Fairplay, Denver Cereal Volume 6 (50 page)

“
You don’t have to tell
us,” Sandy said.

“
But
Rachel
wants all the details!”
Noelle giggled.

“
Rules of dating – a
gentleman never gossips about his date,” Nash said.

The kids fell over each other with
laughter.

“
Date?” Aden asked. “How
did you manage a date tonight?”

Nash looked at him and smiled. Aden shook
his head at Nash. He gave Rachel back to Sandy and sat on the arm
of the couch.

“
So you had fun?” Sandy
asked.

Nash nodded.

“
I’m glad,” Sandy said. “I
wonder when we’ll be invited to Melinda’s parents’ house for
dinner.”

“
Oh yeah,” Nash said. “I
forgot, that’s today for lunch. You don’t mind do you?”

“
Really?” Sandy
asked.

“
No,” Nash
laughed.

The kids laughed. Sandy ruffled his
hair.

“
Do you think Miss Tanesha
and Jeraine are going to… make it?” Noelle asked.

“
No idea,” Sandy said.
“They’ve already been down a long road.”

“
I hope they do,” Sissy
said.

“
Me too,” Noelle said.
“She really loves him.”

“
He’s a tool,” Charlie
said. “Worse than me. Why would you want that for
Tanesha?”

“
I don’t know,” Noelle
said. “They’re meant to be together.”

“
We’ll see,” Sandy said.
“It’s time for bed guys. I know we had a fun night, but we all need
to rest.”

“
Come on,” Aden
said.

He herded the kids toward their bedrooms.
Sandy stayed on the couch with Rachel for few more minutes before
getting up to say goodnight. She went from room to room until she
ended in her own. She settled Rachel in her bassinette and then
slipped into the bed beside Aden.

“
Tired?” he
asked.

“
Not really. What did you
have in mind?”

He rolled over to show her what he’d been
thinking of all evening.

~~~~~~~~

Sunday early-morning—2:42 A.M. MDT

“
What did you think of
Nelson?” Heather asked Blane when he pulled the car into their
garage.

“
Nelson?” Blane smiled at
Heather. Getting out of the car, he went to get Mack from his car
seat. They walked through their backyard to the house.

“
So…?” Heather
asked.

“
Did you set me up with
Nelson?” Blane asked.

“
Maybe,” Heather smiled.
“What did you think?”

“
He’s nice, smart,” Blane
said. “We realized that we’d met before. I guess he knew me when I
was with Enrique.”

Heather took Mack from him and they went up
the stairs toward their bedroom. He used the bathroom while she got
Mack settled in his crib. She went into the bathroom and got ready
for bed. When she came out, he was sitting on the edge of the
bed.

“
Why are you setting me up
with men?” Blane asked.

“
I want you to be happy,”
Heather said.

“
I’m very happy. You know
that. I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my entire life,” Blane
said. “Is there something else…? I mean, do you want to change…
us?”

“
No,” Heather shook her
head.

“
Then what’s going
on?”

Heather’s eyebrows pinched together. Her
face was a mask of sorrow.

“
What’s going on,
Heather?”

“
I know you had a horrible
time with Enrique.” Heather’s words spilled out. “I want you to
have a better experience, be in love and… I can’t stand the thought
of you dying and not ever having a chance to be really in
love.”

Blane’s eyebrows shot straight up. His eyes
traced her face.

“
I can’t stand the thought
of you dying and not having everything life has to offer,” Heather
said. “Are you mad? Please don’t be mad.”

Blane jumped to his feet to hug her.

“
I can’t think of a more
loving thing,” Blane said.

“
I’m going to miss you so
much,” Heather whispered.

“
Shhh,” he said. “I’m
still here. We can still fight.”

“
I won’t ever give up.
Ever. Not until the last moment. Ever.”

“
I won’t ever give up. You
and Mack… you’ve made my life worth fighting for.”

“
Delphie told me Val would
have her baby next week,” Heather leaned back to look at him.
“Wednesday.”

“
I’ll fight to the
end.”

“
Me too.” She tucked her
head into his chest. “Me too.”

~~~~~~~~

Sunday early-morning—4:37 A.M. MDT

Tanesha rolled over to look at Jeraine.

“
Whatcha thinkin’?” He
asked.

“
I’m wondering why you
didn’t divorce me,” Tanesha said.

“
I think the better
question is why you didn’t divorce me,” Jeraine smiled and got out
of bed. He went to the window and opened the curtains. “It’ll be
light soon. I thought we could watch the sunrise then get some
sleep.”

“
Sounds good,” Tanesha
said. “I’d like some…”

“
Tea,” he said. “You know,
I tried that tea of yours. It’s good. Mind if I make us both
some?”

“
Sounds nice,” she smiled
at him.

She slipped out of bed when he left the
room. Hearing him bang around in the kitchen, she went to the
closet. From the bottom of one of her drawers, she pulled out seven
gossip magazines. She folded them to the page she wanted him to see
and laid them out in chronological order with the oldest one on the
left and the latest one on the right. She stepped back to look at
them. Shaking her head at herself, she went in to use the
bathroom.

“
What’s this?” Jeraine
asked when she came out of the bathroom. He set the tray with a pot
of tea, some of Delphie’s honey, and a couple cups on his bedside
table. “When did you start saving gossip magazines?”

“
This is a small selection
of the women people thought you were going to marry,” Tanesha
walked passed him to pour herself some tea.

Jeraine picked up the one on the left.

“
Insiders say new comer
Jeraine and his lady are planning an April wedding,” he read out
loud. “What happened to this one? It looks… torn and
wet.”

“
Tried to flush it down
the toilet,” Tanesha said.

“
Of course you did.” He
gave her a big smile and set the magazine down. “Lies. They only
print lies.”

“
Look at the date,”
Tanesha said. “Look at the ring on her finger. If you missed it,
there’s a bigger picture of the ring near the bottom of the
page.”

Jeraine became very still. His eyes blinked
at Tanesha as if he was trying to work out what she’d said.

“
You’re upset,” he
said.

“
I need to know,” Tanesha
said.

He nodded. He picked up a pair of boxer
briefs from the pile of clothing on the floor and put them on. He
pulled on a clean T-shirt and picked up the first magazine.

“
Let’s see…” Jeraine said.
“God, I don’t even remember her name.”

“
You look happy,” Tanesha
said.

He shook his head at her and looked at the
photo again. Tanesha pointed to the date. His face went ashen. He
swallowed hard.

“
Our year anniversary,”
Tanesha said. “You were leaving your fancy house in the early
morning with some girl you’d spent the night with. The magazine
said you gave her that ring. Did you?”

“
I don’t remember,” he
said. “Probably.”

“
Why didn’t you just
divorce me?” Tanesha asked.

“
Why didn’t you divorce
me?” he asked.

“
Because
you
begged me to marry
you,” Tanesha said. “
You
tricked me into doing it at Jill and Trevor’s
wedding.
You
wanted to be married so bad;
you
could damn sure pay for a
divorce.”

Jeraine nodded at her logic.

“
And these?” he
asked.

“
All women you were
supposed to marry,” Tanesha said. “Minus some. I didn’t keep track
for a long time after the first one. I wasn’t… well.”

“
When you were at
Howard?”

“
This,” Tanesha snatched
the magazine from him. “This right here? This picture is the reason
I graduated early and went to college right away. My girls didn’t
think I was going to survive. They shipped me out of Denver where
everyone knew about you and me to some place where I could start
over fresh. It was good for me to be away from here and
you.”

“
But I saw you when you
were at Howard,” Jeraine said. “You came to see me
sing.”

“
You only thought you
did,” Tanesha smiled. “I never went to a concert, answered a phone
call, a letter, or… There was a girl who looked sort of like me.
She took the tickets and went. She thought it was funny. No,
Jeraine, I was free of you the entire time I was there. This girl,
your perfect fiancé and her perfect diamond scratched out of this
earth by some African child slave gave me the key.”

Tanesha dropped the magazine on the
table.

“
This is hard.” His voice
was low and sad.

“
I went to your rehab –
twice – and listened to every single one of your exploits and
transgressions,” Tanesha said. “You can at least answer a fucking
question.”

“
Why didn’t I divorce
you?” Jeraine asked. “That’s the question?”

Tanesha nodded. He walked to the window to
look out on the park.

“
Were you going to marry
any of these girls?” Tanesha asked.

He turned to look at her. After a moment, he
went to the table and looked at the magazines. He picked up the
fourth magazine in and gave it to her. Tanesha looked down at the
photo.

“
That’s a nice slave
diamond,” she said. “Pricey.”

“
From the looks of it, I
should have bought in bulk,” he said.

Tanesha looked at her own bare hand and at
him.

“
Yeah, like I’m going to
buy a diamond some child slave scratched from the earth for you.”
He turned away from her. “I’d never hear the end of it. You’re not
that easy. You want something more than diamonds. God damn it, I
wish I could just buy you some rock and…”

“
So why didn’t you divorce
me to marry…?” Tanesha looked at the magazine. “Do you remember
this one’s name?”

“
Annette,” Jeraine
said.

“
And how is sweet
Annette?” Tanesha asked.

“
How the hell would I
know?” His voice cracked with frustration. He blew out a breath to
stay calm. “Sorry. You deserve me to calmly and honestly answer
your questions to the best of my ability. I promised I would do
that when you said you’d give me one last chance.”

“
So I’m the island of last
resort? The one too dumb to dump you?”

“
You’re the love of my
life,” Jeraine said.

She gave him a skeptical look. She opened
her mouth to ask the question again.

“
Why didn’t I divorce
you?” Jeraine asked. “I tried. I was going to have a fresh start
with Annette. We were in the middle of making plans for a big
wedding when my lawyer reminded me that I was married. Not like I
forgot. I just… didn’t want… I don’t know. It’s like two worlds –
my life with you and that other life. When I was in one, I had to
forget the other one.”

She nodded.

“
You’ve been there?”
Jeraine asked.

She nodded.

“
Of course,” he said. “I
never could figure out why you didn’t just get rid of
me.”

“
We’re not talking about
me,” Tanesha said. “We’re talking about why you didn’t divorce me
when you were going to marry the lovely Annette.”

He nodded.

“
So why didn’t
you?”

“
I…”

“
The more you hesitate,
the more you need to tell the story,” Tanesha repeated what she’d
heard his therapist tell him. “Did you talk about this in
treatment?”

He shook his head.

“
So why…?”

“
Give me a second,” he
said. “Can you just give me…”

“
Sure.”

He poured himself a cup of tea and held the
pot out to her. She let him fill her cup. Setting the tea pot down,
he turned to look at her.

“
I came to Denver with the
papers,” he said. “All
you
had to do was sign them. All
I
had to do was file them. I went to
your Gran’s and she said you were running a summer camp at City
Park. I thought I’d come over, get you to sign them, and be back on
a plane to New York. One, two, three.”

He shook his head.

“
I don’t know what’s wrong
with me.”

“
I remember you coming to
summer camp,” Tanesha said. “I don’t remember any
papers.”

“
I drove to City Park and
parked in the lot,” he said. “I walked around for a while before I
found you. You had twenty little kids hanging on you. God, you were
so beautiful. You were hot, sweaty, and your hair was all huge
natural afro wild but God… just gorgeous. I watched for about a
half an hour, maybe more. I don’t think I’d been in one place for
more than five minutes at a time for… years… probably. When you
finally got the kids to play a game, I came up and…”