Diamond Life Read online

  Jake could see that Dominic was trying to catch his eye. But he ignored him.

  “What time do you get off?”

  Lily just smiled and walked away.

  Jake licked his lips and then drained his drink.

  “Are we done here?” Jake asked.

  “We just got started,” said Dominic. “You’re distracted as usual.”

  Jake kept looking at Lily. There had been only one thing that kept him from killing himself after his wife died: liquor. And with enough liquor in his system, the women started to pile up, one after the other. He seldom woke up alone and usually tossed them overboard quickly. It had taken thirty seconds to decide that Lily would be next.

  “I’m right here with you,” Jake said, his eyes lingering on Lily as she tended to another table. She leaned over a bit to hear her customer and Jake stared at her neck.

  “You should try to make an appearance at Cipriani’s tonight if you’re up to it. It will look good for the Seagram’s deal.”

  Jake nodded, still watching Lily and rubbing his thick beard.

  “I gotta cut my hair and shave for that?”

  Dominic cleared his throat.

  “Yeah, I think you should.”

  “Then I won’t be there. Send the paperwork about the headphones to the office and I’ll sign it,” said Jake.

  “You also need to talk to Birdie about this reality show VH-1 has on the table,” said Dominic.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “He says he doesn’t want to do it. Something about his wife not wanting to be involved.”

  Jake grunted.

  “I’ll talk to him,” said Jake. “He’s definitely doing it.”

  Dominic and Jake shook hands. While Dominic went out the front door, Jake parked himself at the bar. Jake’s bodyguard Boo was waiting with his driver outside, but in this dark, cavernous space, he didn’t have to worry about being approached by anyone.

  Lily came by his spot at the bar and dropped off another drink.

  “You didn’t tell me when you get off,” Jake said.

  “I’m not available.”

  “Did I ask you that?”

  “I just thought you should know.”

  Now Jake knew he was taking her home. She was his favorite type: a challenge. One hour and six drinks later, Jake was still alone. And Lily was no closer to leaving with him.

  “I’m only giving you one more chance,” Jake said, his words slurred.

  “No, thanks,” said Lily with a smile. “It was nice meeting you, though.”

  “Look at this,” Jake said, struggling to pull his cell phone out of his coat pocket. “I can call anyone on this phone and have them at my house before I can get there.” Just as Lily tried to walk away, Jake stopped her by touching her arm.

  “Watch this,” said Jake. He stabbed a few numbers on the phone and waited.

  “Yo,” Jake barked into the phone. “Where you at?” Jake listened.

  “Take a cab to the house,” Jake said. “Be there in twenty minutes or don’t come at all.”

  Lily smiled with her mouth closed.

  “Impressive,” she said. “I have to get back to work now.”

  Jake clambered off the stool, losing his balance, and then collecting himself just in time to prevent himself from falling. He touched the flower behind her ear.

  “Just remember,” said Jake. “ That coulda been you. You may not know it. But I’m kind of a big deal.”

  Jake sent a text to Boo, who met him at the entrance and half-carried him back to the car. Jake collapsed into the back seat and reached for the bottle of gin he kept in a side compartment.

  By the time he got home, he was out cold in the back seat. The young woman he’d invited over was still in the taxi, waiting. Boo paid the driver to take the woman back home and got Jake into the house.

  Jake woke up the next morning without any recollection of Peter Luger’s, his therapy session, or a girl named Lily.

  I hate this.”

  “Would you relax? Jesus.”

  Lily sat up slightly and peeled back a corner of the eye gel mask the technician had placed over her eyes. She looked over at Corrine.

  “How am I supposed to relax if I can’t see?”

  “Don’t you close your eyes when you’re sleeping?”

  “But I’m not sleeping. I’m in the nail salon. And this thing is making me feel claustrophobic.”

  “So take it off. Just leave me alone.”

  Lily took the mask off and placed it on the table on the side of the recliner. She looked down at the basin of water where her feet had been soaking for fifteen minutes. She didn’t care for having her eyes closed. She felt too vulnerable. Like someone could be staring at her, judging her while she had no idea. She was used to being stared at and judged. But she needed to see it straightaway. So no eye packs. And definitely no massages. Lily shuddered. Just the thought of someone kneading her muscles while she was wearing nothing but a towel made her heart race.

  Lily sat back in her chair and used the lever on the side to recline it completely. She wiggled her toes and smiled. Heaven was a place where you soaked your feet in piping hot water laced with peppermint soap for twenty minutes every day. Lily breathed in deep and tried to relax. Five straight nights at the restaurant, followed by teaching an early morning art class every day had worn her out. Today, she’d planned on sleeping in before Corrine came over unannounced, as usual, and dragged her out of the house for their monthly trip to the salon.

  Lily had been having a dream when Corrine called. The man from the restaurant was in it. The cute guy with the afro and the scruffy beard. He was talking to her, whispering something in her ear that she couldn’t understand. She kept pulling back to look at his mouth, hoping she’d be able to read his lips. But he would just shake his head and pull her closer so that he could whisper in her ear again. Do you speak English? she asked him. He looked at her and said, Yes, I do. Lily breathed a sigh of relief and then began to ask him to repeat what he was trying to say. His cell phone rang and he gestured to Lily to give him one second. He started talking on the phone. But somehow it was still ringing . . . And then Lily woke up to the sound of Corrine’s ringtone on her cell. She wanted to immediately go back to sleep and find the guy with the scruffy beard and tell him to whisper in her ear once more.

  “Maybe if you put the eye pack back on, you’ll fall asleep and you can see your Bearded Boyfriend again,” Corrine said.

  “Shut up,” said Lily.

  “Did he look like the Brawny guy?”

  “No. He was black.”

  “The Brawny guy is black.”

  “No, he’s not. Anyway. Can we stop talking about him?”

  Corrine took off her eye mask and turned to face her friend.

  “What exactly happened with this guy?”

  “I told you,” said Lily. “He was there for a meeting or something. I waited on his table. And I just—”

  “You fell in love with him while you were serving him a rum and Coke.’

  “No. I did not fall in love with him. And it was Jack and Coke. Not rum.”

  “But you’ve been dreaming about him ever since.”

  “Weird, right?”

  “And you don’t know his name.”

  Lily shook her head.

  “No clue.”

  “Wonder why you’re not dreaming about Shawn,” Corrine said. She raised an eyebrow and smiled.

  Lily looked up at the ceiling and then over at her friend.

  “Maybe because I know I never want to see him again?”

  “Oh come on, Lily! You went out with him twice. That’s it. You know we believe in a three-date rule, unless he’s absolutely unsalvageable.”

  “I won’t say I don’t like him,” said Lily. “It’s just . . . I don’t like him enough.”

  “Maybe that comes with time,” Corrine said.

  -Lily shook her head vigorously.

  “I’ll know right away,” she
said. “It won’t take long to—”

  Lily jumped. She jerked her head to the left, expecting to see the bearded guy in the salon.

  “Did you just hear a guy talking?” Lily asked.

  Corrine looked as if she wanted to call the men with the nets and the straitjackets.

  “Lil, there are no guys in here,” Corrine said slowly.

  Lily looked around again.

  “I just heard a guy say, ‘I’m kind of a big deal.’”

  Corrine sat back and pointed to the television.

  “You’re losing it, babe. It’s a line from a movie. Anchorman.”

  “But that’s not playing,” Lily said, looking up at the television. “Excuse me,” she said to the woman working on her feet. “Can you rewind this for a minute?” Corrine’s eyes widened.

  “What are you doing? There are other people in here, you know. And they’re watching—”

  Lily bounced in her seat and pointed at the screen. A tall, clean-cut guy with bright eyes was being interviewed.

  “Who is that? Right there!”

  “Ah,” said Corrine. “Please don’t sit here and tell me you don’t know who Jake is.”

  “I don’t know who Jake is. Should I?”

  “Yeah, Lily, you should.”

  “He sounds exactly like the guy from the restaurant. He even said that to me. ‘I’m kind of a big deal.’”

  “So maybe it was Jake.”

  Lily shook her head.

  “Nah. He didn’t look anything like that. I told you. He looked like a mountain man. Really bushy hair and a thick beard . . .”

  Corrine rummaged through her purse for her cell phone. She punched a few keys and then turned the screen to show Lily.

  “Is this your bearded boyfriend?”

  Lily squinted and then grabbed the phone for a closer look. It was him. The guy from the restaurant. In the photo, he was climbing into a big black truck. A guy who looked like a bodyguard had a hand outstretched to block the camera’s lens.

  “That’s him! But that can’t be the same guy . . .” Lily looked back up at the television.

  “Yeah. Your crush is a rapper named Jake. He’s huge.”

  “Why does he look so . . . unkempt?”

  “His wife died last year. He’s been a mess ever since. You really need to get a television.”

  “Wait. Who was his wife? The singer? The one who died in a plane crash?”

  Corrine looked at Lily and shook her head.

  “Yes. He was married to her. She died. And ever since, he’s looked like this.” Corrine shrugged and threw her phone back into her bag. She leaned over to inspect the color being applied meticulously to her toes.

  “You don’t seem like you are into the hard-core rapper type . . .” Corrine said, keeping her eyes on her bright red toes.

  “I’m not,” said Lily. “At all. I’m not into hard-core anything . . .”

  Lily and Corrine shared a long look. Lily looked away first, and they both pretended to busy themselves with their magazines. Lily was grateful for the quiet. She was suddenly warm all over and her hands were trembling just a bit. She kept looking up at the television, as if she still expected to see Jake on the screen. She couldn’t fathom that the sharp guy with the easy smile was the same guy from the restaurant who drank too much and slurred his words. He was the complete polar opposite of everything Lily wanted in a man. From his looks to his style. So why had she been thinking about him nonstop? Dreaming about him even . . .

  On the other side of the salon, with magazines in their laps and their feet under nail dryers, Lily and Corrine carefully thumbed through ancient magazines.

  “See look, here’s a picture of Kipenzi and Jake from last year,” said Corrine.

  Lily leaned over and peered at the photo. The woman was breathtaking—blinding white teeth, and flawless caramel skin.

  “She is stunning,” Lily whispered.

  “She was stunning,” said Corrine, tossing the magazine to the side. “They were definitely a cute couple, though.”

  Lily picked up the magazine Corrine had tossed aside and flipped through it. She came to a photo of Jake on his way to Kipenzi’s funeral. His lips were set in a thin straight line and he wore oversized shades. He had a five o’clock shadow, the only sign that anything was amiss.

  “He’s in a lot of pain. I could tell that in the restaurant.”

  “Don’t start, Lily,” Corrine said, standing up and slipping into her shoes while blowing on her still-wet nails. “There is no such thing as hyperempathy.”

  “I’m telling you! I could feel his emotions! As soon as I took his order, I just felt grief and pain and sadness.”

  Ever since Lily had read Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, about a woman who bleeds if she even sees someone bleeding, she’d become convinced that she had a mild form of what was known in the book as hyperempathy. For her entire life, she’d felt what other people were feeling—even people she didn’t know at all. And as soon as she’d walked away from Jake’s table that night, she wanted to go into the break room and sob hysterically. She felt so much heartache radiating from his body that she just wanted to take him in her arms and rock him back and forth, kissing his forehead until he fell asleep.

  “You go ahead,” Lily said, waving Corrine off when they were all done and had paid for their services. “I’m going to stop by the restaurant for a second.”

  Corrine dropped her mouth in mock surprise.

  “You’re hoping your bearded boyfriend is there, aren’t you?”

  “No. I’m hoping my check is there.”

  “Uh-huh. Right.”

  Lily pulled on her warm socks, her all-weather galoshes, and then stood up straight. She blew on her nails a few times to make sure they were completely dry.

  “I’m coming with you,” Corrine said. She slipped on the oversized shades she wore in all seasons, tipped the salon technician, and started toward the door.

  “Corrine, I don’t need you to—”

  Corrine stopped and turned.

  “Whatever. I’m coming. And that is the end dot com,” said Corrine.

  “You know I hate it when you do that.”

  Corrine waved down a taxi and threw open the back door.

  “Let’s go, girl,” she said. She slapped Lily on the butt as she climbed in the taxi. “Let’s go find your man.”

  Lily had no idea why she was stopping by the restaurant. She did want her paycheck. But on a Sunday there was nothing she could do with it anyway. She was working the next day, so it would make more sense then. But she had to go. And she felt like she’d know once she got there why she needed to go. As Corrine chatted nonstop about how she’d already broken all her New Year’s resolutions, Lily kept her head down, blocking against the wind, as they trudged down Broadway, jumping over puddles of melting snow and ice. As soon as they got to the service entrance to the restaurant, Lily stopped Corrine.

  “Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m coming here because I think Jake’s here.”

  Corrine made a face.

  “Duh. I know that.”

  “But it’s not just that. I feel like he’s looking for me.”

  “And he’s telepathically bringing you here.”

  “Yes.”

  “Lily, can I be really honest with you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Jake is . . . he’s one of them. He’s rich. He’s famous. He’s got girls throwing pussy at him like it’s a softball.”

  “Like it’s a what?”

  “Never mind. I’m just saying I don’t want to see you play yourself. It sounds like he gave you some attention and you’re making way too big of a deal about it.”

  Lily glared at Corinne.

  “Come on,” Corrine said, pulling the door open and holding it for Lily.

  The restaurant was nearly empty. And only Manny, Lily’s supervisor, was at the bar. He was leaning over, chatting with Samantha, one of the other bartenders.

  “Hmm
mm. Let’s see if there are any platinum-selling rappers who have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame sitting around a deserted restaurant with a rose in their teeth, waiting for their favorite bartender to return so he can profess his love.”

  Corrine shielded her eyes with her hand and looked around.

  “What do you know? He’s not here. Gasp.”

  Lily felt a stinging in her eyes and tried to smile anyway.

  “Let’s go,” she said to Corrine, walking toward the front door.

  “Lil?” Corrine walked quickly to catch up and touched her shoulder. “I’m sorry. That was stupid and mean.”

  “It’s okay. It was stupid of me to come back here.” Lily waved at Samantha. Manny turned around to see who Samantha was waving to.

  “What are you doing here?” he barked. “You’re off today!”

  “I know, Manny,” Lily said. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Ha. And I told that guy you wouldn’t be here tonight.”

  Lily and Corrine froze in place. Lily spoke to Manny without turning around.

  “What guy?” she said.

  “The rapper guy. Sat in here with his bodyguard all day today. I told him you wasn’t coming in today. Shows how much I know.”

  Lily and Corrine still didn’t turn around to face Manny.

  “How long ago was this?” Lily asked.

  “What do you mean, how long ago was this? He just walked out. Where were you thirty seconds ago when he was sitting right there?”

  Manny lumbered off the stool and walked past Lily and Corrine. He flung open the front door of the restaurant.

  “See look, he’s right there. Hey, you! Rapper boy! You were right. She did come in. She’s right here—”

  Lily’s mouth dropped. She grabbed Corrine’s wrist and they sprinted through the main room, into the kitchen, and out of the service entrance. They ran full speed down a back alley and didn’t stop until they were across Broadway.

  Both Lily and Corrine were bent over at the waist with their hands on their knees, trying to catch their breath. Corrine pressed her hand to her chest.

  “Seriously, Lily. Why the hell are we running?”

  “I don’t know!” Lily said. “I panicked.”

  “But you expected him to be there!”

  “Well . . .” Lily stopped and gulped for air. “I did and I didn’t. You know?”