Crimson Footprints II: New Beginnings

by Shewanda Pugh

  Lizzie braided her hair into a series of quick and sloppy cornrows, slipped into a black leather jacket that wore like a corset with sleeves, pulled on the matching leather pants, and used the bedroom mirror to tuck her hair underneath the platinum synthetic wig. The bangs ran straight against her forehead, blunt like the ends at her shoulders. It was then she noticed the small box of contacts on the floor.

  Kenji stepped out the bathroom with his hair mousse’d, sideburns applied, a wife beater on, and tight blue jeans. On his right hand was a claw the length of his forearm. Lizzie looked from it to the muscles of his chest. Not hulking and obnoxious, but as unassuming as him. She swallowed.

  Sunday mornings he spent hours at a batting cage, sculpting what she saw before her. She always went with him. He was lean and sinewy, and it caused her to suddenly recall long, strong arms wrapping her, broad shoulders just above her, silk hair sweeping and smelling of . . .

  “I should’ve brought my Louisville Slugger,” Kenji said, “had I known you were gonna look like that. These claws won’t be enough to keep ’em off you.”

  Lizzie looked down at herself. She must’ve gained ten pounds while living with Kenji, most of it in her thighs and backside. But the wet leather sculpted and molded her to beauty. And as always, she was grateful for the opportunity to wear long sleeves, thereby hiding her track marks.

  “I don’t know what I am,” she admitted.

  Kenji’s lips parted in astonishment.

  “When you get downstairs men will fall at your feet because you look so much like the real Storm. And you don’t even know who that is.”

  “I take it she’s black.”

  Kenji snorted.

  A bang at the door interrupted him.

  “Come on, come on! Let’s see the Japanese Wolverine!” someone shouted through the door.

  A chorus of laughter followed.

  Lizzie looked at him wide eyed.

  “The guys,” he said breathlessly. “Sweets, Zachariah, Cody.”

  Kenji headed for the door and shot her a troubled look only once there. “You love this stuff, okay? They’ll never understand why I brought you otherwise.”

  Lizzie nodded, though she didn’t understand why he’d brought her either.

  The door swung open.

  There was a black guy in a leather suit and mask which seemed complementary to hers; a white guy with long, wavy greasy brown hair, a camel trench coat, black tee, blue jeans, metal boots, and a long silver stick; and behind them, a second white guy, tall and slim and donning a single, pale blue cat suit with a face spray painted to match, and hair, also the same icy blue and spiked to stand up on end.

  The guy in the trench coat let out a low whistle. “And now we see where you were last night.” He nudged the black guy who grinned stupidly.

  Kenji shook it off.

  “This is Lizzie Hammond. Lizzie, this is Brandon Sweets,” he gestured to the black guy who matched her fashion, “Zachariah Palmer,” the trench coat guy, “and Cody Holmes,” the iced up one.

  Kenji grabbed his room key and stuffed his wallet in his back jean pocket. With an impatient arm he swept aside the three guys, making room for Lizzie to exit.

  “I see why you don’t return phone calls,” Brandon murmured, a hand over his mouth to hide a discreet conversation.

  Kenji shot him a look. “Don’t start, Sweets.”

  “Well, if he won’t I will,” Zachariah said, falling back to quietly join their whispers. “You kidding me? I mean, when were you gonna tell us about this one? Her ass is incredible.”

  “You’d like the ass of a hippo if they put her in heels,” Cody said.

  All four had eyes on Lizzie’s backside, who led the way to the elevator. Kenji’s temperature inched toward scalding.

  “She’s good looking. You gotta admit that. Even you, Cody, and you only do blondes,” Sweets said.

  In reality, Cody didn’t do much of anything. His luck with the girls was about as erratic as Kenji’s. It was Zachariah, tall, dark haired, athletic, and naturally good-looking in an Elizabethan sort of way, who got away with shit like calling a Jill a Jen in bed or forgetting a date altogether.

  “Where are we going for breakfast?” Lizzie called, already at the elevator.

  “Lobby!” Kenji yelled back.

  “Man, I tell you, if you weren’t my boy,” Zachariah said quietly, gaze drifting from the swell of Lizzie’s breasts southward.

  Brandon looked from Zach to Kenji, whose mouth clenched.

  “All right, Zach. Twenty-second rule is clearly in effect,” he said.

  .

  “Is it really?” Zach said.

  “Yeah,” Kenji said. “It is.”

  Sweets, Zachariah, and Cody drank up Lizzie one last time before looking away in unison. That was the twenty-second rule. With it invoked, they’d been allowed one last sweeping look at her before she was considered off-limits forever. The implication was that things were serious between Kenji and Lizzie. They would treat them that way from there on out.

  In the elevator, Sweets launched a formal complaint about all they’d missed already. “HBO, Showtime, ABC, and CW previewed pilots,” he announced.

  Sweets shot Kenji a look, knowing how much he prided himself on foreknowledge of the TV lineup.

  “I’m sure it was lame,” Kenji said unconvincingly.

  They sailed down the elevator shaft.

  “You wish,” Sweets said, and Kenji groaned inwardly.

  The group took a continental breakfast in the lobby before moving on to scheduled events. There were some morning Q&As on the schedule, an autograph session with one of the writers from Mutation, and an hour-long talk about the creativity process from game developers at Sony. Afterward, there was lunch, an appearance by indie phenomenon Gil Crutcher, and a panel discussion on the fate of comics on the silver screen. In between were photo shoots with surprise guests and enough autograph sessions to satisfy the neediest of fans.

  Lizzie got double takes the moment they came downstairs. And requests for pics with other fans. One from a guy with a razor glove like Kenji’s, another from a pair of bikini-clad girls in boots and capes. Even the group, a most impressive copycat of the X-Men with Lizzie at their side, got stopped faithfully for photo ops with attendees.

  It was funny, but back in Overtown and Liberty City where she wore painted on minis with much ass hangage and would’ve blown every guy in a five-mile radius for twenty bucks or less, Lizzie thought they hardly fawned over her in such a way. Prostitutes were things, not people, and therefore, hardly worthy of acknowledgment beyond the pleasure immediately provided. Telling a prostitute she was beautiful after doing her was like petting a toilet after taking a dump. Both were ridiculous.

  Lizzie liked seeing Kenji out with the guys, even if she did get relegated to following them around like a puppy on a short leash. They had inside jokes, random bouts of wrestling, and insults to go around. Intermittently, one would fall back and talk to her, causing Lizzie to instantly bristle at the attention. She worried about how to handle advances from one, and then wondered why she’d even worried. She wasn’t Kenji’s girl. He’d had her; maybe he would pass her, first to Zachariah, then Sweets, the black guy. What would she do if they suggested it? She owed Kenji so much, and yet, the thought of him passing her along without thought caused as much nausea as her withdrawal from heroin had done.

  But the moment never came. She didn’t understand these guys, who’d stolen glances at her body to start with, but now seemed as harmless and playful as an old lab, tugging at her hair, making obscene jokes about a presumed nighttime itinerary with Kenji—“Oh, you guys’ll be busy by nine; we’ll cross that event off our list,”—and pushing her forward for pics with Kenji.

  “Sexy, sexier,” Zachariah would call, bidding her to pout her lips or flip her hair, encouraging Kenji to grip in some raunchy place or another, until she inevitably ruined the picture by threatening and chasing him till he behaved.

 
Oddest of all perhaps, were the questions they asked her. Instead of if she’d gone to college, it was where she’d gone to college. Instead of whether her parents had stuck around, it was what they did for a living, what she did and where she’d grown up. Every question brought an automatic glance at Kenji, who answered with neatly packaged responses. She’d thought about UM and a few other places but ultimately didn’t go to college; her parents were deceased and she was about to start school again. Where, she still had no idea.

  Zachariah caught Lizzie toward the tail end of a Q&A on the deteriorating artistic integrity of graphic art. Among the last few able to grab a seat, they occupied a back row, with Zach on her right and Kenji’s empty seat on her left. He was in line to ask a question at the mic.

  “This part isn’t really for me,” Zach explained quietly. “I’m more of a fan. I like the experience. Kenj and Sweets are into the experience behind the experience, how things are created, the inspiration, et cetera. Just give me the finished product.”

  Lizzie gave him a small smile. She did her best to keep up when Kenji showed interest. Likewise, he blinked sleepily, but remained awake, whenever she insisted on watching R&B videos.

  “How long have you and Kenj been, you know,” he nudged her, “an item?”

  She shot him a look.

  “We’re only friends.”

  Zach’s gaze drifted after the backside of Wonder Woman.

  “He know that?” he said, when turning back to Lizzie.

  She snorted. “Know it? He makes sure of it.”

  Zach raised a single walnut brow. “I think you’re confused,” he said.

  “I know you are.”

  The two glared at each other.

  “Listen,” Zach said, “Kenji’s a good guy. The best.”

  “I know that.”

  Catwoman passed and once again, Zach’s gaze followed her. Only once she sat did he turn back to Lizzie.

  “Whatever he said, just, forgive him, okay? He blurts shit and—”

  “Zach. Let me save you the trouble. Kenji doesn’t want me, okay? He’s just not interested. So drop it.”

  He stared at her in disbelief.

  “I said drop it,” Lizzie warned.

  Zachariah sat up straight, facing forward again.

  ~*~

  Dinner was at a nearby buffet. Twice while Lizzie was up refilling on crab legs, she could’ve sworn Zach and Kenji were trading whispers. When she returned to the table and Zach got up, Lizzie asked if everything was okay. Overly engrossed in their food no one seemed to hear her. When she asked again, Kenji looked pointedly at her.

  Dinner done, the group returned to the Hyatt for a meet and greet with celebs Lizzie had never heard of. Kenji sat still for all of two minutes, however, before barging out the ballroom.

  “Kenji!” Lizzie cried and shot a look of annoyed confusion at his friends before going after him.

  She rushed out into a vacant hall. The meet and greet was apparently the biggest event of the festival. When Kenji turned on her with an unexpected fury, doubling back at an angry pace, she froze in uncertainty.

  “Why’d you talk to Zach about us?”

  Lizzie blinked. “What?”

  “You heard me!”

  She took a step back. “There is no ‘us’ as far as I know,” she said. “So, I don’t see how I could’ve talked about ‘us’ to anyone.”

  He glared at her. “Fine,” he snapped, so close she could’ve touched his face.

  Eyes tearing, she searched for something, anything in his gaze that wasn’t rejection. When she couldn’t find it, she looked away.

  “I love you,” she whispered and brushed a tear when it fell. “But I don’t know what you want.”

  Realization dawned on Kenji, so unmistakable that even Lizzie couldn’t miss it. He loved her, too.

  Kenji backed away and hurried down the hall, moving with the steps of a man near panic. Quick, quicker still, he had to get away.

  “What the hell are you afraid of?” Lizzie screamed.

  He stopped, stood still in the hall, talons reaching for the floor.

  He returned to her.

  “Hurting you,” Kenji said quietly. “Every man you’ve ever had in your life has only wanted one thing from you.”

  His gaze dropped to her body.

  “By the time we get there again, you’ll know I want more. Way more than that.”

  He turned, but this time she was ready, grabbing him by the hand and pulling him to her. Her kiss was soft, dampened by tears, but he intensified it instantly, pressing her to the wall and parting her mouth to deepen. Body flattening hers to the wall, she placed a hand at his waist as if to pull him closer than physically possible. Kenji crushed her, mouth reckless and promising before ripping away altogether. Down the hall he went, leaving her to pant and stare after him. Halfway to the elevator he paused, doubled back, snatched her by the hand, and tore for the hotel room upstairs.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  Winter was but a suggestion in Miami. Where those just three hours north pulled on coats lined with fur and deep boots to guard against the chill, Dade County fretted over finding a decent two-piece in November.

  When Kenji and Lizzie weren’t fretting over GED books, they were now out on the town, either by themselves, or with his buddies—all of which had taken to calling her “Liz-boo” as a mockery of her and Kenji’s relationship. But there was little Sweets, Zach, and Cody could do to make Lizzie angry, or rather, stay angry. After all, it was only with their arrival that she realized two things—she’d never had friends before, real friends, and she didn’t want to go back to that again.

  They now spent Sundays at the batting cage, together. First Lizzie, then Kenji’s former teammates, pestered him on giving baseball a second go. Brandon told stories of broken records in high school, Cody of scouts from the major leagues in college. Even Zach, never one to be outdone, admitted that Kenji was so fierce at bat that if you pitched a newborn baby to him, he’d knock it out the park without thought. Whenever these conversations came about, Kenji grew irritated, pointing to a torn rotator cuff as the source of his downfall, one that had long since healed, apparently. As if to irritate him further, Zachariah began to make offhand announcements about open tryouts for various teams. Kenji would always go deaf at these times.

  Miami Dolphins and Heat games with and without the gang, concerts, spontaneous drives up the coast, rented sailboats, comedy clubs, and dinner at five-star restaurants were now all regular appointments on Lizzie’s itinerary of life. For her birthday, Kenji rented a gondola on the bay. Under the light of a full moon they had sparking apple cider, strawberries dipped in white chocolate she loved, and a dinner of orange duck. Once back at the house, he pampered her, making love in slow and torturous fashion, alternating it with kisses, caresses, and whispers of love.

  They couldn’t go back to before if they wanted to.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  When Deena told Tak that his father had invited her to Sydney, he gave her a “good for you” that meant he already knew. Despite a departure she figured would put a strain on the house, the Tanaka brood behaved in quite the opposite fashion. Tony, who’d taken to planning his “Men Only” birthday outing with vigor, was beginning to show improvement, both in grades and attitude according to his teachers. Even Mr. Keplar remarked that Tony had raised his hand once to read in class. Tak and Deena credited the extra hours tutoring for that. Tak also pointed to the drum and guitar lessons, which he felt were beginning to give Tony a bit of confidence.

  Shortly before Deena’s departure, Mrs. Jimenez startled them by indicating her mother was ill and that she needed to return to Mexico. Tak purchased an open-ended ticket to Mexico City, giving her the option to return when she thought best. But the prospect of Mrs. Jimenez’s departure sent the family into an uproar—much more so than Deena’s did.

  “If she’s in Mexico and you’re in Sydney, what’ll we eat?” Tony cried.

  Appare
ntly, Bismarck seemed a long way off.

  “C’mon,” Tak said, “there’s plenty of Spam in the cabinet. And I know tons of recipes. Spam sushi, Spam and eggs, Spam and rice. I’ve even got a friend in Hawaii that can make Spam eggrolls. I can call him for the recipe. It’ll be great.”

  Tony gagged.

  “I’m going to stay with Uncle John!” Mia cried, eyes pooling.

  Tony shot her a look. “I think I will, too.”

  In the end, Grandma Emma volunteered to come over. When Deena expressed concern about her ailing health, the elderly woman recited a list of daily activities she took on that included cooking three meals a day, cleaning, and spanking children among them, going on until her granddaughter gave in, admitting that her résumé was formidable. After hanging up, she made a mental note to have a talk with Caroline about allowing the woman who’d been in need of round-the-clock nurse care, according to her own description, to do so much on a day-to-day basis.

  ~*~

  Tony rose early Sunday morning, but he was too late to see Deena off. A five A.M. flight to Sydney meant arriving at Miami International by three, which, according to Deena’s logic, included leaving the house by one. Under the guise of seeing her off, Tony’s plan had been to stay up late. He could play his new Pirates The Series game, maybe even catch a glimpse of some late-night stuff. As if reading his mind, however, Tak told him his services wouldn’t be needed.

  Padding from his bedroom to the kitchen, Tony’s mouth smacked sleepily with the thought of Cocoa Pebbles in milk. He stopped at the sight of an old and mountainous black woman.

  “Well, good morning,” she said, sounding surly.

  He blinked.

  “Who are you?”

  She got up as if the question were beneath her. Often, Tony had heard people say that someone could look at them and make them feel naked. And while he’d never experienced that, he would’ve welcomed it instead of this woman’s look, as if trying to determine his worth.