Ciji Ware (7 page)

“It’s nearly eleven o’clock. I’ll explain all that when I see you.”

“Yeah? Well, now isn’t exactly the
best
time,” she replied, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

“I’m not surprised you’re feeling mighty out of sorts this morning,” King replied in his distinct southern drawl. “That’s why I decided to stop by. I went for a run down by the river just now, and I got to thinking ’bout how yesterday must have felt on your end of things.”

“Well, it didn’t feel
good
!” she responded, her lips inches from the intercom’s microphone.

“Getting fired never feels very good.”

“How did
you
know I was canned?”

“It was in the media column in the
Picayune
this morning,” he said. Corlis closed her eyes and groaned. What television station would hire her after this? “Somebody at WWEZ must’ve leaked it as soon as you aired the story last night,” King surmised.

“Yeah… your sister’s almost-husband is
my
guess. I’m sure Jack Ebert knows the home telephone numbers of a few media people in this town,” she said bitterly. She shifted her weight onto her other foot. “Look, I really don’t—”

“Your crew got axed, too,” King’s disembodied voice interrupted.

“Oh
, no
… and right before Christmas?”

“Look… can you buzz me up? It’s starting to seriously rain out here, and I need to talk to you for a moment.”

In a kind of a daze, Corlis watched curiously as her index finger pushed the button that would give King access to the ground floor hallway, past her neighbor’s art gallery, and farther on to a stairway that led to her apartment on the second floor.

As she listened to the hollow sound of King’s footsteps on the treads, she glanced down at the rumpled pair of running pants and faded sweatshirt she’d slept in.

Jeez Louise, she felt a mess.

She sprinted the few feet into her bathroom, located off the front hallway, and peered into the medicine cabinet mirror.

I look hideous.

She didn’t have a stitch of makeup on, and dark smudges, courtesy of her miserable night, formed sooty crescents underneath her eyes. Before she could even run a comb through her hair, she heard a sharp knock on her front door. She grabbed her hairbrush and made a pathetic attempt to bring some order to her unruly brunette locks. Sighing with resignation, she trudged back down the hall, opened the front door, and beheld King Duvallon in all his glistening glory.

Despite its being December, he was lightly dressed in royal blue running shorts, a white polo shirt, and a beat-up pair of sneakers. He’d obviously been hoofing it for a couple of miles along the riverfront in unseasonably sultry weather as a storm front moved in off the Gulf of Mexico. Perspiration beaded his forehead. His hair was also damp, and sweat ran in rivulets down his neck and into the black chest hair just visible above his open collar. The short stubble on his face, unshaven since his sister’s wedding, most likely gave him a mildly roguish appearance. The deep cleft in his chin intrigued her. How did King shave?

“I should have called first,” he admitted apologetically. He looked down at his sweat-soaked shirt. “And perhaps I should have showered,” he added wryly.

“You’re not the
only
one,” she said, and then wished she hadn’t drawn attention to herself as she observed King give her disheveled garb the once-over.

“As you might imagine, I didn’t sleep very well last night.” She grimaced. “When I got back from breakfast about seven thirty this morning… I sort of went unconscious. Now I look and feel as if I got run over by a truck.” For a moment they stared in silence across the threshold. Then she added quietly, “Why don’t you come in and tell me how you knew my address, and why you’ve stopped by to see
me
,
of all people, on a Sunday morning?”

Striding toward the kitchen she asked, “Coffee?”

“Just a glass of water would be fine,” King replied.

Corlis knew if she consumed one more ounce of caffeine, she’d probably get the d.t.’s, so she poured herself a glass of water as well.

King glanced around her living room. His slight nod made it seem as if he approved of what he saw—a rectangular salon, graced with a fireplace, ornately carved wooden moldings, and twelve-foot ceilings overhead. Two windows nearly that high opened out onto the narrow wrought-iron gallery with its marvelous view up and down Julia Street. At that moment the sound of a moss-green streetcar gliding by clanged its way through the St. Charles Avenue intersection as it headed uptown toward the Garden District.

Just then Cagney Cat heaved his bulk past the open window sill.

“Whoa… what a big cat!” King exclaimed. “A big, wet cat.”

“And not necessarily the brightest,” Corlis added. Addressing Cagney, who nonchalantly was rubbing his saturated fur against King’s calf, she exclaimed, “You finally come in out of the rain, and look what you’re doing to our guest!”

King leaned over and combed his long aristocratic fingers down the cat’s back and gently pulled the length of his tail. Cagney
hated
it when
she
did that. However, the infidel stared up at the visitor and began to purr loudly.

“I don’t believe it,” Corlis muttered, crossing the carpet to close the window against the shower that had begun to spatter the panes.

“I like these rugs a lot,” King noted with an appreciative glance at the large garnet-red Persian carpet. A similar narrow jewel-toned runner that had reportedly also belonged to Corlis Bell McCullough graced the long hallway extending from her front door. “They’re perfect here.”

“Thanks. I take it that you’ve been in one of these Julia Street row houses before?” she asked, inviting him to sit in the club chair. Its beige linen slipcover matched the love seat on which she gratefully sat down. To her utter surprise, Cagney leaped onto King’s lap, shamelessly presenting his belly to be rubbed.

“Oh, yes, I’ve been here before,” he said, nodding. He absently stroked the cat’s fur as if it were the most usual thing in the world. “As a matter of fact, I spent a lot of time on this street when these places were all flophouses.” He glanced around the parlor. “Less than ten years ago, you could have rented a bed in this very apartment for seven dollars a night!”

“
You
used to live here?”

“God, no!” he said, laughing. “I was stone broke when I first came back to New Orleans, but not
that
broke.”

“Oh,” she said, feeling foolish.

Why in the world is this man in my living room?

“Awhile back,” King disclosed, “I was part of a group that went to bat to save this place from the wrecker’s ball.”

“Someone was going to tear down these gorgeous row houses?”

“Well, they weren’t so gorgeous before the rehab, but, yup… a developer by the name of Grover Jeffries had big plans for this block. Grover’s hairy pawprint is on most of those high-rises you’ve probably noticed over on Canal Street.”

Jeffries?
she thought, startled.
Wasn’t that the last name of one of the creepy guys standing around the coffin she’d just dreamed about?
Corlis began to wonder if getting fired for the third time in one’s career could actually unhinge a person. She slowly took a sip from her glass of water, trying not to lose her composure. “You mean that guy Jeffries built those steel-and-glass jobs that look like downtown Dallas?”

“You got it.”

King pointed in the direction of her ornate fireplace. “A lot of people in this community got together to fight him off. They were able to save this entire block. To restore the facade and make the interior renovations cost-effective, several of the row houses like yours were divided, turned condo for individually owned apartments, while others remained as four-story, single-family dwellings.”

Another silence.

Finally she said, “Those modern buildings downtown are pretty soulless.” She looked at him expectantly.

So? We seemed to have exhausted the pretty-versus-ugly buildings topic of conversation. Just tell me: Why are you here?

King gave Cagney a sensuous rub on his stomach. Then he looked up at her and declared abruptly, “I’m sorry you got ousted from WWEZ because of your story about Daphne’s wedding.”

“You
are
?” Corlis replied, astounded. “Weren’t your final words to me last night ‘Get the hell outta here, you harpy’?”

King grinned. “Did I say that?”

“You sure did. However, I didn’t take it personally. You were probably upset by what that creep Jack Ebert had done to your sister, not to mention what Miss Cindy Lou Mallory did to
you
,” she couldn’t resist adding. She’d heard scuttlebutt from her cameraman that King had been seriously dating the voluptuous redhead for nearly a year. “I expect my TV crew and I were more than just a pesky annoyance.”

“Yeah… I was pretty upset last night, and… I wanted to lash out at someone. You were mighty handy.”

“I thought you wanted to kick us out of the balcony because of… the old business between us,” Corlis ventured awkwardly. “But then later I realized that you knew ahead of time that your sister wasn’t going to go through with the wedding, and you’d just as soon not have that broadcast on TV.”

“Exactly,” King confirmed. “Althea LaCroix—the lady playing the organ? She and I were the only ones Daphne confided in right before the ceremony.”

“Wow… being let in on
that
little secret would have made anybody a bit testy.”

“No kidding,” King said with a short laugh.

“It not only ended a wedding, it kind of blew up your relationship with the redhead, didn’t it?”

“I’d say so, and none too soon, from the way things turned out. In fact, when I saw the story last night on the news, I was sort of torn between wanting to strangle you and wanting to give you a hug for being so alert to what was really going on.”

“You actually caught the broadcast?”

“Sure did. On the TV in the Old Absinthe House bar,” he replied ruefully. “After two old-fashioneds, I must admit. But, still… it was pretty amazing. You just let the pictures tell it… and you got the facts right.”

“Well… thanks…” Corlis said, blindsided by the compliment.

Silence fell between them once again.

“Actually, I thought the piece you did last night was brilliant.”

“You did?” she replied, amazed.

“Yes. I did. Later… when I had time to think about it all… I realized that when you refused to leave the balcony… you were just doing your job.”

“Yup. Like at UCLA.”

Now, why did I bring that up? He’s trying to be nice, for pity’s sake!

This time the silence lengthened to nearly fifteen unbearable seconds.

King shifted his weight as he sat in her expansive club chair and took another sip from his water glass. “Maybe a story like that’ll show other brides and grooms that it’s never too late to call a halt to a wedding if you’re having second thoughts about it. It sure served as a wake-up call for half the groomsmen last night. I can tell you that.”

“Bailing out is always an option,” she murmured, thinking of Jay Kerlin. Well, at least she’d canceled the reservation for the outdoor wedding facilities at the Bel Air Hotel
before
the invitations were mailed.

“And there’s something else,” King said.

“What?” she asked, alert now for payback time.

“I might have a lead for you on another job.”

“
You
?
Find a job? For
me
?”

Now she
really
must be dreaming!

Chapter 4

December 21

Corlis stared at King Duvallon in astonishment. “You’d actually recommend me for another broadcasting job in this town?”

Wasn’t this the man who twelve years ago led his fraternity brothers on a mission to utterly humiliate her and all the other women who wrote and edited
Ms. UCLA
?

“Sure,” King said with a friendly shrug. “You’re a pro. I could see that last night. And the station I’m thinking of is a kind of upstart enterprise here in town,” he explained, the hint of a grin playing about his lips. “You ever watch WJAZ-TV? It’s nonunion, but they’re pretty feisty over there, so the two of you might be perfect for each other.” Corlis shot him a look. “They tend to cover stuff around New Orleans that no one else’ll touch,” King concluded with a blameless expression. “Crusader Rabbit types, you know what I mean?”