by Ruthie Knox
“Is there anywhere else the hotel could go?”
Roman took a moment to consider. “We had second- and third-choice sites, sure. At one point I wanted to do several smaller hotels, at different price ranges, scattered around the properties. Heberto rejected that idea. He said there’s more money in a large one, because then you get the conferences along with the vacationers. So, yes, there are other possibilities. Sunnyvale is just the best one.”
“And are you willing to let go of the best possibility?”
He gave her the smile she got when she was yanking him around and he didn’t want her to know how much he hated it. “Are you giving me a choice?”
“Yes,” she said. “I trust you.”
Roman watched her, that unfortunate smile lingering at the edges of his mouth.
“Sunnyvale is yours,” she said. “Not mine. That means no more blackmail. If you need to knock it down, you do that.”
“Why?”
She considered how best to put it.
Because I can’t be my best self if I’m not playing fair.
Because I want to find out what kind of future I can make for myself honorably.
Because I’m starting to think I might want you to be part of my future.
Too soon. Too complicated.
“You told me you’re on my side. I believe you. What I want to do, if you’ll let me, is help find some other future for Sunnyvale—one I can live with, one that preserves the Little Torch Key I love. But I think if we’re going to be a team, we have to start like this. As equals.”
His phone buzzed again, and he stood up.
He came around the table with his right hand extended. When she offered him her own, he clasped it in his warm, firm grip and shook it.
“It’s a deal,” Roman said.
Then he smiled, dipped his head, and kissed her once, hard, squarely on the mouth.
Only then did he take Carmen’s call.
CHAPTER THREE
Standing on the front porch of the Sunnyvale office building, Carmen balanced her clipboard over one forearm and used her free hand to press the phone harder against her ear. The heavy thrumming of a diesel engine made it almost impossible to hear Roman.
“… put on hold until I get back,” he was saying. “I’ve been thinking, and—”
“We’re done with on hold,” she broke in. “We’re done with thinking, too. The thinking part already happened. We called it the planning phase. Now we’re at the doing part.”
“Who’s the we here, Carmen?”
She lost him for a minute as high-pitched backup beeping pierced through the equipment noise.
“… time I checked, this was my project,” Roman said.
Carmen stalked away from the noise to the far end of the porch, where she stood with her back to the parking lot. There was way too much déjà vu going on here. The porch, the clipboard, yesterday’s white suit buttoned over her stained blouse.
Yesterday’s panties, washed out in Noah’s sink, dried over his shower rail.
The overbright mid-morning sun made her skin feel too tight. Her rumpled skirt heated her thighs. Between her legs, she pulsed with the aftermath of those stolen hours with Noah.
She was cheap elastic, snagged and unraveling.
“You brought us into this project,” she said to Roman. “Now it’s ours.”
“That answers my question. Us means you and Heberto. Ours means your father’s.”
She heard a smile in his voice, which made her want to bare her teeth. Nothing about this conversation amused her. “I was referring to the partnership between your business interests and my father’s.”
“Partnership? Partnership is what Heberto—”
More beeping drowned him out.
“—went well. We don’t have a partnership, we have a handshake agreement to develop this resort together if and only if I do everything the way your father thinks I should.”
“And that’s suddenly a problem?” Carmen set down her clipboard so she could cup both hands over her ears to hear better. “A month ago, it was the best thing that had ever happened to you. We went out for sushi to celebrate, or have you forgotten?”
“… forgotten … even been gone two weeks.”
The noise had to stop. She searched the lot for someone to receive her silencing glare, but only a few of the workers were in view, and none were paying her any attention.
“So what’s changed?” she asked. “Are you playing for a partnership? You think you can railroad Heberto into making you his partner when you can’t even manage to get eight measly buildings knocked down on schedule?”
With a volcanic rumble, another piece of equipment started up, and all she caught of Roman’s reply were the words fucking unfair.
From the far end of the property, behind one of the buildings, came an enormous crash, followed by a silence into which Roman roared, “For Christ’s sake, you’re knocking down now?”
“Settle,” she said sharply. “That wasn’t what it sounded like.”
She hoped.
She spotted Noah crossing the parking lot. “Hang on a minute.”
Plunking down her phone on the railing, Carmen waved both arms at him. When he didn’t look her way, she put two fingers in her mouth and whistled like a street whore.
His head snapped around. He smiled, his delight an arrow that pierced clean through her lungs and left her breathless.
You just saw me an hour ago, she thought. You can’t go through the world smiling that way. Someone will hurt you.
She beckoned him close enough to hear her shout, “Do you have the keys?”
“What keys?” he called.
“To the office!”
He jogged across the lot, leaping from paving stone to paving stone in his eagerness. “Thought you were talking to Roman,” he said when he got close.
“I am,” she explained. “I can’t hear him.”
Noah didn’t stop moving—bounding, and wasn’t it odd that such a large man could bound and make it look so appealing—until he was inside her zone of personal space. Well inside it. Reaching into his pocket, giant belt buckle glinting in the sun, happiness gleaming from his eyes and his teeth and everything about him, he retrieved his keys.
He reached for the handle of the office door, fitting his key into the lock. “Sorry, I’ll tell the guys to cool it. I thought we were just about ready to go, so I let them start firing everything up.”
Carmen gathered her phone and clipboard. “No, let them. This won’t take long.”
“That’s weird,” Noah said.
“What?”
“The door wasn’t locked. I’d swear I closed the place up tight yesterday.”
“You must have forgotten.”
He frowned at the handle in his grip. “I never forget.”
“Never say never,” Carmen snapped, and then wished she’d kept her mouth shut. She wanted to tell him she believed him, to say I’m just in a mood. I’m freaking out. It’s not you.
But it was him. It was him and what he did to her.
It was Roman on the phone, and this feeling she couldn’t shake that all the pieces of herself were tumbling off the shelves where she stored them, striking her shoulders and arms with glancing blows as they fell, making a mess that she wouldn’t be able to clean up.
His eyes narrowed in confusion. “You seem pissed at me,” he said.
“No.”
“No, you’re not pissed, or …?”
“I’m always this way,” she said. Because she was. She was direct and businesslike, not soft and fuzzy. She didn’t belong with this soft, fuzzy man.
He shook his head, smiling a little. “You really believe that, don’t you, baby?”
Carmen shifted her feet, bracing her stance a little wider. “Look, Noah—”
“Shh. Later. Finish your phone call.” He brushed a kiss over her cheek as he left, closing the door behind him.
Her phone beeped. A notification flashed
on the screen. Her father again. He’d been blowing up her phone all morning, but she’d delayed getting back to him until she had this situation under control.
She would bring it under control. Beginning with Roman.
Carmen put the phone to her ear.
The silence echoed inside her head.
“Roman?” A hoarse rasp, barely more than a whisper. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Roman.”
“Yes.”
“Where do we stand?”
It was the first question that came to mind, the logical next step to getting this conversation back on track. But it made her sound as though she were talking about them rather than the demolition. Her and Roman. The woman he’d taken up with. The man who’d just called her baby.
“We stand for ourselves,” he said. Which didn’t mean anything. She didn’t know how to respond to such a non sequitur, especially when he’d delivered it in a voice that was so … so what?
Kind. Understanding.
Not qualities she associated with this man.
She’d known him since she was a teenager. Been naked with him. Shared his bed. His face was as familiar to her as her own, and she’d relied on his mind operating as an extension of hers.
So many years they’d wanted the same things, and Roman had never asked for more than she was willing to give. She’d never wanted more from him than she had.
Carmen tried to imagine Roman behaving as Noah did. Loving her the way Noah had last night. Looking at her with the kindness she heard in his voice reflected in his eyes.
She would have pushed him away. He would have let her.
Carmen wished suddenly—fervently—that Roman were home where he belonged. Just so she could see what he looked like when he sounded this way.
Just to be able to ask him what the hell was happening to him. To both of them.
“Roman. My father has been calling me all morning. If these buildings don’t come down … What am I supposed to say to him? I’m supposed to be in charge of this.”
“You’re supposed to be in charge of me,” he corrected.
“Yes! And now—”
“Now I’m in charge of myself.”
The idea clearly pleased him, even as it made her feel as though her head might explode.
“What’s up with you and Noah?” he asked.
“That’s not—I’m not—”
“Did I just hear him call you baby?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Silence stretched out on the other end of the line, and she tried to imagine how Roman felt. She hadn’t liked it when he spoke of Ashley to her. She’d tried to shut down her jealousy, her unreasonable hatred, but she couldn’t deny its existence. Would he feel the same cold slap of surprise she’d felt? The misplaced possessiveness that said She’s mine, even when she wasn’t—even when she never truly had been?
She wanted to apologize, but there were no Hallmark-card platitudes appropriate to a situation like this.
When he spoke, his voice was mild. “All right,” he said. “We don’t have to talk about it. But you could do worse. He’s a good guy. I think he’d treat you better than I ever did.”
Carmen covered her mouth with her hand, her gratitude too much like anguish. She breathed, eyes closed, and searched for something to hold on to.
Let’s get back to the subject. That’s what she meant to say to Roman. But when she opened her mouth, she confessed through her fingers, “He calls me baby.”
“I heard. Do you like him?”
“I don’t know.”
Roman exhaled, an amused sound. “Well, give him a shot. He might grow on you.”
“Roman?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t—I don’t know what I’m doing here.”
“I get it,” he said. “It’s okay.”
“It doesn’t feel okay.”
“I know. But bear with it a while anyway. You might be surprised.”
She didn’t have a reply to that.
“Listen,” Roman said. “What you do next is, you tell your father that I own Sunnyvale. I’ll knock down those buildings when I’m damn good and ready. You tell him I’m pursuing business opportunities in Wisconsin, and I’ll be in touch with him to talk about a modified development plan as soon as it’s practical and convenient for me.”
“He’ll lose his fucking mind if I tell him that.”
“He might.”
“He’ll knock the place down without you here.”
“If he does, I’ll sue him.”
“He’ll destroy you.”
Roman laughed. “He can try. But I’m willing to chance it.”
“Why?”
The question burst out of her before she could stop it—not brusque, not businesslike. Primal. Demanding.
What’s changed in you?
How can you do this to me?
Why do you sound so sure of yourself?
“Your dad’s been telling me for years it’s every man for himself,” Roman said. “That it doesn’t matter who we love or whether our actions are moral or anything. It only matters how much money we make, how much power we can gather around ourselves. But, you know, Carmen, he sent me to college. He gave me a place to stay over break when I didn’t have anywhere else to go, and he brought me to Miami. He even gave the two of us his blessing, and there was no advantage in that for him, business-wise. I have to think Heberto doesn’t believe half the stuff he’s said to me over the years. I have to think he actually cares about me.”
“He doesn’t.”
He did. Very much.
But what people never seemed to understand about her father was that he could separate what he felt from how he behaved. He could care for Roman deeply and still disappoint him, attack him, cast him aside. Carmen had seen him do it.
“Maybe not,” Roman said. “But I’ve figured something out about myself this past week. I’m hopeful.”
“Hopeful of what?”
“No, I mean, I’m hopeful. I like to hope. I enjoy the sensation of hoping for things.”
“You sound like a child.”
But she thought of Noah, bounding over the pavers to do her the small service of unlocking the office door. Was it childish to be hopeful?
If she’d ever had that sort of ease in her body, she’d lost it long ago. The option of a childhood unburdened with adult concerns had never been available to her. Perhaps that was why she found it so impossible to imagine an adulthood that encompassed childish things. It required a quality of faith she didn’t possess.
In all things, faith eluded Carmen. Another gift of girlhood, taken from her by a man who enjoyed speaking of the beauty of her soul. Her innocent heart, her open face, her body an offering that he claimed for himself.
Eleven years ago, and she’d never told. Even after she seized an opportunity and drove him off with a golf club, she’d denied herself the right to speak, as he had denied it to her.
Who had denied her the right to hope?
“Take care of yourself,” Roman said. “I’ll call back in a few days when I have a plan. Until then, don’t bother calling. I’m not going to pick up.”
“Roman—”
“Bye, Carmen.”
Her hand dropped away from her face. She tapped the glass screen of her phone, wishing for a hard plastic flap to flip shut.
What she needed was a way to impose closure, divide past from present, organize the world into then and now, right and wrong, progress and decline.
She wanted the world to be a clean white sheet of paper held unmoving on her clipboard.
She wanted her hand to wield a thick black pen, making and unmaking reality with brisk flicks of her wrist.
“Goodbye,” she said aloud in the empty room.
She wished she knew who she was talking to.
CHAPTER FOUR
Ashley watched as Roman set his phone on top of Nana’s kitchen table.
Nana sipped her tea.
&nbs
p; Stanley sat like a stone, arms folded, taking everything in.
All of them waiting to hear more about the phone call they’d been so blatantly eavesdropping on.
Roman turned his chair around and straddled it. The smile he’d worn for most of the call still lingered at one corner of his mouth. She gave him five seconds to speak, and then she couldn’t stand it anymore. “What made you laugh?”
“You remember back at the commune when I told you I’d destroy you?”
“How could I forget? Nobody’s ever threatened to destroy me before.”
“Carmen said the same thing to me—that Heberto will destroy me. It made me realize, I picked that up from him. He’s the only person I’ve ever met who goes around threatening to destroy things.”
“I figured it was your Latin blood.”
Roman grinned, infectiously cheerful. “Yeah, right. We Wisconsin Cubans are known for being hot-tempered.”
Ashley snorted.
“You seemed pretty hot-tempered in the car,” Stanley observed.
“You worked hard enough to get me that way,” Roman replied. “I should have tried it out on you. I will destroy you!” He shook his fist vigorously. “I bet you would’ve backed right off.”
Stanley ducked his head, but he wasn’t quite quick enough for Ashley to miss the smile breaking over his face.
“Until Stanley found an alligator to sic on you,” Nana said.
“Listen, old woman”—Roman had his forearms draped over the back of the chair, fingers laced together; he leaned in—“this was a four-hundred-pound alligator. It could have taken off my right arm with one snap. I was the only person on that porch who wasn’t out of his fucking mind.”
“Four hundred pounds, Roman?” Ashley asked. “Really?”
“Okay, three hundred.”
“This is like one of those fish stories, isn’t it?” Nana asked. “The alligator’s going to keep getting bigger.”
“That’s okay with me as long as Roman doesn’t start leaving out the part where he fell on his ass and scrambled backward across the porch,” Ashley said.
“Or the part where you saved my life by throwing a beach ball into the swamp?” Roman found her foot with his and knocked them together.
“Exactly.”