I said, my mother doesn’t live in the old neighborhood anymore. But now you’ve got my curiosity up, what don’t I know?”
Neatly putting aside her spoon, Benicia rummaged about in the huge tote bag at her feet until she found her wallet. Opening it carefully, she drew out a slender folio of photographs and handed it to Althea. “His name is James. He’s nine years old and he is the most important thing in my life. He is my life.”
“Oh, Benicia, he’s adorable. I didn’t know you were married.”
Benicia’s eyes grew slanted. “I never said I was married.”
“But—”
“The brother had plans,” Benicia said coolly as she quickly retrieved her son’s pictures and stuffed them back in her bag. “Unfortunately, they didn’t include fatherhood. So, it seems we’re both single women, aren’t we?”
Althea fiddled with her silverware, unsure what to say.
Observing her friend’s discomfort, a flash of amusement flitted across Benicia’s round face. “Althea Almott, if I didn’t know better, I’d believe you were blushing. The Alabama in a girl never quite disappears, does it?”
Althea was surprised by Benicia’s observation. No matter how hard she tried to leave the South behind, Alabama did live just below the sophisticated surface she had worked so hard to acquire—a multilayered conservatism that kept her slightly off balance.
“Oh, Althea, I’m only teasing you,” Benicia said, patting her friend’s hand gently. “I don’t complain about being a single mom. I’ve had a long time to figure things out. You don’t remember what a stubborn kid I was, always having to learn things the hard way.”
Confused, Althea sent her a curious look. “How do you mean?”
“I got pregnant,” Benicia said bluntly. “Soon after you left.” For one brief moment, her soft voice was wistful. “I had plans, but then real life had a way of intruding.”
“Oh, there’s truth to that, all right,” Althea agreed sadly. “But what happened to James’s dad?”
“A really good question, for which I have a really dumb answer. I made it easy for him. I let him go. Nobody had to do me any favors! I knew how to take care of myself. Mistake number one was letting him have his way. Mistake number two was letting him get away.”
“Do you ever see him?”
Benicia shook her head. “I wanted him to stay, and I think he did, too. Lordy, that man swore up and down the Mississippi that it wasn’t me. But I was pregnant…. I think he panicked, but how could I blame him? He was only a kid himself, gone before I even started showing. The oldest story in the world, isn’t it?” Benicia said with a sad sigh. “Oh, well, all that’s history, now. But something told me to have this baby, which I did. All by myself.”
“All by yourself?” Althea repeated with a frown. “Your family didn’t help? Where was your mother?”
“Come on, Althea, you remember my momma. When she found out I was pregnant, she beat the living daylights out of me, then she kicked me out of the house. Nowadays, things are different, but back then…” She raised her wineglass, an ironic smile on her face. “To small towns.”
“And to James,” Althea added quickly.
“Thank you.” Benicia nodded as they clicked glasses. “To the future president of the United States.” She laughed. “This week, anyway. If he runs true to form, he’ll want to be a brain surgeon by next week. But, hey, enough of me. What about you, the big star and all?”
“A small star in a firmament of thousands.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. You are so famous, I can’t help but tell everyone I know you. And they always know who I’m talking about.”
“Well, that’s sweet, but I’ve been away awhile. I don’t know how long you shine in that firmament.”
“The public’s memory isn’t that short. You should know. So, where do you go from here?”
“I have some decisions to make. But right now I have to call it a day,” she said, pushing back her chair. “I left about four tons of mail sitting on my dining room table waiting to be sorted, not to mention three hundred phone calls I have to make.”
“Getting back into the routine?” Benicia laughed.
“It will take a few weeks,” Althea said. “Will I see you again? Will you call me, if you have a chance? We can’t not see each other another ten years. And I would like to meet James.”
“I’ll call,” Benicia said vaguely.
Althea got into a cab, wondering if she would. She rode back home, her head filled with thoughts of Alabama, memories she usually preferred not to examine suddenly clamoring for attention…
Her mother leaving every night at nine to work the night shift at a local factory so she could be around Althea during the day; standing in line every other Monday, rain or shine, waiting with her mother for their food stamps; Tuesdays, free cheese distribution at the welfare center; Thursdays, the day stale bread was distributed by a nearby package outlet, and if Althea had been really good that week, if she had passed all her tests in school, her mother gave her fifty cents to buy a box of stale cupcakes.
All her mother’s hard work scrimping, Althea thought bitterly, and the most they had ever had to show for it? An ugly shack with four unpainted walls that barely supported a tin roof. The day Althea handed her mother the keys to a little red brick house, they had stood together on the porch and cried. They didn’t need words to know how far they had come, how long the walk had been. Her mother’s first steps into her new home had been Althea’s proudest moment.
Had it been worth it?
Yes, she thought, thinking back to Benicia’s question as she entered her apartment thirty minutes later. Throwing her keys in the blue Depression-glass bowl that sat on a gleaming refectory table, hanging her fur coat in the huge cedar closet, putting the tea to boil on her Viking stove. Yes, she thought, as she looked out at the view over the brawniest city in the world—and she a part of it—yes, it had been worth it.
Chapter Three
Althea left the Niles Model Agency shell-shocked. Numb with disappointment, she stumbled twice in the snow, she was so distraught. Suddenly the sun wasn’t so bright, the city’s hoary skyscrapers seemed as gray as her prospects. If she hadn’t been afraid to rash her cheeks with salty tears, she would have cried.
The only thing that saved her from a complete breakdown was the sight of Harry Bensen when she arrived at Elmhurst Hospital, soon after the disastrous interview with her old employer. When she walked into his hospital room, her arms filled with flowers, he was sitting up, dozing against some pillows.
“Harry?” she whispered. Slowly he opened his eyes. They were still glassy, but he did seem more alert. Hollowed as they were, they could not hide the beautiful curve of his smile or the deep cleft of his chin when he saw who had arrived.
“Althea? I know you said you would stop by,” he whispered, “but I just assumed you
