Tyne hesitated. “And if I say no, I can just forget about that job, right?”
The change was sudden. His brows knitted together, and the green of his eyes darkened to hazel. “Let’s get one thing straight. I’m not like that. I don’t have to blackmail a woman to be with me. If you don’t want to have dinner with me, feel free to say so. You can still pass on your resume, and I’ll still give it to Sherry.”
Despite her apprehension, she smiled. “And if I say yes, do I get the job?”
He looked momentarily thrown, before a smile slowly reemerged and the dimple deepened. “Like I said, one thing doesn’t have anything to do with the other. It’s just a matter of whether you want to be with me or not.”
“Be…with you?” she stumbled.
“I’m sorry, let me rephrase. Go out with me. No pressure.”
“Sure, no pressure,” she said faintly. The waitress came back with his card.
He put it back in his wallet, pulled out another card. He handed it to her across the table.
“This is my number and fax. You can fax your resume over, and I’ll give it to Sherry personally. You’ll still have to go through the regular process, but if you can prove you can handle the job, well, I don’t see why you shouldn’t get it.”
“And the dinner?” she asked as she put the card in her purse.
“That ball’s in your court—for now.”
They left the restaurant, and he walked her to her car. She started to get in, then he reached out, touched her arm lightly.
She didn’t have time to respond as his lips came down to meet hers. There wasn’t the usual hesitation of a first kiss. He took possession as though he was long used to doing so. As though he had a right. His tongue circled hers hungrily as his arm went around her waist, gathered her closer. She smelled woodsmoke, felt firm muscles beneath his T-shirt as her hands settled on his chest, imagined him without the barrier of cloth. He tasted of the mint he had eaten after his meal, and the cool heat invaded her mouth. She was tasting him, breathing his breath, while his hand moved downward from her waist. The sudden pressure of his hand on her ass shocked her into reality. She pushed him away and found herself gasping. Her panties were wet, her crotch throbbing, crying to be invaded.
“What were you doing?” She couldn’t help the shaking in her voice.
He smiled, his eyes bright with longing. “Kissing you.”
She felt a desire to slap the smile off his face, a desire to pull him to her, shove her hand down his pants, release him. Instead she said, “You were practically fucking me in the street.”
“No.” he shook his head as his smile widened. He leaned to whisper in her ear. “Believe me, if I were fucki…making love…to you, you wouldn’t mistake it for a kiss. There’d be no mistaking what I was doing to you.” He touched his lips to her ear, moved to her cheek, planted a soft kiss on her jawbone. She could hardly breathe.
He walked away, leaving her in that state. She felt a growing anger with herself for showing him her desire. But she was also angry because she knew she was going to call him again and that they were going to be lovers—something he had known all along.
When he kissed me, I felt as though one world was closing and another opening up to me. I cannot in decency describe all the feelings that flowed through my body, my soul. I only tell you this, Sarah, so that you’ll know that I was under some sort of spell. There is no other way to explain it, to explain why I lost myself. I have confessed my sins to only you and God. Hopefully, God will forgive me as you have done.
You are a sweet and true friend.
Sarah
Rhea set the letter down on her bed. She would have to put aside the research for a time and study for finals. She had to make up the weeks of not studying, weeks in which she had searched through annals and library aisles, surfed the net, indulged her fixation. Despite her efforts, though, she’d hit a wall. She still hadn’t found records of the teachers who’d worked for Colored School #1, the school first built in 1847 for the children of black shipyard workers living in Brooklyn. The school where Rachel worked over one hundred years ago. It was now known as Public School 67 and was located in Fort Greene, an upscale section of Brooklyn. Fort Greene. The postmark of the only surviving envelope from Rachel to her great-great-grandmother was from Fort Greene.
Rhea lay back on the bed, closed her eyes. Tried to rest, but instead, without prompting, began piecing together the mystery of Rachel. She tried to put a face to the young widow. A voice, mannerisms. Had she continued to live alone after her husband was killed? Did she live the rest of her life without a male protector? The Freedmen’s record indicated her father had passed away before her husband. Although, there’d been a brother, Lawrence Jr.
Whenever she thought about Rachel, she envisioned someone cultured, delicate, well-spoken. Were those the qualities that drew Rachel’s lover to her? That made him flout all society’s rules to try to be with her?
Rhea imagined that Rachel had been everything she was not. Or maybe she was just projecting qualities on the dead woman that she wished she had herself.
She never elicited the kind of passion she read in the letters, the kind of fervor that made men crazy. The only attention she generated from the guys she dated was more a mild lust that often culminated in embarrasing gropings, sloppy kisses, and stupid utterances like “I really like the way your breasts look in that sweater.” All mundane and stupid.
The letters indicated that Rachel’s lover had been a gentleman, someone about society, a sophisticate whose charms had led the young widow to “forget herself,” forget that he was white and not a part of her world, that she was black and not a part of his. Their worlds collided one night, a night alluded to in one of the letters. There had been a ball, a colored ball that Rachel’s brother had talked her into attending. The same ball the mystery gentleman crashed in a quest to find the young woman he’d followed off the street.
She must have been beautiful that night. Rhea tried to imagine what Rachel might have worn. Pictures of the balls and cotillions of that time showed the black elite of that day dressed in elaborate finery. The women in gowns cinched to emphasize small waists, bodices cut just low enough to attract an admirer’s attention. The men in their high-collared suits. It must have been a scandal for a white man to wade into a sea of black folks. There would have been no way for him to blend in. What had been the guests’ reactions?
Rhea got up from the bed, put the letters back in the drawer. She turned out the light, got into bed. As she drifted off to sleep, she willed herself to dream about a beautiful ballroom with women in beautiful gowns and distinguished men, all glamoured up in their tuxedos. Instead, she dreamed of groping hands, and someone trying to kiss her, someone with a bad case of halitosis.
Chapter 11
C armen Carvelli sat at the table watching her son take another bite of the mezze pennette. Some people she knew held back on the butter. But she always added extra butter and jumbo shrimp prebasted in white wine, not too much garlic, double the olive oil. That was the way she liked it. Watching David attack the plate, it was obviously the way he liked it, too. A cigarette dangled from the corner of her mouth, and she drew in the nicotine much like a crack addict sucking his pipe, eyes half closed as the smoke invaded her lungs.
David peeked at her disapprovingly, but he had long ago given up trying to make her stop smoking. If she was going to die of lung cancer, she wasn’t going to fight against luck or providence. She was set in her ways. The only thing she could do was make her monthly confession, do some penance.
“Aren’t you going to eat something?” he asked, his plate still half full.
She shrugged. “I ate earlier. I don’t want any more. Go ahead and finish.”
He had dropped by unexpectantly just as she was about to sit down to her meal. She’d only made enough for one, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. It was enough that he had felt guilty enough to come over. She would keep her hurt to herself.
David wasn’t a mama’s boy. But he did look after her. His not returning her calls was unlike him, and she knew things were wrong. Things he wouldn’t tell her. She could see it in his coloring. The red was almost blood, tinged with green, a darker green. What was it? Red could mean any number of emotions, but with David, it usually signaled anger. It could also mean passion. When she moved her head slightly, she thought she saw a hint of purple around the edge. Frustration?
She stood up, walked past him as he ate. Stood over him for a moment to tousle his thick hair. He’d cut it shorter, but it curled nicely around her fingers.
He looked up, smiled. “Don’t you think I’m a little old for that?”
She gave him her irritated mama’s face. “It’s a mother’s privilege to touch her child’s hair, no matter how old he thinks he is. So what have you been up to these past weeks?”
A woman. The flash had told her that much. But it’d been too quick. Not Karen. That had been over for weeks now, thank goodness. Someone darker…black? Hmm.
“Ma, you’re going to get smoke in my clothes,” he admonished.
“Sorry.” She walked over to the china cabinet, pretended to sweep away a speck of dust, but instead studied David’s reflection in the glass. His usually genial features were hardened.
“You haven’t told me why you called,” he looked over at her. She inhaled, turned around.
“I don’t know. I can’t remember. It’s been so long.”
“Ma, I told you I was sorry. I forgot to call. I wasn’t avoiding you.”
“See, people forget,” she said going back to her seat. “If it was important, it’ll come back to me.”
David put down his fork.
“I know you’re worried about something. Otherwise you wouldn’t have called twice.”
“I didn’t know my calling would upset you. I’ve just been worried about you, is all.” Then almost beneath her breath, “Your dreams…”
He fixed her with a stare, his eyes questioning. “Dreams? What are you talking about?” His voice lowered an octave; it always did that when he was upset or threatened. Something sparked from him, shifting his aura. The green was totally suffused in crimson. A dark, menacing red.
She should tell him. Now. Finally. Tell him that she could see things, that she could see things about him. That she always had.
If he didn’t believe her, she could recount the time she had kept him from going on his high school sophomore trip to the Rockies. She would tell him how she’d known that one of the buses would swerve, hit the railing, and topple over the embankment—the same bus he would have been on. Bus number 7—a fact never reported in the paper or mentioned by the school administrators.
Or she could tell him how she knew he’d secretly given a girl money for an abortion. Although not the father, David had wanted to help. He promised never to tell anyone, and he hadn’t. But Carmen knew even before the knock on the door that evening. She opened it to find a young blond girl standing there, her eyes reddened from crying, asking if “Davey” was home. David never liked being called that.
The older she got, the less attuned she was to her son. It wasn’t so much her getting old as it was his pulling away from her, closing her off.
Because deep inside somewhere, he knew. He didn’t want to know, but he did. As she looked at him, she realized that he would never admit it to himself, no matter how hard she tried to convince him.
“Call it mother’s intuition. I just thought you weren’t sleeping well. If I was wrong, I’m sorry. I worry too much.”
He nodded slightly. She didn’t know if he agreed that she was a worrier, or accepted her explanation. He picked up his fork, polished off the pennette within bites. As she smoked, she nearly dropped her cigarette as David’s features began morphing into someone else’s. Someone handsome, brooding—and very angry.
She blinked the image away with a dawning realization. This wasn’t his future she was seeing. It was his past.
His past was catching up with him. No, more like it had already caught him, and was refusing to let go now that it had its quarry.
When he looked at her and smiled, he was David again. The green was chasing away the blood.
It was clear what she had to do. She needed to find out who the other man was. The man whose color was violent red, who for a moment looked at her with torment in his eyes. Begging for release.
Tyne lay the inspirational calendar on top of her stapler, the one she bought to replace the stapler that “walked away” one day and that Stan had refused to replace. Cheap as usual. Inside the box were other items accrued during her four-year tenure at the Clarion—her coffee stein, several multicolored pens, a framed quote that said “Believe in Yourself.” These were all she had to show for four years.
Four years that she’d included in her resume. She hadn’t faxed it yet, and David’s card was still burning a hole in her purse. It was deep in the nether regions, jumbled in with her schedule book, her cell phone, her compact, lipstick and keys. The resume was on the screen, waiting. She pressed print and the inkjet groaned to life, and began inching out her professional life, line by line.
If she was going to do this at all, it should be today when she had a fax readily available. Everyone was packing up, getting ready for a quick exit tomorrow when the Clarion would close its doors for the last time. There would not be much time then for anything more than carting their possessions to their cars. There would be hugs, some tears, final good-byes. Not for Stan, though, who had sequestered himself in his office, barely peeking out. Probably looking through vacation brochures.
She heard sniffling across the way. She picked up the printed resume ready to walk it over to the fax, but then heard another quivering intake of breath. Gail was taking this hard.
Tyne didn’t like the woman, never had. Foul-mouthed, nosy, vindictive when she didn’t get her way, Gail had been one of the thorns to working at the Clarion. Still Tyne felt for her. Gail’s only son was in military school, and that cost. As did her apartment in Chatham. How she had managed all that on an administrative assistant’s salary, especially at this paper, Tyne had no idea. She put down the resume, walked over and stood in Gail’s doorway. The woman had her back to the entrance, but the steady shaking of her shoulders indicated smothered sobs.
“Gail” she said softly. Gail turned around, tears streaming down her face. Then a torrent spilled forth.
“What the fuck am I gonna do? I got bills to pay, too many of ’em, and Chris’s daddy barely sends us what he owes as it is! Damn, that fucking Allen Jr.! His father would’ve never fucked us over like this!”
Tyne winced at the venom, but entered anyway. “Gail, you’ve got to stay calm. You’re a good assistant and you’ll find another job, probably even better than this one. You’ll survive.” That was the same thing she had been telling herself.
“I know.” Gail said. She blew her nose into a tissue she held in her hand. “My son and I will get through this somehow. God won’t let us down. Not like this shit-ass paper, taking all your time and energy and giving nothing back in return. I’m glad I’m leaving this shit rag.”
Tyne smiled at the woman’s about-face. Yeah, Gail was a survivor. She went back to her cubicle to get her resume. Then reached deep inside her purse and dug out David’s card. It was nicely embossed with gold lettering on cream-covered paper. Not the cheap kind, but the more expensive stock. She studied his name David Carvelli, Partner, Gaines, Carvelli, and Debbs, LLP, Designers and developers of residential and commercial properties. The fax machine was in an empty cubicle just outside Stan’s office, but she didn’t care at this point. Let him come out and see her using office property for personal reasons. She dialed in the fax number and placed the resume along the ledger.
Her stomach fluttered as the machine fed the paper through. It was too late to stop it. Soon it would be in his hands. Soon he would be calling.
“That’s bullshit!”
David paced
around the two occupied chairs facing his desk. The window of his office looked out on the beige block structure of the Water Tower and its surrounding park. A survivor of the 1871 fire that devastated the city, the octagonal tower stood as a testament to the resiliency of the past. Across the street, farther north, the black-steeled edifice of the Hancock building hovered over the sidewalks streaming with North Michigan shoppers. The sky was pale blue, no clouds. But a storm was coming. He could feel it brewing inside. A headache blazed behind his eyes. His fingers tightened into a fist.
He rounded his desk and sat down again. Both Rick and Clarence stared at him, one chastened, the other defiant.
Clarence, after having sat silent while Rick tried to stammer out an explanation, spoke up. “What can I tell you, man? It’s like I said. Kershner called, said he wanted me to design the condominiums. He’s comfortable with me since I designed his home a few years back. Dave, I don’t see what the problem is. We’re partners and any job I get is one for the partnership.”
David looked at Clarence and wondered at his balls. Wondered at Rick’s lack of same. Did they really think he was going to eat the bullshit they were trying to feed him?
He sat back in his seat, hands behind his head, a stance more casual than what he was feeling. “Then why the secrecy?” he asked, his voice more controlled than a moment ago. “First, you blow off the meeting Kershner scheduled with all of us, and Rick and I walk away with egg on our faces. Then you go and meet with Kershner by yourself without telling us.” He looked at Rick, noticed the hangdog expression, “Or at least me.”
Clarence leaned forward, putting on his let’s-see-reason face. David thought Clarence resembled a ferret. A sneaky, backstabbing ferret. “Look Dave, stop acting like this is some kind of conspiracy against you. Rick and I contribute as much to this business as you do, if not more.”
David slammed forward suddenly. “What the—”
“Let me finish, man! I don’t see where you get off acting like we’re your employees! This is an equal partnership.”
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