by Janice Sims
She went to the fridge and poured herself a small glass of pomegranate juice. “Would you like something to drink before you go?”
“I’m a bit parched,” said Petra. “I’ll have some of what you’re drinking, but just a small amount. We should get home and let you and Adam get some rest. Benji can be a handful.”
The three of them stood in the kitchen, Alia in a pair of pants and a comfortable tunic covering her seven-months-along belly, and barefoot. Chance wore one of his tailored suits, and Petra was glamorous in a short white sleeveless flared dress with a wrap that fell beautifully around her legs and cinched her waist, which, Alia noted, was practically back to its pre-pregnancy size. Petra had told her that eight weeks after she’d given birth, she’d started going to her judo classes again. She hadn’t started jogging again, instead taking it slowly as she returned to her usual workout routine.
Alia handed Petra a glass of pomegranate juice. “Benji, a handful?” she said, referring to Petra’s statement about Benji. “Not at all. We enjoyed taking care of him. He’s a good boy.”
“He is,” Petra said, her eyes going to something on the couch, which could be seen from the kitchen because the entire space was open concept. Alia’s gaze followed her sister-in-law’s. She grimaced. She and Adam had left Benji’s blanket on the couch when they were rushing to put him in his bassinet. The blanket was a multicolored piece of art and had been knitted by his grandmother Debra. Wherever Benji went, the blanket went.
Chance saw what had captured his wife’s and sister’s attention, and walked over and picked up the blanket. He smiled at Alia. “Adam is just putting Benji in his bassinet, isn’t he?”
Caught red-handed, Alia didn’t try to deny it. “We enjoyed his baby cuteness for practically the whole five hours you were gone,” she confessed unashamedly. “Put me in rehab. I’m hooked on that little guy!”
They heard a wail from the direction of her bedroom, and a few moments later, Adam came into the room cradling Benji. “He didn’t want to get back in his bassinet,” he said. “I tried to put him down and at first I thought he was going to cooperate, but apparently, he was trying to give me a moment to come to my senses and pick him back up again, and when I didn’t, he started protesting, loudly.”
All four adults convulsed with laughter. Baby Benji, looking content again, smiled like an angel. Petra went and gathered him in her arms and kissed both chubby cheeks. “You little rascal. What have you been up to? Wrapping these two helpless people around your adorable little finger. Don’t you know they can’t resist your charms any better than your father and I can?”
Alia laughed. “Then you’re not upset that we didn’t follow your rules and ignore him when he started bawling?”
“Nah,” Petra said, smiling warmly. “My bark is worse than my bite. I’m a sucker for this sweet face, too.”
“I knew it,” Alia cried.
They all sat down in the great room, and Petra and Chance told them about their evening out. While they were describing where they’d gone dancing after dinner, Petra said, with a side glance at her husband, “You’ll never guess who we saw at the club. And I should preface this with, we saw them, but they didn’t see us.” She was soothingly rubbing Benji’s back as he lay on her shoulder, a white cloth protecting her dress. She didn’t actually wait for anyone to guess. “Brock, dancing with a woman who looked quite a bit like Macy.”
“Macy!” Alia exclaimed. “My Macy?”
“Macy Harris,” Chance said, sounding certain of himself.
“I can’t believe it,” Alia said. “Why would Macy be out with Brock? She hasn’t mentioned anything about seeing Brock. This must be about her business. She handles security for us. Maybe Brock was...” Frankly, she couldn’t come up with a reasonable explanation why her best friend and her brother would be dancing together at an upscale club in Manhattan on a Friday night. None whatsoever. Macy had told her, for her own sanity, she was avoiding Brock.
“I’m stumped, too,” Chance said. “That brother of ours has stooped low in his life, but this is the lowest. Carrying on with a nice girl like Macy. Why couldn’t he stick to women who know his game and don’t care when he loves them and moves on? He’s going to break Macy’s heart.”
“Or maybe Macy is going to break his,” Petra said. “Macy doesn’t strike me as a woman who can be played with. If she’s involved with Brock, then she knows exactly what she’s doing.”
“That’s right,” Alia said, trying to recover from the shock. “I have faith that Macy won’t be one of the women he can just walk away from.”
“Yes,” Adam agreed. “Macy can handle herself. I just wonder if this is something that’s happened recently or if it’s been going on under our noses for some time. And if so, why neither of them have mentioned they’re seeing each other.”
“I’ll tell you why,” Alia said. She supposed if Macy was secretly seeing Brock, then the cat was out of the bag. However, she still felt like she should take precautions. “But you’ve all got to be sworn to secrecy.”
Petra, Chance and Adam all nodded in agreement, and Alia continued. “About a year ago or so, Macy gave in to temptation and slept with Brock. She’s been in love with him since she was in her teens. Afterward, he didn’t even call her. It broke her heart. Some months later, though, he went to see her and said he was sorry. He’d acted like a fool. He genuinely had feelings for her and wanted her to give him a second chance, but Macy told him no. She couldn’t risk her heart on him again. Since then, she’s kind of yearned for him, but figured he was like candy to a diabetic—it tastes good but it’s not good for you. Her words. Also, the night of our Christmas party, I wondered why Brock couldn’t keep his eyes off her. Now I know why. He obviously hasn’t given up on her.”
The other three adults in the room sat digesting what Alia had said for a few moments. Then Chance cocked his head to the side in a contemplative pose and said, “Before Petra and I were married, Brock and I had an argument about love. At the time I assumed he’d never been in love, but he told me he had and it was with someone he’d had a one-night stand with and she wouldn’t speak to him afterward. That must have been Macy.”
“Now I guess she’s willing to give him another chance,” Adam said. “I hope he doesn’t blow it.”
“Me, too,” Alia said.
Soon after that, Petra and Chance bundled Benji up and they headed home, which wasn’t very far since Alia and Adam, Petra and Chance, and Alia and Chance’s parents, James and Debra, all lived within a mile of each other in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan.
* * *
The next few weeks were eventful ones for Adam and Alia Joie. Adam became Alia Joie’s chief comforter, as he took it upon himself to make sure she was taken care of. The bigger her belly got, the more difficult it was for her to sleep and move around as easily as she used to. Adam noticed that her center of gravity was slightly off and she sometimes lost her balance, being front heavy, because of her baby bump. He often had a smile on his face, watching her tip this way or that way before she felt confident that gravity wasn’t going to work against her.
In Alia Joie’s eighth month of pregnancy, Macy conspired with him to plan a surprise baby shower there in the loft. Adam would supply the key to the place, and Macy and their friends would come in and decorate and be ready to yell “Surprise” when Alia Joie got home from the office. Adam, as the uninvited spouse, would make himself scarce for a few hours.
All went off without a hitch, and when Adam got back to the loft that night, Alia Joie was sitting in the great room surrounded by baby gifts galore, wearing a pair of very attractive lounge pajamas—he learned later that there had been a pajama party theme—with her feet up on the coffee table.
She smiled at him as he approached. “You and Macy planned all of this!” she said accusingly. She patted a spot on the couch beside her. “Come here, I’m too tired to m
ove.”
He went and kissed her lips sweetly before sitting down. “Looks like you made off like a bandit.”
She laughed. “We won’t have to buy a thing for Adam IV, or Angelique Ramona.”
He frowned. “Have we changed the name again?” What he meant was, his wife had changed the names they’d settled on for Little Girl Braithwaite. She was surprisingly adamant about naming their child Adam IV if it was a boy. “But I like them,” he hurriedly added.
“Really?” asked Alia Joie, “Because I’d like to honor my grandmother and your mother, but I don’t want to leave Mom out. Maybe we ought to tack Debra on for good measure.”
He moved closer and put his arm around her. “I just hope she doesn’t come here with Ramona’s bossy attitude, and if we’re going to name her Angelique, I’d like to call her Lique for short, not Angel. No kid should be burdened with that nickname. We wouldn’t expect her to be an angel, just a decent person who loves others.”
“You’ve given this some thought, haven’t you?” Alia Joie said with a note of laughter in her voice. “Okay, no Angel.”
Suddenly, a look of near panic came over her face, and she reached for the TV remote, which was stuck between the couch’s cushions. “Did you see the news tonight?” she asked him anxiously as she flipped the channels on the muted TV until she found CNN.
Adam, who had been playing basketball with Chance and Brock, said, “No, what’s going on?”
Alia Joie turned the volume up on the TV. A CNN correspondent was talking about the indictment of a well-known billionaire munitions-company owner who’d been charged with Adam and his team’s kidnapping.
Adam watched with interest, but not surprise. The man they were talking about had been in trouble with the law before, but never indicted. His lawyers were too good. Apparently, his lawyers had failed him this time and he was going to jail for a very long time. His money wasn’t going to save him. Adam wondered if his colleagues had heard about it, then remembered he’d put his cell phone on silent mode while he was playing basketball with Chance and Brock and had neglected to switch the ringer back on.
He slipped his phone out of his pocket now and saw several messages. He went down the list of callers. Yes, he had calls from all of his team.
Alia Joie sat silently observing him. In moments like this, he really appreciated her calm demeanor. She was his rock.
He hugged her close. “Justice has been done, my love. I can move on now.”
His appearance might seem to suggest this news hadn’t affected him, but inside he felt enormous relief. Freer than he’d felt in a long time. He had his closure. In fact, with his wife in his arms, with his baby on the way, he thought that if he died now, he would have fulfilled every goal he’d ever had in life and would die happy.
Alia Joie looked deep into his eyes. “Adam Braithwaite, you’re too moral a man to say it, so I’ll say it for you. I hope he rots in hell for what he did to you and Arjun and Calvin and Maritza.”
Adam let out a long sigh and squeezed her a bit. “Thank you, sweetheart.”
And as far as he was concerned, that was the end of it.
Chapter 14
“Dubai! Why does it have to be Dubai?” Alia exclaimed that morning in the scheduling meeting for Youngblood Media’s network television winter lineup.
“Because it’s becoming a favorite vacation destination of African Americans. And we not only entertain, we inform. We don’t want our viewers to go to Dubai without knowing how to comport themselves,” Chance said. As CEO, he was sitting at the head of the long conference table. “I’d like to do a comprehensive hour-long special on not only visiting Dubai, but living there. I’m also concerned about safety. Attacks on American citizens are rare, but I did hear about an American teacher who was stabbed to death by a radical woman in the restroom of a shopping mall. The attacker was executed for her crime, but still, we want our viewers to have all the facts.”
When Chance had said he wanted to do a television special on Dubai, Alia’s first thought had been to wonder how Adam would react to her family’s network focusing on the city he’d been working in when he’d been kidnapped. Would it bother him? Or would he not care? He’d said his experiences in Dubai had been wonderful up until they’d been snatched.
She placed her hand on the small of her back. It was a little sore in that spot, and she’d been having cramps throughout the day. She was nine months now, and the baby could come at any time. So why wasn’t she at home, relaxing? Because she wasn’t sick and she loved her job. She would be taking six months off from work after she gave birth. She had already groomed her second in command, Martin Wilson, to take over for her. Martin, an African American in his late twenties, was sitting beside her in the conference room. Attuned to her moods, he was giving her concerned looks. But then, he’d been doing that ever since her baby bump had started growing bigger. Pregnant women apparently made him nervous. Or maybe he was just being protective.
“Look,” said Chance. “I can understand why you’re wondering if this is a good idea or not. Talk to the interested party and get back to me.”
She was sure most of the employees sitting around the conference table were aware of Adam’s experiences in the United Arab Emirates. After the Presidential Medal of Honor ceremony and the subsequent announcement of the indictment of the munitions-company owner, many people were aware. But she and Chance were still reluctant to talk about family business in front of the employees.
“You’ve done research on the place, and I’m sure your insights would be invaluable to those who’ll be traveling there to film the special,” Chance added.
He had her there. When Adam had gone missing in Dubai, she’d been motivated to find out as much about the United Arab Emirates as possible. Dubai was a tourist mecca. It offered luxuries that the average traveler rarely saw. Their shopping malls were things of legend. One had a ski slope inside of it. It was like Disney World for adults. However, most people who could afford to leave the city in the summer did because, being in the desert, it got extremely hot. Things didn’t start cooling off until October. Also, a lot of the food was imported. Therefore, food was expensive. It was a Muslim country and you had to abide by Muslim laws. You had to dress modestly, there was no liquor, and during Ramadan you couldn’t be seen eating in public because adherents to the faith were fasting.
Yes, she could definitely give pointers to whoever would be traveling over there to film the special. She didn’t feel right about going ahead with the special without at least telling Adam about it, though. She felt that he probably wouldn’t object to their doing it. He would probably say he didn’t blame the UAE for what had happened to him within its borders. However, she’d feel better about it if she discussed it with him before things were set in motion.
“All right,” she told Chance. “I’ll do that tonight.”
* * *
Adam was standing in his favorite room, the nursery. The good thing about the loft was that the ceiling was high and the layout wasn’t rigid. By moving a few walls, they now had a good-sized nursery right across from their bedroom.
The room had an African jungle theme, with the walls painted a soothing green. Alia Joie had painted a mural on one wall that looked like jungle foliage, and in the lush-looking plants, an elephant poked its trunk through. A black panther, emerald green eyes vivid, was seen in there, too, along with various other African animals. It was fun trying to spot them.
Adam had put together the furnishings, except for the comfy chair, which hadn’t needed assembling. It had a handcrafted pillow made by Debra in it, so that Alia Joie’s back would be supported while she held the baby.
Lately, every evening when he got home, he found himself going into the nursery to see if there was anything he could do to make it more perfect. He wanted his son or daughter to come home to comfort and safety. He reached up and touched the colorful m
obile over the crib and set it in motion. He’d made sure it was secure in case their little one grabbed hold of it and held on. He didn’t want it falling on his or her inquisitive head.
He smiled. He kept referring to their baby as he or she because neither he nor Alia Joie had wanted to know the sex of their baby. They wanted to be surprised. Ramona swore that they were having a girl. But then, she was a greedy grandmother, and Adam figured she hoped it would be a girl because he and Alia Joie would be motivated to try for a boy, as well. They hadn’t talked about having more children. However, Adam wanted a large family. That wasn’t a topic you discussed with your very pregnant wife, though, when she was concentrating on bringing the one she was pregnant with safely into the world.
He was patient. He’d wait until the arrival of their first before bringing up the possibility of having another. He looked around the room. In addition to the beautiful mural and furnishings, there was a giraffe-shaped wicker basket to hold small toys, and in the crib a cute baby elephant pillow that the baby could cuddle up with when he or she got a bit older. Of course, being a techie, he also had a camera in the room aimed at the crib so that he and Alia Joie could check on the baby using their cell phones from anywhere in the world.
Was he a little paranoid? Yes, expectant fathers usually were.
“I figured you’d be in here,” Alia Joie said from the doorway, startling him.
She stood there, wearing a smile and looking healthy and happy, her hand on her big belly. He went and softly kissed her mouth. “Hello, beautiful. How was your day?”
He draped his arm about her shoulders as they turned by silent consensus and walked out of the nursery, heading to the kitchen, where he’d already started dinner. He often made sure to be home before Alia Joie because they’d agreed a long time ago that whoever got home first started preparing dinner. He didn’t want that task to fall on her now. He’d wanted her to quit work two months ago, but she was stubborn. He figured she worked hard enough at work and shouldn’t have to come home and cook on top of that.
