Holiday Kisses. Gwynne Forster

impossible. I won’t ask if you have a guy, because that would be silly. Where is he tonight?”

      “I’m helping my neighbor celebrate her new job after a year out of work,” she said, hoping to steer the conversation away from personal issues.

      “I’m glad for her. That’s why I’m in Baltimore. My company moved down here, and I had a choice of moving or looking for another job.”

      The music ended, and he walked with her to her table. “Thanks, Kisha, for a real nice dance.”

      “Thank you, Josh. I hope you find your niche here.”

      “I told you you’d get a guy,” Noreen said. “The place is full of men.”

      “Yeah, and one of them finally asked me to dance,” Kisha said drily. “How’s it going with the guy you’ve been dancing with?”

      “He’s pleasant, but the poor guy’s looking for a fast one, and that is not my style. Ready to go when you are.”

      “That was fun, Noreen,” Kisha said when they got home. “Good night.”

      “And thank you for being my friend, Kisha. That’s the first time I’ve been out in a year. It was wonderful. Good night.”

      Kisha went inside and plodded up the stairs to her bedroom. Being alone was getting to her, but until she met Craig Jackson, she had enjoyed it. She should either go after what she wanted or forget about him and get on with her life. But how did one go after the hottest, most eligible man in town?

      When Craig woke the next morning, he was not having misgivings about Kisha, his problem was himself. He had asked her to dinner on an impulse. But he suspected that he’d wanted subconsciously to do that from the day she mended his tooth.

      He went to the bathroom, splashed some cold water on his face, donned a robe and headed downstairs for a cup of coffee. “I shouldn’t make phone calls before noon,” he said to himself with a derisive jab at his own ego. After pouring a little milk into the coffee, he took a few swallows and dumped the remainder into the sink. Leaning against the kitchen table, he happened to look at his hands, turned them over and examined his palms. He’d once played the violin, carved beautiful images and been fairly good at sketching. What had he done with his artistic talents? He’d let all of them fall by the way while he raced to be the next Walter Cronkite.

      He’d gotten so used to ignoring his feelings and needs that he failed to appreciate the attractiveness of a woman who had precisely the traits he admired in the opposite sex. And he gave his subconscious a flogging when it led him to do what was reasonable and perhaps in his interest. Instead of being annoyed at himself for having invited Kisha to the River Restaurant, he decided to look forward to it and see if he enjoyed her company as much as he had during their evening at Roy’s. It was time to lead a fuller life, but that didn’t mean he’d put anything ahead of his goal to have a network-level job within a year. For him, change would not be a simple matter, and he knew it.

      Women of all ages had pursued him ever since his voice changed when he was thirteen years old. Fortunately for him, his father had pounded it into his head that what came easily went just as fast. “Easy come, Craig, easy go,” he’d said. He couldn’t count the times his father had lectured to him about the travails of a man who, having spent his life trading on a face that was his only virtue, reached the age of wrinkles, thinning hair and sagging jowls and discovered that he had nothing. He had never wished he wasn’t handsome, because his face opened doors for him. But he’d worked hard to justify his good fortune, to accomplish something meaningful that would enable him to help others. From childhood, he had wanted to earn respect by stature and deed, and not by the length of his eyelashes, or by the achievements of his father.

      Nothing pleased him more than the fact that Kisha seemed to like him for himself. She’d soon learn more about him, and she might not like what she learned, but he’d take that chance. They needed to talk. She agreed to go out with him for the second time, but neither had asked the other that most important question. She hadn’t asked him if he was married. And she had the trappings of a single woman, but he also had to be sure.

      He rushed to answer the house phone when it rang. “Hi, Mom. How are you, and how’s Dad?” He always asked that question.

      “We’re fine. We’re having a rather heated argument about the Dred Scott Decision. He says Roger Taney was chief justice when he wrote the majority opinion that blacks, whether slave or free, were not and never could be citizens of the United States, and that an angry Lincoln retaliated with the Emancipation Proclamation. Is he right? I thought John Marshall was chief justice at the time, but that Taney wrote the majority opinion.”

      He had to laugh. “Mom, not even a college law professor would argue with Dad about Supreme Court decisions. Remember he’s argued cases before the Supreme Court, and he’s correct, but I give you credit for guts. Taney succeeded Marshall as chief justice, and he was chief justice when he wrote that opinion.”

      “You lawyers always gang up on me, but remember more people need doctors than lawyers…or journalists.”

      He imagined that she shook her finger at him. “Go hug Dad and tell him that he’s right as usual.”

      If he could have the kind of relationship with a woman that his parents had shared for as long as he’d known them, he shouldn’t ask for anything more, including a network news job. But he knew himself, and he’d never give up his dream.

      He didn’t question why he thought of Kisha just then as if she were the one, because he knew himself and his responses to women. She could be if their relationship developed. Hampered by the worst pain he’d ever experienced, he opened his eyes, imagined looking up at her and felt a charge all the way from his head to his toes.

      Kisha didn’t question the reason for the casual phone call she received from Craig. It was as if he’d phoned her so that she wouldn’t forget about him. But she would be patient, and when he made a move—as he surely would—she’d be ready. His call had come the previous morning around eight o’clock. When she got to know him better, she was going to ask him what time he usually awakened. She’d bet good money that he woke up around seven o’clock and called her before he got out of bed.

      She got up a little later than usual that Sunday morning, too late for church, so she stuck her hand outside the front door, and picked up the Sunday newspaper. She thought of Craig, and his love of fresh coffee floated through her mind while she sat on the kitchen stool waiting for hers to percolate. She wondered why he didn’t buy a percolator and learn to use it. After toasting a bagel and spreading margarine and apricot jam on it, she ate what passed for breakfast, drank a cup of coffee and headed back upstairs. Unsettled, and at a loss as to why, she’d decided to go to the museum and read the paper later.

      Dressed in dark blue stretch jeans, a red-cashmere turtleneck sweater, a knee-length gray storm jacket and a pair of Reebok shoes she covered her hair with a red knitted cap and headed for the Baltimore Museum of Art. She frequented the museum as much to study as to enjoy the work of great artists, and she especially enjoyed going there on Sunday afternoons. On her way to the European collection, she glimpsed paintings by Jacob Lawrence, a noted African-American, and turned into that hall. For more than an hour, she let her eyes feast on the works of Lawrence, Joshua Johnson, Horace Pippin, Henry Tanner and other African-American painters.

      As she left that hall, she bumped into a hard, moving object and would have fallen backward if a hand hadn’t grabbed her and steadied her on her feet.

      “Well, I’ll be damned. I nearly killed you, Kisha, for goodness’ sake. I’m so sorry.”

      She couldn’t say whether it was his weight or the excitement of seeing him unexpectedly that had knocked her out of sorts. “Craig, you must weigh a ton.”

      “Well, not quite. Two hundred pounds is more like it.”

      She flexed her arms to be sure she still had both of them. “Two hundred moving pounds is a heck of a lot of power.”

      He