But he was seeing something within her that captivated him. And to call it a physical attraction would demean what he was seeing. Because he’d never felt that way before.
But he couldn’t figure out why he felt that way. Had he eyed her from afar, he would not have been impressed at all. She would have been just another ordinary face in a crowd of ordinary faces. But up close and personal, and looking her in her eyes, and just being next to her made him realize there was nothing ordinary about her. Nothing!
But he still couldn’t put his finger on why he felt that way!
Janet didn’t notice his feelings, but she noticed how he not only folded his big arms, but he crossed his legs at the ankle, too, as if he was getting comfortable around her. “You’re one of the new hires, I imagine,” he said to her.
He was much older than her. Maybe as much as ten years older, if she had to guess. “Yes, sir, I am,” she said.
“What do you think of the place?”
“Oh, I think it’s wonderful,” she said excitedly. Then, after saying it, she scrunched-up her face.
Richard almost smiled. She looked constipated. “What’s that look about?” he asked her.
“Truth is,” Janet said, “if I were you, I wouldn’t take my word for it.”
What a curious thing to say, he thought. “Why not?” he asked her.
“Because I’m not a good judge of whether it’s a wonderful place or not,” she said. “After losing my job at the meat plant, I’m happy to have a job. I would have thought a sewer was lovely had it hired me too.”
Richard laughed out loud. Who was this girl, he wondered! “Very true,” he said.
Then he glanced down at her breasts, which, for her small frame, were quite sizeable. But why would he be glancing down there, Janet wondered. It was impossible that there was any attraction!
But he glanced down there again. Which now rendered her even more uncomfortable than she had been when she first laid eyes on him. Time to go, she decided.
“I’d better get going,” she said, “before I’m late getting back to orientation.”
“Of course,” he said, standing erect. And if she didn’t know better, he seemed almost embarrassed by his roaming eyes. “Off you go,” he added like the rich people talked to people like her, and she left his side.
But as she walked away, she glanced back at him. To her surprise, he was glancing back at her, too, and she could see his eyes roam down to her butt. Which made her blush with heat, and she quickly looked away.
“Are you okay, sir?” It was Lance Colvin, the line supervisor. He was walking up just as Richard had given Janet a second look.
He wanted to ask more about her. He’d never in his life been captivated by a woman he’d just laid eyes on before. Not ever!
But he didn’t go there. Leave the poor child alone, he decided. He wouldn’t even love her and leave her. He’d just leave her. Like every woman he’d ever been with, he would mean her no good. “I’m okay,” he said, and walked away.
But their little encounter put a smile on Janet’s face that would last the whole day. She was no dreamer, she thought, as she made her way to the restroom. She knew he couldn’t possibly be attracted to her. How could he be attracted to a shit face? To horse face? To Plain Jane?
But he wasn’t repulsed, either, the way the Henleys declared every man would be.
She even looked in the mirror when she got in the restroom, something she rarely ever did. And suddenly she liked what she saw. It wasn’t beauty. Her face was too long and her eyes were too large and her mouth was too small to be classified that way. Her face was too asymmetrical to be thought beautiful. But her brown skin was smooth as silk. And her high cheekbones gave her an elegant look. And her ears and nose were at least proportionate to her face. She liked what she saw because she saw confidence. She saw a young woman trying to make it on a new job, still trying to make it in that world outside, and it all held such possibilities.
Was it her confidence that he saw, too, that made him give her that second look? Or was it just her boobs? Because those, she knew, were also positive attributes of hers, she thought with a playful grin.
Then she suddenly realized the time, hurried into the stall to pee, and then washed her hands quickly, grabbed a paper towel, and ran back to orientation.
CHAPTER FIVE
Richard’s sportscar sped away from the textile mill and turned onto a long country road that was the main road to downtown Cope, and to get out of town. Unlike Tulsa, where he was headed and that was less than a half-hour away, it was quiet at night in Cope. But not so quiet in his car. Because one of his lady friends had him on the phone, and she was getting on his last nerve.
“I told you I wouldn’t have time,” he said into his car phone.
“Why not, Dicky? It’s not as if I ever ask you for anything.”
“Damn right you don’t ask me for anything. We’re just friends, remember? Friends with benefits.”
“The only person this relationship is benefitting is you!”
Richard grinned. “I’m sure it’s got perks for your ass, too,” he said as he noticed a young woman walking on the side of the road. Her skirt was short, revealing very nice legs, and her hair was nicely done, too, he noticed, in curls just pass her neckline. It was not unusual to see country girls walking down those country roads at night, as if their backward asses had no clue how dangerous it was. They wouldn’t pull that shit in Tulsa, he thought, and drove right by her.
But as he drove passed her and was able to look through his rearview mirror and get a glimpse of her face from the illumination of the streetlight, he suddenly realized who she was. The girl that had intrigued him that morning. And he frowned. “What the. . .” he found himself saying, as he slammed on brakes.
“What did you just say?” his lady friend asked him over the phone. “I was asking you what perks are you talking about, and you said what the something. What did you just say?”
“I’ll talk to you later,” Richard said, threw his phone on the hook, and began backing up his Porsche toward the young lady.
He pressed down his passenger side window and leaned over. “Hey, you,” he said. He had to keep driving to keep up with her fast walking.
But Janet kept walking because he sounded just like those men on her street with the hey you line. She ignored him. She had pepper stray on her, too, if it came to that.
But Richard was shocked. She was ignoring him? Didn’t that beat all? Although, he also realized, it was nighttime on a country road and he was virtually a stranger to her. It was the right thing for her to do.
Then he suddenly remembered her name. “Janet!” he yelled out to her.
It was only when she heard her name did she bother to look his way. And that was when she saw who was behind the wheel. And her heart soared when she saw who it was. At least she wouldn’t have to soak him down and use up her can of pepper stray, she figured. “Mr. Shetfield,” she said with a big smile on her face, and walked up to his car window.
But Richard was oddly upset. “What are you doing out here this time of night?”
“I’m on my way home.”
“But why are you walking? Don’t you have a car?”
Janet barely had a roof over her head. “No, sir,” she said. “And the bus left before orientation turned out. There was another one coming in another hour, but I figured if I walked, I’d be home by then.”
Richard understood she’d be anxious to get home after a long day at work. But her ass should have realized the danger too. “Get in,” he said.
Janet was surprised that he would invite somebody like her to ride in his fancy car, but she wasn’t the kind of person who questioned goodness. It was too far and in between in her life to ever question goodness. Especially coming from a man who owned the company she worked for. Especially coming from a man with such kind eyes. She got into his car.
“I don’t normally get into a stranger’s car,” Janet said with a
smile as she closed the door.
But Richard was still upset for some reason. “Then why did you get into mine?” he responded with no warmth whatsoever.
Janet looked at him. She was used to people talking to her that way, with no interest in how it made her feel. But she was disappointed when that kind of harshness came from him. She had thought of him, when she first met him, as one of the good guys. She wanted to say she could get back out, to repay harshness with harshness, but he owned the company she worked for. She didn’t go there.
But when Richard saw that sudden sad look in her big eyes, he quickly realized his usual bluntness apparently came across as cruel to her. But for some unfathomable reason he was still upset that she was walking on that dark road alone at night. “I didn’t mean to sound harsh,” he said to her. “I apologize for that.”
That was a first for Janet. Somebody actually admitting they spoke out of turn to her? She knew he was different than all the rest. She knew it! She saw it in his eyes the first time they met. “Thank you,” she said to him.
“Buckle your seatbelt,” he said, and she quickly did as he said.
He pulled off again, driving. “Where do you live?” he asked her.
“I live at the end of Grundy Street.”
“At the end of what street?”
She smiled. “Grundy Street. It’s just up the road a piece. It’s near downtown.”
“Never heard of Grundy Street,” he said. “But I’m not exactly a Cope native, either,” he added, as he drove.
She looked at him. “Where are you from?”
“Born and raised in Tulsa. But then my father decided to pack up the family and move us all to Texas. I came back and launched a few businesses across Oklahoma, and put down roots again in Tulsa. Which isn’t far from here.”
“Not far. But it’s a world apart,” said Janet. “I’ve gone there many times with my foster. . . people.” She still refused to refer to the Henleys as her foster family. “It’s big.”
“Bigger than Cope, that’s for sure,” he said and glanced down at those nice legs he had noticed before. “I didn’t recognize you from behind, or I would have stopped immediately.”
Janet looked at him. “Why?” It wasn’t as if he knew her like that.
Richard had to think about her question. “I don’t rightly know,” he said. Then he looked at her. “But I would have stopped.”
She smiled. His eyes were so soft! “Thank you,” she said.
Her eyes were beautiful to Richard, too, and looking into her eyes made him look down at her body. She was a small girl, but she had curves in all the right places. And a nice set of tits to round out the package. He could have a very good night rolling in the hay with her. Which, he knew, would be totally taking advantage of a sweet kid like her. But that was how he usually saw women: as objects of desire. As somebody to do it with. That was how he was raised. That was how he spent his life believing was the way it was done. Because in his circle, that was how it was done. And just looking at Janet’s nice legs, and what he knew were between those nice legs, was making him horny.
But he needed to find out if she lived alone.
“I’m right you know,” he said to her.
Janet looked at him as he drove. Did she miss a conversation? “You’re right about what?”
“About Tulsa,” said Richard. “It isn’t far from here. Just a quick twenty-minute drive if that long.” Then he looked at the darkness outside. “Or what does a guy have to do around here? Get a room?”
Janet smiled. “Rather than drive twenty miles?”
That wasn’t what he meant, but he went with it. “If the guy is tired and doesn’t want to drive twenty miles, sure. And who are you to talk? You didn’t want to wait a mere hour for the bus.”
Janet laughed. He had her there. “True,” she said.
“Are there any good hotels around here? Or,” he said as if it was a sudden idea, “maybe you could put me up.”
Janet’s heart dropped at the thought of a man like him coming to her modest room. It was clean. She kept her room spotless. But it was still in a rathole.
“Or would you make me drive all the way to Tulsa all sleepy, and I fall asleep at the wheel and end up dead in a ditch? Would you let that happen to me, Janet?”
Janet wouldn’t. But he already knew that. “No, sir. And I have a couch you can sleep on, if that’ll help.”
Richard smiled. He still had it! “It’ll help indeed,” he said. Because he knew, if he was going to be sleeping on her couch, she was going to be sleeping with him. “But what about your family?” he added, just to be certain. “Would I be disturbing them?”
“Oh, not at all. I live alone,” she said, and that was all he needed to hear.
And he drove them, on her directions, to the boarding house on Grundy Street.
But when he stopped at the curb and got out of his car, and he looked up and down the poverty-stricken street, and then at the dilapidated boarding house that she called home, he was stunned.
He didn’t expect a palace. He didn’t expect her to live lavishly or in any way above her means. And he knew he didn’t exactly pay his workers great wages.
But damn, he thought.
CHAPTER SIX
Janet could see the shock all over his handsome face. And a part of her was ashamed. Being poor never felt like real poverty until you saw it through somebody else’s eyes. And Richard had the kind of eyes that couldn’t camouflage what he was seeing. He even opened his sports jacket and placed his hands on his hips, like he was just blown away by how poor she truly was. She was hoping he’d tell her never mind and get in his car and leave. To spare them both the humiliation. But he didn’t. He followed her into the building and up the stairs to her room.
The smells of urine and liquor were rampant throughout their walk upstairs and Janet could have just died when she took it all in herself. She was used to the smells. Sometimes she didn’t even smell it at all. But she smelled it acutely that night.
When they got up to the door, and she pulled out the key, she glanced back at Richard. He was looking down the hall at another tenant, an older man who had slid down the wall and was drinking liquor out of a brown paper bag and talking to himself. And a couple could be heard screaming at each other in another room, and Richard kept glancing at that room too.
But when he realized Janet was looking at him, he looked away from the drunk tenant and looked at her. He didn’t try to smile it off or make light of it with some lame joke, as if that kind of poverty wasn’t shocking. Even Janet knew it was. She appreciated that he didn’t pretend it wasn’t.
She unlocked her room door. And they went inside of her one-room flat where the couch and the bed and the small kitchenette with a two-seat table comprised the whole of her living space. The bathroom required a walk down the smelly hallway outside of her room, as did the shower stalls.
Although her room itself smelled nice inside, and everything was clean and in its proper place, the walls were still peeling paint, and the ceiling still had holes in it where she kept buckets nearby to capture rain, and her closet had a curtain hanging instead of a door. Richard, who hailed from the richest family in Oklahoma, had never seen such adject poverty in his life. And he didn’t know what to make of it.
Janet saw his confusion, too, but didn’t help him. This was her life and she wasn’t going to make excuses for it. Considering her background, she was a success story. It might not look that way to him, but she knew she was.
She went to the sink to wash her hands. “Would you care for something to eat?” she asked him, glancing back at him.
“To eat?” His intention had been to be eating her right about now, which he now felt ashamed of. “No,” he said. “I’m good. But you go right ahead.”
“I intend to. I’m starved. I cooked a pot of spaghetti this morning before I left for work.”
Richard smiled. “You cooked an entire pot of spaghetti before you went to work?”
“What time do you leave for work?”
“Orientation started at eleven. So I had time this morning. But my official work hours beginning tomorrow will be six to three. So I’ll probably get up at four and leave by five, to get over there in time.”
Richard didn’t know what to say to that. Get up at four and leave by five? Was she serious? He couldn’t recall a time he’d ever gotten out of bed at four in the morning. He’d gone to bed at that time many times before, if he was out partying or otherwise doing whatever with some female. He couldn’t even comprehend such an early rise.
“That’s the couch,” she said to him, which brought him back out of his musings. “Or would you prefer the bed?”
Richard looked at her. Was that some veil attempt at inviting him to her bed? He hoped so! “The bed?” he asked her.
“Sure,” Janet said. “I don’t mind sleeping on the couch if you’ll be more comfortable in the bed.”
Richard smiled again. Was this girl for real? Or was she just pulling his leg with that sweet lil’ ol’ me bullshit?
He decided to find out.
He removed his sportscoat and tossed it on the couch. “Come here for a second,” he said to her.
Janet, who was just opening the refrigerator, found his request odd. She looked at him. He had removed his coat, revealing what even she could see was a very well-built body. She closed the door of the frig and walked over to him. “Yes?”
He placed both hands on her shoulders. He looked her dead in the eyes. “I’m very pleased to have an industrious young woman like yourself working at my mill,” he said to her.
Janet smiled. She wasn’t used to compliments. “Thank you, Mr. Shetfield. Thank you very much.”
“Oh, let’s dispense with the Mister crap. Richard is fine. But never Mister Shetfield.”
Plain Jane Evans and the Billionaire Page 3
