Chapter 20 Monique #2
She sat off to the side, on the ledge at the wall of windows that opened to the terrace. The ocean breeze brought the scent of jasmine and salt. A waiter passed and offered her a cocktail. She took it just so she could do something with her hands.
Cassie and Sunny found her. “You okay?” Cassie asked.
“Fine.”
Sunny gave her a look like she knew her. “Monique…”
“I’m working on it.”
Maurice leaned against the terrace wall talking with Tommie, but his eyes were trained on her.
She looked away.
“It’s weird seeing him in that collar,” Sunny said.
Monique knew what she was doing and pretended to sip her drink.
“It looks good on him. Natural,” Cassie said, hiding her smile.
“Elaine said he used to preach back in Philly. But now he just focuses on Returning Home. I had them work on this rehab we were doing, and, oh my God, girl!” Sunny pulled out her phone and showed Cassie pictures. Monique tried not to look, even though she desperately wanted to.
Maurice moved around, greeting people she hadn’t seen before tonight like they were old friends. Maybe they were. But he never came closer.
Dinner was on small plates and café tables. People mingled, danced, touched. The scene was intimate. Designed for folks to lose time, to stay. Pockets of comfortable seating, ideal for conversation, were scattered throughout the space.
Her phone buzzed. The Baddest Baddies.
ELEANOR
How was the wedding?
MONIQUE
Fine
CHICKIE
Did you cry? I always cry at weddings.
MONIQUE
No.
She was sort of telling the truth. She’d been crying all day; what difference did a thirty-minute intermission make?
Music swelled, and people made their way to the terrace to get closer to the band and the dance floor.
Monique didn’t move.
CHICKIE
You’d better not be moping.
How did she know?
MONIQUE
I’m not moping.
CHICKIE
Liar.
Maurice had moved away from the dancing and stood in one of the archways draped in fairy lights.
Moonlight glinted off the water that spilled from the fuente beside him.
He’d taken his collar off and unbuttoned his shirt down to the third button, revealing a gray tank top and a smattering of chest hairs.
He raised his glass to her.
Monique swallowed hard and looked away.
She’d been there for hours, changing locations to put more distance between her and him. And there were still two more hours until midnight.
At ten o’clock, Monique found a quiet bench under a canopy of ferns, away from the music and lights and questioning eyes, and checked her flight status.
She could change it. Leave now. There was an eleven-thirty. She could be home by four, maybe. Her finger hovered over the button.
“You leaving?” Maurice stood nearby. His proximity was purposeful. Like he’d been standing guard, ready to act should she need him.
“I don’t know. Maybe?”
He stepped forward and gestured at the bench. “Can I sit?”
She gathered her skirt around her, and he sat. Silence and space rested between them.
“Thank you,” she said eventually. “For not crowding me tonight.”
“Of course.”
More silence.
“But?” Maurice asked.
“But I think maybe I ask for the wrong things sometimes.” She twisted her hands in her lap. “I ask people to leave me alone. Then I’m mad when they do.”
“Are you mad now?”
“No.”
“Good. But you’re scared.” He didn’t move closer, even though her body screamed for him to. “Me too. Scared that if I want something, I’ll lose it. You push first, and I…” He shrugged.
Monique’s throat tightened. The warmth and comforting presence, even with the space between them, was more than okay. It was better than the paradise they had been traversing all week. It was better than anything she had ever experienced.
But she couldn’t tell him that. That would be too eager, too thirsty. But she was. An unfamiliar sensation came over her that she couldn’t make peace with.
“Board meeting?” He spread his fingers out over his strong thighs.
It both irked and eased her soul that he knew about her board meetings. “You watch me too closely.” She wasn’t complaining, though.
“I won’t apologize. You fascinate me.”
How long had it been since she’d had a man’s attention like that?
She’d been a naive college girl when she fell for Nathan’s lines.
Yeah, she had schoolyard boyfriends, but there had never been anybody in the neighborhood who had kept her attention.
Those days seemed like they belonged to someone else’s story, a story that she had read once and whose details were fuzzy and fading.
She had committed to the wrong person too soon, and it seemed like the penalty for that would never lift.
Just as she was getting out from under the daily grind of child rearing, cancer had struck.
When would her life ever be hers?
“I’d love to know what’s going on in that meeting of yours,” Maurice said, closing the distance between them.
She sank into him, and as if she’d been squeezed like a balloon, it all came spluttering out from the loose knot that was her lips.
“I’m just wondering when it’ll end—all the hurdles—so I can stop running and breathe for myself for once.
” Monique wanted to turn away from him, to get up and flee the room and peace that she found in his arms. “I’m so tired of doing it all. ”
“So, don’t. Just rest.”
“It’s not that easy. My kids…” She couldn’t think of another responsibility that she had.
Mama had been gone for years now. There were no siblings, no cousins other than Tommie, no grandparents, not even a dog that needed her to manage its life.
She wasn’t a part of any organization or church.
Outside of her kids, all she had was her Thriving with Cancer group.
“You told me yourself that your kids are solid people and have been taking care of you as much as you have taken care of them. Living their lives is their job now. You got them this far. It’s time to let them take over.”
Monique snorted a laugh against Maurice’s shoulder and looked up at him. His eyes met hers. In the dim, twinkling light, his hazel eyes seemed bottomless, and his skin like a toasty dream.
He licked his lips and turned his face away from her. “Your friend, um,” he said, “Chickie? What would she want you to do?”
“She’s dying.” The words came out flat. Monique had sat vigil often enough to understand what Dr. Tedrow didn’t say. Chickie would likely be gone in hours, not days.
Maurice went still. “I’m sorry.”
“I promised her I’d be there. When it happened.” Monique pulled away slightly. “She’s Jewish, and tradition says she has to be buried within twenty-four hours. Before that, we all take turns reading Psalms and making sure she’s not alone.”
“And she asked you?”
“Me, Eleanor, and Vanessa. We’re her girls.
Her people. I talked to her brother earlier today.
We promised her months ago. But now she’s changing the rules.
” The sound she made was part laugh, part sob.
“You know she was just texting me, telling me to stop moping and dance? Told me she’d haunt me if I came home early. ”
Maurice chuckled. “I didn’t see you dancing.”
“Nope.” She shook her head slowly.
“And you have to go.”
“Yeah.”
There was a long silence. “That’s dope. What you’re doing is showing up, not running.”
Something shifted in her chest. “How do you always know the right things to say?”
He smiled. “I don’t. But I know what showing up looks like. And what running looks like.”
“But what about”—she gestured between them—“this?”
“This will be here. When you’re ready.” He took her hand. “I’m not going anywhere, Monique.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yeah, I do.” He squeezed her hand. “Because I love you. And love is patient, remember?”
She laughed through a sudden rush of tears. Monique took in a deep breath. “Sometimes, I think that if I let myself be happy, even for one night, it feels like I’m forgetting my responsibilities to her. Like I’m celebrating while she’s dying.”
“Or,” Maurice said gently, “you could be living because she can’t. Honoring her by choosing joy.” He gave her a soft smile and shrugged. “Sometimes focusing on others is what gets us through the day. That’s how I’ve survived all these years. Maybe that’s what you’ve been doing too.”
The tightness in her chest eased. “How do you live for yourself? What changed for you?”
He huffed a rueful laugh.
“You don’t know?”
He shook his head. “Not a clue.”
“Neither do I.” She rested her head on his shoulder again, this time sliding her hand over his.
“But I’d like to figure it out with you.”
They sat in silence for a long time as the party continued without them. Monique stood. “I’m gonna go.”
He nodded in understanding as she pressed the button to change her flight. “See you around, Mo,” he said as she moved quickly through the garden and to the elevators.
“See ya ’round,” she whispered, catching sight of him approaching the lobby and watching her go.
In her room, she peeled out of her dress and shoved it into her bag, along with the rest of her things. Her phone buzzed a few minutes later.
UNKNOWN NUMBER
A car is waiting to take you to the airport.
Monique changed the contact to M<3 and then finished packing.