“You sure you didn’t want her around to remind you of me?”
“All dogs remind me of you.”
“That’s cold.”
“I thought about giving her back to you, but I didn’t want you to think I didn’t appreciate your gift and all.”
Clint couldn’t get out his reply for laughing, holding his belly. “You, you … tried to throw the poor puppy out the window.”
“I threw the box. Last I looked, she wasn’t in it.”
“Okay, yeah, anyway,” he said, recovering slightly. “When you opened that box and saw her cute puppy face, you looked at me like it was a snake and a rat all balled into one.”
“Not because I didn’t think she was cute. She was supposed to be my ring. I showed you the ring like five times at the jewelry store. You sat there beside me and watched me try it on. You even asked the guy if they had payment plans—then you show up with a puppy.”
“So I guess you made up for it, huh?” He picked up my hand and tilted my ring finger to catch the light of the two-carat diamond, “Going around collecting them like pets? So what is this, like your third engagement ring?”
I pulled my hand out of his. “Wonder how many Kandi’s had.”
“One. The only one I gave her.”
“Is that what she tells you? I guess she was a virgin as well?” Temper, temper.
He quieted for a moment. “V, do you think we would have made it together?”
I looked around the huge plane for the exit signs, wondering what the damage would be if I shoved the door open and gave Clint a push. “It’s just such a ridiculous question. Really, it’s moot. It’s buried. It’s such a nonissue. Really,” I said one more time for emphasis. “Relationships work if you want them to work. That simple.”
“You believe that?”
“Absolutely.”
“You think any two people can come together, and if they have enough fortitude, they can stay together forever?”
“Yes, I do.”
“So let’s say this guy here with the red comb-over and—” He leaned forward to see the people across the aisle. “—and say, that lady with the serious sideburns over there, they could make it, just by telling themselves they should?”
“Millions of people do it every day. They stay in dead-end marriages or relationships because they’re either too lazy to get out, or have no self-esteem to believe they can do better. So they put into motion the ‘cheaper to keep her’ or ‘love the one you’re with’ scenario. So to answer your question, yes, guy with bad comb-over and woman with pointed sideburns could make an illustrious couple.
“But honestly, Clint, I don’t want to be part of the masses. I wanted someone who wanted me as much as I wanted him. No reasons behind the relationship whatsoever. Not to stay together for the children, stay together because neither can afford to live alone, or stay together because people think they’re a great couple and everyone likes to have Christmas holiday at their house, none of that. With Jake and I, we have no reasons, no logic, no strategy, we just love each other. Everything else is secondary.” He completes me, I thought but didn’t say out loud.
Clint had nothing to say for an awkward few seconds, digesting the information and tone. He stared straight ahead, no doubt wondering about his current relationship with Kandi. Were they together for all the secondary reasons, or did they truly love one another, hell or high water? It was definitely a question he would have to answer and very soon.
“So we could have made it,” Clint said out of nowhere, answering his own question. “We could have.”
I pretended not to hear him. I pulled my coat up around my shoulders, feeling frightfully chilled. My body shivered from head to toe. I watched the clouds through the side window change shape and then disappear to a blank canvas. Open sky, without rules or boundaries. We didn’t talk to each other for the next hour or so, both wondering if we really could have made it.
House Calls
The evening hours shut down Washington, D.C., like a bank at five o’clock. The streets cleared, the taxis stopped lining up, and tourists gave up waiting outside the White House to get a glimpse of the president. The sun was setting behind the large cherry trees that lined the streets of downtown. The taxi pulled up to the Watergate Hotel, where a bellman dressed in a traditional overcoat and hat opened the car door.
“Greetings, welcome to the Watergate.” The bellman extended a hand to help me out of the cab. Clint let himself out on the other side and paid the driver. Not many words were exchanged inside the hotel. We both stood at the reception desk to check in like we hadn’t flown the entire way talking and bumping shoulders, like we hadn’t lived together for four years not long before.
The pretty brown desk clerk took notice of the doctor prefix on Clint’s name and then commenced to flirt with him openly. She smiled too much and asked if he needed any extra services during the evening. Clint took the bait. “What kind of services are you offering?”
“Room service has a full menu with twenty-four hours’ service. If you need fresh towels, sheets, or any toiletries of any type, I’ll personally deliver them.” She added, “with one push of a button.” She fluttered her sparse long lashes.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, looking over his shoulder to make sure I was still in earshot. I rolled my eyes. He came to where I was standing and finally offered to carry my bag.
“No thanks, I got it.”
“What’s all the hostility for?” Amusement funneled through his mask of seriousness.
“Why were you flirting with that chicken head?”
He laughed while he pressed the button in the lobby. “You’re calling someone a chicken head. Ms. Hair Aware. Ms. Hair Doesn’t Matter.”
“She’s a chicken head because she obviously saw me come in here with you but it didn’t stop her from making a fool of herself.”
“So chicken head doesn’t have anything to do with the cockatoo thing she had working on the top?” He made three fingers spring and wiggle over his forehead. “Besides, we got separate rooms. She’s a bright girl—she can add.”
“Clint.” I shook my head and left it at that. The elevator arrived. He pushed the number eleven, then looked to ask which one he should push for me.
“Same floor,” I said stoically. “Why don’t you wear your wedding band? That’s misleading to people.”
“It gets in the way of work.” He splayed his smooth palms. “I work with my hands.”
“Oh please.”
We rode up, staring straight ahead. When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I turned to him. “I don’t care about you flirting with that girl at the checkout desk. That’s not my problem. I just can’t figure out why you’re trying to get a rise out of me. I don’t have the patience or the time to second-guess your motivations like I used to. Just spit it out.”
“I wasn’t trying to get a rise out of you.”
“Yes, you were.”
“Guess it worked then,” he quipped, thoroughly amused with himself. Clint hadn’t joked much over the past few weeks. He was tired and humble most of the time at the hospital. It was refreshing to see him with a lighter spirit, even if he was using it to aggravate me.
The elevator stopped and the doors opened to a huge framed mirror. We were Clint and Venus again. Him without a care in the world, me, angry and annoyed, just like old times. We turned the corner of the long slender hallway and walked in the same direction. We both stopped at the same time.
“I’m here,” I said, fumbling with the envelope that housed my keycard.
“I’m right across from you.” And that’s when it happened. Clint whispered my name before he closed his mouth around mine. He slipped his arms ever so gently around my waist as if he were testing the waters. When he was sure it was safe, he unleashed, kissing me with full force. We stood pressed against each other, my hands gripped around the perfect smoothness of his oval head, his palms closed around the small of my back. My eyes remained clos
ed while I drank in the comfort, the softness of his lips. I knew once I opened them, reality would be too hard to swallow.
I wiggled my way out of his grasp and stepped away. I bent over and picked up my room key and then his; both had fallen out of our hands during the melee. I held them up. “I’m not sure which is which.” I handed him his. “All I know is that we’re going to be in different rooms.” Of this I was sure, regardless of the splendid beating of my heart or the warm surge pulsing through my body.
He took the plastic card then picked up his leather bag. He stuck his key in and nothing happened. My hand shook while I stuck my key in, the red light flashed. I turned toward him, afraid to get close enough to exchange keys.
“Let’s just trade rooms,” I said, moving past him with safe space between us.
“I’m not going to bite, V.”
I squeezed through the door, sliding into the darkness where I was safe—from myself. My heart was beating out of my chest. The kiss meant nothing. Absolutely nothing.
I double-locked my door and said a little prayer. Twenty-four hours, it wasn’t a lot to ask for. After the morning we’d be back on the plane headed home to our loved ones. Me, safe in Jake’s arm before the next sunset. Clint … well, he was on his own.
Jus’ Dinner
“V, I made reservations downstairs for dinner.” Clint’s voice came through on the other end of the hotel line as if he were sitting right beside me. I hadn’t planned on going anywhere the rest of the evening. The long flight, the bumbling kiss in the hallway, both episodes had sapped my energy. I only wanted to focus on the morning. My suit was already laid out, my laptop was opened so I could work on my speech for the congressional committee hearing.
“I’m going over what I’m going to say tomorrow. And you should do the same,” I told him, staying on the straight and narrow path of professionalism.
“We can go over it together. I’ll check yours, you check mine. If you want, I can come over and we can order room service.”
My silence prompted him to keep selling. “Just dinner, V, I swear.”
I’d heard “jus’ dinner” from Clint many times in the past, and it never ever entailed just food. “No …,” I stammered.
“V, we both have to eat.”
“I’m tired. Seriously, this day needs to end.”
“Yeah, but tomorrow will be here before you know it. It’s a perfect time to go over our presentation. You’re the one who said we have only ten minutes to make miracles happen.”
I surveyed the green chaise in the corner, then the chair and desk directly in front of me, old-world furniture with nothing to say. No answers or warnings. “Okay, downstairs at the restaurant. I’ll meet you there in half an hour.”
“I’m across the hall, remember, we’ll go together.” He hung up before I could protest. I didn’t want to be in the small space of an elevator with him. Nor did I want to be within arm’s reach, sitting at a dinner table.
Yet exactly five minutes later, he was knocking on my hotel-room door. Through the small peephole I saw the back of his charming head. He turned abruptly. “Open up, V. I know you’re standing there.”
I opened the door. “I said, half an hour.” I pushed my turtleneck higher around my neck and pulled at the hem to make sure my belted low-rise jeans weren’t revealing any skin.
He stepped inside. “Your room is nicer than mine. I should have kept it.”
“I’m sure they’re exactly the same. This is a corporate hotel—they don’t do anything different from one room to the next.”
“Yours is definitely bigger.” He stayed by the door with his hands behind his back, trying to look harmless.
“Where’s your prepared statement?” I noticed he wasn’t carrying any papers.
He pulled out one sheet folded in a square. “Right here.”
“Where’s yours?”
“I have to find someplace to print it out.” I slid on my shoes and grabbed my laptop. “That’s why I needed the thirty minutes.” We left the room. I took my key but left my purse.
“I must be paying,” Clint said the minute he noticed I didn’t have my purse.
“Damn right, you are.”
Drop a Dime
Jake drove home determined to stop being angry and quit taking it out on his wife. His company being railroaded wasn’t her fault. Someone he trusted had betrayed him. His wife and Mya were all that he could really depend on, and here he was letting her believe it was all her fault. The bitterness he felt was a general mistrust, something he’d fought over years to keep contained. Why did people always think he could be faked out and messed over? It was exhausting always having to put people in their place.
He’d planned to apologize for his selfishness. Start fresh with the idea that his wife deserved her own life. She’d had a full one before they’d met. What made him think she’d stopped needing her own identity once she became Mrs. J. Parson?
Eventually he would have to tell her everything. He didn’t see how he could keep what happened with Byron Steeple a secret. His wife wasn’t stupid. She’d make the connection.
“Trina, you here?” Jake came through the door with as much gusto as he’d had all day. He threw his keys and cell phone on the table near the door and peeled off his cashmere jacket. “Trina!” He called again.
“Right here, where’s the fire?” She wobbled out on high heels and a fitted minidress.
“Girl, where’d you get all that?” Jake was surprised at the new Trina standing before him and couldn’t believe the transformation. When had it happened? Why hadn’t he seen it before?
“The dress or what’s underneath?” She smiled and did an unsteady turn, revealing an apple-shaped bottom and slim waist. “I’m hittin’ the club. Remember the reason I asked you to come home early so I could leave? My friend’s picking me up.”
“Oh, right, right. You look good.” Wondering how he’d missed the transition. Her makeup needed a bit of work—too much eye shadow and way too much lip gloss reminding him of Jamie Foxx’s character, Wanda, on In Living Color. But the weave was nice. Long and straight. A new hairstyle gave confidence and character to any woman.
“Nice dress,” he added. “Where’d you get it? Looks familiar.”
“I bought it. You don’t like it?” she said, concerned.
“Oh, no, it’s just that it looks—”
“Like it cost a lot. And it did. You’re the one paying me.”
“Right, but the money is so you could get on your feet. You shouldn’t be wasting it on clothes and stuff.”
“Jay, I can splurge once in a while.” She leaned in closer. “I wish you’d stop being so sad all the time.”
Jake couldn’t help but let his eyes fall to the long line of cleavage centered in his face.
She noticed the attention. She blushed and pushed back her freshly applied strands of hair around her ear.
“Where’s Mya?” he asked, gaining his composure.
“She’s down for the count. I tried to keep her up so she’d sleep through the night, but she was exhausted. Y’all have a late night last night?”
“Yeah, kind of.”
“Ooh, I gotta go. He’s here.” She leaned in the window and then steadied herself. “Are you going to be all right?”
“The question is, are you going to be all right?” Jake was concerned about her high heels.
“Fine. I’m going to shake my booty.” She moved toward him with definite caution. She grabbed his face and kissed him on the cheek. He’d known her for what seemed like all his life, and he’d never seen her this happy. He hoped it worked out. She was Cinderella, and he felt like the Fairy Godfather—without the wand, but with a hell of a bankroll. The door closed.
The house felt empty and quiet. He looked at his watch and assumed his wife would be calling soon to let him know she was settled in Washington, D.C. It always made him nervous when she treaded old territory. An assemblage of memories and emotions he was no match for. He’d
been in her life only a short time. He didn’t have the armor of relationship history to rival with her past. They hadn’t spent more than one Christmas together, a birthday each between them, and maybe one or two trips out of town including their honeymoon. All he had was now and each moment after. He depended on each day adding more value than the last. Lately, it had gone astray, but he was determined to put everything back the way it was meant to be. Her loving him. Him loving her. He felt bad for giving her such a hard time.
I sing this song for you … make me feel brand new.
He kicked off his clothes and shoes and planned to take a long shower and then be ready and relaxed when Mya woke up, as he knew she would. It was only seven. Maybe they’d take the stroller down to the Third Street Promenade, where she could ride the carousel. They’d buy ice cream and cotton candy—well, maybe just ice cream, he thought, picturing her with cotton candy in her hair and pretty much everywhere else her small hands could reach.
He was a step away from getting into the shower when the phone rang. He almost didn’t answer because of the unknown caller ID and remembered it could be his wife calling from Washington, D.C.
“Is this Jake Parson?” the voice asked on the other end of the phone when he finally picked up.
“Yes, it is. Who’s calling?” He was prepared to hang up, angry with himself that he’d fallen for a telemarketer’s call.
“Hi. Um, my name is Kandi Fairchild. I’m married to Dr. Clint Fairchild. Does that name ring a bell for you?”
“Yes, it does.” Jake pushed the knob and stopped the water from beating on the shower walls. Though it sounded like he’d stopped nothing. The sound that pulsated through his ears was his own heart crashing, then pumping as fast and hard as it could to catch up.
“I’m sorry to have to call you, but it’s kind of an emergency,” she said slowly. Emergencies required some type of urgency. She was taking her time, enjoying each and every word spoken.
“Speak your mind,” Jake said, walking back to the bedroom, bracing himself on the edge of the bed.
Nappily Married Page 17
