Genevieve decided to go the evasive route. If it worked she wouldn’t even have to go into the spiel she’d fabricated for just this purpose. “He’s wonderful. What else can I say?”
“Don’t be shy, Gen,” Cesca prompted. “Inquiring minds want to know. How’d you meet? And how’d you know he was The One?”
Once again she answered with a question. “How does anyone know?”
“You’re lucky you found him,” Livvy said enviously. “It’s hard to meet someone special when you work for a cruise line. The travel is wonderful, but not a single man to be found. Just a lot of dirty old men who always want to dance with me when their wives are at the buffet table. Or at least dirty middle-aged men. You know, in their forties.”
Genevieve promptly had a vision of Barry on the deck of a cruise ship floating in the Caribbean Sea, asking Livvy to dance with him and then of her squirming to get out of his too-tight grip. She immediately felt guilty for having the thought. Barry wasn’t like that.
He’d made her nervous when he told her he wouldn’t be satisfied until she was married to him, but she’d spoken to him since and he said nothing more about it. She decided it was just an unfortunate outburst.
“How’d you meet him, Gen?” Cesca asked.
She took a deep breath. Now, whatever you do, make it genuine. You have to sound convincing. “I was having dinner with a friend at a Harlem brownstone with rental rooms upstairs. I ran outside to get something I’d left in the car, and I ran into him coming home.”
“He rented from the people who gave the dinner party,” Cesca clarified.
“That’s right. We had...a moment. I knew I had to see him again, and so did he.” She laughed. “I recited my phone number, and the next day he called. Within two weeks we were madly in love.”
“Oh, how romantic!” Livvy said with a sigh. “And I’ll bet the sex is dynamic.”
Genevieve sputtered on the water she’d been swallowing.
“Are you all right, Gen?” Cesca asked, her eyes wide with concern. She turned a stern look on Livvy, who shrugged in embarrassment. “You should really be more tactful. She’s choking to death here!”
Genevieve took another sip of water to rinse out her throat. “No, I’m fine. I think we should probably look at our menus now.”
They ordered the paella for four.
“Gen, did Cesca tell you I’m going to participate in the open mike tonight?” Livvy asked.
“No! Are you going to concentrate on your singing now, too?” In addition to her skill at dance, Livvy also possessed a voice of higher quality than many singers who made millions.
“Singing, dancing, I’m open. I’m going to be performing in the lounge on the ship when I go back to work, as well as dancing in the show. But ideally, I’d love to quit the cruise line and get a gig at one of the supper clubs, or even dance on Broadway. It’s time for me to think about getting married and having a family, and I need to stay in one place for that.” She sighed. “Do you realize that in three years we’ll be thirty?”
“Oh, Livvy.” Cesca rolled her eyes, obviously having heard this many times before.
“Just think, Gen,” Livvy said. “By then you’ll probably have a baby.”
She could only smile back.
Dexter dressed his hamburger with mustard, Heinz 57 sauce, a slice of beefsteak tomato and finally, raw onion. He then cut it in half and bit into it, nodding his approval.
“I told you they make great burgers,” Eddie Blaine said. Like Dexter, Eddie worked as a technician in the path lab. “They just opened a month ago. Glad you could finally join us, Dex.” He looked around. “Or at least me. I don’t know if anybody else is going to make it tonight.”
“They’ll be here. I’ve been trying to come out and have a brew with y’all, but what can I say? I’ve been busy.” Dexter wasn’t about to tell them he hadn’t joined them because he couldn’t afford to. “My last semester starts up soon.”
Eddie looked surprised. “Did you get in?”
“Sure did.”
“Good. I was afraid you might not be able to make it. I guess you’ll be leaving us after the first of the year, huh?”
“I’ll be leaving sooner than that, Eddie. I put in my notice. I’m going to stay at the M.E.’s office. They agreed to allow me to work the afternoon shift so I can go to class in the mornings.”
“I’ll miss you, man, but I’m glad things worked out. Hey, here’s the crew.” Eddie waved. “Over here, y’all!”
An hour and a half later, Dexter yawned, a sure sign he should be getting on his way. Judging from the way the boisterous crowd around him was laughing, his colleagues would be good for another couple of hours, but they didn’t have second jobs to report to at eight in the morning. It was time to get his dessert and go home.
As was his usual practice, he’d checked out the dessert menu before looking at the food menu, and that coconut cake sounded right on the money. He’d gotten a chance to see it as wait staff passed by on their way to deliver sweet treats to diners, and they cut a nice hunk for six dollars. He would have started off with the cake, but since he ordered a beer first he decided the two didn’t mix, so he ordered real food. But now he’d place a take-out order and carry it with him. If he ate it just before going to bed, he’d have sweet dreams for sure.
His dream of law school graduation hadn’t occurred since that night at his grandparents’, but he hadn’t forgotten it. Part of it made sense to him now. Genevieve had made his graduation possible. She belonged in his dream, even if it was highly unlikely that she’d actually attend the ceremony. Her presence in his dream was clearly only symbolic.
After dinner, Livvy brought the house down with her performance of the Stevie Wonder-penned tune Bird of Beauty—many incorrectly referred to it as Simon Says—in a samba-like arrangement that included singing several of the verses in her native Portuguese. She returned to the table after stopping to shake the hands of a half dozen well-wishers. “I guess we can go home now. I’m on vacation, but you two aren’t. And Cesca, I know you have to be up early tomorrow for work.”
“Livvy, you were fabulous!” Genevieve spoke with awe. “I knew you had a nice voice, but I didn’t know how nice. You sing even better than you dance.”
“Thanks. I took some lessons to learn proper techniques to help develop my instrument.” She looked around the room. “Wouldn’t it be nice if someone in the business was here tonight and thought I had a future.”
The cab was heading east on Seventy-Second Street when it stopped for a red light at Columbus. Genevieve had just focused on a tall man approaching the opposite corner who looked familiar when Cesca cried out. “Hey, there goes Dexter!”
She had the rear window down and was shouting, “Hey, Dexter, over here! It’s Gen and Cesca!”
“Driver, can you stop and pick up that man?” Livvy said, leaning forward eagerly.
Genevieve’s mind raced faster than a competing vehicle in the Indianapolis 500. She didn’t particularly want Dexter to be in the cab with her friends, who would no doubt pelt him with questions. It was easy to know why he was on the Upper West Side. The hospital where he worked was nearby, and Columbus Avenue certainly had no shortage of restaurants for people getting off work who wanted a bite to eat and a beer or two to wash it down.
The driver pulled over alongside the curb, close enough for Genevieve to see the confusion on Dexter’s face. She saw the moment it went away, when he recognized her sitting between her two friends.
“Hi, Dexter,” Cesca cooed. “Remember me? I’m Gen’s friend, Cesca.”
“Hello, Cesca. Of course I remember you.” His eyes moved to Genevieve. “You’re getting in early tonight, Jenny.”
“I did say I wouldn’t be too late,” she said, going along with the charade and grateful he’d assessed the situation correctly. “Get in.”
He climbed into the back and unfolded the jump seat.
“Dexter, I want you to meet my friend Olivia Olivei
ra,” Genevieve said.
He smiled at her and held out his hand. “Hello, Olivia.”
She shook his hand. “Call me Livvy.”
“Livvy, then. Did you ladies have a nice time?”
Cesca gave an enthusiastic reply, giving him a brief recap of their time at the restaurant, including Livvy’s mesmerizing performance.
Livvy leaned closer to Genevieve while Cesca talked. “He’s cute, Gen,” she whispered. “I like his hair. It kinda makes him look, oh, a little dangerous. Like a pirate.”
“All he needs is a cap with a skull and crossbones on it, and an eye patch,” she said sweetly.
“Dexter, Gen told us how you two met,” Livvy said. “I think it’s priceless.”
Genevieve, anxious to let him know she hadn’t used the real story before he said something about it, quickly jumped in. “There’s really nothing special about it. I was a guest in someone’s home, went to get my sweater from the car, and encountered a tall, good-looking man on the steps. It probably happens every day.”
“The romantic part is how your eyes met, and you both felt that spark,” Cesca said dreamily.
“Even though you had a date inside,” Livvy added.
“It was like an electric shock,” Dexter said in agreement. “And much more romantic than, say, if I was using the bathroom with the door open, thinking I was by myself, and Jenny walked in on me because she thought a pipe had burst.”
Genevieve froze while her friends voiced a collective, “That’s disgusting!” Then Cesca asked, “Did you actually meet a woman that way?”
“Yeah, I did, once. It wasn’t as revolting as it sounds. I did have my back to her.”
“Charming,” Genevieve muttered.
“So what happened?” Cesca squeezed Genevieve’s arm. “I’m just being curious, Gen. I know I shouldn’t be asking Dexter about his old girlfriends, but you know it doesn’t mean anything. You’re the one he married.”
Genevieve openly rolled her eyes, knowing her friends would believe her discomfort stemmed from Dexter discussing some old girlfriend, not out of annoyance with him.
“Tell us, Dexter,” Cesca urged. “What a crazy way to encounter someone. I have to know what happened afterward.”
“Oh, not a heck of a lot. She was very mysterious. Didn’t say a whole lot about herself. She didn’t even want to tell me where she lived. Actually, I think there might have been another man in her life she didn’t tell me about.” He shrugged. “I think she just wanted something from me, and once she got it she was through.”
“What did she want from you?” Livvy asked.
“Oh, I can’t tell you that,” he said seriously. “That would be extremely ungallant of me.” Dexter turned his head from left to right so all three of them could see the sincerity on his face. At least Livvy and Cesca saw sincerity. Genevieve saw a man mocking her, knowing she couldn’t do a thing about it.
She bit her lower lip. This had to be the most tense cab ride she’d ever taken. Dexter might be charming her friends with his attempt at chivalry, but his cryptic comments were truly ticking her off. So help her, if she could she’d bean him over the head with her purse— the side that held her cell phone so he’d be sure to feel it. And what the heck was that about another man in her life? He must have found out about Barry. She couldn’t imagine how. Surely Stan Smith wouldn’t have blabbed another secret.
She looked out of the windshield impatiently. Thank heavens, it looked like they were almost off of the drive that wound through Central Park. The graceful, old residential buildings of Fifth Avenue loomed near.
“You can drop us first,” Livvy said to the driver. “Seventy-Ninth between Madison and Lexington.” She turned to Genevieve. “You lovebirds don’t mind being last, do you?”
When Cesca got out of the cab she suggested, “Dexter, please get off of that miserable-looking jump seat and sit with your wife.”
Genevieve winced. She knew there was no reason for Dexter to remain on the folding seat once Cesca and Livvy had departed. She just felt safer with him across from her rather than next to her. It was easy to maintain that their marriage was just a charade when Dexter wasn’t around, but not when just inches separated them.
He promptly hopped out of the cab, gave Cesca a quick hug and, at Livvy’s invitation, one to her as well. After a few words of farewell, he got back in and sat beside Genevieve. “‘Bye, Cesca!” he called out of the open window. “Thanks for having such sharp eyes. Because of you, I get to ride home with my wife. You don’t know how much I wanted to do that.”
Genevieve sulked, her arms folded across her chest. She caught his underlying meaning. Cesca’s notice of him meant he was about to see where she spent her time now that she’d moved out of the Smith’s brownstone.
This time rolling her eyes wouldn’t do it. She showed her annoyance by connecting her elbow to his ribs.
Chapter 17
She felt a little ashamed at her enjoyment of his exclamation of, “Ouch!” She knew it was wrong find amusement in someone else’s physical pain, but doggone it, this was the first fun she’d had since Dexter had gotten into this cab.
“What the hell was that for?” he demanded.
“For talking too much.”
“I was just being charming. I want your friends to like me.”
Genevieve wanted to ask him what difference it made. He’d be seeing very little of them.
She weighed the ramifications of him seeing where she lived. Z.L. would be on duty until midnight, which meant she could introduce Dexter to him. As much as she wanted to keep Dexter under wraps, she did feel it would be best that if questioned, the doorman could say that he’d actually met her husband.
Husband. The word sounded so foreign, at least when she thought of it as something she had. She’d have chosen to have a case of bird flu rather than a husband if it would qualify her for legal residency. She couldn’t even think the word without stumbling mentally. Some words were difficult to formulate because they didn’t slide off the tongue easily, or even form in the mind. She managed to say it convincingly when it counted, like when speaking to Z.L., and she supposed that was what counted.
She still felt that the less Dexter knew about her life away from him, the better. She wanted to keep their relationship as distant as possible. That was the problem with this whole marriage of convenience thing; they were getting too emotionally involved. The plan had been to keep it simple, and it hadn’t included bringing Dexter home with her. He couldn’t very well leave her unit until Z.L. had gone off duty. That meant he had to stay until after midnight. Nothing good could come of being alone with Dexter late at night, and she knew it. The magnetism between them was as undeniable as it was powerful.
For a crazy moment she asked herself if it would be so awful if she gave in to her desires, but quickly nixed the idea. She knew that bad things sometimes happened to good people through no fault of their own, but she also believed that good behavior was rewarded and bad behavior would always come back to haunt a person. That ambulance coming to the hotel in Baltimore while she and Dexter were making out on the couch hadn’t been a coincidence; Genevieve saw it as a sign that she was headed down the wrong path. She’d heeded the message. It was bad enough to have gotten married for all the wrong reasons, and to commit the very serious offense of trying to deceive the United States Government. What she had to do was get through this dishonorable period of her life as unscathed as possible, for herself as well as the other parties involved. She’d managed to spare Barry the grief of a one-sided relationship, but she had to resist Dexter as well.
Sleeping with him would no doubt bring her joy, but create more problems in the long run. Perhaps if they’d met at a different time, they could have had an affair that progressed naturally and ran its course, but the dynamics of their relationship changed the moment they took those fraudulent vows and she presented him with a check for his tuition. That was no basis upon which to begin a relationship.
&nbs
p; She was in a terrible Catch-22. Her ethics and instincts wouldn’t allow her to have a relationship with Dexter, but because she was married to him she felt she was restricted from getting involved with anyone else. Perhaps that was the price she had to pay for her freedom.
Genevieve was convinced that if she stayed on the high road, tried to behave honorably in this difficult situation, perhaps she would find love one day and could live with dignity, rather than the circus her life had become.
Dexter’s calm voice interrupted her thoughts. “Chill, Jenny. I was just having some fun. Nobody knew what I was getting at except you.”
“And what about this fictitious old girlfriend who kept secrets from you? Not wanting to give you her address, and having another man in her life?”
“Jenny, don’t you think I know the only reason I’m finding out where you live is because this cab picked me up? I’m betting that was Cesca’s idea. If you’d spotted me walking you would have done your best to distract her. Lucky for me she recognized me, and you couldn’t assemble an excuse fast enough for me to be on my way someplace else.”
She couldn’t deny any part of what he said—after he got in the cab she had in fact wished she’d been quick enough on the draw to say that he was on his way to work instead of coming home—so she just sat and stared straight ahead. She didn’t want to look at his handsome face, the face that less than a week ago had been so close to hers, kissing her while his arms held her so tightly...
She jerked when he reached out to touch the gold chain around her neck, his fingers moving to the dark blue sapphire hanging from it. “I see you got your necklace back,” he commented. “I trust your former landlady was able to track you down to tell you she found it without having to go through your boyfriend?”
So that was it. Brenda had been the blabbermouth, not Stan. She should have known. She doubted Dexter had more than minimal contact with Stan. Brenda pretty much took care of the mopping and other maintenance on the floor. Dexter must have been around when Brenda found her pendant.
Save the Best for Last Page 16