Burning for You (Blackwater) Read Online Free Page A

domestic skills are completely
nonexistent.  Then it occurs to me.  “Isabel,” I whisper, throwing my legs over
the side of my bed and running out the door of my room.
    There she is in the hallway, all of
five feet tall, with dark blonde hair to her waist that billows in a silken
curtain with each thrust of the vacuum.  She wears a lime green velour track
suit with “ISABEL” written down the leg in dark green rhinestones.  Her feet
are bare and her toenails are pedicured to match her track suit, completely
“blinged” out in lime green rhinestones.  She turns at the sound of my door
opening and grins, showing even white teeth and sparkling green eyes. 
    Isabel is a Romanichal gypsy and
told me once that she ran away and married her third cousin when she was
fifteen.  She has also never had a drink of alcohol, which I find more
appalling than marrying her cousin.  She came to work for our family when she
was nineteen and had run away from her husband, who apparently used to beat
her.  Ours isn’t the only family she cleans for, but when I was growing up I
considered her mine since she mainly lived with us from since I could remember
up until I was twelve.  Now she has her own apartment in Blackwater.  Even
though her hair and eyes are light, her skin is a golden brown.  When I was
younger, I thought she was the most beautiful woman alive.  She’s never been
married again since leaving her husband, saying that her community shuns girls
who leave their husbands and won’t marry a girl who isn’t “pure”.  Frankly, I
don’t think Isabel is the kind of person who needs to be married.  She’s
wonderful as she is.
    We embrace like old friends.  Even
though she’s twenty years older than me, she practically looks my age.  I tell
her this and she laughs.  “Gypsy blood,” she remarks, holding me at arm’s
length and looking up at me.  “You never stopped growing,” she says.  “I told
you to stop, and you didn’t listen.”
    “I can’t help being tall,” I laugh,
thrilled to see her again.  “You should have started growing.  You make my neck
hurt looking down so far.”
    “You make my neck hurt!” she
exclaims.  “Oh, but something has changed in you,” she continues, her mood sobering
almost instantly, her green eyes darkening. 
    “I left my husband,” I tell her. 
“And I’m filing for divorce.”
    She shakes her head.  “No, no,
that’s not it,” she says.  “That’s a weight off your shoulders.  I know it is. 
Best thing I ever did was leave Paul.  It’s something else.”  She takes my
hands in hers and holds them to her forehead and I sigh.  I know where this is
going.
    Isabel has the gift of “sight”. 
It’s hard to explain, but the best way I can is to call her a fortune teller. 
She does cards and palms and tea leaves, but she says that’s all for show,
mostly.  It made for some interesting ladies’ lunches at our house.  I believe
she can read tea leaves and tarot cards and palms, but I don’t think she
actually needs them.  I think they’re just props or extra confirmation of what
she already knows.  Before I left for Chicago, she said I would be back, but
not for a while, and she was absolutely right.  But it’s other things.  She
always knew whether Heidi and I would do well on a test.  She knew if someone
we knew would be in an accident, or sick, or hurt.  She knew my father would
leave before we did, or maybe even before he did.
    “You met someone,” she says.  She
quietly puts my hands down and looks up at me.  Her glowing eyes look haunted. 
“Your catalyst.”
    “My what?” I ask stupidly.  “What
the heck is a catalyst?  I suck at science, Isabel, you know that.  Remember
when Mr. Dworkin told me never to take science again, if I could help it?”
    “I told your mother to teach you
these things, but she would never listen,” Isabel sighs, leaning on the vacuum
cleaner dramatically.  “I’m almost done up