At the end of the lecture, Kendra tore out of the classroom and raced down the hall to the dean’s office like a teenager. At the door, she marshaled sufficient self-control to open the door and walk in.
“Where’s the list?” she asked the secretary.
“Right in front of you.”
“Hot dog!” she said aloud.
“Congratulations,” the dean’s secretary said. “Have you decided where you want to go?”
“Italy.”
“Professor Hormel said you’d choose Italy. You have three weeks in which to map out a travel and research plan, a loose one. Just indicate the place you want to go and what you’d like to write about. The department will assist you in making at least two good contacts. They must all be reachable entirely by train and bus. Then we’ll get a travel agent to help you firm things up. You’re lucky. First prize got first choice. Third prize gets what’s left of the three locales.”
“Thanks so much. I’ll see you in a couple of days.” She sat on the steps leading down to the first floor and dialed her father.
“I won. I won,” she shouted when he answered his cell phone. “Papa, I won first prize, and they’re going to send me to Italy.”
“You can’t imagine how happy I am for you, Kendra. Somehow, I knew you’d do it. When are you going and for how long?”
“Next semester, but I hope it’s not for six weeks. If Mr. Howell can negotiate a shorter period with the chairman of my department, I’d prefer that.”
“I wish him luck.”
That remark surprised her.
“You bet I do. I want you to have interesting and fulfilling experiences, but I don’t want you to stay away from Sam indefinitely.”
She phoned Sam who greeted her with loving words.
“I thought you wanted us to slow things down.”
“Dammit, Kendra, they’ve already wound down to a snail’s pace. How did you get to school this morning?”
“Papa and his friend with the towing business took me to school and they plan to chauffeur me for the remainder of the day.”
“What’s the name of the guy who owns that tow truck?”
“Grayson. When I got into the truck that first time, Papa just said, ‘This is my daughter.’ ”
“He didn’t intend for you to be friends with the guy.”
“I don’t even know what the man looks like, because I only see the back of his head. Papa sits in the front seat with him. When are we going to Alexandria this weekend?”
“If the weather’s good, I suggest we leave your place Saturday at noon. Shops and museums will be open, and you’ll get a better feel of the place. Would that suit you?”
“Fine. I can study Saturday morning and Sunday.”
“It seems like years since we spent any time together. I’m looking forward to Saturday.”
She took a great deal of satisfaction in that. Perhaps his plan was having a good effect on him. “I’m looking forward to it, too,” she told him. And as far as she was concerned, that was an understatement. But she was growing up by the hour, and he didn’t need to know that she was dying to be with him.
At work that evening, she went directly to Howell’s office and asked to speak with him. Her status was now such that Howell’s secretary gave her immediate access to her boss. “You did a great job here last night, Kendra, and Tab held down the TV station. I hope we don’t have anymore snow emergencies this year.”
“That may be too much to hope for, sir. It’s only just past mid-November. I have some news, Mr. Howell.” He cocked an eyebrow, put his right elbow on his desk, supported his chin with the ball of his hand, and waited.
“I passed the competition with the highest score, and I can do the research for my journalistic paper in Italy.”
His eyes widened. “No kidding. Italy, huh? If you want to write something fresh and interesting, stay away from Rome, Florence, Venice, and Milan. But you don’t speak Italian.” He paused. “Do you?”
“No, sir. I was planning to get along with English and modest French. You said you’d contact my Professor in the communications department. He’s Professor Hormel.”
“Yes, I did. I’ll try to reach him tomorrow and see if he’ll settle for a month.”
“Thank you, Mr. Howell. I need that experience, but I also need to pay my bills.”
“You’ll never be the same after you come back from Italy,” her father told Kendra as they drove her home that night. “You’ll feel freer there, and you’ll be where the finest things in life—the best foods, great music, and the greatest art—are ever-present and revered everywhere.”
“I’m getting excited, Papa.”
“Good. Order your passport now so you won’t have any last minute hang ups.”
She wished that Sam was going with her, but she didn’t voice that thought to her father. He liked Sam, and she wanted her father to continue liking him.
Sam’s feelings about his relationship with Kendra had begun to perplex him. He was not a wishy-washy person. He considered a problem—or what he thought was a problem—worked out a solution to it, and applied that solution. He’d done that in regard to his relationship with Kendra, but it hadn’t satisfied him. Indeed, he thought at times that he’d done the wrong thing and sometimes he believed he’d been foolish. He had deprived himself of true intimacy with her and certainly of any rights. It should be he and not her father who took her to and from work or school when necessary, and he gave up the right to advise her. He certainly couldn’t expect her to follow his suggestions now. He was not a man who wavered, and he was far from fickle, so why had he demanded that Kendra accept a proposal by which he no longer wanted to abide? As with anything else, repairing that damage would be more difficult than creating it.
He’d walked with Kendra through two blocks of Alexandria’s “Old Town” feeling that he might as well have been miles away from her. But as they stood facing the old Bruin “Negro Jail” on Duke Street, where slaves had been housed in brutal conditions while awaiting purchase, Kendra stepped closer to him and took his hand in hers. He looked down at her as she stared at the remnants of their ancestors’ wretched past and shivered visibly. He put an arm around her. She looked up at him, squeezed his hand, and walked on. Maybe she had decided to fix the mess he’d made of their relationship. He hoped so, and he intended to follow her lead.
Farther up Duke Street, with map in hand, she stopped at Franklin & Armfield Slave Office & Pen, former location of one of the largest slave trading companies in the country. Enslaved black Americans were housed in “pens,” large walled areas with males kept on one side and females on the other.
“I’d rather not linger here,” he told her. “This place has always taken the starch out of me.”
She squeezed his fingers. “I didn’t know it existed. When I can afford it, I’m going to buy a car and see what this country is like.”
“I’ve seen a lot of it, Kendra, and sometimes ignorance is bliss.”
“I can imagine. Even then, African Americans supported their churches.”
“When you look at the past, it’s easy to understand their hope for a world beyond and their ardent faith in it.”
“I know,” Kendra said. “When I was little, I used to pray that my mother would love me. I don’t remember when I stopped. I still pray, but not for that.”
If they had been alone with privacy, he would have showed her what she meant to him. As he saw it then, his effort to temper their relationship could only have undermined her trust in him and her belief that she was important to him.
He tightened his arm around her. “Aren’t you hungry?”
“I’m beginning to feel a pinch in my tummy,” she said, put an arm around his waist, and walked with her head resting against his shoulder. She was not a clinging woman, and he wanted to ask why she held onto him. But he couldn’t, because she might have taken it as a criticism, and he wanted her close to him.
“Let’s go over near the Potom
ac. I know a couple of good restaurants there.”
“I’d like that,” Kendra said. “My papa once took me to a great fish restaurant right on the river. I forgot the name.” Sam drove across the town, parked in the restaurant’s parking lot, and entered the restaurant tying his tie. The maitre d’ seated them, gave them menus, and stood by wringing his hands.
Sam looked at the man. “What’s the problem?”
“We’re fresh out of salmon and tilapia, our most popular entrées.”
Sam looked at Kendra. “What are you having?”
“I’d like some bouillabaisse, if there’s any left.”
“I’ll have the same,” Sam said to the maitre d’. “So you worried needlessly.”
“You’ve chosen well, sir. You can’t find a better fish stew than ours in all of France.”
“I think I’ve had enough African American history for today,” Kendra said. “Can we see a silly movie?”
“Sure. Most movies made these days are silly. If you mean something light, how about that remake of The Shop around the Corner?”
After leaving the restaurant, they left Alexandria and went to see the movie in an F Street theater. He didn’t care what they saw, as long as she was close to him.
As the love story heated up and it seemed as if the lovers wouldn’t get together, she snuggled closer to him, and he leaned down and kissed her.
She amazed him when she said, “When you take me home, remember how you did that.”
He wanted to laugh aloud, to spread his arms and let all of the uncertainty, pain, and loneliness seep out of him. “You’re fresh, but you please me, and I hope you can say the same about me.”
She wrinkled her nose and caressed the side of his face. “You’ve had some shortcomings lately, but none that can’t be repaired.”
He could feel the grin forming around his mouth and spreading over his face. “And I’ll get to work on that immediately.”
She smiled up at him. “I’d almost forgotten what it meant to feel like this.” Her fingers tightened around his and she rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes.
“You can’t see the movie if you close your eyes,” he said.
“Doesn’t matter. I’m in my own movie.”
It had been years since she shared Thanksgiving with her mother, yet Kendra had a hollow, empty feeling spending Thanksgiving in a friendly and loving environment when her mother might not only be alone, but conceivably without food, if she hadn’t worked or if she hadn’t been able to swindle an unsuspecting person out of money.
However, Kendra need not have worried about Ginny; her mother had paid several visits to old man Dunner, who had rewarded her more handsomely than he realized. In addition to the few hundred dollars he gave her, she had robbed him while he slept from sexual exhaustion and from the wine she had inveigled him into drinking.
She sat on the edge of her bed counting her money—five thousand, six hundred and eighty dollars. If it wasn’t for that miserable judge, who insists that I get a job, I could skate awhile on this since I’m not keeping Asa happy. He’s the last man who’s ever going to get a penny from me.
But what would she do evenings after she left the salon? She couldn’t go to Rooter’s, and she couldn’t call Angela. Maybe she ought to pay Angela the five hundred dollars. She recounted her money and put it away. Angela wasn’t expecting her to pay back that money. Besides, she needed it. Angela had a husband to take care of her. When she left work the next day, she bought a capon and other makings for a Thanksgiving dinner. “It beats eating by myself in a restaurant,” she rationalized.
Sam rang Kendra’s doorbell at two o’clock Thanksgiving Day. “A punctual woman is a treasure,” he said, when she opened the door, evidently ready to go. “You look wonderful, and I especially like you in this color,” he said of her burnt-orange wool crepe dress. “I offered to bring your dad, but he wanted the freedom of driving his own car. Can’t say I blame him.”
“I’m glad you like it,” she said. But she wore it because she already knew he liked her in that color. She’d bought a bunch of multicolored calla lilies as a house gift for Sam’s father.
“What’s that?” Sam asked her.
She told him, and added, “Since I don’t know whether your father and Edwina are still together, I couldn’t bring anything for her, so I just bought a house gift.” He locked her door, and they left the building walking hand-in-hand.
“From what I saw the night you aired the Clarissa Holmes program, I doubt they would willingly sleep anywhere but together. I just can’t see how my dad managed to be away from that woman all these years and remain sane. They’re crazy about each other,” he said, seating her in his car.
“He could do it, because he had to and, especially, because he had never even kissed her. Once he got a taste, and found her willing, he let himself love her. You can understand that.”
“Maybe. Dad lives on the edge of Alexandria. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“Did you ever live there with your father?”
“From the time I was born until I got my doctorate and a job. My dreams still echo off those walls.”
“What did you dream?”
“I dreamed of reordering the world so that there would be no rich–poor, well–sick, enslaved–free, talented–untalented divisions among us, that we would all be equal. At the age of nine, I was very naive. But I still want equality and justice and, at the least, common decency among people.”
“You’re a wonderful person. Getting to know you is the most precious experience of my life.”
“I hope you mean that, and I’d appreciate if you’d save such declarations for a time when we’re someplace private and both of my hands are free.”
“I can’t promise. If I had known I was going to say that, I probably wouldn’t have.”
When they arrived at the brown-brick, two-story house, Bert Richards’s car was the first thing she saw. “Papa’s already here.”
“Good. I don’t have to worry about his having gotten lost.” Sam turned to face her. “Can I have a kiss?”
“Sure. But make it a little one. I don’t want to walk in there looking as if I’ve had too much to drink.” From the way his lips settled on hers, she figured he’d decided to explore their relationship fully.
“Are you sure?” she asked him.
He stared at her, surprised that she’d read him so well. “Yes. I’m sure.”
But was he? When she’d nestled close to him in the movie theater, he’d reached for that peace and contentment that he needed to feel with her, but it wasn’t there. During the early days of their relationship, he knew that sex and his overwhelming attraction to her prohibited feelings of peaceful contentment. But he’d dealt with that and maneuvered them to a different plane, one in which they could learn about each other, in which their assessment of each other wouldn’t be conditioned by the ravages of demon sex.
She was everything a man should want, but.... He put the car in park, got out, and walked around to open her door. She smiled her thanks, and in his mind’s eye, he saw Ginny Hunter smiling at him and inviting him to her home for a threesome tryst. It had nothing to do with Kendra, but he could not get it out of his head. He took her hand and walked with her to the door of the place where he was born and raised.
If his mother were alive, what would she say about it? Kendra dropped his hand, and he looked down at her, saw the frown on her face, and wondered if he had communicated his misgivings to her. He took her hand back and squeezed her fingers, but she didn’t return the gesture. She was too gracious to put a damper on the holiday feast, but she’d find a way to let him know that he had vexed her.
Chapter Eleven
Sam pasted a cheerful expression on his face, opened the door, and walked into his father’s house. He relaxed a bit when he realized that Kendra was not going to drop his hand. He walked with her into the living room where Kendra’s father sat with Edwina.
“Ho
w are you? Edwina? Bert? Good to see you both,” Sam said. “Where’s my father?”
“He went to the kitchen for some ice,” Edwina said. She seemed to him a bit sheepish, and he wanted to know why.
“Have a seat,” he said to Kendra. “I’ll be right back. Maybe I can give him a hand.”
“How’s it going, Dad?” he said as he walked into the kitchen and embraced his father. “Can I do that for you?”
“Everything’s fine, and thanks, but slicing a lemon doesn’t take much grit. I like Bert Richards, but I don’t get it. Nothing about that man says he should be a butcher.”
Sam leaned against the stainless steel refrigerator, stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets, and crossed his ankles. “He’s the victim of a rotten marriage with a self-centered woman. How are things with you and Edwina? Do I get the sense that she lives here?”
Jethro dropped the knife on the counter and looked at his son. “Do I get the sense that you think you’ve got a stupid father?”
Taken aback, Sam closed his eyes, drew a few deep breaths, and sifted the comment around in his mind. “You think that would be stupid?”
“Absolutely. For a man with integrity, the next step would be marriage, and that’s not on my mind right now.”
“But I thought—”
“At every age, marriage is a serious step. I think Edwina is a wonderful woman, but neither of us knows the other well enough for marriage. Time will tell.”
“Are you still attracted to her?”
Jethro’s grin exposed a set of perfect white teeth. “Does the sun set in the west? You say Bert Richards made a bad mistake when he married. I’ll bet he’ll tell you that he was insane crazy about the woman. I had a happy marriage, but as I look back, it was through no wisdom of mine. I was lucky and very blessed. I tell myself daily that the postman does not ring twice. So this time, I’m not depending on luck or good fortune.” He shaved off a few thin pieces of lemon peel and put them in a little dish beside the lemon slices. “It’s too bad that I didn’t meet Edwina’s mother.”
Breaking the Ties That Bind Page 20