Crimson Footprints (29 page)

A slender white-haired woman
peered at the single large canvas as she lifted a glass of red wine
to painted and wrinkled lips. “It’s a transitive piece. Like the
caterpillar mid-metamorphosis, if you will. Provocative, yet
emotionally layered. A unique insight into women I’d
say.”

“
And brilliant no less,”
added another, behind her. Still the crowd, so thick, prevented
Deena from seeing what they meant.

A portly and balding man
draped in black spoke next.

“
He’s managed to retain
many of the markings of Expressionism—the reliance on emotion as a
mainstay, for example. Yet there are unmistakable elements of
Impressionism—the visible brush strokes, the emphasis on light, the
ordinary subject.”

“
Ordinary?” balked the
white haired woman. “She’s clearly beautiful.”

The fat man sighed. “Ethel
‘ordinary’ is hardly an insult. The term is connotative of her
accessibility as a woman. The curvature of her frame, for example,
is indicative of womanhood as a whole and not the oft times
unattainable societal standard of beauty. She is, as my wife would
say, ‘a real woman.”

Deena pushed her way through
the crowd, now impatient, and found a space between the bickering
pair. She froze at the spread of canvas and could feel the eyes of
the crowd on her as she inspected it.

Skin like toffee. Wide
gold-flecked eyes. Hair, a thick potpourri of browns. She was
naked, save for a crimson scarf snaking up the woman’s ankle,
sheathing flesh and curves in its ascent of her body. She clutched
the vibrant red fabric in her fists as it unraveled, airborne like
a kite. The scarf spread and grew, fanning out before her as it
faded from crimson to pink to white.

She was
beautiful.

She was free.

She was Deena.

Underneath the painting was
a simple gold label.

Unfolded

Takumi Tanaka.

PART THREE

CHAPTER
FORTY-THREE

Tak scanned the bedroom to
ensure everything was packed. He folded his oversized UCLA
sweatshirt, because he knew Deena would want it for the plane, and
tossed both it and his IPod into the carry-on bag. Deena rushed
past him, mumbling to herself, list in hand, as she checked off
items.

“
Dee, we’ve got to go.
We’ll miss the flight.” He watched her scurry by and smiled despite
himself. She was adorable in her little pink dress and wide brim
hat, as she muttered about toiletries and charge cards.

“
I’m afraid I’ll forget
something, Tak. What if I forget something?”

“
Then we’ll get it in
Mexico.” Tak smiled slyly. “And hurry up. I’m trying to join the
Mile High Club.”

Deena snorted. She darted
past him again when her cell phone rang.

“
Don’t you dare answer
that,” he warned even as she dug the phone out of her clutch. Tak
groaned. They’d never make the 4 o’clock to Puerto Vallarta. When
they went to Montego Bay for their one-year anniversary, she did
the same thing—scampering through the room in search of something,
anything to bring. They arrived at the airport so late they weren’t
allowed to check-in their luggage. This time it seemed they’d miss
their flight altogether.

Deena shouted into her
phone. “Lizzie what? For how long?”

Tak shook his head. The
mention of her sister was never a good thing. He took a deep breath
and collapsed onto the bed. He was certain that there would be no
trip to Mexico.

Deena’s sister Lizzie was
missing—again. The night they were to fly to Puerto Vallarta for
their second anniversary, Tak and Deena spent it scouring the
streets of Liberty City. It was not the first time they’d done so
either. Tak was becoming adept at tapping on the shoulders of bums,
pimps, prostitutes and drug dealers, forcing them to look at a
picture of a troubled teen he’d never met. He cringed as women with
missing teeth promised him the blowjob of his life and as dealers
offered him X, snow, smack, rock and half a dozen other things he
hadn’t heard of. Tak was laughed at, harassed, and threatened, but
he continued nonetheless. For him it was easier to face the perils
of Liberty City then to return home to a weeping Deena, certain
she’d lost yet another sibling. She was unable to eat or sleep, and
unable to stop crying. And each day he felt certain that her heart,
his heart, or both, would break from her grief.

Lizzie reappeared three days
later. She offered her family no explanation and no apology, and
Tak felt certain he could kill her. He remembered the morning the
police found a woman’s body in a dumpster in Allapatah. He’d felt
prostrated as Deena sobbed, certain it was her sister. He
remembered Deena’s shriek of relief when she failed to recognize
the bloated teen on the table at the M.E.’s office. But even as
they stared at that strange girl, Tak wondered how many times
they’d be forced to return; hoping yet again that it was not her
sister.

The day after Lizzie
returned Tak and Deena left for Mexico. They vacationed at his
faher’s summer estate,
Villa
Paraísa
, in a tiny coastal village just
north of Puerto Vallarta called Sayulita. Daichi’s sweeping
six-bedroom home on the coast of the Riviera Nayarit boasted a
rooftop terrace, mangrove estuary, and a mile of private ocean
access—all surrounded by mountainous terrain. But it could’ve been
a box washed along the shore for all the attention Tak and Deena
paid it, as they were consumed by each other, and little
else.

They made love leisurely
each day they were in Sayulita, savoring the feel of their passion
under the sweltering spring sun. Each movement was deliberate and
measured; as if convinced they had a lifetime together. This
growing sense of permanency was evident in everything they did
while there. It was in the way they made plans to visit Tokyo next
year, and Italy the year after that, in their jesting about Daichi
and Grandma Emma eventually meeting, and in their imaginings of
Japanese children with wild brown hair.

“
We should say something
soon,” Tak said as he and Deena lay side by side in poolside lounge
chairs.

She lifted her head.
“What?”

“
We should say something.
About us. To my dad. To your family.”

Deena shook her head.
“What’s your hurry?’

Tak scowled. “It’s been two
years.”

“
So what?” Deena shrugged.
“Two years, ten, what’s the difference?”

Tak searched her face for
some indication that she was joking. There was none.

“
Dee, keeping this thing
quiet was supposed to be temporary.”

“
I know,” Deena
snapped.

“
So, tell me then,” he said
in controlled fashion. “How much time do you need? Three years?
Five? Ten?”

Deena sat up in a huff.
“What’s your deal, Tak? Aren’t things good? No problems, no
complications, nothing families would bring.” She shook her head.
“Why in the world would you want to change that?”

Tak stared at her
incredulously. “Our families are part of who we are, Dee. You can’t
escape that.”

“
Not my family,” Deena
hissed, lying back down.

“
Yes
, your family.
Especially
your family,” Tak said.

Deena chewed her bottom
lip.

“
Give it a rest, Tak.
You’re working my nerves.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah,
well we can’t have that now, can we?”

Deena’s gaze shrunk to
aggravated to pinpoints.

“
Yeah, Dee, your family has
shaped who you are,” Tak hands clasped behind his head as he lay on
his back, staring at the sky. “Your wants, your hopes, your fears,
everything. Just look at you. You won’t even think for yourself;
you’re so afraid you’ll be voted off the island.”

Deena stood. “This is my
goddamned life. Not some game.”

He smiled ruefully. “You’re
the one who wants to play games. Skulking around, whispering.
Pretending you don’t know me when it suits you. Acting like you’ve
never heard of me when you’ve just finished fucking me. What’s it
like, Dee? To fuck me one minute and not know me the next?
Hmm?”

Tak turned to Deena, raring
for a fight, only to find her crying. He reached for her, feeling
like an utter jackass, cursing himself involuntarily, but she
recoiled from him, bitterly and rushed for the house.

“
Dee!” He leapt to his
feet, eyes on her backside as she rushed away. “Dee!”

The door slammed soundly
behind her.

After spending half a day on
opposite sides of a locked door, Tak convinced Deena to come out
and eat. They decided on Don Pedro’s, an ocean front gourmet
restaurant, and walked in silence to the town square. Once there
they took their seats on an outside deck so close to the shore that
the occasional ocean mist wet their feet.

“
Dee, I owe you an
apology.” Tak reached across the table and covered her hand with
his own. “I love you too much to talk to you the way I did
earlier.”

Deena stared at his hand,
cupped over hers.

“
Dee, come on,” Tak said.
“I can’t know how you feel, or what motivates you to do some
things. But I do know this. Before you, there was something missing
from my life. I’d go around trying to fill a void with art,
friends, anything really—never knowing that it was someone and not
something I needed. But that all stopped when I met
you.”

Deena looked up, offering
him the slightest smile. He’d take it. Tak drew her hand to his
lips and kissed her fingertips.

“
I think you know how much
I love you,” he said. “But if there ever comes a day when I’m being
an ass or I otherwise put that in doubt, forgive me. There are few
things in this world I’m certain of. But I’m certain about this.
God made you for me and me for you Remember that.”

CHAPTER
FORTY-FOUR

Sunday dinner always began
with a blessing of the food by Grandma Emma after which the family
dug into an impressive spread of her best fare. The menu would
include deep fried chicken, catfish, neck bones, chitterlings,
collard greens, butter beans, stewed okra and cornbread.

Deena could remember when
she’d arrive early enough to help her grandmother with preparation,
but since Tak two years ago, she found herself arriving later and
later, and occasionally missing dinner altogether.

“
So, Deena, where’ve you
been? We haven’t seen you for a while,” Aunt Rhonda said as the
family settled into their meal.

“
I’ve been a little busy,”
Deena said quietly. “I uh—have a big project at work that’s taking
a lot of my time.” She would not tell them that her ‘big project’
was tanking—that key investors were threatening to pull out, that
construction was delayed, and that the budget was
hemorrhaging.

“
Oh yeah?” Grandma Emma
asked as she piled fried chicken on her plate. “What they got you
building?”

“
A beachfront condominium.”
Deena said. “A skyscraper.”

The truth was
she
wasn’t building
anything. She’d signed on to the project believing she would be
Daichi’s proxy, only to become his puppet. Though his workload
demanded his presence in Rome and Tokyo, Dubai and Moscow with
endless regularity, Daichi continued to micromanage Skylife. Every
email, every phone call and every fax had to be routed half way
around the world so that he could do everything from responding to
routine questions from material suppliers to ensuring that building
contractors were remaining true to his designs. This resulted in
delay after delay as the cost of the project soared.

“
Damn, a skyscraper Deena?”
Aunt Caroline said, with flecks of collard greens wedged between
her gold teeth. “You ought to see if you can get them to put your
name on it.”

Deena’s cell phone rang. She
turned away from the table and answered.

“
Hey there. Still alive, I
see. How’s dinner?” Tak asked.

Deena smiled. “Fine.
Everyone’s staring.”

“
Good. Say something
sexy.”

“
No!” Deena
blushed.

“
Say what you said last
night.”

“
Oh my God, shut up.
I’m
so
going to
kill you tonight!” Deena gushed.

“
It’s what I’m hoping,” he
murmured seductively. “But I won’t keep you. I just need to know
what time to pick you up.” He couldn’t stand the thought of her
catching the bus in the rankest part of town, standing next to a
bench that doubled as the bed for a foul smelling homeless person.
He’d begun picking her up about three months after her brother died
when a bum grabbed the hem of her dress as she stood waiting for
the bus.