“Everything all right, D’Becca?”
In unison, Rawn and D’Becca looked to the voice in the invisible night.
“Oh, hi, Charlotte. How was your Thanksgiving?”
“Went to Everett. And yours?”
“Lovely. Thank you.”
D’Becca rushed inside the townhouse. In one swift sequence, she tossed her keys into a crystal bowl and dropped her BeBe and Barneys New York shopping bags to the foyer floor. With a harsh sigh, she peeled off her jacket.
“Where have you been?” she shouted. “I called you,” she fussed loudly. “Did you forget that we were going to shop and see a film? How inconsiderate, Rawn—damn!” She planted her hands on her hipbones.
“I went to Pacific Place, but I didn’t see you.”
She stared at him for a few seconds before she started to walk out of the foyer, half-stumbling, saying, “Please!” beneath her breath.
“Are you going to walk away while we’re having a conversation?”
D’Becca stopped at the arched doorway that led to her grand living room. “Conversation?” She chuckled.
“What’s the problem, D’Becca?”
“What’s the problem?” She walked into the living room while Rawn remained at the entrance. “You’re the problem!” She combed her fingers through her hair; D’Becca could feel that her equilibrium was way off. I had one too many. “What are we doing? Huh, Rawn?”
He looked genuinely confused. “What do you mean?”
“Us? What are?…Are we?…Never mind.”
Rawn was in doubt as to what he should do. He was still distracted by what went down at Tamara’s. There was Sicily. No way could he ever tell her what happened, and for various reasons. But it had not occurred to him that what happened at Tamara’s would in any way affect D’Becca. He tried to open his mouth to say something—anything! Still, his words would not budge.
“I care about you, D’Becca.”
“You care?”
“Yeah.” Rawn watched D’Becca wear a similar expression Janelle had worn when he used that very same word—care—with his ex-fiancée.
“You never told me you were once engaged.”
Rawn managed not to expose his surprise. She must have talked to Sicily.
“What else haven’t you told me, Rawn? Since you care about me.”
“D’Becca…” he exhaled in frustration.
“Am I just some—some curiosity to you?”
Sicily could get a little free with her mouth when she had a few. Obviously, D’Becca and Sicily met up earlier and had some sort of bonding afternoon; a lot of drinking was involved, and at the same time, he and Tamara were—whatever they were doing. What happened at Tamara’s today had nothing to do with him and D’Becca. Sicily, if she were to find out, would be wounded. It’s between you and me. No matter how awkward it would make him feel in Sicily’s presence, Rawn was going to have to live with that.
“Are you even listening to me, Rawn?”
“Yeah,” he said in a voice that lacked conviction. “I’m listening.”
D’Becca, a good four feet away, saw something in his eyes she had not seen before. Something had changed. It showed in the way he was now treating her. His face was guarded and cold. While she was out of town, something happened, or it was about the evening they spent at Sicily’s. They were not the same. Her feelings were stronger than his; she could see that now.
“Good night, Rawn.”
She bypassed him; he reached for her. “D’Becca, wait!”
“Let go of me. Leave!” she argued.
“D’Becca…”
She slapped him good across the face, and Rawn, shocked, reached for his cheek. He was not exactly sure what to do. “What’s wrong with you?” he fussed.
“Get out!” she shouted.
“D’Becca, what?…”
“Get the hell out!” She yelled at the top of her lungs, “Get ouuut! Damn you, get out of my house!”
When he closed the door behind him, he locked eyes with D’Becca’s neighbor returning to her townhouse from walking her dog. The Doberman pinscher barked ferociously at Rawn. It took several ongoing loud barks before the neighbor told the dog to “shush.”
“Good evening,” he said.
She stared at him for several quiet moments—a look of criticism on her face—before she said in a tight voice, “Good evening.”
• • •
D’Becca sat at the top of the staircase, her face buried in her trembling hands. It was no mistaking, she told herself. Although it happened without her realizing it, she was in love with Rawn. Troy had asked her just the day before: “Where is this going, Becca?” For so long she did not use a title to define the man in her life. She never once thought of Rawn as anything other than a man she felt comfortable being with. When, how did she lose herself to him?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
For many years, the tree at Rockefeller Center represented everlasting joy in Imani’s mind. Yet while she stood watching the sun breaking through soft clouds, she did not feel the same connection to the Rock’s ambiance; not as she did when she was a child. Am I too jaded? With such passion, she loved ice skating and spending time with Dante, and to sip hot cocoa while they strolled along the energetic streets, observing tourists shopping at the high-end stores. Although he traveled a great deal and he was always on the road, when Imani was a child, Dante made it a point to be home for the holidays. In every city he played, he sent her a postcard, and Imani would wait with bated breath for each one to arrive in the mailbox. When she was in her first year of college, she met someone that reminded her of Dante. Not physically, but in spirit. Even though things did not work out between them, she searched for the same qualities in that man from her sophomore year in every man she would meet. She could not forget how she trusted him, and he listened to Imani. The thing that touched her deeply was how attentive he was toward her. Like Dante.
So it came as a surprise even to Imani that she chose Blaine, and fell so hard for him. With dark and stunning good looks, she met him at a rooftop bar when he was in his last year at Princeton. She was twenty-nine and he was twenty-six. While she admired him working as a model to pay his way through an Ivy League university, something about his marketing briefs did not sit well with Imani. Especially since the advertisement was plastered on every other bus, bus stop, and taxi in the city, not to mention on a billboard in the heart of Times Square. Kenya said she was being judgmental, and perhaps she was biased, although unconsciously. Therefore she put her narrow-mindedness on reserve and began going out with him. Looking back now, she cannot believe how gullible she was, and it made her heart ache years later reminiscing their time together. When they began dating, a woman he had once been romantically involved with lived with Blaine. He told Imani he was helping her out, and that they were “just friends.”
Imani thought about those postcards Dante sent her a lot lately. When she purchased her Seattle houseboat, the first thing she did, with a bottle of wine at her side, was to lay out hundreds of postcards on the floor and carefully selected dozens and spent hours making a collage. The next morning she headed for Aaron Brothers and purchased a 36-by-48-sized frame. For weeks it was the only thing she had in her houseboat: a collage of postcards from every corner of the world hanging on her bare wall. After leaving New York and Blaine, she wanted Seattle to be a new beginning. When it came to men, the postcards were like Imani’s anchor. They reminded her not to settle for good looks and unadulterated charm. Nothing good, she knew in the pit of her soul, ever came out of falling for a man when his looks and charm carried a girl away and made her lose all sense of basic logic.
With her eyes pressed shut, Imani breathed the thought: I miss you so much. She did her very best to bite back tears. She wanted to be strong; still, she felt the sadness and loss of her father so deeply. Since her mother’s death, she had leaned on Dante more than she realized. His death brought that to mind. Naturally, when someone dear passed on, sud
denly there was so much to share. Things left unsaid for years were bold and fierce in the mind, and desperate to be expressed. While she and Dante were very close, it was her mother who was there all the days and weeks and sometimes months Dante was not. Something her sister, Kenya, never quite understood—Imani too was an abandoned child.
Blaine advised her to go back to Seattle. He would keep tabs on the investigation of Dante’s death, and inform her right away of each and every new lead. He promised. Imani would be physically in Seattle, and would make an effort to begin her healing process. Yet her mind, her heart, her spirit would die a slow death in misty, hazy Seattle. The only person she felt closest to was Jean-Pierre, but she missed Trouble something crazy. Still, she needed to stay in New York and be a face for Dante. While she trusted that the NYPD was taking his death quite seriously, her staying in New York and being close to the investigation was something Imani needed to do. The detectives assigned to his case gave them hope; still, Imani and Kenya looked at them with skepticism. While he might have been a popular musician and notable public figure, Dante was likewise controversial. He had been very outspoken about nearly everything that just pissed him off—Vietnam and America’s racial injustice throughout the seventies, apartheid in South Africa in the eighties, to only name a few. From their respective television sets, Imani and Kenya, while growing up over four hundred miles apart, watched their father being handcuffed and sent off to jail.
“Hey!”
Imani looked around and found Blaine holding Dean & DeLuca. “No foam.” He winked.
She reached for the cup and put effort into something close to resembling a smile, but Blaine, more than any other man except Dante, knew her too well. She sipped through the opening of the cup’s lid. “When do you drive back up?”
“I want to get back before dark. So, soon. I’ll come down next weekend. In the meantime, try to go through Dante’s things. I know it’ll be difficult, but it’ll also help.”
“It’s been too emotional to even consider looking at his finances, his will…Kenya’s good at this kind of stuff. I’m letting her handle all of Dante’s business affairs.”
“She went back to Toronto?”
Imani sipped her espresso. “She’ll be back Friday.”
“Will you be okay all alone in this city that doesn’t know how to sleep?” Blaine swallowed, touched by the woe her father’s death produced in Imani. He gazed at her taking in the cold morning, and he could tell she did not want to be alone.
“I can continue to go through all the letters and cards and notes we received. It really helps to read the love perfect strangers had for Dante. Kenya and I decided to respond to every single one, no matter how long it takes.”
For a little while, silence played between them.
“Blaine?” She squinted to look up at him. While it was a frigid late morning in New York, a glacial sun filled the lively streets.
He looked into her soulful eyes. “What?”
“I forgive you.”
Since Dante’s death, Blaine had been guarded and wary in Imani’s presence. He never knew one minute to the next what Imani would say to him; confusing her grief over Dante with her longstanding anger at him. And if Imani did not know better, she would have thought Blaine was on the verge of producing a tear. Patiently, he waited well over two years to hear her say those words. He knew nothing he said would ever make her understand how sorry he felt, and what a fool he had been. He never told her, but he chalked that time up—the cheating on her—to bad judgment and immaturity. Back then he was a visibly successful male model and he had an assortment of options, and Blaine took advantage of nearly every single one.
“I never meant…”
“It happened. And I know you didn’t intend to hurt me. But you did. Had Dante not been killed, I most likely would still be unable to forgive you. But they say, no sooner than God closes a door, he opens a window.”
“And you know I hate that Dante’s gone, but…”
“I know.” She purposely stopped his words.
“Damn. Imani, you smiled.”
Her laughter, often irrepressible, made her eyes water. “Yes, I know.”
Their embrace was natural. It was emotive and long, like the affectionate hug they shared many weeks ago; when Imani saw Blaine for the first time since she packed and left New York and relocated to Seattle. Through their embrace, they both felt the physicality of their emotions—the genuine love that was real between them.
When she released him, Imani said, “Kenya asked me something interesting before she left for Toronto.”
“What’s that?”
“Would I take you back if you tried to go in that direction.”
“No, she didn’t!”
Imani was not exactly sure whether he wanted to know the answer to that question. “I told her how much I loved you back then, and I always will love you. But love evolves and what it feels like—what it is—when two people meet and begin to develop as a couple is a different love from the love those same two people feel years later. Sometimes it’s mature and special, and sometimes it’s reliant and taken for granted. What I know for sure is that I can now meet someone new and be open with that person. Available—emotionally and psychologically—to that person. For quite some time, I chose to go on a date with someone strictly because I knew I wasn’t interested in them. They were safe. Letting go entirely with a man—it just didn’t seem possible. Some part of me didn’t know how. I didn’t trust myself.”
They shared a grace-filled moment.
“I mean this, Imani. That man—whoever he is—will be blessed to have you.”
Her voice was gentle. “Thank you.”
In silence, they watched ice-skaters in their wool scarves, gloves, caps with fuzzy balls dangling on either side, which sheltered them from the bitter cold air.
“So when do you plan to go back to Seattle?”
“My business manager and my office manager—they’ve been taking care of everything for me right now. I feel bad leaving Jean-Pierre in a bind at Café Neuf. But I need to see this through first. I need to know who would kill my father in cold blood and walked out of that bodega like he’s some damn Al Pacino in The Godfather or something.”
“Oh, that scene was the bomb, though. I mean, one of the best scenes ever in motion picture history. Seriously.”
She loved Blaine deeply; Imani understood that clearly now. She sipped her drink before she said, “Yeah, but whoever that lowlife was, he was no Al Pacino. Michael Corleone was smart, but this guy…he’s stupid! I wish I knew why he did this. Anyway, he’s lucky the video camera didn’t work at the bodega.”
Blaine was somber when he told her, “Dante was like a father to me. I want to see that lowlife’s… Clearly he didn’t know who it was that he shot.”
• • •
“Good morning,” Sicily said, reaching for her mail in the Academy mailroom..
Rawn looked up from a letter he had opened seconds before and flashed a deceptive grin. “Good morning.”
“So, don’t keep me in suspense. Tell me.”
“Tell you?” He felt awkward, and hesitated before he replied. “Tell you what?”
“What you think of Tamara.”
All weekend Tamara’s voice kept coming back to him: It’s between you and me. “She’s cool people,” he managed to say persuasively.
“So you approve?” she asked.
“What do you mean by approve?”
“You agree?”
“With what?”
“Okay. I guess I’m not using the correct language. But you think she’s good for me?”
It was not Sicily’s style to seek, let alone need, someone’s approval. In Rawn’s mind, he played with the theory that she was too intoxicated by Tamara. Janelle said to him when he broke off their engagement and she walked away from him for good: “I should have listened to my intuition.”
“Enjoy this, Sicily. Whatever it is you and Tamara have, just go
with it.”
She held his eyes for a beat, and if Sicily did not know him better, she would think Rawn was guarding a secret. “Tamara’s authentic and I like that. Hey, by the way, did D’Becca tell you? We had lunch Friday.” Sicily stuffed her mail in her briefcase. “She’s in love with you. So what’s going on with you two?”
Rawn pretended to be distracted by the letter, and continued to keep his eyes on the page to avoid looking into Sicily’s trusting eyes. “She mentioned you two hooked up. By the way, how much of my life did you share with D’Becca?”
“What do you mean?” Sicily acknowledged a passing teacher and extended her a friendly, “Good morning.”
Rawn, polite, nodded to the colleague. He looked into Sicily’s hazel eyes and they were gentle, kind. She spent time with D’Becca out of respect she had for him. Moreover, it was obvious Tamara mentioned nothing about their running into each other at Pacific Place. Depending on how he chose to look at it, it could be a good thing or it could be a really bad thing.
“It’s nice that you and D’Becca are friendly. Now you can get off my case about the fact that I’m seeing someone who isn’t Negro.”
Amused, she said, “Oh, and Tamara liked you. Want to go to Café Neuf for lunch?”
He mulled over the idea, hesitating before he finally said in a passive voice, “Sure.”
Once she left him standing alone at the mail slots, Rawn’s mind raced. He was not confident that he could maintain such a despicable deception. The veil it cast over his life made him uncomfortable. He was brought out of his train of thought when he heard two colleagues entering the mailroom in the midst of an animated conversation. He turned to see who they were and offered his thoughtful “good morning,” and their replies followed him out of the mailroom.
• • •
“Khalil Underwood!”
“Khalil, hey, it’s me.”
“Whatup?”
“Take me off speaker, man.”
The tone alone made Khalil place his bottled water on his cluttered desk filled with paperwork. His office, which overlooked the entire West Hollywood community, was equipped with a basketball hoop, and posters of the athletic elite—from Michael Jordan to Tiger Woods. There were framed photographs of him and a few female public figures taken at Hollywood parties and various social events. He looked up to his assistant. “Give me ten.”
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