Palm Springs Heat (24 page)

Sushma tugged harder to break free.
“You do not know what you are talking about.”

“The evidence is there. Every woman
since Gina. A religious freak. An ultra-right-winger. A lesbian.”

“I SAID—”

“You didn’t find Gina. Clay did.
And when it looked like they were getting too cozy, you stepped in with your
‘dutiful C.O.O.’ thing. And when Clay found me—”

Sushma yanked so hard, she broke
Lara’s grip and tumbled to the pavement. Lara stood over her with her fists and
jaw clenched, air heaving in and out of her lungs.
Get up so I can knock you
down myself, bitch.

But Sushma did not get up. She
remained seated on the hard concrete. Sobbing.

“All right! All right!” Sushma sat
awkwardly with one leg underneath her. Her knees were scuffed and tears
streamed down her face. “Everything you are saying is true! What of it?”

“I’ll tell you what of it,” Lara
said, pointing an accusing finger in Sushma’s face. “You had no right. You had
no right to interfere in Clay’s love life that way. No one has that right. Not
even a chief operating officer.”

“But I wanted
him
.”

“Well, you couldn’t have him. And
it wasn’t just because of your hair color or your height or even your stupid
fake boobs. For whatever reasons, he loved Gina. And he loved me. Don’t ask me
why. I don’t meet the Fast Lane ideal. I’m an unemployed divorced woman who
grew up a nobody in the valley. And every minute he’s known me I’ve done
nothing but lie to him. But for some reason, some reason we’ll probably never
know, he loved me. And you had no right to wreck that.”

“He would have found out the truth
about you eventually.”

 “Yes, but then we could have
dealt with it. Him and me. Two people work things out. Or they don’t. That’s
how it’s supposed to happen.”

Lara straightened and took a deep breath.
“You may have stopped Gina and me from having Clay, but you’ll never have him,
either. Whatever he wants, you don’t have.”

Lara turned to walk away. She
stopped when Sushma sobbed, “Am I not beautiful? Am I not desirable? You came
with your common valley upbringing and your failed marriage and your joke of a
career—and your long legs and blond hair.”

Lara touched her hair.

“That is right,” Sushma continued.
“Did you think I would not find out about that?”

“Magda wouldn’t—”

“I did not learn it from Magda. It
is my business to know such things. You may think I am stupid, but I saved
Clayton from becoming a laughingstock. I made his company great and increased
his wealth a hundredfold. Am I not deserving of his love? More so than you?”

“He should love you because you
made him rich?”

“There is more to it than that. I
was, after all, a member of The Rotation.”

“You’re proud of that.”

“Why would I not be? Only the most
alluring, most cultured, most exciting women in the world get to be a part of
The Rotation. Intelligent women who are charming and sexy and strong. For six
years I have tried so hard to make him see me over all of the others. What is
it? What is it that you have that I do not possess? Long legs and yellow hair?”

Unrequited love. I know how that
feels.

Lara sat on the concrete next to
Sushma. “I don’t know if
it
is anything anyone can possess,” she said. “
It
just…seems to happen.”

Her lips still quivering, Sushma
looked up. “You could tell how I felt about him from how I looked the other
day. My eyes betrayed me.”

 “I could tell before that.
Way before that.”

“I thought some day he would grow
up and see.” Sushma sighed. “He is such a contradiction. The ultimate man of
the world, and yet such a child.”

“They’re all a little like that,
you know.”

“Yes, I do know it. But, still, I
kept hoping.” Sushma rubbed one of her scraped knees. “I wanted to be his
lover, but he saw me more like a mother. Sushma Vishnuveda, the stern Ms. V.
The mother hen, clucking around, trying to work her stupid lovesick schemes. It
is truly pathetic.”

A shadow fell across Lara’s face.
She looked up to see a circle of onlookers.
Oh, my god! How much have these
people heard?

“Um, like, is everything cool?”
asked a girl who reminded Lara of herself as a teenager.

“We’ll be okay, but thanks,” Lara
said to the girl. Then, to everyone, she said, “Really. We’ll be all right.”

The crowd dispersed. Lara helped
Sushma to her feet.

“Are you going to be okay?”

“I have been such a fool. I feel so
worthless.”

“You shouldn’t think that way. You
single-handedly saved Fast Lane. Everybody in the organization respects you.”

“They do?”

“Sure.”

“Even those who refer to me as Ms.
V-for-Viper?”

You know about that?
“I
suppose. Deep down.”

“Even you?”

“Of course!”

She looked away. “I have treated you
very badly.”

“Yes, you have. I kind of deserved
it.”

“Yes, you did.” She looked at Lara.
“However, I am sorry for one thing.”

“Oh?”

“That business about Drake Lobo. I
read about him on the Internet. He seems to be quite an asshole. I feel I
should make it up to you in some way.”

Lara studied Sushma’s face.
Show
me you mean it
. “Will you do something for me?”

Sushma swallowed hard. “I said I
would, and I keep my word.”

“Tell Clay I’ll be hanging with Sol
this evening.”

“What does it mean, ‘Hanging with Sol?’”

“He’ll know what I mean.”

Sushma nodded. “I will tell him.”

“You’re okay otherwise?”

“So-so. But a nice, strong cup of
tea will work wonders.”

Lara smiled. They nodded to each
other, then walked off in opposite directions.

22

Clay slumped in a chair on the
Upper Deck. The sun hung in the haze over the water, but Clay wasn’t looking at
the sun or the water. He wasn’t looking at anything.

Sushma came onto the deck and
leaned against the railing facing the water.

“What’s up, Shush?”

Sushma didn’t say or do anything.
This
can’t be good
.

“Shush?”

Sushma sat in a chair next to Clay,
putting them eye to eye. Clay shifted in his seat.
This really can’t be good
.

“Clayton,” Sushma said in a softer
voice than Clay was used to. “I wanted to ask you something.”

Clay waited expectantly for several
seconds. “Yes?”

Looking directly into his amber
irises, she said, “What do you see in Lara Dixon?”

He jumped to his feet. “You mean
what
did
I see?”

Sushma remained seated.
She
looks so small from up here. Are those tears?

“I want you to tell it to me
straight,” Sushma said. “No bullshit.”

“Okay. She’s pretty—but there was
more to it than that. We had a few similar experiences growing up, which is
weird when you think about our backgrounds. We had some nice conversations. She
seemed to get me. I felt comfortable with her.” His face darkened and his hands
balled into fists. “Which was pretty goddamned stupid. I fell for her act, all
right. Played right into her Big Plan.”

“I do not believe that is true.”

“What do you mean?”

“All of the women who have passed
through The Rotation—especially during the past few years—were they all so
unacceptable to you?”

“They were nice girls. Fun.”

“Were you dissatisfied with their
looks?”

“With their looks? No.”

“Do you prefer women who are tall
and fair and, shall we say, slender?”

“I don’t have any problem with
women who are short and dark and—” He stopped.
Wait a minute
. “What are
you getting at?”

“You are saying that all of the
women were beautiful, but you were looking for something more that was always
missing?”

Clayed mulled it over. “Yeah. I
guess.”

“That did not happen by chance.”

Clay crouched in front of her and
took her hands in his. “What’s going on?”

“Be truthful with me,” Sushma said,
trying to speak as though tears were not already rolling down her cheeks. “What
is the number one thing you see in Lara Dixon?”

“The truth? I don’t see anything in
her. Not anymore.”

“Are you certain?”

“She lied, Shush. She lied because
she wanted to destroy me.”

“Yes, that is true. However,
sometimes a person’s motives are pure, even though his or her actions may seem
not to be.”

 
For a man who’s supposed
to know so much about women, why can’t I figure them out?
“Okay. I’m
completely lost.”

Sushma looked down and spoke as
quietly as Clay had ever heard her speak. “She is not the only one who has been
lying to you.”

Clay froze.

Sushma looked him in the eye. “I
have done things that I am not proud of. Things that were not fair to you. I
took control over parts of your life that I had no right to control. I said it
was for the good of the business, but the real reason…”

She looked away and swallowed a
sob.

Clay felt a wave of panic.
The
“real reason.” How obvious
. His mind raced, trying to identify signs he had
missed—and he realized they had been everywhere.

“Oh, Shush. I feel like such an
ass. Like a complete ass.” He let go of her hands and stood up. He didn’t know
what else to say. As fond as Clay was of Sushma, he did not love her. And yet,
though her eyes were red and cheeks streaked, she was as exotically beautiful
as when she had joined The Rotation all those years before.“But don’t worry,
I’ll never have anything to do with Lara Dixon again. Ever.”

“Whatever. Only you can decide
whether to be an ass, or a complete ass.” She started to leave, stopping
halfway to the door. “There is one more thing. I promised to deliver a message
from her. She said she would be hanging with Sol tonight. I do not know what
that means. She said you would.”

I would?

After Sushma left, Clay stood
against the railing and looked out at the sun and the water and the haze in
between.

23

Lara stood on her fingernail of a
porch and remembered the phone ringing one Saturday morning. Could it really
have been just a few weeks ago? Lara edged over to the corner and craned her
neck to catch a glimpse of sky. She sighed. Why was it such a chore to catch
even a glimpse of the beauty that existed all around her?

A half-hour till sundown.

Lara went back inside and
contemplated a piece of clothing draped across the foot of the bed. A white
cotton shirt. She smoothed it out, picked it up and held it to her face before
slipping it on. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the plum-colored stain over
her heart.

The shirt’s tail moved with a breeze
that wafted through the room.
Time to go.
She picked up her car keys and
headed out.

* * *

.

A zephyr wind caressed Lara’s hair
as she approached the bluff at Ocean and Arizona.
Point Dume looked like a glowing pot of gold at the end of an invisible rainbow.
I was there—but where was the gold?

Lara brushed her hand across the
stain on the shirt as she leaned against a railing and watched the sun make its
inexorable descent. A noise came from behind her; she whipped around to find an
old man and woman walking arm-in-arm.

“Eh, she look bootiful tonight,
no?” The man grinned. The woman had bony shoulders and a wide bottom. Her gray
hair was pulled back tight and she wore orthopedic shoes. The man was bent at
the waist and limped. He had on brown Dacron pants, no doubt purchased during
the Jimmy Carter presidency, and a silver-and-orange patterned shirt that never
should have been sold to anyone anywhere. And it was buttoned wrong. But he
smiled as wide as a man could smile.

They sure look happy together.

“Bootiful, yes?” the old man asked
again. He nodded, but Lara couldn’t tell if it was toward the sunset or the
woman on his arm. They continued to a bench on the other side of a palm tree.

As the sun dipped behind the
outcropping of rock so many miles away, the sky, the land and the water all
burst into flames. It was the same every day, but Lara never got tired of
seeing it. She closed her eyes, lifted her chin and took a deep, invigorating
breath of cool, salty air.

And then another voice came from
behind her.

“The view is amazing from here.”

Lara’s heart jumped. Though she
gripped the railing, she could not feel her hands. Or her feet. Or anything
else. Just a warm, buzzing electricity running through her body and soul. Lara
wanted to open her eyes and run to Clay and embrace him and maybe even make
love with him right there at the edge of the cliff, with the old couple just a
few feet away and all the rush-hour traffic crawling by on the street.

“Yes, I’ve always loved the ocean.”

“So have I. But I’m not talking
about the ocean.”

Lara turned around, and then slowly
opened her eyes to see Clay just a few steps away. He had no Centurion cocktail
in his hand. No beautiful escorts hanging on his elbows. Just Clay, his hands
thrust into his pockets. His face was turned downward, but when he looked up at
Lara, she could see the sunset, a dazzling array of purples and magentas and
oranges, reflected in the golden rings of amber in his eyes.

“Oh, Clay…”

He moved close to her.

“Clay, I don’t know where to
begin.”

“How about like this?” he said,
putting his hands on her waist and pulling her to him. The sunset glowed all
around them in a kiss that lasted long enough to make up for the ones they had
missed.

“I was so wrong about everything,”
Lara said when the kiss ended at last. “I wanted to destroy you, so I did
terrible things and told terrible lies. I mean—look at this.” She leaned
forward and pulled on the part in her hair to show him the blond roots. “Even
my hair.”