“I didn’t risk much, Preston. In fact, I risked nothing. You’re a great guy, and I…I’m glad I met you, but I’d better go now. Good-bye.”
Petra ran into the hotel but his words, “Your mother or somebody should whack your fanny. You should go home,” rang in her ears. She knew she had perplexed him and that he deserved more than she could give, but she couldn’t let that worry her. He was a kind, gentle man, and she wished she could go back to him, but to do so would be dishonorable and unfair. Besides, there was no reason; the man was as rich as he was handsome and well-mannered, but she was not attracted to him, so she didn’t even have that as an excuse for spending the night with him. She walked into her room, locked the door behind her, and started packing.
He’d said, “Your mother or somebody should whack your fanny,” and as she packed, the words haunted her. Was her mother worried because she hadn’t heard from her? No one knew her whereabouts, and if the end came, who would tell her mother and Krista? She hadn’t previously thought about that. She remembered having put their names, addresses, and relationship to her on a paper that she kept in her bag, but that knowledge failed to assuage her guilt.
She rolled the pantyhose, put them in a plastic bag and dropped herself on the bed, suddenly exhausted. “Oh, well, I haven’t had a headache recently, so maybe I’m tired because this air is so dry, or maybe because I did a lot today,” she told herself. However, she didn’t believe it. Maybe I ought to call Mama and tell her where I am and how much fun I’m having. Fun. She hadn’t thought of that word in months.
I’d better call Mama in case she’s worried. She hated to use the hotel phone, because of the cost, so she went down to the lobby and used the public phone. “Hi, Mama, I thought I’d call and let you know where I am. I’m in Phoenix, Arizona.”
“It’s time you called. When you coming home? Your boss called here a couple of times. He was like a madman when I said I didn’t know where you were. I told him to drink an herbal tea like chamomile to calm his nerves, and I thought he was going to have a stroke. I wanted to tell him to pray for peace of mind, but I was scared that if I did, he’d come here and start a fight. How can you work with that man?”
“He’s not bad, Mama. But Jack thinks he’s calm, and when you suggested that he wasn’t absolutely serene, it was like pouring gasoline on a wildfire.”
“It’s too late now. I told him not to be a nervous Nellie. You know men who boil over before the temperature gets to a hundred always did get on my last nerve. You come on home now. You hear?”
“Mama, how’s Krista doing? Does she still have that job?”
“Yeah, she still working, and she’s joined some kind of singing group, though she don’t talk about it much. But long as she stays out of trouble and keeps her dress down, I won’t complain. You come on home now. You hear?” Petra hung up, and although she hated to admit it, she felt better for having spoken with her mother. Maybe she should go home. No. She wanted to see San Francisco, Monterey, San Quentin, and the Golden Gate Bridge. She’d just have to hurry. Two months could fly by.
Lord, I wish it was over. I wish somebody would’ve invented something to prevent my thinking about anything depressing. This is getting to me.
What Lena Fields hadn’t told her daughter, because she didn’t know, was that Krista had begun to spend as much time as possible in her father’s company and that she had mean little ways of punishing him.
“Why is that woman always hanging around you?” she asked her father after she joined the choir and attended the rehearsals a second time. “What’s she after?”
“I think you’re old enough to know the answer to that question.”
“You really think all she wants is you? That chick’s bargain hunting.” Goodman’s scowl didn’t seem to bother Krista, for she continued as if she didn’t know she had displeased him.
“You don’t have to say everything you think, Krista.”
“Why not? That way, you’ll know where you stand with me. Daddy, that woman is after something, and what she gives you in return won’t be worth spit.”
She could be right, but he didn’t want to hear it from his own daughter. He didn’t like to think that he was more susceptible to Jada than she was to him, and a man needed a woman’s undivided attention sometime, especially when he didn’t get it at home.
“She’s just a friend, Krista. The problem is that she enjoys flirting.”
“Would you like me to have the kind of relationship with a married man that she’s trying to have with you?”
“Of course not,” he said, wearying of the topic, “but she’s twice your age, single, and probably getting desperate.”
“Humph,” Krista snorted. “Twice my age and nowhere near half as smart.”
After practice, Goodman drove Krista home. “Since I didn’t grow up with you,” Krista said, “and I don’t have a brother, I don’t know what makes men tick. Why would you take a chance with that woman, Daddy? To me, she’s ordinary looking. Suppose Carla finds out.”
He parked and turned to Krista, hoping to find the appropriate words. Well, she was grown, so he’d say what he thought and felt. “I always thought I had a happy, loving family. Maybe I thought so because I yearned for that. When I told them about you, I realized that Carla and my older son are concerned with themselves. Another thing, my wife knows that music is everything to me, but she thinks I should treat it as a hobby, give up my studio, and help her run her restaurant. She doesn’t take pride in what I do and in who I am. At least twice a week, she tells me that if I worked with her we could open another restaurant and, within two years, we’d be multimillionaires. I don’t need more than I have.”
Krista had been silent, and he hadn’t wondered about that until she said, “If she owns a restaurant, why do you have dinner at home every night? That’s weird.”
“Because it is I, and not my wife, who provides for my family. And I want my children to grow up like normal kids with chores to do, not with waiters serving them. Believe me, I had to fight hard for it.”
“I see. So you’re going to fool around, ’cause you don’t get TLC at home. That’s awful, Daddy. Real gross. Gotta go.” She leaned forward and kissed his cheek, stunning him with the first gesture of affection he received from his daughter.
He waited until she was inside the house, circled back, and met Jada a block from the rehearsal hall. “What took you so long?” she asked. “I don’t hang around waiting for no man. You want me, you gotta act like I’m special.”
“As soon as I get you home, I’ll show you how special you are. I’m starved, and I don’t mean for food.”
She leaned back in the soft leather bucket seat of Goodman’s silver-gray Lexus and smiled the satisfied smile of a conqueror. “Man after my own heart.”
Two hours later, Goodman sat on the side of Jada’s bed tying his shoes. “I need to get some gas. Lend me twenty till I see you next Monday night.” A little later he pocketed the twenty-dollar bill, got into his car, and drove straight home. Krista was right. If Jada Hankins wasn’t counting on getting something from him, she wouldn’t have parted with her money so easily. She would learn one thing: he had no intention of adding her to his list of dependents.
Jada pulled the sheet over her nude body, flung her arms wide, and purred like a satisfied feline. “I put it down solid tonight, and I’m gonna get my condo sure as my name is Jada Hankins.”
Chapter Five
Petra sat in Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport with her feet resting on her small bag and watched the people hurrying around her, some at a dizzying pace. She didn’t want to take the strong pill for her headache, because she needed to be alert in case she received a call for a standby seat on a flight to San Francisco.
“Can you spare a dollar, lady?”
No, she couldn’t, because ever since leaving home, she had spent cash as if it rained down from the heavens. “What do you want it for?” she asked him.
The man sat dow
n beside her. “You mind if I rest here a minute?” She told him she didn’t. “I’m just trying to live from one day to the next, lady,” he said, stretched out his long legs, and made himself comfortable.
She didn’t want to open her purse while he was so close, because he could be a fast sprinter. “Have you tried working?” she asked, figuring that a man of around twenty-five years ought to work. He was handsome, too, provided you liked dreadlocks, and she didn’t.
“Yeah. I tried it, but I figured Bill Gates didn’t get where he is today by doing dirty work, so I quit.”
Mildly curious, she asked him, “What kind of job did you have?”
“Sitting in a chair behind a stupid desk, seducing people into buying real estate they couldn’t afford. Dumbest job ever invented. What’s funny?” he asked when she laughed aloud.
He called that dirty work? She rolled her eyes skyward. “I was just about to give you a dollar, but since I earned it doing exactly what you consider dumb, I decided to keep it. Don’t worry, you’ll live.”
She held her pocketbook tighter when the man stood and stared down at her. Unnerved by his rapt attention, she watched him put his hand into his pocket, pull out a roll of bills, and drop a dollar into her lap. “Wake up, lady. Since I left that chicken-shit job seven months ago, I made enough right here in this airport to buy me a real nice house in a cool neighborhood, and I don’t drive no little Toyota neither. Have a good life.”
“Wait a minute,” she said, as he started off. “I don’t need any money. In fact, I don’t need anything except a seat on a flight to San Francisco.”
He took a business card out of his wallet and handed it to her. “Go to Gate B3. My sister’s on duty there. Give her this card, and she’ll see that you get a seat. You hang in there, doll, and don’t do no more chicken-shit work. Later.”
She was about to drop the card into the waste basket, but remembered the wad of bills in his hand, took her bag, and went to the gate. When she saw that the attendant resembled the handsome panhandler, she handed the woman his card.
“Hi. Your brother said you’d help me get on a flight to San Francisco.”
The woman observed her carefully, and Petra wondered if she’d made a fool of herself. “Where did you see him? Is he in the airport?”
“He was a minute ago.”
“Have a seat. I’ll have something for you in a minute.”
She sat down, and as she let herself relax, she recalled her grandfather’s words: “Treat every person you meet as if that person is more important than you are, and you’ll always make friends. Never enemies.”
An hour later, Petra boarded a flight to San Francisco. “I wanted to take a train in order to see the countryside,” she said to her seatmate, “but it’s an overnight trip, and I don’t have much time.”
“Anyway,” the woman replied as she repeatedly pushed strands of hair from her face, “these days, everybody who is anybody flies.”
Annoyed at the put-down, Petra said, “I never dreamed that it was the poor who made Pullman car porters rich with their heavy tips. And I thought people who fly economy class did so because they couldn’t afford either the time or the money to do otherwise.” She got a blanket from the overhead compartment, wrapped herself in it, and went to sleep.
She awakened half an hour before landing, brushed her teeth, and drank the tasteless coffee that the attendants served along with their smiles. She had managed to get a room in a hotel that was walking distance from Fisherman’s Wharf, a luxurious one compared to the modest places in which she had stayed since leaving Ellicott City. As soon as she checked in and unpacked, she headed for the famous site.
“They’re so noisy,” a boy of about five said of the seals and to no one in particular. “They’re ugly, too,” commented a girl who she assumed was his older sister.
Before turning her attention to the seals, she gazed at the children for a long time. To be that age again with a whole life before you… She shook off the encroaching melancholy. I told myself I wasn’t going to be a crybaby about this, and I’m not. I’m going to enjoy the rest of the ride right to the hilt.
She strolled along the wharf, window shopping and watching tourists. At a women’s boutique on the corner, a red cocktail dress caught her eye, and after staring at it for nearly twenty minutes, she went inside, tried it on, and bought it. I’ll never wear it, but I’ve always wanted to own something like this. Maybe I’ll pack it and send it home to Krista. It’s perfect for her clear complexion.
Later that day, on a tour bus across the Golden Gate Bridge, a stunning structure that spanned the San Francisco Bay, she sat beside an old man who seemed to have more energy than she did despite his age. “Isn’t it wonderful,” he said, as they looked across the bay at Alcatraz—more like a resort than a prison in the rays of the dying sun, though it was indeed the prison of which she’d heard so much and seen in so many old movies. “When I was young, I didn’t have sense enough to enjoy all this. I raced through life looking at everything but seeing nothing, feeling nothing, and believing in nothing. In the time I have left, I’m using my eyes and ears to enjoy life.”
“Do you regret having skated through life without leaving an imprint?” she asked him.
His smile came slowly. “What’s the point in regretting anything? It’s more important to make the best of what’s left, and I’m doing that. I went to Paris when I was twenty-two, but I only saw the French women. I went back in May, sixty years later, and I could see what I missed—the Louvre; the Musée de Rodin; Les Halles at four o’clock in the morning when the venders hawk what the Parisians will eat that day; Montmartre; people-watching at Place de l’Opera. This time I enjoyed Paris, lolling in the sidewalk cafes, strolling in the Place de la Concorde. I mean, I finally saw Paris, though I didn’t look twice at one female, unless she was serving food or selling tickets.” The old man laughed. “Ignoring the French women this last trip wasn’t difficult; I had a lot of help from Mother Nature. I don’t expect I’ll see Europe again. Walking around all day is no fun when you’re old.”
“I’ve never been to Europe, and as things stand, I don’t expect to get there. I’m fortunate to have gotten here. I always wanted to see San Francisco, and especially the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz, and at least I got the chance.”
“They’re a sight, all right. But you’re still young, and you’ll get to Europe.”
They talked until the bus driver returned to the bus, flashed his lights, counted the passengers, and headed back to San Francisco. “Well, if we don’t run into each other again, I wish you all good things. Thanks for the company,” the old man said. “Not many pretty young women would be satisfied to spend the day with an old man. Good-bye.”
I probably wouldn’t have either, six months ago.
Back in the hotel, she soaked her feet in hot water, showered, and decided to put on a dress. She hadn’t expected such cool weather in July, but she had one long-sleeved, silk jersey wrap dress, and decided to wear it to dinner. The rose color flattered her, and when she saw her healthy and relaxed complexion in the mirror, she hardly believed her eyes. She put on a pair of silver hoops, combed out her hair, and went down to the hotel’s dining room. She hated eating alone in restaurants, but in hotels, patrons were seen to have little choice if they were traveling alone.
She ordered a glass of wine, mainly to have something to sip while she waited for the first course. The waiter poured the wine, and she reached for the glass, but nearly spilled it when her gaze landed on a man who sat alone at a table across from her and who smiled when she looked at him.
She lowered her gaze, but the rapid flutters of her heart and her accelerated breathing continued, the least worrisome evidence of what was happening to her. The hand with which she held the glass shook so badly that she had to place her left hand on it in order to still it. In spite of her alarm at her reaction to the man, she couldn’t prevent herself from looking at him again, for she could feel his gaze on her,
unwavering. He smiled and raised his glass a little in a gentle salute and, in spite of her good judgment, which said ignore him, she smiled.
He wrote on something that he took from his wallet, called a waiter, and sent it to her. She looked at it, knowing that he’d locked his gaze on her.
“I am enchanted with you,” she read. “Please allow me to share a meal with you.”
She could almost hear her heartbeat. “You shouldn’t start anything with this man, because you can only offer him pain,” her niggling conscience warned. But she glanced up, saw his hopefulness, the eager expectation mirrored on his face, and ignored her conscience. When she smiled, he stood immediately, lifted his glass of wine, and walked over to her table.
“May I join you?”
“If you like.” It sounded silly and unsophisticated to her, but she couldn’t manage more.
“I’m Winston Fleet,” he said and extended his hand. She took it, and jerked her hand away when electric sparks shocked her. They stared at each other, stunned by the charge emanating from their touch, and then they laughed. She liked his voice, his laughter, and the lights that sparkled in his dark eyes.
“Who are you?” he asked her. “Lord, I hope you’re not married.”
“I’m Petra Fields, and I’m not married.”
He reached across the table for her hand and held it. “I have to tell you that something happened to me the minute I saw you headed this way. I live in Oakland, but I work over here. I’m staying over tonight and tomorrow night because I have breakfast meetings. Where do you come from, Petra, and how long will you be here?”
“I’m from Ellicott City, a little town in Maryland, and I’m on vacation. I always wanted to see California and the Wild West.”
A Different Kind of Blues Page 10