She was Deena.

Underneath the painting was a simple gold label.

Unfolded Tak.u.mi Tanaka.

PART THREE.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE.

Tak scanned the bedroom to ensure everything was packed. He folded his oversized UCLA sweatshirt, because he knew Deena would want it for the plane, and tossed both it and his IPod into the carry-on bag. Deena rushed past him, mumbling to herself, list in hand, as she checked off items.

"Dee, we've got to go. We'll miss the flight." He watched her scurry by and smiled despite himself. She was adorable in her little pink dress and wide brim hat, as she muttered about toiletries and charge cards.

"I'm afraid I'll forget something, Tak. What if I forget something?"

"Then we'll get it in Mexico." Tak smiled slyly. "And hurry up. I'm trying to join the Mile High Club."

Deena snorted. She darted past him again when her cell phone rang.

"Don't you dare answer that," he warned even as she dug the phone out of her clutch. Tak groaned. They'd never make the 4 o'clock to Puerto Vallarta. When they went to Montego Bay for their one-year anniversary, she did the same thing-scampering through the room in search of something, anything to bring. They arrived at the airport so late they weren't allowed to check-in their luggage. This time it seemed they'd miss their flight altogether.

Deena shouted into her phone. "Lizzie what? For how long?"

Tak shook his head. The mention of her sister was never a good thing. He took a deep breath and collapsed onto the bed. He was certain that there would be no trip to Mexico.

Deena's sister Lizzie was missing-again. The night they were to fly to Puerto Vallarta for their second anniversary, Tak and Deena spent it scouring the streets of Liberty City. It was not the first time they'd done so either. Tak was becoming adept at tapping on the shoulders of b.u.ms, pimps, prost.i.tutes and drug dealers, forcing them to look at a picture of a troubled teen he'd never met. He cringed as women with missing teeth promised him the b.l.o.w.j.o.b of his life and as dealers offered him X, snow, smack, rock and half a dozen other things he hadn't heard of. Tak was laughed at, hara.s.sed, and threatened, but he continued nonetheless. For him it was easier to face the perils of Liberty City then to return home to a weeping Deena, certain she'd lost yet another sibling. She was unable to eat or sleep, and unable to stop crying. And each day he felt certain that her heart, his heart, or both, would break from her grief.

Lizzie reappeared three days later. She offered her family no explanation and no apology, and Tak felt certain he could kill her. He remembered the morning the police found a woman's body in a dumpster in Allapatah. He'd felt prostrated as Deena sobbed, certain it was her sister. He remembered Deena's shriek of relief when she failed to recognize the bloated teen on the table at the M.E.'s office. But even as they stared at that strange girl, Tak wondered how many times they'd be forced to return; hoping yet again that it was not her sister.

The day after Lizzie returned Tak and Deena left for Mexico. They vacationed at his faher's summer estate, Villa Paraisa, in a tiny coastal village just north of Puerto Vallarta called Sayulita. Daichi's sweeping six-bedroom home on the coast of the Riviera Nayarit boasted a rooftop terrace, mangrove estuary, and a mile of private ocean access-all surrounded by mountainous terrain. But it could've been a box washed along the sh.o.r.e for all the attention Tak and Deena paid it, as they were consumed by each other, and little else.

They made love leisurely each day they were in Sayulita, savoring the feel of their pa.s.sion under the sweltering spring sun. Each movement was deliberate and measured; as if convinced they had a lifetime together. This growing sense of permanency was evident in everything they did while there. It was in the way they made plans to visit Tokyo next year, and Italy the year after that, in their jesting about Daichi and Grandma Emma eventually meeting, and in their imaginings of j.a.panese children with wild brown hair.

"We should say something soon," Tak said as he and Deena lay side by side in poolside lounge chairs.

She lifted her head. "What?"

"We should say something. About us. To my dad. To your family."

Deena shook her head. "What's your hurry?'

Tak scowled. "It's been two years."

"So what?" Deena shrugged. "Two years, ten, what's the difference?"

Tak searched her face for some indication that she was joking. There was none.

"Dee, keeping this thing quiet was supposed to be temporary."

"I know," Deena snapped.

"So, tell me then," he said in controlled fashion. "How much time do you need? Three years? Five? Ten?"

Deena sat up in a huff. "What's your deal, Tak? Aren't things good? No problems, no complications, nothing families would bring." She shook her head. "Why in the world would you want to change that?"

Tak stared at her incredulously. "Our families are part of who we are, Dee. You can't escape that."

"Not my family," Deena hissed, lying back down.

"Yes, your family. Especially your family," Tak said.

Deena chewed her bottom lip.

"Give it a rest, Tak. You're working my nerves."

He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well we can't have that now, can we?"

Deena's gaze shrunk to aggravated to pinpoints.

"Yeah, Dee, your family has shaped who you are," Tak hands clasped behind his head as he lay on his back, staring at the sky. "Your wants, your hopes, your fears, everything. Just look at you. You won't even think for yourself; you're so afraid you'll be voted off the island."

Deena stood. "This is my G.o.dd.a.m.ned life. Not some game."

He smiled ruefully. "You're the one who wants to play games. Skulking around, whispering. Pretending you don't know me when it suits you. Acting like you've never heard of me when you've just finished f.u.c.king me. What's it like, Dee? To f.u.c.k me one minute and not know me the next? Hmm?"

Tak turned to Deena, raring for a fight, only to find her crying. He reached for her, feeling like an utter jacka.s.s, cursing himself involuntarily, but she recoiled from him, bitterly and rushed for the house.

"Dee!" He leapt to his feet, eyes on her backside as she rushed away. "Dee!"

The door slammed soundly behind her.

After spending half a day on opposite sides of a locked door, Tak convinced Deena to come out and eat. They decided on Don Pedro's, an ocean front gourmet restaurant, and walked in silence to the town square. Once there they took their seats on an outside deck so close to the sh.o.r.e that the occasional ocean mist wet their feet.

"Dee, I owe you an apology." Tak reached across the table and covered her hand with his own. "I love you too much to talk to you the way I did earlier."

Deena stared at his hand, cupped over hers.

"Dee, come on," Tak said. "I can't know how you feel, or what motivates you to do some things. But I do know this. Before you, there was something missing from my life. I'd go around trying to fill a void with art, friends, anything really-never knowing that it was someone and not something I needed. But that all stopped when I met you."

Deena looked up, offering him the slightest smile. He'd take it. Tak drew her hand to his lips and kissed her fingertips.

"I think you know how much I love you," he said. "But if there ever comes a day when I'm being an a.s.s or I otherwise put that in doubt, forgive me. There are few things in this world I'm certain of. But I'm certain about this. G.o.d made you for me and me for you Remember that."

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR.

Sunday dinner always began with a blessing of the food by Grandma Emma after which the family dug into an impressive spread of her best fare. The menu would include deep fried chicken, catfish, neck bones, chitterlings, collard greens, b.u.t.ter beans, stewed okra and cornbread.

Deena could remember when she'd arrive early enough to help her grandmother with preparation, but since Tak two years ago, she found herself arriving later and later, and occasionally missing dinner altogether.

"So, Deena, where've you been? We haven't seen you for a while," Aunt Rhonda said as the family settled into their meal.

"I've been a little busy," Deena said quietly. "I uh-have a big project at work that's taking a lot of my time." She would not tell them that her 'big project' was tanking-that key investors were threatening to pull out, that construction was delayed, and that the budget was hemorrhaging.

"Oh yeah?" Grandma Emma asked as she piled fried chicken on her plate. "What they got you building?"

"A beachfront condominium." Deena said. "A skysc.r.a.per."

The truth was she wasn't building anything. She'd signed on to the project believing she would be Daichi's proxy, only to become his puppet. Though his workload demanded his presence in Rome and Tokyo, Dubai and Moscow with endless regularity, Daichi continued to micromanage Skylife. Every email, every phone call and every fax had to be routed half way around the world so that he could do everything from responding to routine questions from material suppliers to ensuring that building contractors were remaining true to his designs. This resulted in delay after delay as the cost of the project soared.

"d.a.m.n, a skysc.r.a.per Deena?" Aunt Caroline said, with flecks of collard greens wedged between her gold teeth. "You ought to see if you can get them to put your name on it."

Deena's cell phone rang. She turned away from the table and answered.

"Hey there. Still alive, I see. How's dinner?" Tak asked.

Deena smiled. "Fine. Everyone's staring."

"Good. Say something s.e.xy."

"No!" Deena blushed.

"Say what you said last night."

"Oh my G.o.d, shut up. I'm so going to kill you tonight!" Deena gushed.

"It's what I'm hoping," he murmured seductively. "But I won't keep you. I just need to know what time to pick you up." He couldn't stand the thought of her catching the bus in the rankest part of town, standing next to a bench that doubled as the bed for a foul smelling homeless person. He'd begun picking her up about three months after her brother died when a b.u.m grabbed the hem of her dress as she stood waiting for the bus.

"Six o'clock. Starbucks, like usual," Deena whispered, feeling the collective heat of their stares.

"Good. Till then love." He hung up.

"I suspect that the reason you ain't got no time to help come Sunday." Grandma Emma scowled as Deena put her phone away.

"I don't know what you mean," Deena murmured.

"She's talking about your soon-to-be baby daddy over there," Deena's cousin Keisha, piped up.

Deena balked. "I have never, nor will I ever, have a 'baby daddy.'"

Keisha raised a brow. "Why you gotta say it like that, Deena?" she demanded, thinking of her four children and their four fathers.

Keisha never liked Deena. Right from the start, she acted like she was better than everyone else, with her light eyes and white folk's skin. When they were kids, she would go on and on about her good grades like someone gave a d.a.m.n. And when they were in high school, she flaunted her virginity like it was f.u.c.king priceless. And the guys, well, they'd act as if it were some precious prize, too. Keisha could still remember the way they'd stand by their lockers rambling on about Deena's p.u.s.s.y like it was the Holy Grail.

When they were in the 9th grade, Keisha had s.e.x with Snow in the school's broom closet. She'd never forget what the eventual father of her child would say as he pulled up his pants. "Man, if only your cousin was so easy. I'd be in heaven." If ever there were a moment when Keisha became certain of her hatred for Deena, that was it.

And as the family continued with their meal, Keisha stared at Deena, with her matching manicure and pedicure, her light eyes and her light skin, and wished her all the harm in the world.

"You know, Deena," Keisha's mother Caroline piped up. "n.o.body'll get mad if you wind up pregnant. I mean, your mother was pretty much a hoe and well, you know what they say." She stood and reached over Lizzie for the bowl of collard greens, her tank top and jeans squeezing her belly so that it looked like a split peach.

"Shut up Caroline," Grandma Emma snapped. "The only one been having kids is your children. Look at that son of yours, Shakeith. Seventeen with a baby on the way." She shook her head. "And anyway, Deena ain't interested in affronting the Lord no more than her presence already do. Ain't that right, child?" Emma turned to her granddaughter.

Deena sighed. "Yes ma'am."

She avoided Lizzie's piercing gaze.

An awkward silence followed before Rhonda reached over and touched Deena's hand. "Tell us about your friend."

Deena trusted Rhonda, and if there were anyone she'd want to tell about Tak, she would be it. When Deena moved in with her grandparents seventeen years ago, Aunt Rhonda had been the only member of her new family that she knew from her old life. Even after Grandma Emma and Grandpa Eddie disowned Deena's father for marrying her white mother, Rhonda visited her older brother each week. Deena loved her aunt at first because her father loved her, but after his death, that love grew when Rhonda became her only ally.

Still, Deena hesitated. "Well, he paints for a living."

"Paints!" Grandma Emma bellowed. "Who done heard of sc.r.a.ping a living like that?"

"Lots of people, mom. They're called painters," Rhonda rolled her eyes. "Go ahead, Deena."

"Well, he's really talented. His work is featured in two galleries-one in Coconut Grove and another in Manhattan. He sings, plays three instruments and writes music in his spare time." Deena ticked off each item proudly. "Oh! And he's fluent in three languages: English, Spanish and-" Deena faltered, horrified by what she almost revealed.

"And?" Rhonda prompted.

Deena looked down at her plate. "And j.a.panese."

Keisha snickered. "I can't see no Black dude speaking j.a.panese."

"I know, right? All that ching ching chong!" Aunt Caroline hooted.

Deena sighed. They were impossible. If she were another woman, a braver woman, she'd stand up and demand an end to this foolishness. She'd declare her love for Tak and do so unflinchingly. She would seize this opportunity, and in doing so, tell them everything. But she couldn't. She thought of the way Aunt Caroline would look at her after finding out she was sleeping with an Asian man-as if she were somehow less Black, and less of a woman for desiring him. And she thought of Grandma Emma and the way she'd turn her back on her when she found out that Deena was sinning against the Lord.

Rhonda glared at Caroline. "Must you always be offensive?"