There were some chuckles, but it was obvious that the audience was taken aback by this pronouncement.
“My father would be the first to waive the praise and say he’s only doing what desperately needs to be done. Along the way in his life and career there were people to guide and support him, believe in him. He feels he’s simply returning the favor. Paying it forward, so to speak.
“Nonetheless I am most humbled, and very happy to accept on his behalf your appreciation of his work and contribution. Also on my father’s behalf, I will be donating the monetary award to your organization to be used to further your mission. Encouraging black students who might otherwise have limited opportunities for a productive and happy future.”
The audience came to their feet and showed their surprise and approval with enthusiastic sustained applause. Diane stood regal and still, glancing out over the guests with a genuine smile.
“Thank you, from my father and from myself. Again, I apologize for my late arrival but I wouldn’t have missed tonight for anything.”
She turned and left the stage, stopping only briefly to accept thanks from the director of Into the Future for the gift of her father’s award check. The applause continued until she took her seat.
As she did so Diane hazarded a glance over her shoulder to Hale’s table. Everyone around him had taken their seats but he was still standing and applauding until the end, his expression indiscernible in the dimly lit room. She hoped she achieved total indifference to his response as she sat down again. But she knew Hale’s gaze followed her.
The presentations continued. Diane found that as she was being served her dinner everyone else had pretty much finished. She covertly ate enough of the duck confit and asparagus, artfully tied with a strip of red pepper, to quell her growling stomach before she allowed her plate to be removed. She slowly sipped her wine, giving her something to do as conversation happened around her. She was steadfast in her resolve to ignore the quiet but constant buzz of talk and laughter coming from Hale’s table.
She focused her attention on the stage and podium, to others receiving awards and giving thanks. Having performed as she’d been required to, Diane realized she was also no longer the subject of admiring glances, appreciative smiles or even mild curiosity. She felt suddenly, oddly, out of sync with the evening and everyone around her. And alone, as if she didn’t belong.
Inexplicably, she blamed Hale Cameron for her feelings.
As the dessert was being served, Diane picked up her fork and carefully broke off some of the tiramisu but she couldn’t really enjoy it. She was suddenly acutely aware of Hale and his presence in the room, and his relationship to her father. And how her acceptance remarks, off-the-cuff and sincere and totally inadvertent, had been a lot about him.
Seeing him at the entrance to the gala room had stunned her and caught her completely off guard. The tall, self-possessed, rather good-looking man in formal attire had confused her. Seeing him so suddenly, so unexpectedly, had disturbed history and rattled her expectations. She didn’t know what to make of this person, this apparition who seemed to have morphed from her memories into a different being.
Suddenly the man seated to her left, unaware, knocked her evening clutch off the table as he shifted in his chair. Diane quickly bent to retrieve it and took yet another opportunity to check out the table behind her and to the right. Hale had his arm resting along the top of the chair of a woman next to him as he leaned close to hear what she was saying. The woman, petite and—as much as Diane hated to admit it—adorable, had her lips very close to Hale’s ear and his undivided attention. Diane faced forward once more, placing her bag in her lap. She pushed her dessert plate away.
The evening was beginning to seem endless.
It had certainly never occurred to Diane that she would ever seen Hale Cameron again, let alone at this kind of evening that had brought out many of D.C.’s black education elite. It had been…what…more than ten years since they’d spoken to one another. Yet his name and the evolution of his life had been an indelible part of her own, thanks to her father.
Diane knew that she and Hale lived in the same city, D.C., but didn’t move in the same circles. She’d worked hard to make sure their paths would never cross. But even if she’d wanted to never see or hear the name Hale Cameron again in her lifetime, the chances were slim to none.
In all honesty, Diane considered dispiritedly, as laughter rang out from Hale’s table, it would not have been because of her father’s liking for the younger man but all because of her own steadfast lack of it.
Hale covertly checked his watch and stole a quick glance at the printed program in front of him. Two more awards and then it will all be over.
He tried to roll his shoulders back to ease the tightness across the top. He crossed his legs as he lounged back in his chair, his tux jacket unbuttoned. He looked to the temporary stage as the next presentation was made, but out of his peripheral vision there was no avoiding a full-on view of Diane as she sat listening to the proceedings. Elegant. Queenly. Beautiful. Bitch.
Hale hurriedly uncrossed his legs and sat up straight. His jaw tensed with the sway of his thoughts.
That was totally uncool, he told himself in irritation.
His glance strayed in her direction again. It had been a long time. Years and years, and then some. And yet, he was genuinely stunned by the difference between then and now, at least physically, as he tried to adjust his thinking, his memories, to fit the moment.
He mentally shook his head. In another way he was also sure that nothing had changed. At least, between the two of them. From Diane’s very cold attitude to her biting comments, he might just as well have been dead to her.
Hale considered their peculiar history and the awkward melding of their lives. He knew everything about Diane Maxwell. Far more than she’d appreciate his knowing, more than was comfortable from his point of view. All of which, however, had only served to keep them connected over the years, like an invisible umbilical or Bungee cord.
The woman seated next to him shifted slowly in her chair and sighed. Hale immediately bent toward her.
“Everything okay?”
She nodded, taking a tiny sip of water. “I’m getting a little tired.”
“We can leave now if you want.” He placed his napkin on the table and began pushing his chair back. She touched his arm.
“No, not yet. It’s almost over, Hale. I can wait.”
“Are you sure?”
She smiled at him in the darkened room. “Believe me, if I wasn’t, you’d be the second person to know.” She patted his arm, and gave her attention back to the front of the room.
Satisfied, Hale relaxed. His gaze wandered back to Diane.
She’d cut her hair.
He remembered a wild mane of thick but loosely textured natural hair that he used to call her Diana Ross wannabe look. She’d hated his teasing, thinking herself far more original. In truth, Hale had to admit that Diane had never really been the kind of girl who fussed over her looks or worried about her hair. Especially since she was a swimmer. Long ago it was more that she was comfortable with her own natural appeal and never felt the need to play on it, and it didn’t need improvements. Studying her now, it was obvious that had changed.
The woman she’d become was…he couldn’t even say it. He couldn’t find the right words because they would be so foreign to what Diane used to be and what he’d known of her. The girl was gone. The fearless, but awkward and innocent teenager had been replaced in a major way. Hale may not have been able to get his memories straight around it, but his