Chardonnay: A Novel (31 page)

“Listen to me—you know it’s true! The first time I met you, you
were with Myron when he came to visit me in France. Don’t tell me you’ve
forgotten our night on the town rendezvous near the yacht. It—it happened so
damn fast, and you wonder why you’re in love with me?”

It was as if time stopped.

“And when you left my loft that night after we had ran off to be
married in the Hamptons, you told me you wanted to come clean with Myron.”

“
Married?!
I—I”

“Yes. You died that night...in that horrible ram shack they did
finding you and him. You were knocked unconscious, Chardonnay and when you came
back to reality not knowing fully and effectively your life’s events in the
past year, you couldn’t-even-remember-me.” the words hung in his tone like the
cry of a hungry child.

“Your family—my father banned me from seeing you...now you
understand why I couldn’t tell you who I was.”

The room circled around me. Slim was not my foul infidelity on
Myron—it was Jase.

“Then why was Slim and I—”

“Slim was crazy about you—but he just got tangled up in your
memory.
Bits and pieces that only came back to you.
You know, I fought with myself every day asking, why can’t she remember
me
?
Then I realized it was best if I stayed my distance—wrote you off as dead...you’re
not the first girl to do so anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was married to another woman and lost her in a car crash. When
I lost you I dealt with it like I dealt with that.” I looked at him as he
talked. He pulled me full frontal to him and looked me in my eyes bold point
and touched my stomach. I gazed off apprehensively and then looked back into my
husband’s eyes. “I want to read that letter.”

28

What
Lies Ahead

“It’s
called psychogenic amnesia.”

I sat in the waiting room of the doctor’s office as my parents
spoke with a psychologist who had evaluated me after a week of a breakdown. I
was one week late of my deadline to be in New York and meet with Josh Payton. I
listened on to the doctor explain my condition. It was the first for my mother
to hear of the events that went on the night I got raped. At first she didn’t
believe it. She didn’t believe Myron could do such a thing and as far as Mr.
Kent’s dealings with drugs my mother grew silent to that disclosure.

“The cognitive parts your daughter has suffered from are
dissociative which is borne from a traumatic or stressful event. Psychological
defense mechanisms kick in bringing about the inability to recall information.”

It seemed me forgetting about that horrible night wasn’t because
of the drugs Myron made Slim give me but from my own body’s defense. I could
see my parents and the psychologist in his office. My mother sitting down
slowly in the consultation seat and my father with his head rested in his thumb
and forefinger as he stood face to face with the psychologist. My father turned
his head looking at me and a half smile caressed his trembling, sorrowful lips.
I glanced away.

 
“The second is Lacunar
Amnesia. That’s when one particular event is blocked out completely. In order
to prevent her from going into shock, Chardonnay’s mind functioning collapsed
on her.”

I was officially declared not crazy like my mother had assumed
after finding me in the backyard, balled in a fetal position at the bottom of
the Iron Gate with mud all over me. I sat up in my room for one straight week.
My bags were packed. My arrangements were made. And my life was to be set. I
picked myself up from that seat in the waiting room and walked ahead of my
parents out that psycho rehab. My mother grabbed my arm and I snatched away
from her. Albeit I could not blame her for what happened to me, I could place
her as an accessory to the crime. My father warned my mother to let me go, and
she did.

*
 
*
 
*
 
*

That night
I decided that it was time to go. It was September 10
^th
and my
flight was to be initially the 7
^th
. I pulled out my luggage and
collected some clothes and the basic necessities. I made the appropriate calls
and minor changes were made ahead of time. I contemplated going to say good-bye
to some people. I knew it would be hard to face the people, I thought were my
true friends, who had part in my injustice. The people I created a comfort zone
with, and as quick as they had appeared in my life...they disappeared. What was
validation and where could I get it? There were some I wouldn’t be able to
face. Like Konstance or Zasmyth, the closest people to me. I felt my heart drop
as I thought of the stuff we had been through that had all been good and then
the present. I couldn’t understand it. How God could change your focus of
people so quickly. How things couldn’t be taken for granted. Friendships, love,
trust. But I now knew I didn’t want it. It could all turn sour. I got in my car
as my family looked on from the yard. Jersey was crying and King was mugging
her shaking his head. I smirked at them and blew them a kiss. King caught his
and placed his hand on his forehead and Jersey...well was being Jersey stormed
into the house. She didn’t understand and my mother didn’t as well—although she
sat content with the decision.

The moment I touched down in New York—I called Micah. He was
already in the Big Apple and licking its candy coated frosting. Jase met me at
the airport as well, however not invited. I was making this trip a loner. Not
because of potential career growth but because of a change of focus. Micah
strolled closely behind me as Jase and I held light conversation about the NY.

“If you’d like I could show you guys around.” Jase offered.

As quick as my tongue wanted to slip into his mouth, I turned down
his offer. Micah cleared his throat and I
wince
my
eyes at him. Jase chuckled and licked his lips.

“I really have to get settled in—”

“And learn the city so yes she accepts your very kind offer of
showing
us
around.” said Micah cutting in.

“No I can’t.” I said.

Jase nodded his head and took my hands into his,

“So when are we going to have this sit down then?”

I knew he was speaking of our issue and my grandfather’s letter I
had yet to invade.

“What are you waiting on?” he asked as passer byers looked on at a
so-called happy couple and a sassy man third wheeling in the middle of Times
Square.

“When I feel content.”

He touched my face and said, “So you know you’re still my wife.”

Micah was having a roll of the eye fest and his huffs were overly
acted out. I looked up smiling at him. Jase was my misconception of Slim. The
funny thing was Slim being put in my visionary...I couldn’t down play that
there were no feelings for him romantically.

Jase, Micah and I crossed the street and headed over to a cab
waiting for passengers on the corner.

“I’ll be by later—I have
work
to do.”

Micah and I got inside and Jase closed the door safely behind us.
In the cab Micah tisked the whole way to the loft my daddy secretly bought for
me without my mother’s consent. If it was up to her I would have lived in a
cardboard box in the middle of Times Square. We got my things settled and Micah
gave one last tisked as he pulled the bottle of wine out his suite case he
brought along.

“Okay—damn what is it!” I said laughing.

He sighed and looked over at me while drinking straight from the
bottle. I gave him a side glanced look and he said,

“What! No need in dirtying dishes.”

“But what about me.”

“Honey chile you already drunk off something for letting that
handsome, sexy, candy apple bottom, luscious lips, drop dead pool of eyes,
 
fine as the wine I’m drinking now, man go
like dat!”

I laughed so hard I peed.

“Little do you know I have that man chained to me more than I’d
like to
think.
Thanks for the laugh anyway.” I said as
I went to change out my wet for nothing panties. Then I thought I hadn’t
laughed like that in years. For twenty-one-years-old, that was sad. I dug into
my duffel bag that sat on a lounge chair, the only piece of furniture I had,
near my lofty window, and a picture fell out of the photo album I had brought
along with me. It was Myron and I when we were about nine and ten-years-old. My
hair was in two long twisted, bushy pig tails and I had on a red and white
polka-dot, ruffled skirt outfit, smiling with my hip out to my right and my
hand, with chipped red nail polish, posted on it. Myron had a box cut with a
duck tail hair style and the widest smile, showing his gap that was now
non-existant thanks to braces he had gotten the following year, and he flossed
in a Karl Kani purple and black short outfit with his arms hovered over my
shoulders and folded across my chest. I smiled a little at the memory even
though I wasn’t quite sure what we were doing together on that particular day.

Just that it was a sunny summer day in 1994 and we were kicking it
in my parents’ massive backyard. I pulled a cotton red pair of Victoria’s
secret PINK panties out of the duffel bag and sat the picture down while I
tried to shake off the oncoming ripples of emotions. I couldn’t shake it. This
was all new to me. Being in a new large scary city with only Micah, not that I
didn’t feel safe with him, but I was used to having best friends around
and...Myron. And then the tears came. I sat in the middle of my large bedroom
floor finally letting it all out in my fresh panties and nothing else on. Micah
stood in the doorway with a somber look on his face and no clue what to do. I
didn’t think I’d be this sick. Not physically, but my heart. Micah walked over
slowly and kneeled down.

“Chardonnay, I know what you’ve been through in the past six
months has taken its toll on you and your at a point in life where you don’t
know what to do, but gettin’ naked for a gay dude who wouldn’t know the first
thing to do with you is not a start.” he said pulling me in his arms. I laughed
so hard my sad tears turned into happy ones.

“Oh, you don’t know how much you’re saving me now.” I said wiping
my eyes. He just smiled and took his blazer jacket off, placing it over my shoulders.

“Well, you want to talk about it?” he asked while he rocked me.

I shook my head no.

29

Love
Lost/Purpose Found

My first
night in New York was strange. It may have been the change of cities or the
fact that no one I could call on was around or reliable. Micah left and went on
to his hotel room. We were to be up that next morning to meet with a
photographer and Josh Payton. It would be my second photo shoot, and while I
was excited at the particular time in my life, I was so gone. I walked over to
my terrace and stared at the lux orange and purple sky with seldom stars and a
translucent full moon. Had I known my life would have took this journey I
believed I still would have took it, because I would have never been who I was
had I not gone through the fire. I was learning and that had made me strong be
it being a pin up doll for some guy or taking the high road to freedom anyway I
could. I soaked in a long bath of Juicy Couture Caviar Bath Soak and hummed
along to Cassie’s new CD. I stepped out and dried my body with a plush Polo
towel and draped my sea green cashmere night gown over my fresh skin. I poured
wine for myself for the very first time in my very own shit. I had never been
this grown. When in still moments like this as I sipped my wine, I wondered why
I decided to run off to marry Jase and why Myron hadn’t said a word about it. I
could configure his outrage to me disclosing the hidden truths of my infidelity
and raping me. My mind’s dismissive of Jase in my memory being his death for
me.

When I woke up, my alarm clock was going off and about five people
were in my room. Micah was over me tapping my face, and the others were rushing
around the room looking for what I don’t know.

“Who are they?” I said groggy and rude.

“They are a part of your entourage I formed.
Mostly
my assistants.”

“Damn, Mike—you need four?!”

“Yeah—now get your tail end up hon! We gotta go! We’re an hour,
twenty minutes, and—and—”

“Six minutes late!” said one of his assistants named Rhonda.

“Oh well, now seven!” Karon another one yelled.

“Damn, you sure you hired assistants or nerds?” I said as I
slumped out my bed.

Yet they were damn good. They had me dressed, hair combed, make-up
crafted, nails buffed and polished, and out the door in twenty minutes. Fuck an
entourage—I needed them on the regular!

 
We pulled up to a brick
stoned building, it was actually a brownstone. It looked very professional and
had Superior Elite Models posted in the window written in silver cursive
letters. Underneath their logo of a S
,E
, and M over
lapped each other. The door was unlocked as a business door should have been,
and when I walked in...
beauty
was everywhere. From the
art, furniture, lighting, fresh fruit and flowers as center pieces, to the huge
blown up pictures of models past. Some of the girls I had actually seen in ad
campaigns myself and all of them were of colored ethnic back grounds. Josh’s
signature click clack of her heels echoed from the left of me. I turned to see
her walking with another guy who had a pony tail in his head and what seemed to
me to be clown make-up on his face. But that was his business. She smiled at us
all and introduced the man as Sean Sands, the photographer. A beautifully cocoa
brown girl with healthy, full of loose curls, shoulder length hair, dressed in
some skinny jeans, a plain white T, and some silver Jimmy Choo’s flats was
running behind them with some equipment.

She looked like another model but needless to say she was his
assistant and wasn’t introduced. I made a mental note to ask her name and later
found out it was Sanjae. Josh explained that we were going to meet everyone
first before we began and get input and direction as to where they wanted the
shoot to go. Jase arrived stylishly late to his offices of SEM in New York
City. When I walked in what they called the powder room, I glanced over at him
leaning in the door way with a smirk encrusted into his beautiful features. He
still had a limp and a cut that was healing at the top of his left, thick
eyebrow. Micah looked over as he made up my face doing what was called air
brushing to my face. It made my clear skin even and flawless than ever before.

“So I see you don’t need my crew.” Jase said referring to my
choice of using who I knew to touch my skin and adapt my hair.

“Nothing personal, I know you hire the best.”

“No offense taken. Micah is doing an outstanding job on you.”

“You know where these shots are going to be placed?” Micah tersely
asked.

Jase licked his lips at me and side tracked his eyes to Micah, “Surprise—if
they come out right. I had numerous clients on the phone, they seen Chardonnay’s
profile on the Superior Elite Models website...folks love you.”

I had fun and after seeing the raw images—I was ecstatic. Jase had
taken off during some point of the six hour long shoot and that left me
puzzled. He always stayed on sight. I gathered my belongings and bundled myself
up for the coming fall wind. New York’s nippy chill in the air somehow reminded
me of love.
New love.
I was dropped off by the limo
driver at the Estate of Jase’s home. A huge fountain sat centered in its comfy
greens and Willow tress scattered the lavish lawn. The door opened before I
could ring the bell and there stood
the momma
. Jase mother looked the
same as the last time I saw her. Overly dramatic and defined eyebrows, tasteful
mocha blush on her cheeks, and ruby red lips. She sucked her teeth and swirled
her neck at me.

 
“You are, Char-doe-nay.”

“Yes.
Nice to see you again.
May I come
in?”

I wondered if she knew I was her daughter-in-law. She let me move
past in a very confined space and walked off to where ever she pleased in the
dome home. Her echoes conveying she was of highly stature.

The driver took my bags up the narrow stairs of the house and said,

“This way ma’am.”

We reached the upper stairs and he placed my bags in a room full
of books; masterpieces of history in time. I could hear a subtle voice behind
the desk in a leather chair that was turned to the loft sized window peering
down to the front valley of the home.

“Yes Doctor Shaw...
thank
you.
Okay, good day.”
I heard Jase’s West African accent—knowing
it was him.

He turned around and stood to his feet,
glancing
a blank stare to me.

The driver excused himself and Jase walked the floors of his
study.

“Why did you leave so soon?” I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders,

“Rather dark day...don’t you think.” he said looking out the
window.

I chuckled and threw my purse in a chair to my left and walked
over to him.

“You’re having a bad day?” I said touching his face then fondling
his locks. He pulled away from me. Looking at him I could see the faint
resemblance to Myron; the structured outline of their faces and nose. And that
was it. His skin felt hot and I walked over the huge jug on his desk to get him
some water as he limped to the window leaning on it.

“I talked on the phone to my lawyer about an hour ago—one of the
reason’s I had to leave.”

“Yeah,” I said handing him the cup of water.

He sat it down and
said,
“Chardonnay, I’ve
been thinking about this for a long time.” he pulled a rolled document out his
back pocket and presented it to me.

It read the
words:

Petition of
Decree for Dissolution of Marriage

“I can’t be in this marriage alone anymore.”

“Bu—but Jase, I remember now—”

“Not everything. Not all the hard work we put into loving each
other. You don’t remember the two week coma you were in—or that you mother
banned me from seeing you the day you woke up out of it. I stopped by your
house every day to check up on you.”

“Coma?”

“Yes. You were home two weeks after it happened dead to the word
and me. You don’t know the pain I had to go through missing you like crazy.”

And I didn’t. I didn’t remember a thing.
Just
being back at school and everything going on as if nothing happened and I was
in a long sleep.

“Jase—”

“And the fact that you only remembered
 
Myron when you woke up and no trace of
me...you don’t know how bad I wanted to tell you on that
fucking
elevator.” he said with animosity and anger.

“I can’t be in love alone anymore.” he said standing from me.

“I’m
so
sorry Jase! Just don’t...don’t take away from me
what little of you I have!”

“Don’t you get
it!
If it’s meant for you
it will come back to you—
you never did come back to me.
”

I closed my eyes and breathed in his every breath as I pulled him
to me.

“I followed you everywhere you went—hoping—wishing it would click.
You don’t even remember our wedding day.”

I cupped his face in mine as he pulled
away,
I inhaled his scent of pure masculinity hoping to find some trace of our past.
Nothing.
But I knew one thing was for sure,

“I fell for you hard! Within one week—if that tells you anything.
Maybe that’s why.”

Jase couldn’t look me in my face.

“Chardonnay, it’s more than that. I knew something was up... when
I tasted your
milk,
I know a woman’s body.”

“What are you tryna say?”

“I just got off the phone with your doctor. She called my loft
home phone in KC, trying to contact you. They said that your blood test were
back. I told her I was your husband and I would pass to you the message.”

Jase clutched his head and his body shook.

“You never thought that you could lose something so pure.”

“Jase—” I cried tugging onto his clothes as their grips slipped
out my hands.

“You are having his baby.
And...
I can’t
take that.” he forced out through hard cries.

“No, I can’t—can’t be pregnant.”

“You are.” he nodded his head.

“You’ll always have a job here and a place—”

“I don’t want a fucking job here—”

“—to find me at—”

“I want YOU!”

He pulled away from me and threw the papers in the air as he
walked off with tears streaming down his face. I lay in the floor balled up
from the hung reaction my walling caused. I shook my head no as I screamed out
Jase’s name.

A life...was invested in me.