Chapter 14 #2
Noelle was cringing a bit, but Patricia’s expression was bright.
Noelle’s mother nodded. “I think it’s a great idea. I don’t know where we’d send her.”
His mother waved her off. “I’ve got a lot of options for her. We can go over the studios and classes they’re offering. Ballet. Jazz. Hip hop.” She brightened a little. “They even have square dancing and ballroom, too.”
Duval knew that he wasn’t going to be able to talk his mother out of anything.
They were all along for the ride.
He looked at Noelle. “What do you think?”
She smiled. “I think we’re going to get out voted no matter what. I’m all for whatever Ciela wants to learn.” She turned to look at his mother. “Just let me know where and when. I’ll pay for the classes.”
Before she’d finished her words, his mother was already waving her off.
“I made the suggestion. I’ll pay.”
Duval felt Noelle tense up beside him.
“I can afford classes for my daughter.”
Duval knew that there was something to unpack in her words, but he wasn’t going to do that at the moment. “’Elle-”
“I’d like her to take martial arts, too.” Noelle looked at him. “Something where she can learn to protect herself and be aware of her surroundings.”
He nodded.
What she said made sense.
A lot of it.
“I have connections to dojos around the city. We can work it in.”
Noelle nodded. “But, I can still pay.”
Under the table, Duval reached over and put his hand on her thigh. He wasn’t about to argue with Noelle. He certainly wasn’t going to do it at the table in front of their mothers, and Ciela. “We’re just talking about options, now.” He smiled at her. “Nothing set in stone.”
“Absolutely,” Finola added in. “Katie can tell you about the classes she took and McCrae can tell you about the classes he took.”
The room went silent a moment later.
Duval knew why.
It always did when his mother brought up the fact that he’d taken classes as a boy, people always got curious.
“Classes?”
He turned his head and saw Ciela looking at him, her eyes wide with curiousity.
“You took dance classes?”
He smiled, but it felt brittle. He wasn’t looking forward to this conversation. He’d kind of hoped they’d never have to talk about it.
But he should have known that with his mother around, this conversation was bound to happen.
Finola was proud of the way that she’d raised her children.
Could he really argue with her success?
“My mother made sure that Katie and I were both enrolled in classes after school and during the summers.”
He could see Noelle’s smile lifting her whole expression and suddenly it didn’t hurt so much to know what was coming.
“I didn’t mind some of the classes,” he explained, “but the one that I ha- The one that was my least favorite wasn’t even a dance class.”
He turned and looked at his mother, knowing that she loved to tell this part of the story.
Finola leaned in closer to Ciela who was sitting between her two ‘grandmothers.’ “I sent McCrae to Charm School just like his sister.”
“Ch-charm school?”
Patricia sounded like she might choke on thin air.
Duval saw Noelle turn to look at him with a soft smile on her face and a sparkle in her eyes.
“Charm school?”
His mother beamed from ear to ear. “Believe it or not, it was down at the local Sears department store. I think it was between the key maker concession and the photo studio.”
“That’s the way I remember it.” He shrugged.
For the first time in his life it didn’t sting so much.
“I had a bit of an aversion to talking in front of people. My father said I’d grow out of it, but my mother,” he looked over at Finola who was gazing at him with her eyes filled with maternal pride, “decided to throw me in the lion’s den. ”
His mother frowned at him. “Missus Garvey was not a lion, McCrae.”
He opened his mouth to debunk her words, but he saw Ciela listening intently to him.
Duval could hear his mother’s voice in his head. ‘Little pitchers have big ears, son.’
He knew the truth of it now.
Even if he made it into a joke, what he was about to say about his old charm school teacher, Missus Garvey, would likely stick in Ciela’s head.
So he remained quiet for the most part.
At least on that topic.
“The final of the class is the stuff of nightmares. We had to get up in front of the class and our families. Show that we knew how to stand still and sit like a gentleman, in my case. Then, we’d have to introduce ourselves to the audience and say a little something about ourselves.
“I got up there. Did the sitting thing, all right. Then I stood up and walked to the microphone at the front of the class. Somewhere between the bright lights that they’d borrowed from the photo studio nearby and the hordes of people in the chairs in front of the raised stage area, I think I blacked out. ”
He felt a warm hand on his arm and turned to look at Noelle.
Duval loved the gentle look of concern in her eyes and felt himself warm to her touch. “I didn’t fall or anything like that. I... I guess I ‘came to’ when I heard people applauding.”
“McCrae walked to the end of the dais and stepped down. I couldn’t even hear myself think,” his mother explained. “I sat there watching him walk back to us unsure of what had just happened.”
“Why, Gramma King?” Ciela’s eyes were wide with curiosity. “Did he do something good?”
“It’s a shame that dad isn’t here to tell the rest of the story,” Duval admitted, “he had a good laugh at the situation. Later, when I was older, he likened my ‘speech' to something akin to Jeff Foxworthy or Bill Engvall. No one knew what to make of it.”
As he watched, Ciela got down off of her chair and moved around the table to his side.
Without her even needing to ask for a hand, he picked her up and set her on his thigh so Ciela could look up at him.
“You miss your daddy?”
Before he could think about the answer to her question, Noelle’s daughter reached her hand up and touched his face with a gentle ‘pat pat.’
“I miss my daddy, too.”
Blinking back even the hint of tears in his eyes, Duval leaned in and placed a kiss on the top of Ciela’s dark head. “Yeah, sweetie. I miss my dad, too.”
She leaned in against his chest, her ear to sternum. “It’s okay, Mister King. We can miss them together.”
Well, he gave up the fight then.
He didn’t blink back the tears.
There weren’t a whole lot that touched his cheeks, but what there were flowed unfettered.
He didn’t care if anyone at the table saw his tears.
No one there would use it against him.
The people around him were good people.
The best.
If he were to let down his guard around anyone. These people were the ones he could trust the most and that, he knew, said a lot about how much he trusted Noelle and her family.
Duval wrapped his arms around the little girl he was falling for as much as he was falling for her mother. He gave her a little squeeze. “We can miss them together, CeeCee.”
When Ciela settled happily against his chest, her hand patting him on his stomach, Duval saw Patricia lean against the edge of the table and cast a look in his direction and then to his mother.
“So,” she shrugged a little, looking like she was hesitating to ask a question, “did you pass the final assignment?”
Duval tried to ignore his mother’s giddy laugh as he answered Noelle’s mother. “I did, but I think I only passed because Missus Garvey didn’t want me in her class again.”
Ciela sat up at that moment, tipping her head back to look up at him.
Duval had to adjust his hold on the little girl to make sure that she didn’t fall off of his leg.
Her gaze was completely serious as she met his gaze. “I wanna go to Charm School, Mister King.”
He stared down at Ciela, wondering if he’d heard the little girl correctly. “Charm School? Why?”
“Cuz I wanna be like you, Mister King! I wanna be charming!”
Oh brother, he groaned inwardly. The last thing he was was charming.
He wanted to shake his head, but he didn’t want to upset Ciela or disappoint her.
“I... I don’t think the charm school is even around anymore.”
Ciela’s bottom lip came out in a pout and damn it, Duval couldn’t stand to see it.
Reaching out, he tapped her bottom lip with the tip of his finger. “But I think the ballet studio I took classes at is still around.”
“Ballet?” Ciela sat up, her eyes sparkling. “Can I go?”
Duval slid a side long glance at Noelle sitting beside him. “What do you say, honey?”
He thought he could see something in her eyes that stirred an answering need inside of him.
He hoped he was right, because as much as he’d always seen himself as a kind of feral creature when it came to relationships, he was beginning to see the benefits of being domesticated.
He shook his head at the wording in his head and when he turned to look at his mother, he saw a knowing smile on her face.
He had a feeling that she could see right through his thick skull to the thoughts inside of his head.
The trouble was, he didn’t have a single problem with it.