Authors: Sandra Kitt
Leah hesitated as she straightened pillows on the sofa. “We?” she questioned. “I don’t think so. I have other plans anyway.”
“What other plans?” Gail asked, looking over her shoulder at her sister.
“I’m meeting someone for coffee tomorrow.”
“Who is he?” Gail asked suspiciously.
Leah raised her brows. “What makes you think it’s a he?”
“’Cause women don’t meet each other for coffee,” Gail responded dryly. “What’s going on?”
“Well …” Leah began slowly and then stopped. She didn’t want to lie to her sister. But how could she explain agreeing to meet a white man who, a month ago, the two of them had found on their doorstep like some abandoned pet? “Remember the guy in front of the house back in September?”
Gail stopped her dusting immediately and regarded her sister as if she’d suddenly started talking in tongues. “You have got to be kidding. You mean to tell me you have a date to see a bum, some street lowlife—”
“It’s not a date. And he’s not a bum, Gail. He is just someone who was having a bad time.”
“So? We all have bad times. That doesn’t mean you become friends with every asshole who has a sob story. Why the hell did you agree to meet him? Did he come back here again and you didn’t tell me? Did you dare give him our phone number? What is going on?” Gail’s voice rose with each accusation.
Leah’s patience grew thin under Gail’s fiery attack. “There is nothing going on. He stopped by last week to thank me for the coffee.”
“What coffee?” Gail nearly shouted, completely confused and irritated.
Leah shook her head. “Forget it. You don’t know about the coffee.”
Gail planted her fists on her hips. “Girl, you are out of your mind.”
Leah turned back to the chore at hand. She was now exasperated herself, but only because she had no good reason for what she had agreed to. “What are you getting so worked up about? I’m not a fool. If I thought it was unsafe, I wouldn’t do it.” Her voice trailed off.
“Unsafe?” Gail repeated blankly. “There’s something else that comes first.”
“What?”
Gail stared at her with real puzzlement. “The man is white. What is going on with you? This is. … so unlike you. In fact, this is just plain stupid, Leah.”
Leah remained silent, unable to come up with an argument that made better sense. Gail shook her head.
“You don’t know anything about him. Why, in God’s name, would you even want to? And why with him, of all people?”
Why indeed. Except to Leah, who’d actually given it some thought since seeing Jay Eagle again, the answer was so simple it seemed silly. And yes, foolish. “Curiosity,” she said honestly. But she also couldn’t explain that it was like standing on the edge of a cliff peering down into a great depth below. She’d never done that, either, but there was something enticing about the challenge and fear. Maybe agreeing to see Jay Eagle was a thing she wasn’t used to doing. But she wanted to do
something
that was different in her life.
Gail made an impatient sound deep in her throat. “You obviously don’t recall what curiosity did to the cat one fine day.”
Leah thought wryly that she certainly had more smarts than a cat. That was why she was going to meet Jay Eagle for coffee. Despite everything. Just because …
It turned out to be a beautiful day, typical of late fall. It was cold and breezy and sunny. Leah wore a knit hat and gloves, a concession to the changing of the seasons, and a thick sweater coat. When she saw Jay Eagle again, he was dressed the same as he’d been the week before except that his turtleneck sweater was white.
Anticipation knotted Leah’s stomach while she waited for him outside her front door. She stood on the curb looking down the one-way street. But his hello finally came from directly behind her. She jumped. When Leah turned around, he was watching her carefully.
“I didn’t mean to scare you. You have to remember to watch your back.”
“I wasn’t expecting a sneak attack,” Leah responded tartly, a bit annoyed because his sudden approach had thrown her off balance. There had been no time for her to see him from a distance, and decide ahead of time what she would do and say. Leah felt as if he’d somehow taken advantage. Giving Jay Eagle what she hoped was a displeased glance, Leah fell into step next to him.
Several blocks from her house, near Prospect Park, they found an upscale coffee shop and took a booth in front near a window. An eclectic Sunday brunch crowd was out. Young couples with small children making a mess of pancakes and syrup; solitary
Sunday Times
readers; senior citizens on fixed incomes out for their weekly treat.
They hadn’t made much conversation on the walk over, except for one or two comments about the weather and the park that were so benign and absurd that Leah could feel her tension disappear. She’d asked what kind of work he did for a living, but somehow he’d avoided giving her a direct answer as he’d rushed them across the street, dodging a car. Now seated at the window table he lit a cigarette, and Leah scanned the menu. She looked at him over the top of the laminated card.
“How did you know my name?” she asked bluntly.
He dropped the match into an ashtray. “I asked your neighbor. And I’ve watched you. I knew where you lived, remember?”
Leah was again a little annoyed, but also surprised. “What were you doing? Checking me out?”
He shrugged, not embarrassed or repentant. “I was curious. I wanted to see what you were like.”
“So what am I like?” Leah asked flippantly.
“I’m not sure yet,” he answered. “That’s why I stopped to talk to you last week.”
Leah played nervously with the sugar dispenser. His answer had disconcerted her again. It was an indication that he was curious about her, too. Somehow she hadn’t expected that.
A waitress came and took their order. He asked only for a toasted bagel with cream cheese and coffee. Leah thought about it as the waitress walked away, as if what he had or hadn’t ordered said anything concrete about him. She covertly looked him over. He seemed lean and solidly built, like an athlete. Leah wondered if he pumped iron or was concerned about his appearance. No, he couldn’t be that shallow, she decided. Or else he would have hidden himself away back in September and had his crisis, or whatever it was, alone.
“Why are you staring?”
She blinked rapidly and dropped her gaze. “Was I?”
“Intently,” he said, sounding amused.
Leah shifted in her chair. “Sorry. I wasn’t really staring. I tend to go into a trance when I’m thinking about something.”
He considered her answer and then nodded. “Yeah, I do that, too. So what were you thinking about?”
Leah quickly tried to gauge how much she could ask about that night, but he seemed willing to talk openly with her. “Just … where did you go after you left my house?”
His gaze shifted a fraction of an inch from her face, and Leah wondered what he was remembering. The cause, the event, or the result. She decided it must be all three. He dragged on the cigarette and then seemed to swallow the smoke rather than exhale.
“To a friend’s.”
She accepted that with a nod. It was clear that wasn’t the right question, or the right territory to explore.
The waitress returned with their order, and as she placed plates and drinks, Leah glanced around and suddenly caught two black men seated behind Jay Eagle eyeing her sharply. She would have ignored them except both were openly watching her, one swiveled around in his chair to do so. Leah raised her brows in question, but she fully understood their disapproval.
“I have a question for you,” he said, putting out the cigarette and starting to spread cream cheese on his bagel. “Why did you call me Jay Eagle the other day?”
“You mean, that’s not your name?” Her gaze drifted back from the two men.
“Not even close.”
Leah shrugged, confused. “It was on the back of your jacket. I thought it was your name.”
“My jacket?”
“The day I left you the coffee you were wearing a navy blue windbreaker. On the back was the name Jay Eagle. I just thought …”
His look of confusion disappeared and he laughed lightly, causing creases to appear on either side of his mouth. “I get it. I use to coach a softball team in Queens. It was called the Blue Jays of Eagle Troop 14. Jay Eagle. Blue Jays …” he coaxed her into the connection.
Leah grimaced and shook her head at the misunderstanding. He grinned at her.
“My name’s Jason Horn.”
They made a fingertips handshake over their plates. Leah noticed that his hand was strong and veined. Lightly callused but not rough.
“Had all the letters fallen off?”
“Just about. That jacket and me go back a long, long way.”
Jason looked off to the side and his smile slowly faded. Leah could tell that memories of some sort were playing in his mind, perhaps of that day more than a month ago when she’d found him on her doorstep. He had been sad and worn out then. For a brief moment, as they faced each other, he looked exactly the same way.
“You know,” he began, pulling himself out of his reverie, “leaving that coffee was nice. I appreciated it. But … why would you do something like that?” Jason looked at her carefully. “A black woman giving something like that to a white guy parked on her door. …”
Leah laughed. His bluntness took her by surprise, but she was also relieved by his honesty. He didn’t skirt reality.
“I had to come back; I was intrigued. I wanted to see who was crazy enough.” He smiled, studying her.
“What does my being black have to do with it? It was only a cup of coffee. And from the looks of you at the time, you probably needed it. If you’d tried anything funny, I would have poured it all over you.”
“Most people wouldn’t have offered coffee … they would have called for help,” he persisted. “What you did was potentially dangerous. You know that, don’t you?
“The thought crossed my mind,” she admitted as a brief panic swept over her. She suddenly remembered the deserted stairwell and the attack.
Leah knew that in many ways she remained a prisoner to an event which had had a better ending than she should have hoped for. Nothing had really happened. But it was the
almost
which sometimes brought on a cold sweat. Despite her bad experience, Leah knew she was also not so self-absorbed as to be unaware of someone else’s pain. Intuitively, when she’d stood looking out her living room window that morning back in September, with Gail imagining Jason Horn as an ax murderer, every fiber of Leah’s humanity told her he was not. Something innate within herself sensed only a troubled soul.
“Are you thinking or staring again?”
She shook her head ruefully. “I was just thinking about what you said, about leaving the coffee. I guess I’m not like most people. I like to think that I’m not.”
Although Jason didn’t smile, his eyes were bright with scrutiny and awareness. “Yeah. I can see that now.”
Their first cup of coffee led to a second and then a third, and then another round of muffins to justify the long stay. The coffee shop clientele changed completely. Twice.
“However,” Leah began and then paused for effect. “You did make me nervous in one way.”
“Did I? How?”
“When you said you’d been watching me. When you said you’d asked my neighbor for my name.”
He seemed to understand her point and nodded as he lit another cigarette. “I didn’t think you’d forget that. I’m glad. But it was easy. You tend to daydream when you’re walking all alone. It was kind of nice to watch because you also smile at your own thoughts.”
“Oh, no. …” Leah groaned, astounded by his observation.
“Hey, I thought it was great that you had happy thoughts. But you still have to be alert.”
“Why are you telling me this? Are you warning me that you’re not safe?”
Jason raised his brows as if she’d made a point. He hesitated. “Yes and no. I thought you were very unpretentious, very open. But not everyone will be as honest about it as I am. Not everyone is going to be free of less innocent motives.”
“Am I supposed to thank you?” Leah asked.
“Not necessarily. Just keep what I said in mind.”
She found his comments a little unnerving, as though he knew exactly what he was talking about. How many other people did he just watch? Yet she was also well aware that her thoughtlessness had led her into a staircase late at night in a public building. It hadn’t mattered that it was public; there hadn’t been anyone else around. She had miscalculated her degree of safety, and she’d been a perfect target.
“Excuse me …” Leah suddenly murmured and got up hastily from the table. She didn’t worry about what this man, Jason Horn, thought of her abruptness. She hurried off to the ladies’ room. Not because she needed to go so much as she needed the time alone to think about what he’d said. Leah had found it profoundly alarming to hear just how vulnerable she’d always be.
She took a deep breath, examined her reflection in the mirror. She had to force away the unreasonable panic that made her doubt Jason. He hadn’t been the least bit flirtatious, and she found him interesting. Even better, he’d already proven that Gail had been wrong about him.
Leah returned to the table expecting him to have questions about her sudden departure a minute ago. But if Jason was surprised or curious, it wasn’t evident. He moved his ashtray out of her way as she sat down again, and waited patiently for her to make the next move.
“I-I had something in my eye,” Leah lied but only received a vague knowing smile in return.
“Is it better now?” he asked.
She looked sharply at him and felt some relief. He
was
very quick, very observant. He must have realized that his comments about her had shaken her a bit. The fact that she’d returned to their table should also have said that she’d decided to trust her instincts where he was concerned. Leah nodded almost shyly. She did feel better.
“Do you remember the bottle of wine breaking?”
He looked totally blank and lifted his shoulders in a slight shrug.
“I was with a friend who bumped into you.”
“I take it I owe you a bottle.”
“It’s not important. I just wondered how much you recall of that night.”