He got up, hunched over against the wind and made his way back home. Never one to procrastinate for long, he shaved, polished his black shoes, and dressed in a gray pinstripe suit, light-gray shirt and red and gray paisley tie, got into his town car and headed for Danville, Virginia. What would he say to the man? After all these years of dreaming of a confrontation, of clever sayings and examples of a curt one-upmanship, his mind was blank. As he mused over his absence of pertinent ideas, it occurred to him that he was responding to the situation as a mature man, rather than as a wounded child who, in his subconscious, he may have regarded himself.
“I’ll take it as it comes,” he said to himself. “At least he’s still alive.” But he would have preferred to meet the man when he was on his feet, and they stood toe to toe, measuring each other.
Susan opened the stationery that Cassie designed for her and gaped at the exquisite letterhead: tiny bolts of fabric lying across an elegant brown sofa beneath the name and address of Susan’s company. A beige border with gold flecks enlivened the sand-colored paper. She telephoned Cassie.
“Mrs. Hairston-Shepherd speaking.”
Each time she heard Cassie say that, Susan had trouble resisting a rude response. “Hi, Cassie. This is Susan. I’ve just opened the stationery, and I’m practically speechless. This is the most gorgeous . . . it’s fantastic. I love it.”
“I’m glad you’re pleased. I figured you wanted something that was both feminine and very professional.”
“I did, and that’s what you sent me. I couldn’t be more delighted.”
“Thanks for letting me know, Susan. I’m always happy when my work pleases. Your shop isn’t too far from Cutting Edge Stationers and Engravers. Would you like to meet for lunch. I usually bring a sandwich, since there’s nobody here that I like to socialize with.”
This woman was a chameleon if one ever existed. A doll today and a witch tomorrow. “Great. Let’s meet at Sam’s Gourmet Burger Castle, unless you know a better place. How about one o’clock?”
“Fine with me,” Cassie said. “See you there.”
“It’s ten o’clock in the morning, so I know I’m not dreaming. Why would Cassie want to eat lunch with me? She doesn’t even like me,” she said to herself after she hung up.
“Oh!” She whirled around.
“Sorry if I alarmed you,” Jay Weeks said. “You ought to put a bell or something on your door, so you’ll know when someone enters or leaves.”
“I have one on it,” she said, her voice humorless and unfriendly. “What may I do for you, Jay?”
“You could sound a little friendlier. I need half a yard of black naugahyde. I’ll give it back to you Monday. I’m going to Baltimore Sunday to shop for supplies.” She cut a piece and gave it to him. He raised an eyebrow. “Hmmm. I see you’re using top of the line material.”
“What would you expect me to use?” she asked him, cross and not bothering to hide it. “I charge top prices, so I use the best materials.”
“Done any jobs yet?” he asked, and she didn’t miss his attempt to sound casual.
She forced a grin. “Jay, my daddy always said, ‘Never let your right hand know what the left one is doing.’ I’ve learned that, in most things, he knew his onions.”
“Yeah. How about lunch?”
“Thanks, but I have a date.”
“With Hamilton?”
“No,” she said, deciding that the identity of her luncheon companion was none of his business.
He waited for a long minute, realized that she wouldn’t say more and nodded. “See you soon.”
If he’s not careful, I’ll learn to dislike him, Susan thought as she put the roll of black naugahyde back on its shelf and went about drawing an arrangement for a teenage female’s bedroom-cum-sanctuary. She worked better for a client when she liked the person, and she did not care for that girl, so catering to her taste was proving a struggle. Much to her relief, a woman entered who wanted her entire house redecorated.
“My husband and I divorced,” the woman explained, “because of something he did. That was two years ago. We’ve made up and we’re remarrying in about a month. I want the whole house redone, so nothing in it will remind me of that other time when I was miserable. We’re starting fresh, house and all.”
Susan wanted to ask the woman why she didn’t sell the old house and buy another one, but she had learned never to pry.
She folded the file on which she had been working, walked over to the velvet sofa and sat beside the woman. “I always begin with the question, what are your favorite colors in woods, fabric, and porcelain.”
“Good, because I think that way,” the woman replied. “You and I will get along beautifully.”
Susan completed a satisfying meeting with the woman, signed a contract, and arrived at Sam’s Gourmet Burger Castle with several minutes to spare. However, to her delight, Cassie waited at a corner table. Hmmm, so she wants to talk privately. I wonder about what.
They had barely begun to eat their gourmet hamburgers when Cassie blurted out, “How is it being single? I mean, is it . . . do you get invitations to places? You know . . . do you get left out of things like receptions and fundraisers, and do people invite you to their homes?”
What on earth brought that about? She decided to respond as if the questions did not seem strange coming from a married woman. “I expect people will be more charitable here than in New York, though being single in New York posed no problems for me. If you’re well known and have connections—as you have, for example—it shouldn’t pose a problem anywhere. I haven’t done much socializing here, but I’m just realizing that I haven’t seen too many single women alone in the evening.” There! She could take either end of the stick. “Why? Do you have a sister or a friend who’s unmarried?”
“I, uh, just wondered what it’s like. I’ve been married a good while, out of circulation, you might say, and . . .” She leaned her fork and knife against the edge of her plate. “If I don’t agree to get pregnant, Kix is going to leave me.”
“What? Is there a reason why you can’t conceive?”
Cassie picked up her fork and toyed with her salad, before putting a fork full of it into her mouth and chewing it slowly. Finally, as if it pained her to do so, she lowered her head and said, “Nothing that I know of. The problem is that I don’t want to be pregnant. I hate the thought of it.” Susan’s fork fell to her plate, and she stared at Cassie, wide-eyed. “Don’t tell me you think a woman has to have children in order to legitimate herself and to justify her existence,” Cassie said with a grimace.
“I certainly do not.” Better tread carefully here, girl. “But it seems to me that if you love your husband, you’d want to have some children. Don’t you feel . . . uh . . . secure enough to . . . to take a chance on it? He seems like a sturdy man.”
“He is, and I do love him. It’s just that . . . I don’t know.”
“Won’t he agree to your continuing your career if you have a child?”
“He probably would, but I . . . I can’t even contemplate it.”
Susan folded her arms, leaned back in her chair and looked at Cassie. “I’d give anything if I had your problem.”
“Well don’t bother to feel superior. If you marry Lucas Hamilton, you’ll be in the same boat. He’s the same type as Kix—a dependable, hardworking, and successful family man. That type has to have children.”
The words were as daggers in her heart. Of course, Lucas would want children. However, her feelings about him were her own business, so she neither affirmed nor denied an interest in him. Instead, she said, “Didn’t you and Kix discuss children before you married?”
“That’s part of the problem; he asked if I would, and I said yes, but I would have said most anything he wanted to hear.” She took out a linen handkerchief and blew her nose. “Susan, if I don’t get pregnant, he’s going to leave me. He deserves better than I’ve given him. A lot better.”
“Perhaps you both deserve better. D
on’t underrate yourself or what you mean to him, Cassie.”
Cassie smiled through her unshed tears. “Thanks, Susan. I’m sorry I dumped on you, but you can’t imagine what a weight this is. Sometimes, I feel as if I’ll go bonkers.”
Back in her shop, Susan mused over her conversation with Cassie. Would the woman risk losing something so precious because she couldn’t contemplate doing what to most women came naturally? If only she knew how gladly I’d change her prospects for childbearing with mine. At three o’clock, she closed the shop, got into her BMW and headed for Wade School to begin the most enjoyable hour of her day.
Driving past Children’s Village, a store that specialized in clothing for children six and younger, Susan impulsively stopped in front of the store, put a quarter in the parking meter and went inside. Almost at once, she saw a blue knitted cap, scarf and mitten set that she thought would become Rudy.
Why can’t I buy it for her? she thought. I won’t hurt anyone, and Rudy doesn’t have a hat or mittens.
“May I help you, madam?” an eager salesperson asked her.
“How do you think this would look with that red coat over there?” She pointed to the same red coat she bought for Rudy.
“It will look lovely.”
“I think so too, and I’ll take it.” She put the set unwrapped in her briefcase, aware of the consequences if Lucas saw her carrying a package with Children’s Village printed on it. She found a gray sleeveless sweater for Nathan and rushed back to her car. Rudy and Nathan waited outside her classroom door as usual and ran to greet her as she entered the school’s front door. She hugged them both, opened her briefcase, put the cap and scarf on Rudy, handed her the gloves and gave Nathan his sweater. The children hugged and kissed her, giggled and danced with joy. When she thought her heart would burst with happiness, she straightened up and looked into the eyes of Lucas Hamilton.
Lucas neither smiled nor spoke to Susan, but patted the children’s shoulders and walked rapidly to his office. She couldn’t know the drama of his life from nine o’clock that morning until the minute he found her breaking the Department of Education’s rules, drama that he had raced to Wade School to share with her. He closed the door, sat down at the principal’s desk, leaned back in the chair, closed his eyes and relived those awesome moments.
As he was about to enter General Hospital, he stepped away from the door and gazed at the world around him, aware that no matter how their meeting went, when he stepped out of that hospital, his life would have changed. At the desk, he asked for a visitor’s pass to suite A-6, identified himself and got the pass. Why didn’t he feel anything? Not happiness, sadness, nervousness, or anger. Nothing. He knocked on the door, didn’t hear an answer, cracked the door and peeped in.
“Come in.” The voice was strong enough. He walked in, looked toward the bed and the man who was half sitting and half lying in it. He walked over to the man who sired him.
“I’m Lucas Hamilton. Why do you want to see me?” Of all the words he might have uttered, those were perhaps the most benign. They were also the most impersonal, without any reference to the man’s health and well-being.
“I’m Calvin Jackson,” the man said. “Have a seat. This may take a while.”
Lucas nearly laughed. He’d said only ten words, and Calvin Jackson had sized him up as cut and dried. No nonsense. Lucas was a replica of the man who sired him. He sat in the only available chair, crossed his knees and leaned back, comfortable and projecting it.
It was his father’s turn to be amused, and he half laughed. “You’re so damned much like me that it’s frightening, and I’m not only talking about your looks, height and bearing. It’s like watching myself. Don’t sit there and give the impression that you have nothing to say to me. If I wasn’t in this bed, you’d probably consider slugging me.”
“Why do you think I still won’t do it?” Lucas shrugged. “You’re right. It wouldn’t be the least bit gratifying. I have nothing to say to you until you say something to me, and I’m sure you appreciate the value of time.”
“You’re a gentleman. I know all about you. I have a box this high”—with both hands he suggested an interval of about thirty inches—“full of clippings, photographs, and letters about you and the things you’ve done. They are among my most precious possessions.”
That hadn’t moved him. “So, what does that tell me?”
Calvin braced his hands on the bed and propped himself up further. “I’d be the last one to speak to you against Noreen. I should have stayed away from her, but I didn’t. I loved her.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I was older and wiser, and I knew better than she the consequences.”
“But you took advantage of her anyway.”
“Yes, and she told me that if I ever contacted you for any reason, she would tell my wife and my daughters everything about our affair and about you. I was the age you are now—though not as far advanced—building a name for myself in Danville, and I didn’t want to break up my family. So, like a fool, I stayed away from you.”
“I didn’t know you had any other children. Where are your wife and daughters now?”
“We’ll get to them later. A few weeks ago, I got tired of the secret and told them about Noreen and about you. I had to tell them, because of what I want to do now. I could have done it years ago, because Marcie—my wife—said that she had been suspicious of Noreen and me and that the first time she saw your picture in the paper, she guessed. And to think I let all those years pass without knowing you or contributing in any way to your growth and development. Believe me, I am sorry. I would be so proud of you, if I had the right.”
Lucas looked his father in the eye. “Don’t think for a second that I’m a victim. I’m not. And yes, there have been times when I wanted to dismember you, but I resented my mother more than you, because she told me that she forbade you to see me and moved away from Danville so that you and I wouldn’t be near each other. I could have contacted you, but doing so never once entered my mind.” He rested both feet on the floor, leaned forward and covered his knees with his hands. “I always planned to get my revenge by besting you at what you do best, and without any help from you.”
“And you’re practically there, if you’re not actually ahead of me.”
Lucas looked at his watch. “We’ve talked a long time, but you haven’t told me why you wanted to see me.”
“I need a spinal operation that will incapacitate me for months, maybe years, and I want you to run my business enterprises.”
“What? You can’t be serious. What about your daughters? Why can’t they do it?”
“Neither of them has ever showed the least interest in business. Besides, a woman’s place is in the home, and they’re both married . . . and childless, I may add.”
“A woman’s place is in the home? You’re a century behind the times. Some of the Fortune Five Hundred’s top CEOs in this country are women, and I say right on.”
“We disagree, but that isn’t important. Will you do it?”
“I don’t have time. I’m focusing on a new development opposite Pine Tree Park, and I want it to be outstanding for its class. I haven’t finished the design.”
“But what you’ve done is fantastic, miles ahead of Scenic Gardens. You can do it. You’ll have ample staff who know their jobs, but they need guidance.”
“What will your daughters say? I get two half sisters who’ll hate my guts before they meet me. I don’t like it.”
Calvin took the pitcher from his night table and poured a glass of water for himself. “My daughters are not in the habit of disobeying or confronting me. They’ve always been happy to accept the environment of wealth that I provide for them, and they don’t question the source.”
He stared at the man whose supine position in a hospital bed in no way diminished his aura of authority. “Pretty authoritarian, aren’t you? I imagine you know that doesn’t work with me.”
“Will you do it? I’ll give you the reins, a
nd you’ll be amply compensated.”
Imagine being at the helm of Jackson Enterprises, a conglomeration of real estate holdings, media outlets and transport facilities. Wasn’t it rightfully his duty and opportunity? “What will you do if I refuse? I have to look after my own business.”
“Hire an architect to assist you.”
Pride suffused him for he could truthfully say to Calvin Jackson, “I have an assistant, but I’m the chief architect, and I develop the original plans from my own ideas. I’ll think about it.”
“And some award-winning ideas you’ve produced, too. I want you to do more than think about it. My operation is scheduled for the day after tomorrow. Only God knows whether I will survive it. I’ve drawn up a contract, and all my lawyer has to do is type your name in the appropriate place. This is important, Lucas. I am not trying to make amends; in my view, that isn’t possible. I want to preserve what I’ve worked so hard for over the last forty-six years, and you will do that, and more.”
“How do you know that I wouldn’t deliberately destroy it?”
When Calvin Jackson laughed disparagingly, Lucas had to wonder at the power of human genes. How frequently he allowed his laugh to make an unspoken statement. “You’re too proud. Your ego would drive you to succeed if only to show me that you’re as capable as I am, or more so. I’m not concerned about that.”
Lucas thought of his mother and what her reaction might be if he told her about his meeting with his father and what his father had offered him. Would she be angry and distressed if he told her that he wanted to accept the challenge of managing one of the most successful African American conglomerates in the country? He leaned back in the chair and gazed at his father. Both of his parents had let him down. He had succeeded beyond his dreams, and he would go farther. His mother lived in a house that he designed and built for her, and he gave her a sizeable monthly stipend. He didn’t owe either of his parents anything.
Getting Some Of Her Own Page 12
