Brickhouse

by Rita Ewing

  “He got to me too.” Nona bounced back against the seat. “I need to speak to the commissioner. I need to know what he was starting to say when Reverend Watkins stopped him cold. There’s something going on.” She turned away from Allen and stared out the window as if what she needed was just beyond the glass. “I called the commissioner’s office to get his cell number, but his assistant wasn’t giving up any information.”

  “Do you think the commissioner will tell you anything?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. But I have to try.” She faced him. “I won’t lose Brickhouse. I’m ready to go toe-to-toe with Reverend Watkins. We’ll see who’s standing at the end of this fight.”

  In his chest, his heart pounded faster. In his mind, images played forward like a movie–images of what would happen if Reverend Watkins carried through his threats. It would begin with the media–newspapers and possibly even television–with the sensational story: Popular Health Club Under Investigation for Drug Trafficking.

  Then the police would come. The visions were clear–Nona being dragged down the brick steps of her club and weeping as they twisted her wrists into the handcuffs, and Kelly standing behind her mother, screeching, “Please don’t take my Mommy away …”

  “Nona.” He almost screamed her name and she frowned. “I’m sorry,” he continued. “But I was just thinking. Maybe we shouldn’t do this. Maybe we shouldn’t fight.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “I know how you feel. I didn’t say anything in the meeting, but I was fuming. I wanted to strangle that man.”

  “So what are you saying now?”

  He twisted in the seat to look into her eyes, but he couldn’t. Instead he focused on the space over her shoulder. “We’ve known for a long time that Reverend Watkins has some kind of political machine behind him. He will fight you–”

  “I’m a fighter too.”

  “But Reverend Watkins plays dirty.”

  Nona shrugged. “So what? It’s not like he has anything on me.”

  Allen swallowed. “He doesn’t need anything. You know how he operates. He didn’t have anything on Yellowstone Cable, yet he organized that boycott by saying they didn’t employ blacks. Even with proof, they couldn’t prove it to the community because of what Watkins said. It cost Yellowstone millions. And he didn’t back off until they paid him.”

  “That’s why we have to fight. Because of the type of man he is. You know there’s more to this than a mall and rezoning. I’d bet all my bank accounts that there’s something big in this for that son of a–”

  “Nona,” he interrupted her. “I agree with everything you’re saying, and I would encourage you to go all the way if I thought we stood a chance. But going against Reverend Watkins, even if we win, we could lose.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He took a breath, hating his next words. Knowing that if it wasn’t for him, Nona could stand and fight and keep her business. But the truth was, she’d never be able to win this battle, not with what the reverend had on him. He exhaled. “Reverend Watkins is all about dirty tricks. I can’t imagine what he’d do, but I don’t want anything to affect … Kelly.”

  Her eyes widened. He had hit his mark–point blank. If he were playing darts, he’d have won the game. But he had never felt more like a loser.

  “What could he possibly do?” she whispered.

  He kept his eyes away from her. “I can’t even imagine, but you know the reverend …”

  In their silence, he prayed that her imagination would take her to the worst places. He hoped she’d remember the newspaper headlines involving the reverend and his scandalous behavior in the past and how he always used the lowest common denominator to his advantage.

  He kept his eyes straight ahead, staring at the back of the front seat. “Nona, you don’t have to lose everything. If we walk away, maybe we can negotiate a better deal–with enough money for you to open another Brickhouse someplace else.” He paused. “Like maybe in Los Angeles. The West Coast is fitness-crazed. Brickhouse would be huge out there.”

  Her eyes were wide. “You’re talking about starting all over … in Los Angeles … just because Reverend Watkins wants me out of here?”

  “Harlem East was his plan. He’s going to do whatever he has to do to make it work. He’s going to stop whomever he has to stop to get his way. Think about the policemen he’s had fired, or the city officials who have fallen because of him, or the men who’ve dared to go against his candidates in elections.”

  Nona closed her eyes. “This is unbelievable.”

  For the first time, he looked at her. “Staying here in a fight with Reverend Watkins won’t be good for Kelly, but Los Angeles could be. She’d be closer … to her father.”

  Nona’s groan twisted his insides. Only the image of Reverend Watkins in his light blue suit, leaning against the bathroom sink with a smirk on his acne-covered face, forced him to continue. “Think about it, Nona. LA would be a great market for us. It’s the fitness capital of the universeand the top market for your books and tapes. And as Kelly approaches her teenage years, it will be good for her to be closer to her father.”

  Allen leaned back in the seat, praying that he’d said enough.

  He waited for Nona to speak, but she stared out the window. He wanted to know what she was thinking. He needed to know that he’d ended her battle cry. But he remained silent, allowing his words to marinate in her mind.

  The SUV slowed in the Brickhouse parking lot and had barely stopped before Nona leaped from the car. He almost ran behind her, but then relaxed as he shut the car door. Allen stayed on the club steps and watched Ray drive the car to the side of the building. Then he lumbered inside. He wanted to go to Nona, to calm her down, to assure her. But staying away was best right now.

  Inside, Allen swept past the patrons and staff members who waved or asked for a moment of his time. He rushed to his office and leaned against the closed door.

  His nightmare had come to life. He had destroyed Nona. Even if none of Reverend Watkins’s threats came to fruition, even if Nona decided she wouldn’t fight, her business as it was today would never be the same. Because of him.

  His heart wanted to cry, but his eyes were dry with the painful knowledge that he was the bullet Reverend Watkins would shoot through Nona’s heart. He reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out the Ziploc bag filled with pills.

  He hated these drugs. He shook one of the red capsules from the package.

  He hated the reverend. He twirled the capsule between his fingers.

  He hated himself. He swallowed the capsule without water–over the years, he’d become good at that.

  He sat at the desk and closed his eyes. The seconds ticked to minutes. The contents of the red pill flowed into his blood, easing the aches, relieving the pain. His body was free from the hurt. It was only then that his heart released his tears.

  eleven

  Leila glanced at the telephone again and bounced onto the couch. “What is taking Nona so long to call?” She couldn’t wait to hear how the zoning meeting had gone.

  She sorted through the mail–the bunch of catalogues on the foyer table. Shawn had all their bills and important papers sent to accountants and lawyers. In the beginning of their marriage, she’d thought it was so sweet when Shawn said he didn’t want her bothered with anything more than being his wife. But in the passing years that had spread the wedge between them, Leila realized just how precarious a situation this put her in.

  Leila pulled out the Victoria’s Secret catalogue and flipped through the pages. She stopped at the centerfold. The model stood, stretched across the two pages, in red stilettos, legs spread wide and hands on her hips, in a red lace and leather half-cup bra and matching garter thong.

  Leila smiled. The photo transported her back to the time when she’d bought a similar set at Bloomingdale’s. Her grin widened–she’d never be able to wear that outfit again. Not after the way it had been ripped from h
er body.

  She sank into the full cushions on the family room couch and shivered when she recalled the moments of that day, two years ago. She had taken a chance, showing up at her friend’s apartment unannounced and unplanned. She’d never done that before, but on that day, she needed him.

  “Leila, how did you get up here?” he had said, his lips stiff with annoyance. “We weren’t supposed to meet today.”

  She tightened the belt of her Burberry trench coat. “I know we didn’t plan this, honey, but I was dying to see you.” Then she lowered her voice. “You’re not going to leave me standing in the hallway, are you?”

  “I don’t like surprises.”

  “I know.” She tried to peek inside his penthouse apartment through the barely opened door. She was relieved; if he had company, he would have never answered. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve been shopping at Bloomingdale’s and I bought something I wanted to show you. Come on, let me in,” she whispered. “Someone might see us and then … what would Shawn say?”

  He rolled his eyes but stepped aside, allowing her to saunter into the apartment. The heels of her pumps sank into the deep pile of the carpet.

  “I don’t like this, Leila.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I could have been … busy.”

  “You’re not going to stay mad, are you?” She followed him into the living room and stood as he flopped onto the white leather couch. He tossed the newspaper he’d had in his hand onto the table.

  “Oh, come on. I’m here now.” She looked around the massive space that combined his living and dining room areas. The apartment was much neater than last time–no clothes strewn across the chairs, every trinket and ornament selected by his designer in its proper place. “And it doesn’t look like I interrupted anything.”

  He grunted as he picked up the remote and switched on the plasma television that covered the wall above the fireplace. P. Diddy filled the screen, and music blasted through the room’s surround-sound speakers.

  “Well, if you’re going to ignore me …”

  He kept his eyes plastered on the TV.

  “Okay, I’ll leave. But first I want you to see this.” She untied the belt on her trench coat, opened it wide, positioned her hands on her waist, and sucked in her stomach until every one of her ribs poked through her skin. “Do you still want me to leave?”

  He struggled to hold back his surprise, but it didn’t work. Leila smiled with him as she looked at his lap and noticed his growing sign of pleasure. “I told you–I bought something that I wanted to show you.”

  He laughed as he jumped up, stripped the coat from her, and tossed it onto the floor. “You want to show me something? Baby, now I got something to show you.”

  She giggled in the seconds it took him to drop his sweat pants to his ankles and reach for one of the condoms that he kept in the crystal candy dish on the side table. A moment later he had her bent over the couch and pushed her thong aside before he entered her.

  “You wanna show me something, baby?” he asked as he squeezed her breasts through the leather and lace.

  “Oh, yes,” she moaned.

  “Show me.”

  She shuddered as he pounded against her, squeezing her, awakening every nerve inside. She tried to crawl from his grasp, but he pulled her closer. Her groans grew louder as she matched his rhythm. He gripped her waist tighter–shemoaned. He moved faster–she screamed. When he leaned over and sucked on the tip of her ear, she called out his name.

  Her cries filled the room and mixed with the music still bellowing from the television. She glanced at the screen, and Ludacris moved toward her, bending down as if he were speaking to her.

  “When I move you move, just like that …” Leila sang to herself.

  She almost laughed, but couldn’t. She was traveling to the edge of ecstasy. She squeezed her eyes and tried to hold her breath, wanting to savor every feeling in that moment.

  It was always a wonder to her–the way they shrieked together. She never finished this way with her husband.

  “Oh, my,” Leila had said over and over. But before she could catch her breath, he lifted her above his shoulder. With just two steps, they reached the balcony, and he slid open the door.

  The October wind whipped across the twenty-sixth floor space. “It’s a bit chilly out here,” she said as pimples rose on her skin.

  “Don’t worry, baby, you’ll be hot in a minute.” He unhooked her bra and then tossed it over the railing.

  “Hey.”

  He laughed. “What’s wrong, baby?” He smashed his mouth against hers, bruising her bottom lip. When he pulled back, he said, “I’ll buy you another one if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “I’m not worried about anything.” She wrapped her arms around his neck.

  He pushed her against the balcony’s banister and lifted her legs. In one motion, he yanked the garter thong from around her, ripping it into two pieces.

  She grabbed the thong before he could toss it over the side. “I’ll keep this. A memento.”

  He twisted her around, and she clutched the railing as he smashed against her back. They moved together as if they were meant to be.

  Below, Central Park sat in its grandeur, and she smiled even wider between her mutters of pleasure. Shawn had taken the kids to Central Park that afternoon. It had been scheduled–their one family afternoon a month to keep up appearances for the children. But fifteen minutes before they’d planned to leave, she’d told Shawn he’d have to take the kids alone–she had important plans. He’d arguedshe’d done what he’d always done … she stomped out in the middle of his words. As she raced her Mercedes into the city, there was only one word to describe what she felt–power.

  Now she whimpered with glee at that memory and what her friend was doing to her. She searched the hundreds of ant-sized humans that scampered through Central Park below. Of course, she wouldn’t be able to see Shawn and her children this high above the city’s oasis. But still, she entertained the vision that Shawn would somehow look up and see his wife being taken by his teammate, his partner, his boy. One of his best friends making his wife have orgasm after orgasm. Those thoughts quickened the spasms that began in her center and released her into the arms of bliss.

  They had finished that afternoon in his two-person steam shower. She could almost feel the body glove he had used to massage the Pearblossom soap into her skin until every inch of her was covered in lather. It had felt so good, he felt so good …

  “Leila, what are you doing?”

  It took her a moment to drag back to the present, to leave the Fifth Avenue penthouse, to return to Alpine, New Jersey, and to remember the eyes staring at her–the eyes of Shawn Lomax. She wanted to close her eyes and return to that day, the last time she’d been with him. Her husband’s teammate had left Leila and New York without even a phone call when the Knicks traded him one week later.

  “I said, what are you doing?” he repeated in the tone that reminded her of someone dragging their fingernails across a chalkboard.

  “I was resting.”

  His eyes moved from her face past her torso to her crotch, where her hand rested inside her jeans. He shook his head. “Whatever.”

  Years ago, she would have been embarrassed, her husband finding her like this. But the years of tears that she’d poured into her pillow made her apologize for very little these days.

  “Have you seen my keys?” he asked.

  “No, but where are you going? We have Shawn Jr.'s parent-teacher conference this evening.”

  “Oh, I forgot.”

  “I scheduled it around you. You said you’d be free tonight.”

  The way he glared at her, she wondered if he remembered any of the reasons that they’d married. But the disgust that contorted his face reminded her that he had long ago forgotten.

  He said, “You’re going to have to cover for me.”

  “I always cover for you.”

  “So then you k
now how to do it.”

  She slammed the pillow against the couch. “Damn it, Shawn, I am so tired of–”

  “What are you tired of, Leila? Tired of living larger than a queen? Tired of sitting on your butt all day while I work?”

  “Work? You play with a basketball all day, Shawn. Don’t get it twisted.”

  “I don’t see you adding any dollars to our bank account.”

  “Shawn, I don’t want to fight with you.” She inhaled. “I’ve been trying–”

  “You’ve been trying to do what?”

  “I’ve been trying,” she began slowly, “to make things better between us. Shawn, I want our marriage to be better.” She reached for his hand, but he pulled away. “I just want to talk.”

  “I don’t have anything to say, and I know you won’t say anything I want to hear.” He held up his hand, stopping her protest. “Look, I don’t have time. I’ve got to go.”

  She lifted herself from the couch. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m a grown man, Leila.”

  “You’re a married man, Shawn.” She felt like a silly hypocrite before the words could even fall off her tongue.

  He rattled the keys he found on the entertainment center. “I’m outta here.” He didn’t look her way as he trotted from the room.

  She sat and held her head in her hands as she heard the garage door open. She stayed in place as the engine on the Hummer roared when he pulled it out onto the street and then away … away from her.

  She rammed her fist against her leg. She had shown herself weak. She didn’t know why she’d said that she was trying. Shawn didn’t care about her. She had served her purpose–helped to set him up as the family man when he entered the NBA. She was the requisite gorgeous wife, wholater delivered two children for him, and stood by his side whenever the portrait of the perfect family was called for.

  But now that he was in his thirteenth year and still holding a multimillion dollar contract, her role had diminished–to almost nothing, as far as Shawn was concerned. She was still around, living in this house as his wife because it was cheaper for him that way.