LOVING THE HEAD MAN (18 page)

       As soon as the door slammed shut, Robert’s already drained body seemed near collapse.  He kept his hand on Bree’s arm, escorting her, as he walked toward the condo’s sofa.  When he sat down, he sat her down on his lap, her body straddling his to where she was facing him. 

       Bree didn’t know how to react to this.  She knew he was angry, and should have simply let her go, but for some reason he seemed determined to keep her right here with him.  For a long few moments he didn’t say anything, as her body sat on top of him without him putting his arms around her as she would have expected if he wasn’t upset.  But he was highly upset.

       “You wanted a job that badly?” he finally asked her, his intense eyes staring unblinkingly into hers.

       “I needed it badly, yes.  But that’s not why I agreed.”

      
“Nonsense!”
 
Robert roared, his anger now unleashed.
  “You didn’t need anything bad enough that you had to lose your self-respect to get it!  You
wanted
it badly, that’s what this is about.  Wants, not needs!  Like every ambitious, do-anything-to-win scum of the earth, you wanted this!  So don’t you dare sit here in my face playing the martyr
now.
  I know the game, lady.  I’ve been played more times by better scam artists than you, I know this game!”

       “I’m not playing any game,” Bree said, deciding to defend the indefensible, but seeing where she had no choice.  What she had done was bad, but it wasn’t because of any blind ambition the way he thought.  “I found out that my father’s house was in foreclosure and is going to be auctioned off in a matter of days.  I wasn’t going to sit by and let that happen, not after he worked
his entire life to own that little house
.  I needed that signing bonus to help my family.”

       She’d told the truth and she felt she had told it as succinctly as she could, but to her surprise, Robert was unconvinced.  “Is that supposed to explain everything?  The fact that you had additional reasons for doing what you did?  Am I supposed to be impressed by that?”

       “I was just trying to tell you–”

       “That you had sex with the man who would decide who won the prize, that’s what you’re telling me.  I’m sure your family does need that money.  I could fill the Chicago telephone book with families who need that money!  But because they need it, and can rob a bank and steal it, doesn’t mean they go out and rob a bank.  And you know why they don’t just go out and take it?  Because they know that there are consequences.”  He looked at her unblinkingly.  “There are always consequences.”

       Bree closed her eyes and opened them back up again, the emotion of the moment making her too weary to want to fight anymore.  “I didn’t sleep with him,” she said halfheartedly.

       “Why? 
Because I showed up?
 
Because you heard me unlocking the door?”

       Bree stared at him. 
“Because I changed my mind.”

       “Oh, did you now?  You changed your mind.  What, while lying naked in bed you got religion all of a sudden, your morality came back?  Is that what happened?”

       Bree, now angry too, moved to get off of his lap, but he slammed her back down.  “We haven’t finished our conversation,” he said equally angry.  “Alan DeFrame.  You wanted that gotdamn job so bad that you’d prostitute yourself to Alan DeFrame?”

       “I told you it wasn’t about the job.”

       “Oh, no, I forgot.  It was about the money.  The gotdamn signing bonus!  So what, Brianna,” Robert said, unzipping his pants, “how much will you give it up for if I want some? 
Hun?”
  He pulled out his penis and flapped open his suit coat that hung on her, revealing her womanhood.  “How much will it cost me to fuck you right here and right now?  Tell me, Brianna.  Tell me how much
will I
have to pay you to do this!” He rammed his penis inside of her.  Rammed it in and then stopped, as tears began to appear in his eyes.  Tears were already in hers.  He leaned his forehead against hers. 

       “Oh,
Brianna
,” he said.  “Why didn’t you contact me?”

       “I tried,” Bree said, tears falling freely now.  “I tried every way I knew how.  But nobody would give you the message, and you wouldn’t call me.”  She said this with some degree of bitterness, remembering how hard she tried to get a message to him.  “And the way they were talking, you were expected to be in DC for weeks if not months longer.  My family couldn’t wait that long.”

       And they just sat there.  It was true, Robert had every intention of being in DC far longer, but the VP was granted bail, and he wanted time to spend with his family, to explain the situation to them.  In a few more days, he’d be back in DC, back plotting a defense, but he came back to take a break, too.  The only reason he came by the condo, which was a block from the office, was to catch a nap before a meeting at the office he had set for later tonight. And to think what could have happened, what that asshole Alan DeFrame could have done.  His heart ached with the possibilities of any other man so much as thinking about penetrating Bree, of resting inside of her the way he was doing at this very moment. 

       He should have called her, he thought, unable to ease the pain.  But she had already told him no, that getting together wasn’t a good idea.  What was he supposed to do? 

       When he was reasonably sure that his teary eyes had cleared up, he sat erect and looked at Bree. 
And slid his penis out of her.
  “It’s getting late,” he said.  “You’d better get going.”

       Bree felt as if this day couldn’t possibly get any worst.  She got off of his lap and went over to her clothes and dressed.  She walked back around to the sofa, and handed him his suit coat. 

       “I didn’t sleep with Alan,” she said again, to be clear, although it sounded a lot like doing marijuana, but claiming to not inhale.  The fact that she had decided to do the deed at all, instead of backing out of it later, was perhaps the greater sin.

       When it was apparent that Robert had nothing more to add, and they both were spent and pretty well done with each other, Bree walked over to the front door, looked back at him once again, and left. 

***

The next morning, eleven finalists set at the table in the twenty-first floor board room and waited to hear the news.  Everybody was on
edge,
as if they all thought they actually stood a chance, with some eyes trained on the door that led to Alan DeFrame’s office.  They had not, apparently, heard the news.  But as soon as the board room door opened, and Monty Ross rather than Alan entered, the electricity that filled the air was tangible.

       Monty was surprised when he did not see Bree among them.  He even asked why. 

       “She packed up and left last night,” Prudence said, with some relish.

       “And where exactly did she go?” Monty asked.

       “Mississippi,” Deidra said. 
“Where else?”

       Monty hated to hear that.  But with Alan’s firing and Robert’s awful mood, he had a pretty good idea what might have transpired.  He therefore got on with it, and didn’t mince words.        

       “Mr. Colgate and I will be heading back for DC in the next few days.  However, he asked me to personally thank each and every one of you for your interest in working at Colgate and your devotion to the program.”

       Pru’s hand flew up in the air.  “Excuse me, sir, but may I ask, where’s Alan?”

       Monty cleared his throat.  “Mr. DeFrame is no longer with Colgate,” he said to gasps of astonishment.  “Yes, well, in any event, I just want to personally thank each and every one of you for your fine contribution.  I’m certain you learned a lot, and we certainly have gained a lot by having you on board.  I just wanted to let you know that Colgate appreciates the contribution each one of you has given to this effort.  There can be only one winner, but in my book you are all victorious.  However, a winner must be selected and Mr. Colgate has selected one.  Prudence Cameron is our winner,” he said, and Prudence grinned.  “Congratulations, Pru.”

       Although the entire room applauded and congratulated Pru also, Deidra sat in stunned silence.  She could hardly believe her ears.  Alan had guaranteed her, and he had guaranteed her repeatedly, every time she slept with him.  Now Pru was the winner? 
Prudish Pru?
And what was all of this about Alan no longer with Colgate?  And why did Bree all of a sudden skip town?  Deidra smelled rat in this stew.  And she would use every resource her family had available, including a lawsuit if necessary, to carve out that rat, and, ultimately, bring that snob Robert Colgate down.  Who did they think they were dealing with?  She was Deidra Dentry.  Her grandfather was once a justice on the United States Supreme Court!  If she wasn’t allowed to be here, the granddaughter of a judge, nobody was going to be here.  And as she looked at Pru, the girl who perpetually pats herself on the back, she wondered what in the world were they thinking?  What in the world was going on?  She looked to Monty.

       But he had nothing further to add.  He thanked them again, instructed them that they will receive awards of merit for their service, and that was that.

       But Deidra was steaming. 
That
was a long way from
that
, as far as she was concerned.   And Alan DeFrame would not hear the end of it, nor would Colgate, and nor would that Prudish Pru.  When she got through with them they’d rue the day they ever heard of her.  Because
that
, she thought as she packed up to leave the building for good, was nowhere near what they thought it was going to be.

TEN

       “It’s never easy, is it?” Malcolm asked and looked at Bree.

       Bree drained down more of her bottled Coke and didn’t respond.  The fact that she had gone to every possible place around Nodash and surrounding towns that were hiring attorneys, and turned up empty, already proved his question.  “This sucks,” she said instead.

       They were on the porch of her family home, sipping Coke in the warm, late-afternoon heat.  Bree, a dark pair of sunglasses covering her eyes, wore a pastel-colored sundress that looked simply divine to Malcolm, while he wore jeans and a navy blue Ole Miss
t-shirt
.  Every time he saw Bree again he regretted his decision to dump her, because he really hadn’t found an adequate replacement, but he was always a man who kept his word.

       “You can always go further south, to Jackson, or even Hattiesburg.”

       “I know,” Bree said, looking out at her three younger siblings, who were playing kickball in the front yard, “and I will, I won’t have any choice.  It’s just that I was hoping for something like right away.”