What He's Been Missing (18 page)

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Authors: Grace Octavia

BOOK: What He's Been Missing
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“Why would I want him to go away if he's my true love?”
“Baybee, true love nah always wha ya reckon it be,” she said. “Sometimes wha da trut is can take ya breath. Right?”
I looked around the room.
“Whatever,” I said, reaching into my pocket for a credit card. “If it works, it works. If not . . .”
Kete took the card and scanned it through a little machine tucked on the side of one of the shelves.
Tante Heru was standing over the boiling water chanting in some language that didn't sound like French.
When the credit card cleared and Kete brought it back to me, Tante Heru, with her face sweaty with the steam from the pot, came back to me.
“Speak ya love, baybee. Speak it loud,” she ordered.
“Speak my what?” I asked.
“Tell her what kind of man you want,” Kete explained.
As the water began to boil over uncontrollably onto the stove, Kete and Tante Heru joined hands and started chanting again.
I started quoting the lyrics from India.Arie's “Ready for Love.”
The curtains blew into the room like there was a hurricane outside and the floorboards began to shake. The candles blew out one by one and Tante Heru and Kete started chanting even louder. Kete grabbed my hand and something like an electric current went right through me.
The dull light flickered and then went out. We were in total darkness.
Kete stopped chanting, but using a streak of light sneaking in through a hole in the curtain over the window, I could see Tante Heru with her eyes rolled back in her head. She seemed like she was in a trance. She kept repeating the same word: “Yemaya. Yemaya. Yemaya. Yemaya.”
The water from the pot was spilling onto the floor.
“Yemaya. Yemaya. Yemaya. Yemaya!” she shouted and then she opened her eyes. And I know I was completely drunk and struggling to see in the darkness, but I swear they were black. Fully black and shining in the dark. I nearly fell off of the table.
The water stopped boiling without anyone touching the flame. The light came back on. The floorboards stopped shaking. The curtain fell flat with no breeze.
“He come in de mornin'. Come rit ta ya. Wan he leave, ya decide whan he go. Den ya say whan he go fi good. But only fa good, baybee. Only use de third wish fa good. Ya must be sure.”
7
“Joy Cometh in the Morning”
#Thehangover . . . The bourbon in my belly pulled me from a heavy sleep that didn't want to give me up. I'd never be able to fully recall how I'd gotten back to the hotel from Tante Heru's—along with how I'd gotten upstairs, disrobed, and made my way to the bed—but the second my head hit the pillow would never leave me. It was like falling onto a happy Care Bear cloud I really needed. Really loved. Cool and forgiving. Welcoming like the back of the blue Care Bear; maybe the yellow one. I kissed the pillow a few times—I knew this because there were perfect puckers all over the pillowcase the next morning—and tumbled like Alice down the rabbit hole into the kind of hard, wicked sleep only liquor after a broken heart can give you. There was no chance I'd be able to recall what I dreamed. When I closed my eyes, there was just blackness spiraling everywhere in more blackness and I'm sure it stayed that way until the bourbon was tired of being inside of me.
I tried to open my eyes, but sleep had caked them closed, like they did when I was younger and got a really bad cold. My head was so viciously heavy I felt the weight of everything I ever knew. And one side of my body was rigid and cold. But still, when bourbon called my name in boils in my stomach, I had to answer, and in one second I overcame every ailment that had me jailed in my hotel-room bed and staggered blindly to the bathroom and got on my hands and knees in front of the toilet.
Everything came out of me. As my father used to say, “There just ain't no better way to put that.” I was retching and convulsing, twisting around on the floor. Bourbon was determined to teach me a lesson. My heart was palpitating faster than I could breathe and I was so hot I didn't care if my face touched the cool water in the latrine.
I just wanted the bourbon out of me. And from the looks of things, it seemed like the bourbon wanted the same. Maybe it was going on down into the sewer to start another party someplace else.
Lying there on the floor, I looked into the dark room to see that it wasn't even 6:00
AM
on the clock yet. Night was still outside the window and I could actually hear people still partying in the street outside the hotel.
When I thought maybe I'd emptied out the last of the last inside of me, I looked at the ceiling, cursing whatever made me think I could drink an entire bottle of any liquor. And then, like any good Southern girl, I prayed to God to make it stop. Promised I'd never do it again. I was a good person. Really. Just make it stop. I called on Jehovah and every name I ever heard Grammy Annie-Lou call the Interceder when she got the Holy Ghost in church. Sure, God likely didn't care about drunk middle-aged women passed out on bathroom floors, but wasn't he the God of small things, too?
I crawled out of the bathroom and managed to pull the phone down from the nightstand to call room service for more towels. Before I could hang up good, there was a knock at the door.
“Hold on,” I said, pushing myself up from the floor. “I didn't expect you to get here so soon.” I toddled around, turned on the light, and grabbed my bathrobe. “OK,” I said, halfway in my robe as I opened the door. I reached out to grab the towels, and they were there, but it wasn't a maid holding them. “Xav?” I grabbed the collar of my robe to be sure nothing was slipping out. “What are you doing here?”
“Morning jog!” He stepped back so I could see his sweat suit and sneakers. “I figured I should be lean and mean up there on the altar today.”
“Whatever.” I remembered Ian's snarl at the pier and reached for the towels, but the bourbon took my hands farther than I meant for them to go and I lost my balance.
“Easy, girl!” Xavier helped me regain my footing. “Yeah, I saw you come in last night and I figured you'd be needing these towels. Got you some water, too.” He held the towels up to show me a bottle of water hidden beneath the pile.
“Oh no, you saw me? Did anybody—”
“No one else saw. Don't worry.”
“Whatever, Xav.” I reached for the towels again and snatched them. “Look, thanks for the towels.”
“And the water!” Xavier held up the water bottle.
“And the water.”
“Can't forget to hydrate. Big day ahead of us. Wouldn't want you to faint at the wed—”
“Good-bye,” I said in a way that could easily be translated to “fuck off.” I closed the door with Xavier on the other side and leaned up against it with the towels and water in my arms. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” I banged my head back against the door at the mess I'd made with Ian.
“He told me,” I heard.
“What?” I dropped the towels and water.
“He told me what happened at the pier.”
“What?” I opened the door again. “He told you what I—What did he say?”
Xavier widened his eyes on the threshold, begging to enter the room
“Whatever.” I poked my head out of the doorway and looked up and down the hallway before pulling him into my room. “Oh my God. What did he tell you?”
“Just that you tried to break up the wedding. Stop him from marrying the woman of his dreams.”
“She's not the—He said all that?”
“Oh, and that he doesn't want you to come to the wedding.”
“Has he told anyone else?”
“I don't think so. Definitely not Scarlet. Look, it's not as bad as you think,” Xavier said rather unconvincingly.
“I knew I shouldn't have done it. Fucking Journey! Feelings! Fuck all that shit!” I was circling the room, toddling and stumbling, looking for nothing but my right mind.
“Whoa, hold up now!” Xavier had picked up the things I'd dumped on the floor and arranged them on the nightstand. “Calm down. You're getting all worked up. Let's get you back in bed.”
“Bed?” I resisted Xavier's arms pulling me to the bed, but I was still a little dizzy and drained.
He took one of the towels and went into the bathroom.
“What are you doing in there?” I tried to get up to see what was going on, but Xavier came back out with a wet towel in his hand and forced me back down. He sat on the edge of the bed beside me, plumped the pillow beneath my head, and pulled the blanket up over my chest.
“I can't believe I did this,” I said. “Ian's going to hate me forever.”
“Not forever. He doesn't have the heart to hate anyone forever.”
Xavier helped me to a sip of water from the bottle and slid the wet towel onto my forehead. The coolness immediately made a clanking in my brain subside.
“He gets emotional sometimes, but it'll pass. You know our boy,” Xavier added.
“No. I've never seen him so angry. He was serious. He doesn't want to see me again,” I said.
“Come on, he didn't mean that. He can't get through today without you. You know that. You're his best friend,” Xavier said so softly I almost forgot who he was.
“But he said he didn't want me to—”
Xavier placed his index finger over my lips. “You get better. I'll talk to him. He listens to me.”
“I don't know. I'm just so embarrassed,” I said when he moved his finger. “I can't go through this alone. Even if no one else knows, I'll feel like they all do. They're all laughing at me. After that crazy toast? Uggh!”
“No one will be laughing at you, Rachel,” Xavier said. “Because I'll be with you.”
“With me?”
“Maybe you could be my date.”
“Be your date?”
Xavier winced and one of his dimples puckered in his cheek.
“I could be
your
date? But why would we—?”
“I just thought it would make things easier. But if you don't want to, I understand.”
“I don't care,” I said. “Ian isn't going to let me come to the wedding anyway. It doesn't matter.”
“Let me be the judge of that.” Xavier winked at me and got up from the bed. “I'll go talk to him now.” He started backing away from the bed slowly, but he stopped and stared into my face.
“What?” I asked, afraid I'd left some residual vomit on my chin. “Do I have something on my face?” I tried to swipe at my chin, but he stopped me.
“No, stop moving,” Xavier said. “I was just looking at you lying there. No makeup on. Hair all over the place. A little crust on the side of your mouth.” He laughed a little and I tried to wipe my mouth, but he stopped me again. “No, don't do that,” he said. “Stay just the way you are.” He started backing up again and made it to the door. “Beautiful.” His eyes left me and went to the window where the blinds were half drawn. I turned, too, to see the sun full in the sky. “Good morning, Rachel,” I heard Xavier say. I turned back to the door, but he was gone.
I looked back at the sun in the window and remembered a whisper in my ear.
“Tante Heru?” I said. “No. He can't be.”
 
Uncle Cat answered Krista's hotel-room door like it was his. He was wearing a hotel embroidered robe and a smooth, old-player grin that nearly invited me in. Only a smoky cigar hanging from his mouth would make the ridiculous spectacle complete.
“That isn't room service, is it?” Krista called helplessly from inside, probably sensing that her cover had been blown.
“Service, it be not, baybee,” Uncle Cat said. “You have a visitor.”
Krista pushed her head underneath Uncle Cat's arm holding the door open.
“Oh shit,” she said. “I can explain. See, he was trying to—”
“No need, Krista,” I stopped her. “That's not why I'm here.” I looked at Uncle Cat. “Can I have a moment with her?”
“Right by me, baybee,” he said. “Cat only knows one kind of laydee business anyway.”
“Sure. Fine,” I said.
Uncle Cat went back into the room and Krista took his place in her smaller hotel embroidered robe.
“Really?” I held my hand up to her in disappointment.
“It's not how it looks.”
“You looked into his eyes, didn't you?”
“Yeah.” She looked off all dreamy eyed. “It was like looking at an emerald forest. He had me.” She looked back at me. “Took me! And I liked it.”
“He's fifty-six. He has six kids. Six kids!”
“Lord, I know why now! Whew! That man!” She fanned herself.
“You know what, whatever! I just came here to tell you what happened last night,” I said before telling Krista about the fight with Ian at the pier, the priest with the bull ring in his nose and Tante Heru. I explained that Xavier was going to talk to Ian for me, too. That I really didn't want to miss the wedding.
“You sure you can do this? I mean, after all that's happened?” Krista asked.
“If he'll let me, I have to. I owe him that much. If I'm not there, people will ask questions—it'll be—”
“I get it,” Krista stopped me. “I just don't want anything else to happen.”
“I'm fine,” I said. “Look, I'm about to go call Xavier and if everything is cool, I'll meet you down in the ballroom? Say fifteen minutes?”
“Baybee!” Uncle Cat called from inside the room. “Come over to me. I have something to show you.”
“Make that thirty minutes,” Krista purred to me after hearing his call.
“I can't,” I said. “Grandpa R. Kelly? Really?”
“I'll get rid of him.” Krista said. “In about thirty minutes.”
 
About an hour later, Krista showed up in the ballroom with her shirt misbuttoned. I couldn't believe Ian agreed to allow me to come to the wedding, but Xavier was right—it was hard for him to hold any kind of grudge. Also, as Xavier explained, my not being there would actually make this harder for him—then he'd have to tell Scarlet what happened and that would present a whole new set of problems. I just had to lay low and keep a smile on my face.
Krista surprised me and had gone through a final check with most of the vendors before she'd hooked up with Uncle Cat last night, so we just did a walk-through once they started arriving, connected with the hotel staff, and made sure every beautiful blush bow from Scarlet's dream was tied.
“You sure you're up to this?” Krista asked me again after we'd gone through the song list with the DJ and I was about to go up to my room to get dressed for the ceremony. “I really can handle this on my own. And about the ceremony, I can just tell everyone you're sick.”
“No,” I said. “Time to put on my big-girl panties; gotta reap what I sow. Ian made his decision and I have to live with it. I'm just lucky he didn't completely cut me off.”

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