Between Friends (31 page)

Dallas remembered very well, but she still felt uneasy. She was sure that Valerie had staked a claim on Alex Marco, and for all Dallas knew it was reciprocal.

She tilted her head at him. “Okay. What else?”

He chuckled in surprise. “Man, you’ve gotten tough. Don’t you believe me?”

“I guess that’s the reporter in me. People sometimes have ulterior motives.”

“Okay, I confess.” Alex reached into an inner pocket of his sports jacket and extracted a small bundle, wrapped in red tissue paper. He held it out to her.

Dallas stared at it, looked at him, and finally accepted the offering. She slowly peeled away the paper until the object was revealed. It was a small round bottle of cobalt blue, about the size of a tangerine. The top was gone, and the glass surface had a muted frosty appearance instead of being shiny the way it must have appeared when new. It was also embossed all over the outside with stars.

Alex paid close attention to her response. He could see by the subtle smile that played around her mouth that Dallas was pleased. He had guessed correctly that she would appreciate the bottle. That had been important to him.

“This is … beautiful,” she breathed. She rubbed here fingers over the bottle, slightly roughened from the elements of salt water and sand. Dallas frowned. “Are you giving this to me?”

“That’s right.”

Her eyes widened. “Why?”

Alex should have known that she would ask. “Because I knew you’d like it. You seemed to really get into the things in the exhibit last weekend. I wanted you to have that.”

“But … isn’t it valuable? Shouldn’t it be in a museum?”

He laughed. “The person who chucked it overboard is going to be real upset if that’s true. No, I don’t think it’s worth very much that way. Ross and I find stuff like that all the time. A lot of it we don’t even bother bringing to the surface.”

Dallas didn’t know what to say. It was an unusual gift. But it was a gift nonetheless, and she felt peculiar about accepting it. Doing so would somehow change the boundaries of their relationship, much of which was still undefined.

Alex could see the hesitation. “I have an old-fashioned rubber kewpie doll for Megan. She doesn’t have to worry about dressing it. The clothing was painted on.”

Dallas laughed, still examining the blue bottle … and inordinately pleased with it. “What about Valerie?” she questioned carefully.

Alex pursed his lips. Should he tell her that he hadn’t found anything that he thought would satisfy Valerie? Or should he lie and make something up? “I have this little ceramic cat with a real bell attached around the neck. Think she’ll like it?”

Dallas wasn’t sure. Valerie wasn’t terribly sentimental. She was the kind to equate collectible with junk. She might not see Alex’s gesture as romantic but odd.

“It has a Tiffany stamp on the bottom,” Alex added.

Dallas grinned. “She’ll love it.” She began to rewrap the bottle. “I don’t know what to say besides thank you.”

“That’s enough. I’m glad you like it.”

“You didn’t have to meet me for lunch just to give me this.”

Alex reached inside the other jacket pocket. This time he withdrew a magazine. “Wait … there’s more.” He placed it in front of her.

Dallas put the wrapped bottle in her purse, and turned her attention to the magazine. “This is a copy of last month’s issue of
Soul of the City.
This is my article.”

“Will you autograph it for me?” Alex asked.

Dallas was again caught off guard. He’d purchased the magazine. He’d actually read it. “You want my … autograph?”

“I really enjoy your style and what you have to say. It’s really interesting.”

Dallas chuckled wryly. “Is that a euphemism for you don’t understand what I’m talking about?”

“You think because you write for a black publication and maybe a black audience that I won’t understand? What’s the difference between black women who wear fancy hairdos with braids and the women in Bensonhurst who still wear big hair? What’s the difference between black women bringing up kids alone and white women bringing up kids alone?”

Dallas could only stare openly at Alex. Not because he’d questioned her point of view, but because he had seen that in many cases there was a very slim line of differences separating people … beyond cultural ones we make up.

He leaned across the table again. “You know what I think? You and I are a lot alike. We’re both trying to figure out where we belong, but we also just want people to accept us, no questions asked, no judgment passed. When someone calls me a bastard, it’s true. But that’s a technicality, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

He lifted a shoulder. “Someone calls you a nigger, is that true?”

Dallas shook her head slowly, watching him. She heard him say the word and wasn’t offended. Perhaps because she knew with a deep certainty that Alex would never refer to her in
that way.

“There is a difference. No one has to know that you’re … illegitimate. Someone looks at me, and they immediately have an opinion. They draw a conclusion because of the way I look.”

“I know that’s been a problem …”

She frowned. “How do you know that?”

Alex realized at once that he’d almost tipped his hand. He wasn’t ready to do that yet. But if he wanted her to continue to trust him, he had to give her something she could feel comfortable with. “For one thing, what Nick used to say, and the way he treated you. For another … Val.”

Dallas blinked at him. Of course, Val. But how much had she said to him about her? Dallas didn’t get a chance to ask. Alex seemed to be able to read her blank expression.

“I know about your family and when you moved into the neighborhood. I …” he hesitated. How far should he go? “I know about your parents … your real mother.”

Dallas averted her attention. But it’s not as if any of it needed to be a secret. Still, Alex’s knowing so much made her feel naked. There was nothing for her to hide behind beyond her pride, and the hope that, unlike other people, what he knew he wouldn’t hold against her.

Alex looked down at the table suddenly, using a fingertip to smooth out a crease in the white tablecloth. He glanced up at her finally from beneath the hood of his eyes, through the dark lashes. “I, ah, I also know that you were married.” He hesitated. “That … you had a miscarriage.”

Dallas blushed and let her annoyance come to the surface. “Valerie had no right …”

“I asked her. Valerie is your friend, and she’d never say anything that she thought was out of line.”

“Well, if you wanted to know, why didn’t you ask me?” Dallas questioned him.

He conceded with a nod. “You’re right. I should have. I guess I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about that.”

Dallas could find no real reason to fault either Alex or Valerie. While she wasn’t sure of Val’s reasons for revealing so much, Dallas hoped that Alex’s interest wasn’t just superficial. That the discussion about herself between them didn’t amount to mere gossip one evening.

“Look, I wanted to cut to the chase. There was a lot I didn’t know about you,” he confessed. “Which seemed sort of strange, after all we’ve been through … together. You know what I’m talking about.”

His voice had become soft and quiet. His gaze drifted past her, not focusing on anything except his own thoughts. “I went into the service not to see the world, but because I thought I had to prove something. To Vin. To myself. He probably never even thought that my mother would get pregnant when they were together. So when I showed up out of nowhere, it was like … how could this have happened? He didn’t want it to be true. I didn’t blame him for what happened, and my mother didn’t either. But
I
wanted him to accept me. I really wanted him to be my father.”

“So you thought you could make yourself … worthy of his love?” Alex nodded. “I guess it hasn’t worked?”

He smiled grimly. “Not really. Maybe Vin thinks that if he accepts me he’ll have to acknowledge my mother. Maybe he thinks Lillian won’t be
that
understanding. Maybe … maybe he just really doesn’t care.”

Dallas looked at the bowed silver head. She could hear in Alex’s voice the regret of that possibility. “I don’t know, Alex. I don’t get it, either. You’re so much more of a son, more of a man, than Nicholas ever was. Vin should be so proud of you. Lillian loves you very much … as if you were her son, too. Vin should be thanking God for you …” She stopped when she saw first surprise and then amusement in his eyes.

“Do you really believe that?” he asked.

“Yes,” she responded, and looked up to meet his pensive stare.

“I’ll take that,” he said cryptically. “I could do a lot worse.”

“What about Valerie?”

Alex stiffened imperceptibly. “What about her?”

“Doesn’t she agree with me?” She watched him relax again, knowing that she’d come dangerously close to asking about their relationship. It was none of her business.

Alex shrugged. “Valerie sees … something else in me. If she thinks I’m wonderful, she’s keeping it to herself. She’s more concerned with how I feel about her … and Megan.”

Dallas became uncomfortable again. “I don’t think I want to go there,” she murmured.

He shook his head. “No, you don’t. So … what are you going to write next?”

She smiled shyly. “A book, apparently.”

“For real? That’s cool. What’s it going to be about?”

“Anything I want. The editor wants my articles expanded and given more depth. About what life is like from where I stand.”

“You mean, being half white and half black?”

Dallas was taken a little aback. It was unsettling to have Alex speak his mind so bluntly. He wasn’t judging her. And
what
she was didn’t seem to matter as much as
who
she was.

“Yeah, that’s right.”

Alex gnawed the inside of his lip. He looked furtively at Dallas, quickly assessing the moment and her. “You’re going to need this, then. It might give you some ideas …” Once again Alex reached into his pocket and pulled out one more item. He silently passed it to her across the table.

Dallas recognized the notebook immediately. She looked at Alex. She had no idea what to say to him. How did he get her journal? How long had he had it? Had he read it?

“I found it the day we helped Lillian in the basement of the house. It was with Nick’s things.” He continued to hold the book out, but Dallas made no move to take it. Alex sighed. “I started to give it back to you, but … when I saw what it was, I decided to hold on to it for a while. I read it, Dallas. I’m … sorry. I shouldn’t have. But at the time it seemed the way to find out more about you. Stuff I knew Valerie might not know, or wouldn’t tell me. I took advantage of the opportunity.”

Dallas still couldn’t find her voice. She had wondered for years what had happened to her journal. Had Nicholas found it … or had Lillian? No. Lillian would certainly have said something. She had lived with knowing that her adolescent concerns were somewhere out there in the world for a stranger to see. Dallas didn’t know what to make of Alex being the one to have found it. To have read it. He wasn’t a stranger. But she couldn’t help feeling a profound vulnerability that threatened to reduce her to that adolescent insecurity once again. She just sat there.

“Go on. Take it,” Alex whispered, wishing Dallas would say something, even if she got really angry at him. “I figure you were about thirteen or fourteen when you wrote this. Even then you were a good writer. I learned a lot, Dallas. I really understood where you were coming from. I could relate.”

“Sorry it took so long,” the breathless waitress said, arriving with two plates balanced on her left forearm and holding a third in her free hand. She unceremoniously leaned in between them to put the dishes down. “Excuse me …”

Dallas quickly took the notebook, ignoring the chatty waitress’s apologies. When she’d finished serving, she stood looking back and forth between them.

“Can I get you anything else?”

Alex merely shook his head.

Dallas put the notebook in her lap. She picked up her fork to start on the salad. “Thank you,” she quietly murmured.

The waitress nodded with a smile and walked away.

Alex carefully lifted his burger. “You’re welcome,” he answered with great relief.

Maureen sucked her teeth. “There’re no more seats,” she muttered as she glanced around the filled auditorium.

“That’s because we’re late. They probably started with all kinds of introductions anyway. We didn’t need to sit through all of that. You would have gotten bored,” Dallas said in a whisper, also glancing around as she looked for empty seats.

They stood just inside the doorway of the theater. There were several people on the stage that included the director of the film department at NYU, and four of the currently hot new black directors who’d produced successful screenplays in the past six months.

Dallas leaned toward Maureen. “I think we’re going to have to split up, unless you don’t mind sitting way in the back on the side.”

“That’s okay. Then if I don’t like the program I can sneak out.”

“I was lucky to get these tickets. You will
not
sneak out on me. I had to give up my passes to another writer from the magazine. She should be here to cover this.

“Besides, if we hadn’t stopped to buy you shoes …” Dallas reminded Maureen. She hated to be late, but had accommodated her friend as they’d finished dinner and headed toward the university campus across Third Street.

“They’ll be perfect with my wedding dress. I can’t believe my luck. I
had
to get them …”

“Ssshhh!” someone nearby voiced at their whispered conversation.

Maureen sucked her teeth again. “It’s so dark I can’t even see anything.”

“Let’s just stand here for a moment. I think these are introductions and they should be over soon. They’ll put the lights up for a few minutes before starting the film. We’ll look for something then.”

Maureen sighed. “I’m going to find someplace where I can have a quick cigarette. I’ll come back …”

Dallas nodded as Maureen left her. Sometimes she didn’t know why she bothered. She would never have heard the end of it if Valerie had come with her to the evening lecture and Maureen had found out. It had never been so much jealousy as competition between Val and Maureen, Dallas knew. But she still hated being in the middle as they vied over being her best friend. She had asked Dean to attend the lecture, but he had claimed a prior date with his new girlfriend. So Dallas stood alone for the next fifteen minutes, until the opening comments had been made and the next part of the program was about to get under way.