by Emma Scott
“Never heard of it,” Darlene said.
“It’s a throwback, speakeasy kind of scene,” Jackson said. “Is swing dancing part of your repertoire?”
Darlene’s grin widened. “It’s been a while, but yes.”
Jackson clapped his hands together once. “Great. We’re meeting some friends at Flore for dinner and then walking up to the club. You’re officially invited to come with us.”
Her glance darted to me. “I’m trying to imagine Sawyer the Lawyer dancing.”
Jackson laughed again. “Sawyer the Lawyer? Holy hell, I love this woman already.” He clapped me on the shoulder and gave me a fond look while I glared daggers. “He can’t dance for shit but I’m convinced it’s only because he doesn’t have the right instructor.”
I rolled my eyes as if his comments were no big deal, but the blood was leaving my face, heading due south at the idea of dancing with Darlene.
“It sounds awesome,” she said. “Thank you so much for inviting me. Give me half an hour?”
“Of course,” Jackson said. “Head down to Sawyer’s place when you’re ready.”
“Thank you,” Darlene said. She glanced at me almost shyly, her cheeks pink, before shutting the door.
Jackson turned to me with a triumphant look on his face that morphed into confusion at my hard stare.
“What?”
“What the hell, man?” I dragged him away from Darlene’s door.
“I’m just being a good friend,” Jackson said as we took the stairs down. He stopped at the bottom and turned, put his hand on my shoulder. “I appreciate your dedication to your work, but I cannot let you turn down the chance to see that woman—” he pointed a finger at Darlene’s door— “dressed up to go out and dance. You going to say no to that? And Ma’s been dying to see Olivia again.” His eyes widened with mock alarm. “You going to say no to Henrietta?”
I laughed despite myself. “I can’t dance for shit, remember? Not exactly the best way to impress a woman.”
“Details, details.” He waved a hand. “You’ll thank me when a slow song comes on.”
In my place, Henrietta was sitting on the floor with Olivia, playing with blocks. She looked up when we came in, the same conspiratorial smile on her face as her son’s. “Well?”
“It’s on,” Jackson said.
Henrietta laughed and clapped her hands together. “Oh baby, you should see your face,” she said to me. “Go on now, get ready. This little angel and I have some catching up to do.”
It was useless to argue, and part of me realized I had no intention of arguing at all. I took a quick shower and then dressed in black slacks, a dark gray dress shirt I hadn’t worn in a year, and a jacket.
Twenty minutes later, Darlene knocked on the door. Jackson opened it and a low whistle issued from between his teeth. “Darlene, you’re a vision,” he said “Don’t you agree, Haas?”
He stepped aside to let Darlene in, and closed the door behind her. My heart nearly fucking stopped beating in my chest; I don’t think I’d ever been so glad for my photographic memory in my entire life.
I took her all in, every detail. Her sleeveless dress hugged her slender body in black silk, then flared out at the waist. Instead of her usual combat boots, her shoes were the black, low-heeled, strappy kind dancers wore, and she carried a black coat in her arms. Her dark hair was pulled back from her face on the sides and curled softly down over her shoulders. She’d done her eyes in smoky shadow; and the dark of her clothing and makeup left me transfixed by her translucent skin and fire-engine red lips that stood out, like white and red slashes of paint in a dark masterpiece.
I blinked from staring at her to realize she was staring at me.
“Hi,” she said, a nervous little smile. “You clean up good, Sawyer the Lawyer.”
“Ha!” Henrietta cackled and slapped her thigh. “Haven’t heard that one in a while.” She got up and came over to Darlene and took both her hands in hers.
“Why, aren’t you an angel?” she said. “I’m Henrietta, Jackson’s mother.”
“So nice to meet you. Your son is quite a charmer,” Darlene said warmly.
“That’s one word for him,” I muttered.
“Dareen!” Olivia said, reaching a hand up.
Darlene knelt beside her. “Hi, sweet pea. Are you playing with your blocks?”
“Bocks.”
I wrenched my gaze from her and my daughter to see Jackson watching me with a shit-eating grin on his face. He held his hands up like a circus ringmaster for whom everything was going precisely as planned.
“Shall we?”
We met some friends of ours I hadn’t seen in a long time at Flore restaurant. Twelve of us crowded around the long table by the window that afforded a perfect view of bustling Market Street.
Jackson sat next to Darlene and directed me to sit across from her. For a split second, I wondered at my friend’s actual motives, but Jackson wasn’t a dick. As soon as I sat down, I understood his plan; I had a full view of Darlene sitting across from me, looking stunningly gorgeous in the amber light of the restaurant.
Our friends took to her immediately. Even the most outgoing women among them seemed reserved compared to Darlene. She wasn’t loud or obnoxious, but laughed and talked easily with no self-consciousness about being amongst a group of new people. Now and again, her eyes stole glances at me, and as the dinner plates were being served, she leaned over the table.
“How am I doing?” she asked. “It’s been a while.”
“You’re fucking perfect,” I said, but the noise and clatter of silverware on dishes was so loud, she didn’t hear me.
“What? Say again?”
I shook my head with a smile, and we both were pulled toward other conversations.
After dinner, the group of us walked down Market Street. I’d forgotten what it was like to hang out with friends, to be part of the city’s energy. Darlene linked her arm in mine as we set out.
“Is that okay?” she asked, when I stiffened.
“Yeah, sure,” I said. Her sudden touch on my arm had sent a current shooting through me and I cursed myself. Jackson was right; I was completely off my game. I’d forgotten what it was like to flirt with a girl.
Because you always flirted with an agenda, a voice whispered. With Darlene, just being with her, having her hand on my arm, was enough.
Café Du Nord was a small, former speakeasy underneath an actual restaurant. We walked down the short stairs into the windowless, oval-shaped room. At the far end was a place for a band, but tonight the red curtains were closed and swing music came in from the sound system. We passed pool tables on the left, and Jackson led us immediately to the bar on the right.
“The first one’s on me,” he told Darlene, and clapped his hand on my shoulder. “The rest are on him.”
She laughed. “I’ll take a Coke with three cherries.”
The music was loud. Jackson craned in. “A what? Rum and Coke?”
“No, a Coke with three cherries in it.” Her smile tightened. “I don’t drink…when I dance.”
“Fair enough.” Jackson turned to me. “What will it be, slugger? The usual?”
“Just one,” I said. “I don’t want you taking advantage of me later.”
Jackson ordered Darlene’s soda, and two Moscow mules for him and me. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy blared overhead, and dozens of dancers were swinging on the dance floor, ringed by onlookers. Old-fashioned lamps on the walls cast a golden light.
The bartender set down Darlene’s soda and two copper mugs, brimming with vodka, ginger beer, and ice—each with a lime perched on the rim.
Jackson tossed down a twenty, and then lifted his drink in a toast. “To interventions.”
“To interventions,” Darlene echoed, her voice low.
We clinked classes and I watched, mesmerized as Darlene plucked a cherry from her drink and put it to her lips that were painted just as red. She held the cherry with her teeth to pull it free from the ste
m, and then it vanished into her mouth.
“My God,” Jackson murmured to me under his breath. “Did you see that?”
“Hell yes, I did.”
“She’s the hottest woman in this joint.”
“I know,” I said, watching as Darlene struck up a conversation with Penny, one of our friends from Hastings. “And she has no idea.”
That’s part of what makes her so damn beautiful.
Jackson nudged my arm. “What the hell are you waiting for? Ask her to dance.”
“I can’t fucking dance,” I said. “You know that.”
Jackson heaved a sigh. “You leave me no choice. Hold this for me?”
I gritted my teeth as Jackson handed me his cocktail like I was a freshman at a hazing, compelled to do his bidding. Jackson took Darlene’s hand and gave an exaggerated bow.
“Care to dance?”
She shot me a glance and a smile, then nodded her head. “I’d love to.”
He led her to the dance floor with a parting glance at me. Jackson, that smooth bastard, had taken a ballroom dance class as an undergrad. I watched him spin Darlene expertly across the floor, and goddamn, watching her dance...
Her dress whirled over legs that seemed to go on forever, and her body moved through complex steps effortlessly. She was better than Jackson, but they looked good together. Watching them, I suddenly felt ravenously hungry. I took a long pull of my cocktail.
It had been ages since I’d drunk anything—the vodka went straight to my head. I started to order another and drank Jackson’s instead. By the time the second copper mug was drained, the room’s muted light had taken on a pleasantly fuzzy glow, and I watched my best friend dance with Darlene with a small smile over my lips.
He met my eye several times, eyebrows raised to his hairline, and inclined his head at his dance partner as if to say, What are you waiting for?
I only grinned back. I was content now to wait. I’d been off my game, true, but I realized with Darlene I didn’t need one.
The song ended and Jackson bent Darlene over his knee in a deep dip. Her back arched as if she had no bones, and when he hauled her up, her face was radiant.
A slow song began, “Cheek to Cheek” sung by Ella Fitzgerald, and I pushed myself off the bar, through the crowds.
“May I?” I asked, cutting in before Jackson could answer.
“It’s about damn time,” he muttered under his breath.
“You’re going to need a new drink,” I told him as he slipped away, and then I was holding Darlene.
I slipped an arm around her slender waist, and held her other against my chest. Her body radiated soft warmth through the silky material of her dress, and I imagined her lean muscles moving under my hands. Her face was flushed from the dancing, and her eyes were crystalline blue over her red lips.
“I wondered if you were ever going to come over here,” she said.
“I don’t dance,” I said. The vodka had stripped my words down to the bare bones. “I liked watching you.”
“Jackson is very good.”
“You’re better.”
“Mmm, now I know what you were doing instead of dancing,” she said with a small smile. “Are you having a good time?”
“I am now.” I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.
She held my gaze for a moment, then laid her head against my chest.
“I’m having a good time too,” she said. “Maybe a better time than I should.”
“I know.”
“I’m supposed to be working on me.”
“I know,” I said again. “I can see my finish line from here. I should keep going but…”
“But what?” she asked against my heart.
“I don’t want to kiss you drunk, but I want to kiss you.”
Her breath caught and she raised her head to look at me, her lips parted. It took everything I had not to kiss her anyway, but it felt wrong; with vodka on my breath and my thoughts clouded and dizzy. I’d kissed a hundred women drunk or tipsy, but something stopped me with this woman.
She deserves more.
“You want to kiss me?” she asked.
I tilted her chin up with a loose fist, and my thumb brushed the skin just beneath her lower lip. My mouth was clumsy with the alcohol, but the booze had freed my emotions that I’d kept on lockdown, always, and I was helpless against her beauty to keep them in.
“I think about you,” I said. “A lot.”
“I think about you, too,” she whispered, and I smelled the sweetness of Maraschino cherries on her breath. “And Olivia.”
Instantly, my arms held her tighter at those words. “You do?”
She nodded. “And I know it’s fast, but I feel like,” she swallowed. “I don’t know what I feel. Like I’m supposed to be getting myself together and not getting swept up in all the things I usually get swept up in. I keep saying I need to work on me, but I’m doing everything right and I still feel like something’s missing.” Her eyes were impossibly blue as they gazed up at mine. “Is it you?”
“I don’t know,” I said. But maybe it could be.
I held her and turned a slow circle, possibilities whispering in my ear.
“What do you want, Darlene?”
“I think I want you to kiss me, too. No, I know I do. More than anything, actually.”
Hearing her say the words conjured something deep in me. Not sex or lust. What I wanted with her went beyond that. And deeper, somehow.
“But Sawyer, there’s something I have to tell you.”
“Anything.”
“I wish it were that simple.”
Her beautiful face morphed into anguish, and then the song ended. “In the Mood”—the quintessential swing song—came on and the crowd filled the floor in a mad rush.
The heat and depth between us vanished and it felt like I’d been thrust up from somewhere hot and dark, into bright, cold light.
Darlene was asked to dance by some other guy but she declined and walked with me back to the bar where Jackson was watching us, a new Moscow mule in his hand.
He opened his mouth to make a joke, but snapped it shut again.
“Are you having a good time?” he asked.
“I’m having a great time,” Darlene said, not looking at me. “I’m so happy to have gotten out into the city.”
“Glad to hear it,” Jackson said, his gaze landing on mine. “I thought it was about overdue.”
The three of us said goodbye to our friends and Darlene exchanged phone numbers with Penny. I hoped a friendship would come out of it.
Anything, if it makes Darlene happy.
Jackson, Darlene and I, took an Uber back to the Victorian. There, Darlene gave Jackson a peck on the cheek.
“Thank you so much. I had such a good time.” Her glance landed on me then darted away. “It was a lovely night.”
Then she hurried upstairs in a cloud of soft perfume and cherries.
Maybe it was the vodka, but a sense of certainty and peace settled over me.
Jackson was staring at me. “Well? What the hell happened?”
I smiled like an idiot but I wasn’t trying to be smooth; I didn’t have game, or moves, or an agenda anymore. I pulled my bewildered friend in for a sloppy hug.
“Thanks, man,” I said.
“For what?”
“For tonight.”
For her.
Sawyer
Tuesday afternoon, in study group, I stared absently at the notebook in my lap. Andrew’s voice droned in the background of my thoughts like a mosquito as he pestered Beth and Sanaa to quiz him. He monopolized the group, in a panic over the American Legal History final this week. Our last final, and, as with the others, I was confident I was going to pass. My eidetic memory had gotten my tired ass through so many late nights, not only would I graduate, but I’d do it with honors. But three days of grueling testing in Sacramento loomed ahead for the bar exam, and I was no closer to finding an angle for my brief to Judge Miller.
> I can’t get distracted now.
But I was. I tapped my pen on my knee, determined to focus, as visions of red lips and a cherry; a black dress and long legs; a heated body pressed to mine wafted into my thoughts like a delicious scent to a starving man.
I was hungry for Darlene, in every way.
Henrietta once told me that it was hard for a person to imagine a better life than the one he had; to really know and feel that it was possible. It was the reason, she said, so many people worked so hard just to stay where they were. They never reached out for what they really wanted because they believed what they wanted was out of reach. But it wasn’t. Like words written on a mirror: Objects may be closer than they appear.
I still had so much work left to do, and even if I passed the bar and Judge Miller hired me, I’d have to work my ass off just as hard to keep that job, to keep providing for Olivia on my own. There would always be another finish line to cross. Was it stupid of me to not reach a little more for what I wanted? To imagine a life with something more than what I had?
My pen rattled against the denim on my knee.
The law that I had taken such refuge in for being black and white, was cold compared to Darlene’s smile. The sanctuary I had found in the codes and sections was an empty place. She was life, and maybe, if I didn’t screw it up, I had something to offer her too.
How about you start with a first date?
A slow smile spread over my lips. I shut my notebook with a snap, startling the others, and packed up my stuff.
“Where are you going?” Andrew demanded.
“Home.”
“We’re one final away from graduation.”
I clapped him on the shoulder. “I have no doubt you will pass with adequate colors.”
Andrew shook me off. “Asshole.”
I grinned. “Ladies. It’s been real.”
Outside, I fished out my cell phone and called Serenity Spa. The snobby sounding woman at reception told me that Darlene had already left for the day.
“Early,” she added with a sniff.
I had Darlene’s phone number programmed into my photographic memory, but I didn’t want to call or text her. I wanted to see her, to talk to her in person when I took the monumental, earth shattering, life changing step of actually asking a woman out on a date.
