Chapter 6
6
Tracey raised her glass of beer and grinned at her friends, Imani and Halle, sitting across from her. “Here’s to letting go of dead weight.”
“Hear, hear!” her friends said together and clinked glasses.
The three of them took long sips of their drinks. Tracey had spent the entire day getting things ready at the inn for the wedding the next day. She was tired and stressed and should probably be asleep, but instead she’d opted to meet up with her friends to celebrate her divorce. They still didn’t know she’d gone to Augusta to drink alone the day her divorce was finalized. She was embarrassed enough that Brian had seen her; no need for them to know just how sad and pitiful she’d been. Especially over a guy who didn’t deserve her sadness.
“How are you feeling?” Imani asked, concern in her hazel eyes. She worked as an OB-GYN in town and had met them right after work. She still wore the black T-shirt and khaki slacks she usually had on underneath her doctor’s coat. A few wisps of hair had escaped the ponytail holding back her long dark hair.
Tracey lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. Am I happy to be rid of him? Yes. If he was ready to go, then I wasn’t going to hold on to him. Do I wish things had gone differently? Yes. I didn’t marry him thinking that one day we’d break up.”
Halle reached over and placed her hand on Tracey’s. Halle had ditched the blazer she usually wore while working as the vice principal at the middle school, and a blue-and-white wrap dress hugged her curvy figure. Her curly hair was twisted up in a cute style. “I don’t think most people get married thinking things will go bad. This isn’t on you, Tracey. It’s all on him.”
“I know that.” She sighed and stared down into her beer. “But…”
Imani groaned. “No but s. This isn’t on you.”
Tracey looked up and met Imani’s gaze. “After the hearing, I asked him why.”
Halle leaned forward and scowled. “What did he say? The only answer he could give is because he’s a damn fool.”
Tracey laughed despite herself. Her friends would always be there for her, and she appreciated them for that. “He said that I wasn’t fun anymore,” she admitted. “He said I wasn’t fun anymore.”
Imani slapped a hand on the table and sucked in a breath. “What?”
Halle cocked her head to the side and sneered. “No he didn’t!”
Tracey nodded. “And then my mom said kind of the same thing. That I lost myself in the marriage and tried to be perfect.”
Silence reigned over the table. Halle coughed and looked away. Imani took a long sip of her beer. Tracey’s gaze flew back and forth between the two of them. “Wait a second. You aren’t saying you agree with her?”
Imani shook her head. “No.”
“Well…” Halle said at the same time.
Tracey zeroed in on Halle. “Well, what?”
“I don’t know, you did kind of seem like you wanted to have the perfect marriage. And I thought you did.”
“But he cheated on me.”
She shook her head. “No. His cheating isn’t what I’m talking about. You wanted to be perfect. Like reality-television perfect. I thought it was cool that you tried for that, but I also felt like you put a lot of pressure on yourself to be someone you thought you should be.”
Tracey huffed and leaned back against her seat. “Damn, girl, tell me how you really feel.”
Halle reached across the table and squeezed Tracey’s hand. “That still doesn’t mean what Bernard did was your fault. He messed up and chose to cheat.”
“Oh, I know that. But what he said got to me.” She stared at the bubbles rising in her beer before sighing. “You’re right, Halle, I did want the perfect marriage. I spent the past eleven years of my life trying, and failing, to be the good wife he wanted me to be. What am I supposed to do now?”
Imani lifted a shoulder. “What do you want to do?”
Tracey sipped her beer, a tart sour that matched her mood. She had no idea what to do. She’d opened the bed and breakfast, and despite the issues with Jessica, things were going great. She’d thought she’d had it all. A successful career and a decent marriage. That was supposed to be her end game.
“And don’t think small,” Imani said as if reading her thoughts. “Think big, Tracey. You can do what you want without worrying about what Bernard or anyone else will think. What’s something you’ve thought about doing but never really thought you had the time to do?”
Tracey tilted her head. “I want to market the inn better.”
Halle gave her an encouraging look. “Better how? You got a lot of interest when Peachtree Cove won Best Small Town.”
“I mean…really put the inn out there. Yes, business picked up with the Best Small Town label, but what happens next year when Travel Magazine picks a new small town? I want to increase our followers on social media and find new ways to promote the inn.”
Imani nodded her head. “Yes. Do that.”
Tracey chuckled. “How? I have no idea about marketing or promotion.”
Halle snapped her fingers. “Mikayla Spears does.”
Mikayla was a few years younger than Tracey. She’d graduated with Tracey’s younger brother Devante’s class, but she was one of Peachtree Cove’s biggest success stories. She’d moved away from the town and made a fortune teaching financial literacy. She’d started an online school on budgeting, finance and investing that earned a partnership with a college accreditation program, and she had a best-selling book. She was the town’s first self-made multimillionaire. Mikayla had come back to Peachtree Cove after her father’s kidney transplant and for some reason decided to stick around and invest in her hometown.
“I know Mikayla,” Tracey said. “But I don’t know know her. Why would she help me?”
“Because she’s teaching an entrepreneurship course at the local technical college,” Halle said. “It’ll be a six-week course, and last week at the paint class she mentioned that she was going to go over publicity and marketing as well. You should take the class.”
“I don’t know if I have time for a class.” Tracey didn’t bother to hide her skepticism. “And go back to school? I don’t know if you remember, but school wasn’t my strong point.”
Tracey spent half of high school either in the principal’s office or trying not to fall asleep in class. The only reason she’d gone to a small community college was because she knew that if she wanted to have a better life, then she needed a college degree. The business degree had helped her when she decided to open the bed and breakfast.
Halle rolled her eyes. “This isn’t like high school. This is a program specifically for entrepreneurs, and it’s being taught by Peachtree Cove’s first millionaire. You better sign up and sign up quick for this. She just told me about it and registration opens on Monday. It’s going to fill up fast.”
“And don’t come up with an excuse why you can’t,” Imani said, pointing at Tracey. “You said you want to do this, and this seems like fate is putting everything in front of you. Sign up before that class fills up.”
Sighing, Tracey nodded. “Fine. I’ll check it out when registration opens.”
Halle narrowed her eyes. “Are you going to sign up for real? That didn’t sound convincing at all.”
Tracey put a hand over her heart. “I’m serious. I’ll do it. I’m not sure about a class, but you’re right. If I want to learn how to promote the inn, then I’ll need to learn somewhere.”
She wasn’t agreeing to sign up. She was agreeing to at least check out the class. Mikayla had achieved something that seemed impossible for Tracey. She would be out of her league in a class like that, but she wasn’t about to admit that to her friends. Her insecurities were hers alone.
Halle and Imani clapped. “Yay!”
Tracey laughed and rolled her eyes. “You two are a mess.”
Movement at the door caught her attention, and her laughter faded. Monique, her ex-husband’s mistress, came in with Mattie Bryant, the town’s biggest gossip. Tracey’s glass hit the table with a thud. The smiles on her friends’ faces vanished, and their eyes followed Tracey’s.
“What is she doing here?” Halle asked.
“This is our spot,” Imani added. “She hasn’t come here before.”
Tracey’s eyes narrowed. “She’s coming to gloat.”
Imani pushed up the sleeves of her shirt. “She wouldn’t. Not in my fiancé’s bar.”
Tracey snorted. “She stole my husband from right under my nose. Why wouldn’t she come to gloat at my best friend’s fiancé’s bar?”
Halle shook her head. “Maybe we’re wrong. Let’s not jump to conclusions.”
Tracey turned away from Monique, but she felt the woman’s eyes on her. She wished she had some of Halle’s optimism, but for Monique to show up here with Mattie in tow wasn’t good news. She’d avoided Tracey and her hangouts while she was pregnant and even after she’d had the baby. Why would she suddenly show up at a place Tracey came to often if she didn’t have bad intentions?
Tracey tried to ignore Monique as she and Mattie went to the bar and ordered beers, but when she sat at the table right next to Tracey she knew her instinct was right. Monique had been a good worker at the inn, but she’d told Tracey enough stories about the way she treated former friends or people who slighted her to know she was petty and could be mean. After Tracey tried to slap the smile off her face when she’d first caught her and Bernard kissing at a public function at the inn, she’d known that eventually she would be on the receiving end of her pettiness.
“Girl, you know it’s good to get out,” Monique said to Mattie in a voice loud enough to carry to Tracey’s table. “The baby is always keeping me busy, and you know Bernard can’t keep his hands off me.”
Tracey’s hands tightened around the glass. Halle glared at them. Imani shook her head.
“Let’s get out of here,” Imani said.
“Why? Because the home-wrecker is here?” Tracey said in an equally loud voice. Monique was not about to make Tracey run. “This is our spot. I’m not leaving. I don’t have anything to be ashamed of. Unlike some other people.” She turned and stared pointedly at Monique.
Monique’s eyes narrowed. She was six years younger than Tracey, with sandy brown skin, and she’d had the same snatched-waist, round-behind surgery Tracey’s mom had undergone. In fact, Monique’s experience was the reason why Loretta had gone through with hers. Even after the baby, she still had a model figure.
Monique’s eyes narrowed before she flipped her long reddish-brown hair over her shoulder. “Are you talking about me?”
Tracey looked around the room. “I don’t see any other home-wreckers in this bar.”
Monique had the nerve to look insulted. She pressed a hand to her chest and scoffed. “I’m not a home-wrecker.”
“Then, what do you want to call it? Mistress? Side chick? Does that make you feel better?”
“You’re just jealous.”
“Of what? That you ended up with Bernard? Chile, please. If he did it to me, then he’ll do it to you. Good luck with that.” She lifted her glass then took a sip.
“He won’t do that to me because I know how to keep a man satisfied. Unlike some other people in here.”
Silence fell across the bar. Tracey’s cheeks heated. The words hit much too close to home. Had Bernard also told Monique that Tracey was boring? That she didn’t know how to satisfy him? Why was she even asking herself that? If Bernard had said as much to Tracey, then she knew deep in her heart that he’d said as much to Monique.
Imani reached over and squeezed Tracey’s hand. “Tracey, don’t do this. She isn’t worth it. She just wants to get a rise out of you.”
Tracey knew that was exactly what she wanted. Monique wanted to act as if she’d won some kind of prize. But Bernard wasn’t a prize. Tracey had once thought he was, but not any more. For him to have broken her heart for someone as selfish and petty as Monique was the final proof she’d needed on top of the other humiliations and hurts he’d inflicted over their eleven years of marriage.
“Enjoy your sloppy seconds,” Tracey said. She drained her beer and scooted to the edge of her seat. She wasn’t leaving, this was her bar. But she wasn’t going to sit there and go back and forth with Monique either. She’d move to the bar.
“Sloppy seconds?” Monique said in a mocking voice. “If that’s what you have to say to make yourself feel better. I gave him what you couldn’t. A family. You were too busy and didn’t make time to take care of a good man. Unlike me. You always thought you were better than me. Well, look who’s better now.” She smirked, and Tracey saw red.
When Tracey was young she’d never held back. Her temper and the need to lash out when someone insulted her or her family had gotten her into more trouble than she cared to admit. As an adult, she’d tried really hard to do better. She hadn’t let her temper fly because she didn’t want to be seen as the hotheaded person she’d been as a teenager. She’d governed herself accordingly. Acted like a lady and followed all the rules. And what had that gotten her? Cheated on and humiliated at her favorite hangout spot.
Tracey jumped up. Imani and Halle hurried up as well. Before her friends could stop her, Tracey picked up the glass of beer in front of Monique and flung it in her face.
Monique shrieked and hopped up from the table. “You bit—” Before she could get the word out Tracey grabbed the other beer in front of Mattie and flung that in Monique’s face, too.
She then looked at Mattie and glared. “You got anything to say?”
For once in her life, Mattie knew to keep her mouth shut. She held up her hands and shook her head. “I was just here to hang out.”
That was a lie. Tracey knew Mattie had come with the hopes of getting some gossip. Well, she had it.
Monique continued to shriek. Surprisingly, the people in the bar cheered and clapped. Tracey put her hands on her hips and met Monique’s furious look. She could see the rage in her eyes. She wanted to hit Tracey, and Tracey was more than ready to wipe the floor with her if she dared to try. She raised a brow and leaned forward. “Do it.”
Monique glared back, but Mattie must have known better, because she got up, took Monique by the arm and pulled her out of her seat. “Come on. You’ve got Bernard. Forget her.”
Tracey nodded. “Yes, forget me. Because if you ever step to me like this again, I’m going to do a lot more than throw beer in your damn face.”
Monique huffed and stepped forward. Tracey grinned and balled her hands into fists. She didn’t start fights, but she’d finish this one.
Mattie tugged on Monique again. “Let’s go.” She pulled, and Monique came to her senses and followed her out.
The rest of the patrons in the bar cheered again. Imani and Halle came up to Tracey’s side and hugged her.
“Damn, girl, I thought you were going to hit her,” Imani said.
Tracey pushed her braids behind her ears. “She wasn’t going to get me to throw the first punch.”
Halle wrapped an arm around Tracey’s shoulders. “I bet she won’t step to you again. Come on, let me buy you a drink.”
Tracey gave her friend a smile. She looked around at everyone still cheering and wishing her well. Tracey should’ve felt triumphant. She’d gotten the final word in and had the support of the people in her hangout spot. Instead, embarrassment burned her cheeks. She’d be the talk of the town tomorrow. Once again, hotheaded Tracey had appeared, and all the hard work she’d put into being seen differently was thrown out the window.