“Yes, I’m sure. Really, Clay, I’m fine. It’s what I want.” Clay didn’t like it, but he was nobody’s chump. “Okay, if you’re sure,” he said.
“Mayor,” he said, extending his hand. Jason gladly shook it. Then Clay left.
“Nice guy,” Jason said.
“Yeah,” Liz said, looking after Clay. “Very.”
Liz began leaving the restaurant. Jason didn’t like the way she emphasized ‘very’, but he followed her anyway.
The neighborhood outside was bustling at night, with vendors seemingly on every corner creating a flea market kind of atmosphere. Liz liked the energy of the area and said so. Jason agreed. “It’s entrepreneurship in its’ greatest form: all substance, no flash.” Liz looked at him. “That’s true. You get what they’re about. Which makes me wonder if you’re this insightful why you only get token black support in your elections.”
“Because I’m a Republican, babe. That’s all they see. They don’t hear what I’m saying because they can’t see past what I am. And I don’t blame them. My party has crapped on them for years.”
Liz smiled. “You got that right.” Then she began to look around. “So, where is it?” Jason looked at her. “Where’s what?”
“Where’s your truck?”
“Oh, that. It’s home.”
“Home?”
“That’s right.”
“Then how did you get here?”
“The way I get to most places. I got my driver to drop me off.”
“And come back and get you?”
“Nall, I gave him the rest of the night off.”
Liz looked at him oddly. “But you told Clay you were taking me home.”
“And I am.”
“But how?”
Jason pulled out his cell phone. “Cab,” he said and Liz, amazed by the sheer balls of this man, couldn’t help but laugh. Jason grinned sheepishly and called for a pick up.
Later, at her front door, Jason removed the keys from her hand and unlocked the door himself. They stood there, within an inch of each other, and stared into the other’s eyes.
“Would you care to come in, Mr. Rascone?” he asked her.
Jason studied her. “Is that what you want, Liz?”
Liz nodded. “Yes,” she said.
Jason smiled. It was what he’d been waiting for. But he knew he had to restrain himself.
He didn’t want to scare her. He didn’t want her to believe for a moment that sex was all he was after. Especially now that he knew her father would be his opponent. That was going to change the dynamic, he knew it would. She would soon be asked to choose between her father and her. . . her what? Sometimes lover? That wasn’t good enough. He had to have a stronger hold on her for their relationship, such as it was, to sustain the onslaught that was sure to come. That was why, when he entered her apartment, he didn’t try to ravage her the way he so desperately wanted to. He, instead, took a seat on her sofa and allowed her to kick off her shoes, to relax, while he answered the numerous phone calls he ignored during dinner.
Liz loved it this way. Jason was always so in-your-face that he made her feel sometimes as if he was bum-rushing her, and she didn’t like the feeling. This way, she was able to enjoy the fact that he was near, without him being all over her. She even took a shower when it appeared his phone conversations were intense enough to be protracted. She was right. He was still going strong when she got out of the shower. She therefore dried off, put on her robe, and laid on her bed. She was exhausted, it had been a long day, and she needed to just relax completely for a few moments.
Jason’s last phone conversation was with Stephen Armitage, and it was his longest. From what Steve was telling him, Hamp was going to go all out, hiring not just local political strategists, but national ones. He aim to win, Stephen had said, and Jason had better be prepared for the fight. Jason had clicked off his cell and just sat there.
He knew Hamp Morgan, and he knew they didn’t come any scrappier. And Hamp would be willing to play dirty, no question about it, even if it meant hurting his own daughter. He remembered the day Wilkes had told Hamp that he had slept with then eighteen-year-old Liz.
Hamp didn’t go after him for sleeping with her, but, instead, went after her, calling her a tramp and a slut and everything but the innocent she actually was. Jason wanted to knock him out when he called Liz those names, and would have if that a-hole son of his wouldn’t have intervened. Later, when they both had calmed down, Jason told Hamp that Liz had actually been a virgin. He was astounded when Hamp refused to believe him. “What black magic that daughter of mine has worked on you?” he wanted to know. Then laughed as if Jason was trying to take him for a fool. For a man to have such a low opinion of his own daughter, Jason could only imagine what he would do to her once he found out that she was sleeping with the man he wanted to unseat.
When he realized that the back of the apartment that had been bustling with activity was now quiet, he got up and went to see what Liz was up to. When he saw her, lying across her bed in her bathrobe, her hands on the side of her face like an angel, his breath caught. And he knew it. Knew it like he knew his name. He loved her. He realized it just that quickly. He loved this woman. And he was going to do everything in his power, everything, to make her love him back. Hamp and his dirty tricks be damned, he thought. Nobody, and no political office in this land, would keep him from loving his precious Elizabeth.
TEN
Liz was in the rec room playing a quick game of ping pong with Georgie when Shameika hurried in and changed the television station from ESPN to the local twelve o’clock news. If it had been later in the day, when most of the kids were out of school and the Center was near-capacity, Shameika would have been booed out of the room. “Nobody wants to watch no news!” they would have decried. But no-one was present except Liz, Georgie, and a few more of the older kids or those who had already dropped out, and her move, therefore, was roundly ignored.
Even though the reporter announced that they were awaiting the mayor’s press conference, Liz continued to play ping pong. Although her relationship with Jason was moving right along, it wasn’t to a point where they were running around bragging about it. In fact, Liz liked the fact that they were taking their time.
Especially after last night. She had fallen asleep while Jason was on the telephone, and didn’t know that he removed her robe and put her under covers, and had showered and gotten in bed with her, until nearly four this morning when she woke up to find herself wrapped in his arms. She felt so protected, so loved at that moment that tears stained her eyes. He was turning out to be such a good guy, such a caring man, that it stunned her. His actions continually went against type. Not that she was a judgmental person, but the fact that he had been her father’s attorney, the fact that he had been nicknamed bulldog as if he humped every one he saw and had no self control, the fact that he was a republican, all flied in the face of the man he actually was. Around her he was kind and considerate and made her the focal point of his existence. Sure, he was a handful around her, too, with his bombastic attitude, but she could live with bombast if it meant she would be treated right.
And that was the rub for Liz. Would he, in the long run, treat her right? Her ex-husband was kind and caring, too, until time moved on. Then he became a control freak who had to know her every move, who lied to her constantly about his various affairs, who treated her as if she was his property rather than his wife. The scary part about Jason, for Liz, was the fact that she could see that kind of behavior in him already. He was so possessive, so determined to make her his, that she wondered if he would ever respect her as her own person, which was an absolute requirement for her going forward. No-more bending to anybody else’s will. He either respected her for who she was, or left her alone.
That was why, when she woke to find him in her bed, staring at her, she came clean with him. Told him all about her past life, including her ex-husband.
“Drugs?” he asked, lying beside her
, still holding her.
“Crack,” Liz said. “He had apparently been selling it for years. Of course, he went off to work every day, in real estate, I thought. But his real estate office, his entire business, was just a front for his real enterprise.”
“Drug dealing?”
“Right,” Liz said. “It broke my heart. I left him as soon as I found out about it.” Then she looked at him. “But that didn’t stop the cops from arresting me, anyway.” Jason’s heart dropped. “You were arrested?”
“Yup. They wanted to see if they could get me to turn state’s evidence, to snitch on Scotty, but I didn’t know anything about it, I mean nothing. I was devastated when I found out what he was up to. And he had the nerve to be angry when I left his butt. He said I was being disloyal. Me, disloyal. Not him. Me. When I didn’t snitch to the cops about anything, he said I got my loyalty card back.” She shook her head. “It was crazy. But eventually those cops realized I wasn’t lying and let me go. What’s amazing,” she added, “was that I was the one who had called the cops on Scotty’s butt to begin with. But since I called anonymously at some phone booth, those cops acted like it never happened. But they knew it was me.” Jason held her tighter. “Sorry you had to go through all of that.” His only regret was that he wasn’t there to protect her. After a while, he looked at her. “Why are you telling me this now, Liz?” he asked her.
Liz hesitated. “I believe everybody should have the full range of flavors whenever they taste the Kool-aid.”
Jason thought about this, and then laughed. Liz was at peace when he laughed.
Now, she was in the rec room at the Meyers Center still remembering how he laughed, when she heard him say her name.
Liz, Georgie, and everybody in the room looked up at the television. The scene was the press room at City Hall, and Jason was facing the cameras and a room full of reporters, when one asked: “Is it true about Elizabeth Morgan?”
Jason, who looked calm as a cucumber, Liz thought, didn’t hesitate. “What about Miss Morgan?”
“There are rumors that you had dinner with her last night.” Jason smiled, although Liz could tell he would have rather not deal with the question. “We had dinner, yes, at Mama’s Finger Lickin’ Restaurant.”
Liz smiled. Mama, whomever she was, would probably love the plug, she thought.
Shameika, however, was astounded. “You took him to Finger Lickin’?” she asked.
Liz looked at her. “I didn’t take him anywhere,” she replied, but Shameika shushed her, so that she could hear the mayor’s answer.
“So what’s the situation, Mayor? Is Elizabeth Morgan, daughter of famed nightclub owner Hamp Morgan, your new girlfriend?”
Liz didn’t like the sound of that. As if he she was one in a series, like his new coat, his latest suit, to be exchanged for an even newer one at the next press conference.
Jason, however, was clear. “Yes,” he said and the press room erupted with even more questions. The questions from the reporters would not let up. “Does Hamp Morgan know? I thought you and Hamp Morgan were no longer on speaking terms? Will dating a black woman hurt you with your conservative base? Will dating a black woman hurt you with the black community?”
Liz didn’t know what to do. Jason had let the genie out of the bottle and now it felt as though all hell had permission to break loose. She remembered the other night, when her father spoke about Jason as if he hated the man. What in the world, she thought, this bit of news was going to do to his already bad temper?
***
Across town, in his suite of offices above his nightclub, Hamp Morgan’s temper was the last problem for his son Malcolm. His father was nearly catatonic, sitting behind his desk, staring at the television as if Jason Rascone had just announced with all sincerity that the Martians had landed downtown. Then he looked at his son. “Did he just say what I thought he just said?” Malcolm nodded, confounded too.
“Did that fool just say that Elizabeth, that my daughter, my daughter, was his girlfriend?”
“That’s what the man said.”
Hamp sat back in his chair. “I don’t fucking believe this!” Then he looked once again at his son, who, in truth, was the only consistent ally he had. “What is he trying to pull? What kind of dumb-ass publicity stunt is this? It’s as if he knows.” Malcolm looked at his father. “Knows? You mean about your run?”
“Of course that’s what I mean! What the hell else was I gonna mean, Malcolm, work with me, son! Bulldog Rascone ain’t never been nobody’s fool. If he’s willing to publicly claim something that’s mine, he’s claiming it for a reason.”
“But what reason?” Malcolm asked, still confused.
“To make it appear to the public that I can’t be worth a damn if my own daughter’s voting for the other guy, that’s what reason!”
“But Jace wouldn’t use Liz like that.”
Hamp looked at his son with a look of grave disappointment. “Don’t you ever be that naïve. Bulldog Rascone would sell his mama to the Taliban if it’ll get him what he wants. And you think he just loves your sister so much that he means nothing political by this stunt of his?
Get real, boy. He’s playing her like Jimi Hendrix played his guitar, and you’d better know it.
That boy is out for blood. Mine. And he’s out for it in whatever container he can get it in!”
***
If Hamp Morgan was livid over Jason’s announcement, downtown was nearly hysterical with anger. DeeDee Ramstead burst into Stephen Armitage’s office just as he was getting off of the phone with Grady Hayward, the president of the Conservative Heritage Society, a man whose own eruption could rival Hamp’s.
“I know already, Dee,” Stephen said as she slammed his door and hurried to his desk.
“‘Oh, yes, he says. She’s my girlfriend.’ Like it’s nothing at all. Hamilton Morgan’s daughter, Stephen!”
“I know that. Don’t you think I know that? You should have heard Grady Hayward!”
“He called already?”
“Did he. He is beside himself with anger.”
“What is he so upset about? He doesn’t even know Hamp Morgan plans to run against Jason yet.”
“Oh, come off it, Dee. He couldn’t care less about which Democrat is running against Jace. What he cares about is the ethnic origin of the woman sleeping in Jace’s bed.”
“He’s not pulling support. Please don’t tell me he’s pulling support?”
“Not yet. But he’s serving notice to Jace that he will unless he, in his words, get his house in order.”
DeeDee sat down in the chair in front of Stephen’s desk. She was devastated, and Stephen knew it. On a normal day he would relish in it, he really couldn’t stand her. But this was no normal day. Jason’s little antics with that African queen could cause them the election, not to mention any shot they did have of one day sitting in the governor’s mansion. And that, for Stephen, for DeeDee, who also felt betrayed, was reckless to a point of suicidal.
***
That night, when Jason came over, Liz let him in the front door without saying a word, and then went back to the kitchen to continue preparing dinner. Jason lumbered along, until he made his way into the entranceway of the kitchen. He leaned against the wall of the arch, folded his arms, and observed her perfect, lithe body in a very sheer, sleeveless dress.
“Mad at me?” he asked her.
Liz hesitated but continued to season her steaks. “Why would I be angry with you?”
“Because I announced to the world our relationship.”
Liz looked at him. “You mean the fact that I’m your girlfriend? A fact you somehow neglected to mention to me? Why in the world would you think that would upset me?” Jason smiled at her deadpan humor. “It wasn’t planned, Liz. It just came out. They asked and I responded truthfully.”
“But you didn’t have to say I was your girlfriend. You could have said I was your friend, that would have been the truth, too.”
“What differe
nce does it make? Friend, girlfriend, what’s the big deal?”
“That’s the big deal. The fact that you don’t know the difference. Or don’t want to know.”
Liz put the steaks, two of them, into her preheated oven, sat the timer, and removed her gloves. She brushed Jason as she moved past him, but he caught her by the arm and pulled her back.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just wanted to let the world know how I felt about you.”
“Oh, yeah? And how’s that, Jason? I mean, you haven’t told me how you feel about me. Or maybe I missed that, too.”
Jason stared deep into her eyes. “I love you, Liz,” he said unflinchingly. His pronouncement stopped her cold, and her resolve began to weaken. “I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone before. Don’t you understand that? Haven’t you figured that much out yet?”
“But it’s going too fast! How can it be love this fast, Jason? I’ve made too many mistakes in the past, I can’t live through another mistake.” Jason pulled her into his arms. “It’s not a mistake, baby. I promise you it’s not. You have got to trust me.” He pulled back from her slightly, to look into her tear-filled eyes. “Can you do that for me, Liz? Can you trust me?”
Liz didn’t know if she could or couldn’t, but the sincerity in his eyes made her unable to resist him. And she nodded. That was all she did. But for Jason that was all it took.
He took her once again into his arms and then kissed her, deeply and passionately on the lips. By the time he had carried her into her bedroom, and they both had undressed and he was making love to her gently at first, and then pounding her with a need that bordered on unrelenting, tears were in his own eyes. “Oh, baby,” he kept saying, “I love you. I love you so much!”
And Liz wanted to return the declaration, she wanted to with all she had within her, but that past love that turned to hate, that constant old pain that would not let her go, stifled her.
And she smothered her words in the shoulder of his protective arms.
ELEVEN
“Liz Morgan,” Liz said as she snatched her ringing telephone off of her desk just as she had entered her office.
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