But he’d never know now.
But he did know loneliness was like a heavy load in his life. And he was getting tired of carrying it.
“How did the meeting go with the Italians?” Monty asked.
Richard finally looked away from Janet. “It went.”
“Are they looking for a partner, or a takeover?”
“They want to get in, learn everything they can about the oil industry from the top of the line, and then compete against us. They couldn’t manage a takeover bid. They don’t have the muscle for that, given who you are. But they want to compete on the same stage as you. And they want you to show them how.”
“Your verdict?”
“I wouldn’t trust them. There’s such a thing as good competition. They’ll be dangerous competition.”
Monty nodded. “I came down the same way,” he said. “What do you suppose we do about it? We might turn them down, but that doesn’t mean they won’t become dangerous competition in the near future. What can we do about it?”
“We? We can do nothing about it. Me? I’m going to have a meeting with them. Offer them a backdoor deal. See which way they bite. Then we’ll know where they’re coming from.”
“And then?”
“And then we come at them the same way. Take’em for everything they’ve got. Use them as the example of what happens to fools who mess with us.”
Monty smiled. “Ruthless Richard. You live up to your name.”
Richard didn’t respond to that. “I just do it to them before they do it to us.”
Monty stood on his feet. “Good. Just let me know if you need backup.”
“Ha! You? The Texan? You Texans are big talkers. I don’t need conversation.”
“Then you shall not get any. Bye, brother,” he said as he started to leave.
Richard looked up at him. “That’s it? Pick my brain and go?”
“Don’t forget I criticized you too,” Monty said with a smile that could charm birds from trees.
Richard smiled, too, although his smile looked unnatural on his stern face. “Just remember to re-alarm my home as you leave. How it didn’t trigger is a mystery to me.”
“I’ll see you next Saturday,” Monty said as he began heading toward the exit.
Richard frowned. “What’s going on next Saturday?”
“Dad’s wife’s birthday. It’s always a week before Christmas.”
“They haven’t divorced yet?” Richard asked.
“If you were around more you would know the answer to that question,” said Monty. “No, they haven’t divorced yet. Just get your ass to Texas next Saturday.”
“I can’t stand his new wife. Why would I bother?”
“Because none of Pop’s friends are going to show. They took Mom’s side when Dad divorced her. That’s why he needs all of us there. His mail order bride doesn’t know anybody in the States at all. If we don’t show, it’ll just be him and her.”
“And they deserve everything they’re getting,” Richard said. “Cheated on Ma all those years and then he divorces her? And for some tramp like that?”
“Have you even spoken to Ma since you got back in the States?”
“I just got back last night,” Richard said.
“Ma has moved on,” Monty said. “You need to move on too.”
Richard exhaled. He was a man in his thirties, but he still felt the sting of his parents’ divorce. And his father’s sudden and unexpected marriage to some Russian bombshell he barely knew. She wasn’t a mail order bride the way he and Monty referred to her as, but it was close enough for them. “I’ll be there,” he said. “But only to drop by. Then I’ll spend the rest of my time with Mom.”
“Suit yourself,” Monty said, leaving. “Just show up.”
“And don’t break in my house ever again!”
“I love you too,” Monty said back to him without turning around. Richard gave him another unnatural smile and watched until he was clean out of sight.
And then he turned his attention back to Janet.
And he was staring at her again. And twirling the butt of his cigar in his mouth again.
Monty was right. He should leave her alone. She was just too different than any woman he was used to being with. But all those women he had ever been with weren’t suitable for anything but bed action. And his body was getting tired of just that. He needed more. His perspective had changed. He needed to stretch his horizons. He needed to find out, once and for all, if a woman like Miss Evans held the key that could unlock his heart. Was that what was drawing him to her when they first met? Is that what kept her on his mind all these years later? Or would she be the one to lock up his heart even tighter than it already was, and throw away the key?
Maybe, all these years, he hadn’t been afraid of hurting her. He knew now that he wouldn’t hurt her if he decided to go down that road with her. Maybe, all these years, he had been afraid of her hurting him.
But was it too late? Did she hate him now? Did she even remember him?
Nothing beats a failure but a try.
What the hell did he have to lose?
He picked up the phone quickly, before he changed his mind.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Keeping pace with Mo Riley was nearly impossible, but Janet managed somehow. They had been walking for several minutes. Nearly two miles by her calculation. And it didn’t look as if he was trying to slow down. But by the time they made it to the park, she had to put her foot down.
“You’re killing me, Mo,” she said, barely able to catch her breath.
When he looked back, she was sitting on the park bench. He smiled and shook his head. And walked back to her. “I was nearly dead in that nursing home when you found me. Now look at me. A specimen of health!”
“Yes, you are.”
“And look at you. Nearly dead.”
Janet laughed. “Keep bragging, old man. I can always return you where I found you.”
“Not possible. I can outrun you now.”
Janet laughed again. “So true!” she said.
Mo continued to stare at her. And then he sat down too. “You gon tell me what’s going on?” he asked her.
“Meaning?” she asked him.
“You came home early from work yesterday. Didn’t say a word to me, so I didn’t say a word to you. I figure you had to get your thoughts together. But now it’s a new day and you still haven’t told me anything, Baby Girl.”
She hadn’t told him because she was still getting over it herself. Six years on a job she actually enjoyed doing, and one she did well, and it came down to this? Resign before they fire you? She looked at him. “What do you want to know?”
“Why you ain’t at work?” Mo asked her.
Janet exhaled. It still felt strange to her too. “I resigned,” she said.
Mo frowned. “Why would you do a fool thing like that? You got another job lined up?”
Another disappointment. “Nothing’s come through yet,” she said. “But I’ve applied everywhere.”
But Mo was disturbed. “Wait a minute here,” he said. “You done quit your job, and you ain’t got no job lined up? I raised you better than that, the couple of years I did raise you, Janet. Those Horrible Henleys teach you that foolishness? You don’t quit no job without no job!”
“It was the spur of the moment. I didn’t plan to submit my resignation until another job came through for me. But I couldn’t stay there.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because I couldn’t, Mo! They treated me like I was a doormat. New people walk through the door, I train them, and then they’re walking over me too. At some point you get tired of that. It took me six long years. But I’m tired of it now.”
“But you don’t have another job.”
Janet’s face showed her anxiety. “No, I don’t.
“Don’t let anybody run you off your job, Baby Girl,” Mo said. “You hear me? Jobs are too hard to find in this economy. And especially for a bl
ack girl in Cope. They barely want us to have anything as it is. And you done up and quit a good office job like that?”
“They haven’t given me a raise in five years, Mo. Every time I ask, they say the budget won’t allow it. But every time a new person comes along, I have to train them and the budget manages to find a way to give them what they’re worth. And they all got one thing in common.”
“They white,” Mo said.
“Nope. Black women come up in there, too, and advance over me. But they’re all beauty queens. Every one of them. That’s the commonality. William Rice seems to think a public relations firm needs to project a certain image.”
“And that image ain’t you?” Mo asked.
“Apparently not,” Janet said with a tinge of sadness wrapped with bitterness in her voice.
Mo stared at her. He was from a generation and culture that didn’t go around resigning from jobs just because they didn’t treat you right. They expected not to be treated right. That was never a surprise.
But Janet deserved better. She suffered long enough. And he knew it. “You did the right thing,” he said to her.
She looked at him. She never expected him to understand.
“I don’t have none of that book smarts like you got,” Mo said, “but I got street smarts in abundance. And on the street where I come from, we would say you didn’t give up. You gave in. And there’s a difference. Sometimes it makes more sense to stop beating your head against a rock, and just walk away. You did the right thing, Baby Girl.”
Janet nodded. It was good to know that he was still in her corner. But it hurt too. Because she didn’t have another job. Because she just walked away from a job she enjoyed doing. Tears appeared in her big hazel eyes.
When Mo saw her tears, he was outdone. “Come here, child,” he said to her. And she slid over on the bench and leaned into his arms.
And they stayed that way for several minutes. Until Janet was able to wipe all her tears away, and sit back up on her own. “I’m okay,” she reassured him. “Don’t worry about me.”
“I have to worry about you. If I don’t, who will?”
Janet smiled. That was the truth. Mo was all she had.
But Mo wasn’t smiling. “Are we in trouble?” he asked her.
She quickly shook her head. “We can manage for now. I have enough savings to tie us over for a little bit.”
“And my social security check,” said Mo.
But Janet was already shaking her head. “No, Mo,” she said. “You only get seven-hundred-and-sixty-dollars a month. That’s your fun money, and it’s gonna stay that way.”
“I’ve been living off you long enough. It’s time I carry my weight around here.”
Janet’s cell phone began ringing. “You’ve never lived off of anybody in your life before. Don’t even try that!” Then she exhaled. “With the help of the Lord, we’re be okay,” she said to him.
“I hope the Lord’s listening,” he said to her.
“He always is,” she said to him as she looked at her Caller ID. When she saw that it was from Shetfield, Incorporated, she was puzzled. Was it Richard? She quickly answered it. “Hello?”
“May I speak with Miss Evans?”
“This is she.”
“Miss Evans, this is Doris Wilson. We met on yesterday.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Mr. Shetfield will see you tomorrow evening at eight thirty. Please take down the address.”
“Oh, no, Ms. Wilson. There’s been some mistake. I’m no longer employed with Rooney and Rice.”
Mo looked at her.
“Take down the address, please.”
“But ma’am, you aren’t hearing me. I was there in my capacity as an employee of Rooney and Rice Consulting firm. I am no longer in their employ. There’s been some mistake.”
“There’s been no mistake. Take down the address. And be there tomorrow at eight thirty sharp.”
Janet was utterly confused. Why would Richard Shetfield want to meet with her, and to meet with her at eight thirty at night? It made no sense!
But he was rich. And rich people, she knew, did whatever they liked.
She took down the address.
When she ended the call, she still looked puzzled.
“What was that about?” Mo asked her.
“Richard Shetfield wants to meet with me tomorrow night,” she said.
Mo frowned. “Not that Shetfield?”
Janet nodded. “That Shetfield,” she said.
“You applied to work for the Shetfields?”
“No! ‘Course not. I went to a meeting with Mr. Rice and Kimmie yesterday at Shetfield’s office. But we left with the impression he wasn’t going to hire the firm.”
“Then why he wanna meet with you?”
Janet shook her head. “I have no idea, Mo.” She had some idea. But she was sure it wasn’t that.
Mo exhaled. “Be careful, Baby Girl. All I can tell you. You may not wanna work for that crew. Those Shetfields will chew you up and spit you out. And then put you under their shoe and squash you like a bug. Be careful,” he said again.
But Janet already knew that.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“They must take us for fools.”
Spencer Shetfield, Richard’s kid brother, drove his classic 1967 Mustang Fastback up to the empty strip mall and stopped at the curb in front of what was soon to be a jewelry store. “Setting up a meeting with a man of your esteem in an area like this. There’s nothing out here!”
“They plan to revitalize this whole side of town,” Richard said as he sat on the passenger side unbuckling his seatbelt. “They plan to build this mall first, and then build a community around it.”
Spencer unbuckled his seatbelt too. “Sounds like some ass-backwards shit to me. Bring the people first, I say, then the businesses will follow.”
“I say bring them both at the same time,” Richard said as he got out of the Mustang. “But what do I know about business?”
Spencer laughed, grabbed his sunglasses off the dashboard even though it was cold outside and no sun in sight, and he got out too. He was the family’s trust fund baby. Everybody worked, but him. He started looking around. “I don’t know, Dick,” he said. “I don’t like the backdrop.”
“I had my guys check’em out,” said Richard. “They didn’t find anything to worry about.”
“Yeah but, Dick,” said Spencer, looking at his brother as if he should know better.
“Yea but Dick what?” asked Richard.
“They’re Italians!” Spencer said.
“Now-now, Spence,” Richard said. “That sounds racist to me. How would you like it if somebody said, ‘yeah, but they’re Irish!’” The Shetfield family tree took root in Ireland.
But Spencer started shaking his head and grinning that charming grin everybody loved. “I would say damn right, they are. Watch your back!”
Richard laughed. Spencer was incorrigible! And honest as hell. That was why he trusted him above any in their family. And like all of the Shetfields, Spencer knew how to handle himself around thugs as well as kings.
Then Spencer looked at his big brother, who was five years older than he was, and put on his sunglasses. “I asked her you know,” he said.
Richard looked at him. “When?”
“Last night.”
“She said yes?”
“I know you didn’t ask me that! What else was she going to say? No lady is going to turn me down!”
Richard ignored that and stared at him. “And you’re serious about this?”
“You know I’m serious. I wouldn’t have asked her if I wasn’t.”
But Spencer kept looking at Richard. “What about you?” he asked him.
Richard knew where that conversation was going. He looked away from Spencer at the empty highway across the parking lot. They were truly in the middle of nowhere. “What about me?”
“You aren’t getting any younger, Dicky. Playing the field is cute
when you’re young. It’s pathetic when you’re old.”
Richard smiled. “You sound more and more like Monty every day.”
Spencer was offended. “Don’t you tell that lie! Me like that stiff-shirt? Never on this earth!”
Richard laughed.
“But I’m serious, Dicky. You aren’t getting any younger.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Richard said. “I’ll never grow old.”
But Spencer failed to see the humor. “That’s what Michael Jackson said,” he said. “Better watch yourself.”
Richard frowned. “What?”
“Michael Jackson said he was Peter Pan and he would never grow old. He was right. He died when he was fifty. Don’t talk to me about never growing old. Don’t put that shit out in the universe like that. You most definitely want to grow old!”
“Okay, alright,” said Richard, surprised by Spencer’s distress. “I take it back.”
“And,” Spencer said, “you most definitely do not want to grow old alone,” he added, and looked at Richard.
Richard stared at him. Then he exhaled. “I’m having dinner with Janet tomorrow night,” he said.
Spencer frowned. “Janet? Who’s Janet?” Then he realized who. And Spencer was shocked. He was the only person, six years ago, that Richard had ever mentioned her to. “But I thought you said you were going to leave her alone. I thought you said she was too good for you and you weren’t going to hurt her like that.”
“I’m not going to hurt her. I’m going to have dinner with her,” Richard said.
But Spencer was still suspicious. “To what end?” he asked him.
“I’m not going to hurt her, alright?”
“She’s a sista,” Spencer said. “And you know how Monty is about the sistas. You’d better not hurt her. He’ll come looking for you.”
Richard looked at Spencer. Everybody knew that their oldest brother Monty didn’t date anybody but black women. But he’d never known Monty to be protective of any of them. “What are you talking about?” Richard asked Spencer. “Monty never had a problem when I slept with all those other black women and dumped them. Why would he care what happens to Janet?”
Plain Jane Evans and the Billionaire Page 10