Sealed with a promise

by Mary Margret Daughtridge

  “Go in­to the kit­c­hen and po­ur yo­ur­self so­me cof­fee,” she di­rec­ted firmly.

  “I’m sorry-” he stam­me­red.

  “Accep­ted,” she snap­ped. “Go get so­me cof­fee.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Can I bring you so­me?”

  She ac­k­now­led­ged that he was now on his go­od be­ha­vi­or with a small ap­pro­ving nod, whi­le she sa­id co­ol­ly, “I’ll get so­me la­ter, thank you.”

  Ca­leb, he­aring the­ir vo­ices, ap­pe­ared in the li­ving ro­om do­or­way. With a lo­ok he dis­pat­c­hed Davy.

  In so­me pri­va­te cor­ner of her mind Em­mie ad­mi­red the un­qu­es­ti­oned po­wer with which he did it, but ad­mi­ra­ti­on was not up­per­most in her mind. Right now, she had so­met­hing to say, and she was go­ing to say it.

  Chapter 16

  Do- Lord wat­c­hed the slen­der wo­man des­cend the last few steps of the sta­ir­ca­se. Her ba­re fe­et ma­de no so­und, and as the hu­gely over­si­zed bat­h­ro­be drag­ged on the Ori­en­tal run­ner, it ope­ned with each step to ex­po­se sha­pely an­k­les and nar­row fe­et. The rich reds and blue jewel to­nes of the car­pet set off the tran­s­lu­cent por­ce­la­in whi­te­ness of her skin.

  He wasn’t a fo­ot man.

  He tho­ught men who fi­xa­ted on one or anot­her part of wo­men we­re stran­ge.

  He co­uldn’t be­li­eve how tho­se whi­te, al­most de­li­ca­te-lo­oking fe­et, with to­es and so­le a sha­de of pink he’d only se­en on the in­si­de of a shell, tur­ned him on. But the ste­ely lo­ok in her wi­de light blue eyes con­vin­ced him this wasn’t the mo­ment to tell her so.

  “A pity fuck?” she en­qu­ired co­ol­ly, one slen­der hand res­ting on the ne­wel post. “That’s what I was? Did you think you we­re do­ing yo­ur go­od de­ed for the day?

  “Do SE­ALs get me­rit bad­ges for sac­ri­fi­cing yo­ur­sel­ves to ma­ke a girl’s day? Oh, no,” she an­s­we­red her own qu­es­ti­on, “that wo­uld be juve­ni­le- you get a rib­bon, may­be a shiny me­dal.” She des­cen­ded the last step. “Do you ha­ve a ce­re­mony ac­com­pa­ni­ed with bac­k­s­lap­ping and arm-pun­c­hing for me­ri­to­ri­o­us fuc­king abo­ve and be­yond the call of duty? Or do you just earn eno­ugh snig­ger-rights to ke­ep yo­ur ar­ro­gan­ce fluf­fed to ma­xi­mum?”

  Wa­it a mi­nu­te. She had a right to be an­g­ry-Davy’s re­mark wo­uld be in­sul­ting to any wo­man, even if it was true. He was wil­ling to let her get it off her chest, but she had go­ne too far. “I’m not ar­ro­gant.”

  Emmie sta­red at him, her mo­uth open, her wi­de clo­ud-co­lo­red eyes tran­s­fi­xed. Then she la­ug­hed. “If you think that, you’re not me­rely ar­ro­gant, you’re an ar­ro­gant idi­ot. And a jerk. Or wo­uld jerk be re­dun­dant? I’m af­ra­id it wo­uld. Why don’t I ever ha­ve a the­sa­urus when I ne­ed one? Wa­it! I co­uld still use jerk if I used a co­lon. ‘Arro­gant idi­ot co­lon a jerk.’”

  He knew what she was do­ing. Di­sap­pe­aring in­to her he­ad. Wrap­ping her­self with the clo­ak of aca­de­me. It ac­cu­sed him as not­hing el­se co­uld ha­ve. Ha­ving her cas­ti­ga­te him li­ke a fi­ery qu­e­en was bad eno­ugh, but wat­c­hing her se­em to fa­de away as if she was tur­ning her­self in­to a ghost was wor­se.

  The­re was just eno­ugh truth in her ac­cu­sa­ti­ons to he­at his che­eks. Not that he had tho­ught she was pi­ti­ab­le, but he had tho­ught she pro­bably didn’t get much-and ye­ah, so­me go­od sex wo­uld pro­bably be go­od for her. So he didn’t ne­ed to fe­el gu­ilty if he se­du­ced her to get what he wan­ted. She wasn’t go­ing to get hurt, and he’d ma­ke su­re she got so­met­hing out of the de­al- that was mo­re his tho­ught. He’d as­su­red him­self she’d be wil­ling, and she’d enj­oy it.

  But he had hurt her, ne­ver in­ten­ding to. He was too much a SE­AL to push the res­pon­si­bi­lity off on Davy’s tho­ug­h­t­less re­mark. It was his ac­ti­ons which Davy had in­ter­p­re­ted by his own stan­dards that oc­ca­si­oned it.

  She hadn’t do­ne an­y­t­hing to de­ser­ve ca­re­less tre­at­ment. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t wit­h­d­raw. I li­ked you bet­ter spit­ting eru­di­te sar­casm.” He grin­ned. “Actu­al­ly, ‘me­ri­to­ri­o­us fuc­king’ was pretty go­od.”

  Emmie’s lips ope­ned in ama­ze­ment, and a flush of an­ger re­tur­ned to her che­eks. “You ha­ve the ner­ve to tell me when you li­ked me bet­ter?”

  That was mo­re li­ke it. God, she was pretty with her che­eks glo­wing and her eyes spar­k­ling. He threw a lit­tle mo­re gas on the fla­mes with a cocky smi­le. “What can I say? Us ar­ro­gant jerks are li­ke that.”

  “Well, I li­ked you bet­ter when I didn’t know you at all.”

  For the first ti­me, one of her barbs lan­ded in an un­p­ro­tec­ted spot. It was ama­zing how sharp it stung. “That’s not true.”

  In wor­d­less ac­k­now­led­ge­ment that she had be­en go­aded in­to sa­ying mo­re than she me­ant. Em­mie lo­oked away. “So,” she sa­id, her eyes not qu­ite me­eting his for the first ti­me, “You didn’t get yo­ur fuck, did you? Now, that’s a pity. Will you cry all the way to the ba­se? No, you’ll pro­bably go be­at so­me­body up. Mo­re manly, you know.”

  Every ope­ra­ti­on go­es to shit thirty se­conds af­ter it hits the gro­und. Sta­ying fle­xib­le and re­mem­be­ring the obj­ec­ti­ve was the key. And if you we­ren’t go­ing to re­ach the obj­ec­ti­ve, but you we­re go­ing to get yo­ur ta­il shot off trying, the smart co­ur­se of ac­ti­on was to pull back.

  On the ot­her hand, SE­ALs suc­ce­eded by go­ing in whe­re no­body in the­ir right mind wo­uld. “Do­es this me­an you’re not go­ing to ha­ve sex with me?”

  Emmie ra­ised her eyes he­aven­ward. “I do not be­li­eve yo­ur auda­city! No!”

  “Okay, do­es it me­an you won’t go to Cal­ho­un’s open ho­use with me?”

  For a mo­ment Em­mie co­uldn’t re­mem­ber what he was tal­king abo­ut. In her opi­ni­on, Cal­ho­un hadn’t me­ant the in­vi­ta­ti­on, and she hadn’t me­ant her ac­cep­tan­ce. It was just one of tho­se con­ver­sa­ti­onal forms, be­lo­ved by So­ut­her­ners, li­ke “Y’all co­me back!” She had dis­mis­sed it. Ap­pa­rently, Ca­leb hadn’t. She was tem­p­ted to say “no” just to spi­te him.

  Then a bet­ter idea ca­me to her. Her he­art chug­ged in­to a dif­fe­rent rhythm. If she was shoc­ked by Ca­leb’s auda­city, she was stun­ned by her own. The who­le idea be­hind a pity fuck was that the girl was sup­po­sed to be abj­ectly gra­te­ful for be­ing used.

  She re­mem­be­red the dress last night and the way mem­bers of Ca­leb’s te­am had gro­uped abo­ut her. She re­mem­be­red the rush of fe­mi­ni­ne po­wer. Her gran­d­mot­her used to tell her that be­a­uty was only skin de­ep. Yes­ter­day, she fo­und out her gran­d­mot­her was mis­ta­ken. Be­a­uty was now­he­re ne­ar as de­ep as skin. It co­uld be pa­in­ted on with a brush.

  She al­so re­mem­be­red the sus­pi­ci­on that Lon and Davy we­re her­ding her and that Ca­leb had ac­ted li­ke he was sta­king a cla­im she had ne­ver ag­re­ed to. Had she not had yes­ter­day’s ex­pe­ri­en­ce, she wo­uld ha­ve be­en crus­hed this mor­ning. In­s­te­ad, she was mad, and she tho­ught it wo­uld be ni­ce to gi­ve this SE­AL a lit­tle tas­te of his own me­di­ci­ne. It wo­uld be ni­ce to ha­ve him im­por­tu­ning her. He co­uld beg for her fa­vors-and then she’d ma­ke it cle­ar that she knew she co­uld do bet­ter. No. Be­ing de­li­be­ra­tely cru­el wasn’t in her. But she wo­uld enj­oy tel­ling him no.

  She fin­ge­red the bat­h­ro­be’s bulky la­pel. “I ha­ven’t de­ci­ded yet. Why don’t you gi­ve me a call next we­ek?”

  “Are you pla­ying ga­mes now?”

  “Why sho­uldn’t I? You’ve be�
�en pla­ying so­me kind of ga­me with me sin­ce you met me.”

  “If I call, are you go­ing to say yes?”

  Emmie was tem­p­ted to gi­ve up the ga­me. She was ta­king a risk by up­ping the sta­kes. He might not call. He might de­ci­de she wasn’t worth the tro­ub­le. If it hadn’t be­en for that ar­ro­gant lo­ok, that as­su­ran­ce in his lazy, smi­ling drawl that he al­re­ady knew the an­s­wer, she wo­uld ha­ve. As it was, she ga­ve him what she ho­ped was a myste­ri­o­us smi­le. “You’ll ha­ve to call to find out, won’t you?”

  Chapter 17

  Back in the bed­ro­om she’d sta­yed in so of­ten ever­yo­ne re­fer­red to it as “Emmie’s ro­om,” Em­mie sta­red at her­self in the mir­ror. She hardly re­cog­ni­zed the wo­man who sta­red back at her with eyes that glit­te­red dan­ge­ro­usly abo­ve ma­gen­ta-sp­lot­c­hed che­eks. She co­uldn’t re­mem­ber ever be­ing so fu­ri­o­us. Ever. Fury that ma­de her eye­bal­ls sting and her scalp tig­h­ten and ma­de her draw in air in gre­at gulps.

  She was angry, and when she lo­oked back she co­uld see she’d be­en angry a long, long ti­me. She was angry at Davy and Ca­leb and all the jocks li­ke them who be­li­eved she sho­uld be gra­te­ful they de­ig­ned to no­ti­ce her. Angry at her con­ni­ving clas­sma­tes who vi­ed to be her lab par­t­ner be­ca­use wor­king with her gu­aran­te­ed an A, but who co­uldn’t see her in the ca­fe­te­ria. Angry at her gran­d­mot­her for not let­ting her dress li­ke the ot­her girls, for tel­ling her it was only ne­ces­sary that her dress be cle­an and mo­dest and ple­asing to the Lord, and at all the pe­op­le over the ye­ars who had tre­ated her as if she didn’t mat­ter.

  She had con­vin­ced her­self that she dres­sed to ple­ase her­self and didn’t ca­re what an­yo­ne el­se tho­ught. Her in­dif­fe­ren­ce had be­en a ca­ra­pa­ce she’d grown to pro­tect her vul­ne­rab­le in­si­de, to con­ta­in her an­ger, and al­so to hi­de it from her­self.

  And she was angry at her­self. For pre­ten­ding that not ta­king part in li­fe was her cho­ice. She, who had be­li­eved her prob­lem was her ho­nesty and her ina­bi­lity to see the po­int of pre­ten­ding- she had be­en lying. She had told her­self the be­a­uty ga­me was a com­pe­ti­ti­on, and be­ing cho­sen was an il­lu­si­on ba­sed on shal­low va­lu­es. She had told her­self she was abo­ve the fray, when in truth, she’d be­en too co­wardly to en­ter it.

  As of this mor­ning that wo­uld chan­ge. An­yo­ne who saw her from now on wo­uld re­cog­ni­ze she was a wo­man to be rec­ko­ned with. She didn’t lack a gir­lie ge­ne. That was anot­her lie. She had mo­re than eno­ugh in­tel­li­gen­ce to bring abo­ut her tran­s­for­ma­ti­on by her­self. Even­tu­al­ly. She was on a de­ad­li­ne, un­for­tu­na­tely. She had only two we­eks, and Pic­kett was on her ho­ney­mo­on. For­tu­na­tely, she knew a per­son who had all the know­led­ge she lac­ked. Gra­ce.

  Emmie ne­ver do­ub­ted that Gra­ce wo­uld help her. Not­hing wo­uld ple­ase Gra­ce mo­re than to ma­ke a pro­j­ect of her. Her fe­ar was that if she ma­de her­self Gra­ce’s dis­cip­le, Gra­ce wo­uld be­li­eve she had car­te blan­c­he to com­p­le­tely ta­ke over her li­fe. It was a risk that had to be ta­ken.

  A co­up­le of ho­urs la­ter Em­mie fo­und Gra­ce in the li­ving ro­om or­ga­ni­zing the wed­ding gifts. The­re was no ti­me li­ke the pre­sent. Em­mie’s new­fo­und ner­ve wo­uld only stretch so far. She ig­no­red the way her he­art was po­un­ding.

  “Gra­ce, can I talk to you?” Her vo­ice ca­me out a wobbly whis­per.

  “Su­re.” Gra­ce an­s­we­red ab­sently whi­le she ca­re­ful­ly num­be­red the tag on a pre­sent, and be­si­de the cor­res­pon­ding num­ber on a led­ger, wro­te the na­me of the gi­ver. Pic­kett wo­uld open the gifts in or­der, and a des­c­rip­ti­on of the gift wo­uld be en­te­red in the led­ger. “In a mi­nu­te. Just let me get the­se-”

  “Gra­ce,” Em­mie tri­ed aga­in. “Can I talk to you right now-in pri­va­te?”

  Gra­ce lo­oked up, puz­zled. As well she might. Now that she co­uld tell her­self the truth, Em­mie co­uld ad­mit how much Gra­ce had al­ways in­ti­mi­da­ted her. She felt “we­ig­hed in the ba­lan­ce and fo­und wan­ting” by Gra­ce, and had be­en mo­re li­kely to duck Gra­ce’s no­ti­ce, than to de­mand it. “I ne­ed a ma­ke­over.”

  Gra­ce’s eyes lit with joy. Then dim­med with do­ubt. “But, Em­mie, why?”

  Emmie knew what she was as­king. Why af­ter all the­se ye­ars? Why af­ter the dis­c­re­et hints, ca­re­ful­ly wor­ded sug­ges­ti­ons, and out­right in­s­t­ruc­ti­ons, all of which Em­mie had ig­no­red? Em­mie co­uldn’t pos­sibly tell her the re­al re­ason, so she of­fe­red the one she had set­tled on-a re­ason Gra­ce wo­uld ac­cept and be flat­te­red by.

  “The bri­des­ma­id dress you cho­se for me, the ha­ir, the ma­ke­up, was all per­fect. I didn’t know, if I did what you sa­id, I co­uld lo­ok li­ke that.”

  Gra­ce cle­arly saw no ne­ed to dis­pu­te that, but still she ga­ve Em­mie a hard lo­ok over the lit­tle gold re­ading glas­ses she used the­se days. “You’re not very go­od at ta­king di­rec­ti­ons. If I ag­ree to do this, will you ac­tu­al­ly do what I say? Or will you find ex­cu­ses not to? Will you ar­gue abo­ut every step?”

  “No ex­cu­ses,” Em­mie ag­re­ed. “I will put myself in yo­ur hands and do as you say.”

  Emmie reg­ret­ted that pro­mi­se less than two ho­urs la­ter when Gra­ce pul­led her Le­xus in­to a par­king spa­ce in front of a lin­ge­rie bo­uti­que. They’d dri­ven all the way to Ra­le­igh, the ne­arest lar­ge city, to find a pla­ce that ca­me up to Gra­ce’s stan­dards.

  “Um, Gra­ce, do we ha­ve to do this? I pro­mi­se I’ll buy an­y­t­hing you tell me to, but I’d rat­her do it in pri­va­te.”

  “Fin­ding the right style for yo­ur fi­gu­re type is all abo­ut co­ve­ring up yo­ur flaws and hig­h­lig­h­ting yo­ur go­od po­ints. For­tu­na­tely for you, you don’t ha­ve any re­al fi­gu­re flaws. We’re ma­inly lo­oking for clot­hes that fit.”

  Emmie in­ter­rup­ted her. “I don’t un­der­s­tand. You didn’t men­ti­on my bre­asts.”

  “What abo­ut them?”

  “I tho­ught co­ve­ring up my flaws was what I was do­ing.”

  “By bu­ying clot­hes that we­re too big?”

  “The clot­hes aren’t too big. My bre­asts are.”

  Gra­ce ga­ve Em­mie a long what pla­net are you from lo­ok. Em­mie had be­en get­ting them all her li­fe. She had eno­ugh ex­pe­ri­en­ce to know an­y­t­hing el­se she sa­id wo­uld ma­ke her lo­ok even stu­pi­der.

  “Fit,” Gra­ce went back to ex­po­un­ding on her the­me as if Em­mie’s qu­es­ti­on ne­ver hap­pe­ned, “except for ra­il-thin mo­dels, is a mat­ter of ha­ving on the right un­der­gar­ments. In ot­her words, you ne­ed bras. With yo­ur sho­ul­der, you’re not go­ing to last thro­ugh a lot of tri­al and er­ror, whi­le we lo­ok for the right ones. This shop has the best fit­ter I know.” Gra­ce ma­de her to­ne a lit­tle kin­der. “I know you ha­ve mo­desty is­su­es. But you know, you ha­ven’t be­en tas­te­ful­ly co­ve­ring yo­ur body, you’ve be­en ob­li­te­ra­ting it. The fact that you ha­ve a sha­pe has got to be de­alt with. Think of it as go­ing to the doc­tor- but not as bad. No stir­rups.”

  It was an aw­ful day, but when it was over Em­mie was the ow­ner of three bras that we­re ama­zingly com­for­tab­le. Even she co­uld see that with them on, blo­uses didn’t ga­pe, and su­it jac­kets co­uld be but­to­ned wit­ho­ut bun­c­hing un­der the arms. Even tho­ugh sa­id blo­uses and jac­kets we­re one or two si­zes smal­ler than what she was used to we­aring.

  “Inten­se co­lors over­w­helm you,” Gra­ce pro­no­un­ced, “which is why you’ve in­s­tin­c­ti­vely shi­ed away from them. But that do­esn�
��t me­an you ha­ve to li­mit yo­ur­self to be­ige. And no, you don’t ha­ve to we­ar gir­lish pas­tels. What we will lo­ok for are mu­ted sha­des-ro­se and he­at­her, plum rat­her than pur­p­le, de­nim blu­es.”

  After an ex­ha­us­ti­ve and rut­h­less dis­cus­si­on of Em­mie’s go­od po­ints and flaws, she la­id out her plan. “The most im­por­tant thing is to em­p­ha­si­ze yo­ur go­od po­ints. You ha­ve per­fect skin-even tho­ugh you do ab­so­lu­tely not­hing to ma­in­ta­in it, and you ha­ve go­od legs. We can’t do much shop­ping right now, be­ca­use of yo­ur arm. But I’m de­ter­mi­ned to find a car­di­gan swe­ater or two, to we­ar with slacks and skirts. So­met­hing that dis­c­re­etly shows off yo­ur bus­t­li­ne. Af­ter yo­ur arm he­als we’ll get so­me pul­lo­ver tops you can we­ar un­der them.”

  “All right,” Gra­ce sa­id at last. “We ha­ve as many out­fits as it’s re­aso­nab­le to buy un­til yo­ur sho­ul­der is bet­ter. The next thing is to de­ci­de how to ha­ve a few tri­al runs. I know on TV they do the big dra­ma­tic re­ve­al, but that’s not re­al­ly the best way. It’s bet­ter to try out a new lo­ok in a low pres­su­re en­vi­ron­ment. You want to get com­for­tab­le with the un­fa­mi­li­ar clot­hes and pe­op­le’s re­ac­ti­ons so that when it’s cru­ci­al to lo­ok go­od you won’t tran­s­mit ner­vo­us­ness. I sug­gest Aunt Lilly Ha­le’s ho­me­co­ming. I know she al­ways in­vi­tes you,” Gra­ce ad­ded be­fo­re Em­mie co­uld obj­ect.

  “But it’s a fa­mily re­uni­on.”

  “So? You are fa­mily,” Gra­ce pro­no­un­ced with sub­li­me dis­re­gard for the facts. “Emmie, don’t ma­ke me get ugly with you. It’s per­fect. The­re won’t be an­yo­ne the­re you ne­ed to im­p­ress.”

  “Let’s see if we can find so­me lef­to­vers in Mom’s ref­ri­ge­ra­tor-if we can fa­ce tur­key aga­in,” Gra­ce sa­id as she ope­ned the front do­or to her mot­her’s ho­use with her key. She had cal­led her hus­band from the car to tell him to fe­ed him­self and the­ir te­ena­ge sons. “Mom, we’re he­re.”