by Candice Dow
She tossed the comforter back and jumped out of the bed. While mumbling under her breath, she scampered around the room. It was obvious she was offended by my stance, but I wasn’t in an appeasing mood. Finally, she stood in front of me with her high heels and low-rise Capri jeans. With her huge lime-and-brown Louis Vutton bag propped on her shoulder, she put her hand on her hip.
“I’m ready.”
The wrong head throbbed and I said, “I hope you’re not upset with me.”
“It’s okay. I just want to get some rest.”
“I’m sorry.”
I asked for a hug and she half-heartedly obliged. I kidded, “You can do better than that.”
“Look, I’m tired. Can we go?”
Her irritation decreased my obligation. It meant that she thought I was a jerk, so she wouldn’t be blowing my phone up later. She’d be a good girl and just disappear. Hopefully.
When we walked out of my building, I kissed her on the cheek and hailed her a taxi. I walked to my ex-wife’s apartment to pick up my daughter, Nicole. I called from outside the apartment and Jennifer’s live-in boyfriend answered. “I’ll bring her down,” he said.
“Where’s Jennifer?” I asked.
“She left early.”
All of a sudden, my anger elevated. “She left?”
An irritated sigh came through the phone. I took a deep breath. “Just bring her down.”
Before they came down, I called Jennifer. “Didn’t I tell you not to leave her alone with him anymore?”
“Devin, grow up.”
My anger vanished when I looked up and saw my baby. “Daddy,” she screamed.
Stooping down to catch the cannonball of excitement flying into my chest, I closed my phone. Aaron ducked back into the elevator without speaking. Nicole crashed into me. “Daddy.”
I kissed her cheek. “Hey princess.”
When I stood up, she pulled off her backpack. “Here, Daddy.”
I laughed. “Why do I have to carry it?”
“You’re stronger.”
My cell phone rang. Jennifer sighed in my ear. “Devin, when will you understand that Aaron is going to be her stepfather and there will be times when I’ll need to leave her with him? He would never do anything to hurt her.”
“Okay. Can I call you when I drop her off?”
By the time I dropped her off at camp, my issue seemed selfish. How could I control what Jennifer did in her home?
I strolled into my office a little after ten. My assistant smiled. “Hi, Mr. Patterson.”
“Hey, Lisa.”
“I made your travel arrangements to DC. You’ll be staying in the host hotel.”
I frowned. “Are you talking about for the Black Caucus?”
She nodded.
“I have to go down next week. I have some meetings with the legislative division of the Train Workers’ Union.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “That’s not on your calendar.”
I pointed to my head. “I keep it all up here.”
“That’s the problem.”
We laughed. It’s not funny, though. I have a whole bunch of damn problems.
7
SCOOTER
When I walked into the house, my heart sat in my throat. I’d done some things early in our relationship, but since we moved in together last year, I’ve been faithful. Hoping my infidelity wasn’t spray painted on me, I took a deep breath before calling her name, “Akua.”
“I’m in the office, baby.”
I peeped in the hall mirror before walking into the office. After running my hand over my face a few times, wiping away the evidence, I stood in the doorway of the office. She twirled around in the office chair. I smiled. “Hey, sexy.”
She smirked. “Hey.”
Her eyes scrutinized me. “You smell like cigarettes.”
“Can I get a hug?”
“I don’t hug nicotine junkies.”
I walked up to her and grabbed her hand, yanking her from the chair. “Give me a hug, girl.”
I pulled on the waist of her scrubs. She reluctantly swung her arms around me. I tilted her head back and kissed her lips. She frowned. “You stink.”
I cuddled her head into my chest. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize to me for trying to kill yourself,” she grunted.
As her head lay on my chest, I thought I did owe her an apology. She didn’t deserve to be a part of the battle inside my head. She stepped backward and plopped down in the chair. Her arms folded and she looked me up and down. “So, I take it you had a good time.” She curled her lips. “What made you start sticking those cancer sticks back in your mouth?”
“I don’t know.”
She spun back around to face the computer. “When the cats away, the mice will play?”
I chuckled at her analogy. Was I the mouse and she the cat? Resting my elbows on the top of the chair, I stood behind her. “Whatchu looking at?”
“Buying some new work shoes.” She clicked the shopping cart. “I figured we needed some new ones.”
She selected the Drew Deersoft shoes I’d been eyeing since I began my residency, but the $200 price tag prohibited me from ever finalizing the transaction.
“Aren’t these the ones you like?” I nodded and she said, “I got you a thirteen. You think that’s good.”
I twirled the chair around. “Baby, you’re buying me some shoes?”
“Uh-huh.”
I kissed her and she pushed my face away. “Yeah, I still take care of you even though you’re trying to kill yourself.”
Guilt filled my lungs and I coughed. “What would I do without you?” I verbalized what I was asking myself.
“You tell me.”
I kissed her again. “Thank you, baby.”
She smiled. “Yeah, I can’t have my man walking into the hospital with those run-down Darcos you have in there.”
I laughed and headed to the bedroom to unpack. “What’s for dinner?”
“Frozen dinner. I’m going to work. I signed up for a moonlighting shift tonight.”
When I walked into the bedroom, my laundry was folded neatly in a basket. I dropped my head. How could I question if she was my ideal mate? Thoughts of her insensitivity and arrogance I’d pushed to the forefront of my mind on the drive home began to drift away. They were just excuses for my selfishness.
I plopped down on the bed and stretched out. Taylor whispered into my ear, “Scootie-Boo.”
Her vulnerable eyes pierced through me. “I’ve never stopped loving you.”
She climbed on top of me. Her waist gyrated. She purred. My hands traveled around her and groped her inner thighs from behind. As I guided her strokes, she pounded on me.
When Akua slammed a textbook on the dresser, it startled me. I discovered my hand inside of my sweatpants. Trying to appear composed, I didn’t stop groping myself. Instead I reached my free arm out for her, “C’mon baby. Lie down with me,” I said.
“Didn’t I tell you I had to work?”
I begged, “C’mon. Just let me feel you.”
She packed her backpack. “I have to go to work.”
I watched her maneuver around the room. Hoping my body would transition in accordance with my mind, I pleaded, “C’mon baby. I need it.”
She sucked her teeth. “I’m only working until midnight. I’ll give it to you when I come home.”
I stopped fantasizing and sat up on the bed. Akua is too punctual to play. Since this sexual encounter was not on the agenda, it was best that I take a cold shower. As it began to deflate, she kissed me on the cheek and patted my nature. “I’ll take care of you later. I gotta go.”
She rushed from the room. I lay back on the bed. When the front door slammed, I returned to making love to Taylor.
8
TAYLOR
Isn’t it funny that we know they’re not going to call, even when they promise they will? I woke up to a text message from Scooter. THINKING ABOUT U. WILL
CALL SOON. After nearly a month passed, this was the best I could get. Why would he send a message like that on a Friday night at 11:43? Was this message a result of a damn lovers’ quarrel? Call me because you think I’m the greatest, not because your damn girlfriend has gotten on your nerves! I shouted at my cell phone praying that somehow my thoughts could be telepathically communicated to Scooter. Text messaging is the closest thing to blatantly saying, “I’m not interested.” I refused to respond. If he was sincerely thinking about me, he would have called me. Huffing and puffing to myself still would not erase the truth, Scooter had no score to settle. He’d given me his best ten years ago and he owed me nothing.
When my mother called a few minutes later, I picked up but all I was thinking about was his text message. “Taylor, are you there?” My mother asked, in a concerned tone.
I cleared my throat. “Yeah, I’m here.”
“How are you?”
“I’m good. Nothing much going on. Just working a lot.”
She sighed. “I can only imagine.”
“How’s Daddy?”
“He’s good.”
Then, her normal questions followed. She didn’t have much to say to me. Nor did I to her. I was this independent single woman and she was Bishop Jabowski’s wife, nothing more, nothing less. The spice of our conversations had long been extinct. Finally, she asked about Scooter. The day after he came to church was the last time we had a decent chat.
In an attempt to give her a slice of my life, I said, “He actually sent me a text message last night.”
She perked up. “Really?”
Trying not to overestimate the intent of the message, I just said, “He said I’ve been on his mind and he’ll call soon.”
She chuckled sneakily, “Really, Taylor?”
“Yeah.”
“He was always such a gentleman.”
“Ma, please.”
“God is good.”
With a smirk on my face, I responded to the Black Christian motto. “All the time.”
As if she’d gotten a quick dose of the Holy Spirit, she said, “Whew.” Then she finished the motto. “All the time.” I could hear her hand bang on the table to add thunder to the last three words. “God is good.”
“You sound real happy to hear from Scooter,” I said, nonchalantly.
My mother rarely went above level two on a ten-point excitement scale, but right now she was tipping the scale. As if the words wouldn’t come out. She would begin, “I . . .” Then, that would stop with a “Whew.”
Finally, she said, “I had been praying for months for God to send you a good man.”
I frowned and looked at the phone. Was this really my mother? We hadn’t discussed relationships in almost six years. Her desire for me to settle down was this sort of unspoken mountain that kept us distant. Before she could finish, I interrupted, “Ma, Scooter is not who you’ve been praying for. He has a woman. A woman that he’s in love with.”
“He ain’t married.” Again, I gawked at my phone. Completely ignoring my desire to be a woman with dignity, she continued, “A few months ago, I decided to get descriptive about your husband.”
Why wasn’t I consulted on her expectations for my husband? My head shook in disbelief as she explained. “I asked Him to send you a Christian. I requested him to be tall, brown, and equally educated. The ladies in my prayer circle said I was asking for too much. But I kept praying anyway.”
Not as if it took a whole lot of convincing, but maybe the man she prayed for was Scooter. Maybe God heard both of our prayers. I said, “I know that’s real, Ma.”
“I was fasting the week Scooter came to church, too. See, sometimes you got to give up something to get something.”
Assuring her that I still knew the Bible, I egged her on. “Uh-huh. I know.”
“When I saw that boy, it was as if God said, ‘That’s him.’”
The spirit ran through my veins, too. We were on one accord and I never even said anything to her about Scooter. “Are you serious?”
“And not only that. When your father saw him, he said the same thing.”
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘That boy is supposed to be Taylor’s husband.’”
I slipped under my covers and talked to my mother like she was my girlfriend. “Ma, no he didn’t.”
“Girl, you talking about praying. Me and your daddy prayed that night.”
It’s a damn shame that my parents were praying while we were tossing around on my bedroom floor. “I don’t believe y’all.”
“Huh.”
Imagining her rolling her eyes and adjusting her thick glasses, I chuckled. This conversation was bridging the sea that had grown between us. With my phone stuck to my ear, I felt the warmth and sincerity escaping from my mother’s mouth.
“When two touch and agree, God said it shall be done.”
Actually warning myself, I said, “Ma, don’t get all wrapped up in believing Scooter is the guy you’ve been praying for.”
“Taylor.” Before I answered, she asked. “Do you know anything about faith?”
I snapped, “Yes, I know about faith.”
“It is the things hoped for and not seen.”
“I know. But . . .”
“If you know, you better act like it. I have a brunch to go to. I’ll talk to you later.”
That meant next Saturday. Never in the last five years did I want my mother to stay on the phone with me, but I needed her encouragement. I needed to hear all of her prophesies. If the bishop’s wife condoned me getting my man back, it had to be the right thing for me to do. I wasn’t the only one convinced that Scooter was the one. Maybe he did intend to call. Maybe I was on his mind. Maybe my mother’s phone call was confirmation for me to keep hope alive.
9
DEVIN
I rummaged through my apartment. My cleaning lady had taken my laundry and left me dangling in the wind with no clean underwear. This is just what I get for doing things last minute. After I put a couple of dress shirts and suits in my garment bag, I jumped in the shower.
Aside from my business meeting, I planned to meet with a realtor in DC. Having another home base should decrease the stress of city-flopping and suitcase-swapping. I stuffed some casual clothes in my duffle bag. Still, I hung free, debated whether or not to stay that way or put on some dirty drawers. As I pulled out every garment I owned, I tried to find at least one pair of clean boxers. During my frantic search, I stopped and took a deep breath and checked the time. Unless I found something in the next minute, I would miss the 1:05 P.M. train into DC. When I opted to let it hang, a pair of spandex shorts appeared on top of one of the many clean clothes piles on my bedroom floor. I swiftly slipped them on and threw on my jeans and Nike T-shirt.
Finally, I rushed out. As I lugged all my junk into the elevator, the two young ladies inside huffed. I chuckled, certain that they wondered why the hell I was always dragging luggage. I nodded and smiled. “Good morning.”
One chick smiled and returned my greeting. The other smirked. To hell with you, too. The driver chuckled as I hastily walked toward the car. “Rough day again, Mr. Patterson?”
After tossing my bags in the trunk, I nodded. “Always.”
Since I used the same car service, Joseph frequently transported me. Somehow we always get into “the talk.” When I got in the car, he wasted no time, asking, “Mr. Patterson, have you found yourself a nice young lady yet?”
“Not yet, Joseph. Not yet.”
“I don’t know how you young guys do it. My wife and I have been married for thirty-three years. I can’t imagine what I’d do without her.”
“I understand.”
It was funny to watch him dance around asking what he was really curious about. Was I gay?
“So, are you interested in marriage?”
“Been there. Done that.”
“That was a long time ago.”
Why do people want to shove marriage down your throat? Nothin
g compares to a miserable marriage. I damn sure won’t do it because it’s the damn right thing to do anymore.
As to confirm my negative feelings about my marriage, my ex-wife rang. “Yes, Jennifer.”
“Devin.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah?”
“Nicole said you were going out of town today.”
“Yes,” I huffed.
Jennifer has access to my Yahoo calendar so we can schedule pick-ups and drop-offs without too much conversation. So, I wondered why this question surfaced. She mumbled, “Friggin’ great.”
“Is there a problem?”
She huffed, “Yes, it’s not on your calendar.” She paused. “We have a problem.”
Lisa didn’t have it on her calendar so it never made it to Yahoo. I covered my face and sighed. “What kind of problem, Jennifer?”
“Never mind. I’ll just ask Aaron.”
Blood shot to my head. Reluctant to give her the glory, I went for the high road, I said, “Okay, if Aaron can’t do it, I’ll have to call Adrianna.”
“You don’t even know what it is?” she snapped.
I took a deep breath. “What is it Jennifer?”
“I need someone to take her to swimming lessons on Tuesday and Thursday. I have to work late.”
The vision of Aaron helping my baby in and out of her bathing suit infuriated me. Adrianna is my on-call nanny. This was an obvious on-call moment.
I chuckled. “Nah. Don’t ask Aaron. I’ll take care of it, since it was my mistake. If Adrianna can’t do it, I’ll catch the train back after my meeting tomorrow.”
“Thanks Devin. Let me know what you decide. I think Adrianna still has the key to my apartment.”
I nodded my head. “She does.”
“Okay, well it’s all clear. Thanks Devin. Don’t forget to call me.”
I smirked at my phone. Sometimes I scared myself, because I can’t explain how many times a day I envision strangling her.
Joseph looked in the rearview mirror. “You coming back to New York tomorrow?”
“I don’t know, man.”
We pulled up to Penn Station. He said, “Mr. Patterson, you’re going to have a heart attack by the time you’re forty if you don’t slow down.”