Unexpected Dismounts (12 page)

I could have sworn Ms. Willa’s hair stood completely on end.

“Mercedes is a former prostitute and recovering drug addict. How long have you been clean, Merce?”

“One hundred and twenty-five days.”

“She’s the Big Sister in our House,” I said, “which means she’s responsible for supervising two other women who are on the same journey.”

Ms. Willa sipped.

“She’s learning job skills,” I said. “She is a contributing member of society.”

“Huh. Oh, no, Bruce, we’re not ready for our entrée.”

Bruce backed away with the tray of turkey croquettes, directly into a man approaching our table. It would have been comical, if the man hadn’t been Troy Irwin.

There was no mistaking him. The studied business-casual way he dressed, his hair obviously mussed by a stylist on a daily basis, and never any grayer in one newspaper photo than in the one before it. But his facial expression seemed different today. This wasn’t his typical,
I
don’t need your admiration, but I appreciate it anyway.
The whimsy around his mouth, the amusement in his too-blue eyes clearly said,
This is going to be too easy.

My insides lurched so hard, I was certain I’d throw up in the salad greens. The prayers kicked in with the stomach acid.
Please, God, don’t let me rip his tongue out right here. Please.

“It is good to see
you
out and about,” he schmoozed to Ms. Willa.

“Why wouldn’t I be out and about?” she said. “I’m not an invalid.”

“Exactly the opposite. I was about to ask you to dance.”

“There’s no music.” She waved him off and licked her lips as if she’d just tasted the croquettes and found them wanting. The sour look she gave me the first time I met her? Multiply that by about fifty and you had the expression Ms. Willa now wore. Interesting. That might keep me under control for a minute, anyway.

And I had Mercedes with me. To my knowledge she had no idea who Troy Irwin was, and I wanted to keep it that way. As it was, she was surveying him the way she did every newcomer: eyes astute, jaw clenched. And India thought
I
had trust issues.

“I didn’t realize you knew Allison Chamberlain,” Troy said to Ms. Willa, his gaze still on me. “I can’t imagine how your paths would’ve crossed.” He feigned an epiphany. “Wait, she’s hitting you up for a donation, isn’t she?”

I started to come up out of the chair, but Ms. Willa beat me to it. She didn’t stand up, but she did put one of her gnarly hands right in his face.

“She wasn’t hitting me up for anything, whatever that means. I was offering. Matter of fact, hand me my purse, Mercy. I’m going to get my checkbook out right now.”

I wondered vaguely if she was also packing heat in there. Her terrier voice was reaching a pitch only other terriers could hear, and once again, heads turned in the dining room. Mercedes handed over her purse, and Ms. Willa began to claw through it, hands shaking furiously. I was too astonished to move.

“One thing you should know,” Troy went on, as if he hadn’t just been swatted away like a mosquito. “Allison is very picky about who she accepts money from. You probably don’t know this, or maybe you do: She and I were childhood sweethearts.”

Ms. Willa stopped pawing in her bag and shot me a look. “I hope you came to your senses.”

Troy didn’t give me a chance to answer. “I’ve tried every way I know to help her with her little program, and she just cannot seem to let the past go and accept what I have to offer.”

I couldn’t have spoken if he’d let me. My mouth was paralyzed in a furious
O.

“Now, she does have passion for the things she believes in, I know that from experience.”

He winked at Ms. Willa, who recoiled as if he’d spat venom at her. Only that kept me from spitting some myself.

“And she’s stubborn as a pit bull, which could work in her favor. But, and here’s where you’re going to have to do some serious thinking: She didn’t stay around her father long enough to learn lessons in reality. Not like I did.” He nodded at the leather checkbook Ms. Willa now had clutched in her claws. “So you go on and write a check. I don’t blame you. I’ve always had trouble resisting her myself. But I just thought I’d give you a heads-up …”

He reached past Ms. Willa, and before I could wrench myself away, he cupped his hand around my shoulder. His fingers sent a chill through my skin. I delivered what I knew was a death stare at his knuckles, but he squeezed tighter.

“Remove your hand, please,” I said.

“You see,” he said to Ms. Willa, “I told you she was—”

“I think you better get your hands off Miss Angel right now.”

Mercedes’s chair scraped the floor and fell backward behind her. Her eyes flashed as she curved toward Troy like a condor.

“It’s okay, Mercedes,” I said.

“No it ain’t! You said to get off you, and he still holdin’ on. You turn loose of her now!”

“Ah, now here’s a program that’s obviously working,” Troy said, smirking at Ms. Willa.

And then he made the fatal mistake. He tossed his head back and laughed, hard and cold and loud.

I had to throw my arms around Mercedes to keep her from diving across the table and taking him down. It was all I could do not to let her go for it.

“He isn’t worth it,” I said into her ear. My teeth were gritted so hard, pain shot through my ears. “Don’t throw it all away for this piece of slime.”

“He was dissin’ you, Miss Angel,” she cried out, turning heads in the restaurant across the street, I was sure. “I can’t have that.”

Troy was still laughing in short, harsh bursts.

“Get away from me,” I said over the top of Mercedes’s head.

“Or?” he said.

Again, I didn’t have an opportunity to answer. Below us, Ms. Willa’s eyes popped from her tiny face, and she wheezed into a fit of coughing that brought not only Bruce but the entire serving staff.

I flattened myself between Mercedes and Troy and tried to reach for the old lady at the same time.

“Call nine-one-one!” I said.

Ms. Willa glared at me and shook her head and continued to wheeze herself blue. Troy formed a synthetic smile.

“She has the same effect on me,” he said to her.

Mercedes tried to lunge at him again. This time he had the good sense to turn and weave his way through the small crowd that had gathered, but I was still hard put to keep her from leaping tabletop to tabletop to bring him to justice.

“Let’s just get outside,” I said. I sounded like I was coaching a losing basketball team. “Just maintain until we get outside.”

I checked with Bruce once more to make sure Ms. Willa wasn’t about to expire before I tucked Mercedes’s arm into mine and steered us both toward the front door amid faces that ranged from outraged to delighted to be rescued from boredom. I didn’t know whether to pray that we wouldn’t run into Troy Irwin outside or that we would.

Mercedes was starting to breathe like something smaller than a locomotive by the time we reached the maître d’s stand. And then someone—I couldn’t even tell if it was male or female—stepped out of the darkness and flashed a camera in our faces. Mercedes flung out a hand to grab it, and only by the grace of God and adrenaline was I able to shove her out the door before she could commit assault and battery.

Once outside, she ripped away from me and flattened against the wall beside the glass doors. I peeled her away and guided her a few yards down. I didn’t want the doorman to have the stroke he seemed to be leaning toward. I already had Ms. Willa’s asthma attack on my head.

No. It was on Troy Irwin’s head. The man was a jackal. The hate I told Hank I wasn’t supposed to feel was burning a hole through my soul.

“Okay, I just got to breathe, Miss Angel,” Mercedes said. “I’m sorry. I done messed things up bad. I know I did.”

“It’s all right,” I said. “You just did what I wanted to do.”

“I couldn’t stand seein’ that—”

She swore, and then punched her hand to her mouth.

“I give that up,” she said. “I done give that up for the Lent, and here I am cussin’ right out here on the street.”

“Not only did you do what I wanted to do, you said what I wanted to say.” I put my hands on her shoulders. “What do you need, Mercedes? How can I help?”

“I think I need to talk to Leighanne. She always be able to talk me down.”

That was what NA sponsors were for, and I was glad to let Leighanne take over. I was in need of a sponsor myself about then.

“You take my cell phone,” I said. “Her number’s in there. Go into the gallery, see? Just next door? Go in there and call her and if she wants to come get you, that’s fine.”

The hand that took my cell was trembling. It looked the way I felt in the pit of my gut.

When she’d slipped into the art gallery, I turned back toward the restaurant, fully intending to find the person with the camera and take all my frustrations out on him. I almost plowed into a twenty-something guy wearing a necktie and a Bluetooth.

I tried to maneuver around him and tripped over something, probably my own feet. He steadied me with both hands, not something I’d have expected from a kid in his generation.

“You okay?” he said.

“I’m fine,” I said.

“I don’t see how you could be. That was a pretty hinky scene in there.”

I narrowed my eyes until he was a mere blur in my gaze. “Are you a reporter? Was that you who just stuck a camera in my face?”

“No, see, I’m unarmed.” He opened his jacket and smiled a rather charming smile at me. “Actually, I’m an attorney. My name’s Kade Capelli.”

The kid sure wasn’t Italian. New England, definitely, judging from the accent. I’d worked in Massachusetts as a taxicab dispatcher for a while in my own twenties, and I could pick up those wide vowels from a hundred yards. But he must have taken after his mother because he was fair-skinned and sandy blond and had blue eyes that were still youth clear. No self-respecting full-blooded Italian looked like a California surfer.

“Capelli?” I said. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.” He produced a business card from his shirt pocket. There it was all right:
Kade Capelli, Attorney at Law
, followed by a phone number with an 857 area code.

“Nice to meet you,” I said. “Now I really need to go.”

“And you are?”

“Allison,” I said, and made the decision to get Chief started on legally changing my last name. It was becoming a worse liability than a rap sheet.

“Listen, I couldn’t help overhearing what went down in there.” Kade gave a soft shrug. “Who could?”

“Nice.”

“It looks like you might need some legal representation.”

“Are you an ambulance chaser?” I said.

The shiny face fell, and I was immediately sorry. He seemed like a nice enough kid. It wasn’t his fault he’d caught me post–Troy Irwin.

“Sorry,” I said. “This hasn’t been my best day.”

“No doubt.”

“I already have a lawyer, and you’re right. I’m probably going to need him.”

“Okay, well, just thought I’d offer.”

He stuck out an eager hand for me to shake and I took it. I expected a sweaty palm, but his skin was cool and dry. Somehow that impressed me.

“So, you still have a Massachusetts area code,” I said. “You’re obviously new in town.”

“Been here about a week.” His consonants were hard and heavy, not matching the boyish grin at all.

“If you’re looking for work, I know an attorney who might be hiring a paralegal. Could be good for starters. It can be hard to break into a small town like this.”

“Tell me about it.”

“If you have a pen.”

I took the slim ballpoint he handed me and wrote Chief’s name and number on the back of his card. I wasn’t sure why I was doing it, except that he seemed so—what? So free of the stuff that everybody else I’d had contact with today was trying to operate under? Was that it?

“I really appreciate this,” he said.

“I hope it helps,” I said. “I’ll call Chief, Mr. Ellington, and let him know to possibly expect a call from you.”

“I’ll definitely be in touch with him, yeah. And good luck with …” He nodded his blond head toward the restaurant.

“I don’t believe in luck,” I said. “But thanks.”

He looked like he was about to ask something. I might even have answered, but Mercedes reappeared and handed me my phone. It was ringing. I mouthed an apology to Kade and picked up.

“Allison?” a female voice said.

“Yes, is this—”

“Yeah, it’s Erin O’Hare.”

I forgot Kade Capelli, Willa Livengood, even Troy Irwin. “What’s wrong?” I said. “Is Desmond okay?”

“I‘m not sure, actually,” she said. “He’s fine physically. He doesn’t even know I’m calling you.”

“Why are you?” I didn’t mean to sound testy, but really, I was coming to the end of today’s rope.

“I thought he was studying for today’s test.”

“He was. We went over the material last night. He knew it all cold.” I didn’t mention that I hadn’t had time to take him on the historical tour we’d talked about. I was already feeling guilty enough and I didn’t even know where the conversation was going.

“Something happened, then, because he got to class late, and he was in one of those places again, like I told you about. Very distracted and anxious. I gave him a minute before I started him on the test, but he just sat there and stared at it all period. When he turned it in, he hadn’t even written his name on the paper.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I. I kept him after class and asked him about it, but all he said was … Here, I wrote it down.” I heard the rustle of paper. “He said, ‘History don’t mean nothin’ anyway. It’s all about now and tomorrow. That’s all.’” The paper crackled again. “Does that mean anything to you?”

“Not at the moment,” I said. “But I’ll talk to him.”

“I hope you can, because, really? I’ve never seen him like this. It’s like he’s completely shut down.”

Right now, that sounded like a decent option.

CHAPTER SIX

God apparently had other plans because I didn’t shut down. My angst and fear were so large and close, I’d have had better luck dodging a team of bouncers down at Scarlett O’Hara’s.

It didn’t seem that Desmond had closed down either. At least that was what he tried to make me believe when I picked him up after school. He was wearing the curled-lip expression of disdain he always put on when I showed up with the van.

“Why we got to ride in this tired ol’ thing?” he said as he climbed in.

“Because I haven’t had a chance to get the si—the backrest fixed on the bike.”

“I don’t need no stinkin’ bar. I know how to hold on.”

“Forget it. I don’t want to have to buy one of those T-shirts.”

“What T-shirts?”

“The ones that say, ‘If you can read this, the kid fell off.’”

Desmond’s eyes went into slits. “They don’t make no T-shirt like that, Big Al.”

“Then I guess you don’t ride with me until I get it fixed.”

“When’s that gonna be?”

It occurred to me to say,
When
you tell me what’s going on with you
. But something about the exaggeration in every mouth twist and eyebrow lift cautioned me to hold back. The Adam’s apple action alone was enough to make me hold my tongue, at least for now. The discussion we had ahead of us seemed like something Chief should be involved in. I pulled out of the school driveway and drummed my fingers on the steering wheel.

“You ain’t gon’ ask me about the history test?” Desmond said.

I almost ran the van over the curb.

“You drive the bike way better’n you drive this,” he said.

“Okay,” I said. “How did the test go?”

“It didn’t.”

“What does that mean?” I felt a little bad pretending I didn’t already know, but if he was going to lie, we might have to have the discussion right here.

“Means I froze up.” He squirmed in the seat belt to face me. “It came on me when I was havin’ lunch, like this ice ball just hit me in the face and froze my brain. I had to go in the bathroom and try to thaw out.”

He waited, eyebrows expectant.

“Very poetic,” I said. “So then what happened?”

“I got to the class late and I thought Miss All-Hair wasn’t gon’ let me take the test, but then she did.”

So far his story matched hers, but for some reason it sounded like a well-constructed alibi. It was probably the relative correctness of the grammar.

“Give me more,” I said.

“I guess I didn’t thaw out enough ’cause when I looked at that paper, my brain cells was like ice cubes in there, you know what I’m sayin’?”

I hadn’t had that exact experience, but I nodded.

“And then all the sudden, the bell was ringin’ and I hadn’t written nothin’ down. I probably flunked it.”

“Uh, probably. And what did Miss O’Hare say?”

He paused for the first time. I could almost hear him flipping through his options like he was about to perform a card trick.

“I tol’ her, I said, ‘Miss All-Hair, history don’t mean nothin’ anyway. It’s all ’bout now and maybe tomorrow. That’s what I care about.’”

It was so close to what Erin quoted to me, I glanced over to see if he, too, had written it down.

“Is that what you really think?” I said.

He didn’t even hesitate. “That’s what I thought right then ’cause I felt like some kinda loser. But now that I had time to melt them ice cubes in there”—he tapped his bushy cap of hair—“I’m thinkin’ I better ask for some extra credit.”

“Or we can ask Miss O’Hare if you can retake the test. Only …”

“Only what?” Desmond scrunched up his eyes. “Aw, Big Al, you ain’t gon’ take away my Harley privilege ’cause I froze up. I couldn’t help that, now.”

“Relax. I wasn’t even thinking that.”

He didn’t relax, not with his knees rocking the way they were. Yeah, that whole story had taken him most of the afternoon to create.

“I’m thinking we need to find out
why
you froze up,” I said.

“I just did.”

“So what’s to prevent it from happening when you take the test over?”

Everything on him stopped moving. I pulled the van up to the garage and took my time turning off the engine. He still sat motionless.

“I don’t expect you to know the answer to that,” I said. “It’s my job to help you find out. That’s why I’m the mother.”

His eyes finally moved to look out the side window. The Adam’s apple, too, was once again fully operational. He was going to learn to hate that telltale thing.

“I think Miss O’Hare is right,” I said. “She told me that day at the art show that you need to experience some of the history and maybe it’ll stick with you better.”

“How I’m s’posed to do that?” he said to the window.

“Tomorrow, right after school, you and I are going on a personally guided tour of all the old stuff in town.”

He turned just enough to slit his eyes toward me. “We ain’t takin’ one of them trolley things, are we? I heard them guys on them intercoms they got, tryin’ to make jokes. Big Al, they ain’t even funny.”

“Do you seriously think I would subject you to that? I’m your personal tour guide, Clarence. You’ve forgotten that I used to drive a carriage and show people the sights?” I wiggled my eyebrows. “I
know the good stuff they don’t tell you in the history books.”

“That good stuff gon’ be on the test?”

He had me there, but his eyes showed enough of the faint glimmer of his infuriating self to make me grin at him.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But at least you won’t be bored.”

“Can we go on the Harley?”

“Are you serious? Desmond, we live right in the middle of all of it. No, we’re not going on the Harley. We’re going to walk.”

He surveyed the windshield for a moment. He was obviously questioning the wisdom of pushing that further because he looked at me and gave a long-suffering sigh.

“I guess thatta be a’ight,” he said.

He got out of the van. As I watched him pull up the garage door that was so old it didn’t have an automatic opener, I knew I’d won that round too easily. Way too easily.

The next morning I was trying once again to cull something, anything, from Isaiah or Jeremiah or Joel—anybody with prophetic credentials—when I got a call from Bonner.

“Have you seen today’s paper?” he said.

The clip in his words made me set my tea down on the bistro table.

“Do I want to?” I said.

“What in the world happened at the 95 yesterday?”

“That made the
paper?”

“Front page of the
Record.”

“Are we hard up for news around here?”

“You going to tell me what went down, or should I believe what I read?”

“What’s their rendition?”

I could almost see him propping his reading glasses on his nose. “This is what’s under the photo.”

“The
photo!”

My voice went so high I sounded like Ms. Willa.

“‘Former heiress Allison Chamberlain leaving the 95 Cordova after an altercation with Troy Irwin, CEO of Chamberlain Enterprises.’” Bonner cleared that hairball he always seemed to have in his throat at times like this. “Didn’t you promise Chief you weren’t going to confront Irwin?”

“I didn’t confront him. He just showed up at the restaurant when I was having lunch with Ms. Willa, which, if you’ll recall, all of you practically forced me to do.”

“She made the news too. Here it is, ‘Mrs. Willa Livengood, widow of the late Quincy Livengood, was treated by paramedics at the scene but refused to be taken to the hospital. Witnesses say she’—and I quote—‘was so upset by the confrontation between Chamberlain and Irwin she was unable to breathe and nearly lost consciousness.’”

“She didn’t ‘nearly lose’ anything,” I said. “Except maybe her lunch. What about Troy Irwin
doesn’t
make people want to hurl? Bonner, why did you even tell me about this? That article is so skewed, I don’t even know where to start straightening it out.”

“How about here? ‘Chamberlain was accompanied by an African American woman who allegedly threatened Troy Irwin, claiming he assaulted Chamberlain.’”

“Oh, for Pete’s
sake!”

“Is any of that true?” Bonner said.

“No.” I put my fingers to my right temple, which was already throbbing. “Okay, Mercedes—”

“You took Mercedes with you?”

“Are you going to let me finish or what?”

“Sorry.”

“Troy put his hand on my shoulder and I told him to let go and he, of course, didn’t, so Mercedes made it a little clearer.”

“How much clearer?”

I told him the story, as much as I could remember it. Right now it was hard to differentiate between the facts and the turmoil taking shape in my chest. I longed for Desmond’s talent for turning every disaster into a stand-up routine.

I managed to come up with, “You said we needed publicity.”

“Not this kind!”

“What do you want me to do about it, Bonner? Tell me and I’ll do it. Maybe.”

There was a short silence, during which I was certain he was rolling up the sleeves of his Oxford shirt.

“I don’t know,” he said finally. “Maybe I’ll write a letter to the editor that sets the story straight.”

“Do you actually think the
Record
is going to print it? Doesn’t Troy Irwin own it, too?”

“Not officially. Just politically.”

“Then don’t waste your time,” I said. “Let’s just leave this one to God. The more we fiddle with it, the worse we’re going to make it.”

He let out a long sigh that sounded strangely like relief.

“What?” I said.

“I’m just glad to hear you putting this in God’s hands again. I mean, I know you probably always do, but the rest of us like to hear it.”

“How long has it been since I’ve mentioned it?” I said.

The hairball was still giving him trouble. “A couple of weeks? Maybe I’m wrong. It could just be my insecurity.”

“What insecurity?”

He grunted softly. “How much time you got?”

He sounded genuinely wistful. Bonner and I used to spend a lot of time together. Our friendship was actually stronger, more honest now than it was back when he thought of me as dating material. But the opportunities to just share an order of fried shrimp at the Santa Maria and talk about our “stuff” were practically nonexistent, now that our focus was on the Sisters.

I closed the Bible and picked up my tea mug for a sip.

“You’re not wrong,” I said. “I’m not talking about God as much because I don’t think I’m hearing from God as much. Not like I was for a while. I just keep getting this one—I guess you could call it a message.”

“One of your Nudges?” he said.

“No. I mean it’s like a Nudge, but I can feel it inside, too. Sort of like you feel nauseous when you eat bad crab.”

“I’d question whether that was God too.”

He didn’t ask me what the message was, which suddenly made me want to tell him. He was the first person I’d confided in about God’s command that I go buy a Harley, and although he’d been dubious then, here he was, giving me his trust and his time and his ear.

“All I keep hearing is,
Allison, wash their feet
.” I said. “I know it has to be a metaphor, which is why we’re doing the Feast and all of us are serving instead of asking to
be
served.”

“So it’s our potential donors’ feet that we’re washing,” he said.

There was so little disbelief in his voice, I would have hugged him if he hadn’t been across town.

“That’s what I’m getting,” I said. “What do you think?”

“I think you better have the buckets ready.”

“It’s not meant to be taken literally.”

“Oh,” Bonner said. “Well, you’re the prophet.”

Yeah. That’s what they kept telling me.

Desmond and I set off on foot down St. George Street after school that day. I had a cheat sheet tucked into the pocket of my denim jacket in case I suffered a memory lapse. Keeping him from sidetracking me into gift shops and eating establishments was going to take my total concentration.