“Glad to meet you, Ms. Thurston. Encourage him to be active in—” His head snapped around toward Sloan. “Did you say Lynne Thurston? Not the tennis player!”
“Former tennis player,” Lynne said. “I’m happy to meet you.”
“Our chaplain will now lead us in saying the grace,” a voice intoned over the microphone, and a hush fell over the large crowd. The chaplain said the brief prayer, and immediately, the waiters began serving the food.
“Chicken à la king must be out of style,” Bill said, “or maybe we just got lucky. Give me roast beef any day.”
“It isn’t roast beef,” Bill’s wife said. “It’s filet mignon.”
“So what,” Bill said with a hint of impatience in his voice. “It’s still beef.”
“The difference between roast beef and filet mignon is like the difference between a Chevrolet and a Rolls-Royce,” she insisted, “and you of all people should know that.”
“I don’t give a damn as long as it’s edible,” he said. “Now, cut the racket and eat.”
“I won’t have you talking to me this way in front of people,” the woman said. At that point, Lynne tuned them out, but when she let herself look toward Sloan, she saw that he had stopped eating.
“Don’t let it bother you,” she whispered.
“Conflict is something that I have no tolerance for. If you ever want to disagree with me about anything, tell me you want to discuss it, and we will. But I can’t stand bickering.”
It seemed to her that most of the affair bored Sloan, or perhaps the argument between Bill and his wife had ruined the occasion. She hoped not, because he had seemed so happy when they arrived.
“Are we meeting Drake and Pamela?” she asked him as he thanked Bill again and stood to leave.
“Yes. I’ll stop by their table.”
“We want you and Lynne to come to our wedding September 10,” Pamela said. She handed Sloan a small card. “Please write your address and phone number here.”
He complied. “Wouldn’t miss it.” He patted Drake’s shoulder. “You’ve chosen a real winner, man.”
Drake’s face seemed to bloom in a charismatic grin. “You’re traveling first class yourself, brother. See you in September.”
As they said their goodbyes, she wondered how the Howard University women handled the presence of Drake Harrington and Sloan McNeil. More handsome men she hadn’t seen. No wonder they were friends; they needed each other for company.
A man approached wearing a black tuxedo, black shirt and black tie, and he wore a diamond stud in his right earlobe. Although he was a bigger man, he reminded her of Max. Max. Her right hand flew to her mouth.
“What’s wrong?” Sloan asked her. “Did you forget something?”
She had, indeed. “I can’t believe I never told you that I fired Max two days before I left for Ellicott City.”
He stopped walking and stared down at her. “You fired him? And you didn’t tell me?”
“I had a reason for not calling you that morning right after I... Oh, yes. I make it a point not to call you during mornings because I know you may be busy, and when we talked that night, I was focused on going to Ellicott City.”
“I see. Well, good riddance. When will you get another one?”
“Gary got Clive Roberts for me, and we start Monday morning.”
“That’s a good choice. If I remember well, Roberts is reputed to be a gentleman.”
She could see that he was not pleased, and she appreciated his not making an issue of it. Yet, although he held her hand as they waited for the bellhop to bring his car, she sensed that by forgetting to tell him that she fired Max, a step so important to her, she had hurt him. The oneness she felt with him when they arrived at the gala was missing.
“Want to come in?” she asked him after he opened her door.
Without answering, he walked in with her, but stood near the door. “Sloan, please don’t read anything into my lapse in not telling you about Max. After it happened, you were the first person I thought of. I even asked myself when you became more important to me than my brother, who I have always looked up to and almost worshiped. I can see that we’ve lost what we had earlier this evening.”
“You said you care for me. Do you or don’t you? And if you do, I come first with you as you come first with me.”
She caught herself rubbing her arms as if they were cold, and inside of her, she was cold.
“Lynne, do you want my arms around you?”
“Yes. Oh, yes!”
He picked her up, carried her into the living room and sat with her in his lap. “This evening isn’t going to end as I had hoped it would,” he said, “because I’m doing more thinking than feeling. No woman has ever meant as much to me as you do. Don’t forget that.”
So he had intended for them to make love. Her disappointment shocked her, for she hadn’t realized that she was ready to cross that threshold. When she said, “You’re precious to me,” he held her away from him and, in the dimly lighted room let her see in his eyes all that he felt for her.
“I’d better go now. I’ll bring Caesar tomorrow evening, and perhaps...” He paused. “We’ll take it from there.”
She brushed his lips with her own, but didn’t part her lips, for she understood him well enough now to know that he wasn’t in the mood for romance. Sloan McNeil was not pretentious. At the door with his hands stuffed in his pockets, he looked down at her. “It’s just as well that I get to bed early. Bill and Gerald were both off today, and I had almost more calls than I could handle, plus the work that came into the station.”
Without thinking it over first, she said, “Why don’t you give up that work, let the men do it and you take care of the business from your office. I mean, life would be so much easier and—”
“You mean I should work in the office, keeping books and that sort of thing, and let my employees do the dirty work?”
“Yes, and that way, you won’t be tired, and you’ll feel better about yourself,” she said, parroting Brad and happy that Sloan understood her.
His eyes, suddenly cold and penetrating, seemed to dissect her. He put one hand on the doorknob and saluted her with the other one. “See you around.”
Her bottom lip dropped as she watched, transfixed, when he stepped out of the door and, she realized, out of her life. What have I done? With her head back and her face toward the ceiling, she wrapped her arms around her waist and groped through the darkness to the living room, where she fell onto the sofa and cried tearless tears until her body’s every muscle ached and her heart seemed to settle at the bottom of her belly.
He warned me that he and his work were one, that he enjoyed what he did and was good at it. How could I have been so wrong?
She went up the stairs to her bedroom, took off the dress and threw it across the chintz boudoir chair. She hated chintz and stopped her foot just before it collided with the offensive furniture. She had never looked as beautiful as she did that night, but if she never saw the dress again, she wouldn’t care. With effort, she dragged herself to the bathroom, washed her face and then crawled into bed. She didn’t expect to sleep and, at daybreak, she was still awake.
* * *
Sloan walked with heavy steps to his car, got into it and headed home. He hadn’t glanced back, because he never looked back. Another woman who saw him as a grease monkey, who liked him in a tuxedo, but couldn’t stand the idea of having a man who got his hands dirty when he worked. He wanted nothing to do with a woman who wasn’t proud of him, who was only satisfied with the way he looked. As far as he was concerned, she was history. He didn’t underestimate what he was up against because he loved her, and he knew it would hurt, but damned if he was going to let it kill him.
Now what? As he entered his house, he remembered that he still had Caesar,
and that meant he had to see her again. With a shrug, he shook off the implications of that. After checking on the dog, who he had leashed on his back porch, he undressed, went to bed and to sleep.
That Sunday morning was unlike any he’d spent in the past three months. He looked forward to nothing, not even to a phone call. As he sat on his porch eating a breakfast of cantaloupe, cold cereal and coffee, it occurred to him that the beauty of his surroundings left him unmoved, that the sound of birds chirping seemed less joyful, and that the feel of the early morning breeze on his bare skin failed to invigorate him. He didn’t open the service station on Sundays, but he wished he had some grueling work to distract him. He didn’t want to think of Lynne and of what could have been.
After breakfast, he put his dishes in the dishwasher, donned a pair of jeans, a shirt and a McNeil jacket and took Caesar for a walk, though the dog indicated a preference for running. “You’re going home, buddy. I don’t need you around to remind me of her.”
He procrastinated for roughly an hour and then he telephoned Lynne. “Hello, Lynne. This is Sloan.” He heard the catch in her breath, but he wasn’t going to respond to that or any other indication that she might have regrets. “If you’ll be at home around one today, I’ll bring Caesar home.”
Her voice seemed small and uncertain, but he closed his mind and his heart. “I’ll be here.”
“See you then,” he said, and hung up. He couldn’t do better, because he was not a liar, and he had no intention of pretending what he didn’t feel.
He hung up and called Thelma. “This is Sloan. If you’ll be home around one, I’ll fix your kitchen window so you can close it the next time there’s a storm.”
“Oh, Sloan. God bless you. I’ll be here.”
Caesar enjoyed riding in the front seat of the Buick LeSabre, but he didn’t like being strapped in. “Sorry, buddy, but any being—human or otherwise—who rides up here with me wears this strap, and you are not an exception.” As if he understood, the dog settled down and allowed the offense.
He headed up the walk to Lynne’s house with Caesar straining at the leash, wagging his tail and barking as if with joy. Almost as soon as he rang the doorbell, she opened the door and gazed up at him with a look of expectancy on her that sent his heart into a tumble.
“He’s been fed, and he had his morning walk,” he said, without preliminaries, and handed her the leash.
“Thanks. Uh...won’t you come in?”
He stared down into her large, luminous eyes and saw the pain reflected in them, but he didn’t allow it to move him. “No, thanks. Be seeing you.”
He hurried down the steps out of the way of temptation, strode down the walkway to his car and got into it feeling that he had just escaped something more powerful than he. He drove to the end of the block, parked and went to Thelma’s house. Pity stole over him when the old woman opened the door before he reached the house, for she had been waiting for what was probably her only guest since he was last in her house.
“You’re a dear,” she said. “I haven’t opened that window since you closed it.”
“This may take a while,” he told her, “so you get comfortable somewhere and let me see what I can do with it.” He dropped his bag of tools on the floor beneath the window and got busy. Seeing that it was hung crooked, he removed it and rehung it.
“Can you come here?” he called to her. The tiny woman appeared, her face all smiles, and looked up at him. “See if you can raise it now.”
She did and it went up with ease. “What did you do to it?”
“It was crooked. When it gets wet or the humidity is high, wood tends to swell. I took the window out and hung it properly. You won’t have any problems with it now.”
“You don’t know how grateful I am, Sloan. You go in the bathroom there and wash your hands. I’ve got something nice for you.”
“Yes, ma’am. You couldn’t have picked a better time. I can use some pampering.”
“Hmm.” An inquiring expression flashed over her face, and she patted his arm. “Go ahead. I’ll be in the living room. Sit over here in front of the coffee table,” she said when he walked into the living room. “It’s nice and fresh.” She cut a wedge of the pie and served it to him on what he recognized as her best porcelain and poured coffee into a matching cup. “If you’d rather have iced tea, I have some made.”
“This is perfect, Thelma. I don’t have to tell you what I think of this pie.”
Her smile rewarded his graciousness. “Now you tell me why you need pampering from an old woman like me. Aren’t you going back to Lynne’s place when you leave here?”
He shook his head, chewed the pie and swallowed it. “Hadn’t planned to.”
“But you didn’t stay there more than a minute. What’s going on?”
“It isn’t going to work, Thelma, and I’m glad I know it now.”
“Now look, the two of you are in love with each other. I could actually feel it. What the devil happened?”
“It’s simple. I’m not what she thought, and—”
She interrupted him. “And she’s not what you thought. Hogwash!! You had a misunderstanding, and one of you’s not willing to forgive.” She looked straight at him, and he didn’t duck her perusal. “Or—” she waved her fork at him “—she did something you don’t like, and you’re not willing to forgive her or even to discuss it. So don’t tell me you aren’t what she thought you were. There isn’t a thing wrong with you that less stubbornness wouldn’t cure. I’m right and you know it.”
Sloan ate the last piece of pie on his plate, sipped his coffee a few times and sat back in his chair. “I fell in love with Lynne practically on sight, and the more I saw of her the more solid the feeling became. But, Thelma, I need a woman who appreciates me just as I am, and that means accepting the fact that I crawl under automobiles, that when I’m working, my hands, shoes, clothing and sometimes my face are filthy. If I wanted to sit in my office, keep books and hand out assignments to the men who work for me, I wouldn’t need my degrees in mechanical engineering.”
Thelma sat forward, the hand in which she held the cup of coffee trembling. “And what makes you think all that matters to her?”
“She told me as much last night when she advised me to confine my work to the office, and I’d, ‘feel better about myself,’ was the way she put it.”
“Here. Have some more pie,” she said as she put another hefty slice on his plate. “Seems to me like she’s using somebody’s head other than her own. She adores you, and I imagine she’s miserable.”
He knew she was, but he had to cut his losses. “I know, but I’m not going that route again. She’s a celebrity, and she will be an even bigger one, so I suppose she’s concerned with her image.”
“She’s not that kind of person. If she was, she wouldn’t spend time with an old woman like me. I’ve lived a long time, and I know the real thing when I see it. This isn’t the end of it, and if I live another year and you don’t fall out with me, I expect to be present at your wedding.”
He felt a grin spreading over his face. “If you prove to be right, I won’t get angry with you. I’d better go.” He started to get up and paused. “At this rate, I ought to send you a sack of pecans.”
“Don’t you dare! I’ve got two pecan trees in the back of my house, and I haven’t used up half of last year’s harvest.” She walked with him to the door. “You come see me again soon now. You hear?”
“You bet. If you need me, call me. All right?” He turned at the sight of her tears. “None of that. I’ll see you soon.”
She grasped his hand to detain him. “If Lynne wants to talk with you, listen to what she has to say. Promise me you’ll give your relationship with her one more chance. You’re two wonderful people, and I...well you know what I mean.”
“If she convinces me, I’ll
be happy,” he said, but he didn’t plan to create the opportunity for that to happen.
He told her goodbye and jogged to his car without a glance toward Lynne’s house. What was done was done.
* * *
Returning from a jaunt around the block with Caesar, Lynne reached Thelma’s house at about the same time that Sloan’s Buick shot away from the curb and headed down the street. She had planned to stop by Thelma’s house with Caesar in the hope that her neighbor and the dog could become friends, and that eventually Thelma would be willing to keep the dog for her when she traveled. She gave silent thanks that she hadn’t gotten that far while Sloan was visiting Thelma; she had no desire to encounter him. She turned back to her house as a man left her front door and headed down her walk. Caesar jumped forward with such strength that he dragged her along with him, and she could hardly control the dog as he growled and jumped at the man.
“You’d better get out of the way,” she said to the stranger. “He’s my guard dog and that’s my house. What were you doing there?”
Caesar continued to strain at his leash and to bark ferociously, and with a look of horror on his face, the man backed away, but was reluctant to miss an opportunity to hawk his wares. “I was canvassing votes for the independent party in the coming election,” he said. “I’ll come back another time.”
When he turned to go, she screamed at him, “Don’t run, for goodness’ sake. You’ll make my dog more excited.”
He slowed down so quickly that she almost laughed. The experience was sufficient to divest her of the notion that Thelma might occasionally take care of Caesar: with his strength, the dog could injure her if she attempted to restrain him. She patted Caesar, went inside, fed him and prepared to spend Sunday evening alone. Almost at once, her phone rang, and she grabbed her chest, as excitement raced through her. Could it be...?
“Hello.”
“Hi, sis. What’s up?” She didn’t want to talk with Brad. She’d had enough of his wisdom.
“Nothing,” she said. “How’s Debra?”
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