Yes, I Do

by Gwynne Forster

  He didn’t feel playful about that and took his time before his next point.

  “We’ve never made love, Susan, and I planned one long trip to paradise for us. Are you willing to give that up?”

  “Whose fault is that? You’re hitting below the belt, August, and you know it. I was ready the first time we were alone, but you were the one with the…with the…” She stammered for a word. Then she said, “You were the Victorian.”

  August laughed. “Honey, don’t you believe people didn’t fool around in Queen Victoria’s time—they’ve been doing that since Adam and Eve got in trouble with that apple. Victorians hopped in and out of bed whenever it pleased them. They just disapproved of themselves after they did it. You can’t give up on us, Susan. I can’t think of myself without thinking of you, too.”

  “August, I am not going to make you a promise that I won’t keep. When I’m forty, I’ll be too old to start a family. You want me to stay home for at least six months after our babies are born, and I agree that would be best for our children, but I’ll lose out on the job. If that happens, I’ll be so miserable you won’t want to be around me. Can’t you see that you’re asking me to give up what I’ve worked my whole life to get? I won’t do it.”

  Maybe he’d have to figure a way around that but, right now, he couldn’t think of a thing. “Are you saying we’re not going to have any? That’s cruel, honey. I can just see our little boys and girls blossoming in our Tarrytown home. I can—”

  “Why are you so pigheaded? If I have girls and boys, that’s at least four.” He tried to think of another tactic in a hurry, but couldn’t.

  “I’ll have to get used to the change, sweetheart, I’ve been thinking about my five or six kids for so many years, that I’m having trouble switching to two, maybe three. But I’m trying.”

  “But you’re not going to agree to a nanny six weeks or two months after the babies are born?”

  Cold shivers shot through him. If he could nurse babies, he would, but nature had decreed otherwise. He didn’t answer; if it ended, she’d have to do it.

  “I’m sorry about the house. I loved that big fireplace you put in it just for me. Bye, hon.” She hung up, but he heard the unsteadiness, the unshed tears in her voice. And she’d called him, “hon,” the first time she had addressed him with an endearment. If she thinks this is over, he told himself, she’s due for a surprise. He opened a bag of unshelled peanuts in order to have something with which to occupy his hands while he did some serious thinking. He ought to call Grace, but he didn’t expect women to do his work for him. And besides, he wasn’t sold on that chart business. Never had been. Where Susan was concerned, he’d fallen for her on sight and gone with his instincts. He shelled a couple of nuts and chewed slowly. Heck, Grace was the architect of this fiasco, and she’d better come up with some answers. He answered his cordless phone.

  “Yeah. Grace? I was just about to call you?”

  “I expect these coincidences,” she said. “Why were you calling me, Mr. Jackson? I can’t help you. Anybody who expects a thirty-five-year-old corporate lawyer to produce five children and work, too, is beyond help. Don’t you know it takes at least nine months to make ’em? And that’s if you’re lucky.”

  “I gave in on that. We’re having two, maybe three. Heck, I’ll be happy if she gives me one. The trouble is that she insists on going back to work as soon as they’re born.” He knew she took a deep breath; he wasn’t accustomed to having people sigh deeply when speaking with him, as though he might be a few bricks short of a full load, and it annoyed him. He ran his hand over his tight curls. Frustrated.

  “Find a tantalizing alternative to dangle in front of her. She doesn’t want to give you up, either.”

  “But what about us being a perfect match? If we are, why do we disagree on everything?” He hadn’t heard Grace laugh many times, but he’d observed that when she did, she made a cackling sound. She cackled. “What’s amusing?”

  “When it comes to my charts, I don’t make mistakes. I’ve helped you all I’m going to. Figure out what you’re doing wrong. Oh…and send me an invitation to the wedding.”

  He hung up. No help there.

  He paced the floor, cracking nuts as he walked. There was Inger in Germany. He could invite her for a visit and arrange for Susan to know about it. He mused over that for a while. No. It wouldn’t work. Not enough time. Besides, Susan would give him back his ring, she’d be so mad. He telephoned Grady, thinking that he’d better tell him not to expect a wedding.

  Grady listened to his brother’s tale of woe without comment, until August stopped talking.

  “Look, man,” Grady began, “if you love her, don’t let a little argument like that break you up.”

  August didn’t consider it a little thing and told him that. “The first six months is supposed to be a bonding time for mother and baby, but that can’t happen if the mother is one place and the baby somewhere else.”

  Grady did his own thinking, August learned, when he said, “Think, August. Could you stay away from your office half a year or more and not create problems for yourself?”

  “Sure I could. I’m part owner of that firm.”

  “Then, there’s your answer. Let Susan leave a supply of milk for the baby, and you stay home with it. Kids have to bond with their father, too, don’t they?”

  “Sure they… Are you serious?”

  “You betcha. Offer her that alternative, and the loving you get will blow your head off.”

  August figured he’d missed something somewhere. He had a lot to look forward to with Susan, but he hoped to be able to keep his head intact. Le petit mort, or the little death, as the French called climax, was one thing, but to have your head blown off. He could do without that. He laughed aloud, enjoying the warmth and intimacy of their exchange. “You seem well informed about these matters,” he told Grady, though he was actually asking him what he’d been doing for the last twenty years.

  “The school of hard knocks, brother. If you pay careful attention to your surroundings, you won’t have to experience it to know it.”

  “When are you coming up?”

  “Week after next. I figure you’ll have things settled with Susan by then, and we’ll be able to spend some time together.” They agreed on the date and time of Grady’s arrival, and hung up.

  Grace unlocked the back door of her taxi, but August opened the front door and sat beside her. He’d never cared for Grace’s highway driving, so he sat where the chances were best that she’d keep her eyes on the road while talking and not on the rearview mirror.

  “For a man who’s watching his lifelong dreams come true, you certainly do look sour today, Mr. Jackson. ’Course it’s not my business, but you and Susan are acting foolish, if you’ll pardon me. Ain’t nothing going to go wrong, believe me, so just enjoy your brother and don’t worry.” For as long as he could remember, he’d had unshakable faith in God, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Democrats in that order. Now, Grace Andrews Lamont wanted her name added to that list of icons, was hinting that he ought to consider her and her charts infallible. On the basis of what he’d seen of her work so far, he couldn’t do it.

  “You were on the button about Grady, but so far you’re fifty percent wrong about Susan and me.”

  “Impatience and failure are bosom buddies, Mr. Jackson. February fourteenth is still ten days away.” He flinched. A nineteen seventy-something Buick lumbered across their path, and Grace didn’t appear to have seen it.

  “Grace, I am where I am today because I’ve made it a policy never to spend money before I get it in my hand. Susan has drawn a line, and won’t budge past it. She has her principles, and I have mine. I’ll believe you’re right when I see my signature beside hers on a marriage certificate.” He slapped his right hand against his forehead. “Grace, will you please keep your eyes on the highway?” he pleaded, as she turned fully toward him.

  “Well, don’t say I didn’t tell you. My record is perfect.”
She pulled up to the curb and turned to him. “You’re never going to give her up. Never.”

  Never was a very long time. He saw from the incoming flight board that Grady’s plane had landed. He didn’t know if he’d ever become accustomed to the happiness that nearly overwhelmed him, to the sensation of walking on air that he got whenever it hit him that his search was over, that Grady was once more in his life. He found him at the baggage carousel retrieving his luggage. Grady had been reaching for a bag, but when he saw August, he let the bag go by, raced over to August and embraced him.

  “I can’t get used to this,” Grady said. “Believe me, I’m praying this isn’t one of those recurring dreams that I’ve had for the last twenty-six years.” They collected Grady’s luggage and found Grace standing beside the cab. August introduced them.

  “No need for that. Anybody can see the resemblance.” She spoke to Grady. “You here to be best man?”

  “Well…sure,” Grady answered, his tone indicating uncertainty as to how much she knew and that he was picking his way.

  “I’m the one that got them together,” she boasted. “I did it on the basis of my charts, so I know all about them.”

  August learned that his brother’s sense of humor was probably equal to his own when Grady replied, “Everything? Why, August, I’m surprised.” Laughter bubbled up in August’s throat and he let it peal forth. Oh, the joy of laughing with his brother.

  “Another naughty one, I see,” Grace said, when she could control her cackling.

  “I need to stop by and see Susan,” August told Grace, who made the trip from LaGuardia airport to Susan’s office building in record time.

  “You and Grady wait here. I shouldn’t be long.”

  August strode into the lobby, glanced at the cold and uninviting white marbled columns and walls and stopped. The silent reception area, desolate but for the lone guard, a gray-haired old man in a gold braided blue coat, suggested the interior of a tomb. He resisted the urge to go back to the taxi and to his brother, whom he knew would welcome him, and walked slowly toward the elevator. He walked in, but couldn’t force himself to push the button for the thirty-second floor. How far was he willing to go, and what was he willing to concede? Grady had implied that if he loved her, he’d better be prepared to make concessions. Maybe that was it. She’d been wedged deep inside of him almost from the minute he first saw her, and he needed her, wanted her badly; that was incontestable. Still…might as well be honest; he was crazy about her. He didn’t know of a word for what he felt other than love and, if he gave her up, he didn’t think he could accept another man’s having a claim on her. He pushed the button with his fist and watched the floor numbers as the elevator quickly took him to her.

  Susan hated that she’d had to announce to her staff that she wouldn’t be taking a two-week vacation, wasn’t getting married, and wasn’t changing her ritzy Eightieth Street address. But she’d done it with head high, never once revealing the gut-searing pain that seemed to tear her into pieces when she thought of August. It didn’t surprise her that, within an hour, Oscar Hicks and Craig Smallens, one of the senior partners, knocked on her office door. She could only describe Oscar’s facial expression as a cross between a smirk and panic, while Craig wore the look of a man who had gambled and lost. She hadn’t thought that Craig didn’t want her as a partner and wondered what else she’d missed.

  “To what do I owe this high-level visit?” she asked, looking at Craig who made it a policy to speak with subordinates in his office, never in theirs. Craig put both hands on her desk and leaned forward.

  “Apart from competence, what we insist upon most in senior partners, Susan, is dependability.” She got up, walked over to the window and relaxed against it. She couldn’t tell him not to lean on her desk, but she didn’t have to sit there while he did it.

  “Why are you telling me that? I have a flawless record. There isn’t a man working here who can say, as I can, that he’s never fluffed or lost a case, never missed a day, and never arrived here late. In fact, I’m the most dependable person around here.”

  Craig’s silence and careless shrug told her that it wasn’t his war, that he was supporting Oscar, though she couldn’t figure out why. Emboldened by Craig’s presence, Oscar stepped forward and assumed the same stance as the senior partner at his side.

  “You didn’t really intend to marry Jackson, did you?” He bared his teeth and warmed up to his nastiness. “Or maybe it was the other way around.” Susan’s anger at their audacity dissipated. A couple of little bullies. She smiled and tossed her head disdainfully. If Craig knew how sickening his cologne was, maybe he’d switch to a cheaper brand. She let her nose tell him what she thought of it, as she gave his direction an unappreciative sniff and moved farther away. Thank God, August let his skin speak for itself. She couldn’t imagine him applying a scent to his body. A giggle escaped her, bringing raised eyebrows and gestures of annoyance from the two men. August with that dreadful cologne…? Laughter welled up in her and refused to be suppressed.

  “You think we’re amusing? Have you forgotten who I am?” Craig asked, as the vein in his neck expanded with the passing seconds and the pace of his breathing accelerated. A couple of months earlier, the scene would have distressed her, Susan reflected, and she couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t concerned.

  “How could I?” she asked in a respectful tone, and added, “you aren’t the kind of person that anyone forgets.” Let him stew on that one. She knew that Oscar—why was she always tempted to call him Iago?—would point out the mischief in her seemingly innocuous remark.

  “You think because you’re tied to Jackson the rest of us will push your broom, do you?” Oscar sneered.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Oscar.”

  “Of course you do—you think you’ve got us across a barrel, because he hires some of the best criminal lawyers and criminologists in the state. You never intended to marry him. You just wanted us to know that you knew him and that you can count on him to get you whatever you want.”

  “Oh, she intended to marry him, all right,” Craig said, “that is, as long as he didn’t get in the way of the almighty partnership. But he didn’t spring for it. He gave her the choice of being Mrs. Jackson or Miss Wall Street, and she took the latter. You surprised me, Susan. I was sure he’d win. Can’t have your cake and eat it, too. And especially not with a man like August Jackson, or don’t you know his reputation?”

  “If any of this was your business, I would discuss it,” Susan said, reaching within herself for the strength to maintain her poise, “but it isn’t. Now would you please excuse me?”

  August had heard more than enough as he’d stood at the door. He opened his palms, looked down at the deep creases embedded in them from the pressure of his nails and walked in, taking them all by surprise.

  “Susan can have her cake and eat it, too, Smallens,” he said, standing toe to toe with the man. “Is there a stipulation in your partnership contract that prohibits your taking extended leave for any reason? Is there?”

  “Oh my, August, I didn’t see you,” Susan said, her face aglow as she looked at him. He walked over to her, kissed her cheek and stood beside her.

  “Is there?” he repeated, locking his gaze with Craig’s until the man looked elsewhere.

  “Well, no, but men don’t get pregnant.”

  August shifted his stance. “I figured that was the reason for the illegal game you’re playing, attempting to deprive her of her rights. You guys know the law. As vice president of Pine and Jackson, let me tell you that you’re engaging in major discrimination here, fellows. You’ll lose a bundle, and Susan will get that partnership and a leave of absence, if that’s what she wants.” He looked at Susan for confirmation. With her arms folded beneath her breasts and her head tilted away from him, she gazed in his eyes. He sucked in his breath and fought to control his reaction to her. Stunning. Beautiful. The center of his life. He smiled, but her eyes didn’t light
up, and he didn’t see that crinkle at the side of her mouth. Susan was not pleased with him. He looked back in Craig Smallens’ direction, but both men had left.

  “Don’t expect me to thank you, August. I can take care of Oscar and Craig.”

  He walked back and closed the door. “That’s not what I heard and saw. They were doing a thorough job of intimidating you.”

  “They were trying, throwing their weight around, seeing how far they could go. You said yourself that the agreement Craig tried to impose on me was illegal.”

  He didn’t like what he heard. “Then you knew that clause couldn’t be enforced. So where was the conflict?”

  “Don’t get off of the subject. That’s not the issue here. You shouldn’t have interfered. I’ve been handling my affairs in this office for six years without difficulty. You were out of line.” He wanted to shake her. Hug her. Love her. He took a few steps closer and glared at her.

  “Out of line? I’m supposed to stand by and smile while two bullies crowd my woman.”

  “I’m not your woman.” He took another step closer.

  “You are. Period.” If he’d made an impression, she didn’t show it.

  “You may protect me anywhere you like except on the thirty-second floor of this building. On this floor and in this office,” she told him, poking her right index finger at his chest, “I fight my own battles. You might have meant well but, next time, please use some of your famous self-restraint.”

  “Well, I’m not sorry and I will not apologize.” He couldn’t help grinning at her cool office posture. He could see right through it, straight to the hot woman she was when he got her in his arms. “I’ll bet Smallens drops that nonsense, and that six months from now, you’ll be a full partner.” She still hadn’t softened.

  “August, how would you react if I charged into your office and challenged your female colleagues? Wouldn’t you be embarrassed?”

  He knew it would aggravate her, but he couldn’t help laughing. He wouldn’t mind a bit if some of the women in his office accepted that he wasn’t available.