Sultry Nights

“Sis, you have enough shoes to outfit a foreign empire,” Lee Ann teased as she struggled through the door with her own bags.

“Maybe a tiny empire,” Dominique tossed back. “Not a big one.”

“You do need another zip code for your shoes,” Desiree added, depositing her oversize bags near the foyer table.

Dominique turned to her twin. “I’m surprised that you needed more than a tote bag, Desi. Everything you bought was no more than a few colorful frilly strings tied together to look like an outfit.” She shrugged out of her cropped leather jacket and hung it in the closet.

Desiree blushed and feigned embarrassment. “Can I help it if Spence only wants to see me in next to nothing when we close the bedroom door?”

“Girl, don’t start,” Lee Ann added. “I swear Preston has gotten worst since we’ve been married. He’s totally into garters and those little demi bras now.” She giggled. “I have an entire drawer full.”

Lee Ann and Desiree laughed and chatted and laughed some more about the myths of married sex life, something that Dominique could in no way relate to. They oohed and ahhed about the feel of waking up each morning with someone you loved, being eager to see them at the end of the day and never worrying again about your “date” for a big event.

Dominique sat at the table and nodded and smiled in all the right places. For the first time in her life she felt like the outsider, the fifth wheel, the tagalong. When it came to the Lawson sisters she was always the center of attention, the diamond that sparkled the brightest. She was the party girl, the one that the men flocked to and fell over. She was the one with a suitors’ list that was the Who’s Who of Louisiana. She was never without a date or a man to warm her bed at night. But sitting there listening to her sisters made her life suddenly seem vapid and pointless. Did you really need a man to make you complete? She’d never believed that before and wasn’t sure if she did now. Yet, as she listened to her sisters, two of the most free-thinking, independent women she knew, talk about the men in their lives, it was as if they had suddenly bloomed to life under the sun of their husbands’ gazes.

Lee Ann and Desiree jumped at the sound of Dominique’s palms slapping down on the table. “Enough, okay.” She cut a look from one sister to the other. “I get it. You’re both in love and can’t stop talking about it.” She pretended to gag.

Lee Ann leaned back in the swivel stool and folded her arms. “Is that jealousy I hear coming from Ms. ‘nobody is going to tie me down?’” she asked, her right brow rising every so slightly.

Two pair of doe-brown eyes settled on Dominique. She made a face.

“Jealous! Humph. You have got to be kidding? Look, you know me, I have more than I can handle. So, let’s not even go there,” she added, waving her finger back and forth.

“Me thinks thou doest protest too much,” Desiree said in a poor imitation from Shakespeare. She flashed a grin.

Dominique rolled her eyes.

“Mmm,” her sisters harmonized in disagreement.

“When you finally get the one that hits that spot…” Desiree closed her eyes and slowly shook her head. Her body quivered just a little.

Desiree and Lee Ann giggled some more and regaled over Desiree’s recent wedding and reception.

Dominique sat back, apart, letting her thoughts join the conversation but not her heart. So much had happened that day. She’d lost another sister to the magic of love and marriage, and her aunt Jacqueline, the woman whom she emulated, had thrown her a serious curve ball. As quiet as it was kept, the conversation had struck a nerve and she’d been unsettled ever since. The words still played havoc with her nonchalant attitude.

“So, Desi has finally gone and done it,” Jacqueline Lawson said, easing alongside Dominique.

The night air was filled with the scent of jasmine, expensive perfumes and colognes, and the tantalizing aromas of the massive spread that had fed the four-hundred guests. The sun was settling down across the horizon. The final rays spilled like overturned cans of paint across the lawn, the white tents and twinkling lights, bathing all in a wash of gold and orange. Laughter bubbled like the champagne in Dominique’s flute.

She inhaled a soft sigh. “That she has.” She turned toward her aunt. Jacqueline Lawson epitomized everything that Dominique envisioned for herself—brains, beauty, class, style and a fierce sense of independence and individuality.

“Anyone special in your life?” Jacqueline asked.

Dominique waved her hand as if to dismiss the question. “Oh, you know Aunt J, I’m not the settling down to one man kinda girl. It’s fine for Desi and Lee Ann, and Zoe, too. But I’m going to be just like you when I grow up,” she teased.

Jacqueline glanced away then. “I believed that fairy tale once upon a time.” She took a sip from her flute. Her gaze seemed to see beyond the horizon.

“Fairy tale?” Dominique almost choked. “You sure you haven’t had too much champagne, Auntie?” She laughed. Jacqueline didn’t. “You’re serious aren’t you?”

Jacqueline placed a delicate hand on Dominique’s bare shoulder. “Let’s simply say that I’ve been there and done that and doing it alone…is not all that it’s cracked up to be.” She looked directly at Dominique. “There will come a time in your life when having someone that means something to you, and you to them, will be the only thing that matters. What the shame is—” she finished off her champagne and deposited the empty flute atop the tray of a passing waiter “—is discovering at that crucial point that no one is there but you.”

Dominique frowned. It had been a lot of years since her aunt had set foot in the Lawson mansion. The rift between her and her brother, Branford, affected the whole family. But it didn’t stop Dominique from idolizing her aunt; that made what she said that much more unsettling.

“Aunt J, is there something you’re not saying? Is there some other reason why you came back after all this time?”

Jacqueline patted Dominique’s cheek. “Don’t mind me, sugah. One glass too many has made me all silly and nostalgic.” She flashed her famous smile and sauntered away, but Dominique wasn’t able to shake off the feeling that her aunt wasn’t telling her everything.

“Earth to Dom. Earth to Dom,” Lee Ann called out, waving her hand in front of Dominique’s face.

Dominique blinked away the images and tucked the conversation away, something she hadn’t shared with her sisters. “Sorry. What were you two waxing poetic about again?”

Desiree hopped down from the stool. “All wasted energy Lee, trying to change this girl’s mind.” She stretched her arms high above her head. “I’m going to take a long hot bath and turn in. Early flight in the morning,” she added, looking at Lee Ann.

Dominique stood between her sisters and wrapped her arms around them. “Now, if I tell you two something, I don’t want either of you to blow it out of proportion.” She glanced from one to the other. “I met someone.”

Desiree and Lee Ann’s eyes widened.

“You?” from Desiree. “But what else is new?”

“You mean another someone, right?” Lee Ann teased.

Dominique stepped out of the circle. “Laugh all you want.” She folded her arms.

“A minute ago you were the poster girl for independence. Now you want us to believe that you found someone that’s going to last beyond the thirty-day expiration date.”

“Fine! Laugh.” She snatched up her purse and was about to stomp away.

“Okay, okay, we’re sorry,” Dominique pleaded. “Don’t be like that. We were just teasing.”

Lee Ann took Dominique’s hand. “So…who is it?”

Dominique tugged on her bottom lip with her teeth for a moment before blurting out, “Trevor Jackson.”

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