Choose Me: a novella (4 page)

Jessica knew what he was after. He’d been hitting on her since the beginning of the term and she’d ignored him. But just before they left for London he’d come up behind her in the kitchen one evening when she was making dinner, grazed against her as he was reaching for a mug and she’d felt the heat rising from his body and smelled the citrusy cologne he was wearing. He’d murmured, “Sorry, luv” in her ear but lingered nonetheless.

When Andrew finally moved away she missed the weight of his body against hers. She and Chris hadn’t been together for se
veral days. Fergus had kept him busy photographing those models for his new project, and she was more than a little jealous. She’d walked in on one of the sessions and seen how one of the models, a statuesque redhead with the body of an Amazon, cooed at Chris whenever he was near her. Or how, when Fergus barked out orders for Chris to readjust the lighting or reflectors, or test the ---, the redhead thrust her ample bosom out at Chris, stroking herself and fixing him with a challenging stare. None of it would have bothered her if he’d only just ignored the redhead. But he blushed and even returned her flirtatious banter. And a few times his gaze seemed to be appraising the redhead, lingering over the curve of her ample ass, drinking in the firmness of her gravity-defying breasts so perky despite their size.

If only Chris had not been so embarrassed when she teased him about the models all wanting to sleep with him.  And then there was Fergus’s wife. Jessica had only met her once but she’d unde
rstood immediately why none of Fergus’s other assistants stuck around long. There was something predatory in the Juliette’s eyes. When she wasn’t piercing you with a chill stare, she was drinking you in and pulling you to her with her smile and the weight of her slender hand on your arm or leg. Twice Juliette had stroked Chris’s neck in a completely inappropriate manner, and when their eyes met, he turned away so quickly that Jessica understood something had passed between them, something she wasn’t a part of and that he’d never tell her about.

And then she’d made the mistake of telling
Aisha, who’d filled her ear with venom against Chris.

So when Andrew suggested the research trip to London, she jumped at the chance to be away from Chris if only to get her head together. And then he kissed her, and she hadn’t been able to stop herself from wanting him to take her one step farther into som
ething she knew would only hurt her in the end.

They argued, from Nicholson Road all the way to his apartment. Each time she tried to walk away from him he grabbed her and the intensity in his eyes frightened her but she was drawn to it all the same. This was what she wanted—someone who’d react, who’d force her to feel something and not let her get away with just gliding on the surface. And she deserved his anger.

“What game are you playing at with me?” he demanded. They were nearly at his building. His voice filled the empty street, bouncing off the bricks and asphalt. “I can’t fucking take this, Jess—what the hell is going on?”

“I didn’t mean for him to kiss me.”

“You didn’t… what are you saying? Did you ask him to do it?”

“No, no… look, please, just forget about it—”

“How am I supposed to forget that your roommate was all ove
r you in that pub? How many other times has he done that?”

“Never…”

“Tell me the truth!”

“I am telling you the truth. Stop shouting, the entire city doesn’t need to be party to our fight!”

“Fuck you, Jess—you’re just dicking me around right now. Why am I letting myself get so into this?”

“Chris… Stop, look at me.”

“I can’t.”

“Please…I’m sorry…we had
too much to drink. That’s all.”

“Are you sleeping with him?”

“No! I don’t want him.”

“Just be honest with me, Jess. I can’t take it if you’re going to jerk me around.”

“I’m telling you the truth.”

For a long while, they stood there, their ragged breath steaming between them. She was shaking, partly from the cold but also b
ecause she knew she was hurting him just to protect herself. He rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand. All of the steely tension evaporated. His shoulders slumped; his limbs lost their rigidity.

She took his hand and stroked his cheek. They kissed in the
orangish glow of the streetlamp. He was trembling, shaking so hard when she embraced him that she was afraid they’d lose their balance and tumble to the ground. They parted long enough to go inside.

They made love for the first time in weeks. She wanted to be on top of him, to straddle him and make him forget what had ha
ppened. But once they were in his bed, he wouldn’t let go of her. He stretched her arms over her head, tightening his grip on her wrists as he nuzzled her neck and breasts, slid his tongue along the curve of her lower lip.

“Don’t close your eyes…look at me…just let me do this…”

chapter
eight

What's
Going On

“My period is late,” she said with no preamble. They were sitting at his drafting board in Fergus’s studio. Chris was supposed to be taking care of the final prints of what constituted Fergus’s next big project, a portfolio of nudes retouched in such lush colors they reminded Chris of Fifties pin-ups. Even the models’ bodies were voluptuous and alluring, like the Marilyn Monroe centerfold from Playboy or the soft focus shots of Jayne Mansfield and Betty Paige that gave their naked bodies a luminosity so golden they were more like paintings than photographs.

Chris froze. Had he heard her correctly? He turned a little to face her. Maybe if he took in the expression on her face he’d know how he should respond. But pregnant… Hadn’t they used condoms every time they were together? “Have you been to a doctor?”

Her eyebrows scrunched together and a deep crease formed b
etween them. “No. I bought a home pregnancy test so…” but she didn’t finish her sentence.

She shrugged and picked up one of the rejected prints. The model depicted was Fergus’s wife. She’d insisted on being part of the portfolio despite how anachronistic she seemed compared to the other models. But Chris couldn’t look at her without reme
mbering Thanksgiving and how she’d cornered him at the cigar club to which Fergus had dragged them. In the dimly-lit hall between the men’s and women’s lounges, she’d pulled Chris aside and, before he could respond properly, grabbed his hand and slid it inside the gaping opening of her dress. She pressed his hand against her small breasts and murmured, “I could make it so good for you. So much better than that little girl you’re so torn up over.”

He’d pulled away, but not before she untied the small bow that held her dress closed and displayed her long white body to him. Her breasts, which
FHM
had once described as being like perfect dollops of cream were small and firm, her nipples deep pink and hard as beads. There were no traces of fat on her slender frame; she was as lean as a whippet. But what he remembered most was the perfect V of her crotch, and its startling absence of pubic hair. Then, she bit his lower lip, closed her dress shut and sauntered off, rolling her hips in such a calculated manner that he almost hated her. But for all that, he’d wanted her. His cock had gone hard at the sight of her and when she dragged his hand over her erect nipples, he’d wanted to lower his head to them and suck on them, savoring them as if they were rare wild strawberries.

A flush of color rose in his face and neck. He took the rejected print from Jessica and tossed it in the pile with the rest of the r
ejects.

“Maybe you should do it now,” he said. They were watching each other, both assessing the situation and trying to decide what move ought to be next. “Then we’ll know what to do.”

“What if I am pregnant?” She pushed her chair back. She stretched her denim-clad legs before her and tapped his foot with hers. “What would you want me to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“I couldn’t keep it.”

“Then I guess we’d have to get an abortion.”

“
I’d
have to get an abortion, you mean.”

“You’re not the only one affected by this.”

“No. I’m just the only one who’d be a statistic: single black female with fucked up life.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake are you going to pull the god damn race card again?”

“Fuck you, Chris! It’s so easy for you—you could just walk away if I’m pregnant…”

“Is that what you want? For me to prove you right so you can confirm for your friends what jerks we white boys are?” His voice escalated a notch higher than he’d expected. Why did she always have to turn everything back to the color of their skin? It wasn’t like either of them could do anything about it other than accept that they were different and move on.

She flung herself out of the chair, grabbed her backpack and stormed towards the door. He didn’t move. He just sat there, trying to contain his anger as if it were nothing more than a morsel of food. For a moment he thought she was going to leave, and he didn’t want her to go. They hadn’t seen each other in two weeks and the more time they spent apart the less he felt he knew her. He called out to her. When she didn’t answer, he tossed the prints aside and stood. At the end of the hall he could see a light shining from beneath the bathroom door. He went towards it, rehashing in his mind how he would apologize to her. He didn’t want her harboring any resentment toward him. It was bad enough that each time her friends from Philadelphia called her she was sullen for days afterwards. Though she attributed her mood swings to being homesick, he’d overheard enough of these phone calls to know that her best friend didn’t approve of their being together. And the closer they came to when they’d go home, the more frequent Aisha’s calls grew.

“Jess? You in there?” He called out, leaning against the bat
hroom door.

“Give me some space, please.”

“Fine, have it your way.”

He went back to his desk and finished cropping and mounting the prints to Fergus’s specifications. When Jessica finally emerged from the bathroom she looked relieved. She smiled nervously at him, but he didn’t return it. He couldn’t switch off his emotions as quickly as she did.

“False alarm,” she said. She stood behind him, rubbing her face in his hair. The warmth of her breath brushed his skin and left him full of want for her. Her breasts grazed his neck and he turned nuzzling into her and folding his arms around her. “Sorry…”

Why couldn’t she love him a little more? Why was she so afraid to let him in?

But the false alarm didn’t lessen the tension between them, esp
ecially not after
the Scotsman
and
the Times
published articles about the rise of racism in the Lothians. Three days after their pregnancy scare, a young black man on his way home from work was attacked by a group of skinheads just down the road from his flat. Chris had hoped Jessica wouldn’t see the article, but of course she had. She pored through the newspaper everyday and wanted to discuss just about everything she read. After the first article, more and more articles about the rise in race-related violence and discrimination in Scotland popped up in the daily papers. And Chris, anxious to keep Jessica from leaving him, became clingy and desperate, inventing excuses to see her if she decided not meet him for dinner one night or cancelled plans at the last minute.

They didn’t talk about the young man, who’d survived the a
ttack thanks to pepper spray and using his keys as weapons. They hardly seemed to talk at all. When they did, it was always about her classes or his project. Some nights he’d walk to her rooms at Mylne’s Court, wondering if this would be the night she’d call it off with him. When he arrived, she still kissed him, still pressed her body against his as though she craved him like a much-needed glass of water. But a chill had settled over them that refused to dissipate. And the more he held her, the more he later claimed each part of her body with his mouth and hands, the farther away she seemed to be.

“Tell me what’s wrong…”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“We never talk. I feel like you’re keeping me at a safe distance.”

“You’re exaggerating things now.”

“Am I?”

“You are.”

“Then why do we spend so little time together?”

“We’re both busy. I’ve got two hundred pages of research to hand in soon, and you’ve got Fergus breathing down your neck.”

“Christ, we’ve only got another month.”

“I know.”

“Are we going to make it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I hope so.”

“You do?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Do you love me enough to stay together when we’re back home?”

“Of course, I love you… how does this feel?”

“Stop…don’t distract me, just…just tell me we’ll be okay.”

“We’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

chapter
nine

Burnt-down
Days Like Cigarettes...

Spring came earlier than expected, bringing daily reminders that soon Jessica would be going home again. The Accommodations Office had already sent her a memo requesting that she compile a list of any repairs needed to her room so they could sort it out before its next occupant arrived. Her thesis advisor scheduled weekly meetings with her. And though she’d already finished writing her thesis, she had nightmares about forgetting to submit it or worse, not being able to hold her own during her thesis defense. It didn’t help that, since the debacle at the pub with Andrew, she felt guilty even talking to him about her thesis. He still sent smo
ldering looks her way, still pretended not to have been accosted by Chris, still flirted like mad with her—but the difference was that he did so these days from a safe distance. He didn’t want to risk being surprised by Chris again. And she didn’t want to upset Chris, especially since his own project was not going well. Sometimes he complained about it to her. He’d try to explain what he intended with his photography and why some of his prints lived up to his expectations while others came far short of the mark. He wanted at least 50 good entries in his portfolio before he returned to Philadelphia.

“Why
fifty?” she’d asked. It seemed such a large number, especially considering that he often found it hard to judge his own work. “Is it significant or did you just pull it from air?”

He shrugged. “I want something sizeable, I don’t want them to be able to ignore my work.”

“But can’t it stand on its own without so many?”

“Fifty will make people take notice. Anything less is like sa
ying this is just a hobby.”

He’d sounded so miffed by her questioning him. It wasn’t the first time. Once she’d wondered why he was so obsessed with light—why afternoon light was sometimes better than morning light and vice versa.  He told her why, going in great detail about it, but the annoyed tone of his voice told her he didn’t like being criticized or questioned.  Though he didn’t have a problem when it came from Fergus. Fergus could treat him like shit under his shoe and Chris didn’t raise an eyebrow. No matter how blunt his boss was in his criticism of Chris’s talent, Chris just nodded and accep
ted it. The only outward sign of annoyance was the tightening of his jaw. His usually open face would go stony the moment Fergus spat out a “This is crap, Chris!” or  “You can’t be feckin’ serious about this one…”

But he never fought back. It wasn’t until he came home and he and Jessica were alone that his contained ire would suddenly spew
out. Sometimes she tried to talk him down. Maybe Fergus was just playing devil’s advocate and wanted Chris to realize that not everyone would see the beauty of his work. But Jessica thought it was more likely that Fergus was jealous of Chris’s talent and wanted to snuff any thoughts Chris might entertain of being competition.

“Why would he want to do that?” Chris laughed derisively one particularly bad evening. “It’s not like I am the one winning awards here.”

“No, but you’re the one who’s planned his shots when he’s too drunk to do it himself. And you’re the one who’s done all of his grunt work and retouched photos while he’s off gallivanting with his jet-set friends.”

“I knew what I was getting into when I came here. You have to shovel shit before you can get anywhere in this world.”

And that was the end of that. He buried himself in work that night, freezing her out. She tried to lure him out of his shell with caresses and kisses, but he brushed her away.

That night she went home.

It was the first time in months that they willingly spent the night apart, and it set the standard for the coming weeks.

“Where’s your boyfriend?”

“In Paris working.”

“And you didn’t go with him?”

“Stop it,
Aisha! I told you I’ve got my thesis defense coming up.”

“Sounds like trouble in paradise to me,” Aisha said, sou
nding self-satisfied by this turn of events. “I knew it would end up like this.”

“I don’t need this from you right now. Can’t we talk about something else?”

“Just drop the white boy, Jess. It’s not going to last anyway. You’re both fooling yourselves.”

“I’ll remember that the next time you call me up and tell me you’ve met the man of your dreams and go on and on about how you’ve never felt this way before. I think I’ve heard that line a few times…”

“At least I’m out there looking and I know that a white man ain’t gonna solve all my problems.”

“I don’t need him or anyone else to solve my problems!”

“No? Then why’d you have to go all the way to Scotland to study when you could have stayed here in the States to do the same degree? Why is it the first man I hear you waxing lyrical about is a white boy who you know won’t step up to the plate when worse comes to worse?”

“I don’t judge people by the color of their skin—“

“Then why didn’t you branch out before? You were just waiting for this opportunity—“

“You’ve got it all wrong!”

“I don’t think so. Well, one thing for sure, you’re in for a rude awakening when you come home.”

And that’s when
Aisha told her about the murder.

Josh Perry and Malika Williams were the tabloids’ favorite Multi-Culti representatives. Both were actors who’d made names for themselves before their romance became news fodder.  Philadelphians loved Malika: she was a local girl from Southwest Philly who’d gone directly from the High School for Creative and Performing Arts to a core role on a CBS soap opera. For three years, she played Jolie Tuner, the gifted but rebellious adopted daughter of Dr. Anthony Turner, the beloved chief of staff at the hospital that was the epicenter of nearly every storyline.  She was only supposed to be on the show for a few months, but viewers loved her, and her presence raised the show’s demographics with African-American viewers, which didn’t go unnoticed by the show’s sponsors.

Malika
was as slender and delicate as a ballerina, with deep brown skin that journalists nearly always compared to dark chocolate. Sometimes they talked about her classic features, comparing her to everyone from Lena Horne to Halle Berry, neither of whom she resembled in the least). After three years of playing Jolie, a role that didn’t seem to demand much more of her than standing around and looking intense or occasionally suffering the slings and arrows of unrequited love, she made her big screen debut with
You Had Me at Hello
. The success of that film brought more and better roles her way so that by the time she was 24, she was the only Black actress her age who was earning as much, if not often more, than her white contemporaries.

On the set of
Say When
, a romantic comedy in which she was playing a supporting role, she met Josh Perry, who’d also risen to the top quickly. He’d gone from Yale Drama to a starring role in a Wednesday night NBC sit-com. Like Malika, he’d had a string of successful rolls behind him before he was cast as the romantic lead in
Say When
. The tabloids all predicted a hot romance between him and Sienna Miller, but the paparazzi caught him holding hands with Malika and, later, in a steamy clinch on the beaches of Malibu.

And that was beginning of the PR-dream that was
Malika and Josh. Not all of the publicity they received was positive.  Right-wing papers derided Josh for passing over the likes of Angelina Jolie and Brittany Murphy for Malika. Black-oriented magazines and papers taunted Malika, maliciously insinuating that she was only with Josh to further her career or that she thought she was too good to be with a black man.

They married in Philadelphia at the Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul on Benjamin Franklin Parkway and held their wedding rece
ption at the Four Seasons. They bought a house in Society Hill and spent as much time in Philadelphia as they did in their New York condo and their LA house in the hills. They had the perfect sort of marriage that
People magazine
adored writing feature stories about every Valentine’s Day and they were expert at hiding the cracks in their relationship.

In January things didn’t appear to be going so well. She was photographed several times with bruises on her face and arms, which her publicist attributed to the movie she was filming and that
Malika was doing her own stunts. He was spotted in the company of other women, mostly younger  white actresses who were just beginning to make names for themselves. Their publicists announced that they’d separated but that they were still close.

Now he’d killed her—shooting her at point-blank range in their home in Philadelphia…and the papers and TV news were having a field day with the story. So far no public statement had been made in his name, but his lawyers were already trying to convince the judge to be lenient and to release him on bail.

And in the paparazzi shots, he was still smiling his Hollywood smile, even as the police shuffled him, handcuffed, into the back of a police cruiser.

The headline:
The Sexiest Murderer Alive

“Did you read about the murder?”

“What...? Oh, you know I'm not into celebrity gossip,” Chris said without looking up from his glowing computer screen. Jessica was sitting on the floor in his living room, her notes for her defense spread out before her like a fan.

She sucked in her lower lip and then let out an exasperated sigh. Why did she want to talk about a celebrity murder with him when her thesis defense was in two days? This was all Aisha’s fault. If she hadn’t insisted on reading aloud articles about the Malika Williams murder during their last telephone call, Jessica wouldn’t be so distracted by it. It was bad enough with her telephone commentary of the case so far; she’d also started sending links to articles from various online newspapers and magazines to Jessica’s email address. Would Aisha be so prolific if the man who’d killed Malika had been black? Would the media have given it so much attention?

“They were talking about it on Sky News this morning,” she continued, tapping her pen on her leg. She shivered and reached behind her for the wool blanket Chris always left on the sofa. D
espite it being late April, it was still cloudy and chilly in Edinburgh. That Chris had gotten in the habit of never turning his heat above 65°F didn’t help matters.

“I thought you had a defense to prepare for.”

“I do…I’m just wondering why he killed her when they always looked so happy.”

“Looks can be deceiving,” Chris replied. He leaned back in his chair, finally making eye contact with her. The dark circles under his eyes reminded her of smudges and he sounded slightly a
nnoyed. “Besides, who’s to say he actually killed her?”

“They say he had gunpowder residue on his hands and that he told the first officers to arrive on the scene that he’d done it.”

“Maybe he was just in shock.”

“Yeah, sure, he’d just killed his wife.”

“I’m just saying that he might not have known what he was saying.”

“Of course he didn’t—else he would’ve blamed it on someone else…just like that woman in Delaware who claimed that two black guys stole her car while her kids were in it and it turned out she pushed the car into the lake herself and intentionally drowned her kids!”

“You know I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Why is it that everybody assumed OJ was guilty just because he was black, but when someone like Josh Perry kills his black wife everyone wants to give him the benefit of the doubt?”

“I didn’t say he wasn’t guilty.”

“You just said it was possible he didn’t do it!”

“I was playing devil’s advocate—“

“I’ll just bet he doesn’t even do any jail time or that they’ll get him off by saying it was temporary insanity…”

“They have to finish the investigation first…”

“He’s rich enough to make evidence disappear.”

“Why are we even discussing this?”

“Why don’t you want to discuss it?”

“I don’t give a fuck about Malika Williams. ”

“What? Why not?”

“Or Josh Perry, for that matter! I’m trying to finish retouching these shots. ”

“Oh sure, hide behind your computer so you don’t have to talk to me.”

“I’d love to talk to you as long we don’t have to talk about some god-damned celebrities who didn’t mean anything to either of us!”

“You’ll never understand
.”

“Why? Is this yet another black thing you’re going to throw at me?”

“Screw you, Chris!”

The distance between them felt unfathomable and cold. She didn’t want to be there with him, didn’t want to keep looking up at him and expecting him to say something more that might chip away at their relationship. So she calmly gathered her papers t
ogether, shoved them into her backpack and stood up. Chris was still watching her. He didn’t say anything as she walked towards the front door and struggled into her jacket and shoes. It wasn’t until she twisted the doorknob that he finally asked, “Where are you going?”