The Double Life: A Novel By Shea Lynn

by Shea Lynn

  I wiped at my face and pulled my head up to meet her red eyes. “I’m not leaving, Dayna. Not again.”

  Dayna’s whole body seemed to sag when I said that.

  My nostrils were flaring, my lips taught and pursed. “I’m not leaving. You leave.”

  She shrugged and moved toward the door. “Okay.”

  I stood and raced over to her. “Wait, dammit! Just wait.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I just knew I didn’t want her to go. If she left, then it meant there was no hope for us. Her departure would be the final nail in our coffin. I didn’t want that. I wanted her.

  Dayna sighed and finally touched me. She ran her hand down my arm and said, “I’m no good to you if I don’t know that I want to be with you. It’s not fair to you. It’s not fair to me.”

  “Can’t we just give it another night? Just think about this for one more night?” I asked.

  Dayna’s eyes answered before her lips even moved. “No.”

  “No? Just like that?”

  She nodded and grabbed her purse. “I’ve gotta get out of here. I’m going to go clear my head.”

  There were so many things I wanted to say, so many thoughts that clouded my head and fought for my tongue. So many that they had me paralyzed, standing there in my living room floor, watching my wife move toward the front door.

  “Dayna,” I finally said.

  She looked back at me.

  I was frantic now. I knew that this was it. This was my last chance to keep that woman from walking out the door. If I could just keep her from walking out the door, I still had a shot. We still had a shot.

  “I love you. What…what do I have to do? Just tell me and I’ll do anything. Anything you ask me to do, I’ll do. Anything.”

  “Anything?” she asked.

  My eyes focused and I stood a little straighter then. She’d heard me. I had her attention.

  “Anything.”

  Dayna sighed and pursed her lips before she said, “Then move out.”

  Chapter Fifty-One: Sidney

  My signature dish is baked chicken with potatoes, green beans, and carrots. My mother had given me a starter-recipe similar to my signature dish when I’d first started cooking for myself. But over the years, I perfected this one-pot wonder: adding herbs and spices and flavoring the meat with my own special concoction of seasoning.

  At one point, my signature chicken dish had been the only meal I could cook reasonably well and it was the first meal I’d made for Aaron. It was our fourth or fifth date and I’d invited him to my apartment for dinner. As we sat down at my table, two steaming plates of chicken dish before us, I’d been nervous about my cooking. Time would tell I had no reason to worry and that night, my future husband wolfed down three plates of chicken dish and even took a plate home.

  On Tuesday evening, following my discussions with Karen and Darnell, I stood in my kitchen and prepared my signature chicken dish for my family. I took extra care with the chicken breasts; injecting them with a savory flavor combination I’d created and wrapping the baking dish tightly in foil so that the meat would be tender and juicy.

  Aaron was still in love with this dish and I wanted to see his smile when he came home early to the smell of his favorite meal.

  Padding around the tiled kitchen floor in my stocking feet, I was still wearing the dress shirt and slacks I’d worn that morning. I’d been rushing to get dinner prepared and as I walked around the downstairs, picking up toys, errant socks, and misplaced stacks of outdated mail, my eyes flitted around, hunting for any item out of place. I wanted our house to be neat and tidy and homey when my husband walked in.

  I jog-walked up the stairs, continuing to clean as I went, dropping off little gift bundles of belongings to the correct bundle-owners. I changed quickly into a comfortable pair of hip-hugging jeans and left my dress shirt. It was soft pink with a large, rectangular box of gray and blue oxford pattern on the front. I pulled at the tails of the shirt, letting then fall to the middle of my butt and gave myself a once-over in the floor-length mirror.

  My lips were dry, so I grabbed a tube of shiny, chocolate colored lip gloss and painted my lips. I gave my image one last glance, finally satisfied with what I saw. The time on my bedroom clock read 6:15 and I knew that at any moment, I’d hear the garage open, heralding the return of my husband and children.

  Just as I made it to the top of the steps, I heard the mechanical hum of the garage. Slipping down the steps, the scent of my baking chicken met my nostrils and I smiled.

  Everything was perfect. Exactly as I’d planned.

  I sat at the round kitchen table, my eyes focused on the door that opened to the garage. I heard Devann and Aiden giggling excitedly amid murmurs of “Mommy’s home! Mommy’s home!” and seconds later the door opened and they came running after me, their little eyes shiny and filled with wonder.

  “Mommy!” came a set of simultaneous shrieks as four little feet raced over to me and grabbed me around the neck.

  I greeted them warmly with hugs and kisses. When we separated, their little faces bore the marks of my chocolate lip gloss.

  Aaron closed the door behind him and looked over to me with a wide, happy grin.

  “Hey Baby,” he said, his leather laptop back on his arm.

  With his wire-rimmed glasses sitting atop the bridge of his nose, straight white teeth, and neatly trimmed goatee and mustache, my husband looked like a model. My eyes traveled down to the blue and white striped dress shirt with starched white, English-style collar he wore above a flat, black leather belt with a wide, chic silver buckle. The belt held a pair of designer, dark-rinse, boot cut jeans on Aaron’s narrow waist and where the jeans flared slightly toward the ankle, I saw his expensive black, leather loafers.

  This was the Aaron I remembered: the one I had recently forgotten all about. The stylish and handsome man with the big heart and warm smile who’d swept into my life and swept me off my feet. This Aaron could have chosen any woman in the world to be his wife and mother his children, but he’d chosen me.

  Me.

  And this me was the me he needed to see.

  The motherly and wifely Sidney Campbell-King.

  Waiting patiently at the kitchen table, with the scent of baking chicken hanging in the air and our beautiful children beaming at me.

  Why couldn’t I be this me all the time?

  Devann and Aiden dropped their things and raced off. That left me alone with Aaron and for some reason, I felt nervous. As anxious as I’d been on the first night I’d made him my signature dish.

  I stood to greet him and he sat his bag down, walked over to me and swept me up in a big hug.

  “Hey Baby,” he said again, holding me close to him.

  His scent, a manly mix of spicy cedar wood and cinnamon, slipped around me, cloaking my mind in memories of us. Of him holding me like this. Of him kissing me, loving me, caressing me.

  “Hey Aaron,” I replied, hugging him against me.

  Kissing my forehead, he pulled back and held me at arm’s length. “What’s all this?”

  I blushed then, a slow heat that moved up to my cheeks and forced a tight smile. “I just wanted to cook for you.”

  My model husband smiled even wider. “It smells great.”

  “I hope it tastes great,” I answered, swallowing over the lump in my throat.

  “I’m sure it will. I have no worries about that.”

  This scene was picture perfect. It could have very well been a setting for a photo spread in a magazine; the quintessential American family. This was the image that haunted my single peers. The image they wanted to obtain. The elusive piece of the puzzle that could not be found.

  All of the pieces of my life had come together to create this beautiful mosaic of a successful life and as I stood in my kitchen, surrounded by the essence of my slowly-baking signature chicken dish, I couldn’t quiet the ever-present whisper of my double life. The wispy utterings that danced around me, even in his presence. T
he hushed murmurs that chanted at me: Something’s Not Right. Something’s Missing.

  And though I wanted to quiet those whispers, I found I could not.

  The feel of Aaron’s hands on my arms should have been warm and comforting, but it wasn’t.

  I found myself wanting to shrug off his touch. To escape his presence.

  I’d been prepping all afternoon and evening for this man and now that he was before me, with his good looks and chic savoir faire, I felt my skin begin to crawl as my need for her began its slow and steady rhythm. A dull ache that began near my heart and radiated outward, down my body, through my legs and to my arms that slowly stepped away from him.

  I hid the strange awkwardness I felt with my hair as I moved from him and over to the cutting board and metallic, blue strainer on the counter. The bamboo board held half of a diced onion and my fresh green beans were in the strainer. I’d add them to the chicken, potatoes, and carrots and we’d be ready to eat in thirty minutes.

  I was nervous, sweaty. I wanted to wipe the fresh perspiration from my forehead, but I didn’t want him to know that I was out of sorts.

  Pulling the white, ceramic, baking dish from the oven, I heard him reaching for his bag. “That smells so good,” he remarked

  And I wondered if he knew.

  If he could see the stains on my soul. If he could hear the beating of my traitorous heart. If he could sense the pull she had on my mind. If he could smell the scent of her on my soul.

  “Thank you,” I half-whispered, setting the dish on the stove top and closing the oven door.

  I pulled the hanging sheet of my hair behind my ear and leaned over the dish as I pulled back the foil and a plume of chicken-scented steam floated up. Aaron was right: the food did smell good. Great even.

  Now he was behind me, bending so that his chin was behind my right ear, his mouth so close I could hear him lick his lips. “That looks good, girl. I gotta watch you. Learn your secrets.”

  My eyes opened wide and my pulse raced. My breaths came shallow and I hoped that he wouldn’t notice the tremors in my hand as I pulled the cutting board off of the counter and began to slide the onions down into the colorful mix of chicken, potatoes, and orange carrots.

  Aaron’s mention of “secrets” was clearly a reference to my signature dish. It had been innocent. Harmless. Playful.

  But that word had shaken me. It sent shockwaves down my spine and I rushed to complete my task. To get out of his space.

  And as I moved, he watched me. Speaking softly, in loving tones, evoking memories of our past as he wove a tale of Aaron and Sidney in the early days.

  The me I used to be.

  I was rushing and he was savoring and that was the problem between us.

  I wanted to just get through and he wanted to just be. This was the moment of his dreams. The reality he’d pined for on the long, lonely nights of his bachelorhood. The vision that came to his mind as he chased after women that didn’t match the caliber of female that lived in his dreams.

  I was that vision come to life. I was his hope and his dream and he wanted to savor me. To let the essence of us hang on his tongue. The richness of us to dance on his palette and nourish him.

  Amid the heat from the dish and the closeness of him, I felt a trickle of sweat slide down the side of my face. I was unbearably uncomfortable and I quickly replaced the foil and returned the dish to the oven.

  What troubled me the most was that I could not understand my reaction to him. It wasn’t logical. It wasn’t reasonable. It wasn’t something I could control or contain and even though I fought to even out my breathing and calm my rapid pulse, I found I could not.

  In the distance, I heard a short slap and a crying Devann. She called out, “Daddy!” in a long wail and her cry rescued me. Aaron sighed and said, “Here we go,” before heading off to solve the latest upset in the King family sibling rivalry.

  His departure brought on a long, slow exhale from me and I closed my eyes, relishing the feel of calm that seemed to come over me almost immediately. I grabbed a paper towel and dabbed at the wetness on my face before moving to set the table.

  As I walked around the circle of pretty pine wood, my lips moved to the rhythm of a silent prayer.

  “Please help me to live according to your will. Order my steps, guide my tongue, walk with me.” It was my salvation prayer. The source of strength that guided me as I battled the Sapphic side of me.

  I filled our drinking glasses: milk for the kids and sweetened ice tea for the adults. And after that, I called everyone for dinner.

  Though the meal earned my children’s undivided attention, a rarity considering how picky and cranky they usually were at this time, and the most superb kudos from Aaron, I couldn’t taste. Couldn’t feel. Couldn’t digest any of what was happening.

  I found myself looking forward to bedtime. Looking forward to the tiny, pink sleeping pill that would take this edge off and allow me to relax. Looking forward to the small window of good feelings that hung between the fuzzy sleeping pill haze and the darkness of medicated slumber.

  That was a hard night for me. I wanted to be the me I used to be, but I quickly found that to be damned near impossible. With gritted teeth and a determination to “just get through it”, I finally made it to the end of the night and was happy to swallow my tiny pink pill and ease into the fuzzy sleeping pill haze.

  I scooted close to Aaron in bed and told him I loved him. My voice was lovey and dovey and he smiled at me before kissing the tip of my nose. I don’t remember much after that and before I knew it, it was time to wake up and start the next day.

  My morning was on auto pilot.

  When my alarm sounded at five forty-five, I slapped at it until it went quiet and lay back on the bed for a few moments, relishing the feeling of the warmth beneath the covers. With a deep sigh, I pulled myself out of bed and padded across the carpet to the bathroom. Aaron turned over on his side; he still had another thirty minutes to sleep.

  I showered and lathered in a rich, creamy, vanilla body wash. The scent was gentle and sweet and I loved the feel of it on my skin. Turning around under the cascade of the shower head, I tried to think ahead to my agenda for the day.

  “Jason Mills. Jason Mills,” I whispered, remembering that he was my most important client.

  I made a mental note to block off my morning and finish up his paperwork.

  Thinking of the Jason Mills account imbued me with a sense of urgency. I cut my shower short and finished my morning ministrations. I dressed in a pair of flared, pleated, tan, checkered dress pants and a white dress shirt. I searched in the closet until I found the pair of brown, leather sling back pumps that matched my wide, brown belt.

  I bid farewell to my still-sleeping family, tucked my pumps into my work bag, slipped on my traveling sneakers, and headed out to my red dragon.

  This had been a typical morning for me. A slow-moving creep from my warm bed to the shower and from there to my closet and from the closet to the red dragon.

  Andrew Nash and his crystal blue eyes popped into my office at around ten-thirty and found me buried in a mound of law books, legal reviews, and patent applications. We shared polite small talk and I filled him on the Jason Mills account before my eyes conveyed my impatience. I had a job to do and I wanted to do it as quickly as possible. Andrew told me he’d have his secretary set up some time on my calendar and I barely nodded, a pencil behind my ear and my eyes glued to my computer screen.

  Three hours later, I finally smiled.

  I had a tangible victory in my hands. I’d set out to complete a task and had done so and this time, the outcome did match my expectations. Jason Mills would not have to worry. I’d sealed up any loopholes that might rob his new company of its specialized hardware and software. Mr. Mills now had a full suite of sui generis legal protection.

  There was still a mountain of madness on my desk and I stood, stretched, and yawned before heading over to clean it up. I asked my secretary to order
a late lunch for me and to prepare a bundled copy of the applications and paperwork I’d completed for Mr. Mills. I’d have that sent over by courier later in the afternoon.

  With my desk clear and my office back in order, I sat back down at my desk to check my email.

  There was a brief knock on the door. I sighed to myself as I called, “Come in.” I was hoping it wasn’t Andrew Nash. I admired the man and was grateful for his support in my career, but I needed a moment to unwind and wasn’t too keen on him hovering around me. One check-in visit a day seemed more than adequate.

  It wasn’t Andrew Nash. It was my secretary, Regina. She was a beautiful woman with smooth brown skin and a classy style. She’d been at the firm for about a year and her professionalism was top tier. Though I didn’t know her age, I assumed she was a few years younger than me. She was always warm and friendly and though we shared unknown ancestry, she never sought to take advantage of our similar shaded skin tone.

  If anything, I always felt she went a little out of her way to treat me nicely and she was always crisp and professional with me.

  Regina was smiling at me as she walked into the office, her lips painted a soft plum. She was carrying a large bouquet of flowers. A bouquet so large and varied I couldn’t name all of the flowers. What I could pick out was an orchid, a few carnations, and a few red roses.

  “You have a special delivery, Mrs. King,” Regina sang as she crossed the wooden floor of my office and headed for my desk.

  My eyes grew wide and I rose from my seat. “What is this?”

  “This is for you,” she replied, setting the red, glass vase down on my desk.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  She smiled again. “Positive. You can always be surprised to receive flowers, Mrs. King. But never act undeserving. I’m going to check on a few things, including that lunch order of yours. I’ll let you know when it’s arrived.”

  Regina left quickly and I stood staring at the mix of flowers.

  “What in the world is going on?” I asked myself, reaching for the card amidst the fragrant petals.