Cheaters (37 page)

Karen laughed. “So much for you hooking him up with me, huh?”

“Karen, I’m sorry. It wasn’t planned. Well, he called, it sorta just—”

“Chanté, it’s
okay.
I’m happy for you.”

Karen leaned over and hugged me. Her warmth was so nice.

Tammy interrupted, “Since we’re talking about us and men, and we’re always open and honest, I need to talk to y’all. I’m in conflict, so I need somebody to talk some sense into me.”

We waited for Tammy to say what she had to say.

Tammy tunneled her fingers through her hair, over and over, sighed, “I’ve slipped, tripped, and fallen in love.”

Karen perked up. “With Bobby?”

“Nope. Somebody else. And it’s different.”

Karen said, “How is it different?”

Tammy thought a second before she answered, “What I feel for Bobby is like getting pricked by a doctor’s needle, like when you get a tetanus shot. The other man is more intense, like getting an arm cut off with a rusty ax.”

Karen cringed. “Damn. That’s intense.”

I said softly, “It’s wretched.”

Tammy was troubled. “Feels like I finally met my soul mate.”

“So what’s the problem?” I wanted to know.

She held up her black T-shirt, showed us the backside, then said, “They should’ve added
married
to this list.”

I was speechless. Karen was too.

Gently I asked, “Do we know him?”

Tammy nodded.

Karen asked, “What does he do?”

“He’s an aspiring writer.”

I echoed, “Aspiring? Oh, Lord.”

Karen frowned. “He’s broke
and
married?”

Tammy said defensively, “He’s not published yet, but I know he will be. He’s passionate, sensitive. I’ve never met a man so mature. He thinks I’m fantastic.”

Karen groaned. “Who is this pronoun called
he
? And please tell me you haven’t had sex with him.”

Tammy said, “We haven’t kissed. Just talked.”

My arched eyebrows met in the middle of my forehead. “How can you fall in love with somebody you ain’t slept with?”

Karen quipped, “Don’t be shallow, Chanté.”

I matched her sarcasm: “Don’t be unreal, Karen.”

That was where our rapid-paced conversation went, surged onward to the topic of falling in love with a man that you hadn’t seen butt naked yet. We were all talking, voices overlapping, cutting each other off.

Tammy said, “I’m with Chanté on this one. First you get your freak on, and if the man can work it, then you try and see what kind of a relationship you can make out of what’s left.”

Me and Tammy high-fived.

Karen waved us down, said, “But the problem with that way of life is when a sista finally gives in—”

“
Gives in
?” I frowned and shook my head. “Why does it have to be
giving in
?”

Tammy backed me up. “That sounds like we’re victims.”

Karen waved, talked louder. “Let me finish. When a woman succumbs to the dick and gets her freak on—”

I wailed out my protest, “
Succumbs.
That’s even worse.”

“
Chanté
!” Karen said, then pushed me. “That’s when a sista’s just starting the relationship. After sex, men are done. Mission accomplished, they move on. Like locusts.”

I raised my voice in offense. “Chill with that locust mess. My coochie ain’t no crop.”

Tammy threw in, “Yeah, but you sho’ be rotating it.”

Karen and Tammy gave each other finger snaps.

I flipped both of them off and said, “Shut up.”

Karen waved me away. “But that’s besides the point. Tammy, who is this invisible man?”

Tammy hesitated. “I shouldn’t’ve brought this up. Let’s just skip it.” She chuckled. “I don’t want to be the one to mess up my own birthday celebration.”

We tried to pry the info out of Tammy, but that was all she would say. We backed off. After all, it was her birthday.

Our laughter went on and on, until I turned to Karen. “Well, don’t tell me you’re sneaking behind my back and seeing somebody too?”

Karen’s eyes bucked at my out-of-nowhere question. Then she shook her head, made her Shirley Temple curls sway, and let out a stream of contrived laughs. “My coochie is a vegetarian, and no meat will get between these lips.”

I winked at her. “Nobody but Victor.”

She winked. “Nobody but Victor.”

The first two weeks of May had been nice, nothing but sunshine, but I should’ve checked my Farmers Almanac because during the third week, without warning, El NiñTo paid Southern Cali another visit. The temperature dropped

twenty degrees as rain came down and the non-drivers clogged freeways. Mud slides. It had been that way Sunday through Wednesday. Each day rain fell and the winds blew hard enough to break leaves off a few palms. Thursday morning the sun was still MIA, but the drizzle had gone away.

I had just walked Chanté down to visitors parking. She threw her jacket, umbrella, and soft leather attaché case in the backseat, then grabbed a handful of my butt. I did the same.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her.

“Nothing.” She wiped a piece of lint off my chin.

“You seem a little distant.”

I helped Chanté adjust her lime skirt, made sure the zipper lined up in the back, checked to see if her white blouse with the big buttons was tucked in and wasn’t bunched up in the rear.

Juan came out of Rebecca’s apartment, barefoot in jeans and a T-shirt. Rebecca followed him. She had on a long skirt, slippers, and a soccer sweatshirt with Spanish writing. That was the soccer shirt that Juan had worn up to her house last night.

Rebecca saw us and waved. “Don’t y’all look nice.”

Juan yelled my name, then came over. He asked me to help him move some of his furniture and a few boxes to a storage facility a few miles over on Fairplex, near the fairgrounds.

I said, “You’re not moving out, are you?”

“No. I am moving in with Rebecca.”

I grinned. “A lateral move.”

“No, an upward move.”

We laughed. Juan slapped my back in fun.

“
Si
,” he smiled. “We can save money. I will rent my condo.”

Chanté had gone silent. Juan and I looked at her. Her eyes were disturbed, but her lips suddenly curved up into a smile. She said a weak “Congratulations.”

Juan left, went back to Rebecca.

Watching them, Chanté said, “That’s sweet. They’re gonna work on that relationship.” I didn’t say a word. She whispered, “They really have something.”

Her radio was on KJLH. Cliff and Janine were playing

“Making Love in the Rain.” Chanté sang a few bars, had that seductive, tight-eyed look. Then all of that sensuality went away, became unreadable.

Her voice lost its softness, became deep: “Stephan?”

“What?”

“Maybe we should talk.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I’ve been staying over here every night.”

She’d gotten in her car, so I kneeled so we could be eye to eye. “Chanté, you make it sound like you’ve been kicking it over here for months.”

“I haven’t been home in three days.”

I asked, “So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying, well, I’m an obsessive compulsive.”

“So, you’re trying to tell me that you’re crazy?”

She laughed. “Okay, maybe obsessive compulsive is the wrong way of putting it.”

“I hope so. That’s what Robin Givens said Mike Tyson was.”

“That was manic depressive, silly.”

I said, “Sounds just as scary.”

“I’m intense.” She chilled with the smile and turned on the serious voice. “I’m the type of person that if I have one cookie, I have to eat the whole box.”

“And I’m the cookie.”

“I’ve had the cookie. Now I’m starting to want the box.”

I swallowed. Felt pressure on my temples. She reached and held my hand. Her hands had turned as dank as the morning air.

She confessed, “I’ve already had a rough time at this shit.”

“You saying that you’re falling in love?”

“I don’t do
love
anymore. No more fairy tales.”

“Then what do you have to look forward to?”

“Sanity. Love ain’t nothing but a .38 aimed at a sista’s temple.”

She ran her hand over my face, touched my lips. Her every movement contradicted her words.

Chanté said, “I don’t want a boyfriend. I don’t want you to think that you have to be my boyfriend.”

She curled her bottom lip in, bit it with her top and smudged her berry-colored lipstick, ran her hand over her

wild and wavy hair, then smoothed the lines out of her forehead.

I asked, “You’re seeing somebody?”

She looked offended. “I really like you. I like what you do when you do the do. I like what you do when you’re not doing the do.”

“If you didn’t like the way I do the do?”

“I’d school you, work with you on doing the do, turn you out, have you wanting me so bad you’d wash my car in a hurricane.”

“And if you didn’t like me, but the sex was good?”

“I’d freak you once,” she said with a joking smile, “maybe twice just so it wouldn’t be a one-night stand, then bounce you like a basketball.”

“So, this is all about spanking that booty, then?”

“Shut up.” She playfully hit me. “The emotional relationship is what makes the sex good. I hope you can see beyond that. We don’t always have to go there. I love being with you and doing nothing, because that’s the way I am. But I loved it just as much when we didn’t go all the way, like when we sat around day before yesterday, watched cable, and read steamy parts of Darnell’s novel to each other.”

Silence.

She left it at that. She kissed my forehead, said, “Don’t be a Big Foot.”

“What does that mean?”

“Don’t disappear.”

With a smooth smile I said, “You want me to not disappear, but you don’t want a boyfriend?”

“Stephan Mitchell, I don’t know what I want.” She chuckled, ran her fingers over her bushy mane again. “I wish I could just go on like this, be with you just for the pleasure of experiencing pleasure, but eventually the strings will start to show up.”

Her voice had caring, positive emotion. The way she talked and smiled made me want to run and snatch her oh, so sweet ass up and take her away. Her heart was in her voice, in her eyes.

Maybe it was just my imagination brought on by infatuation.

I licked my lips. “Are you seeing other people?”

“It’s kind of late to be asking that, ain’t it, partner?”

“Are you?”

Her response was quick: “Would it matter?”

I patted her leg and sighed.

“Stephan, relax, I’m not trying to be your girlfriend.”

“You threw that wall up real quick.”

She admitted, “The real problem, outside of what’s in me, is that night we went to rescue your foul-mouthed, funky friend.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“Those who associate, assimilate.”

“Meaning?”

“Dogs run in packs.”

I paused and thought of my argument. “In other words, since you and your girls run in a pack, that means you, Karen, and Tammy are exactly the same.”

She turned her windshield wipers on. The first swipe raked dirt and a few fallen leaves from her window.

Chanté frowned. “I shouldn’t’ve brought this up.”

I replied coolly, “You said what was on your mind.”

Her stiff tongue made her jaw protrude.

“Stephan?”

“I’m listening.”

“Let’s back off. Maybe we shouldn’t talk for a few days.”

I clucked my tongue, said, “If that’s what you want.”

“It’s starting to rain again. A bad sign. I’d better make it over Kellogg Hill before traffic gets too bad.”

She closed her door, cranked her car up.

I held onto my bland face and headed toward my Mustang. I knew what that was all about. Women talked about men being flaky, but they were just as bad. Just as ready to fuck us and forget us.

Samantha called me right before lunchtime. I was in the clean room with about twenty people from the Air Force, working with metrology, running diagnostics on a device that measured inertia on flight hardware.

I found some space on an extension and tried to find out what was up.

She wanted to know why I hadn’t called her in eons.

I said, “I called.”

“Guess my answering machine took every message but yours.”

“A brother answered your phone in the middle of the night.”

She didn’t say anything.

I said, “You hear me?”

“What’s with the ‘tude, sweetheart? You’re not going to get stupid, are you? You don’t even call me on a regular basis.”

“You know my schedule’s tight.”

“It wasn’t so tight when we first started going out.”

“I call.”

“Not like you used to. But you brothers are always like that with us in the beginning. All nice and considerate. Right?”

I stayed on point. “Who answered your phone?”

“My cousin’s husband. I told you my cousin Gretchen and her husband were coming down for a few days.”

“I don’t remember.”

“I gave them the bedroom. The phone was in there. It rang, they answered it. Anything else?”

We talked a few moments. Then she got to the bottom line.

“I miss you. Come see me.”

“Not in the rain.”

“What if I made it worth the drive?”

Another outside line lit up and buzzed. A technician answered, put the caller on standby, then motioned at me. I put Samantha’s promises on hold.

But the next voice chilled my blood.

Stiff and cold, she said, “Hello, Stephan.”

I gritted my teeth. “Hey.”

“This is Toyomi.”

“I know. What do you want?”

“I want what belongs to me.”

“Toyomi, I’m not down for no bull.”

“Don’t make me drive down to your job and act a fool.”

I said, “You wouldn’t be acting.”

“Bastard.”

The phone line Samantha was on stopped blinking.

“Toyomi, stop calling me, stop calling my job. Stop calling my parents’ house. Just stop calling and go away.”

“Fuck you.”

“Been there done that.”

“You know I’ll fuck you up, don’t you? What I did to you when you came out here wasn’t nothing compared to what—”