Читать книгу The Nick Of Time - San Culberson - Страница 8

I felt it was imperative that I look like a million dollars at my divorce celebration. Therefore, I am pleased to report that when I walked into Ray’s that night the door man wouldn’t take my money, the dj stopped the music when he saw me, mouths fell open as I walked by, and I got four indecent proposals and two marriage proposals before I made it to the room where my party was being held. Okay, that didn’t really happen…but the doorman did let me in at no charge (something about it being ladies’ night), and I looked damned good!

Nicole was in the private room giving last-minute instructions to the female bartender—we had decided that it would be best not to invite any men to the party, because at some point there was bound to be some male bashing (good-natured, of course). I walked to the free-standing bar in the back corner of the room and greeted my friend with a hug. She hugged me back tight and handed me the glass of champagne that she had waiting for me.

“You look good,” she told me as I took a sip from the glass. I twirled around in my knee-length red jersey dress, pulled the thigh-high split to the side, and positioned my size eight—okay, size nine—silver sandal so that she could pay proper homage to my entire ensemble. She laughed and grabbed me so fast for another hug that I almost spilled my champagne. “I take that back, you look great.”

“So do you.” Nicole and I could have been sisters except we had different parents and our looks were totally opposite. Nicole was about five feet tall and had been blessed/cursed with a Betty Boop body. She wore her naturally curly hair cropped close to her head, and dimples were on each of her golden brown cheeks.

I’m five eight, have skin the color of 2% chocolate milk like my mama, honey-colored eyes like my daddy, and a thing about getting my hair cut like my grandmother. I usually wore my hair in some sort of sophisticated updo, but for the occasion of my coming out party, I let the black curls hang past my shoulders. Nicole and I didn’t look like sisters, but as far as I was concerned, we were.

“I want you to look at the buffet.” She motioned for the bartender to top off my champagne before I followed her to the buffet. It was perfect—fruit, cheese, vegetables, dips, and crackers. I lifted the lid of a beautiful sterling chafing dish to discover shrimp etouffee (one of my favorites); another chafing dish was filled with chicken breast and vegetables in a delicious-smelling cream sauce. Soft-looking rolls were piled high in a straw bread basket.

“Everything looks great, Nicole.”

“Check out the cake.” She gestured to a small table at the very end of the buffet. On it was an elaborate pink and white cake with GIRLS RULE…BOYS DROOL written in fancy script in the center of the cake. The childish truism made me smile. I turned to my friend again and was surprised to feel tears gathering in the corners of my eyes.

She took both of my hands in hers and smiled brightly at me. “I know, I know.”

“I know you know, but I’m going to say it anyway. You’ve been such a blessing to me during the last year. I don’t know what I would have done without your support. You have single handedly kept ex-hole out of a casket and me out of prison.’’ She laughed like she was supposed to, but I was serious.

“I think you’ve spent more time with me this last year than you have with Anderson. When you get home tonight, tell your husband that I am officially giving him his wife back.” I looked around the room again, then back at Nicole with gratitude. “And helping me throw this party together on such short notice…What can I say? I love you, girl.”

“I love you, too, Fiona. You know you’re my sister.”

A tear spilled down her cheek and got caught in one of her dimples. I started to go ahead and give in and let my emotion flow down my cheeks, but my foundation cost $45 a bottle, and hello, we were having a party. “Suck it up,” I told her, “my first guest has arrived.”

A couple of hours later, the twenty-six most fabulous women that we knew, several that we didn’t know, and my sister were feeling “nothing else to drink for me because I have to drive home tonight” mellow. I was feeling “not only will I not be driving tonight, I won’t be going into my office tomorrow morning, so I can drink whatever the hell I want” mellow. We were all having a great time. The buffet was almost down to the bare bones, but the cake was still intact, waiting patiently for someone to cut into it.

A couple of women, Renessa from law school and Toni, my best office buddy, had expressed their condolences to me because of the sudden death of my marriage. I informed them without missing a beat that the party was a celebration and condolences were out of order. My sister was sitting in a corner talking to a woman we had grown up with. Her name was Beverly, and Ramona knew that I didn’t like her, which was probably why she had invited her to my party. The fact that my sister doesn’t like me is not at all worrisome to me, because the truth is, she doesn’t like anyone.

I didn’t like Beverly because she had stolen my first boyfriend. Well, Terry wasn’t exactly my first boyfriend, but he was the first boy who I had seriously considered having sex with. I guess I considered too long, because before I could say “yeah” or “nay,” Beverly just stepped up to the plate—or to be more accurate, the north side of our high school building—and gave him what he had been begging me for.

I took the last sip from the champagne flute that I was holding and stared at Beverly long and hard. It seemed to me that sisters had been interfering with my love life since before I really had one. I went to the bar for a refill before I allowed my somber thoughts to clear my head. I was swaying to the beat of the music and enjoying watching my friends enjoying themselves when I noticed Nicole making her way to the center of the room.

She lifted her glass up and tapped on it with a fork that she had removed from the buffet. “May I have your attention, ladies?” When she didn’t get everyone’s attention, she repeated the words a little louder. “Ladies, please, your attention.” When nearly everyone was quiet and most eyes were focused on her, she started to speak.

“As you know, we have all gathered here at the request of our friend, our dear friend Fiona.” The waitress or someone filled my glass again without being asked. I continued to sip (gulp, if you want to know the real truth) the sweet champagne as I looked toward Nicole with anticipation and amusement. Even in the dimly lit room I could see that she was up to something.

“Fiona is newly divorced. It is a widely publicized fact that Fiona’s husband was screwing around. Don’t pretend to be surprised, ladies, they all do it at some point. Well, not my husband.” Everyone in the room laughed at her exaggerated denial. “But then Fiona doesn’t know how to please a man like I do.” Everyone laughed harder at the joke, including me…because believe me, it was a joke.

“Some of us feel that Fiona should have known a long time before she actually admitted it to herself that Wilson was cheating on her. Right now, ladies, we will review the goings-on the last few months of her marriage in something we will call ‘Fiona, you should have known he was cheating when…’” Nicole took a good look at me before continuing. I could tell she was trying to make sure that I was okay with her little game. I was, so I smiled into my glass and nodded my head for her to go on.

“I’ll start and then I’ll open the floor to you, ladies.” She cleared her throat dramatically to signify the start of the game. She shook her head, feigning sadness. “Fiona, you should have known he was cheating when he came back from his fraternity reunion and you found condoms in his luggage. He told you that the condoms weren’t for him, but for the brothers who didn’t practice safe sex. Whenever he saw one of them going off with some skeezer, he would offer them one. When he offered you up that bullshit, you should have known he was cheating.”

There was more laughter in the room before Lenny, another long-term friend, spoke up. “You should have known he was cheating when you woke up one night and discovered him having phone sex in the kitchen.” The laugher continued as more women said their two cents’ worth.

“You should have known he was cheating when you found that black bra and panty set in his briefcase and he told you he didn’t know how it got there.”

“You should have known he was cheating when you found a receipt in his pocket showing that he had bought women’s underwear on his credit card and he told you that his secretary had started her period at work and he let her use his credit card to buy what she needed instead of letting her go home.” The “should have known’s” got more outrageous. And I was laughing so hard that tears were running down my cheeks.

“You should have known he was cheating when his secretary called you at home and said, ‘Are you stupid, bitch? I’m fucking yo’ husband.’”

“You should have really known he was cheating when you received a certified package in the mail from the secretary. The note said, Enclosed you will find a picture of me fucking yo’ husband, and the picture was of her fucking yo’ husband!”

“You should have known he was cheating on you when you asked him, and he said, ‘Baby, I would never cheat on you.’”

“You finally did know he was cheating when you walked into his office and said, ‘What the hell are you two doing?’ and the secretary looked up and said, ‘We’re screwing, what does it look like?’” It took about ten to fifteen minutes for everyone who had something to say to say it. I don’t know if it had something to do with the unusually large volume of champagne that I had consumed, but that shit was funny to me. Not all of it had actually happened, but enough of it had happened to prove the saying “Hindsight is 20/20.” I was not the only one in the room doubled over with laughter.

After the last “You should have known,” Nicole brought the focus back to her. “You know we love you, girl.” She wiped tears of laughter from her eyes before continuing. She held out her hand for me to join her in the center of the room. When I was able to get myself together I did.

“Fiona, you’ve been through a lot these last several months, and you have handled yourself with grace. In other words, you’ve kept it together. You’ve kept your sense of humor, your figure, and your sanity. I hope that if I am ever in a similar situation that I can pull off a Fiona.” We hugged each other tight, like the sisters that we were. When we let each other go, she reached over and took a red basket from a nearby table.

“We have a surprise for you. Since this is the start of your new and lucky life, we bought you some lottery tickets.” And one by one the ladies in the room came to the center and dropped their tickets into the basket. It was like the way some offerings were orchestrated in the Baptist church. Every one of the ladies gave me a hug, and several whispered words of encouragement in my ear. It felt wonderful to be on the receiving end of so much love.

I noticed at that point that a couple of men were disassembling the buffet, and that my sister, Ramona, had not thrown a lottery ticket into the basket, nor had she given me a hug. I clapped my hands gleefully when Nicole handed me the basket. I shouted out a general thank you to everyone in the room. It was getting late, so some of my guests started to leave. I went for a refill again and Nicole followed me.

“I can see I’m going to have to drive you home.”

“No, you don’t; I’m calling a cab. I’ll get my car in the morning.”

“But what if someone breaks in?”

Before I could respond, Ramona walked up to say her good-byes. My sister was an attractive woman; at one point she had been very attractive, but since her divorce her expression had remained perfectly sour.

“I’m out of here, Fee. I rode with Beverly and she’s ready to go.” She didn’t try to hug me.

“Ramona, Fee is taking a cab home…can you drive her truck to your house and let her pick it up tomorrow? I don’t want her to leave it here overnight.” From my champagne haze I saw that Ramona’s face became more sour.

“I don’t like to drive other people’s cars.”

“She’s your sister, for God’s sake.”

Ramona rolled her eyes at Nicole and squinted her eyes at me as she spoke. “So long as you know that if something happens to your truck while it’s in my possession I’m not responsible.” I smiled and let the champagne continue to work its magic. Ramona snapped at me when I didn’t say anything. “Well, give me the keys.” I fumbled in my small Louis Vuitton bag for the keys to my new BMW X5. When I found them, I took my door key from the ring and dropped it back into my bag.

“Hurry up, Fee, I have somebody waiting for me at home.”

Nicole looked at her in disbelief. “You’re seeing someone, Ramona?”

My sister snatched the keys out of my hand before responding to Nicole’s question. “As a matter of fact, I am. His name is Derrick and he’s very good to me.” I almost choked on the hard laughter that bubbled up in my throat. Ramona narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Is there something funny, Fee?”

“No, I’m happy for you, Ramona. I’ll have to have the two of you for dinner.”

“Don’t bother, and don’t bother calling me to pick you up for work tomorrow. You can pick your car up after six. And happy divorce.” She adjusted her black top and went over to where Beverly was standing, presumably to tell her that she wouldn’t be riding home with her.” Nicole and I watched her black slacks move across the room.

“Your sister is something else. I can’t believe she found a man who’s willing to put up with her attitude.” My laugh was more like a giggle. I was really feeling the champagne by then. The bubbles were tickling my insides and I didn’t care that I had a silly grin on my face.

“You are so drunk. I’m going to take these lottery tickets home with me…. You’d probably leave the winning ticket in the cab.” She wrapped her arm around my waist and led me to the other end of the room. “I have something else for you.” People continued to break down the buffet, and while most of my guests were leaving, others continued to sit or stand around and talk.

I was tipsy not drunk, so I noticed everything around me. I didn’t complain about the fact that there were men at my “all-girl party” because both of the men working in the room had strong-looking asses. Nothing like champagne and a divorce to make a girl appreciate a nice ass.

“I’m not drunk.” My protest was rather loud even to my own ears. Nicole laughed and handed me a black T-shirt that said DELICIOUSLY DIVORCED. The letters were outlined with sequins, and the neckline was made to look like it had been torn.

“You like?”

“I like.” Some women standing close to us admired my new T-shirt. Another couple of my friends left the room after waving in my direction. I thanked Nicole for the shirt and said something about wearing it under all of my business suits.

She asked me if I wanted a slice of the cake that was now circulating, and I told her no because, suddenly, the notion to address my remaining guests struck me.

I started tapping on the champagne glass that I was still holding to get everyone’s attention as Nicole had done earlier. I, however, took it a step further and hoisted myself onto one of the tables in the room. At the time, I thought my speech was of presidential quality.

“I want to thank you, ladies, for showing up tonight. I hope you all had a great time, I did.” I lifted my flute up to prove my point. “Thank you for the lottery tickets…If I win, don’t expect a damn thing.” I may have said thang, but I’m not sure. “We gathered here tonight to celebrate my divorce. I know a lot of you ladies are married, and I admire the commitment it takes to put up with so much bullshit! I’m here to tell you that I put up with enough bullshit during the last fifteen months to last me for the rest of my life. I’ve done my time, ladies; from this day forward I am a certified DFL—divorcée for life, baby—and as God is my witness, I’ll never be married again!” I did my best impression of Scarlett O’Hara, and it would have worked except that when I flung my hand to my forehead (the universal symbol of a Southern woman in distress), my champagne flute flew across the room and crashed.

The noise startled me and I lost my balance on the table. I would have fallen ass first on the hard floor, except that the finest man I had ever seen broke my fall (I swear to God, he was the finest man I had ever seen!). I did break the heel off of one of my $350 Jimmy Choo sandals.

I didn’t normally spend so much on shoes, but they went with my dress perfectly. Besides, if a girl was going to start a new life, she needed to have the right footwear. Damn, I loved those sandals.

Anyway, I didn’t know where he came from, but he caught me as I fell backward off the table. Everyone at the party rushed over asking if I was okay. I didn’t respond, not because I was hurt, but because I was busy looking into chocolate brown eyes and steadying myself on a rock-hard chest. He was about 6’1” or 6’2”, he looked to be in his mid-to-late thirties, and his skin was a golden syrupy color. The absolute best thing about his looks was the gray streak that started at his temple; I couldn’t see where it ended, but I knew immediately that I had to find out.

“Are you hurt?” His voice sounded the way I imagine cinnamon would if it had a sound—husky, sweet, and rich. I turned around in his arms and placed my hands on his chest, to steady myself. I tried to make my smile as warm as his voice.

“Yes, I am, thanks to you. I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

“No, you didn’t, but looks like your sandal may need a trip to the emergency room.” I was about to make some witty remark when Nicole got to us.

“When you start falling off the tables it’s time for you to go home, Fee. In fact, it was time for you to go home when you climbed on the table.” I slid my hands down his chest and turned to my friend.

“I’ll be leaving in a minute; I’m okay thanks to this big, strong gentleman.” I was still pretending to be Scarlett O’Hara. I knew he noticed how I slid my hand down his chest from the way he raised his eyebrows. Nicole noticed too, and she shot me a look, the look. I ignored her and put both hands on my hips and tilted my head like we women do when we’re trying to be cute.

“I may just owe you my life. Is there anything I can do to repay you?” He was smiling at me, looking me up and down like a man was supposed to do when a woman struck “the pose,” but playa hata Nicole refused to leave. She took one of my arms and smiled apologetically at my rescuer.

“She’s drunk. I’m putting her in a cab.” To emphasize her point, she turned me around to face the exit. “Thanks again.” I didn’t get to see his expression before she pushed me through the door that led to the larger part of the club. I was limping because one heel was on and one was gone.

“Why did you tell him that? I’m not drunk! I was trying to have a conversation.”

“Well, you were acting like you were trying to get into his pants.”

“And if I was? I’m over twenty-one and single, in case you forgot the reason for our celebration tonight.”

“Yeah, and you don’t want to be over twenty-one, single, and HIV-positive.” Nicole Elizabeth Jordan social worker/hypochondriac was always talking about HIV…or colon cancer…or warts…anything remotely medical. I smiled blindly at my three or four remaining guests as she continued to usher me through the room. When we got outside there was a cab waiting by the front entrance.

“How did this cab get here?” I asked.

“The funny thing about cab drivers is they usually come when you call them. That’s what they do for a living.”

“Very funny, smart ass, but that’s not what I meant.” I was about to explain what I meant, but I forgot.

She opened the back door of the cab and gave me a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Did you have a good time tonight?” I pushed the hair out of my face and nodded. “Good. Now get in and go home. I’ll bring the lottery tickets by some time tomorrow.” She closed the door and walked to the driver’s side of the cab. She gave the cab driver my address and handed him a twenty. She waved at me as the cab drove off.

I sat back in the seat with my bottom lip slightly poked out. I wasn’t ready to go home. I wanted to continue the conversation that I had started with maple syrup man. I had every intention of doing so, but I needed Nicole gone!

When the cabby turned on to the street, I leaned over his shoulder and told him to drive around the block for a few minutes, then circle back and let me out. He looked a little confused until I took a ten out of my purse and tossed it on the seat next to him to go with the twenty he already had. He was more than happy to follow my instructions. I half-formulated a plan as I waited in the back of the cab until I was sure that Nicole was on her way home.

I snuck back into the club like I was a teenager sneaking into her parents’ house after being out way past curfew. I looked around the front for familiar faces and let out a sigh of relief when I didn’t see any. I bent down and slipped my sandals off, then walked confidently through the doors of the party room I had left moments earlier.