White Lines II: Sunny: A Novel (31 page)

“Let’s go down to the beach.” She spoke softly, feeling very fragile emotionally and physically.

Malcolm agreed. “Let’s go.” He took her by the hand and together they walked out the door.

The sun beamed down on them as they lay together on two oversize beach towels. They sipped sangria and Sunny sucked on a slice of pineapple from the bottom of the cup. Malcolm watched her lying there, looking so content and hoped that she was as intensely happy as he was.

“So,” he said. “You asked me about my marriage, if I fell out of love. I told you my story. Now tell me yours.” He saw Sunny look at him, questioningly. “I know that Mercedes’s dad passed away,” he said, his tone sympathetic. “But what was he like? What was your relationship with him like?”

Sunny looked at Malcolm over the rim of her glasses. “Why?”

He shrugged. “I’m curious. I want to know who had your heart before me.”

That made Sunny smile. She laid her head back against the blanket and took a deep breath, blew it out slowly. “I don’t give my heart very easily.”

Malcolm laughed a little. “I know that. I just got you to say the ‘L’ word after months of pulling out all the stops.”

She smiled, propped herself up on one elbow and sipped her sangria. “Well, when I love, I love hard. So it’s worth waiting for.”

Malcolm agreed, nodding.

Sunny stared at him for a while. “Why me?” she asked. “Of all the women who throw their panties at you every day, why did you spend so many months trying to get me to love you?”

Malcolm laughed at her words. “Women don’t throw their panties at me every day, Sunny.”

“Maybe not literally, Malcolm, but there are women—beautiful women, successful women … women who don’t have a checkered past like mine—who would love a man like you.”

He knew that she was right. As a single, attractive black man, commanding a six-figure salary, meeting interested women had never been a problem. The trouble was, few of them interested Malcolm. But Sunny did. Her fiery, spicy personality excited him to no end.

“Why me?” Sunny asked again.

Malcolm glanced at her with a mischievous grin. “You have some good p—”

“Seriously!”

He laughed, shrugged his shoulders and thought about it for real. Finally, he sat up, faced her and told her what was in his heart. “To be honest, I feel a little sorry for you.”

Sunny frowned, immediately offended. “Sorry for me?” Her voice dripped with attitude.

“Not like that. What I mean is … you’ve had a lot of pain in your life. Not just losing Dorian and having to be a single mother—your whole life the odds have been stacked against you. You’ve always been responsible for everyone else’s happiness—for everyone else’s survival, even. I admire your strength.”

Sunny thought about what he was saying. “You make it sound like I’m Mother Teresa or something.” She shook her head. “I’m no saint or anything.”

He laughed. “I know. Neither am I. But in my family, I was able to just be me. I got to be a kid when I was young. I had the chance to be a reckless teenager when the time came, and then when I was done with school, I had the chance to go away to college and to have my parents’ support while I traveled and partied like young guys do.” He brushed a stray strand of Sunny’s hair out of her face. “But you didn’t have those luxuries. Your family basically pimped you out from the age of seventeen.”

“
What?
” Sunny slapped his hand away, stung by his words. She sat up and looked him dead in his eyes. “Pimped me out?”

He backpedaled quickly. “Poor choice of words.”

“You damn right it was a poor choice of fucking words! My parents didn’t pimp me out!”

“Sunny, listen. All I’m saying is … you were so young. And they let you date somebody who was so much older than you … why?”

“
You
tell me why,” she snapped. “You seem to have all the answers.”

“Because he had money. He had power and he was in a position to make their lives easier. You said yourself that he practically snatched you up right out of high school—”

“You make it sound like he was some kind of pedophile, stalking a child.”

Malcolm laughed. “No, I’m not saying that at all. But from what you told me, he was a grown-ass man and you were just a senior in high school when you started dating him. You told me yourself that you were worried your parents wouldn’t let you go out with him.”

“My father didn’t go for it at first,” Sunny said defensively.

“At first,” Malcolm reiterated. “But once they realized he had all that money, even your father changed his mind.” He watched her think about it. “All I’m saying is that it seems to me like you’ve been used your whole life—by Dorian, your parents, your brothers, even
his
brothers now that he’s dead. Everybody benefits from being close to you. But with us, it’s different. I’m not with you because you’re young and impressionable, or because you have money. I just love you. That’s all.”

Sunny was glad that she had sunglasses on so that he couldn’t see the tears in her eyes. She was wounded by the truth in his words. As he reapplied his sunscreen, she thought back on her relationship with Dorian, and wondered if she had been blinded from seeing the truth of it.

*   *   *

She hadn’t told her parents that Dorian was five years older than she. Instead, she only told them that the baritone-voiced stranger who kept calling for her was a “guy I met at the mall” and that he wanted to come over and meet them before taking her out on their first date. Sunny had pleaded with Dorian to just date her in secret, convinced that she would never get her parents’ blessing. But Dorian had insisted, explaining that he didn’t want to sneak around with her. “That’s not a good way to start a relationship,” he explained. “I want everything to be on the up-and-up.”

Sunny had caught herself smiling at the thought of them having a “relationship.” And so, reluctantly, she had set up a meeting between Dorian and her parents. To add fuel to the fire, both of her brothers had decided to be present as well. Sunny was nervous as hell.

She would never forget that day for as long as she lived. It was like waiting for your school principal to come and sit down with your parents to discuss your progress. She had paced back and forth in her living room as her parents sat side by side on the sofa, her brothers in recliners placed on opposite ends of the room. The floor-model TV was turned off, and the silence added to Sunny’s anxiety.

“Don’t be hostile towards him,” she warned. “He’s a nice guy and I don’t want you scaring him off.”

Sunny’s father and brothers remained silent, not promising anything. Her mother, Marisol, spoke up, her Nuyorican accent heavy as she did so. “
Mamí
, sit down and relax. Your father just wants to meet this
Dorian
. He sounds so mature on the phone and we just want to make sure you’re okay to be hanging around with him.”

The doorbell rang then, and Sunny’s heart jumped in her chest. She took a deep breath and walked over to the door. She paused before she opened it, not wanting to seem too anxious. Finally, she unlocked the door and swung it open. A smile appeared on both of their faces the moment they locked eyes. Sunny started to blush—something that was so unlike her.

“Come in.” She ushered Dorian inside and his eyes scanned the room. He sized her parents up as they stood from their seats. Her father was a tall, imposing brother, and her Spanish mother seemed youthful in her skintight jeans and T-shirt. He noticed two other men seated on opposite ends of the room, noticed too that they didn’t bother to stand to greet him as he entered.

“This is Dorian,” Sunny introduced. “Dorian Douglas.”

Sunny watched as Dorian extended his hand to her father first. “Dale,” her father said. “Nice to meet you.”

Dorian shifted his attention to her lovely mother. He could see where Sunny’s good looks came from.

“Hi, Dorian,” she said in a singsong voice. “I’m Marisol. Welcome. Sit down.” She gestured toward the empty love seat nearby and he and Sunny sat down side by side. Marisol smiled as Sunny and Dorian absentmindedly held hands as they faced her family.

“These are my big brothers, Ronnie and Reuben.” Sunny gestured toward each of her brothers as she introduced them.

Dorian waved at each of the stone-faced brothers in greeting and then sat back and got comfortable. He noticed that all eyes were on him, so he cleared his throat and said what he had come to say.

“I met Sunny at the mall one day and I think she’s very beautiful. It’s not just a physical beauty, either. When I approached her, she wasn’t like the girls I usually meet. She seemed intelligent, confident, and I liked her immediately. But she explained that she’s got a family who loves her. So, out of respect, I came here to meet you tonight face-to-face, to see if you agree with me taking her out from time to time—respectfully, of course.”

Marisol thought he was charming.

“Dorian, how old are you?” Dale asked, getting right to the point. Sunny shifted in her seat.

Dorian smiled. “I’m twenty-two.”

Marisol raised an eyebrow at that, and Dale looked Dorian in the eye. “You’re a little old to be dating my daughter, don’t you think? She’s only seventeen.”

“I’ll be eighteen soon, Daddy.”

Dale ignored his daughter and waited for Dorian to respond.

“I
am
a little older than she is,” Dorian allowed, “but from what I can see, you’ve raised a very intelligent, sophisticated young lady who seems wise beyond her years. I’m not trying to move too fast. That’s not my style. I want to take my time and get to know her—with your permission.”

Sunny smiled. She liked the way Dorian played with words.

Dale wasn’t smiling, however. He noticed the way Dorian had slyly complimented him, while dodging the issue of their age difference.

“Sunny’s a smart girl,” Dale said, looking at his daughter, then. “She’s a wonderful daughter, too. But she’s still kinda young to be running around with a guy like you.”

“A guy like me,” Dorian repeated, looking at Sunny as if to see if she had heard what her father said. “What kind of guy am I?”

“Dale,” Marisol cooed as if in warning.

Dale sat forward in his seat, held his hand up as if to ward off his wife’s cautionary tone. “No,” he said to Marisol. He turned his attention back to the young man before him. “I think there’s something you should know about me, Dorian. I’m a straight shooter. I like to call it how I see it.”

“I respect that,” Dorian said, nodding.

“What do you do for a living?” Dale asked.

Dorian smirked. “I run an empire that might be a little too complicated to explain in one conversation. But I make my living from pharmaceuticals.”

“Pharmaceuticals,” Dale repeated, looking at his wife the same way Dorian had looked at Sunny a moment ago.

“Yeah,” Dorian said, crossing one leg across his lap and kissing Sunny’s hand. “And I’ve been very successful.”

Dale resisted the urge to flip out. He could tell that Dorian had anticipated this line of questioning, and he didn’t want to overreact in front of his family. “Now why should I allow a successful pharmaceutical salesman like yourself to date my seventeen-year-old daughter?”

Dorian considered it from a father’s point of view; had thought about this a great deal over the past few days as he prepared to meet Sunny’s family. “I think that as a father you would want your daughter to be with somebody who could protect her, physically and emotionally. And I can do that. I’m still a young man, even though I’m older than Sunny. And I don’t think it’s bragging for me to say that I’ve accomplished a lot in my short time as an adult. I have respect, success and I’m a humble guy.” He smiled again. “I don’t expect you to be okay with me and Sunny right away, but I think that if you take the time to get to know me, you’ll grow to like me.”

Dale looked skeptical and Marisol cleared her throat. “Dorian, where were you planning to take Sunny tonight?”

“I didn’t say Sunny was allowed to go
anywhere
tonight,” Dale interjected.

“Dale—” Marisol attempted to regain control of the conversation but her husband wasn’t having it.

“I’m her father, and it’s up to me to decide if she leaves this house.” Dale seemed angry.

Dorian sat forward slightly. “I was planning to take her out to dinner. Why don’t we all go?”

Both parents seemed surprised by this.

“The whole family. My treat,” Dorian said. “That way, you can ask me all the questions you want and I can get to spend a little time in Sunny’s company.” He squeezed Sunny’s hand.

Dorian noticed that her brothers hadn’t said a word. Instead they seemed to be sizing him up, analyzing his clothes, his posture, his speech. He was slightly uncomfortable under the scrutiny, but he kept his game face on.

“That sounds very nice, Dorian,” Marisol said, eager to end the tense conversation. “Where would you like to eat?”

Sunny was so grateful for her mother in that moment. Sunny had remained silent, but inside she felt that her father was ruining it for her. Her brothers, too, with their icy glares. She wanted to be Dorian’s girlfriend—to be on the arm of this handsome man who was bold enough to sit before her parents and tell the truth about his age, about his occupation. Sunny was turned on more than she ever had been by the little boys at her school and on her block.

Reluctantly, her father and brothers agreed to Dorian’s dinner invitation, and they all piled into two cars—Sunny and her brothers riding in the family car, which their mother drove, while Dale rode shotgun in Dorian’s Mercedes. Sunny felt uneasy about the notion of her father and Dorian alone together with neither herself nor her mother to play referee, but she filed into her family’s Ford Escort without uttering a word.

“He seems real nice,” Marisol observed. “I think your father is just being cautious, that’s all.”

“He’s a fucking drug dealer,” nineteen-year-old Ronnie said. “And you think he seems nice?” Ronnie seemed disgusted.

Reuben sat silent. At twenty-one years old, he was tempted to get in the drug game himself. Coming from a middle-class working family, he had never had the balls to actually do it. But seeing Dorian, just a year older than he was, driving the new S class and wearing a watch his father could never afford, Reuben was impressed. He didn’t say so, but he already admired the gumption of his sister’s new boyfriend.