“That’s what you say about every story you work on.”
“But this one is different.”
“You say that too.”
Now she was irritated. “Just tell me what’s going on, dang, Johnny. You don’t have to be so damn nasty. What is it?”
“The society column announced it before I had a chance to tell you.”
“The society column?” That didn’t ease Maude’s puzzlement. “Why would I be reading the society column? What would some gossip column have to do with us?”
“I’m a business owner here in town, Maude. I’m considered one of the town’s elites.”
“And?”
“And they made the announcement before I had a chance to talk to you. But I see you never bother yourself with what pertains to me.”
Maude’s heart was beginning to grow faint. It was bad news. She could feel it. “Johnny, what are you talking about? Just tell me.”
“Well hello there.”
It was a woman’s voice. When they both looked, a tall, very attractive black lady was standing at their booth. She was a professional-looking woman to Maude who wore a business skirt-suit and carried a briefcase at her side. She seemed more interested in staring at Maude than looking at Johnny. But Maude didn’t think she’d ever seen the lady before. “Hello,” she said.
“Is she another one?” the woman asked Johnny presumably, but she continued to stare at Maude.
Johnny smiled a smile that looked more nervous than joyful, and then he nodded. “Yup. She’s another one.”
The woman began to shake her head as if she’d sized up Maude and found her seriously lacking. “You can surely pick’em,” she said, then finally looked over at Johnny. “I agreed to let you wrap this up with all of them. But don’t push it.” Then she gave Maude another assessing look and left.
Maude and Johnny both looked as she walked out of the restaurant. Then Maude looked at Johnny. “I’m another what?” she asked him. “And she agreed to let you wrap what up? Who is she?”
“She’s my wife,” he said. And he said is so easily, as if he was telling her it was cloudy with a chance of rain. As if that earth-shattering news was just that inconsequential to him.
But it was earth-shattering to Maude. She just sat there. Her boyfriend of ten months, the man that asked her to marry him the first day they met, was alreadymarried? It sounded like gibberish to her. Like she so misheard him that it didn’t sound like words to her. She could not believe it. She was involved with amarried man? And she had no clue? No way. She knew she could be gone sometimes, and out to lunch sometimes, but she was notthatfar gone.
CHAPTER FOUR
“What do you mean that’s yourwife? I know I didn’t hear what you just said to me.”
“I’m sorry, Maude, truly I am. But you heard me right. I’m a married man.” He even showed her the ring on his finger. “It’s official.”
Maude had a fixed frown on her face. It was startling news to her. “But how could you be married when you’re dating me? When did we break up, Johnny? When was it over for us? Did I miss that major event?”
“Yes you missed it. Because it was over for us months ago. When you turned down my proposal it was over.”
“You asked me to marry you after we’d only known each other for a day. What I look like marrying a man I just met?”
“Your stupid ass would have looked like a married woman! That’s what you would not only have looked like, but that’s what you would have been. A married lady. You told me yourself you were tired of dead-end relationships. You told me yourself you were tired of these brothers stringing you along. So I stepped up like the exceptional brother I am, but you turned me down cold.”
A bitterness laced his voice. “I preferred you. Not anybody else. You. But you turned me down. That does something to a man like me.”
Maude was so outdone she didn’t know what to say. She just stared at this man she thought she knew so well, but she realized she didn’t know at all.
But he kept on talking. “But it’s no big deal to you, is it, Maude? Because journalism is your husband. That damn newspaper that doesn’t give a damn about you is your spouse. When you turned me down, it was over for me right then and there. It was over. You knew it too, but you just didn’t accept it.”
“I knew it? If you don’t get out of my face with that bull-crap. How could I know the machinations of your mind, Johnny?”
“If you paid any attention to me whatsoever, you would have known! But since you were all into your quote-unquote ‘career,’ I said bump that shit. I decided to string your ass along too.”
