Phantom of Riverside Park (15 page)

Shoving his messages aside, David reached for
the phone.

Elizabeth was boxing raspberry jelly
doughnuts when Celine stuck her head out of the office and yelled,
“Telephone!”

“For me?” Papa would never call her at work
unless it was an emergency. Elizabeth was so upset she nearly
dropped the box of doughnuts.

“Are you gonna take all day?” Celine said,
and Elizabeth ran to get the receiver.

“Hello?”

“This is David Lassiter,” her caller said,
and she nearly died on the spot. “You called.”

It was not a question but a statement, a
signal that he was a busy man and she was a pesky interruption.

All nerve endings, Elizabeth twisted the
phone cord.

“Yes, I called because...” She sputtered to a
stop, her mind a total blank. All she could do was stare at the
raspberry jelly she’d smeared on her fingers.

Celine’s harsh voice made her jump. “Are you
gonna stand there all day dawdling, or are you gonna finish and get
back to work? This is a business phone, you know.”

Elizabeth had about three minutes to convince
David to let her see him, and if she couldn’t do that she might as
well call it a day, for she’d never get another chance. Not unless
she wormed her way back into his office building again, and she
didn’t figure that would happen in this century or the next. A man
like David Lassiter would never allow that sort of breach in his
security system twice

Belatedly she felt sorry for the unfortunate
night watchman. She hoped he hadn’t lost his job.

“I called because I absolutely have to talk
to you,” she finally blurted out. “It’s very important.”

“What is the nature of your business?”

He sounded so formal, so distant.
Funny.
When she’d been in his office talking to him face
to face, she’d had the feeling that he was a warm and caring man in
spite of his reclusive ways.

Actually there’d been nothing face-to-face
about the encounter. He’d been completely hidden in shadow. She
wondered what he looked like, whether his face would match the
kindness and humor she’d heard in his voice.

“It’s about the money,” she said.

“It’s yours. You can spend it any way you
like.”

“No, no, it’s not that. I
have
to
talk with you about it.”

“I’ll have my secretary set up an appointment
for you with my bookkeeper. George handles all those matters.”

“I’m not your personal dating service,
missy,” Celine bellowed out. “You got about two minutes to get off
that phone and get back to work.”

Elizabeth covered the receiver in a vain
attempt to keep David Lassiter from knowing she was the kind of
woman other people yelled at. The humiliation of it all. The
indignity.

“Oh, please....” If the end justified the
means, she wasn’t above begging. “I must see you. My son’s future
depends on it.”

In the small silent eternity that followed,
she closed her eyes and prayed.

“I’ll send a car for you this evening at
seven,” David said.

o0o

The first thing Elizabeth did when she got
home was tell Papa the good news.

He was at the kitchen table looking at his
color brochures from John Deere, and when he saw her he quickly
slid them under his paper then pretended he was reading the
news.

“Guess who called me right out of the blue?”
she said. The sounds of laughter and a Looney Tunes cartoon came
from the direction of the den.

“The Mayor of Memphis?” Papa said, and
Elizabeth shook her head, laughing. “The President of the United
States?”

“No. David Lassiter.”

“Well, will wonders never cease?”

“He called me at the bakery, of all things.
Celine was fit to be tied. All the while I was trying to talk, she
kept shouting, ‘This is a business phone, you know,’ and ‘I’m not
your personal dating service, missy.’ I’m certain he heard. I was
mortified.”

And scared. She still was. The thing she’d
prayed for was about to come to pass, and she suddenly found
herself unable to keep a coherent thought in her head.

“I thought something good was fixin’ to
happen,” Papa said. “I went outside last night and there was Lola
Mae’s star.”

Elizabeth had heard him leave his bedroom and
go outside, but she hadn’t followed. She’d only gone to the window
to make sure he was engaging in his ritual rather than wandering
off, lost. Papa believed that after her death Lola Mae Jennings had
become a star, in addition to the other celestial role she’d
assumed, and that he could commune with her simply by gazing into
the heavens.

While Elizabeth didn’t quite believe he was
seeing Lola Mae in a star, she did believe in the transforming
quality of love, and standing there at her window she’d cried,
cried for the beauty and the loneliness it all.

She could nearly cry again, just remembering.
Papa left the kitchen table and hugged her.

“Don’t worry about tonight. You’re gonna be
just fine.”

She didn’t tell him it wasn’t tonight she was
worried about so much as all the rest of the nights of her
life.

“Thank you, Papa,” she said, and then she
hurried to get dressed.

As she ransacked her closet looking for
something to wear, it emerged that she had nothing suitable for a
mission of mercy. It would have been different if she were the one
on the giving end, then she could wear any old thing she pleased
and still be in the seat of power.

But Elizabeth was on the receiving end. At
least, she hoped she would be. And she had no intention of
approaching the mercy seat looking like a beggar.

Her barren closet mocked her. Now she knew
how Scarlett had felt when she tore down the velvet curtains to
make herself a dress. The thing was, Elizabeth had no velvet
curtains.

What she did have was a pink dress she’d
bought for her wedding, in spite of the fact that Taylor Belliveau
had said he would never marry her. When her stubborn hope finally
died, she’d hung the dress in her closet, a forlorn reminder of how
her past stood over her and shouted so loudly she might as well be
wearing a label that said,
Not Good Enough
.

Although the dress was five years out of
date, Elizabeth put in on. The surprise of seeing herself looking
like somebody’s girlfriend instead of somebody’s mother and the
sole breadwinner of her household set her to remembering the day
she’d bought the dress.

It had been eighty degrees that day, never
mind that it was October. But that’s how it is in Mississippi, with
some months that can’t make up their minds whether it’s fall or
summer, winter or spring.

In spite of the topsy-turvy weather,
Elizabeth had been filled with hope that day. Her belly was just
beginning to show a curve, and in her heart of hearts she knew that
Taylor Belliveau would come around. How could he not change his
mind when he saw she was determined to have their child?

And so she’d spent every last penny she had
on a pink maxi dress with a soft skirt that touched her ankles and
a bodice embroidered with the kind of flowers Mae Mae grew in her
summer garden. Her enchanted garden, she called it, and Elizabeth
knew it was so.

Hadn’t she seen the fairies there when she
was six years old and full of the magic of dreams?

Somehow wearing the dress tonight made
Elizabeth believe in dreams again, and wasn’t that exactly what she
needed? Maybe she should have been wearing the dress all these
years, but she’s not sorry she waited.

If she succeeded this evening all of them
could start anew--Papa, Nicky, herself. As she tied her hair back
with a pink ribbon she rehearsed what she would say to David
Lassiter.

With the pink ribbon secured, Elizabeth
glanced at the clock. Ten minutes till seven. If she hurried she
had time to put on some makeup.

o0o

Thomas had never seen such a car in all his
born days. It was blacker than shoe polish and stretched so far
down the block he had to crane his neck to see the back end.

The driver got out of the car, and he was
wearing one of those getups Thomas had seen on the movies on late
night television, the ones featuring Cary Grant. Now there was a
man who knew how to do things in style.

“Nicky, come here. I want you to see
this.”

Nicky crawled out from under the table where
he’d been putting out imaginary fires with his fire truck, then
raced to the window.

“Wow!”

“Take a good gander, Nicky. That’s a sure
‘nuff limousine.”

“What’s a lemon zing, Papa?”

“Something rich folks drive and folks like us
drool over, that’s what.”

When the driver walked up the cracked
sidewalk, Thomas nearly busted his buttons. They’d come to fetch
his granddaughter. Yessiree, this was one evening Elizabeth was
going to be treated like a high-born lady.

The doorbell pinged and Nicky began to jump
up and down.

“Can I see it, Papa? Can I?”

“You’ll have to ask your mama. Here she
comes.”

Elizabeth was all dressed in pink, her face
shiny as a new moon. She looked so much like Lola Mae, Thomas got
blurry eyed and nostalgic all over again.

“Ask me what?”

“Mommy, Mommy! Can I see the car?”

Any other woman going off in a big fancy car
like that on such an important occasion would have brushed the
child aside, but not his granddaughter. She squatted beside Nicky
and put her hands on his little face and said, “We’ll see,
sweetheart.”

She was an angel on earth, and Thomas didn’t
know how such a miracle was possible, her with two such godawful
parents. And that’s what they were. He’d say it to anybody who
asked, even if one of them was his own son. He reckoned he and Lola
Mae had been so wrapped up in their love for each other and had
waited so long to have children, they’d passed on some dried-up
genes.

Elizabeth opened the door, and a man the size
of a refrigerator ducked his head to come inside.

“Miss Elizabeth Jennings?”

“Yes, I’m Elizabeth.”

“Milton Edwards, at your service.”

He pulled off his cap, real respectful like.
And a good thing, too, for Thomas wasn’t about to let his
granddaughter get into the car with just any old body, even if he
was driving a stretch limousine.

Thomas was watching like a hawk. He knew
respect when he saw it, and furthermore he knew what was genuine
what was as fake as a three-dollar bill.

The man standing in their living room looking
a mite uncomfortable--probably due to being buttoned up in a coat
and tie in ninety-degree weather--was the real thing.

Personally, Thomas felt the world would be a
better place if folks would shuck their fancy suits for a good
comfortable pair of overalls. A man could have some freedom in
overalls.

“I’m ready to take you to Mr. Lassiter
whenever you’re ready to go, Miss Jennings.”

Thomas liked that. No rushing Elizabeth out
the door. No checking his watch to see if he was going to be late.
Tonight Elizabeth was a queen.

“Before we go, I wonder if my little boy
could see inside the car?”

Thomas held his breath, waiting. If the man
said no he guessed he’d have to teach him some manners.

The driver turned out to be as kind a
gentleman as he’d ever met. He not only let Nicky see the car, but
patiently answered every question. When Elizabeth finally rode off
in the limousine with him, Thomas got misty eyed.

“There she goes, Lola Mae.”

She looked so much like his wife, Thomas got
confused for a minute and thought it was Lola Mae riding off in a
limousine, riding off to their honeymoon.

It hadn’t been a limo they’d driven off in,
but a pickup truck. They’d married with a full-blown war on. Thomas
was eighteen with a draft notice in his pocket, and Lola Mae was a
fully blossomed rose of seventeen just right for the plucking. If
he didn’t, somebody else would. He was dead level certain of
that.

And so he’d asked, and she’d said yes, and
when he saw her walking down the aisle in her blue velvet gown he
was so proud and grateful and so much in love he wept.

She put her hands on his cheeks and kissed
his tears and whispered, “Don’t cry for me, love,” and that’s when
he knew she was not only a lady but smart, to boot.

“I’m taking you to Paris,” he said after the
ceremony.

“France?”

She got this look on her face, all big-eyed
and round-mouthed with wonder that nearly tickled him to death. He
knew that she knew he was teasing, but she was charmingly
gullible.

It was one of her most endearing qualities,
and she never lost it till the day she died.

“Tennessee,” he’d said. “I’m saving France
for our fiftieth wedding anniversary.”

She stood on tiptoe and kissed him right
there in the middle of the wedding reception, and he knew he’d
picked a winner.

What he had with Lola Mae is the thing he
wants most in the world for his granddaughter. A love like that
puts a shine on everything you do. Makes it all worthwhile. Even if
it’s snatched away before you’re ready to let it go, a love like
that is enough to last a man a lifetime.

Would it be too much, God, for Elizabeth
to have that, too?
As Thomas headed to the house with Nicky
swinging along beside him, he could taste the shape of his
prayers.

o0o

David regretted the foolish impulse that had
compelled him to call Elizabeth Jennings. George could have handled
the matter. Or Peter. Or even McKenzie.

But no, he had to play God. He had to
manipulate events so that when she walked through the door she
would perceive him as powerful, generous.

Wonderful.

David rubbed his hand over the long jagged
scar that bisected his left cheek, felt the puckered ridges, the
skin that sometimes burned so hot he thought he was still in the
midst of the explosion.