“You’ve got time for a couple of phone calls. We want you to leave right now.” Jake walked down the hall to the nearest telephone booth and placed a call. His disappointment in not finding Allison at the Drake Hotel in New York stunned him. He didn’t leave a message.
“If I’m not back here Sunday night,” he told the man, “call Allison Wakefield and give her my regrets and a sound excuse.”
“What’s her number?” Jake’s eyebrow rose slowly as though he didn’t believe what he’d heard. “All right,” the man said, “I’ll call her.”
Jake headed for the basement and the chauffeured car that would take him to the airport. He used the car phone to call his mother, but not Allison, because he didn’t particularly want the official to know what he had to say to her. He sat back in the heavily tufted leather seat and began to plan his strategy. The agency had a plan, but if it went awry and he got into trouble he’d have to rely on his own wits, and he was prepared to do that.
Three days and six hours later, his plane touched down on United States soil, and he walked through the Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington a greatly relieved man. As usual, he reported immediately to his superiors, but ten hours after that, refreshed and with his guitar under his arm, he headed for Blues Alley.
* * *
That Saturday afternoon, Allison left Mother’s Rest around four o’clock, tired but exhilarated after two hours with eight-month-old twin girls. As soon as she walked into her house, she telephoned Connie. “Let’s go to Blues Alley tonight.”
“I was going to call you,” Connie said. “Mac will be there tonight, and you know I don’t want to miss him. Oh, and Carly Thompson just called me. She’s always liked jazz, so why don’t we ask her to come with us tonight?”
“Great idea,” Allison said. “Where’s she staying?”
“Mayflower. You know Carly. She’s here doing business and that means the best address, even if it breaks her. She’s on the way, though. We always knew she’d make it.”
“Yeah. Desiree used to say Carl had it all together,” Allison said as her mind traveled back to her college days. “She was the youngest of the bunch, but no one would have guessed it. A den mother, if there ever was one.”
Nostalgia eclipsed Allison as she thought back to those carefree years and the dreams she had shared with her Alpha Delta X sorority buddies, Carly, Connie, Desiree, and Rachel. The gang of five, as they were known on campus.
“I’d better get dressed,” she told Connie. “See you shortly.”
“Let’s meet for dinner. Carly said she has an engagement, so I’m going to tell her to join us at Blues Alley.”
“Works for me. See you at Basel’s. Seven-thirty.” She changed into a green woolen pantsuit and dark camel-hair coat and went to meet Connie.
* * *
“You’ll be sick gulping your food down like that, Allison,” Connie warned. “Mac will be at Blue Alley until two o’clock in the morning, and we have a reservation, so what’s the hurry?”
“I’m not rushing to see Mac; I’m curious about him. Do you think he’s blind and that’s the reason why he wears those black glasses, and we always see him sitting?”
“Could be. Not everybody who has a handicap wants to broadcast that fact. Give the man a break, and stop chasing him.”
The hamburger remained suspended between Allison’s plate and her mouth. “Sometimes I think you have a serious mental problem, Connie,” she complained. “I am not chasing Mac Connelly; I have a peculiar feeling about him is all.”
Connie sipped her Coke, swallowed, and waved the air in a gesture of dismissal. “Of course you do, and I’ll bet you have to cross your knees very time you try to figure out what it is.”
“Connie, for heaven’s sake! Wait till you eat those words.”
“You don’t scare me, girl,” Connie boasted. “We engineers don’t fear you journalists, because we’re so dull and uninteresting you’d never consider writing about us.”
“My next freelance piece will be about our undervalued engineers, and you can watch out. By the way, when will you see Mark what’s-his name?”
Connie’s eyes took on a dreamy look. “I’ve seen him every night since we met. Let’s go; it’s almost time for the first show.” When Allison’s lower lip dropped, Connie released a deep-throated, lusty laugh. “I hope I haven’t given you the impression that I’m slow, girlfriend. When I see what I want, I go after it.”
“And you didn’t tell me you were seeing him?”
“I didn’t want to jinx it. I’m still scared to talk about it. He’s what I’ve been looking for.”
Perplexed at her friend’s odd behavior, Allison said, “But you’ve only known him ten days. How can you be so sure?”
“I trust my instincts. I’m thirty, and I haven’t known anyone else like him or felt what I feel when I’m with him. I’ve dated a lot of guys, but I’ve not one taken one of them seriously. Mark is it.”
Allison stared at her friend. The cool, unassuming woman who didn’t allow herself to get excited about anything was as susceptible as she. And far more self-assured about the man she wanted.
The maître d’ led them to their table, and Carly jumped up and rushed to meet them. “Hey, you gals. You look fantastic,” she said.
“You’re the one,” Connie replied and Allison concurred.
After they hugged each other, Carly spoke in a wistful tone. “I wish we did this more often. You don’t know how much I miss you guys. I haven’t seen Desiree in ages, and I hear she just lost her art gallery in a fire. Kaput. Everything.”
“Oh, no!” Allison said.
“That’s a terrible thing,” Connie said, rubbing her hands together. “We ought to do something to cheer her up.”
“I’m all for it. Let’s talk it over after the show,” Allison said, her attention already on the stage as the lights dimmed and Buddy Dee’s downbeat floated over the room. The music began, and Allison’s heart skipped a beat as the lights went up and Mac Connelly’s fingers sped over the guitar strings.
She hated that their table was so far from the stage that she couldn’t see Mac’s facial expressions. She hoped she hadn’t gotten a fixation on the man, but the more she watched him, the more curious she became about him. He didn’t slump in his chair, and he didn’t have the lost, faraway manner that stamped the persona of his fellow musicians. He sat upright, in control, alert to everything around him. And he could pick that guitar! Quickly, she scribbled a note, asking him for an interview, and handed it to a waiter. He read it, put it in his pocket, and tipped the waiter, but didn’t send a reply. The band finished the chorus of “Round Midnight,” acknowledged the long, boisterous ovation, and the stage lights dimmed. Allison rushed toward the stage, but by the time she darted through the crowd and around the tables, she’d missed him. She ran to the side door and out on the street and stopped. He had deliberately escaped her; she knew it. All the other musicians stood in a group getting that long-needed cigarette, because smoking was not permitted in the club.
“He doesn’t want me to interview him,” she grumbled to Connie.
Her friend’s shoulder moved upward with the laziness of one disinterested. “Next time, tell him you’re Barbara Walters; he’ll break his neck getting to you.”
“Very funny.” Allison didn’t like being bested. She had a nose for news, and she’d never known her suspicions to be unfounded. She stopped walking and regarded Connie intently, though her mind roamed elsewhere. “Have you ever seen a blind person move that fast?”
She continued to muse over it after she got home, and the idea hit her with the suddenness of a thunderclap. He reminded her of someone. But who?
* * *
Jake looked in every direction before getting out of the cab. His numerous and dangerous stints for the government had
taught him the value of caution. Deciding that he hadn’t been followed, he got out of the taxi, went into his house, stored his guitar and musician’s clothes in his closet, and wondered what to do about Allison. She was either a fickle woman or a reporter who smelled a story. In either case, he had better walk carefully.
He couldn’t rid himself of his unease about her interest in Mac Connelly. The black glasses assured him anonymity only so long as his thick, black wavy hair was covered and he didn’t reveal his height. He had the management’s agreement that he needn’t stand, and his fellow musicians would go to great lengths to make certain he played with them. Not even jail mates had a stricter code of loyalty.
He’d managed to follow his vocation and to enjoy his hobby without having his career wrecked by reporters bent on ensuring the public’s right to know. The journey to his present status as an acclaimed author had been a rough one. He had left the security of his home, arrived at the university a freshman wearing patched jeans, the first sweater his mother had ever knitted, and his deceased father’s army overcoat. And his height had made his impoverished condition doubly conspicuous. He’d gotten to the school on a hard-won scholarship, and he had refused to be ashamed of the contrast in wealth and status between himself and most of his schoolmates, none of whom eased his way.
Jake didn’t fool himself. He wanted the last laugh, and he worked hard to get it. He wanted to show all of them that superior intellect counted for more than classy cars or the latest fashions. Writing national bestsellers wouldn’t do it, but being appointed scholar-in-residence at his alma mater would. The university had one such chair, which it awarded to the former student who won wide national acclaim in his field of study, and he wanted that chair. The supercilious fathers who bestowed the honor would pass over any alumnus whose character had the slightest blemish. And in their view, playing in a jazz band and associating with jazz musicians did not befit their august scholars. Yet, his music was his life; he could bear anything, so long as he had that.
The department had never liked his nocturnal activities, reckoning that one of the enemies he’d made when he was an undercover agent would eventually trace him to Blues Alley, where he was any gunman’s easy target. The agency liked it even less. He’d told the chief that he disguised himself as best he could, that he’d be careful, but that he had to take the chance. He needed his music. No matter where he went, what he did, or how many plaudits he received, a restlessness pervaded him until he sat down with the band and raced his fingers over those guitar strings. He’d take the risk.
Chapter 5
He hadn’t been with her in four days, and he had to force himself to walk, not run, to the Delta Airlines ticket counter, where he knew he’d find her waiting. And what a sight she was! Exotic and lovely in a knee-length beige silk suit, high-heeled brown leather boots, and matching briefcase, and her jet-black hair pulled away from her face in what he now knew would be an elegant chignon. She had slung her raincoat over her left arm. When he saw her, it seemed that he walked faster, but he knew he’d stopped. Stunned.
“Come on,” she said. “They’re just about to board.”
Her smile returned his senses to him, and he took the last few steps, stopping inches from her. “Hi. If you tell me you didn’t miss me this past weekend, I’ll mark you down as a liar.” He let a big grin soften his words.
She turned away and faced the ticket agent, letting her words find their way over her shoulder. “What do I say to that?”
“My parents taught me that if you tell the truth, you have nothing to remember, nothing to fear, and nothing to haunt you later. So how about it?” He gave the ticket agent his ID and credit card. “Did you or didn’t you?”
Her fingers rubbed the side of her face as if to suggest she couldn’t remember. “It’ll come to me.”
He put his ticket in the inside pocket of his coat, stacked her carry-on on top of his bag, and took her hand. “One of these days, you’ll tell me the truth, and I won’t have to ask.”
“You’re so sure of yourself.”
“No, but I’m sure of this: our story hasn’t even begun. When it really gets started, it will be riveting. I can hardly wait.”
As had become their pattern, he stored their bags overhead, she took the window seat, and he settled in the aisle seat, glad that he could stretch out at least one leg. He needed so much from her, to know which of the women she showed him from time to time was her real self or if, indeed, any one of them was the real Allison. He wanted to talk with her, tell her how he longed to have his alma mater recognize him with its scholar-in-residence honor. But this was not the time. He couldn’t tell her, either, how he had hated avoiding her at Blues Alley and how much he wanted to question her about her interest in Mac Connelly. He contented himself with squeezing her fingers and then holding her hand.
“Coffee, sir?” the flight attendant asked, blessing him with a warm smile. He thanked her, and she put the coffee along with a half pint of milk and several packages of sugar on the table in front of him. Then the flight attendant looked at Allison.
“What would you like?”
“Coffee with milk, if it wouldn’t trouble you too much,” Allison said evenly, her tone just short of sharp.
His head snapped around. He’d never seen such a stormy expression on Allison’s face, and he had certainly provoked her often enough. A glance at the flight attendant, and he settled farther down in his seat; those two sisters definitely understood each other.
With a face the color of crimson, the flight attendant passed Allison a napkin and a cup of coffee, to which she had added a bit of milk.
“Thank you,” Allison said with such frostiness that he scratched his head, perplexed.
“What did she do to you?” he asked her, and when she looked at him he wished he’d kept his mouth shut.
“Just like a man,” he heard her say under her breath. To him, she said, “I’m on the inside. Take a look around. She serves the inside first. But Miss Moonbeam was so busy trying to impress you that she ignored me. She also gave you a pint of milk to put in a six-ounce cup of coffee, but she hardly put enough milk in mine to change the color. Do women always fall all over you?”
So that was it. He wanted to laugh, but he didn’t dare risk making her angrier than she was. He opened the box of milk and poured some into her coffee. “Come on, Allison, you can afford to be generous. I’m leaving her with you.”
She turned fully to face him then, and he thought she would pop. Try as he would to stop it, the laughter began as a rumble deep in his chest and bubbled up slowly like a volcano threatening to expel its lava. He braced his arms against the back of the seat in front of his and shook with laughter, and the more he laughed the happier he felt. Relieved, as it were, of every burden he’d ever had. It hit him forcibly then, that something had just happened to him, something of great import. He sat up and looked at her. Awed, it seemed, by his laughing fit, her anger had dissipated, and what he saw humbled him. He took her hand.
“I have no doubt that if we were alone right now, I’d take you in my arms, hold you, and kiss you thoroughly.”
Her lower lip dropped. “I...you’d need my cooperation.”
He squeezed her fingers. “And I would get it.” It didn’t surprise him that she remained silent, for he had learned that she preferred not to lie.
“I’m still holding your hand,” he said, as the plane neared Logan Airport in Boston.
“I know, I know.”
* * *
They walked into the Ritz-Carlton Hotel facing the Boston Commons, and she had to stifle a gasp. “Who picked this palace? My boss will stand on his head when he gets the bill for this place.”
“My publisher takes care of this. Wait till you see these suites.”
Her reply was a withering look. “I’m taking a room. Bill would hang me if
I gave him a bill for a suite.”
The change in his demeanor didn’t escape her, for she had learned that mention of her boss’s name served as a kind of reality check for Jake, making him cautious and ill at ease.
“It isn’t Bill who’s writing this story, Jake. I’m writing it. So come back from wherever you went.”
His response, a half sad, half questioning facial expression, unsettled her. She had relaxed her guard, and for all she knew she’d made the biggest error of her life.
“I have a noontime signing at Black Library. After that, we’re free until five-thirty. I didn’t have a decent breakfast. What do you say we unpack and meet down here in twenty minutes?”
“Suits me. See you shortly.” Minutes later she looked out of the window at the famous and historical Commons, feeling as if she’d been thrown back in time. As her gaze traveled from the old State House, to the George Middleton House, the Somerset Club, and Fisher College, she couldn’t help wondering about the minds of the framers of the Constitution. Brilliant men who thought only to gain and preserve their own freedom, without thought as to the rights of women, Native Americans, and the enslaved human beings who toiled for them in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Better shake this mood before I get back to Jake, she told herself, knowing that her reflections stemmed in part from her running battle with her boss, a man who didn’t esteem women and most men. Her gaze drifted toward the park, and she imagined that in spring the Public Garden, as it was known, was a beautiful and restful place. She glanced at her watch. Ten minutes left, and she hadn’t unpacked. Quickly, she hung up the two dresses and two suits, stored the remainder of her things in drawers, and left the room.
By then, Allison expected that she’d see Jake lounging against the wall facing the elevator when the door opened, and he didn’t disappoint her.
“Your respect for time is one of the things I like about you. How’s your room?”
Last Chance at Love Page 9