Cheaters (44 page)

“Now, I ain’t never asked you for nothing, have I?”

“No, sir.”

“Now, I’m gonna ask one favor of you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Man to man, so raise your head and look me in the eye.”

I did. We did.

“Your daddy dead,” Pops said. “You can carry him with you all you want. You can take him with you everywhere you go from now until your bones turn to dust. That’s your right. But when we’re up here, let’s leave him out of this house.”

A moment or two passed before I nodded.

We stopped the man-to-man, eye-to-eye ritual.

He said, “Yes, sir. When a man steps in and fills another man’s shoes, it’s a thankless job. Doing right is a thankless job. You can work your fingers to the bone trying to do right, and you never get so much as a thank-you.”

I cleared my throat, shifted. I asked, “Anything else?”

“One more thang. And this ain’t a request. This is me telling you what I won’t tolerate,” Pops said. “Don’t be branging trouble around here. Women do some unpredictable thangs when they get riled, you hear me? I’ve seen

many a man put in the ground for less than what you’ve done. Me and your momma don’t want it, not on our property, don’t need it.”

“I invited Chanté over. Toyomi just popped up.”

“That’s not the point, son.” He gripped my shoulders. “Stephan, my son. If I done told you once, I done told you a hundred times. Don’t go dabbling in ho soup, because you might choke on the bone. Today you choked.”

He turned and headed back toward the house.

I called out, “Pops?”

“Yeah, son? What you need?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to say thanks.”

He nodded, then pointed at the street, toward the scattered food and paper plates that had fallen off Toyomi’s car. “Now go clean up that mess. We ain’t down on Crenshaw.”

“Yes, sir.”

At first the ride from Baldwin Hills was pretty quiet. For Dawn, quiet meant anger. Stephan was in the backseat. I had no idea what his quiet meant. Mine meant Tammy was on my mind.

I asked, “Stephan, you all right?”

“I’m cool. Just listening to the music.”

“Radio’s not on.”

“The music inside my head.”

“What you hear?”

“Teddy singing that the whole town’s laughing at me.”

I chuckled a little bit at his self-deprecating humor.

So did he.

Stephan said, “I was just feeling good about me and Chanté, then Toyomi showed up.”

“You sow it,” Dawn said stiffly. “You reap it.”

We crossed the 605 and approached the City of Industry. The freeway sign said that we were eighteen miles from Pomona.

Dawn said, “When I asked, no one ever told me about Tammy. Chanté ran out the house before she answered my question.”

My response was, “Nothing to tell.”

In the rearview, my eyes met Stephan’s. I saw it in his face—that scene had left him distraught. The last time I saw him come close to looking like that was years ago, when a girl he was living with left him high and dry. He was uncomfortable, shifting around like a fugitive who was shackled and being driven on the gray goose to Chino Hills Correctional.

Dawn broke the silence. “Darnell and I have been together as man and wife for years.”

I asked, “Who are you talking to?”

“Myself,” she said. She continued staring out the window at the rolling hills, speaking right above a whisper. “It hasn’t been easy, but we’ve survived. The hardest part was when Darnell was in law school. Law school was probably harder on me than it was on him. He was never home, and when he was he had his nose in a book until the crack of dawn. It was to the point where we had no communication. He’d do his thing. I’d have to find something to do.

“Yeah. I was lonely. And I still am. Guess you can say I’ve been lonely for a while. Now that things are settled, when we should be coming together and rekindling our marriage, Darnell wants to go do something else. Something else that would change the dynamics of our marriage.

“Something else that would leave me on the sidelines playing cheerleader on a losing team.

“And after all I’ve done, he corners me in the garage and violates me in the broad of day. Didn’t care what kind of mood I was in, or if I had to pee, just didn’t care. That really made me feel like a woman. Sure in the fuck did. Is that the way you treat the women you date, Stephan?”

I jumped in, “Don’t take my business to Stephan.”

“Why not? You took it to Jake. Lie and say you didn’t. I know you did, because Jake told Charlotte, and Charlotte told me. I didn’t appreciate that. Not at all.”

Stephan said, “Watch your speed, Darnell.”

Dawn kept staring out the window. “Then my husband says he’s met somebody who understands him better than me. Hell, maybe we don’t know each other.”

I asked her, “How many pages of my work have you read?”

A moment passed.

I said, “Okay, Dawn, how many paragraphs? Sentences?”

Another moment.

I said, “When you’ve decided you want me to be someone I’m not, you’ve decided I’m not the one you want.”

“Someone you’re not? Darnell, you don’t know who you are.”

“No, you want me to be this image of the black man you want.”

“No, you don’t want to be responsible.”

“I’m responsible. You’re not supportive.”

“I’m tired of this shit.”

“Well, that makes two of us.”

“I love you, but I’m not afraid to hate you, Darnell.”

Stephan raised his voice. “Darnell, you’re drifting into the other lane. Watch out for that—”

A horn blared. The car in the next lane swerved to the right; I swerved to the left.

I gripped the wheel and stopped riding back and forth on the bubbles in the lanes, shouted, “Stop screaming in my ear. Damn. I saw that car.”

Dawn snapped, “He saw you too. That’s why he flipped you off.”

Stephan suggested, “Why don’t y’all talk about this when you’re by yourself? When we’re not going ninety miles an hour.”

Dawn rampaged, “Between him working, writing, and as much as he runs the streets with you and Jake, I have to get my words in when I can.”

Ten minutes later, I pulled off the freeway at Fairway Drive.

Dawn stared straight ahead. “You’re taking me home first?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I’m dropping you off, then I’m taking Stephan home.”

“Why can’t I go with you?”

“Why would you want to?”

“Why wouldn’t you want me to?”

“I’ll be back. We’re going to talk.”

“Why do you have to go talk to Stephan?”

“Same reason you run out to talk to Charlotte every time she breaks a nail.”

Stephan said, “Darnell, I’m cool. Drop me off first. Better yet, I’m only six or seven miles from home, so if you would please slow down to about fifty and pull over to the right, I could dive out, break a few bones, and limp to Phillips Ranch from here.”

I said, “Stephan, don’t worry about it.”

Dawn faced her window as we bounced over two sets of railroad tracks, stared at nothing until I pulled up in our driveway. She opened her door and got out without saying good-bye.

Stephan crawled into the front seat.

I called to Dawn, “Need me to bring anything back?”

She didn’t answer.

On the way to Pomona, I told Stephan what Dawn had done when Toyomi had dragged him away from the dinner table.

Dawn had been chewing her corn on the cob when Stephan made his exodus. His aunts had wobbled to the front window, were laughing and peeping outside to see what was going on.

When he was out of the house, Dawn smirked and asked Chanté, “Had you met Toyomi before today?”

Chanté answered, “Nope. Afraid I haven’t had the pleasure.”

“Isn’t she beautiful? She’s extremely intelligent as well.”

Chanté didn’t say anything.

Dawn continued, “Her and Stephan have been together for years.”

I corrected, “Not years. Just a little over a year.”

“Seems like years. We’ve gone on ski trips to Big Bear, hiking up at Griffith Park, went to the Maui Jazz Festival—no, wait, he didn’t take Toyomi to Hawaii. That was Samantha, the other girl he was seeing at the same time. He took Toyomi to Cabo. Or was that Brittany? No, he never takes Brittany anywhere. I don’t know, I’ve lost track.

Could’ve been what’s-her-face or what’s-her-face or what’s-her-face.”

Dawn went back to eating.

Chanté addressed Dawn, “You finished drilling me?”

Dawn smiled. “I’m not the one drilling you. Ask Stephan that question. He’s the king of the drill. One way or another, I’m sure he’ll be drilling you later.”

They locked eyes briefly.

Chanté excused herself and never came back.

Stephan had me get off the 57 at Diamond Bar Boulevard. I was on my car phone, talking to Tammy. Stealing a few moments to hear her voice, making plans to rendezvous before she went to Paris. Between rehearsals and practicing with the band, her schedule was tight. I’d miss her opening night at the play, but the night before she left for Paris, we’d be together. We decided that. I felt like a kid waiting for Christmas.

Or a prisoner waiting for his final hour.

I hung up. Stephan didn’t say anything, but he shifted like ants were feeding in his crotch. He wanted to release his thoughts, but he didn’t. He knew it wouldn’t do any good.

Stephan had me ride into Allegro, the condos across from the post office. That strip held miles of condominiums.

I went up Montefino Drive. He didn’t see Chanté’s car.

He borrowed a pen, a slip of paper, and wrote a note. He opened my car door but didn’t get out.

I asked, “You leaving the message or what?”

He shook his head and asked me to take him home.

Toyomi had been by his place. She’d made a stop after she had left L.A. I’d never seen the f-word carved in a door so many times in my life. In all sizes and shapes. On top of that, in large red letters, she said that she wanted her shit.

I told him, “Looks like it’s time for a new door.”

Hell would be living between my walls when I made it back to my castle. I knew that. I expected my queen to be on a rampage, packing up my clothes and throwing them out on the lawn.

Instead Dawn was in her peach satin slip, lying on our

California king-size bed. She’d changed the bedding, put on sheets, comforters, bedskirt, shams. All in a soft, romantic floral print. Next to her were our white photo albums. Pictures of our wedding. When I was thinner. A glass of wine was in her left hand, in a crystal goblet that we had received as a wedding gift. She flipped through the pictures with her right hand.

Fresh strawberries were in a crystal bowl, another one of our wedding gifts, sitting on a TV tray, within reach. Candles were in wrought iron holders, but they weren’t lit. A Will Downing CD was playing. Music of bewitchment. She’d showered and put on perfume. Her scent was all over. Her hair down, loose and free.

She looked and smiled like nothing bad had ever happened between us. “Come here. Let me show you what you’ve been missing when you’re not next to me.”

“Looks like you have an agenda.”

“Everyone does.”

I agreed with a nod.

She said, “Sometimes when the road you’re on gets bumpy, instead of changing roads, you just have to take the time to smooth out the one you’re on. Bumps or potholes, I love the one I’ve been traveling with you.”

“So, this is supposed to make it all better.”

“Darnell, I’m not perfect. You’re not perfect.”

I told her, “That was a non sequitur.”

“My thoughts, just my thoughts.”

I touched my belly, felt heavy. Felt as imperfect as they come. I asked, “What does that ‘not perfect’ speech mean?”

“It means that no matter how much we go to church, pray, whatever, we’ll never be perfect. You’ll fall short. I’ll fall short. We will always have problems. No matter who you’re with, Darnell, you’re going to have problems.”

She smiled down on the pictures we’d taken over the years. Memories were just that, memories.

Dawn patted the bed where she wanted me to sit. She’d patted a spot the same way Tammy had done when I was at her side

She rubbed my arm, pulled me down on her. “You’re hard to get along with because you’re going through one of those middle-age crisis things. I’m a young woman, and

I know how to rub your back, make you feel like a man and bring back your youth.”

She bit a strawberry, fed me the rest. Bit another, rubbed it on my skin, sucked the juices off my flesh.

Then she was undressing me. Kissing my nipples, slipping her hand inside my pants, moving my hands and making me touch her in her hollow—a place that was already hot, swollen, and moist.

I couldn’t get up off that bed.

Not without another fight that would last through the night.

I settled for peace.

But not before I made the room too dark to see or be seen, took the Will Downing CD off, and put a Nina Simone CD on.

Male or female, friend or foe, at this point I was through with everybody. I wasn’t returning any phone calls, and I’d turned my pager off.

Before I made it to Moss Adams on Monday, Tammy had jingled my company voice mail and left a message that she had an early rehearsal for the play, then in the afternoon had to go over a few numbers with the band. The band rehearsal was in Montclair, out in my neck of the woods. Since the fiasco with Karen, Tammy had paged me forty-eleven times, but I never called her back. So she came over and banged on my door as soon as she had wailed her last note. That was around eight p.m. She surprised me, caught me feeling so ashamed to be me.

“I want to know two thangs,” Tammy said as she marched through my front door and made her way into the kitchen. She dropped her French book on the coffee table.

It landed with a thud. “‘Cause I’m about to get pissed off right about now.”

I felt it coming. Already my stomach had knotted in defense.

Tammy planted her hands on her hips. “Okay, what’s up with you and Karen?”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you think I mean? Nobody has called me in over a week. And don’t get me started talking about little Miss Karen.”