needn’t worry. I know how to be discreet.” When Mattie stared up at her with both eyebrows raised, Justine amended her remark. “I know how to bridle my tongue.”
“Discreet, huh? Well, hush my mouth.”
Anxious to see Tonya, but afraid to reveal her longing to Mattie, Justine guarded her voice and spoke in casual tones. “You think Tonya is still asleep? She’s awfully quiet.”
“If she ain’t, she oughta be. Mr. B said she singing loud as you please five o’clock this morning and didn’t stop ’til he gave her her breakfast. But soon as she got her oatmeal down, she started noddin’. Gimme your bag. Did Mr. B tell you your room is facing his? Soon as we get rid of your stuff, I’ll show you around. This is one big house.”
Just what she needed. She wouldn’t be able to stick her head out of her room without taking the rollers out of her hair and getting fully dressed. Well, she’d asked for it. How was she to have known that Duncan Banks could spin the head of the most devoutly virginal woman? Best thing she could do would be not to care what he thought of the way she looked. She’d seen her own quarters and Tonya’s room, but Mattie didn’t open Duncan’s door. Instead, she ushered her into the office that adjoined his bedroom. Soft beige tones and Royal Bokhara carpets in his office, in the hallway, and on the curved stairs. Mattie didn’t pause at Tonya’s room, and no sound came from it, so she didn’t have an excuse to go in and fill her arms with her baby.
An arresting peaceful decor was all she could think of as they began Mattie’s tour of the first floor. “Mr. B loves to sit in this big lounge chair with his hands behind his head and think. I declare that man can do more thinking than anybody I ever saw.”
Mattie wasn’t a slouch at thinking, Justine mused, taking in the tall cactus plants on either side of a huge picture window that were among the few things of nonutilitarian value in the living room. Everywhere, masculine taste. What was it about James Denmark’s “Honky Tonk” that made Duncan Banks want it on his living room wall? She studied the painting of the itinerant guitar player, but got no clues. But it didn’t tax her mind to understand his attraction to Ulysses Marshall’s “Between Mother and Daughter.” She turned quickly away; the painter had given them identical faces.
“These here pieces only been here ’bout a month. He took his time getting things for this living room,” Mattie said, gesturing toward the comfortable beige leather sofas and chairs that rested on a cheerful Tabriz Persian carpet woven in beige, brown, and burnt orange colors. She noticed that the dining room was a place for eating, not for show. A walnut table, eight matching chairs, and a sideboard sat on a Royal Bokhara carpet. No curtains graced the windows.
“I’ll see the kitchen when I get my sandwich,” Justine told Mattie. One thing she had to ask, though, because she hadn’t seen any evidence of a woman’s touch was, “How long has Mr. Banks lived here?”
Mattie’s method of clearing her throat was unique. And loud. “Well, ’bout four months, I’d say. Why?” And she let it be known that her yellow hair topped a fast mind. “’Cause everything’s new? Mr. B’s been a bachelor since Tonya was four months old, and he been living here since Tonya was four months old. Anything else, ask Mr. B. We’d better go downstairs. That’s where Mr. B spends most of his time, ’cept when he’s in his office or off someplace.”
She could find her way around Duncan’s house on her own, and she hoped she had years in which to do it; what she wanted right then was to see Tonya. “Thanks for the tour, Mattie. I’d better see about Tonya.”
But Mattie wouldn’t be denied her opportunity to show Justine who ran Duncan’s house. “Tonya’s fine. Let’s get this over with. I can’t spend all my time giving out tours.” Justine saw no junk or apparent storage areas in the basement. One large, wood-paneled room held an enormous television, a recliner, and what looked like the original Nordic Track machine. A refrigerator, bar, and pool table filled a far end of the room.
“This is gonna be Tonya’s recreation room soon as Mr. B decides how he wants it fixed up,” Mattie said, after opening the door to an empty little room with windows on three sides of it. “He can’t figure out what color to put in there. Maybe you got some ideas.” Indeed she did. Soft, pastel colors lifted the spirit, though she thought greens too cold for babies. But she didn’t voice her opinion. She could too easily slide back into the skin of Dr. Justine Taylor Montgomery, clinical psychologist.
“I’ll think about it.”
“You reminds me of some kind of teacher, Justine. Ain’t no babysitter I ever saw talk like you. ’Course, it ain’t my business, Mr. B’s satisfied, and you seems nice enough.”
Tonya’s shrill cry served notice that she had awakened. “There’s the bell, honey. When she starts crying, she means business. Thank goodness, she’s all yours now.”
Justine’s throat constricted at the prophetic words. She had to force herself to walk up the two flights of stairs, when she wanted to run. When she crossed the threshold of that room, she would change her life for all time. At last she would mother her child, and from that moment onward, Tonya would be hers. She tiptoed into the nursery, looked at Tonya sitting up in bed, and smiled.
“Tonya, darling. Do you remember me? Justine.”
Fear curled around her heart. Had that other night been a fluke? She wondered, as Tonya looked up at her with wide inquiring eyes.
She tried again, less confident now. “Darling, don’t you remember Juju?”
“Juju?” Tonya pulled herself upright and lifted her arms to Justine. “Juju.” A smile claimed her little face, and Justine leaned over to take Tonya into her embrace.
“Honey, you must be a magician.”
Startled, Justine turned so quickly that she hit her head against the side of the bed bars, but Mattie shook her head in wonder and didn’t notice.
“What kind of sandwich? Chicken? Low sodium, low fat cheese? Lean, low sodium ham?”
For a moment, she wondered whether Duncan’s housekeeper was operating a health farm. Her glance lingered on Mattie until her eyes widened. It had to be the light. No, that hair really was fire-engine red. Good Lord, was the woman driving on four wheels?
“I decided this isn’t my yellow day,” Mattie explained after noticing Justine’s prolonged stare. “I learned long ago that hair does things to a person’s mood. Now take you. You ought to make yours a light blond or something. Anything but this dreadful neither black nor gray nor anything else these black women walk around with. Make it pretty so the men will notice you, honey.”
Justine laughed. Mattie seemed to have a prescription for everything. “Let Tonya and me get to know each other. We’ll be down soon.”
“Looks to me like she been knowing you all her life, the way she’s acting. Content as a little bee buzzing roses. Never seen the beat of it. That child never did like strangers. ’Course, you do have a nice way about ya.”
Justine breathed deeply as the door closed behind Mattie and prayed she wouldn’t be caught out. She picked up the baby and walked over to the rocker, and Tonya’s little arms curled around her birth mother’s neck. When the baby kissed her cheek, as Justine had seen her do to Duncan, a bottomless well of emotion sprang up in her, and love such as she had never felt for another human being gushed out of her. She stumbled to the rocker and slumped into it, barely avoiding sitting
