Dirty Little Secrets (24 page)

When the door buzzed and I let the moving people in, Chrissie’s words were still weighing heavily on my mind. Is that where
I went wrong with Brian? I let all the guilt of my past relationships dictate the direction I went in ours, not feeling worthy
of the gifts and money men so freely gave me in the past, even though they had done so in order to control me and have me
obligated to them. Or maybe I so desperately wanted to belong that I sold myself cheaply for momentary doses of love. Whatever
my reasoning, I was more confused than ever.

I stepped onto my balcony with Ella, and we basked at the beautiful view of the city. I was living in a loft apartment located
on the Hudson River.

“Tyler, this place is gorgeous. Brian really went all out.”

“Yeah, it is pretty great.”

“You don’t seem as excited as I thought you would be. This place is amazing, nothing like your apartment in Brooklyn.”

“I liked Brooklyn.”

“So do I, but I love this place. It was so nice of Brian to do this for you. He really must love you, Tyler.”

“It’s not quite that simple,” I said, knowing that Ella needed to hear the truth.

“What happened, Tyler?” she asked, seeing the distressed look on my face.

“Ella, Brian has been lying to me. He got another woman pregnant, and she’s living with him. He says it’s just temporary,
but I don’t believe his story. He also turned out not to be the gentle lamb I once described to you. When I confronted him
about his deception, he jumped on me.”

Ella sat down on the patio furniture taking it all in. She shook her head. “Tyler, when is this going to stop? Brian is a
cheat and an abuser, just like almost every other man you’ve been with. This has to end. Why are you even here living in this
place? You should be back in Brooklyn beginning your life without Brian in it.”

“I know, but I can’t.”

“Why can’t you?”

“Because as much as I hate him for what he’s done to me and as much I’m determined to make him pay for what he’s done, I…
also love him.” There the sad truth that has been lurking beneath my anger. I put my head in my hands. “I keep wondering what
is wrong with me that men continue to mistreat me and not give me the love that I crave.”

“I blame Mother for this. Since you were a little girl, all you’ve seen is men using physical violence to express their feelings
in a relationship. And whether or not you want to admit it, I know you’ve never gotten over having our real father ripped
from our lives. You were always closer to him than me, and it seems all your life you’ve been trying to fill the void he left.
But a man can’t do that, Tyler.”

“I know, but until I wake up and say enough is enough, being in another crazy relationship is the only thing that brings me
some sort of validation that I’m wanted.”

“Tyler, you are wanted; you just don’t know it yet,” Ella said as she hugged me.

After Ella left, I stayed on the balcony and stared out at the Empire State Building. My mind replayed the heartache that
brought me here. I was so full of anger. Actually I was beyond angry. I was at the boiling point. I tried to medicate the
anger by digging my hands farther and farther into Brian’s pocket. While I was spending his money, did it make me feel any
better? As a matter of fact, it did.

One night I went to meet Brian at his office (he was now the president at a major label) because we were going out to dinner.
It was rather chilly and I decided that I wanted a new coat. A little coat wouldn’t hurt his pockets. We were walking down
Fifth Avenue, when I saw a beautiful coat in the Fendi window. Of course I dragged Brian in the store. I tried on several
other coats, but my heart was set on the one in the window. Not bothering to look at the price tag, I had already made up
my mind that I was getting that coat.

“Excuse me,” I said to the saleswoman. “Could you please get that coat in the window for me? I don’t see it in the store.”

“Why, of course.” She grinned as if she had dollar signs in her eyes.

I tried on the camel-colored coat and viewed myself in the mirror.

“You look stunning,” the saleswoman said. “That is a limited edition. There are only twenty like it in the world.”

“I’ll take it,” I said, not bothering to ask the price. Brian and I walked over to the sales counter, and I lingered on the
side waiting for him to pay. He pulled out his newly issued black American Express card and nearly fell to the floor when
he realized the price.

“Twenty thousand dollars? Are you crazy? You can put that shit back!” Brian paused and looked at me before he said, “I don’t
have a twenty-thousand-dollar coat. I don’t even have a five-thousand-dollar coat.”

His words had no substance because I had already decided that I was leaving with that coat. “Darling, I don’t care if you
don’t have a twenty-thousand-dollar coat. I don’t care if you don’t have a hundred-dollar coat. Hell, I don’t care if you
don’t have a coat at all because this isn’t about you. I want that coat and I deserve that coat,” I said in a sweet saturated
bitchy tone.

As Brian reluctantly handed his card over to the saleswoman, I put my old coat in the bag, threw on my new money coat, and
sashayed out of the store saying, “Mother would be proud of her princess.” Some people say money can’t buy you happiness,
but it can sure make you look damn good while you are disintegrating in misery.

The more money Brian spent on me, the more I asked for and the more resentful he became. Brian felt that if he didn’t give
me what I wanted and didn’t spend his money on me, I would leave him. And you know what? He was right. I would make it clear
every day that I really didn’t give a fuck how he felt or what he thought. If he concluded, because he had some baby mama
and a child, that I was going to be deprived of what I wanted, then fuck him—and them. I became bitchy and said many despicable
things about him, his child, his mother, and anybody affiliated with him. But it really wasn’t me talking. It was the person
inside me, the one who was dying from a broken heart. Overnight I’d become a bitter bitch, and I hadn’t even reached my mid-twenties.
I had never felt so betrayed, and I wanted Brian to feel the pain that he had caused me. I would say and do things just to
bring him grief. I was out for blood, and he was definitely my prey.

No matter what I did, I constantly thought about my situation with Brian, and my anger continued to brew. I became increasingly
curious about who this other woman in his life was. I
had visualized all sorts of scenarios and wanted my mind at rest. My dear friend Melanie, with her great detective work, was
able to obtain Brian’s address. I imagined him living in some elaborate house, like the estates in Timberline at Alpine, and
playing house with a beautiful woman and an adorable child. If true, it would give me the strength to just walk away. I would
have to bow out gracefully because no woman can ever compete with a package like that. I know when something is a losing battle.
I can embrace that disappointment and move on.

All women should know that if you ever meet a man who has a beautiful woman and a beautiful child and they are living an ideal
life, well, you can never come between that. Even if the man decides to be with you, part of his heart will always be with
them. I had to see once and for all if that was what I was up against.

“Melanie, pull over. That’s the place right there,” I said, pointing to a small condo complex.

“Hmm, this is where big-time music producer Brian McCall lives? I thought he would be living a little better than this,” Melanie
moaned.

“You know Brian, always saving for a rainy day.”

“He must be trying to save for a rainy year by the looks of this place.”

“It’s not that bad, Melanie.”

“For the type of paper he’s making, it ain’t that good.”

Ignoring Melanie’s comment, I glanced at my watch, calculating the time I believed Beverly would show up. Brian was at the
studio and would be there until late, so I figured she would be home soon because of the baby. Fifteen minutes later we saw
a car pull up that resembled Brian’s, and a couple of seconds later a
woman stepped out. I was on the passenger side so she and I were basically face-to-face. I knew it was Beverly. I politely
smiled and said, “I’m sorry. I’m lost; this is the wrong address.”

“No problem,” the woman said after a long pause. As Melanie made a U-turn, my blood pressure started to rise.

“This is what that nigga fucked up my heart for? A pathetic life in the cut with this chick? Unbelievable! Take me home.”

When I got to my apartment I crawled into bed, and all I could say was, Why me?

A few days later Brian and I were off to Los Angeles for the Soul Train Awards. It was freezing in New York, and I knew the
LA sun would do me some good. We stayed at my favorite hotel, the L’Ermitage Beverly Hills. The room had a contemporary decor
with a delicate infusion of Euro-Asian ambiance. While I was in the spacious walk-in closet getting dressed for the awards,
the eye-spy encounter with Brian’s baby mother kept flashing in my head. I was rolling my eyes at him, so he finally snarled,
“Why you giving me those dirty looks? What’s on your mind?” I shrugged my shoulders, avoiding the conversation. But then he
had the audacity to say, “If you’re wondering if she picks out my clothes, she doesn’t.”

I wanted to scream, “I don’t give a fuck whether she picks out your clothes or picks out your ass! I’m trying to figure out
what the fuck is wrong with me, that I’m dealing with a contemptible rat like you!” But I knew that would ruin our evening.
I was thinking it so hard though, I wondered if he could read my mind.

I knew I needed to leave Brian, but I wanted to take him down. We were together in the physical form, but there was no respect.
In fact, I had zero respect for him. To guarantee that was
clear, at any given opportunity I’d embarrass him in front of his friends by being rude and disrespectful. Hell, they weren’t
my friends. They were the same clowns who stayed in the mountains with me for months and months, hee-heeing and ha-haing.
But while they were in my face running off at the mouth, none of them bothered to reveal Brian had a girlfriend and a baby
on the way. They were probably too busy hiding their own skeletons. But by this time I didn’t give a damn what they thought
about me, because it couldn’t have been any worse than what I thought about them.

Brian and I were sitting in the third row at the Soul Train Awards, and every time someone came up to him, he introduced me
as his girlfriend. “Don’t you feel like a hypocrite introducing me as your girlfriend when you already have one sitting at
home with your baby?”

“We already discussed this. Beverly isn’t my girlfriend. You are,” he howled.

“Oh, so she’s just your live-in baby mother?”

“Temporarily. I’m working on that. You need to stop worrying about Beverly and concentrate on us. She is irrelevant to our
relationship.”

“You don’t care what people are probably saying behind your back? Oh, he got his baby mother stashed at home and his socalled
girlfriend on his arm.”

“Hell, no. I don’t care. The dirty laundry these motherfuckers got stored in their closets makes mine look sparkling clean.”

Brian constantly ridiculed his friends and industry peers for their trifling behavior. He considered himself different and
of a higher moral standard, and he would never approve of their indecency. I now had more respect for them than him, because
at least they were straight up with the chicks they messed around
with. For instance, one of Leon’s jump-offs, Courtney, was in LA too, but she knew her position. When Brian and I went to
Leon’s room to get him, Courtney answered the door in her pajamas. When I asked her if she was coming, Leon said, “Nah, she
ain’t going. She’s staying right here and babysitting this room until I get back. You think I’m taking the chance getting
caught out there and letting it get back to my baby mother or one of her friends? Courtney knows what time it is.” Courtney
kissed Leon as he walked out the door, and told us bye like it was all good.

The next day Brian and I were strolling around the Beverly Center, when all the built-up anger in me boiled over. “I hate
you and I hate myself even more for being in this nightmare called a relationship,” I bawled, not caring who heard me. These
outbursts were becoming frequent, and Brian became so fed up, he flipped out and bitch slapped me right there in the Beverly
Center.

There it was once again: the cycle. They hit you once; they hit you twice. They hit you again, again, and again. Violence
soon became a normal part of our relationship. I would beat him with my words. He would beat me with his fist. I got back
at Brian by making him jealous. The dysfunction continued. And got worse.

I was becoming increasingly aggravated with how slowly things were progressing with Brian. Earlier that day we had gotten
into a huge argument because I dared to ask how much longer it was going to take before Beverly was on her own and out of
his life. I knew she would never be completely nonexistent, because they shared a child together, but their living under the
same roof was taking a greater emotional toll on me than I
expected. After our heated confrontation, I stormed out of my apartment and went to see Melanie. When I first left, I refused
to answer Brian’s calls, but if nothing else, he’s persistent.

Pacing back and forth at Melanie’s apartment I said, “I’m sick of you and this emotional roller coaster that seems to have
no end in sight!” I sat down on her burgundy sofa.

“Save it, Tyler, you’re the silly bitch that doesn’t want to get off ranting and raving about the same shit over and over
again. You think you’re fed up? I’m spending more time and money on you than ever before, but instead of being content, you
complain like an old nagging wife. Fuck that. You’re worse than a wife. If we were married, I wouldn’t have to put up with
half of your crazy-ass demands. These shenanigans are wearing me down.”

“Well, you don’t have to be bothered with it any longer. I’m done fucking with you. The next man will be more than happy to
pick up where you left off.”
Click
was all he heard as he let out a word in response.