“Remember when you called me from that payphone in Hawaii and told me about your sister? I told you she didn’t count because your mom had just fucked some guy and she wasn’t part of your life like I was.”

Clever! Trying to soften me up by flashing the old blood sister card. Sorry, not valid. Long expired.

She takes a Kleenex from her Chanel tote, dabs her eyes then walks to the window. There is a run in her stocking behind the knee. For some reason, this cheers me.

She waves at the fans and their murmurs rise to a chant.

“Jackie, Jackie!”

Nicole slips off her jacket and tosses it onto the wicker chair. Dark circles the color of rotten peaches ring her armpits. She sits on my bed, digs under the sheets, snags my hand and clutches it in her sweaty palm.

“Jackie, sweetheart, your boyfriend was killing your career, you had no films coming out, all you had was this one golden opportunity. I was just doing my job. Keeping your name in the papers.” Her eyes fill, as she fiddles with my fingers, bending and straightening each one. “So when you told me Brett was about to propose, I called the press. But Jackie, honey, I did it for you!” She exclaims. “I mean, why else would you have told me? And when I showed up and you were both dressed like for a photoshoot, I assumed yes, that’s what you were thinking too. I mean even when you jumped it was so staged looking.”

She regards me intensely, runs her index finger around my face, tracing my features as if preserving my memory.

“The press are calling it suicide, but I know it’s not true. You’d never ever kill yourself, not in a million years, but…”

But it lets them off the hook. And you.

Her eyes narrow and she sits up straighter. “Anyway, it wasn’t my fault! It wasn’t! I had it all planned out. I thought nothing could go wrong, but it did. It did. It went horribly, horribly wrong. Oh God, Jackie, forgive me. Forgive me, Jackie. Please, please, forgive me.”

She throws herself, sobbing, over my body. Her hands run themselves up and down my arms. “You know I would never hurt you. Not ever. I love you! More than anyone in my life, I love you.”

She loves me. I let her words sink in. She did it for me. She was doing her job. It wasn’t her fault.

Her tears fall, congealed with mascara. They plop like bird shit onto my face and chest. She smells of sweat, rancid with fear with the underlying scent of the Jean Nate deodorant she’s worn since she was a teenager. How I loved her then.

She kisses my forehead, nervous kisses, thin and tense. There is an eggy breakfast on her breath.

“Forgive me,” she weeps.

Forgive her.