Mrs. Taylor smiled and paused before answering, “White boy, you ain’t worked for my son long enough that I should even know your name. Don’t make today your last day on the job. Because I can make that happen. Ask that last white boy who was looking for a job.”
Leaf, a Harvard University graduate whose perfect resume made him so overqualified for the job, Jamison thought it was a joke that he had applied and was willing to take a pay cut when he showed up out of the blue at Jamison’s door the day after he’d had to fire his last assistant, seemed spooked by Mrs. Jackson’s threats and went into action, nearly pulling Mama Fee and Jamison out of the room and sealing the door behind them. He wouldn’t let anyone open that door until he heard Mrs. Taylor give the okay.
“You about to call me a bitch? A whore? Diarrhea again?” Val asked inside the room. She’d expected some kind of confrontation from Mrs. Taylor. Something just like this.
“Nonsense,” Mrs. Taylor answered, tucking her blond hair behind her ear like a decent woman would. “I just wanted to congratulate you. That’s all. Welcome you into the family.”
Val stepped back and took in all of Mrs. Taylor again. “Really?”
“But, of course. Baby, this is the South. And family is family. And you’re about to be family. So, we’ve got to move on.”
“Really?”
“Now, I know I have my feelings. And you know my feelings. But we’re right here, right now,” Mrs. Taylor went on. “And you’re marrying my boy. And it ain’t in any way I ever would’ve wanted to, but you young girls have your ways.” Mrs. Taylor’s eyes went right to the little bump in Val’s stomach.
“I know. He’s marrying me because I’m pregnant. I’m not stupid.”
“You at least love him?”
“Actually, I do. Jamison’s a fighting man. Strong. He ain’t nothing like any man I’ve ever been with.”
“I know. I made him everything he is.” Mrs. Taylor came in so close to Val, only the bump separated their lips. Her next words came like fire from her thorax. “And everything he is better stay the way it is. And if it doesn’t . . . you see where the last wife is.”
“Understood.”
“Good. Glad we could have this talk.” Mrs. Taylor stepped back and perked up on cue. “Now, congratulations.” She bowed a little to Val and called for Leaf to open the door. Before Val could make it outside, Mrs. Taylor whispered in her ear, “And we’ll see about this baby when it’s born and we can get the blood results.”
The wedding was nothing to remember. It couldn’t even be called a wedding. Maybe a marriage meeting. A contract signing. A man read words from a book. Two adults agreed. Papers were signed. No one took pictures. It was done. Mama Fee wondered why she’d taken her fake pearls out of the box in her undergarments drawer.
Just before the meeting, Leaf dismissed himself from the exchange on account of some of the mayor’s fires needing tending at his office downtown and a bank check for ten thousand dollars Jamison had ordered Leaf to overnight to a post office box in Los Angeles, so the foursome was alone afterwards. Jamison, being anxious to get back downtown himself, thoughtlessly led everyone right out the front door, thinking the exit would be so swift no one would see his irregular party.
But, even in Forsyth County, a black mayor is still a black mayor and most black faces that passed Jamison, his new wife, his mother, and his mother-in-law, smiled as if they’d discovered some new secret.
Jamison caught on fast and just before the softened wood on the bottom of his shoes tapped the last step in front of Forsyth’s courthouse, he knew he’d made a mess.
A voice came calling to confirm this.
“And here he is—Mayor Jamison Taylor.” A reporter holding a microphone materialized from nothing and was standing right in Jamison’s tracks with a camera crew behind him. He was a young black reporter wh
o’d graduated from Morehouse just a year ago and had his eyes on an anchoring seat at CNN. He was one of those ambitious reporters whose talent was desperation. He didn’t sleep. He’d do anything for a lead. And almost everything led him to Mayor Jamison Taylor. This smelled like another such incident. “Care to make a comment?”
“A comment?” Jamison smiled like he should have, but anyone who was watching the live feed on the news saw the emotional collapse in his eyes.
“Yes. About your new wife. Your marriage.” The reporter looked at Val and smiled.
Jamison was suddenly very aware of Val’s clothing. How tight her suit was. How red her lips were. Those big diamond earrings. How she was holding on to his arm.
“No comment,” Jamison said.
“Reports say you married Val Long this morning. Are you denying that, Mayor Taylor?”
The microphone was pressed back into Jamison’s face. The woman at his side was quiet and listening for his response. The women behind him had parted and were nearly leaning over each of his shoulders to hear anything.
“I haven’t denied a thing. I just said no comment,” Jamison said surreptitiously.
“So, you did get married?” the reporter asked.
“Yes.”