Summer's Heat

Two

Freddie's father, Robert Alexander, was a tall, fit and trim man with coarse, wavy, black hair and coal black eyes. He was a lean, muscular man. Not an ounce of fat. His jaw was square and covered with long well groomed black sideburns. Every day he donned the same attire - a pair of polyester knit slacks, long sleeve white cotton shirt, black lace-up dress shoes and a wide silk tie with no pattern. He had a real businessman look. Robert's life seemed rushed, but he always managed to find time for his nightly cocktail, usually around nine thirty, when he got home from work. He realized he was caught up in the corporate rat race, but figured one day he would be able to slow down and devote more attention to his family. Maybe. Right now there was money to be made and he was not missing the opportunity. Hopefully, his family would understand.

Robert had met Margaret while in college at Harvard, and two months into their romance, she informed Robert she was pregnant. They immediately married, against the will of their parents, and the money that usually came from home to finance her education became almost non-existent. Occasionally, Margaret's mother would secretly send them a few dollars to help out with the bills. Margaret dropped out of school and worked at odd jobs until her child, Freddie, was born in 1960. Robert continued his education and also took a job as bartender at a local pub. The hours left little time for his studies but the tips helped make the job tolerable.

In 1964, the week after Robert received his diploma, he was offered a management position with GeoPrep, an oil and gas company in southern Texas. It was eighteen hundred miles from Boston, where he grew up, but much closer to Margaret's hometown of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Robert couldn't pass on the opportunity, so he accepted. Margaret didn't relish the idea of moving back south. She had lived the first eighteen years of her life in the South and vowed if she ever got away she was never going back.

Margaret had grown up as a true southern belle with all the beauty, poise and grace of a princess. Genetics had given her blonde hair, green eyes, and a beautiful wide smile with perfect white teeth - life in the south had helped her acquire her southern charm that she intentional intertwined with an aura of sexiness. With these traits, she teased boys heavily, although she was not loose. She was salutatorian of her high school class and had been chosen head cheerleader three consecutive years. Her family was an affluent group, deep rooted in old southern tradition. Her home was built prior to "The War of Northern Aggression" by one of her ancient ancestors and had been passed down generation by generation through her family. It was a huge antebellum house, which had changed little from the day it was first built. It was the host of the Tuscaloosa Debutante Ball every year and had been since the ball's inception.

She and Robert had discussed her inhibitions about the move and he genuinely tried to understand her feelings toward the south, but somehow all the talk about racial tension and segregation just didn't sink in.  Robert won out and she hesitantly agreed to move back south. Shortly after the move, occasionally Robert would be awakened in the wee hours of the night by Margaret's thrashing about, sweating profusely while dreaming. He wondered if her dreams were related to her inhibitions. He sensed there must be a connection, but never pushed the issue and these occurrences had become less frequent over the years anyway.

By 1972, Robert was doing very well in his career. He was doing well enough to have built, and paid for, their sprawling two-story house in their posh, upper-crust neighborhood and well enough to buy two new cars every year or so – a muscle car for himself and a Cadillac for Margaret, and well enough to send their child to private school now that those days had come. There was no way his little family could spend in three life times the amount of money he was making.