The One That Got Away (14 page)

“I can't be intimate with you, not yet,” she said as Jamie impatiently crammed clothing back into his suitcase. “You breached my trust in a major way, remember.” Serena caught her breath as her lungs filled with desire: the desire to save her marriage, to prove her maturity, to make her parents proud. “I will be ready
eventually, okay? I just can't turn it off and immediately turn it on again, that's all.”

“The guest bed's fine,” Jamie said, his lips pressed flat, his words barely audible. Turning back toward her, he grabbed the suitcase and tried to smile. “This is all my fault, after all.” Striding past, he paused long enough to say, “I do love you, Serena.”

Standing just inside the bedroom, her husband's energy still surrounding her, Serena found herself gasping for air. He didn't know it, but Jamie's declaration was alcohol to the open wounds of her guilt.

A
s he began his first work week in Cincinnati after spending the previous two in Atlanta and then Phoenix, Tony ignored his better judgment and tuned in to his usual morning programming. In his heart he knew it was a perilous move, but by the time he roused himself from a worthless night's sleep he was too tired to face that. Habit took hold and before he'd pulled out of the Extended Stay's driveway he had punched the programming button for The Wiz, the FM station carrying O.J.'s syndicated radio show.

As Tony guided his Passat toward I-75, he limply sang along with the closing notes of Usher's “Confessions” and smiled as his friend's familiar voice filled the car. “Twenty-two before the hour,” O.J. said, still chuckling at a secret jibe he'd apparently shared with Liz, his cohost. “That was Usher, of course, who I understand is headed to our fair city on the lake next month. Interested in some free tickets? Stay tuned for your opportunity to get included in a drawing, ladies! Men, too, if any of y'all are actually interested, that is. All right, Liz, let's get some more folk on the line with the morning's question. Here it goes: Do you have ‘one that got away' in your life? You know, the one you still compare every date to, the one you would have worked things out with,
if only.

“It's like this. I came up with this question after talking with
one of my boys a couple of weeks ago. Now, this cat is a hard-core player, understand? I mean, my bachelor days pale in comparison to this man's history. Turns out, Liz, that even my boy, this player-mack, has ‘one that got away' in his life. And his nose is
open
!”

A chorus of other studio jokesters laughing in the background, Liz chuckled before trying to focus her boss. “His nose is open, O.J.? What's he done that makes you say that?”

His foot growing heavier on his accelerator, Tony felt his blood pressure rise as O.J. described the mysterious friend's actions. They were very familiar, of course: the poor fool had followed a woman to a new city, tried to get her to work at his company, jumped headfirst into a one-night stand, then suffered the humiliation of her complete silence in the weeks since.

“Can you believe this?” O.J. hadn't stopped laughing. “Now I love this brother, but really. I want to hear some calls from folk with sense, people who can help my boy
pull up.
Hit the lines now, while you can!”

“O.J., you trifling . . .” The DJ hadn't named any names, but, damn, their argument that night had been private. In a flash, Tony reached for his cell phone, ready to punch in the 800 number at O.J.'s station. He was ready to show his boy up on national radio; the little fool had knowingly exaggerated all over the place.
For one, I haven't exactly put down roots; this is just, uh, an experiment—yeah, that's all.
He wasn't that far gone—if he was, he'd have gone through with buying that house in Avondale that caught his eye the week before he and Serena hooked up. Since her very thorough dis, he'd ignored every message from the realtor who'd shown him the property.

The line at O.J.'s station was still ringing when Tony hung up.
What are you, crazy?
Like he hadn't been embarrassed enough.
Just take it,
he told himself, suppressing the boil of his blood pressure.
Take an asshole for a friend, you get your own hole plugged on national radio.

Arriving at the Whitaker Holdings tower, Tony converted his anger and humiliation into fuel for a day's work. As usual, there was plenty to distract his attention from Serena's silences and his loved ones' ridicule. Press releases to proof, journalists to
sweet-talk, politicians to pressure, donors to hand-hold, budgets to review. By the time he left the office to head over to the academy, where he was due to pick up Ben and Glenn from school, he had nearly wiped his mind clear of the inconvenient realities in his own life. It was the right move, given that the twins had plenty of inconveniences of their own.

Their mother, Evelyn, the same woman who'd allowed Tony to take them to Chicago despite being “too busy” to meet with him and get acquainted first, had run up against the law once again. This time it involved several ounces of heroine found in her pocketbook when the car she was riding in was stopped in Over the Rhine after zooming through a red light. Although Glenn refused to miss a football practice in order to attend her arraignment, Ben had asked Tony to accompany him. If the sister was convicted this time, she'd finally have a good reason for never being home when the boys arrived there each night. As self-sufficient as they had become, even the twins seemed concerned about what the upcoming days might bring.

Plotting strategies to help the boys find a family member to take them in, Tony stepped into the school's empty front hall. As if she had a tracking mechanism taped to his thigh, Audrey appeared suddenly from around the corner. “Hey,” she said, smiling and waving with a flirtatious verve he hoped she hid from students. “You are right on time, thank God.”

“Don't look so excited,” Tony replied, rolling up to her and smiling lazily. “Cheese any wider and your skin will split wide open, girl. What, you didn't think I'd actually come?”

Audrey fought back a playful grin, gripping her clipboard to her full chest. “I knew you wouldn't blow the guys off,” she said. “I know this latest news can't be easy, though. They're really going to need your positive influence, given Evelyn's legal issues.”

“I'm right here for them,” Tony said, pounding his chest. “For better or worse, I guess I kind of like these young cats.”

“Well, I know you weren't too excited about mentoring at first, so I guess I felt a little guilty about talking you into it, now that things are getting more complex.”

Tony narrowed his eyes playfully, tipped his chin up. “Thought you knew me better than that,” he said finally. “Sounds like you need a personal course on my character, with me as the instructor.”

Audrey's eyes warmed as she glanced over her shoulder and stepped forward. When she finally stopped, she was deep in the pocket of Tony's personal space—the zone appropriate for no one but trusted friends, or of course lovers. “If that's a challenge, I accept.”

What are you doing?
Before Tony could answer the question, the school bell rang deep and long through the hallway and the air erupted with the sound of excited, restless youth. As shouts and chatter surrounded them, Audrey hugged her clipboard to her chest again and took three reluctant steps back. Whipping around to face the first wave of students chugging toward them, she picked them off in ones and twos, engaging them in conversation and building the crucial rapport between student and principal.

Settling back into a corner near the school's trophy case, Tony watched Audrey with admiration and considered whether to answer the question floating through his mind. He was still toying with it when Glenn rolled alongside and nearly caved his back in with a friendly slap. “What's up, Mr. G.”

“Glenn.” Biting his lip and fighting back the tear lodged in his right eye, Tony denied the pain and exchanged a brisk handshake with the youngster. “Was it a good day today?”

“It was cool,” Glenn replied, nodding confidently. Despite his streetwise manner, the boy's intelligence and ambition were unmistakable. “Found out I got an A on my first trigonometry test.” He placed a finger to his lips, smiling. “That's between you and me, though, sir.”

Tony shook his head. “Don't tell me you still have classmates who say it's ‘white' to get As? We all work overtime to break you of that idea here, you know that.”

“Mr. G,” Glenn replied, a solemn hand to his chest now, “it's nice that you all bring these VIPs and celebrities to the school every month, telling us there's no shame in getting good grades. I suppose it helps, on a certain level. But at the end of the day, y'all
don't have to live among the knuckleheads who don't get it. I mean, if those fools know that you get good grades, they work overtime to paint you as a nerd. I prefer to handle my business in secret—that way I get my props from my teachers, and someday I'll get it from the colleges and employers. But, sir, when I'm with the ‘people,' I ain't trying to take unnecessary mess.”

Tony shook his head again. “It's just shameful. And our people wonder why we can't get ahead.”

“We're not all ashamed, sir.” Ben stood just behind Tony, a gym bag slung over his shoulder. “Don't let my inferior half let you think he speaks for all Rowan kids.”

“Yeah, that's right,” Glenn said, huffing playfully as Tony exchanged handshakes with Ben. “That's why you always getting picked with, too.”

Tony raised his hands, refereeing good-naturedly. “Let's not get into a brother fight right now, okay, gentlemen?” He glanced at Ben's gym bag. “Ben, I was hoping you had your suit for tonight and your brother's.” Tony had decided to mix a night of sober talk—helping the boys prepare for the intrusions of Children's Services into their lives—with an educational night on the town. Their conversation would take place at none other than La Maisonette, the country's longest running five-star restaurant and a jewel in Cincinnati's crown. That meant the boys had to be as sharp tonight as Tony tried to be every day. “You got your suits balled up in that bag?”

“Nah, they're in our lockers,” Glenn said nonchalantly. “Why don't we grab 'em and meet you at your car, out front?”

“That's a plan, fellas,” Tony said, checking his watch. “I'll be in the red Passat—”

Tony was interrupted by a sudden burst from a passing student. Bouncing between him and Glenn, she playfully slapped the twin's chest. “What's
uuup
?” Tall, trim, and leggy, the young lady had cinnamon brown skin and wore her auburn-colored hair in a freshly trimmed pageboy. She faced Tony and the twins with her hands on her hips. “Glenn? I said, what's
up
?” She glanced at Tony. “This y'alls' daddy?”

Realizing suddenly that he'd seen the girl before—the day when Zora and his father had visited him at Rowan—Tony choked back a laugh, realizing he was too old for her question to be a stupid one. “I'm Mr. Gooden,” he said as the twins shuffled in place uneasily. As hard as Tony tried to probe at times, the boys largely preferred to be vague with him about who they were dating, and exactly what “dating” meant. “I'm Glenn and Ben's mentor. You're a relatively new student here, right?”

“Yes, sir. I'm a sophomore, but just transferred a few weeks ago,” the girl replied, her hazel eyes glinting as she nodded toward Tony respectfully. “My name's Dawn Kincaid.”

“Yes,” Ben said, the first of the twins to recover from their silent condition. “Glenn's been helping Dawn learn her way around.”

Dawn . . . Kincaid.
The base of Tony's neck warmed suddenly and he recalled the flash of recognition that had crossed his mind that first day he'd met the girl. Serena wouldn't enroll her child here at Rowan, would she, not as an officer of the city schools? As counterintuitive as that would seem, Tony looked again at the child's luminescent eyes and smooth cheekbones and knew something was very wrong.

Stifling a spike of panic, he plowed forward with the conversation. He cast a playful sideways glance at Glenn. “Good old Glenn, he's just an unselfish soul, isn't he?” Tony didn't need things spelled out for him: take a girl this cute, drop her into a relatively small school like Rowan, and she was bound to wind up with a star jock like Glenn, at least for a hot minute.

“I only knew three people my first day here.” Dawn had sidled up against Glenn and had an arm lazily draped around his shoulder. “Glenn's opened a lot of doors for me since. I love it here, all thanks to my man.”

Tony's response caught in his throat. “Your—” The smile she'd flashed as she settled into Glenn's hug did it.
Dawn. Kincaid. The eyes, the nose . . .
He was staring at Serena's daughter, and the realization was a brass knuckle to Tony's balls. The sensations rippling through him—the clammy brow, the sudden urge to get the hell
away—confirmed it was her. He needed no birth certificate, no DNA mouth swab. Serena's baby stood before him, womanhood tumbling upon her like a relentless waterfall.

He was still trying to believe it when Glenn kissed the top of Dawn's head and let her out from under his arm. “We gotta run.”

“All right, then.” Dawn popped Glenn's shoulder, stuck out her tongue. “But I want my football jersey back tomorrow, that's what I sleep in. You know that.”

Tony longed for a pair of earplugs. In Bizarro World, he could easily be Dawn's stepfather. As much as he cared for young Glenn, his relationship with the young buck might be headed for a rocky adjustment period.

He realized suddenly that Dawn was speaking to him. “See you around, Mr. Gooden?”

“P-Probably, Dawn.” Looking into her eyes, Tony felt momentarily trapped, on the verge of breaking down and begging the child to carry a message to Serena for him. He resisted as he waved toward her. “Take care now.”

Ben tapped Tony's shoulder before following Glenn back down the hallway. “See you in a couple of minutes, Mr. Gooden.”

Tony heard his mentee's words but didn't respond. Standing alone in the now-empty front hall, he stood rooted in place, watching Dawn saunter out the front door and into the middle of a trio of female classmates. He hadn't seen her since she was three years old, and now she was probably weeks from tasting some of the passions, pains, and rejection her mother faced at the same age. Time's unforgiving passage hit Tony, and he struggled with a bitter reality. He didn't have time to wait around, not for Serena or anyone else.