Chapter 51: Patricia Ford

"Sammy," Suzanne called from the foot of the stairs. "Sammy, you have company."

I got off my bed, walked the length of the hall and looked down the stairs. Suzanne was looking up at me. Seeing that I had heard her, she went back to the foyer. I heard her saying something to my visitor as I descended the stairs.

"Sammy, this is Mrs. Ford. She wants to speak with you about her son," Suzanne said, putting her arm around my waist and looking from me to my visitor.

Mrs. Ford radiated female. From ten feet away she looked soft. My eyes were drawn to her softness, her eyes, her lips, even her voice was soft. She was speaking to me, something about Josh. What was it?

"Please come in and meet Sammy's uncle," Suzanne rescued me. I felt her fingers jab my side where her hand had rested only seconds before. I reacted, moving to the side so that Suzanne and Mrs. Ford could walk side-by-side, past the formal living room on the left, past the dining room on the right, past the kitchen on the left and turn right into the sunroom where Mr. Oldham was studying the chessboard.

It was about nine-thirty on Friday night. When Suzanne ushered her to the front door thirty-five minutes later, I had gotten a better understanding as to where she was soft and where she was not. But other than her softness, the purpose of her visit eluded me. At one point during her visit I had been called upon to explain some of the things Josh would be expected to endure at C.M.A.

Otherwise, Mrs. Ford's softness received my full attention. The next morning Mr. Oldham and Suzanne explained to me what I had agreed to do. They were patient with me, taking special precautions not to embarrass me for my lack of attention to what had been discussed the evening before. Suzanne, in her roguish way, gave Mr. Oldham sidelong glances when my questions showed a particular lack of awareness.

What I was able to pick up while listening to their casual conversation at breakfast was that Mrs. Ford was a single mother, her husband having passed away a year or so before. Being faced with the need to work, Mrs. Ford had enrolled her son at C.M.A. After learning from her step-son that I attended the school and had stated that it would take more than tennis to make her son ready for what was in store for him, she had come to enlist my help to make Josh's transition from Mommy's boy to military academy cadet as painless as possible. According to Suzanne, I had agreed to make the boy ready to face the cruel initialization that he would be expected to undergo at C.M.A.

"I hope you haven't taken on more responsibility than you'll have time to fulfill, Sammy," Mr. Oldham said. "It sounds like the kid has been coddled and may lack the maturity that C.M.A. demands of its new cadets."

"I hope he didn't let that round ass sway his decision to volunteer," Suzanne quipped, rolling her eyes to punctuate her observation. In truth, it was the sway of Mrs. Ford's round ass that persuaded me to nod yes to every question she had asked. Like the rest of her, it looked soft as I watched her walk in front of me from the foyer to the sunroom, a walk that I would not soon forget.

What had I gotten myself into? The lady had hypnotized me into agreeing to do something I had promised myself I would not do, to baby-sit. What's more, I wasn't sure what was specifically expected of me and I was too proud to ask Mr. Oldham and Suzanne exactly what had been said. I knew that they were aware of my ignorance as to what I had agreed to do but admitting that I had been too intrigued with the lady to pay attention to what she was actually saying would be too embarrassing for me to consider. Giving that much ammunition to Suzanne for future use against me was not an option.

It didn't take long for me to learn part of the bargain I had made with Mrs. Ford. Josh was leaning against the fence, waiting for me when I went to the track on Monday morning. "My mom said you are going to tell me about the military academy," he said.

His voice shocked me. This was the first time I had heard him speak and in place of the high-pitched adolescent voice I had expected to hear, he spoke calmly with clear pronunciation and even diction.

"I'm going to show you, not tell you," I said, thinking that no matter how transfixed I was on the softness of his mother I would not have settled on just telling him what was in store for him. "Come on, let's go," I said, beginning to run.

Josh didn't budge, continuing to lean against the fence. I stopped, turned and walked back to him. He watched me, a mixture of curiosity and amusement in his eyes. I stared into his eyes, changing the amusement to fear. "Get over here!" He jumped and moved to where I pointed at the center of the track. "Stand at attention, feet at a forty-five degree angle, shoulders back, chest out, look straight ahead." He complied. I walked around him. He turned his head to see where I was. "Eyes front," I ordered. I walked ten paces and looked back. Josh's legs were shaking but he was trying to stand at attention. "Eyes front," I reminded him. I let him stand rigid for five minutes while I stood behind him and watched.

I walked up behind him and was pleased when he didn't move. "Get a haircut, short like mine. Do you have a razor?"

"Hun ah," he said.

"Is that 'no?' Answer 'yes sir' or 'no sir' when speaking to a superior. I'm your superior. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," he said, stiffly without the enthusiasm I wanted to hear.

"How do you address a superior, cadet?"

"'Yes, sir' or 'no sir, '" he answered.

"Let's run," I said, avoiding using military terminology for the time being. We took off, me telling him things he needed to know about the academy, the schedule, the number of cadets in a room, the layout within a room and the number of rooms in a company. Josh maintained my pace for the first half-mile before beginning to slow. By the time we reached the starting point he was coughing and sputtering. I let him stop but insisted that he run in place.

"How many cadets are there in a room?" I asked when he regained his breath.

"Eight," he said.

"What?" I shouted, getting in his face like I had experienced first hand.

"Eight, Sir!" Josh shouted back.

"You're dismissed, Cadet Ford. We'll meet here at one-thirty and don't be late," I said, needing to get ready for my first day in Mr. Oldham's office.

"Yes Sir," he said as we parted.

The office was as I remembered it and many of the same people from the previous summer spoke to me. But I had not spent much time in the accounting department. I was introduced to the supervisor of accounts payable, Miss McGomery. She was a nervous lady, probably in her thirties. She ushered me into a cubicle and told me not to move anything because it belonged to one of her accounts payable clerks who was on vacation. During the next four hours I accomplished absolutely nothing, partly because there was too much to learn and partly because of constant interruptions by Miss McGomery and another A/P clerk, Rose Ann. Both women visited me often, warning me to be attentive. What I learned about bill paying at Mr. Oldham's company was that it was not an exact science and that Miss McGomery and Rose Ann were starving for male attention. They were both in their thirties; I was sixteen.

I left the house at exactly one-thirty and found Josh waiting for me. He was standing at attention. Quick learner, I thought.

"At ease," I commanded. He shifted his eyes to look at me but kept his head straight.

"I don't know what that is," he said.

"What did you say?" I was in his face again, watching him shake in fright.

"I don't know what that is, Sir," he said. I demonstrated how to spread your feet, lock your hands behind your back and to relax as much as possible, staying alert for the next order. "Attention, double-time, march," I commanded and we took off running, me setting the pace. I enumerated some things he would need to start the school year while we ran. I also instructed him on how to give his shoes a mirror finish.

When we finished the mile he was huffing and puffing. "Don't stop, run in place," I ordered.

We did push-ups and sit-ups, well, sissy push-ups but I let him count the upper-body lifts until it got disgusting and then we ran another mile, me quizzing him on the school topics that we had discussed. Before I dismissed him for the day, I told him to squeeze an old tennis ball while he read. He looked at me strangely until he saw that I was serious. It was time for me to meet Orville for our workout.

Orville surveyed the weight room and decided we needed to update my chart and start one for him. We recorded our weights and measurements on the charts and got started. I tried to explain that I hadn't lifted for about three months but could not make Orville agree that I needed to ease back into my routine. He didn't talk much but he was a taskmaster, demanding that I do one more, one more, and one more. I tried to work him just as hard as he worked me but he just laughed at me. When we stopped at five-thirty I knew how Josh must have felt when I pushed him. Orville took a quick shower and left, saying he would see me on Wednesday.

I went upstairs to take my shower and get ready to have dinner with Mr. Oldham, thinking that he would want to know about my morning at his office. But he didn't pose any questions to me about that, preferring to discuss other things the news, how my first day with Josh had gone and how much weight Orville was able to lift. We moved into the sunroom but I excused myself at nine-thirty, admitting that I was unusually tired.

Josh was waiting for me the next morning. I jumped down his throat for not addressing me as Sir. At first he looked offended by my harsh treatment but once we began running he brightened and answered my questions about what he had learned the day before. "What are you reading?" I asked as we finished the mile.

"What do you mean?" He asked before adding, "Sir."

"Have you read Mark Twain's books?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Good. Have you read Robert Louis Stevenson?"

"No, Sir."

"Be ready do discuss Stevenson tomorrow. I won't be here this afternoon," I told him as was parted.

Miss McGomery let me punch some numbers into Stephanie's computer, which she told me would generate checks. She had me sit next to her while she explained the same things I had learned the day before, who was authorized to approve invoices and the amount of their dollar limits. "Did your uncle want to know what you learned yesterday?" She asked and seemed disappointed when I told her that Mr. Oldham showed no interest in what I had learned at his office. I didn't tell her that he was quite interested in my afternoon activities. "We're proud of the accounts payable procedures we have in place," she said.

Suzanne waited until we were on the approach to the eighth green before she brought up the subject of adoption. Why she hadn't said anything while we were having lunch at her apartment stumped me. Why she waited until I was two strokes over on a very difficult par five hole to broach the subject astounded me. Why it was Suzanne and not Mr. Oldham speaking to me about this most delicate subject bothered me the most. Was I pissed at Mr. Oldham for letting her interfere with our relationship?

I was seething as I studied the approach shot. The green was protected by a bunker on the left and a pond to the right. I stomped around, glaring at the green, glaring at the ball and glaring at the woman who had just asked me how I felt about being adopted.

"Fuck!" I shouted as the ball bounced high and landed in the middle of the sand trap.

"That was the wrong club," Suzanne advised me, disregarding my misguided use of the 'F' word.

"Why now?" I asked her, blaming her for asking me how I felt about being adopted at that particular time so I would fuck up a difficult shot. Naturally, she misunderstood the question.

"Everything is closing in on us, Sammy. Everyplace we turn there is an obstacle. The school accepted you as Sammy Oldham but your birth certificate is under your real name. Your social security number was issued under Kovel too. The only way to correct the situation is through legal adoption. You want a permit to learn to drive, don't you? That is what brought this to..." She stopped talking and was looking at me. She must have seen how I was looking, aghast. I was being offered adoption so I could have Samuel Oldham as my name on my driver's license.

"It wasn't meant the way it sounds," she said, coming to me and looking up with concern in her eyes. The first thing I knew she had her arms around me and her cheek was against mine. "He loves you Sammy and so do I. John wants you to be more than his ward or his nephew. He wants you to be his son. It's just that he's not very good with this sort of thing and he asked me..."

We were both in tears, crying, I believe, because she had just admitted that both she and John Oldham loved me. His wanting to adopt me was secondary; his loving me was all that mattered.