Forever. (This. Is. Not. Over. Book 3) (26 page)

“I’m sure it’s just a thing
,” I say to him as I turn around and adjust in my seat.

             
“Yeah.”

I look at him as he cruises down Gate Street towards the Blairs. Shirt, tie, cuff links, tailored coat, wedding ring on his finger. He’s hot, I’ve gotta admit. What makes him more attractive in my eyes is that he’s handsome
and
he’s a good guy. You don’t find that often these days. Toffee brown skin, 6’3”, solid. That’s him. He’s the kind of guy that you assume is full of himself but when you speak with him you find out that he’s actually full of life. Marlon’s a well-bred Philadelphian: a member of his own city’s black elite and a silver-spooner with a blue-collar work ethic. He grew up in a penthouse suite at the Ritz Carlton with his parents, brother and sister. He attended Catholic prep school, was an escort at debutant balls and ‘summered’ on Martha’s Vineyard, every year. He brings home fresh tulips for the vase in the kitchen window once a week, takes the girls to the park every Wednesday, will suffer through Iron Chef with me, and has even supported my fanciful dreams of writing my own cookbook. He’s perfect … for me.

For a few moments we say nothing as the sounds of Siriusly Sinatra flood through the car.  This is the go-to station for us Boston parents who secretly rap along to Slick Rick and Wale on our spare time. And wouldn’t you know
“Let It Be Me” by the one and only Roberta Flack comes on.

“Our wedding song
,” I say to Marlon with a smile. He nods his head while his eyes stay focused on the road. Yeah, it’s going to take a miracle for him to ever get past me finally admitting to those four years of lying. He’s been going in and out of the ‘making up’ phase and the ‘still mad’ phase ever since we left church. We’re a frozen yogurt eating family so, when Marlon passed by the shop, he made a u-turn so that we could each grab a cone. He was making up. When the yogurt guy asked him what he wanted, he said, ‘Nothing but thanks anyway, it’s too cold to eat frozen yogurt.’ He was still mad. Marlon’s a patient man, sweetly positive and like me, sees the glass always half full. But he’s also a passionate man and a faithful man and just knowing that for four years I was in a deep and seemingly erotic relationship with another man is likely breaking him apart.

             
I turn and look out the front window, letting the song play out. For the duration of it we sit in silence as the girls smack on their frozen yogurt. Eventually we cruise up to a light as the next jazz song begins to play. This sitting silence is the most uncomfortable I’ve ever been with Marlon. We’re the energetic, always making small talk, giddy type of couple. We aren’t silent. I’ve got to say something. What should I mention? The weather? Yes. I’ll mention the weather and how it’s so weird that it’s so cold and yet the sun is shining so bright.

             
“She’ll be over it soon,” Marlon says as he stares out the front window, before I can say a word.

             
“Who?”

             
“Tiffany. This is just a thing of hers, that’s all. She probably thinks it’s fun but after a while she’ll realize how dangerous it can become and she’ll get over it. I just hope that she doesn’t have to learn that the hard way. And I hope it doesn’t take much longer for her to learn it. I don’t want her to ruin her relationship with Pearl over something like this. And I know Pearl hates it and she’s pissed off and disgusted but give it a while and she won’t even think about it anymore. It’ll just be one moment in time that she’ll easily be able to compartmentalize so that she won’t throw away Tiffany and their entire relationship because of it … unless Tiffany decides to do it again.”

“She won’t
,” I whisper. Shit. My heart races. Jacob won’t tell a soul, will he? No, of course he won’t. He won’t tell a soul. He loves Winnie. He wouldn’t do that to me. He won’t tell a soul. “I’ll make sure of it.” Marlon nods as the light turns green.

             
And now we’re off to the Blairs.

             
Jacob won’t tell a soul, will he?

Jasmine

(
sisters
.)

“It sucks being sisters
,” Danielle says to me as we stand in the Blair’s living room—no. I’m sorry, I think Angie called it The Royal Ivory Room. A swarm of people are laughing and clinking glasses around us. There’s the sound of Christmas jazz being played by a live ensemble; namely, “What Child Is This”, a favorite tune of mine.

             
“It does stink being sisters,” I say back. We smile at each other. “FYI, Tiffany’s taken to licking Pearl now just to annoy her.” I take a sip of my mimosa as she takes a sip of her coffee.

“Ooh, I should hide this cup. Malcolm is a Nazi when it comes to me being under the influence of coffee while pregnant.”

“Well …” I give her a stern look.

             
“Oh, why did I tell you that?”

             
“Hey, it’s my job to keep you all alive.” We smile at each other again.

“And I wouldn’t be so worried about Tiffany. I used to lick my hand and then touch you with it, remember?”

              “Eww, yuck, now I do. Goodness, I had forgotten all about that traumatic experience.”

             
“Yeah, you’d always threaten to call the police on me.”

“Did I? I was so silly back then.” I take a quick sip of my mimosa.

“It all began when you threw away my last Twinkie, citing ‘enough is enough.’”

“Those things were made to kill you.”

              “We had to have been about six or seven,” she says with another smile. “You were the same, even back then.”

             
“Hmm …”

             
“What?”

             
“I didn’t realize that.” Did I, Jasmine, have a personality of my own back then?

             
“Are you kidding? You were passing out free advice from the moment you learned how to create a prepositional phrase.”

             
“Here you go with your book talk.” We both laugh. “You’ve been the same too. You were always a book-girl and ardent feminist.”

“Yes and you were always a counselor and health fanatic. Not as bad as Richard Simmons but damn near close.”

              “Shut up.” We both take a sip of our drinks. “I saw Laura yesterday,” I blurt out. I’m sure Malcolm told Danielle everything about our car ride. “And I wasn’t even mad. It’s like I know she has problems because Dena told me and, of course, the whole nation knows she used to struggle with depression after her suicide attempt a few years back, which I now know was all over me.” I let out a shudder. To think that Marlon went through hell and back just to protect me. I simply can’t imagine what he must have gone through. “I know Laura has issues, so something in me couldn’t even be mad.” Danielle looks at me before taking a quick sip of her coffee. “What? You look like you want to say something.”

“It’s … just that…”

“What? What happened?”

             
“You’ve always been that type,” she says quickly.

             
“What type?”

             
“You’ve never been one to see the bad in people. You tend to always search for their excuses.”

“Their excuses?”

“Yeah. You seldom ever judge a book by its cover or its contents but by its metaphorical meaning. Sorry, here I go with this book stuff again.”

“I’m listening.” I move closer to her. Jacob was saying the exact same thing to me last night.

              “It’s just that you have this gift to see the bigger picture. You don’t see the fact that someone is bad, you see the fact that someone is broken. You then have this insane level of compassion for them that usually clouds your entire judgment of their true nature. And sometimes when it comes to people, they aren’t always broken. Sometimes they’re just plain old rotten. But it’s like you refuse to accept that.”

“Malcolm says that I live life with rose
-colored glasses on.”

             
“You do, very often. But you’re sweet by nature, always have been so I wouldn’t change your entire outlook on life. Because even when you get mad at someone, you’re usually mad that you weren’t able to save them from themselves. So your anger is really frustration. Like when I kept licking you and you threatened to call the cops. If you can remember, that was
after
you staged an intervention with my parents. And it was after you went to speak to Father Harper who then pulled me out of Sunday school to talk to me about my problem. By the time you threatened to call the cops I remember you saying that you had done everything in your power to change me and though it hurt you to say this, maybe a cool prison cell would be the kick in the pants that I needed.”

             
“God … I remember that dreadful moment in our lives. You’d do anything to annoy me.” She smiles before we both take a sip of our drinks. “Oh, and I was wrong about Malcolm, Danny.”

             
“I know you were.” She shrugs. “But I’m wrong about a lot of things. So what do you think about Lola and Laura?” she asks with a grin.

             
“Sisters,” is all I can say. We clink our glasses and take a sip of our drinks.

             
“Sisters … they fight to the death, don’t they?”

“We do
,” I say with a smile. “But eventually we get over it.”

“Marlon’s dying, you know
,” she says suddenly.

“I know.”

“I talk to him every day.”

“You do?”

“Yep. He’s been asking me questions about Jacob, but like I told him, I was just as shocked as he was. It made him feel a little better that I never knew about the Jasmine and Jacob Affair. He reasoned that if you didn’t tell your own best friend, how serious could it have been? I went ahead and went with it. He needed me to do that.”

             
“Thank you.”

             
“But do you?”

             
“Do I what?”

             
“Shut up, you know what I mean. Do you still love Jacob?”

“I do.” She nods.

“Okay.”

             
“Can you keep that between you and me?”

             
“I don’t tell Winnie everything.”

             
“Thank you.”

             
“I just thought that maybe you really don’t care about Jacob anymore, considering your pearls are off.”

             
“Yeah, it was time,” I say as I trail a finger along the path that my pearls would have taken.

             
“Well, I’m not sure if you know this but he’s mad at Malcolm for some reason. I have no idea why.”

“Really? I had no idea.” Wonder what that’s all about.

“You know, when I married Malcolm I still loved Jon.” What did she just say? Did I just hear her correctly? No, I couldn’t have.

“You
did
?”

“Yep
,” she says as she starts adjusting the beautiful and miniscule globe pendant she wears on a gold chain that she’s had for
years
. I help her right it because surely she’s about to break the chain.

“Now
, stop fooling around with it before you break it. This looks really delicate.”

“So
, when you get divorced or end a relationship, you’re normally convinced that it was all the other person’s fault. It’s after you realize that the relationship is officially over that you begin to see your part in the matter. Then the blame shifts altogether; your part in the matter evolves into the failing relationship being all
your
fault. You begin thinking that you’re fated to repeat failed relationships over and over again. It’s like Sisyphus who’s doomed for all of eternity to roll this huge boulder up a hill only to watch it roll back down. And this is something he’ll have to repeat
forever
.”

“Who?”

“He’s a Greek guy, look him up. Anyway, I was terrified when I married Malcolm. Sometimes I was just waiting for him to come into the house and ignore me and head towards the boys and stonewall me for the rest of the night. I feared he would turn into Jon. Because sometimes when you don’t learn your lesson the first time around, the universe has a way of teaching it to you one way or another. I was surprised when, night after night, Malcolm would walk in from the office and head straight to the kitchen since he knew I’d be there. He’d pour us two glasses of wine, give me a long kiss, sit at the kitchen island with me, reach into his work bag and then call for the boys. He brings them donut holes to eat before dinner.” She laughs.

Oh no
… “Danielle, this is no laughing matter. Fried dough dipped in added sugar before dinner?”

“See, before I married Malcolm, there were times when I thought that I should just go back to Jon because no one was perfect and if I spent my entire life waiting for that perfect guy, I’d keep meeting tons of imperfect people. And I’d keep getting divorced.”