The last she’d seen him was early in the morning the day before. She’d been half asleep, but she remembered him kissing her on the forehead, informing her that he’d left his credit card on the nightstand. He wanted her to enjoy a spa day to rejuvenate herself and get her mind right before going on a job hunt. That was exactly what Sasha had done. She’d spent her entire morning at the full-service spa and salon. She’d not only gotten a full body massage, but she enjoyed a facial, spent time in the steam room, the sauna, and the pool. She got a mani plus a pedicure that included a hot towel wrap and sea salt rub. Lastly, she got her hair done while she sipped on mimosas, followed by having her makeup applied. By the time she’d finished all that, it was too late in the day to go on a job hunt.
The old Sasha would have never put pleasure and pampering before business, but the new Sasha that was emerging from within was enjoying the treatment she was now privy to at the drop of a dime . . . Terrance’s dime. She had to refocus, but right now Terrance had her vision blurred.
Sasha wiped the blurriness from her eyes and looked at the clock again. It was four in the morning. Four in the morning. The last Sasha recalled, the clock had read midnight. All evening she forced herself not to call Terrance to check on his whereabouts. She’d never done it before and she wasn’t going to start doing it. Then again, Terrance had never given her reason to. He’d always come home. Sure, she understood that on occasion he and the team would go hang out, celebrate a win or mourn a loss. He’d come home late, but he came home nonetheless. Sometimes promoters would even pay Terrance to make an appearance at a venue. Sasha had even attended some of those events with him. Again, Terrance always came home. So Sasha wasn’t so much worried that Terrance was out and up to no good. She feared that maybe something bad had happened. The emotion she’d experienced all night was fear, not insecurity or jealousy.
That was until she saw the look in Miss Hart’s eyes; the tone in her voice and the words she didn’t speak out loud. Sasha didn’t sense worry in Miss Hart’s heart for her boss, just empathy for her boss’s lady friend. If Sasha wasn’t mistaken, it was actually that same look Miss Hart had given her the first night she’d met Terrance and he’d brought her home. It was as if Miss Hart had expected what Sasha found to be the unexpected. It just so happened that Sasha didn’t end up being another one of Terrance’s side-chicks who bites the dust. She was wifey. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t a side-chick out there engraving her name on Terrance’s penis with her tongue.
That’s when jealousy and insecurity began to creep up on Sasha.
“Have you talked to Terrance, Miss Hart? I hope he’s okay.” Now Sasha was fishing. She wanted to know why Miss Hart wasn’t the least bit worried. Is this something Terrance has done before? Sasha asked herself, truly wanting to ask Miss Hart. But of course this was something Terrance had done before. Up until just a few months ago he’d been a single man. A grown-ass, single man. He didn’t have to come home if he didn’t want to. But that was a few months ago. Now Terrance was a grown-ass man with a woman. Hopefully he hadn’t just slipped and bumped his head, but slipped back into an old habit.
“You know what, never mind,” Sasha said to Miss Hart. She was not about to sit there and try to pick her man’s employee for information on him. She wasn’t going to be that chick. She thought back to Kels, her overly possessive and jealous neighbor from her old apartment. She refused to be that chick. Casey, who had good reason to be that chick, wasn’t even that chick. She’d heard with her own two ears Casey brush off Eric’s not coming home . . . and those two were married. Granted, Sasha and Terrance were exclusive, but not married. No commitment had been made under the eyes of God. No contract to love, honor, and not stray had been signed. No promises, legal or otherwise, had been made, therefore none had been broken. That was the reasoning and justification Sasha would use to keep her heart together . . . to keep it from breaking apart.
“You’re right, Miss Hart. I should go to bed.” Sasha got up from the couch and an hour later she was lying in bed—her bed back at her old apartment. The same theory Sasha had used to justify why she shouldn’t feel some kind of way about Terrance not coming home was the same justification she used as to why she shouldn’t be laying up in Terrance’s bed waiting for him to come home. That was his bed, not their marital bed.
Terrance always made comments about how Sasha didn’t play, yet he didn’t mind playing house with her. What made her any different than some groupie camping out outside of his hotel room waiting for him? Nothing, with the exception that the king-size bed was a lot more comfortable than the hotel hallway floor.
“I knew I’d find you here.”
Sasha looked from the bedroom ceiling she’d been staring at while in thought to the doorway where Terrance stood.
Sasha had given him the spare key to her apartment after she’d agreed to move into his place. He’d had movers pack up her clothing and personal items and take them to his place. Besides, she had a key to his big ole castle; of course it made sense for him to have a key to her little ole apartment.
Sasha looked away, back to the ceiling.
Terrance looked up at the ceiling then back at her. He was trying to be playful, as if to ask what it was about the ceiling that had Sasha’s attention. But Sasha wasn’t paying him any mind at all. She simply continued staring upward.
Eventually Terrance made his way over to Sasha’s bed, lay down next to her, and stared up at the ceiling. After a few seconds, Sasha turned to look at him.
“What are you doing?” Sasha asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Doing whatever you’re doing, I guess.” He turned and looked at her.
After a few seconds of staring into his eyes, Sasha had to look away. The same way she’d been entrapped by his eyes that first night they met was about to be a repeat if she didn’t look away.
They were both, once again, staring up at ceiling.
Terrance finally broke the silence. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Sasha asked. A man could say he was sorry a million times just to appease or keep a woman quiet, but it meant nothing unless he knew what he was apologizing for.
“Come on, Sasha. We’re grown. Let’s not play games. I fucked up. I stayed out all night and I didn’t call. I should have called. It’s just that I had one drink too many and passed out.”
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t drink so much when you’re out,” Sasha suggested, and it seemed like easy enough advice to follow. After all, he never drank himself to a drunken stupor around Sasha. She couldn’t understand why he couldn’t control his drinking when she wasn’t around. She’d never seen Terrance drunk to the point where he was going to pass out. She didn’t even want to imagine how he acted in such a state.
“Once I woke up and realized what time it was,” Terrance continued, “I knew I was already in the dog house. I knew you were going to kill me, so I figured why try to drive inebriated and end up killing myself, taking that honor away from you? I mean, if anybody deserved to kill me, it was you. I couldn’t rob you of that privilege, could I?”
Sasha twisted up her lips and shot Terrance a look. “Oh, so you want to be Chris Rock right now. You’re a real funny dude.”
He smiled.
Sasha turned her face away from him. She was not going to smile. Not yet. Not so soon. He had to suffer a little more the same way she’d suffered while waiting on his ass to come home last night.
Terrance turned his body toward Sasha. He turned her head so that she faced him. “It will never happen again, I promise,” Terrance said. “I have to remember that I have someone waiting for me at home that I have to give courtesy to. If I’m going to be late or something happens where I’m not going to make it home, I won’t be a bitch about it, and I’ll at least call you and tell you what’s up. You deserve it.”
“Yes, I do, and don’t you forget it.” She turned her attention back to the ceiling.
“So we good?”
Sas
ha sighed and thought for a minute. The Band-Aid. No commitment. But at least now there was a promise.
“You do believe me, don’t you?” Terrance scooted in closer to Sasha and began to kiss her all over her neck.
Sasha moaned at the softness of Terrance’s lips pressing against her neck. She didn’t even care if they were lying lips or not. She loved him. She’d altered her entire life. She had to believe it wasn’t all for nothing.
“Yes, I believe you,” Sasha said as she closed her eyes and allowed her neck to roll, assuring that Terrance didn’t miss a spot. Out of nowhere, words that Casey had once spoken suddenly filled her head.
“There are many things you start to believe as a basketball wife.”
Sasha finally opened her eyes. But was it too late?
Chapter 20
Sasha stared down at the pink plus sign on the stick she’d just urinated on. Tears filled her eyes. Were they tears of joy? Were they tears of fear? What was there to be afraid of? Then again, she could also ask herself what there was to be happy about.
It was only last week when she’d finally gotten up the courage to tell her mother she’d vacated her apartment and moved in with Terrance. Actually, her mother hadn’t taken the news as badly as Sasha had thought she would.
“Well, at least he isn’t some broke jive turkey who just looks good,” her mother had said. It made Sasha wonder if her mother was somehow related to Paris’s grandmother. But then her mother added, “And he loves you, right? Because you must love him to go to such extremes as to give up your dreams to want to be up under him all like that.”
“Ma, I’m not giving up my dreams,” Sasha had quickly shot back.
“Oh?” her mother had said with kind of a question mark behind her tone. Not like she was questioning Sasha, but more like asking Sasha to question herself. “But what I need to know is that this man loves my baby girl and is going to treat her right,” her mother had said.
Sasha eased her mother’s mind by sharing with her how well Terrance had been treating her. She told her about the impromptu dates, outings, and vacations. She told her how well he’d been providing for her.
“Sounds like you’re living an even better life than you envisioned when you moved to Atlanta,” her mother had told her, now sounding just like Casey. “As long as you’re happy is all that matters. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. I didn’t make sure you had a happy childhood just so you could grow up for some man to make you miserable. You are happy, aren’t you, Sasha?”
Since Sasha had emphatically told her mother that she was happy, wouldn’t that make her liar if she wasn’t happy now? Even if Sasha wasn’t happy on the inside, she could at least try to fake it on the outside. She tried to curve the corners of her lips up into a smile, but it was a no go. She wasn’t happy, nor could she fake being happy, which meant she wasn’t about to call her mother up anytime soon to share this news with her. She’d wait until maybe she was . . . happy . . . if that ever happened.
“Well, one thing’s for certain, we all know it ain’t mine.”
Sasha looked up at him from the edge of the Jacuzzi tub she was sitting on. He’d stood there by her side the entire time waiting for the results to appear on the pregnancy test. His comment was not the support she’d expected of him, a man who had said he’d loved her. A man who called himself her friend. A hurt look was visible on her face.
“What?” he said matter-of-factly. “It ain’t mine.”
“This is not the time for your humor, Norman,” Sasha said, looking down at the stick again. “A real friend would know better than to make light of something this serious.”
“I’m sorry,” Norman said. “Just trying to cheer you up because you look all pitiful and suicidal. You should see your face. Shit, let me go hide all the damn razors.” Norman headed in the direction of the medicine cabinet.
“Norman, seriously, stop it.” Sasha shook her head. “Not now!” Usually Norman’s off-the-wall comic relief had a way of making Sasha feel better, but it was only upsetting her even more right now.
Norman exhaled and walked back over and stood in front of his friend. “I’m sorry, I guess. Or should I be congratulating you? Hell, I don’t know.” He threw his hands up in surrender. “One second it looked like you were going to smile, and now it looks like you’re going to cry. I don’t know what to do with your bipolar ass.”
Sasha shook her head. “I don’t know what to do with myself either. A baby,” Sasha mumbled under her breath.
Norman looked at how genuinely torn Sasha was. “I can tell you really aren’t from here, are you?”
“Why do you say that?” Sasha asked.
“Because do you know how many women, instead of sitting on the edge of the tub looking like their life just came to an end, would be jumping up and down ecstatic right about now? You sitting here whining about ‘a baby,’” he mocked, “while they asses would be running around talking about ‘a check.’” Norman put his hands on his hips. “Do you know this baby guarantees you a lifestyle of the rich and famous for the rest of your life, or at least for the next eighteen years?”
“But you know that’s not what I’m about,” Sasha said. “I love Terrance. He is a great man. Does he mess up sometimes? Sure, but trust me, there are women out there who have it far worse.” Sasha didn’t know who she was trying to convince more at this point, her or Norman. “We have a wonderful time together, but a baby changes everything. How can I start up and run my own business with a baby on my hip?”
“Heifer, women do that shit all the time. A baby on they hip, a baby on they titty, while another one is holding their hand.”
Sasha instantly thought back to the day she arrived in Atlanta. She recalled watching the mother at her apartment complex struggle with all of her babies. “I don’t want to struggle.”
Norman looked around. “Have you seen where the hell you live? Does this look like a damn struggle to you?”
Sasha admired the huge marble sand-tone bathroom. It had a Jacuzzi and a walk-in shower that could fit at least six people at one time. It had his-and-hers sinks and a separate area for the commode. Some people’s entire living spaces weren’t as large as this bathroom. Norman was right. Sasha had been so blinded and swept up by Terrance that she paid no attention even to where she’d landed.
“You’re right,” Sasha said, sounding a little more chipper and hopeful. “Not that I want any other woman raising my baby, but it’s not like Terrance can’t afford a nanny. And I can go back to work just as soon as I bounce back from having the baby. Terrance pays all the bills so any money I save up I can put it all right into my boutique.” The more she spoke, the more motivated she felt. She stood up with a sudden burst of energy. “It won’t be just about me anymore. I’d have to make it for the sake of my child. I have to leave a legacy for this baby.” She held her stomach. “A baby.” This time Sasha said it with a sense of pride. Perhaps a baby was all the motivation Sasha needed to get back on track and handle her business.
Norman just sat there watching Sasha, looking confused as all get-out. “So do you want me to go diaper shopping with you, or do you need me to go to the clinic with you and hold your hand during the procedure, because, bitch, I’m confused.”
Sasha ignored Norman as she stared off and continued to think things through. There were pros of being pregnant, and there were definitely cons. She wouldn’t be honest with herself if she denied being worried about her baby’s future. The hell with even telling Terrance about the pregnancy at all. But if she did, maybe he would be for an abortion, since he was at the height of his career. How could they be in Atlanta one minute and then Paris the next with a newborn in their lives? How could they even get to know each other better if they were trying to get to know and learn how to take care of a little person?
“Jesus, take the wheel!” Sasha cried out.
“Well, I ain’t Jesus, but I know Dirty Knife Donna who lives over in Bankhead. Then there’s her cousin, Five Finger Di
scount Freda who can get diapers and Similac for a steal, literally,” Norman said. “You just pick your poison and I’m there for you. Just know that either decision you make is going to alter your life forever.”
Norman’s words left a lot for Sasha to consider. But she couldn’t think on them for too long. Even though time had been moving pretty fast for her and Terrance’s relationship, she knew that time was no longer on her side. A decision had to be made, and the clock was ticking.
“I do,” Sasha said, repeating after the minister.
She stood across from Terrance at the altar at Baptist Generation Church of the Saints. It was a church Norman had suggested. The first lady was one of his clients and was happy to host the last-minute wedding of Atlanta’s basketball stars—for a nice offering, of course.
It was a beautiful church with breathtakingly beautiful stained glass windows. The sunlight beamed through it and hit just the right spot at the altar. It was the spot where Sasha and Terrance stood being joined together in holy matrimony.
She could feel the butterflies fluttering through her stomach. Or perhaps it was the seven-week-old fetus. Maybe it was even both. As she stood at the altar, exchanging vows with the man who had entered her life and swept her off her feet, taking her off course from her life plans, she was scared to death. Everything was happening so abruptly.
The feeling in Sasha’s belly stole her thoughts. She pictured the child inside her belly chasing the butterflies through their beautiful backyard. His—or her—tiny hands, tiny bare feet, all part of a creation made by her and Terrance. Her eyes filled with tears. That was love. Be it just plain ole love or in love, it was enough. It was enough for her to—just in case anyone missed it the first time—say “I do” again. The few people in attendance chuckled when Sasha did just that.
“Terrance Clark McKinley,” the minister said as he stood there with Bible in hand. “Do you take Sasha Renea Wellington to be your lawfully wedded wife?” The minister continued on, asking the same things of Terrance regarding the marriage that he’d asked Sasha. The minister stood between the beautiful couple looking pretty dapper for merely officiating the ceremony. He’d brought out his good robe. It was a deep royal purple, which happened to be one of the three wedding colors: silver, black and purple. As good as the minister looked, it didn’t take away the shine of the bride and groom.
Wives, Fiancées, and Side-Chicks of Hotlanta Page 24