The morning after Duncan left for Curtis Bay, Justine received a menacing call. “You think you’re so clever,” the man said, “but you’ll learn who to mess around with.”
“Who’s this?” she asked, trying to keep him on the line until she could press the record button.
“You think I’m stupid enough to tell you? You should’ve worried about that when you meddled in my business.” He hung up.
The following night, he called again. “I have caller ID,” she told him, “and you’re in trouble.”
His dark, menacing laugh sent chills through every molecule of her body. “So what. You think I’m stupid enough to call you from my house?”
“Who do you want here?” she asked, hoping to get a clue to his reason for calling.
“Figure it out.” He hung up.
As far as she knew, she didn’t have one enemy, so she wasn’t going to be frightened. The idea began to recur that she’d better tell Duncan, but if she did, he’d have a barrage of questions to which she had no answers.
Deciding not to go to the post office for her mail, she called the postal clerk and asked him to hold it until she could get there, and learned that she had an armful of letters.
She looked through some unanswered ones and quickly wrote several columns for use in case of an emergency. One woman wrote that her teenaged daughter had run away. The letter amounted to pages of invective against the girl whom the mother called an ingrate for having fled after all she had done for her. The words brought back to Justine the days when she had wanted to run away, to find someone, anyone, who would show her genuine affection. She wrote a harsh letter, read it over, and tore it up.
“What your daughter needs is love, unselfish love,” she wrote from her heart, words she wished someone had spoken to her aunts. “Love that asks nothing in return. No one on this earth would run away from that. And it wouldn’t hurt to begin by telling her that you haven’t been a wise mother. All the best, Aunt Mariah.”
She answered four other letters, completed the column and peeped into Tonya’s room. While the child slept, she could begin cataloging her collection of miniature busts. Forty-seven beautifully sculpted tiny busts of old black men, each one unique. She had procrastinated about doing it ever since she’d come to Duncan’s home, because of the memories it was sure to trigger. She opened the box, found a soft cloth, and began dusting and oiling the wood, and didn’t hear Duncan when he climbed the stairs, saw that her door was ajar, and paused there.
“Hello, Justine.”
“Duncan! Where did you come from?”
He dashed into the room to catch the bust that teetered on the edge of her desk. “Hi. I cut short my stay at the lodge. How’s Tonya?”
“You cut…She’s asleep. She’s…fine. Duncan, you frightened me almost out of my mind. I didn’t hear a sound. Big as you are, you ought to make noise when you walk.” She grabbed her chest. “You scared me.”
His eyes devoured her, thrilled her with unuttered suggestions. “Sorry. Next time I’ll blow a horn. Maybe then I’ll get a decent welcome.”
His gaze settled on the little busts, and she remembered them and began wrapping each one to put them away, but they’d already caught his attention.
“What are these?” He turned one over and around, examining it. “This is one exquisite piece of carving. Looks like something by Wesley Arne.”
She nodded.
The eyes that perused her face asked for answers. But how was she to tell him that her aunts and her father had each given them to her whenever they’d done something to displease her, without giving him the whole story of her young life? Without dredging up the reality of a child’s poverty in the midst of wealth. Yet, in spite of what they signified, she had loved the little miniatures and, when she began working, had continued the collection.
“That’s a bag of money there,” he commented, his eyes accusing her of she didn’t know what. “And a damned big bag, too, I’d better turn in.” He left her, taking with him the joy that had suffused her when she looked up and saw him leaning against her door.
Half a hundred Wesley Arne sculptures. Priceless miniatures. He shook his head. No, he wasn’t going to stoop to investigating her, and he wasn’t going to interrogate her about her affairs He should have done that before he hired her. But from now on, he was going to use God-given senses, and maybe he’d get over his raging hunger for her. He tossed his duffle bag in the closet and thought about how he’d practically risked his life speeding back home. To her. He ran his hand over his tight curls. She couldn’t be as perfect as she seemed, and if she had one frayed edge, he’d see it sooner or later. He’d gone to Curtis Bay to think. A mistake. All he’d done there was need her. The place for him was home with her, where he could see her shortcomings, her faults, see the little things that would remind him to keep his distance.
What a time for him to walk in there. If she had needed a reminder of the fragility of her status with him, he’d just demonstrated it. When she’d looked up, his eyes had been fiery balls of desire, but when he saw her treasures, they became icy pools of disinterest. She wrapped the pieces, put them in the box, and stored them in the back of her closet. Duncan had jumped to a conclusion when he saw them, and she couldn’t blame him. Nannies weren’t expected to own art of that quality nor to have other tastes that she’d exhibited. She wondered when he’d finally confront her.
The ring of her telephone interrupted her thoughts. “Hello.”
“How are things going, girl? I can’t seem to get you off my mind. You don’t have to write that column, and if you give it up, that’s one less thing you’d be hiding from him.”
“Uncle Hugh. I’m so glad you called. Things aren’t any better.” She told him as much as she thought he should know. “The column is the least of my problems. I’d have told him about it if my contract didn’t forbid it. You’re the only person who knows other than the folks at the paper.”
“Arnold doesn’t know?”
“No. Daddy still doesn’t return my calls.”
“I see. I may have a talk with that fellow. He’s not perfect, and I’m one person who knows it. You can ask your boss for permission to tell Duncan about the column.”
He offered other suggestions, but none would solve her dilemma. After hanging up, she went over to Tonya’s room and found the child singing and playing with her bears. She dressed her, took her down to the basement, and sat her in a high chair while she played Chopin waltzes. After a while, she moved from the piano, got a book, and began to read The Song of Hiawatha. She knew Tonya didn’t understand the words, but she loved the hypnotic rhythm of the phrases and hummed as though singing to music. The child clapped her hands, enjoying the rhythm of Longfellow’s epic poem.
“Want to read Beowulf, The Brave Prince?” she asked Tonya.
“Yes. Yes.” Tonya slapped her hands. “Baywuf.”
Justine read a passage of the Scandinavian tale, while Tonya tried to mouth the words, stopped, and asked her, “Why don’t you like Dunbar’s poems?”
“Baywuf,” the child replied, and kissed Justine on the cheek as though to make sure she’d get what she asked for. Justine covered her face with her hands and lowered her head for a second, getting her bearings. She had so much. And nothing. But she wouldn’t let it break her; five months earlier, she hadn’t had this much. She’d cherish it while she had it.
Duncan stood at the door of the large basement room trying to deal with his emotions as he watched Justine and Tonya. Here was proof of the care she gave his child, for Tonya had heard those stories so many times that she knew and enjoyed them. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to separate them, unless Justine gave him a criminal reason. But who was she? Polished. Well educated. Self-assured. A woman with class and style. And she hired herself out as a nanny. The idea returned that she might be a part of an experiment. He pushed back the anger that had begun to unfurl in him. Neither the relationship between her and Tonya nor his hunger for h
er was going to make him hold still while she hoodwinked him. If he had a wife, Tonya would transfer some of her affection from Justine to his wife, the woman who would be her mother.
A wife. What had happened to the numerous phone calls that had once driven him nearly to distraction? He walked into the room, ignored Tonya’s gleeful welcome, and asked Justine, “Have you taken any calls from women who asked to speak with me?”
She shifted Tonya to the other side of her lap, “Are you suggesting that I wouldn’t have given you your messages?”
He looked closely at her. “I should have gotten some calls, and it is strange that there haven’t been any since…for the last few months.”
She looked straight at him, and he saw no guilt in her expression. “I’m sorry if you’ve been disappointed.”
He thought about that for a moment. Sorry? She didn’t look it. “By the way, that’s the first time I heard you play. You’re gifted, and you’re…” He spun around toward the stairs.
Tonya held out her arms to him. “Daddy. Daddy. Kiss Tonya. Ice cream. Baywuf.”
He took her from Justine’s lap without looking into the eyes of the woman who flitted through his dreams. “You’re getting big,” he said, as he kissed her cheek and received some wet ones in return. Justine held out her arms, and he gave the child back to her, but he knew it had been an involuntary gesture, a reaching out to him. Sorrow filled him as he headed upstairs.
“Mattie, have any women called here for me recently?”
She took her time turning around to look at him and, when she did, she had her hands stuck on her hips. “Why you axin me, Mr. B? You know I don’t answer no phones when I can help it. Far as I’m concerned, whoever invented them coulda kept his smartness to hisself.”
Annoyed at Mattie’s flippancy, he whirled around and headed for the basement. He wanted some answers. But when he reached it, Justine sat where he’d left her and held Tonya close to her breast while her closed eyes guarded a stricken expression. Hopelessness if he’d ever seen it. Desperation like the subdued chirp of a bird no longer able to sing leaped out from her and settled round him. The hurt in her tore at his insides and, shaken with the need to protect and shelter her, he rushed to her and eased down beside her on his haunches.
“Justine, can’t you tell me what’s eating you? Half a dozen times since you came here, I’ve seen this raw pain in you. Sometimes, it passes so quickly that I think I imagined it. But I know something is wrong, Justine. Why can’t you trust me? Haven’t I shown you that I’m honorable? Don’t you know that by now? You’re holding in a lot. Talk to me.”
When her bottom lip quivered, every instinct he had wanted her in his arms, to hold her and cherish her. But he knew where that would end, so he steeled himself against the empathy.
“Talk to me.”
She held Tonya closer, possessively, and began to rock her, and her attempts to speak ended in noiseless declarations. Disgusted with himself that he might have added to her unhappiness, he spoke softly. “I couldn’t be more pleased about the way you’re caring for my daughter. I couldn’t ask for more. You’re a born mother.”
Her eyelids flew up, and he’d swear he’d never witnessed such raw vulnerability. She did little more than mouth the words, “I don’t want Tonya to experience what I went through.” He had to lean forward to understand her. “After my mother’s funeral, my father took me and my belongings to my older aunt. I stayed with her one week and with my other aunt the next week. And that was the pattern until I went to college. I didn’t have any friends, because they didn’t want children destroying their perfect homes, and when I wasn’t eating or practicing the piano, I had to be in my room. Nobody ever hugged and kissed me. They didn’t mistreat me, but if either of them loved me, they kept it a secret. When I complained they wouldn’t let me be like other children, either an aunt or my father gave me one of those Wesley Arne figures as an appeasement. I loved the miniatures, because the old men had such dignity and were so beautiful, but I’ve never been sentimental about them. When you judged me because of them, well…I had looked forward to your coming back and…just now, you were mean.”
“Yes. I was. But there’s so much that isn’t right with us, Justine; my words of apology would ring hollow to me. I can tell you truthfully, though, that I can’t stand to see you hurt. I want to hold you, but I dare not; this time, I don’t think I could stop.”
The mockery of her smile stunned him. “Oh, yes, you could. Mattie’s right upstairs.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Mattie doesn’t have the key to the basement; I do. I’m not usually reckless, honey, but a challenge may spur me to unusual behavior, and where you’re concerned, I want to move with a sound mind and an unfettered ego. I’ve told you twice that we have to talk. One day we will.” As he stood, he leaned over and kissed her lips. “I’m going back upstairs.”
Midway up, his cell phone rang. “Yeah. Hello,” he added, correcting himself.
“Hi. This is Banks. Mama will be sixty-five in a few weeks. Let’s give her a party.”
“Sixty-five? Oh. Okay. Good idea. How’re things going with you and Wayne?”
“Fine. I figured I was moving too fast, so I took Justine’s advice and we’re getting along.”
“Long as you’re satisfied, but if it doesn’t fit, don’t force it. The world is full of men.”
Her laughter came to him as bells in a warm spring breeze. “Duncan, I expect to have Roundtree on my tombstone, so not to worry; it’s all settled.”
He held the phone away from him and stared at it. Was she crazy? “Who said it’s all settled? Getting to that point takes two people.”
“Adam and Melissa are home with their new son, and that’s all Wayne can talk about. He’s nuts about that baby. I sure hope he’s getting ideas.”
“Leah, watch out. If a man hasn’t said the words, he hasn’t made a commitment, and sometime he isn’t committed if he does say the words. So be careful.”
The bells tinkled again. “I hear you. Where’s Justine?”
He transferred the call to the hall phone and asked Justine to take it. He wasn’t sure he cared for the growing affection he observed between Justine and his sister, because he didn’t want Leah to suffer if he and Justine went their separate ways.
Banks had other thoughts. She intended to do whatever she could to make her brother see that Justine was the woman for him. She told Justine about her mother’s coming birthday. “I want you to come and so does Mama, and I’m sure Duncan wants Mama to see how Tonya’s growing.”
“Banks, I’d love to come, but it’s up to Duncan; it has to be.”
“All right. All right. Mama will tell him to bring you and Tonya. Be sure and don’t plan anything else for that weekend.”
She hung up, called Wayne, and told him about her mother’s coming birthday event.
“Speaking of mothers, mine wants to meet you,” Wayne said.
He might as well have dashed cold water on her. “Wayne, Miss Mary knows who I am, and she’s seen me plenty of times. Isn’t that enough?”
“You wouldn’t be afraid to meet my mother, would you? Every time I ask you over here, you give me an excuse. She’s like anybody else.”
“Are we talking about the same person?”
“Leah, we’re talking about my mother”
“Wayne, she’s a…a heavy duty lady.”
His deep rolling laughter could make her giddy with happiness. And he let the laughter pour out. “Why don’t I drive over and we go to The Watering Hole? Okay?”
“Half hour.” She hung up, rushed to the shower, got a quick one, and was zipping up her blue velveteen jumpsuit when the doorbell rang.
He whistled when she opened the door. “Hi. You move fast. I thought I’d catch you without your ‘tweeds’ this once. Ready to go?”
She folded her arms and braced herself against the wall. “Absolutely not! I didn’t get dressed up to walk out of here with you without at least a peck on the chee
k, Mister.”
Even white teeth sparkled against his dark skin, and lights danced in his hazel eyes. For two cents, she’d just fold herself in his arms and stay there. “You want a kiss?”
She glared at him. “Perish the thought.” She got her coat from a closet in the foyer and would have put it on if he hadn’t taken it from her.
“Come here, Leah.”
Why didn’t he just kiss her and quit stalling. “What for?”
He threw the coat across a chair and pulled her into his arms. “For this.” His lips teased hers, brushing across them, and she refused to ask for more, but when he gave the impression of releasing her, she wondered if she’d overplayed the coolness. She put her hands on his shoulders, and felt his finger raise her chin. He wasn’t smiling.
“I can’t tease all the time, Leah. I need to feel you tight in my arms, but if you don’t want that…”
She loosened her grip on his shoulders and relaxed against him. “Don’t pay any attention to me, Wayne. When it comes to you, I don’t know what I’m doing.”
The sweetness. She slumped against him while he tortured her mouth, holding her head to increase their pleasure, and when he released her lips, she let her head loll on his shoulder for a minute. Then she reached for her coat.
“What’s the matter? You didn’t like the kiss?”
She put her arm in a sleeve while he held the coat. “It was…wonderful.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
Might as well be honest. She laid her head to one side and looked at him from beneath long lashes. “The problem is I don’t like having my brain scrambled.”
His laughter wrapped around her like warm sunshine. “Let’s go.”
After dinner that night, Duncan telephoned Justine, though she was across the hall from him, because he didn’t care to be dragged into her orbit when he was on his way to Capital View. In that dangerous environment, his survival could depend on having his wits sharp and his feet ready to move.
Fools Rush In Page 18