What He's Been Missing

“Figure out the deal with Ian before you move onto something else. I could be wrong, but something tells me that some of this is just in your mind. We believe what we want to believe for whatever reasons. We keep secrets from others and sometimes ourselves.”

“But Ian married someone else,” I said. “Who cares?”

“You’ll care, if it’s not resolved,” Journey said. “Because if it has to resolve itself, it’s going to be a motherfucker.”

I closed the laptop and went to bed drunk and thinking about Ian and Xavier. I’m not stupid. I’ve been in and out of my feelings enough to know when I’m lying to myself. I’ve made bad choices. But they were because I didn’t want to hide my feelings. I didn’t know which one was better—bad choices or hidden feelings—but I knew Journey was right. Whichever one it was, I had to figure it all out before I could move forward.

My phone rattled on the nightstand and I read a text from Xavier:

I know I’ve called you three times today, so I’ll text you instead of picking up the phone and bothering you. I’m lying here on the couch and I just finished watching Love & Basketball and I was thinking about you. I wish you were with me right now. I wish I’d taken that kiss. Can you send me one right now?

It took me ten tries and a walk to my purse to get my lip gloss to get the picture of the perfect pucker on my phone and text it to Xavier.

He responded with a picture of his lips.

I went to sleep with the phone on the pillow beside me.

“Oh my God, look at you two! Is that the Mediterranean behind you again? You guys spent your entire honeymoon in the water.” I was sitting in the conference room with one of my former clients, Bisa Ojaku, looking at pictures from her honeymoon in Cannes. Her wedding to an Arabian prince was my last wedding of 2010 and, like most of my brides, Bisa was still a little attached to me. I hadn’t seen her since the wedding six months ago because Prince Ayat insisted that she move to Dubai with him right after the wedding; still, Bisa e-mailed Krista and me updates of her marital bliss every week. She’d called the office a few days ago sayi

ng that she was in town visiting and asked Krista if it would be OK for her to stop by to show us her wedding album.

“Yes, the Mediterranean was so beautiful,” Bisa said, sliding her hand over the water in the picture like she was imagining that she was still there. In the shot, she and Prince Ayat were embraced at the helm of a yacht with the sun setting behind them. “We didn’t want to leave Cannes. As soon as we got back to Dubai, Ayat bought a yacht. Can you believe it? All those years living in Dubai and that man didn’t own a yacht.” Bisa had been as single as a drop of water in the Arabian Desert until her fortieth birthday, when she met Ayat on a sleepover camping expedition in the Arabian Desert. She was a retired porn star. She was sure she’d never find a man who could accept her past and envision her in his future. But her prince, and I mean he really is a prince, came to pick her up on his camel in the middle of the night. Prince Ayat was filthy, stinking rich, and too old and tired to care about Bisa’s past. He just wanted good company and great conversation for the rest of his life. Basically, someone to spend his money with him. And he loved black women. There was one catch, though—Bisa had to move from Atlanta to Dubai right after the wedding. A friend had told her about my company and she called me two weeks before she and Prince Ayat would be in Atlanta to say their vows. It was a rush, but he’d paid handsomely for the rush. We rebuilt a desert camp with real camels, hookahs, and tents on the turf at the Georgia Dome.

“Must be nice to go yacht shopping, Princess!” I joked with Bisa.

She laughed and kissed Prince Ayat’s image in the picture. She seemed so happy. Still had the sparkle in her eye of a new bride. Some people say there’s a difference between a young woman and a more mature woman getting married. I never noticed. The heart was the same. Both Bisa and Ayat had seen it all and done it all, but their love was baby new. Fine newborn-baby new. Looking at them made me think of Xavier and his late-night sweet nothings. Bisa turned the album to a picture on the last page; it was of Ayat and her standing on the strand in Cannes hand in hand. She fingered the link between them.

“My prince charming. He found me! It’s a miracle. A real fairy tale.” Bisa smiled and did a little dance in her seat before closing the book.

“So how’s Dubai?” I asked.

“It like a big resort. Beautiful every day. It’s still taking me time to get used to some of the customs, but Ayat and I hardly get out of the house right about now”—Bisa winked suggestively and we laughed—“so I’m cool. Lord knows that man is a freak. What’s up with you? You know Ayat has a few friends who love the sisters, too. You should come visit.”

“I’ll visit, but I don’t know about needing a date. I’m kind of—”

“Wait a minute,” Bisa started, “I knew there was something different about you.”

“What?”

“Your eyes . . . your smile . . . your clothes . . .” She sat back and looked at me from head to toe with a sistergirl glance. “Uhh-mmm hum.”

“What?” I laughed, knowing what she was getting at.

“You been getting some!”

“No—not exactly.”

“You’re in love?”

“No—not exactly.”

“Well, both must be on the way. Because you have that glow, honey bunny. You look exactly how I did before I moved to the other side of the world to be with a man who’d never had macaroni and cheese.” Bisa pinched my knee. “So what’s your boo’s name?”

“Xavier.”

“Hum . . . sounds smart. Successful. Freaky.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know all that yet,” I said. “He lives in Chicago.”