Read Online Wild Stars Seeking Midnight Suns by J. California Cooper - Free Book Online

“What was that all about? She was an unattractive Black woman, though she was clean. Do you always give your servers such concern?”
    Weldon had regained his sense and composure. “Well, I’ve been doing business with him a long time.” He said, without looking at his friend, “I thought she was rather attractive, but, well . . . you’re right.” Yet, when he thought of her a moment later, he remembered her beauty. And so it passed. He still wondered what had happened to him. Was something the matter with him?
    On her walk home, Lily Bea was not thinking so much of him as she was of his shop. Why should she? She thought she was ugly, and was only embarrassed at her nerve to even talk to him. “But, he was a nice man.” She sighed. “I like going to that beautiful store to make the delivery.” By the time she reached the library, she could not remember a better day in her life. “Being free is everything. That’s what I want to be. Free!” She made a few free dancing twirls as she entered her favorite building.
    When she reached her home, Maddy counted the money, saying, “I didn’t know he was gonna pay cash. Did you spend any ’a this money, Lily? Cause I need all the money we got comin round here! I’m gonna have to cut your mama down some, I can’t afford to keep her and you too! You done been to that library again! I told you we ain’t got time for all that readin you want’a do!”
    Lily Bea didn’t answer. She went to her “room” and lay on the pallet. She smiled at the books she had gotten from the library, and opened one to read. When he hollered to her, she answered, “I’m tired. I’m goin to rest till it’s dinnertime, then I’ll cook. But, now, I’m going to read.”
    In a few weeks, when the next bundle of items was received and completed, she delivered them. The owner, Mr. Forest, had specified what date they should be returned because he wanted to be sure he was in the shop when she came.
    Time had dulled his memory, but he still remembered the last words his friend had said when Lily Bea had come. He, himself, remembered Lily as being unattractive, “but . . . there was something else about her. I can’t put my finger on it.” He didn’t know why, really, he hadn’t forgotten the thing. It wouldn’t come clear in his mind. “Was it her voice?” Then, “What am I thinking about? She works for me, for God’s sake!”
    His boredom and his loneliness made any excitement important to him. Some sense in him remembered the thrill Lily Bea’s voice, smile, and touch had given him. He would shake his head in annoyance. “It is absurd that I would even think I had such feelings for a little black woman. A poor working woman, at that.”
    He had, in the past, had a mistress or two, but it seemed to have added up to lust, not for him, but for his financial help. He was a generous man. But, as to love, he had never “loved” anyone except the woman he had married long ago. “But, these stir-rings . . . Just old age, I suppose.
    “Maybe I need to take a trip somewhere. But, where? It’s all the same every place, no matter where.” After a moment’s pause, “I could always go back and spend a week looking around the Louvre again. I never see all of it.” He brightened a moment, then his dark mood returned. “But Wilhamena won’t want to go with me, and I don’t want to go alone again.” He shook his head, casting the thoughts out of his mind. “I must learn to be satisfied with what life has given me. Who could wish for more?”
    The next order from Epitome Cleaners had been sent to the Clean Cleaners, and been completed by Lily Bea. It seems impossible, but she took even more care with the fragile things. “Now that they know it is my work, I want it to be perfect.” She also wanted another lovely free afternoon to herself.
    Knowing Maddy, as she did, she did not act excited in any way about making the delivery. If he knew she wanted to, he would rub that leg down