Too Far to Say Far Enough: A Novel (3 page)

“He’s all yours now, Classic,” he said into my hair. “Nobody can take him away.”

I pushed my face into the chest I loved and felt his other arm come around me. One would think such a scene would cause anyone who happened upon us to do a sensitive about-face.

Yeah, well, one would have to know the Sacrament Sisters before assuming such a thing.

“Miss Angel? Everything all right? Didn’t nothin’ happen with Desmond, did it?”

Chief chuckled into my scalp and let me go. I tried not to glare at Sherry and Zelda, who were rushing up the steps onto the porch. Sherry’s already almost-translucent face was turning another shade of pale, while Zelda’s very-black one pinched inward.

“Everything is
fine,”
I said. “We were just celebrating.”

“Oh,” Zelda said. And then her eyes quickened. “Oh! I’m sorry, Miss Angel. When I see somebody cryin’, I always think somebody died or got busted or somethin’.”

“I’m not crying,” I said.

Sherry nodded toward the kitchen door that was even then just closing behind Chief.

“She was talking about him.”

Zelda let out the laugh that was still rusty from underuse. “We didn’t mean to interrupt you and Mr. Chief hookin’ up.”

Sherry smacked her on the shoulder.

“I didn’t mean hookin’ up like hookin’
up
! I just meant—”

“I get it, Zelda,” I said. “I’ll catch him later. I’m glad you two made it.”

Zelda’s eyes clouded again. “We almost didn’t. Old Man Maharry was all up in my grill work the whole day.”

Sherry glared at her.

“I don’t care if he’s your daddy,” Zelda said. “I don’t need him fussin’ at me all the time.”

“He gave you a job,” Sherry said. “I wouldn’t be griping about it if I were you.”

I raised both hands. “We’re having a celebration here, ladies. We’ll talk about this later.”

Then I waited and watched as Zelda rearranged her expression and jiggled her shoulders out of defensive mode and sucked in her lips. Four months ago that display of self-control would have been impossible.

“There’s food inside,” I said.

Zelda gave up a smile and disappeared into the kitchen. Sherry wandered to the railing, her bony back to me, arms hugging her own feather-thin body. I felt a grab at my gut.

“It is not working out at C.A.R.S.?” I said.

“Daddy’s having issues.” Sherry shrugged. “It’ll be all right.”

“So what’s the deal?”

She turned to me, eyes pale. “Mr. Chief is right. Nobody is gon’ take Desmond from you, Miss Angel.”

“You’re talking about Sultan.” I said.

She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.

“Nick Kent just told me things are still cool,” I said. “The last news we heard was that Sultan—”

“Just never mind.”

Sherry took the steps in one long lurch and marched across the yard, once again hugging her body as if she were trying to hold herself together.

Whatever she was carrying made my own arms ache. That was the down side of being a prophet.

By the time I got inside, I knew the crowd had probably already eaten its way through the antipasto and was working on Hank’s matchless lasagna. Square, dark-haired, and wise-eyed, she greeted me in the kitchen with a forkful of noodles and sauce already pointed toward my mouth. A string of steaming cheese clotheslined from plate to tines.

“I know you won’t stop to eat, Al,” she said, “so open up.”

As my spiritual guide and Harley-riding teacher, Hank was surprisingly light-handed with the instructions, so when she told me flat out to do something I did it. Especially if it involved her cooking.

It
would
be an insult not to take a moment to appreciate a D’Angelo special. She’d even improved Desmond and the Sisters’ palates, though granted, anything beyond what they could cull from alley trashcans would have been a step up.

“I
will
be back for more,” I said.

“I’ll hide some for you for after the ceremony. We’ll start in ten.”

“Where’s Chief?” I said.

“He grabbed a paper towel and went out on the front porch.” Hank’s lips twitched. “I heard him blowing his nose.”

I slid around the bistro table, which was completely taken up by an enormous basket of the kind of garlic bread that cleared your sinuses, and pointed myself in the general direction of the dining room. With any luck I could slip out to the front porch and finish what we’d started.

“Am I too late for the salad?” said a voice from the side door.

I turned around, straight into a bouquet of lettuce larger than both my head and the one behind it, which belonged to next-door neighbor Owen. The man was nothing if not green-thumbed. I tried not to think about him having something “going on” with Ms. Willa.

Hank tilted a now-empty basin toward him.

“I’m always a day late and a dollar short,” Owen said. “Sometimes I get so far behind I meet myself coming back. I’ll probably be late for my own funeral.”

“You’re fine,” Hank said. “I’m sure if I make another salad it’ll get eaten.” She cocked an eyebrow at me. “Don’t you ever feed your kid?”

“He’s growing like a weed, isn’t he?” Owen said. “It’s like he has a hollow leg—”

I left Hank to untangle the usual Owen-string of similes and nearly plowed into Mercedes, who was deftly hoisting a tray of licked-clean dishes with one hand and steering Desmond by the back of the neck with the other. It struck me that he was almost as tall as she was now, a fact that did not make her any less capable of cowing the boy better than most of us. Though he was grinning, his eyes were definitely seeking an escape route.

“What did you do now?” I said.

“I didn’t do nothin’,” he said. “Mercedes Benz just always up in my business.”

“It’s not your business to be telling Gigi and Rochelle how to get away with slackin’ on they responsibilities.” Mercedes gave him a shake that wobbled his head, but he beamed her the smile he claimed put every woman in the palm of his thirteen-year-old hand.

“Ain’t nobody responsible as you, M.B.”

“Then don’t make me responsible for smackin’ you up the side the head.”

Desmond at least had the smarts to look guilty. When Mercedes’s black eyes flashed like that and she drew herself up to her full five-eight, I usually felt guilty myself, even if I hadn’t done anything.

“Go set Gigi and Rochelle straight, Clarence,” I said. “And stay out of the tiramisu until after the ceremony.”

Mercedes gave him another jiggle and let him go. He grabbed the hand that wasn’t still holding the tray and brought it to his lips.

“Don’t you be tryin’ that with me,” she said. But I could see her pressing back a voluptuous smile.

“Something I should know about?” I said when he’d escaped.

“Just the usual when somebody new come into the House—but nothin’ you need to be worryin’ about today. This is your day, you and Desmond.” She deftly shifted the tray. “Now I need to get rid of these dishes, is what I need to do. Where is Sherry? She s’pose to be helpin’ me.”

Mercedes disappeared into the kitchen before I could tell her Sherry was outside putting her game face back on.

I tried again to make my way to Chief on the front porch. We now only had about five minutes left before the ceremony and I would have loved to at least finish off that reassuring hug.

This time I got as far as the entrance hall. Who in the world had left Ms. Willa parked there in her wheelchair? Although if Ms. Willa hadn’t wanted to be there, we’d be hearing about it. The bluish mane fell over her collar as she leaned back and pursed her entire wizened face at Desmond’s framed artwork displayed in the entryway.

“Your boy did these?” Her voice never failed to remind me of a terrier’s, though she looked
more feline than canine. Since neither animal had an azure tint to its fur, Ms. Willa was actually her own breed. No one ever argued with that. Or her.

“Hard to believe this comes out of him, isn’t it?” I said.

From the front porch, I could hear the resonance of Chief’s voice in conversation with somebody, and I looked longingly at the door. But I sat on the edge of the old church pew that flanked the wall and pulled a throw pillow into my lap.

Ms. Willa pointed a knotty finger at Desmond’s drawing of me, the one I unabashedly thought was the best thing up there. “Is that supposed to be you?” she barked. Yipped, actually.

“It is,” I said.

“He made your face too long and your mouth too big.”

“It’s a caricature, Ms. Willa. See? He’s made Owen’s teeth huge and his face all pruney. Kind of captures his optimism.”

Ms. Willa’s nose wrinkled. “Owen goes on about the boy like he’s the next Leonardo da Vinci. I don’t see it myself.”

“I would love to sit here and debate art with you,” I said, “but I need to—”

“How’s my boutique doing?”

Before I could answer, the front door burst open and a bulging black trash bag entered, followed by Erin O’Hare, Desmond’s history teacher. The humidity had frizzed her massive tresses into a mahogany-colored white-girl Afro, which accounted for Desmond calling her Miss All-Hair.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said. “I went by my place to pick up these clothes for the boutique. I found some great stuff at the consignment stores in Orlando and got it all for a song.”

I came off the old pew like a shot. “Let me help!” I said.

“We’ve got it handled.”

That came from Chief, backed up by Bonner Bailey, who was wearing his Bailey Realty nametag as if everyone in town didn’t already know him. Chief took the bag from Erin and Bonner hiked a second one over his shoulder.

“Excuse me, ladies,” Bonner said. “Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“You’re not—” I said.

But they hurried on through, jaw muscles working to hold back laughter. Traitors.

“Ms. Willa,” Erin said, “you and I are going to keep the Sisters in merchandise, aren’t we?”

“The idea is for them to
sell
the merchandise.” Ms. Willa’s papery paws were folded in the lap of today’s all-puce ensemble, but any minute the claws would come out if I didn’t give this my full attention.

“Just tell your two Sherpas to put the bags on the upstairs landing,” I said to Erin.

She glanced at Ms. Willa and, with a knowing nod at me, fled the scene even less unobtrusively than Chief and Bonner. I turned with a stifled sigh to Ms. Willa.

“Your building looks great,” I said. “The guys have turned that place into a—”

“I’ve seen it,” she said. “I had Owen Schatz take me down there.”

“Then you know it’s fabulous.”

“Harold Renfroe would be pleased with it, I’ll give you that.”

Her tiny face squeezed in. I was about to get an earful about how Troy Irwin had ruined her first late husband and cheated him out of that piece of prime real estate on St. George Street, as well as the rest of his fortune.

“All right, everyone—it’s time,” Hank called from the living room.

I thanked God for her as I took hold of Ms. Willa’s wheelchair. “We need to get in there,” I said.

“I want that shop to be the talk of the town,” Ms. Willa said. “I want to make sure the score has been evened.”

We were still tapping toward Troy Irwin, and that was a dance I refused to do, not just today but any day. Anytime. Anywhere.

“I’ll give you a full report when I come over this week,” I said, my fingers already curled around the handles. Then I dropped that onto the Things To Deal With Later pile and steered her to the living room.

The court had made the adoption legal. It was time for us to make it real.

CHAPTER TWO

Everyone was gathered around the trunk-turned-coffee table Hank had covered with Desmond’s Harley-Davidson throw. Somebody, probably India Morehead, had seen to it that the contraband Oreo crumbs were shaken from it and had placed a white china basin over the ketchup stain.

India herself wafted in from the kitchen carrying the matching pitcher of water and wordlessly settling the air with her flowing silk and her unflappable class. I’d given up wishing I could be like her when I grew up. Ophelia, who followed her with Desmond’s Harley beach towel folded like a king’s robe,
could
actually be her own version of India someday. She spent most of her free time away from Sacrament House with her mentor and had distinctly more natural promise than I did. Ophelia’s Hispanic beauty often stole my breath from me, even with the echo of sadness in her eyes. I wasn’t sure that would ever go away.

“Y’all can sit right here,” India said, waving a willowy hand at two red cushions on the floor beside the trunk.

Desmond had left the cocky grin parked somewhere. That was Desmond for “This serious, now.” While Hank took her place at the top of the circle, between Zelda and Jasmine, who was, of course, already crying, I risked looking at Kade Capelli for the first time that day.

Kade was the only one who looked unconnected to the group. His handsome Harvard confidence made a better shield than the visor on my motorcycle helmet. If anyone else picked up on the slight stiffening around his eyes or the minute hunch of the athletic shoulders, they didn’t let on. I couldn’t convince myself that I saw it because I was his mother. I had, after all, only known him for four months.

He was across from Desmond and me, standing next to Chief, arms hanging easily at his sides just the way Chief’s were. Though sandy blond to Chief’s gray, in posture, he looked more like Chief’s son than mine. That was probably because they’d been working together fifty hours a week for the last two months. He’d definitely spent more time with Chief than he had with me.

I looked away before Kade could see my eyes begging.

“The Lord be with you,” Hank said, square hands raised.

“And also wichoo,” was the reply from the Sacrament Sisters. Everyone else joined in as well, but I always heard the women above the rest, as if they felt the Presence the most.

Hank stretched her arm over Desmond and me, and I watched every head bow before I lowered mine. Desmond and I were surrounded by people who had always brought what prayers they had to courtrooms and hospital rooms and jail cells so that this family could be. They were so achingly beautiful to me, I couldn’t close my eyes.

“You’ve entrusted Desmond into our care,” Hank was saying. “Help us to remember that we are
all
Your children—”

Amens were murmured.

“—and to nurture him to the full stature intended for him in your eternal kingdom. For the sake of your dear Son, our Lord Christ.”

Hank opened her eyes to meet mine, melting me with her sheer sincerity.

“You are not alone in this, you two,” she said. “We can all share in the responsibility. Are we in, my friends?”

Mercedes’s signature
mmm-mm
led the response.

“Allison and Desmond,” Hank said, “have chosen to wash each other’s feet as Jesus did his friends’ when he said, ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’ Any of you who would also like to wash their feet as a sign of your commitment to them are welcome.” Hank’s lips quivered into the smallest of smiles as she added, “I know this isn’t your first footwashing, but let me just remind you that we’re not talking about a full leg massage.”

I poked Desmond with my elbow.

“Imma hold myself back, Big Al,” he said.

I didn’t say anything as Desmond sat on the trunk, sans Harley boots, and I knelt and cleansed my son’s gangly, adolescent feet of the need to ever run from his life again. I was still under my vow not to go emo. Besides, unless I was speaking the words God gave me, I was very likely to insert both feet and a hand in my mouth anyway.

Desmond took his turn, and in deference to Hank, limited himself to my heels, soles, and toes. I was surprised he didn’t take that opportunity to regale us all with the whole story of how he had come to live with me on Palm Row, how he’d become as much a part of my Harley as its handlebars, and how I was going to be impressed at the model kid he was going to be now that he was a Chamberlain.

He just dried his hands and reached inside the leather jacket he still hadn’t taken off and pulled out a folder smeared at the corners with chalky fingerprints.

“I made you this,” was all he said.

Necks craned as I opened it, to find two drawn figures looking back at me. The hair on one resembled a Brillo pad on steroids, the other long strands of straw stolen from a haystack. But the smiles on both could not have been truer as they extended almost beyond their faces.

“Now that looks like you, Allison,” Ms. Willa said. “But that one in the hallway—”

“Anyone else want to make a promise to Allison and Desmond?” Hank’s timing was always impeccable.

Every person there washed Desmond’s feet and mine, and with each splash of water and press of hand, the pile that had become my life became less daunting. Each of our beloved friends expressed what they could offer Desmond and me, everything from the HOGs guaranteeing enough Harley T-shirts to get Desmond through high school to Sherry promising to teach him how to do an oil change, to which he replied with the charming grin, “I like that in a woman.”

We were covered. There was clearly nothing that could take us down.

The only person who said nothing as he washed—just squeezed Desmond’s shoulder and kissed me on the cheek—was Bonner. I knew him well enough to drag him out to the side porch after my feet had been washed until they were shriveled, while everyone else made a beeline for the dessert table.

“That was you choking like you had a hairball in the courtroom, wasn’t it?” I said. “You know how hard it is to keep a straight face when you do that?”

Bonner sank beside me on the swing, the sun teasing out the reddish tinge of his hair, and studied the crease in his slacks through the inevitable sunglasses attached to him with Croakies.

“You okay?” I said.

“You mean because I didn’t say anything when I was washing your feet—”

“You have already given us so much. Any more would practically be overkill. But you wear yourself all over your face, so what’s going on?”

Bonner pushed his glasses up his nose. “I just didn’t want to say this in front of everybody—”

“Uh-oh. What did I do?”

“Am I going to get to finish a sentence in this conversation?”

“Probably not.”

He put a hand over mine. “Look, I know things aren’t easy for you financially right now, and I thought maybe you could use—”

“You are not going to give me money.”

“I was just going to offer you a loan to tide you over until—”

“I’m fine.”

He just blinked at me over the tops of the shades.

“Seriously,” I said. “There’s a salary for me incorporated into that grant Liz helped us get. That’ll last six months if I budget carefully.”

“That’s a pretty big if.”

I flopped back on the swing. “I know, right? Sometimes I don’t know where it goes.”

“I’ll tell you where it goes—”

“I take Mercedes to coffee. I buy lunch for Maharry and the girls. I—”

“You try to save the world instead of paying the electric bill.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “How did you know about that?”

Bonner grinned. “So that really happened.”

“You are slime. Tell anyone and I’ll cut your heart out.”

“Look, Allison—”

“No, Bonner, I’m not going to accept money from you. We’re about people becoming empowered to help themselves, and that applies to me, too.”

“Y’know, if you’d hush up for about seven seconds …”

He waited. I pulled a finger across my lips.

“I was just going to suggest you have somebody handle your personal finances for you. That way you’d be freed up to do what you’re good at.”

“Are you volunteering?”

“I’d rather be shot. But Chief would probably—”

I actually snorted.

“What?”

“That would be a total train wreck. It would just be a matter of who came out alive.”

Bonner leaned back, arms folded behind his head. “So what’s going to happen when you get married?”

I could almost feel the sweat bubbles popping out across my upper lip. “What makes you think—”

“Oh, come on, Allison, I’ve never seen two people more nuts about each other.”

“More so than you and Liz? You two can’t keep your hands off of each other.” I leaned toward the door. “Where is my favorite social worker, anyway?”

“You’re dodging.”

“Yes, I am.”

I stood up and put my hand down to him. “Thanks, my friend. But I’m fine. I really am.”

“The offer stands.”

“You’re making Allison an offer? You might need legal counsel for that.”

I turned and, of course, smiled too eagerly at Kade who was emerging from the kitchen with three plates of tiramisu balanced up his arm.

“You ever work as a waiter?” Bonner said.

“All through law school. I made more in tips then than I’m making now.”

Bonner took a plate from him and moved with typical tact toward the door. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. You’re both going to pro bono yourselves straight into heaven.”

He let the door close behind him, leaving Kade and me examining our mascarpone. I thought I should sit down but I was afraid he wouldn’t.

“Nice ceremony,” he said.

“Uh-huh,” I said. Eloquently. “I liked what you said about getting Desmond through math for the rest of his academic career. I’m a complete liability to him in that area.”

I then shoveled a hunk of Hank’s liqueur-and-lady-fingers into my mouth so I wouldn’t say that I now had two sons or that what I really wanted was for them to be brothers. Or ask if witnessing an adoption made him feel … something … I didn’t know what. I stuck another mouthful in on top of the other one, though none of it was going anywhere. My esophagus was in a square knot.

“I’m buying a house,” Kade said. “Up at Ponte Vedra Beach.”

“Duh tha me yo s’aying?” I said.

His clear blue eyes danced. “Say again?”

I swallowed, which gave me time
not
to repeat,
Does that mean you’re staying?

“That’s wonderful,” I said instead. “Tell me.”

I mean, if you want to. You don’t have to. I don’t want to be pushy.

I all but rolled my eyes at myself. Any time God wanted to intervene would be great. Except that God seldom did when it came to things I could figure out for myself if I weren’t such a basket case.

“It doesn’t look like much now,” Kade said. “Matter of fact the bank wouldn’t finance it so I had to get a loan from my father.”

“Great—”

“My real father. Not my biological father.”

I put the fork down. “You don’t have to make that distinction with me, Kade. We don’t ever even have to discuss Troy. For any reason.”

“Good luck with that.”

Kade abandoned his still half-full plate to the arm of one of the Adirondack chairs and perched on the edge of the porch railing, hands jammed into his pockets.

“He’s part of the reason I’m staying,” he said.

Early-evening shadows fell across his face and across my heart. So this had nothing to do with us having a relationship.

“I won’t just sit around and watch him get away with what he did.”

“You haven’t exactly been sitting around,” I said. “What about all those editorials in the paper?”

“What about all those rebuttals? My dad’s piece in
Fortune
didn’t even faze anybody.” Kade looked at me, face struggling. “The DA can let him off. Everybody else can just go back to business as usual with him, but I can’t. I don’t see how you can either.”

“All I can do is work at what I’m given to do, and I’m not getting that taking down Troy Irwin is it.”

“How do you know this isn’t what
I’m
given to do?”

“Because God doesn’t give anybody revenge as a job. Justice, yes, but—”

“Justice. Are you serious? Justice went down the tubes when nobody forced Irwin to give a DNA sample—even though we had an eyewitness. Hey, maybe
I
should become a prosecutor.” Sarcasm laced his voice. “Oh, wait, I can’t do that here. I’m not a good ol’ boy.”

I smeared my palms, now oozing sweat, across my thighs. This would be a good time to measure out the words with a teaspoon and maybe
not
alienate him any further.

“I’m not trying to tell you how to feel about this,” I said. “I would just hate to see you turn into what Troy Irwin is.”

I could almost see that sentence bristling up the back of his neck. “Because it’s in my genes?”

“It’s not in your soul. That’s all I know.”

I bit at my lip. If he said I knew nothing about his soul I might have to rip my own larynx out.

“It’s not just about me,” he said finally. “What about Ophelia? Don’t you want her to have closure?”

“That would be great. But even without it, what we really want is for her to heal, and she’s doing that—”

“And how about the damage he’s done to West King Street?”

“At this point I think he’s done all the harm he’s going to do down there. His investors have all pulled out.”

“And made it worse than it was before he got his hands on it. That tattoo parlor he shut down has about six guys living in it now. The only two things left going are C.A.R.S. and that one bar.”

“So we fix it. One person at a time.” I could hear my voice going thin, and with it my hope that this conversation could end well.

“What makes you think Irwin will let us?” Kade said. “As long as he’s CEO of Chamberlain Enterprises and owns the majority of the stock, he can obviously still take apart everything we try to do.”

“How do you know he hasn’t given up fighting us?” I said. “He’s obviously got the whole police department in his pocket, except for Nick Kent. But he did confess to
us,
Kade. He knows that we know.”