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“Say hello to Mrs. Zena, Desi,” her father said, releasing her hand to press his to her back to gently nudge her forward.
She quickly moved to stand behind her father instead, clutching at the crease of his pants with her small fists. “Hello,” she finally said, wondering if it was loud enough for anyone to truly hear.
The woman nodded her head stiffly in greeting.
Her father stepped forward to draw his wife—this woman she did not know—into his embrace. “Thank you, Zena. Thank you so much,” he said, burying his face against her neck.
Desdemona tilted her head back to look up at them. The woman’s body was stiff in his arms, and the look in her eyes was cold and hostile as she peered over his shoulder at her. Desdemona felt a chill race across her shoulders, and more than ever she longed for the presence of her mother.
Chapter One
Thirty years later
Monday, June 11, 2018
The monotony of it all may very well bore me to death . . .
Desdemona Dean tapped her extra-fine-point pen against the pages of her journal as she looked out the floor-to-ceiling window of her apartment in the Tribeca section of New York. “Different day. Same shit,” she said aloud as she picked up her cup of tea and looked out at the views—to the right the Manhattan skyline and with a shift of her eyes to the left the Hudson River.
Not that it wasn’t beautiful, especially with the sun beaming in the sky and causing the water to gleam. What had started out as extraordinary when she first moved into the eighty-two-story high-rise building two years ago was now the norm. Because the building was part five-star hotel and part luxury residences, the amenities were amazing. She couldn’t deny that. Housekeeping. Ordering meals from a world-class menu. Pool. Spa. Concierge. Valet parking. High luxury with low maintenance.
I ain’tthatbored.
She set the cup down on the saucer and looked around at the eleven-foot ceilings of her twenty-two-hundred-square-foot condominium with its cream décor, dark hardwood floors, and floor-to-ceiling windows. It was beautiful.
Still, shewasbored.
Desdemona sighed, turning her attention back to her leather-bound journal. She sat at her slate dining room table with her bare feet tucked beneath her in one of the eight suede club chairs surrounding it. She struggled to find more to write for later reflections years down the line when she would finally read the journals she had been keeping for the last two decades of her life.
Written memories.
Her mother had always journaled; she could remember her sipping a glass of wine while curled up in her favorite chair writing away, sometimes smiling but often more reflective and sad. There were many things about her mother that Desdemona had forgotten, but others moments remained like an imprint on her life.
She pressed the pen inside the crease of the journal and closed it before finishing her breakfast of ricotta hotcakes with maple syrup and chicken-and-apple sausage. With one last look out at her views, Desdemona rose from the table and dropped the silk kimono she wore to the floor as she left the dining room, crossed the foyer, and turned the corner leading down the hall to the three bedrooms. Her master suite was in the rear. She walked down the short hall with large black-and-white prints in black frames on the left and two closets to her right—one of them a walk-in—and around the corner.
She paused in front of the large seven-foot mirror leaned against the wall next to the hall entrance to the master bathroom. She stretched her arms high above her head as she took in her head full of blond-streaked chestnut hair that was wild and noticeable as it framed her heart-shaped face. With doe-shaped eyes surrounded by thick lashes and a pouty mouth above her small dimpled chin, Desdemona knew she resembled a less cartoonish version of a Bratz doll or one of the Disney fairies. She was pretty.
That wasn’t ego, but what she’d been told since she was a kid.
Instead, she wished she had been told she was smart and capable—that she had had to learn on her own the hard way. Looks faded. Smarts lasted long after cuteness was gone.
Releasing a breath, she cupped her breasts and jiggled them as she turned her body this way and that to inspect her buttocks and hips. Although her breasts were a full and pert 38B, she imagined them fuller. “Should I double these to double Ds?” she asked herself, shifting her eyes to take in her empty bed and wondering if a man were lying there watching her what his opinion might be.
She frowned.
There was no man and no way she would allow herself to give a damn what he thought if there had been.
Moving away from the mirror, she entered the bathroom, barely noticing the white décor, Carrara marble, bright lighting, and glass shower door that gave the room a light and airy feeling that might have been missed because the spacious room lacked windows. She slipped a satin bonnet over her hair and paused to smell the fresh white daffodils in the large crystal vase between the double basins of the sink before taking a shower.
With a plush white towel with chrome monogrammed letters wrapped around her body, Desdemona walked back to her walk-in closet and emerged ten minutes later in a bright yellow floor-length halter dress that exposed the portrait tattoo of her mother on her right shoulder. The deep vee perfectly framed her breasts, and a low back emphasized her wide hips and buttocks. The matte jersey material flowed around her body with ease, and with nothing but a sheer thong as her undergarment she felt ready for the sweltering summer heat outdoors. Her heels clicked against the hardwood floors as she remembered her journal and retrieved it, quickly returning to her walk-in closet to unlock the safe and slide it inside atop the crisp stacks of cash and other journals stored there.
She lightly stroked the thing she cherished the most: it was not the money. Within those pages were her story. Her trials, tribulations, and triumphs. “To hell and back again,” she said in a whisper before stepping back to close and then lock the safe.
Desdemona selected one of the dozen designer shades atop the island in the center of the closet that contained her lingerie. From the shelves, she took down a black Balenciaga tote and begun transferring her wallet and other personal items from the Louis Vuitton she carried the day before. She was just about to slide her two iPhones into the inside pocket when one vibrated in her hand.
Desdemona flipped it over and smiled. “I’m having a drama-free morning, Patrice,” she said, zipping the tote and sliding it onto the crook of her elbow before cutting off the ceiling light and leaving the closet.
The other woman laughed. “Nothing major. The shipment of gowns from the designer from London—”
