“What?” Tron said, sounding as if what Desirae had just said couldn’t be further from the truth. “Naw, I ain’t talked to her. I been chilling with my boy and shit, and I really been thinking about how I handled this situation. I wanna make it right. So, I figured I would just start by calling you. And no, I ain’t telling you to go abort the baby. I’m just saying that if that’s what you want to do, this nigga ain’t gon stand in the way. Last thing I would wanna do right now is fuck up your life and stuff since you got so much going for yourself.”
“You right about that,” Desirae said. “My life is definitely going to change with having a baby – ain’t no doubt about that.”
“I know,” Tron said. “And when you asked me if I wanted an abortion, that shit stuck in my mind all day yesterday. That’s why you was the first person I hit up today when I woke up. I hope I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“No,” Desirae said. “I was just up reading the Bible is all…on my knees.”
Tron groaned, hating that Desirae kept taking little sarcastic jabs and referencing some of the things that he had said to her. Nonetheless, he kept pushing the conversation forward. “Look, I know what I said was foul and shit and that’s why a nigga is calling to try to make it right.”
“Well, I appreciate that, Tron,” Desirae said, holding her head high and deciding that no matter what she was going to be the bigger person even if Tron was not going to be. “And I ain’t decided if I’mma keep the baby yet or not. I mean…I ain’t even been to the doctor to see how far along I am or nothing.”
“You know you not that damn far along, Desirae,” Tron said. “I mean, if you wanted an abortion, if that’s what you chose, ain’t no way that it would be that late in the game already to where you couldn’t do that. I mean, you think, but you ain’t even put on no weight yet. You not even showing.”
“I know, nigga,” Desirae said, glancing down at her curves and thinking about how all of that would change in a matter of months if she did decide to keep the baby. “I mean, I still gotta think about it. This shit ain’t no snap judgment kind of thing.”
“I know it’s not,” Tron said. “That’s why I was just calling you to talk about it cause I figured it’d be the right thing to do.”
“I mean, if I have this baby, I want him to have a father,” Desirae said.
Tron hesitated, trying to quickly come up with something to say because Desirae keeping the baby was the last thing that he actually wanted.
“I know, Desirae,” Tron said. “And that’s what I’m trying to do. I’mma be a man about my shit, like any real nigga would be. But if you don’t wanna keep the baby for your own reasons and everything that you got going, I’m not gon hold that against you. I just thought I would hit you up and give you some time to think about that shit rather than just letting stuff go on bad terms the way we did yesterday.”
Desirae took a moment to think about it all, trying to figure out what she wanted to say. “Well, I don’t know, Tron,” she said. “I mean, I don’t know if I want to keep the baby or what I want to do. I’m still just trying to process the shit my damn self if you want the truth.”
There was a long pause where neither of them said anything.
“Look, Tron,” Desirae said. “I gotta get going and get ready to head into work.”
“Yeah, I gotta handle some business my damn self, but I was just calling,” Tron said. “I’mma just hit you up later on so we can figure out everything. Or betta yet, you hit me up once you done made a decision about if you gon keep the baby or not or whatever you gon do.”
“Okay,” Desirae said then the call ended.
Desirae lay in her bed for a few minutes more, turning her head toward the window that faced the snowy parking lot. If there was any day she didn’t want to go to work, today would be the day. Little did she know, however, that there would be a couple of things happening at work that would forever change not only how she saw herself as a woman and what she wanted out of life, but also her entire situation with Tron. Nonetheless, while she lay there thinking and dreading having to get up and go into work and deal with customers getting snippy with her over some clothes, one thought started to really bounce around in her mind: Do I want to keep this baby or not?
That question would be the million dollar question – the question that would be on her mind her entire way up north to Lafayette Square and into work.
Chapter 8
The mall was open today after being closed a day because of the snow, but there still weren’t a lot of people shopping. Sure, the department stores were getting some foot traffic, but the actual inside of the mall was rather dead.
When Desirae got to work, she clocked in and just stood at her counter. A few people, here and there, walked by. She offered to help them look for whatever they needed, but luckily for her, they declined, opting to look for themselves. Even better, when they checked out, they did so at another register. At first, Desirae thought this was great, but after a while, it was not feeling so great anymore. With all this downtime and time to herself, all she could really do was think about the talk she had with Tron just an hour or so before she headed into work. Did she want to keep the baby? Did she want to have an abortion? These were two questions she never thought she would be asking herself at this time in her life. Yet, here she was. Furthermore, she never in her wildest dreams envisioned herself as being a side chick who was pregnant by some nigga she apparently didn’t know all that well. She had only learned a few important things about him recently, like the fact that he owned a club instead of a restaurant or that his birthday was the day after he had spent the night at her place when he came back in town from visiting down in Louisville.
Just as Desirae was really getting into her feelings about the entire situation, something caught her attention that pulled her mind away from it all. Walking down the aisle, casually looking at this and that on either side, was a man and a woman. Once the couple walked beyond some clothes racks that were blocking her view of them, Desirae could see that the man was pushing a stroller. Inside the stroller was a cute little baby boy. He smiled, pointing outside of the stroller, with a head full of hair.
“That is so cute,” Desirae said to herself. Not being able to pull her eyes away from the young black family, who she guessed to be maybe only a couple of years older than herself, she smiled and watched as they moved around the store. Every so often, the man would ask the woman what she thought of something. Then, the woman would ask the man what he thought or this and that. All the way, the little baby, who could not have been more than one or two years old, just kept on pointing at any and everything while he tried to talk.
Soon enough, Desirae found herself rubbing her stomach and smiling. She could imagine her, with or without the daddy, considering the current situation, pushing a stroller. She knew that her baby, if it was a boy or a girl, was going to be dressed looking his or her best at all times. If there was anything she could not stand in the world, it was when parents looked like they had their shit together, but their child looked as if he or she only got to go shopping at Goodwill, if that. No matter what, Desirae knew that her baby would not have hand-me-downs from any of her cousins or anything like that. If she went through with having this baby, she was going to work on her body and that baby was literally going to be treated like royalty, even if his or her father did not want to accept it. And that’s just how that would be.
Desirae watched the young black family as they moved about the store until eventually they headed up the escalators and disappeared from her sight. At that moment, as she thought about how nice it would be to go shopping with a baby and push the stroller around the store, she decided that abortion just wasn’t something that she was going to really, wholeheartedly consider. She already was not that big of a fan of abortion, unless it was for rape victims or situations like that. Furthermore, Desirae really started to think that Tron was bringing up abortion over and over again so much because maybe that was what h
e wanted. At the same time, though, she remembered how he did say that he would be there for her should she decide to keep the baby. It was nice thinking of how her baby would have a father that actually had his stuff together financially, owning a club and all. It was a good sign for her that even if stuff between the two of them really did crumble to dust, she would still be able to take care of the baby with his help since he made enough to help.
This thinking forced Desirae’s mind to come right back around to her actual relationship with Tron. She played over and over again in her mind the times that Tron came over to her place, telling her how he wasn’t really in love with his chick anymore. However, at the same time, Desirae could not help but think about how he had treated her like she was nothing when he came out of the back at the club and came walking up to her and his chick by the bar. That hurt her and there was simply no other way to look at it. Then again, she started to think about how going up there and running his lame chick off just might be starting to work in her favor. Now, with her being pregnant with Tron’s baby, if she played her cards right, he would finally grow up and come to his senses. Desirae, deep down, hoped that it would be her and Tron walking a baby in a stroller through a department store like she had just seen with that family some minutes ago. She stood at the counter, just thinking about it all, sometimes positive and sometimes negative. Regardless, it was certainly nice to think about and imagine, and she already knew that whatever child she and Tron had together was going to be beautiful just like their mother and father.
Desirae’s relaxed moments abruptly ended. Her eyes met with someone she had only recently met. Instantly, her nostrils flared as she came closer and closer to her section of the store, from the jewelry and fragrance area.
***
That morning, Shawna woke up with so much on her mind from the night before. By the time she got back to her sister Morgan’s place from meeting Tron downtown, part of her regretted even going while the other part was trying to believe what he had said. As much as she wanted to believe it, there were just some things that she could not get past, such as believing that Tron and that chick had only messed around a couple of times in a month, or the idea that Tron had actually been trying to break it off with that chick. No matter what Tron said, Shawna knew what she had heard when she called and his phone answered. The two of them were deep in their fucking and it did not sound the least bit like he was not going to come back and get some more with how hard it sounded like he was pounding her.
Sure, Morgan was up and wanted to talk to her sister about everything. However, Shawna was just too tired and didn’t feel up to talking about it. Instead, she just went ahead and laid down. Soon, though, she found herself awake, in the middle of the night. She wondered if Tron was really telling her the truth or not. At the same time, even if he was telling her the truth, she had to think about whether or not that truth would really change anything about how she felt or not.
This morning, however, Shawna woke up with something different in mind. She decided that there was no way that she was going to get the truth from some cheating ass nigga. Instead, she knew that the only way to solve this and really find out what the real deal is was for her to go right on up to Lafayette Square and see if Tron’s little side chick was at work. She knew that she wasn’t going to go up there and start anything, since she was a lady who was about being classy no matter what kind of trashy piece of ass she was talking to about Tron.
Luckily for Shawna, the roads were a lot better when she rolled out of the parking lot of Morgan’s apartment complex. Lafayette Road, which was a major road that went from near downtown all the way out to the far northwest side, was even clearer, making it easy for her to just go ahead and take a little detour on her way to the shop. She had told herself while she passed through stoplights that she was just going to go in there and have a little chat. If the chick wasn’t at work, then that would be a sign that the two of them talking just wasn’t meant to be.
Now, Shawna looked into the eyes of Tron’s side chick as she walked down the aisle and toward the counter where the chick stood. Instantly, Shawna wanted to snicker a little bit when her eyes locked with the side chick’s eyes. To say the least, it was obvious that Shawna was the last customer in that department store that the side chick ever thought she would see coming up to her counter. To keep it nice, Shawna simply smiled even though there was definitely no smile on the chick’s face.
Desirae stood behind the counter, sizing up Shawna. She had not even given her much thought since she told Reese about meeting her in the club and some of the things that she had said, obviously feeling bold and into herself and not knowing that Tron was really trying to be with her instead. Desirae cracked a half-assed smile, simply because she could see how desperate this chick was by coming up to her job over some nigga. Her head even started to shake.
“I know you not coming up here to start no shit over some nigga,” Desirae said, being totally on the defense.
Standing several feet back from the counter, Shawna rolled her eyes. “Girl,” she said, smacking her lips together. “Now is that any way to talk to a customer?” Shawna’s voice was obviously full of sarcasm. “I mean damn, girl,” she added. “I could be coming in here to shop and you just turning away business left and right already.”
“Girl, whatever,” Desirae said. “You and I both know damn well that you ain’t brought your simple ass up in here cause you want to shop. You know what the fuck you doing up in here.”
“Oh, really?” Shawna said, shaking her head slightly. “I’m the simple one, but you the one playing monkey by ringing up these clothes for other people. Girl, how much you make? Like eight dollars or some pitiful shit?”
Now that Shawna was looking at Desirae for what she really was, and in a well-lit place, she could see all of her. On top of that, she was looking at her in a way she hadn’t even looked at her when she and Morgan had come up in there the other week. Everything about this chick, to Shawna, spelled easy pussy. For all she knew, every nigga in Indianapolis had run through her pussy or been in the back of her throat.
“Girl, you silly,” Desirae said, shaking her head. “I see you just salty cause you can’t keep your man’s, or no man for that matter, attention and now you wanna come up in here starting some shit with a chick you know you couldn’t beat even if I had just one arm.”
“Bitch, you better watch how the fuck you talkin’ to me and shit,” Shawna warned her, not liking the disrespect riddled all throughout the pitiful department store clerk’s voice. “I ain’t the one at work, slaving and shit. Talk to me like that again and next thing you know, I’mma be jumping my simple ass across that counter and giving you a simple ass-whooping.”
“Girl, boo,” Desirae said. “You ain’t bout shit. So why are you even here?”
“You know why I’m here,” Shawna said. “I want the truth.”
“The truth?” Desirae asked.
“Uh, yeah,” Shawna said. “You do speak English, do you not?”
Desirae just groaned under her breath, not even wanting to dignify that kind of comment with a response. “What truth you want?” she asked, shaking her head and feeling sorry that this lame-ass bitch of a woman would stoop so low as to come up to another woman’s job to confront her about some man.
“I wanna know how long you and Tron been fuckin’ around,” Shawna said. “One month, two months? What? How long you been fucking him? I know you are. I heard it happening when I called, and you being up at the club only confirmed it. Now, I just wanna know how long he been slipping over on the south side, where I know you stay, and getting in those panties. Or can’t you remember from your apartment probably being a revolving door with niggas coming in and leaving out while they still pulling their pants up.”
Desirae rolled her eyes. “I can tell your pussy is probably dry,” she commented. “Prolly try’na learn a thing or two from me on how to actually keep a nigga, rather than just running him away to the nearest chi
ck who gon treat him right.”
“You two seconds away from seeing how I’mma treat that ass right to a good stomping,” Shawna said. “Now, I came to you in peace. I ain’t getting ready to fight over no nigga, but I will put these hands on you if you don’t talk to me like I’m a respectful person.” She looked at her Clarks’ department store nametag then smiled. “Desirae.”
“Girl, I been fuckin’ that nigga for months,” Desirae said, deciding that there was just no more point in her holding her tongue any more. “For like three or four months, I been fuckin’ that nigga. And now I see why.”
Shawna felt her heartbeat speed up, instantly feeling mad at the idea that Tron may have lied to her face again last night when they met up and talked. She specifically remembered him saying that he had only been messing around with this chick for a month – that he had only fucked her twice.
“That’s interesting,” Shawna said. “Cause he told me that he only been fuckin’ with you for like a month and that the two of y’all only fucked twice.”
Desirae wanted to burst into laughter right there in Shawna’s face. However, since she was at work, she was not going to stoop down to the level of the desperate woman that stood in front of her. “Girl,” she said, snickering. “Twice? In a month? Shit, that nigga was coming over at least three, sometimes four, times a week and getting some of this. And I see why.” Desirae looked over the counter and looked Shawna’s body up and down. “Don’t look like he was getting all that much to eat at home, so I guess I can’t really blame him, can I?”
“Girl, you been fuckin’ my man for that long and for that much?” Shawna said, now getting a little louder. Whoever was in the store shopping faded away and into the background at that moment. To Shawna, the very thought that she was being a real woman and holding the house down while trying to move ahead in her own career while Tron was on the other side of town laying up with some thot like what was standing on the other side of the counter just made her sick to her stomach. She wished that she didn’t believe it, but she felt that it was probably true.
The Diary of a Side Chick 2 (Side Chick Diaries) Page 10