Authors: Sandra Kitt
“I told you when I came in this morning,” Gail said defensively.
Leah slowly shook her head. “No, you didn’t. You said, could you borrow my dress for the weekend.”
Gail nodded her head and gathered her things. “Same thing,” she said.
At the door, Gail looked through the cut-glass windowpane and turned back to Leah. “He’s still sitting there. I should tell him this is not a shelter for the homeless.”
“He’s not homeless,” Leah responded automatically.
“I wish you’d stop talking as if you know him,” Gail said impatiently.
Leah merely opened the door and ushered her sister through it. “I’ll take care of it. I’ll see you Saturday night. Or Sunday afternoon.”
“If he’s here when you come home tonight, call the police,” Gail advised. She hurried down the stairs, shoulder bag and tote distorting her gait. She cast a disgusted look at the man. “Shoo! Go away!” she advised him from a safe distance. The stranger ignored her, never even indicated by any movement that he was aware of her presence. Gail gave up in irritation and, waving briefly to her sister, headed for the corner.
Leah waited until Gail was out of sight before she turned her attention again to the man. Suddenly he raised his head and turned to look directly at her. For a shocked moment their eyes met, and she felt a tumult, a frisson of some unnamed sensation that squirmed through her stomach. It wasn’t fear, but it made Leah take full notice of him. And it made her feel strangely surprised. She nervously looked at her watch, and then stepped back inside the door to get her things.
Leah was finally ready to leave. She opened the door again and unconsciously sucked in the cool morning air, hoping it would clear her senses like some mentholated medicine. And then, with one hand on the doorknob, Leah had a sudden thought. She quickly retraced her steps back to the kitchen. There she found an old, chipped coffee mug and filled it with what remained of the coffee. She took it with her as she finally left the house.
He was still there.
Leah came slowly down the stairs. She approached the man where he sat on the top step leading to the cellar. He made no notice of her presence. Nor did he notice the offered coffee. Leah moved cautiously forward and placed the cup on the cement ledge next to his right hand. She didn’t ask him to leave, nor did she ask if he needed help. She watched him for a moment longer, and when he still didn’t acknowledge her, she turned away and crossed the street toward the subway.
Leah turned back once. He was no longer the only one on the street. The neighborhood was in motion as residents began their day. The Asian kids from next door were still struggling into the straps of their knapsacks as they ran up the street on their way to school. Beth Rosen, Biddy to her friends, waddled toward her car, which would take her to a job at a Brooklyn junior high school. A delivery truck rattled heavily over the uneven roadway. One teen yelled out to another, “Yo, man … wait up.”
And then Leah saw the man pick up the mug. He stared at it for a long time before bringing it to his lips. He turned his body cater-corner and leaned his shoulders against the cement wall that supported the handrail for the steps. From where Leah stood, she could make out some sort of writing on the back of the windbreaker he wore. It was an oddly positioned name, something that read: Jay Eagle.
W
HEN IT STARTED RAINING
later in the afternoon, the first thought that came to Leah’s mind was whether or not she could use it as an excuse to beg off attending her sister’s fashion event that evening. She looked out the window behind her at the gray November afternoon made even grayer by the concrete skyscrapers and canyons of Manhattan, and by the dullness of the East River. On the other hand, Leah reasoned, she was grateful that the weather wasn’t going to precipitate into the season’s first snowfall.
She heard the snapping sound of two fingers and turned to face Jill, the hyper-kinetic senior art director.
“Hello. Earth to Leah. Come in, Leah Downey …”
Leah couldn’t help chuckling sheepishly, since she’d been caught in the act. She swiveled on her stool to face her drafting table and her department supervisor. “Sorry. You wanted something?”
Jill sat comfortably on the edge of the low supply cabinet placed adjacent to the drafting table. She tilted her head as she regarded her co-worker. “Boy, you were really out in deep space. What’s going on?”
Leah shrugged. “Not much. Just trying to decide between three concepts for that text on money management.”
“Oh, you mean
The Money Tree.”
Jill leaned forward and took a quick glance at the sketches on Leah’s table. “Go with green or gold, dollar signs or a money bag …”
“Or a tree,” Leah finished helpfully. “Why didn’t I think of that?” she asked dryly.
“Because you were busy daydreaming. I envy you,” Jill said suddenly. She gently shook her head so that her straight blond hair danced and then settled in an attractive pageboy that curved along her blunt jawline.
Leah raised her brows. “You’re envious because I daydream?”
“Because you obviously have such a rich fantasy life. Your imagination must work overtime. That’s probably why your designs are so good.”
“My designs have nothing to do with my daydreams.”
“With your sex life, then?” Leah laughed. “Well, it must come from somewhere. You’re really good, and you know you’re really good.”
Leah ignored the compliment. “I don’t think you want to discuss my imagination or my sex life, Jill. What’s up?”
Jill crossed her legs and then uncrossed them. She tossed her head again, examined her nails, which were chewed, short, and ugly. “It’s not about work. I was just wondering if you’d like to go out for drinks or dinner after work. We haven’t done that in a long time.”
“I know,” Leah said with some hesitation. “But I seem to recall that you never had time for that once you met Larry.”
Jill crossed her arms over her chest. Then she uncrossed them, playing with the sleeves of her sweater. “Well, that’s all over.”
“Oh, I didn’t know.”
“I knew it wouldn’t last,” she announced.
However, Leah guessed by her colleague’s expression and her suddenly pink cheeks that it had been a painful ending.
“He made up with his wife. Now she’s pregnant.”
“That didn’t take long.”
Jill sighed. “It only takes one time. Anyway, the next time I’ll look for someone like Allen.”
Leah looked confused. “Allen?”
“You guys have been together forever. I never hear you complain, and you never seem to have fights. Perfect. Any day I expect you to announce your engagement.”
Leah shifted nervously, recalling the phone argument she and Allen had had two nights ago. She felt uncomfortable being the subject of Jill’s speculations. Of talk about marriage … and a lifetime. “We haven’t talked about it yet.”
“Wouldn’t it be romantic if he gave you a ring for Christmas?” Jill suggested with excitement. “God, I
love
stuff like that. I want to get a ring inside a cake, or a bottle of champagne …”
Leah grimaced. “Messy.”
“So, how about tonight?”
“I can’t.”
“Oh.” Jill’s smile quickly disappeared.
Leah was surprised by her obvious disappointment. It wasn’t as if they were good friends. In the past their after-work dinners had been fun but mostly extensions of work and office gossip. She and Allen had double-dated with Jill and a previous boyfriend several times more than a year ago, but double-dating was not Allen’s thing. Although she and Jill had once or twice exchanged party invitations, Leah still never considered that that made them close friends. But she could sense that her co-worker needed to talk. Maybe about Larry and their breakup.
“I’m sorry. Gail’s fashion show is tonight and …”
“Oh,” Jill repeated.
“There’s a reception and I really have to be there. I’m leaving a little early this afternoon to get ready. Maybe I can ask Gail if you can—”
“Oh, no. Don’t bother.” Jill laughed awkwardly. “We’ll do it some other time.” She got up to leave.
“Jill?” Leah detained her a moment longer. “How about next week?”
“How about next week for what?” someone asked from the doorway.
Leah sighed patiently and rolled her eyes heavenward. It was Jill who responded to Mike Berger, the assistant art director, as he approached Leah’s worktable. He looped an arm around Jill’s shoulder with familiarity. He didn’t wait for an answer to his first question.
“What are you working on?” he asked Leah.
She placed her arms flat on the drafting table, effectively covering the designs she’d created that morning.
“Illusions,
that beauty book by the former Ford model.”
Mike chortled. “Jill probably gave it to you ’cause the model was black.”
“How about because you know nothing about makeup?” Jill countered. She slipped from under his arm. “Come on. You want to fight, fight with me …”
Leah watched as Jill deftly led Mike away, telling him that she had another, more important project for him to work on. Leah disliked that Jill found it necessary to stroke his ego, but she disliked and distrusted Mike Berger even more.
Mike Berger was, as one of the editors had once phrased it, a poor excuse for a modern man. He was white, male, and not without talent. He was also sexist, spoiled, exuded a sense of entitlement and privilege, and was laughably unenlightened. Leah had learned to work around him with the same kind of equanimity with which she managed most situations she had little control over: by not taking it seriously.
Leah liked her position at a small publishing house in Midtown, near the United Nations. She was an assistant art director, a position equal to Mike’s, but she was also considered the senior designer. She no longer considered that she might have gotten the job by virtue of being black and female in the right place at the right time. The bottom line was, she was talented and had proven her capabilities. She had been told many times by other artists, even in off-the-record remarks by editors, that it was she who was really the creative motivation behind the output of book designs and promotion. Jill was the real art director with a management style considered warm and fuzzy. Probably a smart tactic, Leah had always reasoned, given everyone else’s propensity for climbing over other people’s backs to advance their careers.
Leah knew that she could do the senior position job and do it well, but as far as she knew, no one had as yet suggested or supported that idea to management. It didn’t matter to her. Justice was relative. She was happy not attending management meetings and dealing with the promotion department. And Mike was more than enough interference.
As her mind segued from one thought to the next, an idea insinuated itself into the free-flow. Leah quickly pulled forth a blank sheet of paper and began to quickly sketch in the basics for the cover of the
Illusions
beauty book. All because she’d been rehashing her history with Mike Berger. But she certainly wasn’t going to thank him for the memories.
When Leah had first met him, Mike had been spending a lot of time pursuing anyone with breasts, although it took him a little longer to turn his pursuit to her. Leah suspected that Mike had decided she was too dangerous. But perhaps for want of any other opportunity, he did eventually make her a target. The thought spurred her idea as the sketch took shape. She could have written the scenario; the chase was steamed with jungle fever, as it were. She was black, still sweetly forbidden, taboo, and that must have made the pursuit all the more exciting to Mike. But Leah had no intention of being an experiment for anyone’s ego or gratification.
Leah could recall in minute detail that afternoon, nearly three years ago, when he’d cornered her in a supply room between shelves of Strathmore paper and bristol board. Under the pretext of needing her help, Mike had followed her inside the narrow room and closed the door. Leah turned around to protest, but had found herself engulfed in an embrace and his mouth fastened to hers. She could have screamed, but she’d known that the implications would have worked more against her than Mike. She’d let her body stiffen and kept her mouth tightly closed against his attempt to force it open. His hands had quickly pressed over her with a boldness that made her breath draw in.
He finally pulled back impatiently.
“Come on,” Mike breathed heavily. “What’s the big deal? You know you’ve been wondering what would hap—”
Leah hauled back and belted him. She couldn’t believe she was actually doing it, but nonetheless the punch landed on Mike’s cheek, catching him completely off guard.
“Oowww!” He cringed in genuine surprise.
Leah pushed her way around him and got the door open. “You try that again and you’re going to wish you never heard the words Black Power.”
“I can get you fired,” he said, but more hurt than angry.
“Before or after you explain why I hit you?”
Leah had hurried away to the ladies’ room, where she’d locked herself in a stall and stood shaking for several minutes.
Mike had given up trying to maneuver her against a wall, but there remained a tension between them that was still sexual for him, suspicion for her. But she knew he’d never try anything with her again. And she felt sorry for his wife.
When the telephone rang, interrupting her concentration, most of the rough sketch was complete, and it was good. Still, when Leah answered she was distracted.
“Hello, Art Department.”
“I don’t believe it’s raining,” Gail said in annoyance.
“Could be worse.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better. People might not come tonight if the weather is bad. This could ruin my event. This is a pain in the ass.”
“Calm down and stop exaggerating. People will come and it will be a huge success.”
Finally, Gail chuckled. “You promise?”
“For whatever it’s worth, sure.”
“And Allen better not show up in a suit or I won’t let him in.”
“He hates the western look.”
“I don’t care. This is
my
event.”
Leah rubbed her temple. “God, I hate it when the two of you go on this way. Why are you always at each other’s throats?” She had expected another barbed answer from Gail, but she was surprised at the momentary silence.