Gwynne Forster - Last Chance at Love

The muffled sound of the telephone interrupted her musings. “Hello? Auntie! How are you?”

“Lazy. I just caught a huge striped bass, and that set me to thinking about you. Fishing’s real good right now. You ought to come up here for a few days. It ought to be nice this weekend.”

Allison thought for a second. “You know...that’s not a bad idea. I’ll be starting a new assignment in a few days, and it wouldn’t hurt to rest up. I’ll fly to Reed City, pick up a rental car, and get to Idlewild around eight Friday evening.”

At exactly seven-thirty in the evening, Allison’s rented Toyota stopped in front of her aunt’s house, a yellow frame structure built in the 1920s, but renovated and well preserved. Frances Upshaw, tall and regal at eighty, rushed off the front porch to greet her niece who, along with Allison’s brother, Sydney, constituted the total of the family members that she cared about. She made it a point to tell her friends that the other members of her family were “too supercilious” for her taste.

“We’ve got another hour before dark,” she told Allison. “You’re just in time for us to get our supper. Mr. Hawks passed here a few minutes ago with a good dozen catfish and pike. They must be jumping.”

“Okay,” Allison said, hugging her aunt. “Let me put on some sneakers. I have to wear leather soles when I drive.”

She followed her aunt to the northern end of Little Idlewild Lake, baited her hook, and cast as far as she could.

“I’m getting rusty at this, Auntie.”

“No such thing. Child, I’ve been rusty for years, but not when I’m fishing.” Her laugh emphasized the insinuation. “When are you and Sydney going to settle down?”

Here it comes, she thought. “We’re settled, Auntie.”

“You know what I mean. Find yourself a— Oops! Will you look at what I got?” She reeled in a pike of about four pounds, the gleam of her white teeth expressing her pleasure as she put the fish in her basket. In less than half an hour, they had three fish each, enough for the weekend.

Around seven the next morning, Allison got her copy of Flying High, a folding chair, a big straw hat and dark glasses, and headed for the beach. As she sat facing Idlewild Lake and enjoying the crisp morning breeze, she thrilled at the thought that she could be sitting in the same spot where Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, or W.E.B. Du Bois once reclined. In its heyday, Idlewild, known as Black Eden, was famous as a black resort area, the first in the Midwest, attracting the most prominent black entertainers and scores of black intellectuals seeking a place to unwind.

Allison had often wondered how such a charming place with its winding roads, virgin forests, and beautiful lakes could have fallen into decline. She’d heard that integration made it redundant. She dug her bare toes into the powdered sand, leaned back, and opened her book. She liked being there alone when the birds chirped in the trees, a few people sailed on the lake, and a kind of peace flowed around her.

At the sound of a bird singing, she twisted around in the hope of getting a glimpse of it and gasped. Who was that giant of a man with a mouthwatering body rising from the lake like an amphibious Adonis, clad in only the tiniest of swimsuits? As he neared her, she lowered her glasses for a better look and could see the droplets of lake water on his flesh. Long, beautiful legs, tapered waist. Openly, she ogled the man, happy to acknowledge that example of God’s perfect handiwork. He didn’t glance her way, and she had never been happier to be ignored.

She returned her attention to her book, but the hero of Flying High took on the image of the handsome stranger, teasing and mocking her on every page. She closed the book and wondered about the identity of that spiritlike Adonis. Too bad, she would probably never see him again. Besides, he was probably married.

“Aunt Frances,” she said, “I saw a really tall man, maybe six feet five or six, on the beach. He had a tan complexion and black silky hair. I’d say he’s African-American with some Native American ancestors, and a knockout.”

“Well, well, hit you where you felt it, did he? Sorry, but he doesn’t live here in Idlewild. Must be a tourist. Why don’t you stay for the week? You might see him again.”

“Believe me, I’m tempted, but if I do that I’ll probably lose my job, and you know how long I’ve been trying to get one. I have to leave here Sunday noon.”

Frances rinsed her cup and saucer and rubbed her sides to dry her hands. “I’ll keep an eye out for him, and you know I’ll walk right up to him and ask him about himself. When you get to be my age, you can get away with anything.”

* * *

On Monday morning, Allison telephoned Jacob Covington. The deep baritone voice invited her to leave a message but, struck by the beauty of his voice, she merely stared at the receiver. Recovering quickly, she said, “Mr. Covington, this is Allison Wakefield of The Journal. My editor says you’ve agreed to give us a story. Please call me at your convenience.” She gave her phone number, hung up, and pondered her next move. Later, checking The Journal’s calendar of events for a potential story, as she regularly did, she noted Covington’s scheduled lecture that night at Howard University’s Andrew Rankin Chapel. She’d be there.

* * *

Allison took an aisle seat on the first row and nearly sprang out of it when Jacob Covington strode to the rostrum. Her awareness of him as a man surprised and disconcerted her, as her gaze caught the big giant of a man, who looked directly at her with long-lashed hazel eyes. With so little space separating them, he had to see that a glance at him had left her disoriented, so that she responded to him as surely as flowers rise to greet the sun. At the end of his lecture, she hardly recalled the gist of his talk, so intent had she been on concealing her feminine reaction. She stood in line for an opportunity to speak with him and stared in disbelief when he looked beyond those closest to him in the line and let his gaze linger on her. Common sense told her that she should tell Bill Jenkins to give the assignment to another reporter.

“Hello.” The deep, sonorous voice curled around her, and the hazel eyes that punctuated the elegance of his rich, brown face seemed to look into her soul. Without thinking, she extended her hand. And he took it. Nobody had to tell her that, at that moment, she dealt with fate.

“Hello, Mr. Covington.” She managed to keep her tone cool. “I enjoyed your talk, but I have a business reason for wanting to meet you.”

His left eyebrow arched. Then he winked, bewitching her. “What kind of business?”

She handed him her card. “I’m the reporter Mr. Jenkins assigned for The Journal’s story on you.”

He looked at the card, then at her. “Your name’s not familiar.”

“I hope you don’t have a case of gender insensitivity.”

That wink, again. “Hardly. My concern is for competence and experience.”

With so much at stake, she couldn’t afford to show vexation. “And you can look at a reporter and know whether she’s competent?”

“There are still a lot of people behind you. If you’ll step aside, we can settle this later.” Settle it? How? This was her chance, and if he had thoughts of refusing her interviews, he could forget it. Right then, she had the upper hand, because he didn’t need bad press just as he was about to begin a national book tour.

“Suppose we walk out together,” he suggested when the last of his audience had left. “I agreed to be interviewed reluctantly, because my publisher thinks a story in The Journal will widen my readership, but I have to tell you I have misgivings. What kind of story are you planning?”