Whatever It Takes

by Gwynne Forster

Genres: African American Women's Fiction; General Fiction; Siblings

Synopsis

Lacette Graham's twin sister, Kellie, has been competing with her since they shared a crib. And in thirty-three years, nothing has changed—except success, money, and men have come into play. But when the girls' parents separate, and their grandmother dies, Kellie's selfish manipulating reaches new heights . . .

With her mother in the throes of a mid-life crisis, her father and greatest ally out of the house, and her sister out to steal her inheritance, Lacette is truly on her own. Then she meets talented, attractive Douglas Rawlins. There's just one problem: he avoids her like poison. It seems Kellie has embarked on a spree of seduction and greed so clever, even Lacette doesn't suspect she's behind Douglas's odd behavior. But when tragedy strikes, will Kellie withhold the most important gift of all?

Contains mature themes.

Release date: October 24, 2011

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

Lacette Graham sat on the edge of her bed wrapping a gift for her mother’s birthday, though she didn’t expect more than perfunctory thanks when she gave it to her later that day. The strong, cold wind, unusual for early November, rattled her windows, and she tightened her robe. But neither the temperature nor the blustery wind could take responsibility for the chill that raced through her. Familiar with her premonitions, she began to anticipate something unwanted, and her head snapped up when the door opened without a knock. It surprised her even more to see her father, the Reverend Marshall Graham, enter her bedroom. Wasn’t it one of his strict rules that each family member be accorded privacy at all times?

“I’m leaving your mother,” he said, skipping preliminaries.

“Where do you want her to meet you?” she asked him, assuming that he expected her mother to follow him.

“Lacette, I’m leaving Cynthia for good.”

She sprang from the bed and grabbed the collar of his jacket. “What? What are you talking about? Daddy, what’s going on?”

The easy shrug of his shoulder didn’t fool her; her father preached the sacredness of marriage to his children and regularly from his pulpit. “If you want to know the reasons,” he replied in a voice heavy with tremors, “ask your mother, but I doubt she’ll tell you the truth. I’ll let you know where I am.” His left arm clasped her to him, and he bent and kissed her forehead.

He released her, and she stared at him, speechless, trembling and a little scared, for he had just jerked the carpet of contentment and security from beneath her, stripped her of her safety net. She grabbed the foot of the wooden sleigh bed for support. “You wouldn’t joke about a thing like this. Would you? Today’s Mama’s birthday,” she added, grabbing at a straw of hope. “I mean . . . I was wrapping her present.”

His eyes pitied her. Kind eyes filled with the love that had nurtured her for every day of her thirty-three years. “I know. I also had a nice surprise for her, but . . . well, I’ll call you in a day or so.”

“Did you tell Kellie?” she asked, referring to her twin sister.

“She’s not home, and I’m not staying here another minute. I’ll call her tonight. Be in touch.”

Less than a minute later, she heard the front door close, walked to the window and watched her father load three suitcases into the trunk of his gray Cadillac, a gift from the sisters and brothers of Mount Airy-Hill Baptist Church. To see her father, the person in the world dearest to her, walk out of the home he cherished, with dark clouds hovering and strong winds testing his strength, sent tremors throughout her body as the tragedy of it settled into her psyche. She would remember that scene until the day she died.

For a long while, she pondered what grievance her father could have against her mother, a God-fearing woman and dutiful wife. Realizing that the telephone had been ringing for some time, she got up and answered it, though with reluctance; she didn’t want to talk to anyone.

“Hello.”

“Where’s Marshall going? I just saw him putting three big suitcases in his car,” It was her aunt Nan, her father’s only sister, who lived across the street from the parsonage, which had served as their home since her teenage years.

“I don’t know, Aunt Nan, but he’s left Mama. That’s what he told me a couple of minutes ago. I mean, he’s left her for good.”

“Girl, you go ’way from here. Don’t let no words like that come off your tongue.”

“It’s the truth.”

“I can’t believe it. Did he say why?”

“No, ma’am. He told me to ask her, but he didn’t think she’d tell me the truth.”

“That don’t make a bit of sense. Marshall never did believe in divorce, and he never takes a step without thinking long and hard about what he’s going to do or say. Something happened that he’s not telling.”

“Looks like it.”

“Well, did you ask your mother?”

“I want to, that is, if I get up the nerve to ask her. She’s not home. Can we talk later, Aunt Nan? I’m having a problem with this.”

“I guess you are, child.”

After Lacette hung up, her first thought was what her father would tell his parishioners in church the next day, Sunday, and she made up her mind right then to be there. She moseyed around the room fingering the little wooden statue her father carved for her long before she reached adolescence, glancing toward a window at the deepening gray of the clouds, rummaging among the papers on her desk, doing nothing, aimless. A gust of wind from the front door told her that either Kellie or her mother had entered the house and she rushed to the top of the stairs.

“Kellie. Kellie, something awful has happened. Have you talked with Mama?”

“Haven’t seen her since breakfast. What’s up?”

“Papa left Mama. He’s moved out of our home.” She couldn’t believe Kellie’s careless shrug. She may as well have said she didn’t care. “Doesn’t it matter to you that our father has left home?”

“Yeah. You said so. It’ll straighten itself out. Where did he go?”

“I don’t know.” She fought back the tears, not wanting to let Kellie feel that she was the stronger of the two; her sister already had a big enough ego.

“For goodness sake, don’t mope about it. How can anybody break up a thirty-five-year marriage? Besides, Daddy can’t scramble an egg, so how’s he going to get along by himself?”

She hated Kellie’s superior attitude. “Kellie, this is serious. I don’t even know where Mama is.”

“Don’t worry about it. We’d better find a restaurant so we can take her out to dinner. Uh . . . what did you get her for a present?”

Lacette threw up her hands, exasperated. Talking about presents when their family had just been rent apart. “Present? Oh. I bought her a silk gown and a bottle of Azure perfume. She loves that. What did you get?”

“Pew. Whenever I smell Azure, I look around expecting to see Mama. I started smelling it before I was born. Maybe Daddy left because he got tired of it. I bought her a red robe.”

“You what? But Kellie, you know Mama doesn’t like red.”

“I’m sick of seeing her in that drab, green thing she wears around here. She will wear this robe”—she pointed to the shopping bag in her hand—“because I gave it to her.”

Yes. She probably will, Lacette thought, but didn’t bother to articulate the sarcasm. “I have to look up some information on a group of antiques. An expert on those figurines I’m hawking next week, I definitely am not,” Lacette told Kellie. “See you about six.”

Lacette worked as a freelance demonstrator of assorted household products and personal care items, but she had not previously presented valuable antiques. Anxious to open her own marketing firm, she wasn’t choosy about what she demonstrated, so long as the company paid well and the merchandise was legal and decent. Six o’clock came too soon, for she dreaded being with her mother and seeing her unhappy.

“We’re meeting her at the restaurant,” Kellie explained to Lacette “She hasn’t been home.”

Lacette didn’t like that. Her mother had always been a homebody and wasn’t given to staying away from home all day, and especially not on a Saturday when parishioners would occasionally drop in. “Did you tell her about Daddy? Or do you think she knows?”

“Of course, I didn’t tell her,” Kellie said. “It’s her birthday.

“You can hear this engine a mile away,” Kellie said when Lacette moved her old Chevrolet away from the curb, “and it pollutes the whole neighborhood.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“Not by much. You need a new car.”

“New cars cost money, Kellie, and I’m trying to save to start my own business.”

“If you go around in this broken-down thing, nobody will go near your place when you open it. If you want to get ahead, you have to look like you already have it made.”

She didn’t think much of Kellie’s gospel: Forget the content; what mattered was the way you packaged it. However, since Kellie rarely asked for her opinion and didn’t appreciate it when she got it, Lacette didn’t comment.

Their mother waited at a corner table at Mealey’s, a cozy restaurant with low-beamed ceilings, pink tablecloths, and stone fireplaces that crackled with fire on that cool November evening. After they greeted her, it saddened Lacette to see her mother cross her arms and rub them up and down continually as if she were cold.

“Did your father say he’d be getting home late?”

Kellie, who Lacette thought had both the guts and the audacity to eyeball the Pope, focused her gaze on the pink tablecloth, and didn’t speak.

“Did you see him?” Cynthia asked, looking at Kellie, the family member who most enjoyed carrying news.

“I wasn’t there when he left,” she said. “He talked with Lacette.”

Lacette hated hurting her mother, and she especially didn’t want to do that on her mother’s birthday, but from Cynthia’s demeanor, Lacette could tell that the woman expected the hatchet to fall. “He said he was moving out of the house, and he took three suitcases with him. That’s all I know.”

A groan escaped Cynthia Graham, and she seemed to wilt, slumping in her chair and closing her eyes. “What am I going to do?”

Kellie picked up her menu and began turning its pages. “Keep on living,” she advised. “Cut your hair, shorten your skirts, slap some makeup on your face and show him you don’t give a hoot. Men suck, anyway.”

Cynthia straightened up just a little and focused her gaze on Kellie. “Do you realize you’re talking about your father?” she asked, her voice devoid of the outrage Lacette would have expected.

“I realize it,” Kellie replied, beckoning for the waiter. “The point is, do you?”

Lacette thought the meal would never end. Birthdays had always been joyous occasions that the family celebrated with fancy meals, gifts, and pranks, catering in thoughtful ways to the birthday celebrant. Without their father, who relished the occasions, their dinner had, for Lacette, a funereal air. An onlooker would have thought that they were mourning the passing of a dear one, and in some ways, they were. She pasted an expression on her face that belied the pain in her heart and hoped that neither Kellie nor her mother detected her hypocrisy.

How in heaven’s name could Kellie and her mother eat with such gusto? Although Kellie’s plate had been piled with short ribs of beef, candied sweet potatoes, and spinach, it looked as if she had sopped it with a piece of bread, and Cynthia’s looked much the same. It occurred to her, not for the first time, that in spite of their apparent differences, her mother and sister not only resembled each other physically, but had very similar personalities and behavior. By the time they reached home, Lacette had exhausted her reservoir of pretense. She gave her mother two packages, kissed her and fled to her room.

“Want some coffee, Mama?” Kellie asked her mother as she watched her sister hasten up the stairs.

“I wouldn’t mind some. Thanks. You know, I just can’t figure out what got into your father.”

Kellie hung their coats in the hall closet, a big one crowded with assorted outer wear, fishing gear, umbrellas that didn’t seem to belong in the neat, elegantly furnished and modernized Federal house that predated the twentieth century.

“We are not going to discuss that, Mama. Okay?” Relief spread over Cynthia’s demeanor, and Kellie headed for the kitchen, not waiting for her mother’s reply.

“I hope you like it,” Kellie said before she handed her mother the box that contained the red robe. “You can use a change. A big change.”

She watched Cynthia’s face as she pushed aside the tissue paper and stared down at the brilliant red fabric. She swallowed hard enough for Kellie to hear her. “You gave me something—”

Kellie interrupted her, ignoring Cynthia’s stammers, ready to drive home her point. “You’re still a young woman, and it’s time you acted like it. Fifty-five isn’t old, Mama. When you’re eighty, you’ll curse yourself for having wasted your youth.”

Cynthia stood, held the garment to her body and walked to the hall mirror. “I guess you’re right. It is nice, but I was raised to believe women wore red to attract men’s attention, so I—”

“Pooh. It looks good on you. Buy yourself a red suit or, better still, a red coat.”

Cynthia’s face bore a horrified expression that caused her daughter to wonder if her mother had been taking acting classes. When she said, “Oh, Kellie, what will people think?” Kellie stared at her, then shrugged.

“Look, Mama. If you get a decent hair style and a pair of shoes with a heel less than two inches wide to go with it, everybody will think you look great. It’s time you came out of the dungeon and got with it.”

Cynthia gazed at herself in the mirror, letting her hand pass slowly over her right cheek before she smoothed her hair and smiled. “I’m not that bad, am I?”

As Kellie had known, her mother would wear the red robe and enjoy it. She loved the scent of gourmet coffee, an aroma that usually gave her a sense of well-being, but at the moment, she couldn’t bring herself to enjoy it. Her mind was on the frivolousness she detected in Cynthia. God forbid it was such gullibility as Cynthia had just displayed that got her into her present trouble. Kellie didn’t want the coffee, but she drank it anyway, cooling it with the wind of her breath and sipping slowly, relieving herself of the necessity of talking. Sucking her teeth was the only evidence she gave of the spurt of anger that shot through her. Sure as hell, her mother didn’t want to hear the words that fought to come out of her. She leaned back and closed her eyes; the time would come, though, when those unspoken words would be her trump card.

She put their cups, saucers, and spoons in the dishwasher and switched off the kitchen lights. “I’m going to bed, Mama. Happy number fifty-five. See you in the morning.”

“Thank you for making my day, honey. Uh . . . You going to church in the morning?”

“Hadn’t planned on it, and I probably won’t.” She headed toward the stairs. “Good night, Mama.”

“Good night, dear.”

Cynthia hadn’t moved from her seat on the living room sofa, a lone figure in the dimly lit, almost eerie setting, with only the whistling of the wind for company. Kellie looked at her mother for a long time before going to her room, getting into her bed and sinking into a deep, restful sleep.

On that Sunday morning, Lacette arose early, cooked breakfast and called Kellie and her mother to eat. When neither responded, she checked their rooms, found nothing untoward, and put their food in the oven. Then, as she had promised herself, she went to her father’s church and sat in her usual seat. She didn’t burden her mind with thoughts of what the parishioners made of her mother’s absence. Cynthia Graham did not miss Sunday morning service unless she was ill. She’d been known to attend service when she had barely enough energy to walk up the half a dozen steps leading to the front door.

Lacette listened for half an hour to her father’s sermon—a very good one considering the radical change he made in his life the previous day—extolling the efficacy of loyalty and trust. She wondered if he was talking about his personal life. At the end of the service, when the people usually gathered to give praise, to share the message they received from the pastor’s sermon, and sometimes to gossip about what someone was wearing and who was in what kind of trouble, Lacette dashed to the women’s room and, seeing that the route was clear, rushed from there to her father’s office and waited for him.

Marshall Graham walked into his office and closed the door, having spent much less time with his parishioners than was usual for him on a Sunday morning. When he saw Lacette, a smile replaced his somber demeanor. She jumped to her feet and met him as he started toward her.

“I’m so glad you came,” he said. “I knew that if a member of my family showed up here this morning, you’d be the one. How are you?”

She let herself enjoy the strength of his embrace as she tried to recall the last time she had experienced the loving warmth of her mother’s arms. She kissed her father’s cheek, moved away from him and voiced the thought she’d just had.

“Don’t ever compare your relationship with your father to your relationship with your mother. You look to us for different things, to me for protection and to her for social identity. When you passed your teens, your mother had to stop mothering you and let you be a woman. My role remains the same; it’s the way I exercise it that has changed. So don’t be so hard on your mother. What’s happened is between her and me, and I don’t want you to take sides.”

“I don’t know if that’s possible, Daddy. I’ve always felt closer to you than to anyone else.”

A half smile flitted across his face. “It’s enough that Kellie will take sides with her. Don’t you be guilty of the same foolishness.”

“I see what you mean,” she said. And she did. Kellie had always wound their mother around her little finger, avoiding guidance when she needed it and punishment when she deserved it. “Have you found a place to stay?”

“Last night I stayed at a motel over in New Market, and I don’t think anyone recognized me. If I let it be known that Cynthia and I are separated, the trustees might expect my family to move out of the parish house, and I don’t want to see you and Kellie without a home.”

She noticed that he did not include her mother in that statement. “Let’s go have lunch somewhere, Daddy. I’m hungry.”

“Me, too. I had a nice supper at a little inn near Lake Linga-nore last night. Why don’t we go there? Stokey’s is nice.”

“You’re on, Daddy. Anywhere as long as the place serves food.”

“Leave your car here in my parking space,” he told her. “There’s no reason why we both should drive. If we go together, we’ll be able to talk.”

They drove along the boundary of Catoctin Mountain Park where leaves that once hung green and heavy on the trees lay thick and beautiful in a gold, orange, and red carpet upon the ground. It was one of the reasons why Lacette loved the autumn.

“It’s so peaceful along here,” she said, glanced at the speedometer and then at her father. “Could you please slow down, Daddy?”

He did as she asked. “I was only doing fifty. Whatever happened to that fellow, Reggie. Was that his name?” She took his question as a sign that he wanted a change of subject. Her father had very little tolerance for criticism, and she had just criticized his driving.

“Reggie neither recognized nor understood the word ‘no’ so I sent him packing. That kind of man is a nuisance.”

He turned off Catoctin Furnace Road into Parks Drive, a romantic lane overhung with branches that formed a mile-long arbor often referred to as lovers’ drive. He stopped in front of a white brick building that was distinguished mainly by the replica of a great elk astride its roof.

Lacette made no move to get out of the car. “Daddy, I have a feeling that if we’re eating here so you won’t see anyone who knows us, you’re going to be disappointed.”

He got out, walked around the car and opened her door. A mark of absentmindedness, she knew, because he usually allowed her to let herself out of the car. “You think so?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

He took her arm and made rapid strides to the restaurant. “We’ll see.”

Almost as soon as they seated themselves, the waitress arrived with two menus. “Lord, Reverend Graham, it sure is an honor to wait on you. This your daughter for sure, cause she looks just like you. No, sir, you can’t disown this one. She’s even got that little dimple in her left cheek.”

Lacette rarely saw her father flustered, but he turned the pages of the menu over and over without looking at them and drank half a glass of water, although he seldom tasted it.

“Do you go to Mount Airy-Hill?” he asked the waitress.

“I did for a while before we moved up here. What y’all having? The ribs are out of sight today. Mouthwatering.”

They placed their orders, and as soon as the woman left them, Marshall rested his elbows on the white tablecloth, made a pyramid of his hands and rested his chin on the tips of his fingers. “How often do you get it right?”

“When I have a premonition like I did earlier, I know to expect something, but I never know what.” Like tomorrow, she thought, but didn’t say, for whatever came would not be welcome. She fingered the little medallion in her purse and prayed for the best.

After lunch, he drove her back to the church. “I hope you and Kellie took your mother out to dinner for her birthday last night.” He parked the Cadillac beside her old Chevrolet. “The Bible tells us, ‘Honor thy father and thy mother,’ and I’ve tried to instill that in you and your sister. She’s your mother, no matter what.”

Was he preparing her for something, or did he have a guilty conscience? Somehow, she didn’t think he was the one nursing guilt. “We took her to Mealey’s, and it was as gloomy an occasion as I have ever witnessed. I thought it would go on forever. I didn’t even enjoy the crab cakes, and that should give you an idea of how miserable an affair it was.”

“I can imagine, and I’m sorry, but I’d have been a liar if I’d had dinner with her. I’m going to run by and see Mama Carrie for a couple of minutes. Then I’m going back to the motel till time for evening prayer.” He wrote his telephone number on the back of his business card and handed it to her. “Call me if you need me,” he said, got into his car and headed to his mother-in-law’s house.

As she drove home, it occurred to her that she should look for a place of her own. Her father had discouraged her attempts to move out of his house, claiming that nice girls stayed home until they married, but he was no longer their family anchor. Besides, she had remained with the family because he would consider it an affront if his unmarried daughters lived alone in a town in which he resided, although he would have accepted their moving to another locality. Male pride was a thing she didn’t think she would ever understand.

The next morning, Lacette awoke suddenly and sat up in bed, startled by the banging on her door. Seconds later, Kellie rushed into the room.

“Ginga just called. She found Gramma unconscious, and the ambulance is taking her to Frederick Memorial.”

Lacette slid off the bed and struggled into her robe. “I’d better call Daddy. He went to see her yesterday afternoon. Where’s Mama?”

“Getting dressed. You talked with Daddy yesterday? Oh, that’s right; you went to church.”

Lacette telephoned her father and gave him the news. “How was she yesterday?”

“She looked great. When I got there, she was watching the Ravens on television. We had a good visit, and I promised to see her next Sunday. I’ll get over to the hospital to see how she’s doing.” An hour later, he approached his mother-in-law’s hospital room as Lacette, Kellie, and Cynthia emerged from it.

“How is . . . What’s the matter?’ he asked, rushing forward, his face ashen. “Is she . . .”

“She’s gone,” Lacette said. “She had an embolism. Nothing could be done.”

He gasped. Then, in a quick recovery, he took her mother’s hand. “I’m terribly sorry, Cynthia. Mama Carrie was a mother to me for more than thirty-five years. When I left her yesterday, her spirits were high, and she was in a good mood. Happy. I’m thankful for that.”

He parked behind Lacette’s car when they reached home, went in with them, surprising Lacette, and sat with them in the living room of what, until the previous morning, had been his home.

She gazed at the people around her, sitting together in total quiet as if they were still a family. Unable to bear it, she rushed from the room, explaining that she would make coffee. After forcing herself to settle down, she made the coffee, for she knew Kellie wouldn’t do it. She let enough time pass for the chill to lift from the living room, put the coffeepot, four mugs, sugar, and a half pint of milk on a tray and took it to her family.

“I know it isn’t easy for you, Cynthia,” her father was saying when she walked back into the living room, “but we have to talk about the service. It’s best to have it Saturday morning and the interment directly from the church that afternoon. I’ll have my secretary take care of bulletins, media announcements, ushers and so on, and she’ll E-mail all of the parishioners who are on-line. One of you girls write out a short page on Mama Carrie’s life and E-mail it to Mrs. Watson.” He looked at his estranged wife as if gauging her attitude. “You want to go with me to the funeral home to pick out the casket, or do you want to leave that to me?”

She wiped her eyes. “You’re doing all this after what—”

He cut her off. “This isn’t about you, Cynthia. I’m doing it for Mama Carrie and for my daughters.”

Lacette sucked in her breath and stared first at her mother and then at her father, looking for a clue, anything that would tell her what had gone wrong between them, but the most experienced actors couldn’t have covered their feelings more adeptly.

“Well, for whatever reason you’re doing it,” Cynthia said, “I certainly do thank you. And . . . I’d rather not go pick out the casket. Lord, I can’t even believe she’s gone.” She covered her eyes with a handkerchief, but only for a second. “Don’t worry, Marshall,” she said, sitting up straighter in the chair and crossing her knees, “I’m not going to break down. At least not now.” Without another word, she left them and went up the stairs to the room she once shared with her husband.

Ten days later, Kellie sat in a lawyer’s office along with Lacette, her parents, and Ginga, her grandmother’s friend and cleaning woman, to hear the reading of Carrie Hooper’s will. To her mind, only Lacette, their mother, and she should be there, because they were her grandmother’s descendants and rightful heirs. Instead of dividing what was left by three, it would be shared by five people. She didn’t really object to her father having any of it, but why should he?

Eighteen years earlier, Carrie Hooper would not have had a will; she was poor, a thirty dollar a week cook in Rosewe. . .