The Bride Experiment

by Mimi Jefferson

  James sniffed the air. “Something smells good and familiar.” James walked to the kitchen and saw the dirty dishes from Joan’s unfinished meal. “This looks like the remnants of your pecan-crusted tilapia.”

  “Yes, it is.” Putting away the carton of ice cream, Joan felt herself smiling. “I was going to take the extra piece for lunch tomorrow, but I guess I’ll give it to you.”

  Joan made his plate. She was glad she hadn’t had the chance to eat all her food. Now they could sit and eat together.

  The champagne was on the table, still cold from the ice in the chiller. James poured himself a glass, then took a small bite of fish, reminding Joan how refined his palate was. James loved fine food and had taken Joan to the best restaurants in Houston when they were together.

  Joan eagerly awaited his response.

  “Joan, you have the gift. I haven’t had fish this delicious in a minute.” James complained to her many times that Raquel could not cook, and he tried to take her to nice restaurants, but she only picked over the food. She would rather have a fried pork chop sandwich and strawberry soda than braised lamb and merlot.

  The feelings that were springing up through Joan were exciting and frightening, all at the same time. James looked so innocent, so sweet. She loved the way his mustache was curling up around his face as he chewed his fish.

  “You remember the time James Jr. came running in like he had found the cure for cancer?” James asked.

  Joan started laughing, recalling the memory. Joan mocked their son’s voice, “Mama . . . Daddy . . . Daddy . . . Mama . . . Did you know I was born on my birthday?”

  James laughed so hard, he had tears in his eyes. “It just wasn’t what he said, it was how he said it—the expression on his face. He was so excited. I didn’t have the heart to tell him everybody was born on their birthday.”

  James took another bite of his food; then he turned to look at Joan. Something in his eyes made Joan warm all over. His lips were right there and perfectly kissable. Joan had taught and listened to Bible Study after Bible Study about not putting herself in compromising positions. She knew one hundred different reasons why she shouldn’t have allowed James Sr. in her condo, with the scripture to back up her reasons.

  After they finished their dinner, Joan picked up their plates and took them to the kitchen. James got up behind her. He was way too close. “I know you have some homemade dessert somewhere in this house. I read about your bakery in the Tribune. I’m really proud of you.”

  Joan blushed. James always loved her desserts; he’d even inspired a few. “Well, I have a little something.”

  James got much closer. Joan stepped back slowly. She opened the refrigerator and pulled out a sweet potato pecan pie. She created the recipe years ago because James’s favorite pies were sweet potato and pecan.

  James looked like the wind had been taken out of him. He pretended to cry and wipe away tears. “You don’t know how much I missed this. You just happened to have one.”

  Joan put the pie on the counter and proceeded to cut it. With Joan facing the counter, James came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. Joan couldn’t believe he had the nerve to get this close to her after all this time. She knew she needed to move, but instead she kept cutting the pie, like she didn’t feel James Sr. breathing down her neck.

  James started to nibble softly on her neck. Joan dropped the knife, took a deep breath, and turned to face James. She turned around to tell him to stop, that she was a new woman now, and having premarital sex was out of the question. Instead of saying anything, Joan sank into the delicate kiss James planted on her lips. She felt like she was watching herself interact with James. She had not kissed a man in years. When James went for her pants, she protested. James unsnapped her bra and pulled off her shirt before she realized how he had done it. Before long, James was all over her, and she lost all means to protest.

  James picked her up and placed her on the sofa in her living room. Joan was pulling off his shirt, when she heard a noise she recognized. She bolted to the door, fearing it was Tisha. When she didn’t see anyone through the peephole, she got confused. Then she heard the noise again. Embarrassed, she hadn’t recognized it the first time. She walked over to her buzzing cell phone.

  “Hello.” Joan tried to sound normal when she answered.

  “Hey, girl,” Tisha responded. “You are not going to believe this, but my ex bought his lanky self to my place. I don’t even know how he found out where I lived. Anyway, here he comes trying to sweet-talk me and rub up against me. That fool actually thought I was about to give in. As if! I ain’t about to go there. I have gotten off that fornication crack for a while now and I ain’t trying to go back. What! And get my heart broken again or, even worse, lose fellowship with the Lord. And for what? A few minutes of ‘ooooh’ and ‘ahhhh, baby,’ please! I got better things to do, like finding out what the Lord has for me. And a cheap roll in the hay is not on my growth plan. The devil is always busy sending distractions, but he is going to have to do better than that. Marcus is my past and I have come too far to turn back now. It reminds me of that Proverb, you know . . .” Tisha’s words trailed off as she tried to recall the scripture.

  Joan said, “Proverbs 26:11. ‘As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool repeats his foolishness.’”

  “Girl, I promise you are like a Bible concordance, but don’t fear I’m going to be like you when I grow up. I’m on my way over there. I left my iPod there somewhere, and you know I am not right when I don’t get my worship on. I just have to go by my dad’s for a second first. Is that cool?”

  Joan remained silent.

  “Joan, are you okay? You seem kind of out of it.”

  “Oh no, girl, I am just tired.” Joan hoped Tisha was ready to end this conversation.

  “All right, well, I’ll let you rest. See you in about an hour.”

  Joan hung up the phone. James walked to her, ready to resume things where they had left off. Joan walked away and began putting on her clothing.

  James looked defeated as he watched her. “You know I will always love you.”

  Joan didn’t look up at him. If he loved her, why was he marrying Raquel?

  As if reading her mind, James said, “It’s complicated. You will see. I wish I could tell you, but just wait. You will find out. This situation with Raquel—we aren’t what we appear to be, and soon enough everything is going to be out.”

  Joan looked at James. “I don’t know what the crap you are talking about and I am frankly too tired to attempt to read between the lines. Will you just put on your clothes and leave? Your fiancée is probably looking for you. Why did you bother coming over here, anyway ?” Joan shook her head. “No, never mind. I don’t want to know. Just leave!”

  James started to put on his clothes. Joan watched him, angry he had given up so easily. Before James walked out the door, he turned to Joan and said, “I’ll leave, but I’ll be back.”

  Chapter 6

  James wasn’t the only Houstonian who decided to golf in the midst of June and endure the stifling heat. He drove around the parking lot of the West Galleria golf course twice before he found a spot. He got out of the car, grabbed his clubs, then went to meet his brother. Miles was a golf addict. When he wasn’t busy pushing one of his get-rich-quick schemes, he could be found trying to become the next Tiger Woods.

  Losing his job had caught James completely by surprise. After having been good for almost two years, James thought he needed to reward himself before the wedding. He had been sleeping with two past lovers for a month straight: Pam, one of the stylists in Raquel’s salon, and Lauren, a married officer in his department. One day, he and Lauren couldn’t contain their lust until the end of the workday. They thought they could slip in and out of a hotel without anyone noticing. Lauren didn’t know it, but her estranged husband suspected she was having an affair and hired a private investigator to follow her. The husband promptly mailed to their superior officers pictures of James and L
auren leaving the hotel room when they were supposed to be working. James and Lauren were quickly fired.

  James wanted to tell Miles the truth, but James was too cool to get caught slipping. He couldn’t believe he had been stupid enough to jeopardize his job. He and his brother had always been close. They had to be with the type of parents they had. If it hadn’t been for each other, they would have melted in what they called the two-story house of horrors.

  On Sunday mornings, seated in the second pew at church was the only time of the week where their family actually had any peace. Their father would stand at the altar with the rest of the deacons, praying over the offering, singing hymns, and reading scriptures. Their mother would stand up straight, looking up at their father with adoration. Years of dealing with his unfaithfulness had taught her to be a great actress. Saturday evening, she would wash and roll her hair and iron a nice dress. She always wore a hat, black flats, and no makeup. It was as if lipstick and high heels were signs of being unholy. If someone visited the church, he or she probably wouldn’t have spotted the charade, but all of the members of Ebenezer Family Church knew it was an illusion.

  Their father was wealthy in a small town, due to his successful oil business. Some of the single women in the church and many of the married ones would grow tired of waiting on God to bring about their deliverance. So when the tires went bad on their car, when the light bill needed to be paid, or when the women needed a little extra money to buy a bus ticket, they would go see Mr. Reynolds. A trip to Mr. Reynolds didn’t last long, was thoroughly enjoyable, and the women always left with more money than they needed. Otherwise respectable women came from all over town to exchange sexual favors for cash. Mr. Reynolds was tall, attractive, and treated each woman like she was the only woman in the world. When they were finished, Mr. Reynolds never handed money to the women. Instead, he would place the money in a fine linen envelope and spray it with French cologne. Before sealing it, he would place a handwritten note inside, with messages like, Your eyes are as mesmerizing as your scent.

  While the pastor of Ebenezer Family Church didn’t approve of Mr. Reynolds’s actions, he didn’t do anything to stop him either. He threatened to remove him from the church many times, but then Mr. Reynolds would send a large donation to the church, a designer suit, or even a Cadillac once. The gifts kept the pastor quiet.

  The men in the church wouldn’t dare get in Mr. Reynolds’s way. While they hated him, they secretly wanted to be him. They wanted to walk into a room and own it. They wanted to have beautiful women at their beck and call, as well as what appeared to be unlimited resources. Mr. Reynolds could make one phone call and get someone a job. If they crossed him, he could make one phone call and they would lose their job. He had so much power that men who knew their girlfriends, wives, or daughters had slept with him would garner up the strength to smile in his face.

  At home, Mr. Reynolds didn’t have much to say to his wife and children. They ate all of their meals around the table while their father read the paper or documents from work. Their mother would attempt to keep the discussion going, asking the boys about school and activities, but Mr. Reynolds hardly ever appeared to be interested. After dinner, he would take a short drive back to his office, where he would work in between taking his female callers. James remembered his mother crying often in the evening.

  The people at Mr. Reynolds’s funeral pretended to be sad, but many were joyful, glad James’s mother was free of a man she wouldn’t leave. James and Miles sat near their mother at the funeral and watched her weep. They were frustrated they couldn’t make her stop. They sat there silently, embarrassed and humiliated. Their father had been shot and killed by one of the members of Ebenezer Family Church. Mr. Reynolds was having sex with the man’s daughter at the time.

  Right then, James knew he couldn’t tolerate church people. The same people who were talking about his mother behind her back were the same people who were kissing and hugging her at the funeral. The same people who broke out in shouts of praise about the Lord were the same people who would be cursing and yelling before they drove out of the church parking lot. As far as James was concerned, church people were hypocrites and he wanted nothing to do with them.

  “Hello, my brother.” James stepped up just as Miles was putting the ball.

  Miles jumped, surprised to hear his brother’s voice. “Brotha, would you roll up on Tiger Woods like that?”

  “No,” James responded. “But since you are no Tiger Woods, we don’t have to worry about that.”

  Miles flashed his golf bag. “I might as well be. I went and got these Tiger Woods-approved golf clubs.”

  James looked at the ball Miles had just putted. He completely missed the hole at close range. “Yeah, but buying Tiger Woods golf clubs does not make you Tiger Woods.”

  Miles looked at his ball and shook his head in agreement. “True, that.” He turned to face his brother. “I hope you feel better than you look.”

  “No, I look like crap, and I feel the same way.” James let out a fake laugh. “I need a T-shirt that says, ‘If it ain’t one thing, it’s another’ in bold red letters.”

  “So what are you doing out here?” Miles asked. “Doesn’t somebody need to be arrested?”

  “I quit.”

  “What?”

  “What do you mean, ‘what’?” James asked. “You have been trying to get me to quit the department for years and go into business with you.”

  “Yeah, and you have been telling me no for years too.”

  “Well, things have changed.”

  Miles looked away. “I’m really sorry about that. Man, I would have never guessed. I was just trying to test out the business.”

  “Don’t trip, little brotha, everything happens for a reason. I’m not going to try to lie. I can’t believe Raquel. But I’m going to give her something she will never forget.”

  “You remember that time old girl tried to play me?” Miles asked.

  “Yeah, you got her good, didn’t you? Getting her girl to tape her admitting she was trying to put a baby on you that wasn’t yours?”

  “I would have never thought Raquel was like that.”

  “It’s just like our pops used to say,” James shouted, “women ain’t good but for one thing!”

  They laughed and exchanged a closed-fist pound shake.

  “You ought to get her back for this. I mean real good.” Miles slammed his golf club into the grass. “You have been robbed.”

  James stood up straight and tilted his sunglasses in Miles’s direction. “Believe me, brotha, the plan I got is going to go down in the history books. While I beat you, hole after hole, I’ll tell you all about it.”

  Chapter 7

  “Hello, gentlemen.” James watched as his class of middle-aged men turned around in their chairs and faced him. Instantly their chattering voices ceased and they sat up straight in their chairs.

  James almost felt sorry for them. There isn’t anything more pathetic than a grown man who needs help getting a woman. They come in every week, most of them early, hoping to get a seat near the front. They act like if they can get close enough to him, perhaps some of his magic would rub off on them.

  The Adult Learning Catalog listed dozens of teachers who thought they could teach everything from “How to Sell a Home” to “How to Write a Book in a Year.” James’s class was “How to Get Any Woman You Want.”

  James started teaching the class on a dare. One of his former classmates wanted to see if James was playa enough to teach his skills to a group of losers. At first, James declined, claiming he didn’t have time due to graduate school. However, James changed his mind when he started failing one of his courses. He dropped out of graduate school and paid the $250 to have the description of the class, cost, and location placed in The Adult Learning Catalog. The catalog, in turn, promised to distribute the information about James’s class all over town.

  From the first day he started teaching it four years ago, the class had b
een overbooked each quarter. His ex-students wrote recommendations: James is a genius, or I finally got that blonde at work to need me, like I needed her, or This class saved my life. I hadn’t been on a date in a year, now I date three or four times a week, with women more beautiful than I could have imagined.

  James had expected to stop teaching after his wedding, but now, as he glanced at his notes, he was glad he had not mentioned getting married to the men in his class. He hadn’t even bothered to tell them he was engaged, afraid they might misinterpret it for weakness.

  Not only did he need to continue the class, but he needed to have more classes—now that he had lost his day job. He had been holding back, only giving the men nuggets of wisdom, but now he needed to take it to another level. He needed them hungry for more and spreading the word about his classes. Next quarter, not only was he adding several more sessions, but he was going to charge twice as much as he had been.

  James cleared his throat as he slowly walked into the middle of the room. He felt like a superhero when he was in this old office building in the southwest side of town. In other suites, on other floors, there were doctor offices, nail salons, and a variety of other businesses. But in this room on the eighth floor, stuck in a corner, was an entirely different type of business, the business of learning to run a woman. Men from all over town flocked to this all-male chat session each Monday evening, hoping to get a piece of wisdom that would ensure that by Friday night beautiful women would be in their beds.

  “Gentlemen, I hate to tell you this, but I’ve been holding back,” James admitted to his students. “It has been hard for me to be completely honest with you. I was afraid to reveal the real playa rules. I was afraid to have this valuable information in the wrong hands. But over our time together, I think that you are a very mature group and you are ready to learn this highly delicate information.”

  James made eye contact with the men. He crossed the room slowly, his gaze transferring from one man to the other until he had sized up all twenty-two of them. He wanted to smile but held it in. They were practically drooling.