“I guess you ain’t dead,” I heard a voice calling over my shoulder. I was already awake and laying on my side, looking at the clear Alabama sunshine alive outside the window.
I was about to turn over and then I realized the voice was Billie’s. I smiled and decided to stay on my side.
“You know you hear me, heifer,” she said and I heard her step into the room. “I know you ain’t sleep no more! Leaving me to sneak off with some ashy negro. Got some nerve.”
I was truly laughing now and fighting to keep my squeals contained.
“The least you could’ve done was taken me with you. Then I could’ve found me a real Mustafa. All those single brothers they got in Africa. I know one got to have love for a schoolteacher. Did you bring one back for me in your suitcase? Let me check.”
“You keep your filthy hands off my suitcase,” I demanded, turning to Billie. “There’s nothing in there for you!”
“See, I knew you were awake,” Billie cheered, jumping into the bed and embracing me.
“Yes, I am,” I said.
“It’s you! My best buddy. How are you?”
“I’m fine,” I said as Billie made herself comfortable in front of me on an empty space in the bed. “I’ve been through hell, but I’m fine.”
“Hell?”
“Real hell.”
As I told Billie everything that had happened, we laid in the bed just looking up at the ceiling like we’d imagined the whole tale unraveling on the white surface like a movie. In true Billie fashion, sometimes, like the time Dame and I first made love, she made me retell certain sections and others, she balked and threw her shoe up in the air.
“Do you think you’ll ever see him again?” she asked, bringing up a question I’d been trying to erase from my thoughts.
“He left me,” I said. “It’s over. I think we’ve pretty much discovered where the bird and fish can live ... nowhere.”
“What about Evan?”
“I don’t know. Have you seen him?”
“He’s been around, laying pretty low. After all the stuff came out about you and Dame in the local papers, I think he was embarrassed,” Billie said.
“I never meant to hurt him,” I said. “I just wanted to try to make sense of what I was feeling, you know? I couldn’t keep lying to him like that. It wasn’t right. Either way, it wasn’t right.”
“Well, we can’t be right all of the time. Half the battle of life is counting the time when you’re right and when you’re wrong.”
“Hmm.” I paused and looked over at Billie. “So what’s up with the wedding.”
She didn’t look back at me. She just frowned and shook her head.
“I gave the ring back.” She held her naked left hand up toward the ceiling. “I didn’t like it.”
“Stop playing,” I said, slapping her hand down.
“Ohhhh.” She exhaled and turned her head to look at me. “I was busy planning the wedding. I signed up for all these Internet sites and started ordering things. I was just so excited. And then, one of the sites declined my credit card, so I had to go look at the account to see what happened to my balance. I’d given that fool Jerome Jenkins from Jasper over one thousand dollars in all those weeks.”
“One thousand dollars? Are you kidding me?”
“Nope. And I just kept thinking how sad that was. How I did something that stupid to get something that I wasn’t even sure was mine.” She paused and turned back to the ceiling. A tear rolled from the side of her eye and down to the pillow beneath her head. “I know Clyde loves me, but I don’t think his love or even my love is enough for us to survive what we’ve been through. I need to move on. So ...” She wiped a second tear and sat up suddenly, smiling wide as ever.
“What?” I asked nervously.
“I’m ... moving.”
“What?”