Rallenti Page 3

  Cleo’s junior assistant, a petite black girl named Kim with a short buzz haircut and black-rimmed glasses stared at her. She wore black pants, a white button down shirt, and black and white checkered suspenders. Kim was a lesbian and the coolest of all the junior assistants. She looked up at her with an amused smile. “Well?”

  “Well what? She had it coming!” Kyra said in her defense.

  “Not her silly. You. Get a move on. Today we dress Cinderella for the ball,” Kim winked.

  “Yes!” Kyra grinned and clapped her hands in excitement. “Let me show you what you’re working with.”

  Kim laughed and winked. “Well alright!”

  ***

  The dress she decided on was arguably the most beautiful in the collection. Even Bette left her office to come witness her spin around the floor in the dress. She was nervous taking it off so Kim had to help. She stood before them now with sweaty palms and her heart lodged in her throat. Kim handed her over the garment bag with care.

  “It’s a loaner, Kyra. You get a stain, a rip, or have anything happen to it and you can kiss a year’s worth of your salary goodbye,” Cleo warned. She looked Kyra over as if she were lower class. “Make that two years worth of your salary goodbye.”

  “I understand. I… Trust me I will be careful. It’s so gorgeous.” Kyra grinned. She refused to be baited. Excitement had her bubbling with happiness.

  “Make sure you choose a silver or pewter pair of shoes to go with this. Not those monstrosities you constantly parade around the office in.” Kyra bristled. Everyone knew she designed her own shoes. The dig was personal. Cleo looked down to her feet and brought her gaze back up to level on Kyra.

  “Don’t worry. I can accessorize.” Kyra assured her. She turned and walked off toward the door. She stopped and looked back. “What will you be wearing?”

  “I’m not going, wasn’t invited.” Cleo said.

  “That’s right,” Kyra said with a smile and winked. She left.

  As soon as she turned the corner she saw Bette. Her office mate looked her over and then pointed for her to follow. Kyra wasn’t sure why she felt nervous but she did. She walked into Bette’s office and while balancing the dress managed to close the door. Bette returned to her chair behind her desk. It gave her a position of authority. Bette was sure to evoke every chance she got.

  “I hear Tate is taking you to the dinner tonight?” Bette asked.

  “Not as a date. It’s business. He just wants me to—”

  “Be his spy.” Bette rocked back. “Have a seat, Kyra.”

  She nodded and went to the chair and sat down. She placed the garment bag on her lap. “You’re a sweet kid, an ambitious one.”

  “I’m only two years younger than you,” Kyra corrected her.

  “My point is you’re talented. So I’m going to do you a favor and give you some advice – don’t go.”

  “What?”

  Bette sat forward. “Tate is desperate. Things are changing and he has no influence or say in the direction of the business anymore. I don’t care what he’s promised you, he’s done. Five years ago when Mirabella and Fabiana were here Tate had the run of things. They trusted him and ignored his bullshit. Since Fabiana’s death the run of this business has been under Giovanni Battaglia. You do know who he is?”

  Kyra shook her head no. Bette sighed as if her ignorance was aggravating. “The Battaglias are cleaning house. That means Tate’s out. Now…” Bette spun her chair around and looked out of the window. “The rest of us could be too.”

  “But he said, well he made it seem like he was negotiating.”

  Bette laughed. “The Battaglias aren’t people to negotiate with. Spying on any conversation or doing Tate’s dirty work is dangerous.” Bette turned her chair to level her eyes on Kyra over the top rim of her glasses. “Do you understand?”

  “No. Actually I don’t. It’s a business dinner. Not a Mafia sit down,” Kyra chuckled.

  Bette turned her chair back around. “I remember this company when Mirabella was here. It’s not the same. Take your talent out there and beat the pavement. Make it happen for yourself. But don’t pursue it here. And if you’re dumb enough to ignore my warning, be careful tonight.”

  Kyra’s confidence wavered. “Okay, I will.” She stood. “I have to catch my train. Thanks for the warning, Bette.”

  Bette nodded. Kyra felt like there was something more she wanted to say. Kyra waited a bit and then turned for the door. Into her mind crept another thought. She glanced back at Bette who continued to stare directly at her. What if Bette didn’t mean her well? What if she was trying to stop her from being anything more than just the secretary? She and Bette weren’t too far apart in age, and if Kyra had gone on to be the surgeon her parents dreamed she’d be, she’d be equally accomplished. Bette stared her in the eyes with an unwavering look. Kyra forced a smile. “See you tonight?”

  “See you tonight,” Bette replied without a hint of enthusiasm.

  She left Bette’s office with a deep sigh. The New York fashion scene was ambitious and ruthless. The warning did rattle Kyra, but not because of the Battaglias’ rumored Mafia connection. The warning unnerved her because every face she passed had that tight congested look of fear. All of their jobs were on the line if the company was moving. It would be survival of the fittest until the very end.

  Kyra walked fast back to her receptionist cubicle. She had plenty to do. Quickly she gathered her things. She nearly forgot her coat as she rushed out to the elevator. She put it on and beat a fast walk to the train. On the ride out to the Bronx she held her dress in her arms and tried to hide her smile. Tonight was her night. She could feel it.

  ***

  “You better work it, girl!” Jamie snapped her fingers. “Now give me a twirl, honey. Do it, do it, baby! Unh huh, that’s right!” she said with the clap of her hands like a choreographer.

  Kyra spun out twice. The material of the dress literally flowed like silk around her thighs.

  “No ma’am! I’m not having that shit! Give me a real spin!” Jamie demanded with a drill sergeant clap.

  Kyra did as Jamie said and spun out like wonder woman. Her arms extended and her head dropped back. She gave it her all.

  Jamie cheered. “Faaaaab-u-lisssssh!”

  Kyra laughed. She wheezed and bumped the wall with her hands to her head. Slowly the room stopped spinning. “Jamie, you’re crazy girl!”

  “Me? You can’t stroll up in here with a Mirabella original and not put it to work, honey!” Jamie snapped her fingers.

  The laughter felt as if it would never end. Kyra squeezed her eyes shut tightly and put a hand to her heart. She slowly caught her breath. Jamie was a neighbor. Actually she lived above Kyra. And she was the closest person Kyra had in her life since she became estranged from her parents. And Jamie was one of a kind. She was a pre-op transsexual who lived her life totally as a woman. She’d have the surgery soon, once she saved enough money. On the weekends, and mostly when they were both free they’d spend time together designing shoes. Jamie brought a sense of flare to her designs that she loved.

  “Well, now that you caught your breath, sweet baby, take a look for yourself.” Jamie said. “Go on. Check it out.”

  Kyra pushed up from the wall. She stepped to the mirror on the back of Jamie’s closed closet door. There she took a long look at herself. She had her mother’s skin tone, a rich dark brown that always looked best in bright colors. And the jade green evening dress with the low cut bodice and tight waistline shimmered with vibrancy over her curves. Her hair was piled up on her head in a purposeful tangle of curls like the exotic curl-fro of a Nubian princess. She liked the way her neckline was exposed. “Should I pin my hair up in the back and straighten out some of my curls to the front? Give it a more sophisticated look?” she gathered some of her hair up and turned her head from left to right in consideration.

  “I like the afro-chic thing you got going. It’s all you, Kyra. Plus it gives that dress flavuh, hone
y.” Jamie whistled.

  Kyra nodded. She smoothed down the front of the dress. “It’s beautiful. But you know, I think the hem could be a bit higher. This is the 90’s. The more thigh you show the better,” Kyra said.

  “Then let’s fix that.” Jamie sashayed over to her sewing table.

  “No! We can’t. It’s not my dress,” Kyra said.

  “Honey, please. You wearing it tonight, and tonight it’s yours. Besides I know what I’m doing.” Jamie reminded her. “Tomorrow you bring me the dress and I can take the hemline back down and press the silk out better than a dry cleaners before you take it back.”

  “Really? I want to help. I still haven’t learned your technique.” Kyra smoothed out her dress.

  “No worries, baby doll.” Jamie said and stepped to the window. She stared down at someone below. Jamie was always in her window. And during the summer it was always open. If she didn’t live on the fifth floor she’d be the lady who watched the neighborhood like that one on that television show 227. But Jamie wasn’t that old. As a young black boy she grew up in rural Alabama in a family of thirteen boys. Jamie said her mother always wanted a girl and used to dress her up for fun. It was how she learned to sew and gained her sense of style. Her mother died when Jamie was nine and life was hard. Her brothers didn’t understand her so at fourteen she ran away and never looked back. Jamie would tell Kyra stories of what she had to do to survive on the streets and they were scary heart wrenching tales. Now Jamie was in her early thirties, and even without makeup she was flawless. She had a petite slender frame, and real breasts that an ex-lover bought for her. Men often mistook Jamie for a woman. When she lounged around the flat she wore kimonos with long red fingernails and painted toes. And she had so many wigs Kyra never knew what she’d wear on any given day. Today she was a brunette with blonde streaks mixed in her long waterfall curls tied down by a matching black satin scarf on the top of her head like a pirate. Kyra loved her style.

  “What the hell is he doing?” Jamie asked.

  “Something wrong?” Kyra asked, as she turned sideways and admired her figure. When Jamie didn’t answer she looked back to see her peeking out the curtain. “What is it?”

  “Your white-boy Urkel girl. He’s at the door!” Jamie looked back at her. “I thought you said you two broke up?”

  “We did.” Kyra walked over to the window. She moved the curtain and looked down. Cezar was on the step finger punching the button to her apartment. In frustration he kicked and yanked on the door. If Kyra were downstairs she would have heard the persistent buzz of the door. “I can’t believe this. What the hell is he doing?”

  “Stalking you,” Jamie said.

  “Stalking? No. He’s not stalking. He just doesn’t know how to buzz off. I told him today it was definitely over. He’s been blowing up my phone and even showed up at my job.”

  “Wait. Showed up at your job? That jackass has lost his mind!” Jamie seethed.

  Kyra waved off her friend’s outrage. “It’s over.” She stared at Cezar. He paced on the step with his hands shoved down in the front pockets of his hoodie sweatshirt. His mousey brown hair was damp and stuck to his head from the light drifts of snow. When she observed his lanky appearance and sloppy dress she found it hard to remember what she liked in him. Cezar was a pre-med student at the University. Shy and awkward, she found his goofiness cute. And then discovered he was a complete freak in the sheets. Well endowed and uninhibited, he would make her climax so many times at night she’d wake with a headache.

  At first she was flattered by how he would shower her with compliments, and leave little love poems around her apartment for her to discover the next day. If he wasn’t following her around town trying to do everything for her, he was up all night watching her sleep. It got creepy and suffocating. That’s why she decided to just drop him.

  “Want me to go downstairs, honey, and get rid of his ass?” Jamie rolled up her long sleeves on her robe. “Where my sneakers and Vaseline? I still got my balls. And I got no problem with taking another man’s,” Jamie said.

  Kyra believed her.

  Before Jamie could proceed with her sex change operation she had to dress and live as a woman for a year. The scorn and harassment was constant. Until the people in the neighborhood realized she wasn’t one to be trifled with.

  “No. No. He’ll go away. Forget him. I want you to do my dress, and help me with my hair,” she smiled.

  “And your makeup,” Jamie grinned with a double nod of her head.

  “No offense but I don’t want you on my makeup, you’ll have me looking like a drag queen.” Kyra frowned.

  “Oh honey, I can do plain and boring if you like. But with a dress worth more than we see in a year you need pizzazz! Something to make you snap, sizzle, and pop!” Jamie laughed. She turned around and picked up her cassette tape deck. She plucked a tape out and dropped it in her boom box. It was ‘A Tribe Called Quest’. Jamie cranked up the volume. She bopped her head up and down with the beat. “Take that dress off and sit your narra ass down, and let’s do it, baby doll!”

  Kyra nodded running the zipper down. She couldn’t stop grinning.

  ***

  “Let me see you,” Jamie yelled.

  Kyra posed in the bathroom mirror again. Four hours later and her transformation was complete. Jamie decided she was right and pressed her hair to a beautiful bouncy shine. They trimmed it into a bob-style with a center part. And true to her word Jamie made her makeup light and sultry to match the sexy glamour of her jade green evening dress.

  “Kyra! Now, honey, while I’m still young and fabulous!” Jamie demanded.

  Kyra opened the door and walked out. Jamie blinked as if surprised. They were in Kyra’s apartment, in her bedroom. The one Jamie often referred to as a boudoir. Jamie was stretched out on Kyra’s chaise sofa she got from a thrift store two months ago. Kyra walked out and posed. She had chosen to put on her mother’s diamonds, given to her when she graduated college. A teardrop pendant that dangled from a white gold chain rested at the crease of her breasts that swelled nicely up out of the front of the dress.

  “I feel beautiful. Like royalty,” Kyra said.

  “Honey! Honey! Look!” Jamie said. She pointed to the television. On the screen was an image of a fashion show. Another flashed to the fashion queen Mirabella Battaglia.

  “Turn up the volume!” Kyra said grabbing the remote from Jamie and punching the volume up several notches.

  “We’ve learned that Catalina Battaglia has arrived in town with a Marietta Leone Battaglia, Mirabella’s sister…” The news reporter paused. “Recently Mirabella Ellison Battaglia released the following statement through the Italian press”. An image of Mirabella at the height of her career was shown on the television as the reporter read her statement. “‘I’m happy to share the wonderful news that I have been reunited with my twin sister. Marietta Leone has also become a member of our family by marrying Lorenzo Battaglia. We are overwhelmed with love and family right now, including the additions of our sons, Gino and Gianni. I’d like to thank my friends and colleagues for their outpour of support and well wishes. We ask that our family be given privacy to adjust to the changes and blessings we’ve received. Grazie. Mirabella Battaglia.’” The scene on the television flashed to an image of the Battaglia women walking out of the front doors to the Waldorf where news cameras waited. Kyra’s heart leapt to her throat when she saw the bodyguard again.

  “See him? Right there!” Kyra pointed. She jumped from her seat and went to the television and pointed directly at Renaldo. The cameraman was briefly focused on his tall handsomeness as he held the door open for Catalina and Marietta to ease into the backseat of a car.

  “Mmm… tasty, who is he?” Jamie asked.

  “A bodyguard for the Battaglias. He is so damn fine, Jamie. I swear… So fine!”

  “Here you see Catalina Battaglia and the sister, who until now the world never knew about. Mirabella once ran her fashion house with her partner Fab
iana Girelli who unfortunately died in Italy under suspicious circumstances. Our sources say that the Battaglias are here in New York to discuss relocating their New York operations back to Italy. Since Mirabella’s return to the fashion world her designer label has been in high demand across the International community. This is Katie Mathews reporting for Channel One news.”

  “So fine,” Kyra shook her head.

  “Honey, deal with one man at a time. Remember Poindexter?” Jamie snickered.

  “Oh that’s over. And besides I was joking. I wouldn’t date the bodyguard. He isn’t my type. But a girl can have some fun,” Kyra teased.

  “Mmhm,” Jamie replied. “Fine men are like a nice pair of shoes, a girl wants to try him on at least once.”

  “True,” Kyra laughed. She walked over to her dresser’s mirror to turn her head left and then right. Though she pressed her hair straight it still had volume and a bit of a bounce. “The man barely knows I exist. He’s all serious and robotic. Today he spoke to me though. Asked for a cup of coffee. And his voice, it was different, really thick and textured. Made me feel… never mind. A girl can have her crush.”

  “Yes, have the fantasy. I hear Italian men are passionate,” Jamie said.

  “I think they are Sicilians living in Italy. But yea, I agree. I heard the same thing. Wonder if Cezar is mixed with some Italian? He said he’s from Romania but he grew up never knowing his father. Maybe that’s the passion that keeps bringing him back?” Kyra smiled.

  “No, honey. Stop the presses. That’s a raw case of bug-a-boo Cezar has, not passion. Boyfriend needs to get off your scent and find a Becky to mess with. What is with you and all these white boys anyway?” Jamie half-joked.

  Kyra rolled her eyes. “The last person who needs to be prejudiced against a person’s outward appearance is you, Jamie.”

  Jamie nodded. “Touché. I’m not prejudiced. But your family is. Or have you forgotten?”

  Kyra’s smile faded. The mention of her family knifed her in the gut. “My family isn’t prejudiced, just conservative. They are first generation Nigerian. They expect a lot from their children. I disappointed them when I dropped out of graduate school. If I dated a non-Nigerian they would…” she paused. “Never mind what they would do.”