Lisa Bingham - Man Behind The Voice

The thump of the doors roused her from her stupor, and she descended the steep steps, feeling carefully with her toe before stepping onto the curb. Once safe and sound, she hit the bicycle bell with her thumb, a signal to Burt Mescalero that he could drive on.

Behind her, the engine grumbled and whined, and a fine spray of water splashed the backs of her legs. Then she was alone.

Eleanor arched her neck to relieve it of the kink the muscles had developed after an hour huddled at the cramped food counter of The Flick Theatre, an establishment near old Larimer Square that was devoted to playing classic movies in their original, wide-screen format.

“Damn those gumdrops,” she said to herself, referring to a case of candies that had fallen down the back stairs, spilling cellophane-wrapped packages all over the storeroom floor. Eleanor had spent a half hour on her hands and knees picking them up. If not for that small disaster, she would have been home on one of Burt’s earlier runs. But…c’est la vie, as her mother would say. Everything happened for a reason.

Absolutely everything.

A sharp gust of cold air swirled around her ankles, and she huddled even tighter into the shelter of her coat. It was cold this evening. Too cold for the beginning of May, she decided, as she took three precise steps to the center of the sidewalk, turned right and began to count.

One, two, three, four…

She tapped her cane on the wet pavement ahead of her, seeking out the obstacles her eyes couldn’t see. Not clearly, anyhow. Sometimes she experienced hazy patches of gray or muted blotches of light. But for the most part her world was one of darkness. An inescapable darkness that would be her constant companion at least until the baby was born. And then…

She didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want to think about the corneal transplant surgery her ophthalmologist had proposed, not knowing whether such an operation would allow her to see as she once had or leave her fumbling in a world of light and shadows.

Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen…

Everyone she knew said Eleanor had adjusted beautifully—her doctor, her mother, her co-workers. But Eleanor wasn’t so certain. Oh, she could find her way around town, perform her duties at work and live on her own. But sometimes, on nights like these, when she was angry and tired and out of sorts, she couldn’t help thinking that she was a poor sport in God’s little game of life. Perhaps if she hadn’t relied so heavily upon her sight as an artist, she might not have regarded the loss with such bitterness. She might have been able to “suffer with elegance” as her sister Blythe had once advised her to do.

As it happened, she couldn’t seem to resign herself to the fact that her identity had been shattered the moment her head had collided with the window frame of her car. The change in fortunes bothered the hell out of her, burning at the pit of her stomach whenever she allowed herself to think about it.

She’d been a good artist, dammit.

She’d been asked to have a show at the National Gallery.

And a partial return of her sight would never allow her to retain the finesse she’d once mastered.

Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight…

Eleanor Rappaport’s boot heels rapped sharply against the pavement—and for a moment she thought she heard an accompanying set of footsteps behind her. Automatically she quickened her pace. It annoyed her how some people felt that her being blind was the same as being incompetent. She didn’t want help crossing the street, she didn’t want anyone leading her home like a stray puppy. She could do it herself.

But as she quickened her step, the sounds behind her increased their speed, echoing her own pace. Thinking whoever was behind her wanted to pass, she stopped and turned.

The noises stopped, as well.

The anger that had been building in her all day raged even hotter. She hated being made to appear a fool, almost as much as she hated being made to appear helpless.

“Who’s there?” she called out.

No answer. Only the sputter of the rain gurgling down a nearby gutter.

Eleanor squinted, blinking against the moisture dripping from her hair, down her face, off her dark glasses, hoping to catch a shadow, a shape. But the light was too poor to allow her even the haziest of images.

Shivering, she began to walk again, crossing the quiet street, moving as quickly as she could. She didn’t have the patience for such pranks. It was time she arrived home, out of the rain.

But after only a few steps she realized she’d lost count.

Damn.

Damn, damn, damn.

Ringing the bell on her cane, she lifted her head calling out, “Minnie! Maude!”

As she waited for a response from her landladies, who were elderly, unmarried and avid game-show fanatics, a tightness closed around her throat and she paused, swallowing hard. For a moment the frustration closed in on her like a shroud. The same frustration that had dogged her since that night when she’d been pulled from the mangled wreckage of her car. While waiting for an ambulance, she’d focused on a stranger’s face. The red glow of flares had flickered over dark hair and even darker eyes. Then the colors had grown dim and died completely away, leaving her grasping at the hand of a stranger as she was plunged into nothingness.

Stop it! She didn’t want to remember that night. Not tonight.

Ringing the bell more stridently than before, Eleanor shouted, “Minnie—”

“Here, dear,” a sweet, old voice interrupted, providing Eleanor with the bearings she needed.

Minnie.

Since Eleanor’s grandmother had lived in this neighborhood before she’d died, Minnie and Maude Vanderbilt had been her dearest friends. They’d even been godmothers to Eleanor’s mother, and Eleanor had known them both as a child. She pictured Minnie as she’d been then. Short and plump with cotton-candy hair rinsed a pale shade of yellow. She was the perfect foil for her older sister, Maude, who was tall and reed thin and wore an array of different-colored wigs.

“My lands, you’re soaked to the skin, child. Maude’s not home right now, but I could fix you a cup of tea. Jeopardy! is about to start, and you can watch it with me as you dry out.”

Eleanor made her way toward the voice, but it was only when she encountered the rough, peeling paint of a picket fence that the tension building inside her breast eased.

Had someone really been following her? Dogging her steps? The hairs at her nape prickled in warning, but there were no sounds to substantiate the suspicion. Nothing that the rain didn’t completely obscure.

As soon as her toe touched the bottom step to the brownstone’s stoop, she asked, “Minnie, is there anyone behind me on the sidewalk?” Her voice much weaker than she would have wished.

If Minnie thought the request was odd, she didn’t say so. Eleanor caught the scent of geraniums as Minnie leaned forward. “No, dear. There’s no one there. Let’s get you inside.”

When Minnie offered her elbow, Eleanor took it, stepping into the vestibule of the old building and shaking the rain from her coat.

Even so, she knew she hadn’t imagined anything.

Someone had been out there.

Someone had followed her home.

“How about that tea?” Minnie asked.

Still shaken, Eleanor headed for the stairs. “Thanks, Minnie, but I think I’ll head up to my own apartment. After the day I’ve had, I’m ready for a long soak in the tub.”

“Very well. You call if you need anything.”

“Thanks.”

But even as she climbed the steps, Eleanor couldn’t push away the feeling that she was being watched.

Jack MacAllister remained in the shadow of a doorway directly across the street, mere yards from where he had first encountered Eleanor Rappaport.

Less than twenty-four hours had elapsed since Jack had decided to see Eleanor. To his surprise, she’d been easy enough to find. A search of the Internet had resulted in his learning she resided in Denver, and a look at the Yellow Pages had revealed an E. Rappaport. After silently debating with himself, Jack had made a quick call…

The moment he’d heard her voice, he’d felt as if someone had kicked him in the stomach. He’d become suddenly tongue-tied—and feeling like an adolescent fool, he’d hung up without saying a word.

Eleanor Rappaport.

His head was pounding, but this time the sensation had nothing to do with a concussion and everything to do with stunned disbelief. He had seen this woman only once before, at the scene of a horrible accident. He had been there to help drag her from her car, he had cradled her head in his lap as he’d waited for the emergency teams to arrive.

He’d been there to watch the light grow dim in her eyes.

Jack’s knees became weak, and he sank onto the top step of the small, family owned grocery store. Bowing his head, he took huge gulps of rain-soaked air in an effort to calm his erratic thoughts. Wave upon wave, the nightmares he’d been experiencing for months inundated his senses, but that was nothing compared to what he had just seen in the flesh. The living embodiment of his dreams.

Growling to himself, Jack stood, striding into the rain and into the night. Whatever internal need had dragged him to Denver had been satisfied, and now he was leaving. For good. He’d seen Eleanor Rappaport. She was still blind, but apparently coping.

And pregnant. Very, very pregnant. Why hadn’t he known she was pregnant?

A strange, twisting sensation gripped his chest. The accident had occurred six months earlier, so she couldn’t have been too far along when she’d lost her sight.

Jack wrenched his thoughts back into line. Eleanor Rappaport’s pregnancy was none of his business.

“What’s up?” One-Eye asked from the passenger seat of the too-small rental car.

“Nothing.”

“Is that the girl?”

“Yeah.” His brief reply discouraged any more questions. “I’m ready to head to L.A. now.”

“You what?” One-Eye blurted. “But we just got here. We’ve checked into a hotel, laid out our dainties—”

“We’re going home, One-Eye,” Jack said sternly.

One-Eye shrugged and settled back in his seat. “Fine. If you don’t want to tell me what brought you all the way to Denver—”

Jack remained silent.

“You know that Rappaport woman is nothing but a stranger.” One-Eye grimaced. “’Course, you weren’t looking at her like a stranger.”

Jack shot the older man a scathing look, but his irritation bounced off the man’s weathered hide.

One-Eye still looked perplexed at the reason for their impromptu visit to Denver, so Jack offered what he hoped would sound like a logical explanation. “I’ve been thinking about her lately. I wanted to make sure she was doing all right.”

“Uh-huh.” But it was clear that One-Eye thought Jack was leaving something out.

“Now that I’ve had a chance to see her, I’m ready to go home. Do you have any objections?”

One-Eye shook his head. “That’s fine by me. But why can’t we have a steak and a good night’s sleep before we get back on another plane?”

Jack opened his mouth to insist that they leave Denver. Now. But seeing One-Eye’s hopeful expression, he relented.

“Fine. I’ll book us on a flight tomorrow morning.”

One-Eye grinned. “Now you’re talking! Let’s find us a place to eat.”

“COME ALONG, DEAR. We won’t take no for an answer.”

Eleanor grimaced, realizing that what Maude said was true. Once Minnie and Maude got an idea in their heads, they would move Heaven and Earth to get their own way.