“Millions of dollars that you’re saving! Money you’ve siphoned from our joint accounts and stowed away as if it’s your own personal money, Tammy?”
“I can have it back in our account tomorrow, if it’s that serious, John” Tammy said.
“Keep it, along with the settlement my lawyer is preparing for you,” I said, walking over to pour a glass of scotch. I didn’t usually drink so early in the day, but my nerves were in a bundle.
“A lawyer! You can’t be fucking serious about this,” Tammy yelled as she stormed toward me. “Now, Johnny, you are going too far for these damn niggers.”
I turned just as she was about to raise her hand to touch me and pushed her away. Her hands fell to her sides as I glared at her. “You are a sad excuse for a human being,” I said just as she started to say something else. “Earlier you asked me what more could I possibly want. I’ll tell you what I want. I want someone who looks at me after forty years and slaps the taste out of my mouth with so much passion that I remember a time when I loved so deeply that it hurt. I want a woman who stops time when I’m with her, and that’s what Clara does for me. So call her whatever you want, they are just words, but from this day forward never call yourself my wife, again.”
“Oh, hogwash! This is all a bunch of puppy love foolishness, Johnny. We are well into our sixties. We’re too old for bullshit!”
“If that’s foolishness and bullshit, say one thing about us that tops what I just said about Clara?” I waited a few seconds for an answer. “Okay, I’ll make this easy for you. When was the last time you told me you loved me?”
Tammy looked away from me as if the thought of saying I love you and looking at me couldn’t exist in the same space. “I said it to you a thousand times since we’ve been married.”
“But when was the last time, Tammy?”
“Johnny, I’ve said it to you.”
“Here, I’ll make this even easier for you. When was the last time you kissed me? Not a peck on each cheek like you would give any notable person, but a soul-stirring, warm-blooded kiss. When was the last time we shared something like that, huh?”
“Johnny, stop it. You know I don’t have a problem kissing you.”
I stepped closer to her and took her hand into mine. I pulled her toward me and looked into her eyes, searching the windows of her soul looking for the woman I asked to marry me. The woman who my parents thought was my perfect helpmate. The woman who I’d talked to hours on end when I was purging lingering thoughts of Clara Baker from my mind and heart.
In our own time, Tammy and I shared ideas, dreams and laughter. We had a connection once. When I thought I found that connection by looking in her eyes, I pulled her toward me for a kiss. Her head turned slightly and that kiss landed on her cheek.
“You see, this really isn’t a hard choice to make, Tammy. Our bed, as well as our hearts, has been cold for a long time. Like I said, my lawyer will get your paperwork to you as soon as possible.” Tammy stood there looking at me with a blank expression, so I continued. “You can take anything you bought over the years with you and you will get a handsome settlement. And, I wish you well,” I said as I turned to walk out the room.
“John, I am not divorcing you. Our fortieth anniversary gala is this year and I’ve already told my friends about it.”
“Call them back,” I tossed over my shoulder as I went into my study and locked the door.
Chapter 3
John
Family Business
I had no regrets as I rattled off the details of my divorce to my lawyer. “Yeah, a fifty million dollar lump sum and twenty thousand a month for the rest of her life,” I told him.
“Are you sure this is what you want to do?” he asked.
“Just get it done,” I said running my free hand across my beard.
“Okay Mr. Turner, I’ll get this drawn up for you immediately. Call me if you want to change anything.”
“Will do,” I said as I hung up the phone. I felt as if a weight had been lifted off me with this move. It was a necessary for me to live out the remainder of my days without being chained to the farce I allowed to take place so many years ago. My mind traveled to the day that changed the course of my life. The day that led up to this very moment.
It was a warm spring morning in April of 1972, when I walked into my father’s office at the original Turner Enterprise building for work. I worked Saturdays learning the family business and spending time with my father. This Saturday, I was a few minutes late, since I stopped by Clara’s house to take her some breakfast.
Within seconds of walking through the door, my father started in on me. He gave me a once over and said, “Son, your mother tells me you’ve been hanging out with a young lady by the name of Clara Baker. Is that correct?”
I knew where the conversation was going. I’d just told my mother about Clara the night before. What I wanted her to do was soften my father for me. He always took things better when they came from her first. And my mother understood and appreciated my first love, at least that’s what I thought.
“That’s right, Pops. I met her at Wellmington,” I answered without going into any details.
“Oh, really? Where does she live?” he asked, with a raised brow. Soon, Pops’ hand stopped moving across his desk calculator and I had his undivided attention.
“Over on Westside Road near the Rapids Pond,” I said, walking further into the office and sitting down on the sofa. I leaned forward raptly, waiting to see where he would carry the conversation.
Over the years, Pops had drilled into me that people needed to stick with their own kind. Therefore, I didn’t know how he would take it if he knew I had every intention to make the very dark and lovely, Clara Baker, my wife.
“Well, I invited Tammy Jentry to our house for dinner tonight. I think it’s time that you start spending time with a more suitable mate, and Tammy is a good, fine choice.”
“I already have plans for tonight,” I told my father.
“Well, this is my first time hearing of you having plans. I guess you can just reschedule whatever you were going to do. Our dinner plans are already set.”
I could feel the muscles in my neck tense up. Clara wanted to go see the new Foxy Brown movie at the drive-in, and I’d be damned if I was going to miss an opportunity to have her curled up in my arms feeding me popcorn and soda to be at a stuck up dinner with my parents and the Jentry family.
My father continuously dropped hints about me dating his colleague’s daughter, Tammy. She was a beautiful brunette with Marilyn Monroe features that had, at one time, caught my attention. However, she was such a stick in the mud that even her looks didn’t hold my attention for long. It was Clara’s natural beauty, big smile, and even bigger personality that snatched me up and held me captive.
The first day I met Clara she was in the registration line with her parents at Wellmington College. I was walking out of one of the administrative offices with my parents.
“Are you sure you want to register for this school, John?” my father had asked as we walked to the end of the registration line.
“Yes, I’m sure,” I said as Clara and I made eye contact. She was a standout girl wearing a warm colored plaid skirt suit and high platform shoes. Her pretty, brown eyes peeked from underneath her cloche hat. As I walked by, I smiled and she smiled back.
My father and I completed registration and I finally got my dorm assignment. I set out to find out more about the girl with the pretty, brown eyes. I asked a few people in the girls’ dormitory if they’d seen a girl who matched her description, but no one knew who I was talking about.
Just when I thought I’d never see her again, I walked into my English class a week later and she was sitting in the front row. Her light brown legs were crossed at the ankle. She was wearing a pink ruffled blouse and a black pencil skirt. She had on a pair of thick rimmed glasses and her hair was pulled back in a curly puff to the side with a pink ribbon holding it in place.
&nb
sp; I took my seat and began to listen to our teacher present her first lecture. All the while, I couldn’t keep my eyes off Clara. Even from behind, she looked so good. She sat up proper in her seat. She studiously took notes. She engaged the professor by raising her pencil to ask questions. I was intrigued with her every move.
After class was over, I asked if she would mind studying together. At first, she refused, but I was adamant that we could help each other in the class. We set a date for our first study session and I set out to win her heart. Despite her many objections and reasons we should both stay in our perspective worlds, I proved to her time and time again that we were meant to be together.
“John-John, please don’t ever hurt me,” she pleaded the night I savored every moment of her sweet virginity.
“I would never hurt you, Clara. I only want to love you forever,” I replied as I kissed her sweet lips and eased into her warmth for the most fulfilling ten minutes of my life.
Therefore, as I sat on the sofa that Saturday morning in my father’s office, I thought about my words to Clara. The promise I made before consummating our love meant more than what my father was asking me to do. I had no intention to ever hurt Clara, especially if it was to spend time with Tammy Jentry and her parents over dinner.
“I’m not going to be home until after dinner tonight, Dad,” I said, as my father and I were headed out after a productive Saturday morning’s work.
He looked at me with disappointment. “You need to consider the choices you’re making these days very closely, Son,” he said as we parted ways.
“I am,” I said wondering if he would ever understand the way I felt.
I took Clara to see Foxy Brown that night and we made love in the back seat of my old Chevy as the movie played out on the big screen. I was so happy when I walked her to her parents’ door and gave her a kiss goodnight. But when I got back home, Pops kept me up much of the night talking about the controversy my relationship with Clara could cause. He said being with her was a death sentence over my life, career, and everything I held dear. He even said we could lose our family business, or even worse I could end up dead because of my relationship with Clara.
My father knew how much I loved our family business, how much I believed in our family’s legacy. He knew because he instilled it in me since I was old enough to walk. He knew if anything would get to me, the loss of my grandfather’s business might snap me back to the reality of the world we lived in. One of tight-lipped segregation in an officially desegregated society. One of evil that lurked in the nooks and crevices of America.
I held steadfast to my love for Clara, even when my father threatened not to pay my tuition for the following semester and to move me to another school in another state. And when my first semester at Wellmington ended, so did my financial support for that small, fine institution. My father had his own plan. He had pulled some strings and enrolled me at Yale University.
“You might as well go and tell that girlfriend of yours it’s over. It will be years before you get to see her again, if I have anything to do with it,” he told me as he held the acceptance papers for Yale in his hands about a month later. “Besides, once you get to Yale and start hanging around those kids, you will have forgotten everything about Wellmington.”
I put two and two together really fast. My father didn’t want me to be with Clara, so he was moving me clear across the country to Yale. I didn’t want to leave Clara, but I had no choice if I wanted to finish college and not bring shame to my family for being a bum.
She was heartbroken when I told her I was moving to another state to finish college. She knew my father disapproved of her and blamed me for giving up so easily. “You say you want to be with me and you don’t want to leave. If you really want to be with me, you would fight for us,” she’d said.
“I can’t make my father pay for Wellmington. If I could afford to pay for my own tuition, I would stay,” I tried to reason with her. I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to fight for us. But I did what most young men did in the seventies. I did what my father asked of me. I assimilated into the world that was created many years before I was born.
Seeing how devastated she was and not knowing when we’d get to see each other again, I reluctantly broke things off. I wanted her to find someone to make her happy, someone that wasn’t thousands of miles away, and someone that wasn’t off limits to her in society’s eyes.
When I came back home for spring break, Clara wouldn’t accept my calls and told her mother not to allow me near their house. Eventually, I stopped bothering her. I felt there was nothing I could say or do to ease her pain but leave her alone. I told her I would never leave her and never hurt her, but I did.
Out of need for companionship, I took Tammy out on a date. One date led to two and before I knew anything, I was standing at the altar waiting for my bride to enter the chapel. When I pulled the veil from over Tammy’s head to kiss her, I closed my eyes and imagined it had been Clara’s pretty, brown eyes staring back at me. That was the day I signed away forty years of my life to a loveless marriage. It was the day I sealed my fate.
I tried like hell to forget Clara. I tried even harder to remember Tammy was the one I was supposed to love and cherish each day of my life. It was a goal I never reached. A goal I never wanted to reach.
Chapter 4
Destiny
Leave Well Enough Alone
While I could’ve lived my entire life and not seen Jacob’s mother again, my own mother had a few surprises up her sleeve, as well. She had some real explaining to do, once we touched down in Atlanta. I had the limo drive us to her house, where I was staying the night so she could answer the many questions running through my mind. The whole fiasco at Jacob’s parents’ house opened up chapters I had never read about my own mother.
I was sitting at her kitchen table with my foot in the chair. My chin rested on my knee, with my arms wrapped around my leg, as I was in deep thought.
“Don’t sit over there looking at me like that Destiny,” Mama said after fixing herself a cup of hot tea.
“Mama, you knew all along that Jacob’s father was the original heir of Turner Enterprises. So you knew when we left your house with your flowers that you would be going to the Turner’s home and that you would see Mr. Turner there.”
“Of course, I knew,” Mama said as she placed her tea on the table and sat across from me.
“So you planned for this mess to happen?”
“It’s been forty years since I saw that man. I didn’t expect anything to happen, except dinner.”
“Why didn’t you just come out and tell me you’d been in a relationship with Jacob’s father? You spent all this time talking down about Jacob and, come to find out, it stems from whatever his father did to you.”
“When the kids first started talking about you dating a white man from Miami named Jacob and all the gifts he was buying them and trips he was taking them on, the first person I thought about was John. I knew he had a son named Jacob. I was hoping it was some great big ole’ coincidence, so I started researching Jacob then.”
“You did research on Jacob?”
“Girl, I have researched every boy to man you’ve ever dated.”
“That’s a mess, Mom. I didn’t know you snooped in my business like that.”
Mom waved a hand at me. “When I realized he was John’s son, I almost flat lined. I couldn’t believe you were actually dating his son. It was more than I could handle, but I honestly didn’t plan to act up at their house. I’m sorry, Destiny.”
“I just can’t believe you knew Jacob was John’s son the entire time and you never said anything.”
“What was I going to say? You’re in love with the son of the man that broke my heart?”
“Well, yeah.”
“I think I about lost my good sense when I found out. I didn’t want you to go through the same thing I went through. Until tonight, I thought Jacob was just like his father, a man who would fold under the
pressure of other people’s opinion. He proved me wrong.”
“Jacob is a good person. He made a bad choice once, but he has apologized and I forgave him,” I said, feeling the need to set the record straight about Jacob’s decision to rush to be by Justine’s side the night she attacked me.
“I know that now. At the very least, he will defend your honor,” Mama said and I figured she was making reference to the way her relationship ended with Mr. Turner.
“Is that how Mr. Turner hurt you? He didn’t stand his ground for you?”
“It was definitely that, among other things. Things I don’t want to resurface now, after it took me so long to heal.”
“Mama, you haven’t healed. If it were ever possible to carry around a grudge for over forty years, you have mastered that ability. What happened between you two is just as vivid today as it was back in the seventies.”
“It may still sting, but I ain’t hurting. I’ve been just fine without John. I’m not about to start acting like I need him now.”
“Yet, you went to his house to have dinner with no forewarning, knowing his wife would be there.”
“I did want to see him, but I didn’t mean for there to be a confrontation. I thought I’d see him sitting at the dinner table with his loving wife and son, as they welcomed my daughter into their family. I thought I’d get to see that he had in fact grown old with the love of his life. I hoped he wouldn’t even remember me, and that I’d be but a long, lost memory. I thought I’d be able to look him in the eye and that nothing would be there.”
“And what good would that have done for you, Mama? If Mr. Turner had looked right through you and said ‘pass the butter’, it would have hurt you even more.”
“No it would not have! I would’ve walked out of there knowing I was just a moment of his life and the love we shared wasn’t real. I would’ve been able to reconcile those feelings with the way I felt for so long. I would’ve been able to file him away as another asshole without a heart who became an old fart that obliterated like the wind.”
Breathless 3: In Love With An Alpha Billionaire Page 3