“True,” I agreed.
“But this single life ain’t cute or fun.”
“Amen.”
“As I look for a new place and realize that now I’ll have to pay all my bills, I realize why I stayed with Sean despite the bullshit.”
“I most definitely feel you on that.”
Lord knows that’s what I miss about Taij the most; the financial support. Though he pays child support, there is nothing like having a man in the house to take out the garbage, get your oil changed, change the light bulbs, and pay the mortgage so that the majority of your energy and money can go to shopping for new Chanel pumps.
“But if I choose to go home, I’m not letting him back in that easy,” Crystal said. “I just had to give him a taste of what he was missing to make him chase me harder. I am enjoying being the one chased rather than the pathetic chaser.”
I was walking the halls of Kraton High and laughing to myself. These teenagers are hilarious.
As I entered the main hallway, I caught a quick glimpse of Vince as he entered the main office. Luckily, he didn’t see me. There still hasn’t been any attempt to communicate from either of our ends. I don’t take it personally that he hasn’t tried to talk to me. I figure he either feels sorry for my foolishness or is so pissed that I am being so arrogant that he can’t stand to talk to me.
Either way, he’s probably right.
Just then I nearly collided into Delilah. I guess I was in such deep thought that I didn’t even see her.
“Hey, Ms. Brown.”
Today Delilah was oddly sad. She always has a burdened spirit over her, but today, she was truly weary, and I could see it.
“Hi, Delilah. What’s wrong?”
She answered, “I’m just frustrated. Nothing new.”
“What’s wrong?”
Before she could answer, I linked my arm with hers and lead her off to the side of the hall near a row of lockers that was abandoned. Soon the late bell would ring, so many students were making their way to their first class.
“I’m just tired, Ms. Brown. I want out of this city so bad.”
“I know, sweetie,” I consoled her. “It’s coming. Just be patient. Hold on to the vision of you walking on to a college campus in a mere eight months from now.”
“Eight months sounds like an eternity,” she pouted.
Then I actually saw tears forming in her eyes.
“Do you need to talk?”
Like I said, Delilah is usually sassy and frowned up complaining about something, but she always keeps her head up despite her issues, and she rarely allows defeat to overcome her like she is allowing it to right now.
“Nothing but the usual. I am just getting so fed up with dealing with it. I am tired of laughing my problems away and pretending as if they don’t affect me as much as they do. There is no happiness anywhere I go. At home there are fifteen kids, and even some cousins, in every corner of the house. My mother can’t keep her damn legs closed long enough to keep any of the commotion to a minimum. I am tired of raising her children for her. Then I go over to Kane’s house to get some peace, but there is no such thing as peace over there because I’m either worried about someone killing him, or I am constantly riding with him because he’s too scared for me to stay there alone, or I’m busy trying to make sure them stankin’ ass crackheads don’t steal my shit. There are hypes all over the place in his spot smelling like zoo dirt and garbage truck juice! I’m so sick of it!”
I had to giggle a little.
“Ms. Brown, it’s not funny,” she whined. “I’m so sick of living in New Jack City. If it ain’t the kids getting on my nerves, it’s the hypes. I have ovaries that are going to finish college before the people that I’m subjected to being around!”
I just plain ‘ol fell out laughing then. Luckily, finding humor in her misery made Delilah finally crack a smile as well.
“Don’t laugh at me, Ms. Brown,” she said through her own snickers.
“Delilah, girl, you have to laugh at your problems because Lord knows everyone else is,” I said.
She simply sighed as if she wanted to believe what I was saying but knew my simple words weren’t enough to treat her pain.
“You’ll be okay,” I told her. “I promise. You have so much drive and determination that a promising future is destine for you. When yourwhyis momentous, yourhow is obsolete. Because you simply want so much for yourself so badly, how and when you will get there is inevitable.”
LYRIC
“So?”
I didn’t say hello or what’s up when I entered Tricey’s office. I didn’t care for the small talk. I needed to know what the hell was going on. I hadn’t spoken to her all weekend. I called her several times Sunday night with no answer. Then I called her house seemingly hundreds of times on Monday, after I called her office and her secretary told me that she called off. Later on in the day I got a text message from her telling me that she was pregnant and would call me later.
I never got that call.
I knew that being pregnant was an overwhelming blow for Tricey, so her silence and distance was then understood. However, I have given her two days to deal, so now it was time to dish the damn dirt.
“So what?” Tricey even smiled at me as I sat in a chair across from her desk.
“So what the hell is going on? You preggers for real?”
“I am definitely pregnant,” she answered. “If the four tests I took weren’t convincing, the damn ultrasound I had yesterday definitely was.”
“So why haven’t you been to work?”
“Just trying to deal,” she answered with a sigh. “This is all so much for me.”
“I bet. What did Amiel have to say about this?”
“Nothing. I haven’t told him.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s very hard to tell a married man, who just told you that you mean nothing in comparison to his family, that you’re pregnant. I feel like the other woman that is pregnant with a problem.”
My eyebrows rose in shock. “He told you that?”
“In so many words, yes. I just got fed up, ya’ know? Tired of feeling alone despite our relationship. Tired of the excuses from his end. I just felt like if he really loved me, he would give me what he knows I deserve. His answer to that was that despite his feelings for me, his obligations to Bridget and his children supersede me. There was no arguing with that.”
“When did that conversation happen?”
“Saturday. I felt so small after that. The man that I have been loving, sucking, and fucking for the past year basically just told me that he doesn’t love me enough to love me how I love him. It was awful.”
“So how did you find out that you were pregnant?”
“I haven’t been feeling very well for the past couple of days. Then Vic called to check on me Sunday. When I still wasn’t feeling well, she asked me could I be pregnant, and then I realized that my period was late.”
“Damn,” I cursed.
“I took pregnancy tests, but I went to the doctor yesterday just to be absolutely sure.”
“So what are you going to do? Are you going to even tell Amiel? Have you talked to him since Saturday?”
“I haven’t heard a peep, nor have I gotten a text message or smoke signal, from him.”
“Really?!”
Tricey agreed with my obvious shock. “I know. That’s not like him. I guess it’s really over.”
“But you’re pregnant.”
“And that doesn’t and can’t change how he feels about me. I need to see and feel the reality of our relationship. I can’t be in some fairy tale believing false hopes if the truth of the matter is he isn’t going to be with me. I can’t continue to fool myself; baby or not.”
“Are you going to keep it?”
I knew that pregnancy was a deeper issue for Tricey than it would be for any other woman. When Tricey’s mother forced her to have that abortion years ago, she felt the pain ten times over. For most
of her pregnancy, that baby was the only person that she could talk to. She bonded with that child, and with no say so on her behalf, it was killed in an instant.
“I’m keeping it,” she declared.
But I was still a bit shocked at her decision. Having a baby by a married man is much different than having a baby by someone you’ve just broken up with.
“Really?”
“I am,” she confirmed with a confident nod. “And it’s not to keep Amiel, because I don’t have him and never did. I am keeping this child because, for once, I am going to do with my body and my baby what the hell I wanna do. When I was younger, I spent the entire pregnancy crying, depressed, and anxious. I never was able to feel proud or overjoyed. I am going to do what’s best for me. I have been making decisions based on Amiel and Bridget for the past year. I swore that time in my life was over when I ended that conversation with him Saturday, and it doesn’t change simply because I’m pregnant.”
I began to clap proudly as I said, “Bravo.”
I was truly happy for her. I looked in her eyes and I knew that her decision had nothing to do with Amiel. I remembered the tears that she shed over ten years ago when she came back to school and the bump in her stomach had vanished. Those tears surpass Bridget, Amiel, and Amiel’s inability to love her.
Bradley and I were on the chaise lounge making good love. I was on my back with both legs anchored on either arm of the chair and he was in-between my legs giving me the business.
My hands were locked in his dreads as he whispered threatening sweet nothings in my ear; telling me to take the dick, asking me did I love the dick, and calling me Mrs. Morris over and over again.
My toes curled with such satisfaction that they looked like they were throwing up gang signs. It felt as if he was penetrating so deep inside of me that he was digging for treasure, finding it, and then digging deeper to find something even more priceless.
Then the telephone rang and fucked up my flow. The ringing was only so irritating because it was the fifth time it rang since we began making love, and Bradley was even noticing the consistency.
He asked without missing a beat in his rhythm, “Who the fuck is that?”
I asked, barely able to get the words out, “You want me to go get it?”
“Hell no.” Then he kissed me aggressively, and I seemed to leak with excitement.
Then the damn phone started to ring again.
“Fuck,” Bradley cursed in frustration.
I couldn’t tell whether he was irritated because of the phone or because he was fighting an orgasm, which I knew was coming since his motion was even more consistent and fast.
Then he let out an “Oh shit” and I knew his end was near. I held on to the chair as I braced myself for his orgasm that I knew would hurt me so good.
With an “Aarrrrgh”, he was done. He slid out of me and fell to the floor, taking big gulps of breath and still cursing from the pleasure.
“I’ll get you a towel, babe,” I said as I stepped over him, out of the living room, and into the hall to retrieve a wet towel from the bathroom.
On the way, I grabbed the phone from its base on the kitchen counter to see who in the hell was stalking my house like this.
It was Veronica. The sight of her name and number on the Caller ID made my skin crawl.
I turned off the ringer before dialing Tricey’s number as I walked into the bathroom and closed the door.
“Hello,” Tricey answered.
“I need you to call your girl and talk some sense into her.”
“Who? Veronica?”
“Yes.”
“What happened now?”
“I’m at home trying to have good ‘we finna get married’ sex with my man, and she is interrupting it with her constant calling.”’
“She’s still stalking you?”
“Girl, yes!”
“You shouldn’t have eaten the pussy so good,” Tricey teased.
“This is not time for jokes!”
“I’m just saying. You can’t have your face in someone’s va-jay-jay for damn near two years and expect them not to stalk you when you walk away,” she said while laughing.
I flushed the toilet to cure Bradley’s curiosities just in case there was any.
“She is ruining my life.”
“It’s not that bad,” Tricey said. “Does Bradley suspect anything?”’
“Well, he is going to wonder why she is calling so much. You have been my friend for over fifteen years, and you don’t even call me like that.”
“Well, maybe if you went down on me, I would,” she joked.
“Tricey, can we focus on my misery, please?!”
“Okay fine. I’ll call her.”
“Thank you.”
“But I will call her tomorrow. I ain’t got time to be fixin’ your problems when I got a shit hole of issues my damn self. So turn the ringer off until tomorrow.”
“I already did,” I whined.
Then I stuck my head out of the bathroom to make sure that Bradley wasn’t in range of my voice. “Baby, you want a drink?”
“A MGD is fine,” he answered, sounding like he was still on the floor in the living room.
“You are phony as hell,” Tricey told me with a giggle.
“Oh, you shut up,” I fussed as I shut the bathroom door. “I can’t believe Veronica is acting like this.”
“I can. You won’t even talk to her. You guys were friends above anything, and you just washed your hands of her.”
“Because she’s acting like a stalker. Who does that?!”
“Women who get good head for a year and a half straight.”
“Bye, Tricey!” Then I hung up and skedaddled into the living room with a wash cloth and a cold beer.
Seventeen
Thursday, December 11, 2008
VICTORIA
“Two people were found dead in a condo on the sixty-second block of Dorchester Avenue this morning at five a.m. Police were called to the scene when witnesses heard gun shots being fired in the condominium. Witnesses also saw four hooded gunmen fleeing from the property. Sources state that the home appears to have been ambushed in a robbery attempt. The victims, who have yet to be identified, were found lying face down with their arms tied behind their backs as they lie in bed. They were shot in the head execution style at point blank range. The police are still investigating.”
Being awaken the second morning in a row with the sound of violence and murder reminded me to change the channel for the on-timer to something more soothing to the ears.
Again DeSire was next to me fast asleep. All night she had been kicking me in the side as she turned in her sleep, so this was probably her last night sleeping in mommy’s bed.
Before I could climb out of bed, my cell phone was surprisingly vibrating.
It was Tricey, so I immediately answered. “Hello.”
“Morning, sunshine,” she attempted to sing.
“Well, good morning. How are you?”
She sighed while answering. “I’m okay.”
“Are you really?”
“Yes, really,” Tricey insisted. “I know it’s early, but I wanted to give you a call while you were on my mind. I’ve been meaning to call you since you left Sunday evening, but I’ve been kind of out of it mentally.”
I figured that much. I wanted to call Tricey the very next day to be sure that she hadn’t thrown herself off of a mental bridge, but I figured she needed some space to think, so my constant nagging would do more harm than good.
I asked impatiently, “So?”
I didn’t know what I was asking in particular. I wanted to know so much; had she talked to Amiel, what he said if she did, and was she going to carry this baby to term. Pregnancy for Tricey was a touchy subject, since her first and only pregnancy took such a toll on her and her family.
“So I haven’t talked to Amiel as of yet,” she answered. “I know that I should tell him, but there is such a big part of me that doesn’t
have anything else to say to him.”
“Seriously? Just like that?”
“It’s not just like that. It’s after a year of my life that I’ve spent being nothing but wonderful to him. It just disgusts me that after all this time, he doesn’t want the same things from our relationship that I want. I feel like he’s been faking this entire time; as if all of the talk of chemistry and me being the one was just pillow talk to keep my legs open.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“It’s not about what I believe. I can’t go by emotions. I have to go by reality. And the reality is that he prefers being with his wife over being with me.”
That was so sad to hear, so I know that actually living it was even more heartbreaking.
“But you’re going to be an auntie!”
“Shut up, girl!” I screeched so loud that DeSire jumped in her sleep.
Laughing, Tricey answered, “Yes. So you might as well start planning my baby shower now, because I am going over and beyond the call of duty for this one. You and Lyric may have to make up because this is going to be a collaborative effort.”
“I wish,” I told Tricey. “You know it’s not me.”
“I know that its Lyric’s stubborn ass.”
Then I silenced in obvious embarrassment.
“Vic,” Tricey called. “Don’t start.”
“What?”
“I hear you over there not saying anything. I am over that,” Tricey insisted.
“I still feel bad,” I said. “Especially when you talk about being pregnant and Lyric. It just brings it all back to the surface.”
“It’s in the past.”
It wasn’t in the past for me, because I still have to look at the ain’t-shit-nigga that’s the source of both of our pains.
“Girl, cheer up! I am the one knocked up by the married man with no spine! I should be having the pity party. Stop trying to steal my limelight.”
Good Girls Ain't No Fun Boxed Set (The SIX romance and urban fiction volumes of the LOVE, SEX, LIES series) Page 18