“Love men. They’re my favorite people when they’re behaving.”
“I like women,” Kyrie said.
“Then you’ve come to the right place. Women galore. Lucky you.” Elle ironed a crease into the napkin, folded it and ironed it again.
“When are you planning on leaving here?” Kyrie asked.
“I don’t know. As soon as I can figure out what do to with my life.”
“Any ideas?”
“Not yet. I don’t have a lot of job skills. Working in a laundry for the rest of my life doesn’t hold much appeal.”
“I don’t blame you. Did you go to college?”
“NYU.”
“Did you graduate?”
“I did. English degree. See what I mean about no job skills?”
Kyrie laughed. “You can’t do anything else?”
“I give good blow jobs. I’ll leave the convent and become a prostitute.”
“I bet I’d suck at blowing. It seems hard.”
Elle looked up and glared at Kyrie.
“Did you make a dick joke?” Elle asked.
“I did!” Kyrie applauded herself. “I’m not sure if I’ve ever done that before. How many points do I get?”
“One point.”
“Only one? Hmm...that means I have three points. How many points would it take for you to tell me why you’re here?”
Elle sighed heavily. “I don’t know. Lots of them.”
“How about twenty-five? That’s how you win a match in volleyball. I played volleyball. I’m crazy good at volleyball.”
“Why am I not surprised you played volleyball?”
Kyrie looked her in the eyes. “That’s a lesbian joke, isn’t it?”
“It might be.”
“I liked it. I give you two points.”
“How many points to get you to leave?” Elle asked.
“You,” Kyrie said, pointing at her. “You are a curmudgeon.”
“One point for use of curmudgeon.”
“Awesome. Now I have four points. Twenty-five of them and I get your story. Okay?”
“Fine. If you get to twenty-five points, I’ll tell you why I’m here. You’ll probably regret asking.”
“I’m sure I will. Looking forward to regretting it.”
“You can go away and leave me alone now,” Elle said. “I really do have work to do, and you are seriously distracting me.”
“I’m leaving. But I’m going to bug you until I get all twenty-five points.”
“You’re going to have to do better than a lame dick joke. I’m a tough grader, and I was telling better dick jokes than you when I was in middle school. Step up your game, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Kyrie said, giving her a little salute and hopping down off the counter. “I’ll see you later tonight. You finish your work. I’ll figure out what you can do with your life.”
“Oh, you’re going to figure that out for me?”
“I am.”
“Good. One less thing for me to worry about,” Elle said, picking up another napkin, a napkin that would be used at dinner tonight, soiled on some elderly nun’s mouth, and returned tonight to be rewashed, redried, reironed and reused. Until the end of time.
“I’ll catch you later,” Kyrie said, heading for the door. “Happy ironing, Elle.”
“Hey, Kyrie?” Elle called out. Kyrie stopped and turned around.
“What?”
“I meant it. Mother Prioress really doesn’t want me bothering you all. If she finds out we’re talking too much, she might not let me stay, and I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“I wouldn’t tell anybody we talked,” Kyrie said. “Your secrets you won’t tell me are safe with me. Mainly because you won’t tell them to me.”
“Thank you. Mother Prioress doesn’t really want me here. She’s doing my mom a favor.”
“If it makes you feel better,” Kyrie said from the doorway, “I want you here.”
The words, so simple and kind, hit Elle like a high ocean wave and pulled her under like a riptide. They carried her down deep under the surface and it took a few seconds before she hit open air again.
“Elle? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said. “It’s just...what you said—I said the exact same thing to my priest ten years ago.”
“You said ‘I want you here’ to your priest? Why?”
“Why?” Elle said, smiling. “Because I was fifteen and he was nice to me, and I would have done or said anything to make him happy.”
“Oh,” Kyrie said, nodding. “That’s funny.”
“Why is that funny?” Elle asked, meeting Kyrie’s eyes. They were the strangest color of blue—like a spring morning so bright it hurt to look at it.
“That’s the same reason I said it.”
13
Haiti
KINGSLEY WAS OUT of his element. Back in Manhattan if he met a woman he wanted to pursue, he’d find out everything he could about her and use that information to his advantage. If they were in Manhattan he’d know who Juliette was, her last name, where she came from, who she ate with, worked with and slept with. But he wasn’t in Manhattan. He was in Haiti, and he had no idea who this woman was or what she wanted with him.
And he certainly had no idea what to expect tonight. He wasn’t even certain Juliette would show up. Maybe it was a test, like making him strip naked on the beach. Asking him to take his clothes off hadn’t been much of a test. He’d take his clothes off anywhere, anytime and for nearly any reason. Especially when asked nicely. It was getting him to put his clothes back on afterward that was the real challenge.
Speaking of clothes...Kingsley looked himself up and down. He’d debated about what to wear for his second meeting with Juliette and decided to dress in a slightly cleaner version of his usual Haitian uniform of sun-bleached khakis and white button-down shirt. It was the beach, after all. He hadn’t packed any of his suits and ties and boots. The freedom of going incognito was intoxicating. Right now, as far as Juliette knew, he was nothing more than a French-American refugee, who’d come to Haiti for an inexpensive vacation. Something about Juliette, the way she talked, the way she looked at him, made him think his money and power wouldn’t impress her. What would impress her, he didn’t know. But he would find out what it was, and he would do it even if it meant getting naked in public again.
Especially if it meant getting naked in public again.
The sun had barely set by the time he made it back to the fork in the path where Juliette had said to meet her. He waited for a few minutes, and then a few minutes more. He told himself he wouldn’t wait another minute. And then another minute would pass and still he’d be there. Finally at nine-thirty he gave up and walked away. One minute later he un-gave up and walked back.
And there she was, wearing a scarlet red dress and holding a set of keys in her hand. He knew he should say something, anything. Perhaps “you’re late” would be a good start to the conversation. But he had no words. The dress she wore had a deep V-neck that stopped at the center of her chest. She had full and firm breasts, which the dress did nothing to disguise and everything to display. The wind blew a cool evening breeze on them and caught her skirt in its fingers. He saw a flash of her strong thighs, both shapely and muscular. And he saw something else too, something that made him smile.
He was in the presence of a dangerous woman.
“Flight delay,” was all she said by way of apology for her tardiness.
“Flight? You flew somewhere? Today?” he asked.
“No.”
He waited for more of an answer and didn’t receive one.
“Are you coming with me?” she asked, sounding both impatient and indifferent, a difficult combination she managed to pull off beautifully.
“Where are we going?”
“A house.”
“Is it your house?”
“No.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you talk too much?” Kingsley asked.
“Never.”
“Didn’t think so.”
Juliette said nothing to his joke. He’d got her to crack a smile the morning they’d met. If he could make her laugh once tonight he’d call it a victory.
“So...yes or no?” Juliette finally asked. “Are you coming with me?”
“After you, milady,” Kingsley said with a smile. She set out down the path, which wound around a patch of palm trees and ended at a small gravel parking lot. There in the parking lot sat a red Porsche.
He paused and stared at it a moment.
“I confess I didn’t figure you as a sports-car aficionado.”
“I’m not,” she said. “It’s not mine.”
“Please tell me you aren’t a car thief.”
“I’m not a car thief,” she said, sounding affronted. “I have permission to drive it. But if you like it, feel free to steal it for yourself. I don’t care a thing about it.”
“You’re interesting,” he said as she got behind the wheel. Without waiting for an invitation that didn’t seem forthcoming, he got into the passenger seat. That was when he noticed she had no shoes on. She drove barefoot. He liked that and he didn’t know why.
“I’m not interesting,” she said. “You’re bored.”
She started the car and drove out of the parking lot.
“So this house we’re going to...” he began.
“Oui?”
“Can you tell me where it is?”
“A few miles from here.”
“You aren’t planning on killing me at this undisclosed location, are you?”
She gave him a sidelong glance and her eyebrow went back up again.
“Are you scared of me?”
“You have a spear point knife on your thigh.”
“How do you know that?” she asked, sounding intrigued. Intrigued was better than irritated. He’d take what he could get.
“First of all, I’ve been staring at your legs. Second, I’m trained to look for hidden weapons on people. Old habits die hard.”
She flipped her dress to the side of her leg, exposing her right thigh where the blade rested in a leather and Velcro harness. She pulled off the Velcro strap, removed the knife and handed it to him.
“I have the knife to use in case the car breaks down at night, and I have to walk alone. I would never hurt anyone unless they tried to hurt me first.”
“That’s a noble philosophy of life,” he said, rolling up his sleeve and strapping the knife onto his forearm. He didn’t make a practice of carrying weapons with him these days, but if Juliette felt she needed a knife, he’d much prefer he be the one to use it if necessary.
Juliette shrugged. “It’s not a philosophy. It’s a religion. I’m Catholic.”
“Pull the car over.”
Juliette only looked at him. Then she laughed. Finally. And what a laugh. Musical, light, turning deeper at the end and coming straight from her belly. It hit him in the gut like a spear point knife.
“You don’t like Catholics?” she asked.
“I have a long complicated history with a Catholic priest of my acquaintance.”
“Is he a bad priest?”
“Very bad. He never preaches about sin, only God’s love and forgiveness. He doesn’t judge sinners and he works tirelessly at his parish on behalf of the poor and oppressed.”
“Sounds like a good priest to me. Is he a bad person?”
“He would die for the people he loved. I think he would even die for me.”
“And you hate him?”
“Completely and utterly.”
“Why?”
“Because he hurt his lover and made her leave him.”
“And?”
“She was my lover, too. Then again, so was he once. More than once.”
If Juliette’s eyebrow arched any higher, it would leave her face and hover above her head.
“I think I was wrong about you, Kingsley,” Juliette said as she turned the car onto a winding road. “I think I like you.”
“You didn’t like me before?”
“No.”
“Then why did you let me in your car?”
“I wanted you to fuck me,” she said.
“Flattering. I think.”
“You can take it as a compliment,” she said, making it clear with her tone she hadn’t intended it as such.
“You don’t need to like someone to fuck them?”
“No. Do you?”
“No, but I thought I was special.”
“I hate to tell you this,” she said with an apologetic smile, “but I don’t think you’re as special as you think you are.”
“That only hurts because it’s true. You really like me? A little?”
“Un peu. Enough that I want to talk to you instead of letting you fuck me,” she said.
“Oh,” he said, and weighed his words. “But we are still going to fuck, right?”
Juliette smiled again. And in her flawless elegant French she purred two beautiful words.
“Bien sûr.”
Of course.
She went silent after she made another turn. The road was long and treacherous and wound up the side of a high, heavily forested hill. He could only imagine how Elle would tackle a similar driving challenge. They’d either have made it to their destination in half the time or died a fiery death rolling over a cliff in the attempt. He’d convinced Elle to let his driver take her everywhere she wanted to go. She thought he was being kind and generous. Little did he know he was simply trying to keep her alive. She was alive, wasn’t she? Twenty-six years old, smarter than any other woman he’d ever met. Street-smart, too. She’d be fine without him, fine without Søren. Wouldn’t she?
“What’s wrong?” Juliette asked.
“Nothing.”
“You’re quiet.”
“You were driving.”
“I’ve spent thirty minutes in your company, and I already know quiet isn’t your standard mode of operation,” she said.
“Are you saying I talk too much?” Kingsley asked.
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