Last Chance at Love

by Gwynne Forster

  He poured some into a long-stemmed glass. “I want beer, and since I’m driving, I can have only one. So I’ll wait till we’re eating.”

  The more I see you, the stronger my feelings for you, she thought, as she watched him place a big pillow on the blanket and beckon her to sit on it. He had thought of everything, and she told him as much.

  “It isn’t much, and I enjoyed doing it. I want you to be happy when you’re with me. I seem to recall your saying that you studied at Howard?”

  “Yes. I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in social sciences from Howard University, and I got a degree in journalism at Columbia University.”

  “I did my undergraduate work at my state university and graduate work at Georgetown. Seems like a million years ago,” he said and jumped up from his perch beside her. “The food’s ready.” He put rolls on the grill to warm, took plates and utensils from the basket, and served them.

  “You can take me picnicking any day,” she said, savoring the meat, rolls, potato salad, and coleslaw. “I suppose this means you’re a good cook.”

  “I can hold my own. Say, what’s your reaction to going on a cruise with me? My publisher has added a lecture and book-signing date on a cruise ship to my tour.”

  From her lack of surprise, he realized she already knew about the cruise and was waiting for him to mention it. “My boss told me about it yesterday. He’s ordered me to go.”

  He swung toward her. “Didn’t you want to?”

  “I wanted to be asked, to have a choice, but he put it to me as an order. Right now, he thinks I’m going with reluctance.”

  “And are you?”

  She seemed to think for a minute, to ponder her next words. “Of course not. I’ll be with you and I’ll get more material for this story. Besides, I may shake that guy I think is following me.”

  He nearly dropped his plate of food. Thank God she wasn’t looking toward him when she said it.

  “What guy?”

  “The one we saw at Rockefeller Center in New York. He was at Blues Alley last night. That’s the third time I’ve seen him since we were watching the crowds that night.”

  Heaven was surely watching over him. Who knew what the man had intended to do last night or who accompanied him? “Why do you think he’s following you?”

  “Come now, Jake. I was in the New York Public Library reading room, looked up, and saw him peeping at me above his newspaper, a Spanish-language newspaper, incidentally. He disappeared as soon as he realized I saw him. I got a glimpse of him when Sydney and I were crossing the Commons in Boston and again last night. That’s too much of a coincidence. Next time, I’m going up to him and shake my fist in his face.”

  He grabbed her wrist a little too firmly, shocking her. “Don’t you do that. Don’t ever do a thing like that. Try not to get close to him. Ever heard of kidnapping?”

  “What would he want with me?”

  “I wish I knew. Maybe I should get you a bodyguard.”

  “Quit joking.”

  He let her see what he was feeling and thinking, allowed it all to mirror on his face. “I was never more serious in my life.”

  He hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but he meant to see that she was protected if the chief didn’t find a way to get rid of the man.

  “I’d hoped we’d have a longer afternoon, and we would have except for that traffic jam. I love to spend long hours practically in this spot. I wrote parts of my book sitting right on that boulder.” He took some roasting chestnuts from the grill, slipped on his grilling glove, shelled them. She opened her mouth and he fed them to her, thinking it one of the most sensuous things he’d ever done. She didn’t shift her gaze from his as she chewed, her eyes flaming with passion. He sat back on his haunches, staring at her. What was it about that one woman that could make him think such foolish things? His libido had begun enticing him to lay her on that blanket and...

  “I don’t want darkness to catch us here,” he said, partly as an excuse to break the tension, but also because he didn’t think the park safe after dark. And he had to call the chief.

  They packed the remains of their picnic and stored them in the trunk of the rented Mercury. When he opened the front passenger door for her, her arms went around him, and she rested her head on his chest. Stunned at her soft, feminine gesture, he clasped her to him and waited for the words that would explain.

  “I...I just want to enjoy being with you like this, because I know it won’t last. It can’t. Nothing this wonderful ever does.”

  Taken aback by her candor and her open need to have him cherish her, he hugged her to him. “It will be what you and I make it.” He couldn’t say more, but he wasn’t ready to commit himself beyond their present level of understanding.

  * * *

  “I need to stop at a gas station,” he said, thinking that would be the fastest way to get the privacy he needed in order to call the chief.

  “Didn’t the rental agency give you a full tank?” she asked, demonstrating her alert and inquisitive mind.

  “Yeah, but if I return it with a full tank, I’m paying for gas at a lower rate.” He hoped that made sense; he hadn’t previously considered the matter.

  “Fill it up,” he told the attendant when they had stopped. Then he got out and headed for the restroom.

  “Sorry to bother you on your day off,” he told the chief, although he wasn’t sorry at all and the chief knew it. “I just learned that our man is the third person on this tour. He was at Blues Alley last night, but I wasn’t.”

  “I know. That was too close to home, so I had him booked for harassment. You picked the perfect time to stay away. No one will know which cruise you’re taking. We’ll get Ms. Wakefield’s tickets and give them to you.”

  “What about her boss?”

  “He’s in the publisher’s pocket. The guy is anxious to whitewash himself and be important. As far as he knows, the publisher is so appreciative of his cooperation that he’s paying for Ms. Wakefield’s cruise ticket.”

  “Suppose whoever is paying that snoop puts somebody else on the job. At least we recognize that one.”

  “Good point, but I expect we’ll find out from him who’s paying him.”

  “Hope so.”

  “Glad you had a nice picnic.”

  “A what? Oh. I forgot you have eyes in the back of your head.”

  He hung up and went back to Allison, knowing she’d think he went to the men’s room.

  * * *

  However, Allison was not taken in by Jake’s ruse. Frequent glances at her watch made her suspicious at his ten-minute absence. And the attendant confirmed for her that Jake hadn’t needed gas when he told her, “I couldn’t get more than three gallons in there.”

  “He wants to return the car with the tank full,” she said.

  The man made a slovenly attempt at cleaning the windshield. “What for? He’s already paid the rental agency for it.”

  “Sorry. That took longer than I expected,” Jake said, getting into the car and starting the motor. “How would you like us to spend the evening? We could see an early movie and then have a late supper. What do you say?”

  “I’d have to change.”

  “Then I’ll wait while you do that, after which you can wait while I do the same.”

  “Jake,” she said, phrasing her words carefully, “if you’re serious about a movie and supper afterward, think up a different plan for us to go home and change. I suggest you drop me at my house and I’ll meet you at the movie.”

  This man is a rogue, she said to herself, when a grin began around his mouth and escalated into full-blown laughter. “What’s the matter, sweetheart? Is there somebody in this car that you don’t trust?”

  “Very funny. Maybe there is. Tell me which movie, and I’ll meet you there.
”

  “I’ll call you when I get home.”

  At home, she showered and dressed in an avocado-green rayon dress that clung to her body, brown lizard accessories, and gold hoop earrings. Then, she combed her hair down to her shoulders, dabbed Callèche perfume behind her ears and at her wrists. When he rang the bell, she was opening the closet in her foyer to get her beige raincoat.

  “Hi,” he said, his gaze seeming to photograph her. “What a change! Woman, you make me proud to be a man.”

  His words sent a flush of heat through her body. She wanted to tell him that he made her feel good, womanly, and feminine. Instead, she said, “You made certain that all the women will envy me.” Flirting was a lot less dangerous than revealing her true feelings. She handed him her coat. “Ready when you are.”

  * * *

  She couldn’t remember having watched a movie with one hand in the hand of a man she cared about and the other free to dig into a bag of buttered popcorn. He’d bought two bags, admonishing her not to expect any of his after she ate her own. So conscious was she of the man beside her that she saw little of The Red Shoes, an old, World War II-era film.

  “I like the ballet,” he said as they left. “As a child, I didn’t go to the theater or the opera; we had to deal with the basics of life. When I went to college, I discovered that most of my classmates had seen paintings by Rembrandt, Picasso, and other great artists; I had seen pictures of their works in books that my father occasionally borrowed from the library. Occasionally, because we lived a good forty miles from a library. Music was the one thing I had in abundance, because we had a radio. I listened to the opera on the Texaco program Saturday afternoons. I loved it. On that program, Milton Cross taught me stories of the opera and about the great opera composers. Often, I listened with pencil and paper in hand, taking notes. Enthralled.”

  Growing up, she hadn’t dreamed people lived that way. “Didn’t you have a television?”

  “We had one, but the signal was so poor that we rarely watched anything.”

  At Togi’s they ate crab cakes, French fries, and mixed-green salads. “You planning to play it safe when I take you home?” he asked her, not bothering to smile.

  “You care to explain that?” she asked him, although she knew he referred to her suggestion earlier that waiting in each other’s homes would ensure that they neither saw a movie nor ate supper.

  “Absolutely.” But he didn’t explain it, just signaled for the waiter. “This place has the best crab cakes in town.”

  * * *

  He walked with her to her front door, holding her hand. She handed him her key, and he opened the door, stepped behind her into the foyer, and stared into her face.

  “Thanks for the day. I don’t want to leave you. Understand? But I won’t ask to stay, because tomorrow morning we have to meet at Delta Airlines and head for New Orleans. When we spend the night together, I want to be able to sleep late. Very late.”

  She imagined that her eyes widened, and she heard herself suck in her breath. “That’s right,” he said. “We need to find out about each other, and that will take time.”

  Before she could think of a reply, he clasped her face in his hands, smiled—his contrary wink adding to his charisma—and pressed his lips to hers. She parted her lips, but he hugged her and moved away.

  “See you in the morning.”

  I’m getting in deeper and deeper with this man, she told herself, walking up the stairs to her bedroom. But no matter what I learn about him, it’s going in my story. I can’t be a fool twice.

  As the taxi headed for Reagan National Airport the following morning, Monday, she telephoned her boss. “Just wanted you to know we’re headed for New Orleans,” she told him. “This is a short trip; we’ll be there for two days and three nights.”

  “Yeah. I’d like to see your face in this office when you get back.”

  “I may need to spend some time in the library, getting background information.” She didn’t want to write the story in the office, because Bill Jenkins would read over her shoulder, then take her copy before she finished it.

  “Do what you have to do. Just bring me something that sizzles.”

  The taxi drove up to the gleaming new airport and stopped at the curb. “I’ll be in touch,” she said, glad to hang up.

  For the first time, Jake waited for her at the check-in counter. “Thought I’d surprise you,” he said, his grin wide and welcoming.

  “You did.” How was it that the man looked better every time she saw him? Unable to stay awake, she slept for most of the three-hour trip to New Orleans.

  After his signing at the Community Bookstore on Broad Street that evening, Vera, the proprietor, treated them to a soul-food dinner—fried catfish, stewed collards, baked corn bread, and candied sweet potatoes.

  “Now, this is food,” Jake said. “I love gourmet cooking, but this stuff nourishes the soul. You Yankees don’t know what good is.”

  Facing her in the hotel lobby later, he said, “It’s been a long day, and I imagine you want to rest. My television interview is at eleven, and I have to be at Michelle’s African-American Book Stop at one. We’d better eat a substantial breakfast, so I suggest we meet in the restaurant around eight-thirty. Okay?”

  Stunned at his blunt announcement that he wanted the evening to himself, she said, “Thanks. I wouldn’t mind some personal time.”

  His left eyebrow shot up, and his face seemed to darken. “If you want to join me for breakfast, I’ll be in that café around there at eight-thirty. Good night.”

  * * *

  He hated to desert her, but he couldn’t come to New Orleans and not visit his favorite jazz haunts. Taking her with him would be tantamount to telling her he was Mac Connelly, for the jazzmen at his favorite saloons knew him well and would invite him to sit in with them and play the guitar. He had never been devious and certainly not deceptive, but he couldn’t share that part of his life with her. She cared for him, but she was a journalist, and he couldn’t risk her reporting it, for if she did he would surely lose the chance to become scholar-in-residence at his undergraduate university.

  He waited in his room for a reasonable time, then left the hotel by a side door and headed for Snug Harbor, where he knew he’d find some of the best jazz in New Orleans.

  “Hey, man, it’s been centuries,” the maître d’ said when Jake walked in.

  “Smell’s the same,” Jake said, sniffing the odor of fried mushrooms, crab cakes, and fried catfish. “Who’s on tonight?”

  “Ellis.”

  Jake let the music roll over him, absorbing it into his mind, his heart, and the pores of his body. The waiter brought a plate of fried mushrooms, and Jake nibbled at it, sipped beer, and thought about Allison. He needed time alone with her, time to find out if she was the woman for him, as he had begun to suspect. And he had to figure out how to appease her, because right then she was either mad, suspicious of him, or both.

  After a performance by one of the best jazz singers he’d heard in a while, the manager took the mike. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a rare treat for you tonight. Mac Connelly is in town, and he’s here. What do you say I give him a guitar?”

  Any performer would have been gratified by that audience’s roar of approval, and Jake was moved to humility. The lights dimmed and he ducked in back of the stage where the maître d’ gave him a broad-brimmed hunter’s hat, a pair of dark glasses, and a Chet Atkins guitar.

  For the next twenty minutes, he lived in the world that his fingers created, a world of consummate jazz. At last, he played “Back Home in Indiana,” his signature piece, which was guaranteed to set the audience roaring, clapping, and stomping. Then he bowed, the lights dimmed, and he left the stage and headed back to the hotel.

  Playing renewed him as spring rain renewed and nourished flowers. If only h
e could share it with Allison, tell her what it meant to him! He showered, slipped into bed, and began his now familiar wrestle with the sheets. He turned over on his belly and gazed at the telephone, knowing that if he dared dial her room, it would bring the sound of her voice. Disgusted, he released a sharp expletive and turned out the light. At daybreak, he still ached for her.

  * * *

  As they boarded the cruise ship Saint Marie, Allison began to question her senses. “How far is your room from mine?” she asked him, remembering her distrust of long narrow corridors, public stairwells, and unattended elevators.

  He didn’t look at her. “We share a wall.”

  “Don’t tell me we have connecting doors.”

  “We don’t, and I won’t. How long will it take you to learn to trust me? We share a small deck, or at least I agreed to that.”

  After standing in a long line for a security check, room keys, and reboarding passes, they could at last see their rooms. “Mine’s a knockout,” she said to Jake after joining him on the deck.

  “Mine, too. Even has a chintz-covered chaise lounge. Trouble is, I don’t like chintz.” He opened the door. “Come on in and have a look.”

  “It’s lovely. Don’t like chintz? You’re acting just like a man.”

  Both hands went to his hips. “What would you expect me to act like? A child?”

  She punctuated her irreverence with a shrug. “Why not? Most men manage that on a regular basis.”

  He grasped her shoulders, gazing into her eyes as he did so. “Are you asking me for a demonstration of my manhood? If you are, don’t expect me to disappoint you. I’m itching for the opportunity.”

  His facial expression told her it wasn’t a time to smart-mouth him, so she said, “I didn’t mean to provoke you. I was merely stating a fact. If you don’t fall into that category—”

  He cut her off. “Stop while you are ahead, Allison. Nothing would please me more than to show you what I’m made of, but I am not going to let you goad me into it. If you want us to make love, create the environment for it.” He waved his hand around the room. “You can’t say the opportunity isn’t here. A man will take sex where he finds it, but that’s not the same as making love, and especially not with a woman he cares for.”