this place in half an hour if he really puts himself to it,” he explained, “but with Sheldon to help him, you’d think a hurricane had been through here. We’re all better off with them strapped in that stroller.”
“If you say so.” She knelt unsteadily in front of the stroller and addressed the twin who’d pointed toward the logo. “What’s your name?” A miniature Rufus right down to his studied gaze, she decided.
“Preston,” he told her with more aplomb that she’d have expected of a child of his age, and pointed to his twin. “He’s Sheldon.”
“How old are you?” she asked his identical twin brother.
“Three, almost four,” they told her in perfect unison, each holding up three fingers.
Naomi looked first at one boy and then the other, then at Rufus. “How do you know the difference?”
“Their personalities are different.” He looked down at them, his face aglow with tenderness, and his voice full of pride.
She introduced herself to the boys and then began serving the ice-cream. On a hunch, she took four of the plastic banana-shaped bowls that she’d bought for use in the logo and filled them with a scoop each of the chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry flavors.
Rufus nodded approvingly. “Well, you’ve just dealt successfully with Preston; he’d have demanded that it look exactly like that painting. Sheldon wouldn’t care as long as it was ice cream.”
Naomi watched Rufus unstrap his sons, place one on each knee, and help them feed themselves while trying to eat his own ice-cream. Her eyes misted, and she tried to stifle her desire to hold one of the children. She knew a strange, unfamiliar yearning as she saw how gently he handled them. How he carefully wiped their hands, mouths, and the front of their clothes when they had finished and, over their squirming objections, playfully strapped them into the stroller.
“Do they wiggle because it’s a kid thing, or just to test your mettle?”
He laughed aloud, a full-throated release as he reached down to rebutton Sheldon’s jacket. She would have bet that he didn’t know how; it was the first evidence she’d had that his handsome face could shape itself into such a brilliant smile, one that involved his eyes and mouth, his whole face. He had a single dimple, and she was a pushover for a dimple. The glow of his smile made her feel as if he had wrapped her in a ray of early morning sunlight, warming her.
“Both, I guess,” he finally answered.
He turned to her. “That was very nice, Naomi. Thank you. Before I leave, I want you to tell me why you hung up when I called you. Didn’t you know that I would have to send the police or come over here myself and find out whether you were in trouble? I brought my boys because I don’t leave them alone and I couldn’t get a sitter quickly.”
“Don’t you have a housekeeper, nursemaid, or someone who takes care of them for you?”
Rufus stood abruptly, all friendliness gone from his suddenly stony face. “My children are my responsibility, and it is I, not a parental substitute, who takes care of them. I do not want my children’s outlook on life to be that of their nanny or the housekeeper. And I will not have my boys pining for me to get home and disappointed when I get there too tired even to hug them. My boys come before my career and everything else, and I don’t leave them unless I have no choice.” He turned to leave, and both boys raised their arms to her. Not caring what their father thought, she quickly took the opportunity to hug them and hold their warm little bodies. His expression softened slightly, against his will, she thought, as he opened the door and pushed the stroller through it. “It was a mistake to come here. Goodbye, Naomi.” As the door closed, she heard Preston, or maybe it was Sheldon, say, “Goodbye, Noomie.”
Naomi began cleaning the kitchen, deep in thought. Did they have low tolerance for each other, or was it something else? She had never known anyone more capable of destroying her calm, not even Judd. And there was no doubt that she automatically pushed his buttons. The less she saw of him, the better, she told herself, fully aware that he was the first man for whom she’d ever had a deep, feminine ache. “I don’t know much,” she said aloud, “but I know enough to leave him alone.”
Naomi parked her car on Fourth Street below Howard University and walked up Florida Avenue to One Last Chance. She chided herself for spending so much time thinking about Rufus, all the while giving herself excuses for doing so. She had just been defending herself with the thought that being the father of those delightful boys probably added to Rufus’s manliness. He was so masculine. Even his little boys had strong masculine traits.
Rufus had made her intensely aware of herself as a woman. An incomplete woman. A woman who could not dare to dream of what she wanted most; to have the love and devotion of a man she loved and with whom she could share her secrets and not be harshly judged. A home. And children. Maybe she could have it with…oh, God, there was so much at stake. Forget it, she told herself; he would break her heart.
She increased her pace. It seemed like forever since the foundation’s board members had argued heatedly about the wisdom of locating One Last Chance’s headquarters in an area that was becoming increasingly more blighted. But placing it near those who needed the services had been the right decision. She walked swiftly, partly because it was her natural gait, but mainly because she loved her work with the young girls, whom she tutored in English and math. She welcomed the crisp, mid-October evenings that were so refreshing after the dreaded heat and humidity of the Washington summers. Invigorating energy coursed through her as the cool air greeted her face, and she accelerated her stride. Not even the gathering dusk and the barely camouflaged grimness of the neighborhood daunted her.
Inside OLC, as the girls called it, her spirits soared as she passed a group playing checkers in the lounge, glimpsed a crowded typing class, and walked by the little rooms where experienced educators patiently tutored their charges. She reached the nurse’s station on the way to her own little cubicle, noticed the closed door, and couldn’t help worrying about the plight of the girl inside.
Linda was half an hour late, and Naomi was becoming concerned about her. The girl lacked the enthusiasm that she had shown when they’d begun the tutoring sessions, and she was always tired, too worn-out for a fifteen-year-old. When she did arrive, she didn’t apologize for her tardiness, but Naomi didn’t dwell on that.
“Do you have brothers and sisters?” Naomi asked her, attempting to understand the girl’s problems.
“Five of them,” Linda responded listlessly.
“Tell me what you do at home, Linda, and why you come to One Last Chance. Speak carefully, because this is our diction lesson for today.” Already becoming a fatalist, Naomi thought sadly, when the girl opened her mouth to object, but closed it without speaking and shrugged indifferently.
“At home, I cook, clean, and take care of my mama’s children. I study at the drugstore where I work after school and weekends, but I have to be careful not to get caught. I come here for the company, so I can hear people talk good English and see what you’re supposed to wear and how you’re supposed to act. I can get by without the tutoring.”
“Do you enjoy the tutoring, Linda?”
“Yeah. It makes my grades better, but I just like to be around you. You treat me like I’m the same as you.”
“But you are the same.”
“No, I’m not. You got choices, and I don’t have any yet.” She smiled then. “But I’m going to have them. I’m going to be able to decide what I want. I’m going to learn to type and use computers. That way, I’ll always be able to get a good job, and I’ll be able to work my way through college.” She paused and looked down at her hands. “I’m not ever going to have any children, and I’m never going on welfare and have people snooping around to check on me. It’s humiliating.”
Good for you, Naomi thought, but she needed to correct her about one thing.
“I’m sure