by B. M. Hardin
I thought that maybe it was going to be something hotel related that maybe he found or something, but it wasn’t.
“I was wondering if I would be able to adopt Horizon. Once we are married of course. And give her our last name,” Silas said.
Aww!
I just loved him!
He was so sweet and he loved us so much.
A few tears fell from my eyes and unable to speak, I just shook my head.
Silas smiled and so did Horizon as if she knew what we were talking about.
This was all I’d ever wanted and now I had it.
The only thing missing was the baby…
***
“So, he hasn’t called or anything?” Josephine asked.
We were having one of our monthly sister dates.
Sonni hadn’t been able to attend this one, but she promised to be at the next one.
“No. I haven’t heard from him. And I miss the baby so much,” I said to her.
We were having lunch at a crowded restaurant and though I wanted to become emotional, there were too many people around for all of that.
If he would just let me see him, maybe that would do for the time being.
That was all that I asked.
I just wanted to see him, but Nolan was ignoring me.
I still hadn’t heard one single word from him since that day.
Josephine and I talked a little more about the situation and then soon changed the subject.
Josephine had such an amazing sense of humor and I was actually able to enjoy a few laughs.
She could have been a comedian as funny as she was.
She was a stay at home mom, just like I used to be.
Her husband Grant brought home all the money and all she had to do was take care of him and the kids.
To me, that was how it was supposed to be.
To me, that life was perfect.
Josephine abruptly stopped talking.
“Envy,” he said
I turned around to put a face with the voice.
Oh no…it was Mr. Ben from the hotel.
Immediately I felt nervous because I knew that recently he had been acting crazy and I was unsure of what he might do or say.
Not to mention that I had never seen any man outside of the hotel that I had entertained, so I just didn’t know what to expect.
I just knew that there was about to be trouble.
“I just wanted to say hello…and that I love you,” he said.
I looked at him like the fool that he was.
Strangely, he smiled.
Psycho!
“Oh, and here you go. This should take care of your lunch, both of yours and the tip. You know I always leave a tip,” he said, laying a hundred dollar bill on the table.
Without another word, and with a wink, he walked away.
That crazy bastard!
And did he say that he loved me?
He didn’t love me!
Sex is not love…sex is just sex!
Before I could even turn back around to face Josephine, I spotted another fellow headed in my direction.
Damn it, I’m never eating at this restaurant again!
But wait a minute this run-in could be a good thing.
“I just wanted to say thank you for everything. It’s because of you that I had the strength to leave his cheating ass! I’m divorcing his sorry ass and I’m moving on with my life honey! We’re already separated and he’s gone. I don’t know where he is and I don’t care. Who knows, one day I might pay you another visit at the hotel, and maybe this time you can give me that sample that you owe me. Enjoy your lunch,” he said, waved and then walked away.
It wasn’t until he walked off that I actually breathed.
And I noticed that he was a lot more feminine than he had been at the hotel.
I guess he’d felt the need to blend in.
I had no idea as to what he was going to say, but the one thing that I was going to ask him, he’d said it.
He and Nolan were over and he didn’t know where Nolan was.
So where the hell was he?
I tried to become settled back at the table but I could feel Josephine staring at me.
“Who were those men?” Josephine asked.
Oh hell.
“Just some guys that I know.”
“You mean some guy you slept with, the first one, especially since he says that he loves you. And what did the second one mean about a husband, the hotel and a sample?”
I just looked at her.
“I know you hear me talking to you,” she said.
“Josephine, it’s nothing. Just let it go,” I said to her.
She rolled her eyes and changed the subject.
“So, when is the wedding?”
“I’m not sure yet. But it will be soon,” I responded to her and took a bite of my food.
“Do you really think that Silas is the one?”
Her question surprised me.
Did I think that Silas was the one?
If there was such a thing…he had to be.
We got along great and I could honestly say that I could see myself spending the rest of my life with him.
“Yes. Yes he’s the one,” I said.
“Just make sure that you’re sure. You wouldn’t want to marry the wrong one,” she said.
I looked at her.
“What do you mean by that Josephine?”
She took a sip of her drink.
“I should have married Mark.”
I stared at her.
Mark was our sister, Sonni’s, husband.
Though Josephine had made a remark about the two of them having an affair at Horizon’s birthday party, we hadn’t discussed it.
“I knew him first Envy. Way before he’d met Sonni. I’d had an affair on Grant in the early years of our marriage. He was always so busy, and at the time I didn’t have kids, so I was lonely. So, I met Mark and we had a thing. I broke it off with Mark once I got pregnant because I wasn’t for sure whose baby it was. Hell, to this day, I still don’t know but I knew then that I was playing with fire and if I didn’t end things right then, things were going to get messy,” Josephine said.
Oh my, here we go.
“We didn’t see each other for a while and the next time I saw him was when he was being introduced to us by Sonni, as her fiancé. You know how private she is, so he hadn’t known at first that we were sisters. Mark and I had a brief conversation and he’d expressed that he didn’t know but he’d also said that what we had was nothing and that he was still going to marry Sonni. For years, nothing ever happened between us and then once we bought the house a little closer to them, things started to get tricky. We started to run into each other here and there and somehow we just started at it again. We both know that it’s wrong and that we need to tell our spouses the truth. Or at least leave them, but it never seems like the right time. Why do you think I’ve gained so much weight? I’m miserable in my marriage. I’m tired of pretending and living a lie. So, I eat to deal with it. But the truth is that I’m in love with my sister’s husband and no matter how hard I try, I just can’t help it. And I feel so bad about it. Grant is so good to me and the kids. He doesn’t deserve this, but I can’t help the way that I feel,” Josephine concluded.
I couldn’t believe my ears!
They sure don’t make sisters the way that they used to do they?
I couldn’t imagine being in that situation.
I mean the situation with Nolan hadn’t exactly been right, but at least he hadn’t been married to Tia and at least Tia was dead.
Harshly put, but it definitely made all the difference.
And I hadn’t been in love with him either.
But what Josephine was going through had to be Hell on earth for her.
I didn’t know what to say or even where to start.
But I knew one thing was for sure and that was that if she didn’t end it, eventually something bad was going to become of it.
Sonni was already a little different; and I wasn’t sure if her different included crazy or not, but all I could see was disaster up ahead.
We finished the rest of our lunch pretty much in silence.
After all, what was there left to say?
We stood up to leave and I gave the waitress the entire hundred dollar bill that Mr. Ben had left behind.
The waitress smiled.
There was nothing like a big tip…and I could testify to that.
***
“You wanna grab lunch?” Carmen asked.
She had been all over me since I’d told her that Silas and I were no longer together.
I was still mad about the threesome thing, but I had work to do, so I had to get over it.
Carmen was still a bitch, majority of the time, but I could tell that she was trying to tone it down so that she could be nosey.
She was always asking about Silas.
And I do mean, always.
She wanted to know if we were speaking again and the details as to what he’d done.
She would often say that she hated him, but despite what he’d done to her, I found her words hard to believe.
I could tell that she wanted me to feel the hatred towards him too, but I didn’t.
I absolutely loved him!
Since I was just a little over a month from leaving the hotel, I’d finally set a wedding date!
It was currently the beginning of August, and the wedding date was set for next April on the 12th.
My contract would expire near the end of September due to taking the month off after Tia’s death, and after that, wedding plans were going to be in full effect!
Silas was the man, and he was my man.
Lucky, lucky me!
I couldn’t wait to spend the rest of my life with him.
But Carmen didn’t need to know all that.
Detective Wiley was calling almost daily for new information but each time I had nothing new to tell him.
He made it clear that if I couldn’t do the job that he would find someone that could and he constantly reminded me that I would go down with everyone else.
Even if the walls didn’t come tumbling down until after my contract was up and I was already gone, he assured me that I would still be held accountable for the things that I’d done while there; unless I got him what he needed it.
I wasn’t sure if he was trying to scare the crap out of me or what, but I needed to check more into the charges.
I mean of course prostitution was illegal in North Carolina, but it wasn’t a major offense. I was sure that somehow tax evasion and maybe even money laundry was probably tied into what we were doing here.
Who knows what other charges he could or would try to slap us with; and that was just the maids.
I’m sure Carmen and the others would be hit with all kinds of things.
So, basically, I couldn’t take his threats lightly.
It was time to get down and dirty and find what we needed, so, I agreed to go to lunch with Carmen.
I was praying that I would make it through it without trying to stab her with a fork.
While waiting for our food, Silas called a few times and Carmen always glanced in my direction as if she was trying to catch a peek at my phone.
I finally turned it on silent and put it in my purse.
“So, what happens when I leave next month?” I asked her, hoping to get on the subject of the hotel.
“What do you mean? You go on with your life. There have been hundreds of women that have come through the hotel and participated in the activities of the thirteenth floor and once they left, I never saw them again. No one has ever come back again,” Carmen said.
I listened to every word that she said attentively.
She must have been doing this for a very long time.
“Carmen, were you ever one of us?” I asked her.
She looked at me and then started to laugh.
“Honey no. I could never do what you do. I would never sale my body. I have too much class to be some paid whore. If anyone was getting some of this, it was because I wanted them to have it. Not because they’d paid for it.”
What?
I promise, more than the Devil wanted souls, I wanted to smack the hell out of her!
All of the pep-talks and pushing the fantasy of what comes with the thirteenth floor and she’d never even experienced it?
Bitch!
“So, you have just been the overseer…the entire time?” I asked hoping that she would answer.
“Since the very beginning.”
I could tell that she’d wished that she could take the words back as soon as she’d said them.
I was getting too personal, so hurriedly I changed the subject and pretended to like her for the rest of our lunch.
As soon as my day at the hotel was over, I called the detective just to give him that small bit of information.
It wasn’t a lot.
But it was an idea of the timeframe.
Carmen was only about forty, if that, maybe late thirties, so I was sure that it all may have started ten to fifteen years ago.
Maybe they could go back to where she worked before then or find her hired date for the hotel.
That part wasn’t my job, but I was hoping that it would soon be over.
I was just ready for it all to be over.
Thinking about the hotel and why I’d started doing what I was doing in the first place, made me think about Tia.
I missed her so much.
With the baby gone, I didn’t feel as close to her as I had before.
I felt as though I was losing her.
I felt as though the baby kept her presence near but I didn’t feel it anymore.
I felt as though I’d failed her in some way.
With her on my mind, I decided to stop and get some flowers and to go visit her grave.
This would be my first time going there since the funeral and before I’d even arrived, I started to cry.
It was still hard to believe that she was gone.
I walked slowly through the cemetery as I tried to get my thoughts together.
I guess I just imagined my life differently.
And I imagined Tia’s going different as well.
She was supposed to have a business degree and working the job of her dreams by now.
But instead she was somewhere in Heaven; worry and stress free.
Maybe she was the lucky one.
Still thinking of her, as I neared her grave, someone was already there visiting her…
Nolan!
At the sight of me, immediately he looked uncomfortable and maybe even afraid.
Suddenly I didn’t feel sad anymore.
I felt angry!
I walked directly into his personal space.
“Where is the baby?” I asked him furiously.
Before I could stop myself, I hit him with the flowers in my hand that were supposed to be for my sister’s grave.
Nolan just stood there at first and finally he tried to restrain me.
“Where is he? I miss him so much. Why would you do that? Why would you take him from me?” I whined.
I knew better than to cross the line with him in the first place but believe me if I had known that he was capable of doing something so cruel, I definitely would have ran for the nearest exit when things started to heat up between us.
I guess that’s what I get for thinking with my hormones, instead of my head.
That damn hotel has ruined me!
Nolan was being strangely quiet and no matter what I said or how many times I tried to swing on him, he wasn’t saying a word.
He just stared at me as though I was crazy or something.
He stared at me as though he didn’t even know me.
After a few more minutes of listening to me scream at him, finally he let go of my arms and opened his mouth.
“I’m sorry Envy, it was his idea. I’m just sorry,” he said a
nd turned to walk away.
Really?
It had been his idea?
Who was he talking about?
His husband?
So, he’d told him about confronting me after all and then convinced Nolan to take the baby from me?
Who does that to somebody?
And wait a minute, I’d just seen him, and he’d said that they were getting a divorce.
So either he was lying about not knowing where Nolan was, or things went sour after he thought that he was going to have the perfect little family.
That bastard!
Nolan was getting further and further away, so I called after him.
“Nolan please. Please just let me see him. You can have him. Just let me see him. He’s all I have left of her. I’ll come to you or whatever you want me to do. I just want to see him and hold him. I miss his big brown eyes and that sweet, cute smile. Please. Can I go with you to see him?” I cried.
I guess my tears pulled at the strings of his heart because he stopped walking and turned to face me.
He stared at me and I could see the sympathy that he had for me all over his face.
I was getting through to him.
He was finally giving in.
“Nolan please, I’m begging you. Please just let me see him,” I said again.
Nolan looked at me a while longer and then he did something strange.
He nodded his head behind me.
Confused, I turned around to face Tia’s grave and…
Right beside hers was a small tombstone that read:
In Memory of my Precious baby boy: Nolan F. Jackson Jr.
What?
***
I’d been sick for days.
Not physically; but mentally and emotionally.
Words couldn’t describe the way that I felt.
As the story goes, the baby had passed away the week before from Sudden Infant Death syndrome.
Nolan had gone to wake the baby up that evening to feed him and he’d already made his journey back to Heaven to join his mother.
The whole thing gave me flashbacks of finding Keymar, dead, beside me the morning that he’d passed away.
It hit home for me, hard, and since finding out the news, nothing in my life seemed to make sense.
The saddest part of all was that Nolan hadn’t even called to tell us about the baby’s death.
He’d had a whole memorial for the baby and hadn’t called to say one, single word.
Had I not seen him that day at the cemetery, I would have never even known.