A Diamond in the Rough Read online

“I don’t want to do that. I want go to sleep and forget today happened.”

  “Sophie, don’t be silly. Just get up. You might like the surprise.”

  I look at her, distressed. She’s excited, I can tell, as she puts my hair into place. She’s my mother all over again.

  ***

  I WOULDN’T CALL this a surprise. A surprise would’ve been Antonio, my Puerto Rican landlord, showing up to say I don’t have to pay rent this month because he’s supportive like that. A surprise would’ve been the mailman, Fred—he’s almost eighty-two—coming here to personally tell me I received a letter in the mail saying I won the lottery. So I wouldn’t call this a surprise. I would call this a shock.

  As the door comes into view I go still as a statue, my face stuck to its most spooked expression at the sight of him—that man—right here, standing in front of my apartment. He looks so different standing straight up in my doorway than he did when I was on top of him in the street. For some reason, now my sign reads: “We’re open!”

  “Hello, Sophie.” I’m reminded of his voice, smooth yet powerful, with a trace of huskiness.

  “It’s you,” I say half-confused, half-thrilled.

  I can tell he’s one of those men, the ones everything goes right for—armed and ready to draw a wink from any lady in his dapper suit, glistening shoes, and a strap of shiny metal fitted to his wrist. To take a guess, he’s a big-shot business type with more dollars in his bank account than common sense in his head...into stocks and bonds and finance things I know nothing of.

  But he doesn’t look like just a rich man. No, it can never be that simple. When is it ever that simple? The blue in his eyes is another matter, out of this world, almost translucent, glossy. His hair is dark—the color of roasted coffee beans, mid-length; it faintly curls on his forehead and partially covers his ears. The word untamed comes to mind.

  “It’s good to see you’re alive and well,” he says, hands behind his back like he hasn’t a care in the world.

  “I’m alive, anyway. How’d you find me?”

  “I asked.”

  “Who?”

  “I’ll explain. May I come in?” His tone implies he already knows the answer.

  “No.” I say it quick, sharp. I feel tremendously self-conscious of the tea on my shirt and my lack of usual glamour in the presence of a man like him, a man that looks every bit like someone who is not used to people telling him no.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know you,” I firmly say, trying to pull my eyes from his.

  “I’m sorry.” He moves in closer and smiles. “My name is Oliver,” he pauses, “Black. I’m not here to cause trouble. I’d like to have a word with you about today in private.”

  I blink a few times, not knowing how to respond to this. The little hairs on my body stand on end. “What exactly about today?”

  “It’ll only take a minute.”

  “Are you a cop?”

  He smiles at me, revealing straight, pearly teeth. The man knows how to smile. “Do I look like a cop?”

  “No...but you act like one.”

  “Do I? In what way?”

  “Well, at the top of my mind, you know my name, you tracked me down, and you’re here for some reason.”

  “Some people would call that resolve. When I want to know something, generally I find out.”

  I begin to fight an internal battle. For a second, I dart my gaze around, looking for anything I can club him with if he tries something. All kinds of escape plans spin around in my head. Before I know it, I step aside and wave him through. I feel a small twinge of unease as his cologne follows him and yearning builds in my body for pleasures I don’t usually allow myself to feel.

  He strolls into the living room. I slink into the kitchen and grab the phone from its cradle, just in case I need to call 9-1-1.

  “So, what can I do for you, Mr. Black? You’re not a reporter, are you?” I say, instantly regretting not asking sooner. Whatever he is, he is not common.

  “You’re uncomfortable because you can’t read me, aren’t you?” he says calmly. “You have that expression on your face.”

  I smile but it’s an effort to do so. Inside I’m having a really bad time. “Don’t worry about my face.”

  “I’m not a reporter. And do call me Oliver.” He has my hat in hand. “You left this behind today. I thought you might want it back.” He comes closer and slowly presses it down on my head. My body relaxes in a slump that causes my knees to go weak. Then, he takes a step back and looks at my head. “It looks good on you.” After a moment, he waves a hand vaguely at my body. “But then, I’m sure everything does.”

  His audacity leaves me nonplussed.

  “Is this why you’re here?” I take off the hat and throw it at the sofa like a Frisbee. My cheeks heat up and everything inside me is being pushed around as if I were on a rollercoaster. Except now I can’t scream, throw my arms up in the air, and let myself feel the full-body exhilaration. All I can do at this point is hold on tight and wait for it to be all over.

  “You don’t take compliments well.”

  I turn and look at his eyes, the light blue color of a Norwegian glacier and the burning of ice. His eyebrows—fuzzy and thick, deepen his firm gaze. He’s a distraction. “You pay attention.”

  “Yes. When I’m interested,” he responds, walking around. “But I’m not here to look for a date.” He studies my apartment, taking in the sofa, the TV, and I study him. I figure I’m not the only one who knows he’s good-looking just by his behavior. “Did you recently move in?”

  What kind of question is that? “No...” I look around, doubtful of my answer. “Why?”

  “The place looks uninhabited. A model apartment, if you will.”

  “Oh, yeah. My roommate believes in clean. Less furniture, less chaos I guess.”

  “What about you?” he prods.

  “Well, I don’t think anyone should sit on rotten food and shack up with roaches. I believe in clean, yes. But I don’t aspire to keep up a model home look.” Why am I even explaining myself?

  “Why not?”

  “Because no one actually lives in a model home. No one is that perfect.”

  He nods once, smiling. “I see.”

  The front door cracks open just slightly, but the sound is enough to make me turn and stare. Eric, Jess’s light haired, blue-eyed boyfriend, comes into the living room, still wearing his medical scrubs.

  He gives Oliver the once-over, which Oliver throws right back at him.

  “Who the hell are you?” Eric blusters.

  Jess wails at her boyfriend from her room and Eric, in an equally upset attitude, drags himself over there in chain gang style. I sit down on the armchair. I rub my clammy palms against my thighs and let myself sink slowly back into it, mulling things over, trying to stay levelheaded.

  Oliver unbuttons his suit jacket and sits on the sofa in front of me.

  “I thought this was only going to take a minute,” I say, peeved by my reaction to him. “It’s been a very long minute.”

  He grins with elegance and sensuality. “What are you doing about that bruise?”

  Man, he has a nice voice.

  “What?”

  “Your chin.” His spirited smile draws into a hard line across his face. “How does it feel?”

  I want to tell him that it hurts like hell, but I’m not about to admit to weakness. I shrug it off. “I’ll live.”

  “Have you put any ice on it?”

  “Just some aloe vera.” I gently trace a finger along the bruise. “It’s better now.”

  “The bleeding underneath the skin will keep spreading for a couple of days. Get some ice on your chin. It will help with the swelling. After a day or two, apply some heat. Makes the body flush out the loose blood in the area.”

  My eyebrows scrunch up. “Are you some kind of bruise specialist?”

  “Just speaking from experience here.”

  “You don’t look like the fightin
g type to me.”

  His stare is hard, almost cold. “You don’t know me. You don’t know what type of man I am.”

  “No I don’t,” I shoot back. “And you don’t know me either.”

  He leans back in the sofa and crosses his legs. I don’t react, though how he looks at me is almost frightening, like he can see right through me.

  “Well, you are very quick to defend yourself in the face of danger,” he gamely says. “You’re a fighter. You don’t just give up that easily. That was some assault you were in and I happened to see what you did to said assailant in question. Where did you learn to fight like that?”

  I smile just a bit, remembering. “I was lucky.”

  “The idea that an uncontrollable force delivers beneficial effects in a person’s life is ridiculous. That was skill.”

  “Look, what do you want me to tell you?”

  “What you’re thinking.” He sounds serious. “I say what I think. You shouldn’t hold anything back.”

  My eyes shy away from his. “I don’t know,” I reply, shaking my head. “When you’ve seen the side of life I have, you learn to survive. I’ve been in low places.”

  That seems to pique his curiosity. “I can relate. Good to see you got out of it unscathed.”

  “I have a beat-up chin that says otherwise, and another bruise on my stomach from the whack.”

  “Well, relatively unscathed, anyway.” His voice is steady. “Yes, he beat you up. He punched you in the face, and yet here you are, telling me all about it. I believe you won.”

  What’s the point of living if you’re doing it half-right?

  I laugh bitterly. “I didn’t win. I simply haven’t lost yet. I have a feeling whatever happened today is not over.” I can’t believe I finally voiced what I’ve been thinking all day, and to him of all people.

  “Sophie.” He tries to reason with me.

  “What?” My tone is careless. “I was screwed from the get-go. It was stupid of me to even think of going up against a criminal who’s clearly used to being a criminal. I don’t exactly know the ropes of martial arts.”

  “Oh, but I do. One thing I can tell you, it is our most primal of survival mechanisms to fight back when attacked.” He says it with an unsympathetic glare, making me go a little loopy. “If anything, it was natural. Unfortunately, I agree with you on one thing.” His voice is so low it’s barely audible. “This isn’t over.”

  I exhale sharply, just realizing I’ve been holding my breath. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m sorry for wasting your time. I’m afraid there’s not much I can explain to you right now. It’s...crowded in here.”

  “What? Them?” I look to Jess’s room. “Don’t worry. They’re harmless.”

  “You know,” he says, leaning forward, “most women are attacked by someone they know or trust, either related to or intimately involved with.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “They know you. They know exactly when and where to aim.”

  My body tenses at the gravity of his words.

  “As for the conversation, we can continue it at a more private place. Say my office, Thursday at one o’clock sharp. I have some things I need to discuss with you.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to happen,” I say brusquely, then swallow what little saliva is left inside my dry mouth.

  “Why not?”

  “My agent handles my schedule. She’s the one you should speak to, and even after you do, I still don’t think that’s going to happen.”

  I get up and he follows. “Kim isn’t a problem. You are a busy woman, but I am a resourceful man. I can assure you the issue is taken care of.”

  His mouth holds a curvature that makes me believe he’s delighted, like I’m already his for that time of day.

  My face most likely reflects confusion. “I’m sorry. You’ve spoken to Kim?”

  “No. Not particularly. I simply know she’s the woman to talk to if someone should want to get a hold of you.”

  I run my finger over my lip like I’m rubbing on soothing lip balm. “Well, good luck getting Kim to agree with whatever you’re going to ask of her.”

  He smirks at my response. “I’ll see you in my office, Sophie. Thursday. You should get some rest.”

  After I see him out the front door, I sink against it, rubbing my face tiredly. The exit of a man of his caliber—not to mention today’s events—has left me exhausted. Anxious. Wiped out. Oliver did nothing more than say a few words, but he has a way with them, very smooth.

  I get up, rush over to my room, and carefully peek out the window through a gap in the drapes. Just as I suspected, a sparkly limo is parked outside the building and there goes Oliver, being led into the back seat by whom I suppose is his driver. Before he gets in, he looks up at my window and catches my gaze. He must’ve known where to look. He smiles like a little kid that just got his way. I move back from the window and switch the lights off, my heart thumping nonstop against my breastbone.

  I quickly collapse on my desk chair, flip open my laptop, and fire up Google. I finish typing the first letter of his last name and instantly, a drop-down list of search predictions pops up. Well, I’ll be damned. Oliver Black shows up at the top of the list. I hover the mouse pointer over his name and hesitate whether to click on it.

  I click away, and there he is, in full splendor, on Wikipedia and Forbes and Business Insider, and other five hundred thousand links. I open up a bunch of tabs on my browser window. Oliver Black: middle name James, twenty-nine, American entrepreneur, martial artist, active in global environmental markets, engineering and construction. He plays a role in the United Nations Economic and Social Council since 2005, in areas such as finance and sustainable development.

  Minutes fly by. Reading up on Oliver and his life is like trying to study for an impossible college test. It’s complicated, and there seems to be little information outside of the superficial.

  Jess comes in flying through the door. “Is he gone? Who was he?” She stares at the laptop screen. I cross my arms and roll my eyes, just feeling her soft euphoria, just imagining her brain lighting up like a Christmas tree.

  “Oh my God,” she squeals.

  “I don’t want to hear it,” I say, shaking my head.

  “But I haven’t even said anything,” she points out indignantly. “How do you know you don’t want to hear it?”

  “I know what you’re going to say. I’m not going to like it.”

  “Are you joking?”

  “Am I laughing?”

  “Sophie, come on,” she says gently. “Stop being a baby.”

  “If by ‘baby’ you mean I’m being honest about how I feel, then good. I need to be more like that. So, compliment taken.”

  “You are unbelievable, you know that?” she says, probably seeing right through my ploy.

  “It’s my best quality,” I brag.

  “Why don’t you want to talk about him?”

  “Because I don’t.”

  “Okay, what about his—?”

  “Still no.”

  “Sophie.”

  “Nope.”

  A second of silence reigns around us, then she can’t hold in anymore. “Oh, for the love of God! The man is a big deal. So what? Get over it,” she says, too fast.

  She leaves the room, and I say to myself, focusing on the screen. “Yeah, he’s a big deal.”

  ***

  THE FOLLOWING DAY, I end up facing another ordeal. Jess walks out of her classroom and sees me sitting on a bench next to a little chubby boy slurping a Capri Sun who just won’t stop staring.

  She chuckles quietly. “You ready to come inside?”

  “I’m as ready as a fifteen-year-old is to be a mother.”

  “Why do you have to joke like that all the time?”

  “Jess, you should know by now my humor is self-deprecating. I have no problem laughing at myself.”

  “Why? I don’t think it’s appropriate.”

 
“It means I don’t take things too seriously.” At least that’s what I think it means.

  “Look, you’ll be fine in there. The kids will love you, I swear.”

  I stand up and fix my sheer light blue button-up and white slacks. My hair is styled casually with flowing, bouncy locks parted down the middle like somebody in a Renaissance painting.

  “Wait. Wait a minute.” I catch up to her and grab her elbow. “I don’t know if I should do this. I mean...what am I supposed to say, ‘Hi, I look pretty in a dress’?”

  “You’re supposed to just be you—”

  I cut her off. “Please don’t say yourself.”

  “Now what?”

  “It’s the worst advice you can give people. What if I’m a backbiter or a serial killer? That’s not going to work, is it?”

  She sighs as if anticipating a migraine. “Okay, this is crazy. I don’t get why you’re intimidated by a bunch of fourth graders,” she says as she opens the door to a roomful of fervent souls. “You’re a public figure for Christ’s sake. Pull yourself together and act like one.”

  I want to go on in protest and ask the ever-present “why?” But then I think of when I was a little girl and my mother telling me, “Because I said so. That’s why.”

  And there it is again...that voice...my mother’s voice...coming out of the darkest, deepest-hidden places inside me. It keeps coming back from a place of self-doubt and always pulls me down so deep into it, I can hear no other voice but that one. Every single time, I want to shut my ears and say, “Lalalala...I can’t hear you, Susan!” But I can and I do.

  I walk in on a room so full of natural light that I feel myself about to combust into ashes. Students sit with feet flat on the floor, palms together, and elbows resting on their green desks. White walls are covered with an array of posters and the colorful productions of the children’s activities. I see trinkets and decorations dispersed throughout the room. Heavenly images, Godly portraits, and tiny cherubic figurines are hung above the green chalkboard. The question comes up into my throat and almost chokes me. Will they judge me?

  Jess stations herself where the kids can see her. “Class, up next for career week is model Sophie Cavall! Let’s give her a warm welcome!”

  The kids clap in unison. They stare at me with widening eyes as if I’m a trained, pirouetting dolphin in the middle of my Sea World act.