Money Can't Buy Love

by Connie Briscoe

  “But can I just get a few close-ups today?” Lenora pleaded, following Steve. “We won’t use them unless you get permission first. And I promise that you won’t see much of the grounds, only…”

  Steve waved her off, entered the building, and closed the door firmly behind him.

  Lenora stamped her foot. So aggravating! It was obviously time to give up. She hated to do that, but this was like trying to ram through a brick wall. She turned back toward Raymond and the parking lot.

  “Guess I know when I’m licked,” she said with disappointment in her voice.

  Raymond smiled thinly at her as he pulled a couple of shovels off the truck. “Them’s the breaks some days,” he said, his voice sounding genuinely sympathetic for the first time that morning. “You gave it your best shot.”

  Lenora was so bitter she could barely speak. She marched toward her car, opened the passenger-side door, and tossed her camera equipment inside. Then she made her way to the driver’s side.

  “I admire your tenacity,” Raymond called after her. “For what it’s worth.”

  Lenora was a bit startled to hear him use a word like “tenacity.” He was obviously no dummy, even if he worked with his hands, and she shouldn’t have been so quick to judge him otherwise. But her thoughts were already far away from Raymond and his crew as she climbed into the car, started the engine, and pulled off. How the hell was she going to explain this fiasco to her boss?

  Chapter 4

  What the hell did you just say?”

  Lenora cleared her throat as she stood in front of Dawna’s desk. Was Dawna going to make her tell the humiliating story all over again?

  “I wasn’t able to get any photographs,” Lenora repeated firmly. She was not going to let this woman scare her. Not much anyway.

  “Fuck!” Dawna jumped up from her executive chair, revealing a beautiful designer suit, and banged a stack of papers on her desk with her fist. Her gold bracelets jingled in fury.

  Lenora shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “By the time I pulled up to the condo unit, Raymond Shearer and his crew were leaving.” She didn’t think this was the time to mention that it was partly Dawna’s fault for giving her the wrong address. Dawna would still find a way to place the blame on Lenora.

  “Fuck!” the boss repeated. “Did he say where his next job was?”

  “I followed them to the next job over near Johns Hopkins, but the manager wouldn’t allow me to photograph the site without permission from the owner, who he claimed was out of the country. It’s probably just as well, the site was in terrible shape, nothing like the location near the waterfront. We would have to do a before-and-after piece, which I know you weren’t planning on.”

  Dawna flopped back down in her chair and rested her head in both hands. Then she glowered up at Lenora. “You do realize that this means I’ll probably have to hold the story and use some lame filler for August instead?”

  Lenora squirmed. “I know.”

  “If you weren’t my best fucking photographer I would fire your ass right this minute,” Dawna said between clenched teeth. “If this kind of crap ever happens again, I swear I will. You hear me?”

  Lenora nodded with understanding. She knew when to keep her mouth shut.

  “Now get the hell out of my office.”

  Lenora left, ignoring the looks of pity from Jenna and the secretaries who sat outside Dawna’s office. They had obviously overheard every loud word of the exchange. It served her right for being late to work, Lenora thought, head lowered as she made her way to her own office. She deserved to be chewed out.

  Several hours later, Lenora sat on a stool, nursing a glass of red wine and nibbling on some nuts at the sports bar on the ground floor of the building where the Baltimore Scene was located, a few blocks from Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. The only good thing to come out of her horrible workday was that she didn’t have to work late and could hook up with Gerald after work. She was too depressed to shop and cook as they originally planned. So they decided to meet at the sports bar and then go somewhere else for dinner.

  She lifted her head to see above the crowd of twenty-, thirty-, and forty-somethings and scanned the area near the entrance to see if Gerald had arrived. Her man had much going for him. Smart and ambitious, he owned his own business. But sometimes he could be downright inconsiderate. Like now, keeping her waiting for more than twenty minutes. Especially on a day like this, when it felt as if she’d been dragged through the coals.

  Recently he seemed to be late more and more often. Or worse, he had to postpone altogether. That was why she often offered to cook. Besides the fact that she really got her kicks out of it, when she cooked at her place it didn’t matter as much if Gerald was late. She could read or watch television while she waited and kept the food warm. She realized that Gerald and his partners were trying to grow a business, which took a lot of time and hard work. She tried to be patient and understanding. Still, she wished he would put her first more often.

  She tapped her fingers on the bar for a few seconds, then decided to go to the restroom to reapply her lipstick. She needed to do something besides warm a bar stool with her butt. She picked up her glass of wine and entered the ladies’ room. She leaned toward the mirror and applied a rose shade to her lips, then rubbed them together. She was trying to decide if the lipstick was too heavy when a statuesque woman wearing a formfitting black dress came out of a stall and stopped to wash her hands. The woman carefully studied her reflection in the mirror, tugged at her clothes, primped her long dark hair, and left.

  Lenora shook her head with disbelief. She could never figure out why pretty women fussed so much with their looks. That woman’s hair was silky smooth, her skin flawless, and her shape to die for. She sort of reminded Lenora of Dawna. Lenora would give anything to look like that instead of always trying to lose thirty or so pounds while her clothing size got bigger and bigger.

  She yanked her berry-colored top down over her hips and frowned at her reflection in the mirror. The top had felt a little more snug than usual when she put it on this morning, and that always made her antsy. She had been chubby as a child. In her midtwenties, she managed to drop several pounds and get down to a size six, only to put even more weight back on. She later lost and gained weight again. At her heaviest, she was more than fifty pounds overweight.

  Just before she met Gerald, she had dropped about twenty pounds. Gerald hadn’t known her when she weighed the most, but whenever he came across a photograph of her from that period, he pleaded with her never to let that happen again. He said he liked his women full figured but not obese. She was lucky Gerald didn’t mind a few extra pounds, but if she wasn’t careful about her weight, even he would come to think she was too fat.

  She resolved to step up her diet immediately. Absolutely no pasta, no bread, no rice. Nothing white for a few weeks or until this berry-colored top fit her better. And no excuses.

  She left the bathroom and walked quickly back toward the bar. She didn’t want Gerald to come in and think she wasn’t there. He was so busy with work these days, she wasn’t sure how long he would wait around for her.

  She immediately spotted him near the entrance, glancing around the room. She waved, and when he looked in her direction she pointed toward the bar area. They met at a small round table with two stools, and he kissed her gently on the lips. She loved the way his thick mustache tickled her mouth. They were about the same height, which was one reason why Lenora almost never wore heels.

  He removed his suit jacket to reveal a crisp white cotton shirt that had become a little wrinkled from the day’s work. He draped the jacket across the back of the stool. “I see you’ve already started to partake,” he said, eying her glass of wine through his round spectacles. “Need a refill?”

  “No, this is plenty,” Lenora said. “You go ahead and get something for yourself.” She smiled as Gerald walked off toward the bartender. She was lucky to have him. Many women her age had no man at all, since by
the time a woman hit her late thirties, almost all the good brothers were taken, gay, or playas who didn’t want to settle down.

  He came back shortly, placed his beer and glass on the table, and sat down. “Sorry to be so late getting here. Got held up at the office with a new client. And traffic was a bear.”

  She nodded with a smile, even though it was the same tune she’d heard many times before. His tardiness used to really upset her, but she had learned to let it go. There was no point getting all worked up since he wasn’t going to change. His work was important to him, would always be so. If she wanted him by her side, she had to accept that and at least pretend to understand.

  “How’s work going?” she asked.

  He pushed his dark glasses up on his caramel-toned nose. “Times are still very rough with this economy. I don’t need to tell you that. People are hurting, and they’re always looking to save a buck and trying to get you to lower your fees. The quandary is that if you lower your fees too much, it becomes impossible to make ends meet and stay afloat. It’s a tough situation all around, unfortunately.”

  “You can’t blame clients for wanting to save money,” Lenora said, shrugging. “There are probably plenty of people who will do the work for less now.”

  “You sound like my partner,” Gerald said. “He wants us to cut our fees, but I’m dead set against it. I look at the finances all day long.” He held his hand out and rubbed his thumb across his fingers. “I know what we’re worth.”

  “Could you lower them temporarily, until the economy comes back?”

  Gerald shook his head. “You get what you pay for even in this dire economy. Anyone who cuts their fees now is also cutting back on their services. You can count on it. Or else they’re losing money and won’t be in business for long. I’m not in this business to lose money or to provide substandard service.”

  Lenora nodded. It was hard to disagree with Gerald when he was talking about his firm—his baby. “I hear you.”

  “Anyway, I didn’t come to talk business with you.” Gerald smiled at her. “I want to get away from all that when I’m with my lady. How are things going with you?”

  “Where do I start?” Lenora said with a half smile. “I overslept this morning and was late for work.”

  “Not again. Don’t tell me. Dawna cursed you out till your ears felt like they would come off. Right?”

  Lenora nodded. “Of course. And I missed an important photo shoot with a new local landscaper. When I go in tomorrow, she wants to see me first thing. Probably to curse me out again.”

  “I’m feeling kind of guilty for keeping you up listening to jazz and drinking so late last night.”

  “Don’t,” Lenora said. “It’s nobody’s fault but my own. You got in bed later than I did ’cause you had to drive home after you dropped me off at my condo. And you got to work on time.”

  He nodded. “You can’t really blame Dawna. I’d be pissed too if an employee of mine was late to work and missed an assignment.”

  “I agree, but she doesn’t have to be so nasty about it. Her mouth is disgusting. Fortunately, I’m good at what I do. She needs me.”

  “That you are.”

  “I swear, one of these days I’m going to find another job. I’m tired of all the abuse she dishes out.”

  He chuckled. “You always say that, yet you stay.”

  “I know. I like working for the magazine. I just hate my boss. And it’s not like I can afford to quit until I find something else, with a mortgage and all the bills I have.”

  “Whatever you do, don’t quit your job before you find another one,” Gerald warned her. “It could be months or years before you find anything else. Consider yourself lucky to be employed in this economy.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” she said and they clanked their glasses together. “Now like you, I don’t care to spend another minute discussing my job. I need to relax, and talking about Cruella makes me tense.”

  He patted her knee. “I’m here for you whenever you want to talk, you know that.”

  She smiled and nodded her thanks.

  “How’s the pooch doing?” he asked. “Have you gotten used to getting up earlier to walk her every morning yet?”

  Lenora smiled at the thought of Paws. “I’ll probably never get completely used to it, but it’s worth it. She’s cute as a button. But she needs a lot of attention. I almost forgot to walk her this morning when I was late. I was hoping we could get dinner in Columbia tonight, somewhere near my place instead of out here in Baltimore, so I can stop and feed her.”

  “Actually, dinner will have to wait for another day,” he said.

  “What? Come on, Gerald. We have plans.”

  “I know. But I have to get back to the office in a few. We’re meeting a client for dinner.” Lenora’s shoulders slumped. “Oh, Gerald.”

  “It can’t be helped. The economy has been murder on the business. When funds are low, businesses are less likely to want a big ad campaign or to spend top dollar on one. That means we get to spend a lot more time wooing clients.”

  She sighed with regret. Now it looked like she would have to eat alone.

  “We can hook up Friday after work for dinner,” Gerald added, seeing the look of disappointment on her face. “Maybe even catch a movie. It’s been a while since we did that.”

  Whenever he broke their plans like this, it was hard not to think back to the affair he’d had with a former coworker two years ago, even though she knew that was long past. “I hear you. I’m still disappointed.”

  “But one of the things that attracted you to me was my ambition, right? I’m just trying to get paid around here. I’ll make it up to you Friday night, promise. This is important or I wouldn’t change our dinner plans. You know that.”

  She forced a smile. If she was going to be with this man, she had to trust and support him. “Is this a big client?”

  He nodded. “Big enough. He’s trying to back out of our oral deal just before signing. We have to persuade him that it’s still worth his time and money.”

  “I hope you work things out with him.”

  “Thanks,” he said, squeezing her hand over the table. “That’s what I like to hear.”

  She smiled at him coyly. “Maybe if you close this deal, we can set a date.” She sipped her wine and glanced at him out the corner of her eye.

  “Date?” he said teasingly. He took a big gulp of his beer. “What date is that?”

  She slugged him playfully on the upper arm. “You know what I’m talking about. You’re always saying you need to make more money before we can get married. You need more clients, more this, more that.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So make sure y’all work hard tonight and get that deal in writing,” she said. “So we can set a wedding date.”

  “Well, I’m not so positive that—”

  “C’mon, Gerald. We’ve been dating for three years now. Most people get married way before that. You love me, right?”

  “You know I do,” he said. “And I want to get married—you know that, too. But marriage is a huge step. I want to be sure the business is on solid ground before we take that step. We should be close to being able to buy a house before we get married. You know how high prices are in this area. They’re still kind of high, even after the crash.”

  “You could move into my condo for now, and you’d be closer to work, too. The drive from Columbia to Baltimore is much shorter than the drive from Silver Spring to Baltimore.”

  He shook his head. “Your place is small. We would get on each other’s nerves living there seven days a week.”

  “If we wait much longer, I won’t be able to have children,” Lenora said pointedly. “Do you ever think about that?”

  “Of course,” he said. “You remind me constantly.”

  “We can save together if we live together. That’s what couples do, you know?”

  “It will all happen in good time.” He stood and kissed her lightly on the forehe
ad. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Yeah, yeah. You always have to run off when we talk about this.”

  “Yep, I’m making my escape before you drown me in this marriage thing,” he teased.

  Marriage thing? Lenora didn’t like the sound of that but figured she had pushed him enough for one day. She didn’t want to scare him off.

  She smiled. “I understand how important your work is to you. Really, I do.”

  “Good,” he said. He kissed her again, on the cheek this time, and she smiled at the touch of his mustache brushing against her skin. “Don’t forget to make reservations someplace nice for Friday night,” he continued. “And pick out a movie. I’ll call you tonight when I get home.”

  “I’ll be waiting.” She paused. “But you already knew that.” She took one more sip of her wine as she watched him head toward the exit. She hoped he would turn and wave once more before he walked out the door, but he didn’t.

  Sometimes she thought she shouldn’t be so willing to wait on this man.

  Chapter 5

  Lenora decided to stop at a convenience store on the way home from work and pick up a lottery ticket or two. Maybe she’d have better luck gambling than she was having with her love life. Or her life, period, for that matter, since she’d had a terrible day at the office as well.

  She had been playing the Maryland Lottery off and on for years now and had tried everything from the Mega Millions to Multi-Match and Scratch-Offs, but had yet to win more than a few bucks. She knew she had little hope of ever winning big money in one of these things. She’d be thrilled to win just a few thousand to help with the mortgage and other bills.

  And she could use a few extra bucks to buy herself a new car, she thought as she stepped out of her Honda at the store. Several weeks ago the mechanic had told her that the car needed work she couldn’t afford. Transmission, battery, belts. One of these days the thing was going to refuse to start at all. Lenora just hoped she wasn’t trying to reach a big assignment and under threat of getting canned by Dawna when it died on her.