The Ugly Side of Me

by Nikita Lynnette Nichols

  He walked into the kitchen and kissed his wife’s lips and my cheek. “How’s my girl?”

  “I’m fine,” Anastasia answered.

  “I mean my baby girl.”

  Anastasia stood from the table. “She’s better. I was just about to check on her.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll do it,” Trevor said and left the kitchen.

  I sighed. “I wish I could look forward to that.”

  “What?” Anastasia asked me.

  “Malcolm coming home from work in the middle of the day to check on his baby.”

  Anastasia sat back down. “Rhapsody, Malcolm is young and inexperienced. But I promise you, the moment he sees his baby’s face, there won’t be anything you, his mother, or even God could do to keep him away from it.”

  “I hope so, Stacy. But remember when you were eight months pregnant and Trevor came home and found you gone? Remember how he called your cell phone and tracked you down? Remember how he waited by the front door for you to walk in just so he could kiss your big belly? We knew you were carrying a girl. Remember Trevor telling you that he needed to know where both his girls were at all times?”

  She smiled at the memories. “Yeah, I remember.”

  “I left Malcolm asleep in my bed three hours ago. I know he’s up by now, and he hasn’t called my cell phone to find out where I’m at or to check if I’m okay.”

  “Rhapsody, the worst thing you can do is to compare Malcolm to Trevor. You have to remember that Trevor has fifteen years on Malcolm. Mentally, they are on opposite ends of the earth. Every man has to find his own way in life. But can I tell you something without you getting pissed at me?”

  “Say what you gotta say, Stacy.”

  “You gave Malcolm all of you too soon, and what I mean by that is, you exposed your heart to him, and now he knows he’s got you. You already showed him that you ain’t going nowhere, no matter what he says or does. That’s a dangerous mistake to make in a new relationship.”

  I nodded my head up and down. “Stacy, you just preached, girlfriend.”

  Malcolm’s Navigator wasn’t in my driveway when I returned home from Anastasia’s house, and truth be told, I was relieved. Witnessing Trevor’s love for and dedication to his wife and daughter brought tears to my eyes. And because of that, I didn’t wanna look at Malcolm.

  I wished I hadn’t told my parents I was pregnant, because I still had time to get an abortion. I could have the procedure done first thing in the morning, take the rest of the week to relax, and be ready to hear Mr. Duncan’s mouth on the following Monday.

  Malcolm’s luggage was missing, and I hope it was a sign that he’d gone home. We’d been joined at the hip for the past six days, and I was thankful for the breathing room. He hadn’t made up my bed, and that pissed me off. I had told him time and time again always to make my bed when he got out of it.

  He’d left the toilet seat up in the bathroom, and that pissed me off some more. And what really fried my behind was the fact that the rug around the base of the toilet had wet spots, which meant he couldn’t pee straight. I snatched up the rug and tossed it in the washing machine. My kitchen had been clean when I left. But I found a cereal bowl and a spoon in the sink. Why couldn’t Malcolm leave the kitchen the way he’d found it?

  I unpacked my suitcase and put everything in its place. I sat the empty suitcase in the closet, went into my den, and lay across the futon. I turned on the Lifetime channel and found the movie Who Will Love My Children? on again. I watched it. I couldn’t help myself. I wept like a two-year-old. By the end of the movie, my mind was made up to keep my baby. There was no way I could abort it or give it up for adoption. I pressed the OFF button on the remote and turned onto my side and sighed. I got up and rearranged the furniture in my den, living room, and bedroom. It was five o’clock in the evening when I finished.

  Later I heard Malcolm come in the front door. I was sitting at the kitchen table, pouring caramel icing on a cake I had baked, when he walked in and stood next to me.

  “I thought I was in the wrong house,” Malcolm said, referring to the new look of the place.

  “I moved the furniture around, and hello to you too.”

  He sat down and tried to stick his finger in the bowl of icing, but I smacked his hand away.

  “Don’t do that,” I fussed. “Ain’t no telling where your hands have been.”

  “They’ve been in your panties.”

  I looked at him and rotated my neck. “And who else’s?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? And where did you go this morning? You were gone when I woke up.”

  “Humph. You must not have been too worried, because you sho didn’t call my cell to inquire about my whereabouts.”

  “You ain’t leave a note, so I figured you didn’t want me to know.”

  “I went to Stacy’s house, but since you wanna come up in here investigating me, where you been all day?”

  “Are you gonna give me some of that cake or what?”

  “Don’t try to change the subject, Malcolm. Answer my question.”

  “What question?”

  “You’re playing games with me, but I am not amused. You still screwin’ Sharonda?”

  “What do you mean, ‘still’? I ain’t never messed with Sharonda.”

  “Yeah, okay. That’s what your mouth say. I bet if I asked your testicles that same question, I’d get a different answer.”

  “Girl, cut me a piece of that cake and stop all this bull. All you do is fuss and moan. Dang, I’m getting tired of that.”

  I stood from the table and pulled the largest knife I had in my kitchen from its cutlery holder and sliced a very thin piece of cake and sat in on a saucer and served it to Malcolm.

  He looked at me as though I was crazy. “What’s that?”

  “You wanted a piece of cake, so I gave you one.”

  “Didn’t your mama teach you how to cut a cake?”

  I looked at that fool. “No, but she taught me how to cut a man.”

  “Rhapsody, quit messing around and cut me a piece of cake.”

  I threw the knife on the table, and it landed an inch from Malcolm’s elbow. “Cut it yourself.”

  I walked past him, went into the laundry room, and started a load of laundry. Five minutes later I heard my front door slam. When I saw that Malcolm had taken half of my caramel cake, I called his cellular telephone.

  “Why did you take half of my cake?”

  “I didn’t take half,” he lied.

  I was livid. “Malcolm, half of my cake is gone! Why did you do that?”

  “You want me to bring it back, Rhapsody? I can’t believe you’re hollering at me over cake. This is exactly what I meant when I said all you do is complain.”

  I was so sick of him, and I wanted to be done with the conversation. “You know what, Malcolm? Keep the freakin’ cake and don’t come back here tonight. I don’t wanna talk to you no more today.”

  “Oh, is it like that?”

  Without answering him, I hung up the telephone. I massaged my temples, because I felt another headache coming on. I lay across my bed and thought about the mess I was in. I wasn’t sleepy, so I got up and sat at the kitchen table and balanced my checkbook. I wrote out checks for my mortgage, my house insurance, Malcolm’s car note, and my tithes and offerings for the two Sundays I had missed at church. I put stamps on the envelopes and drove to the post office and dropped them in an outside mailbox.

  On the way back home, I stopped at the Barnes & Noble bookstore next to the Oakbrook Mall and bought another copy of the novel that I had ruined in Cancún. When I got home, I sliced a huge piece of cake and took it, along with a glass of milk, and laid on my futon for some good reading.

  I got through the first chapter in three minutes and was disturbed by what I read. I was disturbed not because the novel wasn’t excellently written so far, but because that female character was so much like me, but the author hadn’t interviewed me or asked for permission to writ
e about my life.

  By the end of chapter five, I was fit to be tied. The novel was about me; it had to been. The female character met a guy the same way I had met Malcolm, at a fast-food restaurant. From the way the author described the guy, it was Malcolm in every way. The female character also had a best friend who was always in her business and was trying to run her life, and if that wasn’t Anastasia, I didn’t know who was. The only difference between our lives was that the character in the novel was telling her story from a jail cell.

  I finished the novel in four hours, and again I tipped my hat to the author for another job well done. I must say that I was disturbed by the ending of the book, because it was finally revealed why the character was telling her story from behind bars.

  Chapter 40

  I was lying in bed and swallowing two crackers and drinking 7UP when my telephone rang on Saturday. WALTER BLUE appeared on my caller ID.

  “Are you dying, Walter?” I asked when I answered. “Are you on your deathbed?”

  “Nah. Why?”

  “Because if you ain’t knocking on death’s door, you shouldn’t be calling my house this early.”

  “If your pregnant, evil behind rolled over and looked at the clock, you would know that it’s one o’clock in the afternoon, but witches always sleep half the day away.”

  It dawned on me what Walter had said to me. “Did Lerlean tell you that I’m pregnant?”

  “Nope. She didn’t have to.”

  I sighed. “You better tell me what you want before I hang up.”

  “I need you to get Mama and Daddy from the airport.”

  “Why can’t you do it?”

  “I got two patients delivering this afternoon.”

  “Well, what about Danny? He doesn’t work on Saturdays.”

  “Danny and Antoinette are in Detroit this weekend for her family reunion.”

  I sighed again. I didn’t feel like doing nothing. “What time?”

  “Their plane lands at Midway Airport at two forty-five.”

  “Two forty-five? I’m all the way in Oakbrook. Why didn’t you call me earlier?”

  “I was planning on going myself until I got the calls from my patients.”

  “Are you sure about Midway? They flew out of O’Hare.”

  “Yes, Midway Airport at two forty-five on American Airlines flight number three-ten.”

  I got up to wash my face and brush my teeth. I slipped into a pair of size twelve Levi’s jeans but couldn’t button them. My pink nylon Fila jogging suit with the elastic waist fit much more comfortably. I remembered my mother telling me that she and my father had bought an extra luggage set to add to the seven pieces they already had to take on the cruise. There was no way the three of us, plus all that luggage, would fit in my car.

  I didn’t wanna deal with Malcolm, but I needed his truck. I called his cellular telephone and got his voice mail, but I hung up without leaving a message. I was pressed for time, so I called Anastasia.

  “I need a favor, Stacy.”

  “What’s up?”

  “I have to get my parents from the airport, but all their luggage won’t fit into my car. I can’t reach Malcolm for the Navigator, so I’m hoping I can use your minivan.”

  “Yeah, that’s fine. Trevor is out playing golf, and he’ll be gone all day. Drive to my house, and Chantal and I will ride with you in the van.”

  Chapter 41

  “Ma, I got a taste for your famous bread pudding,” Cherise said.

  Sean rubbed his belly at the thought of Lucille’s desserts. “Ooh, me too.”

  “Well, I got everything but vanilla flavor,” Lucille said to Cherise.

  “I’ll run to the grocery store and get it,” Cherise offered. “Malcolm, can I drive your truck?”

  He looked at Cherise. “Why can’t you drive your own car?”

  “Because I wanna ride in the Navigator.”

  He tossed her the keys. “Be careful.”

  Lucille rolled her wheelchair into the kitchen to prepare the bread pudding, Malcolm and Sean opted for a game of one-on-one on the backyard patio, and Cherise pulled the Navigator away from the curb.

  Chapter 42

  As we sat at the stoplight at Fifty-First Street and Cicero Avenue, I glanced at Anastasia, who was sitting in the passenger seat. “Stacy, I really appreciate you letting me use your van today. I don’t know where Malcolm is.”

  “Girl, don’t worry about it. Chantal could use the fresh air. Her doctor said it’s safe to take her outside now.”

  I glanced at Chantal through the rearview mirror and saw her sitting quietly in her car seat, playing with her toes. “The chicken pox is almost gone.”

  “Yeah, her skin is clearing up real good.”

  What Anastasia said to me went through my right ear and came directly out my left. I was focused on a silver Navigator in the left turning lane, adjacent to where we sat in the van. I saw a light-skinned female sitting behind the wheel. She had long black hair, and she wore dark sunglasses and ruby-red lipstick. On the temporary license plates I saw D701357. While sitting at the stoplight, I fumbled through my purse for the set of keys to Malcolm’s truck. They were attached to a key chain that held the information on the Navigator.

  “What are you looking for?” Anastasia asked me.

  “My keys to Malcolm’s truck. I wanna see if the numbers on the key chain match the numbers on the temporary plates on that silver Navigator that’s about to turn left.”

  I found the keys and looked at the numbers on the key chain. D701357 stared back at me.

  “Oh, hell no,” I said loudly.

  Anastasia grabbed my right arm. “Rhapsody, calm down.”

  The green arrow appeared, and the Navigator made a left turn directly in front of us into a Mariano’s grocery store parking lot. I was in the far left lane, heading south on Cicero Avenue, but I put my right turn signal on and turned right, crossing the cars in the middle and right lanes.

  Anastasia held on to the door handle for dear life. “Rhapsody, I got my baby in this van! What are you gonna do?”

  “You’ll see,” I said.

  “I don’t wanna see nothing. I ain’t going to jail with you again.”

  I ignored her and followed the Navigator into the grocery store parking lot. I watched the woman park in a slot between a Pontiac Sunfire and a Suzuki Forenza. When she stepped out of the Navigator, I saw she was wearing a very short blue jeans skirt and a light blue tank top with white ankle socks and white gym shoes. I got more pissed because I had that exact blue jeans skirt in my closet but couldn’t fit into it anymore. The fact that she was really cute in the face and in her waist didn’t sit well with me.

  “That ain’t Sharonda,” I said. “That’s a different chick.”

  “Rhapsody, let’s go,” Anastasia pleaded.

  “Calm down, Stacy. I ain’t gonna touch the skank.”

  When the woman entered the grocery store, I pulled up behind the Navigator and got out with my purse and keys.

  “Girl, what are you doing?”

  “Taking my truck. Just follow me. We ain’t going far.”

  Anastasia was mad at me, but she moved to the driver’s seat of the van. “You’re too old for this, you know that?”

  I used the remote and unlocked the driver’s door to the Navigator and got in. I drove it five blocks east on Fifty-First Street, parked it on a residential corner, and got back into the driver’s seat of Anastasia’s van.

  “Now I’m gonna wait till Malcolm calls me and says the truck was stolen either from his job, his mother’s house, or Ivan’s house.”

  Anastasia looked at me. “And then what?”

  “Then I’ma stab him for letting a broad drive the truck that I’m paying for. Then I’ma stab him again for lying.”

  Chapter 43

  “What?” Malcolm yelled into his cell phone when Cherise called.

  “The truck is gone, Malcolm. It’s not where I parked it. I searched the entire parking lot. It
’s not here.”

  Malcolm couldn’t believe his ears. “You’re saying somebody stole it?”

  Both Lucille and Sean spoke to him at the same time. “What happened?” they chorused.

  “You want me to call the police?” Cherise asked.

  “Nah. Hold tight. I’m on my way.” Malcolm disconnected the called and looked at his brother-in-law. “We gotta go get Cherise. Somebody stole my truck.”

  When Malcolm and Sean arrived at the grocery store, they saw a distraught Cherise. “Malcolm, I’m so sorry. I was only in the store for ten minutes.”

  Malcolm called the police from his cellular telephone. He dreaded making the second phone call. It was to Rhapsody.

  Chapter 44

  At around six o’clock Saturday evening, my mother was showing Anastasia and me the different souvenirs she and my father had picked up during a shopping spree on one of the Bahamian islands when Malcolm finally called my cellular telephone.

  “Baby, I got something to tell you, but don’t get mad, okay?”

  I was calm, cool, and collected. “Okay.” I blinked my eye at Anastasia to let her know that it was Malcolm on the telephone and that the crap was about to hit the fan.

  “Somebody stole the truck.”

  At that moment I could’ve been nominated for a best actress award by the way I yelled into the telephone, “What do you mean, ‘somebody stole the truck’?”

  Anastasia laughed her butt off, but Lerlean was clueless.

  “I let Cherise drive it to the grocery store. When she came out, the truck was gone.”

  I was holding my mouth, laughing, but when Malcolm said it was his sister who was driving the truck, I stopped laughing. I sat up straight on the sofa. “Cherise was in the truck?”

  “Yeah. She said she locked the doors, and I don’t see how somebody could steal a big Navigator from a crowded parking lot in broad daylight.”

  Anastasia saw the look on my face. She mouthed the words “It was his sister?” to me.

  I nodded my head at her and spoke to Malcolm. “Don’t worry about the truck. It has a tracking device on it, and it will be found a half hour after you call the police.”