“I wish there could be something more between us, Simone, but—”
“—but you refuse to be hurt again,” she finished inaccurately for him. “And I get where you’re coming from, don’t get me wrong. I understand what you’re saying. But I’m not like that, Nick. I’ll never break your heart. I’ll never—”
“Simone—”
“Over time, after you’ve had a chance–”
He immediately grabbed her hands again. “Simone, listen to me. You’re a wonderful woman—”
“Stop saying that!” she said, snatching her hands away. The tears were beginning to show now. “I don’t want to be wonderful and noble and all of those pretty words. I want to be loved, Nick. I want somebody to love me the way—”
Her bottom lip started quivering and she angrily wiped away tears with the back of her hand. “I just want to be special to somebody.”
“You will be special to somebody, Simone—”
“Not anybody! You. I want to be special to you. I’ve seen all of these guys around here, the way they hit on me as soon as their wives or girlfriends turn their backs, and I hate what I see. I’ll never be with any of them. But you’re different, Nick.”
Nick immediately started shaking his head. “No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are! How many guys would have taken me home the night of my birthday and didn’t try to take advantage? How many guys would have checked on me last night and stayed all night with me, just to be there with me, without wanting some special favors in return? Come on now. You are different, Nick. Trust. I know what I’m talking about.”
The scary thing, Nick thought, was how little she did know what she was talking about. He was no saint, not by a long shot, yet she was convinced that he was. Part of him wanted to believe that she was right, that maybe there was something extraordinary there. But the better part of him, the part that knew better, decided to keep it real. “Simone, I’m no different than any—”
“Yes, you are. Look at you!” She said this with a smile, a smile that caused him to smile, too. It was hopeless. He was not ready to let her go.
“Whatever you understand that I am,” he continued, “I need you to understand this: I care about you, and I have a high regard for you, but over time, no matter what you believe, that’s as far as it can go with me. A friendship. Nothing more.”
Simone just sat there, unsure what to say, and Nick could tell by that look on her face, that almost whimsical, so you say look, that she didn’t believe him. She’d go along with it - for now- but over time, she was convinced that he’d come around. He’d see what a magnificent catch she was and be more than willing to give her a chance.
“Okay,” she said, as he knew she would. “I’ll be very proud to have you as my friend.”
He stood, looking down at Simone a moment longer, and then began walking toward the door. “Thanks again for coming by last night,” she said, following him. He glanced back at her.
“You’re okay then?”
“I’m good now.”
“Not just about us, Simone,” he said a little irritably, “but about that court decision?”
“Oh that.”
“Yes, that.”
“I’ll be okay. I’ll just have to hope and pray that Shay will forgive me when she turns eighteen.”
Nick stopped and turned to her. He couldn’t believe she was back on that again. “Didn’t you hear anything I said to you last night?”
“Yes, I heard it.”
“There’s nothing to forgive, Simone. You were fourteen years old! How could you rescue her without getting yourself caught? Now stop being impractical and face facts. That girl’s life is not your fault and it’s not your responsibility. It’s unfortunate she had to end up separated from her family, but your mother put that sequence of events in motion, not you. You understand me? It’s not your fault.”
She nodded her head. “I know it’s not. I mean, I will know it. It’ll take some time, that’s all. You weren’t there, Nick. You didn’t see how Shay’s big eyes were looking all around for me. I was like a mother to her. I took care of her since she was a baby. And I wasn’t there when she needed me most. That’s what so hard. The fact that she never knew the truth.”
Nick’s heart squeezed. He placed his hand on the side of her face. “She will, one day. It won’t be long now. Just a couple more years.”
Simone nodded. He didn’t know how long that still sounded to her. “I know.”
He stared at her. Then leaned down and kissed her on the lips. He wanted to deepen the kiss, and to throw his arms around her, but he knew it wouldn’t be wise. He removed his mouth from hers and looked into her eyes, his breathing irregular. “If you start feeling rotten again, Simone,” he said before he realized he was saying it, “pick up that phone and call me. You hear me?”
She looked at him, still stunned by his kiss. “I will.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He pulled out a business card, wrote on the back of it, and then handed it to her. “My cell number is on the back. Call me.”
He said it as if he wanted to add, for any reason, but he didn’t add it. She understood. He could see it in her eyes.
“Anyway, you have yourself a good day, alright?”
Simone smiled, said jokingly that it would be her pleasure, and he left.
She leaned against the door after he left. Although she understood what he was saying, that he could not commit to her right now, she still couldn’t stop from feeling hopeful. So much so that she decided then and there to cling to that hope with all she had, and wait with an unyielding anticipation for his change to come. And it will come, she thought, with a smile.
TEN
Joey Bellini elbowed Gert, his cook, when he realized that Nick Perry had walked into the Sky Diner. It was early, just after the morning rush had turned into a trickle of patrons who either preferred to eat breakfast late, or lunch early, which meant the diner was practically deserted. It was, in fact, usually the best time of the day for the workers.
“Well, well,” Gert said with a smile, as she leaned against the counter and sipped coffee, “look what the cat done drug in now.”
For the past five months they had been watching Nick as he drove up in his fancy SUV, picked up Simone, took her off somewhere during her lunch break, and then brought her back. But he never came in. Bellini even asked Simone why not. Simone made clear that Nick was just her attorney taking her to lunch, nothing more, but Bellini didn’t buy it. Their “lunch” dates were a little too regular for him and, besides, even attorneys can show some respect by at least getting out of their vehicles and coming inside every once in a while. “What,” he asked in his heavy Brooklyn accent, “he thinks he’s better than us or somethin’? And why can’t you guys eat lunch here, if it’s lunch he’s supposed to be taking you to?”
Simone, however, would just laugh, and get back to work.
And now here he was, the great Nick Perry, standing in the middle of the Sky. And he was looking sharp, if Bellini could say so himself, in threads that sported almost more Italian designers than Bellini had relatives.
“Look at him just standing there,” Gert said. “Think he’s expecting us to bow down?”
“I got his bow down,” Bellini said as he left Gert’s side and moved toward Nick. “Mr. Perry,” he said as he approached him, “it’s an honor to have you in the Sky.” He extended his hand. “The name’s Bellini. Joey Bellini. I run this establishment.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Bellini,” Nick said, shaking his hand. Simone had spoken very favorably about her boss, often describing him as a big, lovable teddy bear, although Nick, seeing him now, wouldn’t go that far.
“You’re Simmie’s old man, I mean, attorney, right?”
“Right. Is she here?”
“Not that I’m being nosy, you understand,” Bellini continued, as if Nick had not asked a question.
“No, certainly not,” Nick replied with a smi
le.
“I was just asking. You don’t know if you don’t ask.”
“Understood.”
“And Simmie, she ain’t your regular type. She’s special, know what I’m saying? She’s like, whatta ya’ call it? A one-of-a-kind girl. And one-of-a-kind girls have to be looked out for, protected so to speak, from the sharks that swim around these parts seeking to devour them. If you get my meaning.”
Nick stared at Bellini. “Your point, Mr. Bellini?” he asked, understanding full well what he meant.
“I don’t wanna see Simmie hurt,” Bellini said. “That’s my point. I see you driving up here in your big truck and your fancy threads, taking her away for an hour or so, bringin’ her back. Never taking her to dinner, but always lunch. Always in these faraway places. Kinda like the way you’d do a, a whore. A piece on the side. A not-so-nice girl. The kind you keep out of sight of the wife, know what I’m saying? But Simmie, she ain’t one of them not-so-nice girls. She’s like glass, like fine china. Fragile. That’s it. She’s fragile. And I don’t wanna see her hurt.”
“Nick?” Simone’s voice was suddenly heard and both Nick and Bellini looked toward the counter. Simone had been out back, on break, and was surprised to see the person she always most wanted to see just standing there, talking with her boss.
Nick smiled when he saw her, a reaction that was becoming harder and harder for him to suppress the more he got to know her. “There you are,” he said as she approached him.
“What in the world brings you all the way over here?” she asked him. Especially since he hadn’t mentioned coming.
“I need to talk with you. Got a minute?”
“I got a minute, Mr. B.?”
“You just took a minute. Ten, to be precise. But sure, why not? Who am I to stand in the way of you and your attorney.” Bellini emphasized the last word, an emphasis not lost on either Nick or Simone, but when he moved away and begin talking with a trucker in the diner, she shook her head.
“He means well,” she said. “Come on.” She escorted Nick to the last banquette in the back, right against the paneled wall by the restrooms. She smiled seeing Nick in such an ordinary eatery like the Sky, especially when he had to squeeze his muscular bulk in between the table and bench. She sat opposite him.
Five months ago, after that night when he had held her all night, Simone was convinced that their relationship was definitely at a new level. But she wasn’t going to push it and run him away with her overzealousness. In fact, she didn’t phone him, or bother him at all for the first week after. It was Nick himself who initiated the contact. Simone thought old man Bellini was joking when he told her that Nick Perry was on the phone. Everybody at Sky diner thought he was joking. Nick Perry, the lawyer? Gert had asked. But it was no joke when Simone went behind the counter and picked up the phone. He was calling to say hello, he’d said, and although their conversation was brief, she was at work, after all, it ranked among the most memorable ones she’d ever had. Because she maintained her cool. Because she didn’t force the issue and turn him off.
He called nearly every day after that, but always at work. One day he even made a dinner date with her, something that astounded her, and when he called back and said he had to take a rain-check, she was proud of herself because she wasn’t devastated. He probably just came to his senses and graciously bowed out. He didn’t want to lead her on, after all, she’d already concluded that. But what he didn’t realize, she suspected, was that she wasn’t about to let him lead her on. Not yet. He still had to have time to get to know her, to give her a chance. And that was why, when he bowed out, she told him okay as if it was no major deal to her, and began talking about other things.
But then he phoned her at home, late one night when she had long since gone to bed. He was just getting in from a meeting with a very troubled client, he said, and he needed to hear a “calming” voice. They talked for hours that night. And for hours many nights after that, as if they were old, cherished friends.
They became extremely close after that late-night conversation, as Nick especially found himself unable to stay away from her. It started as a once-a-week lunch date, in nice little hideaways Nick would always pick her up and take her to. He chose lunch on purpose, because it was in the broad daylight, because there were always scores of people around, but it still took all he had not to touch her, not to add sensual connotations to something as arcane as the way she held her cup, or the way she laughed like a snorting horse when he’d tell a joke whose punch line would catch her off guard, or the way a small, barely noticeable dimple penetrated her smooth brown skin whenever she flashed that lovely smile.
He quickly realized that those weekly get-togethers weren’t enough. He had to see Simone much more often than once a week and sometimes he had to see her desperately. And soon they were getting together three, four times a week, with Nick sitting across from her in some obscure restaurant staring at her hair, her eyes, her mouth as if he was still some hapless school boy in love.
Simone was certainly smitten, as she found herself thrown by the way he paid such unexpected attention to her. And she wasn’t unrealistic about it, either. She knew it was still just a friendship to him. She knew that it was nowhere on the level of dinner dates or even a single visit to his apartment, but it was still more than she could have ever hoped for at this point in their relationship.
At first Simone didn’t know what to make of all of his attention. It seemed so heartfelt. And their conversations weren’t frivolous, but very thoughtful, especially during those times when Nick was dealing with a particularly gruesome case. He hated the practice of criminal law, she learned, it tortured his soul, but he did it because he was the best at it; he did it because, for every ninety-nine guilty men he represented, he said, there was always that one that was truly innocent, and would spend the rest of his life in prison, maybe even on death row, if he didn’t fight for them. So he fought for them. And told Simone about the fights.
He could trust her, he told her. She wasn’t a part of his social set, where discussing such vulnerabilities was probably frowned upon, and she liked her position in his life. He seemed to value her opinions, and not just on questions of right and wrong, either, but on such varied subjects as Dolphins football and global warming.
And although their friendship was strictly platonic, it was about the closest friendship she’d ever experienced. She had a few friends, but beyond church they had so little in common. They never wanted to talk about the mayor’s initiatives or the crime epidemic or even why it was that their neighborhoods were so grossly neglected. But Nick soaked it up. He disagreed with most of her conclusions, but he loved talking about it and debating it as if he was the only ear that bothered to listen to her. Which, Simone knew, he was.
“So,” she said as they sat in that back booth at the Sky. “What would bring you all the way from the Colgate building to this neck of the woods?”
Nick hesitated, and then said quietly, “They said yes, Simone,” as if it was no big thing.
Simone stared at him. She wanted to believe it, but she had to make sure. She knew that he had petitioned the court yet again on her behalf, only this time not for custody or visitation rights, but for the right for her and Jules to correspond with Shay in an effort to help smooth her transition from foster care to independence as she approached her eighteenth birthday. But could it be true?
“Do you mean they said that I can, that Jules and I can—”
“Yes,” Nick said with a smile on his face. “They said yes, Simone.”
Simone couldn’t help it. She lost all restraint. She jumped from her bench, hurried to Nick’s side, and threw her arms around him. He hadn’t expected her to jump into his arms, but when she did, he pulled her even closer. He’d been keeping her close, but not too close, for the past five months. And now, holding her like this, made him understand why he knew he was playing with fire. There was no way, no way at all, he now knew, that he was going to be able to keep
his hands off of her much longer. And when he eventually did, when he went all the way with her and forgot all of those responsible reasons to leave her alone, he knew it would be a tragedy. But how could he walk away now? He was falling hard for Simone.
Gert saw just how deep he was in, too, and she quickly elbowed Bellini. Both of them stared at the display, feeling vindicated by their beliefs that Nick was only Simone’s attorney, as Simone so often declared, like Tiger Woods was only a golfer.
But Simone didn’t care what they saw or thought. She was too thrilled. She held back her tears but she couldn’t hold back her joy. She wanted to kiss him, too, she was so happy. Finally she could explain to Shay what really happened, and why she had to abandon her. Finally she could explain. And this big, powerful, wonderful man had given her that chance. She held him publicly and tightly and he returned her affection, even though she knew she could scare him away if he thought she was overdoing it. But she was so happy, so delivered, that she was willing to take that chance.
***
Jules held onto Jeremy, too, later that same night. He laid beside her doing his usual grumbling about how much he hated his job and how he was going to dump his partners in short order and create the kind of high-tech medical practice he had always envisioned. With him in total control. Jules listened quietly, her mind a million miles away. When he finally realized that the universe wasn’t occupied by him and his troubles alone, he looked at her.
“What is it?” he asked her.
“What is what?”
“You might be here physically, but you checked out long ago. Now what’s the matter?”
Some Came Desperate Page 11