Luke swept her up in his arms and the force of his embrace flushed the air from her chest in one breath. He held her aloft for a moment, not releasing his grip, and then gently set her down, hungrily seeking her lips once again. There was a quiet desperation about him, and his arms felt thinner. She had felt bones in his shoulders where weeks before there had been so much flesh. He was wearing blue jeans and a workshirt, and coarse shoes that looked too small for his feet. They had shipped the Guccis and everything else back to New York. Kezia had been there when the package arrived, everything crumpled, and his shirt badly torn. It gave you an idea of how it had come off his back. Not with a valet, but at the point of a gun. At the time she had cried, but now there were no tears. She was too glad to see him. Only Alejandro had tears in his eyes as he watched them, a radiant smile sweeping over her face, hiding the panic, and a look of intense need in the eyes of his friend. After a moment, Luke’s gaze swept over her head, and acknowledged Alejandro. It was a look of gratitude Alejandro didn’t remember seeing before. Like Kezia, he saw that something was different, and he remembered the urgent plea in Luke’s letters to come out with Kezia. Alejandro knew something was coming, but he didn’t know what.
Luke led Kezia by the hand to one of the long refectory tables, and went around to his side to sit down, while Alejandro took another chair next to her. She smiled even more as she watched Luke take his seat.
“Jesus, it’s so good to just watch you walk. Oh, darling, how I’ve missed you.” Luke smiled quietly at her and gently touched her face with his work-roughened hand. The calluses had come back quickly.
“I love you, Lucas.” She said the words carefully, like three separate gifts she had wrapped for him, and his eyes shone strangely.
“I love you too, babe. Do me a favor?”
“What?”
“Take your hair down for me.” She smiled and quickly pulled out the pins. There was so little pleasure she could give him, each minute gesture suddenly meant so much more. “There, that’s better.” He stroked the silky softness of her hair, and looked like a man running his hands through diamonds or gold. “Oh Mama, how I love you.”
“Are you all right?”
“Can’t you tell?”
“I’m not sure.” But Alejandro could. He could tell a lot more than either of them, each was so blinded by what he wanted to see. “I guess you look okay, but you’ve gotten thin.”
“Look who’s talking. You look like shit.” But his eyes said she looked better than that. “I thought you told me you were going to take care of her, Al.” He looked from one to the other, and at last there was a hint of long-forgotten laughter back in his eyes. He looked almost like Lucas again.
“Listen, man, do you know how hard this woman is to push around?”
“You’re telling me!” The two men laughed and exchanged an old familiar smile. And Luke’s eyes lit up as he looked at Kezia again. She held so tightly to his hands that her fingers ached until they were numb.
It was an odd visit, full of conflicting vibrations. Luke seemed to have a passionate and hungry need for Kezia, which was amply mutual. Yet, there was a rein on him somewhere. She sensed it, and didn’t know what it was. A hesitation, a withdrawal, and then he would say something and she would feel the floodgates open again.
Suddenly the hour was over. The guard signaled, and Luke stood up quickly and led her back to the front of the room for their one regulation farewell kiss.
“Darling, I’ll be back as soon as they’ll let me.” She was thinking of staying out for the week, and coming back to see him again. But right now she was nervous at the sight of the guard, and Alejandro seemed to edge closer. It was all happening too fast. She wanted more time with Lucas … the moments had flown by.
“Mama …” Luke’s eyes seemed to devour every inch of her face. “You won’t be coming back here.”
“Are they transferring you?”
He shook his head. “No. But you can’t come back anymore.”
“That’s ridiculous. I … aren’t the papers in order?” She was suddenly terrified. She had to come back again. She needed to see him. They had no right to do this.
“The papers are in order. For today. But I’m taking you off my visiting list tonight.” His voice was so low she could barely hear it. But Alejandro could, and he knew what Lucas was doing. Now he understood why Luke had wanted him to come out.
“Are you mad? Why are you taking me off your list?” Hot tears burned her eyes and she clung to his hands. She didn’t understand. She hadn’t done anything wrong. And she loved him.
“Because you don’t belong here. And this is no life for you. Baby, you’ve learned a lot in the last few months, and done a lot of things you’d never have done if you hadn’t met me. Some of it was good for you, but this isn’t. I know what this does, what it’ll do to you. By the time I get out, you’d be burnt out. Look at you now, thin, nervous … you’re a wreck. Go back to what you have to do. And do it right.”
“Lucas, how can you do this?” The fears began to roll down her face.
“Because I have to … because I love you … now be a good girl, and go.”
“No, I won’t. And I’ll come back. I’ll … oh Lucas! Please!” Luke’s eyes sought Alejandro’s over her head and there was a barely perceptible nod. Luke bent quickly to kiss her, squeezed her shoulders, and then quickly turned and took a step toward the guard.
“Lucas! No!” She reached out her arms, ready to cling to him, and he turned back to her with a face carved in stone.
“Stop it, Kezia. Don’t forget who you are.”
“I’m nothing without you.” She stepped toward him and looked into his eyes.
“That’s where you’re wrong. You’re Kezia Saint Martin, and you know who she is now. Treat her well.” And then with a nod at the guard, he was gone. An iron door swallowed the man she had loved. He never turned back for a last look or another goodbye. He had said nothing to Alejandro as he left. He hadn’t had to. The short nod at the end said it all. He was committing her into his care. He would know that she was safe and that was all he could do. It was all he had left to give.
Kezia stood in the visiting area, numb, unaware of the eyes that turned toward her. It had been an agonizing scene for the few who had overhead it. It made the men squirm, and their visitors blanch. It could have happened to them, but it didn’t. It happened to her.
“I … Alej … I … could …” She was disoriented, stunned, lost.
“Come on, love, let’s go home.”
“Yes, please.” She seemed to have shrunk in those last shattering minutes. Her face looked frighteningly pale. This time he knew there was no point in asking how she was. It was easily seen.
He walked her out of the building and to the main gate as rapidly as he could. He wanted to get her the hell out of there before she fell apart. He guided her quickly around the potholes in the parking lot and eased her into the car. He was feeling almost as shocked as she. He had known something was wrong, but he had had no idea what Luke had in mind. And he knew what a bitching tough thing it had been to do. Lucas needed her there, her visits, her love, her support. But he knew what it would do to her too. She would have hung on for years, destroying herself, maybe even drinking herself to death while she waited. It couldn’t have gone on, and Luke knew it. Kezia had been right way at the beginning. Lucas Johns was a man with incredible guts. Alejandro knew he wouldn’t have had the courage to do it. Damn few men would, but damn few men faced what Luke was now facing—survival in a place where his life had been marked. And with who Kezia was, they could have gotten to her first. That had been the worst of Luke’s fears, but now that was over. Everything was, for Luke.
“I … where are we going?” Kezia looked frighteningly vague as Alejandro started the car.
“Home. We’re going home. And everything’s going to be fine.” He spoke to her as one would to a very small child, or a very sick one. Right then, she was both.
“I’m going to come back here, you know … I’ll come back. You know that, don’t you? He doesn’t really mean it … I … Alejandro?” There was no fire in her voice, only confusion. Alejandro knew she wouldn’t be back. Luke was a man of his word. By that afternoon, her name would be inexorably canceled from his list. It would leave him no choice. He couldn’t have had her reinstated for six months, and by then much would have changed. Six months could change a lot in a life. Six months before, Kezia had met Luke.
She was no longer crying as they drove away. She merely sat very still in the car, and then in the hotel room, where he left her under the careful guard of a maid, while he attended to the interview he could no longer keep his mind on. It was a hell of a day to have to worry about that. He rushed through it, and got back to the Ritz. The maid said she hadn’t moved, or even spoken. She had merely sat there, in the same chair she’d been in when he left her, staring at nothing.
With misgivings, he made plane reservations for six o’clock that night and prayed she wouldn’t come out of shock until he got her home to her own bed. She was like a child in a trance, and one thing was for sure, he didn’t want to be in San Francisco with her when she came out of it. He had to get her back to New York.
She ate nothing on the tray the stewardess put before her, and nodded uncomprehendingly when Alejandro offered her the earphones for music. He settled them on her head, and then watched her remove them dreamily five minutes later. She sang to herself for a little while, and then lapsed back into silence. The stewardesses eyed her strangely, and Alejandro would nod with a smile, hoping no one would make any comments, and praying that no one would recognize her. She looked sufficiently vague and disheveled by then to be less readily recognized. He could barely handle her as it was, without worrying about the press. They might set her off, and unleash the flood of reality she was holding in abeyance by staying in shock. She looked drugged or drunk, or more than a little crazy. The flight was a nightmare he longed to see end.
Today had been the last straw, and he ached thinking of Lucas. He ached for them both.
* * *
“You’re home. Kezia. Everything is all right.”
“I’m dirty. I need a bath.” She sat on a chair in her living room, seeming not to understand where she was.
“I’ll run a bath for you.”
“Totie will do it.” She smiled at him vaguely.
He bathed her gently, as he had his nieces long ago. She sat staring at the ornate gold dolphin faucets on the white marble wall. It didn’t even strike him that it was she he was bathing. He wanted to reach out to her, hold her, but she wasn’t even there. She was gone, somewhere, in some distant world hidden from the broken one she had left.
He wrapped her in a towel, she dutifully put on her nightgown, and he led her to bed.
“Now you’ll sleep, won’t you?”
“Yes. Where’s Luke?” The vacant eyes sought his, something in them threatening to break and pour all over the floor.
“He’s out.” She wasn’t ready to deal with the truth, and neither was he.
“Oh. That’s nice.” She smiled vapidly at him, and climbed into bed, clumsily as children do, her feet struggling to find their way into the sheets. He helped her in, and turned off the lights.
“Kezia, do you want Totie?” He knew he’d find her number in Kezia’s address book, if he had to. He had been wondering if he should hunt through it for the name of her doctor, but everything seemed under control, for the moment.
“No, thank you. I’ll wait for Luke.”
“Okay. Call if you need me. I’ll be right here.”
“Thank you, Edward.” It was a shock to realize that she didn’t know who he was.
He settled down for a long night’s vigil on the couch, waiting for the scream he was sure would come. But it never did. Instead she was up at six, and in the living room in her nightgown and bare feet. She didn’t seem to question how she’d gotten home, or who had put her to bed. And he was stunned when he realized how lucid she was. Totally.
“Alejandro, I love you. But I want you to go home.”
“Why?” He didn’t trust her alone.
“Because I’m all right now. I woke up at four this morning, and I’ve been thinking everything over for the last two hours. I understand what happened, and now I have to learn to live with it. And the time to do that is right now. You can’t sit here and treat me like an invalid, love, that’s not right. You have better things to do with your life.” Her look told him she meant it.
“Not if you need me.”
“I don’t … not like that … look, please. Go away. I need to be by myself.”
“Are you telling me you’re throwing me out?” He tried to make it sound light but it didn’t. They were both much too tired for games. She looked worse than he did, and he hadn’t slept.
“No. I’m not throwing you out and you know it. I’m just telling you to go back to what you have to do. And let me do this.”
“What are you going to do?” He was frightened.
“Nothing drastic. Don’t worry about that.” She sank into one of the velvet chairs and took one of his cigarettes. “I guess I’m not ballsy enough to commit suicide. I just want to be alone for a while.”
He got up tiredly from the couch, every bone and muscle and fiber and nerve ending aching.
“All right. But I’ll call you.”
“No, Alejandro, don’t.”
“I’ve got to. I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to sit uptown and wonder if you’re dead or alive. If you don’t want to talk to me, then tell your answering service how you are and I’ll call them.” He turned to face her, with his coat in his hand.
“Why does it matter so much? Because Luke told you to do that?” Her eyes poured into his.
“No. Because I want to. You may not have noticed it yet but I happen to care what happens to you. You might even say that I love you.”
“I love you too … but I want you to leave me alone.”
“If I do, will you call me?”
“Yes, in a while. When I get it together a little. I guess in my heart I knew it was over the day he walked out of the law library at the hearing. That’s when it should have been over. But neither of us had the guts to let go. I didn’t anyway. And the bitch of it is that I still love him.”
“He loves you too or he wouldn’t have done what he did yesterday. I think he did it because be loves you.”
She stood in silence and turned away from him then, so he couldn’t see her face. “Yeah, and all I have to do now is learn to live with it.”
“Well, if you need someone to talk to … yell. I’ll come running.”
“You always do.” She turned, and a small smile appeared on her lips and then vanished.
He walked to the door with bent shoulders, carrying his valise from their trip, his jacket and coat slung over his back. He turned at the door and knew for only the briefest of seconds how Luke must have felt the day before when he sent her away.
“Take it easy.”
“Yeah. You too.”
He nodded and the door shut gently behind him.
She was drunk day and night for five weeks. Even the cleaning woman stopped coming, and she had sent her secretary away the first week. She was alone with her empty bottles, and plates caked with half-eaten food, wearing the same filthy robe. Only the delivery boy from the liquor store was a regular “visitor” anymore. He would ring twice and deposit the bag outside her door.
Alejandro didn’t call her till the news hit the papers. He had to call then. He had to know how she was. She was drunk when he called, and he told her he’d be right down. He took a cab, terrified she would see the papers before his arrival. But when he got to her door, he saw five weeks of newspapers unread and stacked in the foyer. He was stunned by the condition of what had once been her home. Now it looked like a barnyard … bottles … filth … plates … overflowing ashtrays … chaos and disorder. And Kezia. She didn’t even
look like the same girl. She was tear-stained, reeling, and drunk. But she still didn’t know.
He sobered her up long enough to tell her. As best he could. But after her fourth cup of coffee, and opening the windows for air, the headlines did it for him, as her eyes scanned the type. She looked up into his face, and he knew that she understood. It couldn’t get much worse for her now. It already had.
Luke was dead. Stabbed on the yard, so they said. “A racial disturbance … well-known prison agitator, Lucas Johns….” His sister had claimed the body, and the funeral was being held in Bakersfield the day Kezia was reading the news. It didn’t matter. It didn’t change anything. Funerals weren’t Luke’s style. Neither were sisters. He had never even mentioned her to Kezia. The only thing that mattered was that he was gone.
“Do you know when he died, Alejandro?” She still sounded drunk, but he knew she was coherent.
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“No, I don’t know exactly. I guess I could find out.”
“I already know. He died in court at the hearing. They killed him. But that day, the day he really died, he died beautiful and proud and strong. He walked into that hearing like a man. What they did to him after that is on their hands.”
“I suppose you’re right” Tears had begun to stream down his face. For what had happened to Luke. For what had happened to her. She was already as dead as Lucas, in her own way. Drunk, dirty, sick, tired, ravaged by memories, and now his death. He remembered that day in the law library, before Lucas walked into the hearing. She was right, he had walked tall and proud, and she had been so sure, so powerful beside him. They had had something he’d never seen before. And now, one was dead, and the other was dying. It made him feel sick. It was all like living a nightmare; his best friend was dead and he was in love with Luke’s woman. And there was no way he could tell her now. Not now that Lucas was dead.
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