by Carl Weber
She looked down at the photo and then up at me, but she hesitated to say anything.
“Don’t look at me; look at the goddamn picture. I just want the truth so I can get the fuck out of here.” I took a step toward her. “Unless you want me to take back that money you shoved in your bra.”
She sighed like a petulant child, putting out her cigarette in an overflowing ashtray. “Yeah, that’s Jerome. We grew up together back in Danville.”
“Oh God, no,” I let slip. I was so sick to my stomach that I suddenly felt like I might throw up. I stiffened my back and held my head up high, trying not to let this woman know just how devastated I was.
“Why’d he give you the money?”
“He wanted me to help him split you and your husband up. He said he’d tried everything, but you were too stupid to leave. Said he needed something to push you over the edge so you’d leave your husband. That’s when he asked me how good an actress I was and if I wanted to make some money.”
What hurt the most was that her explanation made sense. It was no secret that Jerome wanted me to leave Leon. I just had no idea he would go to such lengths to make it happen. I had a flashback to the boiling water I’d thrown on Leon and to the fact that I’d actually had the nerve to pull a gun on him. Jerome had succeeded in pushing me over the edge.
“Do you know why he would do this?”
She was starting to look bored. I guess she figured she’d given me my five hundred dollars’ worth of information. “To be honest, he acted like he was jealous. I got the impression y’all were sleeping with each other.”
“Jerome is gay.”
She raised her eyebrows. Obviously, this was news to her. “He doesn’t look gay. And he wasn’t gay in high school, I don’t think.”
“Well, he’s gay now. And when he gets back from vacation, he’s in a lot of trouble.”
“Well, don’t tell him I told you shit. The last thing I need is more drama in my life.”
I turned to leave and then remembered something. “Before I go, one more thing.”
She sighed. “What?”
I looked down at her hand. “Give me back my gotdamn rings.”
“Uh-uh, you gave me these.”
“Have it your way. But don’t be surprised when the police show up at your door to retrieve my stolen property.”
I knew it would only take that one small threat. She rolled her eyes at me and pulled the rings off her finger. I took them from her and stuck them in my pocket. I’d have to be sure to disinfect them when I got home.
I walked out of that house fuming. What the hell was Jerome thinking? He knew how hurt I was when I found the panties in my house. I’d been living through hell ever since I first suspected Leon was cheating. If this all turned out to be some elaborate plan concocted by Jerome, I didn’t think he could ever offer me a good enough explanation. Why would my supposed best friend want to make me miserable?
I remembered that Peter told me there were things about Jerome I didn’t know. Then I thought about what Tina had just told me. She thought Jerome and I were sleeping together. Was it possible that was his motive? Could my gay best friend really be in love with me?
Damn! I’d come to Tina for answers, but I still had questions. The biggest one of all was now that I knew that Leon had probably been telling the truth all along, what the hell was I going to do about him? And how was I ever going to face Michael with this? There was, however, one thing I had to do immediately.
I pulled out my cell phone, then punched in the numbers to my lawyer.
“Johnson and Swartz,” a woman said.
“Hi, this is Loraine Farrow. Can I speak with Brad Johnson, please?”
“Sure, Ms. Farrow. Hold on one minute.”
Some elevator music started playing until a familiar voice clicked in. “Hey, Loraine, what’s up?”
“Did they serve my husband yet?”
“No, not yet. The process server’s going by his office this afternoon.”
“Well, stop him. I’m not sure if I want a divorce.”
“You sure?”
“For now. Yes.”
“Okay, I’m on it.”
“Thanks, Brad.” I hung up.
Isis
48
Rashad had really played me well, but I still couldn’t help but think he was nothing but a damn coward. If he really didn’t want me to move to Petersburg so we could start our own family, why didn’t he just tell me himself? Instead, he had to stab me in the back by going to the one person he knew could do the most damage. Now that my mother had called my landlord, I didn’t even have a place to go. Looks like my plan to start another family with Rashad had blown up in my face.
What Rashad and the rest of my family didn’t count on, though, was that I had another plan. If he didn’t want to help me have another baby, then I would just have to make sure I kept this one. In the end, he’d be sorry he’d taken Egypt’s side. In fact, he might be sorry he ever chose Egypt over me in the first place.
I picked up the phone next to my bed and called the lawyer I’d been corresponding with. Rashad and Egypt might have a good lawyer, but I had a whole team of lawyers at my disposal. Just to cover my ass, I’d sent a copy of the surrogacy papers to my lawyer last week so he could look them over. Now I needed some advice about how I could get out of that contract and take my baby back. Unfortunately, the news he had for me wasn’t good.
After some preliminary legal talk I barely understood, he said, “So, Isis, unfortunately this agreement is pretty airtight.”
“So, basically what you’re saying is I don’t have a fucking leg to stand on?” I wanted to throw the phone across the room.
“I don’t know if I’d put it that colorfully, but essentially, yes, that’s what I’m saying. Legally, that baby is theirs, although your sister has to go through an adoption process. The fact that he’s the child’s biological father makes their case even more open and shut.”
“I thought as a surrogate I had forty-eight hours to change my mind.”
“You’ve been watching a little bit too much TV. You see, technically this is not a surrogacy case. Virginia law only allows a woman to be a surrogate if she’s married with at least one child of her own. This is a custody and parental rights case. By signing the consent form relinquishing rights to the child, you’ve basically given up your parental rights. Now, we can fight this, but it’s not going to be cheap at all.”
“Wait a minute. Isn’t Prepaid Legal gonna pay for that?”
He got quiet for a second. “No, but we can recommend an attorney at a lower-than-average rate. Our services—”
I cut his ass right off. “Hold the fuck up. When I signed up for this thing, they told me that anytime I needed a lawyer, I could get one. That I’d have a team of lawyers at my disposal.”
“That’s true. And you do, for some basic services. But in certain cases, there is a charge.”
“And this just happens to be one of those cases?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“You know what? This is bullshit right here. I been paying you motherfuckers for over two years, and when I finally need you, y’all want more money. Thanks for nothing, shithead.” I hung up on his ass. And to think the crook who sold me this useless policy just sent me a postcard from the Dominican Republic, talking about how he appreciated my business. Oh, he was gonna get a piece of my mind when he came back from his little vacation paid for on my dime.
I felt defeated, like the whole world was sitting on my shoulders and I had no one to help me carry the weight. And people had the nerve to ask me why I wanted to kill myself. ‘Cause this world ain’t shit, that’s why.
“Excuse me.” A nurse came into my room, wheeling a blood pressure machine. “My name is Jessica, and I’m going to be your nurse for the night. I just have to check your vitals.” She pulled my medical chart out of the holder on the front of my bed and glanced at it. “Isis. What a beautiful name. Very exotic.”
“Best t
hing my mother ever did for me was give me that name.”
Jessica laughed. As she checked my vital signs, she made small talk about the weather and about her kids. She seemed a bit distracted, like her mind was somewhere else. It turned out that one of her kids was sick, and she was feeling guilty about being at work, instead of home taking care of him. It was actually good for me to listen to her ramble on about them, because it helped me take my mind off the mess that my own life had become. Instead of treating me like an incubator for Egypt’s baby, which is basically how I’d been treated by my whole family for nine months, she treated me like a human being. She treated me like I was the same as any other new mother on the ward—and that’s when it dawned on me: She had no idea I had given birth as a surrogate.
“Would you like me to bring you your baby?”
Her offer was like a sudden ray of sunshine on a stormy day. My mother wouldn’t even show me a photo of the baby, and here was this nurse offering to bring him to me. I didn’t hesitate to say, “Yes, I would.”
When she returned about ten minutes later, she was pushing a small bassinet. “Let me see your arm. I have to match up your wristband.”
I was nervous. My wristband had my name and some numbers on it, but I had no idea what was on the baby’s band. For all I knew, it had the word surrogate in big red letters, and she would take the baby away before I had a chance to even see him.
She lifted him out of the bassinet, and I got my first look at my son since his birth. He was gorgeous, wrapped snugly in a blanket and sleeping peacefully. I felt my eyes fill up with tears, but I tried to remain calm so the nurse wouldn’t suspect anything. She checked the band on his ankle, then the one on my wrist. “Yep, the numbers match. This one’s yours,” she said with a smile as she handed him to me.
My heart melted as soon as he was in my arms. No question about it, he belonged there.
He started squirming. The nurse said, “Maybe he’s hungry. Are you breastfeeding?”
I nodded my head, though technically I wasn’t. How could I breastfeed a baby they hadn’t even let me see? They had brought me a machine earlier so I could pump my breasts. The doctors explained that it’s good for the baby’s immune system to get breast milk, even if it’s just for the first few days. Egypt had me pumping my breasts so she could feed the milk to the baby in a bottle. It was just one more demeaning thing I had to go through, hooked up to a milking machine like a cow, all so my sister and Rashad could have their happy little family.
I pulled up my gown. No one had taught me how to breastfeed, but it just felt right. I can’t explain it; having him in my arms, I felt a natural instinct to nurture my child. My breasts started tingling, like they’d done earlier when I pumped. Another nurse had explained that this was a sign my body was releasing the milk. She said it was purely a hormonal process, but I knew that it was happening now because my body recognized this baby that I’d carried for nine months. He was mine, no matter what it said on some damn piece of paper I’d signed.
He turned his head sideways, and Jessica said, “Oh, he’s rooting. That means he smells your milk and he’s trying to find it.”
I lifted my breast toward his tiny mouth, and he latched on right away. I winced a little from the pain, and Jessica showed me how to help him latch on correctly. Once I got the hang of it, it didn’t hurt at all. In fact, it was the most beautiful feeling in the world, knowing that I was the only person who could provide this milk, this perfect food that God had created just for Little Rashad. I had never felt such a warm bond, such unconditional love for another human being. I knew at that moment that I would throw myself in front of a truck to save this boy if I had to.
“He’s a good feeder,” Jessica commented. “Is this your first baby?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you’re nursing him like an old pro. So many new mothers have a hard time expressing the milk.”
“Thanks,” I answered as I put the baby on my shoulder to burp him. “It just feels like this was meant to be, you know what I mean? Like God had always planned for me and him to be together in this life. Was it like that with your babies?”
“Mmm-hmm. There’s nothing in this world that compares to that mother/child bond,” she said with a smile as she leaned down to admire my gorgeous son.
“Oh my goodness!”
I looked up at her. “What? Is something wrong?”
“No, no, it’s just the first time I’ve seen him open his eyes. He has the most unusual green eyes I’ve ever seen.”
“What did you say?” I took him off my shoulder and looked down into my baby’s eyes. They were a beautiful shade of green. To Jessica, they were unusual, but to me, they were very familiar.
“Yep, he sure does have green eyes. Just like his daddy—my fiancé, Tony.” A smile a mile wide took over my face as I looked up at Jessica. As soon as she left the room, I had to make a very important phone call to New York.
Jerome
49
I’d just returned from the most spectacular trip to Jamaica. Big Poppa and I stayed at a private villa in the hills of Montego Bay, where we had a private chef and a driver who took us sightseeing all over the island. We had such a good time that by the end of the week, I was seriously considering buying a place there and renting it out until I was ready for retirement.
Then again, the whole trip wouldn’t have been half as good if I hadn’t been there with Big Poppa. I missed him already, and it had been only six hours since his flight left. We’d taken separate flights to and from Jamaica, for discretionary reasons. Big Poppa was paranoid enough as it was, but with that crazy-ass Peter lurking around every corner, neither one of us wanted to take a chance.
I hadn’t been home more than a few minutes when my phone started ringing. I was hoping it was Loraine so I could tell her about my trip. No matter how well her weekend with Michael went, she was still going to be jealous when I told her the glorious details of my week. I glanced over at the caller ID and was happy to see her number.
I didn’t even give her a chance to say hello before I started bragging. “What’s up, girl? I’m back and I’m black, literally! You should see how dark I got.”
“You need to come over here right now. We need to talk.”
Talk about killing my mood. The tone of her voice was so cold, she might as well have thrown a bucket of ice water on me. I guess she wasn’t interested in hearing the details of my vacation.
“All right, what’s up?”
“We’ll talk about it when you get here,” she snapped.
Damn, what had her panties all in a bunch? It had to be something dealing with work, because Loraine never talked to me this way unless I messed up on the job. The only thing I didn’t understand was why she couldn’t wait until we were at the office to talk about it. With the mood she was in, though, I wasn’t about to question it.
“I’ll be right over.”
“Good.” She hung up.
No, she didn’t just hang up on me without so much as a goodbye! Damn, I really must have fucked up something at work. Part of me was afraid to go over there, and the other part was afraid not to. There were a lot of things Loraine would put up with, but fucking up at work wasn’t one of them. The girl was like a pit bull in a skirt when it came to the business. This was really killing my postvacation high.
Five minutes later, I was in my car headed to Loraine’s house. I’d just gotten on Parham Road when I spotted Peter in my rearview mirror. I pounded the steering wheel in disgust. With Loraine in a tizzy, the last thing I needed was to have this fool following me to her house. Hopefully he didn’t know the area like I did, and I’d be able to ditch him, but I wasn’t so sure that would work. I’d been taking cabs and car services to go out and meet my sponsors lately, because I had a strong suspicion that he’d put some type of GPS tracking unit on my car. If that was true, I had no hope of losing him now.
To test my theory, I made a quick U-turn, then ran a red light, taking back street
s toward Loraine’s house. Surprisingly, he was no longer behind me. After a few more turns, I was pretty convinced that I’d lost him, and I finally relaxed. Well, I relaxed as well as I could, considering I was driving to see my best friend, who was pissed off for some unknown reason.
I was startled by the sound of my cell phone. It was Peter. I checked my rearview mirror again, and he was still nowhere in sight.
“What is it gonna take for you to leave me alone?” I screamed into my phone.
“I tink you gots some ‘splaining to do!” he said in a weird Ricky Ricardo imitation, then started laughing with that crazy hyena laugh of his. This guy was nuts. He was really fucking nuts.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You’ll find out. You’re headed to Loraine’s, aren’t you?” How the fuck did he know that? Dammit, did he have my phones tapped too?
“That’s okay. You don’t have to answer me, Jerome. I already know that’s where you’re going. Maybe I’ll meet you there. Me and Loraine have become such good friends since you’ve been gone.”
“If you’ve done anything to her, I’ll kill you. Do you hear me? I’ll kill you with my bare hands.”
“Jerome, Jerome, don’t you know making a threat against someone like that is against the law? You could get locked up for that. But since emotions are high and I’m sure you didn’t mean it, I’m gonna let you slide.” He laughed. “Oh, and you better hurry. Loraine’s waiting. Like I said before, I tink you got some ‘splaining to do!”
He disconnected the call, and I held the receiver in my hand, staring at it like it might somehow help me decipher Peter’s strange words. What did he mean, I had some explaining to do? And what did that have to do with Loraine?
The possibilities were frightening. I had a few secrets I’d never revealed to Loraine. I had no way of knowing what, if anything, Peter had told her, but there was plenty that he could have said, and none of it would be good for our friendship. I was tempted to turn my car around and go home.
My phone rang again, and this time it was Loraine’s number on the caller ID. Whatever was on her mind, she wasn’t going to let it drop until we talked about it. I had no choice but to go see her. I let the phone ring. Might as well face her in person.
