The Perfect Mistress (5 page)

Tanya was already thirteen, which made her extra supercool to Lauren because she couldn't wait to be a teenager. And after that day at the pizza parlor, Tanya had started talking to Lauren every day at school.

Hanging around Tanya was like having the sister that she always wanted. And Tanya told her what it was like to be a teenager. She used her pillow to show her how to kiss a boy, and she taught her how to paint her nails and style her hair in all the hippest styles. She even helped Lauren create a Slam Book, which was a notebook that Lauren passed around school for all her classmates to answer various questions. It had taken Lauren's cool factor to a whole other level.

Lauren talked about her friend Tanya so much that her mother began to ask questions.

“Does she go to your school?”

Lauren wasn't quite sure how she should handle that. Should she tell her mother the truth? Because if she did, what if her mother came to the school?

When Lauren said no, her mother asked, “Where did you meet her?”

“Just around.”

When Lauren didn't have any more to say, her mother insisted on meeting Tanya. “Invite her to come over one of these weekends,” her mother said. “I want to know all of your friends. And I'd like to meet her mother, too.”

That request made Lauren's stomach do flip-flops. But so far, every weekend, she had a different excuse as to why Tanya couldn't come over.

Lauren snapped out of her thoughts when she spotted Tanya crossing the cafeteria.

“Tanya!” she called out and waved. When Tanya ignored her, Lauren frowned and yelled out again, a little louder this time. “Tanya!”

Tanya finally stopped. But when she glanced back at Lauren over her shoulder, she had a face full of attitude.

“What?” Tanya snapped.

Lauren lost her smile right away. What was going on? “Uh, I-I . . .” That response had caught her completely off guard.

“Cat got your tongue? You shouting my name all over the place.” Tanya marched over to where Lauren was sitting. “So what is it that you want?” Tanya's hand went to her hip.

It had to be Lauren's imagination. She and Tanya were practically BFFs, practically sisters. So, she tried a smile. “Um, I was just seeing if we were going to eat lunch together today.”

Tanya rolled her eyes. “I don't want to eat with you.” She came almost right up on Lauren, making her cower. “Matter of fact,” Tanya hissed, “I don't want to talk to you, so don't you
speak to me. I don't even want you to look at me. And if you see me coming, you'd better turn around and walk the other way.”

Lauren shook her head. “Huh?” She did not understand at all. “Wh-what did I do?”

Lauren heard snickers around her, and she realized that other classmates were congregating around her, no doubt hoping to see a fight. Lauren's heartbeat quickened. She'd never had a fight in her life and she didn't want to start now. She didn't want to be seen getting beat up, especially not by a girl who just a minute ago felt like her sister.

“My mama said I can't be friends with you no more.”

“Why?” Lauren whined, and then she caught herself, getting her tone together. “What happened? Why would your mom say that?”

“Your daddy is a dog,” she said, loud enough for everyone around them to hear.

To Lauren, it felt like the whole cafeteria filled with laughter. “My d-daddy?”

“Yeah, yo' daddy. He broke up with my mama last night. Had her crying and yelling at me and everything. She said he was cheating on her.”

Lauren's mouth opened wide. What in the world was Tanya talking about? Miss Tammy knew that her father was married. She knew that he was cheating
with
her. So, how was she gonna be mad if he started seeing somebody else, too?

Inside, Lauren sighed. Daddy's relationships were so complicated, but their friendship—that should be the same.

“B-but what does that have to do with us?” Lauren asked. “We're . . .” She paused, not wanting to say how she'd begun to think about Tanya. “We're friends.”

Tanya waved her off like she was crazy. “If you mess with my mama, you mess with me. You lucky I don't kick your butt, so that you can go run and tell yo' daddy that.”

More laughter erupted and Lauren felt heat rise beneath her cheeks. If she'd been thinking, she would have saved face in front of their classmates and told Tanya that at least she had a daddy. Tanya didn't even know who her father was.

But Lauren couldn't form any words. She just stood in the middle of the cafeteria, in the middle of her laughing classmates, still in shock.

As if she were suddenly bored, Tanya turned to walk away. Lauren fought back tears. No way was she going to cry. But as she got up from the table and walked out of the cafeteria, she vowed that she would never let herself get close to a girl again. She'd never put herself in the position where a friend like Tanya could humiliate her.

L
ife wasn't fair. Joyce had heard that from people all of her life. But usually when she'd heard one of her elders saying that expression, they were talking about life in general. They were wrong. It wasn't life that was unfair, it was love.

She glanced down at the receipt in her hand and realized that she'd been clutching it so tight, her nails were digging into her palm. She released her grip and read the information on the paper for what had to be at least the tenth time:

October 3, 1993

Marriott Hotel. Durham, NC

That was just two weeks ago, when Vernon had told her that he was out of town on business for a legal conference. In fact, he'd been laid up in a hotel twenty minutes down the road.

Love wasn't fair.

Everything had been going so well for the past few years. She'd been absolutely sure that his cheating days were behind them. For the last three years he was always in her sight, or at least he was someplace on her radar—at work, at a church meeting. Not to count all those times when he took Lauren out.

She'd been thrilled that he was spending so much time with their daughter, and so much time with her. Joyce thought they'd been building their marriage, making it stronger.

But she was wrong.

Vernon was a low-down, cheating liar. That's who he was and who he would always be.

With tears in her eyes, Joyce laid the receipt on the nightstand and pushed aside the suit jacket inside which she'd found the evidence of his infidelity. She hadn't been snooping. She was getting his clothes ready for the cleaners, cleaning out his pockets, and found the receipt. He'd tricked her into becoming complacent and he'd gotten sloppy.

He'd never been good at cheating, though. She'd always caught him, or at least she liked to believe that she did. She was sure that the romp he'd had two weeks ago wasn't the first in the last three years.

She lay back on the bed as a headache suddenly overcame her. How had he done it when he spent all of his time with her, and Julian and Lauren? When had he found time to cheat?

Maybe what he'd done two weeks ago was just an aberration. But a second after she had that thought, she doubted it.

Once a cheat, always a cheat. He'd been cheating on her; she just didn't know how.

Now she had to figure out what to do. Was she really ready to do something this time? In the early years when she'd stayed, she blamed her weakness on her children. Raising young children was always better with both parents. But Lauren was thirteen now, Julian seventeen. What was her excuse now? Why couldn't she find the strength to leave?

Because when he's good, he's so, so good.

Plus, she'd tried leaving before. Twice. She squeezed her eyes shut at those memories, but still her mind took her back to the first time she tried to love herself more than she loved Vernon.

Joyce had been suspicious, since Vernon had never fired the law clerk like he'd promised, telling her that he was new at the firm and he couldn't make hiring and firing decisions. But he made other promises.

“I promise that nothing will ever happen with me and Alicia again.”

“I promise that I will never hurt you again.”

“I promise that I love you.”

She'd tried her best to believe his promises, but then when Julian was only six months old, Alicia had been bold enough to call their home.

“I want to inform you that Vernon and I are in love,” she said with the assurance of a woman who was having a torrid affair. “He's only staying with you because of the baby.”

Alicia described their trysts, all the different times that she had been with her husband, in lurid detail.

“He told me that if it weren't for Julian, he would marry me.”

Joyce was sure that Alicia had embellished the facts, but at the core of Alicia's story was the truth—she was having an affair with Vernon. Joyce's bags were almost completely packed before she hung up the phone. She wasn't going to give Vernon a chance to charm her this time. She wasn't going to give him a chance to sway her with another one of his sad apologies.
This time when he came home from work, she and their baby would already be gone.

The only thing was, Joyce didn't really have anywhere to go—except back home. She'd showed up at her parents' door without any warning, praying that they wouldn't ask any questions.

She'd showed up just after five, and both her mother and father had already come home from work. Of course, they'd let her in with their arms wide open. But while her mother gave her the space she asked for, her father wasn't having it. As soon as she laid Julian down to sleep, he grilled Joyce to the point of tears, asking, “What are you doing here? What did Vernon do to you? Does he know you're here?”

He shot questions at her rapid-fire, ignoring the fact that he had reduced her to tears. That made Joyce's mother finally step in.

“Leave her alone, Charles,” she said. “Joyce, go to your room and pull yourself together. We'll take care of Julian.”

She didn't have to tell Joyce twice. Joyce bolted from the room and headed to the place that had given her childhood solace. Her room was still the same, as if her parents had expected her to return home someday.

She lay down on the twin bed that she'd had since she was six and closed her eyes. She slept for long hours, and when she awoke, the clock on the nightstand told her it was close to midnight.

Her stomach growled and she rolled over and out of the bed. As her feet hit the floor, she heard a tap on her door. Before she could answer, her father stuck his head in.

“How are you feeling?”

Seeing him, remembering how he'd reacted to her coming home, made her wish that she'd slipped back under the covers, pretending to be asleep. But there was nothing she could do now. She clicked on the lamp on the nightstand. “I'm okay, I guess.”

He nodded his head and took a cautious step into her room. “You know I just want what's best for you.”

“I know.”

“Come on out here.” He motioned with his head toward the door. “We all need to talk.”

“We?” Joyce's eyes narrowed. “Who . . . is . . . we?”

“Me, you, Vernon, and your mama.”

“He's here?” She glanced at the clock once again. “It's too late to do any talking,” she said wearily. “And anyway, I don't want to talk to him.”

Her father's look was as firm as his tone. It was the expression that he used to give her when she was a child. And now, like then, she felt like she was in trouble. “Look, you made the decision to drop out of school for this man. You made your bed and now it's time to lie in it.”

“So, you think it's okay that he hurt me?”

“Did he hit you?”

Why was he asking that question? “No, of course not.”

“Then anything other than that, you can work through it. Now, come on,” her father said.

Joyce couldn't believe it. Even though she hadn't told her father what had happened, he had to know. He had to know that Vernon was a cheater. Did he want that for his daughter?