Gideon could hardly speak. He managed to choke out, “No, ma'am.”
“It means you might be gettin' in over your head with this one. Be careful, boy. You're heading toward someone who's more dangerous than you could ever imagine.”
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Kay Braisden exited the green and white cab in front of Danny's apartment. She tipped the driver five dollars.
“Thank you,” said the scruffy, woolen-capped driver.
“Hope you enjoy you stay in L.A.”
Kay rolled her single black canvas suitcase to the door. The wheels made a clanking sound on the pavement, which Danny could hear from his apartment. Kay and Danny were the same age, but she looked older and wiser. She wore comfortable traveling clothes that hid the fact that she had gained weight since the last time they saw each other, three years earlier. Her hair was in a tight bun knotted on the back. Kay never wore makeup, and today was no exception. By Los Angeles standards, she was a plain girl who most people would forget a few minutes after they met her. Their friendship had survived the distance. They would talk two and three times a week before Danny told her about Hezekiah. In between telephone calls were text messages and e-mails.
Have you seen bouncy Beyoncé's latest video? one such benign text message from Kay had read. Wish had legs like those.
Danny's responses were typically. LOL . . . last time i saw u did have legs like hers just shorter ;).
LOL . . . , came Kay's rapidly texted reply.
But after Danny told her about Hezekiah, all communication had stopped for months.
Before she could lift her hand, the door opened. Danny stood in the threshold, and they looked in each other's eyes. She could see he had been crying. Kay extended her arms, and Danny gladly stepped into her embrace.
“I told you I would pick you up at the airport,” he said, still in her arms. “Why didn't you call?”
“It was just as easy for me to take a cab,” she said, squeezing him tighter. “I've missed you so much, Danny St. John.”
“I've missed you, too, Kay Braisden. I'm so glad you're here.”
Danny placed her suitcase in the little entry hall and made them each a cup of tea. The two sat on the couch, Danny's legs curled under him and Kay sitting sideways, looking Danny in the eye.
“How are you holding up?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
“It's been weeks, but every day it feels like it just happened. When is it ever going to stop hurting?” Before Kay could respond Danny answered his own question. “I don't think it ever will.”
Kay took his hand and said, “I can't tell you how sorry I am for not being there for you when you needed me.”
Danny did not respond.
“It all just took me by surprise. You never mentioned anything about him to me in the entire two years you were seeing him. Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I was afraid you would react the way you did. I knew you wouldn't approve, and I was already feeling guilty enough without you adding to it.”
Kay looked embarrassed. “And of course, I, like an idiot, acted true to form.”
Danny paused and then said with a smile, “Yes, you did.”
Kay smiled with him. “I don't know why I reacted the way I did. I'm not as old- fashioned as you may think.”
“Then what happened? Why did this have such a negative impact on you personally?”
Kay had decided before she boarded the plane in Washington, D.C., that she wouldâno matter how painful it would beâtell Danny the truth about how she felt about him. From the first day they met in college, she had been in love with him. She'd followed him everywhere he went for their entire undergraduate years. She would join the same clubs on campus. She arranged her class schedule so she could take as many classes with him as possible. He never touched her in a way that was sexual. She had longed to kiss him on so many occasions but never got the nerve. To her painful dismay, he would always introduce her as “my best buddy, Kay,” to his friends and family. But she'd wanted so much more.
“Danny, I reacted the way I did because I wanted so much more for you. It's not because you're gay,” her self betrayal began. “It hurt me so deeply that you didn't tell me about Hezekiah sooner. We've always shared our secrets with each other, and I was angry that you didn't trust me enough to tell me the biggest secret of your life.” Kay sat her now tepid cup of tea on the coffee table. “It's selfish, I know, but that's the embarrassing truth. I felt left out of your life.”
A tear dropped to her cheek as she spoke. It fell from the pain of not being able to summon the courage to tell the truth to the man she had loved for so many years.
Danny lifted his hand and gently brushed the tear from her cheek. She grabbed it before he could remove it. Her heart fluttered as she held his soft hand. “I'm so sorry, Danny,” she said through mounting tears. “Can you ever forgive me?”
“I forgive you, Kay,” Danny said gently. “Now, come here and hug me. I need a hug.”
Kay could feel the warmth of his breath on her shoulder as they embraced. She could smell the familiar scent of his favorite sandalwood soap on his skin. His strong arms held her tight as she cried more tears of unrequited love.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Danny asked, still holding her close.
Kay froze, and the tears abruptly stopped.
Had he seen through that clumsy attempt at hiding my real feelings?
she thought.
Could he possibly feel the same way about me?
For a brief moment she felt a glint of hope. “Talk about what?” she asked without breathing.
“About my relationship with Hezekiah,” Danny said curiously.
The hope that had made her heart miss a beat at the thought he could possibly love her in the same way left as quickly as it had come. “Of course, of course,” she said, embarrassed, wiping tears from her cheek with the back of her hand. “I want to hear all about it. But only if you feel up to it.”
Danny was eager to tell someone he knew about Hezekiah. In the two years of their relationship he had never spoken his name to anyone.
Danny leaned back on the couch. He cradled the cup of tea in his lap as he spoke.
“I met him purely by accident on the street. I was helping a homeless person downtown, and he pulled up next to me. He said there was a homeless woman near his church and asked if I would speak to her. After I helped her, he asked if he could do outreach to the homeless with me one afternoon. Kay, I swear it all was so innocent at first. I had no idea he was gay, and it never crossed my mind that he was attracted to me. But when we were alone in my apartmentâ”
“Alone in your apartment?” Kay interrupted. “How did that happen?”
“He came with me one afternoon to do outreach. You know, handing out socks, vitamins, condoms to people on skid row. When we finished, his driver was late picking him up, so he asked if he could hang out with me until he came.” Danny paused and looked at Kay. “Are you sure you're all right hearing this? You seem tense.”
Kay suddenly became conscious of the fact that her fist was clenched in her lap and her jaw was tight. She took a deep breath and replied, “I'm fine, Danny. It's important that you talk about it. It's part of the healing process. Go ahead. I'm listening.”
“Well, anyway,” Danny continued, “we went back to my apartment, and everything seemed perfectly innocent. We sat right here on the couch, just like you and I are right now, and just talked. He was nothing like the man I'd seen on television. He was funny, vulnerable, and relaxed and, I guess, just a normal guy. He wasn't that bigger-than-life, one-dimensional cutout.”
“A normal guy who just happened to be one of the most famous people in the country and married,” Kay said.
“Are you judging me? Because if you are, I don't need it,” Danny said defensively.” Believe me, I've already judged myself. If you are, we can stop this conversation right now.”
“I didn't mean it that way. I'm sorry. Go ahead.” Danny proceeded with caution. “I was walking him to the door, and we stopped right over there,” he said, pointing to the arched threshold leading from the living room to the entry hall. “We stood directly in front of each other, looking into each other's eyes and not saying a word. Then it was like a magnet pulled us together. We made love the first time that afternoon right here on the living room floor.”
Kay felt her stomach tighten. She tried to push the image of their two male bodies writhing on the floor out of her mind.
“Kay, he was an amazing person. Not because he was so special or unique, but because he loved me like no one has ever loved me before. He once told me he knew every inch of my body and remembered everything I'd ever said to him. I can't tell you how much that meant to me. That someone knew everything about me. I was so lonely at the time I met him. You had moved away. I rarely went out. I was working seven days a week just not to be at home alone. And, more than that, I was also afraid.”
“Afraid of what?” Kay asked with a level of compassion that even surprised her.
Danny thought for a moment. “Afraid that I would never find someone to love me.”
A tear fell from Danny's eye as he spoke.
“I had been alone up until that point. I was afraid I would never find someone that wanted to know who I really was. Not just a body or a paycheck, but a person who loves, who has fears, who makes mistakes. Someone who was interested and cared enough to know that I like my coffee with two sugars and a drop of cream. That I love to watch Woody Allen movies on Sunday afternoons, curled up on the couch. Someone who cared that I have panic attacks. That Picasso is my favorite artist or that I've never been to Las Vegas. And after learning all the insignificant and silly and even the horrible things about me, he loved me even more in spite of what he'd learned. Hezekiah was that person. He took the time to discover things about me that I didn't even know myself. And with all he knew, he still loved me.”
Danny tried to stop talking, but he couldn't. He needed someone to understand. More importantly, he needed Kay to understand.
“He was the head of a multimillion-dollar ministry, and I never set foot in his church until the day of his funeral. I wasn't a part of that part of his world, and when he was with me, neither was he. He wasn't Pastor Hezekiah T. Cleaveland with me. He was simply Hez. That's what I used to call him.”
“Did you ever meet his wife?”
Danny shifted slightly on the couch. “No, and I never wanted to meet her. I, of course, knew about her, and toward the end he told her about me, but I begged him to never tell her who I was.”
“Why?”
Danny looked mournfully out the window at the traffic below. “To be honest with you, Kay, I was afraid of what she might do.”
Kay looked surprised and said, “Afraid she might hurt you?”
There was silence. Danny shifted again. His body tensed, and the hand holding the cup of tea trembled slightly.
“Danny,” Kay said into the silence. “What do you mean? Did she threaten you in any way?”
Danny looked her in the eye and said, “I wasn't afraid for myself. I was afraid of what she might do to him, and I think I was . . .”
Kay sat upright on the couch. She placed the now cool cup of tea on the table. “Danny, you're not saying you think she had something to do with his death?” she asked in disbelief.
Danny did not respond.
“Danny, that's crazy. You're talking about Samantha Cleaveland. She's . . . she's Samantha Cleaveland, for Christ's sake. How could you think that? The woman is a saint, a beautiful and strong God-fearing woman. Look how well she's managed with such grace and dignity after his death. People love her.”
Danny shook his head gently. “You don't know what she's capable of. Hezekiah would tell me things about her that even frightened him.”
“Danny, this can't be true. I watch her every Sunday morning. She's like a role model to me. I love Samantha Cleaveland. Everybody loves Samantha Cleaveland.”
“I know, Kay. But beneath that exterior there's an evil woman who would do anything to maintain and further her position in life. She built New Testament into what it is today, not Hezekiah. He admitted that to me. She pushed him into television. She persuaded him to build the new cathedral. He didn't want it. She forced him to buy that mansion in Bel Air and hire the drivers and security guards. He didn't want any of that stuff. He told me he hated that house.”
“I don't believe any of this. You must be mistaken,” Kay said defensively. She looked at Danny and saw the disappointment on his face. She could see the hurt her last statement had caused.
“I didn't mean it that way, honey,” she said, reaching for his hand. “I simply meant maybe Hezekiah stretched the truth to ease his own conscience. This whole affairâI mean relationshipâmust have been very difficult for him.”