What He's Been Missing (13 page)

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Authors: Grace Octavia

BOOK: What He's Been Missing
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“I only care what Ian thinks.”
“And if you like it and he loves it, then I say go for it.”
“You think so?”
“Mama Dupree won't be happy about it, but like you said, this is your wedding. If you choose this dress, Krista and I will make sure every detail, from the lighting to the candles, complements it. We'll make it work.”
“Thank you, Rachel,” Scarlet said, jumping up and falling over on the floor to give me a hug. “I knew you would understand.”
 
A week before the wedding and I was hiding out. I'd turned everything over to Krista and used the excuse of focusing on Alarm Clock and Donnica's big day to get away from Ian's calls and e-mails. I stopped answering the phone. I couldn't face him. Not with what I knew. With what I was feeling. I had to keep my distance. I was afraid to say anything to him, thinking everything would just come out of my mouth in one embarrassing ramble.
I felt like I was about to burst, though. I had no outlet. Journey hadn't signed on to video chat in weeks. She was probably moving around and dealing with Dame's schedule. Sometimes I wondered if she resented him, how she had to keep his career first until he had a break and she could get back into the studio to start singing again.
I started sending her e-mails to keep her caught up on my drama. I figured she could at least read them and send me good vibes from wherever she was in the world. Scarlet had already moved in with Ian and she'd told Krista that they were talking about turning the office I'd decorated into a nursery. A nursery? For what?
One night, after looking at pictures of Ian and me in our FAMU yearbook, when I was about to get into my car and drive over to his place, my computer started ringing on my desk in the living room and Journey in her newly twisted dreadlocks showed up on the screen.
“Thank God!” I said, sitting at the desk. “I was about to do something crazy.”
“Yeah. I finally got to sit down and read your e-mails. We've been on the road,” she said.
Dame was walking around in the background rocking Apache in his arms. He was wearing basketball shorts and a white tee. It was always interesting to see rappers, who appear larger than life in music videos and on magazine covers, living and just moving about in their everyday lives. They were fathers and husbands. Sons and brothers. Just like everybody else.
Dame handed Journey a Pampers. “I think Apache needs to be changed. You smell that?”
“Yes. Change her.” Journey rolled her eyes at me and tried to hand the Pampers back to Dame, but he wouldn't take it.
“I'm holding Apache,” he said.
“Then you can change her.” She tried to hand him the Pampers again, but Dame backed up.
“I don't change diapers. That's the agreement.” He bent down over Journey's shoulder. “Oh hey, Rachel! Wassup?”
“I'm good,” I said. “How are you?”
“Being a black man in the world. It's a hard job. Got my wifey over here trying to emasculate a brother by making me change diapers.” When Journey and Dame got married, he had locs down his back, but now his head was shaved clean. He looked a little older.
“
Your
kids' diapers!” Journey exclaimed. “Your kids that you made. Why is this so hard?”
“A man wasn't meant to handle doo-doo,” Dame said, backing up.
“So a woman is meant to handle doo-doo?” Journey asked.
“Someone has to do it. What do you think, Rachel?”
“I don't know,” I said, holding up my hands defensively. “I'm not getting into it.”
“What she meant to say is go and change your child's diaper. Damn!” Journey held out the Pampers to Dame again.
He snatched it roguishly and walked away.
She leaned into the camera and whispered, “It's like I have four kids sometimes.”
“I heard that,” Dame hollered in the background.
Journey repositioned herself and took a deep breath.
“So, Ms. Winslow, enough of the woes of a roadie housewife. What's up with you? How are you holding up?”
In one of the e-mails, I'd told Journey about the car ride in Social Circle and that rose dress.
“I love him,” I said. “I'm in love with Ian.”
“Finally, we have full acceptance!” Journey cheered. “So what are you going to do?”
“Put on my orange dress and watch him get married.”
“So you're sure that's what he wants?”
“I already told you, he's made his decision. There's nothing I can do about it,” I said. “I'm miserable. I just can't believe he's really going to marry her. He can't see her bullshit. You know, I called the school to see about that program in the Congo.... There is no program. I think she made it up.”
“You called the school?” Journey grimaced like she now had the full picture of my foolery.
“I only called because I needed to know that I wasn't crazy. I knew something was up with her.”
“Did you tell Ian?”
“No.”
“So what was the point? Now you know your best friend is marrying a woman who's been lying about who she really is and you're not going to do anything about it?”
“It's too late. Anything I do now will look crazy,” I said.
“Maybe it's not too late.” Journey looked at me mischievously.
“The wedding is next week,” I reminded her. “That's too late. He's not going to change his mind right now. The invitations are out. The families are on their way. It would take an act of God for him to call it off at this point.”
“Or an act of love.”
“No. There's no way I'm putting my hand on that.”
“I'm not telling you to go break up the brother's wedding,” Journey said. “Like I said before, I just want you to wait and listen. If he comes to you, be open to it . . . but you have to be present and available in case it happens.”
“So you're saying I should avail myself to break up his wedding.”
“I'm saying you shouldn't let him settle. And you shouldn't let yourself settle. I know what that's all about. I was there. It ain't pretty,” Journey said, referring to her first marriage.
“How did you know, J, that you'd found the person who was worth risking everything for?”
“We loved each other equally. One day, I realized that the same way he was running to me, I wanted to run to him. I wanted him. He had to get me there, but I did. And I knew getting him wouldn't be easy, but it was worth it. It's all worth it. Life is too short not to take risks for love.”
Dame walked back into view and kissed Journey on the shoulder.
“Can I go to bed now?” he asked.
“After you give me some sugar,” she said.
They pecked and then Dame turned to me.
“Night, Rachel,” he said.
“Night, Dame.”
5
“Laisser Les Bons Temps Rouler”
#Don'tmixbusinesswithpleasure. I know I shouldn't have. I
probably
shouldn't have. But I did. Because I had to. And I was paying for it. The first—and consequently what I thought was the last—time I'd planned a wedding for a friend, it turned into an unpaid fiasco where my constant bickering with my godsister over her Louis Vuitton emblem theme that she insisted on splashing over every element of the wedding (including her bridesmaids' dresses and her groom's bowtie) led to an ugly court battle, the conclusion of our friendship, and some jail time (she cursed out the judge for siding with me and calling her wedding idea tacky). Still, here I was, on my way to the same altar. Or so it felt. There was less drama, but I had the same gut feeling. That I had to act. And that my action could be disastrous. Things could get ugly. I could lose a friend. This time my best friend. And who knew about jail time. Nothing could be predicted in the Big Easy.
I kept considering the possibilities on the flight into New Orleans with Krista. Everything felt wrong. And I needed to do what was right. But for whom? If Journey was right and I waited for the sign, the perfect time to open up to Ian about how I felt, I could fix it. I could have him. Make him see that I was what he'd been missing. But if I didn't, if I stuck to the plan, did my job, and did what I was supposed to do, he'd go his way and I'd go mine—back to my lonely couch. More pizza. More NyQuil. Only this time, I'd know for sure what I could've had and who I could've had it with. The man of my dreams. My best friend. I couldn't stand thinking of those odds.
In the car ride over to the hotel, Krista was turning through her stack of invoices and lists, last-minute changes Scarlet had called into the office before we left Atlanta. Krista kept pulling me in for a signature or response to something she was complaining or excited about, but I was in my head and she knew it. She didn't even wait for me to respond.
“Dress is here,” she said once, clicking off her phone.
“Ian's parents have checked in.” She clicked off the phone again. “I wonder if the hotel is giving out those gift bags we shipped.” She looked in my direction, but didn't wait for me to open my mouth before adding, “I'll call Lori; she's the new manager. Did you know they have a new manager?” She pulled out her phone and then she was talking to Lori.
A few seconds later: “Check on the bags!” She looked out the tinted window of the Lincoln. “God, I love this city. Smells like crap, but it's so alive. Like a big-ass party.” She peered deeper at something I pretended to spy as well and then she reached into her purse. She turned to me with a little clear box with little orange pellets inside. “Tic Tac?” She held it out to me.
“I'm fine,” I said distantly.
“Humph.”
 
If my feelings weren't making things bad enough, public opinion would.
After Krista and I checked into our rooms, we rang each guest to personally welcome them to New Orleans for the Dupree wedding and remind them of the welcoming reception Let's Get Married was hosting in the penthouse suite. Three associates I commonly took to destination weddings to help with service and details had flown in early to set things up with hotel staff.
“There's our girl,” Ian's mother, Gwendolin, said, reaching for me when I walked into the suite with Krista. She was a dark-skinned woman with high cheekbones and an unforgettable air of importance in her voice. What was interesting about that pompous tone, though, was that Ian had grown up just as poor in New Orleans as I had. Mrs. Dupree had worked for her mother's housekeeping business and Mr. Dupree had played the trombone at a Ninth Ward shack nightclub that had been washed away with Hurricane Katrina. Still, Mr. Dupree was Creole and Ms. Dupree could prove her Indian blood with one look at her face. To them, that about made them royalty. They acted the part, and raised Ian to believe it.
“Hello,” I said, returning Mrs. Dupree's dainty embrace and smiling at Mr. Dupree standing beside her.
Always dramatic and lively in the fashion of a true New Orleans man, Mr. Dupree insisted on kissing my hand. He was as tall as Ian, but had a potbelly filled with liquor to prove that he was serious about his music.
I introduced them to Krista and made sure one of the staffers filled Mr. Dupree's cup to the brim with Jim Beam. Some of the other guests were sprinkled around the room chatting and eating shrimp cocktail.
“How have you been, darling?” Mrs. Dupree asked. “We haven't seen you since last summer when we came to Atlanta for Ian's lecture at that college.”
“Emerson,” Mr. Dupree tried to add.
“Emory,” I said, correcting him lightly. They could never remember where Ian taught. Their only care was that it was at a college. “And I'm fine. Just working hard. What about you two? I know you're excited about tomorrow.”
Krista excused herself to see about a missing pot of shrimp étouffée.
“Excited? I suppose.” Mrs. Dupree clasped her hands at her breasts in a way that added a layer to her statement. “I'm about to have me some grandbabies soon. Finally. Before my hair goes all gray!”
“Ain't nothing wrong with the hair on your head, Gwennie. Your worrying about it is what's making it gray,” Mr. Dupree said. “Worry makes nothing but mess.”
“Well, I guess you were very worried about your hair, then,” Mrs. Dupree joked, swiping the big bald field at the top of her husband's head. They laughed and Mr. Dupree said something in French I think Mrs. Dupree half understood. She turned back to me and said, “Well, my boy is happy. I guess that's what matters. Now, have you met Ms. Scarlet's parents?”
“Not yet,” I said, but I sensed her frostiness, so I added, “but I hear they're great people—according to Ian. He's pretty good at judging people.”
“From Miami?” she quizzed suspiciously, begging me to confirm what she already knew. “Doctors?”
“Yes,” I confirmed.
“Hum.” She shot her nose up. “Hope they don't think they're coming in here to run something. They're in New Orleans. We have our ways.”
“I understand,” I said.
“I didn't even want to stay in this hotel,” she said. “And we have room. They could've stayed with us.”
“Please, Gwennie!” Mr. Dupree said. “What, you want to have the whole wedding party there, too? The wedding in the backyard?”
“That's how we did it in our day!”
“Things have changed, beloved. These kids don't want no crawfish out de crik!”
“I wouldn't mind that,” I said, laughing.
“Speaking of,” Mr. Dupree started and I knew what was coming next: “When are you getting married?”
“Well, I'm not rushing things. Just waiting to meet—”
“Oh, Erskine, mind your business!” Mrs. Dupree cut in. “She'll get married when she pleases! Right?”
“Yes,” I said, happy she'd stopped me.
She leaned in and whispered in our trio, “I was hoping Ian would marry you! Perfect match, if you ask me.”
“And no one asked you!” Mr. Dupree said.
Mrs. Dupree frowned at him and continued with a speech about the connection she'd seen between Ian and me since she'd met me during Parent's Weekend freshman year at FAMU.
“When Ian called and said he was getting married, I just knew who he was talking about,” she concluded before the suite door swung open and loud noises broke up our little meeting. “I'd've been proud to have you as my daughter-in-law.”
“Thank you,” I said in my business voice to avoid crying and shaking in her arms. I turned to the source of the noise and excused myself with a nod. “I'm sure these are the groom's men.”
Xavier Hamilton had been Ian's roommate all four years in undergrad. He was a lion-hearted Chicagoan whose voice could always be heard before he was seen. With a big laugh and bigger biceps, he didn't have to do much to attract the girls Ian had ignored. And after he made drum major of the Marching 100, no one could tell him anything. He became the unofficial king of campus.
Now he was easily the center of attention in the middle of the spectacle of fine men in casual suits that interrupted the moderated chatter in the suite. An unlit cigar in his hand, he was laughing the loudest and clearly in the middle of some tawdry tale that had the men around him at attention. I literally felt the women in the room strike a pose to look at him.
Jennifer, one of the women from Scarlet's birthday party, whose boyfriend was standing beside Xavier, started playing with her earring and whispered something to the woman beside her.
“Rachel Winslow! The baddest chick on the Yard!” Xavier said, coming over to me. He grabbed three shrimp from a platter and devoured them as he hugged me.
Jennifer kept whispering.
“Hey, X,” I said. “Don't get on me. You were the true player!”
“Well, you know how I do!” Xavier grinned and looked right at my breasts—right through my dress.
“Yeah, I've heard.” I'd actually met Xavier before I met Ian. He'd been standing outside the freshman girls' dorm when I was moving in and asked me to lunch. He took me to a wing's spot off campus and refused to pay for my food until I kissed him. I didn't, and I never heard from him again. When we realized we had Ian in common, he decided it was OK for him to be my friend, even though I hadn't kissed him. He'd moved onto bigger fish by then. Still, he made it a point to make a pass at me whenever he saw me.
“The million-dollar lady! I see you set this shit up real proper like for our boy!”
“I wouldn't have it any other way,” I lied.
“I can't believe this fool is getting married. But I saw Scarlet. She's banging.”
“Yeah, I guess that's reason enough to marry her,” I joked, turning to be sure Ian's parents didn't hear Xavier's foolishness. Luckily, they'd moved on to chat up Ian's uncle, Uncle Cat, who was a spectacle all his own.
“So what's going on with you? You breaking motherfuckers' hearts in the A? I know they stay on their knees for you,” Xavier said. He owned two McDonald's on the southside of Chicago and had an MBA from Wharton, but he'd kept his hood and swagger. It amounted to this rare mix of street corner and boardroom shine, with deep pockets and charm to back it up. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't sexy. But he was still Xavier and my side eye on him from the first flop at the wing spot was permanent.
“I do OK,” I replied.
“No ring, though.” He pointed at my naked ring finger. “I guess you're still available.” Xavier looked at my breasts again and slid the cigar into Chapstick-shiny lips.
“Baybee girl, baybee girl! Look at those thick legs!” Uncle Cat invited himself into the conversation just as Krista popped her head into the suite to signal for me to come outside. We always escorted the bride and groom into the welcoming reception with the best man and matron of honor.
“Hi, Uncle Cat!” I said while signaling to Krista that I'd need a minute. “So glad to see you.”
“Well, prove it to me!” Uncle Cat, who got his name on account of his metallic gray and green eyes, pulled me into an uncomfortably familiar embrace. A fifty-year-old ladies' man who had five children by five different women, he was a creole cliché. Slick hair and vanilla skin with not one wrinkle to show his age, he had an easy accent that made you want to hear him speak. The joke was that you couldn't look into his eyes. Then you'd be the next baby mama, sure enough.
“Oh!” I wiggled around in his arms as Xavier got a peek at my butt.
“Nice and thick,” Uncle Cat said.
“Thanks. I'll take that as a compliment.”
“Ain't no other way to take it where I'm from.”
Uncle Cat and Xavier laughed after slapping five and I imagined that Xavier would one day be just like him. X didn't have any children yet, though. Not that any of us knew of.
 
Scarlet was holding onto Ian's arm in the hallway outside the suite like they'd already walked down the aisle. She had on a cute little turquoise halter dress and hot pink patent pumps that made her look like she was sixteen. Ian was simple in blue jeans and a FAMU T-shirt.
“What happened to the suit?” I asked, hugging Scarlet and then Ian.
“I already asked,” Krista said.
I expected the same annoyance from Scarlet, but she kind of bit her lip and shrank under Ian's arm. The best man, Ian's only cousin and childhood bestie, was standing beside them with the matron of honor, one of Scarlet's cousins who was a triplet and no less beautiful than Scarlet.
“Don't get on me, Rach,” Ian said. “It's been a long, crazy day.”
“We had to pick up my parents,” Scarlet added apologetically.

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