Spontaneous

“Tell me all about nice Edward,” Kim said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

“Edward and I met at the grocery store and things between us began getting serious pretty fast.”

Kim rolled her eyes. “I bet.”

“You’re going to like him.”

I doubt it. That’s what you said about the others. “When can I meet him?”

“Um, when you come to the wedding in three weeks.”

“What!” Kim nearly jumped out of her seat.

“Are you all right, Kim?” Duan asked, leaning close to her in concern. His heated breath against her cheek had sensations stirring within her.

She nodded quickly and whispered, “Yes, I’m fine.”

“Kim, who are you with? The man you’re engaged to?”

Kim rolled her eyes and shook her head. It had been nearly two months since she’d told that lie and now everyone was still waiting to meet her fiancé.

“Kim?”

Instead of addressing the issue of her fabricated fiancé, she said, “Mom, you can’t get married in three weeks. What do you know about this guy?”

“I know enough to believe Edward is a good man. He’s a divorcé like me and we enjoy each other’s company. He asked me to marry him and I accepted. Be happy for me. I’m happy for you. You don’t know how happy I was when you told me and Aunt Gert about your guy. For so long I’ve blamed myself for you not wanting to get married because I stayed with your father when he was so abusive to me. I know that’s what turned you off marriage. I should have left him sooner.”

Yes, you should have left him sooner, Kim thought. Not for my sake but for your own. Although she would be the first to admit she’d never wanted to marry because of the abuse she’d witnessed by her father, she didn’t want her mother to feel guilty about that.

Kim pushed frustrated air out of her lungs. “Mom, please promise you won’t do anything until I get there.”

“And when do you plan to come? The family wants me to have another wedding, but Edward and I are tickled with the idea of just taking off and flying to Vegas and—”

“No, Mom, please not Vegas again. Haven’t you learned anything?”

“Kimani Cannon, I won’t allow you to take that tone with me. I didn’t call to get your permission to marry Edward. I’m just letting you know about him. But if you really want to meet him, then I suggest you make time to do so.”

“I think that I will, Mom.”

“Fine. And don’t you dare come without bringing your young man with you,” Wynona said in a stern voice. “I can’t wait to meet him, and like I said, the fact that you’re in love has lifted a load off my heart that I’ve been carrying around for a long time.”

“Mom, I—”

“No, sweetie, please let me finish. I know you don’t understand why I keep going from man to man. Maybe I’m trying to find something I missed out on all those years I was with your daddy, letting him hit me around. I’m fine now. I like Edward. He’ll be good for me. But to know that you’ve gotten beyond the abuse you saw in our household has been my prayer. I’ve been praying for a good man to come into your life and now he has. I can’t wait to meet him, so don’t you dare think of coming home to Shreveport without him. Goodbye, sweetie.”

Her mother hung up and Kim realized she hadn’t told her the good news about being accepted into med school. She sighed deeply, knowing she’d gotten herself into a sticky situation with the lie about a fiancé. Sherri had warned her it was bound to catch up with her eventually.

“Is everything all right, Kim?”

Kim glanced over at Duan. For a moment she’d forgotten he was in the taxi with her as they cruised through the streets of Chicago on their way to the airport.

She sighed deeply, and when he opened his arms she cuddled up closer to him. “Is your mother okay?” he asked, concern in his voice.h

Kim chewed on her bottom lip and then said, “If you call planning wedding number five okay, then yes, she’s doing just fine.”

3

DUAN WASN’T SURE he’d heard her correctly. “Your mother has been married four times?”

“Yes.”

He found that simply incredible since his own mother had been married that many times, as well. He shifted in his seat and Kim’s body automatically moved with his. He’d done one-night stands before but none had stretched into breakfast the next morning or a cab ride to the airport the next day. When it was over, it was over. There hadn’t been any exchange of business cards or promises to follow up. But he knew that he and Kim would see each other again. This weekend hadn’t been enough.

“I told you a little about my father being the ugly in my life this morning and how he abused my mother. What I didn’t tell you was that they split while I was in high school. I counted it as one of the happiest days of my life. He was a bully of the worse kind.”

“And your mom stayed with him all those years?”

“Yes. She was always convinced he would get better. He was smart enough to move us to New Orleans, away from her family during that time. She moved back to Shreveport a few years ago to be close to her family and to take care of my grandmother, who’s since died. Now Mom wants to get her life together and believes there is a good man out there destined to be hers. So far she’s had four misfits and I’m afraid this fifth might be the same.”

He shook his head. It was ironic that her mother was looking for a good man when his mother had had one and hadn’t been satisfied. Go figure.

“My mother’s been married four times, as well,” he heard himself saying.

“She has?”

“Yes.” He wondered why he’d told her that. He never discussed his mother with anyone. And it was only on rare occasions that her name came up with Terrence and Olivia.

Kim was sitting close to him, practically in his lap. He felt his desire for her on the rise again and hoped the cab arrived at the airport before he was tempted to do something that could make headlines in the Chicago Sun-Times.

“The last I saw her,” he said, “she was contemplating husband number five. But that was six years ago. She might have made it to number ten by now.”

Kim gave him an odd look. “You’re joking, aren’t you?”

His expression was unreadable when he said, “I never joke when it comes to the woman who birthed me.”

There was an edge of steel in his voice and Kim figured the subject of his mother’s desertion was a sore one with him, just like her mother’s obsession with finding the perfect man was with her.

The perfect man.

Such a man didn’t exist. But that was her mother’s dream and Kim knew all about chasing dreams. Just like she understood her mother’s desire to see her only child married. Wynona thought she’d failed in both the mother and wife departments. Neither was true, but until mother and daughter were happily married, she would always believe that.

The backseat of the cab got quiet, as if Duan was allowing her time to think, and then he asked, “When is the wedding?”

She rubbed a hand down her face. “They want to marry in three weeks, which will put me in more hot water because of a lie I’ve told.”

“What lie?”

“That I’m engaged.”