Scarlet Woman

“He has a family emergency and had to go out of town. He wants you to call him tonight. And please do that, Ethan, because he’s worried about you.”

Ethan looked hard at Melinda and narrowed his eyes as though making up his mind about her. “You sure he’s all right?”

She nodded. “I’m sure. Will you call his cell-phone number?”

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked past her. “Uh…yeah. I shoulda called him, so he’d know I wasn’t in no trouble. But I got this job staking balls late nights to early morning, so…I shoulda called and told him. Tonight, you say?”

“Yes. Tonight.”

“Okay. See you.” He started toward the table, then turned back to her. “Oh, I forgot to thank you for coming by.”

She told him good-bye, but she couldn’t get him off her mind. He didn’t seem like a criminal, but she supposed that wasn’t something obvious to the eye.

When she got back home, Ruby accosted her right at the door. “Miz Melinda, how come all these mens calling you? I left the messages on your desk, but it don’t look good to have all these mens calling here when you just been a widow. Six months from now when you needs one, that’d be a different matter. Oh yes,” she called, as Melinda walked up the stairs, “Miss Rachel said for you to call her. That woman sure is nosy. I told her I ain’t seen Mr. Blake in this house since poor Mr. Rodgers passed. God rest his dear soul.”

She looked at the names of her callers: Leroy Wilson, Frank Jackson, Roosevelt Hayes, Macon Long. She didn’t know any of them, but she knew what they wanted: a chance to help her spend her late husband’s money. She tore up the messages and telephoned Rachel.

“Hey, girl. What’s going on?” Rachel asked.

“Good question, Rachel. Any time you want to know what’s going on here, who’s been here and what I’m doing, ask me. That’ll save Ruby the trouble of telling me what you asked her.”

“Tight-lipped as you are? I wanted to know, so I asked. Really sorry, Melinda. I—”

“Now that we’ve got that settled, Blake hasn’t been inside this house since Prescott passed. Should I tell him you asked?”

“Of course n…Well, if you want to.”

She didn’t intend to play games with Rachel. They would either remain good friends or they wouldn’t, but she was a grown, unattached woman and she didn’t have to answer to a soul.

“Rachel, I’m meeting Blake at the airport in Baltimore tomorrow, and I can’t swear he won’t come into my house or that I won’t go into his and stay awhile.”

Silence hung between them. “Then you have got something going with him,” Rachel said after some minutes, her voice arid and hollow. “I thought so.” Suddenly, she appeared to brighten. “Well, if he makes your top twirl, honey, go for it.”

She didn’t believe her, but neither did she blame the woman for a gracious stab at face-saving. “Say, have you ever been to that Great Blacks in Wax Museum in Baltimore?” she asked, deliberately changing the subject.

“No. Want to go tomorrow?”

Melinda couldn’t help laughing at Rachel’s transparent effort to go with her to the airport to meet Blake. “Sorry, I can’t go tomorrow. I’m meeting Blake. Remember?”

After making small talk for a few minutes, they hung up. But before she could pull off her shoes, the phone rang again.

“Melinda, honey, this is Ray. I’m just confirming our date for July Fourth.”

She gripped the receiver and considered slamming it back into its cradle. The nerve of him trying to force her to let him display her at that fair for the benefit of local citizenry. “We don’t have a date, Ray. I told you I’d think about it. I’ve done that, and I’ve decided not to go with you. Thanks for being in touch after all these years. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot to do.” She hung up. Five of them in one day, and Lord knows how many more such overtures she could expect. She didn’t wait long for the next one.

Minutes later, a man identifying himself as Salvatore Luca claimed to have seen her on Main Street, inquired as to who she was, and was anxious to meet her. At least he hadn’t come right out and applied for the job of husband.

“There must be some mistake, Mr. Luca,” she said in her sweetest voice. “I haven’t walked along Main Street in I don’t know when. Hope you find her.”

She settled down to study the list of twelve people whom, with Blake’s help, she’d chosen for the board, but she couldn’t get interested in the task of selecting the board’s officers. Why had Prescott saddled her with something for which she had no taste and worse, with the stipulation that she marry within the year or lose the inheritance, a modern-day coup de grâce?

Cold tendrils of fear shot through her. She got up from the richly inlaid walnut desk, walked to the window, and looked down at the goldfish pond in the back garden, but the colorful creatures didn’t amuse her. Not even the gentle breeze that brushed her face when she stepped out on the porch off her bedroom gave her pleasure. Maybe nothing ever would again. She turned away from the blackbirds that perched on the porch swing waiting for the crumbs she usually enjoyed feeding to them and walked slowly back into the house. It couldn’t be true; she wouldn’t let it be true. Blake couldn’t be like all the others, maneuvering for the money her husband had earned despite a handicap that would have bested most women and men. She didn’t want to think that of him, but he was certainly making the road rough for any other man.

She picked up the tablet containing the names of the board members they’d selected, and her gaze fell on Salvatore Luca’s name. She’d written it there, idly, as she spoke with him. She pitched the tablet away from her, lifted the receiver of the ringing phone, and slammed it back in its cradle without answering it. Fed up. With no school until September, she didn’t have to stay in Ellicott City. Not once in her life had she had a vacation, and she was due one. When the phone rang again, she ignored it.

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