by A. C. Arthur
Ballard was an extremely proud man who took running his family business very seriously. He didn’t strike her as the kind of man who was simply along for the ride, taking what was given to him. No, he clearly worked very hard for the company, his vision for expansion that he’d shared with her seeming very promising. So much so she’d found herself offering to help him announce the new locations via a spectacular opening event. Surprisingly, he’d been very agreeable to that suggestion.
Dinner had turned out well, considering how it had begun. And the good-night kiss. Damn. That was all she could think of to describe it.
Janelle’s fingers froze over her keyboard with that thought. She’d been typing budget figures into her accounting database but now couldn’t do anything but remember last night.
That kiss.
It had been just...so...damn, again.
With a sigh, Janelle sat back in her chair, turning so that she was now facing the window. It was nearing six o’clock in the evening, so some of the local fishermen were pulling into dock with the second part of their haul for the day. Over the next few months traffic at the dock would slow to almost nonexistence as the winter chill settled over their little shipping town. Farther up the road, she could see more houses like the one they’d renovated that also sheltered local businesses. Most of them would be closing up for the winter. The fresh seafood market was one. Another was the gift shop that specialized in Wintersage trinkets handmade by Selia DuVane, an eighty-something-year-old lifelong town resident who used the colder months and lack of tourists to replenish her stock.
Black lampposts occupying each corner were now draped in orange-and-brown ribbons signifying the imminent arrival of fall, at which time the town wholeheartedly adopted the harvest decor. Staring out at the traditional, the safe and steady she knew she could rely on, calmed Janelle. Whereas each time her thoughts drifted to Ballard Dubois, which had been too many times to count, her heart rate increased, worry tapping an annoying rhythm against her temples.
“Whoa, she’s in deep thought. Maybe we should go.”
She heard Vicki’s voice from behind and turned in her chair.
“Please, that’s the best time to sit down and find out what’s on her mind,” Sandra quipped, already entering Janelle’s office and taking a seat in one of the honey-colored guest chairs that complemented her light oak desk and the warm beige-painted walls.
“Nothing’s on my mind but work,” Janelle told them with a sigh of resignation. The numbers she was crunching would have to wait a little longer.
Vicki had followed Sandra’s lead, taking a seat in the matching guest chair. This was after she’d glanced at Sandra, then at Janelle. Something was going on.
“What’s up with you two?”
Sandra shook her head. “Not a chance,” she said, waving a finger, one long fuchsia-painted nail in front of her. “You’ve been closed in this office all day either on the phone or staring at that computer. Now, I know we’re all busy but we never forget Monday nights. Never,” she reiterated.
Janelle sat back in her chair, clasping her fingers together as she looked at her friends. A part of her wanted to curse the fact that she had completely forgotten about their weekly meeting. Another part wanted to moan, because she could use a drink right now.
“I’m sorry—I had a lot of catching up to do since I took those days to go up to Boston and take care of the party for Rebecca. I just got caught up. We can go now if you want.”
Sandra shook her head once more. “Or we can sit right here while you tell us what’s going on.”
“She doesn’t have to tell us, Sandra,” Vicki chimed in. “We know what’s bothering her. The same thing that’s been on all of our minds today. We might as well get it out in the open.”
Janelle couldn’t help but feel a bit confused, even though she’d figured there was something wrong, with the way they’d both come in here. “What’s been on our minds, Vicki?”
Sandra rolled her eyes, picking at nonexistent lint on her skirt. “It’s not a big deal. Vicki’s just being melodramatic, as she’s been known to be before.”
Vicki frowned. “No. I’m being realistic and I’m sharing my feelings with my two closest friends. That is what friends do, isn’t it?” she proposed, arching an eyebrow at Sandra, who refused to look at her.
“Okay, you two, what is it?” Janelle finally asked.
“My brother took a job working on Oliver Windom’s campaign. Vicki thinks it’s a big deal. She thinks this election business might get weird for us, working together and being friends,” Sandra said in what sounded like one breath.
“That’s not what I said,” Vicki told Sandra, then looked at Janelle. “I was just concerned about us having to choose sides. We’ve been friends forever. Now your father is running for the House of Representatives and Sandra’s brother is working for his biggest opponent. That’s a huge conflict.”
Great, the election again. Janelle was officially tired of the pending election and it was still weeks away. Sure, she was proud of her father, always had been, but she just did not need this added drama in her life. Having dinner with a guy that she normally would stay a couple of states away from and now watching one of her friends stress over something that shouldn’t be an issue for either of them. Still, with a deep inhale and slow exhale, she understood where Vicki was coming from. She also knew that all her frustration was not coming from this election.
“There’s no conflict for me,” she told them. “This is a free country—vote for who you want. All I ask is that you remain informed while doing so.”
Sandra laughed. “Exactly. Do what you want. Hasn’t that always been our motto?”
Vicki smiled. “Yes, it has. But you sound like an infomercial,” she told Janelle.
“What? Why? I’m just saying that there are two things never to be discussed at work—politics and religion. Freedom to worship who or what you want as well as to go to the polls and put in your ballot.”
“And you don’t care if we don’t vote for your dad?” Vicki persisted.
Without thinking—actually, sick and tired of having been thinking on one particular subject all day—Janelle let her head fall back on her chair. She closed her eyes, bringing her fingers up to massage her temples. “Girl, please, I am so sick of thinking about my father’s campaign and what he needs to win this election. I don’t know why it’s my job to secure this last bit of support for him. Why’d I have to go out with the stuffy, arrogant man just to get his vote? Damn.”
The second the diatribe was complete, Janelle recognized her mistake. Her head jerked up to both ladies staring at her, Sandra with an elegantly arched eyebrow lifted in question, Vicki with her mouth gaped open.
“You went out with a man?” Sandra asked slowly.
Vicki held up a finger. “Correction—a stuffy, arrogant man.”
Janelle sighed. “Damn. Again,” she muttered. “I can already see we’re not going to leave this building without me telling you this, so here it goes. And before I start, it’s nothing. Absolutely nothing. Understand?”
Sandra and Vicki shared a conspiratorial look, then turned their full attention back to her.
“His name is Ballard Dubois. My father wants his family’s support for the campaign. He asked me to go out with him to gain that support. I wasn’t going to, or rather, I didn’t want to but I felt trapped. You know how my father is,” she said, letting out another sigh, then looking down at her own neatly manicured nails. She hated how compelled she felt to please her father, to make up for the embarrassment she and her failed attempt at marriage had caused years ago.
“Anyway, I did that party for Rebecca over the weekend and just my luck, Ballard Dubois was in attendance,” she continued, refusing to reflect on the past another second of this day.
“Okay, just for clarification,�
�� Sandra said, leaning forward, her legs crossed, “you are talking about the Ballard Dubois. Forbes Top Ten Richest Men Under Forty for the last six years. He was on the cover of GQ just a few months ago with those sexy-ass eyes and was reported to be involved with Alaya Bentley, the next Diahann Carroll of the movie screen.”
Of course that was the Ballard Dubois she was speaking of, and all that irrelevant information Sandra had just offered, Janelle had learned just this morning when she’d continued looking into his life via Google.
“That Ballard Dubois?” Vicki echoed the query.
Janelle tried to reroute their thoughts, and her own, for that matter. “Ballard Dubois who is next in line to take over Dubois Maritime Shipping, the successful businessman with enough power and influence to bring my father the final votes he needs to clinch this election. That’s the one I’m referring to.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Sandra sat back in her chair. “Continue.”
They were thinking something, Janelle could tell, and whatever it was, she didn’t want to hear it. She just did not want to go there.
“So anyway, we end up dancing together. I didn’t know who he was and he didn’t know who I was until the end of the dance. Then he asked me to dinner and I agreed because of my father’s request. I figured since fate was lending a hand, I’d just get the deed over with. We went to dinner last night and now I’m home. Deal done.”
There was silence as she finished speaking, silence and staring. Janelle was on the receiving end of those knowledgeable stares that only people who knew things like when she’d had her first period, her first kiss, her first sexual experience, could dish out. In essence, they knew all her firsts, which meant they probably knew her as well as she knew herself. Damn was beginning to be the theme of the day for her.
“And which deal would that be? Hot sweaty sex with that fine-ass, rich-ass man?”
Leave it to Sandra to keep things in perspective. Janelle waited, knowing instinctively that Vicki would follow up. See, she knew her friends just as well as they knew her.
“Or did you get the support your father needed?” Vicki asked—as expected.
“Hell, if she went for the hot, sweaty sex, then that instantly sealed the political deal. Please, tell me I’m right,” Sandra implored with her signature smile. The one that made you believe you could do whatever it was she was so excited about and at the same time made men want to fall at her feet.
Janelle simply shook her head. “There was no sex and we didn’t talk enough about politics for me to secure his support.”
Vicki looked confused “So you just ate? No talking, no nothing.”
“We talked,” Janelle replied simply. “We talked about my job and about his job. About his take on dating and how absurd I thought it was.”
Sandra interrupted quickly. “You mean to tell me someone else has a dating criteria like you and you disagreed with him?”
“First, I do not have a criteria. I just choose not to date. Second, he has this system—first date, discussion about where this could lead, when they’ll have sex, when it will end. Nonsense like that is what I disagree with.”
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Vicki offered. “You could think of it as having a business plan, which we all do.”
“Plenty of people have made sex a viable business,” Sandra began, holding up a hand to stop Janelle’s instant protest. “But not you, and I don’t think Dubois either. The problem may be that both of you are overthinking this. Just go with the flow. Sleep together if you want. Move on if you have to,” she finished.
“You sound like those girls we talked about back in college,” Janelle added with a grin of her own. The Silk Sisters had always been the most sought-after females in school, the prettiest, most times the richest and the majority of the time the most difficult to attain. That had been their reputation and now, looking at them as adults, they seemed to be in the same boat. Janelle wondered why that thought made her worry.
“I’m not saying you should pick up your tramp card and hit the streets,” Sandra corrected. “But, Janelle, it’s been five years since that mess with Jack. That’s five years since we all discovered he was an asshole. Not just you and not by yourself. We were there, remember.”
Oh, how she remembered. Janelle sat back again, looking out the window this time. She didn’t want to think about Jack Trellier or their wedding that never happened, didn’t want to think about how embarrassed and betrayed she’d felt that day and the hundreds of days to follow. And she definitely did not want to think about the secret she still kept from her best friends.
“I agree,” Vicki said. “It’s time to move on.”
Janelle almost said she had moved on. She almost argued that they were completely off base and that her reservations about dating, casual or otherwise, were not rooted in the broken heart her former fiancé had handed to her on a silver platter and the shame he’d served her as dessert. But these were her friends, and if she could limit her dishonesty with them, then she would.
“This is a business deal for my father. It’s not personal,” she reminded them when she looked their way again.
“Did you talk about politics at all during dinner?” Sandra asked.
“No,” Janelle replied.
“Did he kiss you good-night?” was Vicki’s question.
Janelle sighed again, the memory bringing a soft smile to her lips. “It was one hell of a good-night kiss, too.”
Sandra was instantly smiling. “Then that means the hot steamy sex is imminent. Let’s get to the Quarterdeck, order our drinks and discuss what you should wear for this night of seduction.”
Vicki stood, joining Sandra on their way out the door.
“Ah, we don’t have another date scheduled. I mean, he lives in Boston and I’m here and I was just going to send him an email asking about my father’s campaign, then maybe follow that with a call in a week or so. That’s all,” she told them frankly.
It was Vicki this time who walked over to Janelle’s desk and tapped her finger on the phone. “Call him.”
“What? I can’t—”
Vicki shook her head. That tight bun she kept in her hair always made her look more serious, more reserved than she actually was. Sandra had been after her for years to update her style a little more. It had been unsuccessful and they often joked about it, but this was the Vicki Janelle knew and loved, so it didn’t matter much to her.
“You are a strong, confident, independent, successful black woman. There’s nothing wrong with you asking a man out if you’re interested in him,” she told her.
Sandra spoke up then. “I agree. We’ll give you ten minutes to make the call, schedule a date and meet us downstairs at the door.”
Within the next minute, they were gone and Janelle was once again alone at her desk, staring at the phone, at the exact spot Vicki’s finger had tapped. After a few stilted seconds, she looked at her computer monitor, minimizing the screen with her budget information to view the screen she’d spent way too much time browsing today—the Dubois Maritime Shipping website. She scrolled down until she found the Boston office number, then paused once more, looking at the phone, then back at the screen.
Finally, with an exaggerated exhale, she mumbled, “What the hell?” and picked up the phone to begin dialing.
* * *
The palatial estate located in the Weston area of Boston where Hudson, the creator of Dubois Maritime Shipping and the irrefutable patriarch of the Dubois family, and Leandra Dubois had raised their only son, Daniel, was full of love and laughter tonight. One day out of every month, Ballard and his father, Daniel, had dinner with Ballard’s grandparents.
Sitting at the end of the eight-foot-long crossbanded double-pedestal mahogany table was Hudson, at eighty-five years old still smiling and laughing jovially as he shared his most recen
t antics on the golf course.
“I don’t know why he keeps going out there when he knows he can’t play.” Leandra, Hudson’s wife of sixty-three years, looked to her left, smiling lovingly at her husband.
“Never give up,” Hudson declared. “That’s the Dubois mantra. Never give up, no matter what.”
“Even if the outcome will most likely remain the same,” Daniel Dubois, solemn and often-contentious only son, replied to his father.
“Man can never know the outcome,” Hudson replied stoically, glancing at Daniel.
Ballard lifted his glass to his lips, remaining silent in the midst of an old feud between his father and grandfather. The day after Ballard’s high school graduation his mother, Gina Dubois, sat him down and told him she was leaving the stately home they shared with his father.
“I don’t love him anymore and he’s never known how to love me,” Gina had told her only child.
Ballard hadn’t completely understood what that meant and had figured at the time that it didn’t really matter. His parents were getting divorced and he was thankfully going away to college. Hudson believed that Daniel should have fought harder for his marriage, that he should have made whatever concessions he could to keep Gina in his life. Daniel disagreed, believing instead that every person had her own path to walk and that if Gina’s was taking her in a different direction, then so be it. He’d let his wife go and delved even deeper into the business that had been hugely responsible for the breakup in the first place. After graduating from Duke, Ballard had followed in his father’s footsteps, spending the bulk of his days either in the office or on the road doing business for the company. That was his path and he was content with it because he didn’t have a family of his own that he was responsible for.