My Little Secret

by Anna J.

  “Midori, can we please talk like rational adults? Let me at least explain myself,” Ray pleads from the bathroom door as I scrub my face with Neutrogena facial cleanser.

  I guess he takes my silence for an okay, and I decide to let him talk while I floss and brush my teeth. At least if I feel forced to talk, I wouldn’t be able to with a mouth full of toothpaste.

  He gave me the watered-down version of the love affair he had with Barbara that started a few years ago. Apparently her husband is a whore, and she decided to return the favor. At the time I was just building my practice, and along the way I met Jaydah and wasn’t really home much. When I decided I needed to spend more time with him, he was already feeling pushed away and was occupying his time with his mistress, so he didn’t want to spend time with me. In the midst of it all, we were running circles around each other and running away from the thing that we wanted the most.

  “Midori, I want to make it work. I want a family, and I want to be with you. Maybe we can start from the beginning,” Ray says to me in a tear-filled voice that has me choked up on the inside, but I refuse to show how I really feel until I get some things straightened out with him.

  “Do you think it’s that easy, Ray? Do you think you can just come in here and offer me a thought-out apology that you’ve probably been practicing on the way home, and everything would go back to normal?” I ask him after I finished gargling. Men, I swear, I hate them, always trying to flip shit like they don’t do any wrong.

  “My apology wasn’t thought-out, Midori,” he says in a frustrated voice, like he can’t believe I am acting the way I am.

  Oh, well. You get what you put out there.

  “Ray, you’ve been fucking your head nurse, you have the picture in your wallet to prove it, and you want me to forgive you? Does that sound logical to you?”

  “Not when you put it that way, but that was a long time ago.”

  “It was on your birthday, just a few months ago. I would’ve never done that to you.”

  I brush past him on my way out of the bathroom and decide to prepare myself for bed, feeling a little guilty because I have been doing just that for the last few years. I have things I need to do tomorrow, since I decided to take the day off, and I hope one of those things won’t include having to find an apartment. Of course, Ray is on my ass, so I have to pretend like he isn’t in the room.

  Turning my back to him and facing the dresser mirror, I pull my shirt and my bra over my head in one swoop, tossing them into the clothes hamper that I keep next to my dresser. I sift through my pajama drawer, quickly finding the multi-colored sleep shirt Ray absolutely hates. I wear it every time we are mad at each other, so he wouldn’t try to touch me during the night. Bending over, I pull off my pants, forgetting that I had on a thong underneath.

  Catching Ray’s reflection through the mirror, I turn my head the other way to avoid his gaze as I select a lotion from the dresser to moisturize my skin before putting my nightclothes on. I can still feel him watching me as I run my hands across my skin. I snatch my nightshirt off the dresser and slip into it, taking time to put everything on my dresser back in its place.

  When I chance a glance back in the mirror, Ray was standing behind me, trying to make eye contact. I don’t respond. We just watch each other in the mirror, until he breaks the silence between us.

  I am almost certain that my ugly sleepwear would serve as protection for me, but Ray doesn’t seem fazed by it at all. Instead he presses his body up against mine and wraps his arms around me from behind in a loving embrace that shocks me at first.

  I turn my face away because I’m not ready to forgive him. I’m not ready to feel what I’m feeling, because since the first time I found out he was stepping out on me, I’ve been determined to never feel that pain again. I blocked it out. I removed him from my heart, and I let Jaydah in . . . or so I thought. Now, I’m not so sure.

  “Midori, look at me, please,” he says to me, gently turning my face toward the mirror.

  I don’t know where the tears come from, but it’s like a waterfall is in my head spilling from my eyes and dripping from my eyelashes. I don’t want to forgive him, but . . .

  “Ray, I can’t do this anymore.”

  He is silent, tears streaking his face, causing the sadness in his eyes to look identical to mine. I’m not sure if his tears are because he can’t have Barbara anymore and he is stuck with me, or if he feels like he is truly in danger of losing me. My heart won’t let me ask.

  “I need you. I need us to work. Please, can you give us a chance? I know what I did was wrong, I know. Please, just let me explain.”

  I turn from the mirror to look him dead in his face, and I know instantly I am making a mistake. This is the kind of shit people do in the movies when they know they should leave, but they don’t, and you find yourself hollering at the screen saying how stupid they are. I am that stupid woman at this moment, but I did take vows for better or for worse. I guess this is one of those “worse” times.

  “Okay, let’s talk. Tell me everything.”

  I know I’m putting my life on the line and that I have a way out and didn’t take it. I know that if this were a movie everyone would be calling me stupid right now, but I don’t care. It’s about my happiness, and I am happy with my husband, aren’t I? Jaydah was just a quick fix, right?

  As we snuggle up in the bed, I lie in his arms and listen to the story he fabricates. I don’t believe any of it, but my heart won’t let me say a word. Fake it till you make it. Those are the words to live by. I’m just not sure how long I’ll be able to.

  No Happy Holidays

  Jaydah

  “Fireworks on the Fourth of July. Thanksgiving was another lie,” I sing along with Mary J. Blige, feeling every lyric on this song. She is singing about me and Midori, but I know it’s time I move on.

  Nevaeh is here using up all my damn hot water. Who the hell takes a two-hour shower? I had to check on her to make sure her ass hadn’t dropped dead or some shit, because you know those model types never fuckin’ eat. She just showed the hell up, and I was pissed because I hadn’t heard from Midori since she went home, and I knew that meant that she and Ray had reconciled.

  A part of me wants to hate her because she found the one thing I never could: true love. But when you think of true love, do you incorporate the possibility of a cheating-ass husband and lonely nights? Do you include the tears, and the headaches, and the tight feeling in your chest when you feel like you’re going to take your last breath and you don’t, but it still hurts? The ups and downs were getting to be too much, but now I feel like I’m in revenge mode, and I don’t think I want them happy together. The thing is, how am I going to break them apart?

  “Sorry I took so long in the shower,” Nevaeh apologizes as she walks past me stark naked and plops her dripping wet ass on my bed.

  I roll my eyes up in my head and head toward the kitchen to get something to drink. I want her to leave, but why can’t I just say that shit?

  “It’s cool. I guess I could always take a shower next week,” I say in a sarcastic tone as I sit down in front of my laptop. I have a deadline that is creeping right up on my ass, but I can’t write. My mind is occupied with so much other shit that I can’t even concentrate on the story I’m writing. I know my next book is going to be a for-sure best-seller—that is, once I get the damn thing done.

  “Oh, I guess you’re on some PMS shit this afternoon, huh?” Nevaeh comes back while she dries off.

  A closer look reveals her ass resting on my pillow, and I am so close to snapping, it isn’t even funny.

  “No, but do you think a shower is supposed to last that long? You only weigh like a buck twenty soaking wet, so what took so long? Then you come walking your naked ass out here, dripping all over my damn floor, and plopping your naked ass on my pillow. I’m confused as to why you don’t see my agitation.”

  Reading over the last page I wrote, I begin typing the scene out that was playing in my hea
d to at least get this chapter done. I have been on this same chapter for two weeks, and I really have to get moving.

  I want to call Midori, or just be a fly on the wall in their house so I can see what was going on. I have to move past it, though. At least until I am done with this book.

  “Damn, you act like you don’t even want me here,” Nevaeh says like she is about to cry. But I’m in I-don’t-care mode, and it doesn’t faze me in the least. “Nevaeh, you invited yourself here. I was just nice enough to let you stay.”

  “You are such a mean bitch! We are in a relationship, Jaydah, and you act like I don’t even exist.”

  “First of all”—I jump up from the table and take three giant steps across the room to where she is. I have to set the record straight if it kills me—“We are not in a relationship. I told you that I wasn’t ready for all that, but you keep insisting on making me be with you.”

  “And what’s so wrong with me that I can’t get a commitment from you?”

  “Do you think you’re perfect? Do you not believe that you can be annoying as hell?” I want to punch her in the damn throat, and I am saying mean shit to her just to hurt her. In reality, she is more reliable than Midori could ever be, but I don’t love her. That’s all it boils down to.

  “And you just got all your shit together, huh? You annoy me too with your sometimey-acting ass, but I accept you for who you are. I don’t try to change you.”

  “I’m in love with somebody else.”

  It’s like time slows down, and everything is in slow motion. Suddenly the sounds around us get louder, and I can hear the faucet dripping in the bathroom because Nevaeh didn’t turn it all the way off when she got out of the shower.

  I don’t want to be the first to break eye contact, but I can’t look away. I can hear a car passing by with its speakers to the max, sending out snatches of “One More Chance” by The Notorious B.I.G. into the atmosphere, and at that moment I need just that, another chance.

  “What did you just say to me?” Nevaeh asks, like she didn’t hear what I said the first time.

  Truth be told, I can’t bring myself to say it again, but I have to, so I can hear it with my own ears.

  “I’m in love with somebody else,” I repeat the words, but don’t know if I really believed them. Midori has her own situation, and we all knew the side jaw never wins, so what am I in love with? The possibility of her being miserable with me? Because in reality she should have stayed with her husband? Who am I fooling?

  “What’s her address?” Nevaeh asks me as she begins to blow-dry her hair and press it out with my ceramic flat iron.

  She isn’t all the way together, and I am wondering what is clicking in her head. I don’t want to have to choose between the two because, if I have to pick, I wouldn’t pick Nevaeh.

  “What do you need her address for?” I ask out of curiosity, knowing I would never give it to her. What is she going to do? Go over there and make a fool of herself when I don’t belong to her anyway?

  “I just want to talk to her,” she replies nonchalantly as she gets dressed in a cute pair of Citizens of Humanity jeans with a matching sweater and a sexy pair of Manolo Blahnik kitten heel boots.

  I turn my attention from her and continue working on my manuscript, not paying her ass any mind. Nevaeh is anything but thug, and I know Midori could get good and ghetto, so if Nevaeh knows what is best for her she will fall back.

  “Do you hear me talking to you?” Nevaeh asks me again.

  I think I’m successfully ignoring her, but apparently I’m not.

  “Nevaeh, I’m not giving you Midori’s address.”

  “So what do I do in the meantime? Sit back and play with my pussy until you decide who you want to be with?”

  “No, by all means do you, because I most certainly will. I can’t concentrate with all of these distractions, and I just need some time to think. You don’t have to wait for me.”

  She doesn’t even bother to respond; she simply turns on her heels and gets her pocketbook.

  I watch her as I continue to type, and she takes the time to pack up the few things she has here, and surprisingly I don’t care.

  I need a moment of solitude, and I don’t feel like the drama that comes with being in a relationship, as if my being lesbian sometimes isn’t enough. It’s hard for me to walk out here and do these interviews and book signings and pretend like I don’t like the advances so many women make at me, when I know a few of them I would have definitely bedded. I am fed up and tired of everything.

  “So you just gonna leave?” I ask her once she has everything packed and is heading toward the door. I hate to see her go, but I know I’d be a fool to ask her to stay.

  Her nose is red, and her cheeks are stained with tears as she buttons her coat and wraps her scarf around her neck to protect herself from the harsh March winds blowing around outside. I feel bad. Really, I do, because I don’t want it to end like this, but I know it has to. It’s time to make Nevaeh a part of the change. I need to sort my emotions out, and I can’t do it while she’s here.

  “What do you want me to do, Jaydah? Huh? What do you want me to do?”

  “Forgive me.”

  She doesn’t bother to respond; instead, she pulls her rollaway suitcase through the door and looks at me one last time before closing it.

  I thought I was going to fall to pieces, but a part of me in a weird sort of way feels relief. I can’t give her what she wants right now, not at this point, and in reality I can’t give Midori what she wants either.

  Closing my laptop after saving my script, I turn out all the lights after lighting a few strategically placed candles I have around my place. When I go to the bathroom to run some bath water, I am annoyed that Nevaeh didn’t even bother to rinse the damn tub out, but in that same instant I know that is one of the things I would miss about her.

  Once I rinse the tub clean, I sit inside and allow the tub to fill up while I am in it, making the water extra hot. I know the hot water will soothe the aching muscles in my legs and arms, but there isn’t water hot enough in the world to soothe the muscle that hurts in me the most: my heart. I rest my head on my bath pillow and my feet on the faucet, allowing the bubbles in the tub to cover me up to my neck. My life is in shambles, and a part of me figures I deserve as much.

  I hear my phone ring, but figure it may be Nevaeh calling to reason with me, and I don’t feel like hearing it right now. At the same time it could be Midori, but I don’t feel like hearing her shit either. Instead, I allow Mary J. Blige to serenade me because I feel like she felt in the song I have on repeat. For the other woman there are no happy holidays. That statement couldn’t be truer, but am I willing to give up all the other days in between?

  Sinking further into the tub, I think about going all the way under and staying there until my soul is taken away, but there is no glory in the life of a dead author. The news of my demise would fly through MySpace and all who thought they knew me would speculate, but on the very next day the world would be back to sweating the next best-seller, and I would be a has-been.

  After sitting in the tub until the water turned cold and my skin puckered like a prune, I quickly wash in the cool water and make my way to my bed, plopping down soaking wet in the very same spot Nevaeh had occupied. I don’t even bother to dry off; I just curl up under the covers and sing along with my girl Mary, while I try to put a plan together. Tomorrow is going to have to be better because, on the real, I am running out of options.

  Hypothetically

  Midori

  “So are you going to do it, or should I?” I ask Ray as we share space at the breakfast table. He is reading the daily news and seemingly enjoying his meal, while I sip a cup of hazelnut coffee, not really tasting it, but drinking it anyway. Ever since I found that picture and the reality of what we were doing to each other set in, I’ve looked at him differently.

  Of course he fed me a bunch of bullshit last night about always loving me and never wanting to lea
ve me. He was so apologetic, but not enough for me to surrender and give him some pussy. Cheating is one thing, but knowing who he cheated with is different. That bitch had been in my house and had broken bread at my table, all with a snide-ass smile on her face. I could just imagine that same ridiculous-ass smile down at the unemployment line. I don’t care where she works, she had better have her ass gone today, and I’ll be definitely making a surprise visit to his office to make sure it was done. Hell, her husband has a practice; she could go and work for him.

  “Should you do what, honey?” he asks me, not even looking up from his paper.

  I have to control my reflexes from tossing my hot cup of coffee on his ass, but I play it cool. You can’t game a gamer, and if nothing else, I’ll have shit my way.

  “Fire Barbara. Should I go do it, or will you?”

  I’m not in the mood for beating around the bush this morning. Hell, I don’t even know why he is keeping her ass around anyway. All she does is sit around the office and talk shit with the other R.N.s who work there. What is she doing that anyone else around there couldn’t do? Okay, she is in charge of distributing meds, but I’m almost certain there is someone there dying to take her spot. No one is liked by everyone.

  “Midori, I told you I would handle it. Do I come over and try to run your business? Huh? When I told you that Tiffany was stealing medication from your office and trying to sell it on the street, did you let her go right away?”

  “This is hardly the same thing, Ray,” I shout at him, having to put my favorite coffee mug down before I use it to bust him in the damn head. “Tiffany was a thief and was dealt with accordingly. Barbara, on the other hand, is sleeping with my husband and causing problems in our household. There is no need for further investigation because the damn evidence is in your wallet!”