Lady Jasmine

by Victoria Christopher Murray

  Even though her friend couldn’t see her, Jasmine’s head whipped from side to side. “I’m not about to let her get away with this.”

  “Think about all the things you’ve gotten away with,” Mae Frances said. “There’re people who look at you and don’t think you deserve to be married to Preacher Man.”

  Jasmine wished her friend was sitting right here so that she could slap her. “How did this become about me? And when did you turn into Mother Teresa?”

  Mae Frances continued as if Jasmine hadn’t spoken. “Remember, you’ve gotten away with quite a bit in your life, and as my good friend, Jeremiah Wright, always says, If you’re not careful, those chickens will come home to roost!”

  What did that have to do with her? Her chickens weren’t going anywhere; she hadn’t done anything wrong. It was Mrs. Whittingham who needed to pay—big time.

  “Jasmine Larson, are you listening to me? I know what bitterness can do. I used to be you, and I don’t want you to grow up to be me.”

  Jasmine twisted her car from 132nd Street into the curved driveway of the high-rise brick building with LENOX TERRACE stenciled on the glass in gold letters. “Mae Frances, I’ve got to go.”

  “Don’t you hang up on me, Jasmine Larson,” Mae Frances barked. “I know you don’t want to hear me, but—”

  “What? Mae Frances? Can you hear me?” Jasmine pulled the phone away from her ear. “I think I’m losing you.”

  “You’re not fooling me one bit—”

  “I can’t hear you. I’m losing the signal…” Jasmine clicked off her phone and then pressed the Power Off button. She knew for sure Mae Frances was going to call back—mad.

  But she didn’t have a single word to say to her friend. Mae Frances had gone all the way Christian on her. Not that she wasn’t concerned about God, but sometimes there were situations that you had to handle yourself.

  “How long are you going to be?” the doorman asked as he pointed to the car she’d parked in the visitor’s space. “You can only stay there for thirty minutes.”

  Jasmine glanced at her watch. It was just barely seven. “I’ll be back way before my thirty minutes are up,” she said with a nod.

  What she had to do wasn’t going to take long at all.

  “What do you want!” It was an exclamation more than a question. Then Mrs. Whittingham’s eyes grew huge. “Did something happen to”—her hand covered her mouth—“Samuel?”

  Jasmine pushed past the woman as she stepped inside.

  “No, my father-in-law is—” Jasmine stopped. She couldn’t bring herself to think about Reverend Bush; whenever she did, her heart softened.

  Jasmine knew he’d be saddened by what she was about to do. He would tell her to pray, to let Jesus take the wheel, to forgive all that Mrs. Whittingham had done.

  But Jasmine turned away from those thoughts of grace that she’d learned from him. Instead, she turned her heart over to the dark side and then faced the woman who’d brought such havoc into her life.

  “If nothing’s wrong with Samuel,” Mrs. Whittingham slammed the door, “then why are you here?”

  Jasmine had been thinking about the words she would say at this moment, and she had no plans to drag this out. “Because I wanted to look into the hateful eyes of the evil, conniving witch of a woman who had the audacity to blackmail me.”

  Many images had gone through her mind when Jasmine wondered what this moment would look like, and one picture was that Mrs. Whittingham would stare back at her with blank eyes. Her fear was that the woman would have no idea what she was talking about.

  But the glimmer that shined in Mrs. Whittingham’s eyes, even for a millisecond, filled Jasmine with relief and rage at the same time.

  “You really are a case,” Jasmine said. “You pretend to love Reverend Bush, you pretend to love Hosea, you pretend—”

  The woman didn’t let her finish. “Don’t come into my home and preach to me about love!” Mrs. Whittingham tightened the belt of the flannel bathrobe before she pointed her finger in Jasmine’s face. “You don’t know a thing about loving anyone but yourself.”

  “You think you know me?” Jasmine sneered. “It’s obvious that you don’t, because if you did, you would have known that you just made the biggest mistake of your life.”

  With bold steps, Mrs. Whittingham came closer. “Oh, really?” she scoffed. “It was a mistake to send you those letters?” She chuckled. “And what are you going to do about it?”

  Jasmine’s eyebrows rose. Audacity surely made people stupid, sometimes.

  Mrs. Whittingham mistook Jasmine’s silence for defeat. “That’s what I thought. There’s nothing you can do. In fact”—she moved away from her—“I’m glad that you found out. And since you have the nerve to come up in my face like this, I think I need to call Hosea. Need to let him know who you really are. Then maybe he’ll do what he should have done a long time ago—maybe after he talks to me, he’ll finally divorce you.”

  Jasmine chuckled. “You really think you have that kind of power over my husband?”

  Mrs. Whittingham passed her a wicked smile. “When I tell him that he has more than a name in common with the prophet, Hosea. When I tell him that his wife is no different from Gomer—and that he, too, married a whore….”

  Jasmine flinched, wanting to smack the woman down for that.

  Mrs. Whittingham continued, “We’ll see what he says.”

  Even as she moved toward the telephone, Jasmine stayed silent. She remained that way until Mrs. Whittingham lifted the receiver.

  Then she said, “Before you make that call,” Jasmine powered up her cell, “can you give me Ivy’s number?”

  Through the slits that Mrs. Whittingham’s eyes had become, Jasmine could see the woman’s uncertainty. “What do you want with my sister?” she asked, her bravado a bit less.

  Looking straight at her, Jasmine frowned. Then she tilted her head, as if she was baffled by Mrs. Whittingham’s words. “Your sister? You mean your daughter, don’t you?”

  Mrs. Whittingham stood stone still, frozen in the moment and in fear.

  With slow steps, Jasmine moved toward the woman who’d been tormenting her. Her eyes flashed with the fiery fury that had been building inside of her for weeks.

  “And you have the nerve to call me a whore? At least I claimed my daughter.”

  “What…are…you…talking…about?” Her words were so shaky, it didn’t sound as if she was speaking English.

  Jasmine laughed. “Oh, come on. You can come up with something better than that.”

  The phone slipped from Mrs. Whittingham’s trembling hand, but neither one of them watched it fall to the floor. Their eyes were locked on each other.

  Jasmine said, “For all the years I’ve known you…the way you looked at me, talked to me, like I was so beneath you. But we really are the same person, aren’t we, Sarai? So if I’m a whore who kept her daughter, what kind of whore are you?”

  The water was already welling in the older woman’s eyes. “What,” she began, her voice still trembling, “are you going to do?”

  Jasmine glared at her for an extra instant before she shrugged. She lowered herself onto the yellow-flowered Chesterfield. Leaned back and crossed her legs like this visit was a pleasant one. “I’m not sure yet.”

  It took some time, but Mrs. Whittingham found her voice. Lifted her chin as if she found some courage, too. “Looks like we’re at a standstill,” she said.

  “Oh, really? And how do you see that?”

  “Because now…both of us have a secret and something to lose.”

  Jasmine twisted her lips as if she was in deep thought. “I don’t quite see it that way. I’m thinking that maybe I should tell Hosea about…that little summer I had when I was so young, and then you’ll be the only one with a secret and something to lose.”

  Mrs. Whittingham’s eyes got wide with the thought of what that would mean for her. “You’re bluffing,” she said.

  “You thi
nk so?”

  Mrs. Whittingham nodded. “Hosea will leave you.”

  Jasmine cocked her head. “I know that’s what you’re hoping, but think about it, Sarai. Hosea has been upset with me before. But no matter what, we always work it out. Because here’s the thing—he loves me. And he always comes back, because whether you want to believe it or not,” she leaned forward, “I am the woman God chose for him,” she said, repeating what Hosea always told her. “So my husband and I will get through this.

  “But you and Ivy,” Jasmine shook her head, “I don’t know. You’ve been lying for over thirty years. And what will Ivy think? What will she do when she finds out that her sister is really her mother?”

  Mrs. Whittingham’s beach-sand-colored skin paled more and for a moment, Jasmine thought the woman was going to drop to the floor right then.

  Still, Jasmine pressed. “It’s so tabloid, so soap-opery. Your sister is your mother.” She paused, letting those words settle. “My bet is that Ivy will never speak to you again, never forgive you, probably wish that you were dead. She might even send up a couple of prayers to God asking that He help with that.”

  Mrs. Whittingham gasped, and every bit of resolve she had melted with the tears that sprang from her eyes. “Please, if there is anything good inside of you—”

  “Inside of me?” Jasmine shot up from the sofa. “You didn’t have any compassion for me when you sent me those letters. And what about Hosea? Why would you want to humiliate him? Why would you want him to step down from what his father wanted him to do?”

  “Because…because….” Mrs. Whittingham choked on her sobs. “It was getting to be too much for him. He wasn’t making the right decisions. The pressure…it was all too much, and it was best that he focus on his father. He didn’t need to be worried about the church. But he wouldn’t listen to me.”

  “So you thought the best way to get him to listen was to blackmail his wife? To disgrace his family?”

  “You’re the one who brought disgrace to him!” Mrs. Whittingham shouted through her tears. “You’re the only one who could have brought Hosea down. You’re the whore!”

  Jasmine had never been punched with a swing to her gut, but she imagined that this was how it would feel. Without a word, she turned away and marched toward the door.

  “Jasmine!” Mrs. Whittingham’s voice was filled with panic. “What are you going to do!”

  Jasmine’s eyes were as hard as her heart when she turned back.

  The woman begged again. “Please! I know you hate me, but don’t destroy Ivy’s life.”

  All Jasmine said was, “I’ll be in touch.”

  “What does that mean?” Mrs. Whittingham cried.

  Jasmine closed the door on her words. She stood in the hallway for a moment and then…a thump! As if Mrs. Whittingham had fallen to her knees. It startled Jasmine, at first. Until she heard the muffled cries that filtered through the closed door. The whimpering followed her as she strode toward the elevator. Even when she pressed the Down button, Jasmine was sure she could still hear Mrs. Whittingham weeping.

  But there was no compassion in her heart, especially not after the way Mrs. Whittingham still spoke to her.

  You’re the one who brought disgrace to him!

  Those words sliced her.

  As she rode down in the elevator, Jasmine heard Mrs. Whittingham’s voice again and again. Like the woman was standing right there, spewing them over and over.

  You’re the only one who could have brought Hosea down. You’re the whore!

  That was the truth. And that was why, even though she’d told Mrs. Whittingham that she might tell Hosea about that summer, it was just a bluff. Jasmine would never, ever say a word to her husband about what had happened in ’83. She had good reasons for taking that job at Foxtails, but would she ever be able to explain to Hosea what had come next…?

  For the last four weeks, Jasmine had been making it rain for real!

  The fall semester had begun, and she’d become an expert at juggling her time—a student by day, a stripper by night.

  She split her evenings between Foxtails and Mr. Smith, leaving weekends for Kenny, who’d been thrilled that his girlfriend suddenly had enough money for both of them. It had been easy to explain her newfound wealth: she told her boyfriend that her money was the final gift from her dead mother, a monthly allowance that was paid from an insurance policy.

  That was a good lie.

  She was able to explain away her missing evenings, too—telling Kenny that her internship with Sony didn’t stop when the summer ended.

  “I’m a production assistant on one of the shows they’re setting up for a pilot, so I’ll be putting in a lot of hours after classes.”

  That was a better lie.

  Kenny had been impressed, and so he asked few questions when she wasn’t available on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday evenings.

  The truth was, on Mondays and Tuesdays, Jasmine helped pack the house at Foxtails. Men came from all over the city to lose their minds when Pepper Pulaski hung on to the pole, turned her back to them, and, with her long dark hair draped down to her butt, honored them with her signature earthquake move—something that not one of the other girls had learned to do.

  As the club favorite, Jasmine now brought home almost five hundred dollars for those two nights of work.

  Then she spent Wednesdays and Thursdays in one of the five-star hotels in Los Angeles with Mr. Smith. Inside the privacy of some of the best rooms in the city, Mr. Smith paid her double what she made at Foxtails.

  And she never had to do anything more than get naked.

  Her mind was filled with that proud thought now, as she closed her eyes and gyrated to beats that only she heard in her head. Mr. Smith liked to watch her move without music; he said there was nothing to distract him from the pure beauty of her dancing.

  Tonight, she danced atop the bed in the Beverly Hills Hotel. This was her favorite place to come with Mr. Smith. With its golden walls and cream-and-taupe bedding, Jasmine felt like a queen in this castle. Especially surrounded by the many antique Louis XVI pieces—the armchair, writing desk, and armoire.

  Before Jasmine had met Mr. Smith, she hadn’t known an armoire from an aardvark. And she definitely hadn’t known anything about neoclassical designs. But her benefactor had become her teacher, exposing her to the best of many things.

  She glanced down on the bed where Mr. Smith lay beneath her. Weeks ago, when she’d done this for the first time, Mr. Smith had been fully clothed. But as time passed, his clothes began to shed, as if being naked was contagious.

  Now he lay beneath her, as he had for the past two weeks, wearing nothing more than his wedding ring. But it didn’t bother Jasmine. If it turned him on, then it worked for her.

  For a moment, she wondered if she’d been turned over to a reprobate mind—she’d once heard her best friend Kyla’s pastor talk about how some people fall so far into sin, there was no turning back.

  Be careful, she remembered Pastor Ford’s words. Once you open doors leading to sins, it’s hard to close them.

  Well, she wasn’t sinning. She was just dancing and giving the customer what he wanted.

  “Are you tired?” Mr. Smith broke through all the thoughts she had as she danced. His concern for her was always the same; she heard it in his caring, gentle tone.

  She nodded and, like she always did, dropped to her knees, then fell into his arms. They rested together, skin to skin, as if they were a couple.

  It still felt strange; every night after she danced, they would lie together, and Mr. Smith would hold her as if he loved her. Invariably, she’d fall asleep, then hours later, she’d awaken—always alone.

  It was his absence and the envelope that he always left filled with fifty dollar bills that reminded her that this didn’t have a single thing to do with love. But make-believe wasn’t just for kids, and often she daydreamed about what life would be like with Mr. Smith.

  Not that she thought
that truly possible. First of all, he was white—and there was no way she was taking home a white man. Next, he was old. She didn’t know his age, but the wisps of white hair that covered his scalp and the wrinkled skin that covered his bones let her know that he had a good three decades over her. And she never forgot about the fact that he was married.

  But his money kept her dreaming. Kept her pretending about all the what-ifs.

  Minutes passed and then Mr. Smith said, “I have a gift for you.”

  Jasmine leapt from the bed, parts of her bouncing as she moved. For several seconds she jumped up and down in front of him, pretending that it was only delight that made her do so. But in truth, it was part of the show. Part of what he loved. It was the reason that he often came with gifts.

  Watching her jiggle may have been his favorite part, but rushing to the closet where he always hid the presents was hers.

  In the weeks since he’d started bearing gifts, he’d given her diamond stud earrings, plus a slew of other items—a sterling silver bracelet, a pearl necklace. He’d even given her a two-hundred-dollar gift certificate to Chanel, and she’d bought her first designer purse from the store on Rodeo Drive.

  She couldn’t imagine what he’d bought her today when she pulled out the oblong-shaped brown box. But the moment she pulled off the top, she gasped. A pair of shoes. Gucci.

  “Oh, my God!” she exclaimed.

  “Would you model them for me?” Mr. Smith asked as he pushed himself up in the bed to get a better view.

  She slipped on the pumps and strutted back and forth across the soft mauve carpet, twisting and turning and satisfying Mr. Smith with every move.

  She was posing with her hands on her hips, when Mr. Smith blurted out, “Would you sleep with me, please?”

  Time and her heart stopped. She stood so still, Mr. Smith repeated his question as if she hadn’t heard him.

  “Will you sleep with me, please?”

  He was such a polite man. Always gentle, his concern always apparent. But no matter how respectful he was, she wasn’t about to do what he asked.

  “Please,” he said again. She noticed the way he leered at her. Not that his eyes hadn’t always been filled with lust when she danced, but Jasmine always knew how those times were going to end.