Missy's Gentle Giant (20 page)

“Tell her yes; everything’s
fine.”  Missy lied.  Unhappily she left the kitchen, went to the
living room and turned on the television.  She ignored the workmen
outside, ignored Mrs. Diaz cleaning and forced herself to stare at the
soundless television.  When the news came on at five-thirty, she stood,
turned off the television and went upstairs to change.  At six she was
seated back on the sofa in front of a huge blank screen.  Crouching up and
hugging her legs, she stared at it while the clock ticked away.  She
ignored how Mrs. Diaz kept poking her head in the room.  At eight when she
saw Ben come in the front door, she fought the urge to jump up and turned her
head away from him with tears and confusion in her eyes.

Ben’s day was lousy too. 
Every time he turned around something went wrong.  Just as he solved one
problem and reached for the phone to call and see how Missy was doing,
something else came up.  Then for the last two hours he argued with
inspectors about the safety of a walkway until he finally suggested making a
model to check it out.  When he let himself in the house, he was surprised
to see Missy just staring at a blank television.  Mrs. Diaz greeted him
with worried eyes and pointed to Missy.  He ran a tired hand across the
back of his neck, apologized for being late and went to her.

“Honey, I’m sorry I’m late, but—”

“It doesn’t matter.”  She cut
in, but Ben could see tears behind her eyes.

He glanced down at the floor and
then slowly up to her.  “I—”

“Dinner’s ready.”  Mrs. Diaz
interrupted.

“Time to eat.”  She glanced
away with a forced smile.

Dinner was practically silent,
although Ben tried.  “What did you do all day, honey?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Mrs. Diaz helped me talk to Mom.”

“What did she have to say?”

“Nothing important.”

“Oh.”

Silence.

“Did the workmen come?”

“Yes.”

Another silence.

“Did you go shopping or anything?”

“Why?”

“I don’t know—just thought you
might want to look around—”

Silence again

“Would you like to go
somewhere?  A movie?  Dancing or something?”

“No.”

Ben dropped his fork on his plate. 
“Missy—”

“I think I’ll go to bed.”  She
jumped up fighting tears and pushed her chair under the table.  “Good
night.”

“Yes, good night.”  Ben
watched her run upstairs.

An hour later when Ben entered
his—no their bedroom, Missy appeared to be asleep.  He walked over to the
bed and dropped upon it.  For several moments he stared at her tiny body
curled into a ball before he reached out, touched her hair, then bent and
kissed her wet cheek.

“Oh Missy, I love you so.” 
Painfully he rose and forced himself to leave the room.

Rather than run, he went to the
library and poured a double shot of scotch.  The first drink led to
another, until he finally carried a new bottle out to the living room, where he
dropped on the sofa and poured more.  Near one in the morning he had
trouble putting the bottle back on the coffee table after getting another
drink, and he lay back silently begging for strength.  His senses were
dulled so when he gulped what was in his glass, he let it drop, threw his arm
over his eyes and quietly passed out.

At, six when Mrs. Diaz shook his
shoulder, Ben jumped up to hammering in his head, dizziness and nausea. 
He smiled weakly when a few minutes later she placed a tray of coffee on the
coffee table and handed him a bottle of aspirin.  He gulped down four
aspirin, a second cup of coffee and hauled himself upstairs to shower and
shave.

All the while he showered Missy’s
tiny curled up body haunted him.  After brushing his hair he went over to
her, bent down and whispered of his love in her ear.  Her gown was open
revealing a breast, and without thinking his huge hand slid down inside it and
touched her firm nipple.  She shuddered.  He forced his hand to pull
her gown closed and slide down her arm to her hand so his fingers could speak.

“Oh honey, I love you.”  His
fingers flew.  At the same time, his tongue lashed out seeking, needing
hers.

Missy turned toward him, and their
tongues met.  Then as he dropped on the bed, his lips crashed against hers
again, and sought release of his pent up need.  One of her arms flew up
around his neck and dug into his hair.  When he pulled away gasping for
air, his lips and tongue sought to taste more, trailing down her throat and
shoulder over her gown toward her breast.  Groaning again, through her gown
he touched her breast tentatively with his tongue, grasped a nipple with his
lips and began to suck.  Missy moaned and tightened her hold on his
hair.  Then fear seared her, and she began shaking, but Ben was lost to
the taste and touch of her.

Unconsciously his hand slid down
her side over her thighs and then to her abdomen.  He stopped sucking on
one nipple to search for the other.  Frantically he tried to shove her
gown away with his face trying to touch her nipple while his hand snaked down
to the space between her thighs.  When his tongue touched her other nipple
and his fingers pushed her gown between her thighs, Missy stiffened, began to
shake convulsively and tried to pull away.

“No please—”  She whispered
breathing heavily.  Tears rolled down her cheeks.

He didn’t seem to hear and tried to
touch her tender peak through her gown.

“Ben—I’m afra—”

Instantly he stilled his hand, tore
his mouth away from her breast and moved up to her lips.  “No, Missy,
please no—”  His tongue lashed out seeking hers while his fingers started
a circling motion rubbing her tender peak.  “Missy, I want to show you—” 
His lips and tongue crashed against hers, but she shook so badly she bit him,
and he came to his senses.  Groaning loudly, he pulled away.  “I’m
sorry, oh honey, I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to push you.”  He kissed
her cheeks, licked her tears, loudly cursed himself and jumped up from the bed.

“B—Ben I—I—n—need to talk to my
mother.”  She shook all over.

“Yeah, sure.”  He rubbed the
back of his neck, sighed heavily and bounded from the room.

Seeing Mrs. Diaz surprised face as
he flew down the stairs, he stopped.  “Have Geevers take Missy—I think she
wants to go home!”  He was out the door and gone.

Missy sobbed and shivered when she
saw the car screech away from the house.  She lay down, pulled the covers
over her shoulders and curled into a ball.  Fifteen minutes later Mrs.
Diaz came into the room and stood beside the bed.

“Ben said you want to go home.”

“Y—yes, I—I just can’t—”  Was
Ben sending her home?

“Geevers will be ready in half an
hour.”  Mrs. Diaz coldly glanced around, saw Ben’s billfold on the floor,
put it on the bureau and walked from the room.

Slowly Missy crawled off the bed as
a feeling of total defeat encompassed her.  She dressed, went to the
bathroom and washed her face, then stood in front of the mirror and brushed her
hair.  Curiosity grabbed her when she saw Ben’s open billfold. 
Slowly she picked it up and flipped through the pictures.  She saw one
with him standing next to a man who had to be his father.  In another, Ben
was with a woman who was definitely old enough to be his mother.  She
confirmed they were his parents when the woman and man were together with their
signatures on another picture.  Missy wondered why Ben never mentioned
them and didn’t have them come to the wedding.  Where were they?  The
next picture was a group shot, one she recognized of four guys in Iraq. 
One like it was on the mantle in her house.

Another picture was of a very
beautiful young teenage girl, signed “All my love, your other half,
Connie.”  Had Ben been married?  It looked like an old picture. 
Surely if he was divorced he’d have thrown the picture away.  And wouldn’t
he have said something?  Now as she thought about it, Ben never did talk
about a family or his past.  She knew nothing of these pictures.  Her
breath caught when she saw the next picture—it was of her when she was
sixteen.  Shaking, she turned it over and pulled the credit card out
behind it.

“My wonderful pen pal, Missy,” it
read, “she’ll never know how she helped me get through Iraq.”

Missy dropped the picture on the
bureau and then the billfold with tears streaking down her face, but there was
a new grim determination in her eyes.  Yes, she’d go home if he wanted her
to.  She’d do anything he wanted now.  She wiped her face and walked
to the bedroom door with an expression showing anger.

“Well, is Geevers ready to take
me?”  She stood in the foyer.  Moments later she was enclosed in a
new Porsche and on her way.  She sobbed so hard when she entered the house
her mother thought the worst and rushed her upstairs to her old room.

Gonzalo and the others banged into
the house around six, only to be hushed to silence by their mother.

“What’s wrong?”  Gonzalo
cocked his head.

“Melissa came home.”

Three words, was all it took, and
the family was totally subdued for the rest of the evening.  Missy didn’t
come out of her room for dinner, so Mrs. Sanchez took it to her.  It was a
wasted effort.  Half an hour later the tray came back untouched. 
Gonzalo went up to see her.

“Melissa?”

She glanced up at him but said
nothing.

“What happened?”

“Ben sent me home.”

“He what?”

“Returned me like—just said—” 
Tears welled behind her eyes.

“What did he say?”  Gonzalo’s
anger rose.  “Melissa, what did he say?”

“He just told Mrs. Diaz to have his
driver bring me.”

“The damn son of a—”

“No Gonzalo, it’s best this
way.”  She wiped her tears.  “He’s a stranger, not the man I
thought—even does weird things—”

“What kind of weird things?” 
Gonzalo glared.  “So help me—”

“No, he didn’t hurt me.  Look
Gonzalo, I should have known better.”

“Whatever you say Melissa. 
Look why don’t you come and help in the shop tomorrow?  Maybe it will—”

“No, I’m fine, really, I’m
fine.”  Missy forced a smile.

As soon as Gonzalo left Missy, he
got in his car and drove around trying to find Ben.  He checked his house
but he wasn’t home yet.  When he realized it would be impossible to find
him, he headed home.

Ben had called the house early in
the afternoon wanting to apologize to Missy.  Mrs. Diaz informed him
politely Missy went home.  For a long time Ben sat in his office and
stared out the window.  Well, he really fixed things this time.  Now
what could he do?  He called Missy’s house but was told she didn’t want to
talk to him.  He should have kept his damn hands off her.

He went out to check progress on
the shopping center.  Later he was glad he did because he ran into a
couple of problems which could have cost him a great deal of money if they
passed unnoticed.  It was nearly seven when he got back to his office, and
the thought of going home to an empty house was more than he could
handle.  Instead he looked over folders on prospective renters for the
mall and their special needs.  Well after midnight he wrote notes to his
secretary stating which stack contained possibilities and which would be
rejected.  He left the two stacks of folders, tiredly got up, went home
and fell on his empty bed.

The next day Missy asked her mother
to call Ben, but it seemed he was always out somewhere or in a conference, and
when she had her mother call the house in the evening, no one was there. 
The second day Ben tried to call Missy, but no one answered, and in the evening
Gonzalo told him she had nothing to say to him.

Missy had gone to the doctor to see
what was wrong with her, but it was a waste of time.  The doctor told her
the only thing she could do was force herself to live through her wifely duties
and hope everything would go all right.  She didn’t know what the doctor
meant.

Ben in the meantime, trying to keep
his mind off Missy’s problem, worked until he wanted to drop.  It was
after twelve before he left his office.  He was so tired he just fell into
bed in a dead sleep.

Then Ben found one of his foremen
was ordering cheap materials, and he hit the roof.  He yelled and screamed
through the entire day while he checked inventories, materials, and double
checked for standards.  Late in the afternoon he called a meeting of the
foremen.  After thoroughly, chewing everyone out, he expounded on the need
to do the best possible job because the mall was his design and a reflection on
him.  Further, if something was found to be defective, he’d be held
liable.

Early in the afternoon Missy
decided to go to Ben’s house and see if she could patch things up.  It
surprised her to find the house empty, and she paced for well over an hour
before she asked her brother to call Ben at the office.  At first he was
told Ben was in conference.  Missy asked him to persist and tell the
secretary Mrs. Ben Spinelli was calling and it was urgent.  His secretary
switched the call and rang Ben’s office.

Since Ben had left orders not to be
disturbed, his full rage broke when the phone persisted in ringing.  He
grabbed it and screamed.  “I told you not to bother me!  I’m too damn
busy right now.”  He slammed down the receiver and went back to his
meeting.

Missy’s brother sat listening to a
dial tone in stunned silence and then told her Ben said he was too busy to talk
to her.  She started shaking as she watched Paulo put the receiver back on
the hook, then pulled her legs up and hugged her knees.  She didn’t move
and stared out into space while the house became dark.  Paulo sat quietly
and waited.  She might have sat there all night except Paulo noticed
lightning, turned on a lamp and suggested they go home.  Moments later
lightning flashed across the picture window, just as thunder clapped and shook
the house.  Missy felt it and started shaking all over, jumped up and
headed for the door.  Paulo took her home.