What A Character, Part 2 of 4

It's time to introduce you to another of the main characters from my upcoming novel Once Upon A Project, which goes on sale April 29th and can be pre-ordered here. Be sure to drop in on March 1st for the next character, and if you missed the first character sketch on January 1st, by all means check it out!

Read it and salivate . . . I hope.

Character Name: Susan Bennett Dillahunt
Setting: Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, March 2007

"I guess you're on grandmother duty, too."

I turn my head in the direction of the voice. The woman speaking has silver hair and appears to be in her early 60s. I decide against telling her that I'm not picking up my grandkids from school, but my kids. Quentin is 10 and Alyssa is 7. I had them when I was 39 and 42, respectively. But pointing that out will only embarrass the woman, so I merely smile.

I do feel a little like Mrs. Mondello from Leave It To Beaver, the mother of Beaver's friend Larry, who had a much-older married daughter, and who looked so old and dumpy next to the tall, youthful June Cleaver. I stand 5 feet 10, so nobody can consider me dumpy. But old is another matter. Maybe I should color my hair. I don't think my face looks particularly old, considering I'll be 50 in four months. My skin isn't as taut as it used to be, but it certainly doesn't sag. And as for wrinkles, everybody knows that "black don't crack." I can thank my mom for that.

My mother is black. My father is white, but Mom always told me that although I'm of mixed race, the world will always look upon me as black. She said the same thing to my younger sister, Sherry, but Sherry adopted a don't-ask/don't-tell policy, married a white guy from a rich family who became successful in his own right, and never looked back. Her neighbors in that town she lives in know she's biracial - our mother visits her fairly often, and so did our stepfather, who was black, before he passed away.

There's nothing new about interracial couples, but my parents must have caused quite a stir when they got married back in 1956. My mother jokes that when they went to see about getting an apartment in the still-being built Theodore Dreiser Projects, the people told my father that he was applying to the wrong place. When he introduced my mother, the rental agent's mouth dropped to the floor. My parents have been divorced for years - Mom remarried, Pop didn't - and they still crack up at the memory. My father says it's a good thing they weren't standing on a hill, or else the rental agent's lip would have rolled down the street like a coin.

My folks get along pretty well these days, but I'll never forget the remember all the arguments that went on when Sherry and me were kids. Pop was a drinker. The gossip around the projects said his wealthy family cut him off for marrying Mom, which is silly. My grandparents were middle class people, probably lower middle class. Sure, they were shocked when Pop married Mom, but they were good to Sherry and me until they died. Mom says things would have been different if we'd been a few shades darker. I really don't know.

Pop's drinking made it difficult for him to hold a job. He was an x-ray technician, and Mom a nurse, but in those days nurses really didn't make much money. If he'd worked steadily, we probably could have left the projects, but when Mom had enough and threw Pop out, our fate was sealed. I always dreamed of having a family of my own, and to give my children a nice, quiet home life. There'd be no pulling the covers over their heads to try to drown out those loud voices (and in case the George Jefferson in you is wondering, no, Pop never called Mom a nigger. He said she was a nagger.)

There was a time when I thought that life of serenity would be spent with Douglas Valentine, whose family lived a few buildings away within the projects until they moved out when we were in sixth grade. Douglas was the tallest kid in the school, and he hit six-six before he was through. He and I started going together in eleventh grade and stayed a couple right through graduation, and even after . . . sort of. He got a scholarship to Duke University in North Carolina, but I stayed right here in Illinois for college; it's all I could afford. Douglas became a basketball star at Duke, and I knew he was fooling around with other girls, but there wasn't anything I could do about it. But when he went pro after graduation the situation with his cheating really got out of hand, and we broke up.

I'd known Douglas' brother, Charles, as long as I'd known Douglas. Charles is only about year older than us. I'm not even sure how it happened, but one day Charles and I had a nice chat after bumping into each other on the street, and the next we were on a date. I soon realized, and I think he did, too, that this was something special. I never thought it would happen, but we fell in love. Charles Valentine was the man I wanted to spend my life with. We just had to tell Douglas.

We tried to keep our affair under wraps, but that started to get old, so we ventured out here and there. We were picking up some take-out on Cottage Grove Avenue when Douglas came out of a bar, saw us together, and jumped on Charles. The gossip got to him before Charles could tell him. Charles is four inches shorter than his younger brother, but Douglas had been drinking, and Charles scored what's known in boxing as a knockout.

Douglas already had problems with liquor and drugs, but it was worsening. That's what ruined his life - he eventually held up a candy store at gunpoint and went to jail - but their mother, Ann, blamed me. Charles defended me, and so did Mr. Valentine, but I couldn't cope with knowing that I'd caused a rift between Charles and his people, so I broke it off and went to live with my mother, who'd moved to Kenosha, Wisconsin with her second husband. My sister Sherry got married and started having kids, and I thought I was going to be an old maid. Then, years later, I met Bruce Dillahunt, and all my dreams came true.

Handsome husband, cute kids, a boy and a girl, in that order. Bruce's success as the owner of a credit card processing service meant we lived extremely well, with family vacations, nice cars, a beautiful home on the banks of Lake Michigan.

We got married when I was 36. For 13 years we had a great life together. Then came the mammogram that changed everything, last fall. I had the tumor removed, and the outer corner of my breast has a little cone-shaped protrusion. I opted against having it fixed, wanting no more cutting and no oxygen to be able to get inside. But suddenly my husband, who liked sex at least four nights a week, started making excuses. He was tired. He's slowing down. He didn't want to wake me. Bullshit. I think he's having an affair. And here I am, nearly fifty years old, with an accounting degree but not having worked since before my son was born more than 10 years ago, which pretty much renders me useless.

I hold my arms out as my kids run toward me. They have no idea of the tension between Bruce and me; we're unfailingly polite to each other in front of them. My accusations of him having an affair, and his denials, are all done in harsh whispers and behind closed doors. Quentin and Alyssa have the kind of life I always wanted for any kids of mine. There won't be any holding their fingers in their ears or burying of tear-stained faces in the cushiony surface of their pillows.

But I'm terribly unhappy. I feel like something in me died with that tumor they took out of my breast.

I'm going to the reunion luncheon Pat Maxwell organized down in Chicago. I'll bring my kids - it's a cinch Bruce won't want to come. I haven't seen my old friends Pat, Elyse, and Grace in too long, anyway.

And as I drive back to the home that was once so happy but now makes me feel trapped, I keep wondering . . . will Charles be there?

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Be sure to tune in on March 1st and meet the next of the four main characters in this exciting book!