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Authors: Shirl Henke
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sending a limo for her in less than fifteen minutes. Just thinking of Jeff in a tux made her mouth alternately water with desire, then go bone dry with fear. What if he was furious with her? Or what if, after her heart-wrenching true confessions, he still refused to share the secrets of his life?
The sound of the buzzer brought her out of the cloud of angst. The limo was here to take her to The Apple’s Eye, where Jeff would meet her. “This is it, Gilly. Show time.”
* * * *
“You simply must end this ridiculous feud with your father, Jeffrey. It's breaking my heart.” The cultivated Vassar tone of his mother's voice was always under laid with a petulant whine. If Clarissa Vandergriff Brandt had a heart, it was at least a ten-karat blue-white diamond. “Here; he wants to speak with you,” she said, obviously signing off after delivering a ten-minute call's worth of guilt.
Jeff paced back and forth in the bedroom of his Village apartment. Damn, why did his parents have to pick this evening to break their year-long silence? He held the phone between his ear and shoulder as he fastened cuff links and slipped into the highly polished black shoes that came with the rental tux. The jacket hung suspended from the rod on the doorframe, waiting for him to slip it on and head out to meet Gilly.
He couldn't believe what it was costing him to please that woman. It must be love.
“Jeff, I won't beat around the bush,” Lyle Brandt said in his best courtroom voice. “Keith Largent and I played squash together this afternoon.” Largent was an old college pal of the district attorney. Jeff knew what was coming. “Are you still intent on throwing away a brilliant career?”
“If by throwing my legal career away you mean becoming an assistant DA, yep, that's my plan, Dad.”
“In spite of your less than judicious choice of NYU, instead of Harvard, you've achieved sufficient academic distinction to gain entry to a number of the city's most respected firms—with my connections, of course.”
“We've been through all this a thousand times, Dad, from the day I came to you and told you I was enlisting in the Navy. I won't spend my life riding on your coattails.” And kowtowing to you like you did to Grandfather Vandergriff.
“Damn my coattails! You possess enough hubris and intelligence to be a full partner in Bradford, Trent and Lange—if only you'd wake up and stop throwing away every opportunity. There's nothing to be gained in working in the bowels of the district attorney's offices. The prestige is in making partner in a fine firm, not to mention the crass matter of money. I'd surely think by now you'd have come to the realization that living without it can be...at the least, inconvenient.”
“I've managed to pay my own bills for nearly eight years now. I like it that way.” Nothing ever changed, Jeff thought dispiritedly. Why had he hoped his parents were finally going to offer an olive branch instead of a carrot attached to a very big stick?
“So that's your final word? You're going to throw your law degree away in the district attorney's office?”
“I'd rather put gangsters in three-thousand-dollar suits in jail than have them pay my retainer to keep them out,” Jeff replied curtly.
“The self-righteous indignation of youth.” Lyle's voice was sly now. “I was afraid our conversation would be as feckless as ever. Your mother really is distressed by your obstinacy, you know. That's why I decided on some rather, er, Draconian measures to bring you around. As you recall, before I retired, I sat on the board of the Blackthorne Scholarship Fund.” Like the smooth trial lawyer he was, Lyle Brandt let the words sink in before continuing. “I still have friends on the board—those odious ‘connections’ you so
The sound of the buzzer brought her out of the cloud of angst. The limo was here to take her to The Apple’s Eye, where Jeff would meet her. “This is it, Gilly. Show time.”
* * * *
“You simply must end this ridiculous feud with your father, Jeffrey. It's breaking my heart.” The cultivated Vassar tone of his mother's voice was always under laid with a petulant whine. If Clarissa Vandergriff Brandt had a heart, it was at least a ten-karat blue-white diamond. “Here; he wants to speak with you,” she said, obviously signing off after delivering a ten-minute call's worth of guilt.
Jeff paced back and forth in the bedroom of his Village apartment. Damn, why did his parents have to pick this evening to break their year-long silence? He held the phone between his ear and shoulder as he fastened cuff links and slipped into the highly polished black shoes that came with the rental tux. The jacket hung suspended from the rod on the doorframe, waiting for him to slip it on and head out to meet Gilly.
He couldn't believe what it was costing him to please that woman. It must be love.
“Jeff, I won't beat around the bush,” Lyle Brandt said in his best courtroom voice. “Keith Largent and I played squash together this afternoon.” Largent was an old college pal of the district attorney. Jeff knew what was coming. “Are you still intent on throwing away a brilliant career?”
“If by throwing my legal career away you mean becoming an assistant DA, yep, that's my plan, Dad.”
“In spite of your less than judicious choice of NYU, instead of Harvard, you've achieved sufficient academic distinction to gain entry to a number of the city's most respected firms—with my connections, of course.”
“We've been through all this a thousand times, Dad, from the day I came to you and told you I was enlisting in the Navy. I won't spend my life riding on your coattails.” And kowtowing to you like you did to Grandfather Vandergriff.
“Damn my coattails! You possess enough hubris and intelligence to be a full partner in Bradford, Trent and Lange—if only you'd wake up and stop throwing away every opportunity. There's nothing to be gained in working in the bowels of the district attorney's offices. The prestige is in making partner in a fine firm, not to mention the crass matter of money. I'd surely think by now you'd have come to the realization that living without it can be...at the least, inconvenient.”
“I've managed to pay my own bills for nearly eight years now. I like it that way.” Nothing ever changed, Jeff thought dispiritedly. Why had he hoped his parents were finally going to offer an olive branch instead of a carrot attached to a very big stick?
“So that's your final word? You're going to throw your law degree away in the district attorney's office?”
“I'd rather put gangsters in three-thousand-dollar suits in jail than have them pay my retainer to keep them out,” Jeff replied curtly.
“The self-righteous indignation of youth.” Lyle's voice was sly now. “I was afraid our conversation would be as feckless as ever. Your mother really is distressed by your obstinacy, you know. That's why I decided on some rather, er, Draconian measures to bring you around. As you recall, before I retired, I sat on the board of the Blackthorne Scholarship Fund.” Like the smooth trial lawyer he was, Lyle Brandt let the words sink in before continuing. “I still have friends on the board—those odious ‘connections’ you so
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