Sealed With a Kiss. Gwynne Forster

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СКАЧАТЬ silence. “I’m hanging up in thirty seconds,” she snapped. “Why are you calling?”

       His reply was tinged with what struck her as a grudging laugh. “Miss Logan, this is Rufus Meade. It seems that your spoken language is as caustic as your letters.”

       Her world suddenly brightened; she’d made him angry enough to call her. She tucked a little of her wild hair behind her ear and laughed. Many people had told her that her laughter sounded like bells clinking in the breeze. “I thought I had apologized for being disrespectful,” she said softly, with an affected sweetness. “If Grandpa knew how I’d behaved toward an older person, he’d raise the devil.”

       “At the expense of being rude,” he replied tightly. “I doubt that there’s a ninety-year-old man on the face of this earth who is my equal, and if you’re less than eighty, I’m prepared to demonstrate it.”

       Oh ho, she thought, and howled with laughter, hoping to infuriate him further. “My, my. Our ego’s been pricked, and we’ve got a short temper, too.”

       “And less patience, madam. You’re brimming with self-confidence, aren’t you, Ms. Logan?” She assured him that she was. Up to then, his conversation had suggested to her that he didn’t hold her in high regard, so his next words surprised her.

       “Taking a swipe at me in person should be much more gratifying than having to settle for snide remarks via the mail and over the phone, so why don’t you have lunch with me?”

       She laughed again, turning the screw and enjoying it. “You couldn’t be serious. Why would you think I’d enjoy the company of a man who prefers bimbos to women who can spell? No, thank you.”

       She sighed, concerned that she might have overdone it and realized that she had indeed when he replied in a deadly soft voice. “I hope you enjoy your own company, Ms. Logan. Sorry to have troubled you.”

       He hung up before she could reply, and a sense of disappointment washed over her, a peculiar feeling that warmth she hadn’t realized she felt was suddenly lacking. It was strange and indefinable. She didn’t welcome close male friendship because she couldn’t afford them, and she had not been courting Rufus’s interest. She had just been having fun, she reasoned, and he wasn’t going to have the last word.

       She got out her pen and paper and wrote: “Dear Rufus, how could one man have so many quirks? Bimbos, short temper, heavyweight ego, and heaven forbid, spoilsport. You need help, dear. Yours faithfully, Naomi.”

       Naomi hadn’t heard from Rufus in three days, and she was glad; their conversation had left her with a sense of foreboding. She arrived home feeling exhausted from a two-hour argument with her fellow board members of One Last Chance that the foundation, which she had cofounded to aid girls with problems, would overstretch itself if it extended its facilities to boys. In the Washington, D.C., area, she had insisted, boys had the Police Athletic League for support, but for many girls, especially African American girls, there was only One Last Chance. And she knew its importance. How different her life might have been if the foundation had been there for her thirteen years ago, when she had been sixteen and forced to deal with the shattering aftermath of a misplaced trust.

       She refreshed herself with a warm shower, dressed quickly in a dusty rose cowl-necked sweater and navy pants, and rushed to her best friend Marva’s wedding rehearsal. Dusty rose reminded her of the roses that her mother had so carefully tended and that still flourished around the house on Queens Chapel Terrace, where she had lived with her parents. She couldn’t recall those days well, but she thought she remembered her mother working in her garden on clear, sunny mornings during spring and summer. She regularly resisted the temptation to pass the house and look at the roses. She’d never seen any others that color, her favorite. It was why she had chosen a dress of that shade to wear as maid of honor at Marva’s wedding.

       Marva was her closest friend, though in Naomi’s view they were exact opposites. The women’s one priority was the permanent attainment of an eligible man. Marriage wasn’t for her, but as maid of honor, she had to stand in for the bride—as close to the real thing as she would ever get. At times, she desperately longed for a man’s love and for children—lots of them. But she could not risk the disclosure that an intimate relationship with a man would ultimately require, and to make certain that she was never tempted, she kept men at a distance.

       Naomi knew that men found her attractive, and she had learned how to put them off with empty, meaningless patter. It wasn’t that she didn’t like any of them; she did. She wanted to kick herself when the groom’s best man caught her scrutinizing him, a deeply bronzed six footer with a thin black mustache, good looks, and just the right amount of panache. She figured that her furtive glances had plumped his ego, because he immediately asked her out when the rehearsal was over. She deftly discouraged him, and it was becoming easier, she realized, when he backed off after just a tiny sample of her dazzling double-talk.

       I’ll pay for it, she thought, as she mused over the evening during her drive home. Whenever she misrepresented herself as frivolous or callous to a man whom she could have liked, she became depressed afterward. Already she felt a bit down. But she walked into her apartment determined to dispel it. The day had been a long one that she wouldn’t soon forget. “Keep it light girl,” she reminded herself, as she changed her clothes. To make certain that she did, she put on a jazz cassette and brightened her mood, dancing until she was soaked with perspiration and too exhausted to move. Then she showered, donned her old clothes, and settled down to work.

       She took pride in her work, designing logos, labels, and stationery for large corporations and other businesses, and she was happiest when she produced an elegant, imaginative design. Her considerable skill and novel approaches made her much sought after, and she earned a good living. She was glad that a new ice-cream manufacturer liked a logo that she’d produced, though the company wanted a cow in the middle of it. A cow! She stared at the paper and watched the paint drying on her brush, but not one idea emerged. Why couldn’t she dispel that strange something that welled up in her every time she thought of Rufus? It had been a week since her last provocative note to him, and she wondered whether he would answer. It was dangerous, she knew, to let her mind dwell on him, but his voice had a seductive, almost hypnotic effect on her. Where he was concerned, her mind did as it pleased. Tremors danced through her whenever she recalled his deep voice and lilting speech. Voices weren’t supposed to have that effect, she told herself. But his was a powerful drug. Was he young? Old? Short? She tried without success to banish him from her thoughts. While she hummed softly and struggled to fit the cow into the ice cream logo, an impatient ringing of her doorbell and then a knock on the door startled her. Why hadn’t the doorman announced the visitor, she wondered, as she peeped through the viewer and saw a man there.

       “May I help you?” She couldn’t see all of him. Tall, she guessed.

       “I hope so. I’m looking for Naomi Logan.” Her first reaction was a silent, “My God it’s him!” Her palms suddenly became damp, and tiny shivers of anticipation rushed through her. She would never forget that voice. But she refused him the satisfaction of knowing that she remembered it. She’d written him on her personal stationery, but he’d sent his letter to her through the station; she didn’t have a clue as to where he lived. She struggled to calm herself.

       “Who is it, please?” Could that steady voice be hers?

       “I’m Rufus Meade, and I’d like to see Miss Logan, if I may.”

       “I ought to leave him standing there,” she grumbled to herself, but she knew that neither her sense of decency nor her curiosity would allow her to do it, and she opened the door.

       Rufus Meade stood in the doorway staring СКАЧАТЬ