Between Friends (21 page)

Alex glanced around the quiet living room. “Megan could have come with us,” he murmured. “It would have been okay with me.”

Valerie shook her head. “It wouldn’t have been okay with me. You and I couldn’t really be alone, or talk openly. She really wanted to spend the weekend with Dallas, but she already had plans.”

Alex wondered why Dallas hadn’t been specific about her plans to be with Lillian. On the other hand, he didn’t see the need to mention that, coincidentally, he and Dallas had spent the afternoon together.

Valerie turned from the mirror. “Do you want a drink before we leave?”

“I don’t drink,” Alex said absently.

Valerie, in the process of heading for her purse, glanced over her shoulder at him. “What do you mean you don’t drink?”

“Soda’s fine. Beer. No alcohol.”

Valerie’s expression showed genuine surprise. “Really? You’re … you’re not an … alcoholic, are you?”

“No.” He moved restlessly around the living room again. The space was beginning to feel cramped. “Alcohol affects my judgment. I don’t like the feeling.”

“Oh, a control freak,” Valerie muttered dismissively.

“Only about myself.”

She laughed this time. She came close again and smiled seductively into Alex’s face. “I like that. A man who’s sure about himself …
and
who knows what he’s doing.”

Alex looked down into Valerie’s face. Her makeup only enhanced a natural beauty that he would bet had been apparent since she could crawl. She was in the prime of her looks and allure. She was the kind of a woman who drew men so effortlessly that he was surprised that she had never married or moved away from Long Island.

Valerie was looking back at him, waiting. He felt compelled to lean down and brush a light kiss across her mouth. She was willing, and responded. Valerie lifted her hands and pressed them to Alex’s chest, leaning into him. He was glad that he’d removed the notebook. She would have wanted to know what he was carrying. Was it something for her?

Alex took her hands and pulled them down to her side. The action brought them that much closer, and Valerie smiled as she tilted her head to let him kiss her again. He did, because she was expecting it and because he wanted to. Alex had known from the moment he’d seen her at the funeral home that it would come to this. But he had to switch emotional gears. Part of him was still with Dallas, as they’d been most of the afternoon. But mostly Alex was thinking about sitting with her in his car, talking about intimate things between them. He looked at Valerie’s mouth. She was extending the invitation.

Alex slipped his arms around her waist and she rested against him, her breasts like soft cushions. Finally, he felt the heat buildup, the excitement of anticipation. He kissed her and took his time to let his tongue and lips cover territory. It was every bit as heady as he’d thought it would be. And Valerie did not disappoint him. But there was another sensation that interjected into the moment, and interfered with the pleasure. A sense of being watched. It was ridiculous. He and Valerie were alone in her house. But Alex couldn’t shake the feeling.

She ran her hands down his chest and stomach, boldly to his thighs searching out the evidence of her effect on him. He was relieved when Valerie stepped back with a dreamy smile on her mouth.

“Ummmmm. To be continued. Let’s go. We’re going to be late for dinner.”

“Are you sure you want to go?” he asked, looking down into the top of a black latex bodysuit she wore that showed enough cleavage to make promises he knew Valerie was capable of keeping.

“I spent a lot of time getting dressed to look fabulous, Alex. I want to see you drool a little and appreciate it.”

Alex raised a brow as she spun out of his arms and took a jacket from the hall closet. “I never drool.”

“Oh, really?” Valerie said with a narrowed gaze. Her smile was wicked and playful. “Let’s see if you feel the same way in the morning.”

“What do you want me to do with the rest of this?” Dallas asked, holding out the serving platter that held what remained of a vegetable dish from dinner.

Eleanor Oliver gave a cursory glance over her shoulder before continuing her task of wrapping aluminum foil around a small mound of sliced pork loin.

“There’s not much left. Just throw it out. You know your father and Dean hate leftover vegetables. You can take it home with you if you want,” she added.

“No, thanks,” Dallas murmured.

“Take the potatoes, then. There’s plenty of that. I hate to see good food go to waste.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t cook so much,” Dallas suggested.

“Well, I was raised to put plenty of food on the table for the family. You know how Dean loves my au gratin,” Eleanor boasted. “Lord, that boy can put food away.”

“I love your potato salad,” Dallas said, scraping the rest of the succotash into the garbage. “I think you make the best salad in the world.”

“Thank you, dear,” Eleanor murmured. The wrapped meat was put in the refrigerator. “Hayden used to say the same thing. He
really
enjoyed my cooking.”

Dallas became alert at the reference to her ex-husband. She pretended she hadn’t heard and didn’t respond. Her stepmother still tended to bring up Hay-den’s name with a kind of lingering regret. As if it was such a shame and, by inference, such a mistake that he was no longer her son-in-law. Hayden was the son of one of her good friends. The heir apparent of educated and professional parents, and the product of black middle-class upward mobility. Hayden was the recipient of everything his parents had benefited from as a result of the civil rights movement of the sixties and seventies, Affirmative Action of the eighties, the opportunities and networking of the nineties. He had everything, and accepted everything as his due.

Eleanor chuckled softly to herself. “He used to say if his mother cooked as good as I did he might never have left home. Ooooh … he was really a sweetheart.”

Again, Dallas said nothing. She had yet to confide in her parents the nature of her marital relationship to Hayden. She had yet to express her opinion that Hayden had never really left home, even after they’d married. Dallas knew she certainly couldn’t admit to Hayden’s comparison that she was not like his mother … or other black women that he knew. That alone had been enough to reduce her to a sense of inadequacy.

“I don’t want the potatoes either. I’ll just put them in a container,” Dallas said quietly.

“That’s fine,” Eleanor sighed.

What was it Hayden used to say when he thought she’d disappointed him?
My mother would never do it that way … or I don’t know any black woman who would say that …
Hayden had found every one of her buttons and pushed them. She’d never understood why he felt he had to.

Dallas fumbled the plastic containers she pulled from a cupboard and several fell out and to the floor with a clatter. “Sorry,” she said when Eleanor turned to see what she was up to.

Dallas kept her head lowered. There was the sensation of pain in her abdomen. There was the memory of the pressure, of fiberglass and metal forced against her and into her, pinning her body in a cruel twisted position. Hayden moaning next to her, bloodied and semiconscious.
Jesus … sweet Jesus.
She took a deep breath, remembering the details. Remembering the senseless argument between her and Hayden in their car … at sixty miles per hour. A moment’s distraction and they’d plowed into the back of another car. Remembering the hospital visits from both families after the car accident where everyone was careful not to blame her, but showing it. Hayden had been badly hurt. He’d been comatose for three days. But
she
had lost a baby. He went home from the hospital to eventually heal. She left the hospital empty.

“Do you ever hear from him?”

Dallas sighed. “I don’t want to have anything to do with him. You think he’s so wonderful, but we divorced for a reason, you know. I had reasons.”

“Marriage requires a lot of work,” Eleanor said in that manner of careful enunciation she had that was imperial and unforgiving. “
And
sacrifice.
And
compromise.”

“Yes, but it shouldn’t mean that anyone has to stay in a hopeless situation.”

“You just didn’t know how to handle the man,” Eleanor scoffed.

“I guess not,” Dallas conceded easily, unwilling to get into a battle with her stepmother.

“You have to make a black man feel like he’s a
man.
Like he knows it all and you depend on him. You got to flatter him sometimes, but not spoil him.”

Dallas nodded. “And what about what he does for me?”

Eleanor stood leaning against the counter, her hand poised on her hip. She got people to listen and make them believe that her truth was better. She could cut you cold and make you regret ever having crossed her, blanketing your spirits with righteousness. Or she could become surprisingly generous with compliments and kisses, offering just enough, Dallas knew, to make her feel hopeful that she was wanted.

Dallas remembered when she thought she would have done anything to have Eleanor bless her with a smile even half as bright as that she bestowed on Dean, who was really her child. And she remembered when she finally gave up all of that, realizing that trying to get someone to love you was too hard.

“You are not making any sense, Dallas,” Eleanor admonished. “How could it be hopeless? Hayden ran his own business. He was making good money, and you didn’t want for anything. You didn’t even have to work if you didn’t want to. What else did you expect? Any other black woman would thank her lucky stars. Let me stop …” Eleanor finished.

“Any
smart
black woman would get out when the situation got bad. That’s what I did.”

“All right, Dallas,” Eleanor sighed wearily. “I’m not going to fight with you about this. But I think you made a big mistake. And you know I’m hardly ever wrong.”

Eleanor was pragmatic, and saw things for what they were. Life was very simple for her and the choices clear. But what about love? Dallas wondered. What about respect?

“I expected to be treated at least as well as Hayden treated his mother, since he wanted me to live up to her standards.” Dallas felt the need to continue. “I wish he could have just accepted me without wanting to make me over in her image. I thought he knew what he was getting when he married me.”

Eleanor looked impatient. “All this talk about acceptance and treatment and standards. You just didn’t learn how to
manage
your man. That’s what it’s all about.”

Dallas looked incredulous. “You believe letting someone always get their way is compromising?”

“You got to make him
think
he’s getting his way.”

“That’s giving him permission to throw tantrums, if you ask me.”

“I don’t have to ask you,” Eleanor said dryly. “
You’re
the one that doesn’t have a husband.”

The barb stung. She’d wanted it to work. Desperately. Maybe that had been the trouble. She wanted Hayden’s love too much. Dallas finished stacking the dishwasher and poured in detergent before closing the door. “Maybe I’m better off without one.”

“Better off without what?”

Dallas turned at her father’s question as he sauntered into the kitchen, carrying his empty dessert plate and half-finished coffee. His unexpected appearance caught her off guard, and for a split second she saw not her father but an aging man who seemed very tired. Dallas was not used to seeing him so distracted and slow.

“A man,” Eleanor said.

“I didn’t say a man. I said a husband,” Dallas corrected. She took the dishes from her father and he smiled absently.

“Thanks. If there’s more coffee I’ll have another cup. Then I’m going to bed.”

“Lyle, maybe you shouldn’t. All that caffeine before going to bed …”

He accepted a half-filled cup from Dallas with a brief nod of thanks. “I’ve been sleeping like the dead lately. I don’t think I have to worry about the caffeine.”

“How’s everything going?” Dallas questioned carefully.

“Well …” He sat at the kitchen table, “I’m sure glad I was able to hire a part-time manager at the shop. That and my classes are wearing me out.”

“I’m sure Dean would have helped you if you’d asked him,” Eleanor said.

“I didn’t ask Dean because I know I’d get excuses from him,” Lyle Oliver countered.

“Why don’t you sell the bookshop?” Dallas asked, standing next to her father.

He peered over the top of his glasses at her. “Ask Ellie.”

“You don’t have to ask me anything,” Eleanor said tartly. “The bookstore is making money. It’s in a perfect location, and we have loyal customers. It’ll be much easier to run when we retire.”

“If I live that long.”

“Daddy …”

“Ellie’s right. It’s a good business, and it brings in good money.”

Eleanor nodded. “We’ll have that and our pension,
and
Social Security.”

“Great. You’ll both be rich but dead,” Dallas said.

“Well then, you and Dean will split everything,” he murmured.

“But don’t bury us yet,” Eleanor quipped. “I plan on being around a long time to spend my money.”

One of the qualities that most annoyed Dallas about her father was his complacency. His giving in to Eleanor. Hayden came to mind, and his domineering mother.

Dallas didn’t want to be like that. She couldn’t love a man like that, not for long. She’d wanted to be Hayden’s wife, his lover and friend. She hadn’t wanted to be his mother. He already had one.

“What’s going on in here?” Dean said, joining the rest of the family.

“We have that whole family room out there, and you all pile up in my kitchen,” Eleanor complained, squeezing past Dallas to put away the plastic wrap and aluminum foil.

“We’re talking about you behind your back,” Dallas teased her brother.

He actually looked uncomfortable but hid it in a snickering chuckle. Dean grabbed Dallas by the hand and with a tug turned her around and pulled her playfully into a choke hold. He growled in her ear. “Tellin’ all my business?”

“What’s going on? What are you talking about?” Eleanor asked.

“Nothing,” Dallas replied, trying to wiggle out from beneath Dean’s arms. He started to tickle her and she giggled. Then he brushed his hand vigorously through her short curly hair, knowing it would annoy her. Like Burke. “Don’t do that. You’re messing up my hair.”