by Amarie Avant
The mirrors in my bedroom have been shrouded with linen and towels or whatever else I could get my hands on. The few mirrors in the downstairs living room need to be blocked, but for Dad, I attempt to stay outwardly strong.
Monday I almost forgot to come by his job with the black roses. So, I’ve been making it up to him by watching reruns of any show he can think of. Though the comedy shows can’t get through to my depressed soul, it serves its purpose. As I sat there watching them, it took everything in me to attempt a smile. God forbid I tried to laugh at the jokes, that would have been entirely too fake.
By Thursday the shop is closed for the day. The end of the week presents the most sales for my barely afloat business, but I can’t take it. So, I’ve taken to my bed in my room, even though I’m afraid of the dark, and the day is dark and stormy, I just lay there under my sheets.
It smells like rain.
It feels like death.
Shoulda closed the window. I had left it just ajar to let in fresh air for when laying in my own funk seemed to take my breath away.
Around noon, the heaven opens up and sheds tears for my broken soul. A sob begins to form at the pit of my belly.
For all of Victor’s faults, his egotistical mannerisms, he knew how to make my body cry tears of joy. He would look at me and there would be no doubt to how beautiful that I am, regardless of how long I’ve been at odds with every freckle on my body.
My body heaves and I cry. God, he even gave me the gift of my mom. I mean, Mommy-and-me in the simplest form of things. I hadn’t thought about Gina outside of preparing those black roses, until Victor. Now my tears turn to hysterical laughs and back again as I think about how Vic and I went coupon shopping.
“Lux,” Jonah speaks through the door.
I grumble, placing a hand over my mouth to stifle cries. Why didn’t he go into the office today?
“Luxury, please open up. I made breakfast earlier, just got back from a quick walk, and you haven’t eaten. How about we make peanut butter jelly sandwiches and play a card game?”
That thought makes me feel young and useless, so I hold in my shaky tone, and quickly reply, “No, I have a tummy ache.” It’s a lie. Because I can’t even recall the last time I ate. Haven’t eaten anything, my stomach, my entire body is numb since each and every nerve ending is geared toward keeping my heart afloat.
A few seconds later, he’s gone and I’m all out bawling. Hugging my pillow to my chest, as I lay in an embryo state. “Mommy, I need you.” I whisper out.
I remember when I was little and back in the Bronx. The scent of some sort of sweets would be wafting through the air. It would be just enough to remove me from my sadness, whether it was James in elementary school that didn’t like anything about Maria or me in middle school that made fun of all my freckles. To think, sadness warranted the end of the world back then.
Today I’m living through the apocalypse.
My phone begins to vibrate on the side dresser. My body is too heavy with sadness to move. Burrrrr….burrrr… it shakes and rattles. It hits the floor with a thud, and I place my pillow over my head to drown out all noises as the rain presents a soft tranquil affect against my window.
A while later a melody interweaves through the window, calling my name. NO, it is literally calling out to me.
“Luxury... Luxury… Luxury…” That actually sounds like the trio of singers who often gather outside the shops around the area. Yeah, that has to be them. Now, I do toss coins into their guitar case when I have change and sometimes a few dollars when they’re singing one of my jams. Not enough for this special treatment.
The singing gets louder and couples well with the drumming of the rain outside, but my heart is hurt, and I’m determined to not be bothered.
“What!” I start to get up. A chill zips through my body, as my bare feet touch the ground. I quickly slide them into my fuzzy slippers, and huddle in my pajamas. I step to the window and look down. Peering through the ugly rainy haze. Within the folds of them is Victor, standing there in the rain, looking up three stories and waiting.
It showers down on him in torrents. “Luxury!” he shouts upon seeing me.
Instantly, I shot back into the darkness of my room. “Go away.” I cup my hand to my mouth and am surprised that I brushed my teeth this morning, must be the routines of it all after peeing.
Then I lift my arm. Hey, not too shabby. But still I haven’t taken a shower since yesterday.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” I shout down, still too shy to show my face. Finally, the music gives way, and the singers silently listen.
“Luxury, come down or I’m coming up.”
At least he gave me two choices.
“Give me 10,” I snap and close my window.
I kick off my close, as I go to the bathroom and turn on the shower. Two minutes should be just enough for the water and soap to hit my hot spots. As I get in, I sob at how ridiculous I’m being. Why am I cleaning for him? Why am I going above and beyond the call for a man who hasn’t done the same for me?
Victor
How do I tell my little that I’ve have fallen for her.
No, not love. Never. Addition. A must.
“I think about you entirely too much. You consume me, Lux.” The words fly from my mouth as soon as the front door opens, and I look down at her. I’ve never been so out of control in my life, but what I’ve said is true.
Luxury has on these pair of jeans that cling to her soft, sensual curves. A magenta knit sweater leaves her left shoulder, bare and vulnerable.
“Yeah, right.” Her eyes move away from mine as if she's holding onto some shred of sanity. That’s okay, for the moment, I’m content with just the fact that Doctor Whitson is nowhere in sight in the spacious living room.
Luxury's ass mesmerizes me as she starts up the stairs. Without words, I close the front door, lock it, and follow her. Luxury’s bedroom is a crisp chilly coolness as if the windows have been open. She takes to the opposite side of her bedroom, seemingly more interested in picking up and holding a curly haired teddy bear from her dresser than talking to me.
“I want to have you anytime of the day and night, Little One.” I part the room in seconds, stepping toward my lady. My thumb softly grazes her chin, pulling Luxury’s eyes back up to me. When she looks everywhere but at me, I take to lifting her to eye level, my holding her at the waist. Hello Kitty house shoes dangling in the air.
“Luxury!”
“No, I get it, Vic. I went hard on you. Asked you about kids. Said I loved you for Christ Sake!” She finally looks at me with tears in her amber eyes. “Victor, we’ve only known each other 28 days. The next thing on my mind would have been proposal on day 82. Me. Stooping so low to propose to a man when I didn't even have much self-esteem when we met! You do something to me and I don’t like it. Not one bit! So, it’s good that you got ghost, now put me down and step off. Okay, asshole?”
“As you wish.” I set her down, tossing her hair. “But know this, Luxury, you are the most beautiful site ever. When God created you all the 7 wonders ceased to exist. Trust me I've seen them all.”
“No, Victor,” she treads her fingers over the foot of the bedpost. “You're just saying it.”
“You don't believe me?” I ask, hoping that my questioning will make Lux forget trying to get me to leave.
“Your very presence makes me believe that roses are peonies.” She scoffs at the absurdity.
I rub a hand across my face. Then sneeze.
“You're cold?” Luxury displays a fraction of worry, and then realizes she should be angry with me.
“I feel not, Lux, because you've denied me,” I reply drily.
“Don't get all romantic. When you're the one who wouldn't take my calls.” Her hand goes to her hips. “I don’t want you anymore. You’ve made me crazy enough so just let me go.”
Damn, have the tables turned? First female I’ve ever chased. And first female to dismiss me? My confidence shoots to
shit as I ask, “We're done?”
“We haven't even lifted off Vic. Go back where you came from. When I want to fuck, maybe I’ll text you, so then you’ll be sure to reply instead of the uncertainty of me waiting for you to answer my calls.”
My hands go to the top of my head, as I stare at this unyielding woman. Arlington is calling. Lux has a front as hard and high as the Great Wall of China. I don’t even need a fleet of risk assessors at D’Ross Enterprise to determine which course to take.
Luxury is high risk, with what would be high rewards if she just gave me that smile, or even looked at me again like she loves me.
What I have at home? Low risk all across the board… Today I’m not up for a challenge.
I start back down the stairs and can see Whitson hurrying by. He had to be somewhere near when Luxury let me in. He huffs, realizing his snooping has come to an end.
Then he asks, “Do you care about my daughter?”
“Yes.” I don't even skip a beat.
“Where are you going, then?”
“You told me to leave her be. Lux just told me to leave her alone.” Damn, I chuckle at that. For me, commanding a woman comes easy. All because I can read what their body needs. Lux’s body is radiating hate, and commanding me to fuck off.
“You look like a man that will fight for what he wants,” Whitson glares me up and down, “So why not–”
“Daddy!” Lux shoots from the tip of the stairs. “You told Victor to stop talking to me?”
I want to tell her it's more complicated than that, but she hurries down, hands on her hips. I begin to take up for the old guy, “Wait, it's not–”
“No, Vic.” She turns to her father. All the anger that was geared toward my abandoning her has now set its claws on Whitson. “Daddy, why? I'm not a child!”
Whitson’s hands go up in defense, “I just think you deserve better than what he can give.”
“What he can give?” she repeats in that cheeky tone that is so sexy to me.
“Well, yes,” Whitson begins in a stutter. “Honestly, I just don’t think your personality types mesh well.”
“Let's go, Victor,” she says, grabbing her purse from the side table. “I want to leave, now!”
I take a deep breath and notice that the look on her face mirrors mine from the past. Whitson doesn’t know my identity, but his instincts tell him that I’m a risk to Luxury. Riskier than D’Ross Enterprises acquisition of the faultiest business. If I take to this girl, and become that rock she needs at this moment, Lux will have required certain expectations. Then there will be no going back.
Lux
I can't believe Dad still treats me like a child. First, he's against my location for Urban Gardens. He wants to take over everything. My body is tense with irritation as we step outside. Victor tries to take up for my father again.
“You know, it’s been just you and him for a while,” Victor rationalizes.
“I don’t want to talk about or even think about Daddy right now,” I snap, mashing on the elevator button.
As soon as we step on, Victor bestows that mind-blowing kiss on my lips and says that he's going to change any thoughts I've ever had of the rain.
“No matter how much you enjoyed the rain pre-Arnold, and hated it after him.” Victor says, “When it rains, you’ll always think of me.”
Even though my smile is bright again, I just cling to it. No matter how confident Victor is or how good his words sound, this promise doesn’t sit right with me. Always think of him...
No, I don’t want to just think of Victor. I want to be with Victor 24/7. Something about the statement leaves me wanting to cry even more. This only implies that distance and time will become a factor in this intense love I have for him.
“Luxury? Are you thinking?” he asks in this scolding tone. Light shimmies through the elevator bars and reflects off the strong God-crafted angles of his face, as we make our descent.
I bite my lip as we step out. “Well...”
“Stop it.” He picks up an umbrella that was leaning against the elevator and opens it with the same suaveness of the great Fred Astaire. Instantly, the tips of my mouth tip upwards even more almost soaring toward my eyes. I've never smiled so hard, so I have to look away and laugh.
My next thought is to tell Victor I love him a billion times. But I'll just take it slow. He takes my hand, holding the umbrella up with the other, and we step past the wrought iron gate, and towards his Mercedes that's barely squeezed in a parking spot.
As the rain pounds the top of the umbrella, Victor reaches over and opens the passenger’s door to let me in.
“Her royal highness.” He waves a hand as I start to get in.
“Not funny,” I still begin to laugh. Victor is rarely corny, but for the moment, his dominating presence is at bay as he jogs around the car to get into the driver’s seat. I’m guessing he really has made it his mission for me to enjoy this rainy day.
Doesn’t he know that it’s him? Not the rain that I seek?
The Mercedes purrs to life.
“Oh goodness,” I reply as he slowly inches back and forth trying to get out of a tight spot.
“Can you do better?” Victor challenges.
“Okay, Mr. Competitive.” My hand comes up to hide my silent giggles, as an old Caprice is behind him, but a Smart car is probably what came and squeezed the Benz in. “You know what, Vic. I can’t do any better at all. You would get the best of me regardless of the fact. Because I can't drive.”
Victor turns, looking at me like if I've lost my mind. I bust up laughing. Why does he put me in this calming, bubbly state, but still exude mystery and ... Something almost akin to fear?
“I'll have to teach you one day,” Vic confidently replies, finally getting out of the tight spot only to be stuck in traffic.
“One day?” My eyebrows arch. But my heartbeat is erratic at the thought that the past and present gift of him will become a future melody.
“Yes.”
Turning in my seat, I watch him. In such a luxurious car, Victor still commands attention. I remember thinking he was a model when we met. Nah, he probably couldn't even get a gig. The product would never be better than the inhabitant. Unless the agent was in the business of selling clones that looked just like Vic. Nothing could touch Victor’s allure.
“Vic, where are you taking us? We just left the rain for the car. So, I could sit here and enjoy us inching through traffic forever, in this car, but it will automatically bias my opinion and loathing of rain.”
“Don't worry. By tomorrow you will think of rain as cozy again. And even better than that, since I want to be your first thought. You will think of me first.”
I sigh as my reply. Victor doesn't even know the half of it. He’s none the wiser about how much his essence consumes my thoughts.
Victor
It’s late afternoon. We begin walking to Central Park. Wind rustling through the leaves, and bright green trees shedding out most of the rain. Though one dreary day that could only make a depressed person gloomier. My little one is by my side, cozying up in my arms. The Umbrella shields us from much of the rain, but still Luxury radiates from the internal warmth. Our breaths fog out before us. Lux has this air about her now as if no sadness about the past can touch her.
I'm tempted to find this Arnold guy and torture him in the worst of ways. And then kill him of course. First, I need my team to find Doctor Charles Everhart her mother’s murderer and the requestor of her father’s hit.
Murdering anyone that has ever done my little one wrong is at the top of my mind. If I had known her from the start, Luxury would never have doubts about how precious she is.
“What are you thinking, Dr. Finch?”
As Luxury says that name, not my name, I want to tell Luxury my true identity.
Can she handle it? I've considered bringing her into my world. That would require her to... For the first time I'm not confident in my own musing. Luxury deserves better than what I can
offer.
But what am I to deny her the truth. “Lux, there's something I need to tell–”
“Vic! Look!” She shakes my arm and smiles. The pale colors of reds and blues and oranges soar across the sky.
“What a beautiful rainbow,” Lux says.
The soft patter of the rain against the umbrella top has stopped. The sky is open wide, boasting an unfamiliar sight.
Wow, I've never really looked up. I mean looked up at the sky in this way. The sky reflects the ocean in a tropical paradise, and I've enjoyed my share.
“Kiss me, Vic,” she leans on her tippy toes.
I bend down. My lips take to her soft silky ones. Then allow my tongue to delight in Lux’s sweet mouth.
“You are the best,” she says. Within her champagne colored eyes, Luxury tells me she loves me without uttering a single word.
That makes me uncomfortable again. I've never considered a woman's needs. Yes, I give them their heart’s desires and their version of needs. But no. I can't start now. “Luxury let's get changed.”
We end up at Burberry. The greeter knows me by name. It was the first place I came to upon arrival to New York. I quickly deter the blonde from calling me D’Ross. “Attend to my lady.”
“Yes, sir.” The attendant’s eyes change from wishful to jealousy since, we’ve flirted in the past.
“Pick something olive green,” I reply and head to the men's area to give the attendant my sizes. Then I feel Luxury following me. I turn around and look down at her.
“Victor uhhh...” Luxury begins. “I have only a few raindrops on the bottom of my jeans, I don’t need–”
Instead of replying, I point to the dress that she will wear. The female attendant heads for it.
“Oh, wow, it's beautiful, but… Vic this place is,” Lux comes closer and whispers, “expensive.”
“Do you want me to pick your shoes, too?” I ask.
Luxury huffs and followed the blond again who is just so stumped that my lady isn't pointing to everything in the store.
