by Ann Roberts
Maybe Alicia was worth a second chance, as her reply had suggested, so she became the first person CC had actually responded to since taking out the personal ad. Definitely ironic.
She tried to forget that she was most likely replaying a previous Saturday tryst between Nadia and Alicia, and headed to the shoe department. She was in the midst of trying on the tallest stilettos she’d ever worn when her phone rang—Penn. Alicia was studying summer sandals at a display table near the front so she answered the call.
“Hey.”
“Um, hi, CC,” she stammered.
“Hi, I’m so glad you called,” she said sweetly.
“Uh, well, uh, I was wondering if you had any plans tonight. Viv and I, and maybe Lynette were going to the symphony.”
“Tell her it’s at the park downtown and Siobhan has a solo,” Viv called from the background.
“Did you get all that?” she asked, sounding perturbed.
“Uh, yeah. That sounds great. I’d love—”
“Which one will make my feet look sexier?” Alicia held two sandals up in front of her face.
She stepped away and tumbled over the stack of shoes, dropping her phone into one of the open boxes. She searched frantically amid the tissue paper and expensive heels, all of which seemed horribly slutty now.
Alicia picked up the ones CC hated the most, a pair of bright red Gucci ankle-straps with gold buckles. “I think these definitely say fuck me. And that’s exactly what I intend to do, baby.”
She searched faster, certain that Penn could hear all of the flirtatious comments. She finally found the phone between two of the boxes. Her heart sank when she realized Penn had hung up.
Alicia insisted on paying for the Gucci shoes and demanded an opportunity to see her wear them—immediately.
She was still in a funk over the phone call, but Alicia’s soft kiss was too enticing. And her midwestern manners compelled her to thank Alicia for the gifts.
“Are you staying here?” CC asked as they drove along Central Avenue.
“For now,” she said simply.
“What about Nadia?”
Alicia caressed her cheek and slid her hand down her breast. “I’m undecided.”
She’d driven by these old condos a few times and was rather certain Mr. Hartford of Hartford and Burns lived in the same building, one that boasted a doorman and laundry service. They pulled into the underground parking garage and took the residents’ elevator to the tenth floor, which housed only two apartments because of each one’s massive square footage. The living area faced Central Avenue, and a spacious patio provided the best view for the downtown parades that occurred throughout the year. The modern kitchen contained all of the trappings found in trendy magazines, and CC especially liked the stylish pendant lights that hung over the stove and the island. It was a place she could only dream about.
“How do you know this person?”
Alicia flashed a mysterious smile and busied herself at the bar cart. “One of my clients owns this place. It’s where he keeps his mistress, but she’s in France right now.” She handed her a highball glass of whisky. “I know it’s the middle of the afternoon, but what the hell? Cheers.”
She downed it quickly and felt the buzz immediately. Alicia refilled their glasses and gave her a tour of the guest quarters. By the time they returned to the kitchen, she was almost drunk, and she was glad. Penn kept intruding on her thoughts. She imagined their single kissing session was all there would ever be.
“You know,” Alicia said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about us, remembering all those late nights when we’d study and then wind up making love.”
She laughed. “You would do anything to escape torts.”
Alicia pulled her into an embrace. “It wasn’t just about torts. Your body is a total turn-on. It always has been.”
“What about Nadia?”
“I’ve learned a lot about relationships from her—and sex. She’s taught me to be free with my body. She was an experiment. I had to know if our love was just a school thing or if it was real.”
“And what do you think?” she asked, unsure if she wanted to know the answer.
“I’m still thinking, but I’m leaning heavily in your favor. What about you? Now you have this incredible career with a major law firm. Why would you want me back?”
“My career’s not so great,” she said, sidestepping the relationship question.
She looked at her incredulously. “Are you kidding? You work for one of the most powerful firms in the city with terrific opportunities for advancement. I’d kill to have your job.”
“I hope you’re exaggerating.”
“Only a little,” Alicia said, unbuttoning CC’s shirt. “I’m really enjoying our new sex life.”
“I can’t believe some of the things I’m doing with you,” she said. “You’re different.”
“We can thank Nadia.”
She groaned when Alicia’s fingertips massaged her nipples. She couldn’t believe how ready she was again and how quickly she responded to her touch.
“You haven’t seen the best part of the house.”
They went down a short hallway into a large bedroom with an adjoining bath. She stepped to the large picture window across from the king-sized bed and gazed at South Mountain. It made her jealous when she thought of the tiny one-bedroom she lived in now.
Alicia held up the Nordstrom’s bag. “There’s a pair of scissors in the bathroom so you can cut off the tags. Why don’t you go change for me? Let me see the whole outfit together.”
Alicia stretched out on the bed and fiddled with the lighting and some mood music via remote control while CC disappeared into a bathroom that was the size of her kitchen. She changed and leaned over the vanity. She’d become everything Penn hated.
But Penn had waited nearly a week to call her back.
When she returned, Alicia howled in delight. “Wow! My imagination couldn’t do that justice. Now give me a little attitude.”
She laughed and felt her face redden. “I’m not a model. I can barely walk in these things.”
“What you need is a little courage,” she said emphatically, holding up a bottle of tequila and a full shot glass. CC gulped the tequila and Alicia refilled it. “You’re not drinking?”
“I will,” she said. “Who were you talking to on the phone before? Was that one of your new paramours, or was it the butch dyke from the charity event?”
CC’s face reddened and Alicia chuckled. “I thought so.” She kissed her ear. “Forget her. She’s not what you need. This is about new beginnings.”
After two more shooters she was feeling no pain. When Alicia turned on some Janet Jackson and commanded her to strut, she imagined she was on a runway during Paris fashion week. She pranced across the room swaying her hips with extra gusto every time Alicia whooped and clapped.
“Let me see some dancing!” she shouted.
She waved her off, but Alicia prodded until she was shaking her booty and whipping her hair to the sides. She was free. When the song ended, she downed another shooter.
“You are too good,” Alicia called from the bed. And a flash of light blinded her. “God, your gorgeous!”
Alicia held a camera. Before she could protest, the flash popped again.
“Don’t,” she said. “Please.”
“Oh, baby, yeah,” she said playfully. “You are too hot not to. Now give me a little pose.”
She grew uncomfortable each time she glanced at the camera and Alicia’s face behind the view finder. “No. Let’s go to bed now.”
“Not yet,” she said. “Lean back against the dresser and spread your legs. I want the full effect.”
She shook her head and Alicia dropped the camera to her chest. “CC, please. It’s just a few pictures. You have no idea how beautiful you look right now. This is just between us, for old time’s sake, or maybe for new time’s sake.”
Her voice matched the softness of her expression, and CC felt a burst
of hope. She laughed seductively. “How do you want me?”
****
Eventually they went to bed, but only after Alicia had posed her twenty different ways—against the wall, on the bed and straddling a chair. Some of the photos were merely seductive while others bordered on soft-porn and could never be put on her Facebook page. She’d noticed Alicia’s libido increased with each click of the shutter, and it wasn’t long before she was naked. Then CC didn’t feel nearly as uncomfortable, but Alicia never turned the camera on herself or took a picture of them together.
Despite the fabulous view and the soft bed, she’d found the sex unfulfilling. Perhaps it was all the posing or her drunken state, but she guessed it was really Alicia’s lack of interest in doing it in a bed. They had finished without much fanfare, and she’d dressed while Alicia called a cab.
Dropping the Nordstrom’s bag into a corner of her closet, she felt like she’d completed a walk of shame. She showered and faced the depressing thought of a night alone when she could’ve been listening to music with people she liked. She pictured Viv, Penn and Lynette relaxing under the cool June sky enjoying Siobhan’s lilting harp. Maybe Penn would’ve kissed her. Unlikely. She’d come to realize that her self-confidence as an attorney was balanced by a coyness in her personal life. It was like there were two of her.
Ding!
She sighed and decided to delete the personal ad. She had enough drama in her life, and she’d be happy to never hear from BrooklynBornBaby again.
Ding!
She took slight comfort in her portfolio and worked on Danny the Dachshund for the rest of the evening. She found a classical station on her satellite radio and pictured herself at the park while she drew.
Ding!
Ding!
Ding!
Around midnight she stood and stretched, pleased with her progress. The evening hadn’t been a total waste. Her e-mail had chimed incessantly, but she’d never been curious enough to abandon her drawing to see who’d commented on her Facebook page or which vacation destination Travelocity was hyping. Or to see which women were responding to her ad.
When she checked the inbox she was surprised to find nearly three dozen replies to her personal ad and an e-mail from Alicia.
I’ve taken the liberty of spicing up your personal ad. (Honey, you really should choose different passwords.) Hope you get some great hits. Maybe we could do a threesome? And because I KNOW the first thing you’ll do is delete my little gift, I’ve changed your password for you. Wasn’t that nice of me? New beginnings, babe! LOL.
Her face drained of color as she navigated to the ad. Alicia had added four of the pictures she’d taken that afternoon but was kind enough to crop out CC’s face. One showed only her buttocks, another displayed her cleavage and in the other two she stood in the doorway, her leg extended over her head, her face turned away.
She thought she’d be sick. She checked the activity log and watched another five replies fall into the queue. She counted thirty-eight replies since she’d returned home.
She had to scroll through the photos a second time just to make sure they were real. She held her head in her hands, the throbbing hangover blocking her memory. She couldn’t remember much except constantly leaning, twisting, turning, and at various times taking off the bra or pulling down the panties just far enough to tease.
And the smiling. She’d smiled through the whole thing. Alicia had insisted on it. She had no recollection of anything else thanks to the high quality tequila Alicia had provided.
But there had to be a hundred photos, and this was only a sampling. How many other pictures existed and what would Alicia do with the rest of them?
She stared at the e-mail message again. Alicia had ended it with LOL. Laugh out loud. But CC wasn’t laughing at all.
Chapter Thirteen
February, 1955
The world outside my bedroom window was completely foreign. Shingled rooftops surrounded us and stretched to the base of Squaw Peak. And with all the houses came more people and their cars. What once had been simple dirt paths between the rows of trees were now streets with names like Georgia, Oregon and Michigan.
“Why don’t they name them after indigenous plants?” Kiah asked. “Like Cactus Road or Saguaro Avenue?”
After she explained to me what indigenous meant I agreed.
The traffic increased greatly as Mr. Rubenstein sold all of the houses in the first subdivision quickly, and Mama said people were on a waiting list for the ones near us. It seemed he couldn’t build them fast enough before people moved in. There wasn’t a Saturday that went by without moving trucks pulling up into the brand-new carports. Barbecues, neighborhood meetings and children’s birthday parties were common sights. Our neighborhood had a new designation—suburb.
I’d asked Mama if she ever wanted to live in one of the little ranch houses and she’d said, “No, honey, this is our home.”
She also shied away from the neighborhood festivities, politely refusing offers by baking a sweet potato pie to forgive her absence. While she appreciated the invitations, I think she felt like a table with two legs. We weren’t a regular family anymore, and she didn’t want to discuss where Pops and Will had gone.
Still, everyone loved her pies. Word quickly spread about her talent, and she soon had a side business that helped keep us afloat. I’d never understood what had happened to all the money from the orange grove, but I’d guessed Pops had kept it all for himself and maybe Shirley West.
I’d heard Mama talking to Mac one night in the kitchen about finances. It seemed that when Pops first left, guilt forced him to provide for us a little, but after the scene at Christmas there was no help at all.
“Thank goodness people want to buy my pies or they’d probably turn the lights off,” she’d said one night at dinner. Mac had squeezed her hand and offered his reassurances. That always seemed to make her feel better.
I worried that Pops would come back and kick us out since it was his house, but as each week passed my worry lessened. Maybe spending the money on Shirley West helped keep him away.
Mac and Kiah were over all the time and ate dinner with us often. Sometimes Mr. Munoz did too, but Mr. Benson never joined us. I’d once heard him grumble that he wouldn’t sit at a table with niggers, kikes and spics, but he never said it above a whisper. He didn’t make a scene about it the way other people did. Kiah called it quiet prejudice where people just grudgingly tolerated others. It wasn’t good but it wasn’t destructive either.
Sometimes Mr. Rubenstein and Miss Noyce came by, and when we were all sitting around the table it felt like a real family where everybody laughed and told jokes. We loved listening to Mr. Munoz’s stories about his uncle Juan, who lived in Mexico and had a little dog named Rojo that always got in trouble.
It was at one of these dinners that Mr. Rubenstein tapped his glass with his fork to get everyone’s attention before he announced that Miss Noyce had agreed to marry him. We all clapped, and then he asked Mama if they could get married in our house. She agreed immediately, and we set about preparing for the wedding, which they’d decided would be on Valentine’s Day—just two weeks away.
For the next fourteen days, Kiah and I rushed home after school to help Mama clean the windows and floors and polish the silver. She was determined that the entire house would shine, even the parts that nobody would see.
“Do you think you’ll ever get married?” I asked Kiah while we scrubbed the floors, our last task before the wedding the next day.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t met a boy yet that I liked enough. I’m not sure I ever will.”
“Well, I’m not. All boys care about is cars and drinking. And they all smell bad.” Kiah laughed, and it made me smile. “I’d marry you,” I said.
She stopped scrubbing and stared at me. At first I thought she was angry. She had a queer look on her face but then she smiled back. “I’d marry you too, Vivi.”
“I wish we could,” I said.
“Me too.”
“Maybe someday.”
“Yup,” she agreed.
Mama stormed in, hands on her hips. “Are you two jabbering or working?”
“Working,” we said simultaneously and resumed our scrubbing.
“Good. We’ve got a ton of food to cook before tomorrow afternoon, and I can’t have you girls dilly-dallying with your chores. Understood?”
We both nodded and she flew away, leaving us to giggle quietly. “Why do you think Mr. Rubenstein and Miss Noyce wanted to get married here? I thought people had to get married in a church.”
“They can’t,” she explained. “He’s Jewish, but she isn’t, so they can’t get married at his church and nobody else would ever let a Jew in. So they’re stuck.”
“So who’s gonna marry them?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I guess somebody who doesn’t care.”
Somebody turned out to be a judge that Mr. Rubenstein knew. There were only about twelve guests, including all of us and his brother and little sister, one of Miss Noyce’s teacher friends and only two people from her family. She’d come over one night and cried for an hour with Mama because most of her family hated her for marrying a Jew, and they had made a pact to skip the wedding. Mama patted her hand and told her that we were her family now and the rest of them would probably come around once they saw what a wonderful man Mr. Rubenstein was.
It was a fine party, and Kiah and I ate like crazy. Mr. Rubenstein, being as rich as he was, had hired Mama to do all the cooking except the wedding cake. For that he’d gone to a Jewish bakery. She’d studied up on finger food and something called canapés, which were really good. And, of course, there were eight sweet potato pies. When it came time for the champagne toast, Mac snuck Kiah and me each a little glass while Mama pretended to be upset.
The best part was the dancing. I got to dance with Kiah to all of Mac’s jazz records, and it was really nice watching Mr. and Mrs. Rubenstein make googly eyes as he twirled her around the living room. Even Mrs. Rubenstein’s people had a good time. At first the two of them, an aunt from Topeka and her daughter from Wichita, wouldn’t talk to anyone, but as the afternoon wore on, they had fun. Mr. Munoz asked the aunt to dance, and she shook her head so hard I thought it might fall off, but he was a charmer, and after two more glasses of champagne, she asked him to dance and then wouldn’t let him sit down.