Lost Daughters (7 page)

I
T HAD BEEN A YEAR SINCE MEL STARTED PROPOSING TO MAUREEN
. S
HE
still needed more time to “think about it.” What if she married him and then met a man she really did love? That was one of the things she had to think about.

Another reason she was reluctant to marry Mel was because she didn't like the idea of divorce, and having an affair while she was married was out of the question. Despite her devotion to Jesus, she participated in enough worldly things already.

Mel was convenient to have around for sex and companionship. Maureen admitted that. But there was an even more practical reason for her to hang on to him: Loretta. Because of him, she was doing so well as a model that Maureen knew that someday her child would share the spotlight with Beverly Johnson, Christie Brinkley, and Brooke Shields. Maureen looked forward to the day that she could kick back in a house in the exclusive Coconut Grove area that Loretta had promised she would buy her someday. She wanted Maureen to “live like a queen.”

If Maureen would eventually “live like a queen” because of the way Mel was guiding Loretta to success, would she feel obligated to marry him then? However, she knew she couldn't “think about” Mel's proposal forever. Her friends made that clear to her.

“Girl, you better go ahead and marry that man. You ain't got too many chances left. Matter of fact, other than Mel, you ain't got no chance left at all, if you ask me. You ain't Cinderella.” One thing about Catherine “Catty” Flatt, Maureen's off-and-on best friend since childhood, was that she didn't bite her tongue. Catty said whatever was on her mind and she didn't care how it sounded.

“Listen to the pot callin' the kettle black,” snickered Emmogene “Fast Black” Harris, Catty's former mother-in-law and a woman who was just as oafish and crude as Catty. Fast Black had never been married herself, but she had lived with a Chinese man in San Francisco who had fathered her only child, her son Jack “Yellow Jack” Harris. Yellow Jack, once Maureen's closest male friend, had moved to Brooklyn three years ago to be with a woman he'd met through a dating service.

“You do need a husband, Mo'reen,” Fast Black said. Fast Black was the one who had bragged about the “glamorous” life she had enjoyed in San Francisco and had encouraged Maureen to go there. Well, since that didn't work out for Maureen, she was not that anxious to take any more advice from Fast Black.

“I don't love Mel, y'all,” Maureen protested.

“Bah! Love ain't nothin' but a four-letter word!” Catty griped. “If a man has a decent job, is easy on the eyes, and gets along with your child, you better take him and run before some other woman snatches him up.”

“Catty's right, Mo'reen. You ain't got to be in love with nobody to have a good life with them,” Fast Black added. “Look at me. I ain't never been married, but I done had more than my share of men. As strange as it sounds, the one I cared about the most was Yellow Jack's daddy.”

“So why didn't you marry him?” Maureen wanted to know. “Did you have a good reason not to?”

Catty and Fast Black guffawed at the same time.

“That Chinaman didn't want to marry my black ass,” Fast Black admitted. “He was with me for the same reason I was with him—I was lonely and curious.”

“I'm lonely, but I am not curious,” Maureen offered.

“You horny as hell, though. I can tell by the way you keep crossin' and uncrossin' your legs every time we talk about Mel,” Catty accused with a smirk on her round face. Unlike Maureen, whose looks had improved with age, Catty looked hard and tired. The wrinkles that she referred to as “laugh lines” crisscrossed her face from side to side and top to bottom. Her wavy black hair had only a few strands of gray, but she had lost the petite girlish figure that she had once been so proud of. Now she hid her flab and lumps in baggy dresses and oversized smocks.

Fast Black was approaching fifty, but she was just as wild and feisty as ever. The flat face that she'd been born with was even flatter now, and her once-smooth chocolate-brown skin looked like leather that somebody had left out in the sun for too long. She went to the gym a couple of times a week, and she engaged in a lot of strenuous physical activity, such as one or two barroom brawls a month, but it didn't do her much good. Everything on her frame still sagged and drooped like deflated balloons. She didn't care one way or the other about all the gray hair on her head because she hid it underneath wigs and scarves. In spite of her dowdy appearance, she was still very popular with men. She was currently involved with three different men, and since they treated her like a queen, she decided she was an authority on affairs of the heart.

“Catty's right, Mo'reen. You do act horny. If you don't keep that affliction under control, you'll go crazy and start humpin' trees,” Fast Black warned with a snicker. “You need to come clean and tell us everything. We ain't blind. Everybody in Goons and Miami knows that Mel's been munchin' on your pleasure pie.”

“So what?” Maureen snarled, rotating her neck. “Yes, I have been to bed with Mel, and I'm goin' to keep doin' it.”

Right after Catty and Fast Black departed, Maureen called up Mel and invited him to have dinner with her and Loretta that evening. Not only did he accept her invitation without hesitation, but he also offered to pick up a bucket of chicken so she wouldn't have to cook.

It was a very enjoyable evening. Maureen didn't even notice the looks of scorn that Loretta kept aiming in her direction every time she got affectionate with Mel. After dinner the three of them went into the living room to watch an episode of
Miami Vice
that Loretta had recorded.

“I got hired to work as an extra in a crowd scene on an episode last year,” Mel reported. “I'll bring the tape with me the next time I come over, and the pictures that I took of Don Johnson and some of the other stars on the show.”

Hearing this impressed Loretta. “For reals! I watched them shoot some scenes one time, and one of their crew told me I was the prettiest thing he ever saw,” she squealed.

“He wasn't lying,” Mel mused, giving Loretta a conspiratorial wink.

“Honest to God, Mel. A man like you should have your own TV show,” Loretta swooned, giving Mel a dreamy look. “Huh, Mama? Don't you think Mel is sexy enough to be a TV star?”

“Uh-huh,” Maureen mumbled, gnawing on her second chicken wing.

Loretta's comment about Mel being sexy enough to be a TV star made a lump form in Maureen's throat. That (and the condom wrapper she'd found on Loretta's bedroom floor) was another indication that her baby was growing up.

After Loretta excused herself to go to her room, Maureen waited half an hour before she checked to make sure she was asleep. Then she came back into the living room and grabbed Mel's hand. No, she didn't love him, but she loved the way he made her feel in bed. At least for the time being. Maureen quietly led Mel to her bedroom.

After they had thrashed around for a good twenty minutes, Mel rolled to his side of the bed, with Maureen still in his arms. He stopped huffing and puffing long enough to ask her, “Did you think about what I asked you last week?”

“About us gettin' married?” Mel had been more aggressive in bed than usual this time. Toward the end of the session, he had almost humped Maureen clean off the bed. She was still gasping for breath.

“Uh-huh,” he replied, huffing and puffing some more.

“I think about that a lot,” Maureen told him in a shy voice. It was hard not to think about Mel's frequent marriage proposals.

“Well, will you marry me?” he asked again.

“M
EL,” MAUREEN SAID IN A HEAVY VOICE, SITTING UP IN BED AS
she gently rubbed his shoulder. “Didn't I tell you that I don't love you that way? Why would you want to be in a loveless marriage?” She had repeated these same lines so many times, she sounded like a broken record. Mel was beginning to get on her nerves. However, she had to admit that she was flattered to know that a man like Mel wanted to marry her so badly.

“Maureen, sweetheart, there is a lot more to marriage than love. If you ask me, I say that love is the least important part of the bargain. We need to be more concerned about the financial security and other benefits of marriage.”

Maureen gave Mel a puzzled look. “You make marriage sound more like a business venture.”

Business venture was right. Marriage to the right woman was a smart career move as far as Mel was concerned. Once he had realized what a prize package Maureen and Loretta represented, he decided to take them. Maureen and Loretta had the potential to provide the security he deserved. If he played his cards (and “played” Maureen and Loretta) right, he could be set for life. He'd marry Maureen first, which is what Loretta had begun to strongly advise him to do. She wanted him to live under the same roof with her so they'd have easy access to one another until she became of age. Like with his first wife, Loretta was in love but he was in business. He was willing to please her so she would be willing to please him, and if that included marrying her mother, that was all right with him. That thought had crossed his mind the first time he'd made love to Loretta anyway. The more he got to know Loretta and saw how easy it was to line up modeling jobs for her, the more he was convinced that she would hit it really big someday.

Mel didn't want to waste too much time. He wanted to get his plan under way as soon as possible, so he had to work hard and fast on Maureen. Yes, he'd marry her and stay with her for as long as it took him to get everything he wanted. He'd married for the same reason once before and saw no reason not to do it as many times as necessary. His second marriage would be much more enjoyable than his first. He wouldn't have to get drunk to sleep with Maureen like he'd had to do with his first wife, a fat, hairy, old meal ticket. Making love to her had been like sticking his dick into a dried-out pothole. Maureen was a beautiful, luscious woman with a decent body, but Loretta was so young and tender it brought tears to his eyes when he thought about her. He wanted to control her in every way now and when she made it to the top. Using her body along the way was icing on the cake. She was the perfect fool! Therefore, he would eventually have to marry her too. She'd be rich, and as her husband, so would he.

However, had Mel known that Maureen was going to be so reluctant, he probably would have thought things through a little more carefully before plunging in so hard and fast. Every businessman had to take a few risks and expect a few setbacks, though. Facilitating a “project” as unique as this one was a first for him. Not only was it a challenge but it did wonders for his ego too. Having a beautiful young girl like Loretta practically kissing his feet so aggressively had altered his thinking. Maybe, just maybe, after Maureen had outlived her usefulness and he'd disposed of her and married Loretta, he would remain with her permanently (or until he found a bigger fish to fry or she left him). However, if his relationship with Loretta fizzled out before he'd reached his goal, he would simply kick them both to the curb and follow the same agenda again with someone else.

Until then, he would follow his plan accordingly.

“In real life, marriage is more of a partnership, Maureen. Security and companionship are a lot more important than romance. Shit. Love is for teenagers and soap opera stars. Even if you're in love with a person when you marry him or her, it usually doesn't last for the duration of the marriage anyhow. It's a law of nature. Most of the married people I know can't stand their partners, but they stay in the marriage because it's the smart thing to do.”

Maureen wondered if Virgil had been coaching Mel. What he had just said sounded a lot like what Virgil had told her!

“I'm sure they were in love at one time. I know love fades over the years, but I'd like to experience it at least once in a marriage,” Maureen said.

Mel sat up and looked at Maureen with a pleading look in his eyes. Then he cupped her face in his hands. He was surprised at how cold her skin felt against his flesh. He wondered if her heart was just as cold. In spite of what she had just said, he knew that she had to have
some
feelings for him. Beautiful women didn't go around screwing men they had no feelings for unless they had just been released from prison or were desperate as hell. There was nothing desperate about Maureen. She was honest about her feelings, and he admired her for that. However, he could never be honest enough to tell her that he didn't really love her either—and never could. Loving her or any other female was still an impossibility for him. Even if he eventually got over the pain of his past, he could never really love a woman as independent as Maureen.

Without giving it much thought, Mel altered his plea. “Then why don't we just live together?”

“Uh-uh. I don't want to live with a man I'm not married to. My mama would turn over in her grave!”

What in the world was wrong with Maureen? Mel wondered. He had made a lot of progress with her, but he was not going to pursue her forever. His clock was ticking. Had he not truly believed that Loretta would be the cash cow he had been looking for his whole life, he would have given up and moved on by now.

He almost wished that the sex with Loretta was not so damn good. That would make it a lot easier for him to throw in the towel. He decided that he would give this project just a few more months. Maybe he would continue to fuck Loretta and work with her on a limited basis, but he would drop Maureen like a bad habit.

“All right, Maureen, but think about it from a practical point of view. If we get married, we'll both be able to save more money. We both need newer cars, and don't you want to own your own house someday?”

“Yes, I do want my own house someday, and I will get me one eventually,” she vowed.

“Not with what you make filing lobster orders!”

Maureen gave Mel an incredulous look. “I plan to get a better job someday, Mel,” she said sharply. “Things are fine the way they are with us. Why do you want to get married so bad?”

“I loved being married. I'd still be with my ex if she hadn't run off with
her
ex. Neither one of us is gettin' any younger. When and if you do decide you want to get married, in love or not, there might not be anybody interested in you. You need to give that some serious thought.”

“I already have,” she confessed. She had begun to weaken, but she had other issues she wanted to address and resolve before seriously considering Mel's proposal.

The main thing she wanted to sort out was Loretta.

She was more than a little concerned about her daughter being sexually active.

 

It had been a year since Maureen had discovered the condom wrapper on Loretta's bedroom floor and she still had not confronted her about it. She planned to do so eventually, but in the meantime, she was more interested in keeping the peace. “That Harris boy asked about you when I was at the market the other day,” Maureen said to Loretta over dinner the next day as she reached for her second deep-fried pork chop. “That boy has been eyeballin' you since y'all was in first grade.”

Without even looking up from her plate, Loretta replied, “The boy has a cone-shaped head, pimples, a flat nose, and bad breath. His kids will be born with hooves. Besides, I wouldn't waste my time with a boy who bags groceries for a livin',” Loretta insisted. When she looked up, Maureen noticed a gleam in her eyes that she had never seen before. “I want me a man who is goin' to go places and take me with him. A man like Mel.”

“Well, when you get old enough, you can look for a man like Mel,” Maureen told her. “Until then, I think you need to focus on school.”

“And my modelin'. I just lined up a couple of new jobs to do later this month.”

“Oh? Didn't I tell you to let me know about new job offers before you accept them? You are still a minor, and I need to be involved in everything you do. I don't want anybody takin' advantage of you.”

“You don't have to worry about anybody takin' advantage of me. Mel's got my back. He . . . uh . . . he really looks out for me.” Loretta returned her attention to her plate, pushing the peas around with her spoon like marbles.

“I'm glad to hear that you feel that way, but Mel's not your daddy. He can only ‘have your back' up to a certain point. He can't make legal decisions for you. He can't sign contracts or photo releases for you or anything else unless I know about it and approve it. That's been our agreement from the get-go.”

Loretta gave Maureen a blank look. “I'm glad you brought that up, Mama.”

Maureen held her spoon up in midair. Peas fell back onto her plate like pebbles. “Glad I brought up what? Contracts?”

“Uh-uh. About Mel not bein' my daddy . . .”

“Well, Mel is not your daddy.”

“He told me yesterday that he asked you to marry him again.”

“And I told him that I had to think about it.”

“Why?
What
do you need to think about? You ain't Zsa Zsa Gabor. Men ain't linin' up to marry you. Besides, you like Mel and he likes you. He's makin' decent money, and he spends more time here than in his own place anyway. What's the problem with you marryin' him?”

“I don't love him,” Maureen said with a gasp. “I want to be in love with the man I marry.”

“Oh, Lord! Mama, do you know how you sound? You sound like the women from the olden days! I . . . I can't believe my ears!”

“Lo'retta, what's so bad about a woman wantin' to be in love with the man she marries?”

“Nothin' if your name is Farrah Fawcett or Tina Turner. Celebrities are the only ones who can afford to be that silly. Love! Bah! That's such a pipe dream!” Loretta's logic only made sense to her, as usual. She wouldn't even consider the fact that her being in love with Mel was a “pipe dream.”

“Well, I don't care what you or anybody else says or thinks. I am not interested in marryin' a man I don't love. The man I fall in love with has to have certain qualifications.”

“Like what?”

“Well, he has to be sensitive, good-lookin', ambitious, employed, and the right age.”

Loretta gave Maureen a pitiful look and shook her head. “Mama, you just described Mel Ross!”

“I just described a lot of men, but I don't love them either,” Maureen insisted.

“That's why you walkin' around here at your age and ain't never been married! Other than a few jokers that fly by night with you every now and then, and that bald-headed dude that takes you to Disney World once a year and to a rib shack a couple of times a month, you don't have any other man in your life—except for Mel.”

“It wouldn't be fair to Mel or me if I marry him feelin' the way I do.”

“Look, Mama, life is not fair to everybody. You told me that yourself. At least if you marry Mel, it would be fair to me, because I'd finally have a daddy. If Mel knows you don't love him and he still wants to marry you, I don't think he's worryin' about what's fair and what's not.”