Against All Odds (Arabesque)

by Gwynne Forster

  She pushed her chair back and braced her palms against her desk. Horror gripped her at the depth of disappointment in his eyes. “You’re wrong, Adam,” she said in a strong voice, but one that held such sadness that she barely recognized it as her own.

  He didn’t give quarter. “Oh, no, I’m not. I saw you there last night. The three of you got your wires crossed, didn’t you? Your other partner, whoever he was, drove up right after you left and waited a full thirty minutes for you. Did they meet at your house later? Is that why you didn’t answer your door and ignored your telephone?”

  She wouldn’t have believed that she could endure such pain. She took a deep breath and told the man she loved—the man who still leaned toward her, his anger less apparent now and his face warped with sadness—that she’d done nothing for which she felt ashamed and that if he believed her guilty of so heinous a crime, nothing she said in her defense would matter.

  Melissa sat tongue-tied, stunned, while he walked out of her office without another word, leaving the door ajar. Her glance fell upon the framed portrait reproductions that hung on her office walls, and she winced as every eye seemed to accuse her. None of them would have tolerated such an unfounded accusation without a history-making defense. Frederick Douglass wouldn’t have, nor would Sojourner Truth, Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King, Jr., or Eleanor Roosevelt.

  She’d heard that a thin line often separated love and hatred and took some solace in knowing that Adam could not have expressed such bitterness, such disillusionment, had he not cared deeply. He would discover the truth, she hoped, but in her present mood, she didn’t give a snap what he found out about that factory.

  She reviewed events of the night before and wondered whether she should have told Adam. She buzzed her secretary with the intention of asking her to dial her New York office, but to her amazement her mother walked into the room. Emily had visited her at home once, but had not come to the office. She was about to tell her mother of Adam’s accusations, but Emily Grant had her own agenda.

  “You don’t know it,” she began, “but for the past few weeks, I’ve been volunteering four hours a day at The Refuge. That’s the shelter for abused women and children that Adam operates over on Oak Street,” she rushed on, as though oblivious to her daughter’s air of incredulity. Melissa ushered her to a chair.

  “Sit down, and tell me what you’re talking about.” Still trying to adjust to the effects of her earlier episode with Adam, she all but reeled under the impact of her mother’s words.

  “I’m talking about your father found out that I’ve been volunteering at Adam’s charity, and he packed his personal things and moved out of the house.”

  “He what?” Melissa reached for the corner of her desk to steady herself. She’d had about as much as she could handle for one morning. First, Adam’s rage, and now this. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. He raved at me for two hours last night, and when I got downstairs this morning, he’d already packed two bags and put them in the foyer. He said he’s moving into an apartment.”

  “Oh, Mama, I’m so sorry.” She watched in awe as her mother tossed her handbag into a chair, jerked off her coat, braced her hands on her hips, and stood akimbo.

  “I don’t want anybody’s sympathy. I don’t need it,” Emily told her. “I want a divorce, and I’m going to get it. I’ve spent over half of my life letting people walk over me, behaving like a nincompoop.” Her pacing increased in speed. “That’s my house, and I’m the one with the prestige and the clout in this town, and it’s time I acted like it.”

  Melissa advanced toward her mother as though reluctant to disturb her. “Mama, why don’t you sit down while I run to the machine and get you some tea.” She blanched from her mother’s withering look.

  “I forgot to add, honey, that I’m not going to let anybody patronize me and that includes you, much as I love you. Your father’s done me a favor, and I’m getting out from under his heel. He walked out of the door grumbling that the whole thing was a Hayes-Roundtree conspiracy, that they inveigled me into working at The Refuge just to humiliate him. To hear him tell it, they’re the reason his party didn’t nominate him for mayor, then for congress, and finally passed over him for governor. Damned if I’d admit anybody was that powerful.”

  “Mama!”

  “What’s the matter?” Emily asked her. “Didn’t you ever stop to wonder where you got your spunk? You didn’t think you got it from your father, did you?”

  “I can’t believe Daddy left you. He’s always so concerned about what people think.”

  Emily shrugged with apparent disdain. “It isn’t the first time. He left me once before, and you were born while we were separated. I think it’s the reason he always treated you as though you were his stepchild, rather than his own blood daughter. I thought that after you grew to look so much like him, he’d behave differently, but you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” She reached for her coat. “Well, I thought you should know, and tonight I’ll call Schyler and tell him. We’ll talk this evening. I’ve got an appointment with my lawyer in twenty minutes.”

  Melissa watched her mother swish out of the door, plopped down in the nearest chair, and expelled a long breath. What next?

  “I might as well get this over with,” Melissa told herself, dialing her father’s office number. She identified herself, and it annoyed her that his secretary nevertheless asked him whether he’d care to take the phone.

  “I suppose you and your mother have been talking,” he said by way of a greeting. “I can’t stand any more of their humiliating tactics, Melissa, and I won’t live with a woman who’s in their pay.” Melissa attempted to explain that her mother volunteered at The Refuge and received no pay.

  “I don’t expect you to understand,” he said. “You’re having an affair with him, and she’s working for him. A man can take just so much. Both of you seem to have forgotten that those people stole your birthright. Old Jacob Hayes bilked your grandfather, and you’re consorting with his rich descendants. I’m ashamed of both of you.” He hung up.

  * * *

  Tired of the tale and the excuse it provided, she decided the time had come to face him down. She drove to his office building, went in, and started past his secretary.

  “You can’t walk in there,” the woman hissed. “Visitors have to be announced.”

  “I don’t need your permission to see my father,” Melissa replied, still miffed at the way in which the secretary had treated an earlier phone call. She opened his door, and he glanced up, then continued writing. She hated that his refusal to acknowledge her presence drained her of her anger. She attempted to reason with him.

  “Daddy, why do you hold on to that myth? You know it isn’t true. You know my grandfather withdrew his money from that venture and nearly ruined Adam’s grandfather. Anyway, it isn’t your feud, it’s Mama’s, and she dropped it years ago.”

  “How dare you speak to me about that?” She didn’t ask him what he meant, but assumed he referred to her mother’s broken engagement and shifted the subject to a more pressing concern.

  “You know how Timmy got shot and who did it, don’t you Daddy? And you know the Roundtrees had nothing to do with it, don’t you?” She ignored his sputter and said what she should have said days earlier. “I told you Adam was with me that night. Well, if you accuse me publicly, I’ll tell the town of Frederick where we were.”

  She heard the sadness in her father’s voice and saw the grimness that lined his face, but she couldn’t let that sway her. He had no interest in upholding the truth, only in besting the Roundtrees and Hayeses.

  “I never thought I’d live to see the day one of my children would take sides with those people against me,” he told her in the weary voice of one facing defeat. “Why do you defend him? He’s nothing to us.”

  “You’re mistaken, Daddy,” she told him, her voice strong and sure. “Adam Roundtree is my life, and if you force him to go to court, I’ll stand wi
th him.” What had she said? She stood looking at the man for whose love and approval she had begged most of her life and felt as though she had suddenly flown free of him. He—a lawyer sworn to uphold the law—would ruin a man’s reputation in order to shield his nephew from what she was certain involved some kind of crime. He didn’t deserve her blind devotion. Perhaps no one deserved that.

  Rafer Grant stared at his daughter. “Just like your mother. Hot after the Hayeses.” He picked up his pen and returned to his writing. “Well, both of you can have them.” She stood there long after he’d dismissed her, giving him a

  chance to soften his blow, but he continued to ignore her. She left, thinking him a lonely man.

  * * *

  Adam despaired of getting any work done, and for the remainder of the morning, roamed around in his office shuffling in his mind his unsatisfactory conversation with Melissa. She hadn’t attempted to defend herself, and he had seen the honesty in her shock and outrage at his accusation. He couldn’t imagine why she would drive out to the factory alone on successive nights if not to meet someone. And she had met someone. Yet when he’d confronted her with it, she’d withheld information that he needed. He slapped his right fist into the palm of his left hand. Alright, so he’d gone about it wrong; he’d accused her. He’d try another tactic.

  When he walked into Melissa’s office early that afternoon, Adam brushed past Magnus Cooper as he left. Angered beyond reason, he skipped the greeting and demanded, “What’s he doing here?”

  “We have a contract. Remember? I’ve just found a ranch manager for him.” Relieved that she ignored both his temper and his audacity, he said in a more even tone, “I thought you made it a policy to take the employees to the new boss, but at least you avoided that long trip to Houston.”

  “Magnus thinks I ought to have an office in the capital of every state. He wants to invest in my business.”

  Adam tried to shake off his annoyance at her use of the man’s first name. “And what do you think?”

  “He’s impressed with my work, and he made a good case for a bigger operation,” she said, letting the words come out slowly as if to keep him dangling.

  “And?” She squinted at him and, in spite of himself, he softened toward her.

  She shrugged. “Then he or somebody else would own my business. I said no thanks. He was very disappointed.”

  Adam blew out a deep sigh. “I’ll just bet he was—he won’t have an excuse to come up here to see you.” He ignored her silent censure. “He may fool you with his trumped-up reasons for hanging around you, but he isn’t fooling himself and definitely not me.” He noticed that her voice lacked its usual verve and color and told himself to lighten up.

  “Am I interrupting something private?” Banks asked, surprising them since neither had heard her approach. “Your secretary must have stepped out,” she explained to Melissa. “Bessie called me. She just got in a load of stuff at Yesteryear, and if we get down there this afternoon, we can have our pick before she does her Christmas ads.” She must have noticed their preoccupation, Adam decided, when she exclaimed, “Oops! See you later,” and ducked out of the door.

  “Melissa, we have to talk, but not here. We need to speak openly and honestly with each other, and we need privacy for that. Can we get together this evening?” He suspected from her deep breath and the way in which her fingers had begun to drum her desk that she intended to refuse.

  “I’m not about to let you harass me the way you did this morning, so whatever you have to say, you may say now.”

  “Fine. Lock your door.” She stood and moved toward it but stopped when he said, “Not even your friend, Banks, would resist broadcasting the fact that you locked the door with only the two of us in here.”

  He had the advantage, but that didn’t mean he’d keep it. “Well?” He persisted, standing to leave.

  “Alright, Adam,” she said, with obvious reluctance. “I’ll be home around eight tonight.” But at seven o’clock that evening she called him, canceled their date, and refused to give an excuse.

  “I can’t see you tonight.”

  “That’s it? No reason?”

  “That’s it.”

  * * *

  Melissa hung up, threw off her robe, and crawled into bed. She had no appetite and hadn’t bothered to eat dinner. The day’s happenings crowded her thoughts. Her mother had filed for a divorce, and her unrepentant father pouted somewhere, sad and alone. She’d telephoned her brother, thousands of miles away in Kenya, in an effort to understand how it could have happened. His summation had astonished her.

  “I used to wish they’d split up, because I didn’t know which one of them to sympathize with, and they both needed it. Maybe they’ll salvage the rest of their lives. I hope so.”

  The day’s events had undermined her sense of identity, and she lacked the strength to endure another of Adam’s interrogations. Tangling with him that morning had left her raw, and after that, the dam had burst. If she could have expected him to greet her with love and understanding, she’d have run to him. But he wouldn’t come prepared to meet her needs, only to wring from her what he required for his own peace of mind. No. She couldn’t see him.

  * * *

  Adam rose from his bed and stared out at the still dark morning. He had to see Melissa, to arrive at an understanding with her and to find out what she knew about the incidents at Leather and Hides. Although he’d seen her there and witnessed what appeared to be her collusion with people intent on destroying his property, he didn’t want to believe her capable of it. Yet what was he to think? Why hadn’t she defended herself? He dressed in woolen pants, a long-sleeved knitted T-shirt, crew-neck sweater, and leather jacket and drove into Frederick. He parked four blocks from Melissa’s house in order to thwart the local gossipmongers and strode briskly through the darkness to her front door. She probably wouldn’t appreciate a visit at seven o’clock in the morning, but if her night had been as rough as his, at least he wouldn’t awaken her.

  She answered after several rings, and he wondered why she seemed relieved to see him.

  “You could have been someone intent on mischief,” she explained in response to his question.

  He didn’t wait for her invitation to enter, and once inside surprised himself by asking, “What about Magnus Cooper?” He hadn’t realized that her relationship with the man bothered him that much.

  She tightened her robe, walked into the living room, and sat on the sofa. “Where is it written, Adam, that I have to explain my behavior to you?” He wished she wouldn’t squint—every time he saw her do it, she all but unraveled him. He pulled off his jacket and tossed it near her on the sofa.

  “It is written in the tomes of common decency, Melissa. You’ve been in my arms, and I’ve been inside of you. That gives me some rights.”

  She sucked her teeth and waved her hand as though to say, Don’t fool yourself.

  Adam took a chair opposite her. “Let’s not bicker. The problem at the factory is getting out of hand, and if I don’t find out who is responsible, we may lose it. Who did you follow there? And who shot Timothy, Melissa? Tell me what you know. It if weren’t for you, I’d go to the FBI about this, but I’ll level with you. My list of suspects includes three members of your family. Tell me you’re not involved, and I’ll believe you.”

  “If you need my verbal assurance, there’s no point in my giving it.”

  He saw her lips quiver and her composure falter as she fought tears, and he told himself he wouldn’t let her tears influence him, but he couldn’t remain unmoved by the sight of water glistening in her eyes.

  “What is it? Don’t. I don’t want to cause you pain.” He’d never seen her cry, never seen her lacking the calm assurance that defined her character. Alarmed, he stepped to her and put his arms around her. “What is it?” he whispered, bending to hear her broken words.

  “My family’s falling apart. My father has left my mother, moved out of their house with all of his personal
belongings, and Mama’s actually happy that he’s gone. She retaliated by filing for a divorce. Schyler stays as far away from our parents as he can get, because he can’t stand to see them live out their farce, making the best of their painful marriage. And Daddy attributes every misfortune he’s ever had to the Hayes and Roundtrees. No matter how remote the issue, if it didn’t go his way, he holds your family responsible. He’s a failed man, Adam. He wanted to play football but couldn’t make the varsity. He wanted my mother, but although she married him, in her heart she belonged only to Bill Henry Hayes. And he wanted a career as a politician, but he lost the most celebrated legal case this region’s ever witnessed, one that he should have won, but for his own inefficiency. After that, he could never win his party’s support.”

  Adam eased her out of his arms. The time had come—he’d known it would. But he hadn’t expected that he would have to confess responsibility for something that weighed so heavily on her and to do it at a time when she needed his strength. And at a time when he questioned her role in the attempted ruination of his family. With his hands lightly on her shoulders, he urged her to sit.

  “I have to tell you something, Melissa—something I’ve postponed mentioning because I didn’t know how to broach it to you.” He stopped talking and thought for a minute, aware that she didn’t press him to continue though she scrutinized his every gesture. “That isn’t quite accurate,” he amended. “The truth is, I knew I should have told you the first time I took you to my lodge, but I wasn’t ready to take the risk that you wouldn’t forgive me. I’m not ready for that now, either, but I don’t have a choice. When I was sixteen, I found a lawyer’s briefcase that contained court papers in the men’s room at a local restaurant, but I noticed that it belonged to Rafer Grant, and in an act of vengeance I left them there without telling Rafer about them. I hadn’t cared what the next finder did with them.” He paused, his voice softening as though in regret. “I later learned that the brief pertained to the defense of a prominent person, and that because he didn’t have the papers, Rafer’s summary to the jury had been sloppy and ineffectual. He lost the case.”