Behind Closed Doors (16 page)

He came back into the great room with a couple of slices of ham between two pieces of wheat bread and a full glass of Sunny Delight.

“I know this is probably not the time to bring this up and it’s probably the last thing you want to hear, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.”

He was sounding too serious for her, and she could only imagine what he was preparing to say. “What?”

“I think we should reconsider our decision about not having any kids. I mean, I think we’d make great parents. We’ve got all this love between us, and we wouldn’t have any problems financially either.”

Karen frowned and wondered where he’d pulled that big bright idea from. His butt? He had to be kidding. “Have you lost your mind? You knew how I felt about having children from the moment you met me, and I’m sorry to tell you, nothing has changed. And you know I had my tubes sealed off, anyway.”

“Yeah, but remember when we had that consultation with your gynecologist and he said that securing those clips around your tubes was the best method because that way, he could go in and surgically remove them if we changed our minds?”

“Please. I don’t care if he
can
remove them. The bottom line is, I don’t want any children. I’m already thirty and my career is just now starting to take off. I didn’t struggle to get a master’s degree while working full-time for nothing.” This was pissing her off.

“I just think we need something like that. If we had a baby, I probably wouldn’t have started on this gambling spree. I need something else to devote my time to.”

“A baby isn’t some play toy that you can simply pick up when you get bored and put down when you’ve got something better to do. What about all the times we grab our keys and leave the house at the spur of the moment? We wouldn’t be able to do that anymore if we had a baby. Instead, we’d have to be scrounging around for some babysitter. And the last thing I want to do is hightail it to some day care by five-thirty, trying to make sure we don’t have to pay a whole dollar for each minute thereafter. I just can’t see it. Plus, who has a hun
dred dollars a week to pay them in the first place? I know we don’t.”

“I get off work before you do, so I can pick the baby up every day. And the day-care costs wouldn’t be a problem if we stop doing some of the other things we do.”

“Like what? Because I know you’re not prepared to give up Claiborne, Perry Ellis, and Kenneth Cole. And although I don’t buy as much designer stuff as you do, I like living comfortably. Living on the edge isn’t my thing. What if we had a baby now? Do you think you could have gone out and thrown whole paychecks away like you did? I don’t think so.”

“If it would mean having a baby, I would give up clothes and everything else.”

“That’s easy to say right now, but reality is a whole different thing. Plus, I don’t want to be tied down with any kids. I watched my mother struggle to take care of me and Sheila when my father conveniently walked out, and if she hadn’t been the excellent money manager that she was, I don’t know where we’d be. That’s never going to happen to me.”

“I know it’s never going to happen to you, because I would never walk out on you. The only reason I moved out this time is because you insisted. I’m telling you, I love you too much to do anything like that. You mean everything to me, so I don’t understand how you would even think something like that?”

“My parents meant everything to each other too, but look what my father did. There’re just no guarantees. My
grandmother used to say all the time that you never know what tomorrow might bring, and she was right. I’m sorry, but getting pregnant and having a baby isn’t for me.”

“Well, at least think about it,” he said, setting the near empty plate on the floor. “Okay?”

“There’s nothing to think about,” she said, turning away from him. “This is a dead issue as far as I’m concerned. If you wanted someone to lie around in the house barefoot and pregnant, you should have married someone else, because I’m just not the one.”

“I didn’t want to marry anybody else. I fell in love with you.”

“Look, I can’t change who I am or how I feel.” She stood up when she thought she heard the mailman.

John flicked on the television set. “Fine, Karen. If that’s the way you feel.”

After retrieving the mail, she came back and sat on the love seat, where she shuffled through each piece until she found the monthly statement from Bank First. She dropped everything else onto the coffee table. She opened the envelope and pulled out four pages. The first two summarized the checking account and the last two were for savings. She scanned down the first page and didn’t see any errors. But when she came to the second page, she noticed two withdrawals, each in the amount of $500. She frowned. That just couldn’t be. She hadn’t used her Cirrus card to withdraw that kind of money since she could remember, and as far as she knew, $500
was over and above the daily limit for automatic teller withdrawals. She wasn’t sure, but she thought the maximum was somewhere in the neighborhood of two hundred fifty. And since John never carried the checkbook, the only way he could have done something like this was by going to the bank and making a teller withdrawal. For his sake, that had better not be the case.

“Did you make two five-hundred-dollar withdrawals over the past four weeks?”

He didn’t answer. His eyes were glued to the television, and she knew he was pretending that he hadn’t heard her.

“John!”

“What?” he said, finally looking at her.

“For the second time, did you make two withdrawals over the last four weeks?”

“How much were they for?”

“If you made the got-damn withdrawals, you should already know how much,” she yelled.

He dropped his face into the palms of his hands and shook his head from side to side like he didn’t know what to say next. “Yeah, I think I did, but that was over two weeks ago.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? Here I am writing checks like they’re going out of style, and you’re stealing money out of the account like some child. What if I’d written too many checks and they started bouncing? If I’m not mistaken, I think they charge around twenty dollars for having insufficient funds.”

He looked up at her but was speechless.

“I’ve never bounced a check in my entire life, and I’m not about to start just because of your irresponsible ass. Hell, I work at that bank. I can’t believe you. You’re not only getting rid of the money you earn, but now you’re messing with the money we’ve got saved at the bank? I should have never told you that I keep an extra thousand dollars in the account for emergencies. Shit, does going to the horse track sound like an emergency situation to you?”

“Look, baby. I’m sorry. That was before I moved out.”

“Stop lying. This second withdrawal was
after
you moved out. As a matter of fact, the ninth was on a Tuesday, so that means you were gambling on a weekday.”

“I know, but I haven’t done anything like that since. I know how stupid that was. You’re right about me having a problem, and I swear I’m going to that meeting tomorrow, if that’s the last thing I do.”

“I really don’t care what you do tomorrow, but right now, I want you to get the hell out of here.”

“Baby, please. Why are you tripping about something that happened weeks ago? You know I haven’t done anything like that since then. We need to spend some time together. For once, can’t you just forgive me?”

“Get out!”

“Look—”

“I don’t want to hear it. I just want you to get your ass out.”

John rose from the sofa, proceeded through the
kitchen, and walked through the garage to his car. He started it up, backed out the wide driveway, and left.

Karen felt like screaming. How could she have been so stupid? It hadn’t dawned on her to check for teller withdrawals when she’d tried to check the balance last evening. She should’ve suspected something like this all along. Drug addicts did this all the time, and she didn’t see much difference with someone who was strung out on gambling. She hated him for doing this. Now she’d have to transfer funds from savings to checking in order to cover some of the purchases she’d made yesterday. To her, that was like robbing Peter to pay Paul, and it made her sick to her stomach just thinking about it. Damn. She could understand if he’d done something responsible like getting the transmission fixed or paying a bill, but gambling, uh-uh.

She lifted the handset of the phone and dialed the twenty-four-hour automated teller line. She pressed “3” to select transfer funds, entered in both account numbers, and then the amount, which was $2,500. She wasn’t taking any chances on him stealing from this account ever again, and she was going to deposit all of it into her credit union first thing Monday morning.

The system was taking longer than usual to process, so she continued to wait. Finally, it responded. “You do not have sufficient funds available to complete this transaction, please press the star key for more options.”

“What?” she said out loud. They had at minimum $2,500 in that account. She just knew he hadn’t messed
around and withdrawn money from there as well. She picked up the third and fourth pages of the statement and searched down it. Sure enough, there had been a $500 withdrawal. A wave of heat flashed through her body. That brought the total to fifteen hundred. The man was crazy. Had to be, if he was doing some stupid shit like this. Instead of support group meetings, he needed psychiatric help.

She went through the computer-driven procedure again and entered $2,000 as the amount to be transferred, and this time the automated teller accepted it. She hung up and sighed deeply. What if his name had been on her credit union account? He would really have showed his ass then. That was for sure.

She lay back on the love seat and tried to relax. A million thoughts flickered through her mind, but one stood out loud and clear: Instead of paying bills with the $700 he’d just given her, she was going to seriously consider using it to file for a divorce.

“G
UESS WHO JUST CALLED
to say they were on their way over to talk?” Regina asked Karen while taking a puff from her cigarette and repositioning the phone. She hadn’t smoked the whole time they’d been shopping yesterday, because she hadn’t wanted Karen to know she was strung out again.

“Not Larry, I know.”

“He sure did.”

“What is it he wants to talk about?”

“I don’t know, because he wouldn’t say. But I’ve got a feeling he’s come to his senses. He was sounding awfully pleasant. He even went as far as asking me how I’ve been doing.”

“Are you going to take him back?”

“I don’t know what to do. A part of me wants to, because quite obviously, I’m still in love with him, but the
other part of me says he can’t be trusted, and that I should divorce him. I just don’t know.”

“You have to do whatever you have to do, but I do think you need to think about this further before you make a final decision. He needs to understand that you’re the one running the show now, and not him.”

“I know that’s right. Just yesterday, I was feeling like I could make it just fine without him, and now look at me, sitting here contemplating whether I should take the man back.”

“Girl, you’re not doing anything that I’m not. I called John at his mother’s house this morning, because I really wanted to see him, and when he got here, he started rambling on about having a baby, and then to top that off, my bank statement came in the mail, and I found out he’d made two $500 withdrawals from checking and another for the same amount from savings. A whole fifteen hundred dollars. Can you believe that shit?”

“No!” Regina said. “I know you’re lying, aren’t you?”

“Oh, no I’m not. The man has lost it, and I’m through with him for good. I threw his ass out of here a couple of hours ago. I’m so pissed off, I don’t know what to do, and I’m seriously thinking about filing for a divorce. I just can’t take this shit anymore.”

“Girl, please. You’d better push that idea right out of your mind, because there is no way you should be throwing your marriage away just like that. And anyway, he hasn’t gone gambling since he made those withdrawals, has he?”

“No. At least, not that I know of. He even gave me most of his paycheck when he got here, but that’s beside the point, because the bottom line is that he hasn’t gone to one of those meetings. Things are not going to get better until he does, but he doesn’t seem to understand that.”

“Well, at least give him until tomorrow. I mean, I know he’s messed up a lot of money, but it seems to me like he’s really been trying for the past two weeks.”

“Shit, I’m tired of giving him chances, and as far as I’m concerned, he used his last one when he made those withdrawals from our bank accounts. I’m moving every dime out of the bank and into my credit union because there’s no telling what he might do as long as he knows he can get cash whenever he wants to.”

Regina heard the doorbell ring. “Girl, that’s Larry,” she said excitedly. “I’ll call you as soon as he leaves.”

“Good luck, and whatever you do, make sure he understands that he has to dance to your music if he wants you back.”

“You know I will. Talk to you later,” Regina said and hung up the phone. She walked to the front door, smoothed her hair on each side, and opened the door.

“How’s it going?” Larry asked, walking in dressed in a red polo shirt and a pair of black shorts.

“Fine. How are things with you?” she asked, closing the door, following behind him to the family room.

He took a seat on the sofa, and she sat in the oversized chair with her feet pulled partially under her butt. There was complete silence for at least half a minute.

Regina decided to break the ice. “So, what did you want to talk to me about?”

Larry forced his body to the edge of the sofa and clasped his hands together, looking straight ahead and away from Regina, almost as if he had something to say but wasn’t sure how to go about it. Finally, he spoke. “I really don’t know where to begin.”

That was obvious. When he’d phoned, she was certain he’d come to his senses and was planning to beg his way back home, but now she wasn’t so sure. He was beating around the bush, and that wasn’t like him. But she decided not to jump to any conclusions until she heard exactly what he had to say. She continued to listen.

He breathed deeply. “I guess there’s no easy way to do this, so I’ll just say what I have to say. I’m in love with Marilyn, we’re going to have a baby, and I’m filing for a divorce.”

Regina swallowed hard, tightened the muscles in her face, and willfully repressed all of her emotions. She felt paralyzed and numb. Had she heard him right? She replayed what he’d just said to make sure there hadn’t been some sort of a mistake with the way she’d understood it. “What did you just say?”

This time, he turned to look at her. “I’m in love with Marilyn, she’s pregnant, and we’re going to have a baby.”

There hadn’t been any mistake at all. That bitch was really pregnant, and this motherfucker right here was the cause of it. She couldn’t believe he’d had the audacity to
bring his low-down ass over there to announce some shit like that in person. But now that he had, she wanted to know how long he’d known about all of this. “How many months is she, Larry?”

“Six weeks. It wasn’t something we planned. It just happened. You have to believe that.”

“Oh, you mean like when you screwed her for the first time, and it was in our own fuckin’ bed? Is that what you mean? Things always seem to ‘just be happening’ when it comes to you and Marilyn, and to be honest, I don’t even want to hear that tired shit anymore.”

“Hey, I’m sorry for all of this, but there’s nothing I can do to change it. You’re just going to have to accept that. The last thing I want to do is argue with you, and the only reason I came over here to tell you in person was because I felt I had a responsibility to do so. I didn’t think it was right for you to find out from somebody else or by accident.”

“No, that’s not what your responsibility was at all. Your responsibility was to stay faithful to your wife, but you chose not to do that. We took vows before God and promised to spend the rest of our lives together, and you disregarded every bit of that. Were things so bad between us that you had to fall for some slut? And how in the hell are you going to be a daddy to some baby when you don’t even have what it takes to be a real husband?”

“Why can’t we ever sit down and have a civil conversation like two intelligent adults? Damn,” he said, grabbing his keys from the table where he had laid them.

“Fuck being civil. It’s too late for that shit. You see, while you were lying over there with that little back-stabbing bitch of yours, I was shedding tears, worrying my ass to death, and praying that you would leave her. And to think how stupid I was earlier, thinking you were on your way over here to make things right with me. Hell, I must have been out of my damn mind.”

“Look, I don’t want this divorce to turn into something ugly, because it doesn’t have to be that way. We can split everything up so that neither one of us gets the low end of the deal.”

“You know what,” she said, standing up. “I want you to get your sorry ass out of here right now. Just looking at you makes me want to throw up. Get the fuck out,” she screamed, walking into the kitchen. The devil had led her in there and was advising her to grab the first butcher knife she could get her hands on, but at the same time, she heard what must have been an angel begging her to let this whole thing go. She didn’t know what to do.

“I’ll have my attorney send you the divorce papers within the next couple of weeks,” he said. He walked toward the front door and pulled it open.

Regina stormed out of the kitchen—fortunately, without any sharp weapons—and responded. “You can serve me with all the papers you want to, but I’m not signing a damn thing until I get good and ready. And you can forget about marrying Miss Marilyn before she delivers that baby of yours, because it ain’t happenin’, brother.”

Larry walked out the door and slammed it.

She was more furious now than before. Who in the hell did he think he was anyway, ignoring her like she was some puppet? She swung open the door and rushed outside, onto the edge of the lawn by the driveway. “When I get through with you, you’ll be wishing you’d never met me. And if you thought having a rock thrown through your car window was insane, well, just wait. When this is all over, you’ll be on your knees begging me to take your sorry ass back. Except, it won’t be happening.”

He turned the ignition to the car and leaned out the window. “Whether you want to or not, you’re going to have to get over me. I’ve got who I want, and like I told you before, you’re just going to have to accept it. That’s just the way it is. And as far as all your little threats, you’re wasting your breath,” he said, rolling out of the driveway.

She wanted to chase after him on foot, but since this was the neighborhood she
did
had to live in, she couldn’t clown nearly as bad as she had over at Marilyn’s on Monday. Her white neighbors would think she was some sort of a troublemaker, and it wouldn’t be long before they would start classifying her as being “just like the rest.” She couldn’t have that. She wanted them to know that there was such a thing as decent black people. She went back inside the house and shut the door.

She dropped down on the oversized chair once again, stretched her feet out on the matching ottoman, and tried to keep up with all of the thoughts racing through her mind. Something wasn’t right. Here, Larry had told her
he was in love with some slut, was expecting a baby, and was filing for a divorce within a couple of weeks, and for some strange reason, she really didn’t feel all that hurt. Sure, she was shocked, felt betrayed, and was angry as hell, but the feelings she was experiencing right at the moment weren’t nearly as bad as when she’d busted them in Atlanta or when she’d realized he’d moved in with Marilyn. Maybe she was in denial. Or maybe she’d only wanted to get back together with him because she still wasn’t crazy about the idea of being alone. She’d been asking God on a daily basis to give her the strength to get over Larry, and she wondered if that’s what was happening. Maybe her prayers had been answered without her even paying much attention.

A part of her had wanted to get back together with Larry, but after seeing him and hearing his headline news, that idea was the furthest thing from her mind. She wouldn’t have him now if he were the last bastard on this earth. How she could fall in and out of love, be hurt one moment and enjoying herself the next, was beyond her. She’d been on an emotional roller coaster ever since this crazy shit had started and couldn’t wait for it to be over with.

She took a deep breath and looked at the glass-shelved grandfather clock. It was just past six. Sitting around the house on a Saturday night was the last thing she wanted to do, and she wasn’t going to. Instead, she was going to spend the night out on the town and was taking Karen right along with her. They were both hav
ing marital problems and desperately needed a girls’ night out, anyway.

She reached for the phone and hit the key for Karen’s number, which was programmed in the memory feature. As she waited for Karen to answer, she thought, “Hmmph. If Larry thinks he’s the only Negro with a dick between his legs, he’s dead wrong—and after tonight, I’m going to be the one to prove it to him.”