Mrs. McGruder, who had been watching from the kitchen doorway, laughed. “He’s a sweet boy,” she said.
“Boy” is the key word, I thought, but smiled and nodded.
“This was wonderful, Mrs. McGruder. Thank you,” I said, taking my last sip of coffee.
“Have a successful second day,” she told me. “There’s an umbrella by the door. Maybe you should take it. It looks like we might see some of God’s tears.” She smiled. “That’s what my mother called the rain.”
“How sweet,” I said, and thought, My father called it white blood.
I scooped up the umbrella and left the rooming house. I didn’t feel the first drops until I was a good block and a half away. Just as I paused to open the umbrella, I heard a car pull up to the curb right alongside me. I anticipated seeing Michael Thomas when I turned, but it was Liam Dolan. He inched up closer and lowered the passenger’s-side window.
“Morning. Hop in before it really starts.”
“Oh, I was going to walk.”
“ ‘Was’ is the key word in that sentence,” he told me. “C’mon. I promise I won’t bite.”
The rain was intensifying. I decided that I looked foolish even thinking of resisting. I opened the door, closed the umbrella, and slipped in quickly.
“Thank you,” I said. “How fortuitous it was that you happened along just at the right time,” I added as the raindrops thickened and began to patter on the windshield. Even the wind strengthened, and looking toward the far corner, I could see it toying with the downpour, sweeping small waves of water over the street and sidewalk, as if some invisible large hand were waving in the rain.
“Fortuitous?” he asked, not starting to drive forward. He held his charming smile. Now that I took a good look at him, I saw that he was blessed with a cinematic face, the sort of face never caught unawares by a camera or a glance. His features weren’t capable of becoming awkward, even for a second. They clung to their symmetry, and the light in his blue eyes didn’t diminish in the grayness thrown over us in the downpour. If anything, they brightened.
“Yes, fortuitous. You’re not intimidated by multisyllabic words, are you?” I asked.
“If I were, the word ‘intimidated’ would get me,” he replied.
I laughed.
“Good,” he said immediately. “I was afraid you were one of those women hatched in one of my aunt’s favorite historical museums.”
“What’s that mean?” I asked.
“You know the type, terrified of smiling or laughing for fear they won’t be considered seriously or something. Ask my aunt to let you look at one of her family albums. You’ll see that in not one picture is there a female smiling in front of a camera. They were taught that was too frivolous.”
“A lot about our lives now is too frivolous.”
He glanced at me. “Uh-oh. I suspected that you might have been sent by one of my aunt’s archaic friends to stay at the Winston House. Some of them swear they have conversations with John Quincy himself. Is that how you came to stay at the Winston House?”
“No,” I said. “No one directed me specifically to your aunt’s rooming house.”
“Just fate?”
“If you want to call it that. I saw the advertisement and called to see if there was any vacancy.”
“Then it’s all meant to be,” he declared.
“What’s all meant to be?”
“This,” he said, and turned at the corner. It was raining much harder now. I would never have been able to walk the whole distance without getting soaked. There was just too much wind.
“Even the rain?”
“Especially the rain,” he replied. “If it hadn’t started when you left my aunt’s place, I bet you wouldn’t have gotten into my car. You’ve been told to stay away from me. Oh, don’t deny it,” he quickly added. “If I were any of them, I would probably have given you the same warnings.”
/> “So, you know you have a bad reputation and you don’t do anything to improve it?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”