Less Than Perfect Circumstance (14 page)

“He doesn’t know that I know about Lawrence,” I said. I closed my eyes and the tears fell again down a familiar path down the sides of my face. “He doesn’t know that I know about…Lawrence,” I repeated in a soft voice.

“You’re not making any sense, son.”

Robert closed the door and stood leaning against it. He folded his arms across his chest, looking like the detective her was and waited for my admission.

“I’m listening,” he continued in a pressing tone.

“Kelvin was too exacting and calculating, so of course, I had my suspicions when he revealed one night over dinner that his relocation request had been approved. He had never mentioned a desire to move anywhere anytime soon.”

Robert stood with his eyes focused on me, his ears listening to every word as they fell from between tears.

Lawrence had written a letter to Kelvin on the stationary from a Days Inn on Hilton Head Island, S.C. The letter was neatly written and signed Lawrence Cousins.

It’s like you haven’t left,
the letter claimed. In the letter, Lawrence thanked Kelvin for a weekend he would never forget, and anticipated many more weekends such as that when he finally moved there. Apparently Lawrence had been patiently waiting for months. The letter
was dated, coincidently, around
the same time Kelvin was supposed
to have been on a business trip in San Francisco.

“I don’t understand why you just don’t tell him.”

“Because I don’t want to believe I was so blind. What Kelvin and I had ended that day the U-haul truck pulled off, only love wouldn’t allow me to accept that.”

“When did you find the letter?

“While I was helping him pack. I’m thinking maybe he had forgotten about it. So, I came home that evening, sat on the bed and read from beginning to end.”

“You know what, son.
You’re a lot stronger than you think.” Robert walked closer to me. “You know what you have to do, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I love you, Rene.”

“I love you, too,” I said, and managed a smile.  

After my bath, I made my way to the bedroom in all my nakedness. I
sat in the dark, in a chair,
and allowed my tears to subside. After a few moments, I
stretched out across the bed and attempted to fall asleep.
You have to let him go
.
Whatever power he has over you, you have to
get it back,
I
thought before sleep came.
I
repeated
the phrase over and over in my
head. 

When I woke the next morning, I
was a little tired. Sleep didn’t g
o too well. Whether I slept well enough to dream, I couldn’t say. If I did dream, I
couldn’t remember what
I
dreamed about.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

DON’T REACH OUT TO ME FOR ANYTHING

Trevor

Without warning, the day went from sunny and bright, to dark and threatening. There was a chill in the air, a
lthough not as cold as they day before
. It was an unusual late summer evening. The televisiondownstairs in the living room, hanging from the brick wall above the fireplace,
echoed only in a whisper. I
hated the silence in the house. It was an unusual silence, eerie, but there was something very calm
ing about it. It bothered
m
ethatI hadn’t spoken with
in
Kelvin
weeks. It bothered
m
e
even more that I
hadn’t heard from Jackson, either.
I had convinced myself that w
hat was happeni
ng was
the best
for all of us.
I
was tempte
d several times to call Jackson
jus
t to let him know I
missed him and had been
thinking about him, but I had
decided against doing so. What was stopping Jackson
from calling
m
e
and te
lling
m
e
the same?

Whatever doors wer
e still open with Kelvin, I
had to close them b
efore letting anyone else in. Ihad decided I
wasn’t going to accept Kelvin’s p
hone calls. I
didn’t want to fall in the same trap of talking to
him and ha
ving to relive everything again. I still loved Kelvin, but things were different. Tonight I wasn’t thinking about him. I
wasn’t wondering what he was doing, or
w
ho
he was doing it with.  I
was in another place.

I
was out having a great
time with Wesley. Since we
had been so busy with clients, meetings, the occasional dinners were rar
e. We
haven’t
had an evening where w
e just sat back and enjoy
ed just being. Everything I had done to secure
the contract with the Millington
s had taken a lot out of
m
e
,
which was also
compounded with my
dealings with Kelvin, and now Jackson.

Ace of Spades wasn’t as crowded as it
was when my
father
and I
last visited
. We
had the usu
al two-for-one drinks special. I
was hoping to run into Sidney,
but
,
apparently, she had the evening off. Collin was wor
king frantically behind the bar, mixing drinks and filling orders as quickly as they came.
Wesley
and I
to
ok the first two empty stools we
found.

“What can I get you gentlemen?”
Collin asked.

“A Long Island, please.”

This had become my drink of choice, thanks to
Wesley
.

“I’l
l have a gin and tonic.”

Wesley was sophisticate
d
;
a
man of good taste.
He drank as if he had been
born with fins. He had good taste in cars,
his dress
, and in the
women, too. He could have his way with them, but taking adva
ntage of women wasn’t his style
.
T
hey knew where they stood on his list of priorities: himself, his family, and his business, that was the order. Friends and women were somewhere on that list, he just wasn’t quite sure how far at the bottom or close to the top they were.

Wesley
didn’t apologize for not wanting to settle down.
H
e would when the right woman came
along. He
had been seen in the company of some beautiful, well educated, equally, if not more, sophisticated women, but he always found something he disliked about them. His parents were divorced just before he started high school, and he never really got over it. Like most kids with divorced parents, Wesley blamed himself. He never wanted to have a failed marriage like his parents, so before he got too attached to a woman, he would find some fault that, seemingly, couldn’t be fixed.

“So, tell me, man, how was dinner with the Millingtons?”

“It w
as pretty good. They are pretty decent
people.”

“So, give up the details,” he asked,
as if
expecting some tell-all
about a date I
had
been on
.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

I
spent the first five minutes admiring the artwork that adorned the walls at Le Bernardin’s.

“Pardon me, Mr. Millington, Mrs. Mil
lington, your guest has arrived,
” Diaz, the Ma
itre d
spoke with a Brazilian accent. “Terris, your waiter, will return shortly with your wine.”

“Thank you, Diaz.”

“You are welcome, sir.”

I glanced at my watch. I liked being on time and
could have gotten there much earlier had it not been for the long line of limos, Jags, and 745’s that kept the valets busy.

“Thank you for the invite, sir.”

“Please, not sir. It’s Curtis. You don’t have to be so formal.”

“You remember my wife, Nadia.”

I
turned to meet already extended hand
anticipating meeting my
lips.

“It’s a pleasure to see you again, Nadia.”

Mrs. Nadia Ana Hun
ter-Millington was a
beautiful woman with high cheeks that ballooned when she laughed. Her features were highlighted by earth-toned makeup
that looked as if
it had been
applied with soft brushstrokes by an artist who was no stranger at creating masterpieces
. She was, indeed, a work of art. At thirty-five years old, Curtis was fourteen years h
er senior. She was a tall woman with
more legs than torso, and calves Naomi Campbell would die for. She wore a
soft print dress with a plunging neckline and a v-shaped neckpiece that directed your eyes towards her full bosom. Born from a Chinese mother and an African American father, Nadia was a beautiful, strong, business savvy woman, and Curtis treated her as such. She was his better half, his partner, and doing business without her final stamp of

approval
wasn’t something Curtis did.

“This is Charney Copeland.”

At 6’4”, Charney’s
215 pound
physique towered over everyone as he stood a
nd greeted me
with a
firm handshake. He removed his charcoal
suit jacket to reveal broad shoulders and a small waist hidden far too well. His white shirt looked starch
ed
stiff, and his red and white parquet pattern Armani necktie was a perfect compliment.

“Fina
lly, I get to meet the man who has
so impressed Curtis, and trust, he isn’t an easy man to impress.” Charney pointed
at Curtis and winked in my
direction. He had lips to die for. While he tal
ked, for a brief moment, I
heard nothin
g. I
was too busy watching Charney’s lips separate and come back together to make words that rolled from his tongue effortlessly.

At twenty-nine years old, Charney looked half his age. He had chestnut brown eyes and naturally arched eyebrows. His facial hair hadn’t fully grown in. He didn’t look freshly shaved, and the only hint of man, besides his age, was his mustache that sat perfectly above his lips. His smile was wide. His teeth were pearly white. He
had an attractive roughness to him, almost as if out of his charcoal pinstripe
Armani suit, he could very well bear resemblance to a neighborhood thug. He seemed confident, yet there was a minor intimation of uncertainty about him. He was young and already accomplished, yet his swagger was humble.

His female companion, introduced as Riley Delahunt, sat quietly, scrutinizing her surrounding, as if wondering what hell she had gotten
herself in. M
aybe she was told not to say anything out of fear that she might say the wrong thing. Maybe she knew the real Millington family, or held some secret that would ruin the family name.
I
had the impression, however, that not Curtis, Nadia, nor Charney had anything to hide; at least, so it seemed.

Although Riley wasn’t as tall
as Ms. Millington
, or had the voluptuous breasts, she was as beautiful. Her piercing apple-green eyes were nothing short of mesmerizing. Her curly Hawaiian-dark hair rested playfully on her shoulders. She wore a white, rectangular-shaped diamond suspended from a silver necklace, hanging just above the third button of her
white collar
shirt. It sat in the middle of her sternum,
resting on almond colored skin. T
hat was all the flesh she revealed.

Ms. Delahunt dressed, acted, and looked
the part. She was
a woma
n with neither needs nor wants, and the woman behind a successful man. Beyond the surface, she seemed to be
a woman who had been in a situation far longer than she expected, and couldn’t find the wor
ds or ways to say good
bye. Both Charney and Riley seemed they were
both in an unhappy, unhealthy situation, and they needed to
get out
, even though they tried to
hid
the obvious behind a mask of misery they thought they were hiding well.

Terris returned with a bottle of 1928 Les Vignerons de Maury, poured a portion in eac
h crystal wine glass.

“Have you had a chance to glance
at your menus?” he
asked with pen and notepad in hand.

“The lady and I will have our usual,” Curtis
said.

The usual for the wealthy couple
was Poached Halibut, sweet and sour golden and red beets and extra virgin
olive oil emulsion. The barely-
cooked salmon in a black truffle pot au feu, wa
rm cabbage and salad that I
ordered, was an excellent choice, Terris confirmed.

During dinner we kept the conversation light and without controversy.

“I noticed you admiring the art work as you walked in. Do yo
u collect?” Curtis took a
sip of his vintage wine, and carefully placed his glass on the table.

“No, I’m
not an art collector by any stretch of the imagination.
I love beautiful artwork,”
I
explained.

Besides a black and white photograph of an old woman drinking from a water fountain in a par
k near my grandmother’s home, I
owned nothing famous.

Curtis talked about the few pieces he owned, which included a Monet, an original Rembrandt, and an O’Keefe Nadia had bought for him a few weeks ago as an early birthday present. She looked like she admired fine art as well.  

“And it’s my favorite,
” Curtis smiled and kissed his wife on her
cheek. That piece sits behind his desk in his home office.

“I just thought the office needed a splash of color,” Nadia added.

Watching the two interact as they did was refre
shing to see. I thought about my
father and th
at the chance to see him and my
mother in such a display of affecti
on had been taken away from me.

Nadia had room for dessert and enjoyed a coconut sorbet. Riley, who ate like a debutante, and left traces of her steamed striped bass, sweet corn puree, and grilled peppers on her plate, silently devoured the banana crème brulee, which she reluctantly shared with Charney. Halfway through his dessert Charne
y expressed interest in my business aspirations. We
maintained eye contact throughout his inquisition.

“As Curtis ma
y have already told you, m
y firm has been hired to design and oversee the construction of his newest investment. My business partner and I own an architect
ural and interior design agency,” I said, looking in Curtis’ direction. He nodded. 

“The Harrison Agency, right?”

“That’s right. We’ve also done business as Double R Architectural and Interior Designs. We started off really small, but the company
has grown,
and having someone like Mr. Millington as a clie
nt should give our
business the recognition we seek.”