“I was here first, Mona,” I said, keeping my voice steady, although I’d been shaken to my core. By Mona. This was new. “Sitting here minding my own business when you walked in.”
She snorted. “I knew that, jackass. I meant here, in Brooklyn. You’ve been away for months. It was so nice.”
“Four weeks. Just got back a few hours ago. It was a long flight. I just came here for a drink and a burger.” And apparently to see her.
The emptiness that had been inside my chest before was gone. Thoughts of letting myself love someone again bubbled up, only this time the feelings weren’t pinched and afraid. I felt like something was opening up, blossoming. I sat there very still and just let it be, exploring it.
Mona however, leaned towards me, her eyes narrowed behind her cats-eye glasses that gave a whimsical look to her high cheekbones. “Where were you?” she asked suspiciously, as if I might have been doing nefarious things.
“In Somalia, with the Bantu people. They’re beautiful. I was working on a photo series.”
She sat up. “In Somalia? You were in Somalia?”
I nodded. Duke slid a Guinness in front of her and she didn’t notice.
“I’ve never been to Somalia or anywhere in the continent of Africa. My mother is from Trinidad, but no one knows what country in Africa her ancestors were from.”
“Did you want to go?”
She shook her head, and the ringlets danced again. “I’m not a jetsetter like you, Mr Billionaire. I have responsibilities, a business to run, classes to teach, and—”
This time I leaned into her. “I’ll take you, if you want.”
I startled her right out of her rant. She blinked and her mouth hung open. “What?”
“I’ll take you somewhere in Africa. Like you said, I’m a billionaire jetsetter. What’s the point of having all this money if I can’t take my friends to places they want to go? You can come on my next photography trip. Where do you want to go?”
She gaped at me for a few moments. “Are we friends?”
The question made me grin. I didn’t know why. “I think we should be friends. It’s much better than sworn enemies.”
“But I hate you and you hate me.”
I shrugged. “I’ve grown a bit since we swore to forever hate each other, and I think I’d like to expand our relationship a little bit.”
Her eyes got huge. “What’s wrong with you? Did the pod people take you while you were in Somalia? Did you get some tropical fever that turns you nice? This is not you. You’re horrid and I think you should go back to being the despicable, spoiled jackass.”
I chuckled and took a sip of my drink. “I thought hippie yogis were supposed to be all full of love, peace, and inner harmony?”
“I am full of love, peace, and inner harmony!” She sounded offended. “Screw you, jackass. You don’t even know what I would be doing to you if I weren’t centered in my being and in contact with the higher universe. Namaste, bitch.”
Her voice had risen until others in the bar were looking. I had to laugh. She thought I was laughing at her, but I wasn’t. I was laughing at this feeling inside of me, the emptiness that Mona seemed to fill up. The warmth I got from her haranguing me and challenging me, and even renaming me jackass.
It was ridiculous.
April and Lissie came over and got between us, putting their arms around her shoulders and leading her away like a spitting cat. I was pretty sure I heard her offer to do me bodily harm.
It was wonderful.
I watched her all night long, laughing with her friends, full of fire and irrepressible opinions and confidence.
Mona Sky-Jones. Beautiful, tall, slender, gold-skinned, bisexual, hippie, yoga teacher from the middle of nowhere. We didn’t fit at all. We were complete opposites. My mother hated her because she thought she was April’s lesbian lover who stole her away from her family. It was all nonsense of course, April had been hiding for her own reasons, and Mona protected her fiercely, even from her own family. I had to respect her for that. She’d spent seven years hiding.
But so had I. I’d buried myself in my photography and travels, keeping away from my family or from any connections who could call me back to myself. Running away whenever I was asked to open up.
Now, here, in a bar in Brooklyn, it was Mona who was calling to me.
Mona? It made no sense. She was right—we hated each other. But then . . . I think she hated the version of me that I hated also, the angry and misogynistic side. The one that wanted to blame everyone else for my father’s reprehensible behavior and not him. The one that treated every woman in my life like she was a ball and chain dragging me down, until Marissa drowned under the weight of all that disdain.
What if I could win Mona’s love? What if I could deserve Mona? Was she the one?
Maybe it was the thoughts of Marissa, who I’d tried to forget about until recently, but I suddenly remembered what she’d told me, long before she died, at my mother’s wedding. She had a gift for matchmaking people, although she was really too polite to set people up. She could always tell who would pair well with whom. She used terms like soulmates, but I had never really believed in that.
She told me that if she weren’t around, she would match me with Mona.
I remembered being horrified that she would put me with such a harridan, but now it wasn’t sounding so horrifying. Then, I remembered that Marissa had also paired up my sister and Beau, even though I had thought that ridiculous, and Duke with Elisabeth, who he was swooningly in love with. She’d been right about them.
Across the bar, which had filled up now that it was full dark, Mona threw back her head and laughed.
And I felt like I had just been given a blessing.
Chapter Three: Mona
Late March
I’d had laser eye surgery yesterday, so I was not supposed to be out running around. My eyesight was pretty blurry still but I was desperate. So, I donned my darkest sunglasses and barged into Duke’s. “Is Jack Hamilton here?” I asked, the room dark compared to the bright sun outside, and I couldn’t bother to wait for my eyes to adjust. I tilted my sunglasses down and blinked over the rims, peering into the shadowy recesses of the bar.
Someone off to my right pointed to the bar. Of course. That blur was him. I stormed over to him, kicking a chair on my way and nearly tripping.
He caught my elbow. “What the hell, Mona? Did you lose your glasses or something? Just how blind are you?”
I shrugged off his helping hand. This was hard enough, coming to him.
He stood back, both palms up. “Is everything okay?”
I went to the bar and sat down. “Can I have a bottle of water?” I needed something to fiddle with and something to keep my words from sticking in my throat. The bottle was placed in front of me. “Thanks, Duke,” I said.
“Uh, Mona. Duke’s not here. What’s the matter with your eyes?”
He sat next to me, peering at me all worried, as if he was really concerned.
“Shut up.” I cracked my water open. “My eyes are fine. I had laser eye surgery yesterday, and it takes a few days until it’s clear.”
“Why would you get laser surgery? What’s wrong with your glasses?”