Vulnerable (26 page)

“You have to leave. I've made up my mind. I need to tell Sicily…”

“How immature!
I need to tell Sicily…
You sound like some teenage boy afraid his mommy is going to catch him in a lie. It's rather interesting…amazing, actually. Because when you were in my mouth, you were very…receptive.”

“I take credit for my part in what went down. But you have to leave. I mean you have to
leave.”

She reached for his crotch. “Oh, boy. You want me, don't you?” She stroked him, and with her lips barely touching his, said, “This doesn't
lie.”

He grabbed her wrist tightly and said, “Leave!”

She laughed sarcastically. “Are you
sure?”

Rawn walked around Tamara. Annoyed and disgusted, he reached for the knob to the front door. “Leave.”

Without prolonging the inevitable, finally she left. For a good ten minutes, Rawn sat on the ottoman, amazingly frustrated. The telephone rang several times while he sat there. Probably his mother; could be D'Becca; one of the guys in the band checking to see if he was planning to be at the Alley. It did not matter. He
reached for his keys, and before he knew it he was going eighty across the floating bridge, headed for Seattle.

The night was dry but bitter cold.

When he pulled onto First Avenue, there were no parking spaces. He drove around for a good ten minutes before he came upon a space on James Street. He walked four blocks, and his mind had been spinning, spinning so erratically he failed to notice that he was underdressed and Occidental Square was quiet, empty. His bomber jacket was not enough for the raw air coming off Puget Sound, and Rawn had not worn gloves since he left Denver, but his fingertips felt numb.

Khalil urged him not to utter a word to Sicily about what went down with Tamara, but Tamara's idea of it being between the two of them was not reliable and he had to take it with a grain of salt. Besides, he wanted to come clean with Sicily almost immediately after he left Tamara's, but she was so caught up in this thing with Tamara that Rawn genuinely believed the kindest choice was to say nothing. Although he feared how things would go if he was fully honest with her, it would be insensitive on Rawn's part if he did not warn Sicily of the type of person she placed such faith in. Even if it meant losing her as a friend, he needed to catch Sicily before she ended up in a place she would spend years regretting.

His pace brisk, he turned onto Occidental. He bumped into a young woman, and beer splattered over her faux leather coat and Rawn's hand and bomber jacket sleeve.

“Oh, oh, I'm so…” The young woman's words ceased when she looked into his familiar bedroom eyes. Her grin shaped from ear-to-ear.

Rawn thought she looked ridiculously goofy. “It's okay.” He walked around her and threw her a perfunctory, “Stay warm,” over his shoulder.

The young woman called out, “You don't remember me?”

He spun halfway around to look at her standing there with her warm bottle of beer and silly grin. There was something vaguely familiar about her, but Rawn could not recall where they might have met, or if they ever had.

“Jazz Alley. I ask you if you got a girlfriend. You ask me what made a girl a man's girlfriend. Remember?”

Rawn slipped his hands in his jacket pockets to warm them up. The frost coming from the young woman's nose reminded him just how cold it was. “Yes,” he said. “Right.”

She took a few steps and said, “You okay? I mean you look…kinda sad.”

Rawn was too distracted to fully take in her words.

“Is it your girlfriend? She ain't doin' you right?”

“There's no issue with my girlfriend. I'm not sad.” His tone was borderline defensive.

She took a few more steps and tilted her head. “Well, you look it.”

“What's your name?”

“Stefanie.” She felt very attractive just by the idea that Rawn wanted to know her name.

“Stefanie, what are you doing out here in this cold?”

“My car won't start. I was over at the Latin Quarter. Left there, planning to go home. Don't got triple A, so I'm headed for the bus. But that's how fate work.”

“Fate?”

“Yeah. If my car started, I wouldna' run into you.”

“Where do you live?”

“The Beach.”

“Rainier
Beach, you mean.” He did a surveillance of the square. When he was walking toward Sicily's, he was distracted and did not see that the streets were mysteriously deserted.

“You wanna give me a lif'? I got gas money.”

For a suspended moment, he studied her young face. He remembered her now. What made it difficult for Rawn to place her at first was how different she was from when she attempted to pick him up at the Alley. Back then she tried too hard to look older, and her clothes and behavior made her look desperate. “I have something I need to do.”

“You thank?”

“What do you mean,
you think?”

“My mama always told me when you come up against a situation that ain't feelin' right, deal with it with a clear head. Rawn, you don't
look
clear, baby.”

“How did you get so wise?”

Her laugh was happy and genuine. “I guess it be genes. See, if you give me a lif', that might give you some time to thank about whatever it is you
thank
you need to do. 'Cause I betcha, if you had some more time to thank it through, you might just change yo mind.”

Whatever you do,
don't
tell Sicily.

“Okay, look. If you leave your car, you'll get a ticket. I have roadside service. I'll hook you up.”

“Baby, you so fine.”

•  •  •

While Troy went to his recently opened South Beach gym to show his face around the place for a few hours, D'Becca chose to stay at the condo. For quite some time, she stared at the brilliant morning sunshine and the bay that looked like glossy indigo-blue paint; the water was so blue it looked fake. The waves would come but so far, and suddenly, the water would become tranquil. How long did she stare at the mysterious, exotic beauty beyond Troy's extended living room window?

Without telling Rawn she was leaving town, D'Becca caught a red-eye to Miami two nights ago. Since Troy left for the gym, she had been gazing hopefully at her cellular for nearly two hours, wishing Rawn would call her and at the same time dying to call him. Every time she got up the nerve, something she could not name pulled her back. D'Becca imagined that it was a god's whisper, or just her own lack of courage.

When Troy picked her up at Miami International—his arms stretched out like wings to hold her—he looked amazingly at peace and there was life in his eyes like she had not seen before. He was so dark; the sun had tanned him three shades since she last saw him. Thinking back on it now, D'Becca realized how presumptuous she sounded when she asked, “Who are you sleeping with?” At that moment, where her mind was, she trusted that happiness was linked to intimacy, love, and another. Troy laughed and came back with, “Myself!”

When they first met, D'Becca needed a personal trainer to stay in shape. At the time she was getting a lot of work to model swimwear and it was crucial that she kept her body toned. Airbrushing took care of small imperfections—cellulite and stretch marks—but she needed to be
in
shape. Troy taught her how to eat better. A nutritionist by trade, he introduced her to organic foods and gave her the inside scoop on how to cheat and still stay in shape
and
eat healthy. He was desperately in love at the time and she had just met Sebastian. In time they realized while they genuinely liked each other, the attraction came from their dysfunction when it came to falling for the wrong man. It took no time whatsoever for them to become hanging buddies, going to dinner and taking day and weekend trips to Victoria where Troy had friends. The first couple of years they held each other when they needed someone to lean on. So it came as a complete shock to D'Becca that he looked not just physically healthy, because Troy had a great body
even at forty-one years old, but he was, as he said the evening before,
in the best place I've been in my life.
Because she had not heard him say anything like that before, she took him at his word.

But within hours of being in Miami, perhaps it was envy that made her say, “It's only been four months. What saved you in such a short time?”

“I stopped going out with people because I was very attracted to them. I spent days—even weeks—alone and got in touch with in here.” He pointed at his chest. “I can't keep falling apart just because someone breaks up with me, Becca.”

“But…”

“I didn't want to tell you. I knew it sounded desperate and wretched. I know that if things worked between Jim and me, I'd never have left Seattle. Before we got serious, I spent two years working on opening a place in South Beach. I kept putting it off because I was in love with someone who lived thousands of miles away and had a business there so he couldn't tail behind me. Anyway, I moved to that gloomy town just to be
with
Jim.”

The sound of D'Becca's cellular, which she held in her hands, shifted her thinking. The familiar number displayed across the screen was her agent's. Their conversation lasted ten minutes. D'Becca needed to pack and be in New York the following morning—early. She would only have to work for two days, three at the most, but work would do her good. While she was packing, her cellular rang. She looked over at the mobile across the room set on the nightstand and knew it must be Sebastian, who had been calling her several times a day without leaving messages.

When she reached for the mobile, it was the call she had prayed for all morning. “Rawn?”

But he had hung up before she could answer. Her first impulse was to call him back, but not aware of why, she halted. D'Becca's
heart was racing; she was so confused and at a loss. She flopped on the bed and stared at the cellular for several minutes, her mind going back and forth to the conversation she had with Troy the previous morning.

“I'm pregnant, Troy.”

Troy had been making a smoothie and talking about having a small get-together so D'Becca could meet some of his friends. He dropped the banana he was about to peel. “Did you say you're pregnant?”

D'Becca had been washing blueberries in the sink. Her voice was detached from her emotions, and “Yes” had sounded like it came from someone else in the room.

“Pregnant?” Troy repeated. “By…Who's the father? Do you even
know?”

It was then D'Becca broke down. For fifteen minutes, while she sobbed uncontrollably, Troy held her. Eventually, when she pulled herself together, she said, “What am I going to do?”

“Do you want this baby?”

“Troy…” She had sniffed her runny nose. “I'm not particularly mother material. I'm selfish; I don't like cleaning Chai's litter box. Do you really think I'm up for changing diapers?”

“Do you have any idea who the father is? No, wait! Becca, why weren't you using protection? Aren't you on the Pill?”

“A month ago I was working in Montréal—it was a last-minute thing and I was rushing…and I left my birth control at home. I don't understand…There's a doctor in every city—models have access to them, and they'll give you a pill for anything. He refilled my prescription. I
was
using birth control, Troy. The only time I slipped up ever was in Montréal. Two days, that's all.”

“Okay, let's figure this out. How many weeks?” When Troy had looked over to D'Becca, she seemed to be multiplying in her head
the number of days she was late. Troy had said, “It has to be only weeks because you don't look pregnant.”

“Thank God, because I need to work.” With wet eyes, D'Becca had added, “I think I'm about four weeks. I haven't had any morning sickness. Is that unusual?”

With a
how-should-I-know
look, Troy had asked, “What if this baby's Rawn's?”

D'Becca bowed her head and had let out a heavy sigh. “I don't know. If I had a choice, I'd want Rawn to be the father. It wasn't until I began to spend time with Rawn that I realized I didn't love Sebastian. I was in love with…something, but not Sebastian.”

“So would he—would Rawn be okay with having a biracial kid?”

“I'm not sure, but Rawn's not…By nature he's not the hypocritical type. I just don't know if this is something he would want.” Unconsciously, D'Becca had brushed away tears that stained her cheek.

“Would he?…”

“I know what you might be thinking. Trust me, Rawn is accountable. He would never turn his back on
his
child. But I don't know that it would be fair to do this to him.”

“Fair?”

“This wasn't planned. We never talked about having children. I know he loves teaching young people, but is he ready for that level of responsibility right now?…”

“If you don't want children, do what needs to be done to make sure that doesn't happen. Yes, condoms aren't foolproof—nothing is. But I don't leave home without one. Any man who doesn't want to leave something behind that might in any way implicate him…especially having babies he doesn't want or isn't ready to have… Come on! Both people need to take responsibility. There's an epidemic out there, and it doesn't discriminate. You've been sleeping with two men. You should've protected both of them, and you should've used a condom every time.”

“Rawn did… Except…three times he didn't.”

“And what if it's Sebastian's?”

D'Becca had swallowed hard. “He said he didn't want more children. Three was his limit. I promised him I would never do that to him.”

“You're a lot of things, Becca. Risqué and reckless as hell. But you do keep your word.”