Destiny's Daughters

by Gwynne Forster

  Minutes passed before she realized that the sound she heard was the ringing of the telephone, for she rarely received calls in her dressing room.

  “I just want you to know that, according to my lawyer, nobody in Kansas—neither sheriff nor judge—has any jurisdiction over anybody here in Low Point, North Carolina,” Josh said when she answered.

  She would love to know who gave him the number of the phone in her dressing room. The sound of his voice was sufficient to jolt her from her low mood. “But if you put your foot in Kansas City,” she told him, “you can be arrested, because you broke the law here when you dialed this number. Oh yes, and since you have decided to harass me, I am not going to give permission for my name to be removed from the deed on that house.”

  “You can’t do that,” he screamed.

  She felt better with the passing minutes. “I helped pay for it, didn’t I?” She hung up, repaired her makeup, put a smile on her face, and went back to the stage. Back to her cheering fans.

  “What were you crying about?” Konny asked Clarissa as she drank coffee with her band members in their favorite bistro after the show.

  “I’ve fallen in love, and I’m scared.”

  “Yeah. You told me that a few days back. What’s different?”

  “He’ll be back here this weekend, and I—”

  “If you feel it’s not right, you can still walk away.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Not for a million dollars.”

  Konny’s whistle split the air. “Go for it, then, babe. I wish you luck.”

  “What are you two mumbling about?” Oscar asked. “If I didn’t know you were hooked on Cindy, man, I’d be suspicious.”

  She watched Konny drain his coffee cup and lean back in the booth with an air of self-assurance and masculine authority that he didn’t possess when she met him. Did the love of a woman do that for a man? “When it comes to observing, buddy, I wouldn’t pay you three cents for a week’s work. I had a crush on Clarissa for over six months, and neither you nor Raymond noticed.”

  “No kidding? What happened?” Oscar asked him.

  “Nothing. Then I met Cindy.”

  Oscar lifted his shoulders, shrugging it off. “I guess I didn’t notice, ’cause I never thought you’d be stupid enough to fall for your boss. Not that it makes a difference; a woman may not be your boss before you marry her, but you can bet your eye tooth she’s boss an hour after you say ‘I do.’”

  “Come on, Oscar,” Raymond said. “Your wife isn’t bossy.”

  Oscar reached into his pocket for his wallet and took out a ten-dollar bill. “No, but when it comes right down to the nitty-gritty, man, she’s got the trump card.”

  Raymond stood, preparing to leave, and draped an arm across Clarissa’s shoulder. “You heard what he said. Be sure you don’t forget it.”

  Chapter 14

  After a restless night, Clarissa got up before sunrise, made coffee, toasted a bagel, and sat down at the small table beneath her kitchen window to read the previous day’s mail. She opened a letter from Lydia, curious as to its contents because Lydia had not written her before. The envelope contained not a letter but a clipping from The Raleigh News and Observer, one of the many papers to which Lydia had begun subscribing when she became wheelchair-bound. She scanned the clipping and saw that Helbrose Studios would close for lack of business.

  Clarissa remembered the owner’s kindness to her and telephoned him. “Mr. Helbrose, this is Clarissa Holmes. I just read that you’re planning to close. You helped me when I needed help badly. Is there something I can do?”

  After a brief silence during which she wondered if he knew who she was, or cared, he said, “Well, I’ll be damned. I’m sixty years old, been in this business for nearly forty years, and this is the first time any singer I helped remembered it. You made it big just like I said you would. I know you got a record deal, but maybe you’d do a couple of shows for me. You’d fill up a big hall. I thought you were great when you made that demo here last year, and you’re a hell of a lot better now. I’ll take anything you can give me.”

  “Can you hold on for three weeks?”

  “If help is coming, babe, I sure can.”

  “Count on it.” She remembered that when she let him know that she was financially strapped, he cut his fee in half and added an extra tape of her demo. Of course she would help him.

  At nine o’clock, she telephoned Raymond. “I may be a few minutes late for rehearsal this morning. I have to go to the library.”

  “Okay, but if you’d just back into the twenty-first century and get a laptop computer, you could save yourself a lot of time. Ten years from now, you’ll be the only person who needs a library.”

  Her affection for Raymond did not cover forgiveness for his cockiness. “With that kind of wisdom, you’re lucky you can play that guitar.”

  “When’s your birthday?”

  “It’s already passed. October seventeenth. See you around eleven-thirty.”

  At the library, she got a copy of Gale’s Directory and copied the information she needed on newspapers in a dozen cities and towns throughout the United States. Checking phone books in whatever location she happened to be in the hope of locating her sisters had netted her nothing but frustration.

  “You’re in a good mood this morning,” Konny said to her when she arrived at Oscar’s room for rehearsal. And she was, for she was about to take an important step toward locating her sisters. The following afternoon, she mailed an ad to papers in eight major cities scattered over the country. “If you are black, a female triplet, thirty-three years old and born on October seventeenth, who was separated from her two sisters at birth, please contact me at this address.” She gave the address of a post office box that she rented for that purpose, enclosed money orders for the appropriate amounts to pay for the ads, and prayed that she would get a reply.

  She dropped the envelopes in a corner mailbox and, immediately, the bottom seemed to fall out of her belly. She leaned against the mailbox and tried to calm herself. Thinking that she might be ill, she hailed a taxi, only to hear the taxi driver tell her that she was only a block from the address she gave him. She dragged herself home and, for the first time in her life, recognized a need to have a man’s arms around her. A need that went beyond sexual desire and gratification. A need to be a part of one special man. And so, in a move that was another first, she telephoned Brock.

  “Stanton speaking.”

  “I’m sorry to disturb you at work, but—”

  “What is it?” He interrupted her, his tone sharp and urgent. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. I mean, no, I’m not. I . . . I need you.”

  She heard him suck in his breath. “What happened?”

  She told him what she’d done. “If nothing comes of it, I know I’m not ever going to find them. I . . . I can’t bear the thought of it.”

  “Stop right there. Suppose they don’t read those papers. If we don’t get results, we’ll put ads in papers in other cities and towns, on radio and television. We’re just beginning this search, and we won’t stop until we find them.”

  “You’re saying we? Don’t mislead me, Brock.”

  “I said we, and I keep my word. We’re in this together. Do you love me?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “Yes. I love you.”

  “And I love you. I’ll see you Saturday afternoon. If I didn’t have an appointment tomorrow morning, I’d be with you this night.” For a long time after they ended the conversation, she savored those words.

  Never had the days from Wednesday to Saturday crept along at such a pace. When Saturday finally arrived, she rushed home after the band’s daily rehearsal, set the table, put the food in the electric warmer, and raced to the shower. He had said he would see her in the afternoon, and she knew him well enough now to be certain that he’d get there early. Dressed in a pink jersey overblouse and a pair of black wide-bottom pants, she opened the door when he rang the bell precisely at one
o’clock. A smile spread over her face, and then she laughed, opened her arms, and went into his embrace.

  “I thought we’d eat at Gates Grill, stroll through the park, and take in this great weather. I can’t believe it’s March and hardly a bit of wind.” His gaze traveled over her. “But you’re not dressed to go out.”

  She had plans for them, and she didn’t want his good intentions to torpedo them. “I fixed us some lunch, but if you’d rather eat out . . .” She let the thought hang.

  “No, indeed. I rarely get home cooking unless I go to Washington to visit my mother, and that isn’t often. Thanks for going to the trouble.”

  She hung his coat in the closet near the front door and walked toward the living room. “I hope you like soul food.”

  “You can ask? I’m a black man raised by a southern black woman. If you baked cornbread, I’m your slave.” He followed her into the kitchen and seated himself in a chair beside her little table.

  “I hope I don’t have to remind you of what you just said.”

  He leaned back and rubbed his chin as if in contemplation. “Many a slave has ended as master. I’d love being your slave. I like an earthy woman, and you’re the epitome of one. I like everything about you.”

  She had leaned down to light the broiler, straightened up, and caught him with his gaze locked on her buttocks. He didn’t flinch, but shrugged, as if to say, Yeah. I like that, too.

  She put the crab cakes in the broiler to crisp them, and then looked him in the eye. “Am I going to get any surprises with you?” she asked him, suddenly nervous in contemplation of what they both knew would come at the end of the meal.

  “Probably,” he said, opting for the same candidness she’d displayed, “since no two people are alike. But I’ll make the surprises as pleasant as I can.”

  “Ye-ess,” she said, letting the word spill out slowly as if she were ruminating about its implications. “I don’t doubt you at all. I trust you completely, and that bothers me. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “I’ve said the same things about my feeling for you, but I know they’re genuine, and I’m going with them.”

  She took the crab cakes out of the oven, put the food on the dining room table, and took his hand. “I’ve never heard of anybody serving soul food in courses, so if you’ll say the grace, we’ll eat.” He said the grace, cut a slice of cornbread, and bit into it.

  “You’re a wonderful cook. This bread is to die for.”

  “Thanks. Just remember what you said.”

  His eyes darkened, and she knew that cornbread was no longer on his mind. “With pleasure,” he said. “You have a seat somewhere while I clear the table and straighten up the kitchen.”

  She stopped herself from saying she’d do it, when memories of her resentment at Josh for refusing to wash a dish or a pot or even to clear the table floated through her mind. She got a bottle of pinot grigio and two stemmed glasses, put them on the glass-topped coffee table in the living room, sat down, closed her eyes, and waited for him.

  Half an hour passed before she looked up to find him standing near and looking down at her with an expression that not even the smile on his face enabled her to fathom. She patted the place on the sofa beside her, but he shook his head.

  “You said you needed me, and I’ve been able to think of little else since. Can you live in St. Louis?”

  “Given the right circumstances, I could live most anywhere. However, I’ve tried it without running water, indoor plumbing, and central heating and, in my experience, that puts too heavy a burden on love.”

  He sat down, opened the bottle of wine, and filled their glasses. “I don’t doubt it.” He clicked her glass with his own. “Here’s to our long, happy life together. Do you want us to live together for a while to see if we’re temperamentally suited, or are you willing to marry me cold turkey?”

  She looked at him from the corner of her eye, amused in spite of the apparent seriousness of his question. “Cold turkey? You haven’t asked me to marry you, hot bird or cold bird.”

  His laughter wrapped around her like a warm blanket. He put their glasses on the coffee table and put his arms around her. “I’ve wanted to do this since the first minute I looked at you.” With her head resting against the back of the sofa, he gripped her shoulder with his left hand, found her left nipple with his right one and eased his tongue into her mouth. Heat rushed through her, settling in her vagina and filling her with a wantonness that stunned her. With her left hand, she pressed the hand that rubbed her nipple, demanding more. When his tongue began to slip in and out of her mouth simulating the act of love, letting her know what he planned to do to her, the sound of her groans filled the room..

  “Kiss me. Kiss me,” she said. Her fingers clawed at his shirt until he slipped the blouse over her shoulders, unhooked her bra, and pulled her nipple into his warm mouth. When her breath became fast and heavy, he stood, locked her body to his, and let her feel his massive erection. Then, he took her hand.

  “Where do you sleep?” He needn’t have asked; she had already reached for his hand to lead him to her bed, for the pounding and clenching in her vagina demanded he put an end to it.

  He got them out of their clothes quickly, turned back the bedding, and placed her on the lavender sheet. “If it doesn’t work at first,” he said, “don’t worry. Before I leave here, I’ll see that you’re sated.”

  She didn’t know that a man did those things to a woman, kissing and licking her all over, adoring her as if she were a princess. When he hooked her knees over his shoulders and thrust his tongue into her, screams poured out of her and tears flowed from the corners of her eyes. A strange weakness stole over her and she submitted to him totally as she had never done. She wanted to give him all that he was giving her, but he denied her. Every nerve in her body screamed for completion, and when she grabbed his shoulders he moved to cover her body. But he continued to refuse her until, frustrated beyond selfcontrol, she wrapped her legs around his hips and took him.

  When he finally collapsed in her arms, spent, she knew she would love him for as long as she lived. She didn’t remember how many times she climaxed. She only knew that she had found with him what she missed in fifteen years of marriage.

  “How do you feel?” he asked her. When she told him she was happy, since she didn’t know how else to explain her feelings, he said, “I am, too, and I want us to get married. Will you marry me?”

  “Aren’t you supposed to declare your undying, never-ending love for me?”

  She could listen to his laugh forever. “I’d do that and get on my knees, too, if I had the energy. Woman, you wore me out.”

  “You should thank God you had the strength,” she said.

  He braced himself on his elbows and gazed down at her, his face bright with a smile that could only bespeak joy. “Will you or won’t you marry me?”

  “I have to sing, Brock. It’s as much a part of me as the beating of my heart.”

  “I know, and I will never do anything to hinder you. I take good care of what’s mine.”

  She wondered at the implications of that statement, but decided not to question it, that to do so would amount to pettiness. “How are we getting together to go to Washington next weekend?” she asked him.

  “I’ll be here Saturday afternoon, and we can fly out Sunday morning. You still haven’t answered my question.”

  “Don’t you have a single reservation, Brock?”

  He rolled over on his back and locked his hands behind his head. “Not a single one. You’re what I want and what I need. I haven’t had this feeling before, I like it, and I’m going to do my best not to let it escape.”

  With her head on his shoulder, she whispered, “I’ll be proud to be your wife.”

  Chapter 15

  The following Sunday morning at eleven-forty, the big Delta jet landed at Ronald Reagan Washington International Airport, and he stepped off the plane holding Clarissa’s hand. Twenty-three minutes later, he stuck a
key in the lock of Lydia Stanton’s house, opened the door, and walked in with Clarissa at his side. At least he didn’t have to worry about how his mother would feel about the woman he wanted to marry, but although it would have mattered if she didn’t like Clarissa, it wouldn’t have made a difference and his mother knew it.

  They found Lydia sitting on the back deck in the warm sunshine. It didn’t escape him that she raised her arms to Clarissa before greeting him. Dispensing with preliminaries, he said the words that made him feel like a colossus. “She has promised to marry me.”

  “Thank God. I prayed for it, because I know how much alike you two are. I know you’re going to be happy together.”

  I hope you’re right, Clarissa thought. My life has changed so much in the past ten months, that I wouldn’t be surprised to see myself singing in the White House.

  “I don’t know when I heard such good news, Miss Clarissa,” Sam said while driving her to the YWCA to see Cindy. “Miss Lydia’s happier than I’ve seen her since Mr. Stanton died. I hope we’ll see you more often now.”

  She thanked him and told him she would take a taxi back. Cindy greeted her with arms widespread. “Girl, I’m so glad to see you. We can’t have a long visit, ’cause Konny will be here around three, and well, you know.”

  She didn’t know why she was surprised. “Konny’s coming this weekend?”

  “He comes every weekend. Didn’t you know that? No, I guess you didn’t. I’ll always be grateful to you for introducing us—he’s everything to me.”

  “You’re not thinking of shacking up with him, are you?”

  “No. I’m guiding him toward marriage.” When Clarissa laughed, she said, “Don’t laugh. He seems willing to go, and I’m hoping we make some progress on that this weekend.”

  “I wish you luck. You get a powerful feeling when a man you love asks you to marry him.”