His Uptown Girl Page 9

  But she would. She refused to go crawling back to her father, and do the wrong thing for the wrong reasons.

  For years, she’d wanted to become independent, and now she was going to do it.

  She pulled her keyring out of her purse, removed the key to her father’s car and the key to the front door, and left them on the doormat, which she would never cross again. She kicked off her high-heeled shoes and loaded the boxes into the back of her truck, one at a time.

  The truck didn’t start easily, but it did start. Fortunately she’d insured it so she could take it on test drives as she continued to work on it. The insurance was one thing her father couldn’t cancel.

  She drove away from her father’s home without looking back.

  She didn’t know where to go. Without looking, she knew she had under five dollars in her wallet.

  Her first impulse was to go to the bank machine, but by the time she got there, her father’s threats had indeed come to pass. He’d gone into the account online and transferred out all the money he’d given her, just as he’d said he would. Of course, since she’d counted on her allowance, she’d spent more than what she’d received in her pay. The account now held exactly one dollar, which was probably the minimum requirement to keep the account open.

  She couldn’t seek shelter at the homes of any of her current friends. She wasn’t even sure she could call them friends. She hadn’t seen a single one of them since she’d started her job, and not one of them cared enough to ask about her. Not one of them would ever do anything to cross her father.

  The people she called friends were the guys at the race track. Yet those friendships were minor ones, not true personal relationships. No one there knew her background, and she worked hard to keep it that way. Many of them lived from paycheck to paycheck, and she didn’t want to intimidate them. Besides, most of them were married and so she couldn’t very well show up at the home of a married man on Friday night, asking to spend the night. She certainly wouldn’t ask any of the single men that question.

  Another option would have been the people she knew from church, but she didn’t know anyone well enough to impose. The only people she’d had minimal contact with were those in the family from whom she’d bought the truck, and they had enough problems of their own without adding hers. Lately she hadn’t even been going to her own church. Instead, she’d been sneaking into Bob’s church, arriving late because of the long drive, and leaving right at the close of the service. Bob never even knew she was there, but she needed to get home before her father became too angry with her for going to church at all.

  For lack of anywhere else to go, Georgette drove to her sister’s house. Her sister wouldn’t agree with what she’d done, but she would certainly understand. Whatever Terri thought, Georgette needed someplace safe and warm to retreat for the night, a quiet place to think about her future.

  She knocked softly at the door and heard shuffling, then silence. Georgette waited for a significant amount of time, and when no one answered, she knocked again.

  “Terri? Are you there? Byron? It’s me. Georgette. Please let me in.”

  More shuffling sounded on the other side of the door, and then it opened.

  Her brother-in-law stood in the doorway, his clothing disheveled. “What are you doing here at this hour?”

  She looked down at her watch, then back up again. “It’s not really that late, but…” Georgette’s voice trailed off.

  Romantic music echoed in the background, but Terri was nowhere to be seen. A bottle of wine sat on the coffee table, with two half-empty glasses beside it. A pair of ladies’ shoes lay on the carpet beside the couch. Pretty shoes, but they were big. Not her sister’s size fives.

  “Terri isn’t home. Is there something you need?”

  “Where is she?”

  “She was out with Melissa, shopping all day. They went out for dinner and the evening, and she’s spending the night downtown with Melissa.”

  A sick feeling gripped her stomach. Georgette glanced from side to side. Along with the faint smell of the wine, she could smell a woman’s perfume.

  “May I come in?”

  “Actually, I’m really tired, so this isn’t a good time. I’ll tell Terri you were here.”

  For the second time that night, a door closed in her face.

  This time, instead of standing there and staring at the closed door, Georgette turned and ran straight for her truck. She drove away quickly, without thinking of where she was going.

  She found herself in the parking lot of the repair shop.

  She slid out of the cab and stood in the lot, empty except for her pickup, and stared up at the decidedly non-glamorous, board sign, lit up by a pair of colored spotlights. In the darkness, the old building looked even more drab than usual, but at least the night hid the marred surface where vandals had once written crude words, though Bart had cleaned most of it off.

  It wasn’t much, but she had nowhere else to go. Payday was six days away. She had less than half a tank of gas, almost no money in her wallet, no credit cards, and no one left to turn to.

  A cool breeze caused her to shiver.

  Without digging through the boxes, she wasn’t sure she even had a jacket.

  She ran her fingers along the keys in her hand. About a week ago, Bob had given her a key and the alarm code, saying that in case of an emergency, she might need to come in early, or lock up one night.

  This might not be an emergency in the strictest sense of the word, but the shop was her only safe haven for shelter and warmth for the night.

  She said a quick prayer that she’d remembered the code correctly, and opened the door. Just as Bob had warned her, the system started with a series of beeps. She quickly pushed the code into the buttons on the keypad, and the building went silent.

  While the shop was located on a commercial roadway, in this end of town it wasn’t exactly a major thoroughfare. She stood still, experiencing the silence as never before. Her father’s house was often silent when her father and all the staff were sleeping at night, but she was always comforted by knowing they were there.

  Here, though everything was familiar, she felt truly alone.

  She turned and stared outside. A few cars were lined up along the fence, waiting their turn to be fitted into the work schedule, but her old truck was the only vehicle in the parking lot. She trusted the neighborhood in the daytime, when everything was bustling with activity, but at night, if someone came by and wanted to steal the last of her worldly belongings, from the back of the truck, she would be helpless to do anything. By the time she could call the police, they would be gone.

  She caught the reflection of herself in the large window. She was still wearing her new dress, the one the same color as Bob’s eyes. She could do nothing about that. But she could do something about her footwear. She kicked off her high-heeled shoes, retrieved her safety workboots and an extra pair of wool socks from beneath the counter, and slipped them on.

  Depending only on the muted light from the street-lamps, Georgette hauled all twelve boxes into the corner of the private office without turning on the light so anyone passing by wouldn’t think she was taking things out instead of moving things in, and call the police. Once all the boxes were inside, she moved her truck to the lineup of vehicles along the fence.

  When she was done, Georgette locked the door behind her and sank down on the worn couch.

  She’d couldn’t remember ever being so tired. It was now Saturday, 4:48 a.m. She’d been up at 6:15 a.m. on Friday morning in order to get ready and be at work for 8:00 a.m. She’d put in a full eight hours on the job, and then when she got off, she’d gone shopping for the new dress she’d worn to that fateful Chamber of Commerce banquet. Then she’d moved whatever remained of her material possessions twice, first lifting everything into the back of her truck, then carrying everything inside the building.

  The chill of the night started to set into her bones now that she was sitting still. Being t
ired made everything feel worse. She hoped that whoever threw her things into the boxes had included a jacket or a sweater. If she couldn’t find a sweater, then she could grab any article of clothing and throw it around her shoulders like a shawl.

  Except she didn’t have the energy to move to find out.

  Georgette wrapped her arms around herself, and let her head fall back on the couch.

  Her life was a disaster. But, for now, she had a roof over her head and a clean washroom nearby, which was all that mattered until daylight.

  When the sun began to rise, that would be her signal to leave. Like most people, she worked Monday to Friday, but Bob worked six days a week, including Saturdays and since it was now officially Saturday morning, Bob would soon be in to open for business though a little later than the weekday opening.

  Not bothering to fight back a yawn, she tried to figure out what she could do until it was time to sneak off. No thoughts would form, so she did the only thing she could think of, which was to ask God for help.

  No answer came.

  Slowly, the world faded to black.

  Bob tucked the morning newspaper under his arm while he unlocked the door, then pushed it open. He stepped inside and flipped the panel covering to turn off the alarm, ready to punch in the code, but his hand froze in mid-air.

  There was no tell-tale beeping that the door had been opened or that the motion detector had caught his presence.

  He blinked and stared at the panel. The green light was on, not the red.

  Slowly, he tapped his chin with the rolled-up newspaper as he continued to stare at the panel. He had been the last one out on Friday night. If he’d forgotten to set the alarm in his hurry to get home and change for the banquet, then this was another sign that he was working too hard. That was the reason they’d hired George, but they’d obviously hired her too late. He was already losing it.

  He began to turn around, then stopped. As if she’d materialized from his thoughts, George lay on the couch in the lobby.

  Bob shook his head, but the image didn’t clear.

  Still in a sitting position, she was sprawled on the couch, her head resting at what had to be a painful angle, her blond hair spread like a halo around her face. She still wore her dress from Friday night, a close-fitting, silky green number that proved there was more to George under those coveralls than just a mechanic.

  But the worn workboots on her feet shouted exactly that.

  She gave a little snort, her head jerked slightly as if to awaken, then sagged once more.

  Bob ran his fingers though his hair and looked outside. The parking lot was empty at 7:30 a.m., except for his own car. So he wasn’t totally losing his mind by not realizing she was there before he stepped inside. But that only added to the mystery of how she got there, especially since George was dressed as though she hadn’t been home.

  Very quietly, he approached her until he was only one step away. He waited, but she didn’t awaken.

  Bob leaned forward and sniffed the air. He didn’t detect the smell of alcohol, only her perfume.

  He closed his eyes as he inhaled the faint but heady scent more deeply. He knew it was only the expensive perfumes that could linger for hours and hours and remain sweet, but now that he knew who she was, that she could spend so much money on perfume didn’t surprise him.

  Bob quickly stepped backward and opened his eyes at the memory.

  She was no longer just George the mechanic. This was Georgette Ecklington, daughter of William Ecklington, billionaire magnate of the biggest chain of retail discount stores in the country.

  And she was sleeping on his couch. His old, beat-up, dirty couch that he’d repaired with duct tape.

  Suddenly, her eyes opened. She blinked a few times, gasped and scrambled to her feet.

  Her eyes lost their focus, and she began to sway.

  Without thinking, Bob grasped her shoulders to keep her from falling.

  After a few seconds, she raised one hand and pressed her fingers between her brows. “I think I stood up too fast.”

  “Are you okay?”

  She nodded, so Bob released her, and stepped back once more. “What are you doing here? Where’s your car?” He looked down at the workboots on her feet. And your shoes…

  Her lower lip trembled. “I don’t have a car. But I have a truck…” She turned her head and Bob followed her motion with his. Parked in the row of vehicles waiting their turn for repairs, was an old, decrepit pickup truck he didn’t recognize.

  Her voice shook as she spoke. “That truck is mine.”

  “But it’s so…” he let his voice trail off. He really didn’t care about what she drove, although the condition surprised him. His main concern was George. “You didn’t tell me what you’re doing here.” He knew she’d been to the banquet with Tyler, and an urge to protect George boiled to the surface. Bob clenched his fists. If Tyler had hurt her or threatened her to cause her to hide, Bob didn’t care who Tyler was, or where he lived. Bob would force him to make it right.

  George’s voice came out in a choked volume barely above a whisper. “I had nowhere else to go.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I told Daddy I wouldn’t marry Tyler.”

  Bob shook his head. “Now I really don’t understand. I think I’ve missed something.”

  “It started at the banquet, after you left. Tyler told Daddy everything. Daddy didn’t take it very well.”

  While she paused, Bob looked down at her. Despite the snug fit, George’s dress was wrinkled. Besides that, it was smudged with dirt, almost as if she’d been rolling on the ground. He followed a run in her pantyhose that extended from beneath the rolled edge of the wool socks visible above her workboots, upwards, disappearing past the hemline of her dress.

  Bob quickly raised his eyes. “Tyler asked you to marry him?”

  “Not really. But he discussed it with Daddy. Daddy told me I had to marry Tyler because I had ruined the family name and his reputation. Daddy actually approved of what Tyler was doing.”

  “Now I know I’m confused. Maybe you should go back to the beginning.”

  “After you met my father, Tyler told him what you really do, and what I really do for you. Daddy was mortified, to put it mildly. He said that his reputation would be ruined, and the only way to save it was for me to marry Tyler. But I refused. So Daddy kicked me out.”

  “He kicked you out because you won’t marry someone you don’t love?” Suddenly he didn’t want to be looking into her face, just in case she said she did love Tyler. It shouldn’t have made a difference to him, but it did.

  He lowered his head, intending simply to stare at the floor, but he found himself staring again at her workboots. The workboots belonged to George the mechanic. The woman before him was wealthy beyond anything he could ever imagine. At the banquet, he’d thought she looked spectacular in that dress, but now he knew why. That dress was probably worth an entire month’s mortgage payment. Yet now, with it, she was wearing dirty, worn workboots.

  He didn’t know which was the real George—the one wearing the workboots, or the one wearing the expensive dress.

  “Of course I don’t love Tyler. I don’t know if this is a very Christian thing to say, but I think I actually hate him. Although I can’t blame him entirely for what happened. I had planned to tell my father about what I really do here at some point, but I would have used better timing. In a different setting, he still would have been angry about my job, but I don’t think he would have kicked me out.”

  “Your father kicked you out because you have a job?” Bob knew many families where the parents were ready to kick out lazy grown children because they didn’t have a job.

  “He was fine with me having a job, as long as it was the job I led him to believe, which is something with a title.” She grinned. “Administrative assistant sounds good, don’t you think?”

  He couldn’t help but grin back. “I guess. But I still don’t know what one does.”


  Her playful grin dropped. “Not working with your hands and getting dirty, that’s for sure. I love my job, but more than the job, I love doing what I want to do. I don’t know if I’m being ungrateful for all my father has given me, but I want to make my own choices, especially when lately he’s been trying to push everything down my throat. Not just getting married to Tyler, but his antiquated ideas of what I’m allowed to do and what I should be doing to make him look good. I just never realized being independent would come at such a high cost.” Her voice lowered. “I don’t think marrying Tyler, especially this way, is what God wants me to do with my life.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. I’m so sorry, I know I shouldn’t be here, but I had nowhere else to go, and I didn’t know what to do.”

  “I think the first thing you need to do is start looking for an apartment.”

  “I can’t. I don’t have anything.”

  He unrolled the newspaper, which had been in his hand for so long some of the ink had come off on his skin. “Then a room-and-board situation would probably suit you. You could take your time buying new furniture if you don’t mind smaller living quarters and sharing a bathroom.” Although, knowing now the moneyed background from which she’d come, he had no doubt she’d lived in quite a mansion. Not only were the grounds probably like living in a park, the house itself must have been huge and luxurious. Her bedroom was probably bigger than the living room in his humble house. Between carrying the mortgage on the house and half the mortgage payment on the business, he could afford to live comfortably no matter how small his house was in comparison to hers. That was all that mattered.

  He walked to the coffee table, opened the newspaper and started paging through to the classified section. “I know how much you make, so I know what you can afford. I’m sure we can find something for you.” He paused for a second, halting on his own words. He’d said we, and as soon as the word had come out of his mouth, he’d realized he meant it. Besides the fact that he liked her as a person, he felt somewhat responsible for her having been kicked out.