'Well.'
'He specifically wrote . . .'
'I know.'
'. . . that he didn't know you were in that limo. He was after me, Honey. Me and me alone.'
'Well, probably. Yes.'
'So why'd you suppress that note?'
'I didn't. Danny suppressed it.'
'But you went along with it. You went on the air every night
'Well, yes.'
'Why, Honey?'
'Be good for my career,' she said, and shrugged.
'But bad for my health,' he said.
'Well, that too.'
'Uh-huh,' he said.
They looked at each other.
'This note,' he said. 'Was it handwritten?'
Yes.'
'Where is it now?' 'I have no idea.' 'I'll need it.' 'Why?'
'For evidence. We've charged Cudahy with attempted murder.'
'That's a shame. He seemed nice.'
'Murder would've been a bigger shame,' Hawes said.
They kept looking at each other.
'Why don't we go back to bed?' she asked.
'No, I don't think so,' he said.
'Cotton ...'
'See you,' he said, and walked out.
THEY WERE ON the thin edge of ending it here, and they both knew it. Sharyn had lied to him, and Kling had followed her like the detective he was, and both transgressions were grounds for packing toothbrushes. So they sat together in his apartment, silent now, Sharyn having explained (sort of) and Kling having defended (sort of), each waiting for more because each still felt betrayed.
Someone had to break the silence here.
If this thing was going to work here.
They both knew they had to make this thing work, because if it couldn't work right here, between this white man named Bertram Alexander Kling and this black woman named Sharyn Everard Cooke, then maybe it would never work anywhere in America between any two people of different colors. It had got down to that between them; thinking of each other as two people of different colors. But someone had to break the silence here, someone had to reach across this widening chasm.
So, reluctantly, but like the good detective he was, he weighed in his mind which had been the heavier offense, lying or following someone you were supposed to love, and he guessed his breach had been the greater one. So he cleared his throat and looked across the room to where she sat turned away from him in stony silence, arms folded across her chest, and he said, 'Shar?'
She did not answer.
'Shar,' he said, 'I'm sorry, but I still don't quite understand.'
'What is it you don't quite understand, Bert?' she said.
'If Jamie Hudson really wants to marry this Julie person . . .'
'She's not this Julie person. She's a woman named Julia Curtis, who happens to be a physician, just like Jamie and . . .'
'Oh, forgive me, a physician, please, do I need an appointment here?'
'Go to hell, Bert.'
'How was I supposed to know she's a doctor? I see the three of you running around like spies in . . .'
'Yes, go to hell.'
'If he wants to marry her, why's he meeting you?'
'He asked me to talk to her.'
'Why?'
'Damn it, she's not sure!'
'Not sure of what, damn it!'
'That she wants to marry a black man!'
'So what are you, a marriage broker all of a sudden?'
'No, I'm Jamie's friend. The girl has serious doubts. She loves him, but her entire life . . .'
'Oh, I get it. You're the shining example, right? You and me. Black woman, white man, you're supposed to show her it can work, is that it?'
'You still don't get it, do you?'
'No, I'm sorry, I don't. Are you sure that's the only reason she won't marry him? Because he's black and she's white? Or is there . . . ?'
'She's black, too,' Sharyn said.
'What?'
'I said she's black. We're all three of us black. Jamie, Julie, and me. We're all black. Get it now?'
He let this sink in. She watched him letting it sink in.
'She looks as white as . . .'
Yes, Bert?'
'She looks white,' he said.
'White enough to pass ever since she turned sixteen. She left home, left the south, went to Yale Med. She's afraid if she marries Jamie, she'll lose her white practice, lose everything she's worked so hard for all these years.'
The room went silent again.
You should have told me,' he said.
'I'd have broken her trust.'
'How about my trust?'
'How about mine, Bert?'
She said his name softly this time.
You shouldn't have followed me,' she said.
You shouldn't have lied to me.'
'Here we go again,' she said.
There was another silence.
He wondered if they could ever again breach the silence.
'Whatever happened to SHLEP?' he asked, and picked up the needlepointed pillow, and held it against his chest so she could read it:
Share Help
Love
Encourage
Protect
'I should've had them put a T on the end,' she said. 'For Trust.'
'Sharyn
'You don't trust me, Bert. Maybe it's because you don't love me . . .'
'I love you with all my
'. . . or maybe it's because I'm black . . .'
'Sharyn, Sharyn
'But whatever it is, the T's missing, Bert. It should've been SHLEPT. Maybe that's what it should be now,' she said, and took the pillow from his hands. 'SHLEPT. Past tense.'
