Susie peered behind her. “How was your flight? How’re your sisters? Four sisters! I wish I had one.”
“My flight was uneventful, thank God. I don’t really like flying. My sisters are all doing great. Give me a minute and I’ll show you pictures of my parents’ anniversary party and my nephew, of course. I took dozens of photos of him.”
Susie stopped at the second door on the left and opened it to a large bedroom whose two big windows allowed plenty of sunshine in. Petra decided she’d call it the green room because the walls were a pale green, and the queen-size bed was covered with a green print comforter set. The floor was hardwood, and she could tell it had recently been polished.
She set her bags on the bed, took the suitcase from Susie and set that on the bed too, then hugged Susie again. “I love it!”
Susie grinned, and to Petra’s surprise, tears sat in her eyes. “I’m so glad someone could enjoy this place before I sold it.”
“You’re selling?” Petra asked, and she shoved the bags aside on the bed so she and Susie could sit on the edge.
Susie was obviously upset about her decision to sell her parents’ house, and she wanted to help in any way she could. “What’s wrong?”
Susie sniffed and wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. “My parents left me the house as a gift to do with as I please. That’s how they put it. I could live in it and decorate it to my taste. Which, honestly, I just don’t have the money to do. According to the real estate agent I spoke with about selling it, this property is worth a lot. But I’m having guilty feelings because selling it is my only option. Property taxes are so high. I’m afraid that eventually, I won’t be able to pay them, and then I could lose the house anyway. I grew up here, so it also has sentimental value. I’m a mess!”
Petra just listened and stroked her friend’s back. She mentally calculated property taxes for a house of this value. No wonder Susie had looked so stressed-out when they’d met again at the conservancy’s offices.
“Are you sure you want to sell it?” she asked softly.
Susie looked her in the eyes. “Yes, I’ve talked to my parents and they say they have no emotional attachment to this place. They’re happy in West Palm Beach. I’m the only child, so there’s no one to give me problems about selling. The one problem I do have is that the Realtor says to get full price, I’m going to need to spruce up the place. And I don’t know where to begin.”
“Now you’re in my territory,” Petra happily told her. “The one thing I’m good at is cleaning things up and organizing. And when it comes to painting, minor repairs and decorating, I’m your girl! I can’t cook to save my life, but everything else in a house is my domain.”
“Really?” Susie asked, eyes wide with astonishment.
“Really,” Petra stated confidently. “And another thing—I insist on paying rent while I’m here.”
“No,” Susie said emphatically. “I’m not going to charge you rent!”
Petra smiled. “You just said you couldn’t afford the property taxes on this place. Are you going to refuse money that could help pay for repairs? Be reasonable, Suze.”
“I’ll think about it,” Susie said. She smiled at Petra. “You haven’t called me Suze since college.”
“Get used to it,” Petra told her. “We’re living together again.”
Susie laughed and got to her feet. “What do you want to do today? It’s still early. Do you want to take a drive around Flushing to see the sights?”
Petra laughed, too, as she rose and walked over to one of the windows and looked out at the neighborhood. The houses were all well maintained in this neighborhood. There were trees and sidewalks populated with neighbors walking their dogs and children on bikes or skateboards, all wearing helmets to protect themselves.
“It’s May,” she said speculatively. “When does it get warm enough to use that pool we swam in all those years ago?”
“Probably next month,” Susie said, coming to stand beside her at the window. “Last summer the temperature got in the nineties.”
“Does it get rainy here in the summer?” Petra asked.
“Yes, lately it’s rained a lot in July and August,” Susie said.
“Then we should get any painting done on the outside before July,” Petra said. She’d been living in a part of the world where it rained often, and she knew how precipitation could disrupt your plans.
Susie looked at her with wonder. “You’re serious about helping me fix up the house, aren’t you?”
“I am,” Petra said. “I’m looking forward to it. I’m about to embark on a stressful time in my life. I don’t know what I’m getting myself into with this reality show thing, and physical work has always kept me centered. So, yes, let’s agree that we’re going to turn this house into a showplace. Buyers will be bidding against each other to own it.”
Susie threw her arms around Petra’s neck. “You haven’t changed a bit. You’re still willing to stick your neck out for a friend.”
Petra chuckled. “Let’s start making a list of things that need to be done around here, then make a list of the supplies we’re going to need. After that, you and I will go to Home Depot.”
“Home Depot?” Susie cried. “I’ve never set foot in a Home Depot in my life!”
“There’s a first time for everything,” Petra said.
* * *
Chance knew that the only reason Brock insisted on coming to the first business meeting with Petra following her signing the contract with the company was in order to meet her. Petra had been in New York for two weeks now, and preparations for the show, such as hiring the writers, the director, videographer and others, had taken a while, but everything was set now.
The videographer, Arianna Davis, had told him that the footage Petra had taken was extraordinary. She believed that with Petra’s narration, coupled with the footage, they’d be able to tell a compelling story about her experiences among the chimpanzees of the Congo.
They had gotten permission from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to use the footage. Brock had said the fee was substantial, but not prohibitive. Brock was one for the bottom line, and Chance knew that if Brock considered a fee to be not prohibitive, he had gotten a good deal.
He and Brock were in his office now, waiting for Petra’s arrival. After Petra got there and Brock got a good look at her, he knew his brother would make some excuse and leave. After which, Chance would escort Petra to the conference room where key people who were going to work on her show were waiting to do some brainstorming with her and share her input on the direction the show was to take.
Chance’s office was nontraditional. It was a large, elegantly appointed space with highly polished hardwood floors, a leather couch and two Queen Anne chairs, both brown, and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Central Park. But it also had a foosball table in one corner and a vintage full-size Pac-Man arcade game standing in another corner of the office. Playing the games helped him to relax and focus his mind.
Both he and Brock were dressed for business: Brock in a dark gray suit and him in a navy one. Brock was four inches taller but less broad shouldered than he was. He was devoted to keeping in shape. Brock was, too, but enjoyed running more than weight lifting. The brothers used to work out together to keep each other motivated. But Brock soon found gym work boring and preferred running in the park to sweating it out in the gym. Chance did both.
Brock was checking something on his cell phone when Chance cleared his throat and said, “You know, you don’t really need to be here if you have somewhere else to be.”
Brock peered up at him, his dark brown eyes laser sharp as always. “You want to keep her to yourself for a while longer, huh?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Chance said casually. He kept his eyes trained on his brother, though. If he looked away, Brock would take that as a sign of agreement wit
h him. That he was, indeed, attempting to prevent his brother from meeting the woman he was interested in.
He and Brock had a history of disagreeing where women were concerned. Brock considered himself a connoisseur of women. Therefore, he believed his baby brother should take his opinions to heart and act on his superior advice. Chance thought it was best to ignore his brother’s advice on women. If Brock knew women so well, why was he always trading one for another? Happiness to Chance involved one woman, one special woman with whom he could spend the rest of his life. Brock, on the other hand, was never satisfied.
There was a knock on the office door. Chance rose and went to open it. He grinned when he saw Petra standing there in a beautiful soft brown sleeveless dress, brown pumps on her feet and a new purse, not a shoulder bag, in her right hand. Her hair was in soft waves, parted in the middle and hanging down her back, and because she was standing with her back to a window through which sunlight streamed into the hallway, there were golden-brown highlights in her hair. Her eyes sparkled. He hadn’t seen her in forty-eight hours and had been counting the minutes until he’d see her again. And now his big brother was there to assess her, and quite frankly, that fact irritated him. He would not let Brock size her up like a filly at an auction.
She stepped inside the office, and Chance saw the surprise on her face when she spotted Brock standing in front of his desk. Brock had stood up, no doubt, expecting Chance to introduce him to Petra. Chance froze for a moment so Brock took the opportunity to introduce himself.
He grinned at Petra. On his handsome mug, a grin, for most women, was a prelude to sex. Brock had the chiseled features females found to be extremely sexy. Brock reeked of confidence too, which often had the effect of a powerful aphrodisiac on women.
He moved closer to Petra and bent his head toward her in an intimate manner, then he said in his suave baritone, “Dr. Gaines, I presume.”
Petra chuckled. “Oh, I get it, that’s a play on words of Dr. Livingstone, I presume. You must be Brock,” she said. She offered her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Chance speaks very highly of you.”
Brock seemed taken aback. Chance couldn’t figure out if it was because Petra had said he spoke highly of him, or because she didn’t appear to be affected by his charm.
In fact, after shaking his hand, Petra walked over to Chance and planted a kiss on his cheek, and whispered for his ears only, “Hello, handsome.”
Chance pulled her into his arms and squeezed her tightly. Then he turned with her and said to Brock, “This woman is going to be the next sensation around here.”
Brock smiled warmly. “I think she’s already a sensation around here.” Then he picked up his briefcase and strode toward the door. He turned when he got to the door and said to Petra, “I should get back to work. But I hope to see you again soon, Petra, in a more social setting. I can see why my brother talks of little else except you these days.”
“Thank you, Brock,” Petra said with an equally warm smile on her face.
After Brock left, closing the door behind him, Chance pulled Petra into his arms and looked deeply in her eyes. “That’s the first time I’ve ever known him to be at a loss for words.”
“That was a loss for words?” Petra asked, looking confused.
“Yes,” he said. “Brock usually flirts outrageously when I introduce him to women I’m dating. He calls it testing the waters to see if they’ll be totally loyal to his baby brother.”
“So he’s the litmus test?” she asked, smiling skeptically, it seemed to him. “I think he might be a little full of himself.”
Chance laughed. That was putting it mildly. “Yes, that may be true, but deep down, he’s a good guy. Just unable to see that women are to be cherished and are not interchangeable. I have faith that he’ll change one day.”
Petra smiled up at him. “Did he like me?”
“Oh, yeah, he liked you a lot,” Chance told her. “He liked you so much, he had nothing to say.”
She laughed. “I do hope that you’re telling me the truth and not trying to stroke my ego. It’s okay if your brother doesn’t think I’m good enough for his baby brother. I know how siblings can be. My sisters are like warriors when it comes to protecting each other. If anyone harmed a hair on my head, they’d be on that person in an instant! And I think that’s a good thing, C. You should be close to your siblings.”
He held her tight, inhaling the wonderful scent of her hair, something with coconut in it. “I wouldn’t lie to you. He left here totally confused as to why he liked you so much. He’ll tell me all about it later.” He looked into her eyes. “Now, let’s get to your first brainstorming session.”
They began walking to the door, arms around each other’s waists. “I’m nervous,” she told him.
“Don’t be, Pet,” he said. “I don’t want to give you a big head or anything. I’m sure you’re not going to turn into a diva, but the fact is, you’re the star of the show. You have no reason to be nervous.”
She grinned at him. “Nice pep talk. Too bad it didn’t work. Still nervous.”
* * *
During the following weeks, Petra spent hours working with the videographer in a viewing room where her footage was shown on a screen and she was tasked with providing commentary. She realized that if she had been speaking while filming her subjects she would not, now, have to explain what had been happening while she’d recorded the action on the screen. However, in the field, she was obliged to be quiet. She would never have been able to get such good footage had she been talking throughout the filming. The chimpanzees would not have stuck around to be subjects. Or worse, she and Paul would have been discovered by aggressive males who would have severely dealt with them.
Looking back at early footage, she got emotional because of how far she had come. With tears falling as she watched, she realized that by documenting the lives of the Congo chimpanzees, she had been able to reinforce the hypothesis that other researchers before her had put forth that the chimpanzees were forced to move deeper into the jungle to avoid human contact. And their populations were adversely affected by deforestation and poaching. Especially the violence of poaching, which reduced these noble creatures to meat or condemned them to slavery when they were sold to humans for their amusement, snatched away from their families for the rest of their lives.
Arianna, the videographer, an African American woman in her fifties who was sitting beside her in the viewing room, saw the tears on her face and offered her a tissue. “Slavery,” she said softly. “With humans or primates, it’s atrocious either way.”
Petra looked at her and smiled. “Yes, it is.” It was nice to have such a sensitive person working on the project.
It was at that moment that she saw the usefulness of a television show to illustrate to viewers the importance of caring for animals and, ultimately, for each other.
“It’s going to be a good show,” Arianna said. “I’m proud to be a part of it.”
“I’m glad you think so,” Petra said. She hoped and prayed that the show would garner interest and devoted followers, but she was still new to all of this and didn’t know what to expect. “I’m keeping my fingers crossed.”
* * *
Following long hours working on making the footage as coherent as possible and worrying if she was doing a good job, it was with relief that she went back home to Raleigh for a happy occasion: the wedding of Desiree and Decker. She had a glorious time communing with her sisters again, complaining about the pink bridesmaid dresses they had to wear, but was so pleased that Desiree was a vision in her wedding gown, which Desiree had dubbed “a white rose blushing,” which meant pale pink.
Now it seemed that all of her sisters were either married or in love. Even her baby sister, Meghan, was in love with Jake’s, her sister Mina’s husband, twin brother, Leo. Was there the possibility that two of her sisters were going to be wed to twi
ns? And what were the odds of one of her sisters giving birth to twins? Petra was happily anticipating Meghan and Leo’s wedding announcement.
With all of her sisters paired up, her subconscious must have concluded that it was her turn to find love because she started having dreams about her own wedding. The dreams were in Technicolor and very detailed. She saw images of herself and her mom and sisters choosing her wedding dress. There was a scene with her and a faceless fiancé at their engagement party. She and her father, Alphonse, walking down the aisle with the sweet music of violins wafting in the air. She even saw the gold-and-diamond rings she and her groom exchanged while taking their vows. However, none of the dreams allowed her to see the face of her future husband.
“That’s because the man who is going to marry you doesn’t exist!” she cried out one morning after abruptly waking up from one of those annoying dreams.
Chapter 8
“I think it’s time you met the parents,” Chance said one Sunday morning as he and Petra made breakfast. He’d insisted on teaching her what cooking skills he possessed, and she was a willing student.
It was a beautiful June morning. The sun was bright and the sounds of traffic below could barely be heard from his twentieth-floor apartment. They were both dressed in robes. He’d bought her a matching robe since she had a habit of commandeering his whenever she slept over.
She looked up at him in surprise and nearly dropped the brown egg she was about to crack into a bowl to make scrambled eggs.
Before she could speak, he said, “It won’t be anything formal. Just a meal at my parents’ house in Harlem. You and me, my parents, Brock and his date, whomever that may be, and Alia. Alia isn’t dating anyone.”
“How should I dress?”
“Any of the dresses you wear to the office would be perfect,” he told her casually.
She broke eye contact and returned to her eggs. “All right. Date and time?”
Love in New York ; Cherish My Heart Page 23
