To Break a Vow

by Chencia C. Higgins

  Her chest heaved and I could see her nipples bud beneath the logo t-shirt she wore. “Yeah, that sounds good. And we can have sleepovers every now and then, too. I think if we give it a few months and see how things are going at that point, it should be okay.”

  “A few months? That’s doable.” I leveled her with a pointed stare. “I hope you don’t think that I’m going to forget about your conditioning just because I’m not moving in.”

  She licked her lips. “I didn’t think any such thing.”

  Chapter Twelve

  When Folks Won't Let You Be Great

  “Look at you,” I called out the moment my cousin walked into the foyer of Capital Grill. “Glowing like you’ve been kissed by the sun! Marriage sure does look good on you, girl.”

  Grinning broadly, Danielle lifted one of her shoulders toward her cheek as she pranced over to me and flipped her shoulder-length, relaxed hair over her shoulder. “What can I say?”

  Laughing at her antics, I shook my head at her faux modesty and hugged her tightly. I wasn’t being facetious; she truly looked good. Her medium-brown skin had a warm overtone that hadn’t been there when I’d seen her last, and there was just an invisible aura of happiness that floated around her.

  We followed the hostess to our table and were promptly greeted by a server. After placing our orders, I handed my menu to the waiter. It was untouched; I hadn't even opened it, knowing exactly what I wanted to order since this was a restaurant Danielle always suggested when we planned to meet for lunch. After a quick trip to the restroom, I returned to the table to find that our drinks had arrived and Danielle was already imbibing on a glass of pale pink sparkling wine.

  “So,” I began, “how are you and your boo-thang doing?”

  Although we’d exchanged text messages and talked on the phone, we’d kept our topics of conversation on family gossip or frivolous stuff like some of the things she saw while abroad. I’d purposefully held on to any and all questions until we were face-to-face again. I hadn’t laid eyes on Danielle since her wedding almost eight weeks ago, which had taken place two weeks after her bachelorette weekend trip to Las Vegas. While the reception was still in full swing and guests got drunk from the open bar and danced themselves silly, her newly minted husband had jetted her away to island-hop in the Mediterranean for a month.

  Buttering a slice of the freshly baked sourdough loaf that was placed on the table between us, Danielle smirked. “Which one?”

  I laughed, knowing that she was being completely serious, and cut my eyes at her as I sipped from my tall glass of sweet tea. It should have been obvious that I was referencing her husband since she was still sporting a fresh tan from her honeymoon as well as the blindingly large ring he’d placed on her finger when he’d proposed to her less than a year ago.

  “The Honorable Judge Wilson, of course.”

  Her smirked morphed into a full-on grin that even shoving the slice of bread into her mouth couldn’t hide. “We’re great. He’s great.”

  “Still?”

  Her brows rose. “Still. And still glad we decided to go ahead and get married instead of having a long engagement.”

  I was glad to hear it but couldn’t resist asking my next question. “And…you’re still okay with his…” My eyes ran across the table as I searched for the right words and, finding none, settled on a phrase that sounded ridiculous even as it came out of my mouth. “Sidepiece?”

  Apparently agreeing with the ridiculousness of my word choice, Danielle threw her head back, cackling with laughter, and my eyes narrowed at her amusement at my concern for her wellbeing. When the heaviest of her chuckles died off, she leaned forward and unwrapped her silverware to use the linen napkin to dab the smidge of moisture under her eyes.

  “Girl, you are something else, you know that?”

  “Whatever!” I paused while our server placed our dishes in front of us. “You know what,” I continued, “to each his own, I guess. I still don't see how you could marry a man who has a girlfriend. Better yet, a woman you know and have worked with numerously!”

  Danielle rolled her eyes away from me and toward her glass, lifting it to her lips to take a leisurely, unbothered sip. Placing the glass back on the table, she touched the corner of her mouth with her napkin and picked up her fork. “The same way a man could marry a woman who has a girlfriend.” She pinned me with a pointed stare. “You can’t see it because it’s not your vision, but if I’m not judging you for getting wetter than Niagara Falls at being trussed up like a pig, then you sure as shit shouldn’t curve your nose up at me for having enough gall to keep and fuck both of my significant others at the same time.”

  I choked on my drink from both the image she’d painted and the truth in her statement. There was nobody but Tasha and her road-dog, Giselle, to blame for Danielle knowing about my recent sexual proclivities. “A pig—?!”

  She ignored my sputtered outburst of indignation. “Yes, bitch, a pig.” Returning her glass to the cloth-covered tabletop, she leaned forward. “I know that I don’t have to explain my lifestyle to you, especially since we went down this road more than a decade ago, but because I love you and I know that you’re feeling very sensitive about marriage right now, I’ll put your mind at ease.” She twisted in her seat, sliding her legs from under the table and crossing one over the other.

  “Johnathan in no way loves me less because he’s with Regina. I know that to be true, not only because he’s assured me of it—and actions always speak louder than words—but also because I have Mel. And yet my feelings for neither her nor him have diminished. Some people are in your life for one reason and others are in your life for another. Everybody can't be everything to everyone, and that shouldn’t be anyone’s goal.” Stabbing at a slice of the perfectly grilled chicken breast that was resting atop a bed of crisp romaine, she shrugged. “Maybe if you would deign to open up your mind a little bit, you wouldn't have settled for marrying some strange-ass man on what was supposed to be a worry-free girls’ weekend.”

  I lowered my fork to the table. “Wow, you’re gonna take it there, huh?” Shaking my head, I speared a few green beans and shoved them into my mouth, chewing fitfully.

  “Hell yeah, I'm going to take it there, and I will continue to take it there until I'm no longer pissed about the fact that you married a stranger without even talking to me first!”

  “I didn't know I needed to run it by you, Danielle; you're not my damn mama. Hell, you not even my damn daddy!”

  “No, I'm not your mother or your father; however I am your lawyer. If that doesn’t hold enough weight then let me remind you that I dabble as your conscience when your brain is running too fast to keep the facts straight, and I happen to be highly skilled at reading men. Not only that, my expertise is helping women get out of situations that no longer serve them, but you’re family and I’d prefer to help you not make them in the first place.”

  “Well, let me ease your conscience. I'm not asking you to help me get out of a bad situation.” I tilted my glass upside down, draining the very last of my beverage and wishing I had ordered a glass of wine in its place.

  “No,” Danielle drawled. “But to be fair, the things you need to be asking, you don't.”

  Huffing, I rolled my eyes to the ceiling as regret seeped into my bones. I’d brought this whole conversation, in the name of concern, on myself. This is what I got for caring about her feelings. Maybe if I didn't engage her, she’d become uninterested and we could move on to a new subject.

  “For instance,” she continued, and I wanted to scream, “a good question to ask would be ‘What is your husband's address’ and not—you know—your house, but the one that appears on his driver's license. A follow-up question would be to ask to see his driver’s license and not a copy of it but the physical card issued to him by the department of motor vehicles.”

  I sighed loudly in annoyance, but Danielle was unfazed and apparently just getting started.

  “Oh, another good question
would be, Can you go to this clinic that I trust and get tested for sexually transmitted diseases and then visit my lawyer to sign off on a background check? And while you’re on that line of questioning, you might as well add ‘Hey, can you please sign on the dotted line of this post-nuptial agreement?”

  That pulled my attention from the ceiling and to my cousin who had been attacking her meal with gusto while simultaneously raining piss on my parade. “Really, Danielle? A postnup? I don't even think that Jereth is the type of dude a woman would need a prenup with.”

  She fixed me with a shrewd look. “You think? Or do you know?”

  I waved her off, using the approaching server as an excuse to avoid answering her question. After thanking the young woman who’d stopped by to refill my empty glass, I said, “I'm not about to go back and forth with you about this, but for your information, we’ve both been tested and the results have come back as clean as a whistle.”

  Danielle sat forward in her seat, leaning across the table and waving her hands in the air wildly. “I’m glad to hear that, at least, but can you be real with me, cousin? What do you really know about him besides the fact that he has an award-winning dick?”

  I opened my mouth to protest but quickly snapped my lips shut when she gave me a look that said she wasn’t done.

  “I'm serious, TT. How much—if anything—do you know about him now that y’all have gotten married? Have you even come up for air long enough to have a thought-provoking conversation? Who are his people? What neighborhood did he grow up in? What school did he get his college degree from? Does he even have a college degree? Does he have any secret children you don't know about? Does he have any known children? Are you a stepmother in a co-parenting situation? Does he still fuck his child’s mother? These are things you need to know, all the things that you should have asked before you said ‘I do’!”

  Silently, I sat at the table, fuming with my jaw clenched and a mild headache forming from the pressure. My palms prickled from my fingernails digging into them through my clenched fists. Danielle was unrelenting and with every word she said, I became angrier. But who was I angry at? My cousin, who—although ripping me to shreds—only wanted to make sure I was okay? Jereth, who hadn’t volunteered any of the information that was commonly shared amongst courting couples? Or myself for not asking anything but surface questions and allowing myself be taken on a fun ride without reading the fine print?

  I didn’t know which direction to aim my ire; all I knew was that I didn't want to hear any more “help” from Danielle. Why wasn't I allowed to do something fun and spontaneous for once? Why did everybody—and I meant everybody—in my life spend so much time telling me I should live a little, that I was too young to be such an old maid, that stepping outside the box every once in a while wouldn't kill me, only to question my judgment the moment I do anything out of the ordinary?

  The hypocrisy was real, and I didn't want to hear anything else, I was good.

  And because no one could—honestly, at least—accuse her of being too ignorant to miss social cues, Danielle could clearly read all of my emotions as they played out on my face. She sat back and I watched as she visibly deflated and thankfully decided to retract her claws. There was a reason they called her a baby bulldog in the courtroom, and unfortunately, I’d just come face-to-face with it. Her own face softened from the hard lines she adopted as she’d attempted to hammer home her point, just as our server swooped in to check on our abandoned dishes and inquire if we wanted to look at the dessert menu. I stared down at the table, appetite suddenly gone.

  Danielle reached across the table and gripped my hand tightly, giving it a squeeze. “I'm sorry, TT. I swear I'm not trying to upset you. I love you and I only want the best for you, and right now, the only way I know how to do that is to make sure that you aren't being scammed or set up to get hurt. Your personal assets are worth enough to put dollar signs in the eyes of a bum-ass man, and I don't want anything that could have been preventable to happen to you. This unconventional, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants type of marriage is just the sort of situation that begets a woman being cleaned out of everything she has and no matter how mad you get, I'm here to make sure that doesn’t happen to you. I’m just looking out for you, as I've always done our whole lives—as I’ve done for all of you. It’s my job as the oldest cousin. Now, I'll say one more thing and then I'll leave you alone for good. If you find out that he isn't the man who he said he was when you inked your name on that marriage certificate, I want you to know that an annulment is still an option.”

  True to her word, Danielle didn't say anything else about Jereth. But she also didn't say anything else period. And since I was too lost in my thoughts, the rest of our lunch was infused with uncomfortable silence. When our server brought us the check, Danielle shoved her credit card at him before I could even protest. I finished pretending to eat my food, and Danielle quickly cleaned her plate. We then parted ways with a hug and a kiss, her going back to her office to finish out her workday while I headed home feeling dizzy and knocked off-center.

  I knew enough about Jereth in the short time that I had known him. I wasn’t naive enough to assume that I would know his life story in five or six weeks, but when Jereth said we needed to get to know each other, I took that to mean he would be forthcoming. Now, I was beginning to wonder if I was being too complacent with the progression of things.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When You're Your Own Worst Enemy

  I had grown up with what many would call the perfect example of what a marriage should be. My parents had been married for longer than either of my brothers had been alive and still seemed to love each other after all of this time. Despite that, I couldn't find myself willingly able to mimic the relationship that my parents had modeled for the three of us, not after attempting to follow in their footsteps left me looking like a fool. Sure, there were some pros, a lot of pros if you were asking people—not me, other people—but there were many cons as well, at least from my vantage point. So, I knew before I even suggested to Tonya that we get married that what we’d do something different; it would be something unique to the two of us. That was my intention, and for the most part, that's what came to pass. I didn’t want to be bogged down with the trappings of tradition and had been prepared to make my case if it seemed like it was a problem.

  Tonya was everything I expected her to be and beyond. She was a woman who had a lot of love in her heart and didn’t mind showing it. Her honesty and guilelessness was such a contrast to the last relationship I’d been in that I almost didn’t know how to handle it—how to handle her—but she gave me the space to get my footing and never made me feel insignificant or worthless in the process. I know I wasn’t the easiest man to be involved with; my peculiarities in and out of the bedroom were probably deal breakers for a lot of women, but Tonya met the challenge head-on and excelled.

  As I sat on the patio of Black Coffee, sifting through emails of various properties in the area and contemplating the sheer luck that I had stumbled upon when I met Tonya, my cell phone began to ring. I looked at the display and as I saw my mother's name flash on the screen, I wondered if, somehow, she knew I was enjoying life a little too well and decided to call so she could ruin that.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, baby. It's Mama. I was just calling to check on you because I haven't heard from you in several weeks and, obviously if I didn't pick up the phone, who knows when I would hear from you again. So, here I am.”

  I wish I could say it was a record that she didn't even wait two seconds to begin the guilt trip, but it wasn't. This was par for the course with Sabrina Hawkins when it came to me. She didn’t do it to my older brother, probably because he lived down the street from her, and as far as I knew, she didn’t do it to my baby brother. I could only assume that Hawk was exempt because he was so quiet that she just didn’t expect him to say anything at all.

  “Hey, Ma. What are you up to?”

  “Oh, nothing
,” she said in a nonchalant voice that sounded suspiciously like a precursor to something I wanted absolutely nothing to do with. “Your father and I just got back home.” She paused and I realize that was my cue to deliver my lines.

  “Where'd y'all go?”

  “Oh,” she said, as if my question was a surprise instead of a setup, “we were at a wedding.”

  There was another pause, and I wondered how long she would wait for me to recite my lines.

  “Who got married, Ma?”

  Apparently, that was the magic question—the right combination of words—to get her going because it was like I could hear her puff right up as she sucked in a breath before speaking.

  “Do you remember Gordon Smith?” She didn't wait for me to respond. Not this time. “He was in your class, I believe. Well, he just married a gorgeous woman from up in Jonesboro. According to Wanda, his mother, the two only met eight months ago, but she said that Gordon told Johnson, his daddy, that he knew Fiona was the woman for him the moment he laid eyes on her and he had no reason to wait. Can you believe that?”

  I know without a doubt that that was a trick question. One that I would not fall for. Internally, I absolutely could believe it, had experienced it when I met Tonya. But, of course, I couldn't admit that to my mother. She still didn't know anything about Tonya, and if I had my way it would be a good long while before she learned anything about her—including the fact that she existed.