Gail Sattler - His Uptown Girl

It was at times like this she thought of her mother, and wondered if the endless social charade was one of the things that had driven her mother away. Georgette had been very young when her mother had left. Her father had told her it was because her mother didn’t want to be part of their family anymore. It had hurt terribly at the time, and still did. As an adult, though, Georgette could see how her father’s tyranny made her family dysfunctional. She could only guess at the difficulty of being married to him. She often thought about how bad it must have been to make her mother run away and abandon her two children.

On the way to the closet, Georgette’s step faltered. She had one picture of her mother left that her father hadn’t found and destroyed. She kept it hidden in the lining of her purse, and whenever she switched purses, she made sure the picture went with her. It would never do to have her father find it now. She turned in time to see her father close the door behind him.

When the door was closed, Georgette dumped the contents of her purse haphazardly onto the bed, but she carefully removed the laminated and carefully preserved picture from where she’d hidden it in the seam of the lining.

She paused to sit on the bed to study the picture, and to remember.

As an adult, the resemblance between her and her mother was strong. They had the same light-blond hair color, the same blue eyes, and, sadly, the same lack of height. The picture had been taken only days before her mother had left. Georgette had been ten years old, and the two of them had been together, laughing and making rabbit ears behind each other’s heads with their fingers.

Josephine had taken the picture in the afternoon, while her father was at work. He never would have permitted such nonsense if he’d been there. Georgette had sneaked the picture out of the package and taken it to school to show a friend. When she’d arrived back home, not only was her mother gone, but so was everything her mother owned, and every reminder of her. It was a clean sweep. All she had left of her mother was one candid photograph and a small gold cross on a delicate gold chain that she never took off, not even at night.

“Georgie-Pie, honey. He’s here!”

She gently tucked the photograph into its new secret hiding spot in the new purse lining, then rammed everything else in as quickly as she could. “I’ll be right there!” she called, taking one last look at herself in the mirror. She stuck out her tongue at her reflection, stiffened and walked slowly, in a dignified manner, out of the bedroom, and down the stairs.

Tyler smiled, but he didn’t leave her father’s side. “You look lovely, Georgette.”

“Thank you, Tyler,” she said gracefully. She batted her eyelashes coyly, positive that Tyler wouldn’t catch her sarcasm.

Bob would have caught it if she did such a thing to him. In fact, Bob would have laughed.

She should have been with Bob right now. She’d been thrilled that he’d invited her to a Bible study meeting. But instead, she was with Tyler because she couldn’t take the chance he would tell her father he’d seen her. She needed to talk to Tyler immediately.

Tyler held the car door open for her and whisked her away to an intimate and very expensive restaurant.

She was almost surprised he hadn’t taken her somewhere splashy, somewhere people they knew would see them, but she guessed Tyler wanted the privacy rather than the notoriety, at least for the moment.

They made polite chitchat until their meals came and the waiter made the obligatory last visit to make sure everything was satisfactory before leaving them alone.

Georgette had been dreading the moment they would be assured of privacy.

“So, tell me, Georgette, what in the world were you doing at that place?”

“I think it should be obvious. I work there. What were you doing there?” She still didn’t know if she’d ever overcome the shock of seeing someone she knew on that side of town.

“I told you what I was doing there. I was on my way downtown when I heard a noise. I must have just run over something, because the noise didn’t happen again.”

Georgette poked at her salmon with her fork. “I suppose,” she said. It was possible, but unlikely. Bob And Bart’s was nowhere near the route between Tyler’s home and his office downtown. The only way Tyler, or anyone, for that matter, would have run into her was if they already knew she was there, because it wasn’t the type of neighborhood any of her acquaintances would normally ever go to.

She cleared her throat. “I meant, what were you doing there in the first place? It’s kind of out of your way, isn’t it?”

Tyler flashed her his most charming smile—a smile clearly meant to distract her from their conversation. “It might be a little out of my way, but I felt like taking an indirect route that day.”

Indirect, nothing. His little side trip doubled his commute.

Unless he had been following her…

“Was there any particular reason you felt like going out of your way? Did you see my car when I was on the way to work or anything?”

“Yes, actually, I did see your car. That’s why I stopped in. When I walked in the door, I was certainly surprised to see you. And what a getup!”

She noted that he avoided any mention of when he’d seen her car. She was positive it wasn’t in the parking lot. It was long before that. A long, long time before that. Possibly when she was backing out of the garage at home. He could have been behind her the whole time, following her, and she wouldn’t have noticed. Of course, if she accused him of following her, he would never admit it.

She narrowed her eyes. “Lots of people wear uniforms and the like, you know.”

Tyler choked on his mouthful, swallowed, coughed and cleared his throat. “But not like that. I could see you doing accounting, but why are you delivering parts?”

Georgette’s heart skipped a beat. She wasn’t ready for anyone she knew, especially someone so close to her father, to know what she was doing. But she’d been caught and now it was time to defend her choices.

“I don’t deliver parts. I work in the shop, fixing things. Getting my hands dirty.” Georgette laid her knife and fork down, and clasped those hands in front of her. “And that’s exactly the job I wanted. I’m only doing the accounting because I couldn’t get one without the other.”

Tyler shook his head. “You should be working for your father.”

Been there, done that. She hated her father manipulating her like a puppet on a string. This was her first chance at independence, and nothing was going to take it away from her. Nothing. “Maybe. But for now, this is what I want to do.”

“What could that two-bit outfit possibly be paying you to make it worth your while?”

Georgette sighed. She wasn’t there for the money. The allowance her father gave her for the hour a day she spent managing his charities was more than double her full-time salary. It was one more thing her father used to control her, paying her for her loyalty. It made her feel as if she was being bought, and she hated herself for it.

“Auto mechanics is a hobby for me, so I consider this a hobby that pays.”

“You know what your father would say if he found out, don’t you?”

She shuddered at the thought. He would consider what she was doing pure defiance, and in a way, it was. But it was also the only place where she was out from under her father’s thumb. Even though she’d told Tyler she considered it a hobby, she worked hard at her job and when the day was done, she was at peace with herself and with God, and she could sleep well at night.

She raised one hand up, pressing into the tiny cross, something else her father didn’t approve of. “I don’t think I’m ready to tell Daddy the specifics yet.” In fact, she didn’t know if she would ever be ready to tell him. But at the same time, she knew that one day she would have to. To think otherwise was unrealistic.