Hurricanes in Paradise (17 page)

Riley tried to stifle her furor. “That little, pompous . . .” She had a thousand colorful adjectives she could pepper Ms. Fulton with. But none of them would be crass enough. True enough. She was just evil. Downright evil. Riley had no idea how someone could completely disregard another person the way she had. What made it so frustrating was Riley knew Laine was capable of being nice, but twice today she had intentionally stood her up. She hadn’t been stood up since that Valentine’s Day in high school when she had gone to school with an oversize card and a larger-than-life chocolate bunny, and her “boyfriend,” Ralph, told her to take them home with her and he’d pick them up later. She ended up eating the chocolate bunny herself three months later. Riley knew in her gut that Laine’s behavior was because she was embarrassed over last night. But if she had allowed Riley the opportunity to finish a sentence, she might have realized that Riley understood and was glad she could help her. At least she
had
been glad.

The sound of Riley’s shoes hitting the stone floors reverberated through the tall ceilings of the corridor. As she neared the front walkway, she saw Mia and Christian headed down the hall. She thought for a moment Mia saw her, but apparently she hadn’t, or she would have returned her wave. She watched as Mia ran her hand up the back of Christian’s shirt and playfully ran her fingers through the thick black waves of his hair. She could hear their laughter all the way down the hall to where she was. The yuck in her gut grew to nausea. Frustration at herself churned just as aggressively. And the desire for her hand to be the one running through Christian’s hair even she couldn’t deny.

* * *

Tamyra leaned back and closed her eyes as her toes received their finishing touches. The French pedicure matched her fingernails. “It’s been a perfect day.”

“Perfect.” Winnie slurped her virgin mango daiquiri. “I’m like a pig in slop.”

Tamyra cocked one eye open and looked at Winnie. The nail technician was rubbing lotion into her calf, and her body moved up and down with the vibration of the massage chair beneath her. “How many of those have you had today?”

“I’m on vacation. I’m not counting. Calories don’t count this week, so I’d appreciate it if you take no worries in what this here voluptuous frame consumes,” she said, running her free hand across her stomach.

Tamyra closed her eyes. “I’ll remember that.”

“That means tonight when Laine orders one of everything off the menu, you are to pay no attention to what I consume. I won’t talk about your ridiculous eating habits, and you just pretend I’m chomping on lettuce.”

A chuckle slipped from Tamyra’s throat. “You got it.”

They lay there with the sweet aromas of the lotions and the soft ambience of the music and lighting as the techs finished up their day of beauty and left them in a state of serenity.

Tamyra opened her eyes and rose up to look at Winnie. It was just the two of them. She rubbed the soft cream leather arms of her chair and leaned back, closing her eyes again. “Winnie?”

Winnie didn’t move. “Yeah, sugar.”

“I bet you’re really great with those kids at your school.”

“I am.” She sighed heavily. “I was made for the difficult cases. Just part of God’s calling, I guess.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

Winnie was silent for a few moments, then spoke softly. “So when did you find out you were HIV-positive, honey?”

Tamyra’s body bolted upright. Every ounce of blood rushed from her face. Had she been standing, she wouldn’t have been for long. Winnie knew. How? She was so private. So guarded. So careful. “How did you . . .” Her words seemed to lodge in her throat.

Winnie didn’t move. “I told you, honey; I work in the inner city. I know what the face of HIV looks like at first. I know its voice. I can read its hopelessness. And you could be its poster child.”

Tamyra sat there dumbstruck, staring at Winnie. Her body wanted to run. But she couldn’t move. The only person who had ever said those words to her had been the doctor who told her. And Winnie just lay there, as if she had said something as casual as “What do you want for lunch? the turkey or the ham?” This woman was like no one she had ever met.

Her heartbeat slowed. The blood slowly moved back to its rightful place. Over the last two days Winnie had made Tamyra feel like she could tell her anything. She slowly lay back down, turned her body toward Winnie, and leaned on her elbow. “No one knows.”

Winnie finally opened her eyes and turned her head. “They do now, baby girl.” She raised her glass and took a long swig, then rolled over and mimicked Tamyra’s position. “You haven’t told your family?”

“No.” She paused. Her eyes began to burn with tears. “I don’t know how to tell them.”

“Tell them like you told me.”

She sniffed and swatted at her tears. “I didn’t tell you.”

Winnie chuckled and reached down to grab a towel from the table beside her. “No, you didn’t, did you?” She handed the towel to Tamyra. “Do you want to tell me?”

The blood began to pump harder. She hesitated. Then finally spoke. “Yeah. I do.”

Winnie nodded.

“I met Jason two years ago. He plays in the NFL. We met on a blind date and that was pretty much it. He swept me off my feet, and I thought my life was as wonderful as a life could be, until I won my title, anyway. As soon as they placed the crown on my head, my life changed. I had to spend a year traveling the state and I wasn’t as available. That was when I noticed that he was acting distant. I questioned him about it, of course, and he answered me with an engagement ring. A four-carat, radiant-cut stone set in platinum. He said the ‘distance’ was all in my mind because I just wasn’t around as much.”

“Did you believe him?”

“At first I did, yeah. But when the new season started and he was on the road, I got a call from one of my close friends who I had gone to college with. She lives in Dallas and had seen him with a woman at a bar when his team was in town to play the Cowboys. When the team got home, I called one of his teammates, Ben, a guy with impeccable character, and just asked him if it was true. He didn’t respond at first, part of that teammate oath or something. But I begged him to be honest with me and he finally broke. He said there was rarely a city they went to where Jason didn’t have someone to spend an evening with, whether she was free or purchased. He asked me not to tell Jason who it was that had told me.”

Winnie shifted her weight and leaned in farther. “Are you still planning the wedding this whole time?”

“No, I stopped everything. But he had no idea because he had left it all up to me anyway, as if he were doing me a favor.”

Winnie puffed.

“So as soon as I got off the phone with Ben, I immediately went to my doctor to get tested.”

“Had you ever been tested before?” Winnie asked.

Tamyra’s voice constricted. “I had never been intimate before. He had been my first and my only.” The tears were hot down her face. She wiped at them with the back of her hand.

She watched as pity flooded Winnie’s expression. Winnie’s stubby, soft hand reached over and patted Tamyra’s. It was the same kind of touch her mother would have given her. “Go ahead, baby.”

“So I went to get tested and then waited. It was the longest week of my life. I had to avoid Jason’s phone calls and was doing pretty good at it until he showed up banging on my front door. But I even skirted around all of it that night too. The next morning I got the call from my doctor that changed my life. I went in to see her and she told me I was HIV-positive. That my T cell count was 889. And my viral load was 100,000. She announced my death sentence as if she were giving me results from uneventful, routine blood work.”

“Did you tell him then?”

“Yeah, I told him. I was in a blind rage. I don’t even remember driving over to his place that morning. All I remember is a depth of anger that I didn’t even know existed in me. I banged on the door of his loft like a crazy woman. When he came to the door, I went for his throat.”

Winnie’s eyes widened. “Like, fingers wrapped around his throat?”

“Oh yeah, I was screaming and yelling and crying. I told him I had given him everything and he had taken everything from me. I was honestly like a wild animal. I told him I hoped he died and that I was going to tell anyone who would listen that he had given me this. And that was the first time he ever hit me.”

Winnie wanted to respond. Tamyra could tell by the way she slightly jumped from her seat and the way she chewed on the inside of her mouth. “Where did he hit you, baby girl?”

“The first time he hit me, it was in my gut. He hit me so hard it took the wind right out of me and I fell back onto the sofa just trying to get air, any air. That was when he grabbed me by my arms, squeezing them until they almost went numb, as he was talking to me in this voice . . . this voice, it was so controlled, so evil. I had never seen him this way before. He pulled me from the sofa and threw me on the floor. Then he kicked me in my side. He said if I told anyone, he’d kill me and that he had no reservations about doing it now since both of us were going to die eventually. He’d kill me and then just take his own life. He let me know that I
would
go through with the wedding and I would do everything else he told me too. The final kick left me in a ball on the floor. He walked out as if we had discussed the weather.”

“Did you ever think about going to the police?”

Tamyra shifted on the lounge chair. “No, all I thought about was getting as far away from him as possible, where he’d have no idea where I was. I went straight to my apartment, listed all of my furniture on craigslist, and had a lot of things sold by that evening. I took the rest to a storage facility, dropped my car off at the airport for my sister to pick up, and called my parents to tell them I just needed some time away. I had an old college professor who I knew had a place in Puerto Vallarta, called him from a pay phone, and he said I could spend six weeks there to do whatever I needed. I tossed my phone and got one of those prepay phones, where no one could get my number, and called my mom when I got there just so she would know I was safe. And until this morning I thought I was.”

Winnie sat up in her chair. “What do you mean, until this morning?”

Tamyra sat up too, her hands starting to shake slightly. “He called me. On the phone that my mother doesn’t even have the number to. He found it. And if he found that, he’ll find me.”

She watched that sassy little swing come into Winnie’s shoulders. “So what have you decided?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you’ve run away for almost seven weeks. In those seven weeks what decisions have you made for your life?”

“I don’t have a life, Winnie. I have a death sentence no matter how it comes. In all honesty, if he did kill me, it would just end the misery faster.”

Winnie pursed her lips. “You’d better thank God almighty I didn’t just slap you. Truth is, you need to be slapped. People are living longer with HIV now than they ever have. But you’ve got to have a will to live. And as far as I’m concerned, the only thing dying around here is that piggy they’re going to cook for my dinner. Now, you have one of two choices: you can cower the rest of your life out in fear, or you can face Mr. Fancy Pants head-on and get your life back.”

Tamyra felt herself shrinking into her shell again. What had come alive over the last two days was about to go back into hiding. “You don’t know him, Winnie.”

Winnie must have seen it because she quickly leaned in closer to her and put her hands on top of Tamyra’s. They were quivering. “You, Tamyra Larsen, have been called to live. You have not been called to die. And the only way you will ever live is to get out of the shadows. You did it with me, but there’s a lot more to do.”

Tamyra dropped her head. “I’ve done all I can do.”

“You’ve done all you’re
willing
to do. You haven’t done all you
can
do. Now look at me.”

Tamyra kept staring at the cream leather of her chair. It looked so smooth. No cracks. No age.

“Look at me,” Winnie said louder.

Tamyra raised her gaze.

“Do you trust me?”

She nodded.

“Then hear me. It is time to face your fears. You can’t continue to hide, baby girl. And you’re not going to die. We’ll do it together. Nothing until you’re ready, okay? I promise. Nothing until you’re ready.”

“Promise?”

“Promise. So come here.” Winnie held out her arms and Tamyra slipped from her chair and crawled into them. They felt as comforting as her mother’s. “You did real good, honey. You did real good.” Winnie’s whispers ran through Tamyra’s ears.

Even though fear had swarmed through her again like a hive of angry bees, she still knew that what she had done was a huge step. That alone had lifted something. And being here in Winnie’s arms had healed something. Maybe there was healing in these waters after all.

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