A Taste of Honey (13 page)

“No Khalil. Let me go.”

His next words froze me. “What if you’re pregnant?”

I stood still when he said that. The banging had stopped. Everything was quiet again. I thought about his words. They were full of concern and it was the strangest thing. I hadn’t had anyone speak words of concern for me in so long that it actually stunned me. I hadn’t had anyone worry about me in years. The look on his face assured me that the season of me drifting through life alone was truly over. I wasn’t alone anymore. In that moment I knew that our spirits were connected. I didn’t need to get Rorrie back. I didn’t need revenge. Life itself had taken care of everything. She was out there broken. She’d taken everything from me first and now I was doing it to her. I didn’t need to lift a finger against her. She was reaping what she’d sown.

We were eye to eye. No hint of sadness or remorse for having to turn Rorrie away. He belonged to me. I finally responded to his question. “Why would you ask that?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. It just popped into my head. But if you are, I don’t want you fighting. So please go up…” he didn’t get the words out when the sound of breaking glass scared us both. We looked down and saw a brick on the floor.

He moved toward the door and yelled out to her. A second later she pulled off and her tires squealed as she reached the corner. I knew that Khalil didn’t want me fighting. He’d said it. I also knew that he was concerned about me and the possibility that I could be pregnant, which blew my mind.

As I stared down at the brick the only thing I could focus on was the fact that I knew where Rorrie’s mother lived and then I tried to imagine the look on her face when she saw the same brick on the floor in her mother’s living room.

I
magine my surprise when I walked through my therapist’s door and saw her swaying slowly to the music that she played through the speakers on her computer. She was standing up and listening to Janet Jackson while she sipped from a bottle of fruit O water and dancing in a manner that was actually enticing.

Her secretary had sent me in even though I’d arrived ten minutes early. Cameron obviously hadn’t buzzed for me. She usually wore a blazer but today she was clad in a snug-fitting, Baby Phat, polo-style shirt and a jean skirt that shocked me by revealing an outstanding shape.

I knocked on the door to get her attention. She turned around and from the look of embarrassment on her face it was apparent that if she were white she would have turned as red as a can of Coca-Cola. “That must be some bottle of water.” I laughed to break the ice.

She looked at her watch and then laughed it off. “You’re early. Was Jackie at the desk?”

“Yeah, she sent me in.”

She nodded then grabbed her sweater from her chair. “Excuse me for one second.” Cameron headed out of the office, surely to go chew her secretary out.

When she walked back in three minutes later she was wearing her sweater and she seemed fine. I’d already taken a seat and she was ready to get down to business.

“So how have you been Khalil?”

“I’ve actually been good.”

“The dreams? No recurrences?”

“No not really. I mean no.” She nodded suspiciously or my mind was working too hard. Changing the subject I blurted out, “I saw the woman who abandoned me as a child. I saw her at the airport in L.A.”

“You mean your mother?”

“No, Frannie. She was my father’s girlfriend.”

She scribbled down something. “So she wasn’t your mother, but you chose to use the word
abandoned
. Why do you think that is?”

“Well, she was like a mother to me. The only mother I knew for the early years of my life.”

“I remember the story. I have to ask you a question though. Now that you are an adult, do you think it was her responsibility to take care of you?”

“Not legally, no I don’t, but morally, yes. Yes I do. In the same position, it’s what I would do. She knew what she was leaving me behind to face.”

“You mean the drugs or the sexual abuse?”

“All of it. She left me behind. She knew what I was facing. She knew my father was on drugs, though it did get worse, or rather,
out of control when she left. She still had to know that there was no way I’d be okay after she left.”

“So do you blame her or your father for what happened to you? For the life you lived.”

“You mean the life I didn’t live.”

She shrugged. “Or do you blame yourself?”

My eyebrows rose. “Why would I blame myself?”

“You’d be surprised. Victims do it all the time.”

“But I was only a kid. What could I have done?”

“That’s the question. Maybe you think you could have done something. Fought her off. Told someone. Gone to the authorities about the drugs or the abuse.”

“Cameron, no kid does…”

“You’d be surprised. Each case is different though. We’re talking about you.”

“I blame my father. He wasn’t a real man. A real man takes care of his child. I blame my mother. She was weak and evil and selfish. And I blame Frannie, because she wasn’t like my parents. She could have helped. She could have saved me.” I felt the tears beginning to come. I was embarrassed that she was taking me there.

Her face showed compassion now. “Khalil, if you need…”

I interrupted her as a thought flooded my mind. “I could have done something but…” The same compassionate stare. She was waiting for this. “…I could have stopped it, but I think I liked it. I liked what she did to me. I hadn’t had anything good in my life for a long time. No one else paid me any attention good or bad. Tenille was the only one,” I said as I began to cry the tears of shame. I covered my face and let it all out.

“It’s okay, Khalil. It’s okay.” A moment later and I heard her
shut the door. She then kneeled at my side and handed me a Kleenex. “Let it out. It’s okay to feel all that you feel. Those feelings are yours. Own them and then we’ll work on letting them go.”

I continued to cry for at least a minute as I thought about everything that I’d been through. My chest moved in and out as if I’d just run a four-minute mile. “I loved Frannie. I did and she left me.”

“It probably really hurt her to do that. She probably didn’t think there was anything she could do, Khalil. Did you get her number when you saw her at the airport?”

“Yes.”

“You need to call her and talk to her. Just be honest with her. Just be honest.”

I tried to calm myself. I was in so much pain. Cameron handed me more Kleenex. She reached up to wipe my face and I felt her hands on my cheeks. I looked up from my palms and she was right there in my face. And I couldn’t have written a worse ending to the session, but she leaned in and kissed me on the mouth. I never realized that I felt anything for her emotionally that would have made me respond. But physically, she’d always enticed me. Many times I’d fantasized about bending her over this desk. I kissed her back and we stood up, lips locked.

A second later and my right hand was up her shirt caressing one of her globes and hers was at my crotch. It was like a lightning bolt when I heard her use the words, “Fuck me, Khalil.”

The words were different but they triggered the memory of Honey’s request.
“Take me upstairs and make love to me…Now.”

I pulled away and said, “Stop.”

She was stunned. The look on her face told me so. “Please, Khalil. I know it’s wrong, but I want you. Just this one time.”

My head could have fallen off my shoulders and rolled out of the office. I couldn’t believe that my therapist had lost control like that. I wanted to ask her who
she
was. Instead I told the truth. “I’m in love. I can’t do this.”

“You can.” Her voice was seductive. “It’ll never happen again. I…”

I cut her off. “I have to go.” I turned and walked out of her office and didn’t look back.

C
all me petty but I felt a sense of exhilaration as the glass crashed. I’d launched the same exact brick through Rorrie’s mother’s window that she’d sent through Khalil’s. As a matter of fact, I’d wished that I had another so I could have thrown two. When I heard the alarm going off inside of the house something told me to take off running. I must have looked like a lunatic for certain as I scurried toward my vehicle looking like I’d just stolen something.

I was half hoping that Rorrie would come out of the house and get some but instead I had to take satisfaction in sending the message that she could be touched. It was ten after two in the afternoon and I was running late. I’d dropped Khalil off at his appointment and set off to run a few errands. The dry cleaning and grocery store, he knew about, the brick I’d hidden in my Chloé bag, I had decided was classified. No need to worry him.

I zipped up Alabama Avenue, headed for Pennsylvania, and turned left. I blew down the hill, glanced over at Pope Funeral Home, where my mother’s funeral was held, and blew a kiss. I
crossed the Anacostia River and was in Capitol Hill in no time flat. When I pulled up in front of the building where I’d dropped Khalil off I didn’t see him so I put on the hazards and double-parked. I climbed out and prepared to grab us a couple of lattes from the Starbucks next door.

I didn’t make it to the curb when he came walking out of the building. He didn’t see the woman behind him, because when she reached for his arm he was startled. He yanked away and said, “Let it go.”

When he turned around and saw me he looked a little shocked but went right with, “Come on, let’s go.”

I tossed him the keys and I moved toward the passenger door. The woman who’d followed him outside stood there watching us. I looked back at her and gave her a real good look, since she’d been staring at me so hard. I was thinking,
Take a picture, bitch. It’ll last longer
.

We pulled off and I asked, “What was all that about?”

“Nothing.”

“So, that was your therapist?”

“Yeah.”

We drove in silence for the next few minutes. I knew enough about men to know when they want to be left alone. He had that look. I sang along to the radio. We were listening to Michel Wright’s show on WPGC. After a quick voiceover, an oldie came on, Case’s “Faded Pictures.”

I sang each word,
“As she turned through the pages, the tears rolled down her face, I could see her reminiscing why her life had to be this way.”

“I didn’t know you could sing.”

“I can a little.”

“Nah. You sound good. Really good.”

“Thanks, you’re too kind.”

We pulled up to the house and I told him that I had a few groceries in the back. He climbed out the car and said, “I’ll take it around and park in the garage and bring the rest of the stuff in the back.”

“Cool.” I climbed out with two bags in my hand and he pulled off. I made it to the first step and I heard the voice again.

“Bitch, you’re fucking my man.” I looked a few cars down and there she was, finally. Rorrie in the flesh. As she approached, she said, “We need to talk…and…” She stopped mid-sentence when I turned and looked her in the face.

It was then that I saw she realized who she was talking to. If I could have taken that picture it would have won a prize. All of the emotions that must have been running through her mind at the time appeared on her face at once. The part that was hating the other woman, the shock that she absorbed when she realized that it was me, the deep shame for what she’d done to me, and finally, the fear that she was about to take a beat-down for killing my mother.

She tried to speak but initially only air came out of her lungs. “H…Hai…Hailey, is that you…you?”

I paused and looked her in the eye. “Yeah, it’s Hailey. Do I know you?”

“It’s me Rorrie. We grew up together,” she said.

I couldn’t believe that she bought that I didn’t recognize her. She hadn’t changed a bit: always book-smart, she was always gullible. In all fairness I had to admit that she was still cute though not as cute as me. Same shape, same everything. How could I not have recognized her? “Oh yeah. Rorrie.” I played it cool. I was going to wait on her to jump out there. It was obvious she hadn’t seen the brick through her window yet.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I live here. With my boyfriend.”

“Khalil? Khalil is
your
boyfriend?”

“Yes. We just started dating.”

“Khalil is my fiancé,” she squeaked out. “Are you the woman I spoke to on the phone a couple of weeks back? Did you say you were pregnant?”

I smiled, finally ready to stick the dagger in her and watch her crumble. “Rorrie, I know all about your now-canceled joke of an engagement. I was also here this morning when you threw a brick in the window. You’ll find that same brick in your mother’s living room when you get home. If that’s where you’re staying?”

“My mother lives in Temple Hills now. She’s been there for six years. What are you talking about?”

Oh shit, I’ve bricked an innocent person’s home. Oh well
, I thought. “Never mind me. So how can I help you?”

“How can you help me? You are sleeping with my man. He and I are getting married.”

“You mean you
were
getting married.”

“No, this is just a thing he’s going through. I’m going to need you to back off.” She was beginning to sound frantic. “How did you meet him anyway?”

“Does that matter?”

“I just want to know.” She shook her head in disbelief. “I don’t understand any of this.”

“If you must know, we met out of town. I’ve been living out of state until recently. Khalil and I, we met on a flight and joined the Mile High Club.”

She looked like she was turning green. “I can’t believe this.”

“Believe it, skank. And you’d better be glad that I might be
pregnant or else I’d be forced to beat that ass simply on principle.”

“Pregnant?” It was too much for her to cope with. First, I watched as her face contorted as if she were going through labor pains. Then, like I’d set off a bomb, she began to shriek at the top of her lungs and without warning she began to charge me. She lowered her body as she got close to me, reached out, and tried to tackle me.

I responded by sidestepping and dishing out several punches to her face, watching her fall to the ground. She was a wild woman but not wild enough for all the pent-up rage that I’d carried for years.
Who comes to a fight with her hair out?
I thought. To keep Rorrie from getting her bearings as she tried to make it to her feet, I reached for the top of her head. I had a fistful of her locks in seconds and I wasn’t letting go. I was like a heavyweight wrestler exacting punishment on an opponent; everywhere my hand moved, her head followed. I began to pound her face with my free hand, ignoring her cries of pain.

It was insane. I wanted to destroy her but something told me to go easy on her. I wasn’t interested in catching a charge but I needed to send her a message.

“Let me go,” she yelled.

“This is what…you…wanted,” I panted as I whaled on her. My Tae Bo paid off. I wasn’t throwing girly punches. I hit her so hard I think I could have knocked a man down with a few of the blows.

She swung wildly, trying to free herself, and one of her fingers poked me in the eye. I let her go and I was surprised that she still had so much fight in her. She was on me while I recoiled from the pain. I tried to back away but lost my footing and suddenly
she was on top of me. Instead of punching me she wrapped both her hands around my throat and tried to choke me. She was actually trying to kill me.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the front door open, and Khalil appeared. “Heyyyyy, stop,” he yelled out as he made his way down. Though I knew I’d gotten the best of her to this point, there was no way I was going to let him pull her off of me. Before he could reach us I swung my knee up into her back and she screamed as I tried to crush a rib. When this didn’t instantly break her grip, I pulled my legs up and out, the benefit of my bedroom skills. Before she knew it my calf muscles were at her neck. I had no problem yanking her off of me. As Khalil jumped in between us I told him to step back.

“This is bigger than you, Khalil. Just chill and fall back for a minute.”

“What? I’m not going to sit up here and watch you two fight.”

Rorrie then chimed in, “How could you do this to me, Khalil? How could you do this with her? I told you about her.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“I told you about my friend Hailey. The whole incident about her mother being killed.”

“This is Honey.”

They both looked at me. “My real name is Hailey, but no one has called me that since my mother was killed. I didn’t let anyone call me that. Hailey died when my mother died.”

“That’s bullshit. Ask her where the name Honey came from.”

I jumped at Rorrie, ready to swing again. Khalil grabbed me and stopped me from round two.

“So you recognized Rorrie when you saw her picture?” he asked. “When you asked about her, you knew who she was?”

I nodded my head. “I recognized her. Yeah, I did.”

“You conniving little…” Before she could finish her sentence I swung lightning fast with accuracy and slapped her so hard saliva flew from her mouth.

She tried to charge me but this time I had my feet planted and I swung both fists in her face, creating a clothesline effect. Her legs kept coming but her head stopped. She fell to her back.

“Stop it,” Khalil commanded. “Honey, go inside.”

I stood still. “I’m not going anywhere. She needs to leave before she gets hurt—” We both looked down at Rorrie and I finished with “—Worse.”

He nodded. I watched him lean over and help her up. “Rorrie, you have to go. You can’t keep coming around her starting trouble.” My arms were folded. I’d won the battle and the war all in one day.

The tears began to fall. It was the part of the story where the sad, slow song would have started if it was a movie about her life. “If that’s how you want it. Then I hope you two are happy.” She turned and began to walk away. I knew she didn’t mean one syllable of what she’d said. Almost to her car, she turned and said, “Khalil, don’t forget that I told you why her mom was killed because she was sleeping with anyone who had a pocket full of money.”

I charged her and she, realizing she’d had enough of me, jumped into her car. As she pulled off we made eye contact and I knew that, in spite of the box of whoop-ass I’d opened up on her, there was a chance I’d see her again. I just wanted to make sure that if I did it would be on my terms.