Every Breath You Take (2 page)

“Was he cute at least?”

“As odd as he was, he wasn’t bad looking. Actually,
really
not bad looking. I dunno, though. Like I said, he was weird.” Natalie shook her head. “I’m not gonna call him.”

Christine winced and took a sip of her wine.

“What? What was that look?”

“Would it hurt to have one drink?”

“I just told you, there’s something off about him. Why would I want to waste my time having a drink with him?”

“I’m just saying you never know, and, well, you gotta get back on the horse sometime. Get on the horse, period. I mean, in this century at least.”

Natalie scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Here we go.”

“All right, okay, listen. Sometimes, you gotta kiss a lotta frogs, right? Before you find the one. Honey, if you don’t kiss anybody, how you gonna get the prince?”

“Christine. . .”

“Look at Brian. He was a straight up
culero
. Always late for dates, calling me at all kinds of crazy hours of the night—and you know it was for a booty call—out with his boys all the damn time. I mean, that first month I was like, ‘what is this?’ And look at us now—”

“Getting married in three months,” the two women said in unison.

Christine leaned back and smiled. “He’s the love of my life, and to think, I almost passed him by. Look, I’m not saying you’re gonna marry this guy or anything. All I’m saying is . . . meet him for a drink, then decide if he’s a total
perdedor
. Otherwise, you’ll never know.”

Before Natalie could answer, she spotted her other girlfriend, Brandy, making her way toward them, her shoulder-length blonde curls flying out behind her, her green eyes crinkled in irritation against her tan face.

“Oh, my God,” she muttered, planting hot kisses on both their cheeks before plopping down into the chair next to Christine. “So sorry I’m late. Oh, and for smelling like I just ran with a pack of dogs, ’cause it’s so
frickin
’ hot outside. Anyway. Conference call ran over. Don’t these assholes know it’s Friday night? Who the hell schedules conference calls for Friday night? Oh, wait, my jackass boss, that’s who.”

“No worries, sweetie. You’re just in time,” Christine said. “I need some backup.”

Natalie slumped down in her chair, bracing herself for the double-team.

“Why, what’s up?”

“So Princess was just at this reception, and this guy, kind of slick, a little . . . let’s just say eccentric, but cute apparently, gave her his card, and now she’s all ‘I’m not calling him.’”

“Oh, God,” Brandy rolled her eyes. “This again. Seriously, what do you have, a deadbolt down there by now?”

Christine choked on her wine and Natalie groaned.

“Would you bitches leave me alone already?”

“Do you know in like the five, six years we’ve known you, you’ve like barely ever had a boyfriend?” Brandy said. “Like a real boyfriend.”

“And what, two before that?” Christine chimed in.

“I’ve had boyfriends—”

“Uh, no, girlie, let’s get this straight. You’ve had guys you’ve gone out with for a month or two. But they were not boyfriends. You’re twenty-eight years old, and, I mean, come on. It’s okay to get laid more than once a century,” Brandy said.

“Would you stop? And it’s been more than once this century.”

Brandy snorted. “If you say so.”

“Why do you two care so much about my sex life?”

“Well, somebody’s got to, since you don’t,” Brandy said.

“You can’t keep shutting people out. What happened was a long time ago—” Christine started.

“Stop right there,” Natalie cut her off.

Christine and Brandy looked at each other before heeding Natalie’s command and falling silent. Natalie took a sip of wine to steady herself, that old familiar dread creeping into her veins, causing her to shake inside. The last thing she wanted to do was talk about what happened ten years ago. It was enough that she’d
thought
about it every day for the last ten years. Talking about it was off-limits.

“Listen, sweetie, it’s just that we love you and think you’re amazing—smart and beautiful and funny—and we just want to see you find your guy, that’s all. And the only way you’re gonna do that is to let someone in,” Christine said.

“I’m sorry,” Natalie sighed. “It’s just . . . it’s hard for me, that’s all. Really hard.”

Christine held out her hand and Natalie grabbed it. “We know, but the only way you’re gonna move past it . . . is to move past it.”

Natalie looked down, feeling a tear swell and wobble in her eye before she blinked it back. “Okay. I’ll call him. Like you said, it’s just a drink. Maybe a funny story to tell at parties one day or something.”

Brandy smiled and signaled to their server that she was ready to order a drink. “Fab. Now. Let’s talk about me and the shitty date
I
had last night.”

• • •

She didn’t see him sitting at the bar. She hadn’t seen him follow her out of the reception at the hotel and onto the street as she tried, in vain, to hail a cab before giving up and walking, either. She hadn’t seen him keep a safe distance behind her as she navigated the Loop’s sidewalks swollen with worker bees released from their cages for the next two days, either rushing to grab their corner of happy hour’s crowded patios or trudging home to sit prostrate in front of the one blaring window unit that brought relief to a lone bedroom, leaving the other rooms to swelter on their own during the hot July weekend.

Not that he would have expected her to notice him. She’d never noticed him.

That was all about to change, though. The plans were in place. All his patience—all those
years
—would pay off, and soon they’d be together.

Forever.

He took a sip of his club soda as he watched her laugh with her girlfriends and thought about the petite, half-moon breasts and tiny waist hanging together on the long, lithe frame. He was mesmerized as always by the sheets of long, shiny black hair, luminous hot-chocolate complexion, and brown doe eyes framed by fluttery lashes; her pink lips like a shiny bow on top of a mouth full of freakishly straight Chiclet white squares. It was an act of fate she’d never had braces. Good DNA. Of course, her mama had been pretty herself—practically perfect—so no surprise there.

He shifted in his seat, feeling those familiar strains against his pants as he always did whenever he saw or thought about her.

Beautiful, beautiful, Natalie.

N
atalie rolled her head around to release the kinks in her neck as she fumbled to get the key in the lock of her door. She’d had one more glass of wine than she’d planned on—two more glasses, if she was being honest—and was feeling it. At least she could sleep in tomorrow.

She yawned as she kicked off her black stiletto sandals and bent down to pick them up as she stumbled in the dark toward the bedroom. She removed her Donna Karan suit jacket and unzipped her pants, dropping both into the bulging dry cleaning bag she’d take with her tomorrow afternoon on the way to her Pilates class. She went into the bathroom, clad now only in a lacy black bra and matching panties, and commenced with the nightly ritual: contacts—out, face—washed, eye-cream—slathered. She finished with a few halfhearted pats of moisturizer onto her damp cheeks. She took the tank top and boxers she’d left hanging on the doorknob that morning and slipped into them, unhooking her bra and pulling the straps through the holes of her shirt as she headed back into the bedroom. She groaned a little as she flopped down on the bed, the faint horns and sirens from the street below wafting up to the thirtieth floor of the downtown high-rise she’d called home for the past two and a half years. She closed her eyes, but, surprisingly, sleep didn’t wrap around her as fast as she thought it would.

The sharp points of Brandy and Christine’s words had hit their target. It was true she’d had only two real boyfriends in her twenty-eight years. There’d been a handful of begrudgingly accepted dates, a few well-meaning fix-ups, and some random conversations in bars that led to scribbled phone numbers and creaky, uncomfortable dinners. A couple of “we’re seeing each other” guys, but never for more than a month or two. A few who’d disappeared, never to be heard from again. Usually though, it was her with the same old story. If they got too close, she’d panic and just . . . run away, burying herself inside herself and reciting her long-held mantra that it was just better this way.

And then she was alone.

Again.

But she knew her own tangled past, lonely present, and decidedly bleak future could always be traced back to that night ten years ago. . .

Natalie squeezed her eyes shut, almost as though she could force him out of her mind. He was never far from her thoughts, though she tried to put him in some dark, invisible corner from which he’d never crawl out of. But he crept out all the time, dripping over her like a dark, dewy cloud. Try as she might, she couldn’t help but look at any man with skepticism, wondering what violent tendencies lurked beneath his shiny exterior.

Sighing and now wide awake, she reached for her glasses over on the nightstand before flipping on the lamp and picking up the only picture she had left of her parents—their wedding day, one month after they graduated from high school and three years before Natalie’s arrival.

They’d planned to conquer the world.

Natalie took the photo out of its frame and ran her palm over the cracked and peeling tape that held the ripped shards of faded photograph together. A corner piece was still missing. Fortunately, it was only a sliver of dull brown backdrop and not the faces. She smiled at her father, Ricky: star quarterback at Georgia and a first-round draft pick for the Dallas Cowboys, the fluffy front of his Jheri curl dipping into a Flock of Seagulls V down the middle of his forehead. Her mother, Laura, was captain of the cheerleading squad and homecoming and prom queen. Her milk-chocolate skin, bright brown eyes, and cheerful, blazing smile that actually looked like she was laughing made her the envy of all the girls and desire of all the boys at Braxton High. She even made frosted pink lipstick, neon-blue eye shadow, and feathery, ratted hair look good. The superstar pair was voted “Most Beautiful Couple” among other superlatives by their awed classmates. Growing up, people told her all the time it was clear her mother had “spit her out,” but it was only in the past few years that Natalie had begun to see the resemblance.

Even after all these years, the hard knot of loneliness still rattled around her chest anytime she stared at their picture, and the familiar tears soon followed. There had been so many more photos and letters—even her mother’s diary. All gone now. Stolen from her, just like her parents had been. He’d left her with only this shredded photograph, painstakingly pieced back together by her—her lone memento of her past.

Natalie sighed and put the picture back on the nightstand along with her glasses as she rubbed her scar, the other keepsake he’d left her with. She slid down between the sheets, sniffing now and wiping her hands across her eyes to make the tears evaporate as she turned off the light.

She flipped onto her side, staring out the window at the moon shimmering across the city’s tall, skinny buildings, once again trying to wipe away the memories. Brandy and Christine were right. She would never move on with her life if she didn’t move on with her life. She couldn’t let her past hold her hostage forever.

That would mean he’d won.

H
e gripped the fat red marker in his right hand and tore the cap off with his teeth, getting lost, momentarily anyway, in the allegedly non-toxic fumes of the pungent, juicy tip. He stood in front of the desk calendar tacked up on a wall sticky with yellow nicotine tears from years past dripping down to the dusty baseboards. He drew a bold “X” through Friday before tapping the remaining empty white squares, counting to himself as he flipped through the calendar’s limp pages. He had the number of days memorized, but he was impatient and found a strange comfort in counting the days every day until
the day
.

He exchanged the marker for the shiny purple tumbler of chocolate protein shake on the rickety nightstand. He gulped it down quickly, not even minding the trickle of liquid leaking from the corner of his mouth. He smeared the neck of his frayed black sweatshirt across his face and neck before he picked up his jump rope, the rough nylon cords humming against the sandy wooden floors as he picked up speed.

He looked at the picture of her taped next to the calendar—his favorite—waiting for it to happen.

“Natalie,” he whispered, never taking his eyes from her, lost in the sweet, shy smile, the hesitancy of her gaze.

There. There it was. He knew it wouldn’t take long for the erection to start banging against his shorts. He kept skipping rope, wanting to bring himself to the brink then pull back.

Save it for her.

Then the pounding got to be too much, which was his cue to stop. He leaned over and kissed her lips, letting his tongue tickle her teeth before tracing the outline of her mouth with the tip. “I love you,” he panted. “Natalie, I love you. I love you, Natalie. Natalie, I love you. I love you, Natalie.” He pressed himself against the wall, his bulge thumping in time to his racing heartbeat. He ground against the tacky wall for a few moments as he continued to kiss the picture. He groaned and stepped back from the wall before taking the picture down and rubbing it against his chest, shuddering as he smeared trails of his own saliva across himself. He whimpered as he slid his gym shorts down to his ankles and dropped onto the rotting mattress sinking into the floor. He wound the greasy photo square across his penis, allowing himself to cry out as the glossy paper made contact with the tip. He dragged the picture back to rest atop his chest as he pumped cool squirts of cocoa butter from the bottle on the floor into his palm. He slapped his hand against his penis, now pointing straight up. He writhed on top of the mattress, holding his dick in one hand, clutching her picture in the other, holding it up so she could see him. He tried to resist closing his eyes, wanting to maintain eye contact with her, but it was too much. He had to let the cloud carry him away.