A Kiss of a Different Color

by Bettye Griffin

  “Sure,” Jon replied, nonplussed. “Slow-cooked beef and pork sandwiches with gravy, Norwegian meatballs…”

  “I’ve only heard of Swedish meatballs,” Miranda interrupted.

  “They’re pretty much the same. Lefse wraps…”

  “What the hell is that?” Brian asked, clearly a little cranky.

  “The Norwegian version of crepes. And, of course, my favorite, salmon steak. But don’t panic. They have American food there as well, like burgers, chicken, and shrimp.”

  “I’ll drive,” Brian said as he headed for the door, and the rest of them laughed as they followed him.

  At the restaurant both the staff and the patrons cast them curious looks. “Have these people ever even seen a black person before?” Miranda asked.

  “It reminds me of when I went to interview for my job,” Jae replied. “The human resources assistant came out and went up to a blond pharmaceutical representative and said, ‘Jae Gallagher?’ When she said no, she went to a middle-aged woman and said, ‘Jae Gallagher?’ That just left me and a man, and don’t you know—”

  “She didn’t!” Jon broke in, half laughing.

  “Yes, she did. She went to the man and asked if he was Jae Gallagher.”

  Miranda found that hysterically funny, and in her laughter she leaned her head on Jon’s shoulder, closing her eyes for a few seconds, the way she often did when laughing. She opened them to see the wide-eyed waitress staring at her. “Did I suddenly grow a second nose or something?” she asked tacitly.

  “No. Sorry,” the young woman hastily replied. “I just came to see if you’re ready to order.”

  They placed their order, and then Jae said, “Come on, Miranda, let’s visit the little girls room. We’ll give the good diners here an opportunity to try and figure out who goes with whom.”

  “Maybe you two should kiss each other,” Jon suggested. “That’ll really cause some confusion.”

  Miranda and Jae looked at each other.

  “No tongue,” Miranda warned.

  They rose and walked, arms around each other, in the direction of the restroom. Along the way, when they knew they had attracted attention, they faced each other and shared a five-second kiss on the lips.

  A collective gasp went up among the diners who had been staring at them, and laughing hysterically, the two friends disappeared inside the washroom.

  “We are so bad,” Miranda said as she struggled to catch her breath. “I mean, what will these people think the next time they see a black person or an Asian?”

  “I don’t think I’d worry too much about that,” Jae replied dryly. “Not in these parts. This is probably the most excitement the townspeople have had since that Walmart we passed opened. What’s a Walmart doing in a town this small, anyway? I doubt two thousand people live here.”

  “It probably serves the entire county.” Miranda dampened a paper towel and wiped the outer corners of her eyes, which had started to tear from laughter.

  “Well, you know what they say, ‘what happens in Bottineau stays in Bottineau.’ Speaking of which,” Jae said, a twinkle in her eye, “I sense something different about you today. It was there at breakfast this morning. You seem sparkling, and your interactions with Jon seem more…relaxed, rather than uptight. Did he perhaps pay you a late-night visit when he got in last night?”

  Miranda glanced at her reflection in the mirror. Did it show? Was she wearing her night of sexual satisfaction like she wore her makeup?

  She saw nothing different.

  “I’m just happy to be here,” she replied. “I really enjoyed myself skiing. Maybe Jon is right when he says there’s something about being in the great outdoors. I’m going to take your advice and start going for more lessons outside of town. It’s exhilarating, and I can’t wait until I’m good enough to try to go all the way down the mountain like you guys do.”

  Chapter 16

  Miranda slipped her cap off her head and fluffed her pony tail.

  “Are you sure you want to do that?” Jon teased. “We are in public, after all.” He whispered ominously. “Someone might see us.”

  “This isn’t a date, Jon. We happened to spend the morning together on the slopes.” She smiled, liking the way it sounded. Anyone who overheard would think she was an experienced skier, not someone who’d spent most of the morning taking a lesson.

  “You were the one so worried that someone will think we spent the night together,” he reminded her.

  “Yes, but because I know we didn’t, I feel we have nothing to hide. The rule calls for no dating. It doesn’t say we can’t ski together.”

  Jon grunted, then removed his trademark cap and tossed it on top of his jacket in the spare chair. “I suppose not. What they really mean is no sexually based relationships, but I guess they can’t use that expression.”

  They had spent the morning at Huff Hills in nearby Mandan, where Miranda spent two hours with a private instructor and then met Jon for her first attempts at skiing down a trail. On the way back he suggested brunch at the historic Peacock Alley restaurant in downtown Bismarck, where the breakfast dishes were named after Twentieth Century boxing greats like Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, and Gene Tunney. Both Miranda and Jon ordered the Jack Dempsey, a traditional breakfast of eggs, bacon or sausage, hash browns and toast. The meal also came with a screwdriver.

  Miranda was fast learning that alcohol consumption was a big part of life in North Dakota. She had never drank so much in her life as she had since moving here. She had a beer most weeks at bowling, and then there were those mimosas Jon had plied her with at brunch the week before last, and up in Bottineau she’d had that tasty concoction at the bar on Friday and then a glass of wine with dinner on Saturday. She wasn’t worried about turning into a lush, but she did note a change.

  Here in Bismarck she actually went out more than she had in Racine.

  Imagine that.

  They fell quiet for a few minutes while studying the menu. Miranda set hers aside once she made her decision. Jon was still trying to decide from the limited Bloody Mary breakfast menu, obviously torn between two choices. He looked so handsome, brimming with good health after a morning of skiing.

  Her cell phone began to ring, and Miranda fished in her purse to see who was calling. Her parents had taken a week-long vacation in Aruba and were flying back today, and she was expecting a call from them once they landed in Houston to get their connecting flight to Milwaukee.

  She saw her mother’s name in the window. “Excuse me, Jon, but I really need to take this. I’ll only be a minute.” He nodded, and she answered the phone. “How was your trip?” she said instead of a greeting, determined to keep the conversation short.

  “Just wonderful. Watching the sunset…watching the sun rise…swinging in a hammock between our guest cottage and the beach…It was so romantic.” Geraldine sighed dreamily. “When you’ve been married as long as your father and I have, sometimes you forget why you got together in the first place.”

  “Um…okay.”

  “All right, all right. I can tell you’re uncomfortable. I don’t know why you get so antsy when I talk about your father and I being in love. How do you think we got you?”

  “Mom, please.”

  “I’ll change the subject. And how was your ski weekend?”

  “Wonderful. I liked it so much I’m going for ski lessons locally, just had one, as a matter of fact. But Mom, I’ll have to call you back later. I’m having breakfast with a friend.”

  “Chelsea?”

  “Nnnnno. A different friend.”

  “Your daddy and I are so glad to see you’re making friends, honey.”

  “Yes, I am. You guys get home safely, and I’ll talk to you later.” Miranda broke the connection. “Sorry about that,” she said to Jon. “My parents are just getting back into the country after an island vacation.”

  “Sometimes I wonder what my life would’ve been like had my parents not broken up.”

  She looked at him
curiously, recognizing a wistful note in his words. “I wish I had an answer for you, Jon. We are who we are, and our experiences have a lot to do with that.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. I’m as familiar with divorce as you are with long and happy marriages.”

  Their food was delivered, and they set about the business of eating. “Jon, it seems like it’s taking me forever to get the hang of skiing,” she bemoaned.

  “Legs, you’re overreacting. I think you’re doing fine. You’ve had all of two lessons. You went down that mountain, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, but it was scary. That’s why once was enough.”

  “Next weekend you take another lesson to improve your speed control and stopping, and after that I think you’ll be ready to learn the best way, which is by just getting out on the beginner slopes like you did today. By the end of the season you’ll be skiing like a pro. So let’s plan to do this again next weekend.”

  The warmth of having received a pleasant surprise slowly spread over her. “Are you saying you’ll go with me again next Saturday?” she asked, suddenly shy.

  “Of course.”

  “That’s awfully nice of you, Jon.”

  “It shouldn’t come as a surprise that I like spending time with you, Legs. And it’s not just for the reason you think. You and I like a lot of the same things.”

  She cast her eyes downward for a moment before softly admitting, “I’ve noticed that, too.”

  They smiled at each other across the table.

  “Look at that!”

  The older woman looked in the same direction as her daughter. Knowing her, she’d spotted an attractive man. It didn’t surprise her to see the tall blond man, or that he had a companion. But what she didn’t expect was for the man to be someone she knew.

  “I remember him.”

  She turned surprised eyes on her daughter. “Friend of yours?”

  “Sort of. I thought it would be fun to learn salsa dancing, and that I might meet someone in the process. When I got there he had already partnered up with someone. I gave him my card, but he must have lost it. He never called.”

  The woman’s lips curved upward in amusement. Once upon a time she, too, had been young and beautiful, even more so than her daughter, but she had never had the confidence her daughter displayed. Maybe if she had she wouldn’t have lost her husband to a woman half a generation younger. Bless her child’s heart; it had never occurred to her that perhaps Jon Lindbergh hadn’t wanted to call her. Overconfidence could be off-putting sometimes. Heaven knew her daughter certainly put her off every now and then…

  “Omigosh, I don’t believe it!”

  “What now?”

  “That girl he’s with! She’s the one he paired with at the dance studio just before I got there.”

  The mother chuckled. “I guess they decided to eat together as well as dance. And how do you know they didn’t register for the class together? That might be why he didn’t call you.”

  “They didn’t. They were standing by the desk when I got there, and I could tell they were strangers.” Her pretty face formed a smirk. “Imagine. What would he want with her when he could have me?”

  “I can’t even see her, but I’m sure she’s lovely.”

  “She’s attractive,” the younger woman conceded. “But she’s black, for heaven’s sake.”

  Interested now, the mother leaned back in her chair to get a closer look.

  Curiously, she thought she’d seen Jon’s companion before as well, but where?

  Chapter 17

  “You know, I’ve seen plenty of white Christmases, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a white Thanksgiving,” Miranda remarked. Jon had insisted on picking her up (“We might as well ride over there together,” he’d said,) even though he lived closer to the Gallaghers than she did. Her sixty-day rental trial period had passed, but Miranda decided to continue renting the space in Chelsea’s basement on a month-to-month basis, with thirty days notice required if she decided to get an apartment. Chelsea had been delighted to learn Miranda planned to stay on.

  Miranda certainly had no objections to Jon’s picking her up. For one, she felt safer riding on snow in his SUV than she did in her smaller, lower-sitting sedan. Even better, it gave them a chance to spend some time alone. Dancing had wrapped up the Tuesday before last, leaving Thursday at the lanes the only time they saw each other, a setting they shared with over a hundred other people.

  Jon had honored her wishes not to mention the night they spent together in Bottineau, but Miranda sensed he thought about that glorious night as much as she did.

  “I’m told it’s not unusual to have snow on the ground in October,” he replied. “We came close to having a white Halloween, if that dusting we had a few days before hadn’t melted.”

  “Looks like we’re not the only guests after all,” Jon remarked as he pulled up in the driveway next to a sleek Lexus sedan in matador red. “If I know Jae, she probably learned that an acquaintance wasn’t going home for the holidays and insisted they join her and Brian.”

  “She’s sweet that way, isn’t she?” Miranda said.

  The door to the Gallagher’s New England saltbox home was opened not by Brian or Jae, but by a tall, fair-skinned black man with almond-shaped eyes.

  For a wild moment Miranda thought they had the wrong house, but just as quickly recovered. She immediately relaxed the surprise she knew was reflected on her face.

  “Happy Thanksgiving!” the man greeted. “You must be Jon,” he said, extending his hand.

  “That’s right,” Jon replied as he shook the stranger’s hand.

  “And you,” the man said, appraising Miranda lazily, “must be Miranda.”

  “Um…yes.” She couldn’t deny her curiosity. “And who are you?”

  The stranger took her hand and kissed it, a gesture that might have been more meaningful had she not been wearing gloves against the frigid weather. “My name is Lance, and our hosts told me you were coming. I’m glad to see you.”

  A warning bell went off in Jon’s head. The word ‘you’ could be either singular or plural, but his instinct told him that Lance meant it in the singular sense. He was glad to see Miranda. No doubt Jae and Brian had mentioned that she was African-American and unattached. Who was this joker, anyway? Where had he come from? It had taken him less than one minute to start coming on to Miranda, and right in front of him.

  Worst of all, there wasn’t a thing he could do about it…because he and Miranda weren’t officially a couple. In his heart he knew he couldn’t blame the man for reacting to Miranda the way he did; Jae and Brian likely told him that the two of them would arriving together but were not romantically involved.

  His frustration formed a knot in his stomach as he followed Miranda inside. The thought of watching this man flirt with the woman he wanted all through dinner made him lose his appetite.

  “Oh, it smells divine,” Miranda said as she unbuttoned her coat.

  Jon moved to take it from her once she shrugged out of it, but Lance got there first, like Gloria Allred rushing to represent the latest high-profile wronged woman. Blood rushed to his groin when Miranda pulled off her wool cap and shook her hair loose. At that moment he had a memory of her riding him in bed with that hair streaming down her back during their one night of passion. He abruptly tossed his coat, scarf, and cap at Lance and headed for the kitchen. As much as he hated leaving Miranda alone with him, he wanted to find out who this dude was and how he happened to be at the Gallagher’s for Thanksgiving dinner. What happened, did he tell Brian he wished he could find a nice black girl to get cozy with? Since when was Brian in the matchmaking business?

  Jon stormed into the kitchen, stopping abruptly when he saw a third party present, slicing jellied cranberry sauce at the kitchen island. His first thought was that she was Lance’s date—he liked the idea of pegging Lance as the type who would flirt with one woman while escorting another, which he knew would be a turnoff for Miranda—then quickly reali
zed that this middle-aged woman was too old. Vaguely he thought she looked like someone he’d seen before, but he had other, more important matters on his mind. He forced a pleasant greeting to the trio, then said to Brian, “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  “Yeah, I’m just about to see if the grease in the turkey fryer has cooled down any. I cooked it out in the garage. C’mon, you can help me dispose of it if it’s cool.”

  They slipped into the garage just as Miranda and Lance entered the kitchen. Miranda hugged Jae and was about to offer assistance when she noticed someone she wasn’t exactly thrilled to see there in the kitchen, helping out. “Oh, hi there!” she said pleasantly. “I didn’t know you would be here today.”