Crimson Footprints Part 21

"The drastic departure between Mahmoud and Maggie Lee. What's up with that?"

In the kitchen, Kenji nuked a fresh round of popcorn, snack food before he returned to his job of clipping and sorting for Deena. He'd taken to his job of a.s.sisting Deena in the organization of her prospects. To Tak, it was almost as if helping her succeed would be the equivalent of thumbing his nose at their dad.

"Mahmoud's a huge deal," she explained. "And I have to be realistic."

She returned to her legal pad. "Besides, I probably won't even contact him."

Tak sat down. "Of course you will."

He picked up Mahmoud's sheet again. "Where's this picture from?"

"Architectural Digest," Kenji said, returning with his popcorn. "Found it myself. There was a feature in there talking about his new book on fault tolerance."

Tak blinked. "On what?"

"Fault tolerance," Kenji said. He shoved a fist full of popcorn into his mouth. "It's a fail-safe for when part of an electrical system hits the skids. Keeps it operating."

Tak stared at his brother another moment, shrugged in surprise, then turned to Deena. "Maggie Lee seems o.k. Better than okay, even. But you shouldn't let Mahmoud's credentials intimidate you. Let him tell you no."

Deena shook her head, not bothering to look up. "You don't get it. I'm a kid to these people. A n.o.body."

"So?" Tak sighed. "Listen to me. You're brilliant. Anyone who saw your design," he reached for a roll of paper on the table, "who saw this, would want to work with you."

Deena blinked.

"Call Mahmoud. Please. And don't take no for an answer. Not at least, without letting him see this."

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE.

Two hundred pages bound and color-coded. Six graphs with corresponding appendices. Three flow charts, a budget, and one sleep-deprived architect. Deena's moment of reckoning was less than ninety minutes away.

In those moments of near-neurotic fear, she flipped through her proposal in an effort to calm herself. Her work was good. But good wasn't necessarily good enough.

It was an ode to organic architecture, and as such, a contradiction. Who'd ever heard of a skysc.r.a.per that mimicked nature? A jutting bolt of man-molded steel claiming to be a compliment to G.o.d's natural order?

But life was contradiction.

Deena turned to the profiles in the rear of her proposal. Mahmoud was still there, alongside other prominent names like Michael Hudson, professor of landscape architecture at Yale and a consultant for the '96 Olympics. Steve Marshall, a civil engineer and professor at the University of Southern California, whose books on coastal engineering were architectural gospel. And Claudia Oppenheimer, a designer whose name was outside the sphere of their world, but akin to that of Armani and Vuitton.

Of the three heavyweights she'd invited, Oppenheimer had been added to the team in a stroke of madness, brought on by Tak's contagiously naive encouragement. Now, as Deena stared at the potential design team, a veritable rock group in her world, her naivety and presumptuousness, her recklessness even, stared back at her, brewing and spreading a potent sort of horror.

She could hear Daichi as he flipped through the proposal-Mahmoud, Hudson, Oppenheimer. Impressive. While we're at it, we'll have the Beatles in the lounge and Julia Child in the kitchen. Next on the agenda: digging up Walt Disney, so he can sprinkle the fairy dust necessary for all this to come true.

Deena closed her proposal and rose from her desk. Her design was a good one. And she was a good architect. She would succeed. She repeated the mantra silently, as she made the trek from her office to the conference room. And when she entered, she found Daichi already seated at the head of the table with four junior partners in tow, two on each side. Daichi glanced at his watch and nodded. The clock was ticking.

With shaky hands, Deena set up the PowerPoint presentation she'd spent a night's sleep fussing over, her pulse reiterating the importance of the moment. She slid a copy of her proposal to each of the men present and waited. Deena stared at Daichi and Daichi stared back.

"Well?" he said rudely.

She closed her eyes and heaved a prayer at the heavens. When she opened them, her heart raced. It was win or go home.

CHAPTER THIRTY.

Lizzie stood at her locker, moments after the shrill of a five-minute warning bell and tried to remember her combination. The last time she'd opened it had been more than a month ago. With a grunt, she punched the aluminum slab and turned away. She didn't even know why she was there, at that stupid school with those stupid teachers and their stupid students. She scowled at them as they milled by, girls in trendy tanks or sw.a.n.ky skirts, boys in baggy s.h.i.+rts and fitted hats with the tags stilled attached, all of them in the newest and the latest. She glanced down at her own clothes, a white and cotton candy pink s.h.i.+rt that said Sweet and Sour, a pair of glittering and faded jeans, and the perfect high top Converse. Lizzie watched the girls as they pa.s.sed, laughing and gossiping, and wondered just briefly, if the things they wore were as hard to come by as the things she wore.

"Lizzie?"

She was startled by the sound of her name. She turned to the unfamiliar face, a short and dark boy with big black gla.s.ses, s.h.i.+ny, spit-filled braces, and an odor two stop lights past wrong.

"Go away," Lizzie said and turned back to her locker. She fumbled in frustration, aware of the boy still relentless at her back.

"I'm Harold," he said as if she'd been wondering. "You're in my sixth period English cla.s.s."

Lizzie shot him an exasperated look. "How the h.e.l.l would you know that? I don't even remember what I have for sixth period."

Harold s.h.i.+fted his weight, dark skin glistening with sweat despite the cool corridor.

"I saw you in it, at the beginning of the school year. Back, you know, when you used to come."

Lizzie tried to concentrate on remembering her combination. The numbers ran from 0 to 40, and there were five numbers in the sequence-or was it six? She frowned. If there were five, and five times 40 was 200 (was that right?), then that meant that she would have to try 200 different combinations before she found the right one. Lizzie sighed. She wished she had her sister's brain. She was always so good in Math and Science and English...and everything.

"I-I heard about Lucas' party."

Lizzie froze.

"What the h.e.l.l did you just say?"

"I-I just said that I heard about the party. Everyone has, really."

Lizzie turned and took a single menacing step towards him. "Do I look like I give a f.u.c.k what everyone has heard?"

She did of course, had skipped school for two weeks just to avoid the stares and whispers of boys who'd had her. But d.a.m.ned if she'd admit that now.

"I-I only said that because, well-"

"Well, what?"

"Because I got a hundred dollars for my birthday and-and I thought that I could give it to you. If you-you know."

Lizzie stopped. "A hundred dollars? Cash?" She eyed Harold with interest He nodded.

"Is it with you now?"

Again, he nodded.

She thought of what she could do with a hundred dollars. She could get a cell phone or an iPod, maybe even some makeup-the expensive kind that they let you try on at the cosmetics counter in the mall.

"You want to do it now?" Lizzie asked.

"No." Harold recoiled. "I-I've got cla.s.s and-and anyway you can suspended for that."

"So your house, then? After school?" She didn't want to miss out on that hundred bucks.

Harold shook his head. "My parents won't just let me bring a girl over and..."

Lizzie sighed. "Fine. Whatever. Just me at my locker after school. I know a place."

When Lizzie met Harold at just after three, the sun hung dull in the sky, rays blunted by an overcast sky. They walked for fifteen minutes-across a six-lane intersection, through an open field littered with trash, and pa.s.s an old railroad track. Near a series of blackened warehouses was an old hatchback, its make, model and color singed from recognition. Rumors abounded as to why it'd been burned.

"In here," Lizzie said, prying open the door. "This is o.k. if we hurry up."

Harold stared as she tossed an old tire iron from the back and pushed aside yellowed newspapers b.u.ms covered themselves with when they slept.

Lizzie turned to him, took in his sickly expression. "What? Are you scared?"

"A little," Harold admitted.

Her eyes became slits. "Well either way you pay me, since you're the one who's reneging."

She folded her arms and waited, thoughts of the Mac counter at Aventura Mall coming easier with the pa.s.sage of time.

"No, no. I'll do it." Harold nodded. "Just, get in."

When Lizzie climbed in, Harold slid in next to her. The interior was pungent. It was hot and smelled of b.u.m funk and Harold p.i.s.s. Still, she wanted that makeup. She peeled off her s.h.i.+rt and scooted out of jeans. And when she sat before Harold in not a whisper of clothes, he stared back her in lip trembling astonishment.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE.

Deena shoved open heavy double doors and spilled into the sanctuary just as Tak's silver Ferrari peeled out of the church parking lot. She tugged on the hem of her ivory jacket, tucked her black leather bible under her arm and squeezed onto the front pew between her grandmother and sister.

"You late," Grandma Emma said, scowling as Deena tuck wayward brown tendrils into her bun. After a night of Tak's fingers in her hair the coils were willful, unruly.

Deena wondered if she looked different. She certainly felt different. So much of her life had changed in the last two weeks. A single reckless presentation and a night in New York had changed everything for her.

"You needs to be on time. Ain't nowhere you needs to be more important than the Lord's house."

Deena met her grandmother's stare, aware of her ever present blush. She just couldn't suppress it.

"Yes ma'am," she muttered with what she hoped was deference.

Still, her thoughts were with the presentation. Had that been a twinkle of pride in Daichi's eyes, or a sliver of wishful thinking? And he'd actually said 'well done'? Certainly, not!

Grandma Emma continued to glare, and ordinarily, it would've been enough to upset her. But these days, little could deflate Deena Hammond. With her name attached to the most prestigious construction project in Florida, and with a human aphrodisiac, an insatiable, irresistible, positively indulgent Tak.u.mi Tanaka waiting for her at home, no amount of staring from Grandma Emma could dampen that. With the realization that she was smiling at her grandmother's hardened expression; Deena turned her attention to the pulpit.

"It ain't like you missed something," Lizzie mumbled rolling her eyes.

Deena frowned at her sister's spaghetti straps. Her blouse sculpted her b.o.o.bs with the aid of a diving neckline which allowed them constant movement. Deena scowled.

"Pull your s.h.i.+rt up before you lose those things."

Lizzie rolled her eyes, but obliged.

Deena faced forward, s.h.i.+fting in the tight seat. Her mind wandered already. Preliminary estimates for the Skylife project. Tak's hands. Follow-up phone calls. Tak's lips. The construction timeline. Tak inside her. Deena sighed.

She turned to the choir as they filed onstage. Two dozen men and women in bright white robes and not a single one with a distinguishable feature. Her vision blurred and melded together as she scolded herself for sinful thoughts in the house of the Lord.

They sprung to action, the pianist belting out a quick flurry of notes, the percussionist jumping in with a snare and the choir with a hand clapping sway that was instantly contagious. Next to Deena, Grandma Emma rocked with the music, her wide-brimmed hat bobbing with the beat. The sound from the choir chimed full and rich, and instinctively, a foot-tapping number about leaning on the Lord in times of adversity came together. It was rousing but humble, exciting the way only Black gospel can be. Deena clapped in time with them, her distractions forgotten. But when Cicely Williams' stepped out for her solo, Deena knew what would follow.

"That should be you singing," Emma shouted over the congregation's enthusiasm.

Thirteen years ago, when Deena was twelve, she'd brought the church to frenzy with the voice of a timeworn woman and the aid of the very same song. She'd been a child though, and not so much moved by the power of Christ, but rather, the necessity to show an equally young Cicely Williams who the better singer was. She'd peppered her song with a few well-placed 'hallelujahs,' and after that, there'd been no disputing it. Even back then, she was compet.i.tive as h.e.l.l.

Deena wondered what Tak was doing. She'd left him in her bed with the promise that she'd be gone for a few hours only. She glanced at her watch, unable to keep from wis.h.i.+ng she hadn't left him at all.

After tapering off to silence four or five times, Cicely dove back into song with foot stomping, hand-clapping fury. When it ended, Deena half expected the girl to roll on the floor, white robe and all, but of course, she didn't. Next to Deena, Grandma Emma brought a lace handkerchief to her face and dabbed sweat. Holy Ghost Fever was what Anthony used to call it, an ailment he was certain was three parts bulls.h.i.+t and one part hoopla.

Deacon Moore wanted them to pray, so Deena closed her eyes. He said something about tenderness and temptation and her thoughts turned to Tak. She bit her lip with the memory of his words after the first time they made love-husky, breathless, provocative whispers of how he dreamed of her, craved her and loved her. She remembered the way he teased her to fruition, touching her, filling her, his hardness forcing its way into an opening that seemed not to exist. She'd clung to him as he bore into her, shooting pain and pleasure with his penetration.

Eyes shut, Deena's breath ran shallow with the memory, her very core pulsing and heating in the sanctuary.

"Girl, what in the world are you doing?"

Deena's eyes flew open at the sound of Lizzie's voice.

"What?"