Phantom of Riverside Park (20 page)

“You gonna argue, ain’t you, Thomas?”

Thomas glanced over at Nicky splashing in the
puddles left by yesterday’s rain. He was beautiful, perfect in
every way. The sun was shining, his family was safe, and he was
with a good friend.

“No,” he said. “Life’s too good to waste
arguin’ over a stranger.”

“Ain’t that the truth?”

They both sat with their faces to the sun for
a while then Thomas felt the urge come over him to talk about the
old days.

“You remember that little cafe by the Louvre,
Fred?”

“Like it was yesterday.”

“I wonder if it’s still there.”

“I sure would like to go back and find
out.”

By the time they got through reminiscing
Thomas had completely forgotten his encounter with the
foreigner.

o0o

David had been standing at the window for the
last five minutes with his telescope trained on the park. McKenzie
joined him.

“Are you looking for another recipient,
David?”

“No.”

“Then what’s so interesting down there?”

“I was just checking on Nicky. He’s doing
great. Take a look.”

The child was spinning round and round in a
puddle, his arms spread out like wings. McKenzie could almost hear
the sounds he was making. Airplane sounds. Or bird sounds. Or maybe
he was being Superman.

With his fair hair and rounded pink cheeks,
he looked like a cherub, a very
muddy
cherub.

“I wonder what Elizabeth is going to say
about all that mud?” McKenzie said.

“She’ll laugh.”

It wasn’t what David said but the way he said
it that caught McKenzie’s attention. She studied her brother
covertly. There was something different about him-- a softening
about the mouth, a faraway look in his eyes, an expression on his
face that for want of a better word she called
yearning
.

“The child’s surgery must have gone
well.”

“It did. You should have seen him at the
hospital in those big bird pajamas.”

“You
saw
him at the hospital?”

David hurried away from the window like a
little boy who’d been caught stealing cookies. He always sat behind
his desk when he didn’t want to confront a personal issue.

McKenzie called it hiding. “You didn’t answer
my question, David.”

“What is this? Twenty questions?”

“No, but I’d sure as heck like to know what
made my brother, the recluse, all of a sudden pay a visit to a
four-year-old in the hospital. I hope it was the boy’s mother.”

David rearranged the pencils in his pencil
holder then moved a stack of files from one side of his desk to the
other before he answered her. McKenzie couldn’t have been more
pleased. Was the thing she’d wanted most for her brother finally
happening? Was he finding someone to share his life? And without
her interfering touch?

“I knew it,” she gloated. “It’s
Elizabeth.”

“She’s merely a child.”

“You’d better go back to that window and take
another look. She’s not only a full grown woman, but one of the
loveliest I’ve seen in a while.”

“That’s beside the point.”

“No man is an island,” she said, pushing him,
goading him.

“John Donne wouldn’t have written that if
he’d lived in the age of electronic social media. I have the world
at my fingertips. There’s nothing more I need.”

“You’re wrong. Reading lips through your
telescope has given you a God complex, David.”

All of a sudden the spark went out of him.
McKenzie was sorry to see it go, and even sorrier that she was the
cause.

“Is that what I’ve been doing all these
years, McKenzie? Playing God?”

“I didn’t mean that, David. What you’ve been
doing is helping people who couldn’t help themselves and who fell
through the cracks of the government agencies. That’s a very good
thing, and don’t you forget it.”

David fell silent, which was sometimes
McKenzie’s cue for slipping away. He could stay that way for hours,
silent and introspective, often brooding and moody. But something
told her to stay. Something told her this time it would be
different.

“It has always been simple before,” he said,
finally. “I’ve always been able to provide what they needed, then
move on. Somehow, I can’t get past Elizabeth and Nicky Jennings.
Even the grandfather.”

He moved back to the window and watched for a
while, sans telescope.

“Just look at him down there. An old man
without a penny to his name. And yet, he conducts himself like a
king. He’s full of vigor and pride and courage. And love.”

He turned from the window and crossed to the
credenza where he hefted a marble bookend in his right hand.

“Maybe that’s what makes the difference,
McKenzie. Maybe having someone to care for is the thing that keeps
him going.”

“You’re making me cry.”

“Don’t cry. Go out and buy yourself a pretty
new dress.”

“Why would I want a new dress? The animals
don’t care what I wear.”

“You’ll want something new for your weekend
in New York.”

“Who said anything about New York?”

David reached into his desk and pulled out
airline tickets. “You need a break. Have a nice weekend.”

“What did you do, all of a sudden just run
out of something to do and start meddling around in my life?”

She tried to look fierce and angry, but she
knew she couldn’t fool her brother. New York was one of her
favorite cities, and truth to tell, she did need a break. Also a
prod. She was like a tree, putting down roots so deep it sometimes
took a bulldozer to get her to budge.

David laughed at her. “I’m the one who likes
to play God. Remember?”

o0o

Outside the little house on Vine Street the
rain pounded so furiously it was like something trying to get in at
the door, but on the inside where Elizabeth sat in a circle with
Papa and Nicky and ate popcorn from a blue bowl, the feeling of
peace was so strong it was like magic. Nothing bad could ever come
through her door again. That’s how she felt.

Nicky was whole, her family was safe and her
life was full of promise. After all, she was only twenty-four and a
long future stretched before her. She could learn from her past
mistakes, couldn’t she?

Maybe that was the whole point of life, that
we pay attention to what our troubles are trying to teach us and
that we listen with our hearts to the songs the universe sings.

With her hands dipped into the blue bowl
Elizabeth was acutely aware of the butter-slick on the tips of her
fingers and the fluffy grains of corn. The dirt smudges on Nicky’s
face were beautiful to her, and the age spots on Papa’s hand.
Little things. Ordinary things.

And she thought,
I will always treasure
the simple things of life. I will let nothing make me forget them,
ever again
.

Possibility flowed through her like a river
and the smell of promise was so sweet she almost swooned. She felt
connected to the rug she sat on and the bare bulb shining above her
head and the sound of rain. She felt alive and real in ways she’d
never noticed.

Her connection extended beyond the moment: it
reached backward and forward at the same time, for over the years
Papa had built a bridge with his stories linking her past with her
future. Although she knew them all by heart, she wanted to hear
them again, and to have her son hear so that as he grew up he
wouldn’t be adrift as so many people are: he would have his own
history to guide him, a map with all the important points clearly
marked.

“Tell us a story about Mae Mae, Papa,” she
said, and Nicky clapped his buttery hands, shouting, “Yeah!”

“Did I ever tell you about the time I got
drunk and she whipped my butt?”

He always started his stories that way, and
as he launched into the tale that was a familiar to her as her own
skin, Elizabeth leaned back against the sofa and Nicky leaned
against her thigh.

“It was right after the war,” he said. “She
was waitin’ for me like I’d never been gone, hadn’t changed a bit,
still the prettiest woman in Mississippi, and the best. I was the
one changed. I’d been to the bad place and seen the devil, and I
couldn’t get it off my mind. I just couldn’t forget, no matter how
hard I tried.”

Nicky was beginning to nod so Elizabeth
pulled him onto her lap and rested her chin in his soft hair.

“The dreams got so bad I bought myself a jug
of moonshine and went out behind the cow shed and got drunker than
a skunk. Lola Mae didn’t say a word when I came reelin’ into the
house. She just turned back the covers of the bed. Well sir, I went
out like a light, never suspectin’ a thing, but when I woke up all
bedlam broke loose.”

For once Nicky didn’t interrupt with a dozen
questions. He was almost asleep.

“I was tied up in the sheet, and there stood
Lola Mae with a corn stalk long as a broom handle. She commenced to
whuppin’ me for all she was worth. Lordy have mercy, was that woman
mad. ‘What’s goin’ on?’ I asked her and she didn’t say a word, just
kept on slingin’ that stalk over my backside. When it was all done
she threw the stalk into the corner and said, ‘Don’t you ever let
me catch you drunk again, Thomas Jennings. You face your problems
like a man.’ And I’ve always tried to. Ever since.”

“Thanks, Papa. That’s one of my favorite
stories.” Elizabeth shifted her sleeping son so she could stand up.
“I’d better put this little soldier to bed.”

When she tucked him into bed she heard the
telephone ringing in the kitchen and wondered who would be calling
them in the middle of a storm. Maybe Fred, lonely and wanting to
talk.

“It’s for you.” Papa was standing in the
doorway and she’d grown so used to bad news over the years,
Elizabeth put her hand over her heart. Then she made herself
breathe. She made herself remember the smell of mint after a rain
and the sound of Nicky’s voice as he sang
I found my pill on
Blueberry Hill
.

“Who is it, Papa?”

“David Lassiter.”

She knew she was standing in the middle of a
cramped bedroom in a shabby house in the midst of a rundown
neighborhood, but all of a sudden it seemed to her that she was
special among all the people of the world, chosen somehow to have a
grandfather who was the rock she stood on, a son who made life a
shining thing and a caller who made her feel safe just with the
mention of his name.

She picked up the receiver in the kitchen and
said, “Hello, David.”

“I’ve called to set up a meeting with
you.”

The fact that he’d called for business
reasons didn’t dim her pleasure one bit.

“When?”

“Is tomorrow night okay?”

“Yes, that’s fine.”

Thank goodness Quincy was her night boss and
not Celine. Elizabeth never had to worry about asking Quincy’s
permission to juggle her hours.

“I’ll send the limousine.”

“No ... thank you. I don’t want to put you to
any trouble.”

“It’s no trouble. Besides, Edwards likes
escorting you around.”

“Well, I like Edwards, too, but I’m not about
to get accustomed to being treated like a queen. I’ll come in my
own car, thank you very much.”

“The streets at night aren’t safe for a woman
alone.”

“I’ve been taking care of myself for a number
of years, now, and I’m not about to start being a Blanche
DuBois.”

“Depending on the kindness of strangers?”

“How did you know?”

“I read, too.”

“Oh. I didn’t mean it that way. I’m sorry,
Mr. Lassiter.”

“David. And you forget. I’m not a stranger.
You know my name.”

“And where you work. I’ll come to your office
tomorrow night under my own steam. And that’s final.”

Thank goodness, he laughed.

“All right then. I’ll see you tomorrow
night.”

o0o

Any minute now Elizabeth Jennings would step
through his doorway, and David would conduct his final interview
with her. He had postponed this meeting as long as possible, and he
knew exactly why. After they had finished discussing the terms of
his loan, he would have no further reason to contact Elizabeth.

The idea saddened him beyond all reason. Of
course, he would see her and the child from a distance. All he had
to do was walk to his window and train his telescope on the
park.

He looked around his room, his dark room.
Never had it seemed more empty, more lonely.

Suddenly Elizabeth was standing in his
doorway, and the whole room seemed more inviting.

“Hello, David.”

“Hello, Elizabeth. Won’t you come in?”

He flipped a switch and she sat in the
spotlighted chair. He’d chosen one nearer the desk this time. But
to make certain he was in deep shadow, he’d closed the curtains so
that not even a sliver of light showed through.

“Did you have a pleasant drive,
Elizabeth?”

“Yes. Even without the limousine.”

Remembering their conversation he started
laughing. All of a sudden it struck him that he’d had too little to
laugh about over the years. In fifteen minutes his business with
Elizabeth would be concluded and she would be out of his life
forever. David’s sense of loss was unutterable.

He studied her sitting there with her knees
pressed tightly together and her hands folded in her lap like a
schoolgirl. She was in her uniform from Celine’s bakery, and the
smell of sugar clung to her. David memorized the smell and the soft
curve of her mouth and the way her fair skin reflected the color
she was wearing.

“How’s Nicky?” he asked, not merely to
prolong the meeting but because he wanted to know.

“He’s absolutely great. Last week at the
grocery store the checkout clerk said, ‘What a handsome little
dude,’ and he’s been calling himself a handsome dude ever
since.”

As she talked about her son, Elizabeth
relaxed and used her hands in those floating, illustrative gestures
David loved.