I wasn’t close to God, so I didn’t know anything about Him opening and closing doors. But Terry I knew. And loved. And trusted. I never felt safer.
“Thanks.” I peeled off a twenty and two singles and gave it to the cabdriver. I’d just come from another doctor’s appointment. The sky was darkening but quilted with a pretty shade of pink and a lovely shade of gray.
A song was in my heart but I didn’t let it pass my lips.
Instead, I stood at the curb long after the cab had pulled off and looked at the sky. Other than my husband, it was the most beautiful thing. I loved watching the sun set. Loved it urgently. I didn’t know how many more suns I’d see recede.
I swallowed that regret and moved toward our house. My car wasn’t parked in the driveway. Terry had used it to drive over the bridge into the city. He had an appointment with the head football coach at Syracuse University. The NFL wasn’t calling, but Terry wasn’t giving up. He’d set up a meet-and-greet, and was hoping to get on the university’s coaching staff. He was a do-it-all man when it came to football. Play, referee, coach, it didn’t matter. As long as he was close to the game. I could understand that depth. I felt the same way about him. As long as I was close to him everything was all right.
I eased my key in the lock, turned the knob and walked inside.
Immediately, I was angry with my husband. As much as I loved Terry, I could still shift between joy and anger at the drop of a hat. I was Jo Min’s daughter, after all.
I thought that moment was the angriest I’d be that night. It wouldn’t be.
The house was pitch-black. I fumed at Terry’s insensitivity.
I fumbled for the light switch in the hall. Found it and breathed a sigh of relief. My heartbeat steadied. Panic subsided.
I slid out of my shoes, something Terry insisted on us doing in the house, and walked over the cold wood of our floor to the bedroom. It was dark in there, too, except for the lamp burning on the end table next to our bed. I moved over there, guided by that crumb of light, and sat down on the bed. I was weary from all of my doctor’s appointments.
It took me some time, but eventually I looked at the end table lit by that lamp. I wasn’t one for reading the Bible, but I took notice of our dusty King James. It was wide open. I pulled it closer to me. Five crisp hundred-dollar bills served as a bookmark on the page. It was open to Revelation.
Under the bills were two bank slips. One for my checking account. Another for savings. I piled all of my money, which was much, into those two accounts. Terry was on me to diversify: CDs, mutual funds, things of that sort.
Ink bled through the bank slips. Terry’s handwriting, I noticed. One word on each slip: Sorry.
I frowned when I noticed the remaining balance number on the slips. I reached for the phone and dialed Terry’s cell. Number disconnected.
I turned on every light in the bedroom. My mouth went dry as sandpaper, my heartbeat wouldn’t quiet. Something made me move to the closet. I swallowed. All of Terry’s clothes were gone.
I went back to the phone and dialed. An automated voice came on offering me options. I chose O. I wanted to speak to a live person.
My life was coming undone, so when the cheery customer service representative came on line I snapped, “I need my balance on two accounts.”
I waited. Then I heard the catch in her voice.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Darling. You have a zero balance in both of those accounts. They were closed just today, in fact. Would you like to—”
I slammed the phone down and sat there, wordless.
Retinitis pigmentosa was stealing my sight. My husband had stolen all of my money. Money I was gracious enough to consider ours was strictly his, then.
My perfect world had been shattered.
CHAPTER 8
NIKKI
Wasn’t but a year and some change ago if you went through my pockets you’d have come out of them with a bunch of crumpled singles. A few sweaty fives mixed in, too. I wasn’t trying to do the shit that would earn me twenties. Nikki kept it to the stage and an occasional lap dance. I wasn’t fucking with the VIP room and I wasn’t giving up the pussy. There wasn’t a man alive worth me losing my self-respect over. Selling your shit for any ol’ nigga with money in his pockets was about as low as you could go in my book. I knew that from experience, though. Sad to say. I’d made that mistake when I first started dancing. But I deadened that quick. Dancing naked for strangers was low enough. I wasn’t trying to go lower. Not anymore.
I shook my ass at the Liquid Kitty five nights a week. Worked that gig like I was a cashier at Wal-Mart or some shit. Made my ass cheeks jiggle and my pussy wink to get dudes to come up off their paper. It was a trifling way to live, but screw it. I had fewer options than Saddam when the U.S. of A rolled up on him in that ditch.
I ain’t have nobody watching my back. Big Mama was long gone by then, the cancer. Hot Mama, too.
My Pops got sent in for robbing a liquor store when I was fifteen, caught a shank inside talking shit he evidently couldn’t back up. Hot Mama fell apart then. She should’ve been happy with all the money she’d save on collect calls. But nah. She started bedding men like a straight ho. Caught the package. AIDS messed her up quick. Magic Johnson could have the shit for twenty years and it took out Hot Mama in less than twenty months.
Go figure.
That’s the drama I’d lived through. And so I didn’t believe in fairy tales.
Forget Harry Potter.
I worked with what I had, left the rest to God. I believed She had my back.
I looked like the chick from America’s Next Top Model. The Eva girl. And men were all up on my pussy like they had the flu and you could ladle chicken noodle soup out of that bitch. I always could dance my ass off, too. So…
Liquid Kitty it was.
Maybe one day I’d sell a poem, but hopes and dreams ain’t payin’ the bills.
Liquid Kitty it was.
I pretty much stayed to myself there. Did my little sets, collected my paper and kept it moving. I hardly spoke to the girls. I couldn’t stand them silly bitches, truth be told. Now they were on some fairy tale shit. You couldn’t tell them a dude with Boris Kodjoe’s looks and P. Diddy’s wallet wasn’t gonna come up in there and scoop them away to Neverland. Simple-ass bitches.
It was simple for me. C.R.E.A.M. Cash Ruled Everything Around Me.
That was it.
As it turned out, no man came into the spot and saved me from that life in pole position. Big Mama always told me God worked in mysterious ways. All I can say is She sure did.
When I went out, which wasn’t often, I played down my beauty. Sweats, sneakers, no makeup. That’s how I rolled. I’d spritz on a l’il CK One and that was about it. Sometimes I didn’t even do that.
Shawshank Park was okay during the daytime, but at night it got live. Niggas would shoot each other in the head without a second thought. Mace wasn’t about shit in those situations, so I made sure my black ass wasn’t around when God turned the lights down. I did my shit during the day.
It was just after noontime. I found a corner of unoccupied space in the park, settled on a bench and pulled out my l’il notepad. Most of the pages were yellowing and dog-eared. My notepad got a lot of use. I was always writing in it.
Some days the words were slow to come. Other days they flowed like water. They were flowing that day:
What more do you ask for besides the big “L”
That comes over time
Yet, I know that this “like” will get deeper
I know from a feeling inside
The feeling that surrounds me when
Gazing at your picture
The fact I get lost in the dark pit of your eyes
The structure of your lips so thick and juicy
The soft touch of your kiss
The wonderful feeling of letting you thrust inside
And the orgasmic feeling that takes over my body
All of that makes me feel s
o appreciated
So happy it turns my frown upside down
I tapped the pad with my pen, closed my notebook. I didn’t have that love yet, but Big Mama always told me we could think and speak things into existence. We were made in the image of God. And She said let there be light and there was light. She spoke the world into existence. I had that same power. I was going to speak love into existence. I was going to write it into being.
I’d been so lost in my words I hadn’t realized I had company.
He said, “Pictures or words?”
“What?”
He moved forward two steps. “In your notebook,” he said. “What were you doing…sketching or writing?”
I’d have told an ugly man to keep it moving. He wasn’t ugly, though. Dude was fine as frog hair and looked about seven feet tall, maybe because I was sitting and he was standing. But still. I said, “Writing.”
He nodded. “Poetry?”
“Yes.”
He floated over to me like a character in a Spike Lee movie. He wasn’t Shaq, I finally realized, but he had that cutie Allen Iverson by a couple inches; I’d say he was around six-two. He wore K-Swiss sneakers, khaki shorts, a shirt embroidered with a design the young boys that usually pressed up on me wouldn’t be caught wearing. The shirt looked expensive, probably some Italian shit. I put him at about thirty-five. More than ten years on me. He had on an expensive-looking watch, too. It glittered in the sun. But his eyes glittered more than the watch. He had some nice-ass eyes. And a scar in his eyebrow. That let me know that despite looking GQ as hell, he could throw down if need be. That’s what a girl wants, needs, a man that is a real nigga. I couldn’t be with no man who had more bitch in him than I did.
He said, “How long have you been writing?”
“Seems like always. I’m just playing at it.”
I scooted over, offered the spot next to me on the bench. He slid in easy. That was a good sign. I was ready to see where else he could slide in easy.
He said, “Didn’t look like you were playing to me.”
I smiled. I knew what he was talking about. I was serious as hell when I was writing. Made all kinds of ugly fuck faces. Shit would’ve been embarrassing if I gave a damn. I didn’t, though. And I didn’t have anyone in my life to tease me on it, or help me move away from it, either. Maybe he’d change that, though.
I said, “Spying on me?”
“Yup.”
I looked at him then. He looked right back at me.
Our gazes were intense as hell. I’d be writing about the shit later.
My coochie was going crazy. Say something, bitch. Say something.
He said, “Will you share some of your poetry with me sometime?”
I said, “I’ma give it to you, baby.”
He furrowed his brows. “What was that?”
I said, “Oh shit. Didn’t mean for it to come out like that.”
That’s what I got for letting my mind wander.
He laughed, touched my arm. “Don’t apologize.”
“You must be thinking…”
He said, “That I’ma give it to you, too, baby. If you’ll let me.”
My coochie said, Tell him you’ll let him. Tell him, bitch.
I said, “We’re moving mighty fast. Don’t even know your name.”
“James.”
“James?”
He smiled. “Ladies love cool James. At least I hope a certain lady does.”
I said, “Speaking of LL Cool J…how old are you?”
“Thirty-four. You?”
“Twenty-four.”
“Name?”
“Nikki.”
He said, “Wait a minute, bet you spell it with two Ks, too.”
My mouth fell open. I hadn’t even gotten a chance to tell him. It was like he could look right through me all the way to my core. I felt naked next to him. That was some good shit. All the stuff I was going to say about our age difference, our lifestyle differences, went right out the window. I wanted him. I wanted him to want me. I wanted him to want Nikki the exotic dancer. That wasn’t likely, though. He seemed like a professional. Had that edge to him that spelled lawyer or banker or doctor. I wasn’t nothing but a gutter chick that shook her ass for a living. Wasn’t any way I could pull a man of his caliber.
I decided to go ahead and short-circuit the shit before it went too far. Take my disappointment from gate rather than wait until I’d caught feelings for him. I said, “Look, James. I like you. You’re fine as frog hair. Smart, I can tell. And I haven’t had a man in a minute, and, well I wouldn’t mind having one now. But I’m not the type of girl you can bring home to Mama. And you look like that would be important to you. So…” I couldn’t finish. My damn eyes started to tear. Hell to the naw. I couldn’t believe I was doing that. I was always so damn emotional. That and my gutter mouth were my two downfalls.
He wiped my tears away with the back of his hand.
“Don’t fret, Nikki.”
That made the tears flow even more. I ain’t ever have a man use the word fret on me. Dayum.
“Nikki.”
“What?” I sobbed.
“Relax, baby.”
I said, “This is so fucked up.”
“It doesn’t have to be, Nikki.”
I said, “I don’t know what’s the matter with me. This is so embarrassing.”
He’d turned my life as I knew it upside down.
I didn’t know shit about him, not even his last name, and there I was falling apart like we’d been together for years and he’d brought me to the park to kick me to the curb.
“You don’t have to be embarrassed by anything.” He paused, then, “Both of our lives just changed. I watched you, Nikki, and I…I’d like to develop something with you. Friendship. Maybe more. Hopefully a lot more. And for the record, taking a woman home to meet Mama doesn’t mean anything to me. It’s just about you and me.”
I snorted tears. “Yeah, right. Bet you’re an investment banker or something?”
He shook his head. “Day trader. But what does that have to do with anything?”
I wrapped my arms around myself, gave Nikki a loving hug. It was cold in the park all of a sudden. “I don’t even know what a day trader is, but I know it puts you out of my league, James.”
He said, “I don’t care that you dance. If you don’t have any shame, then I don’t, either. If you do, then we have to see about getting you off that stage.”
I started, “You say that now,” then stopped in my tracks. I realized something. I hadn’t told him what I did. I got nervous then. See that. I was falling apart, glamorizing this nigga, and he was probably a stalker. Saw me at the Kitty one night and had been following me ever since. Nikki was about to find herself in a Dumpster somewhere. I eased away from him.
He said, “What’s the matter?”
“Who are you?”
“James Darling.”
“What do you want from me?”
He nodded at the notepad sitting next to me on the bench. “Some of that shit you probably write about in that pad.”
A good answer.
But I said, “I didn’t tell you I danced.”
He smiled. “You sure did, Nikki.”
“You’ve been by the Liquid Kitty?”
He smiled. “You mean the Liq Kitt?”
“Don’t play games with me, nigga.” I reached a hand in my purse. Mace for ya ass, bitch.
He put his hands up. “Whoa. Slow down, Nikki.”
“I didn’t tell you I danced,” I repeated.
He said, “Sweats and sneakers. Like you’re trying to keep niggas from knowing how fly you are. Saw you sitting on this bench, writing. You could easily have written at home, Nikki. But home doesn’t allow you to daydream. Home doesn’t allow you escape. The park does.”
So what, nigga, I was thinking. I had the Mace in my grip.
He said, “Okay, I give. Your bag.”
“My bag?”
I looked dow
n. My carry bag was on the ground, between my feet. It was black, with the white silhouette of a curvy woman. She had one hand on a pole, the other outstretched dramatically. Where fantasies come true, the lettering below her read. In larger letters was the name of the club, absent a few letters that had fallen off during laundry. What was left read, Liq Kitt.
I relaxed, said, “Damn. You had me scurred for a minute. Thought my dream man was really a stalker.”
“Your dream man?”
I nodded. He smiled. A wide, deep, happy smile.
I let the Mace fall from my fingers, eased my hand out of my purse. James’s shoulders relaxed, he took a deep breath. I leaned over and pulled him to me by the collar of that expensive shirt. Our lips touched. He was a soft kisser, a gentle lover I could imagine. Fuck it, sometimes you had to go for it. Life wasn’t anything but a dice game anyhow. God had made it that way. That’s part of why I loved Her so. She never let there be a dull moment.
When we finally pulled ourselves apart I said, “I guess I could believe in that Harry Potter bullshit.”
“What’s good, mama?”
He had a soft feminine voice but hard features. His eyes especially were hard, dark and emotionless. Hair had a gang of waves in it. Wore one of those expensive watches, a Movado. Pinky ring. Suit jacket with jeans and sneakers. Huge diamond studs in each ear. Black as coal and handsome as fuck. Used to bitches falling all over him, I bet. He was definitely a ghetto-fabulous nigga.
He had four scrub niggas sitting with him. Yes men. I could picture their heads bobbing if he told them to suck his dick.
Not that he would. Nigga oozed heterosexuality despite his womanly voice. I was attracted to him, without a doubt. And that was a problem.
James and I weren’t married but a hot minute by that point. I wasn’t fucking up my good thing for what I knew would be a one-night joyride on the ding-a-ling. Nikki wasn’t that dumb. Or that ho-ish. I didn’t have that part of Hot Mama running through my veins. So I toned down my sex appeal. Yes, I could do that even though I was next to naked.
“Welcome to the Liquid Kitty,” I said. “I’m Eva.”
America’s Next Top Model. I looked like her, so I took her name, too.
Counterfeit Wives Page 9
