Color of Love (9 page)

It was only four-thirty when Jason got back to the precinct from taking Slack to the Bronx. Joe was sitting on the edge of his desk, bouncing the basketball on the floor between his legs. Jason stood for a second watching Joe. He’d learned a long time ago to recognize that when Joe had something to say, something touchy and personal, he fidgeted with things. Whatever was near at hand. Back in September when Jason had gotten the call over his car phone to return to the precinct, it had been to find his partner folding paper airplanes and sailing them across the office. Jason recalled that when he’d come into the office and asked, “What’s up?” there had been about a dozen of them all over the floor and file cabinets. It had been very bad news that Joe had for him that day.

Seeing Joe toy with the basketball didn’t particularly bother Jason. He figured nothing in his life could be as bad as that day in September.

“Something on your mind?” Jason asked as he returned to his desk.

Joe shook his head. “Didn’t mean to lecture you about this black woman, man, but I can smell trouble gathering like storm clouds.”

“You’re seeing problems that are never going to happen. All I did was to introduce myself to her.”

“You gonna see her again?”

“I don’t know,” Jason said evasively.

Joe stopped bouncing the ball and glanced at Jason. “Look, people are going to notice if you’re interested in the woman. You can say it was just coffee all you want, but I know a man with an itch when I see one.”

Jason sat back in his chair until the seat tilted at an angle. He propped his feet on the edge of the desk and, clasping his hands behind his head, listened thoughtfully. Joe let the ball roll off the tips of his fingers. It bounced once or twice more and settled in a corner.

“Know what I’m saying?” Joe added quietly.

Jason sighed. He knew. He’d found out about the few itches Joe himself had had over the years. Joe had even joked once that he knew which ones to scratch. But he had always stayed in his own territory. Then again, Jason considered, he had always thought Joe a damned fool for the way he’d hurt Nora, and almost lost her. After that he’d stopped fooling around with other women. But Jason wasn’t married, and he knew there wasn’t anyone he could hurt.

“Why are you so protective over someone you don’t even know? Don’t even like, far as I can tell.”

Joe examined his hands for a moment and then looked seriously at Jason. “Tribal instinct. Shit like that. I know that a healthy, good-looking guy like you gets all kinds of offers. You can have your pick, Jace. But not with someone like this Leah person. People get crazy over that. And if you don’t know any better, Leah Downey sure should.”

Jason grimaced. He didn’t believe any of that applied to him. This wasn’t about hitting skin and becoming a ghost, Jason thought with amusement, using a turn of phrase he’d picked up from one of his incorrigibles.

“Are you speaking from your great wealth of experience?” he asked Joe with a crooked grin.

Joe sighed audibly in defeat and slowly got up from his perch on the desk. Jason watched him closely. Joe had been his partner for seven years, ever since Joe’s old partner, Leon, had been killed. It had not been some tough on-the-job incident, either. Leon had drowned while on vacation one summer with his family.

Joe was well aware that Jason held no preconceived ideas about anyone. He took people at face value, gave them the benefit of the doubt until proven wrong. It made for a lousy character trait in a cop, Joe had once said—but made Jason an honest human being.

“Listen, Joe. You gotta trust that I won’t do something really dumb, you know?”

Joe sat at his desk. He frowned as he thought about it. Finally he made a helpless kind of gesture, lifting his hands and shoulders. “Jace, I trust you with my life. But I don’t trust your judgment where someone like this Brooklyn dame is concerned.”

Jason sprang forward impatiently in his seat, dropping his feet to the floor. “You’re blowing this whole thing way out of proportion. Nothing’s going to happen, for Christ’s sake.”

“Let’s not bring the Lord into this. Far as I’m concerned, he’s kept a pretty low profile on what we do to each other down here.” Joe leaned forward over his desk. He and Jason faced each other squarely. “I also believe that the Civil Rights Bill is mostly a piece of paper. Reality is something else, and I shouldn’t have to tell you that not everybody’s equal. Lots of folks ain’t treated like they were. There is a brick wall out there that you’re going to crash right into. Remember, you heard it here first.”

Jason shifted his gaze away. It was clear that Joe understood only the bottom line. And maybe Jason couldn’t blame him. Double standards prevailed. It had much less to do with what a person was at birth than what happened in all the years afterward.

He’d been forewarned.

J
ILL TILTED HER HEAD
as she chewed thoughtfully on her sandwich. She studied the three mock-ups of covers that Leah had spread out over the conference table.

“What do you think?” Leah asked as she sipped from her can of soda.

“I’m thinking that we should have gone out to lunch so I wouldn’t have to make a decision yet.” Jill lifted the tissue flap on one of the boards and examined the work. “This one is interesting. The book is about office conflict between male and female co-workers. The idea of half the cover bleeding fabric that’s supposed to be a man’s suit, and the other half fabric of a woman’s dress, is eye catching.”

Leah shook her head. “Wrong.”

“Why?”

“Because the page is divided exactly in half. Visually it’s very disturbing. Graphically it’s a cheap way out. And the colors … men wear gray suits. Women never wear gray. You will
not
find the color gray in their wardrobe, even for business.”

As she talked, she pulled out a fourth board from under the pile. The cover showed one of the basic accouterments of work. She gave the board to Jill. “How about this one?”

“Neat. Simple. Clear,” Jill said, nodding slowly. “This makes more sense. Two attachés … his and hers.”

Leah chuckled and tapped the board. “Wrong again. One attaché and one tote. His and hers. Much more subtle but easy to recognize.”

Jill pursed her lips. “You’re right, you’re right. Okay, go ahead and finish it.”

“Thanks. If I’d known you were going to be so easy, I would have—”

“What do you think of Peter?”

Leah blinked. “Peter Condon? The editor? I don’t know him very well. Seems nice, why?”

Jill sighed. “He asked me out.”

“Did you accept?”

“Not yet. I’m thinking about it.”

“What’s to think about?” Leah asked.

“Whether or not I want to go through all that.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Dating. Putting yourself out here. Starting over.”

“Oh,” Leah murmured, Jason immediately came to mind. But they weren’t dating. They were just …

“I don’t know if I can take the anxiety.”

Leah grimaced and took a small bite of her sandwich. “I know what you mean.”

Jill glanced at her. “How could you? You’ve been seeing one man for two years. You’re set. You don’t have to be out there anymore.”

Leah felt slightly irritated that her life had been so neatly packaged. She and Allen hadn’t come to any understanding. They hadn’t made any plans. They’d never talked about the future. He was still free; so was she. She looked at Jill.

“What makes you think I couldn’t get interested in someone else?”

Jill seemed taken aback. “Are you?”

For a second Leah thought about telling Jill about Jason Horn, but she wasn’t ready to share that information yet. She had a desire to keep it private not because she thought anything was actually happening, but precisely because she believed that nothing was. She didn’t want to explain a random encounter.

Leah shrugged. “It doesn’t much matter. Gail says no one dates anymore anyway.”

Jill chuckled in amusement. “Oh, really? Then what the hell is going on between men and women?”

Leah sat back in her chair and chewed on the end of the straw. “They circle around each other like predatory animals. They try to figure out who’s going to make the first move.”

“The guys still get to make the first call, I don’t care what the women’s magazines say.”

“That’s true, but we still get to say no if he’s a jerk”—they looked at each other and grinned, finishing together—“like Mike.”

“The thing is, if you wait until someone great comes along, you might never date at all,” Jill lamented.

“There are some interesting guys out there,” Leah said absently, thinking again of Jason. She was, nonetheless, experiencing trepidation and curiosity about what the coming evening would be like with him. “Peter Condon is probably an interesting guy.”

“Maybe. But men expect so much.”

Leah raised her brows. “Don’t we? Shouldn’t we?”

Jill was thoughtful for a time. “You’re right,” she finally sighed. “I’ll say yes. What have I got to lose?”

What indeed? Leah repeated to herself several hours later as she stood in front of her open closet, eyeing the neat line of clothing. Her sage words of advice to Jill notwithstanding, she was beginning to feel something akin to panic. She was agonizing over what she should wear for the evening with Jason.

If this wasn’t a date, what was it?

Was Jason likely to suggest pizza or Chinese? Did he like Mexican or Japanese? Or would he want something more upscale? Leah sighed as she removed items of clothing almost randomly. She was going to be severely disappointed if there wasn’t at least a tablecloth.

Jason took her to the kind of place that could be said to have atmosphere. There were candles in the center of each table, the soft lighting effectively disguising the slightly shabby but comfortable and laid-back setting. The tables were spaced far enough apart so that they didn’t have to listen to the couple at the next table. The waiter didn’t try to rush them through their dinner, and they were there for hours. Even better, it was in the West Village and no one paid any attention to the fact that they were a mixed couple. She wondered if Jason’s choice of restaurant had been deliberate. It wasn’t at all what she would have expected from him, but then everything about Jason had so far been unexpected.

All through dinner they kept to light banter and safe questions, but Jason ordered another bottle of wine, and the talk finally became reflective and personal. Leah made the first move.

“Where are you from originally?” she asked him.

He drew on the ever present cigarette and tapped the ash into the ashtray. “Pennsylvania. Harrisburg. My sister and her family still live there. My parents are both dead.”

Leah lowered her gaze to the pale yellow liquid in her glass. Rhine wine. He’d remembered. She hoped Jason was going to tell her more. She wanted to know how he’d come to be in New York, why he’d become a cop. When she glanced at him again, she found Jason watching her, waiting. He was going to make her ask the one compelling question.

“Are you married?”

“Divorced. It’s been about ten years. I was going to be an engineer,” he continued smoothly, “but became a cop instead. In between was Vietnam.”

“You seem a little young to have been there.”

“I was among the last in. One of the lucky ones to get out.”

“Yes,” she murmured softly.

“My son, Michael, was born while I was overseas,” Jason stated. He didn’t add that Michael was almost two when he’d come home or that his son didn’t know who he was. Jason looked at Leah, saw a certain understanding in her eyes, and wondered if she really did. He also didn’t tell her that after he got home was when his life really fell apart. He didn’t tell her how all of his perceptions and his future had changed because of his tour in-country.

For a moment Jason’s mind drifted back to the confusion of those first years back home with Lisa and Michael. Pursuing the engineering program had seemed pointless. When he came back to the States he saw an entirely different kind of war being waged on American soil. The results were the same. Children were being lost.

He joined the police academy and became a cop.

He found his way into the juvenile division and stayed. He also brought his work home with him at night. Literally. All the strays from family court and juvenile detention. It got so that the local precinct would call him first when another lost kid came through the door. His wife hated every one of them.

Lisa was quick to point out to him that he had a son now, and it was time he put his family first above helping others. Jason knew she was right. But Michael was safe with parents who loved him. The kids Jason came across every day had nothing. He tried to stop being a depository for problem kids, but it didn’t happen soon enough. Lisa moved back to Pennsylvania, taking Michael with her. She filed for a divorce, citing unreconcilable differences. About that, at least, she’d been right.

Jason looked at the end of his cigarette and then at Leah. “I came to New York because I knew it would be tough. I knew the real challenge was here. I knew it was going to be hard to succeed.”

“Have you?” she asked quizzically.

Jason nodded slowly. “Sometimes,” he said quietly. But he’d never really been sure if he could be proud about any of it. After all, he had failed his wife and son.

Leah sat staring at Jason. She hadn’t expected him to stop talking so abruptly. She sighed and took a deep breath, not even realizing that she’d been holding it. The ashtray between them was filled with butts and ashes. The second bottle of wine was almost gone. Leah was afraid to move or to say anything that would break the spell. And she was relieved and eager when Jason began quietly talking once more.

“After the divorce I’d try to see Mike as much as I could. It was hard. His mother didn’t want him in New York, didn’t want him being influenced and hassled by ‘niggers and spics’ …” He used his index fingers to put quotes around the phrasing.

Leah still reacted with a stiffening of her spine and narrowing of her eyes. Jason ignored it and continued.

“Lisa thought she could keep Michael safe and wholesome in Pennsylvania, but I thought when he got older, maybe he’d want to come and live with me anyway.”