Three Weeks Earlier

 

She was still in the shower by the time he made it upstairs.  It was early, six-thirty in the morning, but Jenay Sinatra was an early bird.

Charles Sinatra was not.

But he’d driven all through the night, nearly eight hours with a couple stops to pee and get gas, just to be able to see her and be with her before she headed off to work.  And before he went to sleep for what probably was going to be another eight hours.

He undressed quickly, leaving his clothing wherever they dropped, pulled the covers back, and fell onto his back onto the bed.  He was back home in Maine, after three days of bullshit in Baltimore where a major land deal negotiation fell through, and where his unleashed anger nearly cost him a night in jail.  The last thing he wanted was more drama and aggravation.  That was why he wanted Jenay.  She calmed him unlike anybody else ever could.

But by the time the shower turned off, and Jenay got out, removed her shower cap, grabbed a towel, and entered their adjacent bedroom, he had already fallen asleep.  She didn’t see him at first.  Her entire focus was on the three major conventions her hotel, the Jericho Inn, would be hosting next week, and she was mentally adding items on her to-do list even as she dried off.  It wasn’t until he snored, startling her, did she look toward their bed.

And when she saw her husband, laid across that bed like the Adonis he was, shock became an understatement.  “Charlie?” she asked.

But he was sleeping too hard to hear her.  Snoring like a big dog.  She wanted to run to him, and get on top of him, and give him the kind of welcome back she knew he would want, but he was tired.  She could see it all over his face, even with his eyes closed.

She had urged him to wait until morning to try and drive back after those negotiations fell through, but he drove back anyway.  All night long.  But that was Charles.  He wasn’t going to be away from home any longer than he had to be.

She went over to him to put the covers over his fine body.  Even as he slept his penis was exciting the hell out of her.  Even as he slept it was bigger than most men’s penises aroused.  But she’d have to give him that welcome back when he woke up.

She, instead, covered him up, put away all the clothes he’d thrown about the room like some careless teenager, put on a bathrobe, and made her way downstairs.

But once downstairs, she got another surprise.  Not only had their baby daughter, Bonita, gotten up and gotten in the tub without her having to wake her up, but she’d laid out her school clothes on the bed.  She attended a private school, Saint Catherine’s, and wore a uniform, but the clothes were already properly ironed and ready.  Their baby, Jenay thought with fondness but also with trepidation, was growing up.

Jenay poked her head into the bathroom.  Bonita Sinatra sat in her garden tub bathing.  She was Charles’s fifth biological child, but Jenay’s first and only biological child.  And she was a stunner already, with long, thick black hair; golden-brown skin; and a smile that could charm birds from trees.  She wasn’t spoiled, which Jenay was thankful for, but she was decisive. And knew how to get exactly what she wanted.  “Cereal or bacon?” Jenay asked her.

“Cereal,” Bonita replied.

“Raisin Bran or Cheerios?”

“Fruit Loops.”

“Neet, not again.”

“That’s what I like.  I don’t like Raisin Bran.  Cheerios either.”

“Okay,” Jenay said.  “But tomorrow you’re eating a complete, well-balanced breakfast.  You aren’t eating Fruit Loops every single morning, young lady.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You said yes ma’am yesterday.  And the day before that.  You can’t eat cereal every single day, Neet.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Jenay smiled and shook her head.  Even at her young age, Bonita could charm her way out of anything.  She was so skilled that she even had her father wrapped right around her fingers.  Had her mother wrapped around them too, Jenay thought with a smile, as she made her way into the kitchen.

After preparing coffee, she stood at the center island, pulled up her emails on her kitchen laptop, and read them as she drank.  And then Anthony “Tony” Sinatra, her stepson, arrived.  He picked up his baby sister every morning and took her to school on his way to work.  Jenay believed it killed two birds with one stone for Tony: he loved Bonita and enjoyed spending that time with her.  But it also gave him a chance to catch a daily glimpse of Saint Catherine’s headmistress and his good friend, Sharon Rachel Flannigan.

But when he entered the home and made his way into the kitchen, where Jenay was pouring herself a second cup of coffee, she got herself another surprise.  He didn’t have to catch any glimpses of Sharon.  Sharon was with him.

Jenay smiled.  “Well hello there,” she said as they made their way to the center Island.  “I didn’t expect to see you this morning, Share.”

“Tony insisted on picking me up from the airport,” Sharon said as Tony held her chair and she sat at the island.  “I just got back in town.”

“How was the convention?”

“Busy.  You get twenty heads of twenty parochial schools in one room, and you’ve got twenty different suggestions for every issue, and twenty different solutions for every problem.  It was maddening,” she said, and they laughed.

“I saw Dad’s car out front,” Tony said.  “He’s back?”

“Yep.”

“How did it go?”

“It didn’t.  He found out he lost the bid late last night, and he was pissed, as you can imagine.  I told him not to try and drive all through the night to get home, but you know your father.”

Tony smiled.  “He can’t stay away from you that long, Jenay, come on now.  When his business is over, Dad comes home.”

Jenay knew it too.  And it warmed her heart.  But seeing Tony with Sharon warmed it too.  “Speaking of coming home,” she said to Sharon.  “You’ve just got in town yourself.  You aren’t going straight to Saint Cat’s, are you?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so.  I feel I must.  Knowing my staff the way that I know them, I’m sure I’ll need to reestablish order as quickly as possible.”

Jenay smiled, and poured them both coffee.  Sharon was a slender black woman with a face most would consider ordinary, although she was sharp as a whip and the first female head of Saint Catherine’s, or of any private school in the region, which was no easy feat.

She was also one of the sweetest women Jenay had ever known.  She’d love for Tony to marry Sharon!  Even now she saw how he was taking peeps at her, as if he was just besotted with Sharon.  But he was not the kind of man to go that deep.  Tony told it straight to everybody, even when they couldn’t handle the truth.  Everybody, Jenay thought, except himself.

After more conversations about conventions, including the three Jenay was slated to host next week, Bonita arrived in the kitchen with a sad look on her face.

“Have you forgotten how to speak, young lady?” Tony asked her.  He was her older brother, but there was such a large age gap that all of her siblings, except for maybe Ashley and Donald, behaved as if they were her parents.  Especially Brent and Tony.

“Good morning, Miss Flannigan,” she said to Sharon.

“Good morning, Bonita.”

“Good morning, Tony.”

“Good morning.  That’s more like it.”

But Jenay could tell something was bothering her daughter, who had dressed and brushed her hair beautifully.  “What’s wrong, baby?” she asked her.

Tears appeared in Bonita’s big, green eyes.  “I went upstairs to get my bookbag, and heard Daddy snoring.”

“Okay.”

“He’s back home.”

“He just got home not too long ago.”

“But he’s asleep, and you said I couldn’t wake him up when he’s sleeping.  But I haven’t seen him in three days, and I miss him.  And I’ll be in school when he wakes up, and he might be gone again when I get back home.”

Jenay’s heart went out to her child.  She went to her and took her by the hand.  “Come on,” she said, and headed upstairs with Bonita.

Tony smiled and shook his head.  “Even at her age,” he said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sharon asked.

“All of my father’s children are so infatuated with him.  Even when we were kids, we all wanted to be like Dad and be around Dad and jockey for position to sit next to Dad or stand next to him.  Whenever he would go out of town, we would cry and throw tantrums and beg him not to leave us.  I mean it was crazy.  I used to think it was because we were raised without our mother around, and didn’t want to be abandoned by him too.  But that craziness continued in our adulthoods.  We’re still infatuated with our father!”

Sharon laughed.

“We’re still jockeying for position around him,” Tony continued, laughing too.  “Now Bonita’s picking up that torch and running with it.  I’m a clinical psychologist,” Tony went on, “but even I can’t come up with a clinical term for that level of behavior.”

Sharon smiled.  “It’s called love, Tony,” she said.  “You guys love your father.  That’s all.”

Tony had to smile himself.  Maybe it was as simple as that.  Then he looked at Sharon as she took another sip of her coffee.  His friends loved to tell him how he was nuts to want a woman that plain when a man like him, with his supposedly boyish great looks and smoking body, could have a different beauty queen on his arm every day of the week.  But what they didn’t seem to understand about Tony was that he felt he had a beauty queen on his arm already: Sharon was beautiful to him.  And she was beautiful to him inside and out.  He couldn’t help it if they couldn’t see it.  He was seeing it more and more with each passing day.