Last Chance at Love

“I certainly hope you’re not speaking from experience,” she replied. But he’d come close to her vulnerable spot, and flippancy wasn’t what she felt, as the memory of Roland Farr’s cunning floated back to her.

In her room, she got a handful of gingersnaps and crawled into bed with Jake’s book, For the Sake of Diplomacy, hoping to find something of the man in his work. She didn’t relish the idea that her interest in him might exceed the professional preoccupation that she normally brought to her work and hoped she hadn’t set a trap for herself. Words danced before her in black-and-white confusion, challenging her to concentrate. When Jacob Covington’s face appeared among the tangled alphabets, she closed the book.

* * *

He’d been ungracious in not asking if she’d like company, Jake decided, and rang her room. “I forgot to ask whether you have friends here, Allison. I’d hate to think of your not taking advantage of this great town. So if you won’t be busy this evening, how about spending a couple of hours with me?”

“Sure. What will we do?”

He welcomed her honest, straightforward answer, because he disliked women who played games with him. She had nothing planned and didn’t pretend that she did have.

“After we eat, we can take in a show, go to one of the jazz clubs in the Village, watch the skaters in Rockefeller Plaza, whatever. Depends on how you want to dress.”

“I vote for food and skaters,” she said, causing him to wonder why she hadn’t suggested the music. He’d been certain she’d choose the jazz, and he’d have proof that he had indeed seen her at Blues Alley, but he didn’t exclude the possibility that her choice could be a ruse.

He hung up, made dinner reservations at a small West Side restaurant, and remembered to call his mother.

“I’ll be down there in a couple of weeks,” he told Annie Covington.

She’d be glad to see him, she said and then voiced what he knew was her real concern. “Son, have you found a nice girl? I hate to think of you always by yourself.”

“Not yet. You’ll be the first to know.” He wanted to get off the subject, because she wouldn’t hesitate to complain about the grandchildren he hadn’t given her.

“Married men live longer than loners,” she warned. “And don’t let your success keep you out of church, Jake; it’s prayers that got you where you are.”

“Plus hard work and my parents’ support,” he said, gave her his phone number, and added, “Don’t forget to keep my itinerary posted on your refrigerator, in the bathroom, and beside your bed.”

Her hearty laugh always filled him with joy, reminding him that she no longer struggled in abject poverty because he made certain that she had every modern home convenience, more money that she could use, and that she worked only if she wanted to.

“That falls pretty easily off your tongue,” she told him. “But don’t you forget that for the first forty-five years of my life—the refrigerator was a zinc tub filled with ice when we could get it, the bathroom was wherever you set yourself down, and the bed had to be moved when it rained. You send me more money every month than I used to make in a year. Your father would be proud of you, son.”

“Thanks, Mom. Tune in to NBC tomorrow evening between seven and nine.”

* * *

If Jake needed grounding, he could trust his mother to keep him in touch with the good earth, and later that evening he had cause to appreciate this. While still a child, Jake had learned tolerance. He’d discovered early that his size invited challenges from the tough boys in his school and even some of his teachers. The experiences had shaped his personality and taught him the wisdom of soft-spoken, nonthreatening manners. Gentleness came naturally, but it threatened to abandon him when the maître d’ at Dino’s rushed forward to assist Allison as though she were unescorted. He liked to know that other men found the woman in his company interesting, but when one after the other stared beagle-eyed at Allison, his temper began a rare ascent. Quickly, he clamped down on it.

She was seated at the small table for two, and he observed her closely. Jet-black hair cascaded around her shoulders, setting off her smooth ebony complexion and large dreamy eyes that promised a man everything. Her simple red dress heightened the beauty before him; and though she seemed unaware of it, she’d captured the attention of nearly every man present. He smiled to himself; at least he wasn’t the guy on the outside. He was about to remark that he liked her hair down, when it hit him that it was indeed she who he had seen in Blues Alley.

Watch it, Jake. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt the need to give himself that lecture. “You’re different with your hair down, softer and—”

“Approachable?”

She had more red flags than anybody he knew. “I was going to say vulnerable, but you wouldn’t like that either, would you? Let’s be friends for tonight and leave aside the one-upmanship, shall we?” He glanced up from his menu for a look at the smoke he expected to see, but to his surprise, he caught her in an unguarded moment, her vulnerability unsheltered. He folded the menu and put it on the table. She might make him eat the words, but he had to say them.

“You’re so beautiful. Lovely. I’d give anything if we’d met under more favorable circumstances.”

“Thank you...I think. We’re going to keep our relationship a business one, Jake. No one knows better than I the folly of doing otherwise.”

He took a few seconds to ponder what she’d revealed. “Nothing’s going to happen that we don’t want to happen. So, there’s no point in losing sleep over it.”

They gave their orders and ate in silence, each aware that he’d admitted the possibility of their becoming involved emotionally and that she hadn’t denied it.

Her gaze followed his hand as he brushed aside the black strands that hung over his eyes. “That’s the second time you’ve alluded to that,” she said as her soft musical lilt caressed him and he thought he heard a tone of resignation in her voice.

“Probably won’t be the last time, either. But, as I said, you’ve nothing to fear from me.” Her broad smile sent his heart into a tailspin, and he wondered, not for the first time, whether he shouldn’t cancel his agreement with The Journal. And with her. He aimed to find a caring woman who radiated peace, and that ruled out the contentious female before him.

They finished what he considered an average meal and he fished in his pocket for a credit card. “Do you have any pets?” he heard himself ask.

She knitted her eyebrows and shrugged her left shoulder, a habit that seemed like a protective reflex. “I have a one-eyed goose that follows me around, but she’s mean. When I don’t give her the attention she wants, she attacks me.”

He stared in disbelief. “You’re kidding.”

She shook her head. “Definitely not. I wear a lot of goose-inflicted scars as proof of her devotion.”

He grinned at the picture floating through his mind. “A half-blind goose that gets temperamental and turns on you. I’ll be doggoned.” Standing, he held out his hand to her, and after seconds of hesitation, she took it. Sensations raced from his fingertips to his armpits, and he knew he’d erred.

“What about the bill? I’m on an expense account, too, Jake.”

“I was raised—”

She groaned. “Don’t bother; I know the rest. And since I was taught not to draw public attention to myself, I’ll let it slide. For now.”

They walked toward Rockefeller Center, and he couldn’t help marveling at the change in her. She exuded youthful joy, unconsciously seducing him, alerting him to the softer, gentler woman who he suspected lived somewhere inside her and whom he’d like to know better.

* * *

Here and there in the crisp, calm night, Christmas lights still twinkled from trees that had been decorated with them almost a year earlier; a horn blared its impatience and a hundred others replied; a tall man wearing a white sheet draped over his body strolled along with a python slung around his neck and a sign in his hand that proclaimed The End Has Come and Gone; This is Forever. Why had she never noticed that walking along a street could be such an exhilarating experience? Allison wanted to laugh aloud at the shocked expression on a woman’s face when, thinking her a beggar, she reached into her coat pocket for one of the dollar bills that she’d put there for the beggars she met and handed it to the woman. The bizarrely dressed woman had stood with one empty hand outstretched while the woman beside her proffered a flier. When she and Jake stopped for the corner light, Allison glanced at the flier, saw an advertisement for a triple-X-rated show, and let the laughter that bubbled up in her throat have its way.

She’d barely recovered from her mistake when a painted man on stilts grinned down at her and said, “Hello, lovely thing. Come fly with me.”

Caught up in the fun, she surprised herself by answering, “Sorry. I forgot to bring along my wings.” She couldn’t refrain from laughing as he strutted on his way.

Jake’s fingers tightened almost imperceptibly around her arm, and she glanced up to see a smile aglow on his face. An intimate smile, not the studied brightness that he wore for his public. A pervasive contentment enveloped her, but when her mind warned of danger, she tried without success to push back the feeling. She’d traveled that road before, and she knew she’d better dispel the sense of rightness that being with this stranger, a business associate, gave her.

* * *

“What is it, Allison? Am I losing you already?” Jake asked her, resisting the temptation to sling his arm around her waist.

“Not...not really,” she said with seeming reluctance, and he knew he’d disconcerted her; she wouldn’t want him to understand her so well. Her unexpected feminine softness reached the man in him, and against his better judgment, he took her hand in his and clasped it tightly as they walked along Forty-ninth Street. At the Plaza in Rockefeller Center, they gazed at the flags of all nations, the chrysanthemums, lilies, and shrubs, and the crowds—people from all over the world—that milled around looking for something to happen.

“Oh, Jake,” she said, her voice warm with enthusiasm, “this is the first time I’ve seen Rockefeller Plaza at night with the lights and flags. It’s...like a fairyland. Gee, I wish I had my camera. Listen! That’s Gershwin’s ‘Love Walked In.’ Where’s it coming from? This is wonderful.”

She didn’t resist when he pulled her closer. But she’ll probably go into a rage if I try this tomorrow morning, he cautioned himself. The gaiety and childlike stars in her eyes played like tiny fingers on his heartstrings. Squeezing. Tugging. He gazed down at her, thinking of the change she’d undergone since they left the restaurant. How could a person have two such distinct personalities? “Is there anything you’ve always wanted to do in New York and haven’t done?” he asked her.

“Ride through Central Park in a hansom,” she blurted out. “I always dreamed of doing that, but...” To his amazement, she appeared shy. Was this the same woman with whom he had ridden up from Washington that morning? He could hardly believed what he saw.

“But what?” he prompted.