Over. (This. Is. Not. Over. #2) (34 page)

             
“This shit is irritating.” He says as he walks away from me, dragging Marla by the hand behind him.

             
I wonder if Jon and I will ever be anything more than tolerable of each other.

             
I look around the ballroom and I have to admit that my mother and Red organized this all pretty good. The scene is moody and dark, just like Red wanted.
… I just may need night vision goggles
, I heard Jasmine say to Marlon as he waltzed her past me. That’s another one who will never like me. Jasmine. I wouldn’t put it past her and Jon to be planning my murder. I should be keeping an eye on those two.

Every heavy hitter in the nation is here right now. King Wynston and Queen Angie are giving royal waves as we speak.
Jacob’s mother is looking at my mother and then turning to whisper into my uncle’s ear. He’s giving her a
‘yes dear, I know, I’ve heard this all before’
look. Jax and Elise are networking with a crowd they wouldn’t normally find themselves in and from what I hear Jax has picked up a few clients. The crew is mingling, dispersed in the crowd, probably smiling wide, linking arms and acting united. As they should be. Well, that is everyone besides Jacob and Winnie but that’s another story. I see that Rena and Matt are at the bar, laughing with each other, clinking their scotch glasses together. Nicky’s with Ralphie and Evan flipping on the dance floor. But the question is, where is Red?

             
“Looking for me?” And here she is. I turn and see my wife standing there, leaning her head back to look me in the face, a sly ass grin on her face. Did you notice that I said
my wife
? Yeah, I’ll be one of those people who use
wife
and
husband
instead of given names. I’ll even say that to people who have known us for years, like our parents. Listen, I’m excited here. I married the girl from St. Bernadette’s library. The one who put her earphones in her ears when I was talking too loud. The one who stood up to leave because she couldn’t study in peace. The one that I watched walk away while I was sitting with Fern. (By the way, Fern and her family are here too. She made eye contact and then winked, I winked back and then Red gave me ‘the eye’.
I think you know what I’m capable of.
)

             
“You’re up to something.” I say to her as I pull her to me, ease her body against mine and then lean down to kiss her. She, Winnie and Jacob’s sisters have been snickering amongst each other all night. I’m pretty sure it’s over the fact that both Jacob and his new arch enemy Demetrius Westlake is here. It’s a long story about those two; trust me you don’t want to hear it.

             
“Am not.” She says against my lips. We do a slow dance to the band playing Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, the jazz girl sounding a lot like Ella Fitzgerald.

He's a fool and don't I know it
But a fool can have his charms
I'm in love and don't I show it
Like a babe in arms

             
“She can sing.” I say to Red before leaning over to kiss her on her neck.

             
“She can.”

             
The wedding was small. Just my crew, Red’s crew, minus Jon, our parents, grandparents, Jasmine’s parents, Jacob and Nat’s families, a few aunts and uncles and cousins, Nicky’s godparents, Rossi, Eva and that was it. We wanted it small and intimate and private so we held it in the office of Danielle’s priest, Father Harper. As a reminder, he’s the one who saw the naked pictures of Danielle and me. Those pictures still make me laugh.

             
“Damn, I love you Red.”

             
“You’ve made that quite clear.” She says as she looks up at me through her lashes. A decade of cherry blossoms and birthday cards. A year of fights, lovemaking, cross-country chases, and document forgery. She’s burned down my house, tried to kill my ex-girlfriend, kicked me out a bar and was toasting with a man who I had just fought on the streets of New York. And still, here I am, twirling her ass around on this damn dance floor. If my love for Red isn’t clear by now, it never will be.

I've sinned a lot, I'm mean a lot
But I'm like sweet seventeen a lot
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered - am I

There was candle light only
in Father Harper’s office; the only music was the sound of St. Michael’s steeple bells chiming in the distance for the fifteen minutes it took to officiate the nuptials. Nicky was the only other person in our wedding party, he was my best man. He had on a mini tux and everything, he looked so funny. It was perfect. The reception was the grand affair that my mother wanted it to be. There are hundreds of people packed in here, all wanting a picture with Red and me so show the media.
See, they invited me, look at the picture, there I am.

I’ve won over Red’s family with my ability to speak French (though Red’s still teaching me Creole French). I never knew this but French is all the Rouges and Herberts speak when they’re together. (Herbert, pronounced Ur-Bear, is Red’s maternal family line.) Needless to say, Jon’s been having a rough time with them all night as they’ve been speaking with me in a language that he doesn’t understand. I can’t believe that he had been with Danielle since she was seventeen and had never attempted to learn the preferred language of her family. The Rouges and Herberts are close and have joint gatherings every April in Baton Rouge, how in the hell did Jon survive his weekend visits there? They’re a lively bunch; ranging in color from cocoa brown to lighter than me. Half of them have red hair, the others have sandy brown or black hair. Some of their eyes look like Red’s, just a shade lighter than the average brown. Some of them have green eyes, some have hazel, the others have dark brown and a few of them have grey and blue. All the white conservatives here can’t take their eyes off of them, can’t believe they all look so different. They can’t believe that they’re all varying shades of brown.

Oh and I’ve also been told the legend of
Gramps, the Bullshitter and the Poker Tournament
. For the life of me, I still can’t understand what that had to do with me last Christmas. I have to make a mental note to ask Red about that later.

My family, the Blairs and the Saxons (my mother’s side of the family) are hands down in love with Red. She’s impressed them with her knowledge of Danish history, Viking conquests and hygee, a term that normally only a true Dane would be able to understand and live by. But Red, a black woman, gets it. Needless to say, she’s charmed them.

But through it all the main attraction tonight is Red. She’s the very reason we’re all here right now. For the sake of not ‘pulling a Cadence’ (which is what we all call each other now, when we’re acting like suckers for love) I’ll just sum up what I feel for Red in one word. Inexplicable.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look as beautiful as she does right now.
The women were right; all of Vera Wang’s wedding dresses have human names. Red’s is called
Joelle
. I know this because it’s all my mother has been talking about for the past two days.
The dress is named Joelle. But you better not go online looking for her!
She kept warning me. Then why tell me the damn name? From what I heard, it wasn’t white. It was black. Appropriate enough for a woman who’s marrying a Blair. To see her in it now, I’m glad I resisted the temptation of investigating Joelle. It felt more gratifying to see Red in it, walking towards me, knowing that she’d stop right in front of me. Mine.

             
“Red Rouge-Blair.” I say as I spin her around.

             
“Really Malcolm?” I laugh, reach up and tighten her arms around my neck. “I’m not going anywhere.” She says as she looks up at me through her lashes. She does that shit on purpose. She knows I like it.

             
“Just making sure.” I wrap my arms around her waist again. And then that’s when I see
her
. Laura. She’s at the bar with her husband. He’s smiling, leaning in her ear, whispering something, but her eyes are on me. She raises her glass of water to me and gives me a nod.
Congratulations
. I nod back to her and then cut my eyes to Red again.

             
Laura and I have never mentioned the diary. I have it in my possession, locked in a safe in my office. We’ve also never mentioned the picture.

The picture. It was taken years ago, when Jacob was seeing both Winnie and Jasmine full time, wi
thout either of them knowing. The picture was innocent, in a way. You have to remember, Jacob was twenty-four and Jasmine was twenty-two when it was taken. So it was also extremely childish. It was taken when Jacob was in his third year of law school. He was sitting in a chair at his desk, Jasmine was straddling him. They took the picture for fun and since Jacob was holding the camera, the only thing visible was them from the waist, up. But that was enough. Jacob was making one of those ‘gritty’ faces, eyes squinted, mean mugging the camera. Jasmine was making one of those innocent faces; a hand on her cheek, her eyes in the air, her mouth open. Their faces weren’t the problem. There were three problems:

First: Jasmine’s breasts were completely bare,
her nipples exposed.

Secondly: they each had a hand raised to the camera with a post-it note attached to them. Jasmine’s read:
White boys rock.
Jacob’s read:
Black girls rule.
(Those are the silly things you do when you’re still in school and have no concept of real-world consequences. Oh god,
silly
. Rossi’s rubbing off on me.)

The third problem
was the date in the bottom left hand corner of the picture. The picture was taken on February 13
th
; Jacob was married to Winnie on March 22
nd
.

That picture would have posed a shit load of problems, particularly for Jasmine and the media
. Jasmine, the epitome of chasteness, would have been humiliated had a naked picture of her been released. She would have been even more humiliated by her
White boys rock
post it note as she is married to a black man. Second, it would have proven that Jasmine was fooling around on Marlon, a man who would eventually become her husband. (And trust me, the media would have confirmed, in some way or another, that those two were indeed dating at the time of the picture.) Third, Winnie and Jacob had been engaged for at least six months before that picture was taken. The date would have proven that Jacob was cheating on Winnie while they were engaged. Guess what that made Jasmine.

His mistress.

When I saw the picture, I remembered why Jasmine hates all things Blair. It’s not just that she and Jacob didn’t work out. Valentine’s Day weekend, which was the weekend that picture was taken, Jacob lied to her and said that he was pulling out of the engagement and then this muthafucka had me cosign for his ass:

“Don’t lie to me Malcolm.” Jasmine said to me while we rode back from the airport together. I can remember it clear as day, it was a Friday morning and she had just come in town. I picked her up from the airport because Jacob had a class. “Is he really pulling out of this
forced
marriage?” She sounded appalled at the archaic practice of arranged marriages.

“Of course he is.” I said, just the way Jacob
taught me.

“Are you lying?” She cast a wary eye on me.

“Come on Jasmine, am I a liar?”

I was lying. Jacob and I both lied to her. She’s hated us ever since. She’s also never trusted us ever since. Red told me that Jasmine said:
I wonder what Laura would say about this. I’m sure her story would be different.
Jasmine was speaking from the heart. She was speaking from experience. I can’t fault her for not believing in me. I can’t fault her for trying to spare Red the heartache that she went through.

Now, would the release of this picture
have been a deal-breaker for Winnie and Jacob? No. For Jasmine and Marlon? No. Humiliating for Jasmine? Yes. Embarrassing for Winnie? Yes. Did Jasmine want that picture to come out? Hell no. Did Jacob and Winnie want that picture to come out? Absolutely not. The deal breaker for Winnie was hearing that Jacob might still be in love with Jasmine, not the fact that he cheated on her. When it comes down to it, most people are worried about appearances. Laura knew this and she capitalized on it.

According to Laura’s diary, on December 3
rd
, Laura came to my office to ‘talk some sense into me’. She found me in Jacob’s office alone, searching for some files he accidentally left behind after leaving work. She tried to argue with me, I ignored her and made the fatal mistake of turning my back on her. She happened to glance down on Jacob’s desk and noticed the picture of him and Jasmine. (Obviously, he had just been looking at it before he left work and didn’t think to put it away.) She took it and, well, we know what happened after that.

I remember that night clearly because Jacob texted me about heading to Piranha’s. When I showed up, Red and Jon were there together. Do you remember?