“Since it is his whole personality that bothers me, I doubt he would be very amenable to change.”
Her mother sighed and considered her angry daughter for a long moment, sipping her tea and then pulling a piece of toast onto her plate to butter it. “I heard a quote once that said females marry someone exactly like or exactly the opposite of their fathers. George was the exact opposite of your father. Did you have any respect for George?”
Marabeth shuddered at the reminder of her previous engagement. “No. He was soft and indecisive and had absolutely no work ethic.”
“So the exact opposite didn’t work out for you since you didn’t respect him very much. Perhaps you should give Sam a chance. He’s remarkably like your father in many ways.”
“Doesn’t that sound slightly ediple, mother?”
Her mother laughed despite her daughter’s irreverent comment. “Not at all. You don’t want to marry your father in any way. You just respect the qualities in other men that your father has shown as you were growing up. But speaking of attraction, you can’t deny you are to him.”
“Yes I can,” Marabeth countered immediately.
“Then you are lying to yourself, dear,” she said softly and stood up. “I have to rush, Marabeth but I want you to think clearly about Sam’s proposal. Your father and I are in agreement that this would be a wonderful idea. If you can give us any reason that it wouldn’t work, we are more than ready to listen.”
“Doesn’t the fact that I don’t like him mean anything?”
Her mother smiled gently before bending down to kiss her daughter on the cheek. “On the contrary. I have a feeling you like him too much. And that scares you.”
Marabeth sat in the breakfast room drinking her tea and thinking through her current situation. Her parents were practically ordering her to marry the man. She’d known it would come down to this as soon as they’d found someone that they thought was worthy. And for the past year, Marabeth had been fine with that. She’d been raised knowing her husband had already been chosen for her and she would have married George if he hadn’t died two years ago. She would have even been content in the marriage.
But she didn’t think she could find contentment with Sam. He was too domineering and autocratic. Her mother was right, those definitely were qualities she knew were also in her father. But they weren’t the qualities that she admired about him.
Marabeth got up from the table and called Stacy. “Are we cleared for departure today, Stacy?” Marabeth listened for a moment before her hopes were dashed. “Thanks. I didn’t think so. Well, you might as well take the day off. Was there anything special planned?”
There hadn’t been. But there was a big event planned for tomorrow. The children’s wing of the hospital needed renovations and she’d put a lot of time into coordinating a fundraiser. She was supposed to attend a luncheon tomorrow to finalize all the details. Marabeth sighed in frustration. She’d wager that tomorrow’s activities would be canceled as well.
She was looking out the window and wondering what she was going to do with her day when something Sam said yesterday came back to her. Why shouldn’t she have her luncheon tomorrow? She could bring everyone here instead of having it at the hospital. That would put a strain on the security team here, but she didn’t really care about that. If they weren’t going to allow her to leave, then they’d better be ready to have everyone come here.
She called Stacy back and thankfully, she was still there, not taking Marabeth’s advice to take the day off. them to come here instead. don’t bother. I’ll call them myself to let them know they should be expecting approximately fifty or more people who will need to be cleared through the gates tomorrow.”
“Stacy, call the organizers of tomorrow’s luncheon and tell
We’ll have it in the main dining hall. Call security…no,
Marabeth put down the phone and felt much better. She wondered if she was just being petty but she didn’t think so. This was an important meeting and the committee was going to finish up the details and move on to fundraising tomorrow. It had been one of her agendas for the past three years and it was finally coming to an end. She walked to her office and smiled at Stacy. “I feel better, how about you?”
Stacy looked slightly frazzled but energized. “I just talked to the kitchens and they are in full battle mode. What did security say?” she asked.
“I haven’t called them yet. I’ll get on it now. We’ll need to either e-mail or phone everyone on the list to make sure they can come and let them know to arrive early so they can get cleared through security.”
The rest of the day was spent phoning and coordinating names and background checks with security who snapped into active mode at her request.
By six o’clock that evening, everything was arranged. The whole list of fifty people were tentatively cleared and the chef was busy preparing the luncheon. Marabeth felt much better, knowing that she had accomplished something today and will again tomorrow.
Stacy walked in to Marabeth’s office and smiled tentatively, “Shouldn’t you be getting ready for your dinner?”
“No,” she said distractedly, pulling papers together to file into a manilla folder for tomorrow. “Why?” Marabeth asked, glancing at her watch.
“Well, I looked at your calendar and apparently you have a private dinner with our illustrious Minister of Defense.” Stacy giggled. “Weren’t you just saying yesterday that you weren’t interested in him in any personal way?”
Marabeth groaned inwardly. She’d purposely forgotten that Sam had dictated a dinner with her tonight. “I didn’t say that I wasn’t interested in him in a personal way. I said that I didn’t like him. But I guess the assumption could be that I am not interested in him in any way other than as a bump under my car, but since that’s a wish I’m not going to get any time soon, I suppose I should just accept that he’s employed by my father and ignore him as much as possible.”
Stacy’s eyes widened at Marabeth’s tone. “How are you going to avoid him tonight? According to your calendar, it is only going to be the two of you.”
Marabeth’s lips firmed in concentration. Shaking her head she looked around her desk for her notepad. “No. I’m not having dinner with that man,” she said and closed down her computer. “Is there anything else that needs to be attended to before tomorrow?” Marabeth asked, glancing through her notes to make sure they had checked everything for the next day’s meeting.