CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
But Joy became worried when she heard that a woman was there to see him.
She should have known a man like him would have girlfriends galore and here she was raining on his parade by her presence alone.
The last thing she wanted to be was a burden to him.
“I can leave if you’re having company,” she said.
He considered her. He appreciated that she was a proud person, but he didn’t like the fact that she allowed her pridefulness to overshadow the reality of her situation. “You can leave?”
“Yes sir.”
“And go where, Joynetta?”
Joy swallowed hard. Because they both knew she had nowhere to go in Chicago, at that time of night, and she’d just agreed to come back from Bridell anyway.
“Go have a seat on the sofa,” he said to her.
Joy felt foolish as she got off of the bar stool and made her way to the living room area. And then she felt ashamed when her stomach growled so loudly that William had to have heard it. She looked over at him. He heard it.
And his look was concerning. “All you’ve had in five weeks was jail food, right?”
She didn’t respond.
“When was the last time you had non-jail food?” he asked her a different way.
“When Cory gave me half of his sandwich at lunchtime.”
William frowned. “Who’s Cory?”
“Your lobby receptionist. I don’t think he liked me at first. He looked at me as if I annoyed him.
And then I think he kind of felt sorry for me when I was just sitting up there waiting for you to come through those doors.
But as the day went on, we started talking and laughing and we grew on each other. He was very nice to me.”
“And that half a sandwich he gave to you five weeks ago was the last non-jail food you’ve had?”
Joy felt she was becoming a problem for him. Something she never wanted to happen. But she wasn’t going to lie to him either. “Yes sir.”
And as soon as she said it, his doorbell rang.
“Get that,” he said to her. “I’ll see what I can put together in the kitchen.”
“But I’m fine, sir, really I am,” Joy pleaded with him as she stood up. “You don’t have to put anything together on my account.”
“Just do as you’re told,” William said bluntly to her as he made his way to his gourmet kitchen.
Joy was upset that he had to go to all of this trouble on her behalf.
Getting her a job should have been enough.
But no! She had to get herself arrested and miss her bus.
Now she was at his mercy when she could tell he didn’t like anybody being at his mercy.
She should have caught the bus out of Bridell in the morning.
But he said new hires were expected to be at HR, for orientation, by eight am.
She had no choice but to come back with him. But she still could just kick herself!
But at least she had a job. Potentially her dream job. That made it all worth it to her.
She opened his huge door front door and Felicity Feldman, the woman whose name she remembered from the intercom conversation, walked in without so much as a how do, tossed her mink coat to Joy who had to struggle to catch it, and made her way inside William’s home as if she lived there.
“William, darling, where are you?”
“Coming!” William called out from the kitchen. “Make yourself at home.”
Felicity began removing her gloves as she looked over at Joy. Joy was closing the door and then sitting her coat on the table she saw in the foyer. It might not have belonged there, but that was Felicity’s problem. Joy was not the help.
Felicity realized it when she walked back into the living room and sat back down.
“So who are you?” Felicity asked her. “Sloane is gone?”
Joy looked at her. She was a woman in her late thirties or in her forties like William, but she was still a very beautiful-looking lady who seemed to flaunt that beauty. She could easily see somebody like William with a sophisticated woman like her. But she seemed so rude.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Have you replaced Sloane as his private secretary?”
“No.”
“Then who are you and what are you doing here?”
“I’m Joynetta Johnson.”
In the kitchen, William was cutting up various vegetables to throw together a pot of soup. But he could hear their conversation.
“Joynetta?” he heard Felicity ask. He could imagine her shaking her head. “These names you people love to slap on your children. Just outrageous. But you didn’t fully answer my question. If you aren’t the help, which I assume you aren’t since you’re sitting down, then who are you?”
“I work for William. For Mr. Skeffington.”
“You work for William? In what capacity?”
Joy didn’t know how to respond to that.
“You heard me, child, answer me!”
William dropped the knife, wiped his hands, and went into the living room. “Stop badgering her,” he said to his guest, “and sit your ass down.”
Felicity smiled when she saw William, despite his tone, and sat down on the other end of the sofa away from Joy. As if Joy was diseased or something worst. But it was interesting to Joy that William sat down, not next to Felicity, but right beside Joy. Which she could tell pissed off his guest.
But she wanted William enough to overlook the small stuff. “And how are you this evening?” she asked him.
“I’m well. Thought I’d throw together a soup to eat.”
“This time of night? I can never eat this time of night. You’re going to be fat in your old age.”
“It’s his old age,” Joy blurted out before she realized it, “so who cares?”
William smiled. But Felicity was enraged. “You can go now. I’m relieving you of your duties for tonight.”
The nerve of this chick, Joy thought. Then she looked at William. William was staring at Felicity.
“She’s not going anywhere,” he said.
Felicity looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“She’s staying the night.”
“I thought I was staying the night.”
William couldn’t do it. There was no way he was going to sleep with another woman while Joynetta was in his house. It would seem like a betrayal to him. Why it would seem that way made no sense on any level. But that was how he felt. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to take a raincheck tonight.”
“A raincheck? But I came so far, William, just to be with you.”
“I understand that. But I’d forgotten.”
“You forgot? I couldn’t think about anything else, but you forgot?”
William always told them that there was no pot of gold at the end of this rainbow, but they still insisted on believing they were going to change his mind anyway.
“Why did you forget? Because of her? Are you joking?”
William had had it. He jumped up, hurried to the other end of the huge sofa, and grabbed Felicity by her upper arm and hurried with her into the kitchen.
Joy heard William say with a loud, angry voice, “you will stop disrespecting her this instant,” and then she heard of a lot of garbled yelling with them talking over each other. She couldn’t make out another word after that one sentence.
Then she saw Felicity storm out of the kitchen, make her way to the foyer, grab her coat, and then hurry out of William’s front door.
Joy stood up when William came out of the kitchen behind her. “You don’t have to kick her out. I can leave if that’ll help.”
William looked angrily at her. “Didn’t I tell you about that? Go where, Joynetta? When you leave, where are you going?”
“Away from here,” she said.
“Don’t force my hand,” he warned her, “because I’m not going to put up with your bullshit either. You hear me?”
What bullshit, she wanted to say. “Yes sir,” she said instead.
“Stop writing checks your ass can’t cash. That’s all I’m going to say about it.” Then he made his way back into the kitchen. It was as if he was sick and tired of both her and Felicity.
Joy sat back down. But she was sick and tired too. Less of him. Mostly of herself.