Then his cell phone rang. He looked at the display screen and turned off the phone.
“You can take it, I don’t mind.”
“Nah, it’s not important.”
“You sure?”
“I said it’s not important,” Duncan blurted testily.
Weslee didn’t say anything. This had happened before. They would be together and his phone would ring and he would just go off into a world of his own, and there was nothing she could do to bring him back. Now the mood at the table had suddenly changed. He grew silent and ate moodily. The first time it happened she had tried to coax him out of it, he had raised his voice to her, telling her to let it be. So she wouldn’t try this time. She’d just ride it out. She ate silently, too.
She put the dishes away but kept one eye on him. He went straight for her computer. She noticed that he pulled up his Hotmail account and began to type furiously. Must be work-related, she thought. The only thing that got him all tied up in knots was work. She decided to stay out of his way until his mood passed.
Chapter 14
Calypso music played softly under the chatter of the Sunday night diners at Rhythm & Spice restaurant in Cambridge. The restaurant was one of a tiny handful of real Caribbean eateries in the city. It drew a diverse crowd ranging from MIT professors to local fly girls and boys hoping to grind to the beat of reggae late into the night after a healthy helping of redfish and rice and beans or spicy jerk chicken.
Weslee and Sherry sipped ginger ale and caught up with each other about their past weeks as they waited for Lana to arrive.
“I can’t wait for you to meet her,” Weslee said, looking at the entrance of the dimly lit restaurant. As usual, Lana was running at least twenty minutes behind.
Sherry looked at her watch. “Well, if the waitress comes back one more time, I’m ordering.”
Weslee rolled her eyes. “She’ll be here.”
And there she was.
“Weslee, sweetie, I’m so sorry I’m late.” Lana swiftly removed her expensive-looking tan leather jacket and took the empty seat next to Weslee. She held out her hand to Sherry. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
Sherry smiled and extended her hand.
“Well, this place is different,” Lana said, looking around the restaurant. “I don’t think I’ve ever been to a Caribbean restaurant before. Well, not in the States anyway. I mean, I’ve been to restaurants in the Caribbean.” She laughed nervously and looked at Sherry even more nervously. Sherry had stopped smiling.
Weslee couldn’t put her finger on it, but something very strange was going on between Lana and Sherry.
To Weslee’s relief, the waitress came.
“What do you suggest, Sherry?” Lana asked a little too politely and maybe a bit condescendingly.
Sherry took a deep breath. “Hon, the menu’s in English.”
Lana cleared her throat loudly, and Weslee could see a quick glint of anger flash across her eyes.
“Well, I’m going to get the jerk chicken.” Weslee tried to sound as normal as possible, as if the tension at the table wasn’t so thick it threatened to suck up all the air in the restaurant.
“I think . . . I’ll just go for the rice and beans and vegetables,” Sherry said.
“Are you a vegetarian?” Lana asked, forcing a smile, after she had ordered the jerk chicken.
“No, I just don’t eat a lot of meat.” Sherry was still not being her usual friendly self.
“Oh, that’s right, you’re a health-nut runner, too, just like Weslee. By the way, I just love your accent.”
Sherry tensed, and Weslee raced to do triage. “I told Lana how we were just dying in that Bay State race, girl.” Weslee laughed, but it didn’t sound real.
There was no stopping Sherry. “My accent? I was just about to comment on yours. I really can’t place it at all.”
“Oh, really?” Lana layered on the honey with a twist of sarcasm. “Well, I was born in Massachusetts—on the Vineyard, actually. But I was raised in Rye, New York. I have a lot of family who’ve lived in Boston all their lives, though.”
Sherry nodded.
“What about you? You’re from Jamaica, right?”
“Mmm-hmmm.” Sherry sipped her water.
“When did you come to this country?”
“My parents came when I was eight.”
“Oh, what do they do?”
“My mother was a nurses’ assistant; she passed a couple of years ago. My father’s an orderly at Mass. General.”
“Oh.” It was Lana’s turn to sip her water and avert her eyes.
“What do your folks do?”
“Um, my mother doesn’t really work. She has these groups that she does things with. You know.”
Sherry raised her eyebrows. Of course, she knew. “My father’s retired from his family’s business.” Sherry nodded.
“So, what’s it like working for the newspaper?” Lana’s forced interest was almost palpable.
“It’s OK. It’s a job just like any other.”
“Your parents must be so proud of you. You know, the fact that you did so well for a first-generation immigrant.. . .”
Sherry cleared her throat so loudly that diners at the adjacent table glanced over.
Weslee winced. This was not going well. It was as if Sherry and Lana were locked in a boxing ring, circling each other, waiting for each other to say the wrong thing. Sherry especially.
Lana took the hint and sipped her water.
“So, what do you plan to do after business school?” Sherry asked.
“I don’t know yet. Maybe travel. Maybe go on vacation to Jamaica.” Lana laughed.
“It must be nice to have those options.”
“Well, you’re not doing too badly yourself. You’re working for one of the best newspapers in the country. How did you end up there? Where did you go to college?”
Sherry cocked her head to the side.
Weslee looked at Sherry desperately. Please don’t go off on her, her eyes begged.
“I went to Wellesley College; I got my master’s at BU.”
“Oh, I have a lot of friends who went to Wellesley,” Lana said brightly.
“I’m sure you do.” Sherry looked around the restaurant. For the waiter? The exit? A weapon?
“Do you know Peony Smalls?”
Sherry yawned rudely. “I knew of her. Listen, I don’t think I have anything much in common with any of the people you knew, OK?”
“Well, excuse me. I was just trying to make conversation.” Lana sounded genuinely hurt.
“That’s OK. Let’s just talk about something else.” Sherry tapped her forefinger on the table and leaned back in her chair.
Weslee struggled to find something to say that would break the iceberg that was quickly solidifying at the table.
Too late.
“What is your problem?” Lana tried in vain to get Sherry to meet her eyes.
“My problem? What’s the deal with you asking me to recite my resume for you? And then assuming my family’s a bunch of poor immigrants when you don’t even know me.” Sherry made no attempt to conceal her anger.
Weslee could see that Lana was taken aback.
“I didn’t mean . . . I was just trying to make conversation.”
“Conversation?” Sherry laughed derisively. “That’s how you make conversation? How about seen any interesting movies lately? Or maybe nice weather we’re having. That’s making conversation!”
Lana shook her head and laughed uneasily. “I’m having a hard time understanding where this attitude is coming from. Don’t take your issues out on me.”
Weslee couldn’t take it any longer. “You guys,” she moaned.
They ignored her.
“My attitude is coming from your being late, not calling to let us know whether or not you would be here, and talking down to me. That’s the beginning of where my attitude is coming from!” Sherry said, and other diners again looked over at their table.
&nb
sp; “You guys, please.”
“Sweetheart,” Lana said, her voice laced with bile, “you need to stop being so sensitive, I’m not . . .”
“OK, that’s it.” Sherry stood up. She started to put on her coat.
“Sherry, what are you doing?” Weslee pleaded, standing herself.
“I’m not sitting here with this silly girl. I have better things to do with my time. I’ll call you later.”
Weslee stood with her mouth open as Sherry picked up her pocketbook and walked out of the restaurant. She almost bumped into the waitress, who was bringing their food.
Weslee turned to look at Lana, who sat at the table looking unperturbed.
Weslee sat down, at a loss for words.
“No offense, Wes, but this is why I do not hang out with foreigners. They come here to this country and they act like you have to treat them special.” Lana shook her head.
“Where’s your other diner?” the waitress asked in a Haitian Creole-influenced accent.
“She had to leave. Could you wrap up her food please?” Weslee decided she’d stop by Sherry’s on the way home. She couldn’t decide what to say to Lana, who was digging into her food with gusto, as if nothing had happened. “What was it about her that made you act like that?” Weslee asked finally.
“Act like what? She started it. Don’t you start with me, too.”
“Well, it just seemed that you were being fake and patronizing.” Weslee tried to be as gentle as she could.
“Honey, I’m always fake and patronizing, aren’t I?” Lana didn’t look up from her food.
Weslee didn’t know what to say.
They ate in silence. She was relieved when the check came.
“I think I’ll take a cab home,” Weslee said at the end of the meal.
She didn’t go home. She told the driver Sherry’s address.
“I don’t know what came over her,” Weslee said a few minutes later at Sherry’s house. “She can be difficult, but it’s never this bad. I’m really sorry.”
Sherry shook her head as she devoured her rice and beans and vegetables at the table in her spacious kitchen.
“You yourself have said that this girl can be rude and selfish, Weslee. Don’t apologize for her behavior.”
“I wish you would have tried harder . . .”
“I wish I did, too. I know God wasn’t pleased with me tonight,” Sherry said, shrugging. “But girls like her just make me ill.”
“But how could you just lump her in with other people? You only know what I’ve told you about her. If you got to know her . . .”
“Trust me, Weslee. I know her. I went to a high school where I was one of five black kids. The other four were all like her—striving, snobby, showy, and materialistic. I fit in with the white kids more than I fit in with them. Besides, they always made a point of reminding me that I wasn’t really black since I was West Indian. Even at Wellesley, it was the same thing. One girl told me to my face that people like me—people of African descent from other countries—were stealing from African-Americans because we were just coasting by on the benefits of the civil rights movement that they had worked hard for.” Sherry laughed bitterly but didn’t look up from her plate.
“But Lana’s not like that,” Weslee pleaded. “She knows my folks are from the Islands, and that’s hardly ever come up.”
“She is like that, Wes. I’m sorry; she is. They all are. And you know it, too. That’s why you’re always apologizing for her. It’s OK that she’s your friend. But I can’t hang out with her. It’s not just the ethnic thing. I really don’t like her personality. And frankly, I don’t know why you put up with it.”
Weslee sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“No need to be sorry. You were just trying to be nice, get everyone together. In principle, it was a great idea.”
Weslee sat next to Sherry, concentrating on the carvings on the mahogany dining room table. The words echoed in her head: I don’t know why you put up with it. But it wasn’t that simple. Lana had brought something out in her that she hadn’t known existed. When she lay in bed at night, she couldn’t wait for the next day to wear another fabulous outfit, another pair of buttery-soft shoes to touch and smell, to sleep on fine linen, to live her life in a plush cocoon of seventy-five-dollar moisturizers and forty-dollar lipsticks. Lana had shown her that. How to love herself in a new way, with no shame or regret. Sure, it was nice to just let her hair down and kick back in her Nikes with Sherry, but there was the other side, too, that needed those nice things. She couldn’t just give up one for the other.
Chapter 15
An otherwise balmy November in Massachusetts was failing to keep up the act. The weather had reverted back to its true colors: gray and ugly. The city of Boston didn’t take it well. Every so often people allowed themselves to be fooled by the occasional temperature spikes, and they would mock Mother Nature with their shorts and flip-flops and impromptu games of Frisbee by the Charles River. But then reality would return in full force and they would be just shocked. Shocked. How could it be this cold and snowy? In November!
So the snow came down quickly in big, fat, wet, sticky flakes. They pelted pedestrians fleeing to stores, bus-stop shelters, and subway stations. They stuck to icy sidewalks and forced drivers to turn on windshield wipers to furious speeds to get a better view of the traffic ahead crawling out of the city that Friday afternoon.
Duncan had rented a BMW X5 for their long journey out to the Berkshires, and he was still getting used to the car. “I miss my Z,” he kept saying.
“You’re such a baby when it comes to that car,” Weslee teased. “Do you want me to drive?”
“You? Drive? I want to get there before the New Year.”
“Very funny, Duncan. Remember I’m from Chicago. This weather is a picnic for me.”
They had tried to beat rush-hour traffic, but then so had everyone else. It would be a slow crawl for the next fifty or so miles. Weslee didn’t mind, though. She felt warm and safe in the car with Duncan. She sipped her Starbucks Venti decaf and listened to the weather report on the radio. Ten inches of snow were expected in Boston by tomorrow, double that for Western Massachusetts. Once they got there, she knew it would be perfect.
Three-and-a-half hours later they walked into the Williams Inn. The lobby was quiet except for the staff. The smell of New England clam chowder from the lobby restaurant mixed with the aroma of pine from the huge trees around the inn. A fireplace blazed in a corner. Huge glass windows showed the quaint, snow-covered town buildings and parts of gothic Williams College. It was a storybook New England setting, and Weslee had never seen anything so romantic. She took off the shearling coat that had cost her way, way too much as Duncan checked in at the desk.
They got on the elevator with an elderly couple. The woman eyed Duncan’s arm wrapped around Weslee’s waist. “Are you newlyweds?” she asked, smiling.
Weslee was embarrassed. Didn’t the woman notice that there was no ring on her finger? She hid her left hand just in case the elderly woman chanced a closer look. She didn’t want those words, unrealistic as they were, to be taken away from her.
“Not yet,” said Duncan, ever the skillful charmer, tightening his arm around Weslee’s waist. Her heart leapt at those words. Was he implying something? It’s what she had been dreaming of every day for weeks. This “not yet” told her all she needed to know. They were thinking the same thing! I’m not crazy, she smiled to herself. He’s feeling the same thing, too. Oh my goodness! My life is going to be so perfect with this man!
Later at dinner she thanked him for protecting her honor. “How do you know that’s what I was doing? I could have meant what I said,” he replied.
“Duncan, don’t say those things, OK? They make me want . . .” She didn’t want to say it for fear of jinxing it.
“Want what?”
“Never mind.” She wasn’t ready to say what was on her mind.
“Weslee, I think I love you. I know what you’re trying to
say, that it’s too soon. But I can’t help the way I feel about you. I want what you want, too. I want us to be together. All the time.”
Weslee felt her eyes welling up. How could he just know what she was thinking all the time? “Duncan, I’ve dreamed of hearing you say those words. I love you. You’re what I’ve always wanted.”
She’d planned the whole episode, down to the garter belt she would wear. It would be slow, romantic, and tender; she’d even brought a few scented candles that would set the mood. But no sooner had they walked out of the restaurant than his lips were on her neck, then her ears, then her lips. She felt his hands on her thighs in the elevator up to their room. They’d barely made it inside, and her dress was halfway down her shoulders. “Baby, wait,” she protested. “Can’t,” he mumbled as they stumbled into the room. She could barely think as his lips moved down her body, lingering on her stomach and then below her waist. It was as if she’d entered another dimension, one that claimed all her inhibitions and common sense. She’d never made love that way and not felt ashamed before. With Duncan, she’d felt free to do and say those things she’d only fantasized about in her deepest, darkest dreams. He wanted her to be loud and vulgar, to be aggressive, to not be the perfect lady. It was scary and exciting at the same time. The thought of protection only came to mind long after her third orgasm, and by then it was too late. But she wouldn’t give it too much thought. She was on a cloud.
Late into the night she was still awake listening to his light snoring and counting his heartbeats every minute. This was finally it. This would be the man with whom she would spend the rest of her nights. She felt complete, that something that had long been missing in her had finally been found.
The sun woke her up the next morning. It glinted off the covering of snow on the ground outside and shone in slits through the heavy burgundy floor-to-ceiling damask drapes. It was already nine-thirty.
As she brushed her teeth, she decided she would get room service. The phone rang before she could pick it up to dial.
“Hello, Susan?” a male voice said on the other end.
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