Once Upon a Project

by Bettye Griffin

  Her other friends had been wonderful. Susan drove down last week, when Franklin was still a patient at the rehabilitation facility, and they had a relaxing two-hour lunch at the Olive Garden. Pat and Grace came up the next day and brought a picnic lunch. Todd and Brontë came home every weekend to see Franklin, and Frankie and Rebecca drove up from Evanston on Saturdays.

  Everyone anxiously awaited the pathology report, which would tell them if Franklin’s cancer had spread. Elyse didn’t even want to think about that possibility. The findings would be revealed to Franklin at his follow-up appointment on Wednesday.

  She went back into the bedroom and saw Franklin had gotten into bed. She plumped his pillows and spread the haphazardly thrown light quilt over him evenly. “Are you comfy?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Bring me a glass of juice, will you, Elyse?”

  “Sure. Be right back.”

  As she walked to the kitchen she asked herself what he would do when he wanted something to drink tomorrow, when she was at work. Doubts filled her head, increasing with each step she took. Maybe Frankie had a point. Maybe she should insist they get him a home health care aide to do things like fix his breakfast and lunch and help him wash up—Franklin hadn’t been given the green light to shower yet.

  Thank God their bedroom was on the first floor of the house, for he’d been instructed not to climb stairs. She’d better make sure the kitchen was fully stocked with everything he might need. They kept an extra refrigerator plus a meat freezer down in the basement, and Franklin was obstinate enough to go down to get more eggs, regardless of being warned not to. Good Lord. She’d come home and find him unconscious....

  If only he weren’t so stubborn about his care. She didn’t want to bring in a caregiver against his wishes, only to have him chase her away by being obstinate and uncooperative. Franklin was old school. He equated needing a caregiver with weakness. And pointing out that he was weak would only infuriate him . . . which she knew was really a mask for hurt pride.

  Todd came into the kitchen while she held a glass against the ice dispenser. “Mom? Is Dad all right?”

  “Yes. He asked me for something to drink.”

  Todd leaned against the breakfast bar. “Do you really think he can manage on his own?”

  She sighed. “At first I did, but now I’m not so sure. I think Frankie might have had a point. Someone should be here with him.” She removed a half-gallon plastic container of a mixture of cranberry and cherry juices from the refrigerator door and filled the glass. As she put it back an idea suddenly came to her.

  “Do you want me to—”

  “No,” she interrupted. She knew he was about to offer to take time off from school. “This is finals week, Todd. It’d be hell to reschedule your exams. But I’d like you to ride to the store with me. I want to pick up a small refrigerator for the bedroom, so Daddy won’t have to do a whole lot of walking.”

  “Hey, Mom, that’s a great idea.”

  “I’ll bring this to him, and then we can go. Brontë can stay in case he needs anything.”

  That evening, after the refrigerator had gotten cold, Elyse loaded it with cold cuts, bread, deli potato salad, orange juice, cranberry juice, mustard, and mayonnaise. She would give Franklin his breakfast before she left. This way he’d have to walk no farther than a few feet to the adjoining bathroom.

  She went about her work quietly, not wanting to awaken the sleeping Franklin. When she finished bringing napkins, paper plates, a couple of plastic drinking glasses and utensils, she sat on the side of the bed and simply gazed at him.

  His weight loss had become noticeable. He didn’t have much appetite. She hoped he would eventually gain some of the weight back, now that he was out of the hospital. He was still a handsome man, but he looked unwell.

  Elyse suddenly felt a lump in her throat. She’d tried to be optimistic, telling herself there was no point in thinking about the worst when nothing had been confirmed. Sitting here watching her husband rest, she couldn’t keep the thought away.

  What would happen if Franklin died?

  Chapter 29

  Late May

  North Chicago, Illinois

  Grace swung her arms as she walked the treadmill, rather than holding on to the side bars, because it burned more calories. Her feet moved in precise steps to keep up with the four-mile-an-hour speed she’d set. She kept this pace for two five-minute increments, walking two-thirds of a mile.

  She’d stepped up her workout routine to twenty minutes every day after work unless she had somewhere to go. Actually, tonight she was meeting Pat, but Pat rarely left her office before six, so she had plenty of time.

  The workout room at her job was kept well stocked with towels and the thermostat was kept at a cool sixty-eight degrees. Grace watched the news stories of the day unfold on CNN as she worked out. It gave her something to concentrate on, even if it was a slow news day.

  She could hardly believe she was fifty years old. Fifty! Where had the time gone? She felt no older than thirty-five.

  Turning forty hadn’t been this traumatic. At that time she’d recently gotten her second divorce but dated regularly. She couldn’t have imagined then that desirable men would become so scarce the older she got.

  The moving ramp slowed to a stop, indicating she’d been on for five minutes. That meant she could rest for three, then complete her workout.

  It wasn’t very crowded in here tonight. She’d come down later than usual, wanting to complete the draft of a list of points she wanted to cover at a meeting tomorrow. By the time she got into her bike shorts it was after five, and a lot of people had already come in, done their thing, and taken off. Many people worked out at lunchtime or skipped working out altogether, now that it was May and they were into the loveliest time of year in Chicago. The two people who’d been on the elliptical and the stationary bikes had both wrapped up their workouts while she did the first half of her treadmill workout.

  Another person was on the Bowflex, bench-pressing. Grace did a double take when she noticed a pair of muscular brown arms working it. Surely she would have recognized those arms if she’d seen them before. But he sat in a way where she could make out only two other characteristics: the shiny dome of his shaved head and, most importantly, the left hand that wore no gold band to identify him as being off limits.

  Grace concentrated so hard on what little she could see of this delicious male specimen that she expanded her usual three-minute break to four and a half. She decided that she’d rested too long to get back on the treadmill. Besides, it made too much noise. Better to use a stationary bike, which would help her keep an eye on the man who seemed to be effortlessly bench-pressing substantial loads. My, how she liked a man with muscles. He could probably lift her over his head with little effort, like those male ice skaters lifted their partners.

  She’d been on the bike for two minutes when she saw him get up from the Bowflex. He wasn’t as tall as she preferred, maybe five ten, but she had to stop being so damn picky. Grace stood only five four and a half herself; she just liked tall men.

  She forced herself to stare at the TV screen—like she really cared about the latest politician to enter the race for president—when she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. He was coming toward her.

  “Hi, how’s the workout going?”

  Ooh, that voice. Smooth as honey.

  She let her legs come to a halt, her feet still resting in the stirrups. She kept her expression impassive as she turned her face and saw his full form for the first time. It was hard to determine the age of men with shaved heads, but he appeared to be over forty. As for his looks, she certainly wouldn’t turn him down if he asked her to dance at a club. Could it be that working out here at the corporate gym was about to benefit her at last?

  “I feel like I’m really pushing it today. I guess we all have days when our bodies just don’t want to cooperate.”

  “You work out every day?”

  “Just about. I try to ge
t in twenty or thirty minutes after work. Uh, I don’t remember seeing you here before.” That was easily possible. Thousands of people worked at this location, the company’s headquarters.

  “That’s because I just joined. I just started work on Monday. My name’s Calvin, Calvin Pendleton.”

  “Grace Corrigan.” She held out her hand, and he grasped it firmly in a grip that didn’t feel at all sweaty, probably because he’d wiped his hand on the towel he now wore draped around his neck. “I hope you’ll like it here. What division are you in?”

  “Hypertension. It seems to be working out so far. What about you?”

  “I’m in public relations.”

  “I guess I’ll be running into you. I was about to leave. You’ll be safe working out by yourself here, won’t you?”

  “Oh, sure. The attendant is around somewhere. She locks up at seven, and then she mops the floors and puts out fresh towels. Some people get here right after they open at 5:00 AM. But I was about to call it a day myself.”

  “Okay. See you later, huh?” He disappeared into the men’s locker room.

  Grace watched him walk away, sorry that the length of his shirt hid his butt in the formfitting bicycle shorts he wore. She tried to pedal some more, but she couldn’t get her body into it. She climbed off the bicycle and headed for the locker room, where she changed into her regulation costume after a workout: a chocolate-brown sweat suit and brown leather gym shoes that could pass for Oxfords. She always preferred to shower after she got home; there she could make sure her hair had no danger of getting wet. She hung the outfit she’d worn to work in a black nylon garment bag and stuffed it in her locker. It would keep until tomorrow night, when she would go straight home. Carrying a garment bag into downtown Chicago wasn’t practical.

  When she left the gym, she saw a beefy figure in gray sweatpants and a black leather jacket several yards in front of her. Apparently, Calvin Pendleton didn’t believe in showering on the premises, either. What a lucky break for her.

  For a moment she considered catching up to him, then dropped the idea. They’d had a nice little exchange in the gym. No point trying to press the issue. There’d be plenty of time to find out exactly what he did over in Hypertension. In the meantime, she still had Eric.

  Grace smiled. Thinking of Eric usually elicited that reaction, at least for about thirty seconds, while she thought about their sex life. Just because she was fifty didn’t mean she was washed-up. But while the sex was fantastic, everything else was lacking.

  Damn it, why couldn’t she have found someone like Andy, that white dude Pat was seeing? Most of Pat’s promising relationships fizzled out after a few dates, but this one had been going on for nearly two months now, with no signs of slowing down. Last weekend they went to the dinner buffet at the casino in Joliet, then spent some time at the tables . . . traveling by limo, yet! The weekend before that they went to see The Color Purple at the Cadillac Palace Theater. Andy had to go out to L.A. to spend a few days at the law firm out there, and he invited Pat to go with him. And Pat said the sex was great, too. She sure looked happy these days.

  Grace grew more jealous by the week. She told herself that Andy had some great flaw that Pat conveniently hadn’t mentioned, like he had acne-scarred skin, he had a flabby body, or he wasn’t nearly as handsome as Pat said. But she’d finally gotten to meet him last week at the pub, and he turned out to be every bit as fine as Pat said, with a shock of black hair with gray sprinkled through it, heavily concentrated at the temples, and sexy deep blue bedroom eyes.

  Of course, even if the relationship showed the promise of becoming lengthy, it would come to an abrupt end the moment Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell laid eyes on Andy. They’d object, and Pat would lose her nerve and break it off, just like she’d done with Ricky all those years ago. Then there was the matter of Andy’s family. He shared custody of his two daughters with his ex-wife, who lived in one of those ritzy North Shore suburbs. If he knew what was good for him he wouldn’t let his ex know he had a black girlfriend, or else he might not ever see his daughters again. Yes, Pat might be pampered for the moment, traveling in limos, flying to the West Coast for the weekend, but it wouldn’t last.

  Besides, Grace had a feeling that no matter how much Pat liked being with that guy Andy, she was secretly still in love with Ricky Suárez.

  Even with Andy’s great looks, Grace doubted that the sex he and Pat had was anywhere near as good as the sex she was having with Eric. He was some good in the sack, pounding her pussy with that big stick of his like it was a drum, and not needing a whole lot of time before Round Two. She tingled just thinking about it. She would have been crazy to miss out on this. Pat had been sleeping with white dudes for so long, she’d probably forgotten how good it was with the brothers.

  Grace had never slept with a white man. There’d been Ricky, of course, but he’d been brown, not white. But she couldn’t deny that there were more available white men than black, so when a nice-looking white guy she knew from the train asked her out a couple of years back, she’d accepted.

  He’d taken her to dinner at a steak house downtown, and even before he brought her home she decided to sleep with him. But when she slipped her hands under his shirt while kissing him and felt all that hair on his back, it turned her stomach. She felt like she was kissing the Wolf Man. That curly light brown hair that she admired so much on his head was grossly out of place on his back and shoulders. The man needed a trim . . . preferably with a lawn mower. She pretended to get a crick in her back and sent him on his way, later telling him she didn’t think it would work between them.

  Eric might not be much, but he was better than nothing at all. Someday she’d meet someone with the right income, someone who could afford to drop close to a thousand dollars on a weekend getaway and to take her to restaurants along the Magnificent Mile instead of all those damn chains. She’d meet him, eventually, of that she was certain.

  A smug smile formed on her lips. Every silver lining had a bit of tarnish. Look at poor Elyse and all she was going through. Pat had told her that Franklin still had cancer in his body, even after that massive surgery he underwent last month. The doctors were trying to arrest it with treatments, which had left Franklin drained, bald, and nauseous. Pat had suggested to Grace that the two of them drive up to Lake Forest to visit with Elyse and offer her some moral support. Grace had agreed but secretly wished she could get out of it. She really didn’t like being around people in such somber circumstances. She didn’t have Pat’s gift for always saying something appropriate. Going to a funeral was easier; at least when it was over it was truly over. What could she possibly say to Elyse in the face of Franklin’s lingering illness? There were only so many words of comfort. This time next year, Elyse would probably be among the already overcrowded ranks of single middle-aged women looking for husbands. With a house in Lake Forest that was probably worth three times as much as they’d paid for it, plus the money she would undoubtedly come into upon Franklin’s passing, Elyse had better watch out for fortune hunters.

  Grace checked her watch. The next company-sponsored shuttle to the North Chicago train station would be leaving in just a few minutes.

  The shuttle was already parked outside when she got out front, and she climbed on, sitting on the left so she could still see Calvin. She couldn’t deny her curiosity to see what kind of vehicle he drove, and sitting in a high vehicle like this shuttle bus gave her a perfect opportunity.

  She followed him with her eyes as he walked out to a maroon sedan and popped the trunk then tossed his workout bag inside. From here she couldn’t determine the car’s make, but he had to drive closer to exit the lot.

  Her face moved closer to the glass as the maroon vehicle started to move. She didn’t know a whole lot about car models, but she guessed it was some kind of Honda or Toyota. Not the sleekest model for a man who looked as good as he did but not bad. It looked like a fairly recent make, maybe two or three years old at the most. And at least it wasn’t a mini
van.

  Hmm. Maybe she’d already met her mystery Mr. Right but just didn’t know it yet.

  Chapter 30

  Late May

  Chicago

  Grace rushed into the pub where she was due to meet Pat. Normally when she came into a room men’s heads turned to look at her, but today no one gave her a second glance. She knew it was because of the shapeless jogging suit and plain brown lace-up shoes she wore. Usually she would have declined to meet Pat on a day she planned to work out, but the truth was that she hadn’t seen much of Pat lately, and she missed her. The last time they’d seen each other was the other week, when they went up to Elyse’s in Lake County to try to cheer her up in the midst of Franklin’s grueling treatment regimen. They kept pretty busy, between their jobs and their love lives. Grace thought it a happy coincidence that both of them were in relationships at the same time. She didn’t think it had ever happened before.

  Her feet abruptly stopped moving when she recognized the person Pat was talking to at the bar. Grace used to work out with Stephanie Williams at a fitness center near her condo before she switched to the gym at her job. Stephanie was the one she’d taken with her to Ricky’s restaurant. When Ricky came over to say hello Stephanie had been quite taken by him as she witnessed Grace’s undisguised flirting and made a prediction that the two of them would end up in bed together before it was all over—a prediction that came true. Good Lord, what if she mentioned it in front of Pat? Grace wouldn’t mind Pat knowing about her and Ricky if something had come of it. She already had her defense planned (“Well, Pat, you didn’t want him, and it ended between you two a hundred years ago. Why shouldn’t I go out with him if he asked me to?”) But since it had ended badly, she saw no reason for Pat to know that she’d tried to snag the great love of her life for herself. It hadn’t worked out with Ricky. Why should she lose her friendship with Pat, too?