The One That Got Away (2 page)

Firing up his engine, Trey grunted. He knew Tony's demands quite well. “Guess you gonna have to go back into the gigolo business, my brother. Hook up with a girl whose daddy can hire you or somethin'.”

“Nah, that's you,” Tony said, shaking his head as Trey's truck rolled toward an exit ramp. Taking cues from his dad, Tony had often dated girls who worked at fine department stores and clothing chains—thank God for those employee discounts—but he had
earned every job he ever had and wasn't about to take a hustler's way out now.

“Don't hate on me for knowing how to pay my bills when needed,” Trey replied as he wound his truck toward ground level. Full of blond-haired, blue-eyed soul, Trey was a man with baggage, including six multiracial children by five different mothers. Even with all those mouths to feed and a half-completed college degree, though, his finances were less stressed than Tony's. “There's nothing wrong with getting more than the panties for your ways with the ladies.”

“Trey, please, just leave it alone.” Tony's breath grew short and he felt the same tingling in his chest that drove him to the doctor last month. Doc Montgomery had the nerve to place him on high blood pressure medication, and Tony had no interest in returning to him anytime soon. He needed to calm down, get Serena's dismissive words and that cold stare out of his head.

Once he'd slipped his friend cash for the parking attendant and they had merged into traffic on Wacker Drive, Trey replied to Tony's stern brush-off. “Ya know, brother, I didn't have to skip Zach's game to keep you company,” he said, reminding Tony of his second-oldest boy's baseball game.

“You're right,” Tony replied, rolling down his window. With summer still weeks away, the weather was damp and cool but with enough sun to justify a touch of a breeze. Stress had straight-up blinded him to his friend's sacrifice; Trey's absence from his son's game had certainly incurred the ever-present wrath of Janine, Zach's mama. The tension crimping his forehead forced him to drop his head. “I really appreciate you coming along, man. You could have left me to face this whole thing on my own.”

“Yeah,” Trey said, grunting again. “Why couldn't you talk Colette into coming with you, though? I know you all had some fight, but that's a regular week for you two. No make-up sex yet?”

“She lost a baby. Ours, I guess.” Tony was shocked by his own sudden candor. As his friend turned toward him with a jolt, he gazed into his own lap and pulled a toothpick from the breast pocket of his coat. “It was the ultimate wake-up call,” he said, voice
low as he chewed nervously. “She lost the kid around six weeks, I guess, just when she was about to tell me. Thing I can't figure, Trey, is she seemed more relieved by the miscarriage than I was.”

Trey's right eye twitched. “She's lying about that, T. No woman's relieved about losing a baby.”

Tony finally raised his eyes, trying to be as sensitive as he could. “I feel you, but I got her point. We'd have raised the child together if the pregnancy had been viable, man, but we knew we weren't in love. Talking about the miscarriage just made us admit it.”

Trey, intimately familiar with the bullet his friend had dodged, nodded solemnly as they pulled onto Lake Shore Drive. “Damn, Mr. Too Good almost joined the daddy club. I ain't mad at you, though. If that made you realize you didn't love the girl, best thing you can do is keep your pole out of her pool.”

“Thank you, Dr. Phil. I have advice for you, too. That girl you were rapping to just now?”

“Jade?”

“Walk away from that one, player. Trust me.”

“I think she's cute,” Trey replied, turning to glare at Tony. “Straightforward and real, too. I predict I'll be making some trips to see her in Cincy.”

Cincinnati: Serena's city. A part of Tony had rejected the Whitaker Holdings job because it was located there. The last thing he needed was to have Trey drag him along on a trip to see Jade. “Trey, I'm warning you—”

“You've been holding out on me,” Trey said, his words coming forcefully as he made a sudden lane change, incurring the wrath of a tall, round traffic officer. The sounds of the agitated officer's whistle rang out, and Trey came to a sudden stop after frowning in the sister's direction. “Jade didn't go into detail,” he continued, hands now at ten and two on the steering wheel, “but she kept making smart remarks about you and that Serena babe.”

Folding his arms, Tony looked past Trey, wishing he could strip off his suit and take a dip in the blue beckoning waters beyond. Why had he let the boy walk around unsupervised? The plan was to keep Trey with him at all times, to avoid exactly this
conversation. Only his friends from the Northwestern years knew he'd crashed a woman's wedding. None of his boys these days, most of whom were childhood friends like Trey or recent acquaintances like O.J., had the first clue Serena even existed. The Tony Gooden they knew wouldn't cross the street to win back a woman's heart; he was renowned for his ability to move on to the next pretty brown round.

“This isn't open for discussion,” Tony said, eager to shut the thread down. He'd no sooner tell most folk about Serena than he'd tell them about his birth mother, the woman who tried to give him up for adoption before his father stepped in and raised little Tony himself. A few months earlier he had finally told Trey and their boy Mitchell—who had always assumed that his first stepmom, Stephanie, was his flesh and blood—about his “second” mother, but he could only share so much at once.

The ringing of Tony's cell phone interrupted his pleas for privacy. He grabbed it from his belt, flipped it open, and nearly messed his pants when Serena's name popped up on caller ID.

The phone purring in his hand, Tony was cold with shock. Too stunned to speak, he quickly calculated the odds that this call would lead to happiness and that he'd finally get what he really wanted with Serena Height-Kincaid. Despite all she meant to him, there was no getting around two inconvenient parts of the equation. Her two precious daughters, Dawn and Sydney, who would never understand how close he came to being their father; and Jamie Kincaid himself, the man who stole her years ago with one well-aimed stream of sperm.

“Who is it?” Trey asked, clearly intrigued by his friend's indecision.

Tony settled back into his seat, flipping the phone shut. “Wrong number.”

A
s soon as Devon and Kym's limo whisked them from the reception to O'Hare Airport, where they planned to catch the first leg of their flight to Aruba, Serena sprang into action. Coolly worming her way through the muggy ballroom, which was still three-quarters full with partying guests, she locked in on her anonymous tormentor, a shapely, mahogany sister with legs you could ride from New York to L.A.

Rolling her shoulders calmly, Serena reminded herself she was a professional; a less-educated or self-assured woman might go off in this situation. As she rolled up beside her significantly taller antagonist, she caught a whiff of the woman's fumes, confirming her guess the girl was a touch tipsy. A glass of sparkling white wine pitching and lurching in her right hand, the woman stood toe-to-toe with a handsome bearded brother in a charcoal double-breasted suit. Seeing no need to wait until their flirtation was complete, Serena tapped the sister's shoulder. “Excuse me, may I speak to you for a moment?”

The woman turned, looking over her shoulder and down at Serena. Her narrow eyes were full of confusion, even disgust, that this chesty little woman had interrupted her attempt to get macked. “I'm busy.”

“It won't take but a minute.” Serena placed a hand on the brother's back, smiling pleasantly. “Nice cologne. Don't leave her, okay? I'll bring her right back.”

“It's all good,” he said, hoisting his champagne flute. “I'm gonna go refill; then I'll see you in a second, Candace.”

Candace.
Serena smiled, the brother having saved her some effort. As he made his turn toward the bar, Serena ran a hand down Candace's long, toned left arm. “Candace,” she said, knowing her smile was nearly as plastic as the one she'd flashed Tony, “I just thought you should know you were very rude earlier.”

Candace did a literal double take, a hand instinctively clamping against a hip. “What are you talking about, uh—”

“Serena,” she said, sticking out a flawlessly manicured hand. “Serena Height-Kincaid, Jamie's wife.” Serena forced the smile again. “That was my husband you were talking about earlier. You know, when you were yelling so loud everyone within a hundred feet could hear you.”

A sheepish smirk rippled Candace's lips and the hand dropped from her hip. “Aw, no . . .” The way their eyes locked, Serena could read Candace's recall of her greatest hits from an hour ago, when she began regaling her table of cackling, crooked-weave-wearing hens with tales of her romantic encounters with Jamie.
That man is an Energizer bunny—he can go!
The table aflame with laughter, Candace had plowed on. After musing out loud about why any woman would marry such a “whoremonger,” she'd spun her crowd-pleaser.
Forget the ring, Jamie—just keep hittin' me with that big ole thang!

“Oh, God,” Candace said, flicking a hand over her mouth. Jamie had probably enjoyed the sister's wide, sensuous mouth, which Serena could have easily filled with her fist. “I am so sorry. Someone told me Jamie's wife was here, and I just got to reliving the past . . .” She shrugged, a goofy smile on her face. “I'm sorry? I mean, what do you want me to say?”

Her arms still crossed, Serena smiled up at Candace. “Oh, there's nothing more for you to say,” she said. “Just a suggestion, though. Next time you know you're in the company of someone
you want to gossip about, keep your voice down. I mean, what if my kids had been here and heard all that?”

“Okay, don't go getting all preachy on me now,” Candace said, her posture stiffening again. “You gonna tell me you've never talked that way about Jamie with your girlfriends? Everybody know he knocks good boots.”

Serena felt her lips flatten as she sucked her teeth. “The point is, watch what you say in public. In case you hadn't noticed, Candace, this wasn't some pajama party.”

“Whatever,” Candace replied, waving a hand dismissively. “I'm gonna go find that man. Your problem ain't with me, it's with your husband.” She looked down at Serena, judgment seeping from her eyes. “How you gonna marry a ho and act surprised when he don't change?”

Candace had her chance, and in Serena's estimation, she'd pissed all over it. Her natural athletic talents augmented by the adrenaline of humiliation, Serena lunged forward, leapt, and struck. Her slap knocked Candace's head back at a thirty-degree angle.

Turned out Candace wasn't a fighter. As Serena stood there trying to believe what she'd just done, the tall woman bent over, felt the growing welt on her cheek, and began to sob. By the time she gathered the strength to stare back at Serena through tearstained eyes, an equal number of defenders had surrounded them. The hens from Candace's table formed a ring around their fallen heroine, while Kym's bridesmaids gathered around Serena. Standing there in the middle as the two groups traded glares and pointed fingers, Serena pulled her palms to her face.
It's official, I'm losing my mind.

 

As Serena stepped from the Jacuzzi, she realized the hours since her face-off had whizzed by in a complete blur. She recalled only images. The bewildered looks and questions from her friends, as well as from Candace's gang when they saw the attack. Her own cold, monotone attempt to explain what she'd done. Jade, her
best friend in the world, dragging her into the nearest ladies' room. Jade dragging her back up to their suite at the Hyatt. Her head clearing, Serena realized Jade must have drawn her bath in the Jacuzzi. She'd probably helped her undress, too, because she didn't remember doing that, either.

As Serena finished toweling off and wrapped herself in one of the hotel's white terrycloth robes, Jade knocked on the bathroom door and immediately cracked it, peeking in. “All better?”

In the bathroom's low, soft lighting, Serena smiled weakly. “Come on in, and leave the door open, please. This steam is driving me crazy.” Then after a pause, “So am I gonna get sued, or what?”

“Well, with as many fools as there are today, you about asked for a lawsuit, didn't you?” Shaking her head, Jade crossed the floor and took a seat on the sink's marble countertop as Serena teased her own hair. After going with a short, professionally tapered natural for the past year, she had let her wavy locks grow long enough to be styled in a short, layered cut. It wasn't shampoo night, so a few more laps with the comb and she'd be done.

After Jade comforted her with the news that Candace's friends had dragged her away, blaming her behavior on too much alcohol and agreeing to call things even, Serena set her comb down and looked into her girl's brown eyes, hoping she didn't look too desperate. At work, she had an impeccable game face—she never let people see her sweat. Even though she occasionally dropped her veil with close friends, she still had a thimble of pride to protect. “I can't do it alone, Jade,” she finally said, embarrassed at the water pooling in her eyes.

Sighing and wiping a tear from her own eye, Jade scooted down the sink counter, close enough to cover one of Serena's dewy hands with her own crisp, cool ones. From the moment they'd left Cincinnati on Friday morning, Jade had been asking prying questions, her suspicion of Serena's family troubles written on her face. Jade gazed at her patiently, as if she knew her friend was finally ready to get real. “Well, well. Serena Kincaid admits to a weakness, fancy that. Stop bottling everything up, girl. Just speak.”

“You might have guessed this isn't about Jamie's inability to keep his dick to himself,” Serena said, her eyes on the counter.

She didn't need to elaborate on that point. Kym and Jade had introduced Serena to Jamie back in their college days, when he was the biggest basketball star Northwestern had seen in decades. The night he first approached Serena at a house party, respectfully asking for a dance just hours after Tony began sawing into her heart by breaking their third date in a row, she figured he was right on time. A tall, handsome, and courteous star athlete seemed just what the doctor ordered.

Unfortunately, Jamie had always been the order of numerous other females, too, a fact she'd tolerated as his lover, baby's mama, and spouse. He had a demanding appetite for women, one that required feeding during his short stint in the bowels of the NBA, where he'd spent half his time on the road, and even once he returned home after being released by the Cleveland Cavaliers. Although Jamie was discreet about his business, Serena had been both disappointed and relieved when he decided to go play ball in Italy for an international league. Disappointed to have her husband and kids' father gone for six months of every year, but relieved that an ocean now separated her from his various mistresses.

“I know it's not about Jamie's wandering ways—we've had those conversations,” Jade said, bringing her back. “So what is it?”

“I need to find my husband a real job,” Serena replied, meeting Jade's concerned stare. “It's the only way to get him back home year-round.” Getting Jamie away from European ball wouldn't be easy, though. The two years he'd spent working conventional jobs had been a tragicomedy. A job selling cars revealed that, while bright and charming, Jamie was too proud to do the ass-kissing necessary to close most sales. A stint using his chemistry degree at a pharmaceutical firm ended when his affair with the company's only black vice president got both him and her fired. There had been other short-lived attempts: a substitute teaching gig he quit when a female student became infatuated and started calling the house every night; a coaching job he quit after
discovering today's kids had no motivation; and a maddening month trying to become a financial advisor. In the end nothing made him happy, and in all cases his income was lower than Serena's, a humiliation his pride could only abide from overseas.

Jade interrupted Serena's litany of Jamie's professional failures, abruptly getting her on track. “
Why
do you need him home full-time again? You've managed pretty well all these years.”

“Well, when your home turns into a war zone, you need a general to help restore order.”

“A war zone? Come on, Dawn can't possibly be that bad.”

Jade's immediate assumption that Dawn, Serena's fourteen-year-old, was the problem hurt only because Jade was exactly right. After Dawn's freshman year at a magnet school, Serena had pulled the child out, if only out of respect for the other kids on the school's waiting list. Dawn, for her part, had been too busy skipping class or falling asleep in it to appreciate her teachers' efforts. “She's getting worse,” Serena said, tracing an absentminded pattern into the marble counter. “She treats Sydney like they aren't even sisters.”

“What did she do now?”

Tears welling up in her eyes, Serena recounted the mean-spirited prank Dawn pulled recently on ten-year-old Sydney. Not only had she sneaked into her little sister's bedroom when the child was changing clothes, she'd snapped embarrassing photos of her sister's naked behind and passed them around to kids in the neighborhood, several of whom attended Sydney's school. As a parent and as treasurer of Cincinnati Public Schools, Serena had been horrified by her own child's actions.

“She tried to say it was payback for Sydney telling on her for talking on the phone to certain boys whose calls I'd forbidden,” Serena told Jade, shaking her head. “But there's more to it. I swear, it's like Dawn wants everyone else to be as miserable as she is.”

Jade peered at her friend sympathetically. “Does any of this have to do with Brady?” Brady—Serena's high school sweetheart, first lover, and Dawn's father—had been a ruggedly handsome son of army officers who'd enrolled in the corps straight out of high
school. In the two years that passed between Dawn's birth and Brady's death by friendly fire in the first Gulf War, he'd been a devoted father and a faithful provider of child support. He was a good man, but at seventeen Serena hadn't been ready to be his wife, or anyone else's, for that matter.

“I know she's struggling with Brady's memory,” Serena replied. As she came of age in a time rocked by the current Iraq War, Dawn was constantly reminded of the “prequel” war that took her father's life. “I can't imagine what it's like for her, but that's still no excuse for her to neglect school or treat her sister like an enemy.”

Jade leaned forward, her hands gripping the countertop. “I'm not trying to excuse Dawn, Serena, but you know society's also to blame for her behavior. She's trying to cut Sydney down to size.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Serena, let's not play blind.” Jade was standing now, his intense gaze softened around the edges, a compensation for the frankness in her tone. “Both your girls are beautiful, Serena, but if Dawn looks like a young Angela Bassett, Sydney's a miniature Halle Berry.”

Jade's polarizing imagery sent a bristling wave up Serena's back. “And?” She absolutely hated when people tried to divide black folk by focusing on complexion or hair texture. For years, Serena had experimented with ways to camouflage her own Halle-type looks to avoid being painted into the “red bone” or “too light to be right” box. At various points she'd sheared her head bald, visited tanning booths, or wore lipsticks that enhanced the fullness of her “soup-coolers.” Anything to hide the relatively recent European strains (French on her father's side, Irish on her mother's) running through her.