As Deuce was watching her she turned, and spotting him, gave him a tight smile, and resumed her conversation with Patrick.
“And so it goes, my friend.” A hand clapped him on the shoulder. “So it goes.”
“Not in the mood, bruh,” Deuce told Kaleem warningly.
Kal removed his hand. “D,” he said. “Don’t even pretend you give a shit about what’s goin’ on over there. It’s a waste of energy.”
Deuce turned to look at him and Kal shrugged.
“You think you should care, but you don’t. That’s what’s got you all messed up right now. Not the fact that she’s practically sittin’ on ol’ boy’s lap, in your pops’ crib. That part, you don’t actually care about.”
Saying nothing Deuce looked away from Regan and Patrick and surveyed the room.
“They’re all still here,” he said, almost incredulously.
“They’re diggin’ what Zora’s cousin’s tryna do. Listening to some of the conversations, it’s almost like they want to one-up each other, donate more than the next person.” Kal shook his head. “Shit’s crazy man.”
“What is?”
“Wealth.”
“Truth,” Deuce said. “But you know what we talked about before? Me sponsoring your training? That’s bible. Don’t worry about the money. You got bigger things to worry about.”
They both looked over to where Asha was sitting with another woman, her hand resting lightly, almost protectively on her middle.
“I can see it already,” Kal said.
“See what?”
“Her body, changing. She has like a little … pouch. Except it’s rock-solid, like armor.”
“You’re really into this, huh? Being a father?”
“How can I not be?” Kal shook his head. “That’s a piece of me inside her. Me. How can I not love that?”
Deuce laughed.
“And her, too,” Kal continued. “That’s her and me. So, how can I not love that?”
The smile melted from Deuce’s face. He put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I feel you, man. That’s some real shit right there.”
“Not just real. That’s the holiest of holy. Bringing forth a life.”
“You goin’ to church on me?”
“Nah, man. But just … You wait. When you make a life with your woman? The one you’re meant to be with? It’s like all of a sudden you have … radical clarity. All the bullshit melts away.”
Deuce’s mind drifted to the clip of Zora, talking about being the wife and mother her faith demanded she become. Raising her children as Muslims.
They had never talked about things like that. It seemed, over the course of their relationship, that they talked about everything from the ridiculous to the profound. But never that. Now he had to wonder whether she had been avoiding it.
As far as he knew, her religion was never a factor. She didn’t pray five times a day, she didn’t fast during Ramadan, and though she avoided pork products as much as she could, so did lots of people. She dressed the way most girls did at school but had never been much into revealing clothing to begin with.
And with him, sexually, she was adventurous and unashamed. If they were alone, she sometimes walked around naked without an ounce of self-consciousness. He was sure of it—there had been nothing to alert Deuce that her being Muslim would become an issue.
Since the time he knew for sure that Zora was the woman he was meant to be with, it never seriously occurred to him that she might not fully believe he was the man for her.
“Look,” Kal said. “You know what you told me one time?”
“Nah. What’d I tell you one time?”
“You said, ‘go get her.’ When I was trippin’ off of Asha and some dude, you told me to just go get her.”
Deuce looked at him, and Kal nodded.
“That’s it. Best advice you ever gave me, in a sea of jacked-up advice you been spittin’ over the years.” They laughed, and Kal nodded.
“I hear you.”
“Do you though?”
“Yeah man.”
“Go get your woman.” Kal inclined his head in Regan and Patrick’s direction. “But get your house in order first.”
~~~
It was late by the time all the guests left. Asif and Zora were the last to hang out, with their friend Nicolas. As the caterers did their clean-up, Zora and Asif sat in the front row, Nicolas next to her, arm draped across the back of her seat.
Deuce tried to keep his eyes off that arm, possessively resting there, like dude had every right in the world to claim Zora in public. And he tried not to be angry that Regan had basically passed out and was sleeping with her head on Asha’s shoulder, while Asha sat stiffly, trying to keep her from sliding off the theater seat and onto the floor.
Kal, too, was conked out. His head thrown back as he slept, his long legs stretched in front of him. In a few minutes, when he was satisfied that the caterers and staff had restored the room to its original state, Deuce would gather everyone and herd them out of there.
He wished there was a way to speak to Zora again though. The way they left things in that poolhouse was the way they always left things these days—uncertain.
“C’mon holler at me a minute, Deuce.”
His father had disappeared once the screening was over and was only now back, sticking head in the doorway.
He followed him out of the home theater, down the hallway and into his office. His father’s office was decorated in classic style, with lots of wood paneling, and bookcases upon which there were some books, but mostly award statuettes, plaques and framed commendations. A circular meeting table near the door was covered in papers, stacks of files and pens.
“S’down.”
Deuce felt his apprehension rise a little and tried to fight it. He had always respected and feared his father. Held the man in something like awe, if he was being honest with himself. Occasionally, he rebelled, but only ever verbally, never in deed, because he hadn’t been too eager to find out what his father’s anger looked like.
At least not directed at him. He had seen what it looked like when directed at his mother. Nothing explosive. Cold, seething rage was Chris Scaife Sr.’s style. The kind that made a person wonder and worry what untold horrors they might be in for, or how long he might freeze them out.
“So, how you doin’?”
Deuce hesitated, wondering if it might be a trick question.
How was he doing?
His mother was dying. His boss didn’t know whether he trusted him to get the job done. His woman was not his woman, but basically single. And he had a girlfriend who was a basket-case on most days.
That was how he was doing.
“I’m good,” he said, his voice hoarse.
“You are?”
He hesitated.
“Ye … yeah. I mean. Under the circumstances.”
One corner of his father’s mouth lifted. “You seem to have a lot of those. Circumstances.”
He said nothing.
“This was a good call, a smart one,” his father said. “Getting in on the ground with this dude, Asif. His work is good.”
Still Deuce didn’t speak. If he did, he might have to confess that his motives hadn’t been completely pure.
“I’m thinking I might want to get in, too.”
Deuce leaned forward. “I’m sorry?”
“I’m thinking, that you and me might want to collaborate on some things. Maybe this could be the first thing. You help me with my new venture, and I’ll weigh in on yours. If you could use that.”
“I could. I mean ...” He tried not to sound too eager. “Yeah, if you have the time, that would be …”
“What you up to tomorrow? I’ma stop through your mom’s to see how she’s doing, so if you’re over there, maybe we could go grab somethin’ to eat. Talk business.”
“Yeah,” Deuce said. “That’d be … yeah, I’ll be over there.”
It was surprising enough that his father w
anted to work with him, but maybe even more so that he wanted to ‘stop through’ at his mother’s house to see how she was doing. The almost lifelong—or at least for as long as he had been alive—enmity between his parents was beginning to look a lot more complicated than he had always believed it to be.
“Good.”
His father stood, so he stood as well.
“Anyway, lemme let you go. Looks like you still have some …” He paused, a look of sly amusement in his eyes. “… cleaning up to do out there.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Deuce opened his eyes and for a moment didn’t understand why he was on the sofa in his apartment. He stared at the ceiling for a while, until his sleep-clouded mind recalled the night before, and that it was Saturday. He had to get up and get on the road to his mother’s house.
Outside, it was still dark, but if he left now, it would give him time to get back to his father’s apartment, shower, change and maybe make one more stop—to take care of something that should have been taken care of a while ago—before going to Bedford.
Before any of that, though, he just wanted to lie there in silence and think. But the apartment wasn’t silent. From the other room, he heard soft moans, low voices, and a higher-pitched sound that had to be coming from Asha, rising to a peak, and descending to a valley once again.
He remembered now, that Kal and Asha had turned in shortly after they’d all come up, and that he said he would leave after using the bathroom. They probably didn’t even know he was still there. Somehow, he wound up on the sofa, sitting, thinking about the scene from when he’d dropped Regan of; and trying to cool his temper and clear his head.
She had been too drunk, to walk in on her own, so Deuce had Kal sit in the driver’s seat of the Range Rover, double-parked outside her building while he carried her in. Not helped her in, but bodily carried her.
Regan’s breath had been warm and stale on his face as she berated him, making all kinds of accusations, most of which were true, or close to it.
You’re into her. It’s so fucking obvious!
You didn’t even care if I was there or not!
If I had fucked Patrick you would’ve had your way out, wouldn’t you? You wish I’d fucked him!
Regan was drunk, and foul-mouthed and loud as he carried her up to her apartment, and the whole scene felt reminiscent of other nights like that. But those nights hadn’t been with a girlfriend, they had been with his mother, cursing at her husband, her words slurred from the pinot grigio she guzzled like water.
Sometimes she and Andre would go at it for two hours or more, until Dre left the house, and she passed out on the sofa. Occasionally, Deuce would go down to check on her, remembering from Health class, hearing about how people could choke to death on their own vomit if they were on their backs.
Often, his mother would be sprawled on the sofa, facedown, but sometimes she was on her back and when he tried to turn her over, she shrieked and screamed at him until she realized he wasn’t Dre.
Oh. It’s you, she might say, her lips slack, tongue sluggish and words barely decipherable.
Then she might ask him to help her up, and while he supported her, one of her arms draped over his shoulder, she recited her litany of disappointments. Many of them were related to his father, far fewer were about Dre. And thankfully, none were about him.
But Deuce never forgot how that felt, seeing his mother in a state of slovenly inebriation. She was an angry drunk and said repulsive things that she rarely remembered the next morning.
Only now did it occur to him that he hadn’t seen his mother like that in quite some time. After Andre left, her drinking became more moderate. Her life became more moderate. He wondered whether it was then that she realized she needed to make a change. But now, she had cancer, so maybe change had come too late.
Deuce lay there for a while more—he wasn’t sure how long—until he heard a door open and then Kal was coming down the hallway. When he spotted Deuce on the sofa, he jumped.
“Oh shit!” he said. “What you still doin’ here?
“Hell if I know,” Deuce said lazily. “What’re you doin’ up before daybreak?”
“About to go run, man. You know I can’t miss a workout.”
“Sounded like you already got one.”
Kal shot him a warning look and Deuce had to resist the urge to engage in the crass ribbing that used to be typical of their conversations about women. But Asha wasn’t “women.” Asha was the mother of his children, because Deuce bet anything there would be more, and probably not too long after this one, either.
And hell, they were both getting too old for that kind of talk in general. That was boy-talk and now they were both men.
“I’ma get some water, take a shower and be outta here for my run,” Kal said heading for the kitchen. “You hangin’ out till I get back?”
“Nah.” Deuce sat more upright. “Gotta go see my moms. And take care of that other business too.”
“Word? Right now?”
“Right now,” Deuce confirmed.
“Well … bring donuts,” Kal said dryly. “It’ll soften the blow.”
~~~
He didn’t bring donuts, but Deuce stopped at Dean & DeLuca for a cinnamon babka and a pound of gourmet espresso before heading over to Regan’s. He introduced her to babka one morning after she spent the night at his place, well before they had begun to call their relationship a relationship.
Let’s go get some of that cinnamon-roll bread thingie, she’d said the morning after the second time she spent the night.
He thought it was cute and teased her that she was definitely not an official New Yorker until she could distinguish among the array of ethnic pastries – babka from stollen, from strudel and so on.
And Regan actually looked embarrassed, which made her even cuter. She wasn’t wearing much makeup that morning. Just eyeliner and lip gloss. Her long dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail and the mane rested on her shoulder. He’d kissed her on the tip of her nose because she looked so adorably ashamed of her mistake. And she blushed a pretty, peach hue that rose beneath her fair complexion.
It was the first time he felt like he might hang around with her for more than a few shallows laughs and good sex. It was the first time he thought that the word ‘girlfriend’ might possibly begin to apply to anyone other than Zora.
Cinnamon babka and coffee became a thing he and Regan had after most nights together. It was the first ritual he had with a woman who wasn’t Zora.
As he climbed the stairs to Regan’s apartment, he thought about how she wrapped her arms around his neck as he carried her up to her apartment the night before. Some of the things she said were so foul that the average chick might have been worried that she was about to get deposited on the steps and left there to make her way up to her apartment on her own. The average chick might have worried that even worse than that might happen, that she might get unceremoniously dropped—literally as well as figuratively.
But Regan had always been overly trusting. Naïve almost. A pretty Midwestern girl who had moved to the big city, bringing her Midwestern values, and a good measure of starry-eyed expectations as well. The robbery had been both a shock to her and the fulfillment of her parents most nightmarish fears for their only child living in a place as cold and impersonal as New York City sometimes was.
By the time he was standing in front of her door, Deuce wondered whether he was being cold, and whether he should cut her a little more slack, give her a little more time. She still hadn’t even been able to make herself go back to work.
Last night’s outing to his father’s place was to have been her debut—the first in a series of baby steps to become part of society again in a low-anxiety setting. But it sure as hell hadn’t turned out that way.
He had a key to her apartment, but it felt wrong to use it now. Instead he knocked and waited. And then knocked again. And waited. It took three more rounds of that before Regan finally opened the door
.
She looked surprisingly lucid, and not at all hungover. Her hair was damp, and she wore pink terry sweatpants and a white tank. Her nose was slightly pink, and there were smudges under her eyes, of someone who had slept poorly, or not at all.
“Hey,” she said, stepping aside, not commenting on the bag in his hand, nor the fact that he was still dressed in the same clothes from the screening the night before.
Deuce set the Dean & DeLuca bag on the coffee table. He stood there for a moment, then turned to face Regan again. She was leaning against the now-shut front door, her eyes trained toward the floor.
“Hey,” he returned.
She looked up.
“C’mere.” He beckoned for her to come to him so he could hug her.
Shaking her head, Regan expelled a long, tremulous sigh.
“Regan …” he began.
“Should we have coffee?” Shoving herself away from the door she brushed past him. “And some of whatever’s in this bag?”
“Babka,” he said. “Your favorite.”
“Thanks,” she said, without feeling.
He followed her into the kitchen and watched as she pulled the espresso machine forward. It was too big for the tiny apartment. Deuce had given it to her as a gift for some occasion, he couldn’t recall what. It was typical of the kind of thing he bought her—always functional, rather than personal.
The most personal thing he had ever gotten her was a classic checkered Burberry cashmere scarf in baby-blue. They had been walking on Madison, and she saw one in the window and had looked at it with such longing that Deuce bought it for her. A Burberry scarf was a very New York thing, and Regan liked anything that made her look like she belonged here.
Even he thought a four-hundred-dollar scarf was excessive, and truth be told, Burberry was more New-York old-money than New-York-trendy, but it had been worth it in the moment to give her something she really seemed to want. And it felt even more worthwhile because of her smile, and squeal, and the way she jumped up and wrapped her arms around his neck as they walked out of the store with the small Burberry bag.
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