Millionaire Wives Club (30 page)

“If?” Al-Taniesha spat.

“Yes, if. I’m not claiming some random girl’s baby. Are you crazy? We do a DNA test like Maury Povich around here.”

“Ma,” Jabril said, “Christina’s straight. Ain’t nobody else ran up in that. Tell ’em, Christina.”

“You got that, Bril. Ain’t nobody else been here but you.”

“Yeah, ’cause I got that ass sewed up.” He gave her half a grin. “I’ma be a good father, too.”

Jaise smacked Jabril in the back of his head. “Spell ‘father,’ Jabril? It’s spelled day care, child support, life insurance, medical
insurance, lonely nights at home when you can’t get no girl, ’cause this mama ain’t babysitting.”

“You got that right, girl. ’Cause I’m doin’ me,” Al-Taniesha spat. “Grandma is gettin’ her swerve on. I have raised my kids. Time for me to get my hair and nails done when I feel like it. I ain’t gon’ be tied down to no crib. Hmph and I got me a li’l young ’un too, Rafique, at home waitin’ on me right now.”

“Ma, this is my baby,” Jabril insisted.

“Shut up! You don’t know anything. You just stopped playing with G.I. Joe last year. You don’t know nothin’. Be quiet. You are not claiming some random baby, because this fresh-ass little girl was over here riding your dick, instead of doing her school work! I have plans for you. You’re going to college, not to child support court or to welfare to give your social security number. Hell no, I’m not having it.”

“So what are you saying?” Al-Taniesha spat. “That you want me to kick yo’ ass now or after the baby’s born?”

“Then I guess it’ll be on an’ crackin’!” Jaise snapped, slipping her shoes off.

“Ain’t nothin’ but a word.” Al-Taniesha spat, taking off her earrings. She reached into her purse, pulled her Vaseline out, and rubbed it on her face.

Bilal and Jabril stepped in between the two women. “What are you two doing? Stop it! Now listen.” Bilal looked at Al-Taniesha. “You need to leave.”

“And don’t come back!” Jaise pointed over Bilal’s shoulder. “Until you and the li’l ghetto bird you had have a blood test in hand.”

“Ma,” Jabril said seriously, as he walked over to Christina and grabbed her hand. “I love her and if things go as planned I wanna marry her.”

“Awwl, Bril.” Christina wiped her eyes. “That’s the realest shit I ever heard.”

“Yeah, that was sweet,” Al-Taniesha said. “I wish Rafique would say some shit like that to me.”

“Oh…my…God. I need a moment. Jabril, just tell Christina good-night and you’ll talk to her later, because we have some things we need to discuss.”

“That’s wassup,” Al-Taniesha said as they walked toward the door. “We gon’ get at y’all soon, so you go on and handle that. ’Cause we got a crib that need to be bought. Milk higher than a ma’fucker now, shit. And WIC ain’t what it used to be. So get at me when you got it figured out how we gon’ do this.”

“Ai’ight, Christina, boo,” Jabril said before he closed the door. “I’ma come through and see about you probably tomorrow.”

“Don’t make me and the baby wait too long.”

Jabril closed the door and turned to Jaise, who screamed in his face, “Have you lost yo’ fuckin’ mind?! What the hell are you gon’ do with a damn baby? You can barely take care of yourself!”

“I been doin’ a damn good job of it this long!”

“What is that supposed to mean? And don’t cuss in my face!”

“Hmph, we both know my ole dude ain’t nowhere around, and don’t get me wrong, Bilal, I like you, but before you she was too busy stressin’ over a dude who wasn’t even beat for me. And now all of a sudden she wants to be my mother?”

“I don’t appreciate that, Jabril. I know I haven’t been the best mother, but I have been there. I have done my best with what I had. And, no, you shouldn’t have had to see me in some of the positions that I’ve been in, but give me some credit. Do you know the life you’re setting up for yourself?”

“Anything gotta be better than the life you set up for me.”

Jaise stood with tears in her eyes. Jabril’s comment rocked her to the core. Bilal looked at Jaise and then to Jabril. “Let me speak to you for a minute,” he said.

“Yo Ma,” Jabril said, noticing his mother in tears, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I know you’ve been trying.”

“It’s okay, just go on and talk to Bilal.”

“See,” Jabril said as Jaise left the room, “everything I do is wrong.”

“Jabril,” Bilal said, “listen, I’m not here to judge you or anything like that. Now, I get it, your father wasn’t there and your mother didn’t always make the best decisions, but you have to get through that, because the moment you decided you wanted to be a father was the moment you decided you wanted to be a man, so are you having this baby or what?”

“Hell yeah, I’ma have my baby. I ain’t gon’ be like my father.” Tears trembled his voice. “I’ma be there for my baby, and I’ma love my girl. I’m not gon’ put my hands on her and none of that whack-ass shit he did. I’ma love her the way you love my moms. I’ma be like you.” Tears rolled down his cheeks.

Bilal walked up to Jabril and gave him a hug. “You already a man.”

Jaise walked back into the room and noticed Jabril crying. “Is everything okay?”

Jabril wiped his eyes and walked over to his mother. “I’m sorry, Ma, for speaking to you the way I did.”

“It’s okay. Some things need to be said.” She held Jabril in her arms and at least for that moment he felt like her baby again.

“O
kay, bitch,” Chaunci said, handing Milan a straw and a personal-size bottle of champagne, keeping another bottle for herself. “I brought you out here to listen.”

“You didn’t need to bring me to Jones Beach to listen. It may be spring, but it’s cold as hell out here. We could’ve stayed at your house, or you could’ve come to my apartment,” Milan complained while lying back on the small plastic chaise in the sand, as the evening wind whipped bits of sand toward the sky and blew her hair away from her face. She and Chaunci were two of the few people out here and among them were lovers and a few souls sitting on the edge of the water letting the cold waves run over their feet.

Chaunci sat next to Milan, and they both began champagne sipping through a straw. Chaunci looked at the gray sky and then back to Milan. “I just really need a sistah girl talk right now. And I need you to listen,” Chaunci said.

Milan sipped. “As long as we don’t get arrested for having this liquor out here in the open, I don’t have any problems with listening. Otherwise,” she said, pausing to take a sip, “a sistah might need some help with bail money. I’m a bit strapped.”

Chaunci turned to her. “You’re getting on my nerves.”

“Okay, okay.” Milan waved her hands in defeat. “Proceed.” “And allow me to give you the cue for when I’m soliciting your opinion.”

“You are the opinionated one, not me.”

Chaunci sighed. “Anywho, I told you about Idris taking me to court—”

“How did that turn out?”

“He has every other weekend and alternate holidays.” “How did you feel about that?”

“Defeated, and now I’m confused as hell.”

“What makes you confused?”

“Hold it.” Chaunci sat up. “Didn’t I ask you to listen? Not give me a therapy session?”

“Then stop going around the point. Get to the shit.”

“When I took Kobi to Idris’s the first weekend, I stayed.”

“What, for a few hours? That’s understandable.”

“Longer than that.”

“Until she fell asleep?”

“No.” Chaunci paused. “All weekend.”

“Oh, okay, so what, are you pregnant now? ’Cause I know you fucked him.”

“One of my pet peeves is when people think they know me,” Chaunci griped. “Let me tell you the story.”

“I’m listening.”

“It was an accident.”

“What?”

“Me sixty-nining him, letting him hit it from the back, and when I started riding him I knew at that point I had completely lost control.”

Both women cracked up laughing. “This is really not funny.” Chaunci chuckled. “This is really ridiculous. Like, I don’t behave like this.”

“Like what?”

“As if I’ve been waiting around for the last six—seven—years pining over his ass. And all it took was for him to whisper sweet nothings and voilà I was back to being with him.”

Milan sucked air into her cheek and released it slowly from the side of her mouth. “Sometimes you need those sweet nothings to feel appreciated.”

“No,” Chaunci said, “I can appreciate me.” She pointed to her chest. “I don’t need him to do it.”

“Maybe you had to learn that.”

“I knew that already. I did. You don’t understand. I was okay with me and my life, and I wasn’t looking for self-discovery, so how could I not stand my ground and be pissed with him? What the hell was wrong with me that I slept with him? I mean, Edmon handled his business, so it wasn’t the dick.”

“So what about Edmon? Are still marrying him?”

Chaunci silently searched her thoughts. “I had this vision that Edmon and I would be a power couple. Making moves and conquering the world. Here I had one of the most prestigious, and wealthy, and financially supportive men in the world who wanted me, Miss Brooklyn-around-the-Way-Girl, to be his wife.”

“So you feel like you owe him? Like he’s responsible for your success?”

“I am indebted to him for believing in me and my dream, but I don’t owe him anything, if that makes any sense.”

“Why don’t you just say that you were on this egocentric wave for a minute? You felt entitled to have a man of his caliber, and you were comfortable with that, until loneliness started kicking in.”

“But why was I lonely?”

“Because a relationship without love is a disaster. Just like a relationship with love and no boundaries is destruction. Plain and simple. That’s why we’re friends: We’re on the same boat just on opposite ends. You—no love, but commitment, well,” Milan said, slurring slightly, “until you cheated. And me—I had nothing but love.”

“I couldn’t have said it better myself.” Chaunci nodded her head.

“So what are you going to do about your situation?”

“I have to find a healthy medium. The problem is I don’t know what that means.”

“Well,” Milan chuckled, “it could always mean movie night at my house and you don’t even have to call me before you come. I won’t hold it against you.”

Chaunci fell out laughing. “I have to come check out your new place. How is it?”

“It’s different. It’s quiet and it feels normal. I don’t feel like I’m faking the funk or looking to maintain this damn lifestyle that I can’t afford, and I damn sure don’t lie in bed at night wondering why the day has passed and Kendu hasn’t come.”

“How did he take your moving?”

“I didn’t tell him.”

“He doesn’t know?”

“Nope.”

“I guess he’ll be stalking your ass. Do you still love him?”

“I love him until my chest literally hurts. Do you know, before I left I didn’t see him for two weeks? Two whole weeks. He didn’t call, come by, nothing, and then I had to listen to his wife brag about them making a baby.”

“Maybe they were. Maybe they are.”

“Well, he better make sure the motherfucker is his, because the first one isn’t.”

Chaunci spit out the champagne she had in her mouth. “Come again?”

Milan shook her head. “Aiyanna is not his.”

“How do you know that?”

Milan recapped the story of how Aiyanna had been rushed to the hospital. “The blood didn’t match.”

“I don’t understand,” Chaunci said. “I heard you, but I feel like I heard wrong.”

“A child’s blood has to match the blood of one of the parents. You cannot have Evan with A blood, Kendu with B blood, and Aiyanna with O blood. It’s like math: One plus one is two every time. It can never be three.”

“I can’t believe Evan, but then again, I can.”

“So, can you imagine how I feel, loving this man too damn much, really, and knowing he’s loving a child who’s not his. And staying with a woman who’s lying to him.”

“Maybe he knows.”

“He doesn’t know.”

“If I were you I wouldn’t tell him.”

“I’m not. That’s his family. They deserve each other.”

“Is Aiyanna okay, though?”

“She’s out of the hospital now. But the doctor doesn’t know what’s wrong with her. She has to go see an infectious disease specialist. But I tell you one thing, I wouldn’t put shit past that crazy-ass Evan, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Aiyanna being sick has more to do with her mother and less to do with some rare disease.”

Chaunci slurped the last of her champagne. “Milan, I’m glad I’m drunk, because there are some things you just can’t process if you’re sober.”

They clinked their bottles. “Ain’t that the truth,” Milan said as they watched the waving sea. “Nothing but the truth.”

F
or three solid weeks Jaise acted as if nothing had gone on with Jabril that needed her attention, or required her to sit down and map out a new plan. One that involved a teenage son who was about to be a parent. She had no idea where to start or what to tell him. All she knew was that she had to say something to him, because according to Al-Taniesha, who’d been calling her house twice a day, “This li’l niggah has six months to get his shit in order.”

But Jaise’s denial was not about Jabril; her denial was about her being thirty-five and a single mother who had tried and retried, and tried again to maintain a balance of being this child’s mother, his friend, his critic, and his support system. Yet a monkey wrench had been thrown into the deal—a baby that, like it or not, was on its way.

This was not what she had dreamed of for Jabril. A lifetime of baby mama, child support, and barely-making-it drama. She envisioned him as one day outgrowing his silliness and suddenly becoming Ivy League with the ability to make it happen for himself.
Not this, not having to figure out how to take care of a baby and take care of himself at the same time.

Jabril walked into the kitchen where Jaise was cooking dinner for the three of them. “Ma, can I hollah at you for a moment?”

“Yeah.” She paused. “What’s going on?”

“I noticed that you’ve been quiet ever since you found out about Christina.”

“I’m disappointed, Jabril. I mean, we’ve been through some things together, but damn, I never expected this.”