She turns to face me directly, her stance accusatory. I don’t know what her deal is, but she needs to chill. Just because we work well together so far, doesn’t mean I won’t pull the plug on this whole damn thing!
“Uh, yeah. My ex, Andre Gibbs. He posted some bullshit comment on one of my photos from last night, and people are already talking.”
She lets out a breath, and the color starts to return to her cheeks.
“Oh. Right. I forgot about your ex.”
She tries to go back to making the charcuterie plate, but I take the cornichons from her hand and place the jar on the counter behind her. She’s trembling. We need to get to the bottom of this right fucking now.
“Denise. Tell me what just happened. You kinda scared me, girl.”
She frowns but nods before taking a seat at one of the barstools by the counter.
“Andre was my brother’s name. He…He’s not with us anymore.”
I hurry to sit next to her and rest a comforting hand on her shoulder.
“Oh, shit. I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize.”
She huffs, lifting her lips at the corners; I guess that’s supposed to be a laugh. But I can tell she’s still shaken.
“How could you know? I lost him to suicide a while back.”
I cover my mouth to stifle my gasp. As an only child, I always wanted a sibling. I think my dad steered clear of having more kids because of how things worked out with my mom. But to have a sibling and then lose them? And to something as horrible as suicide? I can’t imagine.
“It’s OK. I’m dealing with it. I go to therapy and everything,” she says, her smile fraying at the edges. “Hearing the name out of nowhere just caught me off guard.”
“Well,” I start, “I really am sorry. And I don’t plan to keep talking about my ex, if that helps at all.”
She cocks her head thoughtfully.
“That’s right. Didn’t you two…I mean—” She trails off, looking hesitant. “I don’t want to bring up anything upsetting—well, anythingelseupsetting—but I saw the articles about you and him online. It looks like things got pretty ugly.”
I snort at that description.
“Ugly isn’t the half of it. There were groupies at every tour stop, and he was even sleeping with his background singer. It was a hot mess.”
“That’s terrible, Kendra.”
Denise gets up to bring the drinks and the board to the coffee table. I guess it’s time to spill the tea. She chooses a salami-wrapped mozzarella stick and motions for me to continue. I pluck a grape from the bunch.
“Well, as you probably already know, TMZ broke the story about him at that hotel in St. Maarten.” Denise bobs her head. “Yeah, well, when that came out, all the other women he was with came out of the woodwork. They were hitting me up on Instagram, stopping me in the grocery store, even heckling me as I left shows.
“With his squeaky-clean image and pretty-boy looks, I was the bad guy. I must’vedone somethingto make him cheat.”
I shake my head bitterly at the memory of the horrible DMs I received daily. Denise sucks her teeth.
“So he cheated on you, and it’syourfault? The internalized misogyny is real.”
“Exactly! Like, you don’t even know me, but somehow you think you should message me about how to keep my husband? That I’m supposed to be understanding because he’s handsome and sings like the second coming of Donny Hathaway?”
I angrily pluck another grape from the plate before finally taking a slice of salami.
“Anyway, we had a prenup because we were in love and he was never going to cheat on me,” I drawled sarcastically. “It took half of what I make in a year in legal fees, but the divorce was final four months ago and now I’m living single like Max and Synclaire.”
Denise laughs and gets up to go to the kitchen. She comes back with a bottle of rosé and two glasses; I extend my hand automatically.
“That’s what I’m talking about. Club soda isn’t gonna cut it for this kind of conversation.”
