The Perfect Mistress

by ReShonda Tate Billingsley

  After graduating from college, Lauren had moved to Florida to work for a small marketing firm. She’d used the distance as an excuse for the distance between them. When she’d moved back to Raleigh eight years ago, Joyce thought maybe their relationship would get better. But if anything, seeing her made the bitterness grow.

  Joyce felt a twinge of discomfort. She didn’t have any other real visitors. Her sister-in-law, Velma, visited occasionally. Her son, her baby, her pride and joy, Julian, came when he could, but he was very busy with his job and his family. He was big-time in the military. Not to mention the fact that he lived hundreds of miles away. And since Joyce had never gotten around to having those five children she’d wanted, she had to settle for just her one girl as a visitor to this dump.

  “What are you watching?” Lauren said.

  Joyce shrugged. “Some movie on Lifetime.”

  “I don’t know why you watch that depressing station,” she said, sitting down.

  “What else am I going to do in this godforsaken place?” Joyce cut eyes at her and she could feel Lauren take a short breath.

  “Well, I was thinking today that I could take you out. Maybe we could go get some tea. I saw a nice little coffee shop on the way in. I think the name was the Coffee Grind.”

  “The health department said they had rat droppings.”

  “Okay,” Lauren said, wincing as though from a blow. “Maybe we can find some other place.”

  For the first time Joyce fully noticed what she was wearing. “Why are you all dressed up?” she asked, taking in her sleek black pants and sheer blouse, which looked like they cost way more than she could afford on a jewelry designer’s salary. “I know you didn’t do all that for me.”

  She flashed a brittle smile. “Actually, I have a date when I leave here.”

  “Hmph. A date? With whom?”

  “You don’t know him, Mother.”

  Lauren didn’t share much of her personal life. Never had. “So, any future with this one? I would like some grandkids before I die.”

  “You have grandkids,” Lauren said wearily.

  “I’d like some from you.” Joyce had issues with her daughter, but she would’ve gladly taken her kids.

  “Okay, can we not have this discussion?”

  “It’s the least you can do since you destroyed my life.”

  She huffed like she knew that was coming. “You know what,” she stood, “I didn’t come here to be berated by you.”

  “How is that berating you? Asking for grandkids?”

  Lauren looked like she was fed up. That happened awfully fast. She usually lasted ten minutes before she got that way. “Mama, I don’t understand why we can’t have one good visit without you coming down on me, saying something smart, or sarcastic, or ugly.”

  Joyce shrugged nonchalantly. “I’m still trying to figure out how me asking for grandkids translates to all of this.” Then Joyce did what she did best: put on her victim face. “I know we have our issues, but it’s like everything I say, you just take offense and get all irritated with me.”

  Lauren’s shoulders drooped, and an apologetic expression filled her face. “Okay, I’m sorry,” she said. “Can we just start over?”

  Joyce took a long look at her daughter. Start over? After the hell they’d been through, she didn’t know how that would ever be possible. But she didn’t feel like fighting, so she simply stood and said, “Fine, let’s go get tea like a perfect mother and daughter.”

  Just once Lauren wanted to leave a visit with her mother not feeling stressed. Vivian said Lauren was a glutton for punishment for continuing these visits, and Lauren was starting to think that her friend was right.

  “There’s no way I could let that woman torture me like she does you,” Vivian had told her just last night.

  But as much as Lauren wanted to turn her back, she simply couldn’t. The woman had loved her, taken care of her. Lauren hadn’t taken sides with her father, not really, despite what her mother said.

  When she’d moved home after working in Miami—a place she didn’t really care for because it was too fast for her taste—Lauren had hoped that she and her mother could rebuild their relationship. Save the occasional “how’s school?” phone calls, they had been estranged for years.

  Lauren’s father had left her some money, which she’d gotten on her twenty-eighth birthday, and her mother had even resented that. Lauren had resolved that her mother was just happy wallowing in bitterness.

  Lauren decided to push aside thoughts of her mother as she continued to navigate the hilly terrain leading back into Raleigh. Her favorite Jill Scott anthem came on and she pumped up the volume. She was completely into the lyrics when the music was interrupted by the navigation system on her car alerting her to an incoming call. Lauren smiled when she saw Lewis’s number.

  Lewis Cole was an investment banker who loved flying her to places like Rome, Paris, or Fiji—when he could pull himself away from his overbearing wife.

  She pushed the ACCEPT button. “Hello?” she sang.

  “Hey, sexy.” His bass-filled voice boomed through the car’s intercom system. “How are you today?”

  “Fabulous as always. Better now that I’m hearing from you, Daddy,” Lauren purred. That was one of the tricks she learned from the women who stroked her father’s ego. For some reason, that got men going. So she made it her mission to always stroke their ego. “But I would be doing a lot better if you were driving me down this hillside.”

  Lewis was a powerful man who enjoyed being in a position to do things for her. So she made him feel like she was a lot more helpless than she really was.

  “Whoo. I wish I was there, too, honey. And later, I want to hear all the things you would do for me if I were. But I’m running into this meeting. I saw that you called me earlier, and since you don’t normally call, I was just checking to see what’s up.”

  She envisioned him multitasking as he talked to her.

  “Yes, I called.” Lauren’s voice was dripping with sweetness. “I just wanted to remind you what today is.”

  He paused, like he was thinking. “Am I supposed to be doing something for you?”

  “No, babe. Umm, it’s your anniversary.”

  “Doggone it,” he huffed. “I told Emily to remind me of that.”

  Lauren knew that his incompetent secretary would forget, which is why she made it her business to remember. That just made him more indebted to her. “Saks just got a new line of Christian Louboutin nude shoes in. You should get her that.”

  “Great, I’ll call right now.”

  Lauren was confident that when Lewis called Saks to order the shoes for his wife, he’d place an extra order for her, too.

  “You know, you are something else,” Lewis said, sounding relieved. “I tell you. Not many women would keep track of another woman’s anniversary like that.”

  “I just want you to have a happy home so that when you come to see me, you have no worries,” she cooed.

  “And that’s why I’m going to keep coming to see you. Hold on a second.” He bellowed for Emily.

  “You’re an important man who is stressed enough as it is,” Lauren said once he came back on the line. “You don’t need extra stress at home.”

  “I don’t know what I would do without you,” he said. She could hear the adoration in his voice.

  Oh, her gift was as good as on its way.

  “Okay. I gotta go. I’ll talk to you soon,” Lewis said.

  “Bye, sweetie. See you soon.”

  Lauren hung up the phone. She smiled, but noticed that she wasn’t as satisfied as she normally was when she got something from a man. She couldn’t find the word to describe what she was feeling inside.

  As she drove a little more, the word came to her. Unfulfilled. She felt unfulfilled. Suddenly, she felt an overwhelming desire to call Matthew.

  “That’s not good,” she mumbled to herself—even as she picked up the phone to dial his number.

  I
want to see you.”

  Those were the first words Matthew uttered after “Hello.”

  They made Lauren both smile and frown at the same time. She both loved and hated that she was drawn back to Matthew so.

  Yet when he asked her to meet him on campus, she hadn’t hesitated. Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin—a black teenager killed by a man who thought he looked suspicious—was speaking on campus, and Matthew thought she’d enjoy the lecture. Lauren wasn’t into socially conscious issues like she should be, but that case had fascinated her—especially after the man who killed Trayvon was found not guilty—so she thought it would be interesting to hear his mother speak.

  Matthew directed her to meet him in his office in the administration building. He arranged for her to park right in front, and as she stepped out of her car, a wide smile spread across her face.

  Coming here brought back so many memories. The statue of Harriet Tubman rose in the middle of the campus across from the admin building. Her heart warmed as she remembered meeting Matthew at that very spot. That was where he’d dried her tears after she’d been crying because Jerome Wilson had broken up with her.

  “It’s not you. It’s me,” Jerome had said that gloomy October day.

  Lauren had fought back tears, not wanting the students who passed by to see her crying. Jerome had been her first, and she’d hoped they would be together forever. But after a couple of rolls in the sack, he was ready to move on.

  “I don’t believe you’re doing this to me,” Lauren told him.

  “Dang, stop acting like a little girl,” Jerome snapped.

  Just then Matthew moved in. Lauren didn’t know him. She’d seen him a couple of times around campus, knew he was an upperclassman, but they’d never met because she had devoted all of her time to school—and Jerome.

  “Hey, Lauren, what’s up?” Matthew had said, planting himself in the middle of their conversation.

  Lauren looked confused. Matthew continued playing it cool, ignoring Jerome’s scowl as he kept his eyes fixed on Lauren.

  “So, I hear you’re single now,” he said with a sexy smile. “You know, I’ve been trying to get with you since you got on campus.”

  Lauren didn’t know what to say, but Jerome didn’t give her a chance. “Yo, dude, for real?”

  Matthew towered over Jerome—both in height by four inches, and weight by forty pounds—so Lauren didn’t think Jerome would try to jump bad.

  “So, are you free now?” Matthew had said, continuing to ignore him. “We can go grab something to eat, then go see the new John Singleton movie.”

  “Man, you’re trying to get jacked up,” Jerome said, taking a step toward him.

  Finally, Matthew turned around, looked past him like he was looking for someone, then said, “By who?”

  Lauren figured now would be a good time to say something, since Matthew’s height and weight didn’t seem to be intimidating Jerome.

  “Um, I’m okay,” she said, putting a hand between the guys.

  Matthew turned back to her. “Not yet. But you will be. Dude tryin’ to dump you right out here in public, in front of everyone.” He motioned around to the people standing around staring.

  “This ain’t got nothin’ to do with you,” Jerome said.

  Matthew waved him off. “Come on, let’s go. You don’t need this. Or him.”

  Before Lauren could protest, Matthew had taken her hand and pulled her away, leaving Jerome standing next to Harriet Tubman, embarrassed and humiliated.

  “Sorry about that,” Matthew said once they were on the other side of campus. “I can’t stand to see a guy treat a girl like that.”

  “Thank you,” Lauren managed to say. “Thanks a lot, umm . . .”

  “Matthew. Matthew King.”

  She and Matthew had become the best of friends after that.

  The memory warmed her heart as she made her way into the administration building. Matthew had texted her that he was still in a meeting and to come on up. His secretary was waiting and led her back to his office. “He’ll be with you in just a few minutes,” the classy gray-haired lady said.

  “Thank you.” Lauren took a seat on the sofa in his office. While she waited, she took in the surroundings. The wall was covered with his degrees, awards, and framed photos of him with notables like President Barack Obama, Spike Lee, and Maya Angelou. Lauren was definitely impressed. She didn’t want to appear too nosy, but she leaned over to check out the photos on his desk. She had to make sure he didn’t have any pretty young women on display.

  There were none, but Lauren couldn’t help thinking, as she gazed at a picture of Matthew accepting a medal at what looked like a marathon, that there had to be pretty young women in Matthew’s life. He was too fine for there not to be.

  “Who is she?”

  Lauren’s thoughts drifted back to one of her last conversations with Matthew before they broke up.

  “For the one hundredth time, she’s just a friend,” he claimed.

  “You must think I’m stupid,” she had said, realizing she was echoing her mother’s words. “That’s it. You think I’m stupid.”

  “I think you’re overreacting,” Matthew snapped. “I’m up here, trying to get my master’s, minding my business.”

  “Letting tricks answer your phone,” she added.

  Matthew sighed. “She’s not a trick. She’s a friend. And I didn’t let her answer. She thought she was doing me a favor by answering because I was outside taking the garbage out.”

  “Which was it, taking the garbage out or talking to a neighbor, because the first time you said you were talking to a neighbor!”

  “I was talking to a neighbor while I was taking the garbage out!” he yelled.

  Lauren had rolled her eyes. He sounded so like her father, couldn’t even keep track of his lies.

  “I’m not doing this with you,” Matthew said. “This is ridiculous.”

  “I’ll call her myself and ask her are y’all messing around.”

  “You do that,” Matthew said, then rattled off her number. “And when you get done talking to her, don’t bother calling me back.”

  He’d slammed the phone down, and when she’d tried to call him back, she got a busy signal all evening.

  Lauren had never called the girl. After she simmered down, she told herself that was something her mother would’ve done—accosted the other woman. And not only was she not about to become that chick, but this conversation told her she needed to change her approach to men altogether.

  “Hello,” Matthew said, snapping her out of her thoughts. “What are you thinking about that put such a scowl on your face?”

  Lauren had to push back the anger she hadn’t realized was still simmering after all those years.

  “Hey,” she said, standing and giving him a halfhearted hug. He was being so friendly, just as he had been so friendly all those years ago—to her and everybody else.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah, but umm, I just, umm, I just realized I have an order that needs to be completed by tomorrow. So I’m not going to be able to go to the lecture.”

  He looked surprised. “Oh, wow. You can’t spare a couple of hours?”

  “Not really,” she said, heading to the door. “I just wanted to tell you that. Maybe we can hook up another time. Thanks for the invite.”

  Lauren hurried out the door, leaving Matthew bewildered.

  When it came to creating, Lauren put her full heart into it. Whether she was creating the perfect cover-up story, creating the perfect atmosphere to make a man happy, or in this case—creating the perfect piece of jewelry.

  “That is so nice,” Vivian said, running her fingers along the oversize marble pieces.

  “You like it?” Lauren held the intricate necklace up to her neck. Pink and green alternated, with a splash of marigold.

  “Yeah, it’s gorgeous,” Vivian replied. “You don’t see those colors together a lot.”

  Lauren lai
d the necklace back down on her kitchen table, where she did most of her custom jewelry designing. Her eye for a beautiful stone had led to her custom pieces and a comfortable career.

  “You must not have had sororities on your college campus,” Lauren said.

  A forlorn expression swept over Vivian’s face. “No, I didn’t go to college. I got married right out of high school. After I spent the first five years trying to get pregnant, I spent the rest of the time trying to be the best mother and wife possible.”

  Lauren didn’t know how to respond to that. She never understood women who devoted their lives to a man. When that man left them, they often ended up right where Vivian was—alone, unskilled, and working for pennies in retail.

  “Well, this piece is exclusively for one of my clients,” Lauren said, not feeding into Vivian’s suddenly somber mood. “She’s presenting it to her mother to celebrate fifty years in her sorority.”

  “Were you in a sorority?” Vivian asked.

  Lauren gently packed the necklace into a suede-lined box. “Naw. That wasn’t my thing. I’m a loner, I’m afraid. I don’t play well with others.”

  “Was that because you were always stealing their men?” Vivian tried to laugh like she was making a joke. Lauren gave her the side eye because she didn’t see anything funny.

  “Girl, I’m just playing,” Vivian said once she noticed Lauren’s sour face. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  Lauren let the issue drop. She wasn’t going to let Vivian spoil her mood. Matthew had called and all but demanded that she meet him for breakfast this morning. She had expected him to be a little salty about her bailing on the lecture yesterday, but he didn’t even bring it up. He’d cracked jokes, made her laugh, and put her at ease. He always made her laugh. By the time breakfast was over, Lauren found herself promising to stop focusing on the negativity from the past and remember only the good times they’d had.