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“No kidding. Hadn’t heard he was running. And you’d think a reporter would know things like that.”
“Whatever you’re after, man, I don’t know a thing about it; I’m just doing my job.”
“Yeah? Well, next time, don’t trash your invoices. Of course, if you’re double billing or maybe giving your supplier a cut, I can see how that shredder over there comes in handy. Keep the faith, brother.”
It didn’t take genius to detect a lie that thin. He walked out of what the city fathers regarded as a bastion for the development of youthful minds, and shook his head in disgust at the debris and graffiti that decorated the building’s exterior. How could a child formulate goals and pursue them in an environment that consisted of vacant buildings whose windows and doors stood shuttered with plywood? Every building in sight was an example of someone’s failure, and every man-made thing that an eye could see stood in some stage of disrepair. He stopped at the sight of a two-story-high pile of rubbish that small children barely school age were using for a playground. No wonder childhood mortality was on the rise among the urban black poor. Broken glass, cracked sidewalks, and potholes were what most African Americans in West Baltimore got in return for their taxes. With an hour to kill, he headed for Micah’s Restaurant to get some crisp fried lake trout and the best soul food in Baltimore.
At six o’clock, Kilgore was where Grace said he’d be. Duncan sat in a dark corner of CafeAhNay trying to adjust his nostrils to the mixture of dime-store perfume, beer, and sloe gin, a favorite of the locals. No matter how many times he sat there, he always left feeling soiled, not that he’d let on to the owner and habitués; his bread and butter depended on their considering him one of them. He whittled on his egg-sized carving of a Frederick Douglas bust—as the regulars were used to seeing him do when he sat there alone—and watched the school principal rush over to Kilgore. He’d seen enough, so he slipped out of the place, leaving the two men gesticulating as though nervous and excited, and went to find the manager of Kilgore’s Cleaning Service. Two hours later, he had it on his recorder that Kilgore billed the system for twice the value of the merchandise, the principal signed the order to pay, and Kilgore gave the principal ten percent of the excess. One bill went to the school board and the other, a smaller one, Kilgore kept for the IRS. The scheme guaranteed that a lot of schools paid one dollar for a roll of toilet paper, fifteen dollars for a seven dollar box of Tide, and other exorbitant charges. He’d gotten the story, but he had a hunch that wasn’t the end of it.
It had all gone too smoothly. He had the facts, but his sixth sense warned him that more would come. He wove his way through the dense, stop-and-go traffic on Highway 295 to Washington, and in the slow driving conditions, his mind flitted between thoughts of Kilgore and the immediate rapport between Tonya and Justine. Justine’s odd femininity and warm personality could get to a man, but to a baby?
Justine put Tonya’s car seat in her car and drove with the baby to the post office. She hadn’t asked Duncan’s permission to take the child out of the house, so she’d get back there as quickly as possible. The sight of a dozen letters to Aunt Mariah escalated her spirits, and she could barely wait to read them. She parked in Duncan’s two-car garage seconds before he pulled into the other spot.
As she jumped out, he opened the back door and took Tonya from her car seat. “How’s Daddy’s girl?” but his gaze bore into Justine, unreadable and disquieting.
“I hope you don’t mind that I took her with me; I had to run a quick errand.”
“I don’t mind.” Did she imagine a reluctance in his voice? “Leave me a note, though, when you do that. I worry impatiently, Justine, and I don’t like to waste my time like that.” The smile that gleamed from his sleepy, reddish-brown eyes would have taken the sting out of his words and comforted her had it not sent hot darts zinging through her limbs.
But she refused him the satisfaction of knowing that, looked into his eyes as brazenly as he’d looked into hers, and assured him, “Of course, I’ll abide by your rules.”
He started walking toward the front door and stopped, when Tonya reached for her. “I can’t believe what I’m seeing. When I’m around, Tonya sticks to me like glue. She’s been with me a couple of seconds and wants to go back to you. I didn’t hire a hypnotist, did I?”
“Children Tonya’s age enjoy the comfort of a soft bosom, which you don’t have.” She wanted to eat the words even as they slipped out of her mouth, uttered in a desperate effort to divert his mind from its dangerous track.
Her normal composure nearly deserted her as his rapt stare appraised her. Unwavering. She couldn’t erase the words and didn’t dare try to explain them, so she stepped past him and reached for the front door knob. His hand whipped out to grasp her elbow.
“I take it you weren’t being provocative with that comment, but if you were, you might remember that children aren’t the only ones who enjoy a warm, soft bosom.” He released her arm, opened the door, and headed upstairs as Tonya looked over his right shoulder and sang out, “Juju. Bye, bye Juju.”
Most men declared war when they wanted to fight, but this one gave no warning. She watched his long lithe body stride up the stairs as Tonya continued to wave good-bye to her over his shoulder. Several retorts surfaced to mind, but she couldn’t afford flippancy. She would have to decide how to deal with Duncan Banks, and she wouldn’t let his cool, self-assured manner tempt her into an ill-considered reaction to that taunt. After all, it was she who had everything to lose. Legally, he was Tonya’s father, and he didn’t have to make up stories or play games in order to be with her. But he’d better watch it; she had never played roll-over for anyone, and Duncan wouldn’t be her first experience at it.
Duncan removed Tonya’s jacket and cap and put the happy baby in her crib. He knew he should have let Justine do that, but he was close to furious at his reaction to her innocent comment. Yes, innocent. She’d been embarrassed at her words, for they had surprised her as much as him. He didn’t need the reminder that he had a lovely, desirable woman sleeping across the hall from him, a woman who responded to him without his having to encourage her. He changed Tonya’s diaper, as he had done for months past, without remembering that he was now paying a nanny to do it. He gazed down at her, lying there so peaceful and trusting while she fought her drooping eyelids and lost the battle.
What could he say to Justine after his own provocative and unnecessary remark? He stepped out of Tonya’s room seconds before Justine closed her bedroom door. Whiffs of her gently seductive perfume assaulted his nostrils and quickened his blood, but her door, that cold, white barrier that separated them, stirred his common sense into action, and he shoved his hands in his pockets and loped down the stairs.
“You hungry, Mr. B?” Mattie called from the kitchen.
He wished Mattie would resist yelling at him when three rooms separated them. “A little, but I’ll wait for Justine.”
“Well, I gotta get home. Moe complains when I’m out late.”
He looked at his watch. Seven o’clock. “Call me when Justine comes down.” He headed for the basement. What he needed was a good workout. He discarded his jacket and shoes, did twenty push-ups, and threw a couple of dozen darts, each of which landed farther from the bull’s eye than the one that preceded it.
“Mr. B, come on up. I got to get my dinner on.”
He put on his shoes and jacket, washed his face and hands, ran up the stairs, and stopped short. Justine floated from the second floor, almost unrecognizable in a red silk jumpsuit, oversized gold hoops at her ears, and her makeup-free face framed with jet black hair that swung well below her shoulders.
When he could close his mouth, he asked her, “Going out tonight?”
Her raised eyebrow reminded him of the silent reprimands he used to get from his elementary school teachers. “I freshen up for dinner, even when I’m eating at home alone.”
Oh, no. He might have eaten dinner by the light of a kerosene oil lamp a few times as a small child, but she was still the nanny, for Pete’s sake, and she wasn’t pulling status on him. “And get all done up like that? Well, it doesn’t hurt my eyes one bit. Come on, let’s eat.”
Duncan reached for the cornbread, but Mattie sang out, “Dear Lord, we thank…” and he let his expelled breath tell her what he thought of her reprimand. From the corner of his eye, he could see the satisfied smile that claimed Justine’s face as she enjoyed Mattie’s audacious behavior. In his younger days, the devil would have gotten into him, and he’d have given himself the pleasure of seeing her eyelids pop open when he planted his mouth on hers. Better not entertain such thoughts. Besides, Justine would get her dose; nobody’s business was sacred to Mattie.
“Mattie, what’s the matter with this cornbread?” he asked when she’d finished her long supplication. She took a bite of bread and chewed it as though relishing rich ice cream.
“Come on, Mattie, What did you do to this stuff?”
“Nothing. Tastes good as it always did, and it’s a lot more healthy. I just left out the melted butter and eggs to give Justine a chance to drop a few pounds. I’m surprised she could get into that thing she’s wearing.”
He pretended not to hear Justine’s gasp. Now that Mattie was on her case, he wanted to see how she would deal with it. “Why do you want Justine to lose weight? As far as I can see, she’s got what she needs, and nothing’s out of place. Next thing I know you’ll have Tonya on a weight-losing diet. Could you please put some butter on the table?” He ignored her loud grumbles as she went to the kitchen. “Don’t pay any attention to her, Justine. You look good to me. Sometimes, I’m surprised Mattie doesn’t have us eating dinner in the morning and breakfast at night—”
“According to my books,” Mattie interrupted, “that’d be a lot healthier than eating all this heavy stuff and going straight to bed. Here’s your calories, Mr. B.” As though suddenly conscious of Justine’s silence, she went on, “Hope I didn’t upset you none, Justine, but you have to watch—”
“Mattie, I’ve already told you that I’m satisfied with the way I look. We’ll stay friends if you stop talking about it.”
“All right. All right, but you mark my word, men like little women.”
He recognized in himself the desire to protect Justine from embarrassment, and he knew himself well enough to know it spelled trouble. “This man likes women of substance, regardless of size, and I hope this is the last time I hear this subject in my house, Mattie.”
As usual, Mattie looked toward heaven before uttering what she considered a profundity. “Well hush my mouth. Like I ain’t said one thing.”
He spread his hands and let a helpless shrug tell Justine that doing battle with Mattie was a waste of time.
“How about a couple of games of pinochle?”
The shock of his suggestion had to show on her face. She hadn’t thought that he would involve them socially, and she wasn’t certain that she liked the idea. “I haven’t played since college, so I’d probably bore you. Besides, I need to get Tonya ready for bed.” She’d had enough of his charisma as well as his bluntness for one evening, and she’d as soon get to work answering Aunt Mariah’s mail.
“Tonya’s asleep. If you take her out, try to have her back before five o’clock so she can be in bed at seven. When she wakes up, I’ll get her something to eat. It’ll take you a while to learn her routine. How about a game? Give us a chance to get acquainted.”
“Well, all right.”
She didn’t remember having played cards or done anything else to the tune of Billie Holiday’s “Fine and Mellow.” Her aunts would have had a hissy fit if they’d caught her listening to “that low class trash.” The earthy and mellow voice and the suggestive rhythm made her wonder as to his motive. The track lighting threw round balls of soft light against the beige-colored ceiling and walls, and the floor-to-ceiling mirror that she faced reflected the intimacy of their surroundings at the far corner of the basement. An eight foot maroon-colored leather sofa graced the side of one wall and a large, framed Gordon Parks photo of an urban park in which children enjoyed greenery, flowers, and early spring sunshine hung above it. A gold patterned Persian carpet covered the parquet floor beneath their feet. The only things missing were lighted candles and sparkling champagne. She diverted her gaze from her seductive surroundings to see him studying her face.
“You don’t feel like playing cards?”
“Not really. I suppose I need to take stock of things. I’m home, but it doesn’t feel like it.” She couldn’t tell him that mothering her child for those few hours and having to deny their true relationship frustrated and saddened her, even as the joy of being with her baby had been almost intolerable.
He pushed away from the card table, got up, and changed the CD. Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp did nothing to lessen the scene’s allure. He braced his shoulders, hips, and the sole of his left shoe against the wall, and stuck his hands in the pockets of his trousers. Her pulse quickened, and she had to lower her gaze, but he seemed oblivious to the picture of male perfection that he presented. If he knew the woman facing him doubted that she’d ever been loved and longed to know it at least once in her life, would he turn off the heat, or would he…
He trained his reddish-brown eyes on her. “This won’t work if you’re not content, and I don’t want Tonya to get used to you only to have you leave. I know you haven’t ever worked as a nanny, and I hope you’ll someday trust me enough to tell me what this move is about. But if you intend to go, please do it now. Tonya needs a woman’s love and nurturing, and I can see that you’ll fill that role, because she seems taken with you, but I don’t want her hurt. I…If I have to have a…someone living in my home, actually becoming a part of my family, I…well, I’d as soon it was you. I think we’ll get along.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Duncan, but living in someone else’s home takes getting used to.” She switched topics, because the atmosphere was recipe for personal questions. “You have a beautiful home; all you need is a swimming pool.”
“There’s one out back, but I’m keeping it covered ’til Tonya is older. I can’t risk the danger.”
This man loved her child. It came home to her with hurricane force that knowing what Tonya meant to him was enough to suck her into his orbit. Yet, she had to live independently of this new world of which she was now a part.
“I’ve enjoyed our talk, Duncan, but I’d better do a little writing before I turn in.”
“Don’t forget, journalists are professional writers. I’ll be glad to read your stuff and give you some feedback.”
“Thanks,” she threw over her shoulder, petrified. She couldn’t show him her writing, which was actually a newspaper column, because she’d taken an oath not to divulge Aunt Mariah’s identity. And if he knew she worked for a paper, he could easily trace her to Justine Taylor Montgomery, daughter of the Virginia State Assemblyman and widow of Kenneth Montgomery, double-dealer and adulterer.
She stopped in Tonya’s room, and her heart pounded as though to burst with the joy that suffused her as she looked down at the sleeping child. She thought of the horrifying feeling that had engulfed her when she’d come to herself, realized what her therapist, the social worker and nurses had allowed her to do and fought the threatening tears. They said she’d rejected the baby and gave that as their excuse, when they knew she was ill. She resisted the urge to lift Tonya to her breast and know again the happiness of holding her. She secured the baby’s blanket, turned and looked into the shining eyes of Duncan Banks standing in the doorway. She had to pass him, and she didn’t like the tension that danced between them like an unharnessed electric current, wild and dangerous. She suspected that he could get to her if she wasn’t careful, and she wasn’t going to tempt fate with a wrong move, because she didn’t plan to let anything destroy her chance to be with her child.
Stiffening her back, she approached the door. “Excuse me, please.”
When he didn’t move, she had to stop. “Uh, would you please excuse me, Duncan?”
He glided in with the litheness of a wild animal on the prowl and gave her the door, but not without teasing, brushing close enough to let his heat envelop her like hot quicksand, signaling the certain coming of disaster. She opened her bedroom door and closed it, never glancing his way. Duncan Banks was honorable, she was sure of that, but he’d just let her know that he was a man—with limits. She couldn’t imagine what she would have done if he’d decided to let her squeeze past him in that doorway. She hadn’t felt lonely while in the grip of that terrible postpartum psychosis; she hadn’t felt anything, and as a psychologist, she understood that she was only now experiencing the loneliness that she should have felt following Kenneth’s death. Her need to reach out to someone, to have someone care, meant that her health had been restored. But she’d deal with it. One way to exorcise feelings for one man was to develop an attachment to another one. She rubbed her arms. Maybe Duncan wasn’t her type; maybe she was only lonely. Her loud laughter confirmed for her the hopelessness of it.
Chapter 3
Duncan fed Tonya and rocked her to sleep. Now what? His notes on Buddy Kilgore’s scam operation didn’t entice him. He couldn’t recall a time when his work had failed to excite him, when the lure of his next winning headline didn’t light him up like gasoline dumped on an open fire. He wandered back down to the basement and put on a stack of his old Ray Charles records, but after a few minutes, he switched off the record player, ambled over to the window, and looked out at the night.
What the devil had come over him? He’d flirted with her. In a way, he’d even challenged Justine. Thank god, she hadn’t taken him up on it. He didn’t know her, and even if he did, he wasn’t letting another woman embroil him in an emotional web as Marie had managed with such wily finesse—withholding affection and sex to get what she wanted and pulling out the stops in wild, frenzied lovemaking if he capitulated. It had taken him months to develop an immunity to her brazen bargaining. Love. She hadn’t known the meaning of it. He recognized something special and different in Justine, but he’d take an oath of celibacy before he’d get involved with his daughter’s nanny. Besides, he liked his women willowy, svelte. Or had. After his debacle of a marriage to tall, slim Marie, he’d be the first to admit the folly of picking women by their size.
Clouds covered the moon momentarily and raced onward. Somewhere a dog barked, not because of the moon’s enticement, it seemed, but in furor, and he wondered at the intruder’s fate. Disgusted with himself for his mental meandering and the images he conjured up to avoid thinking of Justine, he knocked his left fist into his right palm and let out a deep breath. His mind wouldn’t be shackled, however, and he gave in to his thoughts. Something about her had gotten to him the minute he saw her. Her eyes seemed to…He couldn’t name it. His hands moved ruthlessly over his tight curls. Had he known her before? And where?
Still restless, he closed the blinds and started slowly up the stairs. Was a failed love-marriage any reason for entering into one that was strictly a business deal? He had loved Marie, but soon after their marriage, he’d begun to wonder if she’d traded her freedom for financial security. She’d sworn that she loved him, but he’d never felt deep down that he was her world, her priority.
“I’ve never been anywhere or done anything,” she’d announced, “but you’ve been everywhere and you’ve got your life the way you want it. I didn’t want a baby, but you insisted on us adopting one, and I gave in. You love that baby more than you love me.”
“If you’re looking for excuses,” he said, “that one will serve as well as any.”
She’d merely shrugged and looked at herself in the mirror while she perfected her makeup.
“What’s your bottom line?” he’d asked her, dreading the answer.
He had marveled at the smoothness with which her reply slipped through her lips. “I’m checking out. You’ve got your life. I have to make mine, and I can’t do that tied to another woman’s child. I’m sorry, Duncan, but this scene’s not for me, and I’m tired of pretending. I wish you the best.”
The finality of those words had slammed into him with the loud finality of a hangman’s trapdoor. He glanced toward Justine’s bedroom door, and a rueful smile claimed his face. That woman would show him what he was made of, sure as his name was Duncan Banks.
Justine read the last of the Aunt Mariah letters and decided to answer the least serious one first. “If you love this man and you’re sure he loves you,” she wrote to a senior citizen, “you don’t need my advice. You want me to agree with your decision. If it feels right, go for it.”
To the twenty-seven-year-old woman who complained that her father allowed her twenty-five percent of her earnings, saved the remainder, and kept her bankbook, she advised, “Grow up. Take your bankbook and your clothes and move into your own apartment, preferably in another city.”
Wife abuse required more careful consideration. She wrote to a Washington, D.C. woman, “Eleven years of beatings and your husband’s numerous other acts of mistreatment always followed by his bent-knee apologies should tell you that he will not change. You have no children and no excuse for putting up with his pathological cruelty. Leave him, get a job, and take care of yourself.”
The sound of Duncan’s footsteps as he loped up the stairs sent shivers from her armpits to her fingertips. His door closed and she let herself breathe. It had to work; this was the only way in which she could be with her child.
The next morning, she got Tonya settled and began to organize her day around the child’s eating and sleeping schedules. She couldn’t have been happier that Duncan wasn’t around to disconcert her. She made a list of things she’d need—a child’s record player, records, blackboard, little musical instruments, crayons, drawing paper, and books for Tonya—and shoved the note under Duncan’s door. Then she called her editor.
“Big Al speaking. What can I do for you, Justine?”
She told him she preferred each column to have a general theme and answers to five letters. “I’ll mail my first one this afternoon.”
“Right on. Think you could come in for a conference Wednesday morning? We wanna talk syndication. If I can swing it, you’ll make some money.”
Money was not her first priority, but it wouldn’t pay to say so. “Mind if I bring my little charge?”
“Sure, baby. Long as she’s quiet. Eleven o’clock.”
“Sweetheart, the sight of you still gives a guy palpitations,” Al greeted Justine that Wednesday morning. “A nanny, huh? Well, honey, things are about to change. You won’t be doing that for long. Warren Stokes says he can syndicate you easy as that.” He snapped his long, thick fingers.
Justine gaped at him. “Warren Stokes? Is he the Warren Stokes we knew at Howard U?”
“That I am. Hello, Justine. Still beautiful, I see. And what a beautiful little girl you have there!”
That couldn’t be regret she heard in his voice. “I’m her nanny.”
His raised eyebrows and pursed lips didn’t surprise her. He’d have been less astonished to see her get out of a chauffeured Town Car. “Nanny, eh? I suppose you’ll explain that.”
Their conference ended with Justine’s agreement to syndicate after six months if the public’s reception of her column warranted it.
“Have lunch with me, Justine.”
She shifted Tonya to her hip. “That may not be wise, Warren. Best not to revisit the past.”
His gentle grasp of her left arm was her clue that the old Warren hadn’t changed. He still had the tenacity of an irritated bull. “I never married, because you have my heart. Always did and always will. We shouldn’t have let a stupid misunderstanding separate us. Is there anyone in your life right now? A husband?”
She shook her head. “If we pursue this syndication deal, I suppose we’ll run into each other. It’s been nice seeing you again.”
It didn’t surprise her that he wouldn’t be put off. “I’ll call you. You won’t get away from me this time.”
Something began to roll like rough ocean waves in the pit of her stomach. Warren never let anything get between him and what he wanted. She liked him, but she hadn’t suffered when, in a fit of jealousy, he’d broken their friendship because she’d regarded him only as a friend. She didn’t want a romantic entanglement with him or anyone else, and especially not now when she was trying to put order into her life.
She looked him in the eye. “Those were college days, and we were children. Let the past lie.”
Tonya called “bye bye” to him as Justine walked away. The years could have whittled down Warren Stokes’s ego, but she doubted it. As students, they’d talked of their future and shared their dreams. She had admired his dogged pursuit of his goal, loved his hip-swaggering way of dancing, and enjoyed arguing against his conservative views, but she hadn’t wanted him as a man. This older Warren wasn’t the man to be a woman’s pal, and she didn’t want a lover. She didn’t intend to give Duncan an excuse to fire her. If necessary, she’d don a nun’s habit.
Justine opened the front door and raced down the hall to answer the telephone. Mattie would let it ring indefinitely. No one had told her to identify Duncan’s home, so she picked up the phone and said, “Hello.” She couldn’t find her voice when the caller, a woman, wanted to know whether GDB was still looking for a wife. She seemed to panic at Justine’s dumbfounded silence, and an explanation of the notice in Dee Dee’s column spilled from her mouth. So he’d advertised for a wife. She couldn’t believe he’d need to resort to that. Unless…She promised the woman that she’d deliver the message.
Perplexed, she asked Mattie to watch Tonya for a few minutes while she went to the nearest drug store. She bought a copy of The Maryland Journal and scanned it until she found Dee Dee’s column. Stunned, she threw the paper into a refuse bin and drove home. Why would he do such a thing?
“I’m so sorry. The position has been filled,” she told the next caller.
The woman’s disappointed, “Oh no. Oh no” didn’t give her a sense of guilt. If Duncan married, Tonya wouldn’t need a nanny, and she intended to be the woman who took care of her child. Besides, what kind of an environment would an arranged marriage be for a baby?
She put Tonya to bed, ate a sandwich, and settled down to work. To the next four women callers who wanted to marry GDB, she responded, “The position has been filled,” reasoning that she hadn’t lied, since she hadn’t said which position was no longer open.
Several weeks later, leaving the house, Duncan collided with Justine as she raced out of her bedroom to answer the hall telephone. He couldn’t have said when the phone stopped ringing, and he’d have sworn that she couldn’t either.
“Sorry.”
“I…I…Please, I didn’t see you. I hope I didn’t…”
