Vulnerable (13 page)

According to the time on her laptop, it was short of eleven o'clock and Tamara was not only wide awake, she was antsy. If she left now and went home, it would be nearly impossible for her to fall asleep when her head hit the pillow. She would toss and turn until dawn. With a small but unhindered view of the city's skyline, and even in the refuge of beautiful things, the severe stillness throughout the condo often made her feel depressed. A year ago she hired a part-time assistant, and occasionally when she took a trip, she trusted the young fashionista to watch over Threads. But the assistant fell in love with an up-and-coming Canadian musician and moved to Vancouver, B.C. to be with him. Tamara had not found anyone she trusted enough; thus, she could not up and leave. The melancholy was asphyxiating her. She turned off the laptop and decided to listen to music and have a glass of wine. Oftentimes, in moments like these, music and wine or half a joint brought her back to herself. But the pills, they did a number on her libido.

With champagne in her hand—the only alcohol she had in the fridge—and Dante Godreau playing soothingly from the speakers, Tamara relaxed on the plush velvet chaise in the rear of the boutique and crossed her ankles. The mellow sounds of Godreau would do the trick, even if it was a Band-Aid covering up a gunshot wound
to the neck. Yet she had not been stretched out long enough to let the stress of her day go before she leapt to her feet. Her problem—when Tamara stood still, she felt empty. Whenever she allowed herself to be quiet, to be
still
, she had good sense enough to recognize that there was nothing there. Although she dared never to speak such thoughts aloud, she felt it deep in her soul. Of late, she posed questions to her reflection in the mirror while applying bronzer to give her face a fresh glow: Who the heck are you? What do you stand for? What are your values? Tamara had always been a contradiction. She was fearless and yet terrified. Both kind-hearted and self-centered. Loving and equally detached. An only child, she never had to share. Sometimes, particularly when she was in her self-pity stage, she deeply regretted the DNA that genetically linked her to her parents, seeing as they had a hand in shaping her story line. However, Tamara could be remarkably sensible when she was emotionally objective and thus took full credit for the outcome of her life. Even though she was a successful designer and popular musicians wore her designs to the Grammys and American Music Awards, and on-the-rise actresses wore her designs to public events, she felt like a failure. Were it not for her parents, Tamara would not have had the luxury of jet-setting from continent to continent until she could figure herself out. Were it not for Henderson, she would not have her own boutique and design apparel for an affluent clientele.

So often she wished she could go back in time and start all over again and wipe the slate clean. She would not make the same choices twice. Even if it meant she would have to expunge every pleasurable second she experienced with Henderson, Tamara would not hesitate; she would do it in a heartbeat. If it meant that she could be admired, respected, and genuinely
awed
.

Regret was a waste of time, but isolation made her feel lonely.

Standing in the back of the store, a tight fist pressed against her hipbone, and the flute of champagne she held at its rim, she dared herself to cry.
Don't you even!

The telephone rang and she swirled around as though she heard someone attempting to break in. It was late; no one would think to call her here this time of night.

Tamara rushed to the ringing telephone, placed the flute on the cluttered desk and reached for the receiver. Panicked, anxious, she said, “Hello?”

“There you are,” Henderson said.

Tamara tried to clear her throat—the tears that were dying to get out were trapped in her gullet. “Hey, baby. How did you know I'd be here?”

“Okay, what's what?”

“What do you mean?” Tamara reached for the flute and took a gulp of the bubbly.

“We play Portland. Drive down.”

“Henderson…”

“It's not about that. Look, I know you, Tamara. Something told me to call you. I—maybe it's the connection we have… If you weren't so stubborn… Woman, I want to see you. You're the one friend who has a lot of my secrets locked up in your head. Come to Portland.”

Tamara could feel her anxiety subside, like the stillness of the terrain after a tsunami. She would never confess it to Henderson, but she was not sure where her feelings were going to take her this time. The fact that he called her suggested to Tamara he was worried that she might be struggling.
I should refill my prescription, and to hell with my libido. I'm celibate at the moment anyway.

When they made history together, she could go to dark places from time to time. Henderson often managed to talk her down,
to pull her back from the brink. Since they did not talk as often as they used to, and saw little of each other, he was entirely unaware of how intense and unpredictable her moods were becoming.

It took no more than a moment for her to switch from freezing cold to sizzling hot. In her good-natured voice, Tamara said, “Of course I'll come to Portland.”

•  •  •

A nor'easter was moving in, but Imani was hardly fazed by the clusters of heavy winds. She sat on a bench, making every effort to distinguish between her mood swings, trying to make sense of their fleeting nature. How long had she stared at the silver pigeons pecking at breadcrumbs nearby? She was not exactly sure how she found it in herself to break down and call Blaine, and what route she took to get to Washington Square. She could have taken a seat on the bench ten minutes ago; it could have been hours for all she knew. Of late, she lost track of time. One minute she was peeling a banana, the next she was sitting in the middle of the floor of her father's loft, her face buried in her hands, crying and having the hiccups. Imani was forgetting to brush her teeth.

Five weeks ago, when she called her half-sister whom she spoke to a few times a year, Imani had no idea her call would mutate her life forever. The change was so dramatic. Her sister Kenya was six years older than Imani, and Kenya's mother and their father had a one-night-stand while he was touring in Canada thirty-nine years ago. Kenya resented Imani, and Imani always assumed it was because their father was more present in her life growing up, not to mention he married her mother while he had no more than a casual relationship with Kenya's mother. The bitterness was often too intense to bear, so Imani kept her distance. But she did feel love for her sister and managed to be civil through phone calls,
and generally during the holidays. Their father's birthday fell on New Year's Eve; they met every year in New York to celebrate. Dante arranged for the same suite at the Marriott every year. They could see the ball drop on Times Square from their window. It had been a ritual since Imani was five years old.

When she had returned Kenya's call, Imani was unsuspecting of what she would hear on the other end of the telephone wire. Following her conversation with Kenya, instinctively, she had taken the ferry back to Seattle. One of her Pilates instructors lent Imani her cellular, and while crossing Lake Washington, she had made calls to the airlines, the pet hotel, and Jean-Pierre. Once she made it back to Seattle, Imani had driven blindly through mild afternoon traffic to her houseboat in Lake Union. Hurriedly, clumsily, she had pulled clothes from hangers and grabbed lingerie from drawers and toiletries from wicker baskets and had rushed to Sea-Tac and sat through a crowded and turbulent red-eye across every other northern state only to wait over an hour for a taxi at LaGuardia. The cabbie had dropped her at the door of her father's loft in TriBeCa, and Imani was so exhausted but too excited to even rest her eyes.

Kenya had greeted her with a constrained, “Finally! But it's too damn late!”

“What do you mean?” Imani had stood in the doorway of Dante's loft holding a designer overnight bag she had had for years. Her tired eyes were hidden behind a pair of sunglasses she bought on L.A.'s Melrose Avenue during one of their rare trips together to do something fun and irresponsible. More importantly, the trips were so that she and Kenya could bond.

“I can't believe you're still wearing those sunglasses, Im.”

“What do you mean
it's too damn late?”

While Kenya called their father Papa, Imani called him by his
birth name, Dante. His Lower Manhattan loft overlooked a small and quiet park on a criss cross street. Imani had flopped in a large, thick down-blend sofa. Glimpsing at the mauve-colored building across the way, she had watched a few nannies talking to one another in the park, baby strollers at their heels. When she was an infant, her mother would roam through that very park humming her lullabies. Imani always reflected back on her childhood in black and white, never in color. It was so strange. Removing her sunglasses, she had exhaled audibly, and her face had turned into a painful grimace. Through her tears, she could see Kenya standing a few feet away. Quite thin, Kenya was clad in old Levi's with holes in the knee, and her T-shirt endorsed McGill College in fading letters. Because her vision was blurred, Imani could not be absolutely sure, but she thought she had caught a grin on Kenya's makeup-free face.

With her hands trembling, Imani had wiped the tears from her eyes and along her cheek and chin. The pain she had felt went so deep she thought she might die from it.

Kenya had combed her fingers through her glossy black hair. When she sat on an ottoman, her elbows to her knees, she had asked, “Do you want to see Papa, Im?”

In a barely discernible voice, she had told her sister, “Yes.”

“Do you want to get some rest first?”

She had sniffed and wiped snot that rested between her nose and plump upper lip. “No. No, I need to see Dante.”

“You have to be tired. You flew all night.”

“No,” she had said. “I couldn't sleep right now.”

“All right. I'll change and we can go.”

Weeks after her father's funeral, she sat in the square and it began to empty out. The nor'easter was sweeping up dust and debris along the walkways. Despite feeling the chill in the air, Imani did not move. She never felt so alone.

“Imani?”

Slowly, she raised her head, and by the sight of Blaine's handsome face Imani's heart slowed and right then she knew she would be at the very least, safe. Blaine was a man Imani trusted to be “the one.” He was much too good-looking for his own good; yet it was his looks and well-recognized cleft that paid his way through Princeton. Imani trusted that by now she was over the fact that he was one of her not-so-bright judgments. The moment her eyes met his, she realized she missed him more than she ever could have previously conceived.
Love is bountiful.

He bent down and placed his large hands over hers to ease her nerves. Her eyes looked fatigued and bloodshot. Faint lines gathering along the corners of her eyes were not there when he last saw her, and they gave her beautiful face maturity, character. He figured she must have been crying herself to sleep for weeks, if she slept at all.

“Why haven't you returned my calls?”

“I don't know.” Imani bit her lip.

“I'm sorry I couldn't get back to the States in time for Dante's funeral. I feel bad about that.” He placed his palm gingerly against her cheek and tried to offer her his seductive grin.

Imani pursed her lips and attempted to say something, but the words were too stubborn.

“Come on,” Blaine said. “Let's go to my place.” When she did not stand, Blaine took her by the hand and said, “Come on, Imani.”

When she came to her feet, her legs were wobbly. She collapsed into Blaine's warm and generous arms.

R
awn's Jeep climbed the elevation on I-5 leading back into Seattle. The city's skyline—commonly referred to as the Emerald City—gleamed in the distance like Oz. Khalil was talking on his mobile and Rawn, in a good mood, grinned. Khalil had been talking about Moon for a couple of months now. He met her in London at a cocktail thing hosted by someone they both knew. Moon lived in London, and Khalil's job had him travelling between L.A. and London for six months. When their relationship became more than casual, often they had conflicting schedules, but because Khalil had more autonomy, he could do business remotely—in hotels and airports, or on a flight. As long as he had his laptop and BlackBerry, he could accommodate Moon's European schedule, Khalil was trying to talk Moon into going skiing with him during the holidays, but she wanted to visit her family in Indonesia.

From day-one, which was on the first day of school when they were in sixth grade, Rawn and Khalil were best friends. Over the years, they had each other's back without asking why. They showed up no matter what else was going on in their lives. A few years ago, Khalil dated a sitcom actress, and in time he would come to admit he became too fixated with her. It freaked the actress out, mainly because she had been aggressively pursued in the past, and once even stalked. Khalil was arrested when he showed up at her quaint Manhattan Beach house unannounced. He had not received a notification about her filing a restraining order against him.
Rawn was on the next Alaska Airlines flight to L.A. to bail him out. For years they found themselves attracted to the same girl. In ninth-grade they actually fought—punches and kicks, the whole works—over a girl. They arrived at the principal's office with bloody and torn shirts. But when they finally got beyond it—and they never talked about it again—they let nothing or no one get in the way of their friendship. More specifically, a female.

Rawn finally managed to squeeze his Jeep into a parking space on First Avenue.

When they entered New Orleans, the restaurant was bustling. Without reservations, they had to wait for a table. Once they were seated, musicians started playing.