Between Friends (4 page)

“Because they don’t like black folks, that’s why.”

She hadn’t understood what that meant when she was six years old. She didn’t realize she was black until then.

The next year when she was seven was the first time she’d met any of the Marco family. It happened because of the mail. Several pieces addressed to Vincent C. Marco had been mistakenly delivered to their house. Coming home from school one afternoon, she’d been informed by her stepmother, Eleanor, that she had to take the mail back to the Marco house.

“Me?” she squeaked, her eyes huge and round.

“Yes. Just put it in their mailbox in front of the house. Then come on back,” Eleanor instructed her.

“But I’m scared of them,” Dallas whined.

Eleanor was a little impatient. “You walk past that house every day on the way to school. Those people are not going to do a thing to you. You’re a child.”

Dallas was not reassured. She wanted to ask Eleanor why she couldn’t go instead. What if she went over there and never came back?

“Can Dean come with me?”

“No, he can’t. I don’t have time to get him dressed to go outside. I want you to go straight there and come straight back.”

Dallas hoped that if she dallied long enough, Eleanor would get impatient and decide to go herself. But instead, Dallas was given a gentle push through the open door, and it was closed behind her. On the two-block walk to the Marco house, she wondered if she could throw the mail into the front yard and run. Could she leave it with someone next door? She even thought of just throwing the mail in the trash. Who would know? But then she was standing in front of the house.

It was a large ranch made with red brick. It had white accents and moldings and double wide front doors. There was an ornate black wrought-iron fencing neatly enclosing the property. There was a white statue of a kneeling lady on the front lawn. Dallas stared at it, wondering if it was supposed to be Mrs. Marco. She walked up to the fence and peered over the top at the still figure. There was a small cap of snow on the top of its head and shoulders.

“Hey! Whatta you want? Who are you?”

Dallas jumped so violently at the voice behind her that she bumped her chin on the top of the fence. The mail fell from her hands to the slushy snow at her feet. She turned to face a boy. A big boy. She pressed her back against the fence.

“Who are you?” he demanded again.

“Dallas Oliver,” she said softly, her heart pounding in fright.

“Dallas Oliver?” he repeated as if she were lying. “That black family? You one of them?”

Dallas stared at him, wondering what she had done wrong. She nodded.

He looked closely at her face, doubt and confusion passing fleetingly over his pale features. And then the full power of his age gathered force within him. His mouth curled derisively.

“Nigger …” he muttered. “This is my house. What the fuck do you want?”

More than anything else, Dallas remembered what he’d called her. She couldn’t even think how to answer because she was just hearing that word hurled at her and she felt as if she’d just been punched in the chest. It sunk in and gripped her heart and tried to squeeze the life out of her. It was the first time Dallas had ever come face-to-face with someone who disliked her on sight. For no reason.

She retrieved the soiled and wet mail and held it out to him. “Here,” she said in a small voice.

He continued to look at her calmly, perhaps waiting for her reaction to his words. But Dallas just stared back, trying to decide what she would do if he hit her or called her more names. Then a door opened behind her.

“Nicky? What’s going on? Who is that child?”

The boy looked beyond her, and Dallas turned her head as well. Half of the double front doors to the brick house was open, and a lady stood squinting out at them. Nicky walked past Dallas and through the gate.

“One of those black kids. She had our mail …”

Dallas watched as the woman said something admonishing to the boy. He swept past her into the house.

When the woman turned her attention to her, Dallas froze, expecting more terrible things to be said to her. But the woman smiled. She stretched out her hand and beckoned.

“Come here, will you?”

Dallas didn’t move. She imagined that she was going to be dragged inside and something awful would happen to her. She kept her eyes on the woman but began to walk along the fence, back in the direction of home. The woman stepped out of the door. She laughed lightly.

“It’s all right, child. I’m not going to hurt you. I want you to take something home with you. To your parents.”

Dallas stopped, considering the quiet and pleasant voice and words. Cautiously she approached the gate. She took a hesitant step through the opening and stopped again. The woman waved her hand furiously.

“Hurry! It’s cold out here.” She turned and walked into the house, but left the door open.

Curiosity propelled Dallas forward. The woman had told her not to be afraid. She was inviting her into what had previously been a mystery. It made Dallas feel special.

When she reached the door, the woman had returned. Close up Dallas realized that she wasn’t very tall. And she didn’t look very old. Her hair was a dark blond, pulled back into a bun, and made her skin look very white. The woman reminded her of someone. Her smile and pale skin. The kindness in her eyes. She smiled again and held out a stack of papers to Dallas.

“I’m so glad you came over. Did your mother send you?” she said.

“She’s not my real mother,” Dallas found herself responding.

“Oh …” the woman said in surprise. “Well, anyway, I have some mail for your family, too. I was going to send Nicky, but he—well—never mind. Here …”

Dallas recognized her father’s name on the top envelope. And she could see that the house numbers were close enough to easily confuse on a quick glance. 469 as opposed to 496 Chatham Street.

“And this is for you, for being nice enough to bring the mail over.”

She held out her hand, and Dallas stared at the blue-wrapped candy. She wondered quickly if her father’s instructions to never take anything from people she didn’t know extended to this woman who lived just three blocks away.

“Go on, take it. It’s mint candy.”

Dallas made her own decision and took the three pieces from the woman’s hand.

“Nicky said your name is Dallas. Is that right?”

“Yes.” Dallas nodded softly, finally seeing a similarity between this woman and the one kneeling in front of the house.

“Well, I’m Lillian Marco. Nicky’s mother. Now you and I know each other. The next time, you just come on up to the door and ring the bell, okay?”

Dallas nodded, although she wasn’t sure she would ever return. But she did feel better. She felt acceptance in the warmly spoken words, even though she herself was still afraid to say anything. The woman suddenly reached out. Dallas flinched as the woman’s hand cupped her chin and lifted her face. She blinked as the woman continued to stare into her face with a frown. For a moment Dallas wondered if she was going to repeat that word her son had used and push her away. But instead the woman smiled at her before releasing her, then hugged herself against the cold. “You better get on home, now.”

Dallas slogged through the snow back to her house. She squeezed her gloved hand tightly, so the blue-wrapped mint candy wouldn’t fall out. She wasn’t going to tell Eleanor about it, certain that she would take them and throw them away.

“Dallas? Hey … what are you doing out here?”

Dallas frowned, disoriented by the voice. She rolled toward the sound but was slow in opening her eyes. When she did, she saw a handsome face close to hers, its brown features still soft from recent sleep. The well-shaped mouth under the trimmed full mustache was grimacing in confusion.

“Everything okay?”

“I’m fine,” she sighed, closing her eyes briefly.

Burke stood up but continued to look down on her. He had pulled on his slacks over white jockey shorts. He zippered the front and hooked the tab, but it caused the loosened belt buckle to clink together noisily, further disturbing the morning.

“I didn’t know where you’d gone off to,” he muttered.

Dallas yawned as she slowly sat up. “I don’t have any clothes on. How far did you think I’d go?”

“All I know is when we went to bed and I fell asleep last night, you were right next to me. Why’d you get up? Was I snoring?”

Dallas pushed aside the afghan and levered herself up from the sofa. Her back was stiff and her left arm was asleep. She cranked it back and forth from the elbow to get the circulation going again.

“The phone rang and woke me up. I took the call out here.”

“I never heard a thing.”

“Then you didn’t miss me,” she murmured. Dallas glanced up at him. “Don’t worry about it, Burke. I couldn’t get back to sleep after the call, that’s all.”

She stood up and he reached out for her, slipping his arms through the opening of the overly large shirt and pulling Dallas into a loose embrace. He grinned complacently and bent to kiss her briefly. It was teasing and conciliatory. The feel of her bare breasts against his warm brown skin was instantly titillating.

“I appreciate you not waking me. I was pretty knocked up by that three-day trip.”

“Not so much that you wanted to go home,” she observed with a slight smile. He playfully ruffled his hand through her short curly hair. It had always irritated her.

Burke moaned quietly in the back of his throat. “Three days was a long time. I wanted to see if you missed me.”

“You could have called to find that out.”

He chuckled. “I believe in full frontal attack.”

Dallas watched his face and let him caress her. His broad grin was seductive, lighting his features with a masculine charm. She had never been able to tell how much of his actions were calculated, how much was a true gauge of his feelings for her. He had skilled hands. A knowingness of her body that spoke of extensive experience with other women. Dallas closed her eyes as Burke’s hands lightly explored the smooth expanse of her back, sliding down to her buttocks. He gently pulled her forward until their groins met. Dallas instinctively recoiled as the chilled metal of his belt touched her skin. She didn’t resist, although she placed her palms flat on his chest to maintain some distance between them. Dallas could sense the slow rising of heat in Burke as he rested his chin against her temple.

“I’d love for you and me to throw down one more time, but I have a meeting this morning …”

Throw down …

Dallas disengaged herself from his arms. She looked into his face before leaning forward to plant a perfunctory kiss on his mouth. There was no point in encouraging a delay. Dallas yawned again and stepped around Burke as she headed for the bedroom.

“What time is it?”

“A little after six.”

Dallas groaned. She had not had a restful night. In her bedroom she shrugged out of the white shirt and went to a drawer, opening it to pull out fresh underwear. She heard Burke enter behind her and held out the shirt to him.

“It’s a little wrinkled …”

“I can’t go into my office like this,” he complained, accepting it and putting it on. “I’ll stop home and change.”

“Ummm,” Dallas murmured, picking up a brush on the bureau to rake through her hair. The bristles along her scalp was stimulating and forced the last remains of sleep out of her.

Dallas concentrated on her task, ignoring Burke’s presence. But he stood behind her, reflected in the mirror. He was smoothing the slightly wrinkled shirt into the waistband of his pants and buttoning the cuffs.

Dallas watched him. She didn’t stop what she was doing when he touched the back of her neck.

“Dallas, about last week, before I left …”

She stopped brushing her hair and stared at him in the mirror. “Don’t say it. Don’t start explaining. It was my fault, too.”

Burke relaxed and stroked her cheek with the tip of his fingers. “I should have understood that attending that reception was important to you. But all those rich white people make me uncomfortable.”

Dallas fought back an instinct to say anything defensive. “That’s not even funny, Burke. It was about business. Let’s face it. If someone had something you wanted, you wouldn’t care what color they are.”

He grinned at her. “You’re right.”

There was a thoughtfulness to his good looks that had always attracted her. Even when he made her mad or disappointed her, Dallas had always believed that it wasn’t deliberate. But her smile was forced. “I just wish we didn’t use sex as a way to make up every time we have a fight.”

Burke raised a brow. “Works for me. Last night I was pretty sure you thought so, too.”

Dallas nodded. “It was consensual …”

“And damned good,” he added with a growl of satisfaction.

He shouldn’t have said anything. Dallas didn’t want to be reminded that it had been the wrong decision. Her annoyance grew and she again pulled away from him.

“Look, we only made love last night. That doesn’t mean I forgive you for standing me up.”

Burke pursed his mouth. “Why not?”

“Because it’s just not that easy, that’s why. And I don’t have time to explain it to you. You have to go to work and so do I. I have to put some things together if I’m going out to the Island tomorrow night.”

“Your family?”

“No, it’s not family.”

“Does it have to do with the phone call you got?”

“It was Val. Someone we both knew growing up died yesterday. I have to go out for the services and pay my respects,” Dallas informed him. “I can at least offer you coffee and orange juice.”

The look Burke gave her almost made Dallas regret the offer. As if he was considering other options. She was trying not to rush him out the door. She was trying not to negate what had happened between them the night before … but it was over.

“Sounds good.” Burke nodded, gathering up the rest of his things as Dallas donned a sweatshirt and leggings and headed out of the bedroom.

In the kitchen she had a sudden sensation of déjà vu. A feeling of unease settled on her spirits. Dallas thoughtfully filled the coffeemaker with water and placed the filter in its proper canister. She was doing this for Burke as she used to do for Hayden. She didn’t drink coffee.