Page 89 of About that Fling
“I’m glad to be here. Is Gramps sleeping?”
“Yeah, he drifted off a few minutes ago in the guest room. I’m not going to wake him. We can save him a plate for when he wakes up.”
Jenna nodded and stepped back, letting Adam take her place in his sister’s embrace. She watched as the two siblings clung together, murmuring words of support and love and memories.
“I’m just going to run to the bathroom,” Jenna murmured, knowing they didn’t hear her. She turned and walked down the hall, patting the back pocket of her jeans as she felt her cell phone vibrate.
She closed the door behind her and pulled the phone out. A chill snaked up her arms as she read the words of Mia’s text message.
Emergency with Aunt Gertie. Please call right away.
Chapter 13
Jenna dialed the phone with trembling fingers, Mia’s words imprinted on her brain in bright, neon letters.
Emergency with Aunt Gertie. Please call right away.
“Mia, hello? What is it, what’s wrong, is Aunt Gertie alive?”
On the other end of the line, Mia gave a surprised gasp. “Alive? Of course she’s alive. You don’t really think I’d use a text message to tell you your aunt died?”
“No, of course not.” Jenna let her body sag, sliding down the wall until her palms pressed into the cold tiles of Beth’s bathroom floor. “I’m sorry. I must just have funerals on the brain or something.”
“That’s some girls’ weekend you’re having there.”
Jenna winced as the sour taste of guilt surged up the back of her throat. Did Mia suspect anything?
“Anyway, sorry to scare you,” Mia said. “There is an emergency, though. You know that screen test Gert asked me to drive her to?”
“Yes. It was for some little cable TV program that broadcasts in Nebraska, right?”
“Wrong. Well, that’s what Gert told us, anyway. Turns out it’s a much bigger deal.”
“How much bigger?”
“Remember that time we went to that male strip club and we saw the one guy with the modest marble sack dancing next to the guy who looked like he’d shoved a salami in there?”
“Um—”
“That much bigger. Like, enormously bigger.”
“Mia, what is it?”
“Good Morning America. They loved the interview she did with the local station, and they want more. They offered to fly her to New York to tape an in-studio piece that will air later this week.”
“Oh, Jesus.” Jenna dropped her head into her hands, feeling her temples start to pound. “What did you tell her?”
“I told her I needed to call you. Not that she needs your permission, but it seems like something the two of you might want to talk about if she’s going to put herself on-air in front of five million viewers.”
“Oh, God.”
“She didn’t commit yet. She said she wanted to talk to her lawyer first anyway, which I told her was a very good idea. Jenna? Are you still there?”
“I’m here.” She bit her lip. “How much do you think the hospital administration would freak out about this?”
Mia was quiet a moment. “That’s what you’re worried about?”
“Kinda.”
