Chapter 15 Monique
The hotel appeared in front of them, all peachy stucco and wrought iron. Maurice pulled into the drive and cut the engine. Everyone filed out of the vans, exhaustion evident by their silence.
Monique stayed by his side and tried not to be obvious about it. She stood there for half a second. Close enough to touch him. Close enough to say any of the things women said when they wanted a man to follow. She whispered, “What are you scowling about?”
Where his attention was, Monique wasn’t sure. But his mouth, without a doubt, was pouting. “Sometimes I wish I could break the rules,” he said, more to himself. Monique giggled beside him, their arms brushing. His face relaxed, but only a little bit. “I need to make sure everybody’s okay.”
“You’re such a camp counselor kinda guy. I bet you were a hall monitor and all that.”
“Nah. I never did much except go to school and hang with Tommie. Too much at home to watch for. Couldn’t spread my attention too thin.”
“I get that. My therapist calls that hyper-vigilance.” He didn’t react to that. She didn’t either.
“I don’t know how I got elected cruise director,” he finally said with a little more bite in his voice.
She liked it, him standing up for himself in this small way and telling her the truth about his feelings. Monique softly shoulder-checked him and quirked an eyebrow.
“What?” he asked, pensive face giving way to a smile.
“Nothin’.”
Mr. Turner clapped Maurice on the shoulder as he passed, a silent show of gratitude. She noticed how Maurice’s chest lifted.
Then Richard walked past, saying nothing, while Sunny walked several steps behind her husband.
She was already talking before she reached them.
“I’m looking forward to seeing your pictures.
It was so beautiful out there.” She gave Monique a soft smile and passed Maurice an almost imperceptible nod, but her grin was ridiculous.
Tommie approached next, with Lanie leaning hard into his side. “See you in the morning.”
“Don’t be late,” Lanie said, winking at Maurice.
Just when she let the whole stupid and complicated plot to set them up slip from her mind, those two had to go and remind her.
“Good night, y’all,” Monique said, trying to keep her voice neutral.
She approached the hotel entrance and caught Maurice’s eye before stepping inside. “Good night, Mo.”
“Night, Mo,” he said, still standing on the curb with her cousin.
In her room, Monique kicked off her shoes. Then she let her skirt fall to the floor and tore her shirt over her head, adding it to the pile at her feet.
Suddenly exhausted, she let out a loud and long yawn as she padded her way to the bathroom.
“Damn, I didn’t realize I was so tired,” she said, as she tapped out a text to her kids with a couple of pictures from their excursion: glowing water under a mangrove archway, the DJ setup and dance floor at the restaurant, and a hummingbird she saw earlier in the day.
Hopefully, her kids were asleep and wouldn’t reply until a reasonable hour.
But Monique never could tell with her meddling kids.
Plus, they were unsupervised during a holiday weekend, with a two-hour time difference.
She’d have to have words with them once she got home.
She stood in front of the mirror in her navy blue bra and high-waisted panties, a set her daughter had picked out and made her feel like maybe her body wasn’t merely a record of everything she’d survived.
She peeled the bandage from the port scar on her chest, still pink and tender.
Healing. The hysterectomy scar running from hip to hip was hidden under lace and cotton.
The radiation burns that were fading but would never disappear peeked over the top of her waistband, along with the topical map of keloids and stretch marks that tracked the journey of her children, her surgeries, her survival.
She pressed her knuckles into that spot on her right side. The ache was always there, flaring up as a reality check whenever things were going too well.
Her phone buzzed. Group chat. Those thirsty heffas should be asleep. Monique should be too.
CHICKIE
Did you kiss him yet???
ELEANOR
Chickie it’s almost 3 am there let the woman SLEEP
VANESSA
Mo’s not sleeping she’s with HIM
Monique smiled and began typing a response. A soft thud outside her door made her pause and turn around. She snatched the hotel robe from the bathroom on her way to the door.
Maurice stood in the hallway. Not quite at her door. Head down, hands in his pockets, like he was trying to decide.
She watched him for a long moment. Watched him take a step toward her door, then back. Approach again, then retreat. A man at war with himself.
She could open the door. She could make it easy for him.
She could pull him inside and let momentum carry them both someplace where neither had to think too hard.
Or she could wait and let him choose.
Monique closed her eyes and counted to ten.
When she looked again, he was right there with his hand raised to knock.
She opened the door.
His hand fell, and his eyes went wide. Then they were on her face and drifted lower, flittering like the best speed reader. He blinked so slow she thought he’d forgotten the next step in the process until his eyes met hers, apologetic but hungry.
“How long have you been standing out there?” She grabbed his hand and yanked him toward her. “What in the world are you doing lurking in hallways outside women’s rooms?”
“I don’t know.” He rubbed his forehead. “You left, and then everybody else left… and I…”
She stepped back, opening the door wider. “You coming in?”
He passed her and entered the room, head down like he was approaching the greatest test of his life.
After closing and locking the door behind them, Monique turned and found him standing in the middle of the room with his hands in his pockets, eyes looking everywhere except at her.
“Sit down before you have a stroke,” she said.
He sat in the chair between the bed and the balcony doors, as far from her as he could get. Maurice’s ocher-brown skin warmed to a peachy bronze at the apples of his cheeks and the tips of his ears.
She sat on the bed near him, their knees almost touching. “You okay?”
“No.” His response was quick, automatic, truthful. “I don’t think so.”
“What’s going on?”
He took a deep breath and scrubbed a hand over his face, lingering on his beard. “Truth?”
She quirked an eyebrow. “Of course.”
“I’ve never really done any of this before. When I got out, I tried to be normal. But there were too many things to catch up on.”
“You were wildin’ for a minute, huh?”
His eyes snapped up to hers. “What? No!”
She smiled, laughed a little. “I’m messing with you. I can’t imagine you catting around and shit like that.”
His shoulders relaxed a little bit. But only a little.
“Can I ask you something?” Monique crossed her legs, letting the soft, spun terrycloth slide from her leg.
Maurice swallowed audibly. He leaned forward and replaced the fabric on her knee. She caught his hand on her knee and held it there.
“I have no idea what I’m doing,” he admitted, eyes holding hers.
The vulnerability in his eyes made her bold. “How many people have you been with?”
His skin flamed, all the way from the tips of his ears down into his shirt.
“I dated a little bit after Nathan and I divorced, but the kids were so young. And then Mama got sick. Then she died.” Monique shrugged. “Then I had to do it all on my own. There wasn’t any time for anything. And there was nobody I wanted enough to bring them around my children.”
She scanned his face, hoping he understood what she was saying. Did she even understand what she was saying, what she was offering? Was she offering?
He looked away, hanging his head. “I get that. Kids should be the priority.”
She nodded, understanding rushing in. Not being his mother’s priority had put Maurice in an impossible situation that sent him to prison for twenty years.
“Yes,” she said, reaching for his hands. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know where to start.”
“Pick something. I won’t judge.”
He looked at her like he wanted to believe her, but not quite.
“I have a confession,” Monique said.
Disbelief took over his face.
“My girls wanted me to come out here and have an affair with a sexy stranger. We’re in a cancer support group.
All of us, with different types and stages, just trying to make it.
They’re good ladies. I love them a lot, but you saw the other day, they can get out of pocket. ” She smiled and rolled her eyes.
“How would an affair help you?”
“They probably figured a few orgasms would change my outlook on life.”
Pink streaked his skin before overtaking all the warm brown. “Monique—”
She wanted to laugh, but she didn’t. Something shifted in her chest. This man. This beautiful, controlled man who’d spent his entire life learning how to survive but never learning that he was allowed to want anything.
His eyes went dark. He twisted his hands in his lap.
“What do you want to do?”
He looked up at her with pupils blown, and said, “I don’t know.”