Sapphire Ice

by Hallee Bridgeman

  Behind the black rimmed glasses, Peter's brow lifted with a keen interest but he didn't say anything except, "It's a pleasure to meet you, my dear. You two will be staying for dinner, then." He didn't ask, merely stated, and despite the fact that she had just recently inhaled a bread bowl filled with chili and half a slice of pecan pie, Robin found herself following the adults into the kitchen and out the back door to a little patio looking out over a back yard strewn with balls and bikes. On the small concrete slab, a large charcoal grill smoked away.

  This yard wasn't fenced like the front yard. Similar patios stretched out on either side, and in the fading light, Robin could see church buildings in front of her. Between the church and the rows of houses, she could make out a large children's playground and a volleyball net. Well tended and somewhat worn bricked pathways led from the church buildings to the playground.

  Peter had collected his supplies on their way out of the house. He lifted the lid on the grill and used a set of tongs to poke at some chicken thighs that lay spread out on the hot rack. As he fussed with the meat, he spoke to Tony. "Haven't heard from you all week. Figured you'd headed south a bit early."

  Tony offered Robin a plastic chair. As she and Caroline sat next to each other, he made his way to Peter's side. "I've been otherwise occupied," he said smiling.

  Peter glanced around Tony to Robin. "With work?"

  "Not exactly." Tony put a hand on Robin's shoulder. She didn't realize how tense she felt until his touch drew it out of her. She slowly relaxed. "How was the conference?"

  Caroline answered. "Antonio, it was wonderful! The more we can get the word out there, the better it will be for all of the children."

  Tony caught Robin's eye and explained, "Peter and Caroline, on top of all of their other duties at the church, run a non profit corporation that helps people financially with adoption."

  "What do you do at the church?" Robin asked.

  "I teach the youth," Peter said.

  Caroline snorted. "Don't let him be modest with you. He runs the youth department. He has about 900 children."

  Robin's eyes grew wide. "Wow. What do you do?"

  "As our department has grown, I have less time for a lot of hands-on and spend most of my time in administration, managing the pastors and teachers of the kids," he said, poking at a thigh. "Back when I first met Tony, we had about a third of the numbers we have now, and I actually taught down in the trenches."

  Tony interjected. "Peter and I met the night I was saved; the night I was just telling you about. He took me to the gymnasium, let me grab a shower and gave me a change of clothes."

  Peter laughed and interrupted. "That's because you smelled so bad."

  Tony laughed and continued, "And then brought me here. Caroline fed me…"

  This time Caroline interrupted. "Corned beef and cabbage. Food fit for a man." She looked at Robin with a wink. "About the only thing I can cook and not burn."

  "…then they gave me a bedroom."

  Robin looked up at Tony, who still had a hand on her shoulder. "Just like that?"

  Caroline answered again. "When we're Spirit led, it's often just like that."

  "Spirit led?"

  Caroline's questioning eyes shot toward Tony, who ignored her. "Peter got me a job as a janitor at the church. I lived here and worked for a year."

  This time Peter interrupted. "I appointed him as a custodial engineer. And when he wasn't working, he was in the church library reading. I think he only came here to sleep."

  Tony smiled. "And eat."

  "As only a teen aged boy can," Caroline said with a laugh.

  "What did you read?" Robin could not help feeling intrigued by Tony's past, by his path.

  "Anything and everything. I read the Bible three times that year. I read every word I could get my hands on to explain what I'd read. I watched every documentary they had on the shelves and went to every service I could go to."

  "Hungry boy," Caroline said.

  Peter finally finished prodding and started turning the meat over. "He saved every dime he made, too. Wore clothes out of the clothes closet so that he wouldn't have to buy any, even."

  Tony remembered. Ill fitting pants and baggy shirts on his skinny frame. "My eighteenth birthday was fast approaching. I had to save."

  "How did you…" Robin stopped short of asking, but Tony knew what she wanted to ask. How did he go from skinny waif to healthy and muscular, wealthy and successful, polished and proper?

  "He took everything he made," Peter started, but his wife interrupted him.

  "Prayed over it," she said.

  Peter continued, "then put it all into a computer company on the stock market."

  "You made your money in the stock market?"

  Tony moved until he stood in front of her so that she wouldn't have to crane her neck to see him. "No. I made quite a bit of money off of my investment and then used that to buy a book store. The store was floundering, badly, and I got it for a fraction of its worth. Very quickly, I turned it around and used the profits from there to buy a bankrupt auto parts store. Very soon, I could buy a franchise of a fast food restaurant and…"

  Caroline stood. "Everything that man touched turned to gold. Before a decade passed, he probably couldn't even tell you all of the different companies and corporations and franchises he owned."

  Tony cut his eyes to her. "Sure I could." He looked back at Robin. "I stayed faithful to God, and He stayed faithful to me. I tithed with passion, studied the Bible with passion, prayed over every business venture I made, and God continued to bless me."

  Robin opened her mouth to speak, but Tony didn't let her ask the "why" question he could tell was on her lips. "He continued to bless me because there's work to be done. Unfortunately, in order to work, you need to have money. He must have trusted me not to make an idol of money, and to pour forth as much as I could back into work for His kingdom."

  He could tell she didn't understand. "My objective has never been to be rich and powerful. It has merely been to never be cold and hungry again. God took my drive and my faithfulness and used both to help others through me. To fiscally help this church and a dozen others like it, to donate to charities, to get kids off of the streets and into proper homes." Forgetting his friends, he knelt next to her chair. "If only you and I had ever had access to what my foundation does today, how different would our lives have been, eh?"

  Robin felt that swirling, tingling feeling in her stomach again. She didn't know if it was Tony sitting so close to her or this deity to whom they all referred and appeared to revere. "But then, if you'd had access, you wouldn't have drive and we wouldn't be here today, would we?"

  Caroline slapped her knee as she stood up. "Ha! That is a good point, there." She went to her husband and slipped an arm around his waist. "Need a platter for the bird, love?"

  "That would be wonderful. Thank you."

  Before long, Robin found herself sitting at a table with the entire family. She learned that Caroline and Peter adopted all but the oldest boy. After the entire table held hands and Peter said a long prayer over their food, they ate the chicken with potato salad and baked beans that came from a grocery store deli. Despite the size of the meal she'd had at Hank's, Robin found herself enjoying this one immensely. She had no experience with interacting in this setting of family dynamics, but she enjoyed observing them.

  The biggest mystery she kept coming back to, though, was that Tony fit in with them. Never in a million years would she have guessed that he came from such humble roots. Never would she have thought that he spent Sunday afternoons after church in this living room with this family. She had always imagined him wining and dining in penthouse apartments or yachts on the Bay or mansions on the hill. But here, in this little home with the picket fence out front, here is where he fit – perfectly fit – his hand tailored shirt and twenty-four karat cuff links not withstanding.

  After the meal and after children were dispatched to the kitchen to tackle the dishes, the
adults moved to the living room with cake and coffee and talked. Robin enjoyed while Caroline and Peter bombarded her with stories of young Tony. She watched him interact with them, watched him completely relax as he leaned against the cushions and smiled at some story about him trying to learn Greek so that he could read the Bible in Greek.

  "Turns out, I'm more inclined toward Latin," he punned.

  She sat next to him and he turned his head slightly, looking away from Peter and toward her. As their eyes met, his smile slowly and gradually left his face. He looked very solemn, very serious. Robin felt pulled into his stare until even Peter's voice came from far away. Tony gently ran a finger down her cheek then took her hand in his. Robin felt a flutter in her heart. As soon as Tony broke eye contact with her and laughed at something Caroline said, the room came back into focus. She tried to pick up in her mind where the conversation left off, tried to pull her fingers out from his grasp, but he just entwined their fingers and squeezed.

  It felt right to sit with him like this so she settled back into the couch and enjoyed the stories, and the company, and the … love … that just flowed all around her.

  CHAPTER 10

  ROBIN found herself very restless on Sunday. She'd hoped she would spend the day with Tony, but after leaving the O'Farrell's with him Saturday night and getting dropped off at her apartment door with nothing more than a smile and an invitation to attend church the next day – which she declined – she didn't hear from him.

  She paced her apartment, cleaned out her closet, worried about doing laundry and missing his call, paced some more, and as the sun faded in the sky she found herself sitting on her couch staring mindlessly at some nature documentary and feeling a little blue. With Maxine on a date and Sarah at her parents' house, she found herself feeling lonely, too. With her schedule, living with her two sisters, and constantly having to interact with people, she had always enjoyed solitude.

  Had she done or said something to offend Tony? Did he not like the way she reacted to his story? Did he regret introducing her to his friends?

  Turning the television off in disgust, she surged to her feet. She would not be reduced to this emotional state of neediness by a man. She had survived twenty-six years without Antonio Viscolli, and she'd go on surviving without him.

  Working herself into a good angry fit, she decided she would go ahead and do laundry, whether that meant that she'd miss his phone call or not. Not that she expected him to call this late, anyway. While she sorted her laundry and shoved it all into a bag, she muttered to herself all of the reasons why she'd spent so many years avoiding a relationship with anyone.

  As she walked down to the laundry room and, with way more force than the chore required, shoved her clothes into the available washers, she built herself back up, reminding her inner self that she had tuition to pay, rent coming due, a car about to die on her. A man, or a relationship with a man, or a non-relationship with a man, did not fit into her schedule in any way at the moment.

  With three machines loudly chugging away at her clothes, she left the laundry room with much less furor than she had entered it. She slowly walked up the flights of stairs to her apartment and let herself back in. As she contemplated maybe fixing something to eat, she noticed the red light blinking on the answering machine, signaling an incoming message.

  Her heart skipped a beat before it started pounding. She rushed to push the button, and felt an immediate deflation of emotion as she heard Hank's gravely voice.

  "Robin, Hank. I need to talk with you before your Benedicts shift tomorrow. Ten is a good time. If you have to work breakfast first, try to just make it as soon as you can. No need to call me back unless it's to tell me a better time. Thanks. Have a good night."

  Never, in all of the years that she'd worked for him, had Hank ever called her in to meet with her. Frowning at the answering machine, Robin replayed the message, trying to glean some hint as to what he could possibly want to talk about with her. He'd pulled her into his office too many times to count for various reasons over the years – checking on her, she knew. Making sure she was emotionally handling everything in her life to his satisfaction. She allowed it because she loved him. But never had he called her at home, nor asked her to come in for a scheduled meeting while off shift.

  After a night spent tossing and turning and tossing some more, worrying about Hank's call and fretting over the lack of a call from Tony, she finally quit trying to sleep and got up early. She braided her long hair, dressed herself in the first uniform of the week, her Benedict's lunch uniform, and headed to Hank's.

  Hank's did not open until four on Mondays. Instead of a lunch shift, the kitchen staff received orders, stocked shelves, freezers, and refrigerators, and planned specials for the week. As Robin came in through the kitchen door, she had to twist aside to avoid colliding with a harried produce salesman who stamped quickly away from Casey's rage over, she assumed, the asparagus he clutched in both hands and held above his head.

  Instead of exchanging their standard greeting, she avoided becoming Casey's target in the absence of the salesman and headed straight to Hank's office. She rapped her knuckles on the closed door in quick succession, waited for the bark of command to enter, and opened the door. As she opened the door, she had to step aside as two men in paint splattered coveralls left the room. When Robin entered, she stopped short to find Tony seated behind the desk and Hank in one of the chairs before it. The bare walls no longer sported photos of Hank in the Navy, plaques, awards, or posters. Instead, fresh white paint glared back and made the room seem smaller. The standard piles and stacks of papers and books no longer cluttered the top of the desk. The bookshelf had all personal knicknacks and Tom Clancy novels removed and in their place sat books whose spines bragged of financial or management success.

  She took all of this in as she came farther into the room, but it confused her. Her understanding was that Hank would stay for a few years. "What's up?" she said. She looked at Hank first, then Tony, then back to Hank.

  Hank spoke. "Jessica, my youngest daughter, fell down the stairs Saturday night and broke her femur."

  Robin gasped and took the chair next to him. "Oh no."

  "Marjorie's already there. She needed to go down and take care of the baby."

  "Of course."

  "I called Tony on Sunday and we've been here since five this morning working everything out."

  Robin shifted her attention from Hank to Tony. "What everything?"

  Tony didn't look like he'd been at the office since five. His shirt looked crisp, freshly starched, and his blue tie speckled with tiny gold icthuses looked sharp against the whiteness of the shirt. "Hank is declining the five year management position. He's decided to go ahead and leave."

  Robin saw little bright lights in front of her eyes as a little swirl of panic start spinning in her chest. "I – ah …"

  Hank reached over and engulfed her hand in his. "Marjorie didn't like that clause, and she and I have been trying to come to a compromise about it. When the contracts to sell the restaurant were signed, we kept it open. Jessica is going to be down and out for a long time. With her husband's ship deployed, there's nothing else we can do but go be there for her and help her."

  Little beads of moisture formed on her upper lip. "But -"

  Tony leaned back in his chair. His fingers fidgeted with the gold pen that lay on the clean white blotter in front of him. "Hank and I have spent the last few weeks immersed in personnel and personalities and positions. He and I are both in agreement."

  "Agreement?" Did she miss a chunk of the conversation?

  "Effective today, the bar is closed." As if on cue, Robin heard the sound of a saw fire up from somewhere in the restaurant. "We're tearing it out and opening up more seating in its place."

  A little tinge of irritation helped slow down the spiral of panic. "Great." She'd known it was coming, though. The news didn't surprise her. Only, she still hadn't figured out what she'd do instead. "I guess I have the
evening free, then."

  Tony smiled. "As nice as that prospect is, I'm afraid that you're going to be a little busier than normal."

  "Oh? Why is that?"

  "I need to go out to California. I have a venture there that's still on shaky ground, and there's a hotel in Manhattan that I'm in the preliminary negotiations with that's going to start taking up a lot of my personal time." He spun the gold pen between his fingers like a tiny baton while he studied her face.

  With shaking hands, Robin pulled her tin of mints out of her pocket and popped one in her mouth. "Look – you don't need to explain."