So with his wife’s urgings, and with Charles’s refusal to so much as entertain the thought of rewarding Russ’s excesses by withdrawing that foreclosure petition, they left.
Charles sat back down behind his desk, and closed his eyes. Though no one would believe him, he had a burden for people, an ache in his heart. And he hated to always have to play the bad guy.
But he knew his fellowman too well. He knew that people almost never changed. Russ Ferraway was destined to lose his granddaddy’s land just as surely as he was destined to squeeze every dime he could out of that land. And just like everybody else in that forsaken town, they were going to blame the man they mockingly called Big Daddy Sinatra. It was always his fault.
Big Government and Big Daddy, he once overheard a woman tell a small child, are the enemy. Never forget it. Never.
Charles opened his big, green eyes. He remembered how emphatically she had said never. And she said it to someone so young. It broke his heart. And broke any delusions he might have ever had of being acceptable in the sight of the citizens of Jericho. He was their boogeyman. He was their scapegoat. He was, in their eyes and their children’s eyes, the enemy.
Then he dismissed such thoughts, stood up, grabbed his briefcase, and headed out of his storefront office, an office in the heart of downtown Jericho.
“Will you be back in later today, sir?” Mary Stalworth, his longtime secretary, yelled as he headed out.
“No,” he replied, and kept going.
Once outside, he walked across the sidewalk to his waiting black Jaguar. Paige Springer, one of the locals, was walking on the sidewalk in his direction. When Charles saw her, he wanted to turn back around and go inside. He wasn’t getting any breaks today.
“Hello, Charles.”
“Hello, Paige.”
“It’s going to be a very nice day today.” She looked him up and down approvingly. He was dressed magnificently as usual, in a dark blue suit. And he was a big man, not just in prominence, but in physical stature as well. From his muscular arms and biceps, to his thick thighs and firm chest, he struck a powerful pose. His bright green eyes and jet black hair, slicked back, blazed in the sunlight. If there was a better looking man in town, Paige never ran into him. And she was born and raised in Jericho. “I said it’s going to be a very nice day today.”
“I heard what you said.”
She was accustomed to his impertinence. “So the wedding’s today?”
“That’s what the invitation said.”
“I didn’t get one,” she responded. “So I wouldn’t know.”
Donald didn’t invite his own mother, Charles’s ex-wife, so he certainly wasn’t going to invite Charles’s bed warmer.
But Paige kept talking. “He’s entirely too young,” she said. “Getting married at that age. Entirely too young. Why don’t you put a stop to it? You know those boys of yours do everything you tell them to do. You say frog. They leap.”
“He’s a grown man. He knows what he wants.”
“But eighteen? Honestly, Charles! I simply would not allow it.”
Charles didn’t respond to that. She didn’t have a say either way. He moved slightly away from her and opened his back passenger door.
“I heard you invited Abigail Ridge along,” Paige said, which, he knew, was the main reason she decided to strike up this conversation to begin with.
He tossed his brief case in the backseat. He hadn’t invited anybody along, but that never stopped the gossip.
“Did you hear me, Charles?”
Charles closed his back door and looked at Paige. She was a very beautiful woman, no doubt about it. Nice height, nice size, sparkling blue eyes. But she would also lie, cheat and steal to get what she wanted, and would be about as trustworthy with his heart as a wino with a prized bottle of wine. She’d cherish it, alright, but she’d drink it dry. “I heard you,” he said.
“Well did you or did you not invite Meg along? Which is it?”
But Charles gave out that impatient sigh that she knew so well. “What it is, and this is the salient point,” he said, “is none of your business.”
Paige sneered at him. “You are such an asshole,” she said. “Just insufferable! Why do I put up with you?”
They both knew why. Paige, as if by reflex, even glanced down at his penis to confirm why. Then she became so angry with herself for having such a weakness for that man, that she shook her head and couldn’t say another word. She walked away.
Charles watched her as she stomped off. She was good in bed too, that was why he put up with her. But even that was getting old to him.
He got into his Jag, pulled away from the curb, and sped off.