by Neta Jackson
A middle-aged guy with a shock of uncombed hair packed up his computer, stuffed it in a messenger bag, and vacated a tiny table by the opposite window. I zipped over and claimed the space, swiping crumbs off the table with a napkin he’d left.
I sipped my latte, letting the creamy cold coffee soothe my nerves. Philip’s black Lexus slowed outside just as an El train rattled into the station overhead, unloaded and loaded, and pulled out again. New customers fresh off the train trailed in. The Lexus disappeared from sight . . . but a few minutes later Philip pushed open the door and walked in.
Several heads turned as he entered. The glances of the females lingered. Couldn’t blame them. Even at forty-one, Philip Fairbanks had movie-star good looks. Tall and slender, his dark hair and tan skin complemented the pale green dress shirt he wore with an open collar, topping a neat pair of black slacks and black loafers.
Two twentysomethings at a nearby table wearing Gap-inspired wrinkle-look tops, short skirts, and flip-flops gave each other gosh-darn-it looks when Philip headed for my table and sat down across from me. For a nanosecond, a smug smile tugged at the corner of my mouth—that age-old rivalry when The Man chooses The Alpha Woman over the other females in the herd. I’d dressed carefully—white slacks, russet cotton top that complemented my reddish-gold auburn hair, russet-colored beaded earrings that dangled, and gold strap sandals. But reality snuffed out the smug smile. If they only knew. I had to stifle the urge to toss out, “You want him? You can have him! ”
“Thanks for meeting me, Gabrielle.” Philip took off his wraparound sunglasses and slipped them into his shirt pocket.
How did we start this talk anyway? “Do you want to get a coffee? Something to drink?”
He shook his head. “I’m fine. Everything okay with the boys this week? Do they have everything they need to start school?”
Okay, safe start. Talk about the boys. “Pretty much. They still need backpacks. Might need some sports equipment, depending on what they sign up for. And winter coats and boots when the time comes.”
“Okay.”
“Okay what? Are you offering to get that stuff for the boys?”
“Yeah, yeah, sure.”
I wanted to say, “See? We should have met with our lawyers to iron out all the child support stuff, get it down on paper.” But I sipped my iced latte to keep from filling up space with empty chatter.
“I—” Philip glanced out the window a moment, then back at me. “I know this might sound phony after everything that’s happened, but I really am sorry about your mother, Gabrielle. Sorry she died staying in a shelter. I, uh . . .” He cleared his throat. “At the time, I thought it’d be better for everyone if she had her own place, a retirement home or something. Didn’t think you’d put her in the shelter. It’s just . . . everything felt out of control— summer plans for the boys falling through, losing an important client at work, the house suddenly crowded . . .”
I didn’t trust myself to speak. What was he saying? Was he apologizing for kicking my mother out? Not really. Sorry things worked out the way they did? I was supposed to feel sorry for him because things felt out of control?
My hand holding the tall latte started to shake. I set it down and put my hands in my lap.
Philip actually kept eye contact. “It’s been a rough time for all of us. But in the long run, you seem to be doing good, Gabby. The money from your folks . . . that was a surprise. Who would have thought? I’m glad things are working out for you.”
I hardly knew how to respond. He actually sounded glad— relieved?—I’d gotten myself together. But I still didn’t trust myself to speak. Or maybe I didn’t trust what he was saying.
He glanced at the tables near us and lowered his voice. “But to be honest, things haven’t been going too well on my end. The business . . . well, a start-up company has its highs and lows. Just can’t sustain too many lows. And personally . . . I’ll be frank. I’ve gotten myself in kind of a jam. Which is why I wanted to talk to you.”
I all but snorted. Philip—confident, bold, over-the-top, I-can-do-anything Philip Fairbanks—was actually admitting things weren’t going well? If the business was floundering, what did that have to do with me?
But my thoughts must have been plastered all over my face because he held up both hands, palms out, as if begging for patience. “Just hear me out, Gabby. I need a loan—a personal loan. I’ve got a debt I need to pay off, and—”
“A loan?” I found my voice. So that’s what this was about! “You want me to give you a loan? Good grief, Philip, you’ve got all kinds of credit! Just ask the bank for a loan.”
He shook his head. “It’s not that easy. Uh, things have gotten complicated. I’ve let business and personal stuff overlap . . . when you own the company, it’s easy to do, you know. Anyway, while that’s getting sorted out, a loan the size I need would take a whole lot of paperwork and collateral I can’t afford right now. And time. Time is an issue. I need this loan right away.”
My eyes narrowed. “It’s a gambling debt, isn’t it?”
He threw open his hands. “I’ve made some mistakes. Right now I just want to take care of my debts and get back on track.”
“Mistakes. Uh-huh. Exactly what size loan are you talking about?”
He tried to be casual. “Twenty-five thousand. Fifty would be better. Would get me back on track faster. Just need to get over this hump.”
I wanted to laugh. Hysterically. “Philip Fairbanks! This is ridiculous. I work for a homeless shelter, for heaven’s sake. Part time, I might add, until the boys go back to school. You’ve got a commercial real estate company that’s capable of pulling in big bucks. Why ask me?”
“I told you, the company’s had some rough times lately. And, well, this is personal. I’d rather not involve Henry. I know you got some money from your folks. I don’t know how much, but an inheritance usually comes in a lump sum. I’m talking about a short-term loan. Short-term, Gabrielle. I’ll pay it back. I just need to put things straight, get back on track. You know I’m good for it.”
I started shaking my head the moment he said “money from your folks.” “I need that money, Philip. And you know it. I’m starting from scratch, thanks to you.” A well of emotion threatened to push through the plug I’d stuck in it. I stood up, bumping the table and almost sending my half-empty latte onto the floor. But I grabbed it in time and stalked to the counter to get a glass of water. This was why we met in a public place or I might have gone off on Philip right about then.
I was tempted to head out the door without even finishing the conversation. But I took my ice water back to the table and sat down. “Besides,” I said, as if I hadn’t left, “I have plans for that money.”
A small smile tugged at his mouth. “I know. You’d like to buy that building. Which seems like a big risk, Gabby. I’d hate to see you get in over your head—”
“I don’t believe this! You’ve got a gambling debt, and you’re talking to me about risk?”
He put up his hands again. “Okay, point taken. But even if you go ahead with that plan, unless you’re signing papers today, you won’t need a down payment for another couple of weeks, right? And by then I’ll have the money back to you. With interest.
I promise. And . . .” His voice trailed off, and he started to draw circles on the table with his finger.
I waited. I really should just get up and walk out the door. But he seemed to be struggling to say something. Morbid curiosity got the better of me. “And?”
The circles stopped and he looked up, his brown eyes searching mine. “Once I’m out from under this cloud, Gabby, maybe we could sit down and talk about where we go from here. You and me, I mean. And the boys. Maybe . . . maybe it’s not too late to repair the damage.”
It was like he knocked the breath out of me. What did he just say? Repair the damage? Did he really say that?
I stood up, not looking at him, reaching for my purse. “It’s almost six. The boys are waiting for you.”
>
He followed me out to the sidewalk. “Will you consider the loan, Gabby?”
Another El train lurched and groaned into the station overhead.
“When?” I shouted over the din.
“When?” Philip grimaced. “Well, yesterday would be good.”
I headed for my car without replying but heard him call after me, “Just think about it, Gabrielle. Please?”
chapter 15
The black SUV with Philip and the boys was barely out of sight before I ran back into the apartment, grabbed the phone, and called Jodi Baxter. “The nerve of that man!” I exploded in her ear, not even taking time to identify myself. “He wants a loan, Jodi! Can you believe it? He’s asking me for a loan!”
“You’re kidding! . . . You’re not kidding.”
“I am not kidding. He’s got a gambling debt—don’t know how much or who he owes money to. The casino? Do they give credit? But he said something about his business being in trouble too. Anyway, he asked for twenty-five thousand—” I heard a gasp at the other end. “Ha. You think that’s bad? He said fifty would be even better, would help him get ‘back on track’ faster. And then—”
“Whoa. Slow down, Gabby. I better sit.” I heard their screen door slam in the background and the creaking of the back porch swing. “Now, start at the beginning. Because I don’t believe Philip walked in and said right off, ‘Hi, Gabby, will you loan me twenty-five thousand bucks?’”
“Okay, okay,” I muttered. “Give me a sec . . .” I plumped up a couple of fat throw pillows on the window seat in the sunporch, set a fan in one of the open windows, and made myself comfy. Then I told Jodi as best I could the gist of my conversation with Philip barely an hour ago, starting with his pseudo sympathy for the loss of my mom . . .
“But that’s not all,” I said when I’d covered most of it. “He got all weird at the end, kind of emotional. Said once he was out from under this ‘cloud’—paying off his debt, I guess—he wanted to talk about how we could ‘repair the damage’ to our marriage.”
“No! He actually said he wanted to repair the damage to your marriage?”
“Well, what he said was, he wanted us to talk about ‘where we go from here.’ And ‘Maybe it’s not too late to repair the damage.’”
“Oh. My. Goodness. Gabby, that’s huge! What did you say?”
“Uh . . . nothing. I was so taken aback, I just got up and left.
It was time to leave anyway.”
“You just left.”
Why was Jodi repeating everything I said? “Yes! I just left . . . no, take that back. When we got outside I asked, ‘When’—like, how soon did he need the loan. He tried to joke, said he needed it yesterday. But he meant as soon as possible.” Even as the words came out of my mouth, I wished I had just left without saying anything else. “Oh, Jodi, do you think by asking when he needed the money, it sounded like I was going to give it to him?”
The squeaking from the swing on the Baxters’ back porch stopped, as if Jodi was pondering my question. “I don’t know. Maybe. But don’t worry, Gabby. You haven’t committed yourself to anything. I’m just . . . I dunno. Kind of flabbergasted he even suggested that maybe it wasn’t too late to repair the damage to the marriage.”
“Except . . .” How could I put into words what I was feeling right now? Or not feeling might be more like it.
“Except what?” Jodi finally asked.
“Maybe it is too late.”
Sitting on the beach near Montrose Harbor an hour later, I dug my toes into the warm sand and hugged my knees. After the phone call with Jodi, I’d grabbed my car keys and got out of the house. Didn’t even change clothes. So what if I still had my white slacks on. Lucy wasn’t around to give me what for. I chuckled, remembering the time the frumpy bag lady had lectured me on not wearing my good clothes to the beach. Frankly, I wished Lucy and Dandy would turn up about now. I could use a little down-to-earth distraction after my weird talk with Philip and trying to field Jodi Baxter’s fixation on my estranged husband’s “repair the damage” comment.
Jodi meant well. After all, she had a marriage worth saving. And of course there was a lot of stuff in the Bible about honoring marriage vows. But Estelle! I laughed to myself again. Estelle made no bones about saying she’d like to “put down her religion” long enough to give Philip a good whack upside his head!
A puff of warm wind off the lake stirred up my mop of curls as erratic thoughts tumbled inside my head. But now . . . Would everyone get all excited if I said Philip wanted to work on our marriage? Was he serious? Or just buttering me up to make me consider giving him that loan?
Wouldn’t put it past him.
But even if he was serious . . . why didn’t I feel anything? Didn’t I want us to be a family again? Even though the boys seemed to be adjusting to our separation, I knew they were still hurting. They’d probably like nothing better than to see Mom and Dad get together again.
I dug my toes deeper into the sand. And what about me? Didn’t I get lonely? Stupid question. Crawling into a single bed every night made me feel like the last kitty in the litter, no one to snuggle with. Didn’t I struggle with feeling rejected, like an old shoe tossed into the garbage? Like every day. Wouldn’t I rather be married than a single mom, eking out a living on my own? Yes . . . maybe.
And that was the rub. I had been rejected, tossed out, left to claw my way out of a pit. But now I was standing on my own two feet. And I had plans. Good plans. Okay, maybe impossible plans, but plans that made me feel like the real Gabby.
And Philip wasn’t part of them.
My answering machine light winked at me when hunger drove me in from the beach. I punched the Play button as I pulled out some leftover chicken salad and ate it cold, straight from the plastic container. “Gabby? It’s Jodi. I realize we didn’t really talk about that loan Philip wants, much less pray about it. Some prayer partner I am! Sorry I got off track. I’ll be praying you get some good advice about that. Maybe you should talk to your lawyer— or a financial wizard, if you’ve got one. Though I realize it’s not just a money thing. More like a wisdom thing. Okay. I’m blathering. Just wanted to apologize. Don’t sit up all night worrying. Or if you do, call me and we’ll pray on the phone. Bye!”
Couldn’t help smiling. I loved that Jodi, I really did. When I first met her, she’d seemed so together—perfect family, perfect husband, perfect church attendance, perfect Christian . . . but on our road trip to North Dakota with my mom’s casket in the back of the shelter van, she admitted she’d done the “good Christian girl” thing so long, she didn’t even realize how judgmental and self-righteous she’d become until she got involved with the Yada Yada bunch.
“Remember Yo-Yo, the girl in our prayer group who wears overalls all the time? She wasn’t brought up in church,” Jodi had told me somewhere on that long drag through the Midwestern plains, “so she makes me explain myself whenever I use churchy clichés. ‘Why didn’t ya just say so!’ she huffs. And Florida? She’s got antennas fine-tuned to pick up on any self-righteous, better-than-thou Pharisee stuff. Whew, she can take me down quicker than I can say hallelujah.”
That had cracked me up, made me wish I could be part of a group of praying sisters like that, women who were real. The one time Jodi had taken me to the Yada Yada Prayer Group, they’d prayed for me so powerfully that I would “live into the meaning of my name”—which Edesa Baxter said meant “Strong woman of God”—that I went back to the shelter with renewed hope that God had not forgotten me and my mom, that He would give me the strength to get through the mess my life had become.
And He had. So far anyway. It had to be God’s doing, because I never would have dreamed I’d be able to stand on my own two feet without Philip. Or in spite of Philip. And never in a million years did I imagine Philip would come crawling to me, asking for a loan.
It was almost pathetic.
I dumped the empty leftover container into the sink and started to reach for the phone. I should call Jo
di back, pray with her about what I should do . . . but I hesitated. What if God wanted me to give him that loan? Give him the benefit of the doubt? Help him “get over this hump” so we could move on and talk about where we go from here?
Instead I called Lee Boyer’s cell. After all, Jodi said I should get some wise advice. What was a lawyer for if not to get advice about something as big as a twenty-five-thousand-dollar loan?
We met for breakfast the next morning at Kitsch’ns in the Roscoe neighborhood south of Wrigleyville, the same funky place Lee had taken me to before. “Gabby!” he said, sliding into the chair opposite me at the wobbly sidewalk table outside the tiny restaurant. “I’m so glad you called me. What the heck is this about? Philip is asking you for a loan?—Wait. Let’s order, then I want to hear all about it.”
Lee was wearing Birkenstocks, rusty-tan cargo shorts, and a short-sleeve T-shirt that showed off the freckles on his tan arms. Quite a contrast to my “dress for success” husband—which was one of the things that endeared Lee to me. While waiting for our omelets, I told him the whole story. All except the part about Philip saying once he got over this hump, he wanted to talk about “where do we go from here.”
The look on Lee’s face behind his wire rims was priceless. He laughed aloud. “Unbelievable! Look, I’m sorry. Don’t mean to laugh at a guy who’s down on his luck, but this is beautiful. You’re on your way up; he’s unraveling. Definitely works in your favor when we see the judge about your custody petition.”
A waiter in jeans made the rounds of the sidewalk tables and refilled our coffee. I waited until he was gone. “I don’t think Philip is going to give me a problem about custody. The boys are with me now, and he agreed to have them just Friday night and Saturday. Works with his schedule, I think.”
Lee wagged his head. “Don’t take anything for granted, Gabby girl. I won’t feel easy until you have it court-approved and in writing. As for the loan?” Lee leaned toward me, tapping a finger on the table for emphasis. “Don’t . . . do . . . it. That would be a huge mistake. You need that money, every penny. It’ll look good—real good—on your bank statement when you go before the judge to prove you have the means to support the boys. And if you’re serious about buying the six-flat you’re living in . . . say, by the way, I called the realtor handling the building. He seemed very interested when I told him I had a reliable client who already lived in the building. I’ll make an appointment for you next week if you want to move on it.”