Cheaters (46 page)

We were in the box-sized candlelit room. Tammy stumbled over a stack of Mervyn’s bags filled with clothes that were on the floor. What caught my eye was the clothing that was viciously scattered all across the floor. Pumps, men’s shoes, boxer shorts, panties.

Tammy said, “What the hell is going on here?”

A stale sexual odor stood out from the herbal funk, became more prevalent when we were inside.

A whole lot of mess happened after that. A whole lot.

Tammy’s face lost its eagerness. Mine lost its old anxiety, and found some new distress. We were facing Karen’s daybed. Gawking at a man who was lounging in his birthday suit.

Tammy said, “Oh, boy. Must be Victor’s night off.”

Karen moaned with wide eyes, limped toward her daybed.

The brother who was sitting up underneath the framed Malcolm X poster,
BY
ANY
MEANS
NECESSARY
, pulled the sheets up.

We—me and him—stared hard at each other.

He pushed back on his elbows, took a deep breath and sat up.

I looked at Karen, then at him.

I had to accept the obvious.

Dizzy. I’d been holding my breath, and I was getting dizzy.

“Oh, my God!” Tammy said when she finally caught on. “Craig Bryant? Is that you?”

I went numb. My brain had turned to slush.

I said, “Craig? What are you and Karen doing…”

My words evaporated, drained away to the place where all stupid questions went at the end of the day.

The flickering candlelight showed his moist face. A condom box on the floor. One of the economy packs. A glass of wine on the nightstand, next to Victor the Vibrator, oils and jelly.

A wrathful lump grew in my belly and boiled. My eyes went back to Karen’s bloodshot and arrogant expression, then back to my ex-boyfriend’s wannabe Maxwell sneer.

He cleared his throat. “And how’ve you been, Chanté?”

I shrieked and threw the ice cream at him. He ducked; Karen covered her face and screamed. The ice cream hit the wall right over his head, but it splattered all over her face.

I sneered at Karen, waiting for an explanation, something that would justify what was going on.

Karen wiped her face and held on to her righteous scowl.

My voice broke loose. “Karen, you ain’t shit.”

“Look who’s talking,” Karen shot back.

My hostility turned to Tammy. “Did you know about this?”

Tammy finally closed her mouth, shook her head, slow and loathsome. She said, “Baby, you know I didn’t.”

I raised my heavy eyes to Karen. I wanted to say a lot of things, but only one word found its freedom: “Traitor.”

That pure white wedding dress was still hanging in her hall, protected by a sheath of cheap dry-cleaner plastic.

My legs wanted to run, but I held on to a corner of my sanity and walked out the door. It was a strut of dignity, but I was crumbling with each step. Behind me, I heard Tammy say a few unkind things to Karen and Craig before she followed.

The door slammed hard behind us.

I said one word: “Brakes.”

“Well, do you have time to fix them for me?”

“I’m at work. I hadn’t planned on coming into L.A. until the weekend.”

“In other words, you’re telling me that it’s Tuesday, and I’ll have to wait all week to get you to come out and look at my brakes?”

I sighed. People always call when they want something.

I asked, “Where you at?”

It was after lunch and I was in my cubicle, on the phone talking to Samantha. She was at work and had called me in panic mode. Told me that for the last day or so she’d heard a faint squealing, a scrubbing sound coming from the back of her car. The faster she went, the louder and faster the noise. When the car stopped, the noise stopped.

She said, “I’m still at work. Should I drive it home or have it towed to a mechanic?”

“You can drive it.”

“It’s overcast. What if it starts back raining?”

“It’ll be good enough to drive home. That noise is just

your brake sensors letting you know you need to replace your pads.”

“Pads?”

“Brake pads.”

“Come over and fix them for me.”

“I might can swing by tomorrow. Maybe the next day.”

“Why not this evening?”

“By the time I get off work it’ll be too dark.”

She paused. “Come over anyway.”

“For what?”

Tenderness peppered her tone. “I’ve missed you, Stephan.”

I let some quiet fill the line before I spoke again.

I said, “That sounds cool. I could take a half day and fix your car in the morning, if it’s not raining too bad.”

“Or we could take the day off and hang out if it is.”

Samantha had called me and started talking like there had never been a break, no kind of lapse between us.

When it came to women, it was a season of confusion, heading toward famine. Chanté hadn’t returned my phone calls, and from the dirty expression on her face the last time I saw her, that was history. I wasn’t in the mood to go out and meet somebody new because I didn’t feel like starting from ground zero. So that made Samantha’s offer look damn good.

But I should’ve listened to the howling winds. They were predicting a storm.

Samantha opened her door, stood there in her jeans pants and shirt, wearing a diabolical grin. She smelled sweet. I ran my hand across her dark skin, over her short, curly hair. Smiled.

She said, “It’s raining.”

“Yeah. Not as hard as it was earlier, but it’s raining.”

“Guess you’ll have to fix my brakes in the morning.”

“What we gonna do until then?”

“I’ll think of something.”

She closed the door and gave me one of those serious I’ve-missed-you kisses and rubbed herself against me. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t happy to see her. I missed her positive spirits. One glance at her and I was ready to kick myself for not being with her from jump street.

She asked, “Like the changes?”

“Wow. Guess I haven’t seen you in a while.”

She’d painted one of her walls in the living room from off-white to a hunter green; one wall in the hall was a heartfelt blue; one in the bedroom a mysterious shade of red.

It was too much for my eyes.

I said, “Looks nice.”

A table with small cans of paints and brushes and other things she’d been working on was in the dining area, surrounded by books, mostly political science and Anne Rice.

Everything was fine until her phone started jumping off the hook. It wasn’t her phone’s ringing that bothered me. It was her attitude. She acted as if she didn’t hear the phone, and her body language said that she thought her playing the deaf role would make me hearing impaired. I didn’t question what was up. I didn’t have to because she was all over me.

The sounds of the falling rain faded to a light drizzle.

In the middle of the loving, she leaned over and turned the ringer off. Bad news. When a woman stopped in the middle of sex to do a chore, that was bad news. She ain’t with you.

She was distracted and uneasy. And I wasn’t really into it because thoughts of Chanté had clogged my mind. I missed her. Actually, if the truth be told, this drive to L.A. in the rain was just a distraction, something to make meaningless hours go by. Chanté was who I really wanted to be with.

But I was here.

And something wasn’t right.

Samantha wasn’t right.

The lovemaking was perfunctory. It felt more like she was doing me a favor. Her distraught eyes gazed past me, like she was miles away. She had an orgasm. At least she made sounds like she was coming. Just so I wouldn’t be confused, she was even kind enough to announce that she was coming. But her face didn’t have that glow. Her body jerked, but that didn’t come from deep within. It was forced. Faked. Her flesh didn’t have the heat that it usually had when she was getting off. After that, it was like she was barely moving her hips, waiting for me to finish. She

caught me looking at her, then pushed her face deep into my neck and held on tighter than tight.

I stopped moving. I asked her what the problem was.

She said, “I’m hungry. Haven’t eaten all day.”

She wiggled until I slipped out of her. Grunted until she got my weight off her. She said, “Let’s go to Baja Grill.”

“All the way to Marina Del Rey?”

“Yeah. Let’s go before the rain starts again.”

I pointed at my hard-on.

She insisted, “We can finish later.”

“You serious?”

She nudged me out of her bed. Her voice was rushed. “Let’s get to Baja before it closes.”

“You okay?”

“Hungry. Head hurts because I haven’t eaten. Get dressed.”

“Can I shower first?”

“Shower?”

“Can I at least wash up?”

“Go ahead, get showered.”

“What about you?”

“Hurry, hurry. I’ll catch up.”

We usually showered together, but this time she pushed me toward the bathroom. After I turned on the water and pulled back the curtains, I noticed there weren’t any extra towels in the cabinet or on the towel rack. Looked like she’d cleaned the bathroom up before I got here. I had to step out to get one from the hall closet. She was sitting on the bed, naked, in profile, on the phone, having a whisper-fight. A sneer was carved in her face.

“No!” she whispered. “Well, too bad. Don’t. That’s your problem. None of your damn business. I can hardly hear you. Why are you on a cellular phone?
What?
I won’t be here. I’m on the way out the door right now. I’ll be gone all night. Why?”

I stepped back into the bathroom before she eased the phone back into its cradle. She stuck her head in the bathroom door and smiled. “Hurry up. I’m ready to get out of here.”

Her composure had dissolved. She kept watching the clock. Chewing her tongue. Waiting for me to finish. I took my time. When I stepped out again, she was hanging up

the phone. I didn’t hear it ring, so she must’ve made a fast phone call.

She rushed by me and hurried into the shower.

Somebody banged on the door.

I was naked, rubbing lotion on my skin.

Something was going down. That was anger’s kick-ass cadence.

She rushed out with a towel around her, sopping wet, soap sliding down her back, stormed past me and peeped out the peephole. Which was stupid.

A brother yelled, “Samantha, I see your eye in the peephole. It went dark. Open up. It’s me.”

She didn’t answer. She tipped away from the door.

Our eyes met. She lowered her head.

I followed her and kept my voice low, “Who’s that?”

He knocked a few times.

She didn’t answer. The knocking stopped. Keys jingled. One was put in the lock. Turned. It clicked open. My heart triple-timed. Her eyes bucked, her mouth opened like she was ready to scream, but when whoever was on the other side pushed on the door, the dead bolt kept it from opening.

I was taut, head to toe.

Samantha sighed, sounded like air slipping out the pinhole of a balloon. Sweat was on my nose. The keys jingled like they were being put away. Whoever it was walked away.

“Damn.” Samantha rubbed her temples and cursed real low, “Bastard.”

“What’s up, Samantha?”

Both of us jumped at the same time.

Pebbles were being tossed against the bedroom window. Three or four hit every ten seconds or so. Not hard enough to break the glass, just hard enough to announce that somebody needed some attention before they lost their mind.

She marched in circles. I said her name a dozen times, but she didn’t answer. She was in deep thought.

She tippy-toed by me, slid the curtain to the side enough to peep out, bit her lip, and her face contorted. Finally she looked at me, slow and remorseful. She gave some don’t-ask-me-any-questions eyes.

“Stephan,” her voice was rattled, “can I meet you at Baja?”

“You want me to leave?”

“I need to take care of something.”

Samantha peeped out the window again, saw the coast was clear, then speed-walked to the front door. She wanted me to hike up the stairs, stay to the wall, and slip down on the other side farthest away from her apartment.

She wrung her hands. “If you don’t mind.”

“I do mind.”

“Okay, you want me to beg, then I’m begging.”

“Who’s banging on your door?”

“Stephan,
please.
”

“Not leaving until you tell me.”

She trembled. More pebbles danced against her window.

She said, “This guy who wants me to marry him.”

“Marry?”

“Yeah. Marry.”

“So, you’ve been seeing him?”

Her eyes shifted. “Kinda.”

“What the hell is kinda?” I said.

“Well, yes. I did let him spend the night, before—”

“Sleeping with him?”

“Don’t do this, Stephan, okay?”

“I’m laying up in bed with you and somebody’s banging on your door, has a key, is waiting for you outside. For all I know, the fool could have a gun—”

“He does have a gun.”

“What? Call the police.”

“Can’t.”

“Why?”

“He’s a police officer. LAPD.”

“Great. A legal gang-banger with a gun and radio.”

“He gets hostile sometimes.”

“Well, that makes me feel a lot more at ease. How long have you known him?”

“Eight years.”

“Eight years?”

“We used to live together.”

“You used to live together?”

“Stop repeating after me.”

“I’m not repeating after you.”

“You are.”

“I’m not.”

“Don’t do this.”

“Somebody might be outside ready to blow my brains out and all you can say is, ‘Don’t do this’?”

A series of thumps came from above. On the roof.

Samantha said, “Rain. It’s only the rain.”

Sweat was on her forehead. She ran her hand over her hair.

I said, “That’s who answered the phone when I called?”

She blinked hard, answered with a soft sigh, “The only reason I started seeing him again is because you haven’t been around. You’re hot and cold. Either you’re my man or you’re not. I’m human. Shit, I get lonely sometimes, waiting for you to call or to call me back.”