Layover (4 page)

When you say that you love ‘em and you really know, everything that used to matter, it don’t matter no more. Like my money, all my cars, you can have it all: Flowers, cards and candy - I do it just ‘cause I’m fortunate to have you girl, I want you to know, I truly adore you. All my people who know what’s going on, look at your mate and help me sing my song tell ‘em: ‘I’m your man, your my girl. I’m ‘gone tell it to the whole wide world.’ Ladies say:..

My cell phone rang.

“Oh, that’s how we do it now. Just leave when the conversation gets heated?”

“Just leave when the conversation gets stupid. Quit calling me, Kenny.”

I hung up the phone. I turned up my Usher again and tried to get back into my mode. I was almost there again when my phone rang again. Without looking at my caller ID, I answered,

“Stop calling me, idiot!”

“Damn, did you have a bad flight or something?” Allen asked me.

“Oh, sorry. I thought you were my husband.”

“Damn, is that what I have to look forward to?” He joked.

“See, that just goes to show you, you wouldn’t want to be married to me.”

“That’s not true. I could handle your little ass. Kenny just doesn’t know what to do with you.”

“I guess you do,” I said, skeptically.

“Most definitely. Well I was just calling to let you know that I got your message and I’m glad you made it back home safely.”

“Thanks for calling.”

“Well, I don’t know when I’ll talk to you again, but I really enjoyed it,” He told me.

“We’ll talk soon.”

At that moment I felt compelled to add something to the end of that sentence. It just seemed appropriate in light of the fact that it was true and that I was a safe enough distance away that nothing could come of it. So, I went for it:

“Love you.”

Without hesitation, he reciprocated,

“Love you too.”

He hung up. Now I was really confused. Did he realize what he said? Did he forget he was talking to me and thought he was talking to Lisa? I said I loved him, hoping it would spark a question and answer session. I never expected him to say he loved me too and leave it at that. Now the game has been reversed and I didn’t know what to do. I decided to go to the one place where I can find refuge - my office. It was surely barren at this late hour. With one licensed agent and one ghetto fabulous office assistant, I could be certain that my three-woman show was down to zero. Dee Dee, my office assistant, was a pretty good worker, when she was there. Between her 2 year-old and her sick momma, she was always calling out of work. Without a car and having to ride the transit, she was forever late. And God forbid you should call my office at 5:01PM. The only thing you will get is frustrated. She was up out of there like she’s been there all day. I tried to explain to her that if she is late getting to work, she needs to stay late and make up the time. Her response was,

“You must gone take me home, den.”

No, I actually won’t take you home.

I keep her around because she likes her job and she does it well. She likes being on the phone and internet all day anyway, so I just have her cold-calling potential customers and clients and looking at other broker’s websites to see what they are doing to have a successful business. It doesn’t bother me that she’s a little projectish on the phone. Besides, this job doesn’t pay much and I probably could not find anyone else to do it for this pay. After all, she really needs this job. I found her through a sort of welfare-to-work program that offers tax breaks to companies who hire employees like Dee Dee. When she first came into the interview, she told me I could call her Peaches. I told her I really could not. I guess they call her that at home because she has a very light complexion. She bragged during the initial interview,

“I’m the lightest one in my family.”

I’m thinking,
“And this is going to benefit me how?”

Nonetheless, her family is very proud of her for landing this job and I could not do it without her so she stays.

When I get to my office, I turn on the light and plop down in my chair. I look at the top of my desk and notice that there is a stack of bills on it. Dee Dee had already opened, sorted, and stacked the bills for me. She even paper clipped the envelope to mail the payment to the corresponding bill and placed the company checkbook next to it. She had added up all the bills and indicated the total amount needed to pay all the invoices. I was laughing to myself. I probably did not even have enough in my account to cover them all. I will probably have to do what I did last month and transfer my personal savings into the business account to cover my company expenses. I don’t know how many more months I can keep doing that. I shoved the stack of bills to the side and turn on my computer. I checked the company web site to see if any new leads have generated. There were 6 new seller leads. I forwarded them to Haily, my licensed agent. She’s very bright, professional, and energetic. She’s the only real estate agent I know that actually studied real estate in college. She is really serious about her career and her husband is very supportive. In fact, he is her assistant. He doesn’t have a job and with the money she makes, he doesn’t need one. He stays at home and organizes everything for her. I know she is going to leave my company in 2 years when she is able to sit for the broker’s exam. She is already gearing up for that and she has only been selling for a year. I’m pretty sure she won’t leave me before that to go with another broker because she has the best deal in town with me. I let her keep 100% of her commission and she just pays a monthly fee for the use of the office and supplies. Additionally, she pays a transaction fee per closing. She averages 6 deals per month with all the leads I send her. She always tries to give me more of her earnings because I send her most of her business, but I think that’s what a broker should do. I mean, I don’t want to be out there hustling, showing houses, taking listings, driving crazy mother-fuckers around in my car. If she wants to, why wouldn’t I help her? By helping her, I’m helping me. The biggest problem I have with Haily is that she doesn’t like Dee Dee. I think she looks down on her and I think she wants me to look down on her too. I can’t do it, because frankly, I can relate to Dee Dee on some level. I try to promote that, “We’re all Black women” propaganda in the workplace but Haily ain’t buying into it. Just because she’s brown on the outside doesn’t mean she’s down with that “sister” stuff. She put the Booj in Bourgeoisie. It doesn’t matter because I like them both and it just goes to show that no matter how big or small your company is, there is always going to be some drama and office politics. I just wrote a quick note for Dee Dee to check the balance on the business account to make sure there is enough money to pay our bills. I checked my personal e-mails and surfed the web a bit. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, I just did not want to go home. I decided to look up Allen’s company on the internet. I know it’s some kind of science or space company. I know it’s Aero something. I went to the search engine. I typed in Aero and Denver Colorado.

AeroKinesis: Where Science and Technology Innovate the Universe

That sounds right. I clicked on the link. The logo looked familiar. It looked like the same logo that was on the inside of the jacket that he let me wear home. It was a sphere like the earth, except it was green and White, instead of blue and White, with a satellite pointing to a test tube. I don’t know exactly what is they do there, but it was way over my head. I clicked on “Meet our People” and searched under the “R”. I found his name: Reilly, Allen D. I wondered what the “D” stood for. Then my nasty mind started wandering. I clicked on his name and up popped a picture and bio:

Allen D. Reilly - Lead Scientist

That is so cool! He’s a lead scientist and he has a large dick! I could just imagine getting fucked down by a smart mother-fucker with a big dick. When the sex is over, he uses some big words or something. I’m just trippin’, but that is a huge turn-on. He is so sexy on this picture with his little lab coat. I wonder if I would still think he’s all that if I was married to him instead of Kenny. It would probably be the opposite. If I were married to Allen, I might think Kenny, with his free spirit and funny jokes was sexy. I might want to sleep with him so he could make me laugh after the sex is over. I don’t think it would be cool to laugh during the sex. I bookmarked the web page as one of my favorites to return to quickly. I just hoped that nosy ass Dee Dee doesn’t use my computer. She will be all in my shit like,

“Damn, who is the nerd motherfucker you saved on yo’ compoota’?”

I wasn’t ready to go home, but I knew I could not stay here all night. I wish I had been snowed in another night in Denver. I miss Allen. He makes me feel so adequate. I mean, he makes me feel like I don’t need any improvements. Kenny always makes me feel like I’m not where I should be in life, like nothing I accomplish is quite good enough because he knows someone who is doing even better. I decided that I would just go home and ignore my husband. I turned off the computer and the lights and set the alarm. I walked out and got in my car. I continued to listen to Usher on the way home, same song, same volume. When I got home, Kenny was gone. I was so happy that I did not have to look at his clown face. I ran a garden tub full of steamy water and got buck-naked and climbed in. I closed my eyes and imagined that Allen was there with me.

I did not sleep well at all that night. I was in sort of a lucid state all night and the thought of Kenny lying next to me repulsed me. It’s kind of like having a revelation. I mean, if you don’t know that you have a lame husband then it seems normal. I mean, if you think everyone’s husband treats them like they are inferior then you think it’s acceptable. But, once someone like Allen comes along and shows you that you should be put on pedestal and admired and adored, then anything less is just unacceptable. I did not know what I was going to do with my husband, but we were not going to go on like this.

I woke up at my usual 5:00 a.m. I prayed and read the Qur’an. I tried to stay focused on my spirituality and keep impure thoughts of Allen out of my mind. I did not want to continue wanting him in the way I did and not being able to do anything about it. Right now I had to focus on my business and try to keep it from going under. I had come to the conclusion that I was just going to have to get a line of credit for my business from my credit union. It was the last thing I wanted to do. I don’t even like borrowing money for my personal business, let alone my company. In fact, I have the same mortgage on my house since I bought it. I’m trying to pay that off, not refinance and stay in debt forever. Still, there were not a whole lot of options left. I could either go back to Bank of America, sit behind that stuffy desk and make them millions of dollars or I could bite the bullet for a minute and see if I could make this shit work. As much as I hate to borrow money, I hate to here Kenny say ‘I told you so’ even more.

I pulled out my Donna Karan suit from the closet. If I was going to have to grovel for a credit line, at least I could look like I didn’t really need it. This was my killer suit. When I wear this almond colored, fully-lined, cashmere pantsuit with the cuffed slacks and the double-breasted jacket with the tapered waist, I always get what I want. I threw on the silk scarf for good measure. I was going straight to the credit union, then to the office later. Just as I finished changing purses to my practical leather bag from my monogram Louis Vuitton, the phone rang. It was Dee Dee.

“Mrs. Reilly, ‘dis Dee Dee. You had left a note for me to check the account balance so you could pay bills?”

“Yes. Do we have enough?”

“Unless the bank made a mistake, you got more than enough to pay those bills on your desk.”

More than enough didn’t sound right. If anything, we had
just
enough.         

“How much is in there?”

“Over fifty thousand dollars.”

Over fifty thousand dollars certainly didn’t sound right. Maybe fifty cents.

“Dee Dee, are you sure?”

“‘Das what they said. I called down there and I looked at the online banking. It’s the same.”

“I’ll check it out. Thanks, Dee Dee.”

I quickly hung up the phone and logged on to the computer. I went to the online banking to see what she was talking about. Sure enough, she was telling the truth. But how? I know for a fact that there was no more than a few thousand dollars in that account. I clicked on recent transactions to see if there was an error. I almost passed out when I saw the most recent transaction that posted yesterday. It was a wire transfer from Denver Telco Credit Union in the amount of fifty-thousand dollars. I couldn’t believe it. How could Allen have done it without my account information, for that matter? And, on top of that, he was talking about giving me twenty-five thousand dollars. How did it jump up to fifty-thousand? I had to talk to him but I knew it was too early. I wanted to wait to call him but I just couldn’t. I got in my car and left so Kenny wouldn’t be lurking around the house listening to me on the phone. As soon as I got out of the subdivision, I called.

“Allen, I’m sorry to call so early but I need to talk to you.”

“You can call me anytime. Besides, I’m up.”

“Did you wire transfer fifty-thousand dollars to my account yesterday?”

“Yes. I hope it’s enough.”

“I thought we said we would talk about it. I wasn’t sure I wanted to get the money from you.”