Here we go, she thought. He was really going to look down on her when she told him the truth. “I worked in a factory.”
But Hawk wasn’t displeased at all. But impressed. “What happened? You woke up one day and decided you wanted to become a bodyguard instead?”
“I felt I could do a good job at it, so yes. That’s exactly what happened.”
“How did you swing it so young? Financially I mean.”
“I started working at that factory when I was sixteen. And I also made t-shirts with catchy phrases on them and sold them on street corners after work. At night and on the weekends, I was a rideshare driver. I hustled. And I saved every dime I could. It took me a minute, but once I felt I had enough to buy an SUV and cover the rent and the bills for a couple years until we could get off the ground, I stepped out on faith.”
“Are you?”
Janita looked at him. “Am I what? Faithful?”
“Off the ground?”
She hated to admit it, but she was nobody’s liar. “Not quite, no.”
“Not even with my mother as your client?”
“We only got that contract three months ago. Word hadn’t spread yet.”
“It’s about to spread now. But not in a good way for you, I’m afraid.”
He was blunt. She liked that. Even though it was inwardly devastating to her. “Yes sir, I know,” she said, and then scrunched up her face.
She wasn’t exactly in the same league, beauty-wise, with the women in his world. And she didn’t have the kind of meat on her bones that he tended to prefer. But there was something genuine about her that he did like. And he liked it from the moment he met her a month ago. And the fact that she took full responsibility for what happened to his mother was a plus in her favor too.
But Janita felt she owed him and every one of Mrs. Webster’s children her apology. “I know this is a very trying time for you and your family. And I know you love your mother dearly.”
Janita noticed that Hawk’s manner seemed to take an exception to what she just said. Which confused her. “Did I say something wrong?”
“Love is a rather strong word,” Hawk said.
Janita couldn’t believe it. What kind of people were these Websters? Even Von looked at him through the rearview. “You don’t love your own mother?” Janita asked him.
What is love, Hawk wanted to say. “My relationship with my mother is complicated.”
When she continued to stare at him, and he could see her brother taking peeps at him through that rearview mirror, he decided to explain. “When I was growing up, she preferred to be my friend rather than my mother. I had enough friends, I kept telling her. I needed a mother. But she just couldn’t grasp what that meant.”
“She let the nannies raise you?” Janita asked.
“No,” Hawk said. “She raised me. She was always there for me and my siblings.”
Janita looked perplexed. “She raised you. She was always there for you. But she wasn’t a good mother?”
“My father took parenthood to one extreme by being so exacting and strict. My mother took it to the opposite extreme by letting me do whatever I wanted to do. We were friends, not mother and son. She took it to the opposite extreme.”
“Maybe because she felt she had to balance out your father’s extreme?”
“Yeah maybe,” Hawk said. That had crossed his mind too. “But mainly I disagreed vehemently with some of the choices she made.”
Von looked through his rearview again. But this time at Janita because they both knew whatchoiceshe was talking about. It was no secret in Brackenridge that William Webster got around.
“Love is a strong word,” Hawk said to put a period on that uncomfortable conversation.
Janita knew how to read a room, so she left it alone. But for him to not be able to say that he loved his mother unconditionally was inconceivable to Janita and DeVontay. Before they died, their mother and father were their heartbeats. The idea that they wouldn’t cherish their own mother or love her unconditionally was unheard of to them.
But Janita knew rich people were different. They just were. So she moved on. “I just want to say that I’m so sorry I failed your mother. And I know it doesn’t matter now, but I can’t express to you how terrible I feel about it.”
