Love Me or Leave Me

by Gwynne Forster

  “How’s it going, Bond?” he asked the man. “Where’s Jack?”

  “Can I talk with you a few minutes, Drake?”

  Drake didn’t like the man’s tone, and his antenna went up immediately. “Sure. Let’s step over to the trailer.” They went inside, closed the door and sat down. “What’s the matter?”

  “Well, Jack came down with some kind of fever Thursday, and he’s in Frederick Memorial. With nobody in charge, a couple of the men got lazy. When I caught one loading bricks in a U-Haul truck, I called the police. After that, I stayed here day and night. I couldn’t make anybody work, but I sure could see that nobody stole anything.” He took two sheets of lined paper from his pocket and handed them to Drake. “Here’s the notes I took.”

  He imagined which of the men he’d have to fire, and he didn’t plan to waste time doing it. He looked at Bond’s notes. “Just the three I figured you’d name. They’re out as soon as I see them. How much construction work have you done?”

  “That’s all I’ve done for the last seventeen years—ground-up plumbing, driving a crane, cementing, plastering and brickwork. What I haven’t worked at, I’ve seen.”

  “I’d like you to go to Eagle Park with me tomorrow evening and meet my brothers, my partners. You’ve done well for me, and I won’t forget it.”

  Bond knocked back his hat and ran his fingers over his tight curls. “I’m the one in your debt, man, and I always will be. I’ll be glad to go with you tomorrow. Thanks.”

  Just what he needed: a problem with his workers. For the remainder of the day, he checked Bond’s work carefully and as unobtrusively as possible and couldn’t find one flaw. He left work at four and went to the hospital to see Jack, who, he learned, had contracted malaria while traveling in West Africa and who was experiencing his first flare-up of the disease in over two years. After telephoning Jack’s wife and determining that she didn’t need anything, he shopped for the meat Henry wanted and then headed home, all the while feeling a pull toward Baltimore and Pamela.

  He parked in the circle in front of Harrington House, got the cooler from the trunk, strode up the walk and, as he reached for the doorbell, the door swung open.

  “Surprise! Uncle Drake, did you bring the bacon for my pancakes?”

  He picked Tara up, hugged her and swung her around. “Would I let my best girl down? Of course I brought it.”

  She giggled and kissed his cheek. “I told Mr. Henry you wouldn’t forget.” She cupped his right ear with her hands and whispered, “Did you notice how my mommy sleeps all the time? Is she sick, Uncle Drake?”

  “Definitely not.” He didn’t know how much Tara had been told about her mother’s pregnancy, so he didn’t know what to say. While he thought of an answer, Tara put him at ease.

  “I guess pregnant makes everything sleepy, so I’d better not be pregnant till after school is over. I wouldn’t be able to study.”

  “You nailed it right on the head,” he told her. “And the longer you wait after you finish school, the better. Wait till you’re thirty.”

  Her eyes grew large. “Is my mommy thirty?”

  “Yes, indeed, she is. Where’s your dad?”

  “He’s keeping my mommy company.” She kissed his cheek again and indicated that she wanted to be released. “I gotta go study the piano a little more before supper. Bye.”

  From the moment he met her, that little girl had brought joy to his life. He didn’t believe that all children were like Tara—she had a special way of attracting and giving love. But what he wouldn’t give if his own children proved to be as joyful and happy as she. He hurried upstairs to shower and get ready for dinner.

  Am I being selfish? Pamela wants a child so badly. Shouldn’t I do the inevitable and make her happy? But what about me? Am I certain? He let the cool water invigorate his body, dried himself, put on his robe and had a sudden longing for the days when he walked around the house naked.

  “Oh, hell,” he said, “that wasn’t worth a hill of beans compared to what I got in return when Alexis and Tara came here.” Tara. Would he love his own daughter as much as he loved her?

  He picked up the phone on his night table and dialed Pamela’s number. “Hello, sweetheart,” he said when she answered the phone. “Today’s Monday. How’m I going to wait till Friday to see you? I have to be here tomorrow evening for a meeting with my brothers, but we could have dinner in Baltimore on Wednesday. What do you say?”

  “I miss you, too. Usually my day passes so swiftly because I don’t seem to have enough time to do all the things I have to do, but today just dragged. You’ve got a lot to answer for.”

  “Not one bit more than you have.” He told her about the situation he faced at the building site that morning, and didn’t question doing so, although he had never before discussed problems in his work with anyone other than Telford and Russ.

  “If you know you did the right thing in firing those men, don’t feel guilty about it. You’re fortunate to have Bond.”

  “Yes, indeed, I am.” He told her how he met first Pete and then Bond and of Bond’s initial reaction to him.

  “Drake, are you always so… I mean, do you always help people if you know they’re in need?”

  Now what was behind that question? “Of course not. I’d be a pauper. I do what I can, and if it’s right in my face, I do not ignore it.”

  “You are a remarkable man. The more I know about you, the bigger you are. Uh…by the way, Saturday after next is my father’s sixty-fifth birthday, and my mother wants me to go home. I want to, but that’s supposed to be our Baltimore weekend together.”

  He thought for a minute. The more they were together in the company of others, the more they would learn about each other. Besides, he hadn’t finished with Phelps Langford. “Well…we could make it a Texas weekend. It wouldn’t be the same, but we would be together. Which day is his birthday?”

  “Saturday. Are you offering to go with me? I thought you’d still be annoyed with my father.”

  “Never worry about such things. I can give as good as I get, and I usually do. Your father was a smartass, and I was a smartass right back at him. He won’t do that again.”

  Her laughter floated to him through the wires, as cool and as comforting as a fresh spring breeze. “Daddy said something to that effect. I’ll have to stay at home, and I’ll be sleeping at one end of the house and you’ll be at the other end.”

  He let a groan escape, though mostly for her benefit. “I’ve been tortured before. If it gets bad enough, I’ll put my lover’s sensors to work and walk in my sleep.”

  Her laughter—excited and joyous—suggested to him that she enjoyed flirting with danger. “Walk in your sleep? I can just see my father’s face when you tell him, ‘Sorry, sir. I couldn’t help it. I walked in my sleep.’”

  “Wouldn’t you support me?”

  “Who, me? You think I want my father to believe I’ve got a man who doesn’t have the guts to go after what he wants and stand by it? Huh?”

  He sat up straight, gripping the phone till the color left his knuckles. “Don’t goad me, Pamela. I don’t take dares, but I will happily alter that perception of me by simply going to your room and knocking on the door. Loudly. I wouldn’t have anything to be ashamed of. Your father knows I want you. That’s why he needled me.”

  “Jokes aside, I’d welcome you if I were most anywhere but in my parents’ home.”

  To his way of thinking, a sense of propriety was to be valued. “I knew you were pulling my leg.” He put his hand over the mouthpiece. “Yeah?”

  “Uncle Drake, Mr. Henry said to tell you he’s taking the roast off the grill and everything else is on the table. Everybody’s sitting down but you and me.”

  “No kidding. What time is it?”

  “Two minutes after seven, and Uncle Russ is hungry.”

  “Thanks, Tara. Be right down.”

  He turned his attention back to Pamela. “Look, sweetheart, I’m late for supper, and I have to dr
ess. I left the shower and called you.”

  “You mean you are talking to me in the buff? Boy, do I wish I could see through this wire.”

  “Wouldn’t do you a bit of good. I’m wearing a robe. Call you later.” He hung up, dashed into his clothes, buttoned his shirt and raced down the stairs.

  Pamela hung up and stared out of her bedroom window at the gathering twilight. Maybe Drake’s being surrounded by a loving family accounted for his complacency about their future. Or maybe he wasn’t complacent, but merely careful. No law said he had to be certain just because she’d made up her mind about him. She went into the kitchen, deviled some shrimp, warmed leftover rice, sliced a tomato and ate her dinner.

  WRLR wanted a file of stories for Black History Month, and she had to figure out a way to make a story out of a group of local musicians performing at the Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute. She’d visited the institute on North Howard Street in Baltimore and interviewed musicians there, but had failed to get anything special. After fretting with ideas for more than an hour, she put her notes away and decided to go to bed. Almost immediately, the phone rang.

  “I suppose you know they’re sending me to Honolulu. I’m leaving tomorrow morning, but I’m only going because I didn’t want to get fired. I’m not asking whether you had anything to do with my getting the ax at WRLR.” She held the receiver away and stared at it, stunned by the call and what she heard.

  “I suspected all the time that Raynor’s had the hots for you. Well, I don’t want his leavings.” The caller hung up.

  Poor Lawrence. She wondered if Raynor and her other superiors at WRLR understood that the man was a psychopath, a dangerous one. At once shaken by the call and curious as to how he obtained her unlisted number, she hesitated to answer the telephone when it rang almost immediately after Lawrence hung up.

  “Hello,” she said, holding her breath.

  “Hi. You sound strange. What’s the matter?”

  She sat down. “Drake. Thank God it’s you.” She told him about Lawrence’s call a few minutes earlier. “That nearly rattled me. My number isn’t listed, and the station doesn’t give it out.”

  “He probably got it when he worked there. I’m glad he’s leaving tomorrow morning. What happened to your caller ID?”

  “This particular phone is old and it doesn’t have a window.”

  “I’ll bring you one on Wednesday.”

  She heard herself telling him about her assignment to do a story on local jazz musicians and her disappointment with the results so far. “I love jazz. You know that. But I want to do something interesting and different, not just to put up some pictures of guys sitting around blowing horns.”

  “Right. Maybe they’ll let you show the jazz scene in different cities. Kansas City, New Orleans, Chicago, New York and Washington have great jazz clubs.”

  Her heart leaped in her chest, and she sat forward, excited and energized. “Wow! What a story that would make.” But she quickly settled down for she knew that the station manager wouldn’t spend that much money on a story for Black History Month.

  “Why are you planning for this now?” he asked.

  “Special programs are always done months in advance. If a program is good, it will be shown repeatedly and other stations will buy it.”

  “What can you lose? Tell your boss what you think and see how he reacts.”

  “I will, and I’m going to write the proposal before I go to sleep tonight. And if you were here right now, I’d kiss you silly.”

  His deep, mellifluous laugh never failed to warm her and make her feel special. “Always be careful what you say to me, Pamela, even in jest. You are only forty minutes away, and in light traffic I can make it in less time than that.”

  “If you come here tonight I won’t get this proposal written, and my boss is expecting a concrete idea at lunchtime tomorrow.”

  “Yeah? Well, it’s a good thing we both know something about jazz. In everything I do, I think first of the big picture before I think of limiting it to what is possible. I always want to know how far I can fly.”

  She slouched down in the chair, comfortable and happy. “That’s one of the most important clues you’ve given me to who you are. Too bad I have to work on this idea tonight. I would really love to see you.”

  His laugh held no mirth. “Temperance is a learned virtue, and I’m teaching it to myself right now.” He didn’t say anything for a minute, and then asked, “Do you swim?”

  “Like a fish. Why?”

  “We have a big swimming pool out back, so come prepared to enjoy it this weekend. Another thing. Telford is teaching Alexis to shoot pool. If you want to learn that, I’ll teach you.”

  She realized that he was filling time, that he didn’t want to hang up but didn’t have anything really important to tell her, so she played along.

  “I’ve never thought I’d like to shoot pool, but then the first time I saw you, I didn’t think I’d want to…uh… Look, I think I’d better get to work on—”

  “You didn’t think you’d want to do what? Make love with me? Is that what you’re too chicken to say?”

  “Well…uh…look. I had suffered an awful humiliation at the hands of a man chased by half the women on Howard’s campus. He had stunning looks, and I let myself be proud that he chose me from among girls who were beautiful and wealthy. I discovered too late that he didn’t love me as he swore. His only interest was in getting bragging rights for what he called the ‘initiation of the last virgin on Howard’s campus.’ He told so many of my male schoolmates that I considered changing schools. I stayed only because I was an honor student and wanted to graduate with top honors. If I changed schools, that might not have been possible.”

  “Thanks for telling me. You’ve answered a question that I didn’t want to ask. So it took you more than a decade to trust another man that much.” He didn’t phrase it as a question.

  “You could say that. It was your looks that put me off. After being in your company a few times, though, that stopped being a negative factor. I didn’t think about your looks.”

  “Thank God for that. At least you tried to see me for what I am. Children could teach us something about human relations, but as soon as they understand them, they’re no longer honest about them. Tara, my niece, loves me unequivocally. I know her welcome is genuine and without reservation. I—”

  “Your own daughter would love you the same way.”

  After what seemed to her a long pause, he said, “I wonder. I’d have to discipline her. Well, I’ll cross that bridge when I reach it. I’d better let you get to work. Kiss me good-night?”

  She made the sound of a kiss and he returned it. “I love you, girl.”

  “And I love you,” she said, and put the phone back into its cradle.

  Had he terminated the conversation because of her reference to his own daughter? She sucked her teeth and looked toward the ceiling. He’d once gotten ticked off to the point of telling her that if she wanted a baby, he’d give her one. But she didn’t want him or a baby badly enough to handcuff him. She thought about that for a minute, and laughter bubbled up in her. What fun she could have with him if she had him in a position where he couldn’t defend himself! She licked her lips the way a cat licks its whiskers after a satisfying meal.

  She should get to work, she knew, but encounters with Drake—whether in person or by phone—were more likely to stimulate her libido than her intellect. Needing a few minutes to climb down from the sexual hill on which he left her, she telephoned her mother.

  “Hi, Mom. I’ll be down for Daddy’s birthday, but, unless you mind, I’m bringing Drake with me. He wants to come, and I want him to be with me.”

  “Does this mean you two are thinking about a future?”

  “We’ve decided not to date other people and to see if what we feel for each other is good for the long haul.”

  “I’m glad about that, because he impressed me. I know your father thinks a man that good-looking can�
�t be worth anything, but I think Drake gave him a shock. He needed it.”

  She took a deep breath. “Mama, if Daddy is rude to Drake again and without reason, I am not going to forgive him. He’s taught me to be gracious to anyone who is in my home, and look at what he did.”

  “Oh, that won’t happen again. How many times does a sane man stick his hand in a hornet’s nest? Drake Harrington can definitely take care of himself. I liked him a lot, so you bring him with you.”

  “Oh, Mama, talk with him and see what kind of man he is. He’s a wonderful person, and he’s loving and caring, not a bit self-centered.”

  “So you’re in love with him. I have to tell you, I like your taste. Your father just walked in here. Speak with him. Bye now.”

  “Bye, Mom.”

  “When you coming home?”

  She couldn’t help laughing. Whenever she called him, those were always his first words. “Hi, Daddy. Weekend after next, and Drake is coming with me.”

  “Has he popped the question yet?”

  “No, he hasn’t, and I’m not quite ready for it.”

  “Why not? None of these fellas you’ve been wasting time with around here is worth a spit. You find yourself a real man, and you have the nerve to say you’re not ready for him to ask you to marry him? What’s wrong with him? Maybe I should ask what’s wrong with you.”

  She managed to close her mouth after realizing she’d been gaping. “I’m fine, Daddy. Just fine, and I’m glad you liked Drake, because he’s a wonderful man.”

  “If he is, he’s ahead of his time. Wonderful is too strong a word to describe a man his age.”

  “Oh, Daddy. I love you.”

  “Love you, too. I hope the fella wants a family. It’s time I had some grandchildren while I can enjoy them.”

  Maybe it was her night for joy. She let the laughter roll out of her. “I’ll tell him that’s a concern of yours, Daddy.” She didn’t add that if she said that to Drake, he’d probably think it a genetic obsession.