She answered the phone reluctantly, since Adam had no reason to contact her that she could imagine. Her father’s voice roared through the receiver.
“Where were you yesterday and last night? Your mother stayed in her room all day. I told you she’s not well, and I thought you came back here to look after her.”
Why hadn’t she realized that her father manipulated her, using her mother, her brother, and one phony situation after another to control her? “I spent the time with friends,” she said, and let her voice proclaim her right to do as she pleased. She hadn’t lied, she’d been with Adam and the little creatures she’d met near the brook. For the first time his taunts had no effect on her. Loving Adam had made her strong, and her newfound relationship with her mother made her less dependent on her father for parental affection. She didn’t want to hurt her father, though, so she didn’t share with him her suspicion that Emily remained in her room to avoid him. She changed the subject.
“What do the police have to say about Timmy getting shot?”
“Your uncle Booker is dealing with it, and he’ll bring Adam Roundtree to justice. Mark my word. You’ll rue the day you turned your back on your own people.” When she didn’t answer, he added, “So you’re ready to agree that he did it.”
Annoyed, she told him in icy tones. “You’d save a lot of breath and energy, Daddy, if you’d get to know your daughter. I hold integrity inviolate, and I won’t lie for a Grant or a Roundtree or anyone else.” He hung up, dissatisfied with her as usual, but she shrugged it off, put on a top coat, and went out to buy milk. On an impulse, she stopped at a public phone and called her mother. Her father had just gone out, she learned, and decided to pay her mother a short visit.
“You’re just glowing, darling,” her mother said. “Were you with Adam this weekend? Rafer swears you were.”
Surprised at the question and uncertain how to answer, Melissa only nodded. But Emily assured her that she hoped Melissa had been with him.
“Mama, are you suggesting—”
“I’m saying what it sounds like. I was a prude, insisting to Bill Henry that we wait until after we married. That was the fashion in those days. But we didn’t marry, and I never knew him. A thousand times I’ve bemoaned the day I exacted that promise from him. Melissa, I’ve had thirty-one years to wonder what it’s like to make love with a man who loves and cherishes me. Rafer and I both got cheated.”
She noticed the quivers in her mother’s voice and asked if she felt ill. “I don’t feel sick, just weak all the time. Not a bit of energy. If I complain, Rafer takes me back to the doctor for more tests. I’ve been scanned so much I feel transparent. That’s all these doctor do. Tests and more tests and feed whatever it is they find into the computer. How the devil will the computer know what’s wrong with me? It hasn’t been to medical school.” A wide grin spread across Melissa’s face, and soon, peals of laughter erupted from her throat. Her mother had a devilish sense of humor, and all these years she hadn’t known it.
In recent weeks she’d noticed an absence of the invisible weight, the aura of defeatism that she had always observed about her mother. She looked at her mother’s rich brown, wrinkle-free face, naturally black hair, and svelte figure. Who’d guess she had lived for fifty-two years? The doctors wouldn’t find her mother’s illness in her bloodstream nor her vital organs. The name of Emily Grant’s disease was despair, lack of a reason for living.
Melissa walked over to her mother and began to massage the back of her neck and her shoulders, all the while thinking and putting her mother in perspective. It should have been obvious that Emily’s listlessness and myriad of complaints stemmed from discontentment with her life, that her total submissiveness to her husband was unnatural and partly phony, that she just didn’t care enough to fight hard for her rights, that her reclusive behavior had the earmarks of a power play, a defensive tactic. Her fingers stilled, and she pulled a small footstool to the front of her mother’s chair and sat down.
“Mama, why don’t you get out of the house, volunteer at one of the shelters, teach in the Head Start program, tutor, read to the blind, anything except stay in this room. You have a college degree, Mama. And you’re too young to fold up like this.” Her heart constricted at the expectancy, the eagerness, mirrored in her mother’s face, and hope welled up in her as they walked toward the foyer.
“Honey, I’ve never gone anywhere much without your father, except shopping, and I certainly haven’t done a thing unless he wanted me to. Your grandfather wouldn’t rest until I married Rafer and gave him some grandchildren, so I bowed to his wishes. You know the rest.”
“Well, it’s time you did something for yourself, Mama.”
“I hear what you’re saying, and I may try it, but you and I both know that nothing will give me back Bill Henry. And that’s my problem. You make sure you don’t ever have one like it.”
“If I have a choice, Mama, I won’t take the one that will make me miserable. So please don’t worry about me, and get out of here and do something about your life.”
* * *
Adam walked through the recreation room of the Rachel Hood Hayes Center for Women, talking to the women who had taken refuge there. Small children clung to several of them, fright still mirrored in their young eyes. He took pride in The Refuge, as it was popularly known, and he hurt for the women whose hard lives and cruel mates had forced them to leave their homes for a communal shelter. He had intended that the one being built in Hagerstown would have only private rooms and small apartments, but the continuing fiasco at the leather factory threatened to get out of hand, and since he used his Leather and Hides shares to finance his charities, including The Refuge, he’d had to retrench.
The crooks had struck again on Saturday night while he’d been at the lodge with Melissa. He forced himself not to think of her in connection with it. His heart dictated forbearance, but his common sense counseled him to challenge her. Reorienting his thoughts, he shook hands with a woman who had arrived at The Refuge so badly battered that he’d had her hospitalized for more than a week, patted an older woman, there for the third time, and headed for his small basement office.
Adam didn’t wait for an elevator. He opened the door to the stairwell and stopped just short of colliding with Emily Grant.
“What?” They spoke simultaneously. Adam stepped back and held the door for her.
“Mind if I ask why you’re here.” He didn’t care if she detected suspicion in his tone.
“I’m a volunteer. Why? Is something wrong?”
Adam braced a hand on each hip, took a deep breath and pierced her with an accusative gaze. “Did Rafer send you here? He isn’t satisfied with the damage we’re getting at Leather and Hides and wants to start on The Refuge, is that it?” She appeared at first to wilt under his stern rebuff, but he could see her back stiffening.
“I don’t know any more about Leather and Hides than what you just said, and I have no idea what Rafer is doing.” That comment made him realize that Emily didn’t know his relationship to The Refuge. Nothing on the door identified the place by its correct name, the Rachel Hood Hayes Center for Women. He took her arm and walked with her to his small office.
“Emily, I don’t suppose you knew that I’m the founder of this place and its sole support. It’s a memorial to my maternal grandmother.” She told him that she hadn’t.
“Melissa suggested that I do some volunteer work, Adam, but she doesn’t know I’ve actually started. I needed something for myself and when I saw these women, I knew I could help them. My body hasn’t been battered, but my brain certainly has. I’ve been happier here these past four days than at any time since...well, it’s meant everything to me. I feel like a different person. Please let me stay, Adam. I know that when Rafer finds out, he’ll want your neck and mine, too, but I have to do this and I’m not turning back.”
He opened two of the soft drinks that he kept in a tiny refrigerator beneath his desk and handed one to her. “I want y
ou to stay here as long as you like.” He rubbed his chin reflectively. “Do you mean to tell me your husband doesn’t know you’re doing this?”
“It’s a long story, Adam.”
He forced himself not to glance at the elegant watch strapped to his left wrist. “I’ve got plenty of time.” She gave him what he figured was a well-censored account of a troubled marriage, careful to omit mention of the main reason for it, and they spoke at length. He thought over what she’d told him and released his signature whistle.
“There’s going to be hell to pay,” he warned. Emily sipped some ginger ale and leaned back in her chair with all the serenity of a reclining Buddha.
“So what? I’ve always had hell to pay.” He tapped the rickety wooden desk with the rubber end of a pencil and laid his head to one side, watching her carefully. He ruled out the possibility of her presence there as an effort by Rafer to manipulate him.
“And you say Melissa doesn’t know about this?”
Emily leaned forward, as though to beseech him. “She suggested I do something, but she didn’t mention this, and I haven’t told her about it.”
He nodded. According to the facts he now had, the cleavage between the two families didn’t appear as great as he and other people thought. Yet it went deep. Wayne might feel strongly about it, but he wouldn’t be unfair. And B-H disassociated himself from the feud. Its main keepers appeared to be Rafer and his mother, but two more fierce or more committed fighters he didn’t care to meet.
“I’m happy to have you with us,” Adam said, and walked with her a few paces down the hall to the elevator.
“Are we going to be friends?” she asked him, when he held the door open. In that moment, it cheered him that he’d adopted the habit of smiling.
“I think we are,” he said with a smile and meant it. He went back to his office, feeling as though he and Melissa had a chance at happiness. He pulled the sheet from his fax machine and read, “Somebody mixed the chrome and zirconium samples, and we’ve got some useless fluids and a hell of a stench here—Cal.” So much for that, he muttered. He figured he’d just spent twenty seconds in a fool’s paradise. Too much dirty water flowed under the bridge—seventy years of hatred, the sabotage, and the things about him that Melissa didn’t know and for which she might not forgive him. They didn’t stand a joker’s chance.
* * *
A few days later, the Saturday after Thanksgiving Day, Melissa sat in Banks’s kitchen while her friend altered a dress she’d recently bought.
“This is a great color for you,” Banks said. “Turn around. It doesn’t fit because your waist is too little for the rest of you.” Melissa waited for the words that would follow Banks’s melodramatic sigh and groaned when she said, “But I guess Adam likes it.”
“Throw out all the bait you like, kiddo,” Melissa said, “but this fish isn’t biting.”
“Come on. If he was my guy, I’d hire a blimp and trail a mile-high streamer behind it proclaiming ‘Adam Roundtree is my man,’ and, by damn, I’d sign it.”
Melissa laughed. “You’re hopeless.”
“The least you could do is let me enjoy him vicariously.”
“I don’t kiss and tell, Banks, and I don’t ask you about Ray.”
Melissa knew her friend shrugged mainly for effect—she enjoyed attention and got a laugh when she said, “What’s to ask about Ray? He fills the bill for the moment.”
* * *
With the dress finished and pressed, they got into Melissa’s car and went to look for antiques. Melissa saw an old, sterling silver apple designed with a bite taken out, teeth prints evident, and a loop at the bottom for a key chain. She had it wrapped and sent to Adam, ignoring Banks’s raised eyebrow but not her succinct words: “What’s he supposed to do, conquer or surrender?” They bought apple cider at a farm and stopped for lunch at the adjoining restaurant.
Melissa nodded toward an adjoining booth and asked Banks, “Do you hear what I hear?” They listened as two men aired their views on women working. One didn’t want his wife to work, but the second disagreed on principle. He wanted an independent, interesting woman with a career of her own, one who stayed with him because she wanted him and not because she’d rather not work. His voice grew more persuasive when he admonished his companion, “Keep your ego out of the way and get a woman who’s your equal. Who the hell cares whether bag carrots taste as good as the ones on a bunch or the kid’s Reeboks last a week longer than some other brand? You can’t stay in bed all the time, man. Then what do you do?”
Melissa glanced toward the familiar voice as she and Banks left their booth. Wayne Roundtree. She hoped Adam was as far ahead of most Frederick men on the issue as his brother appeared to be.
“Isn’t that Wayne Roundtree?” Banks asked. “If I were a little younger...well, I could go for a man who thinks like that.”
“You’re always seeing a man you could go for.”
“I’m not promiscuous, honey, but I’m not dead either,” Banks assured her. “Take a hint and give Adam something to mull over. A man shouldn’t be too sure of a woman.” Melissa’s deliberate smile denoted the contentment of a cat licking her whiskers. Let Banks think whatever she liked.
* * *
Adam pushed a shopping cart full of used books into The Refuge’s small library and began shelving them. Ordinarily he didn’t go to the place on Mondays, but he knew the volunteers—mostly older women—needed his help following the weekend’s Thanksgiving celebrations, and he’d do as much as he could during his lunch hour.
“Let me do that, you must have more important things to do.”
He turned toward the familiar voice and greeted Emily. “Thanks, but this will only take a minute. Do you still enjoy it here?”
“Oh, yes. I’m happier than I thought I could be. These women and girls are so grateful for the little care we give them that I’m humbled.”
“Hasn’t Rafer discovered this, or have you told him?” His left hand remained suspended above the cart, holding an old cookbook, while he awaited her answer. In the past few days, the sabotage at Leather and Hides had stepped up, though the incidents weren’t major disasters, but small yet destructive acts. He had begun to look everywhere for clues and to suspect a widening circle of people.
“If he knew, he’d have said something.” Emily’s voice halted his musing. “Rafer isn’t one to keep his peace about a thing that displeases him.” Adam released a deep breath. How could a man not know what his wife did for four hours every day of the working week?
As if she’d sensed his unspoken question, she said, “We live separate lives, Adam. At least now I’m living a life.” He told her that her health seemed improved, and she replied, “It’s my mind that’s finally working. Never let anybody force you into leading a double life.” At his raised eyebrow, she added with a laugh, “Just listen to me. Nobody could force you to do that or anything else. All these years I’ve accepted public adoration and private scorn from Rafer—but like that old song ‘New Day In The Mornin’,’ that’s all behind me. I’m not living like that anymore.”
Adam’s hand grazed her shoulder in a tentative gesture. “Be careful. Don’t provoke him unnecessarily.” He finished shelving the books and glanced at the wall clock. Twenty-five minutes before he had to be at his office in the Jacob Hayes Building. He phoned a take-out shop to have a hamburger and coffee delivered there, told Emily goodbye, and strode briskly down Court Street, deep in thought. Rafer had accused him of shooting his nephew but had taken no legal action. Authorities hadn’t even questioned him about it. Emily had been a volunteer at his charity for over two weeks, and Rafer didn’t know it or pretended that he didn’t. Meanwhile someone had found a nearly indecipherable way to destroy the very foundation of Leather and Hides. And that someone knew his moves and had the run of the factory. Melissa knew his moves, and Calvin Nelson had the run of the factory, but somehow they didn’t fit, and the possibility of their disloyalty grew increasingly more remote.
He fingered the symbol of man’s surrender to woman that he kept in his pocket. Almost every time he touched it, he laughed. Only a very secure woman with a riotous sense of humor would send a man a silver apple out of which a generous bite had been taken. Lord! He hoped she was innocent. He’d hate to give her up—at least not before it suited him.
Adam sipped his coffee, gripped his private phone, and listened to his brother.
“You remember that I ran a piece in the paper about industrial sabotage in general and hinted at our problems at Leather and Hides. Yesterday I got a call. The guy said that if Leather and Hides went down the drain, the Roundtrees deserved it, and that it was too bad Jacob Hayes wasn’t alive to see it. I’m having difficulty believing that Cal is involved in this.”
“So am I. Anything else?”
“What about Melissa, Adam? Are you holding back because you’re passing time with her?”
Adam swung out of his chair and paced as far as the telephone cord would let him. “Wayne, don’t make me tell you this again. Melissa Grant isn’t time I’m killing.”
He heard his brother snort. “Well, at least you recognize it. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to enlist her help with this?”
“Leave it to me, Wayne.”
“Alright. Alright. I haven’t mentioned to anyone that you hired a private investigator.”
“And don’t. I’ll keep you posted.” He hung up, called Melissa, and invited her to dinner.
Against All Odds (Arabesque) Page 22
