Nothing.But she was going to find out.
“Who’s Inez?” Lace asked, bracing herself for a let-down.
Vincent’s whole face lit up, bringing his clown-smile to a whole different level.
Damn.This Inez must really be something.
“She’s the sweetest little girl I met in the pediatric chemo room down the hall,” he said with a crack in his voice that had Lace’s insides melting. In agoodway.
Well, shit.Didn’t Lace feel like a fucking loser, now? She’d immediately thought Vincent was a player, when in reality he’dtaken an interest in a child.A child. Who was enduring the same kind of walloping as Lace.
“She’s really something special, huh?” Lace softened her tone, more than interested now. “How old is she?”
“Inez is six,” Vince told her, leaning forward in his excitement. “And from what I’ve observed so far, she’s sassy and smart.” He chuckled, then pointed at Lace. “Kind of like you.”
She’d take that as a compliment as he continued.
“Last time I was here, you and I talked about clown names, remember?”
Lace nodded, wondering where this was going.
“Well, I put the same question to Inez, and she scrunched up her nose over the two names I picked. Then using some very interesting and convoluted reasoning, she eventually dubbed me, Fluffo.”
“Fluffo.” Lace tried it out on her tongue. “I like it.”
Vince wasn’t finished. “On top of that, when I was making balloon creatures, she asked me to make her ablobfish. Not the normal cat, dog, or rabbit request I get all the time. A freakingblobfish.”
Lace snickered. For real. And that, while she was being pumped full of pragmatic-poisons.
“Nice,” she told him. “Inez sounds like a handful. I bet her parents are pretty proud of the way she’s handling things.”
Vincent’s face fell. And for a clown with a permanent smile affixed to his face, that hadn’t been easy.
“What?” Lace asked.
Damn.Was the little girl…dying, instead of getting better with her treatments?
“Inez doesn’t have a family,” Vincent finally ground out. “She’s a foster kid.” He continued with a bitter tone in his voice. “She has a social worker who drops her off in the morning, then picks her up when she’s through. Can you believe that?”
“How awful,” Lace commiserated, appalled.
Sure.Lace was alone. But she was an adult, and had been dealing with a lot of things, solo since her grandparents had died.Andshe’d had both of them around for a very long time.Certainly,their lives had revolved around her when she was six.
“Okay. What can we do about it?” Lace asked immediately, her own problems suddenly seeming insignificant compared to what little Inez must be experiencing.
Vincent looked at her. Really looked at her.
“You… You want to do something for her?”
“Of course.” Lace didn’t hesitate. “Is she here today? Maybe we can go visit her together. You can introduce me.”
Lace’s mind was going a million miles an hour.
If her infusion schedule and Inez’s meshed, or she could manipulate it somehow so they did, maybe the nurses would allow Lace to sit with the little girl in the peds unit while they both got their weekly dose of toxins.
Vincent seemed excited. “I haven’t seen her yet today, but according to what the charge nurse told me last week, sheshouldbe here right now.Ifyou’re serious about seeing her?”
“Does a clown shit in the woods?” she quipped, getting a grin from Vincent. “Now, what the hell are we waiting for?” Lace asked, coming to her feet.