Anytime Soon (17 page)

I felt worn out and said, “I need to go. My friends are waiting.”

“Please, don't,” he pleaded. “We really need to finish this.”

“I have to,” I wearily explained.

“Anaya?”

“Yes?”

“Please,” he begged.

“I can't, Jeff. I can't do this anymore, and I can't talk about it anymore. It's too much.”

“Why do I feel like you're punishing me for loving you?” he asked.

“I'm not punishing you, Jeff.” I blinked my eyes to hold back the tears. “I'm probably hurting more than you are. Sometimes I can deal with it, and sometimes I can't. Lately, it's been getting harder for me.”

“Tell me what you want me to do,” he said.

After a long pause, I said, “I want you to go home. Go be with your family.”

“Sweetie, please don't do this.”

“I can't, Jeff,” I said. I hung the phone up just when Sophie opened the patio door.

“Who was that?” she asked.

“Who was who?” I replied, nonchalantly.

“Who was who?” she repeated. “Who was that on the phone?”

“Oh, no one,” I said.

“Since when do you need so much privacy to talk to no one?” Catie asked from over Sophie's shoulder.

“No, it was nothing. Just someone asking something,” I stammered, walking back in the apartment.

I am a horrible liar.

“Right,” Catie said. “You want to watch a movie with us?”

“No. I hate to jet out, but I have an appointment,” I said, relieved to be telling the truth.

Catie eyeballed me suspiciously.

“You are up to something,” she said, narrowing her eyes at me.

“I'm not,” I said, kissing her and Sophie on the cheek. “I will call you guys later.”

I looked at Antoine, who was still sitting on the couch.

“You staying?” I asked him.

“Yes, I'm gonna wait until Sophie's car is ready and drop her off at the dealership,” he said.

“Okay, see you later. Tell your mom I said hello.” I kissed him on the cheek and raced out to get to my appointment with Judy.

On the way to see Judy, I called Mom. She told me that Sophie's mom had asked her out to lunch. I couldn't wait to see how that meeting turned out. She also told me she was having a “get together” with a couple of our relatives and Aunt Marie. I knew better than that. They were going to try and ambush poor Aunt Marie, to tell her what to do about the situation with her daughter Amber. Amber decided she was going to rebel against anything and everything. She was acting out in school and giving Aunt Marie a hard time. Aunt Marie called mom to confide in her and mom told other members of the family. I didn't think that was such a nice thing to do, but that was my family. They were always in each other's business.

I knew that Aunt Marie would be better off without our family giving her advice, but I would never say that to Mom.

I was more relieved to talk to Judy than I had ever been. I didn't waste a moment.

“I'm in love with a married man,” I said.

She was a trained professional, and I was thoroughly impressed that her only reaction was a mere raised eyebrow. “When did this happen?” she asked.

“Over time. I thought we were just friends. I mean, that's what I kept telling myself. But I love him. I hate myself for it, because it's wrong.”

“Why do you hate yourself?”

Didn't I just tell her why?

“Because it's wrong. I know I can do better. I deserve better. I don't know why I even let things get this far.”

“Do you think he loves you?”

“Yeah,” I said, looking down. “I do.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“I think so.”

If he loved me, he would be with me, right? He wouldn't still be
married to his wife. Is that the point she's trying to make? No, she's
not trying to make any points. She's trying to help.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

I can't believe I pay for this.

“I don't know,” was the only response I could muster.

“What do you want to do?” she persisted.

I shrugged. “I don't know that, either.”

“When do you think would be a good time to figure it out?”

“Anytime soon.”

Checkmate.

She raised her eyebrow again.

“Why are you so hard on yourself?” she asked.

“It's not right,” I said.

“Who says?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I need for you to think about that,” she said.

She suddenly made me sick, with her loose morals and poor taste in fashion. Why couldn't she just tell me what to do and what to think? Isn't that what she was paid for? The session drained me by forcing me to think about the truth. I was ashamed of myself.

When I got home, I saw that Aunt Deb, Aunt Marie, and Uncle Riley were sitting in the living room.

“Where's Mom?” I asked.

“She's in the kitchen finishing the appetizers,” Aunt Deb said.

While we waited for Mom to come out of the kitchen, Uncle Riley talked about the Lakers, and whether or not it was safe again to bet on them.

“Wait until next Tuesday,” Aunt Deb advised him.

“Next Tuesday? Why?” he asked with a frown.

“Because Mercury's in retrograde, that's why,” Aunt Deb explained, as if the retrograde of Mercury was common knowledge. “You're not supposed to meddle in finance when Mercury's in retrograde. Wait until next Tuesday.”

“Aw, come on,” Uncle Riley scoffed with a smirk.

“Okay,” Aunt Deb smiled mysteriously. “I'm just trying to tell you what's right. You don't have to listen to me, but you should listen to the stars. They never lie.”

Mom came out of the kitchen, and everybody started eating the finger foods she had prepared.

“So, Marie,” Deb started, “Anita tells me things aren't going well at home.”

I almost choked on the celery stick I was eating. She didn't waste any time.

Aunt Marie chewed on her miniature sandwich slowly.

“It's nothing to be ashamed of,” Aunt Deb continued. “We all have family problems. The key is to make sure you talk about it and get a little help.”

I looked over at Aunt Marie and saw in her face that she was not interested in their advice. I think Mom sensed it as well, because she changed the subject.

“Enough about that. Did everybody choose possible dates for the family reunion?” Mom asked.

“I don't want to do it in the summer,” Aunt Deb said. “The energy in summer is too condensed for a family reunion.”

“Too condensed?” Uncle Riley asked. “What the hell does that mean?”

We all laughed.

“It means, we should wait until fall,” Aunt Deb said.

“You wait until fall, Deb, and we will have our reunion this summer,” Mom said, laughing.

“I'm in,” Uncle Riley said. “You cooking, Anita?”

“Is Anita's food
all
you ever think about?” Aunt Marie asked.

I had had enough, so I went upstairs and took a shower. As I passed Ava's room, I observed that she was sitting on the floor with a bunch of pamphlets around her.

That girl never, ever cleans her room.

“Ava, why don't you clean your room?”

“It doesn't need it.”

Looking at her face, you would think she really believed that.

But there was no way a sane person could look at that room and think it didn't need cleaning.

“Um, yes, it does, Ava.”

“No, it doesn't. It just needs a little organizing, and I haven't had time to do it. I'm busy with this project.”

She was always talking about working on some project. You would think she was a part of the president's administration, with all her busy-ness.

“Oh,” I said.

I went in my room and closed the door.

Is it me, or is everybody in this house nuts?

ELEVEN

T
aylor's case was going to trial in two weeks, and she was frantic. She was e-mailing assignments to me with instructions that had two or three exclamation marks after every sentence. Taylor was one e-mail away from my limit.

“Taylor gets nervous when she goes to trial,” Shirley told me. “It'll pass, trust me.”

Maybe when I'm your age, Shirley, I'll be ripe with patience,
too.

One morning Taylor came to the office with coffee in hand, swept past my desk like an arctic breeze, and shut her office door behind her.

I called Jeff from my desk phone. It probably would have made more sense to just walk in his office, but I didn't want to.

“Hey,” he said.

“Just wanted to say hi,” I said.

Just then, Taylor walked up to my desk.

“Anaya, get these responses copied and delivered to Sandra at Pearl and O'Connor.”

“I'll call you back,” I said to Jeff, and hung up.

“Today!” she snapped, then quickly disappeared into her office.

Lord,
I prayed.
Give me the patience to deal with this demon
spirit named Taylor so that I don't do something rash.

A few minutes later, she appeared at my desk. “Are you feeling all right, Anaya?” she asked in a tone that shocked me. It sounded like a cross between compassion and irritation.

I'm betting on irritation.

Eyes don't lie, though. When I looked up, her face expressed true concern.

“I'm fine, thanks,” I said, astonished. “I'll get this to Sandra before noon. Is that okay?”

“That's fine. Anytime today works, actually. She's been bugging me about them. I should have told her to come and get them, because she lost them, but I didn't think that would be very professional. Sometimes you have to bear with difficult personalities. You know what I mean?”

I looked up at her with what I hoped was a smile.

“Can you come in my office for a minute?” she asked.

I wasn't comfortable being alone with Satan's spawn, but I went anyway. When I followed her into the office, she closed the door behind us.

“Have a seat, Anaya,” she said, pointing to a large leather chair in front of her desk.

I sat down. She pulled up a chair next to mine and looked directly at me. She was one of those anatomically blessed people who always look good. As I studied her pale skin and straight hair, I found it hard to believe that she was black. When Octavia first told me, I thought she was lying. As I sat there looking into her light-brown eyes, I still had my doubts. Out of the blue, she started talking about her childhood, looking away from me.

“My father was controlling and verbally abusive, and my mother was weak.” She seemed to be talking to herself. I considered that she needed me only as an ear, and that she wasn't asking for anything back.

“I knew I was going to college, because I didn't want to depend on a man like my mom did.” She still wasn't looking at me.

“When I was in college, everybody thought I was a model. No one gave me credit for being smart.”

But you're a beautiful, successful lawyer—so I'm having a hard
time sympathizing with you.

“Most guys assume I'm a gold digger. I make six figures, so I don't need anybody else's money.”

I wasn't sure why she was telling me this. Did she suspect something was going wrong between me and Jeff?

“So, I'm sorry I've been a bitch to you. You're the best case clerk we've ever had. Jeff was right. You
are
the bomb.”

Jeff said I was the bomb?

I was afraid that Taylor had something up the sleeve of her Chanel pantsuit, so I decided to be guardedly nice. By the time she was finished with her little monologue, I felt like facing the day.

Jeff and I hadn't had a serious conversation since the day I was at Catie's. We had shared a few text messages and made plans to get together, but nothing came of it. I was missing him and decided to pop in his office.

As I walked in, he looked up.

“Hello again,” he said in a formal tone.

“We still need to finish our talk,” I said.

“You know, I'm sure we do, but I have a telephone conference in about ten minutes, and I need to dial-in soon. Can we do it another time?”

Did he say another time? No, he couldn't have said that. Agree
and walk out. Or agree, toss his computer through the window,
and knock everything off the desk.

I tried to pull it together.

“Will another time work for you?” he asked. Both his expression and his tone were impatient.

“Never mind. We don't need to talk. In fact, we don't
ever
have to talk again. How 'bout
that
?” I spun on my heels and stormed out. I wish like hell I could have slammed the door, but I'm not that crazy. I went to my desk, grabbed my purse, and left. In my heart, I knew that I didn't have the game or the emotional control to deal with this.

My toes hurt from walking away so fast. I bit my bottom lip as hard as I could without drawing blood.

How did I grow up to be so stupid?

“Anaya, wait!” he called, irritated.

The cool outside breeze made me shiver. I wanted to get to my car and get away from him. I was embarrassed that I could already feel tears forming, because I didn't want anyone to see me crying. I couldn't find my keys, so I kept rummaging through my purse with one hand.

Not even looking at him, I said, “Go back to your stupid conference call and your perfect life.”

Damn me for being so emotional! Where are my keys?

“Anaya!”

But I didn't answer and just kept rummaging.

“Can you please look at me?” he demanded.

“What?” I looked at him for two seconds and started walking.

“Anaya, what's going on?” he yelled after me. He finally caught up.