“Make that two gins instead of bourbon,” Ezekiel said to Dewey. Then he offered her a Chesterfield. “Would you like a smoke?”
“No, thank you.” She placed her shopping bag on the sawdust next to her feet. When she straightened, Dewey had delivered the drinks.
Ezekiel knocked down his gin before Honoree touched her glass.
“Why didn’t you write?” she asked.
“You’re a good dancer.”
They’d spoken at the same time.
“When had you seen me dance before?”
“In my mother’s kitchen when you were a kid.” He loosened his tie. “It was a Saturday afternoon in the spring, I think. Your father took you in his arms, and the two of you danced the turkey trot.”
Daffodils were blooming in the garden, she recalled, but it had been a long time since she’d thought about dancing with her father, or his touch, or how his voice softened when he’d hum a melody in her ear.
It was a hazy, blurry memory, a memory that made her heart ache. But the memory didn’t belong to her. It belonged to Ezekiel.
She stared at the bottles of whiskey on the shelves behind the bar. “I wanted to believe you were dead.”
“I’m not dead.”
“I know, since I’m standing here talking to you. But where have you been?”
Studying the bottom of his empty glass, Ezekiel clenched and unclenched his jaw. Words seemed caught in his throat—the answers too hard to give.
When he finally spoke, he said the unexpected. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”
“Am I happy to see you? You left town without an explanation, without leaving word.Glad to see youhadn’t crossed my mind.”
“Then why’d you send that girl to ask me to wait for you?”
An understandable question that needed an explanation if she were so inclined. She swallowed her gin, but the taste made her gag. Dewey hadn’t put honey or juice in the drink the way Crazy Pete did. And now, she was choking.
“You okay?” Ezekiel placed a hand on her back and patted lightly. “You need some water?”
She gulped, attempting to make room in her windpipe for some oxygen.
Ezekiel spread his large hand over her back, massaging her with strong fingers. “You sure you don’t need some water?”
She shook her head, dabbing tears from her eyes. It took a few moments, but finally she was able to swallow. “Three years, Ezekiel,” she said hoarsely. “You could’ve let me know if you were alive or dead.”
His hand fell from her back. “I wanted to write. I even tried, but—”
“Don’t do that. Don’t start to tell me something and stop.”
“Why not?” He squeezed the still-empty glass in his hand. “If an explanation were all it would take for your forgiveness, I’d tell you everything there was to tell. Everything about every second, minute, hour, day, and night I was away from you—” He placed the glass on the bar and tapped a cigarette from his pack. His second. “Telling you where I was or what I was doing won’t bring back those past three years. Life doesn’t work like that.”
She thought she heard a crack in his voice. Was he angry? In pain? Frustrated? Those were her feelings. She couldn’t trust his. “Is that it? Nothing else? Because if that is all you’ve got to say, I have to go.”
“Not yet. Please. I didn’t expect to see you tonight, and I—”
“You didn’t come to see me? You weren’t even looking for me. So why are you here?”
“I have business at Miss Hattie’s.” He fiddled with the band on his fedora. “Then I saw you onstage.”
“You found me by accident because you had business.” She covered her mouth to hold in the words. She didn’t like to curse, rarely did, but at this moment, it was an effort to keep from sounding like a street wench. “What kind of business and with whom?”
