Any Way the Wind Blows - E. Lynn Harris [77]
“In starring roles, I hope,” Ava said, her voice rich with sarcasm.
“Yeah, right,” I said as I took a long sip of the wonderful-tasting brandy. The doorbell rang, and Ava hopped up from the sofa. As she rushed toward the door, she said, “Oh, I’d forgotten I had ordered more champagne and some caviar to celebrate.”
While Ava dealt with the good-looking Italian room-service waiter wearing tight-tight black pants, I was thinking how long it was going to take me to pay Ava back. How many nights would I have to work on my feet serving ungrateful assholes who might leave me a decent tip? I thought about how many times I was going to have to raise my sweater and have greasy-looking clients admire my chest and how many times I would have to drop my pants and show my ass like I was a jail inmate. Was I being realistic thinking Basil might one day call me, or was it just one of my crazy, convoluted dreams?
After the waiter left, Ava swooped back over to the sitting area and poured me some more brandy. I took a sip and felt it tingling my nostrils and going straight to my head. I couldn’t believe I was sitting in an expensive hotel suite sipping brandy and getting ready to eat caviar, something I didn’t even really like. Ava prepared the caviar on toast points like she had been doing it her entire life. When she looked at me and blinked, I noticed the first signs of crow’s-feet at the corner of her eyes and wondered if she worried about aging gracefully.
“So Bart, are you sure you don’t want to get back at that bastard? I would hate to spend time finding somebody else Basil has fucked over, and I’ve already invested a great deal of time and money in you,” Ava said in a soft voice that sounded both seductive and menacing.
“I’m sure,” I said as I took another sip of the brandy.
“Is there anything else I could offer you?”
“What else could you give me besides money?” I asked. I hoped this dragon diva didn’t think I wanted sex from her.
Ava took another sip of her drink and pursed her lips, then took a deep breath. “What if I helped you find your parents?” she asked flatly, without emotion and with a slight tightness in her voice. How did Ava know about my parents? As far as I was concerned, they were dead. There was a long silence, and my heart was beating with a bulletlike quickness.
“You look like you’re surprised that I know you were given up for adoption,” Ava said.
“I wasn’t given up for adoption. I was abandoned,” I said. “Who told you about that?” I demanded. I knew Ava was dangerous if she had been snooping around my family tree. But how much did she know, and did she really know where my parents, and I use the term lightly, were?
“Now, Bart, baby, honey, sweetheart. You’re talking to Ava. I know everything there is to know about you, baby. Well, almost everything. My sources told me you were adopted.”
“I was almost adopted,” I said mournfully.
“What happened?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said firmly.
“I understand, baby. But haven’t you ever wondered about your biological parents? I mean, they were young. Maybe now they’ve come to their senses and would welcome you back into their life with open arms. I could find out for you,” Ava said.
“You could do that?” I asked. What was I thinking? I didn’t want to meet two people I didn’t remember. Maybe Ava didn’t know as much as she thought. She obviously didn’t know my parents. Two people who had dropped me off at day care, never to return. Two people who had left me to grow up in a foster care system most of my adolescent life. When I was eight, a couple teased me with adoption plans, only to return me when I was eleven because they caught me with their thirteen-year-old son in a questionable position and thought I was a bad influence. Why in the fuck would I want to meet my parents now? I didn’t give a shit how young they were. Nobody asked them to bring me into the world.
“You’ve talked about your sister, but do you have any children of your own?”
“Honey, look at me. Does this body look