Some Came Desperate

by Katherine Cachitorie

  “I wanted to be a forensic scientist once, like Grissome, did I ever tell you that?”

  “Nick!”

  “What? I’m just saying that that’s why I like watching CSI.”

  “Are you listening to me?”

  “Of course I’m listening to you. I just don’t think that’s the kind of conversation we need to be concentrating on right now.”

  “In other words, what you’re saying is that we don’t need to be talking about our future right now? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “I’m saying not now. Alright, Simone? Just not right now.”

  “But why? We’re two adults.”

  “Just barely for one of us.”

  “And I think we have a great relationship. I can’t imagine any two people closer. What’s wrong with looking ahead? With moving to that next level?”

  “Depends on what that next level is.”

  Nick and Simone exchanged glances. She knew exactly what he meant. He had mentioned it once before, almost as a joke, although Simone knew he meant it. They were hugged-up on this very sofa when he brought it up. “I ought to spend the night,” he had said, his face buried in her hair. But when she responded, “you can spend the night on our wedding day,” his entire demeanor changed. Although he didn’t stop hugging her, his grip on her loosened. And soon he suddenly needed to go. And before she knew what was happening to them, he had left. He still came around, and still hugged on her and treated her as if she was still very important in his life, but he never again mentioned or even hinted at anything remotely resembling a deeper commitment - on any level.

  “What do you define as the next level for us?” Simone asked him. He exhaled and removed his arm from around her. He leaned forward and did as he usually did when he was suddenly stressed: he pulled out a cigarette.

  “Let’s just keep it simple, Simone,” he said. “The rest will take care of itself.”

  “We need to talk about this, Nick.”

  “I know that. I know we do. And we will.”

  “Just not tonight.”

  “Not tonight.” He lit up and took a long, slow drag.

  “I’m not getting any younger,” Simone said, which caused him to chuckle. “I’m serious! I don’t want to spend the best years of my life with a man who suddenly doesn’t want me anymore.”

  Nick’s heart dropped. It was almost the exact same argument Delia had made to him a month ago. “I’ve given you the best years of my life,” she had said. Although Delia didn’t go as far as Simone was going, there was no hint of that ‘marry me’ tone in Delia’s plea, he could tell that something was changing with her.

  “Nick?” Simone said when he didn’t respond.

  “I’m right here, Simone.”

  “What about our future?”

  “Our future is not for us to say, Simone.”

  “You know what I mean. Are we together? Are we going to be together? Or is this as good as it’s going to get for me?”

  And that was when the doorbell rang. Nick inwardly sighed relief, saved by that bell, but Simone outwardly groaned. This was all that she needed.

  She was surprised to see that Shay was with Jules and Shay was carrying luggage. “You’ve got to take her, Simmie,” Jules said before Simone could say a word.

  “What’s going on?” Simone asked.

  “You’ve got to take her before I hurt this child.”

  “You ain’t hurtin’ me,” Shay said and Jules looked at her.

  “Say another word, Shay, and I swear you’re going through that door like a rocket off of a launch pad!”

  “Y’all come in,” Simone said, to cool them down, and they both reluctantly walked in. When they saw that Nick was there, standing up now, they reacted completely differently: Jules sighed and Shay smiled.

  “Hello, Nick,” Shay said jovially. But Nick was not amused.

  “It’s Mr. Perry to you, young lady,” he said and Shay rolled her eyes. “Hello, Jules.”

  “Hey, Nick, how you doing?”

  “I’m good. I take it you’re not.”

  “She’s driving me crazy, I’m telling y’all. She’s hanging around drug dealers---”

  “They ain’t no drug dealers,” Shay shot back, “I don’t know why you trippin’, Jules. Just because they ain’t doctors and lawyers and hang out with your little crowd they got to be drug dealers and thugs?”

  “They are thugs.”

  “You don’t even know any of my friends.”

  “You haven’t been here long enough to have friends. Those boys just want one thing and one thing only, a desire you seem more than willing to accommodate.”

  “You can kiss my---”

  “Shay!” Simone practically yelled. “That’s enough!”

  “Where’s my room?” Shay asked as if she was flustered beyond words.

  “I thought you wanted to stay with Jules.”

  “She can’t stay with me. You should see the way she behaves around me. Jeremy nearly. . . ”

  “Un hun, why you stopped?” Shay asked. “Jeremy nearly jumped on me, that’s what she wanted to tell y’all. That sorry excuse for a doctor came at me like he was going to bust a move on me and I bet you I got right back in his face. He ain’t right, anyway. Always trying to hit on me.”

  “That’s a lie!” Jules nearly screamed.

  “If I’m lyin’ I’m flyin’!” Shay shouted back. “He just mad because I don’t want his old behind, that’s why he suddenly don’t want me there with you. That’s what this all about. Jeremy said I got to go. Jules wasn’t thinking about putting me out, until Jeremy showed up.”

  “Are you gonna take her or not?” Jules asked Simone.

  “And if she doesn’t take her in?” Nick asked and everybody looked at him.

  “Then there’s always homeless shelters because she ain’t coming back to my place. She’s too disrespectful.”

  “Whatever, Jules,” Shay said, and Simone let out an enormous sigh of frustration. Jules should have let her take Shay in from jump, she felt, before it got to this crazy point. Now she didn’t see how she could handle Shay, either. But what could she do? Let her down again?

  “She’s welcome here,” she said and Shay looked at her. “The spare bedroom is down the hall and to the right.”

  “Is there a phone in there?” she asked her.

  “No, but you can get the one out of my bedroom.”

  Shay smiled, looked back at Jules, and then headed for her bedroom. She slammed the door when she got there.

  “That girl is something else, Simmie, I ain’t even gonna lie. I can’t stand her right about now. And all that stuff she’s saying about Jeremy is not the truth.”

  Simone wouldn’t put it past him, and she wanted to tell Jules so, but she knew how fruitless a comment that would be. “Would you like something to eat or drink, Jules, we just had dinner.”

  “No, I’m all right. Just wanted to get rid of Bebe’s kid. I’ll call you later.”

  And then she was gone, too. Simone looked at Nick. “Don’t say it.”

  “I hope you understand what you’re taking on.”

  “I understand, Nick, trust me, I do. But what choice is there? I’m not letting her down ever again. If she needs me, I’ll be there for her. I wasn’t before, but I am now.”

  “You need to set some ground rules, Simone, or she’ll---”

  “She’s just enjoying her freedom right now, that’s all. Once she settles down and realize nobody’s taking away what she has, she’ll be fine. She’s always been a good kid deep down.”

  “Yeah, when she was seven.”

  “She’ll be fine, Nick, okay?”

  Nick threw up his hands. “It’s your life, your sister. Listen, how about fixing me a plate to go?”

  “Are you serious? Was it that good to you?”

  “It was great. You’re a wonderful cook.”

  “Then you can eat right here.”

  He looked at his Rolex. “No can do. I
really need to run. I’ve got some briefs to look over for a few of my attorneys who have been losing an inordinate amount of cases lately. I need to find out what’s going on.”

  “Maybe their clients were just guilty.”

  “Probably. But that’s still no excuse.”

  Simone smiled. Nick as lawyer was completely different from the Nick she knew and loved. But she didn’t ponder the difference. She went to the kitchen to prepare his plate.

  He, however, went to the spare bedroom and knocked on the door. When Shay finally gave him permission to enter, he walked in and closed the door. She laughed. “I knew you wanted some,” she said. “But don’t you think Simone will hear us?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” he said as he placed his hands in his pants pockets and walked toward the bed that she was lying across. She grinned, and looked Nick up and down. “For an old dude, or should I say, an older man, you’re hot, you know that? You got it going on in every way my brother. We could make some serious---”

  “Serita?”

  Shay rolled her eyes. “Why you always calling me that?”

  “Serita?”

  “What!”

  Nick stared at her.

  “Yes?”

  “Does it look like I’m interested in playing with you?”

  She smiled. “It depends on what kind of play you’re talking about.”

  “Does it look like I’m remotely interested in you at all?”

  This wiped the smile off of Shay’s face. She frowned. “What you want anyway?”

  “Simone has agreed to take you in.”

  “The least she can do.”

  “She’s accorded you the privilege of living under her roof.”

  “Don’t you mean your roof? J told me how you pay all her bills.”

  “Don’t abuse the privilege because I’ll step in and it won’t be pretty.”

  “Why you gettin’ all tough with me? I haven’t done a thing to that heifer yet. She leave me alone and I’ll leave her alone, it’s as simple as that.”

  “You mistreat her and nothing about your life will be simple,” he said. “Do we feel each other now? Do you dig where I’m coming from? That woman in there is the most important person in this world to me, and you and nobody else will harm her and get away with it. Not as long as there is breath in my body you won’t. Now you can try me. You can disbelieve me and give it a whirl. But your little narrow behind had better be prepared for the consequences because I don’t play, Serita. Not even a little bit.”

  Shay was stunned. She had never been so thoroughly told off in her life. She looked at this big man standing before her, at his beauty and his strength, and all she could feel, all she could think about, was how much she envied Simone; how much she would give to have somebody feel that way about her.

  “Nick!” Simone’s voice suddenly blared out and then the door of the bedroom was opened. “There you are,” Simone said, holding his plate of food. She looked at him and then looked at Shay. “Y’all all right?” she asked them. Nick exhaled.

  “We understand each other,” he said.

  They understood each other perfectly, as least in Shay’s mind, a few months later, when their paths crossed at a restaurant in South Beach. It was her first time at a really nice eatery, thanks to her new beau, a so-called record producer who planned to make her his latest star. She knew he was full of it, he was nothing more than an assistant to an assistant record producer, and then only locally, but she allowed him to talk his big talk and wine and dine her as if she believed his tales. She was nobody’s fool, despite what Jules and Jeremy thought, and at least Simone was smart enough not to treat her like some idiot. She took a seat in a back booth while Curtis, her date, went to “talk to the chef,” or so he claimed. Probably went to the restroom, Shay thought, or to make a call to another one of his ladies, but she didn’t sweat it. He could play games all night long if he wanted to, think he was playing her, too, but just as long as he kept her in fashion she could deal.

  Simone even liked him, which was rare since Simone never liked any of the dudes she brought around, but she seemed to like Curtis. “At least he has a reputable job,” she told Shay, and all Shay could do was laugh. Reputable right, she thought. When Curtis wasn’t record producing he was one of the biggest crack dealers in Miami, if Simone bothered to look and see how a brother with Curtis Malbury’s limited abilities could live so large, but that was another story. Besides, Curt never discussed that part of his resume. He, in fact, would be shocked to know that Shay knew. But Shay learned a lot in her days in foster care, where she was herded from one group home to another one: she learned how to keep her mouth shut. See it and don’t see it, that was her motto.

  So she sat back in Palmal’s, a very upscale restaurant, and saw and didn’t see the illegal activity that always seemed to surround her. And that was when she saw Nick. At first she thought he was just another well-built brother talking to a beautiful lady in a high-class establishment. His back was to her, which made identifying him all that more difficult. But it was him. She realized it when he turned sideways and revealed that gorgeous profile. And the beautiful woman he was yapping on and on with wasn’t Simone. Not by a long-shot. And when he took the woman’s hand and began rubbing it, which made it all the more clear that they were far more than just associates having dinner, Shay smiled. So the great Nick Perry wasn’t so grand after all. He was a snake, too. On one level it was almost disappointing. She thought he was a brother with some morals, a dude who rebuffed her advances on every hand because he was righteous and didn’t roll like that. Now she knew better. He was just like every man she’d ever had the displeasure of meeting. She shook her head. He had Simone so snowed.

  After getting a cell phone call and then suddenly getting up from the table as if he had to leave right away, Nick leaned down and kissed the woman goodbye. The woman didn’t even seem disappointed, it seemed to Shay, as if she was used to his gotta go phone calls. Shay even wondered if it was Simone who had called, every time she called him he came right over, while he was probably telling his lady that it was a business emergency. And she probably fell right for it, hook, line, and sinker. This same great man who always treated her like she was some high school kid who wasn’t mature enough to even address him by his first name. She hated him sometimes. And loved him, too. She knew she wanted him, what woman didn’t, and sometimes she couldn’t stand the fact that he was so into Simone. What in the world did she have that I didn’t have, Shay wanted to know. She wasn’t even as pretty. But it was no denying his devotion to Simone. At least that was the game he was playing. Now Shay knew better. And as soon as he walked out of that restaurant, she didn’t hesitate. She hurried over to his lady’s table, to make sure that she knew it, too.

  At first Delia was very cool to Shay’s introduction. Her “you don’t know me but I know Nick” line didn’t shock her in the least. She was certain a lot of young ladies knew Nick, and probably knew him quite intimately. But this one, instead of saying her little dirt, asked to sit down. “It won’t take long,” she said.

  “It had better not,” Delia said, nodding for her to sit.

  Shay wasted no time. “Is Nick Perry your man?” she asked her.

  “And what is that to you?” she responded.

  “Because he also happens to be my sister’s man and I’ll bet you any ‘mount of money you didn’t know that.”

  On any other day, at any other time, and Delia would have dismissed the hoochie out of hand. She and Nick had always had an open relationship, and she was certain that he had had his share of women at one time or another. But this girl, she couldn’t even call her a woman, surprised her. She wasn’t claiming any relationship with him for herself, but for her sister. Could this sister be the woman that Delia had suspected for some time he was involved with? Could it be possible that it had been a long-term relationship, not some occasional fling? She sipped from her wine, and then looked at her young table guest.


  “And you are?”

  “I’m Shay. Serita. But ain’t you surprised by what I just told you?”

  “Not particularly, no. But tell me this: who is this sister of yours?”

  Shay smiled. “You’re a cool customer, but you ain’t fooling me. Nick Perry is too good looking and rich and smart for you to want to share him, and I know that’s right. So you can cut the I don’t care act with me.”

  “Who is your sister?”

  “What difference does that make? She’s a female who has taken possession of your man, that’s who she is. And my sister is hot, let me tell you.” She looked at the lines of age slowly penetrating Delia’s face. “And young.”

  This got Delia’s attention, as Shay knew it would. “She can’t get rid of him,” Shay continued. “He’s devoted to her.”

  Delia hesitated, trying her best to keep her voice from revealing the turmoil suddenly inside of her. “And how long has this. . . relationship’s been going on?”

  “Years.”

  Delia looked at Shay. “Years?”

  “Oh, yeah. He was her attorney first, when she was trying to get custody of me - that’s a long story- but then they became lovers.”

  “Lovers?”

  “Oh, yeah. I live with my sister and he be over there all the time. He probably be telling you that he’s at work, but he don’t be on nobody’s job, and I know that’s right.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Delia said, unable to suppress her hurt.

  “What you don’t believe? That the great Nick Perry could be unfaithful?”

  “That it’s been going on for years. That’s not possible.”

  “Really now?”

  “It’s not possible. Nicky wouldn’t. . . He wouldn’t break the rules like that.”

  “What rules?”

  Delia closed her eyes. “Just . . . I know him and he wouldn’t do that.”

  “Okay. Whatever. But ask yourself this one little question: why I’m gonna come all the way over here and lie to you like that? I don’t know you from Adam, and don’t care to, either, to be honest. That’s what’s wrong with us women, though. We let these men treat us any kind of way and we still believe that they’re so saintly. Please. I know Nick Perry. See him at my sister’s crib almost every night. He even pay her bills, though. So you can believe whatever you like.” She looked up and saw Curtis returning to her table. “Anyway, I’ve got to run,” she said, standing up. “Don’t say nobody never warned you.”