Authors: Gwynne Forster
Whatever It Takes (12 page)
She got up, went to the downstairs powder room and looked into the mirror. She saw the marked resemblance of herself to Kellie, but she also saw differences, and they made her no less attractive than her sister. That was another thing with which she intended to confront her parents. Why had they never disputed Kellie when she claimed to be beautiful while her sister was not?
She went into the kitchen, opened a bottle of white wine, returned to the television and sat down to watch old
Ed Sullivan
show reruns. Black divas of the 1950s, some of them stunningly beautiful, wouldn't be recognizable today, she thought.
Someday, I'll be old, my youthful looks wasted, and I won't have done a thing with my life.
She left the wine untouched on the coffee table, turned out all of the lights except two and headed up the stairs to her room. “It's not going to happen here,” she said aloud, and a strange, giddy feeling settled over her. As in more than one of her premonitions, it was as if she had already begun a journey into a new life.
Ed Sullivan
show reruns. Black divas of the 1950s, some of them stunningly beautiful, wouldn't be recognizable today, she thought.
Someday, I'll be old, my youthful looks wasted, and I won't have done a thing with my life.
She left the wine untouched on the coffee table, turned out all of the lights except two and headed up the stairs to her room. “It's not going to happen here,” she said aloud, and a strange, giddy feeling settled over her. As in more than one of her premonitions, it was as if she had already begun a journey into a new life.
Chapter Five
Whoever heard of anybody dreading Christmas? Lacette sat in her booth, shaking her head in wonder, as she folded fliers edge to edge and crease to crease and stacked them in perfect order. Having finished that, she rearranged her display, didn't like what she saw, blew up half a dozen red and green balloons and added them to the arrangement. Why was she biting her nails? She had never done that. She lifted the telephone receiver, replaced it and lifted it again. After staring at it for a few seconds, she heard the voice of the operator.
“Operator. May I help you?”
Nonplussed, she replaced the receiver, lifted it again and dialed the porter. “Could you send someone to spell me for about fifteen minutes, please? I don't want to leave my booth unattended.” If she left her post for a few minutes, she risked losing a customer, but she didn't have a choice.
Within minutes a bell boy arrived, tall, handsome, and, she surmised, a year or so younger than she. He flashed a grin, exposing even white teeth that glistened against his smooth, hair-free brown skin. Her already somber mood darkened, and she swallowed a lump in her throat, for she knew that the good-looking brother's smile was not for her, but for the tip she would give him. In the women's roomâthat female sanctuary in beige and green marble, beige walls, green carpet and gilded chairsâto the left of the elevator, she took deep breaths and splashed cold water on her face, hoping to shock herself out of the unfamiliar lethargy and moodiness that seemed to have settled over her.
She didn't dare stay away from her booth longer than fifteen minutes if she wanted to remain in the porter's good graces. Passing the florist shop, she waved at Douglas and recognized one source of her discontent, for she had come to realize that the wreckage of her family accounted for only a part of her unhappiness. By the time she reached her booth, her feet dragged beneath the weight of her loneliness. The porter grinned his thanks for the three-dollar tip and went back to his post, oblivious to the hole widening deep within her.
He's full of smiles and charm, but would he care if he knew how I ache?
He's full of smiles and charm, but would he care if he knew how I ache?
Her smiles for her customers had a wooden character, never altering the contours of her face, and the words she spoke lacked conviction. It was the day before Christmas Eve, and what could she look forward to? A dreary Christmas dinner at which her parents would pussyfoot around each otherâformal and civilizedâwhile she and Kellie held their breaths hoping that neither parent would make a mistake and disrupt the superficial and fragile peace. Oh, she would receive the de rigueur gown, perfume, and cashmere sweater from the members of her family, but none of that would replace the sense of belonging to a love-giving, nourishing, and protective unit that she knew was forever lost.
“Why would a beautiful woman like you be wearing such a somber expression in the most delightful time of the year?”
Lacette looked up to see a tall, copper-colored African-American man, elegant andâto her mindâvery distinguished. “Hmmm. Not bad-looking, either,” she said to herself.
Recovering her professional demeanor, she asked him, “How may I help you?”
“I'm stuck here until January the eighth, and you can help a lot by spending Christmas with me. I don't mind being alone the other three hundred and sixty four days in the year, but there's something about being by myself on Christmas Eve that demoralizes me. Please say you'll spend tomorrow evening with me.”
She stifled a gasp. “I uh . . . I'll have to think about it.”
He handed her his business card. “I know it's presumptuous of me to think you might not have a date, but I didn't see a ring on your finger and thought I'd take a chance and ask you. Will you?”
Her first reaction was to say that she was busy, but she wasn't. She was lonely and tired of her dull and uneventful life. She answered truthfully. “I'm not busy. What did you have in mind?”
A smile enveloped his face. “Dinner at the best restaurant I can find and dancing until we get tired. Would you like that?”
She would indeed like it and said so. “Where shall we meet?”
Both of his eyebrows shot up, and his eyes widened, but only for a fleeting second. Had she not been regarding him closely, she would have missed his reflex action.
“May I call for you at your home? Say, about seven?”
She wrote the address of the parsonage on a piece of paper and handed it to him. “That's fine. How will you dress?”
“Ordinarily, I'd wear a tuxedo, but I'm afraid a dark, navy-blue suit will have to do.”
Her smile, manufactured and as brilliant as she could make it, camouflaged all that she felt. Her mind traveled back to the high school prom that she missed because Kellie stole her dateâa boy who would have worn a tuxedo to pair with her white silk evening gown, her first grown-up dress. All theses years later, she still waited for a date with a special man to whom she was also special. If she stayed at home alone on Christmas Eve, she wouldn't feel any worse than she felt right then. Dinner and dancing with a traveling salesman? Or to stay at home and watch Kellie flaunt her popularity. What the hell! It was better than nothing.
“I'll look forward to it,” she said with as much grace as she could muster.
“So will I, Miss Graham.”
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On Christmas Eve, Lacette hurried home from work, showered, gave herself a manicure and relaxed on her bed while her nails dried. “Come in,” she said in response to the knock that told her she would have to deal with Kellie.
“Hi, Lace. I'm strapped for something to wear. Mind if I borrow your red sequined dress with the slit up the right leg?” Kellie sat on the edge of the bed, ran her hand over the yellow-satin spread and smiled her most charming smile.
She had never worn that dress, and Kellie knew it, because Kellie misplaced their tickets to the Kennedy Center concert to which she had planned to wear it, and the whole family had stayed home.
“Sorry, Kellie, but I'm wearing it.”
Kellie jumped up from the bed and stared at Lacette. “You're wearing it? When?”
“Tonight.” Oh, how sweet it was! This Christmas Eve, she was not Cinderella or a wallflower pretending that she enjoyed staying at home.
“You're lying. You just don't want me to wear it.”
“I don't have to lie, Kellie. I can just say no. As it is, I'm wearing it. Sorry.”
Kellie's face lost its hard, accusing look and bloomed into a smile. “That's great, Lace. Who is it? Well, you don't have to tell me,” she said when Lacette remained mute. “Why don't we exchange? You wear my white dress, and I'll wear your red one.”
Feeling triumphant and not a little wicked, Lacette said, “Not tonight, Kellie. I don't feel virginal, and white is so . . . you know what I mean. I don't want him to think I'm waving a chastity wand at him.”
Kellie's frown deepened. “You're just pulling my leg. You're not going out of this house tonight.”
Lacette lifted her right shoulder in a slight shrug. “Hang around and see. Sorry about the dress, but you know red is my best color.”
Kellie's face sagged, and she slapped her hands on her hips. “Well . . . I never . . .” Not even the prospect of an evening with a total stranger could dampen Lacette's pleasure at having confounded her sister. The door closed behind Kellie, and Lacette sat up, her bravura gone. She walked over to the window and looked out at the star-covered sky. An idyllic night. Maybe he wouldn't come. What if he wasn't even registered in the hotel? She hadn't thought to check. Perhaps she should call her father and tell him she was going out with a man who said his name was Jefferson Smith. Oh, Lord, she couldn't do that; she was thirty-three years old.
“Grin and bear it, girl,” she told herself as she rubbed lotion on her feet and legs. Slowly and methodically, she completed her toilet and slipped into the long red sheath. Fendi perfume at her pulse points gave her added confidence. Gazing at herself in the full-length mirror, she could see that Jefferson Smith might think her a siren, but she didn't feel like one, and rather than boost her confidence, the realization gave her the willies. Her stomach seemed to twist itself into a tight coil. What if Jefferson what's-his-name thought she was coming on to him?
The doorbell chimed precisely at seven o'clock, and the sound of Kellie's feet racing down the stairs brought to Lacette's mind the speeding resonance of someone fleeing an out-of-control fire.
“I'm here to see Miss Graham,” the deep masculine voice said.
“I'm Miss Graham. Sure you have the right house?” Lacette paused at the top of the stairs to see how far Kellie would go and how audaciously she would behave.
“I gather you're Miss Lacette Graham's sister, since I see a resemblance.”
Lacette strolled down the stairs, relishing the moment. “This is my sister, Kellie. We're twins. As you must have noticed, Kellie is full of pranks.” Her glance at her sister dispensed fiery daggers. “Kellie, this is Jefferson Smith.”
She handed Jefferson her coat. “You look ravishing,” he said, softly and with a tone of urgency, as if they were alone. “I'm a proud man.” He inhaled deeply. “Wonderful.”
“You deserve a good night kiss for knocking Kellie off balance,” she said to herself, pleased that he had found a black chesterfield and a tuxedo, obviously rented. As they walked to his car, he confirmed what she had guessed.
“I believe in doing things right, so I rented a tux.”
“Oooh,” she said, awed, when she saw the horse-driven hansom.
“You'll be warm,” he said, tucking a blanket around her.
“You certainly went to great effort, Jefferson. This is idyllic.” She breathed in the smell of horse mixed with his woodsy cologne, leaned back and pinched her hand. No, she wasn't dreaming.
His slight smile suggested to her that he'd done it before, but she didn't mind; the one thing lacking so far was that Kellie couldn't see them get into that hansom. She glanced at the hanging lanterns and let her hand graze the hansom's electric-blue, plush interior, thinking that she would imprint the evening in her memory, for at last she had her “prom.”
“When I saw you gliding down those stairs, I knew it was worth the effort.”
Beguiling though he was, with his good looks, finesse, and penchant for saying just the right thing, she suspected that she could nevertheless resist him if she wanted to. She managed not to gasp when the hansom stopped at the famous Monocacy Inn, an elegant restaurant located in a pre-Civil War Federal house just outside of Frederick. An enormous and richly decorated Christmas tree stood near the stone fireplace in the dining room, and holiday wreaths decorated every candle-lit window. That, and the welcoming odor of green pine logs giving off showers of sparks as they burned lent the place an elegant, home-like atmosphere.
“Do you like it here?” he asked her.
“Oh, yes. Very much,” she said, and she did, but she wondered how he, a stranger to the area, found it, when she had lived more than a decade in Frederick without having seen its interior.
“It's Christmas, so let's have champagne,” he said when the waiter brought their dessert, a crème brulée with flamed cherries.
After having drunk two glasses of Chateau Neuf du Pape with her dinner, Lacette hesitated to drink champagne, but the evening had been perfect, so she accepted one glass of the Veuve Cliquot and declined to drink more.
Jefferson expressed regret that the restaurant didn't have a band that evening as he had hoped. “Robs me of a chance to get you into my arms,” he added, his smile rueful. “Another time.”
Later in the foyer of the parsonage, he held her hand. “I want to see you tomorrow night. May I?”
“I'd love to, but I'm having dinner with my family, and we eat late. We're dining at my aunt's home, or I would invite you to join us.”
“I wouldn't consider barging in.” His gaze grew more intense and more intimate. More possessive. If she were not already at home, she might be have been impelled to run. With his eyes, he disrobed her so completely that she covered her bosom with her left hand and arm. If he noticed her discomfort, he didn't make it obvious.
“I want to kiss you,” he whispered.
Not much to ask for on Christmas Eve,
she thought, and lifted her arms to his shoulders. But he demanded more than the pressure of her mouth against his. Stunned by his boldness, she parted her lips without thinking or intending to and took him in.
she thought, and lifted her arms to his shoulders. But he demanded more than the pressure of her mouth against his. Stunned by his boldness, she parted her lips without thinking or intending to and took him in.
He didn't abuse the privilege. “I want to see you the night after Christmas and the next night and the next, and the next.”
“We'll see,” she hedged, although she knew she wanted to spend time with him, not because her heart or her libido demanded it, but because her ego needed the attention of a handsome and obviously successful man. “Yes,” she repeated. “We'll see.”
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