Surely Henry gave Drake her message, but Drake hadn’t paid her the courtesy of an answer. She dragged herself out of bed, went through the motions of her morning ablutions, made a pot of coffee and decided she had no appetite for breakfast. After moseying around her apartment for nearly an hour, she threw up her hands in disgust. She couldn’t call Henry and ask him whether he gave Drake her message.
“Guess I’m the one eating dirt this time,” she said to herself, put on a yellow linen suit with a white-bordered yellow tank, got into her car and headed for work. “The sun will revolve around the earth before I cry over a man,” she said to herself, sniffing to hold it back. “Not even if the man is Drake Harrington, I won’t.”
At the station, she breezed past the newsroom, went into her office and closed the door, wishing, not for the first time, that their offices had locks. If Lawrence Parker walked into her office, she wouldn’t be responsible for the words that passed through her lips. As if he had extrasensory perception, he knocked once and walked in.
“How’s my little yellow bird today?”
She turned and faced him. “Lawrence, do you know the definition of the word nuisance? If not, look in a mirror. I am not interested in your company. I’ve got a man in my life, and I don’t need another one.”
“Be careful, babe,” he said in what amounted to a snarl. “I may get a promotion, and then you’ll wish you’d been nice to me.”
She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Your getting a promotion in this place is the least of my worries. Please close the door when you leave.” She turned her back to him and began going through her in basket. After some time, she heard the door close. She figured that he’d find a way to get revenge, because he was a man whose ego needed constant stroking, and she’d just knocked him down a peg.
“I didn’t have breakfast, so I’m taking an early lunch,” she said to Rhoda, her assistant. “Want to join me?”
“Sure thing, Pamela, as long as you don’t want fast food.”
Fast food wouldn’t nurse her wounds. “Not a chance. I want some good catfish.”
They walked to Frank’s, an eatery frequented by politicians, as well as newspaper, radio and television people, but she went there for the soul food.
“I’m having fried catfish,” Pamela told the waitress.
“With or without?”
“Definitely with. I haven’t had anything to eat today,” she said, savoring the thought of catfish with corn bread and stewed collards.
“I’ll have the same,” Rhoda said, “but hold those hot peppers.”
“Not to worry. We only give you those if you ask for ’em.”
“What’s Lawrence up to these days, Pam? If I turn my back, he’s in your office. Is there… I mean…do you want to see him?”
“Me? Want to see Lawrence? That man affects me exactly the way a swarm of mosquitoes would, and he’s got the hide of a rhinoceros.”
“I wouldn’t like to be the object of his affection. He’s too devious. I’d better tell you he’s boasting that you and he are an item.”
She nearly spilled her ice water. “In his dreams. Put a note on every bulletin board in this building to the effect that Lawrence Parker is lying, that he’s never been anywhere with me outside of the building and that I want him to stay out of my office.”
Rhoda struggled without success to keep the grin off her round brown face. “That will give me more pleasure than this catfish. And girl, I do love me some catfish.”
“Sure would quicken my steps, but I guess we’d better not do that. I’ll find another way to make him grow up.”
She had treated the matter lightly, but the man worried her. A normal man over thirty-five years of age—she was certain of that much—didn’t behave as Lawrence Parker did.
“I sure hope I’m around when you blow him over. Say, how was your date Friday night?”
“My date? Oh, you mean… Disaster, girl. I had not one flat tire, but two, and by the time I got to the restaurant, almost two hours late, he’d left.”
“You didn’t call him? I mean, doesn’t he have a cell phone?”
“He does, but mine was at the station on my desk.” She stopped eating, lost in thoughts of what might have been.
Rhoda rested her knife and fork and leaned back in the chair. “But you patched it up later, right?”
Pamela lifted her right shoulder in a quick shrug. “I phoned his house and left a message. But if he got it, he didn’t return my call.”
“I see. You sound crestfallen. What’s this guy like?”
“A tan-colored Adonis. Mesmerizing good looks. A grin that will make you cross your knees, and sweet as sugar. He’s too good to be true.”
“If what you say is right, he sure is. I’d be scared as hell of him.”
Pamela ate the remainder of the catfish and pushed her plate aside. “He knows he’s great-looking, but when women fawn over him, it gets on his nerves.”
“You’re kidding. You mean, he’s not a stud?”
“Good Lord, no. If he was, I wouldn’t have gone out the door to meet him.”
Rhoda looked into the distance, her expression suggesting a sense of wonder. “I wish you luck, but I’d stay away from that brother.”
It was much too late for that advice, but she didn’t tell Rhoda that. Lecturing herself about Drake Harrington had gotten her nowhere. She knew him well enough to be certain that he was far more than what he looked like—six feet and four inches of male perfection—that he was a serious-minded, hardworking and caring person who loved his family and was generous with his friends.
“I’m no slouch,” she said to herself, “but what makes me think Drake Harrington is going to settle for me when he can have just about any woman he wants?”
“I don’t give advice,” Rhoda said, “and especially not to you, since you’ve done far more with your life than I have with mine. Still—”
“Out with it,” Pamela said. “Who knows? It might be just what I need to hear.”
Rhoda savored the last morsel of catfish, placed her knife and fork across her clean plate, and leaned back in her chair. “I was going to retract what I said a minute ago. If he’s all that nice, and he’s interested, go for it and enjoy it for as long as it lasts, but don’t fall too deeply in love.”
Pamela leaned forward as if to be certain Rhoda heard her. “I’d like to see the woman who could bask in that man’s attention and, when his interest cooled, walk away unscathed as if she’d merely said ‘hi’ to him.”
Rhoda’s eyebrows shot up. “That bad, huh?”
They barely
