Fool and Her Honey (9781622860791) (9 page)

At long last, I was able to start work again. It was only at the grocery store, but something was better than nothing, and I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. It was different from my receptionist job, where I got to sit on my butt all day, manage my personal life between my tasks, answer my cell and text messages if I needed or wanted to, and even catch up on some reading when it was slow. Being a cashier didn't afford me any of that. I was on my feet for the entire shift, scanning food and collecting money. Even when it was slow, we had to do what was called re-shop, which meant putting back any groceries that customers had left at the register for one reason or another. With all this extra weight on me, by the time I got off from a six- or seven-hour shift, I was dog tired, my feet ached, and I didn't feel like dealing with any of Equanto's craziness.

Every day it was the same old thing. Either we were arguing about money, him keeping a job, and his disappearing acts, or we weren't speaking at all. It wasn't a good environment for my kids to be in, and I would often wish I had somewhere else to go. Anywhere. One of the things that kept me holding on, though, was that I didn't want to be judged by my friends, who'd never thought very much of Equanto in the first place. One thing that no one wanted to hear was, “I told you so.” And every couple had to deal with drama at some point in their marriage, so really, what E and I were going through was probably no different than anyone else's marriage.

Luckily, I was able to get a morning shift, so the kids were in school while I worked, and I generally got home forty-five minutes before they did. A lot of times, I'd just sit out in the car instead of going inside the house, because it was the only place between work and home where I could find peace and could have a moment to myself. Some days I'd listen to music, other days I made phone calls, and then some days I sat in total silence, wondering why I'd done this to myself and praying for a way out that wouldn't embarrass me. It was in those silent sessions that I couldn't stop the tears from flowing down my face once they started.

The simple fact of the matter was my husband didn't love me. He never had. I was mad at myself for accepting him into my life by marrying him, then tying him to me forever by getting pregnant twice. I guess I was looking for love at any cost but never recognized that love existed in our relationship only on my side. Even though I was the mother of his children, it was obvious that he had no love for me, and that broke my heart every day. Equanto was forever putting me down and calling me names, and I tried to act like it didn't bother me, but in all honesty, it tore at my soul every single time.

I felt like I worked hard for my family and at taking care of my children. The boys were clean, well fed—even if it meant exposing my entire life story to the people at the food stamp office—healthy, and smart. I cooked practically every day and kept the house tidy. Even with Equanto constantly hurling insults at me and hurting my feelings whenever he felt like it, my legs were always open to him whenever he wanted a little nooky. The few times I did turn him down, he went on a verbal tirade.

“Whatchu mean, you don't feel like it? You better be glad somebody wants your fat ass. Who you think gone want you but me? I can't even hardly look at you. Cut the damn light off 'fore you give me nightmares.”

His words cut like a knife, and I must have cried that whole night the first time he said that. Mostly because I believed it. Didn't nobody else want me, else I wouldn't have ended up with his ass. My phone wasn't ringing off the hook with relationship choices when I met Equanto. That was why I was on the love chat line in the first place, looking for someone to love me. And maybe someone would have if I didn't like to eat so much and my butt—and various other parts of me—wasn't so big.

I knew that my weight was one thing that I had complete control over. All I had to do was start making some healthy eating choices and, instead of sitting in this car every day for almost an hour, take a walk around the block a few times. It would be a start. I just wasn't motivated to do it. I tried a couple of times, but as soon as Equanto got to cussin' and calling me fat and creating drama, I knew where to get a little piece of sunshine, and many times it came with the name Little Debbie, Tastykake, or Edy's on it since I was now working at the grocery store.

In my rearview mirror, I could see the boys getting off the school bus and racing each other to the car. They'd come to expect me to be sitting there, waiting. After the first week or two of finding me there, they just started getting inside the car and sitting with me. Even on the days when there wasn't enough gas in the car to run the air-conditioning and it was just as hot as LL Cool J said he was in his “Rock the Bells” lyrics.

“Hey, Mom!” they greeted one at a time.

“Hey, babies. Tell me about your school day,” I requested and got ready to listen to each one of them share every detail of what they had experienced in the last eight hours. I made sure to listen intently, even on the days when a splitting headache made me wish they didn't have so much to say. I wanted my boys to know that what they had to say and share was important to me.

This particular day, once they got in the car, instead of sitting there, I cranked it up and pulled out of the lot.

“Where are we going, Mom?” Linwood asked.

“I'm taking you boys to get ice cream cones.”

“Yea!” they cheered.

It had been a while since I'd been able to treat the boys to much of anything, and today was just as good a day as any, since I'd just gotten paid. I could have used my food stamp card just as easily to buy ice cream at the grocery store, but a change of scenery would do us all some good.

We'd gotten our cones and taken a seat at a table in the dining room of the restaurant when my youngest boy, Jerrod, hit me with question that felt like a brick slamming against my head.

“Mommy, does Daddy love you?”

“Yeah,” I said without hesitation, but it didn't even sound right coming out of my mouth. “What made you ask that?”

“Because he always be mean to you, and I thought when you love somebody, you supposed to treat them nice.”

“Well, you are,” I confirmed.

“Daddy don't never be nice to you. I don't think he love you,” Jerrod declared.

“Nice like what? What do you think he should be doing?”

“Like kissing you and hugging you and giving you flowers and, like, some lollipops or something.”

“Is that what you're going to do when you get a girlfriend?” I asked, embarrassed that my baby had recognized that my and Equanto's marriage was dysfunctional, to say the least.

“Yep! I'm not going to be nothing like Daddy. I'm going to give my girlfriend Now-Laters and fruit snacks,” he announced.

“You better not be kissing her,” I teased.

“I'm just gonna kiss her on the cheek, 'cause you supposed to wait 'til you married before you kiss someone on the lips,” Jerrod replied.

His brothers laughed at him, not that they knew any better.

“You and Daddy don't never kiss,” Quincy added.

“Just because you don't see us kissing, that doesn't mean we don't kiss,” I said.

“How about holding hands?” Jerrod asked.

“We really are too busy to hold hands, Jerrod.”

“I'ma hold my girlfriend's hand too.”

“You sure got a lot of girlfriend plans. How old do you plan on being when you get this girlfriend?”

“I don't know.” Jerrod shrugged as he licked his cone. “I think about twenty-seven.”

He made me laugh. “Oh, okay.”

“Do you love Daddy?” he asked next.

“Of course I do.”

“Oh. I'm glad I asked, 'cause I didn't know. Y'all don't act like it.”

I don't care who you are, where you come from, and how good you can work your goody box. If you are a woman who's ever been in a relationship, you've been cheated on. And what I want to know is, why is it that heffas think that just because ten years passed by, you've forgotten all about the time they slept with your man, and then they wanna be grinnin' in your face like the two of you are best friends? I wanted to punch Vanisha Yarborough dead in the jaw when I saw her earlier today. I was stopping by the grocery store to pick up a cup of yogurt on my way to church, and she spotted me from across the parking lot.

“Dina!” she called.

I looked up and saw her getting out of her car, but I didn't have my glasses on to readily identify her, not that that would have made a whole lot of difference. Since I'd done some of everybody's hair in Laveen, I was thinking she could have been some potential business, which I needed desperately, so I waited the few seconds it took for her to come into focus.

“Dammit!” I mumbled under my breath once I realized who it was.

“Girl, how you doing?” She grinned, showing every tooth she had, and a few that she didn't.

“Hey, Vanisha.” I gave a half smile, like I'd let bygones be bygones, but just like that, I felt disdain bubbling in my stomach, wanting to turn into spit and be hurled out of my mouth toward her. The Christian part of me fought against it and won. Even if I wasn't a Christian, I didn't think I could ever spit in somebody's face.

“You look good!” she commented, circling me with her eyes. I refrained from rolling mine.

“Thanks.”

“So what're you doing now? How's Cameron?”

I didn't care that Cameron and I were no longer together, but I still couldn't appreciate what the two of them did behind my back, and practically in my face.

“I have no idea.” I shrugged. “Look, I'm in a bit of a rush. I'm trying to get to church on time,” I said, digging in my purse for nothing in particular, but it made me look busy and in a rush.

“Oh, okay! Don't let me hold you, then! Look me up on Facebook so we can catch up!” She backed away from me, then headed toward another store in the strip mall.

“All right, girl. Take care,” I said for the sake of being cordial. If only I had the boldness and brashness to cuss her out. It didn't matter that her offenses were a decade old.

Seeing Vanisha wrecked my morning mood. As soon as you purpose in your heart that you're going to have a good day, no matter what, here comes the devil with some foolishness to make you regret getting out of bed at all. I made my way through the store and paid for my items, wishing again that I'd had the boldness to cuss Vanisha out. Getting back in my car, I tried to refocus on having a great day, but my mind had a mind of its own and traveled back ten years, to when I was young, dumb, naive, and so in love with Cameron, I didn't believe he had a fault anywhere in his being. And like a blinded fool, I ignored what was right in front of me.

Vanisha and I had been friends all through high school, with me envying her style, her smile, and her charismatic personality. I didn't know how we got to be friends, because she was one of those fast-tailed girls who'd made a name for herself by having sex with various boys after school, and sometimes during school, when she skipped classes. I, on the other hand, wasn't interested in having sex with anybody, but I found her taboo adventures interesting and exciting.

“Girl, he got a big ol' dick,” she'd told me about so many of the boys we went to school with—just pick a name. “We stayed after yesterday and did it in the girls' locker room in the ninth-grade gym.”

“For real?” I'd asked the first time she said that to me. My eyes had to be stretched as big as the moon. “What does it feel like, though?”

She'd jerked her head back like I was asking the most asinine question in the world. “It feels good!”

I didn't know how to interpret that, and I wasn't ready to find out for myself, so I'd have to take her word for it. By the time we graduated, she'd had more sex partners than my momma had years of her life.

Even with me knowing how loose she was, I thought our friendship was stronger than her promiscuity, so I had no problem with her meeting and knowing about Cameron. I'd met Cameron when I was eighteen, while walking home from Vanisha's house after she had spent eight hours braiding my hair. He was hot and sweaty from chasing a basketball around on the court, but he seemed delighted to make my acquaintance in passing. We hit it off right away, and I found him adorably sweet, handsome, and respectful. After a couple months of dating, we were inseparable when he wasn't in class. I gave that man my heart, my soul, the very essence of my womanhood. And he graciously and gently took it. It wasn't long before I got pregnant, and although we were young, we decided marriage was the right thing to do.

Vanisha was the maid of honor at my wedding, stood right there staring at my coochie when I gave birth to my baby girl, Tiara, and held my hand when I couldn't stop crying after Tiara's underdeveloped lungs wouldn't allow her to live past two days. Vanisha was my homegirl, my sista friend, my ace boon coon.

Before I turned twenty, Cameron and I had an apartment, struggled with consumer debt, and had scarred credit from trying to pay off the hospital bill from the baby we'd had and lost without having insurance. Cameron ended up dropping out of college to work full-time as an employee of Anheuser-Busch, while I tried to get my cosmetologist career off the ground. It wasn't the best life, but I was happy being Mrs. Cameron Allen.

Now here was where I started messing up. See, Cameron was my first. All I'd learned about sex, or what I thought sex should be, I learned from Vanisha's explicit stories, erotica books, movie scenes, and misogynistic videos of girls shaking their booties on the BET channel. My mother was far too prudish to have any real sex conversations with me, other than giving me instructions to keep my panties up.

Like every woman before me who'd opened her legs for the man she loved, I wanted to sex him out of his mind. From what I'd seen on videos and such, I was expecting a certain reaction out of Cameron. I wanted to hear some “Oohs” and “Aahs,” some “Oh, babies” and “Oh, my Gods!” I wanted to see his face contort uncontrollably and hear a series of cuss words leave his lips before he collapsed in a heap on top of me, panting, “Damn, Dina girl!” But most times when Cameron and I made love, he was silent and rhythmic—never calling my name, never losing himself in a series of gasps, never having to catch his breath. His expression always looked stoic and disengaged, nothing like I'd seen on TV.

I tried to provoke a response from him by adding my own sound effects, moaning his name to stroke his ego, although honestly, I didn't really
feel
anything to make me do that. Nonetheless, I thought if I made him believe he was puttin' it down, it would make him more responsive. Well, it didn't work, and when it didn't, what did my stupid behind do? I asked Vanisha for some sex tips.

“I don't know what I'm doing wrong,” I complained one day, standing in the middle of her apartment, dancing to videos. “He just seems like he doesn't enjoy it.”

“Girl, you gotta know how to work that thang!” she said and laughed, twisting a single leg in a circular motion and rotating her hips in a way that could probably make her some money if she were in a strip joint. “I mean, what do you be doing?”

I shrugged. “What you mean?”

“You don't just be lying there like a board, do you?”

“No,” I answered, embarrassed. “I be into it, moving and stuff,” I said, trying to defend myself. “But it's like . . .” I shrugged again. “I don't know . . . like he's bored or something.”

“Humph! I don't know what kinda sex y'all be having that he be acting bored,” she said. “Do you be going down on him?” she asked, just as easily as if she were asking for a stick of chewing gum.

“I mean, I . . . we . . .” I didn't know how to answer that question. I was ashamed to admit that I'd put my husband's thing-a-ling in my mouth, but at the same time, I was ashamed to say that I hadn't.

“Maybe you need to do that,” she commented when I couldn't get any words to come out of my mouth. “Girl, men love that.” She grinned and nodded. “If that don't make him cuss, you're definitely doing something wrong.”

It wasn't long after that conversation that all of a sudden Vanisha started coming over all the damn time. “Girl, I was just dropping by. I don't want nothing,” she'd say. “You mind if I do a load of laundry over here at your house? My washer won't spin. My air conditioner broke down again. I had to come over here just so I could cool off a little bit.”

I, being the unsuspecting dummy that I was back then, let her conniving ass come right on in. And like a vulture waiting for a wild animal to die, she circled a few times, then came in for a landing—right in my and Cameron's bed. I never actually caught them doing the do, and I guess that was why I ignored what was right in front of me—believing that Cameron could and would make love only to me. I trusted him; I trusted her. When I became suspicious for obvious reasons and questioned Cameron about it, he did what all men did, denied and lied.

Cameron made up outrageous stories about how he was supposed to be at work but ended up at her house first because she'd called, asking for a jump. And how he was just sitting at home, minding his business, while I was out getting a pedicure, when she came over, asking if she could take a shower at our house, because her water got cut off. And how . . . Well, I don't want to think about it anymore, but let's just say my momma raised a damn fool. Except I didn't realize it then like I did now.

I'd never realized until today just how hurt I still was over the thought that Cameron had screwed another woman, my best friend at that. I also realized how much I hated her and Cameron for it. I thought I had let that mess go, especially after Cameron and I divorced. We parted ways for a number of reasons—she happened not to be one of them—because, like I said, I was too stupid to trust and act on what I innately knew. Now here I was, with a cup of yogurt and a bottle of orange juice in my hands, headed to the house of the Lord with a heart full of hate.

“Work on me, Jesus,” I whispered as a prayer, “because I don't want to hate anybody, but I don't know how to get rid of that hurt from this betrayal.” “Help me Lord,” I added, because tears were now welling in my eyes. Not specifically because of my recollections of Vanisha and Cameron, but because of the panties that I'd found tucked in Bertrand's drawer the other week, and because I was wondering whether I was being a fool all over again.

 

 

The next day, I just couldn't hold myself together. I tried to, but every little thing made me cry. Ms. Maybelle, a nasty old bat of a woman whose hair I'd been doing every Tuesday for the past six years, took notice of my less than pleasant demeanor and knew that this time she wasn't the cause of it. She then did something she'd never done before: with a heart filled with compassion, she asked me what was wrong.

“Looks like something bothering you, baby. What's going on?” she asked while I pressed her hair.

“I'm all right, Ms. Maybelle. Just got a lot on my mind.”

“Naw, naw, naw. It's something more than that,” she responded intuitively. “What is it? Go on and share your heart.”

I was reluctant at first, but what did I have to lose by sharing with this woman, who had one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel? Wasn't like she could run out and tell it to anyone that would matter.

“My fiancé and I are just going through a rough time,” I said, wringing my hands. Suddenly I felt like a schoolgirl, trying to explain some misbehavior to my teacher.

“Every relationship have problems, baby. Every one of 'em. Ain't a single one out there where somebody ain't been taken to hell. I been married three times in my lifetime, and each time I just knew I was setting myself up for the best possible life. Let me tell you, honey, ain't na' one of my husbands ever done completely right by me.”

That was disheartening to hear.

“He ain't beatin' you, is he?” she asked.

“No, ma'am.” I instantly shook my head.

“I ain't think so. Ain't never seen you come up in here with no bumps and bruises. So he must be tippin' on the side. That's the only other thing that will break a woman down like you is broke down right now.”

My silence said what I couldn't bring my mouth to say. The panties were bad enough, but after that, I found a few text messages that made me even more suspicious, although they weren't exactly incriminating.

“Let me tell you something. Everybody cheat, everybody,” she stated adamantly, looking me in the eye.

I was no cheater, but I did have my moments of wondering what different men would be like in bed. That was as far as I ever took it, though.

“You just have to find the one that takes care of home and respects you that you can tolerate. You ain't gone escape that cheatin' thang, no matter what you do. Now, if you can put up with your future husband, gone and put up with him. Otherwise, you gonna end up alone and lonely and bitter something terrible. Then you gone be forever searching for that one person who you thank gone do you right. Save yourself some time, sugar. He ain't out there. He just ain't.”

“Yes, ma'am,” I answered, but not because I fully agreed with her. But it seemed appropriate to say that.

“You gone have to learn how to get over it and stop crying over spilled milk. I know it hurt, 'cause I been there. Now, if you just cain't put it past you and get over it, then you gotsta make a decision. You hear me?”