Temptation Road (5 page)

They all laughed until tears stung their eyes
and once or twice they snorted in a very unladylike fashion.

When she could finally speak, Rae’s mother
said, “Here, here, I know that big-shot Carlo is no more Italian
than I am, he’s probably from Nueva Laredo, and whatever happened
to that sweet policeman who saved you at the bus station? Now that
was a real man.”

*

When Rae returned to L.A. the limo dropped
her off at the beach-front mansion she called home, and although
there were several cars in the driveway no one answered when she
called out. It was odd that not even a maid was around but maybe
Carlo had not made it back from Bali yet. She stripped off her
clothes in her bedroom, tied on a soft bathrobe and stepped out on
the balcony to watch the sunset over the ocean. What she saw froze
her heart. Carlo was lying naked on a chaise lounge by the pool
while a young man gave him oral sex and naked woman stood over his
face and urinated. She must have gasped or screamed as she stumbled
back inside because they all looked up and Carlo shouted, “Oh
fuck!” Rae moved quickly to the door and locked it and barely made
it to the toilet before she threw-up.

Carlo never went to the urologist, he
admitted that he had been “fixed” long ago. He said children took a
wife’s attention away from her husband and he would never let that
happen again. They struck a deal, he led his life and Rae led hers
living under the same roof, more or less. He agreed to create a
charitable foundation and fund it with millions of dollars and put
her in charge, and more and more he was out of the country making
his break the bank movies. She gave money to worthy causes, served
on the boards of several organizations but Hope Center for girls
was her favorite. She donated time and money to help runaway girls
who had fled shattered lives with hopes of fairytale endings in the
city of dreams. Rae had been one of those girls and somehow her
dream had come true, although not entirely.

One night she stayed late telling stories to
the girls about her Texas childhood and even the stern house
mother, Mrs. Newton, was shaking with laughter at the thought of
the glamorous DeLuca girl as the Boll Weevil Queen. A car pulled up
out front and a man guided a teenage girl with two black eyes and a
bleeding lip up the front steps. Mrs. Newton answered the door and
Rae heard her say, “Well it was kind of you to bring her yourself
Detective, we’ve missed seeing you.”

The officer said something as Rae walked up
behind Mrs. Newton and peered over her shoulder. Sean McClure
stopped mid-sentence as his eyes met hers.

They went for an In And Out Burger for old
times’ sake and marveled that nearly twelve years had passed. His
eyes were still tender and spoke of every good thing he felt in his
heart.

“How can it be that you’re even more
beautiful?” he asked and she blushed and said the same could be
said of him. They were hesitant at first, talking around things,
and sharing inane facts about their lives.

“How about we go to Harvelle’s and have a
drink?” he smiled as he asked her.

“Good idea,” she said.

“I have an eight year old daughter,” he told
her with obvious pride, “we named her Reagan.”

“Your wife was alright with that?” she
asked.

“It was her idea, she’s in love with the
DeLuca girl like everyone else. She has no idea about us. How could
she live with the truth, knowing that you were once mine?”

“That’s good, and your Reagan, do you have a
picture of her?”

He smiled and his face fairly glowed as he
showed picture after picture of the pretty little girl playing
soccer and doing gymnastics, it touched Rae deeply to see his
fatherly side.

“You’re so lucky, she’s a treasure and she’s
blessed with your eyes.”

“You don’t want kids?” he asked, and
continued, “I guess not, being a model and all.”

“No, that’s not it, I do,” and she tried to
blink back tears. “I’m always crying around you it seems.”

“What is it Rae, what has he done to
you?”

The tears poured down her face and he led her
out of the bar. He drove as she talked, she told him about Carlo,
about his lies and their bargain. How hollow it had all become, the
fame and the money. Was she any better off than if she’d stayed in
a trailer park in Texas? She was still withering away.

“I’ll be watching him, the bastard. I’m a
detective now, if he’s into kinky sex he’s probably into drugs,
I’ll catch him at something and he’ll get what’s coming to him.” He
said, gripping the steering wheel and finally pulling off the
road.

“Don’t bother, he’s not worth it,” she
said.

“You should leave him, stop leading this
half-life, I didn’t save you from the bus stop for nothing. You
should be happy, have kids, the works.”

“Funny you should say that, I went to a sperm
bank yesterday and asked some questions. It just didn’t feel right,
some unknown man.”

She looked in his eyes and she knew they were
thinking the exact same thing.

“You have a wife and daughter, there’s no
way.”

“I never wanted anything more than I wanted
you Rae, I was a mess when you left, I stayed drunk for months and
nearly ended my career. There was no escaping the memory of you,
and to make things worse, your face and your body were plastered on
half the billboards in town. You seemed too perfect to be real but
you had been mine, in my bed, moving under my hands and my body,
and always in my heart. I never got over you, have my baby.”

She was speechless for a moment, “I won’t
break up your marriage or take you from your daughter. If you can
give me a baby and walk away the answer is yes, absolutely. I would
love a baby of ours but I won’t ruin other lives to have it. I
would go away and raise it on my own.”

He started the car and drove to the Four
Seasons, when he stopped in front he said he hadn’t thought that
someone might recognize her. Rae said she was certain they would
but what did it matter? They checked in and three ladies from Texas
squealed and asked if they could have their pictures taken with
her, she obliged and signed pieces of paper they thrust at her.

In the room they fumbled with buttons and
zippers and fell into bed, his body felt familiar under her hands,
as firm and hot as she remembered. She had dreamed of him over the
last years as her infatuation with Carlo had waned and the lukewarm
sex had cooled to merely tepid and then evaporated completely. For
ten years she had been married to a man twenty five years her
senior, and in truth Carlo had been married to the DeLuca girl, an
image and nothing more.

Sean’s mouth on hers was like a drug and she
clung to him as he moved to her neck and breasts whispering her
name. Her hands were all over him, she was a wild animal, out of
her mind with wanting and need. She wrapped her legs around him and
pulled him to her.

“Look at me,” he said and she realized her
eyes were closed. “I can’t leave you alone; I won’t be able to, if
you have a baby. I’ll want to be with you, it’s all I ever wanted.
Can’t you find a place for me in your life?”

She was panting with lust, but she closed her
eyes again and moved away from him, then she sat on the edge of the
bed and gathered a sheet around her to cover her nakedness.

“Go home, Sean, to your wife and daughter. I
don’t know what I was thinking. God, I’m so selfish, so used to
having whatever I want, but I’m not so far gone that I’ll ruin all
of our lives. Even if I had a child and you could walk away,
wouldn’t he ask who his father was someday?”

*

She went back to the mansion by the ocean and
for the next few months she grew colder and colder. At first she
wore sweaters and then coats, layer upon layer of clothes. She
turned the heating system to one hundred degrees and while the
household staff was sweltering she was freezing to death. In was
the end of summer and she spent full days in the bath tub adding
hot water, trying to get warm. She saw her doctor and he could find
no cause, her temperature was completely normal, he sent her to
various specialists and they all said the same.

Carlo returned from Bali and was sure Reagan
had taken leave of her senses. She told him to stay on his side of
the house and adjust the temperature as he wished but in her room
she needed warmth and craved the heat.

She interviewed a string of applicants to
take her place as director of the foundation; they came to her
bedroom and sweated more than just the interview. She could see the
thoughts in their eyes, “the great beauty has lost her mind.”
Finally, she appointed a young woman who had degrees in both social
work and women’s studies, a woman who seemed tough yet
compassionate. She began to thaw out after that and when the
weekend arrived she attended the fateful wrap party with her
husband, the great director, who it turned out was from Progreso,
Mexico just across the Texas border, not far from where she had
grown up. His name was Hector Sanchez and he wasn’t the least bit
Italian after all.

*

“After you settle up at the tax office you’ll
want to pay a visit to the Green brothers,” Reverend Bertram told
Rae as they stood outside his church office and he pointed first to
the tax office, then to the building at the end of the street.
“They’re the only contractors I’d trust with that fine old house.
They’re kin to the Mary’s somehow, I believe. Doc Green is a
distant cousin is what I’ve heard, although it’s hard to believe
since they were always a clan of women. Always four sisters and not
a man to shake a stick at, but how could that be? Generations of
sisters who had daughters but no men around, it’s strange if you
let yourself dwell on it. I liked the Mary’s, they didn’t attend
regular services but they came during the week and prayed and left
flowers and a generous offering in the collection plate.”

The reverend was tired, Rae could tell, so
she said goodbye and went to the tax office and then to the red
brick building to find the Green brothers.

The wind had taken a ferocious turn and small
cyclones of debris twisted down the street and sidewalks as it
pushed her along. She knocked on the door of Green Brothers
Contractors and heard shouting inside. A wild-eyed old man swung
the door open and motioned her in.

“Hurry, hurry, before that wind gets in! That
kind of wind stirs things up and I don’t just mean leaves!” he
winked and then scurried to the far end of the room, his battered
trench coat flying out around him. Rae followed and he stopped
behind a long, metal table covered with beakers and bottles of
fluorescent liquid and an ancient microscope. Petrie dishes and
jars of powder and old Bunsen burners were strewn about. He seemed
to be conducting some sort of experiment and didn’t appear to
remember that she was in the room.

“I hate to intrude but I’m looking for the
Green brothers, the contractors.”

He looked her over, “You’re not from UPS? For
the love of creation I’ve got the fate of mankind right here in
front of me and when they say “next day delivery,” by God that’s
what I expect! You say you want the boys? Well, they’re somewhere,
go find them.” He was busy lighting a burner and setting some
ominous looking potion bubbling.

“I was told I might find them here, I really
don’t know where else to look.”

He stared off behind her and said, “Ah,
Theodore, show this young lady out then call that delivery service
and inform them that she arrived without my package. You’re lovely
dear girl, but not very adept at your job.”

The younger man crossed the room with an odd
clicking sound and a slight catch to his gate and said, “I’m Teddy
Green.” He extended a hand that was missing two fingers then turned
to the old man and said, “she’s not here to deliver anything Pop,
I’m sure your box is on its way.” The side of his face had a long
healed scar that stretched from one eye to the edge of his mouth
and old burns on his scalp that rendered him partially bald. His
eyes were a wonderful golden-brown, intelligent and kind and he
didn’t speak with the local misuse of grammar.

He motioned for Rae to follow him to the
front of the workshop and below his baggy cargo shorts she could
see his prosthetic leg. He pulled out a chair for her to sit in and
then walked/clicked behind a desk and lowered himself to sit as
well.

“What can I do for you?” he asked and she
could see him sizing her up, as a would-be client and as a woman.
He looked at her with an appreciation in his eyes that she had only
known from one man in Los Angeles since she’d turned thirty.

“I’m Rae, I’ve just moved to town and bought
the house at the bend of Temptation Road. I was wondering if you
and your brother might possibly restore it for me.”

He sat quietly and she went on, “I would help
with the work and I don’t think it’s as bad as everyone says, it
seems to be sound and in the right hands it will come back to life.
It can be… it will be my dream house, my home. I’m really hoping
that you’ll consider…”

The door opened then closed with a bang, a
gust of wind sent stacks of papers from the desk flying and
whirling.

The old man shouted, “And they called the
wind Mariah! Confound it will someone lock the door until all that
bluster moves on?”

Teddy didn’t make a move to gather the papers
as they settled willy-nilly around the room. He turned his eyes on
the person who stood next to the desk and asked, “Did you finish
with that carriage house? Good, this is our newest town resident,
Miss Hart, if I’m not mistaken.”

Reagan smelled his fresh forest scent even
before she turned her face up to look at him. Her heart beat so
hard and fast she was sure it was visible for all to see. When
their eyes met she couldn’t make a sound; he was, of course, the
unnervingly handsome mystery man she’d seen at the Inn on her first
night in town. The man she’d kissed on the porch and felt she could
fall in love with as he held her body close to his without making a
sound.