Lotus Blossom (2 page)

“My mother was born in Peking. She went to Tokyo to study.” She paused. Why was she telling this man her life story?

“Go on.” Dash urged in soft tones.

“Ah . . . well, there isn’t much to tell. My parents were killed in an auto accident after we returned to Japan. I was seven years old at the time. . . . You don’t want to hear all this . . .” Lotus felt embarrassed. When had she become so confiding? She was actually babbling in front of a stranger.

“Yes, I do,” Dash answered honestly. He had often told women he wanted to know more about them, then he would find himself bored before the story was finished. But now he found himself intrigued with every word she said. “Were you named after the creaminess of your skin? It’s like a lotus.”

Laughter rippled from her throat, bringing his glinting gaze there. “I was called Lotus because of the beautiful flowers that abounded in our garden in Tokyo. What’s wrong? You have a strange look on your face.”

“Do I?”
What a smile and laugh she has! What a sweetheart!
He could feel his pulse rate increase. “Have dinner with me tonight?”

“I can’t,” Lotus told him, wishing for a moment that she could. “I have to work.” She glanced at her watch. “Oh, Lord, I’m late now.” She moved toward the door, but again he stopped her.

“Have supper with me after your shift.”

“I can’t. I’m almost engaged,” she lied, wondering what Jeremy, her occasional escort, would say to that. She stepped back as she watched the smoky blue of his eyes turn to azure steel.

He lifted one of her hands. “No ring.”

“I’m just going to have a wedding ring. We’ll probably marry in a couple of years.” She babbled, compounding the lie. She clamped her lips together, angry with herself for talking so much.

"He’s a fool,” he muttered, irritated at the relief that filled him knowing that no marriage was imminent. What the hell was she doing in his office in the first place? “You never did tell me why you’re in my office.”

"No, I didn’t, did I? Ah, you see, I was going to ask you if I couldn’t audition for the chorus.” She gulped. Well, she could dance, and music had been her minor in college. In fact, she had sung the lead in “Flower Drum Song,” when her university had put it on.

"I see.” He looked her over again, enjoying his leisurely perusal of her more than he had enjoyed looking at anyone in a long time. “I think you Wouldn’t fit in with our showgirls, Lotus. Most of them are five feet eight to six feet in height. You can’t be more than five four.”

“I’m five five.” She lifted her chin. Wasn’t it enough that her brothers called her Small Change without hearing it implied from a stranger?

He leaned toward her. “So tiny but so tough. Tell me about your family.”

“I was adopted by friends of my parents right after my parents’ death. Daddy had been named in my father’s will as my guardian in case of such an eventuality. They had two boys, Todd, who was twelve, and Robert, who was ten. I’m the youngest child.”
Why do I keep on talking?
Lotus agonized taking a step backward.
He’s a man who could put me in prison!
“I have to go to work.”

“All right, darling.” He leaned down and kissed her lightly on the mouth. “I’ll see you after your shift.”

Lotus could feel her lips moving but no sound came forth. She finally walked toward the door. If Dash hadn’t reached around her and opened it, she would have walked right into it.

She kept on walking, feeling his eyes on her, but she never looked back.

The casino and restaurant were jammed with people, some laughing and shouting and dancing, but most serious and quiet, never lifting their eyes from the dice, cards, or roulette wheel.

Lotus moved among the people, taking some pictures, but not as many as she would have liked. It was hard to make a living doing this. Most casino devotees concentrated on gambling. The last thing they wanted to spend money on was pictures. It was tough going, but little by little Lotus was making the quota she needed in order to make any profit on the straight commission job. As it was, she lived in a tiny room on the top floor of a rooming house. She had to go down to the third floor to use the bathroom and shower facilities. Many times it troubled her that she had been so secretive with her family, but if any of them even guessed what she was doing, she would have been whisked away from Las Vegas in a flash. She shrugged as she thought of the room she was renting, but knew that it wouldn’t be for much longer. She had put her shoulder bag in her locker before she had started her shift. So all she had to do was take the file out after work, bring it to Petras to copy—and then she could leave Vegas and return home.

“Hey, sister, get over here. Me and my wife want a picture with our friends.” A heavyset man in an open-necked shirt waved at Lotus.

“Yes, sir.Coming.” Lotus hurried over weaving in and out of the tables in one of the casino’s restaurants.

After she had taken the photos and noted that there didn’t seem to be any other customers in the restaurant, she made her way back to the gaming rooms to see if there would be any work there. “Just a few more and I’ll make the rent money,” she mumbled to herself.

“Would you mind taking my picture?” Dash touched her arm, smiling down at her,

Lotus smiled back. “You don’t need me to take your picture.”

“But I do.” He looked past her and gestured to someone. “Lana, come here.”

Lotus turned around to see Lana Dalbey, one of the showgirls, sway up to Dash and put her hand through his arm, reaching up to kiss his mouth at the same time. Lotus had a burning wish to kick her right in her high instep.

“Lotus wants to take our picture.” Dash lifted his head and turned the tall lissome blonde to face Lotus. “Go ahead.”

“Sweetie, why don’t we have Harry take it? After all, he’s in charge of Foto for the casino,” Lana drawled, her eyes flicking over Lotus, then away again. Foto was the company that had hired Lotus.

Lotus froze in position, her camera ready for shooting, taking deep breaths to keep her temper in check.
This inscrutable Oriental is about to smack you with this camera, Lana,
Lotus fumed.

“Go ahead, Lotus.” Dash grinned at her, then laughed when she continued to stare at him. “Kill me later. Take the picture now.”

Lotus snapped it, then looked down at her camera in the pretense of checking the film. She knew if she looked at the people in front of her, the fury building inside of her would erupt. Who the hell was Dash Colby to patronize her? She wasn’t that hard up for money that she needed his or his girlfriend’s clever remarks.

“Lotus. Look at me, Lotus,” Dash put his hand under her chin, the softness of her skin stirring him.

She jerked her head away, her shoulder-length black hair swinging around her face like a velvet curtain. “I have to develop my film. Excuse me.” She wheeled away from him and stalked from the room, along a corridor leading off the lobby to the rear of the club. The locker rooms, dressing rooms, and storage areas were there, as well as the small darkroom Lotus shared with the other photographers.

She slammed the door of the darkroom and flipped the switch so that outside the door a red light flashed. No one would enter the room until the light was off.

Mumbling to herself, Lotus readied the liquids and pans. “It’s a good thing I wasn’t working the instant camera at that moment. If I’d stayed one more minute I’d have smacked her,” she fumed, automatically performing the tasks she had learned as an undergraduate student in the graphic arts department of Rochester Institute of Technology. She used her photographic skills as a free-lance photographer at weddings and other celebrations while she worked toward finishing her master’s degree in Graphic Arts. She intended to become a full-time photographer when she graduated. “But not until I finish what I started . . she spoke out loud, hanging the negatives up so that she could look at them. Then she began to print her work. “Uncle Silas would never have taken money from the firm.” The firm Lotus referred to was Sinclairs, Inc., a photographic company selling camera equipment and also doing photographic work in the field of sales, publicity, and public relations. Sinclairs was a respected firm. She had worked there part time while in college, and though she felt very comfortable at Sinclairs, she planned to try her wings in New York. Her family had not said they would be against her going, but Lotus knew they would prefer her to stay with the family company.

She sighed as she thought of the family and how her uncle’s problem had worn them down like water on a stone.
Great Grandpa Sinclair was even a friend of George Eastman, the founder of Kodak in Rochester. No one who knows our family would ever think that one of them would steal or embezzle. . .
 She slammed her small fist on the counter as she looked at the smiling faces of people in the prints she pinned on the line to dry. “I don’t know who did this, Uncle Silas, but I will find out.” A dry sob wracked her as she thought of the man who had aged twenty years almost overnight, who’d had a mild stroke as a result. Her mother and father walked around like somnambulists, their faces white and strained. The happy homes, always filled with people, were like tombs now and had been that way for the past nine weeks, ever since the first news broke in the Rochester newspapers. “I will not let our family be destroyed. I won’t. I won’t.” Lotus spoke into the darkness, her low voice seeming to echo in the gloom.

When she was finished printing all the photos she had taken, she left them hanging to dry. With a little luck she might be able to take pictures of some of the latecomers, but it had been her experience that it was the early evening people who were more apt to want pictures. She flipped the red light switch off and grasped the handle of the door. Before she could push it, it opened.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” Lotus said, looking up into Dash Colby’s face.

“I could see you were offended by Lana’s actions. That’s why I was waiting here, to apologize. I didn’t want you to think I was denigrating you or your work. I know how tough it is to be a Foto girl, and how important it is to make quota just so you’ll get some pay.” He touched her cheek with one finger, then dropped his hand. “Please have supper with me.”

She felt such a rush of heat she thought her knees would buckle. “I'm . . . I’m not through. I was going in to work the rooms again. . . ” She inhaled a deep breath.

“Fine. I have a little work to do. How would it be if I came looking for you in, say, an hour?”

Lotus wanted to tell him to disappear. “All right,” she answered him, flustered. She walked around him to go back down the hall to the main part of the casino, hoping that he wouldn’t notice her trembling knees.

“You have marvelous legs, darling, such trim calves, sweet ankles . . .” he murmured behind her, “and that little black ruffle shows off . . .”

Lotus whirled around to glare at his laughing face, then she was almost running to get away.

As she walked through the tables, she was conscious of the skimpiness of her costume for the first time. It had not bothered her previously because it had certainly covered her as well as the bikini she wore to the beach. “But you don’t wear black pumps and net stockings with that . . .” she mumbled to herself, nodding to a customer who hailed her.

By the end of the hour she had told Dash she was tired. To her surprise, there had been many requests for pictures, and she had used both her instant camera and the larger commercial one she carried around her neck.

At the last minute there were two more customers, so she had to hurry to the darkroom to develop and print out her last works of the day. These photographs she would drop by the concierge’s desk where the customers were instructed to pick up their prints. While the work was drying, she hurried to the locker rooms and changed into her street clothes. She would be dining with Dash Colby in slacks, but they were her best linen ones. The coral color repeated in the linen vest was a foil for her dark hair. She shook her head at her mirror image. “You look Oriental, but that skin is a little too Irish looking. No wonder it takes you so long to tan.” She grimaced at her reflection, brushed some coral lip gloss on her mouth, checked the tote bag she carried to see if the folder was still inside the zippered bag, then she walked toward the door. “I feel short in my linen slip-on fiats

but what the heck? I didn’t know I was going to dine and I couldn’t ride a bike with heels,” she said aloud as she left the ladies’ area.

“You must have money in the bank. Do you always talk to yourself?”

Lotus jumped and nodded as she noticed Dash propping up the wall in the corridor. “Usually I’m so busy with my conversations with myself I’ll walk right by friends.”

“I know. You didn’t see me until I spoke to you.” “I’m a little casually dressed for supper. Would you like to put it off until another day?”

“I think you look lovely.” He stood close to her. Lotus studied him. “You’re taller than my brothers and they’re over six feet.”

“I’m six feet four inches.”

“Lord,” Lotus whispered as he took her arm. She hoped he didn’t notice how she stiffened when he touched her tote bag.

“What do you carry in that thing?” he grinned down at her.

“I carry my lunch in it, reading materials, and sometimes a change of clothes.” She told him the truth, just omitting that tonight she also was carrying a folder stolen from his files!

“You could carry your bed in it.”

“It is large,” she agreed.

“Yes.”
Why is she so nervous?
he wondered.

When he led her toward the Crystal Room, she dug in her heels. “What is it, love? You’ll like the food.”

“I know, but I’m not dressed for it.”

“You look wonderful. Believe me. I wouldn’t bring you here if I thought you would be embarrassed.” “If you say so,” Lotus reluctantly gave in.

The maitre d’ saw them coming and almost ran to get to them. “Your regular table, sir?”

“Please, Alain.  Alain, this is Lotus Weston. She may wish to eat here other evenings,” Dash said.

“There will be a table for her,” Alain said, smiling.