Romancing the Bulldog

by Mallory Monroe

  The desk phone began ringing. “Don’t you have work to do?” Liz asked, picking up the phone’s receiver. She was certain it was Jason. She had given him her direct number after their (second) roll in the hay last night.

  “Just answer the phone,” Shameika said and Liz made a fist and showed it to Shameika.

  Shameika laughed.

  “Liz Morgan,” Liz said into the phone.

  “What’s up?” replied a male’s voice that Liz immediately recognized as her brother’s.

  “Malcolm?” she asked, unable to hide her shock.

  “You sound surprised.”

  “Of course I’m surprised,” she said, wondering at first how did he get her private line number, then remembering that her aunt, who was always attempting to mend fences, had undoubtedly given it to him. “You were the last person on earth I expected to hear from,” she added.

  “The second to last person on earth. Let’s not forget dear old Dad.” Liz exhaled and leaned back, the thought of her father making her ill. Then she put her hand over the receiver. “Anything else, Meek?” she asked her assistant.

  “You are so rude,” Shameika said lightheartedly, but she did leave the office.

  “So,” Liz asked her brother, “what have I done to deserve this phone call?”

  “Can’t a man miss his kid sister?”

  “Yes, a man can,” Liz promptly replied, “but what does that have to do with you?”

  “Ouch,” Malcolm said and he may have smiled, which made Liz smile. “But for real,” he went on, “I miss you. Dad misses you, and wants to make amends.” Liz’s smile just as promptly left. Her father wanted to rebuild a relationship with her? A relationship that had been so badly fractured that he wouldn’t even take her phone call when she was in the depths of the worse time of her life, was even facing a prison sentence because of her involvement with her then husband. Now he wants to make amends? “What do you mean?” she asked him.

  “He wants the two of you, all three of us actually, to stop this madness and come together as a family. He wants you to come to the house for dinner tonight.” Liz was immediately skeptical. She knew her father too well. “If he wants all of that,” she said, “why didn’t he call and ask me himself?”

  “Ah, come on, Liz, you know how he is. What you’re asking him to do is to admit he’s been wrong, and that ain’t gonna happen.”

  That was probably the most honest thing her brother, who worshiped their father, had said.

  But the idea of reconciling with her family was too tempting for her to turn down. “What time tonight?” she asked.

  “Say seven?”

  Liz exhaled. “Seven’s good,” she said. “And Mal,” she added, “this better not be an ambush.”

  “Girl, listen to yourself. An ambush. Has living in Philadelphia made you that cynical?”

  “No,” Liz admitted, “but you and our dear Dad have.”

  “Ouch again!” Malcolm said. “You’ve toughened up, good for you. See you tonight then.” He said this and typical Malcolm, immediately hung up.

  Liz held onto her phone a moment longer, before hanging up too. That sense of dread every time she thought about her father began to overtake her. She used to love that man so much, and crave being in his presence, that she used to do anything and everything to get his attention. But nothing worked. She made all A’s in school, joined all kinds of A-list organizations, but it never was enough for him. And when she was accepted into Edward Waters College, the school of her choice, he looked at her as if she’d grown fangs. “Edward Waters is fine,” he said, “as far as it goes. But no daughter of mine is going there. You hear me? You either get your sorry ass into Harvard, or don’t even bother.” But that night she spent with Jason changed her. She saw that she wasn’t this powerless daddy’s girl who did whatever daddy wanted, only to find that it was never good enough. She was a desirable young woman who had even an experienced, gorgeous hunk like Bulldog Rascone wanting her. And he did that night, he wanted her desperately. Knowledge is power and that knowledge changed her. Unfortunately for her, however, that power of hers lasted about as long as she could say ‘I Do’ to yet another man with a shackle in his hand.

  Her private line rang again. This time it was Jason. “Hello Beautiful,” he said cheerily into the phone.

  Liz smiled. “What’s up?”

  “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “I’m good, thanks. How are you?”

  “Perfect now that I can hear your voice again. I didn’t mean to work you so hard last night.”

  Liz literally blushed.

  “I want to see you tonight. How’s about dinner at my place?” Liz closed her eyes. That would be wonderful, but not now. “Nope,” she said. “Can’t.” There was a hesitation on the other end. She could tell Jason had not expected no for an answer. “And why can’t you?” he asked her.

  Liz wasn’t about to tell him or anybody else what her plans for tonight were, especially since she could very well back out of those plans at any second. “I just can’t.”

  “Another invitation?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Ah. And may I ask from whom?”

  “You can ask it,” Liz said. She didn’t mean to sound so coy, but she just wasn’t willing to discuss it. Especially not with him, her father’s former confidant.

  “I see,” Jason said, and he said it in a way that made Liz certain he didn’t see a thing.

  “Anyway, I’ve got a meeting. Talk to you later.” Jason said this quickly and hung up the phone.

  He was in a limo, heading across town to a Friar’s club meeting, and leaned back in his seat. His heart was hammering at the thought of Liz going out with someone else. Who was this person, he wanted to know. He thought they had connected last night in a way that would exclude all others, that would make them both seriously contemplate making a go of it as. . . as what? Boyfriend and girlfriend? Sex partners only? He didn’t know. But something.

  Now the very next day and she had already accepted a dinner invite. Of course it could have been innocent, maybe a girl friend or co-worker, or it could have been an invite she’d accepted before last night. But why was she being so secretive about it if it was innocent?

  Jason exhaled. It was a man. No other way around that fact. Another man would be enjoying her sweet essence, her incredible face and remarkable body, and he was powerless to do a thing about it. He tossed his cell phone onto the seat, would have slung it against a wall if one was available. “Damn!” he said.

  ***

  It went badly from the start. She arrived late, for one thing, which she could tell just irked her father. But she tried to overlook his displeasure. She wasn’t about to go down that road of pleasing him again, especially since nothing she had ever done ever did. She, instead, made the rounds of hellos and hugs for her brother, her brother’s wife, her aunt Beatrice, who had gotten her the job she now had, and her father’s latest-some young supermodel Liz had never seen before. When she got to her father, who was seated in the chair flanking the sofa and seemed royally pissed, she didn’t dare touch him. “Hello, Father,” she said as unemotionally as she possibly could.

  Hamilton Morgan responded equally unemotional. “You’re late,” he said.

  “Yes, I am,” Liz said as if daring him to say more. She was nervous, more than any of them would ever know, but she was more determined. That was why she just stood there, facing her tall, handsome, powerful father, as if she was standing up to herself. For that was how it felt for her. Her lifelong desire to please him, had little to do with him, and everything to do with how she saw herself. She didn’t think she was anything unless her father, the great Hamp Morgan, said she was something special. Since he never said (ever), she figured it was because she wasn’t. Hooking up with the man she would later marry, a man who reminded her so much of her father that it was uncanny, didn’t help. But at least it was her life, her decision. And when it all unraveled and she
phoned her father for help, and he wouldn’t even take her call, was a good thing. Because she knew then she was on her own. She knew then she had to fight for her freedom, or lose it all. She fought.

  Just like she was fighting now. Only she was fighting back tears, fighting back that feeling of abandonment, fighting back the fear that this would be their last chance at reconciliation, and it was already breaking bad.

  “Don’t just stand there like some dunce,” Hamp told her. “Sit down.” Liz wanted to fire back at him, but she didn’t. You couldn’t win in any mouth battle with her father. He was too quick, too sharp-tongued, too willing to tear you apart to lose. She sat down, on the sofa next to her Aunt Bea, who was about the only friendly face in the house.

  Her father then looked at Malcolm, and Malcolm, who sat on the sofa across from Liz and Bea, whose wife Cassie sat so close to him they seemed wedged together, leaned forward, ready to do their father’s bidding.

  “I’m glad you could make it, Elizabeth,” Malcolm said. He was the spitting image of Hamp Morgan. Tall, good looking, sharp dresser. And he had his swagger too, his ruthlessness, something that always used to make Liz sad. When they were kids, Mal used to be the good kid, kind and considerate, the type who always wanted to adopt a stray cat. But as he grew older and wiser, all he wanted, not unlike Liz, was to please their father. Now he was pleasing him to a point that excluded all others. His entire life, it seemed to Liz, revolved around Hamp.

  “But this is the deal,” Malcolm continued, ready, Liz felt, to pounce. “We want to put the past behind us. We can’t forget the shame you put on this family with your disobedience and insufferable choices, but we’ll willing to forgive you.”

  Liz didn’t know quite what to make of that. Mal made it sound as if he and her father played no part in her distress, that all of the lack of love, lack of acknowledgement she had endured as a child, had nothing whatsoever to do with how she turned out.

  “So we want to move forward,” Malcolm continued. “And we will gladly welcome you back into the fold with open arms if you will promise to behave in a way befitting a Morgan, and that you will renounce your past and admit that you should have listened to Father in the first place whom, even you have to realize, only had your best interests at heart.” It was an ambush just as Liz had suspected. This had nothing to do with forgiving her, but everything to do with exonerating them. She looked at her father. “And what about you?” she asked him. When he turned his steely gaze in her direction, she almost flinched, but didn’t.

  She held his stare.

  “What about me?” he said in that precise, Sidney Poitier kind of speech he used, especially when he wanted to intimidate somebody.

  Liz swallowed hard, but continued. “I’ll admit I’ve made some mistakes in my life, that’s nothing but the truth. But what about your part in those mistakes? What about some truth on your side, too? Don’t you think you bear some responsibility here?” Hamp Morgan looked at his daughter as if she’d just slapped him. “How dare you suggest that I was responsible for your foolishness.”

  “I didn’t say you were solely responsible for it. What I’m saying is that---”

  “Ran around here like some harlot in heat, doing everything in your power to defame my good name! Sleeping around with any man who would have you, including my own attorney.

  What self-respecting woman would sleep with Jason Rascone, who always had more women than he could keep count of? Can you imagine how I felt when I found out what happened, that you had spent the night with that asshole? I couldn’t believe it!” Liz sat stunned. Never once had it crossed her mind that Jason would have told on her.

  “Jason told you that. . . Jason actually told you--- ”

  “He didn’t have to tell me. Wilkes told me. Of course Jason denied it to my face. We even came to blows when I told it like it was. Slut was too good a name for the likes of you, I told him, and he wanted to fight me for saying it. Can you imagine?”

  “You mean to tell me,” Liz said, still reeling, “that you fired him as your attorney because he didn’t like the name you called me?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous! Why would I fire somebody over you? Besides, he forgot about your behind within hours of defending your honor, that’s just the way he is, and our relationship didn’t change.” Then her father paused, as if remembering something distasteful.

  “Until he dumped me as a client so he could appease those right-wing nut jobs that wanted to run him for mayor. But that’s cool, that’s all right. He’s on top of the mountain now, but he’ll get his.”

  Liz didn’t know what to make of all she was hearing. And her father didn’t give her a chance to figure it out, either, as he continued his diatribe. “So yeah, I’m going to tell it like it is. You embarrassed me and I was ashamed to call you my daughter. The only reason I’m even considering allowing you back into my life is because of your aunt over there. She’s driving this bandwagon, because if it was up to me---”

  “That’s enough, Hamilton,” Aunt Bea said.

  “I’m telling the truth, Bea! Since she’s so passionate about the truth! And if she continues down this line of blaming me for her foolishness, then she can sail her ass out of my home right here and right now!”

  Liz stood up before he could finish his sentence. “Elizabeth, wait!” her aunt implored, rising too, attempting to take her by the arm, but Liz was already leaving.

  “And don’t come back!” her father yelled after her.

  “I won’t!” she yelled back, fighting tears as she rounded the foyer and slung open the heavy, double doors. Only she ran out of her father’s house and straight into the arms of a tall, wiry-framed man who caught her by the arms as she bounced from him and was about to fall backwards.

  “Whoa, my sister,” he said as he grabbed her. “Nothing can be that serious.”

  “I’m sorry,” Liz said, not bothering to look up, but still attempting to get away.

  The man, however, frowned and bent down to get a better look at her face. “Liz?” he asked. When he said her name, she looked up at him. Tall, thin, the prescription eye glasses he wore. Recognition dawned immediately.

  “Clay?” she asked. “Clay Davis?”

  “I don’t believe it!” he said, smiling, standing erect again, all six-feet of him. “Little Liz Morgan. Wow,” he added, looking down the length of her, “you ain’t so little anymore.”

  “How you doing?”

  “Good,” he said, pushing his eyeglasses up on his nose. “Great. So that’s why I was invited to dinner.”

  Liz looked puzzled. “You were invited, too?”

  “Yes! I kept wondering why Mal suddenly wanted me in his precious father’s house. His big sister is in town, and he probably wanted to rub it in my face. He knew how much I used to care about you.” It was obvious by the discomfort that appeared on Clay’s face that he did not mean to go there. Liz, too, wished he hadn’t.

  “I thought you were still in Philly.”

  “No, I’m back now. I’ve been back for about a month.”

  “You don’t say? But what’s wrong? Don’t tell me they’ve scared you away already?”

  “No, I’ve just decided I need to be somewhere.” She didn’t know why she was lying about it. In her childhood, Clay had always been a good friend to her. “It’s been good seeing you again, Clay.” She began to move away from his grasp. “You take care of yourself.”

  “Not so fast,” Clay said, pulling her back. “I haven’t seen my best girl in years, and you expect me to . . . How about dinner?”

  Liz immediately shook her head. “No, I can’t.”

  “Ah, Liz, come on. It’ll make me a very happy man. Or maybe we can go somewhere now--”

  “No, not now. I’m not . . . Not now.”

  “Tomorrow then?” Liz still seemed against it.

  Clay decided to press. “Look, I know you’ve moved on from our teen years. Heck, I’ve moved on. It’s not about attempting to win you back or anythin
g like that. I just want to be friends again.”

  Liz was sharp enough to know that when a man, a former boyfriend, told you that they just wanted to be friends again, it usually meant just the opposite. But she and Clay never did have a sexual relationship, just a close, personal one. He was probably her best friend for parts of her teen years. And it would be nice to connect with somebody who always seemed to have her back. “Tomorrow will be fine.”

  “I’ll pick you up around seven-seven thirty?”

  Jason’s disapproving face flashed across her mind. “No, I’ll meet you,” she said. “Just tell me where?”

  “Sorry, buddy. I won’t have you meeting me anywhere. I will pick you up around seven.

  Just give me your address and I’ll be there.”

  Liz smiled weakly and gave him her address, wondering why every man she’d ever met felt a need to somehow control some part of her. Now even mild-mannered Clay was in on the game. But she didn’t sweat it. She couldn’t. She didn’t have the energy.

  Clay wrote down her address with a combination of happiness and dread. He wasn’t at all sure if he wanted to go down that road with Liz. He always had a thing for her, what man didn’t? But he and she were probably as different as night and day. But time would tell if there was anything there to salvage.

  He watched her, gorgeous as ever, as she got into what he took to be her Aston Martin, and fled.

  ***

  It was late by the time she made it back home. She had spent hours driving around J-ville, thinking about her father, her family, and how depleted seeing them again had rendered her.

  But her depletion wasn’t over, as soon as she unlocked and entered her front door.

  Jason Rascone, to her shock, was standing in her living room. She frowned. “How did you get in here?” she wanted to know.

  “Where have you been?” he asked, equally perturbed.

  Liz looked at her front door. She couldn’t see where it had been jimmied. Then she looked at Jason. “How did you get in here, Jason?”