Between Friends (28 page)

Dallas hung her robe on the hook inside the closet door and leaned toward the bedroom door. “What man? Did you get his name?”

“He said you’ll know.”

Dallas sighed. She hated this. What was this with people who didn’t want to identify themselves? She sat down on the side of her bed and picked up the extension.

“I got it,” she called out again, and heard Megan hang up from the living room. “Hello?”

“Guess we can’t get together tonight.”

“Hello, Burke. You should have called sooner.”

“I called yesterday morning. You didn’t get back to me.”

“I was probably in a meeting with Peggy. Then I had an appointment I was running late for. I never checked my voice mail.”

“You didn’t check it in the afternoon, either.”

She tried to remember. “You’re right. I had to pick up Megan from Penn Station. She’s staying with me for the weekend.”

“See that? You can’t always blame me when we don’t talk,” he said self-righteously. “But I won’t hold it against you.”

“Thanks.”

“So you’re not available?”

“Megan goes home this afternoon. What do you have in mind?”

“Just to be with you,” Burke said disarmingly.

Dallas waited. Then she felt ashamed of herself. She expected so much from him, and then was suspicious of his offering. “That’s nice.”

“I was hoping to meet and catch a show at the Blue Note.”

One of his clients, Dallas guessed. “I can do that. Are we meeting for dinner first?”

“I can’t. I have to sit in on a taping at five. You have to get your godchild home, right?”

She shouldn’t complain, Dallas realized. He was trying. “That’s true.”

“Meet me at the club? It’ll save time, and the taping might run over.”

Dallas quietly hung up the phone. She sat and waited for the crash to start. That sensation in the middle of her body that made her feel as if she were shrinking and were going to disappear. That digging into her soul to let the air out because she wasn’t quite good enough and her feelings didn’t matter. Except for the first time she wasn’t sure they’d ever been together that it wasn’t about business. Sleeping with him was private. Maybe. Either Burke didn’t get it, or he didn’t really care.

“Aunt Dallas! Come here, quick!”

Dallas jumped. She got up and hurried to the living room, where Megan had been watching Sunday morning TV since waking up.

“Megan? What’s wrong?”

“Look!” Megan pointed at the screen.

Dallas was confused by what she saw. There was a table with what appeared to be broken items like bottles and jars, tools, what looked to be an old revolver, several pairs of glasses. A voice was talking about the things laid out, and another voice was asking questions. The TV camera pulled back, and the lens panned onto two men, one holding a hand mike, and the other, a big and husky man with the wind riffling through his light-colored hair, was dressed in some close black rubber outfit, describing and explaining everything. They were outdoors, and in the background was the blurred and out of focus shimmering of a body of water.

Dallas frowned. “What am I looking at?”

“I saw Alex. Look …”

The camera eventually pulled back even farther to include a third man. It was Alex, dressed in the same black garment. It was his turn to answer questions, and Dallas sat next to Megan. What became quickly obvious was that Alex and the other man were divers. The things spread out on the table in front of them had been retrieved from the rivers, inlets, bays, estuaries, and other coastal waters in and around New York.

“How did this project begin?” the commentator asked.

The first man began to answer.

“That’s Ross,” Megan announced.

“Who’s Ross?” Dallas asked.

“He’s Alex’s friend. He’s really nice.”

“… find a lot of stuff down there …”

“No bodies, I hope,” the interviewer joked, but the man didn’t find the question amusing and skirted answering directly.

“The rivers and ocean is a convenient place to dump a lot of things.”

Dallas turned to look at Megan, who was still attired in an oversized T-shirt that served as a nightgown. Her long wavy hair was loose and tucked behind her ears. “How did you meet Ross?”

“Alex comes to see me and Mom sometimes. One time he brought that other man. Ross. They’re best friends. Like you and Mom are best friends.”

Dallas stared at the screen again. Alex had been seeing Valerie. Somehow, she knew she shouldn’t be surprised. But she had a peculiar reaction to the news. She struggled for a moment to identify it and finally settled on a sense of loss. The TV camera panned back and forth between Alex and Ross as they answered questions. Alex was serious and thoughtful with his answers. He didn’t display the easy smoothness of Ross, whom he deferred to, but he spoke with a surprising knowledge and expertise of diving. What he and Ross had salvaged from the waters was like an archaeological treasure trove of urban life.

“Can we go and see them?”

“See them? Where?” Dallas asked.

“At the aquarium. All that stuff they found is on display. And Ross and Alex are going to be there to answer questions. Can we?”

“I … don’t know,” Dallas murmured, knowing, however, that she wanted very much to find out more about what Alex did. “Have you finished your homework? I thought you wanted to interview me for one of your classes.”

“I do. You answered all my questions. If I write it up real quick so you can see it, then can we go to see Alex and Ross?”

Dallas grimaced, finding herself more and more interested in what the three men were discussing on TV, but giving her attention to Megan. “We’ll see. First you have to make up the pullout bed in my studio. Then we have to have breakfast. You have to finish your school report … I have to finish my article …”

Megan got up abruptly from the sofa and ran out of the living room. “I can do that.”

“I didn’t make any promises, Meg,” Dallas called after her.

She then looked at the TV again. The interview ended, and after announcing that the special exhibit of river finds would continue at the aquarium through the end of the month, the male commentator turned the program back over to his studio.

Dallas got up and headed back to her bedroom. But she hesitated in the hall, and detoured instead to the second room that she’d converted into an office/studio cum guest room. She leaned in the doorway, watching Megan search through a pile of jumbled items of clothing in her weekend tote.

“You sure you want to spend the afternoon at the aquarium? I thought you wanted to have lunch at Planet Hollywood and go to a movie.”

Megan sat back on her haunches and looked momentarily indecisive. She had a hair scrunchy on her wrist, as if it were a bracelet. She swept back her hair from her face and adroitly pulled a gathered ponytail through the elastic hair ornament. Megan nodded but looked beguilingly at her godmother.

“Yeah, I’m sure. But can we still do Planet Hollywood the next time I come to visit?”

“Fine.” Dallas walked into her office and sat at her desk. She began to play with a novelty pencil, bent and shaped into an open heart, that someone had given her at a conference. “So, you really like Alex? Does he spend a lot of time with you and your mother?”

Megan thought about it and shrugged. “Um, not really. He’s only been over a few times. Once Mom cooked dinner, but the other times the three of us went out to eat.”

Dallas frowned at the pencil. She wasn’t sure she should ask any more questions. She felt peculiar wanting to know about the visits. “Sounds like it was fun.”

“It’s okay. I like Alex. He’s really nice. But he and my mom talk about stuff I don’t understand. It’s kinda boring.”

“Does … your mom like him a lot, too?” Dallas asked uncomfortably, aware that she was pumping her godchild for information.

“Oh, yeah. She spends a lot of time getting ready when he’s coming over.” Megan chortled knowingly.

Dallas nodded. Valerie had always taken the position that she never knew when a date might become more interesting. “You said that the other man, Ross, is Alex’s best friend?”

Megan sighed, finally stopped her pubescent toiletry, and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of Dallas. “Yeah. He’s really cool. He tells all these funny stories about when he and Alex were in the war.”

“What war?” Dallas interrupted in surprise.

Megan shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t remember. And he thinks Beavis and Butthead are stupid, too.” Her eyes brightened with excitement. “And he and Alex scuba dive! I think that would be really cool to do, but … I don’t even know how to swim.”

Dallas smiled affectionately at the little girl. “I think that’s kind of important,” she agreed. “So, you like Ross, too?”

Megan nodded enthusiastically. “He’s really neat.”

“Ross comes over when Alex is there?”

Megan scrunched up her face and tried to remember. “I think … only twice. I don’t think Mom likes him very much.”

“Why not?” Dallas asked.

Megan got up from the floor and began pulling on a pair of jeans. She became distracted halfway through by a scab on her elbow, which she proceeded to pick. “I don’t know. She said he was rude and too … oh … ar … auda-cious,” Megan struggled. She turned to frown at Dallas. “What does that mean?”

Dallas had a feeling it meant that Valerie couldn’t make him do what she wanted. “There’s a dictionary on my desk. Look it up,” Dallas told her goddaughter. Megan groaned. “What do you want for breakfast?”

“Can we have pancakes?”

“Okay,” Dallas said, leaving the office and heading back to her room. “But you’d better hurry up and get dressed if we’re going out to Coney Island. You still have to get back home tonight.”

Megan skipped over to Dallas, wrapping her arms around her. “Aunt Dallas …” she started in a crooning little girl voice.

“The answer is no. You can’t stay another night. You have school in the morning, and I have work.”

Megan didn’t pursue the inevitable, although she sighed deeply, a martyr to youth and lack of power.

But she continued to hug Dallas, walking with her to the other bedroom, and then releasing her to bounce down on the bed, sending her ponytail flying like a glorious silk rope.

“I really love being with you. I’m glad you’re my godmother.”

Dallas smiled to herself, enjoying the warm regard of the little girl, and feeling a poignant regret that she’d lost her own child. She was very careful to remember that Megan was not hers. And she didn’t know whether to be disturbed or pleased that the loss didn’t hurt as much anymore. She hadn’t been that far along in her pregnancy. Three months. She hadn’t begun to picture her child yet. A little boy or girl. Dallas remembered thinking she wanted a boy. But she would have wanted him to grow up to be like Hayden. He would be handsome and bright and funny, and combine the best of her father, Dean, and … and …

She caught her breath at an unexpected thought and image, and turned quickly away from it. It made her nervous. She smiled teasingly at Megan Marie. “All in all, you’re not so bad, either. I think I’ll keep you.”

Megan giggled.

“There they are …” Megan shouted, and took off toward the area set up outside the New York Aquarium for the advertised exhibit.

Dallas kept an eye on the twelve-year-old, watching as Megan Marie worked her way down the row of tables. She hung back, walking slowly, left with her godchild’s weekend tote. The exhibit was free for all to see, a promotional tease to encourage visitors to the indoor facility. But it was also to show a side of sea life that most people never think about. There were nearly a dozen tables and stands, tanks and canisters, displaying the unusual finds and treasures retrieved from the waterways around the city, along with the equipment used.

Dallas spotted Alex first. From a distance of about a hundred feet, she stopped and stared at him. She frowned at the strong sense of knowing this man. But what did she really know about him? Bits and pieces. Impressions. Nothing that was tangible or concrete. And yet … she
knew
this man.

She noticed Megan had finally reached another man. She saw the smiling surprise greeting he gave to Megan. He then turned to Alex and mouthed something, gaining Alex’s attention. Megan leaned across the table to kiss both men on the cheek. There was more exchange of conversation as Megan pointed in her direction, and Dallas watched as both men searched until they’d found her.

Ross cheerfully waved at her, as if he knew her. Dallas had to laugh. But Alex stared in surprise for a second, until a smile curved his mouth. He looked like he was glad to see her. In truth, Dallas acknowledged to herself, she felt the same way. He beckoned to her. Dallas approached the table, waiting patiently until a group of eager children had passed.

She noticed that Megan had ducked under the tables to stand next to the other man. Dallas frowned and held out her hand toward the child.

“Megan, don’t! You can’t …”

Alex reached for her hand. “It’s okay. This is pretty laid-back. A guy down at the end has his dog with him.” He squeezed her hand and tugged. “Come on. There’s another chair.”

Dallas shook her head and gently tried to free her hand. “No. I …”

Alex ignored her, shifting aside several large black nylon duffel bags to make room for her to step behind the table next to him. He pulled the chair out and indicated that she should sit down. Then Alex’s attention was diverted to another question, from a man and his son about an item on the table.

Dallas found herself listening to Alex’s answers and grew more and more impressed. Whatever Alex did for a living was not limited just to collecting garbage.

Alex said good-bye to the departing father and son and turned back to Dallas. He stuffed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. He squinted against the light salty breeze off the Atlantic Ocean, just off to the right of where the tables were set up. Alex let his gaze wander over Dallas. He had a sensation that she had changed, and realized it was because she was not in the company of Valerie or Lillian. He’d been thinking about her, ever since driving her home that night and meeting her brother.