Chapter Twelve
Max had hardly reached his home in Georgetown before Leticia’s feeling of contentment deserted her. What was wrong with her? Or more aptly, what was wrong with him? He wanted her, so why didn’t he do something about it? After being in his home and seeing how he lived—with an invalid mother, a housekeeper and nurse—she understood him much better. His seeming reticence about reaching out and what appeared to be standoffishness made sense. By his own choices, his life was circumscribed in a way that most men would find unpleasant and unacceptable, but he did what he knew to be right and didn’t resent doing so. Still, that didn’t mean she shouldn’t go after what she wanted, and since the togetherness she experienced with Max on the Covington boat, he’d had his own place in her heart, and she knew she wanted him.
She heated a frozen pizza in the microwave oven, opened a bottle of pilsner beer and ate her supper in front of the television,its dull images reminding her of her intention to get a new high-definition TV. Joel had challenged her to come to work Monday morning with a grin on her face, but at the moment, she couldn’t force the semblance of one.
The telephone rang, and after debating the possible rewardsof answering it, she lifted the receiver. “Hello.”
“This is Max. Hi. If you’re not busy tomorrow, could we spend the day together?”
She didn’t hesitate. “That would be wonderful. Would you like to start with brunch at my place at about eleven? I’m reliable in the kitchen. What should I put on?”
For a minute, she thought their connection might have been severed. The blatant silence baffled her, and she consideredhanging up. Then, his laughter reached her through the wire, a happy, uninhibited sound.
“Don’t ask me questions like that, Leticia. Wear somethingcomfortable,” he said, his voice laden with merriment. After reflecting on it, she had to laugh, for he had let himself imagine her undressed. “I’ll be there at eleven, and I’m really looking forward to our day together.”
“So am I, Max.”
After hanging up, she looked at her watch. Twenty minutespast nine, just time to get to the liquor store and to Dean & DeLuca’s at Thirty-third and M streets. She phoned a taxi and stopped first at the liquor store, where she purchased two bottles of Moët and Chandon champagne. “If we drink all that and still need more,” she said to herself, “we can drink the wine I have at home and not know the difference.” At the famous gourmet shop, she bought assorted fruit, expensivebecause it wasn’t in season; Stilton, St. André, pipo crème and imported cheddar cheeses; slices of fresh-baked Polish ham; German summer sausage; sturgeon; and black pumpernickel bread. Next door, she bought some red and yellowlong stem roses and then got into a taxi singing “Yesterday,” a Beatles hit of the 1960s.
She fairly skipped into her apartment. “I’m through waitingfor what I want to come to me,” she reminded herself. “I’m grown, and I’m going after what I want. There’s no mommie or daddy to tell me I can’t have him. So move over, Red Rover!”
It was well after midnight when she decided that she’d set the dining room table to her satisfaction. If she were lucky, Max Baldwin would know a lot more about her when he left her apartment that Sunday than he did when he arrived,and she’d go to work the next morning grinning from ear to ear. She took a long, leisurely bubble bath, dried off and, feeling deliciously wicked, applied Fendi body lotion from her chin to her toes and, for the first time in her life, crawled into bed nude.
After wrestling with sleeplessness and with intermittent dreams that she would have been ashamed to divulge, she tumbled out of bed at sunrise, unconsciously hoping to acceleratethe arrival of eleven o’clock. She put on a pair of sneakers, blue jeans and a tight-fitting red T-shirt, looked in the mirror at a sexy siren, shrugged her shoulders, decided that she looked great and left her hair as it was, half wild. Thank God for hair extensions. She cooled the champagne, set out the cheeses to allow them to come to room temperature,looked at the kitchen clock and saw that she still had a three-hour wait.
With nothing to do, she mixed a batter for popovers, prepareda muffin ring to bake them in and set that aside. The telephone rang at a quarter of ten. “Hello,” she said, and marveled that the breathless sound came from her lips.
“Hi, Leticia. This is Allison. Bill and I decided a few minutesago to have a barbecue, and we’d love your company. If you aren’t busy, we could send the car for you.”
Such was life. If she’d had nothing to do, no one would have called her. “I’d love to come, Allison, but I have a brunch date, and I don’t know where it will go from here. May I have a rain check?”
“Of course you may. I’m glad you have something excitingto do. Bye for now.”
With nothing else to do and unable to sit still, she walked from the kitchen to the dining room and back again. At a quarter of eleven, she preheated the oven so that the popovers would bake quickly. Then she remembered that she wasn’t wearing perfume and applied some Fendi in strategic places. Exhausted from rushing around doing nothing, she finally sat down and told herself to be calm. Immediately, the doorbellrang, and she thought she jumped out of her skin.
She opened the door, looked up at him and said, “Hi,” with all the cool of mountain spring water. But his smile knocked her off balance, flustering her.
“May I come in?” he asked her, and they both laughed, for she had asked him that question the previous afternoon when she stood at his door. “You look good enough to eat,” he said, surprising her. “I wouldn’t have dreamed I’d see you in this get up.”
“Thanks. I think.”
He handed her a pot of lavender orchids. “They’re not the color of your lovely evening dress, but as close as I could find.” The earthenware pot sat in a flowered porcelain cachepot.
“They’re beautiful. You deserve a kiss for this. Thanks.” She put them on the table in the foyer.
“Why did you decide to invite me for brunch?” he asked as they walked toward the living room holding hands.
“Probably for the same reason you wanted us to spend the day together,” she said, realized that she’d sounded smart-aleckyand quickly changed the subject. “Allison called a few minutes ago and asked if I’d like to go to their barbecue, but I told her I had a brunch date.”
A half smile formed around his lips. “Hmm. I imagine what she’s thinking. I gave her the same excuse when she invitedme to brunch as I was leaving home. They’re famous for their spur of the moment invitations. You can bet she added two and two and got four.”
“You don’t mind?” she asked, aware that her face had a worried look.
“Why should I mind? I’m proud that you like my companywell enough to spend a Sunday with me.”
That sounded too formal to her. She had to get them on a deeper level of intimacy. Hmm. He’d given up plenty in order to provide for his mother, and didn’t consider it a sacrifice. She’d liked his mother, and the woman was a topic with which she could deal honestly and without affectation.
“How’s your mother?”
His facial expression mirrored his surprise at the question.“Very well. Thank you for asking. She told me she’d like to go to a movie, that she’s tired of the house, but I don’t know how to take her there.”
Leticia thought for a few minutes. “If the doctor agrees that she can go, look for some movie theaters that are wheelchairaccessible and hire an ambulette. They’re especially for wheelchair transportation. It will take her there and come back for her at the time you specify. Buy her a big bag of popcorn,and she’ll be happy.”
He stared at her so intensely that she’d have sworn he wasn’t listening. But he was. “I hadn’t thought of that. You’re amazing. My mother loves popcorn. She’s getting better almostdaily. I’m going to take her to a movie before it gets too cold.”
Leticia patted Max’s hand. She couldn’t resist touching him. Her thoughts dwelled on her belief that he would take care of her precisely as he cared for his mother.
“Your mother is very sweet, Max, and she’s blessed to have you.”
“Thanks, but I’m the one who’s blessed.”
She stood and reached for his hand. “If you’re ready, we can eat now.” In the dining room, she handed him a bottle of champagne and a white tea towel. “Would you open this, please?”
His gaze traveled over the table. “When did you do all this? It’s an elegant feast.”
“Right after you called me last night.”
He opened the champagne and poured some in their glasses. “You’ve got many sides, Leticia, and all of them appealto me.”
“Thanks. I figured if we were going to drink anything, it ought to be good. The liquor store clerk recommended it when I told him what I was planning. I wanted to share something really nice with you. I’m not going to lead you to believe I’m sophisticated and that I have a taste for champagne, sturgeonand things like that, Max. The food I was raised on didn’t even go with beer. But I love nice things, and I’m learning how to choose what suits me and my pocketbook.”
She noticed that he didn’t eat while she spoke and that he seemed to focus on her words. He spread some pipo crème on his bread, savored it, and smiled. “This is heavenly. I listenedto what you just said, and I repeat, all of your sides appealto me. I’m not used to that level of honesty in women with whom I’ve had an intimate relationship. That you trust me enough to tell me that about you makes you even more precious to me.”
After the meal, he helped her carry the dishes and leftovers to the kitchen, rinsed the plates and utensils before putting them in the dishwasher. He pointed to the remaining fruit, cheese and ham and sturgeon. “What do we do with this?”
“We’ll eat it when we come back.” She looked at the long, tapered fingers of his left hand resting against the dishwasher,and her gaze traveled to his wrist and the watch nestledamong the hairs growing there. The notion that she’d love to feel his hands moving over her body took her aback. Almost absentmindedly, she lifted his hand.
“You have such beautiful hands. Your fingers look like works of art. Long, perfectly tapered, strong.”
She looked up at him and couldn’t control the gasp that escaped her. She had always thought his hazel brown eyes beautiful. Now, they darkened to obsidian, yet a fire blazed in them. Shaken by what she saw in them, she looked downward,but his finger at her chin urged her to look at him.
“What is it?”
“Be careful, Leticia. Unless you know what you’re doing, you’re standing too close to the flame.”
She bristled. “From my limited experience with you, I’m sure I have nothing to worry about.” He was obviously taken aback by her remark but, emboldened, she caressed his right cheek with her left hand, staring into his eyes as she did so.
He grabbed her wrist, but she didn’t give quarter and flattened out her palm in a loving exploration of his face.
“What’s wrong with me, Max?” she asked him, abandoningcaution. “Why won’t you kiss me?”
His breath quickened, and he clasped both of her shouldersand stared into her eyes, his own unsheltered and ablaze with desire. “If I kiss you, I won’t want to stop. Not now. Not ever. I don’t feel casual about you.”
It was then or never, and she might not get another chance. “I won’t want you to stop. I need you. Max, I need you.”
She felt her feet leave the floor, and his groan of capitulationshook her as the wind shakes a bough. She waited. And then for the first time, his mouth was on her. Giddy with happiness, she parted her lips and sucked his tongue into her mouth. His hands roamed over her, caressing, fondling and squeezing. She couldn’t get enough of him. She held him tight, unable to get enough of him. Her breasts ached, and the walls of her vagina contracted.
Frustrated, she grabbed his hand and rubbed it across her breast. She didn’t know what ailed it, only that it needed some kind of relief.
“What do you want, sweetheart? Tell me.”
“My breasts ache.”
He released one, sucked the nipple into his mouth and a scream tore out of her. Suddenly he stepped back. “I want to make love with you badly, Leticia, and I’ve wanted it for months, but I’m not going to start this with you unless you’re willing to commit to me. We have a lot in common, but I come with baggage, and I’ll have it for as long as my mother and Ella are alive.”
She was ready to promise him anything if he’d get into her body, but if he wanted a commitment, so did she. She had vowed to go after what she wanted, and she wanted Max Baldwin as badly as she’d wanted a university degree. Yet, though she had only limited knowledge of male-female relations, she knew that any solid relationship had to be founded on trust and truthfulness. So she let him know her reaction to his comment.
“Those two women are not baggage, at least not in my estimation.They’re the people who have loved you and cared for you and who deserve your loving care and support. A commitment? I want everything with you. Everything that you know how to give me, and I don’t mean material things.”
But in spite of her declaration, he didn’t move. “Is there another man in your life here in Washington or anywhere else?”
She was becoming agitated, fearful that he was slipping away from her. But she remembered his thoroughness as a journalist and as a private person and told herself that he had a right to ask.
She answered truthfully. “There is no one, and there hasn’t been since I was eighteen and got a poisonous lesson.”
His arms enfolded her. He stroked her back and soothed her with the whispered words, “I’ll never knowingly hurt you.”
She snuggled as close as possible. “I love the way you hold me and the way your hands feel on my body.”
His kiss was neither gentle nor tentative, and she reeled beneath the thrill of it, not caring if he knew how he made her feel. He carried her to bed. An hour later, still locked insideof her, he smiled down at her. “I love you. You fit me like my glove fits my fingers. Oh, Leticia, I love you. I don’t have to ask if you’re okay, because I felt it.”
He loved her? This tough loner, this man who had the envy and admiration of his peers, male and female, loved her? She tightened her arms around his shoulders, hooked her legs over his thighs and cradled him to her body. “I’m fine. I feel fantastic. Thank you. Would you believe I’ve wasted thirteen good years when I could have been having this?”
“Hey, wait a minute. It’s different with different people. Remember your first experience.”
She tightened her arms around him. “I wasn’t thinking about that. Will it always be like this with us?”
“The more deeply we love each other and the more we learn of each other’s needs and preferences, the better it will be.”
“Gosh. I can see myself becoming a sex maniac. Can we do that again? Now?”
Her question must have pleased him, for he smiled with his eyes, lips and every muscle in his face. “Give me a couple of minutes. Do you love me, Leticia?”
“Yes. Yes. I’ve been telling you that ever since you walked into this apartment. I told you yesterday, too. I love you, Max.” His lips settled on hers, and they went on a fast trip to ecstasy.
Later, they watched the Redskins football game, read the Washington Post to each other, ate the remainder of the brunch, drank the second bottle of champagne, went back to bed and made love again.
“I’ll never forget this day,” he said when he was about to leave her at nine that night. “It’s been one of my life’s happiestdays.”
“What will I do, I mean how should I act when I see you in the morning?”
His grin seemed to her more infectious than ever. “You’d better not kiss me. There’s no telling how I’d react.”
“I think I’d better stay away from you,” she said, kissed him and opened the door.
He gazed down at her with such seriousness that she said, “I’m for real, honey. I’m not an apparition.” He held her close for a second, stroked the side of her face, and left.
Max hadn’t had time to drive home before the telephone rang. Leticia answered it, although she didn’t feel like sharingany part of herself with anyone other than Max. “Hello.”
“I’m sure you’re surprised to hear from me, but I can’t get you out of my system. There should be a law against what you do to me without trying. I’ll never rest till I know you’re mine.”
“Who is this?” she asked, although she recognized Wilson’s voice at once.
“You’ve wounded me. You don’t even recognize my voice.”
“No, I don’t, and I’m about to hang up. One ... ”
“It’s Wilson. I need to see you.”
“What’s the matter? Your ego’s getting a beating because you met a woman you can’t take to bed? Wilson, I’m too matureto ruin my life by getting involved with a philanderer like you. If you call me again, I’ll get a warrant for harassment.Good night.”
She blew out a long breath and told herself to be grateful that Wilson hadn’t called while Max was with her. She understoodthe difference between them now. Wilson’s concerns centered on his own needs and satisfying them and, consequently,he had only a shallow, ephemeral interest in her. But Max had communicated a deep and enduring love to her, a strong and tenacious need of her.
“I don’t know much, but enough to avoid a fast-talking schemer,” she told herself. She changed the bed linen, showered,dried off, bathed her body in lotion, put on a long green gown and got into bed. If she slept nude, she’d be out of her mind before daybreak.
When Max got home, he avoided Ella. He knew his mother would be in bed, and he didn’t want to share the events of his day with anyone other than Leticia, nor did he care to lie about where he’d been and what he’d done. After all, he rarely spent an entire Sunday away from home unless he was on business. In the kitchen, he got a red apple, polished it and grabbed a handful of the shelled pecans that Ella kept on the lower shelf of the refrigerator. Feeling contented because his house was quiet and peaceful and his world was right, he loped up the stairs to his room, humming the chorus of the hit song “If” as he went.
After a long, soothing shower, he dried off and got into bed. With his hands locked behind his head, he lay on his back staring at the ceiling. Shadows created by a streetlight played on the wall, altering color from beige to gray to beige. If he had known what he knew now, would he have waited with such patience to make love with her? And how could he have held himself back? He’d made love with a few women, but he’d never touched one like Leticia. She’d had no experience past her first time, an event that was, for her, almost dehumanizing, and she hadn’t felt an urgent need to try it again. Not until she loved him and wanted him.
Although he had committed to her in his heart, he hadn’t dreamed that a woman could make him feel as she did. As honest and forthright in bed with him as she was in her daily life, she went wild the minute he entered her, asked for what she wanted and needed and, so important to him, she enjoyedhim and was eager for him to know it.
He loved working for The Journal, but he didn’t think it healthy for both of them to remain there as competitors. He had options, and if she agreed to marry him, he’d take one of those options.
He reached over for the mobile phone that sat on his night table and dialed her number. “Hi, sweetheart,” he said when she answered. “It seems like ages since I touched you.”
He loved her laughter, and she treated him to a good sprinkling of it. “It’s been longer than that since I felt those wonderful, magic fingers of yours.”
“Is that all you remember?”
“How short do you think my memory is, Max?” she asked him. “Even if I was senile, I wouldn’t forget anything that happened to us this day.”
“Thanks. Are you in bed?” She told him she was, and when he asked what she was wearing, she described the green gown, adding that she hadn’t dared sleep in her usual skimpy night wear. He couldn’t fathom it. “Sweetheart, you must have a reason that gets by me. Kiss me. I’d better try and sleep.”
“Me, too. Good night, love.”
“Good night, sweetheart,” he said, hung up, turned out the light and told himself to sleep. But the way she’d moved beneath him preyed upon his mind and his libido until daylightflickered between the window blinds. He rolled out of bed, put on a robe and went down to the kitchen. After a secondcup of coffee, he felt human.
“What you doing down here so early?” Ella asked him when she walked into the kitchen.
“I have a lot to do today. Here, have a cup.” He went back to his room, dressed, grabbed his briefcase and got into his car. He had once before thought he was in love, but he didn’t recall having lost five minutes of sleep because of it. This was certainly different, and he had to find a way to keep it between the lines.
Five minutes after Leticia got to work that morning, Joel tapped on the door and walked into her cubicle. When she heard his steps in the hall, she thought it might be Max, but doing things tentatively was hardly Max’s style.
“Joel. For goodness sake, come on in,” Leticia said, wonderingat his manner. Suddenly laughter poured out of her. The man thought he was giving her and Max an opportunity to break apart if they’d been in a clinch. “What’s the matter with you?” she asked.
He rubbed his jaw with his thumb and forefinger. “How the hell would I know what to expect? Max was in here by seven-thirty this morning. Walked in singing that song Bridget and I made out with during the seventies.”
She couldn’t help grinning, and she finally stopped trying.“What song was that?”
He looked hard at her. ‘If a face could launch a thousand ships ...’ A real love song. I see you two had a great weekend.Right on.” He gave a thumbs-up sign. “Say, Layne Barton died. I need a front page story on him for tomorrow’s edition.”
Here it comes, she thought. “Isn’t that closer to Max’s area than mine?”
“Max is busy trying to write one of the senators out of a job. Look, Leticia, you and Max are going to have to compete and not kill each other. I’m not going to worry about whose area it is, just who I think can do the best job on it. If you’re really in love, you’ll work it out.”
She glared at her boss. “I’m going to tell him you said that. Anyway, you’re merely surmising, so please don’t mentionit to anyone else here.”
“If I was stupid, I wouldn’t have had this job for fourteen years. I’m glad it’s going well, kid. You’re better looking when you’re smiling.”
“Thanks, Joel.”
At four o’clock, the office messenger delivered to her a note in the interoffice mail. “I’ve gotten through the day, sweetheart, but I’m certain I can’t make it through the night without seeing you. Love, M.”
She took out her cell phone and dialed his cell number. “Want to meet somewhere? I didn’t tell Willa not to prepare dinner for me, so I have to go home.”
“So do I. Let’s have a glass of wine.”
“Great. How about the Spy Lounge?”
“Works for me. I’ll meet you there at a quarter of five. Why not call a taxi now, and it will be outside when you get downstairs.”
“Will do. Bye for now.”
“Bye. Love me?”
“Does the sun set in the west?” She hung up, took the obituary she’d written to Joel and went to the women’s room to freshen up. In the six months that she’d worked at The Journal, she hadn’t once combed her hair or applied lipstick in the ladies room. Nor had she worried about the tidiness of her clothing.
“I refuse to believe I’m doing this because I’m frivolous,” she told herself. “But he’ll show up looking like it’s eight o’clock in the morning, and every woman he passes will be ready to fall down and ask him what he wants. So I’m combingmy damned hair.”
Her cell phone buzzed and she saw Kenyetta’s number in the caller ID screen. This was not the time to start a conversationwith her cousin, so she ignored the call.
When she stepped into Spy Lounge, Max stood immediatelyand came to meet her.
“I’ve waited all day for this,” he said, kissed her quickly on the lips and led her back to their table.
She reached for his hand. “I hope you sleep well tonight.”
“Why do you think I didn’t sleep well last night?”
“Because Joel said you were here at seven-thirty, and he seemed to think I had something to do with it. If he only knew, he’d blow a gasket.”
“Not so,” Max said. “I’m positive that he’d be extremely happy. I may leave The Journal.”
“What did you say? Don’t make jokes, Max.”
“If things between us go the way I hope, I’ll leave. I have options, but I stay at The Journal because of Joel; he doesn’t bother me, and anybody there with a smidgen of authority knows not to exercise it with me.”
“Then why leave?”
“For you and me, it may be for the best. I’m a lousy actor, and I don’t like pretense. Understand?”
Indeed she did. She made a note to return Kenyetta’s call after she got home.
“This takes some serious discipline,” Max said to Leticia when he left her at her apartment door a little more than an hour later.
“What happens if discipline doesn’t work?” she asked him, mostly to understand his attitude about the intimate aspectof their relationship.
Both of his eyebrows shot up, his eyes widened as if he was surprised, and then he grinned. “Hell, in that case, I expectwe’d give in to it and enjoy each other.” He kissed her quickly and turned to leave.
She stopped him with a hand on his right arm. “That didn’t quite do it for me.”
His smile barely comforted her, because he laid his shouldersback as he did so. “I know my limits. Good night, love.”
“And I guess I’d better learn mine,” she said, sniffed the odor of food coming from the kitchen and smiled. Life was good. She went to her room, hung up her coat, kicked off her shoes and dialed Kenyetta’s number. After about a dozen rings, she hung up.
However, Kenyetta was at home. Instead of answering the phone, she opened her door and saw Reggie standing there. “Well, what do you know, the dead are walking again. What do you want?”
He walked past her into the apartment. “For heaven’s sake, cut the drama. You know I can stay away from you only so long.” He said it as if he were her victim. “I need you. Come here to me, babe?”
How sweet it was. Send her an invitation to his wedding, addressed in his own handwriting, would he? “What you need me for? Your fiancée don’t know how to put it down, or she ain’t got nothing to put down? Which is it?”
“Aw, lighten up, babe. There isn’t a woman out there who can equal you.”
She narrowed her eyes, fastened her knuckles to her hips and looked him up and down. “I see, so you need a piece, huh?”
“I’m going crazy for you, babe.” He started toward her, but she stepped back. “What the hell is this? You my woman, and you know you want me.”
Her head began to pound, perspiration wet her undergarmentsand it seemed as if a fog had descended between them. She could almost feel her nostrils flare. She found her breath and her voice. “You saying I want you? Man, in the five years you been coming here to dump your junk, I haven’t once wanted you. I put up with you because you said you were going to divorce Veronica so we could get married, and I wanted that big house you live in. But, buster, you ain’t shit in bed.
“You don’t know a woman from a pregnant cat. I cheated on you and went to bed with a man who rocked me clear out of my senses. He screwed me so good that I didn’t even know my name. In five years, you didn’t come close to that. I don’t need you, and I want you to get your useless ass out of my apartment and don’t come back here. You the biggest mistake ever walked this earth. Go on, get out of here.”
“Who’s gonna make me?”
She whirled around, rushed to the foyer and pressed the intercom, and since he didn’t know it was there, he didn’t follow her. “Send the guard up here and hurry,” she said in a low voice to the doorman, and unlocked the door.
“Were you talking to someone?”
“Yeah. I was talking to the building guard. I think he can make you leave. How’d you get past the doorman?”
“He was talking to a woman. You didn’t call a guard to put me out.”
“When did you ever know me to lie?”
The doorbell rang. “Come in,” she said as loudly as she could.
A man wearing a guard’s uniform, badge and cap, and looking like a linebacker for the New York Giants football team, walked in, stopped, spread his legs and put his hands on his hips. “What’s the problem here?”
“I told this man to leave. He asked me who was gonna make him leave, so I called for you.”
“You want him arrested?” She shook her head. “Let’s go, buddy, and be sure I don’t see your face on this city block again. Good night, miss.”
Kenyetta dropped down on the sofa in her living room, the very spot where Reggie had taken her more times than she could count and always without thought or considerationof her sexual needs. She spread her arms wide, kicked up her heels and laughed at the top of her voice. She’d given Reginald Parrish his comeuppance, and she’d brought Mister Macho down in the presence of another macho man.
How sweet it was! Reggie was history, and if she’d learned anything from the debacle she’d made of her life, it was that Reggie and Wilson were cut from the same cloth. Users, both of them. One paid his way, and the other didn’t, but both left you holding the bag. Good riddance to them!
Within minutes, her euphoria dissipated. What was she going to do now? She’d messed up with Leticia, and her cousin no longer turned to her for things. She hadn’t botheredto make friends with the women teachers at school. Maybe she’d go back to New Orleans, where she had lots of relatives. She started to the kitchen for a soft drink, but stopped before she got there. New Orleans seemed like a good idea, and she could easily get a job teaching there, but she rememberedthe weather. She’d left there because she hated the interminableheat and humidity. But it didn’t make sense to stay in Washington, which had the highest ratio of women to men in the entire country.
She went to her computer, accessed the Internet and began looking for towns that had an unusually high ratio of men to women. She was already over thirty, she reasoned, and her chances for marriage and starting a family were slim at best, but in Washington, they were practically nil. By midnight, she’d listed six towns from which to choose.
After mulling it over, she sat back, tired but happy. “Amarillo, Texas, here I come.” She would discover that most of the men would be transients, waiting for the next rodeo.