“What?” she said with venom in her own voice.
“Where’s that stupid sister of yours?”
Jules exhaled. “I have no idea.”
“Yeah, you do, stop lying. She’s in jail, that’s where she is. I heard about her little scene here tonight.”
“You heard about it?”
“Yes, I heard about it. I had colleagues here, you know. David and his old lady. Carlton and his. They’re our friends and they wanted to celebrate your birthday with you.”
“More than I can say for one of us in this room.”
“They called me afterwards and told me what happened. I couldn’t believe it. Right in my house. The police came and everything. I’ll be the laughingstock of the entire hospital if this gets out.”
“If they’re such friends, then it won’t get out.”
Jeremy gave Jules a foul look. “Are you trying to get smart with me?”
“I just don’t see the big deal. So Shay got arrested. That’s nothing new for Shay.”
“But not in my house!” Jeremy thundered and stood to his feet, his hand batting his chest. “Do you hear me? Your sister will not bring her ghetto-fied nonsense to my house! I can’t believe you allowed that to happen.”
Jules was stunned. “Me? I didn’t allow anything to happen. Those police officers–”
“–would not have come anywhere near my house if that dumb-behind sister of yours wasn’t here. I told you not to invite her or Simone either.”
“Jeremy that’s nonsense. It was my birthday party. Why wouldn’t I want my own sisters at my birthday party?”
“Because I don’t want them in my house,” Jeremy said, by now standing directly in Jules face. “How about that, Jules? I can’t stand neither one of them and they can’t stand me. But nooo. You had to have them here. They’re your precious sisters. Yeah, right. Now look what’s happened. Bringing that ghetto-fabulous, sister-girl street crap to my house!”
“Man, get out of my face,” Jules said, brushing past Jeremy. “There is nothing ghetto-fabulous about Simone.”
Jeremy turned and looked at Jules as if he couldn’t believe what had just transpired. “What did you just say to me?”
Jules knew that tone. She knew it just as sure as she knew the back of her own hand. She swallowed hard. “I said there is nothing ghetto-fabulous about Simone, and there isn’t. She’s a hard-working, honest salon owner who— ”
But her explanation didn’t matter. Because that wasn’t the part of Jules response that had Jeremy so angry. He was upon her the way a panther would be upon his prey. And he slapped her so hard that saliva went flying from her mouth. Her mother, who was the victim of many of these beatings herself, would say he knocked the taste out of her mouth. And he did. Jules was on the floor, begging for her life, when one of Jeremy’s feet came crashing into her rib cage. And all she could wonder about was what in the world had she done. What in the world was her sin?
THIRTY
They laid in bed like two exhausted strangers, both on their backs, both staring at the crown-molding of the high-slung ceiling. Simone was astounded. She still couldn’t believe that she had allowed things to get so far out of hand. Here she was, a woman professing Christ, lying naked in bed with a married man. A married man! Nick could talk all day and night about how terrible that marriage was; about how awful his wife treated him; about how unfair it all was. But the fact remained, he was married. How in the world, she wondered, did she expect this to end? God wasn’t going to bless this mess! There was no way. She felt doomed. So regretful that it hurt her to her core.
Nick was loaded with regret, too. He lay there nearly catatonic. Unlike Simone, however, his regret stemmed less from the act that they’d committed, and more from the fact that after the act, nothing was changed. He was still married to Delia and Simone was still going to high-tail it back to Atlanta. And that pain, the thought of losing Simone again, was what was really driving his regret.
He looked over at Simone. She was so beautiful to him. Not just on the outside, which was gorgeous, but on the inside, too. She was the single most remarkable woman he’d ever met. And he wanted her more than life itself. In fact, just looking at her made him consider, for the first time ever, divorcing Delia once and for all.
Then he looked back at the uninteresting ceiling. He couldn’t divorce Delia. That was the problem of his life. Delia was crippled, in a wheelchair for crying out loud. He couldn’t just walk away from her. Despite her hatred; despite her annoying insinuations; he still loved her. And always would. He remembered her in the days of her youth, when she could have had any man she wanted, but she chose him. And gave him the best years of her life. Now that she was old and crippled and bitter with anything and everything, how could he leave her now? Tears began to stain his eyes. What a mess he was in, he thought.
Simone didn’t know what to think. She was still reeling from the fact that she had just had sex with a married man. She closed her eyes, disgusted with herself. And the fact that she loved this married man, and still wanted to be with this married man was tearing her apart. There were a hundred million men in America. But she acted as if she just had to have the one man she couldn’t have. Why, she wondered, did she keep punishing herself?
Before she could answer her question, however, knocks were heard on the door of her hotel suite. Both she and Nick jumped. What now, they wondered. And Nick, still naked, hurried for the living area.
Simone got up too and put on one of the hotel’s terry cloth robes. She could hear Nick hurriedly dressing in the other room, as the knocks continued. In fact, when she went into the living area she saw him, now dressed in his slacks and shirt, grab up her strewn clothing too. But when he grabbed her panties, he sniffed them and then, oddly, placed them in his pants pocket. Why he would do such a thing baffled Simone. But he had done it. She’d just witnessed it. He then placed her remaining clothing behind one of the big, fluffy pillows on the hotel’s sofa, just in case it was that blabbermouth Shay, whom both of them suspected it probably was.
They both, however, were wrong. It wasn’t Shay at all, but Delia, complete with wheelchair, nurse, and Bellamy. Nick was stunned. He stood at the door stupefied. Delia had come all this way, to this hotel, in her condition? He immediately felt a tinge of sorrow for his wife, and pulled her wheelchair inside of the room.
“What are you doing here?” he asked her in an accusatory tone, but Delia was already looking beyond him, at Simone. If Simone thought she felt bad, everything changed when she saw Delia in that wheelchair. She couldn’t have felt worse.
Nick looked at Delia’s assistant. “Bellamy, what is the meaning of this?”
“I tried to discourage her, sir,” Bellamy said nervously, “but she was insistent.”
“Hello there,” Delia said to Simone. “You look awfully comfortable.”
Simone immediately began to gather her robe around her. “Hello, Mrs. Perry.”
“Oh, Delia, please. That’s how I feel right now. Like plain old Delia.”
“Dell, come on,” Nick said but Delia would not be sidelined.
“No, you come on,” she said, looking at her husband for the first time. “Really, Nicky, is this the best you can do? I mean she’s pretty, I’ll give you that, but she’s hardly quality. In fact, she looks rather dime-a-dozen-nish to me.”
“That’s enough, Delia.”
“So common. Like a hooker masquerading as a lady.”
“I said that’s enough, Delia!”
“It’s all right, Nick,” Simone said quietly. “It’s not like she’s lying.”
Nick looked at Simone. “Don’t you dare blame yourself for this, Simone,” he warned her.
“It’s not like you aren’t her husband and you’re in my hotel room and she’s just making the whole thing up.”
“You tell him, dear,” Delia said, unimpressed. “That’s what he loves about you. Your honesty and integrity in the face of enormous contradiction. I mean really. He
re you are sleeping around with married men, but at least you admit your error. Now that’s fresh. That is really fresh.”
“I’ll get my coat,” Nick said, heading for the sofa.
“Yeah, you get your coat,” Delia said with bitterness. Then tears began to come into her eyes. When Nick turned after grabbing his coat and tie and saw Delia in tears, he stood frozen.
“What do you think you were going to do, Nicky?” she asked him. “Leave me for her? Is that what this was all about? You ruin my life, you put me in this wheelchair, and then you leave me? Is that what you were planning on doing? And I’m supposed to let you?”
“Don’t do this, Dell,” Nick said, moving toward her. Simone felt like running away.
“I used to be Delia! I used to command attention. Gianni Versace said I was the cream of the crop. The best. Now look at me.” Her voice was trembling. “I gave you the best years of my life, Nicky!”
“I know that, Dell.”
“Every man wanted me. Every man. I could have had kings and princes. I could have had billionaires and prime ministers. But I chose you. And you expect me to just sit back and let you abuse me?”
Nick began turning her chair around.
“Do you expect me to let some two-bit hooker like this take you from me? Just take you away? Do you expect me to just—”
Tears began to drop from her eyes furiously and she couldn’t continue. Nick began rolling her out of the hotel room, with the nurse and Bellamy following behind them. When he looked back at Simone, and saw that almost starry-eyed elusiveness all over her face, he knew. He knew unlike he had ever known anything before that this was it for her. Which meant that this was it for them. That was why he quickly looked away from her. And began, as was his duty, to console his stricken wife.
THIRTY-ONE
The cab showed no mercy as Simone sat back in the privacy of the backseat. It had been a week since her last encounter with Nick and it was without question one of the most agonizing weeks of her life. Now all she wanted to do was to move on; to forget the entire fiasco that was once again becoming her new life and get her old, stale, but tolerable life back.
The cab stopped in front of the Alms restaurant and Simone paid the fare and got out. It was a hot day in Miami, and that Florida sun shone around her as if it was a sign: forget the past, Simone, it seemed to be echoing, and embrace your future. Simone wish she had felt so confident. Because she couldn’t forget her past, not that easily. And the future, she thought. What future?
She saw Jules’ BMW already at the Alms and relaxed. At least she still had her sisters, although the jury was still out on Shay. Just like her relationship with Nick, her relationship with Shay was becoming a serious problem for her. Maybe they could never repair the breach. Maybe they can never get beyond that day all those years ago when Simone made that instantaneous decision to leave Shay behind.
Inside the restaurant, Simone saw Jules in a booth by the window. She looked stunning, Simone thought, in her bright white pant suit and scarf. But Jeremy’s abuse was all over her sister’s face. Not in any visible scar; Jeremy was too smart a jerk for that. But in her persona, her inner being, there was nothing that Simone could see but turmoil.
She allowed the maitre d to escort her to Jules booth. When she sat down and told the waiter her drink order, she looked at Jules.
Jules exhaled. “Shay’s late,” she said as she picked up the menu.
Simone smiled. “Why am I not surprised?” Then she stared at her sister. “How are you, J?” she asked her with concern in her voice.
“Fine, and you,” Jules replied in a response so pat that even Jules realized how lame it sounded. She looked at Simone. Simone was still staring at her. “I’m here, Simmie, what do you want me to say?”
“I want you to say that you’ve kicked Jeremy Druce to the curb–,”
“Simmie!”
“–and you’re ready to go on with your life.”
“Ain’t gonna happen,” Jules said and Simone was surprised. Usually Jules made excuses or changed the subject or ignored the comment. But never had she been so certain in her response.
“Why won’t it happen?”
“Why do you think, Simmie? Let’s get real, okay? I’ve been with Jeremy since I was sixteen years old. I’m thirty-five now. Which means I’ve been with Jeremy more than half of my life. What am I supposed to do about that? Forget that all of that history exists? Leave him and find another joker with flaws just as bad if not worse than Jeremy’s?”
“Or here’s a novel idea,” Simone said, “you could leave men alone altogether and live your life. God will send you who you need.”
Jules looked at Simone as if she had grown horns. “You’re kidding, right? Leave men alone? You must be out of your mind. What am I gonna do without a man after being with one all of my adult life? You tell me that, Simone. How am I supposed to function? I’m not like you. I’m no Mother Teresa, can go decades without sex kind of girl. I got to have it and have it repeatedly. I’m sorry, but I do.”
“God will send you someone, Jules. Somebody who will love you first, and treat you right. And marry you, not string you along.”
“Anyway,” Jules said but Simone wouldn’t let go.
“You can do better than Jeremy, don’t you realize that? You don’t have to take his abuse.”
“He’s not abusive,” Jules said as if she believed it. Simone, however, couldn’t believe she’d said that.
“Not abusive?” Simone asked, dumbstruck. “Jules, that man beats you as if you’re some kind of punching bag and he’s not abusive? On the day after your thirty-fifth birthday party, a party he didn’t even bother to attend, by the way, you show up barely able to function, and he’s not abusive? Who are you fooling, Jules? Because it ain’t me.”
It sounded so stark, so true, when Simone said it. Who exactly was she fooling? Herself? “He apologizes,” was all she could think to say.
“I see. And that makes it all right? An apology? I can hit you upside your head, kick you like you’re a dog, treat you like crap, but if I apologize that makes it all okay?” Then Simone exhaled. “Remember when we were little and mama used to always allow that man, I can’t even remember his name, to beat on her all the time? I mean her face used to be all swollen and everything. I used to ask her why; why would she let a man treat her that way. And you know what she always told me? ‘He’s good looking and he wants me,’ she would always say. ‘End of discussion.’ Only it wasn’t the end of discussion for me. It was almost like she had a mental problem to me. The man abused her yet she thought he wanted her? My question even then was yeah, but what does he want you for?”
Jules looked away from Simone. She knew exactly what she meant. Jeremy wanted her, all right, but what for? As some kind of trophy? As some kind of sex slave? She didn’t know. And it pained her to find out.
“We have got to put an end to all of this abuse, Jules,” Simone continued. “We have got to stop it. You deserve better than Jeremy and I can’t have Nick. So why are we fooling ourselves? Why do we want what is the absolute worst thing for us to have?”
Jules couldn’t answer that question. And wasn’t going to try. “Anyway,” Jules said, closing the menu. She had zero appetite lately. “You’re always asking how everybody else is doing. How are you?”
Simone had to hesitate before answering. One thing she had decided after that scene with Nick and his wife, after all that she’d been through in her life, was to keep it real from here on out. “Not good,” she said.
“You still want Nick Perry, don’t you?”
Simone didn’t hesitate. “Of course I want him,” she said, still keeping it real. “But I can’t have him. So there.”
“So there,” Jules repeated as if it were some sort of a battle cry, and picked back up the menu.
***
On the fourteenth floor of the Colgate building, Nick Perry leaned back in the executive chair behind his desk and tossed the brief on his desk.
Sitting in front of him was Ethan Graham, his eyes glued on his new boss, his heart pounding. “Well?” he said. “What do you think?”
“I think you need to tie your conclusion more into the fifth amendment rather than popular opinion. Popular opinion gets us good feelings, but it won’t win the case.”
“But,” Ethan said, ready to pounce but deciding to be respectful, “sir, the reason why I think quoting those opinion polls is important is because it shows the jury that their peers, the public, agrees with us.”
“I didn’t say not to use it,” Nick reminded Ethan. “Just don’t make it the centerpiece. It won’t work.”
Ethan disagreed, but he nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Also,” Nick went on, “I want you to rethink your strategy in the Henson case.”
Ethan was shocked. “You don’t like that either?”
“It’s not that I don’t like it, Ethan, but to say that she killed that man because she was suffering PMS is too quirky a defense to prove. We want to help the lady, not hurt her. Quirky defenses rarely works.”
I don’t think it’s quirky, Ethan wanted to say but held his tongue. Nick went on.
“We probably need to plea out that case.”
“Cop a plea? But Karen Henson is insisting that she’s innocent. Karen Henson says she didn’t do it.”
“But the evidence says she did.”
“Yeah, but Karen Henson—”
“I know, I know. Karen Henson proclaims her innocence. But if she’s wrong, and we go along with that despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, I’m afraid Simone Henson will find herself—”
“Simone Henson?” Ethan said, confused. “Who’s Simone Henson?”
“What?” Nick asked, confused.
“You said Simone Henson.”
“Simone? What does Simone have to do with this?”
“You called Karen Henson Simone Henson.”
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