“I can almost understand that, Stacy. There’s a goodness, an honesty about you that makes a man feel confident, like royalty. You can’t see it, but you know it’s there.”
“I was only twenty, too young to understand that it was all a game. When the men took Lucky into their circles, Lucky took me. From Monaco to Saint Moritz, we traveled with all the rich and famous. I thought they were wonderful, wearing their tuxes and Rolex watches, driving their sports cars and spending money like it was nothing. For a time Lucky was on top of the world, and so was I.”
“What happened?”
“One night there was a high-stakes poker game. Lucky won for most of the evening, then after midnight, he started to lose. Finally he was down to his last silver dollar, and he had a winning hand. He didn’t have anything else to bet. Well, Sol, the man he was playing with, made a suggestion of what he’d accept for Lucky to call the bet.”
Sol? Gavin couldn’t decide whether it was he or Stacy who’d stiffened. He knew that name. He knew it well. Sol was the man who’d loaned Gavin the land option money, the man who wanted the car. But Sol and Stacy? In the copper light he saw her eyes closed tightly, and he knew.
“Lucky bet you?”
“No, he didn’t. He gave me the silver dollar, folded, and lost. But he thought about it, and in that moment I understood. Even in winning, Lucky lost. They all lost because they’d lost touch with honor and what was important. I came home to the cabin, to Lonnie and Grace. I never left again. Two weeks later, Lucky died—in bed with Sol’s daughter.
Gavin was stunned. He hadn’t known about Lucky’s connection to Sol. Sol, the Greek shipping magnate who had his fingers in every kind of finance worldwide, wasn’t a crook. He didn’t have to be. He had enough money to pick his financial ventures, and the clout to follow through. But Gavin knew his reputation for eventually taking over every project in which he invested.
Gavin had handled transactions for Sol in the past, so it hadn’t been a complete surprise when he’d called about some new proposition. Still, when the conversation worked itself around to Gavin’s plan, and Sol had ended up agreeing to put up money for Gavin’s project, it had come as a surprise. And it had turned out to be his only option.
But Stacy? Could Sol have known about Stacy? If so, Gavin had put her at risk. And she was worrying about her past association with a group of playboys.
“Ah, Stacy, darling. You’re not like them. Believe me, I know. You never went along with that kind of life. You’re too gentle and caring.”
“Oh no? Let me show you.”
She slid from the bed and opened the sliding doors to her closet, switching on the inside light. Hanging there were satin dinner gowns, designer dresses, boxes and boxes of matching shoes, and other clothing that Gavin had seen in the closets of other women in his past.
“I went along with what Lucky expected of me, for a while. Went along and loved it—the glamour, the excitement. Until I saw what it could do. That’s why I work in a garage, Gavin. Why I don’t bet more than ten dollars, why I won’t sell my garage, and why I can’t let myself believe anything you promise. Because, until that night, I loved the life. I really did.”
“But, Princess, I’m not your father. I’d never do anything to hurt you.”
“No, but you’re like him, Gavin Magadan, and I’m scared to death of falling in love, scared to death I am falling in love with you.” She dropped to her knees and looked at him, wide-eyed and still. “Don’t you see? I can’t take a chance on going through that again. And you can’t promise me that I won’t have to.”
Gavin stood, walked over, and dropped to his knees in front of her. She was right. He couldn’t promise that he wasn’t like her father. He couldn’t promise she wouldn’t be hurt. He was a kind of gambler, and this time the gamble was personal. He’d gone out on a limb, trusting that he could accomplish his goal. But the truth was, he couldn’t find a banker willing to finance the project. Sol would back him all the way, but he knew too well that Sol’s money came with a price tag. And he was afraid that price might be revenge. He’d used Sol’s advance as option money on the land and now he either had to repay it, or he’d have to let Sol in on the deal. Now, more than ever, that option was impossible. This was the nineties, and he felt as if he were a gangster in some forties Humphrey Bogart movie.
Because Stacy was right about one thing. He was pretty sure they were falling in love.
“Maybe you should be worried,” he said. “Maybe I can’t promise you that you won’t be hurt. But that doesn’t change the way I feel. It doesn’t change the magic that brings us together. Tell me, darling, how do we make this go away?”
All he did was touch her face, and she was in his arms again.
“Oh, Gatsby.”
“Once more,” he whispered his desperate plea, “let me love you once more, then I’ll go. I’ll find a way out of this mess, I promise.”
And then he remembered the nagging thought that had made him pause before. “Stacy, are you—I mean, I should have asked before, is it all right for me to love you?”
“All right?” Stacy repeated his words, still caught up in the wonder of his touch. “All right? It’s more than all right,” she whispered. “I think you know that.”
This time, when they made love it was slow and sweet, without spoken commitment, without promises. There was just the physical commitment of two people who needed each other and the warmth and promise that came with the loving.
For the rest of the night Gavin held Stacy in his arms. He felt washed in the wonder of what they’d shared, what they’d given to each other. He couldn’t explain the contentment she brought to him. It was as if he’d been running toward it all his life and had not known what he was seeking, until that first moment their gazes had connected. The connection had stayed strong, drawing them together.
He understood her fears, how she was torn between loving her father and fearing his need to be somebody. He ought to, for he’d shared that kind of fear and need.
Frightened at the depth of his feelings, Gavin tightened his arm around her, pulling her higher on his body so that she was no longer touching the bed. As his hand stole across her body and clasped her breast, his lips sought her cheek.
Her face was wet.
“Princess, are you crying?”
“No. Yes. I guess I am.”
“Why, did I hurt you? I know that I rushed things. I couldn’t seem to stop myself. I’m so sorry.”
“Oh, Gatsby, darling. I’m not crying because I’m hurt. I’m crying because I’m happy. I’m scared. I’m feeling so many things I can’t describe.”
Her fingertips ranged across his chest, finding their way through the swirls of hair.
“If you feel any lower,” he said in a raspy voice, “you’re going to have a man in extreme agony.”
She did.
He was.
“Whatever you’ve been feeling, Stacy, I promise you that it is nothing in comparison to me. Tell me. Don’t hide it. I sure can’t.”
“What I’m feeling feels good, Gavin. It’s … it’s awesome.” She propped herself on one elbow and encircled him with a velvet glove of warmth. Her lips danced across his face, touching every part of him with fire as she explored him greedily, with both her fingertips and her mouth.
If Gavin had thought himself balanced on the brink of an implosion before, he was within seconds of self-destruction now as he caught her with his hands and lifted her in the air.
“What are you doing, Gavin?”
“I’m about to give myself to you, darling, in every way I can.”
He lifted her forward, catching his probing head in the heated flesh of her body, and letting her slide slowly down. But she wasn’t content to be still and slow. Above him she rocked and jerked. He caught her hips and held her still, trying desperately to slow the inevitable explosion. But it was useless. Gavin clenched his teeth, his fingertips digging into her soft flesh as he felt the avalanche of tremblin
g that had already begun.
Stacy cried out, leaned back, and let out a little scream. This time she heard herself, her wanton yelps of desire. But she couldn’t stop. And then he was rolling her over and taking control, plunging deeper and deeper as he felt the starbursts and rockets go off, taking them to the fiery brink and singing their bodies with cosmic dust.
It was almost morning when he stole downstairs and dressed. Then he climbed the steps again and stood in the doorway, gathering the image of her lying tousled in the bed covers, storing it forever in his memory.
“Don’t worry, Princess, I won’t hurt you. I don’t know how I’ll work this out, but I will.”
She didn’t answer. She knew there were no answers.
“I have to be away next week, but I’ll be back for you and the convertible Saturday morning, early.”
“Why?”
“We’re going to a parade, remember? And bring your best high school sock hop dancing clothes. We’re going to close a school—in style.”
He wasn’t taking her fears seriously. She’d told him about Lucky and how she felt about being associated with a high roller, and he wasn’t listening. Though she knew that Lucky had loved her, his need to gamble had been stronger. For the first time she understood, because the same kind of need was keeping her from letting Gavin go. She’d already begun to sing with the music of excitement simply because he’d become a part of her, and she knew they had to play out the hand.
“ ’Night, darling,” he whispered. “Think of me while I’m away.”
He turned to leave.
“Gavin?”
In a heartbeat he was back at her bedside. “Yes?”
“You don’t need those clothes.”
“I don’t?”
“Anybody can wear bad boy clothes. It takes a real lean, mean, loving machine to wear boxer shorts with baseballs.”
The next day, almost in a dream, Stacy relived every moment of the time she and Gavin had spent together. Only when she repeated his question aloud—“Is it all right?”—did his meaning wash over her. He’d been asking if she was protected, and she’d thought he was asking permission. She’d assured him that everything was fine. It wasn’t. But after a quick trip to a doctor nearby, she made her answer a reality.
The next week passed in a fog. Nick and Lonnie finished the convertible and started on the other work that had filled the garage. The mysterious partner, Jim, appeared, wearing overalls and a wide grin. He wasn’t a high roller. He was just a man like Lonnie and Nick, and he began moving dusty yellow and blue boxes of car parts into the parts room. The phone kept Stacy busy, and she tried very hard not to dwell on the impossibility of a future with Gavin Magadan.
Always before she’d been able to look at her life logically, even while she was playing at being her father’s gambling partner. She’d known that they were traveling down a road that was an illusion, but once there, she’d allowed herself to become addicted to it for a while. But Lucky could never see past the next scheme that was sure to recoup all his losses. And little by little she’d watched him sell everything he’d accumulated over the years.
Now all she had left was the garage, and slowly but surely, it was being filled with antique cars by a man who’d touched her life with fire and vanished, leaving behind a bank of smoldering coals.
She didn’t know what to do with the money she was making on the new rush of work being done by Nick and Lonnie. She made very careful records and deposited the money in a new account she’d opened under the name Lanham Classics. The name was a futile attempt to preserve a business that seemed less and less hers.
Alice and Aunt Jane didn’t come to the garage again, but several times Stacy heard Lonnie talking on the phone in a low, teasing voice that was a dead giveaway to the fact that he was talking to a woman. Lonnie hadn’t shown any real interest in a woman since Grace had died six years earlier—until now.
“Jane again?” she’d asked once.
“Eh, yes. She’s very interested in the work we’re doing here.”
“And in the man doing it, too, I gather.”
“Well, it is nice to have someone your own age who thinks you’re fascinating, isn’t it, Stacy?”
“What do you mean?”
“Look, kiddo, I may be old enough to be your father, but I’m not dead yet. I can feel the thermal waves when Gavin comes around. You can’t fool me. You’re interested in the guy, and he’s interested in you.”
“Maybe, but, Lonnie, that’s all it can ever be.”
“Why? I’ve been telling you for years to remember you’re a woman and find yourself a real man.”
“I know. Your matchmaking is what got us into this mess. Remember?”
“You were the one who took him home, not me.”
“I know, and that’s what’s driving me bonkers. Lonnie, what am I going to do?”
“For once I think Lucky might have been right about taking a chance. Go for it.”
“But what if I get hurt?”
“What if you do? Suppose you don’t? Think about the stakes.”
“I have. I am. And I think they’re too high. If you or Nick hear from Gavin, I think I’d better talk to him. I’m not going to that parade with him. He’ll have to find someone else.”
“Uh-huh, sure. I’ll tell him.”
But on Saturday morning Stacy was standing in her closet, staring at the clothes she hadn’t worn in years. She’d graduated from high school in the early eighties, the boring generation that had offered nothing new or avant garde. She’d never thought that she’d wear any of the clothes Lucky had bought her again, but she found herself choosing a soft purple designer dress with matching shoes. Inside a clutch purse she placed fresh makeup, comb, and cologne.
She never acknowledged that she was getting ready for Gavin as she styled her hair with hot rollers and applied eye shadow and lipstick, but she was. She didn’t admit that she had thought about little else during the past week, but she hadn’t. She refused to give in to the tingle of response that was already glowing inside her.
Finally dressed, she studied herself in the mirror. The woman she saw was nothing like the woman who wore coveralls every day. She was, she acknowledged, nothing like the woman who’d worn these clothes eight years before either. That Stacy had been wide-eyed and awestruck, and except for a few awkward moments in high school, totally innocent. The eyes she saw reflected in the mirror had known real passion, and her cheeks flushed at the memory.
And then Gavin was there, ringing the doorbell. Stacy took a deep breath and opened it, waiting apprehensively for his reaction.
“Lordy, Aunt Jane told me to expect an angel,” he said, letting out a long, ragged breath. “If I weren’t afraid of being struck by lightning, I would question her sources.”
Stacy could have told him about lightning. She felt as if she’d already been struck. Gavin was wearing his Valley Road clothes, more white trousers and a new pair of white Loafers. But this time he’d matched them with a red-knit shirt that was the same color as his car.
“You’re beautiful,” they both said in unison.
“I’ve missed you,” was the copycat response.
“Do you think I’d ruin your lips if I kissed you?” Gavin asked, still standing in the doorway.
“I think they might pucker up and die if you don’t.”
He did.
And she knew that for one day, one morning, in the bright summer sun, she wouldn’t think about anything except this loving man and the joy he brought into her life.
The parade participants met in the parking lot of the mall nearest the school. Antique cars representing all the years lined up behind the current Northside Marching Band and waited. On the door of Gavin’s car hung a white felt sign with a purple tiger and his year of graduation in large purple letters.
Purple and white balloons were tied to every antenna, and a number of ambitious participants had managed to stuff themselves into their original cheerleading
and athletic uniforms. From the senator riding in the lead car, to the three freshmen pulling a man-size blown-up tiger in a large red wagon in the rear, the mood of the crowd was very festive.
Stacy looked around. There were Model T’s, sports cars, limos, station wagons, a pickup truck, and even a purple hearse with aged students carrying signs reading “To Hell With North Fulton,” their ancient sports rival.
Everybody who walked by looked at Gavin curiously, and a few of them gathered in small gossipy groups. Stacy was beginning to wonder if any of Gavin’s friends had returned for the special celebration when the siren on the police car signaled the beginning of the parade, and the slow moving line of vehicles snaked its way down Peachtree and through the neighborhood to the campus of the school that was being closed.
Along the route cameras and camcorders recorded the event. Newspaper and television reporters met the group in the school parking lot, zeroing in on the senator and the hearse. The event organizer, a sleek blonde wearing a designer outfit, was pointing out special VIPs to the media when Stacy realized from the gestures that the woman in charge was being asked about Gavin. But she was shaking her head and giving a beats-me expression.
“I think you’re about to make the six o’clock news, Gatsby,” Stacy said as the photographers moved toward them.
“Great. It’ll be good publicity for Magadan Classics.”
“And you, sir?” One of the camera carriers asked, “Are you a graduate of Northside?”
“Class of 1980,” Gavin said with what amounted almost to a dare in his voice.
“What kind of car is this?” someone asked.
“A 1952 Cadillac convertible, restored by Magadan Classics.”
“I don’t believe I know you,” the blonde said, studying Gavin.
“You probably don’t. The name is Gavin Magadan.”
“Were you involved in the School of Performing Arts?” one reporter asked.
“Nope.”
“Sports?” another inquired.
“Nope.”
“But you do look familiar,” the blonde remarked, her expression growing even more perplexed as she took in the man who looked every ounce of his aunt Jane’s Valley Road success.
Lean Mean Loving Machine Page 9
