I kissed Toby on the head. “Yep.”
She scanned the room, landing on Jake. “Nice.”
“I thought so,” Jake said with no apology, before sliding out with Mya’s hand in his. “Hey babygirl, let’s go raid the fridge.”
“You’re going to read me a story,” she confirmed as part of the deal. One side of her hair was in a nice long braid; the other was raw bushel of coils and puffiness.
They disappeared down the hallway. When he was out of earshot, my mother sat with me on the white leather bench at the foot of Mya’s princess bed.
“You know this is nothing more than a distraction, right?”
“Absolutely.” I smiled.
She sighed. “What am I going to do with you? I’m not cleaning up dog poop. I’m here to help, but that’s where I draw the line.”
“Mom, about that … I think everything’s going to be okay. I know I’ve kept you away from Dad long enough. It’s okay if you go home. Jake is back to pick up the slack. So we’re good.” I waited for her response. She folded her thin arms across her chest. Toby sniffed her before tapping her with his small paw.
“Mom, why don’t you want to go home? Something happen—I mean, something more than usual?” My mother had been bossing my father all forty-plus years they’d been married. I’d watched Henry nod, shake his head, and hunch his shoulders, all to avoid an argument.
“He’s met someone,” she blurted out. “He denies everything, of course, but I’m no dummy.”
“Another woman? Please, Mom.” My father was afraid of Pauletta Johnston. The notion of him crossing her was way too farfetched.
“Yes, another woman. She was my nurse when I was going through that second bout of cancer. I laid up in that hospital room barely conscious, but I could hear them, their voices. He and that woman got close, bonded, and right over my listless body. I’ll never forgive him.”
“Well, what did you see, or hear?”
“I heard his laugh. I heard the way he deepened his tone, trying to get all manly for her. And her light happy-just-to-be-here phoniness. Women know. You can pretend not to know. But a woman knows.”
“But so what, Mom? Really. So what he relaxed and enjoyed another woman’s company? Big deal. He’s been your husband, supporting you, taking care of you for like a hundred years, but this you can’t forgive.”
“I think these little spikes growing out of your head have entered your brain,” Pauletta said with a hard thumb to my temple. “Men are like dogs. They escape outta the yard, they will be trying to get free every time you turn your back. Well, he can just be free, roam the land like some little stray mutt. I don’t care.”
Toby barked as if he took offense to the reference.
“So then, what’s your plan?”
“Haven’t got one yet.”
“So what sense does it make, after all these years to disappear on the man?”
“You have to put your foot down. The sooner you learn that, the less trouble he’ll be. Bringing home a dog, nothing but a distraction to keep you too busy to notice his tracks.”
“Are we talking about Dad, or Jake?”
“Ahuh, I think you know.” She got up and scooted away in her house slippers.
First thing in the morning, I was calling my father. No way Pauletta Johnston was staying in Atlanta with me and Jake. Somebody had better fix this mess, and fast.
Who Let the Dogs Out
The three of us met at the Monarch Hotel. Miriam skipped around, picturing the beautiful ceremony reuniting her and Ben as man and wife. Ben never once mentioned that he’d been there before, acting in wonder at the lavish entrance and parlor. I’d spent the afternoon holding my emotions and tongue.
“Can’t you picture all our guests seated and watching us renew our vows?” Miriam snuggled against Ben’s suit-covered arm. He loosened his striped tie and nodded in conciliation.
I was sure there were more important things to worry about in the world than the fidelity of one’s partner, yet I kept being pulled into the insanity. It was all around me—Jake and Sirena, Ben and Miriam, and now the unfolding drama of my father and mother. My dad hadn’t picked up the phone so I left him a rather long message, begging, pleading for him to make things right.
“And over here, I want a harpist. I’ve always wanted a harpist, a woman dressed elegantly with long flowing hair over one shoulder while she plays something achingly romantic.”
“Hold that thought, Miriam.” I grabbed my phone, hoping that the vibration was my father calling back.
“Mrs. Parson, this is Mary Stone, the principal at Whitherspoon Academy.”
I faced the large mantel in the large but intimate ballroom of the hotel. “Yes?”
“I have Mya in my office. There was an incident between her and a couple of other girls here at the school.”
I faced the happy couple. “Miriam, I have to go. There is an emergency at Mya’s school.”
I had only been in the Whitherspoon main office twice—once to ask for the golden key of entrance, and once to write out a fat check for enrollment. “What happened?” I was standing in front of the reception desk where Principal Stone’s office door was open. I could see Mya’s little legs sitting in a chair off to the side.
The receptionist waved me inside.
Principal Stone was on the phone, looked up and said a few more words before hanging up. I had a full view of Mya now, disheveled. She rushed to my side. “Mommy.” She sniffed. “I want to go home.” A shiny pearl of skin showed through her scalp. I pushed it gently side to side. To my horror I found an even bigger spot with red specks where the roots had been ripped.
“Mya was in an altercation with two of our second-grade girls.”
“Altercation? This is an assault, the kind where someone should be in handcuffs. I don’t care how old they are.” I swallowed and fought hard not to get loud. “Who did this?”
“The other girls are in Vice Principal Garret’s office, awaiting their parents. This sort of thing has never happened at our school before. In this unusual circumstance, I’m trying to keep everyone separate. Parents especially.”
“Queenie said Daddy was bad,” Mya said.
Goose bumps rose on my arms. “Queenie … ?”
“She had a picture of Daddy naked and showed everybody. She called me bad names, so I called her bad names right back,” Mya announced in between sniffs. “They said I thought I was important. She said no one liked me and Daddy was going to divort us.”
“Divort … divorce? Oh, sweetie.” I picked her up, which was almost impossible these days. She was long and gangly. Her feet banged against my knees while I adjusted her on my hip. “Everything’s going to be all right. Nobody’s getting a divorce.”
“Now I’m ugly, Mommy.”
Principal Stone stood up and handed me a tissue. So much for my attempt at keeping my emotions under control. This morning I’d watched Mya walk into the large oak entrance of Whitherspoon Academy, happy and excited. She’d been proud of her cascading waves. After last night getting it wet, she’d slept with braids. When I undid them, it was too pretty to pull back. I couldn’t resist letting her feel free and beautiful. If not now, when? It ended so quickly. This much I remembered—growing up, suddenly not liking anything about yourself. Body, hair, freckles, nose, feet. Head to toe, an endless list of flaws. Not until we were near forty, reclaiming ourselves on our own terms, did the self-doubt subside. But did it ever go away? And what a waste of all those years in between.
“I want to talk to Queenie. I know her, and her mother. This picture she’s talking about, where is it?”
Principal Stone’s hand shook when she lifted the wrangled piece of paper from her desk. Obviously taped back together for evidence.
Through my tear-stained eyes, the grainy printout was hard to see at first. When my focus came, I saw Jake in a bed, arms spread on the back of his head. A sheet barely covered the essentials, leaving his bare chest and narrow waist as the m
ain attraction. I read the printout at the bottom out loud. “Looks like the True Beauty star gets his beauty sleep.”
My hand shook more than Principal Stone’s when I folded it and tucked it into my purse.
“I’m sorry, but I’m going to need that to show the other girls’ parents. This is a big offense. There may be suspensions involved.”
“Suspensions. I’m not bringing my daughter back into this school until Queenie Lawson and the other girl are removed.” I had no choice but to set Mya down. Her weight, along with the heaviness in my heart, was too much to bear. “Expelled. Not a two- or three-day vacation.” I licked back the tears and fought hard to keep it together. The one tissue she’d given me was already soaked and tattered.
She stood up and handed me another. “Mrs. Parson, girls have altercations. I admit one of this magnitude is unusual, but I’m sure by next week the girls will forget it ever happened. Usually the parents are the ones who overreact.”
“I bet if the hair was ripped from your head, you’d have something to react about—what do you think?” I wiped my nose, dried my tears, and took Mya’s hand. “Either they’re out of this school or you can expect to hear from my lawyer.” With Mya in tow, I stomped out through the grand foyer and down the manicured cobblestone path, fuming.
I didn’t have a lawyer. I was hoping the mere threat was enough. Having to enter a courtroom for any reason ever again in my life made me queasy. Between the custody case for Mya, and my own minor brush with the law, nothing had ever gone in my favor under the roof of justice.
“Venus, yoo-hoo?” Paige called out. I spun around to see her swinging her solid hips toward me. “Venus, I’m so sorry about the mishap. Mya, sweetie, are you all right?” She bent slightly and gave a soft pat on Mya’s head. Mya let out a soft yelp from the stinging contact.
“Mishap? Your daughter and her friend attacked Mya. She’s not all right.”
She put her hands to her face and gave an oh-my expression. “I’m only just hearing about this. Believe me, LaQueena will be punished, if she’s in the wrong.”
“She showed Mya a picture off the Internet. Guess you don’t know anything about that either?”
“I certainly do not.” Her eyes darted around to make sure there weren’t any witnesses to her lies. “I assure you, I had nothing to do with any pictures. I only showed you the first one out of concern. You know how kids are online—she could’ve gotten a picture of your husband anywhere.”
My eyes narrowed, letting her know she’d just been busted. “I never told you who or what was in the picture, Paige.”
“Principal Stone told me,” she recovered quickly.
“Yeah, right. Stay away from me. You keep your little wild daughter away from Mya.”
“Children fight, it’s not the end of the world.”
“Look at my baby’s head. Look at it.” I tried to be as gentle as possible, separating the hair where it was torn. “Let me know if Queenie has scratches, bruises, anything at all.” I tried to keep my voice from shaking. “For God’s sake, how could your child be so vicious?”
“You’re doing a lot of finger-pointing to not have any facts.”
“The only facts I need are what Mya told me, and what she told Principal Stone.”
The clouds began to pull together and thunder clattered overhead. Living in Georgia wasn’t like Los Angeles where I grew up. There, clouds rolled away as quickly as they came, leaving the desert by the sea continually starving for water, no matter how much the weatherman promised sweet relief from the dry air, it was only a threat.
Here, the threat was real. It would rain any minute and I knew Paige wasn’t about to let her freshly straightened coif get wet.
“I am going inside to get to the bottom of this.” She turned and started walking toward the entrance.
“Yeah, I bet.” I followed her a few steps and jumped in front of her. My finger was almost up her nose. “You know damn well you started this mess. Just admit it. You printed out that picture and filled your baby’s head with nonsense. And for what? I’ve never done anything to you. Why would you be so mean?”
She sputtered and insisted, “Honestly, you and your celebrity-chasing husband are not the topic of conversation in my home.”
“You see, that right there … celebrity-chasing husband. That’s what I’m talking about. You need to stop dreaming about me and my husband.”
Now it was she following me. I’d said my piece. The alarm twirped, unlocking the car only a few steps away. Her swinging hips made it around to the driver’s side after I’d strapped Mya in the backseat.
“My husband is an established executive with a big oil company. I’ll tell you this much, Jeremy would never have me driving this old raggedy car and working my fingers to the bone while he skips from party to party with another woman on his arm. Me and my child are well taken care of. Sorry I can’t say the same for you. Some of us can afford a visit to the hair salon once a week,” she added, hoping to throw a little more salt on my wounds.
I slammed my door, almost grazing her arm. “Obviously once a week isn’t enough.” I watched as the rain drizzled and flattened her bangs.
She was gunning up for a response but I beat her by stepping on the gas.
“Mommy, I’m not ever going to be Queenie’s friend again.” Mya offering solidarity. “She’s mean, like her mommy.”
“Sometimes we can’t help who we are, sweetie. We just can’t help it.”
And like my mother, I wouldn’t be made a fool of, at least not twice. Three times was actually my limit if we were counting from the beginning … okay, four. But I wasn’t counting from the beginning. I was starting from the day Sirena came into our lives pretending to be the good Samaritan.
“Who took this picture?” I pushed the printout in front of him. Jake had been reading a new script and was supposed to have it read before sundown. He finished the page he was on before directing his attention to the sheet of paper.
“Where’d you get this?” He looked genuinely confused, turning it side to side, as if the angle could’ve been better.
“Who took it, Jake, and when? That’s all I want to know.”
“Apparently, I was sleeping. So I don’t know.”
“Are you going to sit there and tell me Sirena didn’t take that picture?”
“No. I’m going to tell you the truth, which is, I don’t know who took it.”
“Well, I do. I do know who took it. And you know what, Mya just got the living daylights beat out of her over this. Defending Daddy’s honor.”
“Where’s Mya?”
“Upstairs with my mother.”
He rose from his chair. He didn’t waste another minute with my interrogation. The sound of his footsteps told me he was headed to Mya’s room. I picked up the script and read the note attached.
Jay, this part is perfect for you. We’re so perfect together.
Sirena XXOO
I tore the note off and balled it up, tossing it in the trash. I knew she’d taken the picture and leaked it for gossip or attention—interchangeable, if you asked me. Or worse, it was never her intention for it to get out. A private moment was no longer just between them. The thought made a lump swell in my throat.
I sat at Jake’s computer and went online. So many pictures of them together, you would’ve thought they were a real couple. And finally, an exclusive feature on Life ’N’ Style’s Web site with the pictures of Jake sprawled in sheets. The last one showing a pair of smooth cocoa-brown thighs straddled over his torso. I’d know those legs anywhere.
Guess he’d slept through that too.
How much was I expected to understand? All for the sake of his career.
The computer light glowed and pulsed, daring me to do something about it. I pushed the print button. When the clicking and gurgling was done, I neatly stacked all the images on Jake’s desk where he’d find them. I tore off a sticky and wrote: You look so peaceful. Wish I knew the feeling.
; Sitting there feeling sorry for myself, and for Mya, an innocent victim, I couldn’t even wrestle up a tear. I was too tired to cry. Numbness was a danger sign. A precursor to not giving a damn.
What I could feel was the tickling at my ankle. There was a creature crawling at my feet. I jumped and screamed. “Toby!” I reached down and picked up the new addition to the family. I’d forgotten about the new baby. His short tail moved briskly back and forth. “At least somebody is happy in this house.” I put him on top of the desk. He must’ve been afraid of heights. Toby let out a fast hard stream of wee-wee all over Jake’s script.
“Oh no, Toby.” I tried to shake off the puppy piss and the ink went with it. Even the pictures I’d just printed had black drip streaks. “What have you been drinking, Toby? A forty-ounce?”
I rushed off to get paper towels, then changed my mind. On second thought, I couldn’t care less about his script. I’d had it with the entire nightmare and it was time to wake up.
Vince was locking up when I arrived at In Bloom. I hadn’t seen him in so long without his wing woman, Trevelle, at his side I actually hugged him.
“Whoa, what’s going on? You all right?” He grabbed me by both shoulders to get a good look. “You’ve been crying.” He pushed the door back open and escorted me in. He flicked the lights on. The fresh air of living, breathing flowers always soothed me.
“I just came to get an arrangement. I’m fine, really.”
“An arrangement?” He followed me to the back. There was a challenged bouquet with drooping petals. It was tempting, but I knew dead roses would never get me past the front door at Sirena’s house. She had bodyguards, assistants, and a maid or two.
“These will do perfectly.” I grabbed the blue glass vase with a modest white peony bouquet. Understated, yet classy. Far more than the jezebel deserved.
“That’s supposed to go out in the morning,” Vince said with an authoritative tone. One that also said, “You need to find another choice.”
“I really need to take this one. Don’t we have more peonies?”
Un-Nappily in Love Page 15