CHAPTER SIX GLORIA
CHAPTER
SIX
Gloria
Dressed in his suit and tie with his wavy hair combed and waxed flat, Benny searched for his dress shoes, looking under the bed, under the table, beside the sofa. He couldn’t wear his old boots to this bank interview, or his sneakers or his house shoes. They had to be here somewhere.
The doorbell sounded and his temper flared. The last thing he needed was Ed coming by again asking if he was okay, or when he was finally going to call his sister.
He peeked out of the side window and his heart sank to see Gloria standing on the front stoop. He glanced at his watch. He needed to go. And he still hadn’t found his shoes.
‘Hi there, stranger.’ A bright smile flooded her face when he opened the door.
‘Hi, G,’ he said in a small voice weighed down with guilt. She deserved better than being caught up in his web of lies. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been by.’
‘Don’t be silly. I know what you’re dealing with. That’s why I came to see you. I have an idea how I can help.’
Not this again. Gloria’d come up with plan after plan for his hospitalized mother and his mounting hospital debts, and it would have been sweet or possibly even useful if he’d had a hospitalized mother or debts.
None of her ideas could fix the fact that he’d lied to her and couldn’t come clean, or that he couldn’t marry someone he could never be himself with.
She was the kindest, funniest, prettiest, smartest, most interesting and generous girl he’d ever known, and in a world where race didn’t matter, he’d have asked her to marry him months ago.
But he couldn’t. And he couldn’t even tell her why.
‘I know you can’t get away to see your mother, and that you work every hour God sends to make money for those bills, so here’s my new plan.
My cousin’s best friend, Maisie, is a nurse, and she owes me a big favor.
She reckons that, after this much time, your mother doesn’t need a hospital, per se, she’d just need constant professional care, meaning a nurse looking after her day and night, monitoring her, administering medicine, changing bandages.
If she and I go to Chicago, we can care for your mother with your sister at home.
Maisie said a lot of people recover better at home anyways, and she’ll get more care with us looking after her full time.
She can stay for three weeks and train me and Cora to take care of your mother, and after that, we’ll know what to do, which will stop the hospital bills from piling up.
I know we’re not professionals, but she reckons—’
Benny imagined Gloria and Cora taking care of Momma. The idea made him smile. Cora and G would get on like a house on fire, and Momma would love her. Would have loved her, that is, if they could have met.
He shook his head, clearing the daydream and stopping her words. ‘Thanks, G. Really, thank you. I appreciate that you’re trying to help. I really, really do, but I need you to stop.’
Her bright, earnest expression faltered and slipped into confusion. He should tell her to stay away. He should tell her they were through. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
She looked up at him with big brown eyes and an open, vulnerable expression. She wore her heart right on her sleeve for him to trample all over.
‘It’s just I have to go to the bank right now and I can’t find my shoes.’
Her face relaxed into a smile and she looked around the shoe-less room. ‘Under your bed?’ she suggested.
‘I already checked. I have a loan appointment, and I can’t show up in my socks.’
She set her purse down on the table and bent to check underneath. ‘Let me have a look around. You finish getting ready.’
‘I am ready.’
She gave him an affectionate, amused look. ‘I think you want to retie that tie,’ she said. ‘It should sit about here.’ She lifted it a good five inches to sit by his belt buckle. He hadn’t noticed how low he’d tied it.
He loosened it from around his neck and she headed toward the bedroom.
At the door, she glanced at him over her shoulder, almost like an invitation, and slipped inside.
He knew he should stay in the kitchen and tie his tie, but he followed her to the room.
She searched with confidence, behind the door and beside the dresser, and then folding back his covers to look in his bed, between his sheets.
She got down on her hands and knees to peek under the bedframe, her bottom thrust in the air as her skirt tightened around it.
He told himself to go back to the kitchen.
He didn’t listen. As she inched further under the bed, her skirt rose higher up her thigh. He wanted her so much, he couldn’t think.
Gloria stood back up and smoothed her skirt, running her hands over her thighs and her rear, face flushed and hair tousled from tipping upside down. He reached for her and pulled her to him.
‘Gloria,’ he moaned into her mouth as he kissed her. It was like relieving an ache and making it worse. The more he kissed, the more he wanted to kiss. Her hands slipped under his suit jacket, while his snaked behind her neck and around her waist and lower.
‘Oh, Benny. I’ve missed you.’
He’d missed her too, but he remembered why he’d missed her and the spell was broken.
‘No,’ he said, pulling away and standing back, catching his breath. ‘I can’t.’
‘No,’ she agreed. ‘Of course. Your loan meeting. We need to find your shoes.’ She reached up and tied his tie for him, adjusting it at his neck so that it fell to his waist, to exactly the right spot.
She smoothed it, running her hand down his chest. He closed his eyes.
He would not pull her to him. He would not lay her on the bed.
He would not undress her and trail tender kisses down her body and show her, with his mouth, with his fingers, with everything he had to offer, how he felt about her.
‘I can’t see you any more,’ he said.
She looked at him startled, then gave a forced little laugh, like she was hearing a joke she didn’t quite understand. ‘What are you talking about?’
The words he needed to say stuck in his throat. ‘I have to see the bank manager.’
‘What do you mean, you can’t see me any more? Why would you say that?’
‘Because I can’t.’ He made the words as soft as he could, but they still ripped like fangs through flesh. ‘I can’t do this. I’m sorry.’ He felt like he was choking.
She held herself erect as quiet tears pooled and spilled.
‘I’m sorry.’ To his horror, he realized he was crying too.
Her eyes dropped to the tip of his tie, and her breath grew to a labored pant. ‘I don’t understand.’ Her long vowels trembled.
‘I’m sorry,’ was all he could offer.
She ducked into the bathroom and closed the door. He heard her run the water and then heard the deep sob she’d tried to hide from him. It wrenched his heart in two.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said to the closed door.
Already, he regretted what he’d done. Maybe he should have asked her to marry him.
Maybe it would have been all right. Maybe they could have moved to California or Maine or somewhere no one knew them and started over.
Just the two of them. Could he have asked that of her? Would she have thought he was worth it?
‘I’m sorry.’
She came out of the bathroom, face dried but blotchy, eyes red and puffy. She handed him his dress shoes, which he now remembered kicking off after work when he went to the toilet, and marched past him, head high, out of the door and out of his life.