An Inconvenient Friend

by Rhonda McKnight

  Greg leaned forward like he hadn’t heard her. Then he grinned, but it wasn’t a smile. “Oh yeah, that’s good. Rub that salt right in the wound.”

  “I meant—”

  “I know what you meant.”

  “Greg,” Angelina pleaded. “The process worked before. Why can’t we do it again?”

  “Because you have no idea how humiliating that entire process was for me.” Angelina could tell she’d hit the hot spot. He was enraged. “Going into that room with those magazines and that cup. You don’t know what that was like.”

  “No, of course not. I was too busy dealing with the headaches and pain from injections to think about what your process was like.” Angelina decided it was time for them to have it out. It was time to say what they’d both been thinking. Time to address the pink elephant that had been walking around their house and trampling over their emotions for two years.

  “I didn’t like it,” Greg barked. “I hated it, and I don’t want to do it again.”

  “So what, you don’t think Danielle was worth what we both went through?”

  Greg moved to the other side of the island and banged a fist on the counter. “Don’t do that. Don’t make it like I wouldn’t do it all again for her.”

  Angelina slid a few feet closer to him. Begged with her eyes. “Then why not for another child?”

  “Because maybe that’s what was wrong with her!” He yelled, and the words that had been hiding in his heart reverberated off the walls. “Did it ever occur to you that the little in vitro fertilization weakened her in some way?”

  Angelina was stunned. She took a few feet backward, toward the table, and fell into an empty chair. Neither one of them said anything for long moments. “Is that what you think?”

  Greg washed his face. “I don’t know what to think. All I know is we did this unnatural thing, and then our baby died.”

  “Greg, you’re a physician. You know better—”

  “I don’t know any such thing. Do you know how much of what we do is guesswork? Some of it is really untested.” He shook his head and turned his back to her. A painful sigh filled the quiet.

  Angelina stood, went to him, and wrapped an arm around him from the rear and rested her face against his back. After a minute he pulled her body to the front of his and used a hand to smooth her hair. “I love you, Lena. And I almost lost you after Danielle died. The only thing worse than losing her would have been losing both of you. I don’t want to take the risk of that happening again.”

  “We can’t live our lives in fear. We have to trust God that everything will be okay.”

  He released her. “You’re kidding?” He tossed his empty water bottle in the nearby trash. “I don’t know how you continue to do this whole God and church thing. If God cared about us, about you, then that would be our child upstairs and not someone else’s.”

  Angelina opened her mouth to say something, but he cut her off again.

  “If God cared about anything, would that kid’s sister have broken her neck on the stairs of a foster parent’s house? Come on, honey. You can’t ever, ever talk to me about God. I don’t believe in Him!”

  The tears that Angelina had been trying to suppress fell at the same time Greg’s fist hit the counter. “You used to believe,” she whispered. “When you were in college and you were struggling to pass a test or even move up in your career, you prayed. You asked me to pray with you.”

  Pain etched his face, and he nodded. “That was before I buried my daughter.” He left the kitchen, went into the library, and closed the door behind him.

  Angelina’s heart had been pounding, but now it was shattered into a thousand little pieces. She sat there, head in her hands, tears streaming through her fingers until she cried herself empty. She reached for a nearby napkin and wiped her face.

  That was it. The pink elephant had left the house, but its exit had torn the frame off the door. There was no reaching Greg. He wasn’t going to see Dr. Luke, and most assuredly his low sperm cell count hadn’t reversed itself. If she didn’t get pregnant on her own, they wouldn’t have a baby. The chance of that happening naturally would be a miracle. Something she wasn’t sure she believed would occur. At least not for her.

  Chapter 30

  When I arrived at work the next night, my charge nurse announced that all staff on our shift was required to complete random drugs tests. I wondered what was random about an entire shift being selected.

  Last week, administration released the employee newsletter where they explained revenues were down due to declining admissions and escalating facility and pharmaceutical costs. As a result, a drastic spending cut was in place until further notice. I remember concluding that what they needed to cut was waste. These drug tests fell in the category of spending, so I began to wonder if this randomness had something to do with me. Were they looking for a drug addict who was stealing OX and using? The idea that they were on to me had me looking over my shoulder all night.

  To add to my angst, I was on pins and needles about the Angelina and Greg thing. I hadn’t heard from Angelina all day, nor had I heard from Greg. Not that that was uncommon on a Sunday, but surely they’d watched the TIVO of the newscast by now. Didn’t somebody want to cuss me out?

  I had watched the broadcast on the Internet. My face was screaming fraud on national television. Thank goodness I had a private telephone number and very few people had it, otherwise my phone would be ringing off the hook. Folks in the hood always watched the news and read the obits. Who got arrested, who got shot, and who got dead. That was big talk in White Gardens. The news made for juicy gossip, which I was certain to be the subject of today. My mother had called and left a message. She’d seen the broadcast and wanted to know why I was fronting with the name Rae Burns. She also wanted to know when I was going to get her out of the hospital. I knew she was itching to get more pills.

  I’d done some Googling on the Internet for rehab centers. There were some free ones, but their websites indicated they had waiting lists. The ones that weren’t free were extremely pricey. Mama and I had yet to have the talk about her drug use. The right time just hadn’t come up, and as stubborn as she was, she wasn’t likely to say she’d go, so it was hard to know what I should do. What I could do.

  If I kept supplying her, she could end up in the hospital again, or worse yet, overdose; not to mention the little fact that I’d be jobless or homeless feeding her habit. If I didn’t supply her, she’d get the drugs on her own. I had visions of her turning into a toothless, fifty-year-old hooker. Doing unthinkable things and taking endless abuse to earn enough money for her stuff.

  “Jesus, what do I do?” I rolled my eyes to the ceiling. Now I knew I was in trouble. I had called on God. Did God help drug addicts? Did He help fifty-year-old ex-strippers who were hooked on drugs? Angelina believed so. She had me so confused with all that talk about grace and mercy and salvation. I didn’t know what I believed anymore. It was so much easier believing it all rested on my own shoulders. That way I didn’t have to worry about the disappointment of God not coming though for a sista. Besides, how did a person plan if they were waiting for a miracle? I was a planner. I didn’t like when life took me by surprise.

  “Samaria, I would have sworn I saw you on the six o’clock news yesterday.” Nosy Nadine had crept up beside me. “Something about a health fair at a church in Roswell.”

  “I have a twin sister,” I replied, and went into the medication room where, surprisingly, I was scheduled to work again. I had already made up my mind. I wasn’t taking anything tonight. I needed to work a shift where no drugs were wasted so pharmacy would not get suspicious every single time I came in.

  I pulled my meds and rolled the cart out of the room. Nadine was waiting for me. Didn’t this woman ever take care of her patients?

  “An identical twin. That must have been interesting growing up.”

  I didn’t respond, just kept moving my cart. She followed me.

  “Most twins have
matching names. You know like Jean and Jane or Hailey and Bailey.”

  I grunted. “If you must know, her name is Ra-maria. She goes by Rae.”

  She seemed satisfied with that, but she still continued to walk alongside me.

  “Nadine, if you don’t mind. My little visitor came today, and I’m really feeling a little crabby. I’d prefer to work alone.” Her face didn’t register my meaning. I let out a breath and said, “My period, my cycle ... I’m on the rag.”

  “Oh.” Nadine turned red and tried to censor a nervous laugh. “Sorry. Where I come from we call it our friend.”

  “You white girls would,” I snapped, and she went back down the hall.

  There was something about her. I couldn’t put my finger on it. She hadn’t worked here long. In fact, she’d come from out of nowhere and started getting assigned to shifts on our floor. She didn’t talk to all the other white women, but seemed to have lots of conversation for me. I wondered if her man was a brother. Sometimes when they were down with black men, they tried to align themselves with sisters. I’d have to ask her about that.

  Angelina would say I needed to trust the voice of the Holy Spirit. Know that He was trying to tell me something. I needed to quell my suspicions; that was for sure. But I preferred to follow my street instincts more so than the voice of an omnipotent God. My instincts were saying check her out, and that’s exactly what I was going to do.

  Chapter 31

  I got my mom settled in her recliner and put her medication bottles and a tall glass of water on the table next to her. She’d refused to come to my condo, even for a day or two, but I had made a deal with one of her neighbors, an out of work certified home health aide, to check on her a few times a day.

  “I don’t even need this stuff,” my mother complained. She picked the plastic prescription bottle that held the teeny tiny pills that would limit future seizure activity.

  “It’s a precaution. Just do right, Mama, and take it for now.” I busied myself straightening a pile of untouched magazines I’d purchased for her while she was in the hospital. “I put food in the fridge. It’s all cooked. You just have to stick it in the microwave. Don’t let June eat it all up.”

  My mother’s head jerked up and our eyes locked. “This is my house. You bought the food. Don’t tell me who I can give it to.”

  I swallowed my frustration. This woman was going to drive me crazy. “June is a grown man, and he hasn’t been sick. So let him fend for himself like he’s been doing all week while you’ve been in the hospital.”

  My mother grunted. Her annoyed smirk irritated me. How much more did I have to do up in this place to get a little respect? How much more time and money did I, her daughter, have to spend to get treated half as well as she treated that stupid cousin of mine? And it wasn’t like she didn’t owe me. She owed me for the messed up way she’d done my father, cheating on him with his best friend. He left her because of it, and when he left her, he left me. She also owed me for the messed up way she let her boyfriends get their jollies staring and pawing at me.

  Find something about her to love. Angelina’s words came back to my memory, but all I could see was the contorted face of a woman who I was starting to think didn’t even like me.

  The door flew open, and June’s hulking figure filled the entrance. His high induced, glossy eyes fell on me, and I knew instantly that he was up to no good. The Negro looked guilty. Of what? Probably the Ox I was sure was in his pocket for my mother. She’d used her cell phone in the car. Mumbled that she was on the way, and now I know who she was talking to. She hadn’t been home thirty minutes, and he was here with more drugs.

  “What up, Sam?” June asked, closing the door. He slid across the room and fell onto the old pleather couch that bore the imprint of his body. He didn’t wait for my answer. “How you doing, Auntie?”

  My mother barked out complaints about the hospital, the food, the television service that had too few channels, and the stupid doctors and nurses that prodded and poked at her all day. June nodded and shared his hospital war stories with her, but I could tell the exchange was small talk. They were using the banter to fill space and time. They were waiting for me to leave.

  “Mama,” I said, cutting into June’s stupid conversation. “We need to talk about how you gonna get off this drug. It almost killed you, and I—”

  “They gave me some papers to look at.” She picked up the remote control and punched the power button. Noise filled the room. “They told me about some drugs I can get to help. Something with an s.”

  “Drugs to get off drugs is not the way to do it. It’s another addiction,” I said, raising my voice over the volume of the reality television show she’d flipped to. “And it’s only part of treatment. They’re not going to keep giving it to you without counseling.”

  My mother rolled her eyes and pushed the mute button. I could tell by the way she was looking at me that she wished I had a mute sensor too. “The peoples at the hospital told me what I had to do. But it ain’t like I’m hooked on the stuff. I was just taking a few pills for my back.” Her eyes cut to June and back to me, nervously.

  I looked at June, and he looked away from me. I dropped my head back and bit my lip. My mother unmuted the television and shifted in her seat toward the screen.

  June laughed at some ridiculous wig pulling off cat fight on the screen. Both of them cackled about the show, ignoring the fact that I was squatting between them trying to talk to her about getting well.

  June reached into his jacket pocket for a pack of Kools, and lit one like my mother wasn’t sitting there recovering from the worst asthma attack of her life. “Let me get one of them,” she said. June bounced off the chair and walked over to hand her a cigarette and the lighter.

  “Mama ...” I started to protest, but swallowed my words. The people at the hospital had told her no smoking. She knew she wasn’t supposed to be doing this crap. I stood and walked to the door. “I’ll see you later,” I said. It was a struggle for me to look back at her. She nodded a good-bye. I heard June’s body hit the pleather again. I didn’t bother to say anything to him. No way was I acknowledging his stupid behind; not when all I wanted to do was strangle him.

  I stepped out the door. Thought about the scene I was leaving: June and my mother, smoking, no doubt about to pass off an oxycontin pill that June did God knows what to get for her, and possibly drinking later. Those two were co-dependent abusers, and I was going to have a hard time saving my mother from herself.

  Chapter 32

  I raised my hand to knock on the door and held it there suspended like my nerve. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. What was I doing here anyway? Just when I was about to turn and leave, it swung open with a loud creak. Wang Wang snatched his head back. “Well I’ll be. It’s Rae Burns in the flesh. What up, girl?”

  “Cute.” I rolled my eyes and pulled my bag tighter against my side, strengthening my resolve. “Ya’ brother here?”

  Wang scratched his chin hairs. “Nah, he running. Been gone awhile though. He’ll be back in a minute.”

  I released the grip on my bag, reached into it and pulled out a business card. “Will you give this to him for me? Tell him I need to talk to him.”

  Wang waved off the card. “Tell ’em ya’self, Sammie. Dang, I told you he’ll be back in a few. Cop a squat on the sofa and wait.”

  I didn’t move.

  Wang grabbed my arm. With reluctance, I allowed myself to be pulled into the apartment. “Chill. Ain’t nothing in here gonna bite you. Mekhi be glad to see you anyway.” He pushed the door closed.

  I relaxed some, sized up my surroundings, and nodded.

  Wang looked at his wrist watch. “I gotta go out and do my sales thing. Tell Mekhi he need to pull a message off the machine. Sound important.”

  I continued to be mute, acknowledging his instructions with another nod. Wang moved to the door, snapped his fingers like he forgot something and went back toward the bedrooms. He emerged a few minutes l
ater. “I’m out. Holla, and don’t be a stranger.” He opened, closed, and locked the door in what seemed like one motion.

  I looked around at the place again. I was amazed at the difference from the dank, tore down apartment my mother leased. Mekhi’s place was hooked up like a shot out of Metropolitan Homes magazine. Plush carpet, a metallic treatment on the walls, African art, and some bad to the bone brown leather furniture. His stereo system was hot too. Boosting must be good business. Shame it hadn’t gotten him out of the projects. All his dreams of the life of the rich and famous, and he was still living with the broke and nameless. At least until they tore this dump down.

  I’d been browsing through their extensive music collection when I heard a key in the door. I sucked in my breath and didn’t let it out until he entered the apartment. Mekhi didn’t notice me at first, but once he did he just stared for a moment like he was waiting to see if I were a mirage that would disappear when he blinked. Then he dropped his keys on the table by the door. He reached for the tail of his shirt, pulled it over his head revealing a bare torso with six, eight, ten pack of stomach muscles. I swallowed. Hard. I was staring, and he was looking at me like I was something to eat.

  “I’m gonna take a shower.”

  All I could do was nod.

  “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be quick.” He disappeared down the hall.

  “That’s twisted about your moms,” Mekhi said. “Somebody oughta kick June in his head for getting her turned on to that mess.”

  I was sitting on a stool at a waist high bar by the window, looking out at his Lexus and my Beamer gleaming in the midday sun. I noticed a few heads coming out of buildings on the prowl for drugs. A couple of older women and young mothers were sitting on their stoops watching children play on the red clay that probably wouldn’t produce grass even for Martha Stewart. I turned back to face Mekhi.

  “Might not have been June. Mama is good at helping herself to stuff. Pills probably in the bathroom or something. All that weight on her, and she had been complaining about her back.”