She got up from the bed. “I’ll see you at graduation?”
“You’ll see me at graduation,” I confirmed and wrapped her in a big bear hug.
“Professor Bergeron?” she said from her muffled place between my chest and my underarm.
“Yes, Amanda?”
“I can’t breathe.”
I let go. “Sorry.” I dropped my arms. Over her head, I spied Brandon in the doorway.
“You’re still here?” he asked Amanda, a big smile on his face. He held his hand out and we shook. “Hi, Professor Bergeron. Amanda told me she was coming by to say good-bye to you.”
“Hi, Brandon. It’s good to see you again.” He was unbelievably gracious to me, despite the fact that I had accused him of a number of activities that he obviously had never been involved in.
Amanda reached out for Brandon’s hand. “I’m ready.”
I followed the two of them into the hallway, bustling with activity as students packed to leave for the summer, greeted their families for the graduation ceremony, and said good-bye to friends. I reached out and touched Brandon’s shoulder. “Wait.”
He turned. “I’ll catch up with you, Amanda,” he said, and she started down the hallway.
I crossed my arms over my chest, not sure where to begin. I decided to start with an apology. “I’m sorry, Brandon. I really am.”
He stopped me before I could go any further with an explanation. “You were looking out for her. That’s all that really matters.”
I was amazed by his maturity. “Well, thanks, then.”
“No. Thank you,” he said and shook my hand again. “Hopefully, we’ll see you soon.”
I knew what he meant—the wedding—but I also knew that Amanda was going to take her time in making her decision on their relationship. “Good luck, Brandon.”
He nodded. I had to admit, he had grown on me. Whereas I had once thought him old-fashioned and possibly controlling, I now could see how much he cared about Amanda.
“Go. Go meet up with Amanda and her family. I’ll see you in a little while.”
My bags were packed and sitting by the door when Crawford showed up a few minutes later. “You look sexy,” he said, taking in my robe and tam.
“That’s because I am sexy,” I said. “I’m not wearing anything under this robe.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Yes, I am,” I said, unzipping my robe to expose my very boring dress.
He snapped his fingers. “Too bad.” He walked into the room and greeted Trixie. “After graduation, I’m buying you the biggest martini known to mankind, some kind of red meat, and then I’m taking you back to my place for some—”
“Gymnastics?”
He smiled. “Good enough.” He ran a finger over the top of the dresser, coming up with a fingerful of dust. “Promise me you’ll wear that hat.”
“You know it.”
He leaned against the dresser, just like Costas had a few weeks before as he prepared to kill me with an overdose of heroin. “Pick the place and the martinis are on me.”
“You do know that graduation is over by one? It’s a little early to start pounding martinis.”
He pushed forward off the dresser and came toward me. “You’ve been living in this dump for over a month.” He put his arms around me and the past five weeks of celibate hell came flooding back at once. I got a little weak. “We need to celebrate.”
“You’re right,” I whispered, having lost my voice.
“We’ve got to get you out of here,” he said. “The sooner, the better.”
I looked out of the corner of my eye at the clock on the night-stand and saw that I had to go. “You coming with me?” I asked, still enjoying being in his embrace.
“I’m not letting you out of my sight,” he said.
And I believe he meant it.
Thirty-Six
Crawford and I went down to the office of the City Clerk on a balmy day in early June for a wedding.
School was over and things, for me, had slowed down considerably. Amanda graduated, with honors as well as the Communications Award, and had secured herself a job at Crime TV, thanks to a few pulled strings from Max. But even though she had gotten into the company through a connection, Max told me that everyone at the network was impressed with Amanda; she came in early, stayed late, and worked as hard as anyone they had ever seen. She was living at home with her mother and seemed happy, according to Max who saw her on a daily basis. Although she was a bit embarrassed about doing postproduction on the Hooters waitress show, Max promised her it was a stepping stone to bigger and better things.
I hoped she was right.
Max and I had reached détente, although she kept calling it “deterrence.” She had suggested that we meet for dinner at her favorite restaurant in Manhattan, and I had agreed, thinking that meeting in a public place was a far better idea than either my house (the red bedroom would have certainly come up) or her apartment (her Neanderthal not-her-husband lurking around). We went through pretty much everything, and ultimately, agreed to disagree about the events that had led to our falling-out.
I looked down from my perch on the steps to see if I could see Crawford; he was ambling down the street, the tallest guy in the midst of a throng of Asian tourists, as if we had all the time in the world. We didn’t. We were actually cutting it kind of close. I had gotten a new dress for the occasion, a backless halter number that felt like it would slide off at any moment, but which I had been talked into by the salesgirl at Neiman Marcus. I had on my most expensive pair of shoes, a pair of Jimmy Choos that Max had given me when she had tired of seeing me in my Dansko clogs for an extended period of time. They were beaded sandals that I loved though I got a little nauseous every time I thought of how much they cost. I had to admit, though, I looked like a million bucks. Even Crawford, who isn’t prone to declarations of love or lust, gave me a wolf whistle when I approached him on the steps of City Hall. I could feel my cheeks go red.
“Wow. Coco, you’ve outdone yourself,” he said, making me do a little twirl to get the full effect. He leaned in and gave me a long kiss. “Seriously. You look gorgeous.”
“Thanks,” I said, rolling my eyes. I’m not good at taking compliments. “Let’s just remember that you’ve only had sex a few times in the past three months, so you may not be the best judge of ‘gorgeous.’ ”
“Good point,” he said, grabbing me around the waist. “Ready?”
We ran up the stairs and went through the metal detectors, Crawford taking a little longer because of the firepower he was carrying in his holster and on his ankle. Once through, we made our way to the City Clerk’s office, where civil marriages in the state of New York took place. When I had heard that we would be standing up as the witnesses at the wedding, I didn’t think it would be very romantic, having only attended religious services. But when we got to the City Clerk’s office and saw all of the couples standing there, in business attire to full-blown wedding wear, and how happy they were, I changed my mind. A bride was a bride, and if she was happy, it didn’t matter where or how she got married to the love of her life.
Kevin was waiting for us when we got to the office. I was glad that we had settled our differences over the Max and Fred affair, and I know he was, too. He waved enthusiastically as he saw us coming down the hall.
“Great day, huh?” he said, beaming. I didn’t think he’d be this excited to be at a wedding that he wasn’t officiating at, but he was clearly thrilled. “Where’s the happy couple?” he asked.
Crawford looked around, able to see over the heads of the diverse grouping of couples in the hallway. “I don’t see them.”
I surveyed the crowd. “Me, either.”
“I hope they’re not late,” Kevin said. “They’ve already started calling names.”
And just as he said that, the clerk’s assistant came out of the office. “Ms. Maxine Rayfield and Mr. Charlemagne Wyatt? Ms. Rayfield and Mr. Wyatt?”
I looked a
t Crawford. “Charlemagne?”
He shrugged. “I had no idea.” He wasn’t as shocked as I was, but after working with Fred for as long as he had, nothing shocked him anymore.
I turned to Kevin. “Charlemagne?”
Kevin went pale. “I was to take it to my grave.”
“You knew?”
Kevin nodded. We looked around some more. Kevin leaned in and whispered in my ear, trying to change the subject. “You may just go to hell for wearing that dress.”
“I’m willing to take that chance,” I said.
The clerk was getting impatient. “Ms. Rayfield and Mr. Wyatt!”
I heard Max’s voice come from behind us. “We’re coming! We’re here!” She ran down the hallway, a little pixie in a tight, short red dress, and the highest heels I had ever seen. I didn’t know how she could walk, never mind run, in them, but there she was, sprinting like a champ in five-inch heels. Fred was lumbering along behind her, still a foot and half taller than her in spite of the high heels. He looked sort of handsome, I guess, in a sport coat and khaki pants, an outfit that he would wear to the coroner’s office or to a homicide. And now, to his wedding.
I mentioned my interest in Fred’s sartorial choice to Crawford. “He went to an autopsy right before this,” he said, as if that answered the question.
“Huh,” I said, nodding, as if I found this to be the most normal thing in the world to do before your wedding.
Max and Fred made it to our little group and the five of us walked to the clerk. We were led into the small room where the judge presided over the marriages. Max and Fred faced each other and I thought about how different this was from their St. Thomas wedding: three hundred people; Max in a big, white dress, Fred in a tuxedo; Max’s father crying as he walked down the aisle. Here, we stood in front of a man in a suit in a nondescript courtroom in a city building. Boy, how things had changed.
But Max still cried when she said “I do,” and Fred still looked like he was going to the guillotine, which, given the events of the past couple of months, was probably appropriate. But he cracked a little smile when the judge pronounced them “husband and wife” and Max jumped in his arms, showering me with petals from the bouquet that she was holding.
I spat out a couple of the petals and looked around the happy couple at Crawford, who was looking back at me, a bemused smile on his face. We exited the room and went out into the hallway where the other couples, guessing that Max and Fred were now married, broke out into applause.
Because the day was so beautiful, we all decided to walk to the restaurant that Max had chosen for us to have lunch. We were the only guests; Max had decided, in a display of remarkable restraint and judgment, not to tell her parents about her fake marriage, deciding instead to go ahead and get married civilly without anyone being the wiser. There was no reason for her devoutly Catholic parents to know that Kevin had screwed up, she had left her husband for a couple of weeks, and that they had decided to remarry at City Hall. It was just much too complicated, messy, and tawdry for the Rayfields. I was glad that they would never know anything of what had transpired in their daughter’s life during the spring of this year.
Crawford and I trailed behind the two of them, holding hands. Kevin was chatting with Max about her dress and completely taken up with that.
“That was nicer than I would have expected,” Crawford said, giving my hand a little squeeze. We weaved in and out of the throngs of people in downtown Manhattan, keeping an eye on Fred’s bald dome, which bobbed up and down like a buoy in a sea of tourists.
“Yeah, who knew that City Hall weddings could be so romantic?” I asked, choking up. This wasn’t how I expected the story of Max and Fred to end, but as I had learned after being friends with Max for as long as I had, nothing was ever what it seemed. Her life followed a different trajectory from mine and who was to say that that was wrong?
My feet were starting to hurt and I looked down at my gorgeous sandals thinking that a hike on city streets really wasn’t what I had had in mind when I had gotten dressed that morning.
“So, what do you think?” Crawford asked.
I examined my toes as I walked, looking for signs of blisters. “What do I think of what?”
He hooked a thumb back toward City Hall. “That. Weddings.”
“I just told you,” I said, feeling a blister start on the back of my right heel. “It was more romantic than I thought it would be.”
“You think so?”
I stopped at a lamppost and pulled my leg up behind me to examine my heel. “Oh, great. Now I have a blister.”
Crawford grabbed my hand. “What do you think?”
I was completely preoccupied by my blistered feet and I grabbed on to the pole to steady myself now that Crawford had claimed my other hand. “What do I think of what?” I asked, losing patience with a conversation that seemingly had no subject.
He shrugged. “You know.”
I sighed. “I really don’t, Crawford.” I looked down the block and could see Max, Fred, and Kevin crossing the street in front of a Duane Reade drugstore. “There’s a drugstore. Would you go and buy me a box of Band-Aids?”
Crawford had a weird look on his face; it was a cross between exasperated and unnerved. He started down the street and went into the drugstore, coming out ten minutes later with a small bag. I had given up all hope of following Max and Fred and they didn’t seem to wonder where we were; in my small purse was the name and number of the restaurant and I knew that it was only a few blocks away. But still . . . I would wonder where we were. I guess the giddy lovestruck couple was only interested in each other. And the priest tagging alongside the bride.
He came back and took the box of Band-Aids out of the bag. When I had finished bandaging up my foot—it took three Band-Aids to take care of the damage and that really compromised the look of the sandals—I thanked him for the first-aid run.
He reached back into the bag. “I have one more thing.” He pulled out a cherry ring pop, which was essentially a giant, diamond-shaped piece of hard candy on a ring.
I clapped my hands together gleefully. “I love ring pops!” I said. “I haven’t had one of these in years!” I held out my hand and Crawford slid it onto my ring finger. “You know that means we’re engaged, right?” I sucked on the candy. “I take my ring-pop proposals very seriously.”
He looked at me and smiled. “That’s what I was hoping.”
Table of Contents
Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
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Final Exam Page 28