A Love for All Seasons

Bernard: still crazy after all these years. Even when you bring out homicidal urges in me, I love you madly.

Mom: still kicking at eighty-eight. I want to be just like you if I am fortunate enough to receive the gift of longevity.

Aunt Weenie and Cousin Teddy: still kicking at ninety.

Uncle Chester: still kicking at eighty-five.

Pops and Aunt Micki, because I wish you were still here.

Beverly Griffin Love, Dorothy Clowers Lites, Lillian Morton Walton, sister and cousins.

Kimberly Rowe-Van Allen, you do such a great job pre-editing my books before submission (a service more important now than ever before!). You've got a sharper eye than many professionals. I only wish your schedule had permitted you to look at this entire manuscript. (Be sure to put down your editing pen while your read the finished product.)

LaVerne Caples, Velma Jones, Cheryl Warren, Shaemia Newsome and Karine Smith: thanks for reading my books…and for making Illinois a little less chilly.

The unofficial Dyslipidemia Reading Group at Abbott Labs: Marie Wilson, who actually read my book One on One; and Maureen Kelly, Noreen Travers and Dawn Carlson for their good intentions/plans to read it.

The Westchester homegirls: Dorothy Hicks-Terry, Sheila Tyler, Rebecca West Ogiste, Sharon McDaniel Hollis, Beverly Brown, Karleen Burke, Barbara Qualls, Lillian Tyee, Jackie Moore, Carolyn Harmon Crute. Your ongoing support has been overwhelming, and I am truly humbled by it.

Terry Clements: it was fab to see you again. I still can't believe little Monet is married and Lauren is so grown up! How come we don't look eighteen years older…or do we?

Jacqueline McGuggins of Waldenbooks in Yonkers, New York: for agreeing to host a signing. I hope we weren't too raucous.

Glen Hoftetter of the Book Nook in Jacksonville, Florida: for hosting the virtual signings I used to do when I lived there and for being an all-around great guy.

Loyal readers everywhere: I can't tell you how much I appreciate you all.

Since the heroine of this book is named Alicia, I must mention the Alicias in my life: my niece, Alisha Griffin Baez, and my second-generation cousin, Alicia Morton Coates. I've witnessed both of you grow from pigtailed little girls to women with families of your own. I'm very proud of both of you.

Bettye Griffin

Gurnee, Illinois

Winter 2006-2007

I Just Saw a Face

A
s
he left the restaurant Jack held the door open for a woman who entered. Suddenly, his mouth fell open.

Never before had he seen anyone so lovely.

She smiled in that impersonal way people tend to when they really don't notice you. “Thank you,” she said in a low-pitched voice he found incredibly sexy. She dashed through the entrance, the memory of her face etched in his mind.

It had been an enjoyable evening, even before he arrived at the restaurant. The warm early June weather made moving about the city a pleasant experience. How kind of his old college roommate, Pete Robinson, and Pete's wife Rhonda to insist on taking him to dinner after his round of interviews and before his return flight to Birmingham. The human resources department at his prospective employer had kindly honored his request to be put on an evening return flight to Birmingham to give him some time to spend with his friends.

Truth be told, Jack couldn't really pinpoint his exact location in Manhattan, but the low rise apartment buildings with retailers and restaurants on the ground floors told him he had ventured beyond the tall buildings of the business district, or, as they called it in New York, midtown.

Judging by how well things went this afternoon, he expected to be offered the director position he'd interviewed for after a round of phone interviews plus a series of face-to-face meetings with key personnel. Funny how his sixth sense had never failed him in this regard. He'd always correctly predicted whether a job offer was forthcoming. But he wouldn't start packing until the offer had been made and he'd accepted.

Jack's own father had worked in the steel mills of Birmingham, Alabama, for decades. Things had certainly changed in a generation. Jack had changed jobs several times in the nearly fifteen years since college, nor would his contemporaries likely spend their entire careers at the same company until retirement.

If everything worked out, he anticipated easily finding his way around the city before too long once he made the move here. It certainly seemed a lot busier than Birmingham, which, despite several relocations over the years, he still considered home.

“It's really good to see you two again, guys,” he said to Pete and Rhonda. Then he laughed as he made a sweeping gesture with his right hand. “And it's nice to meet all of you.” Originally he met Pete at his office in midtown after his interviews, and the two of them took the subway up to a Cuban restaurant, where Rhonda met them. She promptly announced that a friend of hers was coming to join them, but not until after they'd had a chance to have a good talk with just the three of them.

While they ate she explained that she'd mentioned her dinner plans to a few other people, who said they might pop in later. The others who came all ordered food, and it amused Jack that an impromptu meal between three old friends could end up with such a large group sharing a table.

That was how it started. Now, nearly an hour after he finished his meal and sat leisurely sipping sangria, no less than seven people sat around a makeshift rectangular table, made up of two tables pushed together.

In the midst of the chatter going on around him, Jack surveyed the restaurant. He supposed that similar scenes took place at restaurants all over Manhattan, as the work crowd left the office and met friends for dinner and drinks.

Fortunately, the restaurant wasn't overly crowded on this spring evening, so they could literally sit there for hours, the sangria flowing as freely and easily as the conversation.

Rhonda laughed. “If you're going to be living here, we want you to meet all our friends,” she said. “You won't be lonely, believe me.”

“Speaking of friends, Rhonda, where's Alicia?” Pete asked.

“She didn't answer her cell, so I left her a message. I hope she can make it. She hasn't called back, so I don't know.”

“Do you suppose she went up to her mother's?”

“She didn't say anything about it. And she wouldn't go on a Wednesday unless something really bad happened.” Rhonda twisted her lower lip as she considered this possibility. “I did say we'd only be here until about seven-thirty.”

Jack glanced at his watch. “It's ten to seven now. I guess I'd better get going.”

“What time is your flight, Jack?” one of Rhonda's friends asked.

“Eight-thirty. We're not that far from LaGuardia, are we?”

The airport was perhaps a twenty-minute taxi ride, said someone sitting next to him.

“Ask the hostess to get you a cab,” Pete advised.

Within five minutes the hostess informed Jack that his cab was waiting for him. He rose and said thanks and goodbye to Pete. The two had been best buddies through their college years at Fisk. And although in recent years they barely kept in touch, they'd never completely lost contact.

Since graduation, Jack's career as a graphic artist had taken him first to Galveston and then to Houston before he decided he wanted to return to Alabama. Pete, on the other hand, had headed straight to New York, armed with a degree in chemistry. He'd met Rhonda there, the two fell in love, and four years ago they married in a destination wedding on St. Croix. They seemed so happy, and Jack couldn't help feeling a little envious. His friend had a loving wife to go home to after work…he had no one.

He had managed to rack up a series of failed relationships, their endings all rooted in silly stuff that wouldn't be important enough to do in a relationship of any substance. He'd heard that the older and more set in their ways a person became, the more difficult it was to put someone else first. His mother always reassured him, telling him that when he met Miss Right he would know it. Jack personally didn't put much faith in that scenario. It took more than merely meeting a woman to know she was the one he'd been waiting for.

After giving Rhonda a farewell kiss on the cheek and waving to the rest of his table-mates, he headed for the door and his fateful encounter. He took one last glance at his surroundings. Nothing about the restaurant's decor jumped out as being special, but he liked it, with its flavorful cuisine and no-fuss atmosphere. A real neighborhood restaurant, with many of its tables occupied by people of all sorts of ethnic backgrounds, including Afro-Hispanics speaking fluent Spanish. Now, that was a sight you didn't see much of in Birmingham.

Nor was a woman so exquisitely beautiful as the one who passed him by.

He turned and stared at the woman's back after she passed through the door. The view from that angle was equally appealing. She wore a tailored cotton shirt with a wool tweed blazer and jeans. A small leather shoulder bag hung at her side. Her hair hung in an asymmetrical side-parted bob that grazed her shoulder on one side and was even with her chin on the other.

He longed for another look at her beautiful face, but she didn't turn around. Instead, apparently looking for someone, she moved to her right, her head turning from left to right and her hair bouncing as she searched for her dinner partner. Then a honking horn jerked him back to reality and the taxi double parked outside.

Reluctantly, he let the door close and stepped into the street. He crossed the wide sidewalk and got into the back seat of the yellow taxi. “LaGuardia Airport,” he told the driver.

 

Inside the restaurant, unbeknownst to Jack, the woman, upon spotting a familiar face, rushed up to Rhonda's table and hugged her warmly. “I'm glad you guys are still here. I ran all the way.”

“We weren't sure how long we should wait,” Rhonda said. “But now that you're here, we aren't going anywhere.” She indicated the empty chair opposite her. “You can sit next to Pete. His friend just left.”

Pete signaled. “Waiter. Another pitcher of sangria.” He turned to the woman. “Will that work for you, Alicia?”

“Sure.”

He grinned at her. “Don't want to try a Tequila Sunrise tonight, huh?”

She winked; her ability to nurse one glass of wine for hours on end was legendary in their circle. “No, not tonight. Maybe next time.”

 

Jack settled into his leather Business Class seat. He accepted a complimentary Scotch and soda and reclined. His thoughts went to the woman at the restaurant. He knew it made no sense for him to waste time thinking about someone he'd never see again, and it surprised him that he kept thinking about her. Again he thought of what his mother always said about him being able to recognize the right woman when he met her.

Except he'd only seen her, not actually met her…and the odds were against him ever seeing her again, much less meeting her.