The Real Housewives of Adverse City

by Shelia E. Bell

  While shopping, Peyton indulged in a highly overpriced blouse while Eva purchased an equally pricey handbag to add to her already extensive collection. By the time they did their retail damage, the ladies left the mall happy and smiling, at least on the outside.

  Chapter 10

  “Love is not about how long you can wait for someone, but about how well you understand why it is you’re waiting. Unknown

  Eva dropped Avery off at home and headed to her house, prepared to spend another evening alone in a huge empty space that was supposed to be home. On the drive, she turned up the radio and listened to Bruno Mars singing. “…I should've bought you flowers and held your hand. Should've gave you all my hours when I had the chance…”

  Once inside, she carried out her usual routine. She lit scented candles around the Jacuzzi tub that was big enough for four people, but one that she always shared alone. When they first moved into what she thought would be her dream house, it was this bathroom, and the luxurious Jacuzzi tub that Eva fell hard for. She imagined her and Harper making love in that tub, and afterward she would lay her back against his naked chest as the warmth of the water kissed their skin, denoting satisfaction.

  Her dreams quickly disintegrated when Harper was appointed Medical Director and Adverse General’s Chief Cardiologist. He practically resided at Adverse General Hospital, leaving her feeling desperately alone and unloved.

  “Harper?” she called out as she soaked in the tub. “Is that you?” she asked when she heard what sounded like someone moving around in the bedroom.

  There was no answer. Eva’s heart picked up its pace as she eased up and sat upright in the tub. How could someone have broken in? The alarm would have sounded. Maybe they’d found a way to disarm it. She became terrified as she heard a shuffling sound. Her breath quickened as the shuffling changed into footsteps. She watched as the handle turned ever so slowly on the closed bathroom door. God, please help me. She looked over her right shoulder for the alarm button on the back wall of the tub. She reached her hand to push it when the door swung open.

  With one hand over her chest, she sighed heavily. “My God, Harper. Why didn’t you say something?” she asked as he slowly entered the bathroom.

  “I thought this would say it all,” he replied as he walked over to the tub in nothing but his birthday suit.

  Eva studied her husband’s chiseled physique. His skin was flawless. His muscled calves, long legs, and perfect six-pack made her so weak that she felt like she would faint at the sexiness that exuded from him.

  Harper sauntered over to the tub, looking down at his wife for several seconds before he stepped inside the tub. He sat down on the other end, and gently pulled her close, cutting off her breath with kisses. What he did next made Eva forget about all the hours, days, and weeks that he had left her all alone, and without hesitation she completely yielded her body to his.

  After their lovemaking, he helped her out of the tub, dried her off, and led her to their bed.

  Quietly, Eva lay spent inside the crook of Harper’s arm. She kissed his chest lightly before looking up at him.

  Harper’s eyes were closed, but when he tightened his arm around her shoulder, she knew he wasn’t asleep.

  “I want a baby,” she said timidly.

  She immediately felt Harper’s grip loosen and his body tensed up. “We’ve been married almost three years. Why can’t we have a baby?”

  Harper released her, sat up on the side of the bed, and then stood up.

  “Where are you going?” Eva sat up in the bed. “I asked you one simple question and you have to get up like you’re upset with me?”

  Harper turned around and looked down at his wife. “Why did you have to ruin a perfect evening with talk about having a baby? You know how I feel about that. All of the hours I spend away from home. It wouldn’t be fair to bring a kid into a house that will primarily be up to one parent, which is you, to raise.”

  “Harper, everything will be fine. You won’t always be away at the hospital. And I promise, I’ll be a good mother.”

  “You being a good mother has nothing to do with it and you know it. We’ve had this conversation too many times before, and like I always tell you, this is not the right time to bring a kid into the world.”

  Harper turned from Eva and walked toward the bathroom.

  Eva got up from the bed, removed her robe from the side chair nearby, put it on, and followed him.

  “Then tell me when is the time going to be right, Harper? I’m tired of your excuses.”

  Harper stopped and looked over his shoulder at her. “I had my son when I was in the throes of establishing my medical career. I knew nothing about being a father, and at the time, I didn’t want to learn, so consequently I was horrible at it. I lost out on being a real father. I didn’t see him take his first step, or say his first words. Nothing. I was too wrapped up in becoming successful so I could provide the finer things of life to him. But I looked up one day and it was too late.”

  “But why are you blaming me? I shouldn’t be made to suffer because his mother left you and married someone else.”

  “It’s more to it than her marrying someone else; another man raised my son. Now, he’s a twenty-three year old man, and we barely know each other.”

  “I don’t agree. You and Seth have a good relationship.”

  “Really?” Harper smirked. “Are you serious? When was the last time he came to Adverse City? When was the last time I laid eyes on my son, Eva?”

  Eva looked briefly away. Harper was right. Seth’s mother and stepfather lived in Pennsylvania while Seth lived in Baltimore where he attended John Hopkins University. The only time Harper saw him was when Seth came to Florida during spring break. Even then, Seth didn’t spend much time visiting his dad. He was all about having a good time with his friends.

  “That’s even more reason for us to have our own child. Think about it, Harper. You could be the kind of father that you always wanted. I know it won’t make up for what you lost with Seth, but things could be different, in a good way, for you and for me.

  Harper responded with silence, disappearing into the bathroom.

  Eva didn’t give up like she usually did when they discussed having a baby. This time she wanted answers, real answers.

  “Harper, don’t you walk away from me. Tell me the truth. Are you ever going to change your mind, or are you going to keep hiding behind your son?”

  “Don’t come to me with that,” he yelled. “I don’t have to hide behind my son or anyone. You want to know the truth? Well, hear me and hear me good, Eva. We are not going to have a baby, so get the idea out of your head. Find yourself a hobby or something and maybe in a couple of years, things will be different.”

  Eva ran out of the bedroom sobbing, slamming the door behind her.

  “Okay, Harper Stenberg, have it your way,” she cried as she raced down the stairs. “You don’t want me to have your baby then maybe it’s time for me to start thinking outside the box.”

  Chapter 11

  “Sometimes who you love isn't who you need.” K. Nola

  Seconds after she stepped inside the house, Avery dropped her purse on the end table, kicked off her pumps, and headed straight to the downstairs bathroom. Opening the medicine cabinet, she retrieved the bottle of meds prescribed for depression, opened it, and poured one out in her hand. Next, moving several toiletries aside, she removed a plastic container that looked like a lotion bottle. Opening it, she took out a Xanax and popped it along with the antidepressant into her mouth.

  Avery had a doctor she went to see monthly who prescribed Xanax without question. The doctor didn’t know that Avery had tried to commit suicide two months prior, and she was not about to be the one to enlighten him. She turned on the faucet at the bathroom sink, cupped her hands underneath the cool water, leaned down, and took a couple of swallows to wash the pills down.

  As she stood up, she studied herself in the mirror. She tilted her head from one side
to the other, rather slowly. She wasn’t conceited, but she considered herself to be an attractive woman. She was confident and she was smart, so why had she been so stupid as to suggest her husband go to bed with her and another woman? She had been drinking that night, and had taken two or three Xanax. That had to be the reason. She wasn’t thinking rationally. But no matter whether she had been thinking rationally or not, it was no excuse for Ryker and Olivia to jump in the bed together like two rabbits in heat!

  Tears traveled down her face. “Don’t you do it,” she yelled at the woman staring back at her in the mirror. “Don’t you dare cry. No man is worth killing yourself over. No man is worth getting wrinkles over. Straighten up your face, get yourself together.”

  Avery washed her face then walked out of the bathroom as she began to feel the calming effects of the Xanax.

  ●

  “Mommy, Mommy.” Avery heard Lexie and Heather calling her name. “Mommy, wake up,” Lexie told her, pushing her back and forth as Avery laid asleep across the sofa in the family room.

  She didn’t remember dosing off. What time was it anyway? Slowly opening one eye, then the other, she looked at her daughters.

  “Hi, there,” she said to each of them, sitting up and kissing each one on the forehead. “How was school?”

  “It was good,” Heather replied.

  “Mommy,” Mrs. Gates said to ask you if you could pick us up from school tomorrow.

  “She has an appointment,” Lexie added.

  “Sure. No problem. I’ll call her later and let her know. It’s only one day before it’s my carpool day anyway.”

  “What are you doing home so early?” she asked Ryker as he suddenly walked into the family room.

  “I didn’t know I had to have permission to come home early.”

  “Hi, Daddy,” Lexie said.

  “Hi, sweetheart,” he answered. “Hello, munchkin,” he said to Heather.

  “Hi, Daddy,” Heather replied.

  Ryker walked over to the girls, kneeled down beside them, and hugged them both.

  Avery rolled her eyes at him as she sat all the way upright on the sofa. “Girls, I’ll fix you a snack until dinner is ready. Come on,” she said to them as she got up off the sofa and sauntered into the open kitchen overlooking the family room.

  Lexie and Heather ran ahead of their mother and hopped on the stools in front of the kitchen island.

  When Avery looked back, Ryker had disappeared.

  Ring. Ring. It was the house phone. She ignored it, knowing that usually whenever the house phone rang, it was someone calling for Ryker.

  She was surprised when she heard him on the intercom telling her to pick up the phone. Avery wiped her hands on a dishtowel and went to get the phone sitting on the other end of the kitchen counter.

  “Hello,” she said into the phone.

  “Hi, where’s your cell phone? I’ve been calling you. I was getting worried when you didn’t answer.”

  It was Eva.

  “Oh, I left it in my purse, so I didn’t hear it. I took a nap after you dropped me off. What’s up? You okay?”

  “Just went another round with Harper about the same thing. I know you have your own problems, and I don’t mean to weigh you down with mine, but you’re my best friend. You’re the only one I can talk to.”

  “Listen, I don’t want you to feel that you can’t talk to me, especially when you know I’ve had to cry on your shoulder more than I can count.” Avery lightly chuckled.

  “Meesha and Peyton, they’re…well I don’t want to hear Meesha’s mini-sermons and you and I both know the only time any of us can talk to Peyton is when she’s sober.”

  “Yeah, right…when she’s sober. How often is that?” Avery laughed into the phone.

  “I know, right.” Eva laughed too.

  “So, what did Harper say this time? I take it he’s still against having a baby?” Avery sat a dinner plate with peanut butter, banana, and jelly sandwiches on the island in front of the girls and two cold bottled waters.

  “Yes, he’s still using the fact that he wasn’t a good father as his reason for not wanting me to have a child. It doesn’t make sense. Like I told him, I know I would be a good mother. I can take care of a child whether he’s at home or not.”

  “What are you going to do?” Avery asked, leaving the girls in the kitchen and walking back into the family room so they couldn’t be all in her conversation.

  “I’m thinking about, well, really I’m thinking about going off the pill. I don’t have to tell him.”

  “Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

  “At this point, I don’t care what Harper thinks. I want a baby, Avery. I’m not getting younger so you know what that means. The longer I wait the more difficult it could be for me to get pregnant.”

  “You’re not even thirty yet, so you still have plenty of time. You don’t start losing your eggs until you’re thirty-five.”

  “Whose side are you on?” Eva asked.

  “Come on now, do you have to ask? I was just saying that you should weigh your options. I don’t want things between you and Harper to disintegrate like me and Ryker’s relationship.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to happen. And as far as you and Ryker, I believe things are going to work out.” Eva tried reassuring Avery. “Ryker was terrified when you tried to take your own life. You should have seen him. The man looked like he was going to lose it any second. He loves you, Avery. He’s just confused, I think. I don’t believe he set out to have an affair. It was only after─”

  “After I put it in his mind. Gosh, I was so stupid. It’s bad enough that he married me knowing about my past. But to know I had to go and mess things up by practically forcing him into Olivia’s arms—”

  “Wait a minute. You didn’t force him to do anything. He made that choice. If he took his marriage as seriously as you say, there is no way he would have gone to bed with another woman. You see that he didn’t go for having a threesome, did he?”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “Well, let me say this, just like he said no to the threesome, he could have said no to going to bed with her, but he didn’t. So stop beating up on yourself. And as for what you did in your past, I have to admit, I was taken aback when you said what you said, but that’s because of the way it came out. You just basically blurted it out to me, Meesha, and Peyton. I was shocked, but I thought about it after I got home that evening.”

  “What did you think?” asked Avery.

  “I thought about how we all have something we’re hiding. Maybe I haven’t been a call girl, but I’ve done things in my life that I’m ashamed of. Things I haven’t told anyone. You, at least you were brave enough to trust us with something so personal.”

  “I don’t know why it just came out, but it did. It’s like I had to release it. I’m tired of hiding, tired of living my life like I’m on the run or something. That’s why I fell for Ryker so hard.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Eva.

  “When we met, he knew what I did from the get go, but still it didn’t turn him off. He pursued me knowing that I was just like those two sisters in the Bible.”

  “What two sisters? What are you talking about?”

  “Aholah and Aholibah were their names,” answered Avery. “I learned about them a few years ago at a women’s retreat Meesha organized. You weren’t a member of Perfecting Your Faith then, at least we hadn’t met yet.”

  “I never heard of them.”

  “They were two whores from the time of their youth all the way up to when they were adults. They even bragged about the many men they had slept with. Then there’s another one named Gomer. Gomer was a prostitute when her husband married her. I think his name was….well, I can’t remember his name right off, but he said God told him to marry a whore.”

  “Are you sure all of that’s in the Bible?”

  “Yes, I’m positive. I’ll find where it is and let you know. But either way, I do know
Ryker didn’t let my profession keep him from pursuing a relationship with me.”

  “How did you feel about that? I mean, knowing that you were doing what you were doing for a living, and he was part of it too, because he knew you were a call girl. That says to me that he was looking for what you were willing to dish out. Right?” Eva paused on the phone line.

  “Stop, Lexie,” Heather screamed at her sister, popping her on her hand.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Lexie screamed in return and popped her sister back.

  “Get out of here. Go do your homework,” Avery ordered her girls.

  “Look, girl. We’ll talk later. You go on and check on the kids and Ryker, too,” Eva insisted.

  “Hold up. Eva?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks for not judging me.”

  “Like I told you, you haven’t heard half the stories I could tell you about my life. Buh-bye. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  “Okay, buh-bye.”

  Avery stood in the middle of the family room for several seconds, her eyes casted slightly upward. Lord, I need you.

  Chapter 12

  “Children are a gift from God; they are his reward.” Psalm 127:3 TLB

  “Honey, why don’t you get up and go to your room and lay down if you’re sleepy.” Peyton stopped at the entrance to Liam’s media room when she saw her son slumped back on the sofa with his head lying against the softness of the Italian leather. She noticed quickly that his earplugs, which she could have sworn were a part of his body because he always had them in, were not in his ears. This was totally unlike him because Liam lived and breathed music. There was rarely a time when he wasn’t listening to it through his headphones, blasting the music in his media room, or sitting at his small self-made studio making beats. He also entertained many of his friends who enjoyed music too, but there was something different today. Something about Liam that made her question if he was feeling all right. It was a Friday night, and he didn’t have any friends over, no music playing, nothing.