His Third Wife

by Grace Octavia

  “My son’s with his mother.”

  “He’s not coming to the wedding?”

  “No.”

  You give a man everything. All of you. Out on a table. Everything. Appetizers. Sides. Drinks. An entrée. And dessert. Just everything you have to give.

  For this, you ask for something. A small thing.

  You get nothing.

  I was tired of getting nothing. Nothing from every man. I’d bend like this. I’d turn like that. They’d notice and smile. Follow me for a little while. And then, I was alone again. Back and broken. Worse off than I was before. Poor. And black. And a woman. And I don’t need to have gone to college to know that shit ain’t fair.

  So, you’re damn right, when I met Jamison I was tired of getting nothing. But I gave him everything anyway. I wore high leopard-print heels and shit. I dusted my nipples in Ecstasy. I fried chicken in my thong in the middle of the night. Whatever he wanted. He noticed. He smiled.

  Then I asked for something.

  He got real quiet. That man-not-answering-the-phone-or-email quiet.

  That’s when I realized I wasn’t being left with nothing this time. I was taking what I wanted.

  It’s funny what a man will do to keep what he has. When I told Jamison I was pregnant, his first question was how far along I was. I knew what that meant. I lied. Fifteen weeks. Too late for an abortion. He told me to take his credit card and pick out an engagement ring. Mr. Mayor had to marry me to keep everything he has. And that’s no trouble for me. I wanted to marry him because of everything he has. Because now I have it, too.

  The bride and groom took the long drive to downtown Forsyth in separate cars.

  Mama Fee sat beside Val in the Jaguar trying to decide how to say what she needed to say and ask what she needed to know. What she wanted to say was, “This is crazy! This is ridiculous!” What she wanted to ask was, “Why are we in separate cars? Why hasn’t your fiancé spoken to me?” But seemingly having her thoughts read, at every peak of possibility of internal eruption, Val would offer statements that made any claims or interrogations irrelevant in her new world: “Jamison likes to think in the car. He likes to ride alone.... I love driving my new car. . . . I don’t mind driving myself around.... Soon, I’ll have a driver anyway. . . . He can’t wait to meet you. . . . Don’t worry, Mama.... This ain’t Memphis. . . . This is Atlanta. . . . Things are done differently here. . . .”

  Jamison’s new assistant, a white boy with strawberry-blond hair and emeralds for eyes, met the two cars in the parking lot at the courthouse, whisked Jamison into the back of the building one way and Val and Mama Fee into the back of the building another way nearly thirty minutes later.

  So much rushing. So little talking. Mama Fee pretended she was having trouble walking just so Val would have to hold her hand.

  “I love you, Val Denise. I want the best for you. Always have,” Mama Fee said softly to Val just before the assistant pulled them into a holding room where Jamison was waiting on his cell phone.

  Val smiled, kissed her mother on the cheek and let go of her hand.

  Jamison was barking commands at the someone on the phone and signaling for his assistant to seat Val and her mother. He forced his free hand into his pocket and stood tall with his shoulders perfectly squared. The stance announced that he was a man handling business.

  “Tell Darth the contract isn’t negotiable. He can bring anyone he wants to the table,” Jamison said. “I won’t move. The people of this city won’t move. That park isn’t going anywhere. Darth will have to speak to me first.”

  Val took a glass of water the assistant was holding and handed it to Jamison herself. She was grinning at his display. Something in his tone, his force, vibrated to her ankles and made her head feel cloudy.

  Jamison hung up the phone and slid the precious thing into his pocket.

  “Work,” he said to Val before turning to his assistant. “Leaf, call Senator Green. Tell him I’ll take him up on his offer for drinks tonight. Tell him I’ll expect one of his top cigars. None of that cheap shit.”

  “Of course, Mayor Taylor,” Leaf said, clicking out of the room with his phone already in his hand.

  “I’m so sorry,” Jamison said, suddenly focusing his attention on Mama Fee. “All this work this morning and I haven’t had a chance to make your acquaintance.”

  “Oh, you had a chance at the house, but you were in such a rush that—” Mama Fee tried before Val cut off what was sure to be some tongue lashing.

  “Jamison, this is—” Val tried to mediate, but then Jamison cut her off with dribbles of Southern charm in his voice that could have softened any woman’s angry tongue. Anyone listening had the sense that this was how he’d talked to older voters at senior centers and nursing homes during press spots when he was trying to get elected.

  “No. No need—” He held out his arm before getting down on his knee in front of where Leaf had sat Mama Fee. “I know exactly who this Cherokee Rose is.” He took her hand and kissed it. “Mama Fee. My new mother-in-law.” He looked into her eyes. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”

  “Well, you too.” Everything Mama Fee had imagined about this brown stranger who was marrying her daughter was whirling down a veritable toilet bowl and disappearing into a forgotten sewer. This old woman was blushing. Her heart was heating.

  “I know these aren’t the best circumstances for us to be meeting, but I’m sure you know the old way.” Traces of Jamison’s true Southern accent punctuated each verb. “I had to make an honest woman of your daughter. And fast.”

  “Well, thank you, sir,” Mama Fee said, and her tone recalled traces of the young woman she used to be, “but you can save that. I’ve heard many things about my daughter, and ‘honest’ ain’t one of them.”

  Everyone chuckled but Val.

  “So, we know the same woman?” Jamison asked, rubbing Mama Fee’s shoulder.

  “I made her; you bought her.” Mama Fee grabbed Jamison’s hand to stop him. Looked into his eyes. “Just promise me you’ll treat her right.”

  “I will.”

  “Okay. Enough with the negro family reunion,” Val jumped in, looking at Jamison. “Where’s the judge? Your baby and I are tired and we need a nap.”

  “Don’t worry. Everything’s going as planned,” Jamison answered, feeling the sharp, stark jab of a reminder of his predicament in “your” associated with the baby. “We’re just waiting for Mama—” The door opened and Leaf ushered in an older version of the woman in the Tiffany picture frame in Mama Fee’s purse. “And here she is.”

  This mother’s pearl earrings were real and huge. Milky mirrors that shined more brilliantly than diamonds as they clung onto her meaty earlobes. And she was also wearing a lace-front wig, but the bold blond hair glued to her forehead wasn’t plastic. It was one hundred percent Malaysian and so soft it bounced down her little meaty back when she wasn’t even moving. After noting how odd the soft flaxen curls looked against her purple brown skin, the second thing people noticed about her was that she was usually the shortest and roundest person in any room. At one moment she could look like one of those old school inflatable punching dolls. At another, an overgrown obese toddler. It didn’t seem to bother her though. She wore her weight and stature like war garments. It made people move out of the way and stare. And that’s just what she wanted.

  Jamison was up on his feet and had his mother in his arms before Mama Fee could get a good look at her.

  Val seemed to have disappeared into a corner and was clinching her teeth tightly. Not necessarily in fear of what Mrs. Taylor would say to her, but what Val might say back. Since the scene in the bathroom at the office, Val came to realize that Jamison had a firm belief that his mother was the incarnate manifestation of Isis, Mother Nature, Yemaya-Ogun, and Sojourner Truth wrapped up into one wicked widow. Those who spoke against her were outcasts, never to be heard from again. Val just, simply, knew better than to rumble with this robust reincarnation. And that was no easy task f
or anyone. “The wicked witch returns,” Val mumbled.

  “My handsome, brilliant baby boy,” Mrs. Dorothy Taylor said so fervently everyone in the room knew Jamison had heard these words a billion times since he was born.

  Mother and son exchanged elegant words as if they were alone in the room before Jamison pulled his mother and her bouncing Malaysian curls to Mama Fee.

  “Mama, I have someone I want you to meet.” He pointed down to Mama Fee, who hadn’t moved from her place on the couch. She was still taking in the real pearls and Malaysian hair. “This is Mama Fee, Val’s mother.”

  “Oh, wonderful,” Mrs. Taylor said. “Hello, dear.” She reached down and offered half of her hand to Mama Fee in a half-friendly, non-palm-touching handshake that revealed that she was more of a politician than her son. Her voice was desperately detached though, and nearly patronizing, as if Mama Fee was a little dear twenty years her senior and on her way to a nursing home; however, they were clearly the same age. “And how are you enjoying our fine city?”

  “It’s not my first time here. We’re from Memphis.” Mama Fee deferred to her daughter, who was still hiding in the corner.

  “Oh, yes, I’ve heard—” Mrs. Taylor nodded at Val and accepted a fake hug when she finally emerged from the darkness. “But you certainly haven’t seen it with my son, the mayor.” She nearly pushed Val from her side and pulled Jamison to her. “He can get anything done at the snap of his finger. Right, baby?”

  “Yes, Mama.” Jamison feigned embarrassment, but really his tone was set to cheer his mother’s petty praises along.

  Mama Fee looked on and smiled with tightly pursed lips as if she was listening to a pastor’s wife brag about her new Second Sunday hat.

  Leaf, who’d stepped out of the room and was now standing at the door with it halfway open, announced that everyone was to follow him to the judge’s chambers. His voice was productive, punctual, as if he was seating them at the local burger joint and certainly not preparing them for what was commonly a Southern sacrament filled with all of the pomp and circumstance, ritual, and tradition of a pope’s beatification. At that very moment, in a black Southern wedding, the bride was to be buried beneath a cloud of virginal whiteness in silk, lace and taffeta; her adoring father and loyal sorority sisters were to be at her side; a church should’ve been draped in two tasteful, season-friendly colors; a unity candle should be placed at the altar; a broom decorated by some old, or wise, or creative spirit should’ve been hidden in the front pew; three beautiful brown little girls with long pigtails and clear, ambitious eyes should’ve been walking down the aisle; a groom, nervous, but so proud should’ve been standing at the front of what seemed like a mile long line of envious spectators as a woman from the church sang “Ave Maria” out of tune. But there was none of that here. Jamison had asked Val not to wear white, so she wouldn’t draw any attention to them, so she was in a beige Chanel suit that might make coworkers envious at an office luncheon, but seemed par for the course in the back breezeways at the courthouse. Jamison was straggling behind her in a navy suit his first wife had picked out for him just months before they’d divorced.

  The small group of celebrants gathered to file out of the door like they were stepping into a teller line at a bank. The only person who might have appeared confused as to whether she was preparing for a deposit or withdrawal was Mama Fee, who was in the front of the line. Holding down the back was the one who was certain—Mrs. Taylor. She grabbed Val’s hand just before she stepped over the threshold.

  Jamison saw the tug. “Mama, we have to go,” he said, his eyes now as troubled as Val’s. “The judge is ready.”

  “I know who’s ready and who ain’t,” Mrs. Taylor replied, unmoved. “I just need a moment alone with my soon-to-be daughter-in-law.” She pulled Val farther back from the threshold.

  “But, Mama—”

  “Jamison Taylor, you know I don’t care for people minding my business. I said I have to speak to this here gal about something and—”

  “Excuse me, Mrs. Taylor, but we are on a tight schedule,” Leaf tried, cutting Mrs. Taylor off with a voice drenched in authority.

  Mrs. Taylor smiled and paused before answering, “White boy, you ain’t worked for my son long enough that I should even know your name. Don’t make today your last day on the job. Because I can make that happen. Ask that last white boy who was looking for a job.”

  Leaf, a Harvard University graduate whose perfect resume made him so overqualified for the job, Jamison thought it was a joke that he had applied and was willing to take a pay cut when he showed up out of the blue at Jamison’s door the day after he’d had to fire his last assistant, seemed spooked by Mrs. Jackson’s threats and went into action, nearly pulling Mama Fee and Jamison out of the room and sealing the door behind them. He wouldn’t let anyone open that door until he heard Mrs. Taylor give the okay.

  “You about to call me a bitch? A whore? Diarrhea again?” Val asked inside the room. She’d expected some kind of confrontation from Mrs. Taylor. Something just like this.

  “Nonsense,” Mrs. Taylor answered, tucking her blond hair behind her ear like a decent woman would. “I just wanted to congratulate you. That’s all. Welcome you into the family.”

  Val stepped back and took in all of Mrs. Taylor again. “Really?”

  “But, of course. Baby, this is the South. And family is family. And you’re about to be family. So, we’ve got to move on.”

  “Really?”

  “Now, I know I have my feelings. And you know my feelings. But we’re right here, right now,” Mrs. Taylor went on. “And you’re marrying my boy. And it ain’t in any way I ever would’ve wanted to, but you young girls have your ways.” Mrs. Taylor’s eyes went right to the little bump in Val’s stomach.

  “I know. He’s marrying me because I’m pregnant. I’m not stupid.”

  “You at least love him?”

  “Actually, I do. Jamison’s a fighting man. Strong. He ain’t nothing like any man I’ve ever been with.”

  “I know. I made him everything he is.” Mrs. Taylor came in so close to Val, only the bump separated their lips. Her next words came like fire from her thorax. “And everything he is better stay the way it is. And if it doesn’t . . . you see where the last wife is.”

  “Understood.”

  “Good. Glad we could have this talk.” Mrs. Taylor stepped back and perked up on cue. “Now, congratulations.” She bowed a little to Val and called for Leaf to open the door. Before Val could make it outside, Mrs. Taylor whispered in her ear, “And we’ll see about this baby when it’s born and we can get the blood results.”

  The wedding was nothing to remember. It couldn’t even be called a wedding. Maybe a marriage meeting. A contract signing. A man read words from a book. Two adults agreed. Papers were signed. No one took pictures. It was done. Mama Fee wondered why she’d taken her fake pearls out of the box in her undergarments drawer.

  Just before the meeting, Leaf dismissed himself from the exchange on account of some of the mayor’s fires needing tending at his office downtown and a bank check for ten thousand dollars Jamison had ordered Leaf to overnight to a post office box in Los Angeles, so the foursome was alone afterwards. Jamison, being anxious to get back downtown himself, thoughtlessly led everyone right out the front door, thinking the exit would be so swift no one would see his irregular party.

  But, even in Forsyth County, a black mayor is still a black mayor and most black faces that passed Jamison, his new wife, his mother, and his mother-in-law, smiled as if they’d discovered some new secret.

  Jamison caught on fast and just before the softened wood on the bottom of his shoes tapped the last step in front of Forsyth’s courthouse, he knew he’d made a mess.

  A voice came calling to confirm this.

  “And here he is—Mayor Jamison Taylor.” A reporter holding a microphone materialized from nothing and was standing right in Jamison’s tracks with a camera crew behind him. He was a young black reporter wh
o’d graduated from Morehouse just a year ago and had his eyes on an anchoring seat at CNN. He was one of those ambitious reporters whose talent was desperation. He didn’t sleep. He’d do anything for a lead. And almost everything led him to Mayor Jamison Taylor. This smelled like another such incident. “Care to make a comment?”

  “A comment?” Jamison smiled like he should have, but anyone who was watching the live feed on the news saw the emotional collapse in his eyes.

  “Yes. About your new wife. Your marriage.” The reporter looked at Val and smiled.

  Jamison was suddenly very aware of Val’s clothing. How tight her suit was. How red her lips were. Those big diamond earrings. How she was holding on to his arm.

  “No comment,” Jamison said.

  “Reports say you married Val Long this morning. Are you denying that, Mayor Taylor?”

  The microphone was pressed back into Jamison’s face. The woman at his side was quiet and listening for his response. The women behind him had parted and were nearly leaning over each of his shoulders to hear anything.

  “I haven’t denied a thing. I just said no comment,” Jamison said surreptitiously.

  “So, you did get married?” the reporter asked.

  “Yes.”

  The reporter grinned and pivoted to face his crew and into the cameras he spoke: “You heard it here first. Mayor Taylor marries his former assistant, ex-stripper Val Long. More later.”

  Someone in the crew yelled, “Cut!” and the women around Jamison erupted into a massive storm of curses and impolite commentary ranging from the reporter needing to mind his fucking business to suggestions that he was an Uncle Tom trying to ruin a black mayor’s reputation.

  Mrs. Taylor was about to beat him over the head with her clunky Louis Vuitton purse when Jamison got control and ordered the women to march ahead to the cars in the back of the parking lot and wait for him there. A crowd was gathering and he couldn’t risk giving that situation any more weight.