A Taste Of Sin

by Fiona Zedde

  “Hey, good-looking.” Nuria lay by the pool in her bra and panties, smoke from a cigarette curling up to the lightening sky. “What happened to your clothes? Not that your little robe isn’t cute. . . .” She laughed softly, eyeing the half a robe that left everything below the top of Dez’s thighs bare.

  “I think a naked girl stole them off me.” The water seemed suddenly very inviting, sparkling and clean in a way that she longed to be. Dez slipped out of the robe and walked to the edge of the pool. She heard Nuria’s quiet intake of breath, and she wasn’t sure if it was the muscle she’d put on since the last time her friend saw her naked, or the scratches that decorated her arms and back.

  “Someone’s been busy tonight, I see.”

  She made a noncommittal noise and dove into the water. Heaven. The warm wetness slid over her skin like a balm. For the moment, her groaning muscles quieted and the gentle noise of her journey through the water, combined with the distant sounds of the party, lulled her into a lovely half dream. Dez slid beneath the pool’s surface and floated on her back, arms and legs spread out like a starfish as she watched the crescent moon through the water’s wavering lens. She forced herself to just lay there and not heed the call of the frantic energy humming in her blood. Movement near her and the beginning burn in her lungs made her stand up and break the surface.

  “I hope you’re not trying to off yourself so soon. Half the girls in the place still have plans for you.” Sage swam close to, then past her to heave herself backward onto the edge of the pool. Water ran off her tattooed body in thin rivulets.

  “That’s the last thing you’d ever have to worry about from me, my friend.” Although now she wasn’t exactly feeling on top of the world. This time she knew it was the coke. And she wasn’t going to take another hit to make herself feel better. It was going to be a long day. All she had to do was ride it out until she felt sleep closing in on her, then that would be that. She swam backward toward Sage.

  “So what else you got to do at this party besides snort, drink, and fuck?”

  Someone was banging a drum inside her skull. There was no other explanation for the megawatt pain that made her entire body throb with hurt. Dez rolled over, relieved to see that the curtains were drawn. Beyond the thick burgundy cloth she could tell that it was daylight. And this wasn’t her house.

  She stumbled to the bathroom where she found and choked down four aspirin with tap water. With a less-than-graceful motion, she moved to turn on the shower only to stumble when a wave of nausea attacked, making her spin to the toilet and clutch its porcelain edges as she retched, bringing up her aspirin, the water, and some other liquid nastiness that had been resting in her stomach from the night before. Her head pounded even more when she was done. Christ!

  Dez sat down a little unsteadily on the toilet and waited a full ten minutes before trying for the shower again. When she was clean and dry in one of Sage’s terry-cloth robes, she took more aspirin. This time she swallowed them dry, willing herself not to gag. Downstairs, she found Sage stretched out in front of the TV with a glass of grapefruit juice balanced on her lap. The house looked freshly scrubbed and cleaned with no hint of the previous night’s party. A clock hovering above a doorway told her that it was well past five in the evening.

  “Now I remember why I don’t do that shit anymore,” Dez said, sinking into the couch beside her friend. “Next time a girl says that she can only fuck on coke, I’ll tell her to go fuck herself.”

  “Don’t front. You had a damn good time last night.” Sage turned down the sound on the National Geographic show, something about pyramids, and slid Dez’s pouting pained face a look. “Besides, it wasn’t just the coke. It was the scotch and the scotch and more coke. You gettin’ old, baby.”

  “Something. Shit.” Dez leaned back into the cool leather. “I feel like something a leper squeezed out of his asshole.”

  “There’s ginger ale and saltines in the kitchen.”

  “How much coke did you do last night, anyway?” she asked when Dez returned from the kitchen with the box of saltines and a can of Schweppes.

  “Obviously too much.” Now that her head was a bit more settled, she noticed other things, the weakening light of the sun through the open terrace doors, the sound of voices from downstairs, splashing from the pool, and the occasional sound of laughter.

  “You know that I can’t dredge up any sympathy for you, right?” Sage turned on her trademark lopsided grin. “Even wrecked you look gorgeous.”

  “Good genes.” She lifted her head weakly to see what was happening beyond the terrace doors. “What’s going on outside?”

  “Nuria and Phil are out baking by the pool. There’s someone else, too, a friend of Phil’s, but I can’t remember her name.” Then she answered the unasked question. “Rémi had to go by the club for a while. I guess she’ll be back.”

  Rémi was the only one of them who had to work these days, although she used the term lightly with her best friend. She was the owner of one of the trendiest jazz clubs in Miami. Since she hired only the best people to manage and run the place, she didn’t have to do much more than show up around town looking prosperous and promote the bar.

  Another burst of laughter floated up from the pool. With her attentions no longer focused on keeping upright or from upchucking last night’s liquid meal, Dez realized that Sage, although she wanted to be out by the pool, had stayed in the house to keep an eye on her. A distant eye, but an eye nonetheless. She even had her little swimming shorts on. For a moment she’d forgotten their system of keeping one another from dying of excess. Suddenly she didn’t feel so bad.

  “You should go out there and get a tan; you’re looking a little pale these days.” She smiled at her friend’s look. “Go ahead, I’m fine. Just pass me the remote before you go.”

  Dez sank back into the leather as Sage walked out the door, telling Dez to yell if she needed anything. Yelling was the last thing she intended to do anytime soon. But she nodded and lifted the remote.

  Chapter 6

  Heavy darkness pressed against Dez’s bedroom window. It wasn’t even dawn yet. She turned over and picked up her watch: 4:47 A.M. With sleep misted eyes she blinked up at the skylight. Claudia would be coming back today. After almost two weeks of waiting, her mother was coming back. She swallowed past the lump in her throat and closed her eyes. Go back to sleep.

  The phone rang. “Are you coming or what?” Her brother’s irritated voice yanked her from sleep. The sun was full in the sky, scattering bits of red and green and orange through the stained glass. The more sedate gold from behind her sheer curtains told her it was well past noon.

  “What time is it?” she croaked.

  “Almost one. You know that the yacht is supposed to come in at one-thirty. Why aren’t you here? Where the fuck are you?”

  “Where did you call, stupid?” She sat up and rubbed at her eyes. “I’ll be there in ten minutes, keep your pants on.”

  In four minutes she was ready, teeth brushed, face washed, and tired body dressed in jeans and a slim fitting T-shirt. Under the sunglasses, her eyes were still at half-mast, sleepy but open. Driving to her brother’s office, she scanned the streets, half expecting, even after almost two weeks in Miami, to see Ruben and Caitlyn. She dreaded that day, but also wished it would come so she could stop worrying about it. Dez called Derrick as her truck coasted to a stop outside his office building.

  “I’m here.” She leaned back in the pale gray leather seats and tried to wake up some more. The Prodigy pounding from the SUV’s stereo would at least help with that.

  She’d bought the Lexus 400h two days before at her mother’s insistence. Over the yacht’s sophisticated satellite telephone system, Claudia had managed to call her daughter, skirting the reason Dez was in Miami in the first place, to address her poor choice of vehicles. “You need a car, Desiree,” she had said on the phone. “Groceries don’t fit well on the back of a motorcycle.” Dez couldn’t argue with her on that one.
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  As a silver Firebird slid up, obviously wanting to get by her double-parked truck, Dez glanced at her watch. She was about to move when she saw Derrick walk quickly from the glass doors of Silverman, Johnson, and Meyer. With a quick flick of her wrist, she turned down the stereo and changed the CD to Sade. Her brother jogged the last few feet and jumped into the truck.

  “What happened to your AC?” Derrick asked with an annoyed glance at Dez, unbuttoning the jacket of his charcoal gray suit and throwing it in the backseat. He buckled his seat belt.

  “It’s not on.” Dez guided the truck into the light Saturday-afternoon traffic.

  “I see.”

  Dez watched from the corner of her eye as Derrick tried in vain to look comfortable in the late October heat. She turned on the air conditioner and put up three of the truck’s windows.

  “Thanks.” Derrick smoothed his tie and settled back to watch the neon Miami scenery slip by his window. After a moment he took out a folder from his briefcase and started looking through it.

  “What’s up? You look a little uptight today.”

  “Uptight?” He looked up from his paperwork with irritation. “I guess next to you anybody can seem uptight. You don’t work, you have all of Aunt Paulette’s money to wallow in, and all those girls to entertain you in case you get bored.”

  “Uh huh. Is this about your friend?”

  “My friend?”

  “You know, what’s her name . . . Victoria.”

  “Leave her alone. She’s a good woman who doesn’t need to fuck around with somebody like you.”

  “Calm down, killer. All I did was invite her to hang out with me sometime. It’s not like I’m going to fuck her hello then drop her off at the curb.”

  He made a strange noise, and then flicked his eyes contemptuously over her. “That’s not going to happen, even if that was your plan. I’d just like her to run with a higher class of friends.”

  Ouch. “All right then.” She downshifted the truck, pulling up behind a red convertible Mustang as they approached a yellow light. The driver, a sexy light-skinned woman in a dress she could have had on from the night before, looked at them through her rearview mirror. Dez doubted that she could see through the tinted windshield, but the woman adjusted her legs anyway and let the shimmering green silk fall away from her thighs. Dez revved the engine and chuckled at the seductive display. She was still smiling when the Mustang pulled away, leaving them in the proverbial cloud of dust. Dez turned her attentions back to her brother.

  “What did I ever do to you, Derrick? I don’t think I deserve any of this shit that I’m getting from you.”

  “Cut the innocent bullshit, Dez. You deserve this, and more. You run off and leave Mom like you didn’t give a shit about her, then just because you find out she’s sick you come running back like some fucking prodigal daughter.” Derrick turned to face her. “You knew that you were her favorite. You knew that she needed you, and you abandoned her.”

  “Now that is bullshit. She sure as hell didn’t need me any more than she needed you. I never abandoned Mama, and you’re delusional.”

  “Right. At least I care for Mama and let her know it by my actions as well as my words.” He made a noise of disgust. “You are a selfish bitch, Dez. You always were and apparently that’ll never change.”

  “Tell me how you really feel, big brother.”

  The truck pulled up to a high metalwork gate and she leaned out the window to give her name to the voice that crackled with distant authority from the speaker. With a well-oiled sigh, the gate slid open to let them in. Bracketed by miles of well-tended lawn and cameras masquerading as statuary, the driveway was the long and boring kind, designed to build anticipation until it propped you up on the hill where the mansion suddenly loomed in its salsa picante colors—brilliant reds, yellows, and greens—and strangely inviting ostentation. Dez bypassed the main house and navigated the truck down the small road leading to the dock at the rear of the mansion. Derrick was silent.

  Before this, they’d fought over who would pick up their mother, not with shouting matches like in the old days but with deliberate attacks of silence and looks meant to make the other feel small or guilty or generally incapable. In the grudgingly declared truce, they both won the prize of driving to the McAllister mansion to retrieve Claudia and take her back to her relatively modest four-bedroom bungalow in Coconut Grove. Dez slid her brother another look. He sat back in his seat, apparently still absorbed in his paperwork. Hard to believe that they were even related sometimes. But, unfortunately, she had the scars to prove the relation.

  It wasn’t that long ago that the four of them—Dez, Derrick, Claudia, and Warrick—used to come out to this very mansion and play with Claudia’s friends. On countless sunny days, Warrick had held Dez’s slight body as she splashed around in the water, telling her she could make it all the way down the length of the Olympic-sized pool, while her twin, their mother, and the McAllisters cheered her on. Their family of four was perfect. A successful and handsome papa, a fragile yet iron-willed beauty of a mother, and a smart twin brother who she could always borrow shorts, ties, and homework from. Then, thirteen years ago she did a double backflip and somersault out of the closet, and that was the end of that. Warrick pulled his love away from her, her mother’s frailty became more apparent, and, of course, the divorce happened.

  They pulled up to the drive of a tiny house—a cottage, really—at the rear of the mansion. It was a cozy little place, straight out of someone’s gingerbread fairy tale. Two women sat on its porch drinking what looked like lemonades. Their heads lifted to watch Dez and Derrick get out of the truck and walk toward them.

  The last of the day’s coolness had burnt away under the rays of the high noon sun. Even though it was hidden behind the much larger mansion, this little yard was lush and beautifully manicured with its abundance of multicolored bougainvillea and hibiscus exploding from every hedge. Creeping star jasmine clambered up and over the railing of the buttercup and white house. Beyond the tropical green yard and its profusion of flowers, the McAllister yacht floated, shimmering white and blue in the water, placid in her majesty and extravagant show of wealth.

  The daughter of the house—a tall elfin creature with her slenderness, slightly pointed ears, and dark curls cut close to her head—pursed her lips, then winked as Dez drew closer. Money had always bought Paj McAllister everything she’d ever wanted—a good education, beautiful toys, a life of idleness and ease. For a moment, it had even bought her Dez, trapped her happily on Paj’s long leash in awe of her freedom, her extravagant parties, and good looks. Even Aunt Paul’s overindulgence and her professional parents’ solid upper-middle-class money could never buy her an entire island to vacation on—with the accompanying servants—or a sixteenth-birthday Porsche, or Lenny Kravitz’s company on her twenty-first birthday. Dez had eventually pulled herself out of that thrall, but she still thought of Paj as beautiful and worth a long evening’s attention. Despite (or perhaps because of) a belief in her own superiority, the McAllister girl was still kind. As Dez approached, she tilted her head back, baring her slender throat and the platinum Tiffany-heart charm necklace that sat below it. Her smile was dazzling.

  “Professor Nichols said you were back, but I didn’t believe it.” Long slim legs and a curved bottom in khaki shorts flashed as she stood up to pull Dez into a quick hug. Her smell was pure sea air and the faintest hint of almond soap.

  Beyond her sat Claudia, not at all put out that her young companion and former student just called her a liar. With her legs tucked under her and her jaw resting in the bed of her cupped palm, she looked just as relaxed and youthful as her twenty-four-year-old friend. She was thin, yes, and her once-beautifully-thick hair wasn’t quite so much now. It lay in fine curls against her skull, making her look vulnerable and small.

  “Hello, loves.” She greeted her children with a slow smile.

  Paj pulled herself from Dez’s embrace. “I’ll go tell Delores and Gael t
hat you’re here.”

  She didn’t need to tell her parents anything, but she met Dez’s eyes and saw her old friend’s need for privacy. Dez turned to watch her graceful shape flounce down the stone path toward the yacht.

  “You look thin, Desiree.” Dez stirred as Claudia reached for her. “But you’re still my beautiful baby girl.” Heat bloomed in Dez’s cheeks as her mother tugged her down to the chair beside her and touched her face, flicking the sunglasses aside to look into the bruised brown gaze. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I couldn’t.” She already seemed to know what her daughter was thinking. Dez shook her head, an automatic refusal to talk about this in front of anyone, especially her brother.

  “I’m glad you’re back,” Claudia said. “Paj tells me that Jackie’s has a special on mother-daughter manicures and pedicures this week. Come with me. My treat.”

  Dez shook her head again and choked on her forced laughter. On the wind, she heard Paj’s high, carrying voice, a warning that their private time was up.

  “Sure, Mama. Whatever you want.”

  After greeting and saying good-bye to the elder McAllisters, Dez and Derrick drove off with a drowsy Claudia in the backseat. She yawned and stretched herself full out on the gray leather, gratifyingly confident in her daughter’s driving abilities. At her house, she begged to be left alone to nap in peace. Dez took her brother home with his briefcase full of paperwork, then drove back to her mother’s house where she sat on the couch near Claudia’s bed and watched her sleep.

  Chapter 7

  Claudia was forty-nine today, beautifully middle-aged, although she didn’t seem to know it. “Fifty is middle age. I am not middle aged!” Her voice rose above Derrick’s laughter.

  At eight-thirty in the morning, the house already buzzed with activity, radio playing, Claudia’s ambitious soprano accompanying the studio-recorded voice, the cheerful clanging of pots and pans in the kitchen, even Derrick’s loud and frequent laughter. Dez hugged her cup of morning coffee and took herself out of the way until she was all the way awake. That might be a few hours yet.