The Immaculate Deception (15 page)

“
Anything long and cool.”

“
How about a beer?”

“
I’d adore a beer. Make it a long-necked bottle, will ya?”

He said, “I’ll be right back.” He sauntered toward the center of the room, to the bar.

We seemed to be moving. Shadows zipped past. I peered out one of the numerous windows, lining each side. We were moving. Hey, we were on a train.

The Marine materialized with a beer and a hot dog. He said, “Here you go, dollface.”

I took them both. “Thanks. How’d you know how hungry I was?”

“
I just want to watch you take a bite of that and then decide if I’ll let you have me.”

Okay, my face flushed. I handed them back. Both objects. “Thanks, but I’m just not that kinda girl.”

“
Aw, sweetheart, c’mon. Sure you are.”

“
Oh no I’m not.” I traipsed to the end of the car and yanked the steel door. It slid open. I stepped into the diaphragm and opened the opposing door. I stepped into the next car. Sweet. An old-fashioned, honest to goodness Pullman sleeper. A sign on the wall indicated this was the “colored” sleeping car. I felt a lump in my stomach. Jim Crow laws from back in the days when they segregated the races. I wondered if I was allowed to pass through. Well, one way to find out. I strolled around the corner and down the hallway. I felt like I was in an old movie. There were dozens of upper and lower berths. Heavy blue drapes were drawn at each cubby.

I wondered if Cary Grant was milling around. Maybe Vera Blandings. Nope, I changed my mind. To me,
Mother May I
was perhaps the scariest movie that Hitchcock ever directed. He had a mother complex and often used it as a theme. Tammy and I watched part of this film once during a wicked thunderstorm. We were around fourteen. The protagonist had been manipulated by his mother into robbing banks. The knife scene had us both screaming like sissy-girls. I certainly didn’t want to be dreaming in that one now.

A young African American woman sashayed down the aisle toward me. A Caucasian hand came out from a lower bunk and grabbed her ass. She giggled. The curtains opened and she climbed in. I did a double take. No, I couldn’t do a double take, it happened too fast and they closed the curtains. But I knew who that ass-grabber was. Doctor Nathan Payne. Daddy. And that gorgeous girl also served a great hors d’oeuvres platter. That was Katherine, the White House maid.

I crept up to the curtains. I heard rustling and her giggling. Okay, this was really gross. Daddy fooling around with another woman. Or any woman. Especially my momma. Children didn’t want to think about their parents doing it. We were all hatched on a big hot rock. No sex involved. Right? From the looks of things, I was probably back in the mid-forties again. Daddy wasn’t married back then, so he was at least not cheating on Momma. But I couldn’t believe the pompous hypocrisy of his nibs, the great Doctor Nathan Payne, pillar of the community. Dating a black girl in 1945 was probably a big social no-no. If not against some southern law. Well, that probably made it all the more delicious for them.

I didn’t wanna stick around for the afterglow. I was kind of hungry. That hot dog really would’ve hit the spot. But under different circumstances. And even under similar but not with a stranger. Man, if only I could conjure up my mate, Mr. Jones. He’d pull a grilled chicken salad out of his fedora or something like that for me. Then turn me upside down and cart me off to the next adventure.

I closed my eyes and began walking in the darkness. Swaying back and forth with the locomotive’s cadence. “Ouch.” I bumped into the side of the train car. Two more blind steps. “Ouch.” Make that the end of the car. I opened my eyes. I moved out of the corner and opened the door. I stepped into the vestibule. Before I could turn the opposing door handle, it opened. And there he was. My man. I grabbed him around the neck and laid a big juicy kiss on his volcanic lips.

He said, “Hello, Cinderella, where have you been?”

“
Where have I been? You’re the one who left me stranded on the streets of Miami in the middle of the night.”

He said, “The City of Miami Beach. They are separate entities. I had to leave you. I told you you’d have to meet someone from your mother’s past.”

“
Well, I ended up wandering around. I wanted to wash the sand off my feet.”

He smiled. “Let me guess. In the Lincoln Road fountain?”

“
Uh-huh. Then I met a man. Or should I say he was surprised to meet me.”

“
I’ll bet he was.”

“
You know him?”

“
Sergeant Bill Blandings, Bureau of Engraving and Printing Police Department.”

“
I know. The old cop turned up and arrested him. He was Vera’s first husband.”

“
Yeah, they were hitched a while.”

“
Hey, when did she divorce the pirate?”

Dream boy cleared his throat. “Bill and Vera Blandings did not divorce. She was his widow.”

“
Did he die of natural causes?”

“
Let’s just say it was a premature death.” He scratched his chin.

And what a handsome square chin it was.
“Okay. How about a little less talk and a lot more kissing?”

Mr. Jones twirled one of my curls around his finger. A long index finger on his left hand. I stumbled into him when the train pitched hard to the left. My hand accidentally brushed his left front pocket. Well, not that accidentally actually. I felt my mate’s pleasure to see me.

He wrapped his arms around me. My pulse reacted. He held my cheeks and gazed into my eyes. I noticed his eyebrows. Perfectly formed. Brownish-blond. And like on the beach, he wasn’t wearing a hat. He had a blond flattop. Dark blond but blond. His nose was perfect. And oh my God, those sensual lips of his. Whiskers. I saw whiskers. More than just midnight shadow.

“
You haven’t shaved lately?”

“
I’ve been…um…busy.”

“
Busy with who?” I jealously demanded.

He grinned and brushed a lock of hair back from my left ear. His lips brushed my neck and then my ear as he whispered in his oh-so-smooth British accent, “On a mission.”

“
Mission?”

“
I had to put a scare into someone.”

“
Why?”

“
Part of the mission.”

“
Am I a part of your mission?”

“
You are my mission of love…” He kissed my neck, ever so lightly. Shivers inched down my back and arms.

I placed my right hand on his cheek and rubbed. “Prickly but soft,” I said.

He licked my neck, serpent-like, teasing the little hairs on the surface of my steamy skin. He said, “You don’t like beards, sweetheart?”

“
Oh no, I don’t mean that. Just never had one.”

He pulled away, giggling. “Well, I should hope not. I don’t want to make love to a man.”

I blushed. “No, I mean I’ve never kissed a bearded man before. But I would love for you to be my first.”

He cradled my head in his hands. “Oh the things I’ll do for you. You have never been touched before. Not like I will touch you. I was made to love you, you know.”

“
So you keep telling me. You’re my mate.”

“
Yes I am, sweetheart. You do believe me, don’t you?”

“
I wish this was real.”

“
What do you mean?”

“
You know. Not just in my sleep. I wish you were a living breathing man, in the real world.”

“
But I am. I told you to believe in us. I do. There’s nothing I believe in more. When you need me, when you really need me to be, I will be there for you, Cinderella.”

“
And the carriage turns into a pumpkin at midnight. I’m so sick of pumpkins. My whole life has been pumpkins. Rotten, small, picked-over, leftover pumpkins. And evil stepsisters. Well, more or less. Actually a half-brother and an adopted sister. But they treated me like…”

He took my hand and led me through the car and out a door—into the night. We were on a little balcony, outside of the observation car, at the end of the train. He spun me around, so my back faced him. He slipped his arms around my waist and drew me near. He softly kissed my cheek, from behind. And I felt the reminder that he was indeed—my mate. A strong, hard reminder.

He said, “Look up there at the stars, love. You see up over there, those two, the brightest in tonight’s vivid concert?”

“
Yes.”

“
Mercury and Mars.’’

“
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus,
” I quipped, realizing instantly that book about the emotional differences between the sexes wasn’t written yet.

He said, “I’m taking you to Mars. Your vessel somehow became stuck too close to the sun, on Mercury. No worries, I’ll take care of you, love. I never miss a destination.”

“
So let me get this straight. You are my soul mate through history but you have lived as a man on earth. How do the planets fit in with all of this?”

“
How wouldn’t they? You live in the twenty-first century, a dot in history. That isn’t necessarily the present. The planets have been around since time began. And some of them are heavenly.”

This was all a bit much to comprehend. Even more so because I felt his hot hardness rubbing against me. “Well, shall we travel on your noble steed, Prince Charming?”

“
Whatever pleases my woman.” He began moving rhythmically behind me. My breath quickened. I heard him breathing deep and heavy.

The wind picked up. I heard the “Donna” song. Sucking me off the train. I grasped on tight to the railing but, alas, I smelled the potatoes frying in my mother’s kitchen.

~*~

Reluctantly, I opened my eyes. It was pitch-black, save the dim light over the stove that dusted around the corner into the living room. I heard the sizzling and the scraping of the metal spatula in the cast-iron skillet. I threw my feet over the edge of the slick leather sofa, onto the floor. I stumbled into the kitchen. “
Momma?
”

“
What?” He turned.

“
Oh it’s you, Perry. I thought it was Momma.”

“
That was some dream you had, Sister. Could hardly hear you snoring and farting over all the moaning and screaming.” He turned the electric burner off and grabbed a fork from the adjacent silverware drawer.

I yawned as I watched the elephantine bald man shake salt on the potatoes and then eat right out of the skillet. Perry popped a hot chunk into his mouth.

He said, “I see you paid a visit to my office today.”

“
Huh? What makes you say that?”

“
The will on the coffee table in the living room. Why didn’t you just ask me for it, Oh-Donna? What, you don’t trust me, do you? I told you what the will spelled out.”

My face flushed. I was busted.
Hmm…think quick, Donna.
Plausible denial…plausible denial. Nope, couldn’t come up with anything. Diversion tactic…diversion tactic. “Perry, I need a car.”

“
So,” he said, huffing hot potato heat out of his mouth.

“
No, I really need a car.”

“
What’s wrong with the one you’ve got?”

“
I totaled it.”

Laughing, Perry spit a chunk of spud into the skillet.

I said, “It’s not funny. I could’ve died.”

“
Well, don’t even think about Chloe’s Corvette. That’s part of the estate.” He always called her Chloe, never “Mother” or any of its endearing monikers.

I almost died and my big brother didn’t even care. What was the use in telling him about my accident and how horrible it was anyway? He wouldn’t stir up any sympathy on my account. I was right not to call any of my family from the hospital. The only thing Perry was interested in was his inheritance. Incensed, I fought the tears and said, “No, the Vette isn’t part of the estate.”

“
Yes, it is.”

“
The pink slip is in Momma’s name and she ain’t dead. So there.”

“
Fine, have it. See if we care.”

“
We? Oh you and Tammy-the-terrible.” I cleared my throat. “I can’t use her car.”

He grabbed a carton of orange juice from the refrigerator and gulped a big swig directly from it. He spit it in the sink.

I laughed as he turned the spigot on and ran water into his mouth.

I said, “Check the expiration date before you swig in this house, Perry.” I handed him a clean dishtowel from the bottom drawer.

He wiped his mouth. “Thanks.” He threw the towel onto the top of the semi-clean dishes piled in the drainer. “Why can’t you use hers? It’s an automatic.”

“
It’s been impounded.”

“
Oh so the old girl finally ran up too many red-light tickets, I told her she had to pay those. She swore she didn’t have the money. I have no idea what she does with all her money but when you get done with the accountant, I’m sure we’ll have plenty of pleasant surprises. Well, me and Tammy will anyhow.” He laughed.

I simmered in quiet rage. I was great at suppressing it. A master suppressor, with forty-two years of experience. “Perry, I need a car. I can’t get home to my job and back here to take care of things.”