This was her fault! All she had to do was answer one of his calls. Just one. Instead she’d shut him out entirely. She’d tossed him away like garbage, like he didn’t matter, like it had been nothing but some sort of sick game between them.
An hour passed, and the combination of cold along with a steadily growing stiffness in his limbs almost decided the matter. He sighed in defeat and set the wheel to maneuver out of the parking space.
Before he got in a full turn, a sedan pulled up and parked a couple of cars in front of him. With only the street lights and a hazy moon, the color was indecipherable, but the car was an older Ford model, something driven by someone with a whole lot of loyalty, or by someone with no taste or money to get something newer. Despite the threadbare look of the vehicle, something made him watch carefully, the hair on his neck moving, causing his skin to itch.
A man got out of the car. David strained to see his features. Same height and lankiness as the guy at the party. The man walked to the passenger side, opened the door, and a woman got out. Even in the darkness, he recognized the silhouette of her profile, the elegant neckline. She was home.
The thudding headache that had receded in the hour came back with a full rush, causing a sharp pain that momentarily caused him to shut his eyes. He didn’t want to watch the pair walk through the entrance of the building. He didn’t want to visualize them taking the stairs to her apartment, then standing at her door while she made her decision. Maybe it would be nothing more than a kiss on the lips. But then kisses could become more. She could open the door, let him inside—inside her apartment, her body, her soul, even. David would forever be shut out.
That wasn’t an option.
They entered her building and he waited. And waited. Ten minutes passed, fifteen. Nearly twenty and he thought about getting out and ringing the bell. Even knowing that when she realized it was him, she would never buzz him up. But he needed to do something tangible, to move his stiff limbs, to walk the pavement, to feel the smooth metal of the bell button beneath his finger. To let her know that he wasn’t going anywhere.
Before he reached for the handle, the entrance door opened and a figure stepped out. Tall and lanky. His proportions seemed abnormal, belonging to a nocturnal creature lurking in the dark instead of a human male. What did she see in this guy anyway? Yet David’s peeve was tempered by a trickle of relief that nothing had happened, couldn’t have happened in so short a time.
The figure got into his car, warmed up the engine then drove off. David sat for a moment longer, then finally opened his door and got out. A chilled wind hit him in the face. The temperature had dropped since he arrived, and the climate was more wintry than autumn. He walked the few steps to the building door, each step seeming like miles. He’d only been here once, a month or so ago. He’d dropped by on a whim only to find her not home and had left without leaving her a note.
But that was when he thought there would be other days to visit. He hadn’t gotten the chance to see her apartment, let alone stay there, or to become familiar with her domestic habits, discover her idiosyncrasies. Sometimes he would imagine waking up beside her in her bed, sunlight streaming through her windows. The fantasy had played out with her making strawberry pancakes for breakfast, after which they would sit down to a leisurely meal at the kitchen table. A hundred times he had tried to picture how the rooms of her apartment were set up, how walls merged into each other, making cubby areas where she would have placed a painting, a knick knack, something that was entirely her taste.
This building was a three-flat that had been converted into a condominium. Hyde Park was sated with such edifices, old brownstones that managed to maintain their veneer of stateliness despite the fading years. The stone lintel along the door was chipped by weather and the door needed a new coating of paint. The bell was cold to his touch, but the chill he felt had nothing to do with the weather.
Again, the tiny voice tried to warn him. He ignored it, and it drifted away on another cold breeze. As he pressed the bell, he imagined it resounding through her apartment. Maybe she was half dressed now, already preparing for bed. It was almost midnight.
The buzzer surprised him. He was sure that she would have intercomed to find out who was calling. He pushed the door open immediately before the buzzer stopped, then took the stairs two at a time, eager to close the distance. He heard the door open, and she said softly down the stairs, “Lem?”
He paused midflight. She was expecting the other one, the man from the party. Which explained why she had buzzed him in so readily. She still hadn’t looked down the stairwell to see who was ascending. Were she and that guy planning a night together? But why had he driven away then?
“Did you forget something?” she asked down the three flights. Her voice was light, even maybe a little flirty. The pain throbbed, and his left hand formed into a fist.
Then she did look down.
And the world stopped.
Chapter 31
New York—October 1879
R achel watched the words form on the page with each pen stroke, the letters round and cursive, slanting to the right. They pled for forgiveness, for understanding. The plea was in part to Sarah, to whom she was divulging her latest folly. The thought of it made her quake. Why had she believed she could meet with him and make him end his attentions? That it would go no further than words? She could barely write of the events of her last meeting with him nor the violence that had ensued. In those words not written, but understood, the letter was also a plea to God; to George, gone these many months, whose image now vacillated in her memory, if not in her heart; and to Lawrence, to whom she had lied again and again.
A breeze blew the hem of the white gauze curtain toward the writing desk and it caught. She brushed it away, her eye breaking from the page to look out the window. A hansom was passing by, and a woman sat inside. Although Rachel could not make out the woman’s features, by the elaborate feathered hat, she guessed it was Twila Dabney, the eldest of Reverend Dabney’s three unmarried daughters. An advocate for the rights of coloreds, Reverend Dabney often allowed like-minded groups to use Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church as a meeting ground. Earlier in the century, the church had served as a junction of the Underground Railroad and its illustrious history was known by all the city. In keeping with the standing of their esteemed father and his venerated church, the daughters felt duty-bound to serve as their father’s unofficial ambassadors to the colored community, to represent Negro womanhood as vessels of staunch Christianity and female purity. Therefore, husbands would only inconvenience their mission. The sisters visited the sick, organized fund-raisers for those suffering in their finances, and held women’s meetings wherein they promulgated the rules of virtue by which all decent Negro women were to adhere if they would hold their heads up and march in God’s holy army. Twila was the banner waver and the horn blower for this righteous militia. A militia to which Rachel no longer belonged.
Not that anyone exactly knew of her fall. Nor had she been branded a pariah. At least, not yet. But what could only be guessed at caused tongues to whisper, eyes to cast her way then quickly shift in another direction, and her own brother to call her virtue into question. Two nights ago, at dinner, he had berated her over the table that held a platter of roast pheasant, a bowl of steamed baby carrots and broccoli, a tureen of gravy to be poured over creamed potatoes that sat beside it. But her culinary efforts were ignored that night as Lawrence sat for all the world like a god enthroned on Mt. Olympus.
“So you’re telling me you spent all that time shopping?” he asked, his eyes skewing her from across the table.
“That’s what I said Lawrence. Why are you questioning me?”
“Because I saw no packages, dear sister. I find it hard to believe that you could not find at least one item in nearly three hours of shopping.”
She put down her fork and met his stare with more aplomb than she felt. But she refused to be intimidated. “Then tell me where you think I was and
what you think I was doing. Tell me right now. And be careful what you say because it could change everything between us.”
She knew Lawrence. He would never confront her outright. He would never accuse her of impropriety. He would mask it with a sermon on decorum, on what appeared seemly or unseemly.
Lawrence’s brow creased. It was a high and stately brow, usually bare of lines. His hair was oiled and looked luminously ebon, except for flecks of premature gray dotting his sideburns. “When you are seen in the presence of a white man, the same man with whom you created a spectacle months ago, you should then be more circumspect in your actions to diminish, not exacerbate, the damage you have already caused. The only thing a woman has is her good name, and you seem not only willing, but determined, to tarnish that. If George were alive…but then again, none of this would be happening if George hadn’t died in the fire. Or would it?”
At the mention of her dead husband’s name, tears pricked. Shame immobilized her. “You don’t understand, Lawrence,” she said softly. But of course he wouldn’t understand; she barely understood herself. How could she forget who she was and demean herself, her family, and most of all, George’s memory?
As though he read her mind, Lawrence said, “Remember, it is George’s name you are soiling also.”
His authoritarian tone raised her hackles. It always had, even when they were children. Lawrence, older by six years, had lorded over her, always echoing their father’s dictates, as though she were too naïve to understand without interpretation. Their parents would always tell her to “mind your brother, he knows better.” Lawrence the good student, the obedient son had been the example held up to her as a standard to attain.
But looking across the dinner table at her brother, who relied on her to provide meals since he had never found a woman who could meet those high standards he set for himself and everyone else, she momentarily could forgive herself for her lapse. It was human. Besides, it was over. She had ended it for good two days before. The day of her shopping venture.
In mortified retrospect, she thought for the hundredth time how she had let it start in the first place and had a hard time reconciling how she had taken leave of all that mattered to her these last months. As much as Lawrence suspected, he didn’t know the true extent, the breadth of what had gone before. How it had diverged from mild flirtation to something more ardent, something desperate, extending beyond propriety, igniting a passion she had never known, not even with George. Most devastating of all, how she had not found the strength to stop herself. Grief, loneliness, the need for consolation that she still hadn’t found, had propelled her into Joseph’s arms time and time again.
Brown eyes still accused her as she dismissed their passion in the words she now wrote to her dear friend Sarah. She closed her eyes, and the memory of demanding fingers on her arm caused her to rub the offended area. He had tried to keep her from walking out the door of the apartment he rented on 26th and Seventh in the Tenderloin District. But she had broken away finally and had shunned his offer of a cab, even though walking through the streets of tenements, saloons, and whorehouses was a risk no decent woman should take. Especially a Negro woman, who was all too often considered fair game. Still she had walked until she hailed her own cab, warily eyeing the men, mainly Irish, hanging in front of the saloons who had shouted out indecent proposals, causing her alarm. Afterward, at home, she had berated herself for allowing this further descent, for allowing herself to become involved with someone who nominally was of the upper class but whose actions were no better than those of a wastrel. Even his reason for renting the apartment in so horrid a place had given her pause. A regular gambler, he frequented the infamous gambling dens in the area, often playing into the early morning hours. Instead of trying to get a cab back to his family’s estate, he would stay overnight, a knife beneath his pillow should any of the local denizens take it upon themselves to try to relieve him of his money. That is, if he had not gambled it all away.
His last words to her, half slurred by the absinthe he had drunk during her visit, had followed her out the door: “We’re going to be together forever! You’ll never get away from me!” The taste of absinthe clung to her lips where he had torn hers apart. Her thighs were bruised from where he had forced them apart and taken her on the floor.
But never again, she vowed silently to herself as she ended the letter. A vow she had made before.
Chicago, 2006
Tyne watched him climb the stairs, and each step that brought him closer rang a death knell inside her. Fear rooted her there in the half-lit hallway even as her instinct told her to get into the apartment and lock the door. But, she reasoned, that would be overreacting. All he wanted to do was talk. She would let him. She owed him that much, at least.
Still, as he advanced up the last flight, his body rigid in motion, her whole being told her to get away. But it was already too late. He had reached the landing and within a few steps, stood towering over her. Before, his stature had been a point of attraction and, at times, comfort. Now his height threatened, and she realized that as lean as he was (he had lost considerable weight), his whole body exuded strength. Maybe it was the anger, but his face seemed different, transformed, as though a stranger stood before her—a stranger who wanted to hurt her.
“Let’s go inside,” he said so softly that at first she wasn’t sure she had heard him.
“We can talk out here,” she countered as softly.
He smirked. “Still not the right time and place? What, are you afraid to be alone with me now?”
“No,” she lied wearily, and more bravely than she felt. “It’s just that it’s late, and I’m tired. Anything you have to say, you can say to me out here.”
“What, with witnesses?” he half joked, but the words were strangely ominous to her. “Do you really want your neighbors to know your business?”
“No, but what I don’t want is a prolonged fight, which I know is going to happen if we go inside. I’m sorry if I hurt you, David, but it’s over. Just let it go.”
She didn’t know it was possible for him to look any angrier. “So, you decide that it’s over, and I’m just supposed to go away like an obedient dog. You walk away with no explanation, and leave me racking my brain trying to figure out what the hell I did to make you treat me like a leper.”
His voice had risen during the tirade, and she realized that she didn’t want the neighbors to hear. He was too far gone to care about causing a scene.
With a sigh, she headed inside the apartment, knowing he would follow. She locked the door behind them, her back to him for a moment as she gathered strength to turn around to face the storm. When she did turn, she leaned back against the door as though it could give her the emotional support she needed. She was tired, tired of hiding, of running. Her fear began to ebb as she thought about the release of resolution.
“Look, I know I should have at least talked to you when you called. But, I thought you’d understand when I didn’t call back.”
“Understand what?” he challenged.
She hesitated a moment, her eyes settling on the picture on the wall behind him. It was of a mountain stream, quiet and reflective. She wished for that retreat now, to be away from here. She talked to the picture instead as she said, “You know what. That I didn’t want to see you again. That it was over.”
He shifted and at first she thought he was going to close the space between them. She straightened in anticipation of what could turn into something physical. But he just stood there, looking bewildered.
“Well, excuse me for not picking up on your ambiguous signals. But if someone decides to break up with me, I usually want an explanation why.”
She moved from her resting place against the door, walked around him to the kitchenette that fronted the living room. She opened the refrigerator and brought out a pitcher of orange juice, retrieved a glass from a cabinet, then poured herself a drink. She sipped, quietly deliberating how much to tell him.
&nb
sp; He stood on the other side of the counter, glaring at her nerve to ignore him yet again. She thought he looked a few steps away from losing it entirely. Some of the fear began moving in again. She put the emptied glass down and looked at him finally, keeping the counter between them.
“I didn’t want…I mean I don’t want…” she started, not sure what she meant to say. But her hesitancy only made him look at her as though she was a blithering idiot. She decided that bluntness was needed. Or a lie, even.
“Look, what happened between us was a mistake, and I don’t want to continue making the same mistake. I just thought it should end before somebody got hurt.” Yet she remembered the hurt she’d felt when he called out another woman’s name. She realized only at that moment how much she’d let herself become emotionally invested in something that hadn’t even had a chance to develop. She had been falling in love and hadn’t known it.
“And you don’t think you’ve hurt me? You don’t think I have feelings?” Consciously, or unconsciously, his finger thrust at the middle of his chest. “Or was I just some walking dildo that you could use then toss away without a thought? Because that’s how you’ve made me feel.”
He was hurt. She could see that, had been trying to avoid seeing it. Because the pain in his eyes was harder to bear than his justified anger. She had never wanted to hurt him.
“Didn’t you have any feelings for me at all?” he asked, the tone sounding much like the wounded voice of a child who had just realized the extent of the cruelty in the world.
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