Chardonnay: A Novel

by Jacquilynn Martine

  “Why did you lie to me?” I asked.

  “Myron needed to talk. When I first came to the hotel he took me to the side and set it up for me to meet with him. He said he needed me to help him figure out things with you.

  Told me you...I can’t remember everything, but he said you faked something and it bothered him.”

  “Faked what?”

  “The sex y’all had I guess. Not sure what he meant.”

  I frowned not understanding that.

  “He touch you?”

  Silence.

  “Told me he loved me,” she whined like it was his fault.

  “Told me he cared. More like I touched him. He tried to fight me and said he made some fuckin’ promise to you. I pulled and tugged trying to get him to stay. I wrapped myself around his neck and he tried to pull away. I hated you. Hated you hard, cause I loved him too. I pulled down his pants and...made him weak. He cried Nay. I sucked his dick and he cried, cried for you. Said, ‘I love you’. Now it hits me—he was saying he loved you.”

  Sad I thought. She was the stupidest girl I knew at the moment. To think a man was falling for you, when he was using you, and you fall for no apparent reason. Sad. She was sad.

  “Please forgive—”

  I hung up on her. I stopped crying. I was tired of wasting my tears on Myron. I almost felt sorry for him, being so weak to temptation with other females, yet loving me so much and having remorse for hurting me. But now I knew why he broke up with me on our way from Saint Louis. He broke his promise. He let me go. He loved me that much.

  26

  What I Do in the Dark...

  The day of my discharge a limo was sent to pick me up. I could just about imagine who had sent for me in it. To my surprise there wasn’t anyone in the back seat when I got in. The doctor’s released me even though my blood work hadn’t come back from the lab yet on the premise I would come back in for the results during my check up in two weeks. I sat back in the limousine as it drove me towards what looked like Myron’s house. My cellphone began to ring as the limousine made a sharp turn. I answered the phone as I knocked on the privacy window to get the driver’s attention.

  “Hello?”

  “Chardonnay where are you?”

  It was Myron.

  “Not any of your damned business! Who do you think you are sending a limo for me?”

  “No—Chardonnay I’m at the hospital waiting for you. Why are they telling me you’ve already left?”

  “Because I have. I thought you sent for me in a limousine. Must have been Jase.” I said looking around outside the windows. I pulled the privacy window down and tried to ask the driver where he was taking me but he just kept driving.

  “Baby tell me where you are right now!” Myron said with panic in his voice.

  “Wha—why do you sound like that—whats going on?”

  “Just tell me where you are! NOW!”

  I looked around at the signs and local business and then squeezed my eyes with the earnest thought he didn’t deserve to know where I was.

  “Myron...she told me everything. About you telling her you loved her and you fuckin’ her!”

  “Chardonnay, trust me when I say we ain’t got time for this shit...I should have told you this months ago, but I was trying to cover my ass. Remember the man named Miscogey I told you about?”

  “What about him? You are scaring me!”

  “He’s been looking for you to finish something he didn’t get to do in March. Just tell me where you are!”

  I looked at the street signs again and said,

  “39th and Baltimore. What didn’t he finish, Myron?”

  “Killing you.”

  In a horrid screech borne form the tires of the limo I was stuck in the back of, the car came to a stop. I breathed heavily as I held on to Myron’s every breath on the other end of the phone and watched the driver get out the car and come around back.

  “Are you there?” Myron asked.

  “Where the fuck are you? Please come get me.” I said tears flushing down my face.

  “I’m about five blocks away—I just left Saint Luke’s. Where are you at now?”

  Just as I he asked those words the door flew open. I stared up at the driver who had a healed and aged scar under his engaging eyes.

  “I—I’m at—”

  The phone was snatched out my hand before I could answer him and the muggy old man pulled me up from out the back seat.

  “Get your nasty hands off me!” I began to holler. It was broad day light and I wasn’t about to be one of those pretty missing white women off television. Not because of the publicity it would cause but because of the non-public cries that would be called out by the people who would miss me—so that gave me more the reason to fight. He looked around suspiciously and tried to reframe me from loosening his grip.

  “Stay still you lil’ bitch fore I snaps ya neck!”

  I bit his crusty hand and kicked him in his balls. I could hear what sounded like a revved engine in the distance. I began to run towards the sound in hopes there would be life outside of that dank and smelly ally. Sure enough it was Myron getting out his Escalade and walking with a mean swagger and a cocked tech nine in his hand. He walked right past me and went for the designated driver.

  “Myron—no! Come on so we can get out of here. Don’t kick his ass!” I said running in the direction of the running car.

  “I’m not going to kick his ass,” he said walking up on the already in agony old man.

  “I’ma kill him.” he said taking a shot right at him.

  I screamed.

  From where I stood I could only see the driver’s legs from around the corner of the brick building. The man’s legs twitched for a second and then stopped moving altogether. I was shaking. Myron walked back towards me with no remorse in his eyes and pulled me along with him as he walked towards his running SUV.

  “Get in.”

  I stood there in a daze not sure what to do. There lay a dead man in an ally that I just witnessed being murdered by a boy thought I knew. I looked over at Myron, a vague resemblance to the boy I used to know, with sweat pouring down his handsomely chiseled face and rage in his tone.

  “Go on man—get the fuck in!”

  I jumped in the passenger seat as he got in the driver side and zoomed off. For some reason in the rage of the moment I decided to bring up all his shit.

  “Of all the fucking women in the world—why her...why my cousin! She was like my SISTER!” I screamed.

  He continued driving not speaking.

  “You don’t give a damn about me! And to think I stayed with you even knowing about all the females you cheated with! I still didn’t leave you! Listen to me!”

  He pushed his foot on the brakes and slowly turned his head to me. He just stared at me.

  “What are you not telling me...how could you?” I said touching his face.

  He slowly pulled off and drove as he watched the rear view mirror.

  “Maybe it’s us both that keep running back to each other after the other strays. You can recall all my shit—but not yours.” he said as he finally pulled over. Two blocks from his penthouse he pulled the gun out his back seat. I looked on in horror as he made sure to wipe down the gun and wrapped it up in what looked like terrycloth. He took his gloves off his hands and leaned his head back as tears fell down his face.

  “You didn’t have to kill him...” I said slowly.

  “You don’t know what I have to deal with on a daily basis. I’m fighting to get out a hood I wasn’t even raised up in. And even though my pops sees me with a fuckin’ NFL contract—he still can’t respect the fact that I am my own man...and you still think I don’t give a fuck about you.”

  I looked ahead in the rear view mirror scared that someone may have seen us and called the cops. Then I thought to ask Myron why he hadn’t done so himself. When I did, he looked at me crazy.

  “A real man don’t call another man to do his work. I can’t get resp
ect around here like that!”

  “But you said someone was trying to kill me or tried—when?”

  He got quiet and began to roll his gloves through his hands.

  The perspiration on his fore head gloated and he twitched his head from side to side tightening his eyes. I sat up in the passenger seat and pushed him.

  “Tell me Myron!”

  “I need to get home and I can tell you there.”

  “No wait we can’t go back there. They’ll be looking for us.”

  I wanted to get out of Kansas City fast and now. I thought to call Jase who I hadn’t talked to in weeks, but how would that look? Then I contemplated that Myron was his brother and that he might do anyth—

  “Give me your phone.” he said interrupting my drifting thoughts.

  “I don’t have it. The guy took it.”

  “Good, just whatever you do—don’t call Jasen.”

  And we drove off.

  Myron got us a hotel on the upper south side of Kansas City at the Inter Continental. When we got in the room I slammed the door and told him to speak up quickly.

  “Why are they after me?!”

  But he decided to play ring around the rosy.

  “You don’t think I ever knew do you?” he answered.

  “Knew about what? Don’t answer my question with a question. This isn’t the time for games.” I shouted.

  “I knew about Jasen. I knew about your plans... I knew I was going to eventually lose you to him and...that scared the shit out of me.”

  “What plans are you talking about?”

  “Your dreams. Now that I look back on it, I feel so bad, baby. But you pushed me and I was so desperate. And when I didn’t come up with that money that had been due to Miscogey...I was forced to make some decisions.”

  “Decision?Like fucking Konstance.”

  He looked up at me and licked his lips with,

  “She was just a toxic fix.”

  I laughed at him.

  “You’re sick! Yeah, blame it on an addiction. What you should of did instead of claiming an addiction was give your dick a direction... she told me. Told me everything. You rode her. You kissed her. Talked to her. Thought you only cooed to my pussy like that!”

  “I do. It’s something different with you. But ... shit! I fucked up!”

  “Do you love Konstance?”

  Myron couldn’t look at me. Flashes of them together, remembering her conversations over the phone that I interrupted, their looks at each other when I was in the room, the day at the hospital when my grandfather passed and Konstance was staring at us unable to get the kind of consoling from Myron that I was entitled to. I knew half of her tears were because of that.

  “Answer me!” I cried, hoping he would tell me what I wanted to hear.

  “I care about her a little. Don’t love her, but—”

  “But what Myron? Keep it real.”

  “We’ve spent a lot of time together. You just don’t care about someone who has been a shoulder.”

  “Oh, she was your shoulder huh,” I laughed at him. Couldn’t believe how I fell for him.

  “What chu do, lend your dick to her in return? What the hell have I been? The ground you walk on, ‘cause you run over me. Well she can have you.”

  “Don’t feed me anymore revile words, Chardonnay.”

  “Or what?!” I said pushing my finger up side his head, making him trip backwards on the bed. I was about to go back to my African roots, and come straight at him sideways like only a black woman could do it.

  “You ain’t shit. The only thing you good for is your piece of shit down there.”

  He clinched his jaws and nodded his head. I knew Myron wouldn’t want to make any more of a scene than what we were. I thought about picking up the brick that I saw in my parents lawn and going to bust his windshield window in that big body, wet black, sitting on 20’s, Cadillac Escalade of his, especially after thinking about Konstance’s ring tone of LeToya’s song She Don’t verse two of “late night dipping in his Cadillac”. But I had to see the blessing. I asked him again,

  “So why are they after me?”

  He bit down on his bottom lip and shut his eyes tight.

  “They—they made me—”

  “They who?!” I shouted again.

  “Remember the man I told you about named Miscogey, he’s the drug don my father ordered the case of Ecstasy from. Although me and Slim were or the skirts about you we still did business with him. He—he told my pops that he didn’t take kind to his money being late and that it would cost more than money could buy.”

  Myron stopped and looked up at me.

  “And what he wanted, money couldn’t buy. In fact it was something so priceless to me. He wanted your virginity.”

  My body filled with rage. I glossed over my eyes and said,

  “Excuse you—but did you just say—”

  “It sounds messed up—I know! But at the time, what you did to me, the covenant you broke made me say yes. I had it all set up. You were going to meet me at my pent house and I knew what you were going to do,” he said as tears fell out his eyes.

  “When you walked in you had on that necklace...the heirloom I was supposed to give you—not him!”

  “Him who?”

  “Jase.”

  My eyes blinked as I thought to myself that I didn’t meet Jase until May.

  “But I didn’t know him.”

  “That’s what I fixed you to think. You see Chardonnay; I snatched that necklace off your neck and threw it at the wall. I shook you and told you that I would never leave you if...you just followed me. But you did the most indescribable thing. You left me for my brother. A brother I barely knew. But as mad as I was at you at the last moment I changed my mind.”

  I leaned up against the wall as everything began to sound familiar. The scenery of the tape came to mind and awoke my memory a little more.

  “The...tape...oh my—” I said.

  “I promised you to Miscogey when he saw you at that football charity banquet...he was going to kill my family or else Chardonnay. I tried to stop it...you were so scared!” Myron said as he balled the sheet from the king sized bed he was sitting on the edge of.

  “How come I can’t remember?”

  “Miscogey found us at my penthouse down town and stormed the place. They held me at gun point...” Myron’s worlds trailed off as he hit his head with his hands...I was sure he was trying to banish the memories.

  “Made me sit and watch...eve-ver-ry fuckin’ thing. From him making all his men fuck you....to him placing his...” Myron couldn’t finish the sentence. Instead he went on to tell me Slim’s role in it.

  “Micogey went to the bottom source, Slim, and made a deal with him that if he joined his ring he would spare his life. So Slim joined on the notion, unbeknownst to Micogey to be a watching eye for my pops which is why he got shot. Slim came down to the penthouse after they broke in and I made Slim slip you some drugs—drugs that would make you forget and...”

  “Miscogey made you watch him and I have sex.” I said remembering as Myron’s story became familiar. Before I knew it I was walking over to the small foyer table. I picked up his keys calmly off the table and then picked up the table, throwing it at his head. I unlocked the door as he jumped from the floor and ran after me. I took the stairs of the fire escape and ran through the quiet lobby. From where I was standing I could see Myron’s SUV was sitting in the valet parking lot. He was right on my heels. I saw a security guard and yelled,

  “He’s after me—help!”

  The guard stopped Myron, allowing me enough time to get over into the lot and unlock his doors so I could take off before Myron could prove it was his Escalade. I rammed the Hemi engine back slamming into some unknown Benz and full throttled out the lot over a curve. The security guard and Myron was Maurice Greening it towards the big body SUV once all was realized. By then I was half way out the lot and contended on running both of them over if they were stupid enough to
not move out the way. Invisible tears were all I had. I drove to my parents’ home to get my car. My daddy had bought it for me when I was twenty but I never bothered to get my license, after all I had so many friends with cars. I pushed the garage door opener with my keys and jumped out the car when a red corvette that belonged to Mystro pulled up. I ran to my car and tried to unlock the door when I dropped the keys. Myron caught up to me.

  His arms hovered over my shoulders and pressed firmly against the hood of my Lexus, making a trap cage. He looked in my face and tried to whisper sorry and I wish I hadn’t...it was beyond late. I forced Myron’s body back with the sharp point of my elbows and reached down for my keys and unlocked my door. Myron tried to get in my passenger side door, but by the time he got around to the other side, I had my foot on the gas.

  27

  ...Will Eventually Come To Light

  In the frenzy of my rush, I hadn’t realized that Myron was following me in his SUV. I was driving recklessly to get to a place that didn’t consist of any human life. I wanted to be alone. When I looked in my rear view mirror and saw bright headlights riding my ass and a license plate that read the name MR KENT, I began to speed faster towards a destination I wasn’t sure of. He pulled around to the side honking his horn for me to pull over, but I kept looking straight.

  “CHARDONNAY! Pull over—PLEASE! I need you to listen to me. Let me explain.”

  Tears streamed down my face like a flooded drain on a residential street. I didn’t need him to explain. It was all coming back to me. Everything. As I drove down the steep hill and turned on to a side street, the open curtain of lost breezes blew. I twitched my eyes and began palpitating. And if my memory served me correct, what Myron had done to me...the devil wouldn’t have even contemplated. Jase..I knew it seemed weird when I saw him on that elevator, it felt as if we knew each other in another life, and somehow we had. But as open as my memory was, I still couldn’t remember his significance. How we actually first met did not come clear at all. But I now knew the man in the dream...the man in the shower with me was him. Jase took my virginity...not Myron or Slim or Miscogey’s boys. I now knew why he didn’t tell me who he was. I dialed his number as Myron chased me down the street. No answer. Myron kept honking trying to get me to pull over but I couldn’t. The deceit wouldn’t let me. I remembered three guys grabbing me and dragging my naked body into the living room like I was a piece of freshly cut grade A beef in a meat factory, as I screamed and hollered for my life like a Tutsi in the genocide of Rwanda. I recalled my clothes being ripped from me as...they raped me. One by fucking one as Myron squirmed around in two big dudes’ arms, holding him back and me watching him cry like a new born child only out of pure nature.