Don't Ask My Neighbor

by Kristofer Clarke

  “I want you to leave my office.” She started toward the door.

  “You must be glad you can finally say that now, aren’t you? Congratulations. You got the office with the view.”

  She turned to face me. “And I’m sure you’ve heard I got the man, too.”

  “If I were you, I wouldn’t celebrate that feat just yet.” It was a warning I was certain she wouldn’t heed.

  “You’ve overstayed a welcome that wasn’t extended to you. Now, I want you to leave.”

  “Let me tell you what I want. You’re going tell Jelani you can’t marry him, and you’re going to tell him why.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because you have no choice.”

  “I’m Samantha Wells, Ryle. I will always have a choice.”

  “Oh, you don’t have a choice,” I said, waving the disc. Her eyes followed from side to side.

  “What’s that? Do you think a blank disc is supposed to scare me into changing the truth I told my fiancé? You should be thanking me, since I didn’t press charges on your ass. You forced yourself on me.”

  “I see you’re still clinging to your story. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but it’s just the two of us here. Do something you haven’t done since you rolled your ass back into my life. Tell the fucking truth,” I said, pleading, though the appeal wasn’t for me. For once I wanted her to shame the devil, but she had no problem succumbing to temptations to tell her lies.

  “Your version or mine?” she asked, stubbornly.

  “We’ve heard your version. You told it so well, everyone believed you. You didn’t press charges because you knew damn well it wasn’t me who screwed you on that same conference table. And guess what, I can now prove it.”

  “You can’t prove shit,” she spoke with confidence, but the look on her face told me she was hanging on to a little bit of hope and a handful of prayer that I actually couldn’t.

  Since I could show her better than I could tell her, I remained unresponsive to her vulgarity and walked over to the bookshelf. I palmed two of the books from the middle shelf and sat them on the conference table, and then did the same with two others, exposing the small locked box that contained the DVD player I installed six years earlier. It connected to a tiny wall camera in the front corner of the room, just above the door. I knew Samantha too well to trust that she had any good intentions in her return. I knew she was up to something when all of her questions were about Jelani, his parents, the firm, and the money he came with. I concluded, then, she was up to something. I wasn’t immediately convinced of any devious plans until I found the magazine with a target around Jelani Graybourne, and a to-do list of exactly how she planned to pull this off. Unfortunately, Samantha had already accomplished half of the things on her list before I became aware of her plot. But from that day forward, I devised my own blueprint. She needed to have something worth losing before I would begin to act on my own plan, and when I received a voice message from Felicia that Jelani had actually proposed to Samantha, it was time for the game to begin. This time, we get to play by my rules.

  Samantha maintained her faith until the screen dropped down across the room from the ceiling, and the images of her and Parker Chandler appeared. She watched in silence as the truth of that day unfolded before her. I stood across the room and watched her confidence fold like a cluster of shame-old-lady plant.

  When she’d had enough she screamed, “Turn it off!”

  I ignored her request, and instead I watched her moan in ecstasy, thinking how I couldn’t wait to see the look on Jelani’s face as he sat and watched his lying, false-hearted Samantha doing what she does best. Samantha shouted out demands and spoke obscenities every time Parker obeyed her. Most of the time, her head was buried in the space between his head and shoulders. She wrapped her legs over his back, and secured his position on top of her by interlocking her feet. There was nowhere for him to go, though by his motions he had planned on being inside her for a while. She dropped her head back when he found her spot, and she didn’t mind telling him that was exactly what he did.

  “Since you said I was there, don’t you think I should at least see what I enjoyed?” I paused the picture so she could see the devious look her face. How could Parker have fallen for that? “How’d you do it, Samantha?”

  “That must be the question of the damn century!” she screamed. “You proved your point. Please, turn it off.”

  I pressed the stop button on the remote, removed the disc from the player, and placed it back in the sleeve.

  “This is what you’re going to do,” I said, walking over to the desk to pick up my shoulder bag. “First, you’re going to call Jelani and tell him you can’t marry him. Then you’re going to tell him about you and Parker, and after that, you are going to draft a nice letter of resignation, effective immediately after your award, because on that stage, you’re going to tell them exactly why you don’t deserve it.”

  “You want me to break Jelani’s heart?”

  “There’s something else you’re good at. Don’t worry, he’ll get over it.”

  “And what makes you think I’m going to do any of these things?” She leaned against the conference table and folded her arms across her chest.

  “Oh, you’re going to. You see, everything you have now, maybe you could’ve gotten them just by being honest. I didn’t do anything to you, and God knows Parker didn’t, either. I can only imagine what you did or said to him to get him to partake in your scheme. Was it worth it? You actually thought this shit would never catch up to you?”

  She sat still, watching me walk toward the door. I stopped in front of her, looked at her square in her face and shook my head. Samantha was already her own worst enemy. While everyone might not know of all she did to so many people who had the unfortunate fate of crossing her path, she has had to live with the one person who does; herself.

  “Don’t just sit there looking for someone to feel sorry for you. You have a few phone calls to make.”

  Twenty-Three

  ___________

  What Did You Do?

  Kennalyn

  I WAS ITCHING TO FIND OUT what happened with Ryle and his visit to Samantha, but I wasn’t going to make it my business until he reached out to me. I must say Samantha wasn’t herself at work all day, so I knew whatever Ryle had planned must have worked. She spent most of the day in her office, and seemed on edge whenever I entered. I knew something was really wrong when she asked me to remove her stand-in Friday afternoon lunch with Mr. Graybourne. I supposed Ryle’s visit had thrown a monkey wrench in her happiness. I wondered if she had the audacity to tell Jelani about the visit, and I would have given anything to be the fly on her wall to watch his reaction. Two days before she was reveling in her upcoming nuptials, flashing her ring in the face of anyone who cared, and believe me, she didn’t have many who could even pass off a pretense as if they did.

  The week had finally caught up to me. Cody called soon after school to ask if he and Alex could stay the weekend at their father’s house. Since it was his request, I wasn’t going to deny him. Sure his request meant I had to cancel my weekend plans to spend time with them, since they didn’t have any games or practice to attend. I guess mommy had grown up. Before, my hatred for Gage and my selfishness would have made up any reasons not to oblige, but if Cody and Alex could forgive him for walking out on them, I wasn’t going to impose my loathing toward him on them.

  Before heading upstairs, I stopped in the kitchen and grabbed a wine glass and a half-bottle of wine from the cooler. Both would be emptied before the night was over. After downing the first two glasses full, I lay on my back with my head resting in the palms of my hand, and stared into the ceiling. I was drifting away in thoughts. I thought about my conversations with my mother and Campbell, and how because of Samantha and my desires to get even, I had, in a way, put my own life on hold. I didn’t know how to get them to see I had the life I wanted. I married the man I fell in love with, and sharing him w
as never something I had to worry about. Hell, losing him was never something I had to fret over, and I damn sure didn’t think my best friend would be the person I would lose him to. Because of Samantha, I had to go on without him. She had no idea what she did. Samantha happened to dreams Gage and I used to share. She shattered them all because of her momentary desire for him. Her yearnings for any man had always been fleeting.

  I was having my tear-jerk moment when my phone rang. It sat on the three-drawer nightstand next to the empty wine bottle and half-filled glass. The clock displayed three ones on the screen. I was oblivious to how late it was since, with Cody and Alexis gone for the weekend, I had no plans to wake early and hadn’t paid much attention to the time since I came home. I answered without looking at the numbers on the display, but I knew only two people would be crazy enough to call me at that hour of the night, and after our conversation a couple days earlier, one of those two persons was not Campbell.

  “Hello,” I answered in a sleepy voice, just in case it was someone I didn’t feel like talking to: my mother.

  “You’re either going to tell me you were in the field again, or you’re going to tell me you didn’t get my message I left you yesterday. Either way, I’m going to pretend I believe you.”

  It was Parker.

  “What are you talking about? I didn’t get a message from you. And yes, I was in the field.” I sat up in the bed and rested my back against the headboard. “Anyway, do you see what time it is? You only call me this late when you got some shit going on. What did Nigel do?”

  “This isn’t even about him. Why would you bring him up?” he asked, sounding agitated.

  “I’m sorry,” I apologized without hesitating. “I shouldn’t have assumed.”

  “You know that ass your mother always said you made of yourself when you assume?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hello.” He laughed. I joined in.

  That’s what I liked about Parker’s personality. I missed it when he and Nigel first separated, and for a while, I thought it would never return. I’m glad I was wrong.

  “Anyway, you won’t believe who I ran into yesterday as I was leaving the office?”

  I had my guesses, but this was his story to tell.

  “Who?”

  “Ryle Lucas. I walked out of the elevator and damn near walked right into him.”

  “How long has it been since you’ve seen him?”

  “It’s been some years. Not since his D-day. That accusation Samantha dropped on him would have destroyed any man, but he looked like he already dealt with the worst.”

  “Besides the accusation, there wasn’t much for him to deal with. I mean, you did say he didn’t rape her, right?”

  “Right.”

  “But what you didn’t tell me was why you were so sure.” I slid from the bed, grabbed the wine glass and finished what remained. I pressed the speaker button on the phone, and then snatched some pajama bottoms from the dresser on the other side of the bedroom. I grabbed the empty bottle and then began walking downstairs to the kitchen. I needed a refill. “I mean, maybe it’s because I never asked you, but did you have proof?”

  “Yes!”

  “Where is this proof?”

  “You’re talking to him.”

  “You?” I laughed because I didn’t know what else to do.

  “Not only can I prove Ryle never raped her, but I can prove the sex she did have was consensual.”

  I didn’t want to say what I was thinking, fearing Parker would agree with me. But the thought that all this time Parker may have kept vital information to himself, when he could’ve divulged all and help Ryle was quite disturbing. But knowing Parker, if he didn’t have good reason to just sit back and watch this play out, he wouldn’t have.

  “What did you do, Parks?”

  “I didn’t know she would use our encounter to set up Ryle. I was just using her sex to get my mind off everything that was happening between Nigel and me.”

  “And you just stood on the sideline and allowed her accusation to stick. You could have saved this man his job and the embarrassment.”

  “I couldn’t say anything!” he screamed.

  “You could have. What the hell did you have to lose?”

  “Nigel.”

  We were both silent.

  “If I’d said anything then, she would have told Nigel about Kirk,” he added.

  “Damn, Parks. This is Samantha you’re talking about. Whether you planned on telling anyone the truth about Ryle or you planned on carrying it to your grave, she was going to tell Nigel regardless.”

  “What?”

  “Nigel already knows what happened with you and Kirk.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “I ran into him at Barnes and Noble on Wednesday. And before you ask, no, Keaton wasn’t with him. That’s why he stayed with Courtney, Parks. He was thinking about coming back to you when she told him. He figured you were no different.”

  I leaned against the counter and sat the empty bottle next to me. I could only imagine what went through Parker’s mind.

  “But our relationship was just about over. No parts of him were in it, not his head, and damn sure not his heart.”

  “I think you and Nigel need to have a conversation. I know you’re hurting, and it was obvious tonight, he’s hurting too.”

  “Did he tell you where Keaton was?”

  “No, and I didn’t ask. I just told him he needed to stop using him to punish you. Look, Parks, just call him. I know you think he doesn’t want to hear from you, but after Wednesday, I think he does. If you still think he isn’t going to answer your call, go sit on his steps. Anyway, I think this is a conversation you and him need to have face to face.”

  “You maybe right.”

  It was nearly 2:30 a.m. when I finally said goodnight to Parker. My desire to have one more glass of wine had been replaced by my need to sleep. I fell asleep thinking about all the hurt Samantha had caused the people who make the painful mistake of trusting her words. We believed promises she broke easily. I dreamed about her demise, and pictured myself delighting in her impending doom.

  Twenty-Four

  _________

  It’s About You

  Kennalyn

  I WAS AS SURPRISED TO GET a phone call from him, as I was at his invitation to join him for dinner. The last time I spoke to Jelani after office hours or an off-work day, he misplaced his file on his laptop and needed access to the backup file I kept on my computer. I should have canceled my regular biweekly appointment at Code Red, but since I didn’t, I stood at the front, inside the upscale salon waiting for the cold drizzle to pass. The last place I wanted to be caught was in the rain. Had I watched the weather forecast that morning before I left the house, or even glimpsed at the overcast sky when I left the house that morning more than three hours earlier, I would have been more than prepared to walk around the corner to the car in the private parking lot.

  There was an urgent cry in his voice, and he made it seem like saying yes was my only option. When the rain finally let up, I said my goodbyes to the customers in the salon, including the older lady with the silky gray hair who kept my company as she reminisced about the election, and then to the regulars who had made cutting and curling their hair on Saturday evenings a tradition. I addressed those I knew by name, but the older lady never gave me the opportunity to ask hers. I figured she was rarely listened to, and, boy did she seize all of the ten minutes I stood there giving her every bit of my attention.

  I had an hour to meet Jelani. In the car, I made a quick call to Gage and asked if he could keep Alexis until I was finished running errands. I was supposed to pick her up, since she wanted to come home. Of course, he wanted to know what was keeping me from picking her up on time, but since it was none of his damned business, I left it at errands and hung up. It’s not like he had bottles to make and diapers to change. Making sure they did their homework, since I hated when they waited until Sunday to rush throug
h, shower, and give them something to eat, was something he could do with his eyes closed. Plus, I was sure he would be giving his attention to his bimbo, leaving Cody responsible for himself and his sister.

  Two huge cypress trees welcomed me to Appetito, a three-story building of bricks reminiscent of old Italy. It boasted Italian cuisine at its finest. Floor-to-ceiling dark wood beams stood on either side and in the middle of the restaurant. Arching, exposed dark oak accented the ceilings. I was impressed with the massive chandeliers of Italian dusk and sandstone glass that hung equidistance, adding to the romantic ambiance that attracted so many to this prestigious restaurant.

  I stood in the entrance, and although I did nothing purposely to garner the attention I received, still I got more than I needed. I had changed into a pair of denim slim jeans, grey one shoulder batwing sleeve jumper top, and ruby pumps, since what I wore to the salon wasn’t appropriate dinner attire. I exposed perfectly toned skin from the curve of my shoulders to the tips of my fingers. I kept a few fits in the car for nights like this, plus, I’d be damned if I let Mr. Graybourne see me in the getup I had on earlier. He would have thought I’d slipped and fell into it, ‘cause I wouldn’t have worn something like that on purpose, regardless of what Samantha said. My hair hung to my shoulders in a careful nonchalance.

  Jelani sat at the bar with a filled whiskey glass in front of him. It dripped with condensation. He brought the glass to his mouth, and then turned his head in my direction. My guess is he was just following the eyes and gestures of the others who sat at the bar next to him. He froze. When I waved at him, Jelani quickly jumped from the bar stool and walked over to me. He reached for my hands, and when they were finally in his, he leaned in, kissed me on my right cheek and then my left. When the maître d’ approached and confirmed I was the lady Jelani had been waiting for, Jelani placed his hand in the small of my back as we followed the maître d’ to our table. I always thought he was such the gentleman.