1
Lewis lay in the darkened bedroom, under the blankets, trying to control his nervous breathing. He stared at Monica. She was beautiful -- her light brown skin, big black eyes, and full pink lips. But she lay next to him, silent.
He was waiting on her decision.
Lewis tried to stop telling himself that it still was too soon, but this week he had bought the ring anyway and, moments ago, presented it to her.
She had been asleep only five minutes when Lewis pulled the ring out from under his pillow, slipped it on her finger, then kissed her.
Monica stirred. Lewis kissed her again till she had woken.
"Are you okay?" Monica asked, her voice groggy.
"Will you?" Lewis said, smiling.
"What? Will I what?"
"Will you marry me, baby?"
There was no answer. That had been like a minute ago, and still no answer came.
Lewis rolled over in bed, turned on his bedside lamp.
When he turned back, he saw Monica, her black hair falling into her eyes, staring down at the ring with a pained expression.
"What's the matter?" Lewis said. "It's a simple question. Yes or no."
"You know it's more complicated than that."
"No I don't," Lewis said, throwing the blankets off and climbing out of bed. "Just answer it."
"I haven't even been divorced a year yet. I'm not trying to jump back into a marriage this minute."
"Or you aren't trying to jump back into marriage with me?"
"Lewis," Monica said, turning, glancing at the alarm clock. "I'm not having this conversation. It's almost two in the morning."
"Fine," Lewis said, moving his tall brown frame to the dresser and sliding open a drawer. He pulled out a pair of jeans, put them on.
"What are you doing?" Monica said, sitting up.
"I asked you to be with me. You said you don't want to, so I'm leaving." He pulled a T-shirt over his muscled torso.
Monica hurried out of bed, around to him. "I didn't say that. I said I wasn't ready to get married yet."
"It's the same thing."
Lewis had on shoes now. He moved quickly through the room, grabbing a bag, stuffing it full of the first clothes he yanked from the closet.
"Where are you going?" Monica asked after Lewis opened the bedroom door.
"I don't know. We'll find a place."
Monica halted there in her nightgown. "What do you mean, we?"
"I'm not leaving my daughter here with you. You don't want me, you don't want her either," he said, staring right in her eyes, as if expecting this to change Monica's decision.
Lewis turned, walked down the hall toward the three-year-old's room.
Monica followed behind him, whispering, "Why are you doing this?"
Lewis carefully opened his daughter's bedroom door. Inside, a night-light burned, painting the entire room a dim gold color.
He bent over her small bed, slid his arms under her, and scooped Layla up in her blankets.
Monica pulled on his arm.
"Don't. Don't do this now. At least wait till the morning."
"So you can say no then." Lewis turned to her, the child in his arms. "You know what'll make me stay. Just say yes."
Monica loved the man and his daughter. She didn't want them to leave. But she could not let herself be manipulated into agreeing to marry him. She dropped her head. "I can't do that right now."
Lewis held out his palm.
Monica glanced down at it. "What?"
"The ring, please."
Copyright © 2008 by R. Marcus Johnson
2
Five A.M. Tori Billups lay in the center of her king bed, staring through the darkness toward the ceiling, her eyes filled with tears.
She clutched one of her pillows tight to her breast as though it were her husband, who had been missing now for seven days.
He would call, she told herself, the cordless phone just to her left on the nightstand. But until now, he had not.
One morning a week ago, after she had made Glenn breakfast, had handed him his briefcase and kissed him on the lips, he walked out the front door to take a business flight to Detroit. He did not return.
"He'll be back," Tori's girlfriend told her after he had been gone for two days. She held Tori's head in her lap, smoothed her hand over Tori's sandy brown hair, trying to comfort her. "Maybe his plane got rerouted and he lost his cell phone. He'll be back, girl."
But as Tori lay there, wetting Sarah's skirt with her tears, she didn't believe the words her friend said to her.
The next day, Tori went to the police to file a missing persons report.
"The moment we hear anything, we'll call you... Mrs. Billups," a square-jawed, graying detective named Reynolds said, having to glance down at the paperwork to remember Tori's name.
She returned home, sat in a kitchen chair for hours, staring at the phone, crying.
"Why are you doing this to me?!" she screamed, grabbing the glass pepper shaker from the table and slinging it across the room, where it shattered against the far kitchen wall.
When she first met Glenn, Tori had only been in the small California city of Torrance for two months. She had fled Chicago with more money than she thought she'd ever see in her life, and she wanted to make a new beginning for herself.
She bought a house and settled in.
The first month had been bearable. She allowed her thoughts to be consumed with what color to paint the walls, the style of living room furniture, and whether the blinds she hung should be vertical or horizontal.
The following month, loneliness had found her. Most often it was at night, while she lay in bed alone, after spending the entire day by herself.
She wanted love again but was afraid.
One night she suffered from a terrible migraine. She walked into the bathroom in her slippers and robe to take some medication. Standing in front of the open medicine cabinet, she eyed the bottle of Tylenol. She pulled out the bottle of prescription sleeping pills instead, thinking, Maybe if I just slept.
Tori shook one into her palm, then two. She paused, looking up into the mirror, thinking about her lonely nights. They were becoming insufferable. If she wanted, she would never have to deal with them again.
Tori tilted the bottle, letting the remainder of the pills fall into her hand.
She grabbed the glass of water from the edge of the sink. It would take just two quick motions -- pills, water. Down her throat they'd go, she'd fall off to sleep, and she'd never be lonely again.
That night, Tori stopped herself and was glad she did. For if she hadn't, she wouldn't have known Glenn.
She met him in the cookie aisle at the grocery store.
"Which are better? Chips Ahoy or Oreos?" he said, holding a bag of each.
It was a come-on line, but Tori was lonely, and the man was strangely cute, with squinty eyes and a deep dimple in his right cheek.
She stopped her empty cart, leaned on its handle, allowed herself to play the game.
"Why ask me? You're the one that has to eat 'em," Tori said.
"You're right. Then I guess there's only one way to find out." He opened the bags, pulled a cookie from each, and took bites from both.
Tori could not help but laugh.
"Have one?" he said.
"I think I will."
Two weeks later, Tori lay in her bed, receiving a good-night kiss from Glenn after the first time they made love.
Four months after that, as they walked hand in hand at dusk down a wooded bike trail, Glenn stopped, pulled a ring from his pocket, lowered himself to one knee, and proposed.
"Yes," Tori said, a lump in her throat so big, she thought she would choke.
She had fallen in love with this man, even after Chicago, even after she had endured the hateful things Nate Kenny, the last man she loved, had done to her. Now Tori was in love again and getting married.
Two months after their wedding, Glenn told his wife, "I'm going to start my own consulting firm. Why do for them what I can do for myself?"
She held her husband's hand tight from across the kitchen table, smiled, proud of him. He was brilliant and already a success, could have run the financial consulting firm he worked for by himself.
"I just have to find some investors. This is gonna cost," Glenn said.
"Don't you worry about the cost or the investors," Tori said, taking both his hands in hers. The money Tori had left Chicago with amounted to well over a million dollars. She had wondered how she would invest it. Now she knew.
"What are you talking about?" Glenn said.
"I have a little something in the bank that I've been waiting to do something with."
"Are you sure?" he said.
"Positive," Tori said, smiling.
Glenn threw his arms around his wife.
His hands on her shoulders, he said, "Then we're partners. Okay, honey. You and me!"
Tori now turned her head away from the clock: 5:08 A.M.
It had been almost eight days and no word from her husband. An image of his face, covered with blood, flashed in her mind. His body was twisted, clothes torn. He lay in a Dumpster, shot in the chest.
The phone rang.
Tori gasped, rolled in bed, lunged for the receiver, pressed it to her face. "Glenn!"
"Mrs. Billups?" a firm voice said.
Tori was hesitant, frightened. "Yes."
"This is Detective Reynolds. You need to come to the city morgue. We found a man matching your husband's description."
Then it was all true, Tori thought two hours later as she was being led down a narrow tiled hallway, under bright fluorescent lights. Someone had killed Glenn, robbed him, taken everything from him, and left his body in the trash.
That's where the detective said the unidentified body had been found, and it explained why Tori's credit card had been declined yesterday when she had tried to buy groceries.
She had reached into her purse, tried the other three she had.
"I'm sorry, ma'am," the cashier said to her. "They've all been declined."
"All of my money has been stolen," Tori had told Sarah later that day, pacing frantically in front of her.
"I'm sorry," Sarah ha...
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
