One Night With You

“I’m so happy for you. I…I’m…excuse me.” She stumbled from the table and rushed to the women’s room, where the tears flowed. Now maybe there was a chance for them. He would be his own man, the company recognized his value and he didn’t have to look up to anyone. She patted cold water on her face, dried it with a paper towel, buffed her skin and headed back to the table.

The ma?tre d’ intercepted her. “Is Madame all right?”

“Yes, indeed,” she said, and looked up and saw that Reid stood by the table waiting for her. If she had been at home, she suspected that she would have run to him, but she remembered who and where she was, controlled the urge and let her smile communicate to him her feelings.

He walked to meet her. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Reid. Forgive me for letting it get out of control.”

He assisted her in sitting down and walked around to his own chair. “I’m glad you’re fine, but I need to know what happened.”

She took a deep breath. “Not since I met you have I seen you so…so full of…of hope, so happy, just bursting with joie de vivre. Seeing you that way, almost watching years fall away from you. I couldn’t help it. I’m so happy for you. It’s the first time I’ve ever cried because I was happy.”

“You were crying for me?” He reached across the table and grasped her hand. She didn’t answer him. Something was happening between them, and neither of them would be able to alter its course. He repeated the question.

“Yes. Silly, aren’t I?”

His gaze—fiery, turbulent—bored into her, refusing to release her, and she couldn’t glance away. “I guarantee you that if I had you alone and in a private place right now, I would make love with you, and I wouldn’t stop until you were mine.”

“Could I…may I have some more wine, please?”

“Of course you may. I see you haven’t disagreed with me. We’re going to be lovers, Kendra. Maybe not soon, but you can bet on it.”

“I’ve never had a man talk like this to me, so I don’t know what to say to you right now.”

“You haven’t told me that I’m out of line. Am I?”

“I don’t…no. You aren’t out of line, but it’s best you don’t push me. I can get stubborn, even against myself.”

A smile lit up his face, and it seemed as if a spotlight shone on him. He squeezed her fingers. “I won’t push you. I’m a patient man, or at least I have been in the past. I hope I’ll be able to boast of my patience six months from now. Something tells me I’ve never been tested.”

She leaned back in her chair and looked at him. “When we met, I had trouble getting you to utter a sentence that had more than six words. Now you’re very expressive. You talk to me. I like the change. Now if I can just get you to tell me goodbye when you leave me.”

“That day probably won’t come, Kendra. My mother was the last person to whom I used those two words. She’s been gone since I was sixteen.”

She turned over her hand so that her palm caressed his. “I’m so sorry, Reid. Who raised you after that? I mean, who saw you through school?”

“My dad. He’s gone now. It happened while I was fighting that class action suit.”

She’d like to know what it was about the man that got to her so thoroughly. I’m not in love with him, so what is it?

“Would Madame care for dessert?” the waiter asked. “Our dessert chef is world famous, sir,” he said to Reid, who ordered a floating island.

“I’ll have raspberry and peach sorbet,” she said, pleased with herself for having resisted the sour lime pie.

“If we were in Baltimore,” Reid said as they left the restaurant, “I would take you dancing. I don’t know any nice place around here, and that’s a pity. You look so lovely that I don’t want to take you home yet.”

“There’ll be other nights, Reid. At least, I hope so.”

“And there will be, if I have my way. Say, do you have a regional map in the glove compartment?” She opened it and removed an AAA map. He took her hand, walked over to the light and examined the map.

“We can be in Elizabeth City in twenty minutes to half an hour at only moderate speed. What do you say?”

She loved to dance; imagined dancing with him. “I’m for it.”

Half a mile down the highway, he filled up the gas tank, got back into the car and drove off singing, “God Didn’t Make Little Green Apples.”

“Can you cook?” she asked him, though she didn’t know why the thought had occurred.

“I’m a pretty good cook. I like to eat, so I taught myself to cook. Cooking is a special kind of chemistry,” he said, warming up to the subject. “It’s a matter of putting together the right flavors and avoiding combinations that will blow up in your face. Right?”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way, but that’s close enough. Did you like chemistry in school?”

“I tolerated it. I loved physics.”

They talked of their likes and dislikes in music, art, dance, literature and hobbies, and they shared their dreams. By the time they reached Elizabeth City, nearly an hour had elapsed, but neither noticed. He drove into a gas station and asked the attendant if he knew where a man could take a lady dancing.

“This lady is a judge,” he told the man, “so it has to be a clean and classy place.” He held a ten-dollar bill in his hand where the attendant could see it.

The guy peeped in the car. “Man, she don’t look like no judge to me. Uh, sorry, sir. No problem, sir. Check out the Skylight Roof on top of the Wright Hotel. You won’t find any riffraff there. Go straight till you get to a circle, turn left, drive four blocks. You’ll be there.”

She laid her left hand on his forearm. “Thanks for thinking of the quality of the place, Reid. It’s been so long since I went anywhere special that I didn’t think of it.”

“When you’re with me, Kendra, I’ll do everything I can to take care of you, and I know you’d do the same for me.”

When they reached the hotel, Reid said to the doorman, “Do you have a band tonight?”

“Yes, sir. Every night, sir.”

He looked the man in the eye. “My date is a judge. Is it all right for me to take her in there?”

“Yes, sir. We cater to only the most discriminating guests.”

She loved the room. Pink chandeliers cast a soft glow over the white tables, each of which held three white calla lilies in a slender vase. “I don’t want anything to drink,” he said, “but I’ll order something for you if you’d like.”

“Thanks. I’d like a ginger ale on crushed ice.”

“I think I’ll have the same,” he said and beckoned for the waiter.

“What kind of music do you prefer to dance to?” he asked her.

“I love jazz saxophone, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll enjoy it no matter what they play.”

Why was he looking at her that way? She wished she knew him well enough to read him. The band leader announced a fox-trot, and Reid stood. Just before his arms went around her, he kissed her with his eyes, warmed her with his repressed desire and a riot of sensation sent tremors throughout her body.

“Easy, sweetheart,” he whispered. “I’m already drowning in your aura, so don’t pour it on too heavily.”

He was drowning? “If we get into trouble, we’ll save each other.”