Playing the Hand You're Dealt

by Trice Hickman

  “You don’t want any more children, do you?” she asked as her eyes zeroed in on mine.

  “The thought of diapers and sippy cups scares the hell out of me.”

  “I understand.”

  “But,” I said, taking her hand in mine, “I know you want kids, and you should because you’ll make a great mother. Look at the fine job you’ve done with CJ.” She beamed with pride at the mention of her godson. “Emily, I want us to have a full life together and I don’t want you to feel deprived of anything just because you’ll be with a man old enough to be your father.”

  It was the first time our age difference had come up, so now all the big elephants we had skirted were parading around the room.

  “Does our age difference bother you?” Emily asked.

  “It used to. I felt like a pervert for wanting you. Hell, you could be my daughter.”

  “But I’m not. I’m a woman who loves you.”

  I stared at her closely. I knew I was a handsome man and that I looked exceptionally good for my age, but I was also realistic enough to know that when I turned seventy, she’d be younger than I was now, and that was the part I worried about. Not for me, but for her. “Emily, have you thought about what it’ll be like to be stuck with an old man?”

  She looked down at her hand tucked inside mine. “Of course I’ve thought about our age difference. It’s a bold fact, just like the fact that you’re married and that you’re my best friend’s father. But I love you, Ed, and your age has never stopped my heart from feeling what it does.”

  “Things are great now. But I’m looking down the road . . . ten, twenty, thirty years even. You’re still a young woman. I don’t want you to have regrets.”

  “We don’t know what’s going to happen down the road.You may have to take care of me, I may have to take care of you. But whatever the case, we’ll do it together.” She paused and looked at me with intensity.“I’m young enough to be your daughter, but I’m old enough to know what I want, and I want this. I want everything that comes with us.”

  I leaned over and gently laid her down across the bed, settling my body on top of hers. “Damn, I’m one lucky man,” I said, kissing her as I ran my hand under her tank top. I loved that she didn’t wear a bra around the house. I massaged her breasts as she moaned and spread her legs at the same time. We removed each other’s clothes, ready to take another plunge. I reached over to the nightstand for a condom, but then stopped. “If you haven’t been seeing anyone, why are you on the Pill and why do you have condoms in your nightstand?”

  She laughed. “You’re such a lawyer!”

  “I’m glad you find my question amusing.” I laughed, but I was serious.

  “I’ve been on the Pill for years because it regulates my cycle, and I picked up the condoms from CVS last week.” She winked. She wiggled out of her aqua-colored panties, flung them to the side, and pulled me back on top of her. “After your visit at the school, I thought I might need them.”

  I smiled, ripped the condom open, and headed back to paradise.

  Chapter 30

  Samantha . . .

  Because of Who He Is

  It was midday, Friday afternoon, and I was sitting on one of the plush sofas in the main lobby area at Mazza Gallerie in the Friendship Heights section of DC. I had just finished eating my Così flatbread sandwich after making a sales call at Neiman Marcus, and I decided to take a few moments to relax before my final appointment at Lord & Taylor around the corner. I was excited just thinking about my late-afternoon flight because I was headed to Atlanta to see Tyler.

  It had been seven weeks since Tyler and I reunited, and in that time we’d seen each other every weekend. One weekend he’d fly up here, the next I’d fly down there. I had heard about whirlwind romances; however, I never thought it would happen to me. But Tyler proved me wrong. When I saw him walk into Emily’s house that Saturday morning, I knew that my soul mate had just stepped back into my life.

  The beautiful part about my relationship with Tyler was that he not only loved me, he also loved my son. And guess what? CJ loved him right back. They instantly bonded, and truth be told, Tyler was better with him than I had ever been. I was still feeling my way into the motherhood role, but I was determined to do right by my son. As a matter of fact, CJ would be moving in with me when the spring term started at his school in a few months. And even though his biological father, who will probably be serving a long sentence in federal prison, was going to miss important events in his life like his graduation from high school and college, CJ would have Tyler and my father in his life to help teach him how to become a good man.

  I crossed my long legs and scrolled through the messages on my BlackBerry, thinking about how blessed I was. My life wasn’t perfect, but it was just right for me. I was crazy in love, my best friend was crazy in love, and we might be planning a double wedding ceremony in the near future.

  Emily and I had shared virtually everything, from the happy beginnings that a birth can bring, to the sad endings that come with death. Now we were both in loving relationships, and it was so ironic because when we married our men, we could still end up in the same city again! It reminded me that I needed to call Bradley this weekend and invite him to join Tyler and me for dinner. I knew that would make Emily’s day. She had flown to Atlanta a few weeks ago for a teacher’s conference, but I didn’t think she’d seen Bradley since then. That’s why I knew she’d appreciate me checking in on her man.

  I started gathering my things when I remembered something else. I needed to get Tyler a gift because his nonprofit, YFI, had just won an award for its commitment to children and community service. I was so proud of my man! I thought about getting him a nice tie or a new cologne, but those gifts seemed so typical and too practical. I needed to give him something he’d really enjoy, and I knew just the thing. With a smile on my face, I headed back into Neiman and took the escalator up to the lingerie department.

  Is that Daddy? I thought as I approached the area lined with feminine intimate apparel. I got closer, and saw that sure enough, it was him. He was talking to a sales associate who was holding an ivory-colored lace teddy in one hand and a sexy red baby doll with a matching silk thong in the other. My first instinct was to walk up and ask him why he was shopping for lingerie in the middle of the afternoon, but the answer was obvious. He was buying it for a woman. Now my brain was in overdrive.

  I eased around the side and settled into a space where I could better see and hear what they were saying.

  “So, now that we’ve narrowed it down to these two,” the sales associate said, “which one do you like best?”

  Daddy tilted his head to the side, like he was thinking.

  “Is she more traditional or adventurous?” the saleslady asked.

  Daddy placed his hand to his chin and smiled. “She’s very delicate, but she’s also very sensual. And she’s as much adventurous as she is traditional. She’s a beautiful combination.”

  “That’s such a lovely thing to say. She’s a very lucky woman.” The saleslady blushed, looking like she wished he was making the purchase for her. “I think you should get them both.”

  Daddy nodded. “I think you’re right.”

  “Great, I’ll run and get you a medium in both garments and I’ll meet you at the register.”

  I covered my mouth to keep from releasing the loud gasp that struggled to free itself from the back of my throat as I eased my way out of the lingerie department without being seen. I headed down the escalator and walked outside into the brisk October air, trying to process what I had just witnessed. This was major news and I didn’t know how I felt about it. I had always thought that Daddy should leave Mother, but I suddenly felt a slight pang in my stomach knowing that he was cheating on her. Part of my emotions was a result of the new and improved me, and the other part was that I was a woman in love. I would be hurt beyond belief if Tyler bought sexy lingerie for another woman.

  I hurried around the corner, crossed
the street, and dashed into Lord & Taylor for my last appointment of the day.

  A half hour later I emerged from the store, feeling more conflicted than ever about what I had seen. I sat in my car and pulled out my cell. “Are you home yet?” I asked Emily when she answered her phone.

  “Yeah, I left work early so I can pick you up and take you to the airport like you asked me to, remember? Are you home now?”

  “No, but I’m headed that way as we speak,” I said, making a sharp left turn as I sped up the street. “Can you meet me at my place in twenty minutes?”

  “You sound like you’ve just seen a ghost.What’s going on?”

  “Girl, you’re not going to believe it, but I’ll tell you when I get there.”

  Emily sat on the edge of my bed as I pulled clothes from my closet, folded them, and then gently placed them inside my suitcase. “I wish I hadn’t seen what I saw,” I said. “I mean, who wants to catch their father buying lingerie for his mistress?”

  Emily cleared her throat. “How do you know that it wasn’t for your mother?”

  “Hah!” I laughed. “First of all, Mother would never let her size go up to a medium.”

  Emily looked down at her thighs and crossed her legs.

  “No offense, but you know what I mean,” I said. “Anyway, you’ve seen the way my parents interact. Do they look like anything’s going on between their sheets?”

  “Um, I can’t speculate on that.”

  “Well, I can.” I smirked as I tucked two pairs of stilettos into my shoe bag. “As a matter of fact, the other night when I dropped by the house to spend time with CJ, Gerti told me that they don’t even sleep in the same bedroom anymore.”

  “Really?”

  “Really! Daddy’s been sleeping in the guest room since our party. I guess the drama that went down that night was the last straw for him. And it’s funny because we talk all the time, but he hasn’t mentioned anything to me about the tension under their roof.”

  “Hmm . . .”

  “Emily, he’s having an affair. This explains why Daddy’s been so happy lately. And the way he was describing the woman he was buying lingerie for, he would never talk about Mother in that way.”

  “What way?” she asked with curiosity.

  “All romantic like. You should’ve heard him . . . She’s delicate and sensual,” I mimicked, deepening my tone as I tried to imitate Daddy’s voice.

  “He said that?”

  “Yes. And you know that doesn’t even remotely sound like my mother. Daddy’s never talked about her with that kind of feeling or emotion. I know men, and believe me, he had the look and sound of a man who’s passionately into his woman.”

  Emily smiled wistfully, and then stopped herself.

  “I know,” I said, nodding in agreement to let her know that I understood. “I’m happy that he’s finally happy, too, but . . .” I paused, feeling awkward for what I was about to say. “Do you think it’s weird that I’m not too broken up about my father cheating on my mother?”

  Emily leaned forward. “It really doesn’t bother you?”

  “Actually, the more I think about it, it doesn’t.”

  “Do you think it would make a difference if you knew who the other woman was?”

  “That’s a good question,” I said, bending down to zip my suitcase. I walked into my bathroom and came out with a few toiletries, and then it hit me. “Oh, shit!” I blurted out as an image suddenly floated in front of my eyes.

  “What?”

  “I bet Daddy’s having an affair with a younger woman.”

  Emily blinked twice. “What makes you say that?”

  I came over and sat down beside her, trying to figure out why that thought had popped into my head. I shrugged. “I don’t know, I guess it’s just a feeling I get.”

  “Hmm, that’s interesting. There must be something that led you to that particular conclusion,” Emily said, patiently waiting for my answer.

  This was one of the reasons why I loved bouncing things off Emily. She was a great listener. She never interrupted, which allowed you to complete your thoughts, and she asked follow-up questions that helped you get to the heart of things.Tyler was a lot like that, too. I thought more about my statement, and just like that, I had my answer. “I think the woman he’s seeing is younger because of who Daddy is.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Emily didn’t understand what I was getting at, so I had to break it down to her. “Would you agree that Daddy’s handsome?”

  “Um, yes. I agree with that.”

  “And would you agree that he looks much younger than he is?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay . . . now, I know that you think of him as family. But for a minute, try not to think of him as Daddy,” I said.“He’s handsome, educated, charismatic, and he’s paid. Women from nine to ninety are constantly trying to get with him. Hell, the lingerie saleswoman acted like she wanted to screw him right there in the store.” I laughed. “Daddy has good taste, very particular taste I might add, and at this point in his life I can see him going for a hot young thing who’ll keep his engine going. And like I said, he can pull it off because of who he is.”

  “Hmm,” Emily slightly grunted.

  “Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, and I’m with you on that. I can’t imagine sleeping with a man as old as Daddy.”

  Emily cleared her throat, visibly disturbed by the image.

  “I know, girl. Imagine what it would be like to have a kindergartner and a husband who was on Medicare?”

  Emily crossed her legs and sighed. “Well, everyone has to make their own choices and do what makes them happy.”

  I looked at my friend and shook my head. “Speaking of happy, how are you and Bradley doing? I haven’t heard you talk about him lately and I know you haven’t been to Atlanta since your conference. Has he been coming here?”

  She looked down at her feet. “Samantha, we’re not together anymore.”

  “What? When did this happen?”

  “A while ago.”

  “Emily, why didn’t you tell me before now?”

  “I guess I’m just trying to move on. But don’t worry about me, I am moving on,” she said, trying to sound convincing.

  Emily looked sad and confused all at once. I leaned over and gave her a hug, and that’s when she started crying in my arms.

  There was one other thing that Emily and I had in common besides our shared birthday, and it was the fact that it took a lot to make us cry. The only times I’d ever seen Emily brought to tears were when CJ was born and when her mother died; two very different kinds of emotions. So now, to see her cry over her breakup with Bradley let me know that she was really hurting, and I could understand why. First she broke up with him, then they got back together, and now they’d broken up again. This year had been rough on her.

  I rubbed her back and told her that everything was going to be all right. She was too distraught to talk about the details of what had happened, so I suspected that Bradley had done the breaking up this time.

  In all the years that I’d known Emily, men had never broken up with her. Every failed relationship she had was because she’d decided to end it. She was beautiful and kind, and men held on to her like precious metal. She didn’t have to tell me how things had gone down because I already knew the deal. Bradley did this out of revenge, just to get back at her for breaking up with him in the first place.

  I handed Emily a tissue to dry her tears and tried to get her to laugh by telling her a few jokes about ol’ Hazel. “I hope you have an extra can of oil in your trunk so you can make it back from the airport,” I teased.

  She smiled and tried to act like she was okay, although I knew she wasn’t. But that was all right because I was going to make sure she got the last laugh. My focus shifted from my father and his mistress to the well-being of my best friend. I was pissed that Bradley had bought Emily expensive gifts, wined and dined her, and then dumped her like yesterday’s news.
At least when she broke up with him, she wasn’t spiteful as he’d proven himself to be. She had been honest with him from the jump.

  The more I thought about Bradley’s spineless actions, the madder I became. The new and improved Samantha had been making progress, but right now, it was time for the old me to reach out and touch Mr. Bradley! When I landed in Atlanta, the first thing I planned to do was call him and give him a hard-core piece of my mind.

  Chapter 31

  Emily . . .

  Congratulations

  I dropped Samantha off at the airport two hours ago, and now I was lying across my living room couch, trying to sort out all the thoughts that were swirling through my mind. Sometimes people wondered how they landed in certain situations, but I didn’t have a moment of question or doubt. I knew exactly what I did to end up where I was now—embroiled in a heated affair with a married man, pregnant with his child.

  I remembered the night it all happened, six weeks ago. I had waited eleven long years to be with Ed, and I had wanted him so badly that I threw caution to the wind.We made love on my living room floor, void of a condom or common sense. I was remorseful about my carelessness, and so was he, and after that mistake we made sure that it didn’t happen again. We used up my box of condoms and Ed had taken care of our supply ever since.

  We were diligent. Careful. The model of responsibility. Not once had I missed a birth control pill. But here I sat, pregnant, living proof that it only took one time, one careless slip, and your whole life could be changed in the time it took to close your eyes.

  I had been on the Pill for years and my period usually came like clockwork. But this entire year had been the exception. After my mother died, my cycle became infrequent. One month I’d have it, the next month I wouldn’t. I went to see my OB/GYN, and she had told me that even though I was on the Pill, stress could still cause the inconsistency in my cycle. After I moved to DC, the infrequency continued. But I didn’t worry until yesterday.