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I knew my friends, particularly Kelly, would start asking questions about Kofi as soon as we were in the car. Celeste was the only one who knew my full history with him. Keisha and Kelly knew about the pregnancy but little about the father.
“Okay, so why is it that you just experienced one of my greatest fantasies, which is to have a gorgeous man fall into my arms?” Kelly asked from the back seat.
“He didn’t fall into my arms,” I corrected.
“Well, close enough. You rushed to his aid and had that gorgeous head in your lap. You know him and you need to tell me everything. Please tell me he’s single.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know if he’s single. I haven’t seen him in twelve years but by the way that woman hovered over him and shot daggers at me, I’d say he’s not single.”
“Yeah, I noticed her. She didn’t seem to like you that much,” Kelly said.
“I don’t think she’d like any woman touching her man,” Keisha said.
I relaxed a little. Kofi was taken, so Kelly could move on to her next victim and I wouldn’t have to tell her that she couldn’t sleep with Kofi because he’d once been everything to me. Our girl code dictated that we couldn’t sleep with each other’s exes. Even without the code, the battle wounds from my relationship with Kofi would never heal enough for me to be okay with him getting together with one of my friends.
“I still want to know how you know him,” Kelly said.
“We went to school together.”
“Was he your boyfriend? I can’t be the only one who felt the sexual tension between the two of you. Is he...?” Her voice trailed off in shock.
My heart filled with pain and I gripped the steering wheel tighter. “Yeah.”
“Oh!” Keisha and Kelly said in unison.
“Are we going home?” Celeste asked. “The night is still young.”
I turned and gave her a grateful smile for changing the subject.
“Yes!” Kelly cooed. “If Kofi is off-limits, I need to find me another island man.”
“We could go to Paradise Island. There are some nice bars over there,” I suggested.
“Ooh, maybe I’ll meet a rich sheik vacationing at the Ocean Club. Isn’t that where the rich and famous stay when they come here?”
“Rich men can smell desperation a mile away,” Keisha said.
“And yet you married one,” Kelly clapped back.
We all laughed, the mood shifted and we spent the rest of the night drinking and trying to find Kelly a man, which led to some very interesting conversation and suggestions, including an offer from a Texas oil tycoon who had to be pushing seventy, that we all join him in his luxurious penthouse suite. He promised to make me feel like a real woman before I settled down with an ordinary man. I regretfully had to decline.
We slept late the next day and then decided to go down to the Paradise Island Bridge for conch salad. The foot of the bridge was one of the most vibrant and eclectic hangout spots on the island where multi-million dollar yachts were docked just feet away from local fishermen selling the catch of the day and rustic restaurants making food that could rival anything the chefs at Atlantis could produce. Vendors sold everything from t-shirts and straw bags to bottled peppers and fresh fruit. Growing up Bahamian meant I’d spent a good chunk of my childhood there, usually with my grandparents or the parents of friends since my mother would never be caught dead in a place like that. She didn’t go anywhere that wasn’t enclosed or air-conditioned and she’d admonished me all my life to not play in the sun because I would get too dark.
I welcomed the kiss of the sun on my skin as we walked through the colorful stalls in search of conch salad and local beers. I wore a white tank top and white linen pants loose enough for the air to flow through and still I was sweltering. August was not a good time to visit the Bahamas if you couldn’t take the heat but I loved it.
We’d ordered our salads from a tall, good-looking man with dreadlocks and a beautiful smile and were enjoying the first of many beers when a woman wearing a bright blue maxi dress and box braids, walked to his side. He leaned over and gave her a peck on the cheek.
I stared at her and then exclaimed; “Victoria?!”
She turned her head in my direction and then her face lit up even more. “Zemi?!
She left the man’s side and rushed over to me. As she came from behind the table, I noticed her rounded belly. She threw her arms around my waist and hugged me tight and I wrapped my arms around her neck and buried my face against her hair. She was shorter than me and always had the biggest mouth in school. I wanted to cry because it felt so good to see her and it’d been too long since that had happened. We pulled apart and access each other.
“You look good,” she said.
I caressed her stomach. “You look very good.” Victoria’s pale skin and light gray eyes glowed.
She laughed and pointed to the man behind her. “That’s my husband, Zion. Blame him for this.”
I looked from her to him and then back again.
Victoria laughed. “Can we talk in private?”
“Yeah. Let me introduce you to my friends first. This is Celeste, Keisha, and Kelly. Keisha and Kelly and I work at the same hospital and Celeste is my friend from college. Ladies, this is Victoria, we went to primary, junior and high school together.”
They all said hi and then Victoria looped her arm around mine. “I need to steal her away for a second. You ladies enjoy your conch salads. Babe, they’re on the house,” she told Zion.
We found an empty bench and sat facing the sea view. We watched the scene for a while and I was sure Victoria was struggling with where to begin. We hadn’t spoken to each other in ten years. She’d been my best friend since kindergarten and I’d shut her out of my life because she’d taken Kofi’s side when our relationship had crumbled.
When it didn’t look as if she would start the conversation, I jumped in. “So, you’re married with a baby on the way.”
Victoria smiled and nodded. “It’s our third. We have two boys, five and three and we’re having a girl to complete our family.”
“So you and James broke up.”
“We dated while I was in college and even got engaged when I started law school and then I caught him in bed with my roommate.”
“That bastard! He seemed so perfect.”
Victoria frowned. “I think we had the wrong criteria for what a perfect man looks like back then. James was handsome and smart and from a good white Bahamian family and he treated me well. I loved him and would’ve happily married him and thought I had a perfect life. I needed a long time to heal, and then, I came home for the summer and brought some friends out here for food and I met Zion. I didn’t even realize I liked him until he pointed out that I was at his stall every weekend.” She laughed. “I told him it was for his conch, not him, but every time I was with him we had so much to talk about. He’s highly intelligent and can talk about books and art and music and he’s traveled all over the world. The next thing I knew, he was taking me to Cuba on his boat and I was experiencing a new kind of love.”
“What do you mean?”
“James never made fire dance on my skin when he touched me. His beauty never left me breathless and I never physically ached when I was away from him. James never touched my soul. Zion did all of those things, so when my family told me I could do so much better than a fisherman, I felt sorry for them because that showed me that they’d never experienced the kind of connection I have with Zion. If they had, they would know that nothing else mattered. I thought I loved Zion, then but every day I find new ways to love him. I have my own law firm and proudly bring all my bougie girlfriends to buy fish from my wonderful husband. Except for one of them who’s married to an investment banker, the ones who are happiest are involved with blue-collar men. I’m not saying that’s the only way it can work but that’s how it is in our circle. Now that you’re caught up with my life, tell me who put that big rock on your finger?”
I blushed at the obnoxiousness of the diamond and the confession of the man who’d given it to me. “It’s Adrian.”
“Adrian who?”
“Adrian Albury.”
I watched the color drain from her face. She blinked and swallowed. “You’re marrying Adrian?”
I nodded. “This weekend trip is my bachelorette party. I’d invite you to the wedding but I can tell you don’t approve.”
“How can I after he and his friends almost killed Kofi? How can you be with him?”
“I can be with him because he was there for me. I cheated on him and he forgave me. He supported me when you took Kofi’s side.”
She slammed her hand down on the table. “I didn’t take his side. All I said is that you can’t give a man’s children up for adoption without his consent. If you didn’t want the twins and he did, you should’ve let him have them. So I guess that’s what reduced me from your childhood best friend to someone you went to school with.”
I closed my eyes. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“So why not tell them who I am? Well, at least who I used to be?”
I shook my head. “It’s too much to get into. The wound from back then hasn’t healed as well as I’d thought it had.”
“I’m sorry I hurt you but I’m not sorry for what I did. You were wrong, Zemi, and you almost destroyed a man.”
This was the argument that had ended our friendship, and apparently, it was what would keep us from resurrecting it.
“Well, it doesn’t matter now, does it?”
I got up and walked back to my real friends.
***
WE EXPLORED THE ISLAND for the rest of the day and I did all the touristy things my friends wanted to do which were easier than visiting old friends who’d want to talk about the past. My impromptu reunion with Victoria had quickly escalated and there wasn’t anyone else I cared enough about to endure that kind of pain, especially not my family. There was a reason I rarely came home and I didn’t have to when there were other Bahamian islands for me to enjoy. Eleuthera and Harbour Island were two of my favorites and I was considering buying a vacation home on one of them.
That night, our last night on the island, we had a private chef come to the house to cook a traditional Bahamian dinner. Celeste, Keisha, and I helped with the prep while Kelly flirted and drank wine and all of us were elated when sparks flew between her and Marvin, who was a tall chocolate fountain with hazel eyes and a deep voice that had Kelly swooning and spilling her wine. They exchanged numbers at the end of the night and the fact that Kelly didn’t invite him to stay meant that she wanted more than a weekend fling.
“I think we all know where your next vacation trip will be,” I told her with a smile. “I’ll tell Mom to book the house for you if you need it.”
“I won’t. Marvin has a condo on the beach. I’ll be joining him there in October.”
Celeste and I stayed up after Kelly and Keisha went to sleep off their liquor. We sat on the back porch and sipped tea and talked.
“There’s still something between you and Kofi, I felt it,” she said.
“What does it matter now? I’m marrying Adrian.”
“Do you believe there’s only one person we can love that deeply?”
“Well, since I’ve only had and will ever have Kofi and Adrian, I’d say yeah.”
“My great-grandparents believed they were born to love each other. Now, Gran is dying from cancer. How do you go on after losing someone you’ve been married to for sixty years? I’ve only been with Jeffery for five and I don’t know how I would survive without him.”
“So he’s your one.”
“Most definitely. Our relationship is not perfect and I know I talk about money and status a lot, but I have a deep and genuine love for my husband.”
I stared out over the ocean and had an honest quick conversation with myself. If Adrian were to die, I would be devastated, however, I could move on. What did that say about the man I would spend the rest of my life with? There were still times when I couldn’t even think about Kofi. When I’d seen him all those emotions had come rushing back as if not a day had passed since I’d last seen him. Would I still feel this way if I saw him in another ten or twenty years? When did it end, or would it end, or would it fester forever because Kofi was the one?
***
WE LEFT THE BEACH HOUSE early the next morning and headed to the airport. There wasn’t much time to think with three friends determined to eek every last drop of fun out of the weekend and I had a good time until I walked into my quiet condo. I kept the thoughts scratching the back of my brain at bay by unpacking and then updating my mother and Adrian on my trip.
Before my conversation with Victoria, I never would’ve noticed that there were no butterflies and no excitement at hearing his voice because I hadn’t known to expect it. I was hyper-aware of everything and I knew I needed to get Victoria’s voice out of my head. Adrian was a good man and I wasn’t about to compare our relationship to the highlight reel of another woman’s. Besides, what couple still had fireworks after knowing each other for over a decade?
It wasn’t so easy to dismiss my thoughts about Kofi. Seeing him so unexpectedly had gutted me. My friends being there had kept me from falling apart. As I lay in my bed later that night, the memory of how it’d felt to touch him and look into his eyes settled over me like a heavy blanket, stifling in the summer heat.
Adrian had never made me feel the way Kofi had, and Adrian had never hurt me as badly as he had. I’d take the peace of a good man over the thrill of a man capable of ripping my soul to shreds any day. I threw the blanket off and went to sleep.
