A Private Affair

by Donna Hill

  But in the next breath, reality took a choke hold, squeezing and squeezing the dream until it burst. Where would she ever get the money? If she borrowed it from a bank, she’d be paying it back for the rest of her life.

  But she had to have it. No matter what it took. An opportunity of a lifetime had been handed to her on a platter. She wouldn’t blow it.

  Yes. She would find a way. Whatever it took.

  Dre had set up shop in his apartment to cut down on overhead. The small business loan that Maxine had helped him get through the bank had financed the purchase of three video cameras, a stockpile of tapes, an enviable computer system and his business license.

  He’d drafted tons of introduction letters to all of the major insurance companies and corporations in the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

  In less than four months after Systemwide Investigations had officially opened for business, he had more cases than he could handle. Two of his former coworkers helped him out part-time, but if business kept up at this pace he’d have to start looking for some more help.

  He was feeling good. Back in charge of his life. Again. The only thing missing was his wife at his side.

  He pushed out a breath and turned off the computer. Every time he talked to Maxine about setting a date, she always came up with “Not now,” “We have time,” “What’s the rush?” answers.

  He was beginning to think that, maybe, she really didn’t want to get married at all.

  Naw. Maxine had always been straight with him. If it wasn’t what she wanted, she would have said so.

  Wouldn’t she?

  Val pedaled on the stationary bike in the gym, building up a sheen of sweat. “So, when are you going to set a date, girl? I’m dying to go wedding shopping.”

  Maxine put down the five-pound weights and wiped her face with a light blue towel. She draped it around her neck.

  “I don’t know, Val.” She looked away.

  Val stopped pedaling. “What’s up, Maxie?”

  Maxine heaved a sigh. “I don’t know, Val. I…just…I’m just not sure.”

  “Sure about what…when to set the date, how you feel about Dre, or if you should get married at all?”

  “If that was a multiple-choice question, you forgot ‘All of the above.’”

  Val hopped down off the bike and took a seat next to Maxine on a wooden bench. “You want to talk about it?”

  “I just don’t know if I’m doing the right thing. If Dre is even the right one.” She dropped her hands between her thighs. “I just got caught up in all the fantasy, ya know. The white dress, church full of people, organ music, the whole nine. But…I’m just not sure if it’s what I want.”

  “Don’t you mean who you want?” Val put her hand on top of Maxine’s knee. “You gotta let go, Maxie. Maybe Dre isn’t the one, but let that reason stand on its own. Not because you have some notion that Quinten Parker is gonna come ridin’ in on his white horse and sweep you away. It only works like that in romance novels and on television. This is the real deal, girlfriend.”

  Maxine covered her face with her hands. “I don’t know what to do, Val. I care about, Dre…a lot. I don’t want to hurt him. I could probably make him very happy.”

  “But would you be happy? Let it go, Maxie…and you know what I mean. For your own sake. And one way or the other you have to be straight with Dre, before you do hurt him.”

  Quinn made a quick trip uptown. He felt like massaging himself with the essence of the neighborhood. Inhale the aromas, move to the pulse, drink in the camaraderie.

  Driving along Malcolm X Boulevard, he caught a glimpse of all the familiar hangouts, all the regulars in their regular spots.

  It had been a while since he’d been to the old haunts. His trips were limited to just working for Remy, and even that had been cut back. T.C. had his own area to run, and from what he’d heard he was doing a damned good job.

  He parked in front of B.J.’s and got out. He could already hear the music coming from the beat-up jukebox every time somebody swung through the blacked-out door.

  A knot of young brothers were standing near the entrance when he approached, whiffs of smoke hanging over their heads like stagnant cumulus clouds.

  One of them, with a red-and-white bandanna tied around his head, pants hanging low on his young, narrow hips, seemed to be the leader, as the others hung on his every word and mimicked his “don’t give a damn” stance.

  New crop.

  Quinn looked them over, instinctively adjusting his body, the rhythm of his stride, the angle of his head, realigning himself with the cool, controlled melody of the street, becoming one with the unheard sounds.

  They all gave him a look as he approached the door, his eyes cutting across all five brown, yellow, black and in-between faces at once, and they seemed to almost imperceptibly step back.

  “Whatsup?” he acknowledged in a low mumble, not waiting for but expecting the same in return.

  “Whatsup,” they each rejoined out of sync.

  Respect. He hadn’t lost it.

  Quinn pushed through the doors and immediately felt at home, as if he’d been sent away and had finally returned to familiar surroundings.

  Smoke, stale liquor, cheap perfume and burnt onion rings greeted him like old friends. The semi-darkness, still hiding the stains, scratches, nicks and peeling paint, welcomed him into its warmth.

  Home.

  “Hey, brotherman. Long time,” Turk greeted, still wearing the same stained undershirt.

  Quinn smiled and slid into a vacant seat at the bar. “How’s it goin’, man?”

  “All good. The usual?”

  “Yeah, and make it a double.”

  Turk’s bushy brows rose. “What’s the occasion? Never seen you take down more than one Jack at a time.” He chuckled, pouring the drink with the deftness of experience.

  “Feel like celebratin’ tonight, Turk. Things are changin’. Know what I mean?”

  “So long as they good changes, brotherman. Here ya go.” He placed the glass in front of Quinn. “Hear anything else about what happened wit yo sista?”

  “We got the lawyers workin’ on it.” Turk didn’t need to know that the police department was trying to settle out of court to avoid a trial and yet another police cover-up scandal. So far they’d kept it out of the papers, but Nikita kept saying that the fastest way to get results was to go to the press. He was beginning to believe her. But the fact was, he didn’t want Lacy’s memory spread all over the place for people to be eyeballing, because then the questions would start again and the dam that he’d been working on sealing shut would burst open again.

  “Remy in the back?”

  “Last I saw, yeah.”

  Quinn placed a ten spot on the table. “Later, man.”

  “Take it easy. Don’t be no stranger. You know yo money’s good ’round here.” He laughed.

  “You gon be on an album? No shit.”

  Quinn chuckled. “Yeah, for real, man.”

  Remy shook his head and smiled. “Who woulda thought it?” He looked at Quinn through the smoke of his cigarette. “Didn’t know you had it in ya.” He tapped a long ash into a cutoff can that he used for an ashtray. “Knew you was gon be ’bout somethin’, just didn’t know what.” He coughed a smoker’s cough. “Don’t forget yo friends now, when you get big and famous. Just mention old B.J.’s when you get yo Oscar or whatever they called.”

  Quinn laughed. “Yeah, I will. Listen—” he pushed up from the lopsided wooden stool “—I gotta roll.”

  “See you Friday night, right?”

  “No doubt.”

  Riding down 135th Street, he glanced at Maxine’s building. He wanted to stop, but didn’t. Her fiancé might be there, and he didn’t feel like trying to be nice to the brother.

  He hadn’t seen or spoken to Max since Christmas. He kind of missed her, and knew that she would have all the right things to say. She’d be thrilled for him, and make his special moment e
ven more special.

  He kept driving.

  Nikita could make it special, too.

  Nikita felt as if she was walking on hot coals as she paced the length of the hardwood floors of the living room. Somehow, she’d have to convince Quinn to help her, and maybe, if all else failed, her parents. She couldn’t let this chance slip through her fingers.

  She checked her watch. It was already eleven and no sign of Quinn. She hoped this wasn’t going to be one of those nights where he stayed out until the sun came up.

  She heard an engine cut off and ran to the window.

  “Here he comes. Thank goodness.” She knew she couldn’t hold on to this until tomorrow.

  Quinn trotted up the steps, making just enough noise to let Mrs. Finch know he was home.

  Nikita practically leaped into his arms as soon as he opened the door.

  He started laughing. “What’s with you, Little Bit?”

  “I have something exciting to tell you.”

  “Must be the day for good news. Let’s hear yours.” He took off his bold orange fleece Chicago Bulls warm-up jacket and tossed it across the couch. Before he got a chance to sit down, she launched into her story.

  “So the deal is, the magazine business can be yours if you can come up with a hundred grand?”

  “Exactly.” She let out a breath, stopped her pacing and plopped down on the couch beside him.

  “So…How you gonna get it?”

  “That’s just it,” she hedged. “I don’t know.”

  Quinn stretched out his long legs and crossed them at the ankles. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He had a few thousand stashed away. He’d been ready to use it to help Maxine. But she hadn’t needed it. She’d figured it out on her own. Nick had said there’d be some loot involved with this music deal. He could probably throw in part of that.

  “Quinn!” She nudged him in the rib with her elbow. “Don’t you dare go to sleep on me.”

  He slowly opened his eyes. “I ain’t sleepin’, just thinkin’. How soon you need this money?”

  Her heart started to beat faster. “The end of the year, if not sooner.”

  He stood up. “I could probably lend you some of it. The rest you gonna have to figure out yourself. I got some of it, and since Nick offered to buy my recording, I’ll be gettin’ some more.”

  Her eyes widened and she let out an earsplitting screech. She jumped up straight into his arms, wrapping her arms and legs around him.

  “I knew it would happen! I knew it, knew it, knew it,” she babbled, planting kisses all over his face.

  Quinn was laughing so hard he almost dropped her. “Woman, you goin’ crazy, or what?”

  “Yes. Crazy about you, baby.” Her eyes softened. “I knew you could do it, Quinn. All those months of hard work paid off. There’s no telling where this could take you.”

  “Things ain’t gonna change that much. I’m still the same person.”

  She gave him a big kiss on the lips. “Of course things are going to change, silly—for the better. You’ll see. Success changes everyone.”

  Chapter 25

  It’s Just So Hard

  “Max, we need to talk,” Dre said, sitting on the edge of her bed.

  Maxine stretched her long, nude body and curled on her side. “About what?” she mumbled, totally satiated from their hours-plus of much needed sex.

  “About us, Max.”

  Uh-oh. She squeezed her eyes shut for a hot minute, took a breath and sat up, pulling the floral-pattern sheet up to cover her apple-sized breasts.

  “I’m listening.”

  He turned, angling his body to face her. “You’ve been wearing that ring for six months, Max. And every time I mention setting a date, you go into your bag of excuses, why ‘now is not a good time to discuss it.’ Now. Tonight is the time, Max. I get the feeling that marrying me is not really what you want to do.”

  Her throat tightened when she looked into that Michael Jordan look-alike face. He loved her. Really loved her. And as much as she’d tried, she didn’t feel the same way.

  “Dre, I—”

  He held up his hand. “Don’t. Don’t give me a long story and try to save my feelings. Just answer me in one simple word, Max. Do you want to marry me, yes or no?”

  She drew her knees up to her chest and lowered her head. “No,” she mumbled into the softness of the cotton sheets.

  Dre filled his lungs with much needed air, nodded his head and stood. “That’s all you had to say, baby.”

  She watched him through tear-filled eyes as he kept his back to her while getting dressed.

  Finally he turned around and looked down at her. He reached out his right hand and caressed her damp cheek. “It was good, Maxine Sherman. You were good for me. I’ll always remember that. But your heart was never really all there for me. I thought I could make you love me the way I love you. But that’s a hard thing when your woman’s heart is with someone else.”

  “Dre—”

  He shook his head. “I always knew. I saw it in your eyes and it scared the hell outta me. But I figured once we were married you’d forget.” He straightened. “That’ll never happen, Max, until you deal with how you really feel.”

  He picked up his nylon windbreaker from the back of a kitchen chair that she’d pulled into the room. “Hope you find what you’re looking for, Max.”

  He turned, never looked back and walked out.

  Parris ran her hand along the rows of suits and dresses in her closet. “Why don’t you ask your parents for the money, Niki?” she asked into the mouth of the closet that resembled a designer’s warehouse.

  Nikita rested her head on her palm. “Believe me, I’ve thought about it, and if I don’t come up with some other miracle, I just may have to.”

  Parris turned around, holding up a silver sequined cocktail dress with spaghetti straps.

  “There’s my dress!” Nikita sputtered, pointing her finger at the shimmering creation.

  “Really? I had it so long I thought it was mine, chile. You want it back?”

  “At some point,” she answered dryly.

  She returned it to its spot in the closet. “So how much is Quinn giving you?”

  “He said fifteen thousand. He’s using his savings and some of the money from the record deal.”

  “That’s a pretty generous loan, Niki. I mean besides the money from the deal, where did Quinn get all that money from?”

  “He said he’d been saving it.”

  Parris arched a brow. “Hmm.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Not a thing. Anyway, why don’t you just take out a bank loan? I mean, Nick and I would love to lend it to you, but we have everything tied up in the club and he’s in the process of trying to open another one on the coast.”

  “I appreciate the thought.” She blew out a breath. “I’ve thought about the bank thing, but I don’t want to get myself into that kind of debt, Parris. If anything goes wrong, I’ll be liable and could lose everything.”

  Parris sat down on the paisley chaise lounge. “People take out business loans every day. If you’re going to be a businesswoman, then you’re going to have to start thinking like one.”

  Nikita tossed around the advice for a moment. “Maybe,” she said finally. “I’ll think about it as a last resort.”

  “Even the money that you get from Quinn and your parents, if you decide to ask them, you’re still going to have to pay it back sometime.”

  “That’s different.”

  Parris simply looked at her friend, at a loss for something to say. Nikita was so accustomed to everything being handed to her that she didn’t know any other way. She sighed. Nikita would just have to learn sometime. Even if it was the hard way.

  “So you finally told him, huh?” Val asked from across the cafeteria table.

  “Yeah.” Maxine stuck her fork in her salad, which she’d drenched in diet Russian dressing. “I think he took it pretty well. I’m th
e one who’s all bent out of shape. I just feel so awful about how everything turned out.”

  “It had to come to a head at some point. Would you have preferred to have that conversation after you married the man?”

  “Definitely not.” She ate a mouthful of salad.

  “You’ll be all right, girl. It’ll just take some time. And you have plenty to keep you busy.”

  Maxine smiled. “You got that right. I’m about beat. The girl who helps me out is cool, but there’s still so much to do. I’m gonna hang on to this gig at the bank a little while longer, and then I’m callin’ game.”

  “Still thinking about opening an office?”

  Maxine took a breath. She’d been thinking about that, all right. Now that it was over between her and Dre and she was planning to leave the bank, anyway, now was the time to tell Val what she’d been thinking.

  Maxine put her fork down, crossed her forearms on the table, and leaned forward. “Val, I’ve been thinkin’ about…not just leavin’ the bank…but leavin’ New York.”

  “Max, you can’t be serious.”

  Maxine slowly nodded. “I am. Val, this past year and a half has kicked my butt. After Lacy was killed nothin’ seemed the same no more. Ya know. I figured gettin’ married would plug up the hole in my life, but hey…you see what happened with that.” She fiddled with her water glass, slowly spinning it around. “And I just need to put some distance between me and the memories. Go somewhere and start fresh.”

  Val looked at her childhood friend—all grown up, successful, smart, funny as all hell, pretty and so very unhappy.

  “Girl, lemme tell you something. You could go from here to the ends of the earth and it’d never be far enough away to keep your heart from feelin’ the way it does.”

  She reached out and covered Maxine’s hand, ceasing the spinning.

  “You’re going to have to find a way to settle what’s inside, Maxine, or you’ll be running for the rest of your life. But, sister friend, if this is what you think you need, I’m behind you one hundred percent. And you know it.”

  “Thanks. I can’t ask for more than that.”