Millionaire Wives Club

by Tu-Shonda Whitaker

  Milan hustled down the long and cold New York blocks with Bridget and the camera crew galloping behind her like a team of Clydesdales to Chase Bank.

  “May I help you?” A smiling young man walked over to Milan as she entered the bank and extended his hand.

  She was oblivious to his gesture as she said, “Yes,” more as if she were talking to someone from space than to someone standing before her. “Umm.” She did her best to hold back the tears threatening to spill from her eyes. “I have a problem here.” She handed him the paperwork. “This can’t be so.”

  The young man scanned the papers. He glanced up at the cameras and then back into her face. “Ma’am, we have nothing to do with this. This says foreclosure papers due to tax liens. You need to go and see a lawyer, not a bank employee.”

  “I don’t have any money for a lawyer.” She shook her head. “But… I pay my taxes. I mean … we’re behind, but I pay them what I promise every month.”

  “Perhaps it wasn’t enough,” the young man said sympathetically.

  “It was.” Milan did her all not to cry. “I know it was.”

  “Well, I really don’t know,” he stammered, “what you want us to assist you with.”

  “I need copies of my checks so that I can prove to the IRS I was paying my taxes.”

  “No problem.”

  Milan followed him to his desk, where he pulled up her account on the computer. “Who is Yusef Starks?”

  “My husband. He’s on the account as well. It’s a joint account.”

  “Well, ma’am”—he turned the computer monitor around toward her—“it appears that Mr. Starks has written… let’s see here, ten thousand, six hundred dollars in bad checks.”

  “What?!” Suddenly Milan felt out of breath. “No.” She shook her head. “I was depositing money in this account every month.”

  “Well, we’re prosecuting the two of you. This is a joint account, so you two share equal weight.”

  “What did you say?” she asked as if the bank employee had suddenly started to speak Greek.

  “I’m surprised you’re not in jail.” The employee quickly turned on her. “This is a crime!”

  “A who?”

  “Banks are in enough trouble in this economy, and we don’t need thieves ripping us off!”

  “Thieves?”

  “You owe us ten thousand-plus dollars and we want it!”

  “I need help,” she said distantly. “I don’t have anything left.”

  “I’m calling security. I’m sure there’s a warrant out for your arrest.”

  Black was all Milan could see as her palms started to sweat and she felt as if she needed air. This was wrong, it had to be. This shit was crazy. Yusef was a lot of things but he wouldn’t destroy her like this, not when she was trying to save what little they had. Milan turned her head from side to side. On one side she saw the bank employee looking through her with the phone to his ear, and on the other side of her was a smiling Bridget and a beaming Carl. It was official: She was the walking dead.

  Milan looked toward the bank’s picture window and she could see an oncoming bus. She didn’t know what bus it was or where it was going. All she knew was that she needed to be on it, because somehow and some way she had to outrun the falling sky.

  She bolted out of the bank with the doors swinging behind her and made it just in time to hop on the bus and leave the bank employee, the overweight security guard, and a beaming Bridget and camera crew standing there filming her as she disappeared into thin air.

  It was well into the evening when Milan walked the chilly and ghostly concrete that surrounded the Astroland amusement park, which was closed for the winter. Bits of snow fell from the sky and melted on her head, as she stuck her fingers through the holes in the metal gate and gazed in on the place that encompassed so many memories. Despite how barren it was, Astroland was where she could travel back in time, to a place and a space where all that mattered was having enough nerve to ride the Cyclone roller coaster and how big a stuffed animal you could win.

  She smiled and laughed as memories of great times ran through her mind, and then it hit her, the difference between now and then. All she had in her purse were three dollars, a MetroCard, and a cell phone with a dying battery.

  She tried without success to hold in the cold tears that continuously slid down her cheeks, and before she knew it she was sliding down the gate, crouching to her knees, and barely able to raise her voice above a whisper.

  “So this is it?” A voice invaded her moment of desperation as she crouched on the sidewalk. “You just walking around like you have nothing … nobody…like life is just shit, huh?”

  Milan didn’t look up. She knew it was Kendu. It had to be. Who else would know where to find her? “How’d you know I was here?”

  “I know you.”

  “So you have ESP now?”

  “Nah, Bridget ran to our house and filled Evan in. I overheard.”

  “Oh, so now my life is a bunch of he said, she said.” She shook her head. “Bridget is the fuckin’ worst. No matter what goes on in my life … she sees it as ratings.”

  “And when it airs the people who’ll be watching will see it as TV. So what’s the problem?”

  “The problem is it’s my goddamn life!”

  “You signed it away for reality TV.”

  Milan had gone from feeling desperate to being pissed. Kendu was horrible at being sympathetic. He was strong, and he expected everyone else to be the same way. Though he was a good friend, he was terrible in the pity department. “You’re so fuckin’ inappropriate.” Milan laughed in tearful disbelief as the back of her thighs started to feel numb from the cold concrete.

  “I’m inappropriate,” Kendu said, taken aback. “You’re sitting on the ground in a three-thousand-dollar coat carrying a thousand-dollar bag, looking like somebody stole all your fuckin’ candy, and I’m inappropriate?” He arched his thick eyebrows. “Okay.”

  “I didn’t ask you to come here and rescue me.” She stood up and pointed to his chest. “I don’t need you!”

  “You need somebody.”

  “And you’re it? Furthermore,” she said, wiping her eyes, “I have your number, and if I didn’t dial your digits then what the hell are you sweatin’ me for? Don’t be worried about me. Worry about that looney-ass wife of yours.”

  “Evan is at home. You the one on the ground.”

  “Would you get the fuck out my face, please? Because in a minute I’ma reach up there”—she looked at him towering over her—“and check your fuckin’ chin.”

  Kendu laughed. “You don’t have a reason to be jealous of Evan.”

  “I’m homeless.” Milan squinted her eyes. “And you really think that at this moment I give a damn about that gold diggin’—ass tramp? That’s between you and your pockets!”

  “Listen, I’m not about to argue with you in the street. Let’s go—”

  “Let me tell you something you don’t—”

  “Look, we can talk about this inside.”

  “Inside where? Did you forget that quick that I’m homeless? I can’t believe Yusef would do this to me.”

  “Yusef?” Kendu asked, surprised. “You share in some of the responsibility. Besides, it’s not as if I didn’t tell you not to marry him.”

  “You are really on your own sack right now. You can marry who you want and I can’t?” She rubbed her temples. “This is crazy. I need to find me someplace to live, not stand out here and go back and forth with you. Who gives a fuck anymore what you do and who you do it with! Stay and make more babies with the bitch. What do I care?! This is not about me loving you and what decisions we made and didn’t make. This is about my life being tossed to the wind. About me losing everything, everything!” she screamed at the top of her lungs as tears ran like a marathon down her face. She tried to speak but the words started to crumble in her mouth. “I have nothing but the clothes on my fuckin’ back and three dollars in my pocket! Do you hear me?!
There is nothing left! Nothing! I took my goddamn life, married the Jinn, and I got the hell my hand called for … so oh well.” She wiped her eyes. “Milan is a big girl and I am okay by myself…”

  Kendu walked over and wrapped her in his arms.

  “Get off of me,” she cried into his chest, doing her best to push him away. “You don’t give a damn. Just go on and leave me alone, please. I can’t believe that I don’t even have a place to live.”

  Kendu held her in his arms. “Milan, you know I’m not good with this crying shit. All I know is that I’m here and I’m not leaving you.”

  “What? You gon’ be homeless with me? ’Cause I’m not going to Sag Harbor with you.”

  “I wouldn’t take you to Sag Harbor. I have someplace else that I go to. Ai’ight?”

  “I guess—” She cut herself short, deciding that whatever else she had left to say wouldn’t change her situation.

  “What?” He looked at her, knowing that she’d cut herself off. “Just say it, Milan. Otherwise you gon’ be hintin’ at this shit all night.”

  “Kendu, why is everything so fuckin’ cut-and-dry with you? Sometimes I want you to wallow with me, even if it’s for five minutes, give misery some company.”

  “What, you want me to say some soft-ass shit? Some poetry?” He attempted to make her laugh. “You know Common is my boy. I could spit some rhymes.”

  “Never mind, Kendu. Just take me to the homeless shelter.”

  Kendu laughed. “Come on and just get in the truck.”

  The leather seats in Kendu’s Escalade heated the back of Milan’s thighs as she sat looking out at the New York City traffic, wondering when the night had become so loud. This was the first time she’d ever heard it speak and remind her of all the things she had misused, abused, and simply taken for granted.

  Now she was stuck knee-deep in a pile of shit wondering why she never thought to keep some money tucked away. It was evident that karma was an unforgetful motherfucker, because this was obviously payback for accepting Yusef’s hand in marriage based on his NBA contract.

  “Kendu,” Milan said, noticing they were in SoHo, “why are we here?”

  “I come here when I need to get away.”

  “Get away from who?”

  “My life.”

  “And what am I supposed to do here?”

  “Stay here, and in the morning I’ll give you some money. We can go see my lawyer, pay the bank their money, and then see what else we need to do. After I handle the taxes, you want the apartment back or you want me to sell it?”

  “I don’t want the apartment,” she said, reluctantly. “Do whatever.”

  “Why do you sound like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Unsure? I mean if you want to live there it’s on you, just tell me.”

  “No, I don’t want the apartment. It’s finished, sell it. I just want my things out of it.” Milan shook her head and her hair bounced over her shoulders. “I don’t even know, like”—she paused, tears trembling in her throat again—“if I want this.”

  “Want what, Milan?” He sighed.

  “Why are you sighing and shit? See, I can’t. I can’t do this. I haven’t even moved in and already it’s a problem. I just need to find me someplace else to go.”

  “You have three dollars, where you going?”

  “Knott, do you understand that I just left a situation where I was riding high off another man’s shit, and now I don’t have anything. Look, I know I didn’t tell you, but I’m not volunteering at the hospital, I work there as an emergency room nurse—”

  “You? Work?”

  “What the hell? Why does everyone act like working is a crime? I went to college, I have a degree. I have a nursing license—”

  “Yeah, but you used your degree to snag an athlete.”

  “Is that why you’re here?” she snapped.

  “I could be a garbageman and you would love me.”

  She hated that he was telling the truth. “You really think you’re the center of my universe!”

  Kendu looked at Milan as if she’d lost it. “I’m not doing this with you.”

  “You never hear anything I say. I appreciate your being here, but I feel like I’m spinning my wheels. I can’t go from one man to the next, because I know me, and it’s only going to take a few moments before I’m pretending that all of this is mine.”

  Kendu laughed and then he kissed Milan on the forehead. “You won’t have to pretend, baby, ’cause this ain’t your shit. You know how much I paid for this spot?”

  “Why is everything so fuckin’ funny to you?”

  “Because you so goddamn extra and dramatic. We’ve been sitting here ten unnecessary minutes. I can understand that you feel fucked up, but relax, I got this.”

  “That’s the problem.”

  “Ai’ight, I tell you what, ’cause I will not argue with you. I’m tired, I’m hungry, and there’s a game on. The building is four seventy-five, I’m on the twenty-first floor, and when you get over whatever you’re going through, tell security I was expecting you.”

  “I can’t believe you’re so insensitive! My life is shit and you’re trippin’ because I won’t come spend the night with you?”

  “What? Are you looking for me to beg? You know me better than that. And the truth is, you knew Yusef was smoking that money up and you chose to shop instead of building you a stash. What do you want me to do about it? Pretend like your bad choices didn’t exist?”

  “Forget I said anything.”

  “No, you need to hear this. Because on top of your money being gone, you decide to do some show that requires you to spend more dough while your finances are in the toilet. Did that make sense, Milan? Be serious. This is a joke. You and your husband wasted all of your money and guess what? Bloomingdale’s, Saks, Tiffany’s, and the drug dealers ain’t gon’ give that shit back.

  “So, look, call one of your girlfriends and see if they’ll throw a pity party with you. And maybe Bridget’ll host it, because I’m not. Now, like I said, if you would like to come upstairs, you have the address. Otherwise sit yo’ ass outside and cry.” He kissed her on the lips. “Peace.” Kendu hopped out of his truck and started walking up the block.

  Milan sat there crying. “Shit!” She slammed her hand on the dashboard, causing the alarm to start screaming.

  Instantly her migraine returned. A half hour later the cold from the outside had snuck in and the truck alarm continuously set and reset, keeping Milan’s nerves on edge. She wanted nothing more than a glass of wine and a warm bed, and unless she was willing to camp out at a local church or go to a mission she was sinking in shit’s creek.

  “Fuck it.” She reluctantly eased out of the truck and the alarm started going off again. “Shut up!” she yelled as she headed toward the industrial loft building whose entranceway was so prestigious that it smelled like money, and once she boarded the restored freight elevator it said even more.

  Milan reached Kendu’s floor and noticed that the door to his apartment was cracked open. She walked in and her eyes couldn’t help but roam in delight. Painted concrete floors, exposed rafters and ductwork ran across the twenty-foot-high ceilings. There were floor-to-ceiling windows everywhere, and all of the furniture was white and black with touches of red. Original, signed Malik Whitaker and Lee White paintings adorned the walls, and Kendu’s football jersey hung above the concrete fireplace in a mahogany frame.

  Milan could see the back of Kendu’s head and the back of his muscular shoulders as he sat on his black leather sectional with no shirt on.

  Milan closed and locked the door behind her and then walked around the extended side of the sofa, where she did all she could to fight off the second and third glances she took at the tattooed lion clawing sexily over his left pec.

  “Oh, you were just going to leave me outside?” Milan sucked her teeth, ignoring her desire as she walked past Kendu and sat across the room from him on the end of the chaise.

>   “What? You needed some blankets?” He sipped his beer, never taking his eyes off his seventy-two-inch flat screen, where ESPN was airing a Raiders and Jets game. “Damn!” He suddenly jumped up and shouted at the TV, practically spilling his Heineken on the floor as some of it swooshed out the top of the bottle.

  “Oh, so you just don’t give a fuck?” Milan complained.

  “I offered you some blankets.” Kendu sat back down. “What more you want? I can’t stop it from snowing.” He sipped his beer again. “Yes! That was a good catch, baby!” he screamed at the game, as the Jets’ wide receiver scored a touchdown.

  “So, you don’t even offer me anything to drink?”

  “There’s the fridge.” He pointed to the side.

  Milan was pissed. “What do mean, there’s the fridge? I can’t believe you said some shit like that to me!” She folded her arms across her breasts.

  “Yo, you ungrateful as hell.”

  “Whatever.”

  “What do you want me to say, Milan?” Kendu placed his beer on the floor. “’Cause you’re getting on my nerves.”

  “Fuck it then, if I’m getting on your nerves, never mind.”

  “You know what?” Kendu’s chest jumped and his biceps thumped. “What you need is your ass kicked.” He rose from the couch, got her a beer, and walked over to the chaise, where he saw tears sitting at the base of her eyes. He hated to see her cry because it melted him every time. “Look,” he said, standing between her legs, looking down into her face. “You need to relax.” He unexpectedly ran his hand down her neck and over her cleavage. “Just for tonight, chill, because there’s nothing you can do about your situation right now.”

  “But I don’t have anything.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “For the first time in my life I don’t know what to do. I owe the IRS money. The bank is after me.”

  Kendu squatted to his knees and looked directly into Milan’s eyes. “I wish I could tell you the answers, but I can’t. I don’t even know what the hell I’m doing with my own life. All I know is that after fighting and battling with fucked-up choices, that sometimes I have to come here and lay still, chill, and just say, ‘Not today. Today, I’m straight, and nothing else exists. Period. I’ll deal with it tomorrow.’”