I don’t care. As long as she returns to her loving, generous self and remains that way, I’ll be happy and grateful.
The next morning, Petra dressed in her pink linen suit, white shoes, bag, and hat and walked into the personnel office at the city courthouse precisely at eight-thirty. “Well,” the clerk said, when told that Petra was a stenotypist, “we thought we’d probably have to go out of Howard County to find a stenotypist, maybe even to Baltimore. Good ones are rare.”
Petra handed the woman the curriculum vitae that she’d put together the night before and held her breath. “This looks good. I need a reference from a local employer, a health certificate and your birth or naturalization certificate. We don’t hire anyone who isn’t a citizen. The job will be available two weeks from today. I’ll call you in a few days, so be prepared to take a stenotyping test.”
“I’ll look forward to that,” Petra said and left with the feeling that the woman liked her and would give her the job if she met the criteria. At home, Petra phoned Jack and asked him to send the woman a reference.
“Sure, babe. I’ll send the messenger over with it today, and I hope you get the job.”
She thanked him, turned on the television to watch the Judge Mathis show and familiarize herself with legal language, brought out her stenotype machine, and got busy brushing up her skills. Four days later, she had the job as court reporter at a higher salary and with better working conditions than she’d ever had. After receiving the call, she took a minute to thank the Lord, then jumped up and screamed. “I got it. I got the job.” But almost immediately, moroseness enveloped her. If only she could talk with Winston, see him, touch his flesh, and feel his strength.
“Get a hold of yourself, girl. That’s over and done with!”
Chapter Ten
A week after Petra began her job as a court reporter, exhilarated because she knew she would be able to pay her bills and help Krista attend college, she received a telephone call from Dr. Barnes’s office.
“This is Petra Fields,” she said, wondering who would call her at her new job.
“Ms. Fields, Dr. Barnes wants you to come in and see him as soon as you can.”
She had no desire to see the man whose misjudgment caused her to turn her life around. True, she had gained much from her trek out West and, especially, her time in San Francisco, but as a result, she was heavily in debt for the first time in her life and hopelessly in love with a man she would never see again.
“I’m very busy,” she said. “How did you get my number here?”
“From your mother, of course,” the woman said.
“I’ll call you back,” Petra said, her half hour break having expired. But she didn’t call back, because each time she considered doing it, her anger almost suffocated her. Moreover, she considered that Barnes probably was after some self-aggrandizement, and if not that, she’d bet he wanted her to contribute her body to science. Wouldn’t he be surprised!
“Did you get a call from Dr. Barnes’s office?” her mother asked when they spoke by phone that evening.
“Yes, I did, and I don’t have one thing to say to that charlatan.”
“Now. Now,” Lena began. “Dr. Barnes does a lot of good, so don’t you go scandalizing his name. He told you you had a tumor, and you did. You call him. He may have something important to tell you.”
“All right, I will.”
She waited a week before calling him. According to his diagnosis, I should have wings by now. “This is Petra Fields, when can Dr. Barnes see me?” she asked the doctor’s receptionist. They agreed that she would visit the doctor that day during her lunch hour.
Petra didn’t trust herself to say anything to the doctor, and it surprised her that she greeted him civilly. “What did you want to see me about, Dr. Barnes?”
He sat in a chair opposite her, took her right hand, and adopted his best bedside manners. “You’ll be happy to know that the radiologist misread your tests and gave me an incorrect evaluation. You do have tumors, but they are not malignant.”
“I already know that, Dr. Barnes.” She pulled her hair away from the area on which the surgeon operated so that he could see the evidence of it. “While I was in Atlanta, I passed out. The surgeon who removed the tumor told me it was benign. You said it was inoperable.” Not nice, maybe, but probably the only revenge she would get. To soften it, she added, “If you want his name and phone number, I’ll be glad to send it to you.”
Barnes shook his head, clearly perplexed. “I can’t see how he did it. He must have taken some pictures, and I’d like to see them. It’s too bad we don’t have a second diagnostic service here. The hospital has a rather good one, but I’d thought these specialists would do a superior job.”
“I remember that the surgeon’s name was Dr. Hayes, and my nurse said he was a neurosurgeon and head honcho at that hospital. I’ll send you his number.”
“Don’t bother. I can find him. He’s well-known, and you were very fortunate. Let’s be glad it turned out for you as it did, but there’s going to be some reckoning. Be sure of that.”
She supposed that a tarnished reputation would upset any person and particularly a doctor whose prestige depended upon the word of his patients. She bought a hotdog and a pint of milk at a corner deli and headed back to the courthouse.
And what about me? My daughter has been on the outs with me; my mother has one more excuse to preach to me and to berate me. Worst of all, my finances are a mess. Some of the reckless things I did—thinking I was going to die anyway—could have killed me. Reckless doesn’t nearly describe the stupidity of picking up a hitchhiker on a highway with a forty-mile stretch between rest stops.
“And I’ve got a few things to say to Reverend Collins, too,” she promised herself. “If it was necessary for me to get forgiveness from every person I thought I’d wronged, shouldn’t I also tell people that I have a grudge against them about something? That way, I won’t have to grin at them if I don’t feel like it.”
As it happened, she met Reverend Collins in the post office, where she went to buy some stamps on her way home that afternoon. “You haven’t stopped by to tell me how you are, sister,” he said. “You look well. Are you sure Dr. Barnes didn’t make a mistake?”
He’ll probably blab it from the pulpit Sunday morning, but I may as well tell him. She told him about the misdiagnosis and her operation. Then she added, “Reverend, I think it was a mistake to dump my guilt on people. I caused a lot of trouble. My neighbor and her husband separated after twenty-five years of marriage, and a lot of people are still furious with me. I dropped a few bombs.”
He ran his fingers through his thick hair and smiled as one does with a cute, but naughty child. “You let them worry about their salvation; you did the right thing, and if your neighbor doesn’t speak to you, go over and invite her to come to church with you Sunday morning.”
She stared at the man until he backed away from her. “Yes, sir,” she finally managed, but she knew that if she said one word to Ethel about church, the woman would probably throw something at her. “Nice to see you, Reverend,” she said and got away from him as quickly as she could. Her daughter knew the truth about her father, and that was the only good thing to come from the ill-conceived confessions. Jada Hankins’s temper had almost raged out of control. Anyone with such a temper was capable of violence, and she hoped not to encounter Jada again.
“I can’t be angry with anybody, not even Dr. Barnes and Reverend Collins. What I shared with Winston Fleet more than compensates for any worry, pain, or inconvenience I experienced. And I have a better job than I’ve ever had. I hate bills, but I’ll get them paid.” A frown creased her face. “How on earth did I spend eighteen thousand dollars in such a short time? Oh, well. If I could see Winston again, I guess I wouldn’t care about the bills or any of these other problems.”
Petra couldn’t know that Winston longed for her as much as she yearned for him. It disgusted him that he hadn’t heeded his thoughts
and gotten Petra’s address or, at least, her telephone number. But it hadn’t occurred to him that she would leave him while he slept rather than face the end with him. As he drove to his grandmother’s house along the same road he’d traveled with Petra, he wondered if she were still alive. And who could he ask? Visions of her suffering alone brought tears from his eyes. “I can’t bear it,” he said to himself. As he drove up the lane leading to his grandmother’s house, the sun shone through the leaves, making intricate, lacy patterns that seemed too delicate for the wheels of his Acura. The delicate beauty of the scene reminded him of Petra and the way he felt when he held her in his arms.
He parked in the circle before his grandmother’s house, got out of the car, and walked around to the back of the house where he knew he’d find LeAnn setting the supper table for the two of them. He leaned down, draped his arm across her shoulder, and kissed her cheek.
“It’s such a beautiful day, Granny. I wish I’d brought along my bathing suit.”
Her eyes twinkled in that way that he found so familiar and comforting. “It’ll take me about twenty minutes to fry the chicken, and that ought to be time enough for you to skinny-dip. Look in the linen closet and get a beach towel.” Wasn’t it always that way with her? From his early childhood, he had been able to count on her finding a way to make him happy. His hug was intended to let her know what she meant to him, but it must have communicated something else, for she gazed at him with a quizzical facial expression.
“Something’s eating you. What are you planning to do about Petra? She’s never going out of your heart, you know.”
“Granny, I don’t know whether she’s living or dead, and I don’t have her phone number or her address. I’m on my way out of my mind. She said she had a couple of months to live.” He repeated the remainder of Petra’s story. “Somehow, I don’t have the feeling that she’s dead.”
“Go ahead and swim. We’ll talk about it afterward when you’re relaxed.”
He raised an eyebrow at that. “Yes, ma’am.”
After she went into the kitchen, he got a beach towel, undressed, and dived into the pool’s cool, shimmering waters. He told himself to get Petra off his mind, but he knew she would be forever in his system. After punishing himself, swimming as fast as he could until he was nearly out of breath, he climbed out, wrapped himself in the towel, dried off, and dressed.
“Feel better now?” LeAnn asked as she came outside with a platter of fried chicken and a plate of biscuits. “I’ve got some string beans in there to go with this,” she told him.
“You sit down. I’ll get it. Anything else?”
“Lemon meringue pie for dessert, and there’s a pitcher of lemonade in the refrigerator.” He got the string beans and lemonade and sat down to eat, but he wasn’t in the mood.
LeAnn patted his hand. “Stop worrying, son. When Petra was here with you, she was certain she wouldn’t be back, but I told her she would be. Don’t you remember?”
He thought for a minute. “I knew there was something about that visit that I needed to remember. Yes, you said that. Do you…Can you figure out anything about her?”
LeAnn picked up a crisp drumstick, leaned back in her chair, bit into the chicken, and chewed for a while. Then she smiled. “She had a tumor, and it may still be there, but I don’t see it now. These things I see come and go.”
His heart skipped a few beats and, bracing his hands on the table, he leaned toward her. “What else? Is there anything else? Granny, tell me. Is she married?”
“She’s not married, and I see you around her. I mean, she’s very sad about you. I can’t see anything else.”
“So you think she’s still alive?”
“I have yet to see anyone who’s passed on. But, there’s always a first time. Did she tell you where she’s from?”
“Yes, ma’am. She’s from Ellicott City, Maryland.”
“It couldn’t be so big. I never heard of it. Did you?” He shook his head, but he focused all of his energy on his grandmother. “Well, if she lives in a small town or city, you should be able to find people with her last name. If she’s for you, you’ll find her.”
“I think she said that around sixty thousand people live there. It isn’t far from Baltimore.”
Would LeAnn Fleet encourage him if she didn’t know that he could find Petra? He believed in his grandmother’s psychic powers, and it was one of the reasons he had gone to visit her that day. He suspected she knew that and could direct him to Petra if she cared to, but she obviously wanted him to be certain of his motives.
“I’m going to try and find her, Granny. I can’t go on this way, unable to focus on my work or anything else. As soon as I fill an order for a dining room set I’m working on, I’m going back East and look for Petra. I’ll visit Mama, too.”
“Good. How long before you can fulfill that contract?”
“A month maybe. It’s a very ambitious design.” He jerked forward. “Why? Is she…Is it urgent?”
“Not to my knowledge, but there may be a lot that I don’t know.”
Petra had just begun to realize how much and how drastically her life had changed. For years, she’d played pinochle with Lurlene and Twylah at her house on Thursday evenings, and nothing, not a fractured wrist or any other ailment prevented Lurlene from playing pinochle, her favorite form of entertainment. Petra usually made a coconut cake to serve with their coffee. On that evening, Lurlene pleaded a headache and didn’t join her and Twylah. And Twylah refused the cake, claiming that she was dieting. In addition, Petra’s mother had gotten into the habit of bringing her supper over to Petra’s house and eating it there. Her tolerance for Lena’s pettiness and gossip shortened with each of her mother’s visits. For the first time in her adult life, apart from her mortgage, Petra was not debt free. But, more important, she had developed a yearning to go to college. She loved her job, but she disliked being invisible, the person who sat silently taking notes, and who few people spoke to or seemed to be aware of.
Some of these trial lawyers don’t use their heads, or maybe they don’t care; they get paid anyway. I could have won that case, but that lawyer is incompetent, and the poor old woman is in trouble. Maybe if she increased her savings and went to college evenings, she could get a degree in four years. But after paying the credit card company the amount she’d agreed to send each month and taking care of her other bills, Petra saw that she had barely enough for two weeks’ groceries. As much as she hated to do it, she would have to talk with Krista about their finances. Perhaps, if they gave up cable television and their cell phones, she could cut expenses by about three hundred dollars a month. She had to do something about her life.
Goodman leaned back in his swivel chair and looked around his office, which he had recently redecorated. The beige-colored walls, and the good reproductions of Doris Price, Van Gogh, and Cezanne paintings made the place look classy. He’d spent more than he wanted to on his executive desk and matching walnut chair, and on the Persian carpet and other furnishings, but the effect was worth the cost. With as many students as he could handle and good name recognition, he’d done well since opening his studio eleven years earlier. He’d been pleased with his life then, so pleased that he hadn’t noticed how it had changed, how he and Carla related to each other only superficially. Without realizing it, his studio had become more like home than office, because it was the only place where he had peace of mind.
Recently, his philandering with Jada threatened to shatter that peace, and his family didn’t even notice the obvious changes in him and in his formerly clocklike behavior.
He had started the affair with Jada as a response to their first genuine family crisis, a foolish and childish thing to do. When had he and Carla lost their passion? Long before he knew about Krista, they had fallen into a habit of relating to their sons rather than to each other. He rethought that: they dealt with each other through their children. If he didn’t end his ridiculous affair, he’d lose his family; already, he h
ad a hard time respecting himself.
On an impulse, he dialed Carla’s cell phone number. “Hi, babe.” The minute he said it, he realized that it had been weeks, maybe months since he called her “babe,” his once favorite name for her. “Why don’t we all meet at Guido’s for supper?”
“Hi. Uh…Well, Peter has a college entrance exam tomorrow, so—”
He was having none if it. Did she think he wasn’t aware that she used the children as a means of getting around him, of avoiding her responsibilities to him and to their marriage? He interrupted her in sharp tones. “Then Peter can stay home and study. I’ll be at Guido’s at seven. Bring Paul with you.”
When she sputtered for a moment and then said, “Uh…OK. We’ll be there,” it occurred to him that whatever problem they had could be his fault. He was the head of his family, but if he relaxed in that role the least bit, Carla went her own way. He hung up and busied himself revising his arrangement of a gospel anthem for his choral group.
The door opened, and he looked up. “Damn! I thought I told you to call before coming here.”
Jada smiled triumphantly. “So you could tell me you’re busy or that you have company. You’ve been scarce recently, but let me tell you, darling, no man drops Jada Hankins.”
His heart thudded so rapidly that it frightened him. Best to get it out, for if she thought she had the upper hand, she’d be unbearable.
“What do you want from me, Jada? Lay it all out now.”
Jada’s gaze fastened on his crotch, but he refused to be taken in by her brazen suggestion. “You have to ask?” she said, confirming her unspoken answer.
“Yeah. Don’t tell me it’s sex. You can get that anywhere, just as you probably always did. And if it’s money, forget it. I have three children, and I plan to send all three of them to the best universities. That rules out supporting a mistress. So what is it?”
A Different Kind of Blues Page 20