“You don’t find a woman like Lola every day, Danny.” He said to me after book-club. “Every time I think about Laura, I call Lola and beg her forgiveness.”
“And what does she say?” I asked.
“That even though she’s glad that part of our life is over, she still wishes she didn’t love me so much.”
“The course of true love never did run smooth.” I said to Cadence. He bawled like a baby. I guess that quote struck a nerve.
Lola works for her mother now as her personal assistant. Lola was always a housewife with no housework which meant that she had plenty of time to focus all of her attention on Cadence. Now that she has something to do, she has no time to check in on Cadence twenty-four hours a day. So, while thriving careers may hurt the relationship of some couples, it actually helped Lola and Cadence’s.
They don’t have any kids yet and since they both love their jobs (and apparently each other) I’m not sure if they want to rock the boat. Those two may never have their own family and they’re fine with that for now. They have plenty of nieces and nephews that fly into DC for the first week of summer vacation to visit them.
Lola and I are cordial with each other but we aren’t friends. Only Malcolm, Winnie, Jacob, Rena and I know about her stalking and my fire-starting. But we all smile for the cameras, I call to check in on all of the kids during the first week of summer vacation, we attend family functions together and when she and Cadence are in town, we all hang out at sushi bars but that’s about it. She’s made friends with some senators’ wives in The District. I guess everything worked out for her.
My mom and dad. Well, my mom is a badass. Seven months after Malcolm and I married, which would have been May, she was offered the Provost position at Harvard and of course she took it. Dr. Elise Rouge and Jackson Rouge, Esq., moved back to Boston in June. The exact date was June 21st. I remember that because I wasn’t even in town to welcome them back. I was in Italy with Rena, Winnie and all three of Jacob’s sisters. We all left the very day my mom and dad officially moved back home. And, as much as I wish our week vacation in Italy was a pleasure trip, it was really a week of purging, crying and accepting new beginnings. It was something Winnie needed before the annual Fourth of July celebration the Yates, Blairs, Marchs and now the Rouges enjoy in Hilton Head. There was going to be tons of family there and Winnie needed to mentally prepare for the headache that was sure to come. Why was there going to be a headache? Well, on June 21st, just three hours before the six of us tossed scarves around our necks, bought seven bottles of Moet and hopped on an international flight to Italy, Winnie filed for divorce from Jacob.
Anyways back to my parents, my father kept his law office open in Houston and started a sister office in Boston: Rouge and Associates of New England. It feels pretty good to have my mother and father back on the east coast. My mom and I go drinking together and my dad and Malcolm have Celtic season tickets. Here’s the big surprise though, when I was born, my mom was eighteen and my dad was twenty. So, when they moved back to Boston, my mom was forty-six and my dad was forty-eight. So, let’s play a game, what do these two people have in common: My mother and Halle Berry?
They were both forty-six when they had their second child.
My mother gave birth to her and my father’s second child when she was forty-six and he was forty-eight. I have the audacity to have a baby brother. They named his little butt Cameron and he has the nerve to be cute. I talked about my mother like a dog … as bad as she cussed Halle Berry’s ass out that day in Hilton Head.
“One thing’s for sure,” my mother said one day while we were heading to Cameron’s official ‘I’m three-months old’ photo shoot, “his ass won’t be going to St. Bernadette’s. There’s no telling what in the hell goes on there.”
My father is the same dad he was with me, patient, easy-going, a better example than my mother. Cameron has the same personality as my dad; nothing knocks him off his rocker. He’s cool, chilled out, debonair even. And no he doesn’t have red hair.
“Thank goodness.” My father said when Cameron was born. “Having a Ginger is one thing but a red-headed son? Let’s not get carried away with this.”
Now, let’s see, who’s next. Oh, I know:
Queen Angie and King Wynston. Malcolm’s mother and father. They still live in London but they come to Boston frequently. I know that people would think that Angie and I clash, but we actually don’t. Aside from the fact that she has taught me how to speak, eat, walk, smile and wave all over again, she really is a riot. Appearance is everything to her and she took great pains to make me an official member of the ‘Blair Monarchy’, hence the waving lessons. But I’ve got to give it to her, she rarely if ever steps on my toes. In fact, she treats me like the next matriarch of the family. She’s even given my name a royal pronunciation: Dun-yell:
“You’re it Dun-yell because Lola is, you know, too emotional at times. Let’s make sure we never forget the Burning House Incident. Always keep that in both your remembrance and in your Blair family notes.” Oh I will.
Since Malcolm and I have been married, Angie has been trying to make him understand that in his and my relationship, I have the more senior position. Therefore, she’s not only grooming me to take over the throne one day but she’s also grooming Malcolm to be more obedient.
Angie: Malcolm, did you hear Dun-yell? She said she was in the mood for chips and dip. Why are you still sitting here?
Malcolm: Have you asked Dun-yell why she has the urge for chips and dip?
Me: Shut up Malcolm.
Angie: I think I’m going to add chips and dip to my list of comfort foods.
Angie and Wynston also adore Nicholai and have kept him in London every summer since he was three. Nicky can’t even remember a time when Gram and Gramps weren’t around. They both consider him their first-born grandson and next-in-line to the Blair throne if Malcolm is accidentally killed or murdered. Because, you know, there’s no telling what Lola’s up to.
They’re good people.
So who’s next? Oh I know …
Nat and Dena. Well those two had two more children, little girls (Elaine and Tracie), and they are as perfect and happy as they were before. Honestly, it took me a while to warm up to Nat. I know that he’s Malcolm’s best friend but I just didn’t get why. Jacob and Malcolm seemed much more compatible. But, like Malcolm said: I don’t need to call Jacob my best friend, he’s more like a brother. Yet, I still didn’t see how Nat fit in with Malcolm and Jacob. However, over the course of four years, a lot has happened with Rossi and his presidency. I see that Nat is the methodical one of the three. He’s the numbers guys, Jacob is the muscle and Malcolm is the organizer. Neither of them have jobs more important than the other, they all three need each other. Nat isn’t loud, he isn’t talkative, he isn’t flashy but he’s loyal as hell and always dependable. And that’s what really counts. We’ve grown closer these past four years, we aren’t besties, but we enjoy each other’s company.
Dena is a bitch. There are so many times when I just want to give her the finger, but that would be rude. So when I feel like doing that, I just have to remind myself that bitches are people too. And, in the words of Cadence and William Shakespeare:
If you prick them, do they not bleed?
If you tickle them, do they not laugh?
If you poison them, do they not die?
Dena’s ass better leave me alone. Then again, perhaps my hate for Dena has to do with her brand new BFF. Guess who. Jasmine.
These two met in the airport the night Dena and Nat flew Laura back to Boston. Jasmine and Marlon were there, they all began talking, Dena realized that Jasmine was the black version of her and then boom! a friendship was born. They have lunch together at least four times a week, they eat popcorn and watch ‘chick flicks’ together, they head over to Martha’s Vineyard the week before the Fourth of July to unwind, and they even have annual trips to Napa Valley together for wine tastings. I just want to punch them in the face. Y
eah, they’re nearly inseparable and it’s starting to annoy Laura, from what I hear.
Laura has supposedly given Dena an ultimatum of being friends with Jasmine or her. She’s even started to call Malcolm back up, threatening to show a copy of the picture to the press. Malcolm told Jacob and Jacob damn near blew a gasket. His ass flew to Maryland with Malcolm, knocked Laura’s door down while she was having dinner with her husband and in-laws, and told her he’d sooner kill her than have her humiliate Winnie.
“Malcolm! Why would you do that?” I asked him after he came back home that night and told me the story.
“Baby, I rang the doorbell but by the time I took my hand off the buzzer, the door was already off the hinges.”
Needless to say, Laura has yet to reveal the picture.
Speaking of Laura, she has a popular gymnastics school in Maryland, seems perfectly sane these days and has two children now. A set of twin girls. And you’d never believe what their names are: Blaire and Scarlett. She has problems.
Rena and Matt. Those two have changed remarkably; they secretly hang out with the crew. Matt has the nerve to have ‘a craving’ for sushi these days and since Rena became so close to Winnie and Jacob’s sisters, he realized that he’d have to adapt to his wife’s new friends or grow apart from her. Like Rena told Matt that day when he flew all the way to Baton Rouge just find out that she was in Hilton Head: Matt shut your ass up, things change! You’ve got to learn how to go with the flow. He adjusted exceptionally well to Rena’s new friends and, get this, is good buddies with Jacob. Rena and Matt also had another son. Thomas was born a year ago. I had the unfortunate opportunity of hearing about his conception:
“Matt received a call from an investor and he had to go work off Wall Street the next day. Actually, he had to leave that very night. So I told him to stop by Laid Down and Dyed and before my cut and color we partied in the Range. Hey!” She snapped her fingers and started moving her head from side to side.
“Rena, you and Matt are financial investors at Brooks Financial, Matt was just featured on the Forbes Finest Financiers list, he’s getting calls to work off Wall Street, why the fuck are you still going to a salon called Laid Down and Dyed?”
“Oh shut the hell up Danielle, you know that’s my spot.”
So, yeah, they’re doing well. As mentioned before, Rena is part of the Danielle-Rena-Winnie-Jacob’s Sisters group that formed at my wedding and has been going strong for the past four years. We have so many damn stories, it’s unbelievable. Don’t get me wrong, I’m beyond sad that Jasmine and I aren’t as close as we were. I’m even bothered that she refuses to engage in conversation during her, Rena and my weekly shitty bar nights, if Malcolm is the subject of it. I really wish that Jasmine and I could be as close as we were growing up. It’s not like I’m not trying. But she’s becoming a woman who’s intolerable of people making their own decisions. I won’t ruin our friendship and call it quits between us but I won’t kiss her ass. She has her man and, hell, I have mine.
Jasmine and Marlon. Speaking of Jasmine, she and Marlon have two daughters. Of course, when Jasmine gets pregnant, no one else knows how rough it really is. That is except for Dena. Jasmine mysteriously develops every condition that Dena has ever had during pregnancy. I really hate Dena, have I mentioned that already?
Marlon’s real estate business is booming and the fact that he’s Jon’s best friend makes him a household name. Both are entrepreneurs, both are black, both are successful, both are driving Boston’s economy and both are humble. It’s sad that he has to deal with Jasmine’s ass every day. She’s become outright nasty these days:
“Too bad you couldn’t meet a March.” Jasmine said to me after Jacob and Winnie’s divorce. “Better a March than a Blair, I mean look at the quality of Dena’s life over Winnie’s. A divorce before you’re even thirty, how embarrassing.”
“Now Jasmine,” Rena said before I cussed her ass out, “leave Winnie out of this.”
“Thanks Jasmine.” I said.
“Oh, I’m not talking about you being embarrassed because you were divorced before thirty.” She said to me. “Even though you’d still be a married woman if it wasn’t for a Blair.”
“I am a married woman, Jasmine.”
“Oh I mean to your first husband.”
Malcolm secretly told me the entire love story of Jacob and Jasmine. I say that to usher in my next subject. Guess what Jasmine named her daughters. Tiffany and Pearl. Think about that shit. There’s a little part in me, buried deep down inside, that wants Laura to publish that damn picture of her.
“I thought you were trying to be a better person.” Malcolm said to me when I told him that.
“Oh I stopped doing that a long time ago.” I informed him.
Jon and Marla. They both still live in Boston, still in the same condo building as ‘the crew’ and all of our kids. Imagine our lives in this living arrangement.
Poor Marla. Jon has yet to marry this woman and as he tells me, he never will.
“Been there, done that.” Jon said to me one day when we happened to lunch at the same restaurant one day. We shared a table and a bottle of wine. That’s when he made the big reveal. “She’s accepted that I won’t get married again but she’s asking for a baby.”
“So give her one.” I shrugged.
“I’ve had a vasectomy.”
“Oh that’s hilarious!” I began laughing hysterically at Marla’s expense.
“Yeah,” Jon smiled, “a few months after Nicky was born.”
I laid into his ass. I laid into him so good that I started bringing up every issue that we ever had, including the resolved ones. I didn’t talk to him for a month after that. How dare he! I went home that night after I left the office and told Malcolm what happened:
“I had lunch with Jon today and guess what!”
“What?”
“He had the nerve to get a vasectomy!”
“Oh wow. What does Marla say about that?”
“The hell with Marla! What made him think that he and I were done having kids? Huh!”
“Baby, I’m lost.”
“No kidding.” I mumbled as I went to Skype Cadence. It was Thursday; book-club day.
Jon and I made up a month later. He had flowers sent by a delivery guy to Malcolm and my condo, which is two floors above his and Marla’s. They were long-stemmed yellow roses.
“Flowers, Red.” Malcolm said as he signed the delivery slip and then closed the door.
“From who?” I asked.
“Let’s see … Jon.” He said, reading the card.
“Puh. What did he say?”
“Sorry about that.”
Eventually I began talking to Jon again but I’m still perturbed by his gall.
Now on to the couple you’re probably wondering about.
Winnie and Jacob. After months of pretending to be okay, talking my damn head off, and hanging out in shitty dives with Rena and me, Winnie divorced Jacob. She was simply insulted that he would have any nostalgic feelings whatsoever for Jasmine’s conceited ass. (Her words not mine.) She was also offended that Jacob not only fooled around on her but he seemed to love another woman. Fooling around was one thing, but love, that was another. No matter what Jacob said, no matter what I said, no matter what Malcolm said, no matter what Jacob’s sisters said, no matter what Nat said, no matter what Jacob’s parents said, no matter what Queen Angie said, Winnie was convinced that Jacob was the scum of the earth. Queen Angie even flew in from London to assist Jacob’s mother, Pat (her arch enemy), with talking some sense into Winnie.:
“He said he thought he loved another woman, Aunt Angie! How am I supposed to take that?” Winnie said.
“Oh come now dear, Jacob’s a good boy, I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it.”
Winnie was a mess in Italy. Boston’s news broadcasted the divorce for a month straight. I called Malcolm from Italy and he told me Jacob could barely get to work because of the paparazzi blocking his truck in. Appar
ently this was the biggest divorce to hit Boston’s elite since Boston’s founding. It was unreal to the city that Winnie and Jacob, the notorious bad girl-bad boy heavy hitters, both from Old Boston Money, would divorce. They were stunned that Winnie pulled an Anna Mae Bullock on Jacob: she didn’t want alimony, any of their properties or vehicles they owned or his shit load of money. All she wanted was out. I think that’s what hit Jacob the hardest. There was nothing he had, nothing he could give her to entice her to stay.
Let’s just say the Fourth of July vacation in Hilton Head, the week after Italy, was one of the most memorable times of my life. Winnie, Rena, Jacob’s sisters and I went to Charleston to party and act trashy in peace. So we went to the loudest most obnoxious club we could find. Now, everyone was married and Winnie was going through a divorce but that didn’t mean we weren’t going to have some fun. We showed our ass that night, I won’t even lie. There were fine ass black men all over the place and bottles of champagne scattered to and fro. The DJ had put on Winnie’s song (Drunk In Love by Beyoncé) and we were screaming We be all night! at the top of our lungs. Ooooh! Ooooh! The music was pumping and our asses were jamming. Winnie, in particular, was popping her ass to the beat with Demetrius Westlake, a thirty-one year old Charleston lawyer and member of the South Carolina Senate. (Oh and did I mention that he’s black and fine as hell?) But of course, out of all the smoky clubs in Charleston, Jacob had to walk into Spread ‘Em Wide. Malcolm, Matt and Jacob walked in and Jacob acted a Got. Damn. Fool. He was a man possessed:
“Fuck you Jacob, get out of here, I’m jamming with D. West!” Winnie kept screaming.
“Winnie, I’ll kill every muthafucka in here!” Jacob kept screaming back. “Don’t get a muthafucka killed Winnie! I swear to god! I have nothing to lose Winnie! Nothing!”
Over. (This. Is. Not. Over. #2) Page 24