White Lines II: Sunny: A Novel (27 page)

“Congratulations,” he said. “That was quite a show.”

Olivia nodded. “That it was!” She sighed, happily. “Thank you. I’m glad you came.”

“Olivia!” one of her assistants called. “We need you!”

She nodded and turned to Zion. “Excuse me for a minute,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

Before he could respond, she was off, surrounded by people once again. He stayed rooted in the same spot, watching her and waiting for her to return. But Olivia was so swept up in her moment that she forgot all about him, and minutes ticked away until forty had passed with Zion waiting patiently for her to come back. He realized then that he was waiting in vain. As she laughed with a bunch of her fashion friends, he stuck his hands in his pocket, picked up his pride and left.

Ava watched him slink off as if he’d lost his best friend and she went after him. She had seen the way that Olivia dismissed him and she felt sorry for him. The guilt she’d felt over having slept with her friend’s man had dissipated then. Watching Malcolm all but drool over Sunny as he watched from the audience had also been pretty hard to stomach. She didn’t acknowledge it then, but she was bubbling over with jealousy.

“Hey,” she said, catching up to Zion near the exit. “Want some company?”

He smiled weakly at Ava. “Yeah,” he said. “Come on.”

*   *   *

Jada had been staring at the computer for hours, and nothing had spilled forth from her imagination. She was having trouble making up pretend drama because the calamity in her real life was consuming her thoughts. Sheldon was now in psychotherapy, seeing a professional once a week to discuss what was troubling him. He had yet to open up about the reasons he had felt the need to kill the puppy his mom had given him for Christmas. Instead, he mostly just sat there, barely answering the questions posed to him by his doctor, shrugging his shoulders as was his usual practice, and doing his best to be as uncooperative as possible. What he had acknowledged was that he was angry with his mother, that he didn’t feel that she deserved to be happy. Not when he was so unhappy himself. When asked why he was unhappy, he had answered that he had no reason to feel any different. The therapist pointed out that he was the son of a bestselling author, that he lived in a nice home and had more material things than most kids his age. But none of that meant a thing to Sheldon. What he wanted was a father, and his mother had spent most of his life denying him any information about his dad. When she had finally decided to fill him in, the news had all been bad. Instead of accepting what she told him, Sheldon had made up his mind that his mother was to blame for all of it. She had smoked crack, after all. Surely she couldn’t be trusted to tell him the truth about the father he had imagined as a hero all of his life.

Now, as a result of his unabated anger and his refusal to discuss his feelings in depth, the doctor had prescribed medication for him. He was now taking a daily cocktail of Ritalin and Prozac. Jada had reluctantly agreed to it, with the doctors’ assurance that it was a temporary thing. They reasoned that once Sheldon’s behavior improved, once he was cooperating with psychotherapy, they would lower the dosage and gradually wean him off the drugs until he no longer needed them.

Reluctantly, she admitted to herself that she had noticed a bit of improvement since Sheldon started taking the medication. He was calmer, had fewer outbursts in school, and was no longer wandering around the house at odd hours of the night. He still wasn’t very fond of his mother, but his aversion to her had changed from a bitter rage that erupted like a volcano to a mere disdain that smoldered just beneath the surface. It wasn’t much better than before, but Jada was still grateful that she was seeing some positive change in him at last.

Two months had passed since the incident on New Year’s, and as March blew into New York like a lion, Jada felt blown away by the changes that had taken place in her life. She had been so focused on Sheldon that she had abandoned her social life in favor of church and the solace she found in the Word. She hadn’t missed the irony in her present situation. She had fled to her faith in search of help for her troubled son the same way her mother had done once upon a time. Jada wished Edna were still alive so that she could tell her mother that now she understood what she had gone through then.

As she stared at her computer screen, she realized that while she’d been praying and trying in vain to come up with content for her next book, she had missed out on so many things. Olivia’s clothing line had made its debut tonight, and Sunny was to be the star of the show. Ordinarily, Jada would have never dreamed of missing the chance to cheer her best friend on from the front row. But with Sheldon’s mental state so fragile at the moment, she thought it best to maintain the consistency of their nightly routine. Tonight, like every night, Jada got off from her job as assistant editor and drove to Sheldon’s after-school program to pick him up. Together, they went home and Sheldon sat at the kitchen table doing his homework while Jada fixed dinner for them. They sat down and ate together, Jada typically peppering him with questions about his day at school while he gave her nonchalant responses. She would then tell him all about her own day at work while he only half listened. But they had fallen into a kind of predictability that the therapist said was healthy for Sheldon. Each night when he went to sleep, she’d pray for him, pray for herself and for a breakthrough.

The downside was that she had seen so little of Born over the past few months. Their wedding plans had been put on hold for the time being. And as she sat before her laptop feeling so uninspired, she decided to give him a call.

Born answered on the fourth ring, and Jada smiled at the sound of his voice in her ear. He had only been back in New York for two days, having just returned from Miami with DJ. Since it had taken him so long to answer the phone, Jada worried for a moment that she had awakened Born—until she heard Ethan’s voice in the background.

“Hey,” Born said. “What’s up?”

She frowned. “Hey, baby. I thought you might be sleeping, but now I hear Ethan … are you watching him tonight?” She thought it odd that Ethan was up so late on a school night. It was close to midnight. Plus Born normally had his son on the weekends and it was a Thursday night.

Born cleared his throat. “Nah,” he said. “Ethan has the chicken pox so he can’t go to school for now. I’m over here hanging out with him, letting him stay up late and act like a big kid.”

“I
am
a big kid!” Jada heard Ethan say it and she laughed at his clarification. “Ma, can I have some more raisins?”

Hearing Ethan address his mother, Jada’s smile faded immediately. She felt her heartbeat quicken and her worst fears came flooding to the surface. “Born,” she said, “are you at Anisa’s house?”

“Yeah,” he said, calmly.

Jada gripped the phone tighter. She wanted to reach through it and snatch that bitch Anisa by the neck. She had tried not to give in to the thoughts in the back of her mind. She had worried that while she tended to her son, Anisa might do whatever she could to seize the opportunity to win Born back.

“Why?” Jada asked through clenched teeth.

Born could hear the anger dripping from her voice and he sucked his teeth. “Don’t start,” he warned. “My son is sick. I came over to chill with him and—”

“And what? It’s late. Are you gonna spend the night over there?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?” Jada couldn’t believe her ears. It felt like there was a stranger on the other end of the phone rather than the man she loved.

“Yeah. If I want to chill here with Ethan, what’s the problem?” he demanded. Not wanting to have it out with Jada in front of his son, Born got up and retreated downstairs to the living room so that he could conclude this conversation in private. He missed the satisfied smirk on Anisa’s face as he descended the stairs. She was glad that Jada knew he was there with her.

“Born, why are you really over there? Are you fucking her again?”

He laughed, despite the fact that he didn’t find it funny. He hadn’t done anything with Anisa but enjoy their son’s sarcastic sense of humor. They had been spending more time as a family over the past few weeks and Born was grateful to Anisa. In the past, she had been clingy, desperate for the two of them to rekindle what they had once upon a time. But lately, she was different. She listened to him as he rattled on excitedly about DJ’s bourgeoning career, about the people they had met and the places they had been. She even listened as he talked to her about Jada, about the problems with Sheldon and about his secretly second-guessing his decision to get married. Without furthering some hidden agenda, Anisa had listened to Born and the two of them had become closer as friends. Ethan was happier than ever, watching his parents getting along so well. Born had even spent the night from time to time, sleeping in Ethan’s bed or in the spare bedroom down the hall. He knew that Jada was under a lot of pressure as she worked on her book and tried to return her life to some sense of normalcy as her son unraveled before her eyes.

“Am I fucking her? Are you serious?” Born tried not to get upset. He told himself that Jada was just being jealous for no reason.

“Are you?” she pressed. “Why else would you be over there this late?”

“I just told you why. My son is sick. I came to see him. We started chilling, laughing and playing his video games. It got late. What the fuck? I got a curfew now or something?” He didn’t mention the fact that he’d been bunking there quite often lately. Clearly, that would have sent Jada over the edge if her current attitude was any indication.

Jada felt like Born was patronizing her. Surely, he could understand her not wanting him to be alone with Anisa when the two of them had been seeing so little of each other lately. She finally allowed herself to admit that she might be losing the man she loved while she was trying desperately to save her son.

The tears came before she knew what hit her. “No,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “You don’t have a curfew, Born. You go ahead and enjoy your night.”

She hung up the phone and turned it off. She shut her computer, turned off her bedside lamp, and cried her eyes out. She couldn’t believe this was happening.

*   *   *

Born, meanwhile, tried calling Jada back several times, and got only voice mail. At first, he was offended that he had been falsely accused. After all, he hadn’t ever cheated on Jada before—not even when she was stealing from him and getting high behind his back years ago. Plus, this was
his
house, he reasoned. Sure, Anisa lived there, but all the bills came in his name and it was his money that paid them. He told himself that Jada was bugging, and that she could stay mad. Fuck it.

But the more he thought about the tears he had heard her shedding, the worse he felt. He tried calling her again, but her phone was still turned off. So he put on his sneakers, grabbed his jacket and went upstairs to tell his son good night.

“Dad, can’t you stay?” Ethan asked, giving Born his best sad face.

Born him in the head playfully mushed and smiled. “I’ll be back tomorrow. You should be glad I’m leaving. Ain’t you tired of getting beat?”

“Whatever!” Ethan tossed a pillow at his father and Born threw it back. Then he kissed Ethan on his forehead and wished him good night.

“Get some sleep.”

Anisa walked him downstairs. “The warden called, huh?”

Born looked at her sidelong and shook his head in exasperation. “She’s being dramatic. I’m gonna go and calm her down. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

She nodded.

Born wasn’t sure why he lingered at the door for a moment longer. He felt as if he should say something, but he wasn’t sure what it was. Awkward silence swathed them before he finally cleared his throat and said, “Good night.”

Anisa smiled softly at him. “Good night, Born.”

She shut the door behind him and told herself that the butterflies she felt in the pit of her stomach was probably just gas.

17

BITTERNESS

Jada heard Born enter the house and hurriedly wiped her eyes. In the darkness of her bedroom, she told herself that he wouldn’t notice her puffy eyes and her red nose, evidence of all the crying she’d done for the past half hour.

He walked up the stairs, his footsteps heavy, and entered her bedroom quietly. He took off his jacket, hung it on the doorknob and sat on the foot of her bed.

“What’s your problem?” he asked.

Jada shrugged, a habit she had picked up from being around Sheldon so much these days. “I guess I should be happy that my man is at his baby’s mama’s house in the middle of the night.”

He ignored her sarcasm and told himself that she was just overreacting. “I’m not fucking Anisa, baby girl. It’s nothing like that. I told you I was just spending time with Ethan. Since when is that a crime?”

Jada knew he was telling the truth. Born had never lied to her before. It was one of the reasons she loved him so much. Still, she felt a lump in her throat that wouldn’t go away. She turned to face him and prayed that the darkness shrouded the misery on her face.

“I miss you,” she said, softly. “I feel like I never see you anymore. And then I call you and you’re over there…”

Born understood her reaction now. “I miss you, too. But I’ve been trying to give you space to deal with your son.”

“Space?” she repeated. “That’s what you think I need?”

“Well, what do you need then?”

“You.”

Born felt a tug at his heart, then. The truth was, he didn’t know how to be there for Jada at a time like this. What was the right thing to do or say when there had been a dead dog floating in his mama’s bathtub?

“You got me,” he said.

She shrugged again. “It doesn’t feel like it.”

Born took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’m just busy lately with DJ so I’ve been on the go, and you know that. I just wanted to give you space. I figured maybe without me around, you two could get close again.”