Kendu had been home all day for the last two weeks; the scent of Chanel No. 5 no longer lingered on him; and that along with the shot of lithium the hospital gave her before she signed herself out made her feel sane.
They were in the middle of a family photo shoot for the cover of Essence magazine. Kendu’s story of rags to riches and the money he’d raised for his charity had attracted national attention.
Evan sat on the floor, with her arm draped across Kendu’s lap, and Aiyanna stood behind the leather wing chair Kendu sat in, an awkward position for a family photo, but one that Evan insisted the photographer take and she was adamant that they use it for the cover. She could feel Kendu pushing her off of his lap after the picture was taken.
“You all are really a lovely family,” the photographer said. “What’s your secret?”
“Love.” Evan smiled. “Nothing but love.”
Kendu looked intently at Evan. His life was extremely controlled by image and position and bullshit about what other people thought and their values and opinions. He’d only been home around the clock because he was scared to leave his daughter with Evan. And he hadn’t called Milan, because he couldn’t think of any way to explain that he needed her to hold on just a little while longer. So he took the hit on the chin and risked losing the woman he loved forever, because he knew if he called her or he went to Soho and Milan told him she was leaving him, the script would flip and he would be the one to act crazy.
Evan tried not to look in Kendu’s eyes. She knew he was only doing this because of his image, and since he was this year’s recipient of the Arthur Ashe Courage Award, the last thing he needed was a scandal. So she decided she would take what she could get. Besides, if she couldn’t have him the way she wanted and the way she needed, then his reputation would pay dearly for it.
“Mrs. Malik,” the governess called, walking into the dining room and standing near the door, “Bridget is on the phone.”
Evan looked at the photographer. “Are we done?”
“Yes, we are?”
“Great”—Evan turned to Kendu—“honey, I have a lunch date with the girls: Jaise, Chaunci, and Milan.” She rolled her eyes. “So I’m sure that’s why Bridget is calling.” She looked back at the governess. “Tell her that I’m on my way.”
The Club
W hen Evan arrived at the Russian Tea Room, Jaise and Bridget were already seated and the camera was rolling. Evan was confident that in her gray and white diagonal-striped Fendi dress she looked beautiful; the long bell sleeves covered the scars of her self-inflicted wounds and the voices in her head were silent for the moment. She walked over to Bridget and Jaise and air kissed them both on the cheeks. “Darlings.” She batted her eyes.
“Hi, sweetie,” Jaise said. “How’ve you been?”
“Wonderful.”
“Really?” Bridget said. “You want to tell the camera why you were in the hospital?”
“My publicist released a statement.”
“I mean the real story.”
“Bridget, you’re pathetic,” Evan dismissed her, waving her hand. “Histrionics at any and all cost.”
“Pretty much the name of the game.”
“You know what,” Jaise said defensively, “why don’t you give it a rest, Bridget. She doesn’t have to keep explaining herself.”
“Okay, well, why don’t you explain yourself,” Bridget said snidely. “Explain why a woman of your caliber would fall in love with a Brooklyn cop. Not the chief of police, not the captain, but a low-level detective. Would you like to explain that to the camera?”
Jaise twisted her lips. “What business is it of yours? Bilal is a great man. You act as if his being in my life is a secret. He’s been in front of the cameras.”
“My sentiments exactly, so why don’t you explain.”
Evan looked confused. “What happened to Trenton?”
“He was cheating on me.”
“So you just up and dump him?” Evan batted her eyes. “And for a cop? Are you crazy?”
“Look,” Jaise said, clearly agitated, “so what if he isn’t rich.”
“So what if he isn’t rich? Did you forget about your little alimony situation, or are you really that desperate? Damn, Jaise, be for real. If you get remarried your forty thousand dollars a month in alimony stops. My God.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Bridget said. “Mo’ drama unveiled.” She looked toward the camera and arched her eyebrows. “Stay tuned. So if you marry a broke man, Milan won’t be the only has-been, is that what she’s saying, Jaise?”
Jaise cut her eyes at Evan. Her alimony settlement was something she didn’t want anyone to know about, not since her divorce decree had a gag order in it. Jaise never thought the details would slip out, let alone on national television. “Who said I was getting married?”
“I don’t believe this.” Evan shook her head. “You have hooked up with the local fuckin’ Jamaican cab driver.”
“He’s not a cab driver.”
“He might as well be. What’s the difference? As a matter of fact, a cab driver makes more money.”
“Why is everything about money? Maybe I actually love him.”
“What does love have to do with it?” Evan shook her head. “You would really lose it all for a cop?”
“You losin’ all for a football player.” She looked Evan over. “Everyone knows what you were really in the hospital for. It’s no secret that you have a mental health diagnosis. People talk, doctors get paid off. Please, that shit is all over the Internet, which is why you released a statement saying the opposite. So when you get your thoughts in order, you tell me about my man, broke or otherwise.”
“Fuck you, Jaise.”
Jaise crossed her legs. “No, honey, for all intents and purposes”—she pointed at Evan—“fuck you.”
“Is that the new language for friends?” Bridget smiled. “Oh, and before I forget, Chaunci and Milan are on their way, and I need you two to be extrasensitive to Milan. No references to broke bitches spewed around, keep the welfare comments to yourself, and don’t ask her if her EBT card works here, because clearly this place doesn’t take food stamps.”
“Is she doing that bad?” Evan asked.
“Unfortunately, she is.” Bridget sipped her drink. “I just spoke with her last night, and she was sounding so pitiful.”
“Where was she calling you from?”
“I think she was walking the street, because I could hear the wind whipping in the background.”
“But they had so much money. How could they really be broke?” Jaise questioned.
“How many rich crackheads do you know?” Bridget asked.
“None.”
“Exactly.”
“Well,” Jaise said, concerned, “should we give her money?”
“That’s awfully thoughtful of you, Jaise,” Bridget said, holding up her glass for the waiter to refresh her martini, “considering Milan called you a trashbox.”
Jaise practically choked on her drink. “Are you serious?” She cleared her throat.
“Looks like we’ve gotten here right on time, Milan,” Chaunci said as she and Milan walked in the door flashing mile-wide smiles. “I swear I heard someone calling your name.” She looked at Jaise, Bridget, and Evan. “Seeing as how the bitches have arrived”—Chaunci snapped her fingers—“let the chatter continue.” She laid her Ferragamo clutch on the table, and she and Milan took their seats.
Evan stared at Milan and she could clearly envision her riding Kendu’s dick. “Milan, Kendu and I—”
Milan couldn’t help how quickly her neck whipped around. “You and Kendu what?”
“Were thinking of asking you to be our new baby’s godmother.”
Milan started to cough. “Excuse me?”
“You’re pregnant?!” Jaise exclaimed. “Is that what’s wrong with you?”
“No,” Evan chuckled, “not yet anyway. But we are working on a baby. Aiyanna wants a little brother or sister.”
Milan looked around the room. She wondered if anyone else besides her and Chaunci heard the bomb ticking.
“Congratulations.” Jaise smiled. “Now, maybe you can judge your own business and stay out of mine.” She looked Evan over.
“I guess they stopped selling dogs,” Milan said as she crossed her legs one way and then nervously crossed them the other way.
“Was that supposed to be a joke?” Evan snapped.
Milan sipped her drink, and said in the interests of peace, “Yeah, it was a joke.”
“So how long have you been trying to have a baby?” Jaise asked Evan.
“For the last two weeks.”
Milan looked around. The bomb had stopped ticking; it had exploded.
“Ladies,” Evan continued on, “my husband and I are getting it on all day long.” She sipped her drink. “I swear I’m turning into a freak. Every morning around nine we begin to make love all day.”
“Wow, Evan, I mean, I have to admit it took me a while to have sex in broad daylight,” Jaise confessed.
“Well, what is this,” Milan said, “confessions of the trashbox hookers?”
Bridget smiled and winked an eye at Jaise. “Told you.”
“Are you calling me a hooker, Milan?”
“Sure did. And what are you going to do? I’m so sick of this whole reality TV, cameras, and all of this other bullshit. Fuck it, I don’t like you.” She looked at Jaise. “And you, Evan, are pitiful. So I tell you what, shut the fuck up, keep my name outcha mouths, and don’t say shit else to me.”
Chaunci leaned against Milan’s shoulder and whispered, “I didn’t wear the right shoes to be bustin’ these bitches up.”
“Why the hell are you so angry?” Jaise looked taken aback.
“You know what,” Milan snapped, “cut the innocent, peacemaking bullshit.”
Evan looked at Milan long and hard, and the more she tried to contain herself the less control she realized she had. “Jaise, ignore this broke-ass, low-budget sleaze.”
“Don’t tell Jaise to ignore me. You need to be telling your man that.”
“I’ll kick your ass!” Evan reached across the table, and Jaise pulled her back.
Evan started screaming and Bridget snapped, “I can’t believe you just held her back! This isn’t the Layaway Hos, this is the Millionaire Wives Club. We don’t postpone shit!”
Jaise turned to Bridget. “You know what, I’m getting real sick of you. Most producers on these shows are quiet, and people don’t even know who they are, because they know how to shut up. But you, you are in everything! I can’t wait until this show is over because then I can look at each and every one of y’all and tell you to kiss my ass.”
“I know that wasn’t the peacemaker,” Milan snapped as security rushed into the room.
Chaunci looked at security and spat, “I just had a flashback, so you know what, this may as well be the reunion show, because I’m done, and don’t call me for another goddamn get-together.” She looked at Milan. “Let’s go.”
“Let’s.” Milan grabbed her bag as she and Chaunci stormed out of the restaurant.
Bridget looked at Evan and Jaise, who were being shielded by security. “What are you two pissed off for? Smile, they’ve just guaranteed us a second season.”
It’ll Be a Motherfucker
Milan
T he morning when it hit Milan that she’d been lying in Kendu’s bed, grooving for far too long to silence and dancing with loneliness, was when she realized she didn’t have any more tears left.
It’s not as if she didn’t know from the onset that she’d been holding on to nothing. It’s just that nothing had ever felt so good as it did today … well, yesterday … back when they had enough passion between them that Milan could emotionally afford to ignore the obvious, that he was married and had a family. But not anymore. Not today, at least. Milan knew she had to leave, because if she didn’t, she would be fighting for the rest of her life and the rest of her love with Kendu, to desperately get in where she fit in.
She’d applied for an apartment on Church Avenue in Brooklyn on an emotional whim, a spur-of-the-moment type of thing, when she couldn’t reach Kendu no matter how much she’d called or how many messages she’d left. She did it because she needed to make believe—at least at the time—that she had the nerve and the heart enough to say, Fuck him, she didn’t need him, despite how bad she hurt inside. So, she combed the paper, found an apartment, completed the application, and a few days later, surprisingly, she was approved. And yesterday, when her soul whispered to her that her willingly lying in Kendu’s bed, two weeks after not hearing anything from him, was too long, was when she went straight from work and signed the lease.
Milan looked around at the beautiful space she was leaving behind and knew that she’d worn out her welcome. She’d derailed her own plans and this time she had to get back on track. To hell with the name brands, the wealthy friends, and all the other artificial things that controlled her life.
She had to leave, especially now that she had the keys to her new place in her purse and the moving men were downstairs with her boxes of clothes and some of the things she salvaged from her old place with Yusef.
Milan threw her purse onto her shoulder, grabbed her last box, tossed the keys to Kendu’s apartment in the middle of the floor, and walked out the door.
She attempted to swallow the lump in her throat repeatedly, but it felt as if the ball of emotion resting on her tongue was too much to push back into her stomach. This left her with no choice but to accept that the pain of leaving here would be around for a while.
“Ready, ma’am?” the driver said to her, as he placed his keys in the truck’s ignition and turned his aged baseball cap around backward.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.” Milan forced her lips to curl into a smile.
“Let’s be out then.”
Milan looked out the window as the driver pulled off. She closed her eyes for the remainder of the ride. She didn’t care about the route the driver took. All she wanted was to arrive at her new place.
Twenty minutes of riding with the wind cutting across her face, and then Milan opened her eyes and the driver said, “Looks like we’re here.”
Milan didn’t respond. She looked at the people walking swiftly up and down the mixed block of apartment buildings, row houses, and single-family dwellings. Milan was moving into a fifth-floor apartment in a tall brick building filled with mixed-income people, some working and some chilling on the block. It was a far cry from the upscale apartments of doormen, dog walkers, and living lavishly. Instead this was real life, and real shit went on here.
Strangely enough, as if she were suddenly high off contact, Milan didn’t feel like she had hit rock bottom. She felt on top. Like she was able to do this—this place and this space was freedom, a detox of sorts, where all the fucked-up love could ease from her pores and let her become sound again.
As Milan placed her keys in the door and the movers brought in her things, she knew this was where she was supposed to be.
After an hour of moving boxes into the one-bedroom flat, and the moving men had gone, Milan felt as if she had mastered her situation. But then, unexpected or perhaps expected, yet unwanted, tears filled the back of her eyes and her heart started melting into an emotionally drained piece of shit. Suddenly, she felt empty. Like all that she’d been through, the glitz, the glamour, the money … the millions… and millions … of dollars … and all she had left, and all she’d been able to accomplish in all of her thirty years … was nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Milan crouched to her knees in the middle of her wood floor, among the sea of boxes, and cried until she couldn’t cry anymore.
Evan
“Y ou sure you can’t be Daddy’s date?” Kendu teased Aiyanna as he stood in her doorway dressed in his two-piece black Armani suit.
Aiyanna coughed as she sat up in bed. “Daddy, can you stay home and I can be your date in front of the TV?�
��
“Well, that’s awfully selfish of you, Aiyanna,” Evan blurted out as she walked up next to Kendu in her royal blue cocktail dress and placed her hands around his waist. “This is very important to Daddy, and that should mean more to you than him staying home.”
“I just feel really sick.” Aiyanna looked at Kendu with tears in her eyes.
Kendu brushed Evan’s arms from around his waist. He walked over to Aiyanna’s bed and kneeled beside her. “You really want Daddy here with you?”
“Yes.”
He unbuttoned his jacket. “Ai’ight, then I’ma stay here.” He pressed his hand against the back of her head. “She has a fever,” he said, looking at Evan.
“She also has a nurse.” Evan walked over and grabbed Kendu’s hand. “And you don’t need to stay home. Aiyanna is fine. You just have her spoiled. There is more to life then the life and times of Aiyanna Malik. You are the recipient of the Arthur Ashe Courage Award for the all the hard work you do with our charity. You deserve this.”
“But she’s sick.”
“Aren’t you always telling me she will be okay?”
Kendu nodded.
“Well, then she will be fine. This is an opportunity of a lifetime. Now, I insist that our child understand that Mommy and Daddy love her but we have to go.”
Kendu stared at Aiyanna and held her hand. “You know I love you, and when I come home I’ll read you a story, no matter the time.”
“Daddy, please stay home with me.”
“This is enough,” Evan interjected.
“Back up, Evan.” Kendu shot her a look that told her to take it down.
Kendu cleared his throat. “Listen, Daddy does spoil you a lot, because you’re Daddy’s main girl. But I think it’s important that Daddy attend this function. After all, I’m getting the Arthur Ashe Courage Award. Do you know who he was?”
Millionaire Wives Club Page 22