Until the End of Time (6 page)

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Authors: Melanie Schuster

BOOK: Until the End of Time
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Andrew ignored her words and continued to talk about the brave little boy. “The thing is, Bennie, I’ll have to continue to operate on him for years, because he’s still growing. In order to accommodate his growth, every so often I have to go back in with my little scalpel and rearrange him. This is in addition to trying to give him a nose and ears and a mouth so people won’t make his life more of a hell than it is.” Andrew’s eyes were moist with emotion. “And it’s all because his bastard of a father was a certifiable nutcase. Life sucks, Benita. It really does.”
Bennie put her arms around her twin and held him. “But Andrew, this little guy has something that’ll get him through all this. He has you. You’re going to take the best possible care of him and ultimately, he’ll have a much, much better life because of your skill. You’re blessed to be able to give him that, you know.”
Andrew patted his sister on the back and pulled away from her. “I’m
trained
to give him this kind of care, Bennie, not blessed. My expertise is the result of about ten very expensive years of schooling; it’s not a gift from God. Please don’t tell me you’re beginning to believe what you read about me,” he said with a look of comic distress. “I love my work but I’m not that different from the guy who works on your Jaguar. This is what I was interested in and this is what I trained to do. And that’s it,” he added with finality. “Other than that, I’m just your average guy who gets tired, gets lonely, and,” he said reflectively as he rubbed his stomach, “gets hungry. Got anything to eat?”
They went up the stairs to the kitchen, arriving there just when Renee blew in the back door looking like ‘Dammit, I’ll bite you’. Anyone else would have taken that as a cue to leave her alone, but in the mood Andrew was in, she looked like fair game. He didn’t start on her immediately, but he looked her over carefully to zero in on something that would rile her and possibly make her laugh. Despite his seeming insistence on making her life miserable, it would have pained Andrew greatly to make her really unhappy. And she definitely looked out of sorts tonight.
However, she also looked delectable in her sexy peach dress. Andrew watched her closely as she went to the refrigerator and extracted a bottle of mineral water. She and Bennie chatted quietly while she reached for a glass. As she raised her arm to take a stemmed goblet from the top shelf, her body stretched in a way that sent alarms all over Andrew.
Damn, she’s sexy
. It wasn’t the first time that he had thought such a thing, certainly, but tonight was the first time in a long time that a wave of sexual urgency had engulfed him so swiftly. He swallowed hard and tried to focus on something other than the shape of Renee’s derriere, her full, firm thighs and those enticing calves that were displayed so beautifully. The phone rang, causing Bennie to pause in her perusal of the refrigerator. “Hello, Clay,” she said happily.
It was her new male interest, a man she had met the previous month and who seemed to be equally as interested in her. Andrew knew she’d be on the telephone for some time, so he chose the coward’s way out and beat a hasty retreat. Before he did so, though, he couldn’t resist. Turning to Renee who was sitting on a tall stool by the work island in the center of the kitchen, he asked her to let Bennie know he’d changed his mind about eating.
“
Tell her I’ll call her later, okay?”
Renee nodded absently—she was still ticked off about the scene in the restaurant. Andrew took advantage of her bemused state to lean over and whisper, “You know, you look good enough to eat in that dress.” Then he leaned even closer. Renee gasped softly in surprise but didn’t move until Andrew had departed, whistling as he left the house. She was still motionless a few minutes later when Bennie walked in. “Where’d Bunchy go?” she asked, looking around the room.
“
He left. He said he’d call you,” Renee replied.
Bennie looked at her friend again. “Why do you have that strange look on your face?” she inquired.
Finally, Renee looked directly at Bennie. “Because Andrew told me I looked good enough to eat. And then he
licked
me,” she answered. At Bennie’s shocked look, Renee repeated her statement. “He licked me; just a little lick, right on the cheek.” Renee finally stood up and turned to leave the room, taking the glass of mineral water with her. She looked at Bennie once more before she left the room and said, “I don’t know what’s wrong with your brother, but I’ll bet it has a long name.”
Like the good friend that she was, Bennie waited until Renee had gone up the stairs before she burst out laughing.
***
Bennie wasn’t at all surprised when Renee came into her room later that night. She knew her friend well enough to know when something was bothering her. So when Renee showed up in her doorway bearing a tray with a split of wine and two crystal flutes, Bennie was more or less expecting her. She took the tray from Renee’s hands while Renee made herself comfortable on the end of the bed. She uncorked the wine and poured it out, waiting for her friend to start talking. Renee accepted the glass that Bennie held out to her and stared morosely at its contents without speaking. Bennie decided that it must be really bad—Renee was many things but never reticent.
“
Okay, spill it. Whatever it is can’t be that bad,” Bennie said consolingly.
Renee looked at Bennie with a mixture of sadness and defiance on her face. “It’s bad enough,” she mumbled. “I’ve been dumped again. That’s right, me, the original Miss Thing has been dumped. Twice in one week. On consecutive days, no less. How ya like them apples,” she finished drolly.
Bennie demanded details, which Renee supplied grudgingly but thoroughly, leaving nothing out. So there you have it. First Edwin, he of the retractable spine, decides to go back to his ex-wife, a woman who is two decades my senior. Then Carlo the Sicilian snake takes up with this Big Girls cover girl lookalike. What’s the point of dieting and exercising like a madwoman if the big chicks are going to get all the men? I ask you!” Renee ended her tirade with a large gulp of wine, then heaved a deep sigh which turned into a miserable little hiccup. It was a sign of how bent she was that she made a crack about Angela’s weight, something that she would have never done had she been in her right mind. Bennie decided to derail her train of righteous indignation before it left the station.
“
Now Renee, let’s be honest. You weren’t in love with either of those men. You barely acknowledge their existence most of the time. So it’s not like you can sue anybody for alienation of affection. When you have several escorts it’s to be expected that you’ll lose interest and move on, or they will. Why are you wasting your energy on this? They were your
dates
, not your boyfriends,” Bennie said fairly.
Renee scowled like a five-year-old and tried to get Bennie to see that she had been treated badly by the scoundrels in question. Bennie wouldn’t back down, though. “Renee, what I don’t understand is why you settle for these kinds of relationships. There are some very nice men out there, men with whom you could have a wonderful, meaningful relationship. But you never want more than a steady escort. Why is that?” Bennie pressed.
This was certainly not the first time that they had had this conversation, and Renee feared it would not be the last. She always dreaded this point because there was no simple answer. She tried turning the tables on her friend.
“
Well, Bennie, why do
you
want more? Why are you so interested in this Clay Deveraux person all of a sudden?” Bennie’s face immediately turned soft and dreamy, as did her voice.
“
Clay is
exciting
, Renee. He’s smart and handsome and ambitious and accomplished and adorable. He’s also very, very sexy.
Very
. And yes, I want more. I want a lot; marriage, children, family, house, dog, the whole enchilada. I loved being married. If Gilbert had lived, we would’ve four children by now, at least. I still miss him, you know. I miss his friendship, his company, his laughter; I miss everything about him. I miss being married to him. I’m not going to kid you, I loved that closeness and I want it again.” Bennie took Renee’s empty flute and rinsed it along with hers in the bathroom sink.
“
And you know what, Renee? I think you want it, too. But you just won’t admit it,” Bennie said. She flopped across the bed on her stomach and rolled over on one side to survey Renee’s face.
Renee tried to put on her usual mask of indifference, but it wasn’t possible with Bennie. Bennie knew almost everything there was to know about her friend and it was no good trying to pretend. Renee sighed deeply and pretended to look at her fingernails. Bennie tried again to get Renee to talk. “C’mon, you can’t tell me that all you want out of life is a series of dates with handsome men who’re terrified of you,” Bennie teased.
Renee smiled wanly and tried to go along with the joke. “And what’s wrong with that? Sounds like a perfect life to me,” she said with a laugh that sounded phony even to her. She sighed again and then admitted something the she never thought she would own up to.
“
I’m not as heartless as I seem, Bennie. I think sometimes, sure, yeah, why not get married. Then I go home and see my sisters and those idiots they’re hitched to and I get the nervous trembles. Then I look at my mother and think about what Daddy did and I think, no way in hell am I going out like that.” Renee rose from the foot of the bed and started fiddling with various objects on Bennie’s dressing table. Revealing her innermost thoughts always made her fidgety.
Bennie looked at her friend with sympathy. “Ne-ne, I know that you don’t have the best impression of marriage, but just remember two things. Number one, that’s somebody else’s reality. That’s their life and it doesn’t have to be yours. It
won’t
be yours because you are a totally different person with totally different expectations and ideals. And number two,” Bennie sat up to make sure Renee was listening “Nobody says you have to get
married
, for heaven’s sake. But you owe it you yourself to fall in love.” Renee spun around from the dressing table and looked at her friend as though she’d suggested parasailing nude on the Detroit River. Bennie held her ground, though. “Yes, indeedy, that’s just what you need; a hot, steamy, messy love affair that’s filled with passion. It’ll make a new woman out of you, I guarantee it,” avowed Bennie.
Renee continued to look at her friend as if she had lost her mind, then a sly smile spread over her face. “So, is that what you’re doing with this Clay Deveraux?” she asked archly. To her surprise Bennie didn’t deny it, but smiled a very private and lovely smile.
“
Damned skippy,” was all she said in reply.
Renee couldn’t deny the truth of what Bennie was saying, although she wanted to argue her down. She couldn’t, not without revealing her true feelings. So she changed the subject and led the conversation to other matters, including Andrew’s recent behavior. Bennie had a suggestion for that, too.
“
Renee, you know Andrew likes you. All my family adores you; they think of you like one of the family. Just give him back as good as he gives you. I’ve been telling you that for years. If he thinks he can get to you, he will. And he sees right through that air of sophistication of yours. You have to get down and dirty with him and he’ll back off,” was Bennie’s advice.
“
Oh, so I should have licked him back today?” said Renee with amusement.
Bennie laughed. “Well, it would have given him something to think about that’s for sure.”
Renee was too weary to laugh, but she did give Bennie a weak smile before going off to her own rooms. She wasn’t thinking about giving Andrew something to think about; Renee had plenty to think about on her own.
***
For the next few weeks Renee managed to maintain an outward semblance of normalcy. Her day-to-day appearance and demeanor didn’t portray the unsettled feelings that were roiling about inside. The defection of two of her minor beaus was yesterday’s news; she was quite over that. As Bennie had pointed out, it wasn’t as though she was enamored of them in any real way. Bennie had given her a lot to think about, especially the thing about falling in love. Normally Renee would’ve ignored her, but the idea wasn’t nearly as repellent as it had been in the past. It was probably Bennie’s influence because she was certainly taking her own advice.
Renee had only seen a picture of Clay Deveraux, the man who Bennie was so enamored of and it had frankly frightened her. She’d seen a grainy reproduction of an old newspaper picture featuring a skinny man with braids and a virtual scimitar of a nose. When Bennie met him in person, she insisted that he was quite good-looking, something that Renee had seen for herself when she went with Bennie to Chicago. Bennie had attended some kind of media conference where she renewed her acquaintance with Clay and Renee met him in person at last. Bennie was totally right; Clay Deveraux was absolutely gorgeous and furthermore he was totally smitten with Bennie. So much so that he was visiting her in Detroit for Memorial Day weekend.
Renee had a chance to observe them closely before the huge cookout that Benny Cochran threw every Memorial Day. They were sweet and tender with one another and obviously thrilled to be together. Any fool could see that they were well on their way to true love. Maybe it was the fact that her best friend was poised on the precipice of Something Big that made Renee so interested in passion all of a sudden. Bennie was, after all, one of the most levelheaded people that Renee had ever known and she was floating along in a rosy haze of bliss. Even when Bennie was dating her first husband, Gilbert, she didn’t have a glow quite like the one surrounding her now. That fact, more than anything else, made an impression on Renee because she knew how deeply Bennie had loved Gilbert and how devastated she had been when he died.

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