That had to have been the longest, scariest four hours of my life. I had ridden in fear, even as the plane sailed to thirty thousand feet. I knew that any minute it was going to turn around and land back in the Virgin Islands, and the police were going to drag me and Jay off it in handcuffs.
We’d been in the air for an hour before I was able to let go of even some of that fear and relax. Jay must’ve been worn out, just like me, because he didn’t say much of anything for the entire plane ride. Either that or he was still thinking about Ivan.
I had never been so happy to see the D.C. skyline come into view. Both Jay and I had tensed up as we deplaned in Washington, fearful that the police would be waiting at the gate.
But no one had been waiting. Not at the gate, or when we walked out of the airport and to the valet to retrieve his vehicle.
Now we were in Jay’s SUV, heading home. It wasn’t until we pulled onto the freeway that I spoke.
“Do you think Ivan let us go on his own, or that they told him to let us go?” I asked, breaking the nervous tension that filled the SUV.
“Maybe being with you was just so good to him that he wanted to let you go so the two of you could meet up again.” Jay didn’t bother trying to hide his sarcasm.
I decided not to respond. I’d taken enough digs at him these last few days that I was going to allow him this one.
“Where are we going?” I said, when I noticed him pass the exit to our house. Or my house, since he hadn’t been back there in more than five weeks.
Jay sat staring straight ahead, obviously still upset. He’d probably spent the whole plane ride thinking about me and Ivan. Good, I thought. Now he might understand what I felt.
Jay finally shook his head like he was trying to push away any thoughts of me and Ivan. “We’re searching for answers, so we need to try to find this stupid jump drive they’re talking about.”
“And what are we going to do with it once we find it?”
“I don’t know,” Jay responded, exasperated. “But Ivan was right—unless we plan on staying on the run the rest of our lives, it’s just a matter of time before those thugs from Saint Croix track us down. So we need to just find this drive, get these people off our backs, and hopefully clear our names since I’m sure they’re going to try and pin Vonda’s murder on us.”
“And how are we going to do that?” This was never-ending.
“Shannon, it’s like I said—I don’t know. But I’m guessing we start at Vonda’s house.”
I cringed. “I’m sure you have a key so we don’t have to break in or anything.”
“Yes, I do have a key,” he replied. “And it’s a good thing or we’d be out of luck.”
I let out a pained laugh. Was he purposely trying to hurt me? “But yet you want me to believe there was nothing to this relationship.”
He kept his gaze straight ahead. “There really wasn’t. Vonda insisted that I have the key, and taking it was easier than fighting her on it. I’ve never used it.”
“Whatever, Jay,” I said, folding my arms and turning to stare out the window. “Can we just go find this jump drive so we can get out of this mess, finalize our divorce, and get on with our lives?” I was exhausted, and fighting with Jay was the last thing I wanted to do right now.
Jay finally turned to look at me. And if I hadn’t known any better, I would’ve thought I saw a flicker of regret. But Jay quickly turned his attention back to the road and we rode in silence until I found myself saying, “What happened? What made you stray?”
The tone of my voice must have gotten to him because he looked over at me, an apologetic expression on his face. He pulled off the freeway and into a parking lot. After cutting off the SUV’s engine, he turned to face me. “Shannon, I’m sorry. I can’t say that enough.” He sighed. “If I’m being honest, I strayed because it got to the point that I hated where we were. I hated the constant fighting, the constant attitude. If I breathed too loud, you got mad. Any little thing I did aggravated you to no end, and there was just no joy left in our lives. I missed what we had. We used to laugh, enjoy life. When’s the last time we had that? Then I felt like you had flipped the script and gotten mad at me because I didn’t like your new rules.”
“What do you mean by that?” I managed to ask, though his words pained me.
He let out another long sigh, like he had some stuff he’d been wanting to say but had been holding in.
“Shannon, we talked about our plans before we got married,” he continued. “Not only that, we agreed on them. We said we weren’t going to have kids. I had one kid out of wedlock—”
“But we’re married, Jay,” I interrupted.
“Please, let me finish,” he huffed. I motioned for him to continue. “I hated Ericka for going behind my back and planning to get pregnant because she knew I was adamant about not wanting kids yet. So I missed out on the first three years of my daughter’s life because I was being an asshole, harboring animosity, failing to realize Ericka hadn’t gotten pregnant on her own. I was too busy being angry and trying to keep this singing career going to make time for my child, and when all was said and done, the career was over, and I wasn’t even there when my child died.”
In all our years of marriage, Jay had only talked twice about the child he’d lost, a little girl named Jamila who’d died in a car accident when she was seven. She’d been in a car with her nanny when they were hit by a drunk driver. The fact that neither Jay nor Ericka had been with their child when she died tore at his soul.
“I understand that,” I said, my tone empathetic, “and I know it must’ve hurt you, but I don’t see what that had to do with us.”
He pounded the steering wheel. “Because you and I were both busy, wrapped up in our careers. I didn’t want to bring another child into this world who might be neglected.”
“So you don’t think a child would’ve changed anything? That we wouldn’t have made that child our priority?” I asked. Why had we never had this conversation before? Once I’d decided I wanted kids, I’d told him, he’d said no, and every conversation thereafter had been an argument.
“It wasn’t a chance I was willing to take. I never wanted to go through the heartache of losing a child again.” He exhaled slowly. “Besides, I was clear before we got married that I didn’t want any more kids. And you agreed. You said you didn’t want children. Then you just flipped the script. That… that’s why I went and had the vasectomy.”
“Without my knowledge.”
“Just like you were going to stop taking your birth control pills without my knowledge.” My eyes widened. How did he know that?
“I heard you on the phone with Nicole one day,” he said, answering my silent question. “You thought I was gone. You told her you were going to sneak and stop taking them.”
“But I didn’t,” I protested. “I was just venting!” I remembered that conversation because I’d really thought about it. I’d figured once Jay laid eyes on our precious child we’d be fine. But ultimately, I’d decided that was a level of deception I didn’t want to go to.
Jay shrugged. “I didn’t know that. All I knew was I didn’t want to take that chance.” He looked me in the eyes. “There would’ve been time, Shannon. You know all this notoriety and success is fleeting. We could’ve talked about it and taken some time, and maybe we could’ve come to some kind of agreement.”
“We didn’t have time to take,” I said, a mist covering my eyes. Why had we both chosen deception as a way to deal with our issues? “Jay, you don’t get it. My time is running out. I’m approaching forty.”
“You’re two years from forty,” he replied. “And more and more women are having babies later in life. But the bottom line is you were okay with it before we got married. But it’s like you just forgot about that. You changed your mind and decided you wanted a child and screw how I felt about it. You became consumed with it. So much so that it was all you talked about. And then when I didn’t give you what you wanted, the part of you that’s used to getting your way developed a permanent attitude. You know what it’s like in this stressful field we’re in. You think I like having to smile in these women’s faces all day long?”
“Yeah, I do,” I quipped.
“No, I don’t,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s a job. Remember, this has been my life since I was eighteen. And now that the book and show are doing so well, it’s only getting worse with the women going overboard. I didn’t want that. I wanted stability. I wanted peace. I wanted you. Those women throwing themselves at me back in the day, and even now, don’t impress me. In fact, I’m tired of it. It’s why I got married. I wanted to be a one-woman man.”
“Humph,” I said, rolling my eyes. “That’s laughable.”
He groaned. “See? That’s exactly what I’m talking about.” He turned to start the SUV. “Who wants to deal with this day in and day out? I don’t even know why I bother trying to talk to you.”
I reached out to touch his hand to keep him from turning the ignition. This was the first time we were having a heart-to-heart and I didn’t want to mess it up with bitterness. “I’m sorry. You just have to understand, this whole thing hurts.”
His chest rose, then fell as he released his grip on the key. “I do understand that and I am so, so sorry. But my point was I do what I have to do when it comes to the Lovejoy brand. We’ve built our success on this whole fixing-heartache-among-women act, and that’s all it is—an act. At the end of the day, I just wanted to come home to relax and enjoy my wife. Instead, for the past year, I’ve come home to someone I love, but whom I no longer like.”
That hurt, but I let him finish.
He continued. “I had to deal with my wife walking around with a chip on her shoulder, mad as hell, rationing sex because she decided to change the rules and I didn’t want to play the game her way.”
“So what? That gave you an excuse to go out and cheat?”
“No, it didn’t,” he replied. “I was wrong. I take responsibility for my actions. You didn’t push me into the arms of another woman. That’s a decision I made fully on my own. Would I have made that decision if you hadn’t turned into this woman I couldn’t stand?” He looked at me pointedly. “No. But that still doesn’t make what I did right. I can apologize every single day to you. I know I was wrong. I should’ve just left before I got involved with Vonda.”
I was quiet and pensive. “How did you meet her?”
“At Starbucks,” he said. I could tell he didn’t want to answer these questions, but I was glad he did. Finally. “We just started talking,” Jay continued. “She said she used to be a fan.”
“That’s unlike you,” I said. During his heyday, Jay had had a reputation for not crossing the line with groupies. Ericka, his daughter’s mother, had been a groupie, and after she’d turned up pregnant, Jay had sworn that no one else would trap him like that again.
“I know.” His voice was filled with regret. “I went against my better judgment, and I ended up with Psycho Sally.”
“Did you invite her to the Virgin Islands?” Since Jay was opening up, maybe I could get some answers.
Jay shook his head. “No, Shannon. I swear, I would never do anything like that. She knew about the retreat just like everyone else did. I actually started pulling back from her long before you found out. The more I got to know her, the more unstable she seemed. She was obsessive and clingy. But every time I tried to walk away, she would go ballistic on me, and it just got to the point where it was just easier to pacify her, say what she wanted to hear, until I could figure out how to permanently get rid of her.”
“Well, she’s permanently gone now,” I said, my mind returning to the fiasco we’d found ourselves in the middle of.
“Yeah, and I don’t want to be blamed for that.” Jay turned the SUV back on. “So let’s go see what we can find out.” He looked at me and, for the first time in a long time, smiled at me.
I returned his smile. “Thank you for your honesty. I’m glad we could talk.”
I just wished we had done it a long time ago, I wanted to add. But I was at least grateful that I could get some closure.