“I hope he’s okay.” Alice pressed her body into his, though it was too soon for any major moves.
“I wonder if we should have stayed at the vet’s.”
“We’re not helping him by moping around in the waiting room.” We could help him more by having great sex.
“I love him, too.”
“I know you do.” Feel my hips?
“He’s an old guy, but he’s a fighter.”
And I’m a lover, so what are we waiting for?
“Listen.” Grady broke their embrace, holding her away from him and looking into her eyes again. “I don’t want you to think I’m barging back into your life, expecting everything to be the way it was between us.”
How was it between us, again?
“I know we still live in different cities, and we both work too hard. None of that’s changing anytime soon.”
Like I care. I’ll be in Nassau by Monday night.
“I’ve been thinking about you so much lately. I Google you all the time, I’ve been wanting to email. Truth is, I have called your cell. I knew you had changed the number.”
You, devil, you. Kiss me.
“What I’m saying is, it’s not an accident that I’m here. I had to see you.”
Great. Now will you take that shirt off?
“I think we ended it too soon. We made a mistake, and I’m hoping we can give it another try. We can play it by ear.”
Shut up and grow a pair!
“Nobody’s mattered to me since you, and nobody could. I feel like you’re the one who got away, Bennie.”
Bingo! “I feel the exact same way,” Alice said, matching his tone, after he finally stopped talking. “Forget the past. Let’s not even talk about it anymore. We’re both here now, and single, so let’s live in the present.”
“You really want to give it another try?” Grady asked, his sexy lips curving into a smile, and Alice couldn’t take it anymore. She rose on her tiptoes and kissed him fully.
No tongue, yet. Remember, keep your tongue to yourself.
Grady kissed her back, his lips warm on hers, and he pulled her to her toes in a way that made her forget the no-tongue part. She kissed him more deeply, her hands clinging to his back, and she could feel his shoulder blades flexing under his shirt, which drove her crazy.
“I missed you,” Grady said, coming up for air, and Alice could see he had the look of love. She kissed him again, and the idea that she was about to screw Bennie’s boyfriend got her so excited that she yanked his shirt out of his pants in back and ran her hands underneath to his shoulders, aroused by the warmth of his skin.
“Let’s go upstairs,” Grady said huskily, releasing her embrace and taking her by the wrist. He tugged her up the stairs, and they hit the darkened bedroom, where he picked her up and tossed her backwards onto the bed. She kicked off her Birkenstocks, tore off her T-shirt, and was about to take off her bra when he crawled on top of her, stopping her hands.
“You know that’s my job.” Grady reached around her back, unhooked her bra, slipped her out of it, and tossed it aside. “Some things you never forget.”
Alice kissed him and threw her arms around him, pulling him on top of her, loving the feel of his shirt against her bare breasts. His hands moved to her nipples, which set her on fire. She couldn’t wait to feel him inside her and she knew she’d be better than Bennie. She had his shirt off in record time, throwing it over his back, and her fingers flew to unhook his waistband and unzip his pants.
“Down, girl!” Grady chuckled. “What’s got into you?”
Oops. “I’m happy to see you, is all.”
“Right answer.” Grady moved to unfasten her baggy shorts, but Alice unzipped his fly.
“Beat you.”
“God, you’re so . . . different.”
“Don’t be silly.” Alice warned herself to back it down. She leaned over and kissed him slowly, setting a more relaxed pace, so he wouldn’t be suspicious. “You can’t even remember how I was.”
“I know, it’s been too long.” Grady caught her hands when she went to take off his boxers. “I don’t have a condom. Do you?”
“It’s okay.” Alice went for his boxers, but Grady stopped her again.
“This, coming from you?”
“Let’s just do it. Just this once.” Alice freed her hand, reached between his legs, and slipped her fingers inside his boxers. She hit paydirt, but there was a problem. There was no ignition, and she wondered if Grady’s body knew something that his brain didn’t—that she wasn’t the real Bennie. “Okay, you’re right, wait a minute.”
“Good.”
“Be right back.” Alice rolled over, groped the night table for the drawer, and stuck her hand inside, feeling around for condoms. She could tell the difference between a Trojan and a Durex by feel, but all she could find were pens and pencils.
“Any luck?”
“Stay tuned.” Alice jumped out of bed, ran for the bathroom, flicked on the light, and tore open the medicine chest. No condoms. She rummaged through the trays and found combs, vitamins, and mint dental floss, but there were no condoms anywhere.
“How we doing?”
“Almost.” Alice flicked off the light and hurried across the bedroom to Bennie’s dresser. She rooted through the underwear, but nobody who wore CVS panties would have a box of condoms. She hurried back to bed and threw her arms around Grady, who let her pull him on top of her again.
“Well?”
“Forget it, please, please, please.” Alice kissed him, writhing beneath him, and getting hot all over again when he finally responded, grinding into her. But there were still no signs of life in the southern hemisphere.
“I’m sorry, let’s just rest.” Grady stopped and propped himself up on an elbow, looking down at her. She could see the outline of his head, and his shoulders.
“I can try—”
“No, please. I guess this is all happening so fast. Too fast.”
“True, that.” Alice made herself relax. She didn’t know if this happened all the time with him, and she had to be careful not to arouse his suspicion, if she couldn’t arouse anything else. “Okay, we’ll just rest.”
“I guess there’s a first for everything, even this.”
“Right. It happens.”
“Not with you, though. We never had a problem before.” Grady sounded puzzled, but she didn’t want him wondering.
“Look, it’s been a terrible night. You’re probably thinking about Bear, and you must feel exhausted from the flight. Don’t worry about it. I’m upset about Bear, too.”
“I know you are, sweetheart.” Grady hugged her close, and Alice snuggled against his chest.
“Good night.”
“Good night,” Alice said, trying to sound sleepy. He definitely believed she was Bennie, which was good.
Because if he started suspecting anything, she’d have to kill him.
Chapter Thirty-one
Mary was up early Sunday morning, showered and wrapped in her bathrobe, pressing floppy contacts into her eyes, feeling terrific despite the tequila. She had fallen asleep easily, which was euphemistic for passed out on her bed, and had awakened with new resolve. Today was a day in which she would confront her problems rather than avoid them. If she was going to be a boss, she’d have to start acting like one.
She slicked her hair back into a ponytail, padded out of the bathroom, shed her bathrobe, and slipped into clean underwear, a fresh white cotton tee, a blue cotton skirt, and leather sandals, then picked up her BlackBerry and waited for Anthony to pick up.
“Hey, babe,” he said, characteristically cheerful, which touched her.
“So, you still want to look at open houses? I found some good ones online and in the paper.”
“Good, let’s do it. Judy feeling better?”
“Nothing a hundred proof didn’t cure. I’ll be at your place by noon, so that we can start by one o’clock, okay?”
“What about work? That brief you h
ad to do?”
“The brief is reposado, which is Spanish for legally sufficient, though it can also mean really delicious.”
Anthony laughed. “Reposado is a type of tequila and it means ‘rested.’ ”
“That’s just how I feel. See you at one.”
“Love you,” Anthony said, but she hung up before she could tell him, which was an accident. She slipped the BlackBerry into her back pocket, grabbed her purse, left her apartment, and grabbed a cab to South Philly. She had to make a stop, first.
She got out of the cab in front of her parents’ house, waved to the neighbors, and went up the stoop to the screen door, with its fake-Gothic D in aluminum. She remembered a time when everybody on their block had a D on their front screen, and growing up, she had thought it stood for Door, until she realized it was DiCrescenzo, D’Antonio, and DeJulio. The neighborhood had changed since then, but not the DiNunzios. She opened the door and went inside.
“Ma, Dad?” She dropped her purse on the chair and walked through to the kitchen, which was packed with her father and her favorite octogenarians, his friends The Three Tonys—Pigeon Tony Lucia, Tony-From-Down-The-Block LoMonaco, and Tony “Two Feet” Pensiera—all of whom were sitting at the table, enchanted by resident temptress, Fiorella Bucatina.
“Maria, ’allo, Maria!” Her mother was at the stove making meatballs, and the air smelled like saturated fats.
“Hi, Ma.” Mary kissed her, catching a whiff of AquaNet and fresh bread crumbs. “I thought I’d drop in and see you and Pop.”
“Good, alla good.” Her mother set the meatball in the hot oil, where it sizzled aromatically. “Everybody come here aft’ church, for base-a-ball game.”
“I understand,” Mary said, but she didn’t. Her father never watched the Phillies with anything but his cigar.
“HEY, KIDDO!” Her father grinned, and Mary went over and gave him a kiss on the top of his head.
“Hi, Pop, hello everybody.” She flashed smiles all around, and everybody smiled back except Fiorella.
“Good to see you, Mary.” Fiorella’s black eyeliner looked fresh, her lips glistened cherry red, and she wore a new cleavage-inducing black dress, which was perfect for church, if you were Mary Magdalene.
“MY TURN, FIORELLA!” Her father moved his coffee cup aside and placed his hand on the table. “MY TURN!”
“Here, Mariano.” Fiorella picked up her father’s veined hand, cupped it in hers, and ran a crimson fingernail along one of the lines in his palm.
“What’s going on?” Mary asked, but it was rhetorical. She got the gist, she just couldn’t believe the gist.
“Shhhh!” Tony Two Feet’s eyes danced behind his Mr. Potatohead glasses. He went by “Feet,” making him the only man in South Philly whose nickname had a nickname. And nobody had any idea how he got either one. “Fiorella can tell the future from your hand.”
“Really?” Mary glanced at her mother, who kept frying meatballs, her flowered back turned.
“Yeah,” Feet answered. “She told me I’m gonna come into money. All I gotta do is put ten bucks on Willy Nilly, in the third at Monmouth. He’s a twelve-to-one long shot, but he’s gonna win.”
Tony-From-Down-The-Block waved a baggie filled with salt, or maybe crack cocaine. “And she said my prostate’s gonna clear up if I drink this, in hot water.”
“How nice for you both,” Mary said, watching Fiorella run her talons around her father’s thumb.
“Mariano,” Fiorella purred, “this is your heart line. You have a good heart, a wonderful heart.”
“THANK GOD. IT’S THE LIPITOR. MY CHOLESTEROL’S 203.”
Feet elbowed him. “Too bad your weight isn’t,” he said, and they all laughed except Fiorella.
“Mariano, caro, I wasn’t being so literal. Your heart line governs your emotions, and love.” Fiorella kept stroking his hand, and The Three Tonys watched like the little-old-man version of see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
“LOVE?” her father repeated, and Mary boiled over, hoisted him up by his arm, and wrenched him out of his chair.
“Pop, come with me. I need to talk to you for a minute.”
“WHY?” her father asked, bewildered, and across the table, Pigeon Tony looked up, his baby-owl eyes round with confusion. If he could speak English, Mary knew he’d call her a party-pooper.
“But I want to hear his future,” Feet said.
“Me, too.” Tony-From-Down-The-Block frowned. “You’re going to mess up the magic, Mare.”
Only Fiorella remained calm, withdrawing her hands. “We will continue when you return, Mariano.”
Her father allowed himself to be tugged out of the kitchen, past his wife, through the dining and living room, and outside. Mary closed the D door behind them and they stood on the stoop in the hot sun. She could smell that he was wearing cologne, and it wasn’t even a Holy Day of Obligation.
“Pop, what do you think you’re doing? Letting Fiorella touch your hand like that? Driving her around? What about Mom?”
“WHAT ABOUT HER?” Her father shrugged in the thin white shirt he always wore to church. “YOUR MOTHER WANTED ME TO DRIVE HER.”
“I saw you at breakfast with her, at a restaurant. Did Mom ask you to do that?”
“SHE GOT HUNGRY AFTER THE HOSPITAL.” Her father blinked against the brightness. “WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?”
“Fiorella wants you to be hubby number six.”
“ARE YOU NUTS?” Her father rubbed his tummy like a summertime Santa. “SHE COULD DO A LOT BETTER THAN A FATSO LIKE ME.”
“That’s not the point, and she can’t tell your fortune, she just wants to touch your hand. She’s flirting with you, Pop, and you’re flirting back!”
“MARE, I’LL FORGET YOU SAID THAT.” Her father wagged a thick index finger at her, and she couldn’t remember ever having angry words with him, especially not outside. The neighbors stopped washing their stoops, garden hoses hanging from their hands and cigarettes dangling from their lips.
“But Pop—”
“BASTA!” Her father showed her a palm, then opened the screen door, and went inside.
Leaving Mary to face the neighbors, suddenly not reposado anymore, at all.
Chapter Thirty-two
Bennie opened her eyes into white light, so bright it hurt her eyes. She didn’t know where she was or what was happening. She blinked, lying still, in confusion. She wasn’t coughing anymore, nor was she gasping. She could breathe. Odors of filth, urine, and sweat filled her nostrils. They told her she was still in the box, but she was alive, which meant that the light could be a hole in the lid.
“My God in heaven,” she heard herself say. The animal must have made the hole, finally scratching his way through, along the long crack in the lid. She felt a sort of gratitude, and wonderment. She passed her hand over her eyes a couple of times, blocking and unblocking the light. She left her hand in the air, catching the light in her palm. She spread her fingers slightly, and a single shaft of brightness shot toward her, like a glowing wand onto her hand.
It’s the sun!
She tried to think, to reason. The box must be outside somewhere, and the animal was gone now. If it was nocturnal, it would be back tonight. She felt a familiar bolt of fear and slammed the hole with the heel of her hand. Pain shot down her arm, but she ignored it. If the animal had made this hole, she was going to make it larger and bust through it. It was her only chance, and she had to do it before the animal came back.
She pounded on the hole with her palms, pressing upward with all her might. Her hands hurt so much, but she couldn’t stop. She wanted to live. She didn’t feel hunger or thirst. She visualized breaking through the lid, powering through to the sunlight.
And survival.
Chapter Thirty-three
Alice opened her eyes to sunlight, pouring through the bedroom window. She buried her head back in the pillow, then remembered that Grady had spent the night. She turned over, but his side of the bed was empty. She check
ed the bathroom, but he wasn’t there, either. She sat up in bed and looked at the clock.
Damn!
She had overslept. She was supposed to be worried about the dog, and sleeping late didn’t fit the story. She jumped out of bed, put on a fresh Bennie outfit, found the Birks by the dresser, and hurried downstairs, fluffing up her hair, which still had the barrette. When she hit the ground floor, she smelled bacon, so she slowed her pace and walked into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes.
“Hey, you.” Grady turned from the stove, came over, and gave her a hug. He had changed into jeans and a navy Lacoste shirt, revealing a torso that tapered to a trim waist. He looked so sexy she almost forgave him for his failure to launch.
“I had such a headache I couldn’t sleep, all night.” Alice broke their clinch and looked at him, pained. “That must be why I overslept. I really want to get to the hospital.”
“Relax. I called and they said he was hanging in. They’ll give us the details when we get there.” Grady smiled. On the counter behind him was a plate of bacon, and an empty frying pan sat on the burner next to a carton of brown eggs. “You want coffee? The bacon is extra crispy, the way you like it.”
“How nice, thanks.” Alice loved her bacon extra crispy, which proved that she and Bennie had exactly one thing in common.
“I was waiting until you came down to start the eggs. How do you want them?”
Alice had no idea how Bennie liked her eggs or coffee, and details like that could tip her hand. “You know, I’m sorry, I’m not hungry.”
“But we didn’t have dinner last night.”
“I’m too upset to eat. Why don’t we just go, see how he is?”
“But you love bacon. I’ve seen you eat entire pigs.”
“Not this morning. I’ll get my bag.” Alice left the kitchen for the living room, looking for Bennie’s messenger bag.