CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
They stepped out of the limousine at the Eddington Golf and Country Club with a heavy doze of reality on Joy’s part.
Because her heart was hammering. It was one thing to be alone with William in his world.
He made it easy navigation. But it was another thing altogether to be around his peers in his world. She felt sorely out of place.
William could feel her trembling as he held her hand and walked with her through those august doors that just twenty years prior refused to admit people of color. He joined after that period, but it bespoke a lot about the culture.
“It’s okay,” William said in a low voice as he squeezed her hand. “I’m right beside you.”
“It feels like another world,” Joy said. “Nothing like your house.”
William smiled. “No, it’s definitely not like my home.”
“Welcome back, Mr. Skeffington,” the ma?tre d said as they entered the club’s lobby. Then he bowed toward Joy. “Madam.”
“Hello.”
“How have you been, Allan?”
“I’ve been very well, sir. Thank you for asking. I haven’t seen you in over a month now.”
“I was out of the country.”
“Of course sir.” Then he motioned. “I will escort you and your lady friend to the sitting hall until your table is ready. If that is alright with you, sir?”
“That will be fine,” William said as he placed his hand on Joy’s lower back and they followed Allan into a very formal, austere sitting area with huge high-back chairs and massive fireplaces and the feel of what Joy would call the antebellum south even though they were decidedly up north.
William sat Joy in one of the chairs that seemed to swallow her, and then he sat beside her, thanked Allan, and opted to wait to order drinks when their table was ready.
When Allan left, he looked at Joy. She wore a sleeveless pencil dress that hugged her body the way William hugged it: Affectionately.
With her hair in an up-do that highlighted her attractive face and smooth brown skin, and as she sat in that black chair in her white dress, she looked irresistible to him. He adored her style.
But she kept moving around in that big chair as if it was the worst.
“It’s not that bad,” he said to her. “Is it?”
“I feel like I’m sitting in the arms of a giant Cabbage Patch doll,” she said and William laughed. “But other than that it’s cool.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
“Sure about that?”
“Positive.” He crossed his legs and pulled out a cigar. “At least the music is nice, right?”
Joy listened to the music. There were a group of people dancing much further over on the dance floor. “Who’s that singing?”
“Coldplay.”
“Who’s play?”
“Oh Lord,” William said. “Surely you’ve heard of Chris Martin? What about ‘Clocks?’”
Joy had no idea what he was talking about. “What about them?”
“It’s a band, Joy,” William said and then lit his cigar. Joy stared at him. “You never smell like you’re a smoker.”
“I take the occasional puff. Never got addicted.”
Joy shook her head. “They still can kill you though.”
“Skeffington’s back!” A man William’s age stepped up to him with an outreached hand. “You’re back!”
William gladly shook his hand. “Well hello there, Charles.”
“Hello, Old Man. Don’t you look prosperous.”
“I can’t complain.”
“Don’t we all wish we could say that. But PR never goes out of fashion, does it?”
“Never.”
“My family went into the wrong profession. That’s the problem.”
William laughed. “Meet my girlfriend, Joy Johnson. Joy, this is my old friend Charles.”
“Nice to meet you, Charles.” Joy extended her hand to him.
“Nice to meet you too,” Charles said as they shook. But his attention was still on William. “Did you just say what I thought you just said?”
William smiled. “Yes. You heard me accurately. She’s my lady.”
“Your lady friend?”
“No. My lady.”
Charles stared at him again.
William took a puff on his cigar. Then called him out for the outsize staring. “Oh come on, old chap. It’s not that irregular.”
“For you? Quite irregular. It is quite the switch! But a good thing in my view.”
William nodded. “Thank you.”
“However, there are quite a few ladies in this club that shall be very disappointed.”
William said nothing. Joy felt it was highly inappropriate herself for that man to keep making such a to-do about it.
“But who am I to judge?”
“A judge.”
“Oh I am, aren’t I?” They both laughed.
“So how have you been?” Willam decided to ask.
“That’s a story I shall not tell. What about you? I haven’t seen you in a month of Sundays.”
“Neither I you,” William said. “We’ve been missing each other.”
“Business must be good for you to be absent so much.”
“It is good. It couldn’t be better.”
“At least one of us are sailing calm seas. But the wine industry? Forget about it.”
“You’ll bounce back.”
“Bounce back my foot! Those tariffs are killing me. I’m retiring from the bench at the end of this year to take over my family business full-time and this is what I’m up against?
Twenty-five percent tariffs? Are they nuts?
It’s bad out here for a billionaire,” Charles said with conviction in his voice and Joy laughed out loud.
But both men looked at her as if it wasn’t a joke at all.
Especially Charles. He found her downright offensive. “Anyway,” he said, still giving her the side-eye, “nice seeing you again, Skeffington. Maybe we can play a round of golf in the near future.”
“Sure thing, Charles.” They shook hands again. “Take care of yourself.”
“Same to you.” Then Charles tipped his imaginary hat at Joy. “Miss Johnson,” he said with what Joy thought sounded like clenched teeth. And then he left.
She leaned toward William with shock in her eyes. “I thought he was joking! I didn’t mean to offend that man!”
William smiled. “No worries. He’ll get over it.”
“But the way he said that it’s hard for,” Joy started saying. But another friend of William’s, this time a beautiful lady, came over.
“I thought that was you over here,” she said with a smile as she walked up. “It’s good to see you again.”
“How have you been?” William asked.
“Wonderful now that I’m seeing you again. Since you won’t return my calls.” Then she looked over at Joy. “Hello.”
“Hi.” It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that that chick slept with William before.
“And you are?” she asked Joy.
“She’s Joy Johnson,” William said. “She’s my girlfriend. Joy, this is Cassidy.”
Joy extended her hand. “Nice to meet you, Cassidy.”
But Cassidy was staring at William. “What did you just say?”
Joy looked at him too. He seemed damn uncomfortable.
“I said Joy, Miss Johnson, is my lady. She’s my girlfriend.”
Tears began to well up in Cassidy’s eyes. “After all these years you mean to tell me that just . . . That you just . . . You said nobody was ever going to be your number one. Nobody! But if it came to that I should be first in line.”
“I never said that!”
Joy looked at her. She could tell the bitch was lying too.
“I should be first in line!” Cassidy said with a voice so raised that others at other seating sections glanced over.
“But instead of choosing me, you pick this . . .” She looked at Joy with nothing short of disgust on her face.
“This little trollop to be the one? Are you fucking kidding me, William?!”
“I didn’t say that, Cassidy,” William responded as if he was still calling her out on her lie.
But Cassidy was heartbroken. Tears were streaming down her face and her pale skin was turning red.
“After all this time, all this hoping that you’ll change, and this is what I get?
” She looked at Joy. “This?” Are you fucking kidding me?
” she asked again. Then her rage took over and she angrily picked up the pitcher of water on the small table that sat between William and Joy and tried to throw it on Joy.
But William, seeing it coming, jumped up and grabbed her hand before she could toss it.
Some water spilled out from his violent grab, but none touched Joy.
Cassidy covered her mouth to avoid crying out loud and William slowly, gently removed the pitcher from her hand. Then she ran out.
William sat back down. Folded his legs. And puffed on his fat cigar as if nothing had just happened. When they both knew it had.
Joy looked around. Everybody else were going on about their business too. If this was his world, she thought, she wasn’t sure if she wanted in on it.
And then an older couple came up as if they had been watching the entire episode unfold. But when William stood up as if they were royalty or something, Joy stood up too.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hello,” said the male.
“When did you get in town?”
“We arrived two days ago. No, three.”
“On business?”
“A charity ball I’m hosting,” the female said.
William nodded. “I see.”
The couple seemed to glance at Joy as if they were waiting for William to introduce her. But he didn’t.
The male looked back at William. “How have you been?”
“I’ve been well. And you?”
Then the woman interjected. “Does it matter?”
William said nothing.
“I thought not,” she said. “But you’re showing yourself again in public, I see.” She looked Joy up and down. “And it’s always the same. You and your women.”
“Will you ever settle down?” the male asked William. Then he looked at Joy with disdain too. “I guess not.” He placed his hand on the lower back of the woman Joy presumed was his wife. “Good day, William.”
“Good day,” William said with what sounded like equal contempt and the couple, glancing at Joy one more time, walked away.
Joy could see how their presence threw William. She expected him to immediately explain himself. Especially the part where he wouldn’t introduce her to them. But he sat back down.
She sat down too. “Who were they?” she asked him.
William was still watching them as they made their way toward the exit. “My parents,” he said and crossed his legs again.
Joy was shocked. “Your parents? But they were so formal with you.”
“Always have been and always will be.”
“But they acted like they hardly know you.”