"He's going to marry her Jade."
Jade didn't even look up at Annalise's soft words. Annalise frowned, knowing that Jade hadn't heard her. She stared at the other woman and sighed. Jade was practically elbow deep in the rich, creamy frosting of the wedding cake she was decorating...and not paying Annalise a bit of attention. Anna watched her place delicate pink roses around the bottom tier of the cake, her concentration obviously centered around them. Six months without speaking to Howie, and Jade showed for it. Her bright hair was pulled into an unflattering, severe bun at the back of her head, her eyes were shadowed by dark circles, proving that sleep hadn't been easy for her. Her skin had taken on a sickening pallor. Annalise dreaded giving her the latest news out of Orlando...it certainly wasn't going to help anything. But unfortunately, it fell on Annalise's shoulders to break Jade's heart all over again. She sighed.
"Jade."
Clouded blue eyes finally glanced up at her. "I'm sorry...what did you say?"
"AJ called last night."
"He calls every night," Jade replied...in other words saying...so what? She set the first tier aside and reached for the second, continuing with her application of pink roses.
"He had some interesting news about..um...Howie actually."
Jade flinched at the mention of his name, and Annalise really did sympathize...but somebody had to tell her. Other than the small flinch...Jade appeared as she always did when Howie was mentioned...detached, unfeeling, utterly composed. Annalise envied her obvious skill at appearing like she didn't care...but Jade knew better.
"He's marrying Susan," Annlise blurted out before he could think of another reason to delay telling her.
To her surprise, Jade merely shrugged, then said, her voice deadpan, "Good for him."
Annalise blinked a few times. "That's it? You don't care?," she demanded.
Jade shrugged again. "I care...that's why I'm happy for him. Obviously he's happy...then so am I."
Annalise wasn't convinced...not by a long shot. Jade's lips were drawn in a perfectly straight, perfectly tight line across her face. It looked like she was biting down on the inside of her bottom lip...hard. For six months, Anna had watched her best friend withdraw into herself, silently hiding her inner agony, dwindling away to nothing. Her soul was dead...she was simply going through the motions of living. Annalise shuddered to think of what would happen now.
Jade didn't think...she rarely ever did anymore...knowing that it never got her anywhere. It hurt too much to think...hurt too much to breathe...to eat...everything hurt. This was no different. The news of Howie's impending marriage went through her like a knife imbedded in her heart...but there was nothing she could, or would, do about it. Instead, she kept it carefully concealed in the darkest part of her heart, silently bleeding away to nothing. She kept waiting, kept hoping, for the day when she would wake up without the heavy ache in her chest, without the bleak emptiness facing her as she started another day...but it never came. And she supposed it served her right...she'd made her choice six months ago, and now she had to live with it. For the fist time since she could practically remember...she was completely, and totally...without Howie.
No phone calls, no visits, no e-mails, no letters...nothing but the painful silence that enveloped her like a lover after he was gone. She kept trying to tell herself that it was better this way...but then haunting images would pop into her mind, killing her with their bittersweet memory. Teasing him as a child, dancing with him, laughing with, burning into oblivion in his arms. Pillow fights and ice cream sundaes. Reading Shakespeare in tenth grade and hating it. Old movies and chilly margaritas on Saturday nights. Driving down the road in her mother's convertable, with the top down, singing along with the radio. Middle of the night phone calls, spur of the moment visits. It was all over.
Jade suddenly felt herself wishing that she could go back to the time when simply living had been easy. Often she had taken life for granted...never paying much attention to the small efforts that made life possible. Waking up, going to sleep, eating, taking showers, getting dressed, driving a car, brushing her teeth...it all seemed so much harder without Howie. Life just seemed harder. Now she longed for everything she had taken for granted...the sound of his voice, the comfort he provided, his friendship...his love. Sighing, she abandoned the pink roses and mumbled something to Annalise about having a phone call to make. She ignored Anna's raised eyebrow and left the big kitchen, heading back to the elevators...back to the safety of her office.
She sat down heavily in the chair behind her desk, staring off into space for endless seconds before focusing on the desk blotter in front of her. Each day held something for her...appoinments, parties, weddings, funerals, showers...it helped to keep herself busy. Some...but not much. And it was while she stared at her schedule for the week...that for no apparent reason, a memory suddenly assaulted her tired mind, and she remembered it clearly...as if it had happened just yesterday...
~~~~~~
July, 1991
He came awake quickly, recognizing the familiar scraping sound immediately. Someone was trying to get into his bedroom through the window...and that someone could only be his Jaybird. Sighing, Howie swung his legs over the side of the bed and pulled a pair of discarded blue jeans on. Not bothering with anything else, he walked quietly to the window and pulled the blinds up. The window crept open silently the minute he unlocked it.
"Jesus Howie! Why the hell did you lock the window?," Jade demanded in a whisper, even as she hurtled her petite little body through the now opened window.
"Because I have an important audition tomorrow and I didn't want to wake up in the middle of the night," he replied, glancing ruefully at the alarm clock on his desk. Two-thirty in the morning. He rolled his eyes. So much for sleep. "What is it this time Jay?," he asked, trying hard to sound annoyed.
Jade saw right through him and her brilliant grin practically lit up his dark room. Her left hand came up, and something twinkled brightly against the fragile lumination coming into the room from the street light on the corner. "You came over here in the middle of the night to show me jewelry?," he asked, lifting an eyebrow.
She giggled. "Look at it Howie...just look!"
He looked. And wished he hadn't. He had to give Spencer Stanton credit...that wasn't exactly a small diamond weighing Jade's finger down. Something similar to jealousy settled in the center of his chest, but he stamped it back down without so much as showing a hint of it to her. Some where, deep inside, he'd known this was coming. "Okay...so now what?," he asked, tugging on a strand of her auburn hair.
"He wants me to move to Texas with him."
"Texas?" He suddenly felt like he'd been kicked in the ribs...hard.
"Yes. As soon as we're married. Tomorrow actually."
"Tomorrow!"
"Don't look so shocked Howie," she chided softly.
"I'm not...but...Texas? You're not seriously going to go are you?"
"Of course. Why wouldn't I? What's left for me here?"
Me...I'm here, he wanted to shout it, but he bit his tongue instead...anything to keep those words and then some from tumbling from his lips. He just stared at her instead, trying desperately to think of something...anything...to convince her to reconsider...to stay and go to school...to not marry someone way too old for her. The shadow of a black eye was fading slowly from her face...a black eye that he knew didn't come from walking into a door. But what else could he say? He'd said everything he could...Jade never listened. She was too hell-bent on escaping her alcoholic mother.
"What...no more words of heartfelt advice on your part?," she asked, with just a hint of sarcasm in her voice. But there something more in her eyes...an almost pleading look, a hopeful look.
"Don't do it," he blurted out.
"Try again," she whispered. But he only shook his head sadly.
"I can't try anymore Jaybird," he replied. "It's up to you now."
"I'm scared."
"I know. But you give as good as you get Jay...you always have. I just hope Spencer knows that."
She smiled and kissed his cheek. "He does." Then she backed awa towards the window again, whispering, "Go back to sleep babe...I'll call you in the morning."
He said nothing as she left, and it was later...much later, as she lay in bedtrying to sleep...that she realized that tears she couldn't explain were trailing down her face.
~~~~~~~~
Jade smiled to herself, lost in thought and memory...still staring at her desk blotter.
You give as good as you get...
And she had. In her only little ways...she'd given Spencer the same hell he'd given her. White socks mixed in with the dark clothes in the washer, "accidentally" placing sugar in the salt shaker at dinner, forgetting to pick up his dry cleaning, half unscrewing the cap on his shampoo bottle...yes, she'd certainly gotten him back. Oh she'd paid for everything in the long run but somehow...making his life miserable in tiny little ways had made it all bearable.
You give as good as you get...
Howie. Howie...who had given her everything and asked for nothing in return. Years of devotion, patience, understanding...all gone. For once in her life, she hadn't given as good as she had gotten. And it had cost her everything she held dear...her other half...hell, her better half...was gone forever. Marrying Susan.
You give as good as you get...marrying Susan...
"Over my dead body," she whispered, and for the first time in six months, a certain spark lit up her eyes. With sudden clarity, as if waking up from a long coma...she realized that it was now or never.
Marrying Susan...
This was her last chance. Her last chance to show Howie that she could, in fact, give as good as she got. It had to be now, and it had to be forever. He was slipping through her fingers, and she felt a new determination to fight for him, fight because she loved him...more than anyone ever could. She knew him, he knew her...
You give as good as you get...his voice whispered over and over in her mind. The cobwebs seemed to lift from her foggy brain.
She picked up the phone. "Maria," she said, talking to the receptionist/secretary, "cancel everything I've got for this week and get me a flight to Orlando."
"Orlando Ms. Stanton?"
"Do it," she snapped, hanging up on the woman.
She didn't stop to think of what she was doing, breaking up an engagement, and quite possily the wedding itself...she
had to do it. Once, Howie had tried to make her see that she was walking into a bad marriage. Now she was going to
return the favor.
Links to other sites on the Web
To Chapter 12
Back to CONTENTS
© 1997 crunkgrl62382@yahoo.com
Get your own Free Home Page