The Perfect Mistress

by ReShonda Tate Billingsley

  Lauren spun around, her eyes misting. “What about me? Does anyone care that I’m the one sacrificing? I’m tired! She hates me!”

  “Your sacrifice doesn’t go unnoticed. I know you think your brother doesn’t notice, that your mother doesn’t appreciate you, but they do.”

  “If I wasn’t here, they’d have to figure something out,” Lauren muttered.

  “But you are here. We are here. This is not all going to fall on you. It will fall on us,” Matthew said, taking her hand to stop her pacing.

  While his words touched her, the mere thought of her mother living with her gave her hives. “Oh, great. Just what I need to start off my marriage—my mother living with me.”

  “Lauren . . .”

  “I have to go.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I need some air. I will call you later.”

  Aunt Velma’s house had always been a place of solace. That’s why Lauren turned her BMW into the driveway of her aunt’s house. She was her voice of reason when Lauren was a ball of emotions.

  “You okay?” Aunt Velma asked, greeting Lauren at the front door before she could even ring the doorbell.

  “No.”

  Her aunt stood to the side and motioned for her to come inside.

  Lauren stomped past her, flung her purse on the sofa, then spun to face her aunt. “I can’t do this.”

  “Do what? Have your mother come live with you?”

  “How do you know?”

  “Julian called me.”

  Lauren rolled her eyes. “Let me guess, he wanted you to convince me to let her stay.”

  “I don’t need to convince you to do what’s right.” She closed the front door firmly. “Have a seat.”

  Lauren fell down on the hard sofa as her aunt took a seat in the recliner across from her.

  “You and your mama about to work my doggone nerves,” Velma said.

  “What?” Aunt Velma always took her side when it came to her mother, so this was surprising.

  “Y’all both getting on my nerves. Your mama knows better, and at this point you know better, too.”

  “I’m not the one with issues. She’s the one that has held on to all this hate for me—”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. You were a child when my brother was doing his dirt,” Aunt Velma said, cutting her off. “But I’m talking about now. You and your mama need to put on your big-girl panties and deal with your issues.”

  “Again, I don’t have any issues. You’re sounding just like her.”

  “She has issues. She chose to stay in that marriage. And I love my brother to the core of my soul, but how you let a man do you is how he’ll keep doing you. The minute she showed him that his cheating was acceptable, he knew that it was acceptable. So she needs to accept her role in that.”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying—”

  “And you,” she said, cutting Lauren off, “you need to understand that your mother was hurt and she’s been carrying that demon for a long time.”

  “I understand that,” Lauren said resentfully. “That’s why I’ve been going there.”

  “But you stand in judgment of her.”

  That brought Lauren up short. She supposed her aunt was right about that. Lauren finally sighed. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Your mother doesn’t have long. The doctors done told you. Let her come stay with you. Make things right. God doesn’t make mistakes. Everything happens for a reason, even if we don’t know what that reason is. Maybe He wants your mother living with you so you can find some common ground to help you both heal.”

  They’d given her mother six months. Maybe she could try. That way—whether it worked or not before her mother died—Lauren could say she tried.

  Joyce needed some laughter in her life. Something, anything to help her smile. That’s why she was wheeling herself down the hall to the dining room. This stupid wheelchair was aggravating, but since the nurses were worried about her getting dizzy and passing out, they insisted that she use it.

  The nurse had tried to serve Joyce breakfast in her bed, but she didn’t want to be stuck there. Julian was coming by to see her before he left this morning and she was praying for a miracle.

  Dear God, please let my son have a change of heart.

  Joyce didn’t know why that prayer found its way into her thoughts. She knew that Julian couldn’t take her back with him. Part of her understood that it didn’t make sense for her to go live on an army base. But the other part couldn’t help but hold out hope.

  Joyce wanted to go say good-bye to a few people before Lauren and Matthew came to pick her up. She rolled up to a table in the rec room, where a somber Pearl and Wanda sat with a couple of friends.

  “Good morning,” Joyce said.

  They all looked up at her, and only Wanda muttered a weak, “Morning.”

  “Well, I guess y’all must’ve heard I was leaving,” she said. “That’s the only thing can explain why all of you are sitting around here with puppy dog faces.”

  They exchanged glances that made Joyce uneasy.

  “Okay, what’s going on?” she said. That’s when she noticed the empty seat next to Pearl. “Where’s Ernest?”

  Still, no one said anything. “Hello, are y’all mute today?”

  Pearl gently patted her hand. Joyce instinctively pulled it away. “Somebody needs to tell me something. Where is Ernest?”

  “Ernest died last night,” Pearl said, her words soft and filled with pain.

  “What?” Joyce said.

  “Cancer won,” Wanda said, her eyes getting misty.

  Even though they all knew death was imminent, Joyce didn’t think any of them were ever prepared.

  “They found him on the floor in his bathroom. They think he’d been there all night.”

  Wanda shook her head. “Lord, please don’t let me die in this place like that.”

  Joyce was speechless.

  “I need to see his room,” she said, spinning around in her wheelchair. It’s not that she didn’t believe them; she needed to see for herself in order to process that he was gone.

  She rolled down the hallway to Ernest’s room. Her wheelchair came to an abrupt halt in front of his door. The empty room panged her heart. The orderlies had already boxed up Ernest’s belongings. On the side of the box was written “Donate.”

  “Why are you donating his stuff?” Joyce asked the nurse who was passing by in the hallway.

  “No one wants it. That’s what they told us to do,” she casually said as she went about her rounds. Joyce wanted to cry as she thought about the fact that Ernest had no one who cared enough to pick up his stuff.

  “Mama, are you okay?”

  Joyce looked back to find Julian standing behind her. She hadn’t realized that he’d walked up. Joyce nodded as he grabbed the back of her wheelchair and wheeled her away.

  “I don’t want to die in this place,” Joyce said.

  “You’re not. You’re leaving in two days,” he reminded her.

  “And I’m going out of the frying pan and into the fire.”

  Julian spun her chair around, a little sharper than usual. “Mama, I need you to go in with the right attitude,” he said. “This is a big strain on Lauren.”

  “Nobody asked her to do me any favors,” Joyce snapped.

  “I asked her,” he said firmly. “Because whether you want to admit it or not, you need her. And she needs her mother. Can you try to be her mother?”

  “So you’re turning against me now, too, trying to tell me I’m not a good mother?”

  “You were a good mother, an excellent mother—to me.” He touched her hand. “Go be a good mother to your daughter. Can you do that for me?”

  Joyce didn’t know why—Ernest’s death, her diagnosis, her years of hurt—but suddenly, she burst out crying.

  Julian immediately embraced her. “Shhh, don’t cry. Everything is going to be all right.”

  She heard his words. She just didn’t k
now how much she believed them.

  Her mother was coming to live with her.

  Lauren had tossed and turned all night, but she had still been unable to process that information. No, this wasn’t going to work. Lauren didn’t care what Matthew or Aunt Velma said, she didn’t need this drama in her life. Not now. Julian had to step up at long last.

  Lauren glanced at the time on the kitchen stove. She knew her brother’s flight had gotten in late last night, but it was 10 a.m. and he was a military guy, so he had to be up already. As she pulled her phone out of her purse to call him, it dawned on her that maybe he wasn’t who she needed to be talking to.

  Lauren took a seat at Matthew’s kitchen table and swiped her contacts to get to her brother’s name. She hoped to have this conversation before Matthew returned from getting them coffee.

  She pressed the home number for Julian.

  Lauren waited as the phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Rebecca.”

  “Who is this?”

  Her tone caught Lauren off guard. “Umm, it’s Lauren. Julian’s sister.”

  The hostility dropped away and her voice softened. “Sorry, Lauren.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, ah, um, I’m okay.”

  She didn’t sound okay.

  “Your brother isn’t here,” Rebecca said.

  “Actually, I wasn’t calling for him,” Lauren replied. “First of all, how are the kids?”

  “They’re fine. Outside playing.” Rebecca usually sounded warm and inviting, but although she didn’t sound angry like she did when she’d first answered, her undertone was tense. Probably the twins stressing her out.

  “Well, I won’t hold you long. I just needed to talk to you about something,” Lauren began. “I don’t know how much Julian has filled you in on what’s going on with Mama.”

  “Yes, he told me she was in treatment. I’ve called to check on her a couple of times, but I can’t ever seem to catch up with her,” Rebecca replied.

  “Well, it’s taken a big turn for the worse. And the doctors have said there’s nothing left for them to do. They’ve only given her a few months to live. And naturally, she just doesn’t want to spend her last days in that facility. So, the doctor thought it would be best if she went and lived with a family member.”

  Silence filled the phone. Lauren had expected that, and she started speaking quickly to convince her sister-in-law.

  “I know you have your hands full, but Mama could actually be a big help to you and the twins. She really loves those boys and she’d—”

  “Lauren,” Rebecca said, cutting her off, “I don’t know how much you know about what’s going on with me and Julian.”

  “I know you guys have the perfect family. It’s just me here. I can’t take care of Mom by myself. And you know how much my mom adores Julian.”

  “Yeah,” Rebecca harrumphed. “Because she thinks he walks on water.”

  “I just think it would be better if Mama went there,” Lauren said.

  Rebecca made a strangled sound, then said, “Lauren, Julian and I are separated.”

  Lauren almost fell out of her seat. “Separated?”

  “Yes, and I will be filing for divorce.”

  “Are you kidding me? Why?” She couldn’t think what could possibly be wrong in their picture-perfect marriage.

  “Your brother is a cheating jerk,” Rebecca huffed.

  “Cheating? Not Julian.”

  “Yeah, Julian got y’all fooled,” Rebecca said. “Everybody. His superiors, his family, his friends, they all think he’s this super great guy, but he is just a low-down dirty dog.”

  Lauren was still trying to process what her sister-in-law was saying. Surely, this woman was talking about someone other than her brother.

  “And if it’s one thing I don’t do,” Rebecca continued, “is stay with a cheating man. It wasn’t the first time, either. Fool me once, shame on him. Fool me twice, shame on me. He won’t get a third chance.”

  Lauren was speechless. Her self-righteous brother, who had blasted her father for cheating, had turned around and done the exact same thing?

  “I am really sorry to hear that,” Lauren managed to say.

  “Yeah, well, so goes life,” Rebecca said sarcastically. “Sorry I can’t be much help, but I’m trying to figure out the next step for me and my kids.”

  Lauren couldn’t help but admire Rebecca. She thought her brother had gone and found the most timid white woman he could find, but he messed around and got someone who had more strength than any black woman she’d known.

  “Well, no, I definitely understand,” Lauren said. “Take care of yourself.”

  They said their good-byes and Lauren hung up, dumbfounded. She couldn’t believe her brother had followed in her father’s footsteps.

  At first Lauren debated whether she should call and confront him, but she knew he had to be hurting, and they had enough going on that she didn’t need to be rubbing salt into his wounds.

  She’d made the decision to wait before bringing it up with him when her phone rang. Julian’s number flashed across the screen.

  Lauren pressed ACCEPT. “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey.” His voice was soft, like a kid who’d just been busted at the cookie jar.

  “I just talked to Rebecca,” he said.

  Lauren didn’t say a word.

  “She told me she told you.”

  “What I don’t understand is, why didn’t you tell me?”

  Julian sighed. “And say what, Lauren? Yeah, you know our father who I berated all my life, I’m just like him?”

  “Julian, I’m shocked. You cheated on her?”

  “I can’t believe I did it, either,” he said. She’d never heard her brother sound so despondent. And he’d just been here and given no indication that anything was wrong on the home front.

  “She said you did it twice.”

  Julian was sad as he replied, “I did. It was just something that happened. These women around here throw themselves at the army men, and I . . . I just messed up, Sis.”

  “How did she find out?”

  “The first time, I confessed.”

  “What did you do a dumb thing like that for?” Julian had definitely not learned anything from her father. Vernon Robinson’s motto had been to deny, deny, and deny some more.

  “I was so ashamed of what I’d done, and she could tell something was wrong. So I came clean. The second time, I just . . . I don’t know. I had too much to drink, which is no excuse, but I let Amaya—that’s the woman’s name—talk me into going back to a motel. But it was all a setup. Amaya had called Rebecca, hoping she’d show up, leave me, and then Amaya and I could be together.”

  Lauren felt like there was more to that story. Amaya wouldn’t have been scheming ways to break up his marriage unless their relationship had been going on for a while. But Lauren felt like it didn’t matter. No need to rehash all of the details; the deed was done, and Julian was about to lose all he had.

  “Why couldn’t Rebecca be like Mom?” Julian said. “She forgave Dad all the time.”

  “And you hated her for it. And she hated herself for it,” Lauren reminded him.

  “I know that,” he said quietly. “I messed up. Bad. Now Amaya is threatening to go to my superiors. You know adultery is grounds for them to kick me out of the military.”

  And yet, you risked it all, Lauren thought.

  “You’ll be okay,” she said. No need to beat him up, since he was doing a pretty good job of that himself.

  “Please don’t tell Mama. I’m begging you.”

  Lauren thought about his request. A year ago, it would’ve given her great pleasure to burst her mother’s Julian-is-perfect bubble, but now she could only ask herself, what purpose would it serve? Her mother was in her last days. The only news she needed was positive.

  “I promise, I won’t say a word,” Lauren said.

  “Thanks,” he said, relieved.
“Look, I’m sorry I let you down.”

  “You didn’t let me down. We both have made some bad choices in life.” Just then Matthew walked into the room and Lauren smiled. “The beautiful thing about life is our past doesn’t dictate our future.”

  As Matthew handed her her coffee and lightly kissed her on the lips, Lauren believed that statement from the bottom of her heart.

  Matthew was right about the limelight. A girl could get used to this. Lauren was loving the perks of being the front-runner’s fiancée. She could only imagine what it would be like to be the president’s wife. This was where she was supposed to be. Standing proudly by her soon-to-be-husband’s side. Usually she shied away from attention. But this she could get used to. Even though it was strange to her, these people were treating her like royalty.

  She’d been by Matthew’s side during an alumni reception this morning and Lauren had felt like a dignitary, the way everyone was catering to her.

  “Told you, these people don’t play about their university,” Matthew whispered.

  He was on point about that. Some woman who said she was Miss Carolina State in 1952 said she looked forward to working with Lauren to do their part “to take our beloved university from number three to number one.”

  Lauren didn’t know exactly what she was supposed to do, but she was looking forward to doing her part.

  Just six months ago, this all would’ve seemed like an implausible dream. But now she was wondering should she channel Michelle Obama or Jackie O.

  Matthew gave her a kiss on the cheek as he took her hand and led her onto the stage. They’d left the reception and come straight to this press conference, where the prestigious Alumni Association was announcing its unyielding support of Matthew for the next president of the university. The vote by the Carolina State board was in three weeks, and the association wanted to go on record.

  Dr. Laurence Stephens, the president of the Alumni Association, took the stage.

  “Thank you all so much for coming out,” he began. “To say we are thrilled to be here would be an understatement. As you know, we are very serious about our beloved institution.”

  “That would be the understatement,” someone mumbled from the crowd. That elicited some light chuckles and a smile from Dr. Stephens.