A Love for All Seasons

by Bettye Griffin

  His forehead wrinkled as he considered a possible connection between her attempts to hide her emotions and the almost excessive drinking he’d witnessed.

  Satisfied that he’d hit upon something worth exploring, Jack closed his eyes and finally fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion.

  Chapter 19

  Magical Mystery Tour

  Orlando, Florida,

  Early 1980s

  Alicia stood off to the side as Fletcher snapped the picture of Daphne and her favorite Disney character, Minnie Mouse.

  “What a great shot!” he exclaimed.

  Caroline turned to Alicia. “Did you want to get your picture taken with Minnie, Alicia?”

  “No, Mom. I’m not really into the characters.” Daphne was still young enough to feel that she was really hugging Minnie Mouse, but to her they just looked like adults wearing costumes. “What I’d really like to do is ride Space Mountain.”

  Caroline nodded. “It’s hard for parents when their children are spaced as far apart as you and Daphne. Now that she’s old enough to spend a day at Disney, you’ve outgrown it.”

  “I’m fine, Mom.” Alicia had first asked to go to Disney World when she was about six, the age Daphne was now, but her mother was pregnant and told her that her doctor didn’t think that flying and all that walking would be a good idea. She’d asked every year since, and the answer was always the same, regardless of which parent it came from: “Maybe next year.” It had taken six years to get here. She had to be the only kid in middle school who hadn’t been to the Magic Kingdom yet.

  She felt her mother’s palm on her shoulder. “You’re going to have a great time on the cruise. There’ll be lots of kids your age there.”

  “I’m looking forward to it.” Alicia decided her mother could read her mind. There were plenty of kids her age here at Disney World, but the great majority of them were younger, from toddlers to maybe ten. She’d been so busy thinking that maybe it would have been better if they’d just gone to Martha’s Vineyard like they usually did, that she’d forgotten about the three-day cruise they were taking to the Bahamas tomorrow.

  “They have special counselors on board who set up age-appropriate activities for all the children. You’ll be in one group, and Daphne will be in another,” Caroline said brightly.

  Alicia felt renewed hope. “Pop, can we ride Space Mountain now?” she asked after Daphne said goodbye to Minnie Mouse and she ran back to Fletcher’s arms.

  “I want to see the little people’s village,” Daphne announced.

  Without hesitation, Fletcher said, “Precious, why don’t we go to the It’s a Small World exhibit and get it over with, and then you and I can ride Space Mountain while Mom keeps Daphne.”

  “I wanna ride Space Mountain,” Daphne said.

  “I’m afraid you’re too small, Princess. Maybe next time.”

  Alicia felt as if she would scream for her life if she heard that annoying theme song, “It’s a Small World,” one more time. After about an hour the family finally left the exhibit. First they stood by patiently as Daphne tried to open every single door of the little people’s village. Then she, Daphne, and their father squeezed into a teacup ride, Fletcher’s feet stretched out on either side of Daphne’s small body. Caroline, who Alicia knew didn’t ride because of her heart condition, waved to them as they spun past.

  “That was fun,” Daphne said when they got off, her hand in Fletcher’s as Alicia walked beside them. “Can we go to the boat now?”

  “You must mean Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea,” Fletcher replied. “Sure, why not?”

  Alicia didn’t point out that her father promised her that their next stop would be Space Mountain.

  “Where are we going, Fletcher?” Caroline inquired as they headed toward the boat ride and away from Space Mountain.

  “We’re all going to ride on the boat.”

  Caroline stopped in her tracks. “What about Space Mountain? Alicia wanted to go on that, remember?”

  “We’ll get there, Caroline. But I don’t want you standing by waiting for us to go through the line and watching us ride. You can go on this. It’s a boat, not a ride. You feel the same way, don’t you, Precious?”

  “Yes, Pop.” Alicia realized her father had a point. It couldn’t be much fun for her mother to merely watch them having fun; she deserved to enjoy herself as well. She probably needed to stop thinking about herself. This was a vacation for all four of them.

  After the boat ride, which featured fish and other sea life that even six-year-old Daphne recognized as fake, they returned to the Contemporary Resort Hotel on the Disney grounds to eat lunch and rest a little before going back to the park for the rest of the day.

  Almost immediately, Daphne began saying what she wanted to see, and Fletcher agreed. Caroline intervened. “Fletcher, you know Alicia has been asking all morning to ride Space Mountain. We should do that before we do anything else.”

  “Of course. Come on, Precious, let’s you and I ride.”

  Caroline and Daphne got on line with them. Like all Disney features, the walls were decorated with interesting exhibits to make the long lines snaking back and forth seem less tedious. When it came time to board the indoor roller coaster Daphne cried. “I wanta go.”

  “Daphne, you don’t meet the minimum height requirement for this ride,” Caroline explained.

  “I want Daddy to stay with me. I’m scared.”

  Alicia looked at the people waiting in line. Maybe one of them could get in with her when her father got out so she wouldn’t have to ride alone.

  “Princess, there’s nothing to be afraid of,” Fletcher said. “Mommy will take care of you. You ride the escalator downstairs, and Alicia and I will be out in two shakes.”

  Daphne cried harder.

  “You know, I’m not too keen on riding this, anyway. There’s hardly any leg room,” Fletcher remarked.

  Alicia didn’t point out that he’d squeezed the legs of his six-three frame into a tiny teacup ride.

  Fletcher rose. “Wait a second,” he said to the employees who were checking passengers’ seat belts. “Can we get someone to ride with my daughter?”

  A youngster riding alone quickly raised his hand, and once the ride operators waved him on he climbed into the seat Fletcher had just vacated.

  “Precious, you enjoy your ride,” Fletcher said. “I’ll be waiting for you when you come out.”

  As the ride pulled away Alicia looked at her parents, her father holding a calmed-down Daphne, and her mother’s stern look his way, which softened to allow her to smile and wave to Alicia as she passed. Alicia waved back, a strange feeling passing through her.

  By the time the exciting ride braked to a stop she knew she would never again be bothered by her father yielding to her sister’s wishes.

  Chapter 20

  With a Little Help from My Friends

  The next morning the snowplows came out in force to clear the streets of Manhattan. The storm hadn’t broken any records, as had first been feared, but was recognized for being rather early in the season, causing many to predict a difficult, snow-filled winter.

  Alicia rose at her usual time and took a Tylenol for the mild throbbing in her head. A look at the wine bottle revealed she’d consumed three-quarters of it. She’d never drank so much as she had since that night in October when she saw Jack standing on her doorstep.

  By now she felt reasonably certain that she’d never met him before. She’d probably never know why he affected her the way he did. But it looked like it no longer mattered, not now, after she drove him away.

  Her phone rang as she was stuffing her feet into snow boots. She reached for it inside her purse. “Hello.”

  “Good morning, Alicia.”

  Her back went rigid at the sound of the voice that said her name like no other. “Good morning,” she said stiffly.

  He paused. “I called to apologize for last night.”

  She said nothing.

  “It
wasn’t right for me to wander off like I did.”

  “It seemed more like a walk out than wandering off to me,” she said.

  “I didn’t walk out on you, Alicia. I can’t explain it. I don’t understand it myself. One minute I was doing a mental measurement of the snow on the ground, and the next I was walking toward the subway.”

  “It didn’t have anything to do with my talking to my friends, particularly the ones who happen to be male?”

  She heard him take a deep breath. “All right,” he said. “I have to be honest. I didn’t like it. When the second dude called I felt like I needed to get some air. But I didn’t leave your apartment with the intention of going up to Pete’s for the night. It was a last-minute impulse.”

  “All because I had some phone conversations with a couple of friends.”

  “Yes,” he said with a vehemence that surprised even him. “Because you consider them your friends, and you consider me your friend. You classify us all the same way. I might not understand everything, but I do understand that much. That’s what’s so hard for me to accept.” His attempt at a chuckle came out more like a grunt. “For someone who opens up so little, I’m surprised you even have so many friends.”

  “Maybe ‘friends’ is too strong a word,” she said breezily. “I should probably call them something else, like ‘playmates.’”

  The double entendre irked Jack. He hardly expected Alicia, a mature woman in her mid-thirties, to be without sexual experience. On the other hand he found it unbearable to hear her refer so cavalierly to having had affairs with other men, especially when he put his own desires on the back burner and held off trying to get her into bed, hoping her feelings for him would grow. He wanted more than just sex from Alicia.

  At that moment he knew he loved her. That was why he couldn’t stay away from her, why he put up with having to play the game of pretending he could take her or leave her.

  Behind her self-imposed isolation, he knew that she, like everyone else, needed someone. He wanted to be that someone.

  “I wanted to know if I could pick up my laptop. I’m going to get a train home so I can change, then get to work.”

  “I was about to leave for work myself.”

  “Would you mind terribly bringing it with you? I can come by your office and pick it up.”

  “I don’t mind, but Jack, I work way downtown by the courthouse. You work up in midtown. It’s a little bit out of your way, don’t you think? Besides, that part of the city is a lot more difficult to navigate than midtown.”

  “I don’t see where it can be helped. I’ll call you if I get lost.” He already had his strategy planned.

  He intended to invite her to lunch when he showed up, and he wouldn’t leave until he’d smoothed things over.

  Chapter 21

  Ask Me Why

  Jack watched carefully as Alicia prepared her hamburger for consumption. She worked almost methodically, first sprinkling pepper on the meat, then adding mustard and Heinz 57 sauce, then using a steak knife to cut the bun and meat in half. She raised it to her mouth and took a lusty bite. “It’s not Luger’s, but it’s not bad,” she said with a smile.

  “Glad you like it.” It still amazed him how much more expensive everything was in New York than in Alabama. He didn’t object to the amount of a check at a truly nice restaurant like Morton’s Steak House, but this simple lunch of hamburgers, French fries and root beers in a dimly lit pub in the court district would probably run him thirty bucks after he calculated the tip. He couldn’t really object—he’d negotiated a handsome salary from his new employer as a condition of accepting the job—but the very idea of paying that much for two hamburger platters boggled his mind.

  He felt relieved that she’d accepted his invitation.

  “So,” Alicia said as after she swallowed, “was there anything you wanted to say to me?”

  “Was there anything you wanted to say to me?”

  “I asked you first.”

  He hesitated, trying to gather his thoughts. “All right,” he said. “I admit it. It got to me last night, hearing you talk to your playmates on the phone last night. I figured the best thing for me to do was to go and check out the snowfall. I planned on staying down there long enough so that by the time I got back upstairs you’d be finished talking. I had this cozy little picture in my mind of you and I sitting side by side on the sofa, balancing our laptops, working away. That picture didn’t include listening to you talk to Derek and Tom and Dick and Harry.” He shrugged. “Maybe I handled it poorly. But I feel this way, Alicia. I have no right to tell you who your friends should be. But it’s like anything else I don’t like. I’m a grown man, Alicia. I don’t have to sit and watch something that I don’t want to see.”

  “So that’s why you left.” It came out as a statement, not a question.

  “Yes. I don’t want to box you in, Alicia. But I care about you, and no man wants to feel like he’s sharing a woman he cares about with other men, even if they’re ‘just friends.’” Jack curved his index fingers into invisible quote marks.

  “I saw a guy come around the corner, and I asked him if he’d just come from the subway. He told me the trains were still running. I don’t know what induced me to walk to the corner and down those steps. Maybe I was afraid that you’d still be talking on the phone. The next thing I knew, I was getting off at One Hundred and Thirty-Seventh Street and calling Pete from my cell.”

  “You left your laptop at my place and everything. What would you have done if I refused to take your calls? I easily could have screened you out just by checking the ID window.”

  “I like to think that even if you were furious with me, you wouldn’t have carried a grudge that far. Not when you know I need the files on that laptop for my work.”

  She stared at him defiantly. “I can carry a grudge clear to California if I want to.” Then she softened. She couldn’t stay upset with Jack for very long. She’d been so happy when he showed up at her office to pick up his laptop. I’m impressed, too. Lower Manhattan could be a real maze, even to people who’d lived there all their lives, but Jack managed to find her. When he invited her to lunch “to see if we could work this out,” she wanted to grab him and kiss him. She hadn’t, of course. Instead she calmly accepted, showing much less enthusiasm than she felt. Regardless of the uncertainty and flustered feeling she got when he was near, she still wanted him in her life. “But you’re right. I wouldn’t have withheld your laptop from you.” The corners of her mouth turned up, and she said, “I can’t imagine saying something like, ‘Give me ten thousand dollars if you ever want to see that laptop alive again.’”

  “It didn’t sound like something you’d do.”

  “So what happens now?” she asked brightly.

  He looked at her through eyes that suddenly felt heavy. A tiny drop of ketchup dotted the right corner of her mouth, and her lips appeared to have salt crystals on it, probably from her fries. He knew what he’d like to have happen now….

  He shrugged, chasing away the thought. Considering Alicia had to get back to work and he hadn’t even been to his office yet, it was hardly appropriate. “Back to where we were, I guess.”

  “Friends?”

  “Friends.”

  They tapped their root beer mugs and drank. “Uh, Alicia.”

  “Yes?”

  “You’ve got a bit of ketchup outside your mouth, and if you don’t get rid of it, I might lose control.”

  He expected her to hastily wipe the red dot away, but instead she leaned back, a challenge in her eyes. “Go ahead. I’d like to see what you do when you lose control.”

  Chapter 22

  Birthday

  Jack listened as Alicia sang the Happy Birthday song, changing “you” to “us.”

  They strolled along the beach of Long Island Sound, walking off the heavy lunch Martha prepared for them. “That was a great meal,” Jack said. “I don’t know what kind of sauce Martha put over that catfish, but it’s just as g
ood as any I’ve tasted in New Orleans.”

  “She’s a fabulous cook. The funny thing is, she learned to make a lot of those sauces after she started working for my parents because that’s what they liked to eat. Before that she just made basic meals, meat, vegetable, starch. She swears by Emeril Lagresse.”

  “I intend to have some more of that bread pudding.”

  “Martha always makes me a special lunch for my birthday,” Alicia explained. “If there’s one bad thing about being born on Christmas Eve, it’s that you can’t really go out to dinner because just about everyplace closes early.”

  “Morton’s is open ’til ten.”

  She looked at him curiously. “And you know that how?”

  “Because I made a reservation for seven-thirty.”

  “Oh, Jack! You didn’t!”

  “I wasn’t sure if you had anything in particular you wanted to do.”

  She reached for his hand. “I can’t think of anyplace else I’d rather do on my birthday than have dinner with you at Morton’s.”

  At ten-fifteen they left the restaurant, arm in arm. The remnants of the snowfall of ten days before still lay in dirty clumps on the ground. A handful of cars remained in the parking lot, and Jack felt sure that others still sat in the valet lot on the other side. He felt a little sorry for the staff, who surely wanted to go home and get to bed.

  He wanted to do the same, but with a twist. He didn’t want to go to sleep.

  Once Jack starting entertaining the notion of making love to Alicia, he couldn’t get it out of his mind. He unlocked the doors to his Aviator SUV with the remote a few yards before they reached it and helped her into it.

  “Do you live far from here?” she asked as they drove away.

  He blinked. Did she have ESP or something? “No, not at all.” He turned his head. “Would you like to see where I live?”