She’s me.
“Allegiance to what?” Dena-Jo asks.
Winnie says nothing. She instead locks eyes with me.
“Huh, Winnie?” Dena-Jo asks. “Allegiance to what?” I give Winnie a wink. I may grow to like this girl.
“What are you talking about?” Winnie asks Dena-Jo, her eyes still locked on mine.
“You said that Jacob was questioning your allegiance.”
“No, I didn’t,” she says with a smile, our eyes still locked.
“What? Yes you did.”
“Trust me, I didn’t.”
“Winnie, you just said—”
“No, Dena-Jo. I didn’t say a thing like that.” She winks at me.
“Oh wow, I must’ve heard you wrong.”
Damn … I think I like Winnie.
“I always thought I was your first love,” she says to me as I walk into our condo. I ease the door shut and slide my keys into my pocket. Winnie has her back to me while she gazes down at the city.
“I had a life before you, Winnie.” Why are we going through this shit again? I just came in to shower before I head back out. I didn’t come here to have yet another conversation that revolves around love, Jasmine and Winnie’s hurt feelings.
“Yes, but you never mentioned loving anyone. You never even mentioned loving me. I think it was a year and a half after we married that you finally told me you loved me.” She lets out a bitter laugh. “I automatically thought that I was your first love. The running joke was that you were a playboy and playboys don’t fall in love. So yeah, I had no idea that you had actually loved someone before me.”
“Why would I tell you about another woman, Winnie?”
“Because it would have been the courteous thing to do. You loving another woman before me made all the difference in our marriage. I would have never married you had I known that I wasn’t the first woman you fell in love with.”
“What are you talking about?” I see now that she’s holding a cup of coffee in her hands. She takes a sip as she continues to look out of the window. This is Winnie for you, standing in front of floor-to-ceiling windows with the curtains drawn back, every light in the house out, alone drinking coffee. She’s the most ruminating woman I’ve ever met. I went from Jasmine, a debutant and Miss Black Massachusetts—a woman who could see a ray of hope in the devil himself—to Winnie, a woman who often finds comfort brooding in the darkness of an empty home. It drives me crazy. “Winnie,” I say when I can take no more of her silence. “What are you talking about?”
“My mother always, and I means always, has to have a grand walk-in closet in her home. She calls it her chambre, like those Renaissance French women would have. Inside is a bureau, a chaise, a vanity set …” She gives a small laugh. “When I was younger, she kept a small shoebox in her closet, off to the side. In it she had trinkets from high school, corsages from proms, letters from friends and pictures of her first love in it. She never put those pictures of the two of them in photo albums; she always kept them apart from the rest. Everyone in the family knew that this was her high school box, my dad included. It was hardly a big deal. Sometimes I’d go in her closet while she was dressing for a dinner with my dad and I’d sit on the floor looking through the shoe box. I’d ask her the same questions every time I held a picture up: ‘Who is this? What were you doing? What happened that night?’ She’d answer with a smile, always happy that she was able to recall her past and tell its stories, though it was always evident that she loved my father.
“One night, when my dad was stationed in Italy, my parents were on the verandah having a date night, just the two of them. My brothers and I were all supposed to be asleep but I snuck out of my room to see what my parents were up to. They were laughing, as usual. I overheard my mother talking about her ‘glory days’ and my dad saying she was ‘full of it’. They laughed again. Eventually she said she’d prove she was once a size two and she left the verandah and came into the house. I hid on the side of the couch. She came back seconds later with her shoebox, then she opened the box and pulled pictures out. They started talking and laughing again. She showed him a picture of her first love. My father had already seen this picture before of course. He said that my mother had ‘dodged a bullet’ by marrying him. My mother said that my dad dodged a bullet marrying her instead of Martina. I had never heard of Martina but I gathered that it was my dad’s first love.
“Anyway, they talked and drank and laughed for so long that I eventually walked back to my room and went to bed. The night was uneventful.” She takes another sip of her coffee. “It was uneventful because my mom and dad had each fallen for their first love and then they each decided to love each other. They love each other on equal playing fields. Up until five years ago, I thought that was how you and I loved each other. I thought that we were forced to marry but eventually we fell in love and we were each other’s first love. I had no idea that you decided to love me.”
“What does it matter, baby?” I whisper to her.
“We don’t love each other in the same way. You will never love another person in the same way you love your first love. First love is a reckless, no-holds-barred, now or never, I don’t give a damn, I’ve never felt this way in my life, I’m so fucking happy, I’m completely obsessed with this person love. You are my first love, I fell for you.
“But every love after your first love gets a wiser you. A more tempered you. Someone who isn’t as gung-ho, someone who follows with their head first, not their heart. Someone who isn’t neurotically possessed with the feeling of you always wanting to be happy. Someone who loves you with a degree of caution, now knowing that love doesn’t always save the day. That’s how you love me. And it’s unfair when someone is your first love and you are their second.
“I can’t sit on our balcony, look at that picture of Jasmine and laugh at it because you are my first love. I have that obsessive, possessive feeling for you. And it’s unfair because you never told me that you’ve loved before.” She takes a sip of her coffee. “And so I will always love you in a way that you will never love me.” She turns around and we lock eyes.
“I don’t know what you want me to say, Winnie. I can’t erase my past but I do apologize for not telling you about other women, though I thought I was doing you a favor. The fact is that I started seeing Jasmine when I was seventeen and I stopped shortly after that picture of us. But I’ve already told you this. And I hate to have to tell you this again but, yes, I loved her first but I loved you last.”
“No, Jacob. You loved me next.”
“Winnie,” I run my hand over my face. “What … do you want … me to say?”
“Nothing. Because you will always love your first love. No matter what they do, what they say or how they hurt you.” Her voice trembles as she walks towards me, placing the coffee cup on an end table. “And I can only imagine how you feel about Jasmine because it’s so hard to walk away from your first love.” She swallows to hold back a sob as she walks past me and opens the condo door. What the hell am I supposed to do? I don’t know what else to say about this shit. What am I supposed to say? “And it’s even harder when they let you leave.” She closes the door.
Jasmine
(principalities.)
“Well, I just spoke to Dun-yell,” I hear Malcolm’s mother, Angie, say over the now familiar-sounding speaker. “And you, of course, are not meeting all of her required needs.” Malcolm exhales and then steals a look at me with a ‘here we go’ expression on his face.
“Listen here Ma, you two aren’t going to drive me crazy for the duration of your visit,” Malcolm says as he turns the truck onto Harbor Street. We’re in my neck of the woods now so I have a feeling that we’re headed to see Marlon. Oh boy. After that talk with Jacob, I just feel completely scattered. I haven’t processed what he’s said. I haven’t processed what he asked. I don’t think I fully realize that Jacob told me that our love was a wicked love, filled with philandering tendencies and artful manipulations.
Perverse.
And though I haven’t officially grasped that Jacob told me our love was completely vile; to my surprise, the thought of our twisted love is secretly both enthralling and disappointing. Why? Well, because I was living in perversion and I had no idea that’s what it was. I was a pervert for all of those years and didn’t even have the opportunity to revel in it. Something about our snarky love is titillating. And, as much as Jacob’s admission was supposed to turn me away from him, it only made me want to rip my clothes off and keep on being perverted. I’m in a pickle.
“All I’m saying,” Angie says, “is that the poor girl is currently carrying your only daughter, Princess Ginger. With two months to go, she’s surely exhausted. And yet, she tells me that you rub her feet each night for only ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes a piece,” Malcolm says.
“Regardless. She’s carrying life and you dare put a time frame on her comfort level? … Oh no, of course he didn’t, dear … Malcolm, your father says you didn’t get that from him.”
“I’ll make sure to make Danielle happy when I get home.” Malcolm looks at me and then cuts his eyes away. I know Malcolm, I hate her too.
“Thank you. Now about this solo that my Nicky darling is singing. Cadence, informs me that there may be a problem with the bridge … yes, okay … Cadence says Nicky’s not sticking his note.”
“Ma, Nicky will do fine tomorrow. All he needs is a little tea and a drop of honey—”
“You would think that since Prince Nicholai is making his singing debut, you’d be a bit more dedicated to his number,” Angie says in near disgust. “But to be honest, I must agree with Cadence on this, you’re acting as if Nicky’s breakout role is quite ordinary. Need I remind you that he’s the star in the King of Queens?”
“The what? Jesus is the King of Kings.”
“Oh you didn’t hear? Dun-yell lobbied for a name change for the play, so now it’s called the King of Queens.”
“Of course she did.”
“You see, this is the shit you should know, my love. So, I trust that you’ll help Nicky on his number when you arrive back home?”
“Yes Ma, we’ll do another run through.”
“And Dun-yell?”
“I’ll make sure I take care of her.”
“Very well. Oh and FYI, I went ahead and picked Roman up for the night. He’ll be staying over here. Nicky needs his parents’ full attention tomorrow before his performance. But if you like, you can come over here with Roman and I can stay at your place tonight to properly assist Dun-yell with the Prince tomorrow. You’ve never been any good at handling matters efficiently.”
“Ma, I just put Roman to bed before I left the house. Why’d you wake him up?”
“Hmm … I think I can see what Dun-yell’s talking about now when she says backtalk. So, we’ll see you bright and early at the church tomorrow. And please make sure you bring Nicky’s tea, lemon and honey with you. We’ll likely need to keep a cup waiting for him off stage.”
“Okay Ma, goodbye.”
“Ta-ta.”
“This is my life when Queen Angie comes to town,” Malcolm says to me as he presses End on his phone. “I never thought I’d be one of those guys who actually longed for the day that his mother and wife hated each other.” He puts his phone in his coat pocket. “Imagine my life when my parents move back to Boston next year … just in time for the Ginger’s arrival.”
“So this is Danielle’s life, huh?” I say. “Presidents and mother-in-laws and musicals.”
“What did I say about those glasses?” Malcolm steals a look at me. I roll my eyes and then lean my head back against the headrest. Yeah, we’re definitely going to Marlon and my condo now. I guess the moment was inevitable; I need to talk to him. I’m sure he’s pulling his hair out by now. I’ve been ignoring him for weeks and his voicemails have gone through all the necessary stages of grief:
Denial: “Hello Jasmine, this is Marlon. I just called to let you know that I’m perfectly fine with you posing naked for Jacob and not me. Just so you know. That doesn’t bother me at all. Goodbye.”
Anger: “You know—this is Marlon by the way—I’m just sitting here at my desk wondering how you appearing in a naked picture could happen to me. Just unbelievable. And yes, I asked you to leave at first, because I was overwhelmed at the thought of going through this yet again. I’ll admit I overreacted, but in my defense, I called you that very evening and asked you to come home. So you not being home with your family for going on two weeks now is your fault. This will likely be the last call you get from me. Goodbye.”
Bargaining: “Jasmine, it’s me. If you can just tell me that the woman in that picture is not you, we can just put this past us. Could this be someone else? Think long and hard about this. Call me.”
Depression: “Damn Jasmine. I just have this feeling like we’ll never get us back again. Everything that we’ve built together … just gone in the matter of seconds. Our business, our home, our girls—all of it is just a memory now of what you and I used to be and what we used to do.”
Acceptance: “I love you, but I get it. You were seeing Jacob the whole time we were together. You aren’t returning my calls; you’re going over to your grandparents to visit the girls. I’ve seen this before with Jon and Danny. I get it, but I won’t be the one to file for divorce. You’ll have to be the one to do that.”
Why haven’t I called my husband back? Humiliation is the major reason. That picture stirring up the latent desire that I have for Jacob is the minor reason. I didn’t want to talk to Marlon about Jacob because I wasn’t ready to deny my feelings for Jacob; not when they’ve been so strong for so many years and I’ve had to pretend like they didn’t exist. Not when I felt I loved Jacob so much that I ended up with a Hit List full of people that all have ties to him: the journalist guy, Danielle, Winnie, Laura, even Jacob himself. I just don’t want to live in denial again. I’m finally free. After years of holding myself together, I’m finally exposed.
I loved Jacob Blair.
Even now, I think about Jacob every day. I named my daughters Pearl and Tiffany because of him. I sing Deborah Cox at the top of my lungs in the kitchen most days as I think about him. I hate Danielle because of him. I hate Winnie because of him. I hate myself because of him. The thought of Jacob totally consumes my entire life; it feels so liberating to finally have it out in the open.
I love Jacob Blair.
I don’t want to talk to Marlon and pretend like I didn’t love Jacob because I did. I don’t want to pretend like I didn’t cheat on Marlon with him because I did. I don’t want to pretend like I don’t think about Jacob now, because I do.
I just don’t want to pretend anymore.
Speaking of pretending …
“You do know that I don’t like you, right?” I say to Malcolm.
“Of course.”
“I never forgave you for the whole Jacob thing.” I turn to look at him.
“I know you didn’t. And I don’t blame you.”
“It’s just that, in a way, I kinda, sorta, thought that we may have been, kinda, in a way—”
“Friends.”
“Yeah.”
“We were.”
“We were?” I look at him in shock. Malcolm Blair and I were friends?
“Of course we were.” He turns and smiles at me. “You were seeing Jacob since high school; I’ve known you since you were fifteen. You and I went to the DNC together. We sat on the plane drinking champagne together. We went to a seafood spot and ate crab cakes and oysters together. You hid me on the balcony when Red showed up at our suite. We went to that around-the-way breakfast spot that we agreed was better than the Four Seasons’ Sunday brunch. You’re the only reason I had Danielle’s current addresses to mail her flowers each year. The only reason I knew where to see her speak at her feminist conferences. We were friends.”
“Well that’s why I was so mad at you. See, in my thinking, since you were my friend and
Jacob’s cousin, the least you could have done was stay out of our sick love story. You shouldn’t have even lied to me at all about him marrying Winnie. You should’ve just said, ‘Jasmine, go ask Jacob what he’s up to.’”
“I should have,” he says, his voice lower, “you’re right.”
“So, yeah …”
And then we ride in silence for a few moments and I think about how Jacob said that I may have loved him but I wasn’t really happy with him. I have to admit, I was lovesick most days over Jacob, but the feeling of love was so intense that I ignored the sickness altogether. Him mentioning the pain of our love and then asking me for my room number felt a lot like childbirth. When someone asks you about the labor pains, you remember that it was the worst pain of your life but not bad enough for you to keep your legs closed. You’d risk the pain again if at least one good screw comes out of it. If only I could be like those women who get their tubes tied. No more tubes, no more childbirth, no more pain. No more heartache, but I could still get a decent lay. If only I could be one of those women. If only my love didn’t give birth to pain.
“I’m not in the business of losing friends, Jasmine,” Malcolm finally says. “I don’t have so many that I can afford to lose even one. So if you find one day that you may kinda, sorta, possibly, wanna be friends again, I’m available.” He looks at me and winks. And for the first time, in years, I can see Malcolm for the man I think Danielle may see him for.
If she feels that Malcolm is the calm in a storm, than I can feel that too. If she believes that he’s rough around the edges but kinda gooey inside, I can believe that too. If she thinks his heart is always in the right place even though his actions may tell a different story, I can think that too. If she finds those wide shoulders and those large hands of his to be comforting, I can find that too. I can see how she can smile at his smirks and grin at his winks. I can see how she could have fallen in love with him; he has the spirit of Jacob but the heart of Marlon. I can see her finding that totally lovable and adorable and completely hypnotic. Lucky Danielle, she has the best of both worlds. Oh, shoot …
Forever. (This. Is. Not. Over. Book 3) Page 8
