She pulled open the door and stepped into the hallway. Her last image of Zach was his mouth set in a straight line, his arms at his sides, his fists balled.
With compact motions, Kara looked up and down the hallway, her breath coming in short gasps. The elevator bank was to her right and the stairs to the left. Waiting in the hallway for the elevator didn't seem like a good option, so she headed for the exit sign at the end of the corridor. Once there, she opened the door and started down the steps. After each flight, she paused and listened, and hearing nothing, she staggered down to the next floor.
* * *
Danny spun around. "Hey, girl." He sounded tentative, questioning, as if he were unsure if she was glad to see him. As tall as Kara, similarly thin and fit, Danny's bittersweet chocolate-colored skin glistened in the hallway light.
"Hey, yourself."
Kara felt exhausted. Time had crawled as the 2 train had banged its way north. At first, she tried not to think, but thoughts came anyway. She'd heard about flashbacks. Some war vets suffered from them. Images swarmed, taking the vets back to some life-or-death fight. Her dreams were like that. When she was with Zach tonight, was that like a daytime flashback? Marci Nye, her savior-therapist, would know what to make of them. Once Kara got the FBI behind her, she'd make an appointment.
By the time Kara was eighteen, she was still a virgin—well, not a virgin, but the only woman her age she knew who had not had consensual sex. When she took a chance with a boy a few years older, it had hurt like hell, not just inside her vagina but also through every muscle in her body. The migraine that followed made waves of red undulate in front of her eyes.
"Contrary to the images in the movies," Tuesday had responded when Kara asked her about it, "most women hate sex."
That didn't seem right, so Kara sought help. Post-traumatic stress disorder was the diagnosis. What had happened to her as a child—the loss of her mother; being put into foster care; the physical, verbal, and sexual abuse at the hands of Big Jim—had left her traumatized. Weekly sessions with Marci Nye helped her heal. Marci made it safe to talk about everything. They were working on sex, helping Kara find ways to have a normal sex life, and she'd mostly stopped thinking about Big Jim. But now memories of those nights bubbled up and spilled over like a pot of pasta left too long on the stove. Did this happen to Tuesday? Did she experience flashbacks like this?
Danny brought her out of her thoughts: "How are you doing?" He searched her face. "We were worried about you."
"I didn't mean to trouble anyone."
"I was way out of line the other day. I'm really sorry."
What was he apologizing for? Had they had a fight? She couldn't remember. "No problem."
"So, what are you going to do?"
What was he talking about . . . do about what? Then she remembered—he knew about the FBI.
"Mrs. E. thinks you might need a lawyer."
She shook her head no, she had probably just needed a lawyer the first time the agents came to her. How could a lawyer help her now?
"Someone who knows the ropes, could watch your back." He moved closer to her, his eyes wide. "Kara, what the hell happened to you?" He reached out and gently touched her check. She winced. "Did someone hit you?"
"I think it's too late for a lawyer."
As if reading her mind, Danny said, "A good lawyer might convince the FBI to leave you out of the investigation."
That made sense. After all, when she delivered the envelopes, she didn't know what was in them. She still didn't. Agent Boyd had said Zach was involved in insider trading, but Kara hadn't benefited from trading of any kind. No money had come her way.
On the other hand, when Zach asked her to deliver the second package, he had said there was a big merger afoot. In his business, Zach was probably privy to information about lots of mergers prior to the public knowing. He could buy stock at lower prices through Sam Westin just before the price went up. As his courier, even though she wasn't in on it, she might be culpable—the agents had pretty much said so. Nor could she say she was unsuspecting. Westin had confirmed her worst fears, but that was after the fact, after she'd made the second delivery. Yet a lawyer might be able to show the FBI she couldn't help them. All she had were suspicions and no facts.
None of this, however, did she say aloud. Danny was still staring at her as if she had said or done something ridiculous.
"Do you know someone?" she asked.
"Mrs. E. has a friend willing to help. What happened to your face?"
"Did she say how I could get in touch with this friend?"
Danny took a big breath. "I'm on my way to church and Mrs. E. is at Mass. Why don't we get together around noon and we can ask her to give the guy a call."
He was still watching her, as if waiting for something, but she couldn't think what that could be.
"Do you want to come to church with me?"
Church. Peace. Music.
"I find when I turn it over to the Lord—"
"Noon sounds good," she cut in. "Thanks." Kara turned and dragged her body up the stairs to her rooms. She could feel Danny's eyes still on her. She should go with him. Maybe next Sunday.
* * *
At first Marty had acted uninterested in seeing her. She'd been gone since Saturday afternoon. Of course Mrs. E. had fed him, but his litter box needed changing, and his gaze felt accusatory. Kara was too exhausted, however, to make amends. As if he sensed her stress, Marty seemed to forgive her. He leaped onto her lap, his gimpy half-leg tucked against his underbelly, and stretched and purred against her. The vibrations from his rumbles had their usual calming effect on her, lowering her anxiety with each second.
She wasn't sure how long she'd sat there, curled up with Marty, trying not to remember or yearn. The barely there March sunlight warmed her face through the window.
Mrs. E.'s voice disturbed the quiet: "Kara, you up there?"
Startled, Kara jumped; Marty did too. "Yes." The grandfather clock chimed twice, so she must have fallen asleep. A chill moved through her. She was supposed to meet Danny and Mrs. E. around noon. The growling from her stomach reminded her she had not eaten since the night before, and had thrown up all of that.
After washing her face and brushing her teeth, Kara headed downstairs, Marty at her heels. A man about five feet six, of indeterminate age, with caramel skin and a mustache, watched as she descended.
"Kara Lawrence, meet Norman Green."
Kara learned that the eighty-two-year-old Norman was the Edgecombe family lawyer summoned on her behalf.
Despite her natural reluctance to open up, Kara decided it was in her best interest to tell Norman Green everything. As her tale unfolded, she found it was a lot easier than she thought it would be. At first hesitantly, and then with greater clarity, prodded on by Mr. Green's questions, Kara explained about the envelopes, visits to Sam Westin's office, the FBI following and threatening her. Throughout the narration, the lawyer nodded his head and occasionally jotted notes in a steno pad with a pencil stub.
"Zach said he would clear it all up tomorrow. Special Agent Boyd said that I have until midnight tomorrow to agree to help them. After that he wouldn't make any deals with me, and they'll assume I'm an accomplice." Her stomach put a period to her tale with a growl so loud she was sure everyone heard it. "Excuse me."
"Hmmm," the lawyer said in response.
"Can you help her or not?" Mrs. E. asked.
"Of course I can." He sounded like an expat Englishman rather than a Harlem native. "They have nothing, we'll give them nothing, and they can do nothing."
Danny asked, "What should she do when they come back?"
Norman Green gathered his overcoat. "They won't." He fingered Agent Boyd's business card. "I'll reach out to the agent and report back to you sometime tomorrow." He shrugged into his coat, bowed to Kara, shook Danny's hand, and kissed Mrs. E.'s cheek. "Good afternoon to you all."
* * *
Danny, Kara, and Mrs. E. finished their grilled-ch
eese-and-tomato sandwiches and downed the last cups of hot cocoa. Kara's spirits were rebounding.
"How old is that guy anyway?" Danny wiped his mouth on a napkin. "He's gotta be at least a hundred."
Mrs. E. didn't take the bait.
"You two old lovers or something?"
"Mind your manners, officer."
Danny chuckled. "Friends, I meant."
"Indeed, an old friend. And he is not one hundred."
"So, how'd you meet him? What's his story?"
"If you really want to know . . ."
"Absolutely."
"His grandfather and mine were friends and colleagues."
Danny sliced off a hunk of iced-chocolate cake and put it on his plate. "Here?"
"No, they lived on Harlem's famous Sugar Hill on Edgecombe Avenue—and no, the street was not named after my family, nor my family after it."
"Wouldn't surprise me if it were. Want some cake, Kara?"
"What?"
"Cake?"
"Oh, no thanks." Kara was hardly listening; her mind was on her own troubles.
Danny's brow creased. Several beats passed, then he turned back to Mrs. E. "You were telling us about how you and the not-one-hundred-year-old Mr. Green came to be friends."
Mrs. E. made a sucking noise under her breath, but proceeded: "My grandmother came here from British Guyana, from a home staffed by servants. She landed in Manhattan and had to work as a lady's maid for wealthy Upper East Side women." She took a sip of her tea. "Not a lot of opportunities for black women back then."
"I bet."
"She struggled home every night, tired, took the elevator up to the fifth floor to her slice of heaven. Their apartment overlooked the Harlem River, with what was then the Polo Grounds in the foreground and a park on the other side. Every night she'd gaze out on what she called her jewel box; she could see for miles both east and south; the Triborough Bridge was her string of pearls, the bend in the highway making a perfect loop; the red and blue lights of La Guardia Field, what they called the airport back then, way in the distance, were her rubies and sapphires; and all the other lights made the rings and pins."
"Your grandmother was a poet," Danny said.
"Indeed. But not the only accomplished person in the family. My grandfather had migrated from North Carolina. He had an undergraduate degree from Shaw University and a law degree from NYU."
"When was this?" Danny asked through a mouthful of cake.
"Around 1920, when a black man with a law degree was a rare thing indeed. Well, Grandma couldn't believe he was working as a waiter. Badgered him to quit and open up a practice. Together they did okay. Mr. Green's grandfather and mine became law partners."
In spite of her misery, Kara now focused on the story. "When did your family move here, to this house?"
"Harlem was a dazzling place—jazz clubs, literary salons. Still is, or should I say it's back to being so. The law practice blossomed, but so did the family. Children arrived at a rapid rate. They had six, one every other year, including my father."
"I get it." Danny wiped his mouth. "They needed more space."
"They found this grand mansion, at least that's how my father remembered it. Been in the family ever since."
"That was pretty rare too, right?" Danny cocked his head to one side. "Most of these old houses fell into disrepair."
"Many did. Blocks and blocks of them, cut up into rooming houses, fireplaces boarded up, parquet floors damaged beyond repair. When the neighborhood got too rough, my parents lived in Riverdale for a time, up in the West Bronx, but they never sold the old girl. As things in Harlem started to turn around, we moved back."
Kara asked, "So Norman Green comes from a long line of successful attorneys?"
"Yes. You don't have to worry."
Kara nodded as if she agreed. She wanted to believe Mr. Green could make it all go away, but she had her doubts. "What a wonderful story."
"Oh, I have many more," Mrs. E. said. "I'll save them for another time, when all this upset is over."
When might that be? Kara wondered.
Danny, his cake finished, peered at her. "You gonna tell us what happened to your face?"
Kara studied Danny's worried features. "I bumped it on the edge of a couch when . . ." She tried to think. "I fell. I've not been feeling well."
Mrs. E. asked, "Did you faint? Do you need to see a doctor?"
Kara couldn't continue the lie so she ignored the inquiry. "Thank you both for helping me and believing I'm innocent."
Mrs. E. tilted her head to one side, her eyes wide. "I prayed for you today. I pray every day for the both of you."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Alex lay on top of the covers in her plaid flannels, her left arm across her eyes, the right one flung high above her head. In less than sixty minutes, she was supposed to pick up her mother for Sunday brunch at a diner near the hospital. She was definitely going to be late, and yet she still didn't move. It was always hard for her to get up in the morning, and today she wanted to stay in bed until dinner. For the third night in a row, she hadn't slept—but that was only part of it. She was living a Lifetime movie drama. Freaking crazy and mortifying. Damn, she needed a cigarette.
Yesterday, after leaving the hospital at five, she'd gone by the office and worked for several hours. She didn't get home until well after ten. The Wendy's hamburger she'd picked up on the way smelled delicious. The minute she pulled off her jacket, she took three quick bites of it, the juices dribbling down her chin. She popped open a can of Heineken, icy cold, just the way she liked it. The burger disappeared with her fourth bite. Neither the beer nor the food, however, picked up her spirits. Then she remembered she'd promised to call Pigeon back.
"You won't believe this," Pigeon said after a quick hello.
She sounded happier than she had earlier that morning, which did make Alex feel a little brighter.
"We played softball and I got a base hit—me, the anti-
athlete."
"Wow, congratulations. To what do you attribute this incredible feat?" From her perch on her bed, Alex clicked on the television but kept it on mute; the newscasters' mouths moved and pictures of floods from some other state filled the screen.
"That's the thing. I've always been the kid nobody picked."
"Sports were not part of our home life, that's for sure." Alex and her father rode horses, but that was about it. She took another pull on her beer. "So, did you win?"
"No, but we still had a blast."
By Pigeon's account, Saturday had been a warm, sunny day in Los Angeles, and everyone was at Griffith Park in Los Feliz, near where Tommy and his extended family lived. She described the blazing heat, the picnic tables covered with flapping paper tablecloths and chicken and potato salads in plastic containers, bikers and skaters, many dressed in bikini tops and super-short shorts, gliding by, along with couples pushing baby carriages.
"It felt like a vacation," she said. They were playing softball and there were enough Cole family members to fill the roster for two teams.
"Two?"
"For real."
Alex took a pull on her second beer.
Pigeon's voice remained animated: "When it was my turn to hit, I held my bat high and tucked in my chin the way Breeze taught me."
Alex pictured little Pigeon, who barely reached Alex's shoulder, her dark hair shining under the sunlight. "This is not the Pigeon I know."
"Right? Ronnie, Cool Breeze's oldest sister, must have known because she kept yelling, No batter!"
"Ouch."
"She's super competitive and looks just like her mother, right down to the braid hanging to her butt—what's that about?"
Alex laughed. The answer was probably as complicated as the answers to all of the Lawrence family's mysteries.
"Ronnie was a few steps away from first. E.J., she's a sister-in-law, danced on and off first base as if she was at a club. I could tell she was itching to run."
"And?"
"
Ronnie kept slapping her mitt with her fist and yelling at me, You're going down, New York! Alex, I was so nervous."
"I would be too."
"But Cool Breeze reassured me: Don't let them rattle you. Lean into it like we practiced, and swing hard."
Alex could visualize the entire scene as Pigeon, in a voice as excited as a kid describing a birthday party, called the action. The first pitch was a strike and the second pitch missed the plate. Pigeon lowered her bat and wiped her sweaty palms on her shorts. She could feel perspiration soaking her tank top. Ready for the next pitch, she lifted the bat. Whack. Without watching to see where the ball went, she dropped her bat and sprinted to first. In her peripheral vision, she saw the outfielder, another cousin, trotting backward, trying to catch the ball. E.J. sprinted to second, her short legs pumping. The cousin scooped it up after one bounce, and threw it to Ronnie.
"What did you do?"
"I remembered how the pros did it on television. I threw out my legs, pointed my toes, and slid into first. E.J. hollered from second base, She's safe!"
"Were you?" Pigeon playing softball and getting a base hit—wait until Alex told Vanessa!
"Yep. You should have heard the cheers from the peanut gallery. Then Breeze came up to bat and everyone quieted down."
"Is he good?"
"The golden boy." Pigeon sounded a bit in awe.
Alex could understand this after witnessing Breeze conquering their mother. "So?"
"With me on first and E.J. on second there was a chance for three runs to tie the score. I could see the sweat dripping from Cool Breeze's head."
"Now there's an image—a wet bald dome."
"He's not bald! He shaves his head. Besides, he looks cool in his wraparound sunglasses."
Alex hadn't found the man remotely attractive. "Sorry."
"Whatever. Anyway, he gave E.J. and me a look, as if to say, Get ready to run." Pigeon was jazzed again as she relaunched into the story. "The first pitch was a ball, so was the second. My calves and ass hurt from my crummy slide—and I later found out you're not even supposed to slide into first base. Alex, I can't believe how out of shape I am. I've got to give up beer and start working out."
Getting It Right Page 11
