“What does that matter? There are thousands of men out there being seduced by older women, especially when those men are vulnerable after suffering a loss. I saw the way she looked at him when she saw him in the house. I’m sure she thought that if she went to see him and gave him this story, which would result in her losing income, he would be so impressed he’d want to see her again or maybe even beg her to stay on, and then pay more attention to her. I could hear her thoughts, but I smothered them quickly. You can be sure of that,” she said.
“What did you do?”
“I agreed with her. She’s not the right tutor for you right now. I explained to Daddy right in front of her that you have not grown as a student, that your work is about as mediocre as it ever was, if not worse, and that she wasn’t moving you forward at a fast enough pace. If we continued with Mrs. Underwood, you’d be behind when you finally attended a good private school, and you’d have to go to remedial classes.”
“What did she say?”
“She sputtered and protested and tried to argue, but I was too much for her. Daddy saw the light. He thanked her and paid her an additional month’s salary. While he wrote the check, I stood at his side and stared her down. She couldn’t leave quickly enough. Starting tomorrow,” she said, “I’ll take over the tutoring until we find someone else who’s qualified.”
“When will that be?”
“The school year’s almost over, Semantha. There’s no reason to panic.”
I didn’t know what to say. With Mrs. Underwood gone, I would see no one else but Daddy and Cassie. At least, Mrs. Underwood had been some company.
“How are you feeling?” Cassie asked, suddenly changing the subject. “Have you been taking the vitamins I brought?”
“Yes. Why were they in a medicine bottle? Didn’t you buy them in a store?”
“No. These are special, Semantha. The average person doesn’t get these. They can’t afford them. What’s the point of having all this money if we don’t use it to our advantage?” She looked at her watch. “I’ve got to go. Enjoy your day off.”
“Day off? Except for the hours I spent with Mrs. Underwood, there’s nothing different about it.”
“I promise. We’ll do more now. I don’t
have to be at the office as much. Things are under control, and changes are up and running.” She smiled. “A good executive, a really good one, knows whom to assign the work to and whom to depend upon. Take out the pork loin roast for tonight. You know how to prepare it now,” she ordered, as if to illustrate her point. Then she smiled and left.
During the weeks that followed, Cassie kept her promise. What I thought at first would be a dreadful situation actually became something wonderful. We were finally behaving like two sisters. She was with me from morning until bedtime. We went shopping together, ate lunches out, and, of course, worked on my school material. Rarely had I seen her so patient with my difficulties in understanding various problems in math or my mistakes on the questions in science and social studies. Cassie enjoyed tutoring me in English the best. She loved grammar and made a game of it by illustrating the lessons when we were out. She would turn to me after a waitress or waiter said something and ask me when they were gone, “Okay, what was the grammatical error?”
Our work in the kitchen preparing dinner was more enjoyable, too. Usually, if I made a mistake, even as small a mistake as cutting the bread unevenly or putting too much of one vegetable on the plate and not enough of another, she was all over me, claiming I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing. Now, though, she seemed truly to enjoy teaching me a new recipe or a new technique for making something we always ate.
Every day, I expected her to tell me she was going out again with Porter, but that wasn’t happening. I was afraid to ask, afraid she would get angry and it would all go back to the way it had been between us. She never mentioned him to me, but I did hear her talk about him with Daddy, and when she did, she was always very flattering. It was clear that she was pushing Daddy to promote him and get rid of the man who was the store manager now. If she liked him that much, why didn’t she want to go out with him again? Finally, I took the chance of asking.
We were at lunch again at a small Italian restaurant near our store in Lexington. I had wanted to ask Uncle Perry to join us, but again, I was afraid that would upset Cassie, even though we always went to nice places and never fast-food stops. Our lunches usually ran an hour or so. I hadn’t realized how much I had been eating during the last two weeks, but at every lunch we had out together, I finished everything I ordered, and she barely ate hers. I saw it put a soft smile on her face.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “Well, maybe it’s just that I enjoy watching you eat. You have a healthy appetite.”
“Maybe it’s not so healthy. I know I’ve gained weight, especially here,” I said, pressing my right palm against my breasts.
“You’re maturing,” she said. “Boys will like you better. Don’t most young girls squeeze and push until they finally show cleavage? I see how they flaunt themselves, trying to be a magnet for the eyes of boys. They should simply wear signs on their forehead, Notice me! Notice me! Remember what I told you. In their heart of hearts, boys admire the girls who are self-confident enough not to have to go chasing after them. They look special.”
“You’ve always been that way, Cassie.”
“Of course.”
“But you haven’t done much dating.”
“My standards are too high for the boys at our school. Porter has been the first young man who interested me at all.”
That gave me my opening.“Can I ask you why he doesn’t come around, then, or why you haven’t seen him since that first date, Cassie? I know you’re still fond of him. I hear how well you speak of him with Daddy.”
“That’s business,” she replied, bristling. “One thing has nothing to do with another. Porter happens to be a far better executive than the man running on only one cylinder who is currently the store manager.”
I smiled. That was one of Daddy’s expressions, one of his ways of describing someone he thought wasn’t living up to his expectations or putting out what he should for the business, “running on one cylinder.”
“Anyway, I’m not ready for such a relationship,” she continued. “I have things to accomplish yet, and I don’t want someone else’s mood swings and needs to complicate my life. I don’t want to make the necessary compromises just to please someone else.”