by Bella Grant
“He wants to take me to Brazil for two whole weeks!” she screeched again, her accent impeding enough that even I could barely understand.
I stared at her big grin for several moments, waiting for her to remember why going to Brazil with Andre was a terrible idea. When she only smiled brilliantly and bounced on her toes, I huffed out a breath. “Rita!”
She stopped bouncing, and her smile faded a little at my tone. “Why are you yelling?”
“Because,” I hissed, pulling her to the side so no one could eavesdrop, “he’s a high-ranking member of a drug cartel!”
“We don’t know that for sure,” she defended, pulling her arm out of my grasp.
“Rita! I saw him on the news!” I reminded her. “He’s suspected of dozens of murders.”
She huffed and stomped her foot. “Suspected, never charged. He’s never been to prison.”
I rolled my eyes at her ridiculous defense of the man. “Rita. The man has never been to prison because there are never any witnesses to testify. I wonder why that is.”
She pointed a finger at me. “You can’t make assumptions like that. The American media lies all the time.”
I grabbed her shoulders. “Rita, if you go, you’ll get fired. You’re not supposed to date or go out of the country with a client.”
Rita waved away my concern, batting her hand at my words as if they were bothersome flies. “The man is in love with me. I might not need this job if I go with him.”
I shook my head. “Please listen to reason. What if he’s just using you?”
“Who cares!” she exclaimed with a laugh. “It’s a free trip to Brazil! And, he told me I could bring a friend.” She waggled her eyebrows at me.
My eyebrows winged into my hairline. “You want me to go with you? Are you crazy?”
“You’d be crazy to turn down a free trip to Brazil!”
“I’m not fucking some Brazilian friend of his so I can go to Brazil for free,” I told her fiercely. I jerked around, stomped to my vanity, and plopped down to freshen my makeup before my next set.
Rita sighed loudly, followed me, and sat next to me at her vanity. “Randi, you don’t have to fuck anybody. That’s my job.” I clamped my lips together to keep from smiling, and she giggled and bent so she could look at my reflection. “And I’ll make sure your room is far away from ours so you don’t have to listen to us and be jealous.”
I couldn’t help myself and giggled, then she laughed, and my laughter joined hers until we were a mess. “Stop it!” I griped, wiping my eyes. “I’m trying to fix my makeup.”
“Go with me. I’ll be safer if there are two of us, and we’ll have such fun,” she hinted. She batted her eyelashes at me, and I rolled my eyes again, exasperated.
“Batting your eyelashes at me doesn’t work. I’m a woman,” I reminded her.
“Yeah, but all women have lesbian tendencies,” she teased, and we laughed again.
“Besides, I have school. And work. I can’t jet off to Brazil for two weeks. I have no drug lord to pay my bills,” I asserted, disdain in my words.
“I don’t either. Yet.” She winked and turned to her mirror to fluff her hair. “And we could go over Thanksgiving break, so you’ll be out of school.”
“Thanksgiving break is only a week,” I reminded her.
“You can come back earlier than me.” She shrugged as if the matter were settled.
“Rita!” I turned so I could look at her.
She dropped her hands and looked at me. “Randi, please. I want to go home. He’s willing to take me, and I like him a lot. He likes me too.”
“But he’s dangerous,” I said weakly. I wouldn’t change her mind, and the beach in my daydream popped up in my mind. “So, does he live on the beach?”
Rita squealed and grabbed my hand, sensing my agreement was near. “He has a house on the beach near Salvador. We can walk right down to it. It’ll be great!”
I shook my head, a small smile on my face. “I didn’t say I’m going. But I will think about it.” She laughed loudly and bounced up and down in her chair, rattling the objects on her table when she bumped it, but I lifted my finger to cease her excitement. “After I do a little research to make sure we won’t be in any danger. And you have to make me a promise.”
“What?”
“If I find anything that’s sketchy, you agree not to go,” I begged, holding her hands tightly.
She stared at me for a moment, grumbled under her breath, and looked away. “Fine. If you say it’s dangerous, I’ll stay home.”
I didn’t believe her, but that was the best I would get from her. Besides, I had to be on stage in ten minutes, and I hadn’t fixed my hair or my makeup to my liking. I smiled at her and made a mental note to do some research while I drank my coffee the next morning.
Eliot
“Hi, Mom,” I murmured quietly. Loud noises frightened her.
“Oh, hello dear,” she murmured without a hint of recognition in her voice. She stared at me for several seconds with a frown on her face. “And who are you?”
I smiled at her. The doctor told us she would forget us, but it still hurt when she had bad days, which were more and more often. “I’m Eliot, Mom. Remember? Your son.”
Her face brightened. “Oh, Eliot! My favorite boy!”
I wasn’t sure she actually knew who I was, but she still pretended well. “Hi, Mom,” I repeated as I took her hand. “What have you been doing today?”
“I don’t know,” she mumbled with a shrug of her birdlike shoulders.
“What do you want to do?” She shrugged again. “How about we go to the common room and chat with some of your friends?”
The facility she stayed in was the top home for Alzheimer’s patients in the state. The ward she stayed in was for patients who had a tendency to wander. The doors to the outside world were locked and required a keycard to get out. The doctor, when I’d asked, had told me it was no longer a good idea to take her out of the ward. She became overstimulated and had breakdowns.
“I don’t have friends here,” she grouched. “Where is Annie?” Our dog, who had died when I was in high school, was a memory she had locked in her mind. She asked me every time I visited.
“Mom, Annie is in heaven,” I reminded her sadly.
She frowned and looked around her room. “I don’t like it here much, Steven.”
I hated when she called me by my dad’s name, and I cringed. “I’m Eliot, Mom. Why don’t you like it here?”
“They try to make me eat disgusting food,” she informed me with a sniff. “I just want my yogurt.”
“Mom, you have to eat something other than yogurt,” I explained patiently.
“I don’t want to,” she replied like a petulant child.
She was lost in her own lonely world inside her head after that statement, refusing to speak again. Her deterioration was no longer just mental. Her body was sinking in on itself because she refused to eat anything but her damn cherry yogurt, and then only when she was in the mood. Dad had stopped visiting after she had a fit when he tried to kiss her because she thought he was a stranger. But on her rare coherent days, she asked about him, and I made up a lie.
Her fragility frightened me, and over the next four months, she weakened until she didn’t want to get out of bed. When she died, she hadn’t known her own name, let alone mine. Saying the final goodbye had been both a relief and the saddest moment of my life.
My sadness had eclipsed my life for a time after her death, but a renewed sense of purpose followed that. I created the first medicine, and now, I’d spent three days straight at the lab, emerging Monday afternoon with a complete, correct formula. I was sure this was the combination necessary, and the medicine, once produced by the pharmaceutical company after testing was complete, would not only slow the effects of Alzheimer’s, it would halt them and possibly cure it if caught early enough.
Art had joined me Thursday just before midnight and worked by my side all weekend. We o
nly broke for meals, and those were eaten in the lab. Our discussions centered around our progress, and sleep was nonexistent until the formula—enough for several tests—was complete.
Through the challenges, though, Randi’s face would slip into my mind unbidden, and I’d have to concentrate to push her out. Her perfect body and her angelic face filled my dreams in the few hours’ sleep I’d managed to get over the weekend. I promised myself I’d see her again at some point.
A clap on my back brought me out of my reverie. Art’s broad smile filled my vision. “We did it, man. I’m sure of it this time.”
“So am I, my friend.”
“Let’s celebrate!” Art exclaimed, and I shook my head.
“Tests first to be certain,” I reminded him.
“Then we’ll not only celebrate our discovery but our simultaneous retirements.” Art laughed. “Because after this, we’ll be the richest lab rats in the country.”
I laughed, which felt good. I hadn’t laughed a real laugh in a year. “I’ll tell you what I want, and that’s a trip to a beach somewhere.”
“A nude beach,” Art added, his eyes almost dreamy.
I rolled my eyes. “Stop thinking with your dick.”
“Speaking of dicks, we’ve been so busy I didn’t ask you about your lap dance with Rose.” He wiggled his eyebrows at me.
“Um, it was nice, I guess,” I hedged. If Art knew how much I liked the woman, I’d never hear the end of it.
His eyes narrowed at me. “You’re leaving something out.”
Dammit. “Not really. She made me a drink, we chatted for a few minutes, and she’d barely started dancing when the correct formula filled my brain.” I slapped his shoulder. “Thanks for making me go. Not exactly my idea of a relaxing atmosphere, but my mind emptied and it hit me. Just what I needed.”
Art threw his head back and laughed. “If that woman could relax you, she must be a witch!” He laughed again and rose. “I’m headed home.”
I said goodbye with a frown on my face. I was going home as well after picking up my favorite meal from Chino’s. We were at a standstill until the next morning, anyway. But his comment lingered in my mind. He’d called Randi a witch, a harsh word, and I had asserted that she had magic in her. My visions of her were certainly enchanting, and I couldn’t believe how much I wanted to see her again now that I had completed the formula.
She worked Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, but I didn’t want to wait that long. Taking her to dinner would be my way of thanking her for giving me the down time I needed to find the perfect formula. Frowning, I left my office and walked to my assistant’s desk.
“Hi, Eliot,” she greeted with a smile. “I was beginning to think you’d just move in.”
I chuckled. “Not yet. And maybe not ever.”
She gasped and clapped her hands in excitement. “You found the formula?”
“We did. Testing begins tomorrow, but Grace, I think this is it,” I told her, my smile so big my cheeks hurt.
Grace rushed around her desk and hugged me tightly. Her round body and slightly graying blonde hair reminded me of my mom, which is why I had picked her out of all the candidates for my assistant. Thankfully, she was also excellent at what she did and shared in my tragic failures as well as my ecstatic successes. I wrapped my arms around her, thanking her.
“I’m so proud of you,” she gushed when she pulled back.
“Thanks. I’m headed out for the day, but I’ll be back in tomorrow morning early,” he told her. “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off as well?”
She waved her hand at him. “Nah, I’ve got plenty to do. Especially now that you’ve succeeded! But maybe in an hour,” she conceded with a wink. “You and Art going out to celebrate?”
“No.” He leaned closer to her and whispered, “There’s a woman I’d like to celebrate with.”
Grace’s eyes widened in shock, and she was speechless for several seconds. “A woman?”
I snickered. “Oh yes.” I loved to tease Grace.
“Well, I wish you the best,” Grace breathed, her smile mirroring mine. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Don’t get too excited. I haven’t asked her out yet,” I warned.
“If she says no, she’s an idiot and you don’t need to be with her anyway,” she defended, her expression fierce.
“You’re the sweetest, Grace,” I told her and kissed her cheek. She really was a mother figure for me, a role which she’d slipped into without hesitation. “See you tomorrow.”
“Bye, sweetie,” she called.
As I walked to the elevator, waving distractedly at those who spoke to me, I wondered how I would obtain her full name and number. I hit the button for the bottom floor and leaned against the wall, mentally listing names of people who might be able to help me. By the time the doors opened, I had the name of a friend from college who worked as a private investigator at the forefront of my mind. I unlocked my phone and scrolled through my contacts until I found his name.
I dialed, and he answered on the first ring. “Jake Calahan.”
“Hey, Jake. Eliot Messer here.”
“Eliot! How are you, old man?” he exclaimed into the phone.
I smiled slightly. Jake had called his frat brothers, me included, ‘old man,’ regardless of our ages. “Doing well. Listen, I need to find somebody. All I have is her first name and where she works. How much will that cost me?”
“For a brother? Nothing,” Jake laughed. “I could teach you how to do a search this simple in about five minutes.”
“I wouldn’t mind learning how to do that. Dating is scary,” I joked, eliciting a loud laugh from him.
“That it is, my friend, especially if you’re a millionaire.” He chuckled good-naturedly. “Give me the name and location.”
“Her first name is Randi, and she works at Burlesque.”
Jake whistled into the phone, and I could hear the clicking of computer keys as he typed. “That’s an expensive place. Let me guess, Art took you there.”
“Of course he did.”
“Same old Art. So who is this chick?”
I frowned and considered lying, but I’d already made the remark about the dating world. “She’s a stripper.”
“You thinking about dating her?” he asked, his voice lacking the tone of judgment.
“I am. Art bought me a lap dance, and she and I chatted. Not your typical stripper,” I told him. “I’m climbing in my car, so the Bluetooth will click over.”
“Yeah, sure thing,” Jake answered. After the phone connected to the car, Jake spoke. “You’re right, she certainly isn’t a typical stripper.”
“Really? Why do you say that?”
“She’s putting herself through nursing school.”
I nodded my head. “I knew she was more than just hot.”
“And hot she is, Eliot! I’ve got her license pulled up.” He wolf-whistled into the phone, which hurt my ear. “Want her address?”
“No, no, just her number. I don’t want her to think I’m a stalker,” I laughed. “And speaking of which, do you give out information over the phone like this all the time?”
“I’m doing you a favor, and here you ask me something like that,” Jake huffed.
I laughed. “You know I’m joking, man.”
“Humph, yeah.” I could hear his smile, though. “Listen, I give you her number, you work on a double date for me with one of her friends.”
“First, I have to convince her to go on a date with me. Then I’ll work on your love life.”
“Love life, ha! I’m too busy for chicks, man,” Jake grumbled.
“Until recently, my life was the same. Gotta get out of there,” I told him.
“Yeah, yeah.” He rattled off her number.
“What’s her last name?”
“Banton. She’s an orphan, lives alone, has no family that I can see on the basic search.” Jake listed the information quickly.
“Alright, thanks, Jake,”
I replied, interrupting before he gave me any more information. I wanted to learn about her from her, not from an internet search. “Let’s get a drink soon.”
“You know, Eliot, I’ve never really liked you that way,” Jake jeered.
“You’re missing out,” I finished and ended the call on his laugh.
Randi Banton. A good name. I wondered about her parents—how long they’d been dead and how long she’d been on her own. She was strong, doing what she had to do to make a life for herself. I respected her for it and wanted to know more. And I wanted to kiss her again and touch her body, not at the strip club, but in the privacy of my bedroom. I wanted her alone, naked, and willing, wanting me to fuck her as much as I wanted to fuck her.
My dick hardened as I envisioned the scene, and I shifted in the seat of my car. Calm down, I ordered myself. I decided to wait until I got home to call her so my hormones didn’t rule the conversation.
Randi
I hurried into my apartment Monday evening around eight. I had joined a study group for my nutrition class, which had proven to be the hardest class I’d taken so far. There was so much to remember in order to pass a class that I probably wouldn’t use when actually an RN. The damn class was required, though. We’d shared a couple of pizzas while studying, the four of us, so my stomach was full. I’d bargained with myself that I’d run an extra mile the next morning before class to make up for the calories.
I dropped my bag on the couch and immediately went to the bathroom to turn on the shower. As usual, I had dripped sweat on the walk to the library from the nursing building, and it had dried into a sticky residue on my skin. The ride home had been even more uncomfortable than usual due to the heat and lack of air conditioning. Two showers a day was the motto citizens of Georgia lived by, one at night, one in the morning.
I meandered back to the kitchen for a bottle of water and a green apple, my favorite, while I waited for the water to warm up. I bent to scratch Snickers on the head, listening to him purr and relaxing with the sound. A knock sounded on the door, surprising the cat and me. He jerked and flew under the table, and I straightened so fast I got dizzy.