by C. L. Donley
“Hypothetically, I would never leave Amara,” I clarify.
“Hypothetically, Amara dies in a fiery car crash what would you do, bro.”
Oh, now I get it.
“Dale, what the hell,” Bel blurts, aghast.
“Dude, this is taking too long, you gotta talk to him like he’s a Vulcan,” Dale explains. He’s right.
“Yes,” I reply.
“Yes what?”
“If something happened to Amara I’d probably ‘go back,’ as you so crudely put it,” I say.
“Interesting,” Bel says.
After a beat I add, “Kicking and screaming, but I’d go back.”
That seems to be the answer that they’re looking for because Dale is so tickled he lets go of the bowtie that he’s tying. Bel is cackling in the corner.
“Kicking and screaming, bro?” Bel prompts me.
“Crying baby’s tears,” I say.
Bel’s uproarious reaction sends Dale spiraling with laughter. Dale has never been with a woman of color as far as I know. Now I’m certain, because he’s looking a little left out.
“What are you talking about, dude,” Dale laughs.
“You don’t wanna know,” I say.
“Sweet little Amara?” Bel wonders.
Good God. Do they really have no idea? I suddenly feel for all the “sweet little” women who feel pressured to keep to themselves how well they want to fuck and be fucked. I let out a sigh.
“Do you guys remember Lilliana?”
“You found the one Italian blue-eyed blonde in the entire country, yes, we remember.” Dale recalls bitterly.
“Ohh shit, the yacht!” Bel blurts to no one in particular.
“Yeah well… fuck Lilliana,” I drawl. They all know what Lilliana was famous for.
“Nooooooo….” Bel’s mind is blown.
“Dude, you’re completely exaggerating,” Dale rolls his eyes.
“Since when does Grayson exaggerate?” Bel reminds him.
“Ask Bryan,” I say.
They all look over at Bryan, whose brow is wrinkled in perplexity.
“Remember in Montenegro, you asked if I was high,” I make eye contact with Bryan through the mirror.
“At the restaurant?!” Bryan is wide eyed.
“We almost named Sam after that place,” I confirm.
“Disgusting, bro,” Bryan says, finally breaking and using the word “bro.”
“I don’t wanna hear anymore,” Dale recoils, probably not wanting to think of Amara doing “hoe shit,” as she calls it. Their relationship has slowly morphed into a familial one.
“Forget I asked,” Bel is regretting his curiosity, but only out of respect. On some level I suspect Bel was once attracted to Amara. Then again, I tend to think everyone is attracted to Amara.
Good God, that was a fucking amazing lay. I shudder. I haven’t had sex in three weeks.
“Swear to God, she cured my autism for approximately… 20 minutes after,” I continue.
The guys break into silent laughter as though they’re in danger of being caught in church.
“My mind was completely… blank,” I recollect. It was a truly beautiful moment. A gift. I had no idea everything was about to go to complete shit, but. That moment. It was sweet in its isolation.
“For a full 20 minutes, bro?” Bel can’t help himself.
“I thought, ‘oh this must be what the normal male brain feels like.’”
The guys crack up.
“All I could think about was pizza. Not to eat, just…pizza. We’d just ate, it was a fuckin’ restaurant.”
Dale is doubled over at my ridiculous matter-of-fact recounting. They’ve probably never seen me go on and on about a sexual encounter, let alone one from a year ago. Amara kind of likes it, laying in bed talking about the sex we just had. I don’t have to talk, I just listen. Sometimes I contribute.
Bel has his face covered his with his hand, taking in a gust of air between tiny shrieks. His sweet little employee is a hellcat, and it’s apparently hilarious.
“Is that the reason you trashed your hotel room after she left?” Dale giggles.
“Yes,” I crudely summarize.
“If we’re completely done with the sweeping generalizations,” Bryan says while they recover, reeling us in.
“Thank you Bryan, for being the voice of reason,” Bel chimes in.
“Honestly though, I think if all that stuff about black women were really true,” Dale ventures cryptically, “it would be a little more…widely known by now.”
“If there’s anyone we can rely on for the truth, it’s all the white men that came before us,” I reply with sarcastic irony.
“Shit!” Bel chuckles. Dale shakes his head, laughing.
Suddenly there’s a knock at the door.
The guys all freeze and look at each other guiltily.
Bel snickers as Dale goes to open it.
“Speak of the devil,” Bel quietly says.
The door swings open and Mya is suddenly standing before us in a pale green Grecian floor length halter dress that had a high slit up one side. Her hair is also pinned up in the manner of a Grecian goddess with a diamond tiara to set her apart as the maid of honor. Her dramatic eye makeup makes her face unignorable. The color brings out her radiant dark skin, the impeccable state of her body is subtly pronounced underneath the soft lines of her dress. I’m full of jizz right now, but I’m pretty sure everyone is seeing the same thing I’m seeing.
“Oh my goodness,” Dale exclaims.
We all begin howling and whistling our approval when Dale opens the door, like a bunch of neanderthals from a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Women love that shit.
Mya glares at us with a faint smile on her face. She raises a long shapely arm and makes a summoning gesture with her hand.
“Yeah, keep going motherfuckers ‘cause you’re all still in trouble,” she says emphatically.
The guys laugh. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen Mya loosen up and not take herself so seriously. I think she’s starting to adjust. Not to us, but to the air that surrounds us. The world we live in is surreal. People don’t seem to realize it’s just as surreal to us as it is to everyone else. But like most things in life, good or bad, one grows accustomed.
Before Dale can ask to what do we owe the pleasure of her visit, she hands him an envelope.
“This is for Grayson, and he’s supposed to open it now,” she says softly.
Dale takes the envelope from her hand and puts it in his breast pocket.
“That’s it?” he says.
There he fuckin’ is. The rest of us are stock still as we exchange looks.
Mya looks back at him with a slight furrow in her brow as she’s turning to leave. She scoffs as if waiting for the punchline. Poor girl. She’s gorgeous and has no idea what she’s doing.
“What do you mean?” she inquires, eyeing him as if wondering what’s gotten into him. She disappears out of view of the doorway, presumably making her way back to the bride’s room.
“You didn’t bring anything for me?” Dale asks, playfully offended.
“What do you want?” comes Mya’s sultry reply from around the corner.
Well now. I stand corrected.
Bel’s eyes go wide and he puts a fist to his mouth. I smirk at his reflection in my mirror.
In a flash, Dale is on the other side of the door and closing it, instinctively knowing that the juvenile company he’s in will spoil whatever he has going.
We’re still frozen, sitting in silence as Dale disappears from the room.
“I’d say our work here is done,” I say, finishing my full windsor knot.
“This better work, bro,” Bel says warily.
“Of course it will,” I say assuredly.
I wouldn’t risk my honeymoon if I thought that it wouldn’t.
At least, not until we’re already gone.
Mya
I return to the vast sitting room that has become the bridesma
id’s changing room, feeling a bit like I’ve been walking on air, my heart beating erratically.
I feel like I may need a doctor. I want to blurt out what just happened to the girls, but Dale’s sisters are here, and I don’t know how they’ll react. Plus, it’s Amara’s day, not mine.
Amara is being sewn into her dress.
Sam is crying his head off on Rosetta’s lap because he can’t understand why his mother can’t hold him right now.
“Shit, does someone have my box of nipple pads?”
I go to her duffle bag and toss Amara the box.
“Pretty sure that’s the first time I heard that one at a wedding,” I say.
“Oh my GOD!!” Amara exclaims as her milk continues to leak from her breasts. The nipple pads are not a good look under her sparkling, sheer illusion bodice. I know she’s kicking herself over not anticipating something so obvious and inevitable as lactating.
“You barely notice them,” Dale’s sister Leslie has the nerve to say.
If Amara was in a better mood she would be laughing about this. Amara’s a free spirit, so seeing her stress about details, of a party no less, is an odd sight. Eloping just looks better and better the more the day wears on.
I retake my place behind Dale’s oldest sister Caroline and commence fashioning her curly hair into a loose, romantic fishtail braid.
“What did he say when you gave him the letter?” Amara asks.
“Dale answered the door and I gave it to him,” I summarize.
“Well what did he say?”
“I told him that it’s for Grayson to read right now and he said ‘okay,’” I lie.
“How’d he look?” Amara asks. She obviously means Grayson.
“Handsome,” I assure her with a smile.
When I glanced inside the groomsmen’s room, I could barely believe my eyes.
The whole lot of them were positively sublime. Clean shaven, all impeccably dressed in crisp white shirts and cummerbunds and suspenders and tuxedo jackets. I instantly felt like all their fortunes combined when they all gave me wolf whistles at the door. I would’ve easily banged each and every one of them with no guilt feelings.
When Dale started flirting with me out of fucking nowhere, I thought maybe I was reading him wrong. But sure enough, he was very blatantly flirting with me. Clearly it’d been awhile, because just his mannerisms were causing my stomach to do flip flops and shocks of arousal were attacking my insides.
Is he re-thinking his white race preservation plan? Or maybe just wanting to alleviate his curiosity beforehand?
Hmm…
Just how bad do I want this virginity of mine gone?
Pretty bad.
So I sent back a bomb of my own.
I’m good at it, I’d forgotten. Probably not since the last girls’ trip a hundred years ago has there been occasion to use it. When Amara, Kim and I went to San Diego. Amara wasn’t even at Webster yet so we were, I don’t know, 23. I was a champion catcaller. One of the few amusements we virgins allowed ourselves. These days, there weren’t many opportunities to harmlessly spin the heads of a few random guys at once.
I must be out of practice because inside the room it was crickets. Either that or I shocked them into silence. The way Dale suddenly joined me in the hallway makes me think it was the latter. Men.
I kept walking away, maintaining my distance from him as I looked back, but he wasn’t retreating. He returned my gaze. Was he for real?
“What are you doing?” I laughed.
“You’re flirting with me,” he said.
“You started it,” I transferred the blame.
“I did,” he admitted.
“Why?” I laughed again.
“Why not?” he said.
“I thought you were done humiliating me,” I said.
He looked shocked at my answer.
“Mya…”
“What?” I answered shyly. He says my name a lot, I realize.
I like it. A lot, I also realize.
“I’m sorry, okay. I’m an asshole,” he said.
I smiled.
“Apology accepted,” I nodded as I turned to go back down the hallway.
When I got to the end, I couldn’t help myself and I looked back to find Dale still in the doorway watching me, his elbow up above his head casually leaning against the door frame looking extra corny. I laughed out loud at the sight. His desired effect, I presume.
“How did Bel look?” Kim inquires.
“They all looked hot,” I say.
“All of them?” Amara presses.
What the hell was that supposed to mean?
Should I say it?
“Yes, all of them, including Dale, there. Happy?”
Amara presses her lips together and jerks her neck as though she wasn’t expecting me to go there with it. I’m so turned around, I can’t tell if my response was genuinely out of left field or not.
Dale’s sisters let out a gasp and look at each other as if equal parts stunned and excited. Clearly my observation was out of the blue for them too.
“Oh my God, that would be amazing,” Leah laughs as the sisters exchange looks.
I’ve let off a rare boy bomb in the room. I roll my eyes and look at Amara.
“Don’t act like you weren’t fishing for that,” I can’t stifle my smile as I say it.
“Don’t act like you weren’t twerking for your life in front of him last night,” Kim blurts an unsolicited response.
I whirl my head around dramatically as Dale’s sisters continue to look at each other, bug-eyed as if blown away, stifling shocked laughter.
“If that’s what I was doing, then what in hell do you call what you were doing??”
“Girl, an investment.”
All the women in the room cackle.
I don’t know why but I’m a bit bothered by his sisters’ reactions. Of course, I’m glad they were enthusiastic instead of rigid and stone faced.
Still.
They obviously never even dreamed of putting it together, and I know if I was white they would’ve been pairing us up in the air on the way here. Like I said, it doesn’t matter, but still. In light of their mom, did they really not even think ballet might possibly connect us?
Bitches.
If they heard him in the hallway they wouldn’t be so shocked then.
I smile, my heartbeat rising and falling every time I remember and then forget.
Okay, so I guess my little dance routine last night worked, and now he’s flirting with me. No stretch of the imagination there.
Yet I don’t think I was prepared for the consequences. When I think about him… wanting me, it’s a feeling entirely unfamiliar. I can’t say that I want him back just yet, but I know that I want to feel more of him wanting me, and not much else. It’s enough to make me want to skip this entire freaking ceremony and spend the entire morning upstairs.
With Dale.
Now my imagination’s going haywire. Shit.
It was just innocent flirting, but of course my virgin brain is sending it into hyperdrive.
This was what I wanted isn’t it? One of the billionaires is in my sights, the one I’d least expected. OPVS might legit be going down today.
So why do I feel like I have to throw up and also take a nervous shit all at the same time?
This is not good, it can’t be. This was sooo not part of the plan. I can’t get attracted to Dale. No. No, no, no. I let my guard down with Dale for a split second and he’s rushed in. Now I feel as though I’m being swept down a river rapid. I’m not in control anymore, not at all.
And worse, part of me really likes it.
Twenty Six
Chapter 26
Mya
On this clear summer day in June, the ceremony is held outside the steps of the castle’s courtyard. A large marble fountain is in the center, and the tall green topiary on either side of the castle’s front lawn frames us in. In the middle are ten rows of ten dark wooden chairs on each
side of the aisle.
Dale’s sisters act non-traditionally as ushers, escorting the mothers of the bride and groom, while Kim is on Bel’s arm, and Maggie on Bryan’s. The girls are in mismatched metallic greens and blues of the same Grecian style dress, carrying matching bouquets of pink and orange flowers.
As I make my way down the aisle, I can feel the anticipation to see the bride, in what’s sure to be an exquisite dress, causing the energy to rise. I go and stand shyly at my place, grateful to have the flower girl and ring bearer to focus on so I won’t have to face Dale’s gaze likely burning a hole through me as he stands handsomely next to Grayson.
Dale’s youngest older sister Leah is helping escort his nieces and nephews down the aisle to do their jobs as flower girl and ring bearer. When everyone hears operatic music coming from no particular place, they stand to get a glimpse of Amara.
Amara is wearing a show stopping, billowing ivory ball gown. It has a diamond studded belt and an elaborately detailed, high drama bodice that was high cut with sheer cropped short sleeves and a daring sheer keyhole opening in the back. The bodice looks like lace from afar, but is mix of diamonds, sheer fabric, and white silk embroidery with cut outs strategically placed at her waist. The embroidery pattern is a floral damask, and the sheer fabric gives the illusion that her bodice is made only of exotic, silky glitter flowers.
There’s oohing and awwing, camera flashes and sniffles as Amara makes her way down the aisle on her father’s arm. I arranged Amara’s hair in an elaborate swirling updo with white flowers, and I’m surveying my work, which is pretty damn good I have to admit. I desperately wanted to look over at Grayson to see his reaction, and when I see Amara trying to stifle a grin in his direction, I can’t help myself.
There’s Grayson, smiling from ear to ear.
It’s so foreign to see him smiling that it very nearly shocks me.
Amara’s pleased, but doesn’t seem surprised at all.
Good Lord, that was her man. Lock stock and barrel.
I think back to our conversation in the hotel, about that connection Amara has to him that is deeper. And though I still don’t fully understand I’m certainly seeing it now, and can’t deny that she was telling the truth. How the hell am I ever going to find something like that?