Chapter Two
Lacette raced to the phone hoping that the caller was the buyer for Beauty Serums, Inc., which had engaged her to demonstrate its products at a fair in Baltimore’s Lord Calvert Hotel. She prospered financially through her work as a product demonstrator, but concentrated on her goal to have her own marketing firm. She hadn’t worked hard for a degree in marketing just to stand at a table and praise the work of whoever invented the product she demonstrated.
“Hello. Lacette speaking.”
“Miss Graham, this is Lawrence Bradley. The brooch your grandmother left you was not in the effects that she stored with me. It’s possible that it may be in her house, so I suggest we get your father’s permission to search for it. However, neither you nor I can do that until he takes formal possession of the place. I’m afraid you’ll have to wait.”
“Thanks, Mr. Bradley. I’m not worried about it; as soon as Kellie sees it, she’ll want it and she’ll plague me about it until I give it to her.”
“Really? She got an exquisite diamond ring; that ought to satisfy her.”
The bitterness of her laugh embarrassed her, and she tried to eradicate its effect with the softening of her voice. “You don’t know Kellie.”
“I’m getting an idea. I’d appreciate it if you’d go with me to the bank. You’ll remember that Ginga Moore’s twenty-five thousand dollars is in the account Mrs. Hooper willed to you. She needs the money.”
“We can go today, if you’d like. Suppose we meet there at one.”
“I’ll pick you up at your house around twelve-thirty, if you don’t mind.”
“Thanks. I’ll be ready.”
She spent the remainder of the morning telephoning prospective employers and received three offers to demonstrate products. She turned down an offer to pitch condoms to women at a conference on child care and another one to stand in the window of a department store demonstrating brassieres. She had a nice top and was proud of it, but wouldn’t consider using it for an advertisement. She dressed in a royal blue suit and her standby, a street-length camel-hair tuxedo coat and waited in the living room for Bradley’s arrival.
The man rang the doorbell promptly at twelve-thirty, and as if Kellie had overheard their conversation—and she had not—she arrived home as Bradley opened the front passenger’s door of his car for Lacette. Kellie stopped, gaped at them with widened eyes, and quickly regained her composure. Self-assurance was Kellie’s trademark, and Lacette stared in disbelief when her sister walked to within a foot of the man and grasped his arm.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t home. I had to do something to take my mind off my gramma’s death, so I’ve gone back to work.”
“Nice seeing you,” Bradley said, walked around the car, got in and drove off.
So Kellie was after Bradley. “I shouldn’t get personal,” Lacette said, “but I can’t help wondering how your family deals with your irregular hours. Mama said she was in your office Sunday afternoon.”
“Not all of my work involves distributing inheritances, thank God. You’d be surprised at how well grief and greed get along. My family understands this part of my job.”
She wondered if Kellie knew he was married and whether, if she did know it, she would back off. Probably not.
A bank official deposited twenty-five thousand dollars in an account for Ginga Moore and transferred the remainder of the money in Carrie Hooper’s account, one hundred and eighty-nine thousand dollars, to a new account for Lacette.
“I had no idea Gramma was leaving me this much, Mr. Bradley. I . . . It’s . . . I’m stunned.”
“Keep it to yourself, unless you want to share it.”
“Why did she leave Mama so little?”
“She said she had good reasons, and that your mother knew what those reasons were. If I were you, I’d leave it alone.”
To Lacette’s surprise, Kellie was still at home when she got back there. One look at her sister and she saw the threat of war as clearly as if Kellie had handed her a document declaring it.
“What the hell was he doing here with you? You want everything, don’t you, Lacette. Well, you’re not getting it. How much is in the account Gramma left you?”
“How much is in yours?”
“I have to get back to the office. I’m already late. You stay away from Lawrence Bradley.”
She was about to assure Kelly that the man didn’t appeal to her and that, in any case, she didn’t get involved with married men, but stopped short when she saw the anger in her sister’s eyes. Instead, she said, “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay away from him.” Kellie misunderstood that as a threat, but left without pressing the issue. Their grandmother’s death seemed to have brought out the worst in Kellie: mean, cunning and devoid of her usual humor and wit. I’m getting out of here as soon as I can find a house.
Kellie slipped into the office minutes before her supervisor returned from lunch. “You just made it,” Mabel, a secretary who sat across the corridor from her said. “And it’s a good thing, because she’s been on the warpath all morning. I’d have covered for you, if you hadn’t made it back.”
“Thanks, girl, you’re a good buddy. Say, did you see that guy pruning trees out there? I think that’s what he was doing. What’s a hunk like that one doing risking his cute little butt up in a tree? He ought to have Mr. Walker’s job.”
“Yeah. You let Walker hear you say that, and you’ll be up a tree. Laughter poured out of Mabel. Kellie thought her coworker enjoyed her own jokes more than anyone else did.
“What’s the name of that fellow who’s working on those trees?” she asked Mabel.
“Now you leave the guy alone. Thank God it’s too cold for you to swish around out there with your tits hanging out and your skirt up to your ass.”
Kellie grinned. “Shoot, girl. If you got it, flaunt it, is what I say. Anyhow, I don’t show ’em a thing they don’t enjoy looking at, but I don’t waste my assets on Tom, Dick, and Harry.”
“Don’t hand me that,” Mabel said. “If you want something out of ’em, you’ll offer up your booty as fast as a bondsman will put up bail. I’m on to you, girl. You dress like Miss Ann and talk like a lady, but you got grit in your teeth.”
Kellie let a smile float over her face to give the impression that she thought Mabel was joking, but she knew the truth in the woman’s comment. “Come on, Mabel. Just because I’m proud that I have it doesn’t mean I let just anybody use it.”
“I ain’t the priest, so don’t be confessing to me. It’s yours; you do what you please with it.”
“You forget I’m a minister’s daughter; I was properly brought up.”
“Yeah. I gotta get my work done.”
Kellie didn’t like being put down by a woman she considered beneath her, but she wanted a promotion from secretary to receptionist, which to her mind was a more prestigious job, and she stood a better chance if her colleagues liked her. “Good idea, Mabel. I want to finish this report so I can leave a little early.”
She completed it, put it on the supervisor’s desk and headed outside for another look at the man she saw in the tree earlier that afternoon. As she approached, he climbed down from the ladder. “Don’t you get dizzy up there?” she asked him. “I would. What were you doing to the poor tree, anyway?”
“I was inspecting it for disease.” He collected his tools and the ladder, tipped his baseball cap and headed toward the building’s basement entry.
Angry with him for ignoring her and furious with herself for speaking to him, she promised herself that she’d make him pay. “Men make me sick,” she said aloud, repeating a sentiment she’d uttered to her mother when her father left home. She wondered if she believed it and wasn’t so sure when she recalled her first sexual experience at the age of fourteen.
The man was her father’s close friend and a deacon in his church. Suddenly she began to giggle. That man had been crazy about her. He’d keep his head between her legs as often and as long as she’d let him, and all she had to do was caress him and stroke him. He’d be talking with her father in Marshall’s office at home, and she’d go in and make up a yarn to tell her father while she rubbed and pinched her breast as she stood behind her father’s chair, toying with the man. Before he left the house, he would manage to get her in the basement and do all kinds of things to her while her unsuspecting father worked on his Sunday sermons. She hadn’t let the man penetrate her and often wished she had. He heated her up, and no other man had been able to do it.
She considered stopping by Lawrence Bradley’s office and thought better of it. Desperate to get the brooch before Bradley delivered it to her sister, she stopped at Benny’s Jerked Chicken, a shop less than a block from Bradley’s office, and telephoned him.
“Bradley.”
“Hello, Mr. Bradley. This is Kellie Graham. Do you mind if I call you Lawrence?”
“No, I don’t, but I can’t see that it’s necessary.”
“Oh, please, not you, too. This has been one awful day. From the time I rolled out of my bed until a few seconds ago, it’s been downhill.”
His pause lasted too long for her comfort. At last he said, “What happened a few seconds ago?”
Just the lead she wanted. “I heard your voice.”
“Oh, come on, Miss Graham. You can do better than that.”
“I wish I could, but from the minute I heard your voice . . .” She paused. Let him think about that. “I’m not far from you. How about coffee . . . or . . . something?”
Her heartbeat thundered in her chest while she waited out his silence. “I’d like to know what you want,” he said, but the gruffness in his voice only encouraged her.
Emboldened, she could feel the smile crawling over her face. He might be a big shot lawyer, but he was a man, wasn’t he? “You’re a grown man; you know the answer to that.”
Again, he let her wait. “Where are you?”
This time, it was she who let time pass. “I’m at Benny’s Jerked Chicken.”
“That’s half a block away. Come up here.”
“Well . . . uh . . .” She pretended to consider his suggestion. Then, as if he initiated the idea of their meeting, she said. “I don’t know if I should. Uh . . . all right, but just for a few minutes.”
Suddenly, she remembered that she was wearing a red cowl-neck sweater under that charcoal gray coat and that he may think her period of mourning for her grandmother strangely short. She shrugged. I won’t give him a chance to think about that. After repairing her makeup and combing her hair in the women’s room, she set out for her tryst with Lawrence Bradley, her steps quick and sure-footed. Leaving the sixth floor elevator for the short walk to his office, she refreshed her perfume, put the flask back in her pocketbook and knocked on Bradley’s office door.
He opened the door at once, took her hand and pulled her into his office. She hadn’t expected to find him without his jacket and tie and told him as much.
“I work comfortably whenever I can. Why did you want to see me?”
She lowered her lashes, pulled off her gloves and placed them and her pocketbook on his desk. “Try being more subtle, Lawrence. That works better with me.”
He walked to where she stood and pulled her to him, so close that her breasts felt the pressure of his pectorals against them. “This works for me,” he said and bent to kiss her, but she moved her face and stepped away from him.
“What’s your game, Kellie?”
She let a half smile crawl over her face and bathed her lips with her tongue. “I don’t like being pawed.”
Both of his eyebrows shot up. “I stand corrected. Care for a glass of white wine . . . or something stronger?”
“Wine, please.” She removed her coat, sat on the sofa that rested in the far end of the office beneath a window and crossed her knees.
He returned with the wine, handed her a glass and sat beside her. “Let’s get this straight. I am not going to let you toy with me. Understand? Here’s to a beautiful, reckless woman.” He drained his glass.
Kellie had the feeling that Lawrence Bradley might be more than she could handle. She sipped the wine, and pretended that he wasn’t gazing at her. Then she put the glass on the table beside her and stretched both arms out on the back of the sofa. His hands were hard and firm on her, and his grip told her he meant business. He gripped her beneath her knees and swung her legs across his lap. Then he maneuvered her until she was lying on the sofa flat on her back. She looked up at him, dazed as he unbuttoned his shirt. It hung open, baring his chest, and he reached down and eased her sweater over her head.
“Are you going to stop me?” he asked her.
The question came too late; she had forgotten her scheme, and her only thought was of the man leaning over her, big and strong, both threatening and promising in his masculinity. An unfamiliar urge to explode with him buried inside surged through her, and she didn’t answer, merely unhooked her bra and offered him her breasts. He worked her over like a scientist in a chemistry laboratory, methodical and thorough, until he spent himself.
At least he enjoyed it, she thought. He didn’t want for skill; indeed, he was probably an expert. The problem was that she didn’t feel anything, and it had nothing to do with him, for it always happened that way.
“Come back tomorrow about this time,” he said. “I could get used to you, and the more we’re together, the more perfect it will be.”
Knowing that she pleased him was all that was needed to put her back in her element. He could get lots of women, but he wanted an affair with her. She went into his bathroom, washed up and dressed. He hadn’t given her an orgasm, but he was damned sure going to get that brooch for her. “Tomorrow?” she asked him when she walked back into his office. “You’ve got a big appetite.”
“For you. Yes. I want you here tomorrow.”
“Sorry,” she said. “It’ll have to be day after tomorrow.”
He stared at her until she thought he could hear her nerves rattling. “All right, then. Day after tomorrow.”
Lacette wondered at her sister’s coldness at dinner that evening. Their mother tried to make conversation, but having lost touch with both her daughters, her efforts fell flat.
“What were you doing in here this morning with Lawrence Bradley?” Kellie asked Lacette for the second time.
“Was Mr. Bradley here?” Cynthia asked. “He could at least have brought my fur coat.”
“Are you going to drive Gramma’s car, Mama?” Lacette asked, hoping to divert Kellie’s attention from the matter of Lawrence Bradley’s presence in their home.
“Yes, if I ever get my hands on the keys. Who wouldn’t drive a Mercedes? With your daddy gone, I’ll need it. I went down to the Board of Education this morning to see if I could get my old teaching job back. I’ll substitute for the remainder of the school year, and next term, I’ll teach full time. Seventh grade as usual.”
“Mama, that’s wonderful,” Lacette said. She hadn’t thought her mother would adapt to the breakup of her marriage with such seeming ease. “You’re right to get on with your life.”
“She doesn’t have a choice,” Kellie said. “So that’s where you were this morning when Lacette was here making out with Bradley. How cheap can you get? You only met the man a little over a week ago, for heaven’s sake.”
Astonished at Kellie’s accusation, she opened her mouth to deny it and changed her mind. If Kellie thought Lacette wanted the man, she would probably make a fool of herself over him. Her instinct had always guided her to yield to her twin sister, catering to her at the expense of her own interests and needs. Submissiveness welled up from someplace within her, and she fought to quell it, to remember her father’s admonition that she stand up for herself. Without saying a word in her defense, she took the dishes to the kitchen, rinsed them and put them in the dishwasher, went back to the dining room and sat down.
“You can clean the kitchen,” she told Kellie. “I have some work to do.”
“Clean the . . . I just had a manicure.”
“Excuse me, Mama,” Lacette said, and as she walked up the stairs, Kellie yelled, “You’re going to call him. Well, I’ll be on the line, and I’ll hear every word.”
She turned and walked back down the steps until she could see her sister standing with arms akimbo, her face twisted in anger. “If you want his phone number, Kellie, I’ll be glad to give it to you, and I won’t listen to your conversation because I don’t care what you say to each other.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t let her break her neck with that man,” Lacette said to herself while reviewing the products of Beauty Serums, Inc. that she would promote in Baltimore the coming weekend. Kellie didn’t usually show her hand so carelessly. “Oh, what the heck; it’s all I can do to manage my own life.”
She answered the telephone on the first ring, hoping the caller was not Lawrence Bradley; no need to ease her sister’s foolish concerns so soon.
“Hello. Lacette speaking.”
“How are you?” She recognized her father’s voice. “Did you call me?”
She heard the click when Kellie lifted the receiver. “Yes, I did, I wanted to know how you are. Kellie’s on the line; you want to talk to her?”
“Daddy, when are you getting the keys to Gramma’s house?” Kellie asked.
“I’m fine,” he replied. “How are you?”
“Oh. Uh . . . I’m okay, Daddy. Have you seen the lawyer again?”
“I don’t have anything to discuss with him. Why should I see him? When I’m ready for the house keys, I’ll get them. Why’re you so interested in what I do with that house?”
“Uh . . . uh . . .” she stammered. “I wanted to see it.”
“Really? If you had visited your grandmother more frequently, you’d know the house like the back of your hand.”
“Are you going to give it to Lacette?”
“I don’t plan to give it to anybody. I’d like to see you in church Sunday, young lady. You are too concerned with material things, and if you don’t shift your priorities, we’ll all watch you regret it.”
“How about lunch one day soon, Daddy?” Lacette said, getting her sister out of trouble with their father, as she had done all of their lives.
“Tomorrow? I can pick you up around twelve-thirty. The thought of you driving that rattle-trap car of yours raises my blood pressure. While we’re together, we ought to look for a new car for you; that one you have is dangerous.”
A click let them know that Kellie hung up. “I’ll be ready. See you tomorrow.”
En route to their luncheon date the next day, Marshall drove along Jefferson Street in historic downtown Frederick and parked in front of Veguti’s Ristorante. “I had soul food every day last week, and I want to give my arteries a break,” he explained as he parked in front of the popular Italian restaurant.
Over lunch, he urged her to find a place of her own. “I know I’ve always said you should stay home until you married, but things have changed, and if you and Kellie don’t separate, you’re going to be the loser. She loves you as much as she loves anybody, but unfortunately, that’s not good enough. I’ve often wondered where Cynthia and I failed with Kellie. She neither gives nor accepts unqualified love. Oh, she has feelings for people, but what she wants comes first.”
“Maybe when she meets the right man, she’ll change. I can’t imagine living away from Kellie.”
“I know. You’ve been together from conception. The bond between twins is strong, but I don’t want it to drag you down.”
After lunch, he drove out Jefferson Street toward Jefferson Pike and stopped at Barney’s New and Used Cars, where Lacette chose a new white Mercury Cougar. “You’ll have it in a month,” the salesman told her. “It is one smooth-riding baby.” She let her hands slide over the sleek lines of the low-slung sports car, pleased and barely able to wait until she could call one of them her own.
“Did you know, Mama’s going to substitute teach till the end of this school year and teach full time next year?” she asked her father.
“No, I didn’t, and I am glad to hear it. She’ll be able to take care of herself, and you and Kellie won’t have to support her. I wouldn’t have thought she’d do it.” True to his fashion, he went on to another topic without pausing. From childhood, she knew to concentrate when he talked or she would miss half of what he said. “I hope Mama Carrie left you enough to start your business. If she didn’t, you probably shouldn’t have bought such an expensive car.”
She told him the amount in the account. “I have more than enough for what I need. I hope Kellie got as much as I did.”
“That’s not your worry, and she doesn’t need to know what you got, but I’ll bet she asked.”
“Yes, sir, she did. She also wanted to know when you’re going to get the key from Mr. Bradley and move into Gramma’s house.”
“I’ll bet she did. She’ll save a lot of time if she asks me. Tell her to keep some time for me this Saturday coming.”
He eased the Cadillac to the curb in front of the parsonage and cut the motor. “Give your mother all the support you can. I’ll stay in touch.”
As she walked into the house, her conscience flailed her for not having attended prayer meeting since their parents separated. But repentance had a short life. From now on, I am doing what I think I need to do, what I want to do and not what someone else thinks is good for me. Liberated by the thought, she dashed up to her room and began researching what she would need to open L. Graham Marketing Consultants, Inc.
The following afternoon at six o’clock, Kellie knocked on Lawrence Bradley’s office door. “What took you so long? You knew it was me knocking,“ she said, giving him a taste of her temper.”
“I was on the phone. Sorry.”
“I was on the verge of leaving.”
A full-faced smile exposed his glistening white teeth. “You wouldn’t have.”
“Let’s go out somewhere,” she said, deciding to test him.
“All right. I know a nice little place near Braddock Heights. The food is great.”
They walked out of the building into the twilight of that mid December day and got into his BMW, but she couldn’t dispel the feeling that she was playing his game and not hers. He flipped on the radio, and she leaned back, comfortable in the brown leather bucket seats and closed her eyes and let Luther Vandross’s voice soothe her. When he parked in front of what was certainly a motel, its elegant façade notwithstanding, she squelched her temper. After all, he wasn’t her reason for being with him; it was the brooch and not he who mattered.
He registered, and then went back to the car for her so that she didn’t have to pass the front desk. He’d done it before, and probably a lot of times, but she didn’t care. Inside the room—lavishly furnished with red velvet walls, curtains and carpet and with an avocado-green bedspread and upholstered furniture—she removed her coat, gloves, and bag and kicked off her shoes.
“Thank God, I didn’t wear red,” she said as she sank into the chair. He handed her a menu, opened the bar and poured them each a straight shot of bourbon.
“I don’t drink straight whiskey.”
“It’s just a little.” He touched his glass to hers and then emptied its contents down his throat. His steady gaze challenged her, hitting that reckless nerve in her, and she lifted the glass and burned her throat until she swallowed it all. No doubt about it, she’d soon be drunk. He removed his jacket and tie.
“Not until after I eat,” she said.
“It’ll taste better after we find out how sturdy that bed is.” He grinned as if to make a joke of his crude comment.
Letting some of her annoyance seep out, she said, “I suspect you already know.”
“You’re too fresh tonight,” he said, walking over to her and rubbing her belly. For an hour, he left nothing to her imagination, taking everything from her that a man could take from a woman.
At last, sitting on the floor naked with her head against the inside of his left thigh, she asked him, “Why were you leaving the parsonage with Lacette day before yesterday? Did you do to her what you just did to me?”
“Look, baby, a decent man doesn’t talk about women.”
“Then you did have her!”
“I did not say that. I’ve never touched Lacette except to shake her hand.”
She wanted to believe it, but with his smooth tongue and beguiling ways, why should she? Anyway, what did it matter to her? “I’m hungry. After that workout you gave me, I feel as if I could eat a whole pig.”
He reached over and picked up the menu. “What do you want?
“Lobster and champagne.” She didn’t look at him for his reaction, mostly because she didn’t care. “And whatever goes with the lobster.”
“I’ll have the same. Put something on. No, go in the bathroom when the waiter knocks. I don’t want you to dress.”
She didn’t wait for the waiter to knock, but gathered her clothes, went in the bathroom, showered and dressed. She knew she would earn his displeasure, but she figured he’d get over it.
“Didn’t I tell you not to dress?” he said after the waiter left.
“Lighten up, Lawrence. I’m too sore for any more sex. Besides, I can’t imagine eating nude.”
That seemed to amuse him. “Why didn’t you say so?”
They got back to the parsonage around eleven. “Can I see you tomorrow?” he asked her.
“I don’t know. Say, why don’t you come over and have dinner with us? I’m not worth a thing in the kitchen, but Lacette’s a great cook. How about it?”
He turned fully to face her, settling his back against the car door. “We don’t have that kind of relationship, Kellie. We’re sex partners.”
So he didn’t plan to let her pretend that she meant anything to him. She beat back the annoyance that burned in her. “All right. Why don’t I come by the office and the two of us go over and take a look at Father’s house?” she asked him, thinking that he would welcome a chance to placate her after his crude and, to her mind, witless, description of their relationship.
“I can’t do that. It’s illegal. No one is to enter that house before Reverend Graham takes possession of it.”
Her bottom lip curled, and she fought to control what she knew would follow. “You listen to me. I’m his daughter, and that gives me the right to enter that house or any other house he owns.”
“Not by a mile, it doesn’t. Sorry, but that’s out.”
“You don’t have to go. Give me the key, or drop it where I can find it, since you’re so damned full of integrity. I want that key.”
“I had a feeling that this was what you were after. Sorry, babe. Don’t expect me to break the law for you if you spread your legs for me every day for the next ten years. If that’s what you were after, you misjudged me. I wouldn’t risk my profession and my family for you or any other woman.” He turned on the ignition. “See you around.”
“You will regret this for a long, long time,” she said, got out of the car and slammed the door. She promised herself that she’d get even with him if it was the last thing she did. Vexed and ashamed for the humiliation she tolerated from him in that motel room, and angry at herself for doing what he persuaded her to do, she slipped upstairs as quietly as she could, went into her room and closed the door. She was not going to cry. And she would find another way to get that brooch.
However, Lawrence Bradley evidently didn’t plan to allow Kellie to outwit him. Around three o’clock the following afternoon, Lacette answered the door and looked up at a process server.
“Are you Kellie Graham?”
“No. I’m her sister. She’s at work.
“Thank you,” the man said. “I’ll get in touch with her at her place of business.”
She phoned her father. “Daddy, why would a process server want to see Kelly?”
“You mean old man McGinty’s son delivered a summons to Kellie?”
“Yes, sir. I hope she’s not in trouble.”
“Tell her to call me.”
She said she would and walked around the house wringing her hands and snacking on potato chips and nuts until, desperate to take some action, she called Lawrence and told him what she suspected.
“You’re right. I got a court injunction against your sister forbidding her to set foot in your father’s house before he takes possession of it. She’s up to something, and I will not be responsible for her devilry.”
So Kellie struck out with Bradley. Nothing would convince her that her sister hadn’t made a play for the man. At least she didn’t get involved with a married man, Lacette thought with a good deal of satisfaction. Once a month, if not more often, their father began a sermon with the commandment, “Thou shall not commit adultery,” but she suspected that Kellie was capable of rationalizing her way around it.
“She probably wants to find my brooch,” she said to Bradley, “but that jewelry is not worth a battle with Kellie. She has always wanted whatever’s dear to me and usually managed to get it.”
“The restraining order stands. I hope it doesn’t interfere with your relationship with her.”
At dinner that night, Lacette, Kellie, and Cynthia could have been mistaken for three women who met minutes earlier and ate their dinner together by chance. Kellie’s obvious misery prevented normal conversation among them.
Adopting her usual role of peacemaker and soother of agitations, Lacette reached across the dining room table and covered Kellie’s hand with her own. “I don’t know what you’re dealing with, hon, but it will get better; it has to. I’ll help if I can.”
She recoiled from the blatant anger that flashed over her sister’s face as Kellie snatched away her hand. “Thanks, but considering your lack of experience with men, I doubt you can understand what I’m going through. Besides, the problems that beautiful women have are different from those you’ve had. No offense meant.”
Lacette looked from Kellie to Cynthia, aghast that a mother would allow one of her children to heap scorn on another in her presence and with impunity. However, Cynthia’s mind was not on her family.
“Excuse me, girls,” she said. “I have to get dressed. Lacette, would you straighten up the kitchen, please?”
Half an hour later, Lacette turned on the dishwasher, extinguished the overhead light in the kitchen, started toward the stairs with the intention of going to her room and stopped. She squeezed her hands into fists as if to test her alertness, making certain that she hadn’t lost her mind. Cynthia Graham glided down the stairs, a fifty-five-year-old siren dressed as if for a hot date. This was her mama? Lacette stared at the woman she had thought she knew, at the brightly rouged lips, the sleekly styled hair, the black velvet pants suit and the pearls at her mother’s throat and ears. She sniffed the expensive odor of Hermes perfume that wafted to her from a distance of seven feet, rubbed her nose and shook her head in wonder. What had happened to her mother’s passion for Azure perfume?
“It’s almost nine o’clock, Mama.”
“I know what time it is, dear, and I’ll be back when I get back.”
Kellie came up from the basement carrying a log for the fireplace, looked up at her mother and dropped it, barely missing her toes. “Mama, for the Lord’s sake, where’re you going this time of night looking like that?”
Cynthia strolled over to the hall closet, put on her mother’s mink coat, showed them the keys to the Mercedes she inherited from her mother and said, “Out. I’m going out. You don’t tell me where you’re going, do you? I’ll see you later.”
They gazed out the living room window and saw her get into the big car and drive off. “What do you think has come over her?” Lacette asked Kellie.
“Beats me. All that eye makeup, permed hair and enough perfume to make a pig’s trough smell good. She had more gunk on her eyelids than I would ever think of wearing. I sure hope this isn’t a psychological reaction to Daddy leaving her.”
Lacette walked into the living room and sat on the arm of their mother’s precious green velvet sofa, in an act that was testimonial to her present absentmindedness. “What else could it be? When she went to the Board of Education the other day, her face was scrubbed clean, her hair was kinky and in a knot at her nape, her skirt was ten inches below her knees and her shoes resembled leather sneakers. This kind of metamorphosis demands psychiatric care. Trust me.”
“I don’t think so,” Kellie said. “I expect Daddy’s leaving humiliated her, and she’s out to show him she doesn’t need him. Bully for her.”
“Maybe, but I’m worried about her.”
“Don’t be,” Kellie said. “Mama was gorgeous when she was young, and she’s just reaching back and grabbing some of that.”
“You think she’s trying to get Daddy to come back?”
Kellie got up, retrieved the log she dropped earlier and walked over to the fireplace with it. She stood there for a while gazing at the hot coals, then put the log on the fire. “I sure as hell hope not, Lacette. If I know Daddy, he’s gone for good.”
“Yeah. I guess so. Too bad.”
As she walked up to her room, it occurred to her that that was the friendliest conversation she’d had with her sister since the lawyer read their grandmother’s will to them.
Cynthia had expected her daughters to look askance at what she considered her new self. She’d made what was probably a life changing decision, and she prayed that she could stick to it. Everybody was entitled to one mistake, whether it was a short one or a long one, and she didn’t intend to spend the rest of her life beating herself to death and moping about that one. People didn’t think a minister’s wife should look like a woman? Well, she hadn’t been a minister’s wife for more than six weeks. If Marshall didn’t announce that he’d left his wife and daughters, people would think his wife no longer respected him. Well, let them. She pulled up to Carriage Inn and cut the motor. She’d never been in a bar, and it was time she learned whether the people who frequented them seemed headed for hell, as Marshall preached. She stepped inside, looked around for her cousin Jack and headed toward him, smiling in relief that he’d gotten there before she did.
He walked to meet her, more resolute than was normally his wont. “Hi, babe. Say . . . can I . . . uh . . . buy you a drink?”
She took a deep breath, filling her lungs with cigarette smoke and her nostrils with the odor of liquor, both fresh and stale, and stepped backward until the edge of a baby grand piano sent shock through her right rib cage.
“I want you to know that . . .” She gaped at the man. “Jack! What the devil’s the matter with you?”
“Hold it! Hey, wait a minute. Cynthia? What have you done to yourself? If you hadn’t opened your mouth, I never would have known who you were.” A sheepish expression marked his face, and then he began to laugh. “I’ll bet my head Marshall didn’t see you when you left home. You revved up my engine. I thought I saw this gorgeous dame walk in alone, case the joint and pick me out of the crowd of Joes hanging around here. Biggest let-down I’ve had in years. Let’s go back to the cocktail lounge and get a drink.”
She had wanted a change, but maybe she’d gone too far. And maybe not, she thought, for as they walked through the bar, half the men took the pains to catalogue her assets, and some of those who did smiled in approval. She ordered a Lime Rickey, because it was the only drink whose name she knew other than wine, and toyed with it for nearly an hour.
“If you’re in a mid-life crisis, Cynthia, be sure you don’t get into trouble. You still have your looks, and there’re a lot of lonely guys out here.”
“Oh, Jack, you know I’m not going to pick up a man.”
However, as she walked along Bolton Street in Baltimore the next day after a visit to a spa—her first—she couldn’t help noticing the appreciative looks men gave her. “I’m going to make a play for the next good-looking man I meet,” she told herself, “just to see what kind of reaction I get.”
She noticed a tall, well-dressed, African-American man wearing a black chesterfield coat and a gray hat, who walked directly toward her, and decided that he would be her first target. As the man got closer to her, she prepared her smile and a flirtatious air and began to slow her steps. He was about twenty feet away when she gasped and ran across the street, barely missing contact with an oncoming car. She got behind a dark blue sedan and leaned against it, panting for air. So much for flirting with strange men; the first one she picked had, until recently, been her husband for over thirty-five years. How Marshall Graham would love to have been the object of her indiscretion!
After some time, she made her way to where she parked her car, got in the Mercedes and leaned her head on the steering wheel. I’d better get myself together. I’m not the first woman to find herself without a husband and needing a sex life. She put the car in drive and headed for Route 70. Heck! When I had him, he was too busy half the time to pay attention to me. She pushed the thought from her mind. As soon as I can brooch to Kellie and Lacette the idea of their getting an apartment for themselves, I’m going to move out of that parsonage and get a place where people don’t feel they have the right to barge into my house whenever it suits them. I wonder why I ever thought being a minister’s wife was such a big deal. I’ve spent almost thirty-six years pretending about a lot of things.
She stopped at Brady’s Chicken and Ribs and bought two sides of barbecued baby back ribs, her contribution to supper. With their father gone, both girls had become lazy about cooking, and she’d as soon never see another kitchen. Her earlier resolve to be her age forgotten, she went to Francis Scott Key Mall—half the important places in Frederick were named for an historical person, place, or event—and bought a pair of spike-heeled, beige leather boots that were more suitable for her daughters than for her. She sucked her teeth and shrugged it off with the lift of her left shoulder; when she was Kellie’s and Lacette’s age, she dressed like an old woman to suit the brothers and sisters of whatever church Marshall was pastoring at the time. Let them say what they liked; she had paid her dues.
“Where have you been all day, Mama?” Kellie asked her when she walked into the house. “Do you realize you went out of here last night and didn’t say where you were going and you did the same thing this morning? Just because you and Daddy are on the outs is no reason for you to act as if you don’t have two children living here with you.”
She passed within a foot of Kellie, the older of the twins, without looking at her. Kellie had a habit of solving her problems by attacking someone else, usually those closest to her.
“How many times have you walked out of this house and said nothing but ‘Bye. See you later’? I have as much right to do that as you do.”
“Mama, let’s sit here and talk. I want to know what’s come over you. You were always . . . well . . . sturdy . . . I mean—”
“You mean like an old shoe. A person people looked through and never at, who let other people, including you, walk over her, whose youth was spent as an old woman.” She opened the shoe box, sat down and pulled on the high-fashion boots. “How do you like these?
Kellie threw up her hands. “I rest my case.”
“While you’re criticizing me and the way I look,” Cynthia called after her daughter, “be sure your own page is nice and clean.” She thought she heard Kellie miss a step on the stairs, and she wouldn’t have been surprised at the reason for it.