Some Came Desperate

by Katherine Cachitorie

  “It’s a good thing, right?” he said to her and she smiled, but could only manage a nod.

  Jules, however, was animated, smiling and grinning as if she was overjoyed that she recognized her own sister, and began waving her over and calling her name. And Shay, recognizing Jules, hurried toward her, too, dropping her bag and falling into her big sister’s arms. Simone couldn’t stop the tears from coming, tears of joy this time, as she looked at the woman who was now Serita Rivers. She was tall and thin, like Jules, but had plenty of hips and thighs and a mouth that seemed eternally puckered. That was how she knew it was Shay- by that mouth.

  “Let me look at you, girl!” Jules said, pulling her back and looking at her, unable to stop the tears, too. “You look wonderful, Shay! Just wonderful!”

  “Me? Look at you,” Shay said. “I thought you were a movie star or something when I first saw you! Dang, Jules!” Then Shay’s eyes strayed over to Jeremy.

  “You must be Jeremy,” she said.

  Jeremy smiled that reptilian smile of his, as Simone looked over and wanted to call it, but Jules beamed. “This is Dr. Jeremy Druce, Shay. My fiancé.”

  Shay smiled. “Yeah, you told me in your letters. Ain’t that something? Got yourself a doctor.”

  “A surgeon,” Jules said with a grin, as if they were in a conspiracy together.

  “A surgeon. All right now!”

  Jeremy smiled, soaking it up, and he and Shay exchanged a hug. Nick swallowed hard when Shay looked at Simone. Although she was still smiling, he could see the contempt in her eyes.

  “And this must be Simone,” she said.

  Simone was startled, too, by that look in her eyes, but her joy at seeing her sister again couldn’t be dampened. “Oh, Shay,” she said so heartfelt that it crushed Nick. Then she grabbed her kid sister and wrapped her into her arms, the tears flowing freely now. All those years she dreamed of this day. All those lonely years! And now, when it had arrived, and Shay was in the flesh, it was almost too overwhelming. Even Shay’s hesitancy, which Simone didn’t understand, wasn’t enough to ease the emotion. Shay was alive and well and that was all that mattered.

  Shay hugged Simone, too, because she did miss her, but it wasn’t nearly the robust embrace Simone was giving to her. She, instead, looked over Simone’s shoulder, especially since Simone was shorter than her, and saw Nick. That cut her short. She looked Nick up and down. And then smiled at him, and winked. Nick’s heart dropped.

  When Simone finally was able to stop hugging her sister, she looked at her, her tears continuing to flow. “You look so pretty, Shay, just like you did when you were little.”

  Shay shook her head, still smiling, but firm. “Let’s not even go there,” she said.

  Simone didn’t understand what she meant. “Go there? Go where? I was just saying that when you were young you had—”

  “You haven’t seen me in eleven years, Simone, what are you talking about? How in the world could you even fix your mouth to lie like that?”

  “To lie like what?” Simone asked, confused.

  Nick took Simone’s hand again. “Just skip it, Simone,” he said and Shay smiled.

  “Yeah, skip it, Simone,” she replied, looking at Nick.

  “So,” Jules said, hurt by the tension, “have you had anything to eat, Shay, or would you like us to take you somewhere?”

  “I’m fine. I ain’t thinking about no food. I got to keep my figure.”

  Jules laughed. “I know that’s right.”

  “I see you took after Jules,” Jeremy said, checking out Shay. “Thank goodness.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Shay said proudly. “She’s my real sister you know, so naturally.”

  “Anyway,” Jules quickly said, feeling awful for Simone, never dreaming that her little words on paper would make Shay this bitter, “why don’t we go over to my place, you, me, and Simone, and hang out for a change?”

  “Okay,” Shay said, although she didn’t seem thrilled with the idea. “But first y’all need to introduce me to this gorgeous creature standing next to Simone.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Jules said, taking charge, “that’s Nick Perry. Simone’s . . . friend.”

  Shay laughed. “You said that like it’s debatable.”

  “No, I was just, that’s the least that they are. They’re very close.”

  “I see,” Shay said, moving over by Nick and extending her hand. “You aren’t Nick the lawyer, are you?”

  “Yes,” Nick said, shaking her hand, staring unblinkingly into her deceptive eyes.

  “Simone wrote me about you. She said you were the one who tried to help them get custody of me.”

  “I tried to help Simone get custody of you,” he said. “She had been trying on her own for years.”

  “Yeah, well. That’s what guilt will do for ya’.”

  “Ready, ladies?” Jules said, interrupting that kind of talk. “And gents?” They all seemed more than ready. “We’ll get your luggage first, Shay, and then be on our way.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” Shay said and they all began to leave. Nick, however, held Simone back. And looked at her.

  “You okay?” he asked her.

  She nodded. “I will be,” she said. “I’m just sorry that. . . I wish I could have done more.”

  “Don’t do that, Simone. Stop beating yourself up. You did all you could do - and then some, you hear me? Jules has poisoned that girl’s mind, that’s all this is about.”

  “Jules wouldn’t do that, Nick.”

  “Okay.”

  “I mean it. I’m not gonna let you stand up here and talk about my sister as if she was . . . She would have to hate me to do something like that. And she doesn’t hate me.” Simone said this as if she was trying to convince herself. Nick realized it, too, and placed his arm around her.

  “You’re right, sweetheart,” he said. “You’re right.”

  This gave Simone some solace as they slowly began following the others. But she still didn’t feel assured. She thought about her mother, and how she used to always draw distinctions between her and her two sisters, as if they were indeed her mother’s children because their father was supposedly somebody important, while she was just an accident, a freak of nature, a child she was forced to have. That was how she felt whenever Shay looked at her. They were sisters, all right, but not, Shay’s eyes seemed to say, by choice.

  It didn’t get any easier for Nick later that night, after he left Simone to her selfish two sisters and headed to his condo. He dreaded leaving her, especially after meeting that kid sister of hers. That girl was trouble with a capital T, he could tell it even before she winked at him and gave him that look many women give to him when they just know he wants them. Delia gave him that same look sixteen years ago, at their first meeting, when he thought he was in control of their get-together. Now it was Shay’s time, the little juvenile delinquent. She’d be the death of Simone yet, if Simone let her. Nick knew, however, that he wasn’t about to let her. He also knew, however, that her love for her sister was going to make reason and good old fashioned common sense a very tough sale.

  He entered his condo expecting some semblance of peace and quiet after a day that had stretched on too long already. But as soon as he walked in, and whiffed a very slight smell of Delia’s perfume, he knew that peace was about the last thing he was about to get. She rarely utilized her privilege and entered his crib when he wasn’t in. And when she did take advantage of a privilege he gave her so many years ago, it was usually because she was distraught; it was usually because something devastating had occurred in her life. All he needed, he thought, as he went over to his bar to pour himself a drink first.

  When he did enter his bedroom, Delia, as he had expected, was in his bed. And, as he had expected, she was a long way from sleep. She looked up when he walked in and tried to smile. “Good evening,” she said. “Hope you don’t mind.”

  Nick smiled weakly as he walked, with drink in hand, over to the bed. He sat on its e
dge and looked down at Delia. She was beautiful, still perhaps the most beautiful woman in the world to him, despite the lines of age that were beginning to penetrate her once perfectly smooth dark face. But she wasn’t. . . She wasn’t. . . He exhaled. “How you doing?”

  She couldn’t even answer such a question, which meant, Nick knew, that it was too complicated to answer. “I thought you’d be in Lisbon by now.”

  She shook her head and then covered her face with both hands. Nick’s heart dropped. He sat his glass on the night stand and removed her hands from her face. “What’s the matter, babe? What’s happened?”

  “It was awful, Nicky, you should have seen the way they treated me.”

  “Who? The ad agency?”

  “Yes. You would have thought it was a cover shot the way they criticized me. It was just a measly commercial, and not even an American one. But they were so cruel to me. ‘Can’t we get more makeup for model number three.’ That’s what I was. Model number three. Not Delia. Not any name. Just model number three. ‘No close shot on model number three.’ It was awful. And those other girls, they looked so young, Nicky, so. . . So beautiful. So high school.”

  She looked away as just the thought of it seemed to recreate some heavy feelings.

  He hesitated, too, seeing her pain. “Did you finish the shoot?” he finally asked.

  She shook her head. “Couldn’t. It was too abusive, you should have been there, Nicky. You wouldn’t have wanted me to stay there and take that. So I didn’t. I left. I just packed my bags and left. Gianni Versace once said I had what it takes, who did they think they were dealing with?” She paused. “Now Oscar’s all hot and threatening to drop me as a client, talking about how I besmirched his reputation because I refused to be abused. I told him what he could do with his reputation, that’s what I told him.” She closed her eyes and Nick exhaled. No other modeling agency was going to take on a thirty-eight year old, has-been model, and they both knew it. Oscar was all she had. She looked at Nick.

  “What am I gonna do?” she asked him so heartfelt that his heart thumped. He ran his hand through her short, soft hair. In times like these he used to always tell her not to worry, that there would be other jobs for her. Now he couldn’t, because he knew it wasn’t true.

  She placed her hand on the side of his face and tried to smile, only it was a painful, anguished smile. “I gave you the best years of my life, Nicky, the best years.”

  Nick tried to smile, too, only his was just as anguished. “I know,” he said.

  “I could have had any man I wanted. Every man wanted me. But I chose you, Nicky, above all those other men. You remember, don’t you?”

  He nodded. “I remember.”

  “Now I’m . . . Now it’s so hard, Nicky. I look at myself in the mirror and I don’t like it. I don’t like this. I want time to stop and give me a chance to catch up. But it won’t stop. Will it?”

  She asked this as if there was actually a different answer to that question. Nick didn’t bother to answer it. And the desperation overtook her. She grabbed him by the coat lapel. “Kiss me, Nicky,” she begged. “Kiss me and make the pain go away!” She pulled his mouth to hers and kissed him urgently.

  “Del, come on,” he said, trying to pull back from her, but she wouldn’t allow it. She kept kissing him and pulling him closer. It became so sad for Nick that he had to use his brute strength to force her back. She looked at him, breathing heavily and so distraught it broke his heart.

  “It’s all right, Delia.”

  “You don’t want me, either.”

  “Don’t say that. You know that’s not true.”

  “You see what they say. I’m just this old lady to you now, just this thing in your bed that you hate to even look at now.”

  “Now Delia, that’s enough. You know good and well there’s nothing old or unattractive about you. Modeling is a young girl’s game and you knew it when you got into it. Thank the Lord for the years He did give to you, for that part of your life, and move on to something new. Something completely different. That’s what you’ve got to do. But all of this pity party ‘I’m ancient’ nonsense has got to stop. You have got to knock it off.”

  Delia stared at Nick and Nick stared at her. He wanted desperately for her to hear what he was saying, to understand that there was actually life after modeling and he would support her all the way. But he knew her. Knew her too well. And she hadn’t heard a word. She stared at him with suspicious eyes, with eyes that didn’t tell her that he was thinking about her welfare, but only that he was the enemy now, too. He wasn’t going along with her reality and that meant that he wasn’t going along with her. She looked away from him. And began to sob.

  “Delia,” Nick said, but she quickly cut him off.

  “Please leave me alone,” she said. When they were younger, and she was hurting like this, he would disregard her pleas to be alone and grab her and wrap her in his arms. But that was then. That was before all of the years had created such gulfs in their relationship that touching her now would have been more awkward than compassionate. And then, of course, there was Simone.

  He did as she requested, and left her alone.

  THIRTEEN

  The first plan, for Shay to stay with Simone, was immediately strapped on Shay’s first day back when she insisted, and Jules agreed, that she should stay with Jules. Simone was crestfallen, she had been really looking forward to this reunion, had, in fact, set up her spare room for the occasion, but she also wanted what was best for Shay. It was all about Shay now, and Simone wouldn’t have it any other way.

  But Jules enthusiasm for the arrangement quickly faded after only a few weeks in Shay’s presence. They began arguing, about her preference for hoochie mama clothing and thuggish boyfriends, and staying out at all hours of the night. Shay made it clear that just because she was staying under Jules roof, that didn’t make Jules her mother, and Jules insisted that as long as Shay stayed under her roof she would not disrespect her and behave any kind of way. It all came to a head nearly a month after Shay’s return, when Jules all but begged Simone to take their kid sister in before, as she put it plainly, she “hurt that child.”

  It was late summer and Simone was having dinner with Nick in her beautiful apartment in South Beach. It was a celebratory dinner of sorts, one that recognized the fact that Simone was now financially able to take over the astronomical rent payments from Nick and, hopefully, began paying him back for all of the tuition and rent money he had already put out on her behalf. Although he refused to allow her to pay him back a dime, he did agree to celebrate her new status.

  There was another reason for the dinner, too. Simone felt that her economic situation gave her the kind of freedom and independence that she always felt was essential if she ever was going to feel comfortable as Nick Perry’s woman. Of course she wasn’t his woman yet, just his friend, but that definitely was her game plan now. To become more to Nick than just a sounding board and lunch date. She wanted to be his woman. She wanted him, and only him, to be her man.

  She had been attempting for weeks to get up the nerve to discuss it with him, but each and every time she’d chicken out. Mainly because he had so much stress on him as it was, with the numerous criminal trials his law firm was trying, all of which he had to oversee, and she just couldn’t pull herself to add to his stress. She was his stress reliever, the one person in his life who didn’t put any demands on him, and she had always cherished that role for herself. But enough was enough. They’d been together for nearly two years, after all, but there had been little progress that she could see. Great progress on the friendship front. Zero progress on the romantic front. And she needed more from him. Not just their weekly lunch and occasional dinner dates, not just their nightly phone conversations. She now realized with a certainty that sometimes scared her, that she had to have more.

  They had completed dinner and were seated on her leather couch, hugged-up as they usually ended up, watching CSI. Nick was slouched down,
staring at the TV screen, occasionally commenting on the gruesomeness that they were watching. He was rubbing Simone’s bare upper arm in his normal, almost absent-minded way, something he did almost every night that they were together, and she was enjoying the warmth of his touch. And that was when she decided to take the plunge. The worse that could happen, she had already decided, was that he would stop coming around. Which, she had the confidence to now admit, she doubted would ever happen.

  “Nick?” she said in a slow, dragging tone and looked at him. He was engrossed in a scene on the TV, where Grissome was making some odd blood splatter discovery, and he therefore hesitated before he responded.

  “Yes?” he finally said.

  “We’ve known each other quite a while, wouldn’t you say?”

  Another hesitation. He was still slightly distracted by the television show, which, Simone felt, was a good thing. No time for him to pre-screen his responses. “I would say so, yeah.”

  “We went from a relationship of client and attorney, to good friends, to what I now consider as best friends. Wouldn’t you say so, too?”

  “Yeah, you’re my ace boon coon, too.”

  Simone laughed. “Your what?”

  “Old terminology, dear, don’t sweat it.”

  “But what does it mean?”

  He didn’t respond. It was at a crucial point in Grissome’s discovery. “Anyway,” she said nervously, glad to have the distraction of the TV, too. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. About us.” His hand immediately stopped rubbing her when she said those two words. Her heart pounded against her chest as her nerves began to unhinge her. But she continued. “And I believe that we’re at a point in our relationship where we needed to start thinking about other things. Like the future.”

  “I once wanted to be a forensic scientist, I ever tell you that?”

  She looked at him. She knew he wasn’t trying that old trick again. “What?”