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JACKIE HAD WIFE SINGING THE BLUES
by Tiffany Nixon
Once a mistress, always a mistress?
Hank St. John and Jacqueline Blue met at City College on 135th Street. Sparks flew and soon the pretty college senior and her very married English professor were dating. It didn’t take long for Miss Blue to become dissatisfied with the stolen moments, clandestine meetings, and lonely holidays that have enraged mistresses since the beginning of time. Miss Blue began to demand more. Mr. St. John, afraid of losing her, complied.
Eventually, Mrs. St. John got wind of the affair and confronted her husband. She demanded that he cease and desist or she would leave, taking their three children with her.
Professor St. John went to Miss Blue’s apartment, which was located a few blocks from the campus, to deliver news which Ms. Blue did not want to hear: the relationship was over.
Mrs. St. John says, “Jacqueline Blue began following me around, threatening to steal the children, and generally made my life hell until we moved to Long Island a year later.”
According to my sources at Welburn Books, Ms. Blue, who is now a decade older, had a “very close” relationship with Annabelle Welburn’s husband.
Did Jackie covet Craig?
Keith demanded my side of the story. As I told him, I didn’t know that Hank was married until we had already started sleeping together. It is true that I should have ended our relationship as soon as I learned the truth, but by that time I was in love with him. When he came to see me, looking all sad, I knew what was going on before he told me. I gave him a kiss good-bye and disappeared from his life. I did not harass his wife, call his home, or threaten to take his children. Why would I, a twenty-two-year-old girl with no job lined up and only three weeks away from graduation, want to steal some kids that I had no way of feeding?
Mama called. “What is this mess about you havin’ sex with some married man?”
“It was a long time ago, Mama,” I answered wearily.
“How could you do somethin’ like that? You was raised better.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Didn’t you care about his wife and kids?” Mama sounded angry and disappointed.
“I was young, Mama.”
“Don’t you give me that bullshit, Jacqueline Blue. Married is married, and you knew that. Sell it to the damned jury.”
I figured Mama was putting me in the same whorish category as the woman who ran off with Daddy, and my spirits sank to a new low.
She hung up before I could say another word and never mentioned it again.
I was furious. Why was Tiffany Nixon digging around in my past? Would her own background stand up under such intense scrutiny?
Two weeks later, a grand jury returned an indictment against me. As a result, my employment at Welburn Books was officially terminated, and I was thrown off the payroll. Alyssa was the only member of the Black Pack who called to sympathize but I was too upset to talk to her. It was a bitter pill for me to swallow.
One evening, I was watching the six o’clock news when Keith called to say that there was a big problem we needed to talk about and he was coming over to my place.
I was wearing a gray sweat suit, sneakers, and no makeup but I didn’t care. Paul had not answered any of my phone calls since the night of my disastrous encounter with Victor and other journalists had united with Tiffany Nixon in a thunderous cry for my blood. My life didn’t seem worth living and I was so depressed that it took me a while to even wonder why Keith was coming to Harlem instead of summoning me to his office.
I’d had more than enough time to mull over the grimy details of Annabelle’s unfortunate demise. Stitching them all together, it was clear to me that the doorman, someone who lived in The Dakota, Craig, or Annabelle’s sister had committed the terrible act. I was still concerned about staying out of prison, but that wasn’t enough anymore. I wanted to clear my name more than anything else and the only way that could happen was if the killer was caught, convicted, and thrown into jail.
The three-family town house that I lived in faced a tree-lined street of brownstones, some of them valued at over two million dollars in this new Harlem, which was becoming more overpriced by the day. Restlessly, I turned off the television set and stood looking out my front window, peering at the elegant homes through the pouring rain and wondering if I’d ever have enough money to buy one.
I was imagining myself as the wife of a handsome, well-to-do gentleman living blissfully in one of the buildings with our two beautiful children (a boy and a girl) when the buzzer rang.
Keith shrugged out of his coat and folded it neatly over a chair. He was wearing a black suit, crisp burgundy shirt, and a black tie that had swirls of a maroon design in it. “Jackie, you need to sit down. I have bad news.”
We sat down on the sofa.
“I don’t really know how to tell you this,” he said.
My apartment suddenly felt cold, even though the thermostat was turned way up.
