Frost on My Window (10 page)

He smiled and grabbed my hand. “I don’t see why not.”

“How did you find out about this event?”

“My banker’s with Merrill Lynch. I was talking to Jim this morning and he mentioned that they were sponsoring this little event and I thought you’d be interested.”

“You’re right. This was great.”

“It’s not over yet.”

I looked at him in surprise, wondering what he meant by that comment. Before I could ask I lost my train of thought to the aroma and sight of the flower displays.

We walked past flowers of every color and size. The beautiful multi-colored orchids were displayed in a wonderful array of pink, green, raspberry, yellow and orange petals nestled in green oval leaves. Each of the different orchids seemed to complement the other in color and fragrance. We paused and stared at exotic rich purple, maroon and blue blooms with banded or speckled green leaves.

We ended up finishing our walk outside in the park. Sean stopped and leaned against a tree. I stood next to him enjoying the breeze. The moment reminded me of Los Angeles.

In the fall when Exile was taking a break from playing, Sean and I drove to California parks and sat out under trees and watched the kids playing. He’d urge me to join in the fun and play Frisbee. Sometimes we would spend the afternoon playing soccer.

“Did I tell you I bought a new car?”

“No, what’d you get?” I inquired, not surprised one bit.

“It’s going to be a charcoal gray BMW, four-door, but it looks sporty.”

“Going to be?” I asked, puzzled. Sean was one for instant gratification, and with his bank account he could afford it.

“I haven’t really seen it yet. I ordered it off the Internet last night.”

“You ordered your car online? Let me guess, the dealership was closed?”

“Well, yes, but I was looking at the BMW website and they have this service so that I could have the car custom built. I picked out the insides and everything,” he said with a child-like glee.

I sighed, but couldn’t help smiling. “You have got to be kidding.”

“No, I’m not. I can go online and check on the status. They even emailed me a picture.”

“Along with a fat bill, of course.”

“Would you believe me if I said I got a discount?” He grinned.

“Hmmm…No,” I teased.

“Would it make you feel better to know that 10 percent of the proceeds from Exile’s tour is going to be donated to the Cancer Society?”

“You’re a wonderful guy, Sean.” I turned and gave him a big hug. He’d managed to take my mind completely off my problems.

I watched his nose wrinkle as though he smelled something fishy and then a light blush spread to his cheeks. “I’m not a saint, Leah,” he said, holding me close.

“I know.” I smiled up at him, winking devilishly through my sunglasses. “You’re selfish and you’re a bully.”

“Who told you that?” he asked.

“Fox.” Fox was Exile’s lead bassist. The six-foot-five musician had the build of an ex-bodybuilder and a heart of gold.

“And you believed him?” Sean rested his hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes. I could see his lips twitching, trying to resist the urge to laugh.

“I believe that you took the man’s last pint of Guinness.”

“So he told you about that, huh? I like getting what I want. You can’t blame a man for taking the last can of beer.”

“Yes, I can.”

“I’m wounded.”

“No, you’re not.”

He laughed and grabbed my hand, pulling me behind him as a teenager on roller blades whizzed by.

“That was close,” I commented.

“Yes, it was. I don’t know about you but I’m kinda hungry.”

“I could use a bite to eat. Got any ideas?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” He looked at his watch.

“You’re wearing it,” I exclaimed excitedly.

He glanced up at me, surprised, and then held the watch up to show me. “I always wear it.”

“I’m just surprised you haven’t lost it yet.”

“Not a chance. You know me so well that it’s hard to remember a time when you weren’t in my life.”

I’d given the G-Shock watch to Sean as a joke. He’d somehow managed to lose or misplace two Rolexes in the space of two months. I’d seen the black rubber digital watch in the mall while I was shopping one afternoon and impulsively bought it, thinking that there was no way Sean could misplace something that large.

I blushed slightly and shook my head. “You must have one short memory then,” I joked.

“Hmmm, I remember the look on your face when I dropped by your place six months ago. The mud masks you and Rena were wearing were unforgettable.” His eyes widened in a look of pure terror. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so surprised,” he said, smirking.

“Well, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you laugh so hard,” I commented.

“I almost choked to death.”

“Serves you right for just dropping in.” I pinched him on the arm and he shook his head. I couldn’t do anything but laugh as Sean put his arm around my shoulders and turned to walk back towards the waiting car.

* * *

“I almost walked by the place the first time I was meeting some co-workers for dinner and drinks last month.” I stepped in front of Sean as he held the door open.

The host, who was dressed in a trademark indigo blue button-down dress shirt, greeted us warmly at the front door of the upscale restaurant. The after-work crowd had yet to settle into the high cushioned burgundy chairs around the bar. The smell of roasting meat drifted through the brick-lined room, circulated by black and gold ceiling fans.

“You told me once that this was one of your favorite restaurants,” Sean said as he placed his hand on my lower back and politely guided me towards the back of the restaurant.

I smiled, more than a little surprised he remembered. The Shark Bar, a hideaway nestled between the busy streets of Amsterdam and Broadway, was a place that Broadway actors, sports stars and media-weary entertainers stopped in for a quiet meal. I saw recognition and curiosity on the faces of some of the patrons as Sean and I walked up the stairs and entered the dining area. Its yellow walls and low lighting provided an intimate setting.

“Come here often?” Sean asked as we settled down into the back booth.

“This is my third time,”

“It’s nice. I like it.”

“Not too down-to-earth for you?” I teased.

“You know me better than that,” he chided while flipping a lock of hair out of his eyes.

I picked up my water glass as my mouth suddenly went dry. Sean was staring at me. I looked into his eyes and they were the same dark green, but different. The warm affection reflected there made my breath catch in my throat. Picking up the leather-bound menu, I stared blankly at the menu choices, feeling somehow saddened. Sean’s look wasn’t for me.

I concentrated on other things after the waiter came to take our order, and a mutual silence fell over our table. That was the thing between us. Sometimes we didn’t need words. The silence seemed to hold all our thoughts and reflections. There had been many evenings when we sat for hours by Sean’s pool without saying a word. We would both just gaze at the rippling water and breathe. Some Sundays Sean would just sit with a pen and pad furiously writing while I sat in a reclining chair sipping lemonade and typing away on my laptop.

I never felt as though I had to say something witty or fill the time we spent together with my problems or lack thereof. So I sat back and took in the ambiance of the moment. The smooth rhythms of jazz seemed to delicately cover the clatter and tinkling of glasses and silverware, the murmur of voices. The corner booth we sat in was shaded by pulled back plum velvet curtains.

When we left the crowded restaurant after dinner, a light summer rain had just begun to fall. Sean and I paused, looking at one another, before we jumped into the waiting car. I could tell that he was remembering one of our nights out in L.A.

I’d never thought of rain as something beautiful until I met Sean. One night after too many memories, laughter, and food, we walked down a small avenue in L.A. huddled together under my umbrella looking for his car.

“Do you see it, Leah?”

I looked towards Sean. The childlike wonder in his voice caught and held my attention. He was referring to the rain. I rolled my eyes, thinking that only a white person could think that the rain was a beautiful thing. Rain was rain, and, to this sista who had just got her hair done two days before, it was the ultimate enemy. I thought of unexpected showers as Mother Nature’s way of reminding black women who was really in charge.

I turned and followed his gaze, looking towards the florescent streetlight. My sarcastic comments died in my throat before they could pass through my lips. The winds were light that night and the warm rain came down straight like a curtain of stringed teardrops. The beeping of a car horn broke the spell, but just for a second I had seen it: a glimpse into Sean’s soul. The memory would live on every time I saw a streetlight in the rain.

Chapter 11

When the phone rang the next morning, I picked it up knowing I’d hear Rena’s voice on the other line.

“Leah, it’s Lance.”

“What’s up?” My half-drowsy disappointed tone wasn’t anywhere near welcoming. I wanted some answers only my absentee cousin could provide, not aggravation from the previous love of my life.

His voice was hurried. “I got a situation.”

“Okay,” I said, slowly falling back into the habit of caring about his well being. “What is it?”

“Lee, I know this is last minute, but I need you to come over to my place.”

I heard the sounds of someone screaming in the background and sat up in the bed. “What was that, Lance?”

“That would be the situation,” he said hurriedly. “Look Lee, you have more than enough cause to hang up, but I really need your help. Can you come over to my place?”

I let out a sigh, then sat up in the bed. “What’s the address?”

I pulled a sheet of paper and a pen out of the nightstand drawer. It took me twenty minutes to shower and get dressed. The drive into the city would have normally taken over an hour, but this rainy morning the streets were empty of the usual lines of taxicabs driving over the Brooklyn Bridge.

I was at Lance’s high-rise apartment in under an hour and a half. I had to drive around the area for a good fifteen minutes before finding a parking space. I strolled though the glass doors that were held open by the white-gloved doorman and made my way towards the front desk.

“I’m here to see Lance Phillips.”

“Your name, please?” he asked.

“Leah Russell.”

“One moment, Ms. Russell.”

The gray-haired security officer picked up the phone, and I glanced around the entry foyer while I waited. The place reeked of new money and Wall Street arrogance. The marble floors covered with dark colored rugs softened the otherwise overwhelming lobby. Freshly cut flowers spilled out of delicate Ming vases, while crystal chandeliers graced the high ceiling.

“You may go up, Ms. Russell. Please take the elevator to your left. Mr. Phillips resides on the twenty-fifth floor, apartment 2502.”

I nervously waited as the elevator shot up to Lance’s floor. When the doors opened onto the wide carpet-lined hallway of the twenty-fifth floor, I heard the sound of a baby wailing. My finger had barely pressed the doorbell to apartment 2502 when the door opened. Lance looked like hell. His bloodshot eyes, ashy complexion and overall disheveled appearance shocked me.

“Come in,” he said eagerly, stepping aside and practically pulling me inside.

I stepped into the condo and scanned the room as Lance closed the door behind me. The place could have been declared a national disaster. The luxury condominium that I knew he had to be paying at least a couple of grand a month for was a mess. I couldn’t see the floor through the litter of Chinese take-out boxes and it stunk to high heaven. The burgundy-colored leather sofa was covered with clothes, papers, books, and dry cleaner bags.

“Lance, what’s that smell?” I fought the urge to cover my nose.

“I haven’t been able to take out the garbage.” If Lance hadn’t taken that moment to look as though he wanted to sink though the floor with shame, I would have turned around and walked out.

Just then the sound of a baby crying filled the apartment. I turned and looked at him. His hand was over his eyes as he impatiently rubbed his temples.

“He’s been like that since I found him last night,” he said.

“Found him?” I repeated.

I followed Lance back into the bedroom. It looked like the rest of the apartment except that in the middle of the bed, on top of the
New York Times
front page, a little baby lay flailing his arms. I fought the urge to throw up as the smell of baby poop permeated the room. I took a step closer to the bed and stared down at the little baby boy. Lance’s spitting image lay looking back up at me.

“Congratulations. What’s his name?”

“Michael.”

“Where’s Michael’s mother?” I knew that there wasn’t a woman in her right mind that would be crazy enough to leave her baby with this man. Lance was the last person in the world that I’d trust to baby sit.

He twisted his face into a grimace. “I don’t know where she is. We hooked up for the weekend at the end of last summer and she just disappeared. All I know is that when I opened the door this morning, he was there in a stroller. By the time I got downstairs, she was long gone. All I had was this baby, a suitcase, birth certificate, and a damn note.”

I moved towards the bed and gingerly began pulling back the elastic straps that held the soiled diaper around his tiny waist. Concentrate on the problem, I kept telling myself. “Where are the diapers?”

“In the bag.”

I rolled my eyes. “Make yourself useful. Get me a diaper and come over here.”

Lance handed me the Pamper as if holding a bomb. “Bring over the wipes, too.”

He dropped the carton by my side and then turned to move away. I grabbed his shirtsleeve and held it tight in my fist. “Don’t you dare move!” I ordered. “This is your mess and you’re going to help me clean it up.”

“Men in my family don’t change diapers,” he said.

“Well, the men in my family don’t have babies out of wedlock,” I snapped back.

I was holding on to my sanity by the skin of my teeth. Of all the things I’d expected of my friend, this was the last. His marriage to Sherrie: big mistake. But who can hold a grudge when a man gets suckered in by a pretty face? But a one-night stand with a woman who abandoned her son in a hallway? My respect for him all but disappeared.

“What do you need me to do?”

“Take responsibility,” I answered sarcastically. I paused, took the baby’s legs, and gently lifted his rear end out of the soiled diaper. “Now wipe it all off.”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” he groaned.

“No, you’re not. Just start wiping. Hold your breath if you have to.”

It took us ten minutes to get Michael clean, dry, dusted and Pampered. After we were finished, he just lay there, his little round face wrinkled with smiles, gurgling and kicking his tiny feet. I reached down and picked up the tiny bundle and inhaled the sweet scent of baby powder, only to grimace as his hands grabbed hold of my hair. I turned to see Lance bagging up the diaper and the newspapers that had been strewn across the bed.

“Here.” I leaned towards Lance, ready to transfer little Michael into his arms.

“That’s okay. He looks really comfortable right where he is,” he responded.

“Lance, this is your son. It’s about time you got used to holding him.”

He sighed and reached out. Little Michael seemed to recognize the other half of his genes, because his chubby arms reached for his father.

“What am I gonna do?” he complained.

“Be a father?” I joked. “Call your Mom?” I could imagine what Mrs. Phillips would have to say about this mess.

“Did that this morning. Do you know how hard it is to get into contact with someone on a cruise ship? I offered to buy her and Dad round-trip tickets home from the next port, and an outside cabin with balcony on any cruise they wanted if they helped me out. Mom blessed the hell out me and hung up.”

“You really planned to drop your own child on your parents’ doorstep?” I stared at him as if he had crawled out from under a slimy rock.

“Don’t look at me like that, Lee. You’ve seen my place and you know a consultant’s life is either on the road or on a plane. There’s no way I can make it as a single parent.”

“You’re telling me this why?”

“I have to be in San Francisco on Monday for a company meeting.”

“Yes and…” I waited for the shoe to drop.

“Can you keep Michael for me?”

I shook my head and took a deep breath as I watched the baby move his little neck to get a closer look at Lance’s watch. I almost wanted to say ‘yes’ just because I couldn’t condemn anyone, much less a baby, to the living conditions in the place. Lance’s look of serene confidence stopped me cold.

“No.”

The expression of complete shock on his face had the little girl in my head cackling with glee. His expression looked like mine the day I found out that he was marrying Sherrie.

“Lee, come on now,” he began. “You can’t leave a brotha hanging. I don’t know anything about taking care of a kid.”

“Then you might want to do what all consultants do: learn. And I suggest you start taking notes, because I can’t help you with this one, Lance.”

“Can’t or won’t?” he shot back.

“Both.”

Letting the obsessive-compulsive side of me out, I turned and automatically started picking up the clothes lying on the floor. I balled them up and put them in the white laundry bag that had been tossed over the chair.

“Lee, it’ll only be until I find Christine.”

“At least you remember her name,” I snorted. I walked out of the bedroom and began to pick up things in the living room. I put myself on autopilot. Moving distracted me from letting go of the anger that I had buried inside. It was the same anger that had eaten at me since that night in Sherrie’s apartment.

“I was still hurting from the divorce, Lee. I met her the day the divorce was finalized. I was drinking, and she and I just connected. I was lonely and she was there and open and honest. I thought—”

“Lance, stop right there.” I shook my head. “You didn’t think. If you had we wouldn’t be having this conversation and little Michael wouldn’t be trying to eat your fingers. Have you fed the baby?”

“I tried this morning and he didn’t want it.”

“What time this morning?”

“About nine o’clock.”

I looked at my watch and sighed: one o’clock.

“He’s hungry. Come with me to the kitchen and I’ll show you how to make his formula.”

“Look at that, Michael,” he cooed. “Auntie Leah’s such a natural. She won’t let anything bad happen to you, like leaving you alone with Daddy.”

“Don’t try it, Lance. No games, no manipulation, or I walk out that door.” It was an empty threat, but the anger I injected into my voice made it believable.

“Okay.”

I dug though the baby bag and pulled out a can of formula. It only took me three minutes to mix it properly and pour it into the small pot.

“You’re going to need more of his formula,” I pointed out after pulling out three extra cans.

“Can I order it online?” he asked.

I gritted my teeth at his dumb question. Can I order it online? What world was he living in? Not mine.

“No. I’ll write you out a list of things to buy. The supermarket down the street should be stocked with baby supplies. You’re going to need more Pampers, wipes, bottles, disposable inserts and some snacks.”

I paused, giving Lance time to enter the grocery list into his PDA. I just shook my head and turned back to pouring water into the pot and setting it on the stove. “You have to make sure that everything’s clean. Michael’s immune system isn’t as developed as ours. He’ll pick up colds and viruses more easily. Put his bottles in boiling water to sterilize them before filling them with formula. If you pick up the disposable inserts, you won’t have to sterilize the bottles every time you prepare one.”

By the time I finished giving Lance notes on preparing a bottle and formula, Michael was ready to eat. His whimpers had turned to cries before the bottle cooled enough for him to drink. I sat Lance down on the coach and showed him how to hold Michael slightly elevated so that he wouldn’t choke.

“Now give him the bottle.”

“Wow,” Lance said as the baby started sucking hard on the plastic nipple. “Guess he was kind of hungry.”

I smiled. “When he starts to slow down, take away the bottle, place him over your shoulder and gently pat his back so he can burp.”

I went to the hallway closet and pulled out a monogrammed Polo hand towel. I walked behind the coach and placed the towel over Lance’s shoulder.

“Babies have a tendency to spit up after they eat, so I suggest you keep a towel with you at all times. If you forget to burp him he’ll get gas, and you don’t want a baby with gas. Trust me when I say that he’ll be miserable and he’ll make you miserable, too.”

“Where did you learn all this stuff, Lee?”

“From the Discovery Channel,” I said sarcastically. “I learned from helping out in Vacation Bible School while you were too busy trying to hide from Mrs. Rigley.”

His lips turned up in a tired smile and I looked at him closely. A sob welled up in my chest at the sight of him holding the small squirming bundle. We’d played house in the middle of his parents’ den. I’d fix him dinner, hold my little Raggedy Anne doll, and pretend we were married and living in a big house with a white picket fence.

In my imagination, Lance would come home from a long hard day in the office and Max, the poodle I’d always wanted, would greet him at the door with slippers while I stood next to the kitchen table looking cute in my designer apron and sexy high-heeled shoes.

“I’m sorry, Lee. God, I’ve made such a mess of my life. I guess I haven’t been thinking. I wish…”

All I needed was another shoulda, woulda, coulda session. The sight of Lance holding the little boy in his arms was one more nail in the coffin of my dreams. I had to cut this off quickly, so I lifted my hand and gestured for him stop.

“Lance, before you start crying a river…” Like the Mississippi I felt welling up behind my eyes. “You’ve been given a precious gift. Don’t mess it up by blaming yourself.”

He hugged Michael closer to his chest and looked down at the little bundle whose eyes were already half-closed in slumber. “What am I going to tell my boss?”

“The truth.”

He rubbed his head and sighed. “Man, they’ll never believe it.”

“Give it a try.”

“How am I going to keep him? He’s too young for pre-school, right?”

I just stared at the fool and kept my mouth shut.

“Right,” he sighed. “I guess I could request a leave of absence.”

“Let me help you out. There’s this wonderful thing called paternity leave, and I think that you can qualify for it given your extenuating circumstances.” My voice was laced with sarcasm.

“How much time do I get?” he asked, beginning to look a little more alert.