War (37 page)

              “My mother and father are coming to Boston for a while. They’ll be moving into the condo until Marlon and I can find them a house of their own.”

              “Your father is coming?” She lets out a laugh.

              “Yeah, my parents consider themselves an item again.”

              “Oh my God!” She laughs again.

              “I know. But even through they’ll be here, I’m the one adopting the boy.”

“The
baby
.”

“Well, the baby. They say that he can live with them in their house but I’ve got to keep a room in the condo for him, for when the adoption agency comes to check on him.”

              “Oh, wow…”

              “Yeah. But I was just thinking, you know, I know you have your job and your new life,” I look her dress over, “but, you know, the baby will need someone younger in his life. My mom and pops are pushing sixty.”

              “Well, of course! It’ll need, you know, younger people in its life.”

“Yeah, it will.” We stand in silence for a moment, looking at each other. Come on, Marla. Say you’ll help me out here.

“A baby, Jon?” She tries to stop a smile from coming.

              “I know.” I smile at her. “But I had to help my little brother out.”

She smiles and shakes her head. “When was he born?”

              “Yesterday.”

She smiles again. “What’s his name?”

              “I haven’t named him yet.”

Her eyes widen. “
You’re
naming him?”

              “He’s mine, right?”

She looks at me for a moment with her mouth halfway open. “I guess
so
.” A silent few seconds pass between us as she takes in what I’ve said.

              “You know,” she says. “I’ve always liked Alexandre. With the ‘r’ before the ‘e’. Alexandre St. James. Sounds like a prince. Just like Nicholai St. James does.”

              “Alex and Nicky.” I nod in approval. Yeah, I like that.

              “Yeah.” She smiles at me. “Alex and Nicky.”

              “Then Alex it is.” We share a silent moment before she crosses her arms again and looks down at the floor. “I’m going to get Alex tomorrow. I’ll be back on Saturday. Because you know Nicky has that Easter play on Sunday.”

“Of course. I’ll be there. I actually just finished talking about Nicky at work. My boss goes to Dan’s church so…” She takes a deep breath and looks away. I reach behind me and slide a booklet out from behind the waist of my jeans. She sees it. I hold it out for her to take it. “A plane ticket for you.” 
Please say you’ll come with me
. She stares at the ticket for a moment before taking it out of my hand. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, Marla.” She looks away and swallows hard then takes a deep breath.

              “Well, I have to check with my boss, Mr. Lexington, but I’m sure he’ll let me take off for a few days. I haven’t been late or called in sick once since I started. I have his private line; I can call him early tomorrow morning.”

              “Lexington?”

“Yeah.”

“You work at a museum, you said?”

              “Yeah.” She looks up at me. “You know him?”

              “Bryan?”

              “Yep, that’s him.”

              “I play ball with him at the gym on Saturdays. Bryan Lexington. His family owns that museum downtown. My firm installed their database operating system last year.”

              “Yep, that’s my boss.”

              “Oh, okay. Yeah, Bryan’s a good guy. I’m sure he’ll let you off. We can go to Napa Valley, rent a home out on a vineyard or something. You like wine, right? That’s what you and Danny drink?”

“Yes, I love wine now.” She looks around the hallway with a self-important look.

“Then we can make a spring break of it.” I’m reaching here.

              “Well, I’ll ask Mr. Lexington and then I’ll get back to you.”

Another silence moment passes between us. Damn, what should I say?

              “Do you want to meet for lunch tomorrow? Your pick.” She smiles.

              “Sure.”

              “Okay.”

              “Okay.”

              And we both grin at each other like kids.

              “Well, I should get back in there,” she says as she points behind her. “We were having girl talk.”

              “No problem.”

              “Let’s say, umm…Atlantic Fish Co. at twelve-thirty.”

              “I’ll be there,” I tell her.

              “Okay.” She looks up at me through her lashes—real lashes—and then back into Danielle’s condo.

“You look…
nice
, Marla.”

“Thank you,” she says softly, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear.

“See you tomorrow.”

              “Tomorrow.”

JACOB

              I’ve never been this sick before.

              “Ah, yes, you look like shit,” Cadence says as he walks into his bathroom. I’m in his condo, my home away from home, leaning over his toilet. I raise my head just far enough out of the toilet bowl to look at him. Vomiting feels like both a relief and an exhaustion. He comes and sits on the edge of his bathtub and then looks on the floor at the papers lying around. Bending down he grabs the pharmacy packet that I was reading before I found my head in the bowl. “Good old Lexapro. One of the best ones out there.” He smiles and places the packet back on the floor.

              “Did it make you sick?” I manage to get out as my stomach starts to audibly churn.

              “Well, not like that,” he points to my stomach. “Lexapro should give you headaches and nausea for the first three or four days. How long have you been taking them?”

              “Four weeks.” Damn, I feel another bout of nausea coming on. I lean over the bowl and prepare for the inevitable.

              “Would you like for me to hold your hair back?”

              “Fuck you.” And here it comes. Cadence waits patiently for me to empty all I have left in my stomach, as he begins to whistle. God, I can’t do this for much longer. I can’t throw up again.

              “So,” he says, seeing that I’ve taken a break, “I’m thinking that this isn’t the meds doing this. Likely your stomach turning has something to do with Winnie telling you off earlier at Aunt Pammy’s home. You’re just having a bout with nerves.”

              “What the hell is wrong with me?” I choke out. Shit…I’m about to throw up again.

              “Well, let’s see. I’d love to diagnose you.”

              “I’m sure.”

              “Why did Winnie nail into you?”

              “No idea.” I take a seat by the bowl, my stomach weak to the touch. “She came in, I pulled her to the side, I gave her my house key, I told her that I was moving into another condo, I let her know that she and the kids could come back home, I told her I was sorry for not thinking of it before-”

              “I think I’m ready to diagnose you.” He crosses his legs and links his fingers together.

              “What? What did I do?”

              “Were you aware that Winnie came to DC to have dinner with Lola?”

“Yeah, my father told me.”

“And you never considered why Winnie would do that? She’s never made an out-of-the-way trip to see Lola, so you never wondered why she decided to do it this weekend?”

“What’s the big deal? So she went to see Lola.”

“I swear, you and Malcolm are a couple of the densest people that I know.” He shakes his head at me. “Completely clueless when it comes to women.”

“What am I missing?”

“Jacob, Winnie came to DC to talk to Lola because she obviously wanted to talk to someone who has been in the position that she currently finds herself in: staying married to a man who has cheated on her.”

Damn. He’s right. I sink back until my back thumps against the wall. “Shit…”

“Yep.” 

Winnie came to dinner tonight to tell me she was coming back to me.

“I gotta go up there.” I jump to my feet and immediately regret the decision. My stomach turns and my eyes water. Shit, not again. I fall back to my knees and hover over the bowl. Once again, I’m
not only
losing my lunch
, but my breakfast and dinner as well.

“Take it easy,” Cadence says with a laugh. “You and I still need to talk before you go up there and fuck it up.” I feel a dry towel hit me in the back of the head. Reaching on the floor to grab it, I run it over my mouth and sit down by the bowl again.

“I need to talk to her,” I whisper. My head hurts too much to even speak at a normal volume.

“I want to talk to you about Jasmine first. Tell me, what is it about her that you just can’t seem to get enough of?”

“I had it all wrong,” I say as I slump against the wall and close my eyes. “You have no idea how wrong I had it. I don’t know why but she and I…what I remember of us…how I felt about us…I don’t know, shit…was it what I thought? Did I have it right? I mean, Jasmine and I were tight. We were together. We were good. She was good…I thought. What I remember of us was…good.”

“Yeah, memories get that way.”

“But damn. The shit she started doing, the calling and texting and acting crazy and storming out and ignoring my calls…it made me remember times when I was fed up with that shit. And when I met Winnie, she was just…chill. Easy. Go with the goddamn flow. She wasn’t calling my phone back-to-back, texting me nonstop. She wasn’t telling me what to eat or demanding that her damn toothbrush stay in my holder at all times. She wasn’t telling me to stop drinking. She wasn’t refusing to head to my favorite bar. She wasn’t questioning me about women all the damn time. Jasmine was a damn nag. Winnie was a…relief.

So, then I marry Winnie and shit…I forget all of that. Forget how I could never be myself with Jasmine because she wanted me to be the man
she
wanted me to be. So, I go searching for Jasmine the entire time I’m married to Winnie. I’m fucking one woman after the next, because I’m either thinking about Jasmine or they’re reminding me of Jasmine. I fuck up my entire marriage to a woman who’s my…relief.”

I close my eyes and fight the wave of nausea that’s rising in my stomach.

“Breathe in through your nose and out your mouth,” Cadence says. I breathe in and out. “Jacob, you know what’s funny? You and Malcolm like to laugh about how romantically lost I am. You both find it funny that I majored in the classics. That I have a book club with Danielle. That I like to speak in Shakespearean antidotes, but you two are just like me. You know, Nat’s always saying that. Every time he and I talk, he always mentions how the Blair men are just alike, whether we want to admit it or not.”

              “Absolutely not. No offense, but you’re a sucker for love. A hopeless romantic.”

              “Ah, but you, dear cousin, are the same. You, Jacob, suffer from nostalgia.”

“You sound like my father.”

“Uncle Preston’s a bright man, I’ve always said that. Allow me tell you what I’ve learned from my classical studies.”

“And here we go.”

“Jacob, you look at the past and instead of seeing its brutal reality you see its romanticized perception. You see grand plantation homes and you think of Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara, Atlanta before the fire. You don't think of the slaves who stood on the auction block in nearby Charleston.

“You see fedoras and hear swing jazz and think of Cary Grant in
Casablanca
. You don't think about the Great Depression. And even if you
do
think about the Great Depression, somehow it was a beautifully tragic era in America’s history. So, you see a time of patriotism, not the humiliated men committing suicide or the barefoot children standing in soup lines.

“You are as romantic as I am, my friend, and Malcolm is the same. So while you are a Nostalgic, someone who romanticizes the past and the people in it, I am a Tragedian. I idolize tragically romantic love that’s destined to fail. I crave the bitter-sweetness of it. The yearning. So, if a woman is not tragic, like the great Juliet or possibly Desdemona or even Cleopatra then I want her not. I can look upon a sane, rational woman and wish she had more to offer. More depth, more heartbreak, more longing.

“And then you have Malcolm, he’s a Chivalric. For him, chivalry is not dead and never will be. He’s a medieval knight who will go to the battlefields, to the edge of the earth, for the woman he loves. How do I know this? Malcolm will send flower petals to a woman who has never seen his face—for 12 years. He will send these flowers to a
married
woman, nonetheless, in hopes that she will one day become his bride. And, once he finds his woman, if he has to duel it out to win her hand, then so be it.