Crimson Footprints (5 page)

“
What am I looking
at?”

He stared at her drafts as
though they were the blueprints for madness.

Deena rushed to his side,
stepping over the folder-laden lady on her hands and
knees.

“
It’s a—a mimic of
nature.”

He handed the draft back to
her.

“
You have thirty seconds to
tell me what this is.”

He fished out his cell phone
and began to punch keys.

“
It’s—it’s a luxury
community,” she blurted. “I—I planned it with Miami in mind.
There’d be lush tropical foliage, bird life and cul-de-sacs. The
plan is for an eco-friendly construction and green building
practices.”

Her words were frightened
fragments, but she hoped they made sense. The phone was at his ear
and she presumed another one, somewhere else, was ringing. She
needed to do better.

“
The exterior of each town
house would resemble a thatched roof bungalow and the interior
would have an open air approach. Cathedral ceilings. French doors.
Huge Palladian windows. Also, there’d be views of a manmade
semi-tropical jungle. The foliage would…keep heating and cooling
costs down.” She trailed off lamely.

He wasn’t even looking at
her.

“
I also plan to use
hammocks, wildlife, true to the habitat and safe, of course, and a
waterfront setting to give the homes a sense of privacy and
seclusion in the community setting,” she mumbled automatically,
certain she was jabbering to herself.

Daichi glanced at her
distractedly.

“
Is that your best
design?”

She blinked back the sting
of tears.

“
Yes, sir.”

“
Fine. Start a preliminary
proposal. Angela’ll show you to your desk.”

Deena followed Daichi’s gaze
to the brunette still on her hands and knees. When she turned back,
it was just in time to see his office door slam.

And that, in a gist, was
Daichi Tanaka.

A few short years later,
with the first test behind her, she sat at her desk just as anxious
as ever.

“
Shall I send in Mr.
Tanaka?”

The intercom jarred her back
to reality. The notion of Daichi Tanaka having to ask twice to
enter her office had a sobering effect whose only equivalent was a
pink slip.

“
Jesus, of course!” Deena
cried. “Tell Mr. Tanaka that there’s no need to ask. Please, send
him in.”

Breathless, she stood and
rushed to the door, opening it with a potent sort of dread. A short
pause later, she was met not with the senior Tanaka, but the
decidedly more favorable junior.

“
If only I were welcomed so
warmly everywhere I went,” Tak sighed as he stepped into her
office.

Deena stared after
him.

“
I thought you were your
father. I thought—”

He held up a hand. “Don’t.
You’ll spoil the warm feeling your gushing invitation gave me.” He
turned to the flowers.

“
Did you like
them?”

Her eyes widened.

“
They’re from
you?”

Tak shrugged. “Thought you
could use a little sunshine. Was I right?”

The corners of her mouth
turned up just a tad.

“
Yeah.”

She turned from him, eyes
suddenly wet. Counting backwards, Deena waited until the tears
abated, pretending to fuss over the larkspur. Once safely dry-eyed,
she turned back to him.

“
So, Mr. Tanaka, what
brings you here?”

“
Stopped in to see my dad,
the asshole, as you like to call him.”

He smiled at her sudden
blush and ventured over to the flowers. Tak fingered them
half-heartedly.

“
And to see you,” he said
quietly.

“
Oh?”

She heard the breathlessness
in her voice and frowned. What the hell was that?

“
You know—”

He slipped a calla lily from
the bouquet and held it up for inspection. The stem was long and
olive, the bulb mango and vaulted. It made her think of a ballerina
in repose.

“
I saw this thing,” he
said. “And it made me think of you.”

“
Thing?” she
echoed.

He looked up.

“
An article. About curry
addiction. Have you heard of it?”

Deena shook her head, more
confused now than before he’d begun to elaborate.

He stuck the lily back in
its vase.

“
Well, it’s a just a
theory, really. Some people think that when you eat really hot
food, that the pain from it makes the body release endorphins.” He
leaned against her desk. “Supposedly, you get this natural high
from eating hot foods and it leads you to want more and hotter
curries, the same way any other addiction makes you want
more.”

“
And that made you think of
me?”

“
Sort of. When I read it, I
thought to myself, hell, if anyone needs to get high, it’s
Deena.”

She paused, unsure of how
she should respond, certain she was supposed to be offended. But
she laughed. The boy had no idea how spot on he was.

Tak smiled, clearly pleased
with himself.

“
No rush to go curry
hunting, mind you.” He nodded towards the flowers. “Maybe when the
sunshine wilts and you could use some of a different
kind.”

Deena lowered her gaze,
suddenly shy, exposed.

“
Unless…”

“
Unless what?”

She bit down on her lip,
taken back by the automatic need to answer.

Tak shrugged. “I don’t know.
I just hate to think that you’re going to spend your evening alone
in some apartment you’ve got decked out like this sad-looking
place.”

Deena looked
around.

“
You don’t like my
office?”

He stared. “You
do?”

She laughed, despite
herself. That made three—three times she’d done so since her
brother’s death—all three because of him.

“
I think this place is
cozy. Streamlined. And conducive to work.”

“
It’s barren.”

Deena balked.

“
What are you talking
about? I have Hope and your bouquet. It’s positively radiant in
here.”

He looked around.
“Hope?”

Deena blushed. “She’s my
bonsai.”

Now he would laugh. But he
didn’t.

“
Maybe one day you’ll tell
me how she got that name,” he said softly.

She lowered her gaze once
more.

“
Maybe.”

They fell silent.

“
So,” Tak said suddenly,
loudly. “Dinner? Six? Meet you in the lobby.”

Deena sputtered. “Oh, I
don’t know I—”

He held up a
hand.

“
Listen, you don’t even
have to talk to me. Just a little company and good conversation if
you want.” He shrugged. “At least I hope it’s good.”

Briefly, she thought of the
box of tissues that had been her constant companion for the last
few nights.

“
And you don’t mind if I’m
not good company?” she squeaked.

He was already heading for
the door. “Not at all.”

She smiled at his back.
“Okay then.”

He paused, a hand on the
doorknob.

“
Excellent. There’s a new
place on Ocean Dr. called Spiced. Everything’s lava hot. We can
burn a hole in our mouths then try to cool it with ocean water.
You’ll love it.”

Deena grinned, watching the
door slam behind him. Something told her she might.

Their first night together
was filled with incendiary curries from India and crashing waves
from the Atlantic. Dinner ran long and the coffee cold, before Tak
and Deena were ushered out at closing. They returned again the next
night and opted for decidedly more adventurous fare—a black bean
and squid ink soup for her, Moroccan sea bream and braised rabbit
for him—all made searing with a bevy of chilies, pastes, powders
and spices. And after closing this time, they walked along the
shore with a sliver of moon illuminating the sky and plans for a
third night on their lips.

CHAPTER FOUR

Deena slipped into the
silent sanctuary of Emmanuel Rises, pumps muffled against the ruby
carpet. Her gaze skittered past scores of bowed heads before
spotting her family in the front, in their pew for the last thirty
years. Despite the diligent tiptoe, Grandma Emma snapped to
attention mid-prayer, as if connected to her granddaughter in some
basic biological need for admonishment. So when that old finger
jerked in impatience at the pew, Deena hustled down the aisle and
squeezed in between Caroline and Rhonda, just in time for the
amen.

“
Mhm,” Emma murmured,
running a critical gaze over Deena’s smoke gray pants suit. It
featured an angled collar and v-neckline alongside boot cut slacks
that lay just right. Retail price for the Gucci ensemble—jacket,
black silk shirt, slacks and high heeled shoes should’ve been in
the neighborhood of thirty-five hundred, but a secondhand
consignment shop in Bal Harbor brought it home for less than
two.

“
It was all I had to wear,”
Deena mumbled.

Aunt Caroline gave her a
once over.

“
Well you wore pants two
Sundays ago, too.” Newport breath singed Deena’s nose and she
sighed.

Emmanuel Rises was a
conservative church, baptized in the holy fire and washed in the
blood of the lamb. Still, there had to be room for reason. Could
they really argue that Deena’s understated pants suit was less
appropriate than Aunt Caroline’s dimpled cleavage and leopard print
dress?

Caroline shot Deena a
sideways look of disdain before pulling out a mirror and primping
fat blonde curls. Her platinum hair was sharp against dark skin,
sharp against crimson talons and sharp against gold
teeth.

Fuchsia lipstick, a leopard
print dress and scuffed white pumps was the whole of Caroline’s
sordid church attire. The oldest of Eddie and Emma Hammond’s four
children, she was a mother at 16, a grandmother at 33 and at 52,
Caroline Hammond was a great grandmother. Even so, she’d never been
an outcast in their family. On the contrary, she set precedent for
what was to come.

Three women of childbearing
age in the Hammond family were actually without children. Aunt
Rhonda, who constantly fielded unfounded accusations that she was a
lesbian, Deena’s teen sister Lizzie, who would surprise no one if
she stood up and declared she were pregnant that moment, and Deena,
who avoided men like the malice they were.

“
Where’s Lizzie?” Deena
asked suddenly, scanning the pews for her sister.

Emma shook her head. “Didn’t
come home last night.”

Deena sighed. How many
nights would a teenage girl have to disappear for it not to give
her grandmother cause for alarm anymore? Whatever the number, she
didn’t want to know.

Lizzie’s descent into
anarchy began with adolescence. To Deena, it seemed that budding
breasts and a menstrual flow brought with it an exponential madness
that worsened each year. At eleven, her sister was suspended for
wearing a transparent tee with the phrase
Pay for Play
on it to school, at
thirteen it was for offering sexual favors to her math teacher in
exchange for a passing grade, and at fifteen, it was for giving
fellatio to a waiting line in the boys’ restroom. How had two
sisters, so similar in appearance and upbringing, made such drastic
departures? One regarded her virginity as indisputable proof
against their grandfather’s claims of inherent whoredom, while the
other sought to authenticate his accusations with a
come-one-come-all attitude. Still, Deena held out hope that her
sister could be rehabilitated.

“
You wasting your time,”
Caroline murmured, shifting in her dress to reveal the puckered
thigh that matched her cleavage. “Lizzie is who she is. Anthony was
who he was, and you are who you are. End of story. No damned
sequel.”

Deena frowned. Indeed, she
could only be who she was. But the statement only begged a
question. Who the hell was she?

She turned her attention to
the pulpit.

Lenora Howard, the pastor’s
wife, was a dark and thick woman with ample curves. She sauntered
to the podium in a golden knee-length dress and broad-brimmed hat
of satin and organza. With a gracious smile and a voice of
theatrical formality, First Lady Howard welcomed the church’s
visitors before diving into announcements.

The youth group was selling
raffle tickets, Thursday night’s choir practice was cancelled and
Sister Laura Marshall’s niece was being added to the sick and
shut-in list.

“
Also, as you all are
aware, the Fellowship Hall is in need of renovations. The church is
requesting a volunteer to spearhead the organization and to plan
these much needed improvements.”