Some Came Desperate: A Love Saga (10 page)

“Whose birthday?” Nick asked.  “Simone’s?”

“Yep.  She’s twenty-three-years old this very day.”

Nick nodded.  She was older than she looked, which was good news, although she was still very young.  “Congratulations, Simone,” he said to her with another one of his special smiles.  Simone, who’d never felt so footloose and fancy free like this before in her life, could only beam.  It was her birthday and she was celebrating with the sister she loved and Nick Perry, the man she once thought had nothing but one thing on his mind where she was concerned, but now she saw him so much differently. 

Jeremy, however, was also there, and she just knew he couldn’t wait to get his customary
knock down Simone
jab in.

“Yeah, Nick,” he said as if he could read her mind, “our Simone here is only twenty-three years old.  And not a very experienced twenty-three-year-old at that, if you catch my meaning.  How old are you?”

Simone looked at Jeremy and rolled her eyes.  She was this close to going off on his behind right in front of Nick, something she was praying she wouldn’t be forced to do.  Jules saw it too, that was why she quickly stood up.  “Honey, let’s dance,” she said to him.  He looked at her as if she had lost her mind.

“I thought you said you were tired.”

“I was.  But I’m fine now.”

Jeremy shook his head.  He knew what she was trying to do; he knew how much she hated it when he and Simone got into it.  But he also knew guys like Nick Perry better than she would ever understand.  He knew that a high-rent hotshot like that was going to eat somebody like that country behind Simone alive.  Chew her up and spit her out.  But forget it, he thought, as he stood up.  He was trying to do that little witch a favor.  

When he and Jules headed back for the dance floor, Simone leaned back and smiled.  “I’m sorry,” she said.  “But as you can see me and Jeremy doesn’t exactly get along.”

“Is he Jules husband?” Nick asked as he stared at Jules out on the dance floor.  Simone felt a tinge of jealousy, knowing that every man wanted Jules, but she tried not to let it show. 

“No,” she said.  “But they’ve been together for a long time.”

“Yeah,” Nick said as he puffed hard on his cigarette.  He knew all about those long term relationships, particularly since he was in one himself and had no business even entertaining the thought of getting into another one.  He stood up.

“What’s the matter?” Simone immediately asked, looking up at him.

“Nothing’s the matter. I just realized how late it is and I need to get going.  I have all the information I need regarding your sister and I have your number.  I’ll get on it and let you know what happens.”

“But,” Simone said, suddenly terrified that the one person in this world who could make her feel alive was about to leave her.  “I mean, are you sure you have to leave right now?”

Nick looked at Simone, and that intensity in her glassy green eyes, an intensity that made it appear as if she would literally die if he left at this very moment, pricked at his heart.  And he knew he couldn’t just leave her this way.

“Did you come with your sister?” he asked, and Simone could only manage to nod.  She was on the verge of tears, over a man she barely even knew, and it was scaring the life out of her.  What was it about him that could throw her like this, she wondered.  Just because he agreed to take Shay’s case?  Just because he held her in his arms?  Was that all it took to win her over?  The first good looking man to show her some attention and she becomes putty in his hands? 

Nick exhaled.  He knew he should just walk away.  He knew he shouldn’t say another word to this green-eyed woman-child and just leave while he still stood a chance. 

But he couldn’t. 

“Go tell your sister that I’m taking you home,” he said to her.

To Simone’s own amazement, she didn’t question him, or argue with him, or look at him as if he had life bent if he thought she was going to jump at his command.  She jumped at his command, going to Jules and telling her that she was leaving, and then grabbing her purse and heading out the door of that noisy nightclub with a man she was beginning to believe just might be the one she always wondered was possible.

EIGHT

She was late, over an hour late, but she wasn't about to let that hold her back.  She jumped off of the bus she had caught, which turned out to be the wrong bus, had to run nearly a mile, and arrived at the Colgate building virtually out of breath.  But she didn’t stop.  She jumped onto the B elevator, smoothing down her wild ponytail as she caught a reflection of it on the door's shine, and rested her backpack on the floor as she took the slow ride to the eleventh floor.  It had been three months since she'd heard a word about her petition to the courts, three long months, and no slow buses or even slower elevator was going to keep her from hearing what Nick Perry had to tell her now. 

 He'd phoned two hours earlier, or, to be precise, his secretary had phoned, with a request that she meet with him.  They had an appointment set up for her, but that would have been three days away, and Simone wasn't trying to hear that.   She wanted to see Nick today, as soon as humanly possible.  The secretary had to place her on hold and, undoubtedly, get some clearance from the man himself, but she returned to the phone and stated that Mr. Perry could see Simone for a few minutes at 2, if she could make it over that quickly.  Simone declared that she could, hung up the phone, told Bellini she had to go, and took off.  All she had to do was mention that it was about her petition to get her sister back, and Bellini understood.  Everybody at the Sky diner understood.  Simone appreciated that.

   But now she was late, because no way could she have caught two buses and made it within the hour, but she had to see Nick Perry today, especially since she knew it was about Shay. 

   The secretary, whose nameplate said Irene Grayson, wasn't pleased at all by Simone's late arrival.  Simone stood in front of the large oak desk in her jeans and jersey, her backpack and wild ponytail, and told the secretary that she tried with all she had to get here on time.  Irene, however, was blunt, telling Simone that Mr. Perry was already in a meeting and had one scheduled shortly thereafter.  Simone, however, volunteered to wait, that surely he could spare her a moment of his time if she was already in place and ready to go.  The secretary, who had been fielding Simone's calls for the past three months, who knew better than anyone that she was one hard cookie to crumble, made clear that she couldn't promise her anything, but that she was free to wait. 

Simone, relieved, took a seat in the leather chair in the secretary's office, just outside of Nick's office, and tried not to panic.  The news could be bad, and that was why he was in no great hurry to tell her about it, or it just as easily could be good, too.  There was no way of knowing with Nick Perry.  She had thought, three months ago, on the night of her birthday, that they'd made a connection, that somehow he was going to be a significant part of her life for some time to come.  He had held her in his arms, and had driven her home.  And she had melted in his affection.  She just knew he would be calling her the very next day, or, even better, stopping by the diner just to make sure she was still all right. 

But he didn't phone, and he didn't come by, and as one day turned into another day and everyday yielded the same results, she knew then that what she'd experienced on the night of her birthday and what he'd experienced were two different things.  She had thought his actions proved that he had wanted her in his life somehow, while he, apparently, had wanted no such thing.   Even when she'd get up enough nerve to call his office and inquire about her case, her boldness left her unsatisfied.  The call would be directed, not to him, but to his secretary, to Irene, and she would dutifully ask Simone to hold on while she informed Nick of the call.  But instead of Nick answering, Simone would always be shuffled to one of his many paralegals or to another attorney in the office or, on one occasion, to Mark Grier, who told her in no uncertain terms that Nick Perry was an extremely busy man and as soon as he heard anything at all about her ridiculous case, he would gladly contact her immediately to be rid of her.  Since Simone already knew what Mark Grier was made of, she ignored him, and kept making her inquiries.  

Nick Perry leaned back in his tall, swivel chair and watched his girlfriend stalk back and forth across his office floor as if her life depended on her movement.  She was upset, the way she usually was lately, as she retold the anger, the embarrassment she felt when she, once again, wasn't chosen.  Nick, who was no good at comforting a woman who didn't really want to be comforted, could only repeat his pet response: “They'll be other jobs, babe,” he said.

        "Not on the cover!" Delia blasted back, her dark, pretty face snarling at him with a contempt he was becoming accustomed to.  "This is a cover shot, Nicky, you know that!  A cover shot.  Do you realize the last time I was a cover girl?"   She said this with a crack in her voice, and before he could answer, she burrowed on:  "Three years ago, that's how long!  Three years, Nicky!  And you should see that little anorexic they picked!  Over me!  Me, Nicky!  Gianni Versace once said I had what it took. Versace had said that.  And I can't get a cover shot?"

        And probably never would again, Nick thought with some degree of sadness.  Not because of the reality, but because Delia was just beginning to face that reality.  She was a thirty-six-year-old woman in a young girl's game.  And she knew it now.  That was why she paced his office floor like a wounded animal.  Her heyday was long gone and she wasn't ready to say goodbye to it.  She was twenty-two when Versace had complimented her, a fresh-eyed kid in the prime of her modeling life.  There was no Naomi Campbell then, no Tyra Banks.  Just Delia.  And she worked it.  He still remembered fondly how hard she worked that thang.

        Nick met her during her prime, when he was a young corporate lawyer attending a party honoring one of his firm's biggest clients.  "Have you met Delia?" the client had asked him in his precise French accent.  "You simply must meet Delia!"

        And he met Delia.  How could he miss her?  She was a strikingly beautiful woman, with the darkest, deepest-toned black skin he’d ever seen.  He stood back and watched her; watched her tall, lithe body move like a panther throughout the room, knowing the power she commanded just by being who she was.  The men fawned over her as if she was a fountain of cold water on a hot desert island.  He watched her high cheek bones and puckered lips, her smoothing smile that seemed so innocent then, so beguiling, and he was hooked, too.  He realized now that he wanted her because every other man wanted her.  It was a challenge to him, a battle.  And he won.  It was later that night, when he could pick his moment.  And instead of going up to her and flattering her with flowery words, he leaned toward her, whispered, "you're going home with me tonight,” and headed for the bar to refresh his drink.  He never knew how she initially took his boldness, because it didn't matter.  She went home with him that night.

        That was fourteen years ago. He was young and so sure of himself that he never, not for a second, expected her to turn him down.  And she had no intention of doing so because she was self-assured, too, and had been waiting all night, she later claimed, for him to make his move.

         Now her self-assurance was as distant as her youth, where cover shots were the only  kind she took, and where now shots with bottles of color gel, with age-defying beauty kits, with cereal boxes, were about as good as it was going to get for her.

        "I should sue their pants off," she said combatively as she stomped to the window, her thin arms folding, her unquenchable anger unable to appreciate the sweeping view.  "Oliver promised me the cover.  He told me so last month when they gave me the pass.  He said the next time would be my time again, that I would grace the cover.  He promised me." 

        She sounded like a spoiled child to Nick.  He suddenly had a great urge to get away. 

        But she kept complaining.  "Now he's acting as if I'm a liar.  As if he never. . ."  She gave up and looked at Nick.  "I could sue him, couldn’t I?"

        Nick looked at her ready to tell her no, that such an idea was asinine, that it would be her word against a very powerful and highly regarded agent.  But the look in her soft brown eyes stopped him cold.  She looked so vulnerable to him, almost as innocent as she had that night fourteen years ago, and it wasn't reality she was after – but reassurance.  "There'll be other jobs, babe," he said again.

        She exhaled, as if she had been holding her breath, and nodded.  "You're right," she said as if she knew it all along, her reality check causing her to want to get away, too.  She went over to the chair and grabbed her purse.  Nick stood and walked from behind his desk, ashamed of the fact that he was relieved she was leaving.  He walked her to the door. 

        "Coming over tonight?" she turned and asked him, looking as if she was expecting-what?  He never really knew with Delia.  Sometimes she smothered him with her insecurities, as if he and he alone was her life source.  Other times she kept her distance, as if he was the reason for every rejection, every heartache she ever had to endure.  Their relationship was an open one, and Nick knew she kept it wide open, but he also knew that her dependence on him was growing, not diminishing.

        "We'll see,” he said, which usually meant no, and they both knew it.  She stared at him, stared, he sometimes felt, right through him.  Then she smiled, the lines of age just cracking her beautiful, smooth skin.  Then that look of desperation that showed only in her eyes, a look he'd seen so many times before, captured her.  "Promise me, Nicky," she said.

        "Promise you what?"

        "You won't abandon me too.”

        Nick’s heart dropped.  “Why would I abandon you, Del?”

        “Because I'm old."

        Nick smiled, but it was an uneasy one, and it never reached his eyes.  He took her in his arms, and he didn't know if it was to comfort her, or to hide his own fears.  "Thirty-six isn't old, Del," he said.

        "Promise me, Nicky!" she said again, desperately, pulling out of his embrace.  "You've got to promise me."

        "Stop being ridiculous, Delia, now I mean it.  I'm older than you.  Why would I abandon you?"

        She stared at him.  She knew him too well.  "You aren't going to promise, are you?"

        "I'm not going to play your absurd game, no I'm not.  Now don’t let Oliver get to you like this, babe.  You know how the modeling business can be.  You're in one day, out the next, and right back in the next day."

        "Like Caroline?" she asked so hopefully that Nick looked away from her.

        "Exactly,” he said, unwilling to push the game too far.

        Delia, however, had to push it.  "They said she was washed-up, too, you know, and she appeared on the cover of Elle.  How's that for being in again?"

        "There ya' go."

        "And I look way better than her."

        Nick smiled.  "Modesty is your middle name."

        Delia laughed and kissed him on the cheek.  She used to tell him that she loved him, she used to tell him repeatedly.  Now she didn't even bother.  "See you tonight," she said hastily, desperately, as she opened the door and hurried out before he could contradict her. 

        Simone immediately stood to her feet when the office door opened.  Expecting to see Nick, she was surprised when a beautiful black woman stepped out first, a tall, thin woman in a bright white pantsuit with a lavender scarf around her thin neck and a lavender purse under her thin arm.

        "Don’t work him too hard," she said to the secretary as she began leaving the office area.

        "An impossible task if ever there was one," Irene replied, causing Delia to laugh a kind of exaggerated laugh that made Simone stare at her.  When she looked at Simone, her smile was still there, but the warmth was gone. 

        "Hello," she said rather stiffly as she walked.

        “Hi,” Simone replied and Nick, about to close his office door, realized only then that Simone was in the building.  As soon as he saw her, standing there in her oversized jeans and jersey, her ridiculous backpack on her narrow shoulder, her long and thick, but unruly hair, a shiver of excitement washed over him.  Compared to Delia she looked downright pitiful, Nick thought, but she also looked so very refreshing.  He’d purposely avoided her, not because he wanted to.  It took all he had not to track her down these past three months.  But she was no second-stringer, she gave her all to whatever she was involved in - her long-time quest for her sister proved that - when the last thing he wanted was anybody’s “all.”  But news had come from Georgia that left him no choice but to have his secretary call her in.