War.

by Shannon Dianne

  “I’m talking to Winnie every day.”

  “I know.”

  He lets out a deep breath and picks up a fry. “It’s just that…you’re my only boy…out of all the girls, it’s just you and me. Four of them, two of us. Ya know? And if something…if something happened to you…” He places the fry back on the plate and stares at it. “I just don’t want anything to happen to you, Jakie. Alright? You’re my only boy. You’re all I’ve got.” He looks up at me, his eyes watery.

  “It’ll be okay, Pop.” I pick up another fry, bite into it and look down at my plate. God…I need help.

  “Oh darling Daddy,” Beckett says as she leans over and rubs my back. “Don’t look so glum.”

  “Thanks, ba-”

  “I’m going to be a butterfly for Halloween.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yep. Last year I was a caterpillar, this year I’ll be a butterfly. Get it?”

  “Yeah. I do.”

  MARLA

  Wedding bells will never ring for me. I’ve cried about it. I’ve called home about it. I’ve called friends from Philly about it and everyone’s said the same thing:

  Maybe it’s time to move on.

  Jon’s been yanking you around for years, Marla.

  Didn’t you get the hint when he married that Rouge?

  When will you stop settling for second best?

  When will you show a little dignity?

  Yeah, he’s rich but is he worth it?

  Has he even called?

  That last question is the worst question of all because he hasn’t. Jon has not called me. Five years of living with this man and he hasn’t even called me these past eight weeks.

  “Can you believe that Dan? I’m about to lose it,” I say to her over the phone as I lie in bed at her old condo. I know she’s in DC on a girls’ weekend but she’s become my counselor these past two months. Some of the best conversations of my life have been with Dan over lattes at our regular coffee spot. She’s the only person alive who understands me. Who understands Jon. Who understands what it feels like to love him. To feel rejected by him.

  “Can I believe that Jon hasn’t called you in two months after you’ve spent years with him sharing a life and a home? Yes, I can,” she says.

  “I mean, I have a new job, I live in a new condo…and he has no idea. It’s like he doesn’t even care. Mind you, I spent years picking up Nicky from school, taking him to his soccer practices, cooking family dinner twice a week, picking out Nicky’s Christmas presents, ordering Nicky’s birthday cake from his favorite bakery and he hasn’t even called and asked if I was alive.”

  “Marla, maybe it’s time to stop expecting it.” That’s not what I wanted to hear.

  “What do you think he’s thinking?”

  “Can anyone figure out what goes through the brain of Jon St. James? The last time I spoke to him was the night in your condo when I came with the girls. I haven’t seen him since.”

  “Well, does Nicky say anything?” I’m reaching for something, anything.

  “He mentions that you’ve been missing their dinners lately and that now Jon takes him out three times a week instead of once.”

  “That’s because he’s a terrible cook.”

  “He’s also mentioned that Jon will be going back to LA this week.”

  “What’s that all about?”

  “Something about Jon’s youngest brother, Seth, having a baby. Isn’t Seth seventeen?”

  “No, he’s eighteen. And guess what?”

  “What?”

  “He got a free ride to Georgetown.”

  “Oh wow, really?”

  “Yep. Isn’t that awesome?”

  “It is, but what about the baby?”

  “I don’t know because I heard that the baby’s mom is going to Howard.”

  “Well, that’s out of the question.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that. Right before I left, Jon said that Seth and his girlfriend, Bonnie, were still insisting on going.”

  “Where does that leave the baby?”

  “Jon’s mother?”

  “What a rotten deal. The woman raises thirty kids alone and here she is about to raise another.”

  “I know.” And then I think about me, and the baby I’ll never have. “I won’t lie, when Jon told me about the situation, I kinda hoped he would take the baby.”

  “Oh, please!”

  “I know. Crazy, right?”

  “Beyond. For Jon to take another man’s baby, when he barely wanted his own, sounds insane. But enough about Jon—how did that exhibit go this weekend?”

  I smile at the thought of my new job…and my new director. “I left that place at midnight on Friday!”

  “Are you serious? Damn, who knew the art world was so demanding?”

  “Oh, I’ve always known it wasn’t for the weak. Dealing with the artists and their egos, setting the exhibits up, coming up with the invitee list, making sure there’s the perfect wine and snacks…you know, art aficionados are snobs.”

  “Of course.”

  “And then selling the pieces. It’s a demanding job, it really is.”

  “Well, if you left at midnight, what time did Bryan leave?” I hear the smirk in her voice.

  Bryan Lexington is director of the museum where I work. He’s also a Massachusetts state senator:

  “You can do both?” I asked him one day.

  “Every state senator has a real job,” he told me as he made sure a Civil War painting was straight. He looked over at me. “What do you think? Look good?”

  “Yes,” I said with a smile. He gave me one back and pointed to the painting.

  Mr. Lexington’s a tall guy, half black, half white, lean, has dimples to die for, wears cologne that makes you want to close your eyes and smell him—like the people in those Febreeze commercials—and he has these muscular shoulders. But he’s a tough ass; the museum has to look proper at all times, our clientele are presidents of nations and prime ministers of countries, not to mention politicians of Boston.

  Oh, and he’s thirty-four and divorced. “My wife ran off with an artist. A guy whose work I showed in my own gallery. She met him during an exhibit, an exhibit that I organized. It was like plugging in my own electric chair.” He smiled at me.

  He doesn’t have any kids. “Please don’t remind my mother of that.” He looked at me and smiled.

  “I won’t!” I said a little too excitedly. He let out a small laugh and then asked me to order the wine for that night’s exhibit.

  He’s from Boston. “Pronounced Bah-stin,” he said with a thick accent. He grew up in Beacon Hill, comes from a long line of privileged Bostonians, and lived a marvelous life. “Regretfully, I’ll never have a rap story to tell. So I live vicariously through Drake.”

  “Is he your favorite rapper?”

  “He is.”

  “OH MY GOD! Mine too.” I instantly felt more excited than what the occasion warranted. “I’m, uh, gonna order the crab cakes for tonight’s exhibit.” Bryan just smiled and nodded.

  His father’s family created the very museum I’m employed with and he was friends with Dan growing up. “Danielle was then, as she is now. When she found a feminist cause she was committed to, she’d scare everyone into submission. I remember when she was around nine or ten and she realized that women were paid less than men. She went on a rampage, writing personal letters to business owners in our circle, threatening their livelihoods, assuring them that her father would take them for everything they owned. The entire city was scared to death of her. We could barely sleep at night. Eventually, we had to get our priest, Father Harper, involved.”

  “I thought I knew your face! You attend Danielle’s church!” I screamed out a little too loudly. I pressed my lips together and dropped my eyes. I was in one of the greatest museums in the nation, surrounded by the most eloquent people and standing in front of a guy who can only be described as pristine, and I was acting all Philly. “Sorry, I get excited s
ome times.” By the time I looked up, he was smiling at me.

  “Can you help me with the exhibit next weekend? I’m expecting a few prime ministers to come. I would ask Linda but I think you’d be better. You know, since you’ve done it before.”

  “Absolutely!”

  He smiled, nodded and then left me standing in the American War gallery by a portrait that I was dusting.

  Mr. Lexington.

  “Yes,” I tell Dan, now. “Mr. Lexington stayed with me to close the museum down but so did a few other people.”

  “You know, I always thought Bryan was a fox. And so cultured. He and I could talk Thomas Kinkade for hours. But his real passion was never art—it was history. He knows every battle ever fought in this nation, frontwards and backwards.”

  “Is that what his PhD is in? History?”

  “Sure is. He teaches an elective class at Harvard three nights a week during the summer, my mom says.”

  “Oh wow, are you serious? A Harvard professor? He never mentioned that.”

  “Yep. Family owns the art gallery; he runs it now. Doctorate in history, state senator, moonlights as a Harvard professor, single. Nice, right?”

  “Yeah…” But Jon.

  “I say you do your best to wean yourself off of Jon.”

  “Dan!”

  “I know it’ll be hard at first but trust me, it can be done. And then one day you’ll wake up in the bed of a fine ass man, wearing a diamond boulder on your finger and carrying his eight-pound baby in your body and you’ll think, Jon, who?” We laugh.

  “You think that after five years, it’ll be that easy for me?”

  “After nine years, one wedding and a son, I did it.”

  Then I guess I can too. “I’ll need more of these therapy sessions with you.”

  “No problem.”

  “Well, both you and the Fultons. I’ve been having tea every night at their place; they’ve been helping me move on with my life.”

  “Oh God.”

  “I know, but I love them.”

  “They’re a handful. So, let’s talk some more about Bryan.”

  “Oh come on, Dan, he’s my boss!”

  “And?”

  “Please. Anyway, he’s way out of my league.”

  “Don’t start that shit, Marla. Where are you getting this league stuff from?”

  “Well, when the guy you love dumps you for a redhead with light skin-”

  “First off, I don’t have light skin.”

  “Well, lighter than mine.”

  “So what? So you’re darker than me. And?”

  “And I’m 5’7” and wear a size 10.”

  “So what? Are you kidding me? You’re also shapely with a nice rack and a set of hips.”

  “And my hair isn’t long and luxurious. It’s just normal.”

  “Who has long and luxurious hair?”

  “You.”

  “It’s called deep conditioning. And trust me, Bryan Lexington isn’t worried about you having this mythical long luxurious hair.”

  “And besides, Bryan’s the type of guy who likes white women.”

  “Who says he likes white women?”

  “I don’t know. He’s polished and clean cut. Doesn’t really use slang. He likes Drake instead of, I don’t know, Rick Ross or somebody. And he’s mixed.”

  “And?”

  “So his father likes white women, so, surely he does too.”

  “Who the hell said Bryan’s dad was black?”

  “He’s mixed!”

  “So is Roman! And that other one I just had!”

  “You and Malcolm are rare. Most mixed people have black dads and white moms.”

  “For your information, Bryan’s dad is white.”

  “He is?” I sit up on the bed and cross my legs. He never told me his mom was black. I mean, he’s my boss so, of course he wouldn’t. And the only way I knew he was mixed, in addition to his looks, was because the other girls and gay guys who work at the museum told me so. But still, I’m the only black woman there so if his mother was black it would seem like he would mention that. Right? Is Dan sure his mother is black?

  “Yes and his mom’s name is Tammy, which is short for Tamica.”

  “Oh shit!”

  “So why on earth are you acting like he has no idea-”

  “Who is that?” I hear Winnie say in the background.

  “Marla. She thinks she’s not ‘good enough’ for Bryan Lexington because she doesn’t look like Marilyn Monroe.”

  “Give me that phone…hello, Marla? This is Winnie. Cut that shit out. Why the hell do you want to look like Marilyn Monroe?”

  “Well I never said-”

  “And furthermore, Marilyn Monroe was a size 12.”

  “Wow, was she?”

  “So stop the bullshit, hold your damn head up, take that damn weave out, go get a deep conditioner and go fuck Bryan Lexington. Okay, I’m done.”

  “Thank you, Winnie,” Dan says as she comes back to the phone. Winnie just dropped the mic! I hear her yell out in the background. “Yes we know, Winnie. Thank you. Anyway Marla, there’s no such thing as leagues. That’s why I married Jon. He wasn’t in my circle but he wasn’t out of my “league”. So, cut it out already. If you like somebody, you like somebody.”

  And that makes me smile. Dr. Bryan Lexington…

  JASMINE

  Months ago, Marlon was going through the five stages of grief. I naturally assumed that he had gone through them all. But now I see that he hadn’t. He’s been stuck on the second stage all this time. Anger.

  Now, all of these months later, I’m going through the three stages of stress. That’s what my mother said to me as she drove me to New Hampshire. “Alarm,” she said to me. “You won’t be able to sit still. Your body will be flooded with energy. Be careful. It’s fear that’ll drive you. Just don’t make any rash decisions based on that fear.” She glanced over me. “Fear of losing your home, your girls, your husband…your purpose. Promise me that you won’t let fear grab hold of you.” I had no idea what she meant then. But I do now.

  I had nothing.

  It’s Friday. Do you know where I am? No? Guess. Can’t come up with anything? Alright then, let’s start at the beginning.

  The rule is: you get dumped, you go ahead and cry your eyes out. You try to figure out what you did wrong. You try to fill your time with needless activity to take your mind off things. You talk to your girlfriends about things until they’re ditching your calls. These are the rules.

  Nope. Not for me.

  My mother drove me to New Hampshire, begging me to tell her what was going. “What is this about?” she kept asking. I ignored her. I admit, I was in a state of shock. My home had been wiped clean, my family had moved to Beacon Hill, Jacob had thrown me under every bus imaginable…all in one night. I was in shock. My mother continued to beg me. “What is this about, Jasmine? What’s going on with you and Marlon?” I continued to ignore her.

  Don’t let fear control you, was her warning to me.

  I have nothing, I thought.

  My aunt and uncle helped me into their home. It’s one of those homes that reminds me of Danielle’s condo: the kitchen cabinets are antique white and look tattered and worn on purpose, the countertops marble, the furnishings are grey. The flowers in the house are always bourbon roses—those dusty pink ones. The vases are all crystal, the candles are all some shade of ivory, and there are chandeliers with gleaming crystal drops hanging from gold frames in every room. Floor-to-ceiling windows are outfitted with specially-made baby blue curtains that drape down to the floor. The bookshelves are built in, the area rugs are Persian, and every room has a chaise. Every painting is museum quality, looking like they weigh a ton ; the bedding is always free of wrinkles and stacked with goose feather pillows in neat rows, one behind the other, all white.

  How can you stay depressed in a place like that? Easily. All you have to remember is one thing: I have nothing.

  My mother stayed with me
for two days at my aunt’s home. I lay in the guest room, my head nestled on those goose feather pillows, the sound of soft waves crashing on the shore outside my window, the harbor bells clanking softly. My mom came in and asked me again if I’d tell her what this was all about. My aunt came in and told me that I could stay forever if I needed to. She offered me apple pie and vanilla ice cream. My uncle came in and told me that when I was ready to talk, no matter if it was morning, noon or night, all I had to do was call him. My dad called to tell me that he loved me. My grandparents called to find out what in the world was going on. I appreciated their care. But I stayed quiet. I was devising my plan. I was in the first stage of stress.

  Alarm.

  What the hell was I going to do? I had nothing.

  It was on the eighth night of my confinement that I looked on my bedside table and saw a letter there. It was Danielle. At midnight, while the house was quiet and the sea rippled outside my window, I opened it and read it. The quote she ended the letter with sparked a fire in me. It was confirmation: We are becoming the men we wanted to marry. I had been devising my plan, in all of that silence, and now, after seeing Danielle’s letter, I knew what I had to do.

  I put her letter down and continued to go through the stack of them. She had written me again. For some reason, I needed to hear what Danielle had to say. She wasn’t going to offer me sympathy, she wasn’t going to offer me encouragement; she was going to offer me a way out. She wasn’t going to allow me to wallow in my sorrow. She knew Marlon left me. She knew I had nothing. Danielle is a feminist. She was going to help me come up with a Plan B. No man needed. I tore open her second letter:

  Hey, crazy girl. I wanted to talk to you about that cookbook of yours. I have three publishers clamoring to see a cookbook that offers easily made Italian and French recipes. But to be honest, they aren’t impressed with the Italian part. Everyone knows how to make Italian easily, it’s the French they’re intrigued with. As your literary agent, I suggest you drop the Italian and go full speed ahead with the French.

  No problem, Danny. I’ll give them whatever they want.

  I have nothing.

  I know I once told you that Italian food was easy and comforting and that French food was difficult and time-consuming. I know I once compared Marlon to Italian and Jake to French. I know I told you that I was done with French recipes, but things have changed.