Human Hieroglyphix - Dex & Leila (2 page)

Logically, I knew that he was probably going to cheat no matter who his wife/partner was.  But my heart had still taken a hit when he blamed me when he was caught out by the husband of one of his conquests.

That husband, in turn, had called me with all the gritty, dirty, dismal details or as much as I could understand through his sobs.

And, at the time, I remember wondering why the man was crying.

I remembered my own crying.  Tears of sadness, when my divorce was finally final.  But that was nothing compared to the tears of humiliation and anger that were drying on my cheeks now.

I had never been a girl that was all that concerned about her appearance.  Geez, my mother had both her own and my concerns sewn up in that regard.

When other girls were playing with Barbies, I was being swept away by whatever book I was reading at the time. 

In high school, when other girls were experimenting with different hair styles and makeup or giggling over some boy, I had my nose in a book or found with a pen in my cramped hand, writing my own stories. 

I was intent on getting into college and knew that my grades were my ticket to get there.  Well, they were part of my ticket to get there.  The inheritance my dad had left me was going to actually fund my education.

I heard my cellphone ring from somewhere in the corner of the room and I grabbed my glasses so I could better find it.  I'm not totally blind without them, but the blurry shapes actually pop into sharpness with them on. 

Finding my cell in the pocket of the skirt I had been wearing, I answered right as the person hung up.  A quick scroll and I saw it had been my best friend Emily calling, another professor at the University of Colorado at Grantham. 

Her area of expertise was psychology.

I cleared my throat as I called her back.  I didn't want to give her any reason to use her specialist knowledge to dissect me.  Emily had the uncanny ability to cut right to the chase if you showed any emotion she didn't find appropriate for the situation at hand.  And, until I worked this out in my head, I didn't want Emily in on it.

"Hey, Em," I said as calmly as I could.

"Hey, Leila.  Tried to speak with you after your last class but Carla said you had turned the session over to her because you weren't feeling good."

"Yeah, had something hit me from out of the blue," I replied knowing I wasn't necessarily
lying
, but using words that I well knew could mean several different things.

 Emily also had the most amazing Bullshit radar, so one had to be very, very careful when talking with her.  I had watched and cringed as Emily called Bullshit on just about everyone that she thought was lying from busboys to sales clerks to inanimate objects like ATMs.

"Do you still feel like meeting for dinner?"  Emily and I had dinner out at one of our local restaurants every Tuesday night since neither one of us had any classes on Wednesday.

"Sure.  Where'd you want to go?" I sighed.  I knew what she was going to say, what she
always
said when given the choice of where to eat.  "But you can't say Enrique's."

"We love Enrique's though." I heard her whine.  Grown women shouldn't whine, I caught myself thinking cattily.

"Yes, but, we go there way too often.  How about Luigi's?"  If Enrique's had no rival in Mexican cuisine, then Luigi's was their equal for their Italian food.

"I'm not sure they've reopened."

"I'd forgotten about that."  And I had.  There had been a fire in Luigi's kitchen and the owners had decided to do a complete overhaul of the interior.  I thought it was a good idea since the décor had been something along the lines of a 1950's idea of what an Italian restaurant should look like.

"I've got it!" Emily cried into the phone.  "Let's go to Henry's."

Henry's was a bar and restaurant located in the Grantham Hotel.  It had great food that was reasonably priced and the ambience was gorgeous.

"Agreed.  Want to meet there at six-thirty?"

"See you there." I heard before Em disconnected.

I took a deep breath and moved to my shower, grabbing the clothes I had flung off in my fit of temper.  Maybe having dinner in a different place was just what I needed to shake off the residue of my hurt, I thought as I turned on the hot water.

Chapter Two

We were seated pretty quickly in spite of having no reservations.  The restaurant was busy but not crushingly so and we were able to snag a booth that faced the bar and lounge. 

There was a bit of a production as we removed our knitted caps, scarves and gloves before shaking ourselves out of our boxy overcoats.  While it was March and officially Spring, the nights were still cold here in our little corner of the Rockies.

I glanced over at Emily and saw she was wearing the same style clothes as I was wearing.  Although the colors were different, the whole ensemble was the same from the button down shirt (mine was white, her's blue), trousers with the elastic in the back (mine navy, her's black) and flat-heeled black boots. 

We're twins, I thought and the thought hurt. 

I mean we obviously look different, me with my dark hair and eyes and Emily with hair that was neither blonde nor red but a color somewhere in between.  My hair was pulled back and knotted around itself, held in place by the ever present, color appropriate, scrunchy. 

Emily kept her hair in a bowl cut.  The same cut she'd had since she was two years old.

I know that for a fact because I'd seen the pictures.

I grabbed the menu to force my thoughts in a different direction.  The waitress came to ask for our drink orders and recite the specials available.

"I'd like a dirty martini," I said without thought as I was still looking over the six page menu.

I heard Emily sputter into the water she had been sipping.

"What?" I asked idly, trying to decide if I wanted chicken or fish.

"A dirty martini?  Do you even know what's in one?"

I shrugged trying to be as nonchalant as possible.  But I knew what she was getting at.  We both had white wine.  Every time we went out, we both ordered the house white.

But tonight?

Dammit, tonight I was going to be different.  I was going to at least try something new.

Our waitress, identified as Gloria by the name tag pinned over her left breast, came back with our drinks and a basket of bread asking if we were ready to order.  I watched her as she took Emily's order first.

Gloria's reddish brown hair was pulled up but had cute, curly bangs and a few stray curls by her ears and twirling around her neck.  I could tell she was wearing makeup but it was done subtly with the exception of her cherry red, shiny lips.  My eyes dipped to Gloria's hands as Emily went through her usual routine of substituting everything she possibly could for whatever it was she had ordered. 

Knowing I wasn't going to placing my order any time soon, I studied Gloria's hands with her short, rounded nails that were as shiny as her lips and had the whitest tips I'd ever seen.  She was wearing a couple of small rings and a gold bracelet encircled one of her wrists.

I didn't wear jewelry.  I had no objection to it, per se, but never had the inclination to wear it.

Emily was done with her order and Gloria turned to me.

"I'd like the petite filet mignon, medium rare," I said surprising even myself with that one.

"What would you like with that?" Gloria asked with a smile, although I was certain that the smile was just a wee bit forced as she braced herself for another litany of substitutions for my choice.

"Surprise me," I instructed softly and smiled right back at her as her smile brightened.  I watched Gloria walk away noting that she was wearing hose and heels.  Not a tall heel, but enough of one to be called heels. 

"What's with you tonight," Emily asked.  "New drink, new food.  I've never even seen you eat beef before.  And, what's with the 'surprise me'?  What if she brings something you don't like?"

"Just needed a change I guess," I said my eyes roaming over the other diners and the staff.  "If I don't like it, I don't have to eat it."

Emily started on one of her more familiar tirades about the head of her department that she called, 'the Dragon'.  Since it was a theme that I'd heard before, I tuned her out and studied the other female patrons and staff. 

I felt like I was seeing something for the first time even though I'm sure I'd seen other women dressed up before, but I hadn't really seen them, if you know what I mean.  I didn't know if what they were wearing was in good taste or bad, all I knew is that it was different, very different than what I had on.

I watched their mannerisms, their smiles and eyes as they talked, laughed and flirted--at least, I thought they must be flirting as their faces were pointed to the man seated with them.

My eyes caught on a woman that had just walked into the bar area.  Strike that,
sauntered
into the bar.

I couldn't help it, I stared at her.

She was everything that I wasn't, from the top of her shiny light brown, layered hair to her very high, red, platform heels.  She was wearing a red, sequined tank top that showed off some major cleavage with a short, denim skirt.  She wasn't petite or even slim, but she had curves and they worked for her in a big way.

She walked right up to the bar, hips swinging and I saw that every man in both the restaurant and bar did a head swivel her direction when they heard her laugh as she traded high fives with the bartender.  She said something in a lowered voice to him and then turned towards the restaurant and leaned back, her elbows on the bar thrusting her chest out as she surveyed the room.

Her face wasn't so much pretty as striking and her makeup, which was a lot heavier on the eye stuff than Gloria's, seemed to make the most of her features. 

She had a beautiful smile, one that she aimed at no one in particular as she gazed around the room.  Her lips were shiny like Gloria's but hers didn't seem to have any color and yet appeared to be just shiny.

I moved my eyes back to Emily to gauge exactly where she was in her rant and took a sip of my drink, trying not to poke myself in the eye with the festooned toothpick that held two olives.  The drink was smooth and ice cold, only giving the slightest 'bite' as it slipped down my throat.  I noticed a warmth spreading as the liquor hit my stomach. 

Tuning back into Emily, I recognized I still had another five to ten minutes left before we could talk about something else.

I heard a squeal and glanced up as the gorgeous woman in the bar begin to run.  Began to
run
in her sky-high, red heels, her arms straight up while laughing as she moved.  She even had a great laugh.

I sighed and took another sip of my brand new, favorite drink.

I heard a deep chuckle mix with the tinkling of her laughter and saw that her arms were now wrapped around the shoulders of a very tall man who was essentially carrying her back into the bar.  I couldn't really see much of him except for a pair of well worn jeans, a light blue button down shirt and sun streaked, brown hair that looked about two months overdue for a trim.

 I watched as the man bent and settled the woman onto one of the bar stools before he straightened and did some kind of intricate handshake with the bartender before he turned back to the woman and placed a light kiss on her forehead.

From the back, this man was gorgeous.  Long legs that led into a round, clutchable ass, and shoulders wide enough to create the 'wonder vee', that ratio of shoulders to waist that sets some men up a pedestal just because of the sheer glory of that definition. 

And when he turned and his face was in profile, I held my breath.  No one could be, should be, that good looking just in profile.  Because if they looked that good from the side, they were going to be stunning when they offered you a full face view. 

I dropped my eyes and made a point of taking a couple of deep breaths.  But even with my eyes closed, that gorgeous hunk was
seared
into my retinas.

"So, then I told the Dragon…"  Good.  Emily was almost done and I could see Gloria coming over with Em's soup and my salad.

I took the remaining sip of my martini and smiled to myself as I raised the olives, that garnished my drink, to my lips.

"So how's it going on your side of the campus?" Emily asked and I was thankful that I had tuned into her before she had finished her dissertation.  We talked shop through the remainder of our meal. 

My steak was unbelievably good and Gloria had surprised me with rice pilaf and perfectly cooked baby carrots, the entire meal completely different than any I had ever ordered.  And wonderfully good, maybe just for the
reason
that it was different.

"You going back to Ohio for spring break?"

Every year since I'd moved to Grantham, which where I landed after my divorce, I'd go back to Ohio to see my mom for every holiday during the school year.

"Yes, what about you?"  Emily's large family like to meet up in different locations for holidays and other gatherings that required family attendance.