“Oh, now we are all here with bated breath, Nwad,” Lady Eleanor said to Dawn. “Do share with us about your work and where you’ve landed after—what was it?—these ten years you and Nora have had apart.”
Two servers brought over the chalk-white porcelain cups and saucers, presenting them to Nora and Dawn in a coordinated bow.
Dawn looked into the cup and started, sounding slow and careful. “Let’s see . . . I’m married. I got married to my mister two years ago, and we live in Harlem.” She paused and took a sip—slurping loudly—from her cup. “He is a teacher, and I work for an internet company. Computer programming. I’m really good with computers.” Another pause; another long sip.
Nora flashed a look at Lady Eleanor. Her narrow face looked pleasant, not as severe as it often did, and her eyes were keen, as if waiting for the good part of Dawn’s story to kick in. Instead Dawn took to her cup, sipping. And then finally, she flickered awake and looked up from her coffee. “Actually, I have a really funny story to add to all this”—she turned to Nora, her smirk refueled—“and I think Nora would really enjoy this one. But first, I’m going to get a drip more of that cream for my delicious coffee—lighten it up some.”
Lady Eleanor raised her chin and eyebrow in the direction of the closest butler, who in turn signaled for the servers to hurry over to Dawn.
“No, no, no,” Dawn said, her hand waving off the slim man stepping lively toward her. “I can do this. Besides, I don’t think anyone can get the perfect mix of black and white that I’m looking for. I’m so particular about my coffee.”
“Oh, I—very well,” Lady Eleanor said. “Someone will show you to the station.”
“I can do that,” Nora interjected.
“Well . . . all right, then . . . that’s fine,” Lady Eleanor said. She shot a stern look at the server. “Help yourselves.” Her face returned to its previous relaxed state.
Nora walked closely behind Dawn. “What are you doing?” she whispered.
“I could ask you the same,” Dawn snapped, and set her saucer on the high table.
“Keep your voice down.”
Dawn poured more cream into the cup and stirred. She shook her head, not looking up from her caramel-colored brew. “These decaying bitches, they don’t even know what to make of me. And clearly, by this stunt you’re pulling, neither do you. Thing is”—she raised just her eyes to Nora—“you’re going to end up with your feelings hurt. That part is already written.”
The words felt like a flaming arrow shot through Nora’s gut. Any semblance of upper hand that she had sensed moments ago trickled out of the center of her now.
Without warning, a swell of gasps and murmurs took over the room. Nora turned toward the din. The servers were rushing to one of the old ladies. She was slumped over on the couch, her head dropped to the side and face completely flushed.
“She’s having a reaction,” someone yelped. “Call an ambulance!”
Men and women dressed in black pants and crisp white shirts came running from all corners hidden and plain, and darted over to the ill woman. The buzz got louder as the woman sunk further into the chair. Nora overheard the butler who had greeted them at the elevator yell “allergic reaction” and “call now” at one of the other workers, everyone with the same worry drawn across their faces. The closer Dawn stepped into the confusion, the farther away Nora moved from it, leaning toward the door.
“I think there’s tree nuts of some sort in one of the salads,” one woman said, from behind Nora, startling her. “This is dreadful. She’s deathly allergic.”
Nora stared back at the woman, speechless, and kept sliding toward the exit. She didn’t want to know anything about anything if it didn’t pertain to her getting out of there this minute. She kept her eyes trained to the floor and her movements discreet. She looked up only once, quickly, to check on Dawn, who was deep in the thick of the commotion. Nora heard herself breathing; it was fast and loud, coming through her mouth. Tears were pooling. She thought back to the one or two occasions where she had an opening to explain how this jumbled mess of fiction started, and how each time she turned away from it and ran. Maybe she would have been okay if she had flouted Mrs. Bourdain’s duplicitous plan and instead entered Immaculate as herself: the only daughter of a black saint and a pathetic, vanished white father. Maybe she would have been all right, accepted, and held up as a good person worthy of friends and favor, much like Dawn herself had been when she first arrived at the school. But maybe was the cry of the hopeless, she knew, and it served no one, especially not now. This moment was not for maybe; it was for certainty, action, and escape. She needed to leave this havoc behind—both the tumult of the poisoned old woman on the couch and what will undoubtedly be left of her life after she is unmasked by Dawn. She needed to start again on an unmarked page. And it would have to be different. She would have to launch her new existence far, far away from everything she had built in New York, and it would need to begin with the truth.
As Nora reached the elevator and moved her hand to press the call button, the doors slid open. Three EMTs—a woman out front and two men behind her—barreled through, wheeling a gurney between them. The butler was there, standing beside Nora in a heartbeat, and directing the ambulance workers to the collapsed woman.
“Thank you for showing them in, Miss Mackenzie,” he told Nora, and gently patted her shoulder.
And without another pause or breath, Nora entered the elevator and pressed the button for the lobby floor. Dawn was nowhere in sight, but Nora waited until the doors fully closed before she let herself exhale. Her charm and spirit had long fizzled, and two things made themselves explicitly clear: Dawn was set on destruction, and Nora needed a plan B, because running away was not an option.
CHAPTER 14
“It was awful,” Nora said, pinching the bridge of her nose with her fingers. She was sitting on the side of their tub, her hair drenched and bathrobe tied tight. “I mean, just frightening.”
“I know. My mother was pretty shaken up when she called,” Fisher said, leaning against the counter. “I knew something was very wrong when she called my cell phone. I didn’t even think she personally knew the number. She never calls me on that.” He stood and went to the basket under the sink, then grabbed another towel and handed it to Nora. “Are you okay?”
She covered her face with the towel and nodded.
Fisher sat next to her on the tub’s edge. “I’m serious, Mack; you all right? That was scary. Thank God Mrs. Newbold is going to be fine, but it was dicey for a brief moment there.”
“Yeah, I’m just glad she’s all right.” Nora wiped the towel over her face again and then applied it to the soaked ends of her hair, gently squeezing out the water. “What else did your mother say about everything?”
“Well, she’s mortified. Thinks she will be smeared amongst her friends, and no one will want to attend an event at the house ever again.”
“It’s not her fault, though.”
“True, but she’s worried all the same. That woman could have died today all because her body was essentially doing its job. I mean, yes, it’s naturally defending itself—albeit going kind of overboard, right? Truly fascinating to see how one body can react so adversely to something that’s completely innocuous to another.”
Nora continued sponging her hair. Usually, hearing Fisher get deep into talking about the intrigue steeped in the human body and geek out over medical research would be an undeniable turn-on for her. Like earlier in the spring, when he spoke excited and almost giddy for a solid thirty minutes about the study the Institute was conducting on an alternate to polonium-210, the highly radioactive substance so toxic that a dose as small as a speck of dust will become a slow, sure, silent death sentence. Nora couldn’t keep track of all the research points, but talk of alpha particles and energy and central nervous systems—all of it landed Fisher with a blow job in the kitchen right where he stood.
“Did your mother mention anything else about the
gathering?” Nora said, patting her hair and trying to sound casual. “Like, what happened after the ambulance rescued Mrs. Newbold? I’m sure the remaining guests were kind of freaked out and probably stuck around to talk.”
“Yes, freaked out; they were definitely that. Even the waitstaff, my mother said they were flustered as well.”
Nora kept her voice even. “Right, but that’s it? I mean, nothing else was mentioned about what happened after Mrs. Newbold got sick? Nothing about what everyone did after—or what they said?”
Fisher turned to look at Nora. She noticed a very distinct wrinkle between his brows. She knew this slightly soured look. Fisher would often make that face if he felt someone was being inconsiderate or rude, like when a person interrupted him as he was speaking. It didn’t matter if he was talking business or basketball, don’t cut him off. She’d gone a pinch too far in trying to decipher what Dawn said after she ran off and wasn’t sure if there was a way to reel it back.
“Look, Mack,” Fisher said, “what do you want me to say? All of the women were completely horrified. They watched their friend nearly die because of something she ingested. What else is there for them to say afterward?”
Nora turned away, pretending to dry the other side of her hair and positioning the towel so it obscured his full view of her. “I’m just curious. Was pretty strange—the whole thing.”
Fisher gently took the white towel from Nora’s hand and started brushing it through her hair. Nora’s shoulders crept up to her ears while her eyes searched the floor. Tender as the moment was supposed to be, she wanted no part of it. Although he had often stroked—and sometimes pulled—her hair as they rolled around the bed or floor, their bodies pressed up against each other, moving to their own intense cadence, this time felt wrong, intrusive. Nora had noticed a clump of hair by the drain when she got out of the shower. The wad of hair was longer and bigger than what she knew to be normal and only added to her already jangled nerves. It was happening: horrible history repeating. Ghetto Dawn was dangling the secret over Nora’s head like an anvil on a string and she was falling apart behind it.
“Mack, what are you not telling me?” He paused on the hair handling and sighed. “I can’t keep asking you this.”
Nora slid her long hair out from his grip and moved along the tub’s edge away from Fisher, creating some distance while staying close enough for the intimacy of the moment to remain intact. She searched the floor again, hoping to find anything that resembled what to say lying flat on the expensive tiles. The feeling of bursting into tears surged, but she blinked it all back. She wanted to tell him something, just not the truth. Nora had decided as she hustled home on foot from the tea party disaster that telling anyone who she really was—what she really was—as some sort of preemptive strike against Dawn didn’t make sense. It would only help Dawn get what she wants: Nora losing everything.
She had skipped the call to Leonard to collect her from the Beaumont mansion and briskly walked by each vacant cab heading downtown. With every stride, Nora became more convinced that she wanted to win—the grand prize being Fisher and the life she deserved—because Dawn would never relent. Nora thought about how she had run away from Montreal and Dr. Bourdain’s predatory ways. How she had run away from Immaculate Heart and the threats of exposure. And how she had run away from the Bourdain name and the betrayal behind it. She had made her way out of each of those lives, often broken and bruised, but still breathing. She knew that when it came down to fight or flight, she would choose to take off, without hesitation or even a slim desire to look back. And now again, because of Dawn, she would be forced to choose once more.
But this was different. Nora didn’t want to leave anything behind. She didn’t want to move on to a new world, this time maybe across the ocean (Paris, Milan). She didn’t want to start fresh, this time maybe even walk freely as a mixed-race woman, albeit with a broken heart. And she also didn’t want to disarm Dawn’s threat by telling Fisher and her friends the truth about her identity, and hang on to hope that their love will prevail over any shame or humiliation the revelation may bring. She wanted the wedding and the family and Fisher. She ran her fingers over the engagement ring as she walked home, rubbing it like a genie’s bottle—her three wishes already set to be granted.
There would be no running, she told herself as she neared the Chrysler Building, thirty-five blocks into her march home. She stopped when she reached the shiny chrome skyscraper, gaping up at its spire aimed at the sky miles above. Nora nodded, and it was settled: She was going to reach out to Dawn and ask to meet with her. She was going to offer up a large sum of money, enough to not only dazzle Dawn, but also derail her. She was going to be adamant, firm, and she was going to be prepared to offer even more cash to buy her silence. And she felt sure of the plan because she knew that, just like her, Dawn didn’t come from much of anything. Like her, Dawn was shoved into the margins, desperate to be allowed into the main room. Money is that needed bridge. And Nora was betting everything that Dawn would hop on it and take it to go far, far away.
She felt Fisher move closer before he actually did. He was right next to her on the tub. “Mack, talk to me,” Fisher said, his shoulder softly butting up against hers. “Whatever it is, we can deal with it.”
“It’s nerves,” Nora said. “I’ve told you.”
“It’s more. Maybe it’s my lizard brain or whatever, but I just know it’s more. It’s what’s keeping you up at night and drinking in the empty tub instead and making your shoulders tight and, frankly, it’s probably what made you freak out at my mother’s house.”
Nora snapped a look at him. “What are you talking about?”
He lowered his chin, his eyes softening as he stared into hers. “Nora, I know that you left.” She started to shake her head. “Yes, you left. As soon as the ambulance came, you were gone.”
“What is this,” Nora said, her eyes bulging. She stood up and took a step toward the sink. Fisher reached out and grabbed her wrist.
“Don’t run off, Mack.”
“I’m not running,” she barked.
“Okay, okay,” Fisher said, and gently tugged at her to come back to him. “Just take it easy, okay? This isn’t anything. It’s me and you, talking. That’s all.” He tried to guide her over to sit on his lap.
She shook her head. “I don’t want to sit right now.” Nora twisted her wrist free from his light grip. “Let me be, okay?” She went to the sink and rinsed her face with cool water. She could feel the pulse in her temple and knew that her telltale vein was exposed. Nora wiped her face with a fresh hand towel and kept it draped there for a moment longer. She didn’t want to look at Fisher; she couldn’t. “I just need a minute, Fish,” Nora said through the towel. “Give me that, okay?”
“Of course.” His voice sounded close behind Nora, though he didn’t touch her. “But I think we need to talk about the gorilla in the room: your mother, her passing. It’s affecting you. Clearly. The wedding only pulled all of that to the surface.”
It could have been the word gorilla or the mention of her mother soon after it—either way, something snapped inside. Nora heard it. “Can you just get out of here, Fisher? Please,” she cried into the towel still covering her face. “Just, please. Let me be.”
A click of the door came next. Then, quiet. Nora didn’t move the towel and instead used it to muffle her hollow sobs. She wanted to kick and scream and fight the air. Everything she didn’t want to happen was happening. Dawn had infiltrated the inner layer, dragging disquiet and distrust in behind her. And Nora was lashing out at the people she loved most. In their three and a half years together, she had never once raised her voice at Fisher. Their disagreements were brief and would be resolved shortly after they started, with one of them (or both) owning up to the bad choices and behavior that caused the small fire to erupt. And here she was practically shoving him out the bathroom door with a frying pan tossed at his head. This bickering, squirming, sobbing, disconnected, disaster couple
was not them. This was all Dawn.
Nora calmed her breath and used the damp towel to dry her face as best she could. She righted herself in the wide mirror and tried to soften the starkness of her red, puffed-up face. Fish, I’m sorry, she said to herself. It didn’t seem like enough, so she practiced the apology silently, adding and removing words from the line, tweaking her expression and posture each time.
Leaned in, robe parted down to her belly, lips pouting: Fish, I love you so much and really can’t wait to be your wife.
Hands clasped behind her back, eyes smiling and sweet: Honey, can you ever forgive me. I’m an official monster bride and totally out of control.
Nora rehearsed her lines and variations over and again until she stopped and just looked into the mirror, fixed on her washed-out face. She opened her mouth, licked her lips, and let the truth fall freely: “Fish, I have been lying to you about everything. I’m half-black. My mother was a maid. And her boss repeatedly raped and sodomized me when I was nine until I turned thirteen, a month before Mum died from pancreatic cancer. The vicious wolf he called a wife adopted me, gave me her blond hair, her bleached coloring, and their burdened family name, and shipped me off to boarding school. But she knew about everything, she knew what he was doing to me in his study, and she let him continue. He’s dead now, and I hope she’ll soon follow. And all that’s left is the secret of it that I’ve carried strapped to my back for the last fourteen years. I love you, but I don’t deserve you, and you deserve better. I wish it wasn’t this way, but it is. I’m sorry.”
There were no tears and Nora’s shoulders didn’t roll into her chest. She was standing straight, unwavering, and looking herself in the eye. That’s when she heard it: a crash of glass and Fisher’s voice booming. Nora bolted out of the bathroom, grabbing the robe sash and looping it into a quick, tight knot as she ran toward the noise. Her mind moved as quickly as her feet. What if Dawn followed her home and had been lying in wait in the cool shadows of the building for the right moment to pounce? She spotted droplets of blood near the kitchen entryway and now her mind ran ahead of her, envisioning in gross detail what she might find around the corner. She backed away from the kitchen slowly and scanned the immediate area around her.
Have You Met Nora? Page 18