What He's Been Missing (28 page)

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Authors: Grace Octavia

BOOK: What He's Been Missing
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“Not good enough? You said you were happy about us hooking up. That you could ‘get behind that.' Remember that? Now you're flaking on your boy? On me?”
“He hasn't changed. You know that. He's still the same player from college.”
“You don't know him,” I charged.
“I know him well enough,” Ian pointed out. “I know what I heard last night. And I know you.”
“She's his ex-girlfriend.”
“Well, if you're his new girlfriend, he doesn't need to talk to his ex-girlfriend.”
“It's a long story,” I said. “Stop it, Ian. Xavier explained everything. I have to believe him.”
“He's playing you, Rachel. I can't believe you can't see it. It's all a show.” Ian walked over to me and took the file from my hand. “Ever since we were in New Orleans for the wedding—when X saw you leave that witch doctor's house—he's been putting on this routine. Trying to pretend he's something he's not.”
“Saw me? X saw me at Tante Heru's?” My mind went back to that night in the Quarter. Kete's breasts in my face. Tante Heru. The knocking at the window. “I was alone. He never said anything about seeing me.”
“He came to my room and he told me he saw you down in the quarter at a roots woman's house.”
“Why wouldn't he tell me?” I asked.
“I don't know. What happened there?”
I remembered everything I said to Tante Heru—my prayer said aloud to the spirits in the corners. In my mind, I looked around the room. Remembered it all. Was he there? In the window? Did he hear me? I was the fool. I was the Big Easy fool. If Xavier heard what I said at Tante Heru's, then he—the art, the music, the hugs, how he held me? Lies? I couldn't think of it.
“I have a client coming in soon,” I said, wiping tears with my sleeve.
“No, you don't.”
I looked at Ian. “Fine. Well, I just need you to leave.”
Ian came in right up on me. I could smell his cologne. See the little hairs growing above his lip.
“You don't know what you need,” he said.
“You don't either,” I said.
Ian grabbed my shirt. There was this aggressive intensity and passionate determination in his eyes. “You told me you loved me,” he said.
“Yeah, I did. That was then—in New Orleans.”
“You told me you loved me before. Say it again,” he demanded.
“No.”
“Say it again.”
“No. No, I won't.”
“Well, I love you.”
“Don't do that. Don't say that!”
“I love you. I love you, Rachel. I love you.” Each time he said it, he grabbed me tighter. “I love you. I want to be with you.”
“What?” I started struggling to get away from him. “This is fucking crazy. Get the fuck off of me.”
Ian would not let me go.
He grabbed my arms and held me right in front of him.
“I love you,” he said. “I love you. I love you.”
I looked away.
“Look into my eyes.” He shook me. “Look at me. I love you. And you love me, too.”
I couldn't say anything.
“You love me, too.”
“Ian, I'm—” I tried.
“You love me, too!” he shouted. He wrapped me in a passionate embrace. And then lowered his arms to my waist. “You love me, too. I love you.” He started kissing me.
I wrapped my arms around his neck. I closed my eyes.
He lowered his arms again and wrapped them under my butt. He picked me up and sat me on the desk. Parted my legs and pushed his body between them.
It was hard for me to sit upright and not fall back onto the desk. He was moving so quickly.
“I love you, Rachel,” he said into my ear. “I want this. I want you.”
It was hard for me to breathe. To know what was happening. To realize what was happening. I wanted everything. But what? I always knew what I wanted. I always knew. But what now?
Ian started moving his hands up underneath my skirt from the hem.
Was this what I wanted? I let myself melt. Eased my legs in a little so he could get a good hold of my thigh.
“I love you,” he said again, but this time I swear it sounded like Xavier in my ear.
Something shot up my back and around my neck like a whip.
My office door slammed open. I turned, thinking I'd been caught by Krista, but she wasn't there. It was Scarlet rushing in fast with Xavier behind her.
“See! See! See!” She pointed at Ian pushing away from me. “I told you something was up. I knew something was going on between these two. Ian, what the fuck?”
“Scarlet, I can explain,” Ian said. He held his hands up like Scarlet had a gun.
Xavier pushed Scarlet to the side and was on his way to Ian. I jumped in between them.
“Stop it! Just stop,” I said, but Xavier didn't look at me. He pushed me to the side and, without saying a word, cracked Ian right in the face. I hadn't ever been that close to someone who'd been hit that hard. Blood shot out of Ian's mouth before he hit the floor.
Xavier stood over him with his hands balled. “Get up, bitchass nigga. Get the fuck up, so I can whip your ass! Fucking fake-ass nigga. Get the fuck up!”
Ian was disoriented, but looking around.
Xavier was about to punch him again, but I grabbed his arms.
“No,” I said. “Not here.”
Scarlet was crying and shaking so badly. She pulled her ring off and threw it at Ian.
“Scarlet!” Ian cried, struggling to get up.
Xavier tried to get at him again, but I held his arms.
“I can't believe you did this to me,” Scarlet cried. She ran out of the office.
Ian stumbled to his feet and looked at me. “I have to go,” he said. He ran out of the office behind Scarlet, leaving the ring and a red stain on the floor.
“Look what you did,” I said to Xavier.
“I'm sorry. I couldn't handle seeing him—”
“You're sorry? You're sorry? Did you just have the nerve to say you're sorry? Sorry about what? About lying to me? About coming into my fucking office and turning it into a street corner? About spying on me in New Orleans?” I said. “Fuck you, Xavier. You can't say shit to me. You don't have shit to say to me. You hear me?”
“I wasn't spying on you,” Xavier said.
“Then what were you doing? Hum? Tell me. Tell me what you were doing following me. You want to say something? Tell me what you have to say about that. About following me and claiming that you're someone that you're not. About lying to me all this time just because you knew what I was looking for. Just because you knew I wanted to be in love.”
“That's not it.”
“What is it? Are you about to tell me that Ian was lying?”
“No. I was there. I did hear what the woman said and . . . I wanted the same thing you wanted: real love.”
“You call this shit real love?” I pointed to the blood on my floor. “Lying to me? Lying about who you are, what you like, what you want just so you can be what I'm looking for?”
“I didn't lie about any of those things. I am who I am. Maybe I'm just what you've been looking for.”
“Yeah, maybe you're not,” I corrected him with every ounce of bite I had in my words.
“Rachel, don't be like this.” Xavier tried to grab me the way Ian had, but I wouldn't let him. “I—”
“Get the fuck out!”
“Rach—”
“Get the fuck out of my office before I call the police on your crazy ass,” I said. “Get the fuck out.”
“But—”
“I want you to go away. I want you to go far away.”
The lights in my office shook a little and there was a sound like a boom of thunder outside, but it wasn't raining.
“Go,” I said.
“This is what you want?”
“I want you to leave and never ever come back.”
10
Birds of a Feather
#Winning? I knew it was Ian when I heard the dull ding the elevator made outside when it stopped on my floor. Jeremy called me, whispering from the lobby when Ian walked into the building. I guessed he was confused and thinking Xavier was still at my place.
I sat on the couch and let him use his key to come in.
He didn't say anything. Opened the door. Closed it behind him and then I heard the lock snap back into place.
He'd sent me a text a few hours after the incident in the office with Scarlet and Xavier. Scarlet had kicked him out. He wanted to talk.
He walked into the living room with a stuffed weekend duffle bag on one shoulder and his laptop bag on the other. A bag of what smelled like Chinese food was in his hand.
“Hey,” he said so casually.
I returned the greeting and smiled.
I moved over on the couch to make some space for him.
“I brought some food.” He held out the greasy brown paper bag.
“Already ate,” I said. (I was lying, but my stomach already felt like I was about to throw up and it was empty.)
“Well, have you had a drink?” He nodded at my little bar in the back of the room. He put his bags down by the wall, right where Xavier's suitcase had been. And walked toward the bar. “Want some wine?”
“JD,” I said. “No ice.”
Ian clattered around at the bar longer than he needed. “I can't be here and not talk to you,” he said still at the bar.
“What?”
“I came here because I want to talk.”
“You haven't been here five minutes. Talk.”
“You know what I mean. I don't want to not talk directly about what's going on because of what I told you in your office. I don't want to feel like you're judging everything I say. I just want to talk to you. To Rachel. The way I always do.”
“You didn't mean what you said?” I asked.
“See, that's what I'm talking about. I can't speak openly with you if I have to be careful and be fake. I'm not used to that with you.” Ian walked over to me and handed me what had to have been every last bit of the JD. He sat down next to me. He had a full glass of Scotch and no ice.
We gulped the drinks down like we were in a race.
“So you meant what you said in the office?”
Ian turned to me. “Every word.”
“Then why did you marry Scarlet? Why did you leave me at the pier like that? If you knew you felt what I felt? Why did you try to make me feel crazy?”
“I love Scarlet. And I said I would marry her, so I did,” Ian said. “I don't come from people who do otherwise. That's not me. But I don't love Scarlet the way I love you. I don't know how to be without you.”
“Are you sure this isn't just about Xavier and me? That seeing us together did something to you.”
“It did open my eyes. But that's not it. I know what this is—what I'm feeling.”
“So what's the next step?” I asked this more as a dare than a desire. I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I needed to hear whether Ian had a plan. Maybe that would make me understand.
“Well,” he started, looking at his duffle bag, “I can either sleep here or at the Marriott downtown where I made a reservation.”
“Where do you want to stay?”
Ian turned back to me and pushed one of my curls behind my ear. “Right here,” he said. “I don't want to go anywhere.”
Ian and I sat up all night talking. He poured himself another Scotch and I sipped from the other side of his glass. Like we always did when we got drunk on my couch, we relived every moment we'd spent together since college. Only this time, Ian admitted to each time when he either wanted to reach for me or thought he was falling in love with me. And there were so many times. So many more times than I could've imagined. I always thought Ian was an amazing man. And finally I could admit that when we held hands on the beach during spring break or fell asleep on his couch when I helped him paint the walls in his first apartment, I pretended that we belonged to each other. I'd had no clue that he had been thinking the same thing. But the male mind doesn't work like the female mind. Ian said that knowing how much he loved me didn't make it easier to try to sleep with me or ask me out on a date. It made it harder. He didn't want a thing with me to be like a thing with everyone else. And if it didn't work out, he didn't want to go on the list of guys who'd done me wrong. And then never hear from me again.
We laughed about how many people had been right about us all along. Made a pan of brownies and fell asleep on the living room floor.
At some point in the night, though, my neck started hurting and then my back and then my knees and then I had to get up. I just couldn't find a comfortable position beside him.
I sat up and watched Ian sleep. His stomach rose and set with each breath. He'd already taken off his wedding band. A blond streak the width of a sandwich bag tie was the only sign of his past. I didn't believe what was happening. Couldn't have predicted it just twenty-four hours ago.
I took one of my chenille throws off the back of the couch and put it over Ian.
I went into the bedroom and got into bed.
I said my prayers for the first time in a really long time. I prayed for Grammy Annie-Lou. For me. For Scarlet. I knew that while I was in this dream place, getting something I really wanted, she was somewhere crying with a broken heart. It didn't matter what I thought about her. I knew the pain she was probably feeling. I didn't like the idea of anyone going through that.
I went to sleep and dreamed of King and me on one of our adventures. Only he was a puppy and I was a little older than I am now. We sat on a rock on the side of Winslow River that was farthest from the house where Grammy Annie-Lou, hanging sheets up on the clothesline, looked miles away. I fed King cornbread from my pocket. I pitched two rocks at one time into the river and watched the ripples cross one another.
I was awakened by Ian getting into bed with me.
He snuggled in close to my back and buried his lips into my neck. He kissed me gently.
“Is this real?” I asked.
“I hope so.”
 
Ian was still there in the morning. I got up and looked at him like if I blinked he might be gone.
He stretched and said he was hungry. He asked if I needed to get to the office early because he wanted to take me out for brunch.
“Sure,” I said and then we scrambled around the house, listening to music and getting dressed like it was something we'd always done together at my place.
We brushed our teeth. Smiled in the mirror at each other. He kissed me and said he'd meet me downstairs at the door. He was pulling the car around.
“I see everything is good this morning, Ms. Winslow?” Jeremy asked, pulling the elevator door open for me.
“Actually, it is.”
 
I've never been married before, and I couldn't imagine being married to someone for thirty years, but I'm sure that being in love with your best friend must be what it feels like to be married that long. Having Ian at my place was like an extended sleepover with no parents and no rules. We'd stay up all night watching old movies and eating junk food. I never had to ask him for anything. He knew what I was thinking. I knew what he was thinking. When I was hungry, he'd call for pizza. When I got home, I'd have his bottle of Scotch. Every day, his pile of stuff in the corner grew larger. I didn't know if he'd been seeing Scarlet. I didn't ask about her. I didn't think he wanted me to and I didn't want to know. Every time I thought about her, I had to think of them together. I wanted to leave that in the past and move forward. Like Ian said so many times, he was where he wanted to be.
Two weeks or so after Ian moved in, I came home from work and wasn't expecting him to be back from the school. I opened the door to a loft filled with lit candles and smelling like Thai food.
“Ian?” I called. “What's this?” I put down my bag beside the door and was about to walk into the living room.
“Rach? That you? No! Don't come in yet!” Ian shouted.
“What?”
“Don't come in yet! It's a surprise. I'm not ready yet.”
“Do you want me to go back outside?” I asked, laughing.
“No, just wait!” He sounded like he was rushing through the loft. “One more second.”
There was a loud pop that sounded like he'd turned on the stereo with the sound all the way up.
“Whoops! OK. OK! You can come in now!” Ian called. “Rachel?”
“Yes?” I walked into the living room just as the first chords of my song, that India.Arie song “Ready for Love,” began to play.
Ian was wearing an old FAMU T-shirt and blue jeans. Pictures of us in various stages of metamorphosis were set up all over the couch and taped to the window panes all the way to the ceiling.
“What's all this?” I asked, already tearing up.
“It's for you,” Ian said, coming over to me and pulling me into the room. “I know it's not all that big—I'm not exactly raking in the dough right now—but I wanted to do something nice for you. An early birthday present.”
“You didn't have to do this,” I said. My birthday wasn't for two more weeks. I walked to the couch and picked up a picture of Ian and me waving orange and green pompons from the bleachers at our first homecoming game together.
“Actually, I did need to do this,” Ian said. “You deserve this. You deserve all of it and more. I'm just happy to be with you. I'm happy you let me be with you.”
Ian hugged me and pulled his face back to look me in the eyes. And the reality of something I'd been thinking about every day washed over me like a wave. Ian and I hadn't kissed since that day at the office. We'd pecked almost like cousins. He'd kissed my neck. I'd kissed his cheek. But that was in passing. While we were coming and going. We slept in the same bed every night, yes, but it was six hours of spooning and planning. Or saying how excited we were to be together, but then, drunk on Scotch and JD, we'd fall asleep and wake up in the morning like there was nothing odd about it. I'd told Journey and even Krista about it. They were in shock. They said something was wrong, but I defended it carefully and earnestly. I said we were waiting. There was nothing wrong with that. Sometimes these things just took . . . time. Krista had rolled her eyes unconvinced. “You put a man in my bed and someone's having sex. It can happen when he's asleep, but it's happening,” she'd said. “Our relationship is about more than sex,” I'd said. “We're working some things out right now. He's just left his wife. I don't want to sleep with a married man.” Journey was on the same note as Krista one night online. She'd said, “Did you ask him if he minds that you're not sleeping together? And what's happening with the wife? Are they getting a divorce? Are they separated? Did you ask him about that?” I hadn't.
Ian wrapped his hand around the small of my neck and closed his eyes, coming in for a kiss.
I closed my eyes, too, but my neck wouldn't give way. It just wouldn't. It was rigid with fear. When I was seventeen, I played Effie White in a high school production of
Dreamgirls
. There was a scene where I was supposed to kiss Lucas Hamilton, the school nerd and top thespian who was playing Curtis Taylor, right on stage in front of the whole school. I couldn't do it. Grammy Annie-Lou said I stood there petrified, like one of those fainting goats that fall out stiff when they're afraid. That's kind of how I felt waiting for Ian's kiss.
He tried two more times, but I just got more awkward and more stiff.
I peeked at him and saw that he was peeking at me, too, and wincing just a little.
“Oh . . . I can't,” he said, letting me go suddenly.
“What? You can't?” I asked like I hadn't been thinking and subconsciously acting out the same thing.
“I'm sorry, Rach. I really want to, but I—I can't right now.
“What do you mean you can't? Why?”
“It's Xavier. Being here, it's all I can think about. That he was here. That he was in this room with you. Kissing you just like I'm trying to do right now. Every night when I get into that bed in there with you, I think that he's been there. It's like he's still here.”
I hadn't told Ian, but Xavier had emailed me twice asking if we could speak. I didn't respond because I didn't know what say. If there was anything to say. But I'd felt X's energy in the loft, too. His toothbrush was gone, but I still had the organic toothpaste he'd purchased. And every place I'd been to in the city, even though I'd been there forever without him, it seemed like none of it mattered until I'd gone there with him.

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