Chapter 1
Cory
“I’m not paying for that,” I said as I watched Kayelle pick up another pair of leggings off the display table in our favorite designer sportswear store.
We’d usually only congregate at the shrine of Loale’s Boutique and Spa the last weekend of every quarter, when she had her markdowns to make room for a new season’s worth of outfits.
But I’d promised Kayelle a shopping spree for helping me get out of my recent funk.
Besides, it wouldn’t be so bad; after all, we did know the owner.
I watched as Loale’s tiny French-manicured fingernails worked the keys at her register.
“One thousand, three hundred and fourteen dollars and fifty-eight cents,” she said with a flick of her wrists as she shifted to grab some lining paper to wrap the items.
“A thousand dollars Loale?I thought you were giving us a discount for shopping before opening hours,” I managed to get out, but I was still trying to pull my black card out of my slim Hermès wallet.
“The discount is that I stayed open for your asses in the first damn place,” she smiled as she continued packing.“And it doesn’t even look like Kayelle is finished anyway,” she said, pointing her chin over to the rack and new Fall/Winter items that had captured Kayelle’s attention.
“Kay, I’m not buying you anything else, so get your butt over here and grab these bags,” I’d finally gotten my card free and watched as Loale swiped it through.
“You look entirely too happy about this sale,” I poked.
“And why shouldn’t I be Cory, especially when my rich best friend spends her hard-earned corporate dollars supporting my dreams,” she said, trying to butter me up.
“Ummm, mmm, I got your rich,” I said.
“What’d I miss?” Kayelle slipped in beside me with another piece of clothing tucked under her arm that she stealthily tried to place on the counter.
“Sorry, princess, the card has already run through,” I snapped playfully.
“Oh, don’t worry, it hadn’t even gone through yet, so I can still put it on there,” Loale reached for the designer sweater top and began to fold it up as well.
“Hey, whose side are you on anyway?” I stuck my tongue out at them.
“The side that is so eternally grateful that we finally have our friend back. Seriously Cory, I know Dex was the love of your life and all, but damn,” Kayelle spat out.
I should’ve been happy that she’d finally reverted to calling him by his name again because, for the past six months, she’d vacillated between ‘shit for brains’ and ‘dog face.’
The latter wasn’t fair because Dex was a beautifully sculpted specimen of a man. He’d been a forward, playing Division 1 basketball in college, and entered medical school at Howard University right out of undergrad.
They’d made the long-distance work while she attended Spelman College, another historically black school located in Atlanta.
And when he’d been matched with a residency program in North Carolina, they’d both gotten an apartment together in Greensboro and adopted a cat named Thaddeus.
“Whatever; I was planning on coming out to visit anyway, and Kayelle’s little drop-in just pushed my travel plans to the top of my list,” I said with raised eyebrows as I watched Loale run my credit card through again.
“More like I had to break into your apartment by tricking the landlord and physically helping you pack up your things,” Kayelle chimed in.
“Potato, potatoe,” I smiled.
It felt so good to smile. It’d been so long since I’d felt this light, and yes, it did require one of my best friends to fly out to North Carolina and commit criminal acts to ensure that I didn’t wallow alone in self-pity another day.
He didn’t even tell me he had gotten a job in New York.
We’d planned out pretty much our whole lives together since we’d first met, and something as momentous as his first job offer post-residency didn’t even register a conversation before, he’d decided to move.
That just wasn’t like ‘us.’
But that’s because there was no longer any ‘us.’Much like the decision to take the job offer, Dex had decided, on his own, to end ‘us.’
“Look, ladies, this has been a blast, but I need to get moving if I’m going to make it to my next appointment on time and then back home.I promised my mother I’d bring those chocolate tortes she loves for dinner tonight. I’m already going to be running late by the time I drop off Kayelle,” I reasoned as I took a final swig of the mimosas, minus the orange juice, that Loale had waiting for us when we’d walked into the store.
Returning the flute to the silver tray, she’d presented them to us on, I grabbed one of the many shopping bags we’d racked up with our morning escapades.
Retail therapy was my church these days.
“I’m going to do you a favor and take a cab home. Besides, I need my beauty sleep, and I’m dying to get home and try this stuff on,” Kayelle said.
“Why didn’t you just use the changeroom here?” Loale chimed in.
But we all knew the answer to that one. Kayelle had no real intention of keeping any of the items I’d bought her, but she knew that her sweet friend Loale would give her a refund rather than store credit so she could use the cash for something else.
It was a routine we’d seen repeatedly, and out of respect for one another, we didn’t talk about it.
Loale owned her boutique and had several real estate investment properties. I was an experienced marketing executive who worked in publishing, or at least I was until I decided to quit my job back in Greensboro. But Kayelle had never really found the inspiration to go after what she truly wanted to do in life, so she’d bounce around to different jobs here and there until she got bored, and then it was on to the next.
Hence, she loved our shopping sprees.
“I’m not using your trick mirrors.Besides, I like the lighting better in my apartment,” she explained.
A quick look from me over to Loale, and she knew to drop it.
“Okay, so I’ll meet you ladies later tonight at Tandies,” I said, already making my way towards the shop’s front door.
“Why do we always end up at Tandies? Can’t we hit up some other place tonight? I’m tired of the same ol’ crowd,” Kayelle whined.
“It’s her first week back home, and you and I are the only ones out of the crew that have even seen her.Come on, don’t be selfish. Everyone’s dying to catch up; this is a great place to do it because we know the owner and everyone!Multiple birds, one stone,” Loale was singing now.
I rolled my eyes as I left, waving at them both on the way out the door.
In truth, I wasn’t looking forward to tonight.
I’d been with Dex for the better part of a decade.All my friends had met Dex multiple times. He was there for every homecoming since his first year of residency. So, to have to reunite with everyone without him there and, worse still, to explain that we’d broken up, I’d rather skip it.
I hopped into my mom’s vintage Mercedes convertible and pulled it smoothly into traffic.
It was great to be back at home, but still unsettling.
“I’ve invited your dad’s business partner to dinner tonight,” my mom said with raised eyebrows and a grin.
“Okay, good, I guess,” I wasn’t interested in being ensnared into whatever trap she was setting for me, but I figured I’d be pretty safe, considering she was referring to one of my dad’s friends.
“He’s such a great guy; I can’t wait for you to meet him,” she added.
“One of Dad’s friends?”
“Business partner,” she clarified.
“Mommy?”
“What, I haven’t done anything. I’m just telling you that there will be an extra seat at the table tonight,” she shrugged and returned to arranging the crudité.
Ordinarily, I’d be unbothered by my mother’s efforts to matchmake, but it’d recently become her favorite pastime since I’d been home.
She’d tried to get me to go out for coffee with the neighbor’s son on my first night back in town, for crying out loud. And then she’d spent excessive time talking to the UPS driver who’d delivered some work documents for my dad that she made me sign for even though she was already standing at the door.
She’d loved Dex but was an even bigger proponent of getting back on the horse, especially with my thirty-second birthday only a couple of months away and her wanting a litter filled with grandbabies to dote on before ‘they sun her’- a term in Jamaican patois meaning to get too old.
“Is that what you’re wearing?”
I looked down at the jean skirt and the white cotton top I had on.It was perfect attire for a dinner at home with your parents, but not good enough for my dad’s business partner.
“What’s wrong with what I have on mommy?”
“Nothing, nothing. It’s just that Arman is older, more mature,” she seemed flustered.
Still not seeing the problem, I turned to rinse the cucumbers for the salad.
“Maybe something a bit more flattering. You look like a twelve-year-old in that outfit,” she added.
Trust Claire Maren-Saunders, my mother, to take a compliment about my youthful appearance to drag me. I shook my head and kept on rinsing the vegetables.
“There are my two beautiful women,” my dad’s voice boomed off the walls as he entered the kitchen.
Saved by my dad.
“Richard, tell your daughter that perhaps she might want to wear something different for dinner tonight, please,” my mom was pressing her luck. I’d promised myself not to argue with her today, and since I’d been gone so early this morning with the girls, we hadn’t even seen each other until I’d come into the kitchen to help with dinner.
That’s what I get for trying to be nice. I should’ve dropped off the tortes and let her handle the rest.
I was halfway tempted to run out of the kitchen right then and there.
“I think our daughter looks beautiful,” my dad said as he kissed my forehead. “Besides, I told you that Arman didn’t want any of us going overboard. He wants to experience a nice, normal family dinner with his partner,” he said. “He travels a lot for work and spends a lot of time in sales meetings or dinners, so I thought it might be great to offer him a homecooked meal for a change,” my dad finished.
“Still, this could be an opportunity…” my mother countered.
“Claire, you are going to leave that man alone, okay?And stop harassing our daughter; she’s broken-hearted,” he said, but I could see the smirk on my dad’s face.
One of the first things he’d said to me after Dex and I officially broke up was, “…the world has seven billion people in it, Cory, and half of them are men,”.They were my dad’s unique words of wisdom, and he’d been tired of Dex’s non-committal dance anyway.‘Shit or get off the pot,’ he’d always say. So, although he liked Dex for his ambition, he wasn’t sad to see the back of him.
“Thank you, dad,” I smiled.
“Missed opportunity,” my mom added in her tone-deaf singing voice.
“Claire, I’m serious,” he said. My dad had put his proverbial foot down. At least, he thought he had.
My mother was going to do whatever the heck she felt like doing, and there wasn’t anyone, not even my dad, who was going to be able to stop her.
She ignored us both and went back to her charcuterie board.
