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  Charles eased out of the room and I prayed that I could get the papers printed, change my clothes, and get downtown in the next hour.

  It was 9:45 and my heart was pounding.

  My dream was fifteen minutes away from being deferred. Again.

  “Come on, come on, come on!” I screamed at the car in front of me. I pounded the steering wheel as I screamed at the little old lady who couldn’t decide if she was going to go left or right.

  I’d stopped for gas—rushing so I’d only put $5 in, which hadn’t even turned my warning light off. But I just needed enough gas to get downtown.

  If I miss this conference because of my family . . .

  I pushed down the lump in my throat and the mist trying to cover my eyes as I glanced down at the GPS. I knew the way to the convention center but had turned on the GPS just to track my time. It had my arrival as 10:19, and I was praying that I’d be able to shave off some time.

  My prayers hadn’t been answered.

  “Move!” I screamed at another car that had cut me off and slowed my speed race by twenty miles an hour.

  “Breathe, Aja. Breathe,” I mumbled. I’d been talking to myself the whole ride, trying my best to keep my nerves in check. “I know they stressed no late entries, but they’ll have a grace period.”

  They have to have a grace period.

  The GPS had been right on target because it was 10:19 when I pulled into the parking garage of the convention center. My hands were shaking in nervous anticipation. I drove around the second floor, and all the parking spots were taken, so I drove up to the third floor. After circling around and watching the clock on my dashboard turn to 10:26, I pulled into a handicapped space.

  “Screw it,” I said, deciding I’d just have to pay the ticket if I got one.

  I parked and prayed for a miracle as I darted through the garage, across the skywalk, and into the auditorium.

  The check-in desk was empty and my heart dropped.

  “Excuse me,” I said to a woman I saw standing at a table near the second entry. “I’m here for the ‘Living Your Best Life’ event. I’m registered.” I fumbled for my phone to pull up my ticket.

  The woman looked at her phone like she wanted to remind me of the time. I wanted to scream that I knew what time it was. “I am so sorry,” she said. “There’s no late entry. They’ve already started filming.”

  My chest began heaving. “Is . . . is there any way they can let me in?”

  She flashed a sympathetic look. “I am so sorry,” the woman repeated. “We even gave a fifteen-minute grace period. But that’s why we have you submit the waiver, so we can make sure you are clear on the policy.”

  I wanted to explain to her my hectic morning, ask her if she was a mother and wife and understood how families could suck the breath out of you. Maybe if she could relate . . .

  “I can submit a request to see if they’ll give you a partial refund.” She had the nerve to smile.

  “I don’t want a refund.” My voice cracked. “I just want to go in.”

  The woman patted my hand. “I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do.”

  I nodded, unable to form a “Thank you anyway” as I scurried to the ladies’ room. I dipped in a stall as my chest heaved. I’d never had a panic attack, but I imagined this was what one felt like.

  Every time I tried to do something for me, something happened. Every time I took two steps forward, life pushed me three steps back. All my life, I’d given everything I had to my family. All I wanted was this . . . this day.

  I’d obviously wanted too much.

  I buried my face in my hands and sobbed.

  Chapter 2

  Whoever said forty-five was the new twenty-five didn’t send that memo to my body.

  “Drop it like it’s hot!”

  My friends-for-life had formed a semicircle around me on the crowded dance floor as I shimmied to a Spanish rap song. I couldn’t understand the words, but I felt the pulsating beat that had the entire nightclub on its feet. Simone, Nichelle, and Roxie were all shouting like we were back in college at some frat party.

  I wiggled, did a semi squat, and continued my shimmying.

  “Girl, you’re dropping it like it’s lukewarm.” Roxie laughed as she retreated to the sideline. Her comment caused everyone around her to crack up. She swooped a tequila shot and lime from the waitress who was passing by, gulped it, bit into the lime, grimaced, then managed to add, “Come on, birthday girl, shake your tail feather.”

  I wanted to tell her to stop barking orders at me and to bring her own tail feather to the dance floor.

  But before I could say anything, a voice from behind me said, “Don’t be shy, Mami. Let loose. Let’s give your friends what they asked for. Shake your feathered tail.”

  I spun around and faced the hunky, handsome Marc Anthony look-alike who didn’t back up. He was so close his chest was pressed against mine and his gyrating hips pushed against me. There were two things wrong with this picture: My behind was too tired for all of this, and I was married.

  Well, three things were wrong. The third? This was only day two. I still had two more days to go on this four-day birthday celebration that had taken me and my girls from Houston to the Dominican Republic. Forty-eight hours to go and I was partied out.

  I’d had to summon up every iota of strength just to come on this trip. After missing the Oprah event, I’d been in a daze. I could barely find the energy to pack.

  And my family had barely noticed.

  Charles haphazardly asked me how the event was, but before I could answer, he got a phone call, then never asked again.

  “Go, Aja, it’s your birthday, it’s your birthday!” Simone, the mastermind behind this trip, sang, bringing me back to the celebration I didn’t want. Simone was singing but I was dancing, putting in all the work. That’s how all of this felt to me right now—like work. Because hanging out in the resort’s beachside club had not been my idea of a good time. If I’d had my way, we’d be relaxing at the pool, still sipping big drinks with little umbrellas, or enjoying a quiet, sand-side dinner as the music of the ocean played in our ears. Or maybe even . . . a nighttime massage from some hunky Latino with fingers that could reach straight down to my soul. Wouldn’t that have been wonderful, to be massaged straight into sleep?

  But even though this was my forty-fifth birthday celebration, my girls had vetoed all of my—what they called boring—plans.

  Simone was the one who’d told me before we’d boarded the plane, “There won’t be anything boring or quiet about this trip.” She’d pointed to my portfolio of painting supplies as I placed them in the overhead bin. “And I don’t even know why you brought that stuff. You will not be doing any boring painting. We’re about to party twenty-three hours a day, because I’m going to give you an hour to sleep. That’s the way I planned it.”

  But no matter what plans my friends had, this was it for me. “Okay, I’m going to have to rest,” I panted and held up my hands to my Latin partner. “No más!”

  He chuckled. “I was too much for you, yes?”

  I nodded. “Way too much.”

  “Boooo,” Simone belted from the edge of the dance floor. “I can’t believe you . . .”

  Before she finished, I grabbed her hand, then pushed her into my dance partner. “Here,” I told her, “you dance with him ’cause it doesn’t seem like he’s tiring, and clearly neither are you.”

  “That’s right, señorita. I don’t tire easily.” He winked and wiggled all up on Simone, not missing a single beat, not caring that his female partner had sent in a sub.

  I staggered from the dance floor, my steps unsteady, a combination of the three shots we’d taken before I hit the dance floor and my lack of sleep. I believed in eight hours, but in the two days we’d been here, the late-night talks in the suite had netted me no more than five.

  Plopping down into the corner booth that had held our purses and shawls all evening, I released a moan of pleasure when the w
eight left my feet. Not that I was a big girl. I wore my 153 pounds well, but if my feet could speak, they’d probably swear they’d been carrying 250 pounds right about now.

  “Girl, you can’t hang,” Nichelle said, approaching the booth. She swooped her long, waist-length hair up in a bun on top of her head, obviously trying to get some relief from the humidity that filled the area.

  I shook my head and laughed as Nichelle and Roxie piled into the booth with me.

  “I have been hanging all night,” I replied. “And none of you were on the dance floor. All you were doing was cheering me on from the sidelines.”

  “And taking shots,” Nichelle said as she held up her hand for the waiter to come by again. “Don’t forget the shots. And I want a few more.”

  I groaned, and then my bestie out of my best friends said what I’d been thinking. “That’s enough for me,” Roxie told Nichelle. “You can have my shot and I bet you can have Aja’s, too.”

  I nodded my agreement, then leaned back, and for a moment, I drifted away on the beat of the music that mixed with the ocean’s waves just feet away from the club.

  Turning my head slightly to the open side of the club that led to the beach, I sighed as I took in the setting and savored the breeze that had swept in from nowhere. This really was beautiful—all of it. The song of the ocean, the blackness of the beach, the shimmer of the moonlight reflecting off the water’s waves.

  A splendid place, a wonderful trip that had been a surprise gift from Charles. When it came to spoiling me, he was the master, and this resort was proof of that. This gift had been the culmination of a month of gifts. Forty-five, one for each year of my blessed life, he told me: a gift card here, a negligee there. Each gift more expensive than the last. Some were thoughtful, like the table art book he’d purchased from the National Gallery of Art in DC that featured some of my favorite artists like Jacob Lawrence, Gordon Parks, and Kara Walker. Others were special, like the photo of my late mother he’d had restored and mounted in a crystal frame. A few were grandiose, like this trip that Simone had planned and he’d paid for.

  Yes, forty-five gifts for forty-five years from a husband who’d loved me for twenty of those forty-five. Who loved me to infinity and beyond.

  So why in the hell was my heart not happy?

  “What is wrong with you, Aja?” Simone asked, sounding like she thought she was my mother as she danced back over to the booth.

  I turned my attention back to my friends. “What?”

  “We’re down here in this beautiful place and we can’t get you to party.”

  “What do you call what I’ve been doing?” I asked with my attitude coming out in the swivel of my neck.

  “Yeah, but you were only out there for three or four songs.”

  “Uh, I’m forty-five years old,” I reminded her.

  “That means you should have danced for forty-five songs.”

  “Girl, bye!”

  “Or at least forty-five minutes,” Nichelle added as if she were serious.

  I said, “Just because you think we’re still back at TSU . . . my body knows that we’re not.”

  “Whatever.” Simone held up her palm in my face. “I’m going back out there.” She pointed to the dance floor. “Anyone gonna join me?”

  Nichelle raised her hand. “After I have another shot. Where in the world is the waiter?”

  Simone grabbed her hand. “Girl, we don’t have to wait. Let’s go up to the bar.”

  I watched the two of them do some kind of rumba from the table and wondered if Nichelle had already had too many shots. But then, this was Nichelle—there was no such thing as too many shots.

  “Don’t worry about her,” Roxie said.

  I glanced at my friend and grinned. “You’re still doing that thing, reading my mind.”

  “We’ve been friends for a long time. I know what you’re thinking just by the expression on your face. So don’t worry about Nichelle. You know she can drink us all under the table.”

  “True.” With her petite frame and doe eyes, no one would ever guess that Nichelle had been dubbed the chug-a-lug queen our junior year at Texas Southern University.

  “But what Simone said—I want to know, too,” Roxie continued. “What’s going on? What’s wrong?”

  My expression shifted. Now I frowned. “Why’re you asking me that?” Before she could answer, I kept on, “I’m fine. I was just tired. I haven’t danced that much in a while. I don’t hang in the streets like y’all do.”

  “Correction. Them.” She pointed toward the dance floor where Nichelle and Simone had rejoined Marc Anthony’s twin. He was sandwiched between the two of them, and there was no man on the floor who wore a bigger smile. “You know I don’t party like our girls.”

  I nodded.

  “But that doesn’t mean that I can’t see something is bothering you,” Roxie continued. “You act like you don’t want to be here. Which is crazy ’cause you usually like to celebrate your birthday as if it begins in June and lasts all summer and fall.”

  Roxie wasn’t telling any lies. For my fortieth, I’d celebrated the moment Anika had stepped out of her last day of middle school and I hadn’t stopped until the spring semester of her freshman year of high school. Seriously, every single day, I did something special. And back then, my plan had been to raise every single stake for my forty-fifth.

  But that hadn’t happened this year. June came and Anika had to get ready for college. Then Eric became a starter on the basketball team at the University of Texas. And even once I got them settled in school, cutbacks at my job led to more hours and Charles found more things for me to do. And when Christmas rolled around, what normally was my pre-birthday celebration had turned into daily disappointment.

  Until I found out about the conference. That had put me back in the celebratory spirit.

  “So,” Roxie interrupted my thoughts, “you wanna tell me what’s going on?”

  I shrugged. I would’ve told her if I had anything to say. But the truth was, I didn’t know. Something was wrong, though; Roxie wasn’t imagining that. And it was deeper than just me missing the conference.

  I knew it had nothing to do with aging. I looked damn good for forty-five. Even before I’d made that visit to Dr. Cash for my Mommy Makeover, I was passing for a woman in her thirties. And I’d kept Dr. Cash’s plastic surgery work intact with my four-times-a-week Zumba classes. So I felt great—at least, that’s what I thought.

  But as I counted down the days to January 10, a wave of disconsolation had swept over me. My Christmas spirit was gone, and my birthday jubilation had followed it.

  “Nothing’s going on,” I finally answered Roxie. “I don’t know why you’re all making such a big deal because I wanted to sit down. My feet hurt. That’s all.”

  “Hmm . . . mmm.” Her hum told me that she thought I was a liar.

  “Come on, Roxie, don’t do this. Don’t be Simone.”

  She shrugged. “For once, I think Simone has a point. It’s in your whole demeanor and it’s been that way since we’ve been here. Girl, you used to always be the first who wanted to party, but these past two days, you’ve been more like Debbie . . . and I’m not talking about the one who did Dallas. I’m talking about her evil twin, Debbie Downer.”

  “Not true,” I said, hoping that she wouldn’t believe her lying eyes.

  She studied me the way we studied rats under microscopes in biology back in college. But I didn’t blink.

  Finally, she shrugged. “Look, the whole reason we’re here is for you to let your hair down. Leave behind the stress of your life, your family, your job, your mother-in-law moving in with you, and just let loose. You’ve got to do that. This trip is good for you. Forget about home. Forget about your family ’cause I’m sure that’s what’s on your mind.”

  My family. The picture that would pop up on the internet if you googled “Perfect Family”: me, Charles, Anika, and Eric, who was named after my beloved brother, who committed suicide when he
was twenty-five.

  My kids and my husband had been the center of my world for so many years. I’d been supermom until Eric had left for UT three years ago and then Anika had left for Spelman the August before last. I was so proud of them, which is why I couldn’t explain the hole in my heart. Before devoting all of my time to them, I’d given my all to caring for my siblings: my younger sister, Jada, and Eric, who was four years younger than me. So, in essence, I’d been pouring into others for the past thirty years.

  I was ready to pour into me.

  I shook away that thought. I was a mother and a wife. That was my priority. That had been my life. And it looked like it would be my life for eternity.

  Maybe I really was suffering from empty nest syndrome—except our nest wasn’t really empty, and it hadn’t been for the last two years. Not since Charles’s mother, Judy, had moved in with us.

  The thought of her made me sigh. Not that I begrudged Judy living with us. Lord knows, I wish my own mother were alive so that I could take care of her the way we were able to be there for Judy after she had a hip replacement. She was doing so much better, walking on her own, even driving. She was completely capable of living on her own now, but since she had all the plush trappings of our home, I guess she decided that there was no reason to leave.

  “So you know what we gotta do, right?” Roxie asked.

  I had to blink myself back to the conversation. “What?”

  “If you don’t want to hear Simone and Nichelle’s voices when we get back to our suite, you’re gonna have to get up with me and join them on that dance floor.”

  “But my feet hurt,” I whined.

  She slid from the booth, then grabbed my hand. “Doesn’t matter. Leave your shoes here and let’s go. Just a couple of dances and then, we’ll all head back.”

  I moaned, but as I stood, I knew she was right. If I didn’t do this, I’d have a lot of explaining to do. And since I couldn’t explain what was going on to myself, I wouldn’t stand up under any interrogation from my three best friends.

  So I hit the floor and rocked my hips and shimmied my shoulders and pasted a smile on my face.