Belinda (2 page)

o0o

Reeve’s children were sitting on the grassy
sloping bank at the edge of their front yard, their faces shiny
with sweat and hope. A pitcher of lemonade and six paper cups sat
beside them on a child-sized folding card table. On the table was
an empty shoe box and a sign printed in red crayon on the side of a
grocery bag—
Lemmonaid, 3 sents
.

“Daddy!” Six-year-old Betsy left her position
beside the box and catapulted into his arms. “Did you come to buy
some lemonade?”

He’d come to take them back into the house
where they’d be safe, but with Betsy’s hot little face nuzzling his
neck, he didn’t have the heart to say so.

“That’s exactly why I’m here, sweetheart.” He
sank to the grassy slope, holding Betsy and reaching out to tousle
his seven-year-old son’s blond hair. “Will you pour me a
glass?”

Betsy hopped off his lap and became serious
and important as she poured his lemonade. Reeve was equally solemn
as he accepted the cup.

“That will be three cents, Daddy,” said Mark,
obviously the business manager in the lemonade venture. Reeve
passed three pennies to his son and watched as Mark carefully
counted them into the empty shoe box. “You’re our first customer,
Daddy,” he added, proud of himself.

Reeve had piles of work on both his desks,
the one at home and the one at the office of Lawrence Enterprises.
He had two trips coming up, San Francisco and France, and no
nanny.

What his mind told him to do was hustle his
children inside to the safekeeping of Quincy so he could get on
with his business. What his heart told him was a different
story.

He spent the afternoon in the front yard with
his children. He and Betsy and Mark discussed whether holes had
bottoms and whether lady-bugs were really ladies and whether angels
flew like birds or like jet airplanes.

Except for his neighbor from down the street
who passed by walking her dog, Reeve was his children’s only
customer. When the children got anxious over their business lull,
he put three cents in their shoe box and asked for another glass of
lemonade.

By late afternoon, there was only one glass
left. He had decided to buy their last bit of lemonade and take
Betsy and Mark into the house when he saw a woman coming up the
street, walking almost sideways under the weight of her cardboard
suitcase.

She was dusty and disheveled, as if she’d
been walking a long way. He stood up, for there was a dignity about
her that made it impossible for him to sit sprawled on the grass,
observing her.

When she was two houses away, she stopped on
the side of the street, opened her suitcase and pulled out a pair
of bright red spike-heeled shoes. Then she sat on the curb and
unlaced her sneakers. Her hair fell in a silky curtain over the
side of her face, and the setting sun burnished it gold.

Sunny’s hair had been gold. For a moment he
was whirled backward in time, seeing his wife as she bent over her
shoes, getting ready for the theater.

Suddenly the woman stood up, and she was not
Sunny at all. She was a stranger wearing a cheap rayon dress with a
spray of artificial flowers at the shoulder, striding toward him in
outrageous red spike-heeled shoes.

“I’m just dying for a something to wet my
whistle,” she said when she was even with him.

He was too astonished to speak. His children
didn’t suffer the same malady.

“Would you like to buy a glass of lemonade?”
Mark said.

“Well, now. I don’t mind if I do.” The woman
fished around in her purse, a large carpetbag affair that was
almost as big as her suitcase.

She passed three pennies to Mark, her face as
shiny and bright as her red enameled fingernails. There was
something heartbreakingly innocent about her smile. As Reeve
watched the woman squat beside Betsy, he realized that he hadn’t
seen a smile that guileless on a woman in a long, long time.

“Well, now,” the woman said to his daughter,
“if you’re not just the prettiest little thing I’ve ever seen.
What’s your name, honey?”

“Betsy. What’s yours?”

“Belinda...” The woman paused, biting her red
lips. “Belinda Diamond,’’ she proclaimed in a voice just a bit too
loud. Then she glared up at Reeve as if she expected to be
contradicted.

There was something very wise about her dark
eyes, as if she were a battle-weary soldier who was coming home
with her dignity and her brave red fingernails intact. Reeve was
intrigued.

“I’m Reeve Lawrence, Miss Diamond, and these
are my children, Betsy and Mark.”

Her handshake was spontaneous and strong. She
tossed her head when she smiled at him, and the sun shot sparks in
her hair.

“It’s a pleasure to make some new friends in
Tupelo.” She spoke with careful formality, as if she’d invented the
words for the occasion.

“I see you’re traveling.”

“Just got here this very minute. Left Augusta
on the bus early this morning, just me and my suitcase.”

“You walked from the bus station?”

“Every step of the way. I don’t believe in
hitchhiking. Too many bad things can happen to a woman that
way.”

She smiled again, that unexpectedly innocent
smile that set off gold lights in the center of her dark eyes. Then
she bent over her lemonade.

The children lost interest in the grown-ups
and scampered across the lawn, playing tag. Reeve stayed on the
sidewalk with Belinda Diamond, keeping his children in sight.

He had the uneasy sense of having opened
Pandora’s box. It was unlike him to carry on conversations with
strangers, and it was even more unusual for him to be interested in
their lives. What was there about this young woman that intrigued
him so?

All he knew was that he had to find out why
she had walked from the bus station and why she was wearing
high-heeled shoes and a dress with artificial flowers on the
shoulders.

“Do you have a particular destination in
mind, Miss Diamond?”

“I’m headed for the big time. I mean, if a
woman leaves everything she has behind except her clothes and she
even dresses for the occasion, don’t you think she should expect
good things to happen?”

“That sounds reasonable.”

“You sure do talk fancy, Mr. Lawrence.
High-class like.”

“Why don’t you call me Reeve, and then
perhaps I won’t seem so lofty.”

“Well, if that’s not the bee’s knees.” Her
hand shot out again, and she pumped his enthusiastically up and
down. “You can call me Belinda, and we’ll be friends.”

How long had it been since he’d had time for
friends? Since Sunny’s death his life had consisted of managing his
business and taking care of his children. The first had been no
problem; in fact, it had been his salvation in the long days of
grieving. But the second had been a constant battle. With nannies
coming and going and Quincy being overindulgent and the children
growing and changing every day, his personal life was totally out
of control, spiraling downhill like a snowball, growing bigger and
more cumbersome with each roll.

Standing there in the late-afternoon sun with
Belinda’s slim hand in his, he suddenly felt humble and very, very
grateful. She made life seem so simple.
Here I am, and here you
are,
her handshake indicated to him.
So let’s
befriends.

“You are an unusual woman, Belinda.”

“Oh—you mean the dress.” He didn’t, but he
saw no reasons to contradict her. She smoothed the cheap skirt over
her slim hips and patted the spray of flowers. “I’ve been wanting
this dress for I don’t know how long. And I just up and decided,
why not? Why not get fancied up and go to Tupelo looking like
somebody. You know what I mean. Somebody important and
worthy.”

He found himself staring at her and not being
able to turn away. A dozen things he should say floated through his
mind. “You
are
important and worthy,” he could say. But
she had wise eyes, and probably a wise heart. She’d know he was
being shallow. And she had said he’d be her friend. Real friends
were sincere and honest with each other.

“I wish you the best of luck in your new
venture, Belinda.”

She set the empty cup back on the table.
“It’s going to be a big adventure, all right, making my place in
this brand-new town. See, I’m through being a traveling woman. I’m
settling down here for good. Won’t that be just grand?”

She smiled at him, and he knew he was being
called upon to say something. There were no words adequate enough
for Belinda’s great expectations. Reeve spent a moment pondering
his response, and in the end he merely reached for her hand once
more and shook it solemnly.

“Well... good luck,” he said. He felt foolish
repeating himself, but he need not have worried that Belinda would
take offense. She picked up her suitcase, gave him a jaunty wave
and started up the street, tilting a little under the weight of all
her possessions.

He stood watching her walk away, mesmerized
by the absolute dignity of a woman who had so little but still
found life so grand.

“Daddy... Daddy!” His children finally caught
his attention by tugging on his sleeves.

“How come that nice lady is walking,
Daddy?”

“I don’t know, Mark.”

“Where is she going, Daddy?”

“I don’t know that, either, Betsy.”

Belinda had reached the end of the block, and
as she rounded the corner, she looked brave and magnificent,
walking off into the sunset in her red high-heeled shoes.

“Let’s clean up the lemonade stand and go
inside, children. It will soon be dark.”

Mark took the shoe box and carefully counted
the pennies into his pockets. Then he lifted his face up to his
father. “Is it safe for that lady to walk in the dark, Daddy?”

He had warned his children never to leave the
house after dark unless he or Quincy accompanied them. He had
stressed to them the importance of not taking up with strangers.
How could he tell his son that Belinda Diamond was a stranger to
them, an adult who was responsible for her own welfare, without
seeming callous and uncaring? Being told by Quincy that he had
“turned mean” was one thing; but being perceived as heartless by
his children was quite another.

Before he could answer Mark’s question, Betsy
piped up with, “What if she gets lost in the dark? Will goblins and
haints get her?”

Goblins and haints?
He carefully
masked the anger in his voice as he bent over his daughter.

“There are no such things as goblins and
haints, Betsy. Where did you hear those words?”

“Miss Phepps,” Betsy and Mark chimed
together.

“She said they come out of the dark to punish
bad children,” Mark added.

If he had not already dismissed her, Reeve
guessed that he’d have killed her.

“Miss Phepps was wrong, children. Goblins and
haints do not exist. And there is no such thing as bad
children.”

“Not even when I put that frog in her
bed?”

Reeve stifled his laughter. Mark’s prank had
upset the entire household, for when she’d discovered the frog Miss
Phepps had gone screaming from her room in the middle of the night.
Apparently the frog had been content to snuggle under her warm
covers unnoticed until she had rolled over on him, pinning him
beneath her.

“What you did was wrong, Mark, but it does
not make you bad. Both of you are wonderful children. You are my
shining stars.” He ruffled their hair. “And now, let’s finish
cleaning up this lemonade business.” He was relieved that he had
gotten sidetracked from the issue of Belinda Diamond walking alone
in the dark.

Apparently the children had already
forgotten, as well, for Betsy was carefully stacking empty cups
together, and Mark was folding up their grocery-bag sign. Suddenly
tears formed in Betsy’s eyes, and she tugged on Reeve’s hand.

“But what if she gets scared in the dark,
Daddy?”

“Who, sweetheart?”

“That lady with the funny flower on her
dress.”

His children weren’t as easily sidetracked as
he had imagined. That knowledge made him both proud and
uncomfortable—proud of their bright minds and uncomfortable about
having to confront the Belinda Diamond issue again.

She was already out of sight, but she
couldn’t have gone far, not in those high-heeled shoes and carrying
that heavy suitcase. What would it hurt to follow her and offer to
take her to a motel in his car? Actually he was a bit ashamed of
himself for not already having made such an offer. Had he grown so
callous that it took two innocent children to remind him that he
was a civilized human being?

“Don’t you children worry about a thing.
Daddy’s going to take care of Miss Belinda Diamond.”

“Really, Daddy? Really?” Betsy jumped up and
down.

“Yes. I’ll go after her in my car and take
her to a nice motel for the evening.”

“She can stay in my room,” Betsy offered.

“That’s generous of you, sweetheart, but it’s
not necessary for her to share your room. Now, let’s go inside and
find Quincy.” He picked up the little table and the empty pitcher
and led them back to the house. Inside he summoned Quincy with the
intercom.

“Can you hold dinner for about forty
minutes?” he asked her. “I have an errand to run.”

“He’s going after a lady,” Mark
explained.

“It’s about time,” Quincy said, rolling her
eyes heavenward and cupping her hands in supplication.

“I’ll explain later,” Reeve said.

He took the black Corvette and went in
pursuit of Belinda. She wasn’t hard to find. Her shoes and her
suitcase had hampered her progress, so that she was only four
blocks from his house. He eased to a stop beside her and lowered
the car window.

“Belinda...”

She jerked her head around, startled, and
then she walked over to him and leaned in the window, smiling.