Almost A Wife

Lisa touched a finger to her own sleekly cropped hair, adjusted her own smart shoulder bag. “Thought I’d walk down for the exercise. A big mistake. I didn’t know they locked this door.”

“In some buildings. For security I think.”

“Funny kind of security. Anyway, thank you for letting me out. I could have been there forever,” she said, smiling as she walked away, head and shoulders high.

When she reached her apartment, and opened the door, she heard the vacuum cleaner humming.

Joline. Her weekly cleaning lady, one of the splurges that accompanied the big salary. Oh, she had felt so grand. No more scrubbing tiles, changing linens, dusting. All she had to do was water her plants, and arrange fresh flowers when the gang was coming over or she had a date.

Well, she wouldn’t be having a gang over anytime soon. Most were from work, and she had another agenda now. And Chris, the guy in accounting that she’d been dating, had transferred to Seattle three months ago. He must have seen the downsizing coming.

At any rate, she’d have to do her own cleaning now. She’d put off telling Joline because she’d been so sure she’d have another job by this time. Now…She deserved notice, too, didn’t she? Two weeks? A month?

“Come and have a cup of coffee with me, Joline,” she said when the woman had finished her chores. “I’m afraid I have a bit of bad news for you. For me, anyway.”

“Thank you. I could do with a cup of coffee, and I’m glad to take a load off my feet for a spell.” Joline, who was rather heavy, settled herself in a chair by the coffee table. “But…bad news? I don’t like the sound of that.”

“I don’t like it, either,” Lisa said, as she poured coffee. “I hate to say it, but I can’t afford you any longer.”

“Oh? I’m sorry. I like working here. You’re not as messy as most.”

She didn’t ask why, but Lisa explained anyway.

Joline was sympathetic. “That’s a shame. Goodness, I don’t know what’s happening these days. Mr. Taylor, on the fourth floor, gave me notice last month. He lost his job and had to take one in Lodi. Much less pay, he told me. Times are getting tough.”

“Yes,” Lisa said, thinking she might have to move to another area herself. She’d hate to leave the city, her nice apartment. Then another thought returned…notice. “Would two weeks notice be fair, Joline? Or would you prefer severance pay?”

“Oh, honey, you got enough problems. Don’t worry about me.”

“Are you sure?” Lisa was relieved, but she wanted to be fair.

“Sure I’m sure. I know how it is when you lose a job. And, to tell the truth, I’ve got more than I need. I turned down three jobs just last week.”

“You did?” Lisa whistled. “No downsizing in the cleaning industry, huh?”

“You can say that again. And you can set your own pace, pick and choose.”

Lisa listened with idle curiosity as Joline elaborated. “You’re your own boss, set your own wages. Like I charged old Mr. Jenkins double ’cause his place was a pigsty. And you can charge an arm and a leg out in the Heights and the Cove.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. But you got to drive all the way out there, and you get plumb wore out climbing them stairs.”

“Stairs?”

“Oh, you know. All those Victorian houses got them winding stairs to the second floor. No. I couldn’t stand that. Even if one house do pay more than three apartments. Mrs. Smith called me yesterday, trying to get me to come back. I told her no, sirree, not me.”

Lisa stared, her interest perked. Set your own pace. Your own price. An arm and a leg in the Heights with all those stairs…Stairs.

No elevators!

Anybody could clean a house.

She calculated. Set your own price? An arm and a leg?

Just temporary…while she was looking.

“Joline,” she said. “Could you give me a reference?”

CHAPTER TWO

HE HADN’T seen her again. Not in the two months since he’d been at CTI.

That was strange. She got off on the same floor. Must work for the company.

Not necessarily. He’d been through every office, meeting the key people, assessing things, and he’d taken a careful, though cursory glance at every woman. He hadn’t seen her. Not once.

Heck, he probably wouldn’t recognize her. Her face had been buried in his shoulder most of the time.

If he knew her name, he’d ask…No, he wouldn’t. Too wacky for his taste.

So why did she linger in his mind? At the strangest times. Even in his dreams…that mass of freshly shampooed hair, that faint scent of perfume, that soft yielding.

The ringing intruded.

The alarm. He stretched a hand to shut it off.

The ringing continued. The phone. He picked it up.

“Tray, darling! Did I wake you?”

“And how pleasant a wake up!” he managed to say, rousing from his stupor. “How are you, Chase?”

“Missing you. And worried about you. You’re still stuck in that hotel.”

“’Fraid so.”

“Poor baby. We’ll have to do something about that.”

We? “I’m okay.” What’s with this we? Haven’t reached that stage yet!

Okay, he’d been rather flattered when Chase Smith-Lawson centered her attention upon him. Recently divorced, she had returned to her father’s palatial home, her maiden name and her role as leading hostess in New York’s social set. She was the spoiled apple of her father’s eye. She was also beautiful, glamorous, stimulating and…Face it. Officious!

“Tray, are you listening?”

“Sure. Trying to get a word in to tell you I want be here long enough to need an apartment.”

Nonsense. “I knew you’d need me. I promised Daddy I’d be there to help you find the proper place, meet the proper people. Start you off on the right foot, so to speak.”

That grated. Like his rapid rise at Lawson Enterprises wasn’t due to his business acumen, but to his relationship with Lawson’s daughter. “I think I’m getting my foot where it belongs. Into business, so to speak.”

She missed the sarcasm. “I know. As always, you’re probably working your head off in that stuffy office and still stuck in that stuffy hotel room. Don’t worry. I’ll get you out of both.”

“Listen, Chase. I’m fine. I—”

She didn’t hear him. “But not right away,” she was saying. “Page Anderson wants me here to help with the Symphony Ball.”

“Oh?” Thank God for Page Anderson.

“Can you manage without me for the next six weeks?”

“I’ll try.” He tried not to sound relieved. “I’ll try.”

Later that morning, Tray looked across his desk at Sam Fraser, who, in his two short months at CTI, had become his chief aide. “Okay, Sam, get ready. We’re making some changes.”

“What kind of changes?”

“Diversification.” Anticipated changes that had been thrashed out at the corporate board meeting last week. “You must have expected it.”

“Guess I did. Lots of relocations, huh?”

“Yes. Guess there will have to be. Each operation with its own specialty. That’s Lawson policy. Production in Denver, research and development in—”

Fraser interrupted. “What’s our role?”

Tray, noting his wary expression, smiled. “Don’t worry. You’re not moving. We’re considering this as our marketing base. East coast, Asia and the Middle East, and you’re my number one man. Quite a bit of travel, however. Is that a problem?”

“Not really. Not as big a problem as transplanting Sandy and the kids. Tim, the eldest, is at Cove High, basketball and all that stuff, and to take him away now would…Oh, you know how it is.” He spread his hands. “So what’s the procedure.”

“Relocation. That’s a first. If we—” His buzzer sounded and he picked it up. “Yes?”

“A Mr. Canson, sir, attorney at law, from Columbus, Ohio. He says it’s urgent.”

“Put him on,” he said, wondering. “Canson? He didn’t know a Canson. Nobody in Columbus but… “Tray Kingsley,” he said into the phone. He listened, trying to absorb the shock, a creeping feeling of sorrow. Kathy Byrd dead. Sudden. A heart attack. “I am sorry.” Vaguely he wondered why he had been called. “Is there anything I can do?”

He listened again, longer this time, astonished. “Of course,” he finally said. “I understand.” He didn’t understand, but he added, “I’ll be there as soon as possible.”

At four that afternoon, he sat on a plane to Columbus, Ohio, still trying to understand. Trying to absorb the shock. Kathy Byrd dead. She was only…He added the years. Twenty-six. Strange. Same age Pete had been when he died two years ago.

Pete and Kathy Byrd. Both gone.

He stared out at the clouds, feeling a little numb. Of all the rotten luck.

He remembered the lawyer’s words, “All of her affairs left in your hands. It has taken me some time to find you.”

“Yes.” He had moved twice in the two years since he had seen her. Despite the sorrow, he felt a bit of irritation. Why me?

And at this crucial time, just as he was about to get going with all these new developments. “I am sorry,” he had said again, “I can’t leave San Francisco at this time.”

“Mr. Kingsley, it’s imperative that you come immediately because of the children.’

That gave him pause. Poor little tykes…couldn’t be quite out of the toddler stage. “Are they all right?” he had asked anxiously. “I mean, who’s taking care of—?”

“A friend,” the lawyer assured him. “They’ve been with her all week.”

He felt relieved. Of course. Kathy would have long ago made some arrangement for the children in case of her death. She was that practical.

Absently he wondered what was his role. Probably executor to be sure her plans were carried out. She was not one to skip details. He had been amazed at how well she had dealt with Pete’s death.

He had come then because she called him. Even though she had been surrounded by friends and neighbors, she had clung to him.

“You’re family,” she had said.

He had been touched, but they were not at all related. She had been just one in the gang that hung around his house during the growing up years in Dayton, Ohio. His had been that kind of house. His mother that kind of mother, he thought, and felt the familiar lump in his throat. She had been so loving, full of fun and easygoing, never minding the noise at the Ping-Pong table or around the basketball hoop that hung above the garage door the constant splashing of the swimming pool. Kids from the nearby Children’s Home, Kathy and Pete among them, had been welcome and frequent visitors. Pete and he had been pretty close, same teams through Little and Pony League, same classes during high school. And Kathy, always and forever Pete’s girlfriend, had tagged along. The two of them had frequently double-dated with him and Gloria or whoever had been his current crush.

After high school, they had gone their separate ways. He went on to Harvard, and would probably have lost touch altogether, had it not been for his mother who was on the board of the Children’s Home, and took a personal interest in several of the kids. She kept him informed. “Pete’s waiting tables, and studying to be a court reporter…Kathy’s working at the bank.” He had come home to be best man at their wedding, and later, godfather for their first child. But then…his mother died.

For a moment he was back in that nightmare. She had had a heart attack and he returned home. Too late.

He shook off the feeling that always haunted him when he thought of his mother.

Anyway, Pete and Kathy moved to Columbus and, well, just faded into his past.

Until Pete died, and Kathy called. He had gone to Columbus then and found capable Kathy distraught and trying to cope, saddled as she was with a babe in arms and a three-year-old. Though grief-stricken, she had not been in bad shape financially, what with Pete’s life and mortgage insurance. He had been doing well as a court reporter, with Kathy typing the transcripts at home. During his illness, she had begun transcribing for other court reporters, and was assured of a steady income. Tray had only needed to give solace as best he could, and help iron out the legal details concurrent with death. He had promised to stay in touch. “Call if you need me. Anytime for anything.”

“Cocktail, sir?”

He looked up at the Flight attendant. “Whiskey and soda, please. Thanks,” he said, taking a swallow before setting the glass on his tray. He needed it. He was assailed by guilt. He hadn’t kept in touch.

Oh, a few phone calls in answer to her infrequent notes. Birthday and Christmas presents for the kids. But he hadn’t been back, not once. He often went back to visit Dad, who was still working as a pharmacist, still living in Dayton, though he had moved from the old home to a condo, complete with golf course, swimming pool and cronies.

Dayton, he reminded himself, wasn’t all that far from Columbus…But no, he hadn’t kept in touch.

I’m in touch now, he thought, two days later, when he sat on a plane headed back to California. He was accompanied by a six-year-old girl holding tight to a teddy bear almost as big as she, and a four-year-old boy clutching a peppermint stick in very sticky fingers.

Quite a bundle for a bachelor accustomed to traveling light. Especially when the bundles were alive and kicking!

“No! I don’t want this thing ’round me.” The boy pushed at the seat belt with surprising strength.

“It’s just till we get going,” Tray apologized, desperately trying to get boy, girl and teddy bear buckled in.

“You have to, Peter.” It was the girl who got the boy’s attention. “You know like Mommy always did in the car.”

“I want Mommy!”

“Mommy’s in heaven,” the girl said, repeating as before, that Mommy was never coming back. It broke Tray’s heart every time she said it. Her big blue eyes would grow even more solemn and sad. Not the happy child she had been when he had seen her two years ago.

“Her real name is Chelsea, but we call her Sunny because she’s our…my,” Kathy had corrected herself, remembering Pete was gone. “My little ray of sunshine.’

Sunny. She had been then. A happy, smiling child, her eyes bright, her golden curls dancing as she pranced around. Too young then to realize that her daddy was dead.

She was not too young now. She was keenly aware that her mother had suddenly disappeared from her life. He hadn’t seen her smile once. But he felt a tug of admiration for the staunch little figure…bravely reassuring her brother while tightly clutching her own security…the bear.

His eyes burned, his heart aching for both of them, the boy who didn’t understand, and the girl who did.

What right have I to complain, he thought, holding his sticky hands away from his clothes as the plane sped slowly down the runway, and gathered speed to take off. With the help of the Flight attendant they were all buckled in. He had placed both children in the window seat, and they were dreamily staring out, headed, he hoped, for sleep. When the plane was aloft, he could get washed up, open his newspaper…

Newspaper, hell! He had more on his hands than peppermint candy.

He had been right about Kathy Byrd. She had made careful plans, all documented in a living trust. But he couldn’t quite grasp it when Mr. Canson, the lawyer, informed him that Kathy had named him guardian for the children and left everything she owned to him, in trust for the children.

“Me?” he had asked. “I’m not even a relative.”

The lawyer reminded him that Kathy had no relatives.

“But she’s never said anything to me. Surely there must be someone else.”

“No,” Canson assured him. “Only you.”

Tray stared at him. The trust, the financial part, he could handle, supplementing funds if necessary. He would see that the children were never in want.

“But the children themselves,” he said in some consternation. “I can’t possibly take them. I’m a bachelor. No wife, no home even. I’m living in a hotel.”

Mr. Canson could see his point. “Well, as guardian, your only responsibility is to see that they are given proper care.” He cleared his throat. “Perhaps there’s a relative who would be willing to—”

“No.” Tray thought of his father, in his bachelor apartment. An aunt…on a cruise somewhere, he thought. This was crazy. A person couldn’t will her children to someone, could she?

“I can see that this places you in a rather awkward position,” the attorney said. “But I think we can arrange something. There is an agency available here for help in this kind of situation. I’ll get in touch and arrange for a temporary placement.”

“That might be the thing to do.” What had Kathy been thinking? “She never mentioned anything about this to me,” he said.

“Perhaps in the letter,” Canson suggested, gesturing at the documents he had handed Tray.

“Oh.” Tray had been so stunned, he hadn’t even glanced at the papers. He opened the letter.

After reading it, no way could he place the children, even temporarily, with some agency.

He looked at them. Both asleep. The seat belt light was off. He went to the bathroom, washed his hands and dashed cold water over his face. He returned to his seat and took out the letter.

Dear Tray,

I hope you never read this letter. And maybe you won’t. I’m only twenty-five and perfectly healthy. But Pete was only twenty-six when he left us all alone, and I’m scared. What would happen to Peter and Sunny if I weren’t here?

If anything does happen to me, and I’m praying with all my heart it doesn’t, then…this is why you have this letter.

Why you? Because you’re the only person in all this world that I trust. And because yours was the only happy home I knew. Only a small part, it is true, but you cannot possibly know how much I cherished every minute spent at your house. All the laughter under that big oak tree or in the pool, even helping your mother make sandwiches or clean the kitchen. Do you remember how we made homemade ice cream in that old freezer, and everybody wanted the dasher? And always your mother smiling her warm smile. I used to pretend that it was my home, and I wouldn’t be returning to the orphanage where I was one among many forgotten kids.

To be honest, the Home was the best place I ever lived. All the foster homes were horrible, and I don’t even want to think about the Youth Authority. You didn’t know I did time there, did you? Kids can get turned around. I don’t want that to happen to my children.

Promise me, Tray, that it won’t. I know you’re not married yet, and might not want to keep them yourself. If not, please find someone…someone who really wants them and will love them, and give them the kind of home you had. Please, for God’s sake, don’t let them get caught in the system like I was. Please, Tray. Do this for me.

Again, I hope you never read this letter. But, just in case…Thank you for sharing your home with me, and thank you for finding that kind of home for Sunny and Peter. I love you,

Kathy

CHAPTER THREE

ON HER knees, Lisa mopped her way out of the second upstairs bathroom. She stood in the hall, rubbed an aching shoulder and looked back at the gleaming tiles covering the long counter, the clear mirror above, the spotless floor beneath. Stain-free. Sweet smelling. Perfect. Bleach along with that fragrant tile cleaner worked miracles.

And havoc on me, she thought, glancing at her red hands and broken nails. Rubber gloves slowed her down, and time was a precious commodity. Her chopped off hair was also a time-saver. Just wash and blow!

Money saver, too. No weekly trips to the beauty shop. Chic and smooth not required in this business, she thought as she picked up her pail.

Still, skimping on beauty treatments hardly made a dent in the monthly bills. I’m cleaning houses like crazy and getting further and further in debt. Harder work, less pay.

Talk about hard labor! Talk about time! On her first job, it had taken the whole day for her to do one house. But the real kicker had come when the lady of the house said she would not need her again.

She was still trying to recover from the shock when Joline showed up that evening with more referrals. No downsizing in the housecleaning industry. But qualifications were stiff, she thought, rubbing her aching muscles.

“I don’t know if I’d better take those on,” she said, burning with shame. “Mrs. Smith fired me,”

“She can’t fire you,” Joline said.

“Call it what you like. She made it clear that my services were no longer required.”

“By her! That don’t mean they ain’t required by somebody else. Look, I got three places here. They want somebody bad.”

Lisa wasn’t listening. She was reliving the frustrating day. “I wouldn’t want me back, either. I couldn’t get the stains out of the bathtub and the windows still looked grimy.”

“You gotta use bleach on stains. And—” Joline stopped, stared at Lisa. “Windows? You ain’t ’sposed to do no windows.”

“She said just the downstairs one, and—”

“She don’t say! You say. What you gonna do and what you ain’t.

“But if she’s hiring me…”

“She ain’t. You applying for the job.”

“Oh. That’s…different?”

Joline shook her head. “I can see you don’t know nothing ’bout running no business.”

“Well…” Not the time to mention her business degree.

“But don’t worry. I’m gonna tell you how. You been real good to me, Lisa. You always gave me clothes for my daughter, and you paid me extra that time my boy got sick. Now you in a bind, and I’m gonna help you out.”

Lisa was touched. “You’ve been good to me, too. I really appreciate the referrals, but maybe I’m in over my head in this area.” If cleaning houses was a business, she was clearly unprepared. Picking up her clothes before the cleaning lady came wasn’t much experience.

“Shucks! Nothing to it. All you have to do is get straight what you gonna do ’fore you start.”

“You mean make a contract?” Lisa chuckled. When the mind-makes a contract the body can’t fill… “You still have to do the job. I know that much.”

“Oh, you can do it. You listen to me, and you listen good. No, you better write it down. Get a paper and pencil while I pour us some more coffee.”

Writing is more in my line, Lisa thought as she picked up a pen. But she could hardly keep up as Joline rattled off a mind boggling list of do’s and don’ts. “Don’t do nothing by the hour. Charge by the job, and do check size of the house and how the folks live in it ’fore you set the price. Some folks live like pigs. Do list equipment and supplies needed. Don’t supply none of these yourself. That way you ain’t loaded down and you ain’t bringing nothing in with you and you ain’t taking nothing out. Some folks are funny ’bout what you taking out.”

This is a business, and an extremely complicated one, Lisa thought as Joline listed supplies needed for special problems as well as a definite agenda. “Always do one floor at a time. That way you don’t get plumb wore out, traipsing up and down all them stairs a million times. Hey, you ain’t wore out yet, are you? We just talking about it.”

“I know.” But just thinking of the hard physical labor to which she was unaccustomed. “Today was…difficult,” she said.”

“Forget today. Nothing to it if you do it right. Tell you what…I’ll go with you a couple of times and show you how to move along. Shucks! If you do houses in the same area on the same day of the week, you don’t spend no time fighting traffic, and you can do two, maybe three houses a day.”

So she was doing it! Two houses a day was keeping her employed, but it wasn’t keeping up with expenses.

If she moved from her costly apartment…

Shucks, this was only temporary. When she got a real job…

But two short months seemed like ten years, and no sign of a real job yet.

She was worried.

Tray Kingsley was noted for his business sense. With keen perception, he took instant command of any situation, knowing instinctively who should do what. As easy as breathing, to raise his hand, point a finger…direct.

But when he entered the lobby of his San Francisco hotel with the girl, the boy and the teddy bear, he was at a complete loss. He hadn’t a clue what was to be done nor who could do it.