by Mj Fields
“So, when’s the wedding? You looking for a band, or are you and this one gonna hit an island like you’ve done in the past?” I pause and scratch my head. “How many weddings since you ditched my mother and me?”
His face hardens and burns red. “This is the last.” He pulls her close to him.
“Perfect. I’d like to get to know her a little better. You gonna fuck this tight, little body of hers up by pushing out a few kids? How many do you have now, Father?”
“I don’t have any other children, River, and you know this,” he says through clenched teeth.
“Yeah, well, it’s been seven years—”
“Five,” he corrects.
“Oh, shit, my bad. Yeah, about that money, maybe if Mom got child support, I wouldn’t have borrowed money from you.”
“She never accepted it,” he tells me, and now I know I am really pissing him off. His ears are even red.
“Right, all those marriages of hers. All those men you let step in and you assumed were taking care of what you left behind.”
“You seemed to always be just fine,” he hisses.
“Fuck yes, I am.” I turn and look at the future stepmother. “Sammy—”
“Her name is Suzy,” he corrects, the pompous ass looking like he’s proud of himself for remembering her name.
“Fuck, I don’t know how you keep them straight.” I laugh. “Come on in and get something to eat. I’ll grab you a check.” I don’t wait for him to respond; I just take her hand. “Sammy, after you.”
“It’s Suzy,” he snaps from behind me.
Momma Joe is watching over the buffet line like it’s her job. I heard her and Xavier arguing over a caterer. You would think he would have given in to her desire to cook for two hundred people plus this insane crew.
Dear old Dad catches up and takes her hand. “Suzy, let me fix you a plate.”
I step back, laughing and thinking of how good it feels to piss off the motherfucker who walked away from his woman and child.
“You okay?” Finn asks.
“Did you sprout a fucking vagina?”
He scowls at me, letting me know I’m towing the line.
“Sorry. I just have this incredible urge to whip out my cock so she can see what a real one looks like and watch it piss up and down his fucking khakis.”
Finn shakes his head, and then the fucker laughs. Finn fucking Beckett laughs out loud, and I swear to God, if there is one, it’s a miracle.
“Holy shit. You’re laughing!”
“Yeah, that was funny. Even funnier is I’ve laughed before, once or twice, and you didn’t know it ’cause you were too fucked up. But the best part is, a year ago, we’d have probably done it and spent the night in jail.”
“Been there.” I lift up my hand to fist bump him, but he looks confused. Now I laugh. “You seriously don’t remember?”
He shakes his head.
“The Narcotics Anonymous meeting that judge made me go to at that church?”
He still doesn’t remember.
“The one I got escorted out of because I was so fucked up I stood up and pissed in the circle when they told me it was my turn?”
He scowls. “How the fuck do I not remember that?”
“I remember it.” Memphis comes up, laughing as he hands both Finn and me a drink. “Well, I remember hearing the story, I think.”
“And they say drugs have no serious, long-term effects.” I snicker, and they both look at me like I’m fucking stupid. “Well, that’s what I tell myself, anyway. You two need to lay off the drugs.”
“Oh, shit.” I hear my father and look up to see he has spilled sauce down his khakis.
Finn laughs again. “There she is.”
“Who?” I ask, looking around.
“Karma. She’s got your back, man.”
I see Thomas leading my dad to the stairs, and I look at Finn. “You got it, too?”
He nods. “Sure do, brother. Sure do.”
“Good to know.” I pat his back. “Give me five minutes, no more, no less. When you see the fucker looking for wife number … I don’t know, five, bring him to my room.”
“Dude, what are you cooking up?” Memphis asks.
“Karma needs just a little help.”
I walk toward Sammy or Suzy or whatever the fuck her name is.
“Shit,” I curse as I back into her, and now she’s covered in sauce, too.
“Damn, how the hell did I do that?”
“Did you have too much to drink?” I ask.
“No, I haven’t had a drop.”
“Good to know. It was my fault. How about you and I go and find you something to change into?” I hold out my hand, and the flake takes it.
“Thank you, River.” She’s all sorts of fucking breathy.
As we ascend the stairs, I look back to see Finn and Memphis both shaking their heads.
I walk into my room and turn to her. “You think we should leave the door open or closed?”
She swallows hard. “Probably closed. I mean, I am going to change, right?”
I guess her to be early thirties. She’s all right looking, but definitely not my type. Not that I have a type, but if I did … She ain’t it.
I kick the door closed. “You sure are.”
I walk over to my suitcase and open it up. “None of these are going to look half as good as that see-through, little number you’re wearing right now. I mean, I can almost see the outline of your nipples. What size are you, a D?”
“B,” she whispers.
“Wow, I would have thought they were bigger.” I turn around with an STD T-shirt. “I’d love to see them.”
She looks at me, then around the room. “I don’t know, River. Your father—”
“Will never know.”
“Promise?”
“Swear to God.”
“Well, it’s not like we’re going to have sex.” She blushes as she pulls her dress over her head.
“They fake?”
“No.” She shakes her head, then she pulls her bra down. “You can feel them if you’d like.”
“I would like.” I reach out and palm her little tits. “Nice.”
“Thank you.”
I use my other hand to take hers. “No fair. I gotta let you do the same.” I place it on my half chub, and she gulps. “If you want a closer look, Sammy—”
“Suzy,” she corrects.
“Right. Well, if you do, feel free to get down on your knees and take a peek.”
“It’s wrong.”
“I know it, but wrong sometimes feels so fucking good.”
She’s instantly drops to her knees, unbuttoning my shorts. My cock falls out, and she moans. “My God.”
“Yeah, I’m sure the huge cock gene came from my mother’s side.”
She looks up and giggles.
“Someday, he’s going to piss you off, Sammy.”
“Suzy.”
I reach down and stroke my dick. “Right, well, when he does, you’re going to wish you had that hot, little mouth of yours around this. I almost feel sorry for you.”
“Almost?” her voice squeaks.
“Well, if you’d ask me nicely, Sammy”—I say the wrong name on purpose this time, and she doesn’t correct me; she’s too busy eyeballing the goods—”I’d force myself to live with the guilt that I allowed my stepmother to taste my cock.”
“He’ll never know?”
“No, Sammy, I would never tell him.”
“So …?”
“So what, Sammy?”
“So can I taste your beautiful cock, River?”
I look up as the door opens and see my father with Finn behind him.
“What the fuck is going on?!” my father roars.
“What’s it look like?” I ask with a shit-eating grin on my face.
“What did you do to her?!” He runs over and lifts Suzy or Sammy up off her knees. “What did he do to you?”
I can’t help laughing. I mean, se
riously, the man is a fucking ass-hat, and he’s fucking stupid. Like I don’t know what he’s doing, parading new ass in front of his rock star kid to make his saggy, old ass look better.
“I’m so sorry,” she cries as he pulls her stained dress over her head.
“No, no, Suzy. I know what he’s like. I know he—”
Finn grabs the back of his shirt and yanks him backward. “It’s time for you to fucking go.” Finn shuts the door when they are both out of my room, looking shocked, “Cover up your dick.”
“You really are no friend.”
“Oh, no?” He chuckles as I pull up my shorts.
“No, man, you stormed in on an almost blow job and haven’t the decency to finish me off.”
*****
I wake up the next morning, riding a new high, the I-fucked-my-old-man-so-hard-last-night-I-don’t-even-care-what-a-shitbag-parent-he-was high. If he goes through with this marriage, every time she is on her knees, he’s going to think of me, and so will she.
I roll over and grab my phone to check the time.
“What the fuck?” I exclaim when I see a message from Keanna.
I open it and see the bear-dog watching me on TV.
I sit up and type up a message.
You missing me, girl(s)?
Then I delete it.
They deserve much fucking better than me.
I toss the phone aside and get up to get ready for Finn’s big day.
“Twenty-one days,” I answer the new intake’s question. His name is John, and he sits in my office, chewing his nails while his knee bounces up and down.
He looks down. “That’s a long damn time.”
“It’s not, John—”
“JT,” he corrects.
“Twenty-one days is three weeks, not even a month.” I look down at his file. “It’s less time than you’ll spend in jail if you don’t take the deal the judge offered.”
“It’s fucked up, you know.”
“It’s fucked up that you drove through a plate glass window because you made the decision to drive after getting inebriated.”
“Pft, don’t pretend like you know shit, bitch.”
“Pft, don’t think your choice of words is gonna offend me,” I retort.
He narrows his eyes. “You think ’cause you're black you’re a badass?”
“I’d be badass if I was white.”
I’m arguing with an eighteen-year-old man-child who is obviously trying to push my buttons, and unlike my norm, I’m letting it get to me.
I stand up and walk around my desk. “You get to choose. Sign or not, it’s up to you. I’ll be back in two minutes for your decision.” I unlock and open a drawer to a filing cabinet and pull out the intake information booklet for our clients. I open it up to the rules section and set it before him. “Read over these and see if you think you can handle it. But before I walk out of here, understand that disrespecting me or any of the staff is not tolerated.”
When I walk out, Jonas, the director, is standing outside the door.
“You all right?” he asks, putting his hand on my shoulder.
“I’m fine.”
He nods as he takes his hand off my shoulder. “Can I ask a favor?”
“Of course,” I answer.
“Tonight’s community meeting needs a moderator. Leslie had a family emergency.”
“Of course.” I nod. “Just tell me what to do.”
After receiving instructions, I walk in my office to find John is gone, and so is my purse.
Dammit!
*****
I have enough time to shower, then change out of my work clothes and put on what Jonas described as street clothes.
“Natasha!” I yell as I walk in.
“In here!” she yells back.
I kick my shoes off and walk into the kitchen, laughing when I see her with an apron on.
“We should make a pact that, if you and I aren’t married off or at least in a serious relationship in twenty years, we marry each other.”
“Well, you’ll have to propose. I had to beg you to move in.” She laughs with me, setting the potholders on the counter.
“I didn’t make you beg me,” I retort, eyeing the wine.
When I found an apartment that would allow Tink two weeks ago, I made the mistake of taking Natasha there when I went to sign the lease.
She found a dozen reasons before we got inside the building for why it was not a good idea: fourth floor, no security, half an hour away from her, and the only park for Tink, was a ten-block walk away.
“You want a glass?” she asks.
“I’d love one, but I have to moderate a community meeting tonight.”
“Oh. That’s different.”
“Yes, and my purse got stolen by a junkie I pissed off.” I sigh. “It’s been a bad day.”
“Well, if we were married, I’d give you a blow job after your glass of wine.”
I laugh as I walk out of the room. “You would be the best wife ever.”
In the bathroom, I let the water run and the room steam up. When the mirror is fogged over, I use my finger to write the number twenty-one.
It’s been twenty-one days since I heard from or saw River James. Well, aside from the week of Entertainment Evenings re-runs of the band playing the song that I hear over and over in my head when I’m not busy.
I get undressed and think about how nice it is to have work and Jordan and Natasha. If not for them, I would go insane.
I spent years thinking I loved Miguel; months getting over the realization that love doesn’t always last, no matter how hard we wish and pray it did; and three days realizing that, sometimes, the first fall isn’t actually the hardest.
The thing about it is, when I met River the first time at the office, he intrigued me. His blatant sexuality should have turned me off, but it did the exact opposite. It ignited something in me that I was sure I would only feel if I were falling for someone: desire.
After that day, I decided I needed to stop wallowing in the loss of a man who never deserved me, because now I know I can want someone else.
When I was ready, I stepped way out of my comfort zone and went out to meet some friends. That fateful night, I told myself it was to support Natasha, but deep down, I was hoping to have the same type of feeling I had when I met River.
That night when he and I left together, I had all the confidence of a girl who’d had too damn much to drink and had just stood up for herself to a man who told her on many occasions that he loved her. He never truly did, though. Love, true love, lasts through thick and thin, pain and happiness, trials and tribulations.
I step into the shower and think of what I told the kid today who stole my purse. Twenty-one days is three weeks, not even a month. He responded with “it’s fucked up,” and right now, in a different light, a different circumstance, he was right in a way. Twenty-one days is so fucked up.
*****
I use the key Jonas gave me to unlock the church down the block where the community meeting is held. Being physically disconnected from the rehab center yet still affiliated in a much less structured way makes many people feel more comfortable walking in from the streets.
I set the huge box of assorted pastries down next to the coffee pot and open the cabinet under it. Jonas told me where everything is, and his directions were impeccable.
“Hello,” I hear and look up. “I’m sorry if I startled you. I’m Pastor Daniel. I just wanted you to know I will be in the office. If you need anything, just yell.”
“Would you like a donut or some coffee?” He is tall, bald, and has a very warm peaceful presence.
“Thank you. Maybe if there are some left over.” His smile is genuine and kind. “If the meeting has stragglers, I’ll let them in. My office is right by the front door.”
“Thank you, Pastor Daniel.”
Tonight is an open meeting, meaning non-addicts can attend. I attended several after the loss of my mother with my grandma.
/> I was told there are normally ten to twenty people at these meetings, but on some occasions, there are none. It is eight o’clock on the dot, and I’m wondering if tonight will be one of those nights when no one shows. Regardless, Jonas made me promise to stay for the entire hour, and of course, I told him yes.
I watch three women and three men walk in the door at five after. I greet them and offer refreshments. We all sit in chairs in a circle that was set up in the church’s fellowship hall. Then I wait another minute before I start the meeting.
I stand up and wipe my palms on my leggings and laugh. “As you can tell, I am a little nervous. This is my first time moderating a community meeting. I am Keanna Sutton, and this is not the first meeting I have attended.” I pause when I see two men walking in, but I don’t stop talking. I want them to feel comfortable, so as they remove their coats and hang them, leaving their hats on, I continue, “I’ve attended a few. You see, my mother was an addict. I can’t honestly say what her drug of choice was, but whatever she shot up with on April 6th 2004 ended her life and changed mine forever.”
When I see the two men stop out of my peripheral, I am afraid I may scare them off if I don’t continue.
“Is this anyone’s first meeting?” I ask as I casually walk over to the table and grab some information booklets.
Two women and one of the men raise their hands.
“Feel free to just say anything. I’m not a teacher or any different than any of you. I’m just the one who gets to start first.”
As the two men walk over and sit, I hand out the booklets. When I smile and turn to the two latecomers, Finn Beckett is looking up at me, and River James is looking down at the tiled floor.
“Well, if everyone is going to clam up, I’ll start,” the oldest woman says with a chuckle. “I’m Anita. This is my granddaughter Angel, and her child’s father Zachary. I am raising the kid. She’s hell on wheels, and I am too old for this nonsense. These two need a good dose of sobriety and the hand of God himself to smack them in the back of the head.”
“You sure I’m the father?” Zachary chimes in.
“You know damn well you are,” Angel retorts.
“Me or ten others.” He stops when Anita smacks him in the back of the head. “What the hell is wrong with you, old woman?”