by Paul Levine
Steve wondered if he'd just been dissed, but Victoria smiled and replied, “Thank you.”
“And your engagement ring,” Kranchick gushed. “Simply spectacular.”
“Nothing says love like a big fat diamond,” Steve chipped in.
“Mr. Solomon, you grow on people, don't you?”
“Like a fungus,” he said.
“Which reminds me of citrus canker,” Bigby piped up. “Helluva problem.”
“I don't mean to pry, Mr. Bigby,” Kranchick said, “but are you and Ms. Tuttle an item?”
Bruce wrapped an arm around Jackie, and she dropped her head onto his shoulder. “We're not as far along as Steve and Victoria, but who knows what the future will bring?”
“Que sera, sera,” the doctor sang.
With Bruce and Jackie cuddling, Steve felt he had no choice. He had to keep up appearances, didn't he? He slipped an arm around Victoria, but somehow, his hand ended up sliding under the fabric of her mesh top. Her skin was warm and smooth. He waited a moment to see if she would move away or dig a high heel into his ankle. When she didn't, he slowly began stroking her back.
She turned her head to him. A placid, controlled expression that betrayed nothing. Steve wished he knew what she was feeling. Desire? Regret? Anger? He sometimes thought he could read the look in a woman's eyes, but can any man?
“Tell me all about your wedding plans, Mr. Solomon,” Kranchick said. “Where's the ceremony going to be?”
“Ah, Temple Beth-”
“Church of the Little Flower,” Victoria interrupted.
“How lovely! I know it's a little soon to ask, but are you planning to have children?”
“Four,” Victoria said, just as Steve said, “Two.”
“Three,” they corrected, in unison.
“Four?” Bigby asked, looking at Victoria, eyebrows arched.
“And if you don't mind my asking,” Kranchick said, “are you planning on any religious training?”
“Jewish,” Steve said.
“Episcopalian,” Victoria said.
“Catholic,” Bigby said.
“One of each?” Kranchick asked, clearly confused.
“We need to talk about the bridesmaids' dresses.” Jackie desperately tried to change the subject. “Empire waists? Canary yellow and sunset orange? I'm gonna look like Kilauea.”
“Bruce chose them,” Victoria said, then realized she'd made a mistake.
Kranchick's high forehead furrowed. “Mr. Bigby, you outfitted the bridesmaids?”
“Yes, because…” Bigby began, then stopped. Stumped.
“Because…” Victoria said.
“Because…” Jackie said.
“Because Bruce is gay,” Steve volunteered.
“Oh, my,” Kranchick said.
“Was gay,” Bigby corrected.
“Until he met me,” Jackie said, stroking Bigby's cheek.
They were somewhere between the tofu and the tamales. Bigby was going on about the tragedy of medfly infestation, Kranchick listening as if he were revealing the mystery of Creation. Bigby's arm was still draped over Jackie's shoulder, so why shouldn't Steve keep up his own massage? With Victoria's back growing warmer under his touch, he nuzzled her ear and whispered, “For what it's worth, I think Bruce is the luckiest guy in town.”
“Do you mean that?”
“I'm green with envy, as green as my daiquiri.”
Leaning toward her, Steve's hand moved farther under the fabric, slipping around her rib cage and coming to rest just below her right breast. A perfectly fine, naturally firm, small but shapely, non-Rudnick breast, which now rested on the top of an index finger. She didn't move away, didn't call a cop, didn't slug him.
For a moment, he was fifteen again, in the balcony of the theater on Arthur Godfrey Road, wondering what Sarah Gropowitz would do if he cupped her 32A in his hand. As he recalled, he did nothing for so long that his arm fell asleep. The pain had been so severe, he'd thought the evening might end with amputation.
Steve sneaked a glance at Victoria. She was blushing, the color starting at the base of her neck, moving like the incoming tide until her cheeks were ablaze. A moment later, she discreetly reached behind her back, removed his hand, and slid her chair back. “If you'll excuse me a moment…”
She bolted from the table, avoiding eye contact with Steve. His eyes were trained on the front of her singlet, where her nipples propped up the silvery mesh like roof shingles in a hurricane. He ordinarily hopped to his feet when a lady left the table. But he couldn't stand up just now, not with his napkin pitched like a tent over his crotch. He shot a nervous look at Bruce, who was offering Kranchick a two-bedroom apartment at Bigby Resort amp; Villas, lakefront view at no charge. Then a peek at Jackie, who was watching him, eyes keen as talons. Smiling devilishly, she dangled a maraschino cherry by its stem, rolled it on her tongue, and bit into it.
“Mr. Solomon, I must say you have wonderful friends,” Kranchick said, breaking away from Bigby's sales pitch, “and your fiancee is both beautiful and charming.”
“Sometimes I feel like pinching myself, asking if it's all real.”
“It's real, old chap,” Bruce said heartily. “And you deserve it all.”
Old chap? Maybe it was the yacht club surroundings, or maybe he'd overdosed on daiquiris. Still, Bigby was a decent guy, and for a moment Steve felt guilty about the strange brew of feelings he had for the man's fiancee. The guilt, however, was pretty much drowning in a deep pool of desire. With Victoria still nowhere in sight, Steve excused himself from the table.
He searched the bar area.
No Victoria.
He went to the ladies' rest room, knocked on the door, and called her name.
No Victoria.
He ducked into the kitchen and looked around.
Where was she?
He went onto the patio and followed the path to the pier. And there she was, walking along a row of power boats. He caught up to her next to the Whiplash, a Fountain speedster owned by a personal-injury lawyer.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I just needed some air.”
She was staring across the bay and wouldn't look at him. He came closer. The only sounds were the clanks and groans of the boats in their moorings and the far-off caw of a seabird. The sun had set, and an evening breeze chilled the air.
“You're cold.” Steve took both of her bare arms in his hands and felt the goose bumps.
“What were you doing in there?” Sounding angry. Ready to unload on him. “Just what the hell were you doing?”
“I'm sorry. You're helping me. Big-time. So if I was out of line. ..”
“And in court, massaging my neck?”
“It won't happen again. Scout's honor.”
“I'll bet a year's pay you were never a Boy Scout.”
“I was till they caught me peeping into the girls' bunkhouse.”
“And what are you doing now?”
He hadn't realized it, but his hands were rubbing her upper arms. “Just keeping you warm.” But in reality, he simply couldn't keep his hands off her. “I apologize. Really, I would never-”
“Shut up, Solomon.” She threw her arms around his neck, pulled him close, and kissed him.
He was so startled that it took him a second to kiss her back. But he did. At first, soft and tender. Then deeper, hungrier. Lips melting, tongues circling, it was a long, sigh-filled, sweet river of a kiss that left them both gasping. He held her close, and for a long moment, neither moved.
He tried to fathom his longings. Why did this feel so different than all the rest? Why did this woman matter?
Suddenly, she pulled back and turned away.
“That didn't happen,” she said.
“Yes it did.”
“I'm drunk.”
“Don't think so.”
“Or it's some chemical thing. I'm light-headed from not eating.”
“You want the paramedics?”
“Or it's propinquity.
We work together every day, so naturally some feelings arise.”
“That's gotta be it.”
“Or it's reverse chemistry. We really don't like each other, so this is some mutually codependent, destructive urge that manifested itself simultaneously in both of us.”
“Or a rational, synergistic coupling,” he said, using her own words against her.
“I doubt it.” She was hugging herself with both hands.
Steve came to her, put his arms around her from behind. “Whatever it is, why not go with the flow?”
She wheeled to face him. “And where will that take us? Besides your bedroom?”
“I don't know. I just thought-”
“Isn't that just like you, Solomon? Do what feels good and damn the consequences.”
“Do what feels right. And this feels right. Why fight it?”
“For one thing, I'm engaged.” She held up her ring finger.
“A lawyer would notice you didn't say, ‘I'm in love with someone else.'”
“That's implicit in ‘I'm engaged.'”
“Love's never implicit in anything.”
“Okay, I love Bruce. I love him a lot. I'm going to marry him. Satisfied?”
“If you are.”
“I'm not going to play this game.”
Suddenly, a woman's voice sang out of the darkness. “I knew it!” A second later, Jackie showed up. “What'd I miss?”
“Nothing.” Victoria raked her hair with her fingertips. “We were just planning trial strategy.”
“Sure you were. I saw Bad Boy cop a feel, then you took off without your purse, which you wouldn't do if the place were on fire. Then Bad Boy follows you out here, so I thought maybe, just maybe, you might need your lipstick, which believe me, you do.” She handed Victoria her purse.
“Oh, God, Jackie.” Victoria opened the purse and fished for a mirror.
“Relax. Bruce is describing the horror of root rot, which he claims is like genital warts. The doctor's enthralled. And what do you have to say for yourself, Bad Boy?”
“Nothing happened out here,” Steve said.
“Don't worry. I won't rat you out. Vic's my best friend. But it's not fair.”
“What?” Steve asked.
“She has two fiances,” Jackie said, “and I don't have any.” Bruce Kingston Bigby and Victoria Lord request the honour of your presence at their marriage on Saturday, the eighth day of January Two Thousand and Six at six o'clock in the evening Church of the Little Flower 2711 Indian Mound Trail Coral Gables, Florida. Black tie dinner to follow at the Biltmore Hotel* *No animals or animal prducts will be used in food preparation.
Twenty-five
A KISS IS NOT A KISS
Where the hell was she?
It was 10:37 A.M., according to the Miami Dolphins helmet clock on Steve's desk, and Victoria was MIA. Not like her at all. She usually got half a day's work done before most people had finished their Wheaties. Or in his case, a handful of guava pastalitos with cafe Cubano.
What if she'd quit? Quit the case and quit him.
No answer at her apartment, no answer on her cell phone. She probably spent the night at Bigby's house, a thought that depressed Steve even more.
Kissing me and sleeping with him. The wench.
Thinking about Bigby made Steve feel devious. Not lawyer devious, that was a given. Personal devious, and that wasn't him. Even as an adolescent, he never bird-dogged other guys' girls, cheated on exams, or boasted of his own conquests. And his lies were always harmless and easily disproved, like exaggerating the size of his penis.
So where the hell was she?
Steve was supposed to be interviewing new clients-the Barksdale publicity had flushed out a few quail-but his heart wasn't in it. He was still thinking about THE KISS. Feeling it. Tasting it. The physical sensation lingering on his lips, sweeping through his body, searing itself on his brain. Or what was left of it.
What the hell's going on?
His mind drifted to other kisses. Two decades ago, he'd planted one on fourteen-year-old Sarah Gropowitz in the theater balcony during the movie Witness. He remembered waiting until Harrison Ford got his car started in the barn, and Sam Cooke was singing that he didn't know much about history.
Ford takes Kelly McGillis in his arms, and they dance, a brazen sacrilege, because of her Amish upbringing, to say nothing of her recent widowhood. Young Steve figured this was the kind of scene that turned chicks on, forbidden love and all that. Just as Cooke confessed that he was equally deficient in biology, Steve leaned close to Sarah's Clearasil-spotted face. Puckering up, Steve strafed her like a cruise missile hitting a terrorist camp. For his efforts, he got a mouthful of her jujubes, a cackling laugh, and derision from his peers for weeks to come.
Thinking about the movie deflated him. Harrison Ford didn't get the girl. True to his nature, the hard-boiled cop returned to his city. And true to her roots, Kelly McGillis hooked up with a strapping, blond farmer. Sort of an Amish Bruce Bigby. All of which led Steve to two disheartening conclusions.
Maybe opposites attract, but they don't usually end up together.
And…
If Harrison Ford couldn't get the girl, how the hell could he?
“Que pasa, jefe?”
Cece stalked into his office with the morning's mail in one hand, a twenty-five-pound dumbbell in the other. Today, she wore lower-than-low Brazilian jeans and a cropped tee. Trying to look like J-Lo or Shakira or Thalia-Steve couldn't keep them straight.
“Victoria call?” he asked.
“Why should she?”
“Because she's late.”
“Slave driver.” She dumped the mail on his desk. “Your next customer will be here ahorita mismo.”
“Client, Cece. We call them clients.”
She shrugged, her trapezius muscles fluttering.
“It's not like Victoria to be late.”
Cece started doing one-arm curls with the dumbbell. “What's with you today?”
“Nothing. Nothing's happened.”
“Didn't say anything happened. Why you wigging out?”
“I'm fine. Everything's fine. We've got a murder trial to prep, that's all.”
“So how'd dinner go?”
“Kranchick adores Victoria and wants to run off with Bigby.”
“So you snowed the doc?”
“I'm not sure. Vic and I weren't always on the same page.”
“What a shock,” Cece said, shifting the dumbbell to her other hand.
Steve riffled through the mail. He could hear the steel band warming up across the alley. Either that, or a truck was dumping scrap metal on the asphalt.
“What's this?” Steve was holding a square envelope on fine linen paper. His name and address were written in calligraphy.
“Open it and find out.”
“That's your job, Cece. Open the mail, calendar hearings, deposit checks.”
“What checks?”
Steve opened the envelope and pulled out a wedding invitation. Bruce Kingston Bigby and Victoria Lord. Slipping it back into the envelope, he had the bizarre notion that he could stop the wedding by pretending the invitation did not exist.
What's going on, anyway? What are these feelings?
He felt like a man with a strange, undiagnosed disease. He felt no pain, but had a sense of impending doom.
Five minutes later, Cece was back in the waiting room, free weights clanging, and Steve heard a buzzing. Looking up, he saw Harry Sachs wheeling himself through the open door in his motorized chair. Harry was in his early forties, beady-eyed, jowly, and paunchy. He wore a gray U.S. Marines T-shirt with camouflage pants and paratrooper boots. An American flag flew from back of the chair and a decal read: “Help a Grenada Vet.”
“I'm not gonna handle your divorce, Harry,” Steve said.
“Who said anything about a divorce?”
“Every month you come in here saying you want out. I file the papers, then you and Joanne reconcile.”
; “She's still busting my balls, but that ain't why I'm here.”
Steve liked Joanne Sachs but knew she could be a nag, always insisting that Harry give up his chosen profession as a con man.
“Then what is it?” Steve said. “I already told you I won't sue your parents for being ugly.”
“Not just for being ugly,” Harry said. “For having the chutzpah to procreate.”
“Forget it.”
“Okay, but I got a new one that'll make us both rich. You know that strip club on the Seventy-ninth Street Causeway? The Beav?”
“Don't think I do.”
“That's funny, 'cause two of the girls there recommended you. Not that I'd ever use another lawyer.”
“I appreciate it, Harry. Tell me about the case.”
“Discrimination. We're talking big bucks here.”
“I'm listening and I'm fascinated,” Steve said, telling two lies for the price of one. In reality, he was still thinking about the taste of Victoria's lips. And just why couldn't Kelly McGillis end up with Harrison Ford? And if she had, would he have come to the country or would she have gone to the city? That's the rub. Even if he ever got together with Victoria, who would change to accommodate the other? And wasn't it asinine even to be thinking these thoughts? She was about to be married, and in case he'd forgotten, the engraved invitation was there to remind him.
Harry Sachs buzzed his wheelchair closer to Steve's desk. “I been a regular at The Beav for years, ever since the cops shut down Crotches. I got the membership card, you buy ten lap dances, get one free, just like Frappuccinos at Starbucks. But they remodeled, and now the VIP lounge is up three stairs, and I can't get there.”
“So?”
“Whadaya mean, ‘so'? Equal access to public facilities. I'm talking punitive damages, a class action.”
“What's the class, con artists?”
“The disabled. We got a right to get our rocks off. Life, liberty, and”-Harry grabbed his groin-“the pursuit of happiness.”
“Not exactly what Thomas Jefferson had in mind.”