Fools Rush In. Gwynne Forster

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СКАЧАТЬ Dee Dee’s notice had been in the paper more than a month, and Justine hadn’t answered it. So she wasn’t looking for a husband. Thank God for that. Accustomed to examining both sides of an issue or a fact, he considered the possibility that Justine hadn’t answered the ad because she didn’t read Maryland papers. Well, his daughter liked her, and that settled it as far as he was concerned. If Justine Taylor possessed any unsavory traits, Mattie would detect it at once, he could count on that. But he’d gotten good vibes from Justine—honesty, warmth, femininity, and self-confidence, traits he admired in a woman. And she clearly loved children. He phoned his sister.

      “Banks speaking.”

      Duncan took a deep, impatient breath. If only he could knock some sense into his sister. “Leah, I’ve told you a few million times to stop calling yourself by our last name. It’s too masculine.”

      “And I’ve told you not to call me Leah. I can’t stand that name.”

      “Then change it, for Pete’s sake. Oughta be easy, since nobody but the family knows what it is.”

      “Duncan, did you call me to fight with me? I’m sleepy.”

      “When will you have an evening free? I want to ask some people over. Seems like I owe everybody I know an invitation to dinner.”

      “I’m always free. Promise to invite some men who still have their own hair on their head. And I’d like to see their chests before I see their bay windows.”

      Duncan was used to his sister’s cynicism, but he couldn’t resist trying to change her. “Leah, your attitude needs refining. Learn to judge a man by the content of his character—to quote a famous one—instead of his girth and how much of his scalp you can see.”

      He imagined that she tossed her head and shrugged her left shoulder. She was the only person he knew who did that. “Thanks for nothing, brother dear. Most of us women like a guy we can get our arms around, if need be. Besides, Martin Luther King was talking about kids; I had in mind cool brown brothers over the age of thirty.”

      She never failed to amuse him—the best dose of anti-tension medicine to be had anywhere. Laughter flowed out of him. “Trust you to twist it your way. How about it?”

      “Improve your list of men friends, and you can count me in. And no cigars. Why do newspaper men like those hideous things?”

      “I don’t smoke.”

      “Everybody needs at least one virtue. Good for you”

      “All right. All right. You’ll be glad to know that I just hired a nanny for Tonya.”

      “You mean you’ve given up the idea of marrying somebody to mother her? It’s a dumb idea, anyway.”

      “No, I haven’t, Miss know-it-all, but I haven’t found anyone who suits me, and I needed somebody to look after Tonya. So I hired Justine Taylor.”

      “Well, this I’ve got to see. Is she good-looking?”

      Trust Leah to focus on a side issue. “Among other attributes. See ya.” He hung up and called Wayne Roundtree in Baltimore.

      “Say, man, I hope I’m not disturbing you,” Duncan said when Wayne held the receiver a long time before speaking.

      “Nah. I had to shake a couple of pests a few minutes ago, and I fully intended to hang up the minute I recognized either one of them. That’s the life of a managing editor. What’s up?”

      Duncan trained his ear in the direction of Tonya’s room. No, she wasn’t crying, only talking. “I just hired a nanny. She won’t be on the job ’til Saturday, and I want to spend a few days at home after she starts to be sure she and Tonya get on. So I’d like to postpone work on that municipal bribery case.”

      “Okay, but I hope it doesn’t break in The Sun or The Afro-American. What does she look like?”

      “Who?”

      “You know who I mean. This nanny you hired.”

      Duncan leaned back in the big barrel chair, propped his left knee over his right one, and grinned. “Not worth a backward glance, man. And, I’m going to introduce her to Listerine mouthwash the minute she walks back into this house.”

      His ears hummed with Wayne’s roar of laughter. “No kidding. She must be a knockout. When can I come over for…well, for dinner?”

      “Come to think of it, I’m planning a dinner party soon as my sister can get over here to help me. I owe everybody I know an invitation.”

      “Count me in. I have to meet this poor unfortunate nanny you hired. Let me know when you can get on that case.”

      “Will do. In a couple of days, I’ll fax you my story on ward politics.”

      “Right on, man.”

      Duncan hung up and went into Tonya’s room to turn out the lamp beside her bed and put on her night light. It worried him that she feared the darkness so much. Maybe having Justine—someone who’d be with her all the time—would give her a greater sense of security. Justine. Why had he felt so comfortable with her? He’d swear that she had in some way been a part of his life.

      Chapter 2

      Justine took an old purse from a shelf in her closet and, for the first time in twelve months, looked at the picture taken of Tonya at birth. The little red spot at the top her right ear was now brown, but it was there, the final proof that she had found her baby. She needed to talk with someone, anybody. But who? She couldn’t expect another person not to divulge a secret as ripe for gossip and, at the same time, as potentially damaging as hers. She replaced the photo and lay down and, for the first time since Kenneth’s death, she slept through the night, and no horrible memories invaded her dreams.

      She rose early the next morning and began preparing for life as her child’s nanny. Her first act was to phone Big Al, editor of The Evening Post. “You’re on, Al,” she squeaked out, less sure of her decision than when she’d made it. “As of now, I’m Aunt Mariah. I have to get a post office box. I’m moving to Tacoma Park, Al. You’ll get it all by fax sometime tomorrow.”

      “Right. Soon as I get your P.O. address, I’ll tell the world not to be troubled any longer,” he crooned in his booming voice. “Aunt Mariah will solve all their problems. Just give ’em horse sense, babe. That’ll do it every time.”

      The next three days were the busiest that she could remember, but knowing she was putting her life in order, folding the page that had been Mrs. Kenneth Montgomery, and beginning a life with her child—however impermanent it might prove to be—energized her and buoyed her spirit.

      She got a post office box, closed the deal with the buyer of her house, and bought one of the co-op apartments that her agent reserved for her inspection. Then, she sent the fax to Al, and told her agent to find a tenant for her new apartment. That done, she invited the Salvation Army to come over to her house and take whatever it could sell, except for her blankets and Kenneth’s expensive clothing, which she planned to divide among the homeless men along “East of the River.”

      She’d been determined to do it herself, and her stomach rolled from the stench СКАЧАТЬ