Fool and Her Honey (9781622860791) (10 page)

“Yes, ma'am,” I answered again.

“If you cain't live with him in peace, then you get up and leave his sorry ass. Ain't no sense in living miserable for the rest of your life. Then, when you dead and gone, that same man gone be sitting there at your funeral, telling everybody how he would do anything to get you back, when truth be told, he the one that ran you to your grave in the first place. And guess where all them no-good skanks he done slept with gone be? They gone be somewhere nearby, just waiting for them to drop you in the ground so they can drop their drawers for him again. I'm telling you what I know. I done seen it happen time and time again.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Now, I been watching you come up in here for the past month with your face all long and drawn out, looking right pitiful, and I know what that look mean.” She paused and studied my face for a few seconds. “I know what it mean. Done seen it too many times before. Now what you gotta do is ask yourself if you got any strength left.”

She stared directly into my eyes, demanding an answer, but I kept quiet, because honestly, I didn't know.

“Well, do you?”

“I . . . I think so.”

“Chile, you don't know your own strength. You know you ain't got to put up with no man and his bullshit.” Hearing her cuss made me giggle. “You gone and get yourself together and move on and have yourself a happy life. Don't you think you deserve to be happy?”

“Yes.”

“So what you sittin' round for? Gone and be happy. Be happy with him, or be happy without him. If he taking good care of you and paying the bills like he supposed to be doing, let him go on, and you find you a little something on the side.”

All right, she was going a bit too far by suggesting that I start cheating on my man just to balance things out. I just didn't have it in me to do that. I'd leave him before I'd cheat.

“What's good for the goose is good for the gander. You make sure you remember that, hear?”

“But what about love, Ms. Maybelle?”

“Chile, love is overrated. It don't put money in the bank or pay no damn bills.” She went on for a few more minutes, then ended her speech with, “Now, fix your face and gone and curl my hair. I got somewhere to be after a while.”

While I flipped and rolled my Marcel irons through her hair, I mulled over everything she'd said. How sad it was to think that there was no such thing as a faithful mate. You mean to tell me, Eddie Murphy had told us right in his standup comedy film
Eddie Murphy Raw
way back when? Ms. Maybelle did have a point, though. I was quite miserable every time I thought about Bertrand's possible indiscretions and how much they just tore into my heart. I wanted to love him and work things out, but I just couldn't. It hurt too bad. It was too close to my past.

By the time I left Ms. Maybelle's house that evening, my mind was made up. I was going to leave Bertrand. And not because I hated him so much, but because I knew that I would never really trust him. I would never look at him the same; making love would never feel pure and honest. I'd never again feel like he really did love me. Eventually, we'd both be terribly miserable, and that wouldn't be fair to either of us. Especially to me, who had been faithful, even overlooking my own moral convictions.

Everything Bertrand did was suspicious to me. Everything. If he showered for an extra five minutes, I'd peek in the tub to see if he was masturbating, with thoughts of Miranda on his mind for sure. If he was late coming in from work, I was unsettled with his explanation of trying to finish up a project or a meeting that ran over. If he dressed a particular kind of way, I wondered who he was on his way to meet. I shared my thoughts with Candis and Celeste when we met at Pizzeria Bianco that weekend, spliting one of the shop's specialties, the Wiseguy, a pizza made with roasted onion, smoked mozzarella and fennel Sausage.

“You messed up when you told him about those panties,” Candis said. “Now you will never find out if he's cheating, because all he is going to do is hide it better.”

She had a point. I'd alerted Bertrand that my antennae were up, so now he'd be super careful, whereas he might have gotten increasingly sloppy if I'd said nothing.

“You should have just kept it to yourself until you had more information,” Candis added.

“That's easy to say when you don't have to sleep in the bed beside him,” I argued. “After a while, saying that I have a headache while I try to figure things out doesn't really work.”

“So don't say that. Just say no,” Candis suggested.

“That sounds silly,” Celeste commented. “How are you going to refuse to have sex with your man? She already thinks he's cheating. All that's going to do is push him further out there . . . if that's what he's doing.”

“Well, I wouldn't keep sleeping with him if I thought he was slippin', tippin', and dippin'. That's how people mess around and catch stuff they can't get rid of,” Candis argued.

Hearing her words made a knot form in my stomach, not that I hadn't thought about that before. It just seemed better to ignore the thought than embrace it.

“Seriously Dina, do you think he's cheating on you?” Celeste asked.

Before I could answer, Candis interjected, “You know what they say. If you think he's cheating, he's cheating. Don't you be no fool, Dina. You ain't crazy.”

“She can't go around just being suspicious without cause, either.”

“She's not being suspicious without cause. She's got a reason to be,” Candis countered.

“Dina, have you talked to Bertrand about your insecurities?”

“We've had a couple of conversations, but they've not been pleasant,” I mumbled.

“What is he saying?” Celeste asked.

“I bet he's saying what every man says when his woman asks him if he's cheating. ‘No, baby! I love you, and I only want to make love to you! I'd be a fool to cheat on you.' Whatever. Call me Sunshine Anderson, because I've heard it all before,” Candis said, ending in song.

“All right, Candis. Stop it. You're going to make me cry,” I said, shoving her arm and almost knocking the slice of pizza she held out of her hand. “I just don't know what to believe. Which is the exact same place I was in years ago, when I was married to Cameron, and he was playing me like a damn video game.”

“You're in a tough spot, Dina, but the only way to get past it is to talk with Bertrand,” Celeste suggested. “You might have to get some counseling to deal with your unresolved issues with Cameron.”

“Unresolved? Girl, please. I resolved those issues when I divorced him,” I said in my defense.

“I don't think so. Sounds to me like you've carried the mistrust from your first marriage into your current relationship,” Celeste almost whispered.

“No, I haven't! I've always trusted Bertrand up until now. I wasn't like this before, peeping and looking in every nook and corner for clues of something going on.”

“I think you have and just don't realize it,” Candis threw in. “Because why else would you be just randomly going through his drawers?”

“What's wrong with me doing that? We're an engaged couple. I could see if we were just dating and I was spending the night at his place, but I'm supposed to be his wife, and I have a right to look at everything in that house.”

“You might have a right, but did you have a reason?” Celeste asked.

Which got me thinking. What had been my reason for digging through his things? “I don't believe in living life blind. I think everybody ought to keep their eyes open, and there's nothing wrong with being aware of your surroundings.”

“Being aware of your surroundings and looking for dirt are two different things.” Celeste concentrated her eyes on me with raised brows.

“I say more power to you. If there is dirt to be found, find it before it attacks and kills you. You've heard about people getting sick because their house is full of mold and they didn't know it. An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure,” Candis said, rolling her eyes.

“Finding dirt is not prevention, Candis,” Celeste said. “Finding dirt means the damage is done, and that's the part Dina doesn't know yet.”

 

 

And it was the not knowing that was killing me. It worried me all that night and throughout the next day, while I was at work.

Bertrand was in the driveway, washing his car, when I got home from work, and I found it hard to look at him. My mind was completely consumed with his possible infidelity. All I could think about was the panties I found, who they belonged to, and why they'd been in his possession.

“Hey, babe,” he called, playfully flicking the water hose my way, but he knew better than to wet my hair.

“Hey.”

Bertrand dropped the hose and came over to peck me on the lips, which I allowed, but it felt all wrong.

“How was work?” he asked.

“Long, as usual. Let me get changed.” After digging in folks' hair all day, the first thing I always wanted to do once I got home was scrub their germs and bits of hair off of me.

While I was in the shower, I thought through how my next conversation with Bertrand should go. I had to confront him, or else it was going to eat me up inside. I could already feel heartbreak settling in, even though I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. As I scrubbed my body, I took an assessment of my size and figure. My weight was up ten pounds. Suddenly, I felt ugly and unattractive, and I couldn't help but wonder if Bertrand still found me as attractive as he had a year ago, when he asked me to be his wife. I'd said yes, but Lord knows, I wished I had said no.

Compared to Equanto, Bertrand wasn't a bad mate. As a matter of fact, Equanto made Bertrand look like a superstar. He loved me, or so I wanted to believe, was an excellent provider, paid the bills on time, and enjoyed spoiling me. He was always bringing me flowers and trinkets and doing all kinds of stuff that women loved. At least that was how it began. It was never until after you moved in with a person or said “I do” that you found out who you were really dealing with, and like I said, I wished I had declined his proposal. Now I knew him to be insecure and controlling, and he treated me like a child.

I still remembered the time I pissed him off real good about a month after moving into his house by making an “unapproved” purchase. I had gotten a good paycheck at work and had been eyeing one of those little book reading devices for months. On payday, I stopped by the bookstore, looked at the few different models they had to offer, and picked out a color device and a nice cover for it. The cover was ridiculously priced. But if I was gonna splurge, I was gonna splurge!

I came in the house about an hour later than usual, swinging my bag with my purchase, to find Bertrand silently fuming in the kitchen, where he was popping a few hot dogs in the microwave.

“Hey, honey,” I greeted, as happy as a jaybird.

Bertrand barely cracked his lips to utter a response.

“What's wrong with you?”

“Where have you been?” he grumbled.

“I stopped by the store to get this!” Excited, I swung the bag up and thrust it toward him. “I got one of those book things!” Digging in the bag for my new toy, I didn't notice right away the disapproving glare Bertrand wore on his face. “It's the color one,” I chimed, carefully handling my device like it was a newborn baby. “Whenever I want to buy a book, I can just tap on the screen and it will download onto here.”

“How much did that cost?” he grunted, taking his quick meal out of the microwave.

I quoted the price and explained that I'd used my extra money to treat myself.

“So you're just out there spending money without letting me know about it?” he said, folding his arms across his chest.

“What do you mean? I'm telling you now.”

“You're telling me after the fact. Don't you think you should have talked to me about this before you just went out and bought something?”

Really I didn't, but I gave it a moment of thought. “What's the big deal, babe?”

“We're engaged to be married, Dina, or did you forget that?”

“Of course I didn't forget, but I'm saying . . .” I paused for half a second to throw on a puzzled face. “I can't buy anything without talking to you first?”

“Why would you think that was okay?” he questioned, squirting ketchup on his food.

“Well, first of all, because I'm grown, and secondly, I didn't realize I needed
your
permission to spend
my
money.”

“So you can just do whatever you want to do, then, huh?”

This was ridiculous to me, but clearly, it was a problem for Bertrand.

“And then you didn't even call me to let me know you weren't coming straight home,” he added.

“Babe,” I sighed, “I stopped at the store.” My bit of excitement about having a new toy was diminished.

“So you couldn't call first?”

“Yes, I could have, but I'm here now, and you can see where I've been.”

“You're acting like you still want to be single, Dina,” he said, carrying his plate to the den, where he had been watching ESPN. “Now I'm sitting here, having to eat hot dogs and chips for dinner.”

“No, I'm acting like I'm a grown woman,” I shot back, following him into the den. “And if you had just been patient, you wouldn't be eating a carnival meal right now.”

He didn't respond, other than rolling his eyes at me.

“So I can't stop at the store, and I can't spend any money without talking to you first?” I asked, feeling that the conversation was unfinished and the issue was certainly unresolved. By now my hands were on my hips, and my temperature was on low boil.

“Tell me what marriage means to you,” he said.

“It doesn't mean that I gotta get your permission for everything I do,” I snapped.

“Maybe I'm confused, then, about what marriage is supposed to be. I'm sitting here waiting for you to get home so you can fix some dinner and we can enjoy a nice evening together, and then not only do you not call, and I don't have a clue where you are, but on top of that, you're out spending money.” He shook his head, as if he were grossly disappointed.

I was annoyed by his thinking. “It's not like I stopped for drinks,” I countered. “And it's not like I spent bill money.”

“Okay, so the deal is we can stop wherever we want on the way home from work without saying a word to each other unless we're stopping for drinks.” He paused to let that thought sink in for a minute. “And as long as it's not the bill money that's being spent, the sky's the limit on spending. We can just go buy whatever we want when we want, regardless of the cost.”

When Bertrand put it like that, I could see where he was coming from just a little bit. Only a little, though, because we weren't even talking about a hundred dollars here. At the same time, I knew how Bertrand thought. He would take things to the extreme and was liable to come home tomorrow with a new car without mentioning it to me first. Not that he had to. I didn't know whether to offer a light apology or stand my ground, but the whole thing was stupid to me.

“No, I'm not saying that at all, but I am tired of talking about it, because I feel like I deserved to treat myself to something nice. I had the money to do it, and I don't feel like I need your permission or approval to enjoy my life. I ain't no kid, and you ain't my daddy.” I turned around, grabbed the bag with my book thingy, the cover, the packaging, and the papers, then commented over my shoulder, “I'm going to get in the tub and enjoy a good book.”

Sitting in the tub with a new read, I could hardly enjoy myself, thinking about the conversation we'd just had. Again, I could understand not making major purchases without there being some type of discussion, but not over this petty thing. This wasn't what I would consider a major purchase. Bertrand spent money on stuff all the time, as a matter of fact. Recently I'd seen a couple of bags from the sporting goods store, new golf balls, and some computer software, come to think of it. There was no discussion between us for those purchases. But
I
was supposed to run to him and get permission when I wanted to buy something? I didn't think so.

Once I'd gotten out of the tub, I lotioned and perfumed my body, put on something sexy, and brushed my hair up into a sexy, wispy updo, so that Bertrand and I could make up by making love and going to sleep holding each other, like we always did. Sex always made men forget the stupid stuff.

Feeling renewed and sexy, and with our earlier conversation-slash-argument more than an hour behind us, I waltzed downstairs, ready to seduce my man. Before I went in the den, I padded to the kitchen to pour a couple glasses of wine.