Chardonnay: A Novel Read online

  “Exactly. Too bad he didn’t give you that same courtesy and keep his hoes in check.”

  I thanked Zasmyth for reminding me sarcastically, while finishing getting dressed, and ignoring her ranting.

  “After all he did lose his virginity to another bitch too. But I understand how it might sound to Myron coming from his best friend that he took his girl’s virginity and...turned her out,” she said.

  “That would kill him and would be one hell of a pay back—don’t cha tink?!”

  “It’s think, hoe! And no—this is not about payback. It’s about me finally facing him and telling him it’s either me or them. And he’s so...secretive. It’s like sometimes when I look at him I don’t even recognize his soul.” I said pulling my feather down comforter back and plunging in my bed. Just then my cousin Konstance walked in our dorm room with shopping bags in her arms.

  “Hey ladies!” said Konstance. She was a sophomore at Lincoln majoring in sports medicine. If she couldn’t marry her sweet heart of a second year grad law student—she’d cop a NFL or NBA rookie.

  “Hey girl! I’m about to go, but Konnie, watch out for Nay.” said Zasmyth as she left.

  “Is this about Myron?” Konnie asked.

  “Yeah.” I responded.

  Konstance took me by my hand and asked,

  “What...what do you remember?”

  “About what?” I said looking at her timidly.

  She retreated her hands from mine and took a deep breath shaking her head.

  “You don’t remember anything about Spring break?” she asked.

  My eyes flickered trying to remember March.

  “Just that we all were supposed to go on a trip to Myron’s parents’ house at the Lake of the Ozarks...why?”

  She slightly turned her head and asked,

  “That’s all? What about the actual trip?”

  “We went?”

  “Yeah,” she said nodding her head.

  I didn’t recall a thing. In fact I just remembered bits and pieces of the last three months, hell I couldn’t remember yesterday sometimes.

  “Why are you asking me all this?” I asked, suddenly curious.

  Konstance blinked at me and then peered down at the ring on my married finger.

  “And that?” she inquired.

  “You know who gave this to me,” I stood up laughing.

  “Konnie what’s gotten into you?”

  She pulled a brand new cardigan out her Macy’s bag and sighed,

  “Nothing, just, you and this whole change of life thing. You don’t even act the same since...”

  She paused looking away.

  “Since what?” I asked cuddling the warm comforter up to my neck.

  “Nay, I’m just really worried about you, okay. And what’s this shit about Slim...since when have y’all been seeing each other?”

  “It just happened—I don’t know.”

  “Really, you don’t know? Well I think you need to reevaluate it all. Myron may have done he’s dirt but...don’t give up on him.”

  Konstance sat down next to me and looked over at me as I had tears forming in my eyes.

  “I don’t know who I am, anymore, Konnie. It’s my life and who I am has only just begun.”

  “Well just tell Myron about Slim and y’all can get on with your lives together.”

  “It’s not that simple, baby girl. Not when you’re in a relationship with someone you’ve known most of your natural born life. Deceit has a fine line and I think I crossed it.”

  She reminded me sometimes of a child that did things not thinking of the consequences. Her relationships tended to be dysfunctional and I was starting to understand why. I knew my cousin didn’t make sense for the most part, but she was my love. I went on to say,

  “Maybe your right. I can’t let everyone down. Even in a time of complete wilderness of my heart. Ma and his family are expecting things to go as planned, but...”

  “But what?”

  “I don’t have it together.”

  “You mean to tell me that you don’t want that life? You could be a princess for life!”

  “It wouldn’t be by my standards. I want to make my own money, Konstance. I want to create my own empire...all the things they’re giving me...I may not have, but I’ll get it.”

  “But.... you do have everything now.”

  Konstance and everyone else didn’t know what was going on at my parents’ home. My mother told me I had until my junior year in college to pay my own tuition. My scholarship was only a two year thing. No renewal. My mother was as cold as a snow cap mountain top and didn’t let the fickle flies on her walls annoy her. She wasn’t as rich as she put on her whole life. Found her a rich man, my daddy, and married his ass with the quickness.

  With my grandfather at home, who I adored, she was taking more responsibilities and dumping off the least on her list.

  “No. My parents have everything.” I said.

  “Anyway, Myron has a full ride at Howard. You know he’ll take care of you.”

  Was she listening to me? The child could be a daunts in my faith in her success for the future sometimes.

  “But that was my point...I don’t want—”

  “Take it! Nay, nothing is free and believe me when I say he owes you.”

  I threw my Christian Louboutin, seven hundred dollars and a quarter, pumps in my closet. The room was a mess and Zasmyth didn’t understand the words: Mr. Clean, Pine sol, Glade, Pledge, or 409.

  “I’m so confused...I just want to do me.” I said

  “Come on. Let’s go by Myron’s house so you can talk to him.”

  “Let’s get this over with.” I agreed but wasn’t sure. I pulled my Prada tweed coat out the closet and threw it over my shoulders since there was a chill in the spring air and I was trying to look cute in summer’s fashions before anyone else.

  Everything I had in that closet was courtesy of Mr. Myron Kent. My folks had money, but like I told Konstance—it was their money.

  We walked through the campus fresh cut grass to get to the parking lot quicker.

  “I know y’all have had y’all problems, but he does love you. He buys you anything you want, and to tell the truth—shit, I only wish I was in your shoes, Nay. Of course he’ll help you buy an education.” said Konstance. I wondered to myself how she thought she knew that. No one really knows what another person’s heart reads. And as well, buying clothes and shoes is different from placing the letters Ph.D. at the end of your natural born name. I wanted to have that on my own before I got married, because who knows, he could divorce me and take my degree too. But that may just be me being obnoxious.

  I believe that two people should get their life together, then come together and make their money grow. Not default. Konstance unlocked her car so we could get in. Zasmyth was driving to the city with Fianna and Katura a little later since she always had a tendency to turn her papers in at the last moment.

  “Myron is the least of my worries.” I said, sighed, and closed the car door as I pulled my leg in.

  “What do you mean?” asked a concerned Konstance.

  “I’m trying really hard to get this internship at Vogue and it seems no one wants to put me on as an intern.”

  “Well, you are shooting pretty damned high, Chardonnay.”

  I looked at her and smirked. It was a habit of mine to be underestimated in everything I did.

  “Girl you’re too much.” Konstance laughed out.

  “So, what do you think Myron’s reaction is going to be when you tell him about Slim and you don’t want to marry him?”

  Konstance had a glare of fear in her eyes. We were cousins, but more like sisters as well. My heart jumped at the thought. I had asked myself that question over and over again. Each time I came back to the same resolution—I wouldn’t tell him. What I was about to do could possibly change my entire world. I sighed and looked at Konstance.

  “Is that your cell phone ringing?” she asked.

&
nbsp; “Yeah. It’s Myron.” I said looking down at it in my lap.

  “We won’t be to Kansas City for another hour. Answer it, please!” she yelled pulling into traffic.

  I put it on silent, reclined my seat back, and closed my eyes.

  2

  Perfect Fairytale

  “Alright Nay, I’m turning the corner to the block Myron lives on!” Konstance said, as she shook me awake. I got sick as soon as she said that. When I opened my eyes I saw that there was a host of cars in front of the Kent’s massive mansion. My stomach flip flopped knowing what kind of family I was about to let down. Tonight they were having a dinner party that I knew my parents would be attending. I was the oldest of three children, and my parents were love birds from high school. Our family seemed perfect, but that was the only perfection we Houston’s had about us. The De Boise, my mother’s side of family we’re authentic Creole, speaking the pure language.

  My father, Carnegie Houston, is a prolific and high end real-estate agent at one of the most successful fortune 500 companies in the United States, Houston Estates. He built it from the ground up with my mother behind him pushing up the daisies. Ironically Myron’s father often did business with my father, co-partnering in architecture projects around the city. So for them, their daughter marrying the rich to stay rich was the only humane thing to do. I grew up pretty wealthy in rural west Kansas City, Missouri near The Country Club Plaza, the very first outside strip mall district in the United States, and the Ward Parkway district. Myron’s family didn’t live that far from us; in fact, they lived over on the next block from us. Our houses are back to back neighbors. But my family riches endowed in me was about to change. “You’re on your own, as soon as you turn 21 you’re out, married. If not then you’ll be nothing,” my mother would say.

  My daddy would just look at her and give me an assuring smile I wasn’t going anywhere. But I knew I wouldn’t have their help any longer, and so did he.Konstance pulled into the neighbor’s empty lot next door.

  “What are you doing?” I asked looking around for a better spot.

  “I will find one, get out. Ooh looky there,” Konstance said peering in her rear view mirror.

  “Mystro Kent.”

  I sunk in my seat to avoid Myron’s brother walking from across the street. From the moment he was born in this world and his mother heard his lungs, he had a promised music career. So she named him that with truth and goodness...and a couple misplaced letters. He could sing the panties off of any grown ass woman, although he was Myron’s little brother. He was handsome and too pretty to be with only one girl, much like his big bother. Myron was just thicker in all the right places and held himself together better. The moist hands and jittery composure had ceased to exist with him. Mystro was still working on it and at times wished he could be as smooth as Myron was. But their ages, sixteen and twenty-two, were the contrast of tat-ta-tell. Not their manhood. Both had no facial hair. Myron grew it but he chose to cut it. Both were rumored to have some of the most crème de la crème dick on the planet. And both could tongue tie a girl with a switch peeled back off a tree; from just one look of their admiration, any girl would jump to be hurt with their participation. Against the fucking law, but they were that cold.

  He walked on the small hill of a yard with a few other guests and walked on into the house that was live and bouncing with a host at the door and wine flutes in hand. I watched the door closed, frightened by the notion that Myron was in that house pacing back and forth waiting on me. In his and my corrupt world, I was his “main” love. The reality was he was a womanizer with artificial promises.

  For each person a promise can hold different meanings and to me a promise showed a glimpse of loves treasures. His word was always good when it came to diamonds and gifts of the sort.

  He always came home to me in a G5 jet—not on a white horse. However, he made me feel like that story time princess, mentally and physically. Emotionally, I knew he wasn’t any good for me. Playing football for a historically black college didn’t help but to add to his facade of being the perfect Black man with a biracial background. With talk of him turning pro my mother couldn’t help but be a part of that frenzy.

  Our mother’s had been planning our wedding since we were seven and eight-years-old, however; before we were even aware of each other physically or mentally. It was kind of like an arranged marriage. Hell, it was an arranged marriage. Myron’s mother is Korean and Kenyan, and his father is from West Africa. Kansas City, Missouri was indeed a melting pot of families that had landed here in order to find ample jobs and new found freedom.

  Myron’s parents were big on following family values and talked my parents into it somehow. It helped that before they introduced us, we introduced ourselves in that wheat field I found myself in. After that, I didn’t see him until our parent’s formal introductions. The arrangement was partly my mother’s reason for hanging me by a thread. Everyone expected us to be together. Myron and I weren’t really serious until we were in middle school at Pembroke Hill. He talked to me the way no other guy could decipher. Intelligent and sensual all in one, and the boy was only fourteen. A thirteen year-old girl at the time, I wasn’t sure of the spell he was putting on me. But I was articulate and had straight-A’s. And Myron always was on Principal Honor Roll, and I liked the smart guys. So in the confusion of our parents influence, we found the likes in each other. Long walks home in our school uniforms made it easier for us to get to know each other better, sneaking behind bushes for gentle kisses. Not many places we could go, so we made our own. Fell in love with his soul on that fourth day in October, when the shades of summer fade away like a water painting, dripping into the cracks of the Earth as it dies and bleeds reds, oranges and browns. I fall. Don’t know if he knew that day, but I waited to tell him until the month of April, when life breathes back in the hemisphere and the clouds couldn’t be any thicker to float on, ‘cause I was high. Myron used to try to talk me into having sex back then. It was the barer of all love and hate crimes. Made the heart weak and swell to capacity. I told him I didn’t want to get pregnant. Myron would promise me that he wouldn’t come in me. Come. When I was thirteen I didn’t know exactly what he meant. So clueless, but it sounded nice. Him giving me his all, Lord knows I had already took that fall. When I would try to change the subject, Myron would whisper in my ear “Let me put it in a little”. But I never gave into the temptation. Myron and I have been together a long time. Perhaps the reason we didn’t breakup when he went off to college. We didn’t know how to break up. Now here I was at the thrones of my woman hood wanting a taste of each sequential element of freedom.

  “Girl get out! I can’t stay parked here.” Konstance shrieked, interrupting my thoughts.

  “I’m not going in there by myself, Konnie. I can’t.” I said shaking my head.

  I tisked and she backed out to only pull into a parked place, blocking the driveway we just pulled out of. She got out the car and stared at me through the front windshield with folded arms. Just then Zasmyth pulled up with Fianna and Katura in tow. I dropped my head and smiled, they were always here for me. I felt a bit more secure with them here behind me but that didn’t make my stomach subside from turning once I retreated from Konstance’s BMW.

  Katura was taking her time as well getting out Zasmyth’s car. Not that she wasn’t ready to see her man, his parents were what stalled her. Mystro was as exotic as Myron. Katura, who had just turned twenty, was four years his senior and that didn’t change the fact that he had full control over her. All of the Kent men had control over their women. As I walked up to the front door of Myron’s house I smelled the aroma of food. The ambiance of the house was breath taking. Fifteen bedrooms, five baths and two kitchens. I never really knew what Myron’s father, a handsome dark skinned man of forty-something that was a distinguished Black business man, did for a living. Never thought to ask. I did know his mother, Kyon Lim-Kent, a beautiful multicultural woman, owned her own accountant firm.

&nbs
p; I rang the doorbell and Myron’s sister Myra answered it.

  “Hey Nay!” she said.

  She had grown into a woman since the last time I saw her.

  “Hey Myra.”

  “Girl, you’re not supposed to be here yet! And who are all these bitches?! I know who you and Katura are.” Myra said, as she pointed to Konstance, and Fianna. Zasmyth stayed out near her car, pressed with her phone glued to her face. I was grateful for that.

  They looked at each other and then looked at me and then finally to Myra. I didn’t think she knew what kind of danger she was inviting. Fianna moved and I pressed my hand on her chest. As disrespectful as she had been, I should have let them kick her ass. But Myra was like a little sister to me and I knew young teen girls always had to show their asses while running their mouths. I used to be one of them.

  “I’m Konstance bit—”

  “This is my cousin Konstance. And this is my home girl Fianna. Is Myron home?” I said cutting Konstance off.

  “Yeah.He up stairs. You look familiar.” she said eying Konstance and daring her to call her out her name just one time with her slanted eyes. She didn’t dare make a slight acknowledgment to Fianna though. Maybe Fianna’s leather jacket, rag doll jeans, and roughed out pretty girl persona scared her. She was purely Jessica Alba with a Pink and Christina Aguilera flare.

  “Yeah well I live around the block.” Konstance informed her.

  “You sure you just haven’t been around the block.”

  “Oh no she didn’t.” they all said in unison.

  That blew me away. Fianna looked at me and said,

  “Girl you better check lil’ Kimora for I gut the phat from her, baby!”

  “Y’all, look, calm down...Myra—I need to talk to your brother.”

  She let us in and I made sure Konnie was right by me. The dinner party looked to be getting set up. It looked more formal than usual. I headed right for the spiraling stairs. Konstance didn’t like being called out her name. Frankly not by sneaky little girls like Myra. She wouldn’t let it go.