Once in a Lifetime (21 page)

She passed her hand over her eyes, as if to clear away a haze and improve her vision. “You haven’t offered me anything more permanent than an affair.”

“You haven’t encouraged me to do that, either. In fact, honey, you’ve discouraged me in subtle ways.” He took her hand and started back to the house, their passions cooled by the somber business of looking at their lives. “I’m thirty-seven, and it’s time I put my house in order. You have this wonderful little girl. I can’t even lay claim to that happiness.”

She didn’t answer, but her silence didn’t perturb him. Not yet. She loved him, and she wanted him. A man hardly needed more powerful weapons.

And I’d better get my house in order, too,
Alexis admitted to herself that night as she helped Tara get ready for bed. And she would start by doing what she’d procrastinated about for the past four months. The next morning, she telephoned Dr. Eleanor Shaw, her former colleague at State University.

After they greeted each other as old friends who had long been out of touch, Alexis cut to the chase. “Eleanor, do you remember the case of Melanie Krenner? I know it’s been a long time.”

“Remember? Who’d forget it?”

Alexis explained that she’d met the girl’s father and that
her whereabouts remained a mystery. “Allen Krenner is still distraught after all this time.”

“Hmmm. Is he special to you?”

“Only in that he’s very close to someone I…uh…dear to me.”

“I see. I think he recently inquired about her. My daughter knew Melanie’s roommate, but it’s possible they’ve lost touch. I’ll see what I can find out. How may I reach you?”

Alexis told her. “This means a lot to me, Eleanor. More than you can imagine.”

“Don’t mention it, friend, I’ll be in touch soon as I have something to tell you.”

The following Saturday evening as she dressed for the Harrington reception, the phone rang. “Mummy, it’s a lady.” Tara loved answering the phone and considered it both her right and her duty.

“Hello. Alexis Stevenson speaking.”

“Hi. This is Eleanor. I may have something for you, if you’ve got a minute.”

Alexis took the portable phone from its cradle and sat on the bed. “What’s the story?”

After listening to the incredible tale, she asked the doctor’s name.

“Lawrence Duckwilder. Can’t be too many of those around.”

“Right. I’ll follow this up. I know it’s going to take a while, but I’m going all the way with it. It might be best if word of this doesn’t get back to your daughter’s friend. Thanks is a poor expression of what I feel.”

“I know. Let’s try to meet somewhere for old times’ sake.”

“I’d like that, and I’ll stay in touch.”

She sat there for some minutes after Eleanor hung up. She’d always been honest in her dealing with others. Knowing what she knew, she shouldn’t let Telford touch her again. If he never knew, she could go on, letting him love her and reaching out
for the true happiness she craved. She exhaled a long breath.
I can’t worry about Telford’s reaction to my role in that fiasco. I have to do what I know is right.
And that meant taking whatever steps she could to ease Allen Krenner’s awful load. It might take months, but until she could face Telford, she would try to keep a distance between them.

She finished dressing, inspected the long, strapless red silk sheath and checked her makeup and perfume. In view of the revelation of the past half hour and what she’d decided to do about it, it might have been better if she’d worn something more subtle, but she didn’t have that option.

Taking Tara’s hand, she headed for the living room, where she expected to find Velma, Henry and the Harringtons. “Miss Bennie’s staying with you until we get back. I want you to obey her.”

“Okay, Mummy. Can Biscuit sleep with me tonight?”

What a con artist! “Biscuit cannot sleep with you tonight or
any
night.”

“Oh.” She smiled as if she’d just been given a priceless gift. “Can I have some black-cherry… Uh…no, thanks. I’ll ask Mr. Henry.”

She stopped and looked at her daughter. Five years old and able consistently to wind every man in the house around her finger.

They reached the living room where Telford relaxed against the door, resplendent in a black tuxedo with a red-and-gray paisley cummerbund and matching accessories. He walked to meet them.

“Oh, Mr. Telford, you look so nice.” Tara gazed up at him as if he were her beloved black-cherry ice cream. “My mummy’s pretty, too.”

Telford gazed at Alexis. “She’s…beautiful. Woman…what have… Oh, you’re wearing makeup.” He let go a soft whistle. “I’ve got a siren on my hands.”

“Where’s Velma?” she asked him, trying not to react to his words and the praise that he heaped upon her with his eyes.

“Velma left about an hour ago. Russ took her.”

She hadn’t considered that possibility. “I’m getting suspicious of those two.”

Telford poked his tongue in his left cheek. “Don’t. With this kind of business, you can’t second-guess Russ. He treads so softly he wouldn’t make a footstep in a pile of sand.” He rubbed his chin as though in thought. “Can’t tell, though; every Samson meets his Delilah. Sooner or later.”

He looked down at his watch. “Let’s go, Henry.”

The old man ambled into the living room wearing an oxford gray suit, white shirt and red tie and looking as if years had fallen away from him.

“Close your mouth, Alexis,” he said. “I know how to dress, but trussing m’ self up so folks’ll stare at me ain’t in my racial DNA. I leave them monkey suits to the younger ones, but there ain’t no poop on me.”

Alexis smothered a laugh. Henry had a habit of caressing her funny bone without even trying.

Tara clapped her hands. “Mr. Henry, you look…oh!”

Tara’s remark brought a big laugh from Telford. “You’re right, sweetheart. He looks great. Yeah. Henry cleans up real good.” He looked at Bennie. “We should be back by midnight.”

Alexis threw a black, cut-velvet shawl around her shoulders and took Telford’s arm.

“You’re so somber,” he said. “I shaved, got a manicure and put on my best tux. Don’t I rate a smile?”

“You shave every day,” she said.

“Didn’t used to,” Henry said. “Don’t seem like too long ago when his hair hung down to his collar, and them scrawny strands on his face looked like the whiskers on a wet rat.”

Telford laughed aloud. “Are you trying to ruin my image? I’m trying to impress this woman, and you’re talking about my adolescence.”

“You ain’t going about it the right way. If it was me, she’d a changed rooms long ago.”

Telford seated Alexis and Henry, got in and pulled away
from the curb. “Henry, a wise man doesn’t say everything he thinks.”

“Yeah? Then how does anybody know he’s wise if he don’t say what he thinks?”

Alexis laughed, enjoying the easy camaraderie between Henry and Telford.
No wonder I love him. It would be strange if I didn’t.

A twinge of guilt pricked her conscience when Telford took her hand and entered the reception with such obvious pride, but she’d deal with that later. The people stood back as they passed on the way to the head table and, for the first time, she understood that Telford Harrington was head of Eagle Park’s leading family, what that status meant to him, his brothers and the community. She banished the feeling of guilt and reveled in the pride he took in being with her.

“You two took your time getting here,” Russ said, though his broad grin took away the bite of his mild reprimand. He stood, as did Drake and Adam Roundtree.

“Thanks for coming, Adam,” Telford said. “Where’s Wayne?”

“Hadn’t you heard? Banks is expecting, and Wayne’s treating her as if she’s breakable. He hardly goes to work for fear she’ll drop a piece of paper and he won’t be there to pick it up. He’s driving Banks crazy.”

“I can imagine. Give them my best.” He reached for Alexis to introduce her, but Drake was trying to get her attention.

“Alexis Stevenson, this is Marla Sinclair,” Drake said of the woman beside him, and she judged at once that, though Drake liked the woman, she wasn’t special to him.

Telford introduced Alexis to Melissa and Adam Roundtree, explaining that he and Melissa were college classmates, and that the Roundtrees lived in Beaver Ridge, a tiny hamlet about twelve miles from Eagle Park.

“I’m delighted to meet you, Alexis,” Melissa said. “Something tells me Big Tip is finally going to take the plunge, and believe me, a lot of…”

Alexis didn’t hear the remainder of Melissa’s words. Big
Tip, Melissa Roundtree’s college classmate. She put on her best smile and the best acting performance of her life. Big Tip. She had to be sure.

“Where’d you go to college?” she asked Melissa as soon as the others at the table became absorbed in their own conversations.

“Howard University.”

The muscles of her belly contracted violently, but she wouldn’t let herself clutch her middle. “We have something in common,” she said and immediately switched the conversation to include her sister, complimenting her on the decor, the band and the table settings. Having successfully deflected Melissa’s thoughts from Big Tip and Howard University, she plastered a smile on her face, laid back her shoulders and prayed that she could get through the evening with her pride and composure intact.

Big Tip. The boy she’d craved from a distance while a college freshman, the boy she’d made a fool of herself over. Without the long wavy hair, mustache, beard and horn-rimmed glasses, and with the added height, weight and physical maturity that came with age, she would never have recognized him. She’d poured out her soul to him in a note, telling him of her longing for companionship with him, the boy who haunted her thoughts day and night. The boy who was so kind to her, the one time she was near him.

In those days, she hadn’t had any self-confidence, and when he came to her with the note she’d written him, embarrassed, she swore she hadn’t written it. Obviously crestfallen, he never spoke to her again. One more reason why only pain could come out of their relationship. God forbid he should ever discover that she was Alexis Brighton, the skinny girl who wore contact lenses to change her eye color from light brown to gray, who didn’t have a date during four years of college and who was so foolish as to fall for Howard’s Big Man on Campus.
Lord, please let this evening end.

T
elford tried to decide whether Velma’s seemingly natural ebullience accounted for Alexis’s subdued behavior. Somehow, he doubted that she would pay such deference to her older sister in that gathering. And surely she didn’t think she took a backseat to Melissa Roundtree or any other woman. Still, her unnatural quiet disturbed him, and he studied her with slightly hooded eyes. One who didn’t know her would see a regal, self-possessed woman who listened and didn’t talk, but the Alexis he knew held her own in any company. When he glanced around, he noticed that Henry, too, studied Alexis. He tried to shrug it off. Maybe he imagined it.

“Time for you to say something, isn’t it?” Drake asked him.

“What’s your hurry?” he asked under his breath. “You’re not spending the night in Frederick,” a reference to the fact that Marla lived in Frederick.

“If somebody drugs me, I might,” Drake said, standing to greet a passerby. “Good of you to come, buddy.”

Telford went to the microphone, got the guests’ attention and
cleared his throat. He hadn’t planned a speech. “My brothers and I completed the school, finished our new warehouse and got plans approved for a complex in Barbados. With all that under our belt, what was there to do but give a party? Thank all of you for coming. As I said at the school’s inaugural ceremonies, we’d give anything if our dad could be here. Everybody, have a good time.”

Telford couldn’t decide how to respond when Adam Roundtree winked at him and said, “When you walked in here with Alexis, I thought you’d planned the party to announce your engagement to her. What’s holding you, man?”

He didn’t want to give his friend a flip answer, and he wouldn’t say anything that suggested Alexis wasn’t important to him. He decided to treat it lightly. “Man, you need a woman’s permission when you broadcast to the world that she’s agreed to marry you, and I don’t have her consent.”

“Think you’ll get it?”

“It hasn’t gotten quite that far.”

“She’s the kind of woman a man wants to be seen with, and face it, buddy. You’re bored with bachelorhood. Grant’s five years old. Who’s he going to marry, if you don’t get busy?”

He sat forward. “Did you say he’s five? Alexis’s daughter is five, and she needs a playmate. Mind you, if Grant roughs up Tara, I’ll whack his behind. That little girl wound me around her finger the minute I saw her.”

“Whoa, buddy. You may be telling me more than you’d like me to hear.”

Telford raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t mean that. No word ever comes out of my mouth that I don’t plan to release. Bring Grant over one Saturday morning, and we’ll take the kids fishing.”

“Great idea. Good as done.”

Tara would have a playmate, but what about him? Alexis had barely looked at him all evening, and when he did catch her gaze, she quickly looked away. Something had happened since they entered the reception hall, and she had some explaining to do.

Telford didn’t hold her hand or put an arm around her as they left the reception, and she understood why. She hadn’t been able to hide her despondency, and he’d interpreted what he saw as the deliberate erection of a barrier between them. She didn’t blame him, but the awful ache inside her choking her breath and tearing at her insides was real and painful. He would understand that she didn’t remember him from their school days, because he didn’t remember her. But straitlaced as he was, he’d damn her for lying to him.

She could still see in her mind’s eye the disappointment mirrored in his eyes years earlier when she rejected him. Several days prior to that, he had befriended her quite by chance, though he had no idea who she was. But she knew him, for she had cherished him from afar throughout her freshman year. Newspaper reports of Big Tip, Howard’s great star quarterback, hung on the walls of her dormitory room. He was her secret love, and she daydreamed endlessly about him.

One day, she poured out her affection in a letter to him that she signed
A. Brighton
and addressed it to him as
Big Tip
since, like most other Howard University students, she didn’t know his real name. But she lost the sealed letter, and someone found it and delivered it to Big Tip. He sought her out, but in her embarrassment, she claimed that she didn’t know anything about the letter. He’d been unable to hide his hurt and humiliation.

“Sorry. My mistake” was all he said. He never went near her again.

And how she regretted that lie! All during her disastrous marriage, when she longed for love and genuine affection, her thoughts went back to Big Tip and what she might have had with him.

“Feel up to letting me in on the reason for this…this mood, Alexis?” Telford asked, bringing her back to the present as he began to drive home.

Surely he didn’t plan to discuss their differences in
Henry’s presence. “You seem to have forgotten that I’m your housekeeper. Well, I remembered, and I expect your guests couldn’t figure out why I was with you,” she said, the only answer she could give.

He slowed down, and a glance at the speedometer confirmed that he’d been speeding. “I’ll think about that, and you can bet believing it will take some doing. You’re a housekeeper in name only. Besides, I didn’t introduce you as our housekeeper. Think again.”

The trajectory of his voice served as notice that he was in an aggressive mood and didn’t plan to let her off easily. If they were to preserve the element of their relationship that was so important to her—the love and trust—they had to talk in private.

“Do you mind if we postpone this discussion at least until we get ho…uh—”

“What’s the matter?” His voice carried an icy challenge. “You can’t make yourself refer to my home as your home?”

Four months of heaven, and it had all slipped through her fingers. From the euphoria that only a woman in love can know down to the valley of despondency, and in no more time than it took Melissa Grant Roundtree to say “Big Tip.”

She thought her head would explode, alarming her, because she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a headache. “Please, Telford, don’t say hurtful things. I don’t think I can stand it.”

He spared her a quick glance. “What you’re hearing is how
I
hurt. Nothing could provoke me deliberately to hurt you.”

“Fine, when that’s mutual,” Henry said, reminding them of his presence. “But according to what my eyes seen tonight, your intentions needs some fixin’ up, Alexis, and you’d better get to work on it.”

“Henry, will you please butt out of this and stay out?” Telford said.

“Like I said, Alexis, make up your mind. Won’t do for Tel to harden his position, ’cause he ain’t never learned how to…to…reverse himself.”

She knew Henry cared about her and that he loved Telford, so she didn’t complain about his interfering. “Thanks, Henry. I’m trying.”

“You ain’t trying hard enough.”

She dreaded the way the evening would end and, as things transpired, her intuition proved right.

“Thanks for your company,” Telford said as they walked into the foyer. “I’ll drive Bennie home. Good night.”

“Wait,” she said, head high and shoulders back, “I have to pay her.”

His smile amounted to a benevolent exercise of authority. “Of course I’ll take care of that. Good night.”

She slept fitfully, reliving missed opportunities. He didn’t give her a chance to tell him that they’d known each other briefly in their college days. No, that wasn’t true. If she were honest, she’d admit he created an opening but, scared of the consequences when he discovered she’d lied to him, she didn’t take advantage of that opportunity. Yes, she’d had the chance and she’d blown it. She wasn’t used to fear, and she didn’t know how to handle it.
If only she had leveled with him.

The brothers usually slept late on Sundays, and so did Velma. Alexis had breakfast with Tara, left her daughter with Henry and drove to Frederick to look for a stand and glass case for the bust she’d almost finished. With luck, she’d have it ready by Christmas. She bought a gray, antique marble pedestal and had it stored in the trunk of her car, where it would stay till she needed it.

“You don’t seem to be up to snuff,” she said to Henry when she went to get Tara from his bungalow.

“Little tired. Old men ain’t got no business gallivanting around with these here young turks. Feels a little like a cold’s coming on.”

“I’ll cook dinner, then.”

He threw up his hands. “For goodness’ sake, ain’t you never gonna learn? Down here, we eats supper at night.”

She hugged Henry, startling herself and probably embar
rassing him, but it was too late; a person couldn’t retract a hug.

“Were you mad at Tel last night?”

She shook her head. “Nothing like that, I gave him my reasons.”

“I heard you, and I didn’t believe you no mor’n he did. If Telford ever loved any other woman, he didn’t bring her here and I ain’t seen her. You ’bout to send him right back into that shell he lived in ’fore you come here.”

“Don’t look for anything to materialize between us, Henry. It wasn’t meant to be.”

“Rot. You knocked the wind out of each other. Still…” He scratched his head. “If you want to be stupid, I can’t stop you.”

She ignored that. “I’ll fry some chicken, make some potato croquettes and cook some asparagus. Do you have anything for dessert?”

“I made a couple of apple pies, and Tara can have her ice cream. Thanks. I’ll spell you sometimes. Tara can stay over here and play with the puppies.”

Alexis set the table for supper, went to her room and worked on the bust, molding and chiseling the clay. She couldn’t wait to see the final figure, cast in bronze.

“Where you hiding out down here?” Velma asked, knocking and entering simultaneously.

“Suppose I had company,” she countered in a mild reprimand.

Velma allowed herself a deep yawn. “Oh, I knew you didn’t. He just now got into that Buick and drove off.”

Blood squirted from the middle finger of Alexis’s right hand. “Ow.”

After cleaning and bandaging the cut, she returned to her work. “You can stay, but ignore this piece I’m working on. It’s a surprise, and you can’t see it.”

Velma buffed the nails of her right hand on her slacks. “He spent a lot of time gazing at you last night, puzzledlike. The
rest of us watched first one of you and then the other. What are you going to do about him?”

“I don’t know. I’m not going to chase him. If we work it out, I’ll be happy; if we don’t, I won’t lie down and die.” Brave words, but after the trials of her marriage, she figured she could weather an earthquake.

“What’s going on with you and Russ?” Alexis asked.

“I like him. He’s a nice guy—like Drake and Telford.”

In other words, nothing yet.

For dinner, she dressed in the red silk, floor-length T-shirt that Telford liked, caught her hair up with a white-ivory comb and dressed her daughter in a red pantsuit.

“Where’s Mr. Telford?” Tara asked, as they sat at the table waiting for him. “Is it seven o’clock?”

“He’s fifteen minutes late,” Drake said. “I say we eat.”

The phone rang in the dining room, and Tara raced to answer it. “Hello. Mr. Telford, dinner’s ready. Oh. Oh. Okay. See you at breakfast. Bye. Kisses.” She ran back to the table and sat down. “Mummy, Mr. Telford called to tell me he wasn’t coming home for supper.”

That took care of her appetite. Not only was Telford not eating at home, but he’d phoned late in a deliberate act of defiance.

After supper, Russ asked, “Anybody want to go to the movies? How about you, Velma?”
Come along, but it’s nothing special
was his message. Velma went, but Alexis declined.

The next morning, Alexis skipped breakfast. She knew Telford would either put Tara on the school bus or take her to school.

However, Tara raced back to their rooms crying, “Mummy, Mummy. Mr. Telford didn’t come home last night. Mr. Henry told Mr. Russ his bed’s still made up.”

When her shock subsided, she hugged Tara. “Don’t worry, he’s got business to look after.” If only she could assuage her own fears with that explanation. “I’ll put you on the bus.”

She got Tara off to school and went into the kitchen for a fortifying cup of coffee. All she could think of was that
sometimes nothing went right. Just when she needed her sister’s company, Velma was headed to Detroit and another job.

“It’s been great, sis,” Velma said. “I’ll stay in touch. Drake’s working in Baltimore today, so he’s driving me to the airport.”

“What about Russ? Think anything will happen between you two?”

“Doesn’t seem likely, though we might have clicked if I’d stayed around longer.”

“Don’t cross it off. I’ve developed an enormous respect for Russ. Did he kiss you last night?”

Velma licked her lips and rolled her eyes. “Yeaaaah. And, honey, that man knows what he’s doing.”

“Then, what—”

“A slow man with a slow hand. I could get used to him, but the minute you sat down at the table and began talking with Melissa Roundtree, something went out of the party. Russ was so distracted by what was, or wasn’t, going on between you and Telford that he couldn’t pay attention to me. All of us at the table knew something had gone wrong. Knowing how tight-lipped you are, I won’t ask. But, girl, Telford Harrington’s a forty-karat man, and he’s besotted with you. Don’t louse up.”

“You’ve decided it was my doing, and the onus is on me?”

“You got it. Give me a hug. Drake’s waiting, and Russ might be somewhere around the front door, too.” She laughed aloud. “How’s that for humor? You stay here. I might get a kiss with Drake there, but I can’t imagine Russ kissing a woman in front of two witnesses. Bye, hon.”

As the day wore on, she stopped pretending. Though Drake and Russ went to work as usual, she knew that they, too, were worried, because they phoned Henry several times to ask whether he’d heard from Telford.

She went to his room to look for clues as to where he might be and saw his cell phone on top of his chest of drawers. “That
explains why he doesn’t call,” she told herself. At three-thirty, she asked Henry if he knew where Evangeline Moore lived.