Against All Odds (Arabesque)

by Gwynne Forster

  “I’m not sitting here moaning over that man or any other one,” she lectured herself. She went to her lavatory, splashed cold water on her face, applied a touch of makeup, and went back upstairs to look for Banks.

  “Let’s go look for some antiques after work,” she suggested to her friend. Banks lit a cigarette and took a few draws, looked Melissa up and down, and declared, “You sure won’t find him wandering around in Bessie’s Yesteryear, honey. Adam’s in New York. For good, I heard.”

  “I know that, Banks. Do I ever.”

  “What are you planning to do about it? Just sit around here and dry up?”

  “Right now, I just want to make it through today. I didn’t send him packing—he left.”

  Not many people could match Banks’s expressions of disgust, Melissa decided, watching her arched eyebrows and tired shrug.

  “He’s still breathing, isn’t he?” It was more a statement than a question. “But if you like being miserable, you won’t find a better opportunity. Let’s call it a day.” Everybody told her that she had to go after Adam, but she didn’t know how she could. “Everybody” didn’t know that Adam had never professed to love her, and without that armor she couldn’t make herself approach him.

  * * *

  Why did he continue punishing himself, calling her under any reasonable pretext in the hope that she’d tell him what he wanted to hear? He’d spent one night in his apartment, and already he hated it. Not that he minded living alone; he didn’t. But he’d gotten used to looking forward to seeing her every day, often many times. The last two weeks hadn’t been easy ones. He needed her, and he sensed that she wanted them closer, but he couldn’t compromise on the issues of trust and faith. He stood on his balcony looking toward the Hudson River and the building where she’d lived. Once, he hadn’t doubted his ability to walk away from her and stay away. But he hadn’t counted on the pain he felt when she showed him that she didn’t have faith in him, didn’t trust him.

  A harsh wind swirled around him, bringing below freezing air that penetrated his heavy cashmere sweater, and he walked back into his living room. Why couldn’t he get her out of his mind, out of his system, out of his— He sat down on the oversized leather sofa, spread his legs, and rested his elbows on his knees. Was she really in his heart? He cared. He cared a lot. But did it really go that deep? He walked into his den, picked up the phone, held it, and returned it to its cradle. He wasn’t about to whip himself again, getting his hope raised and his libido unruly from the sound of her voice.

  “Damn! I’ve got to get on top of this thing. I promised myself that I wouldn’t give another woman the upper hand with me.” He looked at his watch. “And that includes Ms. Grant.”

  He picked up the phone again—and dialed. “Hello, Ariel,” he said when she answered on the first ring. He resented that habit of hers even before he greeted her. As he expected, she commented on his long absence and wanted to know when they might get together. But to his surprise, he demurred, telling her that he’d just gotten into town, that he was only touching base and would call her in a few days. His uncharacteristically inconsistent behavior disgusted him, and what he considered a softness in himself made him uneasy.

  He tied a scarf around his neck, threw on his coat, and went out. Twenty minutes later he stood in front of Carnegie Hall. It hadn’t been his intention to go there, but he figured the Preservation Hall Band might be just the thing. If he concentrated on Dixieland jazz, he couldn’t stew over Melissa. He paid thirty dollars for the remaining forty minutes and went in. Twenty minutes later he left. The last time he’d heard live jazz, the fingers of Melissa’s left hand had been entwined with his right one. He pulled up his coat collar and headed up Broadway. He loved New York. Hell, no, he didn’t. He couldn’t stand it.

  * * *

  Melissa steadied herself and took her mother’s arm as they entered the district attorney’s office where an attendant directed them to seats behind her father, Timothy, and his mother, Louise. The chairs had been arranged to make the office resemble a courtroom, with rows on either side of an aisle that led to the DA’s desk. Before she succumbed to the urge to look for Adam, she put on the dark glasses that she’d bought for the purpose—to shield herself from his knowing looks and the seductive twinkle in his eyes. He sat with Wayne on the other side of the aisle, and she knew at once that with the seating arrangements putting her in her father’s camp—against him—the gulf between them would widen the minute he realized it.

  And as if by a magical ability to read her mind or to divine her concerns, he looked back and locked his gaze on her face, nodded briefly, and turned around. Less than a week had passed since he’d gone back to New York, but those few days had given her a glimpse of what forever without him would be. She recognized the gentle squeeze of her mother’s hand as a gesture of support and wondered how she’d ever gotten along without the wonderful woman at her side.

  The assistant district attorney breezed in with an air of importance greater than that to which her status entitled her. She stopped to shake hands with Adam and Wayne, nodded to Rafer, who sat away from the aisle, and began the proceedings.

  “Mr. Grant, as Mr. Coston’s attorney, would you repeat the charges, please.”

  Rafer made the accusation, but Melissa thought he lacked his usual verve, that his heart was no longer in it.

  “Miss Grant, would you please read your sworn affidavit.” The clerk brought the document to Melissa, and she stood and read from it. When she finished, she had to look at Adam, had to see his reaction to her public confession that she had spent half a night with him at his lodge. Their first time together. Her first time. She brushed away the tears that coursed down her cheeks. He had turned to look at her while she read it, and he didn’t alter his gaze. But from where she stood, she couldn’t see his expression, though she did know that the twinkle in his eyes seemed to remain still. Dull.

  Suddenly Timothy stood, resisting Rafer’s efforts to make him sit down and be quiet. “I don’t want to go on with this,” he said. “I never did want to accuse him.” He nodded toward Adam. “He didn’t have anything to do with it. I got into some trouble in Baltimore, and the guys warned me with that shot. That’s all.” The DA’s office concluded the proceedings, and Melissa hurried out, pulling her mother with her. Adam and Wayne stopped them in the lobby.

  “Thank you for the affidavit, Melissa. The DA has assured me that it exonerated me, so even without Timothy’s confession, I wouldn’t have been indicted.” So cool and formal, like a dash of cold water, she thought.

  “I only did the decent thing,” she said, adopting what she took to be his demeanor. She watched Adam hug her mother in a warm, tender greeting and felt an unreasonable tinge of jealousy.

  “I’m glad to see you, Adam,” Emily said. “By the way, have you met my daughter?” Neither Wayne’s laughter nor Adam’s indulgent grin sat well with Melissa.

  “My mother’s a comedienne, now,” she said to no one in particular. Adam introduced Emily to Wayne, and the two stood there making conversation, while Adam and Melissa gazed at each other. She wanted to reach out to him and couldn’t understand why he didn’t respond to the longing he must have seen in her eyes. She swallowed the bitterness she felt at his determination to withhold himself from her, to

  be oblivious to the needs he had cultivated in her. Needs that he alone had fulfilled. She waved at them and left.

  Twenty minutes later she walked into her office, pulled off the dark glasses, and threw them across the desk.

  “Oh, dear,” she sighed, awareness dawning, “how could he know what I was thinking or feeling? He couldn’t see my eyes.” With a humorless chuckle she tipped her hat to herself—she had outfoxed Melissa Grant. Her purpose in wearing the glasses was to protect her emotions while she read that paper, and when she’d looked at him, he hadn’t seen her, only her glasses.

  She switched on her computer, lecturing to herself while it checked itself out. “I will not w
onder when he arrived, whether he’ll call before he goes back, or when he’s leaving. I will not give a hoot.” She looked at her email and enjoyed a provocative message from Magnus Cooper.

  “I suppose by now the men of Maryland are in mourning, having lost you to Roundtree,” he wrote. “But if I’m wrong and you’re slower than I think, drop me a note.”

  “You’re wrong, and I’m slower than you and everybody else think,” she answered, switching to her “talk” mode in the hope that he was at the computer and she’d get an immediate answer.

  “Come down here for the holidays, and give him something to think about.”

  She laughed. He was there. “Sorry. That’s family time. I’d have to bring my mother,” she teased, enjoying the fun.

  “Fine with me. If she’s half your equal, don’t hesitate to bring her.”

  “The question is whether I’m half her equal. Emily Grant is a beauty.”

  “This machine doesn’t transmit whistles—I’ll have to get another one. You coming down?”

  “Maybe another time.” She signed off.

  By five o’clock she knew she wouldn’t hear from Adam. She trudged home, went through the motions of eating and, completely out of sorts, crawled into bed and counted sheep, butterflies, horses, and cows until she fell asleep around two o’clock.

  * * *

  Melissa arrived at her office a half hour earlier than usual the next morning. If she couldn’t be with Adam, she wanted to be alone, and she couldn’t manage that unless she’d closed her office door before the tenants on her floor arrived for work. She missed Banks. Not that her friend wouldn’t happily provide company, but Banks had fallen hard for Wayne Roundtree—and apart from work, didn’t allow herself to think or speak of anything except her schemes to make Wayne reciprocate.

  I’ve got my own problem with a nonreciprocating Roundtree, Melissa grumbled to herself. She got up and went over to straighten Eleanor Roosevelt’s picture that hung on the wall facing her desk, and the door burst open bringing a whiff of fine French perfume. And Emily Grant.

  She gaped as her mother strutted forward, waving her left hand before here. “Mama. What on earth—? Mama?” Emily swung round and round, her head thrown back and laughter spilling from her lips.

  “Look. Look at it. Look!” She held her left hand within inches of her daughter’s face. Melissa’s shrieks of joy filled the room, and she gripped her mother in a loving embrace.

  “Oh, Mama, I’m so happy for you. When? You didn’t call or say a word, and yesterday morning you acted as if nothing had happened between you two. And I was scared to ask you. Tell me, when did—?”

  “He gave it to me this morning, the same one I took off thirty-one years ago.”

  “But when? I mean, how did you get together?”

  “My divorce became final midnight last Friday, and nine o’clock the next morning, I knocked on Bill Henry’s door. I didn’t have to get on my knees and beg; he was waiting for me. I didn’t leave him until yesterday morning when I had to go to that hearing. And I left the courthouse, went home and put some clothes in a suitcase, and went right back to him. Are you really happy for me?”

  “You know I am. I don’t think anything could make me happier.”

  Melissa marveled at the swiftness with which her mother’s sparkling face sobered with concern. “Nothing? Nothing? Oh, honey, go after Adam. Now I know what you’re throwing away. At last I know what the fuss is about. Don’t lose the chance to love him in the bloom of your youth. ‘Of all sad words of tongue or pen—’”

  “I know, Mama. ‘The saddest are these: “It might have been!”’ When is the wedding?”

  “New Year’s Eve at five o’clock. I’ve already hired a caterer, and I’m going to get married in white satin. Don’t look so shocked. I don’t care about tradition. Bill Henry said he used to dream of seeing me coming up the aisle to him dressed in white satin and lace and carrying white calla lilies, and I’m going to make his dream come true.”

  Melissa quickly wiped the frown from her face, though she doubted that anything she did or said could diminish her mother’s joy. Yet she couldn’t resist adding, “Won’t people think that you and B-H— I mean, so soon after the divorce?” Melissa stared, aghast, when her mother arched her eyebrows and shrugged with disdain.

  “I know better. So do B-H, Rafer, and my children. I couldn’t care less what the gossipmongers of Frederick and Beaver Ridge think. What people might think circumscribed my life for over a quarter of a century, thanks to Rafer.” What’s come over this woman, Melissa wondered, when Emily suddenly beamed and told her. “Sorry I can’t have lunch with you—we’re going to see an architect. B-H wants us to start fresh, and he’s going to build us a home just off that grassy slope near his little house. Oh, honey, I’m so happy. Get a dusty rose gown made to match my wedding dress. You’re going to be my maid of honor.”

  * * *

  Melissa finished wrapping her Christmas gifts and held the one she’d bought for Adam, a silver business card case that bore his initials, and wondered what to do with it. At last, unable to decide, she placed it under her brightly decorated Christmas tree. She stared for a few minutes at the twinkling lights that reflected off red and gold bells, trying to summon a modicum of Christmas spirit. Finally she threw up her hands in frustration and ran up the stairs to shower and dress.

  Around five o’clock, as dusk settled over the brightly lit town, she joined Banks and her sister, and the three went in search of carolers. With other singers, they stopped at homes decorated with a Christmas tree or wreath, sang a verse or two, and walked on. Melissa had thought that their tour of the hospital wards and at the seniors’ center would depress her, and she couldn’t understand how she could feel uplifted and unhappy at the same time. At home later she dressed and waited for her mother and B-H. She knew why she prowled from room to room, glanced frequently at the silent telephone, and in frustration shook her fist at the air. Her affidavit should have told him where her heart laid, but maybe he’d had enough of her. Enough of the Grants.

  She opened the door to B-H and her mother, both radiant, and had to squash her jealousy of their happiness.

  “You two could light up a dark night,” she told them, ashamed that she’d envied her mother the joy that had been denied her for so long.

  “If you and my nephew ever come to your senses, you’ll outshine us, believe me,” B-H said. Melissa waved a hand, gainsaying the thought.

  “Don’t worry, dear, they’ll get together as soon as one of them hurts badly enough,” Emily said, gazing at him in adoration.

  “When did you get a car, B-H?” Melissa asked as they reached the Lincoln. “What about the air pollution?” she needled.

  “It was a trade-off. I figured I’d looked after the environment for thirty years. Now I’m going to take care of Emily, and I need a car for that. I’ve got a list of places I want to take her right around here. Then we’ll take one of those African-American heritage tours, go down to New Orleans for some real jazz, see the Metropolitan Opera, and the museums in New York City. Ah, Melissa, there’s so much.” He put an arm around Emily, love shining in his eyes. “I’ve got to make up for lost time. And after I’ve showed her the United States, I’m going to take her around the world.” Melissa wiped her tears with the back of her index finger.

  “Adam’s in town,” Bill Henry said as they neared the church.

  “I figured he would be.” But I won’t let him get me down, she swore to herself. They entered the little church from a side door, and her heartbeat escalated as soon as she glimpsed Adam sitting with Wayne opposite the entrance. She had to pass close by him and wondered if Bill Henry knew he’d be in that pew and had taken that route to force them to notice each other. She managed a smile when he looked her way and nodded, but he didn’t touch the hand she’d left dangling at her side, and she kept walking. Emily and Bill Henry could follow her or not—she was doggoned if she’d be manipulated into such a convenient a
rrangement. Her companions joined her, and she soon felt her mother’s elbow.

  “I think I’m disappointed in you.”

  “You’ll get over it,” Melissa told her and turned her attention to the program. Her mood soon changed into one of well-being. The little church glowed with hundreds of candles nestled among beautifully arranged red poinsettias, and carols sung by the local community choir filled the sanctuary. At the end of the service, she left the building by the front door and waited alone beside Bill Henry’s car for him and her mother.

  “I didn’t see Mrs. Roundtree,” she remarked to Bill Henry as he drove away from the church. “I would have thought she’d go to church with Adam and Wayne.”

  “Mary can’t even tolerate the House of God if Emily and I are in it together. But that’s her problem. I enjoyed the service, but she’s so full of bitterness that she had to miss it.”

  * * *

  The next morning, Christmas, Melissa started out of her front door and rushed back to answer the phone, hoping to hear Adam’s voice.

  “Schyler! Where are you?”

  “I’m home. I got in here late last night. Would you believe I found a note from Mama telling me she’s in Beaver Ridge and I should go out there. Now I don’t have a car, don’t know the address, and there’s no phone where she is. I take it Hayes is some kind of a recluse.”

  “You can borrow my car after I run by to see Daddy. I was on my way there.”

  “Drop by here, and I’ll go with you.”

  Melissa couldn’t help being nervous while they waited for her father to answer the door.

  “I’m glad you’re with me, Schyler. I was not looking forward to this meeting.”

  “His bark is louder than his bite.”

  Rafer Grant opened the door, dressed as though he was going to his office, and stared at his offspring. Melissa clutched her chest as she waited for his words. To her surprise, his smile didn’t dim when his gaze moved from Schyler to her.