Hot Christmas Nights

by Farrah Rochon

  “I figured you were moping around because you were in meetings all evening,” she said, pushing aside her thoughts and focusing on traffic. The Five Guys Burgers take-out sign flashing up ahead caught her attention and her stomach growled ferociously. She gave in to it and activated the turning signal. “So I thought I’d call and let you know that I’m coming over, and bringing double cheeseburgers and milk shakes with me. What do you want on your burger?”

  * * *

  Frazier Abernathy couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Just to be sure that his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him, he checked and then double-checked the figures that his computer had come up with. All of the totals looked correct, but computers couldn’t always be trusted. Could they?

  Telling himself that they couldn’t and that there was at least a slight chance that there was a miscalculation somewhere on the page, he reached across his desk and dragged an electronic adding machine toward him. His fingers flew over the keys and the longer he punched in numbers, the deeper the frown on his face became. Finally, he gave up, tossed the spreadsheet aside and relaxed back in his chair.

  When was that woman going to learn?

  Probably never, he thought as he yanked the knot in his tie loose and blew out a strong breath. For as long as he and Wendy Kincaid had been best friends, which was something like twenty-five years now, she’d always been too concerned with whatever was going on up there in the clouds, where her head was most of the time, to be bothered with what was happening down here on earth, where everyone else’s were.

  Dumping the bulk of her savings into an old, broken-down schoolhouse was the worst decision she could’ve possibly made and Frazier hadn’t wasted any time telling her that five years ago. As her financial adviser, he would’ve been remiss in his duties if he hadn’t sufficiently warned her and, as her best friend, he cared enough about her not to want her to throw good money after bad. But that was exactly what she’d done and the spreadsheet on his desk proved it yet again.

  The Wendy Kincaid Dance Studio was just barely holding on by a thread and, despite every piece of advice that he’d given her to the contrary, Wendy was still ridiculously absentminded when it came to keeping track of expenditures and terrible at following through with collecting what he felt were already absurdly low student tuition fees.

  For the past four years, she’d barely turned a profit, narrowly missing sliding over into the red by this much. This year, the situation was even worse.

  The only bright side was the fact that the studio had recently been granted nonprofit status by the government, which meant that it could now receive funding from grants and donations to help with the cost of upgrading the facilities, and recruiting and maintaining staff. Maybe somewhere along the way he could talk Wendy into hiring a bookkeeper, both for her own good and, as her financial adviser, his sanity.

  Suddenly restless, Frazier got up from his desk and went to stand at the window in his twentieth-floor office. The panoramic view of the downtown St. Louis skyline was beautiful at night, especially now that the Arch had been refurbished and lighting had been added for effect, and work on the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial had been completed.

  To the east of his office building was Kiener Plaza and on any given day or night he could look down on hundreds of people taking part in some sort of local outdoor event.

  And to the west was the Old Courthouse, made famous by Dred and Harriet Scott, slaves who had set a precedent when they petitioned the court for freedom from slavery, and also by the slave auctions that were once held on the steps out front.

  During the day, the French colonial and early-American architecture that dominated the downtown area was nice to study and appreciate, but it came alive at night, thanks to strategic lighting and a little bit of imagination. That was what he’d always liked about downtown St. Louis—the constant activity and the mix of old and new. And it was why, after being away from his home city for nearly a decade, it was the only area that he would consider living in when he decided to come back.

  Whether or not he was staying, however, was still up in the air.

  As if Frazier had conjured it, an image of Wendy rose in his mind and lingered there. He’d dated many women through the years and some of them he had cared for deeply. But he’d never really been in love, not even when he stood before a justice of the peace two days after high-school graduation and married Monica Miller, his high-school sweetheart.

  Wait, that wasn’t quite right.

  The truth was that he’d never really been in love with a woman who wasn’t Wendy Kincaid. His marriage had only lasted eleven months, but by then he’d already been quietly in love with Wendy for years.

  On some level he’d probably always been in love with her, now that he was thinking about it. Besides the fact that she was smart and funny and outgoing, she was also the most exquisite-looking woman he had ever seen. Her milk-chocolate skin was like silk and she moved inside of it so gracefully that it was like watching water flow.

  She’d been dancing since she was three and after thirty years of dedication to her craft, her five-foot-ten-inch frame was lithe and almost boyish, which he supposed was par for the course. But as a slightly lopsided, devilish grin curved his lips, he thanked God that there were exceptions to every rule and in Wendy’s case, the exceptions were her toned, powerful legs and her perfectly rounded, plump butt. When he was a teenager, he wondered what those legs would feel like in his hands, but now he was a man and he intended to find out what they felt like wrapped around his neck.

  One day.

  If anyone knew him from the inside out, it was Wendy. They’d been best friends forever and there were very few secrets between them. How he had managed to keep his feelings for her hidden for this long was anybody’s guess, but based on everything he’d said and done over the past six months alone, he was 99 percent sure that, if his investment firm suddenly went south, he could definitely pursue a successful career in acting.

  The other 1 percent was leaning toward feeling guilty about being so damn good at deceiving her, but feeling a little bit guilty was about as good as it was going to get. He’d learned a long time ago that good things didn’t always come to those who waited. Sometimes they just waited and waited and waited and he wasn’t that damn patient anymore.

  His plans to move back to St. Louis from Chicago were already underway when Frazier had come to the conclusion that he’d waited long enough.

  At thirty-five, and after years of first working on Wall Street and then for a prestigious brokerage house in Chicago, he was very well established in financial circles. His new brokerage firm, Abernathy Financial, was doing well enough that it was no longer a question of if he would hire an associate, but when.

  They were finally both in the same city again, at the same time. If he didn’t make his move soon, some other man would and that was simply not an option.

  It couldn’t be.

  If not another man, then something else would get in the way, something like a damn job offer that could put the kind of gleam in her eye that he couldn’t and plant them on opposite ends of the country. Again. That wasn’t an option, either, at least not until everything was out in the open.

  Turning away from the window, Frazier went back to his desk and the mound of paperwork waiting there for him. He spotted Wendy’s spreadsheet on top of the pile and shook his head. Would she ever learn? Probably not. But they were perfect for each other. He just hoped she felt the same way when he finally told her the truth about who and what he was.

  He was packing his briefcase when his cell phone rang. Knowing that it was Wendy, he pressed a button to put her on speakerphone and kept packing. “What’s up, beautiful?” He listened to her talk about double cheeseburgers, heard his stomach growl in response and said, “Did you get a video of the recital yet?”

  “Got it in my pur
se,” she chirped. “It’s an unedited, rough draft, but it’ll serve the purpose.”

  “Meet me at my place,” Frazier said. “We’ll watch it while we eat.”

  Chapter 2

  Saturdays at the studio were Wendy’s busiest days. That was when most of the youth classes were in session and she taught over half of them herself. Not only was it physically taxing to transition throughout the day from ballet with teens to contemporary jazz with middle-aged adults to hip-hop fusion with college students and back to ballet again, this time with small children, but arranging and memorizing the choreography for each class was also challenging.

  Usually, she enjoyed the hectic pace and the day flew by in a flurry of activity, but today she was a little off her game and she had been since before lunch. Thankfully, the day was almost done and relaxation was on the horizon.

  She glanced out the window as she walked slowly down the length of the barre, critically eyeing the students lined up there. The intricately carved knob-handle wooden cane in her left hand tapped against the hardwood floor with every step she took.

  Whenever she was forced to use it, her younger students teased her about getting old and her older students thought she was channeling a character from an ’80s television show. But the truth was really somewhere in between. Fluffy white clouds were in the sky beyond the window, the sun was shining brightly, and the fall air was extra brisk today. But, according to the dull, persistent throbbing in and around her left knee, rain was on the way.

  “First position,” she called out, coming to a stop at the end of the line. She aimed the pointed end of her stick at the floor directly in front of a student’s feet and tapped two times. The five-year-old girl promptly adjusted her heels so that they were correctly positioned. “Very good, Charlotte,” she murmured to the girl. To the class as a whole, she said, “Second position.”

  There were thirteen students in her beginners’ ballet class and she made sure to visit with each one of them as she slowly retraced her steps. In the floor-to-ceiling mirror on the wall in front of them, they watched her watch them and, one by one, met her eyes in the mirror when it was their turn.

  “Excellent posture, Samantha,” she remarked before moving on down the line.

  Determined to ignore the nagging ache, Wendy took the adorable group of three-to five-year-olds through the five beginning positions of ballet over and over, alternately correcting posture and form, and imparting words of praise. She doubted the children noticed that she was leaning on her walking stick more and more as the minutes passed. But they would definitely notice if she suddenly started frowning at them, so she kept her face carefully neutral until it was either time to smile and praise or to tap her stick and correct.

  Doctors had warned her years ago about putting too much pressure to perform on her left leg, for fear of aggravating the already injured joints, and Wendy had taken the advice just as seriously back then as she did today.

  After years of physical therapy and strength training, her leg was in the best possible shape that it could be in, under the circumstances. A twelve-hour surgery had left her with a metal rod in her calf and scars that she’d have for the rest of her life, but she was grateful that she could still stand on her own two feet in the aftermath. She didn’t mind having to lean on a walking stick every now and again. But she could’ve done without the superpower that she’d been left with—the ability to predict the weather, based on sporadic bouts of pain.

  They were a constant reminder that every stupid decision she’d ever made in life had led her to the spot where she was standing right now. The stupidest of all was the decision to hop in a car with her cousin the night of her college graduation and tag along on a drag race through downtown St. Louis, she thought as she turned and prepared to make the trip down the line again. That one, more than any of the others, had shaped her life in ways that she’d never imagined, starting with completely ending her hopes of ever dancing on Broadway and ending with almost killing her cousin.

  “Third position. Watch your posture, Melanie.” Wendy couldn’t help cracking a smile when Melanie flashed her a snaggletoothed grin. She winked before moving on to guide the next student’s arms to the correct position.

  “Fourth position. And...fifth position and hold. Very good,” she said, stepping back to view the line as a whole and appreciating the effort she saw there. “Very good, ladies. Okay, that’s it for today. I’ll see you all next week, same time, same place. Class dismissed.”

  The noise level in the room went from zero to ten in just a few seconds, as students scattered in different directions to collect their belongings and file out of the room. Wendy waved at them until the last little person was out of sight and then, suddenly fatigued, she headed down the hallway in the opposite direction, toward the steps and her lower-level office.

  “Wendy, wait up.”

  She looked back over her shoulder and saw a plump, neon-red-haired woman with black lipstick and black fingernails power-walking toward her. She stopped and waited for Rachel, her part-time receptionist, to catch up to her. “Hey, Rach, what’s up?” Her gaze fell on the large envelope in Rachel’s hand and turned wary. “Do I even want to know what that is?”

  “I think you might,” Rachel said, her Skechers skidding to a stop less than a foot away from Wendy. “A courier just delivered it for you. He wanted to give it to you personally, but you know I don’t like to let strangers loose in the building. I promised him I’d put it directly in your hands, so here you are.”

  Wendy was reluctant to take it, but what choice did she have? Cautiously, she held it up to her ear and shook it to see if it rattled. When it didn’t, she shrugged and ran a finger underneath the sealed flap, tearing it open neatly. “I have no idea what it could be, but thanks for bringing it to me.”

  “You bet,” Rachel said, turning and power-walking back the way she’d come. “I’d better get to my desk before the students start answering my phone and spinning around in my chair,” she called out to Wendy over her shoulder. “I hate it when they do that.”

  “Be nice,” Wendy responded. Rachel’s reply was a noncommittal flap of her hand just before she turned a corner and disappeared from sight.

  In her office, Wendy propped her walking stick in the corner behind her desk, then dropped into her chair and upended the envelope on the desktop. A single five-by-seven card fell out.

  She picked it up with one hand and dug around in a desk drawer with the other. When she found a bottle of ibuprofen, she popped it open with her thumb, shook out two, and washed them down with water from a bottle that she’d left on her desk yesterday or possibly the day before.

  Then she read:

  By now I know you’re wondering who I am. Will you join me for an evening of dinner and conversation, and find out?

  Wednesday at 8 p.m.

  Tony’s Place on the Landing.

  Wear a red rose in your hair and I’ll find you.

  Meet you there?

  At first, the idea of having a secret admirer scared the hell out of her. She’d seen too many television shows where women were stalked and terrorized, and that definitely wasn’t an experience she wanted to gain firsthand knowledge of. She’d waited and waited for signs of danger, something tangible to pass on to the police, but they never materialized.

  As far as she knew, there was no one lurking around her studio or following her home. There were no prank calls and nothing in her life was any more out of order than it always was. She couldn’t quite explain it, but somehow, some way, she knew that she wasn’t really the target of some sinister plot. Whoever her secret admirer was, he was very low-key and seemingly harmless, or at least as harmless as any secret admirer could be. If not, then she was just a sentimental fool.

  Over the past six months, there were several deliveries to the studio, though none of the others
had ever been delivered by special messenger.

  Once, there was a postcard from the 1920s, with a picture of a prima ballerina en pointe on the front and a short note written by someone named Paolo to a woman named Annalise on the back.

  It was old, and both the handwriting and the foreign postmarks on it were badly worn, but it was exactly the sort of thing that she would’ve stumbled upon at a yard sale or an antiques shop and purchased for herself, for no other reason than the fact that it was old-fashioned and incredibly romantic.

  Another time, a vintage music box arrived. It was just like the one she’d had when she was a little girl, with rose-colored felt lining on the inside and a plastic ballerina that popped up when you opened the lid. If you wound it up, it struggled through “Love Is a Many Splendored Thing,” while the little ballerina twirled ’round and ’round.

  Most of the color and detail had worn off the little ballerina and it was pretty beat-up on the outside, but those signs of life made her love it even more.

  And just last month she’d received a dog-eared Broadway playbill for Les Misérables. It was obvious that it had passed through many hands before landing in hers and she’d wondered about it. Had he gone to the play himself and then brought the playbill back for her?

  She’d had it a week before she thought to open it and discover that it had been autographed by the entire cast and crew.

  Now he was inviting her to dinner. He wanted to meet face-to-face, wanted her to know, finally, who he was. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? Was he interested in being friends or did he have something more sinister in mind?

  Frazier would probably think she’d lost her mind if she showed him the invitation and told him that she was thinking of accepting.

  She could picture him, his long legs pacing back and forth, and his glasses riding on the bridge of his nose as he glowered at her.