Some Came Desperate: A Love Saga (11 page)

        “This is Miss Rivers, Mr. Perry,” Irene said as if Simone needed an introduction.  “She came late, but she came.”

        Simone half-expected Nick to tell her to forget it, given that odd look on his face, but he didn’t dismiss her at all.  On the contrary.  He invited her in.

        Simone clutched her backpack and nervously squeezed past him to get into his office.  She remembered his smell, that wondrously clean, fresh scent, and just being in his presence again was unsettling.  Three months ago she thought this man was the answer to her prayers, this big, gorgeous, perfect man, a man with a heart, she thought, as big as his wallet.  But when he didn’t phone, when he didn’t come by, when he didn’t have the decency to even talk to her when she phoned him, she changed her perspective.  Now she felt foolish for feeling that way about him, as she walked into his posh, massive, elegant office with a window as wide as a wall.  He was just being a gentleman on the night of her birthday, she concluded, and why should it be his fault that she read way more into it than apparently was there.

        “Have a seat,” he said in that authoritarian way of his, as he walked behind his desk, his dark suit as elegant as his surroundings, his wingtip shoes clapping down hard.  Simone sat in the chair in front of the desk, a chair so large that her feet dangled.  The leggy client who’d just left, she thought, would have no such problem.

        Nick sat behind his desk and stared at his small client.  She looked even younger than he’d remembered her, and infinitely more vulnerable.  “How have you been, Simone?” he asked her.

        “Fine, and you?” she replied quickly, and Nick smiled, because he knew it was just an answer.

“Still working at that diner?”

“Yes.”

“Still the head waitress?”

“Yes.  I’m still there.”

“What about your sister?  Still with that obnoxious doctor boyfriend of hers?”

“Yes.  Nothing’s changed.”  Simone’s leg began shaking, as a nervousness began to overtake her.  She wanted to hear the news.  But Nick was easing into it.

“You were late today.”

“I got here as fast as I could.  Ended up catching the wrong bus.”

“Did you?”

“Yes, I did.  Listen, Mr. Perry—”

“Nick.”

“Nick.  Have you heard something?”

Nick began removing a file from a small stack of files.  “Yes, I have,” he said hesitantly, which unnerved Simone even more.  He opened the file.  Simone sat erect.  He looked at her.  “In short, your request has been denied, Simone.”

The expression that came over Simone’s pretty face stopped Nick cold.  He was expecting disappointment, maybe even a little anger, but he wasn’t expecting this.  It was a look of surrender, of giving up, of finally facing a reality that had been suppressed for far too long.  First Delia.  Now Simone.  He didn’t know if he could handle this.

“They turned me down,” she said, but not as a question, but as a statement.  As a period to a sentence that had gone on way too long.

“It was probably a political decision, the tough calls usually are.  There’s been a recent string of embarrassing foster care calamities and the states are reluctant now to take any chances.  Giving custody of a sixteen-year-old to a twenty-three-year-old would be a chance they aren’t going to take.”

Simone nodded.  And stood up.  She looked so tired, so distraught that Nick wondered if she would be all right.  He stood up, too.  “I’m sorry, Simone.”

She nodded again, girted up her backpack, and, without looking back, without saying a word, left his office.

The knocking sounded like pounding by the time Simone had managed to slide out of bed and make her way to the front door.  She was in a pair of shorts and a halter top, her strictly around the house attire, because she absolutely expected no company.  Jules never came to visit her, and she’d already told Bellini that she wasn’t coming into work tonight.  But somebody was banging on her door, and banging unrelentingly, as if whomever it was they weren’t taking silence for an answer. 

        It wasn’t until she peeped out of the peephole did she realize why.  It wasn’t some neighbor asking to borrow sugar or coffee or some other household good, but Nick Perry standing on the other side of her door.  At first she didn’t believe it, and had to look again.  But there was no denying: Nick Perry was standing at her door.  She, at first, thought about not opening it.  What would a man who didn’t give her the time of day for months suddenly want, anyway?  But it was that very question, the fact that he had to have wanted something to come all this way from his lofty perch across town, that caused her to open it.

        Nick was about to bang again when he heard the latch unlock and the door was finally opened.  And when he saw Simone, with her tear-stained eyes, he unbuttoned his suit coat, placed his hands on his hips, and exhaled.  His instincts had been right and he was relieved that he had come.

        “Hello,” Simone said when it appeared he wasn’t going to say anything, but just stare at her.  “You were the last person I expected to see.”

        “How are you?”

        “I’m fine,” she said, the way she had said it in his office earlier that same day.  He knew then as he knew now that she was a long way from fine. 

        “Are you busy?  May I come in?”

        “Come in?” she said, surprised that he would make such a request, but then she caught herself.  “I’m sorry, sure, come on in,” she said, and stepped aside.

        He walked into an apartment so small that it seemed to close in on him.  From the low ceilings to the narrow rooms, it appeared as if it was space for one person and one person only.  And so sparse, with only the bare necessities: sofa, chair, one table, one lamp, one small television set.  All clean, all neat, all Simone. 

        “Have a seat,” she said and he made his way to the sofa.  When he sat down, she sat in the chair opposite him, finding it odd to see him in her home, in her world, without being asked to be there.  Did he have new news about Shay?  Had the court’s decision been miraculously reversed?  There was a time when Simone would have jumped at the thought, and hurriedly asked him outright, but that was before this afternoon.  That was before she realized for the first time in her life that sometimes things did not work out and all of the pushing and begging and hoping amounted to nothing more than pushing, begging, hoping.  If the courts did not consider a petition filed by a man like Nick Perry, she’d decided, who was she to ever think that they would consider one filed by her? 

        Jules and even Jeremy had warned her to let it go, with Jules all but begging her to go on with her life.  But she wouldn’t listen.  She had abandoned Shay once and she wasn’t about to do it again.  The problem was, she realized after she left Nick’s office and rode the bus back home, abandonment wasn’t something that you get to do over.  You abandon somebody once, you’ve abandoned them.  Period.  Once was enough.  She’d abandoned Shay all those years ago and no matter what she did after that, no matter how much she hated herself for that decision she made in the heat of that tragic moment, she could never un-break that fragile glass.  It was shattered.  And always would be. 

        Nick looked at her and leaned forward.   He was wearing a dark suit that contrasted his white skin, and the concern in his deep blue eyes was obvious.  “I’m sorry about the decision,” he said.  “I know what a different outcome would have meant to you.”

        “It’s all right.”

        “I know you was hoping for a different outcome.”

        “That’s what I get for hoping,” she said in such an offhand way that Nick found himself staring at her.  She sounded almost flip, as if she had not only given up, but was bitter that she had even tried. 

        “What’s the matter?” he asked, his voice soft, caressing.

        “Nothing’s the matter.  It just didn’t work out, that’s all.  It never works out.  That’s just the way it is.”

        “You’re surprising me, Simone. I’ve never known you to be a pessimist.”

        “But you don’t exactly know me, now do you?  I mean, you could have, on my birthday, but you didn’t bother, did you?  Nobody bothers.  Why should I?”

        Nick didn’t know how to respond to that.  He had felt her absence in his life, but he had no idea that she’d feel his so deeply.  He clasped his hands together.  “What you were trying to do for your sister was a noble gesture—”

        “Noble?  Me?  Trying to get out of state custody the person who was in state custody to begin with because of me?  And you call that being noble?”

        Nick stared at her.

        “I could have thought of something, you know?” she said, as if begging him to understand.  “I could have distracted that social worker, could have coaxed her away from Shay, I could have thought of something.  But I didn’t.  I just ran.  I wouldn’t even let Jules help her, that’s how noble I was.  I was so afraid of being all alone in this world, without my sisters, that I had to make sure I held onto at least one of them.  If I couldn’t have them both, I was going to have at least one of them.”  The tears were beginning to pour freely from Simone’s big, green eyes and it took all Nick had not to go to her.  But he didn’t move.  She didn’t want his sympathy, nor his empathy.  She wanted to be heard. 

        “I could have thought of something,” she said again.  “Shay was looking around for me.  She was only seven years old.  Her mother was dead and she was looking around for me.  I always took care of her, anyway.  Ever since she was a baby, I always took care of her.  Mama wasn’t a nurturing kind of person.”  Pain pierced her voice.  “She didn’t understand that babies needed to be held and to be loved and to be told over and over how valuable they are.  I told Shay all those things.  I took care of her.  But when she needed me most, when she was looking for me, I wasn’t there.  I was too afraid to help her.  I was so afraid.”

        She covered her face with her hands, as the shame of it washed over her, and Nick exhaled.  “You were young yourself, Simone.  How old were you?”

        It took her a moment to compose herself, and then she removed her hands from her face.  “Fourteen,” she said.  “Mama had attempted suicide again, but only this time she meant it, and me and Jules were at home but Shay was supposed to be at the park.  Only she wasn’t.  We looked for her.  Oh, how we searched for her!  But we couldn’t find her.  When we saw her again she was already with the social worker.  We found her too late.”

        “And you blame yourself?”  Simone looked at Nick.  He shook his head.  “Honey, you can’t blame yourself for something that happened when you were fourteen years old.  You was nothing but a child yourself.”

        Tears came again, big, streaming tears, and Nick was undone. Before he could think about it, he opened his muscular arms wide and Simone, before she could think about it, ran to him and threw herself into them.  He pulled her against him and held her tightly.  She sobbed openly and uninhibitedly, so much so that Nick thought for a moment that there would be no end to her cries.  He had no idea what she had been going through.  He thought it was a simple explanation.  A young woman who missed her kid sister.  But the burden she was carrying made him angry.  No child should have had to bare what Simone bore.  And to think that she felt responsible for what her mother had done, nearly undid him.  And he pulled her onto his lap.  He held her so closely, so tightly, that he wasn’t at all sure if he could ever let her go.

NINE

Intimate wasn’t the word that came to mind when Simone awakened early the next morning.  It would have been too weak a word.  Nick was still there, which stunned her, but that wasn’t even the most shocking part.  He was asleep on her sofa, his big, muscular body lying prone on his back, and she was stretched out on top of him.  And buried in his big, warm, strong arms, as if she was born to be there.

        At first she was startled by such closeness, as if his hold on her was too peculiar for her to even fathom.  But then she thought about that hold, and how comforting it felt, and how she’d never experienced such warmth before in her life, and she couldn’t move; couldn’t protest; couldn’t do anything but relax again and remain where she was.  She remembered a lot of emotion the night before, a lot of sobbing, and she also remembered how determinedly Nick pulled her into his arms and refused to let her fall apart.  He held her for hours - she remembered that, too, until she had apparently fallen asleep.  She never dreamed he’d still be with her the next morning, still holding her, and holding her in a way so indescribably close, so
intimate,
that it made her flesh burn.

        But then she thought about the reason why he came to see her last night in the first place, how he wanted to make sure that she was okay after yet another court denial, and her rising elation was quickly tempered.  This man didn’t stay all night with her because he couldn’t bear to be without her.  This was no move of passion on his part.  He was just too decent a human being to leave an out-of-control, sobbing female all alone.  She lifted her head from his chest and looked at him as he slept, as his long lashes laid in still perfection around the round shape of his closed eyes.  His hair was a full shag of rich brown silk that was now splayed over his forehead making him look younger.  And just looking at him, a man who could have any female he desired to have, a man who happened to be a good guy on top of being good looking, kept her excitement muted.  Somebody like him would only want somebody like her as a plaything, if at all, and she’d do well to never forget that.  Her days of keeping her head buried in the sand, of believing in happy endings, was gone. That news yesterday, when the courts wouldn’t even consider a petition filed by a man with a reputation like Nick Perry, forced them to leave.  And forced her to stop all of that thinking about a man like Nick as a potential for a woman like her, and get a move on.

        But he wouldn’t relinquish his grip when she tried.  He, in fact, tightened his hold on her.  She looked up at him, certain that a sleeping man could not possibly have this strong a grip, and that was when his eyes, his big, bright, beautiful blue eyes, flew open.  And he smiled.  The most alluring, half-cocked smile she’d ever seen.  Her heart pounded. 

        His heart pounded too, when he saw her gorgeous face.  “Good morning,” he said.

        “Good morning?  Is that all you can say?  You fooled me.”

        “I certainly tried to.”

        “No you didn’t admit it like that!”

        “Admit what?”

        “You made me think your behind was asleep when you was probably wide awake all along.  That is so not cool, Nick Perry.”

        “Who said I was cool?  I never said I was cool.”

        Simone thought about that one.  If he wasn’t cool, she thought, then she didn’t know who could be.  “I said you were,” she said.  “How about that?”

        Nick studied her, and just seeing her again, and being so close to her like this, caused all kinds of emotions to war within him.  “And you’re an expert on cool, are you?” he said to her. 

        “Let me put it this way: I know it when I see it.”

        He laughed.  “You and Justice Steward.  I’m impressed.”

        Simone didn’t quite know what the reference to Justice Steward meant, whomever he was, and why being mentioned with him was impressive, but she let it slide.  What she couldn’t let slide, however, was that almost death grip he seemed to want to keep on her.  “I’ve got to get up,” she said. 

        He hesitated.  The last thing he needed was to be holding onto her, and he knew it all too well.  But he couldn’t seem to let her go.  He ran his hand through her thick, wavy, unruly hair, a move that he could feel caused her body to tense.  “So soon?” he said, staring at her.

        “Soon?” she said nervously.  “That’s easy for you to say Mister Own-His-Own-Company and don’t have to report to anybody.  But as for me, hey.  I’ve got to get up and get going.”

        “And I was just beginning to enjoy this.”

        “Yeah, right.”

        “You doubt me?  That hurts, Simone.”

        Simone smiled.  They were behaving as if they were so familiar with one another, which wasn’t true at all.  “But for real, Nick, come on,” she said, patting him on his broad chest, attempting to squeeze out of his massive embrace.  “I need to pea.”

        When she said this Nick, at first, didn’t quite know how to take such bluntness.  Then he leaned his head back and laughed, pulling her closer to him as he did.  “You’re one of a kind, Simone, you know that?”

        Simone smiled, too.  Nobody had ever said that about her before, at least not in any positive way.  “No, I didn’t know that,” she said, feeling flirtatious, too.  Nick, picking up on this, looked at her, his smile suddenly turning serious.  Given her background, she probably didn’t know it, he thought.  “Well, let me be the first to tell you,” he said.  “You are.”

        There was a moment, a fleeting but definite moment, when Simone saw all kinds of possibilities in Nick’s expressive eyes.  Those eyes saw something in her, something special, something maybe even desirable, and she wanted so desperately to latch onto every second of that moment.  She’d never even wanted to get remotely close to any other man before in all of her life, never had any interest whatsoever in trying to please them or get on their good side or do anything except stay out of their way and they stay out of hers.  But this was different.  He was different.  She’d be beside herself with excitement, with unspeakable joy, if Nick Perry so much as suggested, so much as hinted, that he might feel the same way, too.

        But he wasn’t about to suggest it or hint at it or do anything remotely like that.  She could tell by the way that moment passed and that look in his eyes changed.   And suddenly it wasn’t a look of desire anymore, but almost a look of alarm.  As if he had glimpsed Simone’s private, innermost thoughts and were horrified by them.  Which nearly undid her.  Especially when he suddenly, almost too quickly, released his hold on her and seemed anxious to get her off of him.

        She got up and excused herself to the bathroom, feeling ashamed, but determined to not let him see it.

        Nick could sense her embarrassment, however, as he sat up on the sofa, his feet stepping down onto a dark-paneled hardwood floor, and he pulled out his gold cigarette case.  He saw the hopefulness in her eyes when his flirtatiousness went too far.  He felt the excitement, the joy, the unhinged desire all over her small, shapely body.  A desire that almost matched his.  But it couldn’t be.  He needed this woman in his life like he needed a stroke, and for the life of him he couldn’t understand why he kept leading her on, drawing her in.  Showed up here at all.  He pulled out a cigarette and tossed his case onto the small coffee table in front of him.  And he lit up.  He had too much going on in his life to even think about getting it on with Simone.

        There was Delia to think about, for starters.  There was always Delia.  She always talked a good talk about open relationships and how she never wanted him questioning what she was doing and with whom she might be doing it with, and vice versa, as if their fourteen years together didn’t entitle him to squat.  But he knew her.  She didn’t mind his occasional indiscretions, his quiet little meaningless one-night-stands.  But any fool could see that Simone Rivers was nobody’s one-night-stand, not that sweet, kind girl.  And Delia, far from foolish, would see it as soon as she laid eyes on her.  Because she knew, like he knew, that Simone played for keeps, and any man with her had to roll that way, too.  And all of her open relationship verbosity would mean what it had always meant: yeah, but not with a real catch.  She’d be devastated if she knew that he was in a full-blown affair with somebody like Simone.  Devastated.  And he wasn’t about to let that happen.  He wasn’t about to hurt Delia ever.

        “I’ll put on some coffee,” he heard Simone say as she came out of the bathroom and headed for her kitchen.  He leaned forward and took a slow drag on his cigarette.  Because there was Simone to think about, too.  Sweet, devoted, generous-to-a-fault Simone.  Looked out for everybody but herself.  Including her ungrateful gorgeous sister; including her absent baby sister.  But who was looking out for her?  Who was bragging on her and writing petitions on her behalf?  Where was
her
knight?  He exhaled and looked at his smoke, and then he snuffed the whole thing out.

        He went into the bathroom and, after relieving himself, washed his hands and threw water on his face.  He stared into the mirror above the sink.  He looked beaten, like a boxer who got in way over his head but now had no choice but to stay in that ring and take it.  Why did he stay here all night?  Why didn’t he take his exhausted behind home after he saw that she was going to be all right?  Simone was no weakling.  She could take care of herself.  She didn’t need him over here holding her hand - not to mention her entire body - all night. 

        But there he was - Mister Knight-In-Shining-Armor coming to the rescue of the damsel in distress.  When his own damsel was in distress - had, in fact, all but begged him to spend last night with her.  But he couldn’t stop thinking about Simone - and how defeated she looked.  He had to see her and, if he would be honest with himself for two seconds, had to feel her - to hold her.  He grabbed a towel from the rack- a towel that smelled of lilacs, and covered his face with it.  Ever since he first saw Simone, standing in the middle of that lobby, he knew that she was somehow a part of him, as if he was destined to know her and care about her.  It was the oddest feeling he’d ever had for another human being, but he knew it was there.  He also knew, however, when he left his office yesterday evening and headed - not to Delia’s, but here, to Simone, that it would be a long way back. 

        He left the bathroom and went into the kitchen.  Simone, as he had expected, had pulled out eggs and bacon and was prepping the toaster, ready to prepare him a big, mouth-watering breakfast that would make him want to come back every morning just to sample her skills.  He had never in his adult life spent the night with a woman who did not attempt to feed him breakfast.  Except for Delia, of course, who viewed cooking as strictly for the modest.  Plain Jane’s playground, as she often referred to it.  When he and Del both were young he found it amusing, since he wasn’t into home-cooked meals, either.  But now he found it sad.

        Especially when he looked at Simone.  She was so happy, as she cracked eggs into a bowl, as she pulled out red peppers, green peppers, onions and chives; as she couldn’t seem to wipe that dazzling smile off of her face.  That young lady was head-over-heels already.  All because he showed her a level of kindness she knew no casual acquaintance would show unless, of course, he wanted more from her than anything remotely casual.

        But did he want more?  Was this just a lust thing for him?  A variation on that same theme he’d played on more women than he’d ever have the guts to admit?  Simone was special, no doubt about it, but was it her specialness that he was so drawn to - or, as was usually the case, her curves? 

        He leaned against the doorjamb of the kitchen’s entranceway and watched those curves.  She certainly had more riding around with her than Delia ever had - and all in perfect positioning, too.  But so did a number of other women he could name - some right in his law firm whom he’d tried out over the years, women who wouldn’t dream of having any foolish illusions about a future with him.  Delia was his lady and they all knew it.  It had always been that way.  But what was it about Simone?

        “Oh!” she said when she realized he was standing there, unable to stop that smiling.  “I didn’t see you standing there.”

        “Maybe I didn’t want to be seen.”

        “The invisible man.”

        “Something like that.”