Promise Me A Rainbow by Cheryl Reavi Read Free Book Online Page B

sometimes you eat candy last, Maria. She just cares if you eat candy and nothing else, ain’t that right, Ms. Holben?”
    “That’s right, Sasha.”
    “Ms. Holben?”
    “What, Sasha?”
    “This candy ain’t bad for you, Ms. Holben. It’s got peanuts, okay?”
    “That’s good, Sasha.”
    “Do you think Sweet Eddie’s cute, Ms. Holben?”
    “I’ve never seen the gentleman, Sasha,” Catherine had to confess.
    “Sweet Eddie ain’t no gentleman, Ms. Holben,” Cherry said. “He’s a good-looking, sweet-talking son of a gun, but he ain’t no . . . uh-oh, Ms. Holben!”
    “Cherry, what?” Catherine said, somewhat alarmed by the look on Cherry’s face.
    “I forgot to tell you! You’re supposed to call that sucker!”
    “What sucker?”
    “That sucker coming right there. Here,” she said, thrusting a piece of paper with a phone number under her nose.
    Catherine looked down at the paper.
    “He came here this morning, Ms. Holben. I said you rode the bus and you didn’t get here till it did. He said he wanted you to call him—as soon as you could. Is that your boyfriend, Ms. Holben?”
    “No,” Catherine said as she got off the table. She crossed the grass to head off Joe D’Amaro before he got any closer. She didn’t know what kind of mood he was in, and, if last night was any indication of his usual behavior, she didn’t want the girls to hear him.
    He looked the same as he had yesterday—like a construction worker who wasn’t wearing his hard hat. It occurred to her as she walked toward him how little she’d thought of Jonathan today. She had been thinking only of this man’s child.
    “Ms. Holben,” he said, holding up his hand as if he thought she might try to ignore him. He took long strides to close the distance between them, but if she was expecting an apology for his parting remark last night, she was mistaken.
    “Ms. Holben, I wanted you to call me. I wanted to ask you about . . .” He glanced at the picnic table, then glanced at it again. “ . . . about—are all those girls pregnant?” he suddenly asked, as if what he’d seen had only just registered.
    “Yes, they are.”
    He frowned slightly. “Oh. What I want to know is what Fritz said to you. What do you do for a living, anyway?” he asked, looking back at the table. This time Beatrice and Maria waved.
    “I work with the school program for pregnant students.”
    “They’re . . . awfully young, aren’t they?”
    “Yes.”
    “Just little kids,” he said, more to himself than to her.
    “What?”
    “Nothing. Kind of sad.” He looked back at her. “About Fritz—when can you talk to me?” It seemed not to have occurred to him that after his rudeness last night she might not want to talk to him.
    “I have some time now . . .”
    “No, I can’t now. I’m working. I can come by your place tonight. I’m not sure when—six or seven. Maybe later.”
    She hesitated, not wanting to commit herself to waiting an entire evening for someone who might not show up, and yet she needed to talk to him about Fritz.
    “Look, Ms. Holben. I’ll come by as soon as I can. That’s the best I can tell you. If you’re there, maybe you’ll have time to talk to me. If you’re not, you can call me when you do. It’s important, Ms. Holben. I . . . know you’ve got your own troubles.”
    She ignored his allusion to the scene he’d witnessed with Jonathan.
    “Fritz is all right, isn’t she?” she asked.
    For the first time, he looked into Catherine’s eyes. “I don’t know.”
    She stared back at him, seeing more than she thought he’d want her to see—that he was worried, perhaps afraid, and that his minimal courtesy now was likely his way of distancing himself from it.
    “I should be home this evening,” she said. “I’m usually home by six.”
    Relief flooded his face. “Good. I’ll see you this evening, then.” He turned and started toward the street.
    “Mr. D’Amaro?”
    He looked around at