Picking Up the Pieces

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“Please, don’t go. That was rude of me and I apologize. I swear not to say another nasty word.”

Althea hesitated, of two minds whether to stay. “All right, I’ll chalk it up to your fever—but only this once,” she warned.

“Scout’s honor, Allie, I’ll be nice. Come on, bring me up-to-date. Why the sad look?”

Althea wasn’t sure she wanted to explain, but her down-turned mouth spoke volumes. “Do you remember Connie Niles?”

Unpleasant memories darkened his eyes. “Quite well. She was no fan of mine, and if I remember correctly, the feeling was mutual. Connie had a real attitude about my dating you, which she never bothered to hide. I used to think she disapproved of my skin color—or the lack, therein.”

“Connie was looking out for my interests. She never approved of interracial dating. She used to say that white men dated black women for—”

“For?”

Heat stole to her face. “I’m embarrassed to say.”

“Say it.”

“Um, I think the expression is ‘brown sugar’….”

Harry was appalled. “And you believed her?”

“Oh, like that was unheard of?” she retorted impatiently. “In any case, I was young, and everything Connie said was the gospel.”

“Everything Connie Niles said was vulgar!”

“Look, Harry, can we not go into this? I was seventeen when I arrived in New York, an ignorant, backwoods country girl from the deep South, her drawl as distinct as the stars in her eyes, and you know that better than anyone. I thank God every day that Connie Niles saw something in me, or it would have been straight back to Alabama for me. Connie was more than my savior, she was my mentor and my best friend, a sister to me, in those early years.”

“And what was I?” Harry growled. “Your sugar daddy?”

“The most daddy I ever knew. He left before I was born, and that’s something that’s never going to happen to me again. So excuse me for picking my icons carefully.”

“Lots of kids don’t have fathers,” Harry said, his glare harsh and accusing. “How come I’ve never heard this stuff before? Why didn’t you mention this when we were living together?”

Angry, Althea didn’t answer. She’d been through all this with Harry before, he just didn’t want to admit it. Leaving him had been first and foremost a career decision. Refusing to be baited, she gazed out the window instead, staring absently down at the parking lot where tiny specks of humanity skittered about. She could feel Harry’s eyes, feel him waiting for an answer she really didn’t have—not anything he’d like to hear, in any case. She had done the unforgivable by asking him to leave, and she wasn’t under any illusions that his resentment had faded, even after a decade. When she turned back to him, her face was carefully neutral. Besides, why would she argue with him when he was sick? “Like I said, can we not go there?”

Her retreat annoyed Harry, but he backed off. He would have preferred a battle to her apparent withdrawal, but he didn’t have the strength to go there. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s all a long time ago. So, how has life treated you? Did you ever have any children? I don’t recall reading that you did, but I’ve been away a lot. I might have missed a paper or two.” He grinned.

“Children? No, of course not.” Althea laughed quietly, surprised at the question.

“‘Of course not’?”

“There was never any time.”

Her flip tone told Harry that she wasn’t telling him the whole story, but he wisely changed the direction of the conversation. “Okay, go on, tell me what happened between you and Connie Niles today.”

“There’s not much to tell. Connie wasn’t very enthusiastic about my asking for work, that’s all. As a matter of fact, she turned me down.”

Harry was incredulous. “She turned you down? Why? Is the industry in trouble?”

“I’m the one in trouble,” Althea said softly, her eyes suddenly bleak.

It was worse than bad, it had been humiliating. Her initial reception that morning at the Niles Model Agency had been effusive. Everyone had greeted her warmly, careful to hide their surprise at her unexpected appearance. Not careful enough, though. It was easy to read the questions in their eyes, although they were too polite to ask her anything directly. Fortunately, Connie Niles had ushered Althea into her private office before any embarrassing questions could be posed, and listened carefully while Althea explained.

“I want to come back to work.”

Connie had always been a good listener, nothing fazed her. “These men,” she clucked sympathetically.

“No, Connie!” Althea had interrupted her quickly. “This is not Daniel’s fault, nor mine. Things just didn’t work out. It will be in all the papers in a few days, when he announces our split, but, please, don’t blame him. It was an amicable divorce, I want to be very clear about that. To you most of all, because you’ve been like a sister to me, and I want you to know how things stand. But don’t assign blame where there is none. Like I said, things just didn’t work out.”

Connie shrugged. “Fine, I won’t ask any more questions. Do you have enough money to tide you over?”

“Money is not an issue.”

“No, I didn’t think so.” Never one to mince words, Connie was frank. “Look here, Althea, Ambassador Daniel Boylan is a very popular man—not to mention powerful. And his hailing from New York doesn’t help.”

“Isn’t there anything I can do?”

Connie shrugged her thin shoulders. “You’re going to get some mighty bad press—quite dreadful, I would imagine. I can practically write it for you in all its glorious vulgarity. Black Beauty Abandons Ambassador. It has a certain ring to it, don’t you think?”

“That bad?” Althea sighed.

Connie was emphatic. “You’ll make the front pages, for sure, child. But not to worry. It will all die a natural death as soon as the next scandal breaks. There’s always another story waiting around the corner. You know that. But until then, darling, until you and Daniel are not the story, there’s no work for you here in the Big Apple,” she said brusquely. “And all that free publicity! What a waste! Too bad, Althea, but you’re a bit of a liability now.”

Her cheeks burning, Althea had suffered Connie’s blunt words. “So you think it’s going to be that bad?”

“Well, let me ask you this, sweetie. How do you feel about Los Angeles?”

“And that was that!” Althea said, as she finished describing the nightmare interview, her eyes flashing. “You would think my name in the papers would please Connie but it seems that Ambassador Daniel Boylan’s black shadow hovers over me like a shroud. His stature in the African-American community cannot be ‘besmirched’—Connie’s word. At least, that’s how the agency expects I’m going to be painted when the press gets wind of the story. And because Connie herself is active in the African-American community, she is not going to make waves.”

Harry lay there, shaken, unsure what to say. “Divorced? Wow, that’s the one thing I never would have guessed. Ah, jeez, Allie, I’m sorry, I really am.”

Althea closed her eyes against the sympathy in Harry’s voice. “Thanks, but don’t be. It was a mutual decision. My first alimony check is already deposited in my bank account and Daniel will continue to make deposits so long as ‘I don’t cause any scandal.’ Real diplomatic of an ambassador, don’t you think? The size of the check is his insurance—and it’s substantial, to say the least. Not that he can’t afford it. Even given that he has the power of his family and the authority of his position to rise above a scandal, he wants to be absolutely certain there won’t be any. And that, my friend, is why Connie Niles is not about to risk the wrath of the Boylan family by hiring me.”

“They would come after you?”

“With all six barrels blasting.” Althea laughed bitterly. “Not that they would find anything. My life is so boring it would please a nun. But the answer is yes, they would come after me. All his life, Daniel has been groomed for big things, and now that he has become a power broker, they aren’t going to let anything or anyone spoil it, certainly not an ex-wife. They would look until they found something. Daniel would never know, of course, but a discreet word was dropped in my ear by the family’s attorney the day I signed the divorce papers. ‘Rumors, my dear, so easily begun, almost impossible to set right….’ Don’t I know it.”

“My God. There’s a nasty setup, if ever I heard one. But the Althea Almott I used to know was a pretty tough lady. I can’t imagine you taking this lying down. Are you really so worried? The press adores you, if those nasty tabloids I never read are any indication. It’s you who can’t do anything wrong, not Daniel Boylan.”

Althea was thoughtful. Her amber eyes, carefully shielded by her long lashes, refused to meet his. “I handled things all wrong.”

Some things, in any case. Guilt by omission. Only, she would not share that part of her story. But from day one Daniel believed she had trapped him into marriage with the oldest trick in the book—a pregnancy. As if she’d needed to lower herself to that level. It had been the press that had started the rumor, and once begun, it could not be stopped. She had been used to rumors. Models, actors, anyone in the limelight, it was all the same, rumors were always a threat, Daniel should have known that from his own experience. Unfortunately, he seemed not to have thought things out, had mistaken her amusement for confirmation and, diplomat that he was, had never bothered to ask her outright if she was pregnant. Loving him, she had not bothered to deny it. When their marriage was quickly arranged by the Boylan family, she had sat back and let it happen. Okay, a big mistake, but her only one. She had gone along with the marriage because she thought he loved her. He hadn’t. It was over the moment he realized that she wasn’t pregnant. Courtesy stopped him from requesting a divorce, but his distaste for the situation became untenable. She stayed until she could no longer bear it. Learning that Daniel had not loved her was a wound that would take a long time to heal.

Chapter Four

Harry found himself at cross-purposes. He still harbored enormous anger at Althea for leaving him in the first place, but as she sat by his bedside day after day, making small talk, reading aloud to him, keeping his spirits up, his defenses began to weaken. Since she was now divorced, he didn’t have to feel guilty spending time with her. He just wasn’t sure he wanted to.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t had his heart broken in this lifetime. He’d had two serious—very serious—relationships since Althea, just not serious enough to make a commitment. As a matter of fact, he had met someone right after they broke up, a sweet little thing from Colombia, where he had hidden after their breakup. He still smiled when he recalled the delightful nights they spent on the beach, until her father got wind of their “friendship.” In fact, he had been willing to walk down the aisle with her, but she had balked at leaving South America. They were still in negotiations when Harry was felled by his first bout of malaria and headed back to the States. He traveled home alone and didn’t worry about returning. She didn’t seem to expect him back. In retrospect, he knew he was lucky, that it had been a rebound situation.

Then, three years ago, while doing the college lecture circuit, he had hooked up with a rich college kid from Boston. A one-night stand that turned into a yearlong affair and ended in a fiasco. It seemed she’d forgotten to mention a boyfriend on a European tour.

Now, as he lay in his hospital bed, his body might ache, he could barely keep his food down, and if he sat up too quickly, he was dizzy, but he knew he wasn’t entirely miserable. When Althea sat beside him, he was beguiled. She brought books and read quietly, while he drifted in and out of sleep. Another day she surprised him with a radio—he loathed television and refused to rent one. From that day forward, he was able to keep up with the news. She listened patiently when he disparaged the lousy hospital food, and showed up with fresh bread and clear soups. (When the nurses noticed the delicious smells, Althea arranged to have Chinese take-out delivered to their station.) They discussed her career, and his, the interesting turns they had taken professionally, the places they’d been, the people they had met.

But Harry’s favorite thing was to watch how Althea’s eyes blazed when he teased her, and he did so every opportunity he got. He liked to watch her tamp down her exasperation when he tried her patience with the silliest demands. He also liked to catch her out, catch her staring when she thought he was sleeping. At such moments he wondered what she was thinking, but he never dared to ask. Other times he pretended to sleep because then she would sit beside him and stroke his brow.

“You seem so rough around the edges,” she said one day, while she was combing back his freshly washed hair.

“No evidence of a leavening feminine hand?” he said, his voice ironic.

“Your clothes at the airport… You could use a haircut,” she admitted.

“Tell me the truth,” he said, sharing her smile, “do you ever have a bad day? Last fall I saw you on the cover of Ebony, and I remember wishing I had taken the picture, you looked so beautiful. Then I saw the inside layout, you and your husband hanging out at the embassy—you know, one of those a-day-in-the-life sort of articles—and I was glad I hadn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the ambassador—I don’t even know him, just what I read in the papers—I was just glad I hadn’t been there, that’s all. All that connubial bliss would have made me, um, queasy.”

“Well, let that be a lesson,” Althea said with a short laugh, “not to believe everything you read.” But before he could question her curious remark, she smoothly changed the subject. “Hey, I’m not the only one who’s famous. Have I said how many times I’ve run across your byline? Harry Bensen Sweeps Himalayas. Harry Uncovers Hidden Ruins of Hammurabi. Bensen Photographs Yangtze River. You’re as much an explorer as photographer. I went to one of your exhibits, you know, the one you had in Paris last fall.”

“I wish I’d known. On second thought, I’m glad I didn’t,” Harry decided. “I would have been nervous wondering what you thought of my work.”

“Fame can be a burden,” she said with a stilted laugh.

Harry was doubtful. “Are you so burdened, Althea? Too pretty, too rich, too many houses?”

Althea looked down at Harry’s hands, long, pale fingers sprinkled with blond hair, handsome hands that had given her body its first lesson in love. But the choices they’d made, that she had made the decade before, were still being played out. If she had regrets, and she had terrible regrets, she would keep them to herself. “Let me be, Harry,” she said quietly. “Don’t ask me any questions, and I won’t ask you mine.”

They never got personal again, and they never talked about their past together. Harry would have—it was always a word away from his lips—but Althea’s message was clear, and he sensed that one wrong word and she might be out the door, a gamble he didn’t want to take.

And he would have touched her—oh, countless times he would have liked to reach out—but his hand always stilled. He would not make the same mistake twice. Her ex-husband, Daniel, was nothing, a year out of Althea’s life, a mistake. But wasn’t he, too? That’s what Harry kept telling himself, the long hours he lay in his hospital bed, up to the very moment he was informed that he could leave the hospital four days later. Very nearly what Althea told herself, too, as she prowled her apartment that long week, so it was not surprising that their needs would blend.