Don't Ask My Neighbor

by Kristofer Clarke

  “So loving me has been a waste of your time?”

  “After tonight, should I be thinking of it as something else? I don’t need you to validate this, but I’ve been a damn good mother and wife, and this is how you show your appreciation. But we are entitled to at least one mistake.”

  “Yes,” Gage responded as if I had asked him a question, or if I even needed him to concur.

  “So, you can call Samantha your mistake, and I can call you mine. What happened to your standards?”

  “My standards? My standards?” he repeated.

  “Oh, so you heard me.”

  Though the tears came again, they remained hidden by the darkness. I knew he could hear the cry in my voice. I couldn’t hide the quiver that cloaked every word that fell from my lips. I had been preparing for this night all month long. I anticipated his lovemaking. I’d hope that, this night especially, he was lusting for me just as much as I was lusting for him. A night that I hoped would end with me falling asleep in the arms of the man I’ve always loved was ending with me hurting by the man I’ve always loved.

  “You have some explaining to do,” I said, continuing my ascent.

  I walked with my head tilted toward the steps, as if I weren’t walking a familiar path.

  “I told you…” Gage began.

  “I know,” I interrupted. “I’ve heard your pitiful apology. But I wasn’t talking about me. I was talking about Alexis and Cody. They’ll want to know why they aren’t seeing their father around anymore, and since you’re breaking up the only home they’ve ever known, you should answer all the questions they’re going to have. Hopefully, you can come up with something better than ‘I’m sorry’, because they deserve more than that. I may know you don’t know any better, but they haven’t realized that about you, yet.”

  Surprisingly, I spoke in a quiet tone.

  “And I don’t want my babies greeted by suitcases when my mother drops them off tomorrow, so as you pack, walk them to the trunk of your car immediately. You win.”

  “What did I win?”

  He assumed a familiar position at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at me. He expected a response, but silence was all that greeted him.

  “What did I win?” he repeated a little louder.

  My muteness did more to him than any reply I could have mustered in all my anger. Grandma Oliphant used to say silence was golden. It took me all these years to find out exactly what she meant.

  I opened the door to the guest room and slammed it behind me. I removed my dress and silver bracelet watch. I stood, looking in the wall mirror that hung above the six-drawer dresser, with my fingers secured around my wedding ring as my wedding day, June 23, 2002, replayed in my mind. I slowly removed the ring, and waited for that one last tear to fall. I made my way to the bed and lay thinking about my husband and Samantha’s betrayal. She’s said it before, “I would give anything to be loved by a man like Gage”. I guess I should have paid more attention to her announcement. It seemed Samantha was ready to give love—or lust—another try, and the best person to experiment with was my husband. She had spent her time sizing him up. Apparently, she had given up our friendship to be loved by Gage.

  Four

  ___

  This Is What You Get

  Samantha

  FIVE YEARS AGO, I WOULD HAVE done anything to be sitting in this chair, staring out this window. Five years ago, that's exactly what I did—anything. I acted as if I were planning the collapse of the world’s greatest empire, even if he were just a partner at one of D.C.’s most prominent law firms. My plans, once again, had me crossing paths with Ryle Lucas. So, five years ago, on July 4th, 2007, I stood at Ryle’s Cornelius style Mahogany door, with its decorative beveled glass, without his knowledge, enlisting him as the gateway to my goal. He had become my accomplice and, eventually, my victim, again, and he didn’t even see it coming.

  Ryle was a victim, but he certainly was not my first victim. He was one of the subsequent many that fell for the unsoiled persona that I had perfected, only to later become a casualty. My final act would make him my last—that was the set up. After all, I had to find and revamp a good-girl image if I were going to marry the man I had my eyes on—the impetus behind my scheme.

  I was a woman with a chip on both shoulders, and although he had no direct connection to my bitterness—they never did—Ryle was a casualty of the hatred that had born and lived inside me. How does the old adage go? One bad apple doesn’t spoil the whole bunch? Well, it seemed like the men my mother entertained came from the same bushel of assholes.

  Ryle was an easy target, like many have been. He was a man any woman wanted. There was just one problem: I wasn’t any woman. Any woman settled for the bullshit they were fed and the lies men told them. Any woman accepted excuses for late nights and early mornings, giving men the benefit of the doubt, even when the doubts far outweighed the benefits. Any woman believed the sweetness men whispered to get what they wanted, only to make her feel inadequate afterwards. I was probably unlike any other woman Ryle ever had in his life. In fact, there was no probably about it. Poor soul—that’s what he was when I was finished with him—didn’t even know what hit him. I found a man who loved me more than I would ever love him, and I used the depth of his love to control him.

  Ryle was one of those fools I sometimes entertained just to prove I could get what many thought were off limits to me. I had watched my mother endure the same heartless treatment by men she had let into her life—my father included—falling in love with them, only to have them leave her for someone they thought deserved them more. She came across men who posed as the one she should give her heart to, only to find they had no intention of giving their heart in return. My grandmother, Mildred Rose, wasn’t around to give those that came after my father the same “stern warning” she had given him before she granted him permission to marry my mother. “She only has you,” my grandmother began her warning. “You make sure you take care of her. You are her only family.” My mother always recounted that story, failed relationship after failed relationship, but it’s not like my father heeded that warning, either. She wanted those men to un-break her heart, and to undo hurt she never thought she would experience. It was always fate that brought the next man to her—at least that’s what she first believed—but she cursed that same fate when she became more familiar with the backs they often turned on her.

  I guess you could say I had an old score to settle, ‘cause God knows my mother was never going to do anything to the men who treated her like the welcome mat at the front door of the next woman who sent blood rushing to their loins. Love had become the last thing on any agenda I had, hidden or otherwise. As far as I was concerned, there was nothing wrong with sleeping your way to the top, as long as when the late night office sex ended, the white daffodils with nameless message tags stopped coming, and an ultimatum from a wife who had broken the code to a cell phone voicemail ended the affair, the top was exactly where you found yourself.

  I had made my way through some God-awful pick-up lines, too, bad sex I dared not remember, and sex I faked my way through night in and night out. In doing all that, I was still able to avoid mothering someone's child. The idea of having any junior or daddy's little girl pulling at my skirt didn’t appeal to me. I loved my freedom, and I maintained my freedom even with the men I pretended to give my heart, while stepping all over theirs.

  My good side, the side of me most men fell for, was very good. I turned my charm on and off at the snap of a finger. My bad side, the side that men usually regret meeting, was a force to be reckoned with. I also made sure I got anything I said I wanted, and with all my doings, I made sure that, after all my practice, the one hurting in the end wasn’t Samantha Wells.

  I hadn’t seen Ryle in years, but I hadn’t forgotten his handsome face. When he opened the door, the smile he wore on his face, as if he were expecting a pleasant surprise, disappeared as soon as he processed the image that stood before him. Time had been
good to Ryle. His smooth, almond-brown skin glistened under the sun. He still had the mole on the right side of his bottom lip, not that I expected it to have gone anywhere. His beard and mustache lay neatly on his face, and his smile was still worth a million dollars.

  He was snapping his black stainless steel bracelet watch around his wrist before he looked up.

  “Samantha!” he screamed with his eyes wide open. “What are you doing here?”

  “Ryle, I had nowhere else to go. If I’d stayed with him one more day, either I was going to kill him or he was going to kill me.”

  On cue, the tears began to flow. Damn, I am good. I really should have been an actress, and yes, I had my reasons for not following through on that nightmare.

  “But I didn’t think here would be on your list of possible places of refuge. What about your sister?”

  He paused and looked at me with skepticism, guarding the threshold with the seriousness of the Queen’s guard. He had no intention of making the same mistake twice, and he’s told me several times, I was, without question, a mistake. I was a devil in disguise, and it was obvious he wasn’t going to give this devil the benefit of the doubt.

  “Oh, let me guess,” he continued, “You’ve burned that bridge, too.”

  It was evident Ryle was sizing me up. I had to play smart if I were going to succeed in enlisting him. As much as I hated to lose, this was one argument I was going to have to concede.

  “You can’t be serious. You know I am the last person she would offer to help.”

  “I don’t think Kennalyn would be that heartless.”

  I laughed internally because he still thought he knew her so well. I deliberated sharing my thoughts with him.

  “You still think you know her, don’t you?”

  I smiled on the inside because he had held on to that little white lie. Okay, it wasn’t that little. I tried desperately to suppress that delight, keeping it from showing on a face that was working so hard at making Ryle a believer.

  “Kennalyn I know. Who I don’t know is you.

  Gosh, I hated to break Ryle’s confidence. He knew Kennalyn Miranda Covell just about as well as he knew the Queen of England. He did think she was my sister, and yes, we acted as if nothing could come between us. We were Betty and Judy from the “White Christmas” movie that repeated as soon as the Christmas season rolled in—which usually started a week or two before Thanksgiving. Then Gage happened. I had my reasons for pursuing Gage the way I did. Kennalyn thought he walked on water. I thought he lifted his leg like any other dog, pissing where he pleased, and cared nothing about who was watching him. A stranger would have kept the affair their little secret, but I loved Kennalyn, and she needed to know the temperament of the dog she called her husband. Sure, I had my fun for a while, but revealing the true nature of this man was my ultimate goal.

  “You seem confident I would be willing to help you in any way. I pride myself in not making the same mistake twice, and you….”

  He paused.

  Ryle stood directly in the middle of the doorway. He maintained a firm stance, with his arms folded across his naked, hairless chest. My eyes rode over the hills and valleys created by the muscles in his chest and abdomen, as if I were riding waves on Lanikai Beach. I watched his torso disappear into the gray tonal plaid dress pants he wore. A pair of brown dress loafers looked brand new. He was just as tall as I remembered him. I hoped the way I treated him hadn’t changed him into an abrasive version of himself.

  “Are you still holding on to the past?” I asked.

  I wondered why he had yet to invite me in, but my question was quickly answered.

  “Do you think I forgot all the things I lost because I crossed paths with someone like you?”

  Someone like me? I thought. Obviously he’s still mad.

  “You seem to be doing well now,” I said, surveying the outside of his house, and taking a peek inside.

  “This,” he said, moving his head from side to side with attitude painted on his face, “is just me moving on without you. You didn’t expect me to still be lying on my back like you left me?”

  Ryle lived in the Capital Square townhomes in the Southwest section of D.C., near the Waterfront. His was a three-story dream with colonial exteriors. I figured, if I played my cards right, I would know the interior. From where I stood, his living room was a mix of antiques and soft browns. I stood, looking at Ryle, batting my eyes, and watching his heart melt. I had him exactly where I wanted him, in the palms of my hands, stringed up like a string puppet, ready to control him just like I had done years before. I didn’t think it would be this easy, but as much as he hated to admit it, I was still the one he loved.

  I sat in Ryle’s living room, in the chair under the window, hunched over, with my knees pressed against each other, and both elbows resting on my legs. I struggled to hold the glass of wine firmly between the palms of my sweaty hands, nervous that this scene, this encounter, as much as I had rehearsed it over and over in my head, wouldn’t turn out exactly as I envisioned. Ryle sat on the sofa next to me, but kept his focus on a muted flat-screened television on the other side of the room. He pampered a glass of wine, too—red in color—that he only drank when he was anxious, and it was obvious, me being this close had him on edge. Still, he listened intently as I fed him the sob story I had been practicing for weeks. He listened to my every word, and I watched him swallow every lie with a big gulp from his glass.

  “You think I’m stupid, don’t you?” he asked with a smirk.

  That’s like saying I think the sun rises in the east, I thought. Wait a minute, it does. I kept my thought private and gave him an answer I knew would appease him.

  I placed the wine glass in the middle of the square coffee table, next to a flowerless antique vase. His eyes followed as I approached him. He looked up and into me as I assumed a vulnerable position in front of him.

  “I think you are far from stupid,” I began. “I know you know how much it took me to ask you, of all people, to help me after what I’ve done to you in the past. I know your heart, as much as you tried to pretend earlier, and you’re not going to let my actions change you. You may have given up on loving me, but I know you haven’t given up on me. Though I’ve shown you the bad in me, you still expect to see the good. And I know you know people change. I know you know I have changed.”

  I stooped in front. I stared into his eyes before grabbing his hand.

  “I showed up here, after all these years, asking for your help. It’s the only way I know how to apologize right now.”

  I stood in a slow motion and then turned away from him. I stared out the window into the darkening evening, waiting for Ryle to make his next move. With my arms folded across my chest, pretending to calm trembles, I waited for him to respond. I closed my eyes and prayed my final plea sounded heartfelt. I heard his footsteps in our silence as he crept up behind me. He held the back of my arms, just above my elbows, and I felt his chest against my back.

  “Tell me what you need.”

  I felt his breath on my ear, and I tried the replace the smile that found its way to my face.

  King me.

  I stayed the night in Ryle’s arms, comforted by his soothing words. Nothing about his embrace had changed. I felt protected, just as I felt years ago, even though I was sure how he felt about seeing me. I fell asleep thinking, damn, I’m going to have to hurt this man again.

  Five

  ______

  …For I have Sinned

  Ryle

  I KNEW WHAT I WAS LOOKING for in my perfect woman. There was only one problem—I didn’t know where to find her. I remembered many things about my grandmother: dinners, extended summer vacations that always included a scolding, her peaceful appearance as she lay there, still, in a casket befitting of her legacy, and her persona. As if it were yesterday, I remembered a conversation I had with my grandmother just before she died.

  “Nana,” I said to her during a commercial break from her favorite soap
opera, Days of Our Lives, “why can’t I find a good, trusting woman?”

  She sat back in her recliner. My grandmother loved having conversations about relationships. She married my grandfather at eighteen years old, and they had been together ever since. Let her tell it, she wrote the book about making a marriage last, and I couldn’t oppose her, since, at the time, she and my grandfather were working on their 60th year together. My grandmother was comical, too. She credited her imagination—if you know what I mean—for their longevity. In their years together, my grandfather has been James Dean, Gene Kelly, and Sidney Poitier. She did not discriminate. As far as she was concerned, color did not limit any man’s sex appeal. I think my grandmother was just a freak. I’m not complaining. She made my grandfather a very happy man.

  “You young fellas are always talking about finding a good woman when you’ve been searching for a good woman in the wrong places. Or you complain you can’t find love when you’ve been looking for love in all the wrong places.”

  “Where do you suggest I look?”

  “My son,” that’s what she called me when she thought she was giving a lesson I needed to pay close attention to, “if you want a perfect woman—a good woman—become a member of a church. She’s there waiting for you.”

  That was my grandmother’s advice. Her whisper did not mask the compelling nature of her voice.

  “Church, Nana?”

  “Hush, boy. My show is back on.”

  What did I have to lose? If I didn’t find the good woman my grandmother unknowingly promised, I would, at least, find GOD. My grandmother heard my stories and knew while I succeeded in other areas in my life, I had no such luck in the so-called women department. The women came into my life like lightning and thunder during rainstorms. For many of them, they left as quickly as they came, often leaving me things I didn’t want. Some I dismissed as soon as their defects came rearing their ugly heads. Flaws and imperfections I could overlook, but these defects I couldn’t just brush to the side and pretend they didn’t exist.