Last Chance at Love (21 page)

A couple of doors down the spacious corridor she found her room, went inside, and walked straight to the window.
What a place for lovers!
She stepped out on her balcony and gazed down at the strollers along the Paseo del Rio, the famous cobblestones River Walk that snaked its way beside the winding San Antonio River, adorned on either side with trees, shrubs, ferns, flowers, hotels, restaurants, and assorted other buildings. She didn’t think she had ever seen anything so idyllic as when a Yanaguana Cruiser—a flat boat—ambled past with a group of sightseers as its joyful burden.

She had phoned Sydney the night before, but got no answer, so she decided to use a part of her forty-five minutes talking with him.

“Wakefield,” his deep and, to her amazement, officious voice said when he answered the phone—an attitude that she assumed was a part of his professional demeanor.

“Hi, Sydney. I’m down in San Antonio. How are you?”

“Me? I’m great. How’s Jake?”

“Upstairs asleep, I guess. He slept all the way down from Washington.”

“Hey! Go easy on the guy. If he needs to sleep, let him.”

“I am. We just got here.”

“Yeah? How’s the romance shaping up? If he sat beside you and went to sleep, he must feel pretty comfortable with you.”

“Maybe. Something’s been bothering me. Jake breaks the tour with no excuse, except to tell me that something came up, and twice on the cruise he disappeared. In Martinique, he rushed us back to the boat an hour early, and we were the first passengers to return. All of a sudden after watching the passengers file in, he grabbed my hand and jumped the line. Then, he told me to go on to my stateroom and he’d see me later. The only explanation he gave was the hint of urgency in his voice.”

“You’re looking for something that isn’t there. The man’s a writer, and writers are always focused on that next book. How is he when the two of you are alone?”

“He’s...uh, affectionate and loving. I couldn’t believe he kissed me right in front of Aunt Frances.”

His chuckles reached her through the wire. “What did she say about that?”

“Auntie? You know how laid-back she is. She didn’t bat an eyelash. They liked each other. Spoken to Mom or Dad?”

“With Dad. But I haven’t had the energy to talk with Mom. She wears me out just by the way she says hello.”

Allison couldn’t help laughing at Sydney’s candidness, a trait he’d had since early childhood. “Tell me about it. I have to go; I haven’t changed my clothes, and I’m meeting Jake for lunch in half an hour.”

“Have a good time down there... And, Allison...”

“What is it?”

“Stop scrutinizing every blink of the guy’s eyes. If you look for a problem, you’ll find one. That man is honest and honorable, and you will not dispute me on that. When your relationship gets to the point where he starts talking about the future, he’ll tell you everything. But if you pry into his life to get information for that article you’re writing on him, kiss him goodbye. You listening to me?”

“Yes. I am.”

“Take care of yourself, sis. Don’t court trouble.”

She hung up with his words still ringing in her ears.

After lunch in one of the hotel’s restaurants, she strolled along the River Walk with Jacob Covington holding her hand, telling herself not to let the idyllic setting sweep her out of reality.

“Did you notice that every couple we meet, regardless of age, is holding hands?” she asked Jake.

“Impossible to miss it. Want a cruise along the river in a Yanaguana Cruiser? It’s a great way to see the River Walk.”

“I’d love it,” she said. “How many times have you visited San Antonio?”

“Several.”

When he didn’t elaborate, she wondered if those visits were associated with a broken love affair.
It never pays to ask him direct questions,
she reminded herself,
unless he initiates the topic.

Resting against his broad chest as the flat-bottomed boat glided slowly along the narrow stream, she wished she didn’t love him, for she knew it had to end. Nothing beautiful in her life had ever lasted except Sydney. The more she thought of it, the more she hurt, and without considering her actions, she turned in his arms and buried her face in his chest.

At first, he seemed to relish her move, wrapping her closely to his body, but she remained there, never wanting to move, and he stepped back.

“Something isn’t right with you. What is it?”

She laid her shoulders back, brushed the hair from her face, and smiled. “I just hate so terribly for...for this to end.”

“This what? Being here, the tour, or...or...us?”

“Here, the tour. You know what I mean.”

“I have a feeling it goes deeper, but you will eventually tell me.”

When at last the cruiser returned them to the Hyatt Regency, she welcomed the opportunity for privacy in her room, if only for a few minutes. “What time do we meet?” she asked him.

“Five-fifteen in the lobby. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll look over my notes now.”

“Of course.” She said goodbye, noticed that he didn’t kiss her, and wondered at the coolness he projected. Perhaps she imagined it.

His lecture and book signing that evening took place at a local high school. Although his audience consisted mostly of adults, more than a tenth were high school teenagers, juniors and seniors. On an earlier occasion when he spoke about his life, he had held her nearly spellbound, but she had attributed that to his subject matter. On this occasion, he mesmerized her with a talk she knew he had not planned, but had decided upon when he realized he had an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of thirty or forty African-American teenagers.

She took notes as fast as she could write, gave up, and turned on her recorder. Speaking directly to the youths, he told them not to use race as an excuse to fail in life, but to educate themselves, work hard, and meet every situation in life with honesty and integrity.

“Be kind to others, and lift up your less gifted brother or sister,” he told them. “Don’t aim to be good at what you do; aim to excel. Then, no one can stop you, and no one will
want
to stop you.”

She stood aside while the audience surged toward him. He spoke to each youth, signed several hundred books, and shook hands with most everyone present. She thought it his most grueling engagement of the tour but it seemed to have invigorated him.

“I promised you we’d eat dinner around seven-thirty,” he said as they were leaving the school, “and it’s ten after nine. This looks like a nice restaurant; let’s go in here.”

After a relatively simple meal of blackened redfish, boiled parsley potatoes, and string beans, with peach ice cream for dessert, he reached across the table for her hand.

“This isn’t going to sit well with you, and it certainly displeases me, but I have to leave tomorrow morning. It can’t be helped, and I’m sorry. I’ll change your ticket if you don’t want to stay longer.”

She supposed she looked a sight, as her mother often said, with her lower lip hanging down and her right eye narrowed to a slit. “Look, you’ve missed almost a third of your dates, and I’m facing three full pages of small newsprint in a standard-size newspaper. What the devil am I going to write? Most of what I know about you isn’t printable.”

“You must know that I wouldn’t make these abrupt changes if I could avoid it.”

She tried to squelch the anger that overtook her like a rising storm, but couldn’t. “Maybe some day, you’ll tell me—the woman, if not the writer—what you do in your other life.”

He removed his hand, leaned back, and stared at her. And she saw nothing friendly in his gaze or in his demeanor. “It doesn’t pay to get so fanciful. You’ve let your imagination run amok. Shall we go?”

Too late, she remembered Sydney’s advice, but she was damned if she’d apologize. “Yes. Let’s” was all she said until they reached the hotel’s lobby.

“If you’ll give me your ticket, I’ll have it changed and leave it at the desk for you. When are you leaving?”

She thought for a minute. If she didn’t give him the ticket, she would have to pay her fare back to Washington. “Tomorrow afternoon,” she told him, got the ticket out of her handbag, and gave it to him.

“You can’t imagine how sorry I am about this,” he said, turned, and left.

“Jake!” she called after him, and her heart seemed to jump into her throat when he stopped, turned, and waited. He said nothing, and she knew it was her move.

She walked to him. “Jake, I’m sorry I caused this rift between us, but you must realize that I am frustrated. You said you can’t help it. Well, I don’t believe you would lie to me, but knowing you are honest about it doesn’t ease my anxiety about getting the story I’m being paid for.”

“I’m aware of that, and I’ll do my best not to disappoint you again.”

When he turned toward the elevator, without thinking, she said, “Whatever awaits you, go with God.”

His eyes widened, and then a frown covered his face. “I... Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

“My grandmother used to say that to me every time I left her house, and it always made me feel so safe,” she said.

He reached for her hand and held it until they reached the door of her room. “I have to get a seven-ten flight, so I’m not going in. I’ll leave your ticket at the desk.”

Both of his arms encircled her, and for a brief second she felt the pressure of his mouth on hers. “We haven’t cleared this up,” he said, “but we will. I’ll meet you at the airport Monday morning. Safe journey.” He hugged her briefly, waited until she closed her room door, and left.

She told herself not to question his ability to get her ticket changed between ten in the evening and five in the morning when he had to leave the hotel.
Considering how much there is about him that I don’t know, I may find out that he can walk on water.

After breakfast the next morning, she stopped at the registration desk and asked whether she had mail. The clerk handed her a long white envelope addressed to her in what she assumed was Jake’s bold handwriting. “I’d give anything to know how he did it,” she said to herself, observing that he had booked a four o’clock direct flight. Puzzled, yet admiring him, she headed for the Alamo, the one site she wanted to visit.

* * *

Jake walked away from Allison, his heart heavy and his anger near the surface. Anger at the chief for disrupting his life, at himself for permitting it, and at Allison for not believing in him, although from his behavior on the tour, she had a right to question him. He hadn’t wanted to leave her, and especially not with a chill hanging over them. He walked into his room, saw the message signal flashing on the phone, and, suspecting that the chief was his caller, called him back on his cell phone.

“Did you phone me?” Assured that he had, he asked, “What’s up?”

“Just making sure you get to that hearing at eleven-thirty tomorrow morning.”

“When I agree to do a thing, I do it,” he replied, not bothering to show his annoyance. “She’s not coming back with me. I want you to get her ticket changed for a three or four o’clock flight tomorrow.” He read the ticket numbers to his boss. “I told her her ticket would be at the registration desk when I leave the hotel in the morning. I’ve never lied to her.”

“Whew!” the chief said. “Man, you don’t half do anything. I hope she knows how fortunate she is.”

“Really? When I told her of your latest plan for me, she practically bit off my head. This is my last break in this tour. If the capitol is about to be burned, call someone else.”

The long silence didn’t impress him. “I see,” the chief finally said. “I’ve only looked at this from the point of view of our needs here. No doubt this has been a burden for you.”

“It’s been a burden for the stores and event planners who purchased cartons of my books and had to dispose of them as best they could, and there’s no telling what kind of story that paper will print if she loses confidence in me. And she has plenty of grounds.”

When a fledgling agent, he would have considered himself reckless to speak to his boss in such a way, but after eleven years of faithful and selfless service with the same boss, he was entitled to speak his mind.

“Are you ever planning to tell her the whole story?”

“I’d need your permission. What do your other operatives tell their wives, for instance?”

“We’ll discuss this when you come back. I had no idea I’d put you in such a predicament. The ticket will be there before you leave. See you tomorrow.”

“A lot of good that does me right now,” Jake said aloud and began to pack. The next morning, he stopped at the desk and assured himself that the exchanged ticket had arrived. The chief had ways of accomplishing the nearly impossible, and for this once, he was grateful.

He went from the airport in Washington directly to the Senate Office Building and walked into the chamber at eleven twenty-five for the closed hearing scheduled to begin at eleven-thirty.

* * *

Frustrated and increasingly agitated at her inability to get a grasp on Jake’s public persona, which was so unlike the man she knew privately, Allison paced around her office at home, certain that she faced a hostile grilling from her boss and humiliation at being labeled incompetent. She understood why other reporters had managed to write nothing more than bland, uninteresting pieces on him. He shrouded himself in privacy, revealing only as much of himself as he deemed relevant.

She answered the telephone hoping to hear Jake’s voice, but instead she heard the snarling words of her boss.

“I called you at the hotel and discovered you’d checked out. What have you got to say for yourself? I’m not spending my money to make it convenient for you and Covington. I—”

She interrupted him. “He had to cut the engagement short and left early this morning, but didn’t tell me where he was going. He got my ticket changed, and I got back a couple of hours ago. For your information, I am sitting here working on this story when I should be asleep, tired as I am.”

“Hmm. Well, as long as you’re working at it. But I don’t see you getting excited like you found out something good. I don’t want a story telling me how great he is, the papers have been full of tripe like that on him. You find out what he’s like when nobody’s looking, and put it in that story. You hear me?”