“Let's just hope she doesn't get your hands and feet, poor thing,” Nana leaned in and said. Then she winked at Billie, who was already considered part of our family An intense feeling of homecoming overtook me right then and there. It was one of those transcendent moments that grabs you a little by surprise and reminds you all at once about the good things. Whatever else happened, there was this, where I needed to be, where I belonged.
Snapshot - remember the feeling for the next time I need it.
The feeling of intimacy didn't last long, though, as the house soon began filling up with other guests. A few of my old guard from DCPD were the next to show up;Jerome and Claudette Thurman came with Rakeem Powell and his new girlfriend, whose name I didn't catch. “Give it a week,” Sampson told me on the side. “If she's still around, then you can worry about it.”
Aunt Tia and my cousin Carter were the first actual family to come, followed by a string of warm and familiar faces, several of them bearing some vague resemblance to my own.
The last to arrive was Dr. Kayla Coles, and I greeted her at the door myself.
“Annie Sullivan, I presume?”
“Excuse me? Oh, I get it. The Miracle Worker.”
“The Miracle Worker - the one who got my grandmother to put turkey in her chili. I'm guessing that was your work. Well done.”
“At your service.” She curtsied playfully in her turquoise dress, which looked very comfortable even while it clung to her. Kayla didn't usually show off much of herself, and I couldn't help noticing. She definitely looked different than she did in her usual preppy-practical work clothes.
Instead of a medical bag, she carried a large covered crock.
“Now this might be your biggest trick yet,” I said. “Bringing someone else's food into Nana's kitchen? I want to see this.”
“Not just the food; I brought the recipe, too.”
She turned the crock around to show a white index card taped to the side.
“Heart-healthy baked beans for a woman who knows all too well how to cook with bacon fat.”
“Well, come on in,” I said with a sweeping gesture. “At your own risk.”
The sounds of Branford Marsalis Quartet's Romare Bear- den Revealed ushered us through the house, where the party was gathering up steam and everyone looked glad to see Dr. Kayla, who happened to be a saint in the neighborhood. I couldn't help feeling a little giddy At the end of the week I'd be on another plane. But for now, this was as good as it gets.
Mary, Mary
Chapter 77
I FOUND SAMPSON AND BILLIE just as he was opening a beer in the kitchen, and I took it out of his hands. There was something I wanted to get out of the way with the big man before the festivities really got rolling.
“Follow me. I need to talk to you - before either of us has a drink,” I told him.
“Ooh, mysterious,” Billie said, and laughed at the two of us, the way she usually does.
Billie is an ER nurse, and she's seen it all.
“Come on upstairs,” I said to John.
“I already had a drink,” John said. “This is number two.”
“Come anyway We'll just be a minute, Billie.”
From my office in the attic, I could still hear the music muted through the floor. I recognized Dr. Kayla's laugh amid the indistinct thrum of party voices. Sampson leaned against the wall. “You wanted to see me, sir? In your office?”
He had on a funny T-shirt from his basketball team in the older men's league at St. Anthony's. It said, “Nobody moves, nobody gets hurt.”
“I didn't want to mix work with the party,” I said.
“But you can't help yourself.” Sampson grinned. “Can you?”
“I'm not home for too long. I have to go back to L.A., and I don't want to wait on this anymore.”
“Well, that's a good hook,” he said. “What's the pitch? Let's hear it.”
“Basically? Director Burns and I want you to think seriously about coming to work at the Bureau. We want you to make the move, John. Were you expecting it?” I asked.
He laughed. “More or less, of course. You've been hinting around enough. Burns looking to blackify the Bureau, sugar?”
“No. Not that I'd mind.”
What Burns wanted at the Bureau was more agents who knew the value of fieldwork, and people he could trust, his team. If I could recruit only one person, I'd told him, John Sampson would be my first choice. That was good enough for Burns.
“I've already got the go-ahead from the director's office,” I said. “Ron Burns wants the same things I do. Or maybe it's the other way around.”
“You mean he wants me?” Sampson asked.
“Well, we couldn't get Jerome or Rakeem, or the crossing guard at the Sojourner Truth school. So yeah, he'll settle for you.”
Sampson laughed loudly, one of my favorite sounds. “I miss you, too,” he said. "And believe it or not, I have an answer. I want you to come back to the Washington PD.
How's that for turnaround? You're right about one thing - we do have to get back together. One way or the other. I guess I vote for the other."
I couldn't help laughing out loud, too; then John and I banged closed fists, agreeing that we needed to work together again, one way or the other.
I told Sampson that I'd think about his surprising proposal, and he said he'd think about mine, too. Then Sampson swung open the office door and let in the music from downstairs.
Mary, Mary
Chapter 78
“ARE WE ALLOWED to have a drink now?” said Sampson. “It's a party, sugar. You do remember parties?”
“Vaguely,” I said.
Two minutes later, I had a beer in one hand and a rib dripping homemade barbecue sauce in the other. I found Jannie and Damon in the dining room playing Thirteen with a cousin of theirs, Michelle, and Kayla Coles. To be honest, though, it was Kayla who drew me over.
“Are you ignoring our guests?” I asked the kids.
“Not these two,” Jannie deadpanned, with a nod to Kayla and Michelle.
“No, they're whipping my butt too much to be ignoring me,” Kayla said, sending Jannie and Damon into conspiratorial laughs. There it was again. A woman and my kids, getting along. What was it about that? What was I missing?
I gave Dr. Kayla a long look as she shuffled and dealt the cards. She was incredibly grounded, and good-looking without trying to be. The thing of it was, I liked het I'd liked Kayla for a long, long time, ever since we were kids growing up in Southeast. And so?
“You looking at my cards?” she asked, breaking through my reverie, or whatever it was supposed to be.
“Not at your cards,” Jannie broke in. "At you, Dr. Kayla.
He's sneaky like that."
“All right, that's enough kidding around. I'm out of here. I have to go help Nana,” I said. I rolled my eyes for Kayla's ben- efit, and then I walked away Quickly.
“Don't go,” Kayla said. But I was already through the doorway As I headed to the kitchen, there was only one thing on my mind, though. How could I get Kayla alone at the party?
And where was I going to take her on our first date?
C ha te r 79 F' I TOOK KAYLA to Kinkead's on purpose. It had been my and Christine's favorite spot, but before that, it had been my favorite spot, and I was reclaiming it. Kayla arrived less than five minutes after I did, and I liked that. She was on time, no game-playing. She had on a black wrap cashmere sweater, black slacks, and kitten-heel sling-backs, and she was kind of dazzling again. In her own way.
“I'm sorry Alex,” she said as she walked up to me at the bar “I'm punctual. I know it's a big bore and takes all the mystery out of things, but I just can't help myself. Next time, and there will be a next time, I'll force myself to be fashionably late. At least ten minutes, maybe fifteen.”