“Oh, no—”
“I think so,” she said and then laughed.
Without thinking about it, Darien cupped Safire’s face in his palm, and she went silent.
“You don’t have to put up a front with me, Safire. I’ve seen tears in your eyes. You’re not all hot and heavy all the time.”
With his palm under her chin, Safire stared into his eyes with her crescent-shaped pools. She was quiet for a long time, staring at him like that—frozen.
When he took his palm away, she leaned toward him.
“Come go out with me, Darien. Play with me. Let’s see where it goes.”
Her words were so quiet and her eyes so steadily trained on him that Darien almost thought he was hearing things. He paused a moment, his own breath caught in his chest. He righted himself and refocused. He was not hearing things. He’d never been asked out in such a sweetly alluring way.
“I have to work at the Heritage Center tonight,” he said, unable to refuse the request but unable to honor it immediately. He was also troubled by Safire’s phrasing. “And I don’t know if I want to play—as you word it. I want something real. I—”
Just then, Mrs. Evans came out and beckoned them into the conference room. The group of backers had responded favorably to the proposal, and they had arrived at a collective response to the budget, covering all the basic programmatic needs. Mrs. Evans showed him a penciled breakdown and said she would fax the completed document over when it was all signed. This meant that the programs were secure.
It was more than Darien had dared to hope, and he was elated. He lingered to talk with some of the backers and thank them, and to let them know what else the Heritage Center was doing to raise the full amount needed for the larger operating budget—overhead, management and so on. Safire lingered to talk to them, as well. One by one, though, they began to leave after signing the completed forms.
Soon only one was left, a banker talking to Safire. Darien turned to their conversation only to find that it wasn’t about the Heritage Center at all. The gentleman was asking Safire out. Darien looked at Safire, who was smiling her usual seductive, flirtatious smile with her butt propped up on the conference table much as she’d done with him when they’d met. She was slowly rocking her torso, and this only added to the seductiveness of her stance.
When she noticed him looking, she nodded and smiled his way and waited for his interruption before answering the invitation. Darien waved his goodbye, turned on his heel and headed to his car. Clearly, Safire was still playing the field, and when she had said play, that was what she had meant. Yes, this one was a seductress, but not only that. She was a player.
Darien got in his car and made it to the Heritage Center in time for his class, thinking all the while about Safire. She had seemed sincere, but she was just dating casually, if you would call it that. What bothered him was that he was actually miffed about it. He had no claim upon her. In fact, as they’d left it, he had turned down her invite to go out, by which she seemed to have meant tonight. Why should it rub him the wrong way if she took up another invitation from someone who was willing to play?
Darien pulled into the Heritage Center parking lot and got to his class, which comprised the little kids today—the ones who were between five and ten. He managed to focus on his class, but not without some distraction. Thankfully, they were molding shapes out of clay and didn’t require a great deal of his concentration once they had selected their subjects for the project. The clay kept them in their seats and occupied, if not clean, and he had only to tour the room looking at projects and offering tips.
When the hour and a half was over and the children’s projects were stored in the kiln to be fired, Darien greeted their parents. Mrs. Watson clacked in on her high heels wearing a short wraparound dress to pick up Jacob, an eight-year-old student. After she found out about his progress and collected her son, she clacked back out.
Her heels didn’t make an impact the way Safire’s heels did. They weren’t seductive. They didn’t show off long, shapely calves. They didn’t announce her presence to the world. If anything, the sound struck him—at least today—as a nuisance. Nor was her short dress a distraction. Paired with her gaudy earrings and fake weave, it made her look more like a hoochie mama. Yet Darien knew that he was merely reacting to his departure from Safire and her willingness to entertain an invitation from another man.
Once his students left, Darien found the director of the Heritage Center, Mr. Abraham Johnson.
“Hey, Mr. Johnson.”
“Abe.”
“Yeah. That’s what I meant.”
Darien had been working at the Heritage Center since he started as a file clerk in high school, but the director was still Mr. Johnson to him, even now that he himself was an associate director.
“How’d it go today?” Mr. Johnson asked.
“Great,” Darien said.
“I know.”
“Did Mrs. Evans fax over the signed forms with the figures from the backers?”
“Yes, she did.” Mr. Johnson stopped outside his office and raised his fists in victory. “We should celebrate.”
“We should. Oh,” Darien said. “I haven’t talked to you since last week. You’re a busy man.”
“Not as busy as you, but then I’m not as young as you.”
If Darien guessed correctly, Mr. Johnson was in his early sixties, but it didn’t show much. Mr. Johnson just liked to have someone to whom to delegate the legwork.
Darien followed him into his office. “Did you get the letters of confirmation that I collected from Benson and Hines?”
“Yes, I got those, too. You’ve been productive.”
“I already have clients signed up for the Legal Assistance Program for the next three weeks.”
“What are their issues?”
“Some of everything you might imagine—condo conversions, divorces, child custody or child support, spousal battery, even one criminal charge.”
Mr. Johnson turned to Darien and put a hand on his shoulder. “You know as much as I do now. When I’m ready to step down, my position will be yours.”
“I don’t know if—”
“It’ll be a while, son. Just start thinking about it.”
Darien nodded and left Mr. Johnson’s office. Moving up at the Heritage Center wasn’t what was occupying his mind. She was. Safire Lewis.
Darien had reading to do for his class on Wednesday, so he headed home. She was in the fast lane, and he’d gotten off that track—and for a reason. Besides, he couldn’t satisfy anyone who needed to go out all the time. Nor could he be satisfied by anyone who still needed to play the field—or to act as if she was still playing it. Man, this one was someone to be wary of. He’d been burned by her type before. So why was he still thinking about her?
At home, even his reading was disrupted by the thought of Safire. He had started an erotic piece that he knew was inspired by her. It was still in the drawing stage, but it would be a wood sculpture. He put down his book for his class in Caribbean art and went over to his sketches. It was the sensual nature of the piece that let him know Safire had inspired it. And this irked him to no end. He wanted to put her from his mind. But here she was—his muse.
The piece had gotten inside his head, and he had to finish it. If he could finish it, if he could capture the spirit of her in a piece, he could release her from his mind. It was really because she had entered