by Traci Bee
“Excuse me, ma’am.” Andre appeared out of nowhere and placed a vase of colorful spring flowers on Simone’s desk. “And since I want a healthy baby, this is for you, too.” He set a plastic grocery bag next to the bouquet and unpacked spring water, oranges, and watermelon.
“I take it you got the message,” Simone said, absent of any feeling.
“Yeah, and now more than ever, I have to take care of my queen.” He smiled sincerely and planted a kiss on her cheek.
“So you’re happy?” she asked, somewhat concerned.
“I mean, we hadn’t planned on having a baby, but,” he said, shrugging away the thought, “yeah, I’m still happy.”
“Well, my father’s not gonna be, and Lord, I can hear my mother now. She’s going to have a field day with this one.”
“I don’t know what’s up with you and your mother, but your father will understand. Plus,” he added as he pulled Simone up from her chair to shield her comfortably in his embrace, “I plan to marry you one day.”
● ● ●
For the next seven months, Andre catered to Simone’s every need, waiting on her hand and foot. He even tagged along for most of the doctor appointments.
“One of my partners asked me to work part-time at the club on New Year’s Eve. It’s a hundred dollars an hour. Are we doing anything?” Andre asked, rubbing Simone’s enormous belly as they chilled in his apartment.
“Please, look at me. Do I look like I wanna do anything?”
In the midst of the so-called pregnancy glow, Simone’s nose and butt had spread, her feet and hands were swollen, and the burning she felt in her chest every night had her gulping down gallons of milk against the doctor’s orders. She couldn’t wait to deliver her load and lose the thirty-five pounds she’d gained.
“Go ’head and make the money,” she encouraged. “We gotta stock the diaper fund anyway.”
“Well, I’ll be outta there by three. Afterward,” Andre added, “I’ll just come to your place.”
● ● ●
Eight o’clock New Year’s morning, 1995, Simone awoke feeling revived and excited about the unforeseen promises of the New Year. After stretching the kinks from her restless limbs, she rolled over to kiss Andre good morning for the first time that year. But to her surprise, he wasn’t there. His side of the bed hadn’t been touched. Folding back the comforter, she pulled herself from the bed to check the apartment, but there was still no sign of him.
Didn’t he say he was coming here? she thought, second-guessing their plan. She snatched the cordless from its base and called Andre’s house twice, each time allowing the phone to ring off the hook in hopes of waking him, but he didn’t answer.
I must be in the wrong place, Simone thought. She jumped in the shower, threw on her only pair of maternity jeans with one of Andre’s T-shirts, and headed across town to his apartment.
The parking lot was packed. Andre’s truck was parked in its usual space, but his unmarked cruiser was nowhere in sight. Double-parked in front of the building, Simone smacked on her hazards and wobbled up the three flights of stairs to check his apartment, but he wasn’t there either.
Negative thoughts began to haunt Simone as she secured his locks and headed back to her place. He gotta be at my house by now, she thought. However, that was wishful thinking. Andre wasn’t there, and as she scrolled through her caller ID box, she noticed he hadn’t even returned her calls. Where the hell was he, and why hadn’t he at least called back?
Simone’s worry transformed into frustration as New Year’s Day ticked away. Finally, early in the evening, Andre called.
“Hey, what’s up?” he uttered groggily.
“Nothing. Happy New Year,” she wished halfheartedly.
“Happy New Year to you, too,” he yawned into the phone.
“What happened? I thought you were coming here.”
“Yeah, I realized I was in the wrong place when I got here and you weren’t in my bed. I was too tired to turn around.”
“So why didn’t you call?”
“I’m calling you now. I just woke up. I didn’t get in ‘til almost five. I was tired as hell.”
“Five this morning?”
“Yeah,” he said through another yawn.
“Five, huh?” Simone mumbled, fighting to conceal her true emotions. “I guess you been ’sleep the whole time.”
“Yeah. I saw you been paging me.”
“Mmm-hmm, I’ve been calling, paging, and I even came by.”
“You came by?”
“That’s what I said, but you been there ’sleep since five,” Simone said more to herself. “I don’t believe this,” she mumbled.
“Oh, Lord,” he huffed. “Don’t tell me we gonna bring the New Year in arguing. You about to mess everything up.”
“Andre! I came past your house this morning ’round ten o’clock, Mr. ‘I was knocked out,’ and your ass hadn’t even been there. Your bed was still made, and you gonna tell me you been there since five, and I’m the one ’bout to mess everything up?”
“Simone—”
“Don’t Simone me. I can’t believe how easily that lie rolled off your tongue. So where were you?”
Andre’s silence fueled Simone’s anger. She had no desire to hear him breathe through the phone. She’d asked a legitimate question and wanted a legitimate answer, not the bullshit he’d tried to feed her. Irritated by his silence, she slammed the phone down. Within the hour, he was walking through her door with his face drooped to the floor.
“I’m sorry,” he confessed gingerly, sitting at the foot of her bed with his shoulders slumped. He couldn’t even face her. “I had no reason to lie to you.”
“But you did, and now it just makes me wonder what else you’ve lied about.”
“Simone, believe me. I’ve been beating myself up since you hung up on me. This girl I know was at the club with her boyfriend. Their ride left them, so I took ’em home. She ended up fixing breakfast, and I chilled with them. Before I realized it, I had fallen asleep on their couch.”
Simone sat in bed, staring at the back of Andre’s head, wishing like hell she had a cinder block to throw at him. But busting him in the head wasn’t good enough.
“That’s the best you can do?”
“What you mean?” He turned to face her.
“You stayed with them, the third wheel on New Year’s Day, and fell asleep on their couch?”
“Simone, it’s the truth.”
Simone sucked her teeth. She wasn’t buying the lame excuse.
“I know how crazy it sounds, especially after I lied, but I swear I’m telling you the truth.”
“So if it were that simple, that innocent, why’d you lie?”
Andre moved closer to Simone. Dangling from the edge of the bed, he still couldn’t bring himself to face her. “We’ve been doing so good…and here I am ’bout to fuck it all up lying over nothing. I swear,” he said, tracing Simone’s hand with the tips of his fingers. “I’m telling you the truth. That’s why I jumped up and came right over here.” He grabbed her hand and caressed it in his own. “I love you so much. Can we act like this didn’t happen and start the New Year over?”
● ● ●
Kayla Marie Perkins, a ginger-colored baby with oodles of curly black hair, was the talk of the nursery. Andre, the proud father, strutted around the hospital with his chest inflated, handing out pink bubble-gum cigars.
In the grocery store, the mall, or wherever else the family ventured, Andre faithfully pushed the stroller or carried his beautiful little trophy in his arms. Yet, when there was no one to impress with his daughter’s cuteness, cooing goo-goos and ga-gas in Kayla’s face was the extent of his parental role. Still, Simone didn’t complain, not one time. She welcomed the feedings scattered throughout the night and the shitty diapers that only she changed. She was a mommy again, and that was more important than anything.
Kicking off her brown pumps, Simone slid her coffee-colored nylons down her hips a
nd plopped on the bed she’d neglected to make that morning. The three months she’d taken off from work had flown by. Hearing the front door close, she knew Andre was home with Kayla.
“We need to find a new sitter,” Andre bellowed, absent of any greeting as he strolled into the bedroom, lugging Kayla in her seat. “I’m not feeling the one you found. It’s a trillion kids over there.” With a look of irritation, he sat Kayla’s seat on the bed and headed into the walk-in closet to strip from his suit.
“Those kids only come in the evening. Kayla’s the only baby she watches.”
“Well, I don’t like her. I think we should take Kayla to your mother. She’s too chocolate for your mother and Ricardo to pass off as theirs.” He chuckled.
“I’m glad you find that amusing.”
“What?” he asked. “That old mess still bothers you? You and your mother seem cool to me. I thought you were over it.”
“Over it? Andre, she stole my child! What kind of crazy shit is that?” Simone’s face hardened as she unfastened the straps on Kayla’s car seat.
The clicking sound startled Kayla, waking her from her catnap. Simone could tell by the way Kayla clenched her tiny fists and squinted her face that she was getting ready to light up the room with her wail.
Andre strolled from the closet in his boxers and planted himself on the bed next to Simone. “Do you know how many little girls are molested or raped at the babysitter’s house every day? I’m not saying that would happened, but it was just too many kids over there for me. I know you and your mom have issues, but she’s still Kayla’s grandmother. Won’t nothing happen to her there.”
“Andre, I’m not switching,” Simone shot back over Kayla’s cry. “I don’t have a problem with the babysitter.”
Simone lifted Kayla from her car seat. Instantly, her eyes caught sight of the huge wet stain against the lining of the seat. What the hell? Kayla’s sleeper was drenched, and the way the diaper sagged told Simone she’d been that way for hours. She knew Andre had noticed the stain, as well. There was no way he could’ve missed it, and although he didn’t shout out in victory, it was the winning point in his defense nonetheless.
“I’ll drop her off and pick her up,” he said. “You won’t have to do a thing until you’re comfortable.”
● ● ●
Bored out of her mind, Simone stared out the palladium window while counting down the last thirty minutes of her workday.
“Hi, Ms. Woodard.” The resident stood timidly before Simone’s desk in a floral-print dress and house slippers, peering over her dark-framed glasses.
Stuck in her daydream about nothing, Simone hadn’t heard the door chime announce her visitor.
“I’m so sorry.” Simone forced a smile and stood to give her the proper greeting. “I’m sitting here in another world.”
“How’s the baby?” she asked softly.
“She’s fine, Mrs. Marshall. Thanks for asking. What can I do for you? Are you here to pay your rent?”
“Oh, no,” Mrs. Marshall said. Gone was the timid disposition she’d bore walking into the office. Standing proud and tall, she passed Simone a white envelope. “This is my thirty-day notice. I bought a house.”
“Congratulations, Mrs. Marshall!” Simone praised sincerely.
“Thanks, Simone. My accountant said I had to if I didn’t want to keep paying Uncle Sam. Now I’m thinking about getting my real estate license. My agent made eleven thousand dollars off of me, and the heifer wasn’t even that good.”
Simone was surprised. “Eleven thousand off one house?”
“That’s what I said. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen the check. I’m considering taking the class that starts in about three months. I already have the papers and everything. There’s a class starting in a week, but that’s too soon for me, with the move and all.”
Eleven thousand dollars, Simone repeated to herself. Good gracious. Four checks like that and I’d pass my salary.
Mrs. Marshall handed Simone a business card. “I can hear you thinking, girl.” She chuckled. “You really should consider it, Simone. I mean, you’re already getting people into apartments; why not houses?” Mrs. Marshall headed to the door and pointed up at the clock. “They don’t close until seven, so you still have plenty of time to register.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Marshall,” she said, staring at the card. “I think I just might do that.”
● ● ●
The evening real estate classes kicked Simone’s butt. The final exam was a cinch, but now it was time to prep for the real deal—the state exam. However, before she could even consider picking up another book, she needed to put her feet up and relax, if only for a minute. Between Kayla, the classes three nights a week, and the long hours behind the desk, Simone was pooped, and Andre’s birthday offered the perfect excuse for a getaway.
The sun hid behind the crystal-blue waters of the Bahamas. Orange metallic sparks popped from the bonfire while the steel drum sound of the Caribbean echoed down the beach. Laughter filled the evening air as the free all-you-can-drink Bahama Mama punch transformed the vacationing souls into buck-wild party animals. Hand in hand, Andre and Simone moseyed to the straw hut bar, ready to get their drink on, too. As Simone climbed on top of the wicker stool, her colorful sarong fell open, giving the bartender a glimpse of her thighs.
“Man,” the bartender said in his heavy Bahamian accent. “Your wife is beautiful.”
“I’m not his wife,” Simone announced, playfully fanning the fingers on her left hand. “Ain’t no ring on none of these fingers.”
The bartender smiled and gently grabbed her hand. “Stay here on the island with me. I’ll make you my wife,” he said in fun, his shoulders jiggling up and down as he chuckled. Releasing her hand, he extended his hand to Andre for the brotherly handshake known all over the world. “You two ready to partake in the festivities?”
“Oh, yeah,” Andre said. “How potent is the punch?”
With a raised brow, the bartender poured the reddish concoction into two plastic cups and sat them in front of Andre and Simone. “See for yourself.”
Simone eased the cup to her lips and took a sip, bracing herself for the kick. “It can’t be any liquor in this.” She frowned. “It taste just like fruit punch.”
The bartender smiled.
“Naw, Simone,” Andre said. “That thing probably loaded with extra sweet liquor. That’s the kinda drink that’ll creep up on you.”
“Whatever. Give us three more.”
“Three! Hold up, Simone,” Andre protested.
“Naw, look at them.” Simone glanced at the intoxicated crowd partying on the beach. “We need to catch up. So,” she said to the bartender, “we’ll take three a piece.”
“Whoo, whoo, whoo,” the bartender cackled as he began filling the additional cups. “It’s gonna be however you want it tonight, my American friend.”
“Yeah, if she don’t throw up on me first,” Andre said with his first cup in hand. “If you really wanna get drunk, we gotta drink all four cups back-to-back.”
“A’ight,” Simone said with a shrug of her shoulders. “Let’s make it fun. Let’s race.”
Andre smiled, welcoming the challenge. Without warning, he yelled, “Go.”
The twosome slammed the punch until all eight cups sat empty on the bar.
“Damn,” Andre said. “I didn’t think you could do it.”
“Yeah,” Simone boasted. “Now what?”
“Now,” he said as he reached for her hand and eased her from the barstool, “let’s go make love on the beach.”
Andre wrapped his arm around Simone’s waist and untied her sarong, allowing it to drift to the sand. “I told you, you don’t need this. You already got these islanders going crazy; let them see that phat ass.”
But Simone wasn’t confident with the fifteen pounds Kayla had left behind. “Ugh, Andre. I’m all fat,” she protested, reaching for the sarong.
“Simone, you don’t nee
d it.” He grabbed her hands and led her out into the nippy blue ocean. “Whew!” He trembled, splashing through the waters.
“Hold up, Andre.” Simone shivered as the waves rocked against her hips. “I don’t wanna go out too far. I can’t swim, remember?”
“I got you,” he reassured, pulling her closer to him. “We gotta go out a little farther. It’s dark, but I wanna make sure nobody can see us. Take your bottoms off,” he instructed, “but don’t let ’em go.”
“Oh my God. Can you imagine?” Holding on to Andre for support, Simone slipped off her bikini bottoms and placed them around her arm. “Now what?” she asked, smiling.
“Now this.” He freed himself from the slit in his swim trucks and guided her hand to the erection he was slowly forming. “Make me hard,” he whispered, sucking on her neck.
She wrapped her hands around his shaft and stroked him until he stood at attention.
“Wrap your legs around me.”
Simone surveyed her surroundings. They were out too far for her personal comfort. “Uh-uh,” she mumbled. They’d been drinking, and although the alcohol hadn’t caught up with them yet, she wasn’t taking a chance on Andre dropping her. She turned around, splashing water until her ass rubbed up against his hardness. Looking over her shoulder, she said, “It’s this way or nothing.”
“You know I like it like this, too.”
Andre fought against the friction of the water and worked his hardness inside Simone. “Ah, yeah,” he moaned. He slid his hands underneath her hot-pink bikini top, caressing her breasts as he throbbed deeper and deeper inside of her. Finally, his body shuddered in ecstasy.
Couples in the midst of their own passion cuddled along the shore where the sand and the ocean flirted. A handful of the couples paused from their fervor long enough to applaud Andre and Simone as they strolled ashore, from the deep blue sea.