Dead to Her(29)

“Marcie, wait!” Keisha, following her, grabbed her arm and spun her around. “Oh, for God’s sake. I don’t want to sleep with Jason.” She stared at her. “Don’t you get it? Of course I don’t want Jason. I want you.” Her grip softened and she let go, slightly embarrassed. “You. It’s all you,” Keisha continued.

Marcie’s world suddenly stilled. It didn’t make any sense. “No, but I saw . . .” What had she seen? The way Keisha had looked up at Jason from the creek when they were on the boat? Marcie had been standing next to him and Keisha had been squinting. It wasn’t Jason she’d been calling to come into the water at all. It was Marcie. She hadn’t stayed in long after because the wrong person had joined her. Another memory flashed vividly. Marcie going to surprise Jason at lunch, and Keisha’s greeting—Ah, there she is. The wife. She’d been waiting for her. And all the questions about their relationship. They hadn’t been about whether Jason was unhappy, but about whether Marcie was. Could Marcie have been reading the whole thing wrong? It was crazy.

“But what about the phone call in the middle of the night?”

Keisha paused—was that a flash of something?—and then frowned. “Not me.”

“So, you don’t want to screw Jason?” Marcie was still struggling to absorb this new information. Hazy as she was on weed and tequila, it was like a fever dream.

Keisha shook her head. “I already have one husband and that’s enough for anyone. It was supposed to be enough for me. I was going to be a good wife. But when I saw you that first time it was like lightning. I couldn’t—can’t—stop thinking about you.”

“Me?” Marcie’s face flushed. Could that be true? Had she gotten it so badly wrong? But she was here getting drunk and stoned, not Jason. And why would Keisha lie about something like this?

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. I don’t want you to feel weird around me. You’re the only good thing in this place.”

Marcie almost laughed. The thought of Jason preening, all male arrogance, launching himself at Keisha whenever he could, not knowing what a fool he was making of himself. Oh God, it was glorious. There was something so comically brilliant about it. For once, it wasn’t all about Jason Maddox.

“And I know you’re married,” Keisha said. “I get it. So am I, after all.”

“I love Jason,” Marcie said, softly. Did she mean it? If the middle-of-the-night phone call hadn’t been Keisha, it was still somebody. He’d still lied. He’d still been distant for months, so much so that she’d immediately thought he’d been trying to screw Keisha from a few looks. But what else was she supposed to think when he only wanted to fuck when he was drunk. She still felt she was walking on shifting sand in her marriage. Like she should be grateful for any crumb of affection. “He was flirting with you though, wasn’t he? I didn’t imagine that.”

Keisha shrugged again, that helpless charming gesture. “Probably harmless.”

The music was still playing and as the tune drifted through the patio doors, Marcie wanted to let it take her. “When did life get so complicated? I want to be nineteen, dancing in a field somewhere, in cutoff denims and a crop top,” Marcie said, raising her hands above her head, finding the rhythm. It was a slow groove with a steady beat and it made her uninhibited in her movement. The sun had lost its midday rage, but the air was thick and warm, and a slight breeze caressed her as she moved; a tentative lover’s touch. She let her hips tilt side to side as her head rolled, her hair falling into her face. What was happening here? Why did she feel so good? So free?

She pushed all thoughts aside. She was tired of thinking. Of worrying. She was just going to be for once, a reed in a river, carried on a current. She spun around, smiling. She liked the way Keisha was looking at her. As if she was everything. It was decadent, illicit, wrong. It made her feel alive. It was turning her on.

“You want a blow back?” Keisha asked.

Marcie nodded. It was good to be high. It felt so dangerous. All of it. A loose thread that could unravel a carefully wrought tapestry. This was not what Marcie Maddox did. Screw Marcie Maddox. Tonight, she was someone else. Keisha carefully relit the joint, barely a stub left. “Don’t put it in backward,” Marcie murmured. “You’ll burn your mouth.”

“It’s the last draw I think,” Keisha said, coming close until they were face-to-face. “You ready?”

Keisha sucked in hard, the paper crackling as seeds inside popped. Her nose furrowed, cute, making Marcie smile as she opened her mouth. Keisha slowly blew, and the secondhand smoke was sweet and cool as Marcie breathed the stream in, her lips barely an inch from Keisha’s. I’m breathing her in, she thought, randomly. Air from her lungs. She shivered and closed her eyes momentarily, before quietly sighing the smoke from her own body. She stood, still, as the tingle ran from her toes to her scalp.

“You are so beautiful,” Keisha whispered, eyes wide with awe. Keisha looked up to her. Respected her. It made Marcie tremble with delight.

“No,” Marcie said. “You are beautiful.” She reached up and cupped the other woman’s face, pulling her gently closer until there were soft lips brushing hers and they were kissing. She should stop, she knew she should, but she couldn’t. Her whole body was suddenly on fire. She traced her fingers down Keisha’s sleek, elegant neck, and the other woman sighed into her mouth, her tongue darting forward, delicate and sweet. Electricity coursed through Marcie’s veins. She was drunk. She was high. And she was kissing a woman. She was kissing Keisha.