Love Me or Leave Me

by Gwynne Forster

  “If you need money for medicine, send Pete over to get me or tell him to call me on my cell phone. He has the number,” he told Stella.

  Her eyes clouded, and he tried not to see her tears, for it was not his place to comfort her. “I didn’t have a dime. I walked to the clinic and back. We had insurance, but it lapsed, because I couldn’t keep it up. I don’t question your kindness, Mr. Harrington, because I prayed hard, and I know God sent you to us. Social Services is still working on our case…” Her voice drifted off. Then she looked directly at him and said, “Thanks is a piddling word, but it’s the only one I have. God bless you.”

  He put his hands into his trouser pockets because they seemed as useless as he was helpless. “I’ve been blessed all my life, Mrs. Jergens, but until now, I had no idea how much.” His glance caught Pete gazing up at him, and he patted the boy’s shoulder.

  “You promised to call me, Pete, and I’m counting on you to do that if you have a problem again.”

  “I went to see you this morning, sir.”

  He nodded, understanding that the child didn’t want to appear to beg. “Yes, and I’m glad you did.”

  He told them goodbye and went back to work, but his thoughts remained with the family. He suspected that Stella Jergens’s husband was a good man—though perhaps with a short temper—because his children were well-mannered and respectful.

  “I hope I’m fortunate enough to have a son like Pete.”

  At the end of his workday, after washing up and changing his clothes, he hesitated as to his next move. He had promised his brothers that the three of them could continue discussing their work program that evening, but his mind directed him to Baltimore and Pamela.

  He telephoned her. “I need to head home, because I promised Telford and Russ that I would, but I also need to see you for at least a few minutes. I don’t think I should go to your place.”

  Her voice—so soft, so warm and so feminine—never failed to fan the fires of his desire, and he waited impatiently to hear it.

  “I can wait for you here at the office, and we can go down the street to Jugs and Jars and have tea or something.”

  Tea. Imagine a thirty-one-year-old man steps out of a hard-hat construction area and rushes to meet a woman in order to sit somewhere and sip tea. I hope I’m dreaming. To her he said, “Great. I’ll see you in thirty-five or forty minutes.”

  He liked seeing her when they hadn’t planned it in advance, when she was her everyday normal self, without props. Makeup imperfect, if not faded away, and hair looking as if her fingers had plowed through it all day. To him, she was most beautiful at those times. Natural and sweetly feminine.

  As he neared WRLR, his heartbeat accelerated as he anticipated the moment when she would see him and a smile would light up her face, reminding him of the night sky when the moon suddenly appears from behind the clouds.

  “Come in.” Her voice, low, soft and sultry, made him immediately aware of his masculinity, and he realized that her voice always affected him that way. To his surprise, she stood, embraced him and kissed his cheek. “I know you can’t stay with me long, but I’m so glad you came.”

  “So am I,” he said and knew that he meant it. Her lips on his cheek drove home to him his reason for being there. He had needed to hold her, to know that she had overcome her angst from her encounter with Lawrence Parker. Admit it, man. You needed to protect her.

  “What is it?” she asked, making him aware that his face mirrored his perplexity at himself.

  His right shoulder flexed in a shrug. He knew better than to say “nothing,” so he decided that the best answer was an innocuous one and said, “Self-knowledge is a priceless thing. I’m giving you mixed signals.”

  A grin displayed her even white teeth. “No, you’re not.”

  He stared at her. “I’m not?”

  She locked her desk drawer, put her briefcase in her left hand and grasped his left hand with her right one. “No, you’re not. Come on. Let’s go.”

  His behavior was inconsistent, and he knew it, his honorable intentions and his seeming inability to behave differently notwithstanding. If she acted as wishy-washy as he did, he’d be furious. In that bona fide tearoom, where floor-to-ceiling drapes and matching damask chairs at small marble-top tables adorned with flowers attested to its authenticity, he sat among about two dozen well-dressed women and couldn’t help feeling foolish. He’d bet that every other Maryland man of his age and station who was in the company of a woman like Pamela was probably sipping a cocktail. He shared the thought with her.

  “This is true,” she replied, “and quite a few of those men will have an accident as they drive home.”

  No arguing with that. He pushed the tea aside, leaned back and enjoyed looking at her. “Any more news about Parker?”

  “I called the precinct just before you got to my office, and an officer there told me that whatever I did to him won’t permanently maim him, though he’ll be walking with a cane when he leaves the hospital. Raynor, my managing editor, filed harassment charges against him with the station. When he recovers, he’ll be transferred to Honolulu.”

  Drake knew that the frown he’d worn for the past few minutes deepened. “He’s pressing charges. What about you? Aren’t you—”

  She held up her hand, interrupting him. “I did that this morning before I went to work.”

  “Good.” He looked at his watch. If he speeded, he’d be home at seven, in time for dinner. “I’d better phone Alexis. She likes to have dinner promptly at seven.”

  After talking with his sister-in-law, he paid the bill, took Pamela’s hand and walked with her to the corner where they had parked their cars. “This wasn’t a good idea, Pamela. Leaving you here on the street…I can’t even…” He let the thought go.

  “Then follow me home. I don’t like leaving you here like this, either.”

  Her voice, so soft and sweet, held a longing that touched him, and as he gazed down at her, something jumped to life in him. He wanted to hold her then and there, and for once he found no pride in his mastery of himself and in his ability to deny himself.

  “All right,” he told her. “Lead the way.” At her apartment, he didn’t wonder at the trembling of her fingers as she fumbled with the key in the lock. He covered her hand with his, turned the key, opened the door and walked into the foyer with her tight in his arms.

  The feel of her soft breasts against his chest and her body locked to his, warm and willing, rocked his senses. “You’re a drug, a fire I can’t put out. Kiss me. Kiss me and mean it.”

  Her fingers gripped the lapels of his jacket, then she seemed to move up his body like a vine climbing a stake. Her lips parted, and he joined them with one deep thrust of his tongue into the sweet haven of her mouth. Heat roared through his body, searing his limbs and settling in his loins. He had to move. He couldn’t let her… He attempted to move her away from him. But she pressed her hips to his body as she captured his tongue, feasting on it, pulling and sucking, showing him what it would be like if she exploded all around him while he was buried deep within her. Tremors shook him as the scent of her hot desire drugged him, and then she undulated against him, demanding what he wanted and needed so badly.

  Shackled by the force of his desire, he grabbed her buttocks to lift her to fit him, and his own moans startled him, bringing him back to near sanity. He unlocked her hands from the back of his neck and pushed her away from him, although in spite of his strength, he couldn’t separate them with ease, so tenacious was her hold.

  She stared up at him, her breathing almost a pant and her eyes nearly black with desire. “Don’t tell me you’re sorry,” she said. “I don’t want to hear it. You wanted that, and you needed it just as badly as I did.”

  If only he could… He couldn’t tell her how he felt, for it would be tantamount to declaring his love. All that he’d bottled up inside would spill out of him like a river emptying itself into the sea. As he looked at her, her face became a mass of tea
rs that she made no effort to hide, and it shook him to the core of his being.

  Without thinking of what he did, he pulled her closer and his lips roamed her face, kissing as he moved, symbolically drinking her tears. Then, with his hands, he wiped them away.

  “No, I’m not sorry. How could I be? Nonetheless, until I can back up what I’m feeling, I’m not going to seek you out again.” He clasped both of her hands in his. “But if you need me, call me. Promise me that. Will you promise?”

  As he gazed down at her, he could see that her confusion was, if anything, greater than his. “I…I don’t know. Right now, I feel as if I’ve been hit by a speeding locomotive. You’re right in saying we should stop seeing each other. I can’t endure more of these electric storms you and I create. Wasted energy.”

  She turned to the door, holding his hand. “Don’t speed. The risk isn’t worth it, not even to get home by dinnertime.”

  He resisted kissing her goodbye, but she reached up, eased her hand behind his head, and he bent down to receive her closed-mouth kiss.

  “See you,” he said. Words that to his own ears carried a ring of dishonesty, for they were not what he needed to say. She didn’t reply, but stood at the door. When he glanced back before getting into the elevator, she still stood at the open door.

  Pamela closed the door, locked it, leaned against the doorjamb and stared at her elongated shadow against the opposite wall. She didn’t like shadows, especially not an eerie likeness of herself. Feeling as if she’d been blown around by a cyclone, she made her way to a chair in the living room and dropped down into it.

  That man loved her. Why couldn’t he admit it to himself, if not to her? Didn’t he know that a man didn’t behave as he did with a woman unless she was precious to him? He couldn’t be so tender and gentle with her, so caring and loving if it didn’t come from his heart.

  One day, he would realize what she meant to him, and it would be too late. Too late for him and too late for her. She was entitled to exercise her right to bear and nurture children, just as she had a right to realize her potential as an intelligent and creative human being. With her career ascending, the latter was within her grasp. Even if she had to have the help of a total stranger, one day she would hold in her arms a child who would call her Mother.

  She ignored the ringing telephone, for she didn’t want to speak with Drake or anyone else. On impulse, she walked over and looked at the caller ID screen. Why would Rhoda call her at home? Hadn’t they spent an hour and a half that afternoon discussing Rhoda’s work?

  “Hello, Rhoda. What’s up?”

  “Hi, Pamela. This has nothing to do with work, which is why I’m calling you at home. I’m having a garden party at my parents’ house, and I want you to come and bring your significant other if you like.”

  She didn’t have a significant other. “When’s the party?”

  “Saturday, July twenty-first, and it is not an office party. A real garden party where women will wear wide skirts, frilly hats and white gloves. Old-fashioned and very feminine.”

  She figured she could use a change, and the more drastic, the better. “Count me in.” Old-fashioned, eh? Trust Rhoda to mandate a dress code that would allow her to hide the rolls of fat around her waist and to expose her ample bosom. Those garden-party dresses might have modest, flared skirts, but the deep cleavage compensated for it.

  “At least Rhoda’s call changed my mood,” Pamela said to herself. She wanted to telephone the precinct for news of Lawrence’s condition, but refrained, reminding herself that she injured him in self-defense. Still out of sorts from her encounter with Drake, afraid that fate would consign her to a barren life, empty of reciprocated love and of children she could call her own, she ate a sausage-and-biscuit sandwich and went to bed.

  Drake fared no better than Pamela. His somber mood at dinner—rare for him—cast a pall over the meal, robbing it of the joshing, teasing and wordless gestures of love and affection that characterized mealtime in the Harrington household.

  “I’m going to turn in early tonight,” he announced, avoiding their after-dinner session in the den. “See you all tomorrow morning.”

  Tara left the table and caught him as he reached the stairs. “Don’t you feel good, Uncle Drake? Maybe my mommy has an aspirin.”

  He hunkered before the little girl. “I’m fine. Life can get a little rough sometimes, and you don’t feel like smiling, but I’m all right. I promise.”

  Her little arms went around his neck, and he hugged her warm little body, enjoying the unconditional love that she always gave him. “Tomorrow morning at breakfast, you’ll be fine, won’t you?” she asked him.

  “I’m fine now. You’re the best medicine a person could have.”

  She kissed his cheek and ran back to the dining room. Her words reached him as he climbed the stairs.

  “Uncle Drake is fine. He said I’m the best medicine a person could have. Am I, Mommy?”

  He didn’t hear Alexis’s answer before he ducked into his room and closed the door.

  After sleeping fitfully, he awoke more tired than if he hadn’t gone to bed. He showered, dressed and went downstairs where he knew he could expect Henry’s meddling.

  “What ailed you last night? I know you ain’t gonna tell, but it’s time you stopped locking yer problems inside of you and talked to somebody.”

  “I’m not hobbling under any great burden, Henry. I deal with my problems as they come.”

  “You ain’t dealing with whatever it is that ails you now. Never seen you so lifeless.”

  Drake had asked both Telford and Russ the question, but their answers hadn’t satisfied him. He walked over to the stove and began frying the pancakes—something he had done regularly before he left for college—relieving Henry to tend the sausage and bacon. His action wasn’t lost on Henry, who remembered that, in Drake’s youth, he’d chosen the times when Henry was cooking breakfast to seek advice and share his thoughts. Henry lowered the flame beneath the meat.

  “What’s wrong, son? You know it’ll stop right here.”

  “How did you know you loved Miss Sarah so much that you wanted to marry her?”

  “When it got to the place that I couldn’t stay away from her, when I was with her and didn’t want to leave her, and when I left her and wanted to turn around and go right back to her. I fought it just like you’re fighting this, and the day came when she lost patience with me and told me to forget it. I thought I would die. She was everything to me.”

  “I know that,” Drake said. “As young as I was, I knew that. And it was mutual. I used to say I wanted a wife like her, not like my own mother. I still remember her singing me to sleep.”

  “She was a loving woman. Don’t play yer cards too close to yer chest. When you do that, not even you can see ’em.”

  Drake finished making the pancakes, put some on a plate for Tara along with butter and bacon, set her place at the table and then set his own and waited until he heard her steps as she raced to the breakfast room.

  “Do you want milk this morning, or cocoa?” he asked her.

  “Both. My mommy says I’m eating for two.”

  The coffee sloshed into the saucer and onto the tablecloth. “What?”

  “She said ’cause I eat so much. Want me to say grace?”

  He definitely did not, because he didn’t have an hour to spend while she blessed everybody she ever knew. “Thanks, but I’ll say it.” And he did.

  She walked with him to the front door, kissed him goodbye and went back to the kitchen to be with Henry until her parents came downstairs for their breakfast.

  When he reached the building site in Frederick, Pete was waiting for him. “Hi, Mr. Harrington. I wanted you to know that my dad is coming home today. It’s earlier than we thought. Can you come by after work to meet him?”

  “Sure. It will be my pleasure.”

  He finished work at four-thirty and, after showering and changing his clothes in the company trailer, he drove to
the Jergenses’ house. And knocked on the door. He hadn’t stopped to consider what he looked like in a light gray business suit, pale gray shirt and yellow tie. Bond Jergens opened the door with Pete holding on to his hand.

  “Dad, this is Mr. Harrington we told you about. Mr. Harrington, this is my dad, Bond Jergens.”

  Drake gazed into the eyes of an unfriendly man, a proud man about an inch shorter than himself. He extended his hand. “I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Jergens. I’m sure you’re happy to be at home with your family.”

  Bond Jergens did not accept the offer to shake hands. “And it looks as if I got back just in time.”

  Tension swirled around Drake, but he was used to tough men because he worked with them every day, and he had never seen a man he feared. “Am I missing something?” he said. “I didn’t understand your remark.”

  “And I don’t understand your interest in my family.”

  Drake stepped back. “Ask your son.”

  “And not my wife?”

  “Wait a minute. If you think—”

  “Daddy,” Pete said, “Mr. Harrington is my friend. He caught me stealing wood from his building. That’s how I met him.”

  Bond stared down at Pete. “You were stealing?”

  The boy hung his head. “Yes, sir, but we were freezing and the gas was turned off, so—”

  “Mr. Jergens, if I had a son like Pete, I would consider myself blessed. He was only taking care of the family until you got back.”

  “But to steal…” He stepped back and offered his hand to Drake. “I owe you both an apology and my eternal thanks. Come in.”

  He walked into the house where Stella Jergens stood wringing her hands. “I’m sorry, Mr. Harrington, but Bond just got home and I hadn’t had time to explain how things were with us. He got the story from Pete, and since you’re Pete’s idol, you may imagine how he related things.”

  Drake forced a smile. “I can, indeed. What kind of work do you do, Mr. Jergens?”