His Uptown Girl by Gail Sattler Read Free Book Online Page B

like this she thought of her mother, and wondered if the endless social charade was one of the things that had driven her mother away. Georgette had been very young when her mother had left. Her father had told her it was because her mother didn’t want to be part of their family anymore. It had hurt terribly at the time, and still did. As an adult, though, Georgette could see how her father’s tyranny made her family dysfunctional. She could only guess at the difficulty of being married to him. She often thought about how bad it must have been to make her mother run away and abandon her two children.
    On the way to the closet, Georgette’s step faltered. She had one picture of her mother left that her father hadn’t found and destroyed. She kept it hidden in the lining of her purse, and whenever she switched purses, she made sure the picture went with her. It would never do to have her father find it now. She turned in time to see her father close the door behind him.
    When the door was closed, Georgette dumped the contents of her purse haphazardly onto the bed, but she carefully removed the laminated and carefully preserved picture from where she’d hidden it in the seam of the lining.
    She paused to sit on the bed to study the picture, and to remember.
    As an adult, the resemblance between her and her mother was strong. They had the same light-blond hair color, the same blue eyes, and, sadly, the same lack of height. The picture had been taken only days before her mother had left. Georgette had been ten years old, and the two of them had been together, laughing and making rabbit ears behind each other’s heads with their fingers.
    Josephine had taken the picture in the afternoon, while her father was at work. He never would have permitted such nonsense if he’d been there. Georgette had sneaked the picture out of the package and taken it to school to show a friend. When she’d arrived back home, not only was her mother gone, but so was everything her mother owned, and every reminder of her. It was a clean sweep. All she had left of her mother was one candid photograph and a small gold cross on a delicate gold chain that she never took off, not even at night.
    â€œGeorgie-Pie, honey. He’s here!”
    She gently tucked the photograph into its new secrethiding spot in the new purse lining, then rammed everything else in as quickly as she could. “I’ll be right there!” she called, taking one last look at herself in the mirror. She stuck out her tongue at her reflection, stiffened and walked slowly, in a dignified manner, out of the bedroom, and down the stairs.
    Tyler smiled, but he didn’t leave her father’s side. “You look lovely, Georgette.”
    â€œThank you, Tyler,” she said gracefully. She batted her eyelashes coyly, positive that Tyler wouldn’t catch her sarcasm.
    Bob would have caught it if she did such a thing to him. In fact, Bob would have laughed.
    She should have been with Bob right now. She’d been thrilled that he’d invited her to a Bible study meeting. But instead, she was with Tyler because she couldn’t take the chance he would tell her father he’d seen her. She needed to talk to Tyler immediately.
    Tyler held the car door open for her and whisked her away to an intimate and very expensive restaurant.
    She was almost surprised he hadn’t taken her somewhere splashy, somewhere people they knew would see them, but she guessed Tyler wanted the privacy rather than the notoriety, at least for the moment.
    They made polite chitchat until their meals came and the waiter made the obligatory last visit to make sure everything was satisfactory before leaving them alone.
    Georgette had been dreading the moment they would be assured of privacy.
    â€œSo, tell me, Georgette, what in the world were you doing at that place?”
    â€œI think it should be obvious. I work there. What were you doing there?” She still