Denouement (5 page)

“You wanted me just as much as I wanted you. “ She
could see the confusion on his face, but tried her best not to put words to the
expression.

“Well we both got what we wanted. You can leave now.”
Marietta stood by the door and waited for him to get dressed before she opened
it.

Tobias pulled his shirt on and grabbed his sweat
shirt. He walked to where she was standing. He wanted to say something, but
when she opened the door for him he felt silenced. He stared at her and didn’t
know what to think of her. He thought that they had shared something more than
sex. But the cold stare in her eyes told him he was wrong. He was just about to
step out when a woman stepped into the door. He didn’t see her face first, but
her breasts were the first thing he caught sight of. Without thinking he said,
“Now I remember you,
Jessie
.”

“You didn’t even look at her face,” Marietta hissed
out.

Tobias turned his head to face her then shrugged.

“You recognized her breasts?” She shook her head as if
she was disappointed. “So you too have slept with him?”

“What do you mean by me too?” Jessie looked back and
forth between the two of them, but the sly smile on Tobias’ face was what told
her what happened. “You are a dog, you know that?”

Tobias had been called worse. He shrugged his
shoulders and moved closer to Marietta. She took a step back with each step he
took towards her.
But soon there was nowhere for her to go.
She was trapped between the wall and his muscled frame. She put her hands
against his chest, ready to push him away if she needed to. He stroked her face
and ran his fingers through her hair. He lowered his lips to her forehead and
kissed her. Then without a word he left.

“What was that?” Jessie asked as she stepped into the
room and closed the door.

“You tell me, you already had a ride on the sex
train.” Marietta dropped on the bed frustrated with
herself
.

“The most I got was an, ‘I’ll call you’ as he
shooshed
me out of his room. He kissed you.” Marietta
didn’t understand why Jessie sounded so amazed.

“He kissed me and drove me to the edge of insanity.”

“I think he likes you.”

“No, he just wanted to make sure he had a perfect
score.” Marietta rubbed her face as if trying to get rid of imaginary
dirt
.“Any
messages for me?”

“Yep, McKenzie has summoned the cast and some of the
crew to dinner tonight. We are supposed to meet him at the restaurant this
evening.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, but I will bring my pen and notebook.”
Jessie opened the door and just before she left she said, “Take a bath, and
drown your shame with booze, it helped me.”

“Nothing will wash this shame off me.” Once she was
left alone, Marietta ate her food. She didn’t want to spend more time at the
restaurant than she needed to. She knew Tobias would be at the meeting, and she
wanted to spend as little time with him as possible.

Chapter
Three

Marietta was a nervous wreck as they headed to the
elevator. What was the proper or, politically correct way, to behave around a
guy you shamelessly surrendered to at a moment of weakness? She was determined
to stay as far away from Tobias as she possibly could. The elevator doors
opened and just as she was about to step inside she saw Peter, Sarah and
Tobias. Sarah was hugging Tobias’ arm in a clingy undesirable way.

“In or out?”
Sarah asked.

Marietta raised her gaze from where Sarah held on to
Tobias, to Tobias face and for a second she could swear he looked apologetic.
“Out, we’ll catch the next one.”

She stepped back and let the doors close. Marietta
stared at her feet unable to look her assistant in the eyes. And when Jessie
decided to rub her back in comfort she broke down. She didn’t know why she was
crying but for some bizarre reason she felt heartbroken. Marietta bent over so
that her tears could fall out of her sockets and on the ground and not on her
freshly applied mascara. When the elevator came back up, she shook
herselfsober
and stepped into it.

“In and out.
In and out,” she
chanted to herself as she walked towards the restaurant like a sheep towards
its slaughter. She groaned when the memory of Tobias going in and out of her
body clouded her mind.

“What are you chanting?” Jessie hissed at her.

“I’m just telling myself that as soon as McKenzie says
whatever he wants to I am getting out.”

“You just had sex, Marietta. Relax.” Jessie laughed.

“You don’t understand.” Marietta herself didn’t
understand what happened she didn’t expect Jessie to.

“What don’t I understand?” Jessie gazed at her
concerned, “Listen we have been friends longer than you have been my boss. You
can tell me anything.”

“I know that and once I figure everything out, you
will be the first person I tell.” She gave her friend a bear hug and walked
into the restaurant.

As soon as the reflective glass doors opened,
Marietta’s ears were assaulted by shouts of surprise. Startled she froze for a
second and looked around the brightly lit room. She still didn’t understand
until she spotted a happy birthday banner.

“What is today?” She asked Jessie over her shoulder.

“It’s the sixteenth of March. You forgot your own
birthday!” Jessie exclaimed.

“It isn’t the first time.” Marietta prepared herself
for the millions of hugs she was bound to get.
The first one
from McKenzie.
He put a party hat on her head and planted a big kiss on
her forehead, “Happy twenty sixth. Your future is full of greatness.”

“Thanks.” One by one she hugged everyone and it seemed
like she was hugging over a hundred people. Sandra gave her air kisses but
Tobias kept his distance. He stood at the back of the room watching her.

Marietta was grateful when she finally got the chance
to sit down. The tables were arranged in such a way that they were close but
not too close to each other. They were like a family and for the duration of
that movie they would be a family. The crowd of people almost filled the void
that the loss of her family had left. But she wished one person was there. She
hadn’t seen Chris in almost nine years.

“Excuse me ma’am.” A waiter held out a wrapped box to
her.

“Who is it from?” Marietta looked around the room
hoping for some indication as to who had sent it. She glanced at the usual
suspects, Jessie and McKenzie but they didn’t have any idea. Reluctantly she
looked over at Tobias but he shrugged and shook his head. She opened the box
and in it was a black and white picture, framed in black marble. It was a
picture of a little girl about four years old. Marietta knew all too well,
writing in the dust with a stick.

“I call that the beginning of greatness,” a voice
hummed in her ear.

Marietta held the picture to her chest for a second,
and let the sweet melody of memories flood her mind as the familiar baritone
voice hummed in her ear. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I can’t believe you kept
this picture.”

It was a picture of her when she was a child that
Chris’ father helped Chris take. That was when his love for photography started
and she was his first subject. The little girl in the picture was smiling, her
hair was shaggy and she had a little white dress on. The picture was taken
around the time when her family was complete and everyone was happy. It seemed
like a different life time.

“You know me. I’m always trying to make you laugh in
some way.”

Marietta turned towards the six-foot-three, well-built
black man. She stared at him for a second and just smiled. She needed to take
this moment in. This day had been going in the wrong direction until
now.She
stood up and stepped into the man’s waiting arms. “I’ve
missed you so much Chris.”

“You better have. It’s been almost a decade,” Chris
muttered into her neck as he lifted her off the ground.

“You don’t know how much I needed to see you.” She
could feel the tears spill out and soak into his t-shirt.

“Don’t cry. I’m here now,” he whispered to her. “She
doesn’t want to share her cake.”

Marietta broke out laughing. In Chris’ arms she was
comforted when she felt his whole body shake from laughter. His laugh was still
the same, deep and sounded more like chuckling than it did a normal laugh.

“You are crazy.” She looked up at him wondering how it
was possible that she had survived this long without his comforting arms. He
seemed to be able to gather her up whenever she was falling apart. She turned
to the rest of the table that included Jessie, Tobias and a few other crew members,
“This is Chris. Chris this is everyone.”

“Not everyone, said Jessie. I’m the one who tapes the
pieces back together when she’s falling apart.” Jessie stood up and managed to
get a one armed hug.

“Who’s the guy staring dagger
eyesat
me?” Chris whispered to Marietta.

“What do you mean?” Marietta looked around, unsure why
someone wouldn’t like Chris when they had just met him. That was when she
spotted Tobias and true to what Chris said, his eyes looked murderous.

Before Marietta could process what the look was
supposed to mean, McKenzie came out with the birthday cake. It had twenty six
lit up candles on it and a script design on the top. She bore through the singing
and then blew out the candles. She read the words on the cake but got hung up
on one, ‘birth’. Marietta swallowed hard and tried to remember when her last
period was. But she had been too busy and her poor diet meant her period
fluctuated. She looked around and no one seemed to have noticed her panic.
McKenzie was busy sharing the cake with the group and Chris seemed to be taken
with whatever Jessie was telling her. Marietta moved around the dining room
looking for Tobias.

When she finally found him, he was in a corner
watching her once more. And Sarah was there, hanging on his arm like a forgotten
sleeve. Trying not to get irritated, she walked across the room.

“Hi, can I talk to you for a second?”

“Sure,” he muttered.

“But—” Sarah began to protest.

“Let go,” Tobias said sternly.

“You didn’t have to snap at her,” Marietta said once
they were out of the dining area.

“What did you want to tell me? Before that, who is
that guy?” Tobias looked imposing. His hands were tucked in his pockets as if
he was keeping himself from doing something. He rocked back and forth on his
heels and his eyes burrowed holes in her skull.

“He’s a close friend of mine. He used to be my
boyfriend.”

“Why is he here?”

“Listen, I don’t owe you any explanations. I just
wanted to ask you one thing.” She took in a deep breath. “Earlier during—”

“When we had sex,” he finished.

“Yeah, when that happened.
I
was a bit preoccupied, I didn’t notice if you had a—” She found herself choking
on the word. She glanced at Tobias but he didn’t seem to know where she was
going with her question.

He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t read minds.”

“Did you have a condom on?” Marietta let the words
spill out of her mouth the whole time looking at his chest and not his eyes.

“No, why?
Don’t you use birth
control or something?” Tobias shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal.

“No I don’t. I don’t go popping pills, hoping that someone
is going to burst into my room and have their way with me. I am not dating any
one and I haven’t had sex since—” She fell silent. She didn’t want Tobias to
know that he had been her first in almost nine years. “I don’t have a reason to
be taking birth control.”

“Are you worried?” He stiffened then combed his
fingers through his shaggy hair. “Don’t you have some map or calendar safe day
thing.”

Marietta scratched the back of her head at odds as to what
to say.

“If you get pregnant we can raise the baby together.
It’s not a big deal.”

Marietta was taken aback at how calm he sounded.
Talking about a baby the same way he would refer to a dog. “My father left when
I was nine and my mother killed herself just after my brother died because she
couldn’t bear to raise only one of her children and the guilt of... What makes
you think I would make a good parent?” She hissed at him, the anger taking her
over and forgetting her filter.

Tobias’ calm demeanor disappeared and he stared at her
as if she had suddenly grown a new head. He made an attempt to hug her, but she
stepped out of his reach. Tobias made a sharp exhalation then asked, “What do
you want me to do?”

“I need to get one of those pill things.”
Marietta begun to itch.
It was a nervous tick and she wouldn’t
stop itching until she was able to solve her problem.

“Pill things? If you don’t know, how am I supposed to
figure it out?”

“Cards on the table.”
She
waited until Tobias nodded his head. “Chris was my first then…you.”

First Tobias looked doubtful, convinced she was
joking. But when she didn’t laugh and held her serious glare, he knew she
wasn’t joking. “Are you serious?”

Tobias had never borne the responsibility of being the
first, he made sure of that. He mainly kept to the well-seasoned women, those
who knew the rules of the game. But being a second and the first in nine years he
felt the weight of responsibility on his shoulders.

“I’ll figure it out.” He gave her a weary smile.

“Thanks. I’m going to go back in.”

“Sure, enjoy your birthday.”

Tobias didn’t go back in until he had given express
orders to Peter to hunt in the hotel for the magical wonder pill. When he
walked back into the room, it was filled with people but his eyes searched for
only one person. He spotted her leaning into Chris’s arms laughing harder than
he had ever heard her laugh the past three months. She looked happy and part of
him wished he could have been the reason for that happiness. Just as he stared
at her, her head lifted and their gazes locked. She gave him a quick smile then
directed her attention to the small crowd around her.

***
*

It had taken Peter a couple of hours before he found
the emergency pill amongst the female crew. Tobias headed down to Marietta’s
room. On his way there every couple of seconds he almost convinced himself not
to give Marietta the pill. But then he remembered the way she spoke about her
parents and he felt guilty. His life had been totally opposite from her. He
never seemed to be able to get far enough from his parent’s hugs and couldn’t
imagine growing up so lonely.

He knocked on her door and waited nervously. And when
the door opened he heard laughter that wasn’t Jessie’s or
Marietta’s.Chris
opened the door and at first he seemed excited about meeting Tobias Harden, but
Tobias Harden wasn’t excited to meet him.

“Is Marietta in?” Tobias asked in a stern voice.

“I’m here.”

Tobias followed the sound of her voice into the room.
He gently took her arm and dragged her to the corner of the room. “Why is he
here?”

“Are you crazy?” she hissed, “Do you have what I
need?”

“It’s here. I want to see you take it.”

“Sorry what?”
Marietta felt
accused and she immediately became defensive, “I don’t want to have your baby
just as much as you don’t want to have mine.”

“That’s not the point. If you aren’t having mine, you
are sure as hell
arenot
having his.” Tobias gestured
towards Chris who watched them with a puzzled look on his face. “He’s leaving
tomorrow right? That pill works for the next seventy two hours.”

“What’s wrong with you?” He watched as Marietta
studied him.

Feeling self-conscious, he pushed the pill into her
palm and dropped her arm. He was about to walk out the door, when Marietta
called out after him. He watched as she put the pill on her tongue and washed
it down with a glass of water.

*
* * *

“What was that about?” Chris asked once he closed the
door behind Tobias.

“I’m not sure.” Marietta replied honestly. “I have
never seen someone feel so insecure.”

“Are you guys’ friends?”

“Not really, we only started talking today.”

“What was that he gave you?” Chris stared at her
suspiciously, “It’s not drugs is it?”

“No, don’t be stupid.” She obviously didn’t want Chris
to know what happened, but she couldn’t have her one true friend thinking badly
of her, “It was…birth control. We had an encounter.”

Chris covered his ears with his hands like he was a
little boy and shook his head. “I don’t want to know.”

Marietta watched her friend and laughed. It was
understandable that he wouldn’t want to know the intimate details of her sex
life, especially since they were each other’s firsts, but it bugged her that he
wasn’t jealous. “So what are you doing on this side of the Sahara?”