Once in a Lifetime (8 page)

“Let’s go back, Tara. Come on.”

Too late. A red Buick station wagon that bore the imprint of a lion’s head encircled by the words
HARRINGTON, INC. ARCHITECTS, ENGINEERS AND BUILDERS
stopped beside them. She knew its driver before she saw him and could have kicked herself for going there.

“Howdy, ma’am. I was wondering when you’d find your
way back.” He reached over and opened the front passenger door. “Hop in.”

She squashed the urge to smash his ego. “Sorry. We aren’t going your way.”

He smiled in a way she supposed some people considered captivating—so sure of himself—but he only made her flesh crawl. “You don’t know which way I’m going, babe.”

She took Tara’s hand and prepared to walk on. “No matter
where
you’re going, it’s opposite from where I’m headed. Come on, Tara.”

When it came to walking and looking backward, Tara was an expert. She stopped and turned Tara to face her. “I need your cooperation. So come on.”

“I’m cop-ter-ating, Mummy, but I don’t like the man.”

That squared it; if Tara didn’t like a man, he bore watching. Later, she mentioned it to Henry.

“You mean Biff? That fellow goes through women like water through a sieve. Tara got sense. As a foreman, he’s first-class, but as a man, he ain’t worth poop.”

“I’ll be happy never to see him again.”

“I hope your happiness don’t depend on that. He’s like a weed. Always shows up where you don’t want to see it.”

Tara barged in, ending that conversation. “Mr. Henry, do you have any little children for me to play with?”

“Nope, not a one. Sorry to say.”

Tara needed playmates. “Maybe I’d better get her into summer camp, or…” She couldn’t think of an alternative.

He sorted the potatoes according to size, selected five and began scrubbing them. “Ain’t no summer camp around here. This ain’t Philadelphia, you know.”

She dragged a stool over to the counter and began stringing beans. “There aren’t any children around here. What do you suggest I do?”

“The church school is open all summer. Telford teaches music over there a couple of mornings a week. Maybe he can tell you something.”

“Of course she can go with me,” Telford told Alexis at supper that night. “You want to learn the violin, Tara?”

“I wanna learn the keyboard. The piano.”

“I’ll teach you.”

Alexis imagined that she gaped at him. “I knew you played the violin, but the piano?”

“I studied that first, starting when I was about Tara’s age. I didn’t start the violin till I was thirteen, but it’s my real love.”

“You ain’t bad on the guitar, neither,” Henry said. “You gonna take Tara to church school with you, ain’t you?”

“Sure, if it’s all right with Alexis. In the fall, she’ll take the bus to school.”

She listened to them, weaving her more tightly into their lives. Closing the hatch. If she wanted to get away from them, she wasn’t sure she could. They gave her what she’d never had, a world free of ugliness and selfishness. Warmth. Peace. Chills streaked through her when she remembered that she was deceiving Telford, and he’d warned her that he demanded honesty.

“Mummy, what’s a unrest?”

“It means…well, it means someone is unhappy.”

“Mr. Allen told that man some was coming.”

Telford put his fork down and spoke in a voice that was unnaturally quiet. “Which Allen are you talking about?”

Alexis completed the story for him. His demeanor, tense and apprehensive, aroused her concern and compassion, for she had never seen him when he didn’t appear to be solidly in control.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I have to make a call. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Telford dashed up the stairs to his bedroom. He wanted absolute privacy for that call. “Allen, this is Telford.” He repeated the essence of Tara’s story. “What’s this all about?”

“Sparkman Manufacturing won’t negotiate with the union,
and old man Sparkman’s got most of the other builders in the surrounding counties to side with him. If the union strikes on Sparkman and his cronies, it’ll force the rest of us into a sympathy strike.”

“I hadn’t heard anything about this. You know I’d be the last man to join Fentress Sparkman in
anything.
”

“Yeah, I know. I just got wind of it this morning, and I didn’t call you because it could have been a false alarm.”

“What’s your take on this?”

“Your employees don’t have any reason to strike; we have a good contract. But if the union says walk, we have to walk. You know that.”

Fentress Sparkman would paralyze western Maryland’s building industry to prevent him from completing that school building on schedule.
Talk about dirty politics. He sank my father, but he’ll never trample on me.

“You’ll keep me posted?”

“You know you can count on me, Telford. I’d have called you if I’d been certain that what I heard was anything more than gossip.”

The men wanted more overtime work, so he’d give it to them starting tomorrow. If the union went on strike, he’d be ahead.

“Heard from Bob and Will?”

“Last week. Right after they got to Nairobi. Grace and I don’t know how to thank you, Telford, for giving our boys this summer in a place where they can walk tall among people black like them.”

He didn’t want thanks; he wanted to see the boys complete their education and succeed as men. “They’re my godchildren, and I intend to do what I can for them.”

He phoned Drake in Baltimore to alert him to the possibility of a strike, hung up and trudged back downstairs, weighed down by the prospect of a strike that would make restoring his family’s name a near impossibility.

When he returned to the table, Henry placed his warm food in front of him.

“Thanks, Henry. It’s when you’re thoughtful like this that I forgive you for those times you act as if I’m working for you rather than the other way around.”

“Humph. If you’re still hot under the collar about that cabbage stew I gave you when what’s-her-name was here, it wasn’t nothing more’n you deserved.”

He could feel her gaze on him. If he dared to look into those warm brown eyes with their inviting sparkles and long lashes, she’d learn more about him than he wanted her to know right then. But he felt the pull of her intense concentration; she willed him to look at her and he couldn’t help but obey. The tenderness, the affection he saw there sent his heart into a lurch, riveting him, and his fork remained somewhere between his plate and his lips, while he stared at the feminine heaven that faced him across his table. Immobilized.

He struggled to control his emotions, to put a damper on the hot currents that sizzled between them. The best he could do was open a topic that wouldn’t appeal to her. “It’s none of my business, but did you have a special reason for going down to the warehouse?” He wanted her to stay away from there, but he didn’t think she’d appreciate his telling her that.

He’d never seen anybody switch gears so quickly. She rested her fork on her plate, and he’d swear she took a deep breath. This woman was
not
a wilting violet.

“I thought I might find some wood that I could use for…for my hobby.”

He figured he’d better go slowly, since she didn’t seem anxious to tell him. A smile lit his face as he savored his chateaubriand. “Henry, you outdid yourself with this steak. It’s the top of the mountain.”

Henry put a fresh dish of roasted potatoes in front of Telford, stepped back and rubbed his hands together as one does when washing them, obviously pleased with himself. “All my food is first-class; it’s your taste buds that’s substandard.”

Telford glanced at Alexis partly to share some merriment, but mainly because looking at her pleased him. Now what was in that comment of Henry’s that embarrassed her? Her
facial expression said she’d rather be anywhere than where she was.

“What kind of wood are you looking for, and how much do you need?”

“Hardwood.” She gestured with her hands. “About this much.”

“I’ll see what I got around here. You planning to whittle?”

“She’s gonna make people, aren’t you, Mummy?”

He admired her patience with the child, giving her every opportunity to express herself. Yet, Alexis was not a permissive parent. “I’m going to
carve
some people, honey.” To him, she said. “I’m an amateur sculptor, but I haven’t worked at it for a long time.”

Not since she married, he imagined. The woman was a bag of surprises. He tried not to appear astonished. “Then you want the wood seasoned. I’ll get you a piece tomorrow.”

He didn’t want her near Biff Jackson, but he dared not tell her that. Still… “Might be a good idea to avoid that area.”

“I didn’t like that man, Mr. Telford.”

Out of the mouths of babes.
“What man?”

“The man in the red truck.”

He looked at Alexis and waited for an explanation. When she didn’t offer one, he leaned back in his chair, pushed his plate aside and stared her down.

Obviously irritated, she strummed her fingers on the table. Finally, she said, “Biff Jackson intercepted us, but we walked on. I can handle the man, Telford.”

“Be sure you know what you’re up against. He’s been known to show that he can’t handle himself.”

She hadn’t given him the right to warn Biff to stay away from her, so he had to stand back. But it wouldn’t be long before the man made a false step.

“Why the hell am I whistling?” he asked himself aloud the next morning after chortling through several popular songs. The answer awaited him at the breakfast table, where Tara sat
ready for her first day of church school. When he walked into the room, her face bloomed into a smile.

“I didn’t want to make you wait for me,” she said.

“Where’s your mummy?”

“Getting dressed. She had to get me ready for school first. I already ate.”

He stared at her. “What time did you get in here?”

“I don’t know, but Mr. Henry said anybody would think I’m going to get my marriage license.”

Her giggles gave him such a…he couldn’t explain it, but some of her happiness always rubbed off on him.

He finished breakfast, and didn’t have an excuse to linger there longer, especially when he had to have Tara at the school by eight-thirty. But it pained him to leave there without seeing Alexis.

“Let’s go.”

“Mr. Henry, I’m gone.” To his astonishment, she reached for his hand and started for the front door without kissing either Henry or her mother good-bye. He’d have to give that a lot of thought.

“This is terrible, Henry. I don’t know what to do with myself. It’s the first time Tara’s ever been away from me. Do you know, she left here and didn’t even tell me good-bye?”

“She didn’t say nothing to me neither. You better be careful. That little girl’s adopted Telford for a father figure. If you leave here, she’s gonna be in bad shape.”

“She’s very fond of him.”

“She’s crazy ’bout him. She told me he’s gonna teach her how to play the piano. Where she gonna practice?”

“She has an electric keyboard.”

“Shucks. Get a piano. Plenty of space down in the game room.”

“Henry, if I had the price of a piano—”

“Rent one. She needs a piano.”

An hour and a half later, Alexis looked at her watch. Bennie, the cleaning woman, had a habit of coming to work late and
leaving early, neglecting basic cleaning, and the house showed it. Alexis opened the door before Bennie could find her key.

“Morning, Miss Alexis. It sure is hot this morning. I declare, I’m wet with sweat. How ya’ll doing?”

“Good morning, Bennie. It’s air-conditioned in here, so you should be happy to spend the entire eight hours today. You’re supposed to be doing a thorough cleaning, but—”

“I know, I know. Day ’fore yesterday, I wasn’t up to snuff, and I just give downstairs a lick and a promise, but—”

“Bennie, you’ve been promising this house a cleaning ever since I’ve been here. Beginning today, I want you to make good on it.”

“Lord, child, you would talk like this today when my knees ’bout to give way and my back feel like it wanna go out.” She looked toward the ceiling. “Well, if I pass out in here, at least somebody’ll take me to the hospital. Where’s Henry?”

“It’s ten o’clock. Henry’s over at his cottage this time a day.”

“I was hoping for some coffee and a little bite to eat.”

She was doggoned if she’d let Bennie get the better of her. She would come to work two hours late, spend an hour in the kitchen with Henry, work a couple of hours and leave the house more or less as she’d found it.

“I’ll make you some coffee while you start the cleaning. What do you want to eat?”

Bennie propped her hands on her ample hips. “You can cook? I never woulda thought it. You don’t look like you c’n boil water. Henry always gives me pancakes and sausage, but I don’t ’spect you to cook that.”

She looked at the evidence of Henry’s largesse in the form of rolls around the woman’s waist. “Not to worry. Fruit, scrambled eggs and warmed-up biscuits.”

Bennie pulled off her hat. “I had my mouth all fixed for Henry’s pancakes, but… Well, I sure do thank you.”

“You can thank me by giving this place a thorough cleaning. Okay?”

Bennie looked toward the ceiling. “Mr. Telford ain’t no
slave driver. Ain’t nothing I wouldn’t do for him.” She began humming “Amazing Grace.”

Except clean his house properly. I guess that song is supposed to remind me of her saintliness.
“I’m sure he appreciates your loyalty.” She made the coffee and fixed Bennie’s breakfast.

“Ain’t no flies on you, neither,” Bennie said, as she sat down to eat.

Just please clean the house,
Alexis pleaded silently. “I’ll be in my place if you need me.”

Alexis put aside the bust of Mary McCleod Bethune on which she’d been sculpting for the past week and got ready for dinner. Her workday ended at four in the afternoon, and ever since Telford began teaching Tara music, she sculpted from four to six while Tara practiced the keyboard. She didn’t see Tara when she finished dressing, so she rushed to the breakfast room where they ate dinner, got there a minute before seven and came to a sudden halt.