Her Men

They were sitting side by side in lounge chairs on the deck. Katherine had not been out on the lake in years, not since the old kayak had begun to rot; but, on late summer afternoons while she drank her glass of wine, she liked to look across the smooth surface of the water to the island. But Jackie was spoiling the mood.

“You’re always telling me I ought to get my life right, Gran,” he was saying, “and here’s my big chance.”

Katharine sighed. “I thought the sixty-five thousand dollars two years ago was going to be your big chance.” It was painful to be arguing, yet she would not give in to Jackie’s latest wild dream. “Few people get even one big chance, Jackie—almost no one gets more than one.”

“Come on,” Jackie said. “That was just bad luck.” He cocked his head and crinkled his eyes at her, grinning, flirting, pretending to think she was only teasing, knowing that teasing was never her way. “This is a sure bet.”

“A hundred thousand dollars,” she said, “is a great bit of money to bet.”

He laughed. “I’m not going to gamble it away in Las Vegas, Gran. It’s going into this absolutely surefire marvelous deal. With Ralph. You always liked Ralph. Remember Ralph?”

She snuffled a laugh. “I’m not in my dotage yet. Of course I remember Ralph. He was the least unreliable of your friends, though far from the handsomest.”

Jackie threw himself back in his chair and slapped his thigh. “Wait’ll I tell him that. He was always scared to death of you. Called you the Iron Duchess.” He laughed briefly, then straightened up and drew his brows together. “I know you don’t know much about the Web and stuff like that, and really I don’t understand it very well myself, so I won’t try to explain it. But Ralph’s company has this genius idea, something really great, and now he and his moneymen are about to take the company public. I’d double, maybe triple, my money once that happens. Ralph is doing me a favor to let me in early.”

Who did you the favor the last time? she wanted to say, but that would drive him away. “I’m no longer a rich woman, Jackie, whatever you think I might once have been.”

“But it’s just sitting there,” he said, frowning with impatience, “making three or four percent if you’re lucky.”

“My dear, I live on that three or four percent.”

“But I’ll pay you twice that. This is a business deal, Gran, not a gift.”

“Investing in some newfangled something you don’t really understand doesn’t strike me as a very wise business deal.”

Jackie sighed with exasperation and impatiently tapped his fingers on his knee. “Look, the money will be mine some day anyway, won’t it? You can’t take it with you, Gran.”

“That’s a nice thing to say.”

He blushed and grimaced. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Oh? Well, what way did you mean it, Jackie?” She lowered her head to gaze at him over her glasses, waiting for an answer. She wanted him to be responsible for his deeds and his words. More muscle, less soft flesh. His sensible mother would have seen to that. “Say what you mean and mean what you say.”

He abruptly stood up, the look of a petulant boy spreading over his face. “Then don’t lend it to me,” he said.

Even with his face flushed and his eyes flaring, he was immensely handsome. As handsome as his father. Almost as handsome as his grandfather. The same dark deep blue eyes, the full lips, the gold-blond hair, the skin tanned to copper. He was handsome, charming, and, she feared, quite useless. He had lived with her since he was eleven years old, when Gail died and sweet sad Jay had gone to drink and dissolution. He was Jay’s only child. Her only grandchild. Her only kin.

“Oh, sit down, Jackie...