Where I Want To Be

by Maryam Diaab

  Eva held the ice pick in one hand and the brick in the other. As much as she wanted him to pay for what he had done to her, she felt that things were getting a little out of hand.

  “What are you waiting for? Slash his tires and then throw the brick. I’ll be waiting right here with the engine running.”

  Eva took a deep breath and got out, putting both items discreetly in her oversized Gucci bag. She jogged across the street looking right and left in case anyone was watching. She stopped in front of Carlos’s car and bent down. Taking the ice pick from her purse and taking another deep breath, she looked around one last time before plunging the stainless steel deep into the tire. At that moment, all nervousness left and a feeling of euphoria flowed over her. She hurried from tire to tire, poking deep holes in each one and stopping briefly to listen to the sweet sound of air rushing from the rubber. When she finished, his car sat on flat tires. Tiffany gave her the thumbs-up sign from across the street.

  Eva placed the pick back into her bag and removed the heavy brick. She looked around again before holding it above her head. She paused when she thought she saw Carlos walk from the kitchen the bathroom from his large window.

  “Hurry up!” Tiffany urged.

  She raised her arm up and back, but just as she was about to let the brick fly toward the huge bay window, her heart stopped when she heard the distinct sound of police sirens. She dropped the brick, snatched her purse off the grass and prepared to run as fast as her legs would carry her across the street to safety. But upon turning around, she saw Tiffany put her green Sable into gear and speed away, leaving her standing alone, the evidence in her purse and having no other option but to spend the next few days in jail.

  34

  DO WHAT’S RIGHT

  “Can you see the sex?” she asked anxiously.

  The sonogram technician squirted more of the cold blue gel on her protruding stomach. Alexis turned her head and looked at the screen, holding her breath as she waited for an answer.

  “Well I can see an ear…a foot…an arm,” the technician said, pausing between each body part to enter data into the computer. “The baby looks healthy and definitely on target with your due date,” she said. “She’s measuring about four pounds, three ounces.”

  Alexis rose up a little on the table. “Did you say she?”

  The technician moved the wand over her stomach again before answering. “Yup, looks like you’re going to be having a little girl soon.”

  Alexis was ecstatic. Every week or so after she found out she was pregnant, she would dream of a beautiful baby girl who was a perfect blend of Massai and herself. She had held back buying any baby items that were gender-specific. She had a lot of white undershirts and newborn diapers, but nothing else. As hard as it was to wait, she wanted to be sure of the baby’s sex before she went crazy in the layette section.

  After a few more minutes of pointing and clicking, the technician told her she was all set, and gave her a towel to wipe her stomach clean and a few of the most beautiful, fuzzy pictures she had ever seen.

  Alexis drove all the way home with a huge smile on her face. If the technician had told her that the baby was a boy, she was sure she would have been happy, but there was something about knowing that the baby would be a miniature version of herself that made Alexis’s eyes fill with excited and joyous tears.

  As she pulled into her assigned parking space, her smile quickly faded. In a Ford Explorer parked next to her car sat her sister and mother, and both were waving like maniacs. Alexis wanted to run and hide.

  She knew she should be ashamed for withholding news of the pregnancy from her family members, and she was. But she still couldn’t bear the thought of disappointing her parents that way.

  “Mom, Dad…I’m pregnant, but the father is getting ready to have another baby by another woman, so I didn’t bother to tell him or you about the one I’m carrying.”

  The situation sounded completely ridiculous and embarrassing, and no matter how many ways and times she practiced that speech, she still couldn’t muster enough courage to actually tell her parents what was going on.

  She waved back at her mother and sister and tried to plaster a fake smile on her face. She had been fortunate. Until recently her stomach had shown no signs of the baby growing inside, and this had allowed her to visit with her family without them suspecting a thing. But one morning she woke up with a belly that couldn’t be camouflaged by baggy shirts and large winter coats. She hadn’t seen her family in a little over a month.

  “What are you guys doing here?” she asked, rolling down the car window. She had yet to make any move to get out of the car.

  “We came to see you,” Alicia said, stating the obvious. “Now get out of that car so we can go upstairs. It’s freezing out here.” She and her mother got out of the SUV and began walking to Alexis’s apartment, unaware that she was not following them.

  Dana, Alexis’s mother, turned around. “Would you hurry up?”

  Looking down at her growing stomach, she knew that it was time to get out and face the music. She grabbed her bag off the floor, took a deep breath and stepped out of the car. She watched as her mother and sister looked at her then whispered something to each other. The looks of shock, surprise and disapproval she had expected to see were nowhere to be found. As she got closer to them, she was better able to read their faces; she saw sympathy and excitement.

  “Well,” Alexis said, stopping in front of them and waiting to face a verbal firing squad.

  “Well, what?” her mother asked, placing her hand on her daughter’s belly just as the baby kicked under her blue turtleneck sweater.

  “I think you look adorable,” Alicia gushed, taking the keys from Alexis’s hand and unlocking the door.

  “You mean you aren’t mad?” she asked as they entered her apartment. She was totally surprised and taken aback.

  “About you being pregnant? No. About having to find out from Morgan’s grandmother in Kroger? Yes,” her mother said, hugging her and rubbing her stomach again.

  “How long have you known?” Alexis asked, taking off her coat and throwing it across the back of the couch.

  “A little over two months,” Alicia answered.

  That meant that they knew the last time she had visited.

  “Why didn’t you tell us, Alexis?” Dana asked, sitting down and looking up at her daughter.

  “Because I was embarrassed. I mean, pregnant with no man. Wouldn’t you be?”

  “I would,” Alicia admitted. “Who’s the father? Kevin?”

  “It’s the basketball player, isn’t it?” her mother asked.

  She nodded, unable to speak.

  “I knew it would never work out between you two,” Alicia said knowingly.

  Dana shot her a look before turning back to Alexis. “So what is he planning on doing about this?”

  “He doesn’t plan on doing anything because he doesn’t know.”

  “What do you mean he doesn’t know?” Alicia asked, confused.

  “We broke up before I found out I was pregnant. I never told him. He doesn’t know,” Alexis explained, trying to simplify a very complicated situation.

  “You’re crazy,” Alicia said disapprovingly.

  “You are going to tell him, aren’t you?” Dana asked gently.

  “Of course I’m going to tell him. If I don’t, Claire will, and that’ll make everything a whole lot worse.”

  “When are you going to tell him?” Alicia asked, not believing her sister had gotten herself involved in such a sticky situation.

  “I don’t have an exact date or time in mind, but soon. Okay, Alicia?”

  “Okay.” Alicia held up her hands, not wanting to argue.

  “I’m having a girl,” Alexis announced, breaking the awkward silence that had fallen upon the room.

  “Oh, my goodness. We have to go shopping, don’t we, Ma? Have you picked out stuff for the nursery yet? The stuff at Pottery Barn Kids is so gorgeous,” Alicia r
ambled on. She couldn’t have been more excited if she was pregnant herself.

  Dana Hunter stood and walked over to Alexis as Alicia went on and on about wallpaper and bumpers and changing tables. Her mother took her hands and looked deep into her eyes.

  “You have to tell him. It’s his baby, too, and he has as much right as you do to be involved in this child’s life.”

  “I know, I know. I’m going to tell him. I promise.”

  “Don’t promise me, Alexis. I know who my father is. Promise your daughter.”

  * * *

  Massai rolled over in bed and blinked a few times until his eyes focused. He turned his head to the left and looked at the sleeping woman next to him. Flat on her stomach, Kadijah Sinclair breathed in and out so evenly he knew that she was still asleep. Reaching out, he picked up one of her long, soft twists and let if fall from his fingers.

  “Good morning,” she said without opening her eyes.

  “Good morning. I thought you were still asleep,” Massai said.

  “I’m a very light sleeper.”

  “How are you feeling this morning?” he asked.

  “Peaceful and serene. Your bed is the most comfortable thing in the world.” Kadijah finally opened her eyes and smiled at him. Pulling the sheet close to her body she sat up and stretched.

  “Are you hungry? I can run somewhere and grab something,” he offered. “I really don’t have much in the refrigerator right now.”

  “I would love some coffee. I’m a big coffee person, and if I don’t start my day out with at least one cup, I’m off.”

  “We all have our vices. Let me just jump into the shower, and then I’ll go and pick up some coffee and maybe some bagels.”

  “Thank you,” Kadijah called as Massai headed for the shower.

  He turned on the water and stepped inside. He had met Kadijah only two days ago, and he wasn’t completely sure how he felt about her. She was definitely beautiful, with smooth skin the color of milk chocolate, slanted, almost Asian eyes, and baby-soft twists that reached down to the middle of her back. But he didn’t know if that beauty was enough.

  Massai had never brought home a woman he met after a game, but for Kadijah and his new-found freedom, he made an exception. She had been waiting at the back exit and next to her was a little boy dressed in a kid’s version of Massai’s jersey. He wore twists and was the spitting image of his mother.

  “Go ahead, Taj; ask Mr. Taylor to sign your jersey.” The woman gave the little boy a permanent marker, and Massai signed the jersey while making small talk with the woman he later invited back to his place for a little one-on-one. There was something about her that he didn’t want to resist. She was mysterious and intriguing and sexy and he was immediately attracted to her, even though she was much different from the type of women he was used to. When he met Alexis, he knew immediately that she was special and felt the overwhelming urge to get to know her on several different levels. With Kadijah, there was only one thing on his mind when he looked at her: sex.

  That first night he found that she liked it rough, with a lot of forceful positions, handcuffs and dirty name-calling. He was more than happy to oblige over and over again. Last night, he used her body as an outlet for all the anger and frustration he had been holding in the past few months. The more he thought about what he had been through and all that he had lost, the harder he pushed his body inside her and the louder she begged for more.

  Massai heard the phone ring, but he was already in the shower and didn’t want to get out and feel the cold air on his wet skin. “Kadijah, can you answer that for me? It’s probably Malik. We’re supposed to be riding to practice together. Can you tell him that I’ll be ready in about an hour?”

  She sat up in bed, reached over and picked up the phone. “Hello?”

  There was no immediate response, but she could hear the faintest sound of someone breathing on the other end. “Hello,” Kadijah said again, hoping that she hadn’t gotten involved with someone who was being stalked. “Hello,” she repeated for the last time, about to hang up.

  “Um…may…may I speak to Massai, please?” Alexis stammered. She thought, prayed that she had the wrong number.

  “Oh, he’s in the shower. Can I take a message?”

  Alexis didn’t know what to think. Her luck and timing were terminally terrible. It had taken her two days to finally follow through on calling Massai after the conversation with her mother, and now another woman was answering his phone. Somehow she knew that the voice on the line didn’t belong to Eva.

  “No, no, there’s no message,” she said, wishing she had never made the phone call in the first place.

  “May I ask who is calling?” Kadijah asked, becoming curious about the caller who seemed so nervous and unsure of herself.

  “I…” Alexis began, stuttering again. “This is…can you tell him Alexis called?” She knew that by leaving her name she was giving him an invitation to return her call, but he didn’t have her new unlisted phone number, and it would be virtually impossible for him to contact her unless she wanted him to.

  Kadijah hung up the phone just as Massai turned the shower off. “Malik didn’t give you a hard time, did he?” he asked, coming out of the bathroom with only a gray towel covering him.

  “It wasn’t Malik.”

  “Who else would be calling my house this early?” The image of Eva immediately floated through his mind.

  Kadijah removed a rubber band from around her wrist and gathered her twists into a ponytail before answering. “It was a woman. She said her name was Alexis.”

  35

  WHAT ARE FRIENDS FOR?

  “Why are we painting this room while you’re six months pregnant?” Claire asked, wiping her brow.

  “Because we have to get it ready. I know you saw all those boxes from Pottery Barn Kids. My mom and dad must have spent a fortune,” Alexis said, tying her pink bandana around her head.

  Just three days ago she answered the door and found two exhausted-looking UPS men waiting to deliver a baby’s crib, dresser, bookshelf and pink and white striped chaise lounge. After the deliverymen left, she received a call from her soft-spoken father congratulating her and saying that he hoped she liked the things he, Dana and Alicia had chosen.

  “I’m sorry about my grandmother, but you know how her mouth is,” Morgan said apologetically.

  “It’s fine. I should have told my family months ago,” Alexis said.

  “You’re right. Now all you have to do is tell Massai and you’ll be set,” Claire said, looking at her friend over her shoulder.

  “I called him,” she said, rolling a coat of pale pink paint across the wall of what was soon to be the baby’s room.

  “You called who?” Morgan asked, doubting that she had called Massai to confess.

  “You know who. I called Massai to tell him about the baby.” She stood back to look at her handiwork. The top half of the room was pink and the bottom half was white, with each color separated by a white wooden divider. Her brother, Aaron, had come in yesterday to paint the ceiling a pale shade of blue with perfectly wistful clouds spread throughout.

  “Why didn’t you tell us? We could have come over to give you moral support. What did he say?” Claire said, dropping her paint roller in the bucket and sitting down on the plastic drop cloth.

  “He didn’t say anything because I didn’t get a chance to tell him.”

  “Why not?” Morgan asked, sitting down beside Claire.

  “Because when I called some woman answered the phone talking about he was in the shower,” Alexis explained, trying to mask the pain she felt.

  “Girl, it was probably Eva. Isn’t she still living with him?” Morgan wondered.

  “I don’t know where she’s living, but the voice I heard when I called Massai’s house definitely did not belong to Eva. I’ve heard so much of her in the background that I would have recognized her voice immediately.”

  “So do you think he’s seeing someone new?” Cl
aire asked, hoping that wasn’t the case.

  “I think so. She sounded very after-sex,” she said, replaying the short exchange in her head for the millionth time.

  “Whether he has a new girlfriend or not, you still have to tell him,” Morgan informed her as if she didn’t already know.

  “I think I should get an extension.” Alexis directed her statement at Claire, the person who had given her the ultimatum in the first place. “I think I should get another month to get my thoughts together. This new girl in the mix changes some things.”

  “Please, you’re just coming up with one excuse after another. That chick who answered Massai’s phone could have been the damn cleaning lady for all you know,” Claire said, standing up and heading for the door.

  “It was not the cleaning lady.”

  “You don’t know who it was, and I’m tired of talking about it. I’m going to go get something to eat.”

  Claire took her friends’ orders and hurried out of the apartment. After getting into her car and driving halfway to the fast-food restaurant, she pulled out her cellphone and found Malik’s number among her saved contacts.

  “How are you?” she asked Malik, knowing that he would immediately recognize her voice. Unbeknownst to her friends, the two talked almost daily, and Malik was still waiting for Claire to take him up on his invitation to visit him in New Orleans.

  “I’m good, how are you?” he answered, smiling at the sound of her voice. The more they communicated with each other, the more he realized that he really liked her, but he wasn’t sure if it was enough to give up his womanizing ways.

  “I’m fine. I saw you play last night,” she said, smiling on her end of the line. She didn’t know what it was about him, but he did something to her. With just a few words he could always make her feel special. Being the independent woman that she was, she really didn’t like the power he was gaining over her.

  “So you do watch sports? What did you think?”

  “I thought that you shouldn’t have missed that layup at the end of the game,” she teased.