Man Behind The Voice. Lisa Bingham
many ways Eleanor was grateful for her landladies’ single-minded determinedness. Such resolve had led them to accompany Regina Rappaport to her daughter’s hospital room after the accident. While Regina had stayed by Eleanor’s bedside, reassuring Eleanor time and again that she hadn’t miscarried, Minnie and Maude had searched for the best specialists in the country. These same doctors had treated Eleanor’s injuries, allowing her to see some light and shadow and had given her hope for future transplant surgery. As Eleanor had begun to recover more fully, Minnie and Maude had been there to comfort her when her fiancé had abruptly called off their two-year engagement. They’d weathered her moods from rage to despair—to the euphoria she’d experienced when her ultrasound had revealed no evident trauma to the baby. Bit by bit, they’d bullied and cajoled her into rejoining the “real world.” The sisters had even offered her their upstairs apartment in Denver so that Eleanor could continue to live on her own and fend for herself. And once the baby was born…well, they had already made plans to be her live-in nannies.
But there were times Eleanor wished Minnie and Maude could be a bit more malleable. Like tonight. After the day she’d had, Eleanor wasn’t in the mood to go out to dinner in a crowded restaurant, eat unfamiliar food, and chit-chat with her mother’s godmothers.
“Go on. Get dressed. There’s a love,” Minnie said with a push at Eleanor’s shoulders.
Rolling her eyes, Eleanor realized it would be much easier to surrender than fight.
“Just grit your teeth and bear it, little one,” she murmured to the tiny life nestled beneath her heart. Then, with a soothing rub of her hand over her stomach to still the sudden flurry of agitated kicks, she plodded to the bedroom.
JACK WAS SURPRISED when One-Eye decided upon an intimate, elegant restaurant located on the ground floor of the Kensington Hotel. The two of them were led to a small room that held only four tables and had been decorated to resemble a Victorian dining hall.
A waiter in a starched white shirt and pleated black trousers, handed them a menu, then went to gather their drinks.
One-Eye clapped his hands together, surveying the list of food. “Hot damn! This is better than any lunch wagon, isn’t it?”
Since both of them had spent most of the last three months eating from catering trucks on the set, Jack had to agree. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been able to sit down to a meal without having a thousand work details waiting for his attention.
“So what’s your next project?” One-Eye asked.
Jack shrugged. “I’ve got an action film scheduled for the fall, but I’m thinking of taking some time off until then.”
One-Eye nodded sagely. “That sounds like a winning plan. You look like hell.”
Jack grimaced. “Thanks a lot.”
“No, I mean it. You look like a horse that’s been ridden hard and put away without a rubdown—and it’s not just the accident. You’ve been pushing yourself too much these past few years.”
The waiter arrived with their drinks and appetizers, preventing Jack from replying. As he gave his order, he glanced at an oval mirror hanging above a marble fireplace.
Did he really look that bad? Granted, he’d been working hard, lately, but after a couple of weeks, he’d be fine.
“Jack, I know you think I’m pestering you,” One-Eye continued as soon as the waiter had left. “But I’ve been worried about you, boy.”
Everyone was a boy to One-Eye.
“I’ve seen this sort of thing happen before in this business. A man gets himself a reputation for being good at his stunts, he takes every job he can, works long hours, forgets about his own needs.”
“Needs?” Jack echoed, his eyes drawn to a figure swimming into view in the old mirror.
Long, dark hair. Blue eyes.
His gut tensed in reaction, a chill sweeping through his body. Eleanor Rappaport? What was she doing here?
“A man’s got to have a life outside his job,” One-Eye was saying. “Why, I can’t remember the last time I even saw you with a woman. It’s not natural, I tell you. If you ask me, I think you should…”
One-Eye’s advice lapped over Jack like a warm wave, barely registering in his consciousness. Instead, he found himself watching Eleanor Rappaport as she made her way to the table opposite his own.
Sit down, he found himself silently wishing. Sit down there, facing me.
As if she’d heard the words being spoken aloud, she hesitated, then made her way to the far side. A tall woman wearing a raven wig held her chair, then gestured for another elderly woman to do the same. Jack immediately recognized the smaller old woman as being an occupant of the brownstone with the shocking-pink door. Eleanor must live with the pair of women.
Jack watched Eleanor fold her cane, then place it in the bag she’d set on the floor. When she straightened, she looked his way, and he averted his eyes—then mocked himself for such an instinctive reaction. She couldn’t see him. She couldn’t know he was staring at her.
“Are you finished?”
He started when the waiter reached toward his half-eaten salad.
“No. I’m still working on it.”
“Of course.”
The waiter placed a bowl of thick seafood chowder on the table, then retreated.
“She’s a pretty girl,” One-eye commented slyly.
Jack glanced at One-Eye, then away.
“Yes. She is.”
“Isn’t that the same woman you saw earlier?”
Jack forced himself to keep his attention on his plate and eat.
“Yes. That’s her.”
One-Eye lapsed into silence for a moment, then said, “So is this meeting an accident?”
Jack glared at him. “You picked the restaurant.”
The man chewed thoughtfully. “That’s right. I did.”
One-Eye’s suspicions appeared to have been allayed, but Jack wished his own could be so easily put to rest. The fact that Eleanor had come here, to a table mere feet away from his own, was enough to make a pragmatist believe in the powers of Fate.
“The accident was months ago,” One-eye remarked after a moment of silence. “What made you start worrying about her again?”
Jack shrugged. “I guess the rollover in Washington reminded me of her. I’ve been thinking about her ever since.”
Thinking?
Obsessing would be a better term. Ever since her image had begun to haunt him, he’d been unable to concentrate on anything else.
“She seems to be getting along well,” One-Eye observed.
“Yes. She does.”
Tearing his attention away from the woman, Jack forced himself to eat. He even managed to carry on a normal conversation with One-Eye until the two elderly women led Eleanor out the French doors to the lobby beyond, then left her there. Alone. Jack watched as they went to the desk and began conversing with the manager, leaving Eleanor standing near the tufted armchairs.
One-Eye lapsed into silence—an unusual event for him, especially when his belly was full and the coffee was rich and black.
“Why don’t you go talk to her?”
Jack jumped as if One-Eye had touched him with a cattle prod. “What?”
“Go talk to her.”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t think I should.”
“Why