Some Soul of Goodness
Chapter 12
The Robbed That Smiles
A.N. This chapter contains references to child sexual abuse.
The following evening, Robert and Jefferson stopped by. It was Saturday night and this was their standing once a month get-the-bookseller-out-of-his-shop appointment. The two would descend on Elias Gold and drag him along with them down to the Rabbit Hole where the three would spend a couple of hours drinking and shooting pool. Gold had not always been able to cover his own tab and the other two would argue about whose turn it was to pay for everyone. After bickering a while, one or the other would end up picking up the entire bill for the group, letting Gold know that he could get the tab 'next week.'
"Heard you were seen with the delectable Miss French," Jefferson told him once they had settled into their usual corner table of the bar. Gold startled – he should have expected as much. This was, after all, a small town and full of gossips.
"She came by to collect the rent and . . . uh . . . we ended up going out for supper," he felt comfortable sharing this much.
"Dating your landlady? Sure that's a good idea?" Robert asked him. "I mean she's gorgeous but . . . well, she's always seemed a bit . . ." he searched for the right word, "unpredictable to me."
"She's shy and lonely," Gold replied. "I don't know that I'd want to cross her, but she's really a nice lady."
"Until she doesn't get her way," Robert continued. He took a drink. "Of course, I guess you don't want to piss off the landlady by telling her 'no.' She could end up raising your rent."
"Gotta appreciate what she does with Mayor Mills, though," Jefferson shared. "When our fine mayor wanted to pave over that lot so she would have a convenient place to park her car, Miss French fought her tooth and nail . . ."
"And likely threatened different council members," Robert interrupted.
"Probably," agreed Jefferson. "But she got Mills to back off and then privately funded a little private park in that same lot."
"That was private money?" Gold asked. "I thought the town funded that."
"Nope," Jefferson informed them. "Miss French took some effort to keep it quiet, but Sidney Glass got wind of it. He didn't publish it in the Storybrooke Mirror, of course; that would've made the mayor look bad."
"So how did you find out about it?" Robert asked.
Jefferson grinned, "Sidney chats a lot when he drinks. Not a good characteristic in a reporter. I hear Miss French's latest project is to get more funding for the fire department. That affects you, Robert."
Robert sighed. "Yeah it does. I can't tell you how many trips I've made to the mayor's office to ask for money – not for my salary – that would be nice - but to update our equipment. I'm afraid if there's a fire, some of those old hoses won't be able to withstand the water pressure that's going to be shooting through them."
"Does the mayor just turn you down?" Gold asked him.
"Oh, not directly. She talks about 'fiscal responsibility' and 'doing more with less' and such. I've actually used the word 'infrastructure' in a sentence when talking with her. We get nowhere and make another appointment in a week to talk again."
"So, the mayor isn't turning you down flat?" Gold followed up.
Robert shook his head. "But with Miss French involved and wanting the additional funding, Gina's had to entrench and she will continue to refuse to save face."
"So she's 'Gina' now?" Jefferson asked.
Robert looked a bit chagrined. "Okay, yeah. When we're not formally meeting, we're on a first name basis."
Jefferson glanced at Gold. "So has this gone beyond formal meetings with the mayor in her office? Gone out for lunch, perhaps intimate suppers?"
"Hey, we're talking about Gold and Miss French, here. Not me and Gina . . . uh, Mayor Mills," protested Robert.
Jefferson finished off his drink and ordered a second. He looked at Gold closely. "We'll drop it, Robert . . . for now. But as for Gold here and Miss French, well, I think those two could be good for each other," he offered slowly.
"What?! No offense but our buddy Gold here is probably twice her age. She's a rich privileged young thing used to having her way and is probably just – no offense – slumming with him."
"How could I possibly be offended?" Gold asked sourly, muttering into his own beer.
"She wasn't born rich," Jefferson told the two. "She had a tough life early on with her mother dying and her dad having his own issues. She worked hard, was smart and made the most of her opportunities. I stand by what I said. I think she and Gold could be good for each other."
"What do you know about her?" Gold asked.
Jefferson shrugged. "I know a lot of stuff, stuff most people wouldn't believe." Jefferson paused, taking a drink from his beer. "You know, most of the time things seem the same here, one day after another. Like every day is repeating itself. It's exciting for me to have something different happening. You and Lacey French – that's something different," and he raised his own beer and toasted the older man.
Gold debated but finally decided to use the remains of the forty Miss Lacey had given him to treat his friends, something that was also decidedly different.
Lacey came by again to see Rumple the following week, suggesting an investment strategy and again dragging him out to the diner and pressuring him into ordering himself a full meal. She was concerned that he wasn't getting enough to eat. She suspected he spent more on that pudgy cat's food than on his own.
They settled into a routine over the next few weeks. Lacey lowered his rent, so that he would have the dignity of paying for their dates out. It didn't matter to her but she strongly suspected that Elias was old-fashioned and would want to be the one to pay for everything. Silly, but she accepted things for what they were. Always the gentleman, he persisted in walking her home after their 'dates' and would give her a nod and a smile when he said goodbye.
Lacey sat in her downtown office. She had the Lacey French, Attorney at Law/Realtor sign hanging above her door. She had a part-time assistant, Ariel Lamer, who helped her with her books.
Ariel wasn't there this particular morning. She was on her other job, working in the town's only music shop. Lacey was alone in her office.
She was thinking about her relationship with Mr. Gold. The more time she spent with the man, the more attractive she found him. He was everything she wanted in a man – kind, gentle, thoughtful, a real gentleman. But he had been careful not to give her any sense of how he was feeling about her.
They had quickly fallen into a routine. As Lacey gave the matter some thought, she realized that he would likely be content to continue with the once a week meals and the reduced rent. That might just be enough for him. But it wasn't enough for Lacey.
No, she had corrected herself, they had quickly fallen into a rut, a frustrating rut. She was going to have to be assertive again and let him know exactly what she wanted from him – and it certainly wasn't a nod and a smile.
But she was beset with doubts. He actually might not be interested in her – that way. He could be taking more of a fatherly interest in her. He had never put his hand on her knee under the table at the diner. He had never tried to hold her hand or . . . cop a feel and certainly had never tried to kiss her. She didn't want to pressure him into a more physical relationship, but she was damned sure that she wasn't going to just sit around with her thumb inserted hoping that something would happen. And if it did turn out that he had similar feelings about her, she didn't want to waste the time dancing around him.
At worse, it would turn out that he wasn't interested in her – which could be awkward and embarrassing but . . . it would be survivable; she'd certainly survived worse. At best . . . well, now that was a very interesting notion.
She decided that she would invite him to her house for Thanksgiving. Lacey lived in a dark Queen Anne house with a large front porch and two turrets. He had nervously accepted, used to spending holidays alone with only an old television set and a self-absorbed cat for company. It would be the first time he'd ever been in her house.
It was cold and crisp when he stepped through the gates onto the pathway that led up to the porch. Carrying his contribution to the meal, he stopped to look at the overly large ornate double mahogany front doors. He knocked but when there was no answer, he pushed on the door finding it open.
"Is that Elias?" he heard her call from back in the house.
"Yes, Miss French," he answered.
"Come on in," she told him coming out to greet him. He stepped inside and looked around with no small amount of awe at her lovely, luxurious home. Her tastes in furnishings were . . . eclectic?
As he walked into her living room, he gaped at the obvious wealth that surrounded him – hand carved wooden elements on the staircase, crown molding on the high ceilings and the occasional stained glass accent. He turned in circles looking around himself. The place was beautiful and glowed with the underlying riches that had created it. He looked closer and thought he might have caught a glimpse of hardwood floors but these were all covered with multiple layers of overlapping oriental style rugs. The walls in the room were covered with some rich thick fabric. There was a mix of textiles, voiles and velvets, sheers and Chantilly, covering her windows. He glanced up and thought that the ceiling tiles might have been punched tin. Miss French had several sofas and chairs covered with velvet or tapestried upholstery. On these were soft pillows and colorfully knitted mohair afghan throws. There were multiple differently styled light fixtures hanging down. In the living room she had a big fireplace (with gas logs). There were potted plants sitting all around. Everywhere was lace and fringe and embroidered silk. It was very pretty in a cluttered, overtly feminine kind of way. She was evidently a casual housekeeper and bits and pieces of her clothing that she had dropped were scattered all over the place. He gave a brief thought to the matter, I'm glad I'm not the one picking up after her.
He followed his hostess into the kitchen.
This proved to be another sensual experience. The walls were weathered pale pink painted clapboard. There were large blue and white diamonds set as floor tiles. The table was painted a weathered white with a couple of metal stools and colorfully painted mis-matched wooden chairs. There was a large pink refrigerator and an oven that looked like something that might have been installed in the 30's but more likely were expensive reproductions. There were shelves all over the walls filled with her cookbook collection and a variety of pots and pans hanging from the ceiling. More lighting fixtures. More plants (many of these he recognized as culinary herbs).
Lacey, dressed in one of her super-short skirts and too-high heels, had put a poufy apron on over herself to preserve her clothing. She had put up her hair but in the flurry of activity and heat of the kitchen, strands of hair had escaped and curled up around her face. She had put on some lipstick and several layers of mascara. She smiled at him as she bent over the oven. "Take a seat," she told him.
As he did that he heard a loud thudding sound and turned to be confronted by three large dogs that had rushed over each other in their haste to get into the kitchen to check out the interloper.
"Oh no!" she exclaimed as the dogs charged in and quickly came over to try to corral them. "How did you babies get in? Just stand still Elias and you should be all right." She was moving the collect the animals but Gold had already sat down in a chair and was greeting each animal. They were jumping around and shoving each other out of the way to get to him, each one more eager than the others to get his attention. He was ruffling necks and patting heads and telling each dog what a good dog they were.
Lacey pulled back. "I don't understand. They aren't the best guard dogs, but they aren't particularly friendly around strangers. They're acting like they know you."
He shrugged, giving the border collie an extra pat. "What can I say? Animals like me."
Lacey took a moment to introduce the dogs. There was Daisy, a sweet tempered golden retriever, Magic, a cautious and sturdy black lab and Pepper, a black and white speckled border collie. The dogs seemed content to sit close to him.
"Odd," she had told him shaking her head. "They don't usually take to strangers." But they did seem to like Elias.
Lacey had gone traditional, preparing a turkey breast with dressing, rice and gravy. Elias had brought some braised Brussel sprouts. Lacey realized that the man had a small cabbage patch outside the back door of his shop and this was likely some he had grown. She worked on preparing the food, with occasional happily cooperative sous chef assistance from Elias, who spent his time off his ankle sitting on one of the cushioned wooden chairs. Together they watched the television set that was set on a shelf in the kitchen, watching the Macy's Parade and then the dog show while they prepared the meal.
"I was hoping the little Westie might win it this year," he'd told her. "I wasn't enamored of the winner at all."
"Yeah, they often seem to pick the ugliest dog as the winner," she agreed, sitting next to him on another one of the chairs.
When the meal was ready, he helped her carry food into her dining room and they had, by midafternoon, eaten their Thanksgiving feast there. The walls of this room were covered with dark wood wainscoting and rose-colored flocked patterned wallpaper. They had sat in her Chippendale chairs on the polished wooden floors, eaten from Wedgewood and drunk from Waterford. Gold had insisted on helping her clear and had separated the dishes into those that could be washed in the dishwasher and those that needed handwashing. Despite Lacey's protestations, he rolled up his sleeves and dove into the hot soapy water to take care of the delicate dishes without a moment's hesitation. They then re-adjourned to the living room to sit on one of the plump sofas in front of the fire and a wide-screen television.
Lacey brought out some pumpkin pie in the afternoon.
"What kind of wine should I serve with pumpkin pie?" she asked after she'd put it on a table in front of the man.
"A Riesling," he responded without hesitating. The man was a font of odd pieces of information. When she looked at him with a bit of surprise, he gave a shy smile. "I own a bookstore. I read a lot and I've picked up a lot of stray, sometimes useful, information."
She nodded and looked over her modest wine collection to pick one out.
It was after their third glass when he finally looked like he was relaxing.
"Tell me about your wife," she asked him leaning back on the soft cushy sofa. He was sitting next to her, sitting upright, sitting stiffly.
"She was very beautiful and I thought myself the luckiest man in town when she accepted my proposal."
"You were happy?" Lacey asked him.
"I think we were . . . at first. Then I was drafted. I didn't do too well in basic training and they opted to assign me as an orderly to one of the officers. I would run errands for him, dial his phone for him, pick up after him, bring him coffee, lunch. I could to that. I don't know that I would have been very good at fighting," Gold confessed.
"The officer I was assigned to was no better, no worse, than any of the others. He told me one night that he had thought war would be glorious and exciting but he was finding it dirty and dull.
"So how were you injured?" she asked him, surprised and pleased that he was sharing such personal information.
"One night, there was a surprise attack. We were hit with artillery. There were explosions all around. I was knocked down . . . and . . . I . . . I was knocked out. The next memory I have is coming to in a burning field. My ankle had been injured but I began to look for other survivors." He paused a moment. "There was much smoke and fire. I kept tripping over . . . things . . . and bodies. Some were missing limbs and . . . heads or I would find . . . the missing . . . body . . . parts. Some . . . most . . . were men I knew, men I had been friends with. I . . . looked a long time, but could find no one alive . . ." his voice broke.
"I began to walk back the way we had come out. I had bound up my ankle as best I could. I knew I needed to see a physician . . . but there was no one. I was surprised I had remembered enough from our survival training to keep me alive. I had to walk for three days, drinking water out of ditches, eating roots and leaves. I finally made it back to the main camp." Gold stared out for a long time without saying anything.
Lacey had listened with compassion. This poor sensitive man. It must have been hell for him.
He finished up, "I got a medical discharge and returned here. When I got home, my wife was not glad to see me. I guess she had not planned on being married to a cripple. Our marriage became . . . difficult. She left soon after, taking our son with her."
There was another long pause.
"They were killed in a car accident," he said softly.
"I'm so sorry," Lacey leaned forward and placed her hand on his knee.
"I'm ashamed to say I don't miss my wife, but my child . . . my child is another matter entirely. The pain never lessens, never goes away, never, never . . . . He was only eight."
"I can't imagine," Lacey told him. And she moved over to hold the man. She couldn't tell but she thought he might be crying.
"I'm sorry," he pulled back from her, wiping his face. "I didn't mean to bring everything down."
"Well, I asked you about your past . . . and what's Thanksgiving without a little drama?" She gave him a thin smile and leaned over to kiss his cheek.
"Why do seek my company?" he asked her. "I know I'm not special in any way. I'm not especially attractive. I'm not rich. I'm not clever."
"I think you're very attractive and very clever. You're not rich, that part is true, but that's true for a lot of people. So what? I can help with that. Besides, even if your finances never change, I'm rich enough for both of us."
"If you say. But I still don't understand. Why me?"
It was Lacey's turn to hesitate. "I've not always had things easy. My mother died when I was six and my dad never quite recovered. He started drinking and . . . and his new business partner . . . . he would often come over and drink with him. He would drink with my father until my father passed out. And then the friend would come to check on me."
"Miss French?" Gold had a sense where this was going.
"At first, he would just sit on the side of my bed. Then he began to pat and stroke me." Lacey seemed detached as if she was telling about something that had happened to someone else. "It took him nearly three months, but he ended up in my little bed with me, telling me how special I was, that he loved me."
Lacey was sitting very still. "I was eleven when he got around to raping me. I believed him when he told me that what we were doing was so extra special. I went along with it when he took me to get a shot so I wouldn't get pregnant."
"How long? How long did this go on?" Gold asked her.
"I guess I was sixteen when he set his sights on another child, a younger girl, and began to shut me out."
"My god, five years! So what happened?"
Lacey didn't immediately respond. When she did, she spoke in a slow steady voice. "I was nineteen and working as his assistant in the family business. I know, I know, but the money was good and I was learning a lot about managing property and buying and selling land. And, remember, I had never known any other kind of life. It was Thanksgiving. He had been over drinking with my father that evening watching a football game. It was sleeting and icing and I had heard some reports that road conditions weren't safe for driving. They had become very bad and people were being advised to stay off the roads unless there was an emergency."
She took a drink of her wine and continued, "I told him that he'd gotten a phone call from one of his new little friends. Her parents weren't home and she was scared. He decided to drive over there." Lacey took another sip. "I guess the combination of high blood alcohol levels and really bad road conditions was too much. He drove off into a ditch and died."
Gold sat back and looked at the woman. "Sad story," he finally said.
"I figured his poor judgement that night likely saved a number of little girls their innocence," Lacey told him. "He was a monster."
Gold nodded. He raised his hand to brush against her hair.
"I realized that I could choose to be miserable or choose to be strong. I decided I would be strong, that I would never be anyone's victim again," she told him. "I continued working and putting my money where my father couldn't get at it. When he died, when the alcohol finally caught up with him, he left me a dilapidated flower shop which I had to sell to settle his debts. But I still had my own money and I went to school, got my law degree, and I began to really study investing and . . . well, I live here now," she gestured around her. "I drive a Miata and I have a seven figure portfolio."
Gold took another sip of wine. "So we've both lived with a lot of grief and pain. Is that what we have in common?"
"Perhaps. When I look at you I see a survivor," Lacey told him. "But I also see someone who is strong, stronger than he knows. I especially see someone who will be gentle and take his time with me. I need that. It's hard for me to trust people but I think I could learn to trust you. Somehow I . . . I . . . feel . . . safe with you."
Gold did not answer. He slowly took her by both arms, turning her so that she was facing him on the sofa. "I'd like to kiss you," he told her.
"Wonderful," she told him and lifted her face to his.
At first their lips just touched together. They separated and came back together. He adjusted his position, turning towards her as they sat together on her sofa. He put his hands on her arms and slowly pulled her back to him. This time when he leaned in and their lips touched together, Gold began kissing her with some energy and enthusiasm, nudging her mouth open and slipping his tongue inside, just to touch the rim of her lips, not to overwhelm her. Lacey hadn't expected initiative from the man and she was thrilled. Without even realizing it, she suddenly realized that he was pulling down the sleeves of her blouse over her shoulders. He was now kissing down her neck, his lips and teeth teasing the tender flesh, the vulnerable tissue of her throat. His lips were firm and hot, oh so hot, yet she shivered wherever he touched her.
She moaned and he pulled back, obviously concerned that he had hurt her. "I'm sorry," he muttered.
"I'm all right. That was excellent," she told him.
"This is astonishing," he told her. "Miss French, you must know that I'm so much older than you . . ."
He might have gone on, but Lacey put her hand over his. "You must call me Lacey. And the age difference is just a number."
And they kissed together more, tenderly, softly, but no more than kissing.
And it seemed very right . . . and somehow familiar.
It was late when Gold finally walked back to his own home. For the first time in a long time, he wore a smile on his face.
As always, the kind reviews are sooo much appreciated. Thank you: Grace5231973, Wondermorena, orthankg1, MyraValhallah, CharlotteAshmore (Chapters 9, 10 & 11), Erik'sTrueAngel, and jewel415.
Can't imagine anyone would be interested but JIC, I have a Pinterest Board – Some Soul of Goodness – which contains images that go along with this story. It's under my nom de internet Twyla Mercedes.