Maybe he was right. Maybe they did belong together. She surely didn’t belong with a seventeen-year-old high school student. Maybe Jason was what she needed. She tried to believe this, but unfortunately, when she closed her eyes and began to succumb to Jason’s caresses, she saw Chase, not Jason.
“I have to think about this.” It took every bit of inner strength for Delia to push him away, but she did it and she felt extremely proud of herself for it.
“I don’t understand. Is there someone else?”
“No,” she lied.
“Then what’s the problem? Let’s pretend none of this happened and go back to the way things used to be.”
“The way things used to be? When you cheated on me with a different woman every week?”
“I won’t do that anymore. I’ll get help. I’ll change. I promise.”
“I said I have to think about it. Now please leave, Jason.”
“I’m not leaving. You’re my wife and I have every right to be here.” Jason took off his coat, tossed it on the bed,
then
plopped in the lounge chair. He took out a nail file and started buffing his nails as if he would be there for a while. “Besides, you need me. You wouldn’t have been attacked if you had a man around to protect you.”
“What?”
“I said
,
you need a man in your life. You can’t handle things on your own,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone as he continued to groom his nails. A speck of dust from his nails fell upon his crisp gray shirt and Jason meticulously removed it so as not to spread it to his creased black pants.
Delia flushed with anger. How dare he march back into her life just to declare her incompetence? A flood of not so nice words rushed into her mind, but one phrase popped out first. “How did you know I was attacked?”
“
Hunh
?”
Jason looked up from his nails as if he had forgotten she was in the room. He wasn’t even pretending to listen.
“How did you know about the attack?”
“Oh, some police people came to question me.” He went back to his nails, immediately purging Delia from his thoughts.
She eyed him suspiciously. He hadn’t changed a bit. He was still a self-absorbed, conceited, arrogant bastard. He didn’t love her. If he did, he would have come to see her after she was bound and gagged and stuffed into the trunk of a car. She didn’t even get a phone call from him. Looking at him now, she realized he probably loved his fingernails more than he loved her. What had she ever seen in him? More importantly, why was he now so interested in getting back together? He had to have some ulterior motive.
A knock on the door pulled Delia out of her thoughts. She had never been so relieved in her life to have an unexpected visitor so late at night.
“What are
you
doing here?” she asked Chase when she opened the door. This night just kept getting more and more bizarre.
“I was on my way to the Black Cat when I saw Mr. James here entering your building. I wanted to make sure you were okay.” Chase stepped passed Delia into the apartment and glared at Jason.
“Excuse me, do I know you?” Jason asked.
“Wait, you were going to a club on a Tuesday night? You have school in the morning,” she said.
“Delia, is this one of your students?” Jason asked with an arrogant grin.
“Looks like he’s got a bit of a crush on you.”
“I think you should leave now,” Chase said with an authority that belied the youthful White Stripes T-shirt he wore.
Jason laughed outright. “This does not concern you, kid. This is between me and my wife. If anyone’s leaving, it’s you.” Jason stood and approached Chase threateningly.
The two men stared at each other in a battle of wills neither one of them wanting to be the one to move first.
Finally, Chase said, “Are you going to leave willingly or am I going to have to force you?”
“I’d like to see you try.”
In a flurry of movements, Chase grabbed Jason’s wrist, twisted his arm behind his back and had him pinned to the floor writhing in pain. Delia’s eyes bulged. When did they start teaching
that
in high school gym class? Chase picked him up, banged his face into the wall then pushed him out the door and into the hallway. It all happened so quickly that Jason stood speechless staring into the apartment and clutching his bloody nose.
Chase grabbed Jason’s coat, tossed it at him then slammed the door shut.
“What the hell was that?” Delia asked when it was all over.
“I hate that guy for what he did to you.”
“Does that give you the right to break his nose?”
“I should have done worse. I wish he would’ve hit me back so I could’ve knocked out some of his perfectly placed teeth. What was he doing here anyway?”
“He wants to get back together.” Delia found herself slinking away from Chase. Suddenly, she was a little afraid of him. She had seen the shy, sweet Chase from the cruise, the arrogant womanizer C.J. from school, and now this new incarnation of personality seemed simply violent. She wondered if he had another name he went by.
“Delia, I’m not going to hurt you. I’d never hurt you,” he said when he noticed her guarded demeanor.
“I think you should go. I just want to be alone.”
“Delia, I
… ”
he reached out to touch her then decided against it.
The next day, the test grades turned out about the same. Most students even scored worse except C.J. Angie, Ian, and Lena, whose grades either stayed the same or improved. That should have been enough to ease her worries. It was a completely unplanned and unexpected test and she had watched them carefully throughout the class. There was no way they could have gotten the test in advance or cheated right in front of her face. She should have felt better, but she didn’t. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she knew something wasn’t right.
“You did really well on your last test, Lena,” Delia said during the next lunch period they shared together.
“Thanks.” Lena stared at her thumbs and wouldn’t make eye contact with Delia. “I guess the extra help you’ve given me has really … um … helped.”
Delia wished that were true, but they had only met twice. There was no way she had given Lena enough help to raise her grades so drastically.
“And, um, C.J. has been helping me,” Lena added.
“C.J., huh?”
Delia wasn’t buying this explanation either. She decided to do a little more investigation. She went to the registrar’s office and pulled his file, looking for some sort of pattern for excellence in math. There wasn’t any. He was a consistent D student across the board. But, somehow, he had gotten accepted to private school after private school.
Next, she went to the admissions office and spoke with Cindy Cooper. She was a recent graduate of Saxon Arms who worked there during her days off from American University.
“So, Cindy, what can you
tell
me about C.J. Mitchell?” Delia asked after making small talk for a few minutes.
“Well, what do you
wanna
know?” Cindy tossed her shoulder length blond hair, blew a bubble with her gum then started typing on her computer.
“Why did he leave his last school? Why did we accept him? Why —”
“ —
is he so darn cute?” Cindy interrupted with a chuckle. Delia didn’t crack a smile. Cindy cleared her throat, straightened her face and continued typing. “Huh, that’s odd.”
“What?” Delia tried to lean over the desk and get a glimpse of the computer screen.
“Well, usually all that information just pops up. But it seems as though Principal Howard has restricted my access. C.J.’s admission file is sealed.”
Delia had a computer science degree. Given twenty minutes, she could probably get around an access restriction, but she would need to do it from Principal Howard’s computer.
Or, at least, Cindy’s computer.
She didn’t know how she could accomplish either feat without arousing suspicion.
On the way back to her classroom, she passed Locke, the tech genius. She didn’t know whether Locke was his real name or a nickname based on that unfortunate hairstyle. White people should really stop wearing dreadlocks. Anyway, she knew he would have access to the entire Saxon Arms system from his computer. And she knew just how to lure him away from his office.
Locke never even tried to hide his attraction for Donna Lee. On the first day of school, he had nearly
broken
his neck to get a better look at her when she came to pick up Delia from work. Since then, a day didn’t go by when he didn’t ask about Donna Lee or the next time he could possibly see her again.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Donna Lee said the next day as she adjusted her black miniskirt. “This guy is so not my type. He looks like a mop and smells like bad marijuana. I know I said I owed you one for going to the doctor with me to get my test results, but I never thought you’d take me up on it.”
“Well, trust me, if you turned out to be sick I wouldn’t be asking you to do this. But since you’re well and everything’s okay, I don’t mind cashing in the I.O.U. Now let’s get started. Just walk past his office and pretend you’re looking for me. I’m sure that’ll be enough to get his attention. Then, when you’re alone with him, find out as much as you can about him so you can help me figure out his password.”
Donna Lee cringed. “I have to be alone with him? Ugh. If he touches me we are beyond even.”
She swung her waist length jet black hair over her shoulder, pushed together her boobs in the silver halter top, and walked past Locke’s open door. Nothing happened. She stood on the other side of the doorway, gesturing to Delia that she didn’t know what to do. Delia pointed towards the door signaling that she should go in. Donna Lee rolled her eyes, took a deep breath and stepped into Locke’s office.
“Hi, Locke, I was wondering if you’ve seen my sister anywhere?”
Locke stuttered for a few seconds then said, “No, no I haven’t.” Then
came
the awkward silence. Delia could practically see Locke gawking at her sister, probably complete with an open mouth and drool.
“Oh, well. Maybe she left without me. We were supposed to go out for a drink though.” Donna Lee sighed dramatically. “I was really looking forward to a night out. I’ve had a rough day.”
“I—I’ll go out with you. I mean … I don’t mean to invite myself, but I’m almost done here and I’d love to … to … what was I saying?”
“Oh, Locke you’re so funny,” she said after an uncharacteristic girlish giggle.
“Just let me send a couple of emails and I’ll be ready.”
Moments later, they stepped out of the office arm in arm.