Jolene gasped. “You’re kidding.”
“And that Barbara was right here when it happened.”
They were standing just outside the tent as the sun dropped below the horizon. Candice was working on her second glass of red wine, Jolene on her third flute of champagne, as music from the live band drifted out from the dance floor and fashion designer-clad bodies pulsated to the beat of “Booty Call.”
“When did all this happen?” Jolene couldn’t believe something like that had taken place here at the Bentley residence, of all places.
“This afternoon,” Candice said. “Supposedly the woman was upset ’cause Bradford didn’t invite her to the wedding. So she crashed it.”
“Literally,” Jolene added with a chuckle. Candice said all this with a straight face, but Jolene thought it was hilarious. She could barely keep from laughing out loud. Maybe it was all the champagne. “Do you know who she was?”
“Bradford’s mistress probably. Who else would do something silly like that but a mistress?”
Jolene raised an eyebrow. “Bradford has a mistress?”
“You mean mistresses,” Candice corrected. “They come and go so often, they’re like the flavors of the month. Although Sabrina has been around longer than any of them. She’s even showed up at the office once or twice. Everyone at Digitech knows about her. But you didn’t hear any of this from me.”
Jolene took a big sip of champagne. This was getting more interesting by the minute. So Barbara’s seemingly perfect life wasn’t anything of the sort. In fact, it looked like the girl had some real competition. Lots of it. The invisible wall of decorum she’d erected around herself was full of leaky holes.
If everybody at the office knew about Bradford’s mistresses, Jolene wondered why Patrick had never mentioned it to her. Although maybe that shouldn’t be a surprise since they didn’t talk much. Sometimes they would go for weeks without speaking to each other.
“My heart goes out to Barbara,” Candice said with sympathy. “Bradford can be so charming, but sometimes I want to clobber him for the way he treats his wife.”
Jolene felt sympathy, but not for Barbara. Not really. Why should anyone feel sorry for Barbara? She had everything. No, Jolene felt sorry for the mistresses. Getting so close to a man like Bradford, with all he had to offer, but not being able to snare him must be pure torture. “You can’t blame Sabrina. It sounds like he got serious with her, and she thought she was entitled to come to his daughter’s wedding.”
“I couldn’t agree with you less,” Candice said. “I know what Barbara is going through. My ex was a lot like him. And he—”
“Shh,” Jolene hissed. “She’s coming up right behind you.” Jolene smiled broadly. “Barbara, how are you?”
“Hello, ladies,” Barbara said cheerfully. “I’m just fine. Anything I can get for you?”
“Oh, no,” Candice replied. “This is really a beautiful reception, Barbara.”
“Yes, it’s fantastic,” Jolene added. “And dinner was wonderful. You must be exhausted, though.” Jolene had to hand it to Barbara. You’d never suspect that Barbara had spent the morning dealing with her husband’s angry mistress. She looked like a proud and happy mother of the bride.
Barbara let out a deep breath. “Oh, I’m holding up. I had a lot of help. Do either of you know Darlene Dunn, the wedding planner?”
Candice and Jolene shook their heads in unison.
“Well, when it’s your turn, come and see me. You must use Darlene. She’s a lifesaver. I could never have pulled this off without her.”
Candice was all ears. With two teenage daughters, she was going to have to go through this twice, although hopefully no time soon. She had always figured that wedding planners were way beyond her budget. “Aren’t they expensive?”
“Mmm. Probably not as expensive as you think, especially if you’re planning a big wedding. What you save in aggravation is priceless.” Barbara leaned in close. “Bradford handled all the bills for this, but I think we paid Darlene something in the low five figures. That’s not bad for a wedding that ran into six figures.”
Candice gasped, and red wine sloshed over the edges of her glass. Fortunately it just missed her skirt. She was right, a wedding planner was definitely out of the question for her. “Hmm. Sounds like I’ll be doing it myself, with a little help from Martha Stewart.”
Barbara laughed.
Jolene blinked. Barbara did say they spent six figures on this wedding. Six figures. Damn. It was obvious that the Bentleys were well off, but Jolene had no idea Bradford was pulling in that kind of dough.
“Actually, that doesn’t sound bad at all,” Jolene said coolly. She looked across the lawn at Bradford. Her admiration for the man had just shot up tenfold.
Barbara didn’t miss the seductive glance toward her husband. She would have to keep an eye on this Jolene Brown. She might be married to Patrick, but it was obvious the woman was a major flirt. Look at all the cleavage she had on display. Her suit jacket was open practically down to her navel. Jolene was exactly the kind of woman Bradford went for. She was a little browner in complexion than the usual maybe. But truth be told, Bradford went for just about every kind of woman.
“How’s the house coming, Jolene?” Barbara asked, more to get the attention away from her husband than anything.
Jolene’s eyes lit up. “Oh, it’s wonderful. I’m so excited about it.”
Candice spotted Ashley coming toward them from the dance floor and holding hands with Kenyatta. Oh, hell. Ashley would have to approach as she was talking to Barbara and Jolene. Candice drained her glass of wine and smiled stiffly. “Ashley, have you introduced Barbara Bentley to your friend?”
“Hi, Mom. Yes, we were in the receiving line earlier.”
“It looks like you two are having fun,” Barbara said.
Ashley smiled. “Kenyatta is teaching me how to do the electric slide.”
“You mean the booty call,” Kenyatta said, laughing.
“Hello, Ashley,” Jolene said, trying to keep her voice steady. Who on earth was this with Ashley? Jolene stole a look at Candice. Come to think of it, Candice did look uncomfortable the way she was clutching that crystal around her neck.
Candice cleared her throat. “Um, so, Kenny, do you know Jolene Brown, our next-door neighbor?”
Ashley licked her lips. “Um, he goes by Kenyatta, Mom. Not Kenny.”
Candice blinked. “Oh. Sorry.” Candice distinctly remembered Ashley referring to him as “Kenny” when she first mentioned him. Of course, that was before Ashley was ready for her mom to know that he was black.
Kenyatta shook Jolene’s hand, then they all stood around and smiled awkwardly at one another. Candice thought she should say something since it was Ashley and her date who had disrupted the conversation. But she couldn’t even get the guy’s name right. Anything she said would probably be taken the wrong way. If she asked about where he lived, normally a harmless enough question, Ashley might think her mom was trying to embarrass her date since he lived in a town house and many Silver Lake residents frowned on them.
“Kenyatta,” Barbara said, finally breaking the silence. “That’s such an unusual name. You must be Pearl Jackson’s son.”
He nodded. “Yes, she does your hair. You’re one of her favorite clients.”
Barbara smiled. “She always talks about you when I go to the salon.”
“I met Rebecca once or twice,” Kenyatta said. “We’re around the same age.”
“Oh really?” Barbara said. “Did you go to school together?”
“Nope. When we lived in D.C., I went to a private elementary school, but after we moved out here I had to go to public school. My mother couldn’t afford to pay the mortgage on our town house and for private school at the same time.”
“Oh, I see,” Barbara replied.
Jolene blinked. This was too much. Dreadlocks, public schools, and he lived in the town houses. She had done everything she could to stop those things fro
m being built. She had formed committees, organized demonstrations at the construction site and written countless letters. Building town houses so near million-dollar mansions was absurd. They would never dare try something like that in an exclusive white neighborhood.
“Your mother is around here somewhere, Kenyatta,” Barbara said.
“I saw her earlier and introduced Ashley to her,” Kenyatta said.
Hmm, I wonder how that went, Candice thought wryly.
“Well, I need to mingle,” Barbara said. “Enjoy yourselves, everyone.” She waved and walked off.
“It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Brown,” Kenyatta said as he took Ashley’s hand and they headed for the dance floor.
“How on earth did Ashley meet him?” Jolene demanded to know as soon as they had all split.
Candice shrugged. “I’m not sure. I just met him for the first time today.”
“You’re kidding. And?”
“And what?”
“Are you down with it?”
“Oh God, Jolene. You sound just like Ashley. Is that some new black slang?”
Jolene chuckled. “I think it’s more like old teen slang. It’s been around for a while, Candice. Some of Juliette’s white friends talk like that, too.”
“Oh.”
“But are you OK with her dating him?”
Candice shrugged nonchalantly. “It’s just a date. I haven’t really thought about it much.” What a lie. She hadn’t been able to think of much else since Ashley slapped her with the news. But she wouldn’t feel right saying that.
Jolene narrowed her eyes. “Well, you’re taking it better than I would if it was Juliette.”
Candice was puzzled. She didn’t see why Jolene would object to her daughter dating Kenyatta since they were of the same race. “What do you mean?”
“I would go nuts if Juliette wanted to go out with some guy wearing dreadlocks. And he lives in the town houses. Did you know that Pearl and some other town house owners tried to get the homeowners’ association to put up a basketball court near the country club last summer?”
“I heard about that. They thought the boys in the neighborhood needed something to occupy their time.”
Jolene waved her hand. “Puh-leeze. We put a stop to that. Let them join the country club or take those dreadlocks and baggy clothes elsewhere. At least Kenyatta dresses halfway decent. But that hair …”
As Jolene rattled on, Candice’s eyes drifted to Ashley and Kenyatta dancing under the tent. Why was a black man, any black man, interested in her green-eyed daughter? And why was her daughter interested in him?
Chapter 10
Barbara lounged on the butterscotch-colored sofa in her silk pajamas and robe with her feet propped up on a dainty hand-stitched footrest. She held a coffee cup in one hand, a cigarette in the other, and watched from the solarium as workers dismantled the tent on the lawn.
She was exhausted. All the weeks leading up to the wedding had absolutely drained her. If she had to lift even one fingernail … well, she simply couldn’t. But at least it was over, and except for the scene with Sabrina, it had been a smashing success. And now her younger daughter was married and off honeymooning in Jamaica.
She glanced at her older daughter Robin, sitting at the other end of the couch sipping coffee and reading the Washington Post. Robin and Rebecca were like night and day when it came to men and marriage. Rebecca had wanted to marry and have a family from the time she was just a young thing. Robin, on the other hand, had coasted through her twenties without even coming close to “that dreaded state,” as she so often put it. Her daughter was now twenty-nine years old and still single. Happily so.
Until a year ago, Robin had been a hot young programmer at Digitech and lived in a luxury high-rise apartment building nearby. She had decided to cut her work hours and move back home while attending graduate school but expected to do even better once she got her master’s degree. She was now hunting for a condo. Although Barbara would have loved nothing more than to see her elder daughter happily married off, she was proud of Robin’s accomplishments.
“How do you think everything turned out yesterday?” Barbara asked as she stubbed out her cigarette.
Robin glanced up from her newspaper and fanned the smoky air with mock exaggeration. Barbara smiled with guilt. She wanted to quit so badly, but she had already given up the bottle and needed something to fall back on with a husband like Bradford.
“It was beautiful, Mama. Just perfect except for one thing.” Robin wrinkled her nose and cocked her head in a way that accentuated her short natural hairstyle. “That little episode just before the ceremony was a disaster.”
“Oh, that.” Barbara twisted her lips in disgust. “Honestly, that silly woman had me worried to death. I was so afraid she would come back and ruin everything.”
“I know, I know. But she didn’t, thank goodness. And the important thing is that Rebecca was so happy. She was beaming.”
Barbara nodded and smiled. “One down, one to go?”
“Please, Mama. That’s not me. I’m focusing on my career now.”
“Yes, I know. That’s what you always say. And I’m all for having a career, sweetheart. I’m just not sure I understand why you have to wait so long to get married.”
“A husband would just get in my way at this point,” Robin said. “And if I get married now, I’d be stuck with the guy for fifty years or more. I can’t even imagine that. I don’t see getting married before forty.”
“Forty? You’ll be too old to have children by that time.”
“Who said anything about waiting until I’m forty to have children, huh? This is the twenty-first century. I don’t need to be married for that.”
“You don’t need to be, but you should be. Children need a father as much as a mother.”
Robin shook her head. “Not if the mother and father don’t get along. I think they’re better off with one parent in a peaceful, loving home.”
Barbara sighed. Who was she to argue that point? She couldn’t exactly hold up her own marriage as a good example. Her bad relationship with Bradford could very well be one of the reasons Robin was down on marriage.
As if to mock her thoughts, Bradford strolled into the solarium wearing a white dress shirt and navy blazer and set his briefcase down on the floor next to the glass serving cart. Sunday was Phyllis’s day off, and she always set up the coffeemaker and placed it in the solarium on Saturday evenings. All Barbara had to do in the morning was get up and turn the pot on.
“Good morning, ladies,” Bradford said as he poured himself a cup.
“Morning,” Barbara said.
“Where are you running off to so early, Daddy?”
“I have to go into the office for a few hours.”
Barbara frowned. Into the office on a Sunday? The day after his daughter’s wedding? That was ridiculous.
Of course, Bradford had always put in a lot of hours over the years. That was how he had built a multimillion-dollar technology firm from scratch, as he would so quickly remind her whenever she dared question or complain about his hours. It paid for the roof over their heads and had allowed her to stop working as a teacher’s aide in the D.C. public schools shortly after they were married.
“Show some appreciation, Barbara” was one of his favorite sayings whenever she complained.
But his mistress had shown up uninvited just the day before at about the worst possible moment. Barbara thought she had the right to question him about anything and everything.
“You’re going to work at nine-thirty on a Sunday morning?” she asked, her voice full of doubt.
Bradford shrugged. “I couldn’t schedule a meeting Friday because of preparations for the wedding, so that left today.”
He had so many excuses, so many reasons. “Can’t it wait until tomorrow?” she inquired crisply.
“No, it can’t,” he responded just as crisply.
Barbara twisted her lips. Or she can’t. Barbara would have bet her la
st dollar that he was off to see that whore who almost ruined the wedding. Unless he was already screwing someone else. But this was not the time to get into it with Robin sitting there. “Well, we need to talk at some point, Bradford.”
“About what? If you mean about what happened yesterday afternoon, I told you, there’s nothing to talk about.”
Barbara smacked her lips impatiently. “You always have excuses, Bradford.” She glanced at Robin. “Can you excuse us for a minute, sweetheart?”
Robin held her mug up. “But I’m having my coffee now. And I like it here in the sunroom. It’s not like I’ve never heard you two argue before.”
Barbara bit her bottom lip. She had never discussed Bradford’s indiscretions with the girls, but they had seen and heard a lot over the years. Too much. Even though she had tried to shield them from Bradford’s philandering, it was impossible to conceal it completely—as the scene just before the wedding made all too painfully clear. “We’re not arguing, Robin. And it will only take a minute.”
“Do as your mother says,” Bradford said impatiently. “But we won’t be long. I need to get going.”
“Oh, all right.” Robin reluctantly took her mug and the business section of the paper and left the room, and Barbara banged her coffee mug down on the table, ready to confront him. But before she could utter a word, he spoke up.
“Look, Barbara,” he said tersely. “I don’t know what you want from me. I’ve already explained it once. She’s having a hard time accepting the breakup. So I went over there yesterday morning to try to calm her down. Obviously, that didn’t work.”
“No kidding,” she said sarcastically. “You left here before the sun came up. Are you trying to tell me that it took all morning to calm her down?”
“I went to the golf course first, hit a few balls. Then I stopped by the office. I didn’t get to her place until almost noon. We argued, and it didn’t look like I was getting through to her so I started to leave. But she ran ahead of me and jumped into her car. I had no idea where she was going, but something told me to follow her.” He shrugged. “What more can I say?”
Barbara lit another cigarette. He always made it seem like she was foolish for questioning him about these things. And so she would drop it. But she wasn’t going to give in so easily this time. Things had gone too far with Sabrina. “All I know, Bradford, is that I can’t take any more of this.”
P. G. County Page 7
