why you pay me the big bucks.” Mo wiped his hair back and put his cap back in place, shielding the skin around his eyes that looked like it was made from cracked glass.
They walked to the back of the property, finding nails in the grass and pitching them into buckets along the walkway.
Mo’s daughter had stepped on a nail last year on Take Your Daughter to Work Day. Since then, the men cleaned up after themselves.
Lucas and Mo leaned against the back fence, admiring the gray house with the pink accent shutters.
“I gave Emma an ultimatum: be on the plane tomorrow or it’s over.”
Mo looked as if he’d tasted something sour. “You’re not too bright today, huh?”
“First you say I don’t care, and now I’m not smart?”
They gathered up the old shutters the workers had taken down and loaded them into the back of the pickup.
“Lucas, you can’t issue an ultimatum to a woman and expect her to give you food and sex.”
“I didn’t give it to her. I told Doreen.”
“Her assistant? You just officially crossed over into wimp territory.”
“Emma hasn’t returned my calls.”
“Dude, do I have to explain what that means in women’s language?”
“No.”
Mo just shook his head as Lucas picked up the street sign he’d knocked down and dragged it inside the gate to deal with later.
Once they were done for the day, Lucas went inside and dialed Emma’s number. All he got was a message that her voice mail was full.
Everything that had and hadn’t transpired between them over the last eight months came flooding back. The promises that she’d come down to Key West, his disappointment when she hadn’t. His messages asking her to call him, her failure to phone back. The cancelled trips, Emma’s emotional distance and his nonchalance about it, their missed phone calls, their tendency to mainly communicate via voice mail.
Before he could hang up he was transferred to Doreen’s voice mail. “This is Doreen Gamble. I’m away from my desk, but if it’s important you can page me at 5546, or leave me a message, and I’ll get back to you right away.”
He had no doubt that she’d call him back.
Her voice was as warm and welcoming as her smile and he’d taken advantage of her. Lucas’s first inclination was to page her, but he didn’t. He needed to settle things with Emma. The beep sounded in his ear, and he took a breath to speak, though he didn’t know what to say.
“You deserve better than this,” he said, and hung up before “I’m sorry” could come out.
He’d have to do it when he was thinking clearly. Maybe tomorrow. Just not today.
Doreen waited patiently for Emma to finish her conversation with the president of Regents Cable. For having been promoted only a month ago, she was confident and personable with the head honcho.
“Yes, Jeffrey, I’ll be glad to attend the network meeting with you next month. I’m honored you chose me.” She nodded her head as if he could see her and smiled brightly, giving Doreen the thumbs-up, her new symbolic gesture of success. Doreen just hoped she didn’t do that at the Black Greek convention. They’d skewer her.
Emma had made it. She’d moved on up, as the old saying went.
Shaquemma Rowena Johnson had been born and bred in Brooklyn, had attended State University of New York at Buffalo, and had graduated with a degree in communications. She’d worked her way up through the ranks of three networks and two cable companies.
In seventeen years since college graduation she’d shed her heavy accent, thick eyebrows and overbearing attitude, and had polished, injected and dieted away all other unseemly features.
She’d studied women of power, and now she was the one wearing the expensive suit, carrying the top-of-the-line Louis Vuitton briefcase, having power lunches. She was now legally Emma Jones, a woman to be reckoned with.
Emma hung up her phone, caressing the black receiver with her fingertip.
Without looking up at Doreen she said, “I need you to go to Key West and end my engagement to Lucas.”
Doreen blinked at her. “What?”
“Break up with Lucas and I’ll give you five extra days of vacation.”
“He’s expecting you to be there tomorrow.” All the respect Doreen had for Emma was sucked up by Greta’s vacuum cleaner as she moved by the executive’s outer door.
Emma glanced at her iPhone and pouted for a fraction of a second. “I’m not going to Florida. You already knew that. I’m heading to the Poconos. Do this for me, and you can write your own ticket. Do you understand what that means, Doreen? This is how business is done.” She folded her hands and finally looked up. “Within reason, what would you like that I can do for you?”
It was August, and suddenly Doreen felt like she was being treated to an early Christmas she didn’t deserve. Though her heart raced at the idea of meeting Lucas face-to-face, she couldn’t under these circumstances. “Lucas loves you, Emma.”
Her lips popped out again. “No, he doesn’t. He loves what he thinks we have, but it’s not true. Lucas wants that more than anything. I’m too selfish for him. The last eight months have taught me a lot about myself. Besides, Lucas changed the rules. When I met him he was living up here and was a successful architect and builder, but after his job he moved back, and I understood. His business was growing by leaps and bounds there, but New York still has a lot to offer. His heart is in Florida with his mother and his friends, but mine isn’t.
“Over time I thought I’d change my mind, but I haven’t. It’s too bad because he’s a good man. But at my level, I can get one of any race, any age.” She shrugged as if that was all there was to getting a man.
“Ten days vacation,” Emma then offered, the heartfelt, melancholy woman of seconds ago gone. “Do you feel better?”
Doreen hated to admit that she did. “Marginally.”
Doreen decided not to make this easy. Emma would be gone soon, and extra vacation days under a new manager could easily be reversed. No, she wanted more.
“Emma, months ago you said you’d recommend me for the new position of director of special events. I’d like to move forward with that now.”
“Mmm.” Emma twisted her hands and her lips. “I’m not so sure you’d get it going from being my assistant. Dream a little smaller.”
Doreen’s skin began to crawl. How dare she all but promise her the job, and now try to weasel out of it? And who’d told Shaquemma Rowena Johnson to dream small?
Doreen got up and headed for the door. “Good night, Emma.”
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