Mick drove further, and then stopped the car just outside of a massive structure. “Thank you,” he said, “for having my babies. Thank you for giving me a second chance to get it right.”
Roz’s heart melted. “Oh, sweetheart,” she said, and kissed him hard on the lips. She was about to withdraw, but he pulled her back and kissed her even harder.
But she remembered a gift was forthcoming. And she started looking around. “Where is it?” she asked excitedly.
“Come with me,” Mick said as he got out of the car, walked around and opened the door for Rosalind, and then the two of them walked hand in hand toward the huge, closed hangar that housed his smaller, twin engine Cessna 421 private plane. Both wore long overcoats as the wind whipped around them, and Mick removed his scarf and placed it around Roz’s neck. Roz’s heart began to pound as they walked. Especially as they approached the hangar. She looked at Mick. “Wait a minute. Wait a minute here! You bought me a plane?” she asked him.
“So you can kill yourself and everybody else in the skies? Not a chance.”
Roz grinned. “Then what did you get me?”
Mick opened the double doors of the enormous hangar, leaving them open, and waited for Roz to walk inside. At first she just saw his Cessna. But when she saw a brand new Rolls Royce, bright, shiny red, parked near the back of the hangar, her heart leaped with joy. “That’s mine?” she asked Mick.
“All yours,” Mick said happily.
“But Mick,” she said, still smiling, trying to be diplomatic. “I have a Bentley already.”
“No, you don’t,” he said. “That’s my Bentley you’ve been driving. I loaned that to you, remember? And now I want it back.”
Roz laughed, gave him a hug, he gave her the keys, and she ran to her brand new car. She felt as if she was on the Price is Right coming on down, she ran so fast.
Mick walked, he didn’t run, but he was even happier than she was. Just to see her smiling face. Just to see the joy in her eyes. That was what he wanted for her always. That was what he was going to give her, with all the power that was within him, for the rest of his life.
And she was like a kid in the candy store as they sat inside the car, cranked it up, and played around with the gadgets. But when Roz moved to get out, to take another look at the outside of it, Mick pulled her back in. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked as he began moving her over to the passenger seat. He cradled her in his arms. “We aren’t done yet,” he added.
“I wanted to see the outside,” Roz said, still smiling, still enjoying this wonderful moment.
But Mick’s look had already changed from whimsicalness to a hooded look. “They’ll be time for that,” he said. We’ve got to break it in.”
Roz knew what he meant, but she decided to milk the moment. “Break it in? What’s that?”
Mick placed his hand on her chin, lifted her face up to his and bent his face down to hers. “This,” he said, and kissed her passionately.
Roz felt a twinge of everything wonderful when he kissed her. To be in love used to be a burden for her. It used to be all about putting up with some joker than two people striving together. But to be in love with Mick Sinatra was a horse of a different stripe. Loving Mick was turning out to be the best thing she could have ever done. And to birth his children. And for him to appreciate it meant the world to her. But a part of her was always concerned. A part of her was always wondering if she deserved a man like him.
“Are you happy, Rosalind?” he asked as he continued to smother her with kisses.
“Oh, yes,” she said as she lifted her chin and he kissed her neck. They were making out in a car. It was so sexy to her! “You could have brought me a rose, rather than a Rolls Royce,” she said, “and I would have been just as happy.”
Mick stopped kissing her and looked at her.
She smiled. “Okay, I’m lying,” she admitted. “But you get my point.”
Mick laughed the best laugh she’d ever seen him pull off. Partly because he loved her candor. But mainly because he loved her, and loved the fact that she was happy indeed. He removed her coat and scarf, and then removed his own coat, tossing them both in the backseat. Then he zipped down her gown, removed it off of her shoulders and down to her waist, and began to savage her chest, and then her breasts, with kisses.
By the time he sat her upright, with her back against his chest, she was already wet. By the time he pulled her panties down and the bottom of her gown up, and was unzipping his pants and pulling it out, she was so wet between her legs, so ready for him, that she was beginning to have a drain. He had not touched her down there yet, and she was already full.
But when he touched her down there; when he guided his oversized penis to the tip of her pussy and pushed it in with a hard, resistant push, she shuddered with arousal. And when he started fucking her, moving with that glide she loved, she was leaned back, her hand was around his neck, her breasts were wet and exposed, and she was riding him too. He was in deep, the only thing exposed was his balls, as he fucked her.
For nearly half an hour they made love in a brand new Rolls Royce on the backside of their property. They made love in a hangar. But for both of them, it could not have been more romantic. Not because of the feelings, although they were as real as air, but because of the connection. They were on one accord. Mick found the love of his life when he didn’t think such a person existed. Roz found the love of her life when she wasn’t even looking for love. It felt so wonderful to them. Their love wasn’t icing on the cake anymore. It was the cake itself. It was baked in. It was everything to them.
Mick leaned forward, pressed the button, and their song blared out over the crispness of the car’s stereo system. Stevie Wonder was singing Mick’s favorite song. Roz was not surprised, because it was fast becoming her favorite too.
“For once I can say this is mine, you can’t take it.
Long as I know I have love, I can make it.
For once in my life I have someone who needs me!”
Afterwards, when Mick cleaned both of them up, they finally entered the main house. Like two excited new parents, they both hurried to see about the twins. They missed them every time they were out of their sight. Gloria, who was holding them and talking with the two nannies, was relieved too. “It’s about time!” she said.
Roz grabbed Jackie and Mick grabbed Junior from Gloria’s arms. Gloria hurried to put on her coat.
“Hot date tonight?” Roz asked her.
“I would hope not,” Mick said. “At this late hour.”
Gloria rolled her eyes as her cell phone rang. “You’re becoming a prude, Daddy.”
“Good,” Roz said, and Mick laughed, shaking his baby boy. Gloria glanced at Roz, as if she could have told at that moment, but instead she moved away from them to hold her phone conversation. Roz asked the nannies if there had been any issues with the twins while they were away.
“None whatsoever, ma’am,” Miss Habersham said. “They played and ate and played and slept. They have been little champions.”
Roz smiled at the way she put it. “I appreciate all of your hard work,” she said to both nannies. “Remind me to give both of you a bonus check before you leave in the morning.”
Both nannies looked at each other in total shock and elation, and then at Roz. “Thank you so much, ma’am,” Habersham said.
“No, I thank you,” Roz said. “You guys have been wonderful. We appreciate it.”
“On behalf of both of us,” Habersham said, “we want to let you know how much we love working here, and caring for the little ones. You have been the best employer we could ever wish for.” Tears appeared in her aging eyes. “I was struggling so badly when I got this job. Just trying to make ends meet. Nobody wanted to pay above minimum wage.”
“Some,” the younger nanny said, “didn’t want to pay minimum.”
“That is correct,” the older nanny agreed. “But you already pay us a fortune. And the bonuses! We just can’t tha
nk you enough.”
Mick felt proud of Roz as the two women praised her.
But Roz wasn’t about to rest on her laurels. “Praise God, not me,” she said. “If He had not blessed me the way he has, with a wonderful husband like this man right here, I wouldn’t be able to do squat for either one of you.”
They laughed.
“So let’s give credit where credit is due.”
Gloria got off of the phone and looked at Roz. Her entire countenance had changed. Mick noticed it too.
“What’s the matter?” he asked her.
But Gloria was still staring at Roz. “Fonz didn’t get the role,” she said.
Roz frowned. “What role?”
“In Macbeth! You said you would put in a word for him.”
“I said no such thing,” Roz declared.
“Okay,” Gloria said, buttoning her coat. “You want to play that game?”
“What game?”
“I kept quiet, but I won’t always.”
Roz frowned. “Kept quiet about what?”
But Gloria ignored her. “Good night, Daddy,” she said, and then left.
Mick looked at the nannies. “Excuse us,” he said.
The nannies quickly left the room.
Mick looked at Roz. “What was that about?”
“I have no idea,” Roz said. “All I know is that she’s obsessed with this boy named Fonz. She apparently thought I was going to help him get a role in a local production.”
“Did you make any promises in that direction?”
“No,” Roz said. “That’s the crazy part. I don’t go around recommending people I don’t know, and I told her that. I get in enough trouble recommending those I do know. I told Gloria that too. But this boy has her blind to anything else. It’s all about him now. All the time.” She looked at Mick. “Do you know anything about him?”
“I had him investigated when she first started dating him. He’s clean.”
“On paper, I’m sure. But what about according to daddy?”
“I don’t care for him,” Mick said bluntly. “I don’t think he’s right for her. But she loves him and it’s her life. Just as long as he does not bring her any harm, I have to let her make her own choices.”
“It’s just seems like such an unhealthy relationship.”
“Oh, it is that and more,” Mick said. “But I’m fairly certain most people would say that about your relationship with a man like me.”
Roz couldn’t help but smile. “True that,” she said.
But as they sat in the chairs and continued to play with, and be with, their babies, Roz couldn’t shake the feeling that her relationship with Gloria was going south fast. Which would be a shame after the closeness they once shared. And for Gloria to threaten her like that, as if she had the goods on her, bothered her too. She didn’t like people to feel as if they had something over her head. She didn’t like that shit one bit. She had to talk to Gloria. She had to see just what she thought she knew.
Then she dismissed such unproductive thoughts, and gave her children and husband the attention they deserved.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Cecil Graham walked into Roz’s office the next morning with a smile on his handsome face. He wore his usual attire: a dashiki, an African kufi cap, and a backpack. He considered himself a wanderer, and looked the part. Roz, seated behind her desk and just hanging up her desk phone, smiled when she saw him. “Daddy!” she said excitedly. “I didn’t expect to see you today!”
“Surprise, surprise,” Cecil said with a smile of his own as Roz hurried from behind her desk and ran into his open arms. He was an oddball from way back, an aging musician with a rock star, never give up mentality, and she loved him exactly the way he was.
When they stopped embracing, she looked at him. “What are you doing here? I thought you had a gig in Calgary.”
“I did, but it was too damn cold for me. Besides, can’t I come and see about my little girl?”
“You know you can. Anytime! Sit down, please,” Roz said. “Want me to take your backpack?”
“Nobody touches my backpack,” Cecil said and Roz, already knowing that answer, laughed.
Both of them sat down in the chairs in front of her desk, with Cecil sitting his backpack on the floor at his feet.
“But why didn’t you come by the house?” Roz asked. “You could have seen the twins.”
“No thanks. When they’re full human beings, then I’ll see them.”
Roz was flummoxed. “Full human beings? When will they be fully human, Dad?”
“One year old at the earliest,” he said. Roz laughed. “I do not do babies, and especially not two at a time.”
“You are the weirdest person I know,” Roz said. “Do you realize that?”
“You know you love me for it. When you were a child you couldn’t stop hanging around me and my weirdness. I think that’s why we’re close today. You can appreciate the artist in me, with all of my uniqueness. Nobody else in our family even tries.”
Roz knew exactly what he meant. To the outsider looking in, her father was a failure, a man with a college degree who blew the good life in exchange for a career that went nowhere. Since Roz’s career went nowhere too, they empathized with each other on a level the rest of their family could not fathom.
“So,” Cecil said, “how’s your Daddy?”
Roz frowned. “How’s my what?” Then she realized who he meant. “Very funny,” she said. “Mick is fine, thank you very much. And he is not my daddy.”
“That’s what you think,” Cecil responded.
“And what is that supposed to mean?”
“Mess up, you’ll see. He’ll have you over his knee, or down on your knees, in a flash.”
Roz gave him a dismissive wave of the hand. “Nonsense, Dad.”
“I heard he did some damage in New York.”
Roz looked at him. How in the world would he know about what went down in New York? “Damage?” she asked. “What damage?”
“Oh, come now, little girl. I get around. I heard he damn near . . . Never mind what I heard. I’m sure he doesn’t go into those kind of details with you, so I won’t either. But they said he did what he did to protect you. That true?”
Roz couldn’t deny that. “That’s true, yeah,” she said. “But I’m good.”
“Oh, I know you are. Mick the Tick don’t play. I know that too. But there’s a cost to be boss. And there’s a cost for you,” Cecil said, looking hard at his daughter, “because you’re the boss’s woman.”
Roz nodded. She couldn’t deny that either. “True.”
“How are you holding up? Y’all been married, what? A year, two years? How’s things been going?”
“Better than you can imagine, Daddy. We have a wonderful relationship.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” Then Cecil exhaled. “I wish the same was true with mine.”
Roz didn’t understand. “Yours? I thought you were flying solo, Dad. Don’t tell me you got married!”
“I am flying solo! I’m talking about that mother of yours.”
“Mom? What about her?”
“She’s supposedly sick.”
“Sick?”
“Yeah. She had some sort of surgery or something. Of course she didn’t tell me until after the event, and Tyson didn’t bother to call me either.”
“Dad, you’re her ex-husband. Why would he call you?”
“Because I’m the only person who takes care of her when she has her bouts of illness. Ty don’t. You sure as hell don’t. I take care of her. We might be divorced, but I still love her.”
Roz loved her father’s devotion.
“I had to end my gig short so I could go and see about her.”
“Cut it short? I thought you said you weren’t in Calgary because it was too cold up there.”
“That too,” Cecil said. “But your mother mainly.”
There was a long pause. Roz and her mother did not ever get along. “You th
ink I should come with you?” she asked. “You think it’s that serious?”
“I have no idea. That brother of yours won’t tell me anything, and that mother of yours think I’m just being nosy and intrusive.”
“Maybe I should go with you.”
“I don’t think so,” Cecil said. “Let me go and assess the situation. If it’s dire enough, or if I think you should come, I’ll send for you. But you stay here with those half-humans of yours, and your Big Daddy of course, and I’ll take care of the grown folks business.”
Roz pushed him playfully. “If Mick’s my daddy,” she said, “then Mom’s your momma.”
“Damn straight she is,” Cecil said proudly. “You should see the way she slap this thang!”
“Eww! TMI, Dad!” she said as her secretary, opened the door and peered inside. She looked at her. “Yes, Teegan?”
“Mrs. Dawson-Blake is here to see you, ma’am.”
Cecil stood up. “I need to get moving anyway.”
“You just got here!”
“And I’m just going.”
Roz stood up too. They hugged. “Call me when you get there,” she said.
“For what?” Cecil asked. “You ain’t my mama. Your mama is!”
Roz laughed again, and her father left.
“Bye, pretty lady,” he said to Teegan as he did. She blushed.
“Send her in, Tee,” Roz said, and sat back down.
Within seconds, Roz’s friend Tamron Blake came bursting in. “Hey, girl,” she said as she came. “That your father?”
“That’s him.”
“Wow. Not bad for an old guy.” She made her way to the chairs in front of Roz’s desk. “You ready?”
Roz frowned. “Ready? Ready for what?”
Tamron put her hand on her hip, her tiny swing purse swinging on her wrist. “Roz!”
“Oh, Tam,” Roz said, suddenly remembering. “I can’t go to lunch with you today. I am so sorry. I forgot to call!”
“But why can’t you go? You have to eat.”
“Yeah, but I’ve got too much work, girl. Not gonna happen this day.”
“Please? Just for an hour?”
“No. Can’t.”
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