42
meg
Mrs. King was almost done with her monthly dinner for the board of her cancer foundation. She had me come over at noon to do her hair and makeup, direct the caterers, walk her dogs, prepare labels for her mail for the week. I didn’t mind the personal-assistant duties, but would much rather only be handling her glam.
The meeting should be over any minute. The dessert was served fifteen minutes ago. I took the few minutes of downtime to touch up my makeup in the hallway mirror. My eyes were still a little puffy from the night before, and the redness in my skin had started peeking through my foundation. That festival wrecked me. It was like a time machine, and I was right back in Texas with a target on my back. I hated feeling like the two worlds were mixing. I had been thinking the past would never catch up with me. What a fucking idiot I was. I glossed my lips and fluffed my hair and tried to cover up the drama in my life one mascara stroke at a time. I caught my reflection in the mirror on the wall and put the wand back into the mascara tube.
Shia was standing there, his shirt covered in big patches of sweat. He wasn’t moving. He just stared at me in the mirror. I looked away and quickly gathered my makeup into my bag and zipped it shut.
“Wait,” he called after me, but I kept moving. “Meg!”
I turned the corner and walked down the hallway. Mr. King’s study was right in the middle of this hallway, and even though he wasn’t home, I knew better than to snoop around this part of the house.
I turned around to face Shia. “No! Get away.”
“Meg, come on. Hear me out.”
I shook my head. “No. No, Shia. You and Bell Gardiner can go fuck yourselves.”
Shia laughed a little.
“This isn’t funny. You told her, didn’t you?” I lowered my voice. “I can’t believe you. I know she’s your fiancée and till death do you part and all, but I thought we were friends.”
He popped his eyes out. “Friends, huh?”
“Shia.”
“Margaret.”
I looked up and down the hallway. The last thing I needed was for Mrs. King to walk out into the hallway with a group of board members dressed in their Sunday-dinner best.
“I didn’t tell anyone anything about you. You know damn well I wouldn’t. Bell said Shelly sent them to her, and she didn’t know who sent them to Shelly. She knows she was wrong being a part of that shit, but it was Shelly at the center, for real, Meg.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “You think I care who’s in the middle of it? I’m mortified. I was humiliated in front of all of your friends and my sisters.” I turned away from him when the tears pricked at the backs of my eyes.
“I know. I know you were.” His voice echoed in the quiet hallway. Of course, this was one of the only areas of the house that didn’t have a clock hanging on the wall or perfectly accenting a buffet table.
“I’m not talking about this with you. There’s nothing to say. Now, I need to get back to work.”
“Stop being stubborn. Aren’t we past that?”
I turned around and raised my voice. “You and your fiancée went too far, and I have every right to be angry and hurt.” I made sure he was looking straight in my eyes. “I hate you, both of you.”
“She’s not my fiancée,” I thought I heard him say.
“Huh?” I looked down the hall again, checking to make sure it was only the two of us.
He licked his lips. “We aren’t engaged anymore. I ended it on the way home from the festival. I’m sorry she was a part of that.”
“Why?” My throat felt like I’d swallowed dirt and it needed to be watered.
He sighed, stepping closer to me. “So many reasons. I’m too young. She’s too young. We don’t know each other well enough. We don’t have anything in common. She starts drama; she was shitty to you. The usual reasons.” He smiled.
I caught my own smile just before it broke on my lips. “Are you being serious?” I couldn’t tell for sure, but I thought maybe he was. “Why were you with her in the first place?”
He shrugged. “She’s cool.” He paused. “Well, sometimes she is. And she’s funny and I haven’t had a girlfriend in a long time, and I knew it would get my parents off my back about leaving. It would give my mom something else to obsess over.”
“She worries about you.”
“Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck. The sleeves of his shirt were cut off, and like me, he looked tired.
“So now what?” I asked. Our conversation was moving so fast.
“I’m leaving Tuesday.”
Whoa. “This Tuesday?”
He nodded.
“Okay.” I swallowed my words and my shock. I knew he was leaving, and more than that, his absence from New Orleans wasn’t going to change my life in any way. I had gotten used to his being gone in the short time I’ve known him.
“ ‘Okay’? That’s it?”
“What else do you expect from me?” I leaned my shoulder against the beige wall. The massive family painting on the wall hung at my eye level, and I looked at Shia’s young face and that dang teddy bear in his hands, all captured in front of me.
“I don’t know. Something more than okay.”
“Why don’t you say something to me? You’re the one who obviously has something to say.”
His eyes closed for a second and he came closer to me, backing me against the wall. “I’m sorry about Bell. I am. I didn’t have anything to do with it, but I’m sorry still.” He placed his hand at the base of my neck, just over the thin fabric of my T-shirt.
I was dressed too casually, a white pocketed T tucked into ripped black jeans that were tucked into black bootees. If I’d have known I’d be going up against Shia, I would have worn more comfortable shoes and a sexier shirt.
“What else can I say to you, Meg? That you drive me up a freaking wall half the time? Or that I think you’re a brat, or that I wish I could be what you want?” He inched closer.
Huh? He was going to kiss me. Oh my God.
This had to be a horrible idea. Jo would think this was a horrible idea.
“Don’t even think about it,” I said through a smile, turning my head when he moved his lips toward mine. “What is it that I want exactly?” I asked breathlessly. His palm was still at the base of my neck.
He grinned. “You want the officer’s-wife life. You want to be like that, or like my mom.”
“What’s so bad about that?”
His body was only a few inches away from mine, nearly pinning me to the wall.
Shia gripped the torso of my T-shirt and pulled me to him. The moment our lips touched, heels clicked against the floor down the hall. I jerked away from him, and he gently wrapped his hand around my wrist. His mom was coming toward us, and I was trying not to panic.
“Don’t run,” he begged. “We need to talk.”
“Meg?” Mrs. King was looking for me.
“Shit. Shit. Your mom’s going to kill me,” I groaned, stepping out into the light. “Coming!” I said as she laid eyes on me.
Her tan dress fit her body perfectly, and her laced-up heels went past her ankle. Her hair was sleek, a black river down her shoulders. “We’re finished. If you want to come into the dining room while I clean up, we can go over next week and you can go.”
She didn’t seem to suspect anything, but then Shia stepped out of the corner and stood behind me. Mrs. King didn’t even blink when she saw him. “You’re back,” she said to her son as he walked toward her. She was almost his height in her four-inch heels.
“Yeah, I only went to work out. I told you that.”
“Your sister said your flight out is Tuesday.”
I shouldn’t have been there while they were talking about family things, but the only way out was past the two of them. I remembered the fight I’d witnessed from the hallway and prayed that history didn’t repeat itself.
“Mom, I always come back.” He reached out to hug her, and she pointed at his sweaty clothes. “Come on.” He laughed, tilting his head, charming her instantly.
“You’re going to put me in an early grave coming and going like this. Your sister is settling down, when are you going to?” She hugged him with one arm. The question was from a concerned mother, not the Mrs. King who cut my checks. She was always nice to me, but she was so, so soft with her son.
“I’m coming back at the end of summer.”
The three of us began to walk toward the staircase.
“September is so long from now.”
Shia was leaving in two days until the end of summer. That did seem so long from now.
“You’ll be fine. Maybe you’ll get lucky and one of the girls will get pregnant.” Shia jokingly pulled away from his mom. My heart was finally slowing from our “talk” upstairs.
She rolled her eyes at him. “Very funny. They may as well, since you won’t give me grandchildren. Okay, now go bother someone else in this house so we can get some work done.” She shooed him away.
I bit back a smile, relieved the conversation had been light.
Shia kissed his mom on the cheek, waved to me without making eye contact, and disappeared from the entryway. I followed Mrs. King into the dining room, where the dinner had been held. She always reminded me I could sit in on the dinners, but I don’t have the attention span for them. Two housekeepers were working around us to clean up, and Mrs. King grabbed a trash bag and started clearing off the table herself.
“It went extremely well. We’re giving another scholarship, and we have some ideas for a new website. We need a designer. Do you know one?” She tossed plate after plate of mostly eaten food into the bag.
I started collecting the cups. “I think my sister’s boyfriend is one?” Laurie seemed like the type. “I’ll find out and tell you.”
“Thanks, Meg. How was your evening? You ate, right? I hope you did.”
I nodded and we moved from seat to seat. Mrs. King always made sure I ate whatever I wanted while she had her meetings, and I always picked places I loved to cater the dinners because of this. Most of the time I brought leftovers to my sisters.
“How was your time?” she asked again.
Oh my God, she’s grilling me.
My throat was so dry.
“Good. I was just walking around and ran into Shia.” I squeezed a tiny smile out like the last bit of toothpaste.
“I saw. How’s John Brooke?”
My stomach dropped. I croaked, “Good. I mean . . .” She was cleaning so fast, I could barely keep up. Again, I wished I had worn more comfortable shoes. “He’s visiting his family for a few days before he has to report to his first duty station.”
“How many years does he owe the Army again?”
“Five.”
“That’s a long time,” she told me, like I didn’t know that already. The table was cleared off, and I was so, so ready to go home and get away from anyone with the last name King.
Maybe not Shia . . .
Hell, I was so confused.
“Yeah,” I managed.
Mrs. King stood next to me, towering over me. “Let’s go to the kitchen?”
She walked past me so I followed behind her and checked the time on my phone. I had been in this house all day. No one had texted me. Jo was probably still mad at me, and I could barely remember what we even fought over. Mrs. King walked to the sleek commercial fridge and pulled out a half gallon of milk.
“Can you grab two cups? And the green plate.” She pointed to the plate of cookies in front of me.
I met her at the island and she handed me a glass of milk and a spoon. I slid the cookies between us, hoping that she already knew my schedule for the next week.
I took a bite of a chocolate-chip cookie right as Mrs. King asked, “Should I be worried about the way my son feels about you?”
I nearly choked. “Uhm, what?” my big mouth said.
Mrs. King was so calm and so well-spoken when she asked again, “Should I be worried about you and my son?”
I was careful with my response. “In which way?”
“In the romantic way.”
“Why would you be worried?” I took a drink of the milk.
Mrs. King leaned on her elbows on the marble island. “The things that would worry me are cheating, patience, and the way our family name is carried on.”
My chest tightened. “I’m not cheating on anyone. John and I barely . . .” I didn’t want to give her an excuse. “I would end things with John before I made a commitment to your son.”
I didn’t even know if I wanted to do that. I knew he was telling the truth about not telling Bell, but that didn’t mean our relationship would ever make sense or last longer than one of his trips.
“And patience?” She dipped her cookie into the glass of milk.
“In what way?” I hated that I had to ask her to clarify, but if this was a test, I wanted to pass.
“He goes on these trips and he will be in villages with zero internet, and he will come home with no money in the bank because he gave it all away. He’s a good man, and I’m proud of him, but there are limits to everything, and Shia needs to be with a woman with a lot of patience.”
“Did you ask Bell Gardiner these things?” I just had to know.
Mrs. King shook her head. “Didn’t need to.”
“Because you already knew the answers?” I still just had to know.
“No. I knew it wasn’t going to last long enough for the answers to matter.”
Her response surprised me, but I didn’t have time to think before my mouth took over again. “I think I’m patient.”
I wasn’t as patient as say . . . Beth, but I could wait for things that were worth my time.
“And the family-legacy stuff?” I asked.
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear it. The Kings were so out of my league.
“Do you know what I care about more than the color of your skin or your last name?” she began.
“No.” I sure didn’t.
“I care about whether you’re a warrior. Are you going to be able to handle the pressure of being in a family like this? Shia and his dad may not talk for months, but our family is number one in my life.”
I nodded.
“And I don’t care about what college you went to, or even if you went to college. I know it’s not for everyone, and you millennials are so self-made nowadays, I get it. Are you going to be able to raise my grandkids to be strong and take on the world despite the color of their skin?”
I nodded again.
“I know this seems like a lot”—she smiled, lightening up the unexpected conversation—“and I sound like I’m hovering over him, but that’s not the case. If this doesn’t work out, it changes a lot of things. Your job could be compromised, the friendship you two have, the friendship we have. I don’t want to waste my time or my son’s time or your time, Meg, if you’re not ready for this.”
It still seemed a little intense, but honestly, I had been planning my wedding and naming my stuffed animals since I could talk. I wasn’t like Jo. Being a mother was so important to me, and I had always known that no matter what race my children were, I would be their biggest advocate. I looked forward to my future as a wife and mother someday.
I was so far from that. Shia too. “I understand. Shia and I are just so far from that.”
“Well, I want you to be able to think about the big picture. I would really hate to lose the working relationship we have now if you guys end up calling it off.”
We had to call it on first, but I didn’t tell her that.
“Mrs. King, I promise that if we . . . if we go there, I’ll be ready for those things,” I assured her, and myself. “All of them.”
Shia and I couldn’t just start dating. We would have to start as friends again, and that couldn’t happen because he was leaving until after summer and it was still spring.
“That’s all I’m asking. And don’t tell him that I said any of this. That’s the last thing.” Her smile was warm enough to melt most of the awkwardness away. “Oh, and I need you to pass these cookies down to my grandchildren.”
“Deal.” I raised a new cookie in the air.
“Deal,” she echoed, cheersing me with her half-eaten cookie.
For the next twenty minutes, we went over her schedule for the next week, including everything from dog-grooming appointments tomorrow morning to jury duty on Thursday. In between my adding things to her cell-phone calendar, I kept looking through the doorway, sort of hoping to see Shia again before I left. He only had two more days here, and I knew those days would come and go, and then, poof, he’d be on the other side of the world again.
But he never came through the door. Right as I was leaving with a pan full of leftovers, Mrs. King’s phone went off on the counter where I’d placed it.
She lifted it up and read it as she walked me to the door. “Have a good night, Meg. And let me know if you want to take Tuesday off.”
I nodded, thanking her, and got to my car as fast as I could.
What just happened?