Crimson Footprints by Shewanda Pugh Page A

molded—his arms around her waist, hers at his neck. He
was hard and hot and moved like liquid. She imagined him a skilled
lover for the motions came so easy. It wasn’t the first time they’d
been so close, after all, they hugged each time they saw each
other, but this was different. This was lingering and indulgent
and…stimulating.
    She knew what was happening,
happening to her, to them—between them. She wanted to stop it, felt
like she had to, to avoid pain down the road. But her heart took no
heed from the tyrannical rule of her mind. It wanted him near and
was willing to do anything to make that happen.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
     
    From Atlanta, it was on to
the Big Easy for jazz and jambalaya in The Quarter and riverboat
gambling on the Mississippi. For two days they combed the streets
of that old historic district, marveling at the Creole townhouses
by day and downing hot Cajun food and big ass beers by
night.
    With New Orleans behind
them, they headed for Memphis in a six-hour tear up I-55. There,
Tak insisted, they would find the best barbecue on the planet. But
they did more than gouge on butter-soft baby back ribs and pounds
of pulled pork; they lost themselves in the melancholy sound of
blues on Beale Street, danced rooftop at The Peabody Hotel and
strolled the banks of the Mississippi by moonlight.
     
    “ My mom never said why she
killed my dad,” Deena said, the Mississippi River to her right as
they strolled. The moon was high and shone on the water, shimmering
with an imminent fullness as if promising to pop. The air pressed
with the heat of the south and summer.
    “ Not even after
conviction?” Tak said.
    Deena shook her
head.
    A white couple passed,
staring. Tak either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Deena figured it
was the second one.
    “ You said you didn’t
remember much. Is it possible you suppressed her
explanation?”
    Deena shrugged.
    “ I suppose. But I doubt it.
When I say I don’t remember much, I mean about the murder. Like, it
comes in snippets for me. The blood, my mom with the gun, things
like that. Never in sequential sense.”
    “ And when you dream, is it
the same way?”
    She hesitated. “I don’t
dream about that much anymore.”
    Instead, images of her
parents were being ousted in dramatic fashion by lurid snatches of
sex, courtesy of a sweating and shirtless Takumi Tanaka.
    He glanced at her. “You
don’t dream about them much? Really?” He sounded thoroughly
surprised.
    Deena shook her
head.
    “ Well that’s odd,
considering it went on for so long. When did it stop?”
    Instantly, she wanted to
say, or right about the time I started wanting you inside me. After
all, they were the same moment.
    But she cleared her throat
instead. “Um, I’m not sure.”
    When he glanced at her, she
looked away. Deena didn’t dare look up, so afraid was she that he
knew her secret, so certain was she that everyone did.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN

    Four hours separated Memphis
from St. Louis, next on their list of “must sees.” The I-55
corridor linking the two cities weaved them through highlands and
plains before dumping them in St. Louis, the self-proclaimed
“Gateway of the West.”
    They were hurdling towards
exhaustion, crisscrossing first the south and now the Midwest at
break neck speed. By the time they arrived in St. Louis, they’d
clocked better than 1800 miles over two weeks in Tak’s Ferrari.
More telling however, was the way they traveled—top down, wind in
their hair, his arm around the back of her chair.
     
    Deena identified with the
conundrum that was St. Louis, Missouri. An independent city, it
seceded from its county better than a hundred years ago. It was a
speculative place, being equal parts north and south, east and
west, and therefore a different thing altogether. It endured
extremes with sweltering summers and frigid winters; and whole
sections of it had been abandoned. Deena could definitely relate