When You Dance With The Devil (Dafina Contemporary Romance) (7 page)

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Authors: Gwynne Forster

BOOK: When You Dance With The Devil (Dafina Contemporary Romance)
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“Where were you yesterday at one o’ clock?” She didn’t have a car, so someone must have taken her somewhere, someone whose company she preferred to his. She gaped at him, and he knew he’d caught her off guard.
“Hi. I . . . I meant to call you, but—”
He cut her off. “I don’t care about that. Where were you? Miss Fannie couldn’t imagine your whereabouts.”
“Are you going to fall out with me about it?”
“Definitely not. That would be a further waste of my mental energy. See you around.” He dashed across M. L. King Jr. Avenue to Delaware Heights where he’d parked his car, got into it, and headed home. One woman was able to trick him because he was an idealist. If another one duped him, it would be proof that he was a fool. He was not a fool.
Chapter Three
 
Judd adjusted the pillow that separated him from the straw bottom of the white rocking chair on Fannie’s side porch, leaned back, and let the salty breeze sweep over him as he rocked. Richard didn’t think he had ever seen a man more at peace with all that was around him. He asked himself why Judd radiated contentment, while he himself was beset with agitation. Finding no answer, he put the question to Judd.
“Old people don’t expect anything of themselves, and nobody expects them to do anything but waste away. If one of us starts being useful, there’s hell to pay, and we’re accused of taking jobs from the young people who have families to support. Never mind that we have to eat, and nobody’s prepared to give us anything.” What was he supposed to say to that? He hadn’t given the matter any thought.
“Oh yes,” Judd went on. “You want to know why you can’t relax and live off your bank account. Well, it’s because people expect a man your age to work, and you think that way, too. Find something to do.”
“I want to do something worthwhile, and I don’t mean manual labor, either,” said Richard.
Judd rocked slowly as if to savor every minute of the rhythm he created. “I hope you don’t think I didn’t already know that. Richard: your pride was the first thing I saw when I looked at you. If you’d like, I’ll introduce you to the high school principal. He’ll give you something to do, and you’d be an inspiration to the students.”
Richard didn’t see himself volunteering at a high school, but it would probably beat the boredom he had to tolerate. “Why not? It might prove interesting.”
“Y’all want some sweetened ice tea?”
At the sound of Marilyn’s voice, Richard stifled a groan. “I try not to consume too much caffeine. I’ve had my quota. Thanks.”
“How about you, Judd? Next time, I’ll bring Richard some herbal tea. I blend great herbal teas.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” Judd said and accepted the glass of tea that Marilyn handed him.
Marilyn’s face lit up with a smile intended for Richard alone, and she left them, letting her left hand trail casually across Richard’s shoulder. As he had suspected, the woman was both aggressive and brazen in her pursuit of a man. In the past, when a woman expressed an interest in him, he had merely considered it his due and, if he liked what she offered, he took it with no thought of a lasting relationship. With that one heart-shattering exception. Judd’s laugh startled him.
“I won’t ask what you’re thinking,” Richard said to the man who was becoming his friend.
“You may as well have it out with her,” Judd said. “She’s gonna plague you till you either insult her or take her to bed and make a mess of it.”
“If I insult her, she’ll probably serve brains for supper every night for a week, and if I make love with her and louse it up, she’ll broadcast it and ruin my reputation. I’ll have to think about this.”
Judd turned his chair to face the ocean and the wind, settled back and eyed him with what Richard knew was compassion. “Try not to hurt her feelings. A little gentleness goes a long way with women. If you scorn a woman, you’ve made a life-long enemy.”
Richard hadn’t spent much time worrying about how women responded to him; he had usually gotten what he wanted with a smile, a few words of flattery, and a stroke here and there. And he never worried about the effect on a woman of his subsequent disinterest. When he left, he was gone.
“Tomorrow morning, I’ll take you to meet the principal. The school’s right across the park on State Street and Delaware.”
From his peripheral vision, he saw Marilyn approaching with what he was willing to swear was a glass of herbal tea. “I grow herbs in my own garden,” she told him. “This is mint, and there is not a bit of caffeine in it.”
A burglar caught climbing out of a window wouldn’t have been more afraid of captivity than he was at that moment. “I was just leaving,” Richard told her, realizing that the words didn’t make sense. What he wanted to do was pitch the glass across the lawn.
She glanced at him from the corner of her eye and bathed her bottom lip with her tongue. “You have a minute for this, don’t you?” she asked him. “Anything I give you will make you feel good.”
“I’m not going to test that.” He thought he’d said it under his breath, but the expression on her face told him that she heard it. “Did you hear what I said to her?” he asked Judd after Marilyn left.
“Of course I did. You don’t think you whispered it, do you? But you needn’t worry; that wasn’t strong enough to make her back off. Truth is, I’ve never known her to change course.”
 
 
Jolene had alienated Gregory, so now she had neither a particular focus nor a friend with whom to spend her time. “So what?” Jolene said to herself, as she thought about it. It was no skin off her teeth if he’d decided to ignore her. She spent her time wandering along the beach, which, she had discovered, held many facets. She walked in the town park, and when she didn’t feel up to pretending she was happy being alone, she stayed in her room.
If only one of the six entrepreneurs to whom she had applied for a job would telephone her! That morning, after sitting beside the swimming pool for an hour, afraid to jump into it, she despaired, put her long blue skirt over her bathing suit and headed home. As she stepped up on the porch, she collided with Richard.
“Sorry,” he said. “I was sitting around there on the shady side with Judd. I hope I didn’t hurt you. Are you all right?”
She refused his help, picked herself up and walked around him toward the front door, but he grasped her arm, startling her.
“I said, are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Mr. Peterson. Would you please let go of my arm?”
He reminded her of a red-combed cock with his plumes raised and ready for a fight. “Yes, indeed,” he hissed. “Bubbling with friendliness, aren’t you? I’d like to know what you’re trying to prove.”
She slapped both hands on her hips—something mama said a woman shouldn’t do—and glared at him. “I could ask you the same question. You’re not the only peacock in the yard. Excuse me.”
She dashed up the stairs to dress and got the twelve-thirty bus to Salisbury for her appointment with the hairdresser. “You’re right on time, as usual,” the hairdresser exclaimed when Jolene walked in. “Have a seat, and I’ll be with you in ten minutes.” Knowing that the ten minutes might stretch into forty-five, Jolene sat down and slumped in the chair. She could just as well have gotten the one o’clock bus.
“Did you see in
The Maryland Journal
today where Callie Smith got married last Saturday?” one woman asked another.
“Did I ever! Can you beat that? We all thought poor Callie was gonna die an old maid.”
“Well, not quite,” another woman chimed in. “Callie ain’t been no maid in thirty-five years. How old you think Callie is? Fifty?”
“Pretty close to it,” Mabel, the hairdresser, said. “And she can wear the hem of her skirts up to her behind and get that weave with the hair hanging down her back, but when she gets in bed with that man, he gon’ know the difference between twenty-five and fifty.”
“You telling me?” the woman holding the newspaper said.
“He already know the difference,” another said, “but I guess it didn’t bother him none. He married her.”
“What he look like?” one asked
“Well, from this picture, he ain’t no Prince Charming, and he sure could use some hair. Course, hair ain’t what makes it swing it the sack.”
“You telling me?”
With her head half-bowed, Jolene’s gaze scanned the room. Every woman there, except her, had an opinion about Callie Smith, whoever she was. She walked over to the magazine rack, not for something to read—she seldom read anything—but for a means of appearing engrossed in something other than the conversation. Her eyes nearly doubled in size at the sight of a book, the cover of which showed a nearly nude blonde in the arms of a swashbuckling pirate. She glanced around, saw that no one looked her way, picked up the book and went back to her chair.
With no interest in reading the book, she skimmed the first few pages without knowing what she saw. “Good Lord!” she breathed and nearly sprang from her chair when her gaze captured a description of a lovers’ kiss with the man’s tongue deep in the woman’s mouth. She slammed the book face down on the chair next to her. But when she realized that none of the women paid her any attention, she picked up the book, made a note of its author and title and replaced it on the chair face down.
“How far is the nearest bookstore?” She asked Mabel as she was about to leave the beauty parlor.
“Walk down to Easter Street, turn left, cross two streets, and it’s in that block.”
Jolene thanked her and hurried to the bookstore. “You have this book?” she asked a clerk, and was assured that the store carried that and several other books by that author. Jolene left the store with seven romance novels by an author known for her sizzling sex scenes.
“It’s a good thing you’re getting off at the end of the line,” the bus driver said to Jolene, “otherwise you’d have missed your stop.” She got off the bus, her face afire, thanks to her newly acquired knowledge of what goes on between a man and a woman. She rushed up the stairs to her room, closed the door and, without opening a window or turning on the air conditioning to temper the ninety-eight-degree heat, Jolene flopped down in a chair with the book she’d been reading on the bus. By the time Fannie banged on Jolene’s door to remind her that she was late for supper, Jolene was well on the way to acquiring a sexual education.
For the first time, she took an interest in her supper companions, wondering if they did or had done the things she had been reading about. Somehow she didn’t think Louvenia’s pursed and wrinkled lips belonged to a woman who had frolicked in bed with a man, but Barbara Sanders, who clerked at the local movie house and whose skirt hems brushed her knees, was definitely suspect. Did Percy Lucas, a truck driver about fifty-five years old or so, wear his pants tight and walk with a swagger because he could make women scream in bed? And was that the reason why Ronald Barnes, the fishnet maker, always winked at her? Was he telling her something?”
She finished her dessert as quickly as she could, though she barely tasted it, said good-night and rushed back up to her room and to her reading. As she opened the book, furor blazed up in her. Emma Tilman hadn’t told her one thing about sex, only ranted against men, turning her daughter into a eunuchoid, a sexually deficient woman. A woman without even the urge to have sex, who didn’t know what it was or what it was supposed to mean.
“You must have wanted it at least once,” she said aloud as if her mother were there with her, “or you wouldn’t have had me. I’m entitled, and I’m not passing up anything that’s supposed to be this great.”
 
 
At nine-thirty the next morning, Richard walked with Judd up the steps of Pike Hill High School. “You sure we aren’t too early?” he asked Judd.
“I was a businessman for over fifty years, and I know that when I want to see somebody important, I should make an appointment.”
If he had paid attention to Judd’s navy blue suit, white shirt and red tie, he’d have spared himself that reprimand. “I stand corrected, sir,” he said.
“And well you should.”
They passed security and were escorted to the office of the assistant principal, who informed them that the principal was in Annapolis at a meeting. “It’s good to see you, Mr. Walker,” she said. “I was planning to call you about taking some of our honor students on another expedition next fall. I think the last one you offered was our most popular project ever.”
“Thank you, Ms. Marin. Mr. Peterson here is a citizen of the world, used to be an ambassador and executive director of an important nongovernmental organization and all that. He’s looking for something to keep him busy, and I told him that you could use a volunteer of his class.”
She didn’t look him in the eye, and when he let her know that he appreciated her good looks, the blood heated her face. His antenna shot up.
Better not get on the wrong side of this woman
, his inner sense warned.
Quickly, Richard cloaked himself in his most professional demeanor, banishing the womanizer he’d once been and leaving her to wonder if she had imagined his signal. “I’d be happy to run a career guidance clinic for you, or to give your seniors a series of workshops on international relations as a possible career. However you think I could best be of help.”
She followed his lead, and if she reacted to him, she hid it. “Would it be an imposition to ask if you would do both?”
“None whatever. I’m glad to help.”
Her aplomb apparently restored, she leaned back in her chair, signaling that she was in command of the meeting. “It’s too late for career guidance this year, because school closes in a couple of weeks, but we could schedule the clinic for the beginning of the next term. We’ve needed this from someone who knows what isn’t in the textbooks, who has experienced success in his chosen field, and knows what kind of information our children need. Mr. Walker, you can’t know what a favor you’ve done us by introducing us to Mr. Peterson.”

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