Fairplay, Denver Cereal Volume 6 (25 page)

“
Are you going to marry
this man?” Rodney-Smith asked someone behind him.

“
He’s asked a few times,”
Tanesha said.

Rodney-Smith looked at Tanesha and nodded.
Jeraine’s mind began chanting: Don’t say it; don’t say it; don’t
say it. He silently begged Tanesha not to tell Rodney-Smith the
truth about them.

“
He says you’re his
woman,” Rodney-Smith said.

“
See an ear tag on me?”
Tanesha laughed.

She came around Jeraine to hug Rodney-Smith.
Jeraine was so surprised he stepped back.

“
You know him?” Jeraine
asked.

“
We’ve met,” Tanesha
said.

Rodney-Smith chuckled at Tanesha’s response.
She picked up Rodney-Smith’s work shirt and went into the house.
Hearing footsteps behind him, Jeraine turned around to see three
young black men coming toward them. Jeraine groaned.

“
What’s wrong with you?”
Rodney-Smith asked.

“
Fans,” Jeraine said.
“They follow me everywhere.”

Rodney-Smith looked at Jeraine and laughed.
Somewhere between a chuckle and a cough, the laugh came from deep
inside the powerful man. Jeraine turned to look at him.
Rodney-Smith’s eyes went to the young men walking toward them. He
gave them a curt nod.

“
You’re not a very good
liar,” Rodney-Smith said. “Lying is a full time job, son. If I were
you, I’d give it up. Come on, I have gloves and bandages in my
truck.”

Rodney-Smith pointed the young men toward
the hole and walked to a battered red Chevy truck. Jeraine was too
intimidated by the man not to follow him. The older man opened the
passenger door. Jeraine stood on the sidewalk while the man dug
through the back of his truck.

Another truck pulled up. A male voice yelled
something in Spanish. Thinking the man was talking to him, Jeraine
was about to yell: ‘Speak English. This is America,’ back, when
Rodney-Smith responded in Spanish. Four Hispanic men got out of the
truck and grabbed shovels.

“
What are they doing?”
Jeraine asked. “I worked all morning on that hole!”

Rodney-Smith turned around to look at
Jeraine. He opened his mouth to say something. Seeing Jeraine’s
belligerence, he chuckled and began lancing Jeraine’s blisters.
Rodney-Smith put something on the blisters then wrapped gauze and
tape around his palm. Jeraine was amazed at how much better his
hands felt. Used to being served, Jeraine didn’t bother to thank
the older man. Rodney-Smith chuckled.

“
A man’s hands are his
most important tool,” Rodney-Smith said. “You’ve got to learn to
take care of your hands first.”

“
Why do you care?” Jeraine
sneered.

“
Because you say you want
to marry my daughter,” Rodney-Smith said.

“
You’re her father?”
Jeraine snorted. “Some father. You let her live in those disgusting
places with that ‘ho of a mother. She…”

“
How many kids do you
have?” Rodney-Smith’s face shifted to prison yard hard.

“
Two.” Jeraine was so
surprised by the question the words just popped out.

“
Know their
names?”

“
It ain’t like that,”
Jeraine said. “Them bitches tricked me into getting pregnant so
they could take my money.”

“
Some father,”
Rodney-Smith said. “You see these men?”

Rodney-Smith grabbed Jeraine’s shoulders and
turned him around. Jeraine looked into the yard. He was keenly
aware of Rodney-Smith’s huge muscular hands just inches from his
neck.

“
They’ve just worked an
eight hour shift,” Rodney-Smith said. “You know why they’re
here?”

Jeraine shook his head.

“
My boss asked me to stop
by and take a look for him. He’s at the doctor with his baby. I
told these men I was coming here after work. They came to help,”
Rodney-Smith said. “They have families. They have children. They
worked damned hard today. I didn’t ask but they’re here because
someone they trust
might
need their help.”

Jeraine watched the men talk to each other
then set to work.

“
My family was robbed of
me,” Rodney-Smith said. “My wife felt like she had no choice but to
sell herself to take care of our child. We might sit here on this
sunny day, all these years later, and discuss all of her options.
But at that time, in this place, my beautiful, loving, kind wife
believed her only option was to sell her body.”

Jeraine watched the sinew on the older man’s
neck shift as he ground his teeth at the words.

“
Your father tried to talk
her out of it. I tried to talk her out of it,” Rodney-Smith said.
“But she was done trusting people to help her family. She knew that
she and Miss T were on their own in this cruel world. Our baby
lived in those awful places, saw horrible things, and suffered
unspeakably until I manned up and called my mother-in-law for
help.”

“
By that time, my wife was
too far gone. The woman I loved with every breath in my body was
gone.” Rodney-Smith gave a kind of cough to cover his sorrow. “My
mother-in-law could only take Tanesha.”

Before Jeraine’s eyes, his mess of a hole
transformed into a tight and tidy trench. In five hours of digging,
Jeraine had uncovered five feet of sewer line. These men dug a foot
of trench apiece in the five minutes he’d been standing here.

“
I was in prison,”
Rodney-Smith said. “What’s your excuse?”

“
You’re not hearing me,”
Jeraine said. “They don’t want me to be a father. They only want my
money.”

“
And what do you want?”
Rodney-Smith asked. Jeraine had never considered the
question.

“
Sounds to me like you’re
the one in prison,” Rodney-Smith leaned close to him. “You better
man up, and right now, if you want a chance with my daughter. Put
those gloves on, let these young men show you what to do, and get
this job done.”

The older man’s deep black skin glinted.
Jeraine could smell Ivory soap on the man’s skin. Somewhere in the
back of his mind, he remembered flying up into the sky only to come
down into the safe strength of this man’s hands.

“
You and Miss T were an
item when you were babies,” Rodney-Smith said. “She’s been waiting
for you to grow up. But she’s near done waiting. She’s going to
medical school in a few weeks. You know how many men live their
whole lives dreaming of meeting a woman like Tanesha? A beautiful,
smart, doctor woman like her?”

Jeraine had some idea of how many men would
kill for a woman like Tanesha.

“
Are you going to stay in
your own prison? Or are you going to join us men in the free air?”
Rodney-Smith looked him up and down. “Trust me, you don’t want to
face every day without the only woman God meant you to love. You
don’t want to live with that kind of pain.”

Rodney-Smith walked around him and across
the yard. Jeraine watched the older man laugh at something the
young black man said. They both looked over at Jeraine and he
blinked.

This was the moment.

He could walk across the yard and spend the
day doing ‘slave work’ with ‘low lifes.’ Or he could call a cab and
return to his penthouse life. His eyes flicked to the house.
Tanesha and her grandmother were watching from the front window.
For a moment, he longed for the cozy comfort of a long hot shower,
an hour in the hot tub, a massage, and a woman or two. He glanced
to the street.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tanesha
leave the window. He didn’t have to look to know he’d failed her.
Again.

He closed his eyes.

“
Hey, It, whatcha waiting
for?” one of the young men asked.

“
I’ve got a shovel right
here,” the other young man said.

“
Don’ worry,” a Hispanic
man said. “We left plenty of dirt for you.”

Laughing at himself, Jeraine went across the
yard.

~~~~~~~~

Saturday afternoon—3:35 P.M. MDT

Jacob shook Blane’s doctor’s hand. He nodded
to the transplant expert and tissue typing doctors. Putting his arm
around Jill, they walked to the elevator. Katy was sound asleep on
Jill’s hip.

“
Would you like me to take
her?” Jacob asked.

“
Katy?” Jill looked down
at her sleeping daughter. “There aren’t going to be many days of
this. I’m trying to enjoy it while I can.”

“
Because of the liver
transplant?”

“
No,” Jill smiled at his
worried face. “Because she’s due for a growth spurt. Mom told me I
sprouted up at five and seventeen.”

“
Paddie’s already about a
foot taller than she is,” Jacob said.

“
His Dad is six-five!”
Jill laughed. “Julie’s at least two inches taller than me. Paddie
is always going to be taller than Katy.”

Jill kissed Katy’s forehead. Katy’s hand
swatted at her and she smiled.

“
I’m kind of glad she’s
still little,” Jill said.

“
What did you think of
today?” Jacob asked.

The elevator stopped at the ground floor and
they stepped out. They walked across the lobby to the parking
lot.

“
I’m not sure what to say
about today,” Jill said. “I was glad they explained the DNA and
tissue typing thing.”

“
They used DNA to separate
Katy and Paddie’s samples,” Jacob said. “They determined who Paddie
was when his DNA was posted to CODIS after he was almost
kidnapped.”

“
But they looked at their
sample because it was a tissue match.”

“
Right,” Jacob said.
“Tissue first, genetics second.”

“
Right,” Jill
said.

They walked in silence to the Lexus SUV. He
opened Jill’s side and took Katy from her. He settled Katy in her
car seat and went to the driver’s seat. Putting on his seat belt,
he started the SUV.

“
So, what did you think?”
Jacob asked.

“
What’s to think?” Jill
asked. “They retook our samples. They explained how a transplant
would work. They gave us the upside and the downside. We’ll see if
we’re a match.”

They drove out of the parking lot and
started down Colfax toward their home. Stopping at the light at
Peoria, Jill turned to look at him.

“
Any psychic impressions?”
Jill asked.

“
None,” Jacob said.
“You?”

“
None,” Jill said. “I
guess we wait.”

“
I guess we
wait.”

~~~~~~~~

Saturday afternoon—4:51 P.M. PDT

Ava slipped into the back of the auditorium
where Seth was working. He’d called around lunch time and asked her
if she wanted to ‘go out’ tonight. Not sure of what he meant, but
not wanting to miss anything, she’d said yes.

She wore a casual summer dress that matched
the suit he was wearing and some cute flip flops. Entering the back
of the auditorium, she felt immediately under dressed. The men and
women in the orchestra were dressed to the nines. Intimidated by
the grandeur of the auditorium, the orchestra, and the music, she
was sorry Schmidty hadn’t come with her. But Schmidty was working
on Andy’s estate. The poor man was up to his eyeballs in lawyers.
He would meet them later.

Ava looked at her dress and the door. Maybe
she should go change. She was looking in her purse to see if she
had her credit card, when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“
You can sit over there,”
a young man said to her. About her age, he smiled at
her.

“
Thanks,” Ava
said.

She found a seat in a row and the man sat
next to her.

“
Waiting for someone?” he
asked.

Ava gave him a slight nod. Her mind drifted
to her worry about what she was wearing.

“
Me too,” he said. “My Mom
plays in the orchestra here. We’re going to see Harry Connick
tonight.”

“
Harry Connick?” Ava
asked. “That sounds fun.”

“
He’s playing at the
Hollywood Bowl,” the young man said. “I guess that guy O’Malley
knows Connick. Got everyone tickets. Maybe if you ask you could go
too.”

“
Maybe so,” Ava
smiled.

She felt a wave of relief that they might be
going to such an informal setting. Out of habit more than anything,
she reached in her bag to call Beth to tell her the cool news. She
had already pressed send when she remembered that Beth was dead.
Ava could feel the blood drain from her face. She hit end before
she got the disconnect recording. Seth had figured out a way to
transfer her contacts to her new phone. She didn’t have the heart
to remove Beth from her speed dial. Ava bit her lip to keep from
crying.

Seth glanced up at her. His face showed his
concern. She mouthed that she was all right. He smiled and held up
a hand. Five more minutes and he’d be done.

“
O’Malley has quite a
reputation,” the young man said.

“
Oh yea?” Ava asked. “What
kind of a reputation?”

“
Let’s just say, he’s
always with the hottest girl in the room,” the young man
said.

Ava blushed.

“
He comes out here every
year or so,” the young man said. “Mom tries to get in his
orchestras because she says he invents the most interesting music.
She says it’s her chance to work with a master. Of course, it’s
great money. But I know it’s because she likes him.”