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With a diffidence that she didn’t believe was real, he shrugged slightly and let a smile flash across his face. “You shouldn’t ask a man that question unless you want the answer. I want to get to know you, because you’ve got me damned near besotted, and I’ve only known you an hour and a half.”
She stared at him for a full minute in disbelief, but his facial expression didn’t waver. For reasons she didn’t fathom and didn’t try, laughter floated out of her. “Are you serious?”
“As serious as I’ve ever been in my life. Have dinner with me this evening.”
She released a long breath. He didn’t look one bit like the father of her children, because they would have dark brown, sleepy and long-lashed eyes. Harrington eyes. “Not this evening. I’m busy.”
“Tomorrow evening. Before you give me the brush-off, get to know me. If I come up short, I’ll take my medicine and graciously step aside.”
Talk about self-confidence! “Where do you want us to meet?”
“At your front door. Where do you live?”
His directness reminded her of boardroom tactics. He’d have to learn that she wouldn’t roll over for him. “We’ll do it my way this time. Where may I meet you?”
He looked at her with narrowed eyes. “Are you married?”
“No, I am not. Are you?”
“Definitely not.” With that remark, she heard the implication that he wasn’t planning to marry anytime soon.
“Well?” she asked, letting him know that she’d stated her position and that the next move was his.
“I acquiesce to your wishes.” However, both his faint smile and his demeanor told her that acquiescing was not a thing with which he’d had much familiarity. “Meet me at Le Cheval Blanc. Seven o’clock. I do hope you will extend me the courtesy of seeing you safely home.”
She let a quick grin suffice for an answer. “See you tomorrow evening at seven.”
He was punctual, as she knew he would be, and he rose and went to greet her as she followed the maître d’ to his table. He thanked the maître d’ and tipped him, then leaned down and brushed her cheek with his lips. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”
“I try to keep my word. I’ve always liked this restaurant. It’s one of the most elegant in town. Thanks for choosing it.” She wondered why he seemed crestfallen and asked him, “Did I say something wrong?”
“No. I suppose I’m disappointed that you know the place well. I had hoped to give you a unique experience, but I imagine a woman like you has been treated to everything special that Baltimore has to offer.”
She chose not to answer. She hadn’t seen it all, but that wasn’t his business. She soon decided that he was most comfortable talking about himself, his ideas and his accomplishments, and she let him do that. She didn’t find him offensive, but he didn’t appeal to her, so she decided to settle for a pleasant evening with him, and whenever he made a joke, she laughed.
The evening passed pleasantly enough, and when they stood in front of her apartment door, her one thought was of gratitude that Mike, her favorite doorman, was not on duty. “You’re pleasant to be with, and I would like to spend a lot of time with you. Did I make any headway with you?” Oscar asked her. “I have a sense that, while I didn’t strike out, I haven’t gotten to first base. I won’t ask if there’s someone else. Just tell me if he’s special to you.”
How was she to answer that? “There is someone, and he is very special.”
He grasped her hand, looked at her ring finger and shook his head as if perplexed. “I hope he knows what a lucky man he is. If I were special to you, I’d do something about it.”
“Thank you, and thank you for a very lovely evening.”
He gazed down at her until she had to struggle not to fidget. “Forgive me. That was rude, but you’re so beautiful. Goodbye.”
She went inside and closed her apartment door. Had she gone out with Oscar Rankin because of her father’s nagging? If so, her libido, or whatever caused her to be attracted to men, proved more reliable than filial regard for her father’s wishes. But why couldn’t she like him? It wasn’t as if he were like Lawrence Parker. She checked her phone messages, didn’t have one from Drake, flipped off the machine and got ready for bed.
“There’re other men, and I am going to be attracted to at least one of them,” she said aloud. “Drake Harrington is not the only man I can like.” Then, in her mind’s eye, she could see him leaning against the doorjamb of her front door, his height of six feet, four inches nearly reaching the top of the door frame. She pictured him relaxed and lithe, his long-lashed dark brown eyes glittering with some pleasant thought and a smile on his incredibly handsome face. And every time he laughed, really laughed, the look of him reduced her to putty. Mesmerized.
Maybe it wasn’t intended that such a man should give himself to one woman. “He’s trouble,” Rhoda had said to her the last time they lunched together. “Every woman who sees him will be after him.” However, Drake seemed to have no grandiose notions about himself. And although Rhoda swore that Drake was a stud, that he’d go after any woman who showed an interest in him, she knew better.
“I’m going to join the Urban League, the NAACP, and I’m going on the next Million Man March,” she said aloud, and then laughed at herself, for she knew she wouldn’t do any of that. She crawled into bed and fought for sleep.
Several mornings after that, Drake entered the construction site of the Josh Harrington–Fentress Sparkman Memorial Houses in Frederick, Maryland, that honored his late father and uncle. As the project’s engineer, he planned to check the pipes that had been installed up to the first floor, and arrived early so as to complete the inspection before noon that day. A series of strange noises got his attention, and he followed the sounds to an area where boards were measured and cut.
“What the devil are you doing in here?” he asked a small boy who held pieces of wood that should have been too heavy for him to carry.
The child stood before him clutching the boards, his body shaking. “I…uh. You’re not going to put me in jail, are you?”
“This is a hard-hat area. Something could fall on you and kill you. What’s your name?”
“Pete. Pete Jergens. Are you going to call the police?”
“No. How old are you?” He noticed that the boy still held the pieces of wood close to his body. “Well?”
“I’m nine, sir.”
Hmm. Good manners. Drake took the boy by the arm and walked with him out to the van that bore the legend Harrington, Inc.: Builders, Architects and Engineers. “Get in here. You and I are going to talk.”
“But can I go home first, sir? My mom will be worried about me, and I have to be at school by eight-thirty.”
“What are you going to do with that wood?”
The boy held his head down as if ashamed. “Cook breakfast, sir.”
He stared at the child. “With wood? You have a kitchen stove that burns wood?”
“No, sir. We have a gas stove, but the gas was turned off, so we have to cook in the fireplace.”
His whistle split the air. “Where’s your father?”
“My dad’s in jail. A man called him the n-word, and he beat him up so bad the man had to go to the hospital.”
“How many sisters and brothers do you have?”
“Four. I’m the oldest. Can I go now, sir? Please. I’ll be late for school.”
“I’ll drive you home. Where do you live?”
Drake drove the three and a half blocks thanking God that he didn’t grow up in an environment where broken glass littered the streets, cars had to skirt automobile tires, boarded-up houses lined every block and the stench of refuse offended one’s nose. He parked the truck, locked it and walked with Pete to the house.
“What are you going to do?” the boy asked him.
“I’m going to get that gas stove turned on.” He imagined that the children were nearly frozen. “Call your mother to the door.”
“Mom. Mom, can you come here? My new friend wants to see you.” He realized the boy referred to him as a friend so as not to alarm his mother.
Stella Jergens, a tiny woman little more than five feet and one inch tall, appeared at the door and gazed up at him. “Please don’t punish him for stealing the boards. If we didn’t have them, we would freeze, and I couldn’t cook.”
“Don’t worry about that. I don’t countenance stealing. But he was trying to help you.” He looked at the boy. “Next time you have a problem like this one, go to the social-service center on Franklin Street.”
After getting information on the name and location of the utilities company, he gave the woman three twenty-dollar bills and drove Pete to school. “Get some milk and a sandwich,” he said, offering the boy a five-dollar bill, “because you didn’t have any breakfast.”
“Thanks,” the boy said, “but I can get something to eat at school. What’s your name, sir?”
“Harrington. Drake Harrington. Those are my buildings you’ve been stealing from. Tell your mother I’ll be by your house around five.”
“Thank you, sir. I think my mom is happy now. See you later.”
He drove directly to the utilities company, ordered the gas restored and paid the gas and electric bills for the next six months. Then he went to a local market and purchased coal and firewood for the fireplace, since he didn’t know whether the Jergens family had another source of heat. On his way home, he stopped by their house to find out whether the gas had been turned on, discovered that it had been and asked Stella Jergens if she needed anything for her children.
“Thank you, Mr. Harrington, but we’re warm now. I can cook, and the money you gave me will last awhile.” She blinked back a tear. “I can’t work because I can’t leave the little ones alone. I’ve been praying so hard. God will bless you.”
“Thank you, ma’am, but I’m already blessed.” And he knew he was, because he’d never been hungry in his life.
Pete ran to him. “Thanks, Mr. Harrington. I’m real glad you caught me this morning. I don’t like to steal, but—”
He patted the boy’s shoulder. “But never do it. There’s always a better way.”
“Yes, sir. Can I come by the place and see you sometime? I bet you can help me with my arithmetic. I like it, but I don’t have time to study. I have to help my mom.”
“I’m not always there, but if it gets rough, you may call me.” He gave the boy his cell-phone number. “Never mind the money. You may call collect. Be a good boy.”
“Yes, sir. Absolutely, sir.”
He drove home glad that it was he and not his foreman who caught the boy. Jack would have called the police immediately. The man had no compassion for those less fortunate. And he wondered what miracles Stella Jergens would work in order to make sixty dollars feed six people “awhile.”
“It’s just you and me tonight,” Henry said to Drake when he got home. “Tara’s in the school play, so Tel took them out for dinner before the performance.”
“Yeah? In that case, don’t cook. Let’s you and me drive into Frederick and eat at Mealey’s or some place like that. No dishes to put in the dishwasher and no pots and pans to scrub. What do you say?”
Henry removed his apron and threw it across a kitchen chair. “I never knock me self out doing nothing I don’t have to do. Be ready in half an hour.”
As a child, Drake had followed Henry from room to room in that big house, occasionally panicking when he couldn’t find him, and after his father’s death, Henry became even more precious to him. As the Jaguar sped along Route 15 in the direction of Frederick, he imagined that he would never be the same if the time came when Henry wasn’t there for him to understand him, jostle and needle him, and to offer his quaint form of love…
“Have you decided you’re not having anything else to do with Pamela?”
“No. Why do you ask?”
“The way Alexis was talking, I figured you was planning to self-destruct. I don’t waste me breath giving a man advice about a woman, ’cause he ain’t gonna take it no way. But whatever it is you’re after, you’re gonna get it, ’cause you don’t mind hard work and you treat people right. Just be sure to get your taste of heaven while you’re conquering the world. Otherwise, heaven ain’t gonna be there. Or if it is, you’ll either be too old, too worldly, too set in your ways, or all of those to appreciate it when you get it—that is, if you can let yourself accept it.
“And mark my word, caring for babies and toddlers when you’re fifty years old can’t be no fun. Tell me something, son. Did she say she’d wait while you discover yerself?”
“Stop being facetious, Henry. She didn’t promise to wait. And before you ask, I don’t like it, but she’s a grown woman and she doesn’t need my permission to date other men.”
“And if she got any sense, that’s just what she’ll do.”
“Alexis said something like that, but I have to act on the basis of my feelings and my judgment. All of you wish me well, but I’m the one who has to live this life.”
“I just hope when you come to yer senses, you won’t find out that someone else is sleeping in that bed. Mr. Josh used to say Russ was hardheaded, and that you were the easiest of his boys to raise. He didn’t seem to know that Russ only insisted on getting and doing what he knew he was entitled to. You were just as determined—only you smiled, conned, cajoled and charmed him for whatever you wanted, and yer daddy never realized it. But I was on to you.”
He felt a grin spreading over his face. “I know. You wouldn’t let me get away with a thing, and I am grateful to you for that. Fortunately or not, I’ve become as cut-and-dried as Russ is.”
“No-nonsense is what you mean,” Henry said. “Look. There’s the old church where me and me Sarah took our vows, God rest her soul. The Quinn Chapel A. M. E. Church dates back to the late 1700s. It’s a landmark, and the local African-Americans are real proud of it. Every time I pass her, I think about that day way back then. You never saw the sun shine like that, and me Sarah looked so nice in her white lace dress and hat. Gives me the shivers thinking about it.”
“I can imagine. She was one sweet woman, the only person who ever sang me a lullaby. My mother didn’t have the maternal instinct of a flea.”
“Don’t bother to think about that. Does Pamela want children?”
“She does, and that’s the problem. She wants to start on that now.”
“Yeah, and she’d better. Me and me Sarah waited too long. She was five years older than me, and she just couldn’t go full-term. If we stay on this topic, we’ll be drinking our dinner ’stead of eating it though. Fortunately, neither of us drinks enough for the alcohol to make a difference.”
“One thing,” Drake said, “and then I want to drop this. Why does everybody want me to marry Pamela?”
“I don’t know about the rest, but when I’ve seen you with her, you behaved like a satisfied man. Besides, if I was yer age right now, I’d give you a run for yer money with that girl. You’d think I was Seabiscuit coming down the homestretch. She’s beautiful, kind, soft and got a real good head on her shoulders. And she can sing!”
They spent an amiable evening together, dining gourmet-style and reminiscing about their lives together, causing Drake to reflect more than once that Henry had been a lifesaver to him when his father died. Going over the joys and tragedies that they had experienced together reinforced his love for home and family.
“Henry has a subtle way of twisting my arm,” Drake said to himself after telling Henry good-night and heading to his room. He kicked off his shoes, stretched out on his bed and did the only thing he wanted to do. He telephoned Pamela, and it seemed as if the phone rang a thousand times before she answered, though he heard only four rings.
“Hello?”
“Hello. This is Drake. I was beginning to think I’d primed myself to hear your voice to no avail. How are you?”
“I’m all right. I was considering washing my hair. Then I thought I’d better start the research for a program I’m doing mid-July. Then I thought, ‘I’m going to play my record and read. I don’t feel like working.’”
“Telford and his family were out this evening, so Henry and I had a really nice dinner in Frederick. We’re just getting back.”
“Why did you call, Drake?”
He hadn’t expected the question, but somehow it didn’t surprise him. “I miss you, and I needed some contact with you. That’s why.”
“All right. Let’s talk awhile. I’m going to California on Monday for an industry conference, and I’m nervous about it because my producer is sending me in his stead. He said I don’t need a briefing.”
“Are you going to let him get away with that?”
“I don’t know. Men are always getting away with things.”
He sat up on the bed and rested his back against the headboard. “What men are you talking about? I don’t remember your letting me get away with anything…well, not much, anyway.”
“No? What do you call kissing the sense out of me and three hours later as much as saying that if you didn’t see me again, too bad?”
“I didn’t say that. Woman, I will not allow you to misrepresent me. Anyhow, you’re not bad at that kissing business yourself.”
“What you did was foul play,” she told him.
“No such thing, lady. I was not playing. I was never more serious in my life. You’re the criminal. I still have that gaping hole you left in me.”
