She was back to calling him Francis, and he wasn’t going to correct her. She could call him whatever she wanted, as long as he could spend time with her. Why Justine Russell and not some other woman? Frank didn’t know, nor did he care. He knew if his father had been alive, it would’ve set off another family war, and this time Sal theSerpentewould lose. He was a thirty-seven-year-old man, not a sixteen-year-old boy, and now the head of his family.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Justine asked when Frank stood and began clearing the table.
“I’m helping you with the dishes before I leave.”
“No,” she said, taking the plate from him. “You go and tell Kenny you’re leaving and let me clean upmykitchen.”
Frank towered over her, making Justine aware that his height eclipsed her by at least six inches. “Are you sure?” he questioned, staring down at her under lowered lids.
“Very sure.”
Ducking his head, he kissed her cheek, then rolled down his shirt cuffs and buttoned them. “Thank you for dinner. It was delicious.”
Justine felt as if she’d been holding her breath the instant she opened the door to find Francis D’Allesandro standing there. And now she could exhale. She had to ask herself what there was about him that had her agreeing to share a tiny portion of her life with him. She wasn’t looking for a husband or lover, and definitely not a stepfather for her son.Kenny had a father—a man he didn’t know, one who hadn’t known he’d fathered twin boys.
However, Justine had to admit she’d felt comfortable telling Francis about her sexual urges. And it was not to imply she needed him to assuage them. It had taken her a while to acknowledge she was a normal woman who had begun to recognize her own physical needs.
There were so many things she missed when she’d moved from the Bronx to Mount Vernon. She hadn’t had a boyfriend; she’d never been kissed; she didn’t attend a senior prom; and now, at thirty, there was the possibility that she would have her first date with a man who didn’t share her race.
Justine hadn’t lied to him about not being a racist, because it was her own people who’d altered her destiny. There would come a time when Precious Boone would pay for her deceit and blackmail once Justine exposed her as being a fraud.
She would wait until Kenny was old enough to deal with the circumstances surrounding his birth, and why his mother had to do what she did to protect him from the woman who’d conspired to have a young girl sleep with her husband, have his baby, then claim it as her own.
CHAPTER15
Justine found Kenny sprawled on the living room sofa, watching television. Staring at him made her aware that he was growing up right in front of her eyes. He’d grown several inches since the beginning of the year, his voice was deeper, and his body was filling out. When Francis had asked if Kenny was physically a man, she had acknowledged he was, because several months ago, when she’d stripped the sheets from his bed, she saw stains she knew was semen.
She waited a few weeks before approaching him with what she’d discovered, and Justine was more embarrassed talking about it than her son. He told her he’d read about puberty and what he had to expect and that even at twelve, if he had sex with a girl, there was the possibility that he could get her pregnant. He wasn’t ready to become a father, because there were a lot of things he wanted to accomplish before assuming that role.
Kenny got up, turned off the television, then returned to the sofa. “I know you want to talk to me about Mr. Dee.”
Justine met a pair of eyes that were so much like her own. “Yes, I do.”
Kenny lowered his eyes as he stared at his clasped hands. “I’m sorry if you felt I was out of line for telling him he could date you.”
Reaching over, Justine covered his hands with her own. “I don’t ever want you to apologize for saying what you feel, because it’s coming from your heart. Now, tell me why you want me to go out with Mr. Dee?”
“First of all, I like him.”
“And not because you know that he likes Black women?”
Kenny bit his lip. “That, too. But Mom, it’s more than that.” He told Justine about the incident at the D’Allesandro home when the ex-convict cousin had disrupted Sunday dinner and Francis’s reaction to his cousin’s racist tirade.
“He banished his cousin from his family because of what he’d said about you and Ray?” she asked.
“Yup,” Kenny said. “And don’t forget that Frankie is half Irish. If Mr. Dee was willing to stand up to his cousin for me, then that makes him okay in my book.”
Justine gave him a sidelong glance. “Okay enough for him to take your mother out?”
“You never go out, Mom. You go to work, then come home to cook, clean, and type. When was the last time you went to the movies? Or out to a restaurant to eat?”
She wanted to tell her son she couldn’t remember. She’d gone to the movies when she was a girl living with her mother in the Bronx, and it was so long ago she could hardly remember which ones they were. And forget about eating in a restaurant. Takeout joints weren’t restaurants with tablecloths and a waitstaff.
Typing had opened doors for Justine she knew she never would’ve been permitted to enter without enrolling in college. Not only was she exposed to disciplines she would eventually take as a college student, but also to lifestyles granted to a select few when she typed a manuscript for an aspiring writer who’d grown up on Long Island’s Gold Coast. His fictional novel had pulled back the curtain he’d createdabout a young immigrant man who had fallen in love with a girl from a wealthy family and was forced to learn how to navigate a new world where social etiquette had become a priority for acceptance.
She had lived vicariously through the protagonist when he was forced to learn the protocol of which fork to use at a formal dinner, or when to wear a white or black tie. Typing for others had offered her an education she didn’t have to pay for but paid her. Precious Boone may have altered the course of her life, but Justine had to thank her and her mother for providing her with the opportunity to attend secretarial school to develop skills that afforded her the opportunity to earn extra money.
“It’s been a while, Kenny,” Justine admitted.
