by RM Johnson
This was her son, Kyle. He was six years old and the most important thing in her life. Angie grabbed her son’s hand, walked him back over to where he’d been sitting, and grabbed his Pokémon backpack off the floor.
“Is everything in here, Ms. Rodgers?” Angie asked of the girlish-looking day care teacher who was walking toward her.
“He’s all set,” Ms. Rodgers said, patting Kyle on the head. “See you tomorrow, Cowboy.”
Angie strapped Kyle in the backseat of the car and began heading home. She had soft music playing, her favorite Chicago radio station, Smooth Jazz, WNUA. She tapped her finger to the music against the steering wheel as she drew to a stop at a red light. She was peeking up into the rearview mirror when her cell phone rang.
Angie fumbled with her purse, pulled the phone out, and glanced at the Caller ID, as she always did. Then she pressed the Receive button.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hey, where you at? You got Kyle, yet?” the man on the other end of the phone asked. It was Deric, who knew full well that Angie had picked him up already. Every day he called between 4:15 and 4:30 P.M., and asked that same question, and Angie would always answer him with, Yeah. I just got him, and we’re on our way home, or to the store, or stopping by the post office.
“Is he awake back there?” Deric asked.
Angie peered back, and said, “Yeah, and you don’t have to ask. Here he is.” Angie handed the phone back to Kyle, which he happily grabbed and pressed it up to his chubby cheek, smiling.
“Hello?” he said.
He waited a moment to hear who it was, then said, “Hi, Daddy.”
Angie smiled herself, shaking her head, accelerating as the light turned green. Kyle loves himself some Deric, and Deric wouldn’t know what to do with himself if there wasn’t any Kyle. He loved that boy like any man would love his son, more even, and that said a great deal about Deric considering the boy wasn’t even really his son.
Kyle was the son of a very handsome man that Angie had seen for all of three months. He was married, had three kids already, and was a huge corporate success. He was perfect for what she wanted him for, and that was nothing more than donating to her cause.
Angie was thirty-two years old, had not a single man in mind to marry and probably never would, because she loved women. But she did want a child, and she wanted to have one before she got too old.
Angie would see this man once or twice a week, whenever he was able to distance himself from his job, his wife, and his kids. He’d show up, they’d grab a bite to eat and a couple of drinks, then head off to a hotel.
It was always relatively quick sex, and that was fine with Angie, because she wasn’t in it for the pleasure anyway. Angie no longer even referred to him by name, but only as “Donor.”
A month and a half later Angie ended up pregnant. He almost had a heart attack when she told him the news.
“But you’re on the pill,” Donor said, pacing back and forth, infuriated.
“It is still possible to get pregnant on the pill. It’s like a 1.25 percent chance but it’s still possible.”
Donor stopped his pacing, lowered himself down beside Angie. “Don’t worry. I’ll be there for you, and I’ll pay for everything,” he said, holding her hand, a comforting expression on his face.
“I’m not having an abortion.”
After that, for the next two weeks, he kicked and screamed, tried to bribe her into getting the abortion, offering cash, a car, anything. He was concerned about paying child support, about his wife finding out, about his kids having a half sister or brother. Angie assured him that he had nothing at all to worry about.
“You can keep your money. I have my own. This will be my child. You won’t have anything to do with us, and we won’t have anything to do with you. As far as I’m concerned, this can be the last time we see each other.”
Old Donor seemed happy with that arrangement, and Angie was ecstatic, already thinking that she could feel the little life growing inside her.
“Mommy,” Kyle called from the backseat, holding out the phone. “Daddy wants to talk to you again.”
Angie grabbed the phone. “Yeah, baby.”
“What do you feel like eating tonight?”
“Uh, I don’t know. I was thinking about pork chops or something.”
“Okay, well, don’t you worry about it. I’ll be home in about an hour, and I’ll …”
“No, baby, I’ll cook,” Angie said.
“I said …,” Deric insisted, “ … I’ll be home in about an hour, and I’m cooking. You got that?”
“Yeah, I got it,” Angie said, smiling.
“Love you.”
“I love you, too,” Angie said, then hung up. It came much easier now, those words. The first time he’d said them to her, Angie didn’t know what to do. She didn’t love Deric, and knew she wouldn’t fall in love with him, so her first instinct was to run. But then she told herself to look at it differently—to look at him differently. He was a friend, a dear friend of hers, who would do anything for her, and for that reason, she’d learned to love him in a way.
Four years ago, Deric, a handsome thirty-year-old, whose good looks were hidden behind a Clark Kent get-up—out-of-date clothes, and geeky glasses—opened a bookstore next door to her boutique. It failed, but during the six months it was open, Angie and Deric became good friends, having lunch every day, and dinner at least three times a week.
Angie told Deric about Kyle, how hard it was to find a baby-sitter sometimes, and he said he loved kids. He started baby-sitting now and then, and grew attached to Angie’s son. Then when his store closed, and he had to move out of his apartment to conserve money, Angie offered up her place.
“I have an extra bedroom that I claim is an office, but is really more like a storage room. You can crash there for a while,” she said.
He moved in, and after six months, he was no longer sleeping on the futon in the extra bedroom, but in Angie’s bed. At first it was truly nothing more than just a “friend thing.” They both enjoyed having the comfort of having someone to lie next to while they slept. But as time passed, during the nights Angie could feel Deric’s arms around her while he slept. She could feel him holding her like they were more than just friends, like he was dreaming they were, wishing they were.
“I want us to be together,” Deric said one night after they put Kyle to bed. The boy had already taken to calling Deric Daddy, and whether or not Deric encouraged it while she wasn’t around, Angie didn’t know, but she didn’t stop it from continuing. It somehow seemed right.
“We are together. If we were bunched up anymore on top of each other, you’d be inside me.”
Deric gave her a sly look, as if to say, “Exactly.”
“Angie, you can pretend like you don’t know this,” Deric said, scooting even closer to her, pulling her into him by the waist. “But in the year that I’ve known you, I’ve grown to love your son, all that we have, and I love you.”
And there were those words that had sent her running in the past from countless relationships. When men said that to her, Angie had to leave them, because she knew nothing could come of it, considering her preferences. And when women shared that little tidbit of info, again, she had to jet, because even though she loved women, she wasn’t ready to tell the world, start marching in gay pride parades. And once she had a son to consider, she definitely wasn’t affixing any rainbow colored bumper stickers to the old Mercedes.
That night, she’d been so close to shoving Deric out of that bed and telling him to hit the road, but something he had said stopped her. “All that we have.” He was right. They had really managed to build something. Something like a little family. Slightly dysfunctional maybe, but it was nice. Kyle had the father figure that Angie so desperately tried convincing herself he wouldn’t need all the time she was carrying him, though she knew he really would. Deric had a woman he said he adored. And Angie had comfort as well as stability and security.
She had been in worse places in her life, with worse people, and although she knew she could never be truly in love with Deric—lustful love, like thinking-of-that-person-every-moment-of-the-day love—she could settle for what she had. It had its advantages.
So that night, she gave Deric what he wanted and had been giving it to him every night since. But still, she loved what she loved, and not a month later Angie was seeing a beautiful Jamaican woman who shopped in the store from time to time. After that ended, she was seeing a personal trainer at her gym, a well-put-together sister who knew how to coax pleasure out of every muscle in Angie’s body.
Angie would try to keep these relationships at a distance. She didn’t need them encroaching on what she considered her “real life,” her “serious life.” But eventually, Angie’s privateness regarding that life wouldn’t satisfy these women. They wanted to know more about her, wanted to see her more, wanted to give her more, and get more from her. They wanted a “relationship.” And that was just impossible. Kyle was getting older, very near the age of understanding, and she didn’t need him at school, the teacher and kids looking over his shoulder, as he mashed two Barbie dolls faces and torsos together, telling everyone that “This is what Mommy does.”
There were times when Angie thought about those women, and the relationships she didn’t give a chance to blossom, and she felt kind of sorry. She was happy, and she did love Deric in a way, but would she have been happier with someone she was truly in love with?
Angie pulled into the driveway of her West Side townhome. She got out of the car, opened the back door, reached in, unbuckled her son, and pulled him out. He fell limply into her arms, his eyes closed, his head rolling about on her shoulder.
“I’ll let you sleep another fifteen minutes, Cowboy. After that, it’s wakee time. Don’t need you climbing the walls at one in the morning.”
Angie managed to open the front door while still not waking Kyle. She walked in, set her son down on the sofa, then kicked off her heels, and sighed in relief at the feel of the cool, smooth floor against the soles of her feet.
She was about to walk over to the fridge to see how she could make Deric’s job a little easier when he came in, when her cell phone started ringing again. She rushed over to her purse, grabbed it, and the Caller ID said “Mills, Asha.”
Angie looked down at it another second, letting it ring another time. She knew that she was smart to just give out her cell number, because eventually the phone calls would always start, and she didn’t need her women friends calling her house.
“Hello.”
“Hey, Angie, it’s Asha. Am I bothering you?”
“No,” Angie said, feeling slightly bothered, looking down at her sleeping son, knowing she would make this conversation a short one. “What’s up?”
“Oh, nothing much. I was just thinking, and you popped into my head, and …”
“You were thinking about yesterday, weren’t you?” Angie said slyly, moving into the bathroom, out of her son’s earshot.
Angie could hear Asha laugh bashfully.
“It’s okay, Asha. Did you like that?”
“Mmmmmmm. I just … I’ve never felt … I mean, the way you touched me, I just wanted …”
Angie felt a quick chill race up her spine at the sound of Asha’s voice, and pushed it away. “I know, I know.”
“You know what you do to me, don’t you, Angie?”
“Of course I do. I know exactly what I’m doing. That’s why I do it. That’s why I’m going to keep on doing it,” Angie said, laughing mischievously.
“Well, you aren’t the only one who can have fun.”
“And what are you saying?”
“I’ll whisper it to you next time I see you.”
“Mmmmmmm, now you got me purring.”
“Just like a kitten,” Asha said, laughing.
“Oh, yeah. Just like a kitten,” Angie said, laughing with her.
After a moment, Asha said, “I was really calling, because there’s a couple of things I need your opinion about.”
Angie hoped that this wasn’t already going where she thought it was, then said, “Shoot.”
“There’s a new girl at the spa, I don’t think you met her yet. Her name is Les, but this chick has all but thrown me up against a wall, and strip-searched me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“She’s telling me that she wants to get with me, that she wants me and her to do that thang, if you know what I’m saying. I would’ve whooped her ass by now, but she has like three of them, and she’s damn near six feet tall. If we were in prison, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, because I would’ve been her bitch a long time ago.”
“She’s like that, hunh? I’ve had to deal with women like that,” Angie said, lowering the lid on the toilet and having a seat. “So she’s harassing you?”
“Yeah, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, it is what it is. If it was a man stepping to you that strong, you probably would’ve let him know that if he keeps it up, you’d go to the supervisor. Tell her the same thing. That should back her big ass right off.”
Asha was silent for a moment. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“I am. So do that, and let me know what happens, okay. But I gotta be …”
“Hold it, Angie. There’s one more thing.”
Angie leaned forward on the toilet, looked out the bathroom door to see if her son had awakened or if Deric had walked in yet.
“Mmm, hmm?”
“There’s this uhm … this really kinda sticky situation that I’ve been in involving this man, and I was wondering …”
“You know, Asha,” Angie said, getting up from the toilet, as if Asha could actually see this action and realize that Angie was truly in a hurry to go somewhere, “I was really on my out the …”
“I was just going to ask your opinion, considering all that happened, do you think …”
“No, Asha, really,” Angie said, and she spoke those words very deliberately, almost in a way that Asha could do nothing but understand that they held a double meaning. “I can’t talk right now. I’ll see you for our appointment tomorrow?”
Asha didn’t respond until after a long moment. “Oh, yeah. Tomorrow.” She paused again and said, “That’ll be fine. I’ll see you then.”
“Good. See you then,” Angie said, hanging up the phone before Asha could say anything else, and flopping back onto the toilet seat cover. She was going to try to drag me into it, Angie told herself. She was going to say something about some boyfriend, or fiancé, or even husband she was having second thoughts about now that Angie had helped to open the closet door. She was hoping Angie could save her from all that doubt, whisk her away on some magic carpet so she wouldn’t have to contend with any of it. Angie wouldn’t involve herself in that. That was Asha’s business.
Angie had finally found the right recipe, all the ingredients needed—not to make the besttasting soup in the world, but one that was at least nourishing enough to live on—and she wasn’t about to go messing all that up just to get mixed up in another woman’s problems.
Angie quietly walked back into the living room to see that her son was still sleeping. She sat down beside him, rubbed her hand across his curly hair. Asha was a beautiful woman, and Asha was cool people, and Angie was almost certain by the way Asha paused before answering her that she had gotten the message. Decisions like those Asha would have to make herself. But if she didn’t, if she tried to make this more than what Angie would allow, could allow, then once again, Angie would have to walk away. And she didn’t want that, because it had been a long time since she’d started to like someone the way she liked Asha.
19
The next morning, I was nervously sitting in Starbucks, on the same stool I had been sitting on when I last spoke to Karen in person, when she’d given me the key card that had started all of this. I thought back and I realized now just why she’d been so excited. “You�
�re gonna be so surprised.” That’s what she’d said. She obviously did as Faith asked, gave me the key and told me when to be there. So why was she meeting me here now to talk to me, to help me? At least that’s what I assumed this conversation was going to be about.
We were supposed to meet at 10 A.M., but I got there at 9:30, unable to control my urge to finally find out what was going on, what was stopping me from getting Faith back. I sipped on a rapidly cooling vanilla coffee, even though I knew the caffeine did nothing but make me more nervous, more jumpy.
I was sitting facing the counter, my head lowered over the cup, trying not to look at my watch, or silently count the minutes in my head as they ticked by. Every five minutes or so, I would spin on the stool and look out the glass walls of the store, down the street in the direction I thought Karen would come from. The fifth time I did that, I finally saw her walking toward me. She wore a long, lightweight trench, huge dark glasses, and carried a purse that she clutched like she was carrying millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds in it.
Her expression was blank as she walked in the door and sat down next to me. She didn’t take off the glasses, didn’t even turn toward me, but addressed the same boy who was behind the counter when we were there last, who always seemed to be behind the counter.
“Double espresso,” Karen said, then to me, “How you doing, considering everything, Jayson?” She still didn’t turn around, but her head moved slightly as she followed the movements of the boy making her coffee.
I wanted to say, How do you think I’m doing? I’m ready to shoot somebody, or myself, if I don’t find out what’s going on. But I just said, “Not bad.” Then, “What’s up with the tinted goggles?”
“Sunny outside,” Karen said, coolly.
I turned to look out the window, and the sky was still mostly covered by clouds. Whatever.
The espresso came. Karen paid the boy, then took a sip. She finally turned toward me now, gave me a long look, and said, “You look like shit. I’m sorry about all of this.”