Whatever It Takes

by Gwynne Forster

  For the half hour that she was pinned beneath him, she forgot her fears, but at the end of it, she dashed from the bed and lost her dinner. “I’m sorry, Hal, but my father would die if he knew about this. I . . . can we go now?”

  “Okay, babe. If it ain’t good to you, it ain’t good to me. I’ll have to find another place.”

  He drove her to half a block from the parsonage and parked. “I’ll get that pane in tomorrow, and from now on, you belong to me. And if I catch you with another dude, I’ll make it so you won’t feel like sitting down for a year. You got that?”

  She turned and looked at him. “No, I don’t get it. I never made it a habit to obey my parents, so you bet I won’t obey a man. I mean it. I’ll see you if I want to. Period.”

  “And what if I let your old man in on what you’ve been doing?”

  She opened the door. “He knows about the house, thanks to you, and after your rudeness this afternoon, he suspects something’s going on between us. I think I’ll just confess the truth to him. Nobody’s blackmailing me.”

  Before he could respond, she opened the door and jumped out of the van. “And if you don’t fix the windowpane like you promised,” she called after him, “you won’t get anymore of what you want. Got that?”

  “I’ll replace the damned pane, and you’ll come across with it anytime I ask you.” He drove off and left her standing there, but she had scored a point with him when she let him know she didn’t take orders. Her steps quickened, and her shoulders went back as she headed for the parsonage.

  Meanwhile, Lacette reached another turning point in her life. She was entitled to a peaceful environment and, to get it, she had to put some distance between herself and her twin sister. So she felt only relief as she made plans to leave the parsonage.

  “I’m sorry, Mama, but Kellie and I need to separate,” Lacette said to Cynthia the next morning, “so I’m moving in with Aunt Nan till my house is ready.”

  Cynthia’s right hand went to her mouth, and she stopped chewing the bacon she put in it seconds earlier. “You’re leaving here and moving across the street? What on earth will people think?” she asked, showing more emotion than Lacette had witnessed in her mother for weeks past. She took deep breaths, slowly and deliberately, as if calming herself. “Just because Kellie’s infatuated with that brooch, you—”

  At times she wondered at the simplicity of her mother’s mind. “It isn’t infatuation, Mama. She broke into Daddy’s house and ransacked it looking for that brooch. That’s a felony. The brooch is mine, provided we ever find it, but that cuts no ice with Kellie. And she treats me as if I’m standing between her and the satisfaction of her greed. I want to continue loving my sister, so I’m putting some space between us.”

  “I guess you think this is all my fault.” Lacette remembered her aunt Nan’s having said that Cynthia was riddled with guilt, and the quiver in her mother’s voice confirmed it.

  “In part, it is, because you never made Kellie take responsibility for the mean things she did. Look. I have to pack. I’ll move the rest of my things later.”

  She gazed at her mother, pitying the person she had become, a middle-aged woman trying to resuscitate her youth, and a parent unable to see her daughter’s failings.

  It’s good that I’m leaving. If I stay, I’ll go down with this sinking ship. “I’ll be late for work this morning,” she told herself as she rang Nan’s doorbell, but it’s worth it.”

  She greeted her aunt with a hug. “I’ll just put these suitcases in the guest room, if you don’t mind. I’m already late for work.”

  “Just leave them right there by the stairs. You gonna work full time at the hotel?”

  “No, ma’am. This is my last week demonstrating for Warren Pitch Company at the Belle Époque. I hope to start my own business very soon. I’m tired of making money for other people. See you this evening.”

  “You got your head screwed on right, child. Don’t pay to be like a racehorse, good as long as he can run, but soon as he breaks his leg, his trainer puts him down for good. Work for yourself, and if you hobble around on one leg, who’s to stop you?”

  By ten o’clock that morning, she had her booth in order and had hung for decoration several of the painted wooden birds that she carved when she didn’t have a contract and had time to spare.

  “Hi. Who made these birds? I’d like to buy a couple. That blue jay looks as if he’s ready to fly away.”

  “Hi, Douglas. The birds are for decoration. I don’t think I should sell them while Warren Pitch is paying me to sell their products.”

  His smile, brilliant and mesmerizing, might well have been intended for a lover. “Why can’t I buy them after your working hours? That wren looks as if it’s alive.”

  “All right, if you like them so much.” Secretly, it pleased her that he liked her artistry. Her mother had urged her to market the birds that she carved and painted, but she hadn’t thought anyone outside her family would think them worthwhile.

  His gaze swept from her hair to her shoes. “I do, indeed, like them. They’re perfect.” The last word rolled out in a half growl, half purr. She didn’t know what he intended to convey with that manner of speech, but it triggered both her anger and her determination to tell him what she thought of him. At the moment, those thoughts were practically unspeakable.

  “Excuse me while I attend to my customers,” she said and turned away from him. Away from his mixed messages and his mesmerizing eyes.

  The three ladies, seniors who she guessed were around ninety, soon smiled their appreciation for taking her time and walked away without having bought anything. Her thoughts immediately returned to Douglas, and her anger had not abated. She had freed herself from the parsonage and what it had, of late, come to represent to her, and she meant to get the rest of her life in order as well. So she telephoned Douglas on the hotel’s house phone.

  “Hi. This is Lacette. Could you come over here for a minute?”

  “Uh . . . sure. Be right there.”

  She didn’t give him a chance to activate his charm circuit. “For almost three months you’ve been giving me mixed signals. One minute you’re friendly in a platonic way, and the next time I see you, you may act as if I’m poison or you may behave as if you like what you see and want to sample it. You switch your sexy charm on and off as if it were a light bulb, and I’m damned sick of this on-off, come-here-stay-there act of yours. I want you to stop it.”

  She thought his eyes might leave their sockets, so large had they become, but they quickly returned to their normal size. He folded his arms across his chest, widened his stance and perused her with a steely gaze that after a minute or two began to soften.

  So the man had a temper, she thought with not a little glee. No matter. She would stand by her words.

  “I don’t make advances to a woman unless she gives me some ground, however slight, on which to do that. As for my reticence, I’ve met your sister and haven’t wanted to risk the possibility that behavior patterns run in families.”

  She braced her hands on her hips, making her stance as belligerent as his. “If you say I never encouraged you, you’re either blind or backward. And I am not responsible for my sister’s behavior. We’re twins, but we’re as much alike as geese and ducks. Both have feathers and long necks, but one flies while the other waddles.”

  His eyes narrowed to a squint. “You’d better be glad that these people milling around here can see us. If I had you alone right now, I’d—”

  She cut him off, happy that she’d riled him. “You’d do what you usually do. Nothing.”

  His right hand shot out and gripped her arm. “Don’t make the mistake of goading me, Lacette. I’ve watched you stroll around here day after day in your short skirts, tight pants and sweaters, and I’m already thoroughly prodded.”

  She hadn’t expected that and wished she had directed the conversation to a different topic. If she was sorry, he would never know it. “I am not going to apologize,” she
said, aware that she might regret her stubbornness. “I meant what I said.”

  His fingers on her arm loosened from a hold to a caress. “I’m a careful man, Lacette, and I don’t permit my libido or anything else to lead me where my mind doesn’t want me to go. If you consider that backward, then I was right all along. You’re not for me.”

  Not wanting to lose the small progress she had made with him, she shifted tactics. “Why don’t we start again and you tell me about those sizzling looks you gave me less than half an hour ago.”

  His left eyebrow shot up. “Now, who’s backward?” He looked at his watch. “I have to fill some orders. Care to discuss this after work?”

  She tried, but knew she hadn’t succeeded in pushing back the grin that stole over her face. “That’s a good idea,” she said as casually as she could.

  His smile, warm and sparkling, blazed across his face. “See you at five o’clock.”

  Her reply was a smile and a nod, for she didn’t trust herself to say more, lest she reveal her eagerness to be with him.

  Douglas left her booth, and she busied herself with the accounting she hated, though she realized that in her own business she would have to be familiar with it even if she hired an accountant. A second sense warned her to collect her wits, and as she wondered at the implications, Jefferson Smith walked into her booth. She regarded the man who, for a brief time, was her lover, and from whom she had parted on bad terms. She had told him she didn’t want to see him again, so it was his move.

  “Hello, Lacette. I’m leaving this afternoon, and I wanted to let you know that. Although I regret not leveling with you from the start and giving you the choice of accepting or rejecting me as a married man, I enjoyed every minute I spent with you. It wasn’t until you closed the door in my face that I realized I’d come to care for you.”

  She opened her mouth to tell him she didn’t want to hear it, but he raised his hand. “Don’t say it. I’m not asking to be absolved. I just wanted you to know. Have a great life.”

  “Thanks,” she said, though she doubted he heard her, for he was already on his way to the hotel’s lobby. What do you know? It pays to be honest about the quality of the goods you’re selling. If you lie about it, you lose twice as much in the long run as you gain, and a salesman ought to know that.

  “I hope my day moves up from here,” she said to herself, wondering how her time with Douglas later that day would go.

  Lacette closed her booth a few minutes before five, combed her hair and changed her shoes. She glanced at the mirror and lifted her right shoulder in a shrug. What he sees is what he gets. With not a little anxiety, she leaned against the side of her booth, folded her arms and waited for Douglas who arrived within minutes.

  “It’s too early for supper,” Douglas said “and it won’t be dark for another hour. How about going out to Cabin Fever? I love crafts shows and antiques fairs.”

  “I do, too,” she said, “and I haven’t been to Cabin Fever this year.”

  His eyes sparkled with obvious delight, and it occurred to her that she could grow to like his eyes.

  “Then, we’ll do that. Let’s leave your car at your home, and I’ll drive us.”

  She didn’t tell him she’d moved in with her aunt. Time enough for that if they became friends. She left her car in her aunt Nan’s garage, and he drove them along Motter Avenue. When they reached Court Street, he pointed toward the early nineteenth century Ross and Mathias mansions. “Ever been in the slave quarters behind those two houses?”

  She shook her head. “No, I haven’t, and I’m not sure I have the stomach for it. I’ve seen enough slave quarters to know why tuberculosis and pneumonia were rampant among the slaves and their life span half that of the white population. No, thanks. I don’t need the stress of losing my temper and having no outlet for it.”

  “I go there occasionally to remind myself how far we’ve come and how far I have yet to go. The first time I went there, maybe six or seven years ago, the guide told us that the slaves quartered there fared better than most, and all that did—in light of what I saw—was unsettle my stomach for days. The idea of anybody owning another human being makes my skin pucker.”

  He parked on Franklin Street half a block from Frederick Fairgrounds, which was home to Cabin Fever for each of its annual occurrences. They wound their way through the crowd to the artists’ stalls where one could purchase objects ranging from chocolate windmills to hammered silver belt buckles.

  “Who carved those birds that were hanging in your booth?” Douglas asked her, while he idly fingered a wooden replica of a mallard that seemed suitable for use as a decoy.

  “I did.” She supposed that he detected the note of proudness in her voice, but she took pride in the birds she carved and painted and didn’t care if she appeared to boast.

  When she told him that the birds were her handiwork, he said, “They’re as perfect as any I’ve seen, and I have several hundred in my collection.”

  Her bottom lip dropped. “And you want to buy two of mine? I’m flattered.”

  “You shouldn’t be,” he assured her as they reached a booth in which everything, including the walls, was made of natural seashells. They looked at each other, shook their heads and walked on.

  “Let’s go that way,” she said, diverting him from what she sensed might be a fortune teller. She knew that the fortune teller would recognize a person who had premonitions, and she wasn’t ready to share that information about herself with Douglas.

  “I want to look at some Native American crafts,” she said and hoped that he wouldn’t question why she knew where those crafts would be located. He followed her, and immediately she regretted taking that route, for her extrasensory perception warned her that they would encounter a seer or a medium. She bought a Native American doll and a pair of moccasins and turned to Douglas, who took her hand and directed her attention to his left.

  “That one’s beautiful,” he said, referring to the doll. “Say! These reproductions of Remington cowboys are so real, and since I could never afford an original even if one was for sale, I think I’ll take a couple of these.” He pointed to a bronze rider and to the famous statue of a rider on a horse that stood on its hind legs, spooked by a rattlesnake. When he searched in his pocket for money to pay for the statues, Lacette’s gaze caught that of an old woman who sat alone in a stall rocking rhythmically in a rocking chair. She beckoned and Lacette walked over to her.

  “Good evening, ma’am,” Lacette said, her heart in her throat.

  “Don’t be afraid,” the woman said, “I only help people. There’s something for you in a bank.”

  “Yes, ma’am. My grandmother willed me a portion of a bank account.”

  The old woman nodded. “I know that, but there is something else. You’re a good person, but you must learn the difference between being fair and letting people walk over you.” She paused, closed her eyes and rocked. Then she said, “The man over there is looking for you. Be straight with him. That’s all.”

  Lacette took a twenty dollar bill from her purse, but the old woman shook her head. “I accept money from those who seek me out and ask my advice. You didn’t look for me; I called you here.”

  Lacette thanked the woman and looked around for Douglas. “Who’s the woman you were talking to?”

  “I don’t know her. She’s a seer.”

  His face wrinkled into a frown, and he looked at her inquiringly. “Did you come around here in order to speak with her?”

  She lifted her right shoulder in a quick shrug. “I didn’t know she existed.”

  “Hmmm. Interesting.” He pushed back his sleeve and looked at his watch. “Six-thirty. By the time we find a restaurant and get seated, it will be suppertime. Ready to go? We can come back tomorrow if you’d like.”

  “I’d better call my aunt and let her know I won’t eat at home.”

  “You live with your aunt? I thought you had family here.”

  “Yes and yes. I’ll expl
ain it at dinner.” She called her aunt on her cell phone and told her that she wouldn’t be there for dinner.

  They settled on Country Kitchen about half a mile from the Stone House, the site where Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American-born saint, established her religious community in 1809. The waiter gave them a choice of pork chops or fried catfish, along with stewed collards, candied sweet potatoes, hushpuppies, and apple pie à la mode.

  “You take the catfish, I’ll take the pork chop, and we’ll share,” Douglas said. He waited until they finished the meal, and then she learned something about him. With a solemn face, he leaned back in the booth and looked directly at her. “Will you tell me about your family?” He said it as if he had a right to ask and projected a demeanor that commanded her to tell him what he wanted to know.

  She began with her father’s announcement that he was leaving her mother and the parsonage and ended with her move that morning to her aunt’s home, omitting only her liaison with Jefferson Smith.

  His silence caused her no discomfort, for his eyes didn’t waver from her face, and she knew he intended to consider his next words carefully. “It must have been traumatic to have what seemed to be the ideal family one day and the next, to witness it’s instability and then to see it crumble. Why can’t you get the nerve to ask your mother about her part in it?”

  “I guess I’m scared to know.”

  “You mean you don’t want to confront her. Well, I understand that. She’s your mother. Why do you think your father left it to your mother to disclose the reason for their breakup?’

  She had asked herself that question many times during the months since they separated, but had never settled on an answer. She thought for a minute before forcing herself to know the truth.

  “Because she’s culpable, and he’s too much of a gentleman to expose her.”

  “Wow! That’s rather heavy, but chances are you’re right.”