He breathed heavily, looking up past my car every few seconds. “Did you talk to Kandi?”
“You know, don’t you?”
“What’d she tell you?” His fingers gripped the side of my door.
I shook my head in disgust and started the engine. “Back up, move,” I said, putting the SUV in gear.
“V.”
“No. No … I get it. You’re protecting her. I mean, was she that unhappy and jealous of your precious hospital that she was willing to destroy it? You were right, it wasn’t Jasper, was it? It was Kandi, and you knew the whole time.”
“V, tell me what she said?”
“She said enough. I know what she did. But you know what, I don’t care. I really couldn’t care less. Now move, Clint, unless you want your feet run over.”
“V, give me a minute. Just shut up a minute, please.” He rushed around to the other side of my car and pulled on the passenger door. I wouldn’t unlock it, but he kept trying. “Just open the door, V.”
I knew I would regret it. He climbed inside. “Can we go somewhere else to talk?”
“I’m not going anywhere with you. You see what someone wrote on my car. Who do you think did that? Take a wild guess.”
“Just drive, V. Please,” he said sadly.
I put the SUV in gear then pressed it back into park. I turned the engine off. If Kandi was willing to take down an entire hospital to see her husband in a better light, I was toast. We weren’t leaving that parking lot together. I turned to face him. “It doesn’t matter. Okay. I’m done. I’m out. I don’t care what happened. I should’ve never come here and got involved with you and her. I knew it was trouble, but something bordering on insanity kept me from walking away. But it’s not about you or her. It’s about that hospital and all those people who might lose their jobs and this community that has nowhere else to go. And you and her can justgo—”
“If I told the truth, somebody would go to jail,” he interrupted quietly. “Maybe even both of us,” he said, shaking his head with regret. “Kandi showed up at the hospital with a letter I wrote. She found it. She wasn’t supposed to find it. It was like a practice run. I was telling her in the letter, that I wanted to leave … a divorce.” He paused long enough for my shock to subside. “She brought the letter to the hospital after she found it. She cornered me outside the neonatal ward in the hallway. I told her to go inside where we could talk. She went off, completely off, talking about killing herself and the baby. She said she rather be dead right along with my unborn son then let me run off with … you.”
I gasped. “Me?” I shook my head with disbelief.
“I told her that you had nothing to do with my decision.” He paused as if he wanted me to say something. I couldn’t. “She held up the letter with a lighter,” he continued. “I tried to snatch it out of her hand. Then I heard the sound, the air pressure coming out the tanks. Earlier in the day I’d reset them. That part was true, I didn’t get the connector on tight. It was leaking, as well as the nitrous that backs it up. When Kandi struck the lighter, I heard the searing sound, the pressure building up. I grabbed her just before it ignited. I covered her and the explosion happened. I got her out then went back for all the babies. Everything was out of control. The fire, the smoke.
“Dr. Langley came and started trying to put out the fire. I didn’t realize he’d collapsed until the whole room was engulfed. I couldn’t get him out. It was my fault, any way you look at it. I don’t need to involve Kandi. It’s not going change the end result.”
I stared out the window and chewed on the inside of my jaw, contemplating. “Clint,” I said, frustrated. “I have to go.”
“V.”
“No, really, I have to go.”
After a few moments he pulled himself together, stepped out of the car, and closed the door. I didn’t hesitate, driving off as fast as I could.
I swung between lanes on the freeway, passing drivers who weren’t trying to get home to their husbands. I wanted to get home to Jake. I wanted to hear him say, It’s going to be all right, babe.
Other Fish to Fry
It wasn’t so easy when I was playing in my own backyard. Pointing the finger at Clint, judging his decision to protect his wife was the same crossroad I’d come to. The question of how Byron Steeple died hung in the air every time Jake walked into the room. The weight of the answer would’ve destroyed us, whether he told me what I wanted to hear or not. I swore I’d never ask. I just couldn’t.
I was on automatic pilot. I woke up every morning putting my head and body to the grindstone. I packed Mya up and took her miles out of my way to my mother’s house before going to the hospital. Trina was sent off with a healthy Jake the Fairy Godfather severance package. I could run my own household. I could handle the care of my own child and husband. I relished waking up to the sound of Mya screaming my name. Maama! I’d been granted queendom and all that the title required I willingly gave. I think the word I’d used was fulfilled. Which meant a full day of working at the hospital until I was exhausted and couldn’t see straight. Then coming home to the challenge of trying to keep our feet from sticking to the floor. Never mind the unfolded laundry and piles of dirty dishes in the sink. Fulfilled, I said to myself daily. Sometimes I even spelled it out. F-U, well we know the rest.
I was admittedly wiser and more mature, perks of the job of being a working wife and mommy. The afternoon Wendy called to announce the finality of her divorce, I was full of advice and flowing with a positive outlook.
“He says he wants to get back together,” she said over the phone. “He waits until the final papers come and now he’s all apologetic and sick over losing me. I asked him, What about the little whore … what about her? He says there was nothing ever serious. He says the baby was born just as white as pancake flour. Not his. Ha! That’s what his ass gets.”
“Exactly,” I said. “No one was ever satisfied with what they had until they’d experienced the threat of losing it all.”
“He can forget it. I’s a free woman. I won’t go back, I can’t,” Wendy proclaimed in a fake southern drawl. She sounded strong and light, dignified and vulnerable all at the same time. “I plan on making some serious upgrades. I’m already registered for school. Moving back in with moms gave me the freedom to go back to school. … Can you believe it? I’ll be forty-two when I graduate, and still in my prime. Do you realize people are living past ninety? That’s too damn long to be alive and not have fulfilled your dreams, your goals.” Wendy was preaching to the choir.
I said my um-hums, and amens on cue.
“I should be thanking that tattooed wench for sleeping with Sidney so I could find myself.”
“Everything happens for a reason,” I added to the stack of metaphors and clichés we’d already piled up. Knowing that once we hung up the phone we’d both wallow in self-pity and wonder why if change is so good, why we felt so afraid. I fell silent watching Mya unfold all the towels I’d folded. She laid them out in perfect rectangles on the floor, taking pride in her straight corners. When her round feet waddled over to straighten one side, she’d ruin the other, causing a lot of back and forth.
“So before I buckle down and start hitting the books, I need to do some serious rump shaking. I still got it, why let it go to waste?”
“Rump shaking?”
“Clubbing. Girl, how long has it been? We need to go out to celebrate my freedom.”
“Eeeew, can’t we just go to a day spa and get our eyebrows threaded or something? It’s a lot less painful.” I checked my wild brows in the mirror. Hadn’t been tamed in quite a while. Between the hospital and trying to take care of home, I hadn’t much time for anything. “No one goes clubbing anymore. It’s like a bad scene from Waiting to Exhale the movie. Grown-ass women at a nightclub. It’s just not right.”
“Grown or not, I want to get my swerve on,” she purred like a kitten. “This weekend. It’ll be fun. We can go to dinner, go out for drinks, then find a hot spot and get down and
dirty on the dance floor.”
I crawled onto the floor next to Mya and helped her straighten out a towel before needing to lay down myself. I spread out on the plushness. Lucky me, I’d discovered Trina’s secret for soft fresh-smelling laundry. One cap of softener on a second rinse cycle. Now all I had to do was learn how to fry some fish, but I’d get there.
Spreading out my limbs and flexing my toes, I tossed in a belly crunch. “It’s not like I know where the hot spots are,” I exhaled, letting my feet drop.
“Well, you’ve got forty-eight hours to find one.”
“And then can we go to the spa?” I asked, hoping for a reward for submitting to dangerously loud music that could bust my eardrums.
“In case you don’t know, there aren’t any men at the spa, unless they’re named Hugo and like to paint their toes a soft peach when no one is looking.” She smacked her lips. “I can see already, I’m going to have to find me a new best friend. You’re way too happily married with child.” This Wendy assumed because I never mentioned a single thing about the hospital and Clint drama. I hadn’t let it slip that Jake came home later and later in the evenings and sometimes into the dark morning when the sky was violet blue. Nor had I mentioned the constant ache just below my rib cage, better known as a terrible gut feeling that arrived each night right before bedtime, the anxiety of not knowing what was really happening in his world.
Mya got up and grabbed another towel. This one she spread over my face and body. I kept the phone at my ear while she covered me from head to toe. Mya’s coal black eyes peeked at me, pulling the towel just low enough to match our eyes and nose. Both of us grinning insanely, I lay back down letting her cover me up with another layer or two of towels until the light of the room closed out completely.
“Wendy, you couldn’t be more right, very happily married with child.” When would the lies stop? “Hey, when you come, bring Sandy?”
“Sandy? I’m not carrying that dog with me on the plane. What am I supposed to do, put him in my Gucci dog case? That won’t work, ’cause I don’t have one. And secondly, Tia has grown much attached. I wish I would try to take that mutt away from her.”
“Not to keep, just for a visit.”
“Girl, please. You want to visit, you’re going to have to make the flight out here.” She got quiet. “Is there something you’re not telling me? Seems like you start yearning for your little cocker spaniel when you’re having sad attacks.”
“What the heck is a sad attack?”
“You thinking about what you coulda-shoulda had different.”
“Wendy, tssch,” I sucked my teeth in exaggeration. “I was just thinking Mya would love to be around a cute little doggy. Wouldn’t you, Mya?” I poked the phone up through an opening of the towels. “Say hi to Aunt Wendy.”
“Hiii,” Mya said in her soft wispy voice.
I pulled the phone back in time to hear Wendy’s excitement and baby talk ensued. “It’s me,” I cut Wendy off in the middle of a long syllable.
“She is growing up so fast. I can’t wait to see my little princess.”
“Yeah, she’s running the place … and me.” I flinched from Mya’s foot stepping on me like I was part of the floor.
“What happened to your au pair via Compton?”
“Funny, ha ha. Trina left. I mean we let her go,” I said, conveniently leaving out the full connecting story whereby she made me feel completely insecure in my own home. “See you this weekend.”
“Who was that?” Jake came in or had already been in the room. I was lying flat on my back buried under towels. I rose up to see him go straight to Mya, picking her up into his arms. “How’s my baby girl, huh?” Jake and Mya did the nose nuzzle. He put her back down and did a quick survey of the room.
“I know. Mya did it.” I scooped the towels into the basket then followed him into the kitchen. Dishes from earlier covered the counter and filled the sink. Pasted cereal on the bowls. Milk film on the sippy cups. “Wendy’s singing the praises of young, single, and free.”
He pulled the microwave open and closed it just as quickly. The oven was next, the hinge squeaked from lack of use. Stellar clean since Trina left. I liked the spotless shine of the black ceramic top and chrome trim, and hadn’t so much as boiled water or baked a frozen pizza to keep it that way.
“I didn’t cook anything. … I got busy. My conversation with Wendy was over two hours, playing catch up.”
He smirked and pulled a brown banana off the bunch. “So how’s Wendy doing?”
“She wants to come out and celebrate her divorce being final. Go out dancing, eegh.”
“Take her to Gotham Hall in Santa Monica. It’s a nice place,” he offered.
“No club is a nice place, and what do you know about Gotham City?”
“Hall,” he corrected. “Gotham Hall is a restaurant but they have a dance floor. I’ve taken a few buyers there to entertain. It’s cool. The club crowd is more your age.”
My mouth dropped a little—not much, I could still carry my tongue. “Well, thanks. I hope they have a cane station so no one trips over us old fogies and all.”
He grinned. “Mommy thinks she’s old,” he said to Mya, who was leaning on his leg getting her share of mushy banana, too.
“No, you think I’m old.” I walked by and opened my mouth for a bite as well. Instead of breaking off a piece as he did for Mya, he stuck the whole banana to my mouth. I closed my lips around the curved fruit and sucked gently before taking a piece. I leaned against him. “I bet I know something where being older is an advantage. Especially when I lose my teeth and gum ya into ecstasy.” My tongue skimmed the edge of my teeth for emphasis.
“Babe … not a good visual.” Jake dropped the floppy peel into the garbage, leaving me standing alone near the sink. Mya was already trailing behind him, dragging a towel around her shoulders like superbaby.
This wasn’t the first time in the past few weeks where I’d felt small, strangely incomplete. Like standing outside myself and watching from a distance. But I got used to it. I understood some things had to be compromised. We weren’t the same people as two years before, eager and passionate, hanging on each other’s every word. We were married now.
Open House
Wendy insisted on renting a car and taking the drive from the airport all by herself. Newfound independence and a nice plump divorce settlement gave her the freedom to do a laundry list of small things that boosted her self-esteem. The newly found woman was standing on my doorstep looking like a magazine spread for spring fashion. Only thing missing from her ensemble was a straw bonnet with silk flowers on the top.
“You look marvelous!” I pulled her inside for a long warm hug.
We danced around, then hugged each other some more. “So this is the Ponderosa. Whoa, girl. Just whoa. I love what you’ve done with the place.”
“Well, I can’t take any credit for it. It was like this when I got here,” I confessed.
“So I’ll give you credit for finding a man with good taste, ’cause the place is laid.”
She screamed, “Mya! Oh my goodness, look how you’ve grown. Look at her.”
I spun around to see Jake holding Mya’s hand. Mya did a running step then slowed down not sure if all the excitement was over her.
“How you doing, Jake?” Wendy hugged him, and then kneeled down to Mya’s eye level.
“Oh sweetie, you’re beautiful. You remember your aunt Wendy?”
Mya stuck her tummy out as an offering. Wendy quickly scooped her up, kissing every part of her face. “Oh my goodness, I’d want to stay home and eat you up all day.”
Jake caught my eye to say see-told-ya-so.
I gave him a yeah-we’ve-already-covered-this look.
Soon enough Mya started to squirm, requesting to be put back down. She made her way against Jake’s leg, leaving Wendy to deal with the slighted feeling I was so used to.
“Here … come on. I’ll show you to your room.” I grabbed her suitcase, no
ticing the weight and wondered how long she’d really planned to stay.
“Nice. This must be where the au pair stayed,” her voice dragged in a fake English accent.
I scrunched my face. Anything regarding the past few months made me uncomfortable. “Yeah. Sometimes.”
Wendy slid her arms across the satin duvet then plopped onto the fluffiness. “If this is the guest room, I don’t even want to know what your room is like. You know what … your life is perfect.”
That was my chance to tell her how wrong she was … or technically, how right she’d been all along. The many times she’d corrected me … nobody is perfect, Venus, nothing is as good as it seems. The many times I’d refused to come down off my mighty cloud of joy, now I was willing to admit nothing is as it seems.
I stayed quiet, thinking if I opened the can of worms … they would turn out to be snakes. Dangerous. Poisonous no-turning-back snakes. I’d end up saying something stupid, like … I was living in this perpetual state of emotional separation, keeping myself blind and busy so I couldn’t see the big snakes. The kind that lived under your bed each and every night but moved around invisibly. I was so afraid that the knock would come and there would be a detective so and so at my door, from the so and so division, to politely ask questions about so and so, murder.
“So where we going?” Wendy asked.
“Jake told me about a club. He said it was a nice place.”
“Not too nice, I hope.” She unzipped her suitcase and pulled out the Marilyn Monroe–style dress with a deep cut halter and billowy chiffon on the skirt. “Is this bad, or is this bad? You ought to see it on. Sexy.” She held up the highest pair of stiletto heels I’d ever seen, the kind in the Frederick’s of Hollywood catalog. “I’m on a mission.”
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