Crimson Footprints (15 page)

Eddie grinned. “Wouldn’t you
like to know?”

Tak gave Eddie’s chest a
shove. “Let us in. already.”

“
Yeah, sure thing. Anyway,
I want you guys to meet my girl.” He shot two trigger fingers at
the blonde on the couch. “Nan, this is the old roommate I’m always
talking about. The Tak-man. And this hot tamale is Deena. Deena,
Tak, this is my girl, Nancy.”

To Deena, Nancy looked like
the sort of girl who dated a Phi Beta Kappa jock from Princeton,
whose family owned property on the lake, and whose father had a
flourishing law firm handed down from father to son, all of which
sipped martinis before dinner each night.

As Nancy smiled, soft,
blonde curls framed her doll face, offset by sea green eyes. She
wore a navy button up and smart gray slacks with a charm bracelet
from Tiffany’s.

She extended a hand to Tak.
“I’m assuming no one else calls you Tak-man but Eddie.”

“
You’d assume
right.”

Eddie inserted a head
between the two, a hand at each of their backs.

“
Nan went to Northwestern,
Tak-man. Majored in Psych so don’t talk too long, or she’ll weave
you into her web of psychobabble.”

Tak laughed.

Forty-five minutes later,
the four sat around a deep-dish veggie pizza, each with a glass of
rum and coke in hand. They learned that Nancy enjoyed horseback
riding and golf, was getting her Masters in Clinical Psychology
from the University of Chicago, and that her family preferred to
summer in the Hamptons or Martha’s Vineyard.

Eddie on the other hand, was
in his fourth year of a two-year Masters degree in Art Therapy. In
his free time, he preferred to veg out in front of whatever
happened to be on MTV, protest the establishment, or play his
guitar to drum up a little cash.

The four downed a bottle of
dark rum as Tak and Eddie’s interspersed memories of college with
good natured banter, updates on old friends, and UCLA football
prospects for the upcoming year.

“
So Deena,” Eddie said, as
he topped off her glass despite her protests. “Tak-man tells me
you’re an architect.”

Deena nodded.

“
I uh, work for his
father.” She took a polite sip, her thoughts staggered by liquor.
She looked at the others and noticed they were all faring
better.

“
Yeah, well, I met the old
man once. Definitely hardcore.”

Eddie refilled his glass
before turning to Tak with a grin. “What was it he called
me?”

Tak smirked. “I believe it
was ‘a feebleminded burden to society.’”

“
That’s it!” Eddie hooted,
slapped his knee. “Your old man is fucking hardcore.” He shook his
head. “I tell ya, they don’t make ‘em like that anymore.” And he
actually sounded regretful.

Deena shrugged. “Daichi’s a
serious man. With a low threshold for—for—”

She fell short of saying
foolishness, opting instead to fade into silence.

Tak jerked a thumb at her.
“You’re talking to the wrong one. Remember she’s an architect. She
drank the Kool Aid a long time ago.”

Deena turned to him and
stuck out her tongue. Tak grinned.

When Tak and Deena lay side
by side on the couch’s fold out bed, darkness, silence and half a
foot of mattress separated them.

“
So,” Tak began. “What’d
you think of Eddie?”

Deena cleared her
throat.

“
He was…lively.”

“
You don’t like
him.”

Deena turned to face
him.

“
I didn’t say that. Of
course, I like him. He’s your friend. He’s important to you. Anyone
who’s important to you is…”

She trailed off in
horror.

“
Is what?” he said
softly.

“
An…important person,” she
said lamely.

Tak sighed. An awkward
silence floated between them, penetrated finally when he wished her
good night.

Quiet lasted for five
minutes. Then, a violent slam of wood against wall pierced the
night. Faint at first, and then with insistence, a nearby headboard
banged out a rhythmic tune. Nancy’s cries and Eddie’s moans meshed
and lingered. With brutal clarity, she demanded he fuck her, and
apparently, he did.

Tak groaned.

He tossed covers over his
head as next to him, beads of sweat pricked Deena’s face, aware of
how close they lay in that single, flimsy bed.

Nancy screamed.

“
Jesus,” Tak breathed. “Am
I supposed to—?”

“
You want to go for a
walk?” Deena blurted.

“
What?”

“
I could use a walk. Do you
want to come?”

Tak sat up and flipped on a
lamp. Red blotches patched her face.

“
Yeah,” Tak said.
“Definitely. Let’s go.”

With the Chicago River to
the east and Bloomingdale Ave to the north, Tak and Deena strolled
the streets of wind-whipped Wicker Park. One of the oldest
communities in Chicago, Wicker Park was home to a horde of artists
and musicians. As Deena passed the two and three story brick lofts,
she could see how the neighborhood had earned its trendy and
bohemian name.

“
They were an odd couple,”
she said softly, suddenly.

Conversations began that way
with them; an internal dialogue hurdled in the recesses of one mind
and tossed out mid thought to the other.

“
Yeah,” Tak said, “but they
make it work.”

He slipped hands into the
pockets of his ripped jeans. “A relationship worth anything takes
work.”

“
People must
stare.”

Tak shrugged. “Any time
something isn’t what people expect, they stare. Doesn’t mean
anything.”

Deena frowned at her feet,
clad in a pair of white Reeboks. “I wonder what her family
thinks.”

The two approached a broad
white fountain, an oasis in a concrete desert. There was no need to
ask if she could stop, instinctively he headed in its direction,
knowing she would want to.

“
I don’t know what her
family thinks, and I’m not sure it matters. He loves her, so if she
loves him, then that should be enough.”

“
She loves him, it’s
just—”

“
Just?”

“
Well, he’s asking a lot of
her. How is she supposed to know whether it’s worth it?”

Tak paused. “She couldn’t.
Not without taking a chance.”

They continued in
silence.

“
Eddie tells me she’s a
private girl,” he said finally. “That her family is kind of on a
need-to-know basis.”

Tak took a seat on the
fountain’s broad white edge, slipped a hand into the water, and
watched it submerge. “So, she’ll tell them when she’s
ready.”

Deena stared, wide-eyed.
“And—and how does he feel about that? Is he okay with
it?”

Tak frowned at the water and
withdrew his hand. “I don’t know. Maybe. Point is, he’s willing to
try.”

CHAPTER
NINETEEN

The next afternoon, Tak and
Deena began the thirteen-hour trek to New York. They spent the
evening in Cleveland with a late night meal of pierogies, or boiled
dumplings stuffed with jalapenos and chicken, before passing out
for the night. They woke before checkout, grabbed dim sum in Asia
Town and continued on their journey. Tak ripped through
Pennsylvania and Jersey before arriving in New York at close to
nine p.m., some six hours after their Cleveland
departure.

The Statue of Liberty. The
Empire State Building. Times Square. Deena had all the giddiness of
a girl stepping into the hub of the cosmopolitan world for the
first time. Her heart was palpitating and her palms sweaty, and she
battled a constant need to grab Tak’s sleeve to point out one
landmark after another. She wanted a show on Broadway. Pizza in
Brooklyn. A glimpse of the Apollo Theater. And she refused to wait
another minute. At twenty-five, she’d waited long
enough.

Tak’s silver Ferrari
crawled along the theatre district, stopping and starting on
Deena’s whim,
as he attempted to find a
hotel. Up and down the streets of Manhattan they staggered,
until
finally, he made a turn on
8
^th
and another on 42
^nd
. Deena screeched for him to
stop.

“
That one. That one there.”
Deena jabbed a finger at a single soaring hotel.

It was the Westin. A
towering prism split by a curved beam of light and sheathed in
multicolored glass. The hotel’s mirrored surface shimmered with the
reflection of yellow cabs and dashing pedestrians.
She turned to Tak.

“
Please.”

He turned in, killed the
engine, rolled down his window and handed the curbside valet his
keys. Deena squealed at his automated indulgence.

They were forced to take a
suite on one of the lower floors, as the closing of some Broadway
show had the hotel inching towards capacity. One look at her face
as they entered the room however, told Tak that Deena was far from
disappointed.

The room ran a gamut of
earthy tones offset with a splash of red. Thick chocolate carpeting
and textured ecru walls complimented two broad platform beds with
plush white bedding. A dash of red from an armchair, decorative
pillows, and a seascape painting all lent to the room’s sense of
serenity. But they would have to save their appreciation for
another day. Exhaustion from the non-stop trek from Cleveland left
Tak and Deena skipping dinner to bid each other good night, almost
at once.

When Deena woke in the
morning, she was alone. The bedside clock told her it was ten a.m.,
and briefly, she wondered why Tak would let her sleep in so late.
Deena showered and dressed, figured he was at the gym, and decided
to wait for his return.

The Weather Channel reported
a pleasant sixty, considerably warmer than a traditional March in
New York. Excited by the news, she dug out a flirty blue blouse
with a low-scooped neckline and paired it with a linen skirt. They
were the latest additions to her newly emerging casual wardrobe,
compliments, of course, of Chicago and Michigan Avenue.

Deena waited for an hour.
Yesterday’s decision to skip dinner haunted her. She glanced at the
clock and decided to put in a little more time.

At a quarter to noon, she
dialed Tak’s cell. Met with his voicemail, she made up her mind
that hunger couldn’t wait. Deena rose, slipped her room key and a
few dollars into her skirt’s hidden pocket, and made for the door.
New York waited.

Deena headed east on
42
^nd
towards Broadway and the Times Square building, keeping her
eyes peeled for restaurants all the while. She was wary of the
overcast sky but certain she’d find something soon before eruption
threatened to saturate her.

Wedged between the Bank of
America Tower and Conde Nast was the Garden of Eden, an eclectic
restaurant that bordered on blasphemous with its claim to be the
favorite dining locale of Adam and Eve. She stopped to view the
posted menu. An apple pie á là mode that promised to be sinfully
sweet. A chocolate cake stacked like the Tower of Babel. Adam’s
ribs, slow cooked and braised to buttery perfection. She liked the
presumptuousness of such a place. She would save it for later. Save
it for Tak. It was just his style.

As Deena turned to leave,
she froze at the sight of him. Third table from the back, head
lowered, reading a menu. The man who’d made her smile in her grief,
who made love to her in her dreams. There. With another
woman.

She’d been a
fool.

He looked up. Their eyes
met.

Slowly, Deena backed away
from the window, turned, and fled.

The tears came hot and fast,
faster than she’d ever thought possible. Her breathing staggered
and painful, her heart was broken.

Deena barreled down the
street and through the crowds, intent on losing him in the press of
Times Square.

He was calling
her.

He’d given her no reason for
this. No reason for jealousy. To have laid claim to him. Never in
her waking hours had he kissed her or whispered words of love in
her ear, and yet, it hurt no less.

She was a fool—infusing his
every word with innuendo, every touch with fire, all the while
believing that it alone could satisfy her.

Raindrops began to fall. Fat
and mocking, they pelted her, plastering toffee coils to her face
and blouse to her body. In an instant, she was drenched.

When Deena reached the
Westin, she tore across the lobby in slippery sandals, nearly
plummeting in her distress. At the elevator, she jabbed the up
button, caught sight of Tak, and dashed for the stairs.