“You can always count on me, Ginger. No matter what. I’ll be there for you.” His tone turned sheepish. “You wouldn’t give a guy a goodnight kiss would you?”
The thought of kissing him sent her emotions into high gear. She didn’t recognize the sultry voice that said, “I’m parting my lips.”
His silence shouted to her through the wires. “Jason?”
“I…I’m loving you. Goodnight, Ginger.”
“Jason! Thanks for the beautiful calla lilies.”
“My pleasure. Goodnight, sweetheart.”
He hung up, leaving her to stare at the receiver. After a few minutes, she shrugged. No point in wondering why he’d done that, because she doubted he’d tell. She wanted to be with him, to know again the strength of his arms around her, to loll in his sweetness. She rubbed the goose pimples on her forearms as thoughts of how she’d felt believing she’d never see him again crowded all else from her mind. She reached for the telephone, remembered that she didn’t have his phone number, and laughed. Thank God she didn’t have to decide whether to be stupid or heated to the boiling point. But one day soon she’d have to choose whether to call him when she needed him, because he would surely give her his telephone number. Of that, she was certain; Jason Calhoun had served notice that he didn’t wait for things to happen to him. He acted.
What a woman! He walked out on his balcony that covered part of the roof of the building in which he lived, and looked out over Central Park. Sprawled out on a chaise lounge, he reached into the bar that stood beside it and got a bottle of iced tea. At sixteen stories above the street, the traffic below was barely a hum and, though he wouldn’t have minded hearing the nightly jazz that floated up from the club around the corner on Fifth Avenue, he preferred the more serene atmosphere of 110th Street. He mused over his good fortune in finding Ginger. He understood himself and his needs, and he knew right down to his gut that Ginger Hinds was the woman for him. He hadn’t meant their first kiss that day in the tour bus to be serious, but she had responded to him honestly, giving all of herself. He didn’t even want to think about that night in his hotel room. For a while, he looked at the lights that made New York famous and conjured up pictures of himself showing Ginger what lay behind so many of them. He wanted to show her the world. Several hours later, raindrops awakened him, and he went inside, dried off, and climbed into bed.
Jason rose early the next morning, went down to the exercise gym and did thirty push-ups and half an hour on the treadmill. After swimming a few laps, he went back to his apartment, dressed, and took the elevator down to Hilda’s coffee shop on the ground floor of the building.
“Your usual, Mr. Calhoun?” the waitress asked.
He nodded, and within minutes she returned with cheese grits, buttermilk biscuits, fried country ham, red-eye gravy, scrambled eggs and coffee.
“I tell you, you Southern fellows do love this ham, grits, and biscuits, and I’m sure glad you do.”
“Yeah,” he responded, sampling a biscuit, “when I get homesick for some real food, I make a beeline for this place.” He tasted the ham and grits. “Midge, this stuff is good.”
Her smile struck him as being a little too sweet, and he stopped eating and stared at her. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said to himself, when her olive-toned face turned crimson. Best to pretend he hadn’t seen it, because he was doggoned if he was going to give up the best breakfast in New York City. He laid beside his plate a tip that was much too large, went back home, left a message on his secretary’s answering machine, and called Ginger at her office. When he got the answering service, he called her at home.
“Hello, Ginger, this is Jason.”
“Jason? But I thought you promised me last night that—”
“This is strictly business. I’ll be out of town till Sunday night, and I wanted to make sure you didn’t want a conference with me or our clients before we see Judge Williams Monday morning.”
She resisted asking him what good he thought that would do, and asked whether his client was going to withdraw her countersuit and stop wasting their time. He countered with the remark that her client was a cheapskate for refusing his wife a small monthly allowance.
“Now, you wait a minute,” she fumed. “A woman who refused to work and help her husband build a life for them, who wanted to go out to dinner every night to expensive restaurants because she hated the sight of the kitchen, now wants a pile of alimony so she can sit on her lazy behind for the rest of her life? Give me a break, buddy. A man with modern ideals wouldn’t represent such a parasite.”
“And a lawyer with humane consideration for her fellow human beings wouldn’t— Ginger, for heaven’s sake, what are we doing here? This is ridiculous!” He took a deep breath, hating the feeling of defeat. “Ginger, I didn’t have that case on my mind. I really called to wish you a happy weekend and to tell you that I’ll be down in Dallas with my dad. See you Monday morning.”
“Oh, Jason. I’m…sorry I flew off the handle, but you made me so mad with—”
“Don’t say it. We’re both sensitive about this case, and I wish I knew why. See you.”
Jason telephoned American Airlines and reserved a seat on the twelve-forty flight from LaGuardia to Dallas International, packed a few personal items, and left for the airport. In Dallas, he rented a Ford Taurus and headed for the brick Tudor thirty miles from Dallas that he’d bought for his father the year before. He couldn’t have said why he wanted a couple of days with his father, but when he saw Aaron Calhoun he was immediately enveloped in that peace his father always exuded.
“What brings you here, son?”
“Everything. Nothing. I have to get away from New York City every so often so I can stay human, and I hadn’t seen you for a while.”
Aaron took him at his word, as he always had, and didn’t probe. “Fish been jumping that high.” He held a hand five feet above the floor. “We can still get a mess of catfish ’fore sunset.”
Jason grinned as pleasure stole over him. “You cleaning ’em?”
Aaron’s left eyebrow shot up. “Don’t I always? Want a bite before we head for the lake?” The local people called it a lake, but it was actually the wide, bowl-shaped area of the river.
“Thanks. I ate on the plane. Let’s go. I haven’t fished in months.”
They walked to the river, put their gear in order, and cast their lines. “Eric said you’d found a girl and lost her,” Aaron began, while they watched their little red and white floaters bobble with the rush of the river.
“That’s right, but I found her again. I still can’t believe I’ve seen her and talked with her. When I saw her in New York for the first time and realized I’d found her, we were in the judge’s chamber. Ginger’s a lawyer, opposing me in a case. You wouldn’t believe how totally unprofessional I acted.”
“I can imagine what a shock it was.” Aaron grabbed his line. “Oh, oh. There goes my fish.”
“Would you believe that judge told us not to see each other socially until the case is settled?”
Aaron stopped lighting his pipe and looked at the son who, even as a child, disliked taking orders from anyone, including his father. “And you’re doing it?”
Jason had to laugh at the look of incredulity on his father’s face. “I don’t have a choice. Ginger believes in obeying authority.”
Aaron Calhoun threw back his head and enjoyed a guffaw. “Well, I’ll be doggoned. You love her?”
Jason ran his left hand over his silken curls, a move certain to alert his father to his bemusement. “I don’t know, Dad. I haven’t seen much of her.”
“Pshaw. Sometimes, it only takes that first glance, one minute, and you’re in for life.”
“That didn’t happen with Louise and me.”
Aaron took a few puffs on his pipe and furrowed his brow. “You can say that again. You two backed into it, and it should never have happened. You were about as well-suited as a donkey and a thoroughbred racehorse.”
�
�I don’t think much of that analogy, and I hate hearing you say, ‘I told you so.’”
“And I didn’t say it, either. Soon as you can manage it, I want to meet your Ginger.”
He wished she was his Ginger. “If she’s the one, I’ll bring her down here.”
“Whether she is or not, I want to meet the woman who shook you up like this. Never thought I’d see the day it happened to you. Louise didn’t know who you were, but this one’s got your number.”
“You’ve got a fish, Dad,” Jason said, glad not to have to comment on his father’s arrow-straight observations.
Aaron pulled in a big catfish, looked at his elder son, and grinned. “We can go now.”
“Wait a minute. Not until I get—” The line jerked in his hand and, when he began to reel it in, the big fish fought him, jumping high out of the water, until Jason managed to get him in the net.
Jason looked down at the fish, still wiggling and trying to jump. “We don’t need both of them,” he told his father. “I’m throwing him back in.”
Aaron got up from the rock on which he’d been sitting and dusted off the back of his trousers. “When your mother was living, we used to say you must be the strongest softhearted man on this planet. Go ahead and throw him back.”
“You wouldn’t make some hush puppies to go with this fish, would you?” Jason asked him.
“That and some stewed down collards, too. Doesn’t take much to make you happy, son, but what it does take isn’t one bit ordinary.”
Jason slung an arm around his father’s shoulders as they began the half-mile walk back to the house. Peace. He hoped he’d someday give at least that much to his sons. A stream of fear streaked down his back. What if Ginger wouldn’t consider having children? He’d seen many women lawyers in court, but not one of them looked as if she might be pregnant. No, it didn’t take a lot to make him happy, but children were a must.
Ginger dressed with extra care that Monday morning. She had to look smart, businesslike, and feminine, too. She had Jason on her mind, but she also wanted that judge to take her seriously, so she settled for an electric blue linen suit and knotted her hair at her nape. Hot as it was, it didn’t much matter how she wore it, but at least her neck would get a little air. As she’d expected, Jason arrived dressed to kill in what had to be a Brooks Brothers suit and a red tie guaranteed to keep the judge’s eyes glued to him. She smirked at the sight of Alma Roberts in a clinging, red miniskirt dress and long, dangling earrings—a walking confirmation of her client’s accusations.
“You may begin, Ms. Hinds,” Judge Williams announced at precisely ten o’clock.
She looked toward Jason and wasn’t surprised to find his gaze fixed on her. Her respect for him climbed a notch when she noticed nothing personal in the way in which he observed her.
“Good morning, Your Honor. Mr. Calhoun.” Thank goodness she hadn’t forgotten that; Jason had a way of disarming her without trying. “Your Honor, my client, Steven Roberts, is seeking a divorce from Alma Roberts, his wife of seven years, on the following grounds.” She repeated the statement she’d made at the preliminary hearing.
Jason greeted the judge and Ginger and followed with his client’s countersuit. “If it pleases the court, my client rejects Steven Roberts’ charges as nonsense and wants them thrown out. A wife has a right to expect affection and companionship from her husband, but all she’s gotten from this man is a constant diet of her own company. All by herself, Your Honor.”
“Your Honor, my client has had to work so that this…his wife could live comfortably and he could still provide for their old age. Did she help him? No, ma’am. She spent what he earned trying to be a teenager. Pop records, clubs, parties, shopping sprees, and lunch two or three times a week with the girls, while he wanted to build a home and a future for them.”
Jason dropped his court manners and pounded his right fist into his palm. “A man has no right to expect his wife to work,” Jason growled, “not even if he has to hack two jobs. A guy is supposed to pamper his woman. Besides, how’s she going to have children and raise a family if she has to punch a time clock every morning?”
“Mr. Calhoun,” the judge said in a tone just short of sarcastic, “are you saying a woman’s place is in the home?”
Jason stuck his hands in his pockets, paced, and then turned to the judge with a half-smile at the corner of his mouth and his smooth demeanor intact. “Your Honor does me a disservice.”
“Glad to hear it,” Agatha Williams replied. “For a minute there, I was afraid you hadn’t made it into the twentieth century.”
“Wasted worry, Your Honor,” he shot back. “At times I get the feeling there aren’t many of us in it. If I may proceed? My client deserves restitution.”
Ginger couldn’t believe he’d risk flippancy with that straightlaced judge. She looked at the woman on the bench. Doggoned if he wasn’t getting away with it. Maybe she wasn’t the only female with whom that red tie and those gray eyes paid off.
She glanced at her notes. “Restitution?” She stuck a hand on her left hip and glared at Jason. “Your Honor, a person can only take so much. You work yourself to death giving one hundred percent, and find out you’re the only one giving. You’re struggling to build a home and a future, and all that wonderful person you married is interested in is having a good time. My client deserves a partner who shares his goals.”
Jason propped both hands on the bar and gave the impression of someone whose patience was fast eroding. After a second, he leaned toward the judge, his voice low and soothing like cool water lapping softly over and around you on a hot summer day. Ginger braced herself for a smooth job of conning.
“Your Honor,” he began, his face glazed with childlike innocence, “shouldn’t a young woman have the company of an energetic man rather than a burned-out Joe who straggles home late every night and conks out on the sofa in front of the TV?”
Ginger had to marvel as a smile brought sparkles to his eyes. “You’ll agree, I’m sure,” he continued, “that a woman should be able to enjoy her man when she’s young, and not have to wait until she’s over the hill.”
Who did he think he was? As if driven by a nest of hornets, Ginger bounded to within two feet of Jason. “Why don’t you men stop letting your libidos take the place of your common sense? A levelheaded man doesn’t try to have his cake and eat it, too. He plans for his family, makes certain that his wife and children will have a good life, and then he has a good time. Deliver me from the guy who wants his wife to start having a family the day they get married.”
She ignored the storm brewing in his eyes and the sparks that seemed to fly from them as he glared at her, his expression thunderous. “I suppose your client gets his ideas about family life from his mother. That’s usually what undermines a marriage, isn’t it? A spouse who hasn’t gotten three feet from the womb? A smart attorney would have advised Steven Roberts to seek counseling.”
She stepped closer to him, the presence of the judge and the divorcing couple forgotten. “I did advise it. And, anyway, what business is it of yours what I do or don’t say to my client? You obviously approve of your client’s adolescent frivolity. She’s too immature for marriage, a crybaby who doesn’t appreciate a solid, hardworking man. I would never have expected that of you.”
Bang! Bang! Bang! “Mr. Calhoun. Ms. Hinds. Those statements do not appear in the briefs you gave me, and I can only conclude that the two of you are either stretching the truth or you’ve gotten personal. I think you’ve gotten personal, and I won’t have any more of it.”
Ginger didn’t hear the judge’s words and, from the expression on Jason’s face as he stared at her, she suspected that he hadn’t heard them, either.
Steven Roberts stood. “Your Honor, could I please say a word?”
Ginger whirled around, and a gasp escaped her. She hadn’t seen Steven move across the room and sit beside his wife. “You’re supposed to consult with your attorney first,” she told him.
/> “Let me hear what he has to say,” Judge Williams interjected, “because up to now I don’t see any grounds for divorce. Marriage isn’t a game for the entertainment of adolescents, Mrs. Roberts.”
“Your Honor,” Steven pleaded. “We just decided we don’t want a divorce. After we heard Ms. Hinds and Mr. Calhoun going at it, what we thought was so important just kinda sounded childish.”
Ginger restrained her impulse to shake her fist at him. Hadn’t she told him that half a dozen times?
“I’m glad to hear it, Mr. Roberts,” Judge Williams said, “because childish is precisely what it is. And Mrs. Roberts, take my advice and grow up. Case dismissed.”
Ginger stuffed her papers into her briefcase, locked it, and turned to leave the judge’s chamber. “Thank you, Judge Williams,” she said in the mandatory gesture of politeness, nodded in Jason’s direction, and headed for the door.
“Just a minute, Ms. Hinds,” Agatha Williams called after her, “I want to speak with the two of you. If you’re having a problem, straighten it out. Better still, avoid cases in which you’re working against each other. And do something about this thing between you that’s so hot you forgot yourselves and behaved unprofessionally.” She grinned at Ginger. “Surely you can handle it, Ms. Hinds.”
“I’m not so sure,” Ginger replied and left Jason and the judge gaping as she walked away.
She took a taxi to her office on Broadway just below Houston and walked into the refreshing softness of blue walls, tall ficus trees, desert cacti, and warm mahogany furnishings that always seemed so inviting. Whenever she raised her gaze from the papers on her desk, she looked directly into the vision of artist Edward Mitchell Bannister, of whose calming seascape she never tired. Feminine, yet professional. Elegant, like the Turkish carpet beneath her feet. She sat down, wrote a summary of the trial’s conclusion, and buzzed her secretary.
“I didn’t know you’d come in, Ms. Hinds,” her secretary said. “Mr. Calhoun called. He said it was urgent. May I ring him?”
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