“Please, Frank. Just humor me. Please?”
The desperation in her voice made him leave his office, slip on a pair of sneakers and look around outside without further questioning.
He put it together before returning to the phone. Obviously, they had a fight and she didn"t know where Miles was. He once had been hooked up with a woman who lived on Frank"s cul de sac, and Shauna was worried he had gone back to her.
“He"s not here, Shauna. What did you two fight about?”
“Please don"t cover for him, Frank.”
“Shauna, we both know Miles well enough to know he"s not going to run to some other woman the first time you have a disagreement. You do know that, right?”
She was silent for a moment, then said, “I guess you"re right.”
“Was it a bad fight?”
“Yes. We were both ugly to each other.”
“If I were a betting man, I"d put money down that he"s by himself somewhere, and doesn"t want to be bothered by anyone. That"s what we do, Shauna. We just want to be alone for a while to mull things over. He"ll eventually come back.”
“But why won"t he at least answer his phone so I know he"s all right?”
“He doesn"t believe that"s why you"re calling. He thinks you want to continue fighting.”
Anguish heavy in her voice, Shauna ultimately apologized for bothering him and said goodbye.
He spent a while reflecting on the hurt and fear in Shauna"s voice. Even someone as strong as her could be reduced to paranoia by a mate. He pondered how even a couple so in love with each other as Miles and Shauna didn"t quite live out the fairy tale everyone secretly assumed was possible.
Jarred from his creative momentum, Frank wandered into the kitchen, searched for something to snack on, settled on a bag of trail mix, then brought it to his weight room. He sat on the bench and munched, his eyes roaming over the wall in front of him.
With every woman he had gotten serious with, the relationship began with a heady rush, and the naïve assumption she would be perfect for him and they would share nothing but happiness. “Love is blind.” It would be hard to find a cliché less true and profound. Attraction made a person simple, if not insane. Oblivious to warning signs; full of ridiculous unspoken assumptions; unreasonable. And then, if that person ever becomes jaded enough to resist the blind insanity, they would probably then be incapable of loving, anyway.
He had finally dragged himself back to the office and was struggling to get in the creative mood when the phone rang again. He checked the caller ID and saw it was Celeste. It seemed fate was conspiring to force her into his thoughts, today.
“Hi, Celeste. What"s up?”
“Hi, Frank.” She sounded meek, or tentative. “I need a big favor.”
“What is it?”
“Miles and Shauna had a big fight. He walked out on her and she"s coming apart.”
“She called here a while ago. I told her he"s probably just sitting somewhere, stewing on it all.”
“She"s hysterical. She"s worried he"ll get in an accident or something andbe killed, or…”
“Or go jump on some other woman?” Frank asked. “That"s crazy, Celeste. The last thing he"ll want to do after his woman"s got him so pissed off is go sweet talk some other woman.”
Celeste didn"t respond to that right away. “How can you be so sure?”
“I know Miles well enough to know that.”
“Is that how all men are?”
“Most of us, I think. With Miles, I"d bet money on it.”
“Do you think you could find him?”
His annoyance blasted out before he knew it was coming. “What part of „he wants to be alone" do you two not understand?”
“Frank, please. You"re his friend.”
“Trust me: he"s not gonna want to talk to me, either. At least for a while.”
“You"re Shauna"s friend,” she continued, undaunted. You"re my friend. Right?”
Uhoh, he thought, she"s playing the friend card.
“I"m here with her,” Celeste said. “She"s in the next room, a wreck. Now what happens if he gets drunk, crashes and kills himself? Or some freak accident happens, he gets run over by a truck or something, and the last words they ever spoke to each other were angry and cruel?”
Frank sighed.
“Please, Frank. Try to find him, and at least let us know he"s safe. I"ll owe you one, okay?”
“You already owe me one from the field trip, don"t you?”
“Okay. I"ll owe you double, then.”
He groaned. “Okay. I"ll try to find him. But you will owe me, and I intend to collect.”
“Okay.”
Damn. He hoped she would get suspicious of just how he would expect repayment, and call off the deal.
“Whether I find him or not,” he added.
“That"s fine,” she said. “Thank-you.”
Miles " phone was already turned off by the time Frank first tried calling him. “Thanks a lot, Shauna.” He took his Mustang to the Libra Street Avcom office Miles worked out of, and to a few bars he and Miles had visited before. Then he remembered a private local air strip just outside the suburbs where Miles sometimes went, and hob-nobbed with the aircraft mechanic.
With a flood of relief, Frank spotted Miles" bike parked by the hangars. Miles himself was sitting atop his helmet at the edge of a helipad.
Frank parked the Mustang by the pad and got out. When he approached within the range of normal conversation, Miles shook his head and said, “Oh great. I can"t go anywhere. No place is safe.”
Frank held his hands up, palms forward. “I"m sorry, dude. The girls put me up to it. I won"t tell them where you are.”
“Damn bitch has been blowing up my phone,” Miles said. “Had to shut it off. Looks like she found a way to harass me anyway.”
Frank lowered himself to a cross-legged seating position on the concrete pad. “It was a bad one, huh?” It must have been bad, for Miles to call Shauna by that word.
Miles sucked his teeth, but said nothing.
Frank leaned back and looked at the stars, knowing that the last thing his friend wanted at the moment was to talk or be talked to. Then remembering Shauna"s hysterical state, he texted her that he found Miles, and he was safe. After that, he turned his own phone off.
They sat, unspeaking, for about half an hour, before Miles finally said, “She"s pregnant. You might as well be the third one to know.”
“Is that what the fight was about?” Frank asked, carefully.
Miles nodded.
There were a whole lot of questions Frank wanted to ask then, but the last thing Miles needed right now was an interrogation. The silence resumed, for another long period.
Unable to wait any longer, Frank said, “I guess it wasn"t planned, then.”
“Oh, it was planned, alright. But I wasn"t inside the loop on this one,” Miles said, angrily. “What she agreed to, to my face, was that we would wait for kids of our own until she was done with nursing school. And even then, she was gonna wait until we both agreed it was time.”
“You"re sure it was deliberate?”
“Hell yeah, it was deliberate,” Miles snapped. “She tried playing it off like an accident at first, but I wasn"t buying that shit. Shauna"s the most organized person on the face of the earth. Puts checklists of daily and weekly tasks on the refrigerator, then crosses them out as they get done. And they all get done. There"s no way she just suddenly forgot to take the pill.”
“She confessed?” Frank asked.
“Finally. But only after lying to me about it.”
“Miles, please tell me you didn"t lay a hand on her to get her to admit it.”
“What?” Miles looked disgusted. “Dude, whatever!” After a moment, he said, “I"m the one that"s been slapped around, here. At least, I might as well be. We had an agreement! She went behind my back and deliberately did something she knew I didn"t want!”
“I guess she wanted it pretty bad, though,” Frank thought
, out loud.
“Didn"t know she wanted it quite that bad.”
“So you two had discussed it before.”
Miles nodded, calming. “She agreed we would wait until at least after nursing school.”
“I"m not taking sides here, Miles, but she is at that age when her biological clock is ticking pretty loud.”
“We have a kid already, Frank.”
“And she"s crazy about Katina,” Frank reasoned. “But evidently she wants a child by you. Kinda" flattering, really.”
“Sure sounds like you"re taking her side,” Miles muttered.
“No way, man. From what you"re telling me, she was wrong. Way wrong. Just trying to look at the bright side. Maybe this won"t turn out as bad as you think.”
Miles scoffed. “That money I had saved up? Poof. Gone now, on doctor bills.”
“Insurance will cover a lot of it, won"t it?”
“I don"t know for sure what all it will cover. Never dreamed I"d have to know for a few years. And then who"s gonna take care of the baby while Shauna"s in nursing school? I"m working full time and now it looks like I"ll never be able to leave Avcom. Nope—no nursing school, now. So much for that plan. She just pissed it all away.”
“There"s always daycare,” Frank suggested. “Babysitters.”
Miles faced him, eyes flashing hot rage. “There"s no way. No way in hell my kid is gonna grow up like I did.”
Frank could have argued effectively that the child"s upbringing would be markedly different from Miles" own in most ways. But he wasn"t here to argue.
“Damn that woman!” Miles yelled, rising onto his feet to pace, kicking violently at a pebble. “You all see her sweet side—all sugar and spice, everything nice. But she can be an underhanded, scheming…” he struggled to find the right word, then settled on, “…female!”
“I guess so,” Frank said.
“I know you don"t believe that,” Miles said. “I wouldn"t have believed it, either. But I had clues, early on. She „accidently" poured bleach on my INXS shirt after she found out an ex-girlfriend gave it to me. Accident my ass! It was folded up in my dresser, no bleach anywhere near it. I don"t even use bleach in my laundry! There was no bleach in my house until she moved in!”
Frank might have laughed at this tirade under different circumstances.
“She still won"t admit to that one,” Miles said.
“I"m not making excuses for her,” Frank said, “but I"m just trying to look at where you go from here. What you do now that the milk is already spilt.”
“Bad choice of metaphors, Frank.”
“Granted, I guess. But you still love her, right?”
After a long pause, Miles replied in a quiet, quavering voice. “Yes.”
He looked so tortured right then, pacing back and forth, Frank thought he might even be on the verge of tears.
“I love her so much it hurts.”
Frank let some time pass before asking, “Wouldn"t you like to have a kid that"s half her and half you?”
“That"s not the issue here.”
“I know it"s not. I"m just asking, though.”
“We already have Katina.”
“Yeah. But I mean biologically half her and half you.”
“Sure. I"d love it, but…”
“But nothing, Miles. There is no „but," now.”
“I know. She made sure of that. Next thing you know, I"m gonna be turning forty, still a damn attic rat for the cable company, and she"ll have pissed away her dream, too…and we"ll be just a couple old farts with kids and deadend jobs. That wasn"t the plan.”
“Did she agree with your plan?”
“Yeah, to my face.”
“No resistance? She agreed easily?”
“I wouldn"t say easily,” Miles replied. “I mean, I had to build a case before she agreed my way was the logical way.”
Frank was starting to get a more complete picture now.
“Ahh. So you used logic on her. Women love it when you do that.”
Amazingly, Miles laughed. Frank joined in the laughter and the atmosphere became a little less oppressive.
“Okay, smartass,” Miles said, “What"s your point?”
Frank shrugged. “Maybe she wasn"t as in agreement as you assumed.”
“Obviously not.”
“Again, I"m not making excuses for her, but maybe she felt bullied into your plan.”
“So she went behind my back?”
“You probably didn"t make it easy for her to come at you from the front.”
“Spare me, Frank. There"s no excuse for what she did.”
Frank raised his hands again. “You"re right. But it"s a done deal, now. She"s with Celeste right now, worried sick that you"re gonna leave her for another woman, or get drunk and drive off a bridge or something.”
Miles scoffed again.
“She did you wrong,” Frank said. “But are you gonna leave her over it?”
Miles shook his head and stopped pacing. As if suddenly exhausted, his body sagged until he lay flat back on the cold concrete.“I knew from the beginning I wasn"t gonna leave her. I"m never gonna leave her. She"s like part of me, now. That"s why this is so messed up.”
Frank didn"t herd the conversation anymore after that. He just sat with his friend and only opened his mouth when Miles felt like talking. After a long period of silence, Frank heard what sounded like a snore. He rose and kicked softly at Miles" boot sole. Miles stirred.
“You best get home to your nice warm bed, before you get hypothermia out here.”
Miles sat up, blinking. He glanced around his surroundings, stretched, then rose, strode to his bike and climbed on, dropping his helmet in place.
“You want a ride?” Frank asked. “You"re gonna freeze your balls off on that thing.”
The motorcycle engine sputtered to life. Miles dropped it in gear and pulled slowly away, heading toward the access road.
Frank stretched, brushed himself off, got in his car, started the engine and turned the heater on. He turned his phone back on and called Shauna"s number.
“Hello?” she said, still sounding tragically heartsick.
“Your man is on his way home,” Frank said. “Promise me something, Shauna.”
“W-what?”
“Let him sleep tonight. Do notrestart the argument youze had. Don"t force him to talk. He"ll talk when he"s ready.”
“Okay,” she said, voice cracking. “Th-thank-you, Frank.
20 Celeste was there to see Miles return that night. No sooner had he opened the door than Shauna ran into his arms, trembling and holding him tight. Maybe they weren"t the perfect couple, Celeste thought, but they would work it out somehow.
Christmas break was only days away when Celeste heard an unexpected knock on her door one evening. She put down her book, went to the door and saw Nikita through the peephole.
She opened the door and her big sister cried “What"s up, girl?” and gave her a quick hug before barging in. She had a new weave again, less than half as long as the last one, and she was dressed in a sweat suit.
Celeste closed the door behind them and gave her sister a smile. She loved Nikita despite everything, and always would, come what may.
“I just wanted to tell you, Lil" Sis, that Frank is all yours, now.”
It took a moment for these words to register. “First of all,” Celeste blurted, “why do you think I want Frank? Second of all, what happened? I thought you were on Cloud Nine with him.”
Nikita laughed and waved dismissively, sashaying for the sofa where she plopped into a comfortable recline. “You know me. No one man can handle me for any length of time.”
Celeste sat next to her sister, legs folded under her haunches.
“He dumped my ass,” Nikita said, laughing and waving again.
Celeste had seen Nikita display this no-big-deal attitude many times. Often, it was authentic. Times like these, Celeste suspected it was a smokescreen to hide her pain and present an invulnerable front to
the world.
“He dumped you?”
“I got me a new man, anyway,” Nikita said. “I been acting in these music videos for Frank, and I met this guy in the band. Guitar player who sings back-up. So girl, he knows how to use his fingers, his mouth, and his instrument. If you know what I"m sayin"!”
“Why did he break up with you?” Celeste asked, tempted to roll her eyes.
Nikita frowned, some of the pain showing through to the surface for an instant. “You know why.”
“I don"t,” Celeste insisted. “How would I know? I thought he"d been looking for you all his life.”
“He"s been looking for somebody all right,” she said, cryptically. “Guess it wasn"t me after all. Anyway, I was tired of all his big words and workaholic triflin" penny-pinchin" mess. And he"s kinda" crazy, too. Like, I know he wants me. I mean, I know, alright? But he"s like a monk or somethin".”
It surprised Celeste how relieved she felt to know they hadn"t slept together. And yet her anxiety gripped her for another reason, now. “Who has he been looking for? Come on, Nikita, talk to me.”
Nikita stood up and smoothed out her clothes. “You need to talk to him, baby sister. I don"t know why you won"t. I seen how you look at him that night. Ain"t forgot how you got up in my face, either. I can read between the lines.”
Nikita sing-songed her goodbye on the way back to the door. “Later, sister-girl. Gotta go. Just came by to holla for a minute.”
“The guitar player,” Celeste asked, “is he white?”
Nikita grinned big, white predator teeth. “Damn skippy.”
When the door shut behind Nikita, Celeste"s heart was racing. She found her cordless phone and sat staring at it for a while, wrestling with herself whether to call Frank or not. She ultimately decided to suck on some Jolly Ranchers instead.
On Celeste"s last night of school, Frank called her. Her heart pounded when she heard his voice on the line, not knowing what to expect.
“Are you busy?” he asked.
“No. Just reading.”
“What"cha reading?”
“Omar Tyree"s latest,” she said. “You ever read him?”
“I liked A Do-Right Man,” he said.
“Oh, that was a good one,” she said. Then it struck her how different Frank"s reaction to her pastime was to Larry"s.
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