“Is this what you wanted?” he asked in a voice that betrayed his passion, that trembled for want of control. “Is it?” With his tongue, he simulated the loving they would soon share, and she clung to him, asking for more. Needing more.
“August, why can’t…? Oh. Oh, Lord.” She’d never let a man fondle her breasts, and fire shot through her when his hand went under her coat and his fingers rolled her nipple.
“Is this what you wanted, Susan? It will happen every time we’re alone, and you know it.” His deadly serious mien nearly unnerved her.
“This isn’t a game, honey. I don’t want us to make a habit of going this far without consummating what we feel. I don’t approve of it. But no matter what, we’re going to wait. Eventually, you’ll understand and appreciate my point of view. I don’t want you to wake up in bed with me and think, ‘My God, I’m in bed with this stranger.’ Another thing. Your bark is loud, but I’ve learned that you won’t bite. If you had any idea how much I want you, you’d probably run.”
She pursed her lips. “How can you be so sure of that?”
August leaned against the wall and folded his arms across his chest. “I read you well. In this and other things. You’ve decided that I’m easy to handle, that I’ll be putty in your pretty brown hands if you put me to a test. So you aren’t afraid to challenge me. Grace said she did my chart, and you say she’s always right. Ask her to let you see it.”
She didn’t like the tenor of the conversation; she didn’t want to discover that she’d been foolish to let herself like him so much.
“Have you misrepresented yourself to me?” she asked, attempting to summon her pre-August personality, her executive demeanor. Her shoulders slumped in defeat, when she realized that she couldn’t shield herself from his look of penetrating evaluation. She didn’t want him to judge her harshly.
“No, I have not. But there hasn’t been an occasion for me to let you see how quickly I’ll put the record straight if someone misjudges me for a person of little consequence, or for an unsophisticated country boy.”
She bristled at that and stalled for time, while she pulled off her coat and hung it in a nearby closet. “Do you think I’d agree to marry that kind of man, even if he agreed that courting is for adolescents, a waste of time? Do you?”
“A country boy’s no threat to a Wall Street lawyer. I didn’t attempt to mislead you. You let me be myself, and I enjoy it, because it’s what I’ve always wanted, always needed in a woman. And you’ve given me that. I’m trying to tell you that there’s more to me.”
“All right, I’ll look for it. Are we still engaged?”
The slow smile began at his lips, revealing his beautiful even white teeth, and moved upward, stealthily it seemed, to envelop his wonderful eyes. Then he laughed aloud.
“Ah, sweetheart. How could you ask that? Didn’t I give you the responsibility of looking after my funeral? Baby, you’ll never get rid of me.”
Tremors coursed through her as his strong hands brought her gently to him, and her body shook as the fire of his hungry mouth drew her into the orbit of desire. Her parted lips begged for his tongue, but he denied her and let his mouth brush her eyelids while he stroked her arms and back.
“Our time will come, sweetheart. If we’re going to make a go of this, we’ll have to wait. Lovemaking is a part of love, anything else is sex. Everybody needs that, but if we’re planning a life together, we have to have something deeper. I get good and high when I feel how you want me, but I’m going to try and nurture that into something deeper, something stronger and permanent.”
She expected the smile to start again, and there it was. She had to fight to resist it as she gazed up at him. “August, why do you think you can turn on your charm and get me to do, think, and accept whatever you want?”
“Now, honey, I haven’t ever tried to seduce you. Not once.”
He had to know from the expression on her face that she didn’t believe him. “Be serious.”
“I’m serious. I’ve never done that.”
She shook her head. “Well please do. I can’t wait to see what you’re like when you really get going.”
August looked down at the woman nestled so sweetly against him and smiled. He didn’t think he’d ever get used to the feeling of total contentment he got whenever he felt her in his arms.
“We’re going to have a good life together. Trust me?” He loved her shy smile, the way she seemed to submit to her feelings and enjoy being with him. He mused over that for a second and amended the thought. Submissive until they got into an argument. He asked her again.
“Sure you trust me?”
“Yes, I do. I have from the first.”
He’d always made it a point to remember his origins and try to stay humble, but when she got like this, so cuddly and agreeable, it was all he could do to keep his chest from swelling. He bussed her on the forehead.
“What if I tell Grace to go by for you and bring you to my office tomorrow around five?”
“There you go again. Treating me as if I’m an infant. August, I can walk; it’s only a few blocks.” A deep sigh escaped him. So much for cuddly and agreeable.
“I know you can negotiate a couple of blocks, but it’s pitch dark at five o’clock. Let Grace bring you over. Okay?” Her laughter curled around him. By Jim, she was beginning to get his number.
Susan stared at the shiny brass plate on the office door. T. August Jackson, Vice President. She hadn’t had any idea. Vice president of a highly regarded criminal law firm. She’d thought he worked there as a salaried criminologist. That explained a lot—those flashes of sophisticated taste and behavior, his flawless enunciation and grammar, even with that drawl. What was she supposed to think now? Her light tap on the door was rewarded with a deep-voiced, “come on in.” A male secretary? She looked around for a chair, figuring that her knees might not withstand her next shock.
“Mr. Jackson is waiting for you,” the young man told her, as his glance swept her from head to foot with obvious approval.
She opened the inner door just as August reached it, sidestepped his open arms, glared at him and demanded, “Explain yourself, mister. You told me you were a criminologist. What other tales have you got me to believe?”
“You asked what I did, and I told you. When a lawyer friend and I started this firm, he was president, and I was vice president. Since then, we’ve added fourteen lawyers and a dozen criminologists. I’m responsible for the research and investigation, and my partner handles the legal aspects. Come on, I’ll introduce you to my secretary. She noticed that the gleam faded from Harold’s eyes when August introduced her as his fiancée. As he took her through the office, she didn’t doubt that August had his staff’s affection and respect.
Susan wasn’t sure she wanted Grace’s company right then; she was dealing with August’s surprises, and she didn’t want to hear a word about Grace’s charts and lines. He settled in the cab, comfortable as always and slid his right arm around her shoulder.
“How y’all getting along?” Grace asked.
“Fine,” Susan answered with a halfheartedness that she knew wouldn’t escape her aunt.
“Terrific,” August said simultaneously.
“Looks to me like there’s some disagreement on how well you’re getting along.”
“She doesn’t want to admit that you were right,” August boasted, “but she knows you were. Take us up to my place.”
“A Hundred Thirty-Fifth and Malcolm X Boulevard is a long way from Wall Street—and in more ways than one,” Susan observed as Grace headed up the FDR drive well above the speed limit.
“That’s true, but I love Harlem. Its sounds and pungent smells are unique, and if you speak to people, they speak back. Reminds me a little bit of home.”
He waved to an old woman as they entered the lobby of his apartment building.
“How are you, Miss Effie?” he greeted the woman. “Haven’t seen you lately.” The woman’s pleasure was reflected
in her broad smile.
“August. I do declare. You’re going to live a long time, son. I was thinking about you when I turned around and saw you standing there. Heard anything about Grady, yet?”
“No. Not yet, Miss Effie, but I have a feeling we’re getting closer.”
“Me, too,” the woman said. “I just feel it deep down in here.” She pointed to her heart. Susan felt August’s arm gather her to him.
“Miss Effie, this is Susan, my fiancée.” Susan greeted the woman with a proffered hand and received a powerful grip in return.
“You look after him good, honey. You hear? This man is a prince.” Susan wanted to tell her that she knew it, but she settled for a warm smile and said goodbye.
Susan looked around the attractively furnished, spacious apartment. It didn’t look as she’d thought it would. “We don’t have similar taste in furnishings.”
August seemed unconcerned, but that was as she would have expected. “I know, but we’ll get around that.”
She braced herself for another tug of war. “How? Just tell me how your French Provincial”—she paused and glanced around when an odd object caught her eye—“a couple of Queen Annes and”—she threw her hands up in despair—“and I don’t know what else are going to mix with my clean modern lines?” Why was he laughing? Couldn’t he see that their furniture didn’t belong in the same house?
“Honey, when it comes to what I’ve got mixing with your sleek lines, you needn’t worry. I’ve got the key to that.”
“August, I’m talking about house furniture and things like that.”
His laughter filled the room. “And what do you think I’m talking about? Come on, baby, loosen up. Chrome and glass are out of place in suburban and country living.”
Her voice dropped to a low contralto, barely above a whisper, her words nearly trapped behind her clenched teeth. “What did you say? Suburbs? Country? I don’t ever plan to live more than walking distance from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a fifteen-minute taxi ride from the Schomburg Center. Anybody who thinks differently would do well to see a shrink.” Let him pace and throw his hands up. See if she cared.
“You want to live in Manhattan?” he asked her at last, pronouncing the word as if it foretold a doom of indescribable horror. “Manhattan?” He stuffed his hands in his back pants pockets and thoroughly scrutinized his bride-to-be. “What’s the big deal? The Met doesn’t open on Mondays and, except for Fridays, it’s closed on weekdays when you leave work. You’ve got until quarter to nine in the evening on Saturdays. You have to shackle yourself to Manhattan for that? Same with the Schomburg. You won’t miss a thing.”
“You want to take me to the country?” she asked with both hands planted on her hips. She turned her back quickly as the beginnings of that smile appeared. She wasn’t going to be lured into agreeing with him just because he was the most handsome…the sweetest… He walked around to face her, lights already beaming in his eyes as though he was impatient to give her a lovely present. He tipped up her chin and trailed his thumb down her cheek.
“Honey, come with me to Tarrytown Saturday. Please. I found a nice house for us that I know you’ll like.” He couldn’t have sounded sweeter or sexier, she thought, if he had been whispering words of love. “Then you can put your foot down,” he added.
She stamped her left one, though mainly for effect. “It’s already down.”
“Aw…now, honey. I’m never going to ask you to do anything you just don’t want to do. Like courting. Have I made you do any courting?” He caressed her back and gently squeezed her arm. “Have I? No, and I’ll respect your wishes about everything else, too.”
“August, I’m not going to live in the country, and that’s that.” His grin broadened.
“Fine with me. They’ve got streetlights all over Tarrytown, not like where I grew up, where it was so dark at night the moon had trouble lighting up the place.”
“Oh, stop it. You promise not to try and persuade me if I tell you I don’t like it?”
He nodded, and she had a chilling feeling that the house would be perfect.
“It isn’t so bad, now is it?” he asked her, standing in the dining room of the Tarrytown house that he hoped would be theirs, unable to hide his eagerness. “You like it, don’t you?”
“But I’m not having any gold leaf on my chairs and no curlicued candelabrum anywhere in my house.”
“Well, all right. I’ll give my Queen Anne chairs to Grace, maybe.” When she didn’t reply, he said, “She can have them auctioned off at Christie’s, if she doesn’t want them. They’re authentic.”
She turned to face him and jerked on his lapels.
“Melt them down if they’re so precious, August, and have them deposited in Fort Knox. They are not going in my dining room, not even if they’re solid gold. Got it?”
“All right. All right. Can’t win ’em all. But is there such a thing as modern without chrome and glass?”
“You don’t like my cocktail table?” His right shoulder bunched upward in a quick shrug.
“Well, first time I saw it, I thought you’d sawed the legs off of your dining table. ’Course it might be all right out by the swimming pool.”
“August!”
“On sunny days, I mean.” She opened her mouth as though to speak, and he wondered why she didn’t say anything. He waited. After a few minutes, she walked over and leaned against his chest.
“August, we have to stop this. Every time we have to decide something, we fight. You think maybe Aunt Grace doesn’t know what she’s talking about? We don’t seem like such a perfect match to me.” He put both arms around her.
“This is healthy, sweetheart. We’re just sublimating our libidos. Now don’t move away. Trust me, every criminologist has to be a good psychologist.” He had to laugh when she groaned, not believing what he’d said.
She hadn’t said any more about where they’d get married and what she’d wear, and he didn’t like it. Getting a wedding dress made might take weeks. That night, he phoned Grace, and reached her at home. He summarized the problem briefly and added, “I want her to be happy. If I could, I’d buy that room for her. Grace, have you ever heard of a more ridiculous idea?”
“Can’t say that I have,” Grace replied. “Say, wait a minute. Seems to me I remember reading about a contest they’re having. The couple that wins will get married in the Rainbow Room. Yes, indeed. I read it in the Times one day last week. I’ll find it and—”
“Grace, that’s too iffy.”
“Don’t trash it. I can look in—”
“Never mind. Don’t do that.” He’d had enough crystal ball logic to last him the rest of his life.
Undaunted, Grace told him, “I’ll find that newspaper and bring you that notice. What’s meant to be will be, so don’t close any doors. All you have to do, if I remember right, is tell them in a hundred words or less why you or Susan always wanted to get married in the Rainbow Room. You can do that, Mr. Jackson. And there’s a fat prize, not that you need it. What can you lose? Just the time it takes to write a hundred words. I’ll bring it to you Monday morning.”
He expelled a long breath. “All right, Grace. I’ll think about it.”
August got through his chores at the soup kitchen on Sunday morning without too much interference from Carrie. She had walked in clean and reasonably tidy and had been content to stand by the stove for half an hour stirring grits. For once, it was free of lumps. He had a mind to pay her to do it. He walked into his apartment with the intention of dressing hurriedly and getting to church, but a call from his private investigator altered his plans. Could he fly down to Washington that morning? The P.I. was almost certain that their long search was nearing an end, that he had news of Grady Jackson. August telephoned Susan. He had always fought his own battles and taken pride in doing that but, for the first time in his memory, he needed someone with him—a buffer against disappointment. He needed Susan.
“I’ve got a new lead about my br
other, and I’m going to Washington. I’d love to have you with me, if you can be ready in a little more than an hour.”
“I’d be happy to go, but I’m just waking up. Will you call me as soon as you know anything?” He promised that he would.
He looked at the two women who greeted him with warm smiles when the P.I. introduced them. Somewhere around thirty, he guessed, roughly in Grady’s age group.
“Our family makes a line of cosmetics,” Jessie, the older of the two, told him, “and this man supplies our chemicals.” August tried to calm his breathing. The two women were apparently intelligent and, had it not been for the differences in eye color, he might have thought that they were twins. As they talked, he searched for reasons why two young, white women would travel from Knoxville, Tennessee, to Washington to mislead him about his brother when they had nothing to gain. He found none.
“When we saw your picture in the paper, we thought it was him and, looking at you, I’m convinced there’s a close connection,” Jessie continued. “He’s just a tad younger, though. Same height, face, and build.”
“Would you say we’re identical twins,” he probed, seeking firmer assurance.
“I don’t think so,” the younger one answered. “I think his eyes are darker than yours.”
“I agree,” Jessie said. Tremors danced down his spine; his brother’s eyes were nearly black. He tried to stem his feverish anticipation. He had carried the burden for twenty-six years, used every resource available to him trying to find Grady. Please God, he didn’t want his hope built up this way without cause.
“What does he call himself?”
Yes, I Do Page 24