Getting Some Of Her Own

by Gwynne Forster

  Why couldn’t I have chosen another man—any other man—for a fling? Why did I have to . . . In spite of her consternation, she laughed. What am I complaining about? He made it more than worthwhile. He made it beautiful.

  She reached the room in which she tutored and, to her astonishment, a solemn Rudy stood outside the closed door. But when the child saw her approach, she smiled.

  “Hi, Miss Pettiford.”

  “Hello, Rudy. Why aren’t you inside?”

  “The kids always laugh at me. All except Nathan. He’s nice.”

  She took the child’s hand, opened the door, went inside with her and complete silence immediately replaced the noise and merriment. If she accomplished nothing else, she would teach those children that clothes did not make the individual.

  Lucas made his way to his classroom with heavy steps. A casual affair had never posed a problem for him, particularly on the few occasions when the woman made it clear that she was merely taking care of her needs, just as he was. He thought about that for a minute. Susan hadn’t said she was tending her needs; indeed, she hadn’t said why she decided to go to bed with him, and he made up his mind to find out if it took the rest of his life.

  He discovered that he enjoyed the children more than he’d thought he would, and decided to devote a second evening each week to tutoring in physics, since he didn’t have a teacher for it. At the end of the class, he stood in the corridor talking with a volunteer and saw Susan leaving the building holding a little girl’s hand. That’s strange, he thought. The tutors aren’t supposed to become involved with the students. After a moment, he dismissed the thought. Perhaps the child wasn’t feeling well.

  Lucas drew the plans for Susan’s shop and phoned Willis, his friend and partner in W. L. Carter Building and Contracting, Inc. He and Willis Carter roomed together as college freshmen and had been close friends ever since. When the Carter contracting business faltered, Lucas bought a fifty-two percent interest in it, reasoning that a liaison between an architect and a building contractor made sense. They sent customers to each other, but Willis served as the CEO of W. L. Carter Building and Contracting, Inc., and Lucas focused on his architectural firm. Both businesses flourished.

  On that crisp November morning, Lucas sat on his deck sipping hot coffee and watching the yellow, orange and brown oak leaves float lackadaisically to earth. He cherished the early mornings when his mind was most active and energy stirred in him. He dialed Willis’s number, confident that at six-thirty in the morning, his sleep-loving friend hadn’t ventured far from the bed.

  “What’s up, Lucas? Did you ring me earlier? I was ’sleep, man.”

  “Yeah? If you were asleep, how do you know the phone rang?”

  He heard the sound of feet hitting the floor. “Come on, man. It’s still night. What’s up?”

  “I’ve got a rush job for you. Can you come over here? I’ll even cook you some breakfast.”

  “Breakfast? Right. Give me forty-five minutes.”

  He set the table on the deck as the sky’s red, blue and gray streaks heralded the coming of the sun. It took him longer than half an hour to lay out the plans for Susan’s shop, because he’d added extras that would increase the value of the unit in case she decided to sublet it. When he heard Willis’s car stop in front of his house, he poured the coffee and began scrambling eggs.

  “What’s so urgent about this job, and who’s it for?” Willis asked him when he jumped up on the deck.

  “Her name’s Susan Pettiford, and she’s an interior decorator. She rented space in the Halpern Building, which is a co-operative. If everything works out, she’ll buy it.”

  “This stuff is good. I’d like the recipe for these waffles.”

  Lucas handed him the plans. “Aunt Jesse or Southern Pines. One of those. Look in the frozen food section of the supermarket. What do you think?”

  Willis glanced at it. “Looks simple enough, but I won’t know until I get there and see what I have to work with. What’s this? You want me to rip up half the floor?”

  “Well, she didn’t ask for it, but a decorator’s showroom should be elegant, and that floor is tacky.”

  Willis put the plans aside, drained the coffee cup and went to the kitchen for more coffee. He returned, sat down and focused his gaze on Lucas. “What am I charging her?”

  Lucas flexed his right shoulder in apparent nonchalance. “That’s up to you, but when she asked for an estimate, I told her I thought it ought to be somewhere around two or three thousand.”

  Willis’ whistle split the air. “That was before you thought of the toilet, kitchen and storage room, right? Also, you didn’t charge her for the plans, did you?”

  “Naw, man. Those plans took no time.”

  Willis sipped his coffee and looked into the distance. “This isn’t like you, Lucas. Would you mind telling me what Susan Pettiford is to you?”

  He should have expected the question, because Willis Carter knew him as well as he had ever allowed anyone to know him. He rubbed the back of his neck. “The truth? I really don’t know exactly what Susan is to me.”

  Willis leaned back in the wrought iron chair and fastened his gaze on his friend. “Are you aware that this is way out of character for you? You always plot every step you take. With Verna being one strange exception, you’ve always ordered your life with the same precision you put into your designs for buildings.”

  “I’m not losing sleep over it, and neither should you. When can you start?”

  “I’d like to see the place today.”

  Lucas took a pocket watch from his shirt pocket, and opened it.

  “Man, you still have that watch?” Willis asked him.

  “I hope I’ll always have it. My maternal grandfather gave it to me when I was about nine. Next to my mother, he was everything to me.” Lucas dialed Susan’s number.

  “You calling her now? It’s only seven-thirty, and not everybody gets up at the crack of dawn as you do.”

  “Hello?”

  “Good morning, Susan. This is Lucas Hamilton. Willis Carter, the contractor, wants to speak with you.” He could hardly resist snickering at the expression of disbelief on Willis’s face.

  Willis took the phone. “Good morning, Ms. Pettiford. I’ve looked at the plans for your shop, and I’d like to see the space today, if possible.” He listened for a bit. “Yes, I like the plans. Eleven o’clock is good. I’ll meet you there. Till then.” He hung up. “Hmmm. She’s as business-like as you are. Well, thanks for the best breakfast I’ve had since the last time you cooked it. I’ll call you later and let you know what I think.”

  “Okay, but come to terms with her, will you? Even if you have to bend a little bit.”

  Willis raised an eyebrow and then showed his white teeth in a grin. “For that, I’ll let you wash the dishes. I have to study this thing before I meet her. Ms. Pettiford must be one hell of a sister.”

  She is, Lucas thought. Is she ever!

  Remembering that he had promised to install a microwave oven above the stove in his mother’s kitchen to give her more counter space, Lucas phoned her. “I can install that microwave oven this evening, if you’d like, Mama. Tomorrow, I’ll be at the school, so I’d rather do it today.”

  “That’s wonderful. I’ll fix you a nice supper.”

  “I could take you out to dinner.”

  “When did you last have a great home-cooked meal?”

  He couldn’t tell her about that, so he agreed to eating supper at her table, not that he minded one bit, because she was a good cook by anyone’s standards. “All right. I’ll be there around five-thirty.”

  By five o’clock, the weather had cooled, so he put on a three-quarter leather coat lined with sheared lamb, a pair of jeans, and a heavy plaid shirt. In spite of his thirty-five years, Noreen Hamilton hadn’t ceased to worry that he might catch cold. He entered the modern house that he designed and built for her and was rewarded with his mother’s happy smiles and hugs.

  �
�What’re you cooking?” he asked her, sniffing repeatedly.

  “Roast pork, candied sweets and collards. Maybe some corn bread.”

  “Works for me,” he said, pulling off his coat. He installed the microwave oven quickly. “Anything else you want me to do?”

  “No. You thought of everything when you designed it, and since you pay for a cleaning woman and a man who takes care of the lawn, most of the time, I don’t have anything to do except hold my hands and watch TV.”

  He looked around the kitchen where he perched on a stool. “It’s rather big for one person. I’d have thought you’d want someone to live with you.”

  She wiped her hands on her apron and stared at him. “Such as who? I don’t need anybody to make my life miserable. If you’re talking about a man, I’ve told you a hundred times to forget about that. When it comes to men, I’ve had the best education in the world, and I don’t need any further training.”

  He remained silent for so long that she walked over to him and asked, “What’s the matter, son?”

  “Mama, I don’t want to ruin the evening for us. It isn’t often that I eat here with you, so I’m . . . I’d like to drop this. But I have to tell you that I have so many strong feelings around this subject.”

  “I know.” She went back to the stove. “But I did the best I could.”

  She didn’t, and they both knew it. He changed the subject. “I’m thinking of acquiring that land across the river from Pine Tree Park. I’d like to see an upscale retirement village complete with a recreation center and medical facilities.”

  “Be careful that you don’t overstretch yourself. You don’t have to make fifty cents off every dollar earned in this county.”

  “No, but by the time I’m fifty, I intend to be worth more, to be more influential and to have more power than Calvin Jackson ever had. I’ll show him.”

  She didn’t respond, as he’d known she wouldn’t. He suspected that after thirty-five years, she still loved his father. She had denied Calvin Jackson all parental rights, had never let him see his only son and had not accepted one penny for Lucas’s care and schooling. But in Lucas’s view, the greater injustice was not to the father, but to the son, and although he loved his mother, he resented her for keeping him from his father.

  She shook her head from side to side while she sliced the sweet potatoes. “What is it, Mom?”

  “I know what you’re thinking. I used to tell myself that when you were older—grown, I mean—I could make you understand, but I know you can’t accept what I did. We can’t change it now, Son, so please let it go.”

  “I’m satisfied with who I am right now, with what I’ve done with my life so far, so don’t sweat the past, Mama.”

  “I’m proud of you. Maybe you could have been more . . . but . . . we’ll never know.”

  “This food is up to your usual high standard,” he told her later, changing the subject, as he enjoyed one of his favorite meals.

  “There’s apple pie for dessert.” A grin spread over his face. Nothing anybody cooked tasted as good as his mother’s apple pie. “That’s pure bribery, Mom, and you’ve been using it since I was three.”

  He saw her pleasure in the laugh that poured out of her. “As Yogi said, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ These apple pies are probably the reason why I’m not very good at making desserts; all I ever had to do to please you was make an apple pie.”

  Lucas went to the stove, got the coffee pot and poured each of them a cup of coffee. At age fifty-eight, his mother was still beautiful. He imagined that, when she was nineteen, she must have been startlingly lovely. He sat down and voiced his thoughts. “Did you ever stop loving him?”

  “No,” she said, the word barely audible.

  “When did you last see him? In person, I mean?”

  “The day I told him I was pregnant.”

  He put his cup down and looked at her. “How could you handle it? You must have been miserable all these years.”

  “Not at all. I’ve had you, and every time I looked at you, I saw him. Whenever I held you, I held him.”

  He suppressed a whistle. “I realize that I resemble him, because—”

  She interrupted him. “Resemble him? You’re the spitting image of Calvin.”

  “This boggles my mind. Always has. You knew he was married; you told me you did. Yet—” He shook his head.

  “I fell in love with him practically on sight, son, and a nineteen-year-old-virgin is no match for a thirty-year-old married man.”

  “Not by a long shot. He should have been ashamed of himself.”

  She stared at him. “Why? He fell in love with me, too. Your grandfather did everything he could to break it up, but I was of age, and I couldn’t stay away from Calvin.”

  That didn’t make sense to him, and he said as much. “You stayed away from him after you became pregnant.”

  “It wasn’t difficult. He wouldn’t divorce his wife, and I’ve learned that hatred is just as powerful an emotion as love. I spent weeks deciding upon the best revenge.”

  He leaned back in his chair and seared her with his gaze. “Yes, you did, and while you were planning it, all you thought of was yourself. You didn’t give your child a thought.”

  “You’re right; I didn’t, and I’ve paid for it every time I’ve caught you staring at me with your eyes narrowed while you grind your teeth. It hasn’t been easy, Lucas.”

  “Not for either of us.” He served the pie and poured more coffee.

  “Thanks for this great supper,” Lucas told her as he was about to leave, “and especially for the conversation.” He winked—which meant he squeezed both eyes, never having learned how to wink one of them—and hugged her tightly. “You shouldn’t indict yourself too harshly, Mama. If you had behaved otherwise, you wouldn’t have me.”

  “You are what kept me going.”

  He kissed her and left. One day, when he had power behind him, he would stand face to face with Calvin Jackson and hear his side of the story. But the man was already seventy years old, and time was running out. Lucas got into his black town car and headed home, but as he drove, he had a struggle trying to keep his mind on his driving. After that short talk with his mother, he understood her less than ever. If she had hated the man, how could she still love him after so many years? Did that kind of inconsistency explain why Susan would have sex with a stranger, and then act as if he’d never been anything to her?

  He wanted to rid his memory of Susan, but he didn’t expect that to happen—he had to see her at least twice a week when she tutored at Wade School and lately, she appeared whenever his libido revved up. He suspected that he had just begun to pay for that delightful romp with her. If anyone had told him that sex with a woman he’d just met could be so satisfying, even memorable, he wouldn’t have believed it. He had to admit that she’d carved a place for herself inside of him, and he didn’t know what he’d do about it.

  Unlike Lucas, Susan did not permit herself the luxury of reminiscing about their tryst. As she hurried to meet Willis Carter—hurried to the extent that one who carried a folding chair could hurry—color schemes and furnishings for her shop and the house she had yet to enter crowded Lucas out of her thoughts. “I hope this doesn’t cost too much,” she said to herself, for she intended to put the fifty-three thousand dollars cash that she inherited from her aunt into an interest-bearing United States Treasury account. And if this works out, I’d like to buy my space in this co-op building, she thought as she tripped up the stairs.

  She opened the door, went inside, sat down and made notes while she waited.

  Carter arrived on time. “I hope you haven’t waited long, Ms. Pettiford. I’m Willis Carter.”

  “I figured as much. How are you? Thank you for coming. What do you think of the space?”

  “Well, you’re across from the elevator, which is good, but you’re on the second floor, which is bad unless you air condition the place. In this location, noise from open windows will mak
e this a health hazard. And—”

  She interrupted him. “How much is that going to increase the cost of the job?”

  He walked around as if he hadn’t heard her, and perspiration began to dampen her arms and her blouse. “I said—”

  “I know what you said. I’ll have to tell Lucas to include air-conditioning in these plans.”

  She sensed that her temper was about to expose itself, and she didn’t think it wise to show anger. “How much will it cost? Mr. Hamilton said it would be between two and three thousand.”

  “Yeah. He told me that.” The man walked over to her, put his hands on his hips—slim hips that complemented his broad chest, long, lean body and handsome face. “What’s Lucas Hamilton to you?”

  Where did that question come from? Looking hard at the man, trying to size him up, she couldn’t decide whether he was indicating interest or merely curious. She angled her head to the side. “I have absolutely no idea what Lucas Hamilton is to me. Anything else?” He continued to look at her, and then he laughed. “Let me in on the joke, Mr. Carter.”

  He laughed harder. “Sorry. It must be me. I see things strangely sometimes. Don’t worry. The job won’t cost you a penny more than Lucas said it would. I need a key, and as soon as Lucas includes the air-conditioning in these plans, I’ll get to work. I assume you want parquet floors in your showroom. If you want anything else, now’s the time to tell me.”

  “What are my alternatives?” He raised an eyebrow. “All right, so I’ve never opened a commercial establishment. The architects I worked for had penthouse offices.”

  “Hmmm. I’ll bet they did. Marble, tiles, cork, cement. I’ll put wood in here, but as a decorator, I thought you might want something uh . . . different.”

  He was right, but she wouldn’t let him know that he thought faster than she. “Parquet will be fine. I may put an Oriental carpet in there.”

  “Fine, Ms. Pettiford. I’ll put a contract in the mail, and as soon as you sign it, you ought to be able to move in within thirty days.”