"And to see you," he said quietly.

"Oh?"

She heard the breathlessness in her voice and frowned. What the h.e.l.l was that?

"You know-"

He slipped a calla lily from the bouquet and held it up for inspection. The stem was long and olive, the bulb mango and vaulted. It made her think of a ballerina in repose.

"I saw this thing," he said. "And it made me think of you."

"Thing?" she echoed.

He looked up.

"An article. About curry addiction. Have you heard of it?"

Deena shook her head, more confused now than before he'd begun to elaborate.

He stuck the lily back in its vase.

"Well, it's a just a theory, really. Some people think that when you eat really hot food, that the pain from it makes the body release endorphins." He leaned against her desk. "Supposedly, you get this natural high from eating hot foods and it leads you to want more and hotter curries, the same way any other addiction makes you want more."

"And that made you think of me?"

"Sort of. When I read it, I thought to myself, h.e.l.l, if anyone needs to get high, it's Deena."

She paused, unsure of how she should respond, certain she was supposed to be offended. But she laughed. The boy had no idea how spot on he was.

Tak smiled, clearly pleased with himself.

"No rush to go curry hunting, mind you." He nodded towards the flowers. "Maybe when the sunshine wilts and you could use some of a different kind."

Deena lowered her gaze, suddenly shy, exposed.

"Unless..."

"Unless what?"

She bit down on her lip, taken back by the automatic need to answer.

Tak shrugged. "I don't know. I just hate to think that you're going to spend your evening alone in some apartment you've got decked out like this sad-looking place."

Deena looked around.

"You don't like my office?"

He stared. "You do?"

She laughed, despite herself. That made three-three times she'd done so since her brother's death-all three because of him.

"I think this place is cozy. Streamlined. And conducive to work."

"It's barren."

Deena balked.

"What are you talking about? I have Hope and your bouquet. It's positively radiant in here."

He looked around. "Hope?"

Deena blushed. "She's my bonsai."

Now he would laugh. But he didn't.

"Maybe one day you'll tell me how she got that name," he said softly.

She lowered her gaze once more.

"Maybe."

They fell silent.

"So," Tak said suddenly, loudly. "Dinner? Six? Meet you in the lobby."

Deena sputtered. "Oh, I don't know I-"

He held up a hand.

"Listen, you don't even have to talk to me. Just a little company and good conversation if you want." He shrugged. "At least I hope it's good."

Briefly, she thought of the box of tissues that had been her constant companion for the last few nights.

"And you don't mind if I'm not good company?" she squeaked.

He was already heading for the door. "Not at all."

She smiled at his back. "Okay then."

He paused, a hand on the doork.n.o.b.

"Excellent. There's a new place on Ocean Dr. called Spiced. Everything's lava hot. We can burn a hole in our mouths then try to cool it with ocean water. You'll love it."

Deena grinned, watching the door slam behind him. Something told her she might.

Their first night together was filled with incendiary curries from India and crashing waves from the Atlantic. Dinner ran long and the coffee cold, before Tak and Deena were ushered out at closing. They returned again the next night and opted for decidedly more adventurous fare-a black bean and squid ink soup for her, Moroccan sea bream and braised rabbit for him-all made searing with a bevy of chilies, pastes, powders and spices. And after closing this time, they walked along the sh.o.r.e with a sliver of moon illuminating the sky and plans for a third night on their lips.

CHAPTER FOUR.

Deena slipped into the silent sanctuary of Emmanuel Rises, pumps m.u.f.fled against the ruby carpet. Her gaze skittered past scores of bowed heads before spotting her family in the front, in their pew for the last thirty years. Despite the diligent tiptoe, Grandma Emma snapped to attention mid-prayer, as if connected to her granddaughter in some basic biological need for admonishment. So when that old finger jerked in impatience at the pew, Deena hustled down the aisle and squeezed in between Caroline and Rhonda, just in time for the amen.

"Mhm," Emma murmured, running a critical gaze over Deena's smoke gray pants suit. It featured an angled collar and v-neckline alongside boot cut slacks that lay just right. Retail price for the Gucci ensemble-jacket, black silk shirt, slacks and high heeled shoes should've been in the neighborhood of thirty-five hundred, but a secondhand consignment shop in Bal Harbor brought it home for less than two.

"It was all I had to wear," Deena mumbled.

Aunt Caroline gave her a once over.

"Well you wore pants two Sundays ago, too." Newport breath singed Deena's nose and she sighed.

Emmanuel Rises was a conservative church, baptized in the holy fire and washed in the blood of the lamb. Still, there had to be room for reason. Could they really argue that Deena's understated pants suit was less appropriate than Aunt Caroline's dimpled cleavage and leopard print dress?

Caroline shot Deena a sideways look of disdain before pulling out a mirror and primping fat blonde curls. Her platinum hair was sharp against dark skin, sharp against crimson talons and sharp against gold teeth.

Fuchsia lipstick, a leopard print dress and scuffed white pumps was the whole of Caroline's sordid church attire. The oldest of Eddie and Emma Hammond's four children, she was a mother at 16, a grandmother at 33 and at 52, Caroline Hammond was a great grandmother. Even so, she'd never been an outcast in their family. On the contrary, she set precedent for what was to come.

Three women of childbearing age in the Hammond family were actually without children. Aunt Rhonda, who constantly fielded unfounded accusations that she was a lesbian, Deena's teen sister Lizzie, who would surprise no one if she stood up and declared she were pregnant that moment, and Deena, who avoided men like the malice they were.

"Where's Lizzie?" Deena asked suddenly, scanning the pews for her sister.

Emma shook her head. "Didn't come home last night."

Deena sighed. How many nights would a teenage girl have to disappear for it not to give her grandmother cause for alarm anymore? Whatever the number, she didn't want to know.

Lizzie's descent into anarchy began with adolescence. To Deena, it seemed that budding b.r.e.a.s.t.s and a menstrual flow brought with it an exponential madness that worsened each year. At eleven, her sister was suspended for wearing a transparent tee with the phrase Pay for Play on it to school, at thirteen it was for offering s.e.xual favors to her math teacher in exchange for a pa.s.sing grade, and at fifteen, it was for giving f.e.l.l.a.t.i.o to a waiting line in the boys' restroom. How had two sisters, so similar in appearance and upbringing, made such drastic departures? One regarded her virginity as indisputable proof against their grandfather's claims of inherent wh.o.r.edom, while the other sought to authenticate his accusations with a come-one-come-all att.i.tude. Still, Deena held out hope that her sister could be rehabilitated.

"You wasting your time," Caroline murmured, shifting in her dress to reveal the puckered thigh that matched her cleavage. "Lizzie is who she is. Anthony was who he was, and you are who you are. End of story. No d.a.m.ned sequel."

Deena frowned. Indeed, she could only be who she was. But the statement only begged a question. Who the h.e.l.l was she?

She turned her attention to the pulpit.

Lenora Howard, the pastor's wife, was a dark and thick woman with ample curves. She sauntered to the podium in a golden knee-length dress and broad-brimmed hat of satin and organza. With a gracious smile and a voice of theatrical formality, First Lady Howard welcomed the church's visitors before diving into announcements.

The youth group was selling raffle tickets, Thursday night's choir practice was cancelled and Sister Laura Marshall's niece was being added to the sick and shut-in list.

"Also, as you all are aware, the Fellowship Hall is in need of renovations. The church is requesting a volunteer to spearhead the organization and to plan these much needed improvements."

Grandma Emma struggled to her feet.

"I would like to volunteer my grandbaby, Deena Hammond, for the job."

"What!"

Emma gave Deena a look of warning before turning her attention to First Lady Phillips.

"As I'm sure the church knows, my grandbaby be in charge a building them big ole buildings, what you find down there on the rich folks part a town. So I 'spect this would be nothing to her."

Nothing?

"Well praise the Lord," Lenora Howard crooned.

"Praise the Lord!" the congregation echoed.

Deena balked.

She wanted them to stop praising the Lord, but the words wouldn't come.

"Amen! Amen! Deena Hammond, Emmanuel Rises own certified architect, is going to bless us with a new Fellowship Hall," Lenora continued.

"I can't-I don't have the time-" she mumbled.

Deena sunk into her seat, horrified as her pleas were m.u.f.fled by applause.

When the family arrived at Grandma Emma's place after the eleven o'clock service, Deena washed her hands and went to work prepping Sunday dinner. Her grandmother labored next to her in silence, coating catfish with cornmeal and chicken with flour so both could be fried. Afterwards, she would dice the boiled chitterlings.

Chitterlings.

Deena could remember the first time she laid eyes on the pig entrails-in fact, most of her family could. She'd sampled the offal without knowledge of what it was before spewing it into Grandpa Eddie's face. He'd wanted to beat her, he always wanted to beat her, but the family laughed until it would've seemed as though he were a poor sport for hitting her.

Eventually, Deena grew to like chitterlings, or chittlins as they were called, boiled in a broth and served up with a dash of hot sauce. In fact, she grew to love many of the foods that had been so foreign to her when she first joined the family-fried chicken gizzards and chicken livers, okra and black-eyed peas, pig's feet and neck bones. As a child, she'd been curious about the hodgepodge a.s.sortment of food on their table, while delicious; she knew sc.r.a.ps when she saw them. Grandma Emma explained to her that the African American food tradition was born of a necessity for survival. Slaves would make do with what they had-things they could grow and meat discarded from the master's kitchen. As a young girl, it fascinated her that black people had such a rich food tradition, an actual meaning attached to the food they favored. Her mother's Spaghetti Wednesdays and Meatloaf Sundays could hardly boast the same.

It wasn't long before Grandma Emma took Deena under her wing and showed her how to clean chitterlings, pick the freshest collards, and deep-fry a catfish. Each Sunday, Deena studied hard, in an effort to cook like her grandmother, like a black person.

She studied other things in her effort to seem blacker. She watched her cousins for the appropriate fashions, the proper use of vernacular, and suitable music and television programs for a young black youth. As a teenager, she pretended to love hip-hop in public though she listened to pop and cla.s.sic rock in secret.

It was all an attempt to fade into the fabric of the Hammond family-and by fade she meant disappear. Oh, there were times when she was the center of attention, when her contrary ethnicity came up, but many more when she simply went unnoticed. And while unnoticed wasn't synonymous with acceptance, it was a step in the right direction.

Two hours past the end of church service, the Hammond family gathered around the supper table. There were two of her three aunts, a smidgeon of cousins. For a painful moment, Deena's thoughts turned to Anthony, who would never be around to lie about why he'd skipped dinner again.

"So, I was thinking that you could put one of those pretty roofs up in the fellowship hall. You know, like them ones that aint nothing but windows? That should be good," Grandma Emma said.

"Naw, what you should do is a regular roof but paint like angels and demons and stuff like the one they got overseas," Aunt Caroline said.

Did she mean the Sistine Chapel?

Deena looked past her aunt in a plea to her aunt.

"Grandma, please. I can't do this. I don't have the time to work on a new fellowship hall."

She stabbed at her collard greens in despair. "You just don't know my boss. He keeps us on a short leash. In-kind donations have to be vetted through the proper channels. And anyway, I'm swamped at work."