Something's Come Up

by Andrea Randall

  I gasped air as I broke away from the kiss and saw that the elevator door hadn't closed at all. There was a sharply-dressed, middle-aged black man holding his hand against it, his expression best described as disapproving. Over his shoulder, an older black woman dressed like Condoleezza Rice’s stunt double shook her head. Her lips were a thin, pale line as she placed a graceful hand on her hip. From the murderous look on her face, I assumed she wasn’t just a neighbor. Pace continued to suck on my neck without discretion, and I slapped his shoulder more than once before he stopped and fixed me with an amused frown.

  “Feeling violent today, Sugar? I kept the crop we used last time...”

  I cleared my throat and silently shifted my eyes nervously over his shoulder. He glanced back to see what I was looking at, annoyed that I’d stopped him. Straightening to his full height and taking his hands off me like I was a hot iron, he turned toward the couple, blocking them from my view.

  “Dad… Mom…” he murmured.

  I slammed my eyes shut, thankful they couldn’t see my face as I tried to compose myself. I glanced down to see if Pace had unzipped my pants—something he was famous for doing in public—and saw the bold and jagged “Zebra Nation” across my chest.

  FML.

  “Pace.” His father nodded as he stepped gracefully onto the elevator. “Nice to see you, son.”

  “Yes, Carrington,” his mother accentuated, looking at me pointedly, “it’s good to see you.”

  Pace rolled his eyes. “She knows my birth name, mother. What I don’t understand, though, is why you insist on using it as a litmus test when women are around me.”

  The elegant woman blushed, but cleared her throat to try to cover it up. It was as good a time as any to make my exit.

  “Probably because that name is verbal birth control,” I piped up, scooting around them. “I’ve gotta go. Pace, thank you for lunch—”

  He grabbed my hand, pulling me away from the elevator door. “You don’t have to leave. Stephanie, this is my mother, Celia, and my father…Carrington.”

  Fuckity fuck FUCK! Carrington Pace Turner III. The third!!! Duh, Steph!

  Pace smiled the most fantastically manufactured smile I’d ever seen. And I believed it.

  His mother looked horrified as she fumbled to find her manners. She stuck out her hand. “Stephanie, is it?”

  I nodded, shaking her hand. “Stephanie Brier.”

  “Well, nice to meet you, Stephanie. That’s a…colorful shirt you’re wearing.”

  “Mother.” Pace ground his teeth together so hard I should see his jaw clench beneath his skin.

  The disapproving look on her face nearly mirrored the look on that white trash cow’s in the restaurant bathroom from the other night. I knew what I had to do.

  “Thank you, Celia.” I smiled and turned to Pace’s father. “Carrington, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Pace speaks very highly of you.”

  Truth be told, the only time I’d ever heard a single mention of his parents was the night he told me what they did for a living, which was the same night Pace told me his plans to sue the shit out of all kinds of high-powered people. Even though the elevator was tiny, I was glad that Pace had trusted me with that information to give me an emotional leg up on this oppressive couple in front of me.

  “Please, young lady,” Carrington II smiled sweetly, “call me Cary.”

  My face burned as I tried not to laugh in his face. There was no way I could use the nickname I used with Pace when I was being a total ass. Pace slowly slid his hand behind me and pinched my ass, evidently worried about the same thing but demanding full control out of me all the same. My instinct to tell him to fuck off was overridden by my need to get through this little parental rendezvous in one piece.

  Once the elevator doors opened, Pace was the only one with enough constitution to exit, while the rest of us stood in awkward silence. Eventually, we trooped down the hall to his apartment, each lost in our own world of discomfort. I was certain I’d hear the clicking of Celia’s heels in my nightmares for eternity. I took a seat in the chair at the back of the living room. It was the only place in the entire apartment we’d never fucked.

  “I forgot you were in the city this week. How’s the conference?” Pace asked his parents as he took his parents’ coat and gloves like the gracious host he was and hung them carefully on cedar hangers and placed them in the coat closet. It looked startlingly choreographed, but natural.

  “You wouldn’t forget if you checked your email once in a while. The conference is well done, as always. There’s a symposium this afternoon about maternal mortality in the United States as compared to the rest of the developed world. I’m really looking forward to it,” Celia replied as she turned for the more formal of Pace’s two couches.

  I half-wondered if it was in here just for her, the way the stiffness of the upholstery matched her starched skirt and blazer. Her skin was the same milky shade of mocha as Pace’s, and her eyes were the same amber color as his, too. She was tall, probably about 5’10”, but closer to six feet with her heels on, and her hair was secured back in a tight French twist. She looked like she commanded attention, and liked it, too.

  The apple doesn’t fall far...

  To prevent myself from sinking into full observer status, I spoke up. “Do you work for a hospital or do you have a private practice?”

  Celia smiled only slightly and looked between me and Pace for a moment. It dawned on me that she likely didn’t think her son and I were serious, since I didn’t know this very basic detail. Pace was on his way to the bar at the edge of the living room, ostensibly to continue his hostess-with-the-mostest routine and serve everyone a cocktail. He nodded, displaying a study in charisma by rotating looking each person in the eyes as he followed along the conversation.

  “I work for The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Labor and delivery.”

  As she spoke, her husband, who looked more like Pace’s brother, Adrian, from pictures I’d seen, took a seat next to her. He had a slightly darker complexion and looked significantly younger than his wife, though the absence of a scowl does wonders for age.

  He, at least, smiled at me, but before he could speak, Celia continued, “Cary is a top-level researcher for L. G. Greene Laboratories.”

  I sighed in relief—finally I had some familiarity here. “Oh, yes, Pace mentioned that. It sounds very interesting.” As soon as I said it, I wanted to take it back.

  Just then, I caught Cary and Pace sharing a borderline uncomfortable stare as Celia played with her cuticles. I plastered on my best cheerful smile. I thought it might be best if I smile and nod for the rest of the time they were here. Or for however long it took for Celia to make me spontaneously combust with the force of her gaze.

  Cary’s face softened. “It’s rewarding work. I’ve been very lucky to have my entire career with the same facility.”

  Pace worked behind his deep marble bar, mixing drinks effortlessly. In all the time I’d spent on that bar, I hadn’t been aware there was actually alcohol stored back there. He never questioned his parents about dropping by, though all of the subtext in their actions suggested this was standard protocol, since he just graciously slipped into service to them.

  “Adrian says he’s going to come up next weekend,” Pace said over the loud rattling of ice in his shaker.

  “Oh, that’s good news.” Celia’s face unwound significantly and she let out an exaggerated sigh.

  Pace rolled his eyes and grinned as he groaned. “What now?”

  “Pace,” his mother cleared her throat again, as if I was poisoning the air around her, “I’m concerned about Adrian.”

  He chuckled. “What’d he do?”

  “He’s looking at law schools,” Cary said matter-of-factly, though not in the dramatic tone currently monopolized by his wife. His face remained soft, and it was clear he was the relaxed parent. Despite seeming to agree that law school was to the circus as the circus was to the circus.

  “
And this is a problem how?” He walked from behind the bar and handed a double gin and tonic to his mother and a single to his father.

  “Frankly, we’d like to see him put his brain and compassion to good use,” Celia spit out.

  I opened my mouth to retort, but thought better of it, settling for sitting back with my legs crossed.

  “If you came to ask me, your son who is in law school, to talk your other son out of law school… Well, I’d say your logic is a bit flawed.” Pace strutted over and handed me what I hoped to God was a vodka and soda. I was a beer drinker, and he knew that, but it was clear that malt beverages weren’t acceptable in this setting.

  “That’s not why we came, son.” Cary seemed genuinely sour at the implication.

  Celia ignored their exchange. “He’s started dating this girl, who I think is contributing to the problem.”

  “Problem?” Pace sat elegantly on the arm of the chair I was sitting in and rubbed my shoulder once before putting his hand in his lap.

  Celia would do her best to singe a hole through that shoulder; I was sure of it by the way her eyes seemed to linger there even as she looked around the room.

  “It’s not a problem, per se. She just seems a little… unfocused.” Cary did his best to sound like the peacemaker. Had I known him better, I’d have suggested he and I parachute out of there and leave Pace and his mother to their power struggle.

  Turns out my seat was the prime observation deck. They moved around conversation like a calculated chess match.

  “You’ve met her, then?” Pace sipped his drink and set it on the table next to us.

  “Not exactly,” Celia piped in. “And, she’s certainly more grounded than that hippie he ran with for a while.”

  I made a mental note to ask Pace if he knew anything about this mystery girl. That is, if any of us survived this cocktail hour.

  Pace chuckled. “Mother, I assure you that if Adrian met this girl at Princeton, unfocused isn’t likely your issue with her. That wasn’t even your problem with Ember when they dated...” Pace slid his eyes toward me, then back to his parents.

  His father also shot his eyes toward me, then to Celia, and back to Pace. “There was no problem with Ember, Pace.”

  “Cary,” Celia cut in, “can we stop talking about Adrian’s ex and focus on this new girl?”

  Pace took a deep breath. “Different girl, but same issue. Right?”

  He avoided my eyes. Then, I put it all together.

  “Oh!” I blurted out, taking a sip of my drink. “She’s white. I get it.”

  Pace’s father coughed, but continued swallowing his drink, while his mother set her glass on a cork coaster so fast that if there had been any booze left in it, it would have splashed out in dramatic fashion.

  “Young lady,” she began, fixing me with an even sterner expression than before, “I assure you that’s not a concern. I do however, take issue with your racist assumptions.”

  My eyes bugged out, but before I could speak, Pace stood and put his hand up. “Mother, Steph is no racist. She hates everyone on an individual basis. Equal opportunity and all that.” He winked at his mother, who stood and smoothed out the front and back of her skirt.

  I was speechless. He’d nailed it on the head with his comment, so I felt there wasn’t anything to add. Luckily, there wasn’t silence for long.

  “Well, we must go. OB research dinner tonight.” Carrington II proceeded to stand and collect the nearly finished glass of gin from his wife.

  In a flurry of WASP-like goodbyes, Pace never took his eyes from mine. They were inscrutable, a smoky mix of seduction and punishment curling through them. His father made eye contact with me as he nodded a curt, if not amused, goodbye, but his mother…not so much. She merely looked me head-to-toe once, literally lifted her nose, and marched dutifully out of the apartment without so much as a nod.

  When the door shut behind them, Pace locked the door and growled as his shoulders sank. “So close,” he murmured.

  “Huh? So close to what?” I set down my drink and walked toward him, my nipples still hard from watching him move behind the bar.

  He playfully growled as he turned around. “We were so close! My mom was deflecting off us to talk about Adrian and you had to throw out the w-word.”

  My nostrils flared. “White? What?! For the record, there was no deflecting—that lady had her claws out. What the fuck is her problem, anyway?” Annoyed with the tone of the conversation, I turned and walked back to the other end of the living room to fetch my drink. “It’s because I’m Irish, isn’t it?”

  “Now is not the time for jokes, Steph. Jesus, you can’t just say whatever’s on the tip of your tongue!” He turned as he yelled and I swallowed my drink before I choked on it. “Not if you want to be taken seriously.”

  “By who?” I spit out. “Them—or you? I wasn’t exactly prepared for a meeting of the snobby mother, Pace.”

  “She’s not—”

  I put my hand up. “Whether or not she’s actually a bitch, she sure gave her best performance in front of me just now.”

  He sank into the leather couch and buried his face into his hands. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

  “What the fuck for?”

  He looked up and his face was slightly anguished. “She was being a world-class cunt, and I didn’t stand up for you.”

  “Pace Turner!” I smiled as I walked toward him and quickly straddled his lap. “Did you just use the c-word?” I said, mock-scandalized. “And about your own mother?”

  He shrugged and hit me with the sexiest smile in his arsenal. “She knows how to be one sometimes. Seeing me with a girl she didn’t pre-approve of pissed her off. She’s used to getting her way.”

  I wrapped my arms around his neck. “Like mother, like son, huh?”

  He brought his lips closer. Instead of kissing me, he spoke, his lips moving against mine. “If she knew what I was about to do to you, she’d disown me.”

  My panties suddenly seemed too tight as he got rock hard in a split second, right underneath me.

  “Mmm,” I moaned, “if the Doctors Pace only knew about their son’s extracurricular activities…”

  “Sit,” he commanded.

  My cheeks heated as I did what he asked. “Did the run-in with Mommy Dearest fire you up much?”

  Pace loosened his tie and grinned, though there was no amusement in his eyes, only carnal lust. I leaned over him, reaching to help with his tie.

  “Sit back,” he said.

  “Just shut up for a second.”

  I undid his belt and let my hands follow the fabric as his pants fell around his ankles. He was so hard, so ready, I couldn’t resist. I had to put him in my mouth, even for a second, to remind him what I was capable of before he tied my wrists and entertained me with his talent show.

  He let me, and then I let him. It’s how we worked, and, family aside, it was working.

  Pace, March 2009

  How many people can say they’ve been to Iceland?

  I can. When I told Red I’d go with her to Rome over spring break, I had no idea we’d have an hour layover in Reykjavik. As we circled the capitol, I couldn’t help but think it looked like we’d unknowingly flown through some interdimensional portal and into a snow globe. Stephanie had claimed the window seat, so I leaned over her lap for a better view. I was thrilled, almost breathing easier, to be somewhere so exotic, and I couldn’t stop smiling as my eager eyes took in Viðey, a large island in Kollafjörður Bay. Steph seemed amused at my interest in that particular location.

  “Dude. Are you dating me as a beard to hide your John Lennon fetish?”

  When I cocked a confused eyebrow at her, she explained the island was the home of the Imagine Peace Tower, a tower of light envisioned and built by Yoko Ono, the widow of late Beatle, as a memorial to him. When I asked if we could see it on the way back to the US, she shook her head.

  “They only light it up from October to December. Maybe some other time.”
/>
  Some other time?

  I felt my mouth drop open. While we’d graduated to “dating,” I couldn’t believe she’d slipped up and said something so long term. Neither could she, judging by the startled look she shot me a moment later. I reached out and brushed an unruly strand of copper hair from her cheek; she blinked nervously up at me with those wonderfully expressive eyes. She positively glowed in the sunrise emanating from the airplane window, so much so that it looked as if she had a golden aura. As soon as the thought crossed my mind, I knew I was done for.

  When the girl you’re casually screwing and dating starts to look like she was literally sent from Heaven, you better reassess your priorities before someone gets hurt. Especially when she speaks like the spawn of Satan.

  We had a three hour layover in Amsterdam. As we hung out at the airport bar, Steph joked that we should race to a hash bar and have a quick three-way with a hooker. Sadly, there was no time to see if she was serious before catching our connecting flight.

  It was late in the evening by the time our cab dropped us off at our hotel. The Forum Roma was startling in its beauty and I wondered just how much Red had gotten paid for her recent date with The Black Eyed Peas. By the time we checked in and got to our room, I was feeling both insecure and exhausted. Steph spouted off fluent Italian at everyone we encountered, and I was consumed with how completely powerless I was under the language barrier. The significant amount of Latin I’d learned between medical school and law school served no purpose here. I knew a little Spanish, but that only helped me with adjectives on signs around town, nothing substantial. I tossed my carry-on onto the bed as she tipped the bellhop, who was blatantly fixated on her cleavage. Jealous and grouchy, I announced that I was taking a shower.

  I stripped and adjusted the temperature to a flesh-searing degree. I’d barely lathered my head when I felt her hands slide over my shoulders and down my back. A contented sigh fell from my lips as she reached around my chest and her fingers glided down my slick abs.