Whatever It Takes

by Gwynne Forster

  He met her at the kitchen door with the remainder of the dishes, put them in the dishwasher, took her hand and walked with her to the living room where she saw that he had put the white wine and their glasses on the coffee table.

  “Want some music?” she asked him, realizing that her plan would meet no resistance and procrastinating, now that the moment had arrived.

  “I’d love it.”

  How can he be so calm at a time like this? She put on the mood music she’d previously chosen and walked over to where he sat. He patted the space beside him, and she slid into the circle of his arms.

  “I had begun to think that I was out of step, that women didn’t want love, tenderness, and caring from a man, that during the eight years of my courtship and marriage, their priorities had switched to monetary gain and sex. I didn’t want to believe that you’re different, but you are. You’re talented, smart, and beautiful, but you’re also a kind, tender, and loving woman. Deep in my gut, I know you’re right for me.” He took a long breath, and she waited for the word “but.”

  He went on. “You’re imbedded in every muscle, joint, sinew, bone and tissue of my body.” He put his hand on the left side of his chest. “And you’re deep in here. Are you willing to cut ties with other men and let us see if we can make a go of it?”

  “I care deeply for you, Douglas. Did you just tell me that you care for me?”

  Laughter rumbled in his throat and finally poured out. “Yes, indeed.”

  She sobered then, sat up straight and looked at him. “What about Nick? His attitude toward me may change again. I don’t want to get more deeply involved with you only to have our relationship blow up in my face.”

  “Nick asked if he could spend next weekend with me, because he wants you to teach him how to carve and paint birds. He’s captivated with those birds you create.”

  “Really? He tried carving, and he has the touch. Sure. I’ll teach him as much as I know.”

  “Any other misgivings?”

  Lacette rested her head against his shoulder. “If I think of any, you’ll be the first to know.” Mancini’s orchestra filled the air with the strains of a love song she cherished, and as if he read her mind, he stood and said, “Dance with me.”

  Locked to his body and moving by inches to the music, she put one hand behind his nape and the other one at his waist and pressed him to her. So long. Oh, Lord. So long she’d waited for this moment—at the edge of paradise with a man she loved. This time she wouldn’t be denied. She stood on tiptoe, parted her lips against his and felt him suck in his breath as his body quickened. Then, he plunged into her. Heat spiraled through her body, and she stopped thinking. With her right hand, she took one of his and pressed it to her left breast, it’s areola already hard in anticipation of what was to come.

  He stepped back from her, but she moved into him, gripped his body to hers and held him.

  “I need to make love with you, sweetheart, but if you’re not ready for it, send me out of here this minute.”

  For an answer, she put his hand back on her breast and let him feel her erect nipple. His fingers caressed the top of her cleavage before he slipped his hand inside and toyed with her nipple.

  Oh, the sweet hell, the torture, as unrestrained moans escaped her. “Kiss me. I’ll die if you don’t kiss me.”

  He freed her breast and sucked it into his mouth, and she felt him then, hard and bulging against her. “I sleep upstairs,” she whispered, and he didn’t hesitate. Minutes later, he flung back the cover of her bed and threw his jacket and tie across her boudoir chair.

  Robbed of his calm by the passion that possessed him, he reached for her. “Come here to me and let me know that you want me.”

  She kicked off her shoes and molded herself to his body. She longed to touch him, and when she extended her hand to caress his belly, he caught his breath and she let her hand drift down until she could feel him. Emboldened by his gasp, she fondled him, and he threw his head back as groans poured from his throat.

  “Stop it. Baby, stop it.”

  Nearly an hour later, he raised his head from her breast, looked down at her and smiled the sweetest smile she’d ever witnessed. “I’m in love with you, girl.”

  “Nothing could make me happier.”

  Lacette danced out of bed the next morning and tripped into the shower. She could hear in her memory Mancini’s rendition of “Diane” and its words, “I’m in heaven when I see you smile,” and in her tuneless alto, she gave voice to them. Later, she strode into her office swinging her briefcase.

  “Good morning, Lourdes,” she sang to her secretary.

  Lourdes paused in her typing and raised an eyebrow. “Hmmm. Looks like he’s gone from lunch to dinner. Bully for you.”

  He called her several times during the day. “I’ll be over at five this evening to start work on your property,” he said in one of his calls. “Does that suit you?”

  “Seeing you beats not seeing you. If you want to hook your visit up with landscaping, fine with me.”

  He laughed as she’d known he would. “I can’t abide untidy lawns and shrubs,” he said, “though I don’t know why I’d go to the trouble.”

  “What do you mean by that?” she asked him, annoyance creeping in.

  “It ought to be as plain as your face. What will you do with two houses?”

  She held the receiver at arm’s length and stared at it. Convinced that she hadn’t heard him correctly, she said, “What time did you say you’re coming? Five o’clock?”

  “Uh. Yes. I’ll be there as close to five as I can make it.”

  Wonder what cooled him off, she asked herself after she hung up. Nonetheless, she left the office at four-thirty, on time for a change, in order to greet him at her door when he arrived. Although unduly tired, she threw her jacket and briefcase on a living room chair, changed into a corduroy jumpsuit and walked out on her back porch to decide what tips she could give him in regard to her garden. She’d be satisfied growing beans and sweet potatoes, but he would have more grand ideas. She started down the steps and sat down.

  How did he get so lucky as to find a woman who suited him in every respect? He had made love with her time after time the night before, and each time they scaled greater heights. He wouldn’t have believed it possible. The day passed with him counting the minutes until he would be with her again. He parked in front of her house right behind her white Mercury Cougar, got out and went to her front door. After ringing the bell repeatedly, he peeped into the picture window of her living room and saw her jacket and briefcase. He rang the bell again, took out his cell phone and telephoned her and he could hear the phone ringing. The more it rang the more frustrated he became until a restlessness and a fear settled in him. He walked around to the back of the house hoping to find a way to get in.

  “My God. Lacette!” He ran to where she half sat half lay on the steps. “Thank God, she’s breathing,” he said aloud after checking. He telephoned for an ambulance, sat on the steps holding her head in his lap, caressing the side of her face and whispering words of love to her. He rode in the ambulance with her to Frederick Memorial Hospital and walked the floor awaiting word of her condition.

  Good heavens, he’d forgotten to call her parents. He didn’t know her mother’s number, so he phoned her father. “I don’t know what’s wrong, sir. I was going to do some work around her house, but when I got there, I found her unconscious on the back steps. Will you please call her mother?”

  “I will, and I thank you for calling me. I’ll be at the hospital in half an hour.”

  Douglas stopping pacing and rushed to greet Marshall Graham when he entered the waiting room. “I got here as soon as I could,” Marshall said. “Do you know how she is?”

  “No, sir, and she’s been in there a good three hours. Could you . . . uh . . . say a prayer?”

  Marshall raised an eyebrow, stared at him for a second and then bowed his head. “Father, thy daughter, Lacette, is in your hands now, and
we ask you mercifully to send her back to us in good health. Amen.”

  “If she’s really sick, she can’t stay alone,” Douglas said, giving voice to his worries.

  “This is true. I’m moving into my house this week, but I’m not sure it’s suitable for a sick person with those high stairs, but there’s plenty of room, and I can—”

  “Don’t worry about that, sir. I’ll take care of her—”

  Marshall interrupted. “Say, the two of you aren’t living together, I hope. It’s enough that I have one thoughtless daughter.”

  “No, we aren’t, and we’ve never discussed it, but that doesn’t mean I can’t look after her.”

  Marshall’s fingers brushed the flesh beneath his chin where an emerging beard reflected the time of day. “Then you two have an understanding?”

  “Yes. We care deeply for each other, and we want to see whether we have the basis for permanent ties.”

  When Marshall grinned, he saw in the man a reflection of Lacette’s face, the half dimpled chin and the sparkling eyes. “Does that translate to ‘We care enough, but we don’t know each other well enough to marry, although we want to?’ ” said Marshall.

  So the man had a sense of humor. In his book, that added to a person’s stature. “You could say that, but I’d do it tomorrow if she said yes.”

  “Hmmm. What’s holding her back?”

  “I’m a widower, and I have a nine-year-old son who lives most of the time with my parents. She wants to be sure of the boy’s feelings about her, and maybe she needs to know more about me. Nick—that’s my son—is enchanted with her.”

  “You and Lacette are both lucky and blessed.” He appeared thoughtful as he rubbed his chin again. “The one thing that is certain to ruin a marriage is infidelity. Remember that. Forgiving it is difficult, and forgetting it is impossible.”

  He looked Marshall in the eye. “My wife was sick for almost two years, and I have a perfect record for fidelity. I took my vows seriously.”

  Marshall leaned back in the plastic and chrome chair and clasped his hands over his belly. “Yes. I imagine you do, and it’s refreshing.”

  “Thanks. I’m going up to the nurses’ station. I can’t stand not knowing.”

  A nurse met him as he stepped out of the waiting room. “Mr. Rawlins? She’s fully conscious, but we’re doing some tests before we release her. It is unusual that a healthy young woman with no history of disease would pass out and remain unconscious as long as she did. You may as well go home. We’ll call you.”

  He shook his head. “Thanks, but I’ll wait. She hasn’t had anything to eat since around noon, so I imagine she’s hungry.”

  “We’ll give her something as soon as we finish the tests.”

  “Is there . . . Can I see her for just a minute?”

  “I . . . uh . . . well, yes. Why not?”

  He went back to where Marshall sat on the edge of his chair. “I just saw the nurse. Lacette is conscious. They’re keeping her for tests. I’m going with the nurse to see her.”

  He found her sitting on the side of a gurney, and her smile told him how glad she was to see him. “Your dad’s here, too. Don’t worry about anything. I’ll call Lourdes tomorrow morning, and—”

  “But I want to be out of here tomorrow morning. I feel fine.”

  His put an arm around her. “Let them take the tests. I’ll be here when you’re ready to leave.” He kissed her cheek and left, unable any longer to push back the lump that formed in his throat when he saw her so frail and fragile in that rough cotton hospital gown. He stood outside the room until he could regain his composure.

  “Feisty as ever,” he told Marshall. “If you want to speak with her, I’ll take you there.” He left Marshall at the door of Lacette’s room and went back to the waiting room.

  “You’re staying?” Marshall asked him when he returned. Douglas nodded. “Then I’ll get on home. If you need me, please call. Thank you for getting in touch with me. I won’t forget it.” He shook hands and left.

  About half an hour after daybreak, a nurse wheeled Lacette into the waiting room. She’s ready to go, Mr. Rawlins. I’ll wheel her down to the exit.” Lacette’s smile seemed artificial, but he was too tired and sleepy to be certain. He called a taxi, took her home and up to her bedroom. She kicked off her shoes, unzipped the jumpsuit, stepped out of it and crawled into the bed.

  She’s not herself or she wouldn’t have pulled that thing off in my presence. He looked at the prescriptions and the doctor’s note.

  “What’s this? Severe Aplastic Anemia? What does it mean?”

  She turned on her side, her back to him. “It means I need a bone marrow transplant, and that’s why I get so tired.”

  “All right, don’t be dispirited, honey. We’ll find a donor, starting with your family and me. You’ll be fine.”

  “Thanks. I have to get it done at Johns Hopkins. They have a bone marrow transplant program. The doctor said I’m exhausted because I’m not producing red blood cells.”

  He knelt beside the bed. “Listen to me, baby. I’d go if the program was in Alaska. You stay home today and rest. I’ll get you some breakfast, and I’ll come back with your lunch around one o’clock. I’d better call your father.”

  “I’ll go to Baltimore today to take the donor test, and I’ll call Lacette’s mother right now,” Marshall said. “If one of us doesn’t match, we know Kellie will, so tell Lacette not to worry.”

  The days passed and neither he nor either of Lacette’s parents was a sufficiently close match for a bone marrow transplant. Increasingly distressed, Douglas asked Marshall why Kellie didn’t go for the test.

  “I asked her to do that the day Lacette came home from the hospital, but she’s only given me excuses about work and Fayson.”

  “Fayson? Surely he wouldn’t attempt to prevent her from saving her sister’s life.”

  “Somehow, I don’t think so,” Marshall said, “and if he tries, she should put him out of her life.”

  Marshall couldn’t know that his report of Douglas Rawlins’s attentiveness to Lacette had resurrected Kellie’s jealousy of her sister, her envy of the woman who Douglas Rawlins loved. “She’s got everything, and I have nothing,” Kellie said to herself over and over all day that Tuesday. “People don’t die because they don’t have enough red blood cells. Hell,” she said, pushing her hair from her face and wishing she could go to a good hairdresser, “they drink tomato juice or eat Jell-O. It just takes longer to work.”

  That night at the apartment she shared with Hal, after a meal of fried pork chops, mashed potatoes, and string beans, Hal pushed his glass to her, and she got up from the table, went to the refrigerator and brought him another glass of beer. He didn’t say thanks, and she no longer expected it. “You oughta learn how to make decent mashed potatoes,” he said, “and them string beans was half raw. Beans and cabbage gotta be cooked real good and done, otherwise, they ain’t shit.”

  When she didn’t answer, he said, “So I ain’t good enough to converse with, huh? I oughta make you swallow your teeth. I’m going out.”

  He liked to threaten her, but she knew he remembered her father’s words because, angry as he’d get, he’d throw things around the apartment, but he didn’t hit her. One of these nights, he’ll come back here half soused, and I’ll be gone, she told herself. But she’d made that promise to herself so many times since they moved in together. She sighed, cleaned the kitchen and took advantage of his absence to shower and give herself a manicure and pedicure. At ten o’clock, she crawled into bed and went to sleep.

  “You mean she won’t budge?” Douglas asked Marshall. “Did her mother tell her how important this is?”

  “We both told her, and my sister told her that if she doesn’t go for the test, she’ll write a story about her and give it to the local scandal sheet. Not even that has worked so far.”

  “She’s good at blackmail,” Douglas remembered. “Maybe I’ll try that tactic myself.”

  He
stood in the lobby of the City Hall building at the end of the next working day, which was Friday, and waited for Kellie. He didn’t want Hal Fayson to see him talking with her, and he figured Fayson would meet her after work. As he’d known she would, her steps slowed when she saw him.

  “You won’t take a test and give up the bone marrow that could save your sister’s life. How would you like it if I told Fayson that you propositioned me at a time when your were having an affair with him? He’d never trust you again, and he’d make your life hell. Unless you do the right thing for your sister, I’ll tell him, and Jocko will confirm that you propositioned him, too, without success, I’ll add.”

  “You’re crazy about her, aren’t you? You’ve always been the one holding the aces; well, this time I have them. The only reason I’ll do it is if you take me to bed and do a damned good job of it.”

  His loud gasp attracted the attention of a man who passed them. “How can you make yourself so cheap?”

  “Cheap?” She tossed her head. “I’d say that’s pretty pricey, and it’s that or nothing.”

  She started past him, but he grabbed her arm. “Yes. You’d do that, wouldn’t you? Lacette told me that from childhood, you wanted everything she had.”

  “And I always got it, too.”

  “So she said. Then you discarded it. All right. It’s a deal, but only after you donate the bone marrow.”

  “What if I take the test and it’s negative?”

  “After you donate the bone marrow. I keep my word, but I’m not sure about you.”

  “Okay. I’ll call you at the hotel when I’m ready for our date.”

  He wouldn’t call it a date. To be sure he could keep his end of the bargain, he went to a clinic in Boonsboro—where he wasn’t known—that weekend and got a prescription for Viagra. As much as he disliked Kellie Graham, he’d need it.

  The following Tuesday, Marshall called him with the news that Kellie had taken the test and was a perfect match. “I wonder why she finally did it,” he added.