Up to No Good

by Carl Weber

  “Trey ain’t home.”

  “Good. I need to talk to you anyway.”

  “About what? I don’t want to get in the middle of this thing with you and Keisha. She’s been my friend a long time, and I don’t have nothing to say to you about her.”

  You will in a second, I thought.

  “I just need you to listen to something.” I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket.

  “Darnel, it don’t matter. I want to stay out of your business with Keisha.”

  “That would be nice, except this is your business too.” I turned on the speakerphone on my cell and then dialed Keisha’s number.

  Angela stood there impatiently with her hands on her hips. When she heard Keisha’s outgoing message, she opened her mouth to protest, but I put up a hand to stop her. I punched in Omar’s birthday, then skipped over the first two messages. It looked like Angela’s knees almost gave out on her when she heard Trey’s deep voice coming through the speaker.

  “Oh my God. Is that who I think it is?” she asked when the message ended and I hung up the phone. “Is that real, or are you just playing games?”

  “I wish it was a game, but it’s as real as that night I caught your girl screwing Omar.”

  I know it sounds coldhearted, but I had to suppress a smirk. She was all cocky when she first opened the door, talking about too bad for me but she wasn’t gonna talk about her friend Keisha. Now she knew how much it hurt. I felt a little sorry for her, but you know what they say: Misery loves company, and now Angela and I had plenty in common. Unfortunately, she wasn’t ready to believe it just yet.

  “Wait a minute. The message says it was left today, which means they would have been together last night. But that’s not possible.”

  “Why not?”

  “‘Cause he came home and had sex with me.”

  “Was he home all night?”

  “No, he came in around two, but if he was sexing Keisha, he wouldn’t have come home and had sex with me.”

  “Well, I guess he had a two-in-one night,” I suggested sarcastically. This dumb chick didn’t get it. She was being played just like me, yet she didn’t want to see what was right before her eyes. “You gonna tell me there’s no way at all that he could have done her, taken a shower at her place, and then come home to you for round two?”

  She didn’t answer me right away. She was probably considering the possibility. When she spoke, it became obvious that she’d decided it was true.

  “I’m gonna kill Trey! Then I’m gonna shove his balls down that ho’s throat.”

  I was glad to see we were finally on the same page. With Angela pissed at Keisha, she might become very useful to me.

  “I’m really sorry I had to be the one to tell you about this. It’s just that you know what I went through, and I don’t like to see anybody else get stabbed in the back by a friend the way I did.”

  She nodded her understanding.

  “How could they do this? I knew she wasn’t faithful to you, and she was always talking about this guy and that guy, but to do this to me? She coulda had a whole bunch of dick, but Trey? I was her friend.”

  She had just admitted that she knew Keisha had been cheating on me, and she hadn’t done shit to stop her. I wanted to curse her ass out, but really, there was no need. The information I ’d just brought to her hurt way more than anything I could have ever said.

  Angela really looked devastated. I knew exactly how she felt. I wondered if she wanted to beat Keisha the way I ’d done to Omar.

  “Angela, I’m sorry …” I put a hand on her shoulder.

  “No, they’re the ones who are gonna be sorry when I get through with them. I’m gonna kick him in the nuts and make it impossible for him to even think about sex. That muthafucker!”

  I figured it was time for me to get my ass out of there. She was getting pretty agitated, and besides, I ’d done all the work I needed to do here. I was quite sure she would come up with some plan that would make Keisha’s life a living hell.

  “I’m gonna go. Call me if you want to talk.” I gave her a pat on the shoulder and turned to leave.

  “Wait! Where you going, Darnel?” Her voice had suddenly transformed from an angry growl to a soft purr.

  I stopped and looked at her.

  “Maybe you and I need to fuck.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Trey and Keisha need to know exactly what it feels like.” She moved closer to me, opening up her robe to expose her naked body.

  Her body was slamming, and it was there for the taking. All I needed to do was say yes. But I couldn’t. I reached out and closed her robe.

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?” She looked like she’d never been turned down before.

  “I just … We’re friends, and you’re only saying it because you’re angry.” I tried to reason with her.

  “Damn right, I’m angry, and I want angry sex. She don’t give a fuck about you, Darnel. You were the good guy she was marrying after screwing a whole lot of bad boys behind your back.”

  “I’m not like Keisha. You’re beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t stick my dick somewhere just to get revenge. I tried that; it didn’t work.”

  “So that’s it? You just punk up like some pussy?” She sucked her teeth. “No wonder she always needed to mess around.”

  That was a low blow. In a lot of ways, I could see why Angela and Keisha got along together. They were both triflin’ as far as I was concerned.

  “Look, I’m sorry if you’re pissed off, but like I said, screwing somebody just to be screwing doesn’t work for me.”

  “You know what, Darnel? Something must be wrong with you. Most men prefer screwing just to screw. And sometimes women need it too.” She pulled her robe back to expose her body again. This crazy woman really thought she was gonna change my mind.

  “Well, I’m not most men.”

  “Well, then get the hell outta here, ’cause right now I got to go and find myself some revenge dick.”

  Angela slammed the door in my face, but I wasn’t even a little bit upset, because I had accomplished what I came for. I knew she wasn’t about to let Keisha get away with screwing her man. She would make Keisha pay for sure.

  Jamie

  32

  Sundays had always been church days in our house when I lived with Daddy. We’d get up in the morning, have a big breakfast, and go to church until the early afternoon. Daddy never missed a Sunday. He was a deacon, and his best friend was the pastor, so he attended faithfully every weekend, no matter what he might have been doing the night before. I loved going to church with Daddy, even as a teenager, because it was like a social event. With my father’s status as the pastor’s good friend, I felt like a mini-celebrity.

  But since I ’d started dating Louis, who wasn’t a church person at all, I ’d been neglecting my Sunday ritual. I have to admit I did miss Bishop Wilson’s sermons, but more than anything, I missed the gossip. I tried to stay in the loop by talking on the phone with people who I knew had attended and could fill me in on all the juicy stuff. This was just harmless fun as far as I was concerned. But this one Sunday, I got a taste of what it felt like to be the subject of the gossip—or at least related to the subject.

  My phone rang at about one o’clock, the time that the late service normally ended.

  “Girl, where you been hiding?” Monica damn near took my ear off with her loud voice. Her father and Daddy were both deacons, so we kinda grew up together. Monica and I were never close friends or anything, though, so I knew that if she was calling, it was because something interesting went down during today’s service. And, yes, I was dying to know.

  “What’s up, Mo?”

  “I don’t know. You tell me. That’s why I’m callin’.”

  I could just see her chubby face rolling around her neck. Monica was one of those women who said just as much with her hands and her facial expressions as she did with her mouth.

  “Girl, what are
you talkin’ about?”

  “Your daddy.”

  “My daddy? What about him?”

  “I seen your daddy at church today.”

  “Yeah, and? He’s there every Sunday, Mo.” I know she didn’t call me for this nonsense, especially when I had Louis standing near the stove, motioning for me to get off the phone. We had woken up late, and I was supposed to be in the middle of making breakfast, which I had been doing before the phone rang.

  “Okay, Louis,” I whispered. “I’m coming.”

  “Yeah,” Mo said. “I know he goes to church every Sunday, but who was the jailbait on his arm?”

  Jailbait? What the hell was she talking about? My father had done a lot of scandalous shit in his days, but I ’d never known him to date anyone who could be considered jailbait. And no matter who he was fooling around with, he always kept that shit separate from his church life. My father never had anyone on his arm, except maybe some lady he was escorting to her seat. Maybe Monica was just playing with me.

  “You know my daddy. That was probably just one of his friends,” I said nonchalantly.

  “Ha!” She let out a laugh. “She was a lot of things, girl, but I promise you she wasn’t no friend. Not the way he was escorting her around like she was the Queen of England or something.”

  She laughed again. I laughed along with her, but I wasn’t quite sure why. Her story was starting to make me uneasy, because Monica was usually pretty accurate with her gossip. If she was saying my daddy had a woman on his arm during service, there was a chance it was true. I couldn’t wait to hang up the phone and call Daddy to find out what was going on.

  “Trust me, Mo. It was nothin’,” I said, hoping to end the conversation and get her off the phone. But she just kept going.

  “So you cool with that?”

  If what she told me was true, she knew damn well I wouldn’t be okay with it. Since when had I ever been okay with any of my father’s women?

  “What’d she look like?” I couldn’t help myself. I knew I was basically gossiping about my own father at this point, but it was necessary if I was going to get all the facts I needed before confronting him.

  “She had real good hair, not no weave, with a nice wave pattern. And slanted eyes, almost like she was mixed with Chinese or something.”

  I pulled the phone from my ear, staring at it as the pieces started to fall into place. Sandra never did seem too upset about the fact that Darnel wasn’t interested in her, because she found herself a new man pretty fast. And then there was that night she went out to dinner with my father after they watched a game together. It had seemed innocent enough then, since Darnel had stood her up, but now I felt a little sick as I wondered if that was the night she got her claws into my daddy. Finally, I flashed back to the day Sandra told me she was going to church this weekend with her mystery man. And now here was Monica telling me that a young half-Asian-looking girl was on my father’s arm at church. That was too much of a coincidence; it had to be her.

  “Oh my God, that bitch!” I mumbled to myself.

  “You there? Jamie, you there?” I could hear Monica even though the phone wasn’t on my ear.

  “Yeah, I’m here.” I picked the phone back up. “Mo, was the woman with my father about our age?” I already knew what her answer was going to be.

  “Yeah, and, girl, even in that suit she was wearing you could tell she had a body.”

  I hated to admit it, but Sandra did have the kind of body that turned heads—and now she was using it to cast her spell over my father. What could be worse?

  “Girl, your daddy’s the talk of the church.”

  “So, were they standing close?” I asked, trying to hold on to some small hope that there was another explanation for this. Maybe Daddy and Sandra had struck up a friendship, you know, like a father-daughter type of thing, and he was just trying to get her into church.

  I knew I was grasping at straws with that scenario, and Monica proved me right when she said, “Standing close? Girl, I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. She was holding on to him for dear life.”

  “Oh, really?” What she should be doing is holding on to that pumpkin head of hers before I knock it off, I thought.

  I glanced up at Louis, and since I wasn’t standing over a hot stove cooking our meal, he didn’t seem happy. But with news like this, neither was I. Monica’s conversation had ruined any appetite I had. Still, I had promised Louis a big meal of crab cakes and eggs, so it was time to get off the phone.

  “Yeah,” Mo continued, “and let me tell you about the bangin’ suit she was wearing. The two of them both had on white, and—”

  “Mo, we’re about to eat, so let me holler back at you later.” I slipped the phone closed before she could get in any more comments.

  Louis must have seen the expression on my face and known something was wrong, because instead of nagging me about the food, he came closer and asked, “Everything all right?”

  “I’m going to kill her ass.”

  He took a step back. “Who?”

  “Sandra.”

  “Sandra? Why?”

  “Get this—she’s screwin’ my father.”

  “Nah!” He seemed surprised, but in typical guy fashion, he looked like he would have been impressed with my father’s catch if I weren’t standing in front of him. “You sure?”

  “He took her to church. Do you know how embarrassing that is?”

  “Well, maybe they’re just friends.”

  Louis was using the same rationale that I ’d tried on Monica, but now it just sounded stupid. “We’re talking about James Black here, Louis. Be for real. He’s slept with half the female congregation, for God’s sake. Why would he need to bring a ‘friend’ to church with him?”

  “I don’t know. Does it really matter?”

  “Of course it matters! It means he was trying to let everyone know he’s unavailable!”

  “Is that really a bad thing? Maybe your father is finally ready to settle down after all these years. You should be glad if he’s found someone he cares about enough to bring her to church.”

  “Uh-uh,” I protested. “That dirty heifer knows exactly what she’s doing. Trust me; she is not the one for him.”

  “Honey, your father is a grown man,” Louis said, just like he did every time I tried to vent about my father’s dating habits with him.

  “My father is a man who thinks with his dick!”

  “Maybe he really likes her.”

  “He doesn’t know her. I know her, and she’s a gold-digging tramp. I’m gonna pull out all her hair! How dare she do this to me?”

  “To you? Come on, she’s your friend. And how is her dating your father a problem? She seems like a nice enough girl.”

  “That ho deliberately set out to get my father. She’s after his money.”

  “You ever think maybe she really likes him?”

  “Oh, please. She really likes his bank account.”

  I headed toward the bedroom, pulled out my clothes, and got dressed in a hurry. I was going over to Daddy’s house to handle this.

  “You are not leaving,” Louis said sternly.

  “I have to put a stop to this!”

  “It’s their business, Jamie.”

  “Well, I’m about to make it mine.” I picked up my keys. “I’ll be back in a while.”

  “Jamie!” I heard him calling after me as I walked out the door, but there was no stopping me now.

  I was hot as I pulled out of the driveway and drove toward my father’s place. There was no way I would allow Sandra to keep her hooks in my father, because I knew there was no way she really cared about him. If she did, she would have understood how close Daddy and I were, and she would have come to me in the beginning. Not that she needed my permission to date my father, but out of respect, she should have said something. I gave her the opportunity early on when I asked about her mystery lover, but no, like a lying tramp, she refused to give me any details while she snu
ck behind my back and started seeing Daddy.

  I couldn’t wait until I got to Daddy’s house to speak my mind. When I got there, I would deal with him, but in the meantime, I wanted to talk to Sandra. I put on my Bluetooth and dialed her cell phone number.

  “Hello?” Sandra sounded all cheery, like she’d just gotten some. Of course, I thought. I should have known she would still be with him if they’d left church not too long ago. I felt like throwing up. It took everything I had not to curse her ass out yet. That would come in due time, but I didn’t want to alert them or they might leave the house before I had time to get there.

  “Hey, girl.” I tried to sound as upbeat as possible.

  “Hey, Jamie.” She said my name as if she wanted someone else in the room to know I was on the phone. That wench really thought she was slick.

  “What’s up, girl?” she asked.

  “Nothing. I was just riding. I’m out over by your house, and I was gonna stop by. What you doing?”

  “Oh, girl, I’m not even home. I’m over at my man’s house.”

  I wanted to punch something the way she said “my man” all romantic and shit.

  “That’s right. You two go to church today?”

  “Yeah. It was nice. What about you? You go to church?” This chick was trying to be funny. She knew damn well I hadn’t gone to church. If I had, she’d be picking her teeth up off the floor.

  “So, did you get to meet his people yet?”

  “No, not yet, but soon.”

  “Girl, what you waiting for? You really like him, don’t you?” I asked as I pulled up to the curb in front of Daddy’s place.

  “Yeah, but we want the timing to be right.”

  “No time like the present. You never know. You might meet one of them today.” I was really struggling to keep the sarcasm out of my voice now. “Hey, Sandra. Let me ask you a question.”

  “Sure. Anything.”

  “Well, this question’s a little personal.”