Mya’s Sweet Escape

Mya had forgotten how much she loved L.A. There was something about the way the West Coast sun kissed her deep caramel skin that sent chills down her spine. The ocean breeze whipped through her naturally curly locks as her rented convertible raced down the highway. She could not believe that Marcus and her mother actually expected her to give up this sweet freedom for a Tiffany’s ring and a lifetime membership in the Links. Puh-leeze.

She’d had four wonderful days of rest in San Francisco. She’d enjoyed relaxing spa services, delicious meals, and connected with the energy on the San Fran streets. It was as though she could feel the rebellious spirits of the feminists who had once protested everything from sexism to the Vietnam war to racial injustices. Though she’d never compare her quest for personal independence to any of their causes, Mya definitely felt inspired by their boldness. She was inspired enough to know that she did not want to marry Marcus. There was no way that she could build a life based on someone else’s blueprint. Life was entirely too short. The only dilemma was relaying that information to Marcus and her mother.

Mya shook her head to clear her thoughts, for she was not in Los Angeles to worry about what she’d left in New York. She had come to L.A. to do some major damage on Rodeo Drive, fill up on Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles, reconnect with college friends and dance on top of a few bars. She had already gotten in touch with her partner in crime for the next few days, Janine. Janine was the Dean of Pledges over Mya and Peyton’s line in college and was now a happily married entertainment lawyer in L.A. Janine was a firecracker who never shyed away from an opportunity to shop or party. She was just the kind of company that Mya needed for her time in Los Angeles.

Shortly after arriving at Janine’s beach house, Mya found herself enjoying fruit, croissants, mimosas and a much needed catch up session with her old friend.

“Well, girly. You certainly don’t look like a woman on the run,” Janine said with a smile as she sipped her mimosa.

“If that’s your way of saying I look good, thank you Ms. Janine the Dean,” Mya replied with a laugh. “How are things out here in La La Land?”

“Don’t even try it! We are not about to talk about my boring married life while you’re out here on the run from a doctor with a Tiffany’s ring. Now spill it before I go get my wood.”

Mya erupted into laughter as she was instantly reminded of her days as a pledgee. “Ok. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

Janine looked Mya directly in the eyes. “Why are you here? Really?”

“To clear my head about–”

Janine interrupted. “No sweetie. Let me be more specific. Out of all the places you could run away to after turning down an engagement, why are you in Los Angeles where the only guy you’ve ever come close to having a long term relationship with, lives?”

Mya sighed. Dame. She’d managed to escape New York without any suspicion about her motives in coming to L.A. Dame Robinson had definitely played a big role in her travel decisions. After turning down Marcus’s proposal, Mya tried to remember the last time she’d felt alive with someone. Dame was the only guy she’d ever dated that let her be herself and there was a huge part of her that wanted to remember how that felt.  She knew that it would seem suspect to seek out an ex while in relationship turmoil, which was why she barely mentioned to anyone that she would stop in Los Angeles. Leave it to Janine to see through the bull.

“You still don’t know how to pull a punch, do you?” Mya finally replied.

“Never had to. Especially not when they always land so perfectly.”

Want to know Mya’s back story? Meet Mya here.

The Girls

“Sooo, you couldn’t just say ‘No Marcus. I am not ready for you to lock me down and impregnate me with your rugrats.’  You had to pass out?” Peyton said in her usual sarcastic tone as she walked past Mya into the apartment.

“She had to pass out because she knew that a medical emergency was the only way you’d let her get away with being late to lunch,” Cherise stopped to hug Mya as she entered the apartment. “Hey, Cuzzo.  You alright?”

Mya had to chuckle.  Leave it to her girls to make light of her panic attack without pissing her off.  “I’m cool,” she answered as the three friends settled into the living room of her Brooklyn brownstone.  Between the incident at the restaurant earlier that day, hashing things out with Marcus and fielding her mother’s 1000 questions, Mya was emotionally exhausted.  A visit from her two closest friends, Peyton and Cherise was exactly what she needed to get her in better spirits while she figured out her next move.

As the three of them sat in her living room laughing and exchanging banter, it was hard to believe that they hadn’t all been friends forever.  Mya and Cherise were cousins and had been close since they were children, despite the fact that Cherise lived in D.C. while Mya lived in Atlanta.  Spending summers visiting her cousin and aunts had played a huge part in Mya’s wanting to come east for college and the two were always traveling back and forth between D.C. and Philly to visit each other during their college years.  They had also moved to New York together after graduation and were roommates their first two years in the city.  Cherise still lived in the tiny Harlem walk-up that the two of them used to share.  Though Mya had never been a fan of the apartment, Cherise had definitely given the place character with her funky decorative touch.  She was indeed a free spirit and had always encouraged Mya to go after what made her happy, even if it meant going against the grain.

Mya and Peyton had met during their sophomore year at Temple, when they were on line together for their sorority.   Peyton was the fiery ace on their line who withstood some of the more physically grueling experiences with ease while Mya had been the emotionally stronger number two who was able to keep Peyton’s temper in line during the more emotional hazing.  With Peyton’s take no shit personality, Mya never understood exactly why she’d pledged, but Peyton later explained that it was to prove that she could.  She’d been told that she had too much attitude to make it online and if anyone knew Peyton they knew that more than anything, she loved to prove people wrong.  Years after having crossed the sands, she and Peyton remained the closest of their ten line sisters.  Peyton had always been an advocate of Mya doing her own thing and it was that thinking that brought her and Cherise together as friends when they all first moved to New York.  While Peyton and Cherise had had some personality differences at the beginning of their relationship, they had developed a closeness over the last six years.  Most people who met them assumed that the three of them had all grown up together.

“So, now that Aunt Linda is in a tizzy and you’ve got Marcus waiting with bated breath, what you are going to do?” Cherise asked.  Mya had just caught them up on the rest of the story.  She’d asked Marcus for some time and space to consider his proposal.  Though he wasn’t crazy about the idea, it was clear that he didn’t have a choice in the matter. If he wanted to be with her, he’d have to play by her rules.  Her mother on the other hand had been a different story.  Apparently, Marcus had told her that he was going to propose so she was shocked to hear that Mya hadn’t readily accepted.  Mya believed that her mother was more upset about her turning down the ring than she was about the fact that her daughter had been so panicked at the thought of marrying Marucs that she had passed out in a restaurant.

“I’m leaving town,” Mya replied nonchalantly as she walked into her kitchen for a glass of water.  Predictably, Cherise and Peyton were on her heels two seconds later.

“Leaving town?” Cherise asked. “To go where? And for how long?”

“I’m going to California for a week.  I’ll spend a few days in San Francisco and then shoot down to San Diego to chill on the beach.  I really need to clear my head and I can’t do that with Marcus breathing down my neck and my mother pressuring me,”  Mya answered.  “Which is why neither of them is to know where I’m going.  I’ll tell them that I’m going out of town, but that’s it.  So I need you two to keep quiet.”

“What is there to think about?  You know good and damn well that you do not want to marry that man,” Peyton said.  “Passing out at the sight of a ring is indication enough of that.  You have to spend a week on a totally different coast to figure it out?”

Mya sighed.  “It’s not just about Marcus.  I have spent the last ten years of my life making compromises between what I want and the life my parents laid out for me.  I mean, I’ve done my own thing here and there, but only to an extent.  I need to make some serious decisions about the next phase of my life.  And that requires time and space, Peyton.”

Peyton nodded with understanding.  That was the nature of their relationship.  Mya was one of very few people who could occasionally shut Peyton up.

“Escaping to find yourself, huh?” Cherise said with a chuckle.

Mya shrugged. “Something like that.”  What they didn’t know was that she was actually escaping to find someone else.  And that her trip would include a stop in Los Angeles to do just that.

“So other than keep our mouths shut,” Peyton said. “What else do you need us to do?”

“Drive me to the airport in an hour,” Mya replied with a smile.  “My flight leaves at eight.”

Tiffany’s Trap

She could not escape.  Why did she want to?  This was the moment that Southern girls like herself dreamed of their entire lives.  It was the purpose of all of those ridiculous Jack and Jill functions, cotillions, and every party she’d attended since she was at least thirteen years old.  Every moment of Mya Washington’s life had been specifically planned and ordered for this very moment.  She was supposed to be sitting in this very fancy Manhattan restaurant across from this well-bred pediatrician in giddy anticipation of the tiny box that he was currrently pulling out of his pocket.  Mya was 28 years old, the prime age for marriage and child rearing and here it was.  The brass ring.  Or in this case, platinum.  Though she was sure of nothing else at the moment, she was 100% sure that the box Marcus was reaching for would be from Tiffany’s and that the ring it held would be platinum.  It couldn’t have been more predictable.  Her mother would be so proud.

Sure, Mya had deviated slightly from the original script.  She had broken her family’s strong “Southern Black Ivy League” tradition by attending Temple as opposed to Spelman, Fisk, or Hampton.  She’d been a Southern Belle her entire life, and she had felt an indescribable pull toward the East Coast.  Philadelphia had been just what the doctor ordered.  Surprisingly, she’d quickly adapted to the change of pace and easily wooed the entire campus with a slightly sassier version of her natural Southern charm.  Yes, she’d pledged a sorority, but she had not followed the legacy plan her mother had mapped out for her, and opted for her mother’s rival sorority.  Her mother had initially thrown a fit, but then surrendered that she could have done much worse.  Despite her mother’s constant matchmaking efforts, Mya remained single throughout most of college.  She rather enjoyed the freedom of serial dating and did as much of it as she possibly could.   In spite of her studies in education, Mya adopted a love for fashion and kept herself styled to the nines in order to feed her desire to be a stylist.  She was supposed to become a teacher and move home to Atlanta, but she instead headed to New York City after graduation.  She didn’t pursue her teaching license, but went for a Master’s in Higher Education Administration at Columbia.  If she was going to work at a school, she at least wanted to be in charge. 

For those first few years out of college, Mya did live many of her dreams.  She used her own salary to bankroll her bills and her parents’ cash to bankroll her lifestyle of fly clothes and fun trips.  She’d been a staple at every All-Star Weekend, Superbowl Weekend, and Essence Jazz Festival through much of her twenties.  She dated at will and kept a pair of Jimmy Choos on her size 8 feet.  Her mother had been absolutely mortified until Mya turned 26 and finally began to slow down.  Two years later, Mya was settled into her career at Columbia as the Director for the Center of Multicultural Affairs and was in a committed relationship with Dr. Marcus Grey who came from a well-bred Philadelphia family. 

Now here she was, just two days after her 28th birthday, sitting across from Marcus, staring at the Tiffany’s box that sat on the table between them.  Mya felt her breath becoming short.  Her palms began to sweat.  Her mind was racing.  She took a sip of her water and tried to calm down.  What was wrong with her? Why did she feel the sudden need to run screaming out of the restaurant?  She felt trapped.  Not by her surroundings, but by the Tiffany’s box that sat on the table.  It meant that she’d have to permanently set aside the person that she had become over the last ten years and become a society woman.  A doctor’s wife.  She’d join The Links and become a slave to the opinions of women whose lives were seeped in secrets and contradictions.  She and Marcus would have children and drag them across the Tri-State for all those silly black high society functions.  After all, how else would they learn to choose their mates and friends by pedigree rather than personality?  She’d never again dance on a bar in Las Vegas, or flirt with the cute Puerto Rican bartenders in San Juan, or fly out to San Francisco just to see a concert.  Damn.  Marcus would be the last man she’d have sex with. Ever.

The shortness in Mya’s breath became nonexistent, as did her breathing.  Her heart pounded in her chest.  Her head spun.  As she tried to get up from the table, she heard was Marcus’s voice ask “What’s wrong?”  That was the last thing she heard before everything went dark and her body hit the floor.