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“Their personalities are different.” He looked down at them, his face aglow with tenderness, and his voice full of pride.
She introduced herself to the boys and then began serving the ice-cream. On a hunch, she took four of the plastic banana-shaped bowls that she’d bought for use in the logo and filled them with a scoop each of the chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry flavors.
Rufus nodded approvingly. “Well, you’ve just dealt successfully with Preston; he’d have demanded that it look exactly like that painting. Sheldon wouldn’t care as long as it was ice cream.”
Naomi watched Rufus unstrap his sons, place one on each knee, and help them feed themselves while trying to eat his own ice-cream. Her eyes misted, and she tried to stifle her desire to hold one of the children. She knew a strange, unfamiliar yearning as she saw how gently he handled them. How he carefully wiped their hands, mouths, and the front of their clothes when they had finished and, over their squirming objections, playfully strapped them into the stroller.
“Do they wiggle because it’s a kid thing, or just to test your mettle?”
He laughed aloud, a full-throated release as he reached down to rebutton Sheldon’s jacket. She would have bet that he didn’t know how; it was the first evidence she’d had that his handsome face could shape itself into such a brilliant smile, one that involved his eyes and mouth, his whole face. He had a single dimple, and she was a pushover for a dimple. The glow of his smile made her feel as if he had wrapped her in a ray of early morning sunlight, warming her.
“Both, I guess,” he finally answered.
He turned to her. “That was very nice, Naomi. Thank you. Before I leave, I want you to tell me why you hung up when I called you. Didn’t you know that I would have to send the police or come over here myself and find out whether you were in trouble? I brought my boys because I don’t leave them alone and I couldn’t get a sitter quickly.”
“Don’t you have a housekeeper, nursemaid, or someone who takes care of them for you?”
Rufus stood abruptly, all friendliness gone from his suddenly stony face. “My children are my responsibility, and it is I, not a parental substitute, who takes care of them. I do not want my children’s outlook on life to be that of their nanny or the housekeeper. And I will not have my boys pining for me to get home and disappointed when I get there too tired even to hug them. My boys come before my career and everything else, and I don’t leave them unless I have no choice.” He turned to leave, and both boys raised their arms to her. Not caring what their father thought, she quickly took the opportunity to hug them and hold their warm little bodies. His expression softened slightly, against his will, she thought, as he opened the door and pushed the stroller through it. “It was a mistake to come here. Goodbye, Naomi.” As the door closed, she heard Preston, or maybe it was Sheldon, say, “Goodbye, Noomie.”
Naomi began cleaning the kitchen, deep in thought. Did they have low tolerance for each other, or was it something else? She had never known anyone more capable of destroying her calm, not even Judd. And there was no doubt that she automatically pushed his buttons. The less she saw of him, the better, she told herself, fully aware that he was the first man for whom she’d ever had a deep, feminine ache. “I don’t know much,” she said aloud, “but I know enough to leave him alone.”
Naomi parked her car on Fourth Street below Howard University and walked up Florida Avenue to One Last Chance. She chided herself for spending so much time thinking about Rufus, all the while giving herself excuses for doing so. She had just been defending herself with the thought that being the father of those delightful boys probably added to Rufus’s manliness. He was so masculine. Even his little boys had strong masculine traits.
Rufus had made her intensely aware of herself as a woman. An incomplete woman. A woman who could not dare to dream of what she wanted most; to have the love and devotion of a man she loved and with whom she could share her secrets and not be harshly judged. A home. And children. Maybe she could have it with…oh, God, there was so much at stake. Forget it, she told herself; he would break her heart.
She increased her pace. It seemed like forever since the foundation’s board members had argued heatedly about the wisdom of locating One Last Chance’s headquarters in an area that was becoming increasingly more blighted. But placing it near those who needed the services had been the right decision. She walked swiftly, partly because it was her natural gait, but mainly because she loved her work with the young girls, whom she tutored in English and math. She welcomed the crisp, mid-October evenings that were so refreshing after the dreaded heat and humidity of the Washington summers. Invigorating energy coursed through her as the cool air greeted her face, and she accelerated her stride. Not even the gathering dusk and the barely camouflaged grimness of the neighborhood daunted her.
Inside OLC, as the girls called it, her spirits soared as she passed a group playing checkers in the lounge, glimpsed a crowded typing class, and walked by the little rooms where experienced educators patiently tutored their charges. She reached the nurse’s station on the way to her own little cubicle, noticed the closed door, and couldn’t help worrying about the plight of the girl inside.
Linda was half an hour late, and Naomi was becoming concerned about her. The girl lacked the enthusiasm that she had shown when they’d begun the tutoring sessions, and she was always tired, too worn-out for a fifteen-year-old. When she did arrive, she didn’t apologize for her tardiness, but Naomi didn’t dwell on that.
“Do you have brothers and sisters?” Naomi asked her, attempting to understand the girl’s problems.
“Five of them,” Linda responded listlessly.
“Tell me what you do at home, Linda, and why you come to One Last Chance. Speak carefully, because this is our diction lesson for today.” Already becoming a fatalist, Naomi thought sadly, when the girl opened her mouth to object, but closed it without speaking and shrugged indifferently.
“At home, I cook, clean, and take care of my mama’s children. I study at the drugstore where I work after school and weekends, but I have to be careful not to get caught. I come here for the company, so I can hear people talk good English and see what you’re supposed to wear and how you’re supposed to act. I can get by without the tutoring.”
“Do you enjoy the tutoring, Linda?”
“Yeah. It makes my grades better, but I just like to be around you. You treat me like I’m the same as you.”
“But you are the same.”
“No, I’m not. You got choices, and I don’t have any yet.” She smiled then. “But I’m going to have them. I’m going to be able to decide what I want. I’m going to learn to type and use computers. That way, I’ll always be able to get a good job, and I’ll be able to work my way through college.” She paused and looked down at her hands. “I’m not ever going to have any children, and I’m never going on welfare and have people snooping around to check on me. It’s humiliating.”
Good for you, Naomi thought, but she needed to correct her about one thing.
“I’m sure that motherhood has many wonderful rewards,” she told her. “When you fall in love and get married, you may change your mind.”
Indicating what she thought of that advice, Linda pulled on one of her many braids and rolled her eyes disdainfully. “Not me,” she objected, slumping down in the straight-backed chair. “All I have to do is look at my mama and then look at you. There’s never going to be a man smart enough to con me into having a baby. After taking care of all my mama’s babies, I’d have to be touched in the head to have one.”
Naomi didn’t like the trend of the conversation. “You’ll see things differently when you’re older,” she responded, thinking that she would have to teach Linda that life was more enjoyable if you laughed at it sometimes.
“Really?” the girl asked skeptically. “I see you don’t have any kids.” Linda opened her book, effectively ending the discussion. Shocked, and unable to find any other way to get the privacy she needed, Naomi lowered her eyes.
They completed the literature assignment, and as Naomi reflected on Linda’s above-average intelligence, the girl suddenly produced a drawing.
“What do you think of this?” she asked, almost defensively.
Naomi scrutinized it and regarded the girl whose face was haunted with expectancy. “You’ve got good technique, and this piece shows imagination. I like it.”
Linda looked up and smiled wistfully. “I love to paint most of all. It’s one thing nobody can tell me is good or bad, because I always manage to paint exactly what I feel.” As if she had disclosed something that she thought too intimate to tell another person, Linda quickly left the room.
Naomi watched her leave. Crazy about painting and forced to study literature. It was almost like seeing her own youth in someone else, except that she had had all the advantages of upper-middle-class life that Linda lacked. She understood now that her strong attraction to Chuck had partly been escape from loneliness. He had fulfilled her need for the loving affection that she missed at home, and he’d made her feel wanted. Cherished. God forbid that because of a desolate life, Linda should follow in her footsteps, she mused, getting up to replace her teaching aids in the cabinet that held her supplies.
Rufus stole silently away from the open door and, deep in thought, made his way slowly up to the president’s office. He was a board member of Urban Alliance and stopped by One Last Chance to discuss with its president participation in the Alliance’s annual fund-raising gala. He hadn’t known of Naomi’s association with OLC and was surprised to find her there. Certainly, he would not have expected to witness her gently nurturing that young girl. She had empathized totally with the girl, whose background was probably the exact opposite of her own, holding him nearly spellbound. He mounted the creaky spiral staircase whose once-regal Royal Bokhara runners were now threadbare, thinking that perhaps he had misjudged Naomi again. He had gotten the impression from her letters that career and independence were what she cherished most and that, like his ex-wife, she thought of little else and wouldn’t take the time to nurture another human being.
Maybe she was different from what she represented herself to be. She was tender and solicitous with his boys, who were immediately charmed by her. Captivated was more like it. Not because of the ice cream, either; they ate ice cream just about every day. No. It was more. He couldn’t define it any more than he could figure out why she’d had such a powerful impact on him, why she was constantly in his thoughts.
She was brash and a little cynical. But she was also soft and giving. He remembered his sudden need to get out of her apartment, away from her; he had never had difficulty controlling his libido until he’d met that woman. He grinned. She affected his temper that way, too.
He sat listening to Maude Frazier outline her plans for One Last Chance’s contribution to the gala, aware that her words held no interest for him; his mind was on Naomi Logan. In an abrupt decision, he politely told Maude goodbye and loped down the stairs in hopes of seeing Naomi before she left. He was relieved to find her in the basement laundry room. And what a sight! Without the combs and pins, her hair was a wild, thick frizz, and her slacks and shirt were wet in front. He leaned against the laundry room door and watched her dash around the room folding laundry and coping with an overflowing washing machine.
“Want some help?”
She dropped a clean tablecloth back into the sudsy water, braced her hands on her hips, and stood glaring at him.
“See what you made me do? You frightened me.” He observed her closely, but with pretended casualness. Was she trembling?
“Sorry. Anything I can do to make up for it?”
“You can help me fold these things, and you can wipe that cocky grin off of your face.” She hated being caught off guard; he didn’t blame her. It put you at a disadvantage.
She was obviously wary of him, and he wanted to put her at ease, so he spread his hands palms upward in a gesture of defenselessness. “I’m innocent of whatever it is you’re planning to hang me for, Naomi. Now, if you’ll show me how you want these things folded, I’ll help you.” She did, and they worked in companionable silence.
Rufus carefully hid his inner feelings, controlling the heady excitement of being with her, but he wouldn’t bet that he’d be able to hold it back for long. He wouldn’t put a penny on it. She zonked him.
His impatient nature wouldn’t allow him to wait longer before probing. “I’m surprised to see you here.”
“And why would that be? Why do you think I don’t care about people?” she asked him, a bit sharply.
Didn’t she know that her defensiveness was bound to make him suspicious? He was a journalist, after all. He shrugged and decided not to accept the challenge. He wanted to know her, not fence with her. “Did I say that, Naomi? I’ve seen softness in you.” And I want to know whether it’s real.
“Humph. Me? A career woman?” Her glance must have detected the tenderness, the protectiveness that he felt, because she reacted almost as if he’d kissed her. Her lowered eyes and the sensual sound of her sucking in her breath sent his blood rushing through his veins.
Rufus quickly cooled his rising ardor. He sensed her nervousness but didn’t comment on it, as he weighed her consistent refusal to carry on a serious conversation with him. When she finally looked directly at him, he spoke. “You treat everything I say with equal amounts of disdain.”
“Be fair. Aren’t you exaggerating?” He was sure that his words had stung her, though that was not what he had intended.
“Not by much, I’m not,” he answered, running the fingers of his left hand through his hair and furrowing his brow. “Do you volunteer here often?” He switched topics in the hope of avoiding a confrontation and making peace between them. “You seemed to have unusually good rapport with the girl whom you were tutoring. Most kids in these programs don’t relate well to their tutors and mentors. How do you manage it?”
He found her inability to disguise her pleasure at his compliment intriguing; it meant that she valued his opinion. If he let her have the psychological distance that she seemed to want, maybe she would open up.
“You saw us?” He nodded. “It isn’t difficult; she’s hungry for attention and for a role model, and I really like her.” They were leaning against the washing machines, and he appraised her with a thoroughness that embarrassed her.
“Is she one of the girls sent here from Juvenile Court? What had she done?”
Naomi’s eyes snapped in warning, and her tone was sharp. “Linda found her way here on her own. She had the intelligence to realize that she needed help. I doubt she’ll ever become a delinquent.”
Her fierce protectiveness of the girl puzzled Rufus; his reporter’s instincts told him that something important lay behind it, but he didn’t consider it timely to pursue the matter. He looked at the pile of laundry that they’d folded and sorted. “Well, that’s finished. Anything else?”
“No. That’s it. I’ve got to get home and deal with my work.” When he didn’t respond, she looked up, and he had the satisfaction of seeing guilt mirrored in her eyes. Guilt for having been provocative again without cause. He altered his censorious appraisal of her, relaxing his face, letting the warmth within him flow out to her, and her expressive eyes told him that she responded to what he felt. She should have moved, but she didn’t, and he reached for her, involuntarily, but quickly withdrew his hand. He looked into the distance, then glanced back at Naomi, who remained inches from him, standing in a way that told him she wouldn’t mind if he touched her. He didn’t want to leave her, he realized, but he had little choice unless he found a casual way to keep her with him.
“I promised to attend a lecture on the family over at Howard, and I’d invite you to join me if your clothes were dry.” He thought for a second. “Well, you can keep you coat on. Think your work can wait an hour or so?” She smiled, and he sensed an inner warmth in her that he hadn’t previously detected. He’d always thought her beautiful, but that smile made her beauty ethereal.
He took her hand. “Come on. Say yes.” She nodded, and he clasped her hand, soft and delicate, in his. At that moment, he knew he felt more for her than he wanted to or than was sensible and made a mental note to back off.
Chapter 3
They left the lecture in a playful mood. “Okay, I agree that he wasn’t a genius,” Rufus declared, “but he did make some good points.” His changing facial expressions fascinated her. Naomi watched a grin drift over his face slowly, like a pleasant idea dawning, and walked closer to him. She was not inclined to give the lecturer as much credit as he did, though, and they joked about the man’s shortcomings.
Arm in arm, they crossed the street to where two boys in their mid-teens stood beneath the streetlight. One cocked his head, gave them a hard look as they approached, and then ran up to Rufus.
“I don’t believe it, man. Look who this is! How ya doin’, Mr. Meade?” Naomi watched while Rufus autographed the boys’ shirts, since they had nothing else on which he could write, answered their questions, and gave them reasons why they shouldn’t hang out in the streets. The happy youths thanked him and promised to take his advice.
“Right on, man!” one said, as the two ambled toward what Naomi and Rufus both hoped was home. He’s a kind and gentle man, she decided. And not merely with his own children. What other celebrity with his stature, a best-selling author, would stand on a street corner at nine at night and give autographs to two street urchins? She frowned. And when had boys like those begun to read books on delinquency? Maybe they knew his journalistic writings, but she didn’t think so. No doubt there was something about him that she didn’t know.
At her car, he told Naomi, “I’ve enjoyed being with you tonight, Naomi. I enjoyed it a lot.” He paused, making up his mind, remembering his earlier vow to back off. She was a heady lure, a magnet, and he wasn’t going to get mired in her quicksand. He took his time deciding to walk away, all the while searching her face intently. Then he held the door for her. “Good night Naomi, I hope we meet again soon.”
Naomi drove away feeling as if he had dangled her from a long pole, gotten tired, and dropped her. She had learned one thing that evening, though: she wasn’t merely attracted to him; Rufus Meade was a man whom she could genuinely like, even care for. And therein lay the danger! But she knew he had not forgiven her for suggesting that he hire a woman to care for his boys. If he had, he would have kissed her good-night, she reasoned, because every move he made said it was what he wanted. And she had wanted him to do it. She had better watch herself.
She entered her apartment and didn’t stop until she reached her bedroom. At least I’m consistent, she joked to herself, looking around the dusty rose room, as she pulled off her dusty rose sweater and reached for her gown of the same color. She stretched out on a chaise lounge and thought about the evening with Rufus.
She could hardly believe that he had invited her to the lecture of that she had so readily agreed to go. She hadn’t said yes voluntarily; she had been drugged by his charisma. He was smoldering fire, and if she didn’t stay away from him, she would be badly burned. Her tinkling laughter broke the silence. All of a sudden, she understood moths.
Rufus took his minivan swiftly up Georgia Avenue, across Military Road, and north on Connecticut Avenue to Chevy Chase and home. His sister, Jewel, greeted him at his front door.
“Who on earth is Noomie? Preston and Sheldon have been telling me stories about her: she’s a fairy; she makes ice cream; she has a pink nose; she lives in Thessa; and you are angry with her.”
Rufus frowned. “She doesn’t have a pink nose, and she lives in Bethesda. Except for that, they’re right.” He had already learned that when you have small children, you have few secrets.
Jewel put her hands on her hips and wrinkled her nose affectionately. “Anything else?” He knew she always became suspicious when he didn’t satisfy her curiosity. Still, he was uncomfortable with the discussion.
“Not that I know of. Thanks for staying with my boys, Jewel; I hate for them to sleep away from home, and if you didn’t sit here with them, I wouldn’t have a choice.” He walked her to her car. “I’ll call Jeff and tell him you’re on your way so he can watch for you. Don’t forget to call me. You know when you babysit for me at night, I’m always uneasy until I know you’re safely in your house.”
She hugged him affectionately. “Rufus, you are such a worrywart. You know I’ll be all right. Look…”
“Go on, say it.”
“No. I shouldn’t interfere in your life.”
He opened her car door. “Of course I worry about you, Jewel. I look after you because you’re my sister. Heck. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t looking out for you. But I’d be equally concerned for the safety of any other woman leaving me and traveling alone this time of night—though that rarely happens.”
Jewel grabbed the chance. “Does that include Noomie? Or do you plan to keep her a secret forever?”
“Her name is Naomi, and there isn’t much to tell. She has pros and she has cons and right now, I’m shuffling that deck, so to speak.”
“Which side was winning when you left her tonight?”
Jewel understood him better than anyone else ever had, so he wasn’t surprised at her blunt question. She always said that pussyfooting around got you nowhere with him. Still, he didn’t like being transparent, not even to her. “You’re saying I was with her tonight?” He looked down at his sister, a beautiful, happy wife and mother, and grinned when he felt her grasp his arm lightly. Jewel always liked to touch when she talked. Naomi was a toucher, too.
“Yes, you were. There’s a softness about you that says you wish you were with her now.”
He leaned against her dark blue Mercedes coupe and folded his arms against his broad chest. “I think it best that I don’t discuss her just now, Jewel; I don’t know where our relationship is going or if it’s going anywhere at all.” He looked off into the distance. He didn’t want to talk about Naomi; he was too full of her.
“Rufus,” Jewel began apologetically, as if wary of breaching is privacy. “Are you beginning to care for this woman? If you are, give her a chance, a real chance. There must be a reason why the boys are so taken with her, talking about her almost nonstop.”
“I’d rather not go into this, Jewel.” He didn’t want to legitimize Naomi as the woman in his life by discussing her with his sister. He knew Naomi wasn’t like Etta Mae. And he knew that his loveless marriage with his ex-wife wouldn’t have worked even if she hadn’t wanted a career as a high-fashion model. She had never committed herself to the marriage, and when the twins were born, she didn’t commit to them. Only to her career. He hadn’t discouraged her; she needed the spotlight, and he had wanted her to be happy. But how could she have left her three-week-old babies and gone on an overseas modeling assignment? And she’d stayed there.
Jewel’s grip tightened on his arm. “This is part of your problem, honey. Don’t compare her with Etta Mae, whom you still refuse to talk about; it hurts you, so you bury it all inside, where it simmers and festers and gets bigger than it really is. She isn’t evil; she just has tunnel vision. Try to stop reopening those wounds; you’ll never be happy till you do. Let it go, Rufus.”
He moved away, turned, and voiced what he had never before mentioned to her. “What about Mama? She wasn’t there for us, either.”
Jewel shook him gently. “But she took whatever jobs she could get, and that meant traveling. She once told me that she didn’t have a choice.”
It was as if he hadn’t heard her. “She made a living, but she was never home, and in the end, she didn’t come back. When I knew that she wasn’t coming back, that she had gone down in that plane, I thought I would die, too. She was going to write a book on cocoa. Cocoa, for God’s sake!”
His sister’s startled look told him she hadn’t realized that after sixteen years he was still in such turmoil about their mother. “Rufus listen to me. You’ve forgotten something very important. Papa had been an invalid since before I was born, and Mama had to support us. Etta Mae worked because she wanted to. That’s a big difference.”
The only evidence he gave of his inner conflict was the involuntary twitch of a jaw muscle. “Maybe I shouldn’t have voiced my feelings. But I used to cry myself to sleep when I was little, because I missed her. You didn’t feel so alone, because you had me. When you were born, I swore I’d take care of you. Mama had a hard life: a breadwinner, a young woman married in name only and forced to be away from her children. Jewel, I don’t want a woman I love to be caught up in that kind of conflict, and if I married while my boys are little, well…”
He disliked speaking of his personal feelings, but his love for his sister forced him to continue to try and make her understand the choices he made. “Preston and Sheldon are my life. I left my job at the Journal to work at home as a freelancer because they needed me, and I wanted to be there for them. I remember what it was like to be left with a succession of maids, babysitters, and cleaning women to whom I was just a job. And my boys are not going to live like that. Jewel, I can’t expect a woman to put my children before her own interests; their own mother didn’t do it.”
He put an arm around his sister’s shoulder. “Naomi has a career and she’s devoted to it. She’s also very good at what she does, and she deserves every opportunity to reach the top of her field.” He paused, then spoke as if to himself. “And I’ll be the first to applaud her when she gets there.”
He opened the car door. “Enough reminiscing. It’s getting late.”
Jewel started the motor. “At least you’re thinking about her. That’s all I want, Rufus, that you’ll find someone who truly cares for you and whom you can love in return. When that happens, you’ll forget about these other concerns.”
Rufus looked in on his boys, got a can of ginger ale from the kitchen, and went to his study. But after an hour, still looking at a blank page, he conceded defeat. He couldn’t afford to become involved with Naomi. She was a complicated mixture of sweetness, charm, sexiness, simple decency, and fear. He enjoyed her fun and intelligence and, most of the time, loved being with her. Her cynical wit didn’t fool him, and didn’t matter much. He knew it was a screen, a defense. And he couldn’t dismiss his hunch that there was a connection between Naomi and that girl at OLC, or that Naomi saw one.
He answered the telephone on the first ring, hoping it was the woman in his thoughts.
“Rufus, this is Jewel. I want you to think hard about this. What can be so unacceptable about Naomi if Preston and Sheldon are crazy in love with her? You know they aren’t friendly with strangers; in fact, they shy away from people they don’t know well. Talk, Rufus. It might help.”
He hesitated, understanding that his response to her could become his answer to himself. He knew with certainty only that he wanted Naomi, but he wasn’t foolish enough to let his libido decide anything for him. He thought for a moment and answered her as best he could.
