No More Lonely Nights

by Nicole McGehee

  Clay stood up. “Let’s go congratulate him.”

  Dominique kept a tight hold of Clay’s arm, lest she lose him in the throng. On the way to the podium, she introduced him to everyone she knew. And she was proud to see the women’s eyes flicker with surprise when they met him. People’s husbands didn’t usually look this good! she could see them thinking.

  Dominique, too, was the subject of much appreciation, but of a different sort.

  “I don’t know what we’re going to do without you!” was the constant refrain from her co-workers.

  When Dominique introduced Sally Devereaux to Clay, the office manager told him, “Your wife was indispensable. I’ve never seen anyone accomplish so much so efficiently.”

  After Sally moved on, Clay turned to Dominique and said, “They really counted on you around that place, didn’t they?”

  Dominique’s answering smile was effervescent. “You sound surprised. I think you forgot how good I was at my job.”

  Clay gave her a sheepish look. “I guess so.” He heaved a huge, comic sigh. “But all I can say is, I’ll be glad to get my wife back.”

  She stood on tiptoe and kissed Clay lightly on the mouth. “I’ll be glad to take a little rest,” she admitted. She grinned mischievously. “But, you know, they wanted me to stay on. Work in his office here.”

  Clay hesitated a fraction of a second, then he laughed and slung his arm around Dominique’s shoulder. He pulled her close and said, “No more! I’m kidnapping you! It’s my only chance.” He paused. “In fact,” his expression grew playful, “as soon as we say hello to Mark, let’s get out of here. I’d like some time alone with you, for once!”

  BOOK TWO

  CHAPTER 17

  1971

  “I’D LIKE some time alone with you this evening.” Clay was calling Dominique from the office, and his tone was serious. Then, more lightly, he said, “Let’s have dinner at Commander’s, just the two of us.”

  “But your mother’s here and we have to pack for the trip. We won’t have time in the morning. The plane leaves at seven-fifty.”

  Clay laughed easily, dismissing Dominique’s objections. “Have Lucy put together a nice dinner for the girls.” The “girls” meant Solange, Gabrielle, and Lenore, Clay’s mother. “They won’t even care that we’re gone.”

  “Clay”—Dominique scolded him affectionately—“you shouldn’t call grown women ‘girls.’ It’s not very respectful.”

  “You women’s libbers are so militant!” Clay teased.

  Dominique was vaguely irritated, but let the comment slide. She was certainly no militant “women’s libber.” The phrase made her picture a bra-burning radical wearing granny glasses. Nevertheless, she had discovered feminist views with which she agreed, like equal pay for equal work. Clay either mocked her or grew annoyed when she voiced support for such issues. “Men should get paid more because they have families to support!” he’d once declared. Dominique had protested, “When I worked, I needed to!” Clay had smiled victoriously. “Only before we married. Afterward, you were just working because you felt like it. You can’t compare that to a man who’s supporting a wife and kids.” The debate had continued for some time, with neither side conceding. Since then, Dominique avoided the subject unless she felt energetic enough to argue.

  Clay’s voice, distracted, broke into Dominique’s thoughts. “Look, babe, I have to go. Be out front at seven. I’ll drive by and get you.”

  After Dominique hung up, she rejoined Solange and Lenore at the inlaid gaming table. She had never particularly liked cards, but canasta was more fun with three players, so, to be polite, she occasionally played with the older women.

  No sooner had she taken her seat and told them of Clay’s plans for the evening than eleven-year-old Gabrielle dashed into the room.

  “Bye, everyone!” she said breathlessly. She wore a pair of dungarees, a gingham shirt, and sneakers. Under her arm she carried a skateboard.

  Dominique put down her cards and half stood. “Just a minute!” Her tone was commanding, but the love she felt for her daughter came through. When Dominique looked at Gabrielle, her face automatically softened.

  The girl stopped and turned to her mother, her short curls bouncing with the sudden movement. Her face was alive with gamine charm, her up tilted eyes two blue-green sparkles of light.

  “Where are you rushing off to?” Dominique asked with mock severity, sitting back down.

  Gabrielle avoided her mother’s eyes. She glanced first at her grandmother Parker, then at Solange, both of whom sat at the card table with Dominique. “Susie’s house,” she answered guiltily.

  “Have you cleaned up your room and laid out the clothes you want to take?” Dominique persisted.

  Gabrielle widened her eyes. “Al-mo-ost.” In a singsong fashion, she made the word three syllables, inserting a pleading note into the last one.

  Solange and Lenore exchanged glances. The two women got along well. Ever since the death of her husband, Lenore had become a frequent visitor to Clay and Dominique’s home. Solange understood most of what Lenore said to her and Lenore pretended to understand all of Solange’s broken English. Unlike her husband, Lenore had never learned French.

  Both women adored Gabrielle, and they gave the exchange between her and Dominique all the attention of a championship tennis match.

  Now Dominique looked at her wristwatch, then back up at her daughter. “You don’t have time to go to Susie’s today, but you’ll see her first thing in the morning. So go back upstairs and do what I said.”

  Gabrielle cast down her eyes. “Oh-ka-ay,” she said with melodramatic resignation.

  Dominique flashed her an amused look. “You’re a ham!” she said.

  The girl’s woeful expression turned into a giggle as she turned and ran from the room.

  Lenore raised her eyebrows. “Her room looks like a cyclone hit it,” she said primly. “Why doesn’t Myrna help her?”

  Dominique fought the impatience that rose in her. Lenore behaved as though any flaw of Gabrielle’s was surely someone else’s fault. And she was the same about Clay.

  “Because we want Gabrielle to learn responsibility. She’s discovered how much fun it is to have a social life and she’s a little distracted, but she should still pick up after herself.” Dominique’s tone was mild. She would have to spend the next week with her mother-in-law. Clay had arranged for the five of them—plus Gabrielle’s friend Susie—to pass the winter school break in St. John, one of the U.S. Virgin Islands. The holidays were difficult for Lenore since the death of Clay’s father. For the past decade, she had left on the day after Christmas to visit her widowed sister, Ellen, in Palm Springs. Now Ellen was dead, and Lenore seemed fractious and lost.

  Dominique felt sorry for her. Trying to divert the conversation to a cheery subject, she asked, “Are you both finished packing?”

  Lenore spoke first. “Almost. Though I don’t know what we’re going to find in some foreign place that we can’t find here.” She gestured at their surroundings.

  “The water eez beautiful. You weel like,” Solange assured Lenore, with a pat on the hand. This would be her third trip to St. John with the Parkers. Clay liked to rent a villa there and Solange enjoyed her little private pavilion, which connected to the main house via a flower-edged walkway. This year, however, they would stay at a resort, for “their” villa had been unavailable.

  “I know Clay means well,” Lenore continued in a worried tone, “but it’s a terrible waste of money.”

  “He wanted very much to please you,” Dominique said, prickly in defense of her husband. “I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.”

  “I don’t know,” Lenore said skeptically. “All those foreigners…”

  Dominique stared at her. Lenore was xenophobic in the extreme and, in remarking on it, she seemed to forget that Dominique and Solange were of foreign origin, too. Dominique tried not to take the complaint personally. “St. John is a U.S. Virgin Island.”

 
; “You know what I mean!” Lenore said in a pained voice.

  Dominique looked down at her cards. “I have to leave after this hand. I need to dress for dinner.” She looked at Solange. “Would you like Lucy to make you lasagna?”

  Solange nodded absentmindedly. Her attention was focused on her cards. She put down two nines to form a canasta, then gathered it into a pile. She expertly tapped the cards with one hand to make the edges even, then put them beside her other canastas. She casually tossed an extra nine onto the discard pile.

  Lenore wrinkled her brow and drew a card. “You’ll remind Clay to get the extra suitcase from the attic for me, won’t you?” she asked Dominique. She threw down a six.

  “Of course,” Dominique assured her. “We’ll be home early, I’m sure.”

  “It seems odd to go out the night before a big trip,” Lenore said plaintively.

  Dominique sighed and picked up the discard pile, then spent a few seconds arranging the new cards in her hands. She swiftly formed two canastas, put the rest of her cards down, and got up. “I’m out,” she yawned.

  “She always wins,” Lenore said to Solange.

  Solange nodded and laughed.

  Dominique went upstairs to shower and change. When she had finished, she slipped into a chic amber suit, checking her reflection in the mirror. She nodded approvingly, pleased that she was still a size six. Her eyes traveled up to her face and she wondered if she should put on a little makeup, Clay said he preferred a bare face—the natural look that was all the rage. Dominique thought the natural look was better on young girls than on women of thirty-seven. It looked incongruous with the elegant suit. She decided to compromise: a light coat of lipstick and some rouge, but no eye makeup—well, maybe just a touch of mascara.

  Dominique smiled as she thought of Clay. It was nice that he had suggested taking her out to dinner. He must have known that it would be a strain for her to spend her vacation with his mother, her mother, and the two girls. He could be so thoughtful.

  Dominique twisted the lipstick cylinder and put the wand to her lips. Afterward, she studied the effect. Good, she concluded. It seemed to brighten the color of her eyes and hair. She tilted her head and tried to view herself objectively. Thanks to the humid climate of New Orleans, she displayed no more than a few tiny lines around the eyes. And her sharp, strong features looked more at home on the face of a woman in her thirties than one in her twenties. She could probably pass for thirty-three, she decided. Maybe even thirty-two—no, that was pushing it. Thirty-three, then.

  She thought of Clay. He looked much younger than his forty-three years, especially since he had taken up an exercise regimen. Two nights a week, he played squash, and every morning he did sit-ups and push-ups. He had dropped ten pounds, and all their friends commented that he looked like he had dropped five years, too. And there was another side effect: Clay was more interested in sex than he had been in some time. It wasn’t that their sex life had ever been in danger of fading away—not by any means—but it had become a hurried thing, squeezed in between their social obligations. That is, until Clay had begun to get back into shape. Dominique smiled. She was glad there was new life in their marriage. She hadn’t realized how much she was missing until it had been resurrected.

  As Dominique passed Gabrielle’s room on the way downstairs, she paused, then lightly tapped the door with her fingernails.

  “Who’s calling?” Gabrielle’s teasing voice, muffled, came through the door.

  Dominique laughed. “Mrs. Pistachio,” she said, reviving their old game. As a little girl, Gabrielle had become infatuated with certain words, wanting to adopt them as her name.

  The door swung open. Gabrielle stood there holding a pair of shorts. “I can’t decide whether to take these white ones or the ones made out of jeans material.”

  “They’re both nice,” Dominique said, amused at her daughter’s newfound vanity. She was growing up!

  “I just wanted a kiss goodnight,” Dominique said. “You might not be up when we get home.”

  “Okay. The stuff I want to take is over there.” She pointed at a beanbag chair in the corner of the room. Gabrielle had recently asked if she could pick out her own furniture. The pink and white decor of her childhood was too “babyish,” she maintained. Now there was new, modern furniture and psychedelic carpeting. The walls were covered with posters, including one from the 1968 musical Hair. Clay and Dominique had bitten their tongues, assuring themselves that it was good she was showing initiative.

  Dominique looked doubtfully at the pile of clothes on the chair. “That’s a lot! I think your father may have to get your blue suitcase down from the attic.”

  A look of alarm came over Gabrielle’s face. “No, don’t ask him!” she said quickly. “He’ll get all mad…”

  “Don’t be silly, sweetheart,” Dominique countered. “He won’t.”

  Gabrielle hesitated. “Well… don’t ask him anyway.”

  Dominique put her hand under Gabrielle’s chin and looked into her eyes. “Gabrielle, your father loves you very much. He’d do anything for you.”

  “Then why is he always trying to make me different?” Gabrielle burst out. “He wants me to like the stuff he likes and to do everything his way! And he’s never happy. If I get five A’s and a B on my report card, he wants to know why I got the B.” Fear flashed across Gabrielle’s face. “Mom”—she hesitated—“I may get a C in math.”

  So that’s what was bothering her. Dominique’s eyebrows shot up. Gabrielle had never received such a low grade. “Why?” she asked.

  “I can’t do fractions!” Gabrielle moaned. She went to the long desk/ bookshelf combination that dominated one wall, sat down, and picked up a pencil. Nervously, she twirled it on the desk. “Mom… do you have to show Dad my report card?”

  Dominique felt her heart melt in sympathy. She remembered the feeling she had had—still sometimes had—of never being able to please Solange. She realized that Clay imposed the same sort of expectations on Gabrielle.

  Despite her sympathy, however, Dominique and Clay had agreed to always present a united front to Gabrielle in terms of discipline and expectations. “Gabrielle, your father has to see your report card.” Dominique’s voice was kind but firm. “In any event, he knows it’s due. He’ll ask about it.”

  Gabrielle’s expression was worried. “What do you think he’ll do when he sees the C? Will he make me go to summer school?” Gabrielle had been invited by Susie’s family to accompany them on a camping trip that summer. She had whooped with joy when Clay had given her permission to go.

  Dominique sat on the edge of the bed so that her eyes were level with Gabrielle’s. “Darling, you may not be learning what you need to.”

  “But why do I need math in real life?”

  Dominique smiled. “You know better than that.” She paused. “Besides, you’re always saying you want to be a vet. If you want to do something like that, you need to learn math and science.”

  “Then I’ll be a movie star,” Gabrielle said ruefully.

  Dominique couldn’t help laughing. “You’re too young to know exactly what you want to do, but it’s important to learn math now, so you’ll understand it when you get to junior high.” Her expression became grave. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “Mom, I’ll try to do better, but I’ll die if I don’t get to go with Susie this summer!”

  Dominique leaned forward and put a steadying hand on Gabrielle’s leg. “I’ll talk to your father about the trip. I’m sure we can think of a way to get your grades up without canceling it.”

  Gabrielle brow fretted with doubt. “Okay,… let’s hope so.”

  “Did you get reservations at Commander’s Palace?” Dominique asked Clay in happy anticipation as she slid into his Cadillac. The scent of new leather was still strong: Clay never kept his cars more than two years.

  Clay smiled. “Sure did.”

  “Wonderful!” Dominique said. The hundred-year-old restaurant was one
of the most popular spots in town; noisy and festive.

  She gave her husband a sidelong glance, recalling her thoughts earlier in the evening. “You look handsome,” she told him softly. She wondered if he would want to make love later. She hoped so.

  Clay briefly looked away from the road, then back again. “You look great, too,” he said heartily. Then, he turned and gazed at her more lingeringly. “I love you, Dominique,” he said seriously.

  Dominique’s heart melted. “I love you, too, darling.” She touched his arm, then snuggled into her seat with a sense of well-being.

  Once at Commander’s, they were led to a small crimson dining room furnished with tufted Victorian chairs.

  “Cocktail?” Clay asked Dominique.

  Dominique patted her stomach. “No, thanks.” She was determined to keep her figure, especially now that Clay looked so fit.

  “C’mon, I don’t want to drink alone.” Clay smiled persuasively. “How about a Ramos gin fizz?”

  Dominique dimpled. “I guess it won’t hurt just this once.”

  Clay grinned and nodded his approval.

  A few moments later, the drinks were in front of them.

  Clay held up his glass. “Cheers.” He took a sip without waiting for Dominique’s response.

  Dominique savored the scent of orange blossoms as she brought the frothy white cocktail to her lips. “Mmmm, I haven’t had anything this good since we took that trip to San Francisco.”

  “Speaking of trips,” Clay said, “are we all packed?”

  “Almost,” Dominique said with an air of accomplishment. “Lenore needs the extra suitcase from the attic, and I’ll have to check on Gabrielle when we get home.”

  The waiter brought their menus. As Dominique started to open hers, Clay said, “I’d like to talk to you for a moment before we order.”

  Dominique looked up at him, curious. She closed her menu and laid it down.

  “Dominique…” he uttered, then stopped. He pulled at his collar as though his tie were too tight.

  Dominique’s puzzled look turned to one of exasperation. Was he going to tell her that he couldn’t make the trip after all? Over the years, he had canceled so many family trips! There was always a business emergency. “Is it work?” Dominique asked, her jaw tightening with annoyance.