Kendra did not intend to allow Brown and Worley to cheat her and get away with it. Two days after returning from Dickerson Estates, she looked at Helligman’s notarized report on the condition of her brand-new house and decided that it represented her opportunity to get out of the controversial property. A lawyer would counsel repair and damages, and she didn’t want that.
Deciding to be her own lawyer, she telephoned the builders’ office and spoke with Aaron Brown. “Mr. Brown, I’m Judge Kendra Rutherford, presiding judge at Queenstown Court. This is about the condition of the house I purchased from you at Albemarle Gates.” She told him about the examiner’s report. “We can go to court, but you’ll lose in a jury trial, and you know it.”
“What are you asking for?” Brown wanted to know.
Best to be bold, she knew, so she said, “Buy back the house. If you don’t, I’m going to court and sue you for the price of the house plus what it cost me to move in and out of it and the pain and suffering this mess caused me. Think of the fun the local media will have at your expense. In fact, I’d prefer that.” Taking advantage of her status, she added, “I want your answer by noon Friday. You may reach me at my chambers in the courthouse.”
“I’ll…uh…have to speak with my partner.”
“What happened?” Reid asked her when she phoned him a few minutes later. She repeated her conversation with Brown. “They wouldn’t dare go to court here in Queenstown.”
“Anyway, Reid, I’d rather your case was the first opportunity the people in this town have to take a crack at Brown and Worley. There’s a house around the corner from you that I’d like to have if I get what I want from Brown and Worley. Will you check it out for me?”
“Of course. You don’t have to ask. By the way, next time I see you I’ll have my own car. I’m picking it up this afternoon.”
And what you bought will tell me a lot about you, she said to herself. To him, she said, “What kind is it?” She’d never cared for a man whose pride was not in himself but in his automobile and snakeskin or alligator shoes and who, consequently, wore the most costly handmade shoes and drove the flashiest and most expensive car for which he could obtain credit.
“It’s a Buick Century.”
Hmmm. Modest. “What kind did you drive before?”
“You mean kinds. The day I lost that court case, my three-car garage held a Town Car, a Caddy and a Jaguar. It’s hard for me to believe that I was ever that frivolous.”
She relaxed and let out a long breath. “I definitely prefer the Buick, Reid.”
His laughter reached her through the wire, warming her heart. “I like this one better, too, and I’m sure glad you do.”
She received Aaron Brown’s phone call minutes before court convened Friday morning. “I think we can settle this out of court, Judge Rutherford. Can you meet me at the bank this afternoon at two-thirty?”
She could and did. Three weeks and two days later, she moved into her new home at 103A Pepper Pot Lane, around the corner from the apartment building in which Reid lived.
Tired and dusty from cleaning and dragging furniture around, she sat down for a brief respite and phoned her sister, Claudine, to tell her that she had moved and why. She hadn’t told Claudine about the problems with her house, because her sister wouldn’t have bought a house without having had it inspected several times by different experts. Claudine wasn’t poor, but she treated what she had with respect.
“I wish you’d come see me,” Kendra said. “I can look out of my bedroom window at the Sound. Last night, we had a clear, full moon and the sight of that over the water was spectacular.”
“My show went so well that I was asked for copies of some of my sculptures. That wouldn’t be ethical, so I’m making some similar models. I should finish them in four or five weeks. Maybe I can visit you then.”
“I’ll probably be in Cape May a month from now, so that—”
Claudine interrupted her. “Wonderful, I’ve always wanted to see Cape May.”
“That won’t work, Claudine. You don’t think I’d go up there by myself, do you?”
“Well, excuse me. Now I know I’m going to find time to visit Queenstown.”
“Really? If I thought man-hunting was on your list of things to do…Say, next time I go down to the eastern shore of Maryland, maybe you can go, too. There’s a genuine hunk down there, hardworking, accomplished and unattached.”
“Does he like women?”
“I didn’t ask him, but from my observations I’d say he definitely does.”
She hung up and thought about it. Claudine might be just Philip’s type. He liked black women, and Claudine’s gentle ways had always been more attractive to men than her own disposition.
“Now, who could be banging on my back door?” She raced down the stairs, through the hallway and into the kitchen and…“Reid!” She opened the door. “How’d you get around here?”
He kissed her lips and handed her a pot that contained a four-foot ficus plant. “Where do you want me to put it? I decided I’d better not show up at your front door with this, because I’ve already seen some of your neighbors looking out their windows at this house. So I came through the alley, but I don’t suppose I should do that too often, because I met two people as I walked through it. Give me Baltimore. Nobody cares what you do.”
“No,” she told him, “and that, too, can be a problem.”
He ran his finger down her nose, and she liked it when he took little liberties with her, playing with her nose or her ears, stroking her back. “You look cute with that dirt on your face,” he said. “While I’m here, let me help you. Anything to be moved?”
They had waffles with syrup and sausages along with coffee and strawberries for dinner, as neither had the energy to cook anything more elaborate, and by the time eleven o’clock arrived and they had all the furniture in place, she was ready to fall from fatigue. She turned out the lights in the front part of the house and walked with him to the front door.
With her sandwiched between his body and the wall, he imprisoned her. “Kiss me. Put your arms around me and let me know that I’m your man.”
She parted her lips and took him in, and she could feel the exhaustion flowing out of her body as he claimed her. She sucked his tongue deeper into her mouth and felt the solid print of his penis as it jumped against her belly. He stepped back then. “I’ve got a lot to make up for, and I don’t want to start on it this time of night when you’re ready to drop. Just remember that when I start collecting, you’d better be prepared.” He kissed her eyes and the side of her mouth. “Tell me you love me. I need to hear it, baby.”
“I love you,” she whispered, “and I need to hear it, too.”
“I love you, woman,” he said and stared down into her face. “You’re my life.” He turned and left before she could respond, and maybe that was a good thing. She didn’t switch on the hall light until she was sure he’d turned the corner.
“I wish I’d seen my current house before I saw the other one in Albemarle Gates,” she told Carl Running Moon Howard on her first day at work after moving. “If I had, I’d have a lot more friends.”
“They’ll come now, ma’am. People here are neighborly.”
That afternoon around five o’clock while she stored items in her pantry—a convenience that she hadn’t had at Albemarle Heights—her doorbell rang. She put the chain on the door, cracked it open sufficiently to see who rang, and looked into the faces of three women. Strangers.
“We just thought we’d welcome you to our neighborhood, Judge Rutherford,” one said.
Kendra blinked rapidly, as if to confirm with her eyes what her ears heard. After recovering her aplomb, she opened the door. “This is a wonderful surprise. I’ve been on the town’s black list, and I haven’t had any visitors.”
“We know, Your Honor,” one woman said, presenting Kendra with an apple pie, “and we’re glad you moved. We appreciate the support.”
“I’m still settling
in,” she told them, “and the place isn’t quite presentable, but I hope you don’t mind. Come on in. I make great coffee.”
They introduced themselves, and to her surprise they talked without further reference to Albemarle Gates. She didn’t think she had ever discussed with a group of women topics that she considered frivolous, such as where to shop, the best hairdressers, weight gain and the kind of cosmetics to wear. And she discovered that she not only enjoyed the camaraderie, but learned some important things.
“I’m going to join your civics class in the fall,” the woman called Reba said. “I don’t know a friggin’ thing about my rights as a woman. Judge Judy told a man that half of what he earns belongs to his wife. The man didn’t believe it, and his wife didn’t know it. My husband wouldn’t believe it, either.”
“Neither would mine,” Bell, a younger woman, said, “but he thinks what I earn is community property. Which is why he doesn’t know how much I make.”
Kendra didn’t mention the law to them, for she didn’t wear that role unless she was in court. She merely allowed herself to enjoy the fun.
The following Thursday evening when the curtain rose on the first performance of their play, she received a standing ovation when she walked out on the stage, and her three new friends sat front-row center. She glanced at Reid, who stood in the wings awaiting his cue to join her onstage, and he, too, applauded her.
After the applause died down, Reid sauntered out, picked up a newspaper from a magazine rack, sat down on the sofa and opened it.
“Tonya walked out of the room right while I was talking to her and slammed the door so hard that that copy of Matisse’s blue nude fell off the wall,” she said, speaking as Lissa to her husband, Don. “I won’t stand for such behavior from my own daughter.”
He opened the paper to the sports section. “So you won’t stand for it. What did you do about it?”
She walked over to the man, whose face was hidden behind the newspaper, and stuck her hands on her hips. “What could I do? She’s a princess spoiled by you.” She pointed a finger at him as he turned the page. “She left the house and hasn’t come back. I want you to do something.”
“If you’re smart, woman, you’ll let me read. I worked my ass off all day. I’m tired, and I’m entitled to a little relaxation.” Suddenly, he rested the paper on his right knee, and she jumped back. “What did you do today?”
Angry now and puffing to show it, she poked out her chin. “I worked mine off, too, but I can’t come home, sit on my behind and read the newspaper. Right now I have to cook your freakin’ supper. So don’t get me started.”
“You’ve already started,” he said, picking up the paper, “and if I can’t read in peace, I can go to the bar and read. If you force me to do that, I’ll be back when I get back.”
She tossed her head and rolled her eyes. “Like I care. While you’re out there, see if you can find your daughter. I wash my hands.”
He threw the paper on the coffee table, knocking over the bud vase that contained one half-dead yellow rose. “My daughter?” he exclaimed. “You’re the one who…Oh, what the hell! What are we fighting about? I’ll give Tonya a good talking-to when she gets home.”
“Don.” She lowered her voice. “Suppose she doesn’t come home. She’s been gone every bit of two hours.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake. Don’t be so melodramatic, Lissa. I can take just so much of it.”
“That last part was not in the script,” she hissed at him under her breath.
“No, but you’re enjoying browbeating me,” he hissed right back.
“Suppose our Tonya becomes a missing child,” she said, her voice syrupy sweet for the benefit of the audience.
He took out his cell phone and dialed a number. “Where are you?”
“I’m with my friend Denise in the ice cream parlor,” Tonya said.
“If your behind isn’t in this house in fifteen minutes, it’ll be a year before you get another penny in allowance. I am not buying you another thing for six months. School’s out at three-thirty, and you’re grounded after four-fifteen. When you learn how to treat your mother, I’ll treat you differently, and not before. Two of your fifteen minutes are up, and I’m not joking.” He closed his cell phone to the audience’s thunderous applause.
Lissa stared at him, her mouth agape. “What’s come over you?” she managed to say.
“I’m damned tired of…I didn’t get married in order to live as a celibate. Whenever I do something to annoy you, you either have a migraine at bedtime or you turn over and say no, and you’re never annoyed at me unless Tonya acts out or I pamper her. Well, the pampering is making her foolish, and from now on, if she acts out with you, I’ll punish her. I’m through giving up the good stuff.”
She looked at him from beneath lowered lashes, patted the back of her hair and said, “Oh yeah? Well, honey, you just say what’s what.”
The curtain fell on the first act, and they walked backstage together. “You overdid that flirtation at the end there,” he said. “Remember I’ve been celibate for weeks now.”
“Right, and you just told the whole town. That part about your being celibate is not in the script. Watch out! I can come up with some cute ones, too.”
“You have to take a curtain call,” Mike Reinar told them. “Go ahead. They’re yelling for you.”
They took a bow separately and then together. Mike greeted them with his hands spread out, shaking his head. Perplexed. “I don’t understand it. You guys perform perfectly as we rehearse, then you start making it up and it brings down the house. Well, go for it.”
“I never know when it’s going to happen,” Reid said to Mike. “She comes on so strong sometimes that I feel I have to defend myself. The problem with the script is that the writer has never met Kendra Rutherford. Man, she’s standing there wagging her finger in my face, and—”
Mike released a soft whistle. “Give him a break, Kendra. You got the man frustrated.”
“Hang it up, you two,” she said, using slang she’d heard that morning. “It’s time for the second act.”
“You don’t know how close I came to shaking you during that first act,” he said when they met at a restaurant north of Queenstown later on. “You were like a ball of fire on that stage. All I could think of was getting you in bed and wearing myself out with you. Try to keep it between the lines, baby.”
“I was acting, and you weren’t, Reid Maguire. You were Donald I-forget-his-last-name.”
“Woodson. Well, you sure as hell were Kendra Rutherford when you stuck your hand on your hips and swung your butt for emphasis.”
She couldn’t help laughing at him. “I think I would have enjoyed acting as a career,” she said.
“You would have been a first-class actor. You make me forget that you’re acting.”
“What a nice compliment! I hope I have the same effect on the audience.”
“From that ovation you received when you walked out onstage, I’d say you do.”
“Oh, I think that was because I left Albemarle Gates. Did I forget to tell you that I had visitors for the first time the day I moved in?”
He put his fork aside and gazed at her. “Yes, you forgot to tell me. What happened?” She told him about her visitors and the pleasant hour that she had spent with them.
“That’s wonderful, sweetheart. Good news, indeed.” A grin formed around his lips. “Hereafter, I’ll have to call before I go to your house.” The smile faded. “I’m glad you’re going to have friends. I’ve always enjoyed friends, but I discovered that, as Billie Holiday sang, ‘…when the spending ends, they don’t come back no more.’”
“I’m your friend,” she said, wanting to erase the sadness in his eyes.
“I know that, and it means more to me than anything.”
Reid wondered if Kendra knew how much he’d just told her. “I think we ought to celebrate,” he said. “Tomorrow evening after the play, let’s have dinner at a first-class restaurant a
nd then dance until the music stops.” He reached across the table and caressed her hand. “What do you say? You’re starving me to death for good loving, so you can at least keep me happy otherwise.”
“A celebration would be wonderful. As for the rest of that verbalized daydreaming, I’m not going there,” she told him.
“What time shall we get together?”
“Seven. I’ll go to you, since no gossipers will be watching your place.”
“I certainly hope not. I’ll expect you at seven.”
“My nose itches,” she said, and began to laugh almost uncontrollably. “My granddaddy always said that means good news.”
He wondered if she was about to become hysterical, but that didn’t suit her personality, so he asked her, “Is your grandfather living?”
As he guessed, she sobered at once. “He died when I was little, and I still miss him.”
“Do you think he would have approved of me?”
To his amazement, she didn’t hesitate. “He would have loved you. My granddaddy thought highly of your type of man, and don’t ask me what type that is. Let’s go. I’m still pooped from all that work you and I did tonight.”
He gazed at her, expecting a reaction, and when there was none he quipped, “Please don’t say that around anyone else. Much as I’d enjoy a strong manly reputation, I don’t think that suits a judge.”
The implication of what she’d said seemed gradually to dawn on her. “Right,” she said, with what had to be a greatly restrained facial expression. “Let’s go.” But since she refused to laugh, he figured he’d better not do it, either. As they strolled through the restaurant’s parking lot to his car, he took her hand, enjoying the precious anonymity. At the moment, life was good.
He had tried to maintain a low profile among his coworkers, for he didn’t want any of them to think that he expected or deserved special favors. Jack Marks gave him permission to design the building for Marcus Hickson, but he knew that Marks and Connerly would not have taken the job.
One Night With You Page 14
