Millionaire Wives Club

by Tu-Shonda Whitaker

  He looked at the clock again. “I don’t know when I’ll be able to do that.”

  “Why not? You’re out on injury, and I can take a few days off. Surely you can take some time and spend it with me?”

  “Milan,” he said, exhausted, his eyes reflecting the electric red from the digital clock. “I can’t do that right now. Maybe in the summer, when Aiyanna is out of school.”

  “What, are we taking her?”

  “No, but I have to make arrangements with Evan.”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean, why?” He was clearly aggravated at the question. “She’s Aiyanna’s mother, and you know that Aiyanna is always sick. Suppose the doctors get a breakthrough and I’m not here?”

  “Yeah, suppose, Kendu.” She rose from the bed and started slipping her clothes on.

  “I’m not leaving my daughter.” He sat up and draped the sheet across his lap.

  “I didn’t ask you to leave her. I just asked you to love me! Talk to me at least. I’m sick of guessing how you feel and what stage we’re at. I feel like Zorro’s sideline ho and shit. I can’t compete with this,” she said more to herself than to him.

  Kendu sighed. “You don’t have anything to compete with. You know how I feel.”

  “Yeah, Knott,” she said sarcastically, “the wind told me.”

  “What do you want me to tell you, Milan? That I love you? You know that. You’ve always known that.”

  “And how is that?”

  “Because I told you that already.”

  Milan laughed. She couldn’t help it. “You haven’t told me you loved me since the day before you married that bitch. Now, somehow I’m supposed to hold on to that same ‘I love you’? That motherfucker had a ‘but’ at the end. ’I love you, but she’s pregnant. So what’s the ‘but’ now? I love you but the baby is sick? You think I want that type of love, really? Spare me the goddamn grief, please.”

  “You know what? I can’t do this right now,” Kendu said dismissively. “I have to help Evan get Aiyanna ready for school, and then we can continue this discussion, alright?”

  “No, Kendu, it’s not alright. I’m fuckin’ tired!”

  “Tired of what, Milan? You can’t set up expectations for me. You knew I was married. You and I have always had this understanding.”

  “What understanding?! That I should be second, excuse me, I mean third. Well, shit, if you count football, fourth. I don’t want that anymore.”

  “Milan, do you know the turmoil I’m going through right now to be here with you? My daughter is chronically ill, and I’m over here with you chillin’ in a damn hideaway, like this shit is cool. Well, it’s not, and if something happened to my kid I would never forgive myself for this.”

  Milan blinked. She felt like he’d put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger. “Well, Kendu,” she said, now completely dressed in fitted jeans, a periwinkle sweater with a leather Louis Vuitton belt around her waist, and pencil-heel ostrich boots, “stop coming back and you can end the turmoil. And as far as your sick kid, it’s awfully funny how whenever you’re home she’s not sick, but when you stay away too long she’s back on the critical list. Yeah, you better go home so you can see if your doting wife is giving your kid a nightcap of Pine-Sol and piss.”

  “I don’t believe you said something like that.”

  “Well, I said it.” She grabbed her leather jacket and stormed toward the door. “Now, there’s your excuse to leave me the fuck alone.”

  “Milan,” Kendu called out to her, “wait.”

  She pointed at him as her hobo Louis Vuitton bag slid down her arm. “No, you fuckin’ wait!” And she slammed the door behind her.

  “You better have a good reason why you are at my front door on the very day that I took off to sleep in.” Chaunci yawned as she opened the door and Milan stepped into her two-story apartment.

  Before Milan could answer, Kobi, who was dressed for school, came running toward Milan with her bookbag flopping up and down on her back. “Ms. Milan!” She hugged Milan around the legs.

  “Kobi! How’s my little girl?”

  “I miss you.”

  “And I miss you.”

  Kobi started to laugh. “Ms. Milan, remember sometimes I would come to your house and you used to burn your food and Mr. Yusef would say, ‘Da Truef, Da Truef, Da Truef’s tongue is on fire!’”

  “That’s enough, Kobi,” Chaunci warned.

  “I’m just saying that Mr. Yusef was funny, Mommy. Ms. Milan”—Kobi turned back to her—“did you know that Mr. Yusef is homeless now? Me and Anty Dextra see him all the time, with a coffee can, telling people that they can get his autograph for three dollars.”

  “Go!” Chaunci pointed. “Go and tell Anty Dextra that it’s time for you to go to school—”

  “Mommy—”

  “Now!”

  Kobi held her head down. “Bye, Ms. Milan. I guess this is one of those ‘Kobi’s too grown’ moments. Now I have to go to school.”

  “Bye, Kobi.” Milan walked over to her, kissed her on the cheek, and said, “Have a good day at school.”

  “I apologize for that, Milan,” Chaunci said.

  “Girl, please, out of the mouths of babes come the truth. Besides, she’s adorable.” Milan followed Chaunci into the kitchen where the chef was preparing breakfast.

  “Will you be dining with us?” the chef asked Milan.

  “I’m not really hungry,” Milan said.

  “She’ll be staying,” Chaunci interjected. “You have to eat something.” Chaunci turned to Milan. “I know I’m beautiful, but I know you didn’t come over here just to look at me.”

  “Will you be dining on the terrace this morning, Ms. Morgan?” the chef asked.

  “Yes.” Chaunci smiled. “We’ll be on the terrace.”

  The early morning spring air was incredibly warm as the golden sun shone into their faces. They sat down at the mosaic-tile bistro set and placed white linen napkins in their laps. A few minutes later the chef dressed the table with fresh fruit, croissants, orange juice, coffee, bacon, and cheese omelets.

  Chaunci sipped her coffee. “So what’s up?”

  “Girl, you know Prada came out with some fly red patent leather shoes and a matching bag?” Milan sipped her orange juice from a flute glass.

  “What?” Chaunci frowned. “You didn’t come over here to talk about Prada.”

  “I can’t just come over now?”

  “Of course, but you didn’t just come over. You have a reason, so what’s going on?”

  Milan sighed. “Okay.” She placed her glass on the table and began eating her omelet. “If I tell you something, I don’t want you to judge me. I just want you to listen.”

  “What are you going to tell me, that you’re having an affair with him?”

  “With who?”

  “Kendu.”

  “Didn’t I ask you to listen?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “And how do you know it’s Kendu?”

  “Because I remember how you looked at him the night of the charity gala, and I knew then that either you were sleeping with him or you would be. It’s just that when Jaise called it, I denied it and checked her. But I knew the truth.”

  “Jaise? So you were discussing me with Jaise, that bitch? What, are you two friends now?”

  “She’s okay, and no, we’re not friends, and we weren’t discussing you. I was more or less defending you. Look”—Chaunci sighed—“would you just tell me what you have to say?”

  “Well …” Milan hesitated. “You’re right about me and Kendu.”

  “How long?”

  “About a month. When the apartment was foreclosed on he came and got me, and the place where I’m staying in SoHo is his spot, where he goes to get away.”

  “Get away and what? Have an affair with you?”

  “There you go, passing judgment,” Milan said, sucking her teeth.

  “I haven’t passed judgment on you just yet. I need
to see how far in the valley you are first.”

  “Iyanla Vanzant may write a column for you, but I don’t need you practicing her relationship tips on me.”

  “I’m sure. Now go on.”

  “I just wish he would leave his wife.”

  “Did he tell you he would?”

  “Not in those words exactly, but he loves me.”

  “Oh, I see, umm-hmm.”

  “And you know his daughter is really sick.”

  “Sick, huh? Umm-hmm.”

  “Would you stop that?” Milan snapped.

  “You asked me to listen.” Chaunci popped a piece of bacon in her mouth. “I’m listening.”

  “I’m just saying that this is hard to deal with. I have a lot going on.”

  “Did you tell Kendu how you felt?”

  “Yeah, we had an argument this morning, and I told him I was just tired of loving him and it’s always a conjunction at the end.”

  “What, I love you but I have a crazy-ass wife, a sick kid, and I need you to stay in your place just until the right moment comes and I can, what”—Chaunci tapped her bottom lip—“leave?”

  “This is why I don’t like to confide in you.”

  “Oh, girl, please. You knew I was not going to babysit you, especially when you’re wrong.”

  “Kendu and I were friends before he ever knew Evan.”

  “Then he should’ve married you. But the moment he took on a wife was the moment you should’ve fallen back. All the way back.” Chaunci laughed. “You know that’s some shady shit you’re doing, though, right? How can you sleep with your costar’s husband? I don’t like Evan either, but damn.”

  “But it’s not like we planned it, it just happened. You know what? Forget it, just drop it.”

  “What, is that code word for ‘I’m pissed with you for telling me the truth’? Please”—Chaunci rolled her eyes—“you know I don’t care if you get mad. I mean, you’re still my sistah girl, and if any of them bitches come out of their faces wrong, you know I’m armed, but I like to fight battles I can win. And if Evan finds out and loses her mind on your ass, I’ma get in it, but I’ma be slow gettin’ there.”

  “You don’t understand, everything is not black-and-white.”

  “Milan, this is crazy. Do you plan on looking at yourself, or are you too focused on upgrading your choice of the male species? From one athlete to the next?”

  “It’s not like that with us. We are in love.”

  “Do I need to get a tape recorder so I can play back how you sound?”

  “He really doesn’t want to be married to Evan.”

  “Then he needs to divorce her, not fuck you. If he’s so concerned about his ill daughter, why is he rendezvousing with you?”

  “You are being way too critical. Listen to me, he loves me, but the shit is complicated. He comes to the loft between the hours of eleven and about five-thirty or so, and then he leaves to go back home to be with Aiyanna and so forth.”

  “Okay, so not only are you not worthy of being the wife, or him leaving his wife—the very wife that you claim he doesn’t love—he now has you on a schedule? That’s some rotten shit.”

  “You’re only saying that because you don’t really know him.”

  “I don’t want to know him. I don’t need to know him. You are my friend and all I’m saying is this: I’m sure he loves you or he feels something, but, and there’s the conjunction, he is attached to his life with his wife. Even if she is causing him drama, he likes to be in the midst of it; otherwise he would leave. And he has enough money so that everyone could go their separate ways and financially be okay. This isn’t your average run-of-the-mill ‘who’s going to get the house or pay the mortgage’ type of thing.”

  “He’s not leaving, because of his daughter.”

  “If his daughter is so sick and he can’t be without her, how does he find time to have this affair with you—”

  “But—”

  “Let me finish. You need to set some standards. You have hopped out of one man’s bed and straight into another’s. Stop that. If this man loves you, then he’ll understand that you have some things to do for you. He’s taking care of his business. You need to think about yours, because apparently you didn’t fall on your ass hard enough, and if losing your marriage, your money, and your home wasn’t enough for you to wake up and see that you need to take care of yourself, then you have more issues than I thought.”

  “And you say all that to say what?”

  “Get your shit together.”

  Both women were silent for a moment. “So you think it’s that easy?” Milan asked.

  “I know it’s not. But when Kobi’s father left me I had to get over that, so I know what it is to love a man who has a lot of other things going on. But I also know what it’s like to have your own.”

  “So you don’t ever want to love again?”

  “I have Edmon.”

  Before either of them could say anything they both fell out laughing. “You’re wrong for that, and you have the nerve,” Milan said, “to talk about me?”

  “Girl, Edmon and I have an understanding.”

  “What, that he’s pussy whipped?”

  “It’s more than that.”

  “Like what, because I already know you don’t love him.”

  “I do love him. I’m just cautious about it.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because she who loves least controls the relationship. That’s why I’m able to sleep in and you’re stressed.”

  “True, but he who has more money certainly has an upper hand, and that, my dear, is why you’re marrying Edmon.”

  “Not true. I’m marrying Edmon—”

  “Because at thirty it’s the thing to do.”

  “No,” Chaunci said, “because he will be a good husband and a wonderful provider.”

  “Still scorned, huh?”

  “I am not scorned.” Chaunci sucked her teeth. “Oh, okay, I see.”

  “I mean I loved Kobi’s father, ‘loved’ being the operative word.”

  “You need to stop. Now, we’re girls, so tell me, do you still love him?” Milan held her index finger up. “And don’t give me no article, page four, under the ‘I’ll never love again’ section of your magazine bullshit. Tell me as your friend, do you love him?”

  Chaunci sighed, and her heart filled her throat. She hated that she’d been put on the spot. Because to say she still loved Idris after all these years would somehow feel as if she was admitting defeat. “I haven’t been pining over him all of these years or anything. I just made up my mind that I had a mission and I couldn’t let anyone get in the way.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “I can’t bring myself to say yes.”

  “You just did.”

  “No, I didn’t. If I admit that I love Idris, then that would be like saying that it’s okay the way he treated me. It’s okay that he paid me three hundred dollars to get rid of my daughter, because he saw my pregnancy as a problem. It was okay for him to do all that he wanted to me because no matter what I would be there for him. Well, no, it’s not okay.”

  “So you’re in love with him and you’re scared?”

  “It’s a little more complicated than that.”

  “No, it’s not. Love is simple. You love him. It’s the other shit that’s complicated.”

  “I can’t just have him swing back into my life as if what he did was cool.”

  “Maybe he’s a different person. Have you spoken to him since the gala?”

  “Too many damn times. He showed up here one time. I saw him at a restaurant another time. I feel like he’s suddenly everywhere.”

  “Does he want to see Kobi?”

  “Yes, he does, but no, he’s not.”

  “Why? Don’t put her in the middle of that. My mother did that to me and it was horrible.”

  “Look, when you’re a single mother raising your baby alone, and you’ve already been through the shitty-ass di
apers, the teething, day care, and all that other stuff and you finally get to a point where you think you can handle everything on your own, the last thing you need is for the deadbeat to become Daddy the Superhero and decide he should stake claim.”

  “That’s between you and the deadbeat, not the kid, not Kobi, who deserves her daddy. And maybe, Chaunci, he’s a different man now. Perhaps he’s changed.”

  “Then why is he taking me to court?”

  “To court?” Milan said, surprised.

  “Yes, can you imagine the nerve? As much as black men hate ‘the man’ telling him what to do, he takes me to court.”

  “He wants to see his daughter. Why don’t you talk to Idris and maybe you two can come to some type of agreement. If I were you I’d rather work something out with him on my own than have some damn judge who considers me another case telling me what to do with my child.”

  “Idris can go to hell! I had to take my child to a damn lab for a blood test because of him. Do you know how humiliating that is?”

  “Don’t mess around and walk out of the courtroom crying. Just talk to Idris.”

  “Fuck him.”

  “With all that anger, you probably will, and soon, too.” Milan laughed.

  Chaunci sucked her teeth. “I’m not sleeping with him ever again. Not that I have any bad memories, and unless he fell off, he knew how to hit it. But his knowing how to groove says nothing to me about what type of father he would be.”

  “Well, I think he and Kobi deserve a chance to find out.”

  “Look at you trying to give me advice.”

  “You need to take some of my passion, mix it with your determination, and give the man a chance.”

  “Umm-hmm, what-the-hell-ever, now finish telling me about these Prada shoes.”

  Milan didn’t return to Kendu’s place until late in the afternoon. She was determined that she was going to pack her things and start looking for a place of her own. Maybe even stay with Chaunci until she found one, because there was no way she could stay here. She looked at her watch and realized that she had a few hours left to get her things together before Kendu showed up again.