Something to Talk About (25 page)

“Good. As soon as all this mess is resolved we’ll pick out a date. I just hope Pop comes to his senses soon so we can all get on with our lives,” he murmured.

Chapter Sixteen

The next morning Alicia knew she couldn’t wait any longer. If Adam was going to talk to Big Benny, she had to make sure he had all the facts. After their long, hot shower, made even hotter by their affectionate water play, she put on a short cotton robe of Adam’s that was much too big for her, but it at least covered her body. She went into the kitchen where Adam was already making breakfast for the two of them. His eyes lit up when he saw her. She just looked too adorable for words in the oversized robe. She sat on one of the tall stools by the work island and forlornly tried to roll up he
r sleeves. He could tell at once
that something was bothering her.

Going over to her, he completed the task of getting the overlong sleeves out of the way and tilted her chin up for a kiss. “What’s bothering you, baby?”

She couldn’t put it off any longer. Urging him to sit down next to her, she repeated to him what the sisters had told her over the fateful weekend. His face didn’t change expression as she talked, telling him about the death of Big Bennie’s twin brother and the love affair that was destroyed by Francine’s lies. Finally she finished the story and took both his hands in hers.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right away. I hope you can forgive me and not be too angry about it. I should’ve told you right away, but you’d had so much to deal with, and then your dad collapsed and that whole thing about his other son came out and
.
..
”  She stopped talking abruptl
y and looked deeply into his eyes. “I’m just making excuses, Adam. I should have told you immediately. I apologize.”

Adam held her hands for
a long moment
, then bent his head and kissed each one. “Allie, I just realized what a jerk I am. If I wasn’t it wouldn’t have been so hard for you to come talk to me and you wouldn’t have put yourself through what was obviously a lot of turmoil. Sweetheart, you’re the one person in the world who can tell me anything, anytime, anywhere. How could I ever be angry with you for telling me the truth? Come here,” he coaxed, pulling her off the stool and into his lap.

“Alicia,
chica,
you’re the best thing that’s ever come into my life. You make my life have meaning, structure, and pure happiness. We’ve always been able to communicate about everything. We can’t let that change, baby. I understand why you felt you couldn’t talk to me before, but let that be the last time, okay?”

“Okay,” she said gravely. “Can I ask you something? Is this going to make talking to your father easier? I mean, now that you know more about his background?”

Adam thought a minute and rubbed his right earlobe between his thumb and forefinger. “Who knows, Allie? It should make it easier, but this is Pop we’re talking about. It all depends on how cooperative he wants to be.” He glanced at the kitchen clock. “We’d better eat fast and get out of here.”

Alicia agreed, saying she had two appointments that morning.

“Then it’s a good thing you brought your work clothes with you last night,” Adam reminded her. “In fact, why don’t you just move in with me?”

The only sound that could be heard was her fork hitting the thick pottery plate in front of her.

***

Adam greeted Martha with a kiss on the cheek and a sheaf of brightly colored spring flowers. “For putting up with my dad and making him happy,” he told her. “Where is he?”

“He’s out on the deck,” Martha told him. “I was just about to bring his lunch to him. Can I bring you something, too?”

Adam assured her that he was fine and went through the sunny living room of the condominium to the deck where his father was relaxing on a chaise longue. He had a glass of iced water with lemon slices at hand, and a copy of
Black Enterprise on
his lap. He looked like he was entertaining some very deep thoughts, but he heard Adam’s entrance and turned around to smile at him.

“Come on out, son, and have a seat It’s been a long time since we had a talk,” he said with dry understatement.

Adam leaned over and gave his father a kiss on the forehead. “How are you feeling, Pop? You gave us all a scare the other day. All that forbidden food, was it worth it?”

Big Benny didn’t have the grace to look the least bit embarrassed. “Probably not, but it was good going down. I won’t be doing it again, though. Martha swears she’ll leave me if I do.” He sighed deeply. “I’m going to have to toe the line from now on, I guess.” He glanced up at Adam and asked him to sit down again. “Quit hovering, you act like you’re about to fly out of here,” he said with a touch of his usual saltiness.

Adam pulled a chair next to the chaise and sat down, his long legs stretched out in front
of him. He looked at his father
, observing him carefully for the first time in a long time. They were so much alike physically, with their high cheekbones, sculptured lips, and firm, stubborn chins, that they could have been brothers if it weren’t for Big Benny’s snow-white hair. He stil
l wore a thick moustache and neatl
y trimmed goatee and despite his occasional forays into forbidden
foods, he’d kept his physique trim. Th
e years had diminished very littl
e of the man who was his father. This was the man he’d loved and respected his entire life, yet right now he felt as if he didn’t know the man at all.

“If you don’t feel up to talking about this right now I’ll understand. But you know I met the family when I went to
Idlewild
. Your great-aunt
Emmaline
, your aunts Reba, Daphne, and Dahlia, you know I met them. Why did you lie? You always said you had no family and we believed that. So now I want to know why,
Pop
. Those are the sweetest, funniest old ladies I ever met,” he said
, sounding as confused as he looked.  “
And you’ve been pretending like they didn’t exist.  I don’t get it.”

Big Benny didn’t respond
immediately
. He smiled suddenly and said, “Dilly and Daffy.”

“What, Pop?”

“Dahlia and Daphne.
I called them Dilly and Daffy because they were so sweet and silly. Did they try to tell you they’re not twins? They’ve been doing that as long as I can remember and the sad thing is
,
they really believe it. You know they’re only two years older than me? Yeah, and Reba is three years younger. There were a bunch of kids in my father’s family. He was one of the middle children and when he married my mother, he had a brother who was a just a kid. His name was Richard but we all called him Buddy. Uncle Buddy started his family late, so I had aunts who were like my sisters.” He smiled fondly. “Great-aunt
Emmaline
, now,
she
must be a hundred by now,” he mused. She was a lot younger than my grandmother; she was the baby of the family. That was a big family, too.
  Did you meet any of your cousins?  Dilly and Daffy and Reba all have their own families. 
A bunch of boys and a couple of girls, if I recall.
”

“What happened, Pop? You obviously have fond memories of them. What happened to make you leave?”

After another long pause, Big Benny started talking and the story he told wasn’t that different from the one Alicia had told Adam that morning. “After Aaron drowned, my mother was never the same. She was always nervous, always afraid to let me out of her sight. I tried my best to never cause her any worry. In fact, I became the ideal son, hard as that is to believe. I was actually kind of a sissy-boy, if you can imagine that. No sports, no school activities of any kind, I came straight home every da
y and did whatever she wanted m
e to do, which was mostly sit and keep her company. I didn’t mind too much, because I wanted to please her, to make her happy. I guess I felt guilty for being alive when my brother wasn’t, who knows?

“My father told me my most important job was to keep her happy and that’s what I did. Up until the summer I graduated from high school, that is. That’s the summer I met Cassandra.” He sighed, lost in memories. “Cassandra Hightower was from Indiana and she came to
Idlewild
to work as a hostess in my father’s club, the Hacienda. I knew from the minute I laid eyes on her that she was the one for me. She was a sweet girl: tall and pretty with this long coal-black hair and great big eyes. She had a smile so adorable it could break your heart
She
wanted to be a teacher and she was earning the money to go to school. Her father knew my father and that’s how she ended up coming to
Idlewild
.

“Cassandra was a good girl, too, a church girl. All the hostesses did was greet people, seat them, and make them feel at home. She wasn
’t a waitress or a shake dancer;
now, they were older and more exotic. A lot of the dancers and waitresses dated the customers, of course, but the hostesses tended to be younger and more innocent
,
especially Cassandra. Nobody would have dared say anything to her anyway, because I was a big guy even back then and it was understood that I was her boyfriend.”

Benny paused and drank some water before continuing. “I was the happiest I’d ever been in my life, son. When she wasn’t working and I wasn’t working, we were together. We rode horses together, we went for long walks, we spent a lot of time on the lake, and we did just about everything together. Everybody thought it was so cute, the two of us. My father liked her a lot, thought she was a sweet little thing. My mother, well, she hated her on sight. Hated her so much she concocted this huge lie about Cassandra being my father’s mistress. I wouldn’t have believed her, but Dilly and Daffy and Reba all swore it was true. Adam, they might as well have taken out a gun and shot me dead, because it just about killed me.

“I left
Idlewild
that night and never went back. I never wanted to see any of them again, especially my father, the man I idolized. I couldn’t believe that he could be
so
low as to cheat on my mother and to do it with someone as young and innocent as Cassandra. Everything just seemed to go to hell after that. I went into the army and after basic training I got shipped off to the Philippines, and when my mother killed herself, I was in a hospital with dysentery. Couldn’t come home to see her buried and I knew I was the reason she did it. After she died, my father sold the club and moved to Grand Rapids. He just couldn’t stand to be there without her, I guess. I’ve always felt bad that I never contacted him again, that he died without one decent word from me.”

His voice was thick with emotion and Adam was almost sorry that he’d begun the conversation. Maybe it would have been better to leave everything the way it was, but it was too late for that. He was about to suggest that they talk about it later, but his father continued to talk.

“I was sorry for the way I’d treated him, even though I never forgave him for what he’d done. I just couldn’t forget what he’d done
with the girl I was in love with
. I couldn’t let it go. Cassandra was everything to me, Adam. She was my whole world. She made every day wonderful. And with a few words, everything was destroyed. I had a long time to think about it, about how she and my father betrayed me. I never wanted to see that town again and none of those people. I just acted like I had no family, and as far as I was concerned, I didn’t. After what I’d found out about my father and Cassandra, they were dead to me. I was a
bitter man
for a long time until I met your mother. Your mother saved my life, son. She taught me how to live again, how to love again.”

Adam stared at his father with the intensity of someone straining to understand a foreign language. “Okay,
Pop
, that was a pretty raw deal. You loved this girl and you lost her because you were told things about her that weren’t true.
Yo
u turned away from your family and went out on your own. Then you met Mom and you say she taught you how to love again. That’s pretty huge. So how did the rest of this happen, if you loved Mom so much?
This is what I don’t understand.  H
ow could you cheat on her?” he asked tightly.

Benny fell silent and stared at the backs of his hands for a long time before answering his son. “Lillian Bennett was one of a kind. She was the kind of person who drew people to her. Everyone loved her; they just couldn’t hel
p it because she was so sweet.  I
couldn’t help it; it took about two minutes for me to fall in love with her. She was everything a woman should be; she was the best friend, the best wife and mother anyone could hope for. I’ll go to my grave regretting being unfaithful to her. It wasn’t because of anything lacking in her, she was a wonderful woman and I loved her dearly.” He looked Adam in the eye defian
tl
y when he said this, and Adam was shocked to see a hint of moisture in his father’s eyes. It wasn’t enough, however, to stop him from asking the inevitable question.

“
I hear what you’re saying,
Pop
, but you still cheated on her. If you loved her so much, how could you do that?”