My Mail Order Wife (The Value of a Man Book 1) (3 page)

Thurston had learned early on in his childhood that his father was not a man of many words.  He made statements.  Those statements became laws.  Those laws he strictly enforced. It had never dawned on him to question nor challenge his father’s edicts until that Saturday afternoon when his mother called and insisted he come and join them for lunch. Always a conservative dresser, he put on warm clothing for the cooler upper New York weather and made his way to the family home.  He always found it ironic that the house sat on 40 acres and there was always a mule in the barn.  The land had been in the family for nearly five centuries, and they still had a mule.  His grandfather often joked that the sharecropper idea came from “our ancestors.”

It wasn’t the past so much that worried Thurston.  As he sat in the formal drawing room watching his mother sip on her tea and his father pretending to be disinterested as his future walked through the front door.  It was a sad moment in his life when he realized that a strange woman with a weird name who did not know him had summed up his life.  Someone hadn’t died yet, and now to become truly relevant, he would have to marry some woman he didn’t know to create a fake family he would probably hardly see in order to run for an office he wasn’t even sure he wanted.

“Son, the 11
th
District is 56% black. In order to win the votes of ‘those’ people, we have to present an image they can relate to… you know, the brother that will speak up for them in Washington,” his father said.

How, when I can barely speak up for myself
?

His father, God bless his soul, was a man who believed in choice; therefore he presented his son with several.  Six to be exact, one paraded in right after the other.  Six African American women, all the right height, the ideal size and vetted for his choosing. To ensure all was well, the butler was asked to snap photos of him standing next to the women.

The first one was a woman with full pouty lips, librarian glasses, a tightly styled conservative hairdo and eyes full of fear. When Thurston rose to shake her hand, she shrank like a child being scolded. She also refused to make eye contact with him.  This one, he didn’t bother to ask her name.

Lady number two was Marrietta Billings Collinsworth was from an old Virginia political family with strong ties in Washington. She took a seat and began to drill him on his policy stance on women’s rights. “I am a Republican; however, I am diametrically opposed to the party’s stance on women’s reproductive health and choice.  I would like to make sure going forth that you will champion this cause as well.”

“What?” Thurston asked as his father ushered the woman out of the room.  The third lady was a replica of his mother in personality.  She was also so dark she looked like a negative in a Polaroid.  They did not look good together on camera.  Even the butler, who was always stoic, looked at the photo on the screen, back at the woman, the photo on screen, and then made an unapprovingly, inappropriate face.

The fourth one was interesting.  A caramel-hued woman who dripped of sex appeal.  When she crossed her legs, his mind went into overdrive. The other parts of him did as well when she stood unbearably close while they took pictures.  He was so distracted by her that he found himself agreeing to whatever she said. Evidently, she too had attended law school and she was negotiating her terms.  Thurston’s eyes were focused on her mouth.  That sexy mouth.  Those beautiful breasts. Until his dad grabbed her by the arm and shepherded her out the door as well.

“Son, that one is too much woman for you.  She will have you in debt while she is sleeping with half of the Hill,” he said.  And with that, the sexy pouty lips, I could-have-loved-you-so-good woman, was no more.

He wanted her to come back so he could look at her again. Maybe take a few more pictures with him. His mind kept going back to her. 
Did she tell me her name
?

By the time selections five and six came into the room, his spirits were down. Contessa Hilliard was a pleasant woman who would give him children with bright eyes and lots of energy.  She told him so. She also told him she would want to wait a year before trying to conceive; that way they would have plenty of time to get to know each other.

“You want to be married for a year before we begin to start our family?” he asked to make sure he understood what she was saying.

“No.  I want us to be married a year before we consummate the marriage,” she told him.

This one he ushered out of the room.  He didn’t even bother to take a photograph with her.  His mother, Beatrice, was smiling. Thurston was not. “Are you amused by this mother?” Thurston asked.

“Actually, I am, although I must apologize that it is at your expense,” she said. “That one was a bit of a nut.”

He too found himself smiling along with her.  “Mother, what do you think of all of this?”

She placed a warm hand over his, “This is how I met your father.  It is how my parents were introduced.  Sometimes the selections are made at the cotillion, but you are 32 years old. And we do not have a great deal of time,” she said as she asked the butler to send the next one in.

The final lady is what made him stand up and rage against the machine. How could he in good conscience go to Washington to represent ‘
those people’
when he had no idea who ‘
those people’
were? Monique Estelle Douglas, a descendant of Frederick Douglas, reminded him of Takataveesha, or whatever her name was.  Now
that
woman would make a good wife.  The way she had cared for him when he was down was a good indicator of what she would do for him as his life partner. Marrying her was no more ridiculous than marrying Monique, who wanted to ensure there would be room for her monarch collection. “I am a
lepidopterist,” she told him proudly.

Thurston hurriedly escorted her out as well. She could take her lepidoptering ass on somewhere else.  Suddenly he felt infused with new energy as he grabbed his coat and keys from Rodgers.

“Where are you going, son?” his father yelled after him. “That was just the first round of selections.”

“I will choose my own wife, Dad, thanks,” he told him as he headed back to Manhattan.  The first thing he needed to do was head to the 11
th
District and get to know the people he was about to represent. The next thing on his list was finding Ms. Tay-Tay Brown of Compton.  He was about to make her an offer he hoped she would not refuse.

So many thoughts, so many ideas, but Thurston Cromwell was a man who liked everything to be in place. He reveled in it, which is why he was not currently attached. It wasn’t as if he didn’t desire to belong to someone; his job took too much of him or he gave too much to it.  Either way, things for him were about to be adjusted. He could almost taste that Congressional seat, and several members of the party had called to urge him to run.  He would, but first he had to get his house in order.

On Monday, he placed a call to Massey James, Jr, a private investigator and tracker.  Upon meeting the man in person at his apartment in Manhattan, he understood why people called them ‘dicks.’

“So, you want I should dig up all kinds of dirt on this Tay-Tay Brown of Compton?” Massey asked.

Thurston was thinking that more than anything he wanted him to rephrase that sentence and use some proper syntax. “What I need is a comprehensive background check.  I want credit, past loves, nearest relatives, police records, if she got a ticket, or if she owes her dentist for a filling.  Also, if there are any crazy husbands, boyfriends, baby daddies.”  He arched his eyebrows at the investigator.

“You want I should also include a fuck and suck search as well?”

Whatever that was sounded crass and offensive and the look on Thurston’s face conveyed the sentiment.  But the investigator explained, “Those kinds of searches are important. She may have been to bed with some people that can come out of the woodwork and pop up in the middle of your campaigning. Women tend not to make full disclosure of their college years and the years in between boyfriends…”

“Yes, include that as well,” he told the investigator, who left with nothing more than a backwards glance.

“I’ll be in touch,” Massey said.

He was out of touch for nearly three weeks.  Three weeks of hell for Thurston, who was constantly bombarded with choices his father kept sending either to both his home or to his office until finally, he could take no more and he pleaded with his mother to help him.

The parade of women stopped.  He almost wished they hadn’t.  His father called him on a Friday evening to see if he was free.  “I am in town, son, and I was wondering if we could get a drink?”

This is bad.  This is bad
. It wasn’t even his birthday and his father was scheduling some one-on-one time. “Sure Dad, when and where can I meet you?”

“I am out front and I have a car; come on down,” he told him.

There were many lessons his father had taught him growing up, one that always hung about his neck like the stink of death was the fear of dread.  Ironically, he also learned there were two types of dread: one was accompanied by the fear of fatality.  The hammer falling followed this fear, and you are about to have a life altering moment of the worst day of your life.  Your imminent death also fell in this category.  You see the truck coming, you can’t move, it is going to hit you head on and collapse your brain kind of fear of dread.

The second is when someone is going to tell you something.  Something you are dreading hearing but you must sit and be patient as the other person explains why they no longer want to have sex with you. The fear of dread followed by your lover telling you they have been cheating and have the clap, now so do you --fear of dread.

However lately, he was starting to feel the third type, a man-to-man talk with his father.  Over thick steaks at Delmonico’s washed down with a bottle of Opus One, his dad squinted his eyes and said, “Son…”  Thurston’s stomach roiled. He waited, full of dread. “Are you gay?”

That was unexpected. The look on his face was a blank stare as he watched with a new understanding of his father. He was going to fix things for him if he said yes.  If he said no, he was going to fix things for him so either way, he was screwed.

“No Dad, I met someone. I spent one of the most interesting nights of my life with her in Los Angeles and I am planning to pursue something tangible with her first, then if it does not pan out, I still have a few sweethearts I can call up.  Then and only then, if those don’t work out, I will go with your option.”

His father smiled, “Good.  Good.  It has to happen fast.  I need you to marry by the end of next month.”

It wasn’t about love. It wasn’t about a nurturing relationship between two people.  In the game of politics, marriage was about business.  His phone buzzed.  It was Massey.  The fear of dread was climbing up his pant leg.

“Dad, I have a meeting to get to…”

“This late at night?”

“Yes, it is important,” he told his father who dropped him off at home. A home where Massey had let himself in and was sitting on his couch watching ESPN.

“I’m glad you made yourself at home,” he told the Dick.

“Well, it is going to be a long night,” he told Thurston as he pulled out a folder on TataLavisha Renee Brown. She wasn’t married and had decent credit, but she was also a single mother to her five-year-old nephew that she adopted after the shooting death of her sister in a gang fight. TaeTay, he spelled it as such, lived at home with her mother in a small two-bedroom ranch style home they were renting from a man who was charging them far too much.

As he had suspected, she was a good person and a good girl. The F & S report only yielded a few former love interests; nothing in the present. Thurston knew she would make him a good wife.  Under the direction of Massey’s instructions, he purchased a money order for $500 to repay her for her help, and put it inside of an overnight package with the following letter.

Dear TaeTay;

I hope this letter finds you in good health and good spirits. I am enclosing a bit of thank you for your greatly provided assistance. I know you didn’t ask, but I do it out of gratitude for being there when I needed you.  I find that I need you again, but for a much longer period of time.

It is with some remorse that I say these words, ‘you were right.’  Something has occurred and an opportunity has presented itself to make me relevant. However, in order to set forth on this new journey of making me a man of value, I need a woman by my side that I can trust. I do not seek a partner to be there solely for the glory and benefits, but a woman who will stand guard and guide my steps when I am weak and can barely see where I am going. This is an invaluable trait as a wife.

I have at my disposal tools to make a life of comfort for both you and the boy; however, time is of the essence. I am enclosing a self-addressed stamped envelope for your reply.  In your response, please state your terms if you accept my request.

Sincerely,

Mr. Communicator