With Friends Like These (8 page)

I
stood outside my door, hating to go home. My father had missed yet another play performance. I was starring in
Romeo and Juliet,
and I’d been practicing for weeks. I got a standing ovation, and everyone was there. Everyone except my parents, that is.

I stuck my key in the door, dreading going inside because I just knew I was going to see my mother somewhere sulking. My father would be gone. And it would be me and whatever Sonja fixed for dinner in front of the TV.

People were always talking about they wish they had my life. Shoot, if they only knew.

I was surprised to see my mother sitting on the sofa, my father standing up in front of her. I found myself hoping they had a valid excuse for missing my play. I was about to say something when I noticed that my mother’s eyes were red.

“Hi, sweetheart,” my mother said, trying to plaster on a smile. “I am so sorry we missed your play. Your father got sort of caught up at work.”

“Surprise, surprise,” I purposely mumbled loudly as I dropped my purse on the end table. “What’s going on?”

That’s when my eyes made their way over to the foot of the stairs, where I noticed four black leather bags.

“Daddy, are you going on a business trip?” I asked, not quite sure about why he would be taking so many bags.

“Sweetie, have a seat,” my father said, motioning to the sofa.

Whenever someone says “sweetie, have a seat,” you know he is not about to give you some good news. Kinda like a guy going on the
Maury Povich Show
with his girlfriend who has a secret to tell him, then being surprised when Maury says, “You are not the father.”

“Somebody wanna tell me what’s going on?” I said, without sitting down.

My father sighed and looked at my mother. She scared me because she looked away, and I swear there were real tears in her eyes. Not those drama crocodile tears she could turn on and off. “It’s your idea, so you tell her.” My mother’s voice was soft and dejected. There was no attitude, no dramatics, just pain.

I looked at my father. “Daddy, are you leaving us?”

My father took a deep breath. “Baby, I’m not leaving you.” He reached out to touch me. I jerked away.

“You’re leaving Mom? You’re leaving this house?” I knew this was a possibility, but now that it was actually happening, I was about to lose my mind. “How can you do this to us?”

“Lexi, you are old enough to understand this.” He glanced over at my mother. She still had her head turned away but I could see the tears trickling down her cheeks.

“Your mother and I are getting a divorce.”

I looked around the room, waiting for Ashton Kutcher to jump out and tell me I was being punked or something. No way my father was standing here saying this to me. “A divorce? You’re not even going to separate first? I mean, don’t you have to separate first? Isn’t that the law?” I felt myself getting hysterical. I know my family was jacked up, but we were still a family. Images of my father moving out, remarrying, starting a whole new life without us, flashed in my mind.

“Sweetheart, we’re past the point of separation,” my father said.

I looked at my mother. “Mama, tell him don’t do this. I know y’all been fighting, but you don’t want this, I know you don’t.”

“It’s for the best,” my mother whispered.

My father walked over toward his bags. “Don’t worry about anything, Lexi. Both you and your mother will be well taken care of.”

I rushed over to where he was. “I don’t care about your money. I have never cared about your money. Please, Daddy, don’t do this.”

“It’s done,” he said, picking up his smallest bag.

“What about till death do you part? What about the vows you made before God?” I knew I was grasping at straws, but I would try anything to get them to come to their senses.

That must’ve caught my parents off guard, because both of them were quiet.

“You made a promise to God. Until death do you part,” I said, looking back and forth between them.

My father looked at me. He, too, had tears in his eyes. He reached out and caressed my face. “Lexi, I love you. But living here is killing me. God will understand.”

He reached down, picked up the rest of his bags, and walked out the front door. I heard my mother let out a loud moan just as the door slammed. I collapsed to the floor in tears.

W
here have you been? And don’t even try saying you were at Alexis’s, because I called over there, and her mother said Alexis was asleep and that neither of them had seen you.”

I was cold busted. I didn’t know what to say, and I couldn’t think of a different story fast enough. I had taken off my shoes and tried my best to be as quiet as possible when I snuck into the back door. I was walking slowly on my tiptoes with my wedges and my purse in my hands, then suddenly the lights flicked on, nearly blinding me. I stared at my mother sitting on the sofa, her arms folded across her chest and I knew I was as good as dead.

Fire was burning in my mother’s eyes, and I knew this was no time to lie. But what else could I do? She knew I hadn’t been with Alexis, which is where I said I’d be. I knew I should’ve said I was spending the night, but that was the excuse I used last time I snuck out to be with Walter. Me and Walter had actually gone to that drive-in he told me about. It was so much fun, but it was near San Antonio, which was about two hours away. We had planned to be back by midnight, but everyone was hanging out afterward. Now it was almost two thirty in the morning.

“Well, young lady?” My mother’s hands flew to her hips, as she stood up. She tapped one foot as she stood in front of me in her old tattered housecoat and rollers.

“First off, you’re two hours past your curfew, and you come trying to sneak in here after you’ve been God knows where, and not to mention with who. I want answers, and I want them now!” she demanded.

I thought I was gon’ pass out. I was so nervous I couldn’t think of a lie fast enough.

“Camille? Do you hear me talking to you?” she asked through gritted teeth.

My eyes dropped to the floor as I struggled not to cry. I knew there was no way out—I looked guilty.

“Mom, you’re right. I wasn’t with Alexis, but that’s only because she and Tameka left me and Angel to go off to some party. We were gonna spend the night at her place, but when they left us, we didn’t feel like trying to go up to her house by ourselves,” I offered weakly. Okay, so I’d managed to come up with a lie after all.

My mother’s eyes narrowed. At first she didn’t say anything. She just stood there with her hands on her hips, taking me in silently.

“We just thought it would be better if we went home instead of getting Alexis in trouble. Besides, her parents had been fighting so much, we decided not to stay there tonight. Ma, that’s it,” I said.

She blinked a few times. “Why are you sneaking in here like you’ve been out doing something you had no business doing?”

Dang, did mothers have crystal balls or something? Me and Walter had messed around some, nothing major because I definitely wasn’t trying to have sex with him, but it was enough to have me feeling guilty.

“I didn’t want to wake you up,” I said, trying to come up with a good excuse. “I didn’t know if you were sleeping or what was going on. Think about it, I could’ve just stayed at Alexis’s and avoided all of this.”

“One problem, Camille,” she said triumphantly. “You never said a thing about spending the night out. If you were staying at Alexis’s you would’ve taken a bag when you went out. You didn’t. And since when did you decide when and where you were spending the night? Last time I checked, there was only one woman in this house, and her name ain’t Camille.”

I lowered my head and stared at the floor.

“Now if I find out you were out there with that boy I’ve warned you about, Camille, you mark my words, you will live to regret it!” she continued. “Now I’m only going to ask one more time, where were you tonight?”

I swallowed hard, finally deciding to try the truth, since she was always saying I’d get in less trouble if I was honest.

“Me and Walter were just hanging out.”

My mother rubbed her forehead. “Hanging out? I thought I asked you to leave that boy alone. His mother has made it clear she does not want you involved with her son. And I don’t want you in that situation.”

“But, Mama, he’s my boyfriend.”

“Camille, did we or did we not go through this with Keith?”

I knew she was going to go there. She couldn’t stand Keith. Just ’cause he’d been to jail, had a baby, cheated on me, and got me arrested.

“Mama, please understand.”

“Camille, even if I did approve of this relationship, this boy is getting ready to go off to college clear across the country. His father is running in a very high-profile campaign. The last thing I want is people digging around in our business trying to find out about the little black girl he’s dating.”

“But—”

“But nothing! I don’t want to hear any more about you dating this boy, do you understand? And as God is my witness, if you lie to me again, you won’t leave this house until your eighteenth birthday!” She shot me a mean look before ordering me to my room.

I
knew everyone was going to have a million questions when I walked into the meeting tonight. I’d missed the last two meetings and hadn’t been answering my cell phone. I hadn’t even done my part for an upcoming talent show we were holding for the girls we mentored. Camille had even called me and left a message asking me to cover for her in case her mother called. I didn’t get the message until today, and by then, my mom told me Mrs. Harris had already called. Oh, well. I hope Camille wasn’t mad, but honestly, right now, I just couldn’t worry about her.

I was totally depressed. Between my dad leaving and the fact that I hadn’t even talked to Jaquan all week, I know I was messed up.

Surprisingly, it was my mom who had been trying to get me out of my funk. Of course, she wanted to go do something. But this time, it wasn’t a trip to the spa or anything. We just went to the movies. I don’t think either of us really paid any attention to the movie, though. But I guess it got us out of the house. Afterward, we went to Marble Slab for ice cream. We tried to talk about the divorce, but it wasn’t doing anything but making us both sad all over again, so we changed the subject.

It was strange. I slept in my mom’s bed last night. That was something I hadn’t done since I was four years old. I’d heard her softly crying when I went to the kitchen to get something to drink in the middle of the night. I eased into the bed next to her. She put her arm around me and held me tight, and for the first time in a long time, I felt her love.

“Alexis!” Angel said, as I walked into the meeting room. “Girl, we were so worried about you.”

“Yeah,” Camille added. “We had already said we were coming over there after we left the meeting today.”

“I’m okay,” I said as I took a seat. “I’ve just been dealing with some things.”

“What kind of things that you felt you couldn’t talk to us about?” Camille said.

I sighed. I didn’t have to worry about crying. I was all cried out.

“My parents are getting a divorce. My dad moved out,” I said.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Camille said.

“Yeah,” Jasmine added. “That’s messed up.”

“Tell me about it,” I said. “What’s going on?”

“We’re just practicing for the auditions,” Camille said. “You know we have the final audition this week.”

Yeah, I knew. I just hadn’t been motivated to do anything about it. Shoot, it looked like Tameka was going to get it anyway.

I thought about going to ask Dad to help me get the job, but then thought better of it. I didn’t want anyone to accuse me of using my parent’s wealth to get the position. Besides, with all the drama going on in our house, I kind of felt like my parents had better things to think about than me trying to get some TV job. Especially now.

When I mentioned the whole idea to my mother, a look of horror quickly spread across her face.

“What do you want a job for?” she asked.

“Mother, I’m not looking at it as a job. I just think it would be cool for me to do something like that, don’t you?”

“That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. Why work when you don’t have to?” she said.

My mother was a trip. The way she talked and carried herself these days, you’d think she was always born with the kind of money my father had. But the truth was, my mom’s family was dirt-poor.

Sometimes I wish she would remember where she came from, because now she acts like she doesn’t know what it is like to be without designer things.

“All I’m saying, dear, is if you need some money, your father and I would be happy to help. Besides, we don’t want you to ruin your college chances by working. Then your grades will start to suffer. I think it best if you let one of those other girls get that job,” she’d said.

I decided to focus on the job. Maybe that would help me forget what was going on at home.

We went through some practice rounds. Tameka got on everyone’s nerves with her constant critiques, but all in all, we had a good session.

Afterward, I caught up with Jasmine as we walked out.

“Hey, Jasmine. Where’s your brother?”

“Around, I guess,” Jasmine said as she looked out in the parking lot, most likely looking for her ride.

“Oh, well, can you tell him to call me?” I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t tell if she was being standoffish with me or what. I thought she was getting cool with the idea of me dating her brother.

“Look, I told y’all I don’t want to be in the middle of nothing, a’wight?”

I looked at Jasmine funny. “Why you getting funky? I mean, I was just asking.”

Before Jasmine could respond, her grandmother’s car pulled up to the church. Her sister Nikki was driving this time. I smiled when I saw Jaquan in the passenger seat.

“Come on, Jasmine,” Nikki yelled out the window. “I got to go. I’m gon’ be late for work.”

Jaquan got out of the car, smiling at me, looking all cute and stuff. “Hey, baby girl.”

Jasmine rolled her eyes as she walked to the car.

“Boy, I ain’t got time for you to be playing with your little girlfriend,” Nikki snapped. “I got to go.”

“Hey, Jaquan,” I said, wishing Nikki would disappear.

Jaquan walked over and hugged me. “I’m sorry I’ve been so busy. We’re getting ready for basketball season.”

It felt so good to have him hug me.

Nikki blared the horn.

“Chill out!” Jaquan snapped.

“Why don’t you tell her to go on?” I suggested. “We can go grab something to eat, then I can take you home.” I knew it was eight-thirty and I probably should be getting back, but honestly, I wasn’t looking forward to going home.

“You know, that sounds like the best thing I heard all day,” he said. He turned to Nikki. “Beat it.”

Nikki shook her head and started mumbling as she took off.

“You wanna drive?” I asked him, knowing how much he loved driving my car.

“You know it,” he said, sticking out his hand.

I dropped the keys in his hand. “I need to be home by ten, or my grandma will start trippin’,” he said. “But let’s go get something to eat. I just wanna spend a minute with my baby.” He leaned in and gently kissed me. We made our way to my car, and for the first time since my father left, I smiled.