Millionaire Wives Club

by Tu-Shonda Whitaker

  Milan felt like slapping the shit out of him. Apparently he didn’t have a single bone of embarrassment over the obvious lies that slid like butter off his tongue. She wanted to tell him to shut the fuck up; they’d just gotten in the door and already he was lying. But because she knew he would take that opportunity to embarrass her, she changed her mind and looked back at Evan. “Dinner smells wonderful.”

  “Oh, the chef really laid it out,” Evan bragged as they all walked into the dining room and took their places at the table, where chilled glasses of Dom were waiting for them. “I told him that this was sort of a peace meal, you know.”

  Milan nodded.

  “Listen, Milan,” Evan said, grabbing Kendu’s hand and slyly draping his arm around her, “I know we have had our share of misunderstandings.”

  “Yeah we have,” Milan agreed.

  “Misunderstandings?” Yusef laughed. “Shit, the last time y’all were together I just knew somebody was gon’ get they ass beat. And Evan”—he sucked on the toothpick he’d stuck in the corner of his mouth—“you may have stayed skinny over the years, but my girl here,” he said, gripping Milan’s shoulder as if he were feeling for a muscle, “don’t let that tight waist and flat stomach fool you. Did you see that ass? Large like a ma’fucker.” He looked at Kendu as if he were expecting an accompanying laugh but he didn’t get one. Nevertheless Yusef carried on. “Serena Williams don’t have shit on Milan. Fa’real, dawg, Milan mighta whupped yo’ li’l ass to the ground.” He shifted the toothpick to the other corner of his mouth. “I ain’t sayin’ but I’m just sayin’ you mighta wore an ass whippin’ that day. Feel me?”

  Embarrassment flooded Milan’s face. “Why did you have to say all of that?”

  “All of what, Milan? I was just making a statement that you ain’t to be fucked with. What, Da Truef can’t even take up for you now?”

  “No, he can’t,” she quipped.

  “Ungrateful ass. Can’t help yo’ ass out for shit.”

  Milan ignored him and looked back to Evan. “Look,” she said, “we need to try and get past all of the arguing and nonsense. We’re together all the time now and we need to learn to get along.”

  “Exactly,” Evan agreed. “I mean, we’re too classy for this kind of foolishness. And we don’t need all of this negativity.”

  “So,” Kendu said, “let’s raise our glasses to friendship, love, and a renewed vision of what beauty really is.”

  They clinked their glasses. “Cheers!”

  During dinner and some light chatter about the weather, politics, and sports, seemingly out of nowhere Kendu started to laugh.

  “You ai’ight, bruh?” Yusef looked at Kendu with one eye closed.

  “Yeah.” Kendu grinned. “I was just thinking of something.”

  “Oh ai’ight, you better tell us what to hell the thought was, because the way you started laughin’ to yourself, I thought you had a splif. I was ’bout to say we can light that up in the driveway right now.” He shook his head to the side for emphasis.

  Milan blew air out the side of her mouth.

  “What?” Yusef attempted to whisper. “I said something wrong again?”

  “What was so funny?” Milan said to Kendu, ignoring Yusef.

  “Remember when we were all broke?”

  “Like it was this morning.” Milan smirked. “What made you think of that?”

  “This linguine. I remember at Morgan the closest we got to shrimp and pasta anything was some damn shrimp-flavored ramen noodles.”

  “Hell yeah,” Milan said, falling out laughing, “and to spice it up we used to put hot sauce in it.”

  “You ate that?” Evan frowned.

  “He never made that for you, Evan?” Milan asked, surprised.

  “No.” She looked at Kendu and playfully rolled her eyes. “He tried though.” She looked back to Milan. “But I specifically told him when you get it a little more together then you step to me.”

  “Wow, well, obviously”—Milan slyly rolled her eyes toward Yusef—“I didn’t have that much discretion.”

  “So what are you saying?” Kendu asked. “You ain’t like my noodles?”

  “No.” Milan laughed. “I’m just saying that you were a cheap ass. Every time I came to your room I didn’t want you fixing me a ten-cent pack of noodles.”

  “You shouldn’t have come hungry.”

  “Whatever, you didn’t say all that when you had me tutoring you in math and you couldn’t pay me.”

  “That’s what the noodles were for.”

  “You have always been cheap. When we were kids and I begged you to take me to Astroland you would never buy hot dogs or cotton candy from the concession stand.”

  “Hell no, you know how much money I spent winning you those big-ass prizes?”

  Milan laughed so hard that she fell back against her chair. She wiped the tears from her eyes. When she looked at Kendu everyone else in the room seemed to disappear. “Knott, remember when you were pledging?”

  “Knott?” Evan frowned. “Who is Knott?” She looked confused.

  Milan sat up. She’d been thrust back into reality. She smirked and said, “What?”

  “Who are you calling Knott?”

  “Kendu,” Milan said, taken aback. “I’ve always called him Knott.”

  “Really?” Evan arched her eyebrows. “Knott?” She turned to Kendu. “Since when did you pick up a nickname that your wife doesn’t know about?”

  “It was a name I had as a kid. My friends from the block gave it to me because I always claimed to have a knot in my pocket,” Kendu said.

  “A name from the block?” Evan turned back to Milan and snapped at her with a tinge of sarcasm in her voice, “You do realize he’s not on the block anymore?”

  “No.” Milan returned Evan’s dash of sarcasm. “I thought for sure your spending habits had him out there.”

  “Ding.” Yusef stuffed his mouth. “Round one. My money goes on the big girl. Hey yo.” Yusef turned to the maid who had just come into the room. He pointed to the Cabernet they brought and said, “Homegirl, crack this open for me, it’s ’bout to be on and crackin’ in this piece.” The maid opened the wine and Yusef looked at Evan and Milan.

  “Chill,” Kendu whispered to Evan.

  “Don’t tell me to fuckin’ chill.”

  “You pissed, huh, Evan?” Yusef said, sipping his drink. “But I feel you, ’cause I’m sittin’ here like, these ma’fuckers gotta lotta damn memories: kids and shit, Astroland, cheap-ass noodles. What the else was y’all doing? Playin’ kiss a girl, get a girl?”

  Kendu looked taken aback, and Milan snapped, “Please, we’re childhood friends, that’s it.”

  “Well, a whole lotta them ma’fuckers end up on the playground bustin’ cherries, so what exactly is you sayin’?” Yusef said.

  “Good question.” Evan slightly rolled her eyes.

  “Don’t let him get you hyped,” Milan said to Evan as she pointed toward Yusef. “If you’re pissed this is not who you wanna follow, trust.”

  “Pissed.” Evan playfully waved her hand. “Girl, please. I know for a fact that you and Kendu are best friends, especially since—” “Since what?” Milan crossed her legs.

  “Let me put it this way, I wish I could be like you, relaxed and just let myself go. But with this man”—she pointed her thumb toward her Kendu—“not.”

  Milan sat there for a few minutes. She wanted to cuss this bitch out. But she changed her mind, especially since the thought entered her head to drag Evan across the table and whup her ass for the old and the new, but that, too, soon became a passing thought. Then she looked at Kendu, who’d just said to Evan, “Let me speak to you for a moment.” And she chose to shut up, because she knew if she opened her mouth that anything was liable to come out.

  “Excuse us.” Evan smiled as she and Kendu walked into the kitchen. Once they disappeared from sight, the camera guy zoomed in on Milan and Yusef. “Tell the camera, how did that make you feel?”<
br />
  “I don’t feel any kind of way.” Milan gave half a grin. “Evan will always be exactly who she is.”

  “Listen,” Yusef snorted, “this is how I feel about the situation, and Da Truef is gon’ try and be as diplomatic as possible. No matter how you slice it, them two”—he pointed toward the hall-way—“is some bougie motherfuckers.”

  “How you gon’ say something like that sitting at their damn table?” Milan snapped. “Oh my God.” She waved her hands.

  “Me?” Yusef looked at Milan as if she’d lost her mind. “You were the one who stole on this chick in her living room just a few weeks ago. All I’m sayin’”—he looked into the camera—“is that the food is free and I spent my last dollars on this wine”—he tapped the bottle—“and I ain’t leavin’ till it’s gone. So, what I think, or better yet what I feel, is this: My wife better act right, cool out, and if she wanna light Evan’s ass up, all I need is a minute to get full, get me a steady buzz goin’ on, and then if she want we can jump the broad. Feel me?”

  As Kendu and Evan walked back toward the table, Milan said, “Shut … the…fuck … up.”

  The camera zoomed out and allowed Evan and Kendu their space to retake their seats at the table. “We had to tuck our daughter in.” Kendu arched his thick eyebrows.

  “Listen, Evan,” Milan said, attempting to return the conversation to a decent level, “The other day Bridget suggested that we take a trip to bring the New Year in.”

  “Oh, girl, please.” Evan flicked her hand. “Not. I want to bring my New Year in with my husband and our child.”

  Milan hated the feeling of a verbal knife entering her chest. She cleared her throat. “I can understand that, but you never know. Maybe a tropical island someplace. An escape from winter, just the girls. It just might turn out to be fun.”

  Evan hesitated. “Maybe.” She looked toward Kendu. “What do you think?”

  “I think you deserve to go.”

  Evan smiled. “He is always so sweet.” She pecked him unexpectedly on the lips.

  “Give me a kiss.” Yusef looked at Milan.

  “A little later,” she whispered and patted his hand. “I don’t wanna pull down my pants in front of company.”

  “So,” Kendu said, attempting to get past the exchange that had just happened between his guests, “Yusef, since you’ve been off the court, what’ve you been doing?”

  “Trying to convince Milan to let me get on her back and shovel snow.” He cracked up laughing.

  “Oh-kay,” Evan said, and they all finished their meals up quietly.

  The evening lasted for another hour before Yusef and Milan prepared to leave. “Thank you so much for inviting us,” Milan said.

  “Yeah, this was fun,” a half-drunk Yusef agreed. “I’ma go to the car.” He pointed toward the door. “I think the driver just pulled up.”

  “Mommy! Mommy!” Aiyanna yelled at the top of her lungs. “Come ’mere quick!” she cried. “I just had a bad dream.”

  “Thanks for coming, Milan,” Evan said. “But the boogey man never goes away.”

  “Take care, Evan.” Milan waved as she watched the cameras follow behind Evan.

  Kendu walked Milan to the door, and as soon as Evan was out of their sight and the double mahogany doors that led to the bedroom quarters were closed behind her, Milan turned swiftly around and said, “What the fuck is your problem?”

  Her sudden change in disposition and her flaring attitude caught Kendu so off guard that he automatically took a step back. “Huh?”

  She pointed her index finger admonishingly in his face. “I have enough fuckin’ problems. I don’t need for you to be coming on to me!”

  Kendu closed and locked the doors to the entryway where they were standing, blocking them off from the rest of the house. He walked up so close to Milan that her mouth was practically kissing the base of his neck. He leaned over her and looked down into her face. The sweet essence of his cologne was drowning her. “I can’t undo the pain my choices may have caused you. And either you understand that or you don’t. But I wasn’t coming on to you. I was holding a conversation with you.”

  “Whatever, Kendu. I forgot you’d joined the church of the self-righteous.”

  He chuckled a bit. “Know what, just say it.” He looked Milan in the eyes. “You have something that apparently you’ve been wanting to express, at least all night, so say it.”

  “I just don’t like the shit you did.”

  “Why? Tell me.” As she was about to speak he placed his index finger at the center of her lips. “And don’t lie.”

  “All those memories … remember,” she said mockingly, “when we were broke.”

  “This isn’t about us being broke. Try again,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “And noodles…” She twisted her neck. “Remember that.”

  “This damn sure ain’t about noodles.”

  “You didn’t have to recall the shit in front of your wife.”

  “You’re concerned about my wife?”

  “I don’t give a damn about her ass.”

  “So get to the point.”

  “I’m at the fuckin’ point.”

  “You know what, Milan, let me hit you with this real quick—”

  “No, let me—”

  “Interrupting me is a bad habit. Stop it. Now, we’ve always been cool. Always. I could tell you anything and you know you could tell me anything. In college I enjoyed your company like you were my sister, but after we made love you could no longer be like my sister.”

  “The problem was you were fucking me and Evan.”

  “But I was with her first.”

  “And I was pregnant first!”

  “You were pregnant?” Kendu paused. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”

  “What, it would’ve been the tiebreaker? Kendu Malik, please, I had an abortion, so it’s fine.”

  “I don’t believe you did that. You could’ve told me that.” He shook his head in disbelief.

  “And what would you have said?”

  “To give me a minute.”

  “I didn’t have a fuckin’ minute then!”

  “So what do you have now? I’m here. I’m listening.”

  “I have nothing to say.”

  “You have a lot to say. So what? Wassup?” He paused and seeing that she didn’t respond, he carried on, “See, your problem is that you’re in love with me, and this whole shit, this reality show, this shit with Yusef, this shit with Evan, and this holier-than-thou routine, this shit is an act.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know what I’m talking about.”

  “What, how much Evan loves you?”

  “Please, Evan doesn’t love me. Evan loves what I represent.”

  “So what? She’s with you for the money?”

  “It’s more than the money. It’s about the power, the ability to have access to so much, and the high it gives her. If she could nut off having the world at her fingertips she would … hell, maybe she does. But so what? I can’t be her knight anymore.”

  “So what are you telling me this for?” Milan wasn’t sure why, but tears had welled in her eyes. “I don’t see where any of this is my business.”

  “Just tell me you love me, and you want me, because in a minute you gon’ explode and I can’t love you back if you burst into pieces.” He pressed his lips against hers. “Tell me you love me,” he whispered, “so I can tell you back.”

  “I can’t do that.” Tears slipped between her lips. “I can’t.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Knott.”

  Kendu licked the outline of her lips. “You’re the only person I still let call me that.”

  “Knott.” Milan found herself pecking him back on the lips repeatedly.

  “Tell me you love me in three words.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You too fuckin’ hardheaded,” he said as they started to kiss, slowly at first and then rapidly and repeated
ly, swallowing each other’s breaths and liquidating their thoughts of needing to have the other, yet knowing the reality.

  “I’m not going to be your mistress.” Milan broke their kiss. “I love me too much to play background to Evan again. Besides I have a husband.”

  “Do you love him?”

  Milan took a step back. “I gotta go.” She attempted to walk away and Kendu pulled her back to him.

  “When you start running from me?”

  “When you start coming on to me?” Milan squinted her eyes and snapped, “I have enough problems. I don’t need to be your reject bitch.”

  “I’m not Yusef.”

  “Look, I really have to go.”

  “Talk to me. What the hell is your problem?!”

  “I’m miserable!” she practically screamed. “That’s what the fuck the problem is, and I’m tired, I’m so fuckin’ tired.”

  “But you don’t have to be.”

  “Milan!” Yusef screamed as he had the driver lay on the horn. “Bring ya ass. You know Bobby Brown’s reality show Gone Country is about to come on, and if I miss that shit it’s gon’ be a problem!”

  “Misery’s calling.” Kendu opened the door and nodded toward the car.

  Milan stepped out the door and within a matter of moments she and Yusef were driving away.

  “You coming to bed, baby?” Evan walked up behind Kendu and kissed him on the neck.

  “Evan.” Kendu was startled. “What are you doing?” He turned around and spotted the camera and the boom mic hanging over his shoulder.

  “Shhh… let’s just finish this night in peace. Make some beautiful love.” Evan wrapped her arms around him. “I want you, Kendu.”

  “Stop it.” He turned to face her, while watching the camera in his peripheral vision.

  She grabbed his hands. “Please don’t do this.”

  Kendu snatched his hands back. “I said stop it.”

  “We have to work through this. You’re just mad,” she said in a panic. “You’re just upset, but we can do something about this. We can.”

  Kendu shook her. “Evan, what the fuck!” he said frantically. “You’re driving me crazy! Do you hear yourself? Do you? When are you going to stop crying and begging me? Damn, just leave me the hell alone or, better yet, act like I don’t even exist.” And he turned away, brushing Carl on the shoulder as he passed him by.