Tell Me No Lies

by Nikki- Michelle

  Chyanne

  I’d just walked into the house from a long day at the office. All I’d wanted to do was get home, sit down, and relax. I’d figured my day couldn’t have gotten any worse, being that I’d had to deal with Aric’s attitude. Whenever Aric was in a bad mood, he made it his business to ensure that I was in one too. Since I’d gotten serious with Jamie, Aric’s mood could be good one minute and then he’d try to wreak all hell the next. For a long while he had pretended as if he was okay with it all. There were times when I felt as if he was, and then there were times, like earlier, when he would call me just to remind me of the asshole he could still be.

  He’d known it was my day to pick AJ up from school, because we had a set schedule for such things. He had waited until I was just about to leave to get AJ to call and tell me he’d decided to pick him up. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that he had done it just to annoy me. I knew for a fact that was the reason he’d done it, because that was just Aric. And God forbid if I objected to him picking up his son.

  For a while I just sat in my car outside my office. I needed to get myself together before driving home. Shelley and I had decided to keep the renovated house we’d previously turned into our office in Inman Park. We had decided to forgo the tall office buildings and such. It was another cliché that we’d decided to avoid. In the long run, it had endeared our customers to us, because they felt as if we were more in tune to their needs and wants. The restored Victorian house oftentimes made our clients feel at home.

  Once I walked into my home, I threw my purse on the custom amarone granite counter in the kitchen, since I’d walked in through the garage. My heels clicked against the marble flooring as the self-cleaning stainless-steel dishwasher serenaded the room with its hum. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with anything else. I just wanted to cook dinner, take a shower, and wait for Jamie to come home. Of course, things never went the way I wanted them to. That day would be no different.

  Just as I pulled off my suit jacket and reached to open the fridge, my cell vibrated loudly against the counter. I didn’t recognize the number but answered, anyway.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this Chyanne?” a gruff voice said.

  It scared me a bit, but I answered, anyway. “Yes . . . yes, it is. May I help you?”

  “Uh, yeah. Aric, uh . . . McHale said I could reach you heah.”

  He sounded like an old-country man, and I was confused as to why Aric would give him my number.

  “Okay, what can I help you with?”

  “You ’bout don’t eam’na remember me. When I found you, you was half dead on ya’ front room flo’ and all.”

  Recognition sank in, and I realized it was the old man who’d lived across from me in my old neighborhood. Mr. Jerry had lived in that house since I moved to that neighborhood. As far I knew, he had no children. I would always see him out in his yard, tending his small gardens. Aric had told me that it was Mr. Jerry who had called the police and ambulance for me. I’d forever be grateful to him for that. A few times I’d gone to take him a gift of thanks, and he’d never answered the door. The one time I did talk to him, all he said was he’d done what the good Lord had wanted him to do and that I should leave him alone. I was surprised I hadn’t recognized the gravelly, crotchety old voice.

  “Oh yes, yes, now I know who you are. How are you?”

  “I’m doing jus’ fine. I ain’t call you for no jabbering and jawing. I called you cuz that gal that lived round on the other street from us been sleeping out here in her car for two days in your driveway at ya’ old hize. These folks talking ’bout calling the law on her the reckly if she don’t move on from round heah. Thought you may wanna know since y’all used ta be friends and all.”

  My face frowned. “April?”

  “I guess that’s her name. She done got put out her house round yonder too.”

  I sat there quietly for a while, not knowing exactly what to say. I hadn’t seen April since I’d gotten out of the hospital with AJ. She had tried to come around, but after that one time, I told her that I was done with her, and I hadn’t seen her since. Yes, I knew it was she who’d called Aric to let him know what had happened to me, but she was also supposed to be my best friend, and yet she had set out deliberately to hurt me. I wasn’t really in a forgiving mood at that point.

  Jo-Jo, one of her sons, was off in college. Not too long after I’d gotten out of the hospital, Jonathan, April’s ex-husband, had petitioned the courts for custody after the boys told him what had been going on. April had been abusing them. There was no other way to put it. Jo-Jo had told me their father had asked them if they wanted to go live with him. All three had said yes, and that was all he needed to hear to do what he felt had to be done. I’d heard through Justin, a mutual friend, that April had been a mess, a wreck afterward, but I hadn’t asked anything else about her since.

  Jo-Jo would call me from time to time to let me know if he was okay. I’d been sending him care packages to keep in his dorm room too. I knew college life could be rough, so I was helping him as best I could with snacks, and the like, although I knew his father had set him up pretty nicely. April’s other two sons, the twins Aaron and Aaden, called me too. They were doing well in school and excelled in sports like their brother had. Once I’d made sure all three of them were okay, April became the furthest thing from my mind. And I wanted her to stay that way.

  “Well, thank you for calling and telling me,” I said to him after a while.

  His TV was playing in the background. I could hear the loud cheers from Family Feud. He grunted. “I done took her some food. She looking rough and smelling bad. She need to bathe and wash her lady parts.”

  I shook my head, wondering why he was telling me all that. “Well, I hope when the cops come, they get her the help she needs.”

  “Not nice to forget where you came from, gal. I ain’t saying she been no good friend, but she used to be a friend. ’Member the same people you see on ya’ way up, you meet ’em again ya’ way down.”

  It felt like I was being chastised by my grandfather. April had done nothing but cause me grief. I was over helping her. I prayed that she found whatever help she needed, but I was not going to be that help. I’d been down that road already, and I wasn’t going to travel it again.

  “Like I said, I hope she gets the help she needs—”

  Before I could finish, the line clicked. I’d been hung up on. Lord, I could be wrong, but there was no way in hell I was going to help that woman. If the cops had been called, then they could help her with whatever was going on with her. I was intent on not letting the fact that April was sleeping in her car get to me. I contemplated calling Jamie and asking him for his advice, but I knew he would probably tell me, “Hell no. Don’t go.” After I’d told him what had gone on between April and Aric, he’d told me he was glad I cut her off.

  He’d called our friendship a toxic one, one where I was giving way more than I was receiving. But as I thought about April’s sons and how they would feel knowing she was sleeping in her car, especially the twins, my conscience began eating away at me. Needless to say, I ended up in my car, driving in the direction of my old neighborhood. That was after I stopped at Wal-Mart. I purchased some sweats and shirts, along with blankets, pillows, underwear, socks, soap, towels, all the things she would need to brush her teeth, and a few food items.

  As I drove into the neighborhood, I had a little talk with Jesus. I prayed that I was doing the right thing and that it wouldn’t come back to bite me in the backside. I even prayed that she hadn’t fallen so low that she had to sleep in her car, but just as the old man had said, there sat April’s black Nissan in my old driveway. It was as cold as the Arctic outside, so there was no way I could leave her out there, no matter how badly I wanted to. I pulled into the driveway, cut my engine, and then got out.

  It was about eight in the evening, and the temperature had dropped. Although the weather in Atlanta was fickle that time of year, it dro
pped drastically at night. I walked up to the driver’s side of the car and could see her on the backseat. There April was, balled up in a fetal position, under two worn blankets, asleep. It took me knocking twice on the window to get her to even stir. She ran a hand through her messy hair as she licked her lip. Her eyes squinted as she slowly sat up, and a curse escaped her lips.

  I was taken aback, shocked was more like it. Her skin was blotchy, her eyes had bags underneath them, and from what I could see, her lips were chapped to the cracking point.

  “April, it’s me, Chyanne.”

  It took her a minute to register who I was, but when she did, a look of embarrassment shadowed her face.

  “Let the window down,” I told her.

  She pulled the blanket tighter around her and crawled to the front seat. She sat there with her head hanging for a minute like she really wasn’t sure if she wanted to open the window. Finally, after a moment, she turned the car on and the window eased down. I didn’t say anything for a while. All I could think was that the old man had been right. She had needed to bathe.

  “April, what’s going on? Why are you sleeping in your car?”

  For whatever reason she wouldn’t look up at me. “I’m okay. Just”—she sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand—“just needed somewhere to park my car and sleep for the night. I’ll be gone by tomorrow.”

  I just looked at her for a moment before walking back to my car. I got in and sat behind the wheel for a long while, praying to God to give me strength to help a person in need. I prayed that he gave me the strength to do it with joy and without any ill feelings about all she had done to me. I grabbed the Wal-Mart bags and my purse from the passenger seat and got back out of my car. I walked to the home that I’d once lived in, and used my key to unlock the door. I’d put the house on the market, but it still hadn’t sold. It was kind of hard to sell a house that people knew someone had almost been killed in.

  As soon as I stuck the key in the door and pushed it open, I stumbled backward. I’d almost died in that house. My body started to shake as I relived Stephanie attacking me. I started to hyperventilate as memories played back of her shooting me and leaving me for dead, but then I remembered I needed to keep it together. My hands shook as I walked in and flipped the light switch. The once all-white carpet had been pulled up and replaced by hardwood floors. The old sofas had been thrown out and replaced with newer golden plush sofas. Teal walls and gold and chocolate accessories stood out to me. There was a thirty-seven-inch flat-screen television hanging on the wall next to the door. Decorative art that matched with the color scheme lined the walls.

  I looked over at the spot where I’d fallen when Stephanie shot me. My heart began to beat so hard against my ribcage that I thought it would jump right out of my chest. I quickly tossed the bags on the love seat and walked back out to April’s car.

  “You can come in out of the cold, April,” I said to her.

  That must have made her feel something, because she slowly looked over at me with tears falling down her cheeks.

  “You don’t have to do this.”

  “I know that.”

  She blinked rapidly and wiped her eyes. “Why?”

  “Just get out of the car and come into the house. I’ll be waiting for you there.”

  I didn’t want to be in the house, but I couldn’t stand to smell the odor coming from April’s car any longer. She smelled, and she smelled bad, like she hadn’t bathed in days. I walked into the kitchen and placed the bags of food on the counter before walking into the hall where my old bedroom used to be and turning on the heat. The house was still furnished, and the furniture was to be included in the sale of the house. I heard April’s car door slam and knew she was on her way in.

  “There are underwear, other clothes, soap, towels, and things to brush your teeth with in the bags on the couch,” I told her as she slowly walked in.

  All she had were house shoes on her feet. The blankets haphazardly wrapped around her shoulders dragged on the floor. She was cold and shaking. With the light in the room being so bright, I could see that her lips were indeed cracked and chapped. Dried blood was between the cracks, and I almost let the tears fall that were clouding my vision. Her brown hair hadn’t seen a comb in days, weeks even. I could tell there was acne on her skin too, since she was standing in the light. She didn’t even look like the same April. She’d lost weight, and it showed on her face. Her cheeks were sunken in.

  “Thank . . . thank you,” she finally managed to get out.

  I really didn’t want to say anything to her until she bathed. “The water is on. You can take a hot shower. I’ll wait for you until after you’re done.”

  “Chyanne—”

  I held my hand up to stop her. “Shower first. We can talk later.”

  I couldn’t even bear to look at her and was happy when she picked up the bags and headed to the bathroom. No matter what she had done to me, I still had a heart. I didn’t want to see her that way. When she was out of sight, I sighed and took out my cell to call Aric so I could check on AJ.

  “Woman, what do you want? AJ’s asleep,” he answered.

  “I know that, Aric. I just wanted to know how he was doing.”

  “He’s sleeping. Anything else?”

  I sighed and shook my head. “Aric, why must you always be a dick to me?”

  “You had no problems with my dick before. Why now?”

  “Go to hell, Aric. Do you have company?”

  “Why?”

  “Because you always act like a donkey when you have company.”

  I heard covers rustling, and he groaned a bit. Then I got my confirmation. There was a woman’s voice in the background, asking him where he was going.

  I rolled my eyes and sighed.

  “So what? I have company. What’s it to you?” he asked in emblematic egotistical Aric fashion.

  “Nothing. Just tell me how AJ was today. Will you kiss him for me and tell him I’m sorry I missed him?”

  “No. You should have done it yourself. He was waiting on you to call.”

  “I know that, Aric. Something came up.”

  “Something like what?” he asked.

  I could hear him running water and knew he was in the bathroom. He had always been the type to wash his hands before and after using the restroom. I told him about April. His only response was a coarse grunt. He had never really had too much to say about her after I caught him at her house.

  “Who’s the woman in your bed? Have I met her? Is she the same woman from before? Don’t be traipsing different women around in front of my son, Aric.”

  He grunted again and stayed silent awhile before answering. “Did you call about AJ or to tell me how to run my life? And I don’t be traipsing different women around him,” he said, mocking my improper use of speech.

  I turned my head toward the bathroom when I heard April crying. I could hear her over the water running. She was having a breakdown. I’d been there a time or two myself. If we were still friends, I would have gone to try to comfort her, but she was on her own. I’d learned my lesson.

  “We talked about this, Aric. Is it the same woman?”

  “No, it’s her sister,” he answered sarcastically.

  “Go to hell, Aric.”

  “Been there already. Got the scars to prove it. Do I call asking you who you’re fucking and who’s in your bed?”

  “That’s because you know who’s there and you know your son does not see me sleeping around.”

  “He doesn’t see me sleeping around, either. She didn’t come in until after he was in bed, and she’ll be gone in about ten minutes,” he said, then sighed. “Anything else?”

  I shook my head and hung up the phone, tossing it on the sofa beside me. I needed a moment to get myself together before dialing Jamie. April’s sobs in the bathroom were working my nerves. I yawned and found myself getting sleepy as I leaned back on the sofa, rubbing my eyes. My phone beeped, and I jumped at the so
und before picking the phone up. The screen lit up with AJ’s sleeping face and a text from Aric.

  Hang up on me again and that’s your ass, it read.

  I smiled at my baby boy sleeping like he didn’t have a care in the world as he hugged the bear Jamie and Ashton, Jamie’s son, had made for him at Build-A-Bear, and then I frowned at the message from Aric.

  Go screw yourself, was the text I sent back to him.

  I stood and was making my way to the kitchen when I heard the shower go off. It didn’t take me long to start removing the food I’d bought from the bags. I just needed something to do while I waited around to talk with April. My phone beeped again, and I looked at the text.

  Why, when I can get you to do it for me? came in from Aric.

  I scoffed, and my head jerked back like I had been slapped in the face.

  In your dreams will you ever touch me again, I texted back.

  We both know that’s a lie.

  I let out a chuckle that showed my disbelief at the audacity of his words. I didn’t even respond. I laid my phone on the counter and finished taking the food out of the bags. Aric and his arrogance would always rub me the wrong way. It was only minutes later that April emerged from the bathroom. I walked out of the kitchen, and we looked at one another. She had washed her hair, and it was a vast improvement from the mess it had looked like earlier. She had on the black sweats and a white tank I’d bought her. White socks were on her feet, her face had been washed, and she was starting to look civilized again. For the first time in a long time, April looked as if she was barely standing. She didn’t look like the beautiful woman that men had once fawned over and had damn near tripped themselves up trying to look at.

  “April, what happened to you?” I asked her. “Why are you sleeping in your car?”

  “Tell me, why do you care?”

  Placing a hand on my hip, I tilted my head and looked at her. “Excuse me?”

  “Why do you care? You’ve gone on to live your life. Why the fuck do you care?”

  “Let me be honest here for a second, because I really don’t care. Had it not been for the old man across the street, I would have been free of knowing,” I scoffed. “And here I was, thinking that maybe you’d changed. I was hoping that maybe this situation might humble you a bit.”