Pamela Toth - Secrets and Seductions

After he had loaded the paperwork back into his briefcase, he poured himself a glass of wine. He wasn’t an expert, but it was a pleasing vintage by an Oregon grower. He popped Placido Domingo’s latest CD into the player. Neither was he a real opera buff, but he’d been a fan of the Italian singer since accompanying a friend to a 3 Tenors concert in San Francisco.

As the notes from a haunting ballad filled the room, Morgan propped his stocking feet on the coffee table and tipped back his head, attempting to empty his mind. Placido might not have been pleased to know that it was Emma Wright’s voice that echoed through Morgan’s head as the twilight glowing through the windows dimmed, leaving the room in shadows. He contemplated switching on the brass lamp at his elbow, but the deepening gloom suited his mood.

During his years at Children’s Connection, he’d heard more hard luck stories than he could count. He’d seen infertility overcome, families formed and empty hearts—big and small—filled with love.

Of course, not everyone left happy. Some problems couldn’t be cured. Some people didn’t qualify for adoption, some children grew from cuddly to surly without being placed. Morgan ached for them all.

He swallowed the last of the Merlot in his glass and thought of Emma—not what he couldn’t do, but what he might do.

The answer was so simple that he nearly laughed aloud. From what she had told him, names were only one of the things she needed. Morgan could put a little money in her pocket without getting slapped for his trouble, while at the same time he solved a problem of his own.

A couple of days after her lunch with Ivy, Emma drove down to the office of a school district in the Willamette Valley near Eugene for an interview. After her talk with the superintendent, she suspected the trip to be a waste of her time and gas, her appointment a formality and the position already earmarked for a candidate within the district. The only thing she’d learned from the trip was that her car was going to need new struts in the very near future.

When Emma got back to her apartment complex, she parked in her assigned slot and retrieved the mail from her box in the central kiosk. As she walked back across the asphalt, she shuffled through the bills, junk mail and sale flyers. The hot afternoon sun seemed to soak right through her navy cotton dress. Without water, the surrounding lawn had dried until it looked like shredded wheat and the few spindly trees provided only a thimble’s worth of shade.

Ignoring the peeling paint on the front door of her unit, she let herself inside. The blinds were closed against the sunlight, so the temperature was slightly less than a warming oven. The message light on her answering machine was flashing, but she ignored it as she bent to pet her cat, a recent shelter survivor named Posy.

“Hi, baby,” Emma crooned as the fluffy Siamese-Himalayan mix kitten entwined itself around her ankles.

Posy’s response to being roused from her nap was a soulful plea for attention and fresh food, not necessarily in that order.

As Emma scratched beneath the kitty’s chin, she couldn’t help but wonder just how much longer she’d be able to afford this place, cheap though it was. Since the school district had let her go, she had been working in a nearby video store. The pay was abysmal, the blare of the soundtracks annoying, and the endless task of restocking the rentals mind numbing to the extreme.

The manager appeared young enough to be carded every time he ordered a drink. Just the other day he had told Emma that her hours would be cut at the end of August to make room for the returning college crew.

She would need to look for something else to supplement her dwindling funds until she lined up a fall job, she thought grimly as she filled Posy’s water dish. The two of them would end up on the streets before Emma would consider asking her adoptive parents for a loan.

She didn’t listen to the message on her machine until she got back from work with an old Mel Gibson movie under her arm. She had spent her evening unpacking and logging in the latest new DVDs—a gory-looking slasher film, an action sequel about a mutant and a romantic comedy with stars who appeared young enough to be shopping for back-to-school supplies. Listening to her co-worker gush about the male lead made Emma feel old.

The phone message was from her adoptive mother, Sally Wright. Her plaintive tone made Emma’s heart ache until she reminded herself that she was the innocent victim. The Wrights were more concerned with sweeping the entire issue beneath the carpet and pretending that none of it had ever happened than in trying to understand Emma’s desperate need to find her roots.

As Emma slid the tape into her aging VCR and sat down on the couch with her cat, she felt as though there was a yawning hole inside her where the knowledge of family used to be. Until she figured out how to fill it back up, she had no idea what to say if Sally called again. Emma’s feelings were still too raw. If the phone rang while Emma was home, there was always Caller ID.

“Are you sure you don’t have personal reasons for wanting to offer her the job?” asked Aaron Levy, Morgan’s neighbor, as the two of them pounded down the pathway along the riverbank.

Aaron was an attorney with a social conscience and a trust fund. He practiced out of a storefront law office in an older part of downtown Portland. He and Morgan made a point to run together before work whenever their schedules permitted.

Aaron was training for an upcoming marathon, and Morgan, who wasn’t a serious runner, had foolishly agreed to go the extra distance with him. Morgan was saved from finding the breath to reply as they crossed the common area surrounding their building.

They pulled up, Morgan gasping. “Like I told you,” he said, panting, his heart thudding like the drum in a marching band, “I feel sorry for her.”

Aaron didn’t appear to be breathing hard, but his laughter was still uneven.

“Be careful, my friend,” he warned, bending over. “That’s what I told myself about my ex.”

Morgan used his damp T-shirt to mop the perspiration from his face. “I didn’t know you’d been married.”

Straightening back up, Aaron shrugged. “It only lasted long enough for me to realize that pity isn’t a substitute for love.” He twisted his torso and stretched from the waist. He was a vegetarian and as whipcord lean as a greyhound.

“I don’t love Emma,” Morgan protested, alarmed by the attorney’s assumption. “I don’t even know her.”

He didn’t want to go into her whole story as he’d done with his parents, so all he had said was that he’d met her and she needed a boost.

“I like helping people,” he added, wincing at the defensiveness in his tone.

True to form, Aaron heard it, too. “Careful, man.” A grin broke on his long, homely face as he started backing away. “Your words say ‘no, no,’ but your eyes say ‘let’s get naked.’”

With a laugh, Morgan waved him off. “That’s your fantasy, not mine.”

“And a great fantasy it is,” Aaron called after him. “When you’re picking out the ring, just remember that I warned you, and don’t hit me up to be best man.”

Morgan ignored his last comment, but a few minutes later when he was standing under the hot blast of the shower, his mind veered to it. Was his brainstorm just a flimsy excuse to see her again?

As he toweled himself dry, he didn’t waste time analyzing his motives. His parents hadn’t raised him to put his own selfish needs first. Other people counted on him and he didn’t let them down.

Wrapping the towel around his waist, he walked into his bedroom. This morning he paid no attention to the soothing shades of pearl gray and charcoal as he finished dressing. He was in a sudden hurry to get to work.