“Why would you want to do that?”
“Do you really have to ask?” She shrugs it off. “You should get a costume too, while we’re here.”
“Yeah, no. I think I’ll pass.”
“Suit yourself.”
A young woman with slick blue hair hangs at the sales counter with a little girl. I assume she’s her daughter. The little girl asks if she can have candy and the blue-haired woman says, “No.” The little girl begins to shout and cry. As far as I can tell, the woman is miserable. But then the woman patiently says, “Take it easy, Beverly. Just one more hour and we’ll go home.”
The little girl keeps crying, despite her mother telling her, “There, there, Beverly, don’t get angry. Just relax.”
“Excuse me?” Stacey snaps her fingers, and the tolerant woman goes around the counter and approaches us. “What is the coolest costume you have?”
“You should get the pink poodle,” she says flatly. “It’s our best costume ever. You’ll make an impression, no doubt.” Her lip ring twitches as she speaks, and her nose is double pierced.
Stacey raises a baby-fine eyebrow. “I’ll take it!”
“You haven’t even tried it on,” I say.
“Fine. I’ll try it on.” She snatches the costume from its hanger and walks into the dressing room.
While the woman with the blue hair and I wait for Stacey to come out, the little girl screams, “I want candy!”
The woman says, “Beverly, there is no reason to get upset.”
I’m riveted. I can’t help but speak my mind. “Wow. You are very patient with little Beverly.”
The woman looks back at me. “I am Beverly, my girl’s name is Sarah Beth.”
Her comment is not what I expected. “Oh,” is all say.
“Hey, Soph? Why don’t you tell me what the hell that was about?” Stacey fusses with the rubber costume in the dressing room.
“What was what about?”
She pulls out from behind the curtain, in her erogenous poodle suit, and says, “Whatever was going on back there in the apartment.”
I tense up. “What are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about. Don’t play dumb. Eric.”
While I can’t disguise the fact that I just froze and my eyes shot open, I can make up a story that doesn’t lead to the truth. The name bounces around in my skull. “Eric? What about him?”
“Oh, what about him? Really? Only a retarded crap of sack would fail to notice what you two have going on.”
It feels like there’s been a sudden drop in the temperature, to cold bitterness. I must look as white as chalk. My neck cranes above the clothing racks. “Lower your voice, Stacey. Nothing’s going on,” I answer finally. I probably took too long to say it.
“There’s nobody around,” she says. “I can see right through you, Soph. I don’t give two screws about Eric, but don’t lie to my face and think that I’m buying your crap. So, seriously, tell me the truth. Is he coming onto you? Does Jess know about it?”
“No!”
“No what? No, he’s not coming onto you, or no, Jess doesn’t know about it? Because you’re confusing me.”
“It was just one time, all right? It meant nothing. Drop it.”
“So Jess knows?”
“No!”
“Well, don’t just stand there. Tell me what happened.”
TWENTY-TWO
ON SATURDAY, IT’S so hot the ground burns and birds are congregated under the few withering trees that cast pitiful areas of shade. Nothing and no one moves in this powerful heat unless they absolutely have to, unless they wish to have their brains fried. Early morning, as I’m reading a novel about what it means to be human, Oliver appears and says we should go for a swim.
I stare up at the fluffy clouds as I relax in a pool lounge chair. I am being doused with the breath of hell. Oliver is a few feet away, side stroking in the pool of the Dream Downtown hotel, the only rooftop beach in Manhattan and currently my own secluded, tiny Saint-Tropez.
“One Bud light,” the cabana boy says. His skin looks a glowing orange from the backdrop of the sun. I grab the tall, blue, and sweating beer and say thank you. I take a huge sip like I’m a fish that has been out of the water for too long. My palate applauds. I can taste salty sweat mixed with sunblock on my lips.
I take one long look at the wading male figure going back and forth in the pool. The man can never take a break.
Needing this moment of pure stillness and comfort, I put my head back to the chaise and shut my eyes. I erase whatever thought is on my mind and listen to the sounds around me instead. A burning, fiery breeze brushes by. The pool waves faintly crash against each other. Lively lounge music soars through the air like a majestic eagle. It is all very relaxing. Suddenly though, I am forced to open one eye when the sound of flirty whistling hits my ears. I am now very aware at the sight of Oliver leaned up against the pool wall. He’s looking right at me.
He whistles again, louder.
I make a visor with my hand, shielding my eyes from the sun. “I’m not a dog, you know.”
Oliver grins. I stand up in my red two-piece and walk over to him. My vision tunnels and all I can see is the sun beaming on his wet body; everything else magically disappears.
“Hi.” I sit down on the edge. I dip my legs into the glistening blue of the pool while he moves his nicely muscled abs and lines his stomach in between my legs. “Where is everybody?” It’s just the cabana boy, the bartender, Oliver, and me around. Everybody else must be lounging beneath cooling air flowing from vents.
Oliver responds, smiling, “Ever heard of something called privacy?”
He runs his hands through his wet hair and slicks it back. Water drips off him and falls over to my legs. All it takes is for a single droplet to make my skin sizzle like a very hot griddle.
“Take your bikini off,” he orders.
My laugh is hysterical. My smile must have outshined the blistering sun. Looking down, I gently tug on his wavy dark locks and meet his lips. He tastes like chlorine. “Anything else you wish for, Mr. Black?”
I am unnerved by his stabbing glare. “Yes. Everything.”
I could live off flirting with Oliver. Replace food with that. “Well, I’m sorry,” I say. “My answer is no.”
He grabs my ankles then pauses for a second, lips in a straight line, eyes unblinking.
“Oliver, I swear to God, you better not even think of—” Before I can finish my sentence, he yanks me down into the water with him. The cool water is a shock to my over-heated body. When I surface to breathe, I get my hair out of my face and say, “You didn’t just do that!”
“Yes, I did. Let that be a lesson to you saying no to me.”
He splashes me.
“Stop it!” I cover my face.
He splashes me harder.
“Oh, you’re gonna get it!”
“Big words for a little girl. Come on.” He gives me a wicked smile. “Let me have it.”
And with that, I throw myself at him, bind my arms around his head, and by some strange means, I manage to dunk him. He takes offense to it and I let out a squeal and squirm to evade his fingers at my ribs, but there is no escape from his relentless tickling. He goes at my sides, underarms, shoulder blades...places no one else touches.
“No! Oliver! Stop it!” I say in between giggles.
We spend the next couple of minutes laughing our faces off, chasing each other around the pool.
I’m climbing the pool stairs to get away from him when Oliver swims up to me.
“Oh, no you don’t.” He grabs my waist. He dips us both back into the pool. He resurfaces with me somehow clinging to his back like a baby gorilla.
“You put up a good fight,” he says. My legs hold on tightly to his waist as he pushes us through the water toward the edge of the pool, and pulls us both out.
I’m transported on his sturdy back until we reach the lounge chairs. He drops me on one of them and lie
s down on his stomach next to me.
I turn over on my side to meet his ear. His arms pillow his forehead and his eyes are shut. I watch him like he’s a TV or something. “There are other pool chairs, Oliver, this chair is not big enough for the both of us.”
The sound of his breathing is soft. “Well, go on. Move then.”
I frown miserably at the command. Before his consciousness ebbs, I put my arm to my head and lie down on my back. “Are we a normal couple?”
His eyes open and his chuckle is immediate. “Of course not.”
“Can we be?”
He turns sideways on the chaise. He lets out a deep breath and rests his head on his knuckles. “Why would you even want to be normal, Sophie?”
My thoughts are all over the place, like confetti. “I don’t know...to know how it feels, I guess.”
“Define normal.”
I think about it for a moment. “Having something in its standard form.”
Oliver flops back down on the chaise, throws his head back, and pretends to snore.
I kind of laugh. “You’re a jerk, you know that?”
“I almost fell asleep just listening to that. You want to know what normal is?”
“Yes.”
He raises both his index fingers, faces them together, and slowly distances them apart like he’s measuring something. “Five inches,” he finally says. “When hard. Now, the question is, do you still want to know what normal feels like?”
I shake my head and roll my eyes. “Do you always have to take it to that level?”
“Anything to prove a point.”
The cabana boy appears again. Oliver orders us food and drinks and afterward, we’ve eaten so much we wind up tumbling back on the lounge chairs for a few hours of rest. Silence falls over the pool as he gently strokes my hair. The water stills. The puddles on the floor have long dried up. It’s quiet, extremely quiet, and I am comfortable with the idea. I don’t know how much time passes with both of us lying down like a couple of dead bodies. Occasionally, I move an arm or wriggle my toes as if to indicate I’m alive, and Oliver scratches his chest idly, pulls me into his side, and presses soft, lazy, kisses against my forehead.
We slowly begin to return to the world of the living. I slip into a green sundress and whip my hair into a high ponytail.
He takes my hand and we walk down the garden-like stairs of the hotel, toward the lobby. It’s been a long time since my hand was held like that.
“Where are we going?” I ask as we reach the elevators.
He pushes the up arrow and gives me a polite smile as he flashes me a key card.
I arch an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Really.”
The elevator doors fly open and we stroll inside, leaning opposite of each other on the walls. Neither of us makes a move as we ride up to whatever room he set aside for us. The right side of his lip tugs upward, creating a smirk on his godlike face. He doesn’t say anything, nor do I, but I have to smile because he gives me something that I thought couldn’t be in my life. Joy. In this very moment, I ache to touch him, to be with him, to make love to him.
As the doors open, I find myself walking out into a long corridor.
I look about the room in amazement as he persuades me to go inside. It’s a large room, ornate and elegant in its design, glorious and light-filled in its space. I walk in silence, basking in the pleased feeling that there is nothing to be said.
He closes the door and takes off his shoes. Then he undoes the buttons on his shirt, carefully eases it down his shoulders, and finally slides off shorts. His eyes remain on me the entire time. I watch as he stands before me, in all his grandeur.
“Shall we?” he asks before turning around the corner.
At this point of gnawing desire, I don’t need an invitation. I follow him to the bathroom. I step into the imposing room, and watch as Oliver walks into the shower where steam swirls around him and multiple jets pulsate against his skin. After taking off my dress, I step inside and cautiously smooth my hands down his wet chest, my touch light and seeking. Each caress means more than I can say with something as unwieldy as words.
***
THE LOGICAL SETTING of what came next should have been on the majestic, neatly made bed. But the plush, oversized rug next to the shower was closer.
“Thump. Thump,” I muffle the sound of his heartbeat, my ear pressed on his immaculate chest, my hand wrapped around his waist. “Thump. Thump.”
He glances down on me. “What’s that?”
“Your heart beating.”
“I could lay here all day with you.”
I say nothing and remain as still as a tree log.
He pulls me up a little and asks me if I’m okay.
“Mm-hmm.”
“I know that look, Sophie. Whatever is on your mind, go ahead and say it,” he says at the feel of my shuddering body. “Are you cold? Do you want to get in bed?”
I don’t know exactly what I’m getting into as I ask, “Why are you so nice to me?”
He laughs. “I’m not nice.”
“Yes, you are,” I say, smiling. “You’re being nice right now.”
He brushes my arm very softly. “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Why do you say that? Do you know something I don’t?”
“The world is a dangerous place. You need to be careful. Protect yourself.”
“I’m not following. What are you talking about?”
We look at each other, just look for a moment. “What matters is that you’re happy and comfortable. You matter to me, Sophie.”
Wordlessly, my heart racing, I push myself up from the rug and grab a white bathrobe from a hook beside the shower stall. I turn around and Oliver is still slumped across the rug. The only movement is the slight rise and fall of his chest. I lean sideways on the wall, just in case I should fall dead at any time. I take in a breath as if I am bracing myself for a leap off an airplane and say, “I’m falling in love with you.”
Oliver pushes himself off the ground, and I detect a smile at the corner of his mouth. “What?” he says, his eyes on me.
This is misery, angst. My head spins and my body trembles like I’m high. The L word gives me panic attacks.
I gauge his face for reaction as he walks up to me.
“I’m scared,” I whisper.
“Of what?”
“Love.”
“It’s okay. I’m scared too.”
I stand straight and repeat, “I’m falling in love with you.”
He caresses my lips with his thumb as if to feel the actual words come out of my mouth. With every passing minute, either the marble floor shakes, my legs are numb, the wooziness inside me is just increasing—becoming more intense—or all of the above.
“Are you sure? We haven’t been together that long.”
So I’m the crazy one. “Yes.”
His hand slowly falls to his side. He turns away from me and slides on the other bathrobe. The anxiety is an invisible demon sitting on my shoulder as I watch him tread back and forth like a zombie.
“It’s fine, really. You don’t have to say anything.” My voice is low and cracking at his unsympathetic silence.
He lets out a big breath.
As I attempt to exit the bathroom, he tugs at my hand and spins me around carefully to face him. “I’m sorry. Let’s try this again.”
Using all the willpower I can gather, I pull back my hand. “No, just forget about it. Don’t worry.”
He breathes out and leans his forehead on mine. “Sophie, I’m sharing my bed, my home, and my life with you.”
“I know.”
“I’ve never asked any other woman to live with me. There are things I don’t understand about you, like how you can locate anything in the dressing room with your clothes put in without any order. You arrive home...you leave your keys anywhere, your coat on the sofa, your bag on the dining table. I’m shocked by your lack of order, failing to place any of your b
elongings in their appropriate spaces. Despite all that, you are important to me.”
I can’t believe my romantic confession has turned into my lack of organization.
He lifts my hand up to his mouth and kisses my wrist. “Everything about you fascinates me.” Tingles reach my stomach in a matter of seconds. “The smell of your skin. The sound of your voice. Your long legs. Your sense of humor. Your personality. You don’t seem to need me, and if you don’t need me, it is much more gratifying that you want me.”
He kisses me, and my brain catches fire. We are standing inside a bathroom, a lavish, magnificent bathroom the size of a garage. And at the end of the day, it didn’t matter if doves didn’t fly in magically when I told him how I felt. It didn’t matter if candles weren’t lit and cliché songs didn’t play. Oliver Black happened, and that was more than I could ever dream for myself.
TWENTY-THREE
“I CAN’T BELIEVE I’m wearing this,” I say as Oliver and I wait for the elevator car at the hotel.
“This was your idea.”
“I know. I know. It was stupid. I feel stupid, too. I mean look at me...I’m clearly showing too much.” I survey my body. “Doesn’t that make you mad or something? Don’t you want to cover me up?” With any luck, he’ll want to.
“Stop babbling. Don’t worry, you look terrible.”
“Is that sarcasm?”
“Not at all, you really do look terrible. All that gory makeup. You could’ve dressed up as a spacewoman, or a nuclear physicist.”
“It’s Halloween, Oliver, not revenge of the nerds. And what’s the point of Halloween if you don’t look dead?” I pause in my efforts to pull my skirt down a little and secure the cap on my head. “Seriously, I think we should go change.”
“No one is going to change. People are already waiting for us.”
People. A crowd. The finest taxpayers in Manhattan. Oliver’s closest acquaintances.
This is not only the result of my perverse, dark humor; this is happening because I spent the last couple of hours kidding around, doubting Oliver’s faultless ability to keep his word. “I dare you,” I said, not believing he would go through with wearing a costume. But he does. And now I wish I had never challenged him.
A Diamond in the Rough Page 28
