Jaded (5 page)

“I’m old. I have arthritis in both knees and I’m half-deaf in my right ear.” Mrs. Leachum pointed to her cloudy eyes. “But I can see better than a woman half my age.” She leaned forward and pointed a crooked finger at Syeesha’s chest. “And I see everything in this building.”

“Have you seen my leaky kitchen faucet?” Syeesha said, half kidding. “Because it really needs to be fixed.”

Mrs. Leachum picked up her eggnog from the side table and took a sip while Vanessa Williams playfully flirted on the song playing in the background. She was already forgetting about Syeesha and, based on her swooning posture, getting lost in Christmas circa 1996. She turned to shut the door and then stopped. “And the next time you’re this late . . .” Mrs. Leachum hooked her thumb toward the front door and made a quick you’re-outta-here sound with her lower lip and denture. It sounded like a failed attempt to whistle.

By the time Syeesha dragged herself back up the three flights of stairs, her quads burned from exhaustion. She ditched her coat, knocked Kiki’s feet off the sofa, where she was sprawled once more, and plopped down. Her one small piece of fortune was that there was no school that night. Tomorrow she had to start her job search.

“Everything’s cool, I assume.” Kiki’s laconic speech was reminiscent of a hip Californian rather than a born-and-bred New Yorker.

“Everything’s cool this time, Kiki. But we can’t afford for this to keep happening.”

Kiki put her chapped feet back on the table. Her toes were painted to a high black shine while her feet smelled like the bowl of black beans Kiki had once left rotting on her nightstand.

Syeesha could feel her lunch execute an impressive series of forward somersaults and backflips.

“My feet bothering you?”

Syeesha shook her head. Her eyes drifted from the wagging toes to the television set. “I’m tired. I need to write.”

“Something for school?” Kiki asked, without taking her eyes from the television set.

Actually, Syeesha wanted to work on the latest novel manuscript she was cooking up. But now that Kiki mentioned it, yeah, getting in a little studying probably wasn’t such a bad idea either.

“There’s pizza in there,” Kiki said.

“I just ate Thai with my sister.”

The afternoon was still early, so Syeesha put on a pot of coffee. With her light, sugary brew in hand, Syeesha escaped into the sanctuary of her bedroom, dragging her backpack of books behind her. She slid between the cool sheets and made a half-hearted attempt to digest the finer points of employment law. After a half hour of dry reading, she swapped her law book for her MacBook and pulled up the latest story she had been working on. Maybe she didn’t have a promising career or a great guy with whom she could snuggle up in bed. But what she did have was a laptop and her imagination.

Through the words she put to paper, she could always experience the perfect kiss. One that blended the right amount of tenderness with the exact firmness that always made her swoon. The man she created would always the right word at the right moment and never needed to ask what she wanted or how she wanted it. The man on the page knew.

And so she spent the rest of the evening alone with him and her MacBook.

It wasn’t much.

But it was something.

***

Chapter 4

Patrice, Miller, and Miller were located on the fifteenth floor of a high-end Park Avenue building. Confident behind Versace shades and cloaked in her favorite chinchilla jacket, Jade whisked into the office and was immediately ushered into an empty conference room. The receptionist, a young woman no older than twenty-five, offered to take her fur. Jade declined.

“Perhaps coffee or tea?” the receptionist offered. Her cottony white skin, wavy hair, and petite, upturned noise gave her the air of regality. Jade could tell from her finely cut suit that she was less likely to be a college student working her way through school than a managing partner’s daughter working her way up the corporate ladder. Women like her wouldn’t have to marry for money and security because she already had access to the easy life. Jade noted the short skirt and the long, toned limbs beneath it. No, Jade thought, she wouldn’t have to marry for money. But she would.

“Nothing for me, thank you.” Jade dismissed the woman with the turn of her back.

A rare, unsettling feeling came over her as she peeled her leather gloves from her fingers. Perhaps a glass of water would have done her some good. Or maybe the truth of the matter was that she was really aching for a shot of anything with the strength of a volcanic eruption to melt her nervousness.

She hated having to be in this office. But the slow evaporation of her marriage was as unsettling as a thick October fog that quietly shrouds a sleeping city, upending the normal course of things with its dense, intangible power. Lately she felt as though she and Rodney were playing childish games. Millie was no innocent misstep on his part. He knew the sight of that woman in her home—so soon after the paternity suit was thrown out of court—would unsettle her. But Jade kept up the momentum by playing her games, too. Just like that morning when Rodney had told her he was heading to D.C. for a couple of days. Jade had insisted on packing his luggage although she’d normally leave the task to Maria. It wouldn’t be until Rodney returned from his short trip, complaining about missing items, that Jade would bat her velvety eyelashes and explain that she must have overpacked and the commuter airline had lost one of his bags. Meanwhile, some lower-class woman would happen upon a splendidly tailored Versace suit at the Salvation Army, perfect for her son’s graduation or her husband’s job interview. But that would be a small victory in comparison to the one she was anticipating.

“Jade, so good to see you again.”

Preston McKinley strode into the conference room. His limp hand grasped Jade’s for only a second before pulling out a chair for her. She watched as he flipped through papers. His fingernails were buffed to a high shine. Preston’s delicate skin looked recently polished; his neat eyebrows freshly waxed. Fashionably dressed in a pale pink shirt with matching tie and a light gray suit with slim-fitting pant legs, Preston was ready for an impromptu photo shoot for Succees magazine. His rich, baritone voice was as fitting to his effeminate features as an empty bank account was to a televangelist.

“You’ve had time to review my prenuptial agreement since our initial meeting. It’s time we talked about some of my options.”

Preston leaned forward in his chair and played with his wedding ring. “If you’re certain of a divorce then it would be my intent to see that you get everything you rightfully deserve. No one in this city has represented more happily rich divorcées than I.”

Jade found that hard to believe. He was an attorney and spinning bullshit was a rite of passage. He may have been the best that Rodney’s money could afford, but that certainly didn’t make him the best in the Big Apple. Yet, she didn’t dispute his assertion.

“I’m sure you’re aware that I have a small problem that might preclude me from being . . . as you say . . . a happily rich divorcée.”

“It is a problem. And not a small one.”

Jade forced herself to smile. This wasn’t the place to break down. “I really screwed myself, didn’t I? I’ll get nothing.”

“If you divorce him now,” Preston explained, “you’re entitled to the house and a cash payout of $75,000.”

“I spend that in a year on clothes.”

“It’s unfair, I know.”

“The penthouse is worth a few million so I’d be happy with that.”

“Uh, I don’t mean your primary residence, I mean the house . . .” He looked through the contract. “In New Jersey. A condominium.”

Jade felt as though she was in an elevator that suddenly dropped fifteen floors, speeding fifty miles per hour down the shaft. “You’ve got to be kidding me. That’s not a condo, it’s an apartment with a fancy title! His mother used to live in it. It’s about seven hundred square feet. What am I supposed to do with a seven-hundred-square-foot apartment?”

Preston sighed. “I see it all the time. Good, respectable women like you getting screwed over by rich men. You don’t deserve it. What you do deserve is the absolute biggest settlement possible, and I will use the full influence and legal expertise of this firm to ensure that you get what’s due to you.”

He adjusted his shirt cuff, clinking his Rolex against the polished glass covering the African mahogany table. Presumably unsatisfied with her lack of response, Preston continued his sales pitch.

“I admit, no one can know the intricacies of a marriage as well as the two people who are in one.” His voice was as smooth and rich as condensed milk. “My experience has taught me, though, that any woman who has had to pick up behind a man, cook for a man, pay bills for a man, and suffer through years of prattle about his personal beliefs and political rhetoric, that woman deserves compensation for her steadfast commitment. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Jade agreed, although she had, in fact, done none of those things he’d mentioned. But what she had done was protect Rodney. She had helped him mask a secret that shamed him. That was worth something, wasn’t it?

“Your agreement has a sunset clause built in.”

“Which is?”

“It means if you stay married to Rodney for another four years, the entire contract is null and void.” He smiled triumphantly, as though subjecting herself to Rodney’s psychological mind games for that length of time was a simple proposition. “You would be entitled to half his assets.”

There was no way she could continue to wake up each morning and wonder will he or won’t he spring a divorce on her. Jade was prepared to leave him now. But she needed enough money to fund her long-held dream of starting her own cosmetics line. Every time she broached the subject with Rodney he’d smirk and say, “Bad investment. Black women don’t care about organic makeup and I’m not about to put a dime behind any of your ill-conceived ideas. Either waste your own money or go to a bank.”

Rodney didn’t know that Jade had applied for a loan—twice—with the help of her accountant. She still remembered the wave of embarrassment she’d felt when she’d received the rejection letters. Sometimes when she saw random people in suits staring at her in restaurants or shops she wondered if that was the person who had typed the letter, or approved it, or mailed it. Were they secretly laughing at her? Did they know that Jade McCann had personal debts that exceeded her annual hundred-thousand-dollar income? Did they know she was rich in name only? From that experience she grew into the habit of avoiding opening her mail.

“People contest these things all the time, right?”

“Judges don’t rule against them often, Jade. New York recognizes a contract between two mentally competent people as binding. If you had children then perhaps it would be a different matter, but it’s practically airtight.”

Jade pushed herself up from the table and walked to the window overlooking the busy city street. A chauffeur opened the back door of a limousine and out stepped a woman with a hat stylishly cocked to the side, completely obscuring her face from Jade’s vantage point. She hurried inside an office building. Jade’s days of riding in the back of limousines were dwindling as fast as her prospects for getting out of this marriage with her dignity intact.

She whipped around and fumed, “I can’t believe this is what I’m paying you $350 an hour for. To hear that my husband can walk away from our marriage and only throw me a shack and a few nickels? It’s outrageous!”

Preston unbuttoned his suit jacket and leaned back in the chair. “Jade, have you and Rodney discussed how the assets could be divided?”

“Of course not. We haven’t even talked about a divorce yet.”

Preston raised an eyebrow and cocked his head to the side as though he misunderstood. “So you want to begin divorce proceedings without discussing the state of your marriage with your husband, is that right?”

“I’m not starting proceedings. You and I are doing nothing more than discussing my options.” Jade uncrossed her arms and leaned against the windowsill. “Preston, do you remember that messy split between Giuliani and his wife?”

“Of course.”

“She didn’t know that they were separated until he held a press conference about it. At least that’s what’s been written about them. With cameras rolling, reporters blindsided her with the news. That poor woman was visibly shaken and totally unprepared. I’m not going to be Donna Hanover. If Rodney springs a divorce on me, I want to be ready for it. And I have no intention of leaving with only the clothes on my back and a shack in Jersey.”

“I see.” His delicate fingers tapped his upper lip. “There’s not much I can do about a contract you signed. You didn’t have an attorney representing your interests. No attorney would have encouraged you to sign this.”

Jade looked outside the window again, remembering a conversation she’d had with Rodney the day before she was to sign the contract. They had been lying in bed, happily discussing the details of their quickie wedding. Jade had been only too happy to sign whatever agreement he would put before her. That had been before she had become accustomed to living such a privileged lifestyle. But she’d made a single demand that she had wanted in the contract. Rodney had laughed it off, but if she remembered correctly . . .