When You Dance With The Devil

by Gwynne Forster

  “What is it, Mr. Peterson?” Dan asked him. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing. I’ve just verified my stupidity. Let’s go back to the boardinghouse.”

  Chapter Nine

  That evening after supper, Francine grasped Jolene’s hand and walked with her into the lounge. It was an act of desperation, Francine knew, perplexed and hurt as she was by Richard’s strange behavior. Not only had he ignored her, but when she did catch his eye, he looked right through her, as it were, unseeing and unfeeling. What had happened to dispel the warmth and caring that he evinced so clearly and so sweetly the previous evening? She didn’t want to go to her room, didn’t want to sit alone, and pride wouldn’t allow her to join Judd and Richard.

  “Let’s sit over there,” she said to Jolene, pointing to a corner where two brown leather armchairs stood with a small table between them. Almost as soon as they sat down, Marilyn arrived to serve them coffee and truffles.

  Marilyn treated Francine to a half smile. ‘Well, honey, looks like you struck out, too.” Francine didn’t trust herself to answer.

  “Was she talking about you and Richard?” Jolene asked Francine after Marilyn walked away. “Barbara said Marilyn’s bitchy.”

  “Yeah. She was being a smartass, but she can bet I’ll never fling myself at Richard Peterson or any other man the way she does.”

  Jolene patted Francine’s hand, tentatively as if uncertain as to the propriety of doing it and of her right to such intimacy. “I hope nothing has happened to . . . to break up you and Richard. He’s a really nice man, and I thought he liked you a lot.”

  Francine wanted to wipe the tears that dripped down her insides, tears that she refused to let fall from her eyes. “Something has happened, Jolene. Last night when we spoke, I would have bet my life that he cared for me, and deeply, too. Tonight, he looked at me as if he’d never seen me before. Cold as ice. He’s hurt about something, and he ought to tell me.”

  “Why don’t you ask him?”

  Francine sipped the cold coffee without tasting it. “I love him, Jolene, but I will never prostrate myself on the altar of love. To do that would only earn a man’s contempt.”

  Jolene stared at her, obviously failing to understand. “But if he loves you—”

  Francine interrupted her, already aware of Jolene’s deficiency at understanding human emotions . . . “If he doesn’t respect me, he can’t love me. Besides, I have to respect myself. If I’ve wronged him, he ought to tell me and give me a chance to explain.

  “Love is fragile, Jolene. That’s one of the reasons why it’s so precious. I could stand on my head and dance naked in the town square, and he would still want to take me to bed, but the same act would make him stop loving me.”

  Jolene nodded. “You mean a man can want sex with you and not care for you?”

  Francine smothered a gasp. “Honey, men do that all the time. Some women also, but I think it’s less common among us.”

  Jolene gave the appearance of one shrinking by inches. “I wish I knew what to do. I like Gregory, and he liked me until I messed up. Still, I wonder if he ever liked me as much as Harper did . . . does . . . I mean . . . I don’t know.”

  “Jolene, when a man loves you, you’d know it if you were blind. And you feel it even if you don’t reciprocate it.”

  “I mistook it for weakness on the man’s part, and I exploited it.”

  “But you’re a different person now. You’ve learned from your mistakes, so stop whipping yourself.”

  “Whipping myself? I deserve it. Less than a week ago, I came close to making a receptacle of myself again. That’s what mama said men use us for. When I thought I was using them, they were using me.”

  Francine held up her right hand, as if to stop the flow of Jolene’s thoughts. “None of that.”

  “Francine, I get so lonely sometimes for someone who cares about me. Anyone.”

  Francine placed her cup in its saucer and prepared to terminate the conversation. “Get it into your head that love and sex are not the same thing.”

  Jolene nodded. “You’ve been saying that all evening, and I hear you.”

  They walked toward the doorway of the lounge together and, when they reached the water cooler, Jolene noticed that Francine glanced back toward Richard’s table and sucked in her breath. She wanted to console her friend, but she knew that Francine was tough enough to withstand the ravages of unrequited love. I wish I was like her, and not so stupid about men. It’s been two weeks since Gregory called me, and even then, he didn’t say much. If she were in my place, Francine wouldn’t call him. I won’t either.

  The next morning, she stepped on the bus seconds before its departure time. “You’re cutting it close, babe,” the driver said. “If you weren’t such a doll, I’d probably be blocks away from here right now.”

  “You’re not due to leave until eight o’clock.”

  “What’s two minutes? Make it worth my while, and I’ll wait for you till the St. Martin River runs backward.”

  Jolene paused beside him, her heartbeat accelerating and her blood running hotter. She looked down at him and saw the naked lust in his grayish brown eyes. Saw it and identified it. Harper had never looked at her like that. Shocked at the revelation, she told her ego to take a seat and refused to let his comment faze her. Only a few weeks earlier she would have been flattered and, even now, she found it hard to ignore him. Perhaps if she told him what she thought of his comment, he’d stop playing with her.

  “You’re full of it, Mister. Pick another target, because this one is moving on. All I want from you is a safe ride to and from Salisbury every day. That’s all you can do for me.” She didn’t wait for his response, but headed to the back of the bus, sat down and opened a copy of Whatever It Takes. Francine had given it to her at breakfast that morning and said it illustrated the differences between sex and love.

  She ate lunch with Vida and another hairdresser, and it occurred to her for the first time that the women who worked in the beauty shop talked only of men and of their personal problems with them. But she didn’t feel like sharing her problems and concerns with her coworkers. Vida reported that, the previous Friday, she sued the father of her children for child support, and Gina had a domestic-violence suit pending against her husband. As Jolene journeyed home to Pike Hill that afternoon, she wondered about the wisdom of casting her lot with a man who, it appeared, you didn’t know until after you married him or began living with him. Maybe she wasn’t too badly off.

  Jolene thought of getting off the bus at the stop near the hospital and spending a few minutes with Harper but, fearing that he might regard her as more than a friend, decided against it. As fate would have it, when she rounded the banister to go up the stairs, the Reverend Philip Coles emerged from the lounge hurriedly, bumped into Jolene and sent her sprawling.

  “Oh, my! Jolene! I’m terribly sorry. Here, let me help you up.”

  She shook off his hand and pulled herself up. “You must be in a heck of a hurry! Oh! Reverend Coles! I didn’t realize it was you.”

  “Well, yes. I thought I’d drop over and check on Fannie. How are you getting along?”

  “The same. I’m fine. This is my home now.” Her elbow hurt, but she didn’t imagine that telling him would make it feel better. “I have to go up to my room, but I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

  When she came back downstairs and went into the lounge, where she expected to see the Reverend, she found Judd sitting alone. She accepted his offer of a glass of ginger ale and joined him. They spoke for a few minutes, and she settled into the comfort of Judd’s presence.

  “Your job still working out all right?” he asked her. She nodded and told him she’d even had another raise. He leaned back in the rocker and rocked, and she figured he was leading up to something. “Seems like every couple of weeks, the Reverend favors us with his presence. I’ve been here almost twenty years, and the first nineteen of ’em he came here less than a dozen times, not even twic
e a year. Lately, he’s here every two or three weeks. ’Course I guess that makes Fannie happy.”

  “Maybe so,” she said. “I never saw much of him in Hagerstown, since I didn’t have time to go to church.”

  “Hmm.You seen Gregory lately? Away from the library, I mean.”

  “No, I haven’t, but that’s all right, too. He’s just one man.”

  Judd accelerated the rhythm of his rocking. “Atta girl! Now you’re thinking with a clear head.”

  Coles entered the lounge, talking with Fannie and joined Judd and Jolene. She didn’t know what to say to the man. They’d never been on a chummy basis, and she wouldn’t discuss with a preacher her dilemma about men.

  Judd rocked slowly. “What brings you back to us so soon, Rev.?” Judd asked Coles.

  Reverend Coles cleared his throat. “Well, you know Fannie is my only living relative, and I also like to look in on Sara Jolene as often as possible. She’s a long way from my church’s jurisdiction, but I still think of her as my charge.”

  Somehow, that didn’t ring true to her, but Jolene bit her tongue and kept the idea to herself. He’d never paid much attention to her when she was struggling beneath the weight of Emma Tilman’s obsessive meanness, and she’d bet her life that he knew about it. The whole town knew about her mother’s wrathful nature. Suddenly, she wanted Philip Coles to know that in spite of what she had experienced back in Hagerstown, she had made herself into a person of whom she was proud.

  “I’m sorry we’re not working with the computer classes, tonight, Judd,” she said. “I miss them, but I suppose the children need a few days off during Thanksgiving week.”

  Philip’s eyes gradually returned to their normal size, though he continued to stare at her. Judd seemed to relish explaining Jolene’s contribution to the Monday afternoon computer classes at the library, and she certainly enjoyed the minister’s reaction.

  Later, sitting alone with Judd, Jolene said, “You appeared to be wiping his nose with that bit of information. As if you were giving him his comeuppance. Why? What’d he do to get on the wrong side of you?”

  “Just m’ instincts getting a little overactive.”

  After thinking about it for a minute, she dismissed the comment as another of Judd’s cryptic remarks. If he wanted to explain it, he would; if he didn’t there was no point in asking him. A few minutes before the time for supper, Richard walked into the lounge, though without his usual purposeful gait.

  “How’re you doing, friend?” Judd asked him in a disinterested sort of way, as if he didn’t expect or didn’t want an answer.

  “Nothing’s changed, Judd. How’s your back?”

  “Better’n an old man should expect. You seen Francine?”

  “Naah. Hi, Jolene. How’s it going?”

  She understood at once that Judd and Richard would not discuss anything of importance to Richard while she sat there, and she wanted to leave them, but didn’t for fear of encountering Philip Coles and having to sit with him through supper. Finally, she bade them goodbye and went to her usual place between Joe Tucker and Louvenia Munroe at table two.

  “I see we got company,” Joe said, nodding his head toward Philip Coles when she sat down. “Wonder why he started coming so often?”

  “You mean Reverend Coles? Maybe he’s just lonely and likes to be with his sister.”

  “You mean he doesn’t have a wife and children?”

  Jolene jerked her right shoulder in a careless shrug. “As far as I know, he never got married.”

  Joe leaned back in the ladder-back chair and looked at her. “Maybe he’s interested in you. He never showed up so regularly till you came here.”

  “You’re way off. He’s known me since I was born. If that was the case, he’d have made a move years ago.”

  “He’s not after Francine, or at least he needn’t be, and I don’t think Barbara’s met him. She only eats breakfast here; she’s at the movie theater every night.” He took a sip of water. “No point in trying to guess. He’s probably just lonely and visiting his sister like you said.”

  Jolene had begun to enjoy sitting in the lounge after supper and chatting with the other boarders and disliked going to her room instead. So she forced herself to join Judd at his usual place, at the only rocker in the lounge.

  “I wonder where Francine is tonight, Judd? I suppose Fannie knows, but if I ask her, she’ll think I’m prying in another boarder’s affairs. She wasn’t happy last night. Do you think she and Richard will make up?”

  “Sure they will, as soon as they get over their stubbornness. I wouldn’t waste time worrying about those two. What’s with you and Gregory?”

  She pulled air through her front teeth and rolled her eyes. “I have no idea, and not knowing won’t kill me. I didn’t appreciate him when I had the chance, and he’s unforgiving, I guess.” She saw Richard heading their way and moved her chair aside to give him a place.

  “Does Marilyn plan a Thanksgiving dinner with a big turkey, pumpkin pie, and all that?” she asked Judd, mainly to be able to include Richard in their conversation.

  “Would Marilyn miss a chance to show off?” Richard asked. Suddenly, his head spun around. “I’ll see you two later.”

  Jolene knew without being told that Richard had seen Francine heading up the stairs.

  Richard took the steps three at a time, and caught Francine before she reached her room and grasped her by the shoulders. “Just tell me one thing. Where did you sleep night before last?”

  She stepped back from him. “Hello, Richard. Why didn’t you ask me that last night instead of looking through me as if I were a sheet of plate glass?”

  He stared into her eyes. “I was in no frame of mind to ask you anything. If you don’t want to answer my question, fine. You won’t get any more trouble from me.” He could see her wavering and knew she was weighing the cost to her of being without him. He held his breath and waited. Waited and prayed.

  “I spent night before last at the Assawoman Motel in Ocean Pines.” At his gasp, she added, “Shortly after I left you, my boss called and demanded that I come to the precinct and identify a possible smuggler. I went under protest. If I had driven back here to spend the night, I would have had to awaken Fannie around one in the morning, so I spent the night at that motel. If you had ever given me your cell phone number, I would have called you.”

  He inhaled a deep breath and let it out slowly. Never in his life had he been so relieved. And to think that he had believed her capable of duplicitous behavior! He wanted to take her to him and love her, but he knew she wouldn’t appreciate it. He opted for honesty. “I thought all kinds of things. Your car wasn’t parked out back, you weren’t on the beach, and I knew you weren’t in your room. Were you somewhere dead, or were you with another man? I nearly drove myself insane with worry. And then I got angry, but that quickly dissolved into pain. Pure pain.”

  Her hand stroked the side of his face. “Can’t you accept what you feel? If you could . . . if only you would, it would be heaven.”

  “I’m an honest man, Francine. I’ve done a lot of things that I regret, but I have never pretended more than I felt or offered more than I knew I could give. I never seduced women, because they were always willing; I accepted what they gave merely because it was there for me. But I no longer take just because it’s available. Oh, I’m tempted, but I’ve put that life behind me. I’m being straight with you because I care for you. You want the whole nine yards, and I don’t have it to give.”

  To his surprise, she smiled. “That’s your story now.” She reached up, kissed his cheek and hurried off to her room. At her door, she turned and said, “Slip your cell phone number under my door. Good night.”

  As Francine was about to crawl into bed, she suddenly pounded her right fist into her left palm and dropped herself on the side of the bed. Am I crazy? What on earth have I been thinking? If I make love with him, show him the love, the tenderness, and the passion that I feel for him, he’ll be mine. He love
s me, and everything he said to me tonight proves it. It’s up to me to make him turn that other woman, whoever she is, loose, to show him that he can love another woman. Me. She turned out the light and fell asleep with a smile on her face.

  Although Francine had begun to get her life in order, Jolene’s dilemma was only beginning. Philip Coles returned to Thank the Lord Boarding House on Thanksgiving Eve to spend the holiday with his sister.

  “My, but you’re handy. You’re not the person who left Hagerstown last winter. I wonder what Emma would say if she saw you now,” he said.

  Jolene hadn’t seen Philip enter the lounge, which she was decorating for Thanksgiving. On each side of the fireplace, she had placed a horn of plenty from which spilled colorful gourds, apples, pecans, chestnuts, and persimmons. In the act of attaching oak leaves in fall colors to the marble mantelpiece when Philip spoke, she put the leaves aside and turned slowly to face her mother’s pastor.

  “If you want to know the truth, Reverend Coles, I don’t care what she would think or what she would say. You, the members of your church, and half of our neighbors, even my teachers, knew how mama treated me, and not one person called her on it. I survived it, and I haven’t mourned her for a minute.” She eyeballed him, enjoying the sight of his reddened face and relishing the normally articulate man’s sudden loss for words.

  “I’m sorry you feel this way, Sara Jolene,” he said after the lengthy sound of his silence discomfited them both. “A child should honor her parents and certainly should cherish their memory, no matter what,” he went on. “The Bible says—”

  She tuned him out and returned to her task of decorating. “I guess I ought to thank her for teaching me by negative example how not to be a mother.”

  He didn’t comment on that, although from his facial expression, she thought the words pained him. As if to reinforce her point, she added, “What kind of woman refuses to tell her child who its father is? And don’t think I didn’t ask her many times.”