Scarlett Love (The Scarletts

by Brenda Barrett

  Amoy nodded. "Now that sounds great. That's wonderful! I can exit this meeting feeling quite pleased that you are onto something tangible."

  John grinned. "I am happy to please you."

  "So of our four missing Scarletts, which one are you working on next?" Amoy ignored his last ditch attempt at flirting.

  John shrugged. "You tell me. Which one I should prioritize: Kane Scarlett, Lisa Barclay, Noah Scarlett or Peter Scarlett?”

  "Which one is simpler?"

  "Well, for Kane Scarlett, all I need is that sketch from when he was younger. I could ask a buddy of mine to age it to mid-twenties and then we move from there."

  "That does not sound simple," Amoy pointed out.

  "It could take a couple of weeks, yes." John shrugged, "but if I do this, it would be one person crossed off your list. In the meantime I will try to find the Lisa girl."

  "Fine," Amoy nodded. "I would like to speak to that lead of yours, the person who knew Kane Scarlett as a baby."

  "Okay. I will convince her to come here." John nodded. "It's doable."

  ****

  A little after three o'clock Amoy drove up to the Midway Associates feeling wrung out. She was not going back to the office today. If she hadn't made arrangements to have lunch with Eugenia, she would be at home sleeping.

  It was that sort of day. She had almost fallen asleep in the meeting with her client. She parked her car under a tree in the parking lot and got out wearily. She really felt fatigued. She was getting older. A couple of years ago an all-nighter would not have her feeling so exhausted and a little like death warmed over.

  First she unpinned her hair and fluffed it out and then she removed her black jacket, putting it on the back seat. She wanted to be as comfortable as possible for the lunch/dinner with Eugenia.

  When she spun around she was surprised to see Slater walking out of the Medical Center, a car key swinging in hand. He was dressed all in black. He looked simply stunning strutting toward her.

  He hadn't seen her yet, she crossed her arms and waited for him to realize she was staring. At least now she could get the chance to apologize and deliver her heartfelt prepared speech, but he didn't see her. He headed to a Prado parked nearby and got in.

  Amoy blinked twice and then rubbed her eyes.

  That couldn't be Slater. She was seeing him everywhere now, since her inappropriate propositioning of him.

  She shook her head in disappointment. She had wanted it to be him.

  ****

  Slater couldn't remember the last time he had taken a day off from work. He had gone in this morning and told Carlos that he didn't want to work the New Kingston route anymore, a decision that he had wrangled over for most of the morning.

  Carlos had just shrugged in his usual nonchalant manner and reassigned him. Told him to take the day if he wanted and that was that.

  No drama.

  It had been easy to start Option One and stay away from Amoy Gardener. It was the better option for his own self-preservation.

  He knew what being brokenhearted and loving the wrong woman looked like. He remembered back in the old neighborhood Marlon Powers killing his wife and then himself because she had cheated on him.

  Everybody had talked about it for days. One old man had put it succinctly: "It was the result of misguided love." Marlon had married a woman much younger than he was and she had ultimately found him unsuitable.

  Though he knew all of these things, he didn't feel happier or lighter that he had escaped the baby-hungry lawyer lady.

  He was thinking about her more now than ever. And he had to force himself to stay focused in his very first class with Mrs. Perry this morning.

  Mrs. Perry had declared him mildly dyslexic and very fixable after a couple of tests, and she had been bubbling at the prospect of helping him to read and write letters in the correct way.

  And he had left her place hopeful for the first time in years.

  She had explained that his condition was not uncommon. Apparently many famous people had it and many not so famous children had it and went undiagnosed and ignored in the education system, only to be told that they were dumb.

  Helping people to realize their true potential was obviously her passion. He was beginning to think that this living with Mrs. Perry was divine intervention. His life so far was a series of interventions that he thought the Almighty himself had orchestrated.

  How else could he explain Edwin? And Mrs.Perry?

  And Amoy? Well, she was a test to see how strong his moral fortitude was, not intervention.

  He pushed the CD novel that Mrs. Perry had loaned him into the player to take his mind off Amoy.

  It was his homework. Mrs. Perry had told him to pay keen attention when he heard it. She said she would be asking questions for tomorrow's class. He would much prefer spending his time listening to music but Mrs. Perry had warned him that this was vital to his progress, listening to words and associating spelling with sounds. He could listen while he waited for Edmond as he visited his girlfriend, and he could listen throughout the day. Why not? He had nothing else to do.

  "Matters of the Heart by Noah Ess." The narrator's voice was soothing. "She was all he dreamt of for days on end..."

  Slater turned down the radio when he saw Amoy walking past the vehicle. She was in a silky red sleeveless top and a pencil skirt that hugged her slim frame lovingly. She had her hair out and she was sporting red lips to match the blouse. He closed his eyes and forced himself not to look. But that didn't last long; he opened them again and watched her as she headed to the front of the building.

  Edmond had told him that the doctors in the building dealt with women's fertility issues and newborn babies.

  He sat up straighter. Was she going to get some special procedure done to get pregnant?

  Was she really that desperate?

  Why did he care?

  Option One, remember? He was on his way out of the vehicle before he knew what he was doing. He was going to confront her, and then do what...?

  Edmond exited the building at the same time that she entered, and Slater exhaled shakily.

  Forget. About. Her.

  *****

  "What is this?" Eugenia asked Amoy over their food in the cafeteria. "Linner or Dunch?"

  Amoy grinned. "At least we have the cafeteria to ourselves and I must admit that the food is well prepared."

  "New chef," Eugenia muttered, tearing into her chicken with gusto. "Even people from next door at the bank have been coming over here to eat."

  Amoy pushed her plate aside. The food had indeed been good but her appetite did not call for food. She was more sleepy than anything else.

  She yawned. "I am going home to sleep."

  "Nah." Eugenia wiped her fingers on her napkin. "You are going to tell me again why exactly you were inquiring about the sperm bank."

  Amoy grimaced. "It's simple. I want a baby. Surely it's not abnormal to find a woman at my age in your office enquiring about a sperm bank."

  "A woman, not you." Eugenia frowned. "For the love of all that's holy, Amoy. You are still young. There are scores of men, maybe 90% of the male population, who would dive at the chance to be with you and yet...you are asking me about a sperm bank. Ridiculous!"

  "I don't have scores of men lining up to be with me; I am not interested in them! The ones that I am interested in are married or..." she thought of Slater, "…not interested enough to do this."

  "Mmm. Explain." Eugenia pushed her plate away and looked at Amoy lazily. "What's going on?"

  "I sort of asked... well... told Slater that I wasn't interested in a relationship, that I just wanted his sperm and he told me goodbye in a tight, cold little voice that is still ringing in my head."

  "I knew I liked that man." Eugenia chuckled. "He has his head screwed on right. If he had jumped at the chance to participate in your little arrangement I would think he is very unsuitable."

  Amoy chewed her bottom lip. "I don't need a relationship. Every
time I put myself out there, I meet up on an issue. I just want a hassle-free baby with no father to butt into my life."

  Eugenia sighed. "You are going about this the wrong way, Amoy. Okay, let me just share the facts first. Yes, you can get donor sperm. We generally get our supplies from Cryobank in the US. It is as simple as you telling us what your requirements are. You can afford to pay for it, so that's not an issue. The sperm is sent to us frozen, we thaw it out, you are injected when you are most fertile and we conduct a pregnancy test a month or so later. Voila, you got your baby! Isn't life grand?"

  "For a fertility specialist, you sound quite disdainful of the process," Amoy sniffed. "And dismissive of a simple query."

  "This is not a simple query." Eugenia looked at her solemnly. "You have years of fertility left and yet you are rushing to be a single parent. Do you think that is easy? I don't understand it. I don’t approve of it. I am going to tell Grandma Baker!"

  "Don't you dare, Eugenia! What about doctor-patient privilege?"

  "You are not my patient." Eugenia raised an eyebrow. "You asked me about sperm banks as a cousin, not as your doctor. And because I am a concerned family member who thinks that you are slowly slipping into a kind of insanity and that is not my area of expertise, I am going to refer you to somebody who is very capable of handling this."

  "Grandma Baker is not a psychologist," Amoy said indignantly.

  "Nah, but she can pray for you better than anybody else can." Eugenia stood up. "Girl, if I didn't have a four o'clock I would stay and talk some sense into you. Where is Zack when you need him?"

  "On his honeymoon enjoying himself, making babies. And I am glad you are not going to be around to talk anymore. Please don't tell Grandma Baker about this."

  Eugenia smiled. "I can't promise you anything. You need help."

  Amoy sighed in frustration and stood up too.

  "And give that guy a chance," was Eugenia's parting shot. "He sounds like he is an exemplary man to have around!"

  Chapter Eight

  Mrs. Perry was not joking when she said she was excited to help him learn. For the first week, Slater spent at least two hours every day in her kitchen discussing audio books. Mrs. Perry had a thing for the author Noah Ess and she had given him three CDs to listen to with his books.

  He had to admit that he was growing to like the books and he looked forward to hearing them. The last one was about a man with no family who fell in love with a rich woman of noble birth. He had stayed up till three in the morning listening to it.

  Mostly because he was comparing himself to the guy in the storyline.

  It was now barely seven o'clock in the morning but Mrs. Perry was enthusiastically discussing the book, as if she was just dying to have somebody else's opinion.

  He looked at her through half-closed eyes, wondering if these lessons were for his benefit or hers.

  Maybe both. She wanted a little book club and he wanted to read properly. He yawned and slapped his cheeks.

  Mrs. Perry looked at him with a smile. "What do you think about the chief protagonist’s yearning for the unattainable woman?"

  "It was foolish." Slater shrugged. "It got him killed."

  "Mr. Slater!" Mrs. Perry squealed in horror, "that's not quite how the book ended. The poor guy and the rich girl met up at a cliff on a high mountain and when the rich guy chased after them, they jumped together, preferring to stay together rather than apart."

  Slater snorted. "So he risked his life to be with her and they died and that is romantic? Do you have any action stories?"

  Mrs. Perry chuckled. "I do. But that particular story is loosely based on the story of Lovers Leap. Same plot, same setting...Lovers Leap is in St. Elizabeth. You should take a drive down there to go see it."

  Slater nodded. "Okay."

  "I know that okay." Mrs. Perry pointed at him. "It means ‘I am not going to do it; I am just humoring you, old lady.’ So here's the thing." She pointed at two books on the table. "This is the physical copy of the book you just listened to. You and I are going to read it together."

  Slater looked at the thick book and sighed. "I thought you would be running through my ABCs first."

  "You know your ABCs," Mrs. Perry snorted. "We are just going to work on how you associate letters and all of that. I'll have you reading fluently in no time."

  Slater heard the clang-clang of slippers coming down the stairs in the background and then a short, petite girl with long, messy curly hair in boy shorts and midriff-baring blouse came into his line of vision.

  "Morning," she mumbled as she headed for the fridge.

  "Good morning." Slater glanced at her and then back down into the book, which was a large print edition filled with pictures.

  He sighed in relief. He thought Mrs. Perry had lost her mind to be giving him a novel to read when he could barely keep the words straight.

  "That is Alexandra Perry, my ninth grandchild," Mrs. Perry said formally.

  Slater looked up and nodded.

  "Alexandra, this is Mr. Slater. You are inappropriately dressed for guests."

  Alexandra looked at Slater and her eyes widened appreciatively. "Well, er, sorry, I didn't know he was here. And only Granny calls me Alexandra. So don't you do it."

  Mrs. Perry nodded stiffly. "Our Alexandra is an actress."

  "Was an actress," Alex said, gulping down orange juice. "The soap that I starred in booted me. They are going to kill off my character, because as Neville, the show runner, puts it, I am now a liability. Because you see, Slater, I am somewhat currently notorious."

  "Alexandra, please." Mrs. Perry closed her eyes in pain. "Should you tell everybody about your indiscretions?"

  Slater looked from Alex to Mrs. Perry.

  "He might as well know. It is on the Internet, Grandma! It's everywhere." Alex slumped her shoulders. "In the privacy of my bedroom, my boyfriend and I taped ourselves. We broke up, he leaked the tape, after he edited his face out, but it shows me in glorious techno-color doing things that my grandmother here has forgotten how to do."

  "Alexandra!" Mrs. Perry slapped the kitchen table. "You are out of line."

  Alex shrugged and picked up her juice. "Sorry, but please note that I am only penitent because I have nowhere else to go. My parents have practically disowned me and Grandma here is just doing her Christian duty by helping me to hide out from the media because, as she said, I am her ninth grandchild."

  Slater suppressed a smile. It was rare that he saw Mrs. Perry so flustered. She smoothed back her purple bun and cleared her throat.

  "Please don't disturb us; Slater and I have a book to read."

  Alexandra nodded to them, winking at Slater. "Carry on."

  She headed out the door as noisily as she came in.

  *****

  Slater got in late in the evening, sorely regretting his request for a different route and feeling emotionally drained. His resolve to not see Amoy had weighed on him for the past week. Surely if this was just a crush it should be gone by now.

  He wasn't exposed to her in any way now, but he thought about her a lot, like right now. She had a way of staring at whomever she was talking to as if she was completely in a conversation. That was the first time he had seen her, in the lobby of Chang and Dubois, with briefcase in hand, standing in rapt attention while a man in a suit several inches shorter than her talked to her, his hand moving rapidly as he expressed himself.

  She had stood in that position, listening to the man, while he delivered the packages to the receptionist, only moving when the man asked her a question. She had looked up from her conversation after a while and although he had been on the way out the door, he had stopped and stared.

  Hooked by just a look. A glance, really, and she had not even looked at him directly. She had smiled and then she had tucked a lock of hair behind her ears.

  He shut down the thought and got out of the car.

  It took him a few seconds to notice that Alex was at the poolside under an umbrella, her fac
e hidden by a broad hat. Only her hair stuck out. She had a newspaper folded on her belly.

  Slater walked on the cobblestone softly, so as not to disturb her. He had never watched her show. It came on in the middle of the workday and the reruns were too late for him to stay up and watch. He didn't know how good an actress she was, but this morning when she talked about her sex tape being exposed she seemed to be genuinely hurting.

  He felt a sort of sympathy for her. It could not be an easy feeling to have your privacy exposed like that. He reached the front door and was about to open it when Alex pushed up her hat and called to him.

  "Really? You are just going to ignore me?"

  Slater turned around. "Hi, I thought you were sleeping."

  "I was not," Alex muttered and sat up straight. She was in a halter dress that was not tied properly; the strings were slipping down her neck.

  Slater pointed to it.

  She looked down and then shrugged. "My bathing suit is under this. Come and hang with me, Slater."

  Slater sighed. "Just for a while."

  He pulled up a chair beside her and sank into its folds. "I promised Tony that I would play with his band tonight at some jazz function at the Courtyard Hotel."

  "I used to go to those a lot. I love jazz." Her expression deflated. "I remember when I could go to functions and hold my head up high and bask in the adoration of random fans."

  Slater glanced at her sad expression. "You will soon be yesterday’s news."

  "No, I'll never be." Alex sighed. "All you need to do in this day and age is to type my name in any search engine and voila, Alexandra Perry Stars In Sex Tape. People have it on their phones; people are watching me right now, commenting and God knows what else."

  She sniffed. "My stupid fault for taping myself with a man who is a pig. And don't bother to tell me about the fact that I shouldn't have taped myself or I shouldn't be having sex without marriage in the first place. I heard all of that from my parents when I got the cussing of the century."