Chapter 14
“How many words do you type a minute?” Frank asked Justine as he stood behind her, watching her fingers fly over the keys in a motion almost too quick for his eyes to follow as words filled the blank sheet of paper.
The space she had set up as her office also doubled as a sewing room.
A sewing machine sat on a corner table, and several baskets filled with fabric were lined up against one wall.
Reams of paper, a tape recorder, steno pads, and a cup with different-colored pencils were neatly stacked on the top of a two-drawer file cabinet.
He glanced over at the books packed tightly onto shelves in several bookcases.
Lacy curtains and the windowsill lined with plants had added a feminine touch to the room.
Justine’s hands stilled. “The last time I was tested, it was over seventy-five.”
“How long ago was that?”
She glanced up over her shoulder at him. “It was when I was in secretarial school. I enrolled after graduating high school.”
Frank hunkered down next to the desk, his head level with Justine’s. “Had you planned on becoming a secretary?” She smiled and shook her head, and he noticed an elusive dimple in her left cheek.
“No. I’d planned to go to college to become a teacher.”
“What happened to make you change your plans?” he asked softly, unable to stop staring at her.
“I wanted to start a family after graduating college, but fate intervened when I lost my husband two months after we were married, and then I discovered I was pregnant with his child.”
Frank closed his eyes for several seconds as he’d tried imagining the trauma Justine had had to go through knowing she would have to raise her child alone. “How did he die?”
Justine lowered her eyes. “He was shot during an attempted robbery. He’d spent a year in the Korean War without being wounded only to come home and have someone shoot him in the head for seven dollars.” She paused and met Frank’s eyes. “That’s all his life was worth—seven stinking dollars.”
Frank placed his hand over hers and gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. “Seven million wouldn’t be enough for a human life.”
Sighing, she forced a smile. “Enough talk about death and dying. I did promise to feed you, so let’s go into the kitchen.”
Justine could not believe she felt as comfortable as she did with Francis D’Allesandro as he sat across the table in her kitchen sharing an early dinner. He was so easy to talk to that she felt as if she’d known him for years, rather than a few hours.
“Why haven’t you remarried?” he asked her after swallowing a mouthful of macaroni and cheese.
She stared at him over the rim of her iced tea glass.
“I didn’t want some man believing he was doing me a favor by marrying me and that he felt he could discipline my son where it would become abusive.
I’ve never had to hit Kenny, but that’s not to say I don’t punish him when he does something wrong.
” Justine took a sip of the tea. “You know all about me, but I know nothing about you.”
Frank lifted sandy-brown eyebrows. “I’m thirty-seven, single, and I don’t have any kids.”
“Were you ever married?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“So, you are content being a bachelor?” Justine teased.
“I like being a bachelor,” Frank countered.
“Is it because you don’t want the responsibility of being a husband and father?”
Placing his fork beside his plate, Frank wiped his mouth with a napkin.
“It has nothing to do with not wanting to be responsible. It’s because I haven’t found a woman I want to share and spend my life with.
” He paused. “There was someone many years ago, but her father didn’t want her to have anything to do with me.
” He held up a hand. “And before you ask, we were teenagers, so her family packed up her things and sent her down to Georgia to live with relatives.”
Leaning back in her chair, Justine gave him a long, penetrating stare. In that instant, it dawned on her why he’d bought the typewriter, and why he was sitting at her table. “She was a Black girl?”
He nodded.
“You like Black women.”
Frank gave Justine a look that made men who knew him fear for their lives, but it was lost on her. “Do you expect me to deny it?”
“No, Frank. I don’t. You can’t help what you like.”
He slowly blinked. “And what about you, Justine? What men are you attracted to?”
“Black men, but that doesn’t translate into me being a racist. I’m troubled about what’s going on in our country when it comes to race.
I keep asking myself why my people are begging for the same rights given to them by the Constitution that all citizens have by virtue of their birthright.
We always find ourselves at the bottom of the ladder whenever other groups come here for freedom or a better way of life. ”
“Black people aren’t the only ones who have faced discrimination, Justine. My people have been called wop and goombah more times than I can count. And then there are certain neighborhoods where we aren’t allowed to live.”
“As they say, Frank, you are preaching to the choir. It’s the same with Black folks, and that’s why people congregate in ghettos, so they can feel comfortable living with others who not only look like them but share a similar culture.
Black people have fought and died in wars even before this country became the United States, and yet when people see someone who looks like Kenny’s father, they tell him he can’t live where he wants or he can’t sit at a lunch counter with White folks, even though he risked his life to fight in Korea to stop the spread of Communism. Where is the justice, Francis?”
Frank noticed her eyes filling with tears, and something wouldn’t allow him to get up and comfort her, because he knew instinctively, she would resent it.
He’d heard it said over and over to stay away from talking about religion and politics, while they’d ventured into the dangerous waters of the latter.
“I’m not going to apologize for being attracted to Black women, but hopefully that won’t encroach on our friendship.” A hint of a smile touched the corners of Justine’s mouth, one he wanted to kiss just once to assuage his curiosity whether it would be as soft as it looked.
“You don’t have to apologize. If my son and your nephew can be friends, then it shouldn’t be any different with us.”
Frank exhaled an inaudible sigh of relief. It had been more than twenty years since he’d had his heart broken when the girl with whom he had fallen in love was sent into exile because her family didn’t want her involved with an Italian boy.
“I’m glad you said that.”
“By the way, were you and your girl dating openly?” Justine asked.
“No. We shared a few classes in high school, but we managed to get together for a couple of after-school clubs. It was when my best friend saw us together, he decided to tell my father, and then all hell broke loose. Word got back to her parents, and that’s when they decided to send her away.
I’m certain my father would’ve attempted to beat me like he did my sisters, but by that time, I was a lot taller, and my body was filling out, so I was ready to retaliate if he raised his hand.
Once he found out she was no longer in the school, he let it go.
I waited several days after graduating to teach my friend a lesson about opening his mouth. ”
“What did you do?”
“Just say I cured him of gossiping.”
“What did you do to him, Frank?” Justine repeated.
“I punched him in the mouth.”
What he didn’t want to tell her was that he’d beat the living shit out of him; he’d broken his nose and knocked out a few teeth.
It had been his first street fight, and it had left him feeling invincible.
The word went out in the neighborhood not to mess with Frankie Delano, because he was as vicious as an attack dog.
“If he hadn’t said anything about you and your girlfriend, would that have changed anything?”
Frank nodded. “We’d made plans to go to Canada after graduating. Once in Montreal, we’d get married and start a family, because we both knew it wouldn’t be easy living here in the States as an interracial couple.”
Justine slowly shook her head. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you and your girlfriend.”
A wry smile twisted Frank’s mouth. “Some things are just not meant to be. Like you losing your husband before he could celebrate becoming a father.”
Justine didn’t know why, but at that moment, she felt like a hypocrite and that she was going to be punished for being so deceitful.
She’d lied to Pamela Daniels, and now she was lying to Francis D’Allesandro, two people who didn’t deserve her insincerity.
Pamela, who’d been there for her before and after she’d had her son, and now Frank, who’d gifted her a typewriter that would make it a lot easier for her to type papers for those paying her for her skills.
Then there was her son, who didn’t know he had a twin brother, and who believed his father had become a victim of a crime before his birth.
Justine wondered how much longer she would have to carry the burden of lies and guilt before it all became too much for her to continue where she would be forced to reveal the truth.