A Different Light

by Mariah Stewart

  She contemplated the choices displayed on the little wheel of colored powders. The soft greenish gray shade looked appealing, so she dabbed it across her eyelids, and then, on a whim, she put a little more on the small spongy brush and lined her upper lid as she had seen someone demonstrate on TV.

  “It’s going to have to do,” she said aloud. “But seriously? A makeover is in order.”

  She slipped into a pair of flats and ran downstairs.

  “Come on, Hannah, it’s dinnertime.” The big yellow dog ambled into the kitchen and watched Athen pour dry dog food into the hard plastic crater that served as a dinner dish.

  Athen glanced anxiously at the clock: 6:45. She found herself tapping nervously on the countertop with her fingers, then stuffed her hands into her pockets to make herself stop. After Hannah inhaled the contents of her bowl, Athen opened the back door and stepped outside with the dog. The air had cooled, so she went back in, raced upstairs and pulled a muted plaid jacket from its hanger. She slipped into it and paused to study her reflection for the hundredth time. The colors of the jacket—eons old—were perfect, but it, too, was dated. She rolled up the sleeves. Better.

  She fumbled through her jewelry for a pair of silver earrings that Meg had given her, with their matching ring, for Christmas the year before. She opened the box that still held all three pieces and put on the earrings. In the bottom of the drawer she saw a silver bangle bracelet and she slipped it onto her wrist. Her eyes fell on the ring finger of her left hand, where her plain gold wedding ring still wound its endless circle.

  Slowly, she removed the symbol of what she had come to think of as another lifetime. She rolled it around and around in her right hand. So long reluctant to part with it, she now placed it in her jewelry box.

  “It’s time, John,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry, but it’s time. …”

  Ringless after so many years, her finger felt naked. She replaced the thin gold band with the silver ring that matched her earrings just as the doorbell rang. She closed the drawer and ran down the steps.

  “Hi!” she greeted Quentin at the door. “Come in.”

  “You look great.” He smiled as if he meant it.

  “Thanks.” A faint blush crept from her neck to her face. “I just have to let Hannah in.”

  She all but ran into the kitchen to escape his presence, her heart pounding in her ears. This is a mistake. Maybe I could tell him I’m sick. I probably will be by the end of the evening if I put food in this stomach.

  She opened the back door and Hannah bounded in, searching for the stranger she knew was there. Quentin held out his hand and the tail began to wag the dog.

  “You remember me, girl?” Quentin bent down to pet her. “I think she remembers me.” He appeared pleased.

  “She’s a pretty smart dog.”

  Quentin gave Hannah a final scratch behind her ears. “Well, I guess we should be going.”

  The restaurant was only ten minutes away, but it seemed to Athen that she’d been trapped in his car for hours. The ride was marked mostly by silence, Quentin making some effort at small talk to which she gave brief responses. Once they were seated at their table, however, the conversation flowed more easily, and before too long, her nerves calmed enough for her to respond in full sentences.

  “Don’t order any of the starred dishes unless you like really hot, spicy food,” Quentin cautioned.

  “I’m okay with a little spicy, but I’m not familiar with the menu. Maybe you could recommend something that’s not too heavily seasoned. I’m afraid I haven’t eaten a lot of Asian cuisine.”

  “You might like the Thai beef salad. It’s a favorite of mine, and I’ve heard good things about the kitchen here, so it’s worth a try.”

  “I’ll try that.” She folded the menu.

  After their orders had been taken by a doll-like woman wearing a brightly colored, heavily embroidered dress, Quentin told her, “My dad used to travel regularly to the Far East on business. Thailand, Japan, India—those were his usual stops. I accompanied him on a number of trips. He loved sampling local foods and always sought out the restaurants that served the most authentic foods wherever we went. I learned to love some pretty exotic things as a result.”

  “What did you father do?”

  “He ran the family business. Actually, it was my mother’s family’s business.” He leaned back from the table as the waitress placed a dish of shrimp lanced with long wooden spikes on the table. “Here, try these with a little peanut sauce. I think you’ll like them.”

  “What kind of a business?” She bit into a shrimp, which she’d hesitantly dipped into the small bowl. “Mmm. You were right. This is yummy.”

  “Well, my mother’s father bought several small businesses that he thought had potential back in the fifties, when everything could be bought dirt cheap. As those businesses did well, he bought others: real estate, hotel chains, manufacturing plants, you name it. He was not a man to put all his eggs in the same basket. Over the years, he had accumulated quite extensive and diversified holdings.”

  “And your father worked for him?”

  “Worked with him, actually. My uncle Stephen, my mother’s only brother, worked for the company with the understanding that one day he’d take over from his father. Unfortunately, my uncle hated it. After a couple of years of trying, he wanted out. My grandfather realized that his son would never follow in his footsteps, so he turned to my father.”

  “Your father liked it?”

  “Dad loved it. He thrived on the stress, the travel, the long hours, all the wheeling and dealing.”

  “And you?” She speared a piece of beef with her fork, having passed on the chopsticks, which she noted he handled adeptly.

  “Not so much. I was into it for a while.” He looked down at his plate, as if concentrating on what to eat next. “Being the only son, I was expected to take the reins someday, but I guess I wasn’t cut out for it any more than my uncle was. For my father’s sake, I did try to find something about it that I liked, but running a large conglomerate like that was not my thing. My mother realized early on that it was not going to happen for me, so she was more than willing to let me move on after my father’s death.”

  “So did she sell the company?”

  “No, she appointed a board to oversee the entire conglomerate. Each company is self-contained, and each reports to the board on a quarterly basis. The only stipulation Mom made when I resigned was that I stay on the board and attend all the quarterly meetings. Other than that, I could do as I pleased.”

  “How long did you work there?”

  “I stayed for a couple of years, but after my mom married Hughes, and with Cynthia gone, there seemed to be little reason to stay in St. Louis. It seemed like the right time to move on. It’s important to me that Timmy have a good relationship with his grandmother, and it seemed like a good time for me to try my hand at something I wanted to do.”

  “And that would be …?”

  “I’d been hoping I’d find some time to write,” he confided.

  “Well, you’re certainly doing that.”

  “Journalism, reporting … not exactly what I’d had in mind. That was Brenda’s idea to keep me off the streets and keep me from getting lazy.” He smiled. “From the first time I read about the Underground Railroad, I’ve been fascinated by the stories. I guess the concept of a whole network of people putting their lives on the line for strangers simply because it was the right thing to do appealed to the idealist in me. The first time I came out here to visit my mother, Brenda took me on a tour of the city and pointed out a few homes that had been part of the Underground, and she introduced me to Ms. Evelyn, and I was hooked. It was love at first sight.” He grinned. “You know she grew up on the Hill, right? That she’s the city’s unofficial historian? She’s agreed to work with me on a book I’m researching on the subject. She told me that as a child she spent hours listening to the stories that were told by the old folks about their experiences as they
fled north. Some were firsthand accounts, others were stories passed down by her grandparents. I’ve been meeting with her once a week, and she’s retelling all those tales for me to record. Once I complete the book, I’m going to give the tapes to the library so that none of it will be lost. I’ll play some of the tapes for you sometime if you’re interested,” he offered.

  “I’d like that, thank you.”

  The waitress refilled their cups with more of the aromatic tea, and then sent another tiny woman to clear the table.

  “Ms. Evelyn isn’t like anyone else I’ve ever met,” Athen said. “She’s involved in every aspect of this community, from running literacy classes in the housing project to singing in the church choir. She runs a taxi service all the way to Elizabeth twice a week to the medical center for senior citizens who need their prescriptions filled and young mothers from downtown whose babies need medical care. She’s been doing this sort of thing for as long as I can remember.”

  Athen set her cup down on the table and held her hand up, signaling “No thank you” to the overly attentive waitress who rushed to refill it.

  “I’ve known Ms. Evelyn since I was a child. She worked actively for my father when he campaigned, and John knew her well because he always bought plants from her. She’s a one-woman redevelopment task force.”

  “You’ve heard about her latest project, right?”

  “Her latest project?” Athen raised an eyebrow. “What’s she up to now?”

  “She quietly tracked down the owners of several vacant adjacent lots on Third Street and conned them into entering long-term leases with the UCC. She’s planned an enormous community garden so people from the housing project can grow their own vegetables and flowers and fruits.”

  “Those lots that border on Schuyler?” Athen asked. “The ones that have been used as dumps for the past twenty years?”

  “Yes, those.” Quentin nodded. “She’s enlisted volunteers from each of the churches to haul out the debris. She’s also gotten someone she does business with at her nursery to donate topsoil and talked him into delivering free of charge when she’s ready for it. She even talked one of her suppliers into donating some fruit trees.”

  “Where did you hear all this?” she asked curiously. How had it escaped the City Hall pipeline?

  “From Ms. Evelyn. I stopped to see her this afternoon, and she told me she was looking for more volunteers to clean the lots next weekend and, by the way, did I know how to operate a backhoe?”

  “Do you?” she asked.

  “I can learn. There’s no saying no to that lady. She showed me the sketch she made for the garden. It’s amazing. She even has plans for an old-fashioned town green with a bandstand right in the middle.” He smiled at the waitress as she delivered the check on a red enamel tray.

  “Thank you for dinner, Quentin,” Athen said. “I’d forgotten how enjoyable adult dinner conversation can be.”

  “Well, there’s no lack of adult conversation at my mother’s.” He counted out several bills and left them on the tray. “But this certainly beats a replay of Hughes’s golf game any day. I’m looking forward to doing this again.”

  “If we’re ever childless on the same night again.”

  “Maybe we can arrange to be.” He held her hand as they walked to the car.

  Two blocks from her house, he slowed for a red light and, noting her silence, asked, “A penny for them.”

  “I was just thinking how nice it was that you kept your word. Do you realize you didn’t mention City Hall one time?”

  “That was the deal.” The light changed and he made the turn onto Harper Avenue. “I have to admit I had to bite my tongue several times to keep from asking how you got rid of Edie and how you wound up with that character who sits outside your door. Interesting accent she has, by the way.”

  “Hey, I’ll have you know that accent is one hundred percent pure Jersey City.”

  “Where’d you find her?”

  “She had been working in the Personnel Department. As far as Edie is concerned, let’s just say I arranged for her transfer.”

  “Why Veronica?” He pulled to the curb to park in front of her house.

  Athen hesitated. In tipping her off to Rossi’s little arrangement with Mary Jo Dolan, Veronica had presented Athen with the only weapon she had against Dan. As much as she was beginning to like Quentin, he was still a reporter, and she still wasn’t sure how much she could trust him.

  There was one way to find out.

  “Quentin, if I told you something in complete confidence, would you promise that you would never use it? You’d never print it?” She turned to look him full in the face, watching his expression. “And that you’d never repeat it to anyone?”

  “Of course,” he replied without hesitation.

  “Even if it was something that would make a truly great story? Could you still keep your word?”

  “You mean the type of story that would make your average reporter salivate?”

  “Exactly.” She was testing him, and she suspected that he knew it.

  “If it was told to me in confidence, then yes, I would keep my word.”

  Athen took a deep breath and told him how she had met Veronica, how Veronica had blown the whistle on Dan and Mary Jo.

  “Whoa, are you serious?” He leaned forward. “Dan had an underage mistress, had her paid by the city for four years even though she didn’t work, even gave her a city car?”

  The light in his eyes flooded her with concern. “Quentin, you promised …”

  “Didn’t I tell you this guy was a crook? Good lord, Athen, you could bring this guy down in a flash with this.”

  “No, Quentin, I can’t,” she said quietly.

  “What do you mean, you can’t? Athen, this is precisely the type of thing that could …”

  She shook her head slowly. “I can’t. I can threaten Dan with it, I can hold it over his head, but I will not publicly use it. Of course, Dan doesn’t know that.”

  “You’ve lost me.” He held his hands palms up in bewilderment. “I can’t think of one reason why you would sit on something like that.”

  “Mary Jo’s father ran off about ten years ago, just left town and never came back. For years, her mother held down three jobs to keep her family together. She has five children, Quentin. Mary Jo looks like the only bad apple in the bunch.” Athen’s voice was a faint whisper. “Mrs. Dolan cleaned houses and cooked for the rectory at St. Michael’s. She cleaned offices at night. Last year, she was diagnosed with cancer and hasn’t been able to work. The woman is under incredible stress, yet every week she volunteers at her church’s soup kitchen—maybe for only an hour or two, but she’s there every week. She’s a very good woman, a very good woman who’s struggling just to stay alive. She doesn’t know about Mary Jo and Dan. Finding out would probably kill her.”

  “Who told you all this?”

  “Apparently everyone in Woodside Heights knows the story. It isn’t a secret.”

  “Where does Mrs. Dolan think Mary Jo got her car?”

  “Mary Jo told her she won it in a raffle.”

  “And that’s why you won’t use this, to protect her mother?” he asked incredulously.

  “It’s certainly not to protect Mary Jo or Dan.”

  “Even though this news could rid the city of Dan Rossi?”

  “There has to be another way. I will not stoop to that level. My father always said that nothing good can be gained by deliberately hurting someone else. It’s a tawdry story, and I’m not going to go after Dan over Theresa Dolan. I’ll find a way to get to him, but it won’t be by causing that kind of pain to a dying woman.”

  “You think she doesn’t know about her daughter?”

  “It’s my understanding that she does not. Diana knows her. She told me that Mrs. Dolan thinks the sun rises and sets on her baby girl.”

  “But this could send Dan to prison. If Mary Jo was only seventeen when they began the affair …”

  She
waved him off.

  “There are only two people who can speak to that. Do you really think either Mary Jo or Dan is going to admit the truth? We’d end up with a scandal that’s based on a story that can’t be proven, and at the same time, a good woman is destroyed.” She shook her head. “Not on my watch.”

  He reached across the console and took her hand, threading his fingers through hers.

  “You are quite a woman, Athena Moran.”

  She shrugged and went on. “You asked why Veronica’s my new right hand. She is the only person in City Hall that I can completely trust.”

  “It must have been hard for you, knowing that every move you made was being watched.”

  “For a long time, I didn’t know. Ignorance was bliss.” She smiled. “But it’s not so bad now. Veronica keeps her ear to the ground. It’s amazing how much she hears from the other women in City Hall. And don’t let her appearance fool you. Underneath all that hair and behind the makeup is a very bright young woman. She is funny and straightforward and honest, and she’s a real breath of fresh air.”

  “And she is one hundred percent loyal to you,” he observed.

  “Yes. I believe she is.”

  “Well, then, not to be outdone by Veronica, I guess I will have to prove myself just as loyal.” He leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Your secret is safe with me. I will keep my promise.”

  “Thank you, Quentin.”

  His face was so close she could see, even in the dark, the tiny laugh lines around his mouth. If she just turned her head, just the slightest bit …

  “You’re welcome.” He drew her closer and very gently kissed her on the mouth. Before she could react, he’d opened his door and was moving around the front of the car. He opened the passenger door and reached a hand in to her. She took it, and side by side they strolled up the flagstone path to her door.

  She was debating whether or not to invite him in when he said, “Thanks for spending the evening with me. After all that’s happened over the past few months, I’m really glad that we’re starting over. And thank you for trusting me. It means a lot to me.”