Whatever It Takes

by Gwynne Forster

  “As reckless as she is sometimes, there’s no telling,” Marshall said, his tone dry with seeming impatience.

  Lacette stared at him, appalled that he didn’t sit down in what, a few weeks earlier, had been his own home, until her mother invited him to do so. She didn’t need more evidence that, in his mind, he no longer belonged there.

  “She said she’d be back before six,” Lacette told them, her jangled nerves causing her to repeat what she’d told them earlier. Unable to stand the tension, she wrapped her arms across her waist and walked to the hall window to look for signs of her car, or at least its headlights. She walked back into the living room, rubbing her arms, deep in thought, and sat down, but only for a second before going back to the window for another look.

  “If she’s all right, she’d call, wouldn’t she?”

  Marshall threw up his hands. “Lacette, your sister is not concerned about whether anybody is worried, and you know it.”

  “Why are you always down on her?” Cynthia asked her estranged husband.

  He leaned forward and pressed his thighs with the palm of his hands. “Because I want her to do what’s right. If she told Lacette she would return that car to the hotel garage before six o’clock, she should have had it back there before six and not a minute later. Her word’s not worth two cents unless she wants something, and you can thank yourself for that; you coddled her and indulged her from the day she was born. If you don’t want me to lay it out for you chapter and verse, don’t lean on me when I tell the truth about her.”

  Lacette looked from one to the other, seeing contrition in her mother and either anger or disgust—she couldn’t make out which—in her father’s visage—indeed, his whole demeanor. She waited for her mother’s denial of his accusation, but it was not forthcoming, and she wondered if they’d fought behind the closed doors of their bedroom while their children believed that only loving energy flowed between them. If it had been the perfect marriage that she and Kellie believed it to be, would their mother have reacted to the split as if she had just been released from a maximum security prison, a bird out of a cage?

  At midnight, Marshall called the police station, reported Kellie’s absence and gave descriptions of her and the car.

  “Just a minute, sir,” an officer said, “I think a highway patrolman phoned in something about that. Seems the lady didn’t know that a car runs on gas.”

  “Officer, do you know where she and the car are?”

  “Well, sir, no, I don’t. The patrolman located her on Route 70 just this side of New Market. She’d been traveling at a fast clip, and when she slowed down all of a sudden, he thought she might have been sick, but she was out of gas.”

  Marshall thanked the officer, hung up and told them what he’d learned. “She probably called AAA. I’m going home. Let me know if you need me, Lacette.”

  She walked with him to the front door and kissed him on the cheek. As he reached for the knob, the door opened with some force and sandwiched him between it and the wall. “Oops,” Kellie said. “Sorry. I didn’t expect to bump into anybody; figured everybody would be in bed.”

  “Did you, now?” Marshall said, his anger almost palpable. “Apologize to your mother and your sister for worrying them half to death. Where is the car?”

  “Uh . . . the car . . . I left it on Route 70. Lacette, why didn’t you put some gas in the car? If it hadn’t been for that nice highway patrolman, I’d still be sitting there. He waited until I caught a ride back to town. A real nice man, and white, too. Never know who you’ll run into.”

  Marshall stared down at her, blocking her way. “If you were not a female, I think I would smack you.”

  She recoiled, backing away from him. “What did you want me to do? Stay out there all night on that highway? Besides, Daddy, I was hungry, and the couple who gave me a lift took me straight to Mealey’s.”

  “Why didn’t you at least telephone your mother so that she wouldn’t worry about you? We all know you don’t care how you make your sister feel.”

  “Daddy! How can you say that?”

  “Easily.” He looked at his wife. “She’s all yours, Cynthia.” He walked back to the door and stopped. “Lacette, I don’t think we should leave the car out on that highway all night. By tomorrow morning, it won’t have a single tire. I’ll take you by a filling station where we can get a couple of gallons of gas, and you can bring the car on home. Where are the car keys, Kellie?” She fumbled in her pocketbook until Lacette’s heart thudded from fear that Kellie might have left the keys in the car. Kellie found the keys and handed them to her father.

  “Let’s go, Lacette.”

  Kellie threw up her hands as if she were helpless. “Sorry, Lace, but you ought to keep your tank full.”

  Lacette didn’t answer her; she couldn’t, for nothing that came to mind was suitable for her parents’ ears. They found the car intact, although its shiny white coat had been defaced with mud from the tires of passing cars. He put the gas into the tank and trailed her home, and she wasn’t surprised to receive his early morning call the next day.

  “Can you spare twenty minutes for coffee before you start work this morning?” he asked her.

  “Yes, if I hurry. Where do you want me to meet you?”

  “We can have it in the hotel, and you won’t have to go out of your way.”

  She hurried to complete her set up before her father arrived and finished as he walked into the booth. “This is very elegant,” he said. “How’s it going?”

  “Great. The company wanted to extend my stay here, but I’m planning to open my own business the first of March, and I need at least two months to work at that. Bradley has taken care of the necessary papers, and next week I’ll sign the lease for space in the Catoctin Building across the street. If you’ll meet me after work one evening, we can go over and look at it.”

  In the coffee shop, he ordered black coffee and a brioche for himself, coffee and buckwheat pancakes for her. When the coffee arrived, he took a few sips, savored it and placed the cup in its saucer.

  “Lacette, this is not going to be easy for me to say or for you to hear. The Bible says if your right eye offends you, pluck it out, and if your right arm offends you, cut it off. I’m not asking you to go that far with your sister, but I’m warning you that it is time you held her accountable for her acts. You give, and she takes. She treads on you, and if you’re not careful, you’ll develop this kind of relationship with men.

  “Kellie is my child and I love her, but she’s like parched earth soaking up rain water after a long drought, taking all the moisture for itself and leaving nothing for plants. She is not going to change.”

  “I know, Daddy, and I’m beginning to accept that I love my sister more than she loves me.”

  “That’s a terrible thing for you to say; I hate to hear it. I don’t know if it’s true, or if she thinks love accommodates the things she does. I’ve talked with her about this, but I’m fairly certain that I didn’t make a dent.” He rubbed his chin as he did when he was worried. “It’s a pity. She’s going to pay, and heavily too.”

  “You still mad about the car?” Kellie asked Lacette the following Saturday morning.

  “A week is a long time to stay angry, don’t you think? And it’s a long time to wait for an apology. Is that what you’re doing, Kellie? Apologizing?”

  “Aw, Lace, come on. It’s not like you to act like this. You know I didn’t do it intentionally. Are you working today?”

  It was no use. Kellie never admitted culpability, no matter what she’d done. “Yes. Why?”

  She knew what was coming, but she wanted the joy of saying no at last to one of her sister’s self-centered requests.

  Kellie fidgeted with her fingers, twirling the diamond ring that she inherited from her grandmother and flicking her nails. “Uh . . . I was wondering if I could go to work with you this morning and take the car to run some errands. I’ll bring the keys back to you long before noon.” She crossed her
heart. “I promise, Lace, honest.”

  Kellie only called her “Lace” when she’d done something that she should be ashamed of but wasn’t. “You’re not serious. After leaving my brand new car on Route 70 at night for anybody who wanted to haul it off, you expect me to ever let you drive my car again? Sorry. No dice.”

  “Aw, come on, Lace. I couldn’t put the damned thing on my shoulders and hike home with it. Be reasonable.”

  “That’s right, you couldn’t, but you could have called me. Or Mama. Or Daddy. You didn’t care. You’ve broken every doll I ever owned and ripped half of my dresses. Don’t ask me to lend you anything else.”

  Kellie cupped her jaw and cheeks with her hand. “I’m not hearing this. You’re acting like you’re not my sister.” Then Lacette watched in amazement as Kellie’s bottom lip curled and her eyes blazed in fury. “Now I see where you’re coming from. You managed to get Lawrence Bradley between your legs, and you think you’re Miss Shit. If you had asked me, I could have told you he wasn’t worth the time.”

  “Oh. Oh. Look what you just told. Lawrence Bradley doesn’t know whether I’m male or female, but he knows about you.”

  “You’re just jealous.” She flounced around as if to rush down the stairs and nearly knocked their mother to the floor. “Oh. I’m sorry, Mama.”

  “What was that all about?” Cynthia asked Lacette.

  Lacette lifted her right shoulder in a quick shrug. “I wouldn’t let her borrow my car.”

  Cynthia recoiled as if she’d been personally denied the vehicle. “For goodness sake, why not? You can’t use it, because you’ll be busy at the hotel all day.”

  “Mama, you may have forgotten how she treated my car last week when I let her use it. I haven’t, and she will not drive it again. Period.”

  “Oh, dear. I don’t like to see rifts between my girls.” She fished in her pocketbook for a mirror, found one and refreshed her lipstick. “Did I hear her say you slept with Lawrence Bradley? I’m surprised and disappointed, Lacette.”

  “No, Mama, you did not hear her say that. Lawrence Bradley is my business lawyer, and there is not, nor has there ever been, anything personal between us, no matter what Kellie likes to believe.”

  “I’m glad. I wouldn’t expect you to do something silly like that. I’m going down to the Department of Health to take a physical. It’s mandatory for all teachers, and you know I start teaching in January.”

  “And I think it’s great. Are you nervous?”

  “A little. I’ll be teaching introductory science courses, and that’s an easy way to get back into teaching science. I’m studying the texts now, and it surprises me that I’m not bored. Well, I’d better run. Let Kellie have the car, honey.”

  She didn’t answer. Ringing in her ears was the sound of her mother’s voice over the years saying, Let her have it, Lacette. She ate a banana, washed it down with a mug of coffee, got into her car, rolled down the window and headed for the hotel. A fresh and bracing breeze seemed to flow right through her, invigorating her, cleaning out her insides, blowing away the cobwebs of her past, of her disquieted and unfulfilled life.

  Lacette strode purposefully into the hotel, set up her booth, called her father and told him of her encounter that morning with Kellie. “You did the right thing, and don’t look back at it, fretting about it. Kellie will make a dunce out of someone else, most likely a man,” he said. “Always remember: if you don’t make dust, you’ll eat dust. You’ve trailed behind your sister long enough.”

  “Mama thought I should have loaned her the car.”

  “I don’t doubt that. If Cynthia wants Kellie to drive a car, she can lend her that Mercedes she speeds around town in. Stand your ground.”

  She thanked him and hung up, but she hadn’t needed the lecture; she’d been on the bottom long enough. There would be some changes made, and it would be she who made them.

  With Christmas only a few days away, and after trying without success to envisage a Christmas dinner in the parsonage with her sister and both of their parents, Lacette walked across the street to her Aunt Nan’s house. She dropped herself into a kitchen chair, crossed her knees and leaned back.

  “What is it, child?”

  She rubbed her forehead. It hadn’t seemed that bad when she left home a few minutes earlier, but the more she thought about it, the heavier the yoke bore down on her.

  “Aunt Nan, this time last year, I had a family, and I thought we lived happily together. Yes, Daddy was bossy; yes, Mama acted as if she were a seventeenth century wife who had no wants apart from those of her husband; and yes, I let Kellie walk on me. But if I cried in the dark, Daddy rushed into the room and comforted me; if I stubbed my toe, Mama made it better; if I got into a fight at school, Kellie fought my adversary even though she was often mean to me.

  “We were there for each other. In some ways, we still are. But, Aunt Nan, who is this woman who has begun to dress as if she’s . . . well . . . on the prowl? And Daddy. It hurts to watch him come to our home and wait for an invitation to sit down. I won’t even describe Kellie. I was happier when I didn’t question her motives and didn’t understand how truly selfish she is. Daddy won’t talk with me at the place where I live. He invites me out to breakfast to tell me what he has in mind.” For a minute, tears rolled slowly down her cheeks, and then gushed until the water pooled in her lap. She sobbed uncontrollably as the pain of her loneliness racked her body.

  Nan’s hand, small but strong and steady, stroked her back. “Life happens, honey. Nobody’s living for you; you have to do that for yourself. If your parents had been as happy as you thought they were, the thing that broke them apart never would have happened.”

  She sat up straight. “Do you know why they separated? They haven’t told Kellie and me, and I think that’s the least they could do.”

  “You don’t have to know everything. Parents shouldn’t rat on each other to their children, because it forces the kids to take sides. Anyway, what’s done is done, and we all have to adjust to it.”

  Nan’s words reminded Lacette of her reason for visiting her aunt. “Yes, and with the holidays approaching, we’ll soon be tested, won’t we? Aunt Nan, there’s no way, as things look now, that Kellie and I can have Christmas dinner with both Mama and Daddy. Thanksgiving Day, Kellie and I ate two dinners, one with Mama and one with Daddy. It was terrible. Mama would act okay, but I don’t think Daddy will eat a meal in the parsonage, no matter who cooks it. If . . . uh . . . if I help, will you cook Christmas dinner and let all of us eat over here?”

  Nan braced her hands on her narrow hips and looked toward the ceiling. “All right, and you can bet Marshall will ask me who’ll be here.”

  “You don’t have to tell him.”

  “Of course I will, and if he objects to eating a meal with Cynthia, I’ll remind him of his Christian duty to forgive. Marshall won’t mess with me; he’ll be here, but tell Cynthia to tone down the makeup. I saw her in the library over on Patrick Street day before yesterday, and she’d plastered so much paint on her face that she looked like an artist’s palette. I wanted to ask her if she was on the make, but I figured she couldn’t change that much in a few weeks. Besides, I didn’t have cause to hurt her. Losing your man when you’re pushing sixty must be a blow. I walked out on mine when I was thirty, and that wasn’t easy.”

  “Thanks, Aunt Nan.” She got up to leave and remembered that she was supposed to have taken her aunt to see the Christmas Fair on Frederick Fairgrounds the afternoon that Kellie abandoned her car on Route 70. She went over to her aunt, leaned over and put an arm around the petite woman’s shoulder. Her father had explained that his sister was tiny like their mother, and that he had their father’s physique. She was seven the first time she prayed that she wouldn’t be tiny like her aunt, who at a height of five feet had looked more like her seven-year-old niece’s playmate than her aunt.

  “I promised to take you to the Christmas Fair. Is today a good time?”

  “I know y
ou didn’t come for me because Kellie messed up your plans, and I thank you all the same, but its getting too cold to be out there on the Fairgrounds. You’d enjoy it more anyhow if you went with a nice man. That’s something you ought to think about.”

  “Oh, I think about it but, so far, thoughts alone haven’t done the job. Thanks for everything.”

  Lacette walked out into the gray December afternoon, tightened her jacket around her and dashed across the street to the parsonage. She was glad that the church was over a block away around the corner on Pile Street, and she didn’t face the sisters and brothers in their coming and going to and from the church office and to the twice daily prayer hours. As she walked up the stairs to her room, she used her cellular phone to call Lawrence Bradley.

  “I have good news for you,” he said. “Your papers are all in order, so if you want to renovate the office space, you’re free to do so. I have the keys. As a thank you for using my service, I’m having a brass plate that reads L. Graham Marketing Consultants, Inc. affixed to your office door. How’s that?”

  “I’m ecstatic. Thanks so much. Any luck with that house I liked?”

  “I’m trying to get the owners to knock off another twenty-five thousand. I should have something on that in a couple of days.”

  Unable to think of anything she wanted to do at home, she got in her car and headed for the hotel. At least she could work. She’d barely pulled away from the parsonage when snowflakes drifted down to her windshield. No breeze moved the now snow-littered tree limbs; pedestrians were nowhere to be seen; now and then, a vehicle moved past, slowly and irresolutely as if the drivers found a dusting of snow unmanageable.

  In the silence of her thoughts, she drove past the exit to the Belle Époque Hotel and soon found herself at the edge of Catoctin Mountain Park. Following a whim, she parked between two oak trees, got out, tested her weight on the snow-covered sod. The crunching of her Reeboks on the leaves—now obscured by the falling snow—was the only sound she heard as she walked among the leafless trees and barren bushes, breathing deeply of the clean, fresh air, thinking of the chasm she was about to cross and glad for it. She hated to leave the idyllic place, but the snow thickened, and she knew the folly of getting stranded in an out-of-the-way place even in good weather.