Butterfly (20 page)

The sweep hand on Phillip’s watch made a full revolution. “I’ll think about it.”

“You do more than think about it!” Booth countered. Physically, he knew he was no match for the ballplayer, knowing he would have to even the odds. That’s where Dennis Mayfield’s special skills came in. He never asked his boyhood friend how he managed to coerce people into seeing things his way. All he was concerned about were the results.

But one thing Booth Wilkes Gordon was not, and that was easily frightened. He hadn’t issued an idle threat when he’d mentioned leaking information that Phillip Kingston had battered women. “After this weekend, you will never contact Seneca Houston again.” He gestured to the bartender. “Take his drink order. He’s holding up the line.”

A ripple of silence descended over the two hundred guests who’d gathered on the property of Francisco Abrams when Booth Gordon walked onto the property with Seneca Houston clinging to his arm. Those close enough to glimpse her tall, thin figure draped in a short, backless, silk chiffon dress in flattering colors of tangerine and cream whispered among themselves while wondering who she was. The flared skirt, ending at midthigh, showed off her long legs to their best advantage. Five inches of Christian Louboutin black patent-leather pumps had her towering over many of the men in attendance.

Booth introduced Seneca to the Argentinean-born director who lived half of the year in the States and the other half in Buenos Aires. Francisco cradled her hands, kissing her knuckles. His sharp brown eyes took in everything about her in a single glance.

“When Gordon told me he was bringing me a gift, I never thought it would be so incredibly beautiful.”

Seneca laughed, the sultry sound catching and floating on the rising wind off the water. She’d found the tall, slender man charming. His slightly accented English was musical, and he was attractive without being handsome.

“Since today is also my birthday, are you going to be my gift?”

Throwing back his head, Francisco roared in delight. “It would be my pleasure to be your gift.” He released her hands and peered around her back. He smiled. “Lovely dress. Ah—you have a tattoo. What is it?”

“It’s a monarch butterfly and my signature.”

“Your signature?”

Seneca pointed to Luis, who was attempting to extricate himself from a woman who’d latched onto him like a ravenous predator. “That’s Luis Navarro, and he designed this dress. He claims I’m his muse and his
mariposa.
”

“It’s a fitting signature. Booth told me you’re a model. Do you have any acting experience?”

Seneca affected a sexy moue. “I have a little.”

“How much is a little?”

“Do you mind if we don’t talk shop tonight?” she asked.

“When do you wish to talk,
Mariposa?
”

Booth moved closer. “I’ll call you, Frankie, and set up a day and time when the three of us can get together. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to introduce Butterfly to a few other people.”

“Thanks,” Seneca whispered when he wrapped an arm around her waist and led her away from Francisco. “I was running out of witty repartee.”

“You do all right for a twenty-one-year-old. How about a drink—now that you’re legal?”

“No, thank you.” She didn’t want to tell Booth that turning twenty-one wasn’t an excuse for her to drink.

“Don’t you feel like celebrating?”

“Being here is a celebration. When I used to read
Vanity Fair
and
Town and Country
and see photos of celebrities vacationing and partying in the Hamptons, I never would’ve imagined being here.”

Booth gave Seneca a sidelong glance. “So, you like hanging out with counterfeit people?”

“Why are you so cynical, Booth?”

His fingers tightened on her tiny waist. “I’m getting old, Butterfly. Old, tired and crotchety.”

“You need a wife.”

“I don’t know if getting married again would mellow me out.”

Booth was still faced with the Carter Browning dilemma. He had hired a private investigator to have the man checked out. He’d also had a security technician come and sweep the entire building for electronic listening devices. Carter hadn’t lied. The technician discovered a total of eighteen bugs, and if Joan Powers hadn’t disappeared he would’ve personally strangled her.

“Let’s go down to the beach,” Seneca urged Booth when she spied Phillip with a buxom redhead clinging to his arm as if he were her lifeline. It was apparent he was ready to move on.

Seneca returned nods and exchanged smiles with invited guests as she followed Booth down to the beach. Leaning
against him for support, she slipped out of her shoes and dug her bare toes in the sand. “It’s going to be a long time before I’ll be thinking about getting married again.”

“Now who’s being cynical?” Booth teased.

“I’m being realistic,” she countered.

“May I give you a little advice?” Seneca nodded. “Don’t get married again until you retire from modeling.”

She nodded again. “That sounds like good advice.”

“I’m going to set you up with my lawyer, who will handle your annulment.”

“Is he going to charge me through the nose?” Seneca teased, repeating what Booth said about his divorces.

“No. There’s no division of property or children, so it should be short and sweet.” Booth gave her a peck on the cheek. “I’m going to get something to drink. Try and stay out of trouble.”

Seneca noticed the beach was becoming crowded as party-goers carrying cups and plates of food sat on the sand to watch the awe-inspiring sunset. Electra joined her, balancing a plate piled high with food.

“I got enough for both of us,” she explained, handing Seneca several cocktail napkins.

Seneca took a large prawn and a skewer with grilled chicken. “Where’s Jayson?”

“He’s hanging around the pool waiting for you to introduce him to Francisco Abrams.”

“Why is he waiting for me?”

“We’re your guests, Seneca.”

“And I’m Booth’s guest. Tell Jayson to go over and introduce himself.”

Electra pushed out her lower lip. “Why are you being a bitch, Seneca?”

She glared at her roommate as if she’d suddenly taken leave
of her senses. “I’m a bitch because I won’t take your bitch-ass, poor excuse for a man by the hand and introduce him to someone he wants to meet?”

“Who the fuck are you to call my boyfriend a bitch?”

Seneca struggled not to lose her temper. “I’ll call him anything I want. When Booth told me we were going to Francisco Abrams’s soirée, I thought of you and Jayson and that he could possibly connect with the man.”

“What if he introduces himself and Mr. Abrams gives him the brush-off?”

“That’s his problem. He’s just going to have to learn to deal with rejection, Electra. You’re his girlfriend, not his mother. You can’t pick him up when he falls and scrapes his knees.”

Electra went completely still, her eyes filling with tears. “I thought you were my friend.”

“I am your friend, Electra, but I’m not a bitch.”

“What I don’t need is a shady friend. Ever since you signed on with BGM you’ve changed. It’s like you’re breathing rarified air and you don’t have time for us common people. You’re dating Phillip Kingston, yet when I asked who PK was you acted as if I’d asked you something that would jeopardize national security. Now you get a one-on-one with Francisco Abrams and you refuse to introduce your friends to him. Has he asked you to appear in one of his films?”

Seneca didn’t know where Electra was coming from or what had set her off. “I don’t have to deal with this.” She walked off down the beach without giving her roommate a backward glance. Hot tears pricked the back of her eyelids, but she refused to cry—not on her birthday.

Turning twenty-one had become a sobering experience. She planned to dissolve her two-week marriage, and the woman she’d called
friend
had just turned on her.

S
eneca found Booth’s driver and had him drive her back to the house, where she locked herself in the bedroom she would share with Luis. She went through the ritual of removing the makeup from her face before she showered and pulled on a pair of lounging pants and tee. Sitting yoga-style on the twin bed, she called Ithaca. Her father answered the phone. The instant she heard his deep voice her eyes filled with tears.

“Hi, Daddy.”

“How’s my birthday girl?”

“She’s good,” she lied, blinking back tears.

“You don’t sound so good.”

“That’s because I miss you guys.”

“What’s the matter, Seneca?”

“I can’t talk about it now.”

There came a pregnant pause before Oscar Houston said, “What’s going on, Seneca? You call to say you miss us, yet you’re too busy to come and visit with your family. You act as if we live on the other side of the world. Not only are we in the
same time zone but we also live in the same state. I try not to take sides, but this time I’m going to agree with your mother when she says you’re only thinking of yourself. I’ve always tried to support you when you say you want to do something, but I’m not so certain about this modeling business.”

“What’s wrong with it, Daddy?”

“The question should be what’s right with it.”

“I like it.”

“Do you love it, Seneca?”

Seneca chewed her lower lip as she thought about her father’s question. “I can’t answer that.”

“You can’t because the answer is no. You can’t give something a hundred percent of yourself if you don’t love it. Your grandmother loved being an actress more than she loved being a wife and mother, and she wasn’t ashamed to admit it. What you’re going to have ask yourself is if modeling will be worth the sacrifices that you’re going to face in the future.”

“What sacrifices?”

“Your first sacrifice is giving up your education and—”

“I’m going to go back to school,” she said, interrupting him.

“Please let me finish, Seneca. The second sacrifice will be friends and family, because everybody is going to want a piece of you. And you’re going to want to please them. Designers will line up like vehicles at a car wash to beg you to wear their clothes. Then it’s the folks who want you to promote their products. People are going to expect you to smile when you don’t feel like smiling, and if a photographer happens to take a picture of you when you’re having a bad hair day, then tongues start wagging about what’s going on in your life. It’s going to happen, baby girl. I just want you to be prepared when it comes.”

Seneca cried silent tears. Her father’s words cut her to the
quick. Had he always harbored reservations about her becoming a model, or had Dahlia brainwashed him? Her mother equated models to whores and sluts. But she wasn’t a whore or a slut. What she’d done was marry the wrong man.

“Thanks for the advice.”

“You don’t have to take it, Seneca. Just think about what I’ve said. No matter what happens, always remember that I’ll be here for you.”

“I know that, Daddy. I’m going to Miami next week for my first show in the States. Instead of coming back to the city I’ll fly up and see you, Mama and Robbie.”

“That sounds good.”

“Don’t say anything to Mama and Robbie. I want it to be a surprise.”

“I won’t say a mumbling word.”

Seneca laughed for the first time since hearing her father’s voice. “By the way, how is Mama?”

“Other than complaining about hot flashes, she’s all right.”

“She’s too young to have hot flashes.”

“That’s what I told her, but she insists she’s going through the change.”

“When I see her I’m going to try and convince her to have her estrogen levels checked.”

“Good luck with that, baby girl. Did you have a drink to celebrate becoming legal?”

“No.”

“Good for you. The stuff can be poison to some people.”

Seneca knew Oscar was talking about his younger brother, who’d been in and out of alcohol rehab for most of his life before he died of liver disease.

“If I start drinking, then I’ll eat all the wrong foods.”

Oscar’s deep laugh caressed her ear. “I suppose modeling has a few good perks.”

“It does. It forces me to eat healthy.”

“Look, baby, I’m going to ring off because I promised the ladies of the house that I would take them to the movies, and if we don’t head out now we’re going to miss that last show.”

“Have fun.”

“Thanks. Bye, and happy birthday.”

Seneca held the tiny phone to her ear, then punched the end button. Her father had hung up. Slipping off the bed, she went into the bathroom to splash cold water on her face. Staring at her reflection in the mirror over the pedestal sink, she hardly recognized the face staring back at her. Puffy red eyes were a telltale sign that she’d been crying.

She was crying and hiding behind a locked door on what should’ve been one of the momentous days of her life. Seneca wasn’t as unsettled about her father’s change of heart about her modeling as she’d been about the altercation with Electra. That was totally unexpected. Now she knew what people meant when they said something came at them out of left field.

She’d gotten Booth to agree to let her invite Electra and her playwright boyfriend to Francisco Abrams’s birthday celebration, and yet Electra wanted her to take Jayson by the hand and personally introduce him to the director. She didn’t expect her roommate to bow and kiss her hand, but Electra verbally attacked her—calling her a bitch—because Jayson was too timid to take care of his own business. She’d seen girls punched out because they’d called another girl the B-word.

Seneca Houston was nobody’s bitch, and she knew that sharing an apartment with Electra was no longer an option. Finding another apartment in Manhattan and paying what she did for rent was nearly impossible, but she was confident she could find something. She would give Electra two month’s
notice, and even if she didn’t find another place to live she knew she couldn’t continue to share the apartment.

Seneca felt the comforting press of Mitchell’s hand on hers as the jet picked up speed in preparation for liftoff. She was flying to Miami to walk in Rhys Calhoun’s swimsuit show, and Mitchell Leon was going along as the photographer for
Elle
magazine.

When she’d returned to Manhattan after her weekend on Long Island’s South Shore, it wasn’t to the Upper West Side brownstone. She’d checked into a moderately priced hotel near the Hudson River, spending hours on her cell calling Realtors and scouring classified ads for apartment rentals. What she didn’t want to do was share an apartment again, but with the price of New York City real estate she’d concluded her best option was renting in one of the other boroughs. Brooklyn had become her first choice, because it was easily accessible by public transportation.

Mitchell had attempted to resolve her problem when he’d called to invite her out to a vegetarian restaurant they both liked, offering to pick her up. However, when she told him she was staying at the hotel, he calmly told her to check out and stay with him. He’d deflected her rejection, reminding her that she’d put him up on her sofa when he hadn’t had anyplace to stay. Her last comment to him on the matter was that she would think about it. After dinner, they returned to the hotel, and Mitchell took her luggage back to his loft.

“Have you thought about it, Butterfly?”

Seneca pulled her gaze away from the window where the tarmac whizzed dizzily by. “Thought about what?” She closed her eyes briefly as the jet gained altitude.

“Moving in with me?”

She opened her eyes, her gaze moving slowly over the
sculpted mahogany face with mesmerizing gold eyes. “I’ll
stay
with you, but only until I find my own place.”

Mitchell smiled, flashing his beautiful white teeth. When they’d walked through the terminal to their gate, stares and whispers had followed. Mitchell Leon hadn’t been away from the world of modeling long enough for people to have forgotten his tall, slender body and dynamic face. Both were flying first-class and had elected to carry on their luggage.

Mitchell gave Seneca’s fingers a gentle squeeze. “Good. Now, are you going to tell me why you’re moving out, or do you want me to take a wild guess?”

“There’s no need to play twenty questions.” Seneca recounted the conversation she’d had with Electra at Francisco Abrams’s beachfront home. “I’d never seen her so upset. I think it’s because she wants more for her boyfriend than he wants for himself. I would’ve excused her if she hadn’t called me a bitch.”

“No, she didn’t.”

“Yes, she did. I prayed to the ancestors to keep me from stomping a mud hole in her ass. Five-inch stilettos can double as lethal weapons.”

Mitchell laughed despite the seriousness of the situation. “I see why you checked into that hotel. I don’t want to say anything but…”

“But what, Mitchell?” Seneca asked when he stopped talking.

“You’ve got to toughen up,” he said cryptically. “You have what Electra wants—fame.”

“You’re wrong. I’m
not
famous.”

“Not yet. And she knows that. Remember, you invited her to come along to the Hamptons, not the other way around. You’re a BGM client, you know Phillip Kingston and she saw Francisco Abrams’s reaction when he met you. Your roommate
wants to be you. She wants to be Butterfly. And because she isn’t, she turned on you.”

“She can’t be jealous.”

“No. She’s not jealous. She’s envious. Don’t forget envy is one of the seven deadly sins. And you’re not going to only get it from friends but also from family.”

“You went through something like I did with Electra?”

“If I’d had an Electra moment, then I would’ve thought of myself as blessed. Once I returned to the States after my first European show, every friend and relative I’d ever known had their hand out. If they weren’t asking for a little ‘spare change’ they were hounding me about how to break into modeling.” Mitchell leaned closer to Seneca. “Guys I’d gone to school with called me
faggot
and
dick sucker,
because they believed I’d prostituted myself to get modeling jobs,” he said in her ear. “Women I wouldn’t sleep with perpetuated the rumors and gossip because they weren’t used to men turning them down. As my grandmother used to say, God bless the dead, ‘Gird your loins, boy, ’cause theys gonna come afta ya.’”

Seneca laughed when she didn’t feel like laughing and prayed Mitchell was wrong. Her family wasn’t destitute, so she doubted whether they’d ask her for money. Even her few distant cousins, Stefani included among them, rarely interacted with her. She hadn’t reconnected with Stefani until she’d graduated from cosmetology school. Her cousin had called to let her know she was working in a salon in Harlem.

The flipside was that her cousin didn’t want her to come to the salon but to her apartment in Brooklyn to do her hair. The experience was one Seneca would never forget. Between screaming at her three children, all under the age of six, and attempting to appease her grumpy husband when he wanted her to stop what she was doing and cook dinner for him, it
had taken more than four hours for Stefani to wash, deep-condition, set, dry and blow-dry her hair.

She didn’t say anything to Mitchell, but she prayed he was wrong. The jet had reached cruising altitude and the flight attendants began serving breakfast. It was an added perk when airlines had downsized to the point where they charged for checked bags, snacks, pillows and blankets. She and Phillip had flown first class to L.A. and had taken a private jet to Vegas. It was a practice she could easily get used to.