He put his fork aside. “I wonder if there’s another family anywhere like this one.” When the adults stopped eating and looked at him, he said what he felt. “The happiest time of my day is dinnertime at this table. Too bad Drake isn’t here.”
As if sensing his vulnerability, Velma stepped in. “I thought Drake would be here this weekend.”
“Next Wednesday,” Tara said. “That’s what he told me when I talked to him this morning.”
“Ain’t nothing like having all the boys here together,” Henry said. “After all these years, the only thing changed is Russ talks and picks up after himself. Never thought I’d live to see it. Passed his room this morning and it looked like Bennie had just straightened it up. Me hat’s off to ya, Velma.”
He knew someone would eventually get to the subject of Velma and himself. “I hate to disappoint you, Henry,” Russ said, “but the room was straight this morning because I was awake so early that I wasn’t my normal self. If you’re going to give Velma credit for something, be sure it isn’t my neatness.”
“I’ve only been in his apartment three times,” Velma said, “and each time it was clean when I got there. The kitchen was spotless.”
Henry stopped on his way to the kitchen, turned around and looked at Velma. “Three times? You’re joking. I give both of ya more credit than that.”
He listened to the patter, hardly hearing it, not needing to hear it, for he knew that kindness would coat every word spoken. When the phone rang, Henry answered it.
“She’s right here,” he said. “Phone for you, Velma.”
“I had my calls transferred here,” she said and left the table to go to the telephone. “This is Velma Brighton.”
“Hello, Ms. Brighton. This is Alvin Crooks. My man says he’s found your father, but he hasn’t spoken with him or written him. He wants to know what’s next.”
She thought her knees would collapse, as the telephone table swayed and the chandelier seemed to triple in number. “Just give me all the information you have, including his address and telephone number, what he’s doing for a living and the best time and place for me to reach him. Send me the bill.”
“Will do, ma’am. If you have any trouble with this, you know my phone number.”
She thanked the lawyer and hung up. Now what? Should she tell Alexis and get more discouragement, or should she contact him, try to get the answers and then tell her sister? After her experience of sharing with Russ, she figured she should let her sister know that their father was alive, but if she did that, Alexis would immediately discourage her pursuit of information about their parents. She decided not to tell Alexis until after she spoke with their father.
“Want to go see an old movie?” Russ asked when she returned to the table.
“Which one?” she asked. “I love just about all of them except the ones with slapstick comedy. I never could stand pie throwing and that stuff. Cheap way to get laughs.” With those words she succeeded in diverting attention from her phone call; the discussion at once centered on movies and what they offered.
“Are we really going to the movies?” she asked him after dinner, sitting beside him on the sofa in the den.
“Yeah. If Henry will keep an eye on Tara, maybe those old married people over there will go along with us.”
“I heard that,” Henry said. “Mind you, Drake won’t be calling you an old married man a year from now. I’ll sleep in my little room back there tonight and watch out for Tara, Alexis, if you want to go with them.”
“Thanks Henry,” Alexis said, looking directly into her husband’s eyes, “but we…uh…we’ll go with them another time.”
“Why didn’t I know that?” Russ asked, his tone just short of mocking.
“Am I missing something here?” Velma asked no one in particular. She didn’t want to see a movie unless it was on television. And speaking of television, the house contained several, but she didn’t recall having seen anyone watching them.
Russ stroked her nose with his right index finger. “If you had to ask that question, you are definitely missing something.”
She rubbed her cheek against his hand. “Let’s just stay home and talk.”
“Oh. Oh,” Henry said. “First time I ever knowed a plain old fever to be catching. Must be some new virus. If nobody’s going out, I guess I’ll get on down to me house and feed me puppies.”
Telford stood and took Alexis’s hand. “We’re turning in. See you tomorrow morning.”
Alexis released his hand, hugged Velma and then put an arm around her husband. “If you’re not having breakfast,” she said to them, “please leave a note where I can find it. You two have a nice evening.”
“I wish you the same,” Russ said.
A glance at him confirmed the jovial mood that accompanied his dry comment to her sister. “You should be sleepy,” Velma said to Russ.
He leaned back against the sofa and closed his eyes. “I should be and I am. Will you feel deserted if I go to bed?”
“No, indeed. How long had you been asleep when Tara woke you up?”
“About half an hour or so. She’s a wonderful little girl. She woke me up because she didn’t want me to be late for dinner. I gather she heard the conversation this morning concerning my whereabouts, and she didn’t want me to be the subject of discussion this evening. Or something like that.”
“Pretty close to it. She came down and announced that you were on your way. I understand that you’re rest broken, so let’s say good-night.”
He walked with her to her room. “I’m not going in, and I am definitely not getting into any heavy-duty necking with you.” His lips settled lightly on hers, but when she parted them to receive him, he broke the kiss. “I owe you one. Sleep well.”
“You, too, and pleasant dreams.”
A few minutes later her phone rang. “I forgot to tell you that John and Amelia want us over at their place next Saturday. I hope you can make it, because I want to get reacquainted with John. We were good buddies when we were undergrads. You’ll like him.”
“I liked what I saw. I have a reception next Friday, but I’m free Saturday, so I’d love to go with you. ’Night.”
“Good night, sweetheart.”
After a quick shower, she fell asleep almost as soon as she touched the bed.
At about nine o’clock Monday morning, she phoned her lawyer. “Any more news? I didn’t have the privacy to ask questions when we spoke Saturday evening. Does your contact know where my father lives and how he supports himself?”
“He isn’t working in his profession as a molecular biologist, but he has a fine job teaching medical engineering at the university. He leaves his apartment only to shop for food and other essentials, to go to the university and to go to the dry cleaners. Nothing else. Doesn’t seem to have any friends. You won’t have any trouble finding him—he lives in the heart of Montreal. The report and the bill are in the mail.” She thanked him and hung up. She would chart her next move after she read the report.
“You must have written a strong proposal,” her real-estate agent said when she telephoned him. “The commissioner’s office is considering your bid. If it’s accepted, you’re gonna have to either begin renovation or occupy the place within a month. So prepare yourself.”
She checked her suppliers for the Sepia Sweethearts’ annual gala. After coaching the disc jockey as to the kind of music the group wanted, she attended a rehearsal of the exotic dancers and the jazz singer and combo that made up the evening’s entertainment. She preferred to organize parties and galas for which entertainment was excluded, but she’d work with what she had.
Come Friday evening, she surveyed the ballroom at Muti’s Entertainment Center, found everything in order and told the manager that he could open the doors. The oohs and aahs of the attendees as they entered gave her a feeling of pride and reinforced her sense that she was good at her profession. At the gala’s end, the president of Sepia Sweethearts called her to the podium, than
ked her for planning their best gala ever and gave her a citation and an honorary membership.
“From now on, our own Sepia sister will cater all of our parties and galas,” the woman said to thunderous applause.
With one of her most gratifying jobs behind her, Velma walked out of Muti’s in high spirits and crossed the street to her car. However, as she reached for the door on the driver’s side to open it, a man jumped from the second-floor balcony of the building in front of where she’d parked her car. He stumbled for a minute, then looked around and ran down the street. Almost immediately, a woman leaned out of the window and shouted, “Police! Police!”
After standing there dumbfounded for a second, she used her cell phone to call 911, reported what she saw and added that a woman was calling for the police. That done, she drove home.
“Do you think that man saw me?” she asked Russ that night when they spoke by phone.
“I doubt it. He was in too big a hurry. Anyway, you’re not in that neighborhood often, so I wouldn’t worry about it.” But she did worry; only a criminal or a person pursued by one would take a chance on jumping from a balcony onto a concrete sidewalk.
“What do I wear to John and Amelia’s house tomorrow?” she asked him. “Is it a party, or what?”
“Amelia said it would be just the four of us. Remember? So wear whatever you like. I’ll have on a business suit. That dress you had on Sunday was nice. You looked beautiful in it.”
She wished he wouldn’t say that. She’d never been beautiful a day in her life. “Thanks, but you’re proof positive that love is blind.”
“Are we back to that, for Pete’s sake?”
“All right. All right. I stand corrected.”
She heard him suck his teeth, and wondered if she had disgusted him, because she hadn’t previously heard him do that. “The correction you need is inside yourself. Do you think you have to be perfect in your own eyes before anyone can love you? What did you eat for dinner?”
It sounded as if he had changed the subject, but she knew he hadn’t. “Filet mignon, roast tiny red potatoes, asparagus, stilton cheese and espresso. I substituted the cheese for the dessert. Would you believe the president of the group that held the reception read me a citation? Then, they made me a member. From now on, I’ll do all their events.”
“That’s wonderful. I know you’re good at what you do, and I’m trying to get my fraternity to hire you for the national gala. Of course, if they have it at a hotel, you can’t do it. But we’ll see.”
They talked for another half hour, saying nothing, just touching each other in the only way possible at the moment. “I’ll be at your house at five-thirty,” he said. “Kiss me?”
She made the sound of a kiss. “’Night, love.”
“Sleep well, sweetheart.”
Saturday afternoon melted into four-thirty, and she had to find something to wear to dinner with Russ and his friends. She shuffled the dresses in her closet, pushed them aside and looked at her suits. “Oh, well,” she said after having wrestled with the problem for about a quarter of an hour. “He said he liked that dress, so I’ll wear it. And he’d better remember that he asked me to choose it.”
He rang her bell at five-twenty-five. She started toward the door at breakneck speed, then told herself she shouldn’t seem so anxious to see him and slowed down. Reflecting on her behavior, laughter bubbled up in her throat and threatened to spill out at about the time she opened the door. His look of surprise at her demeanor brought the laugh out in full and, unable to control it, she took his arm and urged him inside.
He rested the back of his right hand on his hip and gazed down at her. “What’re you up to?”
She managed to control the laughter and said, “I was laughing at myself.” She explained why and added, “All that posturing, and you couldn’t even see me.”
He rubbed the fingers of his left hand over his temple and a frown settled on his face. “So you play pranks on yourself? You were anxious to see me, but you didn’t think it a good idea to let me know it, but a minute after I’m in here, you spill the whole thing.” His arms went around her, and his kiss held just enough pressure to make her long for more.
“I’ll get my stole,” she said, having decided she wouldn’t need a coat.
The first thing she noticed when she walked into the Gandy home was the Steinway grand. “Who plays?” she asked John, who met them at the door.
“Amelia, when she has time. She’ll be with us as soon as she gets Jay straightened out. At three, he’s a real handful.” He led them toward the back of the house to a large, cozy family room. “Make yourselves comfortable. I’m going for some ice.”
They sat in the family room awaiting their hosts, but they could have been anywhere, for their thoughts remained focused on the mutual love that grew in their hearts.
“If you hadn’t rocked me on my heels when you opened your door,” Russ said when she smiled at him, “I would have told you how lovely you look. I really like that dress.”
“Thanks. I wore it because you said you like it.”
He spread his knees, rested his forearms on his thighs and looked at her until her nerves seemed to want to rearrange themselves. “Do you like to please me?” he finally asked.
“I’m always happy when I know I’ve pleased you.”
He sat up, crossed his left knee over his right one and winked at her. “That’s not quite what I meant, but knowing you, I’ll take what I can get.”
At the sound of footsteps, Russ stood. Shock reverberated through her when Amelia walked into the room. When they met, she didn’t notice the woman’s obvious limp nor her thick waistline. She jumped to her feet, and walked to meet their hostess, her mind swirling with questions that she couldn’t ask. They embraced each other.
“I’m glad you could come, Velma,” Amelia said. “Russ, John and I were close during college, and I want us to resume our friendship. Of course, we can’t do that unless you like being with John and me.” She pressed her bottom lip down with her index finger, and Velma found that a fetching mannerism.
She didn’t want to tell the woman that she and Russ didn’t have a permanent arrangement, so she made herself smile. “I appreciated your invitation. Something tells me you’re a really good pianist. That so?” she asked, hoping to change the subject. When she glanced at Russ, he let her know that he understood her mood.
“She was really good,” John said, “until we went into the Peace Corps, and she didn’t practice for the two and a half years we spent in East Africa. When we came back, music wasn’t her priority. She had to get a master’s degree as quickly as possible, so we could start on our family. Since we’ve had Jay, she plays, but whenever she goes to the piano, Jay wants to play, too. So her playing isn’t what it was when we finished Howard.”
“Now I realize how we lost touch with each other,” Russ said. “You left the country. I finally gave up trying to find you.”
She listened as they reminisced, enjoying their camaraderie and the opportunity to share in Russ’s past. John Gandy sat beside his wife, put his left arm around her shoulder and held her right hand with his other hand. His left hand teased her hair, stroked her cheek and caressed her shoulder. It was never still, but continuously fondled her, communicating to his wife that he loved and adored her.
After a dinner of roasted cornish hens, broiled mushrooms, string beans and rice, with vanilla ice cream under raspberry sauce for dessert, Amelia left them and returned with three-year-old Jay. When introduced to the child, Velma said, “Hello, how are you, Jay?” to which he replied, “I’m sleepy.”
She didn’t know why she did it, but she opened her arms to the boy, and he responded by crawling into her lap. She cradled him, and within minutes, he was asleep.
After using all of her willpower to avoid looking at Russ, his voice reached her from across the room. “I wish I had a camera. That’s the most perfect picture I ever saw.”
She looked at him then and had
to stifle a gasp, for his eyes communicated to her the depth of his feelings.
Later, as he drove them to her house, she asked the question that had nagged at her all evening. “When I first met Amelia, I didn’t realize that she’s handicapped. Did it happen while she was in Africa?”
“She’s been that way since birth. She usually wears a shoe that camouflages it.”
“Have they been married long?”
“About eight years, but they’ve been together since they were eighteen, and they’re both my age, thirty-four.”
He parked in front of her door, cut the motor and got out of the car. She was hardly aware of the open passenger door, for her mind remained on Amelia Gandy. A woman with a flawed figure, and one shorter leg, who limped badly, had a handsome six-foot-three-inch-tall husband who hadn’t seemed able to keep his hands off her, though he’d been her lover for sixteen years. She released a long breath of air, grasped Russ’s hand and stepped onto the sidewalk.
Inside her foyer, he let her know at once that he wouldn’t stay long and when she looked at him inquiringly, he said, “Amelia is a beautiful woman. Inside, she is pure gold, a loving person of unquestionable loyalty. She’s all that and much more. You’ve been wondering how it is that a handsome, successful man like John loves her—and it’s so clear that he does—when she is not perfect to the beholder.”
He slapped his balled right fist into his left palm and shook his head as if there was something he didn’t understand. “Now you know that a man can adore a woman whose body doesn’t meet Vogue magazine’s standard of beauty. Velma, let it go. Please, for your sake and mine, learn that you’re worth any man’s attention. You’re lovable, and I love you, but if you don’t accept this fact, and especially after last Friday night, what do we have going for us? You think about this.”
After the Loving Page 25