“No shit!” Kenneth said, sparking up a little bit. “I’ll meet you at the office in a few”
“Why don’t you just meet me on Kenwood, witness says that Sanchez has been spotted recently hanging around his sister’s house.”
“Alright let’s just meet there around three thirty”
“Let’s make it four”
For a moment Kenneth had forgotten about the problems that he was facing at home. Communication couldn’t fix his marriage, because his wife was a wisenheimer, and it’s hard to resolve anything with a know-it-all. The only thing that seemed to keep down arguments was for Kenneth to be compliant with everything that Lena wanted to do or had done. And even that wasn’t working anymore. “I’ll see you at four o’clock on the head” he said “Don’t be late”
He drummed his fingers against the bar top as his eyes glared at Lena. She was sitting at the table scanning through her Ipad. Without moving her eyes away from the touch screen she asked. “Guess you gotta’ go and meet your little girlfriend?”
“Don’ start with that bullshit today. Do you think that we’re better off getting a divorce?”
“I can’t believe that you have the audacity to even ask me a question like that”
“Oh, you can’t? I don’t see why not. You carry on like you don’t have a husband. I never come home to a cooked meal...a massage or anything along those lines. I’m sure that you don’t remember the last time we made love or even had a decent conversation.”
Lena pulled up from the chair “This conversation has lasted too damn long, and I’m going to leave before I say something that I will not regret.”
“Since you won’t regret it, then say it”
Lena was now walking down the hall headed to their bedroom. Kenneth was trailing dead on her heels. “Don’t temp me” she warned.
“Go ahead. Say what you want to say. Say what you feel. You always say what you want to say in this damn marriage anyway. Does it matter to you that I’m tired of feeling like I’m the only one in this marriage? That I’m tired of feeling like I married my goddamn self? I’m lonely Lena”
Lena sat down at the foot of the bed, slid off her pumps and rubbed her feet. “I’m so sick and tired of your damn whining. I work full time and I have a ten year old son that has, baseball practice in the spring along with soccer, football practice in the fall, basketball practice in the winter, track and field practice, wrestling practice and now that school has started back I have to make sure that he brings nothing less than a A-plus home on his progress report because I refuse to let him end up with a nickel and dime job like the one that you have. So, no, I don’t have the time to rub your back, are cook!” “Screw” she chuckled, “When you can learn that there is more to sex than just wam bam, I’ll screw you.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Exactly what it sounds like.” She shouted, then sprang up from the bed because she was about ready to storm out. She’d had enough of dealing with him for today. “We’ve talked about having oral sex for years and nothing has changed. What is your problem? Forget it, just don’t act surprised when I refuse to give you some. I’ve dealt with the issue of you not wanting to go down on me for our entire marriage and I’m tired of it. When are you going to acknowledge the fact that something is wrong? What’s the point of making love if you don’t go all the way?”
The vein in Kenneth’s left temple was pulsating as he stood toe to toe with his wife. He’d never hit a woman let alone his wife, and although he wished he could’ve knocked her deleterious words back into her mouth he eased both hands into his pockets and peered at Lena. “I don’t have a problem. The problem is you. You have to be in control of everything. Even sex. Oral sex is not that big of a deal. Half the time I just want to get it over with anyway” He said. “You have absolutely no respect for me, in fact you never have and I don’t know why I continue to put up with this shit. You know what? You don’t have to worry about me whining anymore. And don’t be surprised if soon, very soon, you’re in this goddamn condo by yourself”
Lena walked over to the chest drawer and yanked the top-drawer open. “Is that a threat? I pay majority of the bills around here anyway, which I’ve been doing since you came up with the bright idea to resign from a two hundred thousand dollar a year career and settle for a thirty thousand dollar a year job.” She tossed her undergarments onto the bed. “So if you want to leave you know where the door is. I can handle all of this on my own.”
“So the fact that we’ve been together since we were kids doesn’t mean a damn thing to you, does it? It’s really that easy for you? You can just walk away just like that?”
“Look I can’t do this right now” Lena said stumping into the master bathroom “ I need to take a shower because I’m going out for a drink so that I can wind down before it’s time to go and pick up our son, the one that I pretty much raise on my own because you’re always working, but yet your paycheck is barely enough to pay the damn cable bill.”
She slammed the bathroom door.
“How predictable, my wife, doing exactly what she always does. Run from our problems.” Kenneth yelled.
Kenneth sighed disgustedly. Lena was starting to get on his last nerve; she was parsimonious, adamant, brash, and downright abhorrent. Quite frankly she didn’t deserve him. Sometimes when he arrived home from work he’d sit in the parking deck for hours because he dreaded going inside his condo. Her bitching and griping was so irritating. Lately he’d been hanging in every strip club he could find.
When the front door slammed shut and the vibration from the window panes ricocheted through the condo Lena stepped out of the bathroom butt naked, walked down the hallway and grabbed the body wash out of the hall closet. Don’t be surprised if one day soon...very soon, you’re in this damn condo by yourself, replayed in her head like a Yellow-Nape. She didn’t want to lose her husband but they had problems, big problems, problems that had been slowly extirpating their marriage for years.
Lena was the type of woman that most people would consider high maintenance. Every piece of clothing, pair of shoes, and handbag that she owned had a designer label on it. Dolce & Gabbana, Versace, Prada, Roberta Cavalli, you name it she owned it. In order to blend in and impress other investors that she associated with at the National Association of Realtors gatherings that she attended annually she felt as though she had to drive what they drove, wear what they wore, and live how they lived. Her excessive spending habits were the sole reason that the couple was drowning in debt. But you couldn’t tell Lena that, instead she blamed Kenneth for their financial issues. And the main reason was because of the career change he’d made years ago. The company she started with the help of her husband twelve years ago, which consisted of buying old houses, completely remodeling them and selling them for a huge profit was on the verge of folding. Prime Realty was on its last leg. She’d been carrying secrets for quite some time and the hidden lies were chipping away her spirit like cells in stage four cancer. The weariness made her bitter. Lena had kept Kenneth in the dark about a lot of things. He had no idea about the financial infidelity, that she’d refinanced her car, or that she’d borrowed money on her business. Now and days the money coming in wasn’t matching the money spilling out. And they were damn near broke. She desperately wanted to fill Kenneth in on everything. Maybe he could save her. Maybe exposing the truth could salvage things between them. But she didn’t know where to begin. The lies had gone on for too long and now her secrets were on the verge of surfacing. Financially they were tapping on bankrupts door. In only a matter of time Lena would have to trade in her Jaguar and start back driving her 1999 Honda Accord. Before long Kenneth was going to find out everything because she’d pawned his title a while back because she was a few grand short of purchasing a home that she thought would be profitable but she ended up losing money. She hadn’t been able to make one payment. She knew by now his car was probably on the repo list and it wouldn’t be long before they found it.
Kenneth’s was always stressed, at work, at home, and between the sheets. The man hadn’t seen pleasure rip through his wife’s pores in what felt like centuries, her bitterness and predominance had imprisoned, paralyzed, and sickened their sexual chemistry. Once his sexual desires declined and the lovemaking stopped, their marriage encountered a domino effect, and everything else just tumbled down, shortly after. First it became passionless on her part, and then Kenneth simply stop initiating sex because he felt as though she was withdrawn from him during sexual intercourse. He’d killed for the days when he just couldn’t get enough of Lena. Like the time they traveled to Paradise Island, Bahamas for a seven day retreat.
Basically after Lena gave birth to the couple’s only son McKhi she focused all of her attention on motherhood and seemed to have forgotten that she was also a wife.
****
Lena walked back to the bathroom, pulled the shower curtains back, and stepped into the hot drizzle. How did she get herself in this mess? She wanted to be a supportive wife but it was hard. The harder she fault to accept it, the more she wanted to change him. The more she realized that she couldn’t change him, the more she wanted to control him. Eventually she stopped pretending that life was paradisiacal. Struggling was definitely not on her list of goals. She and Kenneth were supposed to be the seven figure couple. During their freshmen year in college they made a pact that they’d always work harder than hard to ensure that their kids didn’t experience the upbringings of being raised in poverty like they’d encountered as children, but now fourteen years since they’d graduated from North Carolina A & T University she felt like she was a poor helpless child all over again. The Mortgage Company had been leaving demanding voicemail messages on her cellular for months and so was Citicorp. What was she going to do?
Kenneth the tall, muscular built, dark-cocoa, clean-cut brother that stole her heart when they were just freshmen in high school wasn’t aware of any of it. Their mortgage hadn’t been paid in four months and he had no clue that they were behind on their payments.
Lena should have been honest with him years ago, and they wouldn’t be in this predicament. Now, she was standing underneath the shower spray, crying. Her heart was aching for Kenneth. Deep down she knew that she was the lucky one and that she hadn’t shown her husband the type of partnership, respect, or loyalty that he’d shown to her. Honestly she regretted the harsh comments that she’d yelled at him earlier. Kenneth would fight the devil to protect Lena if he had too, and she knew it. “I should’ve just accepted the damn gift” She whimpered. “I shouldn’t have treated him so harsh” The truth was, Lena treated Kenneth that way because she knew that she could get away with it.
In college Kenneth was the man that every woman on campus craved to be with. Back then Lena was honored to be the woman he carried on his arm. The way his buns looked in those basketball shorts while he ran up and down the court always had her mind elsewhere during the games. She vaguely remembered him scoring points like he was Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Byrd combined into in one athlete because she was to wrapped up in how good he looked doing it. Kenneth was a Kappa and the brother could dress his ass off. He was always clean cut and well groomed. Always vibrant. Always flashing his million-dollar smile. He wasn’t arrogant. Arrogance is when you think that you’re the shit. Confidence is when you know it. This brother knew he had it going on. He was good to Lena too. Come to think about it he’s still the same caring, thoughtful, hardworking, loyal, and understanding man that he’s been since long before they vowed “For better or for worse”
Although most of the time Lena was an antagonistic bitch she was a superlative mother. Everything she imagined that Mckhi would want, she bought it. An Xbox three sixty, a PlayStation three, an Nintendo Wii and DSI, over two hundred video games, a Suzuki four wheeler, a Fusion Pool Table, an Air Hockey Table, and a Foosball Table. The boy was spoiled rotten. No matter how exasperated Lena was after a long tiresome day at work she would still muster up the energy to attend Karate class, basketball games, football games, track meets, or any other sport that Mckhi participated in. On the weekends she chaperoned a host of young boys to the Georgia Aquarium, or Six Flaggs over Georgia, or Dave & Buster’s, or Stone Mountain Park, or Atlanta Golf, or The Coco-Cola Factory and wherever else MeKhi desired to go. They ate out at his choice of restaurant at least once a week. And school was very important to her so they studied at least an hour after practice every day. Each week he had a new list of words that he had to learn. This was her way of expanding his vocabulary. He’d maintained straight A’s since he’d started school. McKhi was pretty much a damn genius.
At age five, the kid new the meaning of the word sobriquet, and it’d only taken him two hours to learn it. He’d learned to spell his name at two and by the time he reached three he was writing his name on every wall in the house. Just like his dad he was a born athlete. Baseball was his favorite. The boy’s legs bolted faster than lighting. And he could hit that ball too. Knocked it out the park every single time.
McKhi’s annual tuition was fifteen thousand dollars, which was another bill that Lena had to worry about. She didn’t give a damn if she didn’t pay anything else; she was definitely going to pay for his tuition. She wouldn’t dream of sending him to public school. Not over her dead body would she allow that. The thought of Khi being exposed to gangs or drugs frightened the living daylights out of her. Kenneth disagreed, which was always just another argument. But he was right they hadn’t attended private school and look how they turned out. They even graduated college at the top of their class.
As Lena dried off, she wondered how she was going to get out of the mess she’d gotten herself into. She wrapped herself in her robe, slid on her fluffy Persian Rose pink house shoes and walked back into the kitchen. When she almost tripped over the velvet box she picked it up and admired the three-caret diamond tennis bracelet. Despite all the hell she’d raised about the jewelry earlier that evening, she ended up fastening it around her wrist after all.
****
Lena was sitting at the bar slurping up the last swallow of her cocktail beverage inside the bar at the LOWES hotel.
There were ten other burnt orange leather pub chairs with black legs, in front of the bar counter where she was sitting, and over three hundred different brands of liquor on the glass shelves behind the counter. The room was interiorized with Manzanita Branches, Bamboo Sticks, Lotus Pods, Wild Thistles, glass vases, burnt orange and mustard colored throw pillows, and beautiful expensive artwork. This place was designed to provide a sense of peace but at the moment nothing was tranquil in Lena’s world.
“Let me have another Peach Margarita, with no salt please” She said to the bartender. “Today has been one hell of a day”
“Sistah, I understand” the gorgeous woman behind the counter said. She looked fairly young, maybe twenty-five, definitely not any more than twenty-seven. Her hair was jet black and razor cut down to her pea head. The haircut really brought out her dark eyes, and warm mocha skin. She was slim with an oversized rump that looked like it was screaming to be freed from the skin-tight black slacks that she was wearing. Lena wondered was her ass real. It seemed like the thing to do now and days was to get silicone injected in
your palms. Every woman in Atlanta had a big ass, even the white women. So now whenever Lena saw a woman with an ass that looked like it didn’t belong on her body she was puzzled as to whether or not she’d paid for it. “Peach Margarita with no salt” The woman repeated and set the abundant glass down in front of Lena.
Lena was so stressed that the tension had rushed up her spine and was throbbing the muscle on the back of her neck, so she massaged her fingers into it until the knot loosened some, then she glanced at her watch. It was only four thirty. She had about an hour and a half of freedom left because she had to pick up Khi from football practice by seven, which meant she needed to leave by six in order to get there on time. The traffic was hectic.
The bar inside the luxury hotel was swarming with women dressed in designer suits glancing through case files and laptop screens. Most of the men were businessmen dressed in cufflinks designer slacks, and expensive shoes, carrying briefcases.
There was a woman sitting two chairs down from Lena that’d twirled her wedding ring around her finger for at least twenty minutes before she placed it on the bar counter. It was a huge rock encrusted with several diamonds swindling around it and she’d wiped about one hundred tears from her cheeks before she’d gained enough energy to do it. Lena thought to herself, well at least I’m not the only one that’s going through it right now. The unaccompanied woman was beautiful, and designed in tip-top clothing. When she’d stood, then started to walk away and hadn’t grabbed her ring Lena stopped her. “Excuse me miss” Lena said. “You’re leaving your ring.”
“Trust me there is no point in me wearing it. My adulterous husband, soon to be ex-husband informed me this morning right before I left for work that he’s in love with a man. So there is no need for me to continue to wear it.” She spilled out, like she’d been waiting to vent all day.
Wow I’m glad that I don’t have to worry about anything like that, “I’m sorry” Lena apologized and didn’t want to know anything else. She couldn’t believe that the woman had just confided something that was so private to a complete stranger.
Unfaithful Ties Page 7