Nydia’s connecting flight touched down on time at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport in Kenner, Louisiana. The local temperature was in the mid-seventies with near 100 percent humidity. Jasmine had sent her a text informing her it had been raining steadily for two days.
She deplaned and made her way to baggage claim, where she found her driver holding a sign with her name waiting for her. “I’m Miss Santiago,” she said, introducing herself to the dark-suited man.
“Welcome, Miss Santiago. I’ll get your bags for you.”
Nydia stood behind the driver, waiting and watching for bags coming onto the conveyer belt. She pointed to a Pullman with a bright red ribbon attached to the handle. “That one is mine. There’s another one just like this, but smaller.”
She’d packed enough clothes to last at least three weeks, even though she’d planned to stay longer. Utilizing the hotel laundry was definitely more convenient than her schlepping bags of dirty clothes down five flights of stairs to a nearby laundromat.
Nydia followed the driver, pulling both bags, out of the terminal to curbside, and waited for him to retrieve his car from the parking lot. The humidity wrapped around her like a lead-weighted blanket as fingers of mist feathered over her exposed skin. She shifted the carry-on with her laptop from one shoulder to the other. After spending hours in the airport waiting to board, then deplaning, and boarding again after a ninety-minute layover, she craved a shower and a firm bed.
The driver finally maneuvered up to the curb and got out to open the rear door for her. Nydia managed a smile mirroring exhaustion as she literally collapsed on the rear seat. She wasn’t as physically tired as she was mentally. Her normal uneventful existence was now on display for public consumption and she was being unfairly judged as some type of femme fatale. A friend from college had called her to say there was chatter on Facebook that she’d seduced Danny Ocasio, hiding from him the fact that she was married, and once he proposed marriage she rejected him to avoid being labeled a bigamist. And the wordscheaterandadulteresshad become commonplace when linked to her name.
Her father had come to her apartment earlier in the afternoon to drive her to the airport. Luis Santiago was unusually quiet during the ride, and she knew he was conflicted about her moving to New Orleans. He knew he could not forbid her to go, yet he had not been reticent when voicing his opposition to losing his little doll. Her father had all but accused her of running away and said that as a Santiago she should fight back, because they had never run and never would.
Nydia did not have to be a professional therapist to understand Luis’s motivation as an attempt to convince her not to relocate. She was his only daughter, and he had doted on her all of her life, and he wanted for her what he had with his wife: that when she left her father’s house it would be to move into one with her husband.
She wasn’t relocating—not yet—but visiting New Orleans for an extended working vacation. Nydia wanted to take the next four or five days to unwind before meeting with Hannah, Tonya, and Jasmine to establish budgets and projections for the lodgings, café, supper club, and personnel. It was imperative she maintain separate accounts for each component of the inn for the three of them to recoup their initial investments.
There was something about numbers that held her enthralled whenever she worked on three-, six-, nine-, and twelve-month projections, profit and loss statements, and balance sheets; and she made a mental note to set aside time to read the city’s and state’s tax codes.
In between work Nydia planned to have some fun. A smile parted her lips when she thought about Lamar. She decided to wait for a couple of days before letting him know she was going to be in his hometown for a while. She knew their reunion was certain to be vastly different from when he’d surprised her in New York, because they no longer had to concern themselves with newshounds jumping out from between parked cars.
Nydia stared out the side window. The driver had decelerated to less than ten miles per hour in the bumper-to-bumper traffic heading toward New Orleans. The thick fog shrouding the region reminded her of movies depicting London when Jack the Ripper prowled the streets and alleys hunting his next unsuspecting victim. She’d become captivated with anything resembling Victorian England after first reading Arthur Conan Doyle’sThe Hound of the Baskervilles. While in high school, she had devoted an entire summer to reading Doyle, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Emily and Charlotte Brontë. She’d only left her bedroom to shower and eat. Brontë’sJane Eyreand Austen’sMansfield Parkwere favorites she reread every five years.
“It’s slow going tonight because of the fog, miss.”
The driver’s voice shattered her musings. “It’s okay. I just want to get there in one piece.” Nydia had given Jasmine her flight information, so she knew when to expect her. Reaching for her carry-on, she took out her cell phone and tapped Jasmine’s number. It rang twice before she heard a man’s voice.
“Cameron?”
“Yes,” he whispered. “I’m answering Jasmine’s phone because she’s in bed and I knew she was expecting your call.”
Nydia’s pulse quickened. “Is she okay?”
“If you were to ask her she would say yes. The truth is she’s exhausted. She’s still running around like a chicken without a head looking for stuff to decorate the house. I keep telling her the place won’t be move-in ready till around early November.”
“Is she taking naps?”
“I don’t know. There’s no way I can monitor her because I have to go into the office now that my father’s is semi-retired. Whenever she calls me and I ask her where she is, she says she’s in her car. I need you to do me a favor.”
“What’s that, Cameron?”
“I know I don’t have a right to ask you this, but try and get her to slow down. Convince her to take a siesta like they do in certain European countries.”
Nydia realized Cameron was concerned about his wife’s health, but she wanted to tell him Jasmine was an adult and, unlike a child, she couldn’t be relegated to a time-out. “I’ll do what I can, although I can’t promise she’ll listen to me.”
“I’ll be eternally grateful for whatever you do. I didn’t wait until I’m almost fifty to marry and look forward to becoming a father to lose the two most precious things in my life.”
Nydia heard the painandthe passion in Cameron’s voice. She didn’t know the certified wealth manager well, but what she’d observed was an attractive, middle-aged, wealthy man from a prominent New Orleans family in total control of his life and his career. However, after spending several days with her friend, the serial dater and one of the city’s most eligible bachelors had been ready to turn in his dating card for a wedding band.
“I’ll slow her down even if I have to threaten not to become the godmother for your baby,” Nydia teased, smiling.
Cameron’s low chuckle caressed her ear. “I believe that will work, because that’s all she talks about now that you’ll be moving here.”
Nydia’s smile faded. “I know I haven’t told you this, but thank you for giving Jasmine what she needs.” Her friend had been through enough with a cheating husband who’d denied her a child, while attempting to pimp her out of everything she’d worked so hard for.
A beat passed. “There’s no need to thank me, Nydia. I love Jasmine, and there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do to make her happy because I feel as if I’m the luckiest man in the world to have her in my life.”
