She sat facing him. “About Susan?”
“About my father.”
“If . . . if it’s not pleasant, I don’t want to hear it,” she said clutching her stomach.
“It’s got to be pleasant, considering how he’s been acting,” Willis said.
Lucas lowered his eyelids, picturing in his mind’s eye the events as they had unfolded. He began with Marcie’s failure to greet him that morning, and told her how he felt when he hugged his father and of Calvin’s tears. He omitted nothing that happened in Calvin Jackson’s house from that time to the point when Calvin said, “Tell her I love her, and that I’m sorry I wasted so much of her life and mine, years we should’ve lived together.” He didn’t mention their discussion of Susan.
Noreen’s sobbing brought him back to the present, and he opened his eyes to see that Willis sat on the arm of her chair with his arms around her. “Don’t cry, Mama,” Lucas said. “I wish now that I hadn’t interfered, that I’d let Willis take you to the hospital to see him, and I told Dad that. He knows you love him and that you wanted to be with him.”
“Thank you so much for that,” she whispered. “Wh-what about Marcie?”
He told the truth. “I don’t know, Mom. There is absolutely nothing between them, and hasn’t been for years, over thirty-five of them, I suspect. I’m out of it now. Whatever happens between you two is your business.”
“Did you tell Calvin that?”
“I didn’t have to. I told him you loved him, and that was in response to his saying to me that he was so hungry for news of you. When I told him that, he knew that I was moving out of the way.” He looked at her. “You don’t know how wonderful it made me feel to know that he always loved me because he loved you so much, that I was conceived in love.”
“You were. Oh, you were.”
“What will you do, Aunt Noreen?”
“I don’t know. I long to see him but, well, as Lucas has reminded me many times, he’s still married.”
“Yeah,” Willis said, “but in name only.”
“I forgot to . . . no, I neglected to tell you, Mama, that Nana told me she wants to meet you. Next time Willis and I go down there, I’d like you to go with us.”
“Oh, I’d love that. I want to meet her, too.”
“I can’t stay too late, Mama, I have a stop to make.”
“I’m so glad you finally have a real relationship with Calvin. He needed you in his life, and I—”
“That’s over, Mama. Come on, Willis. Man, I’ve got some fish to fry.”
“Give my love to Susan,” Noreen said.
Lucas hugged her. “You must be hallucinating. I’ll call you.”
Susan told Lucas good night and hung up. Learning details of his parents’ great but tragic love had brought about a change in him, barely evident, but a difference nonetheless. It seemed to have strengthened his confidence in his ability to nourish a relationship, but she didn’t plan to let him drag her into the misery that she foresaw. He longed for a family—he’d hinted as much during their conversation that evening—and she could not give him one. She finished ironing Anne Price’s laundry, mended Rudy’s jeans, and sat down to watch television.
“What am I thinking?” She jumped up, got her address book and telephoned Mark, her lawyer. “Hello, Mark,” she said when he answered the telephone. “I went to the agency and inquired about my application to adopt Rudy, and the case worker told me she’d check whether my work as a volunteer for the school board could be used as an employment reference. Said she’d call me the next day. That was three weeks ago. Rudy is temporarily with a woman who is sick and has the care of her four grandchildren, in addition to Rudy. The people at that agency are not doing their job.”
“I agree, and I’ll call them on it even if I have to take the case to family court. Give me ten days, and I’ll have it settled.”
Susan left work shortly after three o’clock the next day and drove to the temporary box office in Pine Tree Park to buy tickets for the summer concerts that would be held there. The box office closed at four. Clutching her tickets proudly, she sat down on one of the park benches to put them in a compartment in her pocketbook.
“Mind if I join you? I walked from my atelier, and I’m pooped,” Jay Weeks said. “This is a hot day. How’s the business coming? I heard you decorated Enid Jackson’s summer place over on the Outer Banks. Is that so?”
“Yes. I did it a few weeks back.”
“She asked me last year, but I flatly refused. I can’t stand the woman. She’s got the tongue of a viper. She’s already had the damned place redecorated twice. But . . . if that’s what floats your boat . . .” He let it hang.
Susan couldn’t decide whether to answer him or simply get up and leave. She did not believe Enid had asked Jay to decorate her house or that redecorating had been on Enid’s mind until she saw pictures of Jessica Burton’s house in Architectural Design magazine. Enid was a copycat and unlikely to step out in front of the crowd.
“I’d better be going, Jay. I’m way behind.”
“What do you expect? You grab every job offer, people know you can be had, and you don’t have time to lead a normal life. That kind of greediness has been the death of a lot of people. You can’t take the money with you, toots, ’cause there ain’t no pockets in shrouds. See you around.”
She stared at his back. The man had deliberately halted her departure so that he could leave her sitting there. Something about Jay Weeks made her mad enough to chew glass.
The next evening, armed with a picnic basket containing smoked salmon sandwiches, cheesecake, grapes, spring water and a bottle of white wine, Susan strolled into the concert tent and sat on a fourth-row bench. The early June breeze wafted through the open tent, and she let herself enjoy it and the sound of musicians offstage tuning their instruments. She had arrived early in order to get a good seat, but she soon realized that, unlike New Yorkers, the local people didn’t rush to a concert and were as likely as not to arrive late. The tent’s canvas top rattled as the wind seemed to gather velocity, and she thought that a storm might be imminent. Never having experienced a southern storm, she feared the worst.
“Hi. I hadn’t thought I’d see you here.” She looked up to see Lucas accompanied by her lawyer, Mark Harris, and his wife. “Mind if we sit with you?”
“By all means, have a seat,” she said. “I’m glad to see you all.”
When Lucas’s eyebrows shot up, she knew he took exception to sharing her greeting with his companions. To placate him, she asked, “Did you bring your supper, Lucas?”
“I didn’t have a picnic basket, so I figured I’d leave when I got hungry. Did you bring enough for two?”
“If you eat part of mine,” she said, attempting to be friendly in an impersonal way. “It’ll be an appetizer for us both, and I’ll have to eat dinner later.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she recognized them as a request for an invitation to eat dinner with him.
“I’m not dressed for Pinky’s,” he said, “but how about Sam’s?” At her lengthy silence, Mark watched them closely.
“Come on, Susan, don’t let the poor guy eat alone.”
“I’m outnumbered,” she said as the lights dimmed and the conductor walked onstage.
Susan closed her eyes and enjoyed the rare performance of Duke Ellington’s sacred music, commissioned by the dean of Grace Cathedral Church in San Francisco a few years before Ellington died in 1974. Lucas’s hand slipped beneath hers and tightened around it, but she wouldn’t let herself look at him.
At the intermission, he said, “Any wine in that basket?”
She put the basket between them. “Help yourself.”
“This basket’s almost big enough to be a bassinet,” he said, devouring a smoked salmon sandwich. “Now, if—” She tuned him out. He put a hand on her arm and shook her gently. “Where’d you go?”
“What do you mean?” she asked him, grateful that the members of the orchestra were returning to
their seats, tuning their instruments and giving her an excuse not to answer him.
“I assume you drove,” he said at the concert’s end.
“Yes. I parked right at the corner of Parkway and Glade Streets.”
He gazed down at her, his eyes telegraphing what she didn’t want to see or hear. “That’s less than a short block from my house. Want to go home with me and let’s call out for some real food?”
“That . . . uh . . . sounds great,” she said, fumbling for words, “but my head hurts so badly that I think I’d better go home and crawl into bed.”
She thought she would shrivel beneath his intense and accusing stare. “Whatever you say. I hope you improve.”
She thanked him, told the Harris couple good night, and headed for her car, grateful that the wind had subsided and the stars occupied their usual places in the sky. Lucas was either angry, hurt or both, so she knew he wouldn’t follow her. She couldn’t help it. It was as if her life was at stake. He didn’t telephone her that night, and she had known that he wouldn’t. Her picnic basket brought to his mind the image of a bassinet. Lately, he alluded often to the prospect of his being a father, but when she’d looked down at that basket, she saw an emptiness so vast that she nearly cried out. She had to get him out of her system and out of her life.
As she was preparing for bed, her mother called. “Honey, I’m coming home for a couple of weeks. They’re telling me I have to take a vacation. Can I bunk with you?”
“Of course you can, Mom. This is wonderful. When are you coming?”
“Sunday, the tenth. I’ll e-mail you my itinerary. If you have anything planned, go on with it. I know how to get a taxi. After five years in this place, I could flag down a camel.”
“Thank heaven you still have your sense of humor. I can’t wait for you to get here.”
A more practical woman than Betty Lou Pettiford probably hadn’t been born, so she’d better watch it. Her mother would adore Lucas, and she would go to great lengths to mend their relationship and make it permanent.
Chapter Thirteen
Lucas went home, ordered a pizza and a green salad from Sam’s, changed into Bermuda shorts and sneakers and ate his supper on the deck of his house, occasionally washing the food down with Pilsner beer. He’d give anything to know what he said or did that caused Susan to withdraw so completely and abruptly. He refused to believe she had a manic-depressive personality. If he could just get a finger on it.... He swallowed the last of his beer, threw the bottle into the recycle bin and went inside.
“I’m not calling her tonight. I might aggravate her sudden headache,” he said aloud in a voice that sneered.
The next day, giving himself time to cool off from Susan’s slight, he avoided Hamilton Village I, where he knew she would be working. Instead, he made an unplanned inspection of an office building in Woodmore that he’d recently learned belonged to Jackson Enterprises. Pleased with what he found, he telephoned Landon, chief of the real estate unit—he had fired Logan several weeks earlier—and congratulated him.
“The building looks great, but I think we ought to replace those vending machines and spruce up that lounge in the basement.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. I’ll get on that right away.” That was what he liked to hear.
He went to his office and opened his mail. Another fundraiser. Why can’t I just send a check? But that’s not good enough. They want me as well as my check. Well, it’s for handicapped children, so I shouldn’t complain. But why do I have to wear a blasted tux?
He saw her the minute he entered the grand ballroom of the Scott Key Hotel, and if he didn’t watch himself, he’d pant. What a siren she was in a one-strap, floor-length melon-red gown that hugged her body—a body he knew well. His libido kicked into high gear.
“Hello, Susan.”
She swung around, a little off balance, as if he’d startled her, but she immediately became the essence of poise. “Hello, Lucas.” And he didn’t doubt that she liked what she saw.
“You’re lovely tonight, as always,” he said.
“Thanks. You’re a knock-out,” she breathed as if being able to express her feeling afforded her immeasurable relief.
He hadn’t known what she thought of his looks, and he did a little inner preening. “Thank you, Susan. We seem to have some more interests in common—concerts, the Girl Scouts, the children’s repertory theater. You’d think we’d be able to get together.”
“Life is rarely logical, Lucas.”
“Feel like a drink and a snack later?” he asked her. “Unless you’re with a date.”
“I didn’t come with anyone. Tongues will wag, but I’d rather have come alone than with a man whose company I didn’t relish merely to satisfy convention. I’m sick of that.”
He decided to shake her up a bit. “You could have asked me.”
She didn’t give in. “I know. But I didn’t.”
“Can we meet right here at, say, nine-thirty?”
She seemed to mull over the idea, and then she smiled. “All right. My watch says eight-twenty-three. See you later.”
As she walked away, it hit him. Children! Rudy, Nathan, the tutoring, the Girl Scout Fundraiser, the Repertory Theater and this. But there had to be something else. He leaned against the doorjamb. Bassinet! He’d said her picnic basket resembled one, and sometime back, he’d boasted that he’d be a good father. She clammed up each time. But what lay behind it? Did she try to get pregnant the first time they made love and fail?
Nine-thirty couldn’t come fast enough. They went to The Watering Hole and, for the first time in his life, he felt like getting stoned. “What am I doing?” he asked himself. “I love this beautiful witch sitting in front of me.”
“Are you drinking tonight?” Susan asked when he ordered the second margarita.
Instead of responding to her query, he dealt with the question that burned in his own mind. “Why did you invite me to your apartment for the sole purpose of getting laid?” he asked her as anger rose up in him. “Any man would have done that for a beautiful woman like you. I deserve the truth, and I want it.” He emptied the drink down his throat.
“I like you better when you’re drinking lemonade,” she said. “Please excuse me.”
He stood and had to fight himself in order to keep his hands off her. “You’re excused, madam!” He sat down, finished his drink and ordered another one. “Damn her!”
“What’s with you, man?”
He looked up into Willis’s anxious face. “Of all the women I could have fallen for—”
Willis interrupted him. “You mean Susan? What’s wrong with her? She’s perfect for you, man.”
He drained his third drink. “A hell of a lot you know. Miss Pettiford doesn’t want me. She wants single motherhood.”
“That was a low blow, but maybe I asked for it,” Susan said to herself as she walked into her house. She never would have believed he’d say something like that to her.
She met her mother at the airport the following Saturday morning. “My, but you look wonderful,” her mother said when they met. “I hope we don’t have far to go, because I’m a wreck and I’m dying to fall into a bed.”
Susan went into her mother’s arms, the haven that never failed to comfort her. “You look good, too, Mom, though you’re three shades darker. You remember Aunt Edith’s house, don’t you?”
“Sure do.” Betty Lou leaned back, rested her head against the headrest and was soon asleep.
“I have to attend a reception this afternoon, Mom,” Susan told her mother when they reached her home. “A client is showing the house I decorated for her, but you don’t have to go.”
“What do you mean, ‘I don’t’? I want to see your work. Will a long-sleeved peach chiffon do?”
“Absolutely. Now get some rest.”
They arrived at Enid’s house a few minutes after five, and the reception had already become noisy and crowded.
“My goodness!” Susan said minutes
after introducing Enid to her mother. “That man must be Lucas’s father. I’ve never seen such a resemblance, and right down to height and bearing.”
She saw Enid take the man’s hand and walk toward her. “Papa, this is my wonderful decorator, Susan Pettiford. Susan, this is Calvin Jackson.” Susan introduced her mother to Lucas’s father as if she’d never heard of him or of his son.
What a figure of a man he must have been in his youth, she thought. He handed her his card. “Your work is wonderful, really commendable. You have very good taste,” he said. “I may need your services, so please remember that you met me.”
Forgetting him would not be possible, but she didn’t tell him that. “Thank you, sir.” She shook her head in wonder: this was proof positive of the power of genes to mold a person. They even walked with the same lilting stride.
When she caught her mother checking out Calvin Jackson’s assets, Susan experienced momentary alarm. “Don’t even think it, Mom. Don’t go anywhere near there. He’s completely taken. Besides, I’m in love with his son, and he’s in love with his son’s mother, who he never married because he’s married to someone else.”
Betty Lou blinked several times in rapid succession. “What? Run that one by me again.”
“You heard me correctly, Mom. Enid doesn’t know about me and her half brother and neither does Calvin Jackson.”
Betty Lou rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “How do you know what his son may have told him? This is a bigger pile of manure than the one I left in Nigeria. Why haven’t you met the father of the man you’re in love with?”
“Because we haven’t committed to each other, and we won’t. Let’s drop this right here.”
“Hmmm. Whatever you say.” But Susan knew she’d hear more on the subject.
When Susan left home Monday morning to go to her shop, her mother still slept. She waved at Cassie as she backed out of her garage, and when Cassie walked out to the street, Susan knew that her friend wanted to tell her something.
Getting Some Of Her Own Page 26