Big Girls Drama

by Tresser Henderson

  I tightened my fist and didn’t know I was doing so until I felt my nails digging into the palms of my hands.

  A wicked grin spread across her face as she said, “Now, it makes sense.”

  “What makes sense?” I asked.

  “Why my daughter is in trouble. She’s hanging with Meena.”

  What was this—blame it all on Meena day?

  “Don’t talk about my daughter,” I warned.

  “Why? She’s the reason why my child is in this predicament.”

  I so wanted to say the reason why her child was in this situation was because she had you as her mother and Asha only acted out what she saw in her. Underhandedness begets underhandedness. Imani was not excluded from being a criminal. She had a record also, for stealing. I guess she forgot her criminal actions were public record. As bad as I wanted to throw her past in her face, I decided that was not the right thing to do.

  Inhaling, I said, “Our daughters are in trouble because they chose to do something ridiculous. There is no need to point fingers when all of them are responsible for their own actions, and each of them will have to deal with the consequences. It’s as simple as that.”

  “Is that right?” she croaked.

  “Yes, that’s right,” I managed to say coolly.

  I was really trying not to stoop to the ghetto antics I knew Imani was all about. I could tell by the way she was glaring at me she wanted to start something. Why? She had Kegan now, even if she used her ass to take him from me. Or was that her mouth? I heard she liked to get down on her knees and blow. Nevertheless, she’d won in the end. Now was not the time for our past transgressions to play out in front of our girls.

  Imani yawned, stifling it with the hand which sported the diamond engagement ring Kegan gave to her.

  “Man, I didn’t know I was so tired,” she taunted.

  I seethed, wanting to knock the condescending smirk from her face. I know she did this thinking I didn’t know about their wedding. I wanted to tell her Kegan sent me an invite, but I decided against it. What better way to get under this woman’s skin than to show up at their nuptials? The look on her face would be enough to make my day.

  * * *

  “Mom, are you okay?” Meena asked as I pulled up in the driveway of our home. She snapped me out of the memory just moments ago with Imani. The rain pounded down on the car, and for a moment, I wondered how I even got here.

  I scowled at Meena until I saw the earnest look on her face. I softened my expression before saying, “I will be. Thanks for asking.”

  “I’m sorry about today,” she apologized. “I really am.”

  I reached over and squeezed my daughter’s hand, smiling at her lovingly before saying, “This still doesn’t mean you are off the hook. You are still going to be punished for what you did.”

  She smiled for the first time in a long while as she said, “I know.”

  I patted her hand and said, “Now, I wish we had an umbrella. We’re going to have to run for it.”

  Meena nodded, and we both exited the car and ran to the covered front porch of our home. Despite running, we still got drenched. As I fumbled with my keys to open the door, my cell phone rang and I saw it was my male friend Dempsey.

  I proceeded to unlock the door and told Meena, “Go ahead in the house. I’ll be there in a bit.”

  Meena nodded and jogged into the house leaving me to take my call.

  “Hello.”

  “What’s up, Sonya,” Dempsey’s raspy voice sounded through my line.

  “Nothing. What’s up with you?”

  “I’m calling to see if I could swing through later.”

  I hadn’t seen this man in over a month, and now he wanted to come see me.

  Dempsey was, or used to be, my man since Kegan left me. Rather, he was my fallback man who helped me get over losing Kegan. I met Dempsey in a bar one night, and he offered to buy me a drink. I made sure to flirt with him openly so everybody could see our chemistry. It wasn’t hard because Dempsey was a nice-looking guy, especially with his dreads and penny-colored complexion. From then on, I’d been sleeping with him. And, yes, I slept with him the same night I met him. Why not? Kegan cheated on me. So why couldn’t I do it too? Granted, I didn’t want to ever look like a whore again since I let go of that title when I was being used by my mother, but that night I didn’t care. I was drinking down my sorrows about my relationship ending with Kegan, and Dempsey quickly became the distraction I needed to help get over my ex.

  Word did get back to Kegan I was seeing someone else. The bastard had the audacity to call me and ask me about who I was seeing.

  “What’s it to you? You don’t want me anymore, so why are you calling to ask me who I’m booed up with?”

  “Don’t play with me, Sonya.”

  “Who’s playing?”

  “You are.”

  “Does your new whore know you’re calling me?” I asked sardonically.

  Kegan said nothing. I knew I’d hit a nerve with him, and I didn’t care. He hurt me. He cheated on me, and all I ever did was love that man.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “I can’t believe you’re doing this.”

  “You can’t believe me? What about what you did to me?” I said angrily.

  “Sonya—”

  “You made a clear choice, Kegan, and it wasn’t me. What, you expected me to sit and wait to see if you came back to me? Or better yet, did you expect me to be your side chick like Imani was for you?”

  “You know what? It was a mistake calling you.”

  Kegan hung up, and I hadn’t heard from him since, well, not until I got that invite to his wedding. The thought of this wedding helped in my decision about Dempsey coming over.

  “Dempsey, does nine sound good?”

  Monica

  22

  The dark skies that hovered released torrential downpours. The storm came out of nowhere, much like the one that was going on in my own life. I hit the garage door button and was happy to see Devin’s car was in its usual space. He hadn’t left me yet. After the run-in at his parents’ house, I figured he would be gone. Pulling in beside him, I was grateful on days like this that I didn’t have to get out in the nasty weather.

  Entering my home, I looked out the kitchen window and could hardly see the house across the street. The wind whipped the rain, making it look like sheets of water. The sky lit up from a flash of lightning, followed by a boom of thunder. I knew we needed the rain, but I hated when it came like this.

  I went to my bedroom to see Devin wasn’t there, but he’d been in here. The closet door was open, and I knew I closed it before I left. I walked in, noticing my husband had removed the majority of his clothes. My stomach clinched at the thought of him already packing his belongings to leave me. I walked out into the hallway and saw the door to the spare bedroom was closed. I knocked on it softly, but he didn’t answer. I turned the knob and opened it to see he was not in here either. This meant he was probably downstairs in the basement.

  After slipping into a pair of jogging pants and off-the-shoulder tee, I went downstairs, wanting a glass of wine. Before going into the kitchen, I peeped out the living-room window to see water running down the street like small streams flowing at a rapid pace. The large droplets continued to come down heavy and the lightning continued to light up the sky.

  “Monica,” I heard Devin call out to me. He was in the basement.

  “Yes.”

  “You need to come down here.”

  I knew what this meant and didn’t want to go downstairs, but I went anyway. Descending the stairs, I was happy to see the carpet was still dry on the finished side of our basement. So far, so good, I thought, but when I went to the unfinished side, I saw Devin scooping water from the basement floor with a plastic cup. He was doing this to stop the water from coming over to the finished side. We’d had this happen one other time before, and we ended up losing everything. We had to get the water vacuumed out by a company
. He had to get everything treated so we wouldn’t get mold. All the furniture was destroyed. That flood ended up costing us almost $10,000 with repairs and replacement of the carpet and furniture. So I could understand why Devin was working furiously to hinder that from happening to us again.

  “Why didn’t you bring something down here to help scoop this water up?” he asked with an attitude.

  “How was I supposed to know? I was expecting to see it already flooded,” I replied tersely.

  “You see it’s raining, right? Go upstairs and get a cup to help me. I’ve already put something up at the bottom of the door to help stop the water from coming in. It should slow it down a bit.”

  I stood for a minute watching him go back to scooping the water up. Then I turned and went back upstairs to retrieve a cup and returned to Devin still scooping water. I joined him. We were dumping it into a large thirty-two gallon trash can.

  “Devin, I don’t know why you don’t get the problem fixed. The man told you we needed that drain at the door replaced in order for the water to not enter this basement again. How are you going to spend $10,000 for the main problem to not be resolved?”

  “How did I know it was going to rain like this again?”

  “This is not the first time this has happened. The first time should have been enough for you to call someone to come out and fix the problem,” I retorted.

  “Monica, don’t be trying to tell me what I should have done. It’s not doing us any good now, is it?”

  “I’m just saying,” I said, scooping up the water and pouring it in the trash can.

  “I don’t want to hear it, so just shut up,” he yelled.

  “I’m down here helping you, and you’re going to get disrespectful? This is your domain, Devin, not mine. You wanted a man cave; you can save it all by your damn self,” I said throwing the cup down and walking out of the room.

  “You are such a bitch,” he murmured but loud enough for me to hear it.

  “What did you call me?” I paused, keeping my back to him.

  “I called you a bitch,” he repeated boldly.

  Tears clouded my eyes as the stabbing pain from him calling me a bitch upset me. We had been together for a long time and had been through a lot and said a lot of things to each other, but never had my husband ever come out of his mouth to say that. Crazy, yes. Stupid, yes. Bitch, never. I was so taken aback I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t even turn to face him. It took me a bit, but I turned and walked back in the space with him. I stood there in the water while he continued to scoop the water up to save the basement. Then he peered up at me.

  “Either help or get the hell out,” he bellowed as he bent over again to scoop up more water.

  Rage engulfed my pain. I contemplated bashing his head in with the bat that sat on the shelf we had in the unfinished room. A voice said, “Don’t do it,” but the one that wanted to teach him a lesson said, “Bash his freakin’ head in.”

  The rational voice said, “If you do it, you are going to have to knock him out because if you miss, this man is liable to take the bat from you and beat the hell out of you. There is no need to stoop to violence.” My rational voice concluded with, “What if you do manage to knock him out? Will that be the blow that kills this man?”

  I didn’t want to see Devin dead, but my hands tightened with the battle of fury verses common sense. I closed my eyes trying to think sensibly but bitch kept ringing over and over in my mind. This punk called me a bitch. What next? It was bad enough he treated me like he did. Then it was finding him with his ex-fiancée. Now this? Was his verbal abuse going to eventually turn physical? Could I continue to withstand even the verbal abuse if we decided to work out our marriage? I felt like a slap across the face would be easier to take than the words that cut to the core of my spirit. Devin was good at yielding his wounding words. His degrading remarks were starting to takes their toll on me. I was already too fat for him, which was why I was working out, but was it enough? Hell, was it worth it?

  I opened my eyes to find him not paying me any attention. He looked up at me again giving me a smug look as he said, “You still here? Oh, maybe you want to use this as an opportunity to exercise and lose some weight.”

  Tick went my mind . . . and I lost it.

  Monica

  23

  The rain finally stopped or at least reverted back to a drizzle. I stood in the bay window with my arms crossed, taking in the view of my neighbor’s home and how green all of our lawns were. I wondered what each of our neighbors were doing. Were children playing? Were the families sitting around the table talking about the happenings of the day? Was laundry being tossed in the washing machine? Were any of the women as unhappy as I was in their marriage? Was anyone harboring secrets like I was?

  The clatter of footsteps let me know Devin was coming up the stairs. Each step was slow but firm, like he was trying to keep his balance. I never looked back. I listened until I knew his measured steps brought him in eye view of me.

  “What did you do to me?” he asked groggily.

  I turned to see him holding the back of his head. His clothes were soaking wet, and his eyes were squinting like the light in the room was too bright for him to focus. I was surprised his ass didn’t drown. After all, he did fall face-first.

  “What are you talking about, Devin?” I asked as I walked over to the sofa and plopped down. I picked up the glass of wine I’d poured for myself and took a long sip. I never took my eyes off my husband as he looked bewildered at me.

  “You hit me.”

  I swallowed the sweet red wine before saying, “No, I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did,” he argued.

  “Okay, I did. Now what?”

  With widened eyes he tilted his head slightly at my nonchalant words. He was still unsteady on his feet, but the pained expression he gave me had little effect on me.

  “You left me down there unconscious.”

  “I sure did.”

  “How did you know I wasn’t dead?”

  “I didn’t,” I said frigidly.

  “So you didn’t care?”

  “Not at that particular moment, no.”

  “You really are a crazy—”

  Expression dead serious, I said, “Watch your mouth, Devin. I hit you once. I can hit you again. Maybe this will teach you not to call me out of my name.”

  I meant what I said. And I think he knew it too as my dark eyes bore into him. I’d dealt with a lot with Devin, and today was definitely not an exception. But I’d be damned if this man—or any man—was going to call me a bitch whenever he felt the need.

  “As long as we’ve been together, Devin, you have never called me a bitch. And you are not going to start now. You can call me baby, Monica, sugar, sweetie, and even crazy. But you better not ever—as long as there is breath in your body—call me a bitch.”

  We stared each other down. I meant what I said, and that knot on the back of his head let him know I was dead serious.

  “Are there any other others I needed to stay clear of?” he asked.

  “Cunt is another. Georgiana is another.”

  Devin nodded and understood. This was a serious hiccup, and our marriage was in jeopardy, and she was the cause of it.

  “I think you did this for what happened earlier today.”

  “Maybe I did, in combination of you calling me what you called me. Either way, I feel empowered,” I replied, giving him a bitter smile. “Now, if you would excuse me, I have dinner to make.”

  “Dinner?” Devin asked.

  Springing to my feet, I said, “Yes. Dinner. Do you have a problem with that?”

  “We are not done here,” he said, finally bringing his hands down by his side, rotating his head to loosen the soreness.

  “The only thing we need to discuss is how we are going to work on saving our marriage. Is that what you want to talk about?” I asked.

  “I asked you for a divorce, and after what you’ve done to me today, this further let
s me know I’m making the right decision.”

  “Oh, really?” I said, folding my arms across my chest.

  “Really,” he replied contemptuously. “People know who my heart really belongs to.”

  I began to chuckle as my anger began to rise within. Did Devin realize he said people? Now, people were part of this equation. Now, people knew he wanted to divorce me to get back with his ex. I wondered if any of those people were part of the congregation his parents were trying to grow. Did any of them think those people would be happy with him making a decision to leave his wife for another woman? Better yet, he was cheating on his wife with another woman. Whether he’d put his hands on Georgiana or not, he’d been thinking about her. He had lustful thoughts plaguing his mind, not realizing it was the affliction infecting our marriage. Or maybe he just didn’t care.

  “Do you think I’m going to let this go down like this?” I asked him.

  “You don’t have a choice.”

  “You think so?”

  “I know so,” he said forebodingly.

  He began to remove his soaked clothes right there in our living room. First, it was his shirt. Then, his tank, and next, it was his socks and pants, until he was standing in front of me with nothing but his boxer briefs on. I allowed my eyes to scan the perimeter of his body as my eyes concentrated on his numerous inches. As much as I wanted to hate this man, I loved him. I loved every inch of him.

  Devin chuckled bitterly as he walked around the sofa and lowered himself onto it.

  “My family is very powerful, Monica.”

  “And?”

  “And we have ways of getting what we want.”