“I really apologize for waking you, and you’re right. I’ve never called you outside work or attempted to, but I really need someone to talk to.”
“Is it about the agency?”
“No. This is more of a personal call.”
“Oh, okay. Then I’m hanging up. Good night,” Stacey told her. She ended the call, turned her light off, and left the phone off the cradle so Meagan couldn’t call back and wake her up again. She didn’t care what Meagan wanted to talk about. If it wasn’t job related, she didn’t want any part of it. In five years the most personal conversations they had had were thirty-second greetings at the start and the end of the workday.
Stacey wanted to give Meagan the same dry, callous treatment she had dished out at the office, but she couldn’t. Stacey’s heart was too big, and she had been able to tell on the phone that her boss was drunk. She waited another sixty seconds and then dialed Meagan’s cell number. When Meagan picked up, Stacey was the first to speak.
“What is it that you want to talk about? You treat me like shit, blame me for every fucked-up thing that happens at the agency, and now you want to have a girl talk. If your mind is that fucked up to make you think I’d be willing to listen, go ahead. I think this is going to make for a good laugh.”
“I’m sorry,” Meagan mumbled into the phone.
“What? I couldn’t hear you.”
“I said I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being a bitch, and you have every right to feel the way that you do, but, honestly, I need you. I don’t have anyone else to talk to, because I’m a horrible person who doesn’t have any friends.”
“You are a horrible, controlling little bitch, but that isn’t why you don’t have friends. William is the reason you don’t. He controls you, and then you come to work and take the shit out on me. Go ahead, drunk and friendless person. I’m all ears.”
Meagan wasn’t sure if she should continue after hearing the way Stacey felt about her, but a part of her knew she needed to hear it, because it was the truth. She wanted to ask Stacey to refrain from calling her out of her name, but her secretary wasn’t on the clock, and it was Meagan who was intruding on her personal time. If Stacey thought she was a bitch, Meagan would have to hear it.
“I don’t know what to do, Stacey. Everything looks so perfect from the outside looking in, but it’s not, and I’m not. I’m married to my godfather, the man who raised me and who also slept with my mother, and a man who thinks it’s okay to beat his wife whenever she doesn’t say or do as he tells her. I’ve been with William since I was a little girl, and now that I’m forty, I don’t know why I’ve wasted so many years invested in something that isn’t real. His love for me isn’t real.” Meagan paused to keep the tears from falling, and Stacey took the silence as her turn to take the microphone.
“Well, first of all, your shit doesn’t look anywhere near perfect. I don’t know who’s lying to you, but I’m not going to. He’s been beating your ass and fucking up your face, and you say you don’t know why you’re wasting time staying with him? Let me help you out. You’re stuck with him because that’s all you know, and that’s all you want to know. Secondly, don’t tell nobody else that perverted-ass nigga is your goddaddy. That shit sounds sick and makes me want to beat his ass for taking advantage of you all those years ago.”
Meagan broke out in laughter. She had heard Stacey on the phone with her friends many times and had always admired how she never bit her tongue. From their bad choices in men to their fucked-up hairstyles, if they brought it to her, she dished the truth out, and that was what Meagan wanted right now. She wanted to hear the truth from a woman who she knew cared nothing about her, just like she had heard the same kind of truth minutes before saying, “I do,” to William. She thought back on that now.
The vineyard was packed, as expected, given the success William was enjoying from his restaurant chain. Georgia Peach’s wasn’t the first African American–owned and operated franchise; however, it was the first of its class.
Meagan stared out the window in the bride’s suite at the guests piling in to share her special day with her and felt empty. Neither she nor William had family alive to join in their celebration of love. His parents had both passed away before he made it to forty, and being the product of two only children, there weren’t any cousins for him to grow up with. It wasn’t the same for Meagan, but her mother had burned every bridge she had with her family years before Meagan’s birth, and although she knew the exact house her grandparents lived in, they had never made an effort to be in her life, so she didn’t waste the invite.
The wedding day was supposed to be one of the happiest days in a woman’s life, yet somehow for Meagan, it was making the list of one of the worst. The caterers were late. The pastor was unreachable. There was a quarter-sized stain on her wedding gown, and how it had gotten there, no one seemed to know. Not one of her bridesmaids was a true friend, and it was proven when they excluded her from her own bachelorette party by giving her the wrong address and time for the event. They even went the extra mile of talking about her behind her back as they dressed in the suite three doors down from hers.
“This is the prettiest and most expensive wedding I’ve ever been in and to. Why is it that the people who know they shouldn’t be together are the ones who go all out of the way for their weddings? This is the type of shit I want when it’s my turn, but I know that bullshit-ass salary I’m getting won’t cover half of this,” one of the bridesmaids said behind the closed door as Meagan eavesdropped from the hallway.
Meagan didn’t know any of the six well enough to be able to recognize their voices. Each was a manager at one of William’s restaurants and had volunteered to stand in if she needed spot fillers. If it was her choice, she wouldn’t have any bridesmaids, but seeing that William had close friends, she had felt obligated to find six fill-ins to complement his single groomsmen.
“It’s always like that because they know everyone in attendance knows they ass shouldn’t be getting married, and let’s be real, especially not these two. The way William beats her ass—”
“Girl, you ain’t never lied,” another bridesmaid interrupted. “She fucked up on our order when they came to Houston, and, baby, when I tell you he took his belt off and beat her like she was seven, I ain’t lying. I was like, ‘Damn! What’s next? A punishment?’ If he had pulled her pants down and she had on day-of-the-week panties, I would have fell out.”
The room roared with laughter.
“The beatings are one thing, but I’m sure all of y’all know he ain’t right in the faithful department, either. He flirts, and he will go as far as you let him. I’ve had to let go a few shift supervisors at his request for some bogus reasons, because I found out why he went over my head and gave them bonuses. That fool is crazy to jeopardize all this for some pussy, and neither girl looked better than Melba,” Miss Houston said.
“She called that bitch Melba. Her name is Meagan. LOL,” said another of the bridesmaids.
“Melba, Meagan . . . Shit, that bitch ain’t my friend, but I tell you this. I’d marry his ass in a heartbeat, too, if I was that much younger than him. I heard she was his goddaughter, and he used to molest her. That bitch’s life is pathetic. I hope she was smart enough to get insurance on his nasty ass.”
Laughter filled the room once more, and Meagan ran back down the hallway with their thank-you cards in hand, to be disposed of after she removed the thousand dollars she had planned to give each one of them. In truth, it was actually payment for them agreeing to pretend they were close and for posing in some pictures. The bitches were well-paid actresses that had no acting experience, and it showed, because they couldn’t wait until the wedding was over before they dogged the bride, their temporary friend.
How do you walk down the aisle, knowing everyone is hiding their laughs with fake smiles? she thought as the door to her room flew open.
“Are you ready, baby? I want to see you,” William said, looking as good as he always did in h
is tux.
“I thought it was bad luck to see the bride before the wedding?”
“That’s a myth, baby. You know that you and I make our own luck.” He looked into her eyes and saw signs she had been crying. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing,” she lied.
“It’s something. You have tear tracks in your makeup. What’s wrong?” He crossed the room and closed the door.
“I’ll be okay.” She turned to fix whatever flaw he had noticed with her makeup and was met by his hand encircling her neck and closing around it tightly.
“Are you having second thoughts about marrying me, little girl? Because if you think you’re going to get out here and embarrass me in front of all those people, you have another thing coming.”
“I can’t breathe,” she said, placing her hands on his.
“Yeah, yo’ ass can breathe, or you wouldn’t be talking. Now answer me. Are you trying to embarrass me?”
“I c-can’t,” she managed to say as his grip tightened and he began tugging on her neck, causing her to twitch. “I can’t embarrass you. We are already married.”
“What?”
“I can’t embarrass you. We are already married, remember? The courthouse.”
William was caught up in the beauty of their wedding day and had forgotten they were already legally married. When they’d gone to file for their marriage license, he and Meagan had just made up from a spat the night before, and he had been able to tell that she was debating leaving him. Out of fear of possibly losing her, he’d turned the trip to the courthouse for their documentation into their legal wedding day by having them married on the spot by the justice of the peace.
The door opened once more. “You know you’re not supposed to be in here, William.”
When Miss Houston’s accent carried her words across the room, William slowly released Meagan’s neck, and he pushed her out of arm’s reach.
“Go on and get out of here. It’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride. That’s Texas tradition,” Miss Houston continued, as if she hadn’t seen what was going on.
“I don’t want to break tradition,” William replied. With his eyes locked on Meagan, he spoke his next words. “I’ll see you shortly at the altar, baby. I love you.”
“I love you too,” Meagan said through tears and a deflated throat.
When the door was fully closed, Meagan’s fill-in bridesmaid rushed over to lock it, then ran to Meagan and hugged her tight. Rocking her, she said, “You’re so beautiful, Melba. I don’t know why you are putting up with his shit, and it’s not none of my business. I’m here only because William said he’d pay me after this. I’m not your friend, and I don’t want to be, but look me in my eyes and promise me one thing.”
She turned Meagan’s face until they were eye to eye. “Promise me that you won’t let death do you part. Don’t die by his hands, and don’t spend your days locked up because you got tired of the beatings and killed him. Kill his wallet, murder his dreams, and beat him at his own fucked-up game. Take your fifty percent of his empire and make sure your lawyer works on getting a piece of the fifty he has left. There ain’t nothing better than having a husband besides having a life insurance policy paid in full upon a husband’s death.”
Meagan snapped out of her reminiscing, and when she could no longer laugh at the truth in Stacey’s words, the tears began to fall.
“So how do I get unstuck?” she squeaked.
“Do something you’ve never done. Call the police on his ass and leave. Fuck his prestige and his fame from that good-ass food he’s overcharging the city for. I mean, damn, thirty-eight dollars for a plate of oxtails, greens, runny macaroni and cheese, and those extra-buttery potatoes. That shit taste good or whatever, but why don’t I get a discount for putting up with your shit for eight hours a day?”
Meagan remained quiet, listening,
“But seriously, you have to make a choice. Do you want to leave or stay? Counseling or a trip to jail? I’ll tell you this. If you were my friend, I’d be the one going to jail for trying to whip his sorry ass. A man who puts his hands on a woman is a bitch. There’s no debating it. And that’s who you are married to, an old, rich, handsome bitch. Leave him alone, file your divorce, get as much of his money as you can, and then come up with your own dreams. He made you model. Then he made you stop. You don’t even know what it is you want to be when you grow up, and your ass is a few days away from applying for Social Security. Bitch, that’s sad.”
“I hear you, but it’s not that easy.”
“Why isn’t it? I mean, do you want to live or die? Because right now, your ass is living dead.” Stacey yawned and then said, “There’s my fifteen minutes of friendship. Hope it is reflected on my bonus check, or at least the next time you think about talking to me like I ain’t shit, you remember this call. Good night.” Stacey hung up the phone again and grabbed her cell phone to send a text.
This is my cell-phone number. Never call my house again. And I’m praying for you, because I don’t have to like you to love you. Leave his ass.
Back to the bottle Meagan went, and when the next two glasses of champagne were gone, she made another call.
“What are you doing, sexy?” she said into the phone, her drunken state apparent, when someone picked up.
“I’m not doing anything. I was asleep, until you called.”
“Then come do me and bring some weed. I want to get fucked up, and then you fuck me. Do you know what I was just thinking about?”
“No. What were you thinking about?” he asked, getting up to check his slim supply of weed.
“I was thinking about us and what you said to me at the nail shop. I think we could work out, and I think you were right. You might be the one for me.”
“Is that right?” he asked, knowing she had to be fucked up already.
“Yep, you’re a real man, but you do have some childish ways. I’m starting to think all men do, and your head . . . oh, your head is off the chain. Your head alone could make me pack up and leave his ass. I love my pussy eaten, but I want more of that dick. Can I have some more?”
“Yeah, I got you.”
“Can I have it all the time? Whenever I want it?”
“Sure,” he said, turning the key in the ignition. He had been sleeping in his limo for months and living out of the trunk of his Chevy Impala. He needed to grab himself some clean clothes and take a shower, but his car was parked on the other side of town, at the truck stop.
“Do you want kids, Angelo? I can give you some pretty-ass babies, but we have to start working on them now. I’m getting old, and I already got arthritis. Don’t know if it will affect my pussy one day, so we need to put that plan in motion.”
“Look, I’m going to go get my car and a cigarillo. I’ll be there shortly.” He hung up, not wanting to continue with her drunken conversation.
There was one more call Meagan wanted to make, and it didn’t require a phone. Actually, she wasn’t sure what it required, because she wasn’t sure of the location she was making the call to, but she had watched enough movies to get an idea.
“Mama, I don’t know if you can hear me in hell or if you can see me in heaven, but I hope you are listening. I have questions that only you can answer for me, and I’m hoping there’s a way that you can get those answers to me. I don’t know what happened in your life that turned you into the bitch that you were, but why didn’t you swallow me? I wish you had. However, I’m here, and I want to know why. It was you who took the time to teach me how to do my own abortions at home using three different methods, all dangerous but fail proof, so why didn’t you use one of them when you got pregnant with me? Out of all the abortions you had, I want to know what made you decide to skip it with me?
“You see, I’m forty now, and I don’t know why I was given flesh. Look at my life. I didn’t have a childhood, I was fucking grown men before I had my first period, and I ended up marrying my godfather. I married a man who used to dog fuck you
as you pretended to be his wife’s best and only friend. I wonder what would have happened if I had opened my mouth and told Clara that you were in the diner’s office that day, fucking her husband. If I had told her crazy, ‘two packs of cigarettes a day smoking’ ass in that same moment that I was also fucking him. I wonder if she would have dug in that big, ugly purse she carried, pulled out her gun, and done us both a favor by killing us.
“If she had, she would still be alive, because we both know it wasn’t that explosion that killed her. It was us. You, William, and I—we killed Clara, because we all pretended to love her as we dogged the shit out of her behind her back. I’m not saying she was perfect. Hell no, she was fucked up in the head, like you. But she never crossed the lines, nor did she backstab us. She loved William, and seeing that we both knew that, he should have been off limits. The men she chose had no tie to you or me, but we can’t say the same.
“And look at how my life turned out because of it. Ass beatings, no friends, rich, but with no life. I’m William’s wife, but she was Clara, a strong woman with a purpose. I’m just here with no purpose, and now I want one. I want that real thing people call love, too, but I don’t know what that is. Let me ask you another question. Why didn’t you take one day of those fucked games and lessons you felt were mandatory to teach me what to do in a relationship? I refuse to believe you’ve never had a real love, because I’m here. There had to be one man that you loved, and in my heart, it was my father. Nothing about you screams that you wanted to be a mother, and even if you decided to have me, why didn’t you give me away?
Disrespectfully Yours Page 17