“Lana, no matter what you tell yourself, you can’t feel good after doing something like that. Those guys are never going to respect you.”
Lana’s eyes opened wide at first, and then she smirked. “Ms. Weslee, Ms. Perfect,” she said in her cattiest, most condescending tone. “You want respect, do you? Well, go ahead and hold out for as long as you want and just hope and pray that my cousin will give you a ring. I just hope you have a lot of patience.”
“I’m not holding out so I can get a ring from Duncan.” Weslee was trying to keep her cool. “I’ve just decided that I’m not any man’s plaything. I don’t sleep with any man I don’t love.”
“And that’s your problem. You don’t sleep with any man you don’t love. You don’t drink; you don’t smoke. You’re always at church now. You’re always putting your hand up in class. You’re always kissing the professor’s behind. You want to mentor inner-city kids, you’re Little Ms. Marathon Runner. Do you see what you are? You’re a caricature. No matter what you do, you’re never going to be perfect. You’re almost thirty years old, and you don’t know that yet? Don’t try to lecture me. You wish you could be me. You need to start living in the real world.”
Weslee stalked off to her room and slammed the door.
I don’t have to take this from this spoiled, bratty witch, she thought and then immediately asked God to forgive her for calling Lana a witch.
She paced the floor, seething. Here she is sitting on my couch, calling me names all snide and nasty. I’m gonna tell her off, she thought, feeling herself lose it.
She flung the bedroom door open. Lana was just about to leave.
“Listen, you have no right to talk to me like that. You’re a self-destructive person, and you’ve managed to alienate every single person in our class in less than a year. You have no friends left. I’m the only person who’ll still talk to you.”
“The only person who’ll still talk to me?” Lana’s voice was brittle with hate, and her face contorted. She lowered her voice to a contemptuous whisper. “Who do you think you are, Weslee? Everything you’ve done, every place you’ve been, every person you’ve met is because of me. It’s because you’ve attached yourself to me like a little puppy just itching to leech off my friends, my family, and my lifestyle. If it weren’t for me, you’d be stuck in this dingy little hole every night, saying your prayers and studying. So don’t tell me about self-destructive. You’re no better than I am. You’re not even in my league. You’re just a little nobody who thinks dating my cousin is your ticket to the big time.” Lana smiled and flipped her hair. “You really think Duncan gives a damn about your Jamaican ass?” She picked up her purse and walked toward the door. “You’ll find out. You’re so off his radar, so out of your league!” She smiled her contemptuous smile again, flipped her hair again, and walked out, leaving the door open. “Don’t forget who you are, Weslee. No one does.”
Weslee’s mouth was open. She was dumbfounded, shaking with rage and humiliation as she stared at the open door. She hadn’t expected those words to come out of Lana’s mouth.
Is this what she’s thought of me all this time? I thought we were friends.
Weslee felt the tears coming. She was so angry. A part of her wanted to run after Lana and shove her down the elevator shaft. Another part of her just wanted to cry.
How could Lana say those things? All this time, she thought I was trying to leech off her and her friends, join their circle and become one of them? I don’t even like those people, she thought.
She called Duncan at his office, but he was too busy to talk. So she called Sherry.
“I’m so hurt, Sherry. Why would she be friends with me if that’s what she thought of me the whole time?”
“Wes, don’t take it personally. From what you tell me, this girl is in pain. People who do the things she does are hurting. It’s not your problem; it’s her problem. Listen, you’re not the one out there sleeping around and going to class with alcohol on your breath, are you? All you can do is forgive her.”
“I can’t forgive her after those things she said, Sherry. I’m not that big of a person.”
“You have to find it in yourself once you calm down. You have to tell yourself that it wasn’t her saying those things. It was something inside of her, the same thing that makes her want to destroy herself with alcohol and dangerous sex. You can be angry, but you can’t hold a grudge. It will hurt you as much as it hurts her, probably more.”
“I don’t know, Sherry. I need to think about this.”
“You do that, then. And remember, you have the responsibility to be the bigger person.”
Weslee was counting down the days until Christmas break. She couldn’t wait to just go home and be around family. The last few months already seemed like years, and she was so glad they were over. At least once she returned to Boston in January, things would be different. Different better. Duncan would be finished with this Jackson case. Lana was officially out of her life. Since the big blowup, she had not heard from her nor tried to contact her.
She tried to talk to Duncan about Lana, but he laughed it off again. He just couldn’t care less that it was something that bothered her and she needed him to listen.
“You girls, uh, sorry, women,” he had said while he got dressed. “You’re always arguing and making up. She’ll call and apologize, then you guys will go shopping and everything will be OK.” He kissed her on the lips and left for work.
“Thanks for being so sensitive about this,” she had yelled sarcastically down the hall at him. But he just laughed.
Weslee imagined that she couldn’t avoid Lana this week. It was finals week; she would definitely have to face her.
She sighed as she walked into the School of Management building.
She took the elevator to the fifth-floor auditorium. She had studied hard and wasn’t in the least bit worried about the Financial Management exam. That was her strong point anyway. Numbers had always been her thing.
She walked into the room and saw that Lana was already there. She was holding court with at least half of the fifty students or so who were in the room.
“Yes, it’s going to be the most fabulous Christmas party in history.” She laughed, drawing laughter from her subjects, too.
Weslee sat at the other end of the room, but she noticed that Lana was looking at her.
“That’s right, everybody is invited.”
Weslee rolled her eyes. Last thing in the world she wanted right now was to be invited to one of Lana’s parties. She opened her textbook and looked at the pages—not reading, just feigning disinterest in Lana’s little performance. Weslee couldn’t have been happier when the proctor walked into the room with the tests in hand.
She took the test, relieved that it was not as difficult as she had feared. She was the third to finish. She could feel Lana giving her dagger looks as she walked out of the exam room.
Conflict was not something that Weslee dealt with well. Even as a child, she avoided it by agreeing to do things that she didn’t want to, just to avoid a fight. She washed dishes when it was Terry’s turn. In elementary school, she sometimes took the blame for things other pupils had done; it was easier than having to defend herself. She had never had a physical fight. She barely ever raised her voice. Anger terrified her—hers and other people’s. Therefore this conflict with Lana upset her in a way that she couldn’t articulate to herself. She wanted the anger and the shame that she felt at hearing Lana’s words to just go away, disappear. So she did her best to forget them. But she couldn’t.
That night she tried to talk to Duncan about what was going through her head.
“I thought you were going to stay at your place tonight,” Weslee said as he threw his computer bag onto the couch. She was happy that he had decided to come to her place. She needed the comfort. But there would be none of that.
“Don’t say anything. I have a headache.” He frowned and rubbed his temples.
She went to pour him a gla
ss of the wine he had brought over from his apartment. He always kept his own wine at her apartment since she was not a wine connoisseur. Matter of fact, she didn’t know anything about wine except that it made her sleepy. Duncan, however, had tried to teach her. But his lessons had never made much impact and she was perfectly happy with her ignorance. It just wasn’t in her to care that there were some really good 1996 vintages coming out of Australia.
He slumped on the couch as she handed him the glass.
“What’s wrong?” she finally asked.
“I have to go to London for the holidays.”
This was bad news. Well, at least now she was certain that she should not ask him to come home to Chicago with her.
“Christmas?”
“Yeah. This Jackson case is getting out of hand. That guy is a nut. If someone’s not there to hold his hand, he’s going to end up in jail.” He sounded dejected.
“I’m sorry, honey. What are your parents going to say?”
“Well, they’ll understand. It’s work, you know. Actually, my dad will probably be proud of me.” He sighed and pulled off his tie.
She tried to stifle a sigh. She had had it all pictured in her mind, their Christmas together. She had bought three of those Peroli ties that he loved so much. They had cost her a small fortune, but he was well worth it. Now he wouldn’t even be here. She looked around at her apartment that she had decorated with Christmas lights. It depressed her. Why was he—no, his work—ruining everything?
Weslee found it hard to understand Duncan’s problems with his family. In her eyes, he worked very hard and was very accomplished. But from what he had told her, nothing he ever did was good enough for his parents. His older brothers had all been Rhodes scholars. One of them had already bought and sold three companies and at age forty was retired with a wife and five kids in La Jolla, California. Another brother worked with Doctors Without Borders and was in a different African country every week healing the sick. At thirty-one, Duncan felt immense pressure to measure up to his parents’ expectations. Just being a lawyer at a good law firm didn’t quite cut it. Anybody could do that.
So he pushed himself, working long hours hoping at least to make partner before turning thirty-five. Weslee tried to be understanding about his long hours. She had stopped asking him why he didn’t just forget about measuring up to his parents’ expectations and just do what made him happy. She would never understand. He had made that clear to her more than once.
Chapter 17
Normally, Chicago’s O’Hare Airport is one of the worst places on earth. But during the holiday season Weslee thought it the single worst place to be in the universe. Well, maybe except in a hospital bed with some terminal illness, or stuck on I-94 in a snowstorm on the way to O’Hare. But still, the people, the people, the people: all kinds, all shapes and colors, all in a hurry, all in a foul mood. It is the one place where she found it totally acceptable . . . especially in the spirit of the holidays, to hate every other miserable, impatient, tired traveler for being just like you.
People sat tensely at departure gates waiting for boarding to begin. Others milled around, gorging themselves on half-frozen sandwiches and Starbucks coffee drinks: waiting, waiting. Aargh! When will this end, she thought.
Weslee glanced up again at the Departure board and prayed for her flight back to Boston to be cancelled. There was no way she wanted to fly in this snow. No way at all.
Yet, she didn’t want to stay in Chicago, either. Celebrating Christmas with the family had been great, but she missed Duncan. He had said he missed her, too, when he had called her from London. He was flying home to Boston tomorrow, and they were heading up to Killington, Vermont, for New Year’s Eve weekend. She couldn’t wait to see him, though she could wait out this snowstorm.
The need to be with Duncan was overwhelming after being cooped up in the freezing, icy Chicago weather the last week. She had been so excited when he called from London that she made him talk to both her parents on the phone. She could tell that he was embarrassed, but it didn’t matter to her. She hoped he would be meeting them soon enough anyway. Weslee tried not to let her feelings get away from her. But why would he go through all this trouble if he wasn’t thinking of going all the way with her?
He does love me, she thought. And I know I want to spend the rest of my life with him.
She looked up at the Departure board again and then glanced at the overhead TV in the gate waiting area. It was snowing from Chicago all the way to Cape Cod, and it was going to keep on snowing for the rest of the day. She said a prayer. I need to get over this fear of flying, she told herself.
She looked around the crowded gate area. This flight is going to be mobbed, she thought. There were at least two babies crying already. She wished she could afford a first-class upgrade.
Her cell phone rang.
“Hey, Mom.”
Her mother was worried about her flying in the snowy weather.
Thanks, Mom for making this even easier, she thought.
“No, it’s gonna be fine,” she said, trying to sound confident for her mother’s sake. “They won’t send a plane out if they know it’s dangerous. Come on, Mom. I’ll be fine. You’re making me nervous.”
After a few minutes of going back and forth, Weslee finally got off the phone.
A half hour later, she was in the air and feeling better about the flight. She had brought a book: Loving the Person You Want Him to Love. She couldn’t put it down. She was learning so much from it. She knew she had to take a real honest look at who she was before she could expect to find true happiness with her man. That she had to really love and value the person inside of her before she could commit herself to spending her life with someone else. She was so ready, she thought.
An hour into the flight she fell asleep.
The flight attendant nudged her awake to straighten her seat back. They were landing. She was so woozy from her nap that she forgot to be afraid as the plane floated smoothly toward the ground. She looked out the window. It was clear, just a few flurries on the ground.
Weathermen. She rolled her eyes.
She straightened herself up, and ten eventless minutes later they were on the ground. Nice and smooth, not even a bump.
I’m such an idiot, she thought. I was worried over nothing. Again.
She had been homesick for her apartment, she realized as she arrived home. She walked through the tiny rooms: the kitchen, living room, bathroom, and bedroom. It occurred to her then: I’m over Michael.
She let out a scream. She hadn’t even thought of him once in the last few days. Yes, going back to Chicago had stirred some memories. But they didn’t hurt. They didn’t paralyze her. She was finally over it.
The message light was blinking on her phone. It must be Duncan telling me his flight information, she thought. She ran to the phone and pressed the button.
“Hey, babe, it’s me. I’ve got bad news. I can’t get away for our trip. I know you’re going to be upset. I’m upset, too. This guy is working me to death over here. It’s either leave for a few days and go right back or stay and finish this and be home in a week. I promise you I’ll make it up to you. I love you.”
Her heart sank. She had told everyone. She had even told herself that this could be the beginning of the next phase of their relationship—where he could begin to see her as his future wife. She wanted to die. She had his number at the hotel, but he was hardly ever there when she called. She’d just have to wait till he called her back.
All the anticipation she had felt just melted. She looked around, and her apartment had never looked so dreary. Everything from the couch to the coffee table looked lonely and drab. It was only four P.M., but it was already dark outside. The streets were deserted. With most of the students gone home, Commonwealth Avenue was like a ghost town.
“What am I going to do with myself for New Year’s Eve!” she wailed to the empty apartment. Mom was right. I should have just stayed home.
She d
idn’t want to think about how angry she was at Duncan and how tired she was of his trips to London. She knew she had to get used to it. He was good at what he did; that’s why they gave him all the difficult clients.
The phone rang and she jumped, grabbing it before the first ring ended.
“Hello,” she said breathlessly. He had changed his mind.
“Hey, sister Weslee, how was your Christmas?”
Sherry.
“Oh, hey, Sherry.”
“What’s wrong girl? It’s two days before a brand-new year, and you’re down in the dumps again?”
Weslee sighed. “It’s Duncan. He’s stuck in London and he can’t make our weekend trip to Killington.”
“You were going to Vermont with him this weekend?”
Shoot, Weslee thought. Premarital sex was like smoking crack or first-degree murder in Sherry’s book—that would be the Bible.
“Girl, I thought you said you wanted to marry this man.”
“Sherry, you don’t understand. What we have is more than that. He’s not with me because of sex.”
“How would you know?”
Weslee decided not to answer that question. She just let the silence build on the other line. Sherry was getting pretty close to crossing the line with her. Her love life was none of Sherry’s business.
Sherry broke the silence. “Anyway, I called for a reason. It’s funny that you two were going to Killington for the weekend, because our singles group at church is going there on Saturday. Wanna come?”
Weslee thought for a minute. She had heard much about the singles group. She wasn’t sure if she could take twenty or thirty Sherry clones, male or female, for a whole day. “Umm. I don’t know.”
“We’re having a New Year’s Eve party that night. No booze, but good gospel music, poetry, and even dancing.”
“Sherry, I really don’t know. I’m really upset over this Duncan thing, so I’ll have to get back to you.”
“OK, girl, I understand. I’m gonna put your name down just in case. You just let me know. And I’m praying for you, OK?”
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