An Inconvenient Friend (6 page)

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Authors: Rhonda McKnight

BOOK: An Inconvenient Friend
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“Greg isn't here.”
“Oh, he's still working?”
“At seven-thirty on a Friday night?” Angelina rolled her eyes. “He's working, but it's not with a patient.”
“What does that mean?”
“Do I really need to spell it out? It means he's cheating.” Angelina pulled the phone away and looked at it like it had offended her, then returned the receiver to her ear to absorb the dead silence that came from the other end. “I know there's another woman. He keeps denying it. I'm trying to hang in here, but if things don't better—”
“Slow down. You can't think like that.”
“Think like what? Someone who doesn't want to be walked all over? You know this isn't the first time ...” She let her words trail off. They'd had this conversation before. Angelina sank down on the mattress, scooted across the bed, and pulled her knees into her chest. “Don't you want me to be happy, Mom?”
“Greg is a good provider. You have a lovely life, lovely things.” Her mother stated the obvious while ignoring the happiness question.
Angelina rolled her eyes upward. Sorrow enveloped her.
“This is a season. It's not forever,” her mother continued. “All men do this type of thing. You don't think your father was faithful to me all those years before he left, do you? Don't be naïve.”
Angelina swallowed the words that were on the tip of her tongue. The temptation to remind her mother that hanging in there with her father hadn't done her any good. In the end, she was still alone. He had still left. But she didn't want to hurt her mother. She was already hurting enough for the two of them, plus she knew it wouldn't do any good. Her mother was incapable of being a friend, incapable of thinking about the emotional impact of anything she was going through. Even as a seven-year-old, Angelina had to go through the loss of her father alone.
“Angelina, Angelina.” Her mother's voice clamored. “Are you listening to me? Don't be a fool. Girlfriends are a distraction. They never mean anything.”
Tears began to stream down Angelina's cheeks. She stared at the shredded shirt, the telling lipstick stain on the collar, and tried with all her might to push the pain in her heart out of her body, out through her pores. She wiped her eyes with a free hand and told her unsympathetic mother how she felt. “She does mean something, Mom. She means something to me.”
Her mother's sigh returned to her.
“I want a husband who's faithful.”
This time her mother's words did not have the pleading fervor. “Let me give you the reality of your situation. You're thirty-seven years old. Have you heard how hard it is for a black woman your age to find a husband? The odds are better that you'll win the lottery.”
Angelina knew that to be true, but did it mean she had to accept ... Her mother cut into her thoughts.
“Why do you think I struggled and scraped to send you to Spelman? You think it was about your education? No, I wanted my daughter to meet and marry a Morehouse man. A man who would be successful, and you did that. I wanted to make sure you didn't end up with someone like your father. Someone who couldn't find a job.”
Angelina resisted the urge to speak her mind, to say,
Daddy left, but it wasn't just because he couldn't find a job.
The letters he'd written to her when she was in college told his side of the story.
“Men cheat,” her mother continued her lament. “But at least you don't have to worry about paying your mortgage.”
Angelina stretched her legs out. “I don't need a man to pay my mortgage. You sent me to Spelman, remember?” Her words were an attempt to counter the argument her mother was making. “I was earning good money before—” She didn't say it, but she meant before she'd quit to take care of Danielle.
“You want children. You can't do that by yourself.” Her mother knew how to turn this argument around. Neither of them said anything. Not for a long time. A child—the potential for a child was the big guns. “You are a black woman. You have to be strong, not emotional. Your husband is a surgeon. That man makes more money in one year than I'll make in ten. Do you know how lucky you are? You've got to keep your eyes on the prize.”
Sorrow filled Angelina's throat, and she choked out her words. “If a cheating husband is the prize, what do the losers get?”
“They get old and alone like me. They have to work until they're seventy, and even then they may not have a good retirement,” her mother snapped. “You need to figure out how to pull him out of that woman's bed, if he's in one. Who knows? You're so paranoid. Always have been.”
That would be because I was raised by you.
Angelina closed her eyes and rubbed her temple with her free hand. “I have to go. I'm starving, and I've got a big day tomorrow, so if there's nothing else ...”
Good-bye hung in the air until her mother spoke. “Nothing else. Just remember what I said.”
They didn't say good-bye to each other. They never did. All their chats ended this way. Ended with her wishing she hadn't taken the call.
Angelina put the phone on the base.
Remember what I said.
How could she forget? They'd been having the same conversation for years. Don't let go of the “ideal black man,” but Angelina wondered how she could keep something she wasn't quite sure she'd taken a hold of yet. She was starting to believe nothing good would ever come of her union with Greg. Until this very moment, the only thing she could look back and see that gave her real joy in the last five years was her baby.
She reached into her nightstand and pulled out the picture of Danielle. She looked at her daughter's beautiful, angelic face. She'd been four months old in this picture. If Angelina had known she didn't have much more time with her, she would have taken a thousand pictures like this.
“Look at those eyes,” she whispered. They were like her eyes, so dark they were nearly black. A startling feature against the baby's cocoa brown skin. From the time that Danielle could open them, she always seemed to be looking right into Angelina's soul. Wise old eyes.
Her mother had commented, when she'd met her granddaughter, “That child been here before.”
Was that why God had taken her away? Was her daughter a mistake from heaven that had to be corrected? Tears returned, but this time they fell like a rain shower down Angelina's cheeks. She pressed the frame against her chest and rocked back and forth on the bed. She did want another chance to be a mother. She wanted that more than anything on God's green earth, but she wasn't getting pregnant. No matter how she timed her ovulation, and no matter how much love making they did, every month her period came like clockwork, and Greg refused to see a fertility specialist.
Angelina had no idea how long she'd been sitting there when she heard the garage door rising, but the tears she'd been crying had long dried up. She brought the picture frame to her lips, kissed it gently, and put it back in the drawer. She stood to her feet and made her way around the enormous California king-sized bed. The shredded, lipstick stained shirt lay on Greg's side; an ugly reminder of her pain and temper that had been abated by her mother's words.
Keep your eyes on the prize.
Angelina reached for the shirt, opened her closet, and threw it into a corner. She stepped into the bathroom, wet a face cloth, and washed the stains of her pain from below her eyes. She shook out her hair and applied a fresh coat of lip gloss to bring some color to her face. It was time to go downstairs and greet her husband. She was ovulating and all she could hope was that he hadn't left all the virile sperm somewhere else.
Chapter 9
“Sam-Sam-Marie ...” that crap was playing in my head like music when I woke up this morning. I don't know why my mama did that to me. It was like her way of reminding me of my past, but all it did was remind me of my daddy. He would sing that to me. Sang it until the day he walked out of my life. I shook my head. Probably her daggone way of being mean. Mean was her specialty.
I raked hangers back and forth across the rack in Neiman Marcus like I was trying to see which one would make the most annoying scraping sound. After a few minutes, a sales clerk was at my side, taking a hold of one of the hangers I'd discarded, like I'd bruised her baby.
“Is there something I can help you find?” Her voice had an air of friendliness, but her body language delivered a completely different message. She was annoyed at by my mishandling of the merchandise, and she had come to put an end to my abuse.
I put a hand on my hip, looked her up and down from head to toe before I gave her the evilest eye I could manage. She backed up. Good thing or I would have had her fired before lunch. I wasn't in the mood.
I turned and looked at a rack behind me and realized I'd found what I was searching for. The same, or almost the same, brown suit Angelina had been wearing the other night. I looked at the silk blouses they had flanked with it and chose an etched floral pastel that was similar to the one Angelina sported with hers. It was boring. My preference would have been something red, but if I wanted to be a doctor's wife, I had to look the part. Greg would be impressed, and that's all that mattered.
I took my items to the cashier's desk and prayed my Neiman's card wasn't maxed out again. The hanger police accepted my items with a smile, cleared her throat, and took care of my transaction. I was back in my ride within minutes. I was on my way to White Gardens again. I'd had June Bug's drugs for a few days, but thought I'd let him suffer through without them. Who knew, if he started to convulse, maybe somebody would have to call an ambulance and take his drug addicted behind to rehab. But my fantasies of my cousin's painful journey to recovery were not to be so. My mama called last night, looking for the package I'd promised.
My phone rang, and I was pleasantly surprised to see it was Angelina. After the dramatic way I'd scooted out on her, I wasn't sure what she thought of me.
“Hi, Rae. I was calling to see if you were coming to Bible Study on Wednesday?”
I paused like I was thinking about it. That's what a visitor would do. “I'm not sure,” I teased. “I was thinking about passing this week.”
“Don't pass. Come on out and give us another chance.” Her voice was friendly.
I wondered if this was what all churches did to try to get new members. I waited a beat and offered an ambivalent, “Okay. I guess I'll give you all another chance.”
Angelina gave me some details about the scripture she'd been teaching from, which I swore I was writing down, and then we ended the call.
Operation Steal Greg
was in start mode. Now I just had to tie up this business with my mother.
 
 
I had been calling my mama and knocking on the door for almost five minutes. No answer, so I used my key to open the door. I hoped I wasn't going to be walking in on anything I didn't want to see. I knew no matter how much weight my mother gained, she had a boyfriend coming through from time to time.
From where I stood, I could see the living room area was empty, just like the streets outside. My showing up at 11:00
A.M
. was a guarantee I wasn't going to have to deal with seeing any of the losers I grew up with. Except for the few crackheads bobbing around the place looking for their next hit, most folks didn't get moving until close to noon.
I entered the house and closed the door behind me. I heard a rumble that sounded like the garbage truck was parked in the bedroom and knew my mama was in there snoring. I turned the doorknob to her bedroom, and as I suspected, she was knocked out. Thank goodness she was alone. I walked closer to her bed and noted the empty bottle of dark rum. No wonder she didn't hear the phone ringing. If she had finished a bottle of this junk, she would be drooling on her pillow for another couple of hours. I shook my head. I had no idea how many times I had told her that drinking was going to mess with her diabetes, but she clearly didn't heed my warnings.
I reached into my purse and pulled out the envelope with the drugs for June Bug. I also removed a pen and wrote a quick note telling her I had stopped by. I removed a few twenties from my wallet and put them under the envelope. She'd probably buy more liquor with it, but the truth was, I couldn't look at my mother and not hand her something. Everything about her screamed, “I'm broke—give me money.” I shook off the bad feelings from that thought and left her bedroom.
I stepped out of the apartment and turned to relock the dead bolt behind me. The lock was stuck as always and I had to take the time to jiggle the key to get it back out. “Need a locksmith,” I muttered under my breath.
“I'll call one and have her hooked up.” The deep, baritone voice came from behind me. My heart began to pound, and my body nearly melted at the sound of it. I closed my eyes for a second and took a deep breath before I turned. Apparently, I hadn't come to White Gardens early enough. I was looking into the face of Mekhi Johnson. A face I hadn't wanted to see this morning or any other.
Mekhi was dressed in a slick, Tommy Hilfiger running suit. A Rolex watch gleamed from his wrist, and a light sheen of perspiration dotted his bald head and face. Old habits die hard. This joker was still running. Ran cross country track all through high school. Won a lot of medals and trophies too.
Butterflies filled my stomach. “What's up, Khi?” I asked, trying to keep the tremble out of my voice. I pulled my purse tighter across my shoulder, like it was the lifeline that was going to keep my emotions together.
“You know how I do. Keeping in shape,” he replied, staring through me like he had X-ray vision and could see all the way to my underwear. “I see you doing the same.” He swirled his head in an exaggerated movement to the left and right as he checked me out.
I blushed. I hated that he made me do that, and I had to admit, he was looking good. As sweet as a Milk Dud at the movie theatre. Nothing new in that department. The brother had always been fine.
“How's ya' moms?” he asked, his face taking on a more serious expression.
“You might know better than me. Y'all neighbors.”
Mekhi turned his lips up and nodded his head a few times like he was deciphering scientific data. “If I know better than you, that means one thing, Sam. You ain't coming round here enough, and that shouldn't be.”
“
That
, isn't any of your business, but I appreciate your concern for my family matters. I rolled my eyes and walked past him. Mekhi grabbed my hand, stopping me in my tracks. The sudden movement snatched the protest from my lips. Our eyes met and danced for a few seconds. He didn't let go. His skin on mine felt like my hand had been wrapped in a warm glove. The heat of his touch was gentle, but felt firey at the same time.
“Everything about you is my business,” he whispered, lowering his lips closer to mine. I could smell his breath. It was a mix of mouthwash and some other fruity smell. His scent was potent, and urbane. Where was the funk? He couldn't have been running long, because he smelled too good.
“You got that twisted, Mekhi.” I pulled my hand out of his grasp. “I haven't been your business since you showed me what a coward you were.”
Mekhi's Adam's apple bobbed up and down. No doubt he was swallowing his pride. I had inflicted pain, which was what I always wanted to do when I saw him. I was satisfied, and this conversation was over. I walked to my car.
“Sam, you really need to learn how to be a more forward looking sister. I mean, how long you gonna hold that over a brother's head?”
“There are things in life that you never forgive,” I snapped.
Mekhi closed the distance between us. Probably didn't want the neighbors, who were no doubt peeking out through their blinds at this point, to hear him. “It's been eight years, girl. We forgive what we want to forgive. Remember, what comes around goes around. You may need somebody to let you off the hook for something messed up you do.”
Some of the messed up things I'd done skittered through my mind. I'd been sorry things hadn't worked out the way I wanted, but I can't say I wanted forgiveness. I also could definitely say I hadn't hurt anyone who'd really trusted me, like Mekhi had done to me. But that was a moot point, one I didn't want to keep rehashing with him. As much as the little digs into the past put chinks in his armour, they also reopened scabs on my own heart.
I clicked the key fob for the car lock. “I'll keep that in mind.” I opened my door and climbed in. I took one last look at him. His sexy eyes held sorrow, a sorrow that beckoned me to reconsider. His stance, still strong, still hood, was a little less chest out than it had been. I turned away from him, swallowed the sympathy that had risen from my foolish heart, started the engine, and sped away from the curb.

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