Right Before My Eyes

by Michelle Robinson

  “She’s no great example of a woman herself.”

  “Yeah, this is true. But she is a woman and he should respect her even if she’s not respecting herself. It takes two to fight.”

  “Newsflash, that chick lost her baby,” I happily announced.

  “Oh yeah, that’s good. Now he can have a baby with a real woman.”

  “Tell him that, because he’s on this ‘I’m depressed’ kick.”

  “What?” Derrick asked. “I’m sorry, but your boyfriend is hella stupid.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “I’m sorry baby girl.”

  “No, you’re right.” I said. I took a deep breath. “I’m so on-the-fence with him at this point. I can take it or leave it.”

  “Well, have fun, I think that’s what’s important is enjoying the moment. I don’t know what’s gonna happen either, but I want you to enjoy the ride.”

  “Yeah, that’s about all I can do now.” I said. “Not to mention, Jason’s coming on Friday and Drew’s been found innocent and he’ll be home soon.” I blurted out.

  “Word?” Derrick asked smiling.

  “Yep. I texted everybody and everyone seems happy that he’s coming home,” I said smiling.

  “Wait, who? Jason or Drew?” Derrick asked.

  “Drew, fool!” I shouted.

  “Ok. So how do you know that? You answered his call finally?”

  “No, I went to his parent’s house, because they were calling me to check on me and to give me the news.”

  “So, you haven’t talked to him?”

  “Nope, but I guess I will. We need to agree to be cordial or something. I don’t want unresolved feelings.”

  “Yeah, y’all need to talk. It’s been too long. Y’all can at least be friends.”

  “We’ll see. Seems like all of y’all are rooting for Drew.” I said. “Najah thinks he and I will work things out. I told her to pray about it because I don’t see how.”

  “I don’t think Jules knows how to treat you and Jason is way too intimidated of you, and that about sums it up, Nee!”

  I laughed.

  “Mama always say if the person you’re with doesn’t bring out the best in you, then you’re really wasting your time with them. And that’s the truth Ruth!” Derrick said. “So you said you’re on the fence right?”

  “Right,” I answered.

  “Stay there and let someone come get you. Don’t call nobody. Let them call you.” Derrick said.

  “Ok.”

  I was looking in my back pocket for my crackberry and it wasn’t there.

  No wonder I was able to have a talk and not be interrupted by Jules.

  I heard it ringing from my bathroom. I decided I didn’t want to be bothered. Something more important was happening. Besides my hopeless relationship, there were other things going wrong. My house was worthless and I hadn’t worked in over two years. Food was high, gas was high. It wasn’t quite as ridiculous as last year, but still. The State was broke and crime was high. Along with General Motors, Ford and the banks, I needed a bailout too. Plus, I needed to check in with the bride and her family to see if anyone needed my help.

  The wedding was Saturday and that was gonna be my focus, because I know that Kalena’s friendship is gonna change with us. We were gonna have another brother, and she wouldn’t be as available to us anymore.

  Chelsea was having a baby with Greg, so she would be unavailable too.

  Derrick was touring now, so he would now be a famous comedian. My twin was a lesbian, so the dynamics of our bond were going to change, because I don’t know anything about her lifestyle.

  Wow, we were all changing in the same year.

  All except Najah.

  She seemed to be in a good place. She was waiting on her miracle. Being still and letting God bring Mr. Right to her.

  Maybe I should try that. ’Cause now I felt like I was in a bumper car.

  I needed my phone. This was an epic moment, seeing someone black run for the presidency. I didn’t want to miss any of my 541 friends’ statuses on Facebook.

  Just when I was about to log on, I noticed that I had 17 missed calls, all from Jules. I called him back.

  He answered on the first ring. He still sounded depressed and bitter.

  “Well, what did the test say, baby?”

  “It said ‘you are not the baby’s father’,” and I hung up.

  After that, we texted back and forth.

  “What?”

  “LOL! I’m not pregnant.”

  “Damn, I gotta correct that.”

  “Ha! Are you excited about our cruise coming up?”

  “Not yet but I do need it.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  After that text, I lost my mind. The crowd on TV went crazy and I could hear all my neighbors shouting and screaming at once.

  Barack Obama had just become our President for 2009! I had never been so happy, and never in my lifetime would I have dreamed of ever seeing something like this.

  I spent the rest of the night celebrating via on Facebook, BBM, and talking to my parents.

  Then we ended up on Skype with Najah, Chelsea, Kalena and Todd.

  Jordyn brought Chinese food over after she closed her salon for the evening. She, Derrick and I had a party. We were so excited when President Obama began his speech, me and my sister hugged and cried together.

  It was so touching.

  We all got a kick out of Jesse Jackson standing up there crying. Derrick pulled out his new camera. He said he wanted to test it out. He began taking pictures of all of us and then he uploaded them and tagged us on Facebook.

  I especially loved the picture Derrick took of me and my sister, so I made that picture of us my profile picture. She made it hers also. The twins with our matching Obama t-shirts on. She had her red colored locs and I had golden blonde locs. We still looked alike, but we had our own identity.

  This night was something special. I finally went to bed around 2:00 am. Jordyn stayed over ’cause we were gonna walk the lake and plus I wanted to get up early and go raid the newspaper stand.

  I loved my sister the same, even if I didn’t understand her lifestyle. We each have to learn to respect people who are different than us.

  That was my Facebook status update before I called the hogs.

  Chapter 30

  I’M CHEATING

  My crackberry woke me up.

  It was Jules screaming and crying again. This time, something major happened and I wasn’t exactly able to follow his story.

  He began sounding like the school teacher from Peanuts.

  He repeated, “One of these bitches done slashed all my tires.”

  “What?” I asked in shock.

  “You heard me, somebody done broke into my apartment and stole my computer and my TVs and jewelry and slashed my tires on the old school, and it better not have been you, Journee.”

  “They slashed the old school but not the Escalade?” I asked.

  “Right! I am hella mad and I’m gonna kill whoever done this to me. They done fucked with the wrong nicca. This is war and I’m striking back. Just know that shit. This is some bullshit. My tires got slashed good too. They did it in a spot that can’t be patched up or repaired. I am hot! And it’s about to be on, ya feel me?”

  I thought to myself, Hell naw, you big baby! I didn’t feel like this mess today. Mood killer strikes again!

  “Hello?” he asked.

  “Yeah yeah yeah,” was all I could say.

  “Oh yeah, and we ain’t going on that cruise either,” he continued. “I need my money back so I can pay to get my tires fixed and pay my deductible on my renter’s insurance.”

  I was starting to feel melancholy. “Well
, how did they break in?”

  “They broke in through the front door. That’s why if I find out that you had something—”

  I hung up. I wasn’t no fool.

  I looked at the time, it was 10:00 am.

  We had overslept, and no one in the house was up. I turned my volume on my crackberry to silent. It wasn’t a mystery to me that he didn’t sleep at his house last night, and was laying up with someone else when he was still supposed to be my man. Plus, I had a key so why would I break in?

  It was probably the chick whose baby calls him “daddy”.

  I texted him with two words, “we’re done”.

  “Only a real woman would send a text like this, huh?” He replied.

  “It don’t matter when you’ve never had one.”

  “So it’s over? It’s cool. That’s why my other boo is pregnant and we’re getting married.”

  I almost dropped my phone into the floor. I guess it’s too late to go on that fast and bless his house with blessing oil, I thought.

  Waterworks. I really thought I had this one in the bag. I turned on the radio to get dressed and run to the newspaper stand and I’m Cheating by Dwele filled the morning air.

  “Hmmm, how ironic,” I thought.

  Dwele was talking about his one woman’s look when she goes to work and her look when she comes home to play. She gives him two different women in one, so he’s cheating with the same woman.

  Cute concept. I hopped in the shower and cried like a baby.

  I wasn’t really crying about Jules. It was more of the disappointment of Jules. I’m ready for my own family and thought he was the one but just like Jordyn said, he was the imposter and the real one is right around the corner.

  With that in mind, I couldn’t be mad.

  I had to dust that nicca and his drama off my shoulders. I ended up taking his house keys with me so I could throw them in the lake, and that’s exactly what I did.

  Lake Merritt was already polluted and dirty. I was just adding to its beauty, because Jules was just plain ole nasty. Jordyn suggested I should change my phone number.

  She said that it would do me some good. I thought she was crazy.

  “Girl, I’ve been having this number for fifteen years.”

  “So?” she said.

  I told her I would change it when I get another man. We agreed that would be best.

  We walked the lake twice. The first time around we talked about my men troubles and the second time around we talked about her women troubles. It was odd, but pretty much the same.

  She and Christine—aka C. Fuller—had a bumpy road and were working at their relationship slowly. Being that my sister was new to that life and was doing it her way, I was unsure. She still seemed like she was being curious and not serious. But that was a journey of hers, not mine.

  Drew called me when I got home in the early evening, around 6:30pm. I was excited and nervous, but also didn’t have much to say. I knew he probably thought I was crazy, but I didn’t care. I avoided him for so long. After I prayed and walked this morning, I was ready to talk to him. I finally read his card that he sent me. It was the cutest “I’m Sorry” card ever. Maybe my crazy relationship with Jules sent me back to him. But I needed to go back one more time. A revisit would help me determine if it was gonna work this time. If it didn’t, we would both know and stop wasting each other’s time.

  “Hi,” I said after the state prison recording.

  “Hey, what’s up?”

  “Nothing at all,” I said. “How are you doing?” I swallowed the lump in my throat.

  “I’m maintaining, you know. Tired of being behind these prison walls for something I did not do. But I’ve been making my time pass. I go to work and workout. Got a few patnas I hang around and hit the visiting room whenever I get a visit.”

  Silence.

  “Yep, that’s about it. Hello?” Drew asked.

  There was more silence until he heard me let out a big cry. His voice had power. The sound of his voice gave my soul peace that I hadn’t had in six months.

  With all that had been going on, he was the only sure thing.

  I knew that this guy Andrew Mills loved me. He loved me with every ounce of blood in his body and what he was mad about just didn’t matter to me. I wanted him and I wanted him to want me too.

  This was my soulmate, my lover, my best friend, my shoulder, my ears, my heart. The love was still present. That was for sure.

  And how I knew was because Jules, Jason, or Sean didn’t even matter. I was a mess! I just had to relieve myself, and the best way was through my tears. I couldn’t believe that I actually thought that I was really gonna move on without Drew in my life.

  I was trying to live by that saying that Derrick lived by, ‘you get over someone by meeting someone else.’ It didn’t work for me.

  Instead, I was gonna roll with, ‘if you love someone let them go, if they come back then they are for you’.

  “I haven’t heard from you in a minute, Drew,” I mumbled.

  “Yeah Nee, you wouldn’t take my calls when I was trying to call you.”

  “Well, you got at me pretty bad, dude, and I don’t stand for that. You can’t talk to me any kind of way and think it’s cool. I’ve never talked to you like that, Drew. I understand you having bad days and all but you misdirected your anger to me. That was so uncool.”

  “Yeah, you’re right Journee, and I’ll never do that again,” he said.

  “You promise?” I asked him.

  “I promise,” he said. “We friends?” he asked.

  “Ok but—”

  He cut me off. “No buts, Journee. Just come up here so we can talk face to face. Ok?”

  “Ok,” I said, just that simple. A simple okay would change my life forever.

  I told Drew that I would come visit him this Sunday after the wedding. After about three hours of talking to Drew, I decided to get my outfit together, because they had a strict dress code in the prison system.

  I texted my girls and told them I talked to Drew and that I was planning on going to see him. Najah texted back that she wanted to go visit him too. Chelsea decided that she’d come too. Kalena was mad that she wouldn’t be able to make it because she and Todd would be leaving on their week long cruise for their honeymoon to the Mexican Riviera. We were gonna join them, but Todd said no.

  He couldn’t take a joke. We were just playing, even though the girls and I travel to Cabo every other year. We love Cabo.

  Kalena suggested that Ashley could come in her place. I thought that was a good idea.

  I sat in place, unable to move and I just thought about everything that was going in my love life.

  The next thing I knew, I was texting Jason three words in my crackberry, “I hate you.” Then I pressed send.

  He replied back quickly, “I know. That means you love me.”

  Waterworks, again.

  I went to the bathroom to get the box of tissue that sits in the center of my bathroom vanity counter.

  I cried for what seemed to be an eternity. I didn’t quite understand it myself, but I knew that I was ready for change—a change that I could believe in.

  I figured I had better get prepared for this visit. I also thought it was a good idea to inform the girls of the strict dress code.

  I sent a message to the girls. Texting only gives you 140 characters. On BBM, anyone can write an essay.

  Remember: no blue jeans, no dark blue, no olive green, no strappy tops, no tube tops, no back out tops, no see-through tops, no tank tops, dresses can be only two inches above the knee, no cleavage, wear a slip under your dress if it’s thin, no underwire bras, no bobby pins, no metal on your clothes, and nothing tight fitting. I suggested they wear black and/or bright colors. You need your I.D.
and you can bring in one dollar bills up to $50. Everything else has to stay in the car, and you do have to go through a metal detector.

  Ashley messaged back, “what about my cellphone?”

  I replied, “It’s jail!!!!!!!!”