She wasn’t about to show up in an ill-fitting suit and scuffed shoes.
Grace called Pat’s office Thursday after lunch. “Want to have dinner after work? Someplace farther from the courthouse. I don’t want to run into Judge Tubby.”
“I doubt Judge Arterbridge will pester you now that you’ve turned him down, but sorry, I can’t meet you. I’ve already made plans.”
“Okay. I guess I’ll stop by Quiznos’s and pick up a salad. Have fun!”
“Thanks. Are you busy this weekend?”
“I’ve got a date.”
“With Eric?”
“Yes.”
Pat wasn’t surprised. It had been far too long between dates for Grace. Still, she had to ask. “Where’s he taking you?”
“To the movies.” Grace sighed. “I know it’s not like seeing Anita Baker at the Chicago Theater or having dinner at Brazzaz, but it’s what he offered, Pat. Don’t think it was my idea.”
“I’ll say. Do you think you’ll get anything else to eat besides popcorn?” Pat smiled in amusement. She couldn’t imagine Grace going on a date that didn’t include a meal.
“At least I’m getting out of the house. It’s not like I expect a lifetime commitment to come out of this.”
“So Eric is just a diversion.”
“Yes. Harmless and temporary.”
Pat sighed. “There’s nothing wrong with a guy like Eric. But he’s not for you, Grace. I know you. You’re not going to be happy with a man who can’t afford to take you to the places you’re used to going, the places you can afford to go yourself. And as soon as he picks you up and sees your place, he’ll know you’re out of his league.” She didn’t understand why Grace would even want to date a man when there was no future in it. It wasn’t fair to the man, or to Grace, either.
“Listen, Pat, I haven’t been asked out in over six months. I can’t afford to be choosy anymore. Being choosy doesn’t keep my bed warm at night. I plan on being nice and warm come Saturday night. And that’s more than you can say.”
Chapter 17
At five-fifteen Pat went into the ladies’ room for a last check of her appearance, giving herself plenty of time to make any repairs. Sure enough, a few strands of hair just wouldn’t lay right, regardless of how much she brushed. She plugged in the curling iron she kept in her desk. That would take care of it.
As she carefully wound the troublesome golden strands around the quarter-inch barrel, she wondered if Elyse had a weave. Her hair looked so thick and lustrous at the luncheon. Damn it, it seemed like her own hair got thinner every week. She probably needed to stop coloring it, or she’d end up bald.
But she didn’t want to walk around with gray laced in her hair, like Susan. Okay, so there wasn’t anything wrong with the way Susan looked. Pat wasn’t a catty person, but she couldn’t help noticing that she and Grace looked younger than their two friends. She knew how hard Grace worked at staying young looking, but she really didn’t do anything special herself, just a few lackluster bends here and there and salad for dinner two or three times a week. She wondered if there was any connection to looking younger and not being married.
No, she decided, that was silly. Elyse looked a little more matronly because she was overweight, and Susan because she didn’t hide her gray. Their faces looked as young as hers. Marital status had nothing to do with it. She carefully combed her hair over any sparse spots and left the restroom.
Had Andy changed much? she wondered. He’d been so handsome as a young man, with hair black as a moonless night and blue eyes a person could get lost in. She’d never told anyone, but she had had more than a little bit of a crush on him.
Pat didn’t share her parents’ strong beliefs against interracial dating. She knew their feelings stemmed from the lynching of her Uncle Jacob when he’d been just seventeen, back in her parents’ hometown in Arkansas. With tensions already running high after the then-recent Brown ruling outlawing segregated schools, a white girl accused him of fathering her baby, and no one would listen when Jacob insisted he had nothing to do with it. It had been a nightmare for her family, and the crime remained unsolved on the books, although everyone in town knew of at least one man who’d been connected to the crime. The identity of the baby’s father had never been revealed. Her father couldn’t bear to continue living there after his beloved baby brother was killed. He married her mother, and the young couple made their way to Chicago.
Pat could understand how her father felt, but she’d never even known her Uncle Jacob. His murder occurred three years before her birth. Nor had she ever lived in Arkansas, although she and her brothers used to take the Greyhound every summer to spend two weeks with their grandparents and cousins. While they enjoyed running in open fields and walking to the neighborhood store for ice-cold Cokes, life there was too small-townish for them. Their cousins and the other kids seemed so . . . well, country, like a bunch of hicks. They didn’t have the latest records, and they talked funny, saying “thang” for thing, “valya” for value, and “yella” for yellow. Pat and her brothers were always glad to return to the city life of the projects when the two weeks ended.
She decided to arrive a few minutes late, feeling it would be more appropriate for Andy to wait for her than for her to wait for him.
All thoughts of Wabbaseka and the murder of her uncle years ago vanished when she caught sight of the black-haired man waiting for her at the bar. She took a deep breath. Andy at nearly fifty looked ten times better than the Andy she remembered from half a lifetime ago. The long hair that had grazed his shoulders back in the day had been replaced by a more conservative haircut that looked like it could use a trim. The hair at his temples had turned gray. And his eyes were blue as ink.
He slid off the bar stool and smiled at her. “Pat. I’d know you anywhere. You look fabulous.”
“So do you.” He held his arms outstretched, and she happily walked into them. A pulse began beating in her throat as warm lips connected with her cheek. God help her, even after all this time, she still felt that gravitation toward him.
They separated after a prolonged friendly embrace, and she climbed on the bar stool next to him and ordered a mai tai. She looked at the handsome man sitting next to her. His hair looked as thick as it had been during their days at Northwestern. Somehow she’d known he hadn’t gone bald. His blue eyes twinkled. He’d filled out since law school, but he wasn’t overweight by any stretch. The man looked good enough to suck on.
Oops. Wrong word. It conjured up a highly inappropriate, if certainly not unpleasant, image. Probably just a Freudian slip. She hadn’t had sex in a year and a half . . . and she now found it extremely difficult to keep her thighs still.
She’d better say something before he thought she’d gone mute. She swallowed as lightly as her carnal thoughts would allow. “Tell me what made you decide to come back to Chicago, Andy,” she suggested.
He took a sip of his drink, an amber-colored liquid she guessed was Scotch. “A couple of things. For one, I’ve always been afraid of earthquakes.”
She grinned. “After all that time out there you think The Big One is about to hit?”
“Don’t knock it. I spent two weeks in Chicago a couple of years ago when all these so-called psychics were predicting a big quake in May.” He chuckled. “But there are other considerations. My parents are getting up in age. They still keep their house here, even though they spend their winters on South Padre Island. I’d like to be closer. And most important of all, my ex-wife remarried and moved to Buffalo Grove.”
She arched a waxed eyebrow. He wanted to return to Chicago to be close to his ex-wife? What was that about?
Andy chuckled. “I guess that didn’t sound right. Let me clarify. My daughters mostly live with her. We share custody, but it’s hard to do when one parent lives in Illinois and the other in California.”
“How old are your daughters?”
“Fourteen and seventeen, and both beautiful. They’re the lights of my life.”
He looked at her curiously. “I guess you use your maiden name for professional purposes only.”
She shrugged. “I use it for everything, and always have. It’s always been my name.”
“You’ve never been married?”
The surprise in his eyes made her feel a little embarrassed. The “Most Popular” girl in her high school class who went on to become one of the brightest students in both college and law school had been unable to get a husband. “No.” She looked him in the eye and proceeded to lie like a sleeping dog. “I guess you can say I’ve never met my Mr. Right.”
“Mr. Keindl, your table is ready.”
They both turned to face the black-vested waiter, who bowed slightly. “If you’ll just follow me.”
“Of course.” Andy stepped down and held Pat’s elbow as she moved her hanging feet to the floor, careful not to get her three-inch heels caught in the metal footrest.
On unsteady feet Pat followed the waiter. Andy was still devastatingly attractive. And better yet, he was available.
Her spirits lifted like an airplane at takeoff.
Their dinner lasted for two and a half hours and included much laughter and two more mai tais. “I’m wondering if I should put you in a cab,” Andy remarked as he slipped a credit card in the check holder, gesturing for her to put away her wallet. “This is on me. And I don’t mind telling you this has been more fun than I’ve had in a while.”
“I enjoyed it, too. We’ll have to do it again.”
“Seriously, Pat, are you able to drive? You seem to be buzzed.”
“Oh, I’m fine.”
“It’ll take you at least fifteen minutes to get to South Shore. Maybe I should follow you, make sure you get in safely.”
“I don’t drive to work, Andy. The traffic is unbearable, plus the parking is too expensive. I take the bus.”
“Why didn’t you say so? I’m not about to let you get on a bus at this hour. I’ll drive you home.”
“That might not be a bad idea,” she heard herself saying. Her inner voice immediately began screaming at her. What was she letting herself in for, allowing him to bring her home? He was good-looking, and she was horny.
It had all the makings of a long-held dream come true.
Chapter 18
Twenty-five minutes later, Pat unlocked the door to her vestibule, Andy standing close behind her. She swung open the door. “I’m one flight up,” she said over her shoulder.
She started to tell him that he didn’t really have to see her to her door, but from the moment he parked, she knew he planned to do just that.
She clutched the banister for support as her legs carried her up the stairs. Andy had been right; she was feeling a little unsteady.
But she knew exactly what would happen, if she let it.
“Welcome to my humble abode,” she said, flipping on the switch by the door.
“It looks real comfortable,” he said, nodding approval as he looked around the neat living room with its rolltop computer desk and tan leather–and–chrome seating. “Have you lived here long?”
“Eighteen years. I got in on the ground floor, as soon as the developers announced plans to rehab this building.” She slipped off her coat, draped it over a chair, and kicked off her heels. “At the time I was still up to my ass in student loans, but the idea of owning something appealed to me. Can I fix you a drink?”
He removed his coat and laid it over hers. “I’m not interested in alcohol right now.”
Pat swallowed hard. She immediately understood what he meant. “This is a lot different from Northwestern, isn’t it?” she asked in a whisper.
“You look sexy as hell, Pat. I thought so when we were at Northwestern, and I’ve been thinking about being alone with you from the moment you showed up tonight.”
“I can’t say I didn’t think about the same thing, then and now,” she admitted.
He held out his hand. “So what are we waiting for?”
Within seconds she was in his arms. The blazer she’d picked out so carefully was soon tossed to the floor. They undressed each other as they kissed, carelessly throwing garments anywhere. Something else Pat liked about Andy. The man had some lips on him. Not as full as a black person’s, but nice lips all the same. Pat had dated more white men than black over the years, and one of her criteria was that the man had to have something to pucker up with. Pat had never understood why all her friends raved about Christopher Reeve being so handsome when he first played Superman in the movies some thirty years ago. The actor’s tragic accident years later saddened her, but his lack of lips had always left her cold.
When Andy tugged at her skirt, she took a moment to be thankful that she’d had the foresight to wear thigh-highs and a garter belt rather than panty hose. She liked to wear these whenever she wanted to feel sexy, even if it remained her little secret. But for those increasingly rare times when she actually got to take off her clothes for a man, it felt delicious.
She felt his groping hands under her skirt, felt his surprised hesitation when he reached the bare skin at the top of her thighs. He murmured a sound of approval against her mouth, and again when her panties came down with just one tug, courtesy of her habit of fastening her stockings before she put on her underwear rather than after.
They skipped the foreplay and went at each other right there in the living room, not even bothering to turn off the lights or even to completely undress. Andy, naked from the waist up with his pants still around his ankles, scrambled inside his wallet for a condom, and Pat, her blouse unbuttoned and her skirt pushed up to her waist, leaned over the couch with her butt in the air. He took her from behind, pumping furiously while she moaned uncontrollably.
It didn’t take long. Her vaginal muscles clenched his penis, and his long, drawn-out groan matched hers. He pulled out of her and straightened her up, turning her to face him. “I just have one question for you, Pat Maxwell.”
“What’s that?”
“Why the hell did it take us twenty-five years to get down to the real nitty-gritty?”
She laughed. “I don’t know, but I’m glad we did.”
“Let me look at you.” He pushed her blouse off her shoulders and stared at her large breasts, overflowing from her leopard-print bra because of the leaning forward position she’d just been in. He reached behind her and unhooked the closure, and when he saw her naked breasts with their large areolae he practically salivated. “I always knew you had a good body under those jeans and sweatshirts you used to wear. I just never knew how good.”
“I’m past my prime, Andy.”
“So am I. See?” He pinched an inch of loose love handle flesh. “Hell, we’re almost fifty years old, Pat.”
It pleased her that her own less-than-stellar middle was concealed by her bunched-up skirt. Then she took in their half-dressed appearances and began to laugh. “We look ridiculous, don’t we?”
Andy kicked off his shoes, then bent to remove his pants and socks, pulling up his blue-print boxers as he straightened up. His stomach muscles might have gotten a little loose, but she hardly had six-pack abs herself. His imperfection made her feel better about her own.
“We were in a hurry.” He reached out to smooth out her skirt and then unzip it, moving it down over her hips. “But I suggest we try the bed for Round Two.”
“I’m all for that. Just follow me.” She led the way, swinging her hips with more gusto than usual, knowing he admired the view.
“Pat”
“Pat.”
“Hmm?”
“It’s time for me to go.”
“What time is it?”
“Five-thirty. I want to get home and change before traffic hits. I’ll call you later.”
She sat up groggily. She’d forgotten how heavily she tended to sleep after a night of good sex. He was fully dressed, his tie draped around his neck. “Oh.” She reached for the Asian-print cotton kimono she kept on the chair next to her bed and slipped into it. Barefoot, she plodded to the do
or, then stood on tiptoe when he leaned in for one more quick kiss.
In less than two minutes she had fallen back asleep.
Pat awoke to the sound of barking dogs coming from her bedside CD alarm clock. Big Mama Thornton was already halfway through her version of the old blues song “Hound Dog,” the CD of which Pat used as her alarm. The blues singer’s trademark growls usually had her jumping out of her skin, almost like the voice of an intruder would, but today she’d slept right through it.
She stretched lazily. Last night had been fabulous. It wasn’t like her to sleep with a man on the first date, but she’d had the hots for Andy Keindl since law school. What a surprise to learn that he felt the same.
As she showered, she wondered what the future held for them. Surely it wasn’t just a one-time encounter, or a one-time double encounter. The second time they had sex they’d taken it more slowly, gotten acquainted firsthand with each other’s charms.
And how. She got wet just thinking about it, and she’d probably think about it all day today. She’d better put a shield in her underwear.
Pat was glad to see that her hair had held up decently through the taxing combination of vigorous sex plus a good night’s sleep. If there was anything she didn’t want to project, it was an Aunt Jemima image with her hair tied up. Nothing looked less sexy. At least black men knew a little about the struggles black women had with their hair, from being around their mothers and perhaps sisters, but it was a completely foreign concept to white men. She always avoided showering with them; they seemed to think that all she had to do was blow-dry her hair and it would pop into place. It took a good hour for her to dab oil on her blow-dried hair and then curl it into shape.
She didn’t know whether this fling with Andy would last two weeks or ten. She just knew two things for sure: One, he wasn’t going to mess up her damn hair. And two, this wouldn’t be any more than a fling.
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