Glorious Sunset Read online

  Oh yeah, she caught that look in his eyes when he spotted her in this dress. It was cute. It reminded her of a boy back in high school who was so entranced by the sight of her little beebees he’d spilled soda all over himself trying to get a look. And they’d grown much more since then. They were darned near perfect, now. She could hardly blame the big guy for staring.

  Violet walked to him and reached out to take his hand, looking up and speaking as soothingly as she would with a child. “It’ll be okay. Don’t be scared. I’ll be right there with you.”

  Taka bristled and glared at her from under his brow. “I am not afraid. I’ll thank you to watch your tone with me, woman. I am no child to be placated.”

  “Okay, okay.” Violet raised her hands in submission. “I didn’t mean anything.”

  “What would I be frightened of? Do you think you and your friends and your world are so impressive that a man like me cannot figure them out? It is dinner. We will eat and drink and have conversation. I will sit with you and your friend who is a boy and we will speak civilly. I am a king, I have spoken to dignitaries and politicians the world over; your little friendly boy does not intimidate me.”

  “Okay, I’m sorry,” Violet said, recognizing the dulcet tones of wounded pride. She really shouldn’t tease him so much but men were so easy to rile. “Oh, I almost forgot!” She did a little hop and scurried from the room only to return a second later with the bag she’d brought home earlier. “For you. Perfect for this evening.”

  “Why do I need to change?” Taka asked. “I am already clothed.”

  “Yes, you are. But those clothes leave a little to be desired.”

  “You are being shallow. Clothing is of no consequence; it is the person who is important.”

  Violet sighed and stuck one hand on her hip with annoyance. “So I suppose that means when you were a king you weren’t dressed in the finest clothes and jewels in the land, huh?” She stood there for a moment inspecting her nails until he conceded and snatched the bag from her.

  “Fine. I will change into your modern clothes to impress your friends, as I know that is important to you. I will be out shortly.”

  Violet hid a smile as he walked into the bathroom stiffly and closed the door behind him. She made herself at home on the sofa for the wait, crossing one leg over a knee to allow it to swing. Her shoes were shiny and new; she thought of the way his eyes got dark when he saw her legs in these shoes.

  “Whoa, get a grip, Violet.” There had to be some sort of law against trying to seduce a genie, right?

  An hour later Taka and Jerome sat across from one another, eyeing each other like adversaries.

  “So,” Gary said, watching the other two men. “Taka, what’d you say you do?”

  Violet answered, “He’s a foreign dignitary, aren’t you, Taka?”

  “What the heck is that?” Gary asked.

  Jerome gave Taka a dirty look. “Means kisses behinds of people from other countries.”

  Taka said softly but with steel, “I would imagine you know a great deal about that ‘kissing of the behind’ you speak of; your manner of speech would suggest so. Frankly, I prefer the lips of a beautiful woman to a behind any day.”

  “Too bad you ain’t got one,” Jerome countered, leaning over to kiss Violet. Taka’s jaw flexed, as did his fists under the table.

  “Ah.” Brenda smiled. “That’s sweet.”

  Taka frowned even harder. “Is it supposed to be romantic to grope a woman in public? Where I come from you would have your legs tied to a mule and be dragged through a hill of horse dung for such a disrespectful display with a woman who is not your betrothed.”

  “Darn, man,” Gary declared. “Where you come from?”

  “Why don’t you go back?” Jerome followed.

  Violet saw the food coming and interrupted, gratefully. “Oh look, food’s here. Thank God, I’m starving.” The sight of the ribs and fries on the platter made her mouth water. “Where’s my soda?” she asked the waiter. She frowned when it was obvious he’d forgotten it. “If I wanted my drink after my dinner I would have ordered it as dessert,” she snapped.

  “She gets cranky when she’s hungry,” Jerome said.

  “I’m paying for service,” she insisted. “I’m not paying for him to walk around with his head up his behind.” She said the last part loud enough for half the restaurant to hear and then turned back to her plate, smoothing her napkin over her lap.

  Jerome looked at her platter and gave her a sideways glance. “Dang, baby, you gonna eat all that! Your girl over there doesn’t eat like you do.”

  “I’m. Hungry,” Violet said.

  Brenda prodded her lettuce leaves with a fork. “So am I, but this salad is going to be fine for me. It absolutely fills me up every time I get it and it is so delicious.” The four of them watched Brenda take a bite of lettuce and squint her eyes in ecstasy. Violet flushed as her stomach growled in protest.

  Taka looked at Violet. “Nonsense. Animals were made to be killed and eaten. The body cannot function without protein; it will starve itself into unattractive emaciation, as your tiny friend’s body clearly displays. Eat your fill, woman. But, in the name of all that is holy, you must be kinder to the help. It is unladylike and unbecoming for a woman of your standing to berate them so. You are too decent a person to allow that representation to be all they know of you.”

  All heads looked to him in shock and then everyone at the table burst into laughter; everyone but Violet who looked at him, intently.

  Who did he think he was to call her out like that? She never intended to be rude to the wait staff but she always felt, somehow, that if she didn’t whip them into shape first they would take advantage. She had to show them, and everyone, that she was in control of the situation, didn’t she? She had to show the world she was a force to be reckoned with, right? Then why did she feel the flush of shame? And why was she suddenly offended that everyone else at the table found the prospect of her being a woman of “great standing” so hilarious?

  Taka had stiffened under the laughter assault but he still held Violet’s gaze long enough for Jerome to notice and go on the assault, himself.

  “Listen to him. Who does he think he is?” Jerome asked. Violet kept Taka’s gaze, also, until the genie dropped his to his plate, picking up his utensils to eat, a flex in his jaw his only sign of tension. She felt strangely disappointed with the loss.

  “You should try the salad, Violet,” Brenda said, after Violet had firmly and resolutely inserted a pork rib in her mouth. Violet looked over at her friend and, not for the first time, wondered at her suspect timing. “Especially since you’ll be my maid of honor. You have to look nice in the dress. As a matter of fact, I brought it.”

  Violet’s eyebrows went up and she noticed the plastic rustling behind Brenda and asked, rib in mouth, “Dwess?”

  “It’s right here. I’ll wait ’til you’re finished to give it to you. It goes perfect with the flowers I ordered.”

  Violet swallowed rib meat and said, “Isn’t it customary to be fitted for one of those things?”

  “Yes, but it’s okay. I know what size you are. A ten, right?”

  All eyes looked at her and Violet wanted to cross the table and pimp slap Brenda. Sure, a ten when she was prepubescent. Brenda obviously wanted Violet to admit to the whole table that she was actually a fourteen. Witch. She looked at the dress and did a double take. “Cripes, Brenda, is that orange?”

  “It’s melon. It’s the in color this year.”

  “Good God, did we or did we not take the same fashion class that taught us that what is in fashion is not always what is most flattering? And is that . . . Gosh darn it, Brenda, are those sleeves or balloons?”

  “Sleeves, silly. Chiffon. And the top is satin and the skirt blouses out.”

  “Like a dang on Southern belle on crack.” Violet tried to hold in her horror, truly, but this humiliation was too complete to keep her quiet, even in front of her genie. “I am go
ing to kill you. I’m going to put your head down in your fiancé’s soup and hold it there until the life drains out of you.”

  “I knew you’d like it! I told you she’d like it, Gary.”

  She supposed there was some value in the fact that Brenda never took any of her threats seriously. It would be one of those cases where, when her lifeless body showed up floating in a bathtub, with a bridesmaid dress–colored melon slice shoved in her mouth, people would say Violet just snapped; nobody ever saw it coming.

  Jerome looked across at Taka under hooded lids. “When you getting married, man?”

  “I have been married. I am a widower.”

  Brenda gasped loudly, concern on her face. “I am so sorry. That’s terrible.” She then stopped and seemed to remind herself that she couldn’t trust a thing he said. “You almost got me there. I almost believed you.”

  “I do not lie,” he said sternly.

  “Violet, is he lying?” Brenda asked her.

  Violet rewarded her with a hiss. “He is not a liar. If he says he is a widower than he is. For pity’s sake, can you please leave the man alone?”

  Jerome asked Taka, “What’d she die of?”

  “Jerome!” Violet yelled.

  “It is fine, Violet.” Taka raised a calming hand to her and turned to Jerome. “She was murdered. But she fought all the way. She fought like the wife of a warrior with the spirit of a queen, spirit that can surpass any misfortune. She lived a short life on this earth but that life was as grand as the highest mountain and as precious as the most delicate of flowers. I yearn and long for her every single day with every fiber of my being.” The table fell quiet for a moment and then Gary interrupted the peace.

  “So how was she murdered? Knife? Gun? Bomb?”

  “Good God, Gary,” Brenda said, scandalized by her fiancé’s lack of tact.

  Violet agreed. “How tacky can you be? You are all embarrassing me to death. I am embarrassed right now to know you all.”

  Jerome said wryly, “And yet, here you sit.” He laughed.

  Gary joined in, remarking, “She couldn’t be too embarrassed. She dated both of us; she must like something.”

  “You got that right!” Jerome declared.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Brenda blushed. “Cut it out you guys. That’s just as tasteless.”

  Taka took it all in as Violet ate, seeming to avoid eye contact with him. He’d caught her eyes before and he knew she felt something. Knew it. Now, he could feel a barrier around her. She was shutting him out. She was blinding herself to what she knew was madness. These people, this situation; it wasn’t just her treatment of the help that was beneath her. He felt hurt and let down. He felt further betrayed and lonelier than he ever had.

  For a moment, almost as if she felt his sadness she looked at him, but he was no longer in the mood to look at her.

  Violet felt a stroke of hurt when Taka looked away, again. She wondered at the disappointment she saw in his eyes. She wondered why suddenly the eyes that had lit a fire earlier were now so cold. She looked at her messy plate of ribs and over to Brenda’s neat little salad and lost her appetite. It wasn’t until she heard Jerome that she realized he had taken in the whole transaction.

  “Hey, man. You sitting over there glaring at folks, you need to lighten up,” Jerome said.

  Gary agreed wholeheartedly. “He’s right, man. You way too uptight.”

  Taka grimaced with the effort to withhold his temper. How dare the man intrude when he was having a “staring-avoiding-staring” match with his wife?

  “Now, see, here’s what you need to do to release some of that tension.” Jerome leaned across the table to Taka in a conspiratorial manner. “You see that honey over there at the bar? What you need to do is go over there, tell that honey what you’re all about, and go hit that.”

  Gary laughed.

  Violet had lost any amusement she might have had and watched as the two men in her life goaded the genie. Bringing him had not been a good idea.

  Taka looked at Jerome. “Hit that? What does that mean?”

  Gary snickered as Jerome leaned closer to whisper the explanation in detail. Violet’s eyes widened as Taka finally understood and . . .

  A half hour later Violet helped Jerome through the door of her apartment as he leaned against her, still groaning over his newly blackened eye.

  “That dude is crazy,” he whined while Violet tried to soothe his bruised ego. Taka came in behind them, ignoring them both to sit on the sofa.

  Violet glared at him. “You didn’t have to hit him. We’ll never be able to eat there again.”

  “A man who speaks such filth deserves to be hit. And you, how could you enjoy the company of such a cretin?”

  Jerome straightened. “What’d you call me, man?”

  “Oh, shut up, Jerome. You know he’d crush you like a bug,” she told her beloved. He smartly backed down, looking indignant.

  “I must relieve myself,” Taka said heading to the bathroom without looking back. “I expect him to be gone when I return.”

  Violet’s eyebrows rose. Wasn’t that some crap? The man was stalking around giving orders like he lived there or something. Bad enough he’d tried to ruin her night, now he was giving orders? She would have to set him straight sooner rather than later, but right now she had to take care of Jerome, the big baby. She helped him to the sofa and went into the kitchen, filled a plastic bag with ice, and returned to put it on his eye. Her ministrations and small kisses on his wounded eye caused him to turn to her with kisses of his own. She pulled away and he groaned.

  “Come on, baby. It’s been a week.”

  “I have a guest.”

  “That crazy mother? He shouldn’t even be here. Why can’t he stay at a hotel?”

  “He’s family.”

  “Then you come home with me. Come on, what’s going to happen in one night? He can’t watch himself, he gotta have you around all the time?”

  Violet looked at the door. She didn’t know if she should lose more time but she needed a break from the genie and his eyes. The man was always watching her. “I don’t know.”

  Jerome kissed her again and she felt a small flutter in her belly. It had been a week and she had needs. It didn’t help that Taka was a good-looking son of a gun. She was only human; she wasn’t blind. After spending the day with him she’d noticed more and more, like the size of his hands, the firmness of his jaw. When she’d picked out the outfit he now wore she’d pictured his body in the clothes, never dreaming he would fill them out the way he had. Who could have guessed beneath his nondescript clothes was a body sculpted to near perfection. Shoulders so wide she could hang curtains on them, a chest so broad and well formed it would put bodybuilders to shame. Abdomen tight so that the sweater swung free just where she longed to slide her hands underneath.

  Was it wrong to get hot over a genie? She looked at Jerome. “Maybe an hour or two, then bring me home.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” He gave her a long, promising kiss.

  “I mean it. An hour, two at the most; that’s it.” She had to get back to wishing.

  “Yeah, yeah, let’s go.”

  “Wait, I want to say good night.”

  “Come on, Violet.”

  “Go wait in the car! I’ll meet you there in two seconds. Go!”

  He groaned, but got up and left. Violet waited for Taka to return, his ferocious expression relaxing when he noticed Jerome was gone.

  “That was fun,” she said. “If I had known you would punch my boyfriend I would have had you two meet sooner.”

  Taka pulled his shirt off and stretched. Violet sucked in a breath and felt a moment of dizziness at the sudden sight of his bare chest. Just as she’d imagined: covered in bittersweet dark chocolate skin, begging to be warmed by her mouth, his arms veritable logs of corded muscle, and his back . . . Breathe, Violet, breathe!

  “It is good he is gone,” Taka said, sitting on the sofa to pull off his shoes. “He is a pain and a d
istraction. He has ruined my evening.”

  Violet came to her senses, shaking herself out of her lust fog before he could notice. She sounded almost like herself when she spoke again. “Cut it out with the complaining. You sound like Jerome.”

  “Bite your tongue woman. That worm and I have nothing in common.”

  “Bite your tongue. That worm is going to be my husband.”

  He looked at her, confusion on his face. “Why would you bind yourself to such a creature?”

  Violet laughed. “He’s not a bad guy. You made him jealous, is all.”

  “Then where is he? Where I come from a man does not allow another man to reside in his woman’s hut if he is indeed in love with her.”

  “Not that way; he thinks you’re my cousin.”

  “Then there is little reason for him to be jealous.”

  “He’s not jealous of you and me. He’s jealous of you as a man. And who would blame him? You question his manhood and stalk around like you own everything.”

  “He should be man enough to withstand the presence of another man without feeling threatened.”

  “Like you? Look, genie, I’ve had three cosmos so I really don’t want to do any serious thinking tonight. Let’s just agree to disagree. We can continue in the morning.”

  “You should not drink so. It gives you a headache.”

  “Yes, mommy,” Violet snapped. She couldn’t imagine how he knew about her cosmo headaches.

  “What do you mean, calling me ‘mommy’? I am not your mommy.”

  “Then stop acting like you are.”

  “Ah, I’m exhausted. I’d forgotten how tiring a mortal life can be, and all I did all day was eat and entertain. My friends would chide me for being soft. My men would wait for me to sleep and then roll me in clay and feathers for my weakness,” he said, somewhat fondly. He yawned while stretching on the sofa, pulling a throw onto his bare chest and then looked at her expectantly over the back of the sofa.

  “Why are you standing there? Will you not change for bed?”

  “I’m going out for a little while.”