Les Tales (17 page)

“How are you so sure about that?” I asked, though I did not doubt her words. She ignored me and continued her story.

“Once she got engaged, she ended our relationship, but she didn't want to let go of the sex. I was devastated, but I agreed.” She lifted her eyes to me. “I needed something else to do, and I needed somebody to occupy my time, so I pursued Layne intentionally to make Amber jealous.”

“Did it work?”

“No. Amber thought it was cute, my desire to make her feel like she was missing out. She continued to flaunt herself in front of me and taunt me with her presence. Still, after all these years, she can call and I'll drop anything.”

“So you're still friends? More?”

“We have lunch every couple of months in my office.” Nina grinned.

I understood and wondered how many women besides Layne and Amber had laid their bare asses across Nina's desk. “Did Layne know?”

“No. That's one secret I kept from Layne. She didn't know Amber and I were still intimate. You know, Taryn, I would have chosen someone else had I known Layne had a wife,” she confessed, thoughtful for a moment.

“Yes, well, that's neither here nor there, is it? What's done is done. Anyway, I take it there's no pen.” We were opposite one another, she still behind her desk, leaning forward with her palms flat, exposing a small gape between her breasts.

“There is no pen, no,” she confessed. “I had to get you out of there sooner than later, or Charles would have had us in his office all afternoon.” Slowly, she walked around her desk and sat on it in front of me. “Plus, you came to see me, not him.”

I stared into the alternating bronze and brown mutations in her eyes. “Yes, I did. So tell me . . .” I walked to the window and looked out at the students. A few were sitting on benches with open books and chatting with one another next to the waterfall. Some sat alone with their eyes closed, headphones on the ears, while others walked back and forth between buildings. “How did you do it? How did you two manage not to get caught with so much activity all around you?”

“It wasn't always easy. There were some narrow escapes, times when we had only seconds to get ourselves together. It was dangerous, and that's what made it exciting.” Nina's desk creaked as she got up to stand behind me at the window. “Once, I was standing exactly where you are, blinds up, everyone right outside this window. For those who walked past, it appeared that I was simply looking out at the space, enjoying the view. No one could see that Layne was on her knees behind me, tossing my salad, as people like to say,” she told me casually.

My stomach turned, and my throat tightened around the acid that rose to the back of my mouth. I didn't know what had gotten into me. Maybe it was the conversation with Jimmy and Ms. Sheila, combined with Nina's sideways antagonism, but I had begun to hate Nina, and I hated her more with each second that ticked by.

“It was a game. It was fun. It was a constant test of our limits and what we were capable of. I smiled at a female student as I came that day, and she had no idea.”

I turned to face her. “That's disgusting.”

“Is it? I don't think you really believe that, not by the glow of excitement I see in your cheeks.” She studied my face, mistaking my flushed agitation for foreplay. Her face had brightened in hue as well. “Look, I know that everything about this situation is unusual. Bizarre, even. You and Layne, me and Layne, and now you and me. Tell me again. Why are you here?”

“I'm here to figure out why my wife couldn't love me the way she loved you,” I answered, with half the truth.

“I thought we were getting past that, Taryn. And you might want to rephrase that question and ask yourself why your wife didn't fuck you the way she fucked me.” She stepped closer. “Isn't that what you want to know? Why night after night she chose me over you? Even Charles knows she spent more time here than at home.”

My right hand twitched involuntarily. I had always been one to maintain control of my emotions, and even in my moments of deep aggravation, I had never acted impulsively. That quality of passivity I had inherited from my mother. In that moment I could feel the shedding of those layers, to reveal another part of me.

Nina searched my face for an indication of my thoughts. I showed nothing. That skill I had learned from my father. He had never allowed my mother to know if a punch was on its way. I balled my hand into a fist to control the spasms.

When I didn't answer her, Nina returned to her desk and removed a handheld mirror from one of her drawers. “Come here and tell me what you see.”

I walked over to her and stared at my usual reflection in the mirror, touching the strands that led to the bun at the back of my head. Layne had cherished my hair like a young girl would the synthetic strands glued to the vinyl scalp of her Barbie doll. My hair was long and straight, and nothing more to me than a reminder of my partial Native American heritage. I had wanted to cut it many times, but Layne would never let me.

“What do you mean?” I asked Nina.

“Look at yourself. Tell me what you see. Tell me
who
you see.”

“I see myself.”

“Anything else?”

What did she want me to say? “No,” I answered impatiently.

“That's the problem, then. That was both your and Layne's problem. I see otherwise.”

She handed the mirror to me and stepped behind me. She removed the bobby pins that carefully held my bun in place. It unraveled, like a loosened ball of yarn, and then she released the band that held all the hair together, slowly tugging it down my back. She spread her fingers against my scalp, rubbed aggressively, and shook my hair, creating a longer version of her own sporadic strands.

“Look at yourself. You're wildly beautiful. Don't you know that? There's more to you than what meets the eye. I see it, even if Layne didn't. I want you to do something for me.”

“What?”

“Let go.”

“Of?”

“Let go of the woman you think you are, and release the alter ego you have inside. She's in there,” Nina commanded. “We all have one. I do, and your wife sure did.” She walked to the window, closed it, and lowered the blinds.

She taunted me as she walked back to her desk. “Are you really a woman who lets everyone walk all over her, who lets her wife fuck somebody and then come home and lie next to her? What kind of weak woman does that?”

Nina laid her body flat against the wooden surface of the desk and lifted her dress above her waist to reveal bare, panty-less hips. I inhaled the scent that radiated from between her thighs and became light-headed. In front of me Nina blurred into two and then three clouded figures, and her hungry eyes multiplied and crossed one over the other, staring at me with desire and provocation. My skin prickled, from the follicles in my scalp down to the soles of my feet. Inside my chest, my heart pounded louder than it ever had, its drum sound clogging my ears. I couldn't see and I couldn't hear properly, but I could breathe, and it was heavy and hard.

Layne's journals suddenly rushed to me, the words hammering against my brain, smashing my outer shell, cracking and breaking it to reveal the storm inside. I tried to resist the energy that poured through my veins and electrified my skin, but I couldn't. I felt alive. The air engulfed my skin and heightened my sensitivity. I walked toward Nina and ran my fingertips along the desk. Its grain sent sensations from my hand, up my arm, and into my chest. Onto the desk I crawled, my coat grazing Nina's bare legs. She turned her head to the left and buried her face in my hair. She inhaled the strands that swept across her face.

Beneath me, her eyes were low, her eyebrows relaxed, and her lips wet. I wanted to taste their sweetness as Layne had described. I kissed her, and her mouth was warm and salty with sweat.

With my right hand, which was still pulsating, I stroked her thighs, gripping her creamy skin between my fingers. I whispered delicious words in her ear and bit the lobe tightly between my teeth. I grazed her neck with an open mouth, leaving her to guess where I would bite next. I rested at her jugular, sucking at it and digging into the skin around it. She winced in pain. I asked Nina if she liked it. She muttered yes through clenched teeth. In hushed, fast-paced words, she sputtered her delight. She moaned with pleasure and murmured my name repeatedly. I lost myself. Every kiss, every lick, every grope, and every bite became more forceful.

Without warning, I thrust fingers into her, which her body enveloped anxiously. I moved fast and hard until Nina was a blur underneath my body. With my left hand around her neck and the other penetrating her deeply and aggressively, I showed her that I was in control and that I wasn't the weak woman she and Layne thought I was. That I could be just as intentional in hurting the woman next to me as Layne had been each night she crept into bed with me after having sex with Nina. I squeezed tighter and thrust harder until I became dizzy with exhaustion, and still I didn't stop.

In my mind I replayed every lie and every deception and released my pain on to Nina. For every time they made love behind my back, I dove deeper, my fingernails clawing at her sensitive insides. For every unanswered call, late lunch, and missed dinner, my grip became stronger. Only when Nina's sounds changed from moans to gasps for air did I slow my pace and then release my fingers from her throbbing tender space. I stared into her fearful eyes and felt vindicated. Inside and out I smiled, the same smug smile my father gave to my mother when he dared her to respond to his actions. Nina's face was the color of cranberry, and her eyes were glazed with unfallen tears. She had both her hands around my wrist, and I realized I hadn't yet loosened my hold around her neck. I clutched the ridges of her throat once more and then let go.

Nina grabbed her neck and rolled over and coughed, inhaling and exhaling with effort to regain her breath. It took several minutes, but the color in her face returned to its golden-brown hue, and she finally calmed and took in air at a controlled pace. Her eyes, now dry and light with hazel glints, looked at me.

“Yes,” she muttered, her voice strained and ragged, a perverse grin on her lips. “Yes, I knew she was in there.”

Above Nina, I smiled, wiped my fingers across her chest, and then lifted myself off the desk. I straightened my coat, picked up my purse, walked to her closed office door, and placed my hand on the knob. I imagined my hair was a tossed mess, damp with sweat around the edges, and I didn't care. I opened the door, breathed in the cool air about the hallway, and left. As I, flushed and in disarray, passed well-dressed employees of the university, I continued to smile to myself. Whoever I was becoming, my mind was both fascinated by, and afraid of, what she was capable of.

Layne hadn't allowed me to drink often. When she was alive, I would partake in libations with her and her friends, all a bunch of uppity, pretentious men and women who celebrated their successes through raised glasses of Dom Pérignon during private yacht parties or in a secluded room in Chicago's upscale restaurants. Even at those events where Layne and her counterparts inhaled drink after drink, Layne would always restrict me to just one.

Even at Layne's repast, which had been as stuffy and stiff as her friends, I had found myself abiding by Layne's rules, limiting my intake to one glass of wine, although I had craved more. At that time I had still loved Layne and had wanted to honor her and represent her properly from six feet above. Her friends had been gracious, kind, even, paying attention to me for the first time. I wondered what those friends would think if they knew of Layne's truest feeling about them, how she had scrutinized their careers, their homes, their clothing, and the schools their children attended. Layne, with her superiority complex, had defamed her counterparts, though they had done nothing but adore her. They, like me, had been clueless about the person Layne really was.

I was in the master bathroom Jacuzzi, listening to an R & B and rap station, which Layne would have scolded me for if she were alive. As further retribution, I was sipping my second glass of full-bodied red wine. I leaned back against the bath cushion and closed my eyes, remembering how diligently I had wanted to follow Layne's wishes for her funeral. She had documented every detail with her attorney in advance, unbeknownst to me, and I was merely handed the paperwork the day after she died.

We held the service at the funeral home of a wealthy friend of hers. Everyone in attendance wore designer dresses and expensive suits. It was a boring service, nothing like the spirited funerals I had attended as a child for family members of my father. Layne's parents spoke about her upbringing and the successes she achieved from grade school until she died. Jenna and I talked about our family life, reading from a script Layne had written herself. I learned that every two years she had provided her attorney with a revision.

Layne had selected which family members and friends would be allowed to speak. There was no allotment for anyone else to express their grief. The only moment they had was just before the service ended, when all the attendees walked to the front to say their final good-byes to Layne's closed casket.

My eyes shot open, and I sat upright in the bubbly water. “She was there,” I whispered.

I remembered seeing her now. She'd worn a simple black dress, with a veiled hat covering her face. Nina had stopped and rested her hands on the white casket before kissing it. Then she had turned and glanced at me and Jenna through the lace, and her eyes had darted ahead when my eyes met hers.

“Un-fucking believable.”

I picked up the wineglass and threw it across the stark white bathroom. Dark burgundy droplets splattered the wall, and glass crashed on the floor. I grabbed the bottle off the ledge of the tub, turned it upright over my lips, and swallowed until it was empty. I couldn't believe Nina had had the audacity to attend the funeral. But, after she had fucked Layne for seven years, should I have expected anything otherwise from her?

My phone rang, disrupting my thoughts.

“What?” I answered angrily.

“Oh my God, Mom. What's wrong?” Jenna sounded panicked.

“Nothing.”

“You sound mad.”

“I am.”

“About what? Are you okay?”

“Enough with the questions. I'm fine, all right? I'm relaxing in the tub with wine.”

“Have you had more than one glass of wine?”

I became more agitated. Even my own daughter had been trained to maneuver Layne's puppet strings in her absence. “Is it your duty to monitor my drink intake?”

“No, it's just that I know how you get when you drink.”

“Is that so? Tell me, how do I get?”

“Well, Layne once told me that you act like Grandmother when you drink, and that's why you're allowed only one glass of wine.”

“Excuse me? When did she tell you such a lie?”

“Years ago, Mom. You had fallen asleep one night after dinner, and I was helping Layne clean the kitchen. She told me how Grandmother had gotten into a lot of trouble with Granddad one night after drinking too much. She told me you were the same way, flirting with one of her friends after too much wine. She said in order to keep us a family, you weren't allowed to drink more than one.”

“And you believed that shit?”

Jenna was silent for a few seconds. In twenty years she had never heard me curse. When she was a young child, I had refrained from using poor language around her. As Jenna got older, Layne had forbidden me from using profanity in front of her.

“I was, like, twelve years old,” she went on. “I didn't have a reason not to believe her. Plus, I remember living downstairs with Grandmother and Granddad, and if drinking is what caused their fights, I wanted to make sure that didn't happen to you and Layne.”

I knew which story Layne had told Jenna. My mind backtracked to when I was age nine. It was the first and only time the police had been called on my father after a night of partying gone wrong. They had been out with my aunt Chelon, my father's sister, celebrating her boyfriend's birthday. My father, apparently, had perceived my mother's friendliness toward this man as excessive and unnecessary. Why did she have to hug him like that? Did she have to sing “Happy Birthday” so loud? She must have wanted to fuck him, the way she was smiling at him all night. These rhetorical questions and allegations I heard as my father punched and kicked my mother on the floor above me. I was lying in bed, hugging my favorite doll, when my mother eventually came screaming into our kitchen downstairs. Grandma, who normally “stayed out of grown folks' business,” even that of her abused daughter, had already called 911, and by the time my father came banging on our now locked door, the police were at the front.

Grandma had advised me to stay put in my room, but I was curious despite my fear. Although Grandma might have saved my mother from hospitalization or even death, I watched my mother, in hysterics, curse and fuss at her mother after my father was handcuffed and taken to the county jail. With a warming black eye and an oozing bloody nose, my mother insisted my father hadn't meant any harm, and pleaded with Grandma for bail money. She whined and fussed and threatened Grandma with suicide and even with burning down the house. It was only when my mother flaunted her birth rights and threatened that she'd take me away that my grandmother reached inside her housecoat and tossed a handful of twenties to my mother. My mother was gone without a “Thank you” or a “Good-bye,” raw face and all.

“Taryn!” Grandma had caught me peeking from my door and scooted me back into bed. Even though I hadn't seen the physical effects of my parents' abusive relationship before that night, I didn't cry, even with the visual of my mother's battered face. I hurt for my mother, but not for her physical pain. I wanted only to see her happy, and if being away from my father hurt her, which clearly it did, then I wanted them together. I accepted her joy in any form, despite Grandma's warnings.

“When you grow up to be a lady, don't let no man treat you the way your daddy does your mama. People show love in funny ways, but that's not love, baby.”

If Grandma had been watching the flow of my and Layne's relationship, would she have thought Layne's psychological control and betrayal any different than the abuse my father inflicted on my mother? I shouldn't have been shocked by the exaggerated story Layne told Jenna, but I was. What other lies had she fed my child?

“I've never lost control under the influence,” I told Jenna now. “As a matter of fact, I didn't even drink until I met Layne. I resent her for fabricating that story to her advantage. You should know me better than to believe that kind of story from her.”

“If I didn't know better, I'd say she was right. Listen to you.”

“What did you say, young lady?”

“You're acting so different, so aggressive.”

I knew I sounded unlike my usual self. I had already heard the change in my tone. It was heavier, sultrier even, and pissed off.

“Why is that a problem?”

“I guess I'm just used to Layne being the vocal one.”

“It's a new day, and it's just me and you now, so get used to it.”

“It doesn't have to be,” she said softly.

“It doesn't have to be what?”

“Just be me and you. I do have another parent somewhere, don't I?”

“What are you saying?”

Jenna hesitated before she spoke. “Well, I joined this group here at school. It's a bunch of us girls who grew up without our fathers. We're fatherless daughters.”

My heart pounded quickly. “And?”

“We talk about our experiences and how we grew up. Everyone knows I've had two mothers for the past ten years, and for the most part, no one has much to say about that. Except it reinforces everyone's idea that I should know who my father is.”

Jenna waited for me to respond.

“Well?” she said, pressing, after I said nothing.

“You just lost one of your parents. Is that where this is coming from?”

“I miss Layne, but no, this isn't about her.”

“I don't want to talk about this right now, Jenna.”

She groaned; her breath sounded like static in the phone. “When is a good time to talk about it?” she asked in the sassy tone that she used when she was frustrated with me, and that I had always ignored.

“Later. Let's discuss this during your next visit home.”

“Fine. I'll be coming home the week before Thanksgiving,” Jenna said, though I had stopped listening. After twenty years, why had she now decided to find out her father's identity? I couldn't do this now. Not now, not with everything else I was dealing with, not with everything else I wanted to explore and learn about myself. How could I also handle her sudden need to know her father?

“So is that all right?”

“What?”

“Coming.”

“Whenever, Jenna. Come anytime. I'm here.”

“Okay, the twenty-second. I'm going to book the ticket on your card now.”

“Sure.”

“I'm going to let you get back to your wine, Mom. Don't have too much,” she advised, as if Layne had left her with a list of what I was and was not allowed to do.

“Good-bye.” I hung up the phone and rested against the tub, allowing the pulsing water from the jets to prod and soothe my muscles. However, I couldn't relax and shake off the conversation I had had with Jenna. Within a few minutes, I lifted the outlet knob, and the water started its twirl down the drain. I grabbed a towel, dried off, and walked naked to the kitchen for more wine.