His Last Wife

by Grace Octavia

  She considered how many times she’d watched the sunrise with Jamison. It was always some romantic feeling they had that they were seeing something special. Together. Her back against his chest. They were naked, standing in a window just like the one in her room in Cuba. Peeking out. Pretending this was a special show. One that no one else in the world would see. They were front row to be witnesses of a new day.

  Kerry knew she had to accept that this would be no more. She’d never feel that intimate expectation with that man again. Jamison was gone. And for that, her heart ached in darkness. She felt that. She knew that was real. Just as real as the night. Just as real as the blackness at the top of the sky. But, there somewhere in view, beneath black turned blue turned purple turned lavender turned pink, if she peeked and squinted, maybe she could see just the tip of a bright white yellow on its way up.

  She could watch that alone. She could see that alone every day if she chose. She could be in the front row and be a witness all her own.

  In the stillness of the morning, Kerry could hear bits of her last conversation with Jamison. They were in the room at the Westin. It was an early morning just like this. The sun was new. They were climbing out of the same bed.

  “Marry me,” he’d said.

  “Marry you?” Kerry rubbed her eyes.

  Jamison laughed. “Why do you keep answering me with questions?”

  “Because I can’t believe what you’re asking,” she said. “This is crazy. Too fast.”

  “Then I’ll ask it slowly. Would you marry me? That work for you now?”

  “I—That’s not what I meant. I meant it’s happening too quickly for me.”

  “Quickly? You know I love you. I never stopped.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Another question.” Jamison cupped her chin with his hand. “Do you love me?”

  “I—”

  “Don’t bullshit me. Don’t give me the ‘we’re divorced and I have to play from this side of the court’ response. Just tell me. Do you love me, Kerry?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “So would you marry me?”

  Kerry listened to the past and decided she didn’t want to hear her answer. She wanted to leave that in the past. To stop living in that past. She looked down at her wedding band. She slid it off.

  Kerry looked back out of the window and saw that the sun was in full view. Just that fast, it had revealed itself to her. She considered that maybe she was the only one in the world invited to the show.

  There were two soft knocks at the door. Kerry slid her old wedding band onto the nightstand beside the window, replaced the sheet over Tyrian’s body, and went to open the door.

  Val was standing there, holding her bags.

  “Hey there,” she whispered after seeing Tyrian still in the bed and Kerry in her night clothes. “The car is here to take us to the airport.”

  “Oh.” Kerry sounded like she’d forgotten.

  “You okay?” Val asked. She could see the wedding band on the nightstand. “You want me to help you pack? I can have Ernest tell the car to wait. It’s still early.”

  “No. I’m okay. I can do it. We don’t have much.”

  “Okay.” Val smiled.

  “I see you’re carrying your own bags,” Kerry pointed out.

  “Yeah. I figured I’d give Ernest a break this morning. But this is only until we get to the airport. Then it’s all him,” Val joked and the women laughed. “Please, this bridge ain’t my back.”

  “I like him for you,” Kerry said knowingly. “I think he’s—good for you. I see it in his eyes.”

  “You really think so?” Val scrunched up her face.

  “I know so. Don’t let him get away.”

  “Girl, I couldn’t get rid of this fool if I tried. Stuck on me like glue,” Val said and then she added what was a secret even to her until that very moment, “And I like it.”

  “You deserve it.” Kerry reached over the threshold and touched Val’s shoulder lovingly.

  “Okay. Well, let me get down to the lobby to tell the driver to wait. Think you’ll be ready in, say, ten minutes?” Val peered down at her watch.

  Kerry turned and looked into the room at her open bags on the floor, Tyrian sleeping peacefully in the bed, and the window curtain drawn to a sky that was now fully lighted.

  She looked back at Val. There was a long pause.

  “You’re not coming home, are you?” Val asked.

  Kerry stepped over the threshold and kissed Val on the cheek.

  Tears began to fall from both women’s eyes as they looked at one another.

  “No,” Kerry said. “Not right now.”

  “But I can’t just leave you here.”

  “You’re not leaving me, Val. You’ve done all you can do. Been a real friend to me—a sister. But now it’s time for me to do my own work. To push myself forward.”

  “And you think you need to do that here? In Cuba?” Val asked. She looked into the room at Tyrian, still dreaming. “And with him?”

  “I do.” Kerry looked at her son too. “And I think he needs this. To be away from everything. To relax. Build something new.” Kerry turned back to Val, her face wet with new tears. “Look, don’t worry about us. I’m an Atlanta girl. I’ll be back home real soon.”

  Val hugged her new friend again and allowed her own tears to flow. She stepped back from the threshold and waved with a weak heart as Kerry closed the door.

  DON’T MISS

  Have You Met Nora?

  by Nicole Blades

  An ex-classmate who Nora betrayed many years ago has returned to her life to even the score. She’s a woman who won’t be bought off, reasoned against, or pleaded with. Her machinations are turning Nora’s privilege into one gilded trap after another. Running out of choices, Nora must decide how far she will go to protect a lie or give up and finally face the truth . . .

  Chapter 1

  Nora opened her eyes and stared through the darkness at the ceiling. Three twenty-eight, she thought, before rolling up off her back a little and craning her neck to look just past Fisher’s shoulders at the blue numbers on the clock by his nightstand. He was dead asleep, the rhythmic flow of his deep breathing like white noise. The numbers gleamed: 3:41 AM. Close enough, she thought, and returned to the ceiling. Although Nora had long been an early riser—she couldn’t remember a time when she had slept later than the sun—this was different.

  She eased the covers off and slid out from under Fisher’s muscled arm, moving slow and steady toward the edge of the bed. She hopped down, landing with a soft thud, and then froze, shifting her eyes back to Fisher. No change. Not even a break in the beat. Nora grabbed her iPhone and padded along the hall. The moon, pushing through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the penthouse, provided more than enough light for Nora to find the handle to the mini champagne fridge that Fisher bought for her last year. Nora gave the half-drunk bottle of Armand de Brignac—a gift from a client—her deepest bow with prayer hands before grabbing it and shutting the fridge door with her foot. She pulled the orange stopper from the bottle, letting it drop to the floor, and started typing into her phone on her way to the bathroom at the far end of the penthouse. Nora waited until she was inside the empty, freestanding tub before taking her first, long swig from the bottle. She rested her phone on the ledge of the tub and pressed a button on a remote that sent the massive blinds skyward. Nora stayed there in the empty basin, soaking in the city’s glow, and waited.

  Her phone buzzed and vibrated against the acrylic. She took another sip before answering it.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” a croaky voice said.

  Nora shook her head. “I’m just—”

  “Nervous? You’re just nervous, hon. It’s prewedding jitters. You’re fixin’ to get married to that gorgeous, big-dicked, super-hot bastard in twentytwo—no, twenty-one days and you’re feeling anxious. That’s all. No Biggie Smalls.”

  “Jenna, I’m sitting in a
n empty tub, pounding old champagne straight from the bottle, and staring out the fucking window. Do you really think it’s necessary to remind me that there are twenty-two days—”

  “Technically it’s twenty-one—”

  “Jesus, fine, twenty-one days. It’s twenty-one days before the wedding. I’m aware. My whole entire body is aware. We’re all very aware.”

  “Deep breaths, sweetheart. You’re freaking out. This is what freaking out looks like on all normal women,” Jenna said. Her Southern twang, though soft, still tickled Nora. “You’re just different. It’s foreign territory for you.”

  Nora stopped mid-swig, her arm wobbling and then dropping with the weight of the bottle into her lap. “What does that mean?” she said, squinting her eyes and bracing her body.

  “Nothing, just, I don’t know. . . . I mean, you’re always even and calm; it’s preternatural,” Jenna said. “No matter what’s going on, you’re on like perma-chill. It’s automatic for you. No headless chicken stuff.” A chuckle. “It’s why we kept calling you I.Q. when we first met you. Ice Queen.”

  Jenna’s full creaky cackle made Nora move the phone away from her ear and level it on the ledge of the tub. She could still hear Jenna from that distance, but pushed Speaker anyway and went back to drinking her champagne. Nora reclined, cradling the bottle into her chest. “Ice Queen? Seriously? And here I was thinking you were dazzled by my smarts.”

  “Oh, we were. Totally. By your smarts, for sure, and also your long legs, your frat-boy mouth, your perky tits, them Kelly Ripa arms, and your entire wardrobe, espesh the shoes. Plus, you speak fluent French—I mean, fucking French—and you’re the first white girl I’ve ever met who can actually dance. Like, legit, Beyoncé backup dancer dance. Need I go on?”

  “Yes, you need. Come on, I’m practically perfect,” Nora said, the beginnings of a laugh tickling her throat.

  “Practically?” Jenna said, yawning. “Okay, so we’ve thoroughly covered your Boss Bitch status. It’s why Fish is locking you down so fast, while those eggs are still viable.” Nora’s expanding grin disappeared, replaced by a clenched jaw and gnashed teeth. “What I need clarity on is: Why are dry-tub drinking again?”

  “How did you know I’m in the tub?”

  “Echoes, booby. Also, you said so earlier. Either way, I’ve got you pretty much figured out. You’re not the QB on this play. What’s the wedding planner’s name again, Gloria? Glenda? Whatever. She’s the quarterback. She’s the one calling all the plays, and you’re watching from the sidelines and it’s driving you bananz.”

  “First, are you talking sports at me?”

  “A little,” Jenna said through her teeth.

  “You’re still hooking up with that sports writer guy?”

  “A little.”

  “Wait, isn’t he the one who sent you the dick pic when you asked to see his new coffee table?”

  “Well, it was pretty impressive . . . the coffee table.”

  “Jesus, Jenna. What needs to happen to get you out of these dating app traps? Nothing but Dumpster fires on there.”

  “Hold up, I met Sports Guy the old-school way, my dear: at a bar, not on a dating app,” Jenna said. “You kidding me? My filters are tight. He would’ve never made the cut.”

  “What about the one who called you from rehab on what was supposed to be your third date?”

  “Oh, that whole thing was about me trying to be charitable. I’m from Texas. It’s how we do.”

  “Father-God, you need prayer,” Nora said, closing her eyes and leaning her head back in the tub.

  “You sound like my sister’s nanny, Bernadette. She says that all the time about those twins: Fahdah-Gowd,” Jenna said, mangling it. “She’s from Trinidad, I think. No, St. Kitts. One of those islands. But you got that accent down solid. So many tricks in your little black hat, woman.”

  Nora sat up straight, her eyes popping open as if called by a siren. The empty champagne bottle clanked against the bathtub.

  “Oh, God, did you just fall asleep on me?” Jenna said, chuckling.

  “No, I didn’t. . . . I should go, though.”

  “Thought we were fixin’ to talk about wedding planner Glenda.”

  “It’s Grace, and no, we weren’t fixin’ tuh do anything, Dollywood,” Nora said. She placed the bottle on the floor and curled her knees up into herself, burying her forehead and trembling chin into them.

  Jenna’s tone got sharper and the grogginess dissipated. “First of all, Ms. Dolly Parton is from Tennessee. Secondly, you know the Texas comes out when I’m tired or drunk. And third, are you, like, mad at me because I forgot the wedding planner’s name?”

  Nora knew her voice could not be trusted right then, that it would likely betray her and reveal too much. She swallowed hard, and once more, and again. The vein by her left temple pulsated. It was long, bluish, and exposed itself when she was angry. Nora’s mother said she got it from her deadbeat father. The vein, piercing green eyes, and a surname—Mackenzie—are the only things she inherited from the vanished man. Nora needed to push all that was rising up just behind her tongue back down to the underneath, the subterranean pit where these kinds of things were free to unfold, to fester, and to die.

  “Are you serious right now?” Jenna said.

  Nora extended an arm to the phone, her finger hovering over the button to end the call. Her mind flashed forward to her next steps, but nothing was clear or sensible. Then, as fast as it came, the tumult in her brain was gone. Her heartbeat quieted; she relaxed her muscles, took a deep breath to quell her knotted stomach, and fixed her face, like her mother always told her to do. The morph ended with a light clearing of her throat. “Sorry, J. I was reading a couple emails,” she said, faking a yawn. The sound of Jenna’s long exhale only made Nora’s shoulders relax even more. “What were we talking about?”

  “About how many sheep just jumped over the fence,” Jenna said. “Go to bed, Nora—your real bed, the one with the man in it.”

  “Yeah, it’s crazy late. Thanks for listening, Callaway.” Nora rolled her eyes but maintained the brightness in her voice.

  “It’s what we do,” Jenna said. “Good night, moon.”

  “G’night.”

  Fisher traced the length of Nora’s body first with his eyes, then the back of his fingers. When he reached the top of her head again, he massaged her temple and brushed back her hair from her damp cheek. Nora, feigning sleep, tried to maintain a natural breathing pattern and keep her body still, especially her eyelids that twitched under the pressure of the tears pooling behind. Nora wanted to turn and look up at him, be awakened by him, and surrender to his lifting her out from the cold hollowness of the bathtub, carrying her back to their bed. But she couldn’t; she wasn’t her yet. She wasn’t Nora Mackenzie.

  His touch was warm, gentle. For no clear reason, in that moment, the touch reminded Nora of that of Dr. Bourdain’s in the earliest days, back when he was still the husband half of the kindest couple—and her mother’s employer—who saw something special, “a spark,” in young Nora; back when he still looked at her as a girl, a child to guide and tutor, instead of a viable conquest to seduce.

  “Babe,” Fisher said. “Mack, wake up. What are you doing in here?” He lightly squeezed Nora’s shoulders.

  She flinched.

  The ruse could not play on. Nora opened her eyes partway and rolled her head toward Fisher. He was wearing only underwear, and his brawny torso glistened in the moonlight spilling through the window. “Hey,” Nora said. The phlegm and tears from moments ago added frog and gurgle to her voice, lending a layer of drowsiness and veracity to her hoax. “Wow. What time is it?”

  “It’s late,” Fisher said. He stroked her hair once more. Her eyes fluttered as she tried to blink away the memory of Dr. Bourdain’s revolting touch. She rubbed her brows with the back of her hand, wanting to scrub the gross sensation of the old man’s spotted paw on her with the very same swipe.

  Nora sat up in the tub and breathe
d in her fiancé. “Sorry. I didn’t want to wake you. I came in here to”—her eyes fell on the empty champagne bottle by his feet. “It’s Jenna. Boy drama, again. And let’s just say it required time, tears, and, of course, champers.” Nora gestured to the bottle with her pinky. She was grinning at him in her way—their way. A smile curled up the side of Fisher’s face and he stepped into the other end of the tub, rolling out his legs as best he could, encasing Nora. Fisher was here, not him, she reminded herself, and settled back in the tenderness of his embrace.

  “Champers, huh?” he said, his smile stretching up to his bright eyes.

  “Of the finest grade,” Nora said, nodding.

  “Full bottle?”

  “Halfway,” Nora said.

  Fisher pulled his legs, along with Nora, closer and leaned into her face, speaking barely above a whisper. “Tipsy?”

  “Mmm. Halfway,” she said, matching his hush. He dragged Nora onto his lap, making her straddle him. “What’s next, Mr. Beaumont?” Nora said, leaving her lips pursed and arching her body into him.

  Fisher took a deep breath and let it out slowly, looking up at his Nora, at her lips, her long neck, the bones along her collar, and then down the deep V of her top, at her hard nipples pressing through the thinness. He rested his forehead between her breasts, and Nora caressed the back of his head, patting the dark blond hair at the nape. There was something off, something tired, resigned about him. Nora slid back so she could better see his eyes. “You okay?”