Dust

by Eva Marie Everson

  “My home life is … well, it’s not as good as I hoped it would be. As I believe it could be.” He waved a hand as though he could dismiss the words, but continued with, “The girls are fine. More than fine actually. But they are their mother’s daughters. I’m just …” He took a sip of his drink, swallowed slowly, then returned the glass to the table. “Sometimes I feel like an afterthought.”

  Ronald studied him; Patterson could feel the gears of his brain clicking way down to the marrow of his bones.

  “You probably—probably don’t know what I mean. What I’m saying.”

  Ronald’s fingers twirled the glass and its napkin beneath it in a slow circle. “I know exactly what you’re saying.” He smiled, but the upturn of his lips dropped nearly before they’d fully risen. “Look, Patterson … we’re men. We have needs.”

  Patterson leaned in, rested his forearms on the table where the candle cast dancing shadows. “Exactly. Maybe—maybe women have needs, too, but they’re a different kind of need. Maybe what they need is—you know—the nice house and the family-sized car and the children to look after. Some need to work. And I’m not talking about those who need money to survive. There are women out there who actually want to work.”

  “I hear what you’re saying. And I know quite a few in Washington. But I don’t think you brought me here to talk about women’s lib and all that.”

  “There’s someone.”

  “I gathered that.” He sipped from his glass. “Anyone I know?”

  “No. She’s a student.”

  Ronald brought his glass down, though not quite to the table. “Good Lord, man.”

  “She’s—she looks like—don’t laugh, but she looks like Stevie Nicks.”

  He laughed anyway. “Well, that would certainly explain it. Remember that girl you kept on the side in college? The one you always said looked like Grace Slick?”

  “Dani … and she did look like Grace Slick.”

  “Maybe.” Ronald smiled at the memory. “Go on. I interrupted you.”

  The memory of Dani wrapped around Patterson and wouldn’t let go until he shook it free with the thought of Cindie. “It’s more than the way Cindie—that’s her name—looks, quite honestly. It’s … she seems to have something to offer. She—I don’t know—when she’s in my classroom I feel like she’s wanting something. Or … someone.” He shrugged for good measure. “Wanting someone the way I want someone.”

  Ronald studied him again. “So, why come to me with this?”

  “Straight up?”

  “Have we ever been any other way?”

  “I don’t want stolen moments in a hotel or a motel and I remembered that you’ve got—”

  “The apartment.” He tilted his head in understanding. “Of course.”

  Patterson extended a hand, palm up. “If the answer is no, I’ll understand. I will. I’ll rent my own apartment. I can certainly afford it, but—”

  “No, no. I’m only here once or twice a month and then only for a couple of days and typically on weekends.” He drained the rest of his drink. “You know where the place is, right?”

  Patterson sat back. “Yeah. I remember.”

  “I’ll give your name to the doorman. He knows—ah—how to be discreet. Especially when he’s tipped on the way out.”

  “Got it.”

  “I’ll leave a key for you with him. Just return it to him … afterward.” He smiled. “It’s nice, you know?”

  “What is?”

  “Having someone who loves you. In … that way.”

  Nice. Yes. Patterson hoped he’d soon find out. Step one had been accomplished with success. Now, all he needed to do to convince Cindie that passing calculus and a little of her time—a little of her warmth—went hand in hand.

  Sure enough, that had gone well, too. At first, she seemed perplexed at his offer, which he’d laid flat out on the line. No pretenses. No “let me tutor you” lies. Just raw honesty. “You’re beautiful,” he’d said. “And I want to spend some time with you. A lot of time with you. I think you understand what I’m saying.”

  Initially, she said she’d need to think about it. Asked if she could let him know the next time she came to his class. Afterward.

  An inner quiver began in him then. What if she took his offer over his head? Reported him? Well, it would be her word against his … and he had tenure and she was a girl who’d managed to get herself pregnant before she’d even graduated from high school. Who would they likely believe? “Of course,” he said.

  Two days later she returned to class. Smiled at him each time his eyes happened her way. A subtle answer without words. Without acknowledgement of an offer accepted.

  Yes, indeed. Piece of cake.

  Chapter Thirty

  May 1982

  She lay on her stomach, her hair fanned to one side, her face turned toward the other. Toward him. She’d scooted down in her sleep so that her head now lay on the mattress near his chest. Patterson turned slightly, enough that his fingers could rake through her blond mane. Enough to wake her without disturbing her slumber. Or startle her.

  Long lashes batted against upper cheekbones until her eyes were wide and staring at him. She stretched, catlike, as a slow smile broke across her face. “Hey,” she said, the old drawl not nearly as noticeable as it had been when he’d first met her.

  Patterson reached over and kissed the top of her forehead, inhaling the scent of floral shampoo. “Hey, yourself.”

  Cindie raised up to prop on her elbows. “How long have I been asleep?”

  “A couple of hours.”

  She laid a hand on his bare chest, allowed her fingers to play with the small tuft of hair at the top of the breastbone. “I can’t believe it. I must have been tireder than I thought.”

  “More tired,” he corrected. Her language skills had improved greatly over their two years together. Still, sometimes—

  But then she grinned at him again and he knew he’d been had. “I know … I just like to see if you know.”

  He pulled her to him then, laughing as his arms wrapped around her, pressing the warmth of her to the warmth of him. “I’m going to miss you,” he said with a kiss to the tip of her upturned nose. “Do you have to go?”

  Cindie laid her cheek against the hollow of his chest. “My brother’s wife just had a baby, Professor. Of course, I have to go.”

  “A baby,” he said. “They’re too young to have a baby.”

  “I think you forget …”

  “That’s different. They had a baby on purpose.”

  Her fingers drummed against his upper arm. “Things are different in the country. They marry young, have their babies young, and grow old together.” She looked up, kissed him as though she intended to start something, but then scurried off the bed, dragging the sheet with her, wrapping it around herself as she stepped toward the bathroom.

  “Promise you won’t be gone any longer than you said.”

  She turned back, rested her shoulder against the doorframe where the light from a side window shot in and spilled over her like the goddess he wished her to one day be. “Sunday night. I promise. I’ll see you—when? Monday afternoon?”

  He sat up with a shake of his head. Pulled the spread, which had become bunched at the foot of the bed, up to his waist. “No can do. Patricia has a piano recital. We’re going out to dinner afterward.” Her face darkened and he added, “Hey. Don’t do that. You know how I feel.”

  “I know.”

  They needed a change of subject. “Will you get to spend much time with Michelle?”

  “I pick her up tomorrow morning,” she said, her whole face bright again. Flushed, which gave him cause for worry.

  “Will you see him, too?”

  “Only for as long as I have to.” She returned to the bed, walking the length of it on her knees until she was directly in front of him. “Hey,” she said, now mimicking him. “Don’t do that. You know how I feel.”

  He reached for her, tickling. She l
aughed, the melody of it filling the room with its song until he had her flat on her back, him over her. “Do we have time for another moondance?” he asked, referencing the lyrics from a Van Morrison tune he’d introduced her to, the one she called “their song.”

  She shook her head and whispered. “I have to go. But I’ll miss you every second of every minute of every day until we moondance again.” She smiled, offering radiance to her words of “no.”

  “You have made me so, so happy. Do you know that?”

  Cindie nodded beneath him, her eyes searching his, her hands pressed on the sides of his face. “Say it,” she said, her voice a whisper.

  “No,” he teased. “And you can’t make me.”

  She squeezed until his lips puckered. “Say it.”

  “Can’t with my lips like this,” he managed.

  She softened her hold on him. “Say it.”

  “I love you,” he answered. Not necessarily because it was true—not entirely—but because it made her happy. And she made him happy. A little something in his life that made his soul smile. Something that filled the gaps left by Mary Helen.

  She kissed him again—his jaw, his brow, his eyes, and finally his mouth—until, once more, she darted out from under him. “I’ve really gotta go,” she said. “Traffic is a bear and if I don’t leave soon …” She made it to the bathroom this time.

  “Tuesday afternoon,” he called after her, already counting the days and every maddening minute that filled them. Only the antics of his daughters kept him from going stark raving mad.

  “With bells on,” she sent back.

  Patterson fell back against the pillow. If only Mary Helen’s voice sang to him the way Cindie’s did … well, then. There would be no need for a mistress, would there? His brow tensed under the pressure of the conflict that often sparred within him. His relationship with Cindie was wrong—on a number of levels. He knew that. But he was in too deep now, completely uncertain if he could live without her or not.

  Not that they should have to. They could keep this up indefinitely. She’d graduate soon. Get a good job. Find her own place. He’d no longer be beholden to Ronald for the use of his place.

  And then what, Professor?

  The question came and went so quickly, he’d almost not heard its echo. But it was there. His life as a husband and father were set like the European silver epergne Mary Helen insisted on purchasing recently for their formal dining room table. His life with Cindie, however, balanced precariously near the edge of a cliff. Quick to fall. Quicker, still, to shatter.

  Cindie

  She thought she’d walk into an empty house—the little gingerbread she and her roommates had started renting over a year ago—grab her suitcase and be on the road within fifteen minutes. By now the early-evening Atlanta traffic had backed up along I-75, which meant stop-and-go for the next hour or so. Just the traffic between downtown and home had been bad enough. No doubt about it, her time spent with Patterson—not to mention the long nap afterward—had cost her. She’d arrive at Velma’s long after lights out. Probably endure the scathing stares of Vernon who always made her feel like he knew what she’d been up to these past two years.

  Instead, when she jerked the front door open—it jammed from time to time—she found Kyle stretched out on the sofa, watching the console television Karen purchased in a congratulatory gesture to herself after she’d secured a job with Delta Airlines. “Oh,” Cindie exclaimed over the subdued tones of the news. The aroma of a half-eaten pizza wafted from the coffee table to where she now closed the door.

  Kyle sat up, then scooted back on the sofa. “Sorry,” he said. “I thought you’d already left for home.”

  Cindie wanted to remind him that this was home. That what she’d left behind—apart from her brother and sisters and, of course, Michelle—was no longer of any consequence to her. She had plans—new plans—and they included this little suburb of a great big city. “No,” she said. “I had to—to run by Connolly’s to pick up my paycheck.” The half-truth came so easily. Before meeting Patterson at the apartment, she had gone to Connolly’s where her doting professor had secured a job for her shortly after they’d begun seeing each other. Close enough to the apartment, he said. Perfect for making more time together.

  Not to mention that Connolly’s required more clothing than her previous job. A notion that sent a smile to her heart. Patterson Thacker cared enough about her to keep her virtue intact. “I’m just here long enough to get my suitcase …”

  Kyle chuckled. “You’ll never get out of Atlanta now,” he said, pointing to where the traffic report showed its usual Friday night fate. “May as well have a bite of pizza and wait it out.”

  Cindie checked her diamond-face watch—a gift from Patterson—and frowned, knowing Kyle was right. She dropped her purse into a nearby chair before joining him on the armless sofa. “Shoot. I guess you’ve got a point.” She tore a piece of the nearly cold pizza from the pie before folding it in half and taking a bite.

  “Want a Coke?” Kyle asked, now standing to his full six-feet-if-he-were-an-inch height.

  She nodded at him before swallowing and taking another bite. An afternoon with Patterson had left her hungrier than she’d realized. Or was it more hungry?

  Kyle went to the kitchen, then returned with two bottles of Coke and a couple of napkins. “What are you doing tonight?” she asked as he sat, handed her a drink, then a napkin.

  He pointed to the television. “This.”

  “No date?”

  Cindie couldn’t say she knew Kyle all that well, so whether he had a steady or not was anyone’s guess. They’d been roommates for a couple of years, yes, but what she knew about him she could write in a small paragraph. Sure, he had dated some girl during their time at Dekalb—Lisa? Lila? Lydia?—but they’d parted ways as soon as they’d graduated. She’d gone back to wherever she came from and he’d gone to work in a bank in Tucker. Since then, Cindie couldn’t say. But he was a good-looking enough guy with dark-blond hair and caring eyes who made pretty good money, which made him a good catch. He also liked to go places. So far this year he’d been to Aspen followed by a quick trip to Orlando to check out Disney World. The year before he’d ventured into Canada to see their version of Niagara Falls, which he’d told her was prettier than the American side. She, in turn, suggested a trip such as that to Patterson, who’d only said he’d “see what he could do.”

  “I’m having a Kyle weekend,” he said with a smile, his one and only dimple slicing into his left cheek. “Karen is flying the friendly skies to Chicago I think she said, and you’re supposed to be in—”

  “I’m going,” she quipped around another bite of pizza.

  “I know.” He rested his elbows on his knees, clasped his hands together. “I’m kidding. Anyway. My plan is to lie on this sofa all weekend. Watch some TV. Read a book … maybe. Take a couple of hundred naps. Work has been a pressure cooker lately and I need the quiet.”

  Cindie shook her head. “You’re not going out at all?” She couldn’t imagine. Number one, this didn’t sound like Kyle, and, secondly, if she and Patterson were free to go out, she’d take advantage of every minute of their time together to explore Atlanta with him. Or Niagara Falls. Or anywhere, really.

  He glanced at the front door. “Only to get the paper and—maybe—the mail.”

  She laughed, then brushed the crumbs from her fingers into the pizza box and took a long swallow of her drink, keenly aware that he watched her as she placed the bottle to her lips. “Why is there nothing like pizza and Coke?”

  “Because it’s the food of God,” he said. “I swear, if I get to the Pearly Gates and I don’t smell pizza coming from some nice little Italian eatery around the corner, I’m turning around.”

  “Sure you will.” She took another sip, then pointed to him. “And if my brother-in-law ever heard such blasphemy, he’d condemn you to …” she turned her finger now in the direction of the floor. “You know… the other place.”


  Kyle reached for his own drink and took a swallow. “Your brother-in-law, huh?”

  Cindie nodded as she eased back on the sofa. Arranged herself by tucking one foot under the back of her knee and angling toward her roommate. “He’s a preacher. The hellfire-and-brimstone kind. I stay with him and my sister Velma—his wife—whenever I go home.”

  Kyle jutted his chin toward her. “Not your parents?”

  “My father and mother divorced years ago. I lived with Mama until I moved up here. For a while … for a while I stayed with her whenever I went home, but she’s sort of … well, she’s a miserable person. About a year and a half ago, right after one of the worst fights ever recorded in the history of mothers and daughters, I decided that from then on, I’d stay with Velma when I went home.” She took another sip of her drink before returning it to the table. “Which means enduring weekends with Vernon and his preaching.”

  “Velma and Vernon?”

  “I know,” she laughed. “What is it about living in the South? We think we have to name our kids so their names go together—like Karen and Kyle—” she said with a wink, “and if not that, we make sure we marry someone whose name is close enough to our own.”

  “Like Velma and Vernon.”

  “And Jacko and Jasmine,” she offered, even though she knew he wouldn’t know who they were.

  “Jacko?”

  “His name’s Jack—that’s my brother—but we’ve always called him Jacko. He’s the one whose wife—Jasmine—just had a baby.”

  Kyle leaned back until his body formed a funny S and his neck rested against the curve of the sofa’s cushion. “So, what about you?”

  Heat rose in her, then quietly dissipated. “Me?”

  “Any fellas out there named Cameron?”

  “Cameron?”

  “Or …” He chuckled easily. “Give me a sec. I’m trying to think of C names.”

  “Clifford,” she said, falling into the game.

  “Clifford? I cannot imagine you with a Clifford.”

  “Wait, wait!” she said, now leaning toward him and swatting at his leg. “Calvin.”