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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