Love Me or Leave Me. Gwynne Forster

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      Pamela finished whipping a hem in her evening dress, slipped it on and examined herself in the mirror that covered the inside of a closet door. Burnt orange was her best color, and she wore it often. “I look great,” she said, and pulled air through her front teeth. “But what for? I don’t give a hoot about anybody who’s going to be at that reception.” Given the choice, she would have stayed at home. However, she didn’t have that option where a reception given by her boss was concerned, so she put on her mink coat, got the black satin evening bag that matched her shoes and went down to the apartment-building lobby.

      “Could you call a taxi for me, please, Mike?”

      “My pleasure, Miss Langford. I hope you’re meeting a fine young man. In my day, a lady such as yourself wouldn’t be alone for long.” He switched on the call light. “If you don’t mind my saying so, Miss Langford, I was hoping to see more of that gentleman—Harrington is his name, I believe he said. I’ve lived a long time, and I know a man when I see one. He’s just what I’d want for my daughter if I had been fortunate enough to have one.”

      The taxi arrived, and she thanked Mike, her favorite among the doormen who worked at her building. The short, fifteen-minute ride took her to the Sheraton and as she paid the driver, he turned, looked at her and said, “Some guy sure is lucky.”

      “If you only knew,” she said as she stepped out, careful not to get her shoe heel caught in the hem of her dress.

      “What? What did you say?”

      She walked on without answering, and to her disgust, Lawrence met her at the door of the reception room. She knew at once that he’d waited there to give the impression that she was his date. Without a word, she swung around and went to the other entrance, which meant she would skip the receiving line, but she didn’t care. Immediately, she spotted Jack Hanson, her boss, and his wife and walked over to where they stood. Within less than a minute, Lawrence was at her side.

      Seething, she knocked his hand away from her elbow. “Lawrence, I skipped the receiving line in order to avoid you, and I would appreciate it if you would stay away from me. If you don’t, I’ll make a scene.”

      “Lovers’ spat,” he said to the couple.

      “How dare you! You have never had your hands on me, and you know it. Furthermore, you never will. Not even if you were the only man on this earth.” She looked at her boss. “I’m sorry if this has spoiled your evening, but it’s what I have to tolerate in the office every day. Please excuse me.” She went to speak to her host, left the reception and went home.

      As she entered her apartment, the telephone rang. “Hello.”

      “Hi, this is Rhoda. I saw you leaving the reception as I was arriving. Are you all right?”

      “My health is fine, but Lawrence tried to give the impression that we’re an item—even told Hanson and his wife that we were having a lovers’ spat. I’ve been in a rage ever since.”

      “The pig! You didn’t let him get away with it, did you?”

      “Of course not, but I was too mad to be sociable, so I left. You have a good time.”

      “Thanks. So far, I’m bored to death.”

      She undressed, crawled into bed and attempted to banish the images that frolicked around in her head. Images of her with Drake on a small, fast boat in the Monocacy River near Frederick, the way he loved the speed, his face alive with childlike joy. Images of Drake with her on the previous Christmas morning in Eagle Park as they stood just outside the front door of Harrington House looking at six feet of pristine snow. He had squeezed her hand, kissed the tip of her nose and told her how much he loved snow.

      “Surely the Lord wouldn’t dangle that man in front of me just to tease me,” she said aloud. When sleep finally came, she had been exhausted for a long time.

      The following evening, Wednesday, the day after his return from Ghana, Drake met Lawrence—a former school-mate—at an alumni meeting in Baltimore. As usual, Drake greeted him cordially.

      “How’s it going, man?” Drake asked.

      “Couldn’t be better. I’m seeing Pamela Langford these days. Man, she stood up a dinner date in order to see a movie with me. We’re getting pretty tight.”

      He hoped the sharp pain in his chest didn’t signal the onset of a heart attack. However, he put a half smile of casual interest on his face and said, “Really. When was that?”

      “Last Friday night. We’re together, man.”

      He let the smile freeze on his face, patted Lawrence on the back and said, “Way to go, man.”

      He had no reason to disbelieve him. After all, she hadn’t bothered to tell him that she couldn’t make their date or to use her cell phone to let him know she had a last-minute emergency. He shook his head from side to side, acknowledging that it strained his credulity to believe she would callously leave him sitting in a restaurant waiting for her for almost two hours. It was unlike her. He left the meeting, went to Russ’s apartment—where he would spend the night—and turned on the local evening news.

      “Good evening. I’m Pamela Langford, and this is WRLR Evening News.”

      That bottom lip of hers always tantalized him, and on that night, it seemed more luscious than ever. He caught himself as his tongue rimmed his lips, and he slid farther down in the big, overstuffed chair in Russ’s living room. Lord, but this woman is beautiful. He wondered if she’d be stupid enough to develop an affair with a coworker, and when Russ came home, he told him what Lawrence said.

      “I guess I don’t know her,” he said. “I wouldn’t have thought she’d do a thing like that.”

      Russ dropped himself on the sofa. “Maybe she didn’t. Why would he tell you that? Sounds suspicious to me, and if you weren’t annoyed with her, you’d find that story suspect. Anyhow, every suspect deserves a hearing before he’s sentenced. You ought to ask her what happened that evening. As unhappy as she was when I saw her, I wouldn’t think she’d just begun a relationship with a man. That would make a person sparkle, wouldn’t it?”

      “Yeah. I should think it would. If I find out that Lawrence lied about Pamela, I’ll— Oh, hell! I’ll call her.”

      Pamela packed her briefcase, knowing that she wasn’t in a mood to work after she got home, but what else was there to do? With her three-quarter-length leather coat on her arm, she headed for the elevator, and as she reached it, saw Lawrence approaching her.

      “Lawrence, if you say one word to me or touch me, I will get an order of restraint against you for harassment. What you did last night was unconscionable. No decent man would have done what you did. Now, please move aside.”

      “Look, I was just—”

      “You are harassing me.”

      She stepped into the elevator, pushed the button and prayed that he wouldn’t trail her to the basement garage where she’d left her car. Relieved that he didn’t follow her, she put on an Aretha Franklin CD and sang along with the diva as she drove, her spirits livelier than at any time since she’d missed her date with Drake.

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