Your Love Is King (2 page)

One

“You’re Not the Man”

I rolled over in the bed after a short nap, opened my eyes, and nearly jumped out of my skin. For a brief moment, I’d forgotten that Darius was lying next to me. The sight of him lying there asleep with his mouth wide open startled me.

I eyed him with disgust as I tried to ease out of bed undetected. I slid and slid until my feet finally reached the floor, then I tiptoed through the cluttered efficiency apartment into the bathroom. I peered into the smudged mirror and wondered to myself,
What are you doing, Marli Meadows? Why are you here with him?
I shook my head as if the mere action could erase my relationship with Darius Cotton right out of my life.

I squatted over the toilet and relieved myself, afraid to sit on the seat. Knowing Darius, there was no telling how many other butts had been on that seat. I turned the water in the faucet on to a slow trickle, still not wanting to awaken Darius, and washed my hands. I dried them with some toilet paper and then quickly pulled my underwear and work uniform back on and slowly opened the creaky bathroom door.

I exited the bathroom and found Darius sitting on the side of the bed, lighting up a blunt.
Dang!
I thought,
if I don’t get out of here quick, I’ll be smelling just like that stuff and probably get a contact high. It’d be my luck for them to pop up with a random drug test at work and that crap’ll show up.

“You leaving, baby?” he grunted between drags. He rubbed his hand across his bare chest and stretched. I eyed his nakedness as I walked back into the room.

“Yeah, it’s already eleven. I gotta go home and get some rest for work tonight,” I answered as I gathered up my purse and slipped on my shoes.

With a lopsided grin on his face, he revealed two rows of shiny gold teeth and said, “Yeah, cause you know if you stay here you gon’ have to put in some more work, huh?”

Ugh
, I thought. “Yeah, well, I’ll talk to you later, Darius.”

“A’ight, come give me a kiss, boo.”

I swallowed hard. I know this sounds strange considering the fact that I’d just had sex with him, but the thought of kissing him really didn’t appeal to me. It took all I had in me to walk over to him, bend over, and plant a kiss on his dark lips.

He swatted my butt. “A’ight girl, I’ll holla at you later. Don’t work too hard tonight.”

I nodded. “I won’t. Bye, Darius.”

“Bye, Mar-lay.”

I shook my head as I closed the door behind me. We’d been “seeing” each other for nearly two years, and he still mispronounced my name. Well, it was either that or he was just so country that it
sounded
like he was mispronouncing it.  Whichever was the case, it was irritating.

I walked down the steep stairs from Darius’s apartment out onto the parking lot.  I unlocked and then climbed into my Toyota Camry which was parked right next to Darius’s souped-up Chevy Caprice. I rolled my eyes at the repeated Louis Vuitton logos covering his car. I backed out of my space and glanced at his license plate which read, SMOKONE. I sighed as I pulled off the lot.

One might wonder what a thirty-three-year-old registered nurse was doing with a twenty-seven-year-old drug dealer, and the only answer I can provide is,
I don’t know
. Okay, well, that’s a lie. I actually
do
know. See, the thing is, Darius was basically a sex machine. He was actually probably the best I’d ever had up to that point, and believe me, after my divorce, I had plenty of guys.

Too many to name.

The biggest problem with Darius was that he shared his talents with most of the plus-sized female population of our little city, though he claimed I was his only girl. Well, that and that little fact about him smoking and selling dope.

I pulled into the driveway of my modest home, stumbled through the front door, and collapsed onto the couch without bathing or changing my clothes. I’d worked twelve hours at the hospital on the previous night and had another twelve hours of work ahead of me. So I decided to get a little shut-eye before my 18-year-old daughter, Tiffany, made it home from school.

I glanced at the clock on the wall and squeezed my eyes shut. After about ten minutes, I finally drifted off to sleep, only to be awakened by the ringing of my cell phone.

Dang it!
I peered at the screen through one open eye and let it roll to voice mail. It was my best friend, Carla.
I’ll call her back later.

I sniffed at the collar of my scrub top and inhaled a scent that was a combination of Darius’s cheap cologne
and
his cheap marijuana. I shut my eyes and drifted back off to sleep.

~*~

I sat across from Gail, the nurse I was relieving, and listened as she gave me report on the six patients I’d be caring for over the next twelve hours. I nodded and smiled and jotted down notes, but honestly, I was still tired from the previous night and really wished I didn’t have to work. When report was finally over, I grabbed my stethoscope and headed down the hall to check on my patients. Finding everyone breathing and in no distress, I returned to the nurses’ station and checked for any new doctor’s orders before I began to write my assessments.

Every night it was the same routine, and although I enjoyed caring for the patients, it was all becoming really mundane. I’d been a nurse for six years, and it was time for a break or a change or something. I just needed
something
new in my life. For me it was work, work, sleep, sleep, and occasionally church. I had no real social life because I was simply too tired. I did try my best to make Tiffany’s school events, but working twelve hours three to four nights every week usually prohibited my attendance.

The night was pretty uneventful, and somehow I managed to stay alert and awake. Well, that might’ve had something to do with me calling Carla whenever I felt a little sleepy. She worked at the same hospital and on the same shift as me, but as a respiratory therapist. We talked off and on for most of the night about everything and nothing in particular, and when the end of my shift finally arrived, I was more than relieved and ready to leave.

I was so exhausted; I nearly had to drag myself out of the hospital and onto the parking deck. Once inside my car, I uttered a quick prayer for a safe drive home. I couldn’t wait to climb into my bed.

I shook my head as I thought about the fact that this cycle would start all over again in twelve hours—another grueling shift and another exhausted ride home. I would’ve given anything to break up the monotony of my life.

Anything.

Two

“Be That Easy”

“I missed you,” Darius said through a puff of smoke.

I turned over in the bed and faced him. Darius was an oddly handsome man. His black-brown eyes were huge and round, his nose was wide, and his lips were ridiculously full. Something about those oversized features appealed to me. He was medium brown-skinned and he wore his coarse hair in neat cornrows. He was about 5’6” tall with a stocky build.

“You just saw me a coupla days ago,” I replied.

“Yeah, but I really be missing you when you ain’t here. I like having you around.”

I was a little puzzled because in the two years Darius and I had been in this “relationship,” we’d never done much talking, and here he was, actually expressing his feelings. “Well, I enjoy our time together, too,” I said.

He took another drag and sucked in a breath. “Yeah, I mean, sometimes I think about you being a nurse and everything and I wonder why you with me. You know? I mean, I know I ain’t educated like you, but I like what we got together,” he grunted as he exhaled a cloud of marijuana smoke.

“Yeah, it’s a good arrangement,” I agreed, trying to hold my breath.

“Uh, Marlay, you think maybe we could like take things to the next level?”

Dang, we’re having sex on the regular. How much farther could we go?
“What do you mean?” I asked, trying not to sound annoyed. But all of this talking was beginning to get on my nerves.

He sat up in the bed and set his joint in an astray on the cluttered nightstand. “Well, you know. Maybe we could move in together. I could pay most of the bills. Business is pretty good right now. Or I could get a real job and go legit if you want.”

“Um, Darius, that’s not even my house. It’s my family’s, and they’d go through the roof if you moved in. Plus, you know I have a daughter.  I can’t be shacking up over her.”

“Ain’t that girl ‘bout to graduate? Hell, she grown. And we can get another place together.”

“Are you serious? You ready to hang your player hat up for me?” I asked skeptically. That would be hard to believe.

“Look, baby… I been thinking a lot lately. I’m ready to settle down, maybe even get a real job, like I said. Maybe it’s time for me to get my life straight. You the only one I can do that with. You the smartest woman I know and you got a lot going for you.”

Translation: I have the best job of the women you’ve been sleeping with
. “I see. Well, I just don’t know, Darius. I’ll have to think about it.”

“A’ight, I got you. But I’m being for real, Marlay. I’m ready for us to really be together.”

I nodded.                                                                                                    

I lay there for a few moments and then reached over and rubbed his bare chest. He smiled, and before long, we were on our third round. A couple of hours later, I left his place, satisfied but confused. His words had made me see him in a different light—that is, if he really meant what he was saying. I was surprised by his offer, and although I’d only ever thought of him as a booty call and I wasn’t in love with him or anything, I was actually considering it. I guess I was looking for most anything to shake up my world. Living with Darius would be nothing if not interesting.

~*~

On Saturday, a little over a week before Tiffany’s graduation, my dad invited us to his house for dinner. He lived in a huge house a few miles outside of town with his wife and daughter, and I was pretty sure he had a gift for Tiffany. I looked out the window of Tiffany’s yellow VW Bug and sighed as she drove down the rural road. I was definitely not looking forward to this visit.

Sensing my tension, Tiffany glanced at me with almond-shaped eyes that were duplicates of mine and asked, “You all right, Mama?”

I looked over at her and smiled. “I’m okay, just not too excited about this little trip.”

“Mama, you’ve gotta stop letting gramps get to you. I mean, just ignore him or tell him off, but stop stressing. You’re gonna make yourself sick.”

She was right but I really didn’t want to discuss it. I shook my head. “It’s not that simple, Tiff. You wouldn’t understand.”

“I understand that you’re a grown woman, and you don’t have to answer to anyone. You can’t let your parents control you forever.”

I looked over at her and frowned. “They don’t control me, Tiffany. Anyway, watch what you say to me. I
am
still your mother.”

“I’m sorry. I just hate to see you like this. You look like you’re about to have a panic attack over seeing your own father. It shouldn’t be like that.”

I dropped my eyes and nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. It shouldn’t.”

The rest of the ride was spent listening to the radio. When Tiffany finally pulled into my father’s driveway, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
Here we go
.

We walked up to the front door and as Tiffany rang the doorbell, she offered me an encouraging smile. I returned hers with a weak smile of my own and then pasted on a fake one for my stepmother, Carmen, as she opened the front door.

“Hello, girls,” she said in her usual, haughty tone.

Clad in an expensive-looking, black, wrap-style dress and killer gold heels, the statuesque Carmen led us through the house and into the dark den, her expensive perfume leaving a trail behind her.

“Sugar, your girls are here,” she announced in an exaggerated “Southern belle” accent that she reserved for my father.

My father stood up and, with a smile on his face, pulled Tiffany into a hug so tight, I was afraid he would crush her thin frame. Then he turned to me and hugged me, too. Things always began like this with us—nice and cordial. But before the visit was over, things always,
always
went south.

“Hey, Dad,” I said softly.

“Marli,” he said, acknowledging my greeting. He turned his attention to Tiffany. “Tiff-Tiff! How’s grandpa’s girl?”

Tiffany flashed him her best smile. “I’m well, how are you?”

He laughed heartily. “That’s my girl! Manners of a queen. I’m good, baby. Real good. Come, let me show you what I’m looking at here.”

With that, they spent the bulk of the visit discussing some legal website. At sixty years old, my father was still the head of his own law firm, and it thrilled his soul that Tiffany would be following in his footsteps. My dad, Marlon White, Esq., was one of the most successful lawyers in the state and had served on several prestigious boards and committees. He had been grooming Tiffany for a career in law for as long as I could remember, and he was willing to do anything to make sure his wish came to fruition, including paying for her education.

It was my father who’d insisted that she attend a private school, and it was him who’d paid for it. Now he’d chosen for her to attend Spelman and had already paid her first year’s tuition. She was to move the week after graduation to begin summer school. My father adored her above anyone else.

I sat quietly on the leather sofa and watched the interaction between my father and my daughter and felt a pang of jealousy. I’d often wished that my dad and I had a closer relationship, but I knew the choices I’d made in life had prevented it. I’d embarrassed him, and that was something he did not easily forgive.

I was so deep in thought that I didn’t realize Carmen was talking to me. Actually, I think I’d blocked out the fact that she was still in the room.

“Marli?” she repeated.

“Oh, yes, did you say something?”

“Well, I was asking how your work was going. Are you still at the hospital?”

I nodded. “Oh, yeah, I am. It’s going okay. Nursing is always hard work, though.”

My father shook his head. “There’s no reason for you to be doing that work. You’re smart enough to be the CEO of that place. You just made the wrong choices in life,” he said without turning away from the computer. Only in my family would being an RN be considered an underachievement.

“Well, I did the best I knew how,” I rebutted.

“If that was your best, I’d hate to see your worst.”

Tiffany jumped into the conversation. “Grandpa, did I tell you I got another scholarship?”

Well, that took the spotlight off of me, thank goodness. I spent the rest of the time before dinner in silence, but things only got worse once we were all seated around the dinner table. There we were joined by my half-sister, Justine, who was my father and Carmen’s only child together. She was three years younger than Tiffany.

After my father said grace, we all began eating a meal of grilled salmon, wild rice, and mixed vegetables. Halfway through the meal, my father started in on me again.

“Marli, are you enjoying the salmon?” he asked.

I knew that was a trick question, but I answered it anyway. “Yes, sir. It’s really good.”

“Well, I wanted to have barbeque, but with your weight and all, I decided salmon would be better,” he replied.

I nearly choked, but then again, I don’t know why I was surprised. My father had always been fixated with my weight—even when I weighed far less than the 260 pounds I weighed at that moment. I’d never been skinny. I’d never
be
skinny. I’d accepted that. He wouldn’t.

“I hate salmon,” Justine said matter-of-factly.

“Well, Justine, we have to consider your sister’s health,” my father said.

“Whatever,” was Justine’s reply as she rolled her eyes.

My father turned his and everyone else’s attention back to me. “Well, Marli, Tiffany’ll be moving in a couple of weeks. What are you going to do with yourself?”

I shrugged. “I really don’t know. It’ll be weird being alone in that house.”

“Are you dating anyone?” Carmen asked.

I nodded. “Well, yeah, I’ve been seeing someone.”

My father snapped his head in my direction. “Well, you better not be thinking about shacking up with someone in that house. Tiffany will still be coming home for breaks, and you know that any man you’re with will only try to get to her.”

 “What?!” I shrieked, my eyes bugged.

“You heard me. No man will just want to be with you. They’ll use you to get to your daughter. The only man that needs to be in that house is her father.”

“Daddy, Tim and I are divorced and have been for years now! And you don’t even
like
him.”