Pleasure My Lustful Heart: A Romance Novella (9 page)

“When will he be able to come back to work?” Uncle Aaron said. “He’s the boss of our company.”

“There’s no way we can tell right now. Maybe after a rehabilitation period. Maybe never. Please understand that our first job here is to make sure he survives. Somebody should take over for him at work.”

Uncle Aaron nodded his head knowingly. “That’s you, Kit. I can’t do it. I’m just a cutter.
I know you have Sidney’s power of attorney. If he can’t make decisions, you’ll have to make them for him.”

“You know the business,” said Gregg. “You can do it.”

I was startled that he was bold enough to comment on a Porteous family matter, especially at a time like this. I thought, was he truly he concerned about me, or was he thinking how he could use me now to approve his merger plan? I wanted to trust him, but there always seemed to be some troublesome, lingering doubt. I saw him look away from me, just for an instant. Was he suddenly uncomfortable because he realized he’d said the wrong thing? No, I told myself, he’s here because he’s a smart, thoughtful, handsome man who’s in love with me. Right?

CHAPTER 11

Uncle Aaron went home at 9:30, completely worn out. He looked awful, and I was worried about him. After all, the man was 65, and working as hard, or harder, than he had when he was in his 30s. By 10:30, Gregg and I were both starved, eating candy bars out of the vending machine down the hallway, because the hospital’s cafeteria was closed. There was no change in Pa’s condition. He continued to sleep, and seemed to be comfortable.

The
nurse in charge said we might as well go home, and she’d call if there was any change. Gregg followed me to my apartment in his car, and we went up together in the elevator. I suspected we might discover Lucien lurking about, but his battered Chevy was nowhere to be seen, and he wasn’t camping out outside my door.

I raided the fridge, and made us a couple of ham sandwiches, which we washed down with a half bottle of chardonnay, also from the fridge. Gregg kept trying to raise my spirits. “Your father is a tough old bird,” he said. “He’ll be fine.”

Despite the late hour and the demands of the situation, we were both wide awake, probably on a sugar high from the candy bars we’d wolfed down at the hospital.  “What if he can’t go back to work — ever?” I said. “This is a rough time for the business. Uncle Aaron won’t take over, and I don’t have the experience.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Kit. You’re your father’s daughter. You’re smart, and you have the
Porteous name. You know how the company works. The people you do business with will respect you. You can do it.”

“What happens to the merger? I said. “Pa doesn’t want it. I can’t do it if he says no.”

Gregg slowly slid his glass of wine back and forth on the table, watching it catch the light from the overhead lamp.  “I wanted to talk to you about that, but with your father in the hospital, I figured it wasn’t a good time.”

“Go ahead, tell me,” I said. “I need help.”

“This may not be the help you’re looking for. I had lunch in Atlanta with Higginson today. He called me late last night to tell me he was being pressured to make a decision. I didn’t know what to do. I told him I had news for him, and I’d fly down and tell him over lunch. The only thing I could think of to say is that the merger was going to happen, that my merger partner had plenty of cash, and that we were ready to get started.”

“How could you do that? There’s no merger deal.”

“I know, I know. I had to say something. I figured just maybe there was a long shot chance I could convince your father to merge if I could tell him I had guaranteed business from the Clemson stores. If I couldn’t put together the merger, then I’d have to tell Higginson that it fell through. I figured what I did was smarter than just giving up.  At least this way we have a chance.”

“’We?’ Who is ‘we’?”

“Your company and mine,” he said. “Kit, we both know that if we don’t do something, we’ll both go out of business — no matter what your father says.”

“When were you going to let me in on all this?”

“I called your cell phone on my way to the airport this morning. You didn’t pick up. Go through your call messages, and you’ll hear the one I left for you. I wouldn’t do this without telling you.”

I thought: should I be angry because he involved
Porteous Limited in a lie, or grateful that he was doing his best to save the company? “I’m confused, Gregg. My life is so mixed up right now, that I have to know — “

“Then let me tell you.” He took both my hands in his. “I love you, Kit
Porteous. I hope that’s what you wanted to hear.”

“Are you just saying that because I made you a ham sandwich?” Damn, I did it again, another smart-ass remark from the smart-ass queen of the garment business. Oh, well, “And would you be pleased to hear a nice sound from me?” I stood on my
tip-toes and stroked his face.

“I’m waiting,” he said.

“I love you back.”

“You’re right. It does have a nice sound.”

“You picked just the right time to tell me,” I said. “I can use the support.”

“First, you had me long before you ever made me a ham sandwich. And second, you have my love and my help, always. You are the most important thing in my life.”

I couldn’t resist. “My, that really is nice.”

Gregg had a strange and wonderful way of kissing. Even in the most passionate embrace, he never pressed or pushed. He brushed his full lips on mine, delicate as a butterfly. When our tongues met, it was only for an instant, in passing. It was thrilling. Gregg was a thrilling lover.

“Should I stay with you here?” he said. “I know it’s been a rough day. Do you want to be by yourself, or would you rather have company?”

“Stay,” I told him. “I need someone to talk to tonight. Is that wrong of me, having you here while Pa is lying in a hospital bed?”

“I don’t think it’s wrong to be with someone who loves you. Isn’t that what love is for?”

So
Gregg stayed the night. It was the wrong time to make love, but it was comforting to know he was sleeping next to me.

The next morning at seven, Gregg woke me with a little bite on my neck. He was dressed and ready to leave. “I have to get back to my place and change clothes. Should I meet you at the hospital before I go to work?”

“Not a good idea,” I said. “Let me do this by myself.”

“Lunch?”

“I don’t think there’ll be time. I’ll have to get a new job started in sewing, plus I have to deal with what’s going on in Pa’s office. It scares me.”

“You can do it,” he said, and started toward the door.

“Hey, wait a minute. What are you going to do about what’s-his-name — Higginson?”

“I’ll keep stalling,” he said, and left before I could ask anything else.

Mercy General was bustling with traffic, automobiles in the parking lot, and people in the lobby. Two older women with white-blue hair stood behind the information desk in their pink volunteer jackets, smiling at me, evidently in the hope that I’d ask them for directions. I knew where the ICU was, but I smiled back at them as I passed, anyway, as a sort of silent apology.

Pa’s bed was cranked up, and he was awake when I entered. He raised one hand weakly in greeting. “Can’t talk,” he managed to say. It was as though his tongue was getting in the way, tangling up the words he was able to get out. His stroke had starved the speech center in his brain of blood and damaged it.  The left side of his face still drooped,
looking even worse than last night.

For a dynamic man like Pa, recuperating was going to be a challenge. He’d have to be patient through the healing process, and patience wasn’t his
strongest quality.

I came to the side of his bed and took his hand. “How are you this morning, Pa? How do you feel, better?”

Pa responded by shrugging his shoulders, his silent way to say “not great.”

“Did you have breakfast?” I said.

He pointed to his neck. “Can’t swallow,” he managed to say.

“How do you eat? Aren’t you hungry?”

He shook his head, then looked up at the plastic fluid bags with their tubes. Evidently they were giving him nourishment intravenously.

I wanted to ask him why he’d never told anyone about his atrial fibrillation condition, but I didn’t think he was ready for that just yet. Knowing him, I was sure he’d rather hear that the company would be properly managed till he could get back to take charge. I told him I’d fill in for him, and not to worry. Was there anything I should know?

Pa looked up into my eyes. He appeared to be searching for something. Finally he looked away and said, “Can’t think straight.”

“Don’t worry about the business, Pa. I’ll take care of it.” I bent down to kiss his cheek, and started to leave.

He mumbled my name, and I turned back to him. With great difficulty, he waved his hand desperately in front of his face, and said, “Monsell — no, no.”

His contempt for the merger idea, and his concern for me in Gregg’s arms, continued to fill his thoughts, stroke or no.

“Not to worry,” I said. “I’ll be back after work.”

I got the sewing workers started on the new job, then went to my father’s office to see what needed to be done. I sat down in the big swivel chair behind his desk, the first time I’d sat in that chair since I was a little girl, and Pa used to bring me to work occasionally. I used to sit there, imagining that I was the big boss, like Pa. I didn’t feel like the big boss today.

I asked Henrietta for the last two days’ mail, and was puzzled to find three past due statements, and one strongly-written letter demanding payment for a charge that had been billed to us 150 days before.  We hadn’t been paying our bills, which puzzled
me, because Pa took pride that we always paid within thirty days — forty-five at the most. Had we run out of money?

When I asked Henrietta, she said Pa had told her it was just a cash flow problem, that our customers were slow, and that forced us to be slow. She didn’t know all the details, and said that
these matters were handled only by Pa and our accountant, together.

I phoned the accountant, Jerry
Botello, a funny, roly-poly man of fifty or so, who Pa had used for the last 20 years. “I heard about your father,” he said. “How is he?”

I told him what I knew,
then asked about the company’s money situation. “Pa told Henrietta it was a cash flow problem. Is that what’s happening here?”

“Cash flow? Well, I suppose, that’s part of it,” he said reluctantly. “Kit, I don’t know how much of this your father would want me to share.”

It began to sound more serious with every word Botello said. “Look, Pa is counting on me to keep the company going till he can come back. Right now, he can barely talk, and could be out of commission for a long time. I have an obligation here, and I have Pa’s power of attorney that says I can do what I think is right. So tell me what’s going on.”

There was an extended silence on the phone. Then
Botello said, “All right. In the end it won’t make much difference.”

Now it was sounding truly ominous. “What does that mean? Does it mean the company is in trouble?”

“Yes, trouble. There are only a few more jobs booked. Your father keeps telling me he expects others, but it’s not happening. In the meantime, there’s a stack of unpaid bills, and even if all your customers paid everything they owe you by tomorrow, you still couldn’t pay off your creditors.”

“Are you telling me we’re bankrupt?”

“Not yet. To be bankrupt you have to declare bankruptcy, but that’s probably your next move.”

“How much money do we have?”

“You have about enough to meet your payroll for the next six weeks or so, and that’s only if your father and your Uncle Aaron take nothing themselves, and if you can hold off your creditors. If you want to be good guys, you’ll lay everybody off sooner rather than later, so you’ll still have money left to give them a few bucks in severance.”

“So that’s it?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Jerry Botello. “You better get your attorney involved. Call me when you need me. “

It was hard to comprehend. A successful company for over three decades was about to fail. My father knew it, yet he hadn’t told anyone. He thought he could still save it.  His opposition to a merger didn’t mean a thing. In a matter of weeks, there would be nothing to merge.

Whatever possibilities a merger might hold for us were gone. Gregg’s company had little money, and we would shortly have none. Period.

What about Uncle Aaron? He was an owner of
Porteous Limited. Did he know the party was over?

I went to the cutting room and took him to a quiet corner, where I told him what the accountant had told me. “Did you know all
this ?” I said.

“All? No. But I’m not surprised.
It’s no secret business is lousy, and not likely to get better,” Uncle Aaron said. “You’d think my brother would tell me what’s going on in our company. But that’s Sidney for you. It’s always about Sidney. What he wants.  What he decides. What he does.”