His First Wife

I smiled at every face I passed, wondering who they were and where they were going. What they did. How they added to the world. I wanted to run home and kiss Tyrian’s nose, to hold him and tell him what his mother was about to do. I wanted to tell the world. I wanted to tell . . . Jamison. This need flashed into my mind in the worst way. I’d never had or achieved anything in my adult life without sharing it with that man. He was a part of who I was. I wondered if this was the feeling Jamison had when he started Rake It Up. Like he was about to build something and the possibilities were limitless. How could I have missed that for so long? What had I been doing? Suddenly, the idea of working through this without him, without a listening ear at bedtime, scared me to death. He was my husband. A sinking feeling fell over me and then I really wanted to go home. My step became less peppy, my smile was fading. My opportunity seemed like less of an opportunity without my partner by my side. I had missed Jamison. Each day without him was unbearable. He came by most afternoons to see the baby and bring us things, but in my anger I was keeping my distance. I still had nothing to say to him. But deep in my heart I was unsure of how much longer I could go on. But still, I had to stand my ground. He’d hurt me, and while I wanted so badly for that to just go away, it couldn’t.

“Barbie Doll?” I heard someone call from behind me. I was sure they weren’t talking to me. I hadn’t had anyone call me that since college. “I know that chocolate syrup skin anywhere. Is that you?”

I turned to see a familiar face looking at me. Only it seemed older and much more mature than it had been the last time I’d seen it, so I couldn’t quite place it.

“Kerry, you’re going to act like you don’t know me?” he said.

“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to place him. It was someone I’d dated.... Gone out with.

“Preston, Preston Allcott,” he said, opening his arms to hug me.

It was the Preston Allcott that grabbed my crotch during our date in undergrad. I hadn’t seen him in over ten years. He was local, of course, had gone to the Morehouse School of Medicine just like the other men in his family, but he’d fallen off the radar a long time ago. He pretty much looked the same, only he was more handsome. His olive skin had darkened a bit and now the sun, even in the cold December breeze, seemed to catch each curve on his face.

“Wow,” I said, hugging him.

“Don’t act like you don’t know me,” he said, laughing.

“I just haven’t seen you in so long,” I said, wanting to say that I knew him too well after he’d grabbed my crotch.

“Well, I kind of left the whole scene after graduation. I needed to get myself together. Get away from all of that stuff. You know?”

I nodded my head, but I wasn’t sure exactly what he was talking about. Preston was a true blue Atlantan man of society. His family pretty much made the scene from its beginning, and from what I recall of slick Preston in college, he’d embraced it.

“You look amazing,” he added. “Like the wife I should’ve had.”

“Stop it,” I said.

“No, really, I was too much of a jerk to recognize it back then, too caught up in a bunch of bullshit, but now I see that I missed out.”

“Thank you,” I said. “So, what are you doing downtown?”

“I own a health clinic down here,” he said, poking out his chest. “We service people with HIV/AIDS who have trouble getting good healthcare and insurance.”

“Really?” I asked. It didn’t sound like the Preston I’d known. I was sure he was a surgeon or something. His father was a cardiothoracic surgeon. A free clinic? Working with the poor? That wasn’t the Allcott way.

“Yeah, it’s real,” he said. “Before I went to med school, my father insisted that I go to Europe to vacation for a month, but when I got there, a guy I met invited me to travel with him to Kenya. He was a doctor and said I could assist him and learn some things about ground work before I went to school. I’d never even thought about it, but I went—without my father’s blessings—and seeing the HIV/ AIDS epidemic there, my life was forever changed. I just wanted to come here and work to make sure the disease didn’t continue to ravage our people.”

“That’s amazing,” I said. I hadn’t at all expected any of this to come from Preston. Not the crotch grabber! He seemed so changed. So much more mature.

“So, what about you?” he asked. “Career? Married? Children?”

“Oh,” I struggled. “I just had a baby and . . . I’m—”

“Married,” he grabbed my left hand. “Oh, yes, you married um . . . Jamison. Right?”

“Yes,” I said, trying to hide my uncertainty.

“And you just had a baby?” He stepped back and looked at me. “You do mean a year ago or something, because you don’t look a pound over a size two.”

“Stop it,” I said.

“So, what about your career? How is that? Where are you practicing?”

“Practicing?”

“Yeah, you’re a doctor, right? You were going to med school.”

“Oh, no,” I said. Now I’d have to explain that to another person. “I just decided—”