fingers.
I sniffed and looked down at our entwined hands, hers so pale with pink undertones, and mine the color of Hershey chocolate. What a pair we made. But you couldn’t tell us we weren’t sisters. Marva Torino had soul to the bone. A true sistah in the wrong body. In the years Marva and I worked together at the agency we’d become solid friends. I shared things with Marva that I never shared with anyone—not with Val, not Lacy, not even Taylor. I never imagined I could be friends with a white girl—especially one like Marva, who came from money and privilege, me being raised in the heart of struggle and hopelessness—but something between us clicked from the beginning, and the color thing didn’t matter. She was my friend. One who didn’t pull any punches and would stand toe-to-toe with me no matter how far back into the neighborhood I went, and give it right back to me.
Marva was privy to my intense but abbreviated romance with Quinn, the pain I felt when he left me. She was the first person I told about the baby I was carrying. I confided in her about my doubts about getting involved with Taylor, especially under the circumstances. I trusted her and her judgment. And our sharing was never one-sided. Marva always found a way to weave in a life lesson for me from snippets of her decade-old romance and marriage to Brent.
“If I had left it up to my parents and my friends, my relationship with Brent would have been doomed,” she once told me. “I came from a world of private schools, lawns that needed a team of mowers, high society, and old British money. Brent’s parents were “common,” “beneath me,” “an embarrassment,” “laborers.” My parents threatened to disown me if I married him.
“But you know what, Maxine? I didn’t give a damn. Still don’t.” She chuckled wickedly. “Brent made my heart and my body sing. He opened up the real world to me, and he loved me with every ounce of his being. I’d never had that before, and I can only hope that everyone has a glimmer of what he and I share. So I went against them—my parents, my friends, tradition. And I never looked back or regretted one minute. Sometimes in life, Maxine, we have to make hard choices, choices that can hurt. But we also have to be willing to deal with the consequences of our choices. If we can do that, then it’s half the battle.”
That conversation and countless others like it had sustained me on many a troubled night, and I sure needed her uncanny wisdom right about now.
“Tell me what’s going on in your head, Max,” she said, cutting into my thoughts.
I let out a breath, laden with doubt. “I…don’t know what to do, Marva. I want to see Quinn. Maybe too much. And it’s scaring me. It scares me to think about what may happen when I get to New York.”
“What do you think will happen, Max? What are you afraid of?”
I bit down on my lip for a moment, knowing that once I said the words out loud, the words that danced around in my head they’d become real, and I couldn’t take them back. I paused, stood up, and sat back down.
“I’m…afraid I’ll realize I never stopped loving Quinn, and screw up everything I have with Taylor,” I said in a torrent of words and raw emotion. “Afraid that what I’ve built with Taylor is all a carefully constructed illusion. That it isn’t real, only a substitute for what I think I lost.”
She was quiet for a moment. “I see. And what about Jamel? Can you face Quinn and not tell him about his son? And when you do, what then?”
The noose around my neck tightened a bit more. I struggled for air. “Three years, Marva. Three years since he left and went back to New York.” I swallowed and looked over her head, focusing on the rack of travel brochures on the other side of the room. “And most days I hardly think what might have been. But then there are those days when I think how cruel it is to deprive Quinn of the knowledge of his son. Yet, Taylor is the only father Jamel has ever known. How right is that?”
“Why didn’t you ever tell Quinn? It’s not as if you didn’t have the opportunity.”
“When I found out I was pregnant, Quinn had been back in New York and with Nikita for almost three months—shortly before you started working here. They were a week away from getting married. I didn’t want him coming back to me just because I was pregnant. That’s the oldest trick in the book. I wanted him back only if he loved me, and I didn’t believe he did. Not really. Not the kind of love I needed. And then Taylor walked through that door right over there, into my life and my heart, and made all the hurt go away. He made me believe in myself again.”
“But how do you feel about Taylor, Maxine, really feel? Right now—today.”
I looked at her then, right in her midnight-blue eyes. “I love him.”
“And Quinn?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then you need to go to New York. For your sake, Taylor’s, and Jamel’s. You’re never going to have peace until you finally face Quinn and either put closure to these feelings you have—”
“Or see if what I already have with Taylor is all I need.”
“Yes. My sentiments exactly.”
We didn’t talk about my “situation” any more for the balance of the morning. That’s just the way Marva was. Once she’d said what was on her mind, that was it.
Unfortunately, that didn’t mean it was off mine. Whenever there was a lull in the day’s activity, after I’d finished booking the trip of a lifetime for yet another customer, my “situation” would tiptoe up behind me and tap me on the shoulder. Hey, don’t forget me, it would whisper in my ear. I wanted to slap it away like an annoying fly, but I couldn’t. It just settled back down and waited for the next opportunity to sneak up on me again.
“I’m going to take a break for lunch,” Marva announced. “I have some errands to run. You want to come?”
“No. Go ahead.”
“Want me to bring you anything?”
“No. I’ll probably go out when you get back.”
“Okay. See you in about an hour.”
I tried to concentrate on surfing the Internet to see what kind of sales some of the other travel agencies were offering when the bell chimed over the door. I looked up and a thirtyish, good-looking man walked in. He was tall, about Taylor’s height, maybe six-two or so. He was dressed casually in one of those nylon designer jogging suits, looking ready to hang out for a minute. His dark brown skin glistened with a slight sheen of perspiration. He was pleasant enough to look at—more than once—which I did, and I caught a glint of light bouncing off the third finger of his left hand.
“Hi. How can I help you?”
He walked farther into the office, cautious, and looked around as if trying to determine if we were alone. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his electric blue windbreaker. My antennae went up, and I instantly wished I’d taken Marva up on her offer to go to lunch. I stood—ready for anything, bumping the back of my knees against the chair, my hand near the phone.
He cleared his throat. “I hope so.” He gave me a shy smile. “I, uh, wanted to book a flight to Chicago.”
Chicago. I almost said it out loud in relief. My pulse slowed down just a notch. “Of course. Why don’t you have a seat and tell me your plans?” I indicated the chair next to my desk.
He
