Phantom of Riverside Park (29 page)

True to her promise, she was still silent,
waiting for his cue.

“That’s the gist of my first proposal. Any
questions?”

“You’d give up your anonymity for me... for
Nicky?”

“Yes.”

“Is there no other way?”

“No. If you take the money and I don’t come
forward, you will be dragged through the dirt and painted as a
harlot, or worse. Belliveaus’ lawyers will crucify you.”

“You make it sound horrible, and I know
you’re right. I never dreamed this could all turn so ugly.”

“I could be wrong, of course, but I don’t
think so. Did you perceive Anna Lisa and Ralph Belliveau as people
likely to give up easily?”

“No. I think she could be persuaded to
reason, but not Taylor’s daddy. He’s a bulldog. He’s got his teeth
in this case, and he’s not about to give up without a fight to the
death.”

“From reports I have, that’s also my
perception of him.”

David waited for everything he’d proposed to
sink in. Elizabeth sat with her hands folded in her lap, her head
slightly bowed. A casual observer might have thought she was
defeated or praying, but David was not casual, not about Elizabeth.
There was tension in every line of her body.

He wanted to go down to the Delta and
personally throttle everybody responsible for her agony. His anger
was way out of proportion considering that he was a mere bystander,
an outsider whose only interest was in seeing justice done.

Wasn’t that his only interest? It was a
question that would keep awake most of the night. He knew that,
even now while Elizabeth was still sitting in his office with her
silky hair half-hiding her face.

She might as well be on the moon.

“You said you have two proposals?”

“Yes.”

“What is the second?”

“You would move Nicky into a good house in a
good neighborhood. Papa, too. You would have the best nanny money
could buy. You could continue working if you wanted to, but you
wouldn’t have to. The same with school. And you would have the best
lawyer money can buy.”

His palms began to sweat, and he felt as if
his skin has suddenly stretched too big for his suit. His tie felt
like a noose.

“I don’t understand,” Elizabeth said. “That’s
exactly like the first proposal. What’s the difference?”

Her question hung fire. There was no backing
out now, no changing his mind. He’d gone too far to quit.

“The difference is that everything would
belong to you legally, the house, the money, everything. The
difference is that you would be my wife.”

She didn’t gasp. She didn’t look
terror-struck, or even astonished. In fact, she didn’t even
move.

If she had done any of those things he’d
probably have told her it was a bad idea and to forget the whole
thing. Or else he’d have walked the three steps to safety and
vanished behind his secret door.

“You’re asking me to marry you?” Her softly
spoken question brought him back to reality.

“In name only.” Why did it hurt so much to
say those words? He’d have many long, empty hours to ponder. “After
the case is settled or dropped, as we hope it will be, I would give
you an annulment, and you could walk away, free and clear.”

He found himself using his most persuasive
manner. That’s something he’d have to think about, too. Why? Why,
all of a sudden, was he so desperate to make proposal number two
sound like the better deal?

“Furthermore, I would give you a generous
settlement that would allow you to live anywhere in the world.
Nicky could go to the best schools. Your Papa could live out the
rest of his life in ease and luxury. You would never have to worry
about money again.”

“It all comes back to money, doesn’t it?”

“Children can’t be taken away because the
parents don’t have money. If that were true, kids around the world
would be snatched from their homes. Your case, though, hinges on
what money can buy: safety and security for Nicky and a good
lawyer.”

“Why?”

“I don’t understand your question.”

“Why me? Why have you chosen to shower all
this generosity on me? What do you hope to gain?”

He should have known she wouldn’t let him get
by with making such outlandish offers without asking the hard
questions. Unfortunately, she’d chosen the most difficult of
all.

“Why did I chose any of the recipients over
the years? Their stories intrigued me. I thought them deserving.
Helping them made me feel good. Perhaps that’s the crux of the
matter. Perhaps I’m merely trying to redeem myself.”

“That’s it? You want nothing more from me
than another chance to feel good about being the giver?”

“If you’re worried that I will try to claim
any conjugal rights, you can put your mind at ease.”

“The thought never entered my mind. You said
you would marry me ‘in name only,’ and I know you’re a man of your
word. I trust you, David.”

It wasn’t much. A crumb. But it would have to
do.

“You don’t have to make your decision now,
Elizabeth. Take as much time as you need.”

“Time’s running out for me.”

“We do need to move fairly quickly. Still, at
least sleep on it. You can let me know in the next couple of days
what you decide.”

“Thank you, David. I honestly don’t know what
I would have done if you hadn’t come home.”

“I’m here to help you get your child back.
That’s my only motive, Elizabeth. Please don’t think I’m trying to
use your situation to take personal advantage of you.”

“The thought never entered my mind.”

He was amazed at how much more relaxed she
seemed than when she’d first entered the room. Amazed and somewhat
scared. Elizabeth was placing her future in his hands. Her act of
courage required enormous trust, enormous confidence. What if he
let her down?

He wouldn’t let himself even think of defeat.
If he did, he was doomed before he ever started. They all were:
Elizabeth, Nicky, Papa.

Beware of challenging the gods
.
Where had he read that? Or had he just made it up because it was so
fitting for the situation?

“Edwards will see you safely home,” he
said.

“I don’t know what to say, David, except
thank you, and that seems so inadequate.”

“You’re welcome, Elizabeth. Take care.”

As he watched her leave the circle of light
across the room, David realized that the possibility of losing
Nicky was not the only danger. He stood in peril as well. If she
accepted his second proposal he was in danger of losing everything:
his anonymity, his privacy, and perhaps even his heart. It was a
sacrifice he was willing to make for the child ... but most of all,
for the child’s mother.

Elizabeth didn’t know how one mortal being
could contain so much anxiety without exploding. In the car going
home David’s words played over and over in her head.

Thank goodness Edwards was not the nosey,
talkative type. If he’d asked her a single question, even which was
the best street to turn on to get to her house, she would have
exploded. Right there in the lemon zing.

Oh, God. Nicky
.

She missed him so much that sometimes she
couldn’t even breathe. She would sit up at night gasping for
breath, then race to the window and lean her head out into the
night looking for relief in air that hadn’t even cooled a decent
five degrees from the wretched, blistering heat that had gripped
Memphis since early summer.

It was almost as if the elements were
smothering, too, in sympathy with her plight.

What was she going to tell David Lassiter in
the morning? What would her answer be?

She couldn’t think. She could barely breathe.
Her head was pounding so she thought she might faint in the car.
There were so many people she had to consider, so many angles.
Nicky was paramount, of course. Getting him back was her main goal,
her only goal.

If she chose the money she would have the
best of everything for all of them--the best house, the best
neighborhood, the best life, the best lawyers--and without the
legal entanglement, not to mention the emotional one, of a
marriage.

How could he think she would go into a
marriage with a man she didn’t even know? Marriage was supposed to
be about love that melted your bones and a four-poster bed built
for two and promises before Papa and God to cherish forever after.
Marriage was supposed to be the kind Mae Mae had.

Still, there was the question of facing a
firing line of lawyers bent on proving her criminal connections if
she suddenly turned up rich. The worst had already happened to her:
she’d lost her son. There was nothing she couldn’t face now.

But could Papa hold up through such an
ordeal? And what about Nicky? If she took that route would it take
longer to get him back?

Maybe. Probably. She didn’t know.

She longed for a tall glass of Mae Mae’s
lemonade with lots of ice and sugar and real slices of lemon
floating on the top. One of her favorite stories from Mae Mae was
how she used to make it by the barrel to take to Memorial Day
services at the Baptist church that featured all-day singing and
dinner on the ground.

The all-day-singing part made sense to
Elizabeth, because it was an obvious and tedious truth. So many
people in Tunica and the surrounding counties fancied themselves
singers that everybody and his second cousin showed up with a group
in order to make his talents known to the Tunica Baptists in
particular and the world at large.

It was the dinner-on-the-ground part that got
Elizabeth. Dinner was not served on the ground, Mae Mae said. Fifty
good Baptist women would have dropped dead at the mention of such
sacrilege. The fried chicken and potato salad and fresh coconut
cake they’d slaved over, bragged over and prayed over was served on
makeshift tables spread with snow-white linen table clothes.

“White as snow... washed in the blood of the
Lamb...marching to Zion...Jesus saves.”

Snatches of the old hymns tumbled through her
mind, and sitting right there in the limousine she thought she
heard Nicky belting out “Gladly, the cross-eyed bear.”

Who was going to save him?

Elizabeth started to cry. What she longed for
was not Mae Mae’s lemonade but the simplicity and promise of days
gone by, days when the most exciting thing that happened all day
long might be seeing Taylor zip by in his sports car while she sat
on a rocking chair on the front porch surrounded by shade and
peace.

“Shall I pull over, Miss Elizabeth, and get
you a coke?”

A coke wasn’t what she needed. What she
needed was a miracle.

Morning brought Elizabeth no closer to a
decision, but it did bring Quincy, full of good news for a change.
When Elizabeth opened the door, her friend was fairly bouncing up
and down with excitement.

“I did it, girl friend! I did it! Give me
five.” She held up a hand as big as a side of bacon and slapped her
palm against Elizabeth’s.

“What did you do?” Elizabeth held her hands
out like a traffic cop. “No, don’t tell me standing out here on the
porch where all the neighbors can see my nervous breakdown. Come on
in the kitchen. Papa’s got coffee ready.”

“He’ll want to hear this, too.” Papa, who was
already at the table with his mug of coffee, nearly jumped out of
his skin when Quincy’s big voice boomed, “Great news, Papa.”

“Wait a minute. Let me take my vitamins
first. These days I have to get fortified before I can stand any
more news.”

Quincy’s laughter rattled the chipped plates
and cups with missing handles.

“If this is not the beatin’est family I ever
saw. Do y’all want to hear my news or not?”

Elizabeth wished a vitamin would fortify her.
She felt like a piece of cracked china fixing to fly apart if
somebody sneezed in her direction.

“We got Nicky moved,” Quincy said, and
Elizabeth didn’t trust herself to speak. “He’s with my daughter
this very minute, eating country-fried ham and biscuits big as a
washtub and talking a mile a minute.”

Elizabeth was still speechless, and so was
Papa. They both had tears in their eyes as big as baseballs. Only
this time they were tears of gratitude.

Quincy wrapped her arms around Elizabeth, and
it was like being in the lee of a rock.
Rock of ages, cleft for
me, let me hide myself in thee.
Why did the old hymns keep
playing through her mind?

Maybe because Mae Mae was always singing
them, in times of trouble as well as times of joy.

“There’s nothing like a good hymn to give
voice to the heart,” she used to say.

I have the joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my
heart. Down in my heart to stay.

Was it? Was it there to stay or was this
merely a brief respite before the storm washed them all out to sea
once more?

“You know what this means, don’t you?” Quincy
asked, and Elizabeth nodded. “It means you get to see your baby,
never mind what some uppity government folks say ‘about visitation
rights. Nobody in Quincy’s family is going to tell. Ununh, no
sirree.”

“What are we waiting for?” Papa grabbed his
hat. “Let’s go see our boy.”

o0o

The lady who said
call me Carol
had
hugged him too tight and called him
sugar pumpkin
when he
left her house, but Nicky was not sorry to go. Bear, neither. No
more peas. No more scary clock monsters in the hall. No more silly
stories from
call me Carol,
who didn’t know about Mae Mae
and her garden and her lemonade and silber lining.

He liked the new house better. The new lady,
too. She had chocolate cookies baking when he got there. They
smelled just like Papa’s. She was nice, too, and she didn’t call
him pumpkin. She said his name.

Then when that mean lady with the Halloween
mouth left, Quincy came! Him and Bear was so glad to see her they
‘bout cried, but Papa said
be brave
, and so Bear cried but
he didn’t. Quincy said he could see Mommy and Papa any time he
wanted to. He just couldn’t go home. Not yet.