Breaking the Ties That Bind Read online

  “No, sir.” She told him why she hadn’t eaten lunch.

  “Well . . . I don’t know, Kendra. For me, Ginny has one redeeming virtue: she gave me a wonderful daughter, and for that, I will forever be grateful to her.” He took a baked ham shank from the refrigerator, sliced it, and made some sandwiches. “Let’s have a bite.”

  Kendra waited until he poured their coffee and then took a seat. “Papa, not long ago, Mama told me that when she was pregnant with me, she wanted to have an abortion, and you wouldn’t let her do it.”

  He nearly choked on his sandwich. “She told you that? She had no right to tell you that. One of these days, she’s going to be sorry, and I hope I’m around to see it.”

  “Oh, it’s okay, Papa. Ninety percent of the time, I feel as if I don’t have a mother, anyway. The other ten percent, I know I have one that I don’t like. I’ve tried so hard to have a mother–daughter relationship with her, but I know now that I never will. I think she’s incapable of love.”

  “That’s true, but she’s damned good at pretending. I’m going to be one proud man when you finally wear that cap and gown. If I hadn’t borrowed so heavily to open this shop and have my own business, you’d have finished long ago.”

  “And if Mama had been paying the mortgage on our house instead of spending the money on herself and her interests, you wouldn’t have lost the house.”

  “I know,” he said, his voice seeming to come from a distance. “I knew then that if I stayed with her, she’d drag me to a bottomless pit.” He leaned back in his chair and sipped his coffee. “It’s been killing me all these years, and I never discussed it with anyone, but talking with you about it, well, I guess I’m over it. You be sure you don’t ever let anybody, man or woman, knock the props out from under you. You hear?”

  “Yes, sir. I don’t think you need to worry, Papa. I’ve learned my lesson. I’d better let you get back to work. I love you.”

  A smile creased his face and brought sparkles to his eyes. “Of course you do. I’m your papa, and I love you, girl. You take care.” She kissed him good-bye and left, refreshed and feeling very good.

  At work the next day, she told Ray of her plans, and because he seemed neither surprised nor inconvenienced, she gave him ten days’ notice, and took a one-week vacation.

  With her feet dangling in the Atlantic Ocean at Cape May, the ringing of her cell phone disturbed her calm, and even more so when she saw her mother’s ID on the screen. She was tempted not to answer. But she did.

  “This is Ginny.” She never referred to herself as Kendra’s mother.

  Having heard that attack was the best defense, Kendra launched one. “If it’s money you want, Mama, I don’t have any. You’re fifty-two years old and healthy. I can’t support you and your habits, so you’ll have to work.”

  “What?” She screamed the word.

  “That’s right, Mama. I can’t afford to pay for expensive meals for you and your girlfriends at the Willard Hotel. And I don’t appreciate your borrowing my next-to-last dollar under pretense of great need and then wining and dining your friends with it. I’m done. Finished. Period.”

  “Don’t you even want to know that I hurt my back, and that I’ve been in and out of the doctor’s office?”

  She didn’t believe it. “What’s the doctor’s name and phone number?”

  “Are you saying you don’t believe me?”

  “If a doctor treated you for back problems, I’ll pay him or her with a check, but I will not give you one dime.”

  When the dial tone droned in her ear, she sagged in defeat. It was as if she didn’t have a mother. She put the cell phone away and walked back to her hotel. The only vacation she’d ever had, and Ginny’s call would forever mark Cape May as the place where she finally severed emotional ties with her mother. She’d be courteous to her, but she would not care what Ginny did or where she was. If Howard University wasn’t in Washington, she’d get a job in another city.

  Three weeks after she found Clifton Howell’s iPhone, Kendra took a seat in the control room of Howell Enterprises’ Soft Music Studios, picked up a Buddy Guy CD, played “Early in the Morning,” and became a disc jockey.

  “What I need,” she said to herself after the first hour, “is a job like this one and a mike on which I can chat with my listeners. If I get these controls right, and if I don’t give him any silence, as he put it, maybe he’ll transfer me to his FM radio station as one of his live disc jocks.”

  At lunchtime, she programmed an hour of music and went to the staff cafeteria, although fear that she may have programmed the CDs incorrectly spoiled her appetite.

  “No need to get so uptight, doll,” Tabor “Tab” Carter, her FM counterpart, said with a deep southern drawl she wasn’t sure she liked. “The boss is a great guy. He’ll give you at least a week to get used to the system. After that, he’ll chew you out if you make a bad boo-boo. And let’s hope he lives a long, healthy life. His wife is just as nasty as he is nice. He was born with money, but she married it, and she shows it.”

  “I’ve got a lot to learn,” she said, careful not to say anything that she didn’t want to hear again. “How long have you worked here?” she asked him.

  “Four years. Best job I ever had, but I’m hoping he’ll shift me over to TV. When Mr. Howell automates the canned music, you can move to live radio. I worked my ass off to lose forty-six pounds, and I hope he noticed that I look like a young George Clooney these days.” He stifled a grin and patted himself on the back.

  Thank God he’s got a sense of humor. She laughed along with him. “I hope you get that break,” she said.

  “Of course you do, doll. When I move on, you can, too. That’s the way it happened with me.”

  “Really?” She slapped his hand. “Then put that chocolate mousse down. I’ve got an interest in your calorie intake.”

  They enjoyed a good laugh, and as they walked back toward the studios, he said, “When I get off at three-thirty, I’ll drop by and give you some tips on keeping the music flowing smoothly.” She thanked him and hoped his offer didn’t spring from a personal interest, because blue eyes didn’t do a thing for her.

  One morning, two weeks later, Kendra sat at her desk in the soft music studio staring at her first check. Seventeen hundred and fifty dollars for her first two weeks on the job. Ten days’ work. At the restaurant, she’d averaged five hundred a week; that meant she could save at least the additional seven hundred and fifty she’d make here. However, an attached yellow note stated that her future paychecks would be minus estimated taxes. She didn’t mind that, because she always got tax refunds.

  Tab knocked and entered the studio. “How does your check look to you? He’ll raise you from that in about three months if you don’t make too many mistakes. See you later.” She’d welcome that, but she was happy with her current salary.

  After work, she went by her father’s shop to get some of the sage rope sausage that he made on Fridays for his Saturday customers. She showed him her check.

  Bert Richards wiped the tears that dropped from his eyes. “Thank God you’ve got a respectable job and a future. Would you go with me to church Sunday? I’ll drive by for you.”

  She’d rather paint her bathroom, but if he hadn’t bought her that apartment, she wouldn’t have a bathroom with a sunken tub. “Okay. What time?” He told her. “Papa, can I have about a pound and a half of those sage sausages?” An idea occurred to her. Her father hadn’t been in her apartment since he helped her move. “Come at nine, and I’ll fix us some breakfast.”

  “That’s wonderful, but in that case, I’d better give you even more of those sausages.”

  As they left church that Sunday, it surprised her to see the man who always came to La Belle Époque alone for lunch on Wednesdays. She’d never seen him at the restaurant in the evenings. She wanted to ask her father if he knew the man, but several of the worshipers joined Bert and her, obviously to sate their curiosity about the young woman with him.
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br />   “This is my daughter, Kendra,” he said proudly. “She’s a disc jockey.”

  “Really?” One woman of around sixty gushed. “You must be so proud of her. What are the call numbers, Kendra. I’ll keep my radio tuned in to your program.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” Kendra said, “but the music I play doesn’t come over a radio station. You hear it in stores, on elevators, and in some restaurants. I’m hoping to work up to being a radio disc jockey.”

  “Oh. I see,” the woman said in a tone that implied Kendra’s work deserved less admiration than that of a radio disc jockey. Her father must have detected the put-down, for he said to Kendra later, “You didn’t have to explain. Betty is a snob, and now she won’t be able to say she met Kendra Richards, the disc jockey who’s on station XYZ during such and such time on Mondays.”

  “Papa, years of living with and dealing with Mama have taught me the importance of always telling the truth and of leaving no element of it varnished.” She looked around, but the mystery man had evidently left. She let out a long sigh. What would be, would be.

  “It’s a lesson well learned,” he said. “Thank you for coming to church with me today. When I was young, one of my dreams was having my wife and children around me in the evenings when I came home from work, and walking into church with them on Sunday mornings.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t to be.”

  “It’s not too late, Papa. You’re only fifty-four, and you’re still very handsome. What woman wouldn’t want a tall, handsome, unattached man who’s hardworking, intelligent, and decent?”

  “Thanks,” he said with a strange gruffness in his voice.

  “The one’s I’ve met want me to sell the shop and invest in something that more properly suits a gentleman, or maybe that suits them. I say the hell with them.”

  “Me, too,” she echoed with a grin.

  “Since when do you use such language?”

  “I don’t, at least not to you. I just agreed with you.”

  “Humph.” He parked in front of her door. “I’ll be happy when you finish school, find a nice man, settle down, and give me some grandchildren.”

  She kissed his cheek. “You won’t be nearly as happy as I’ll be. Thanks for a really nice Sunday. Bye.”

  At home, she walked into her bedroom and saw the red light flashing on her answering machine. “Hello?” She hated calls from people who blocked their caller ID.

  “Hi, this is Kitten. Where were you?”

  “I went to church with my father, and I almost didn’t answer your call. I told you what I think of people who block their caller ID. What’s up?”

  “Whew! You on the warpath? Suzy and Flo are coming over. My dad’s grilling everything he can find. By the time you get here, I hope you’ll be starving.”

  “I was planning to paint my bathroom.”

  “Oh, come on, Kendra. Next Sunday, the four of us can paint it in less than an hour. I’ll bring all the shower caps I’ve collected from hotels so we won’t get paint in our hair. You coming over?”

  “What time?” She wondered what life was like living in a house with a steamroller like Kitten.

  “You can leave your place as soon as you change into a pair of jeans or something. I’ll drive you home.”

  “Thanks. See you later.” She readily admitted that she’d planned to paint the bathroom because she didn’t have anything else to do. Seeing a movie or going to a museum alone only made her lonely, so she rarely did it.

  When she arrived at Kitten’s home, she found Flo and Suzy, the remaining members of The Pace Setters, as they called themselves, sitting in white wooden chairs on a green spring lawn at the house on Queens Chapel Terrace just off Michigan Avenue.

  Kitten greeted her with, “Mom’s gone to a concert, so my daddy braced these margaritas with his best rum. Come on, sit down.”

  They raised their glasses to Kendra, congratulating her on her new job. “When she tells me she spent the night away from home, I’ll drink a whole bottle of Veuve Clicquot in her honor,” Suzy said.

  “Don’t be too hasty,” Flo cautioned. She leaned back and sipped the drink with great relish. “Kendra could spend the night with a guy and make the poor fellow sleep on the floor while she hogged the bed. Girlfriend’s not ready yet.”

  “This time last year, neither were you,” Kendra told her.

  “Besides, every chicken here’s been plucked, so get off my case.”

  “Yeah. But there’s plucking, and then there’s plucking,” Suzy, the eldest of the four, told them. Their laughter bespoke of the warm camaraderie among the four women.

  “Well, I have some news, too,” Flo announced. “I just promised Ernest that I’d marry him, though I didn’t say when.” The other three women ran to Flo and hugged her.

  “Are you going to move in with him in the meantime?” Kitten wanted to know.

  Flo looked at Kitten as if she had just sprouted horns. “Do you think I’m some kind of nut? Why do you think he asked me to marry him? I’m not that accommodating.”

  Kitten made a face. “Well ’scuse me.”

  “It’s ready,” Kitten’s father said. “We’ve got roasted potatoes, club steak, hamburgers, country sausage, corn, carrots, asparagus, onions, and zucchini. Beer and sodas are in that tub. Serve yourselves.”

  Kendra asked Kitten, “Your mom willingly goes off knowing your dad is putting on a spread like this?”

  “Oh, she always does this. That’s how my dad learned to clean up after himself.”

  When Kendra finally got in bed that night, she had concluded that, as much as she loved her friends, they were poor substitutes for a man with whom she could share her life. But I can’t have everything I want all at once. I’m going to be grateful for my new job, do my best at it, and get my degree. That man, whoever he is, will have to wait.

  Kendra was unaware that Ginny followed her one morning, evidently to discover where she worked. Shortly after she closed the door of the Soft Music Studios and began her day’s work, Ginny walked up to the desk of June, Howell Enterprises’ receptionist

  “I’m Kendra Richards’s mother, and I have an extreme emergency. May I please speak with my daughter?”

  “She shouldn’t be interrupted, madam. What is the emergency?”

  “My little boy, my youngest child, has just had a serious accident, and I need Kendra’s help.”

  The receptionist’s jaw dropped, and she gaped at Ginny. “How can you be so calm?”

  Ginny didn’t bat an eyelash. “Years of dealing with problems and all kinds of trouble. You become inured to the pain.”

  “Have a seat. I’ll be right back.”

  However, Ginny did not sit down. Instead, she followed June, who, in her hurry to get to Kendra, didn’t look back. Ginny brushed past the receptionist and charged into the Soft Music Studios.

  “I need some money, Kendra, and if you don’t give it to me, I’m going to kill myself right here.”

  Stunned, Kendra jumped up. “What on earth are you doing here? Nobody comes in . . .” She saw the receptionist staring at Ginny. “Why’d you let her in here?” she screamed.

  “But . . . but she said your little brother has had an accident.”

  “My what? I don’t have a little brother. I’m her only child.”

  “But she said—”

  “This woman is a pathological liar. I don’t care what she said. Besides, she’s my mother only when she wants to borrow money, and she never repays it.”

  “I’m only asking for a thousand,” Ginny said, as if she hadn’t disrupted the office.

  “I don’t have a thousand, and if I did, you wouldn’t get it.”

  “Then, I’ll kill myself.”

  “Before you do that,” Kendra yelled, “stop by and see the priest.”

  Tab ran into the room. “What’s going on? Mr. Howell is in a rage. There’s not a sound coming out of here, and the phones are jammed with calls. Are you all right, Kendra?”

  “No, I
’m not. Get a guard to escort this woman out of here.”

  “But she said she’d kill herself,” the receptionist said.

  Kendra looked at Ginny and shook her head. “If she does, this will be the first time in decades that she’s told the truth.”

  The guard rushed in. “What’s the problem, Miss Richards?”

  She pointed to Ginny. “Please escort this woman from the building and make sure she doesn’t come back. Not now. Not ever. I can’t stand it anymore.”

  She turned back to her controls, but couldn’t make another move. Shaking uncontrollably and with tears streaming down her face, she felt as if she couldn’t cope. June, the receptionist, ran to the controls and tried to start the music but, instead, she pushed the wrong buttons with a result that several wires were crossed.

  An irate Clifton Howell burst into the studio. “What the hell’s going on in here?”

  Tab rushed to Howell. “I’ll fix it, Mr. Howell. It’s not Kendra’s fault.”

  “You’ll fix it? And who will be covering your station? She’s responsible for this station, so why isn’t it her fault?”

  “I put my channel on automatic,” Tab said.

  June grabbed Howell’s arm. “She couldn’t help it, Mr. Howell. Honest. It was horrible.”

  Howell took a deep breath and looked down at June. “What was horrible?”

  “That woman! You should have—”

  Through the drone of speech and excitement, Kendra turned toward the voice of Clifton Howell. She wiped her tear-streaked face as best she could, and forced herself to look at him. “If you want me to resign, Mr. Howell, I will. I’d rather not be fired, because I’ve never been asked to leave a job. It was my responsibility. I’m terribly sorry.”

  Howell looked toward Tab, who was busy trying to regulate the controls. “Can you repair it, Tab?”