DUTCH AND GINA: AFTER THE FALL (7 page)

“I don’t see why I would have to,” LaLa said. “Dutch has been nothing but kind to me. He treats me and Chris an as if we’re members of his family, and we love him for it. I’ll never cross him because he’ll never cross me.”

Crader’s heart sank when she spoke so glowingly of Dutch. Not because it was Dutch, a man even Crader admired greatly. But because it wasn’t him.

“No!” LaLa suddenly screamed and a empted to retrieve something that had fallen inside the back of her dress.

“What is it?” Crader said nervously as he hurried to her.

“It went down my back,” LaLa was screaming, s ll trying to reach down her back but her arm was too short. “It went down my back!”

Crader quickly unzipped the back of her dress halfway. “ There it is,” he said triumphantly just as the small bug was crawling toward the rubber of her small bug was crawling toward the rubber of her panties.

“What is it?” LaLa asked, turning to look at the bug in his hands. When she saw how small it was, she had to smile. “It felt gigantic,” she said.

Crader tossed it away. “It was just the surprise.

Whenever something happens suddenly, that we don’t expect, we tend to exaggerate the moment.” Although Crader didn’t say it as some metaphor or excuse for what happened between him and Liz Sinclair, LaLa seemed to take it that way. They exchanged glances as she turned back around.

Crader felt a sense of despair come over him when they exchanged glances. He felt as if she was reaching a firm conclusion about him and he was doing nothing to change her mind. He messed up, but he had to make her understand that he never really commi ed to another human being before in his life, and it was all so new to him. He was a love’em and leave’em specialist. He never stayed around long enough for any woman to fall in love with him or for him to fall in love with her. He didn’t know how to handle a rela onship like this, with a woman like LaLa.

“Let me zip you back up, honey,” he said before he realized he had used such a term of endearment, and he just knew she wouldn’t like it and the barrage of cri cism would come.
How dare you call me your
honey a er what you did
, he could only imagine LaLa saying.

But she didn’t go there. She simply turned toward him so that he could zip back up her dress. The back of her bra was exposed, and so was the top of her pan es, and the regret of what could have been pained Crader on a level he wasn’t accustomed to. He touched her lightly on her bare, brown back as he zipped her back up, and all he could think about were choices. His old man made horrific choices in his life, choices that would set the tone for his en re childhood and, later, his own life, and now he felt as if he was heading down that same dark, lonely road.

“ Thank-you,” LaLa said when he zipped her back up.

She had felt his touch as he zipped her, and had remembered his hands all over her not that long ago.

And the way he called her honey, it made her wonder if she was doing the right thing. Would it always be this way, she wondered, with him on one side and her on the other? She wasn’t sure if she could bear that fate.

But what else could she do? He put her in this posi on when he cheated on her. They were just beginning to establish their rela onship; she was just beginning to see herself as his lady, and she was so full of hope. Then that night, that awful night when she caught him with Liz Sinclair. She felt as if her world had momentarily stopped. How could she forgive and forget something as earth-shattering as that?

Crader was sha ered too, but mainly by his own guilt. He knelt down on his haunches again and stayed by her side, and his nearness, and that familiar smell of his she knew so well, made her feel awkward and uncertain. She looked at him. Some mes she felt like a strong, determined sister doing the right thing by walking away from any thought of a future with him.

But other mes, like now, she felt like a fool. How could she let this gorgeous, kind, and yes, very rich man get away from her? There were probably a thousand females wai ng in line to be with a man like him. All she had to do was forgive and forget and move on from this place in time.

But she just couldn’t do it. She would be that girl at the prom again, where her date le her standing alone just because a be er looking female showed a li le interest in him. And even a er that humilia on, even interest in him. And even a er that humilia on, even a er catching a ride home and seeing the pain in her parents’ eyes when they realized what had happened, she would have s ll went out with him again if he would have asked. He didn’t ask, but her self-esteem was so low that she was certain, had he asked, she would have said yes. But what would that have said about her? How could he respect somebody that desperate?

“Look, LaLa,” Crader said, “I need you to know something. I need you to know that I’m a monumental asshole who messed up the best rela onship I’m likely to ever have in my en re life, and you cannot imagine how sorry I am for what I’ve done to you.” LaLa shook her head. Those were just words. She couldn’t let him sweet-talk her like that and that was all it took. All cheaters have the sweet-talk lingo down pat. They all know how to talk the talk and apologize and make it seem as if they’d never harm a fly. When the harm had already been done.

“Why are you telling me this?” she said to Crader, her brow furrowed. “I don’t want to relive that again.”

“But I know I was wrong, and I’m so sorry I hurt you.”

“You didn’t hurt me,” LaLa lied, looking away.

Crader hesitated. Words couldn’t describe how bastardly he felt. “What can I do to make it up to you?” he asked her.

She looked at him. “Are you for real? What can you do? Is that what you’re really asking me?” Crader exhaled. “Yes,” he said, and braced himself.

“You can’t make it up to me. That me is gone.

When you could have kept your manhood in your pants, you didn’t. When you could have kept her mouth off of that manhood, you let her suck away. How are you going to make it up to me? Unless you forget you ever touched me or ever been inside of me or ever had anything to do with me. You can make it up to me that way because from here on out, that’s how I’m making it up to you.”

“Hello, you two,” Gina’s voice could be heard and LaLa quickly turned to the sound. Crader, who was s ll reeling from the s ng of LaLa’s words, was a lot slower to respond.

He stood up as Gina, wearing a pair of shorts and one of Dutch’s Harvard jersey’s, walked over by the bench in front of LaLa’s blanket, and sat down. She had popped open a can of diet Coke, and was taking a sip.

“What’s going on?”

Crader was so cres allen that he didn’t quite know what to say. When his cell phone suddenly began to ring, he saw it as a lifesaver. He looked at his caller ID. Although it was one of his managers at one of his plants, a call that could most definitely wait, he allowed it to take on some urgency.

“I’d be er get this, excuse me,” he said as he moved further away from the two ladies and began a conversation on his cell phone.

Gina looked at him as he moved away, and then looked at LaLa. “Okay, La, what did you do to the man?”

LaLa was surprised by the ques on. “I didn’t do anything to him,” she replied, more defensive than she meant to be. “He asked what he could do to make it up to me, if you can believe that, and I told him what he could do.”

“Which, knowing you,” Gina said, “all involved impossibilities.”

“Like turning back the hands of me,” LaLa said as she looked over at Crader and a sadness swept over her. “Yeah. All impossibilities.”

Gina exhaled. She hated seeing two good, decent Gina exhaled. She hated seeing two good, decent people go through such pain. “He really isn’t a bad guy, La.”

“I didn’t say he was bad. I know he’s not bad. But I also know he’s a whore.”

“He’s a single man used to being with women. He’s Dutch’s age for crying out loud and never even been engaged to a woman for what I can gather. He’s not like us. Just because he slept with a woman doesn’t mean he’s ready to commit his life to that woman.”

“ Then he shouldn’t have slept with me. He knew how I felt about him, G. I told him I didn’t do that hit and run shit, I told him that. All he had to do was walk away. If he wanted a slut, DC’s burs ng at the seams with them. He didn’t have to sleep with me. I thought he wanted to make it work, that’s why we went down that road. Otherwise, what was the point? To get some when he had all those other women he could get some from?”

Gina nodded her head. “I hear you, girl. Men can be something else.”

LaLa looked at her best friend. “If Dutch would have done that to you---”

“Done what to me?”

“If you would have caught him with another woman.

What would you have done?”

Gina had to think about this. “Before I got married, you know what I would have done. I would have dropped that zero as quickly as I could walk away from him. But now, with Dutch,” she said, shaking her head,

“I honestly don’t know, girl. I would probably be on life support or something if Dutch broke my heart like that,” she said with a smile. Then she frowned. “But I don’t know,” was her final, honest answer.

LaLa fully understood. “I used to be so firm about my bo om lines, too. Any other man and I wouldn’t even want to speak to him anymore. I’m red of being hurt.”

“But you thought Crader was different, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” LaLa admi ed. “I thought he was really a righteous dude. But then again I thought the same thing about Demps, and you see what that got me: a broken heart.” Then she shook her head. “I’m just trying to keep my standards, you know? I don’t want to be that woman who put up with all that stupid shit just because she’s ge ng older. I don’t want to be that woman who used to want a man with integrity but now, because of her age and because of her loneliness, has decided that any man will do. Just as long as he’s a man with a working dick. I don’t ever want to be like that.”

Gina stared earnestly at her friend. “You won’t, La.

You deserve to have a good man, don’t you ever forget that. And if he doesn’t come along, you can do bad by yourself.”

LaLa nodded her agreement. Then she smiled.

“Who knows? Maybe I’ll just hook up with Chris an and forget these older, supposedly wiser zeros.” Gina laughed. “You like older men and you know it.

You wouldn’t know what to do with poor Christian.” LaLa laughed and shook her head. “Ain’t that the truth.”

“Chris deserves a woman who really loves him and wants him and doesn’t view him as some second rate consola on prize. Besides, you’re talking about giving up one of the most virile men alive in Crader McKenzie.

I heard he’s excep onally good in bed. Or is he?” Gina asked in a lowered voice.

LaLa nodded her head. “Girl, yes, I hate to admit it.

He’ll give Demps a run for his money, and Demps was good.”

“I’ll bet he’s big and juicy too,” Gina said jokingly.

“I’ll bet he’s big and juicy too,” Gina said jokingly.

LaLa shushed her. “He’ll hear you!”

“So what? I don’t want him. He may have a li le package going on there, I’ll give him that, but no way is it as desirable and shall we say well-stocked as Dutch’s.” LaLa laughed. “Dutch can school any man on the fine art of lovemaking, and I know that’s right.” LaLa con nued laughing, promp ng Crader, s ll on the phone, to glance her way.

When the laughter died, LaLa thought of something.

“Did Dutch tell you that Liz Sinclair was here this morning?” she asked Gina.

Gina looked at her. “Liz Sinclair? Back here? What the hell did she want?”

“According to Chris she had some supposedly urgent business she had to discuss with your husband.”

“Urgent my ass,” Gina said, channeling Crader.

LaLa nodded. “My sen ments exactly. I don’t understand why the president has such confidence in her, even after what she did.”

“I hear you, La, but think about it, girl. How was Liz Sinclair to know about you and Crader? Far as she was concerned he was just a single, virile man that she wanted. And she went after him.”

“You don’t worry that she might be trying to go a er Dutch too?”

“It’s crossed my mind, don’t get me wrong.”

“But Dutch wouldn’t do that to you,” LaLa assured her.

Gina, however, looked sidelong at her. “I’ll never say what a man won’t do. Dutch is a man and he’s a long way from perfect. But yeah, I’ll be surprised and hurt, shocked even, if he did something like that. But when you’re talking about members of the male sex, nothing in this life is out of the realm of possibility as far as I’m concerned.”

“Amen to that.”

“I fired Liz, not because she fooled around with Crader, but because I didn’t like her and didn’t want her around me. Dutch hired her but I fired her.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t overrule you.”

“He tried, girl, but not very hard.”

When Gina sipped from her can of coke and looked up, she saw Chris an approaching. “Here comes your knight in shining armor. Poor thing.”

LaLa laughed. “He’s given up on me,” she said.

“Really?”

“Yup.”

“Good,” Gina replied. “Now maybe he can find the right woman for him.”

“Hey, there B FF,” LaLa said playfully as he approached.

Chris an smiled. “Hey, La,” he said. He was most comfortable around LaLa and Gina, although given his natural uneasiness, it was a rela ve comfort. But Dutch and Crader, with their power and wealth and the kind of strength he could only dream about possessing, always made him nervous.

“Senator McKenzie okay?” he asked, looking over at Crader as Crader continued his phone conversation.

“Yes, why?” Gina asked.

Chris an shrugged his shoulders. “He seems down in the dumps lately.”

“Yeah, well, he’ll get over it,” Gina assured him. “So what’s up? Dutch want me again?” Gina was inwardly smiling, as she thought about what Dutch did to her the last time he wanted her.

“No, ma’am,” Chris an said, oblivious to the joke.

“Mr. Wilkes is here to see you.”

This surprised Gina. “Roman Wilkes?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What in the world would he want?” LaLa wanted to