STRINGS of COLOR (8 page)

"You're the woman that I fell in love with. That hasn't changed."

Carl's voice grew soft, almost to a whisper.

"Baby, I fell in love with you before I even saw your face. I heard your voice. Whoever your mother turns out to be, or your brother, doesn't change that. Your last name isn't going to be Creek. You and I become one.

"Just give me time, Carl. Give me some time to sort things through."

"I'm trying Simone."

"Try harder. Put yourself in my situation."

"That's just it Simone. The day you and I got engaged, it no longer became
you
r situation. Baby, this here is
our
situation, ours to handle together."

Simone grew quiet again. She knew he was right.

"You make it sound so easy."

"No, it's not how I make it sound. It's how it should be, you and me. Not you alone. Not Simone to handle the problems of the world upon her shoulders. Give me that. That's what I'm here for. I'll be your superman."

Simone began to laugh.

"It sounds so good to hear you laugh."

"It feels good to laugh."

"You see what I mean? I got this baby. I got you. All you have to do is say yes."

"Yes."

She laughed again.

"That's what I'm talking about baby. That's what we need, our wedding."

"Give me some time Carl. I promise, I will marry you but right now, I just need some time so
we
can sort everything through."

"Don't say
we
, just to appease me. You've got to mean that Simone. You've got to really feel that way."

"I feel that and I mean that."

"Okay then."

Simone sat up and braced the phone.

"Okay then…what?" She asked.

"
We'll
give it some time to sort through the madness so that
we
can get to the greatness."

"Thank you."

"I'm only agreeing because I love you, you know that don't you?"

"Yeah, I know that."

"Good."

Simone hung up the phone with a sigh of relief and a smile. She stretched out on her sofa again and stared at the ceiling.

What a man,
she said to herself
.

She thought about the first time they met. She remembered the moment when she realized that she was in love with him, and in her mind she saw the tears that had flowed down his face the night she asked him to marry her.

She looked down at her engagement ring, white gold with one and a half carets of beautifulness. Engraved on the inside was the word—yes.

Am I crazy to put off marrying a man like that?
She could feel her head nodding, yes. She could feel her heart telling her that she was downright, losing her cotton-picking mind—crazy.

So why aren't you calling him back
?

Just as Simone reached to pick up the phone, it rang.

"We must have been thinking the same…"

"Simone."

His voice scared her.

"What is it?"

"He passed away."

"You meant that a man's love is filled with the love of a wife that loves him for him and not the high-priced walls that he can't pay for."

M
isty sat in her car, watching the building across the street with a big thirty-six hundred marked on the outside of it.

She pulled down her visor, flipped open the mirror and grabbed her lipstick and eyeliner from out of her purse. Fussed with her hair for a moment and then checked herself in the mirror again. She slipped out of her black flats and reached in the back seat to grab a pair of flaming red stilettos with a silver heel, her favorite.

Her look needed to match her attitude.

Misty got one foot out of the car when she spotted an old brown station wagon pulling up in front of the building. She couldn't explain it, but she felt something strange come over her when she took notice of the woman behind the wheel.

Misty eased back into her car, quickly put her sunglasses on, and moved her car seat back just enough to still see.

She watched as the older woman appeared to be staring at Jake's apartment. Twenty minutes later and Misty saw that she was still sitting there.

Her grey hair lay softly on the mid-part of her back. Her skin was laced with the wrinkles of a hard-worked life and streaked with a touch of golden brown sunshine. Her eyes sparkled in a deep hazel color.

Misty watched as she finally eased out of her car. Her clothing was old but her walk was what captured Misty's attention. It was full of a gracefulness most women her age longed for.

Misty watched her move up each step. There was purpose, strength, and determination in her stride.

A slight whiff of sadness came over Misty as she thought about her own mother. She had left Misty and her father, when Misty was thirteen years old. Misty came home one day to find only remnants of her clothes hanging in the closet.

Her father, of course, deserved it. He was a low-down, cheating, money-hungry snake of a snake, if there was ever such a thing.

Misty on the other hand, always felt like she didn't.

Her mother never came back. Never wrote and Misty often wondered if she ever really cared about her at all.

When the door closed behind her, Misty moved her seat forward, flung her glasses over into the passenger seat and slipped out of her heels.

"
Such a shame, I was so looking forward to showing a little attitude
." She eased back into her black flats, started up the car and pulled out as if she owned the road.

She turned off her air conditioner, waited impatiently for the top to come down, cranked up the radio and drove as if the sun was only there for her.

J
onathan stood in the bathroom mirror staring at the cut on his cheek. He traced it with the tip of his finger. He ran his hands through the deep waves of his hazel brown hair and stared at the paleness of his white skin. Yes, the color of snow ran deep within him. That was never the problem, the color of his skin.

He tried to see her in him—Naya, his mother.

He could see her green eyes and her hazel brown hair, which hung down the length of her neck with swoops of waves and softness. They had the same jaw line, tight. Same nose, pointed. Same lips, thin. They even shared the same fire and stubbornness.

He placed his hand on the mirror, "
I am her son
."

He thought about Simone.

Her fire was not as strong, her stubbornness didn't resonate as his, but looking at her was like looking at a younger version of his mother.

He thought about that night, when he saw her up on that stage at The Clue. At first, he thought maybe the resemblance was a coincidence, but then she opened her mouth, and that was when he knew.

He wondered what her life had been like growing up. He wondered what it would have been like if they had grown up together. He wondered if that would have made him any different.

Would the pain still be the same
?

Jonathan saw the door open.

She saw the tears.

Jonathan sat down on the edge of the tub. He couldn't look up at his own wife. Shame had made a home on his face and in his heart.

"It's not your fault."

Any other time Jonathan would have agreed with her, but today was not one of those times.

He watched her sit down next to him. He realized that he was tired, tired of hiding the truth.

"For five years I have wanted her to hurt as much as I hurt. Now, after seeing the pain that radiated in her eyes at the hospital yesterday, I just want to see her smile again.

Funny, isn't it? I really wish it were."

She didn't say anything.

"There is something I need to tell you, something about me, about my insides that you need to know.

"I'm not the man you think I am. Not sure if I have ever been.

"I stalked my own mother Felicia. I pretended that I was excited to meet her that day when the phone rang and you told me who it was on the phone. I pretended, even with you. She didn't find me Felicia. I had known where she was for over five years prior to her phone call.

"I had hired a private investigator.

"The moment he gave me the information on her, I put my plan into action. I was determined to make her give me everything that I never had growing up, every single moment that I felt should have been mine.

"Did you know that every morning I would leave this house and follow her husband around? It's true. I even went through their trash Felicia. One day, I found one of their checkbooks and started forging checks. It's all I could do to keep the lights on.

"Here is more truth. When I met you, I had blown every dime my great-grandparents, Kenneth and Sarah Creek, had left me. Since I never finished Grad school, I never got the rest of the inheritance they left. I didn't care about it then. I felt like the only reason why they left me anything was so I wouldn't end up begging on the streets. How would that have looked, a Creek, begging for money?

"I hated them. They never loved me, especially her, Sarah Creek.

"Do you know what I hated the most? I hated that they named me after him, their no-good son. Why? They knew what he had done to his own daughter? That wasn't love Felicia. That was just dirt!

"I got dirt and money from them, instead of love.

"But things got worse for me. I tried to blackmail JK for a million dollars. You see, at that time, Naya thought he was dead. She didn't know that Chris and JK were scheming against her. She didn't know that Chris was paying all of the old man's bills so JK could provide him information, information that turned out to be about my sister, Simone.

"Chris had JK living in that fancy penthouse that belonged to Kenneth and Sarah. The same stinking penthouse I grew up in. I used to hide in the brushes when he and Chris would conspire together. So I thought I could use this information to my advantage. We were broke and the bills were piling up. When that fell through, I had decided to go directly to Chris and try the same thing.

"I didn't want to lose this home. I couldn't stand the fact that we would have to go back to that little apartment Kenneth and Sarah left me while my mother and JK lived their rotten lives in mansions, drove fancy cars, and acted as if they owned the world. At the time I couldn't see what was wrong with getting a small piece of the world she kept from me, stole from me.

"In my heart, I blamed her for everything.

"I was so bitter Felicia. So bitter that it took her ten years—she lived her life, married Chris and only then did she even start really looking for me. It burned me to the core to know that when she did find me, she waited ten more years to pick up the phone to call me. She was a multi-millionaire. You couldn't tell me that she couldn't have used her money to find me sooner. I found her and with very little money.

"How was I supposed to forgive her Felicia?

"I had great-grandparents who treated me like a resident in their home while she was out there winning Grammy awards for goodness sake!"

Jonathan finally looked at his wife.

"I realize now what I was doing. I was trying to buy back love.

"How stupid does that sound? Insane, I know. But it's the truth.

"I remember that day when you said that all the love I would ever need was right here with you and the kids. Now, we have another child on the way. At the time, those words of yours didn't really register in my head. But now, I hear them loud and clear and I understand what you really meant.

"You meant that a man's love is filled with the love of a wife that loves him for him and not the high-priced walls that he can't pay for.

"I realized something else the moment I woke up this morning. She was right Felicia; it is my fault that Chris is lying in that hospital fighting for his life.

"He and I had a meeting. I had decided to just ask him for the money, confess what I had been doing and be done with it. However, something in me changed the moment I walked into his big office and saw the pictures of him and Naya on his desk. The smiles upon their face Felicia—it drove me insane.