by Kiki Swinson
“Hello,” I said.
There was a long pause before she responded. I guess she was trying to figure out who could be answering Seth’s phone. When she couldn’t come up with the answer, she got up the gumption to ask, “Who is this?”
“Who are you?” I asked back.
“I’m Samantha. Seth’s fiancée.”
“Oh, really? Well that’s strange because I’m his fiancée, we live together, and I’m pregnant with his child.” I couldn’t help but say that, even though I knew that part of it was a lie. Seth and I didn’t live together and I wasn’t pregnant, but she didn’t know that.
“What the fuck you just say?” Samantha screamed.
“Sweetie, now I know you heard me and I refuse to repeat myself,” I replied sarcastically.
“Bitch, don’t be getting smart with me! Do you know who the fuck I am? I will kill you and that motherfucking baby in your stomach!”
“I want to see you try it,” I dared her, chuckling a bit.
“You can laugh now, bitch, but it ain’t gon’ be funny when I get out! Believe me, I’ve only got three weeks left, so go ahead and finish playing house. All that’s gonna come to an end when I become a free woman. Now, watch what I tell you.”
“Sweetie, I applaud you for your confidence but right now, you are dealing with an illusion,” I told her. “Because you see, Seth and I have been together for almost a year now and he tells me constantly how much he loves me. So I don’t believe I am going anywhere, especially since I’m carrying his baby.”
“Oh trust me, bitch, when I come home, you and that baby will be history!” Samantha roared.
“Wait a minute, sweetie. Please calm down! Am I upsetting you?” I snickered.
“Keep laughing, bitch! Remember, your days are numbered, so enjoy them while you can because I am wifey, and when I show up, all the hoes and tricks scatter.”
“Well first off, I am not a ho! And I am definitely not a trick. I am an educated woman with class and my own money, unlike you.”
“Bitch, I don’t care how educated you are. That shit ain’t gon’ work for you when I get home. Now watch and see.”
“Whatever you say, Ms. Samantha.”
“Don’t feed me that shit!” She was getting irritated. “What’s your name anyway?”
“I don’t think you need to know all of that. But I will tell you that I control a lot of shit and I’ve got a lot of clout, so if you try to come near me or Seth, I will have your ass back in prison so fast, you won’t feel your head spin!”
“You ain’t gon’ do shit to me,” Samantha retaliated.
“Well, try me and see!” I warned her.
Before Samantha could get another word in, I disconnected the call and right when I was about to let out a loud scream of frustration, Seth startled me. He’d come from out of nowhere. “Who were you just talking to?”
My heart fell down in the pit of my stomach when I turned around and saw Seth standing there with the most livid expression possible. From his tone, I could tell that he wanted an answer that instant. I took a deep breath and said, “I was talking to Samantha.”
“Who?” he asked, even though I knew he had already heard me the first time.
“I said, Samantha,” I repeated.
He walked toward me. “What the fuck did you have to say to her?” He snatched his Blackberry out of my hand.
“I had a lot to say to her, especially after she told me y’all are going to be together when she gets out in three weeks,” I snapped.
“So, what did you say?” he snapped back, not at all concerned about how I put emphasis on the part that Samantha was coming home in three weeks. It should have been apparent that I was upset and a little intimidated about her homecoming, but Seth wasn’t fazed by that. All he wanted to know was what I said to her. I let his ass have it. “I told her that we were together! Why?”
“Ay yo, you are real foul! You know that?”
Ignoring his insult, I went straight into question mode. “What is going on with you and her, Seth? Why did she tell me that y’all were going to be together when she came home?”
Refusing to answer my question, he fired back at me with a question of his own. “Why the hell you answered my phone? That’s my personal shit! You know how I am about my privacy.”
“Fuck your privacy!” I smacked him. “You fucking betrayed me.” Then I got in his face. “All this time, I’ve been wondering why the hell you were being so distant and now I know. It’s her. You are trying to brush me off so you can go off and be with her, but it ain’t gonna happen. And I can promise you that one!”
Seth stood there with a red handprint across his right cheek. “Whatchu gon’ do?”
I stood my ground. “Try me. You’ll see.”
“A’ight.” He went into my bedroom.
I had no idea what he was about to do, so I followed him. When I saw him storm over toward my closet and grab everything that was his, I went crazy. “What you think you’re doing?” I yelled, trying to snatch clothes out of his hands.
“Maxine, you better move out my way,” he growled.
“I’m not going anywhere. And you ain’t going anywhere, either,” I protested.
“You are a motherfucking lie! I’m getting away from your crazy ass!” He continued to try and force his way by me, but I tried to hold him back with my weight. It didn’t work, though. He used his 185 pounds to move me right out of the way. I stumbled and almost fell to the floor.
“You are not leaving me!” I ranted and raved after I caught my balance and charged behind him.
Clothes were falling out of his arms as he made his way down the hallway of my apartment. He was able to recover a few pieces along the way but there were others that I wouldn’t let him touch. “You ain’t taking this,” I blurted out as we played tug-a-war with a mink coat I purchased for him on our first Christmas together.
“Well, keep it! I don’t give a fuck about that shit!”
“You ain’t taking this either,” I roared once again, snatching a pair of tailor-made slacks that were thrown across his shoulder. At that instant, Seth became infuriated. He stopped in his tracks and dropped every article of clothing in the middle of the floor. “You know what? Keep all this shit!” he yelled. He stormed outside and slammed the front door behind him.
At that very moment, I knew Seth was gone and that he wasn’t coming back. Samantha told me out of her own mouth that they were going to be together when she got out of prison. What was hurting my heart so badly was that when I asked him about it, he didn’t deny it. But I had a trick for the both of their asses if they thought that I was going to let them be together. Especially after all the shit I had invested in his sorry ass! Not in a million years.
The very next morning, which was a Friday, I got up, got dressed, and headed to the office. I wasn’t going in to perform my regular duties. I was simply going in to do some more research. I ran into that bitch, Carolyn Granger, on the way in. Dressed in one of her usual black or navy blue suits, she sparked up a conversation with me the second I stepped into the elevator. “I thought you were off for a couple of weeks.”
I cringed at the sound of her voice but instead of showing her my true emotions, I smiled. “I am, but I’m working on a few things at home so I needed to come into my office and get a file.”
“Does Karen know you’re here?” she asked.
“No, but I am sure you will tell her,” I replied sarcastically and stepped off the elevator the moment the door opened.
I knew she was shocked at my response, but evidently it didn’t faze her because she fired right back at me and hit my ass right below the belt. “Did Karen tell you that personnel gave me her position?”
I gritted my teeth really hard because I’m sure Karen already told her that I knew about her getting the position over me. Instead of dignifying her question with a response, simply because it was a rhetorical question, I only gave her a nod.
“Well, you know
that means I am going to be your boss?” “I’m
sure you’re looking forward to that.”
“You know I am.” She smiled. “I can’t wait to turn things around in this office.”
“I’m sure you can’t,” I said.
“Oh, but it’s gonna be for the best,” she belted out while the elevator door opened.
“Yes, I’m sure.” I commented and then I stepped off the elevator and didn’t look back.
When I got to my office, I felt a sense of emptiness when I opened the door. Everything was in place but, for some reason, it felt like something was missing. When I rummaged through my things and realized that everything was still in place, I sat down behind my desk. It dawned on me that I was the one who was missing from the equation. It also dawned on me that my job was my life before I got turned down for the promotion, and to make matters worse, the fact that Seth was taking my love for granted really had me pissed. But before I allowed my emotions to get the best of me, I grabbed his file from my file cabinet and booted up my computer. I already knew Samantha’s full name, but in order for me to locate her in our database and find out her exact release date, I needed other pertinent information like her date of birth and her social security number. I opened up the file and searched through every court document until I ran across the section where it had her listed as his co-defendant. My eyes lit up because I knew I was one step closer to finding out when she was becoming a free woman.
I keyed all of her information into the system and instantly, her whole file appeared right before my eyes. In bold letters her release date read: NOVEMBER 21, 2007. I almost passed out when I saw it. That was near the Thanksgiving holiday. As I continued to read, I discovered that she would be released to the halfway house on 20th Street in Norfolk to serve a four-month term and complete a drug rehabilitation program. Her release date from the halfway house was MARCH 17, 2008. Then she would be released to 509 Middle Town Arch in Norfolk, which was listed as her parents’ address. As I read farther down, I came across some information that I wasn’t quite ready for. There, posted right before my eyes, was Carolyn Granger’s name listed as her probation officer. I knew that this was not going to be good. If Samantha ever found out that I was the one that went back and forth with her on the phone about Seth, and that Carolyn and I couldn’t stand one another, she would have a field day and try to bury my ass. So, what the hell was I going to do? How was I going to get her out of the way without implicating myself? That was something I needed to think about hard and long. I pushed my keyboard to the side, leaned my head back against the headrest of my chair, and closed my eyes in deep thought. Just as I was about to channel my thoughts into creative mode, there was a knock on my door.
“Come in,” I said.
Karen opened my door and popped her head around it. “Got a minute?” she asked.
“Yeah, sure. What’s up?”
Karen came inside and took a seat. “I’ve got good news.”
“What about?”
“I just got a call from one of the detectives investigating your assault, and he informed me that they have Sean Phillips in custody.”
My face lit up. “When did they get him?”
“Earlier this morning. He was stopped in a road block that five state troopers had set up to sift out drunk drivers near Richmond. After the state troopers instructed him to pull over, they noticed that the decals on the license plates had expired and when they asked him for his license and registration, he tried to drive off and make a run for it but the other troopers blocked him off and shut him down immediately.”
“You’ve got to be kidding?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Was he traveling alone?”
“No, he had a female companion with him. The officers said that they planned to detain her for a couple of hours and hoped that she’d have some information that could lead to the whereabouts of the other two.”
“Well, did they at least find my weapon?” I asked with desperation.
Karen paused for a second and then she said, “Well, they weren’t sure because the weapon they found had most of the serial numbers scratched off, but the detective assured me that Mr. Phillip’s fingerprints were all over it. He is going to have that weapon sent to Forensics to see if they could recover what was left of the numbers and see if they come up with a match.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “So, what’s gonna happen next?”
“Well, the charges have already been filed, so all we’d have to do is go through the process of waiting on his conviction in state court. Then we could violate his federal probation and send his butt back to prison.”
“Where exactly is he now?”
“Richmond city police have him in custody, but the detectives from Chesapeake assured me that he would be back in their jurisdiction by the end of business.”
“Well, I sure hope they find out whether that’s my weapon or not.”
“Oh, they will,” she assured me, and then abruptly changed the subject. “So, how is everything with you?”
I smiled with confidence. “Everything is fine.”
“Come off that, Maxine. You know I know when something is bothering you. Now, tell me what’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong. I am fine, Karen.”
“So tell me why you’re back at work?”
“Because I was bored sitting at home,” I lied.
“Where is your male companion?”
“I’m sure he’s probably at work.”
“Well, why don’t you go out and pamper yourself? Get a full body massage or something. Take a trip to the Poconos with your male companion.”
“All that sounds good but at the end of the day, I am going to still feel that void of wanting to be here at work. Karen, you know I hate sitting around doing nothing. I’ve got to keep busy or else I’m gonna go crazy!”
“Well, you need to get over it,” Karen insisted as she stood and started to gather up the loose documents of Seth’s file. My instincts stopped her plans to grab his folder. I blocked her hand and insisted that I put the file back myself. She refused to let go of the few pieces of documents she had, so I literally snatched them away from her and accidentally tore all four papers in half. Karen was appalled by my actions and I couldn’t say anything in my defense.
“What’s the matter with you?” she asked.
Standing there with the other half of the torn documents in my hand, I looked at Karen with a dumb expression on my face. I knew that I had to come up with a good enough excuse of why I was acting this way, so I quickly gathered my thoughts. I said, “Karen, I am so sorry. I guess being away from work is starting to get to me.”
Karen took the torn pieces of paper out of my hands and laid them on top of the other files. “Go home, please. Take that vacation, like I told you,” she encouraged me.
“All right. Well, just let me shut down my computer,” I said.
She became adamant. “No, I will do it.”
I sighed heavily. “OK.”
Karen watched me closely as I grabbed my handbag and car keys and casually walked around to the other side of my desk. As I made my way toward my office door, she shuffled all the paperwork around in order to get it back in one neat pile. When my hand was on the doorknob, Karen said, “What’s going on with this female offender?”
“Who?” I asked, even though I knew who she was talking about.
“Samantha Mitchell.”
I turned around to face Karen and said, “Oh, I was checking on the status of her release.”
“Why would you do that, when she’s not one of your case files?” Karen asked with suspicion.
I caught a knot in my throat that instant. I knew I had to come up with something very clever because she was waiting for a convincing answer. I couldn’t come out and tell her I was checking up on Ms. Mitchell because she was gonna take my man when she came home. Karen would look at me like I was crazy. I had to come up with something more substantial. Th
en it came to me out of the blue. “Because she’s a co-defendant of one of my parolees, and I wanted to make sure I stayed on top of her release, since they are not supposed to have any verbal or physical contact with each other.”
Karen took a seat behind my desk so she could get a closer look at my monitor. “Well, it says that she is going to be assigned to Carolyn’s caseload. Well, that is until she takes over my position, so just get with her if you think that there’s gonna be a problem.”
“Well, I don’t want to jump the gun because she is going into the halfway house upon her release from prison.”
“Call the director and let them know that your client is on supervised probation and that it’s a condition of his probation that he is not to have any contact with Ms. Mitchell. If he goes up there, then he will automatically get violated. As a matter-of-fact…,” Karen’s voice faded as she began to sift through the stack of papers.
“What are you looking for?”
“I am looking for your client’s photo, so I can make a photocopy of it and hand it to Carolyn. She can attach it to this lady’s file when she sends it over to the halfway house.”
“Oh no, you don’t have to do all of that.” I rushed back to my desk.
“Wait, I got it.” Karen paused and pulled the picture closer to her face. You could tell by her expression that she was in really deep thought. It was obvious that she’d recognized Seth’s face from the photo back at my apartment. I believed she was beginning to think that her mind was playing tricks on her, but then again she wasn’t quite sure. If that was the case, I wanted to play along. “What’s wrong?” I asked, trying to play it cool.
“This isn’t the guy in that photo back at your apartment, is it?”
I laughed hysterically. “You must be kidding, right?”
“I know that sounded crazy, but this looks just like that guy.”
“Well, believe you me, it’s not.”