Leigh (17 page)

The proprietress accepted the snapshot of Mary Beth from Leigh. And then she eyed Leigh and the photo with vague suspicion.
“No, haven’t seen her. We get a lot of coming and going around here.”

Leigh nodded and put the snapshot back into her crocheted shoulder bag. “Thanks. Will you call me, or should I just come back
tomorrow?”

“I’ll call you.”

After giving the woman the obligatory peace sign, Leigh led Dane out of the store. He murmured, “I’ve got to see you home
now. I have another appointment about a different case.”

After disappointing days with no leads, Leigh didn’t have the energy to object. After a few changes of buses, she left him
and walked to her Aunty Kitty’s townhouse. She collected the mail from the box by the door, unlocked the door, and en
tered the quiet house. Her great-aunt, though over seventy, still worked a few days a week doing
pro bono
legal work for the needy. She’d come home each day around five, and then the two of them would cook dinner together and eat
it by the windows overlooking the bay.

Leigh loved San Francisco and Aunt Kitty. If only this were just a pleasure visit.

She sifted the mail and found another letter addressed to her from Cherise. It was good to have another friend who was as
concerned about Mary Beth as she was. Leigh dropped the other mail on the table in the foyer, which was, as usual, alive with
shimmering light and rainbow prisms. She slit open the letter. She read the first page and then the second and froze. Gripping
the carved finial on the bottom post of the banister, she slid down and slumped on the bottom step.
No. No.

L
eigh couldn’t believe she was able to dial the phone. Her fingers actually felt stiff. But this was like witnessing a train
wreck—she couldn’t look away. She must learn every detail. “Hello, Mrs. Langford, this is Leigh calling from San Francisco.
Is Cherise home?” Her cool voice didn’t even quaver.

Enduring the agony of Mrs. Langford’s friendly greeting and inquiries, Leigh waited on the line for Cherise to pick up.

“Leigh, have you found Mary Beth?”

Of course, dear Cherise would ask about their mutual friend first. That was so like her. Leigh didn’t like the cold, hard
feeling growing inside her. Cherise was a good friend, a good person, and Leigh knew she truly was concerned about Mary Beth.
“No, sorry. So far we haven’t found anything except that her boyfriend has turned up dead.”

“That’s
awful,”
Cherise said with undeniable sincerity.

Why do I always think Cherise has an ulterior motive? Is it just because I knew Frank was attracted to her, writing her, too?
“
It was rough. I had to identify his body at the morgue.”

“Oh, Leigh, I’m so sorry.” Cherise aggravated Leigh further by sounding deeply sympathetic.

“I just got your letter.” Leigh couldn’t make herself say any more.

“I feel awful,” Cherise said with audible regret, “with Mary Beth missing and all. It’s like, why do I have a right to happiness
when Mary Beth may be…”

Leigh was glad Cherise stopped there. Leigh couldn’t allow herself to think that Mary Beth might be dead, too.
I thought I was helping her.
Leigh had tried to pull Mary Beth along, interest her in politics, get her back on track.
And maybe I got her killed, too. Or at least, I helped her to be drawn deeper into the drug-saturated counterculture movement.
“
I feel so guilty,” Leigh muttered in spite of herself.

“What’s happened to Mary Beth is not your fault,” Cherise defended her fiercely. “Her parents and—from what she told me herself—her
professors encouraged her to fall off the edge of the earth. Don’t blame yourself. Mary Beth has always been persuadable.
Or at least, as long as I’ve known her.”

Leigh didn’t want to agree with Cherise, but part of her did. She felt grateful to Cherise, but resented that, too. Leigh
had always thought that Cherise had exercised a great deal of self-serving charm in high school. But she’d never blamed Cherise
for this, because as the first black student in an all-white school, Cherise had faced stresses that Leigh hadn’t. And that
ambiguity had set the stage for how she felt now. How could she like and dislike Cherise, trust and distrust her, all at the
same time? Perhaps this was all tied up with her feelings about Frank.

“So…,” Cherise said, sounding apologetic, “what did you think of my news?”

The moment had come. Leigh steeled herself to say what
she must, what she had to in order to salvage even a scrap of her self-respect. “I was surprised, but of course, I’m so very
happy for you, Cherise, for both you and Frank.” Her heart constricted so tightly it felt like it might fracture into slivers.
“Have you set the date?”

“We’re going to wait until he comes home from Nam. I worry so. So many GIs are dying there every week, and with sabotage so
rampant, Frank doesn’t even have to be part of a mission to be in danger.”

“I know. I worry, too.”
I do.
Two of the people she cared about the most were in danger.

“I know it might be difficult for you. But I’m hoping that you will be my maid of honor,” Cherise said softly.

Raw pain whispered through Leigh’s every nerve, enveloping her in a haze of red-tinged agony, like going up in flames. She
pictured herself standing beside a white-gowned Cherise as she exchanged vows with Frank in his uniform, lethally handsome.
Why had Cherise said, “I know it might be hard for you?” Was that because of Mary Beth’s disappearance or because Cherise
knew that Leigh still had feelings for Frank? Could Cherise be knowingly cruel?

No answers came to her and, of course, there was only one possible reply for her to make. “I’d be honored,” she pushed the
rasping words through her dry lips.

“That will mean a lot to me and Frank, especially since I wouldn’t have even met him if it hadn’t been for you.”

With these innocent words, Cherise slid the knife neatly into Leigh’s back and twisted the blade. Leigh nearly gasped aloud.
“My pleasure,” she murmured, reeling. “I have to hang up now.” Leigh fell back on the pat, polite phrases her mother had taught
her. “I just wanted to tender my best wishes.”

“Thanks, Leigh. And please keep me posted about Mary Beth. You know I’m terribly worried about her.”

“Of course. Bye.” Leigh hung up. She crumpled Cherise’s letter and dropped it onto the hall table.

The doorbell rang.

Leigh groaned.
What now?
Still, she forced herself to the door and opened it. It was Dane.

He stepped inside and stared at her. “What’s wrong? Did you get news about Mary Beth? Did she turn up at the morgue?”

Too much had happened that day. In that moment, Leigh ceased fighting her attraction to Dane. She walked up to him, flush
against his chest, resting her hands on his shoulders. “Hold me.”
Keep me together before I shatter.

Dane looked as if he wanted to say more. He gazed at the crumpled letter on the hall table. But after another glance at her,
he wrapped his arms around her and pressed her even closer to him. “Let it out.” His deep voice drifted over her, sifting
through her like soft, soothing powder. “Let it all out.”

She burst into tears, not gentle ones. Hurricane-force emotions swept through her.

Dane didn’t waste words. He held her and stroked her back, ran his fingers through her long hair, and murmured to her, words
she barely heard, didn’t even try to comprehend. The presence, the essence of Dane enfolded her, seeped into her—lush, comforting,
commanding.

Finally, she straightened, shaky, but oddly not embarrassed. She felt as though she’d just survived an earthquake of the heart.
Nothing would ever be the same. She would never be the same. She wiped her wet cheeks with her fingertips.

“Sorry I broke down like that,” she mumbled. Maybe Dane didn’t feel the same attraction to her. Certainly, he hadn’t experienced
the same catharsis she just had. So she pulled away and looked down.
But I can’t help or hide what just happened.

Dane halted her retreat. He slid a hand into the hair just above her nape. “Someone write you a Dear John letter?”

She looked up at him, wondering how he’d guessed so accurately. Her body overwhelmed her thought, calling, shouting for her
to go back into his arms.

He leaned close to her face. “I’ve tried to hold back, but do you know—” His breath fanned her mouth. “—how much I’ve wanted
to kiss you?”

She stared at him, too shocked to speak. The thought of kissing Dane reverberated inside of her.

“But I won’t. You’re just a kid—”

“I am not a kid,” she snapped, leaning forward.
Not after today.
She let her lips hover over his, daring him.

Then his mouth took possession of hers. His skilled, delicious assault swept away her resistance, and she clung to his shoulders.
“I shouldn’t be kissing you. Something in that letter has upset you,” he whispered as he nuzzled her ear. “And you’re vulnerable.
That’s why you’re kissing me.”

She turned her face and initiated their second kiss, forcing him into silence. He didn’t refuse her, but deepened their kiss,
drawing it out, lingering.

When his lips finally released hers, Leigh found it hard to draw breath. She stayed within his arms, feeling the full effect
of his kisses, his embrace undulating through her, melting her.

“I shouldn’t take advantage of you.” He fingered a lock of her golden hair. “What’s upset you?”

She shook her head and wouldn’t answer him. Thinking about Frank and Cherise together was like stepping out of an airplane.
Free falling.
Then why am I kissing Dane? Does anything make sense anymore?

He nudged her chin upward and gazed into her eyes. “This isn’t about Mary Beth. These aren’t that kind of tears.
Bad news about her wouldn’t force you into my arms. Who’s hurt you enough to make you seek consolation?”

She refused to answer. She pulled away, even though stepping out of his arms chilled her. Turning to the oval hall table,
she tugged a pale-pink tissue from the box there. “Why are you here?”

“I have to fly back to D.C. in a few hours.” His voice went back to normal. “I came to say good-bye and to warn you not to
get yourself into anything dangerous while I’m gone.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him, a grim look. “Why do you think I’d—”

“I know. I know.” He moved to grip her arms with both hands. “You’re Joan of Arc and you’re on a mission for God that doesn’t
permit concern for your own safety.” He pressed a soft kiss below her right ear.

“Don’t make fun of me.” Her back to him, she dried her cheeks with the soft tissue.

“I’m not. You can’t help it if you’re Joan of Arc.” He kissed her in the same spot behind the left ear. “She didn’t choose
to be God’s instrument—God chose her.”

She turned and faced him, feeling defiant. “Call me what you like. I can’t leave San Francisco until I feel like I’ve done
everything I can to find Mary Beth.”

“Well, that’s progress. Before it was, ‘I won’t leave until I’ve found Mary Beth.’ “ He lifted her chin with his forefinger.
“Whoever he is—he’s not worth this reaction. No man is. Let him go. I won’t offer you love, but I’ll take better care of you
than he evidently did.”

His words didn’t faze her. His touch did. Tingling wherever his skin grazed hers, she expected him to kiss her again, and
she teetered on the edge of decision. Did she want him to or not?

A kiss on her forehead, and without a word he left her there, shocked out of her pain, shocked at her deep response to him.
Sunlight and rainbows danced on the foyer walls. And McCaslin ancestors in their frames had watched and listened. Was she
already falling in love again? Could she be that stupid?

“No, Mother,” Leigh replied over the phone two days later, “I won’t be coming home soon. Aunt Kitty said I can stay with her
as long as I want, and I’m going to accept her invitation.”

“I don’t understand what you’re doing. I’m sorry that Mary Beth is still missing. I’m sorry her boyfriend was found dead,
but I fail to see why you must interrupt your senior year—”

“Mother,” Leigh cut in, “it’s too late for me to take classes anywhere this semester. Next semester I may enroll out here.
I don’t know.”

“Are you going to throw away the chance to have a college degree? I don’t understand you.”

At last, she admits it. “
Mother, I have plenty of time to finish. I’m just taking a semester off. It isn’t the end of the world. Just let it go, all
right?”

“I don’t think you should be a burden to Aunt Kitty. And I don’t think your stepfather and I should support you unless you’re
a full-time student.”

Whatever. “
I can get a job out here, then.”

Her mother made a sound of irritation, kind of like a tea kettle releasing steam. “Your little sister wants to talk to you.”

Dory’s soft voice came on the line. “Leigh, I miss you. If you aren’t in school, why can’t you come home?”