He smirked, gave a slight nod and then turned his attention back to his daughter, Callie.
Tamara’s eyes bounced around the room, looking for her mother.
“How are you holding up, Mama?” she asked when she found her seated at one of the family tables. Tamara sat down in the empty chair beside her.
“I’m exhausted,” Jillian responded. “Your sister looks lovely, doesn’t she?”
Tamara agreed. “And very happy. I guess all the whining, fussing and craziness she put us through over the past year has been worth it. I’m so glad that girl is married.”
“Seeing Callie and Bryant like this—it was definitely worth it,” her mother responded. “One day we’ll be doing this for you. Hopefully, it will happen while I’m still young enough to enjoy the wedding.”
Tamara drew an invisible pattern on the tablecloth. “Don’t hold your breath, Mama. I’d actually have to have a man in my life in order to get married.”
“So there’s no one special? You haven’t met anyone?”
“Mama, have you considered that I might be one of those women who are destined to remain single?”
“Bite your tongue,” Jillian stated. “Don’t even put that thought in your head. A beautiful woman like you won’t have a problem finding a husband. You only have to open your heart and allow him entry.”
Tamara caught her mother looking at her ex-stepfather. “Mama…”
“Can you believe he had the nerve to bring that woman here? She is what—barely legal? Lucas Devane always had an eye for young girls.” Rancor sharpened Jillian’s voice.
“To be honest with you, I don’t really care enough about him to even wonder,” Tamara retorted.
Her mother leaned over and embraced her. “I love you, Tammy. I hope you know that.”
“Mama, I know you do. I love you, too,” Tamara assured her. “We all went through a bad time, but thank God that it’s over now. Oh, could you please just call me Tamara?” Her eyes traveled back over to the table where Lucas sat with his girlfriend. “I’m not Tammy anymore, so please don’t call me that.”
Lucas’s eyes met hers, and his lips turned into a cynical smile. Tamara’s eyes never wavered as she stared him down until he had the good sense to drop his gaze.
“I hate him,” her mother uttered. A sudden thin chill hung on the edge of her words.
“I don’t have any feelings toward him at all,” Tamara stated. “Lucas could drop dead right here in the middle of the room and it wouldn’t phase me at all.” She turned her attention back to Callie and Bryant, her thoughts roaming once more to the one and only love of her life.
Micah Ross.
He was definitely the one who got away, Tamara decided. She had allowed her fears and insecurities of her youth to keep her from opening up completely and trusting, which caused Tamara to push him away. Micah had always been nothing less than a good friend to her and her math tutor, but because of her inability to trust combined with a group of immature boys who had nothing better to do other than playing pranks, she treated him cruelly the night of their graduation from Hollington College.
She pushed away from the table and helped herself to the caramelized Vidalia onion tart with goat cheese, lobster and chive risotto fritters and miniature crab cake hors d’oeuvres.
Jillian rose to her feet and followed her daughter. “I was thinking…Isn’t Bryant’s best man single? I heard that he’s the vice president of Atlanta Bank and Trust.”
“Not interested, Mama,” Tamara said in a low voice. “Now just drop it.”
She released a short sigh of relief when her mother became distracted by relatives. This would give Tamara a break from her constant matchmaking.
Twenty minutes later, everyone was seated. They dined on a duo entrée of tenderloin of beef and salmon, roasted potatoes, asparagus and béarnaise sauce while the band, which was personally selected by Jillian, played softly in the background.
“Mama was right about the menu,” Callie whispered to her. “This was the perfect choice.”
Tamara agreed. She sliced off a piece of the tender salmon and stuck it into her mouth, remembering the argument between her mother and sister over the food for the reception. They ended up not talking for two days.
Callie won the fight between them over the wedding cake. Her mother, a true Southern lady, wanted the butter pecan cake with a fresh peach filling while her sister insisted on the Tahitian vanilla butter cake, Tahitian vanilla custard and fresh berries.
Tamara left the reception shortly after her sister’s departure and headed home. After she changed out of the bridesmaid gown, Tamara settled down on the chaise in her bedroom to write in her journal.
August 22
My sister married her high-school sweetheart today. It was a beautiful wedding, making it hard not to wonder if I’ll ever have one of my own. I have not been able to have a relationship any longer than six or seven months. As I get older, I find that I’m able to detect the lies much quicker.
If I am to be completely honest, then I must admit that part of the reason I haven’t found my Mr. Right is because I treated him horribly when we were in college.
Right before graduation, I overheard some boys saying that Micah was planning on having sex with me and that he was going to play the “you’re the love of my life” card because that’s what it would take to get me into bed.
I don’t know why I believed them, but graduation night, when he told me that he loved me, I told him that I would never date a man like him and basically that he wasn’t good enough for me. It wasn’t until much later that I realized Micah didn’t say those things—the guys had been joking around and knew that I was listening to the conversation.
I want to explain but Micah never returned my phone calls, and the next thing I knew he had moved to Los Angeles.
Our ten-year college reunion and homecoming is coming up in October, but I’m not sure if Micah will be coming. I hope that he will be in attendance…. I want to try and talk to him one more time.
He is a famous record mogul now, but I don’t care about that. I just want a chance to apologize to Micah. The tabloids have him romantically involved with that model Sunni, so it is not as if he is available anyway. The truth is that I really miss his friendship.
I miss him.
Los Angeles, California
Micah Ross stepped out of the sleek black limo in the midst of a sea of hungry media photographers and reporters. He focused his attention on the door of the Wilshire Grand Hotel several yards away while assisting his date out of the car.
He hated all the attention on him, but Micah knew that it was an integral part of his business. He was the man who had turned a tiny music store into million-dollar record label Ross Red. His first two records sold a combined 1.5 million copies before the mainstream music industry knew he existed. Now his $500 million empire included music, clothes, real estate, a product line of computers and communications.
A musician himself, Micah believed that one could only go so far in the music business—something he tried to drill into all of his artists. He pushed to get them to understand that they needed to acquire the necessary skills and education to have other options because one never knew what was going to go up and what would go down.
“Over here, Mr. Ross,” a photographer shouted.
Micah glanced in his direction and pasted on a smile. His mouth tightened as Sunni, a supermodel, wrapped her arms around him as cameras flashed all around them.
“Micah, please smile,” she whispered.