Perfect Together by Kristen Ashley

Her full-time gig was as a pediatrician, though.

“I don’t know. I say nay and a meeting,” Bernice stated, sitting back, one arm wrapped around her middle, the other one holding up her martini glass.

Not a surprise, as Bernice was my heart-of-gold girl.

She was also delicately boned, dark-skinned, had a mass of fabulous braids knotted up in killer ways I took note of, because I wanted some of our models with that style for a future List and I was going to need to talk to her stylist. She had two boys who were the light of all of our lives, and she’d met her husband Cornell in a very traditional way: he was a pilot, she had been a flight attendant.

Since then, they’d made babies and she’d made a move that kept her close to home.

She was now air traffic control.

“I’m the newbie, I abstain,” Noel put in.

That night, Noel had been there when I got there, and he explained his presence by saying, “I’ve waited six years for a seat at this table to open, I wasn’t missing my chance.”

He was, of course, the perfect addition.

But now the vote of whether to oust Bea by just ghosting her (Kara’s “yea”) or to see if we could work on current issues by sitting her down and talking about why she was so negative all the time (Bernice’s “nay and a meeting”) was down to me.

“You know, I have to say, as much as it makes me sound like a bitch, I’ve been going through the motions with her for a long time,” Kara said. “Having her around, calling her for Cock and Snacktails, inviting her to things was just habit. But in thinking on it these past few days, when she is around, I try to avoid her.”

“She’s a good soul,” Bernice said.

“She is?” Noel asked.

It was, as we were showing, arguable.

But in some senses, she was.

This was why I piped up.

“Once, when Remy was in Houston visiting a site, I got sick. Weather flared up there and he couldn’t get back. The kids were little, I’d had all three by then, and I had a really bad flu. Like, nearly delirious, pass-out-and-lose-three-days flu where you just sweated out a fever and hoped. After waiting for a flight to be cleared for takeoff, giving up, renting a car and driving, it took Remy thirty-six hours to get home. In the meantime, Bea came over, took care of the kids and me, and she was there the whole time.”

Kara and Noel didn’t say anything.

But Bernice did.

“I will admit to what we were discussing earlier, and she absolutely tried to drive a wedge between Cor and me. But when my mom passed—”

Bernice stopped.

It had been years, she still wasn’t over it.

It had been years for mine too, so I got her.

“Langston and Ruth were here, we were all a mess,” she went on, referring to her big brother and younger sister. “Cor was trying to hold me together. And Bea came over and just did stuff. No questions, she just got to work. Like cleaning the dishes and bringing in food and making us eat and setting a meeting at the funeral parlor and with the pastor. She didn’t say anything about it, didn’t make a big deal, and when we pulled ourselves together, she just faded away. But the truth of it is, if she didn’t hustle us to the car and drive us there herself, I don’t even know if Mom would have had a service until maybe weeks later.”

“I’m seeing now why you put up with her shit,” Noel remarked.

“I told you she isn’t all bad,” I said.

“You’re right, she’s had her good times with me too. She’s also, as we talked about, had her bad. But Wyn, seriously? She was the worst with you,” Kara said, and it surprised me.

“Do you think?” I asked.

“Uh, yeah,” not Kara, but Bernice answered.

“Really?” I asked Bernice.

She nodded.

“I talked to her, you know,” Kara said. “After the Cor debacle, and when she seemed to be setting her sights on Remy, I sat her down and told her to lay off.”

“Really?” Noel, Bernice and I said at the same time.

Kara sipped her dirty martini and nodded. “It was too much. It was constant. It actually kinda freaked me out.”

“What did she say?” Bernice asked.

Kara shrugged. “At first, she stuck to her guns, was belligerent, said he was too alpha and maybe she shouldn’t be asked to be different, he should, which was hogwash. I mean, Remy is alpha, but he’s not a dick, and she was using those terms interchangeably. When I pushed it, she was vague. Looking back, it was kind of a confront the bully, the bully backs off situation. I didn’t let her get away with her lame excuses, she said whatever she had to say to get me to shut up about it, except that she’d do better. Then, of course, it came as no surprise she didn’t do better.”

“I just passed it off,” I mumbled.

“Because you love him, and nothing anyone said about him would change that,” Kara replied.

It was Bernice mumbling when she said, “Until it did.”

“Bea didn’t break us up, Remy walked out,” I reminded her.

“You know that wedge she had for me and Cor?” Bernice asked.

I nodded, because I so did.

“Well, she chucked that aside and grabbed a jackhammer to pick away at you and Remy,” Bernice went on.

I sat still and said nothing.