Lumi pretended she hadn’t heard him. Suddenly, not being able to move her mouth was not beneficial anymore. She wished she had a pen and paper to write GO TO HELL with, imitating his blocky letters. In the back of her mind, she knew she was being cruel, but she was unable to stop herself.
She still didn’t understand what had happened when she had tried his cakes. Again, her mind turned to poison. The first bite had tasted like ammonia and death, and the second one had tasted like everything she’d ever wanted. What did that mean? And if he wanted to poison her, why didn’t he make them all the same way?
She reminded herself that he didn’t know about her gift, and as far as she knew she hadn’t presented any symptoms besides the burns now emblazoned across her upper body. The cakes had been poisonous only on an energetic level. But why only some of them? Was he angry with her for leaving him when he started making them and in a better mood by the time he was done? She started to raise her hands to hang her head in them and stopped when the skin pulled sharply. The relentless thoughts were too much for her while she was in pain. She shifted her body slightly so she could stare toward the door in hopes that would give him some indication of what she wanted from him. When he didn’t move, not noticing her change of direction, she gathered her strength and moved her hand away from his on the blanket. She ignored the shadow of pain that crossed his face, keeping her eyes trained on the door.
“Lumi,” he whispered. She knew he wouldn’t try to take her hand or put it back next to his.
Inés’s curiosity over the nature of their relationship was slowly morphing into concern. “Sir, why don’t you come back another time, in a few weeks perhaps, when my daughter is better and will be able to talk to you,” she suggested in a polite but pointed tone.
Julien’s expression remained gracious, but there was iron behind it. “I can’t,” he said simply, not taking his eyes off Lumi. “I can’t leave you.”
She drew her hands to her chest as if to hug herself and winced as the skin tugged and a small corner began to tear at her elbow just under the bandages. What she wanted least was to cry, and she needed not to for the sake of her face, but she couldn’t help it. She could feel more tiny rips at the corners of her eyes and across her cheeks as she grimaced in an effort to hold back the tears that struggled to rush forth.
A trickle of blood escaped from under the bandages and oozed over her lip, and she wiped it away with her bandaged arm. Watching her, Julien’s face was stricken.
“Just let me stay with you, let me help you get better.”
“Mr. Dax, this is a bad time,” Inés said. “Please, please leave.”
Julien shook his head, looking from Inés to Lumi. As Lumi saw his resolve, she couldn’t contain it anymore, and the sobs began to pour out, racking her upper body. Her skin cracked as it was pulled and distorted by the movements made by her cries, and the bandages began to soak through with blood.
“Look what you’re doing to her,” Inés cried. “Get out now!”
The blond nurse popped her head in, hearing the commotion, and gasped when she saw Lumi’s bandages. “Oh, my Lord,” she said. “Sir, I’m sorry, but you need to leave right now.”
“But, miss, you know I—”
“Please wait outside then. Please don’t make me call security.”
“Security?” He balked, and Lumi heard that telltale tone in his voice.
She looked at him, and she hoped he could see her eyes through the bandages. She caught his gaze, and for a moment she let go of her rage and beseeched him with her eyes to leave. Just go, she thought as loud as she could, as if that would help him hear her.
He stopped insisting, a barreling train colliding with a mountain of powdery snow, soothed by having gotten at least something from her. He stilled himself, remembering where he was.
“You all have a good day,” he snapped, and the words rang hollow to all four people in the room.
She closed her eyes, and when she opened them once more it was just her, Inés, and the nurse, pulling out a roll of fresh gauze.
29
Julien
For the first time since its inception, DAX was closed on a Sunday. Julien contacted the kitchen employees the previous day, informing them of the events and instructing them to stay home Sunday until further notice. The Atlantic Records party had gone on without him. He had requested Gloria set aside the tray of cheesecakes until he could examine it.
He stood in the kitchen, hair ruffled by the wind, having walked there directly from the hospital. His legs ached from spending hours folded into the metal chair outside Lumi’s room while she slept.
He had a strong inclination to buy a few bottles of bourbon and go on a little bender until she was released. But he knew he wouldn’t. He needed to know that he could be there for Lumi the moment she changed her mind. And he needed to figure out what had happened.
He paced to the refrigerator and pulled out the tray. There were eighteen cheesecakes, including the two Lumi had bitten from, which he had instructed Gloria to save as well. Lumi was unconscious when he found her, and she had been burned . . . but second-degree burns were not likely to render someone unconscious. It was almost as if she had tasted the cheesecakes, fainted, and then hit the wok on the way down.
Julien grabbed a knife from the wooden block and cut a piece from both of the pastries Lumi had bitten. He raised each to his lips and chewed, waiting for something to happen. Nothing. No retching. No dizziness. They didn’t even taste different. He thought back to that morning, and every ingredient he had used was at peak freshness. Hell, the pastries had been in the refrigerator for over a day and they still tasted fresh.
He sighed. How could he help Lumi if he had no idea what had hurt her? For the moment, he didn’t have any answers, and that was an uncomfortable place for him to be.
30
Lumi
To Lumi’s relief, Julien did not return to her bedside during the week she stayed at the hospital. The hours of solitude stretched over the loom of her memory, and she found herself filling them with images of the best moments at Caraluna. Removing fish from sheaves of paper, scaling them as she hummed a tune. Peeling orange carrots and green plantains. Her arm muscles tingled, letting her know they remembered these things too.
After three days home from the hospital, the doorbell rang late one afternoon while she was sitting on her burgundy velour couch. She had been surfing Netflix, her unburned hand glued to the remote, anything to keep her mind off Julien’s face when she asked him to go. It kept haunting her.
Her phone had pinged, alerting her to a new text.
GLORIA LA MUJER MARAVILLA: Miss you + pls let me know if you need anything. Get well soon. <3
She had held the phone over her heart and squeezed, and then the sound of the doorbell made her jump.
“That better not be him,” she muttered under her breath, though she already knew it was him. It had to be. Inés had gone home yesterday, Jenny had been there just this morning to check on her, and Rafelina was in Punta Cana for the week. She wondered if her coworkers from DAX besides Gloria had heard about the incident. They must have by now.