Crimson Footprints

by Shewanda Pugh

  “Let me get you some wine,” he said.

  Tak took her hand in his and led her to a broad banquet table covered with cream cloth.

  “You look delicious,” Tak murmured.

  Deena blushed. He shouldn’t still be able to make her do that, should he? “Delicious?” she echoed.

  Tak paused to open a bottle of merlot and pour her a glass. He handed it to her with a smile. “Delicious,” he reiterated. “Appetizing. Mouthwatering. Succulent.”

  The doors opened and a cluster of five entered.

  “Game time.” He gave her a lingering kiss, threw back some wine, and went to welcome the guests.

  The gallery erupted with life, and quickly, Deena lost Tak to the crowds. He moved from cluster to cluster, working the room like a born socialite, clearly in his element among the people. He had the talent of his father and the social graces of a debutante. People were drawn to him, wanted to hear what he thought, what influenced him, what made him. He took their compliments with a gracious smile and a humble word or joke, always thankful for an interest in his work.

  For Deena, the whole picture that was Takumi Tanaka amazed her. His art always amazed her. There were times when he created things that gave her emotions she couldn’t articulate. She would want to reach out and touch his art, was compelled to do so, but knew she couldn’t. It was the same way with these people. They stared at pieces, lifted hands to touch them, hands that wavered with both want and knowledge that they could go no further. His art moved people, inspired joy or sorrow, hope or hopelessness, with an ease that had no equivalent. Deena knew that one day his fame would come from this very thing.

  She moved from painting to painting scrutinizing each with a laymen’s eye. A seaside village in blinding shades of amber and sage, a glistening pool of turquoise in an otherwise barren desert, a man and woman locked in naked embrace and near-blotted from view. There were names for each, like Serenity, Respite, and Rhapsody. She found the names well suited for the emotions they invoked.

  Deena continued in this fashion, giving each painting careful attention before stopping at a crush of attendees gathered around a single large canvas. Off to the side Tak and Hutchinson seemed to be in muffled disagreement.

  A slender white-haired woman peered at the work before her as she lifted a glass of red wine to painted and wrinkled lips. “It’s a transitive piece. Like the caterpillar mid-metamorphosis, if you will. Provocative, yet emotionally layered. A unique insight into women, I’d say.”

  “And brilliant no less,” added another.

  A portly and balding man draped in black spoke next.

  “He’s managed to retain many of the markings of Expressionism—the reliance on emotion as a mainstay, for example. Yet there are unmistakable elements of Impressionism—the visible brush strokes, the emphasis on light, the ordinary subject.”

  “Ordinary? She’s clearly beautiful,” snapped the white-haired woman.

  The fat man sighed. “Ethel, ‘ordinary’ is hardly an insult. The term is connotative of her accessibility as a woman. The curvature of her frame, for example, is indicative of womanhood as a whole and not the oft times unattainable societal standard of beauty. She is, as my wife would say, ‘a real woman’.”

  Deena pushed her way through the crowd and found a space between the bickering pair. She froze at the spread of canvas and could feel the eyes of the crowd on her as she inspected it.

  Skin like toffee. Wide blue-green eyes. Hair, a thick potpourri of browns. The woman was naked, save for a crimson scarf snaking up her ankle, sheathing flesh and curves in its ascent of her body. She clutched the vibrant red fabric in her fists as it unraveled, airborne like a kite. The scarf spread and grew, fanning out before her as it faded from crimson to pink to white.

  She was beautiful.

  She was free.

  She was Deena.

  Underneath the painting was a simple gold label.

  Unfolded

  Takumi Tanaka

  TAK SCANNED THE bedroom to ensure everything was packed. He folded his oversized UCLA sweatshirt, because he knew Deena would want it for the plane, and tossed both it and his iPod into his carry-on bag. Deena rushed past him, mumbling to herself, list in hand, as she checked off items.

  “Dee, we’ve got to go. We’ll miss the flight.” He watched her scurry by and smiled, despite himself. She was adorable in her little pink dress and wide brim hat, as she muttered about toiletries and charge cards.

  “I’m afraid I’ll forget something, Tak. What if I forget something?” she fretted.

  “Then we’ll get it in Mexico.” Tak smiled slyly. “And hurry up, I’m trying to join the Mile-High Club.”

  Deena snorted as she darted past him again, her cell phone ringing.

  “Don’t you dare answer that,” he warned, even as she dug the phone out of her clutch bag. Tak groaned. They’d never make the four o’clock to Puerto Vallarta. When they went to Montego Bay for their one-year anniversary, she did the same thing—scampering through the room in search of something, anything to bring. They arrived at the airport so late they weren’t allowed to check-in their luggage. This time it seemed they’d miss their flight altogether.

  Deena shouted into her phone. “Lizzie what? For how long?”

  Tak shook his head. The mention of her sister was never a good thing. He took a deep breath and collapsed onto the bed. He was certain that there would be no trip to Mexico.

  Deena’s sister Lizzie was missing—again. The night they were to fly to Puerto Vallarta for their second anniversary, Tak and Deena spent it scouring the streets of Liberty City. It was not the first time they’d done so either. Tak was becoming adept at tapping on the shoulders of bums, pimps, prostitutes and drug dealers, forcing them to look at a picture of a troubled teen he’d never met. He cringed as women with missing teeth promised him the blowjob of his life and as dealers offered him X, snow, smack, rock and half a dozen other things he hadn’t heard of. Tak was laughed at, harassed, and threatened, but he continued nonetheless. For him it was easier to face the perils of Liberty City then to return home to a weeping Deena, certain she’d lost yet another sibling. She was unable to eat or sleep, and unable to stop crying. And each day he felt certain that her heart, his heart, or both, would break from her grief.

  Lizzie reappeared three days later. She offered her family no explanation and no apology, and Tak felt certain he could kill her. He remembered the morning the police found a woman’s body in a dumpster in Allapatah. He’d felt prostrated as Deena sobbed, certain it was her sister. He remembered Deena’s shriek of relief when she failed to recognize the bloated teen on the table at the Medical Examiner’s office. But even as they stared at that strange girl, Tak wondered how many times they’d be forced to return, hoping yet again that it was not her sister.

  The day after Lizzie returned Tak and Deena left for Mexico. They vacationed at Daichi’s summer estate, Villa Paraísa, in a tiny coastal village just north of Puerto Vallarta called Sayulita. Daichi’s sweeping six-bedroom home on the coast of the Riviera Nayarit boasted a rooftop terrace, and a mangrove estuary, and a mile of private ocean access—all surrounded by mountainous terrain. But it could’ve been a box washed along the shore for all the attention Tak and Deena paid it, as they were consumed by each other, and little else.

  They made love leisurely each day they were in Sayulita, savoring the feel of their passion under the sweltering spring sun. Each movement was deliberate and measured; as if they were convinced they had a lifetime together. This growing sense of permanency was evident in everything they did while there. It was in the way they made plans to visit Tokyo next year, and Italy the year after that, in their jesting about Daichi and Grandma Emma eventually meeting, and in their imaginings of Japanese children with wild brown hair.

  “We should say something soon,” Tak said as he and Deena lay side by side in poolside lounge chairs.

  She lifted her head. “What?”

  “We should
say something. About us. To my dad and to your family.”

  Deena shook her head. “What’s your hurry?’

  Tak scowled. “Dee, are you serious? It’s been two years.”

  Deena shrugged. “So what? Two years, ten, what’s the difference?”

  Tak searched for some indication that she was joking. He found none.

  “Dee, keeping this thing quiet was supposed to be temporary.”

  “I know Tak, I know,” Deena sighed.

  “So then tell me,” he said slowly. “How much time do you need? Three years? Five? Ten?”

  Exasperated, Deena sat up and faced him. “What’s your deal, Tak? Aren’t things good? No problems, no complications, nothing that our families would bring.” Deena shook her head. “Why in the world would you want to change that?”

  Tak stared at her, baffled by her attitude. “Our families are part of who we are, Dee. You can’t escape that.”

  “Not my family,” Deena muttered, lying back down.

  “Yes, your family. Especially your family,” Tak said.

  Deena chewed her bottom lip. “Give it a rest, Tak. You’re working my nerves,” she warned.

  He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well, we wouldn’t want that, now would we?”

  Scowling, Deena stared at him.

  “Yeah, Dee, your family has shaped who you are,” Tak’s hands were clasped behind his head as he lay on his back, staring at the sky. “Your wants, your hopes, your fears, everything. Just look at you. You won’t even think for yourself; you’re so afraid you’ll be voted off the island.”

  Deena stood. “This is my goddamned life, Tak. Not some game.”

  He smiled ruefully. “You’re the one who wants to play games. Skulking around, whispering. Pretending you don’t know me when it suits you. Acting like you’ve never heard of me when you’ve just finished fucking me. What’s it like, Dee? To fuck me one minute and not know me the next? Hmm?”

  Tak turned to Deena, raring for a fight, only to find that she was crying. He reached for her, feeling like an utter jackass, and she recoiled bitterly.

  “Dee!” Tak called as she marched towards the house. “Dee!” The door slammed soundly behind her.

  After spending half a day on opposite sides of a locked door, Tak was able to convince Deena to come out and eat. They decided on Don Pedro’s, an ocean-front gourmet restaurant, and walked in silence to the town square. Once there they took their seats on an outside deck so close to the shore that the occasional ocean mist wet their feet.

  “Dee, I owe you an apology,” Tak reached across the table and covered Deena’s hand with his own. “I love you too much to talk to you the way I did earlier.”

  Deena stared at his hand, cupped over hers.

  “Dee,” Tak said. “I can’t know how you feel, or what motivates you to do some of the things you do. But I do know this. I know that before you I felt as if there were something missing from my life. I would go around trying to fill this void with my art, with friends, with anything really—never knowing that it was someone and not something that I needed. But I stopped feeling that when I met you.”

  Deena looked up, offering him a slight smile. He drew her hand to his lips and kissed her fingertips.

  “I think you know how much I love you,” he said. “But if there ever comes a day when I’m being an ass or I otherwise put that in doubt, forgive me. There are few things in this world that I’m certain of. But I’m certain about this, Deena. God made you for me and me for you, and I love you more than anything.”

  SUNDAY DINNER ALWAYS began with a blessing of the food by Grandma Emma after which the family dug into an impressive spread of her best fare. The menu would include deep fried chicken, catfish, neck bones, chitterlings, collard greens, butter beans, stewed okra and cornbread.

  Deena used to arrive early enough to help her grandmother with preparation, but since she’d begun seeing Tak two years ago, she found herself arriving later and later, and occasionally missing dinner altogether.

  “So, Deena, where’ve you been? We haven’t seen you for a while,” Aunt Rhonda said as the family settled into their meal.

  “I’ve been a little busy,” Deena said quietly. “I, uh, have a big project at work that’s taking a lot of my time.”

  She would not tell them that her ‘big project’ was tanking—that key investors were threatening to pull out, that construction was delayed, and that the budget was hemorrhaging.

  “Oh yeah?” Grandma Emma asked as she piled fried chicken on her plate. “What they got you building?”

  “A beachfront condominium.” Deena said. “A skyscraper.”

  The truth was she wasn’t building anything. She’d signed on to the project believing she would be Daichi’s proxy, only to become his puppet. Though his workload demanded his presence in Rome and Tokyo, Dubai and Moscow with endless regularity, Daichi continued to micromanage Skylife. Every email, every phone call, and every fax had to be routed halfway around the world so that he could do everything from responding to routine questions from material suppliers to ensuring that building contractors were remaining true to his designs. This resulted in delay after delay as the cost of the project soared.

  “Damn, a skyscraper, Deena?” Aunt Caroline said, with flecks of collard greens wedged between her gold teeth. “You ought to see if you can get them to put your name on it.”

  Deena rolled her eyes just as her cell phone rang. She turned away from the table and answered.

  “Hey there. How’s dinner?” Tak asked.

  Deena smiled. “Fine. Everyone’s staring though.”

  “Good. Then say something sexy.”

  “No!” Deena blushed.

  “Say what you said last night.”

  “Oh my God, shut up. I’m so going to kill you tonight!” Deena gushed.

  “It’s what I’m hoping,” he murmured seductively. “But I won’t keep you. I just need to know what time to pick you up.” He couldn’t stand the thought of her catching the bus in the rankest part of town, standing next to a bench that doubled as the bed for a foul-smelling homeless person. He’d begun picking her up about three months after her brother died when a bum grabbed the hem of her dress as she stood waiting for the bus.

  “Six o’clock. Starbucks,” Deena whispered, feeling the collective heat of their stares.

  “Good. Till then, love,” he hung up.

  “I suspect that’s the reason right there you ain’t got no time to help me come Sunday.” Grandma Emma scowled as Deena put her phone away.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Deena murmured.

  “She’s talking about your soon-to-be baby daddy over there,” Deena’s cousin Keisha, piped up.

  Deena balked. “I have never, nor will I ever, have a ‘baby daddy’.” Whenever she and Tak had children, she wouldn’t call him that.

  She blushed at the certainty of the thought she’d had.

  Keisha raised a brow. “Why you gotta say it like that, Deena?” she demanded, no doubt thinking of her disgusting ‘baby daddy’ Snowman.

  Keisha had never liked Deena. Right from the start, she acted like she was better than everyone else, with her light eyes and white folk’s skin. When they were kids, she would go on and on about her good grades like someone gave a damn. And when they were in high school, she flaunted her virginity like it was fucking priceless. And the guys, well, they’d act as if it were some precious prize too. Keisha could still remember the way they’d stand by their lockers rambling on about Deena’s pussy like it was the Holy Grail.

  When they were in the 9th grade, Keisha had sex with Steven “Snowman” Evans in the school’s broom closet. She would never forget what he said as he pulled up his pants. “Man, if only your cousin were so easy. I’d be in heaven.” If ever there were a moment when Keisha became certain of her hatred for Deena, that was it.

  As the family continued with their meal, Keisha stared at Deena, with her matching manicure and pedicure, her lig
ht eyes and her light skin, and undoubtedly, wished her all the harm in the world.

  “You know, Deena,” Keisha’s mother Caroline piped up. “Nobody’ll get mad if you wind up pregnant. I mean, your mother was a hoe and well, you know what they say.”

  She stood and reached over Lizzie for the bowl of collard greens, her tank top and jeans squeezing her belly so that it looked like a split peach.

  “Shut up, Caroline,” Grandma Emma snapped. “The only one been having kids is your children. Look at that son of yours, Shakeith. Seventeen, with a baby on the way.” She shook her head. “And anyway, Deena ain’t interested in affronting the Lord no more than her presence already do. Ain’t that right, child?” Emma turned to her granddaughter.

  Deena sighed. “Yes ma’am.”

  She avoided Lizzie’s piercing gaze.

  An awkward silence followed before Rhonda reached over and touched Deena’s hand. “Tell us about your friend.”

  Deena trusted Rhonda, and if there were anyone she’d want to tell about Tak, she would be it. When Deena moved in with her grandparents seventeen years ago, Aunt Rhonda had been the only member of her new family that she knew from her old life. Even after Grandma Emma and Grandpa Eddie disowned Deena’s father for marrying her white mother, Rhonda visited her older brother each week. Deena loved her aunt at first because her father loved her, but after his death, that love grew when Rhonda became her only ally.

  Still, Deena hesitated. “Well, he paints for a living.”

  “Paints!” Grandma Emma bellowed. “Who’s heard of scraping a living like that?”

  “Lots of people, Mom. They’re called painters,” Rhonda rolled her eyes. “Or artists. Go ahead, Deena.”

  “Well, he’s really talented. His work is featured in two galleries—one in Coconut Grove and another in Manhattan. He sings, plays three instruments and writes music in his spare time.” Deena ticked off each item proudly. “Oh! And he’s fluent in three languages: English, Spanish and—” Deena faltered, horrified by what she was about to reveal.

  “And?” Rhonda prompted.