The Eatons
Kimani Press
March 2010
On Sale: February 23, 2010
Featuring: Chandra Eaton; Preston Tucker
224 pages ISBN: 0373861524 EAN: 9780373861521 Paperback Add to Wish List
Chandra Eaton slumped against the rear seat in the taxi as
the driver maneuvered away from the curb at the Philadelphia
International Airport. She felt as if she'd been traveling
for days. Her flight from Belize to Miami was a little more
than two hours. But it was the layover in Atlanta that had
lasted more than eight hours because of violent
thunderstorms that left her out of sorts. All she wanted was
a hot shower, a firm bed and a soft, fluffy
pillow.
As a Peace Corps volunteer, she'd spent more
than two years teaching in Belize. She'd returned to
Philadelphia twice: once to attend the funeral of her eldest
sister and brother-in-law, and three months ago to be a
bridesmaid in the wedding of her surviving sister, Belinda.
Now, at the age of thirty, she'd come home again. But this
time it was to stay.
Her father called her his gypsy,
and her mother said she was a vagabond, to which she had no
comeback. What no one in her family knew, her parents in
particular, was that she'd been running away from the
tragedy that had befallen one of her students, followed by
her own broken engagement.
Thankfully, her previous
homecoming and this one would be more joyful occasions.
Belinda had married Griffin Rice in June and two months ago
her brother Myles had exchanged vows with Zabrina
Mixon-Cooper after a ten-year separation. She also looked
forward to meeting her nephew for the first
time.
"What the…"
She opened her eyes and sat
up straighter, her heart slamming against her ribs. The
cabbie had swerved to avoid hitting another vehicle drifting
into their lane. Her purse and leather tote slid off the
seat and onto the floor with the violent motion, spilling
their contents. Bending over, she retrieved her cell phone,
wallet, passport and a pack of mints. Then she checked the
tote to make certain her laptop was still there.
"Are
you all right back there, miss?" the driver asked over his
shoulder.
Chandra exhaled audibly. "I'm good," she
lied smoothly.
She wasn't good. If she'd been a cat,
she would've used up at least one of her nine lives. It was
going to be some time before she would be able to adjust to
the fast pace of a large urban city. Living in Philadelphia,
even in one of its suburbs, was very different from living
and teaching in a small town in Northern Belize.
The
cabdriver took a quick glance in the rearview mirror. "Let
me try and get around this clown before I end up in his
trunk."
Settling back again, Chandra closed her eyes.
When she'd called her mother to tell her that her flight had
been delayed, Roberta Eaton had offered to drive to the
airport to pick her up. But she'd told her mother she would
take a taxi to the subdivision where her parents had
purchased a two-bedroom, two-bath town house. Aside from her
purse and tote bag, she had checked only one piece of
luggage. The trunk with most of her clothes was scheduled to
arrive in the States at the end of the month.
It
appeared as if she'd just fallen asleep when the motion
stopped, and she opened her eyes. Chandra missed the
six-bedroom, four-bath farmhouse where she'd grown up with
her sisters and brother. She understood her parents' need to
downsize now that they were in their sixties. They didn't
want to concern them selves with having someone shovel snow
or mow t h e lawn, or deal with the exorbitant expense of
maintaining a large house.
What she'd missed most was
opening the door leading from the main house and into the
connecting space that had been Dr. Dwight Eaton's medical
practice. Her father didn't schedule patients between the
hours of twelve and one; the exception was in an emergency.
It had been her time to have her father all to herself.
Gathering her purse and tote, she paid the fare, opened the
rear door and stepped out of the taxi as the driver came
around to retrieve her luggage from the trunk, setting it on
the front steps.
Roberta Eaton stood in the entryway.
The smile that parted her lips caused the skin around her
eyes to crinkle. She prayed that this homecoming would be
Chandra's last. She thought she knew all there was to know
about her youngest child, but Chandra's mercurial moods kept
her guessing as to what she would do or where she would go
next.
What she'd found so off-putting was that there
was usually no warning. It was if her daughter went to
sleep, then woke with a new agenda, shocking everyone with
her announcements. First it was her decision not to attend
the University of Pennsylvania, but Columbia University in
New York City. Then she'd declined an offer to teach at a
Philadelphia elementary school and instead taught at a
private all-girls' school in Northern Virginia. The most
shocking, and what Roberta thought most devastating, was
when Chandra announced she'd joined the Peace Corps and
decided to teach in Belize. Although she'd become accustomed
to her daughter's independent nature, it was her husband,
Dwight Eaton, who said his youngest daughter had caused him
many sleepless nights.
Roberta approached Chandra
with outstretched arms, the tears she'd tried vainly to hold
back overflowed. "Welcome home, baby."
Her mother
calling her baby was Chandra's undoing. She could
deal with any and everything except her mother's tears.
Roberta was openly weeping—deep, heart-wrenching sobs that
made Chandra unleash her own flood of tears.
Pressed
closer to Roberta's ample bosom, she tightened her hold
around her mother's neck, savoring the warmth of the
protective embrace. "Mama, please don't
cry."
Roberta's tears stopped as if she'd turned off
a spigot. "Don't tell me not to cry when I've had too many
sleepless nights and worn out my knees praying that you'd
make it home safely."
Easing back, Chandra stared at
her mother. Roberta Eaton hadn't changed much over the
years. Her body was fuller and rounder, and there was more
salt than pepper in her short natural hairstyle. Her face
had remained virtually unchanged. Her dark brown complexion
was clear, her skin smooth.
"I'm home,
Mama."
"You're home, but for how long, Chandra Eaton?
I was talking to your father last night, and we have a wager
that you won't hang around for more than three to six months
before you start getting itchy feet again."
"I'm not
going anywhere. I'm home to stay."
Roberta gave her a
look that said I don't believe you, but Chandra was
too tired to get into an argument with her mother. She'd
been up since two that morning for a 5:00 a.m. flight to
Miami, with a connecting flight to Atlanta. Sitting in
Hartsdale for hours had tried her patience, and that meant
she had no intention of engaging in a conversation where she
had to defend herself or convince her mother that she didn't
plan to leave home again. Once she'd completed her tour with
the Peace Corps she'd promised herself that she would stop
running away, that she would come home, face her fears and
reconcile her past.
"May I please go into the house
and shower before going to bed?"
As if she'd come out
of a trance, Roberta leaned forward and kissed Chandra's
cheek. Within seconds she'd morphed into maternal mode. "I'm
sorry, baby. You have to be exhausted. Did you eat?" she
asked over her shoulder as she stepped into the spacious
entryway.
"I ate something at the
airport."
Picking up her luggage, Chandra walked into
the house and made her way toward the staircase to the
second floor guest bedroom. Methodically, she stripped off
her clothes, leaving them on the bathroom floor, and stepped
into the shower stall. Her eyelids were drooping by the time
she'd dried off. She searched through her luggage for a
nightgown and crawled into bed. It was just after six. And
even though the sun hadn't set, within minutes of her head
touching the pillow she was asleep.
Preston Tucker
ducked his head as he got into the taxi and gave the driver
the address to his duplex in downtown Philadelphia. He'd
spent the past twenty-four hours flying to Los Angeles for a
meeting that lasted all of ten minutes before returning to
Philadelphia after flying standby from LAX.
He'd told
his agent that he had reservations about meeting with studio
executives who wanted to turn one of his plays into a movie
with several A-list actors. But all Clifford Jessup could
see were dollar signs. Preston knew if he sold the movie
rights to his play he would have to relinquish literary
control. But he was unwilling to do so at the expense of not
being able to recognize his play, something he'd spent more
than two years writing and perfecting, breathing life into
the characters.
He was aware of Hollywood's
reputation for taking literary license once they'd optioned
a work, but the suits he'd spoken to wanted to eviscerate
his play. If he'd been a struggling playwright he probably
would've accepted their offer. But fortunately for him, his
days of waiting for a check so that he could pay back rent
were behind him. What made the play even more personal is
that it was the first play he'd written as a college
student.
Slumping in the rear seat, he tried to
stretch his long legs out to a more comfortable position
under the seat in front of him. His right foot hit
something. Reaching under the passenger seat, he pulled out
a slim black ostrich-skin portfolio with the initials CE
stamped on the front in gold lettering. Looking at the
driver's hack license, he noticed the man's first and last
names began with an M, so he concluded a passenger
had left it in the taxi.
Preston debated whether to
open it or give it to the taxi driver, who most likely would
turn it in to Lost and Found or discard the contents and
keep the expensive-looking portfolio for himself. He decided
to unzip it and found a cloth-bound journal. Judging from
the mauve color of the book, he knew it belonged to a
woman.
His suspicions were confirmed when he saw the
neat cursive writing on the inside front cover: "If found,
please return to Chandra Eaton." What followed was a
telephone number with a Philadelphia area code and an e-mail
address. Reaching into the breast pocket of his suit jacket,
he took out his cell phone to dial the number, but the first
sentence on the first page caused him to go completely
still.
Dream #9—March 3
I opened my eyes when
I heard the soft creaking sound that told me someone had
opened my bedroom door. Usually he came in through the
window. I held my breath because I wasn't certain if it was
him. But who else would it be? I didn't know whether to
scream or reach under the bed for the flashlight I kept
there in the event of a power failure. I decided not to
move, hoping whoever had come would realize they were in the
wrong room and then leave.
The seconds ticked off and
I found myself counting slowly, beginning with one. By the
time I'd counted to forty-three, there was no sound, no
movement. I reached under the bed for the flashlight and
flicked it on. I was alone in the bedroom, the sound of the
runaway beating of my heart echoing in my ears and the
lingering scent of a man's cologne wafting in the humid
tropical air coming in through the open windows. I
recognized the scent. It was the same as the one I'd given
Laurence for our first Christmas together. But, he's gone,
exorcised, so why did I conjure him up?
Preston
slipped the cell phone back into his pocket as he continued
to read. He was so engrossed in what Chandra Eaton had
written that he hadn't realized the taxi had stopped and his
building doorman had opened the rear door.
"Welcome
home, Mr. Tucker."
His head popped up and he smiled.
"Thank you, Reynaldo."
Preston returned the journal
to the leather case, paid the driver and then reached for
his leather weekender on the seat next to him. He'd managed
to read four of Chandra Eaton's journal entries, each one
more sensual and erotic than the one before it. As a writer,
he saw scenes in his head before putting them down on paper,
and he was not only intrigued but fascinated by what Chandra
Eaton had written.
Clutching his weekender, he
entered the lobby of the luxury high-rise, which had
replaced many of the grand Victorian-style mansions that
once surrounded Rittenhouse Square. He'd purchased the top
two floors in the newly constructed building on the advice
of his financial planner, using it as a business write-off.
His office, a media room, gourmet kitchen, formal living and
dining rooms were set up for work and entertaining. The
three bedrooms with en suite bathrooms on the upper floor
were for out-of-town guests.
There had been a time
when he'd entertained at his Brandywine Valley home, but as
he matured he'd come to covet his privacy. Lately, he'd
become somewhat of a recluse. If an event wasn't
work-related, then he usually declined the invitation. His
mother claimed he was getting old and crotchety, to which he
replied that thirty-eight was hardly old and he wasn't
crotchety, just particular as to how he spent his time and
more importantly with whom.
Preston was exhausted and
sleep-deprived from flying more than six thousand miles in
twenty-four hours. His original plan was to shower and go
directly to bed, but Chandra Eaton's erotic prose had
revived him. He would finish reading the journal, then
e-mail the owner to let her know he'd found it.
He
didn't bother to stop at the concierge to retrieve his mail,
and instead walked into the elevator and pressed the button
for his floor. The elevator doors glided closed. The car
rose smoothly and swiftly, stopping at the eighteenth floor.
The doors opened again and he made his way down a carpeted
hallway to his condo.
It was good to be home. If he'd
completely trusted Cliff Jessup to represent his interests,
he never would've flown to L.A. What bothered him about his
agent was that they'd practically grown up together. Both
had attended Princeton, pledged the same fraternity, and
he'd been best man at Cliff's wedding. Something had
changed. Preston wasn't certain whether he'd changed, or if
Cliff had changed, or if they were just growing
apart.
Inserting the cardkey into the slot to his
duplex, Preston pushed open the door and was greeted with a
rush of cool air. He'd adjusted the air-conditioning before
he left, but apparently the drop in the temperature outside
made it feel uncomfortably chilly. It was mid-October, and
the forecasts predicted a colder and snowier than usual winter.