Vulnerable

by Bonita Thompson

  “Ça va!” Jean-Pierre greeted the attorney.

  At first puzzled, Hirsch eventually cracked a grin which revealed a visible diastema. He said, “Ça va.”

  “Can I?…”

  “Ezra Hirsch?” Dr. Poussaint called out.

  “Oh, the solicitor. Welcome!” said Jean-Pierre.

  “I’ll go…”

  “Oui-oui. Anything you want? Café au lait?”

  “You don’t serve beer, do you?”

  “No, not the bière.”

  “Fine, I’ll…Sure, a café au lait.”

  Rawn and his father were on their feet when the distinguished attorney approached their table. In a formal manner, they shook hands and introduced themselves.

  “We appreciate that you would see us on such short notice.”

  “Well, I follow CNN like a lot of Americans. And Khalil tells me the two of you grew up together. He thinks—and I likewise think—you need a lawyer. At the very least, you need legal counsel.”

  “We need to find out what’s going on. There has been no new information. This woman that was killed…D’Becca—her death remains a mystery. There are no suspects; not even this Sebastian Michaels, whom the authorities have cleared. Only my son. They don’t say he’s a suspect…”

  “Yes,” said the attorney. “He’s become a person of interest.”

  “His name…his reputation is being tossed around like a Frisbee. When this kind of thing gets started…Once information gets put out there, you can’t control it. It’s like the mathematical theory of chaos. The whole idea that a powerful storm in New England may be caused by a butterfly flapping its wings in China…” Dr. Poussaint looked over to his son and back to the attorney. “Mr. Hirsch…”

  “High-profile events can have a butterfly effect, yes. And it’s Ezra, please.”

  “Ezra…as we speak, the private school where my son teaches, the trustees are having a meeting.”

  Jean-Pierre said, “Pardon!” He placed the café au lait on the table. “I make café au lait like Rawn like.” He grinned.

  Out of politeness, Rawn’s lips curved faintly.

  “Okay! Merci!” said the attorney.

  “You very welcome.” A non-intrusive man, Jean-Pierre excused himself from their table.

  Hirsch took a sip from the bowl, and with an approving expression, said, “Now that’s the real deal!”

  They laughed, which eased any anxiety that might have existed since he arrived.

  Hirsch leaned into the birch and polar wood table, his hands wrapped around the bowl of café au lait. His tone and body language solemn, he said, “I won’t discuss my fee until I hear what Rawn has to say. What you tell me here at this table doesn’t leave this table.” He looked to Dr. Poussaint, the person who had reached out to him and most likely the person who would be paying his retainer. “What Rawn says here at this table gives me an idea of exactly what I need to do. Or what I can do for him.” He turned to Rawn and looked straight into his somber eyes.

  Rawn nodded, leaning closer into the table.

  “I’m familiar with the board of trustees of Gumble-Wesley. I play golf—and yes, Dr. Poussaint, I understand that you are quite the golfer, but that’s a subject to follow up on at a later time…I play golf with one of the trustees. Insofar as there being a conflict, there’s no conflict. But I would trust that, as you say, Dr. Poussaint, the board is discussing your son as we speak, and they’re probably deciding on whether Rawn should take a leave…”

  “A leave?”

  “Let him finish, Rawn.”

  “The coverage at the Academy has been on nearly every news outlet. Yesterday, footage of you leaving the school and getting into your Jeep was looped over and over—the media tailing you like you’re a celebrity. It’s unfortunate or fortunate, depending on how you choose to look at it, that you’re photogenic and educated and come from a background that—how shall I put it?—is not typical in potentially high-profile cases when the accused is not a public figure. All the cable talk shows are still talking about you. It’s become a cause célèbre. Politically Incorrect and Leno, probably even Letterman, commented about it last night. It’s…Rawn is a distraction.”

  “I see your point,” Dr. Poussaint said.

  But Rawn did not.

  “What do you feel comfortable sharing with me?”

  With a shrug, Rawn asked, “What do you want to know?”

  “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Sicily had been pacing back and forth and chomping at the bit for ten minutes. Of all the times her cellular was turned off! With the mobile in her hand, she recited a simple, barren prayer: Please call back, Tamara. Something innate told her this one would not be answered in her favor. Still, her heart did the believing, not her spirit. Not her logic. Not her God-given good sense. Good sense did not feel.

  Her telephone rang, and she looked over her shoulder, startled by the sound. “Oh, great! She’s calling on my landline.” Sicily could not reach the telephone fast enough, and once it was in her hand, she punched the receive call button. Anxious, she greeted the caller with a rushed, “Hello!” Her shoulders slumped. “Oh, Rawn. Hi.”

  “Can I come up?”

  Instinctively, Sicily turned to look beyond the stunning paned windows that took up a full wall and offered her a gloomy Elliott Bay view. “Where are you?”

  “I’m at the payphone on the corner.”

  “Rawn…” Hearing his voice confiscated the stone that rested in her heavy heart. “First, I’m getting you a cell phone, and two, it’s pouring! You could’ve pushed the buzzer.” She walked to the window and looked out at the cold rain painting the city a fusion of charcoal gray and silver. Sicily thought, rain always rearranged the energy in the universe.

  “I wasn’t sure whether you were alone. And…someone might see me, and I don’t want it to get back to the board, or end up on one of those gossip TV programs.”

  “Aren’t you a little paranoid?”

  “Situationally…Hey, this thing has been surreal.”

  When she opened the door to her loft, Rawn stood before her drenched, coolly and rationally as usual. He did not look like a man the authorities were eyeballing for the death of D’Becca, and investigating whether he was the one who could murder someone and behave as though he were innocent. Sicily could not help but wonder what her life—their lives—would be like in that very moment had he never met D’Becca, and she and Tamara never exchanged phone numbers at the Library Bistro the night of Pricilla’s reading and book signing at Elliott Bay Books. Who would they be if she were straight? If she had the slightest urge to be with men—like Tamara—Rawn would be at the top of her list. She knew when they first met—and before she trusted him enough to tell him she was lesbian—that Rawn had a thing for her.

  “Come in!”

  “Oh, great!” he greeted her, the room smelling of sandalwood. “A fire. You aren’t expecting?…”

  “No.” She cut him off, closing the door.

  “I needed…You’re the only person I can really talk to. Khalil might as well move to London. Tera…she’s so busy. You won’t believe it. She called Janelle for advice.”

  “Janelle? Your ex, Janelle?”

  “That Janelle.” Rawn peeled his bomber jacket off; it was soaking wet.

  “Did you talk to her?”

  “Janelle? Yeah.”

  “Let me get something so you can dry yourself off. Place your jacket on the back of the stool.”

  When Sicily left the spacious room, Rawn stood in the middle of the loft. He caught a glimpse, although barely, of Queen Anne Hill. D’Becca used to live there. If she never moved away, she might still be alive. The northern end of the downtown Seattle skyline, with the tip of the Space Needle in the background, looked like headlights through a windshield along a crowded freeway. Rawn placed his jacket on the stool. He blew his hands with his warm breath and walked to the fireplace. He held his hands c
lose to the flames. Sicily returned to the front of the loft.

  “Here you go!”

  They met each other in the center of the floor, and before he took the towel, Sicily watched him retreat into a daydream.

  “Rawn? The towel.”

  “Oh!” He reached for it.

  “What were you thinking?”

  He shook his head side-to-side. “When someone you know dies…someone you were very intimate with dies…it’s strange how you keep experiencing flashes and snippets of that person everywhere. The simplest of details. Someone might stand next to you and wear the same perfume. A laugh from someone you can’t make out—the laugh is similar to hers. All the idiosyncrasies crowd your mind with chaos.”

  “What did I conjure up?”

  “The first time D’Becca came to my apartment, she ended up there because we were walking, and typical of Washington weather, it started to pour down rain. When we were at my place I gave her a towel, like you did now, and it seemed—back then, Sicily, I couldn’t imagine being in this mind-set, in this…situation: someone you were intimate with dies a violent death; the constant not knowing.”

  Sicily took a breath and replied, “I know.”

  When Rawn looked up, because of Sicily’s demeanor and the pitch of her voice, he sensed that she was down about something. Over the course of several years, they had grown quite close. Rawn could not determine if she was uncomfortable with his being there, or something else was going on in her life. He did not feel particularly at ease in seeking details, even when he knew she might want his ear. They were in an awkward place, and not solely because of his temporary leave of absence. Rawn was a very visible man at the moment; especially locally. The ongoing publicity his situation placed on the Academy was something that could only die down if he stopped teaching at Gumble-Wesley; at least until the spectacle eased up. Even though there was no direct evidence and Rawn had not been arrested, the Crescent Island police department’s investigation focused strictly on his relationship with D’Becca. They looked into her relationship with Sebastian Michaels, but he was swiftly cleared.

  And then there was, for Rawn anyway, the issue of Tamara.

  He decided to ask because she was sulking. “What’s wrong?” He was not sure which he preferred: that she claim nothing was wrong, or that she pour out her heart to him.

  “I don’t have beer, but would you care for wine?”

  “Sure. Whatever.”

  Minutes later they sat on Sicily’s aubergine velour sofa and she said, “Tamara left!”

  Rawn looked away from the burning fire and turned to Sicily, his face implying bewilderment. “What do you mean by left?”

  “I broke down. It goes against the values I live by, but I did it; like a desperate woman, I went to her boutique because she wasn’t returning my calls. Some young girl—probably not a day over twenty-one—was, as she said, ‘boutique sitting.’ She claims Tamara went to Europe on business and she wasn’t sure if she would be back before the New Year.”

  “Why do you say claims?”

  Her eyes glossy, Sicily sipped her wine, and Rawn noticed that her hand was trembling. No longer in his comfort zone, he was not sure who to be or what to do. All of a sudden, his life was demanding that he be someone he was not sure how to be—emotionally, spiritually. He would have to navigate through all of it blindly. He would have to pick up survival instincts along the way.

  “Rawn…” Sicily pursed her lips. “I fell for her. And harder than I thought.”

  Rawn looked down into the deep magenta wine.

  “I know you need a friend right now. And Lord, poor D’Becca. I prayed for her, Rawn. I actually liked her. I gave you a hard time, I know. But I got to know her a little and realized she is—was good people.” Sicily lowered her eyes. “But…” She reached over and rubbed his arm that rested against the back of the sofa. “I guess I’ve been too selfish.”

  Rawn swallowed hard.

  “Tamara shared some things with me, but….” She paused, trying to decide whether she wanted to reveal the information. Sicily gazed into the burning fire.

  Although Rawn was not sure he wanted to know, he asked, “What, Sicily?”

  “She gave me several hints. I look back now…And I know we didn’t know each other long, but… Not as long as you knew D’Becca.”

  “You said hints?”

  “Let me say this: she talked about Henderson constantly. That was not even a hint. That was like waving a red flag at a bull. I have a Ph.D. in psychology, Rawn. If a gay person came to me and told me that someone they were falling for or talked nonstop about another person—especially a person of the opposite sex—I’d advise them to run and don’t, don’t!, look back. She was—no, is obsessed with Henderson Payne. She told me that she connected with women from the soul, but that men made her feel whole. What the hell does that mean? She’s definitely not gay. I’m not even sure she’s bi. She plays with your mind. I believe we’re getting really obnoxious when it comes to labels, but what would you call someone like her? She uses…she manipulates people. The psych in me knows that very well. But…” She reached for her wineglass and took a long gulp of the liquor, like she was drinking water. “Experience has taught me all too well not to get tangled up with a woman who has an obsession with a man! How can I reconcile my own weakness with?…” Sicily finished off the wine.

  Rawn had to push the memory of Tamara’s face in his lap into the back of his mind. The sound of Sicily’s self-pitying voice kept him focused.

  “One night we were at her boutique. In fact, the last time I saw her. She needed to stop and get some sketches. I was walking around looking at the dresses while she checked her website for orders. I saw this journal amid paperwork. It was a beautiful leather journal which is why it probably caught my eye. I couldn’t stop myself from picking it up. I knew it was private, although Tamara’s the type to hand it over and say enjoy! But I digress.” Sicily pushed her hair away from her face in that quite feminine way she often did. “I looked inside. I wanted to know what, if anything, did she say about me—us. What we shared, what it meant to her. I didn’t want her catching me, so I flipped through it clumsily and I’m not even sure how I ended up on the last page. It was dated the Saturday following Thanksgiving.” Sicily’s voice was borderline sarcastic. She was verging on contempt. “That entry,” she went on, “was all about someone new she met. A man. What the?…I couldn’t believe it. She wrote He’s my new Henderson. Those were her exact words. And still…” She started to take a drink of her wine but realized her glass was empty. “Stupid, stupid me! I wracked my brain…Who is this man? Tamara is insane when it comes to Henderson. This other man…I mean, Henderson is…She’s sooooo obsessed with Henderson. Henderson this, Henderson that…”

  “You were vulnerable…”

  “How?” she raised her voice. “How could I be such a fool? I feel like all that internal work I’ve done…for what?”

  Sicily began to cry and Rawn did not know what to do. One part of him wanted to hold her and another part of him wanted to rush to his feet and run. Run fast and never look back. How many men—cowards—did this? Got caught up in what Khalil referred to it as a ménage à trois and could not handle the consequences. It was less complicated, without all the name-calling and in-your-face confrontation, to disappear.

  “Sicily…”

  She wiped the tears from her eyes. “What?”

  “Look at me.”

  Ashamed, it took a moment for her to turn her head slightly. Feeling short of humiliated, she met Rawn’s somber look. In a quiet voice, she said, “What?” sniffing her runny nose.

  “There’s something I need—something I should tell you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The week leading up to Christmas was a lonely time for Rawn. One week ago, while he sat in Sicily’s warm and cozy loft, he knew what he was about to say meant that he could not go back, and the touchstone of their relationship would never be the same. While he
sat listening to her lost in a deep melancholy, he kept battling between full disclosure and enough of the truth so it would set him free. In doing that, it could cost him a friendship.

  He sat in his apartment alone, pecking with the keys to the piano. He tried not to think about his life over the past month or whether he should go home for the holiday. Rawn slowly began to grasp the idea that life was not merely mysterious; there were ambiguous nuances. Still young, yet a mature soul, he never paid close attention to his experiences, and nor did he take them too seriously. When something happened in his life, he acknowledged it in a rather oblique way. He did not stand that close to the moment. When it became apparent that a shift took place, Rawn could not determine exactly what; he adjusted his thinking without analyzing it. Now, however, he paid attention to each moment to the point of distraction. He took notice of the changes in the day, its rise and fall; its color scheme. How long had he taken things—his life—for granted? “You can be so basic, Rawn,” Khalil had once said to him in a conversation. Had it never occurred to him to be on the lookout for an occasional surprise? No, it was not the way Rawn thought; he did not approach life in that way. And yet as his mother said to him not twenty-four hours ago, “It’s time to grow up, Rawn.” Her words stunned him. She concluded, “It’s time to be your own man. Your father can pull out his checkbook, but he cannot save you from you.” Rawn admired his mother’s honesty; her directness. But what he failed to say to her was that he was only human. Perhaps because it was what he had said to Sicily that rainy evening at her loft, and her response to those words made him feel as though they were much too hollow.