The Black & The White
Read The Black & The White Online
Authors: Evelin Weber
Tags: #wall street, #new york city, #infidelity signs, #lust affair
&
EVELIN WEBER
The Black & The
White
By Evelin Weber
Copyright © 2013, Evelin
Weber
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without
permission of the publisher.
All rights reserved. Copyright under
Berne Copyright Convention, Universal Copyright Convention, and
Pan-American Copyright Convention. No part of this book may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any
form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the
author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously.
Website:
www.evelinweber.com
Cover design by Kristin
Bryant
Author photo: Tibor Mezey
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For
My Dad
Thank you to all my friends near and
far. Your support through this process has been amazing.
Anisha S., thanks for the lecture at
breakfast in Barbados telling me to just get on with it. Above all,
thank you for your encouragement.
Heather, you made it
perfect.
Eau de Ho
I
t
was 5:30 a.m. when I decided to leave Stephen with “Miranda,” or
whatever her name really was. I didn’t think that they would notice
if I slipped out of the threesome. Stephen was busy fucking her
anyway.
I tiptoed to the half-open French
doors carrying my heels. The door creaked as I tapped it
open.
Fuck. I bit my lip and turned slowly
toward the headboard-less mattress on the floor.
“
Baby, you can’t leave,”
Stephen said, looking up from between Miranda’s legs with puppy-dog
eyes. Miranda was on her back with hands above her head, staring at
me. Her body was like that of a jaguar, long and lean. She could
have been a ballerina, an actress, or a model. Instead, she was a
stripper.
I looked down at the red digital alarm
on the hardwood floor. An ornately framed picture of Miranda’s
boyfriend was next to the alarm clock. Somehow I had missed it
hours earlier.
“
I’ve got to get to work.
Big day. Unemployment numbers are coming out. I’m screwed if I miss
it,” I whispered so as not to wake up Miranda’s roommate. I wanted
to say “fucked if I missed it” but it seemed inappropriate at the
time. I knew Andrew would be upset if I was late again. We had
colossal bets on the outcome of those numbers.
Miranda’s roommate was due to wake up
any minute for work. According to Miranda, her roommate was an
architect’s assistant by day and a stripper by night. I still
hadn’t figured out what Miranda did by day. Her name wasn’t even
Miranda.
Miranda pulled Stephen’s hair toward
her chest. She cooed in her Spanish-English droll, “You know you
can come back here anytime you want to.”
She winked at me, reached for
Stephen’s arm, and pulled him closer to her. I waved goodbye and
bolted.
I crept through the bedroom door into
the large living space. The apartment had a private elevator that
opened to her living room. Oversized windows, an exposed brick
wall, and a fireplace that had never been used but was festooned
with candles were all elements coveted by every New Yorker.
Whatever Miranda did by day, she was paid well to do it.
Outside, the sun was just waking up
and I had yet to sleep. No cabs were in sight. SoHo was
desolate—empty of pedestrians, cabs, and shoppers. It was eerie and
apocalyptic, as though I was the last person on the
planet.
I dug into my purse. No cash for a
cab. I found a bag of cocaine. I considered exchanging it for the
fare. I should have taken the money Miranda had offered me at the
club. She’d thought I was a stripper also and offered me a tip. I’d
told her to keep it.
Watching the street cleaners work in
the early morning, I started toward the corner deli. Stephen and I
had left the strip club only a few hours earlier. A bit of our
conversation came back to me. On the way to her house, I’d told him
about Miranda’s offering.
“
How much did she give you?”
he’d asked.
“
I don’t know, it was
folded. I could just see that the top bill was a Franklin,” I said,
proud she hadn’t undertipped me.
“
About how many Franklins,
do you think?”
“
Maybe three or four. Not
quite sure, but more than two.”
“
Dude, I gave her all
Franklins! You gave back four hundred dollars.” He laughed. “You’re
awesome! I get discounts on strippers when I go out with you. It’s
the friends-and-family discount at Scores.”
Offended, I pushed him away from me
and scooted over, getting myself as close to the door of the cab as
I could. Stephen placed his hand on my thigh. Even that small
gesture reminded me of what he had done Kim. I was still angry that
he had fingered her earlier in the evening.
“
Baby, it’s not that. Come
on, sweetie. You should have just accepted the money. If you didn’t
want it, you could have just given it to me so you didn’t feel bad.
We could have taken it to Vegas or something. Or let me buy you a
new dress. You never let me buy you anything.” He reached for me
and kissed the top of my head. His gesture reminded me that I loved
him.
“
Baby, don’t be mad.” He
looked at me in such a manner, I couldn’t help but cede to his
plea.
I replayed those words in my head as I
pulled open the door to the deli. It smelled like stale beer. I
could tell the East Indian guy behind the counter recognized me
from a few hours earlier. Stephen and I had waited for Miranda to
get off work. We’d bought condoms, chips, and Gatorade. I wasn’t
really hungry—cocaine had suppressed my appetite—but I’d thought we
should at least bring something as a guest at someone’s
house.
The deli guy nodded his head in
acknowledgement as if I was a random patron, but I saw in his eyes
he was thinking something. He must remember me, I thought. I
probably looked like hell to him. I wondered if it was obvious, if
somehow it showed on my face where I had just been.
I nervously ran my fingers through my
filthy hair and combed out some of the knots. I took out my card,
got money from the machine, and with my head down scurried through
the doors, heels clicking on the cobblestone streets.
My body felt tired and worn, but I was
wide awake. I hailed a cab and dropped my body onto the seat like
it was a heavy sack. The lines of blow had not yet worn off. I
looked at the cabbie’s rearview mirror and saw him peering back at
me. What the hell are you looking at? I felt like telling him I
wasn’t a stripper or a hooker. Was there really a difference? I
couldn’t tell anymore.
What time was it? How much time was
left before work? I had no watch. I knew there was no way to
function without a line to pick me up before I went back to office.
It seemed like I had just been at work. One day melted into
another.
I felt my body sinking deeper into the
seat of the cab. I pictured Stephen at the moment he had lifted up
his head from between Miranda’s legs. He could be so pleasant…and
so despicable. My many different feelings about him, ranging from
love to anger, suddenly washed over me all at once.
I began remembering the evening,
pieces at a time, then in blurred wholeness. Running my fingers
through my hair again, I pulled a few long black strands to my
nose. Everything about me—my hair, shirt, skin—smelled of Miranda’s
fruity perfume. “Eau de Ho,” Stephen might have said.
I stepped out of the cab and
immediately saw my not-very-friendly neighbor in front of the door
of our apartment building, glaring at me with obvious judgment. She
was about to take her morning walk with her dog, who was more fit
than her.
“
Old bitch,” I said under my
breath.
From the hallway, I heard my cat
pleading for food as I ricocheted from wall to wall heading toward
my apartment.
“
Oh, sweetheart, I missed
you.” I looked at his bowl and realized I hadn’t fed him in several
days. His water bowl was also empty.
I picked up Meowser, but he squirmed
out of my grip. He scampered away and hid behind the
bookcase.
“
I’m sorry, kitty,” I
said.
I felt myself begin to cry, and as I
wiped away the tears I saw streaks of black mascara on the back of
my hand.
I collapsed onto the living room sofa.
Cat hair erupted from the cushions and floated through the air in
front of me. I kicked off my Manolos, which had given me blisters,
and heard the hollow thud they made as they hit the hardwood floor.
I looked at the wall clock. It was 6:15. There was no time to rest.
I got up.
I put out dishes of food for the cats
and watched them eat ravenously. Looking up, I noticed that Bob, my
plant, was lifeless and brown.
My apartment was a mess. The faucet
was dripping, and orange rust had formed around the sink drain. The
refrigerator still didn’t shut fully, black grime surrounded the
inside of my gas stove, and laundry was strewn everywhere. I still
had no shower curtain in my bathroom, and mail lay unopened in a
heap on my glass dining table.
According to the digital clock on the
microwave, I had an hour before the economic numbers came out. I
scrambled. Found my purse from where I dropped it on the floor and
pulled the small white bag from last night’s party. I broke up the
clump of cocaine on the kitchen counter with my corporate Amex card
and took one long train into each nostril. Then I rushed to the
bathroom. As I undressed, I caught the scent of Miranda’s perfume
on my body again. I needed to shower and scrape off the
filth.