The Saint

by Molly O'Keefe

  And the next part of my life could begin.

  Under my fancy red dress, my baby kicked and I rubbed the spot in commiseration.

  “I can’t wait, either,” I breathed.

  “Excuse me, Zoe Madison?” a warm Southern voice drawled behind me. I turned to find an older man, short and gray and built like a bulldog, but handsome in a hardworking way. Like he knew his way around a tool belt.

  “Yes,” I said. “Is there a problem?”

  “No.” The man laughed. “This is a party, so there aren’t supposed to be any problems. Not for lovely women.”

  “Well, someone forgot to tell me that,” I said with a tired smiled. “I’m heading home.”

  “Please,” he said, touching my arm briefly when I turned to leave. “Wait. I’m Eric Lafayette. Carter O’Neill told me you’re working on a program that might interest me.”

  My heart pounded once in my throat and my hands got clammy.

  This is for me. For me and the baby and my future.

  “Well, I hope I am, Mr. Lafayette, because it certainly interests me and the East Brookstown neighborhood.” I smiled as bright as I could, channeling all sorts of confidence and competence.

  He nodded, a warmth entering his black eyes. “I’m from that neighborhood,” he said, and I saw stars. This was going to work. It was; I could see it right there in front of me. My future, the future I’d come here for, was happening.

  Carter

  * * *

  I left the party through the main entrance and watched Jim Blackwell storm off to his car. I knew there was a patio around here somewhere for smokers, and chances were my mother was there.

  I had no idea where Zoe went.

  The pool of light on the far side of the building seemed likely and I approached, stopping when I heard Zoe’s voice.

  Pixel puzzle.

  She was right, more right than she knew. Sometimes I got so lost in my lies, my life, the constant control, that I didn’t know who I was anymore.

  Except when I was with Zoe. I touched her velvet skin and my body, my life, my world popped into sharp relief. I knew who I was. The things I wanted in my life seemed as if they were in the palm of my hands. She had that power. That magic.

  But we kept pushing each other away.

  If you want her, I told myself, you need to fight for her.

  But first I needed to find out what my mother was doing here.

  I waited in the shadows of the parking lot until Zoe left, then watched my mother smoking alone at a wrought iron table and thought about Zoe. About how cold I felt and how nice it would be to warm myself by the fire that glowed in her.

  “I know you’re there,” Vanessa said, staring down at the pack of smokes on the table.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, stepping to the edge of the light but no farther.

  “I had to get a job,” she said, shrugging as if it meant nothing. “I know the pit boss at The Rouge.” Her eyes, dry and resigned, met mine. “Do you want me to leave?”

  She looked old. Older than I’d ever seen her. And trapped.

  “What happened to all that money Margot’s been giving you?” I asked.

  “I owe people money.” She ran her palms over her perfect hair and I watched with hate in my heart. But then, as if she just couldn’t keep going, her shoulders slumped and she rested her head in her hands.

  I stood there, unsure of what to do. When she stopped playing her part, I didn’t know mine.

  God, there was something so alone in her. It was like all the lies and angles, the games and secrets that animated her, were turned off and she just sat there. Empty.

  “Are you in danger?” I asked.

  “This isn’t the movies,” she said. “I’m not going to get whacked.” She wiped her face, her eyes, and then put her hands in her lap as if the moment were gone, the mask back on.

  “So this was what…coincidence?” I asked.

  “I honestly didn’t know you’d be here. I wouldn’t have come if I had. I needed a job, and the only damn legal skill I have is dealing cards.”

  I believed her. I believed her because she looked like a woman with her back against the wall.

  “It’s okay. Stay,” I said. “Unless you’re cheating.”

  Her laugh was a dry empty rustle. “The pit boss would kill me.”

  She crushed her smoke into the ashtray.

  “That reporter was giving Zoe a hard time out here,” Vanessa said, and my body went tight.

  “He’s a nuisance.”

  “Is it possible she’s spying on you for him?”

  “No!” The thought actually made me laugh. Zoe? A spy? It was like asking a kitten to be a tiger.

  “Don’t be so sure,” she said, watching me through ancient eyes. “She’s already sold you out for a thousand dollars.”

  “She didn’t know me,” I said, and then realized that the more she knew me, and the more I treated her the way I had been, the more likely she’d sell me out for a nickel.

  “Well, he’s gunning for you. You got a plan?”

  “It will be easier if you stay out of trouble.”

  Vanessa laughed. “Me? I’m just a woman making a paycheck, Carter. Nothing wrong with that.”

  I felt myself smile. “Somewhere pigs are flying,” I said, trying to make a joke, which was so strange. Joking with my mother—pigs really were flying.

  “Well,” Vanessa finally said. “You better go catch up with Zoe, before she decides you’re not worth the trouble.”

  “I think she already has,” I said, a cool wind slipping up my back.

  Vanessa stood, the wrought iron chair scraping against the bricks. “Not yet,” she said. “You still have a chance, trust me. That girl can’t hide her emotions for shit.”

  I knew. It was why I liked her, why every hidden emotion I had reached out for the total honesty in her.

  “Night,” I said, stepping into the shadows.

  “Good night, Carter,” Vanessa said, her voice warm with an emotion I’d never heard before.

  Inside the party, I found Zoe and Eric at a cocktail table, eating their way through what looked like a mountain of fried catfish.

  “Butter-flavored Crisco,” Eric was saying, his fingers greasy from the fish but his eyes warm, no doubt from a few minutes spent with Zoe. “That’s the secret,” Eric said.

  “You’re kidding!” she cried, staring down at the fish with a mix of horror and love. I smiled—her feelings about food were so complicated.

  Eric caught sight of me first and he turned, graciously opening up their small circle to include me. Zoe, on the other hand, shut down, all that warmth suddenly banked.

  No, I thought, no no no.

  “You’ll never guess, Carter,” Eric said, “but we got the catfish from this soul food place on River—”

  “Mama’s?” I asked Zoe.

  She nodded. “Apparently, Eric and I have similar taste.” She wiped her hands off on a napkin and sighed. “Thank you, Eric. I appreciate your time and the soul food education.”

  “Well, I look forward to seeing you next week. Call Janet at my office and we’ll get something lined up. Your academy sounds like something Baton Rouge needs.”

  She did it, I thought, sparks of pride shooting through my body. I couldn’t help but grin at her, at the beauty and wonder of her. And I knew, not that it was ever in question—but I knew that Zoe was different from anyone else in my life, and not just because she was pregnant and stood on chairs and accused me of being a deadbeat daddy.

  Zoe was different because I felt differently about her. I liked her and craved her. I wanted to know her better and let her know me.

  I wanted to stop being a damn pixel picture.

  “I will,” she said, her smile bright and clean. “Thank you.”

  She nodded at me, her eyes shuttered, and I realized that I was losing my chance with Zoe before I fully knew how much I wanted it.

  “Good night,” Zoe said, and then
she left, the sheen of her dress attracting all the light and every male eye in the room.

  “That’s quite a woman there, O’Neill,” Eric said, his voice filled with a low-level warning. A don’t-blow-this-chance alarm that I heard loud and clear.

  “I know,” I said.

  I thought of my mother at that table outside, so totally alone, and I took a step after Zoe. And then another.

  I didn’t want to be that alone. Not anymore.

  11

  ZOE

  * * *

  It was impossible to make a graceful exit when saddled with too-big stripper shoes. Just outside the glass-and-marble lobby of the Hilton I tripped on the edge of my dress, and the shoe slipped right off my foot.

  “Cinderella.”

  Carter came up behind me and my whole body, already electrified by the night’s success, went into overload at the sight of him.

  All hands on deck, my hormones screamed.

  This man is too much, I tried to tell myself. Too unpredictable. Too hot and cold. He’s not right for you. For any reason.

  But he held my shoe, which looked totally ridiculous in his hand, and when I reached for it, he pulled it back.

  “Let me,” he said, and before I could stop him, he was crouched in front of me, brushing aside my dress, lifting my foot.

  I put quivering fingertips on his shoulder.

  It was the most intimate thing I’d ever felt. Ever been a part of.

  His fingers on my ankles, brushing my toes, sent pulses of light and heat under my skin. As I watched, numb, all of my anger, every bit of confusion, was eradicated by the sight of him on his knee in front of me, concentrating on my ankle strap.

  Without the confusion or anger, all that was left was desire. And it was a storm in me, growing out of control.

  “I don’t think Cinderella’s shoes were this complicated,” he joked, working the tiny strap at my ankle.

  “They were glass slippers,” I said, staring up at the stars wishing a lightning bolt would just come down and take me out of my misery. “They had their own problems.”

  “These don’t even fit you.”

  “They belong to a drag queen,” I blurted.

  “Oh.” His finger trailed up my instep as he stood, leaving fireflies dancing along my spine, the nape of my neck. “That explains it then.”

  His smile was so sweet. Tender. As if the scene in the ballroom with the dealer had never happened. Suddenly I couldn’t stand it, the way my body stayed warm for this man, no matter what he did.

  He was close, so close that I could lean against him and all that heat would be mine. All that electricity would blast through me, obliterating my better sense, my concerns and doubts.

  I could just feel. For the first time in a year, I could lean back into a man’s arms and just feel.

  The temptation was intense, like standing in front of a blast furnace in a fur coat.

  But I took a step away, refusing to follow his lure like some dumb fish, attracted to shiny objects. I was better than that.

  “Who is she?” I asked. “The dealer.”

  Carter’s face turned to stone, and I knew that if he didn’t answer me, I’d leave and never think of him again. Never want him. Never dream of his hands and those lips—ever again.

  This ill-conceived affair would be over before it really began.

  “My mother,” he breathed.

  Shock rippled through me. It was hard, actually, not to laugh in sheer nervous reaction.

  “Your mo—” Carter put his finger against my lips, a touch that gathered and pulled between my legs.

  “Please,” he whispered, looking somehow pained and lost, as if saying the word mother had ripped the skin off an old wound. “Not here. I’ll tell you, just not here. I’m sorry for the way I acted in there. It was a shock…I guess…to see her. I reacted badly.”

  I ran a trembling hand over my hair.

  It was one thing to desire him. Another to like him. But this…this new river of sneaky, dangerous emotion that began to swirl through me needed to be avoided. I will not care. Caring would be a disaster.

  “I’ll take you home,” he said, apparently reading my sudden misgivings.

  He lifted his finger to summon a cab as if the usually elusive creature were simply a dog waiting for a command.

  Quickly, I reached up and pulled down his arm. I wouldn’t care about him, but I didn’t want to go home. My home was sad. Empty.

  His eyes flared as if thinking what I was thinking. That this night, despite its wild ups and downs of surprise and success, was too lonely.

  “You want to go celebrate?” he asked. “The beginning of your academy? We could go get some pie.”

  “I’m not hungry,” I said.

  “I think hell just got chilly.”

  I smirked and shook out my hands, flooded with nervous energy. The excitement of the night, being with this man, made me feel a little too alive in my skin. As if I’d had too much coffee. “I would walk, though.”

  “In those shoes?”

  “I’ve got sneakers in my car,” I said, leading him toward my station wagon up the street.

  A walk was safe. I wouldn’t have to worry about cozy alcoves or him touching my feet. I could cool down, get my hormones back under control.

  But he tucked my hand into his arm and the tension of his muscles under the fine fabric of his jacket felt anything but safe.

  “Amelia?” he asked an hour later as we walked along the river. “Are you giving birth to an old woman?”

  “What’s wrong with Amelia?”

  “Nothing. If you’re eighty years old.”

  “It’s a lovely name,” I said, feeling as if the night had taken a magical turn and had suddenly been dipped in sugar. Within the first ten minutes of our walk down Third Street, I’d given up any notion of feeling safe with this man. We walked side by side, his hip rubbing mine, his muscles under my hands, and now I was charged with power.

  A humming desire churned through me, and every time he turned, putting his hand to the small of my back, I felt like I could light up the night.

  “You know for sure you’re having a girl?”

  “The doctors haven’t told me, but I know.”

  “Feminine intuition?”

  “Don’t laugh.”

  “I’m not. I have great respect for feminine intuition.” His grin was boyish, and I was so intrigued, so beguiled it was hard not to curl myself into his arms and push back the wind-tousled hair over his forehead.

  “I just feel like I know this little person and I know she’s a girl. Like I understand her and she understands me and we’re making our way through this together.”

  I honestly didn’t understand why I was talking to him like this, as if these little secrets, these details about the way my brain worked, were nothing. Small talk. Flirtation even. I kept laying myself out there like it didn’t matter.

  His fingers feathered through my hair, brushing it off my face, and I nearly sighed with pleasure. But then his fingers were gone and I awkwardly turned away, staring at the city decked out in its Christmas finery.

  White lights on the trees, the old state building lit up in red and green.

  “It’s pretty, isn’t it?” he said.

  “It is,” I agreed, surprised he thought so. “You like Christmas?”

  He shrugged. “I did, you know, as a kid. I suppose now it’s just another day.”

  “My mother goes overboard,” I said. “Starts shoving Christmas down my throat right after Halloween. I’ve started to like Easter just to be contrary.”

  His lip kicked up, but his eyes were still on the city. “I envy you,” he said. “With the baby. You have a reason to love the holidays again. So many traditions to pass on. When I was a kid, my grandmother used to make us wait on the stairs until she’d showered and done her hair and put on her makeup.” He smiled, shaking his head. “It was torture. I can’t wait to do that to my kids.”

  I laughed
, my heart pounding as I imagined a bunch of little blond kids groaning on the stairs while some lucky woman watched Carter shave very slowly.

  “That’s a good tradition,” I whispered and turned, staring down at the river, the wind cooling my cheeks.

  “It looks clean, doesn’t it?” I asked, looking down at the churning black waters below us.

  “It’s dark,” he said. “Clean, dirty, everything looks the same in the dark.”

  “That’s a pretty pessimistic view from a politician.”

  Carter laughed, turning his back to the water to face the buildings behind us. The Christmas lights of the city reflected in his eyes. “Maybe it is,” he said, his voice dark with something I couldn’t quite place.

  “Have you always wanted to be a politician?”

  “No.” He laughed. “I wanted to be a skateboarder, remember?”

  “Of course, such a natural progression from skater boy to mayor.”

  Carter was quiet for a long time, and I found a huge wealth of patience inside of me for this man. I would wait for him to talk, no matter how long it took.

  “My family is…unorthodox.”

  “Your mother?”

  “The tip of the iceberg, sadly. My mother has spent most of my life as a petty crook. She did some time a dozen years ago, but for the most part has managed to be good enough to stay out of trouble, but not good enough to ever be able to leave the game. She left us on my grandmother’s doorstep when we were kids and Margot raised us.”

  “Your grandmother? That doesn’t sound too illicit.”

  Carter laughed. “In her heyday, Margot was the paid companion of mobsters and musicians and politicians. She taught us how to play poker and handicap horse races. By the time I was fifteen, I could cheat at cards and hold my gin better than a man twice my age.”

  I wasn’t sure that laughter was the right reaction to this news, so I bit my tongue.

  Carter glanced over at me, his face tight. “I’ve never told anyone this.”

  A warm sun rose inside me, a sense of pride that I was the one to receive this kind of trust. This kind of intimacy. “You’re ashamed?” I asked.