His First Wife Page 27

  “Jamison, we’re going to be late,” I called, picking up Tyrian. “Your mother said we needed to be there by eight or so.”

  “I know, I know.” Jamison came running down the stairs way overdressed for the event, but I figured people would understand—his son was the baby Jesus. “I just didn’t want to forget the camera.”

  He slid the camera into his pocket.

  “We got everything?” he asked.

  “Yeah, you, me, and the baby,” I said, laughing at his nervousness. “That’s all we need.”

  “Woman, you’re playing and it’s my boy’s big day!” he joked. “Trying to make us all late.”

  “I was not the one dragging behind.”

  “I know, baby, but I’m excited,” Jamison said.

  “Now, give me some sugar, Sugar.” He kissed me softly on the lips. “And you too, baby Jesus.”

  He kissed Tyrian on the cheek and we stood there in the foyer of our home laughing.

  Between mine and Jamison’s family, the evening may as well have been called a family reunion, rather than a Christmas pageant. We were packed into the rows. While my father couldn’t be there, both my mother and Aunt Luchie came out. Marcy and Damien brought Milicent. Even Ms. Edith and Isabella were there. Of course, Jamison’s mother occupied two rows with her clan.

  While I was nervous when I handed Tyrian off to be placed in the manger, the show went on without a snag. The children knew their lines and the pastor even got a band that was visiting from France to play music in between their acts. The audience loved the show and the music. And Tyrian didn’t cry at all. In fact, at one point, he cooed so loud that we all started laughing.

  When it was over, I had to go get Tyrian from behind the altar where they held the children for the pageant. While Jamison insisted on coming with me, I told him to stay with his mother. I wanted to walk to the back of the church alone, the same way I had when I ran into Coreen. Really, a part of me wondered if she’d be there again. If she was in the audience watching. My competitive side wanted her to see me happy and have a huge slice of humble pie, but I knew she wouldn’t be there. And if she was, I had nothing to say to her. While I hadn’t forgiven her for what she’d done, I’d moved on from Jamison’s mother’s drama and forgiven my husband. Nothing Coreen could say could or would break my spirit. There would be no fighting. I would not lose control of myself again like I had before. I was exactly where I was supposed to be, and so was she. I was stronger. Thanks to her.

  “OK, here he is,” Aunt Luchie said when I walked back into the sanctuary with Tyrian in my arms. “Now let’s all get together and take this family picture. We need Kerry and Jamison in the middle with the baby.” We began to find our places on the altar as others shuffled out.

  Aunt Luchie stood guard, telling everyone where to stand.

  “Let’s hurry up; we got good food to eat at home,” I heard someone holler and we all laughed.

  “Oh, look at my godson,” Marcy said, smiling at Tyrian as she, Damien and Milicent squeezed into a space behind Jamison and me.

  “They ain’t family,” Jamison’s mother murmured.

  “Mama!” Jamison shot her a hard glare.

  “Okay . . . Okay.” She quickly snapped back into her place next to Jamison as he and I grinned at each other.

  When we were all assembled and in place, only Aunt Luchie was standing alone in front of us.

  “We look lovely,” she said. “A family.”

  “Where are you going to stand?” my mother asked.

  We began moving in to make space.

  “Well, someone has to take the picture,” Aunt Luchie reasoned, reaching for her camera.

  “No, no, no,” I protested. I couldn’t have a picture without her in it.

  “I can take the picture,” a handsome, older man I recognized from the visiting band said, walking up behind Aunt Luchie.

  “Oh, thank you.” Aunt Luchie said, turning to hand him the camera.

  She stopped almost immediately.

  “Is that—?” my mother started as she squinted with her eyes set on the gray-haired man.

  “Red,” Aunt Luchie said, her voice heavy.

  “Oh, my God,” my mother said, leaning into me.

  “I come all this way and you only got one word for me, Luchie May?” he asked.

  “Oh, I got some more.” Aunt Luchie dropped the camera just in time for Jamison to catch it.

  “Who’s that?” I heard people whispering behind me as tears filled my eyes.

  Aunt Luchie jumped into Red’s arms like she was still 19 and sneaking around the AUC. He laughed and held her up as she ran her fingers through his now gray hair, making sure, it seemed, that it was him.

  “What happened to your red hair?” she asked, crying.

  “Time, Luchie May. A lot of time.”

  E-MAIL TRANSMISSION

  TO: dablackannanicole@yahoo.com

  FROM: coreenissocute@yahoo.com

  DATE: 1/1/08

  TIME: 12:17 AM

  I know this e-mail might be a little late, but I figured I’d wait until the right time to respond to your heartfelt message. And now, as I begin my new life, in a new year, I think it’s good to let you know that I am fine. I was going through so much last year that I needed to pull back and really get myself together before I could reach out to anyone. I hope I didn’t scare you, but I had to do this for myself. I’ve been running from my feelings for so long and I finally realized that I had to face myself and the pain I felt after losing Duane in such a violent way. I do miss him, but I didn’t allow myself to feel that. I hid it with a bunch of other drama and I’m tired. I sold the house and moved to Oakland with a cousin and I am now seeing a therapist who specializes in helping victims of 9/11.

  I am not sad about this. I am excited and ready for a change and prepared to let go of the pain. I am sorry for hurting people and I can only pray that God forgives me for what I did.

  This will be the last e-mail you receive from me. I don’t feel a need to carry on any relationships from the past. I am seeking to build new, healthy ones that match my new attitude. I hope you understand and know that this is not about you; it’s about my recovery.

  I wish you all the best in the New Year and pray for you and your family.

  Coreen

  My Dearest Reader,

  Wow! It’s been five years since I wrote His First Wife, and let me tell you, not a month has gone by when I didn’t receive an e-mail, letter, or phone call from readers from Weed, California, to Jacksonville, Florida wanting to know what happened to my most chic, blue-blood Atlanta couple, Jamison and Kerry. As I did as I wrote their emotional tale of love found, lost and reclaimed, readers fell in love with this pair. And not because of their endless drama or the insider’s peek at elite black Atlanta, but because of their intense vulnerability, rawness, and sincere dedication to love. Perhaps that’s what made me tell Jamison and Kerry’s story in the first place. Like all of you, I wanted to see reflections of the loves I’ve known. What it feels like to be lied to. How it feels to be the liar. What it’s like to move on. And, yes, why so many times we return to our lovers with open arms. Maybe we want to believe it will last forever. Maybe we know it just won’t. But . . . maybe . . . it will . . .

  Of course, before I’m a writer, I’m an enthusiastic reader of these stories. So, like many of you, after reading His First Wife, I too wondered, “What happened to them?” And my need to fill this desire (and answer your requests) led to me giving loyal readers random “Jamison and Kerry” updates in my other Southern novels like Should Have Known Better. Even then, I still got more letters, and even when I responded, I still received more questions asking, “What’s next for Jamison?”

  That’s what leads us, dearest reader, to this novel, the sequel to His First Wife. It’s my answer to those e-mails and my needs. It’s not just an update; it’s a visitation with old friends, a resolution, a final chapter (hum . . . maybe not). What you’ll find in the nex
t installment in Jamison and Kerry’s tale is scandal, secrets, sincerity, and faith. These characters demanded much from my imagination. And through the writing, as I discovered and rediscovered what made them tick, I kept thinking, “Well, wouldn’t it take this kind of imagination to even dream up what actually happens in our real love lives? How it happens? How it feels? How it never lets us go?”

  I really hope you enjoy this next step in the journey with Jamison and Kerry. I look forward to reading those letters and taking those calls. :)

  Yours, of course

  Grace Octavia

  Two messy divorces and a string of affairs haven’t

  stopped self-made millionaire Jamison Jackson from

  becoming mayor of Atlanta. But while he may have a

  gorgeous new wife and new alliances, he can’t quite

  escape his past and those who want to see him fail in

  Grace Octavia’s latest…

  His Third Wife

  On sale in November 2013 from Dafina Books

  1

  “Murder in a New South”

  After a predictable rising sun had rolled through hopscotch maps of plantations, crawled along the tips of decaying steeples in suburban enclaves, and made its way to the ambitious stacking skyline that marked Atlanta’s city center, a body was found all akimbo in the middle of Peachtree Street. People who’d come from pollen-fecund cars, which had been stopped to a crawl in both directions along the venous strip that connected all of what was being called the official “capital of the New South,” looked to the sky like maybe the bloody brown mess had fallen from the sun’s fiery rays. One person pointed. Then two pointed. Three. Then four. A reporter arrived. And then a police officer. All pointed to the top of the Downtown Westin. The body in the street in the bloody gray suit had come from there. Had to. One pointing son asked his mother, “Was that a woman up there looking down at us?” Further along in the crowd, a coworker asked a driver, “Was that a man dressed as a woman standing at the top of the Westin?” A wife, who’d thought the same thing, said to her husband and then later to a reporter, “You could tell by the jaw. It wasn’t a woman. It was a man dressed as a woman. The shoulders were too broad.” Her husband disagreed: “She was too small to be a man.” But some hadn’t seen anything. Just a shadow. Maybe a bird sitting on the edge looking down at the body like prey.

  Soon it was a scene. And someone in a white cloth jumpsuit lifted the head that had nearly been crushed by the weight of the fall. Looked into the eyes. Open and dead. And knew. This was no angel that had fallen from the sun to halt rush hour traffic. It was the new mayor.

  That was when the talk started. When it would never stop. Because that man, the mayor who’d fallen from the top of the Westin to the black tar, was Jamison Jackson. Everything the chocolate side of the city could be proud of and the white side could use as an example of Southern progress. Born poor in the SWATS. A Morehouse man. Fraternity guy. Self-made millionaire. A heart that won the old guard. A voice that had vowed to repave the very street that would become his deathbed. A soul that wanted everything he could imagine. And he was dead. The city dressed in black for the funeral. And from the boardrooms in Buckhead to the lunch counters at the Busy Bee and Chantrelles in the West End, chatter was king. There was a first wife. A new wife. A mother. A son. A fat pig’s belly worth of secrets. A mess of shadows that everyone thought they could see clearly. Politics at its finest.

  But that was just the tipping point of it all. Stories like that never begin with a body falling from a midlevel hotel.

  2

  “His Next Wife”

  Everything started when a mother came to town. Quiet and all alone, she got off a Greyhound bus across the street from a conveniently placed strip club. Had on fake pearls and a blond lace front wig. Her daughter picked her up in a shiny new Jaguar with two seats and the top down.

  Maybe thirty minutes of silent riding later, the mother was standing at the window in the big house—there were pillars out front and all. She was looking away from everything beautiful behind her. Clutching her purse like she wasn’t staying. Thinking. Trying to decide how she should tell her smiling baby girl, who always wanted more than she could hold in her arms, that she ought to get on the next bus and go back to Memphis with her.

  “I don’t know why you didn’t accept the tickets I sent you. First class flight? I thought you’d like that,” Deena, the daughter, said. Maybe she was sipping mimosa or waiting for the maid to pour her another glass.

  “Memphis ain’t but a stone’s throw away,” the mother mumbled. Her name was Mama Fee—everyone had always called her that, even before she’d had children. “Take more time to get on the plane and fly than it does to get on the bus and ride. And I don’t do big birds.”

  “That’s old talk. This is a new world.”

  “Is it? Is it really, Deena? You tell me.”

  “Yes, Mama Fee. You still act like flying is just for white folks. Or rich folks—”

  “Ain’t said nothing like that.”

  “Well, that’s good, because it isn’t. As long as you can pay, you can play. That’s the Atlanta way.” Deena chuckled and looked at Lorna, the maid, holding the pitcher of mimosa to her glass to support the comedy of her play on words with laughter. “I mean, it’s 2012—not 1902!”

  Lorna was only able to produce a half smile before Deena shooed her away with a tired wave. As soon as Lorna stepped over the threshold, the mother turned and looked at her daughter.

  “Seems like you shouldn’t be drinking,” she nearly whispered. “Not in your condition.”

  “Condition? Please! What do you know about it?”

  “Plenty. Had you and your sisters. Doctor says it’s bad.”

  “No. Doctor says it’s good. Helps to relieve stress. A little won’t hurt the baby at all.” Deena downed the last of her drink. There was an audible gulp that resonated with pangs of short nerves or anxiety. “And I need it today—with it being my wedding day and all.” She looked at the big blue diamond on her ring finger. She’d purchased it a week ago with her fiancé’s credit card and full blessing. “I need to relax.”

  Mama Fee was still looking out the window and thinking. The shiny Jaguar was resting in the middle of a circular drive that was filled with perfectly shaped creamy stones and purple pebbles that made the whole world outside the house look like a giant fish tank.

  “Maybe you should’ve waited until the baby was born,” she said. “At least until we could’ve had a proper wedding—your family come. You know? Like Patrice and Rhonda did. Still don’t see why you couldn’t invite your own sisters.”

  “Would you stop it? I didn’t invite you here to go drilling me about everything.”

  “I ain’t drilling you. They’re your sisters. You were in their weddings.”

  “Yeah, and they married big, fat losers. Is Patrice’s husband out of jail yet?”

  “You watch your mouth.” Mama Fee said, finally turning to look at her daughter. But she needed no confirmation that it was Deena who could bring up such a thing. Her youngest child was born spitting fire at anything that didn’t seem to pick her up in some way that she deemed acceptable. This might’ve been considered gross ambition or maybe even unapologetic drive if it wasn’t for the fact that sometimes Deena’s desire for uplift went beyond frustrated tongue lashings and straight to unmitigated evil—well, the kind of evil a girl from Memphis who’d hardly graduated high school could spin. When Deena was 15, Patrice had just finished beauty school and her prized graduation gift was a beauty box filled with emerald and sea foam and lavender and canary eye shadow. Lipsticks of every shade of red and pink. After Deena had begged to sit and try just one shadow, paint her lips in one shade of red, Patrice balked and hid the box beneath her bed. The next morning, the rainbow of shadows and lipsticks were floating in a river of bleach on the bathroom floor. Mama Fee nearly killed Deena with her switch in the backyard after that incident, trying to teach the girl a lesson. But
Deena didn’t cry one tear.

  “Patrice’s husband is a fucking jailbird. Don’t blame me for that,” Deena said, nearly laughing.

  “And what about you? What about your husband?”

  “Fiancé. And what about him?”

  “Well, where is he?” Mama Fee asked, fingering a small Tiffany frame she’d found in the windowsill. It was a picture of a handsome, brown man standing beside an older woman at what looked like his college graduation.

  “He had to work this morning,” Deena replied.

  “On your wedding day?”

  There was a pause. And then, “You’re picking again.”

  “I’m not picking. I’m just asking. It’s an obvious question.” She held out the picture to Deena. “This him?”

  “Yes. Him and his raggedy-ass mama,” Deena snarled. “Hate that old bat.”

  “A least you’ve met her. I can’t say the same about her son. Don’t seem right neither.”

  “Damn, Mama Fee! What’s that supposed to mean? Because you’ve never met him, something’s not right?”

  “It just means I would like to have known him first—before he married my youngest daughter. Know what kind of man he is. Stuff your daddy would’ve done.”

  Both mother and daughter paused at the mention of a daddy. He’d been long gone. Was a good man. But disappeared one evening after leaving a bar following a fight with one of his white coworkers. Everyone cursed him for leaving Fee alone to raise three girls. They’d never eat right again. There were rumors of another woman, another family in Kentucky. Soon Fee believed these rumors, but soon after that his body floated to the top of a forgotten old swimming hole at the back of town. There was noose tied to his neck. No genitals left on his body. No one was ever interviewed, interrogated, or charged.