her right hand on her right hip and stared at him. “Mr. Holcomb, nothing in this life is certain but taxes and death. From the moment babies begin trying to walk, they learn that they have to take a chance.”
As if he’d missed the point, intentionally or not, he asked, “Have you had any experience with babies?”
A moron would know that a straight answer to that question would give him more information than he was entitled to, so if he wanted to know, he would have to ask a direct question. “Only during the first year of my life,” she retorted.
She watched, fascinated, as he closed his eyes, rested his head against the back of the overstuffed chair and let the laughter roll out of him. When he stopped laughing, he said, “I can’t wait to get you all to myself.”
She didn’t answer, but she hoped that managing that trick wouldn’t take him too long.
Chapter 2
I don’t know what possessed me to agree to speak to that sorority on this particular day, Jacqueline said to herself as she rolled out of bed at four-thirty in the morning. I’m beat. Lord, I should have spent the night in Charlotte.
But she hadn’t. She was in New York, and she’d better get moving if she wanted to get that seven o’clock flight.
By the time the propeller plane landed in Charlotte, she was certain that her insides had been rearranged. In the terminal, she bought a bottle of cold water and drank it to settle her stomach. Then, she picked up a rental car and headed for Johnson C. Smith University. Whenever Jacqueline visited a university—and she did that often—she invariably felt old, compared to the vibrant, youthful students around her.
Jacqueline had accomplished a lot in the ten years after getting her undergraduate degree in English. She’d earned a doctorate in criminology and had become the senior editor of a very prestigious magazine, but she was also lonely. Her life was devoid of the intimacy she craved, and she saw little likelihood of a change in her single status. What man would be willing to share the burden of her father’s expensive illness or to settle for a woman whose father’s well-being came before everything else? Would a successful, polished man like Warren Holcomb allow himself to care for a cocktail waitress? And would he still be interested if he discovered who she really was?
She turned into the university’s campus, asked for instructions to the library, drove there, found a parking space and walked a few paces to the James B. Duke Library. She had to banish her passion for Warren Holcomb—and there was nothing else to call it—for she was playing with fire.
“Welcome, Dr. Parkton,” a pretty girl of about eighteen said when Jacqueline stepped into the lecture hall, where about seventy-five students and, she surmised from their apparent ages, teachers as well, awaited her. “I’m your escort for the day. The students are all excited, and I’ve already collected lots of questions for you.”
And so it went on many of Jacqueline’s weekends. The money she made from her lectures went into a special account from which she would pay for her father’s surgery in the event that he agreed to have it. She didn’t allow herself to consider the consequences if he refused. Lunch with the class that sponsored her appearance there followed the lecture and questioning period. She enjoyed the exchange with the eager students, but she was glad to leave.
I’m old enough to be their mother, she said to herself of the freshmen as she drove to the airport, and I definitely did not enjoy being addressed as ma’am.
She walked into her apartment at eight-thirty that night, had a glass of milk and two pieces of toast for supper, stripped and fell into bed. She couldn’t wait for Monday. Monday evening, in fact. Surely, if Warren—she thought of him as Warren, not as Mr. Holcomb—put his mind to it, he ought to be able to figure out a way to spend time with her in forty-eight hours.
Warren spent most of his weekend thinking about Jackie Parks and pondering schemes to be alone with her outside the club without violating Allegory’s rules. Expulsion from the club would mortify him and practically assure that, for years to come, Allegory wouldn’t have another African American member. Membership in it had enabled him to obtain generous donations to Harlem Clubs, Inc., funds that he used for scholarships and for professional tutoring for the children who frequented the clubs.
He could get Jackie’s address and wait for her at her home one night after she left work, but that strategy involved asking the club accountant for information about Jackie. He couldn’t do that. He could follow her, but that was unseemly. And what if she lived with a man? From his one conversation with her, he didn’t think so, but who could tell?
I’ll ask her where she lives. That’s not the same as making a date. I’d call her at home, but she’s not in the phone directory. Damn, but this woman is in my blood!
He was never at a loss for something constructive to do, but Harlem Clubs didn’t open on Sunday. The only person in New York City who he wanted to see was unavailable to him and he was at loose ends. He put on his jogging suit and a pair of running shoes and went for a run down to the promenade, but instead of returning home at once, he sat on the bench overlooking the East River and lower Manhattan. A chilly, but otherwise perfect day, he thought, as the early afternoon sun warmed his face. All around him leaves floated lazily to earth and a tugboat hooted hoarsely for wider access with its burdensome tanker. The couples who strolled along the promenade holding hands, hugging and staring into each other’s eyes increased his sense of loneliness.
“I wonder what she’s doing and who she’s with?” he mused as visions of her long, silky legs and her large round eyes filled his mind’s eye. “Something about her doesn’t add up. Women who exploit their sexuality have never interested me, but with that skirt barely covering her…Oh, what the hell!” He got up and jogged on home and wondered if he could bear to wait until Monday evening.
After fighting the covers all night, he arose early Monday morning, not because he was invigorated—enervated was more like it—but because he wanted to hasten the beginning of the day. He didn’t wait until he got to the club to reserve a private lounge as he usually did. Instead he telephoned his reservation as soon as the club opened at noon.
She had to stop, Jacqueline thought to herself after she changed clothes for the third time that Monday afternoon. If she didn’t hurry, she’d be late for work, and that sleaze Duff Hornsby would have an excuse to get her alone under the pretext of reprimanding her. Green wasn’t her best color, and suppose she ran into Warren before she changed into her uniform. Oh what the heck! If I’m late, I’m late. She took off the green dress and put on a red woolen sheath, added a strand of pearls and a spritz of Opium perfume, put on her coat and headed to work.
She walked into Allegory at precisely six-thirty and let herself relax. She was on time and Hornsby, the club’s president, wouldn’t have an excuse to harass her. She changed into her uniform and the stiletto-heel sandals she was required to wear and went to the storage room to get some linen cocktail napkins.
“What on earth!” She gasped and backed out of the storage room, closing the door on the half-naked couple she’d just interrupted. Was that Carl Spaeder’s wife? And if it was, why didn’t they save their lovemaking for their bedroom at home? And why didn’t they close the door? Have I been missing something about this ritzy place? she asked herself. Is Warren Holcomb the only man here who obeys club rules?
The light flashed on her intercom, indicating a call to the Reagan Suite. Wondering who had summoned her, she opened the door, and when she saw Duff Hornsby, she didn’t move two feet from it.
“Yes,
