The last place she ever thought she’d be sitting was behind a microphone, giving advice to the lovelorn of Washington, D.C. She had a doctorate in psychology from George Washington University, for heaven’s sake. But at the time her bank account had definitely dropped a few digits, and going back to private practice, getting calls from her offbeat patients all times of the day or night, was not at the top of her list of things to do. So she’d gone for the interview and never knew if she was hired because they were desperate to fill the time slot or because of her credentials—but here she was, a female Frasier Crane. Does it get any better than this? she thought, sarcasm dripping through her brain.
Leslie gave her the five-second countdown and her theme song, “’Round Midnight,” the Dexter Gordon version, began to play. She slipped the headphones over her sculpted haircut and leaned toward the mic.
“Welcome to my world,” she said in her standard sultry greeting. “You’ve just tuned in to ’Round Midnight, the only place for late-night talk with a dash of soul. This is Summer Lane, hoping to give you the answers you’re looking for. Tonight our topic is respect. How to get it and how to keep it. Think about it for a minute while we listen to Dru Hill’s ‘Sleepin’ in My Bed.’ Then I’ll be taking your calls.”
Tre Holland, the program director, saw the ON AIR light go out over the control room door. He was tempted to pop inside for a moment and say hello. It would be the decent thing to do, since Summer was the one who was carrying the ratings for the station these days—a phenomenon he could not understand. Why in the world would people tune in to some of the nonsense that came across the airwaves? He still couldn’t figure out why someone who looked as good as Summer and who, according to the station owner, had degrees up the “yin-yang,” would be sitting up in some radio station dishing out advice to all the nuts who called her show. Maybe she was just a little crazy, he thought—probably the reason why she only half spoke to people or practically looked right through you if you said anything to her, like she was trying to peer into your soul or something. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d lied and said, “Good show—” since he actually never listened to it—and all he ever got was a vague “Thank you.” Then she’d walk right past him like he wasn’t there.
And what kind of name was Summer anyway?
The ON AIR light lit up over the control room door.
Too late now. Oh well, can’t say a brother didn’t try. He turned sideways to get past one of the audio technicians and walked down the corridor to his office.
Summer knew he was standing there watching her. He did that sometimes, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of turning around. She’d already concluded that he was the distant sort, the type of man who was difficult to get through to. He’d probably been hurt by his parents as a child, shunned or ignored, which made him somewhat reclusive but still able to function well on the outside. She sighed, realizing that she was “doing it again,” as her best friend, Kia, would say. “If you wouldn’t spend so much time psychoanalyzing every man you meet, maybe they’d hang around long enough for you to find out what they’re really like.”
That’s what she was afraid of—realizing too far down the line, after she’d gotten her feelings all tangled up with some man, only to discover that they were just like the kind of man the women kept calling her about. She didn’t need that. But all the books, scientific studies, and clinical labels didn’t keep her warm at night.
Tick-tock.
“We’re back, and we have Jean on the phone,” Summer said into the mic. “Jean, what’s your idea of respect in a relationship?”
Jean began rambling on about the two men in her life and how she tried to be the best woman she could be to the both of them, but couldn’t understand why they kept treating her so bad.
Summer wondered how this woman was able to juggle two men, and she didn’t even have one to call her own. “Maybe if you were honest with them, you could get some honesty back. But, Jean, how can you expect to gain their respect if you’re lying and cheating?” Summer asked.
“But I like them both,” she protested.
“Do they both know that you’re seeing someone else?”
“No.”
“That’s part of the problem. You need to set the record straight. You only get as good as you give, and that’s pretty hard to do when you have to split yourself down the middle. Let’s listen to Anita Baker’s ‘Giving You the Best That I Got.’ Sister knows just what I mean.”
She slipped off the headphones for a moment, stood and stretched. It was going to be one of those nights; she could feel it in her bones. She looked down at the phone lines. All eight of them were flashing, waiting for their turn to lay their problems on her, waiting for her to give them some miracle cure in their allotted three minutes.
Did she really ever help anyone? At least with her regular patients she could track their progress over a number of prescribed sessions. With this…you just never knew unless they called back, which was rare. Sometimes it all seemed so futile and pointless. She felt like such a fraud, like one of those roadside doctors who had a cure for everything in one of those little brown bottles.
Yet, as much as she sometimes doubted her effectiveness, they kept calling. So she must be doing something right. Or maybe they just liked the music she attached to their problem, which of course was the hook to the whole show. Sometimes she really had to dig deep to find the correlation between the caller’s problem and the playlist. But she hadn’t spent a fortune on her education to be a dummy. If there was one thing she was good at, it was thinking up something quickly to fit the situation. She’d mastered that unique skill in about the second grade, when she had to start coming up with explanations for why her parents never showed up for open school and class trips. She couldn’t very well tell the teachers that her parents fought so much she could never get a word in edgewise to let them know what was happening in school. So invariably her sanitation worker father became the out of town corporate executive and her waitress mother was—to anyone who asked—the social butterfly involved in one of her major charity events and “couldn’t possibly get away.” Just thinking about Pat and Thomas Lane gave her a headache. It was a good thing they finally had sense enough, after seventeen years, to go their separate merry ways. She’d have a field day if she ever got one of them on her little couch.
Anita belted out her last alto note, and Summer was back on the air. “For those of you just joining us, tonight’s topic is respect. I think the first step toward respect is respecting yourself and knowing what you will and will not tolerate from your significant other. How much will you take before you walk out that door? Let’s ask Gladys. Then I’ll take the next caller.”
“If I Were Your Woman” by Gladys Knight pulsed, and Summer hummed along. She took three more calls, two from very irate men who strongly believed that the demise of male-female relationships was the result of women who wanted to be on par with men and not giving men their due respect as the head of the household. The one woman caller retaliated by saying that if she was making the money and a contribution to the household, what made a man’s head any better than hers. Although on the air Summer always made a point of not taking sides, she secretly agreed with the woman. Times were changing, and women wanted their place in the world. They were just as competent as men and should be respected for their abilities. What she really thought was the problem was the man’s inability to accept that and not feel threatened by a powerful woman.
That had always been her problem, she mused, removing the headset as her theme song played in the background. All the men she’d ever been involved with felt some macho compulsion to prove that she wasn’t as smart as she thought she was. Which of course was a result of society’s definition of male-female relationships. She just wished she could run across a man who was secure enough in who he was and what he was about and not feel threatened by all the letters of the alphabet that followed her name.
Was it
her fault that she was driven, that she wanted more out of her life than to be a subservient housewife, a yes-girl? Humph, not hardly. She had no intention of turning into her mother. She needed a man who was her equal, if not educationally, at least emotionally. And most men were such babies.
She grabbed her coat from the hook, did the finger-wave thing to Leslie, and squeezed out of the control room.
Still wrapped in her train of thought, she figured male dominance would be a great topic for one of her shows. She was so involved in working out the details in her head, she almost breezed by the program director without responding to his usual “Good show” comment.
“Oh, thanks,” she mumbled as an afterthought, subconsciously taking in his tall, athletic build—that overshadowed her five-foot eight-inch height by at least a good head—and his soap and water clean scent. She angled her body slightly to the side to get by, their bodies barely brushing. For a hot flash their gazes connected, and she noticed for the first time that his eyes were the color of cinnamon. She smiled vaguely, mumbled her standard “Excuse me,” and continued down the narrow corridor.
Man, if she was overweight she’d have a real problem in this place, she thought for the zillionth time, making headway toward the exit.
Tre watched her unhurried but determined departure and had to admit he dug the way her just right hips swayed left…right as if they had their own secret beat, and wondered why he’d never noticed that before. Maybe it was because they rarely ran into each other, since he worked the overnight shift only a couple of times a month. But like all the other times, she’d barely responded and had looked at him as if he had two heads. Made him want to check a mirror or something—make sure nothing was stuck in the corner of his mouth. He was totally unaccustomed to women who virtually ignored him. He could understand the problems working relationships could cause with all the sexual harassment suits flying in and out of attorneys’ offices, but how much did it take to be civil? She never associated with anyone on the staff. He never saw her at any of the local hangouts that the radio crowd frequented. She didn’t talk much at the monthly staff meetings, but seemed to be sizing people up all the time, taking mental notes. Wonder what she jotted down on him in her trusty doctor notebook?
Maybe she was gay. That would explain why she showed no interest. That would be a waste. Regardless as to what he might think of her, the sister was fine. Almost the spitting image of that fly model, Beverly Johnson, only with short hair. Maybe she had a man and didn’t want to be bothered because the brother was the possessive type. Yeah, he liked that idea better.
He stepped into his office and crossed the room to his narrow window, which gave him a bird’s-eye view of their sorry excuse for a parking lot. She should be coming out any minute, and he wondered if someone was meeting her. There she was.
Summer stepped outside into the balmy September morning, took a quick look around the dimly lit, nearly deserted area then walked quickly to the miniature parking lot that could hold maybe six compact cars on a good day. Forget it if somebody decided to drive the family station wagon.
As she approached her gray Mercedes convertible, she pulled the car keys from her purse, took one more look around, and stuck the key in the driver’s side door. Didn’t make sense not to be careful. She’d read too many stories of women who were assaulted in deserted parking lots while they were busy fumbling for car keys in the bottomless pits of their pocketbooks.
Starting the powerful engine, she eased out of the lot, mindful of the space limitations, and pulled out into the street, her mind already on her next show.
Mercedes. Figures, he mused and turned away from the window.
Chapter 2
Just as he’d been doing for the past five years since his very ugly divorce from his high school sweetheart, Desiree, who mysteriously turned into the Wicked Witch of the East about two years into their marriage, Tre headed to his sister, Diane’s, house for Sunday dinner.
Diane had warned him about Desiree from day one, but Tre hadn’t listened. Once he got a taste of Desiree, the little dessert that all the boys at Lincoln High School were dying for, he was hooked. He had it so bad, he couldn’t see straight. Desiree knew and played him like a flute. He’d walked down that aisle and out the church door with a big stupid grin on his face.
Every time he thought about it, he wanted to smack himself upside the head for being such a fool. “Can’t nothing be that good,” Diane had said a million times. But you couldn’t tell him nothing. Nothing. At least until he came home early one day and found her in all her natural glory, tousling around in their bed with the guy from Federal Express.
When he’d pulled up to their town house and saw the truck parked outside the door, he figured Desiree had another delivery from one of her many catalog purchases. Yeah, she got a delivery all right.
At least Diane had been decent enough not to say, “I told you so,” even though it was in her eyes as bright as neon lights in Times Square, and subtly disguised in her cryptic remarks about the worthlessness of his life.
But after the divorce he was a changed man. He ran through women like old socks, never hanging around long enough to form any attachments. He liked it like that, and the women he dealt with didn’t seem to mind, except for the ones who wanted something more, something deeper. Hey, that was his cue.
But there were those few times that he felt the urge for something more, something that had meaning. Especially when he saw how happy his sister was in her marriage of fifteen years, and the two beautiful girls she and her husband, Jeff, had. He had wanted that same kind of life…once.
But getting beyond the fear he had of being hurt again was enough to keep him out of the loop, even though Diane insisted that there were plenty of good sisters out there who were looking for a good man. Like she was insisting now.
“You just need to give yourself a chance, Tre. You been running the street hard for a long time. You need to settle down.”
“Tried that, Di. Remember?” He took a sip of iced tea and peeked out of the kitchen window to see Jeff playing tag with his daughters. Something in his stomach tugged.
“We both know that Desiree was a tramp from the jump,” she said, the distaste for her former sister-in-law as potent as sucking on a lemon. “Well, at least everyone did besides you. Anyway,” she added quickly before he could get a word in, “those airheaded women you run around with are no brighter than a burnt out bulb. You need someone with some sense. A woman who can stand on her own two feet, has something of her own, and won’t need to drain the life out of you.”
“Maybe I like my life, ever think of that?” he asked without too much conviction.
Diane cut him a look from over her shoulder as she rinsed the dinner dishes and rolled her eyes. “Pleeze. Who you think you talkin’ to? You work damn near six days a week, sleep with anything that will lie down. And if some of them hussies you brought over here bring you happiness, then you need to have your head examined. ’Cause you are crazy.”
He had to laugh. If there was one thing about his big sis, she didn’t bite her tongue, said just what was on her mind, whenever, wherever, and to whomever.
“Yeah, okay.” He chuckled, settling back in the cushioned kitchen chair and stretching out his long legs. “What’s your advice this week, ‘Dear Abby?’”
“Why don’t you ask that sister at the radio station? Dr. Lane.”
He frowned, realizing that Diane had finally gone off the deep end. “What!”
She spun around and wiped her hands on a dish towel, her eyes taking on that neon glow that he knew meant trouble. She pulled out a chair from beneath the table and sat down opposite him. She leaned forward. “Why not? She’s right there. And she gives great advice.”
“Are you kidding? You listen to that nonsense?”
“Nonsense.” She straightened, totally offended. “That’s one of the few talk shows on radio or television that make sense and have class. The lady has style and a sense of humor
. You should know that. Don’t you listen to the show?”
“No.”
“Figures.” She sucked her teeth. “What does she look like, anyway? I was always curious about that. Every time I’ve seen someone from the radio, I was truly disappointed. Their looks never met the standard of their voices.”
He shrugged. “Let’s put it this way, she wouldn’t ruin your illusion.”
“Hmmm,” she hummed under her breath, watching her brother closely. “What’s she like?”
“Wouldn’t know—she doesn’t say much. She’s aloof and full of herself,” he said, thinking about her lack of response to him.
“In other words, she’s not all over you.”
He cut her a look. “No. That’s not what I mean.”
“Oh yes it is, and you can’t stand it. It’s all over that handsome face of yours.”
“There’s nothing all over my face, Di,” he insisted, but wondered what his sister did see.
She sat back in her seat and folded her arms beneath her breasts. “I still say you should talk to her. Call into the show, ask her how a man like you could find a good woman. Better yet, ask her out yourself.”
“Now you’re the one who’s crazy.” He chuckled. But he wondered…what if?
“When are you gonna get a day off girl so we can hang out?” Kia asked, running the blow dryer through her hair. “Folks have forgotten what you look like. And you need to stop hiding behind that microphone and get a life—stop worrying about everyone else for a change and concentrate on yourself. You ain’t getting any younger,” she shouted over the hum of the dryer.
Summer curled up in the corner of Kia’s bedroom lounge chair, only half listening to Kia’s ritualistic lecture. Every chance Kia got, she felt compelled to tell her how much she was missing because she didn’t have a man in her life—as if she were some example to follow. Kia Taylor was, for lack of a clinical term, “a hot mama” who lived for the sole purpose of accumulating men: old, young, rich, poor. Didn’t matter. But she had a heart of gold, which unfortunately was her downfall. The men she found herself involved with played on her kind, giving nature until they grew tired and moved on. But that obvious fact never seemed to bother Kia. She just pressed on.
Holiday Fantasy Page 10
