Scarlet Woman

For the first time, he thought his private visit with the young boys—this time, Johnny and Phil—was less than rewarding, because he didn’t feel enthusiasm and couldn’t force it.

“You got a load, man?” Phil asked him.

He shrugged; it wasn’t good policy to share your personal life with the prisoners, who tended to focus on themselves.

“You not sick?” Johnny’s question surprised him, because the boy hardly ever showed interest in anyone.

“I’m fine. But I think my father is dy…isn’t going to make it.”

“That ain’t so good,” Phil said and, to his astonishment, the boy put an arm around his shoulder. “It sucks, man. I know how you feel.”

Another time, he would’ve asked Phil about his father, but right then, he was grateful that at last he had a bond with the boys, even if that progress grew out of his own grief. At the end of the hour, he knew their time together had been productive. Driving home, it came to him forcibly, a blast like a ship’s signal in a fog: he’d reached them not because of any ingenuity on his part, but because he had needed their comfort. They understood that and accepted him because they had been able to give something to him. It was a lesson he hoped never to forget.

Shortly after he got home, he answered the phone and, to his disappointment, heard Lacy’s voice.

“I called you half a dozen times,” she said in that whining voice that made his flesh crawl. “At least six times.”

“Right. You said that a second ago. I was at the prison with two boys I’m working with.”

“Why would you waste time with those thugs? When they get out, they’re going right back to dealing drugs and shooting innocent people.” As if she’d been wound up like a top, she held forth on the subject of bad, hopeless children.

“I think every kid deserves a chance to make something of himself, and I’m doing what I can to help.” He looked at his watch. With more things to do than he cared to contemplate, wasting ten minutes listening to Lacy’s prattle didn’t please him. He closed his eyes, exasperated. “These two boys are serving time for petty theft, and there’s hope for both of them.”

He imagined that she rolled her eyes and looked toward the ceiling in a show of disinterest when she said, “If you say so.”

“Lacy, this is one more way in which you and I are as far apart as two people can get. You don’t care what happens to those kids. I do.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake! Are you taking me to Lake Kittamaqundi on July Fourth for the Urban League picnic?”

“I have no plans to go, Lacy. Count me out.”

“But everybody’s going, and I don’t want to miss the fun.”

She still hadn’t gotten the message. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he wasn’t going to that picnic with her. “I’m sorry, Lacy. If you want company at the picnic, you’ll have to ask someone else. Okay?”

After a few seconds of silence, her breathy voice with its sexual overtones bruised his ears. “I don’t want to go with anyone else, but I can’t drag you over there.” A long pause. “Can I?”

“No, you can’t. See you around.” For a woman of classic good looks, he couldn’t figure out why she sold herself so short, insisting on a relationship with him, although he told her in many ways that it wasn’t going to happen.

He thought of calling Melinda, apologizing to her and telling her he needed her, but he couldn’t do that. In his whole life, he’d never let anybody see him down.

“Hold your head up and push your chin out even if you’re dying,” Woodrow Wilson Hunter had preached to his children, drilling it into Blake, the last of the three to leave home. There had to be a gentler method of nurturing a boy into manhood; at times, he still felt the pain. He ate a sandwich and stretched out in bed to struggle with himself and his feelings for Melinda until daylight rescued him.

The telephone rang as he walked toward the bathroom to get his morning shower, and thinking it was probably Lacy, his first inclination was to ignore it. But he heard his sister Callie’s voice on the answering machine and rushed to lift the receiver.

After listening to her message, he asked, “When did it happen?”

“About half an hour ago. I’m on my way there now.”

He hung up, slipped on his robe, and walked out on the balcony just off the dining room. An era of his life was over, and yet it hung ajar. Unfinished and devoid of the explanation he needed but would never get. He stared out at the silent morning, at trees heavy with leaves that didn’t move. Air still and humid. Heavy, like his heart. Everything appeared the same, but it wasn’t. He went inside and telephoned Melinda.

Melinda dragged herself out of the tangled sheets and sat on the side of her bed. If she packed up and left town, she wouldn’t miss the place or the people. However, the losers would be those who lived in a world of illiteracy and who relied on information that they couldn’t evaluate and thus rarely questioned. If only she could avoid Blake Hunter until that board was operating to his satisfaction, the gossipmongers would have to find another subject. Weary of it all, she decided not to bother with the board that day.

“Now who could that be at eight o’clock in the morning,” she said aloud when the phone rang. “Not Ray Sinclair again, I hope.”

“Melinda, this is Blake. I can’t help you with that board meeting today. I have to cancel our appointment.”

“But…What’s happening, Blake? You told me I should go ahead with it, and I figured I was on my own from now on. What’s going on?”

Strange that he’d forgotten that; he took pride in having an almost infallible memory. “I’m sorry I plowed into you the way I did the other night when we were supposed to be having dinner. I shouldn’t have said those things, and I don’t know why I did because I didn’t believe them.” He supposed he’d surprised her, because she considered him a hard man.

“Something’s wrong. I know it is. What’s the matter, Blake?”

Her words and the compassion in her voice took him aback. He didn’t want to unload on her, but if he started telling her about the hole that had just opened in him and that grew bigger by the second, if he told her what he felt…“My…my father died, and I have to go to Alabama for a few days.”

“Your father? I’ll be right over there.”

“Melinda—”

“You…Maybe you shouldn’t be alone right now, and anyhow, I want to be there with you until you leave.”

Those words caressed his ears like a sweet summer breeze. He couldn’t discourage her, because he wanted, needed to see her.

“You might need me for something,” she went on, as though oblivious to his silence. “I’m coming over.”

He sucked in his breath. If she knew how he needed her…He hardly trusted himself to be alone with her. “I’ll be here” was all he managed to say.

He showered quickly and dressed, certain that if he opened the door for her while still wearing only his robe, he’d destroy what there was of a relationship with her.

Twenty minutes later, he opened the front door, and the rays of her smile enveloped and warmed him like summer sunshine. Without a word, she reached up, and he knew again the delicate touch of her lips on his mouth, warm and sweet. But he didn’t kiss her; if he did, he wouldn’t stop until they consummated what they felt.

“No point in saying I’m sorry. You know that,” she said. “I just…well, I needed to be here with you.”

His heartbeat accelerated so rapidly that, for almost a full minute, he couldn’t catch his breath. He shouldn’t encourage what was happening between them, because he was neither sure of her nor of himself.

“I’m glad you came. It’s so strange, knowing he’s gone and we never resolved our differences. After I matured enough to understand him and why he drove himself and everyone around him crazy the way he did, we ignored the issues between us, pretended they didn’t exist and got along with each other. I wish I’d confronted him.”

Compassion for him shone in her eyes with such fierceness that he had to steel himself against the feeling that slowly snaked its way into his heart.

“Didn’t he love you?”

His fingers pressed into his chest as if he could push back the pain. He wished she hadn’t asked that. “I don’t know. I wish I did. Yesterday. I was down there yesterday, and he told me he was proud of me. So, maybe. I don’t know.”

With a tenderness that shook him, her arms wrapped around him, held and caressed him, and he closed his eyes and let himself relax and absorb the loving she offered. She seemed to be telling him that he needed love and caring and that she wanted to give him that. Her fingers squeezed him to her, and then she released him and stepped back.

“What time is your flight?”

He studied her eyes, needing badly to understand what he saw there, and he didn’t want to make a mistake. “That reminds me, I have to check the Baltimore-Birmingham flight schedule.”