Between Friends

by Kitt, Sandra

  Dallas stepped back and turned to Lillian, who still hadn’t detected that it wasn’t the mailman at her door. It was only as Alex came into the kitchen, the heels of his boots making a sharp thump on the floor, that Lillian took him in fully. She didn’t seem surprised to see him. She smiled and held out her arms to him.

  “Alex! You’re here,” she said.

  He stepped forward and bent to give the diminutive Lillian a light hug, swallowing her in his long arms and lifting her onto her toes. He kissed her cheek and pressed his against hers briefly.

  “Hey … sorry I’m late,” he murmured.

  So, he was expected, Dallas saw, as she witnessed the warm greetings between the two. It was evident that there was an enormous amount of affection between Lillian and Alex, and it was also obvious that it was long-standing. But after all … he was family.

  “Oh, you know I’m going to forgive you,” Lillian scoffed playfully, pushing him away to gaze into his face.

  Alex arched a brow. “Yeah, I sort of counted on that. But I’m not going to push my luck. You might change your mind.” He spread his arms. “I’m here to do whatever you want me to.”

  Finally, Alex turned to Dallas again, and his look said many things. It tested her response. It apologized for the intimate moment with Lillian. Dallas was also certain that his gaze questioned her. As if to ask, Are we ready now?

  For what, she wasn’t sure. That is, until Lillian remembered her presence and reached out to take her hand.

  “Alex, I want you to meet a very dear friend of mine. I never mentioned her to you before, but I’ve known her since she was a chubby little girl.” Lillian chuckled, squeezing her hand.

  Dallas felt herself blushing. She glanced somewhere over Alex’s shoulder rather than directly at him.

  “Now she’s a famous writer,” Lillian enthused. “This is Dallas Oliver. Dallas, this is Alex.”

  He didn’t extend his hand and neither did she.

  Alex spoke up. “We already know each other.”

  Dallas felt a sudden sinking in her stomach, like an elevator stopping short. Though looking at him, she was aware of Lillian’s surprise.

  “Valerie Holland introduced us at Nick’s wake,” he said smoothly.

  “Oh … yes,” Lillian murmured.

  Alex gave his attention once more to Dallas, his expression merely friendly. “We didn’t get a chance to do more than say hi. Dallas had to leave. You didn’t mention that she was going to be here.”

  Lillian shrugged. “I don’t know why I didn’t think to tell either one of you. Don’t mind me.” Lillian waved her hand in a vague dismissiveness. “You know what I’ve been through …”

  “It’s okay, Lillian …”

  “Don’t worry about it …”

  Alex and Dallas spoke simultaneously to put Lillian at ease. They exchanged brief glances.

  “Anyway … I’m glad you two are finally getting a chance to meet. I care so much for both of you … Oh! there he is …”

  Lillian rushed back to the door. Finally, coming up the walk, was the mailman. She stepped outside the door and engaged in conversation with the postal worker, leaving Dallas and Alex alone.

  He was still staring at her. It was beginning to make her nervous. And irritated. She met his gaze squarely. He took a step back and leaned against the counter, his arms crossing his chest.

  “Did you think I was going to say something else?” he asked quietly.

  Dallas stood on the opposite side of the kitchen and leaned back against the edge of the sink. Their positions reminded her of that other time in this kitchen, when he was trying to calm her down and get her away from Nick.

  “I wasn’t sure,” Dallas admitted with a slight shrug.

  “Then I would have to explain more than either of us would want. Right?”

  The blush returned. “Right.”

  He gnawed on the inside of his jaw. “If you’d known I would be here, would you have come?”

  “Would you?”

  “Absolutely.” Alex nodded without hesitation.

  Dallas’s attention faltered from his inquiring gaze. “I … I don’t know.”

  Then they heard Lillian say good-bye to the mailman and the door closed as she returned with a handful of envelopes, flyers, and newspapers. She placed them on the table.

  “Mr. Cavannagh just told me he’s retiring at the end of this year. He wants to move closer to a son who lives in Denver. He hardly looks old enough. But then, he’s been on this route for as long as Vin and I have lived here … twenty-five years. I wonder who’ll replace him …” Lillian chattered mostly to herself.

  Alex and Dallas were, in the meantime, engaged in a silent communication, staring at each other and trying to come to an understanding of how not to betray what they knew.

  “So, what do you want me to do?” Alex interrupted Lillian, refocusing her attention.

  “Oh …” She rubbed her forehead, thinking. “The basement. Dallas and I were going down to the basement …”

  Alex didn’t look at Dallas. “Maybe we should start first in his room. There used to still be things in his closet …”

  “We’ve … already done that. Just before you arrived,” Dallas informed Alex. Her voice held a note of appreciation that Alex might try to spare her the trip to the lower level of the house.

  “I didn’t want to wait,” Lillian said softly with a shake of her head.

  Dallas and Alex exchanged glances again fully appreciating what the work of the afternoon was costing Lillian, and that to delay it was both unnecessary and cruel. It was best to be done with it.

  Alex swung his arm out toward the basement door and looked at Lillian. “Okay. Lead the way.”

  Lillian went down the stairs first and Dallas went right behind her. Alex brought up the rear, sandwiching her in between. In a way Dallas felt buffeted, protected. It kept her initial panic at bay as the three of them reached the floor below. There was a flash of memory, a sweeping play of images and sensory responses to the smell, size, and details of the room. Dallas’s stomach heaved and then settled down. She experienced a chill over her skin, and then was warmed by her own flow of blood. After a moment Dallas knew she was okay. She was not going to be swallowed up whole by the past. After all, when it mattered, she had not been alone.

  The basement was exactly the same as it had always been, Alex saw. The same furniture in the same place. The same pictures on the wall. It served to conjure up the past with the same images and the same details of things that had happened here. It evoked the same feelings. Rage and disappointment. Only now he was old enough to deal with it.

  Alex glanced over at Dallas. She sat quietly and apart on the stone ledge of the hearth. Her head was bent over a stack of papers balanced on her lap. Her expression was pensive, but he would bet that she had the same thoughts that he had about this room. Lillian always referred to the basement as the playroom. But only he and Dallas knew the truth about things that had taken place here.

  Dallas hesitated in her sorting and suddenly turned her head and glanced at him. Alex didn’t pretend that he hadn’t been staring. Her eyes had a soft light of defiance, as if to question his interest in her. Just as quickly Dallas backed down, looking away to the work at hand. But he continued to watch her. He was very aware of her presence even though she was mostly silent while the three of them worked. Hers was the silence of someone used to being an observer rather than a participant. She would be careful of having any expectations, and would be selective in accepting either friendship or love. Which gave Alex every reason to feel pleased with himself, because of the trust Dallas had once placed in him.

  He wasn’t even thinking about the first time they’d met, right here with Nicholas trying to force her into sex with him. Instead, Alex was remembering the second time. It had been almost a year after the incident with Nicholas. Alex wondered if Dallas was thinking about it, too.

  When the three of them had reached the basement, Lillian h
ad crossed the room to a storage area that was a tiny space next to where the hot-water heater was housed. Dallas had hung back, unconsciously hugging herself as her gaze swept quickly around the room, blinking at the dim corners as if expecting Nick to jump out at her. Alex had stepped up right behind her.

  “Are you okay?” he’d whispered so that only Dallas could hear.

  She hadn’t started, hadn’t looked back at him. She’d merely nodded her head.

  Alex’s attention narrowed and settled on the spread of dusty rose over her cheeks. It suddenly reminded him of something else from that day the first time. Dallas had told him that Nick didn’t like black people. And when he had returned after walking her home, one of the first things Nick had done was to spew forth accusations that it was her fault what had been going on. That she knew she’d wanted him to … and she’d changed her mind. Nick had dismissed the incident and Dallas, calling her just a nigger.

  A nigger.

  Alex didn’t know what to make of that. He understood it even less now when attached to Dallas. Black guys he knew routinely called each other nigger. A kind of insider’s joke. A bold and provocative affirmation of self, turning a hated stereotype and insult around, pointing it toward themselves and claiming ownership. But Alex didn’t think it could be dressed up and made acceptable. It was still … ugly.

  Dallas was not ugly.

  Alex was surprised, as a matter of fact, to discover that she had grown so attractive. He averted his gaze and frowned down at the things in his hand. School notebooks, mostly. Had Dallas not been so pretty before … or had he not bothered to notice? Alex hadn’t really thought about it back then. She was just a kid. Too young. Too scared. But … the next year …

  Math. English. Another math … health ed. He leafed through the pages. Half-finished work, mediocre marks.

  “Lillian, do you want any of the notebooks from junior high?” Alex asked Lillian.

  “No, I don’t think so,” she replied after a moment’s thought.

  Alex chucked several of the composition-style books to the floor in front of him. Dallas automatically retrieved them and added them to the black garbage bag. He noticed she had pretty hands. They were slender and pale. No, not pale. Tan.

  His attention went back to her face, bypassing the casual clothing Dallas was wearing. Khaki slacks and a navy-blue sweater, sneakers. Yes, she really was much prettier. She’d lost all the young-girl roundness and soft flesh. The last stage of baby fat … or whatever you wanted to call it. She now seemed taller. Her mouth fuller in her thinner face. She had cheekbones and a narrow chin. Alex didn’t remember a thing about her hair, except that there had been a lot of it. Wild. Dallas had cut it all off. What was left was still curly, but short and looser with a fullness about her face that added feminine softness.

  “Oh, look …” Lillian murmured.

  Both Alex and Dallas turned to her. She had a leather certificate holder. Lillian opened it, smiling softly in memory.

  “It’s Nicky’s diploma …” She ran her hand over the surface of the gilded paper, her fingertip testing the ridges of the embossed seal.

  “You have to keep that,” Dallas advised quietly.

  “Yes, yes.” Lillian sighed. “It’s a miracle that boy ever got out of school with one. I really wanted him to go on to college. He tried for one semester but … he didn’t stay.”

  “What did he go for?” Alex asked carefully.

  Lillian sighed. “Oh … I thought he should go into something practical. Like accounting. Vin always hoped that Nicky would take over the business someday. But he wasn’t interested.” Lillian chuckled and shook her head ruefully. “He wanted to be rich and famous, I know that, but he never said how he was going to do it.”

  Alex shrugged. “Some people aren’t meant to go to college.”

  “You should have,” Lillian admonished. “You’re a smart man. You’re smarter than Nicky was,” she ended.

  Dallas was surprised that Lillian would admit such a thing. She looked at Alex for his reaction, but he seemed to have not heard Lillian, or chose to ignore it. He’d heard, Dallas decided. Alex had always struck her as someone who paid attention and noticed things.

  “What is Vin going to do about the business?” Alex asked Lillian. He silently handed the rest of the notebooks to Dallas and she disposed of them in the black bag.

  “I don’t know,” Lillian sighed. “You know it’s a family business. Vin’s father started it, but Vin has really made it much bigger and more successful.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Alex said in a low voice.

  “Vin would hate to lose it but … when he retires he might have to sell it. I don’t know. He doesn’t talk about it too much, but I know he’s concerned.”

  Dallas happened to glance at Alex again, and found his features intent and thoughtful. He sat on the edge of the sofa with his legs slightly spread and his elbows braced on his knees as he looked briefly through each book.

  She reached into the bottom of her box. It was empty.

  “I’m finished with this one,” Dallas announced. She stood up and sealed closed the top of the garbage bag. She then took the bag and the box and placed them closer to the foot of the staircase for removal upstairs when they were all done.

  “I’m almost done, too,” Alex said.

  He lifted the next notebook in his stack and wasn’t even going to bother leafing through it until he noticed that the handwriting on the cover was different than what he’d been reading so far. He looked closer. In the small white space on the front of the composition book was written “My Journal.” Alex opened the cover and on the inside of the jacket was printed in the same hand, “this belongs to Dallas Kristin Oliver. Private. DO NOT READ!” The last three words were carefully written in capital letters.

  A quick glance through the book showed the text was written in a neat block print tilting forward. The book was only three-fourths filled. When Alex lifted the last page another folded sheet fell out. He quickly retrieved it, putting it back in place. Out of his peripheral vision he saw Dallas returning.

  “Lillian, I think you should take another look through these. You may still want to throw out some of it,” Dallas said, getting down on her knees to straighten the stack of Nicholas’s things she’d put together.

  Alex quickly thumbed through the pages, only catching a word or phrase here and there. His initial reaction was to return it to her. Then he rejected the idea. For one thing, announcing that he had found it in one of the boxes belonging to Nick would require an explanation. Lillian would want to know how it got to be there. Since Lillian knew nothing of what had happened, there was no point in bringing it to light now. Dallas had had her reasons for remaining silent, and so had he. Instead, Alex decided to remain silent about the notebook.

  Covertly, Alex slid the notebook into the inside pocket of his leather jacket, which was lying over the back of the sofa, just behind him. He stood up.

  “I’m going to start taking some of this garbage upstairs.”

  “I’ll help,” Dallas offered, getting up from the floor.

  Alex was going to say that he could manage, and then he changed his mind. He picked up the two heavier garbage bags and started up to the kitchen. Dallas followed behind, maneuvering three corrugated boxes up the narrow passage. She waited while Alex opened the kitchen door and stepped through with the bags to put them among the other outgoing trash in the bins along the side of the house. Dallas stepped outside into the cool night air and stacked her boxes. Suddenly she and Alex were facing each other. She couldn’t see his expression, but she knew that he was watching her. The silence was okay. It didn’t make her feel defensive the way she used to when someone stared at her too long. She took a deep breath. She had to say something.

  “I appreciate … you know … that you didn’t say anything to Lillian about …”

  He shifted restlessly, hitching up his shoulders so that he could stuff his hands into the front pockets of his jeans.
“I couldn’t do that to you. I wouldn’t do it to Lillian. She doesn’t need to know that Nick was … anyway, I promised you a long time ago.”

  “And you’re a man of your word?” Dallas found herself teasing in a quiet, curious tone.

  “All I have is my word. I’m short in other areas.”

  It seemed an odd thing to say. In any case, she didn’t agree with him. It felt so surreal to be standing there talking to Alex Marco like this.

  He chuckled. “We’re not really strangers. I feel like … we should hug each other or something. You know. Great to see you again, and all that.”

  But he made no move to do so, and Dallas did nothing to encourage him. It would have been too awkward.

  “How did you feel when you heard about Nick?” Alex asked.

  He stepped closer to her and the light from the kitchen window highlighted half of his face. Dallas shrugged.

  “I was sorry for Lillian, of course. But … I really didn’t feel anything else for myself. I just remembered what he’d tried to do to me.”

  “Men are pigs,” Alex said forthrightly.

  The statement was so outrageous that Dallas couldn’t help but laugh, albeit a little uncomfortably. “Are you speaking for yourself, too?”

  But Alex apparently didn’t find it amusing. He didn’t respond for a long moment. “You tell me,” he drawled.

  Then it hit her. Her amusement vanished as well. This had nothing to do with Nicholas, but just her and Alex. Dallas suddenly felt stripped bare, as open and exposed as it was possible to be before another human being. Yet Dallas knew that Alex wasn’t making light of the past or of the memories. She had been right about him. He did remember everything.

  “Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  Now it was her turn to nod. Of course she did. More than the circumstance that had first brought them together, there had been another time a year afterward that had had an even more profound effect on her.

  “Valerie never mentioned what happened,” Alex said.