Charlotte needed to see her little girl, and while Curtis had demanded she not drive Curtina around anymore, she was going to pick her daughter up and spend the rest of the day with her. Since Curtis was off and Curtina had spent the night with Aunt Emma, she knew he was planning to get her from school, but Charlotte missed her, and Curtis would just have to deal with it. Plus, it wasn’t like she’d had anything to drink today… well, maybe that one glass of wine she’d ordered at the restaurant when she and Janine had lunch, but she certainly wasn’t intoxicated. Still, she knew Curtis would have a hissy fit if he saw Curtina getting in the car with her, so she had to leave the house now if she wanted to arrive at the school before him. What she would do was go inside, lie about a dental appointment Curtina had, and pull her out of class thirty minutes early. She hated resorting to this kind of petty deception, but Curtis had left her no choice. She had to do whatever necessary and wouldn’t feel bad about it.
Curtina sat in the back of the car, watching a movie and enjoying her McDonald’s Happy Meal. She’d been so happy to see Charlotte when she’d picked her up, and she had talked nonstop on their way out of the building and over to the car. She was the light of Charlotte’s life, and while Charlotte was still hurt over the idea that Curtis had found someone else, being with Curtina lifted her spirits.
Curtina ate her chicken nuggets and sang to the video, and Charlotte smiled. Then her phone rang. She’d forgotten to connect her Bluetooth, so she couldn’t use her earpiece, but when she saw that it was Curtis calling, she broke the law and answered, anyway.
“Where are you?” he shouted.
“Out.”
“I thought I made it clear that I didn’t want Curtina riding in the car with you.”
Charlotte glanced at Curtina in her rearview mirror, making sure her headphones were secure and that she wasn’t paying any attention to her conversation. “Look, Curtis, if I want to spend time with Curtina, I will, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“If you’re putting my daughter’s life in danger, there’s a whole lot I will do.”
“I haven’t been drinking, Curtis. Happy?”
“I don’t care if you have or haven’t. I don’t want her in the car with you.”
“Well, that’s just too bad.”
“Bring her home, Charlotte.”
“I will. When I’m good and ready.”
“You’re really trying my patience.”
“And you’re trying mine, so I guess we’re even.”
“When are you coming home?”
Charlotte turned into the mall parking lot. “I told you, when I’m good and ready.”
“Mommy, is that Daddy?” Curtina said.
Charlotte hadn’t counted on her asking any questions. “It sure is, sweetheart.”
“Can I speak to him?”
Charlotte said nothing else to Curtis but passed Curtina the phone.
“Hi, Daddy, what are you doing?… I’m good… Are you going to meet us here at the mall?… We’re parking right now by Macy’s,” she said, and Charlotte cringed. “Okay, you wanna speak back to Mommy?”
Charlotte took the phone. “Hello?”
“I’m coming to get my daughter.”
“No problem. We’ll see you soon, honey,” she said in a chipper tone for Curtina’s benefit.
Charlotte parked, and the two of them got out and went into the mall as planned. As always, Curtina grabbed her hand, and Charlotte was amazed at how the smallest things she did made her feel special. Made her feel loved and wanted the way she once had with Matthew. They rode down the escalator to the children’s department, and as soon as they walked down the aisle, Curtina rushed toward a darling pink short set. “Can I get this?”
“If they have your size.” Charlotte picked up a yellow short set and turned it around. “What about this one?”
“I like that one, too.”
“Then we’ll get both of them. I think you need to try them on, though, but let’s take a look at the dresses first.”
They strolled down the aisle a bit farther, but just as Charlotte pulled a black-and-white sleeveless dress from the rack, she heard someone call her name, and she turned around. “Oh, hey, Lana,” she said, hugging her.
“How are you? And how are you, Miss Curtina?”
“Good.”
“So what brings you down to the girls’ department?” Charlotte asked.
Lana turned around. “Oh, here she comes now. You remember my niece, Tracey, right?”
Charlotte nodded. “Yes, how are you? I haven’t seen you at church in a while, though.”
“I know. Lately I’ve been working a lot of weekends at the hospital, so that’s why I haven’t been there.”
“I understand.”
Lana looked across the department. “Tracey has a five-year-old, so we decided to run down here and browse a little before we go up to the shoe section. I need to find some comfortable flats or low wedges for the convention in Detroit this weekend.”
“Which one is that?”
“You know, the women’s conference Pastor is speaking at,” Lana said.
Charlotte wondered why Curtis hadn’t had the decency to tell her he was going out of town. On the holiday weekend no less. She was so embarrassed.
She pretended she knew all about it, though. “Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that. I didn’t realize you were going.”
“I hadn’t planned on it, but now I’m glad your husband talked me into it. Still, I wish you were going, too, because I know it’ll be a great time.”
“Maybe next year,” Charlotte said, but knew her chances of ever going were highly unlikely, especially if Curtis kept his word about divorcing her.
Tracey repositioned her purse on her shoulder. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take a look around, but it was great seeing you, Charlotte.”
“Likewise,” she said, but then wheels turned in her head. What if Tracey was the woman Curtis was now interested in and the person he’d been speaking to on the phone? Charlotte had always loved Lana, but she was also extremely loyal to Curtis and treated him like a son, so what if she was covering up an affair between him and her favorite niece? What if Tracey had been the woman who’d answered the phone this afternoon when Charlotte had dialed the number she’d found on the website?
Charlotte snapped back to reality when she heard Lana saying, “Hey, Pastor.”
Curtina hugged him. “Hi, Daddy.”
“Hi, sweetheart.”
“Look what Mommy’s getting ready to buy me. I have to try everything on first, though.”
“How pretty.”
“Okay, well, you all have a good evening,” Lana said. “And I’ll see you tomorrow morning, Pastor.”
“See you then,” he said.
Charlotte told her good-bye and wanted to kill Curtis. “Why are you here?”
“To pick up Curtina.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes at him, and Curtina went farther down the aisle, looking at T-shirts. “You’re taking this thing too far.”
Curtis walked away from her and over to their daughter. The nerve of him, driving all the way out to the mall just so Curtina wouldn’t be able to ride home with her. He was acting as though she were a bad mother, the kind who would carelessly place her little girl’s life in danger, and she was offended. Maybe she had drunk a bit too much last Thursday and then again on Friday night and Saturday—and even yesterday after church, but she hadn’t done so today, and that’s what mattered. Actually, now that she thought about it, she hadn’t even felt as hungover this morning, at least not as much as she had yesterday and the day before, so Curtis was worrying over nothing. He was obsessing over any little thing just to irritate her, but she wasn’t going to let him bother her. Not when she had something much more important to concern herself with—figuring out who he was seeing behind her back and how long he’d been doing so. It hadn’t dawned on her until now that what she should have done was scroll through the l
ast few months of call details so she could see how often Curtis and his woman chatted. But better late than never, though, because it would be the first thing she did when she got home. It would be her only priority.
Chapter 24
Curtis pulled into the driveway, waited for the garage to open, and eased inside. Curtina gathered her bags—those she could carry on her own—and got out. Curtis told her he would get the large one she’d left on the seat. She went inside the house, and Curtis opened the back door of the vehicle. When he did, his phone rang.
“Hello?”
“I thought you were going to call me?”
Curtis wondered why Sharon was contacting him, especially since she knew it was in the evening and he’d likely be at home. Not to mention, he had always pretty much been the one to do all the calling, anyway. “I had a busy afternoon, and now I’m just getting home from the mall with my daughter.”
“Can I see you?”
“Not tonight.”
“Then when?”
“I don’t know.”
“I really need to see you, baby.”
Curtis wondered what had gotten into her. “I’ll try to call you later, but right now I need to go.”
“Why?”
“I told you. I just got home.”
“Okay, then what time?”
“Can’t say.”
“Please don’t leave me hanging.”
Curtis sighed. “I’ll call you sometime tonight.”
“I’ll be waiting, baby.”
Curtis pulled the shopping bag from the truck and went inside the house, but he was dumbfounded. He wasn’t sure why Sharon had turned into this woman he didn’t know, but he didn’t like it. First, she’d showed up at the deli earlier and now she was calling him like it was nothing. She acted as though he could talk anytime and as if he weren’t married. He knew it had been wrong to chat with her in secret, too, but he also thought they’d had an understanding. He’d been sure she understood the rules, but maybe she didn’t. Or maybe she no longer saw a reason to abide by them, now that he’d made the mistake of visiting her again. Worse, she was acting as though they had in fact slept together, because it was usually then that mistresses seemed to lose their minds and suddenly believed they had rights—the right to call a married man whenever they felt like it as well as the right to disrespect the man’s wife any way they saw fit. But Sharon had seemed different. For a full year now, she’d been calm and pleasant, and that was part of the reason he enjoyed talking to her. She even made him laugh and offered him the best support and encouragement whenever he needed it. So this new personality of hers was mind-boggling and so out in left field. It didn’t make any sense, and if she didn’t become her old self, he would have to cut her off completely.
Curtis looked up when Matt walked into the kitchen. “Hey, son.”
“What’s up, Dad?”
“Not much. You studying?”
“Yep, and Racquel’s upstairs doing the same thing, so I just came to get us some sodas. We need caffeine already.”
Curtis chuckled. “I remember those days, and as much as I hate telling you, it gets worse in college.”
“Ugh.”
“It’ll be worth it, though. You’ll see.”
Matthew went back upstairs, but just as Curtis walked down the hallway to his office, Charlotte strutted toward him, and he could tell she was livid.
“I need to talk to you.”
He walked in and over to his desk. “About what?”
Charlotte shut the door and tossed a stack of papers onto his desk. They scattered everywhere. “These.”
Curtis took one look, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that the number Charlotte had highlighted numerous times was Sharon’s.
“Whose number is that, Curtis? I know it belongs to a woman because I dialed it and heard her voice.”
Curtis wondered if Charlotte and Sharon had spoken; maybe this was the reason Sharon was acting so boldly. “Charlotte, please. You know Matt has company, so this isn’t the time.”
“I don’t care who’s here. I wanna know what whore you’ve been talking to almost every day for months.”
“It’s nobody, and before you even try to accuse me, I haven’t slept with her.”
Charlotte laughed, but Curtis knew this wasn’t funny to her. “So you’re actually going to stand there lying when I’ve printed out pages and pages of proof? Do you think I’m that stupid?”
“Look, all I’ve done is have phone conversations with her. That’s it.” He knew that wasn’t totally true, not when he had gone to Sharon’s house twice, but there was no way he was admitting that to Charlotte. Not with his children and Racquel right upstairs. If he did, he knew Charlotte would go ballistic.
“Why do you keep lying, Curtis? You think I’m naïve, don’t you? You think just because I’ve begged and pleaded with you for months not to leave me that you can do whatever you want? You think you can sleep around behind my back and get away with it?”
“Like I said, I haven’t slept with her. Sleeping around is your thing, remember? Not mine.”
“Yeah, okay, turn this on me the same as always. And, anyway, let’s just say you haven’t slept with her… I mean, I know you have, but just for the sake of conversation. Either way, you’ve still been having an affair. When any man talks to another woman every day, sometimes for two and three hours, he’s having an emotional affair, and to me that’s just as bad or worse because that means you’d rather talk to her than to your own wife.”
Curtis stared at her in silence, because he knew she was right. He’d been laughing and talking with Sharon regularly and openly sharing with her things that really mattered to him, so there was no denying the definition of his relationship with her.
“You don’t even have anything to say, do you?”
“Charlotte, things haven’t been right with us for how long now?”
“And? What does that mean?”
“I’m just sayin’.”
“You’re just sayin’ what?”
“Forget it.”
“No, Curtis, tell me what you mean.”
“All I’m saying is that you did all your dirt last year and now you have the gall to confront me about a few phone calls?”
“I’m still your wife, Curtis. I know you treat me like I’m not, but on paper and in God’s eyesight, I’m still Mrs. Curtis Black.”
“Really? Then why were you out drinking with some man yesterday?”
“I wasn’t out with anybody. He was just a guy who came over to my table, and I already explained that to you.”
“Did you sleep with him?”
“Of course not.”
Curtis looked at her and while he’d almost convinced himself that he couldn’t care less about Charlotte moving on and finding another man, a part of him wanted to believe she was telling the truth. A part of him hoped she hadn’t slept with whoever this mystery man was.
“Curtis, I haven’t slept with anyone because I still love you. So, the fact that you’re seeing another woman… that really hurts.”
Curtis wasn’t sure why, but ever since he’d seen those printouts, his conscience had commenced ripping him apart, and he felt bad about what he’d been doing. There was no doubt that subconsciously he’d known all along that talking to Sharon and ultimately going to visit her was wrong, but until now, he’d always been able to justify his actions because of the way Charlotte had betrayed him. He’d told himself that if Charlotte could sleep with two men, surely he could talk to another woman by phone if he chose to. He’d even decided that he wasn’t committing adultery or breaking his vows by doing so. But now he had to admit the truth: He had sort of been having an affair with Sharon—regardless of whether it was simply an emotional one or otherwise—and it wasn’t right. He could no longer deny that after all these years of living with high moral standards, after having turned his life completely around, he’d still managed to sin with another woman. He’d still gone
against God’s Word, and now he regretted it.
Charlotte’s eyes watered. “All I wanna know is who she is.”
“It’s not important, and if it’s any consolation, I won’t be talking to her anymore.”
“But why can’t you just tell me?”
“Because it’s not necessary.”
“Is she a member of the church?”
“Charlotte, let’s just leave well enough alone.”
“She is, isn’t she? Is it Tracey?”
Curtis frowned. “Is it who?”
“Lana’s niece.”
“You’re kidding, right? That woman is married.”
“So?”
“It’s not her.”
“Then who?”
“No one you know.”
“Why won’t you just tell me?”
Curtis walked around his desk and sat down, but to his great disappointment, his phone rang. He had a feeling it was Sharon, so he ignored it.
“Why aren’t you answering your phone?”
“Because you and I are talking.”
Charlotte rushed over to him, reaching toward the pocket of his jacket, but Curtis pushed his chair away from her.
“That’s her, isn’t it?” Charlotte yelled, struggling to grab his cell.
Curtis held her off as best he could. Soon the phone stopped ringing, but Charlotte ranted and raved even louder, and the next thing Curtis knew, there was soft knocking on the door. Charlotte stopped shouting, but Curtina opened the door and walked in.
“Mommy, what’s wrong? Why were you screaming at Daddy?”
“I’m a little upset about something, honey, but it’s nothing for you to worry about.”
“I don’t like it when you and Daddy argue, and it sounded like you were arguing.”
Charlotte wrapped her arm around Curtina and held her close. “We’re fine, sweetie. Now let’s go back up to your room so I can check your homework.”
Curtina gazed at Curtis with sad eyes, and he could tell she didn’t believe a word of Charlotte’s explanation, but she left without asking more questions. Curtis was relieved, to say the least, and sat back in his chair. What a day, he thought, and then pulled out his phone. Sure enough, it had been Sharon calling, and he knew he had to put a stop to this. He wouldn’t take a chance on calling her back now, though, not when Charlotte might burst back into his office at any time, but he would certainly contact her as soon as he arrived at the church in the morning. He would explain that they could no longer speak by phone or in person and that this thing they had, whatever a person wanted to call it, was over. It would be the end of a friendship that never should have happened.
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