LITMIR.BIZ

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overloaded desk and flopped down in the cushioned chair.

      Marva, my business partner and dear friend, glanced up from her computer screen and grinned as if everything was just lovely.

      “Max, you say that at least once a week.” She kept clicking the keys. “You know you don’t have to be here every day. It’s a trek for you. I can handle things.”

      I looked at her bowed brunette head for a moment, and knew she was right. But the fact of the matter was, as much as I might fuss and cuss about the distance, the traffic, and the smog, I loved it all, and I loved my business. This was mine—my dream—and I guess I just needed to see it every day to make sure it wasn’t a dream.

      “Did you talk with Taylor yet?” she asked over her rapid-fire typing.

      I could hear the note of hesitancy, the slight hitch in her voice. She stared right at me yesterday when Val called, when that bottom-dropped-out-of-my-world look came across my face. At first she thought something happened to Jamel or Taylor, and she almost freaked out until I finally got myself together enough to explain about Val’s call.

      Marva was there for me with a hug and a smile when Quinn arrived in Frisco. She let me use her shoulder when he left and went back to Nikita. And no one was happier for me than Marva when Taylor came into my life. “You deserve to be happy, Girl,” she’d said. “Go for it.”

      I pressed the power button on my computer and tried to act as if I didn’t hear—“Did you talk with Taylor?”—the million dollar question.

      “Don’t act like you didn’t hear me, Maxine Sherman.” She spun her chair until we were eyeball to eyeball, crossed her arms beneath her ample breasts, and waited. I could almost see her counting off the seconds in her head. “Well?” she snapped, and I jumped.

      “No. I didn’t talk to Taylor last night.” I tried to sound defiant. She wasn’t impressed.

      Her thick brows bunched together. “Max, when are you planning on talking to him—at the airport? Girl, I don’t believe you.”

      “I’m glad you think it’s so damned easy, Marva. News flash—it’s not.” I rolled my eyes as hard as I could, hoping she’d get the message that I was really ticked off with her.

      “I know it’s not easy. Life isn’t easy. But it’s not going to get better by putting it off. Unless you’ve changed your mind and decided not to go.”

      Her dark blue eyes zeroed in on my face and stayed there. I was the first to look away.

      Blowing out a long breath of frustration, I got up and began to pace. Pacing always seemed to help. Or at least it used to.

      “Marva, I swear I’ve been up half the night trying to find a way to tell Taylor that I need to go to New York. I couldn’t.”

      “Why? Taylor is one of the most understanding men I’ve ever met—”

      “Being understanding is one thing, Marva. Accepting that—one—you’re raising the son of the man your woman was in love with as your own, and—two—she’s making plans to be by his side in his time of need, is a lot for any man to handle. I don’t care how understanding he is,” I shot back, needing to sound annoyed to justify my own lack of assertiveness.

      “You know better than that, Max. Taylor loves you, and he loves Jamel. He knew the deal when he met you, and it didn’t stop him. Have a little trust in him.”

      Trust. I swallowed hard, tossing the ominous word around in my head. I raised my gaze to meet hers. “It’s not Taylor I don’t trust. It’s me.” Well, you could have heard a pin drop on the carpet.

      Marva gave me “the look”—you know, the one your mother would flash when you were out of order, and you snapped to attention? I almost felt like bowing my head and shuffling my feet in contrition.

      “I know you’re going to explain.” Her head angled to an even forty-five degrees.

      I tried to dodge what I knew was coming next by pacing faster.

      “Max…please don’t tell me—”

      Fancy footwork be damned. I came to a full, screeching stop. “Tell you what? That I think I still have unresolved feelings for Quinn? That I see his face every time I look at our son?” I picked up my pace again. “That when I got the phone call from Val, the first thing I felt was glad that Nikita was out of his life? That when I got in bed last night with the man who has always loved me from the bottom of his soul I didn’t want him to touch me because I remembered Quinn’s hands on my body? Is that what you don’t want me to tell you?”

      I was fuming now, ready for a fight, and Marva was the most likely opponent, if for no other reason than because she was there. I was pissed, angry, confused—with myself—and I had to take it out on somebody. I knew I sounded as if I’d just gone around the bend. My voice had reached a borderline pitch that makes the hair on your arms begin to tingle. I couldn’t help it, not with my heart racing as if I’d been running a marathon.

      All of a sudden I felt Marva’s arm around my shoulder, pulling me close, halting my steps, and muttering all those comforting things you say to someone whose edges are frayed.

      “Come on, Hon. Sit down and catch your breath.”

      She ushered me to my chair, helping me into it like she thought I might fall, or something. I loved her for what she was doing, but in a momentary state of clarity I felt like an idiot.

      Marva crossed the office, which wasn’t much larger than your average classroom, locked the door, and hung the Closed sign in the window. She rolled her chair across the floor until our knees bumped. She took my hands and kneaded them between her long, soft fingers.

      I sniffed and looked down at our entwined hands, hers so pale with pink undertones, and mine the color of Hershey chocolate. What a pair we made. But you couldn’t tell us we weren’t sisters. Marva Torino had soul to the bone. A true sistah in the wrong body. In the years Marva and I worked together at the agency we’d become solid friends. I shared things with Marva that I never shared with anyone—not with Val, not Lacy, not even Taylor. I never imagined I could be friends with a white girl—especially one like Marva, who came from money and privilege, me being raised in the heart of struggle and hopelessness—but something between us clicked from the beginning, and the color thing didn’t matter. She was my friend. One who didn’t pull any punches and would stand toe-to-toe with me no matter how far back into the neighborhood I went, and give it right back to me.

      Marva was privy to my intense but abbreviated romance with Quinn, the pain I felt when he left me. She was the first person I told about the baby I was carrying. I confided in her about my doubts about getting involved with Taylor, especially under the circumstances. I trusted her and her judgment. And our sharing was never one-sided. Marva always found a way to weave in a life lesson for me from snippets of her decade-old romance and marriage to Brent.

      “If I had left it up to my parents and my friends, my relationship with Brent would have been doomed,” she once told me. “I came from a world of private schools, lawns that needed a team of mowers, high society, and old British money. Brent’s parents were “common,” “beneath me,” “an embarrassment,” “laborers.” My parents threatened to disown me if I married him.

      “But you know what, Maxine? I didn’t give a damn. Still don’t.” She chuckled wickedly. “Brent made my heart and my body sing. He opened up the real world to me, and he loved me with every ounce of his being. I’d never had that before, and I can only hope that everyone has a glimmer of what he and I share. So I went against them—my parents, my friends, tradition. And I never looked back or regretted one minute. Sometimes in life, Maxine, we have to make hard choices, choices that can hurt. But we also have to be willing to deal with the consequences of our choices. If we can do that, then it’s half the battle.”

      That conversation and countless others like it had sustained me on many a troubled night, and I sure needed her uncanny wisdom right about now.

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