by Sunniva Dee
Her smile is back, and she bobs her head with him. “Definitely. Especially if you can save an important piece of nature with it.”
I inhale, opening my mouth to object, but Ciro nudges me gently.
“Yeah? I think I heard tigers on my way up the stairs?”
“Yes!” She beams.
“Cool. China?”
“Yep!” Mom is so happy, and this is getting worse and worse. I want to cry. What, do I have to drop everything and fly after her to Guangdong next? It’s like having a grownup child who’s lost her senses.
“Did you get a job in a zoo there, maybe?”
“No, I’m going to help them find and mark tigers in the wild.”
“Wow, I didn’t even know they were out there. Thought all of them were in the zoos.”
Where is he going with this?
I tense up again, but Ciro squeezes my arm. I suffocate the growl in my throat.
“No, someone saw a tiger, maybe even several out there in Guangong!” Mom’s exclamation points are back. Great.
“That’s amazing. Then of course they need experts out there. Is that what you are? Are you contracted to one of those organizations to help hunt them down?”
“Not yet. I will, though, once I get there. I’m very sensitive. I tend to calm animals just by being around them.” She tips her chin up like she has something to prove. It doesn’t rock Ciro’s calm demeanor.
“That’s great. I bet they need that if they catch one. English-speaking organizations? Or you probably speak Chinese already.” He nods, encouraging her.
“Not yet... I will as soon as I get there, though. Learn Chinese, I mean. Maybe the first couple of weeks while I look for a job.” She crosses her arms at us. “I just really need to get there as soon as possible before they’re all extinct!”
“I understand. As long as you have a buffer savings account and a few friends there to hang out with while you look for work, you should be golden. How exciting for you.”
“Mom. What friends do you have in the Guangong province?” I ask it in my quietest, least defensive voice.
Her gaze flickers. She picks the dragon tea bag out of her cup and drops it into the sink. “Not many yet.”
“Any at all?” I press.
“Baby, I’m sure she has some friends there.” Ciro’s words are low and supposedly meant for me only, but I’m onto his game now. I bite my lip, keeping my relief under control.
“I’ll find some online.”
“Good idea,” Ciro nods, thanking yes to her new offer of tea. “Some Chinese language skills, a few friends, a job, and a financial buffer in a new, poor country and you’ll be fine. I’m excited for you.”
We spend most of Sunday helping Mom unpack.
13. DOOM
Monday, we spent with my mother too. Before I knew it, Tuesday arrived and Ciro had to leave for his London gig. When he’s here and only gone during my work hours, I don’t ponder his life outside of us, but now I’m trying to keep my mind off pending doom.
Scenarios breed in my head. My imagination is too vivid, and Frieda’s dirty mind doesn’t ease my worries either. This absence would have been so much easier if we’d watched his damn movies.
Last weekend though. I go soft inside thinking of how he turned my mother around without causing a fight. I think that small changes in one’s life might not be so bad, just the small ones, like getting a boyfriend that supports and helps you. Like applying to a community college that’s all but next door and doesn’t cost any money and not much time. I enroll in one class. And I feel good about it.
Mom is still determined to help the Panthera Tigris survive, but for now she’s working from afar, learning more about the organizations and getting likeminded friends via the internet. She’s starting a local fundraiser too, and she’s ordered a Chinese language course off Amazon.
“She’ll snap out of it,” Ciro assured me when I worried about it. “I have a friend like that. She seems very impulsive, but I bet the wind will go out of her if the preparations require too much time and effort.”
“Yeah. Most of her decisions have been spur-of-the-moment and pretty easy to execute. I hope you’re right.”
He smiled and kissed my temple in one of his signature moves. “Yeah, this one’s harder to do. If she needs more obstacles, there’s sort of a TOEFL-test-style Chinese exam you can take to really know if you’re on the right track. She’d have to go to San Francisco for it, and they offer it only twice a year. Then, of course, there’s the visa thing.”
We shared a glance, and I felt my mouth hike high on one side. “Does this make us evil?”
“Does it make us lifesavers?”
“I love you.” It was relief, a response to the weekend and everything before. I didn’t mean to say it out loud, but the effect it had on Ciro was worth every syllable.
The man is strong. He hoisted me up so fast I gasped, folded me over his shoulder, and stalked to his bedroom. There, he dropped me onto sheets still rumpled from our early morning, and prowled up over me.
“You love me?” he murmured, gaze locking mine, scorching and only interrupted by the shirt he rolled off over my head.
“I guess.”
He kissed his way from my mouth, down my throat to my chest. Then he freed my boobs, warm hands pressing around them.
“You guess?” A hot whisper against my ear. “I’ll need a little more than that.”
He took an excruciatingly long break from my skin, searing me with his look while he waited. I squirmed, arms open and hyper-inviting.
“Please?”
“You need something from me?” No touch. Just a hard nudge of his hardness against my pelvis. He leaned in again, breathing against my ear. “I want something from you too.”
“I’ll give it to you...”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Say it then.”
God, him rocking against me like that. I scissored my legs around him, squeezing him to me with a shudder.
“Please take me?”
“I love you. I love you. I love you, Savannah.”
My heart stabbed. My freaking womb contracted. And then I moaned repeating my own words for him too. “I love you.”
“I love you,” he countered.
“I love you.”
“I love you.”
“Ah you’re crazy! Stop saying it.” But my smile didn’t want it to stop. “I’ve told you tons of times now. It’s a done deal.”
“Done deal. Hmm. I think I love your done deals too.”
I was his toy to wind up until he had me insane with desire. He loved me, killed me slowly, slowly until small howls escaped me. By the time he wrapped me in a robe and seated me in the kitchen for a snack, it was past bedtime.
It’s been three days since he left.
I have a photo of him on my phone.
I know what to do with it.
He’s an actor. He makes films. All I need is to Google his photo, and I’ll get that artist name he doesn’t want to give me.
So much secrecy. Deep down I know why. The news that photo will bring me will be terrible, and I’m a dunce for not accepting the writing on the wall when it’s scribbled in black, sloppy italics all around me, yeah—dunce.
I should upload it to Google.
It’s so easy.
Ciro has rented a yacht for the weekend, and he’s paid off Il Signore to have me come along as his personal waitress. My boss knows we’re together, I’m sure. He also loves my boyfriend’s restaurant tip every time he orders out.
I’m on my bed after a long night shift at Mintrer’s, cell phone in hand and his beautiful, smiling picture open in my photo album. He looks at me like he thinks I’m the world. He looks at me like this photo is for me and I’d never betray him. He looks at me w
ith love in his eyes.
He’ll be back on Thursday. It’s only four more days. What are four days when we have three indescribable months behind us? I owe it to him to wait.
I make his photo into my screensaver.
“I’ve made my mistakes,” Ciro said. “I want to do it right with you.”
At this point, I’m in so deep I need to be a part of doing it right too.
That twinge telling me I’m naive has grown with time. But there’s a bigger part of me aware of how Ciro has made me slide. He chose me. He chased me. He caught me.
My own hunt has been for perennial ice, never, never for my tomorrow. I know it’s not right. I know it’s not normal for a twenty-something. But I won’t judge me for Status Quo when I’ve sustained my goal all this time: I’ve kept my mother happy and alive, and I know for a fact that I’m the only thing anchoring her down.
Irrational and impractical, she’s always up there, always flying. She’d have no qualms with blowing her existence into pieces for the cause du jour, but despite the angst she causes, my mother is the kindest human I’ve ever known.
She doesn’t judge a person by appearance, by culture, by looks, or status. No, my mom will not accept bad in a person until it’s been shown by action that’s been repeated over and over. “People’s pasts set different standards in their lives, see?”
I fall asleep. I wake up thinking of him with Silk. Even a single scene for a lot of money isn’t worth it to my heart, and it makes me curl in on myself.
Are you sleeping? I text via Facebook, because phone is expensive to Europe.
Hey, BB. It’s five a.m. here.
Sorry. Why’s your phone on, then?
Because of my baby girl. <3
My heart inflates.
Do you love me? I can’t help typing.
I love you so much I’d haul the moon down for you.
Haha, no need.
And you? Do you still love me? No crazy wannabes trying to take you from me at Mintrer’s?
No. I <3 you too. You’re my only wannabe.
Good. I’d have to kick some asses first thing.
I love his hearts and his smiley-faces.
It’s easy to sleep after them.
I started walking Mr. Dakapoulous’ dogs weeks before I met Ciro, so it shouldn’t be hard to remember their names. The braindead part of me developed later. Still—
Daisy? Dolly? Dixie?
The male is Ralph, I think. Or Rough. It would be awkward to ask, so I call them sweet nicknames whenever Mr. D. is present. Then I use whatever names on them in the dog park. I’ve taken to picking up Princess on my way there. She’s fine with the little ones, treating them like they’re babies.
“Hey!” a voluptuous blonde with the cutest little mini dress calls out to me this morning. A Chihuahua dances behind her. Strangely, it’s not overfed, just extravagantly dressed in a bejeweled, pink bikini.
“Hey, what’s up?” I greet her, and she tiptoes over to me.
“Your pooches are adorable.” She smiles, naturally beautiful with enhanced lips and boobs, which is more norm than uncommon in this neck of the woods.
“Oh, they’re not mine. I walk them for friends,” I shorten the story.
“That’s not Princess, is it?” She squints. “Is that Ciro Silveira’s baby?”
My heart skips. She’s the first person I’ve met who knows of him.
“Yes, this is Ciro’s Princess.” I pet her soft, muscular shoulder.
There’s something familiar about this chick. I don’t recall having seen her at Mintrer’s, and I don’t do much outside of my duties. Is she in a blockbuster? No, she doesn’t look blockbusterish. Maybe she was in some B-film Sam and I watched as beta-testers over at the mall. “Are you a friend of his?”
“Oh, goodness!” She wrings her hands excitedly, showcasing an amazing set of long, bubble-gum pink nails. “Are you the girl who was with Ciro at the Santa Barbara Castello a few weeks ago?”
“Yeah, I was there.”
Her voice. It’s high-pitched but smooth. Is she the girl from the convertible?
“He loves that place even though I don’t think he’s been there much since Silk.”
“Right, his ex-wife.”
This beautiful girl and Ciro could be ex-lovers too, and I don’t want to picture that. I sit down to pet Daisy/Dolly/Dixie. Princess instantly hips her way in between us and swings toward me so she can overpower me with a few licks.
The girl sits down next to me, ignoring how her Chihuahua stirs up diva-trouble with a German Shepherd by a cluster of trees across from us. She sticks out a hand and shakes mine. “I’m Ana, by the way. I’m a friend of Ciro’s.”
She lifts delicate shoulders in a small shrug. “I miss that man. We don’t hang out much these days. We still work together occasionally, but Ciro’s over the clubbing and all that, so yeah. What’s your name?”
“Savannah. Nice to meet you.” I smile too.
Happy, she lets her eyes run over my face. “We’ve been wondering about you. Especially the girls, you know. When Irene and I saw you at the Castello, we were like, yass, because Ciro’s a gem you don’t find often, you know what I mean?” She bobs her head. “So, are you his girlfriend? I told my friends it wasn’t a fling if he took you to Santa Barbara. He’d never take you there unless he knew you were worth it.”
Princess tips me over. Ana and I both laugh, and she lends me a hand and helps me back on my feet. “Yeah, we’re together,” I tell her. I have so many questions—she’s worked with him. She knows him. “You guys go way back?”
“We do! Ever since I got into the business, and that’s”—she twists her mouth, thinking—“seven years ago? I was seventeen at the time and worked with Ciro in my very first film. He was so sweet and supportive. You never feel dumb around him. I’d ran away from home, and he even insisted that I go back and finish high school instead. I couldn’t though. Stepdads, ya know.” She grimaces as if we share a past full of them and I should know.
“I don’t see him much these days, except when he works for the studio I’m contracted with. But back when, he even put me up in one of his guestrooms until I got on my feet. If it weren’t for him, I’d probably have been partying and sleeping on couches for ages.” She breaks out laughing like this is funny.
“Wow.” I hook Princess back on her leash. Call for Ralph and Dolly. “Ciro’s off on location again now.”
“Oh right! He got a killer gig, I heard, with Malcolm Jax.”
Malcolm Jax
“What’s the name of the movie again?” She snaps her fingers. “It’s one of those with a lot of depth to them.”
I blink. I don’t know how to take that statement. As if shallow movies are the norm? She must notice my confusion, because she continues, “I’m just a lowly performer, you know what I mean? Usually shorter films, sometimes just scenes. I’m not really an awesome actress either, unlike Ciro, who kicks ass. He’s literally the best at everything he does.”
“Cool,” I manage.
“Damn, but how about his voice? Once he retires, he should do voice-acting. I’ve told him before.” She shuts her eyes and lets out a little moan. It’s lower pitched than her own voice, and for a moment it’s like she’s copying my boyfriend in bed!
I stare, hands frozen around the dog leashes. When her gaze meets mine again, it’s so everyday-innocent there’s no way I interpreted that right. I open my mouth to answer but close it again, stunned.
“Seriously, you should talk him into that once he’s tired of the big money. Voice-acting. Hell, he could do Martin fucking Scorsese movies with that voice of his. So sexy, right?” She grins and winks at me. “But London Heat will be a good film for his career. Markus Antonovich is a great director—so detail-oriented. I’ve never had the honor of working for him, of course. The guy is se
lective as heck. It’ll be another giant step up for Ciro, though, and before you know it, he’ll be a household name all over. World dominance, right?” She lifts a small fist and shakes it playfully in the air as I retreat backwards to the exit.
London Heat.
Malcolm Jax.
Markus Antonovich.
It’s going to be hard not to play with my computer tonight.
Ciro will be home in three days, and the hours grind forward like snails. I don’t need idle thoughts, and of course it’s the one night of the year we’re dismissed from work due to construction in the kitchen.
I drag my feet in the front door with a bag of chips in my hands. Frieda and Charlotte aren’t home, but I hear the guys in the Gross Dungeon. Lin’s tenor laughter rings out, and Sam’s darker chuckle blends with it. Johnny from across the street plods out of the kitchen holding a few dewy longnecks.
“Hey, Savannah, watcha doin’?”
“Nothing much.” I pass him and drop the bag of chips on the counter. Then I open bored, empty palms at him. He holds out a beer.
“Come downstairs then. We’re watching movies.” He waggles his brows, and I roll my eyes.
“As in romantic comedies, I assume?”
“Yep, you’ve got it. We’re laughing.” As he says it, Lin cracks up again. “Seriously, you should come down and check it out. This one’s so romantic they’re heading to the moon, and man, a lot happens on that spaceship.”
“Shit, did you even see that? I’m so trying that on Amanda!” someone yells downstairs. “Dude, rewind.”
Oh geez. Poor Amanda, whoever she is. I’m happy that wasn’t Sam’s voice.
“Come on. Don’t be shy. You’re bored anyway.” Johnny swats me forward. I guess it can’t hurt for a moment, especially if they’re rewinding to something that even shocks the guys. Hopefully, curiosity doesn’t kill cats.
The basement is a transformed garage. The door has been taken out and replaced by brick, and our landlord thought a light fluorescent green was an appropriate color for the walls. His leftover couches form a haphazard U-shape, and a small coffee table stands in front of the TV. Being that the Gross Dungeon is boy territory by default, the table and floor around it is usually littered with bottles and glasses.
