. When MJ’s gone or you’re
feeling lazy, you can just comb it after a shower. Or blow it dry
when you want fancy.”

“
I don’t know how to blow
dry...”

“
I’ll show you. What do
you say?”

Honey nodded.

Over the course of the next hour, Honey’s
hair was washed, colored and cut to the sound of Sandy and
Heather’s chatter. Honey was under a dryer when Tanesha arrived.
Before her injury, Honey had a lot of friends. But with the focus
required to survive, she had lost touch with almost everyone. She
had friends at Craig, but, outside of a few nurses, they were men.
She missed the easy company of girlfriends.

“
I brought something for
you.” Tanesha pushed the dryer off Honey’s head. She opened her
backpack and took out two packages. “Jill had these framed for
you.”

Tanesha helped Honey remove the paper
covering the frames.

“
We know you’ll have
pictures of tomorrow, but Jill thought...”

“
We thought you might want
Jill’s drawing from when you and MJ talked about the wedding with
her this morning,” Heather sat down on the edge of Honey’s seat.
“They are beautiful. Aren’t they?”

“
It was like magic. Jill
took our feeble words and created this dream,” Honey gazed at the
color pencil drawing of her wedding. “It’s gorgeous. Dad and Jake
were going to make everything look...”

“
They’re almost done,”
Valerie said as she walked in the salon from the back. “Is she
ready?”

“
Just need to wash it
out,” Sandy said.

Honey moved from the drying station to her
ultralight wheelchair then followed Sandy to the washing
station.

“
Are you guys going out
tonight?” Honey asked.

Laughing, Sandy washed Honey’s hair. Honey
closed her eyes to enjoy the warm water and great smells. When she
opened them, Valerie was holding a glass of champagne for her.

“
When you’re done, we’re
going to get you something to wear,” Valerie said. “Then it’s
girl’s night out!”

“
Mom has something for
me,” Honey said. “You guys can just...”

Valerie laughed.

“
What?”

“
This is your party,
Honey. We know you have a lot of friends, but during this
transition we hoped you might let us be your friends,” Sandy said.
“Jill would totally be here but given the Katy and Paddie war, she
thought she better stay home.”

“
I have her card!” Tanesha
held up the Platinum American Express card.

“
I thought every place
closed,” Honey said. “Mom said I had to choose between my hair or
my clothes.”

“
For the little people,”
Valerie said in a fake sophisticated accent. “I called a bunch of
stores. They were delighted to stay open to help a
STAR!”

“
Who A-listed you?”
Heather said. Her hand covered her mouth as if she could not
believe she said that.

“
Oh I know,” Valerie
laughed. “They didn’t seem to know I was a D-lister wanna
be!”

Sandy finished styling Honey’s hair. With
everyone standing around, Honey saw her new hair and make-up for
the first time.

“
I’m… I’m… pretty,” Honey
said.

“
You’re beautiful. Come
on! Mike’s driving the limo. We thought shopping, dinner, then
maybe dancing?” Valerie leaned close to Honey. Speaking softly, she
said, “We can leave at any time. Just let me know what you’re up
for.”

“
Sounds fun,” Honey
said.

~~~~~~~~

Saturday night — 8 P.M.

“
Oh come on, Jerry! You
know me. You know my father. Hell, you knew my mother,” Jacob said.
“When have we ever cheated you?”

“
Could happen,” Jerry the
site manager said. “Economy this bad, I gotta look after my
own.”

“
The bottom line is this:
we have three months to make our projections,” Aden
said.

“
Every site manager will
hire an assistant of their own choosing to help them stay on
target,” Jacob said. “Big Sam will be available to any site that
might need the help.”

“
We can choose anyone?”
Bambi, Honey’s old site manager, asked.

“
They have to fit Lipson
requirements,” Aden said.

“
But after that?” Bambi
asked.

“
Anyone,” Sam
said.

“
Aden needs the experience
of running the company. We can give him that experience. Now. While
Dad’s still available to help,” Jacob said. “By January, we’ll meet
all the board’s requirements and begin the sale.”

“
What if we don’t?” Jerry
asked. “I heard you were going to sell to the Board.”

“
It’s my company!” Jacob
said. “If I say I’m selling to the employees, I’m selling Lipson
Construction to its employees.”

The room fell very silent. The site managers
looked at each other.

“
Isn’t it Val’s company
too?” a woman’s voice yelled from the back.

“
Valerie owns a little
more than ten percent of the company on paper,” Sam said. “She’s
given the rights and control to her shares to Jacob. He’s
effectively owned the entire company for the last four
years.”

“
I’ve said before and I
will say again. My sister and I will fulfill our parents’ dream of
selling their company to its employees or we won’t sell it,” Jacob
said. “Period.”

“
We have the best site
managers in the city,” Aden said. “Jake and Big Sam are foregoing
salaries so you can have the help you’ve asked for. We can do
this.”

Somewhere near the back of the room, someone
began to clap. Standing next to Aden, Blane began clapping. The
room broke into clapping and cheering. The site managers stopped to
shake Jacob and Sam’s hands on their way out of the room. When
everyone was gone, Bambi came forward to talk to Jacob.

“
You said anyone. Right?”
Bambi said.

“
Anyone who meets our
standards,” Jacob said. “Why? Who did you have in mind?”

“
I want Honey.” Bambi
shifted her shoulders back to enlarge her entire six foot frame.
“Honey knows everyone at my site and everyone likes her. She’s
really good with numbers and I trust her. Completely.”

When Jacob didn’t say anything, Bambi added,
“Plus I have great bathrooms.”

“
I don’t know Bambi,”
Jacob said. “Honey has surgery on Monday and...”

“
You said I could have
anyone, Marlowe. I want Honey Lipson. Make it work.” Bambi flipped
her hair and walked toward the door. Turning as she reached the
door, she said. “Please.”

“
We’ll see what we can
do,” Sam said.

“
Thanks!” Bambi wiggled
her fingers in a flirty good-bye.

“
Fuck,” Jacob said. Blane
patted his back.

“
When are the flowers
delivered?” Aden asked.

“
In a half hour,” Sam
said. “We have quite a bit to finish tonight. Wanna join
us?”

“
Noelle would kill me if
we didn’t help,” Aden said.

“
Are you going to be all
right, Jake?” Sam asked.

Jacob nodded.

“
Then it’s back to work,
boys,” Sam said. “We have a wedding to create.”

~~~~~~~~

Sunday early morning — 3 A.M.

“
Sexy panties and sexy,
sexy stuff under the very sexy dress AND...”

Honey giggled when MJ kissed her. He was
carrying her up to a second floor apartment.

“
You are very drunk,” he
said.

“
Yep!” Honey giggled. “My
last night of freedom!”

“
And?” he
asked.

She kissed him with such fervor that he had
to set her down. Pressing her against the wall of the second floor
hallway, he devoured her mouth with unbridled passion. Honey’s
ardor ignited him.

Unwilling to continue in the hall, he jerked
her back into his arms to carry her to the apartment. They kissed
all the way though the apartment and into the bedroom where he
ripped off her clothing. He helped her under the covers then he
took his clothing off while he went around to the other side of the
bed. Slipping under the covers, he moved to kiss her again.

Honey was sound asleep.

MJ laughed at himself. Pulling her tiny form
toward him, he wrapped himself around her.

Tomorrow.

She would be his wife.

He fell asleep with a smile on his face.

Chapter Forty-Seven
Even the slightest chance…

Monday morning — 5:45 A.M.

“
Did we get married
yesterday?”

MJ touched the gold band on Honey’s finger
then tugged on his matching gold band. They were sitting in the
back of a limousine on their way to Craig Hospital. They had been
so caught up in each other that this was their first moment to
talk.

“
We did.” Honey knew MJ’s
Traumatic Brain Injury would prevent him from remembering their
wedding. “Your team took a video. One of the guys said they
captured the satellite for you.”

“
Great!” MJ clapped his
hands at the news. “I feel like we had a great time last
night.”

“
Oh yeah.” Honey leaned
over to kiss his lips. “You were on fire, amazing.”

“
Did we sleep at all?” MJ
asked.

“
Not yet,” Honey said.
“You kept saying we have...”

“
Plenty of time to sleep
today,” he said. “I remember saying that, just not if we slept or
not.”

“
Do you remember saying
that I was incredible?” Honey asked.

He shook his head.

“
Since you don’t remember
our wedding night...”

“
Some, not
much.”

“…
you’ll have to see how
incredible I actually am when this surgery is over.”

“
Why wait?” MJ moved to
test out the works in the back of the limo.

“
We’re almost there,”
Honey said.

He flopped back against the limo backseat
like a frustrated teenager. Honey laughed.

“
Just as well, I feel kind
of sore and spent.” MJ joined her laughter.

“
Me too,” Honey
said.

“
What was the best part of
our wedding?”

“
For me?” she
asked.

He nodded.

“
When you fell to your
knees to say your vows while looking into my eyes,” Honey said.
“You took my hands before you repeated the priest’s words. You
didn’t get up until after you kissed me and we were pronounced
husband and wife.”

“
I’m so romantic.” MJ
kissed her. “Did you say a priest?”

“
Your Lieutenant Colonel
asked their family priest to marry us,” Honey said. “We agreed to
go to classes then get married inside the church in a full
mass.”

“
Was yesterday
legal?”

“
Yep,” Honey
said.

“
We got the license on
Saturday.” MJ’s smile seemed to radiate from his very being. “I
remember that.”

Honey laughed. The limo slowed at the
entrance to Craig Hospital.

“
Carry me in?” Honey
asked.

“
Of course,” MJ said.
“I’ll be here to carry you home too.”

MJ slipped out of the limousine. Reaching
into the backseat, he lifted Honey into his arms.