Something Real by Bettye Griffin, coming mid-November 2012
Isn’t She Lovely? by Bettye Griffin
EXCERPT
Keith disappeared next door just as a knock on the door sounded. Jeff strode over to the door and opened it. His assistant stood with a slim, simply dressed woman on the down side of thirty-five, whose natural hair was cut so short that Jeff found himself hoping she’d worn a hat to guard against the cold March wind.
“Come in, Mrs. Pegram,” he greeted, extending his hand. “I’m so glad you could come down this morning.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said nervously, not cracking the slightest hint of a smile. Her eyes darted around the room, lingering on the college and law school degrees that shared the wall with attractive artwork, the rich leather furniture and heavy oak desk.
He invited her to sit down, skillfully sitting next to her in the second easy chair that faced his desk rather than in his usual chair behind it. The first thing he did was ask about her son. He noted the relief on her face as she told him that the broken leg was expected to heal without complications.
“Mrs. Pegram,” he began, “I want you to know that your son was run over by a frightened teenager who’d taken his sleeping grandfather’s car for a quick trip to the library. He was trying to rush home before his grandpa woke up, and that’s when he collided with your son.”
“And kept driving,” she said in an unforgiving tone. “Am I supposed to feel sorry for him?”
Tough as nails, Jeff thought. But what would he do in her position? “No, Mrs. Pegram. I have a child myself. She’s three years old, and if anyone harmed her I’d want to choke the life out of them with my own hands. I’m just trying to give you the background information. Now, the boy did confess what he’d done to his grandfather, who immediately contacted the boy’s father, my client, who in turn informed me.”
“How did you find out who my son is, and who I am?”
Again that unyielding tone, and suspicious to boot. If Keith was listening he was probably sweating rivulets. But Jeff was accustomed to high pressure. “I’ve got an excellent investigator working for me. I don’t know his methods; all I know is that he gets results. So here you are, and here I am...and the boy’s father is in the next room.” He hoped she would show interest and ask where Josh’s mother was, just to convey to him that she had some curiosity about the boy who’d run down her son, and maybe some compassion as well. He could probably score sympathy points by telling her the mother was dead, but a sixth sense told him not to mention it if she didn’t ask.
She simply sat with the same stony expression. The woman showed no signs of thawing, and he suspected when she saw Keith she would turn into a volcano and start spewing lava. Jeff found himself fearing for both Josh’s future and Keith’s political aspirations. Tracy Pegram looked like Keith’s worst nightmare personified—a woman whose son had suffered pain and who wanted Josh to suffer as well, and Keith, too. Jeff suspected she might have been one of those voters who felt Keith had no business continuing his candidacy after the accident four years ago.
“Why don’t I bring in my client now,” he suggested. He got up and crossed the room, opening the door to the adjoining conference room. “It’s showtime,” he whispered.
Keith was on his feet in an instant. “Tell me quick. What’s your impression of her?”
“I hate to tell you this, but I think it’d be easier to climb Everest than to pacify this lady.” Jeff raised his index finger to his lips just before he pulled the door all the way open, and Keith knew he didn’t want the boy’s mother to think they were whispering behind her back.
Keith quickly covered his distress and followed Jeff through the doorway into his office. In one of the chairs facing his desk sat a woman who looked nothing like what he expected. It was probably silly of him, but from Jeff’s description of a struggling divorced mother, he hadn’t expected anyone who looked, well, quite so together. For one thing, she was petite. Keith imagined that her schedule of full-time work, part-time college, plus caring for her children left little time for nutritious eating, but Tracy Pegram hardly had a figure of a woman who grabbed a lot of greasy hamburgers and French fries on the run.
She was also fashionable. Her hair was cut in an extremely short natural that emphasized delicate features and a graceful neck. From what he’d seen, the shorter a woman’s hair the larger her earrings tended to be—perhaps to prevent her from being mistaken for a man—but Tracy Pegram’s lobes were decorated with small gold love knots, just one in each ear. She wore a simple crew neck black sweater and black pants with a black-trimmed collarless kelly green suit jacket. A thin gold chain hung around her neck with a curvy capital T hanging from it. To Keith’s eyes, Ms. Pegram looked as well-dressed as, well, Wendy, who was in a considerably higher income bracket.
“Mrs. Tracy Pegram, may I present Mr. Keith Norwood,” Jeff said.
Keith saw the flash of recognition in her dark eyes. She shook the hand he offered like she was in a trance.
“You might recognize him,” Jeff added lamely.
She spoke for the first time since Keith entered the room. “Yes, I do.”
“Keith, you sit there,” Jeff instructed, indicating the chair to Mrs. Pegram’s right, then went around to sit behind his desk.
After Keith was seated he cleared his throat and began to speak. He noticed that while his back was firmly against the back of his chair, she sat upright, her legs bent backward at the knee and demurely crossed at the ankle. He tried not to be intimidated by her stern body language. “Mrs. Pegram,” he began earnestly, “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about what happened yesterday. My son, Josh, has been unhappy lately about my campaign. You see, if I should win it’ll involve moving to Springfield. He’s a high school sophomore and doesn’t want to leave his friends.”
“I don’t mean to sound rude, Mr. Norwood, but is that supposed to be an explanation for what he did? Your son has a tantrum because he doesn’t want to move and my son ends up with a broken leg?” Her eyes flashed with anger.
He resisted the urge to exchange worried glances with Jeff. The last thing he wanted to do was make Tracy Pegram think they were ganging up on her. “Of course not. I just wanted to give you some background information.”
She nodded. “I know about the accident that killed your wife and mother-in-law,” she said softly. “I truly am sorry for the...horrendous experience you and your son suffered, but perhaps he should be supervised more closely.”
Keith’s spine stiffened. He understood the message behind her words: that he shouldn’t be out campaigning, he should be at home with his son. And he didn’t like it. Who was this woman to tell him how to raise his son? With all she had on her plate, how much time did she spend with her kids?
She kept looking at him with anger in her dark eyes. Keith didn’t know if he’d ever had her vote to begin with, but if he ever had it, he’d definitely lost it now.
Jeff quickly intervened, leaning forward personably. “Listen, we’re all parents here. We have to realize that even the best-behaved child is going to act out every now and again. I’m not saying that Josh has had no problems stemming from witnessing the accident that killed his mother and grandmother, but that ordeal is pretty much behind him. What happened yesterday was really a one-time impulse that he regrets very much. Mrs. Pegram, I asked you here today in the hopes that we can reach some kind of a quiet settlement.” He put just the right emphasis on the word ‘quiet.’
Keith found himself holding his breath as he waited for her reaction.
Tracy felt torn. She was being asked to take money in exchange for not pursuing legal action. Josh Norwood had left the scene of an accident, and one with injuries at that.
But he was also the son of a wealthy man, and she’d begun to dip into her meager savings to keep her bills paid on time, something she wouldn’t be able to keep up for very long. She was still paying back the loan she’d taken against her retirement account to
finance her divorce from Clint. Her credit card balance was creeping upward because of emergency repairs for a nine-year-old car she couldn’t afford to replace. And the kids always needed something, especially the rapidly growing Gabe. Things were worse now than they’d ever been before, and her stress level was becoming unendurable. Just last week she’d actually cried when she realized she’d accidentally picked up two half gallons of more expensive premium orange juice instead of the regular kind she usually bought. Things had to be pretty bad when an expenditure totaling a dollar and forty cents reduced her to tears. In that case it wasn’t so much the money as it was the strain of trying to keep up. And who knew when Clint would be able to send her anything?
It might not be fair that rich men like Keith Norwood could buy their children’s way out of just about any jam, but she had no choice. She had to hear him out.
“I’m listening,” she said quietly, trying not to sound defeated.
“I wanted to give you an amount that would cover your out of pocket expenses for your son’s medical treatment and would leave plenty left over,” Keith Norwood said. He paused, then said, “Twenty-five thousand dollars.”
“You give the word, and I’ll get the papers drawn up right away,” Jeff added. “You’ll be able to pick up your check this afternoon. Of course, there are some terms we must ask you to agree to.”
Tracy’s fingers gripped the arm rests of the chair even as she kept her facial expression impassive. Twenty-five thousand dollars! That was probably two-thirds of her annual salary. To think that Keith Norwood could pay her that much money in one lump sum, the same way she would buy a ninety-nine-cent burger at McDonald’s. She could actually pick it up on her way home from work, Jeff said.
But nothing was as simple as it seemed on the surface, and Jeff Howard’s words suggested a catch. “What kind of terms?” she asked, her voice low with suspicion.
“Confidentiality. We would expect for the details of the situation itself, as well as the financial settlement, to be kept secret. No friends, no family...not even your ex-husband should be told.”
Her eyes narrowed. She had broken her promise to Amber and hadn’t yet telephoned Clint, but it bothered her that Jeff knew about Clint in the first place. “How do you know I have an ex-husband?” That same creepy feeling she’d gotten when Jeff called her house returned.
As he hedged, the answer came to her with the force of a strong ocean wave. “My God, you’ve had me investigated,” she said accusingly. “You did more than just find out my name and phone number. You’ve snooped into my personal business, going over any records that exist on me. You invaded my privacy!”
While listening to her tirade, Keith noticed that her voice had a husky quality to it that was charming. In a different setting he’d find it sexy. He pushed that outrageous thought aside and sought to reassure her. “Mrs. Pegram,” he said in the most soothing voice he could muster, “I can understand your being upset at the thought of a background check being done on you, but I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s only common sense to get an idea of a person’s character before you offer them cash to keep something quiet.” Too late, he realized that pointing out his ability to pay her for her silence would only antagonize her.
She turned on him with blazing eyes. “And what if my character had been questionable, in your opinion? That doesn’t change the fact that my son has a broken leg because of your son’s reckless driving. So then what would you have done?”
His answer came without hesitation. “I would’ve brought Josh to the police station to turn himself in. I would have let the insurance company handle the settlement and done everything I could to protect my son against the law, even if it meant dropping out of the race for governor and having to disappoint those who’ve supported me with their money and their time.” Keith spoke with quiet resolve that conveyed he was every bit as concerned for his son’s welfare as she was for hers.
He certainly sounded convincing, she thought. She felt herself softening, then swiftly changed her mind. She couldn’t cave in now. Josh’s leg would be in a cast for the next six weeks. She’d have to shuttle him to and from school all that time, and she was already exhausted.
No. As far as she was concerned, Keith Norwood was as sincere as Fred C. Davis, the character of a do-nothing, hot-air Chicago alderman on the old TV sitcom Good Times. His decision to stay in the governor’s race four years ago after witnessing his wife’s death in a fiery car crash suggested he was power-mad and wanted to be the nation’s second black president. Couldn’t he see that his son had been traumatized and needed his dad? That might be why the kid took his grandfather’s car keys in the first place, to get his father to stop running for office and pay him some attention for a change.
It almost seemed unfair that such a cold, unfeeling man—even if he did manage to show personality and warmth on the surface, like that heartfelt claim he’d just made—should have been blessed with a personal fortune, Tracy thought. Imagine, paying someone twenty-five thousand dollars just like that!
It just went to show how real estate often made people rich. Tracy had dreamed, at least she used to before her divorce, of one day buying a house, a place of their own that she would lovingly decorate, where she and Clint would raise their children. Of course, they would have owned just one house, the one they lived in. Keith Norwood, on the other hand, owned properties all over Lake County in a partnership with his father. It was likely those lucrative investments, more so than his salary as attorney general, that allowed him to write five-figure checks without a second thought.
She blinked. Wait a minute. Real estate. That was the key. Keith Norwood could do something for her that would help her even more than twenty-five thousand dollars’ cash, something that would help her get back on her feet.
“Um, Mrs. Pegram?” Jeff Howard prompted.
She decided to go ahead and ask. All he could say was no. She could even make him sweat a little, suggest subtly that she’d go to the police if he didn’t give her what she wanted. She wouldn’t actually do that, of course. Tracy had no interest in revenge. She just wanted a chance to get ahead for once in her life, and a better future for Amber and Gabe. If he resisted, she’d just accept the money and go about her business. But he didn’t have to know that. That damn background check showed she wasn’t a criminal, but it wasn’t like they could read her thoughts by reading a piece of paper.
“I’m going to make you a counteroffer,” she said. “Your offer is very generous, and while cash is always wonderful...”
Keith and Jeff looked at each other in puzzlement, and she knew they were wondering what on earth she was about to ask for.
Tracy rushed on. “But what I’d really like is a rental house with free rent for five years, a house with three bedrooms in a good school district, like Gurnee.”
There. She’d said it.
Isn’t She Lovely? by Bettye Griffin, available now!
Accidentally Yours by Bettye Griffin
EXCERPT
The only thing she intended to serve was what could fit on his plate.
Vivian had high hopes for what might happen between her and Thomas Joseph. They had met the previous weekend on a setup with her friends Beverly and Michael White. The four of them had gone to dinner, and she and Thomas hit it off to the point where she was disappointed to learn he was going to Texas on business the following Wednesday and would be gone for a week and a half. She’d invited him over for dinner at her apartment, but it was important he understand there were no ulterior motives. Well, actually there was one. She didn’t want him to forget her while he was gone.
“It was really nice of you to invite me over, Vivian,” Thomas said.
“I thought you might enjoy a home-cooked meal, since you’ll be eating out a lot while you’re in Texas. It’ll have to be an early night, though.”
“That’s fine. I’ve got a morning flight. Can I help you out?”
“No, but you can keep me company.”
/> The tiny kitchen was really too small to hold two people, but Thomas stood in the doorway. She felt his eyes on her as she turned on the burner and poured some peanut oil into the wok. She then opened the refrigerator and removed the package of pork strips from the top shelf, the healthy, pinkish-white color attesting to the pork’s freshness. The look on his face told her he liked what he saw. Maybe there was a nice compliment forthcoming…
Or so she thought.
“You know,” he said, “it’s really best to keep your meats on the bottom shelf of your fridge. That’ll keep the juice from dripping down onto other foods and contaminating them. Juice from rare meat is just as dangerous as rare meat itself.”
“Gee, I never thought of that. I always thought meat should be kept on the top shelf where it’s supposed to be coldest.”
“Actually, the bottom is where it’s the coldest. It’s closer to the motor.”
“You’re kidding! I didn’t know that.” Vivian mentally filed this new information in the remote area of her brain where she stored useful facts. Thomas knew what he was talking about. He was a professor of microbiology at New York University, which was certainly a first for her. She could just hear her mother bragging to everybody in New London, Connecticut, that her daughter was dating a microbiologist. At dinner last week with Bev and Michael, he’d amused them all with a story about being reported to the police when a patron at an upscale Greenwich Village restaurant saw him crouching in a men’s room stall. He’d actually been testing for bacteria, but when he explained that to the officer the reply was a caustic, “Yeah, right I arrested another one like you three days ago.” Only an endorsement on his behalf from the maître d’ saved him from being issued a summons.
Vivian turned on the faucet and, leaving it running, sprinkled a few drops of water into the wok. It sizzled but quickly died out, indicating the oil wasn’t hot enough for cooking. She put the stopper in the sink and poured in a quick stream of dishwashing liquid, which quickly formed soapy pockets around the pot and spoon she’d used to make rice earlier, as well as around the plastic cutting board she’d used to cut strips of onion, and red, green, and yellow pepper. By the time the sink filled up, the wok was ready, so she dumped the meat in first, keeping it moving with a long-handled flat spoon.
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