Authors: Grace Octavia

What He's Been Missing (3 page)

BOOK: What He's Been Missing

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Right then, I wanted to say something sweet to congratulate Ian on his big move, but I was still trying to figure out how to convince him to call the proposal off. Journey was rightâI had to support my friend, but if he called it off himself, I'd have nothing to support.

“How'd they find out?” I asked.

“I told Scarlet's best friend.”

“Yeah, that'll do it.” I looked into the room of well-dressed, wide-eyed women and realized that Ian hadn't moved to go inside. “You nervous?”

“Not really . . . I'm just . . . I can't believe this is it. The big step! The
biggest
step!” Ian peered into the room like he was in a trance. There was a cake in the middle of the table. Champagne bottles and flutes were scattered all around. “It's surreal. Kind of exciting. Like bungee jumping or skydiving!” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a book.

“What's that?”

“It's called
The Psychology of Love
. I've been reading it all day and it says that it's normal for people to feel like this before making such a big decision to move forward.”

Ian was pacing and rolling the little book up in his hands.

“Feel like what?”

“Feel likeâ” Ian stopped and looked at me like I'd asked the dumbest question in the world. “Nervous! Yes, Rach, I'm nervous! I mean, I really love Scarlet, but this is a lot.” He looked so helpless.

“Ianâ” I snatched the book and threw it to the floor. “Look, this is about love. Not something you read in a book. Not jumping from a plane in a parachute or a bridge with a rope tied to your waist. It's about experiencing the kind of love that makes you feel so free that you're flying and you can't even worry about where your feet will land, because you don't intend on ever touching the ground again. That's what getting engaged is about,” I say, lost in the moment as I considered the concept for myself. “Finding an angel that's so wonderful, so amazing, that you want to fly with her forever. That you want to ask her to fly with you forever.”

“Damn, Rach! Can you ask Scarlet to marry me?”

“Oh loverboy!” One of the girls from inside of the party who I thought was Scarlet's roommate poked her head outside of the dining room. “I just got word that Scarlet's on her way upstairs. It's show time!”

A collection of cheers jabbed into my gut as the girl came out and pulled Ian and me into the party.

“Let's go,” she insisted.

A massive crystal chandelier perched atop the circular mahogany dining table set glints of brilliant light over the heads of the sixteen smiling, overdressed people scattered around the room. I was able to count so quickly because everyone was coupled up. All of Scarlet's friends were in that particular mid-twentyish age range where their perky breasts and ability to stay up all night helped them snag a mid-thirtyish age range brother who was so amazed he could still get a girl so young he immediately gave her the title “girlfriend” and took her everywhere he went, like a new puppy or fast car. Unfortunately, in two years they'd all find out that these men had no intention of marrying them. And end up at age thirty jaded and alone. I was speaking from experience.

“You didn't tell me there'd only be couples here,” I whispered to Ian, but really I should've expected this. There was something about people in their mid-twenties and late thirties and not wanting to go anywhere alone.

“She's getting off the elevator!” someone shouted and everyone started to duck down and hide beneath and behind things.

Ian grabbed my hand and pulled me beneath the table. For a second, I looked into his eyes. In the shaded darkness he looked like a little boy playing hide-and-seek. Suddenly I remembered every small, magical moment I'd ever had with this man. Breakups. Breakdowns. He'd always been there for me. My confidant. My homie. My best friend.

“You ready for this?” I asked, not letting go of his hand.

He looked at me and winked with the nervousness he'd had just minutes ago gone from his face.

“Yes,” he said. “I am.” He winked again. “I do.”

Ian's birthday surprise cover plan, as he'd told me over lunch the week before, was for Scarlet's best friend, who was visiting from California, to say she needed to stop by her hotel room to pick up something. They'd open the door, we'd jump out. Everyone would be excited.

This all went off without a snag, but when I saw Scarlet decked out in a black fascinator hat with purple ostrich feathers poking out the top, I knew she was clued in to both the party and Ian's ring. No woman would waste a hat that obnoxious on dinner with her girlfriend.

Still, Scarlet was the perfect pretender. She placed her skinny fingers over her skinny lips and squealed like a little piglet.

“For me?” she said like Scarlett O'Hara. “All this just for me?”

Someone pushed Ian to the front like a lamb to slaughter. “You did this for me, baby?” Scarlet batted her little eyes at Ian.

“Yes, honey. Happy Birthday!” Ian kissed Scarlet on the cheek and the crowd cooed like a room full of babies. They even made him do it again so they could get a picture.

Scarlet pulled Ian by the hand around the room as she sighed and squealed with her friends about the surprise party. I poured myself a generous flute of champagne and spied from the darkest corner I could find to watch Ian for the look of love Journey had asked about. He was smiling big. Had his arm around Scarlet's shoulder and rubbed just a little when she was talking and not paying attention to him.

“Rachel! You're Rachel Winslow! Right?” One of the women, who'd been left solo when her boyfriend went to huddle with the rest of the guys by the wall window that let all the twinkling lights from midtown Atlanta traffic into the room, had walked over to my corner.

“Yes,” I said, putting the flute down on the little wooden table beside me.

“I'm Jennifer. Scarlet told me Ian was friends with you. Amazing. I saw you on the
Wendy Williams Show
in December.”

“November.”

“What?”

“The show aired in November,” I pointed out over a cackle coming from Scarlet across the room. Ian's hand fell to her waist.

“Oh. OK.” Jennifer took a sip from her flute as if that was all she had to say. Or maybe that was the point in the conversation where I was supposed to ask her something, but I didn't because I knew what was coming next. She turned to look longingly at her boyfriend standing in the huddle like he was a football field away. “You here by yourself?” she asked. “No date?”

“No,” I said. “I'm a friend of Ian's. And I'm here with you guys.”

“No . . .” Jennifer laughed a little. “You know what I mean. Like âalone.' Like with no date.”

“You got me! No date tonight!” I picked up my flute and sipped the last little bit of champagne left so I'd have an excuse to walk away.

“How brave of you, sister! I remember those days. Being single and just out there. Living life out loud!” She turned back to stare into the huddle. “But then I found my man and everything in my life changed.” Her voice sank way too deep for a cocktail party conversation. “I just love him so much.”

“Yay for love.” I pumped my fist and sounded decidedly obnoxious. “You're so lucky. How long have you two been together.”

“Three months! But it feels like three lifetimes.” She waved at him like he was going to try to escape if she forgot to keep an eye on him. “You know, they say the true way to build a strong black nation is to get married. Have a family.”

“Really? Where'd you hear that?”

“A class I'm taking . . . grad school.”

Ian's hand had retreated to his pocket. Scarlet slipped away and was taking pictures with her girlfriends again.

“Don't worry. Your ship is coming in for sure. Your life is all about love. You breathe it every day.” Jennifer leaned into me. “It must be hard seeing all those people in love when you're not.”

Ian turned around in my gaze and gave me a weak smile before shrugging his shoulders.

“I mean, you do want love, right?” Jennifer asked. “You're not like . . . you know . . . aâ”

“Yes, I want love,” I said. “But something real. Not just someone I can take to cocktail parties and pose in pictures with.”

“Oh yeah,” Jennifer said distantly and just then I realized she wasn't listening to a word I was saying. “Hey, can you hold my purse?” She turned and handed me her little hot pink clutch before rushing over to grab her boyfriend's hand and dragging him into one of the pictures that had claimed Ian as well.

From where I was standing behind them, I could see Ian reach into his back pocket and finger his book. His head tilted away from Scarlet, he pulled the book up a bit, then pushed it back down when she laced her arm around his waist.

“My sister!” Scarlet came to me with her arms outstretched after dispersing from the photo op. “So glad you could make it out to my little surprise birthday party!” She hugged me so tightly it felt like a chiropractic back adjustment. Ian nearly had to pull us apart.

“Oh, Ian was so excited. I wanted to support him. To support both of you,” I said, watching Ian. The confidence he'd grown in his eyes was wavering. I saw bungee cords in his pupils.

“Yeah, this beautiful black man!” Scarlet pinched Ian's cheek. “I can't believe he planned all this behind my back. Such a blessing. But it's no wonder. You know, I've been so busy organizing the girls I mentor at the Sankofa Institute. That keeps me away so much. I'm just happy my loving kingman puts up with all my volunteer work.”

“Ian's always been quite the understanding
kingman
. My bestie,” I said, nudging Ian in the gut.

He nodded rather mechanically. When Ian and Scarlet had started dating he used to complain about some of her half-baked ideas about the world, about politics and revolution. She was in a place where we used to be when we were in our early twenties and still thinking we could save the world by building one house with Habitat for Humanity. Then we'd gotten real jobs and had bigger fish to fry. Not that we didn't want to build the house. That was important work. But our days bragging about it were long gone. And time to commit to it was just plain limited. Sometimes Ian dragged me out for drinks to get away from Scarlet's philosophizing about things she only half understood.

“
My
kingman.” Scarlet pinched his cheek again. “What about you, Rachel? Do you think you could find some time to come down to the institute to work with the girls? I know you're really busy with your business and all, but they could use someone like you thereâyou know, you grew up poor in the country, first in your family to go to collegeâthat kind of thing. They'd relate to you.”

Scarlet was holding my arm the entire time she spoke. Ian had pulled that little book out of his back pocket and I was thinking maybe it wasn't me she should be holding onto.

“You OK, Ian?” I asked.

“Yeah. Yeah.” He fanned himself with the little book. “Just a little hot in here.”

“Yeah, babe.” Scarlet fanned Ian with one hand without stopping to look at him. “Speaking of hot, Ian tells me you have a new beau who kept you out last night so you couldn't join us at Masquerade.” She grinned at me with pursed lips like I was her old aunty who'd somehow stumbled upon a boyfriend.

“Really? I have a beau?”

“Yeah, that's what Ian said.” She was pointing at him now, but still not looking. “It's not true?” Now she was looking like I was her old aunt who'd just been pushed in front of a bus. Her black and purple fascinator suddenly became a funeral mourning hat. She shot me a complimentary sad face.

Ian rolled his eyes to suggest that I simply agree with Scarlet.

“Oh . . . beau? Beau? You mean a boyfriend?” I asked.

“Yes, a boyfriend!” Scarlet's smile returned.

“Yes, I do have a boyfriend. See, I don't speak French,” I said with a bit of hidden sarcasm I was sure would make Ian laugh, but he didn't.

He rolled up his little book some more. Wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead.

Scarlet frowned and then smiled tightly like maybe I'd just been disinvited from visiting the Institute on account of my not knowing what “beau” meant.

“Ian, you sure you're all right?” I asked again. The color was slipping from his face.

Scarlet finally turned to him.

“Actually, you know what, Rachel, can I talk to you in the other room?” Ian asked.

“But we're about to cut the cake,” Scarlet said. “I mean . . . aren't you all about to cut the cake for me?”

“In a minute, babe,” Ian said. “I just need to talk to Rachel.”

BOOK: What He's Been Missing

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