Rich Little Poor Girl: An Interracial Second Chance Romance Page 11
“Lisa’s my cousin,” he smirks with a sigh.
“How far removed?”
He can’t stifle a laugh.
“The one time I sleep with the staff…” Ben shakes his head.
“Not the one time.”
He furrows his brow in laughing disbelief.
“Where did you hear about this infamous reputation of mine?”
“I hear things. And I also lived it.”
“Well. Don’t believe everything you hear.”
“Thank you for dinner, by the way. Your fiancée seems lovely.”
“I’m sorry we didn’t get a proper chance to catch up,” he says provocatively, at least in her estimation. He gives her a burning look that makes her stomach sickly drop. Just say the word, girl, is what his eyes seem to be saying. His office is ten times the size of hers and has a bathroom with a shower. He’s exuding every inch of his CEO power and they’re a hundred feet in the air. Her blood gallops through her veins, heated. She’s horrified enough by her reaction to his benign statement that she’s starting to wonder if she’s simply projecting.
“…I’m sorry we didn’t get a proper chance to talk design choices,” she skillfully segues. I brought sketches.”
Ben’s sigh sounds exasperated. He rubs his brow. “I’m sure they’re beautiful.”
“You don’t want to see them?”
“I keep telling you that I trust your taste.”
“Honestly, Benjamin what am I here for, then?”
“Our assistants scheduled this meeting, not me.”
Cynthia sighs.
“I came all the way here.”
“I’m sure it was just like the Oregon trail.”
“I had blueprints made.”
“Money’s no object, like I said.”
“Look at the fuckin’ sketches, Benji.”
He smiles. He’s wondered if he would ever hear that nickname again.
“Fine,” he concedes, summoning them over the wide desk with a long arm. Cynthia retrieves the sketches and arranges them in a line across from him wordlessly.
“They’re beautiful,” he says, clearly feigning enthusiasm.
Cynthia shoots him an arresting look of shock at his callous response. Ben returns her gaze stoically, a tug of war between remorse and amusement within him. Amusement was winning.
“So arrogant,” Cynthia shakes her head. “You buy my time just so you can waste it?”
“I saw my father today.”
Cynthia pauses.
“How is he?”
“Not good. He’s usually in his room when I go over there. For my sake, mostly. Last time I talked to him, he was ranting and raving. Saying awful things. And it would get more and more jumbled. But now… he hardly talks. He wanders around aimlessly. It’s much more frightening.”
“I’m so sorry, Ben,” she offers her sympathies freely. Openly. For his father. He fights off annoyance.
“Never mind. It’s… I’m just pre-occupied. I could give a shit about fixtures. Honest to God.”
“I understand. I’ll make the executive decisions, I suppose. Still…”
“What?”
“You could’ve canceled the meeting.”
“Not a chance. I’d never turn down an excuse to see you.”
Cynthia’s eyes narrow on Ben. She remains in her cross-legged position across from him. She sends him a warning shot, weary of playing games.
“Ben, what is this? What are you doing?”
“At this moment, I’m being honest.”
“Benji, you’re confused. At best. Parading that poor girl around, like you’re going to marry her,” Cynthia casually confides. Yet Ben stiffens as though she has overstepped her bounds.
“I am going to marry her.”
She’s going to scream. Right in his face until he’s deaf.
“Why? Because she makes you happy?”
“No.”
Ben doesn’t elaborate and Cynthia just gives him a brief airy laugh.
“…Well? I’m on the edge of my seat.”
“I’m not marrying for love, Cynth. I can’t.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because it would just be cruel. I work like a maniac. And honestly… I don’t care. I just don’t want to be alone.”
“That’s… sad as fuck, Ben,” Cynthia scoffs, careful not to sound anything but objective.
“You wanna get married?”
“Eventually.”
“To whom?”
“His name is Curtis,” she says with a straight face, dramatically. Ben grins, knowing it’s sarcasm. And also that she’s not seeing anyone at the moment.
“Do you wanna marry me? I’ll call it off right now.”
Yes.
“Sorry, if ‘I can’t marry for love,’ and ‘I don’t care. I just don’t wanna be alone,’ doesn’t make me swoon,” she says with faint indignance.
“Walked right into that one,” he grins, feeling a little gross. It was a joke, but also not. Perhaps the shittiest shot he’s ever taken, on the person who deserved a whole lot more.
“Does Esmee know you feel this way?” she asks.
“Why do you even care?” he suddenly snaps. Ugh. Maybe he should’ve cancelled.
“So now I don’t care about you? Because I didn’t accept your shitty proposal?”
“I didn’t say that. Clearly, you’ve moved on. To houses. So don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.”
“Believe it or not, I care about your… stability, Ben.”
“How did you get into this line of work anyway?” Ben suddenly blurts, desperate to switch subjects.
“Were you even listening last night?”
“Not really,” he lies.
“It’s not a ‘line of work,’ it’s a passion. I chose it, it wasn’t handed to me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? You think this company was handed to me?”
“Now this is where I start to not care,” Cynthia mutters.
“Only one of us took a bribe from my father, so let’s not pretend you’re immune to unfair advantages.”
This is madness. She has another discouraging flash of hopelessness. Swinging from insults to flirts to the decrepit sidewalks of memory lane. This. Wasn’t. Going. To. Work.
“I’m going to punch you in the fucking face. Is that what you want?” she says.
“You’re very well dressed and I think I’d like to see that.”
“You’re the one pretending, by the way. Not me,” she shot back.
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“Which was?”
“This line of— this ‘passion’ of yours. When I met you it was food,” Ben says.
“It still is food. And also this.”
“You realized you’d much rather be the one eating?”
“No. I was 20 years old then, I’m allowed to change my mind. Besides, one summer in your kitchen and I was cured,” Cynthia explains.
“What’s wrong with our kitchens?”
“Nothing. It was actually a great experience. I gave it my all, and it was hard, but not the kind of hard that I could do every day. The constant cleaning, the heat, the butt sweat.”
“Butt sweat?”
“It’s horrendous. No one tells you about that.”
Ben couldn’t help but laugh.
“You remember all those asinine conversations we used to have?” he grinned.
“Of course,” Cynthia grinned back.
“You never talked about yourself.”
“Sure I did.”
“You didn’t. Not once,” he says. His tone borders accusation. Cynthia gives him a shrug in response, barely noticing.
“Pretty sure that’s not true. But I’ve never been the type to go on and on about myself. Still don’t.”
“Perhaps you still have something to hide,” he eyes her.
“Or maybe you were short on people that genuinely cared about you, and I was sympathetic to that. Maybe y
ou were using me. Maybe I was the only one risking anything by getting close to you, since I could be kicked out on my ass if it all went south. And you would just… keep being a Dvorak.”
Cynthia calmly eyes him back as she reads him his rights, which are exactly none. He huffs a laugh, absent-mindedly fiddling with his mont blanc fountain pen.
“Fair enough,” he answers sheepishly. “Can’t remember the last time I had one of those,” Ben says. He doesn’t elaborate.
“What? An asinine conversation?”
He nods, somewhat pitifully, in response.
Cynthia feels a pang of guilt. He’d once told her she was his best friend. It was sad then, and she was remembering it now. Watching him sitting alone in this stark corner office she realizes that he never found a new best friend. The notion twists her sympathies.
He misses her, Cynthia realizes. Not everything has to be about riling her up and pushing her buttons and battering her defenses. She supposes she can indulge him for an afternoon. After this, there would be very little need for them to meet up again, if at all. Surely she can keep herself from saying too much for one meeting.
“We could’ve had our own MeTv Channel by now,” she offers diplomatically.
He sits back in his chair, grinning. “We would’ve definitely been internet famous.”
8
Ten Years Ago
“I remember when I first found out that my penis actually went in something.”
Cynthia died laughing as she lay next to him on the couch in his apartment. His apartment was only 900 square feet, which was slumming it for him. But it was convenient.
It had all the sparse trappings of bachelorhood. He was hella privileged, but he was still taking care of himself, with his own money, for the first time. And it was exhilarating.
They were days away from sleeping with each other and it showed. Their conversations became strange and penetrating, if not meandering.
“I was so, so happy. It was probably the equivalent of… finding out World War I was ending.”
Cynthia couldn’t catch her breath.
“When was this?” she asked when she finally recovered.
“I was probably about… eleven.”
“Wow, that’s early.”
“Is it? It would be a few years before the dream became a reality.”
“How many?”
“Not telling.”
“You should know by now I wouldn’t make fun of you.”
“I know.”
“You tell me everything else.”
“I know.”
“Speaking of discovering sex, I think I had a sort of similar moment to yours, except my reaction was the exact opposite.”
Ben covered both his hands with his face as a rare sympathy for girls washed over him.
“That must’ve sounded like a horror movie plot.”
“I didn’t believe it at all, at first.”
“Oh, Cynth.”
“And then my friend— the one who told me— got this like, encyclopedia from her parents’ room, opened it up to this diagram.”
“And there it was.”
“There it was.”
“How’d it make you feel?”
“Like… one day life as you knew it would be over. Which was true, but it wasn’t a good feeling. It was like this countdown began. How many days do I have left?”
“Of childhood,” he filled in as though he understood.
“Yeah. My first experience was… not so good. I blame the diagram.”
“I’m sure the guy deserves some of the blame.”
“For sure.”
“Imagine if you’d been told it was going to be the best experience of your life, though.”
“That happens to a lot of girls, actually.”
“When was this first experience of yours, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Um… last year.”
He tried not to act terribly surprised. Or disappointed. A measly six months between her choosing that bastard over him.
“Last year? No shit. Boyfriend?”
“No,” she cryptically answered. “What about you?”
“My first?”
“Yeah. Was it everything you’d been dreaming?”
He groaned as he rolled over on his side, not facing her. She laughed in anticipation.
“More. One might say it was too good.”
“Oh no,” she winced in sympathy as if she was his mom. Which made him feel worse.
“That reaction is…not helping me.”
She laughed, “Was it a world record?”
“Yes. And then I cried.”
“Oh, Benji,” she said as if he were adorable. She rubbed his arm.
“I’ve never told anyone that.”
“Such a sensitive soul, you are.”
“I think you meant to say ‘sensitive ween.’”
Cynthia laughed.
“Why do you like hangin’ out with me?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“No.”
“We have nothing in common,” he said.
“That’s the reason?”
“And because you agreed to it. And you’re beautiful. And I like you. I can talk to you.”
His words resounded all along the insides of her like she was an instrument his words could pluck.
“You a battyman, awat?” Cynthia asked in a rare display of Grenadian patois.
“A what?” he smiled.
“Are you gay.”
“I just bared my heterosexual soul to you,” he chuckled.
“It’s just weird that you haven’t tried to sleep with me, I guess.”
“I haven’t?” he smiled.
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m well-versed in seduction,” she joked.
“Anyway, you seem disappointed,” he replied looking over at her. His arm was laying above his head. His voice barely a whisper, his eyes full of stars. Cynthia looked down at the cotton blend of his gray t-shirt.
“Not disappointed just… confused,” she said, “some days it seems like you want to, but still. You don’t.”
“You think I go around doing everything I want to do?” he asked. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from his t-shirt.
“Well, yeah. I do. And I don’t have the advantages you have.”
He sighed, straightening his head and looking up at the ceiling. “Advantages. These advantages you speak of are… Faustian.”
“Faustian?”
“The Faustian Deal. Heard of it?”
“Like, a deal with the devil?”
“Basically. You sell your soul for fame, or money, or power. Then you become famous, for something you hate. You make money and lose everyone you love. You gain power, but it’s in hell.”
“What deal did you make?”
“None. As far as I can tell. I was born into it. I didn’t get to choose.”
“So? Leave it all behind. You’re young. There’s still time to back out.”
The way she said it so flippantly. As though it were simple, a matter of flicking your wrist. This must be what poor people are always complaining about.
“That’s the thing. I don’t think I could survive.”
“Sure you could. You could if you had to,” she continued her optimistic rant.
“Maybe I’m afraid. You ever think of that?”
“Afraid of what?”
“I’m afraid I’ll embarrass myself.”
Somehow, she knew they were speaking of the sex they’d yet to have, not about leaving his Faustian deal behind.
“You can’t do any worse than your first time.”
“I wouldn’t count on it.”
Cynthia chuckles, conspicuously quiet.
“I like you. A lot. I feel… a connection with you.”
“Which is what guys say when they want to sleep with you.”
“True.”
“Where’s your girlfriend when I’m here with
you?” she asked.
The prospect sent zings straight to his groin. He shifted his weight, chuckling nervously as he fought off a boner.
“She’s… somewhere. Over-achieving. She was born into it the same way I was. She’s much more adapted to it than I am.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“I… don’t… feel anything about that.”
“How long have you been together?”
“Three years. No, four years.”
“Do you love her?” Cynthia asked. She was simply after his honesty. He found the question challenging.
“I… I don’t know.”
“How do you not know?”
“It’s complicated, Cynth. Love isn’t like the movies.”
“Sure it is. Why else would people make movies about it?”
He laughed at her response that was equal parts naive and wise. “I… have no rebuttal,” he said. “Anyway, I’m not even sure I’m capable of that kind of love. It’s so volatile. Melanie and I at least agree on that front. Her parents are happy, my parents are happy, it works.”
“So basically it’s an arranged marriage.”
“Well… not really. We chose each other. At least, I think we did,” Ben smirked, ignoring the gnawing paranoia Cynthia’s words conceived in him.
“…You think I’m beautiful?”
He scoffed. “Honestly, what is up with beautiful women always asking that? Like they don’t know?”
“Are we never going to know what it’s like to kiss?” Cynthia whispered. In her head it sounded like a bullhorn.
He sighed, took one of her hands and kissed it.
He couldn’t. He entertained the glorious disaster in his mind, of his plans and the plans of those closest to him completely coming apart.
And yet, part of him wanted to give her hope. And for some reason, it didn’t feel like a lie.
“We will,” he answered. “Someday we will.”
* * *
Only one week later Ben arrived at work, terribly distracted. He didn’t leave his office. No way he was going down to the cafeteria today.
He’d crossed the line with Cynthia that morning before he left for work. She was sleeping in his big bed. He slept on the couch as usual, but he had to pass her on the way to his shower, and when he got dressed.
Cynthia’s workday started a few hours later than his. Every once in a while, he would come out of the shower and watch her sleep. Or he would finish dressing and he would watch her fondly, snickering at the way she slept like a rock. this morning, she’d done something she’d never done before. She woke up.