“I was—darn near by myself. Only Arnell’s cousin, Gail, is helping me. Michael’s asleep and Sharise isn’t a bit of help. She’s sitting in the chaise with her feet up.”
“Now, Trena,” Arnell said, moving away from Cliff. “I know you remember what it’s like in the last month of pregnancy.”
“I wasn’t lazy.”
“Yeah, right,” Arnell said. “I remember differently.”
Cliff teasingly pulled his T-shirt away from his stomach and arched his back. He took a few ponderous steps with his hands pressed into the pit of his back.
Trena picked up the dishcloth from the table and threw it at him. She laughed in spite of being sensitive about how big she had gotten when she was pregnant.
Arnell punched Cliff in the shoulder. “That isn’t funny. You try carrying a fifty-pound watermelon in your stomach for several months and see if you laugh.”
“Man,” Cliff said, straightening up, “women have no sense of humor.”
“Certainly not pregnant women,” Arnell said. While she had relished every moment of her pregnancy with Ashley, Trena didn’t enjoy one day of her pregnancy.
Chad was now six years old and a big brother to Ashley. Trena agreed to go through with the pregnancy only if she could live with Arnell and give the baby up for adoption, but as fate would have it, Chad became Arnell’s baby the first time she felt him kick inside Trena’s stomach. Trena, along with Sharise, was godmother to Chad and Ashley, and had no hangups with being around Chad. She coddled him just as much as she did Ashley, but she didn’t want Chad for herself. Trena’s mother and sister wanted her to bring Chad around, but Trena never would; she didn’t want Chad to be a part of their lives, and that was because she could never bring herself to tell them how Chad came to be. As it was, it took some time for Trena to feel good enough about herself to be a part of their lives again. Her father still hadn’t forgiven her for giving Chad away, but Trena didn’t see it as giving Chad away. She saw it as giving Chad a chance to be loved without memories of his conception blocking that love.
Andrew Peebles never knew that he had a son; he was killed trying to rob a bodega. Turns out he wasn’t a producer after all. He was just a thief stealing from others to pay for his visits to The Honey Well.
The real producer it seems was Walter. Walter was now the Walter Jameson, one of the most sought-after songwriters and producers in rap music. He did himself proud and made Arnell and Cliff even prouder when he agreed to be godfather to both Ashley and Chad. Arnell had her own family now, and took not one of them for granted.
Trena stuck the third pink candle into Ashley’s birthday cake. “Let’s do this.”
Just as Arnell picked up Ashley’s cake, she was kissed ever so gently on the right cheek. “I love you too,” she said to Cliff, “but what was that for?”
“What was what for?” Cliff asked.
“The kiss.”
“I didn’t kiss you.”
“Yes, you did.”
“No, I didn’t.”
Arnell looked at Trena.
“Don’t look at me, I didn’t kiss you.”
“I swear,” Arnell said, “it felt like someone kissed me on the cheek.”
“Oooo!” Trena said, “we have ghosts.”
The fine hairs on Arnell’s arm stood up. “Don’t joke. I believe in ghosts.”
“I think we should join the party,” Cliff said. “You lead the way.”
Feeling full and warm in her soul, but uneasy in her mind, Arnell led her family out into the backyard to sing happy birthday to her baby girl.
The following is a sample chapter from
Gloria Mallette’s
DISTANT LOVER.
This book is available now
wherever hardcover books are sold.
Hordes of people—some strolling, some shopping, others hurrying about their own personal business—were rudely brushing past Tandi Crawford, irritating her, making her move out of each square foot of sidewalk she claimed while she waited for Brent. She couldn’t get mad at Brent, he was only four minutes late. She was the one that was early—twenty-seven minutes early. Of course, if Brent was allowed to come to her house to see her, like other girls’ boyfriends, she would not have had to sneak and meet him on the corner of Jamaica Avenue and 164th Street, one of the busiest commercial street corners in Jamaica, Queens, on a Saturday afternoon, when she was supposed to be bowling with her girlfriends up on Hillside Avenue. If her father had an inkling, he’d put a dog collar around her neck and let her out only when school was in session. Her father didn’t like Brent and the truth was, grumpy old Glenn Belson didn’t like her either. But that was all right, his disliking her didn’t bother Tandi, at least not anymore.
All that mattered to Tandi was that she had Brent and that they were in love. And it was love, although puppy love is what Aunt Gert called it; a hot ass is what her father called it. Of course, neither was right. She wasn’t a starry-eyed kid and she wasn’t hot to lose her virginity. She was truly in love, and while losing her virginity wasn’t uppermost in her mind, she would not hold back nor would she regret it if it were to Brent Rodgers. He was to die for. Sometimes Tandi felt like she couldn’t breathe until she could see Brent again; until she could touch him and know that he was real and not a figment of her imagination. Oh, but Brent was very real. Hadn’t he, just yesterday, behind the bleachers in the school gymnasium, tongued her deep and long while feeling her breasts under her gym shirt, rendering her weak in the knees and moist in a place where she had not yet been touched? Soon enough, that’s for sure.
Oh, God! There he is! Brent was coming. Tandi’s heart leaped. Her pulse quickened as she watched Brent’s long muscular legs bring him closer. The funny thing was, she must have seen him walking down the street hundreds of times, yet each and every time she saw him was like seeing him for the very first time. He still took her breath away just as he did to a lot of girls in their high school. She knew of three in particular who would scratch her eyes out to get with Brent, but who could blame them? Brent was all that and more. He was definitely something to look at. The skimpy muscle shirt and mid-thigh shorts he wore exposed his sculptured biceps, his touch-me pecs, and powerful runner’s thighs. Brent truly must have been a beautiful baby because he was so fine now, and he was all hers. Tandi couldn’t wait to be in his arms; to taste of his lips; to feel his hardness against her softness. Her entire body throbbed with a yearning so strong she trembled. She wanted Brent to—
“Mommy! Are you sleeping in there?”
Tandi’s eyes flew open. She yanked her hand from between her thighs. She quickly sat up, splashing the tepid bath water up against the wall and over the side of the tub onto the floor. “Damn,” she whispered, hating that the bath mat was probably soaked, and most likely the rug, too. She looked down at her legs through the clear water. There wasn’t a single bubble left.
Knock . . . knock . . . knock.
“Mommy! Can I have some ice cream and cookies?”
Glancing at the door, Tandi sighed heavily. Back to reality. She was no longer that carefree seventeen-year-old girl whose every thought was of Brent. She was a wife to Jared, who no longer noticed her, and a mother to Michael Jared, who was the light of her life. Secretly, she ached shamelessly for an eighteen-year-old boy from way back in the day when the lazy hazy summer days of her sexual awakening, combined with soulful love songs whet her appetite for Brent and filled her head with erotic fantasies, making her reality even sweeter when he became hers.
“Mommy!”
“What!”
“ ’Bout time! Can I have some ice cream and cookies?”
“Did you finish your homework?”
“Yeah. Can I have some ice cream and cookies?”
“Michael Jared, you had cookies when you got in from school this afternoon.”
“Mommy, that was hours ago and you only let me have three.”
“That’s because you ate a whole package of cookies yester
day.”
“It was a small pack. Mommy, we got cookies, why can’t I eat ’em?”
“Boy . . . Michael Jared, you’re wearing me out. Take three more cookies and let me finish my bath in peace.” She knew that he would ignore her and eat darn near the whole package again. But what could she do? He was a growing boy with a big appetite.
“Mommy, one day you gonna drown in there.”
“I’m sure you’ll break down the door and save your drowning mother, won’t you?”
“That’s gross! I don’t want to see you in no bathtub. I’d call 911.”
“By that time, I could be dead.”
“They’ll bring you back, just don’t let them see you naked.”
Tandi smiled to herself. “Boy, go get your cookies and ice cream before I change my mind.”
Michael Jared was her heart, her baby, but he was a boy at the awkward crossroads of still being a little boy and the awakening of his own sexuality. He had a hissy fit when she told him that she used to bathe him along with herself, and sometimes along with his father when he was a baby, which wasn’t all that long ago, and now that he’d had his first wet dream and, most likely, compared notes with his equally horny finger-playing buddies, nudity and sex went hand-in-hand despite what she told him to the contrary. Michael Jared thought it gross to even think of her and Jared as either nude or sexual.
Knock . . . knock . . . knock.
She had thought Michael Jared had gone. “What?”
“Mommy, can I watch TV?”
“You know the rules.”
“Can I, please. I finished my homework. One hour. Please, Mommy.”
She wasn’t up to a long drawn-out debate. “Thirty minutes, Michael Jared, and no more. It’s almost nine o’clock.”
“Thanks!”
Tandi could hear him running down the stairs. “And don’t make a mess!”
Whether Michael Jared heard her or not, he’d still leave melted chocolate ice cream spots on the coffee table in the family room and his empty bowl in the sink without a drop of water in it. Too many times she had tried to get him to clean up after himself, but Michael Jared seemed to prefer emulating his father. There wasn’t much she could do about Jared, his mama had already raised him, but Michael Jared, he could still be taught. Tandi wasn’t about to saddle her future daughter-in-law with a man who expected his woman to do everything for him except for maybe picking his teeth. That is, not if she could help it.
She often wondered what kind of father Brent Rodgers would have made. God, she had to stop doing that. Drawing her legs up, she planted her feet solidly on the bottom of the tub, gripped the sides and heaved herself up. Water cascaded down her body back into the tub like a waterfall. Plucking the towel off the rack alongside the tub, she began drying herself. Lately, more and more, Brent was constantly on her mind. If she wasn’t comparing Jared to him, she was wishing that he’d call or show up at her door. She hadn’t seen him in twenty years so she didn’t know if he was alive or dead, married or single, or if he was a bum in the street or president of a company. They had only gone together that one unforgettable last semester, but she could still feel what it was like to be kissed by him, and, in her mind’s eye, she could still see him walking down the street like it was yesterday. The more she thought about Brent, the more she ached to see him; for that she blamed Jared. If her life with him were any good, if he hadn’t cheated on her and left her doubting her own ability to keep him interested, she wouldn’t be dredging up memories of Brent Rodgers and relying on those memories to feed her emotionally anemic love life.
The following is a sample chapter from
Gloria Mallette’s eagerly anticipated
upcoming novel
WHAT’S DONE IN THE DARK.
It will be available in January 2006
wherever books are sold.
ENJOY!
PROLOGUE
Celeste was miserable. The muscles in her behind were burning, her legs were stiff and achy, and her back hurt. Listening to eight-and-a-half hours of taped hits from the sixties and seventies, and sitting in the backseat of her father’s car was torture. Yawning, she arched her back, stiffened her body, tightened her buttocks, and stretched her arms high and wide, pressing the palms of her hands into the cushiony tan roof of the old green sedan, and while she stretched her left leg out across the seat, her right leg was only partially extended; her foot had gone under the front passenger seat only so far. In that front seat, her mother, Stella Reese, was asleep. She’d been sleeping since they left Warren, Ohio, and crossed the border into Pennsylvania, heading back across to New York City. Even when her father, Richard, pulled into a rest stop along Interstate 80 to use the rest room and to get something to eat, Stella had not awakened, she was that tired. They’d spent three days in Warren at Cousin Edith’s wedding, her third, where Stella had been her favorite cousin’s matron of honor—more like her gofer. Cousin Edith’s three grown children were of little help because they didn’t like it that she was getting married again, and Stella, with her take-charge self, was in her element. The only thing Stella didn’t do was make the white wedding gown that she’d whispered to Celeste was inappropriate. All in all, it was a nice wedding, but it was for old folks and Celeste hated that her mother had made her go when she wanted to stay home and hang out with her boyfriend, Sean. He was her first real boyfriend that her parents allowed her to have, and they had been going together for only two months. And now that school was over for the summer, they could be together a whole lot more, but oh, no, her mother wouldn’t let her stay home.
“I’m not leaving you and Katrina home alone together. The house might not be standing when your father and I get back.”
“So why don’t you make Katrina go. I’m always the one you make go somewhere.”
“Because Katrina’s older and more responsible. You’re seventeen and with all those friends you have, and not to mention that little boyfriend of yours, Sean, no telling what kind of trouble you could end up in. Go pack. And I don’t wanna hear any more lip.”
As much lip as Celeste wanted to give her mother, she didn’t; it wasn’t worth the energy or her mother’s customary, “as long as you’re under this roof” speech. She’d only end up going on the trip anyway, mad as hell, not speaking to either one of her parents, and miserable to boot because she had to spend hours cooped up with them in the car and with family members she had seen maybe twice before in her life. At least on this trip both her parents were her allies—and not Katrina’s. The worse part of the whole trip had been the drive. Didn’t her parents know that airplanes had been invented to make traveling a lot less stressful and a whole lot shorter in duration? Her father liked to drive everywhere. He was even talking about buying a Winnebago of all things and driving across country to California. If there was a God, Celeste prayed that she would be out on her own by that time so her parents couldn’t force her to go along with them.
Katrina was lucky. Although she was twenty and still lived at home, she was never forced to go anywhere with their parents. Of course, no one would ever say it out loud, but Stella and Richard both knew that Katrina would bitch every single mile going and coming like she did when they drove down to Atlanta back in 1983, five years ago, for a family reunion on Richard’s side of the family. Celeste could tell by the way her father had gripped the steering wheel and squeezed his eyes shut that he was fighting against driving off and leaving Katrina behind at the rest stop. That was a miserable trip. Katrina never stopped whining and bitching, and seemed to take great pleasure in picking on her the whole way. Katrina was that much of a bitch, which is also why Celeste couldn’t stay home like she wanted to. No matter how minor their disagreement, she and Katrina would inevitably end up screaming at each other, which within minutes would escalate into them going for each other’s throats. Their last fight, two weeks ago, was over who would get the last banana. Katrina felt she should have the banana because she’d called for it first; “That banana
is mine.” Celeste felt she should have the banana because she hadn’t had one in two days whereas Katrina had eaten a banana every day for the past week. After fighting and pulling on the banana, the banana was squeezed into mush by their grabbing hands so neither got to eat it. Boy, were Stella and Richard angry when they saw the scratches on their neck and arms, the broken coffee table, and the smashed banana and the mushy black banana skin smushed into the green carpet in the family room.
Stella and Richard blamed both her and Katrina, but if they really thought about it, they would have realized that it was Katrina who was at fault. Katrina couldn’t stand the sight of her. For a long time, Celeste had tried to be friends with her one and only sibling, but Katrina wasn’t having it. Katrina just didn’t like her and never tried to hide it. Celeste could remember when she was three being pinched all the time by Katrina—always when her parents weren’t in sight. When she was ten, Katrina cut the strings on her violin. “I’m tired of you giving me a damn headache every night. You sound like you’re trying to kill a cat.”
Celeste didn’t think her playing was all that bad and cried pitifully.
Katrina got punished more for saying the word damn than for cutting the violin strings. The violin belonged to Celeste’s school and her parents had to pay for replacing the strings but that was about all, which led Celeste to think her parents hated her playing as well. That was when she gave up trying to learn how to play the violin, and when she also gave up trying to be Katrina’s friend. Since then, she’d told her parents often enough that she didn’t like Katrina. “She’s mean,” she said every time Katrina did something vicious to her, which was quite frequent. They were older now, but nothing had changed. Other than Katrina constantly calling her a spoiled brat, Celeste still couldn’t understand why Katrina didn’t like her and didn’t look forward to seeing her after being away for three days. Originally, they had planned on staying four days in Ohio, but they were coming home a day early because Richard couldn’t stand sleeping another hot night on the old, wobbly army cot set up at the foot of the full-size bed that Celeste slept in with her mother. She got to sleep in the bed because she had horrible menstrual cramps and sleeping on the cot didn’t help.
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