Distant Lover

by Gloria Mallette

  Tandi turned her back to the door and drew her body up tight. The realization that Brent needed to get high before he could make love to her did very little for her self-esteem. It wasn’t Brent who desired her, it was the drugs.

  The bathroom door opened. Brent came out and immediately closed the door behind him. He lay down next to Tandi, snuggling up close to her back. His hand moved slowly up and down the side of her body from her waist to her thigh.

  “I can’t get enough of you,” he said.

  She could feel him. He was ready to make love to her again. The problem was, she wasn’t ready. She pulled away. “You’re high.”

  “No, baby,” he said, drawing Tandi back up against his body, holding her while planting wet kisses on her neck and shoulder.

  She cringed, tightening her muscles.

  “C’mon, baby, relax. I got something real good for you.”

  What Brent had for her was pressed against her behind. She shifted her body a few inches away.

  Brent moved with Tandi. He continued kissing her on the neck while rubbing himself on Tandi’s naked behind in areas that made her squeeze her buttocks tight.

  “No, Brent, I don’t take it that way.”

  “Aw, baby, we should try new things.”

  Tandi hooked her legs over the side of the bed and pulled herself out of Brent’s embrace. She sat up. “I said no,” she said, twisting sideways to look at him.

  He rolled onto his back. “Damn, you’re in a bad mood. What’s your problem?”

  “Frankly, Brent, I still don’t like that you’re using drugs. You promised me that you’d quit.”

  “I did.”

  “Don’t do that, Brent. Don’t lie to my face. I know what you’ve been doing.”

  Brent fixed his eyes on the ceiling. “Okay. I won’t do it again. You satisfied?”

  “No, because you’ve said that before.”

  Brent’s eyes were slowly closing and opening. “I mean it this time.”

  Tandi got off the bed and stood naked before Brent. She thought she could deal with him using drugs, but she was wrong. She worried constantly that she would not be able to keep him from meeting MJ. She could not take that chance.

  “Brent, I think we should stop seeing each other for a while.”

  “Baby, when you see me tomorrow, I won’t smoke anything.”

  “You’re not listening to me, Brent. I won’t be coming tomorrow.” When she saw that his eyes were closed, she realized he really wasn’t listening. She began snatching up her bra and panties. “I’m going to take a shower.”

  A strong pungent smell hit Tandi in the face when she opened the bathroom door. Her breath caught in her throat as she tried to not inhale. She quickly closed the door back.

  “That’s it. I’m done.”

  “Baby, what’s wrong?” Brent asked from the bedroom.

  “I can’t take a shower because the bathroom smells like . . . like toxic smoke.”

  Brent came to the door. “Sorry, baby. I don’t have a window in there so I can’t air it out.”

  “It wouldn’t matter if you did.” She stomped off toward the kitchen where she’d have to wash up in the sink.

  “Baby, I’m sorry.” Brent waited until Tandi was in the kitchen, out of sight, before he rushed back into the bedroom and closed the door.

  In the kitchen Tandi used paper towels to wash herself down, roughly drawing the cheap, flimsy wet towels across her skin, growing more irritable because they were shredding.

  “He’s a damn drug addict,” she said under her breath. “I’m not doing this anymore.”

  Brent reopened the bedroom door. “Baby, what did you say?” He walked casually into the kitchen, still naked, as he rubbed his hands together.

  “I said I’m not doing this anymore!” She yanked on her panties.

  “Baby, I won’t do it again,” he said, trying to take Tandi into his arms.

  “No, Brent.” She pulled herself free of him. “I’m through asking you to give up drugs.”

  “I told you I would. I promise.”

  Tandi pulled on her bra. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she said, realizing she had said the very same thing to Jared. Boy, how funny was that? While she was hooking her bra in the back, Brent slipped his arms around her waist. He lay his head on her shoulder, trying to nestle in the crook of her neck. She felt like her skin was crawling. She pulled her head back. When Michael Jared was a baby, he had lain on her like that but he had been her baby and on the rare occasion he did it now, he was sick, and still she was his mother. She enjoyed comforting him. Brent’s mother, she was not. She could feel his weakness. It disgusted her.

  “Baby, I don’t wanna lose you,” he whined.

  Tandi peeled Brent’s arms from around her and stepped back. “Then take several months to clean yourself up. Get some help.”

  “It won’t take but a week, but I’ll do it for you, baby,” he said, again trying to pull Tandi into his arms.

  “Do it for yourself, Brent.”

  “I will, baby, I promise.”

  That word again. Out of Brent’s mouth, it meant just the opposite. He may as well had said, “Hell no. I’m gonna keep doing what I damn well please.”

  Tandi checked her watch. It was almost midnight. “Darn it. I have to call my son. Do you mind if I use the phone?”

  “Baby, you don’t have to ask.”

  “Fine. I have to finish dressing. I’ll use the telephone in the bedroom.” Tandi hurried away from Brent’s dolefully droopy eyes.

  “I’m gonna fix something to eat,” he said. “You want something?”

  Tandi didn’t want a damn thing. She continued out of the kitchen.

  “Baby, you’re not mad at me, are you?”

  Pissed was more like it. Brent had decimated her fantasy. He was nothing like Tandi remembered and nothing like she had hoped. That old adage, “Be careful what you wish for,” came to mind. Boy, was she regretting what she had wished for. Brent was a drug addict. He needed help, and she wasn’t up to it. Her plate was full to spilling over, and mothering a grown man was something she was not equipped to do. Their relationship had to end. She saw no future.

  Dressed and about ready to walk out the door Tandi remembered her call to Michael Jared. Knowing him, he was fighting Jared about going to bed and was waiting for her, especially since she had promised to spend the whole weekend doing whatever he wanted. This morning he had decided on horseback riding, a movie, in-line skating, and the amusement park. Very ambitious itinerary, but she’d do at least two things on his list. Still, no telling what else Michael Jared might talk her into doing, which was why she had gone to the bank and withdrawn four hundred dollars. It was a lot, but making sure that Michael Jared was happy was all that mattered. Tandi made her call.

  42

  Seeing Daina was like seeing the sun rise after a dark stormy night. At Daina’s car Tandi welcomed the embrace of a friend she was sure of.

  “I love your hair,” Tandi said, touching Daina’s intricately twisted braids.

  “A woman in Somalia did it. I feel like African royalty.”

  “You look it. So it was a good trip?”

  “It was a long trip. Fifteen countries on the continent. My God. The foods, the people, the music, the climates, the languages, the religions, the arts . . . I could go on.”

  “It’s gonna take you a month just to decipher your notes.”

  “No it won’t. I slept with my laptop. I left nothing to chance. I input everything I saw and did the minute I saw and did it. It was just too overwhelming to scribble notes on paper or put on a recorder. I’ll get it done. The South African Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism paid me well . . . but enough about me.” Daina sized Tandi up. “Did you lose weight?”

  “A pound or two.”

  “Looks more like ten.”

  Locking arms, they began to walk toward the house. “I needed to lose some weight.”

  “You alw
ays looked good, Tandi. The excess weight you should have lost years ago was your pal Evonne.”

  Tandi came to an abrupt halt, stopping Daina just as abruptly. “Evonne didn’t go after Jared, Jared—”

  “Hold up!” Daina said, unlocking arms with Tandi. “You’re not about to tell me that you blame Jared for that whole ugly mess?”

  “Well, a good part of it anyway.” She continued up the walkway to the house.

  Daina rushed to catch up. “Tandi, you can’t be serious. Evonne is a manipulator. Whatever she told you about what happened between her and Jared is a lie. I’d bet my life on it.”

  At the door, Tandi looked back at Daina. “You never did like Evonne.”

  “And she never liked me. She hated when I was around because I know a messy ass, conniving tramp when I see one.”

  “Daina, that’s pretty rough. I don’t want you to talk—”

  “You haven’t heard all that I will be saying about that tramp. Tandi, I warned you about her a long time ago. I told you she couldn’t be trusted.”

  “Yes, but you were talking about her being my competition in the real estate market, not with my husband.”

  “Duh,” Daina said, looking at Tandi like she was stupid. “Tandi, if you can’t trust a person in business, you certainly can’t trust them in your personal life. I can’t believe you let that she-devil breech the innermost sanctum of your personal life, allowing her to get next to your man.”

  That good feeling she had when she saw Daina vanished. “For one thing, Daina, Jared is no longer my man, and secondly, Evonne has always been a good friend. Until that incident, she had never given me reason to suspect her of wanting Jared.”

  “That’s because she beguiled you. I always said you were naive when it came to people.”

  “Stop calling me naive!”

  “Well, then you’re too trusting.”

  “In that case, Miss Know-it-all, I shouldn’t be trusting you. I should have never trusted Evonne, and I certainly should not have trusted Jared. He’s a man, remember?”

  “And he’s no saint, but neither are you or I. Evonne? She’s the devil’s own.”

  Tandi put her hands on her hips. “Did you come over here to make my life even more miserable?”

  “If that’s the way you wanna look at it, yeah,” Daina replied, not giving an inch. “Let me remind you of an incident you seem to have forgotten. Do you remember the night of the Mason and Eastern Star fund-raising event for that women’s abuse center over in Rego Park four years ago?”

  “And?”

  “Do you remember me telling you that Evonne kept rubbing up against Jared every chance she got, and you kept telling me I was imagining things?”

  “You were because nothing happened.”

  “That’s because Jared was so busy managing the donation collection and so many people were around him that he didn’t notice and didn’t give Evonne the attention she wanted.”

  Tandi had forgotten all about that because she hadn’t seen anything suspicious herself. Like Evonne and Jared, she was busy, but she did remember Daina telling her what she had seen.

  “Tandi, I’ve suspected Evonne of wanting Jared for a long time. She never did anything that you could put your finger on, but when you weren’t watching, I’d catch the bitch looking at Jared like he was a tub of chocolate. You know, in that yearning kind of way that we women have.”

  “You never mentioned any of that to me,” Tandi said, not feeling especially good about what Daina was saying. She started to turn the knob to open the door.

  “Let’s sit out here for a minute,” Daina said.

  “Fine.” They sat on the stoop. It was a cool May night, but it was bearable.

  “Tandi, Jared is like a brother to me, but you, you’re like a sister, and the bond between sisters is stronger. We have to look out for each other. We have to protect each other from she-devils and lowlife men. Jared has made mistakes—poor baby. But, I love him anyway. Of course, I would disown him in a heartbeat if I thought, even for a second, that he was in his right mind when he slept with that tramp. I would never speak to him again in life for hurting you like that.”

  Tandi was impressed. Daina did truly love Jared. He really was the brother she never had, and they were closer than most siblings, certainly closer than she and Glynn. Daina had no living siblings—her two sisters were long gone. Stella had died of breast cancer five years ago, and Janeen’s life was taken in an automobile accident a year ago. For Daina to say that she would disown Jared, her life-long friend, was an awesome thing to say. It made Tandi think hard about everything that had happened since she left Jared. Could Evonne have viciously lied to her on purpose?

  Daina took Tandi’s hand. “You know I’m right about Evonne.”

  “Maybe, but—”

  “The girl is telling you one thing and Jared another. She’s playing you against each other.”

  That really sickened Tandi. “But why?”

  “For the grand prize—Jared,” Daina said. “Listen, I told you when I introduced you to Jared that if he and I could have had that special thing, you know, that umph, that thing that makes a relationship a storybook romance, you would have never gotten within handshaking distance of him.”

  Tandi had no doubt about that.

  “But I’m not a selfish person. There was no magic between me and Jared, but there was for you and Jared. The two of you are great together, and—”

  “Were great together.”

  “Well, you can be again. Tandi, Jared is a great guy and like most of us, he’s flawed. He’s not perfect. He trips and falls sometimes, too. The man is a hard worker. He’s a good father—”

  “Now he is.”

  “He always was. He loves his son. He was just busy—busy making a living—and you know that. Jared works hard for his money and, unlike some men, he’s no miser with the money he puts in your pockets.”

  “Yes, but he became quite stingy when it came to loving me, being with me.”

  “Okay, so we all know Jared messed up, including Jared himself, but I assure you, Tandi, if you open up even a little bit to him, you’ll never regret it.”

  “Daina, I don’t know how you can say that with such authority. I’m still regretting staying in the marriage after he had that first affair. Three years later, an affair with Evonne. Who knows what went on in between.”

  “Nothing. The client? A colossal mistake. Evonne? He took leave of his damn mind, and you’re partly to blame for that.”

  “What?”

  “Tandi, you left Jared wide open for Evonne to set a trap for him. She laid it, he stumbled in. If indeed he was drunk, the man didn’t have a chance. Therefore, he didn’t cheat on you on purpose.”

  “Come on, Daina. You can’t expect me to believe Jared had no will of his own, that he was so drunk Evonne could manipulate him into screwing her.”

  “If he was drunk like he said, I do. Tandi, a man’s mind and body together have to want sex from a person in order to call it cheating, and Jared was out of his mind.”

  “I don’t wanna hear it. A screw is a screw. It went in, it came out.”

  “Oh,” Daina said, chuckling, “is that how it works?”

  Tandi couldn’t help but snicker herself. “That’s what I hear.”

  They fell against each other, giggling like two schoolgirls.

  “This isn’t funny,” Daina said, getting control of herself. “The bottom line is Jared doesn’t want Evonne. He never has.”

  “Says you.”

  “Says Jared. He hasn’t had sex with her again, and according to him, she’s been calling him like crazy and popping up at the house . . .”

  Tandi’s jaw dropped.

  “. . . trying her best to insinuate her messy self into his life.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Am I Black?”

  That fact was as clear to Tandi as the moon in the sky. She felt like such a fool.

  “Jared said Evonne told
him that she always wanted him, that you didn’t deserve him.”

  Tandi clenched her jaw and glared out at the street. She should have kicked Evonne’s ass when she had the chance. The woman had looked her dead in the eye and lied like a rattler in the shade. The bitch!

  “The skank played you and Jared both,” Daina said. “She’s really low.”

  Tandi’s leg went to shaking. “That bitch told me Jared was dead sober when he came on to her. That he initiated the affair. That he was calling her.”

  “She was lying. Tandi, if you don’t believe Jared, ask your son. He’s witnessed Evonne in action.”

  “What? What has he seen?”

  “He’s seen Evonne come to the house and try to get with Jared . . .”

  “Oh, shhhit.”

  “. . . And, he’s answered the phone when she’s called trying to talk to Jared.”

  Tandi suddenly stood and walked off the stoop. “I’m gonna kill her!”

  “I’ll help you, but right now, calm yourself. Save the anger for when you see her.”

  “She better pray I never see her face again in life.”

  “I know that’s right.”

  “I can’t believe I fell for her lies.”

  “Tandi, you believed her because you didn’t wanna believe Jared.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Isn’t it?” Daina asked. “Tandi, you were already angry with Jared. You probably would’ve believed that he was a serial killer if—”

  “I would never! I know Jared. I know what not to believe.”

  “Then why did you believe he slept with Evonne on purpose?”

  “Because I saw her in my bed with him!”

  “Fair, but seeing isn’t everything. You should have listened to Jared’s side of the story. And, actually, you should hear the terrible things that your friend has said about you.”

  Tandi drew back. “Like what?”

  “That you had been sleeping around way before you left Jared, and—”

  “That’s a lie! I didn’t even meet up with Brent until weeks after I left Jared.”

  “Brent? Mm. I want the four-one-one on this Brent, but first, your friend told Jared that he could have never satisfied you because you were an habitual malcontent.”