She thought of simply leaving the racket with someone at the hospital’s reception desk, but as much as she didn’t want to be seen by Gabriel, she was longing to see him, to see the man who had facelessly filled her fantasies and her dreams for the past year and a half.
The woman at the information desk was an elderly volunteer, and the name tag attached to her collar read Madge.
Lisbeth smiled at her. “I’m looking for Gabriel Johnson’s office,” she said.
“Is he the bookkeeper?” the woman asked.
“The chief accountant. Yes.”
“That’s the business office.” The woman pointed a misshapen finger toward the bank of elevators in the corridor. “Second floor. Take the elevator and turn right, and his office is there on the corner.”
Lisbeth felt nauseous in the elevator, and she knew the perspiration was returning to her nose and forehead. By the time she turned the knob of the door to the business office, her hand was shaking.
There was no one sitting at the reception desk when she walked into the business office. She stood, waiting, for an uncomfortable moment, the racket at her side, before spotting an open door halfway down a narrow hallway.
“Hello?” she called, hoping the person in that office would hear her, but there was no response.
She walked down the hall and knocked on the open door, peering inside the room at the same time. A colored man sat at a desk, and he looked up at the sound of her knock.
“Excuse me,” she said. “I’m looking for Gabriel Johnson.”
The man had been writing something, but now he set down his pen.
“I’m Gabriel Johnson,” he said.
“No—” She stopped herself. She wanted to tell him that he couldn’t possibly be Gabriel. She wanted to tell him he was wrong, or to ask him if he was playing some sort of trick on her. But that voice. She recognized it, the depth and gentleness of it. She was stunned beyond speech, though. Gabriel—
“Ah, I see you have my racket,” he said, standing up. “You must be Lisbeth.”
“Yes.” She tried to smile, holding the racket toward him. Her fantasy instantly evaporated, leaving a huge empty space inside her chest. She refused to think of herself as a bigot, but a romance with a colored man was out of the question. Her knees were full of jelly, and she was glad when he motioned toward the chair opposite his desk.
“Please, sit down, Lisbeth.”
She handed him the racket, then sank into the chair. Suddenly, she understood why Gabriel played tennis on Dr. Peterson’s private court. He would not be welcome at most of the courts around town.
Gabriel sat down again, resting his racket on the desk. He smiled at her, and she saw so much in that smile. She could see an apology there, and understanding, along with a deep well of sadness.
“I should have told you in our phone conversations that I was a Negro,” he said.
“Well,” she said, “I should have told you that I was fat.” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them, and she laughed out loud at herself.
Gabriel laughed, too. In fact, he roared, then shook his head, taking off his horn-rimmed glasses to wipe his eyes. “I would say you are every bit as lovely as your voice,” he said.
What else could he say? she thought. He was trying to take the awkwardness out of the moment. She was certain, though, that he felt the same sting of disappointment at seeing her that she felt at seeing him.
“Hey,” he said suddenly. “I wanted to show this to you.” Lifting a framed photograph from his desk, he handed it to her. It was a picture of a sailboat, and it looked very much like the sloop her family had once owned. She looked from the picture back to him.
“Is this yours?” she asked. “The boat you told me about?”
He nodded. “What do you think?”
“It’s a beauty,” she said. “It reminds me of the boat my father used to take me out on.”
“I love it,” he said, taking the picture back from her and placing it again on his desk. “I feel so free out on the water.”
She remembered that feeling well, although she’d not experienced it in a long time. “Where did you learn to sail?” she asked.
“My father taught me, too,” he said. “On an estuary in Oakland.”
She remembered him telling her he was originally from Oakland, but now she pictured his childhood home in the section of that city where the colored people lived.
“Is that why you went in the navy?” she asked, recalling that he had told her he’d served in the war.
“Yes,” he said. “You have a good memory. And I recall that you grew up along the Seventeen Mile Drive. And you have a twin sister.”
“Right.”
“Identical or fraternal?”
“Identical,” she said, although it felt like a lie, since she was nearly twice her sister’s size.
“Amazing to think there are two of you.” He smiled. “Are you alike in other ways, as well?”
