A Bookie's Odds

by Ursula Renee

  Though she had not confirmed their date, Nicholas had no doubt she would be ready when he returned. Despite her declaration, his assumption was based on habit, not arrogance.

  Since Celeste’s sixth birthday, she had not missed a Santiano celebration. Because of her loyalty, she was more than a friend…she was family.

  Chapter 2

  The door clicked behind Georgia, muffling Nicholas’s laughter.

  There were times his ego got too big and he needed to be taken down a peg or two. She would have volunteered for the job if it didn’t inconvenience others.

  She was certain he had already told his father she had an escort to the party. Therefore, she would not ask the older man to change his plans and give her a ride at the last minute.

  Georgia retrieved the mail before heading up the steps. The tapping from her shoes against the marble floors echoed through the hall. Thanks to her father, the glow from the overhead fixture lit the stairway.

  Though it was the landlord’s responsibility to maintain the hallways, her father stepped in and made repairs whenever something was broken. He figured the twenty-five cents it cost to replace the bulb was nothing compared to the cost of visiting her in the hospital if she should trip in the dark.

  The aroma of fried chicken and okra greeted her when she reached the second floor. The mouthwatering smell was courtesy of the woman in the rear apartment. Despite having six mouths to feed, she would share the meal with the elderly woman who lived next door to her.

  The odor of stale cigarettes seeped from the apartment across from the Collinses’. Whenever the bachelor opened the door to accept deliveries from the Chinese restaurant down the block, a thick cloud hovered in the air behind him.

  Georgia turned the knob to the first apartment to the right of the stairs. As expected, she did not need her keys. Like most people in the neighborhood, they did not lock their door unless no one would be home.

  “You’re late,” her father announced.

  She stepped into the one-bedroom apartment they had lived in since arriving in New York when she was three. When she turned ten, well-meaning busybodies had suggested her father move them into a two-bedroom apartment so each of them could have privacy. Her father waved off the suggestion, stating he preferred the pullout in the living room, as it allowed him to see everyone who travelled between the front door and her bedroom.

  Georgia never took the joke seriously. Her father never had to worry about young men slipping into the apartment. His size alone kept guys from making advances toward her.

  He turned from the window, fumbling with his necktie, his forehead wrinkled. “I told you I don’t like you hangin’ out with that thug.”

  Georgia pushed the door closed. Her father had never hidden his dislike for Nicholas. She suspected it had to do with the younger man’s choice to forego college and pursue a career as a bookie. Of course, Nicholas’s insistence on solving problems with his fists instead of talking things out did not help.

  “I wasn’t hanging out with him. I was with Celeste this afternoon.”

  “I didn’t see her in the car with you.”

  “Celeste and I had a little trouble. We ended up back at her home.”

  “And you couldn’t’ve taken the bus from there?”

  “You know Mr. Santiano wouldn’t have allowed that.” She held up the shopping bag. “He sent food and said hello.”

  “Tell him thanks for me. By the way, what time is that thug pickin’ you up?”

  “How’d you know he was picking me up?” Georgia was certain she and Nicholas had not been talking loudly enough for anyone inside the building to hear their conversation.

  “Who else would he take to his grandmother’s party? One of his huzzies?” He snorted. “His grandmother may be in her seventies, but she’s still capable of takin’ out trash.”

  “You shouldn’t assume the women Nick dates are easy, just ’cause their skirts are tight and they wear a bit too much makeup.”

  “That’s not what I base my assumptions on.”

  “What then?”

  “He’s a skirt chaser and only goes out with women who’ll drop their drawers for a meal and a movie.” He walked out of the room. “Put the food on the table while I get ready.”

  Georgia glanced at the picture of the young woman on the wall across from the sofa. It was the first thing her father saw when he woke and the last thing he looked at before closing his eyes to go to sleep.

  “How did you put up with him?”

  She talked to the portrait whenever she was exasperated with her father. She had no recollection of the other woman. However, talking to the picture made her feel closer to her mother.

  “At times he can be impossible.” She sighed. “Of course, considering what you two had to deal with, I guess his behavior was the least of your troubles.”

  Her father never talked about the problems he’d experienced when he became involved with a woman outside his race. However, he gave her the journals her mother had kept from the time she migrated from the Philippines to three days before her death.

  It had taken Georgia several weeks to read through all the pages. Some passages, like the one detailing her mother’s family disowning her because she married a colored man, were so heart-wrenching Georgia had to put the books aside for a day before she could continue.

  Georgia marched down the short hall past the closet where her father hung his clothes. At the end, she opened the door to the bedroom no man had ventured into since she graduated from elementary school. Feeling she was a young lady who needed her privacy, she had asked her father to give her the nightly hug and kiss before she retreated into the room. Though he appeared hurt, he agreed to the new routine, and her bedroom became a man-free zone.

  She kicked off her shoes, then pulled the door shut again and stepped into the kitchen, to the left of her room.

  “You remember William Baptiste?” Her father called from the bathroom.

  “Vaguely.” She raised her voice to be heard over the water he was running.

  Actually, it was kind of hard for her to forget the first young man her father had mentored. Though she had only been four at the time, she remembered the day William collided into their lives.

  On a dare, the boy had snatched an orange from the stand outside the grocery store. Too busy looking back at the store owner yelling at him, he ran into her father.

  After boxing William’s ears, her father made him return the fruit. He then took the boy under his wing. During the school year, he made sure the youngster attended classes and kept up with his work. He also made sure the boy had productive activities to occupy his free time.

  Thanks to her father, William avoided the gangs that destroyed the lives of many young men. He graduated from high school and headed to college, yet he stopped by the bar whenever he came to the city to visit his mother and sisters.

  “He was by the other night. Do you know he’s a lawyer?”

  “Is that so? Ow, mother—”

  Georgia bit back the curse that nearly escaped when she bumped her hip on the handle to the brown refrigerator. In their house, profanity did not get one popped upside the head. Instead, she would have to endure an hour-long lecture on more ladylike methods of expressing herself.

  She kicked the appliance, then instantly regretted her mini-tantrum as pain shot through her bare toes.

  “Are you okay in there?”

  “Yes, Daddy.” She muttered one more curse under her breath before adding, “I just bumped into the refrigerator…again.”

  “Don’t know why you keep bumpin’ into it.” Her father strolled into the room. “It wasn’t a problem when you were younger.”

  “I was a lot smaller back then.” She placed the bag in one end of the double basin sink and opened the cabinet overhead.

  He chuckled. “Yeah, you were a skinny little thing. Looked like a twig with arms and legs.”

  “Thanks a lot, Daddy.”

  “You don’t
look like that anymore.” Her father pulled out the chair next to the wall and sat down at the table. “You’ve grown into a pretty young lady.”

  She pulled out two chipped, blue-trimmed white plates and the stainless steel cutlery. Though they had better dinnerware stored in the breakfront hutch by the entrance to the kitchen, her father preferred the older plates and cutlery that had been a wedding present.

  When he married Georgia’s mother, people were still dealing with the aftermath of the stock market crash of 1929. Jobs were scarce and money was tight, so few could afford to purchase dinnerware, much less the food to put on them. However, determined to get the newlyweds a present, his family had taken up a collection amongst the immediate and extended members until they had enough for a gift.

  Georgia placed the dinnerware on the table that took up most of the floor space. She added two glasses that had once served as jelly jars, to appease the little girl inside her. Though she had traded her bobby socks for stockings eight years earlier, she could not completely turn her back on everything from her youth.

  “I showed William your graduation picture.” Her father resumed his previous conversation. “Don’t know what impressed him more…the beautiful woman or your degree.”

  Certain of the direction the conversation was about to take, she did not bother to glance up. She spooned a healthy serving of chicken onto his plate.

  “I told William you’d be workin’ on the books tomorrow and suggested he stop by.”

  Georgia raised an eyebrow. Her father was going all out to impress the man. He never allowed her near his books.

  “You’ll have one of the old ledgers open on the table; make it look like you’re workin’.”

  She fought back the desire to slam the bowl onto the table. She should have known better. Her father had believed education was the key to her future, and when she walked across the stage to receive her diploma, his cheers drowned out all the others. But once she had her degree, they could not agree on how she would use it.

  Georgia had dreamed of working in the bar with her father. On the few occasions he had been short of help, he permitted her to pour drinks. She assumed once she obtained her degree, he would let her take on a more active role in the business.

  Instead of accepting her help, he acted as if anything pertaining to the bar was too complicated for her to comprehend. At times she expected him to pat her on the head before sending her off to buy a dress, get her hair done, or something equally trivial.

  “Daddy—”

  “Now hear me out, young lady. William’s got a good head on his shoulders. He knows the value of hard work. And since I know that silly stuff means a lot to young women, I’ve heard other gals commentin’ on how good he looks.”

  She dropped into the chair in front of the stove. “Not every woman’s impressed by looks.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.” He reached across the table and covered her hand with his. “Won’t you give him a chance?”

  Though it had been phrased as a question, Georgia took her father’s comment as the order it was meant to be. She, however, could not resist the urge to toss in a sassy reply.

  “Is there a particular dress you want me to wear? My lavender one matches my ‘Desperately Seeking a Man’ sign.”

  “Don’t be a wiseass, young lady.” He pulled his hand back and pointed his fork at her. “You just make sure you’re downstairs tomorrow afternoon at four. You hear me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  With a smug grin, her father dug into his food. Between swallows, he recounted a story of William that she had heard so many times she could repeat it word for word with each inflection and gesture he made during the tale.

  Georgia pushed the food around her plate with her fork as she considered Joey Santiano’s offer. Though he had not gone into details, she knew Nicholas’s objections to her working at the diner stemmed from her relationship to Celeste. He extended the determination that his sister not be around illegal activities to her. However, she did not share his concerns.

  There was a separate entrance to the gambling hall so the clientele did not come in contact with the diners. And, since Mr. Santiano had only mentioned the diner’s ledgers, she assumed the man would hire someone else to keep the books for the den.

  Despite Nicholas’s concerns, Georgia could not turn her back on the opportunity. Not when no one else, including her father, was willing to give her the chance to prove herself.

  Chapter 3

  Where the hell did she get those curves?

  Nicholas’s gaze slowly moved from Georgia’s low-cut bodice to her narrow waist and the full skirt that covered her hips. Though her hem stopped three inches below her knees, he could still admire her shapely calves.

  A few seconds passed before Nicholas noticed the two-inch-high heel on her right foot tapping the wood floor in the foyer of her apartment. He reversed the direction of his gaze, moving to the manicured fingers on her hips up to the frown on her face.

  “What?” he asked as he forced his eyes to meet hers.

  “I said, you asked me that already.”

  “Asked you what?”

  Georgia sighed, yet all he could focus on were the thin strips of material that held her bodice in place. They would reduce the number of eyes he had to blacken for ogling her too hard that evening. At the same time, his body would have appreciated a better view of what was underneath.

  Nicholas realized he would not score any debonair points. Only his loose pants would help him save face…that and not walking into something because he was too busy staring at her.

  “You’ve asked me if I was ready three times since I opened the door.” Her head tilted slightly to the side, and her brow wrinkled. “Are you all right?”

  He was not aware he had asked the question once, much less three times. He needed to pull himself together before she stepped back and slammed the door in his face. In the best scenario, she would call the bar and ask her father to come upstairs to get rid of him. The worst scenario would be if she called the club and asked his father to send someone for him.

  He did not have much to lose when it came to Mr. Collins. He knew the other man disliked him. There was not much he could do to lower the man’s opinion of him. However, if word got out around his family or friends that he had turned into a blithering fool in the presence of a beautiful woman, he’d never be able to live it down.

  “I’m fine.” Nicholas took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “Are you ready?”

  “As I told you the first time, yes.” She pointed to the silver-wrapped box on the end of the marble-topped console table.

  Nicholas stepped into the apartment and grabbed the gift. She glanced in the mirror above the table and straightened her soft curls. After a slight nod, she draped a white shawl over her shoulders and grabbed her handbag.

  Her light jasmine scent hit him as she walked past. Following her, he began to second guess his decision to escort her to the party. His father wouldn’t have had a problem sending a car for her. Celeste would have ridden along, and the two women would have gossiped and giggled in the back like two schoolgirls.

  Nicholas admonished himself. What was he thinking? Georgia was not like the women he went out with. Her drawers would stay up, her skirts would stay down, and her legs would stay closed until she had a ring on her finger. He therefore needed to pull it together and concentrate on protecting her from lecherous suitors. If he could appreciate what he saw, he was certain others would, too.

  While he accepted the only relief he would get would be by his own hands, not all of his male relatives were as honorable. There were a few who would not have a problem trying to bed her simply to know what it was like to be with a colored woman. Others would not care about the color of her skin, only that she had the right equipment to relieve the itch in their pants.

  As long as she was with him, she was considered off limits. No one would consider touching another man’s woman…at least, not while her
man was in the same building.

  Nicholas drove to Gracie’s, the club named after his mother. It was the only business owned by his father that did not have a game room in the basement or back. He kept all questionable practices away from the club out of respect for the woman it was named after.

  His father had hoped Nicholas would eventually take over running the club. He, however, had decided he preferred a career in “finance” and dreamed of one day taking over the other businesses from the older man.

  Nicholas pulled up in front of the club. After helping Georgia out of the car, he tossed his keys to the valet, who understood the consequences of not returning the vehicle in the same condition it was given to him. He then escorted her past the line of people waiting to get inside.

  By the time they reached the entrance, the door was being held open for them. An older, colored man wearing a black tuxedo greeted them as they stepped into the building.

  “Everything looks wonderful, Al.” Nicholas shook the man’s hand.

  “When have you ever seen it look otherwise?”

  On his watch? Never. Alton McRae had been with the club since it opened, working his way up from busboy to maître d’. In his hands, Gracie’s flourished, turning a nice profit for Nicholas’s father.

  “I thought so.” Alton slapped Nicholas’s arm. He then kissed Georgia’s cheek. “Go enjoy yourself. And, keep him out of trouble.”

  Georgia laughed. “You’re asking for the impossible.”

  “Come on.” With a hand on her lower back, Nicholas maneuvered Georgia through the clusters of partygoers. They briefly greeted a few acquaintances with promises of longer conversations after they paid their respects to the lady of honor.

  At the front of the club, they climbed the steps to the dais to the right of the stage. Sophie Santiano watched the band playing the popular songs, her dark tresses (well maintained with the help of her hairdresser) bobbing gently in time to the music. The cane that usually swung from her hand—but never touched the ground when she walked—leaned against her chair.