by Pat Tucker
“You did! Ma and Daddy said you don’t call nobody stupid! That makes it a bad word and you know it! Stupid!” Taylor yelled.
“You stupid!” Kevin Jr. screamed back at his younger brother.
“No! You stupid!”
I exhaled, got up from the edge of my bed, and stood between the boys.
“Where is your dad?” I asked. I was exasperated, and completely exhausted.
I had fixed lunches, cooked dinner, divided dessert, supervised baths, and thought I was finally about to relax. I tried to take advantage of the last minutes before their bedtime, when the boys usually watched TV. I didn’t expect to have to referee a squabble. To make matters worse, my husband was nowhere to be found.
“Daddy had to go to the store, and he told Kevin to put on his pjs and go to bed,” Taylor said. His bony, little finger stabbed the air in his brother’s direction.
There was no way my husband had gone to the store. Hell would have to freeze over three times before he’d step foot in a grocery store, and I preferred it that way. When I found out the only reason he bought two-ply toilet tissue or paper towels was so he could try to separate the roll and have twice as much, I was glad to keep him out of the stores.
My husband was a senior chemical engineer for British Petroleum, where he made very good money. The problem was he was a major tightwad, and unless it was absolutely necessary, he wouldn’t spend a dime. He believed money was made to be saved and tried to keep me on a tight financial leash.
“That ain’t what he said! He said put on our pjs and be ready for bed when he comes back!” Kevin Jr. retorted.
My youngest snatched his arms up across his chest, and stood with a menacing scowl across his face.
My husband made me sick when he slipped out, without as much as a whistle to let me know I’d be alone with the boys. We lived in a sprawling, thirty-five-hundred-square foot, four-bedroom house, yet when the boys fought, it might as well have been smaller than a six-hundred-square-foot efficiency.
“You two need to go to your rooms right now,” I said to them. They still had a good hour before bedtime, but I couldn’t take the quarreling anymore.
They began to cry. Dammit, I wanted to cry, too. I was tired. The glass of wine that usually took me through the evening had worn off long ago. I felt irritated and alone.
“But Daddy said we didn’t have to go until he got back! That’s not fair! See what you did, stupid!” Kevin Jr. screamed at his brother before he stomped away.
Taylor stood there, tears gushing down his cheeks. I silently cursed my husband, and tried to console my son. When I reached for him, he jerked away and left me standing there. I threw my hands up in disgust.
I grabbed my cell phone and called my husband.
“Why didn’t you say you were leaving?” I asked, the moment he answered.
“Oh, my bad! Sorry, babe. Bruce needed me to help him move a new workstation for his garage. I meant to tell you, but I had forgotten all about it, so when he called, I kinda jumped up and ran out. My bad.”
“Yeah, well, the boys are up in here going at each other’s throats, and I had no idea you had even left.”
Since they were in their rooms, I eased into the kitchen, and opened the pantry door as I talked to Kevin. I tried not to look at his collection of fast-food ketchup packets that he kept in a large freezer bag. I hated when he used them to refill the ketchup bottle. Some habits never died, and if he thought it could save a buck, my husband would give it a try.
I reached to an upper shelf, and grabbed the tall, tin container that held spaghetti. As I listened to Kevin’s half-ass excuses, I removed the lid, and pulled out the slim bottle. I poured a little more than a shot of the coconut-flavored Cîroc vodka into one of my fancy glasses, and added a splash of cranberry juice. I put the vodka back inside the container, and stepped back into the pantry. I moved the bags of flour and sugar, and the box of bread crumbs aside, and put the tin can into its spot near the back of the shelf.
I hid my stash. I didn’t need to listen to my husband complain about my drinking or the fact that my drink of choice was too expensive. Knowing him, he’d find a way to calculate the cost of each ounce.
I remember I had given up alcohol before. Something had clicked in my head years ago, when I found out that my twin sister, Darlene, had been killed by a drunk driver. Chandler Buckingham had been arrested three different times before for DWI.
After that, I couldn’t stomach the smell of alcohol. But once I fell off the wagon, I couldn’t comprehend how I had gone dry for even one day. I remember the moment that I laid eyes on Chandler. I instantly came up with a plan. I was going to make him pay; make him feel a fraction of the pain he had caused my family and me.
“Yeah, babe, my bad. Tell them boys I said to behave,” my husband said, like that would make everything better.
I could tell he was completely distracted. My frustration meant nothing to him as usual. His mantra was that since I stayed at home, anything that happened involving the home was my responsibility.
“Yeah, okay. When are you coming back?” I was beyond irritated.
“I’m gonna be at least thirty more minutes,” he said. That really pissed me off.
“If you knew you were gonna be gone that long…” I stopped myself before I finished the complaint. “Okay, whatever.” What was the point?
I closed the pantry door, and moved closer to my drink on the counter. When the call ended, I placed the phone down. I didn’t want to linger on thoughts of how much my husband irritated me at times.
“To hell with it all!”
I brought the glass to my lips, and swallowed the drink in one big gulp. I exhaled, rinsed the glass, and put it in the dish rack to dry. The liquor hadn’t worked that quickly, but instantly, I felt better. I was about to turn to my other guilty pleasure, but couldn’t. There was no way I’d be able to focus on an Internet chat when my kids were still up.
When my cell phone rang, I thought it was my husband calling back. It turned out to be the children’s school.
“I need to speak with the parent of Kevin Jaxon,” a woman said. She hadn’t even said hello. Her voice was cold, rushed, and unfriendly.
“Uh, hello to you, too. This is Darby Jaxon, Kevin’s mother,” I said.
“Yes, Mrs. Jaxon, I’m so sorry. I absolutely hate making these kinds of calls, but Principal Johnson is very concerned about Kevin’s recent behavior. We are all baffled, because…well, Kevin is usually a good student, so I talked with one of our counselors before I even called you.”
My heart dropped to my toes like I was on one of those cheap carnival rides.
“Excuse me? Kevin? What’s the problem?”
“Did Kevin bring the note home?” she asked.
“No, Kevin didn’t bring home a note.”
“I wanted you to call me before we had you meet with Mr. Johnson. When we didn’t hear back from you last night, and Kevin wouldn’t answer questions about the note earlier today, I decided to call. The bottom line is, Kevin’s been extremely distracted and disruptive lately, and we wanted to know if there are any changes going on at home that we should be made aware of.”
“Changes? Like what kind of changes?”
“Well, when we see such a sudden and dramatic change in behavior, it’s often a sign that they’re acting out as a result of something happening in the home.”
Of course, blame the parents.
“What exactly is Kevin doing?” I asked. I grabbed the glass from the dish rack, put it back on the counter, and moved back toward the pantry.
3
IVEE
If you ain’t got no job, you can’t tell me a damn thing about what’s going on with mine. I hated when Darby felt like she was an expert in all things related to other people’s lives. When she got like that, I simply changed the subject as I had done moments earlier.
“So anyway, girl, what you fixing for dinner tonight?” I asked as I maneuvered my car over to the tur
ning lane. Rush-hour traffic was always a beast. I stopped at the light behind the vehicle in front of me, and listened as her voice floated through my car’s speaker system.
“Don’t you hate the fact that we always have to be the ones who worry about what everybody is gonna eat?” Darby said. “It’s like, what would they do if we went on strike? I could see Kevin’s butt now.” She laughed. “He’d probably have the kids recycling plastic ware, paper plates, and using old pickle and jelly jars for drinking glasses.”
“I don’t see how you live with that man.”
“Oh, I put my foot down. There’s some stuff I won’t cut corners on, in order for him to save a buck. Seriously, the boys would really be in trouble if I weren’t the one in charge of feeding them. But sometimes it wears me out.”
“Umph, I feel you. It irks me to no end, too,” I said. The light changed, and traffic began to move again. “You think I wanna stop at the grocery store when every other working person is gonna be up in there making a mad dash for the only two registers they’ll have open?”
“Better you than me.” Darby chuckled. “But seriously, your husband should be glad he’s getting a home-cooked meal. I stopped at Pizza Hut, and that’s what we had for dinner tonight.”
I wondered whether I should point out the craziness in what Darby had said, considering she stayed at home all day. If anybody would cook every day, wouldn’t it be her? Hell, I have my own issues, I reminded myself, and pulled into the grocery store’s parking lot. The sight of the rows and rows of parked cars forced me to exhale a frustrated breath.
“Not a single parking spot,” I muttered. “Great!”
“Yeah, see, that’s what I’m talking about. Who wants to be out in all that madness?”
I could clearly hear the clinking sound of ice cubes dancing around in liquid through the phone as Darby spoke. I instantly got jealous. She was enjoying a cocktail while I was fighting traffic.
“Look, girl, let me go so I can try to get in and out.”
“All right, chile, call me later,” she sang.
Luckily for me, once inside, the grocery store wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. On top of that, the store had a chef who demonstrated quick and easy meals, so I was able to snag a great recipe idea from him. I quickly snatched up all the ingredients, and made my way to the register to check out.
Once I got home, I was surprised that my husband hadn’t made it in yet. I walked straight into the kitchen, and began to rinse the large prawns I’d bought for dinner. The meal was simple—a shrimp and garlic pasta dish.
Nearly thirty minutes later, I heard keys at the door, and Zion’s baritone voice floated into the foyer. I heard him before I saw him. Zion’s deep voice ran all through me, and I flinched slightly. Everything was in order, but he would be able to find something that could’ve been improved upon. That was his way.
He spoke on his cell phone as he walked in, and I was glad for the temporary distraction.
“I’ll check the blueprints in about an hour,” I heard him say.
My eyes glanced around the kitchen. I was nearly finished with dinner, and the mess had been kept to a minimum.
“Zy?” I called out when I didn’t hear his voice anymore.
“Sure smells good in here,” Zion said as he eased up behind me. My husband’s skin was the color of blackberries. He was a large, broad-shouldered, square-faced man with intense features. His hair was styled into a skillfully lined fade that matched his neatly groomed facial hair—a slight beard and matching goatee.
I felt his warm breath on the back of my neck, and that gave me pause. I inhaled through my nose, held it in for a few seconds, then exhaled when he moved away from me. My mind danced with thoughts of what he’d scrutinize next. It was simply a matter of time.
“What got into you today?” he asked. “I expected to be eating out of a bag or a Styrofoam container as usual.”
I took in the comment, and prepared to fire back at him, but by then, he had turned his focus to the mail he held in his hands. If he would’ve glanced my way, he might have noticed that my eyes had narrowed into slits.
At that moment, I chose to avoid the fight. I exhaled again, and added the finishing touches to our meal. There was no need to respond to his comment.
Zion turned, and walked toward the back of the house. “Oh, I’m gonna eat in the office,” he said over his shoulder.
I could’ve pointed out how I rushed to the grocery store, and fought traffic to make sure he had a cooked meal, and he decided to eat in isolation? But, that would’ve been pointless.
As I prepared the tray, I told myself it was no big deal. Over the years, we had gone from passionate kisses and loving words each time we parted, to barely being affectionate toward one another. But it was what it was, and I had grown accustomed to what we’d become.
When we first married six years ago, you couldn’t tell me we’d be reduced to one of those couples. But our busy schedules forced us to behave more like roommates instead of man and wife.
I fixed our plates, put his on the serving tray along with a cold beer, and walked toward his office. He was on the phone when I walked in, so I knew to be quiet.
He tapped my behind on my way out, and I swatted at his hand. That was his way of saying thanks for the service I had provided.
Before I got to my own food, I walked into the bedroom and changed out of my work clothes. Once I was comfortable, I went back to the living room and ate dinner alone. As I finished, my cell phone rang.
It was my assistant, Jessica Sanchez. She was an older, Mexican woman who treated us all like her children.
“Hi, Jessica,” I answered.
“Oh, Miss Ivee, I don’t mean to bother you at home, but that client of yours, you know, the cheap, grumpy one? He says he needs to meet first thing in the morning.” Her voice was laced with worry.
“Thanks for the call, Jess, but you can schedule him for Thursday afternoon.”
“Thursday? He was cussing up a storm, Miss Ivee, and I’m afraid that he may—”
“He’ll be fine, Jessica. Trust me.”
Zion walked by with his tray, and gave me a thumbs-up with a smile. My guess was that he had enjoyed dinner.
I ended the call with Jessica, and decided not to think about the client. He always had an issue or a problem. I hated when work seeped into my time at home. My work was the major contention with Zion and me, and the last thing I wanted to do was give him a reason to provide his unsolicited career advice.
Hours later, as I got out of the shower, Zion startled me.
“I didn’t hear you come in,” I said.
“How could you? The water was running.”
I had a towel wrapped around my body, and used another to dry the edges of my hair that had gotten wet.
Zion cocked his head, and looked at me like he was perplexed. “You know, that meal got me thinking,” he said. “This ain’t what you wanna hear, but I still think if you worked for yourself, our lives would be a whole helluva lot better.”
“Working for yourself isn’t as easy as you think,” I said.
“Didn’t that one friend of yours go out on her own?”
Felicia was the friend he referred to. We both used to work for Geneva JoHarris, who owned the firm where I still currently worked. Felicia had decided to start her own business. To me, she worked harder now than she did when we worked together. But, it would’ve been pointless to tell Zion that.
I didn’t want to remove the towel that was wrapped around my body. I wasn’t in the mood for his analysis. If a home-cooked dinner made him reevaluate my career, I could only imagine what he’d have for me after seeing me naked. I instantly thought that he could’ve waited to start with this. I hated when he wanted to talk about my job. He was starting to sound like a broken record.
“You already know it’s not time for me to venture out on my own,” I said. I didn’t even try to remove the sarcasm.
“I’ll bet JoHarris heard that a
lot before she took the plunge,” he said. The moment he learned that Geneva had stepped out on faith and started her own firm years ago, he’d determined that I was underemployed by working for her and not myself.
There would’ve been no use in pointing out the stark differences between my boss and me. This was not a new conversation for us, and it never ended well.
We both stood and looked at each other as if we weren’t sure what to do next. I tried to avoid looking him directly in the eyes. I loved my husband very much, but I often had mixed emotions about him. Over the years, it seemed as if it became harder and harder for him to say anything nice to me. He was the only person alive who ever bullied me and got away with it, and I felt myself grow nervous in his presence most times.
“I’m gonna help put lotion on your back,” he suggested.
That was his way of telling me he wanted sex.
“Oh, thanks, but I got it.” That was my way of telling him no.
“C’mon here, Ivee, I’m your husband.” He reached for me. “You act like I haven’t seen everything you got already.”
Before I could suck in my gut, he grabbed my towel, and it fell to the floor when I tried to step back.
I stood frozen.
“Has it been that long since I’ve seen my wife naked? You look like you’ve picked up a few pounds,” Zion said.
The words flowed from his mouth naturally.
4
PETA
When more than an hour had passed and I hadn’t received a response, I knew what I had to do. I hated having to kiss up to Gordon, but being lonely and horny was a bitch.
Kyle had taken Kendal for the night since she had an early morning field trip, and it was his turn to chaperone. That meant I was as free as a horny Home Alone teenager whose parents were out of town. I was about to hang up the phone when he answered.
“Oh, hey what’s up?” Gordon said.
He didn’t sound like he was still pissed about the other day with Kyle, but still I decided to tread lightly.
“Yo’, I got that pic you sent me. That was on point!” The tone in his voice was friendly and cool, which I liked.