Should Have Known Better

by Grace Octavia

  I bent down to help the technician roll my jeans up above my knees.

  “So, what about you?” Sasha asked. She was enjoying the five extra minutes she’d requested to allow her feet to soak in the pedicure pool. “What’s your dream? Are you going for your PhD?”

  “I don’t know. I never thought about it.”

  “Well, honestly, I didn’t even know you were interested in library science in college. You never mentioned it. I was surprised when you said you were working at the library.”

  “It just came to me,” I said. “I didn’t work when I first got to Augusta. But I got bored when I got pregnant. I found an online program. That was it.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “I like that the job gives me a little bit of money to help out around the house—and it’s definitely not a lot of money. I get to be out of the house and meet interesting people. You saw them! It works for me. I enjoy it. I can’t think of anything else I’d do. It’s not like in Atlanta here. If you don’t work for the medical district or the riverfront, there’s not much else for someone with a general degree to do.”

  I eased back to meet the pulsating pressure from the chair.

  “Sasha Bellamy?” A white woman I’d seen eyeing Sasha from the front of the salon now stood behind the technician doing Sasha’s feet.

  At first, I thought she was another fan, but looking in her face, I wasn’t quite sure. She looked annoyed. Maybe angry. A little younger than both of us, she had a tight, college-girl body and the same diamond earrings Sasha wore the first day she came to my house.

  “That’s me,” Sasha said happily, curling her lips up at the edges and poised to take a compliment.

  “So you know my husband?”

  “Excuse me?” Sasha said, and she’d already pulled her fancy pen from her purse to sign an autograph.

  “Phil Landon? You know him, right?”

  “I know Phil,” Sasha answered. “Are you a friend?”

  “No, bitch. I’m his wife.”

  The nail tech stopped scrubbing Sasha’s feet immediately, got up from her little stool, and walked farther back in the salon, saying something in what sounded like Mandarin.

  “You’re the black whore who’s been fucking him,” the woman said.

  “Is there a problem?” I asked.

  “No, Dawn, I have this,” Sasha said coolly.

  “Can you get the manager?” I said to the nail tech helping me.

  “First,” Sasha started, “I don’t think my race has anything to do with this. And second, no, I haven’t quite had the opportunity to sleep with your husband. Does he still have my number?”

  “You think I believe that? I have all of the receipts from the hotel last week. When I get finished with you, you’ll wish you never gave him your number.”

  People started getting up and walking toward the debacle.

  “Oh please, honey,” Sasha said. “The only wish I have is that you’d stop talking to me.”

  “Excuse me, miss.” A woman I supposed was the manager tried coming between Sasha and the woman. “We can’t have this here.”

  “Yes,” Sasha said. “We can’t have this here.”

  “Can you please leave?” the manager said to the woman. “We can’t have problems with customers.”

  The woman angrily flicked her hand up at the manager but kept her deadly stare on Sasha.

  “You’re going to get what’s coming to you.”

  “Miss, I need you to step outside,” the manager tried again, getting a hold of the woman’s arm.

  “You get your hands off me,” she said. “Do you know who my husband is?” The woman jerked away and hustled out of the door with all eyes following her.

  “Pure foolery,” Sasha said, dismissing the standoff by waving her hand at the woman’s back. She leaned back in her seat.

  “Foolery? What was that?” I asked, stunned.

  The woman who’d been working on Sasha’s feet was standing a few feet away, looking on nervously.

  “You can come back,” Sasha called to her. “Apparently, I’m not the violent one here. And this water is getting cold.”

  Sasha giggled and waved at a woman who was giving her a nasty eye from the massage chair beside her.

  “What was she talking about?” I asked Sasha again.

  “I want triple massage time,” Sasha said to the newly returned nail tech. “And take off those plastic gloves. It feels like I’m being massaged by a garbage bag.”

  Sasha sounded haughty, superior in a way that I’d never witnessed. She was rolling her eyes at the nail tech and poking her feet out in the woman’s face.

  “Sasha, what’s going on?”

  “What is it?” Sasha asked. She rolled her resting head toward me.

  “What do you mean, ‘What is it?’ Who was that woman?”

  “That was Landon’s wife. You didn’t hear her say that?”

  “I heard her, but what does she want with you? What was she talking about?” I leaned over to her chair to whisper. “Did you sleep with Landon?”

  Sasha looked at me sharply.

  “So what if I did?”

  “So what if you did? He’s a married man—that’s so what,” I whispered.

  “So now it’s my fault?” Sasha flashed a malicious smile that dissipated into a grin. “No, I didn’t sleep with him. Calm down. I’m just annoyed at how ridiculous she’s being. He’s her husband. She needs to calm down and play her position.”

  “Confronting someone she thinks is sleeping with her husband isn’t her position?” I asked.

  “No, it’s not,” Sasha answered. “Look, if he’s done with her, she needs to move on. Plain and simple. Marriage is little more than some ring and certificates. You can’t expect people to stick around just for that. Be a good wife, and if he stays, he stays. If he finds a better wife in someone else, well, it is what it is.”

  4

  Someone should’ve rang the fire alarm. Someone should’ve. But no one knew there was a fire. At least I didn’t. And that’s the funny thing about fires, you know? Most of us think when a fire breaks out, it just appears from nowhere. Stabbing, hot flames of red and orange flashing before our eyes like warning signs, giving us enough time to break a window and call for help. Run out of the door. Get the children out of their beds. But all fire isn’t like that. Sometimes, it starts in the walls. In the attic. Beneath your bed. And can burn for a few minutes. An hour. A few hours. Sometimes days. Before you’re willing to really see it and try to escape. But before that, there were signs. You smelled smoke. You heard cracking. You felt the heat. But you came up with a million excuses as to what else it could be instead of a fire. You opened a window. You turned your music up. You turned the heat down.

  This was my fire brewing in front of me. And I was so busy trying to just kowtow and make good, have a friend in someone, that I was the one opening windows and turning up music and turning down heat. I wanted Sasha to be OK. Like, as my friend. And not smell the smoke, hear the cracking, or feel that heat. So I didn’t. At least not those last days she spent in my house. I was busy making excuses for her.

  Sasha was leaving in the morning. For real this time. She’d called the car and her bags were packed and by the door. The twins were buzzing around her at the dinner table. Cheyenne had made her a friendship bracelet at school and R. J. had a special surprise.

  “We’re going to miss you,” Cheyenne said, her arm linked with Sasha’s on the table. “No more pancakes in the morning. No more lasagna for dinner. . . . What are we going to do?”

  “Eat what I fix you,” I said.

  “Or I suppose I could leave my lasagna recipe, too,” Sasha said. She’d already given me the pancake recipe, but I’d stashed it away in Reginald’s mother’s old recipe box.

  “Thank God for recipes,” Reginald joked.

  “So what’s your special surprise?” Sasha asked R. J. And instead of looking away, he did something I’d come to expect when he was comm
unicating with Sasha: he smiled.

  He reached down under his seat, pulled up something flat that was wrapped in the red and orange wrapping paper I’d used last Christmas.

  “What’s that, sweetie?” I asked because I hadn’t taken him anywhere to get something for Sasha.

  R. J. proudly handed the gift to Sasha and said, “Thank you.”

  “Ohh.” Sasha patted R. J. on the head. “Thank you for what?”

  “For being my new friend.” R. J. flung himself into Sasha’s arms and hugged her so intimately I felt my blood stop.

  “And thank you for being my friend,” Sasha said before opening the gift.

  “What’s that?” Reginald asked as we saw what looked like a book appearing from beneath a snag in the wrapping.

  “Is that a book?” I asked.

  “Goodnight Moon,” Sasha read the cover.

  “What?” I leaned forward in my seat so I could see the cover. “Is that your book, R. J.?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “But that’s your favorite book,” I said. “Are you sure you want to give it away?”

  “I could give it back,” Sasha offered.

  “Oh, nonsense,” Reginald said loudly. “The boy gave it to you.” He turned to me. “The boy gave it to her. He must want her to have it. Everyone stop pushing him.” He pointed a fork that was half full of spaghetti at R. J. “Son, do you want her to have that?”

  R. J. looked at Sasha and after a second, he smiled.

  “Yes,” he said. “I want her to have my book.”

  Sasha was standing at the bedroom window, staring out into a rainy night. She was talking about how she needed to become more active in her life, really make her dreams come true and stop standing on the sidelines. I was lying center in the guest bed, my arms and legs akimbo. My head spinning, struggling to keep up with the speech that was losing me fast. My eyelids were shutting down and the ceiling fan spinning above my head looked like it was about to swallow me up.

  I didn’t intend to go into Sasha’s room that last night. I was actually in my bedroom sliding off my slippers when Sasha showed up at the door holding a bottle of wine, announcing that it was her last night in town and she wanted to spend some quality time with me—her best friend. She pouted loud enough that Reginald, who’d been in the bathroom shaving and was wearing only gym shorts, stepped into the bedroom and waved us away like little girls.

  “I’ll be back in just an hour, babe,” I’d said, but lying in the bed with the ceiling fan spinning, I knew that hour had become two. I’d had three glasses of the red wine and felt that ocean of diamonds sinking into me. I felt like I could see through the ceiling. See into space. See myself as myself. Reading Goodnight Moon to R. J. Lying with Cheyenne in the purple bedroom. Kissing Reginald’s spine until he turned to me. My eyes closed. I was floating.

  “So, what do you think?” I heard this crash into my ocean.

  I shook awake . . . only I wasn’t sure I’d been asleep.

  “What?” I said as the fan came back into focus and I turned to the window to see Sasha standing there holding a half full glass of wine.

  “What should I do next?” She looked at me expectantly.

  “Do? Do about what?”

  “About what I’m talking about. About my dreams. About going after the things I want when I know I should have them,” Sasha said. “God, Dawn, are you listening to me?” She sat down on the bed in her slinky ivory nightgown.

  “I am . . . I am,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “My head is spinning. A little too much wine.” There were three Sashas. One at the window. One beside the bed. Another handing me a new glass of wine.

  “Well, that’s every night,” Sasha joked. “Here, bite the snake that bit you.” She handed me the glass as I tried so hard to see her. Was she at the window, by the bed, or beside me?

  “I can’t,” I said. “Too much . . . I’ve had too much.”

  “Take it,” she insisted, lifting my hand and wrapping it around the little glass stem.

  I took a sip.

  “It tastes funny,” I said. There was a gritty and almost chalky aftertaste. I smacked my tongue to clean it off.

  “You’re just buzzing,” Sasha said. “It’s the sediment. I told you before.” She laughed.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said, looking from one Sasha to the next. “Red wine. The sediment . . .” I tried to hand the glass back.

  “What?”

  “I can’t,” I said. “I have work in the morning. I have to get up to read to R. J.”

  “You can take off again. I can read to R. J.” She pushed the glass back closer to me.

  “You know the rule: bite the snake that bit you. It’ll make you feel better.” She held the top of the glass as I held the bottom and raised it to my mouth. “Have some more.”

  She kept the glass there until it was empty. Not a drip rolled down my chin.

  “Oh,” I gasped, trying to catch my breath.

  “That’s it, Dawnie! I knew you had it in you! The old college try!” She hopped up in the bed and got on her knees.

  “I’m sorry I bored you with all of my lame work talk.”

  “It’s fine.” I fell back to the pillow and looked at her face over mine. Her blond curls fell all around her head like a halo. The fan spun behind her.

  “It’s my last night. Let’s just have fun. No serious stuff.”

  “But I have to go back to bed. I told Reginald I’d be back in an hour.”

  “Well, you missed that train, girlie.” Sasha chuckled. “It’s after 1:00 a.m.”

  “What?” I tried to scramble, but then I realized that Sasha was holding my hands down on the pillows. I tried to move, but the fan was spinning and spinning and spinning. And Sasha became three again. At the window. At the bed. On top of me.

  “He’ll probably be mad at you,” she said. “Hey, I have an idea. I can come in with you and say sorry.” She grinned and shook the blond curls. “We can have a slumber party. All three of us. Won’t that be fun?”

  “But, I—” My eyes were turning to slits and I saw darkness skipping in circles around my view. Sasha became smaller and then she was nothing.

  I woke up in the guest bedroom alone. There was no candle burning on the dresser. No Sasha. The light was off and the fan had stopped.

  Everything was fuzzy. More light and like a dream than it had been when I was awake. I reached out to see my hand.

  “Sasha?” I called. “Sasha?”

  I felt my way off of the bed and stumbled over each step to control my feet.

  “Sasha?” I looked into the little bathroom Reginald had built off of the guest room when his parents died. “Sasha?”

  I held the walls as I pulled my body through the house, walking and falling and calling Sasha. Everything. The couch. The refrigerator. The dining room table. Seemed brighter and nicer and more slow moving than I’d ever recalled. Or was it me?

  I ran out of places and thought that I should go and ask Reginald if she’d left. Where was she?

  “Reginald?” I called, nearing our bedroom. I pushed the door open and nearly fell down, but caught myself on the dresser beside the door.

  I looked up. Only lights from the lamps on either side of the bed invaded the darkness.

  Sasha was lying upside down at the top of the bed in her ivory nightgown, her legs up in the air, making a V over the headboard.

  “Finally, you came to join us,” she cheered. “I thought you were out for the night.”

  “What? Why are you—? Where’s Reginald?”

  The haze in my mind cloaked whatever anger or confusion or resentment I’d later feel.

  “In the bathroom. Went to take a shower. Poor thing was fast asleep,” she replied casually. “But now it’s time to party!”

  “Party? But—I—I?”

  Reginald came out of the bathroom in a little towel he had to hold at his hip. He was still wet.

  “Babe,” he called, walking to me with one arm open. “You di
d this? I can’t believe you did this for me.”

  He wrapped his arm around my waist and kissed me so softly on the forehead.

  “At first, I, you know, I thought it was a joke, but then after Sasha explained everything to me, it made sense. I do deserve a little fun.” He smiled and kissed me on the lips passionately. “Come on.” He started pulling me to the bed.

  “Wait.” I pulled away the best I could. “Did you have sex? Did you two have sex?”

  “No, crazy,” Sasha proclaimed. “We were waiting for you.”

  Reginald sat me down on the corner of the bed and stood in front of me.

  “Now,” Sasha directed, “One of you has already kissed me . . . well . . . on the lips. And, so, it’s only fair that the other has a chance.” She pointed at Reginald seductively and turned her finger around to direct him to her.

  “You kissed her?” Reginald asked and looked at me curiously for a little while, but I was too sluggish to reply.

  “Come here, sexy,” Sasha called.

  Reginald climbed onto the bed and crawled right past me to Sasha’s lips.

  He kissed her upside down and I could see his tongue dangling in her mouth in the dimness.

  She moaned and ran her fingernails up his chest.

  He kicked back a bit and I had to move over to stay on the bed.

  His head moved from her mouth to her breasts. He gently removed her nightgown with his teeth and Sasha squealed. Her head carefully contorted under his chest, she angled it to look at me at the edge of the bed.

  “You’re so fucking hot,” she said, looking at me but clearly speaking to Reginald. She smiled this devious smile that let me know that no matter what I did, this couldn’t stop. They wouldn’t hear me. I wouldn’t be louder than her. This had been happening for a long time. This night, this thing, had been building from the moment she’d walked into my house. And maybe before. And wouldn’t stop.

  Reginald’s dangling tongue licked her nipples until they were full and Sasha’s eyes left me to dance in space.

  He ran his hands up the sides of her thighs, so carefully, so deliberately, so magically that I could feel them on me.