Free Once in a Lifetime by Gwynne Forster Page A

regular coffee.”
    He couldn’t say she was deliberately aggravating Evangeline, but the women were so dissimilar that the difference itself had to irritate Evangeline. Why hadn’t he realized that Alexis was an upper-class woman? She had some talking to do.

Chapter 4
    S erving coffee in the den wouldn’t make Evangeline happy, because it meant sharing Telford with Tara and Alexis for what remained of the evening, but Alexis didn’t intend to ease the situation for him. They had agreed to keep their distance from each other, but he could at least have told her he’d have a woman guest for dinner if only because it was she who set the dinner table. With all the innocence that was natural to Tara, the child engaged Evangeline in conversation, or tried to, frustrating Tara and annoying Evangeline.
    When Telford finally stood and Evangeline Moore sighed in resignation, the evening shot, Alexis walked over to her and extended her hand.
    “It was nice meeting you, Ms. Moore. I hope you’ll visit us again.”
    “Bye, Mr. Telford,” Tara said, raising her arms for a good-bye kiss and, at the same time, saving Evangeline a courteous reply to Alexis. “You coming back?”
    “I’ll be back before long.” He smiled lovingly at Tara, but the look he gave Alexis had the explosive power of a ball ofTNT headed for a target. She wasn’t afraid of the retribution his eyes promised; what he incited in her was as far from fear as east from west. She knew that her own face bore a glow of triumph, and she felt like a victor, because she’d taught him that he had to reckon with her. Tara walked them to the door holding Telford’s hand, but Alexis went into the kitchen to speak with Henry.
    “Why did you serve that cabbage stew? I set a table fit for the president, and you serve cabbage.”
    Henry’s head went back. Then he laughed until he doubled up and finally lost his breath. She had to pound his back. “Crazy, huh? Funniest thing I ever done. Miss Etta’s handkerchief linen and her best crystal and porcelain and things… Cabbage. Prissy as she was, I bet the poor woman turned over in her grave.”
    “But why? Henry, I wanted us to have a nice dinner.”
    “Humph. You didn’t want no such thing. You wanted to show off. Telford knows what I always serve when he done something I don’t like. And bringing that woman here… He shoulda knowed he was gonna have to eat cabbage stew.” Henry rubbed his hands together gleefully. “I bet that ain’t the only punishment he’s gonna get.”
    “You’re getting very fanciful, Henry.”
    “If you want to call it that. I wasn’t born this morning.”
    “Why don’t you like Evangeline Moore?”
    He turned out the light over the kitchen sink and leaned against the counter. “I lived a long time, and I know people when I see ’em. He ain’t serious about her, and that’s because he knows she ain’t for him.”
    “Why are you so sure of that?”
    “’Tain’t difficult. She gets low grades in the manners department, and Tel can’t stand rotten manners. She ain’t bad, mind you, but these boys here…they come up practically by themselves, except for what raising I done and Telford when he got older… They been through a lot and worked hard.”
    His countenance darkened with concern, and she could seethat Telford and his brothers meant a lot to Henry and that he took pride in them.
    “She ain’t got no appreciation for what they been through and what they’ve done with their lives, either,” he went on, “and she don’t care. She just wants a Harrington. Now you. You ain’t asking nothing from no man. My kind of woman, willing and able to make it on your own.”
    “Thanks. That doesn’t explain why you don’t like her.”
    “She just ain’t for him. I could stand her, maybe, if she wasn’t so supercilious, always pretending to be something she ain’t. She can’t fool me.”
    And what about Alexis? Wasn’t she an imposter, an upper-middle-class educator