by B. M. Hardin
Joey.
I stopped directly behind his black Avalanche truck.
What the hell was he doing at Santana’s office?
I couldn’t park and get out of my car fast enough.
Literally, I ran inside of the building. I waved to the front desk help and walked passed her toward Santana’s office.
Without knocking, I simply opened the door.
~***~
“Baby, can you believe that the marketing guru that we hired gave us our money back? He says that he has to pass on our job. Something about having too many projects to squeeze us in,” Santana explained.
That day I walked into Santana’s office breathless.
Joey was sitting across from Santana and his business partners.
I was frozen in place as if I’d seen a ghost.
“Hey, is everything okay?” Santana had asked me.
It took a while and after stuttering, I was finally able to get out a complete sentence.
“Yes, I was coming to see if I could take you to lunch,” I’d told him.
I could feel Joey staring at me out of the corner of my eye but I refused to look at him.
“Well, I guess I don’t have a choice now do I. Oh, where are my manners, baby this is Joseph Moore. Mr. Moore this is my wife, Niveah,” Santana said introducing Joey and I.
Joey firmly shook my hand as I gave a small smile. I’d started to sweat and I knew that if I didn’t get out of that room, at that very moment, I was going to faint.
“I’ll wait for you in the car,” I’d said.
As soon as I was out the door, I sent Joey message after message calling him everything but a child of God.
The nerve of him! He’d always been crazy but damn! He had some explaining to do!
That same night, I’d managed to get away from Santana on a grocery store run and I was able to call and confront Joey. I wasn’t sure if Joey was going to answer but he did.
“What the hell are you thinking?” I’d asked him.
“I miss you,” was the first thing that Joey said to me. Finally, after hanging up on him a few times and then calling him back, Joey told me that one of Santana’s partners had reached out to him for some marketing help. They wanted to take their company to the next level and they’d heard that Joey was one of the best. Of course Joey knew exactly who Santana was and had followed through on the meetings and even accepted the job as a way of getting under my skin.
After begging and pleading, and promising to spend one night alone with him so that we could talk, he promised that in return that he would call Santana and his crew and turn down the job.
And he’d done just that.
Now I had to keep my end of the deal.
“Oh no, that’s too bad. Have you guys found someone else to do it?” I asked Santana out of true concern.
“Yea, we have a few others in mind,” was all that Santana said.
“Well baby, are you sure that it’s okay to drive to North Carolina tomorrow to see my brother’s new baby and my parents?”
After my parents were older and ready to settle down, they’d moved back to North Carolina. My brother and his family had also gone back to be closer to them. At the time of their departure, I was married to Tony and moving back just wasn’t an option, not that I’d even considered going back.
The only thing that had been there for me was now in Georgia…Joey.
But this was the only lie that I could use in hopes of getting off clean with Santana so that I could spend the night with Joey as I promised.
I couldn’t help but wonder what lie he would use.
“Are you sure you don’t want to wait until the weekend? That way I can go with you?” Santana asked, getting in bed behind me.
“No, I’ll be fine. It’s not that long of a drive and besides, this weekend I have a little something planned for you,” I pitched him a story, that I now had to follow through on.
That night, as Santana snored loudly behind me, I found it almost impossible to sleep.
I could tell that things were about to get messy, unless I got them under control.
Joey was trouble---I was sure of it.
The next day came almost too soon.
I saw Santana off to work and then prepared for my fake road trip. Joey and I had both agreed to go to one of our favorite hide away spots outside of town.
We had never been together all day and night before, so I didn’t exactly know what to expect.
“What lie did you tell her; about where you were going?” I asked Joey once we were alone in the honeymoon suite of our favorite Bead and Breakfast.
“Does it really matter what I told her?” Joey wanted to know.
“I saw her…twice,” I said to him.
If only I had a camera. The look on his face had to be as I imagined mine was when I walked in and seen him sitting in Santana’s office.
“She seems nice. And she’s a lawyer…which you failed to mention,” I blurted out in his direction.
“You never asked,” was Joey’s million dollar response.
His nonchalant attitude was starting to piss me off.
“So we both know that you’re not still with her to keep her away from your money; so what’s the real reason?” I asked him, with an attitude.
“I told you already,” Joey said, making himself comfortable on the king sized bed.
“No, you told me a lie…now I want you to tell me the truth.”
“Look Niveah, what’s with all the questions huh? The point is that I love you and I can’t see my life without you. So, tell me, what do you want me to do? Divorce her? Forget about the money, I’ll do it right now. Just tell me what I got to do to keep you here. I can’t lose you,” Joey preached to me.
I took a seat to take it all in.
Well, he’d never offered to go ahead and divorce her before.
But she seemed to be so nice. And Santana, what about Santana?
Maybe Joey was right…maybe I should have never married him. Maybe I should have never brought him into this mess.
Strangely, I started to think about the day that Santana proposed to me.
I never saw it coming, mostly because we’d only been seeing each other for about a year. I’d imagined that it would have taken longer, but it hadn’t.
He’d come by my place at the time, after work, just like he always had.
Though I was staying in a cozy two bedroom house at the time, I had the whole house laid out as though I was in a twenty-two bedroom mansion. Santana always complimented me on how beautiful it was and actually preferred to be at my place more than he was at his own.
He walked in the door, and headed to get out of his suit as he always did.
I headed to the kitchen to whip him up something to eat, but he offered to cook for me instead.
Santana was a decent cook. I guess he didn’t have a choice in the matter, growing up as an only child with a single mom, who worked herself to death…literally. She’d died only a month after Santana graduated from college. They said she just dropped dead one day at work.
Santana thought the world of her too. He was so grateful for all she’d done for him and he’d even said that I reminded him of her.
Anyway, that night, after Santana cooked for me, he asked me to run to the store to pick up some ice cream to go along with the apple pie that he had baking in the oven. I headed out to the car and as soon as I opened the door to take a seat, there it was---a small black box, with a big red bow.
My heart dropped as I picked up the box. I turned around to head back into the house, but was stopped dead in my tracks as I saw Santana already behind me on one knee.
“I know we haven’t been together that long, but I was hoping that we could be together forever. So, Niveah Leanna Williams…will you marry?”
And of course I said yes.
To be honest, I really thought that I was making the right decision. Despite my past and despite the fact that I was in love with and still screwing Joey, I c
ould tell that what Santana felt for me was real.
“Niveah, I’ll divorce her; I want you, I just want you,” Joey’s voice interrupted my thoughts of Santana.
Before I could answer, my phone began to ring and before I’d even picked it up, Joey’s started to ring as well.
We both looked at each other and as I answered mine, Joey stepped out of the room and answered his.
“Hey baby, are you there yet?” Santana asked.
“No, not yet, I left out a little later than I’d hoped. Now, I stopped to get a bite to eat. I’m not too far away though. What are you up to?” I asked Santana.
It seemed as though everything that came out of my mouth lately was a lie.
“Okay, well will you let me know when you get there? I should have come with you,” Santana’s voice sounded regretful.
“Yes baby, I’ll call you as soon as I’m there. I’ll be fine. I’ll be back before you know it. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
And with that, we said goodbye.
Joey still hadn’t returned so I head out to the sitting area of the suite.
His back was towards me, so I decided to stay quiet and listen.
“Yes Silvia how many times do you want me to say it?”
Well of course it was her.
“Look, I’ll be home tomorrow. I love you, kiss the girls for me,” Joey said and then hung up his phone.
He turned around in a hurry, and slightly jumped when he saw me standing there.
We both stood completely still for all of two minutes.
I was truly trying to figure out if he was worth it. If what we had was worth it.
“So what is it going to be?” Joey finally spoke.
Lord, this was going to be the hardest thing that I have ever had to do…
~**********~
Chapter Four
“Where were you?”
It was the next afternoon and I walked into our home to find Santana sitting there, instead of being at the office.
“What? You already know the answer to that question,” I said with a playful smirk.
I’d enjoyed spending the night with Joey. We’d talked all night long and it even felt good to go to sleep in his arms for the first time. But the reality was that he belonged to someone else, and so did I. In the end, I told him to stay married to his wife. I also told him that I owed it to Santana to see if we could make this marriage work. Long story short, I told Joey that whatever we had---was over.
It just had to be. Joey wasn’t the happiest about my decision, and he still said that I would be his but as long as I didn’t cut him out of my life, completely, and after about the third blow job, he said that he’d wait for me. He said that he loved me enough to let me do whatever it was that I thought that I needed to do but he also said that he knew that one day we were going to be together. We agreed to keep in touch, but no more sex and sneaking around.
“You’re lying. You forgot to call me back last night and when you didn’t I called your parents---and your brother. They all said that they hadn’t seen you; nor had you even mentioned to them that you were coming to visit. So again, where were you?” Santana asked.
Damn it. I forgot to call.
Joey barely gave me any breathing room all night. Of course he was overly excited about spending the entire night together. With all of the love and affection that he was throwing my way, calling Santana back, simply slipped my mind. We both completely ignored our phones all night long and this morning, they were both dead. We were prepared to take the heat from our spouses on behalf of our lack of communication. We’d even practiced our lies, but I wasn’t prepared for what Santana had just said.
Santana just wasn’t the snooping type. He never questioned me; until lately. He wasn’t big on prying or acting as though he was an agent in the FBI. Never, not even once did it even cross my mind that he would reach out to my family for confirmation of my whereabouts; that is unless I’d been missing for quite some time. I guess a few hours for him were long enough.
“Why did you call them?” I folded my arms across my chest. I was trying to figure out something to say or an explanation so I figured that questioning him would buy me a little time.
“Don’t play with me Niveah! Where in the hell were you!”
Santana was livid! Never had I seen him so angry.
I opened my mouth to speak but he beat me to it.
“Who is he?”
Was it that obvious? I’d hid it for almost two years now. I guess here lately I’d gotten just a tad bit sloppy.
“What? What are you talking about? I was in North Carolina,” I tried to sound believable.
Santana just stared at me but didn’t say another word. He’d called my family so I knew he knew that I had lied about visiting them.
Maybe I could say that I went to visit an old friend.
I just had to come up with something; my marriage depended on it.
“Santana,” I started but he shook his head.
He stood up with a bag and pushed passed me out the front door.
Just my luck!
Right when I decide to do things the right way, it may be just a little too late.
I ran out the door to try to catch Santana but he was gone.
Once upstairs, I charged up my phone and as soon as I was able to, I called Santana over and over again, but he didn’t answer.
All I needed was a chance to explain myself. All I needed was a chance to make things right. I couldn’t lose him. I wouldn’t lose him. Somehow I had to fix this because divorcing me…just wasn’t an option.
~***~
“Have you had your period?”
I was on the phone with Joey. I was telling him about what happened between Santana and I.
It had been a few days and Santana still hadn’t come home.
“What?”
“Have you had your period? I’ve been sick to my stomach the last few days. The same way that I felt when she was pregnant with the girls; and I know for a fact that she isn’t pregnant…if she is, it isn’t by me,” Joey explained.
I tried to think back to the last time that I’d had a cycle.
Oh no, I couldn’t remember having a period last month…or the month before that. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d taken one of the Morning After Pills from the drug store. As many of them that I’d purchased throughout the year, I should have been able to claim them as an expense on my taxes!
No, this could not be happening---again.
And of course, if I was, there was no way to know for sure which man would be the father of my child; well except for the fact that Joey was feeling ill.
But I hadn’t felt any symptoms. I was feeling just fine; health-wise.
I was mind boggled as I tried to sort through dates and timelines inside of my head.
Suddenly, I had an idea.
“Well, Joey, I’m not pregnant. I haven’t missed a cycle,” I lied to Joey.
We talked for a minute more and then I hurried out of the house to the drug store.
There was only one way to find out for sure.
I swear, I felt like a murderer on trial, awaiting the jury’s decision, as I waited on the results of the pregnancy test.
Briefly, I remembered the first time that I’d found out that I was pregnant.
I was still married to my first husband Tony at the time, but I had just gotten involved with Joey. Though I’d always wanted a baby, I knew that it just wasn’t the right time. And Tony had made it clear that even a baby wouldn’t make him stay with me, so I did what I had to do; Tony had performed the abortion himself.
The second pregnancy was actually in the beginning of my relationship with Santana. Though Joey had still been in the mix, I was somewhat a little more excited this time around. I told Joey, hoping that it would make him leave his wife, but it hadn’t. Walking away from Santana, at the time, would have been a piece of cake, but what was I walking away to? Santana and I had
only had sex a handful of times and I was positive that it was Joey’s, but with Joey’s inconsistencies and the fact that he still wouldn’t leave his wife, I found myself at the nearest abortion clinic..
I’d always said that I would never do it. I would never lie on a table and let someone take away something so precious and something that God had blessed me with. But I hadn’t had much of a choice…neither had my sister.
I remembered Mama forcing my oldest sister Shante to have an abortion when she was only fifteen years old. She cried and cried, but Mama said that she would thank her for it later. I was young at the time, but I couldn’t understand why anyone would do such a thing. It went against everything that we heard in church on Sunday’s, still yet Mama pulled my sobbing sister through those glass doors that rainy day as my brother and I sat in the car and waited for them. We were all sworn to secrecy from telling my Daddy, but years later, when Shante started having fertility problems, Daddy found out the horrible secret. To this day, Shante blamed Mama for not being able to have her own children. She and her husband were forced to adopt, but she said it just wasn’t the same. In my opinion, my sister had never forgiven Mama for it and I believed that her hatred for our mother was partially the reason why she’d married so young and why she’d agreed to move away. But Mama, not even once, apologized for what she’d done. She’d always said that sometimes in life, mistakes, caused us to make some hard decisions; ones that at the end of the day we might not be too proud of. And I could definitely relate. I’d always wondered if God would eventually give me the same punishment that he’d given my sister…I guess I was about to find out.
I reached for the test on the edge of the sink.
My eyes became as big as golf balls as I read the results.
Pregnant…I was pregnant!
I couldn’t believe it, well, in a way I could.
I sat in shock for a few more minutes. I touched my stomach and allowed myself to smile. There was no way I was having another abortion. There was just no way that I was going through that again.
And I knew just what I was going to do.
After thinking for a little while longer, I decided that I wasn’t going to tell Joey about the baby. It was the only way if I wanted my plan that I was scheming up to work.