Once in a Lifetime (31 page)

She saw a chance to get some of her own and took it. “What does Drake think of Evangeline Moore?”

He blunted that barb with three words. “Evangeline. Who’s that?”

Velma walked into the kitchen. “Sis, I was looking all over for… Well, if this isn’t old-fashioned domesticity, my name isn’t Velma Brighton.”

Fear hurtled through Alexis. She didn’t look at Telford and
hid her anxiety by asking as casually as possible, “What time are you leaving tomorrow?”

“In the morning. Russ is taking me, and I’d better turn in because he wants to leave at a quarter of seven.”

Telford seemed preoccupied, even pensive. Like a robot, he flicked out the light above the sink and kissed her cheek. “Drake will be working in Baltimore tomorrow, and I have to speak with him. If I don’t get back down here, sleep well.”

Velma gazed at him as he walked away. “What was that about?”

Alexis held back the sigh that wanted to emerge. “I’m not sure. Is it all right with you and Russ?”

“Yes,” she said, her tone wistful. “I could love that man. Oh, Lord, I could love him.”

“Be careful, hon.”

Velma shrugged. “You’re right. I should, but I suspect it’s too late for that.”

Telford waylaid Velma the next morning as she waited for Russ to bring his car around from the garage. “It’s been good to have you here, Velma. Come back anytime.”

Her smile held a measure of skepticism, of uncertainty. “Thanks. Russ may have something to say about that.”

“I gathered as much. Russ said you went to Spellman College. Were you and Alexis there at the same time?”

Her eyes widened. “Alexis went to Howard University. Why?”

“Just curious. My brothers and I went to the same school as undergrads. Our father went there, too.”

Getting the information he sought was a snap. He took her bags to the car, told her good-bye and ambled up the stairs to his bedroom where he could be alone. He closed the door, walked over to the window and looked out at the wintry scene, but his eyes didn’t see it. The view before him was of a slim, bespectacled college girl who swore she hadn’t written him a letter. He had admired her from a distance the whole term but, for fear of rejection, hadn’t gotten the nerve to let her know it.
Getting that letter had given him the thrill of his young life, and he’d rushed to her. But she had denied writing it, crushing him.

She was no longer the thin girl who wore the black horn-rimmed glasses, her hair straight down her back, always racing across campus—alone. To him, a kindred soul with whom he’d longed to share his free moments. After almost two decades, he still loved her. No wonder he fell for Alexis Stevenson the minute he saw her; she was already deep inside him. He sat on the edge of his desk, musing over it. He’d deal with her, but he was in no hurry to do it.

T
he snowstorm shut down building construction, and Telford worked at home the next day, though he ate breakfast early to make certain that he wouldn’t encounter Alexis. He had a lot to say to her, and he suspected she knew it, because she hadn’t contacted him all morning. And he intended to stay away from her until he worked it out. Around ten o’clock, he put on a mackinaw and struck out for the warehouse where he’d be alone, away from telephones and the temptation to phone or see her. He had to think. However, walking in twelve inches of fresh snow soon became tiring, and he turned back.

“What the…?” he said aloud, releasing a stinging expletive when he saw the Lincoln Town Car in front of his house. When he reached the driveway, he quickened his steps as fury possessed him. He strode into the living room and stopped.

“Yesterday was Christmas, buddy. Where the hell were you?” he asked Jack Stevenson.

“What business is it of yours?”

“Plenty. You couldn’t get here yesterday, Christmas, to see your daughter, and somehow, the mailman forgot to bring her
your gift. But she didn’t miss it; she found a dozen under the tree in the den.”

“Will you chill out, man? I brought the present with me.”

Telford sat down and told himself to cool off. “I don’t know what your problem is, but how can you willingly let this child grow up not knowing you? And you don’t know her, because the only time she misbehaves is when you come here.”

“What’s it to you?’

“Plenty. As long as she’s in my home, nobody is going to mistreat her, and that includes you.” He softened his tone. “Why don’t you love her, Jack? She’s so special.”

Jack stretched his legs out in front of him and rested his head on the back of the sofa. “I don’t know. All my life, I had everything…and nothing. It’s like… I don’t know.

“My parents sent me to boarding school in Massachusetts while they spent the fall in Europe, the winter in Florida and the spring in Bermuda. When I was in Philadelphia, a nanny, a cleaning woman or maybe nobody looked after me. My dad told me he’d never wanted any children. Alexis was the only good thing I ever had in my life.”

“And you screwed up.”

“Go figure.”

“Get to know Tara. She’ll change your life. But don’t hurt her, Jack. Don’t promise her anything you won’t give or do. You’ll have me to deal with.”

He walked out, leaving Jack alone, and bumped into Alexis. “Where’s Tara?”

“She’s over in Beaver Ridge. Grant and his mother came for her while you were out.”

He began to smolder. Anger wasn’t a frequent companion of his, but it gripped him now. “Then what’s that guy doing in there? I get it, now. He doesn’t come here to see his child; it’s you he’s after.”

“She was gone when he got here. You’re wrong, Telford.”

“The hell, you say.” The doorbell rang, and he spun away from her to answer it. When it rang again, he stopped his fist just before it crashed the glass.

“Hey, man, what’s wrong?” Russ asked when he stepped inside. “You look like a thunderhead.”

He nodded toward the living room and headed up the stairs. If he had been a fool, he intended to find out and soon.

Knowing he’d find Jack in there, Russ started to the living room, thought better of it and went to his room. If a man was going to hunt, he should have a loaded gun. He phoned Jamal, the private investigator with whom he roomed while at Howard University.

“Russ here, man. What did you get on Jack Stevenson?” He wrote as Jamal talked. “Thanks, buddy. If we don’t speak again before the new year, throw one down for me.”

“You can bet on it.”

Russ read over the notes he took and made up his mind. Whatever concerned his brother was his business, and he’d bet anything Telford didn’t know what he was dealing with. But he would.

“I won’t be home for dinner, Henry,” Telford said, “and it’ll be late when I get home.” He wasn’t ready to settle things with Alexis, and he also didn’t want a confrontation with Jack; he’d already stretched his patience with the man.

“You ain’t going somewhere to self-destruct, I hope. Don’t think I don’t know what’s going on. If you got a problem with Alexis you oughta talk to her about it. You hidin’ out, she’s mopin’, and Tara thinks her world collapsed. Black-cherry ice cream don’t make up for it, no matter how much she try to eat.”

Henry’s interference in his personal life no longer irritated him. He’d probably miss it if the old man suddenly decided to mind his own business. “If you need me, call my cell number.”

He drove into Frederick, parked at Mercy Hospital and went up to Fentress Sparkman’s room. He handed his uncle a small parcel and took a seat.

“How’re you feeling?” he asked him.

“About the same. Russ and Drake came by to see me earlier today, so I was kinda expecting you. I don’t have to tell you how good your visits make me feel.” He opened the package and took out the CD player and CD recordings by the Howard University and Mormon Tabernacle choirs.

Tears wet the old man’s lashes, but Telford couldn’t help being amused when the teardrops hung at their tips, but wouldn’t drop.
Stubborn old cuss.

“Till this Christmas, the last present I got was from my late wife.” He pointed to the cabinet beside his bed. Drake gave me the complete works of Langston Hughes, and Russ gave me a leather-bound copy of the Bible. Enough to make a man shed tears.”

He left his uncle, checked into a room at the Rutherford Hotel, opened his laptop and got busy. He wanted to call Tara and reassure her, but he’d have to talk to Alexis and he didn’t want to be rude to her. He answered his cell phone.

“Mr. Telford, it’s me, Tara. Hello.”

He bolted out of his chair. “Hello, sweetheart. Are you all right?”

“Yes, sir. I just wanted to tell you good-bye, so Mr. Henry gave me your phone number. Where are you?”

“I’m in Frederick. I’ll be late getting home tonight, so I’ll see you at breakfast. I love you, sweetheart.”

“I love you, too, Mr. Telford. Bye.”

She hung up, and he shamed himself for not having called her even if it meant small talk with Alexis.

The atmosphere at breakfast the next morning was not conducive to camaraderie, though he tried, for Tara’s sake, to act as if the relationship between Alexis and him had not changed. But since everyone at the table, including Tara, ate quietly and spoke only when spoken to, he figured he flunked at that effort. Alexis’s failure to ask him why his ardor seemed to have cooled or to take him to task for it vexed him as much as anything.

“Got a minute?” Russ asked him as they left the breakfast room.

“If it can wait an hour, I’d appreciate it. I have to make a call to Barbados.”

“Sure. I’ll be in my room.”

He had reason later to wish he’d taken time to hear what Russ had to say. Around ten o’clock that morning, he bounded out of his room at the sound of voices, loud, rising and very angry, an anomaly at Harrington House.

“You’re lying,” he heard Russ say in as strident a tone as he’d ever known his brother to use. “You cheated on Alexis with Loren Ingles. You hadn’t been married to Loren for a year before you were unfaithful to her with Gina French. You married Gina when Loren kicked you out, and Gina sued you for divorce the day after Thanksgiving, because you hadn’t been home for a week and her private investigator caught you in the act. Worse, your son by Loren Ingles doesn’t know who you are. Either you need a psychiatrist or a horsewhipping.”

“What I do is my business, and I don’t believe Alexis Brighton is your housekeeper or anybody else’s,” Jack said. “She’s had servants from the day she was born. She’s a convenience for you and your brothers.”

“You…you get your ass out of here. If you ever put your foot across this threshold again, I’ll…I’ll—”

“I have a right to visit my daughter.”

“
Rot!
You don’t care any more for her than you do for the son you don’t know anything about.” Russ yanked the door open. “Get out of here.” He slammed the door behind Jack.

“What was that I heard?” Alexis’s voice floated up to him.

“I just told Jack to get out.” Russ repeated what he said to Jack. “Today isn’t Wednesday, his scheduled visiting day; neither was yesterday, and he behaved as if Christmas was just another day. That guy doesn’t come here to see his daughter.”

At the top of the stairs, Telford leaned against the wall, Russ’s words to Jack still ringing in his ears. Three marriages, and the man couldn’t be more than thirty-two or-three. He went back into his room, closed the door and mused over Russ’s
charges against the man. Visiting on consecutive days without clearing it with Alexis meant that he was taking his chances on seeing her, not Tara. He needed Alexis’s permission to see Tara.

He gave Tara music lessons on Fridays, and he wouldn’t think of canceling them and disappointing her. He dialed Alexis’s number. If she answered, he’d deal with it.

“Hello. My mummy is busy.”

“Hello, sweetheart, did you remember that you get your lessons today?”

“Mr. Telford! Oh, no. I didn’t forget.”

“Ask your mother if I can come down now.”

He listened to their exchange, hooked his cell phone to his belt, picked up the new music he’d chosen for Tara and headed toward the other end of the house.

Tara opened the door. He didn’t see Alexis, and he didn’t have to be a genius to know she was deliberately avoiding him. After the lessons, he walked to the door holding Tara’s hand.

“My mummy isn’t talking much.”

He knelt beside her and hugged her. “Sometimes, we grownups have a lot to think about. You played nicely today.”

“I did?” Her laughter gave him a light, happy feeling. She was a gift.

After dinner, he walked down to Alexis’s room and knocked. He’d wrestled with it until his head had begun to swim. When she opened the door and saw him, it was as if her engine fired up and she girded herself for battle. He wasn’t interested in a fight; he needed an understanding, a resolution. His mind told him he was dealing with the issue that had marred their relationship from the beginning, and he wanted it aired.

“We need to talk. I’ve wrestled with this till it’s practically strangling me. May I come in, or would you rather we go to the den?”

She stepped back. “Come on in.”

He cut to the chase. “It’s my opinion that Jack Stevenson
is not coming here to see Tara. He’s interested in you, and I believe you know it.”

Was that anger or relief flickering in her eyes? He wasn’t certain, and he wouldn’t appreciate either reaction.

“It occurred to me today for the first time,” she said.

He stared at her, annoyed with himself that her feminine allure, the scent of her perfume, her beauty and regal elegance could get to him even when he was displeased with her.

“You want me to believe you haven’t realized that man isn’t interested in Tara?”

She bristled. “Is that what Russ told you? I want her to know her father and respect him.”

“So do I. But the most meager of minds could sum up Jack’s behavior over Christmas and figure out that Tara isn’t his reason for coming here. And another thing. Russ is my younger brother. He respects me, and he wouldn’t speak to me about you in that way.”

Fire leaped into her gaze, and he watched, fascinated, as she won the battle with her temper. “Good for him. Would you like me to leave?”

He couldn’t believe she’d said it. “
What?
Is that what we do? Check out at the first sign of trouble? No, I do not want you to leave. I want you to level with me about this and everything else.”

She slapped her palm against her forehead, and he recognized it as evidence of exasperation. “Then, will you please stop badgering me?”

“Badgering you? Woman, I love you, and you profess to love me. I’m tired of sleeping upstairs while you sleep down here. Even Tara sees the ridiculousness of it. Do you want Jack or not?”

“Of course not, and you ought to know it.”

“All right. I’ll phone him, ask him to come here and we’ll sit with him while you tell him the rules under which he continues to see Tara. Now—”

“Yes?” She rushed to the door. “Russ!”

“What is it?”

“It’s Henry. Is Telford here?”

His heart thundered like horses’ hooves. “What’s the matter with Henry?” he and Alexis asked simultaneously. But Russ dashed down the hall, leaving them to follow him to Henry’s room beside the pantry.

“It may be a heart attack,” Henry said.

Alexis grabbed a telephone book. “What’s the number for the ambulance?’

“It’s on the way,” Russ told her.

“Can you swallow this, Henry?” Telford asked, holding an aspirin and a glass of water. Henry nodded, and got it down, though with difficulty.

Looking down at Henry, Telford was more afraid than he’d been since their father had died. As he waited with Russ and Alexis, they didn’t speak among one another as if, by tacit agreement, words counted for nothing. Anxiety etched the faces of Russ and Alexis, and a sense of helplessness pervaded Telford.

Hours seemed to pass while they waited for the ambulance. Finally, with tears drenching her face, Alexis turned to him, buried her face in his shirt and wrapped her arms around him. He could enjoy her need of him only for a few minutes before she raised her head.

“The front door!” With that, she sped from him to answer it.

The paramedics examined Henry and determined that he hadn’t had a heart attack, and that his pulse rate was an acceptable seventy-one. “He ought to see a doctor, but he doesn’t need to be hospitalized. Too much holiday, probably.”

Telford thanked the men, went back to Henry’s room and sat on the edge of his bed. “How do you feel?”

“Fine, except when them schoolboys poked in me. Never could figure out why doctors try to make holes in your skin with their fingers. You’d think that from four hundred years before Christ—when Hippocrates was laying out the rules—up till now, these doctors woulda figured out that probing into people hurts.”

“They’re paramedics,” Alexis said, both eyebrows raised. “Hippocrates, eh?”

“I may be old, but I ain’t ignorant. When I ain’t working, I’m reading.”