Forever. (This. Is. Not. Over. Book 3) (12 page)

Perverse.

And though I haven’t officially grasped that Jacob told me our love was completely vile; to my surprise, the thought of our twisted love is secretly both enthralling and disappointing. Why? Well, because I was living in perversion and I had no idea that’s what it was. I was a pervert for all of those years and didn’t even have the opportunity to revel in it. Something about our snarky love is titillating. And, as much as Jacob’s admission was supposed to turn me away from him, it only made me want to rip my clothes off and keep on being perverted. I’m in a pickle.

             
“All I’m saying,” Angie says, “is that the poor girl is currently carrying your only daughter, Princess Ginger. With two months to go, she’s surely exhausted. And yet, she tells me that you rub her feet each night for only ten minutes.”

             
“Ten minutes
a piece
,” Malcolm says.

“Regardless. She’s carrying life and you dare put a time frame on her comfort level? … Oh no, of course he didn’t,
dear … Malcolm, your father says you didn’t get that from him.”

“I’ll make sure to make Danielle happy when I get home.” Malcolm looks at me and then cuts his eyes away. I know Malcolm, I hate her too.

“Thank you. Now about this solo that my Nicky darling is singing. Cadence, informs me that there may be a problem with the bridge … yes, okay … Cadence says Nicky’s not sticking his note.”

             
“Ma, Nicky will do fine tomorrow. All he needs is a little tea and a drop of honey—”

             
“You would think that since Prince Nicholai is making his singing debut, you’d be a bit more dedicated to his number,” Angie says in near disgust. “But to be honest, I must agree with Cadence on this, you’re acting as if Nicky’s breakout role is quite ordinary. Need I remind you that he’s the
star
in the King of Queens?”

             
“The what? Jesus is the King of
Kings
.”

             
“Oh you didn’t hear? Dun-yell lobbied for a name change for the play, so now it’s called the King of Queens.”

             
“Of course she did.”

             
“You see, this is the shit you should know, my love. So, I trust that you’ll help Nicky on his number when you arrive back home?”

             
“Yes Ma, we’ll do another run through.”

             
“And Dun-yell?”

             
“I’ll make sure I take care of her.”

             
“Very well. Oh and FYI, I went ahead and picked Roman up for the night. He’ll be staying over here. Nicky needs his parents’ full attention tomorrow before his performance. But if you like, you can come over here with Roman and I can stay at your place tonight to properly assist Dun-yell with the Prince tomorrow. You’ve never been any good at handling matters efficiently.”

             
“Ma, I just put Roman to bed before I left the house. Why’d you wake him up?”

             
“Hmm … I think I can see what Dun-yell’s talking about now when she says
backtalk
. So, we’ll see you bright and early at the church tomorrow. And please make sure you bring Nicky’s tea, lemon and honey with you. We’ll likely need to keep a cup waiting for him off stage.”

             
“Okay Ma, goodbye.”

             
“Ta-ta.”

“This is my life when Queen Angie comes to town
,” Malcolm says to me as he presses End on his phone. “I never thought I’d be one of those guys who actually longed for the day that his mother and wife hated each other.” He puts his phone in his coat pocket. “Imagine my life when my parents move back to Boston next year … just in time for the Ginger’s arrival.”

             
“So this is Danielle’s life, huh?” I say. “Presidents and mother-in-laws and musicals.”

             
“What did I say about those glasses?” Malcolm steals a look at me. I roll my eyes and then lean my head back against the headrest. Yeah, we’re definitely going to Marlon and my condo now. I guess the moment was inevitable; I need to talk to him. I’m sure he’s pulling his hair out by now. I’ve been ignoring him for weeks and his voicemails have gone through all the necessary stages of grief:

Denial
: “Hello Jasmine, this is Marlon. I just called to let you know that I’m perfectly fine with you posing naked for Jacob and not me. Just so you know. That doesn’t bother me at all. Goodbye.”

Anger:
“You know—this is Marlon by the way—I’m just sitting here at my desk wondering how you appearing in a naked picture could happen to me. Just unbelievable. And yes, I asked you to leave at first, because I was overwhelmed at the thought of going through this yet again. I’ll admit I overreacted, but in my defense, I called you that very evening and asked you to come home. So you not being home with your family for going on two weeks now is
your
fault. This will likely be the last call you get from me. Goodbye.”

Bargaining:
“Jasmine, it’s me. If you can just tell me that the woman in that picture is not you, we can just put this past us. Could this be someone else? Think long and hard about this. Call me.”

Depression:
“Damn Jasmine. I just have this feeling like we’ll never get
us
back again. Everything that we’ve built together … just gone in the matter of seconds. Our business, our home, our girls—all of it is just a memory now of what you and I used to be and what we used to do.”

Acceptance:
“I love you, but I get it. You were seeing Jacob the whole time we were together. You aren’t returning my calls; you’re going over to your grandparents to visit the girls. I’ve seen this before with Jon and Danny. I get it, but I won’t be the one to file for divorce. You’ll have to be the one to do that.”

Why haven’t I called my husband back? Humiliation is the major reason. That picture stirring up the latent desire that I have for Jacob is the minor reason. I didn’t want to talk to Marlon about Jacob because I wasn’t ready to deny my feelings for Jacob; not when they’ve been so strong for so many years and I’ve had to pretend like they didn’t exist. Not when I felt I loved Jacob so much that I ended up with a Hit List full of people that all have ties to him: the journalist guy, Danielle, Winnie, Laura, even Jacob himself. I just don’t want to live in denial again. I’m finally free. After years of holding myself together, I’m finally exposed.

I loved Jacob Blair.

Even now, I think about Jacob every day. I named my daughters Pearl and Tiffany because of him. I sing Deborah Cox at the top of my lungs in the kitchen most days as I think about him. I hate Danielle because of him. I hate Winnie because of him. I hate myself because of him. The thought of Jacob totally consumes my entire life; it feels so liberating to finally have it out in the open.

I love Jacob Blair.

I don’t want to talk to Marlon and pretend like I didn’t love Jacob because I did. I don’t want to pretend like I didn’t cheat on Marlon with him because I did. I don’t want to pretend like I don’t think about Jacob now, because I do.

I just don’t want to pretend anymore.

Speaking of pretending …

“You
do
know that I don’t like you, right?” I say to Malcolm.

“Of course.”

“I never forgave you for the whole Jacob thing.” I turn to look at him.

“I know you didn’t. And I don’t blame you.”

              “It’s just that, in a way, I kinda, sorta, thought that we may have been, kinda, in a way—”

             
“Friends.”

             
“Yeah.”

             
“We were.”             

             
“We were?” I look at him in shock. Malcolm Blair and I were friends?

“Of course we were.” He turns and smiles at me. “You were seeing Jacob since high school; I’ve known you since you were fifteen. You and I went to the DNC together. We sat on the plane drinking champagne together. We went to a seafood spot and ate crab cakes and oysters together. You hid me on the balcony when Red showed up at our suite. We went to that around-the-way breakfast spot that we agreed was better than the Four Seasons
’ Sunday brunch. You’re the only reason I had Danielle’s current addresses to mail her flowers each year. The only reason I knew where to see her speak at her feminist conferences. We were friends.”

             
“Well that’s why I was so mad at you. See, in my thinking, since you were my friend and Jacob’s cousin, the least you could have done was stay out of our sick love story. You shouldn’t have even lied to me at all about him marrying Winnie. You should’ve just said, ‘Jasmine, go ask Jacob what he’s up to.’”

             
“I should have,” he says, his voice lower, “you’re right.”

             
“So, yeah …”

And then we ride in silence for a few moments
and I think about how Jacob said that I may have loved him but I wasn’t really happy with him. I have to admit, I was lovesick most days over Jacob, but the feeling of love was so intense that I ignored the sickness altogether. Him mentioning the pain of our love and then asking me for my room number felt a lot like childbirth. When someone asks you about the labor pains, you remember that it was the worst pain of your life but not bad enough for you to keep your legs closed. You’d risk the pain again if at least one good screw comes out of it. If only I could be like those women who get their tubes tied. No more tubes, no more childbirth, no more pain. No more heartache, but I could still get a decent lay. If only I could be one of those women. If only my love didn’t give birth to pain.

“I’m not in the business of losing friends, Jasmine
,” Malcolm finally says. “I don’t have so many that I can afford to lose even one. So if you find one day that you may kinda, sorta, possibly, wanna be friends again, I’m available.” He looks at me and winks. And for the first time, in years, I can see Malcolm for the man I think Danielle may see him for.

             
If she feels that Malcolm is the calm in a storm, than I can feel that too. If she believes that he’s rough around the edges but kinda gooey inside, I can believe that too. If she thinks his heart is always in the right place even though his actions may tell a different story, I can think that too. If she finds those wide shoulders and those large hands of his to be comforting, I can find that too. I can see how she can smile at his smirks and grin at his winks. I can see how she could have fallen in love with him; he has the spirit of Jacob but the heart of Marlon. I can see her finding that totally lovable and adorable and completely hypnotic. Lucky Danielle, she has the best of both worlds. Oh, shoot …

             
“Rose glasses,” I say to myself.

             
“Were you looking out of them again?”

             
“I was. It’s addicting.”

             
“Just take one day at a time.” And I let a deep meditative breath out as we pull onto my street. “Ready for this?” he asks as he nods towards my condo.

             
“Yeah. I’m ready.”

Jasmine

(
christmas
.
future
.)

             
But we’re not going in.

“The first time you see Marlon again, you two should really talk in private
,” Malcolm says as we stand outside of my condo building with a great view of my living room, the kitchen and Marlon’s home office. “So I didn’t come here to take you upstairs; that is, unless you want to go. I just came here so that you can see your family.” He points towards my condo. There in the window is Tiffany, Pearl and their Irish nanny, the white-haired sixty-year-old Gertrude, a woman who came highly recommended by Judge Carmichael’s wife. With the girls in holiday sweaters, jeans and boots and Gertrude in a green sweater with a Christmas tree on the front, they all look remarkably festive and happy without me. As if Christmas can and
will
go on whether I’m around or not. Hmm … the nerve. Right now they’re decorating the Christmas tree with our standard cream and aqua blue ornaments.

             
“Malcolm, those are my
kids
. I have two kids and I’m sitting around wondering about another man.” I look at him. “When you were dating Laura, I know that you gave Danielle cards and flowers but did you ever sit around and just wonder about her?” I glance back towards my condo and notice that Tiffany and Pearl are now arguing over who will hang the star. They both have their hands on it in a tug of war while Gertrude claps for them to be nice to each other.

             
“Yeah, I used to wonder about Red. Wondered what she was writing these days or what book she happened to be reading. Wondered what great significance she was about to make in the world. Now I see that she was probably walking around, tearing shit up. But see, that’s reality. My former idea of her being a good person was roses. But I still wondered about her; that never went away. And to this very day, when she and I are away from each other, I wonder what she’s up to; albeit for different reasons, but I still wonder about her.” He smiles and shakes his head. “Yeah,” he stares off into the street, “the wonder never goes away.”