Sacrifices of the Soul, Chapter 24
 

" Whitney! Simone!", TC called out, but, there was no response. He didn’t think that Whitney would be home; she was supposed to be at practice. And, Simone…he had to admit that he didn’t know where Simone spent her days. He admonished himself for being so slack where Simone was concerned. He knew that he had signed the consent about cooking school, but, didn’t really know what that was all about. He was spending so much time with Whitney these days, strategizing about her career and future. Not much else counted with him.

" But, I’m letting down my Sugarbear.", he muttered to himself. TC picked up the mail, and began to go through it. As usual, there was the occasional piece of mail to Eve, which he crossed out the address and wrote the addy of the Harmony Hotel on it. Continuing through his mail, he received an invitation addressed to Mr. & Mrs. TC Russell. Looking at the return address, he hadn’t realized that it was time for the annual dinner of his alumni association. TC got up and went to the kitchen to get himself a beer, returning to the living room, and putting on the radio, hearing from the radio.

" Well, today folks..we’re doing a 70’s retro day. All the music will be from the 70’s. I hope you enjoy."

" Damn.", TC muttered, as he sat on the couch, looking at the invite, then threw it back into the pile of mail. The first song, of course, brought all sorts of memories, of a time that seems so unreal right now.
 

[ FLASHBACK]

" I hope you understand that four guys are sharing this house.", TC says as he opens his front door, allowing Eve to enter first.

" TC, it’s your home, I’m sure it’s…." Eve stopped mid-sentence, because there was mess all over the living room.

" CHARLIE! Get your lazy, good for nothing, butt down here!"

A few moments later, an Asian guy, shirtless and barefoot, comes wandering down the stairs.

" TC, what’s up. Why are you yelling?"

" Charles…when I left this morning, this place was clean."

" Oh…yeah…well, you know how we MIT engineering guys get after doing a slam study session before a big test. Once the test was over, we all decided to pig out."

" Well, clean it up."

" What’s got your briefs in a knot, man. You know..", then he sees Eve. " Ohhhhh… you wanna impress the lady here. " He extends his hand. " Charles Wong. And, you must be Eve."

Eve shakes his hand. " Yes, I am."

" OK, TC. All you had to say is that you wanted to impress the lady. Not often that we have such beauty grace our door." Eve grins as TC scowls. Charlie goes towards the back of the house and returns with a garbage bag. TC has escorted Eve out to the porch.

" I’m sorry the place was a mess. I promise you, it was clean this morning."

" TC, it’s Ok. There are four guys living here, right?"

" Yes. "

" So, how did you meet Charlie?"

" He just showed up one day at my sports program is Roxbury, wanting to volunteer with the kids. We got to talking, and he commented that he didn’t like his living situation, and I had the room at the house, so he moved in. Most of the MIT volunteers for the program have come through Charlie."

" So, he’s an Engineering guy?"

" Yep. PhD in Chemical Engineering. This was his last exam that he would have to take before starting all his thesis research."

" Where is he from?"

" San Francisco. He went to Berkeley. "

" Oh. What about the other guys?"

" Well, there’s me, you know. Then there’s my friend Maynard from Washington. He’s just finishing at the Fletcher School of Diplomacy. He’s doing something called a joint degree with Fletcher and Harvard Law School, so that when he’s finished, he’ll have degrees from both schools."

"  Impressive."

" I know. I totally expect to see him on the TV one day, talking about Foreign Policy as some State Department big shot.  And, then there’s……" TC pauses, while his eyes are taken off Eve, as he sees something. Eve turns around to see a White guy coming towards the house. " Sonovabitch! What the HELL are you doing here?"

The man carrying a large dufflebag breaks into a big grin as he throws the bag onto the porch. " If I had known I would get a welcoming committee, I would have dressed for the occasion." TC and the White guy with sparkling blue eyes hugged one another, and kept their arms around one another, like a bear hug. Eve looked at the guy. He was dashingly handsome, with his blue eyes almost piercing, but, there was nothing but friendliness in them. He had fuzz all over his face, as if he had not shaved in at least a week.

He looked at Eve. " So, TC, are you going to introduce me, or, do I even need to guess. You have to be Eve, the gal my best friend has been writing me about. " Before Eve could even digest that TC had written anyone about her, Sam had pulled her into a bearhug. It was full of warmth and kindness.

" Yes, Samuel, this is Eve.", TC says. " But, you haven’t answered my question, WHY are you here?"

" Uh, TC, why are we out on the porch?"

" Charlie has to do cleanup."

" Oh…another one of his after-test fests. I gotcha." Sam motions for them to sit on the porch seats, and they do.

" Well, TC, I’m here, because I got leave."

" I didn’t think that the Coast Guard would let you out."

" I changed over.  I’m doing Coast Guard Reserves, instead of active duty."

" Hmmm…could this change of heart, have anything to do with the damsel in distress?"

Sam blushed, Eve saw, as TC continued. " Samuel here, is a genuine hero. He rushed into a burning house, and rescued a woman from certain death."

" TC…"

" No, Sam, you did that. You saved her life without regard to your own. No better definition of a hero, in my opinion."

Eve smiled at Sam. " Sam, sounds like a hero to me."

" Thanks, Eve. Well, I’m sure that Charlie has cleaned up the house. " Sam picked up his bag and they went into the house, and sure enough, the living room was clean.  " Have you two thought about a lunch?"

" We were just going to grab something.", TC replied.

" Nonsense. If I know you, TC, and I know you well, yesterday was shopping day, which means the fridge is fully stocked. I’m going to fix you a good old-fashioned pot of some of the best potato/corn chowder your mouth has ever had."

" You just got home ", TC protested.

" Come on. I can do this. I do the soup, and TC, you make some of your marvelous open-faced sandwiches. Has he fixed that for you, Eve?"

Eve shakes her head, no.

" TC makes the best sandwiches of anyone I’ve met. They are a meal to themselves. And, with my chowder, nothing can be better. So, let me go put my bag up, and I’ll start cooking." Sam went upstairs, and Eve turned to TC,

" Doesn’t look like he’s going to take no for an answer."

" Nope."

" So….you’ve been writing about me? What could you be saying, Mr. Russell?", Eve teased.  Eve could almost swear that TC was blushing.

" Nothing. Just how wonderful my life has been since you entered it."

Now it was time for Eve to blush.. " TC".

" Come on, Eve. Let’s sit down."

They sat down on the couch in the living room, and TC brought her back a soda.

" How did you get this house?", Eve asks.

" It belongs to a friend of the family. The couple moved back to New Orleans, but, kept the house. They’ve been renting it out to the kids of family friends who come to school in Boston, for around 8 years now. "

" Hm."

" So, do you like the house?"

" It’s got a nice feel to it. Did you do the decorating?"

" You mean, the Africa meets China meets New England? " TC laughs, looking around the room. " I think Charlie and I are the collectors here. He loves artifacts from Asia, and I love Black collectibles. Somehow, I think it works, and Sam’s mom gives him stuff from time to time. We try to make it work. The dining room is totally New England, while, here, in the living room, we tried to show how Africa and Asia could meet and co-exist. "

" You’ve known Sam for a long time?"

" Sam and I have known one another since he beat up a kid for calling me ‘Nigger’ in kindergarten. Since that day, we’ve been friends."

Eve looked at TC with a sort of wonder.

" Eve, what’s wrong?"

" It’s just the thought of having a friend from the time that one is a small child. I know it happens, but, I haven’t met many people like that."

" Really, I know all kinds of people. Why not for you?"

Eve had to think fast. " Well, my parents and I moved a lot because of his job, and then, when we finally settled down……they…they were killed, and I was moved in with my elderly aunts. When…when I wasn’t in school, I was at home, helping them. They were very strict with my upbringing. They didn’t want me ‘sullied’ by outside influences, so they kept my circle of activities very small. I didn’t really leave them until I came to here to college." Eve nearly held her breath. Ever since she had met TC, he was asking questions about her ‘family’. Family background seemed very important to him, and she didn’t quite know how to respond. She didn’t want to tell him the truth: her mother and her life before now just didn’t ‘jive’ with how she lived now. Maybe if she had been a ‘scholarship’ student, she could have told him the story of her life. But, there was no way that she could tell him how she supported herself nowadays. She had to create a story that fit with the life she led now.

" Oh Eve, I didn’t know. I couldn’t imagine losing both my parents. My Dad…well….he died a couple of years ago, but, I still have my mother. I apologize if I’ve brought up something painful for you."

Eve smiled slightly. " You didn’t upset me TC. It’s just something that I’d rather not talk about. "

" I understand. So, ", TC wasn’t able to finish his sentence because Sam came booming down the stairs.

" You two ready for the best chowder you’ve ever had. It’s the Bennett family recipe, passed down for 300 years, since a Bennett came to this country."

Eve smiled and the three of them adjourned to the kitchen. Eve sat in silence, only occasionally answering a question with a short response, letting TC and Sam do all the talking. Eve could see why they are friends. If TC was outgoing to Eve, Sam was even moreso, and they balanced one another well. She saw two men who were totally comfortable with one another. A bond that could only be born of a long trust. Eve only truly got involved in the conversation, when it turned towards Grace.

" So, Sam, the police have nothing on your lady?"

" Nope. They wouldn’t even know her name if she hadn’t of been wearing a necklace with the name Grace on it."

" She can’t remember anything?", Eve inquired.

" Absolutely nothing. It’s as if she was born the moment she woke up from the fire. She remembers me rescuing her, but, nothing else before that. Not even how she got into the house."

" What about the house? Surely, there was registration?", TC asked.

" That’s the weird thing. It was supposedly an abandoned house, up for demolition the next day. It was owned by the city, and they were going to tear it down to make room for a parking lot. There is nothing. Her fingerprints aren’t on file with any of the law enforcement agencies, not that I would have thought that. Grace couldn’t hurt anyone. She’s too sweet. Gentle. Kind. Warm."

" Sounds like you’ve become a fan, Sam.", TC said.

Sam lowered his face. " I guess I have."

" Sam, I have an idea. I worked for one of the heads of Psychiatry at Harvard Med. Her big research project  that she has ongoing is amnesia, causes and effects. If you want, I’ll ask her if she’d talk to your friend Grace."

" Eve, if you could, I would appreciate it. It’s so frustrating. I want to be in Law Enforcement. I’m even doing my Private Detective training lessons now, and I can’t help this woman who needs it. It’s really bumming me out."

" Sam. You’ll help her. If anyone can help, you will…..Now…what is that I smell?", TC says, accentuating his sniffs.

" THIS….Mr. Russell, would be the best darn chowder you’ll ever taste. Now, hmmm, what else is that I’m smelling."

TC fakes running over to the oven and pulls out the cookie sheet. " THIS, Mr. Bennett, would be the perfect complement to that excellent chowder. My world-famous open-faces sandwiches. " TC put them on the platter, and Sam had already filled the soup tureen, and was going into the dining room. Eve brought the glasses with ice. She had already  fixed the table. They called Charlie, which wasn’t necessary, because his nose had smelled the delights coming from the kitchen. They four of them sat down, and enjoyed the meal. Eve had to admit that both the sandwich and chowder were amongst the best she had ever eaten. They sat, ate and talked for hours, about anything: politics, music, movies, sports, male/female relationships.

Eve would often sit in the cafeteria on campus, and overhear people talk about how they spent all night with a group, here and there, doing nothing, and just being together. She had heard it so often, that she knew it was something that had missed. She wondered what it would be like. Eve didn’t have any friends from college or medical school. She had a study group in medical school, but, she made sure that they always met in the library. It was full of ‘straight arrow’ students like herself. She didn’t have a place where she could invite people back to just ‘relax’, without bringing up all sorts of questions that she didn’t want to answer.

This was the first time, since she had entered academia, that she had experienced something similar to her classmates. She couldn’t tell them how much she was enjoying herself. How ‘normal’ she felt. To them, she was Eve, Harvard Med Student, and nothing else. They took her intelligence on face value. They took her at face value, not knowing what she really was: Julian Crane’s mistress.

‘ NO!’, Eve told herself. That part of my life doesn’t have anything to do with this part. But, Eve doesn’t really believe it. She’ll be out of school in a little over a year, and doesn’t quite understand what she’ll do. How she’ll live. How she’ll function in the ‘real world’, and what it means. She wishes that she had someone to talk to about it, but, she doesn’t. Noone knows the truth about her life with Julian. Those that suspect it, never bring it up, and she can’t exactly talk to Julian about it.

After ice cream, they all went into the living room, where they played scrabble and monopoly for almost as much time as the meal. They even ordered a pizza to be delivered and ate it. It was well after midnight when they finished, and TC called a cab for Eve, as he usually did. As they waited at the curb for the cab,

" Eve…there was something that I wanted to ask you."

" Yes?"

" I wanted to know if you would be my date at the Annual Dinner Dance for my college Alumni Association? It’s next weekend. At the Four Seasons."

" The Four Seasons?"  Eve had heard of the hotel, because Julian stayed there often when he came to town. Even though he spent a lot of his time with her when he was in town, he needed a place ‘ for appearances’.

" Yes. It’s black tie. If you don’t have anything to wear."

Eve thought about it. Julian would be still on an extended business trip to Europe and Asia. " No..No..TC. That’s not it. I would love to go with you. Next Saturday?"

TC nods yes. The cab pulls up, and TC opens the door for Eve. Eve is about to get into the cab, when TC says, " Eve?"

" Yes, TC?"

TC walks up to Eve and sweeps her into his arms and places a grand kiss. Eve is shocked at first, but, totally relaxes into his embrace and kiss, and melts. They stay there for a few moments, until the cabbie speaks up,

" Am I being paid for this?"

They break apart, and TC hands the cabbie some money, and Eve got into the cab and it drove away.
 

[ END OF FLASHBACK]
 
 

TC looks at the invitation once again before getting up and throwing it away.

" How can it be that I NEVER knew you?", he asks himself, and goes to get another beer.