by E. N. Joy
Deborah gathered her things and exited the restaurant shortly thereafter. She’d have to put on some Yolanda Adams or something to remind her about Christianity, because by the time she got to Lynox, if he wasn’t talking right, there wasn’t going to be a chance in the world that she’d make it to heaven. Because all hell was going to break loose for sure.
***
“You got a minute?” Deborah walked up to Lynox, who sat at his desk in their home office, pounding away at the keyboard. He was so focused on the manuscript that he was working on that he hadn’t even acknowledged Deborah as she walked down the short flight of steps that led to their basement.
“Oh, hey, yeah,” he said, distracted. He looked at the time on the computer. “Man, I didn’t realize it was this late. Thank God you do not leave getting Tyson off the bus up to me. I don’t know how long the poor kid would be up there, ringing the doorbell, before I even came up for air and realized it was ringing.”
Deborah let out a chuckle, just because it was the thing to do. She didn’t necessarily find what Lynox had said humorous. As a matter of fact, she’d hardly paid attention to half of what he’d said. Besides, Tyson wouldn’t be standing at the door, ringing the bell. He was in kindergarten. They didn’t even allow kindergartners off the bus unless an adult was there to greet them.
“You all right? Is something wrong?” Lynox asked. Deborah’s mind being a million miles away and that fake chuckle hadn’t gone undetected by him. He grabbed her hand as she stood by his desk. “What’s going on? Talk to me.” He was treating her with kid gloves. After Deborah’s erratic behavior in the car a couple of weeks ago, her taking one too many pills after church, and then her clowning in the loft the other day, he was very mindful of the way he interacted with his wife. He had to gauge her and her moods first and then act accordingly.
Deborah didn’t appreciate being treated like a fussy baby who needed some cooing to settle her down. “Don’t patronize me, Lynox.” Deborah pulled her hand out of her husband’s.
She could sense he was trying to walk on eggshells around her. She didn’t like that one bit. She felt as if he was playing her, trying to butter her up so that whatever lies he tried to tell her would slip on by her. Heck, as far as she knew, he was the one Klarke had been talking to on the phone when she left the restaurant like there was a fire somewhere. Klarke had probably realized herself that she’d slipped up and mentioned that she’d talked to Lynox on the phone. Then, to make matters worse, he’d called her up while she was still having lunch with Deborah. He had probably wanted the scoop on how their brunch went. He’d already told on himself once, anyway, since he’d admitted to having talked to Klarke about Deborah that one time at the Laroques’ party, so Deborah wouldn’t put it past him to have done it again. Deborah could just hear Lynox asking Klarke, “Do you think she suspects anything?” Well, the answer was yes. She suspected a lot, and now she was expecting some answers.
Lynox was a little taken aback by Deborah’s sharp shift in attitude. It wasn’t even a gradual shift. She had meowed and then had immediately started barking. What the heck? He didn’t have to say the words to express how he was feeling about her sudden change in demeanor. His facial expression said it all. What now?
“I met with Klarke today,” Deborah said, sitting down in the chair next to Lynox’s desk. “Of course, you know that, because you’re the one who convinced me that I should hang out with her.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing. Why? Did something happen?” Now that Lynox knew that Klarke had something to do with the way Deborah was acting, he felt a little relief. At least she was pissed off at Klarke and not at him.
“I don’t know. You tell me.” Deborah sat back, with her legs crossed, looking at Lynox knowingly.
Lynox really didn’t have time for any guessing games. He was working on a deadline. He started to become a little agitated. Deborah’s new attitude, unlike Patti LaBelle’s, was not for the better. But like the vows he’d spoken, he was going to hang in there for better or for worse.
“Did she say or do something to upset you?” Lynox questioned, willing to play a couple of rounds of the guessing game to appease her.
“As a matter of fact, she did.”
Lynox shot Deborah a look that said, “Okay. Spill it then.”
“So you and Reo are supposed to be meeting up, huh?” Deborah began swinging her foot back and forth.
Lynox’s eyes followed his wife’s foot. As of late, he’d noticed that whenever she started to get anxious, her foot would get to swinging or her knee to bouncing. “Uh, yeah.” He couldn’t understand why that would have her so upset. “You know that he and I are supposed to be working on a project together.”
“Klarke knows too.” Deborah sat there, glaring at her husband. She was hoping that he would spit it out without her having to pick.
“Of course she knows. She was standing right there when we were talking about it.”
“Yeah, and I was standing right there too when you were talking about it, but I guess neither Reo nor I was present when you were yapping it up with Klarke on the telephone, telling her what day and what time you were coming over.” For all Deborah knew, that had been Klarke’s way of setting up a secret rendezvous with Lynox. They had made up an excuse for why Lynox would be at her home on a certain day. Reo probably was scheduled to be out of town that day, on a book tour or something. Deborah made a mental note to go online and check his tour schedule.
Ha! If Lynox thought he was slick enough to outslick the slicker, he had another think coming. Her ex and her son’s father had been the lowest of the low. He’d cheated on her and done her dirty every way possible. He had tried every trick in the book and had slept with every chick he could, and thanks to him, there was nothing new under the sun to Deborah. He’d prepared her for the next man, who just happened to be Lynox.
Lynox looked puzzled, thought for a moment, and then realized where Deborah was going with this whole thing. “Is that what this is about? Klarke knowing our meeting plans before you? With you being my agent and all, I guess it would have made sense to clue you in.”
Deborah had had enough of Lynox’s games. She jumped to her feet. “Boy, don’t play stupid with me,” Deborah snapped. “This ain’t got ish to do with me being your wife. You talked to her on the phone, and I’m trying to figure out why. Everyone uses their cell phones for business nowadays, and I’m sure Mr. Laroque is no exception. So I ask, why would you be on the phone with his effing wife? What? Did she just happen to answer his cell phone? Even if she did, you ask to speak to her husband and keep it moving. Why would you want to strike up a conversation with her?” Deborah had a string of other questions that included another string of cusswords, but she figured she’d give Lynox time to weasel out of the ones she’d already presented.
“I can’t believe we are having this conversation, but since we are, do you mind if we have it without the foul language?” Lynox had not known his wife to be a cussin’ Christian. But almost everything about her attitude these days puzzled him.
“Whatever.” Deborah rolled her eyes and sucked her teeth.
“Well, here goes.” Lynox exhaled and then proceeded. “I didn’t call Reo’s cell phone. I called his landline, and Klarke answered.”
Deborah honestly hadn’t even considered the fact that Lynox had called their home. Who gave out their home phone number nowadays? Most people didn’t even have one anymore, unless they had small children, which Klarke and Reo didn’t. Their youngest daughter was a teenager. Surely, she had her own cell phone too.
“So when she answered, why didn’t you ask to speak to Reo? What made you want to talk to her? You only half want to talk to me.”
“That’s not true, Deborah.” Lynox stood. He recalled getting slugged the other night. He didn’t want to be at a disadvantage by sitting, in case Deborah felt like getting her Floyd Mayweather on again. “I love talking to you.” He reached down and rubbed Deborah’s cheek with hi
s thumb. “Reo had left me a message with a date and a time that he wanted to get together. He also left me the number to return the call. When I called him back to confirm, Klarke answered. Reo wasn’t available. She asked if I wanted to leave a message, and I did. I told her to tell him that I was available then and would mark my calendar. She said okay, I said okay, and then that was it. I really don’t see why you’re so upset about that.”
After Lynox had explained himself, Deborah didn’t know why she was upset her own self. She had raced home, just knowing she was going to catch him in lie, but everything he’d said made sense. It wasn’t some far-fetched story, like the ones her ex used to feed her. Deborah honestly had no basis upon which to argue with or disprove what Lynox had told her. That meant it was time to flip the script.
“I feel like we don’t communicate anymore. The fact that Klarke knew about you guys meeting and I didn’t made me feel . . .” Deborah allowed her words to trail off on purpose while she thought of a way out of the unnecessary drama she’d created between herself and her husband.
“I can understand why you would feel that way.” Feeling as though it was safe to sit back down, Lynox took his seat. “We are both constantly working, and then there are the kids. We’re like two ships passing in the night. Even when we’re here, working right across from each other, we don’t even speak.”
On many nights, after putting the kids to bed, Deborah and Lynox had retreated to their home office to work on their individual projects. They would work for hours yet never say a word to one another, each deeply engaged in his or her work.
“With you and Reo striking up this project, I don’t see when we’re ever going to be able to, you know, spend some quality time together,” Deborah whined. Now she had to make it look like it wasn’t about her jealousy or false accusations at all. She’d reacted the way she had all in the name of love. “Even though they are as busy as us, Reo and Klarke seem like they have it all worked out.”
“I know, but the book business isn’t what it used to be. And we both happen to be in the book business. That’s like a husband and wife both being in the real-estate business when housing crises hit,” Lynox explained. “I’m a vet author with a very successful brand, so I’m one of the lucky ones. But I still have to work as hard as the new jack to stay relevant. Digital technology is killing the entertainment business all around.”
“You are preaching to the choir,” Deborah told him.
“We’re entrepreneurs. We have to continue to go hard if we want to make sure our family is taken care of.”
“Work hard, play later.” That had been the commitment the couple had made to one another.
“We have our own thing. It works for us,” Lynox said. “Reo and Klarke seem like a really happy couple, but I don’t want you to start comparing us to them. What we have works for us. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
“I hear you.” Deborah nodded and took in Lynox’s words. She was glad that she’d managed to shift things away from her original suspicions about goings-on between Klarke and Lynox. She would have felt too embarrassed had she outright accused Lynox of having a thing going on with Klarke. He had a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why he’d been on the phone with her. A part of her was definitely pleased, but this meant only that she’d gotten all riled up for nothing. “Well, I better go check on the boys. Tatum is in his swing, and Tyson was playing with his Legos.”
“All right. I’ll be up later.” Lynox turned back to his computer. “Where was I?” he said to himself.
As Deborah turned to head back up the steps, a sudden thought entered her mind, so she stopped in her tracks. Maybe her being upset with her husband wouldn’t be in vain, after all. Lynox had managed to explain the Klarke situation away, but there was another situation she hadn’t gotten a chance to discuss with him.
“Is there something else?” Lynox asked, noticing Deborah was still standing at the bottom of the steps.
“As a matter of fact, there is.” Deborah turned on her heels and faced her husband. She might as well get everything off her chest and clear the air.
“What is it?” Lynox sighed, really hoping he could get back to work.
“It’s not what. It’s who.” Deborah took a step back over toward Lynox.
“Who?” Lynox frowned.
Deborah looked Lynox in the eyes and then said, “Helen.”
Lynox looked like he’d seen a ghost. That alone let Deborah know that this conversation probably wasn’t going to go as smoothly as the one about Klarke. A baleful grin raised the corners of her mouth. She couldn’t wait to see if Lynox was able to weasel his way out of this one.
Chapter 9
Because of the whole episode with Deborah taking more happy pills than prescribed and leaving the kids at church, she wouldn’t have dared drill Lynox about sitting next to Helen on the very day it happened. It had been too soon. Well, now it was later. She’d already gotten to the bottom of the whole Klarke issue, so since she was already at the bottom, she might as well stay there and continue digging at the surface.
“In church, you were sitting by her. There were tons of other vacant seats you could have sat down in, and yet you sat down and decided to praise the Lord with her,” Deborah said.
“You’re kidding me, right? First Klarke and now Helen.” Lynox picked up a pen on his desk and threw it across the room. “Darn it, Deborah!” She had totally put the brakes on his creative juices. There was no way he was going to be able to get his mind right and dive back into his work.
Lynox’s abrupt action startled Deborah. She jumped.
“Are you bored? Is that what it is?” Lynox asked.
“Don’t try to get sarcastic with me. Just answer my question.” Startled by Lynox throwing an object across the room or not, Deborah wanted answers. He could throw however many pens he wanted. She wasn’t letting him be until she found out everything she wanted to know.
Lynox stared at Deborah momentarily. “I don’t even know why I continue entertaining you, but since we’re already at the circus . . .” His wife was wearing him out. “For your information, I was already sitting down when the usher led Helen and her son to my row. What was I supposed to do? Get up and leave?”
“If an usher sat someone who is crazy”—Deborah used her fingers to make quotation marks when saying the word crazy—“and who I despised next to me, you dang right I would have gotten my black butt up and gone and sat somewhere else.”
“Well, I didn’t. I thought that would have been rude. Besides, I was there to keep my eyes on Jesus, not her.”
“So when Pastor Margie did what she always does at the end of service and told you to hug three people before you left, did you hug her?”
Lynox stared at Deborah. So far he’d made it through her questioning without having to lie, but in this case he knew the truth might push Deborah over the edge. Even so, Lynox was a straight-up kind of dude. He didn’t believe in telling a lie to prevent the hurt the truth might cause. Everything always came to light, and when the truth behind a lie finally did, its uncovering would hurt even more than the truth itself.
“Did you hug Helen?” Deborah demanded.
“Yes, I . . . I think so. Her and her son,” Lynox stammered.
Deborah cringed at the thought of Lynox’s arms wrapped around that heifer. “Keeping your eyes on Jesus, huh? You are such a joke. A clown. You are indeed a clown at the circus you just referenced, and now you’re trying to clown me. Here you were a few nights ago, ranting and raving about how Helen was crazy and you don’t do crazy. I guess it’s okay to hug crazy, though. The way you were talking, if the usher had sat her next to me, I would have gotten up and gone and sat somewhere as far away from that woman as I could. Guess you were just talking.” Deborah used both her hands to make a talking gesture.
“You’re the one who is just talking, and you’re talking crazy.”
Deborah snapped her head back and put her hands on her hips. “Oh, now I’m
crazy again?”
“I’m not going to do this with you, Deborah. I love you, but, baby, we got to figure out what’s going on with you, or else—”
“Mommy, the baby is crying.”
Both Lynox and Deborah looked at the top of the steps to see Tyson standing there.
Lynox turned back to his computer. Even though Deborah had surely stifled his creativity, he was still going to try to get some work done, even if it was only replying to fan mail.
“Or else what?” Deborah said in a loud tone as she walked up on Lynox.
“Go get the baby,” Lynox said in a warning manner. In other words, he was telling his wife that it would be better for them both if she got out of his face and went to tend to the baby.
“No. Not until you tell me what you were about to say. Or else what, Lynox? What you gon’ do? Say it.” Deborah’s voice got louder and louder as she stepped to her husband.
“Deborah, you need to go get the baby,” Lynox said in a “You better go somewhere” tone.
“You get him.”
“Fine. I will.” Lynox stood up and headed for the steps.
“Oh, no you don’t.” Deborah charged behind Lynox, huffing and puffing. “You will not try to walk away and get out of this. You son of a b—”
Lynox stopped and turned, causing Deborah to run smack into his chest. He was not about to let her call him out of his name yet again. She’d already called him dumb. No way was he going to allow her to insult his mother in an expletive directed toward him.
“Ugh!” Deborah shouted after slamming into Lynox’s chest. She then covered her mouth with her hand. Her eyes watered from the throbbing pain in her mouth.
“Let me see.” Lynox pulled Deborah’s hand away from her mouth.
“Get away from me.” She snatched her hand away and put it back over her mouth, but not before Lynox could see that her lip was bleeding from her tooth having cut it.
The sound of crying coming from the top of the steps reminded both Lynox and Deborah that Tyson was still standing there . . . and had watched everything that had just transpired.