“Hey again.”
She led him into a family room big enough for ten families and offered him a drink. As she went off to get it Nate was approached by members wanting to make his acquaintance. Some came off as nosy while a few seemed genuine.
“Nice to meet you.”
“Let me know if there’s anything I can do to make you feel more welcome.”
“So how did you find out about the Word Church and Reverend Lawson?”
“You look really familiar.”
“So what kind of work do you do?”
“Are you married?”
When Charlene failed to come back with his drink he decided to wander off. When he reached the punch bowl in the kitchen he saw an older lady sitting in a motorized wheelchair watching the Home Shopping Network. She had on an almond-colored dress with flower prints on it. Nate spoke to her and her eyes never left the screen. As he filled his cup the old lady said, “Doctor Baines, don’t you turn that channel I’m looking for something.”
“Excuse me,” Nate said as he looked around to see if she could have been speaking to anyone else.
“You heard me. Don’t make me tell my son. He will kick your ass and good. You always change the got-damned channel when something comes on that I want to buy.”
Nate was confused and before he could respond a woman entered the kitchen. “Miss Bethany, what are you in here fussing for?” She flipped back into silent mode and resumed watching the television. “You’ll have to excuse Mrs. Lawson. This is Lloyd’s grandmother. She gets a little confused at times…you understand?”
“Oh, of course. I just hope I didn’t upset her.”
“No, she’s fine. I’ve been looking after her for the past few months and she gets like that from time to time. Whatever you do, just don’t turn that shopping network off.” Then she laughed, showing a smile as bright as snow in the sunshine. Nate took a look at her as he laughed with her. As he took in the sight of her he couldn’t believe his eyes. He couldn’t believe that he was seeing the personification of perfection. She wasn’t the cliché ideal of beauty. She wasn’t fair-skinned, and her hair wasn’t straight. She didn’t have hazel eyes and she wasn’t tall. Instead her skin was the color of a Hershey bar, her eyes were slightly slanted, and the skin overlapped like a Chinese person’s. Her lips were full and she had on red lipstick, which he usually found tacky. She had a perfect face, high cheekbones, long lashes, and the whitest teeth. Her body, however, was a different level of excellent. She was shaped remarkably close to Ki Toy, the girl from the OutKast video with the prototype body. Nate tried to compose himself when she turned and opened the refrigerator. With her back to him he gazed at her and took her image in and felt the air escaping his body.
The linen cargo pants that she wore did nothing to disguise the contours of her rear end. She had on a snug-fitting Chanel T-shirt and when she reached up to the top shelf of the fridge to grab a tray of cold cuts, there was a slight jiggle in her breasts, which were the size of grapefruits, and only visible to someone staring beyond the point of reason. When she turned around she caught Nate’s stare and the smile she had worn quickly disappeared.
“So, what’s your name? I haven’t seen you around before.”
“My name is Nate and I’m new to the church.”
“Oh, okay, yeah, I’ve heard about you. Larry talked a lot about you before you moved back to D.C.”
Nate had assumed that she was either a nurse for Reverend Lawson’s mother or a housekeeper so he asked, “So how do you know Larry?”
She looked at him strangely. “Larry is my brother-in-law. I’m Anita Lawson, Lloyd’s wife.”
With her response Nate almost lost his breath. In that moment it came to him that he’d been slipping as he hadn’t in months. He was lusting for this woman. Not only in a sexual manner, though. In the few moments since she had come into the kitchen, Nate had fostered a desire to get to know this woman. Something in her energy made him want to know what was behind her beauty and her body. It was all out the window now as he realized that she belonged to his pastor, of all people. Anita couldn’t have been a day over thirty he guessed and Lloyd looked to be at least forty-five. Nate couldn’t see the matchup as hard as he tried.
They made small talk while she grabbed some plastic ware. Miss Bethany interrupted them, “Doctor Baines,” she yelled, “take a look at this pen.” She was pointing at the television. “Hurry up, they only have a hundred and fifty left. You could use this with all those prescriptions you write.”
As Nate move toward Miss Bethany, Anita smiled at him. “I’ll see you in a bit, Doctor Baines.”
As she headed out Nate mouthed. “Who is Doctor Baines?”
“Just be glad you aren’t him,” she responded in a whisper. “He’s been dead for twenty years.”
Nate sat and talked with Miss Bethany for a good half hour. Never mind that she thought he was her doctor from some years back. She just smiled and laughed and when she told him it was time for her nap she asked him to open the door to her room.
After rejoining the crowd in the family room, Nate was cornered by Charlene. It took only twenty minutes of conversation for him to realize that Charlene was looking for a husband. He quickly escaped to the deck where he found Lloyd entertaining a group of deacons. He was surprised when he saw the reverend with a glass of Rémy Martin in his hand. Nate simply never imagined that a pastor would drink hard liquor.
“Nathan, come on and join us. Don’t be shy.”
Nate walked out onto the deck and took a seat as he listened to the men talk about how bad their golf games were, how poorly their stocks were performing, and about how crooked the world of politics had become. After another half hour Nate excused himself and insisted he had to run. Had to go work out and get some shopping done. In reality he was so wound up that he was thinking of taking a ride down to Charlotte to pay his dentist a visit. He was horny as hell and thought only a moment about his commitment to celibacy.
On his way out the door Anita caught him. “Leaving already?”
“Yeah, I have to go work out, do some shopping…”
“Shopping sounds like fun.” She smiled. “As a matter of fact that’s my favorite way to spend an afternoon.”
“I’ll bet.” Trying to find a way to sound cordial, he was going to tell her that she had a lovely home and thanks for having him. Instead he came out with, “So why don’t I ever see you in church?”
“Well, as you saw earlier, Miss Bethany suffers from Alzheimer’s disease and she has to be under supervision at all times. We had a nurse up until a few months back, but she had to move when her husband was called up from the reserves to fight in Iraq. So until we find a suitable replacement, there’s only me. I get a break every now and then but because Lloyd is so busy with the church, I’m here with her about ninety percent of the time.”
“Oh, I see. Well, I’m sure she appreciates what you do for her.”
“Not really, but we all do some things in life not because we like to but because we have to. But one of these days…” Anita laughed out.
“Well, I think it’s admirable.” Nate smiled. “Take care and maybe I’ll see you soon.”
“Maybe,” she replied, sounding almost flirtatious.
Already finding her exceptionally fine, her tone nearly caused his old instincts to ignite and send him into mack mode. As he made his exit he almost broke into a stride heading for his car. He needed to get as far away from Anita as possible because what he was feeling for her at that moment was the possible prelude to disaster.
He looked back at the door to see if she was still watching him. On the one hand, he was slightly disappointed when he saw that she wasn’t, but relieved on the other.
Anita had gotten him so horny that he was prepared to break his vow of celibacy. He pulled off, headed toward the hotel he was staying in until he could find an apartment, preparing to stay only long enough to grab a change of clothes. Nate wrestled with breaking his vow for
the entire ride, but when he couldn’t clear his mind of the thoughts of Anita, he came to the realization that only a release would satisfy his urges. With luck and light traffic he’d be in Charlotte and inside Janette by eight. Though contact between Nate and Janette had dissipated with his move back home to D.C., there were no hard feelings on Janette’s part. In addition to making the breakup a nonissue, she’d claimed to understand and support Nate’s decision to give his life to God.
That being said, it took less than three minutes of conversation in Nate’s moment of weakness before she’d offered her body and bed to him for comfort. It seemed old habits would die hard.
12
Truth Hurts
“So what is it that you needed to tell me that you couldn’t tell me over the phone?”
“Nigga, we live together. Why shouldn’t I have a talk with you face-to-face?” Trina shot back. Brendan placed his cell phone on the counter and took a seat on the ottoman. Brendan’s body language showed that he wasn’t eager to have a talk. Trina sensed it and she immediately caught an attitude. “I mean, it’s not like we do much else together these days. All you do is work and keep your nose up Dee’s ass the rest of the time.”
“Whatever.”
“Whatever, my ass. It’s true and I’m sick of it.”
“So what you wanna do about it?”
“I want you to do better. Be more attentive.” Brendan paused before responding. The first thing that came to his mind was a conversation he’d heard in the barbershop. It doesn’t matter if you’re Donald Trump and have a dick made of gold. A woman is but so patient. They want to be paid attention to. You snooze, you lose. He couldn’t remember who had said it but he never forgot the words. As of late he had stopped paying attention to Trina. It was a strange gamble since she had a history of cheating, even when he was doing right, showering her with affection, gifts, and attention. Brendan rationalized that perhaps he was ready for her to drift away, even if it was into the arms of another, or maybe he was beginning to enjoy his new lifestyle of womanizing.
“Trina, you’re never satisfied,” he finally responded.
“That is not true. I have been so happy since we moved in together. I thought that maybe we would be farther along toward getting married by now, but instead…it’s like we’re moving farther apart.” She put her hands over her face then ran her fingers through her hair.
“Well, I don’t know what to say. Just ’cause I been hanging out a little with Dee you wanna give me this drama. It’s not like you haven’t been having your fun.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know what the hell it means.” He was finally going to let her have it. In all probability, she had given him chlamydia and had never had the decency to tell him. “Why is it you think that we haven’t had sex in a month?” Her face showed the look of puzzlement. It was obvious that she hadn’t realized how long it had been until he’d said something. She began to count back on her fingers and Brendan finally became disgusted. “Oh, bitch, don’t play dumb,” he finally shouted.
“Who the hell are you talking to?” Trina stood up from the couch.
“You’d better sit your ass back down.”
“You don’t tell me what to do.”
“Trina, sit down,” he said, trying to calm the situation. “I should be the one going off.”
“No, nigga, you don’t disrespect me like that. I will lose it and whoop your ass up in here.”
“You know what? I won’t entertain that bullshit. You are the one who gave me a fucking disease.”
“WHAT?” she yelled. “I know you have lost your mind now.”
“Say what you will, but I went to the doctor’s last month because my shit wasn’t right.”
She folded her arms and a smirk showing disbelief was on her face. “And he told you that you had a disease, huh?” With her finger pointing into his face, she said, “If you did get one, it must have come from one of those dirty bitches that you and Dee have been running around with.”
“I hadn’t been with anyone else.”
“What the fuck do you mean hadn’t?”
“Until you fucked around and gave me this shit I was faithful. And once again I got burned by you, but in a different way this time. So I figured what the hell, two can play that game.”
Trina’s face showed no emotion. She got up and walked into the bedroom and came back out holding a prescription bag. “Last month I went to the doctor’s too and had an abnormal Pap smear.” She threw the bag. “One of those is for a yeast infection, which I never get. The second one is for prenatal vitamins.”
Brendan didn’t catch on.
“Don’t sit there looking stupid,” she said, but he did. “The reason I had a yeast infection was because of a hormonal imbalance caused by pregnancy. Now, if your doctor says that you definitely had a disease…then you got it from someone else.”
“Well, he didn’t say a hundred percent but…”
Before he could finish, she screamed out, “But you started fucking around on me because you thought I did something. You are such a little boy. Why wouldn’t you talk to me?” Trina collapsed onto the couch and the first tear fell.
“Trina, it was just your past…it was easy to see you doing the same thing that you did in the past.”
The next second, she was on top of him swinging wildly. “I hate you,” she was screaming. Brendan tried to cover up as she threw punch after punch. He finally escaped from underneath her and jumped up from the couch.
“Baby, calm down.”
She reached for the first thing she could find. Instantly the universal remote flew toward him striking him in the forehead like a pitch from a major leaguer. Next she yanked a candle from the coffee table and slung it it his direction. It missed and hit a picture on the wall, shattering it as it fell. “I’m gonna kill you, motherfucker.”
“Listen, I’m sorry, baby,” Brendan begged. He was in a defensive stance.
She charged him and with a move from her tae kwon do class lunged foot first into his groin. Brendan wasn’t prepared and when she connected, he screamed at the top of his lungs. “Ohhhhh, bitch, I am going to kill you.” He clenched his fist, but before he could react the effect of being kicked in his nuts took over. He dropped to his knees and a look of anguish appeared on his face. “Arrrgggghhh.” He rolled on the floor trying to stop the pain. His jewels felt like they were in his chest and his breathing became labored. He forgot everything that was going on at that point. He wanted to make her pay. Trina knew that by kicking him in the nuts all bets were off. There was no turning back at this point, so she stood over him, “How you like that? I told you I would whip your ass, you punk. You gonna cheat on a bitch, huh? Well, you shoulda asked somebody, ’cause you picked the wrong one this time. Brendan, I can promise you one thing. I am going to make your life miserable. I’m having this baby and you are going to pay through the nose.” She was ranting and he was in too much pain to pay her any attention. The only thing he could feel was anger as the pain began to slowly lose its grip. “The only way you are going to be able to afford to eat when I finish with you is by having to rob Nordstrom’s blind. In case you forgot,” she said as she swung her foot, “size seven, nigga.” She kicked him in the back. “Michael Kors, nigga.”
Her anger was at the boiling point as she spit on Brendan. He felt the cold wetness of her saliva on the back of his neck and lost it. As she backed away he reached out and grabbed her ankle. She underestimated his strength and tried to pull away. He yanked her ankle as if he was pulling the emergency brake on a train headed for a cliff. When she stumbled he pushed with all his might. Trina quickly lost her balance and fell backward into the CD rack. When she hit it and slid to the floor the rack came tumbling down on her. She gave a new meaning to nonstop music as five hundred discs hit her right in the face seconds before the wooden rack landed on top of her. Her head was banging with pain and the weight of the rack hurt her to the point that she became
fearful for her unborn child. She had put her arms over her belly to protect it. Just as her tears erupted, a hard knock came at the door. “Open up, police.”
Nate was in Charlotte for a couple of days, and Dee wasn’t answering his phone. When Brendan called her she had shown up immediately. As they left the county lockup in Upper Marlboro, Tanisha asked him, “Are you going to be okay?”
He didn’t know the answer to that one yet. He was facing charges for aggravated assault, resisting arrest, and for battery as well. When Brendan let the officers in, Trina was the one looking like the victim of an attack. A couple of CDs had scratched her face and she was moving around as frantically as if a pit bull had bitten her. The officers had taken Trina’s side completely and looked at Brendan with disgust once she told them that she had just told him about her pregnancy. They took it almost as if he tried to cause a miscarriage. His complaint on the way down the steps about the cuffs being too tight led to rougher treatment and a trumped-up charge of resisting arrest. He was feeling royally screwed.
As they drove up Brown Station Road Brendan decided to explain the entire situation to Tanisha, everything except the pregnancy. She was silent and listened quietly. Finally she said, “Listen, if you want to chill at my spot for a couple of days, it’s fine.”
He thought about her offer and it didn’t take long to see that his options were limited. Nate wasn’t settled yet and he didn’t want his parents to know what was going on. Dee might have agreed to let him stay but Brendan needed to be somewhere where he could get his emotions in check. “I’d appreciate that.”
“Don’t mention it. Stay as long as you need.” Tanisha was sweet.
“What about your boyfriend slash situation?”
She tuned the radio station. “Oh him, I ended that once and for all.”
Don’t Ever Wonder Page 10
