CHASES OF THE HEART: A KAT AND DOG SAGA
Chases of the Heart: A Kat and Dog Saga ©2010 by Shereece T. Bruce. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means including electronic, mechanical or photocopying or stored in a retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages to be included in a review.
ISBN: 978-0-9827814-1-8
Library of Congress Control Number: 2010907587
Cover Design: Keith Saunders (Marion Designs)
Interior Design: Andrew D. Gordon
Editor: Nikki D. Bosompem (Insight Editing Services, LLC)
First Printing June 2010
Printed in the United States of America
Published by:
Pink Peach Publishing
P.O. Box 1872
Dacula, GA 30019
www.pinkpeachpublishing.com
Acknowledgements
First and foremost I would like to thank God for giving me the ability to write and for blessing me with angels. I am indebted to Author Pauline Evans and Pink Peach Publishing for taking me under their wings and giving me the opportunity to showcase my story beyond the confines of my laptop! Lady P, thank you for believing in my book from the start.
To all my English teachers who have acknowledged that in my short story assignments, they have seen my passion and potential for writing, I thank you for your encouragements. To my mother, I send a special thank you. Your practical outlook on life and your support have brought me many steps up the rungs of the ladder of believing in myself and my worth. I love you without end.
To Mark, thank you for your ideas for the book cover, you pointed me in the right direction, baby. And for all who have made a positive impact in my life, you know who you are, I am tremendously grateful to you.
A lifelong dream has finally come true! It’s damn near inexplicable to express my joy.
DEDICATION
I emphatically dedicate this book to my grandmother, Enid Jacobs. One of the strongest women I have ever known. With each day that passes, you are truly missed, but I find comfort in knowing that you are an angel looking over me. You were a great blessing to my life and to every life that you have touched. One of your last quotes to me was, “Bloom where you are planted.” Mama I may be a late bloomer, but I am blooming. Thank you for your words of wisdom.
Chapter 1
Katherine was so distraught she could hear her heart drumming away in her chest. It was so loud, it rivaled the pastor’s voice.
“Do you take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife?”
What? Awful wedded wife? His eyes and ears were playing tricks on him. The groom, the handsome, chocolate skinned brother did not answer. He was way too nervous. In an instant, everything around him seemed to be moving in slow motion, as he felt pearls of his sweat uncomfortably tickling his temple.
The pastor, who once looked about five feet and some inches tall, had now metamorphosed into a strange sub human. Perhaps like that tall deformed looking square headed character from that famous 60’s TV series, Herman the Munster.
A recurrent dream was now blasting before his eyes like the police shining a lurid search light brightly over his face. It was a nightmare where he is in the deep of the ocean, sinking lower and lower and unavailingly trying to swim back to the surface, grasping at those proverbial straws.
Had this been the actual sleeping dream, now was the time when he would jump awake in his bed with his rapidly pounding heart racing like a bullet, while sweat flooded his face. Perhaps like that of a whore in church.
But this was reality.
Or was it? All of today’s events felt surreal to him. From the diarrhea which plagued his intestines all morning, to the constant badgering from his buddies as they planted seeds of doubt in his mind and fertilized them with their amplifications, “D, you’ll be with tha’ same shawdy for tha rest of yo’ days homie,” to the kiss which left a lingering impression on his troubled soul and throbbing lips.
Standing before her groom with the sweetest, childlike smile and doe eyes lit with excitement, was the bride. Meanwhile, the bridesmaids keenly daggered their bewildered eyes at the unfocused groom.
Raheem, Duncan’s best man, was muttering something under his breath. The tall mocha skinned man with the glistening diamond in his ear was trying to speak to his friend without letting anyone else hear.
“Brotha, what the hell are you doin’? You had your chance to do this before now.”
But the groom paid Raheem no mind. He glanced around the chapel, digging through wedding attendees, desperately hoping to connect with one particular pair of exotic, ardent, blue green eyes, but she was nowhere in sight.
“Duncan,” the wedding officiator attempted to get his attention.
“Duncan. Honey?” the baby-faced bride urged. “Are you okay? Talk to me sweetie, you’re scaring me.”
The woman with the blue green eyes exited through the back door so fast that she seemed to the groom a purple blur. His heart sank, and his hope, which had dangled in the catatonic air, had now floated to the ground like feathers. Shattered, he was snapped back to reality when the uppity mother of the bride made two loud claps in his ears, almost deafening with her exaggeration.
This was definitely reality. “Yea… Yes...I … I mean, I do,” he stammered.
Some of the people in their seats let out their sighs of relief while some had the decency to subdue their breaths. One man muttered to his wife, who sat fanning herself with the program, an unbelieving look on her heavily painted face, “I thought that girl was gonn’ knock the head off that Armani suit.”
Then, there came the next question: “If any man has just cause why this man and this woman should not be joined in holy union, speak now or forever hold his peace.” This was another breath holder, a greater one. Some might compare this to that of people riding on an enormous roller coaster, getting ready to go down that steep slope. Duncan’s stomach somersaulted as a protest bloomed and hovered at his mouth.
He swiftly scanned through wedding attendees once more, hoping that somehow she had returned. Miss Prim and Proper, mother of the bride, who had returned to her seat, sat in the front and center row of a series of curvaceously carved mahogany benches; her bright red wide rim hat shielding the alarms of attendees directly behind her. Duncan saw, as she stared at him fixedly with heightened curiosity and annoyance, her back upright like the queen of a noble land. He quickly dismissed her pointed glare, travelled his eyes to the right, sifting through the row where Uncle Ray Ray sat.
Uncle Ray Ray looked as if he was already half drunk by the way he was fidgeting in his seat and giggling like a damn fool. Duncan was tracing his eyes over all these nameless, faceless people who he cared nothing about at this particular time. Only one face was stubbornly etched in his mind, one name swirling around his tongue. Where is she?
The room was tense, constrained. There were gasps, then silence, eager eyes and ears listening and watching for the slightest sound, the stillest movement.
A petite, buxom, round-figured, honey brown-skinned woman with long cascading box braids on her head, raised her slender hand like she was in class wanting to answer her teacher’s question, prompting Duncan to shoot her an incredulous gaze with dark brown eyes which looked like they were about to pop out of her head.
Maybe this is supposed to be this way after all, he thought nervously. Maybe it’s a must that this wedding be stopped. The wrong woman was playing the part of his bride? Yes… No? The baby-faced bride loved him. But he loved the blue green eyes. He did. He so did. That kiss last night, no matter how much she tried to convince him of how it was a mistake, that it would never work, had replayed itself in his mind, constantly bugging him.
The monkey was on his back and the pink elephants definitely filled the room. Today was a circus day, and Duncan’s ambivalence was deafening to his own ears.
As gasps and what-the-hells accompanied curious eyes and impatient hisses, no doubt decorating the church with clouds of perplexity, there stood in the midst of the center aisle, Joanna. Duncan’s wide eyes were still stuck to her. Was she going to speak on behalf of her friend, who had just exited through the rear of the church in such haste that she seemed a blurred prism to him?
The mysterious spokeswoman rested her hand on her slightly protruding stomach, while the bottom of her jet black baby doll dress brushed gently against her knees as she tapped her foot on the carpeted floor, “Oh fu…” she abruptly discontinued her sentence as if she remembered where she was. “Never mind. Go on. Go on with your ceremony, never mind me. Sorry D,” she said with frustration before she hurriedly exited through the same door that the woman in the purple had vanished from a few minutes before.
Chapter 2
You’re a damn fool Katherine Tanner,” Joanna accused. “A damn fool for lettin’ the man you love stand there and marry that li’l baby-faced girl in there. That damn face so innocent, staring at me so lost. And me… me! Joanna Paulina Rodman had the heart to feel sorry for her so I didn’t do it. I couldn’t do it. Fuck! What’s the matter with me? I’m losing it. I tell you. Love is a mother fucker! I’m developing a freakin’ conscience, Kat. I don’t like this being in love shit. It’s softening me.”
“And it’s a great side of you to be seeing. You’re human after all,” Katherine, the beautiful woman in the sexy satin purple dress said, trying to divert the conversation to her friend’s trivial situation. But when she saw Joanna tapping her foot, her hands akimbo, Katherine knew that her effort of diversion had failed, so she resorted to good ol’ fashioned fake-it-till-you-make it persuasion. “I’m glad you didn’t do it. He should marry her. It’s okay. I’m okay.”
Joanna looked at her questioningly; doubting for one second Katherine’s bullshit about being okay.
“Really Joanna, I’m okay. I’m fine,” reiterated the lady with the blue green eyes, trying her best to convince her friend that she was not at all troubled by the fact that her best friend, the man she had known since she was eight-years old, and shared the most platonic, yet emotionally intimate relationship, was about to marry Mary Drumbar. The baby-faced, sweet souled girl whose father was currently joining his youngest daughter’s hand in marriage to the man she loved.
But Katherine was progressively being overcome by a monster in her heart. What she was feeling was no longer just a companionable non-physical kind of love like that of a sister to her brother. This thing had exacerbated to a realm that was unfamiliar territory. Her whole being was consumed.
That kiss they shared last night had bemused her big time. Magnifying a feeling which was months before an incipient love bug, that had begun its gradual and stealthy creep towards her since the moment D, as Duncan was sometimes called, announced at his 30th birthday party that he was engaged to Mary. Katherine was shocked at this revelation because she was totally unaware that he and the sweet-faced one were so serious. But she couldn’t decipher. Was she jealous because of her own selfish reasons? After all, Duncan Gibson was forfeiting their long practiced never-committing-settling-is-for-losers motto. He left Katherine to carry the banner alone. Or was she jealous because she was in love with her best friend?
“Bullshit!” Joanna yelled, throwing her hands up in the air.
With fevered hands, Katherine reached for her tiny purse and fished around to find a pack of cigarettes. Seconds later she anxiously removed one from the box and lit it up, taking a long drag before exhaling the smoke powerfully, hoping that it would somehow make her oblivious to the craziness that was taking place within her, or prevent her from giving into such audacious thoughts which paraded her head like protesters marching for lower gas prices.
She, Katherine Ann-Marie Tanner, goes into a chapel full of people and boldly declares her feelings for her best friend? Expose herself for all to see her essential nature, the building blocks that make up Katherine Tanner? Of course not! Katherine was always fabulous. As perfect as the diamond ring that glistened on her perfect left hand. Furthermore, such acts of bravery were never her forte.
So why was she tempted?
The woman with the cigarette looked up into the sky as she blew smoke, letting the ripe late afternoon sun bask on her golden skin, wishing it could somehow numb the tirade within her. In an attempt to stop her friend from opposing her so strongly, Katherine forced a smile on her full lips and said, “Beautiful day isn’t it?” She sounded as if she were almost English, leaving all traces of her Floridian accent frail. “Lovely day for a wedding.”
Joanna looked as if she wanted to knock the voluminous curls of long hair off her friend’s frighteningly beautiful face. Bring her down from whatever high she was sailing on. For months Joanna had told her friend, that it was obvious she was in love with Duncan. She had told Katherine to stop burying her feelings and face it before it was too late.
Joanna Paulina Rodman, giving advice on love. Who’d have thought that the woman who’d once compared love to the government, by saying it was always trying to get a bitch’s hard earned money, that love was a cult that would remove a person’s soul from their body, invasion-of-the body-snatchers style, causing them to behave in a ridiculous zombielike manner, making kissy face, holding hands and pledging an immutable love for each other. How ironic to see her now giving her childhood friend love counsel. What’s next, world peace?
Joanna gripped her friend’s shoulders, forcing Katherine to look into her stern eyes. “Get a hold of yourself Pussy Kat. Be the lioness you are. Not some prissy domestic pawless excuse for feline fierceness. You are the lion, the queen of your domain, let’s hear you roar.” She batted her eyes in mock delightfulness, smiled in accordance and gave a mischievous wink of an eye, then added, “Now swish those womanly hips, strut those long legs and go in there and expose that fake ass wedding. Tell him how you really feel. Tell him you love him. You know you do. Tell him you can’t bear to see him another second with that apple pie girl. Shit, home girl’s been cloying the hell out o’ me.”
Katherine was steadily building up the courage to follow her heart. She nodded at every key point Joanna made. Throwing her cigarette to the ground, she smashed it with her stiletto as if she were crushing her fear.
“I’m going in there. I’m gonna stop the wedding… Oh jeez… I’m gonna stop the wedding? Yes,” she reaffirmed with assertiveness. “I’m going to stop the wedding.”
“Now that’s the Katherine I know. The strong woman,” Joanna cajoled before mimicking a lion’s roar. “Now go in there and get yo man.”
Katherine nodded with wobbly certainty before she straightened her dress, wiggling her hips from side to side. She turned boldly to head back to the chapel, and commenced her walk down the strip of asphalted walkway which lay sandwiched between the lush, green, manicured grass and well coordinated flowers. All blended harmoniously with the incandescent purple hue which adorned her body. Her feet felt heavy, her heart heavier. Each unsteady step she made felt as if she removed a layer of shield which had been her protection all of her life. Katherine was getting closer to nakedness, dangerously closer, frighteningly closer. Like the beats of her weakened heart, her thoughts rang loudly. What am I doing? What the hell am I doing?
It wasn’t before taking four short steps that the chapel door swung open and the bride and groom came marching out, confetti swirling around them like pieces of Katherine’s own heart. Collective sounds of clapping and cheering, congratulatory handshakes and back pats to a smiling black-suited groom, visions of toothpaste smiles, and childlike merriment of a young lady in an innocent white dress, made it known to Katherine that she was late.
Everything seemed to be at a standstill. The pits of her stomach wrenched so hard, it felt as if someone had gut punched her and caused something vital to escape her body, her soul, one of her building blocks.
Chapter 3
The ride to the airport was interspersed with an uncomfortable quietness.
“Look,” Joanna said, “I’m not trynna make this into a pity party by saying I’m sorry. I’m just saying that…you know... well... I’m sorry.”
Katherine glanced at her friend in the driver’s seat and couldn’t help but to laugh despite her own gloom, for Joanna had this animated expression on her face.
Joanna smiled, “Now that’s better.”
“I just want to forget this day ever happened Jo. And I’ll do just that when I’m on that stage, singing out my soul. It’s my escape.” Katherine leaned her head against the window and closed her eyes. Everything ran wild in her thoughts. What was she thinking to step over the friendship line which stood between her and Duncan? A line which was so strong for all these years had now been choppy and she hoped that their friendship would return to the safe place it was before.
“Getting away from Florida will help with that,” Joanna said.
“I’m only going to Atlanta one night, Joanna. Tonight’s my performance. Then I have to get back to deal with the wedding.”
“I forgot about that. I just thought…” Joanna ended her sentence abruptly after glancing at her friend’s disheartened face. “This asshole!” shouted the woman in the driver’s seat. Joanna got cut off by a man driving a red pickup truck shortly after the exit from I-95. He caused her to get caught at the red light and this got her pissed.
Katherine spoke distantly, “Slow your roll homegirl, I ain’t late.”
The woman behind the steering wheel glanced at her friend, shook her head and laughed.
“What’s so funny?” asked Katherine.
“All these years and you still trynna talk da talk. Just give up. It ain’t you. Girl you grew up in the ghetto, around me and all us street talking peeps but that father o’ yours wanted strictly no street dialect from you. Remember when you were new to our school and the kids used to tease you? Said you acted like you were better than everybody?”
For a moment Katherine was forgetting her dampened spirit as Joanna opened the gate of childhood memories.
The lady in the passenger seat laughed at something she remembered. “Ya and that’s when I first got introduced to something called bribery, and Duncan Gibson. My dad and I were new to the neighborhood and D’s grandmother was kind enough to invite us over for Sunday dinner. Lo and behold Duncan was in the kitchen dressed in his mother’s old retired pink apron and had a silly ass mesh cap over his head.” Katherine was laughing so hard she had to cease talking for a moment. “He was in the kitchen helping Mama Willie earlier and was so in love with his uniform he did not want to take it off. Then when he saw me at school the following day. The poor heart didn’t have a clue that I was gonna be his classmate. He nearly shit his pants when he saw me in class. That’s when he bribed me. Said that if I kept my mouth shut about seeing him in his little butterfly apron and mesh hat, he would let me hang with his crowd. And ya’ll were the popular ones. And lord knows the teasing from these little haters was driving me up the wall.”
“And lord knows Duncan “Dog” Gibson did not want to lose his street cred.” Joanna was laughing so hard her body was shaking. “And I was in D’s crowd, that’s how I met your prissy ass. And lord knows your always perfect ass got on my nerves. But I must say you grew on me.”
Tears were trickling down Katherine’s face. Those tears were not only from laughing so hard, they were also tears caused by the hollowness she felt in the pit of her stomach, for she felt like she was losing her best friend.
Joanna saw this as her friend used her hands to wipe away the tears. “You okay?” she asked.
Katherine nodded. Her throat was too tight to speak.
It was raining cats and dogs when Katherine got outside the airport in Atlanta. Her phone rang as she was rushing to get into her cab. “Hello,” she answered.
The lady on the other end asked, “May I speak with Katherine Tanner?”
Katherine recognized who it was. It was the manager for Darnell Justin. Darnell Justin is the big name R & B singer whom she was opening for tonight. “This is Katherine.”
“This is Sandra George, manager for Darnell Justin, just making sure that everything’s set for tonight. We need you to get in at least an hour before the show begins. We need to organize some things.”
“Yes Sandra, everything’s set. I’m heading to my hotel to drop off my stuff, and then I’ll be heading downtown. I’ll be at the club by about 8:00.”
“Fine, I’ll see you then.”
************
It was his first dance with his wife. She was beaming with excitement as she said, “I can’t believe that we’re finally married. Oh Duncan, this is truly the happiest day of my life.”
He smiled but his heart was lined with doubt. “Really? Are you truly happy Mary?” He cupped her face gently into his large hands and gazed down into her vibrant dark eyes. “Do I make you happy?”
“Duncan you ask such silly questions sometimes.” Her face was so lighted, so solemn with a sense of childlike glee. “I truly am the happiest girl alive.”
Through his uncertainty, he couldn’t help but smile. She was so warm, so cuddly, sweet and honest, he thought. How could he have ever entertained the idea of hurting her and calling off their wedding? He had to and would put his feelings for Katherine away. Somehow, some way. This sweet-faced girl loved him.
“Do I make you happy Duncan?” she asked.
“Yes, Mary. You make me happy.” He smiled and embraced her closer, kissed the top of her head and reproached himself for thinking of the blue green eyes.
Mary’s father came over to them when the first dance between husband and wife was over, while everyone clapped and cheered.
“May I have this dance with my baby girl?” the petite bald headed pastor asked.
“Why sure daddy. Duncan and I have the rest of our lives to dance the night away.” She looked up into her husband’s face and spoke, “Right, honey?”
The groom gulped and froze at the thought of forever but then forced a strong, “The rest of our lives.”
He needed another drink. Fast.
Leaving the father and daughter while they danced, he walked over to the bar, desperate for another drink. There was only champagne & wine. Delicate, sentimental, celebratory drinks he thought. He wanted something stronger to knock away the uncertainty, which crowded his head. “Don’t you have anything a bit stronger?”
The neatly attired, uniformed bartender replied, “No sir, I don’t.”
“Didn’t we spend enough money on this lavish wedding reception, enough for a brotha to get a shot of cognac? It’s a mother fucking rip off.” Duncan readjusted himself when he realized that he was taking out his frustrations on the innocent bartender, who looked like he had gone pale in his already translucent face. “Sorry man, didn’t mean to frighten you young fella. Give me four glasses of champagne.”
Duncan drank one glass of the bubbly in two large gulps, then went for the others consecutively. The bartender looked appalled but did not dare say a word.
The reception was held in a huge banquet hall, adorned with lovely red roses and daises, the mother of the bride’s favorite flowers, in every direction. The high ceiling was transparent, so the late evening sun shone in, caressing the romantic, dimly lit room with its organic light. It was crazy the amount of money he spent on this wedding. The place alone cost him four grand to occupy for two hours. Not to mention the expensive photographers and the huge trove of flowers in the wedding parties’ hands, the church and the banquet hall. The price tag on Mary’s designer wedding dress was more than two month’s mortgage for his huge Pembroke Pines home, and the instigator for all this extravagance? No doubt Mrs. Marion Drumbar, Mary’s mother, who constantly meddles. It seemed that she had planned the whole wedding, replacing Mary as wedding coordinator. Duncan was involved in only two aspects of this grand fiesta: The financial part and playing the part of one of the main characters in Marion Drumbar’s production.
“My baby needs the best wedding ever,” the tall, distinguished, and beautiful older woman cajoled with flirtatious brown eyes full of schemes. “I’m sure a man of your caliber can handle that with ease, right Mr. Gibson?” She was pretending to fix the collar of the black shirt he was wearing, but this felt like a definite flirt to Duncan. He had been around too many women in his lifetime for him to miss such an advance. Who was this duplicitous woman? He thought. To her family, church members and friends she pretended to be holier than Christ, yet as she was standing in Duncan’s office at his restaurant, she was inveigling him with her coquettish advances and enticing words. He immediately moved away from her procession, and went to sit at the edge of his desk, pushing his folded shirt sleeves further up his arms. Then with arms folded in front of him, he looked at her quizzically. “Who are you, Mrs. Drumbar?”
She smiled a charmingly mischievous smile at him and insisted, “Marion. Call me Marion.” Directly facing the front of Duncan’s desk, Mary’s mother sat on the black leather couch very lady like and poised in a white cashmere sleeveless turtleneck top and black pencil skirt.
Marion was an exquisitely beautiful woman. With a heart shaped face and incredibly defined cheekbones, she had a very strong appearance. Her eyes were slightly slanted upwards, indicative of an Asian lineage. Her dark brown hair was cut into a short pixie hairstyle. Her slender neck was long and elegant, her complexion, a creamy caramel. At forty-seven years old she still kept herself well. Not one wrinkle was evident on that flawless face.
“I am a woman who looks out for her daughter’s best interests, of course,” she spoke matter-of-factly. Then with stern eyes she asked challengingly, “Who are you, Mr. Duncan Gibson?”
“I am the man who is about to marry your daughter,” he replied with a challenging stare to combat her intimidating tone. He smiled at her with intent because he knew exactly what she was doing. The woman was throwing at him her concoction of reverse psychology and womanly charms to test his devotion to her daughter. Also, she was trying to butter him up into doing what she wanted and he had no time for her contrived plans. He got up and went behind his desk, opened his drawer and took out his check book. “You’re a dangerous woman, Mrs. Drumbar,” he said.
Marion walked over to the front of Duncan’s desk, her six feet tall, lithe and elegant frame stood before him like a stylish statue. Smiling impishly at him she said, “No Mr. Gibson, I’m only trying to give my daughter and my future son-in-law the biggest, most extravagant wedding South Florida has ever seen. It will be in all the local papers. First lady of Kingdom Come Baptist Church master minds an exquisite affair: The wedding of the century between her daughter and restaurant entrepreneur.” The woman was dramatic.
Before writing in his checkbook, the man behind the desk glanced up at her as he sat in a chair. “You must have been a Broadway actress.”
“Actually I was heading there, but stupid affairs of the heart deterred that… love. Uugghh. So overrated, don’t you think?”
“I used to think that Mrs. Drumbar. But now I am a different man,” Duncan replied as he stood and handed her the piece of paper worth twelve thousand dollars.
She looked at him with suspicious eyes as she said, “Are you sure about that?” She took his hand stealthily and was teasingly outlining the creases in his palm, making his insides shake in awe at the sensuality from her fingertips. “Your palms are quite sketchy.”
“What are you? A palm reader Mrs. Drumbar?” he asked skeptically as he took his hand away from her and placed them into his pants pocket.
“Only an experienced woman,” she replied devilishly. Marion made a step back, as if she were retreating to that motherly zone, where Duncan hoped that she dwelled at some point during her children’s childhood. He saw a brief switch in her demeanor. Marion had moved from flirtatious tone, to genuinely-concerned-mother-of-the-bride-to-be. She stated quite businesslike, “Okay, I will book the hall at once and order the Vera Wang gown.”
Was this bitch bipolar? “Anything to keep my Mary happy,” he said. Did I pass the test Mrs. Drumbar?
Duncan glanced around the room. Mary’s mother, ever so prim and proper, the post of propriety who constantly behaved like she was holier than holy, was at the bridal table swanking and gushing about how proud she was of her daughter, that she’d found love with a wonderful man and how he’d owned the finest, most upscale Caribbean restaurant in all of South Florida. But Duncan wondered how fine of a man he was, for here he was on his wedding day thinking fervently about a certain blue-green-eyed best friend of his. He looked over to the center of the room where the petite duo was still engaging in their father daughter dance on the black and white marble tiled floor. He remembered the days which led up to today, the first time they met…
It was shortly after his grandmother died, when he was lower than the lowest. He was sitting on a park bench, heavily contemplating the direction of his life. Duncan was turning thirty in just a couple of months and felt he had nothing. Yes, sure he had a successful restaurant, money in the bank, and a different woman every day of the week. Beautiful women loved him, wealthy women desired him and were willing to do almost anything to get him. There were women who spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on him. His friends constantly commended his cavalier attitude, said that he was a whore to these women.
His grandmother often admonished his philandering ways. She would say, “Duncan, when are you gonna settle down? Get yourself a good woman, a good Christian woman. Give me some great grand babies. It ain’t good for you to be running up and down all willy nilly with these women. No matter what they givin’ you, whether it be investment for your restaurant or a new car. You livin’ in sin Dunc.” How she knew about his rampant squiring, he didn’t know. He swore this woman was psychic.
Then right before she died she made him promise her that he would stop being a gigolo, settle down and marry a good girl. He promised, for he loved his grandmother with his whole heart and soul.
“Promise me Dunc. You’ll settle down.”
“Oh stop it, ma. Stop sounding so final. You gonna get out o’ this place, live to see many more years.”
But he felt a looming doom, for after her massive heart attack, when she was lying in that hospital bed, weak as an aged rose, she looked very ill. She was next to morbid. It became very scary and extremely heart wrenching to see his sweet, normally strong grandmother who had been like a mother to him, especially since his mother died from a drug overdose when he was a young teen.
“Oh Dunc, it ain’t such a bad thing. I’m tired,” she said, struggling to catch her breath. Tubes which looked like giant straws or rather snakes, wreathed around her body almost alien-like. “It’s time that I be with my savior. I’m at peace Duncan. I’ve worked hard all my life. I’ve raised you to be the wonderful man you are.” She looked at her grandson with accusing eyes and forced on a slight smile filled with grim then said, “‘Cept for your playboy ways.” Mama Willie, as she was known to many who knew her well, then looked at him with sober beseeching eyes, motioned for him to come closer and cupped his face into her wrinkled, hard worked hands. They were cold. She looked wistful as she stared into her grandson’s eyes.
“How’s that beautiful best friend of yours, she still singing? She got such a beautiful voice, like an angel. Wish she was singing for the Lord, though. I haven’t seen that chile in a while. Guess she too busy for Mama Willie,” she spoke.
“She’s fine,” he answered with certain uneasiness, for he remembered that he’d kissed the woman with the angel voice the night before in his drunken, self pitiful state.
He was in a self searching mode and was questioning himself as to why they were never together, for besides Mama Willie, Katherine was the closest to his heart.
In an obviously bewildered state she had slapped him, straight up Hollywood style, and told him not to do it again.
“What the hell are you on Duncan?” she had exclaimed.
He soon learned he never should have kissed her, for since that night, he had a query wavering in his brain, stubbornly pushing its way up to the surface to be soothed by an answer.
“She’s such a beautiful woman and she knows you so well.
Though you two bicker like a cat and dog there was no one who’d ever dare come between you two ‘cause they know they’d get eaten alive. Not every day you find such a combination baby. How come you two never got together? Y’all would make such beautiful babies.”
“Ma, please. You need to rest,” he said to stop her from going any further with the conversation and because she was growing more weary. He took her hands from the sides of his face and kissed them gently. “I have to run over to the restaurant; I’ve got some celebrities dining tonight and I must prepare the meals, can’t leave it in anyone else’s hands.”
“My Duncan, always working so hard.”
He kissed her forehead gently then said, “I’ll be back before you know it.”
She did not reply. He headed to exit the room and felt this nauseatingly hollow feeling within the pit of his stomach. Similar to the feeling he got when he was told that his mother had died. The pestering feeling impelled him to stop, look back at her. Her face was so serene; it was as if the seventy-five year old woman was floating on air. Mama Willie gave him a sweet smile then said, “I love you my boy. And if I’ve never said it, I’ll say it now. I’m proud of the man you’ve become.” She sighed a sigh tinged with reflection and concern, “Remember my boy, be not deceived; God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
Mama Willie was a woman who was loaded with bible quotes in that rolodex of scriptures in her brain, and used them in her everyday conversations. Sometimes to add to a point she was trying to make, other times she would just spill them from her mouth out of apparently nowhere to her listener. Like the time the neighborhood head drug dealer, Big Black, as he was notoriously known in the underprivileged city where Duncan spent his childhood, propositioned him to be one of his drug couriers. Duncan, seeing that his grandmother was an aging woman who had to scrub folk’s floors for a living for a measly pay, and his mom, down trodden and aged by the harshness of her jobless life at a young age of thirty-three, decided he had to step up and be the man of the house. After all, his father had left, and they had nothing.
Everything was set. All he had to do was make the first move, accept Big Black’s proposal, and he would be taking home at least one hundred dollars a day for himself. It all flashed in his mind in bright appealing lights: He would buy his mother the Gucci bag she had been eyeing so fixedly at the mall. The one she had been lost in thought just staring at, while the snobbish store attendant gazed at the mother and son with her nose in the air like a witch gazing up at the horizon on her broomstick. He would buy his mom a matching dress, one of those fancy ones that the runway models were sashaying in on the runways of Paris. Of course they would have to be the size of a woman, not those scrawny size nothings those skeletons wore. He would also pay for her to get her hair done, maybe those long curly braids that she loved but couldn’t afford. Then he would take her out on the town, show her off. No doubt men would be gawking at this dynamic, fine-looking woman- he would probably have to knock one in the teeth for disrespecting his mother.
Wow, such brazen thoughts of a thirteen year old boy.
For his grandmother, he would buy a piano. She couldn’t play, but she sure loved the musical instrument. Said she always wanted to play as a girl but there was no money for lessons.
But now there would be money. And they would be happy.
“Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him,” Mama Willie had said in the midst of meditatively humming a church hymn while seasoning chicken in the kitchen, dressed in her stained checkered housedress.
That Sunday afternoon Duncan was on his way out the door, to meet up with Big Black to accept his proposition before peddling his first nickel bag. He felt Mama Willie’s stern eyes daggering at the back of his Kid ‘n Play hair cut as his hand touched the door handle.
He was frozen, scared out of his wits. Did she know what he was about to go do?
He left the house but didn’t go to see Big Black. Instead he sat on the steps in front of his poorly painted house, forming stars in the dirt with his finger, in awe of what just happened. It was as if she knew.
But no one else knew. Not even Katherine, with whom he had shared almost everything.
Something about this moment felt final, even though the dark-skinned woman was telling him that she was fine.
Duncan ran back to her bed and squeezed his way beside her just like when he was a little boy. He rested his head on Mama Willie’s shoulder and his tears were running like water.
As he was in this hospital bed, lying in his grandmother’s weak arms like that scared thirteen-year-old boy, he wondered, what did she mean by that “reap sew” statement?
That thought soon passed because being in her arms soothed him. He closed his eyes and was enjoying being a little boy, smelling the scent of baby oil on her skin. No worries. No stress. Just little Duncan in Mama Willie’s arms.
“Oh, my sweet boy,” she said as she struggled to lean her face to the side to rest on his head. “You must go. This was always your dream to own a famous, successful restaurant. You got celebrities comin’ over. You must go, please. I’m fine,” she said. But he didn’t believe that and he didn’t want to leave her side. She coerced him to go and with a heavy heart he kissed her face and departed.
That was the last time he saw her alive.
Are you okay?” the sweet-faced young lady asked him after she handed him some sort of bible addendum or pamphlet.
Duncan dismissed her with a wave of his hand, signaling that he did not want to be bothered.
“All I was doing was inviting you to church. You didn’t have to be so rude.”
“Do I look like I wanna be invited anywhere?” the man with the scruffy face, which had not been touched by a shaving instrument in weeks, barked.
His conscience kicked in when he saw the embarrassment on her saccharine face, but he was too dejected to do a thing. Duncan closed his eyes and vigorously ran his hands over his rugged face. He swore he saw his grandmother’s frown and waving finger in the darkness.
“Hey, wait. Wait a minute!” he yelled at the sweet-faced lady as she walked away, but she ignored him. He yelled after her again. The people walking their dogs nearby looked at Duncan like he was insane. Finally she stopped as he walked over to her.
“Look, I’m sorry,” he spoke.
She stared in his disheveled face and said nothing.
“Well, aren’t you gonna say anything?”
She looked flustered. Her caramel cheeks were becoming red and Duncan wondered if it was because of the embarrassment he inflicted upon her.
“You just caught me at a bad time; I didn’t mean to be so snappy,” he apologized.
“What are you so upset about?” she questioned. “If you don’t mind me asking, it’s such a beautiful day.” The young lady seemed so innocent and sweet, it was so unbelievable. He guessed she was a product of parental sheltering and brainwashing. She was so bubbly and embracing and had such a luminosity and vivacity. Her aura made him feel vibrant and burden free.
“I lost someone dear to me and I’ve just not been myself lately. It’s very hard to bounce back,” he explained.
The young woman was about a tad bit shorter than five feet six inches, she had a slender body, vibrant almond-shaped eyes and gentle facial bones, which lent way for an innocent baby face. With a childlike exuberance and that baby face, she couldn’t be older than eighteen, he thought. It wasn’t until she next spoke that he realized that he had thought wrong.
“I’m sorry,” she said apologetically. “I understand. When I lost my grandmother a year and a half ago, I was lifeless. It hurt like hell. Never felt anything like it in my whole twenty-three years on this earth. But believe me, it gets better. It does.”
“Does it really? Because it’s been six months since I’ve lost her and I still feel the pain.”
“You miss your wife, huh?” Her caramel cheeks flashed with red and he knew exactly why. It was cute.
He smiled. “My grandmother, not my wife. “I’m not married, smarty.”
Mary forced a shy smile through her humiliation and then said solemnly, “The pain never goes away. It only gets lighter and bearable. You’ll move on. I did. My grandmother was my heart. So if I could do it. So can you.”
As he relaxed around her, he introduced himself, “I’m Duncan.” He outstretched his hand for her to shake.
She shook his hand and said, “Mary.”
“The virgin Mary?” he teased.
She giggled childishly and again, her caramel cheeks flashed with red.
They went on many dates over a period of three or four months. Mary slowly managed to get him from his grouse. Her sunny outlook on the world was a deviation from his misery and her childlike purity was so true and becoming. She was so sweet that Duncan thought for sure she would see the good even in a convicted murderer. She was artless and sweet like bubblegum. And he welcomed anything that could make his mind depart from the unhappiness which plagued his life, even if for a moment.
Katherine had made herself scarce, making it clear to him that there could be nothing beyond a friendship between them. But there was something increasingly tugging at his heart, leaving the blue green eyes draped in his mind. Something he had never felt before. He wanted to get rid of it.
He went back to his restaurant, was back to playing his active part of preparing the meals and looking at his finances, which was when he learned that his accountant was robbing him blind. He even met Mary’s parents and they loved him, or maybe as Duncan thought, loved what he could offer to their daughter and them financially. Nevertheless he overlooked that.
Then a couple days before his 30th birthday party, he decided that he was going to ask Mary to marry him. He’d examined their relationship and he saw how much she got him out of his grievance. How sweet and innocent she was. There was always sunshine, birds and flowers around when she was close by. She had made him forget the reality of life, though at times he couldn’t decide if that was good or bad. He remembered his promise to his grandmother, about him settling down.
This was a good thing, he thought as the man showed him a platinum, princess cut, 1.26 karat diamond engagement ring.
“This one is very beautiful,” said the tall, lanky, effeminate sales man from behind the counter.
“What’s the price of this one?” Duncan asked.
“Ten thousand five,” the well manicured ring seller responded.
He wondered for a moment if he should invest that amount of money in a ring, but then he thought, I can afford it. With that, he purchased the ring and exited the exquisite jewelry store.
He met up with Katherine later that day at Starbucks and was going to mention the engagement plan to his best friend. He wanted to see her reaction. Would she give him her blessings or would she reaffirm the uncertainty which tugged at him? Maybe she’d pretend she didn’t care? Act tough and make-believe affairs of the heart did not affect her. She had such an impenetrable exterior to many, but Duncan knew better. He dared for her surrender.
The air was tense between them. Since that night of the kiss, weirdness flooded the air whenever they were together. Duncan wanted to eliminate that uneasiness, so this was yet another effort of his to get back his homegirl as his homegirl. Regain that closeness they’d always shared. Since his grandmother’s funeral he’d hardly seen her. She’d always kept busy with her singing gigs and her photo shoots; but now, it seemed she was even busier. It took him begging her to meet with him for Duncan to finally get a minute of her time.
She was fifteen minutes late for their planned midday meeting. He was sitting in the alfresco section of the dining area, sipping on his cappuccino, basking in the crisp, South Florida winter air, thinking about how he was going to propose to Mary, and there came Katherine sashaying to his table, a big bag over her shoulder, big sunglasses over her eyes, hair pulled effortlessly back into a ponytail, a sexy, short, blue shift dress and a pair of knee high, black leather boots. Men’s tails were wagging in excitement like hungry dogs. Women were clearly threatened by her. Always were.
“Sorry I’m late, but my photo shoot ran a little later than I expected,” she quickly said as she sat at his table without a kiss on the cheek she usually gave whenever they saw each other. In fact, no kiss on the cheek was initiated from one to the other ever since that day of the kiss on the mouth. He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. An official start to turn a new leaf in their relationship. He saw her uneasiness as she tried to cover her discomfit with a smile.
“What’s up, D? I can’t stay long; I’ve got another shoot to get to in less than an hour. There was a total mix up with my schedule. I thought the shoot wasn’t ‘til four, but they moved it up to one.”
“You gon’ order somethin’?” he asked.
“Nah. I just came to tell you that I couldn’t stay. I didn’t want to say it on the phone; I know how much you wanted to meet up.”
He sat calmly, chewing his inner lips, causing him to taste blood. He drank his beverage and watched as she pretended to be pre-occupied with whatever it was she was looking for in her pocket book. Duncan tried not to show he was upset. Instead he asked, “What are you shooting?” This was his attempt to become a part of her world again.
“I’m modeling swimwear for a well known designer line. Good money,” she replied as she raised her glasses and checked her face in her makeup mirror. “I don’t look tired, do I? I feel tired.”
He ignored her question. “You are coming to the party later? Don’t you dare tell me no. I never see you anymore.”
Seeing that he looked aggravated, Katherine replied, “Yes. I’ll be there before the clock strikes twelve and it’s officially your birthday. Now I’ve got to run. I’ll see you later.” She spoke hurriedly and he knew it was all a pretense. She walked away, again without a kiss on his cheek. He watched as men ogled in obvious attraction to her. Duncan scowled at one. Back off!
One man saw that Duncan had seen him and was immediately intimidated by his brutal glares and even more vicious tone, “How you know she’s not my woman, bro? Have you no damn respect?” Duncan pushed up the sleeves of his white cotton shirt slightly higher than his elbows, threw down his napkin and stood. The man looked as if he was about to shit his pants when he saw Duncan’s broad-shouldered, 6’2” frame and appeared to be heading in his direction. Duncan said nothing further. He left the café.
“What the hell was that earlier?” the best man asked when he came to meet Duncan at the bar. Both men were resting their hands on the bar counter while their backs faced the festivities of the wedding reception.
Duncan didn’t answer; he just shook his head as if he was confused.
“Brotha you are crazy! You had all this time to make this great decision that’s gonna impact the rest of your life and you wait until your wedding day to be havin’ your doubts. What happened to our talk this morning before the wedding? You said you were willing to burry your feelings for Kat because you knew that-” Raheem signaled to the waiter behind the bar to cut off serving Duncan anymore drinks. The waiter hesitantly stopped. Glancing around the room, Raheem checked to see if anyone was close by because he did not want to risk anyone hearing the conversation that he was having with his friend. “-Mary loved you. Personally I thought you were crazy to think that you could cover the feelings you have for her, but I said, more power to you man if you can make that happen.”
Duncan had his face buried in his hands. He was in a great befuddled state, and his buddy since childhood was standing here lecturing to him. The groom looked at the best man with hazy eyes and shook his head. “You and Joanna make the perfect couple,” Duncan chuckled.
“That’s because we keeps it real brotha.”
“No. Because ya’ll can talk the crap out o’ anybody.”
“You just don’t wanna face reality. What are you gonna do?”
Removing his hands from the counter, Duncan stood up straight, his head buzzing from the champagne he recently drank as if they were glasses of water. “I am facing reality Raheem.” He turned to see his wife on the dance floor, dancing to some sweet sentimental song about daddy’s little girl all grown up. “My reality is over there dancing with her father.” He beckoned the waiter to bring him another glass of champagne.
The confused waiter did as he was ordered.
“I will forget about Katherine. She has turned her back on me Heem. How often do I see her?” He did a mental calculation, knitting his brows in anger as he recalled how distant she had now been to him. Cursing himself for missing her the way he did. “Like once every month? Phone calls like once every month and a half?” He took a big gulp of his drink, then added with painted on conviction, “Now this lady, my-” he gulped at his next word and felt as if he was on the verge having a panic attack, “-wife. This lady is always there for me. She is perfect Raheem, sweet as cotton candy. And I know my grandmother, God rest her soul, she would have been pleased to see this. She is a good girl Raheem. Christian. Oh, she would have been so proud.”
He stuck his chest out, as if he was sucking in air, perhaps to feed his mind the oxygen it needed to form such brightly painted sentences to persuade Raheem that marrying Mary Drumbar was the right thing for him. But Duncan sounded as if he was trying to convince his own self rather than his best man.He patted Raheem firmly on his shoulder, “Who so findeth a wife, findeth a good thing, brotha.”
That was what the pastor said earlier and this was what the new husband was feeding himself with. This is a good thing.
With a stupor, Raheem stood looking at Duncan, an unbelieving smirk on his face. He almost wanted to laugh at the unpersuasive speech that his friend was giving.
Mary’s eyes caught her husband’s stare before she commenced walking over to where he was. The song about daddy’s little girl was done and had been replaced with a Luther Vandross song.
“Now, please. Enough of this convo. She is heading over here,” he muttered to Raheem.
The best man dusted off his black suit, as if he was trying to dust off the very warped illusion that was hovering in the air, turned around and replaced his unbelieving smirk with a pleased and welcoming smile to Duncan’s bride.
“What are you boys up to?” asked the soft spoken lady as she slipped her arms around her husband’s waist.
“Nothing much. Your hubby here was telling me how happy he was,” Raheem exaggerated as he kissed the bride on her cheek. “I’ll leave you two newlyweds alone. Have to call my lovely lady and see where she is.” He walked away.
Duncan wanted to slap him for his fake ass exaggeration. Your hubby here was telling me how happy he was. He heard the irony laced in Raheem’s heavy voice. It resounded like a voice inside a cave, making Duncan think, was I happy? Exactly what Raheem intended to do. Mother fucker!
Duncan downed his eighth glass of champagne as his wife stood with her arms around him. He had a nice buzz. Not inebriated to the point of keeling over and laughing at every damn thing, but tipsy enough to be relaxed and damn aroused. He pulled Mary close to him and kissed her hard, resting his hand on her bare chest close to her breasts, ruffling the expensive designer sleeveless wedding dress. “I can’t wait to get you out of this damn thing,” he whispered seductively into her ear. Duncan was talking dirty to Mary, which was something he never did with her. She seemed so innocent, and furthermore she once told him that filthy talking was of the devil and that he must not do it. But they were now married and sex was now ‘legal’ in the eyes of the Lord, he thought. She would not protest.
“Look a here, look a here. Look at the hot blooded newlyweds,” spoke the sandpaper voice of Uncle Ray Ray as he came bopping over to the bar, looking like an older and slower version of George Jefferson, “Ya’ll gonna be at the best part in a short while from now. I remember when Pearline and I got married. God rest her gold diggin’ soul,” Uncle Ray Ray reflected before bursting out a hearty inebriated laugh and ordering a glass of wine, “Ya’ll ain’t got no hard liquor? Ya’ll some dull ass mo fo’s.”
Duncan looked at his grand uncle and shook his head; he knew he shouldn’t have brought this old drunkard to the wedding. The crazy eighty-three year old man, Duncan’s only living family member at this time, was always thirsty for liquor, which he sure as hell could not handle. Once the fermented tingle of a taste of whiskey hit his tonsils, his mouth was set on a motored spring and his actions became bolder, like flashing neon lights. Caretakers, who Duncan had employed to care for his uncle, one by one left due to Uncle Ray Ray’s antics. The last caretaker, Patsy, had resigned because she had enough of the old man’s constant impudent advances towards her. Her replacement, Ilene, would start working tomorrow, which meant that Duncan had to babysit tonight before passing him off to Joanna and Raheem for the night, before fetching him tomorrow.
“Uncle Ray Ray you don’t need no more of that,” Duncan reproved as he rushed over to the bar to prevent the waiter from handing the wine to the old man.
“What ya takin’ ‘bout young man? Let an old man enjoy a drink, it’s the only thing I have left,” protested the five feet three coffee skinned man, with the salt and pepper hair.
Duncan glanced around, his head a little bit dizzy. He met Marion’s brutal gaze as she sat hobnobbing with a few writers of two local magazines, struggling to maintain her artificial smile.
“Listen to me old man, you ain’t gonna embarrass me,” Duncan whispered in an angry tone.