“I’m sorry,” I said. “But I think after today the press will stay away from her.”
“Bully for you, Carter O’Neill. If it weren’t for you they would never have been following her in the first place.”
I bit my tongue against the need to remind her about Zoe standing up on a chair accusing me of being the father of her baby, but I knew a protective mama when I was forced to talk to her.
“Penny, if you could please tell her I’m on the phone so that she can decide whether or not to talk to me.”
“Her decision would be no if she was here, but she’s not.”
“Where is she?”
“Working. Trying to make an honest living.”
“Jimmie Simpson?” I asked, knowing she worked at several community centers around the city.
“Figure it out yourself, smart man,” she said then hung up.
I stood, stretching my neck like a boxer going back in the ring for another round.
Suddenly, my office felt too small, the air too stale. Instead of asking Gloria to make another call I decided to take a walk.
But before I left, I called Amanda.
“Let’s get a press conference set up,” I said.
“Why?”
“I want to announce I’m running for mayor.”
“Before Christmas?”
“Yep.”
“Well, that’s more like the Carter I know. I’m on it.”
I disconnected, feeling better than I had in months.
I left my office and headed down two floors to the parks and rec department in the hopes I could convince someone there to break a few HR rules and tell me where Zoe was teaching today.
Because now I had a reason to see her, and nothing was going to stop me.
ZOE
* * *
“Three is better than one,” I said, trying to force optimism upon Phillip, and a little bit myself, but Phillip wasn’t having any of it.
It was our first free Wednesday after-school class, and things weren’t quite starting the way I’d hoped.
“Well, that one’s just here for the snack,” he said, pointing to a six-foot teenager in the corner doing his best to eat the whole bag of chips I’d left out. “I told you, you shouldn’t have said there were snacks.”
“Then we only would have had two people,” I said.
One teenager was here for the snacks, another had clearly been dragged here by her grandmother, and now, said grandmother was sitting in front of the doors, a knitting barricade.
But the third one was a young girl who was working some booty-shaking moves in the mirror. Not much talent, but lots and lots of enthusiasm.
“We can work with that,” I said. “I mean lots of enthusiasm is better than a little talent, right?”
Phillip didn’t answer; his eyes were on my face. I knew what he saw, the dark circles under my eyes and the strain around my mouth.
“You should take a break,” he said. “After the paper this morning—”
“I’m fine,” I said, though prickles of adrenaline still fluttered over my skin. Being ambushed yesterday coming out of the clinic had scared me nearly to death, and the photograph this morning had made me sick to my stomach.
“You don’t have to be so tough.”
“Yes,” I said, patting his cheek. “I do.”
The front door opened and much to my shock, Carter walked in.
Carter, with his tie tugged loose and his shirtsleeves rolled up, revealing the tanned strength of his forearms.
Just like at Mama’s, just like every time I saw him, my body rebelled against me. My skin went hot, my heart cold. My hands curled into fists and the knot—the knot deep in my belly that had been turning tighter and tighter in the nights and lonely days—loosened in a great rush that made me dizzy with sudden want.
Phillip stepped toward Carter, his face intent, and I knew my friend was about to give Carter a piece of his mind, so I put up my hand. I could fight my own battles.
“It’s not his fault,” I said.
“You gotta end this thing with him,” Phillip said. “It’s getting ridiculous.”
“I agree,” I said. I’d decided this morning that whatever debt I owed Carter was repaid. My life didn’t need this drama. Though my head was making the decisions, my heart was getting kicked around, and it was time to get out of the line of fire. “Now, go drag those kids away from the snacks and teach them some dance.”
“Okay,” he said giving me a quick kiss on the cheek. “Shout if you need me.”
I caught Carter’s eye and his long legs ate the distance between us. Something was different about him today. An inner fire had been lit.
And it was exciting.
I tamped down my reaction to that excitement, ignored the leap in my blood.
“What are you doing here?” I asked when he was within talking distance.
“I wanted to make sure you were okay,” he said.
“You should check the papers,” I said, making a stab at a joke.
“Zoe,” he sighed, and his voice carried a heavy apology.
I shook my head. “Forget it,” I said. “I’m fine. It’s just a picture.”
“Zoe, I—” Suddenly the look on his face was raw and I saw that he wasn’t just here for me. Out of pity. There was a storm in his eyes, pain on his face. “God, Zoe, I’m so sorry about how this has turned out.”
“Blackwell is really after you,” I said, though I didn’t tell Carter about Blackwell’s visit to my loft on Sunday night.
“I know. I’m going to take care of it,” he promised me.
“Can we…can we just be done?” I asked, my stomach hurting. It was hard to look in his eyes. This wasn’t a breakup; there was nothing to break up. It was the end of an agreement.
It shouldn’t feel so bad.
“I mean, I know I made things hard for you when I stood up on that chair, and if you need me, I can still go on dates…or whatever. But if there’s a chance you don’t need me, and your political career is no longer in trouble, can we…stop?”
Silently, he stepped closer, and I felt him, his presence like a touch on my skin even though inches still separated us.
“Is that what you really want?” he asked, and the heat from his body made me melt.
What I want? I thought. Oddly enough, what I wanted was to curl up against that man and sleep for about ten days. And then I wanted to have sex with him for another ten.
But life without Carter would be simpler.
And right now, I needed simple.
“That’s what I want,” I said. The second the words were out, I wanted to gobble them back up.
He nodded once, his blue eyes piercing me, holding me still for his scrutiny, and it was unbearable. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, whether he had any reaction at all to me ending the arrangement.
There was some commotion at the snack table, and both of us turned to watch Phillip try to wrestle the bag of chips away from the giant while Grandma’s little prisoner was texting on her phone and enthusiastic girl was channeling Beyoncé.
His chuckle ran over my skin, giving me goose bumps. “What exactly are you doing here?” he asked.
I felt the blush climb up my neck across my face. Following your lead, I thought, putting your words to action.
“It’s…ah…a free dance class for kids in East Brookstown.”
East Brookstown being one of the roughest neighborhoods in Baton Rouge.
I felt Carter’s eyes on me and I tried not to turn and face him, but in the end I couldn’t help it. It was as if he tipped the room, the whole world, and everything in me wanted to run downhill to be close to him.
His gaze was warm, assessing, and it made me open my mouth and just babble.
“As you can see we’re just starting. I didn’t have a chance to truly spread the word and the parks and rec department said that next session they’d be able to put some push behind it, but for now it’s just flyers and word of mou
th. But—”
“It’s amazing,” he said, which was a stretch. Across the room, Phillip had barely managed to arrange the three kids in a line in front of the mirror. “The Zoe Madison Dance Academy.”
It was ridiculous. I knew that but, somehow, at this moment, Carter seemed so lonely. Or alone. Watching this clumsy dance program inspired by him, but seeming removed from it. From everything. But eager for it. Hungry for it.
It was as if he were locked deep under his skin, trying hard to reach out.
“You inspired me,” I blurted. “That night at Bola. What you said about plugging kids into things that interested them.”
“I’m glad. A dance class is an excellent idea,” he murmured, then he shook his head, as if forcing himself to be honest. “I’m moved, actually. It’s not often I get to see the immediate result of something I care about. I swear, most days I sit on the phone trying to change the city and the real work, the real change, is happening right here.”
I stared at him, trying to think of rocks and dams, fortresses and castles, things that stood firm. Unmoved.
“I guess, maybe I’m jealous,” he said, and I felt all the firm ground beneath my resolve turn to quicksand.
“Well,” I joked, “if you know how to break dance…”
He laughed, breaking the unbearable tension between us, and I breathed a sigh of relief. “If it was skateboarding, I might be able to help you.”
“What?” I cried.
“I was a skateboarder—”
“Shut up.”
“It’s that hard to believe?”
“Yes!” I cried. “It is!”
“Well.” He looked chagrined and totally adorable. I wanted to wrap my arms around him and smooth back his mussed hair. “I wasn’t very good, really. My brother, though—” his smile was distant and fond, and I held my breath, waiting for him to reveal something else, some small glimpse into his life “—he had the talent.”
“What’s his name?” I asked.
“Tyler. Ty. He was one of those guys who was good at everything he did.”
“And you’re so different?”
He stared at me for a long time and I realized, my heart breaking, that he truly didn’t see himself the way I did. The way the world did.
“Anyway,” he said, changing the subject. “What you’re doing here is great. If you need help with anything. Funding or…” He paused, and his eyes began to glow with a bright speculative light that made me nervous but giddy at the same time, as if he was looking at me as a teammate. A friend. “What are you doing on Saturday?”
“Nothing that would get my picture in the paper,” I said.
“I don’t blame you,” he said. “But I got the funding for the Glenview Community Center—”
“Congratulations!” I cheered. “That’s great, Carter. You must feel so good.”
He opened and shut his mouth like a beached fish, as if unsure how to respond, and then he laughed a little. Poor guy, I thought, you’re so uncomfortable with praise.
“It does,” he said. “It feels really good. But the money comes from a local company—Lafayette Corp.”
“I’ve seen their signs,” I said, trying to remember where.
“Construction,” he said. “They’ve been a big part of cleaning up and rebuilding the state in the past few years.”
“Right business at the right time,” I said, unable to hide the darkness from my voice.
“It’s not like that, honestly. I’ve checked these guys out. They’re working as green as possible, they’ve funded half the Habitat for Humanity programs in the parish. Believe it or not, they’re the good guys. They’re throwing this fundraiser on Saturday—”
“What does that have to do with me?” I asked.
“I don’t know, Zoe—they’re giving away money to community-based organizations. What do you think it has to do with you?”
My academy. Explosions went off in my head. My dream for the academy could actually get off the ground. Now. Not ten years from now, not in that hazy future I always talked about, but right now. As soon as Saturday.
“You don’t have to go as my date,” he said, his voice cool, his face distant. “I’ll get you on the guest list. You can just show up. Ignore me if you want. It’s at the Hilton at 8 p.m. It’s a Casino night, so sort of formal. I hear there’s going to be a chocolate cake made in the shape of a house—”
“You had me at chocolate.”
“You’ll come?” he asked, his eyes sparkling, that cool facade cracking.
He baffled me, tied me in knots. The way he ran hot and cold might have been exciting to me once upon a time, but now it just made me feel foolish and weary.
But I’d be a fool not to go to the fundraiser. These kinds of chances didn’t come around every day, and if I was serious about my future and the future of my academy, these were the chances I needed.
“I’ll be there,” I said.
“Great!” he said, and he squeezed my hand before leaving. Every kiss we shared was in that hand squeeze. Every kiss we didn’t have was in that hand squeeze.
It was a really complicated hand squeeze.
I watched his wide, strong back detour around Barricade Grandma, and I shook out my hand, trying to clear the goose bumps his touch had left behind.
For all my conviction that going to the fundraiser was the right thing, it felt scary. Out of my depth.
And it wasn’t just that I had nothing to wear, or that I was asking for money for a fledgling idea. It was because Carter, without the cool distance of the business agreement between us, was dangerous.
9
CARTER
* * *
Saturday night, I was running late and the party was already in full swing. Walking in through the front doors, I was hit by a wall of sound and heat, a hot wave of perfume mixed with champagne. The two blackjack tables, a poker table and the roulette were moving at full speed with people lined up around them three deep.
A success, I thought, pride and excitement surging through me.
The Glenview albatross was off from around my neck.
I tugged at the white sleeve of my shirt, pulling it past the black edge of my tux. The cuff links, simple silver disks my grandmother had given me on my graduation from law school, were slick under my fingers.
They were usually a pleasant reminder of my childhood, of poker games in Margot’s bedroom, arguing with my brother and making my sister giggle, eating cold slices of sugar pie and learning how to count cards and stack the deck.
But here, on the precipice of a chance for a new life, they reminded me of everything I was and tried to forget.
I caged the nostalgia and regret, locked it up and shoved it a million miles beneath my tux, beneath my desires for this city, beneath my craving to see Zoe here tonight.
It had been hard to accept terminating our arrangement, a shock after deciding I was going to fight for her. But I couldn’t ignore her wishes, and one look in her eyes told me that the photographer and Jim Blackwell were simply too much to ask her to take on.
And I totally understood that.
But she was coming tonight and once I dealt with Blackwell, maybe, just maybe, I could convince her to try again with me. For real this time.
I caught sight of Amanda, elegant in a black gown, working Eric Lafayette, and I imagined Eric was working her right back. There had been more than a little sizzle when they’d met yesterday.
“Hello, Carter.”
I turned to find Jim Blackwell waiting at the door like a black cloud.
“You couldn’t rent a tux?” I asked, taking in the reporter’s cheap suit jacket and blue jeans with distaste.
“No one here I need to impress,” he said, those deceiving chubby cheeks stretching wide into a grin. I wondered if Jim had anyone fooled by that Jimmy Olsen mask, because all I saw were the beady eyes of a snake. “Thank you for the invite to this little soiree.”
“No problem.”
Jim look
ed around as if the glitter and flash of the grand ballroom was a back alley. “Hell of a way to make money for a community center. Gambling? Cash bars?”
“What the hell is your problem, Blackwell?”
Jim arched his eyebrows. “You,” he said. “I thought I made that clear.”
“You have questions?” I asked, stepping close to the man so his words didn’t have to carry any further than the two of us. “Ask them. Here. Now. Stop badgering Zoe Madison.”
“What are you hiding?” Jim asked. “You aren’t fooling me, you know. I accuse your family of stealing gems seconds before this pregnant girl stands on a chair as a joke, and you run with the pregnant girl? It’s smoke and mirrors, Carter, and I’m not buying it. I think you know where the ruby is.”
“I have no idea where it is,” I said with conviction, for the first time since the questions started to roll around. If nothing else, I could thank my mother for that.
The truth, I thought, was a revelation, so thin and slick on my tongue, unlike the years of fat, heavy lies. “And furthermore, I don’t give a shit. That garbage has nothing to do with me and what I want to do for this city.”
“Did your parents steal the gems in the first place?”
“I honestly don’t know,” I said. “I wasn’t lying when I said I have no contact with them. Now call the hounds off Zoe. She has nothing to do with my family.”
“But she has a lot to do with you, Carter, and that’s what I’m really interested in.”
“You are walking right into a harassment suit.”
Jim lifted his hand and laughed, the sound as empty and flat as a dead basketball. He stepped away, knowing he was crossing a few too many lines with a lawyer. “I’ll be around, Carter. I have a few more questions about this Lafayette deal.”
“Lafayette is good for the city, Blackwell. What’s wrong with that?”
“We’ll see,” Jim said, backing away, slapping his little notebook against his leg. “We’ll see.”
Jim walked away and I contemplated the advantages of the Wild West, and of being able to call an ass like Blackwell out just for being an ass.
The Saint Page 10
