CHAPTER 12
Remy
I had picked out the biggest, brightest, most colorful bouquet of flowers that the florist had, and now I was standing with it and waiting outside La Casa, the place Danica worked as a waitress. It was a small, simple-looking place, and most of the clients seemed to be middle-class, or maybe upper working class. It was around four in the afternoon, and it was a beautiful sunny day. I appreciated the bright blue sky above, and the smiles on the faces of the people who were walking along the sidewalk. Even though it seemed as if Danica had been ignoring me, I remained hopeful about her feelings for me, because it really hadn't seemed like she had been faking anything at all.
Eventually, I saw her walk out of the restaurant. She looked very nervous and was clutching her bag close to her and looking all around, as if searching for someone. I walked across the street and called out to her.
“Danica! Hey, Danica!”
She looked up and as our eyes met that same intense feeling rushed through me. She blushed heavily as I walked up to her and gave her the flowers.
“These are lovely, wow! Thank you so much,” she said.
“Nowhere near as beautiful as you,” I said with a smile.
“Before you say anything else,” she murmured, still blushing, “I just want to say I'm sorry for turning my phone off. It's just that... well, I didn't know what to say to you. I had such a great time last night, but you have to understand that it was a little outside of my comfort zone. I mean, you can see that I'm a waitress in a place like this, and I'm not used to... you know...”
“I understand,” I said in as gentle a tone as I could. “You don't have to explain anything to me. And listen, how about another date?”
“I... yes,” she said with a warm smile. “Yes, I'd love to go on another date with you. But... maybe something a little more casual next time, okay?”
“Sure. Well, what are you doing right now? There's a great little ice cream parlor just around the corner.”
She laughed. “You do see how I'm dressed, right? I'm not exactly kitted out for a date.”
I looked at her simple jeans and t-shirt and smiled. “You look amazing. Come on, let's go – unless you have other plans?”
She shook her head. “No other plans. I'm in.”
We walked down the street to the ice cream parlor, and we each ordered some ice cream and sat across from each other. She ordered a chocolate sundae, and I had raspberry ripple.
“You know, I used to come here as a kid,” I said. “My grandfather lived a block or two away from here.”
“Really? It's been around that long?”
“Ever since I can remember. And it's always had the best ice cream in Manhattan!”
“This sundae certainly is amazing,” she said with a smile.
“So, how are the classes going?” I asked. “You know, talking about it with you last night inspired me to dust my guitar off and do some playing. I realized how much I missed music and how much I've neglected it in recent times.”
“That's great! It’s always great to rekindle our love for something. But you asked about my class, so... I've been practicing an old routine I used to do as a teenager,” she said. “It's always been one of my favorites. I was sure it was going to win me the Manhattan under-eighteen championship title, but I never ended up making it to the competition.”
A look of deep and cutting sadness came across her face as she said this, and I could tell that there were some bad memories involved here. I didn't want to push her on it, of course.
“This place has some great memories for me... but some bad ones, too,” I said softly.
“Really?” she asked. “You can tell me... if you want, of course. You don't have to.”
“It was the last place I saw my mother and father together.”
“Oh, wow... um, what happened?”
“There was a really bad divorce. It turned out that he had fathered a child with another woman and had been living a double life, being with them when he was supposedly on his business trips. My mother found out the day after we all ate here – it was kind of a Sunday ritual for us.”
“You don't have any brothers or sisters?”
“No, I'm on only child.”
“Me, too,” she replied. “Look, you really don't have to tell me more if you don't want to.”
“I do though,” I said, reaching across the table and putting my hands over hers. “I want to tell you.”
“You can,” she said.
“Well, like I said, this place was the last place we were ever together as a family. The next day, my mother found out about my father's secret family and confronted him. He didn't deny it or even fight. He just took his things and left, and went to live with them. He... he chose them, over us. He and my mother were divorced shortly after that, and I rarely saw him again. He ended up getting divorced from that woman as well, after more infidelity. He... he died a couple years ago.”
I felt strange letting all of this out; I rarely talked about it with anyone, yet with her, it just felt... it felt right to open up. There was no judgment in her eyes, nor was there pity – only a deep, genuine sense of compassion and empathy.
She squeezed my hands gently. “I'm so sorry to hear that things turned out like that, and that you had to go through something like that as a child.”
“Thank you,” I said, my voice cracking with emotion. “It was... it was a difficult time. But it toughened me up and filled me with a fiery resolve. It made me the man I am today – and it also made me swear that I would never be like my father. I would never do to anyone what he did to my mother. That's why I don't believe in leading anyone on, or using people. If I give my heart to someone, I will truly give it to them – all of it, forever. I'll never be like him.”
She smiled at me. “You're a good person, Remy... a really good person. And I don't believe you'd ever do anything like that to anyone.”
“I wouldn't, not ever,” I said, and I was utterly sincere in this proclamation.
“You know... I uh... I didn't have the greatest childhood either,” she said.
“Don't feel like you need to tell me about any painful memories just because I told you about my family history,” I said.
“No, that's not why I'm telling you. I just...”
She looked up and our eyes met, and we gazed at each other for a long time, and I could sense that there was a deep feeling of trust between us.
“I'm telling you because I want to,” she said softly. “Because I know that I can trust you.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“My mother... she left when I was a little girl, around six years old. I never heard from her again, and to this day I don't know what happened to her, if she's alive or dead. My father was an alcoholic, a drug addict, a criminal... But I had no choice but to live with him. He used to verbally abuse me, and occasionally he would beat me up as well. Thankfully, he never went as far as molesting me or anything, but he was a cruel, heartless and abusive man. One day, a few days before I was supposed to enter the dance contest I was talking about earlier, he forced me to skip my dance class – classes which I had paid for with my own money from my part-time job – and made me deliver a backpack full of marijuana and ten thousand dollars to one of his criminal buddies. I made a choice that day. The backpack never reached its destination. I tossed the weed into the garbage, took the money and ran away from home, and never went back. That was eight years ago, and I haven't ever seen my father again. I feel... I feel terrible about what I did. Every day the guilt gnaws away at me. But I couldn't live there any longer – it was destroying me. He was destroying me. I did the only thing I could to survive. I did what I had to do – and it wasn't a good thing to do, but there was no other way. There was... no other way...”
I could see that she was on the verge of tears, so I squeezed her hands tightly. “You were a teenage girl being forced into a life of crime,” I said softly. “You're right. You did the only thing you could do to get out of it. There's nothing to be ashamed of, nothing at all.”
We were silent for a few moments, each squeezing the other's hands tight.
“And it's not like things have gotten much better since then,” she said, still trying her best to hold back the tears. “Now I'm working two jobs just to get by, and I still haven't been able to follow my dream of being a dancer. It's not looking like that's going to happen, even though I managed to get this job at the dance studio.”
“I can help you out with money, you know. It's not a big deal at all.”
She shook her head, an expression of firm resolve on her face. “No, no, I really appreciate the offer, but I could never do that. I won't accept charity from anyone, I won't.”
“It wouldn't be charity. It—”
She shook her head. “No.”
I could see that she would not budge on this, at least not right now, so I didn't push it. We finished our ice cream, so I paid the bill and asked if she wanted to take a walk. We were close to a large park, so she agreed. I felt like we had both talked about enough serious stuff for a while and didn't want the mood to become too heavy, so I quickly switched topics, asking about the specifics of the music she danced to. It turned out that she knew a lot about Latin music, and I had to take notes on some artists that she suggested I listen to.
After that, we went and had coffee at a little cafe, and I told her a bit about how I had made my fortune in real estate, starting out when I had been barely out of my teens, buying small, cheap, clapped-out apartments, renovating them on my own and reselling them at a profit. Smart choices and good timing with my purchases had, over the years, led to me becoming a real estate mogul and multimillionaire. I didn't tell her too much; I didn't like talking about myself much and certainly wasn't one to blow my own trumpet, but she seemed interested so I kept talking.
After the cafe, we went to watch a movie, and even after that was done, it seemed that neither of us was tired of the other's company. I asked if she wanted to come to my place again for a glass of wine, along with a nice takeout dinner – just one, as I didn't want to get her drunk again. She smiled and said that that would be lovely.
We walked to my place, picking up some Chinese takeout on the way, and sat at my dining table cracking jokes and laughing over the wine. I was amazed at how at ease I felt in her company; I honestly couldn't remember when last, if ever, I had felt this relaxed with anyone.
After I finished my glass of wine, I asked if she wanted another.
“No pressure at all,” I said. “If you want to stop drinking now and go home, I'm totally fine with that.”
She smiled, and my knees went weak at the sight of her beauty. “I think I'll have another, actually.”
“Sure thing... coming right up.”
I poured fresh glasses for each of us, and then we started drinking and chatting again.
“Let's go stand by the windows and look out over the Manhattan skyline,” I said. “It's always so beautiful at night.”
We headed over to the floor-to-ceiling windows, and stood alongside each other, staring out in silence over the skyline with its galaxy of glimmering lights. Then, I reached down for her hand and she slipped her fingers through mine and squeezed. I turned around to face her – and then suddenly we were kissing, kissing with a mad, almost furious passion. My blood was like liquid fire gushing through my veins, and every nerve ending was alive with heat and madness. My hunger for her was like that of a starving man for food, stranded in the desert for weeks without a bite.
Soon we were pawing at each other's bodies and stumbling through to my bedroom as we kissed, pulling off each other's clothes and leaving a trail of clothing behind us. Then we were in my bed, and she had nothing left on but her underwear, and I was breathing hard, my arousal intense and fiery, but as I reached around her back to unclip her bra, she stopped me.
“Wait,” she said, panting.
“What's wrong?” I asked.
“I... I...”
“You can tell me,” I said, nibbling gently on the side of her throat and running my fingertips softly along her back. “You can tell me anything.”
“I'm a virgin!” she blurted out, blushing furiously. “I've never gone all the way with a man. I'm... I'm sorry, I can't do this.”
“That's okay, that's okay,” I said in a soothing tone. “We don't have to go any further.”
“I've just... I've just never been in love. And I always told myself I wouldn't give myself to a man unless I was truly in love with him.”
“That's a noble and honorable principle,” I said. “So, let's not do this.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
I pulled my pants back on and smiled.
“Let's just lie here and watch Netflix instead, all right?”
She hugged me tightly.
“You're a wonderful man, Remy,” she whispered to me. “A truly wonderful man. Thank you... Thank you so much.”
As frustrating as it had been to have stopped there, it had been the right thing to do, so I wasn't upset. I held her close to me, and we put a movie on.