Midlife Crisis

by La Jill Hunt

  “He must be something. Y’all have been dating for almost six months now. What’s the deal?” Nivea asked.

  “Six months is not that long,” Janelle told them.

  “For you, six months is an eternity.” Nivea laughed. “You know you rarely date a guy longer than forty-five days. The poor men never stand a chance. I’m actually kind of proud of you.”

  As much as she hated to admit it, her friends were right. It had been a while since she had dated one man consistently, but that was mainly because Janelle didn’t have the patience to deal with most of the bullshit that comes with dating. Most of the guys that approached her were too boring, too broke, too short, too skinny, too many kids, too needy, or simply just too much and she just wasn’t attracted to them. Janelle liked a certain type of guy, and unfortunately for her, there weren’t that many of her type around. Janelle had pretty much gotten to the point where she was ready to stop dating altogether until she met Jarvis Baldwin six months earlier.

  Jarvis was smart, funny, stylish, and charismatic. He was established in his career as a guidance counselor, and Janelle loved how passionate he was about kids. At six foot one, two hundred forty pounds, his frame was perfect to compliment her five foot nine, curvaceous, two hundred–pound body. He was clean cut, well dressed, intelligent, and attractive. To top it off, Jarvis was consistent, and he knew how to plan and execute a date, something most men she met had no knowledge of. Jarvis wasn’t clingy, either. They texted one another once or twice a day and only talked maybe once a week. Janelle enjoyed her freedom and peace of mind and hated dealing with men who needed to call or text all day and night. She liked Jarvis and enjoyed spending time with him.

  “I think he is wonderful. And he’s fine.” Natalie shrugged.

  “She is right. He is fine,” Nivea agreed.

  “Since when did you two become the Jarvis Baldwin fan club?” Janelle asked.

  “I’m just wondering what the deal is with the two of you,” Nivea commented.

  “There is no deal. Why does it have to be a deal? We date, we hang out, and we chill, that’s it. We’re friends.”

  “So, do you like him?” Natalie asked.

  “Of course I like him. Do you think I would be dating him for this long if I didn’t like him? Come on. Y’all know me better than that.”

  “Do you consider him more than just a friend?” Nivea asked.

  “Hold on. When you say ‘hang out and chill,’ does that mean what I think it means?” Natalie asked.

  Nivea nodded. “If you think it means they are fucking, then yes.”

  At the sound of the word fucking, all three nail technicians, who had been silently working on their feet, began laughing, confirming what Janelle knew all along: they had been listening to this conversation.

  “Why did you say it like that?” Janelle frowned.

  “Okay, they are screwing, having sex—”

  “We are dating.” Janelle interrupted Nivea. “We go bowling, to the movies, dinner. . . .”

  “Then you come home and have sex. It’s all good. You are grown. It’s okay.” Nivea laughed.

  “If I had a man that fine, I would have sex with him too. That’s for damn sure,” Natalie told them. “That brother is fine. Morris Chestnut in The Best Man fine.”

  “Wait a sec, Nat. He is good looking, but he ain’t that fine,” Nivea corrected her.

  “Naw, he ain’t that fine,” Janelle agreed. “He ain’t Denzel in Training Day fine.”

  “No, and he definitely ain’t Channing Tatum in Magic Mike fine either.” Natalie laughed.

  “Or Alex Rodriguez in Magic Mike fine!” Nivea laughed so hard that her foot slipped into the water and it splashed all over the nail tech. The woman shrieked and quickly grabbed a towel, handing it to Nivea.

  “Y’all have got issues.” Janelle shook her head.

  “True, but the point is, for the first time in a very long time, you seem to be happy. And I’m happy for you. But I need for you to keep things in perspective and realize that there will come a point when you are going to have to decide if you want more from this.”

  Janelle sighed and thought about what her friends were saying, which, oddly enough, was right. Jarvis was a great guy; actually, he was an amazing guy. But even though they had been dating for a while, Janelle wasn’t sure if a relationship was something she wanted, let alone if Jarvis wanted one. He didn’t bring it up, and neither did she. She was comfortable the way things were.

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever really want anything more than what we have right now.” Janelle quickly realized she had spoken the words out loud.

  “What the hell are you talking about, Janelle? Isn’t that the point of dating? To connect with someone on a deeper level and discover if they are your soul mate and fall in love?” Nivea asked.

  “Uhhhh, no.” Janelle shook her head. “The purpose of dating is to have some sort of social interaction with the opposite sex so that you get to know one another and discover if you like them well enough that you would be willing to sleep with them.”

  Nivea and Natalie looked at her like they were abhorred by what she had just said, and so did the nail technicians.

  “You’re gonna mess this up,” Natalie said.

  “There is nothing to mess up!” Janelle told her.

  “One day, you are truly gonna have to let your guard down and allow yourself to fall in love.” Nivea shook her head.

  “You act like I’ve never been in love before,” Janelle told her.

  “Yeah, that’s the problem. You still is.” Nivea sighed and sat back in her chair.

  Janelle couldn’t believe what Nivea was implying. She glanced over at her best friend but didn’t say a word. Nivea didn’t understand her situation. No one did. But it was her life, and if she was happy being in a noncommittal situation with Jarvis, then that’s all that mattered.

  * * *

  Later that night, after several hours of retail therapy and dinner with her friends, Janelle was relaxing on her sofa, flipping through TV channels, when her phone rang.

  “I wanna see you.” A deep voice greeted her after she answered.

  “No.”

  “Why not? Don’t you wanna see me?”

  “No.”

  “Just for a few minutes. Come on, Nelly.”

  “No.”

  “I’m coming over to your house.”

  “No, you’re not. Besides, I’m not going to be there. As a matter of fact, I’m not home now.”

  “You’re a liar. I hear the television in the background.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’m at home.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  “You’re gonna be disappointed. Don’t come over here. I mean it.”

  “Fine, then go where I can see you.”

  Janelle hung up the phone, threw on a pair of yoga pants, a T-shirt, and sneakers, grabbed her duffel bag, and headed to the 24-hour gym near her home. After putting her belongings into a locker, she stretched for about five minutes. It was one o’clock in the morning, and the gym was pretty empty. She put in her ear buds and climbed on one of the treadmills.

  Just as she began walking, a man got on the machine beside her. Janelle walked for a few minutes and then sped her machine up. The man beside her matched her speed and continued to do so each time she did. Finally, after about forty-five minutes, Janelle stopped her machine and climbed off. She walked over to the water fountain, and the man followed. She took a drink of water, turned to him, stared for a second, and finally said, “Stalker.”

  “Sexy.” He smiled.

  “What do you want?”

  “You.”

  Janelle walked away, and he followed. The two found seats in the empty, dimly lit area of the gym’s closed juice bar.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  “I’m good. Work’s good, the family’s good, everything is good.” Janelle sighed.

  “What about your man Jarred? Is he good?”

  �
�His name is Jarvis, and you know that. And he is good too.”

  “He may be good, but I’m better, and you know it.”

  “That’s what you think, but I know different.” Janelle shrugged. She looked around the gym to see if anyone was watching them.

  “Stop being so paranoid.”

  “I don’t have a reason to be paranoid. You do.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  “You’re not worried about being caught?”

  “Caught what? Talking to a friend at the gym? That’s all that we’re doing. There’s nothing wrong with that. But even if I did get ‘caught,’ as you call it, seeing you makes it well worth it. I love you.” He reached over and ran his fingers along her neck and smiled at her.

  For a second, Janelle swooned. She knew he loved her, and she loved him too. Love had nothing to do with it, though. They had established their love years ago. She wanted to see him just as much as he wanted to see her, which was why she even came to a place where she knew he would find her. But the fact that he had to sneak and see her at the gym at one o’clock in the morning just confirmed the fact that even being friends was wrong. She reminded herself that she was not Olivia and he was not Fitz, and they were not characters in a Shonda Rhimes television show. She snapped back to reality and stood up.

  “Goodbye, Titus.”

  Sylvia

  Sylvia was lying across her bed when she heard the doorbell ring. She sat up and saw that it was after one o’clock in the afternoon and she had slept most of the day away, something she had been doing for nearly a week. It was as if she were in a fog that she couldn’t get out of. She knew she had completed her daily routines of taking Peyton to school and picking her up, and even making dinner a few times, but Sylvia couldn’t remember the details. All she wanted to do was sleep. It was the only time she didn’t feel any type of emotion. When she was awake, she had to deal with anger, hurt, and confusion, especially when Garry, who was the cause of it all, tried calling her. She still hadn’t replaced her broken cell phone, and when she ignored his calls to the house phone, he called Peyton’s phone and asked to speak with her. She told him time and time again that she needed time to think, but he insisted that they needed to talk this out. Sylvia refused, saying that she had nothing to say. Her life was one huge ball of confusion, and sleep seemed to be the only way she got any peace in her life.

  “Hi, Aunt Nelle,” she heard Peyton’s voice say as the front door opened.

  “Hey, sweetie, where is your mom?”

  It was Janelle. Sylvia hadn’t talked to her sister at all, so she had no clue what was going on. When she heard her voice, she remembered the girls’ day she was supposed to have with her yesterday.

  “She’s in her room. She’s not feeling well,” Peyton replied.

  “Is she okay? What’s wrong? Syl, I’m coming up,” Janelle called up the stairs.

  Sylvia jumped up and ran into the bathroom. She quickly washed her face and brushed her teeth, catching a reflection of herself in the mirror. Her eyes seemed glossed over, but she was glad they were no longer swollen from all the tears she had cried over the past few days. Last night was the first night that she hadn’t cried herself to sleep. It was as if she no longer had any more tears inside, just an empty ache inside her chest. She brushed her shoulder-length hair, which was standing all over her head, into a ponytail and wrapped her bathrobe around her. When she came out, Janelle was sitting on her bed, talking to Peyton.

  “What’s wrong with you?” her sister asked.

  “Migraine,” Sylvia answered. It wasn’t a lie. Her head had been aching for days, right along with her heart.

  “I’ve been calling you. You didn’t call or show up yesterday, and then when I didn’t see y’all at church, I figured something was wrong. Where is Garry? He didn’t come home this weekend?”

  Sylvia knew she was going to have to tell her sister what was going on, and she decided to just go ahead and get it over with. “Peyton, go watch TV,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Peyton looked at her mom and then her aunt, and slowly walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.

  “What’s going on? What’s wrong?” Janelle asked.

  “There was an accident last week,” Sylvia said.

  “An accident? With who? Garry?”

  “A woman that Garry knows was in an accident. She . . . she was killed.” Sylvia sat on the bed. Her voice was trembling.

  “Oh, wow. Did you know her?” Janelle asked.

  “No, I didn’t know her. I never met her.”

  “Okay, so what happened? Why are you so upset, Syl?” Janelle moved closer to her.

  “This woman and Garry were friends, and he . . .” The tears that Sylvia thought she had no more of suddenly reappeared and began falling. She could feel Janelle’s arms around her.

  “Sylvia, no,” Janelle said. “Please don’t tell me this woman and Garry . . .”

  Sylvia nodded and collapsed into her sister’s arms. Janelle held her close and rocked her, the same way she had when their mother passed away. Although Sylvia was the older sister, Janelle always seemed to be the stronger one emotionally. She was always nonchalant and guarded when it came to love and relationships with anyone.

  “Syl, it’s okay. Don’t cry. I’m so sorry,” Janelle told her. “I can’t believe this.”

  “Believe it. It’s true.”

  “And now she’s dead?” Janelle asked.

  “Yes.” Sylvia sat up and wiped her eyes. “But their daughter is alive.”

  “Whose daughter? What do you mean ‘their’?”

  “Well, apparently, in addition to his having a mistress, Garry also has a daughter named Jordan that he’s never mentioned.”

  “Shit, this is crazy,” Janelle hissed. “Sylvia, what are you gonna do?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been asking myself that same question for the past four days, and I don’t have an answer yet,” Sylvia sniffed.

  “Where is Garry now? What is he saying?”

  “I guess he is with his daughter. I haven’t really talked to him. I was going to. I mean, I tried, but I guess I was too angry. I didn’t want to hear what he had to say.”

  “How old is his daughter?”

  Sylvia couldn’t help but laugh because she knew as soon as Janelle heard the answer, her sister would go off. “Fifteen.”

  “Fifteen? What the hell? How the hell does he have a fifteen-year-old daughter? You all have been married nineteen years.”

  “I know,” Sylvia said.

  “Peyton just turned seventeen.”

  “I know.”

  “That’s a secret he’s been keeping for sixteen years. It takes nine months to have a baby! That’s a long-ass time to keep a secret!”

  “I know.”

  “Where is—”

  Janelle was interrupted by the doorbell ringing. They both listened as Peyton ran down the steps to answer it.

  “Who is it, Peyton?” Sylvia called out.

  “It’s Uncle K,” Peyton yelled up the steps.

  “Did you tell Kenny?” Janelle asked.

  Sylvia shook her head.

  Kenneth Bell, Sylvia’s business partner, walked into the bedroom. He and Sylvia had been friends for years, attended the same college, and worked for the same public relations firm until they ventured off on their own a few years ago and started their own company, Concepts Unlimited. With Sylvia’s creativity and Kenneth’s technical abilities, along with their contacts in business and the community, Concepts Unlimited became an instant success. Their clientele was varied and included everything from a premier wine and beverage company to a teenage entrepreneur who had just started his own cologne line.

  “You just walk into someone’s bedroom without knocking?” Janelle asked.

  “What are you doing here?” Sylvia asked, wiping her eyes.

  “I came to do something you haven’t been doing the past week—work,” Kenny said, reaching into the leather bag on his s
houlder and pulling out manila folders. “We have a meeting with a new client in the morning. The director of Brittany’s Place.”

  “Shit, I forgot about that too.” Sylvia shook her head. The meeting had been scheduled for weeks, and she was supposed to have several ideas ready to discuss with the director and board of trustees of the home for mentally disabled adults.

  “I guess that means you haven’t worked on any ideas for the fundraising campaign for the hospital either, huh?” Kenny shook his head.

  “I’m sorry, Kenny. I have a lot going on right now,” Sylvia told him.

  “And I don’t?” he asked.

  “What do you have going on other than juggling your multiple women?” Janelle asked.

  “Are you still mad because I won’t include you in my rotation, Janelle?”

  “Negro, please.” Janelle rolled her eyes.

  Sylvia couldn’t help smiling at the two of them. They always went at it. If she didn’t know any better, she would think there was some underlying sexual tension between her friend and business partner and her younger sister. Both had always assured her that nothing was further from the truth.

  “Whatever you got going on is gonna have to wait. We got too much work to do,” Kenny said, handing her the folders and then pulling out his laptop and opening it.

  “What’s wrong with you? Don’t you see that now is not the time for this?” Janelle asked, “You barged in here while we were having a private, personal conversation like it’s nothing.”

  “Fine. What’s going on? Tell me so I can fix it and we can get this work done. What is it now? The florist you were trying to hire for the wedding can’t get the orchids you wanted, or is the jazz quartet booked up on that weekend? I get it, this event is major, and I realize that it’s a milestone, but this business is my life, and the same way we worked hard to start it is the same way we have to continue to work hard to keep it.”

  “Kenny,” Janelle said. “Hold up—”

  “No, Janelle, your sister is becoming consumed with all of this wedding stuff, and the wedding is months away.”

  “Kenny—”

  “Garry and you have—”