Yuri nodded. "That's the spirit. I don't want you dating my sister."
When Ricky had driven up to the house, the first person Yuri saw was Marla. She was in the front yard with Pops. The two of them were inspecting something in a box.
Ricky hadn't stayed. He hadn't even said hello to Pops. He just tooted and drove off.
Yuri didn't find that strange. Terri was not the only one in the family who couldn't stand Ricky. His grandfather barely tolerated him; it wasn't anything Pops said, just subtle non-verbal indicators, like the pursing of his lips whenever Ricky came nearby.
And one time when Yuri was about twelve and they had all been hanging out at the sea side, Ricky had driven by with his parents. He had waved to them from the back seat, and Pops had said, "That boy is a rotten child and he'll be a rotten man without some intervention. His upbringing is unhealthy. He does not know wrong from right. Anything he wants he gets. He doesn't even say please."
That had stuck in Yuri's head for years. But he hadn't seen much evidence of a rotten Ricky.
Yuri had greeted Marla and Pops at the front. He should have realized that all was not well. Marla had looked after Ricky with what he had thought was fear. Wishful thinking, he realized it was.
When he drew nearer he saw that they were looking at kittens.
"My dad found them near the villas." Marla had eyed him with a smile. Her father, John Roundtree, was the handyman at the Villa Ingles on Calabash Bay, one of the places that Ricky's people owned.
Marla's mother had died in childbirth and John had bungled his way into raising her singlehandedly. He realized, looking at Marla, that she had no family really, only them. He couldn't wait to make it official with her so that she could be an official Scarlett.
"And I told her," Pops looked between Yuri and Marla, "that we already have that bang belly cat that your mother is constantly pampering."
Yuri chuckled. "Where's Charlie?"
"Somewhere." His grandfather muttered gruffly. "The rascal woke me up this morning at four. He has forgotten that we don't go fishing anymore."
Pops named all of his cats Charlie from the hurricane that had hit Jamaica in the fifties.
Marla took up the box with the kittens. "Okay then, I'll carry this down the road to the Hudsons. They love cats."
"I'll take it." Pops took the box from her. "Haven't seen old Thomas since his operation."
"Pops, should you be calling anybody old?" Yuri laughed at his grandfather.
"I am only old when I reach a hundred," Pops muttered.
Yuri watched him as he walked toward the road. It was sometimes hard to believe that Pops was ninety-five. He didn't look or act his age. He was still as sharp as a tack. At his last medical the doctor declared him healthy for his age.
Pops had found the declaration offensive. He was healthy, full stop. No age came into it.
When Yuri was left with Marla he smiled at her. She had decided years before that she preferred her hair short. It suited her; it gave her a pixie look with her upturned nose and her wide-spaced Bambi eyes. Marla was the definition of cute.
"So how was Kingston?" she asked him hesitantly.
"Good." Yuri grinned at her and then he couldn't help himself. He kissed her briefly. A kiss that had both of them frozen to the spot until his mother cleared her throat alerting them to her presence.
****
Yuri shook himself out of his reminiscing when Marla came and sat beside him, sluicing the water from her hair. Some of the water drops were still clinging to her lashes. She pulled her hand down her face and blinked the water away. She didn't say anything to him. She just sat there, holding her slim, petite body in a kind of stiff rejection.
He groaned.
What if he had said something then? What if he had told her his plans? What if he had declared himself to her? Would she have still gotten married to Ricky?
He sat up beside her. Their legs were touching. He could feel her skin trembling. The water was warm and the air was balmy; she was trembling because she touched him. She wasn't indifferent to him, then.
He ran his fingers down her arm. "Why do you want a baby with me, Marla?"
She looked at him sharply. "What?"
"Ricky told me that you wanted my baby."
Marla closed her eyes and swallowed. "That is not exactly how the conversation went between us."
"So why me?" Yuri wanted to hear her say it aloud. He needed to hear her say it to his face. That a part of her still loved him, had feelings for him, that he wasn't the only one that dreamed about them being together.
She was the reason all of his relationships were non-starters. He wanted to hear her acknowledge that he was not the only one bleeding. There was no sound though, just the stillness that he had come to expect after sunset. The sea was calm; even the trees on the rock overhang that they were sitting under were still. And Marla was unbearably still, as rigid as the slab of rock above their heads.
"Marla." He growled her name, loudly deliberately. He wanted a response and he wanted it now. "Why me?"
"Everything is not as it seems, Yuri."
"Spare me the clichés, Marla." Yuri cupped her chin and looked into her eyes. "Why did you marry him? You said before that you didn't love him. So why? "
"Maybe I want to be rich," Marla murmured. She couldn't quite meet his eyes, though.
Yuri smiled slightly. "How is that working out for you?"
"It's terrible." Her breath caught in a sob. "I don't want to discuss this anymore. And I would never for one second want to have a baby in the situation that I am in. It was Ricky's idea...one that I refuted strongly."
"What's going on, Marla?" Yuri's voice was soft. "Tell me so that I can help you."
"You can't." Marla got up and Yuri stood up with her. He was so close to her that she could feel his body heat.
"Yuri," she said softly, holding his gaze with hers, "kiss me."
He stood rigidly still. "I should go ..." But he didn’t. He swayed slightly as she moved closer to him.
Marla put her arms up about his neck; she had her body pressed into his fully.
Yuri didn't want to listen to the voice that was telling him that he shouldn't continue and that this could get complicated really fast. Instead he was thinking that he couldn't allow this moment to pass.
Right or wrong, he was here with Marla, the girl he'd loved since forever. He moved as if in a daze, his arms slowly encircling her and pulling her even closer to him. He threaded his fingers through her curly damp hair and he cupped her head for the descent of his lips.
There was no gentleness, only fierce demand, his mouth moving expertly against hers, tasting her like a man who had been starving in a desert. She entwined her arms more tightly about his neck.
"I want you," he groaned against the silky length of her throat. "For so long but we shouldn't...you are married…Ricky..."
He tried to step away from her shakily, his control barely intact.
"Don't you dare stop," Marla whispered fiercely. "Don't you dare stop, Yuri."
They sank down to the sand together in a slow rhythm.
Chapter Four
Yuri reached home after one o’clock in the morning. The place was crawling with people. He let himself into the house and headed for his childhood room that he used to share with Troy.
Troy was there already, propped up in his single bed, reading something on his iPad.
"Hey," Yuri said tiredly.
"Where've you been?" Troy asked. "I saw your bag and heard you were around but I couldn’t find you."
"Went to swim," Yuri said. There was no way he was going to tell his younger pastor brother that he had not been swimming alone or that he did more than swim. Troy would be shocked and would probably give him a lecture.
Troy put down his computer and gazed at him as if he wanted to say something else. Yuri couldn't hold his gaze. He was feeling guilty. To be honest, the guilt had set in a couple of hours ago but he didn't care. Now it
was back in full force. He had sex with his best friend's wife.
Not once...that could be chalked up to a mistake, which was a long time in coming. He had thought about it often enough. Tortured himself with it even. Not twice, to check if the first time was just a fluke. He had been putting on his clothes, the scent of Marla all over him, when she looked at him a plea in her eyes for him to stay a little longer. He had stayed.
"I am gonna have a shower," he said, heading for the en suite bathroom. He needed to get the salt off his skin.
"Okay," Troy said sleepily.
When he came back to the room Troy was fast asleep. Yuri breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Only wild horses could wake Troy now. He slept like the dead. His long frame was draped across the single bed in what looked like an uncomfortable position. Both of them had outgrown the single beds of their youth.
He forgot to ask Troy about Chelsea and their little girl, Dahlia. Maybe they were staying with Chelsea's folks down the road. He wondered why Troy was here. He usually stayed with them when there were big occasions because of the space limitations. If he hadn't been so guilty and self-obsessed he would have asked.
Yuri closed his eyes but the live band was making a ruckus outside. There probably would be no sleep for him tonight. Not only was he mourning his precious Pops, he had the contrary sensation of both pleasure and pain when he thought about Marla.
They had finally done it. They had finally succumbed to the attraction between them. If Ricky found out about this he would be livid.
Yuri sighed. He could kiss the thirty million dollar loan goodbye. Curiously, he hadn't even thought about it when he recklessly claimed Marla over and over again. All he had thought about was her. How right it felt. How this was supposed to be how it was. The two of them. No Ricky in the picture to spoil things for them.
He closed his eyes tighter. She had said that everything was not as it seemed. What did she mean?
*****
He cast his mind back to the past, five years ago. Maybe he had been right about the fear in her eyes when she saw Ricky.
She had followed him inside as he greeted his mom, and his mother had done her usual update about what was happening in the community since he left.
One of his school friends had joined his father in the fishing business and had gotten married already. One of the neighbors, the one to the left, had joined one of those charismatic sects that had trips in the mountains to talk to God.
One of her church sisters had a baby. Yuri didn't even know who it was. "Oh and Calloway...remember drunk Calloway...somebody beat him to death. He washed up on shore."
Nobody was surprised. But they were curious as to who did it.
"I wonder why Ricky didn't tell you? That is all everybody spoke about for days."
"He has a new car," Yuri snorted. "That's all that is on his mind these days."
He had to extricate himself from his mother's running commentary. After a while she had let him go and Marla had followed him around the house like a faithful shadow. She helped him to unpack, and she quizzed him about Kingston, eagerly asking him to describe every place he had ever been.
She was jittery and seemed brittle, as if all was not right with her. When he asked her what was wrong she gave him a sad little smile.
"I just miss you, that's all."
He had hugged her to him then. Close. So tight, too tight. He was a foot taller than she was and had on loads more weight but she hadn't even squirmed. She had hugged him back.
"There is something," he had whispered in her ear.
"Well, it's my father," she had whispered back. "You know that story by now. He is drinking too much. He, er...nothing."
They stood like that for what seemed like hours but were only mere minutes. Yuri wished that he could convey all of what he was feeling to her at that point in time but he didn't. His father interrupted their embrace. Lloyd Scarlett was a very hands-on father and he wanted to know everything that had gone on since he last saw his son.
And then Ricky had pulled up at the gate after dinner and blew the horn. Everybody looked through the window at the shiny, sleek black car.
"I bet it rides like a dream," Lloyd said longingly. His only vehicle to that point was a pickup truck that he used to transport his farm goods.
Troy whistled. "I heard that you can go from one to a hundred in a second in that car."
"Don't go with him," Terri had urged. "That braggart just wants to show off. I can't stand him."
"It is not good to covet," Daisy had declared behind them at the window.
"Come look at it." Lloyd moved away from the window and allowed Daisy to get a look as well.
"It doesn't have a top," she murmured. "What about when it rains?"
"It is a convertible, Mom," Terri said, scorn rife in her voice. "I hope it rains and the controls get stuck and the pig gets wet."
"Terri!" both parents exclaimed in horror.
Marla and Pops had been the only ones around the table completely oblivious to the whole car drama.
When Yuri looked at her, Marla shrugged. "My father washes the thing every day…religiously. And he drools over it too. I hate it more than I have ever hated any car in my life."
Yuri chuckled.
Ricky started blowing incessantly and Yuri told his family he would soon be back. "I have to oblige him," he said as Terri protested. "He won't feel good until I do."
"And there lies the problem," Terri said harshly. "It's a sick kind of dependency. I don't know why you keep on feeding it."
He had gone with Ricky. They had reached the Pedro main road with its freshly paved streets in no time.
Ricky had stopped gotten out of the driver's side of the car and then handed him the keys. "Try her out."
"Are you serious?" Yuri had asked doubtfully.
"Of course." Ricky grinned at him. "Why not? You are my friend. Go ahead. We should be able to share anything."
Yuri had driven, oblivious to what was coming next. It had been exhilarating, the wind in his face, the strong power of an expensive car under his control. He had never driven a car so sophisticated or powerful. And then Ricky started talking.
"I asked Marla to marry me and she said yes," he said as they were nearing a patch of road that was not as nice or as the smooth as the Pedro road.
Yuri could recall tightening his hand on the steering wheel. He had glanced at Ricky to clarify. "Which Marla? Dammit, which Marla!"
"The only Marla that we both know," was Ricky's grinning response. "I even went the old fashioned route and asked her father for her hand in marriage and he gave his blessing. Can you imagine that? Me, old fashioned," he continued, blithely ignoring Yuri's gritted teeth or the fact that he was stiff with anger.
Yuri, God forgive him, had slammed on the brake and swung the steering wheel aggressively in a futile attempt to avoid hitting a huge pothole. Ricky, who didn't have on his seat belt, went sailing over the top of the car.
Yuri wasn’t sorrowful for what happened that day. To this day he still felt vestiges of anger toward Ricky. He had been set up, with the car as bait, by a guy who presented himself as a friend to soften the blow when he reported that he stole his girl.
He hadn't been able to calm down. His empathy had flown out the window with Ricky. He had not felt a thing for Ricky's dilemma that he had caused. No. Not even when the ambulance had come along for Ricky, who hadn't been able to move his legs. Nor was he sorry when he heard that the car’s suspension was damaged.
Nope. After his father had dropped him home he found Marla around the back, under the plum tree and he had lit into her.
"Why are you doing this?" he had barked. Maybe the whole neighborhood had heard him. He didn't care. He had dragged her from the house with his shocked family looking at the two of them.
"Why Marla, why? I thought..." his voice trailed away...he was going to say, “I thought we would be together. Why on earth did you choose Ricky?”
She had never shown an int
erest in him before. On the contrary, Marla did not like Ricky.
"Do you love him?" He had squeezed the question out from an aching throat.
"No!" she had snapped, her eyes filled with tears. "No, I don't."
"Did you sleep with him?" He had shouted. Definitely the whole neighborhood had heard that.
His old neighbor, Pop’s friend, Jeffries, had been peeking through the back window.
"Yes, once," she had wailed, "but I didn't want to and I never enjoyed it. I...it was awful and I felt dirty and..."
Yuri had spun away from her; he didn't want to hear anymore.
It took three months for him to calm down.
When Ricky called and asked him to be his best man, he had been shocked. He never wanted to talk to Ricky again, much less to go to his stupid wedding. It would be torture.
"I can't walk," Ricky had said over the phone accusingly. "I am paralyzed from the waist down and it is all your fault, Yuri Scarlett. You did this to me. The least you can do is stand up for me at my wedding. I would do it for you. You never said that Marla was your girlfriend. I thought she was fair game. You left her to go to Kingston, remember."
Filled with guilt, he had relented, his only comfort being that he knew Ricky and Marla could never consummate their marriage because of Ricky's condition. He had watched her at the wedding accusingly. He didn't crack a smile. His other comforting thought was that she had looked as unhappy as he was feeling.
Yuri punched the pillow and forced himself to sleep. He needed rest in order to get through tomorrow.
Chapter Five
"Where have you been?" Ricky growled in the phone.
"Sleeping," Marla answered. Her voice was hoarse. She cleared it.
"No, I meant last night," Ricky snarled. "Where were you? I knew I shouldn't have changed security before I left for therapy. The new guy said he didn't know where you disappeared to yesterday evening. The bumbling idiot!"
Marla felt like screaming, "Good!" Instead she sat up in the bed and rubbed her eyes. She waited for the silence to build up as she refused to answer. Ricky hated silences. It made him feel out of control.
Scarlett Baby (The Scarletts Page 3