You're the One I Want

by Shane Allison

  “How else was it going to go down? What, you’re just going to walk up to your brother and confess your love for his wife? You thought you were going to walk back into his life after three years and take what’s yours without cracking a few heads?”

  “I didn’t want it to go down like this.”

  “D, what difference does it make how it went down as long as the end result involves me getting Kashawn, and you and Bree get to ride y’all asses off into the sunset?”

  Every word that came out of Tangela’s mouth set my blood to boil when she talked about Bree and my brother. I couldn’t stand the sight of her. “I could break your damn neck.”

  “What the fuck is your problem?”

  “You’re my damn problem. Because of your scheming, my brother could have died.”

  “I’m assuming you’re talking about that shit with Kateisha. I didn’t say nothing to that bitch about drugging Kashawn. I told her to get him in bed, that’s—”

  Before Tangela could say another word, I lunged at her, locking a hand around her throat. “You almost get my brother killed and you have the nerve to show your face here.”

  “Nigga, get your hands off of me.”

  “I could snap your neck like a glow stick and no one would miss you.”

  Tangela reached inside her purse to pull something out, but I grabbed at her arm. It wasn’t a fingernail file this time, but a .38.

  “What the fuck you think you’re going to do with this, huh?” I took the gun and pressed it to Tangela’s temple. “Are you fucking mental, bringing a gun to my brother’s house?”

  “Go ahead, do it. Pull the fucking trigger.”

  “I oughta put you out of your sad-ass misery.”

  Tangela pressed her forehead hard against the barrel of the gun. “Do it. Kill me with all these people around. You can’t. You know why? Because you don’t have the fucking balls.”

  “Bree has no idea who you are.” I took the gun off her head. “Bitch, you ain’t worth the bullet.”

  “That’s what I thought. I never should have brought you in on this. I knew your punk ass would crumble like a cookie.”

  “Everything you touch turns to shit.”

  “I just thought of something. How about I kill Bree? I’ll blast her ass right in her own driveway.”

  “Don’t you touch her.”

  “Killing you would be too easy. Why waste a bullet on you when I have this?” Tangela took out her phone and showed the video of me fucking a man in a gay porno. “All I have to do is send this nasty shit to Mama Liz. What do you think she would think, seeing you butt-ass naked, giving it to some old white man up the ass?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Maybe, but knowing where your dick has been, not fucking likely. Looking at this shit. I’m going to have to go get tested for HIV. Who the hell knows what you gave me.”

  When we heard a knock on the garage door, I tucked the gun in my jeans, under my shirt, while Tangela hauled her ass out of the side door of the garage.

  I walked up the stairs that led back toward the house. Yvonne was sitting at the kitchen table, doing what she does best: eating. Her plate was so full with barbecue chicken, baked beans, and potato salad, it was literally running over.

  “Why are you sweating?” she asked.

  “Nothing. I saw that we were running out of cups and came out here to get some more.”

  “Uh-huh,” she uttered.

  I went over to the sink to wash my hands. She looked funny, sitting there chomping away at chicken like it was the last thing she would ever stuff her fat face with.

  “How’s the chicken?”

  “Unc put his foot in them as always.”

  “I thought you were on a diet?”

  “I start it tomorrow.”

  “Uh-huh. I’ve heard that before.”

  “How’s the lip?”

  “I think I’ll live,” I told her, drying my hands with paper towels.

  “So, what were you and Tangela talking about? I saw you follow her out there in the garage.”

  Yvonne’s big ass don’t miss a beat. “We were just talking.”

  “About what?”

  I started laughing as I dried my hands. “You ask me that like I would actually give you an answer.”

  “Why is it that everywhere you go, D, you leave behind a trail of shit? No matter what you do, trouble ends up finding you.”

  “I would ask what your problem is, but I don’t want you to think that I actually give a shit.”

  “Why you can’t leave Bree and Kashawn alone?”

  “Why don’t you get you some business instead of sticking your pig nose in everyone else’s?”

  “Everything has been fucked up since you came back in town.”

  “Well, you will be happy to know that I’m not going anywhere, so you, Bree, Kashawn, and everybody else might as well get used to me being around.”

  “It’s obvious you’re not over Bree.”

  “Yvonne, you know what you need? Some dick. Capital D-i-c-k. If you got a little, you would be too busy getting fucked to be in other people’s business.” I grinned at the sight of Yvonne’s mouth stained with grease. “Get yourself an African man. They love big girls.”

  “Is Tangela your next conquest?” Yvonne ignored my usual digs at her.

  “You give me way too much credit, cousin.”

  “You should leave and take Bree with you. Kashawn can do bad all by himself.”

  I was about to curse my nosey cousin out when I heard mama screaming. We both ran out on the deck where people were clustered around Uncle Ray-Ray lying on the living room floor. I tore through the crowd like a hurricane through a crop of houses. Kashawn was hovered over him, giving him mouth to mouth and chest compressions. Uncle Ray-Ray’s pie-shaped face was flushed and sweaty.

  “He’s having a heart attack,” Tyrique said. Ebonya held herself snug against his chest.

  “Somebody call nine-one-one,” I yelled. Ma was wailing and screaming, hysterical. “Come on, Unc, stay with me. Why the fuck are y’all just standin’ there? Call nine-one-one!”

  Tyrique took out his phone and dialed. Uncle Ray-Ray’s lips were dry. Beads of sweat peppered his face.

  “The ambulance is on the way,” Tyrique said.

  Tears pooled up in my eyes as I watched Kashawn struggle to breathe life back into the man who was like a father to me.

  28

  BREE

  The day of my wedding my whole breakfast came up. Bacon, boiled egg, grits, English muffin. I was a hot mess of nerves. If it wasn’t for Tangela, they would have had to scrape me off the ceiling with a spatula. I had turned into a raging bridezilla, the one thing I said I was never going to turn into. Kashawn went all out to make sure that I would have a wedding that would put Tallahassee on the map. I had never seen so many flowers in my life. Mama Liz and Tangela made sure that everything was perfect, that the wedding went off without a hitch. It didn’t hit me until I stepped into my Vera Wang original. I struggled to hold back tears when I looked at myself in the full-length mirror.

  Had someone told me that I would be marrying the man of my dreams, I would have said they were crazy. Girls like me don’t get married, and girls like me sure as hell don’t get married to doctors. If anything, I figured I would meet some loser, get knocked up, only to end up on welfare as a single mother, another statistic. Chicks like me don’t fall in love. I thank the Lord every day for Kashawn. Let me stop. I’ve done enough crying today.

  The colors I chose for the wedding were white and lavender. Light lavender dresses for my bridesmaids with a bouquet of white roses and lilacs. Lavender has always been my favorite color, ever since seeing the color scheme of lavender and yellow in one of my aunts’ bedrooms. I even thought to dye my wedding dress lavender, but, honey, you don’t alter Vera Wang. Nakia, Josette, and even Latrice’s big behind looked gorgeous in their Ronald Joyce dresses. The four of us wore white sling backs with matching Victoria Jane pearls.
My hair was done up in pretty fishtail braids with lilacs placed perfectly throughout. I let this sister, Ava, do it. She has this shop in Governor Square Mall. Radiance, it’s called. I wanted Tangela to hook me up, but she doesn’t do wedding hair, so she recommended Ava. I had my reservations about her at first, but Tangela swore by her.

  “Girl, if she messes it up, I’m gonna make sure she never twists another braid in this town again. Bree, trust me. I told Ava what you want, and she told me that it’s no problem.”

  After about two hours, home girl had me looking like a queen by the time she was done. She was officially my go-to for any hair catastrophes I had in the future, or just when I wasn’t in the mood for one of my do-it-yourself jobs that consisted of twisting my hair up in a ponytail.

  I wanted to have the wedding at our house, but Mama Liz insisted we get married at her church. I figured the house was perfect. It was big enough to hold all five hundred guests, and the backyard was damn near the size of a football field.

  “Oh, my God, Bree. Girl, you look so beautiful,” Josette kept saying.

  You would think the way Tangela, Nakia, and Latrice were fussing over me, that they were getting married, but I’m not going to lie, I loved every pampered minute. I looked at myself in the mirror and couldn’t believe that I was in a wedding dress, a Vera Wang wedding dress no less. It was a complete and total transformation. There was a knock at the door.

  “Latrice, will you see who that is?”

  Latrice answered the door to find Uncle Ray-Ray standing there, dressed to the nines in a gray tuxedo with a white shirt, a gray-and-white tie, and sterling silver cufflinks. It was the first time I had ever seen Uncle Ray-Ray look so clean and sharp outside of a T-shirt and jeans, wearing an apron that was always smudged with grease and barbecue sauce.

  “Here y’all are. Mama Liz is wondering where the rest of the bridal party is.”

  Tangela, Latrice, Nakia, and Josette started to scramble.

  “Y’all better get down there before she throws a fit.”

  My three bridesmaids filed out of my bedroom one at a time.

  “Girl, you look gorgeous,” Nakia said as she kissed me on the cheek.

  “Thank you, baby girl.”

  Uncle Ray-Ray stared at me in the mirror like I was Tallahassee royalty.

  “So what do you think?”

  “I never had a daughter, but if I did, I would want her to look exactly like you on her wedding day.” Uncle Ray-Ray’s words nearly brought me to tears.

  “You know, ever since the day I joined this family, you have been nothing but sweet to me, while Mama Liz and Yvonne have had nothing but beef with me. I’m still not sure yet if I’ve convinced them that I’m good for Kashawn.”

  Uncle Ray-Ray placed his hands softly on my shoulders. “It doesn’t matter what they think, or whether or not you’re right for my nephew. They’re not marrying Kashawn. You are.”

  “And I’ve been telling myself that ever since.”

  “Bree, I know that it hasn’t been easy, but you seem to be holding your own with the two of them. Trust me, they are not easy women to get along with.”

  “You ain’t never lied. I can’t seem to do anything right by Mama Liz. Even on my wedding day, I feel like I’m walking on pins, needles, and thumbtacks around her. I don’t know what else I can do, short of offering her my firstborn.”

  Uncle Ray-Ray chuckled. “Like I said, they’ll come around. It’s not like they have a choice. And let’s not make this day about them. This is your and Kashawn’s wedding. And, girl, his heart is going to melt when he sees how beautiful you are today.”

  “You think so?”

  “No doubt about it. Kashawn is a lucky man.”

  “All I want to do is make him happy.”

  “And you will. I know my nephew. That man is head over heels in love with you.”

  “He better be. He spent enough on this dress,” I joked.

  Uncle Ray-Ray held out his arm to escort me downstairs. “Well, we better not keep your guests waiting. Let’s get this show on the road.”

  I kept saying in my head that I wouldn’t cry as I made my way downstairs. When the organist began to play “Here Comes the Bride,” everyone turned in my direction. Within seconds, all eyes were on me and I felt like straight-up queen royalty. When I saw Kashawn waiting for me at the end of the aisle, my nerves had subsided. I knew that everything was going to be okay, that as long as we had each other, we could get through anything.

  I was about to order another Vodka Cranberry when my phone rang. It was Ebonya. I answered it. “Hey, girl.”

  “Bree, where are you?”

  “I’m at Mockingbird Bar. Why?”

  “You need to come to the hospital. Something’s happened.”

  I instantly felt a panicked feeling wash over me. “What is it? Is it Kashawn?”

  “No, it’s Uncle Ray-Ray. He’s had a heart attack.”

  “Oh, my God, okay. I’m on my way.”

  29

  BREE

  It was a rainy Saturday afternoon the day of Uncle Ray-Ray’s funeral. Kashawn was pretty much in a daze all day, staring at the storm-gray casket as they lowered his uncle into the ground. Kashawn’s hand felt cold, like the life had been drained out of him. I would look into his light-brown eyes, only to find him listless, overcome with grief. Mama Liz rocked back and forth in a white fold-out chair, her mouth moving like she was singing to herself. Mount Zion Church was packed to the rim with family, friends, and people from the neighborhood. Even after the ushers brought out chairs for people to sit in, there was still standing room only in the small white church.

  I had no idea Uncle Ray-Ray had so many friends. People from south Florida to Alabama came to pay their respects. More than a dozen people got up and spoke about him, sharing funny stories, most of all talking about how he cooked the best barbecue in Tallahassee. Deanthony sat by himself eating, nursing on what I think was his fifth or sixth beer. He looked defeated, like there was no strength left in him. Miss Corrine, a neighbor of Mama Liz’s for thirty-four years, fixed Deanthony a plate of fried chicken, black-eyed peas, greens and corn bread. He took it in kindness, but all he did was pick over the food with a plastic fork. Kashawn didn’t have an appetite for nothing, either.

  There was enough food to feed a Third World country. Platters of both fried and baked chicken, slices of honey ham, a mess of three kinds of greens, corn bread, black-eyed peas, lima beans, roast beef, and an assortment of pies and cakes occupied long fold-out tables. Someone even brought ’coon, something I had no intention of putting my mouth on. I was country, but not that country. I remember Uncle Ray-Ray had some barbecue ’coon at the birthday party, but I didn’t have the stomach to put my hands on any of it. All I had was a piece of bread pudding Ms. Corrine had made. I badly wanted to go over and see how Deanthony was doing. I was there for Kashawn, but no one seemed to care about Deanthony. These men out here try to be so tough, but death will bring the hardest man to his knees. Ebonya eventually walked over to see about Deanthony.

  The plate of food that Mama Liz had made for Kashawn sat idle between his feet.

  “Hey, you’ve barely touched your plate. You need to eat something.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “You should go see how your mama’s doing.”

  Kashawn glanced over at her, Ms. Corrine cupping Mama Liz’s hand in hers. He walked over to his mama and sat on the other side of her, pulling her into him, the two of them rocking simultaneously, back and forth.

  “Girl, he won’t eat anything,” Ebonya said, folding her fingers over Tyrique’s white silk handkerchief.

  “I’m going to miss Uncle Ray-Ray. He was such a sweet man.”

  “Girl, I know,” Ebonya said. “He would give you the shirt off his back.”

  “And he never let anyone go hungry. When he lit that grill up, everybody was welcome. Not one soul did he turn away.”

  “Not a single one. Nobody will ever say that he
didn’t do anything for anyone. He was like a father to a lot of kids out here when their biologicals didn’t give a damn.”

  “He welcomed me into the family with open arms when Mama Liz had her reservations about me because of my past.”

  “Bree, has she always had an issue with you?”

  “She would smile in my face, yeah, but would talk bad behind my back. Kashawn is always telling me about something she’s said about me, but I just keep doing me.”

  “Girl, that’s all you can really do.”

  “Everyone has a seedy past. No one’s perfect.”

  “Have you and Kashawn talked since the argument at the homecoming party?”

  “Things have been so crazy making preparations for the funeral that we really haven’t had the opportunity to talk. Honestly, I have no idea where we stand. We said some nasty things to each other.”

  “Can I ask you something? You can tell me to mind my own business if you don’t want to answer.”

  “Not at all. What’s on your mind?”

  “Is it true about you and Deanthony?”

  “It happened a long time ago, before Deanthony left town. Ebonya, I regret every day that I let that happen. I was in a bad way. Kashawn was always working late nights, I was home alone all the time. I know that’s no excuse to cheat on your man, but—”

  “Girl, you don’t have to explain a thing to me. I know exactly how you feel.”

  “I haven’t gone over to see how he’s doing because the last thing Kashawn needs to see is me sitting up around Deanthony after everything that’s happened.”

  I couldn’t believe we were talking about this subject at a funeral. Scared that someone was ear-hustling, I turned the subject back to me and my issues with Mama Liz when Tangela walked in wearing a black, tight Chanel dress, black shades, and long, thick weave draped down her back. The coat of scarlet-red nail polish was matched by a pair of scarlet-red heels. Even at the funeral, she had the men’s heads turning while their wives were quick to slap their eyes back into their dirty minds as Tangela paid her respects to Kashawn and Mama Liz. Deanthony gawked at her like the devil himself had walked into the room. It was official. Something was up with those two. I had noticed the sly-ass looks they were giving each other at the hospital and again at Kashawn’s homecoming party, like they were in some stand-off at high noon.