Come to the Table

by Neta Jackson

  Kat didn’t answer—but she didn’t look away either. He thought his heart might pop right out of his shirt, it was beating so hard. Taking a chance, he leaned closer, his eyes searching hers. “I love you, Kat,” he whispered, breathing in the apple-fresh scent of her hair, and touched her lips softly with his.

  A car honked in the distance.

  The moon disappeared behind another cloud.

  Waves lapped gently a hundred feet away along the shore.

  And then . . . she was kissing him back, her hands holding his face, her mouth hungry. “Oh, Nick . . . oh, Nick,” she finally whispered in his ear, her arms going around him. “I love you too. So much.”

  He didn’t care that his nose hurt from their kisses or that his gut was screaming to unbend. Kat was in his arms, and as far as Nick was concerned, they could sit that way on this bench all night.

  Chapter 38

  Kat could barely concentrate the next day as she followed the STEP schedule with her three tutoring students. Latoya hollered in time to stop her from pouring orange juice into the little cereal boxes she’d just opened for their “breakfast snack.” Story time went well, though. She had started reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe a few days earlier, which had Kevin, Yusufu, and Latoya begging her not to stop. Then came the real work of the day, helping the kids do story problems using the math they’d been reviewing all summer, but her mind kept drifting to Nick’s words whispered in her ear last night.

  “I love you, Kat.”

  She was grateful when it was time for supervised games out on the playground, followed by the drama option, with another volunteer doing theater games in the gym.

  As soon as she could escape, Kat hustled over to Morse Avenue to work a double shift at the coffee shop, covering for Bree who was still sick. Made for a long day, but just as well. It kept her away from the house, and Nick had suggested they say nothing about this new step in their relationship until after he moved upstairs. It was going to be hard enough helping Conny understand the change in living arrangements without adding complications.

  But by Wednesday, she thought she was going to burst. Nick was moving his stuff up to the Douglasses’ tonight—supposedly he’d had a chance to talk to Conny the night before. But with Bree sick, the cooking schedule was all messed up. Was it her turn to cook tonight? She couldn’t remember—but it must not be, because she smelled something good when she got home at five thirty.

  She wandered into the kitchen. Rochelle was at the stove and Conny was playing with some action figures at the kitchen table. “Hey, Rochelle, smells yummy. What’s for supper? Need any help?”

  “Nope.” Rochelle didn’t even turn around. “I’ll call people when it’s ready.”

  Kat just stared at her back. What was her problem? Maybe Nick’s talk with Conny hadn’t gone so well. But if Rochelle wanted to be left alone, fine, she’d leave her alone.

  But she was dying to talk to somebody. Bree could keep their little secret, couldn’t she? But when she peeked in the bedroom door, her roomie was asleep and a humidifier was running, making the room feel muggy. Ugh. Maybe she’d sleep on the couch tonight.

  The front door opened and Nick came in wearing the sunglasses that helped hide his black eyes and carrying a few empty boxes. Kat’s pulse quickened, but she wasn’t sure if it was because he looked yummy enough to eat, or because those boxes meant he really was moving out—or at least up. She made a face at him. “Guess you really are moving out. Need any help packing?”

  “Sure—oh, hey! There’s my buddy.” Conny had appeared in the kitchen doorway. “Come here, little guy—give Uncle Nick a hug.”

  Uncle Nick? That was a new one. But maybe they’d decided that’s what Conny should call him. Probably a good idea.

  Conny inched slowly into the dining nook, scowling at the boxes—and then suddenly he ran toward Nick. Kat thought it was his usual jump-on-Mister-Nick hug, but instead, the little boy kicked the closest box and sent it flying, then he ran out of the room and down the hall, slamming the door to the bedroom he shared with his mother.

  Kat and Nick eyed each other. She grimaced. “Somebody’s not happy.”

  Rochelle appeared in the doorway, wooden spoon in hand. “What was that?”

  Nick pointed at the boxes. “I think it sunk in that I’m moving out.”

  “Humph. What’d you expect?” Rochelle disappeared back into the kitchen.

  Nick sank down onto the couch with a sigh. “Do you think I oughta go talk to him again?” he asked Kat.

  Kat sat beside him. “Maybe . . . but wait just a little. I think I’d be as matter-of-fact as possible. Maybe ask him to help you. Might help him understand it’s just upstairs.”

  Nick gave her a grateful smile. “I’d like to kiss you right now,” he whispered.

  “I dare you,” she whispered back.

  Kat almost thought he was going to do it, but instead he just winked—or tried to with his puffy eyes—and squeezed her hand before getting up off the couch and heading for the study. “Better get started,” he said aloud. “At least Pastor Cobbs took pity on me and didn’t give me any responsibilities for prayer meeting tonight. Said I could stay home. If you want to do something, you could pack my books in one of those boxes.”

  Arrrgh. Why did he have to be so principled? But she knew he was right. Not here. Not now. But if it’d hurry things along, she’d help him pack and push him out the door.

  Supper felt a little strained. Conny had come to the table pouty, and . . . was Kat imagining it or did Rochelle keep darting furtive looks at her? But passing around the bowls of shredded cheese, crushed tortilla chips, and black olives to sprinkle on top of the hearty taco soup Rochelle had made filled the silence for the first several minutes, and even Bree—her nose red and her voice hoarse—rolled her eyes with pleasure after the first spoonful.

  Nick finally broke the awkward silence. “Uh, say, Conny, I’ve been thinking about leaving my guitar down here. Don’t think your grandma and grandpa would appreciate me practicing up there. Would you take care of it for me?”

  Conny’s eyes lit up. “Yeah! I’ll take real good care of it, Mister Nick.”

  Hmm, Kat thought. Uncle Nick might take awhile.

  Silence descended on the table again, broken only by, “Please pass the cheese,” or “Do we have another bag of tortilla chips?”

  But once Conny had been excused from the table to go play with his action figures, Nick cleared his throat. “As long as we’re all still at the table, can we talk about my move upstairs? I’d still like to do my share of the cooking and eat suppers here if that’s all right with everyone.”

  “Sure.” Bree sniffled. Kat nodded gratefully. Rochelle just shrugged and toyed with her food.

  But Nick went on. “And since the Douglasses aren’t charging me any rent—they said I’m doing them a favor house-sitting for those couple of weeks—I want to still pay my share of the rent here for August. That’s the last month of our sublet, and then . . . well, we’ll all be transitioning come September.”

  Did Nick just toss her a secret glance? Kat felt her cheeks get hot. Surely he didn’t mean they had to keep how they felt about each other hush-hush until then!

  “Sounds good to me.” Bree sighed and waved her pack of tissues. “Now, if you all will excuse me, I think I’ll go hibernate again before I infect the whole lot of you with this yucky cold.” Pushing back her chair, Bree shuffled off toward the bedroom.

  Rochelle broke the silence that fell on the table in Bree’s wake. “Very noble of you.” Her voice had stiffened. “Makes me feel even more like a heel, though, since I’m basically mooching off the rest of you. Rent . . . food . . . and you wouldn’t have to be moving out if Conny and I weren’t here. Seems like I oughta be the one who—”

  “Rochelle. Don’t.”

  Kat was surprised at Nick’s interruption. She’d said the same thing to Nick herself—that maybe it should be Rochelle and Conny who moved out. Why not, i
f the idea came from her?

  “Like I already told you, Rochelle, even if you and Conny didn’t live here, I need to move out. Because”—to Kat’s astonishment, Nick reached for her hand, took a deep breath, and smiled at her—“because I told Kat the other night that I intend to court her, and to do that honestly, I shouldn’t be rooming here.”

  For a few moments Kat was speechless. There. It was out! To Rochelle, no less! She was glad and mad at the same time. Nick should have warned her! Or said something before Bree left! She kept her eyes on his face, half-afraid to look at Rochelle, knowing she was blushing.

  But when she did glance at her, she saw that Rochelle—so tough on one hand, so vulnerable on the other—was staring at her lap, her thick black hair falling over her tawny face, as if struggling to keep her composure. What the young woman was thinking or feeling, Kat wasn’t sure. Did she need some reassurance that they wanted her to stay? Should she say something?

  “Rochelle, I—”

  But Rochelle stood up abruptly. “Don’t bother. I get it.” She took her dishes into the kitchen and then walked back through the dining nook and living room, disappearing into the hallway.

  Rochelle didn’t reappear for the rest of the evening, though Nick did coax Conny to help him and Kat move his stuff upstairs, which seemed to have the desired effect—especially when Nick promised to let Conny “practice” on the guitar when they were done.

  But later Kat did pounce on Bree, who was propped up in bed reading, and said her roomie better listen up, cold or no cold. Bree screeched when Kat told her about Nick showing up after work Monday night and walking her to the lake, and the “other” reason why he was moving out.

  “I knew it! I knew it!” Bree gasped with laughter—and ended up in a coughing fit. “I bet I knew it before either you or Nick! Ha! I knew you two were going to end up together the first time he laid eyes on you at the music fest. He never looked at me the way he looked at you that day. It’s about time you two figured it out.”

  Kat felt so relieved to pour out all the tangled-up thoughts and feelings and questions she’d been having the past few weeks—ever since Nick had become a member of SouledOut and she hadn’t. Feeling God calling her to “feed people” but not understanding exactly what that meant . . . her mixed-up feelings about Rochelle and Conny . . . not knowing what she was going to be doing for a job when summer ended . . . where Nick fit into all of this . . . and now, where she fit into Nick’s life.

  She and Bree talked a long time before finally shutting off the light on the nightstand between them—and then Kat turned it on again. “What?” Bree moaned. “We’ve got to get some sleep or I’ll never get over this cold.”

  “Sorry,” Kat said, pulling a notebook out of her backpack and finding a blank page. “Just something I gotta do.” She wrote for several minutes, tore out the page and folded it, then tiptoed out of the room and slipped the note under Rochelle’s bedroom door.

  Chapter 39

  The door buzzer rang in apartment 3A of the House of Hope, and Edesa Baxter pushed the button on the call box that let the door open three floors below. “Gracie! It’s your friend Conny and his mommy. Let’s go watch them come up, okay?”

  Squealing, little Gracie ran for the door, jiggling the knob until her mother opened it, then she took up her position at the top of the stairs, peering through the railings until she saw Conny’s dark head coming up the last flight. “Conny! Conny!” She giggled, sticking her arm through the railing to wave.

  The six-year-old grinned up at her and waved back, then ran ahead of his mother to reach the top of the stairs. “Hi, Miss Edesa! Hey, Gracie.”

  Edesa smiled as she greeted him. That boy was as good-looking as they come. No surprise, since Rochelle looked like a model for Ebony magazine. And she’d never met Rochelle’s ex, but she’d heard he was “real fine” in the looks department too. Hope Conny’s not a heartbreaker like his daddy, though. Her own heart felt a pang thinking about all Rochelle had been through with that man—not the least of which was the brouhaha last Sunday.

  The two children disappeared into the apartment as Rochelle trudged up the last flight. “Don’t know how you do it, Edesa,” she puffed. “I’m winded and I’m not even thirty yet.”

  Edesa laughed. “Me either, mi amiga. Josh says living on the third floor will either kill us or keep us young.” She led the way inside. “I’m so glad you called. Gracie loves to play with other kids—though I’m surprised Conny is so patient playing with her, given the difference in their ages. Do you want some tea?”

  “Sure.” Rochelle peeked into Gracie’s bedroom as they walked down the long hall toward the kitchen. “Hmm. Those big Lego blocks may have something to do with Conny’s willingness to play with Gracie. I need to get some of those . . . they’re ageless,” she murmured.

  Edesa turned on the teakettle and then looked a bit sheepish. “I have a quick favor to ask you. Will you watch the kids while I run down to the basement and switch the laundry? At least Josh took the baskets downstairs for me before he left for Manna House. He’s over there doing some painting today. He left me the car so I can take you back to the El.”

  “Sure. Go . . . go.”

  Edesa scurried down the outside back stairs to the basement. Whatever Josh had done when he tinkered with the washers and dryers, they certainly were working a lot better now. She fished a load of whites out of the first washer and stuffed it into the closest dryer. Heavy towels and jeans went into the second dryer. Then she reloaded the two washers—wash-and-wear in one, sheets and pillowcases in the other. At this rate she’d have the laundry done before Rochelle left. If she didn’t forget to turn on the machines like last week. So . . . estúpido.

  But she didn’t scurry on the way back up. Uhh. At the rate climbing these stairs was wearing her out, Edesa might regret they lived on the third floor. Not sure what she could do about it, though. No way did she want to trade their cheerful apartment, tastefully painted in “hacienda colors”—combinations of rusty orange, green, sunny yellow, and blue—for Tanya’s red and black bedroom in the apartment she shared with Precious, even if it was on the first floor.

  Rochelle had made the tea by the time she got back to the third floor. “Mm, thanks.” Edesa sank into a chair at the small kitchen table. But after a few grateful sips, she looked carefully at her guest. “Are you all right, Rochelle? Do you want to talk about what happened Sunday night? All I know is what Nick told Josh on the phone—and you know how guys are. Just gave me the bare bones—”

  “Nick called Josh?” Rochelle cut in sharply. “What did he say?”

  “Just that Conny’s daddy showed up mad as a wet cat, and he slugged Nick a couple times. And tried to take Conny with him. But you and your mom got back just in time from Yada Yada—hallelujah!” Edesa waved a hand in the air as if she were in church. “Oh, he said Nick was going to house-sit for your parents when they went to South Africa to, uh, ease any misunderstanding Dexter has about your living arrangement.”

  Rochelle squirmed. “Anything else?”

  Edesa took a long sip of tea. Even before Nick’s phone call on Monday, Josh had told her about his “guy talk” with Nick Sunday afternoon—and how Nick had said it was Kat Davies he was interested in. That was news! Especially after Rochelle had taken Edesa into her confidence about her feelings for Nick. A sticky situation for sure. But Edesa didn’t know how much Rochelle knew, so she needed to tread carefully here.

  “I’m sure there’s more to the story—and I want to know how you’re doing, Rochelle.”

  Rochelle shrugged. “Been better. Everything kinda blew up after I talked to you last week.”

  “Did you talk to Nick about how you felt about him?” Go gently, Edesa told herself.

  “Not exactly. Well, kind of. After that thing happened with Dexter—criminy, you should see Nick. He’s got two black eyes, makes him look like a raccoon. That slimeball slugged him real good. But I guess he’s okay. He says he is, anyway.�
�� She wagged her head. “Anyway, after that mess with Dexter, the next day Nick says he wants to talk to me, tells me he thinks he should move out. Too confusing for Conny—and me, he says. Dexter said some pretty nasty things about . . . about us, me and Nick. And I guess Nick doesn’t want people to talk—though as far as I know, Dexter’s the only one whose mind is so warped, that’s the first thing he thinks. After all, we’re divorced, and . . . good grief, Kat and Bree live in the apartment too.”

  Rochelle drummed her fingers on the table, and Edesa noticed she hadn’t drunk any of her tea. “Anyway, Nick made it pretty clear he wasn’t Conny’s daddy and he didn’t want Dexter or anyone else thinking he’s my live-in boyfriend either. So, yeah, I got brave and asked him if the idea of us having a relationship—him and me—was so inconceivable. Because Conny’s crazy about him, and I told him I liked him a lot and I thought he liked me. But that’s when he told me”—Rochelle suddenly had to grab a tissue from the box on the table—“told me there was someone else.”

  Edesa waited while Rochelle blew her nose. “Someone else?”

  “Yeah. He said even if Conny and I didn’t live in the apartment, he’d need to move out. That’s when I guessed who he’s got the hots for. Kat Davies. Kat! And he didn’t deny it. So I was sure.”

  Edesa laid a hand on Rochelle’s arm across the table. “I’m sorry, Rochelle.” She hesitated to say more. She was sorry for Rochelle’s disappointment, not that Nick had his heart set on Kat . . . though she’d been a bit surprised when she’d first heard it from Josh. Those two always seemed more like brother and sister, and Kat was, well, rather impulsive and spirited compared to Nick’s thoughtful, laid-back persona. But Nick and Kat as a couple wasn’t any stranger than Josh and Edesa had been a few years back. Maybe less so. At least Nick and Kat were the same age and had spent several years together at the same school, whereas Josh was three years younger than she was, and they had to deal with a multicultural, double-language, mixed-race household to boot.