Crimson Footprints

by Shewanda Pugh

  Deena turned to the pristine blue at the building’s backside and lost herself in the lull of the waves. It was there that the answer revealed itself. She could not be Daichi. And as she remembered his words, she understood. Understood that this was a dare. A dare to challenge his ideals, not as a scrubby college kid asserting herself in a snow-covered parking lot, or as a green-nosed intern in the heat of debate, but where it counted—out there, in the world. And in doing so, she would fly in the face of those who claimed he was the last word in contemporary architecture—unapproachable, unequivocal and irrefutable. She could do this. She had lived through her father’s murder, her grandfather’s abuse, and put herself through the toughest college on earth. She could do this. She would have to.

  “You lack the audacity for greatness,” he’d said. “You’ve not the stomach for it.”

  It was a dare. An attack. A lie. And she had one week to prove it.

  NOT TOO LONG ago, there was a boy that Lizzie liked, an eighth grader who played basketball and made good grades. He was from a better part of town, had two parents, and wore the best clothes.

  She made up her mind one day that she would talk to him. When she found him he was in the company of a teammate, a power forward named Walt who rarely spoke, and together they stood in the school’s hall.

  “Lucas, right?” Lizzie said, turning her attention to her love interest.

  She swallowed with the notion that he could see through her, through the clothes she’d earned on her knees to the tainted blood that coursed through her veins. But then Lucas smiled.

  “Yeah, I’m Lucas.” He frowned. “You’re Lizzie, right? Or something like that?”

  Lizzie nodded. Her heart thundered with the knowledge that he knew who she was.

  “Well, what can I do for you, Lizzie?”

  “Do?”

  “Yeah. You wanted something, didn’t you?”

  Lizzie swallowed. “Yeah, I, uh, thought that maybe you and me could go out sometime.”

  “Go out?” Lucas glanced at Walt, who raised a brow.

  “You know, catch a movie, maybe.”

  Lucas paused. “You’re Lizzie Hammond, right?”

  She nodded. Lucas and Walt exchanged another look.

  “Okay... How’s this? There’s a party tonight at my place, my parents are gone all night so it’ll be great. Come and uh…be my date.”

  “Wow. Okay, sure. I’d love to,” Lizzie said.

  “She’d love to,” Lucas said to Walt. He turned back to Lizzie. “Good. See you then.”

  LUCAS STRONG’S HOUSE was by far the nicest Lizzie had ever seen. It had two stories, a white picket fence and a pool in the backyard. All of that was on top of the lake that it faced. Sabal Lake was what it was called, and Lizzie had never heard of it before that night. Even before she saw the house, she knew that Lucas was well-off. His mother was an elected representative that made him go to public school for PR purposes. One look at his house told Lizzie that he definitely didn’t have to be there.

  She rode the bus there, certain she could bum a ride back when the time came. Lucas, tall and nearly filling the frame, greeted her at the door and, instinctively, Lizzie warmed. He grinned at her, a smattering of boys at his back, before waving her in.

  “Where is everyone?” Lizzie said, glancing at the dozen boys present.

  Lucas shrugged. “I invited people. Hopefully they’ll come. I think someone else is having a party though, so you never know.”

  Lizzie frowned. She couldn’t imagine any other party she’d rather be at.

  “You drink?” Lucas asked as he led her through the living room and into the kitchen. Briefly, his gaze lingered on Lizzie’s dress, a backless and thigh-high number she was suddenly grateful she wore.

  “Yeah, of course,” she called. She’d never had a drink, but didn’t want him to know that.

  “Good,” Lucas said, turning to shoot her smile. “Let’s take care of that.”

  Lizzie followed him, thrilled when he took her hand, yet curious about the stares she was earning.

  She’d never seen a kitchen like the Strong family’s kitchen. It had shiny marble floors, wallpaper, and a high ceiling. She even saw one of those rigs where pots and pans could hang from the ceiling. Lucas grinned at her wide-eyed stare as he mixed an impromptu drink. When he handed it to her, she took a sip and winced.

  “I thought you said you were a drinker.”

  Lizzie nodded. “I am.”

  “Good.” He brought fingers to the bottom of her glass and eased it upwards. “Drink up. Then we’ll dance.”

  With the bitter alcohol down, Lizzie allowed herself to be led to the center of the living room. No one was dancing, as there were no girls to dance with, and Lizzie felt sorry for them. She bet they envied Lucas and the way she was giving him her undivided attention. They watched, some with beers in their hands, others with soda, but all of them watched, watched and wanted. Lizzie smiled. She would show them. Show them how lucky Lucas was to have her, how much of a prize Lizzie Hammond could be.

  Lucas pulled her in, and immediately they began to grind. The music was loud and insistent, a frenzied thump of bass, cymbals and nasty lyrics, meshing for a high-octane booty mix. She placed her arms at his neck and he gripped her waist, their bodies moving in tight, concentric circles. Her breasts swayed with the beat, unencumbered in her strapless, braless outfit as his hands found her ass, and as she let them. He began to kiss her, hard, and their crotches pressed. Lucas gripped her ass and kneaded it, grinding and pulling on the fabric of her dress all at the same time. As her hem rose, the boys hooted with glee, drinks raised.

  It was the blast of air conditioning that let Lizzie know her thong-clad ass was exposed. Lucas backed her to the wall as she stumbled, pinned her there, and fumbled for the crotch of her panties. With one hand, he unzipped his jeans, never bothering to remove them, and thrust into her.

  He fucked her there, on the wall, at his party. With a leg around his waist, she stared at her audience, blank-faced and numb, and they stared back with a look of knowing—a knowing of who, or rather what she was, and more importantly, of what she wasn’t. And in her heart, it was what she’d known all along.

  He came in her that night, before stepping aside for Walt. Tall and strong, Walt dropped his pants and carried her to the couch, where he shared her mouth with another short and sweaty guy that Lizzie had never met.

  There were five in total, five boys that came in her that night, that did whatever they could think of for however long they could stand it. They came in her, all five, and never once did she protest. But afterwards, Lizzie made a decision, her best one yet. Never would she be fucked for nothing again. Never.

  BACK AT HER desk, Deena withdrew pen and paper and went to work. She printed ‘Skylife’ at the top of a legal pad in large, neat letters and stared at it. What did she know about the project? She numbered the lines of the page and began to list facts as they came to her. A multi-use facility—residential and commercial. Wealthy residents. Advantageous ocean access. Impressive views of the bay.

  Deena sighed. She was young, and had graduated just four years ago. How could she create a design so impressive that people would fork over millions of dollars for a sliver of her vision? How could she create a standard of luxury that made a unique contribution to the world when she had spent most of her life in poverty?

  She groaned. This line of thought was counterproductive. So she turned to the function of the building. It was, as she’d already noted, a multi-use structure with commercial and residential units under the same roof. It was a community. Deena began to scribble down everything that came to mind about communities. A group interacting in a shared environment. Shared resources, preferences, needs, risks.

  What else could her building do for this community, aside from the obvious task of providing shelter? Many architects tried to impose a sense of community cohesion through common space. It was a good notion, but she wanted to take it further. Coul
d she, through her designs, create this same sense of cohesion not just with the residents of her building, but with those in the surrounding area too? Could Skylife, in essence, draw the outward in?

  Deena chewed on her pen in thought. She envisioned outdoor common spaces, a gym and sauna open to the community and an outdoor café for the business tycoons who worked steps away. Skylife would not be a world unto itself, but rather a seamless part of a larger existence.

  Deena frowned. The idea was good, but it was just a start. People would not pay millions to inhabit squares, no matter how many coffee shops were nearby. Spacious lofts came to mind, with 180-degree views of the bay and floor-to-ceiling windows like the ones in Daichi’s office. Still, she needed more.

  She wanted people to rush home, breathless in anticipation, to fawn over their million-dollar lofts, dashing from one corner to the other as they proclaimed their love not just for the panoramic views but for everything. Each apartment should be alluring, enchanting, intoxicating. Each apartment should be loved.

  Deena tore off a fresh sheet of paper. Love. It was the very thing that had eluded her for so long. And yet, even she had uncovered it. Love. How could she look at it pragmatically?

  She thought of Tak, jotting down words as they came to her. Beauty. Pleasure. Bonding. Familiarity. Intimacy. Reciprocity. Could she recreate these same attributes in her design, and, by proxy, manufacture love?

  It sounded outrageous. But outrageous wasn’t the same as impossible.

  KENJI TANAKA LAY on his back, the door before him closed. He was in his weekend bedroom at Tak’s house. On his nightstand was a stack of graphic novels and on the television, The Sopranos, turned low. Briefly, he considered a romp with one of the half-dozen adrenaline-rushing video games he owned, but a glance at the clock on his nightstand made him decide against it. He had a baseball game the next day and it was nearly ten all ready. Late nights playing NFL Madden wouldn’t get him a starting position at UCLA. So he flipped off the TV and the lamp, pulled the Marlins comforter up and snuggled in.

  Even before Kenji heard the faint squeaking of bedrails and the occasional lusty moan from his brother’s room, he knew things had changed for Tak and Deena. It was no one thing that had convinced him, but instead, a bunch of little ones. They suddenly had this endless need to touch for starters, subtle but ever present. A question with a hand on the arm, a suggestion with a hand on the back, it never seemed to stop. And what was with the double talk? Everything Tak said made her blush, as if it all had a second, more seductive meaning.

  Kenji sat up. Their headboards were facing each other, and the pounding coming through the walls was not conducive to sleep. With a frown, he flipped on his lamp, and snatched one of the graphic novels off his nightstand.

  They were not comic books, as the ill-informed tried to call them. There were distinct differences between the two. Important differences. For starters, they were novels and not serials that required you to return to them again and again for short fixes. Secondly, and more importantly, they were gritty, mature, and more reflective of the real world.

  Take the one in his hand, for example. It was from Frank Miller’s Sin City series. In it were pimps, prostitutes, drug dealers, mobsters and a corrupt police force, all realistically conveyed in the film-noir style. What could be better than moral ambiguity and sex? He grinned each time he imagined the timid Peter Parker tangling with Frank Miller’s Girls of Old Town, a clan of prostitutes steeped deep in vigilante justice. Those Spidey webs would do no good in Sin City.

  He was guessing, of course, about whether Frank Miller’s take on criminal life was realistic. Despite being raised in Miami, a city with a murder rate higher than New York and Los Angeles combined, Kenji had never so much as seen a purse snatched. He lived in a house so posh it had been on the cover of design magazines, and even then, was called an ‘estate’. It was surrounded on three sides by the bay and had two pools, a tennis court, fitness center, movie theater and a private dock for the two boats his father kept. There wasn’t even a semblance of normalcy at the public school he attended. Shuffled there by zip code, it was home only to the extremely well off, and, to Kenji, had all the trappings for an episode of 90210.

  There was a knock at his door and Kenji set aside his graphic novel.

  When Tak stepped into the room, he was wearing only a pair of white cotton pajama pants and an awkward expression. He cleared his throat before he spoke.

  “Hey little bro, have you got a minute?”

  Kenji nodded, and reached for the Rawlins baseball he kept near his stack of graphic novels. “Yeah, sure, come on. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Tak took a seat on the edge of the bed, watching as Kenji stretched out and began a one-man game of catch.

  “We should talk. There’s something I need to tell you.”

  Kenji glanced at him, yet still managed to catch his ball. “No need. I already know.”

  Tak hesitated. “And…you’re okay? I mean, I know you like Deena, and I know she hangs out with us a lot already, but I don’t want you to feel like this thing is going to come between us.”

  “No, it’s cool.”

  “She’ll be over here some weekends though.”

  “Yeah, I figured.”

  “Well, I know this is probably a surprise but—”

  “No, it’s not.”

  Tak grinned. “Okay then. Enough with the awkwardness. Tell me what I missed while I was gone.”

  Kenji shrugged mid-toss. “A lot. I mean, you were gone for twenty-four days.”

  Tak lowered his gaze. “Yeah. About that, I won’t do that to you again, okay.”

  “You’re a grown man. You want to leave for a month, who am I to say something?”

  “Still, I won’t do it again. Not for that long, at least.” He paused. “So, how was it?”

  “You know how it was. Dad was in Asia or Africa or some other continent we’re not in and Mom was in a bottle.”

  “And you? What were you doing?”

  “Reading, practicing music, baseball. Made the six o’clock news one night.”

  “You what?”

  “I made the six o’clock news last. Triple play, bottom of the ninth.”

  “And you didn’t call me?”

  Kenji grinned. “Figured you were busy.”

  Tak laughed. “Then you had more faith in me then I did.”

  “Come on, Tak. You’ve never met a girl you couldn’t have.”

  Tak reached over and messed his hair. “Spoken like a true little brother.”

  He stood on his exit and looked down at the younger version of himself. Tak smiled with quiet admiration. “Bases loaded and you’re sending ‘em home, huh? Well, I’ll be damned.”

  AFTER AN AFTERNOON of rooting Kenji on to victory, Tak stood over Deena in the place where he’d left her four hours ago. She was in his living room, frowning over a legal pad that had become her constant companion. She scribbled, scratched, and scribbled again, before lifting one of the half dozen or so thick books from the coffee table. Next to them, there were stacks of loose leaf, newspaper and magazine clippings, and post-it notes, many stapled together in thick, helter-skelter wads. Tak picked up one such stack and examined it. He lifted the glossy magazine clipping of a fuzzy-faced man to read the fact sheet beneath.

  Aamir Mahmoud, 52.

  Electrical Engineer

  Birthplace: Beirut, Lebanon

  Current Residency: Los Angeles, CA

  Ph.D. Harvard University

  M.S. & B.S. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  Major Projects: Waldorf Astoria, United Arab Emirates; Bank of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan; Capitol Building, Sacramento, CA; Leaguer Fields Stadium, Nashville, Tennessee

  Pluses: Renowned for meticulousness. Recently published a book on risks in architectural design

  Minuses: No major residential projects to date.

  Tak set aside Mahmoud’s profile and picked up another. This one had a passport-size photo of a fat-
faced Asian woman alongside a stack of notes. He turned to the fact sheet.

  Margaret Lee. 63. Electrical Engineer

  Birthplace: New York, NY, Current Residency West Palm Beach, FL

  Ph. D. Northwestern University M.S. Columbia University. B.S. NYU

  Major Projects: Miami School of Design, Miami, FL; West Palm Beach School of Arts, W. Palm Beach, FL; Bennett Regional Hospital, Children’s Wing, Fort Lauderdale, FL

  Tak frowned at Margaret Lee’s fact sheet and he thought back to Mahmoud. He had a state capitol and an NFL football field while Ms. Lee here had a wing in a hospital.

  “What’s up with the drastic departure?”

  She looked up. “What?”

  “The drastic departure between Mahmoud and Lee. What’s up with it?”

  In the kitchen, Kenji nuked a fresh round of popcorn, snack food before he returned to his job of clipping and sorting for Deena. He’d taken to his job of assisting her with gusto, as if helping her succeed would be the equivalent of thumbing his nose at his father.

  “Mahmoud’s a huge deal, Tak. And I have to be realistic.” She returned to her legal pad. “Besides, I probably won’t even contact him.”

  Tak sat down next to her. “Why in the world would you say that? Of course, you’ll contact him.” He picked up Mahmoud’s sheet again. “Where’s this picture from?”

  “Architectural Digest,” Kenji said, returning with his popcorn. “Found it myself. There was a feature in there talking about his new book on fault tolerance.”

  Tak stared at his brother. “On what?”

  “Fault tolerance,” Kenji said. He shoved a fist full of popcorn into his mouth. “It’s a fail-safe mechanism for when some part of an electrical system hits the skids. Keeps it operating.”

  Tak blinked at his brother and then turned to Deena. “Margaret Lee seems okay. Better than okay, even. But you shouldn’t let Mahmoud’s credentials intimidate you. Let him tell you no.”