What He's Been Missing

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Authors: Grace Octavia

BOOK: What He's Been Missing
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Also by Grace Octavia
 
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(with Cydney Rax and Niobia Bryant)
WHAT HE'S BEEN MISSING
GRACE OCTAVIA
Kensington Publishing Corp.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
For those who wait patiently and are ready for love.
And for Tony for reminding me that I could feel that way.
Acknowledgements
When I am writing, I often wish I could make the entire world stand still as I run off to a bunker (coffee shop) to finish a novel. That way, I wouldn't appear aloof or distant to those around me, run late when I promised I would be on time, miss things I really wished I could attend, and pass on phone calls that are long overdue. If the world would just stop, I could put it all on hold and come back out when I am done writing, able to catch up like I'd never been gone. This, of course, is impossible. The world keeps going. My nieces get older every year. My friends have dinner parties. My students need me to stop and listen. While I can't always be there or be as attentive as I would like, I want to take this time to thank all of those people in my life for being patient with me and understanding over these last few years as I've tried to make something of my dream of being a writer. While I couldn't possibly name everyone in this short acknowledgement, please know that I appreciate you and cherish the time we do get to spend together. Writing can be a lonely art form. Its very nature requires hours of solitude. And I know that each moment spent doing it is a moment I might have spent on the phone with one of you, being on time to something that was important to you, or being fully present when you really needed me. I thank you for the sacrifice. I adore you for your support.
“I am ready for love . . .”
—India.Arie in “Ready for Love”
1
Scarlet Fever
#Epicfailure. Two hours before the conclusion of the first decade of the twenty-first century and I was holed up in my loft on the couch . . . again. This shit was getting really old. Three years in a row? And the fourth year back wasn't exactly spent dancing until my feet hurt and popping a bottle of bubbly before belting out “Happy New Year” amidst a crowd of Atlanta's swankiest cosmopolites—I'd met midnight on my knees in the second pew at Mount Moriah in Social Circle with Grammy Annie-Lou.
Looking at me now you'd think I
was
Grammy Annie-Lou. No party. No crystal flute filled to the lip with Krystal. No leprechaun-inspired, obnoxious, blinged-out top hat. Just poor little colored-girl me camped out on the living room couch watching
Love & Basketball
in my “sick and shut-in” lumberjack plaid nightgown, sipping pink Moscato and eating light-cheese flatbread pizza after taking my second dose of NyQuil.
So sad to say, I wasn't even having cold or flu symptoms. It was just my sad-sister cocktail of over-the-counter drugs. See, I was self-medicating in hopes that I might be dead asleep by the time the ball dropped in Manhattan. I didn't even want to know what it would feel like to see a new year, a new decade in the new century come to life as I was thirty-one and all alone in this wretched world. I know that might sound dramatic, but damn, something had to give.
Right then, right there on that couch, gorging on disgusting pizza and half high from a near-overdose of cold medication and sweet wine, I felt like I was having the worst New Year's night ever. And not because I wasn't out at some wack-ass, overpriced party with an undertalented DJ—I'm old enough to know that Prince's “party like it's 1999” is all an illusion once you're right there in the overstuffed crowd with your feet hurting and some dude wearing eyeliner is feeling on your booty while whispering Prince lyrics in your ear. The sad feeling was because I didn't have anyone who wanted to take me to some wack-ass, overpriced party with an undertalented DJ. No one. Not a soul with a deep voice, muscular arms, and me on his mind felt inclined to invite me out to toast the good life.
Those other years there'd been prospects at least: New Year's Eve '09 the toothless man at the gas station asked if I wanted to split a bottle of Mad Dog; New Year's Eve '08 Goldie, the gold-toothed man who delivered my pizza, asked in the most sincere voice possible if he could come upstairs to give me a “sweet-tish” (that's how he'd pronounced “Swedish”) massage; New Year's Eve '07 my dead ex-boyfriend Jaheed (he's not really dead; I just prefer to tell people that) stood me up when he, on an emotional whim, decided to go back to his ex-girlfriend and propose to her at midnight (they've since married and divorced). But this New Year's Eve—2010—was going down in history as the year that not even a dentally challenged chap or cheating jerk could stand the idea of having me on his arm.
The most devastating dismal detail of this worst New Year's night ever was that no one would've thought that was my reality. I'm Rachel Winslow. The owner, founder, CEO, and visionary behind Let's Get Married, Atlanta's most formidable, full-service luxury wedding firm. I link the likes of lovers from engagement to honeymoon, making the “most special day they only imagined in high school daydreams” come to life.
I started in the business when I was only six years old and planning the nuptials of Cabbage Patch Kids after school in the high grass in Grammy Annie-Lou's backyard in Social Circle, Georgia. And moved on up to celebrities and Atlanta's elite making romantic promises overlooking the world at the Sun Dial. Last year, a cover story on Let's Get Married in the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
said, “Winslow just has the touch of love” and noted that my client list is booked for three years (most of those people aren't even engaged yet) and I've grossed $1.25 million since opening in 2008. But I don't do what I do for money or cover-story features and accolades. I do it because I'm still that little girl who celebrated with the newlywed Cabbage Patch couple until my grandmother came out on the back porch—always in her stained peach apron with the ruffle on the bottom—and called me in for supper.
And I really, really believe in love. At first flirty smile—love. At first sexy scent—love. The first moment you see him and you just know from somewhere in your navel that you must have his babies—love. Defy your mama—love. Defy your daddy—love! And who gives a damn if neither one of them ever speaks to you again because “he” is in your life and nothing else really matters right now, does it?—love. Cherry on top—love. Hand-holding on the Ferris wheel—love. Staying in bed all day and you don't even care that your underarms smell like onions and his breath smells like onions (because he's been kissing your underarms)—love. Red roses and chocolates on February fourteen—love.
Love Jones
with Nia Long standing out in the rain crying just before Larenz Tate sweeps her up into his arms—love. Sappy—love. Yes, clichéd—love. And we don't care if it is clichéd because it's our fairy tale and it can be whatever and however we want it—love. Just—love.
All my life I dreamed I could find it. That I could have it. Be the love story I created. Escape the old myth that professionals in the wedding business are meant to plan for—but not be in—love. But the more New Year's nights I spent alone, the less I thought my dream was possible. And you know what they say: “Whoever you're with at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve is the person you'll spend the next year with.” Apparently, 2011 wanted to see me solo. Because, just as I'd planned, by midnight I was passed out in my grammy getup. No new love in sight. Not even the gold-toothed pizza man had tried me that year. Hell, I might've let him upstairs.
 
Things weren't any better New Year's Day.
At 7:00
AM
, my cell phone rang after my best friend sent a text saying I'd better pick up.
“This better be good, Ian.”
“You're coming tonight, right?” He sounded like it was 7:00
PM
and I had a clue what he was talking about. Actually, I did. While the NyQuil binge still had me a bit foggy, I knew exactly why he was calling. It was his girlfriend Scarlet's twenty-fifth birthday. 1/1/11. How could I forget? Ian had gone on babbling about it every five minutes at each of our weekly Wednesday lunch dates through December.
“What the what?” I groaned loudly to exaggerate the ache of waking, as if I'd been out all night and came staggering in with my stilettos in hand just minutes before he'd texted me. “Coming where? Why?”
“Rachel!”
“It's seven o'clock in the morn—”
“It's not like you went anywhere last night—”
“For your information, I
chose
to have a quiet evening of reflection at home.” (Lie.)
“No, you
chose
to stay in the house and sulk. Probably took a gang of NyQuil and fainted on the couch while watching
Love & Basketball
again. Did the pizza man try to get with you this year? I told you to come out with me and Scarlet.”
I looked at the NyQuil pill wrappers on the floor beside the couch; the movie ready to begin again on the flat screen; the empty box of pizza. I hadn't even tried to make it to my bed.
“What do you want, Ian?”
“You're coming to Scarlet's birthday party tonight, right?” Ian was in his car. Probably on his way to or from Scarlet's loft downtown. He was an Africana Studies professor at Emory University and Scarlet was one of his former students turned “international” model and black feminist motivational speaker—whatever that meant. Basically, between Sears catalog photo shoots Scarlet put on a size 0 black turtleneck and Black Power pin, and spoke to poor black women about all the injustices they faced in the world—none of which she herself faced. She's half black and Cuban and grew up in Buckhead with plastic surgeons for parents. Everyone eats up her little “uplift the masses of marginalized black women and girls” routine, though. And Ian has the fullest belly. He thinks Scarlet is the next Rosa Parks and Fannie Lou Hamer . . . and Naomi Campbell, rolled up in one. He says I give her a hard time. But I don't. It's just that . . . well, to be that pretty . . . and that “conscious” . . . all at the same time . . . it's just insulting to the rest of us.
“The party's tonight?” I asked.
“Don't play with me. I need you to be there.” Ian had planned the entire party himself. He'd paid for the penthouse suite at the W Hotel and sent out invitations to all of Scarlet's size-0 model/ conscious-activist friends. The night was guaranteed to annoy me to death.
“I know. I know. The W. Tonight. Whatever.”
“Are you coming early?”
“Don't push it,” I said. “And why are you so amped about this anyway?” I knew I didn't exactly sound like a wedding-planning romantic at that point. Really, a brother so excited about shelling out thousands of dollars to celebrate his girlfriend's birthday should've scored high on my romance card. But there was something about Scarlet. I don't know. While I'd never told Ian, I thought she was just putting on an act with the whole “black women rule the world” crusade and, honestly, I didn't think she was good enough for him.
“I'm gonna ask her to marry me.”
It was like a missile had fallen from the sky. KABOOM! Right between me and the pizza box. The alcohol and acetaminophen in my gut was suddenly shooting up my esophagus.
I was up from the couch and on my feet before I responded.
“What?”
“Yep! Had the ring shipped in from Namibia—I found a non-conflict diamond dealer there, you know how she is about stuff like that.” (Instant frown earned from me.)
“You already have a ring?”
“Scarlet's mom was the one who brought it up—us getting married—you know how those Spanish mamas are. She don't play that long-term dating stuff. And at first I was like ‘nah,' but then I was like ‘ahh' . . . so I just got the ring!”
“You ‘
just got the ring'
?” I repeated, mimicking his nonchalance. He sounded like he was going to a linen sale at Macy's.
“Why did you say it like that, Rach? I know how you feel about Scarlet, but I thought you'd at least be happy for me.”
“Feel about her?” I rolled my eyes at the thought that I felt anything or anyway about Scarlet. “I don't feel anyway about her.” This little leak was so fake—and even with my forced smile Ian couldn't see, I was sure he knew it. “It's just that . . . I thought, you know, that we'd talk about this first. Before you made a decision. And . . . what about that girl? The one you met last week at the conference in New York—at NYU? The one with the books? The writer? I thought you liked her.”
“That was one night. A drink. Scarlet's my girlfriend. I love her. I can't imagine my life without her. She completes me.” When Ian is confused he has a tendency to speak in clichés. “She's the best thing that's ever happened to—”
“Fine! I'll come,” I blurted out to stop him. I couldn't take it anymore. Ian was also as stubborn as a wild boar, and flooding him with questions wouldn't get me anywhere. He was one of those “you catch more flies with honey than vinegar” people.
“Great! Early?”
“Yes, Ian.” I sighed. “I'll be there early. I'll be there as your best friend. Supporting you in marrying the best thing that's ever happened to you.” (Cue the sarcasm.)
 
“No way! I'm not going. This is the worst thing that could happen! The worst thing ever!” I grimaced and nodded into the little camera lens perched on top of my computer monitor.
“Lord, what's going on in the ATL? Do I need to get Dame to put me on a plane?”
While Ian was caught up in a cloud of clichés about his love for Scarlet, I was logging onto my computer to call on the only person who could stop me from completely wigging out over his pending engagement and making a worse situation . . .
worser?
Journey Cash is my former client who was actually already married and living the only life she thought she'd ever have, being a high school teacher and singer in her daddy's church in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, when one of her former students showed up to steal her away from it all. OK, that might all sound a little crazy, so it's important to add that her former student was actually of legal age when he returned to Black Warrior High School to steal his old chorus teacher's heart away—that and the biggest rapper in the country. Damien “Dame” Mitchell wasn't just the toast of Tuscaloosa, but of every town and city all around the world. He had everything—number-one albums, media madness, a cultlike crew following, millions of dollars in the bank and a plan to turn them into billions—seemingly all a man from the projects of a small southern city with one highway in and one highway out could want. But Dame was missing the one person he thought was responsible for all his riches, the first person who inspired him to dream, and he set out on a seemingly impossible quest to get her, too. Well, impossible it was not. When Dame and Journey showed up in my office in 2009, smiling and ready to jump the broom, Journey had just finalized her divorce, was working on her own album, and was about a month pregnant . . . with twins. They explained that because of Journey's family, they wanted to say “I do” as soon as possible. Her father, Jethro Cash, was leading the biggest mega church in the South and Journey felt she'd done the family name enough damage by running off with one of her former students—not to mention, her baby brother was living the life of a female stripper in Atlanta and her older brother had been arrested for stealing funds from the church. While a lot of people had children out of wedlock (including Daddy Cash), Journey was certain a “bastard” baby from his only daughter would send her father to an early grave. Dame was willing to pay top dollar to make sure that didn't happen. We had two months to plan the wedding of Journey's dream—in three months, she'd be showing for sure. We spent about every waking hour together for those two months. I actually ended up going to some of Journey's doctor appointments with her when Dame was away. To my surprise, I found a kindred spirit in her. Someone else who'd believed that even though she was imperfect, she deserved perfect love. It found her in the middle of her life and interrupted everything. It could find me, too.

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