by Janice Sims
“What shortcomings?” asked Belana skeptically. “You mean your parenting difficulties? No parent is perfect. Most of them are winging it from day to day.”
“No, not that,” Nick replied. “I know I’m doing the best I can by Nona…”
“What did you say?” Belana asked, shocked.
“I know I’m doing the best…”
“No, your daughter’s name,” Belana clarified.
“It’s Nona,” said Nick, looking askance.
“Your mother’s Mrs. Yvonne Reed?” Again, Belana’s tone was rife with shock.
“How did you know that?”
“This is getting spooky,” Belana said, staring at him now. “I’ve been mentoring Nona for at least six months. She’s a good dancer, Nick. We met when I spoke at a community center in Harlem. She approached me and asked me to come to her dance class. I did, and the rest is history!”
“This is weird,” Nick said, shaking his head in disbelief. “She holds so much inside these days, as if her life is a big secret for me to figure out.” He sighed with regret. “She never once mentioned your name.”
“She’s a teenager,” Belana said on Nona’s behalf. “I went through a rebellious phase, and I adore my father. I’m sure Nona adores you, too.”
“Sometimes I wonder,” Nick said truthfully. He smiled again and recaptured her hand. “But I was about to confess something to you.”
“I’m listening.”
“I was guarding my heart when we met, too,” Nick said. “I loved my wife, Dawn. When she died I thought I would die of heartbreak, but I kept going for Nona. I didn’t date for years after she died, and when I started dating again no one could measure up to her. I know that, realistically, I’ve met some great women. But I couldn’t see myself opening my heart to anyone. One part of me felt as if I were being unfaithful to Dawn. Another was afraid of loving anyone half as much as I loved Dawn and then losing her, too. I couldn’t take that. Then I met you and realized you were the one. The one who could eventually make me love her as much as I had loved my wife. I panicked, and that’s when I asked Roxanna out. That’s the woman whom you saw me with that night. I was trying to distract myself from thinking too much of you.”
Belana laughed. “We’re a couple of nuts!”
“Certifiable,” Nick agreed. He took a deep breath and exhaled. “That’s what I wanted to explain to you. That you were the one who could either crush me or take me to a higher level.”
Belana leaned in. “My vote goes to taking you to a higher level.”
They kissed again. This time softly, tenderly and lingeringly. Afterward, Belana opened her eyes and looked into his. “There’s only one thing left for me to leave you with.”
“Leave me?” Nick asked incredulously. “We’ve just gotten back together.”
Belana smiled sadly. “I’m afraid I’m going to Greece tomorrow. My best friends and I go on vacation together every two years. We live so far apart. It’s the only time we get to spend together anymore, except for family weddings, funerals and so forth. I wouldn’t go, but it’s all planned. I’ll be back next Saturday evening, though, hopefully no later than nine.”
Nick reluctantly nodded as if he understood. “Okay, well, what was the only thing you had to leave me to ponder over while you’re gone?”
“My father is John Whitaker,” she announced with out preamble.
“John Whitaker, the man who saves entire towns?”
Nick cried, his voice squeaking a bit.
“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” Belana said modestly.
“He goes in, buys faltering businesses, makes them work again, and saves hundreds of jobs. Yes, in this economy, I would say he saves towns.” He laughed. “I’m talking to John Whitaker’s daughter?”
“Now see, that’s why I thought I should go ahead and break it to you,” Belana said knowingly. “It takes some folks a little time to adjust and come to the conclusion that John Whitaker is just a man. He really is just a man. He’s kind of shy. He loves his family and he cares for the people who work for him. It was a twist of fate, and a whole lot of hard work, that made him so successful.”
Nick truly was impressed. He had admired Belana’s father for years. He had even been inspired by John Whitaker’s example when he had decided to become a sports agent shortly after he passed the bar exam. He’d read somewhere that Whitaker was honest to a fault. He had built his empire not by stepping on the backs of others, but by hard work and determination and by treating everyone with respect. Nick vowed he would never try to take advantage of his clients and would always be honest with them. He had kept that vow to this day.
“Okay,” he said, calmer now. “Is there anything else I need to chew on while you’re sunning yourself in Greece?”
“Ours is a blended family,” Belana explained. “The friends I’m going to Greece with are Patrice Sutton-McKenna and Elle Jones-Corelli. We’ve been friends for about eleven years.”
“Wait a minute, ‘the’ Patrice Sutton-McKenna, the actress who married T. K. McKenna?”
“Yeah,” Belana said nonchalantly. She knew he would calm down eventually. “Anyway, since we three were friends, we started introducing our families to each other and Elle’s mother and my father fell in love and got married. Now Elle is my stepsister. And her mother, Isobel, is the mother I never had. I just love her.”
“Any more bombs to drop?” Nick asked hoarsely.
Belana smiled sweetly. She leaned over and kissed him on his chin, right over that adorable cleft in it. “No, that’s it.” She looked him intently in the eyes. “I know it’s a lot to think about, but since we ended on a bad note eight months ago, I wanted you to know what baggage I brought with me so we could begin anew, with everything out in the open. Think on it, and when I return from Greece you can call me and tell me where we go from here.”
She drank a big swallow from her glass of mineral water and lime and set the glass back down. “I’d better go now,” she said regrettably. “I have an early flight out.”
Nick paid the bill and got up, offering her a hand down from the bar stool.
As they walked arm in arm toward the exit, Belana laughed shortly and said, “This has been an interesting night, huh?”
“Considering that I only planned to show my face at a fundraiser and go home and have an early night, yes, it has been,” Nick agreed.
Outside, he hailed a taxi. One from a queue waiting in front of the St. Regis screeched to a halt in front of them in a matter of seconds. “I’ll see you home,” Nick said. Belana went into his arms. They were standing so close that their mouths were only inches apart. Belana tilted her head back and kissed him on the chin. “The way I’m feeling right now, you’d end up spending the night and I think we should take things slower.”
Nick, who was aroused, agreed. He felt as if they’d already wasted eight months, though. However, anything worth having was worth waiting for. He bent his head and kissed her full on the mouth. Belana moaned softly and surrendered to his passion, his strength. They made it count, that kiss. It was meant to last them seven days. Seven days without one another. Seven days to dream of each other. Seven days to layer sexual tension on top of sexual tension.
When he put her in the cab and closed the door after her, she looked up at him longingly, thinking perhaps she had been too hasty in deciding not to spend the night in his arms. Nick handed the cabbie two bills, which would cover the fare and then some, and said, “Take care of her.” Then he stepped back from the curb and watched the taxi pull away with Belana looking back at him.
What a night.
Chapter 5
Two days later, after an overnight stay in London, Belana was on a ferry en route to Mykonos in the Cyclades, a group of islands in the Aegean Sea. She stood at the railing, the breeze in her hair, the morning sun warm on her exposed skin. She felt a little weary from traveling, but buoyant nonetheless. Images of Nick kept playing in her mind’s eye, making her smile. Innocent picture
s because they had never made love. She didn’t even have sexy memories to console her now that she was half a world away. But she felt confident that when she got back to New York his answer to whether or not they should be together would be yes. She wanted him in her life. She just hoped that laying everything on him at once hadn’t been too much for him to take. Even the strongest of men were sometimes intimidated by wealth and celebrity. But should she be penalized because of who she was? For years she had wrestled with that question. Having a substantial amount of money and trying to explain to someone who didn’t that you were just like them was a hard sell. Even her friends Elle and Patrice hadn’t cut her any slack when they were at school. They would often be struggling to come up with money for entertainment or new clothes and other incidentals when all she had to do was inform her father she needed something and she got it. She was generous with her belongings, but after a while her friends grew irritated with her generosity, their pride wounded because they could rarely return her kindness with gifts of their own. Belana was patient, though, and the three soon learned how to accept each other as they were. It was a balancing act that they still practiced, loving one another, faults and all.
Belana had never been in a long-term relationship with a man before, though. She certainly didn’t discuss how much money she had with men who were just passing through, which was why she’d only recently told Nick about her family.
Her thoughts were interrupted as the ferry drew closer to the dock. She thought she spied Elle and Patrice standing on the wooden planks, Elle’s two-year-old, nearly three-year-old daughter, Ariana, whom everyone called Ari, in Elle’s arms. Elle pointed at the ferry and Ari began waving at Belana. Belana vigorously waved back with a wide grin.
When the passengers formed a line to begin disembarking, Belana got in line, holding her suitcase in one hand and her big bag slung over her other shoulder. She had learned to pack light over the years. Trains, ferries and other modes of transportation in Europe rarely had room to stash huge suitcases so you were better off with smaller cases. Plus, who needed to be lugging around lots of bags when you were on vacation?
The three friends ran to embrace one another. Belana had seen Elle and Patrice only three months ago when they’d come to the opening of Swan Lake, but they greeted each other as if they hadn’t seen each other in years.
Belana took Ari from her mother’s arms and kissed her chubby cheeks. “You get more adorable every time I see you!” she exclaimed. Which was true. Ari had her mother’s thick black hair and large brown eyes, and her skin color was somewhere between her mother’s medium reddish brown and her father’s golden brown. Sometimes Belana thought she looked more like her mother but recently she’d begun to look more like her father, Dominic. “My God, Elle, when did she start scowling like the Maestro?” Belana joked. Elle’s husband was an operatic composer and he scowled when he was deep in thought.
“She’s just squinting in the sun,” Elle said, reclaiming her daughter and helping her on with her sunglasses, which Ari hated and promptly removed. “Ari, these are to protect your eyes from UV rays.”
Ari asked her mother what UV rays were in Italian. Elle explained in Italian. Ari still stubbornly refused to wear the sunglasses.
Patrice picked up Belana’s suitcase and they began walking in the direction of town where the driver they had hired to bring them to the docks was waiting at the car to take them back to the resort. Belana soaked up her surroundings: a marriage of old and new, the town was home to many blindingly white buildings. Against the backdrop of a deep blue sky and the crystal clear, blue waters of the Aegean, the whole effect was breathtakingly beautiful.
The people on the street were a mix of locals and tourists. Most of the locals were attired in contemporary fashions like their visitors, however, every now and then Belana spotted a few who kept the old ways, wearing simple peasant clothing and leading a donkey burdened with a heavy load.
“I can see why ancient Greeks invented the gods,” Belana said. “This place is so gorgeous it inspires a belief in the supernatural.”
“Isn’t it?” asked Patrice, who had chosen the location. “And don’t say anything to anger the gods while we’re here, please. We’d like to relax and not worry about thunderbolts from out of the blue.”
They laughed.
“So, Belana,” said Elle, after they had control of their giggles, “Patrice tells me you’re dating a boy of twenty-five.”
“Actually, he’s twenty-two and we’re not seeing each other anymore,” Belana informed them.
“What happened?” asked Patrice. “You didn’t call me like I asked you to, so I’ve been wondering.”
“One weird but wonderful thing after another,” Belana began. She went on to tell them about running into Nick, whom they already knew of because she had told them how she felt she had foolishly let a good man get away. When she finished, her friends were laughing uproariously.
“I’m surprised you didn’t tell him you snore,” said Patrice, referring to the fact that Belana had forewarned Nick about everything that might work to keep them apart.
“I do not snore!” Belana denied.
“Yes, you do,” said Elle, who had been Belana’s roommate at one time. “For a tiny person, you snore like a Sumo wrestler.”
“A buzz saw,” Patrice interjected.
“You should probably ask your doctor to check your uvula, that’s usually the culprit that causes the problem. You’re definitely not overweight,” said Elle helpfully.
Belana grimaced. “You’re both exaggerating. Don’t tell me that when I have the potential of sleeping with a man again after my longest dry period ever that I have a snoring problem!”
“Okay,” Elle conceded, moving Ari onto her opposite hip. “I might have gone overboard. And I don’t agree with Patty. I don’t think you sound like a buzz saw. It sounds more like an outboard motor on a very small boat. Putt, putt, putt…you do this funny thing with your lips that’s kind of like a raspberry but with a prolonged note.” She demonstrated and Ari mimicked her.
Ari so enjoyed the raspberry sound that she continued doing it all the way to the car, driving her mother to distraction.
“That’s what you get for ridiculing me,” Belana crowed once they were comfortably seated in the air-conditioned car. The driver, a young Greek named Stavros, helped the ladies into the car, stowed Belana’s suitcase in the trunk, after which he got back behind the wheel. He then greeted Belana with, “Kalimera.”
“That means good morning,” Patrice informed Belana.
“Kalimera,” Belana said, liking the way the lilting words tripped off her tongue.
Even though he greeted newcomers with his native language, Stavros spoke English. “Where to, ladies?” he asked, turning around to peer at them with a smile crinkling his deeply tanned face.
“Back to the resort, please,” Patrice spoke up.
“Consider it done,” he said pleasantly, turning around and putting the car in gear. As they drove, Belana noticed that there were many men strolling through the town holding hands and generally behaving like couples.
“What is this town?” she whispered to Patrice sitting beside her. “The gay capital of Greece?”
Patrice laughed quietly. “Elle and I wondered about that, too, but, no. The town seems to be a mecca for gay couples, though. They’ve been celebrating what they call The International Gay Festival for the past week. Just this morning we were invited to a party tonight.”
“Yeah, by Jon and John,” said Elle, smiling. “They’re supposed to be getting married on the Isle of Delos tomorrow.”
“Is gay marriage legal in Greece?” Belana asked.
“No, it’s not,” Patrice replied. “According to John and Jon some judges have been willing to overlook the law and perform the ceremony anyway. I guess it’s the romantic setting of Delos that the happy couple wants to experience. Delos is said to be a spiritual epicenter, kind of like Sedona, Arizona.”
&nb
sp; “The god Apollo was born on Delos according to Greek mythology,” Elle put in.
“Then it must be good luck to get married there,” Belana concluded.
“Yeah,” said Patrice. She laughed. “I wonder if Vegas will be looked at in that way a thousand years from now.”
She and her husband, T.K., had eloped to Vegas. However, they’d had a church wedding in her hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico, a few weeks later. Their parents hadn’t been happy that no one in either family had been present when they’d wed in Vegas.
“Who knows?” asked Belana lightly. “The only thing I know is none of us will be around to see it.”
They laughed and settled back in their seats as Stavros drove them through the narrow streets of the quaint little town. Elle cuddled Ari, who had grown quiet in her arms, and softly sang something to her in Italian.
“Is that her default language?” Belana asked.
“Not surprisingly, it is,” said Elle. “She speaks English, but everyone around her speaks Italian so she naturally speaks it, too. She adores her little cousins and whatever they do, she mimics.”
“I think it’s great that she’s growing up bilingual,” Belana said, rubbing her niece’s back. “She’s way ahead of her auntie. I’m happy to be able to speak one language.”
“How’d closing night go?” Patrice asked Belana, changing the subject. The most practical minded of the trio, she was always concerned about how their careers were going.
“It was a solid performance,” Belana told her. “I felt pretty strong considering the number of performances we did per week. I’m looking forward to the new season. I’m determined to make what might possibly be my last year my best year.”
“You’re not thinking of quitting before thirty?” Patrice asked, her voice rising in surprise. “Not you who aspired to last as long as… What’s the name of that ballerina who retired from New York City Repertory Dance Theatre a few years ago?”
