“You don’t look so good, Athen.” Edie peered over the top of her glasses as Athen pushed the down button and waited for the car. “You feeling all right?”
Athen shook her head and walked through the doors the second they opened.
“SO, WHAT DO YOU THINK, John?” Athen asked in the empty room. For the past twenty minutes, she’d been sitting in the middle of the floor and talking nonstop, going round and round. What Rossi said. What she said.
What should she do?
Something about Dan’s proposal—something she could not put her finger on—nagged at her. A question she couldn’t find the words to ask stirred somewhere in the back of her mind, making her uneasy and restless. She stood and walked to the window and looked out across the yard. It was naked now without the magnolia, and barren without the masses of blooms John always planted. It was just one more reminder that he was gone.
Athen sighed. She paced. She could not clear her head.
If John were here, he would tell her to get on her bike and go for a long ride and think it through—and he’d be absolutely right. It was just what she needed. Unfortunately, the last time she saw her bike it had been in pieces, flying through the air toward the Dumpster. But there was nothing stopping her from buying another—maybe one of those cool new Raleigh eight-speeds she’d noticed when she took Callie’s bike in for a new wheel the day before the storm.
She glanced at her watch. She still had part of the morning and most of the afternoon ahead of her—plenty of time to run to the bike shop and still have time to try it out. She changed into shorts, T-shirt, and sneakers, then tied her hair into a loose tail. If she found a bike she wanted, she could ride it out to see her father.
She grabbed a half-full package of three-day-old rolls so she could stop and feed the ducks after visiting with Ari, then headed for the car. She’d tell her father everything, and maybe, once she’d laid all her thoughts out rationally, the right decision would come to her.
The trip to the bike store had been quick and painless. The store manager was evidently having a slow day because he offered Athen a truly sweet deal on the bike she had her eye on. Excited and pleased, she bought it, fastened it to the bike rack on her car, and drove home. Then, tossing the stale rolls into the small vinyl bag behind the seat, she rode slowly down the driveway, getting the feel of the new tires. She stopped once to adjust the seat before heading out to Woodside Manor.
Soon she was peddling tentatively through the park. Back in the day when she was in shape, she’d made the ride in under a half hour. Today it took closer to forty minutes. When she arrived at Woodside Manor, she wheeled slowly around the parking lot, making huge circles on her bike. For a few moments, she sensed a piece of her old self returning. She wondered if her father would notice.
Unfortunately, she would have to wait to find out.
Diana’s blue car was parked in the first space nearest the path. Was she spending her lunch hours out here now?
Athen sighed. She wasn’t about to interrupt them. She pedaled over to the pond and stopped under the tall trees. Standing the bike at the edge of the parking lot, she unhooked the black seat bag and took out the package of rolls. The ducks were all clustered on the opposite shore, so she took the footbridge to the other side of the pond.
As she approached, the birds flocked to her, quacking and running on their webbed feet. Long since accustomed to treats being offered by human hands, they clustered around her without hesitation. After she’d dribbled the last crumbs into the open beak of a small brown duck that waited at her feet, she shoved the empty plastic bag into her pocket.
She glanced at her watch and looked across the pond to the parking lot. The blue car was still there.
“Here, give them some of this.” A voice from behind her startled her, causing her to jump.
“Sorry if I scared you.” Quentin Forbes held out an open bag of popcorn. “I thought you’d have heard me coming down the incline.”
“I guess my mind was wandering” was the best she could manage. She had been right. He was everywhere.
“Fickle little buggers, aren’t they?” He grinned. “One minute they’re at your feet, the next minute they’re quacking for someone else. Here, hold out your hands.”
He poured popcorn into her outreached hands. A crowd of quackers followed the transfer of food from one to the other until they were both surrounded. They tossed the small white kernels until both the bag and their hands were empty.
“That’s all for today, folks. See you next time.” He rolled the paper bag into a ball and tossed it easily and accurately into the trash can twenty feet from where they stood.
The ducks ambled back to the water’s edge.
“Do you come here often?” she asked to make conversation.
“As often as possible.” He nodded solemnly. “The popcorn man hates to disappoint his feathered friends.”
She smiled and started to walk up the incline toward the footbridge.
“Hey, Athen,” he called. It was the first time he’d called her by name. “Have you had lunch?”
Mesmerized by blue eyes, she shook her head no.
“Join me in the park for a hot dog,” he offered casually. “Maybe I’ll even throw in a Popsicle for dessert.”
Athen glanced over at the parking lot, but Diana’s car still had not moved.
“Well, I guess I’ve some time to kill,” she said.
“Ah, now, that’s a gracious acceptance to a gracious offer,” he noted dryly as he joined her at the top of the incline.
“Oh, I’m sorry. What I meant was, I’m here to visit my father.” She blushed when she realized how rude she had sounded. What was it about this man that caused her to blush every time they spoke? “He’s at Woodside Manor.”
“Is he ill?” he asked.
“He had a stroke three years ago,” she explained. “I’m just killing time because … well, because he has another visitor right now.”
“Another family member beat you to it?”
“I really have no family, at least in this country. My mother died when I was five. I have no sisters, no brothers. My father’s visitor is a … friend.” She couldn’t help adding, “Of his, not mine.”
“So what do you like on your hot dog?”
“Mustard would be fine.”
“Mustard? That’s all?”
She nodded.
“Some fries? Something to drink?”
“Sure. Thanks. Diet anything would be great.”
“You got it.”
He took off over the hill to the vendor’s stand. A few minutes later, he was back, waving her to join him at one of the wooden picnic tables.
He plunked the paper plate holding her hot dog—mustard only—fries on the side, and a can of Diet Pepsi in front of her. She watched wide-eyed as he assaulted the first of his three hot dogs. Chili, mustard, relish, sauerkraut all glopped from the bun in clumps.
“How can you eat that with all that stuff piled on there?” Her appetite diminished with every bite he took.
“It’s the only way to kill the taste of the hot dog.” He grinned, wiping mustard from his bottom lip. “You should try it sometime.”
“No thanks.” She grimaced.
“Let me know if you change your mind.”
“I’ll be sure to do that.” She nodded. “So, what about you? What brings you to the park every day?”
“I spend a few hours in the library.” He motioned with his head toward the redbrick building at the other side of the field. “Doing a little research for a book I’ve been working on over the past few months, checking into some local connections with the Underground Railroad.”
“Ah, Ms. Evelyn.”
“She’s a prime source,” he agreed. “Did you know that when she was a teenager she wrote down the stories she heard from the old folks up on the hill? She interviewed her grandmother—she lived to be over a hundred—her mother had made her way north with her two sisters. It’s all there, in the old
woman’s own words. Ms. Evelyn wrote down every word just as she’d heard it. A few years back she typed it all up and gave a copy to the library. It’s wonderful material.”
“You came here just to do research for a book?”
“Not exactly. I sort of stumbled onto that when I got out here.”
“From …?”
“St. Louis. That’s where my family is from, originally. I grew up there, only left to go to college, but I went back after graduation. Worked there. Married there.”
“Where’s your wife?” she couldn’t help but ask.
“Well, I guess right now she’s in Central Europe someplace.”
“Don’t you know where she is?”
“Cynthia works for American Perspective …”
“The magazine?” Athen was unavoidably impressed. American Perspective was big-time.
He nodded. “She’s a photographer. A very good one, I might add. Maybe too good. A year ago they offered her the European desk and she took it.”
“And you and Timmy couldn’t go?”
“Go where? She lives out of hotels. She goes where the news is. Follows the big events.” There was more than a trace of bitterness in his explanation. “That’s no life for a child. Even if she had time for him, which she admits she doesn’t.”
“Doesn’t she miss Timmy?”
“If she does, she’s doing a fine job of hiding it. She’s only been back once, to sign the divorce papers. You can probably imagine how that makes my son feel.” He crushed the empty soda can easily with his left hand.
“I’m sorry.” She could think of nothing more appropriate to say.
“So was I.” He tossed the can at the trash bin and missed.
The conversation had taken a bleak turn. Witnessing his pain had disturbed her. She leaned back and peered through the trees. She was grateful to find the blue car nowhere to be seen.
“I guess I should get going and see my father before it gets too late.”
“I’ll walk you to the bridge.”
He cleaned up the trash and her empty soda can and tossed them into the garbage.
“Why’d you come to Woodside Heights?” she asked.
“My mother remarried last year and moved here. Her husband lives in town. Tim and I stayed in St. Louis for a while after Cynthia left, but, well, I guess there were too many memories there. I thought it would be a good time for Timmy to get to know my mother and my stepfather a little better.”
“What about work?”
“Well, as of next week I’ll be working for my stepfather.”
“Doing what?”
“Don’t know exactly yet. There are several options open,” he said vaguely. “What about you? Do you work?”
“I work for the city.”
“And in your spare time you’re a seasoned gardener,” he concluded.
“Oh … well. About that …” She wondered how to admit she didn’t know a hollyhock from a ham hock without making herself look silly.
He laughed, and the light mood returned as quickly as it had earlier fled.
“It’s okay, Athen,” he whispered. “Your secret is safe with me.”
“You knew it all along.” She laughed. “How did you know? I thought I’d done a pretty good job covering up my ignorance.”
“Well, let’s start with the fact that you were using a six-inch trowel designed for transplanting little seedlings to dig up a plant three feet wide.” His eyes were merry again, making her smile when they met hers. “And these”—he reached for her hands—“are not the hands of a gardener. No calluses. No chipped nails, other than the ones you got fighting with the gypsophila out at Ms. Evelyn’s.”
He held her hands for the briefest moment before letting them drop. They walked the rest of the way to the pond in amicable silence.
At their approach to the bridge, the ducks sang out and hurried up the ridge, begging hopefully.
“Nothing this time, pals.” He displayed empty hands.
“This has been nice, Quentin, thank you. It was just exactly what I needed today.”
“Then I’m glad we ran into each other. I’m happy to have been in the right place at the right time.” He paused, then gently touched her elbow. “Listen, Athen, maybe I could call you sometime, maybe we could have dinner …?”
“I don’t know … if I’m …” The words “I’m ready” got stuck in her throat.
“I understand.” He nodded. “But we could be friends. I would like to think of myself as your friend.”
“I think I’d like that.” She started across the bridge, then turned back and asked, “Quentin, if someone you cared about wanted you to do something you weren’t sure you wanted to do, but they really insisted, what would you do?”
He thought for a long minute.
“I guess I’d have to ask myself: What’s in it for me? And: What’s in it for them?”
What’s in it for me, she silently repeated. What’s in it for Rossi …?
She wished she knew.
QUENTIN STOOD ON THE BRIDGE and watched Athen wheel her bike toward Woodside Manor’s main building. When she came to a stop at the end of the path that led to the front door, she got off the bike and looked around momentarily before rolling it to a spot near the door. She put the kickstand down and left the bike there, disappearing into the building.
Was she really going to leave that shiny new, pricy little model right there, without a lock, for anyone to walk off with?
Lacking the faith in their fellow man that Athen apparently had, Quentin came back down the path and sat on the back of one of the park benches, where he had a clear view of the front door and the bike. He watched for a few minutes, wondering if it had even occurred to her that the bike might not be there when she came back out. Could she really be that trusting? That naïve?
He thought perhaps she might be.
There was something about her that drew him beyond the obvious, that she was very beautiful. He’d often heard people describe a woman as being “as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside,” but it was an expression he personally had never used. He tried to remember if he’d ever met a woman to whom the expression might apply but couldn’t bring one readily to mind. Not in this lifetime, anyway. Cynthia had been beautiful on the outside, but inside she was self-centered and self-absorbed. He’d really believed that once Timmy was born, she’d find that the universe had shifted, and that she was no longer at the center of it. Unfortunately, that never happened. If anything, becoming a mother had only reinforced her conviction that no one’s happiness was more important than her own. When Tim was two, she handed him off to Quentin and promptly went back to the job she’d reluctantly left behind when Tim was born, determined to resume her climb to the top of her field. It took several years, but she did in fact become the superstar she’d always believed she should be. Last year, she was offered her dream job. If accepting it meant that her husband and her son would have to fend for themselves, well, they’d just have to buck up. By then the marriage had long since died. The divorce was merely a formality. He’d gotten past the pain she’d caused him, but he’d never forgive her for the pain she’d caused Tim.
It was nice to meet a woman who loved her child and honored her family ties. As far as Quentin was concerned, Cynthia had done neither.
The door of the building opened and Athen came outside. She slipped her sunglasses onto her face and walked the bike to the edge of the parking lot. She hopped on and pedaled down the drive and out onto the road. Quentin watched until she disappeared around a bend in the road before starting back over the bridge and across the field to where he’d left his car.
He’d have to hurry or he’d be late for his meeting with his stepfather to talk about his future employment, and he knew he should be focused on that. But he found himself thinking about Athen’s curious question. He couldn’t help but wonder who was trying to talk her into something she really didn’t want to do, what that something was, and whether or
not in the end she’d give in.
8
The news hit City Hall like a bombshell. Dan Rossi’s choice for mayor was … Athena Moran?
Disbelief spread throughout the building. The evening newscasters from both the local and the cable stations each called no fewer than three irrefutable sources trying to confirm the unlikely story.
Rossi appeared to relish the frenzy.
Athen stood by his desk almost numbly as he made the formal announcement to Council on Friday afternoon, a moment that appeared to give him particular pleasure, Athen thought at the time. The coldly cordial good wishes expressed by the two most stung by Rossi’s choice chilled her. Dan’s assurances that both Jim Wolmar and Harlan Justis would come around did little to dispel the feeling that all might not go exactly as Dan had promised.
It wasn’t the first time she questioned the wisdom of her decision, and it wouldn’t be the last.
Athen regretted having put such distance between herself and Diana, knowing that her father’s friend would be a good source of sound advice. Athen wished she had the courage to call and ask what she thought about it all, and what she thought Ari would say.
In the end, she based her decision on the rationale that, for better or for worse, she was taking a positive step forward into her future for the first time in months. And it would be an opportunity to do something of value for someone other than herself, she reasoned. She’d lived her entire life in Woodside Heights, had taught its children. The parents and grandparents of those children had voted her father into office, and had stood by her side when John had fallen. Perhaps, in her capacity as mayor, she could do something of lasting benefit for the community, as her father and her husband had done. Dan had tugged hard on that string of civic responsibility, of her legacy, and she’d found it hard, if not impossible, to come up with a reason not to run for the office. Maybe, as Dan insisted, she had picked up more from her father than she realized.
Dan kept Athen pretty much out of sight and mute up until the night of the rally, when he would introduce her and officially present his choice to the party. Requests for interviews from the media had been declined at Dan’s insistence until after Monday, which was fine with Athen.
A Different Light Page 8