Dyanne hung her head. They didn’t, she thought, knowing they had. She’d told everyone that they could still handle the department and contact her online if needed during her vacation, but the one thing they shouldn’t try to deal with was Fallon Gray.
“Uh-huh. They did, girl. I can see what you’re thinking all over your face. Anyway, this little white girl called me—Heather or something—and she was talking just as crazy as you please.
“Sweet thing, just confused. Real confused. Talking about how I wasn’t doing the historically black college tour or signing at the Essence bookstores and they were cutting back and when would I be available to rethink my brand—”
The room started to spin. If Dyanne had been pregnant, she definitely would have had to lie down. This was beyond crazy. She tried to think, to remember where she’d put her phone, but Neal was on top of it, shoving her new PDA into her hands. She tapped away, thumbs flying while Fallon continued.
“So you know me, baby. I called Steve.”
The tapping stopped. Steve Chaise, publisher and CEO of Wallace Shelton Books, did not take phone calls. He took messages. Fallon Gray did not leave messages. The only way out of that call was a conflict, the thing Dyanne dreaded most of all. She was known throughout the company as being one who smoothed things out. Now she’d be swirling in this mess for months.
Still, she knew better than to try and correct Fallon on making the call or the woman would whip out her phone and call Mr. Chaise again. Nobody but Fallon’s mama, now long dead, had ever succeeded in telling her what to do. The uncanny thing was that Fallon was usually right in the end. Still, this call thing couldn’t have gone well. Dyanne cleared her throat.
“And what did Mr.—Steve say?”
Fallon rubbed her head, front to back, back to front, just like Neal did when he woke in the morning. Without those earrings, she looked a lot like Mr. Jennings, a math teacher Dyanne had in third grade. What a mess. Yet somehow when Fallon opened her mouth, nobody noticed what she looked like. Neal, however, kept staring at the author’s head as if he was digging it or something. Men. They’re intrigued by anything different, but it won’t keep them. In the end, they wanted their women painfully the same.
Not that Fallon tried to keep a man. For all her flirting, Dr. Gray ran guys off after a month or two. She said after loving hard and true one good time, everything else was just something to do. Dyanne hated to admit it, but it was true.
“I don’t remember everything Steve and I said. We laughed a lot and made some plans for me to fly in for lunch with him after the tour—”
“Laughed?” In all her years of working for him, Dyanne had never seen Mr. Chaise laugh. The one smile she’d thought she’d seen had turned out to be indigestion. If there was ever a driven person, it was him. Before now, she would have thought he only would have laughed if some bestselling business book suggested it—one he’d published, of course.
“Girl, yeah. Steve is something else, old dog. If he wasn’t him and I wasn’t me, I swear I’d have me a piece of that man. He’s kind of fine in his way, don’t you think?”
Yuck. “I don’t think. Just cut to the chase. Am I fired?”
Fallon stretched and yawned. “Naw, Dee. Heather is. Poor thing. I tried to save her, but she got all snotty with Steve and well, you know the rest. As for us, we’re good to go with an added ten grand for the tour budget. That spot we did on Gospel Broadcasting last week has broken us into the inspirational sector. Evidently, the first print run is almost gone. He thinks you’re a genius and said to tell you so.”
It was Dyanne’s turn to sit down. The TV spot on Gospel Broadcasting Network had been a fluke more than anything. She was trying to build up her contacts in preparation for rolling out the Christian line and a friend of a friend of a friend from college had turned out to be the network director. Dyanne had been shocked to hear the woman’s voice on the line, since she’d been one of the students adamantly against “the white man’s religion” in college.
“Me, a Christian. Can you believe it? I tell everybody from back in the day that God has a sense of humor. He delights in turning big mouths like I was into believers,” the woman had said before offering a slot on an upcoming show on woman’s issues.
With no one else available at the time, she’d offered up Fallon Gray as a guest, thinking she’d be rejected, but her pseudo friend had been delighted. “Oooh, I love her! Though she doesn’t say it, everything she writes comes straight from the Word. I’d love to have her on and let her discuss her faith more openly.”
Dyanne had tried to explain that there might not be much faith to discuss, but Fallon had done the date and proved her wrong again. Not only had Fallon kept up with the host’s Bible references down to the chapter and verse, she’d ended the segment with an a cappella rendition of “His Eye is on the Sparrow” that had brought the house down, leaving even the cameraman in tears.
Though everyone who watched seemed to have been amazed, Dyanne was a little annoyed about the whole thing. While it was great for Fallon to get such attention, the media exposure meant nothing since it was outside of the brand Dyanne had worked so hard to create.
How many of the educated, professional women in Fallon’s reader base were up watching some Christian show out of the Midwest? Though she’d been glad for the favor from her old friend, she didn’t want to confuse or even offend the readers who kept Fallon on the bestseller lists. This kind of thing could be done, but it had to be planned strategically. Or so Dyanne had thought.
“Did you say that the first print run is almost sold out? But the book just came out what, a week ago.”
“Uh-huh. A hundred thousand copies so far, I think.” Fallon was up now and heading for the kitchen. Despite her girth, she ate only raw foods and walked several miles a day. She said it was all the nuts she ate that kept her fat and that no man she’d known had ever minded.
“Sexy is all in your mind,” Fallon always said in her books and speaking engagements. The women clapped, but like Dyanne, none of them really believed it. But looking at Fallon now, with no hair and only a little gold lipstick, Dyanne didn’t know what to think except that this woman who so often drove her crazy had a beauty that didn’t make sense.
Fallon pulled out a giant Vita-Mix blender from her bag and went straight for the spinach and mangoes she knew Neal kept on hand. That was how Fallon had first taken a liking to Neal. He had a mango in his cooler at a hot book signing in Dallas. Fallon had turned real slow to him and lifted her sunglasses at the sight of the fruit, saying, “Oh, I see, Dee Dee. You got you one of those sweet juicy brothers. Not every man can handle a mango, but I’ve never met a mango man I didn’t like.” And just like that, she’d made up her mind to like Neal as much she sometimes pretended to dislike Dyanne.
Fallon turned to the door to wave to Neal as he brought in her luggage before assessing the fruit. “I see you found a decent store out here in this wilderness. I was thinking there would be some good mango down here in Florida. It looks good, but this fruit ain’t tasting like much. We’re going to have to stock up in Miami.”
Dyanne took a breath. Miami was not on Fallon’s book tour schedule. In fact, the tour wasn’t even supposed to start for another month. She still wasn’t sure why Fallon was in her house, how she’d found it or how long she planned to stay—although the entire Louis Vuitton luggage collection Neal had just deposited in her living room gave her some idea. There was no point in trying to rush Fallon. If Dyanne were honest, she wasn’t sure she wanted to. As much as they fought, somewhere along the way, the two of them had become friends. They just knew better than to admit it.
“Anyway,” Fallon screamed over the whir of the blender creating the awful-looking green mango-spinach drink she loved above all else. “Steve and I got to talking about this Jesus thing and he was saying how sometimes he wondered about everything, too. You know, God and all?”
She stopped and lifted the lid of the Vita Mix, stirring things aro
und. “He’s getting old, you know. Even rich men start thinking about God when they realize they’re not Him. It’s always a shock, I think. Anyway, I told Steve about how Jesus brought me through when my husband took up with that girl and left me, how He helped me get through school and showed me how to write books to help folks…and he got real quiet. Sort of like you are right now.”
Dyanne was quiet. She loved Fallon, but the way she could just disarm herself and strip bare, unloading her life in front of strangers, or worse yet, people she knew, like Steve Chaise, made Dyanne crazy.
And yet, backstage at that Gospel Broadcasting set, Dyanne had found herself swaying into the curtains with teary eyes, feeling weak and emotional. She’d wondered then if she wasn’t already pregnant. It’d be an easier explanation than her show of feeling. She wondered if she’d ever be pregnant now. Fallon still had a bomb to drop, and Dyanne wasn’t sure that she’d be able to catch it this time.
Fallon reached up and got two goblets and poured some of her Green Mama as she called it into both glasses until they were half-full. Dyanne took a sip without a fight, knowing that it always tasted better than it looked. Besides, the last pregnancy book she’d read had said that nutrition six months before conception was as important, if not more, than nutrition during pregnancy. Maybe there was hope of a baby after all since she was still thinking about such things.
“Steve and I talked about it and we agreed that I should write an inspirational book. You know, what I normally do, but with Bible verses and my testimony. He has some big people lined up for the launch of the Christian line evidently and he wants this book—”
Dyanne managed to swallow. “What book?”
“The one I came here to write. Pay attention, girl. It has to be done by the end of the month and then we’re off on tour. Surprise! Now, where’s my bed?”
After clutching the counter, Dyanne tossed back her whole glass of green mush, swallowed hard and pointed upstairs. It was all she had the strength to do.
“It’s not so bad. It might even be fun having Fallon here,” Neal said the next evening while caressing Dyanne’s back. “Look at the upside, you’ll probably get a juicy bonus out of this and you didn’t even know what was going on.”
Dyanne sighed and lowered her voice to a whisper. “That’s just it. I still can’t believe this. Maybe you’re right. Maybe this vacation from work, this house, maybe it isn’t realistic. I’m gone less than a week and Heather, who I trained and felt totally comfortable with, almost loses the author that keeps my department’s lights on? Then the author calls the publisher and has a ‘chat’ with him? Do you know how that could have ended? Things are out of control.”
“Out of your control, you mean.” In the moonlight filtering through the window, the lines of Neal’s body were even sharper, with deep cuts between the muscles on his back and down his legs. Fallon had made Dyanne forget about her ovulation timeline, but the silhouette illuminated by the moon was unforgettable. She reached out and traced his spine with her fingernail.
When he sighed with pleasure, Fallon happened to be walking by on her way to the room closest to them. She’d rejected the guest room at the end of the hall; too small she said. Besides theirs, it was the biggest bedroom in the house.
Dressed in a purple caftan and munching grapes, Fallon lingered in their closed doorway. “That’s right, Dee Dee. Make him holler. You’ll get you a baby yet. It’s good for the skin, too,” she said, laughing into the folds of her nightgown.
Dyanne slid under the sheets, covering her face in shame while Neal had another laughing fit. As usual, he found Fallon’s brashness comforting. His wife did not.
“Mind your own business, woman. Aren’t you supposed to be writing a book?”
“Feisty tonight, huh? I like it. Ain’t you supposed to be getting a baby? You tend to your business and I’ll tend to mine. The moon is on the wane, but I think you can still squeeze something out of it. I love my room. Did you know I can see straight in your neighbor’s upstairs? Those kids are something funny. Been waving at me all night. Their parents probably don’t even know they up. I’ve got to go and meet them tomorrow.”
Brilliant! Maybe they’d all keep each other out of trouble. “Go for it,” Dyanne said, wondering if this was going to happen every night. At least the children next door were warming up to Fallon. Progress at last. “Those kids are something wild, especially that little girl.”
“Good! I can’t stand all these little fake kids people have now, small adults running around. If I’m going to spend time with children, I want them to be just that. Remember that when you ask me to babysit. Now go on, act like married folk. Good night. I’m turning on my music….”
True to her word, instrumental jazz replaced Fallon’s voice a few minutes later, the latest intruder into their tranquil bedroom.
At least she warned us.
The sultry crooning of a bass guitar was just loud enough to be heard, but not too distracting. Neal must have liked it because he went after Dyanne with both hands—and a full heart.
“I love that woman,” he said, going in for a kiss.
Me, too, Dyanne thought. “You’d better be concerned about loving this woman,” she said, returning his playful yet passionate kisses. Still, she was relieved that Neal seemed happy about having Fallon around.
Once before, Dyanne had spent a week alone with Fallon on a huge rewrite and it wasn’t pretty. There were still shards of Swarovski crystals in the carpet of their old apartment from the vase Dyanne had broken after throwing up her hands one time too many.
Things had been tight enough with just a month to get this house in order and finalize the book tour. Being successful in the African-American market meant making—and keeping—relationships. And that wasn’t always easy with tight deadlines and high personnel turnover. For every bookstore owner, university official or organizational chairperson, there were keep-in-touch gifts, e-mails and calls and down-to-the-minute checking and just-in-case plans.
Even then, many of Dyanne’s contacts worked on what her grandfather had called “colored people time,” an entirely different construct than the European concept of planning down to the last second. Dyanne’s grandfather had explained that the African sense of timelessness was the one thing that couldn’t be beaten out of them. What some thought was laziness was a virtue of watching people over clocks. “The sun, moon and stars told us what we needed to know. And our bellies of course. When you’re hungry, it’s time to eat.”
Right.
Unfortunately, publishing—or the rest of the world for that matter—didn’t run by sundial. To compensate, Fallon traveled with pop-up tables (“Someone is using the table now, but if you come back at four…”), extra books (“We ordered them, but they didn’t come in”), media contacts (“They did a press release, but nobody called…”) and all that was just for the regular stores. Once they hit the “chitlin circuit” as Fallon called the drive to the black bookstores, lodges, gymnasiums, historically black colleges and now more than before, churches, it would be Dealing with Divas 101 time. The thought of it all made her tired, but excited, too.
Neal was kissing her elbows now, totally erasing her train of thought. She let out a contented sigh of her own. Maybe this was enough, the two of them. Maybe this wasn’t the time to have a baby. What would she do with a kid the next time Fallon showed up needing a month—or two—of attention?
Trust Me.
It wasn’t a voice or anything flaky like the experiences her father talked about, but the words were impressed on her mind, overflowing Dyanne’s heart. All she could think of was how hard she’d prayed for her parents to stay together, for her mother to keep the baby boys she’d miscarried again and again, each time taking her mother farther from them into her own little world.
Though Dyanne couldn’t deny that God had been good to her, the one time she’d needed Him, truly trusted Him, He hadn’t come through. She couldn’t make that mistake again. Her father had spe
nt the past few years trying to teach her about God, but the first lesson he’d taught her about Him still held true—the only person a woman can trust completely is herself.
As if he’d read her thoughts, Neal’s hands and lips stopped moving. “You really want this, don’t you? This baby?”
Dyanne nodded slowly, surprised at the vulnerability in his voice. For months, she’d tried to get her husband here. Who’d have thought that Fallon Gray would be what brought him around? Never one to miss an opportunity, Dyanne reached over and clicked on the light.
Neal shielded his eyes. “What are you doing?”
Dyanne tiptoed to her briefcase and produced her master-piece—the baby proposal.
Speechless, her husband flipped through the pages of flow charts, family cost predictions and couldn’t believe what he saw.
“You got an endorsement from the doctor who wrote all those baby care books? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
She wasn’t kidding. Mr. Chaise—Steve—had snapped up the doctor in a five-book deal last summer and Dyanne had spent over an hour talking to him about children. He’d made a few quotes in the conversation and when she’d asked later, he’d given her permission to share them with her husband, although he said he didn’t recommend it. Now, watching the look on her husband’s face, she wondered if he hadn’t been right. “Just read it. I did a lot of research. It’s all there.”
He slammed the folder shut just as he reached the best visual in the whole thing. “It’s not all here, Dyanne. This is a business proposal. Babies come from love. I wanted to believe that this was about love, but as usual it’s about something else. I’m not sure what quite yet, but I don’t think I want to find out. No baby for the immediate future, and that’s my final answer.” He stormed off down the hall, not stopping until he reached the guest room that Fallon had turned down earlier.
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