The Best Possible Angle

by Lloyd Johnson

  Sabathany’s being there alone carried a different energy throughout the room. It was obvious to Lenox from the moment he stepped into the apartment that Kendrick was not there.

  “Can we get this over with?” Sabathany asked, walking him over to the kitchen area. She appeared vexed, as though she had been made to go along with something against her will.

  “Of course,” Lenox said, trying to maintain his composure.

  “Is that it?” Sabathany pointed at the packet of papers in his hand.

  Lenox nodded and slid the packet down the kitchen island toward her. “Read it very carefully.”

  Sabathany skimmed the document, almost defiant of Lenox’s instruction. It boiled down to say that she was not at liberty to discuss anything pertaining to Kendrick Black, and that failure to comply would result in immediate divorce where she walked away with absolutely nothing.

  “Care for a drink?” Lenox asked, sensing Sabathany’s ferment.

  “Only if you’re having one.”

  Lenox smiled crookedly as he reached beneath the island counter. He brought out some whiskey and a couple of tumblers.

  Sabathany watched him, a little put off that he seemed to know his way around the home, and that he had not bothered to ask if she preferred something else to drink.

  Sabathany eyed Lenox’s pour closely. “Is this all there is to the document?”

  “Yep. It’s pretty straight forward.” He slid a glass over to Sabathany. Without saying another word, Lenox drank.

  The recessed lighting caught the gleam of the single staple in the packet of papers as Sabathany breezed through them. Her face soured.

  “Make sure you read all of it.”

  “You said that already.”

  “Well, from the way you’re flipping through it like it ain’t nothin’, it looks to me that I have to repeat myself.”

  “Maybe that’s because it is nothing.” Sabathany decided the whiskey’s taste was tolerable.

  “You sign it, you’re bound by it, is all I’m saying. You can’t turn around and say you didn’t know.”

  Sabathany cocked her head and squinted cunningly at him. “Say I sign this thing, what’s in it for me?”

  “Kenny won’t kick your ass to the curb.”

  “Besides that?”

  Lenox had not been briefed on anything outside the four corners of the contract. “Look, I don’t know what kind of beef you two got going on, and I don’t care either. But, my ass is in a sling. Will you please just sign the agreement so I can go on about my business?”

  Sabathany smirked. “Wow. You’re the best thing Kenny’s got in his arsenal? You really disappoint me, Lenox. I was expecting a more formidable foe.”

  There was a coldness in Lenox’s eyes that forced Sabathany to take notice. She knew she was driving the ridicule to a dangerous edge. But, she enjoyed pushing Lenox’s buttons.

  “I think you better be careful who you start conflict with. Remember, your issue is with Kenny, not me. Try and keep it that way.”

  Sabathany was turned on by the warning. She continued to meet Lenox’s gaze, certain that something else was behind it. What, she didn’t know.

  “Let me ask you something.” With a swing of her hips she came from behind the island. “Did it ever occur to you Kenny sent you here knowing full well that I have no intention of signing?”

  Lenox looked confused.

  “Of course it didn’t. He hates your guts right now, so much so that he sent you here to do the impossible. That way he can justify kicking your ass to the curb. Not mine. Because whether or not I sign those papers, I’m going to be just fine.”

  Lenox sensed that Sabathany enjoyed hearing herself speak. But if it meant getting her to sign, he intended to indulge her.

  “Ain’t no beef between me and my boy. Like I told you the first day we met, he and I go back years. We’re family. “

  “Oh yeah, and he’s thrilled to know you were screwing his sister the entire time?”

  Lenox looked away.

  Satisfied that she hit a nerve, she announced, “You know, I’m not much of a whiskey girl. I prefer wine.” There was a victorious musicality in her movement as she crossed the kitchen to the cabinet for a wine glass. After pulling the Sauvignon Blanc from the refrigerator, she paused before pouring her own. “Would you like a glass? Yes? No?”

  Lenox’s eyes remained hardened. His shoulders tensed as well as his grip of the tumbler.

  “In a way, I almost feel sorry for you. I’m sure you had no way of knowing Kenny’s loyalty to you would go bye-bye.”

  “Are you going to sign it or not?” He did not believe in striking women, but Sabathany moved dangerously close to that happening. He began to breath and count to ten in his head.

  “I don’t know. I think these terms are negotiable.”

  Lenox slammed the glass so hard he thought he cracked its bottom. “Ain’t gonna be no negotiations. Sign the damn papers!”

  “Easy,” Sabathany said calmly. “No need to throw a tantrum.”

  Lenox snatched the documents out of her hand, and slapped them down onto the island. He roughly placed the pen on top of the papers.

  “Sign it,” he said again, his eyes threatening. Lenox walked over to the paper towel dispenser by the sink and tore a long piece from it. He blotted the sweat beading on his brow. This bitch is making me lose my cool, he thought to himself. Lenox could barely ignore the smug look Sabathany wore. He picked up the glass of whiskey and checked the bottom to see if he cracked it. Realizing he didn’t, he drank from it.

  The two stared each other down. Lenox broke the stare by asking, “Are you going to sign it?”

  Sabathany shook her head.

  “Aww, man!” Lenox hurled the glass to the floor; its burst found its way all over the kitchen. A shard cut Lenox on his chin. “I don’t need this shit today!” As he paced, his long, leather coat flapped behind him.

  Unmoved by his histrionics, Sabathany stared blankly at him. “Now that you’ve gotten that out of your system, I want to talk to Kendrick.”

  “Why do you think he sent me here to deal with this? He doesn’t want to talk to you! Don’t you get that?”

  “I want to talk to him,” she said, feeling good about her power play.

  “Jesus Christ!” Lenox’s glare reduced to pleading. He dabbed his stinging chin with the paper towel, realizing for the first time he was bleeding. “Hold on!” Lenox took out his phone and dialed.

  “Hey,” Kendrick answered.

  “We got a problem.”

  “What kind of a problem?”

  “She won’t sign until she speaks to you first.”

  “Oh yeah, about that. Change of plans.”

  “What?” Lenox asked, annoyed with Kendrick’s casualness.

  “I said change of plans, so don’t worry about it.”

  Lenox stared at the phone as though a foreign language came through it. “Exactly when were you planning to tell me this?”

  “I’m telling you now. But don’t worry, I’ll deal with it when she gets back to L.A.”

  “What am I supposed to do now?”

  “What are you, a retard? You don’t have to do anything. Just take the document and leave!”

  Lenox flinched as though he had been slapped. “Like I said, she wants to talk to you. She’s standing right here.” Without looking at Sabathany Lenox passed the phone to her.

  “Say, Kenny, the next time you wanna send one of your goons over here to do your bidding, you gotta send better. Lenox has practically pissed his pants. A few seconds more and I’d have the poor brotha crying,” Sabathany said. “I want to go over the terms of this nonsense you call an agreement.”

  “We won’t be discussing the terms of anything, because you’re not going to sign anything,” Kendrick said.

  “See? Even you realize how silly it is. You had no business asking me to sign it in the first place. What are you trying to do, waste more of my time?”

  �
�The jig is up, Sabathany.”

  “Jig? What jig?”

  “I mean the jig of you thinking you have something to hold over me.”

  Sabathany nipped the game playing in the bud. “If there’s nothing for me to sign, then there’s nothing for us to talk about. I’m hanging up now.”

  “That was really foul what you did to Lola…your mother.”

  Silence.

  “I’m guessing by the quiet on your end that you know exactly what I’m talking about. So here’s what’s going to happen. Tomorrow when you come back to L.A, all of your things will be packed and ready for you. Should you fail to come get them, I’ll consider them abandoned and have them disposed of. I know how much your labels mean to you, but they don’t mean quite as much to me.”

  Sabathany took a deep breath, swung her hair from her shoulder, and tried to sound unbothered by what Kendrick said.

  “I don’t know what you think you know, but make no mistake, you have no idea what you’re talking about, and you might wanna be careful with the accusation that I had my mother killed. That’s called slander. People get sued for that sort of thing.”

  Kendrick broke into laughter. “Sabathany, I didn’t say anything about you having your mother killed. All I said was it was foul what you did to her. You basically just told on yourself.”

  “I still don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her voice sounded so thin, she doubted that Kendrick believed her. After another pause she said, “Okay, tell me what you want?”

  “What I actually want is for you to fling yourself off a building. What I’ll settle for is you getting the hell out of my life. You know my secret and I know yours, I’d call that a wash.”

  “Fine. You win.”

  “I win?”

  “I’m not going to fight you, Kendrick. As much as it sucks hearing myself say this, I know I can’t beat you, so, I’m not going to embarrass myself.” She handed the phone back to Lenox just as a smile found its way on her face.

  “So what now?” Lenox asked, noticing the mischief in Sabathany’s expression.

  After a long pause Kendrick said, “I’m going to direct deposit your severance pay into your account.”

  “Severance pay? For what?”

  “The only reason I’m giving you money is because you’ve got kids. Consider us squared-up for everything you’ve done up until this point. Let that bit of money also satisfy any urge you might have to talk about things you shouldn’t talk about.”

  Paris came to Lenox’s mind. “I’m glad you said that. We’ve gotta talk about your sister.”

  “For what? You’re the one who decided to fool around on your wife. If Paris decides to expose you, then that’s what you get.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not talking about…”

  “You know, I wasn’t going to ask, but now I gotta know. Who did who? Did you do her or was it the other way around?”

  Alarm passed through Lenox’s eyes. He turned his back to Sabathany, who had returned to her glass of wine. “How can you ask me something like that?”

  “Hey, I get no enjoyment from asking. But you must admit, it’s a fair question. I mean, you’ve known about my sister since back in the day. One could assume you liked it enough to stay after all this time. But then, you insisted she have the surgery to get it wacked off. Oh, wait, you must’ve been doing her, right?”

  “I never told her to have the surgery. She’s the one who was insecure about it.”

  “Man, this just gets better and better. So you like the fact that she has a penis?”

  “Fuck you, Kenny!”

  “Well, I’d say back at you, but clearly you prefer someone else to do the job!”

  “Can’t you see that I’m trying to make this right?”

  “Trying is for pussies. If you were a real man, you would’ve told me. I don’t keep backstabbers around. Don’t call me again.” Kendrick hung up.

  “Well?” Sabathany asked. Her tone was more subdued.

  Lenox shrugged.

  “I think we both could use a drink.”

  “Man, I don’t want no drink, especially from you.”

  Sabathany grabbed a Post-It and jotted something down, then stuck it on the first page of the documents before folding the packet in half. “Here,” she said, standing with her arm outstretched, the document hanging from her extended grasp.

  Lenox snatched the documents from her and turned to leave without saying goodbye.

  “This isn’t over,” Sabathany yelled from across the room.

  “Whatever.”

  “Oh, that’s right. You think this no longer concerns you.”

  Lenox spun around. His eyebrow arched, which feminized his otherwise rugged-looking face. “That’s because it doesn’t.”

  “You’re dumb if you think things are going to clear up between you two.”

  Lenox pressed his index and middle fingers against his temple. A headache was coming on. “He’s mad now, but he’ll be all right.”

  “Of course. What do I know?”

  Lenox left without saying anything else. He figured her spouting nonsense was to save face from having lost her angle. The elevator was still on the penthouse floor. As he rode it down, he breathed easier. Thankfully, Lenox had his family to go home to.

  As soon as he got into his car he unfolded the document to see the yellow Post-It on top. It had Sabathany’s phone number on it and underneath read:

  “Let me know when you’re ready for that drink…”

  TWENTY-THREE

  As soon as the woman of the house opened the door, Paris stared finality in its face. She knew this little stunt killed even the slightest chance of getting Lenox to reconsider a future with her. However, that no longer mattered. It was just as important that he lose the “respectable” future she lost him to.

  The woman remembered Paris asking for directions to Ruby’s bakery. Her smile acknowledged as much, as a brightness flashed in her eyes. The twins Lenox spoke so much about—Keyshawn and Toya, clutched their mother’s legs.

  “You’re Ashley, right?” Paris asked with an antagonistic swing in her voice.

  “Who wants to know?” Ashley’s friendliness went out like a pilot light.

  “I’m Paris, and I just thought you should know that your husband and I have been having an affair the entire time you’ve been together.”

  The woman dropped her gaze to her children. “Keyshawn, Toya, why don’t you two go on back into the living room and color while mommy’s talking.”

  The children did as they were told.

  Ashley sized Paris up. “Now, I have a question. What is the purpose of you telling me this?”

  Paris hardened her stance. “I just thought I would come to you woman to woman and let you know what’s going on.”

  Ashley bit her lip. “You call yourself a woman?”

  “I’m all woman!”

  Ashley laughed heartily. She continued studying Paris through the screened door. It was a slow, deliberate examination that made Paris uncomfortable.

  “Just because you allow another woman’s husband to make you his mistress doesn’t make you a woman. It makes you a whore!”

  “Hold on, I came to you with intentions of having an adult conversation, and you’re going to disrespect me?”

  Ashley wanted to tear through the screen door. “Let me get this straight. You expect me to reward you for telling me that you’ve been undermining my marriage? Girl, I ought to stomp you right now for bringing that shit to my house!”

  “Bring it then, bitch!”

  “Oh, I can do so much better than that.”

  With two unattended five-year old children sitting inside, Paris figured Ashley would not come anywhere near her. “You don’t have the guts to put your hands on me. Tell you what, Lenox tells me you’re the most boring lay he’s ever had. What does that say about you?”

  “I can’t be all that boring, I’ve got two kids with him. Ashley paused to rub her belly. “And one on the
way. But I bet Lenox didn’t bother to tell you, did he?”

  No, he didn’t, Paris thought to herself. She wanted to kick Ashley in her stomach out of spite, but she resisted the urge. The sting of the revelation brought up a truth she thought she had made her peace with. She would never be able to become pregnant.

  The encounter was not going as planned. She thought Ashley would become a blubbering mess, pleading with her to leave Lenox alone. But this woman acted as if this was all a joke.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got children to attend to! I’d advise you to get the hell outta here!”

  “Lenox is gonna dump you the first chance he gets, especially now!”

  Ashley became unglued. “You think my husband would leave me for the likes of you? Grown-ass woman my ass!”

  Ashley’s shift from nice suburban mother to a girl from around the way surprised Paris. Not knowing what to do next, Paris froze when she heard a man’s voice pipe from behind. She turned to see Lenox looming over her with hatred in his eyes.

  “Paris, what the hell are you doing here?”

  Ashley came outside. Tears welled in her eyes. She pounded on Lenox’s chest with her fists. “Tell your clownish bitch to leave!”

  “Ashley go back in the house,” Lenox instructed, bringing his voice down. Then he focused back on Paris. “You better get outta here!”

  Ashley, like a chained rabid dog, moved back and forth in the yard. “You mean to tell me this is what you’ve been messing with?” Ashley pointed her finger right in Lenox’s face.

  “Baby, please get in the house.”

  Ashley lunged at Paris, taking a series of swings that would have connected had Lenox not pulled her toward the house. He shot Paris a look that told her what to expect the next time they were alone.

  “Well, looks like my work here is done,” Paris said, having gotten the response she hoped for. As she retreated down the walkway toward the sidewalk, Ashley continued to thrash about as Lenox held her at bay.

  Walking to her car, Paris afforded the drama playing out in front of Lenox’s house one last glance.

  Ashley screamed at him, “Why would you disrespect me like this?” before slapping him multiple times. Embarrassed, Lenox bowed his head, refusing to strike back.