His First Wife Page 12

  TIME: 12:43 AM

  Coreenissocute: Hellooooooo. Are you there?

  JamminJamison: What do you want, Coreen?

  Coreenissocute: Come on, don’t be like that.

  JamminJamison: I told you I don’t think we need to communicate on-line like this.

  Coreenissocute: Look, if I was going to be a bitch and send e-mails to your wife, don’t you think I would’ve done that already? I’m not like that. You know that. I just can’t ever get you on the phone and I wanted to talk about what happened this weekend.

  JamminJamison: I told you I specifically don’t want to talk about that.

  Coreenissocute: Why not?

  JamminJamison: Because I just don’t.

  Coreenissocute: Why? It was wonderful. You were wonderful.

  JamminJamison: Thank you.

  Coreenissocute: That’s all you have to say is thank you?

  JamminJamison: I just said I don’t want to talk about it.

  Coreenissocute: You didn’t enjoy it?

  JamminJamison: Yes, I did.

  Coreenissocute: What did you enjoy about it?

  JamminJamison: Are you serious? I just said I don’t want to talk about it.

  Coreenissocute: Look, Jamison, all I’m asking is that you tell me what you liked. That’s it.

  JamminJamison: You. What you did. It was better than I imagined.

  Coreenissocute: I didn’t think it was going to happen. I’m not exactly a fan of giving oral sex in a moving car, but you’re just irresistible.

  JamminJamison: Irresistible?

  Coreenissocute: Hell, yes. And what’s in your pants is even more irresistible. I can’t wait to see both your heads again.

  JamminJamison: Coreen, don’t go there. I’m at home.

  Coreenissocute: You’re probably hard just thinking about it. MY lips wrapped around you. Just bring that thing over here to me. I’ll handle it like a woman should. All of it.

  JamminJamison: Damn, girl.

  Coreenissocute: I’m serious. I’m a little too old to be having sex in the back of a pickup truck on the side of the highway, but anytime you need me to meet you, I’m there.

  JamminJamison: Don’t play because you’re about to have me in my car in like ten minutes.

  Coreenissocute: I’m not playing. Round two? At my place? Or do you prefer the backyard? I know you like grass.

  JamminJamison: Shit.

  Coreenissocute: I know I sound open, but that’s how I am for you.

  Coreenissocute: I’ll do whatever you want me to and we don’t have to tell your wife until you’re ready.

  Coreenissocute: I know you’re a good man and I respect that. I wouldn’t do anything to mess up your life.

  JamminJamison: Really?

  Coreenissocute: Really. I’m not going anywhere. I’m whipped!

  Coreenissocute: So, tell me something now. Honestly, did you plan on doing this from the moment we met?

  JamminJamison: I don’t know.

  JamminJamison: I guess in certain respects I did like in my head I imagined you naked and what it would be like to be with you.

  Coreenissocute: What is it like?

  JamminJamison: Wild.

  Coreenissocute: LOL. Is that what you like? Wild sex?

  JamminJamison: Yeah. Ain’t nothing wrong with a little screaming and scratching.

  Coreenissocute: I DID NOT SCRATCH YOU!

  JamminJamison: I have scratches on both of my ass cheeks. I’ve been showering at the gym.

  Coreenissocute: Sorry. How can I make it up to you?

  JamminJamison: Don’t ask me that.

  Coreenissocute: Why?

  JamminJamison: You know the answer.

  Coreenissocute: Can you come out tomorrow?

  JamminJamison: Kerry is sick. Food poisoning or something.

  Coreenissocute: Well let me know as soon as you can.

  JamminJamison: Will do.

  Coreenissocute: And clean out that truck. I can’t find my thong.

  JamminJamison: Stop playing.

  Coreenissocute: Kidding. Kidding. Kidding. Kidding.

  JamminJamison: Have a good night.

  Coreenissocute: You too.

  TIME END: 2:03 AM

  Face-to-Face

  When this all began, I realized that Jamison’s cheating was turning me into a paranoid mess. Before I even really knew about Coreen, I felt inside that something was wrong with Jamison, something was different in how he responded to me. This grew into a paranoia where my mind was busy with worry. The phone ringing, Jamison being late for dinner, unanswered questions . . . I tried to break into his e-mail. . . . I even found myself looking through the garbage to see if he’d thrown away any receipts from restaurants. I was looking for clues to confirm what I’d already known. I felt like a fool for doing it, but really, if there was something to be found, I’d feel like more of a fool for not knowing what was going on. Seeing Coreen was only making this worse.

  When I walked into our house to meet Jamison as I’d promised over the phone, my thoughts led my eyes to spy every single inch of the house to see if anything had changed. If there was a sign, a clue, an item that would reveal that something was still amiss and that woman had been there.

  As I waited for Jamison, I wasn’t sure if I was paranoid or just plain perceptive, but I noticed that Isabella wouldn’t look at me. Feeling like a visitor in my own house, I sat down at the kitchen table and watched her work. She’d wiped the counters, scrubbed the inside of the sink and started the dishwasher, all without taking a second to look at me. There was nothing but silence between us. After she said hello when I walked in the front door and explained that Jamison called to say he was on his way, she turned her back and got busy, cleaning around me and the chair I was sitting in.

  While it was rather rude, it wasn’t exactly a surprise. Isabella never liked me; she was probably happy when I didn’t come home the night before. Hell, she was probably trying to put the moves on Jamison herself. That would be a quick step up.

  While it was my idea to hire a maid when Jamison’s business started to take off, I wasn’t there for Isabella’s initial interview. Apparently, the two hit it off. She was an immigrant from El Salvador, who’d managed to secure legal residence for herself and her three children and had been providing for all of them with the meager cleaning salary. Jamison said her strength reminded him of his own mother, how she raised him with her heart and hard work, and that he was sure Isabella was the perfect fit for us. When Isabella showed up at our house for the second interview and saw me when I opened the door, I could tell she was taken aback. While Jamison said she spoke perfect English, she was stuttering and kept trying to recall English words to match the Spanish ones in her mind. Jamison claimed I was reading into it, but I knew why she was having such a hard time—old Isabella was surprised to see that such a successful man had a black wife on his arm—one who needed a maid. A black woman not cleaning? Not cooking? If I was white, she would’ve smiled, called me senorita and fluffed my pillows. She would’ve expected that. And I have to suppose that if I was a little lighter, perhaps it would’ve been an easier pill for her to swallow. But, no, I was just little old me. The dark-skinned, rich black woman whose underwear she’d have to wash from now on.

  When it came down to it, I wasn’t on the “Let’s Hire Isabella” campaign, but I let Jamison win that battle. From that day on, she was my maid, but Jamison’s friend. They laughed together, took up for one another, and between the two of them, I always came out looking like wire hanger–hating Mommy Dearest.

  “Excuse me, Ms. Kerry,” she said, pushing past me with a broom in her hand.

  “Sure,” I said. But I really wanted to snatch the broom and snap it in two. “When will Jamison be back? Did he say?”

  “Um . . . How you say???? He’s back soon,” she said, still with her eyes averted. Please, she’d been in Georgia for too long to play the “I barely speak English” card. I wondered what secret she was keeping
for Jamison . . . if Coreen had been in my house. Had she been in my house, my bed, with my husband, and Isabella was just laughing at me? Sweeping and laughing . . .

  “Did he say where he was going?” I asked.

  “No say, he never say. He say he be right back,” she said clearly struggling to inject nonchalance into her voice. But I knew she was aware of the matter in my home. If Ms. Edith knew, of course she did. Those maid hot lines were far-reaching, and they crossed color barriers too. If one household was dirty, or the kids were wild and crazy acting, the whole maid circuit knew. That was why my mother cleaned our house before the maid came when I was smaller.

  I sat back in the seat and tried to relax, but it was impossible. The silence was tearing at my brain. Birthing my paranoia. I knew what I knew. All I kept thinking was that Isabella knew something else too. She had to know something. She had to have been covering up for Jamison. Maybe she was covering up for him now. I was tired of thinking these things, tired of being in the dark, of everyone knowing about my marriage but me. Well, if Isabella wasn’t going to tell me where my husband was and why he was taking so long, I’d find out for myself. How could Jamison do this to me? He’d begged me to come home to talk and here he was abandoning me . . . again. Well I’d be his fool once, but twice wasn’t my style.

  Angry, I got up from the chair and hobbled to the car to squeeze back into the driver’s seat. Isabella followed me, saying Jamison was on his way, but my mind was seared with anger; I just kept hearing that broom sweep against the floor, seeing her eyes turn away from me. Something was going on. She couldn’t cover up for Jamison. I had to find him and if memory served me correctly, the last time he was late, he was down Highway 85.

  Driving to Coreen’s, I was sweating from the inside as if I had a fever. I turned the air conditioning in the car on high, but I couldn’t escape the heat inside my body. I was hot, my head was pulsating, and I couldn’t keep my thoughts straight. My nerves were striking a heated tune as I charged down that highway, in broad daylight this time. It was no secret. No darkness to hide what was coming. I just wanted to know everything. And have my say this time.

  But when I got there, something was wrong. I was on the right street. At the right house. But Jamison’s truck wasn’t in the driveway. I turned off the ignition and wiped my brow. He wasn’t there. Suddenly, I felt ill. Like the heat had burrowed itself deep into my stomach and rotted into shame, anger, loneliness. What was I doing here? I looked at the door, at the little lace square covering the window. My marriage was falling apart because of the woman inside. I was falling apart because of the woman inside. Driving around the city, eight-and-a-half months pregnant. Endangering my child’s life.

  I wondered what made Coreen think she could have my husband; just come in and take him from me. What had Jamison told her about me? What did she know about me? About my marriage?

  Then the door opened. Coreen stepped outside. She was walking toward the car, toward me. Charging with her fists balled tight. This woman who’d tried to tear my family apart wanted a confrontation, and she was going to get one.

  I wiggled out of the car and walked toward her, pushing my feet hard into the dirt on her yard, trying to keep my balance.

  With each step, as we came closer to one another, my mind cluttered with insults, angry words and thoughts of what I wanted to do to her.

  The air was thick with hate when we came toe to toe in the grass. Her hands were by her side, mine were on my hips. Something was about to happen.

  “You,” I said with my face only a spoon away from hers. I felt the baby twist and turn quickly in my stomach.

  “You,” she said, coming in even closer.

  “Where’s my husband?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Don’t you dare try that with me,” I said, and then something inside of me just dropped. It was like an anvil that had been dangling from my throat had fallen and landed in my stomach. The pressure where it sat tightened and then released.

  “Kerry,” Coreen said, stepping back and pointing toward the ground.

  “What?” I looked down to see water streaming in crisscrossing lines down my legs. Water was pouring from my middle, and the front of my dress was soiled.

  “Your water broke,” Coreen said.

  “Oh, no,” I said. “No, not now!” But the water kept flowing down my legs and into the grass beneath me.

  “The baby . . . It’s coming,” she said.

  “I have to go.” I gathered my dress and tried to walk back to the car. I had to get to the hospital.

  “Kerry,” Coreen cried after me. “You can’t go alone.” She was following behind me, hesitating with each word.

  I tried to open the car door, but she grabbed my arm.

  “You can’t drive like this,” she said. “I have to take you. It’s not safe.”

  “Please, let me go,” I said, feeling my stomach tighten into little cramps. I pushed her away and opened the door. “I don’t want to be here.”

  “Kerry, don’t be stupid. You can’t drive.”

  “I don’t need you,” I said. I slid into the driver’s seat and a bigger cramp came striking up my spine. I buckled forward and took a deep breath.

  “You okay?”

  “I’ll be fine,” I said. The pain came again and instead of pushing the key into the ignition, I dropped it on the floor. Coreen grabbed it.

  “Give me the keys,” I said, struggling to keep my breath. The contractions were coming faster and hitting me harder.

  “I know you hate me, but I can’t let you do this,” she said.

  “You slept with my husband and now you want to care about me and my baby?” Another contraction came, pulling me forward as I bent over to escape the pain.

  “Breathe,” Coreen said, pulling me out of the car. “Just breathe slowly and try to think about something else,” she said as we walked to the passenger’s side.

  After helping me into the car, Coreen got into the driver’s seat and turned the engine on. I couldn’t believe what was happening. Where I was and who I was with.

  My phone began ringing in my purse. I knew it had to be Jamison.

  “Get my phone,” I said, between breaths.

  She pulled it from my purse and looked over at me.

  “It’s Jamison.”

  “Tell him to meet me there . . . at the hospital.”

  Coreen looked at me cross, but I didn’t care anymore about fighting with her. I just wanted to get to the hospital and I needed my husband.

  “I’m taking Kerry to the hospital,” she said, opening the phone. “It’s me . . . Coreen.” She paused. I imagined Jamison was wondering how we’d ended up together.

  “Just tell him I’m having the baby,” I cried.

  “He wants to speak to you,” she said, handing me the phone.

  “Kerry, are you okay?” Jamison asked with deep worry in voice.

  “No,” I said. “I’m having the baby. Meet me at the hospital.”

  “How did you end up with Coreen?” he asked. “Did she come to the house?”

  “No,” I said. “Just meet me at the hospital.”

  “It’s over between us,” Coreen said breaking the silence shortly after I hung up the phone. We turned onto the main road where the hospital was. “It’s been over.”

  I really wanted to hear what she was saying, but inside I was still hurt to know that there was something.

  “I’m sorry for what I’ve done to you . . . to your family.” She started crying.

  “Please,” I said. “You’re just sorry you got caught.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” she said. “It wasn’t even my idea to meet him. . . . The whole thing was just . . .” She turned into the emergency room driveway. “Look, I can’t tell you all of it. I swore . . . I swore I’d just—”

  “Uggggggghhhh,” I screamed as what felt like a jab thrust into my stomach.

  “I’ve got to get you inside,” Coreen said. She got out of t
he car and ran into the hospital. She came out with a nurse and a wheelchair.

  “She’s going to take care of you,” Coreen said.

  “How far apart are your contractions?” the nurse asked as I slid into the chair.

  “I don’t know. They’re coming now though.”

  “Are you going in with her?” she said to Coreen.

  “No,” we both said.

  “Well, you’ll have to wait outside,” she said, stopping in front of the emergency room doors.

  “Okay,” Coreen said. “Kerry, I’ll just leave the car here for Jamison and I’ll take a cab home.”

  I didn’t say anything. That part of my journey was over. I wasn’t thankful. I wasn’t sorry. I just wanted her to go.

  Rose Petals

  I was mad. I know they say “only dogs get mad,” but that day, there was no other way to describe my feelings than mad. One of Jamison’s mentors invited us to the annual mayor’s ball and I couldn’t have been more excited. I’d been before, so it wasn’t a huge deal, but after taking the MCAT for the second time and being completely stressed with the next batch of med school applications, I was happy to get out for a night and mix with good company. I’d spent the day at the spa with my mother and picked out the most beautiful Cavalli buttercup cocktail dress I’d ever seen. I certainly couldn’t afford it on my budget, but I needed that dress. I wanted to show everyone that I was okay, that Jamison and I were doing fine. There was so much discussion going on. People wondered why neither of us had left Atlanta after graduation. And as they always did when there was no news, they simply made things up. According to Marcy, some gossips said Jamison had gotten me pregnant and moved into my mother’s house. He was spending all of our money and forbade me from going to med school. It was ridiculous and I had to show them that it couldn’t have been farther from the truth. Everyone who mattered would be at the ball. They’d see me in my Cavalli and with Jamison at my side and know that we were happy and clearly on our way up.

  I was supposed to meet Jamison at his apartment at 7:00 PM, but when I got there, he was nowhere to be found. I could hear music playing inside, but his car wasn’t outside and he wasn’t answering the door. Now, it was 1996 and neither of us had cell phones, so all I could do was sit in my car and wait for him to show up or go home. I grew more and more angry with each minute that passed. Jamison hated these kinds of events, the kinds of people who would be there. I knew that. He didn’t want to go and he was probably somewhere just sitting around eating a hot dog with his mother or something. I didn’t understand why he couldn’t just sacrifice his feelings for me for three hours. Yes, he hated these people, but these were my people and I needed to be there, we needed to be there together. If he was ever going to be successful he’d have to make partners with the people I knew.