The Ex Factor: A Novel

by Whitaker, Tu-Shonda

  Despite the fans being on full blast, sweat dripped down the sides of Monica's face, curled over her neck, and dripped into her cleavage. She loved every bit of it. Seeing Sharief act silly completely turned her on, making the reality of him being her sister's man even harder to withstand.

  (Starr)

  “IS IT HER birthday or somethin'? She havin' a party?” Red asked Starr as she pressed her daughter's bell. The music from Monica's stereo slipped through the crack of the front door.

  Starr pressed the bell again and tapped her foot. “No, it ain't her birthday. Must be a niggah over here.” Starr was becoming more pissed by the moment. Then she remembered that Monica kept a spare key to her front door under the welcome mat.

  As Monica went to bust a split she looked up and Starr, Red, and Jamal were standing in the doorway. “I rang the doorbell about four times but I guess this is why you didn't hear me.” Starr pointed around the room. “I used the spare key under the mat.”

  “Ma, you scared me.” Monica placed her hand on her chest while making a mental note to hide the spare key someplace else.

  “Uhmm-hmm, now tell me what y'all got going on?” Starr pointed to Sharief.

  “What are you talking about?” Monica nervously frowned, standing up.

  Starr sucked her teeth as she noticed how short Monica's gown was. “You need to put some clothes on.”

  “I'm okay,” Monica said as she diverted her eyes from Starr's. She prayed that her mother didn't see any guilt on her face.

  “Now, I asked you a question,” Starr repeated. “What is going on here?”

  “Yeah, that's a good question,” Red said, looking around and cocking his head to the side, facing the radio. “Usually I don't say nothing. But I don't appreciate this.”

  “Appreciate what?” Sharief asked, trying to erase the look of guilt on his face. “Huh?”

  “Don't huh me. People who say huh can't hear. Now, I do enough old-school concerts to know when somebody is makin' fun of my gig.” Red pouted his lips and started tapping his foot. He was five foot ten with a sprinkle of freckles across his cheeks, a beer belly, and a tired Afro that was thirty years old and contained a growing bald spot in the middle. Red reared back on his legs, his pearlized white cape covered the rip in his catsuit.

  As Red tried to speak, his lips folded inside his mouth. He placed his hands on his sides, causing his pudgy stomach to protrude. “I'll have y'all to know that I am very upset.”

  “Don't worry 'bout it, baby,” Starr said, still giving Monica the evil eye. “Some people can't appreciate a throwback. We gon' add a li'l rappin' to your gig and turn all these ma'fuckers out!”

  “Just calm down,” Sharief said while glancing over at Starr, who was standing with her lips twisted and her hazel eyes in cuta-niggah mode. Her short and spiked platinum-blond hair enhanced her attitude. Usually when Starr walked into a room she exuded an aura that let people know she had arrived. She wore rings on every finger, including her thumb, two anklets on each leg, and a series of gold bangles that clapped together every time she moved. She was a five-foot-five, 245-pound butter-colored voluptuous black woman who knew that she was sexy, and tonight was no different. She was dressed in a black satin spaghetti-strap tee, and the waist of her purple spandex pants was decorated with a gold three-layer chain belt. Her wide feet were stuffed into metallic gold-and-lilac strappy stiletto sandals that tied around the ankle in a satin bow, showing off her French pedicure.

  Starr cocked her neck to the side, trying to talk herself out of cussin'. She tapped her foot and took a deep breath; she was down to her last cigarette and needed a puff.

  Red looked at her and wiped the bubbling sweat off her forehead. “You see my woman, Sharief, and you telling me to calm down?” Red snapped, his cape floating in the air as the fans blew his way, revealing the rip running up his ass. “You better hold ya roll, Sharief, fo' I been done cripped on a fool.”

  “What are y'all doing here?” Monica said, trying her best to ignore Red. “What's wrong? And why do you have Jamal out this time of the night? Where's Imani?”

  Immediately Jamal started to cry. Monica looked at his red and puffy eyes and held her arms out. Jamal walked over to her while trying to hold his baggy jeans up.

  “Aunty's baby,” Monica whined, giving him a hug.

  “Aunty Monica.” Jamal sniffed, giving up the battle with his pants and hugging her around the knees, “I was crying and niggahs was laughin' at me, like they wanted beef or somethin'. I almost told them, you might see me sleep but you don't know me.”

  “Jamal, what did I tell you about that street language?” Monica rubbed the back of his head. “Now tell me what happened.”

  “My Imani,” Jamal sniffed, “had to wreck shop.”

  “Wreck shop?” Monica was confused.

  “Listen,” Starr snapped, “your sister done got herself into some mo' bullshit, that's what. Had my grandbaby out there in the street with her and then she gets arrested.”

  “Arrested.” Monica was in shock. “Oh no, for what?”

  “Like the child said,” Starr pointed to Jamal, “she done whipped somebody's ass.”

  “Oh no!”

  “She'll be released tomorrow. But I have something I need to do with Buttah in the morning, so I need you to keep Jamal tonight. Now,” she looked at Sharief, “don't you have a wife waiting on you?”

  “I'm going home, Starr,” Sharief said defensively.

  “Does your wife know that?”

  “Like I said,” Sharief reiterated, “I'm going home. It's late and because Monica is close and home is farther away I usually stop here to rest.”

  “Impersonating Michael Jackson—” Starr said.

  “They was impersonating me, baby,” Red corrected her.

  “Whoever or whatever,” Starr said, “y'all was doin' didn't put me in the mind of you trying to rest. Now I suggest that you take a stretch, pull ya drawls outta ya ass, take a shit and do whatever you gotta do, but then you need to go home to the sister you're married to. Understand? Like Mama Byrd says, don't no chicken-coop cock need to be around stray chicks.”

  “Oh, Ma.” Monica sucked her teeth. “That sounds ridiculous.”

  “Anywho,” Starr continued. “Monica, let my grandbaby stay here for tonight, 'cause when I get with your sister Imani, I'ma hurt her.”

  “Why is it that I'm always keeping the kids?” Monica was pissed. “I'm the one who doesn't have any.”

  “And keep it that way.” Starr kissed Jamal on the cheek. “We don't need no unclaimed egg in the chicken coop.”

  “Why do you keep talking about chickens?”

  “Bye, Monica.” Starr waved and Red simply grunted on his way out the door. As Starr and Red got into their yellow-and-white ragtop 1974 Deuce-and-a-Quarter, Starr glanced at Monica's door once more. In the pit of her stomach she felt sick and for some reason wished Monica were still a kid so she could beat her ass.

  “Don't let them bother you, baby,” Red said as he started to drive.

  Starr looked at him and wondered if he thought the same thing. “Bother me about what?”

  “About them making fun of me. They just jealous because they think I'm getting all your attention. They'll get over it.”

  “Yeah, baby.” Starr turned the radio on. “I hope so.”

  (Celeste)

  “WHEN ARE YOU coming home, motherfuckah? I've been calling you all damn night!” Celeste screamed as Sharief groggily answered his cell phone. He'd fallen asleep on Monica's floor next to Jamal. Sharief wiped the corners of his mouth and looked at his watch. It was six am. Damn, he thought as Celeste went on, she just never shuts the fuck up.

  “See how you lie?” Celeste screamed.

  “Do you ever shut the hell up?”

  “Answer my question!” she demanded.

  “I'll get there when I get there.” Sharief rose from the living room floor and stepped into the bathroom.

  “Where the fuck have you been?”
Celeste screamed. “Do you know how long I've been calling you! Huh, motherfuckah?”

  “Whoool, slow down.” He sat down on the toilet lid. “I ain't gon' be too many more mafuckers. Ai'ight? And don't call me screamin' in my ears, carrying on around my girls.”

  “Oh, now you're concerned? Where've you been, Sharief ? Huh, answer that, where have you been?”

  “Celeste, I'm not in the mood to argue with you, okay? You know I'm at Monica's. I just got off work and I'm tired. Now, what you need to understand is, the last thing a black man who's been workin' for twelve hours needs to hear is you naggin' him.”

  “Well guess what …” Celeste lit her cigarette and took a drag. “Let me inform yo' black ass that I don't give a damn!”

  “Celeste, kill it. You know my hours. And you know how far we live.”

  “And so do you!” she screamed.

  “You want me to come home now? If you do, I'll leave here and come home. Never mind that I've had no sleep so I'm taking a chance of falling asleep at the wheel, I'll be there.”

  “Well, if you fall asleep at the wheel, just let Lil' Kim know that Faith was the wife and she got all the death benefits.”

  “I'm hanging up.”

  “Look, Sharief.” Celeste didn't want him to hang up; she knew she wouldn't hear from him anytime soon if he did that. “There was an emergency last night with Imani. Her wannabe gangstress, ride-or-the-fuck-die ass is locked up again. She's downtown Brooklyn. I called my mother so she could get Jamal. Imani is such a selfish-ass bitch!”

  “Damn, chill with the name-calling.” Sharief frowned.

  “Chill with the name-calling? My nephew was in that dingy-ass precinct where that crab-apple-bottom bitch receptionist must be suckin' yo' dick since you telling me to chill!”

  “Yo, there you go again.” Sharief placed his hand on the side of his neck and massaged the thumping vein that he felt would explode.

  “Fuck you!” Celeste screamed. “Punk-ass fuckin' spook!”

  “I gotta go,” he hissed, “you on some crazy shit!” And he hung up.

  Celeste sat on the edge of her bed. Her eyes burned and her chest hurt. She kept thinking that it may have been last week when she started to notice a change in Sharief…but then she thought, Maybe not last week, maybe the week before … or the week before that… Celeste sat back on the bed with her knees pulled to her chest. That's when she realized there was no specific time she could think of when all hell broke loose…

  (Monica)

  FOR HOURS MONICA stared at the ceiling, drifting in and out of deep thought. She thought about her father, whom she didn't know. She thought about her mother, who barely knew her father or her sisters' fathers. And for a moment she thought about the father of her stillborn baby, and wondered where he was.

  Monica placed her hand on her stomach and felt an unexplainable hardness in her abdomen. She squinted her eyes as she pressed on her stomach, wondering what the hardness could be. When she was seventeen she suffered from fibroids. Everyone told her that she had to be mistaken; “It only happens to women in their thirties.” Well, they were wrong, she had two tumors pressing on her left fallopian tube. A week after the tumors were discovered, they, along with her left fallopian tube, had to be removed.

  Monica prayed that the tumors had not returned; she couldn't take another ounce of her womanhood being siphoned out. Immediately she felt as if she were drowning and holding on to her femininity by a string.

  “Monica,” Sharief called, walking into her bedroom.

  “Damn, you scared me.” She let out a deep breath.

  Sharief sat down on the edge of her bed. He placed her feet in his lap and wrapped his hands around them. “Monica, I wanna talk to you about us.”

  “I don't want to talk.” She snatched her feet back and continued to look at the ceiling. “It's a wash. We're both outta line. Truth be told, I'm not tryna be my brother-in-law's booty call. That shit's a wrap.”

  “Monica—”

  “Let me finish,” she said sternly. “I'm not some li'l young, get-money chick from around-da-way, tryin' to get souped up over some Common-Sense-lookin' cop niggah. This ain't the free-pussy lounge, so let's keep it real. Go home to your wife and get some brain, maybe then y'all can get back together.” She sat up in the bed. “Ya dig?”

  “Have you lost your goddamn mind talking to me like that? You think this about pussy?” Sharief asked, taken aback and standing up.

  “I don't know what it's about, but I do know that it's not every day your brother-in-law sucks your clit out the socket, okay?” Monica was saying all that she could to piss him off.

  “Get the fuck outta here,” Sharief was in disbelief, “let me keep it real for you, since you seem to be in La-La Land. You wanted your clit sucked out the socket. You wanted me to fuck you last night, the night before, months before, years before, you wanted to be fucked 'cause you been on my dick since I met you.”

  “Whatever, niggah,” she yarned. “Beat it with the bullshit.”

  “Check this, ma.” He pointed his finger, upset with himself that he was allowing her to take him there. “Let me put you down on some real shit. A niggah don't ever leave his wife for the sideline broad, so you're giving yourself too much credit. If and when I leave my wife it'll be because I want to, not because your pussy is that grand!”

  “It's not that grand?” she questioned. “Well, I can't tell, as much as your face stays in it! So please, all of y'all niggahs are just alike.”

  “Don't compare me with anyone else!” he yelled, banging his fist on the dresser.

  “Would you please, Jamal's downstairs.”

  “He's sleep.”

  “He can still hear you!”

  Lowering his voice, Sharief pursed his lips tight. “Check it, learn keep your legs closed, since you so fuckin' stand-up.” He turned toward the doorway, then turned back around and tossed the house keys she'd given him at the foot of the bed. “From this moment on you are my wife's sister!” And with that said, he slammed the door behind him.

  (Imani)

  “YO, TASHA AND Quiana here?” Sabrena, Imani's friend and neighbor, asked her. “ 'Cause Shante needs her ass cracked! Or should we get my .22 to do it?” Sabrena was standing at Imani's front door with her neck twisted and her heavy breasts resting on her stomach. Sabrena was always in whip-ass mode, and fucking up whoever was nothing but a word. “Yo,” she chuckled, “you know how we roll. Blind, cripple, and crazy. From eight to eighty, I'll beat a bitch's ass! Straight duff a ho, pregnant and all.” Sabrena placed her hands on her hips as she walked passed Imani and into the living room, where Lil' Kim's “Put Ya Lighters Up” was on full blast. Tasha and Quiana were sitting on the couch, smoking a blunt. Imani had been out of jail since this morning, and in an effort to clear her mind she'd called her friends over for their pre-club ritual.

  Despite Tasha's, Quiana's, and Imani's eyes being half closed, they couldn't help but stretch them and give Sabrena a quick once-over. Tasha and Quiana cracked a sly, one-sided smile, while Imani placed her hand over her mouth, took a deep breath, and shook her head. God knows, they'd grown tired of telling Sabrena, Just because Rainbow has it in your size doesn't mean you have to rock it. Flopping down on the arm of Imani's white leather couch and throwing one thigh over the other, Sabrena wore a knockoff Louie V halter-scarf top with white-fringed denim shorts that fell just below her ass cheeks. Her size sixteen thighs were completely exposed and she didn't give a damn; as far as Sabrena was concerned she was that bitch. On her feet she wore white open-toed, three-inch riding boots that zipped on the side. And her French manicure consisted of neon pink for the base and bright white for the stripe.

  Chewing gum, Sabrena blew a big bubble and popped it. “ 'Sup niggahs?” She snapped her neck from side to side. “Y'all know we been dying to bust Shante's ass.” She placed her gum on the back of her hand and reached for the blunt. “Just say the word and that bitch's days are numbered.”

  “How did
y'all know I had a fight with Shante?” Imani asked, sitting down in the recliner and sipping on a cup of orange juice mixed with Banana Red Cisco.

  “Please, chile,” Sabrena took a pull, “er'body knows.” She blew out the smoke. “Plus, Jamillah and Itief from the Parkway catch that same bus to see their kids' daddies and they saw the whole thing.”

  “I didn't see them on the bus.” Imani arched her eyebrows.

  “I guess not, since you were whippin' ass!”

  Imani's face lit up. “Oh, that's what they said?”

  “Yeah, girl.” Quiana's eyes popped out as she received the blunt back. “They said you got wit' that ass and tore it up! They said the whole bus was rockin'. Word up.” She laughed. She passed Imani the blunt back and gave her a high five. “They said all that bitch could do was cry.”

  “Humph.” Imani took a pull and slowly blew out the smoke. “I did catch that bitch a few times.”

  “Yeah, and the next time it's gon' be a group effort,” Sabrena snapped. “If she know like I know, she'll keep her ass off this side of Flatbush.”

  “That's wassup,” Imani agreed, “but girl, I gotta get my shit together and get rid of this niggah. I'm straight done with his ass.”

  Before one of the girls could respond, the phone rang. Imani peeped at the caller ID: Monica. “Damn,” she mumbled to herself, taking one last pull off the blunt and passing it. “This bitch don't give me a chance to breathe.” Imani hadn't called Monica since she'd been home. Part of her felt embarrassed and the other part didn't feel like explaining how she'd ended up in jail fighting over Walik. She snatched the phone off the receiver. “Yeah.”