War (40 page)

“You’re living in a dream world, Jasmine! You are
not
an excellent mother! Motherhood, being a wife, is a business for you. And when we don’t fit into your business plan any longer, you dismiss us. You check out. I’m starting to think the reason why Jacob didn’t want you was because he was tired of living under your thumb!”

“Don’t you dare mention Jacob to me,” she grits out. “You know nothing about Jacob and me.”

“I know he married another woman while he was with you.” I walk closer to her. “I know that he framed you two months ago in the office of the Chief of Police. I know that he said you were obsessed and that he wanted you to leave him alone.”

She gives me a pained smile. “You’re trying to get me going, but I’m not falling for it. I don’t care what you say, I’m done with you. This is the last time you yank me around, you son-of-a-bitch. You can talk about me all you want but here’s the truth: last Christmas you kicked me out of the house and two months ago you up and sold it. You left me homeless and you know why you did that? Because you could.” She gives me a sly smile. “Your name’s on the mortgage, you pay the bills. You felt as though you had a right to make me to leave whenever you goddamn please. Because, let’s face it, if
my
name was on that mortgage and
I
paid the bills, you wouldn’t have that right. Am I right?

“So this is what I say to you, Marlon: Fuck. You. Yeah, I fucked Jacob and guess what? I’d do it again. You think you have so much power selling our house, kicking me out, taking our girls, but you no longer have power over me. I make my own money. I now have my own condo. So, go to hell. You want the girls? Take them. They can come visit me on the weekends. I’d rather give them up then than have you lord any more power over me. You fucked us up, not me.” She begins to walk
across the street.

Shit. Damn.

I can’t…damn …

I just kicked her out…damn…

I did… I did it twice. Shit…

I felt like I had that right…the power to.

Damn…

“I’m sorry, Jasmine.” She turns around and stares at me. I close my eyes and rub a hand over them. “You’re right,” I say, my voice low. “I wouldn’t have done any of that if I didn’t feel like I had the right to. I can only imagine how that made you feel… and I’m sorry.” I take a deep breath and look at her. “I just don’t want you to take it out on our girls, and I don’t want you to…I don’t want you to…to leave me.” I close my eyes and drop my head. “I lose my mind over you, Jazz. I do. My emotions, they just… they ride high, over you. I act, I don’t think. My hearts in this shit, not my head…I can’t stomach you with another man and…I lose my mind.” I open my eyes and look at her.

I love her. I just do. I love Jasmine. Yeah, she wants a fairytale life, but I do, too. Jasmine is the woman I want to give it to. The difference between the two of us is that I can go with the flow, she can’t. It’s harder for her to adjust to life, to change. But the truth is that the life she wants, I want, too. “Listen, maybe if you came to Martha’s Vineyard this week, you and I could work some things out. That is, if you’re done with Jacob.”
She continues to stare at me. “Listen, I appreciate everything you do for our family. I just…I just want you to love us for us. Not for who you want us to be. Not because you want me to be Jacob.”

“I never asked nor wanted you to be Jacob. Jacob Blair is a damn loser and that wife of his will be crying into her pillow for the rest of her life, as long as she’s married to him. He’s a seducer, a manipulator and a liar who isn’t fit to live. I don’t want a husband like Jacob.”

“Good, because I don’t want you to hate me because I’m not him. Because I can’t live up to another man’s image. I can only be me. So, if you’re looking for someone to love just…” Let it be me. That was the name of our wedding song.
Let It Be Me
. I clench my jaw to keep from crying. We look at each other for a moment, her face hard and unforgiving. I know what’s wrong with her. She’s mad at me, she’s mad at Jacob. She’s embarrassed. She’s disappointed. She may even be confused, no matter how much she tells me she hates Jacob. But… “However you’re feeling, whatever you’re going through, if you’re unhappy with the girls and me or if you love another woman’s husband-”

“I don’t love Jacob,” she says in a stony voice.

“Then you and I can work this out.”

She says nothing. I wait there for my wife to tell me that she loves me, that she wants to be a family, wants to be a mother. She’s told me that she doesn’t love Jacob, that she doesn’t want him. Now all I need her to say is that she loves me, that she wants me.

But she doesn’t.

Instead, she turns around and
continues across the street.

God. What have I done? Why did I overreact two months ago? Why did I go that far? Why was I operating off of emotions? Damn…

This is all my fault.

MATT

              “So, do you think they’ll end up together in the end?”

              “Yep,” Rena whispers. Jasmine is just down the hall. She wraps her arm around me and lays her head on my shoulder. “Danielle called her card tonight.”

              “What did she say?” I ask.

              “That Jasmine’s a runner. That she’s an arguer but not a fighter. When it comes down to it, she’s all fumes, no fire.”

              “So is Marlon, though.”

“I don’t know, Marlon grew some balls when he moved her out of their home and then sold that bitch.”

“His ass was working on adrenaline. He had just left jail and heard that his wife was trying to fuck Jacob’s brains out while Jacob was begging her to leave him be.” Rena busts out laughing before covering her mouth. “Rena, you’re about to wake Jasmine.” I whisper.

“I’m sorry. It’s just that I would have given anything to have been there when Jacob said that,” she says.

“Marlon said that he wanted to kill himself. He said he left the jail with Jon and can barely remember what was going on in his mind, he was so pumped.”

“I’ve never seen Marlon mad, not even in college when he and Jon played ball.”

“He’s a chill ass dude. Takes a lot to rattle him. So I’m convinced that his Jacob issue is the first problem they’ve ever had since the moment he and Jasmine met.”

              “That’s why they both swear it’s over. If you ask me, Jasmine thinks she’s a perfect wife and mother but she doesn’t have a drop of pragmatism in her. To her, marriage is always about galas and The Board, society life. Kids are always about plays and holiday dress up. Her family is all about professional portraits and four course French dinners every night.”

“I’m not trying to talk about Jazz but it’s like she thinks she’s the damn Queen of Boston.”

“Exactly! That’s why her ass needed a nanny, which I’m sure she thinks of as a governess or some shit like that. You know how dramatic Jasmine’s ass is. She has no care in the world for the basic functions of being a parent: teeth-brushing, bath time. Basic shit that all mothers do. So, of course the kids didn’t miss her when she was gone.”

“All of their needs were taken care of by Marlon and Gertrude,” I say though I hate to admit it. I love Jasmine, but she’s not the best mother in the world. Everyone knows that.

“Yep. So Jasmine’s all hot and bothered over that, like they all should see how instrumental she is in the survival of their family.”

“Marlon could handle the girls and Gertrude without Jasmine, but you didn’t hear that from me.”

“Oh, of course he could,” Rena agrees.

“He just doesn’t want to. He’s in love with the girl. Keeps saying how he can’t believe she could just leave for two months without even a call.”

“Oh, well that’s simple. Jasmine has only had two men in her entire life. I mean, let’s keep it real, she was with Jacob since she was a kid, until he left her in her twenties. He was her first love. The first major issue they had was when he married another woman. Then she and Jacob were over. So, the first issue she has with Marlon, she thinks it’s over. Danny said she put pedal to the metal. She wrote the cookbook, took the photos for it, got her site up and running, signed her life away and is currently looking for a condo.”

              “Damn. I know Marlon is
sick
. He told me a few days ago that he was regretting moving out and selling the town house.”

              “Ya think?”

              “He’s convinced Jasmine is the coldest woman he’s ever met. Said she hasn’t even called the girls, just sent postcards.”

              “Duh! You think she’s going to call the girls and admit to them that she isn’t perfect? That something is wrong? If Jasmine is about anything, it’s appearances.”

“Shh…” I say. The last thing I need is a Rena and Jasmine war, being that Jasmine seems to be on a rampage. Trust me, that shit won’t end pretty at all. “But let’s keep it real, Marlon’s all about appearances too.”

“Wonder what’s going to happen with The Board. How in the world are they still going to pretend like they’re leading black figures in Boston’s community?”

“Come on, Rena. This is Marlon and Jasmine. They’ll find a way.”

“True. But I still think that she’s having a minor breakdown. Jacob put
all
her shit out there. I’m sure she still wants to die. But instead she’s playing tough. I’m not buying it.”

              “Speaking of Jake, he called me tonight, said that Winnie may be joining him and the kids on the trip.”

              “Surprise, surprise. Is there any doubt that those two won’t work it out?”

“None.”

“Now, who we
will
have to worry about is Miss Marla and her beloved, Jon.”

“What do you mean?”

“Which one of you told Jon that she was at Danny’s place.” She looks up at me.

“Wasn’t me. I was at my parents’ place with the boys. I came in about fifteen minutes before you.”

              “Well, Marlon told Jon that Marla was over Danny’s house. Jon pops up, tells Marla that he’s adopting Seth’s son-”

              “Whoa! So he decided to do it?”

              “Yeah, you didn’t know?”

              “When he, Marlon and I had drinks yesterday, he was still on the fence. Kept talking about his parents being too old to take care of the baby and how everything would fall on him. Then he mentioned how he wishes Marla was around to help him.”

              “Well, he came to Danny’s place and basically asked Marla to help him.”

              “Hell nah!”

              “Yep.”

“After two months of not calling her because ‘she overstepped her boundaries when she left me for an issue Danny and I had. No loyalty towards me.’ I wasn’t supposed to tell you that. Don’t repeat it.”

              “No shit, Matt. Anyway, he came and asked her to go to LA with him.”

              “And is she going?”

              “Looks like it.”

              “So, what’s the problem?”

              “Marla’s been admiring a new guy.”

              “Oh shit! Who?”

              “Her boss.”

              “White guy?”

              “Black. Bryan Lexington.”

              “Hell nah! Bryan?”

              “You know him?”

              “I play ball with the man! Professor or some shit. Runs that gallery. Wife left him, begging to come back now. Silver-spooner. Loaded.”

              “And he plays ball in Roxbury?”

              “Yeah, he’s cool as hell.”

              “Well Marla gets all giggly over ‘Mr. Lexington’.”

              “Oh, that shit’s liable to get
real
ugly,
real
quick.”

              “Told you.”

              “Here we go.”

              Rena laughs and I pull her completely on top of me. If I know anything, it’s this: thank God that I’m married to Rena and
nobody
else.

              “So, do you like it here?” she asks me.

              “In the loft?”

              “Yeah.”

              “Honestly? I do.”

              “Yeah, I kinda like heading to a dive and then being able to drive away without worrying that my house is looted when I get home.”

              “Come on Rena, it’s not that bad in The Rox.”

              “Nah, it’s not. But it’s not so bad here, either.” She kisses my cheek as she wraps her arm tighter around me.