Tell Me No Lies

by Nikki- Michelle

  “Mommy,” AJ called to me.

  “Yes, AJ?”

  “We go to Daddy?”

  The beating of my heart almost stopped. Jamie looked at me. The accusatory look in his eyes was like a threat to call me on my crap.

  “You’ll see him tomorrow, AJ.”

  I went to take off my coat and shoes. I could feel Jamie’s eyes on me, but I wouldn’t dare look at him.

  Gabe

  The shit had hit the fan at B&G Marketing & Advertising. Aric and I had gone into the office yesterday, only to have them tell him he was out. They gave him the option of stepping down, but only after they’d let him bring them from the brink of collapse. The stepping down part was only to save his reputation in the field. The media attention surrounding what his wife, my sister, had done was too much for the board to just overlook. They’d been overlooking it, trying to look the other way, for months. The fucked-up part about the whole thing was that they waited until Aric had them in the black before they let him go. Aric and I had worked that merger between B&G and Charter until no other marketing and advertising firms in the region could compete with us. It all came crashing down. Aric was crushed, no matter what he’d said to me. Aric was the type of guy whose job meant everything to him, especially when he had worked it from the ground up.

  The board wasted no time asking me if I wanted to step in to fill Aric’s shoes. I didn’t think I could do my boy like that, but I hadn’t turned them down yet. I told them I would think about it. I had to see how Aric felt about it first. I knew he was fucked up when he was at my house the other night and got too drunk to drive himself home. Not to mention the fact that he made it no secret that he had been trying to talk Chy into coming to my crib to scoop him up. For whatever reason, she never showed. That had pissed him off more than anything. I didn’t understand why he just wouldn’t leave the woman alone. When he had her, he didn’t do right by her. I didn’t understand it.

  Just like I didn’t understand why my mother and father had to continue to carry on a secret relationship that would only hurt her in the end. I went to my mother’s home with one thing on my mind. There was one thing that Stephanie had alluded to the last time I saw her that had stuck with me. It’d kept playing over and over in my head.

  Oh, and tell your mother she wasn’t the only one. I hope she knows that shit. She was just one of his many whores.

  I sat in my mother’s driveway and let Stephanie’s voice play in my head. Yeah, it could have all been a mind fuck, because Stephanie was good at those. Somehow, I didn’t believe it was. I felt in my heart that there was some truth to what she’d said. When I stepped out of the car, I made up my mind that what I was about to do would happen eventually, anyway, so what was wrong with me speeding up the process? I could hear my mother and father laughing as I turned the key to the front door and walked in. She was cooking. The smell of fried catfish hit my senses and made my mouth water. Some other day I would have been down to breaking bread with them and acting like everything was everything, but I was in no mood to do that today.

  “Gabriel?” my mother called as she rounded the corner and smiled at me. “I didn’t know you were coming today.”

  I walked forward with a smile and kissed her cheek. “I didn’t know I was coming, either. Just wanted to stop by and say hello. Pop’s here?” I asked, using my thumb to point toward the front room, although I already knew he was there.

  “Yes. He’s in the front room, reading the paper,” she said with a bright smile.

  I noticed she was wearing a long dress that hung loosely over her curves. Her hair was up in a bun. She’d fixed herself up for him, like she’d done many times before.

  “Okay, I’m going to speak to him.”

  “Gabe . . . don’t fight with your father today,” she said tome.

  It was more of a request than a command.

  I nodded, a silent lie. Well, not really. I wouldn’t be fighting with him. “I won’t, Mama. Just want to speak to my old man.”

  She cast a sideways glance at me and walked back into the kitchen. I trotted down the hall and turned left to stroll into the front room. There was the man of the hour, sitting with his right ankle resting on his left thigh, with the paper open as he read and a Cuban cigar in his mouth like he was king of the world.

  “What’s up, Pop?” I asked as I plopped down in one of the chairs across from him. I’d become used to the smoke. It didn’t bother me.

  The TV was on Matlock, but it was muted. I’d always found it funny when we both just happened to wear our locks the same way. His were pulled back into a ponytail with a leather tie, same as mine.

  “Nothing much, son. Are we talking today, or are we fighting?” he asked sarcastically.

  “No,” I said, sitting forward, rubbing my hands together, and turning my lips down. “No fight left in me on that subject.”

  He folded the paper and laid it on his lap before moving his cigar from his lips. He dipped his head at me. “Good.”

  “So how is everything? You good?”

  He regarded me closely before answering. He knew his son, and he knew I was every bit of him when it came to being passive-aggressive.

  “I’m well, Gabe. Not complaining.”

  I thumbed my upper lip. “That’s good too. I went to see Stephanie a few days ago,” I told him.

  “I know. She told me . . . called me, upset because of some things you’d said to her.”

  “Did she tell you what she said to me? No need to answer that. I know she didn’t.” I could see my mother’s shadow passing up and down the hall from the corner of my eye as I looked at him.

  “I tried to call you yesterday to hear your side of things, but I guess you ignored my call, huh?”

  I gave a curt smile, then chuckled cynically. “Yeah . . . yeah, I did. Hey, but I wanted to ask you about something that Stephanie said to me.”

  He grumbled as he looked at me. We stared at each other head-on as he took a pull from his cigar. The shiny black wing-tipped shoe on his crossed foot moved as he spread his arms across the back of the couch, the cigar rolling between his fingers.

  “What’s that, son?” He stared at me pointedly

  I stood and grabbed the unopened Corona from the table before I answered. I even took the time to pop the top and take a swallow too.

  “So Mom hasn’t been the only one, huh?”

  It took him only a second to realize where I was going. He tilted his head and brought the cigar back to his lips before leaning forward and rubbing his large hands together. In that moment, he cast the same look at me that he’d given Aric when he confessed to physically putting his hands on Stephanie.

  “I see you still have a problem with me, Gabe. Want to step outside and address it father to son?” he asked me.

  The tone in his voice would have scared any other man, but I knew the man that was my father. There was something else in his voice, a plea for me to step outside so my mother wouldn’t hear what I was saying. No such thing would happen.

  “Nah. That’s just a simple yes or no question, Dad. Just go ahead and tell me that story about you loving and respecting my mother again.”

  I was sure the mug on my face mirrored the one on his. My father really looked like he wanted to leap across the room and go heads up with his only son. It was sad to say that I was pissed enough to give him what he wanted. The adrenaline I was feeling was like fire in my veins, so much so that one of my fists was already balled. But before either one of us could wrap our mind around what was happening between us, my mom walked into the front room with a food tray. She looked at me, then back at my father. She could feel the obvious tension in the room. The food on the tray began to rattle as my mother’s hands shook. My father looked up at her just as she turned her head slowly to look at him. It was when I saw the anger soften in my father’s features that I knew she’d heard everything.

  “Dixie—”

  That was the only word he was able to get out before she
dumped the whole tray of hot food onto his lap. Tomato-basil soup, catfish, toasted bread, and coffee decorated his expensive clothing.

  “Fuck!” he yelled out and stood quicker than lightning. The Cuban cigar had fallen into his lap along with all the other hot items.

  My mother was shaking her head and biting down on her bottom lip. “Son of a bitch.”

  “Baby, let me explain,” he began and reached out to try to take her hand.

  I had to tilt my head and frown at that one. Explain? To my mother, who isn’t your wife? I swear everybody around me had the game backward, including my mother. Just like I was baffled about him trying to explain to her why he was cheating with other women, I was confused about her being upset about it. She was one of the other women.

  “No, you don’t explain shit to me,” she told him and snatched her hand out of his reach. “Explain it to your wife.”

  She tried to walk away, but he grabbed her wrist, snatching her back to him.

  “Pops, I’m going to need you to watch your hands,” I said, standing.

  He looked at me with so much contempt that I could see the muscles twitching in his jaw. “Gabe, look, just stay out of it! Damn, don’t you feel you’ve done enough?” he yelled, still holding on to her wrist.

  I moved forward, causing my mom to reach her hand out toward me, her way of telling me to stop. “Yeah, but you still got her wrist, though. I wasn’t really asking you to let her go. That was me telling you to.”

  My mother quickly moved between both of us and shoved each of us back once she’d snatched her wrist from him.

  “Both of you, stop. Gabe, go home and I’ll call you later.”

  “Mom—”

  “Go home, Gabe,” she said, looking at me with red eyes.

  I looked back over at my father, sensing that the tide had turned in our relationship and that there was no going back from it. I was really at a point where I didn’t give a damn either way. He was breathing like a raging bull, displaying all his anger without saying a word. It didn’t matter. I had accomplished what I’d come to do. I couldn’t risk my mother not believing me because she heard my words alone. She’d basically heard him admit, in his own way, that what Stephanie had said was true. She’d been just another piece of outside pussy in his little black book. His refusal to talk about it in front of her was all the proof she’d needed.

  I turned and walked out, not feeling all that great about hurting my mother. The pain on her face was so real that I could feel it as she looked at me, and I saw it in the way she kept balling and relaxing her fists. She was hurting, but it was no different than it had been for the last forty years or so. As I closed the door behind me, I heard a sound that reverberated like a fire cracker exploding.

  My father’s voice rang out. “What the fuck, Dixie? Have you lost your damn mind?”

  I’d seen my mother deliver one of those slaps before, and it was never pretty. While I wanted to leave like my mother had asked me to, there was no way I could, knowing that she’d gotten physical. I quickly pushed the door back open and walked briskly down the hall.

  “All these years I’ve been sitting here like a fucking fool, thinking, foolishly thinking, that we shared something special regardless of the fact that you ran off and married my best friend,” my mother raged.

  I made it around the corner to see my mother, fists balled and her back rising up and down, scowling up at my father. It was obvious she had slapped him from the way his right eye watered. He was way taller and overshadowed her, but my mother’s anger had downsized him.

  “Baby—”

  “Shut up!” she yelled and slapped him again. She kept swinging at him like a wild banshee.

  My father backed up, almost slipped on the mess that had been made on the floor, but regained his footing just as he grabbed both her wrists.

  “Dixie, stop fucking hitting me and listen to me,” he pleaded, jerking her so hard that her bun fell.

  I’d seen my father do and say a lot of things, but one thing I’d never seen was him acting weak. His weakness showed in that moment.

  “No. Go home to your wife, Xavier,” she said to him. “Let me go, and go home or to wherever Cecilia is. Just go,” she repeated and yanked her wrists out of his grasp again.

  He reached out to try to pull her back to him, but to no avail. She was done. Throwing her hand up in disgust, she covered her face and left my father standing where he was.

  “I told you to go home, Gabe,” she said to me as soon as she rounded the corner. “Take your father with you,” was all she added before she ran up the stairs and slammed the door to her bedroom.

  I stared after my mother for a long time before turning to look at my father. He had come around the corner to chase after her but had stopped upon seeing me still standing there.

  “You happy?” he asked me.

  My mother’s handprints could be seen in the form of welts on his face.

  “What do you mean, am I happy?” I asked, almost incredulously.

  “You succeeded in hurting your mother. Is that what you came to do?” he belted out at me, giving me a glare that cut into the obvious tension between us.

  I shook my head with a befuddled look on my face. “Me?” I asked, pointing at myself with wide eyes. “I hurt her? You’re the one running around her, going between her, Cecilia, and everybody else, and I’m the one who hurt her? No, I gave her the truth, gave her reality, something she’s never got from you,” I told him.

  My voice was raised, a sign of my frustration and annoyance.

  His eyes glared as he walked up to me. “I don’t know what you think this is or what the fuck you think of me, but as your father, I demand respect. I’ve done some shit in my personal life that I’m not too proud of, but I’ve been a damn good father to you. Like it or not, Gabriel, I love your mother. There was a way to do this that didn’t have to involve hurting her.”

  “Yeah, Dad, it’s called loving and respecting her. If you couldn’t love her enough to be with her and make her your wife, then why the fuck bother at all?” I asked him, not backing down. “This isn’t about me and you as father and son. This goes way beyond that. So not only did you selfishly use her for your own gain. That wasn’t bad enough for you, Dad. You had to go and just make her another name in your little black book, huh?”

  My dad yanked his shirt open, causing buttons to fly in every direction as he glared at me. “So there were a few other women. They meant nothing to me,” he explained through clenched teeth, snatching his shirt off, wiping the excess mess from his chest, and throwing it to land on the umbrella rack behind him.

  Red tomato soup stained his chest and undershirt. He snatched that over his head too, then turned his glare back on me.

  “When does it end, Pop?” I asked him.

  He was fighting mad as he spoke. Specks of spit flew from his mouth as he raved on. His eyes were red, and water still sat in them, and his chest heaved up and down like it was about to explode. His pants were still soaked and greasy from the food my mother had dumped into his lap.

  “You ain’t the only motherfucker that suffered in this. Who I am as a man”—he hit his heart with one of his hands—“wouldn’t allow me to leave my wife and daughter, and my heart wouldn’t allow me to let your mother go. I want you to understand that, son. Understand it and know that shit was just as hard for me as it was for you and your mother. Do you know how many nights I’ve lain in my marital bed and wished it was your mother I was lying next to?”

  I was about to say something, until I heard my mother’s bedroom door open. “Gabriel?” she called out to me.

  I looked at the stairs, toward the sound of her voice. “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Go home. I’ll deal with this on my own. This is my issue, and although I appreciate the love and care you’re showing, this isn’t your battle, son.”

  I wanted to go up and hug her. I could still hear the tears and the pain in her voice. The fact that she wasn’t showing h
er face let me know that she didn’t want me to see her that way. It was just like before, when she’d cried over the situation. The only difference was that during those times she would send me to my room. I turned to look back at my father. His eyes were darting between the stairs and me. He was hurt too. I could see it in the way he hung his head and ran a hand down his face. I couldn’t even believe that he had opened up and told me some of the stuff he had. I didn’t know how I felt about him in that moment. All I knew was that things would definitely be different between the three of us.

  Chyanne

  “Have you not learned anything, Chyanne? Anything at all?” Kay all but yelled at me. “I mean, this man is obviously no good for you, and yet you were willing to risk losing Jamie for him?”

  Kay looked befuddled, like she just couldn’t understand the secret to my lunacy when it came to Aric.

  “I wasn’t about to risk anything. I was only going to take him home,” I replied, clarifying the matter.

  She and I were sitting on my veranda overlooking my spacious backyard. The grass was still green, although the leaves on the trees were different hues of red, orange, and brown. The water in the lake gleamed with the glow of the sun, but it was still cool. Some of my neighbors were sitting out on the water, on their boats, fishing.

  “Girl, now, you know that if Jamie had known you was heading out to pick up Aric, he would have not been okay with that. Don’t forget you told me how he flipped about that supposed—she used air quotation marks—“unwanted kiss from Aric.”

  I rolled my eyes and chuckled at Kay. She sat beside me in orange leggings, chocolate-brown thigh-high boots that boosted the definition of her thick thighs, and a chocolate tunic with an orange belt that showcased her Coke-bottle figure. Kay was full figured too and could make anything she wore look damn good.