All That Drama (18 page)

She stopped by my car before leaving the parking lot. “Marie, I’m taking him to my house. I’ll see you later,” she said as if nothing had happened inside of the club.

“In the dark?” I questioned, surprised again at the lengths Sammie would go to get that dick. It was down-right disgusting.

“We don’t need any lights for what we are going to do.” She giggled.

The fact that this whole conversation had taken place in front of Norman really had pissed me off. It was bad enough that I almost had gotten into an all-out brawl with Dickweed ’cause he was disrespecting her trifling ass, but to have had it take place in front of a strange man had added insult to injury.

“Well, I’ll just be damned!” I said in complete awe. Norman gently squeezed my hand, cutting off the low blow that I was about to throw at her departing figure.

“Whatever, heifer, holler at you later.” I watched her drive away with tears pricking the corners of my eyes. She was a grown-ass woman and there was nothing I could do about her behavior, but it still hurt me. She was not only disrespecting herself, damn it; she disrespected me and I did not play that shit.

I turned to Norman with tears brimming in my eyes. They did not fall but they were there. He kissed his fingers and put them up close to my eye. It was so sweet of him not to try to take advantage of the moment.

I cleared my throat and said, “You know what, she’s my friend and I love her dearly but sometimes I really don’t like her! You don’t know that man. He really treats her like warmed-over shit but her dumb ass keeps coming back for more. I just can’t understand it and for some reason that causes me a great amount of pain.” I tried to get the words out in between sniffles.

“That’s what makes you so special to me,” Norman said. “You have compassion for other people. You are not just out there thinking of yourself. I could see it in the way you defended your friend even though she’s acting like a fucking idiot, excuse my French. And you’re right, I don’t know the guy that she left with but I have seen him before plenty of times and this does not surprise me. The only thing that I’m thinking about is that if you can love her with all her flaws, imagine how we could learn to love each other.” Norman surprised me with his insight and I was touched.

Norman and I spoke for another fifteen minutes but my heart wasn’t really in it. I think he sensed it, too, ’cause he gently kissed me on the cheek and said goodnight. I drove home in deep thought about the events of the night and others in the recent past. In the end, I made a firm resolve to never go out with Sammie again. That shit was just too dangerous for me and if I wasn’t careful, I could wind up getting hurt.

S
ammie’s car was in the driveway blocking my entrance. I started to get mad all over again. She knew not to park there unless she was behind me ’cause when I pulled behind her big-ass car, the back of my car stuck out into the street and I hated that shit. She was just a non-rent-paying visitor so she should not have been in my space. I parked on the street with every intention of waking Sammie up and making her move her damn car out of my spot.

I assumed that the two-minute brother had come and gone since she was there so early. It was late but the kids were still up playing Nintendo when I opened the door. Tyson and Kendall were draped over the sofa as if it were the afternoon instead of three o’clock in the fucking morning. I was pissed that Tyson had allowed my kids to stay up that late. I was about to give him a piece of my mind when I heard moaning sounds coming from Kevin’s room.

Although the sound registered as those made while fucking, I could not get a clear picture of what was going on. Slowly it dawned on me. Someone was getting busy and that someone was Sammie. I raced down the hallway like a woman on fire. I pounded on the door like a demented bitch. I contemplated knocking down the damn door but I knew that she could not afford to replace it. Kevin and Keira, scared by the wild look on my face, were clinging to my legs and crying. I was so hurt that Sammie would deliberately disregard my feelings for Dickweed and bring him into my home. My kids were too young to know what was really going on but her kids knew what time it was. Obviously they had been down this road before ’cause all they did was snicker.

With tears streaming down my face, I continued to beat on the door. At first, they stopped making noise as if I hadn’t heard them in the first place. As I continued to pound on the door, I could hear them whispering but I could not make out all of their words. What I could hear was Dickweed urging Sammie to finish what she had started since he was almost there. This incited me even more and I began to pound the door with both my feet and hands. I did not stop banging on the door until it was opened and a half-naked Sammie peeped her head out.

If I had thought to grab a weapon, I would have cold cocked her ass and snatched the weave off her head.

“You low-down dirty bitch! How could you bring that piece of trash into my house!” I screamed. “What the fuck have I ever done to you to make you treat me like this? All I ever wanted to do was to help your sorry ass, and this is the thanks that I get! I want you and that slimy motherfucker to get the fuck out of my house!” I screeched.

For a moment, Sammie did not move and she looked as if she were truly afraid of me.

“Now, bitch, or I’m calling the fucking police. If you don’t believe me, then keep your fat ass right there and see what happens! You’ve got ten seconds to get out!” I was screaming and spitting in her face.

From behind the door, I could hear Dickweed asking her if I had a gun.

“I don’t want to get shot in the back by this simple-ass bitch,” Dickweed continued. Sammie shut the door and there was further rustling as they continued to get dressed. I put my ear up against the door so I could hear what was being said.

“She does not have a gun; I would know that shit. Just get dressed so she will stop yelling,” she hissed at him. Unfortunately, I did not detect any remorse in her voice.

Sammie came out first with Dickweed super-glued to her backside, using her as a shield. I would not look at Sammie but I did steal a look at Dickweed. He had a shit-eating grin on his face that just made me want to go Mike Tyson on his ass! I was so upset that I was shaking. Twice in one night they had pushed me beyond my limits. I ordered my kids to go to their rooms and get into bed. They did not want to, but they could tell from the tone of my voice that they had better not challenge me.

I took a deep breath and in the most normal voice that I could muster, I spoke to Sammie and Dickweed. She was looking at the floor, and Tyson and Kendall’s eyes kept darting back and forth between their mother and me. Dickweed was still grinning like that shit didn’t mean anything to him and in reality it probably didn’t ’cause he had gotten what he had come for.

“Sammie, tell your fucking friend to get out of my house now before I have to hurt him!” I said this through clenched teeth and she knew that I meant business. My fingers were curled around the neck of a beer bottle that I had grabbed out of the refrigerator and I was ready to launch it at his head.

“Wait by the car,” she said to Dickweed under her breath. He sauntered out of the door, leaving it open, but not before he instructed her not to keep him waiting too long. He had the nerve to blow a kiss in my direction and I threw the bottle barely missing his head. The bottle exploded, splattering beer and glass all over the walls and carpet.

Sammie did not flinch. I stood there staring at her for a full five minutes willing her to say something to me to make the situation better. With a heavy sigh, I told Tyson and Kendall to get their stuff ’cause they were leaving along with their trifling mother. They went into the kids’ rooms to gather the stuff that they had managed to move in during the course of their stay. I stopped them both out of hearing range of their mother. “Tyson and Kendall, if you ever need me, I’m just a phone call away. I am not abandoning you two; I just can’t be a friend to your mother. Do you understand that?” They both nodded. “I love you both; please remember that,” I added.

“Then why are you kicking us out, too?” Tyson said, always the bold one.

“’Cause I can’t legally keep you. I could get in more trouble if I did that. Your mother’s responsible for you, not me.” Watching their faces as they prepared to leave was tearing my heart to pieces but I could not help it. Sammie had caused all the drama.

Back at the front door Sammie waited while she shifted her weight from foot to foot as if she had to go to the bathroom. She did not say anything and for a while, I was tempted to just leave it at that.

“You need to get your stuff, too. You crossed the line today and you are no longer welcome in my home—ever.” I was still crying but I was not yelling anymore. I was too drained and hurt. She turned to go get her stuff but I stopped her. From the look on her face, I believed she thought that I was changing my mind.

“Sammie, just tell me one thing. Why? What did I ever do to you that would make you hurt me this way? Make me understand, please, so that one day, I can look back on our friendship and say something good about it.” I was pleading with her to try to salvage some part of our friendship. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. She looked at me briefly but lowered her eyes and turned to go get her things. I heard a horn blow from outside and assumed that it was Dickweed. It just didn’t make any sense to me. She got her things and after several trips to the car, they were ready to go. I stopped her from shutting the door with my foot and requested my keys back. She looked as if I had slapped her but she gave them to me. She walked out the door without answering my question or bothering to offer any explanation for her actions. Even after witnessing my hurt and anger, and watching the tears fall from my eyes, she never even said that she was sorry.

I spent the entire day cleansing Sammie out of my life. I didn’t want any visible evidence of her stay. I found several items that they had left behind, and I packed them up and dropped them off at Sammie’s apartment on our way to the grocery store. I did not want to knock so I just left the package outside her door. When we got back, I crawled into bed with Kevin and Keira and we took a long nap. Sammie and I did not speak for one year. She would call, but when I saw her name on the caller ID, I refused to answer the phone. Sammie had hurt me too bad. It was as though she had created an open wound and now it was infected.

I still kept in contact with Tyson. Kendall was too shy to call but I saw her around. Tyson told me that Sammie spent most of her days sleeping and the others just barely getting out of bed. If he had told me this to get me to forgive his mother, it did not work. Sammie had created the rift, not me.

N
orman and I began speaking on a regular basis. I told him what Sammie had done and how it was affecting me. He listened to me as if he really cared about what I was going through. He seemed truly sincere and I liked the words of comfort that he whispered to me when I broke down into tears while recanting what had transpired.

“Marie, I know it doesn’t feel that way but things are going to be okay,” Norman said.

“I know but it’s still a touchy situation as far as I am concerned. I am afraid for Kendall and Tyson ’cause I know Sammie. She will just hide from the world and the only ones that will suffer are Kendall and Tyson,” I said.

“If you feel this strongly, why don’t you do an intervention?” he asked.

“Two reasons, really; I hope that this will wake her ass up and two, her children need to learn to rely on her, not me. I have my own that I am responsible for,” I said.

“True, you do but if it is going to worry the hell out of you, then you just can’t push it under the rug.”

Norman had a good point. I was making myself sick worrying about what was going on behind their closed doors.

Norman was different from the average guy. He proclaimed that he was not just interested in getting into my panties, and he was showing it by taking an active interest in the things that concerned me. Needless to say, I was intrigued. Although I had not seen him since the night we’d met, he called me every morning to wake me up, and he was the last person I spoke to every night.

That was unusual because most guys didn’t like to talk on the phone unless they absolutely had to and they kept it quick and to the point. Not to mention, I was not much of a phone person either.

Norman would ask me about my kids and even remembered their names. This was a good sign to me ’cause most men talking to a woman with kids tried to ignore the children or pretend they did not exist.

“I would like to see you this weekend. Do you think we could get together and maybe watch a movie?” he asked. I was open to that suggestion and offered to cook for him but he said that he would pick up something on the way. I gave him directions and we set a time that would have him at my front door by eight o’clock Friday evening.

I was nervous about seeing him in my home without the club gear that he was used to seeing me in but if this “friendship” were going to grow into anything else, we would have to pass this moment. I was also taller at the club due to the high heels that I always wore. When I went out, I usually wore very short, form-fitting dresses showing off my sexy legs with four-inch heels. But that night I was toned way down in some Tommy jeans and a V-neck sweater. I had chosen the sweater ’cause it molded my upper body showing off my big breasts. My hair and makeup were tight so in all I thought that I looked fly and if the brother didn’t like it, shame on him.

To add to my anxiety about seeing Norman again, my mother was tripping about watching the kids and she waited until the last minute to tell me. She started to clown when I told her I might have a date and then began to complain about all the things that she had to do that evening. Any other time I would have had to fight with her just to take the kids home with me, but all of a sudden, she had things to do. She had their bags packed and waiting when I pulled up to her door and was ushering them out to the car as if the house were on fire. Imagine that, my own mother hating and blocking on me. In a way I couldn’t blame her. In the long run I thought that it would be okay for the kids to meet Norman since he acted like he was going to be around for more than a minute. But that called for plan two, to make the kids so tired that they would be anxious to go to bed on time.

I was not sure how my kids were going to react to a man in the house since I never entertained men in the house. I never wanted to confuse them by seeing a lot of different men, but I felt like Norman would be an exception. Since my move to Atlanta, I had only dated two other guys and they never made it to my house nor did I to theirs. Plus, the kids’ bedtime was 9:00 so if things didn’t go that well, it would only be an hour before they would be heading off to sleep.

Norman arrived promptly at 8:00 with two big bags. Since he had not asked me what I had wanted, I was surprised to see that they were from one of my favorite restaurants, the Olive Garden, and he had ordered my usual dish of seafood alfredo. The restaurant was near my house so the food was still hot.

“Are you psychic?” I inquired as I emptied the contents of the bags he’d brought in.

“What do you mean?” he replied.

“I’m just saying, how did you know that this was my favorite dish? Plus Olive Garden has the best salad in the world and the breadsticks aren’t bad either.” He gave me the sweetest smile that heated up my insides.

“Baby, I wish I could take credit for pulling a rabbit out of a hat on this but I can’t. I just got my favorite dish and hoped that you would like it. I should have called to confirm but I really did want to surprise you,” he said with a sheepish grin. “I’m glad it pleased you, though. I didn’t know what you wanted to drink so I got some beer for me, some grape soda for the kids, and a bottle of the house wine for you. Will that be all right?”

I kissed him right on the tip of his nose. “Yes, that was very sweet of you.” He blushed and I found that refreshing. It had been too long since I had spent time alone with a man and I found myself having that woman-to-pussy conversation again. I told Norman to go into the living room and make himself comfortable.

After I had a chance to put the food away I peeped in and was stunned. Norman was on the floor with my son playing with his PlayStation 2. My daughter was curled up right next to him and for a minute I thought I had peeked in someone else’s living room. To my surprise, they appeared extremely comfortable with each other. I wanted them to get along but damn, I was not ready for this. My son did not take to strangers well at all. He would have to know someone for at least a month in order to speak to them and he never let anyone play on his Play Station, not even his sister. Hell, he got an attitude when I tried to play with him and I bought the damn thing! Normally I would wait until he went to sleep so I could play as long as I liked and he would not be the wiser. He was nine and the concept of sharing had not entered into his brain yet. Everything was his and you had better know it.

My daughter, on the other hand, was more affectionate so I was not too surprised by her closeness to Norman but oh my goodness, she was snuggled up to him like she had known him all of her life. I tried to keep the astonishment off my face as I came in and sat down on the sofa to join them.

“I see you’ve met Keira and Kevin,” I said.

“Yeah, great kids.”

“Are you ready to eat yet?”

“Aw, Mom, we’re playing here. Do you want me to mess up?” Kevin said with a touch of attitude.

“Give me a chance to catch up. Kevin is kicking my butt,” Norman replied.

“Ok, I’m going to pour myself a glass of wine. Are you ready for a beer?” I asked.

“In a minute, I’ll take one with dinner.” He did not even look up from his game and I had to suppress a chuckle. I got caught up in the games, too, on the rare times I had a chance to play. I would get to fussing at the television, like it could hear me, when I lost or it did something that I did not like. I was so engrossed in my musing I forgot to get up until I looked over at Norman and caught him looking over at me. Our eyes locked making my knees weak. If I had read his gaze correctly, it said,
It could be like this all of the time, baby, that is, if you want it to be.
Damn, this brother was deep and my antenna went up. I was going to have to be very careful how I handled him.

My, my, my,
I thought. I got up and headed to the kitchen to get myself together. My thoughts went straight from the Hallmark moment in the living room to a raunchy bedroom fantasy straight out of
Penthouse
magazine that I should not have been thinking about at all. He’d just arrived and all I really wanted to do was run my fingers through his chest hairs that I peeped poking up through his partially unbuttoned shirt. I could see myself doing a series of tongue dances with him.

I could hear Kevin and Norman yelling at the television in the living room, acting like they had been friends for years. I poured myself a glass of wine and sat down at the kitchen table to gain some composure. I didn’t know whether to get horny or misty-eyed. Talk about confused! I wished at that moment that I could call Sammie to tell her how well things were going. I’d had a little bit of time to heal since the incident with Dickweed but I still ached over it. And during moments when I should have been happy, I was saddened because I couldn’t share my life with her. It ain’t like I would have asked her advice regarding whether I should sleep with him or not but I still would have liked to share my observations of him. Sure, I had other friends like Leah and Angie, but Sammie and I had recent history. She knew my dirt and I knew hers. The only difference was that the last time Sammie had thrown her dirt on me, and I was unwilling to forget that shit.

Even though Sammie wasn’t around to share the news of my good fortune, I was still happy that I had found Norman. Truth be told, I needed a good man in my life. I had endured all the bullshit and drama that one woman could stand in a lifetime and I was ready for the real deal. I felt that if God was finally sending me one good man, I needed to take a few moments to thank him.

Two glasses of wine later, I was still alone in the kitchen, and Norman and the kids were still involved in the game. I looked at the clock and realized it was 9:30 and that I was going to have to be the bad guy and put an end to their fun for the night, if I wanted to spend any time with Norman.

When I walked into the living room, I found Keira asleep. I woke her up and pushed her to her room. I tucked her in and gave her a kiss but she did not even feel it ’cause she was down for the count. Next came the hard part—getting Kevin to turn off the game. I dragged my feet getting back to the living room ’cause I could just hear Kevin’s mouth.

But when I returned, the television was off and the room was empty. I looked around but did not see Norman or Kevin anywhere. I backtracked upstairs and found that Norman was tucking Kevin into bed. I almost hit the floor. There were no temper tantrums nor any crying, yelling or slamming of objects. He simply had climbed into bed, and was waiting patiently for his kiss goodnight. When I leaned down to kiss him, he whispered in my ear, “I like him. Can he come play with me again tomorrow?” He said it so quietly, I had to strain to hear him but I shook my head yes and fought to keep the tears from falling down my face.

“Go to sleep, my little man. Have pleasant dreams,” I said, quickly kissing him and turning out his lights. Norman had already left the room so I did not immediately have to face him. I knew that he did not hear what my son had said ’cause I had to strain to hear it, but it opened another floodgate of emotions that I was not ready to deal with. Did my son know something that I did not know? Were my children telling me that Norman was the one? I felt so confused.

Going down the stairs, my heart was racing and I was not sure why. I was plagued with questions and no answers. Was my son so starved for male companionship or was his radar better than mine? I really didn’t have an answer to that one. Both of my children behaved like model children that night and that’s something that rarely happened when I wanted to make a good impression on someone. Up until that moment, I did not realize how much I had wanted Norman to like my kids and me. I shot God another thank you and went to find Norman.

He was back in the living room but this time, he had a beer in his hand. He grabbed my hand and pulled me down to the sofa with him.

“I like your kids,” he said. “Especially your son; that little man is a trip. Do you know that he asked me to come back and play with him tomorrow?” he quietly said.
Damn, so much for him not knowing what my son said.
He was in like Flynn and he knew it and there was nothing for me to say!

“Are you ready to chow down or what,” I asked, trying to change the subject and put a little distance between us. As it was, I had settled next to him shoulder to shoulder on the sofa and the close contact was not helping my befuddled brain. I was feeling way too comfortable and I was glad to have somewhere to go when I jumped up to see about the food. I was in the kitchen before I even heard his reply.

“I’m ready when you are. You have a nice place, too, and did I tell you how beautiful you look tonight?” he said. Stunned and at a loss for words, I managed to tell him thanks and asked him to turn on the radio. He opted for the local jazz station for some sultry dinner music. I liked his choice.

“The food should be ready in about half an hour. You can’t rush pasta or it won’t be any good at all. We can start with the salad,” I said. Since it was a pasta dish, I put the tins into the oven and turned the temperature on low.

He came into the kitchen quietly, scaring me.

“Don’t sneak up on me like that. I watch too many scary movies.” Not to mention the multi-media entertainment center I called a brain was working overtime, causing me to be more antsy than usual. My body was on fire and the wine that I had consumed was helping to fuel it. Norman wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me gently back against his chest. We stayed that way for several minutes and I could feel the swell of his dick against my butt. It was all I could do not to push back on it to let him know that I was just as eager as he appeared to be.