Got Your Number

you go," she said cheerfully.
    Angora's shoulders started shaking, and her face crumbled. She let out a wail that Roxann was sure would have Mr. Sherwood looking out his window. Roxann caught her before she fell. "Let's get this scuba suit off so you can relax." Stripping the elastic suit from Angora while half supporting her weight was a feat, but she finally managed it.
    Angora's breasts and hips sprang out to their normal proportions—generous. The suit, which was doll-sized in its original form, had left angry marks on her skin.
    "Did you jump out of a two-story window into this thing?"
    "It was worth it—my dress was a ten instead of a twelve."
    Roxann looked back to the heap of soiled silk on her bedroom floor but said nothing. She helped Angora climb into the tub, then turned at the sound of the teakettle whistling. "I'll get that—yell if you need me."
    Angora nodded miserably and lay back in the tub.
    Roxann sighed, then walked back through the house to turn off the burner. She opened a few cupboards looking for tea, but found little except canned ravioli and chili. Her heart squeezed—her father wasn't taking care of himself. And she wasn't taking care of him, either.
    She scrounged up a box of garbage bags and went through the cabinets, tossing out anything that looked or smelled dangerous. Then she poured the kettle water into the sink and washed dishes, and took a shot at cleaning the counters. In the living room she cleared as much clutter as she could and ran the old canister vacuum, giving special attention to the crumbs and stains around her father's La-Z-Boy.
    She peeked in on Angora, and as she suspected, found her cousin fast asleep—and snoring like a bear. A by-product of the nose job, Angora had insisted when Roxann complained in college. Roxann sighed. Sitting in an old tub in a seedy part of town probably wasn't what Angora had envisioned when she rolled out of bed this morning. Poor little rich girl.
    Roxann returned to the hall and glanced toward her father's bedroom. She didn't want to intrude on his privacy, but neither did she want him living in squalor. The door was ajar, so she poked her head inside, pleased to see the bed passably made. Clothes were stacked on a straight-backed chair, but they appeared to be laundered. She picked up a couple of towels in the bathroom and rehung the sagging shower curtain. On her way out of the bedroom, though, she stopped, her heart in her throat.

Chapter Seven

    A COLORIZED PHOTO OF HER MOTHER sat in a silver frame at her father's bedside. Roxann remembered the photo because she'd thought her mother looked so glamorous with her flip 'do and her off-the-shoulder dress. The photo had once sat on the fireplace mantel, but had disappeared, along with other photos of her mother, after the divorce.
    "Where are all the pictures of Mommy?" she'd asked.
    "Gone," he'd said, and not nicely.
    "I want to live with her ."
    "Well, you can't. Go get me a beer."
    When her mother had been killed in a car accident four years later, she'd longed for a photo, but had to settle for the pictures in her head. Soon, though, the impressions of her mother's scant visits had been overridden by the image of her mother lying in a casket. For the past few years, she'd been unable to conjure up her mother's face at all. Seeing the photo now was a bittersweet gift. Her mother had been so beautiful, with full lips and expressive eyes. Roxann bit back tears, grappling, as always, with her father's inexplicable behavior. When had he forgiven her mother enough to remove the picture from his hiding place?
    "Roxann?" Angora called.
    She replaced the picture, wiped her eyes, and returned to the bathroom. Angora was still in the bathtub. "Would you help me rinse my hair?"
    Roxann had taken plenty of baths in that tub with no help rinsing her hair, but granted, Angora wasn't used to making do, and she had about a hundred times as much hair as a normal person.
    "Sure." She used the cup that once held her toothbrush to capture warm water from the faucet and pour it over Angora's bent head until the soap was gone. "Feeling better?"
    Angora sat back, immersed to her shoulders. She looked younger and more delicate without makeup. "A little."
    "So this guy was the love of your life?"
    Angora studied a clump of dissolving bubbles. "I thought so."
    She had that wild-eyed look again that made Roxann shiver. "Do you want me to call someone—your mother?"
    "What time is it?"
    "Around