Between Friends (7 page)

“Wait a minute!” Valerie said as Dallas turned to the exit.

Dallas already had her hand on the door, pushing it open to the cool March night air. Yet, she felt much colder than was warranted.

“Are we going to see each other this weekend?” Valerie asked.

Dallas shrugged. “I’m staying at my parents’. Give me a call.”

“Aren’t you going to introduce me?” Alex interrupted.

It was a second before Dallas understood the question. Alex was watching her, his expression interested.

“I …” Dallas began hesitatingly.

“That’s Dallas Oliver. She’s a friend of mine,” Valerie filled in.

Alex held out a hand to Dallas.

“Hi, Dallas,” he responded clearly.

Dallas had no choice but to walk back to where they stood and to accept Alex’s outstretched hand of greeting. She realized suddenly that he remembered exactly who she was. And he knew exactly what he was doing. For Valerie’s sake the moment successfully established a reason to acknowledge one another. He didn’t actually shake her hand but held it, silently communicating.

Dallas had a jarring sensation of being swept through time. It wasn’t like going back to when they’d first met. It was as if having met they were rushed forward to the present. They got to start over again.

“Hi,” Dallas said smoothly.

“Dallas and I also grew up together,” Valerie explained. “We’ve been friends since we were little kids. Her family was the first black family to move into the neighborhood,” Valerie informed Alex. “We practically adopted her into the family …”

Dallas turned to her in annoyance. “That’s not a distinction anyone needs to know, Val. Anyway, he didn’t ask you for my life story.”

Alex regarded Dallas. “I bet it’s an interesting story. It’s nice to meet you,” he murmured.

Dallas was aware of the double meaning of his words. And she was grateful. “Same here. I’m sorry about the death in your family,” she carefully added.

He shook his head. “I’m not a part of it. You saw what almost happened.”

“What are you talking about?” Valerie asked.

“Dallas stopped Vin from trying to punch my lights out.”

“No, I didn’t. I tried to stop Lillian from getting upset.”

“I’m glad he didn’t turn on you,” Valerie said to Dallas.

Alex slowly shook his head. “I wouldn’t have let that happen,” he said firmly.

Dallas wondered if she imagined the protective edge to his comment. Still, for the moment the less said the better.

Valerie touched her shoulder. “I wish you’d stay a little longer. I’m going to hang around here with Mom before I take her home.” She gave Dallas a brief hug. “I’ll call you.”

“I probably won’t stay the whole weekend. I have a deadline …” she said, heading for the exit once more, not sparing Alex a parting look but aware that his attention was still very much on her.

She was again through the door and it was about to close behind her when Dallas hazarded a glance over her shoulder. There was just enough time for her to glimpse Valerie and Alex turn their attention back to each other.

Alex had been pulled up short by the appearance of Dallas Oliver. He was surprised to see her again. And stunned at how different she looked from that last time. Fifteen years will do that. He needed to adjust to the encounter with her, but there wasn’t any time. For the moment he gave his attention to the bright interest in Valerie Holland’s eyes.

“Sounds like you two had plans. I should be the one to back off,” Alex began.

“She didn’t want to come tonight to start with. We’ll see each other before she goes home.”

“Where’s home?” he asked casually.

“Manhattan. Upper West Side. She has a great apartment overlooking the Hudson, but I don’t know how she stands all the noise and not owning a car.”

“And you say Dallas is your best friend?”

Valerie nodded, smiling. “She really is. Sometimes we fight like cats and dogs, but I know I can always count on her, and she can say the same of me.

“When we were kids we used to tell people we’re sisters. Not that Dallas looks white,” she rushed to correct.

“No, she doesn’t,” Alex agreed too quickly.

“But she doesn’t really look black, if you know what I mean.”

Alex frowned at Valerie. “No, I don’t. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Valerie blushed in confusion and shrugged. “Never mind. Dallas’s life is pretty complicated.”

“Isn’t everybody’s? I bet there are things about her you don’t know.”

“Maybe,” Valerie conceded. “So what’s your big secret? How come Vin wanted to go for your throat? Where do you fit into the family?”

“I’m the black sheep,” Alex said flippantly.

Valerie grinned. “Nick told me about you when you were going into the service. He was glad you were leaving. The navy or something like that.”

“That’s right.” Alex looked beyond Valerie toward the salon. He didn’t want to keep standing there. He didn’t want to talk about what he’d been doing.

“Wanted to see the world? Have a girl in every port?”

Alex pursed his mouth. “Wanted to stay out of trouble. The chances of surviving where I grew up were not good.”

“Really? That sounds interesting. I’d like to hear more about it sometime.”

Alex again looked at the very attractive and confident woman in front of him. He forced himself to ignore the activity beyond the open salon door, but he could peripherally make out the coffin at the front of the room. The encounter with Vin was a bad start, but he had to be here. Staring at Valerie he considered other options.

“I’m not planning on staying much longer. How about coffee or something after this?”

Before Valerie could respond, someone appeared suddenly next to her, and stood quietly staring up at Alex. Valerie put her arm around Megan’s shoulder and squeezed her to her side.

“Mommy, can we go now? Where’s Aunt Dallas?”

Alex looked down at the little girl, and he was riveted. He let his gaze examine her face, her approximate age. She didn’t have the characteristic pale skin or coloring of her mother’s Irish descendants, but she had the features and prerequisites of someone who was going to become, easily, at least equally as beautiful.

“Dallas went to her parents’, sweetie. Yes, we’re going to leave soon and take Grandma home, but I want you to meet someone first.”

Alex couldn’t take his eyes from the little girl. And he knew that his surprise, his fascination, showed clearly on his own face. He looked at Valerie, who waited, staring at him, for his reaction.

“Is … is this your daughter?” Alex asked, awed.

Valerie nodded.

“Are you another friend of my mother’s?” Megan asked guilelessly.

Alex glanced questioningly at Valerie, who shrugged. “She knows that Nick and I grew up together.”

“But he wasn’t a friend of Aunt Dallas,” Megan added. “She told me so.”

“I just met your mother. But I guess you could say I wasn’t a friend of his, either. My name is Alex.”

Megan pointed blindly behind her to the salon. “He’s dead, you know. I don’t understand why everybody came to see him if he’s dead.”

Alex chuckled.

“Megan,” Valerie admonished. “We come to pay our respects. It’s sad that he’s dead.”

Megan looked confused and lifted her shoulders. “But nobody liked him.”

Valerie and Alex remained silent and just exchanged looks.

Alex was reminded that he and Dallas Oliver had very good reasons for feeling the way they did. There was a kinship that was always going to tie them to Nicholas.

He stared at Valerie’s daughter and he saw the future. But seeing Dallas Oliver again, and to some extent meeting Valerie Holland, had plummeted him into the past. He had a feeling of the inevitable, of not so much history repeating itself as just not being finished yet, for any of them.

I saw this kid sprouting a head full of dreadlocks. He was Asian. I stared at his head, wondering how he had done it, knowing that the texture of his hair was pin straight, slick as seal skin, and fine as rain. I wondered if he’d applied some sort of gel or cream to clump the strands together, or did he roll bunches of it between his palms to get the twists started? I wondered what his parents were thinking and praying when he came home at night, a different species than the child they’d given birth to. But most of all I realized that this kid had accepted something that didn’t naturally belong to him. And yet, by doing so he had validated it for some other black kid. He had not taken away something that wasn’t his, but had copied it. I had to smile at his guts and his humanity. I applaud him. Imitation is still the best form of flattery.

“M
EGAN? I KNOW YOU’VE
already gone to bed, just like I told you to twenty minutes ago. Right?” Valerie called out loudly as she stood in her kitchen pouring two glasses of wine.

Low and aggrieved, Megan’s voice came from somewhere on the sofa in the living room. “But Aunt Dallas is helping me with my homework.”

“The idea of homework is that you’re supposed to do it yourself. Dallas doesn’t need to learn about chlorophyll in plants, and she’s already graduated from school. If you hope to do the same, I suggest you pay better attention in class.”

Dallas was slouched next to Megan, and she watched the girl mimic her mother’s complaints.

“That’s not nice,” Dallas admonished her. “It’s disrespectful, and you know she’s right.”

“But I just don’t understand why I have to know this,” Megan whined.

Dallas pulled on a lock of her hair and then sat up, gathering the textbooks in a neat stack. “Because someday you may discover a way of growing better broccoli or cabbage using artificial light … or maybe no light at all.”

Megan shuddered dramatically. “Ugh,” she said, sticking out her tongue. “I hate broccoli.”

“You should keep that in mind,” Dallas said, chuckling. “If you don’t want to be stuck growing it, you’d better study real hard to become something else.”

Megan began putting her schoolbooks back into her knapsack. “I’m going to be a writer like you.”

“You’re not going to make a lot of money that way,” Dallas said.

Valerie came from the kitchen carefully carrying the two wineglasses. She set them down on the glass-topped coffee table and glared at her daughter.

“Good
night,
Megan.”

“I’m going …” Megan sighed pettishly, and slowly headed toward the hallway leading to the back of the tiny house. She glanced back. “Aunt Dallas, can you come and put me to bed?”

“You don’t need anyone to put you to bed,” Valerie said, impatience with her daughter’s delaying tactics creeping into her voice.

“You go on. I’ll come in to say good night,” Dallas answered, careful not to usurp Valerie’s authority.

Megan seemed satisfied with that promise. She nodded and then disappeared into her room. Valerie sat down heavily in a roomy armchair, prepared to relax, but then grimaced. She awkwardly heaved up her rear end and reached behind her back. She extracted a beaded hair crunchy belonging to her daughter. Shaking her head, Valerie tossed it onto the table. Dallas smiled at her expression.

“You can’t believe where I find her things sometimes,” Valerie muttered as she lifted one of the wineglasses. “One morning last week I nearly went crazy trying to find a sweater she was supposed to wear that day to school. I gave it to her, she put it down somewhere and then couldn’t remember where. You’ll never believe where she found it.”

Dallas shook her head.

“In the pantry. In the middle of dressing for school she’d gone in to get a box of cereal for breakfast. She probably got distracted. Twenty minutes we spent looking for the damn thing,” Valerie said, bemused.

Dallas took the second glass of wine and took a sip. “Why didn’t you just get her another sweater?”

“That’s not the point.”

“The point is kids have short attention spans and she has other sweaters. It’s a good thing she didn’t misplace something that could rot.”

“If her head wasn’t attached to her shoulders …” Valerie began. “Getting her to bed at night is becoming another test of wills …”

Dallas chuckled quietly. “This conversation should be taped. I wish you could hear yourself.”

“What?” Valerie asked defensively.

“Don’t you remember how your mother used to threaten us when I slept over, because we wouldn’t settle down and go to sleep? We’d always find some reason to get out of bed. Remember how she used to yell to us from the living room …”

Valerie rolled her eyes and nodded as she joined Dallas in mimicking the voice: “‘If I have to come in there, you girls are going to live to regret it … I am going to tan your hides!’”

Valerie pointed to Dallas. “And you used to whisper, ‘My hide’s already tan.’”

“I can’t believe I said that,” Dallas murmured with a grin.

Valerie’s eyes widened, and she gasped as another memory came to her. “Remember the night we snuck into the bathroom after Mom had gone to bed, and we polished our finger and toenails?”

“And then went back to bed before it was dry and got Tropical Melon Glow all over the sheets,” Dallas added. “What did your mother do when she found out?”

“I don’t think she ever noticed. You know Mom. She wasn’t exactly the best housekeeper.”

Dallas didn’t comment. It was true that the Holland household had tended toward the haphazard. The breakfast dishes would still be stacked in the kitchen at dinnertime, and the daily papers could collect in the living room for several weeks. The two family cats had the run of the place.

But Dallas also recalled that the casual atmosphere was precisely the reason she’d always loved spending time at the Holland house. The rules of order were geared toward treating family members fairly. No hitting below the belt. Unlike at home, no one in Valerie’s family judged her. Or expected perfection. In their chaotic house she could just be herself.

That was not to say that fights didn’t break out. And there were reminders to Dallas that she was an interloper in Valerie’s family. Like when she was thirteen and Valerie’s sixteen-year-old brother, Tate, had cornered her in his bedroom and kissed her. Dallas remembered the alien invasion of his tongue in her mouth, swishing about like a snake and making her gag. She’d punched him in the stomach … and never told anyone about the incident. Dallas doubted if Tate ever had.