by E. N. Joy
“Good-bye.” Tamarra didn’t seize the opportunity.
“Good-bye, Aunt Tamarra,” Raygene said before she walked off. “And don’t worry; your secret is safe with me. I’ll take it to my grave…. All of them.”
Yes, despite all the secrets Tamarra was finally facing and dealing with, there was more: one that not even her best friend knew.
Chapter Twenty-five
“Hey, I finally get to hear your voice again,” Lynox said into the phone receiver. He’d been waiting to hear from Deborah ever since their ruined official first date. After Elton had finally left him and Deborah to their date, she’d explained a little bit to Lynox about her history with Elton, leaving out the sinful details, of course.
From the way Deborah spoke of Elton and the look on her face while she did so, it was apparent to Lynox that Elton’s return had caused some of Deborah’s feelings for Elton to resurface.
“Look, why don’t I give you some time to let all of this sink in, to perhaps talk to the man? It’s obvious you two could possibly have some unresolved matters that need to be addressed, discussed, or just closure period,” Lynox had stated.
Deborah agreed, which was another reason she had agreed to meet with Elton. If she was going to start a relationship with Lynox, she didn’t want to bring any parts of her old one into it. If by chance she and Lynox did lead into something bigger, she wanted to be able to give her entire self to him, including the piece she feared Elton still might have had.
“Oh, hi. How’s it going?” Deborah replied casually into her phone as if Lynox were one of her girlfriends calling her up to shoot the breeze.
“Are you busy or something?” Lynox asked, cluing in on Deborah’s tone. She had always been much more serious and focused.
“Uh, well, not really.” She knew she sounded a complete mess. Her mind was a mess. He’d caught her off guard. If she recalled correctly, she was supposed to call him after she got her mind right. He wasn’t supposed to have been calling her. Had she known it was him on the ringing phone, had his number not shown up as private, she never would have even answered the phone in the first place.
As she lay in her bed, she pulled the covers up to her neck. She called herself hiding from Lynox, but it was too late. He’d found her.
“I know the last time we talked, we’d agreed that you’d call me, but waiting is not my thing. Don’t get me wrong; there are certain things—and people—that are very much worth waiting for.”
“Oh, okay.” Deborah was keeping it short.
Lynox was surprised at her reply to what he thought was a smooth Billy Dee Williams line. Maybe he hadn’t made himself clear. “You’re worth waiting for, Deborah, in every sense of the word.”
“Mm-hmm, that’s nice.”
Lynox was giving this woman some of his best stuff, yet she was reacting as if he’d stolen his lines from Will Smith’s character in The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. “So, is everything good with you?”
“Yes, very good.”
“Good enough to give us another try at a date? I’ve got an idea, something where we can’t be interrupted.”
Deborah quickly sat up in her bed as if she’d just heard something that startled her. “You know, that sounds great. Just call me back and let me know the day and time. Talk to you soon.” Neither said good-bye. Deborah didn’t allow the opportunity as she quickly ended the call.
“Did you say something, honey?” The bathroom door opened and Elton entered, simultaneously asking the question. His body was still wet from the shower he’d just walked out of. A towel was wrapped around his waist and he held another one, drying his head with it.
“Uh, no, well, uh, yeah. I was asking you if you wanted me to fix you something to eat,” Deborah lied. She was a liar. She was a liar and a fornicator. She was a liar, a fornicator, and a sinner. She was a liar, a fornicator, a sinner, and a backslider. She looked up at Elton, who she’d just backslid with. She felt a tinge of guilt. She was a guilt-filled liar, fornicator, sinner, and a backslider. But to top it all off, Lord have mercy, the girl was whipped!
“How’s your leg?” Deborah asked Elton as the two drove down the highway. They were, yet again, on their way out to eat. In just the past couple of weeks, Elton had taken Deborah to more fancy and expensive restaurants than she’d been to in her lifetime. Last week’s Valentine’s Day dinner was the best. Elton had reserved an entire restaurant for just the two of them. She was enjoying every minute of it.
Deborah wasn’t the only one enjoying herself. Elton was acting like a kid who’d been on punishment and was just let off, instead of someone who’d been overseas playing basketball.
“Actually, the MRI results the doctor here in the States took didn’t appear as bad as the ones taken over in Chile,” Elton confessed. His injured knee was what had brought him back home in the first place. After dunking on an opponent, he came down on his right leg the wrong way and tore the ligament in his knee. Back in the locker room, where they carried him after peeling him off the court in the most pain he’d felt in his life, the team doctor predicted he wouldn’t be able to finish the season or probably start the new one. In other words, his career was pretty much over.
“Well, then all that means is that God is still in the healing business. It’s His report that matters.” Deborah was trying to encourage him.
“Yeah, but even if my knee does fully heal, I just don’t know if I can go back and start over. It will be time for my new contract, and I know they are going to try to play me on the money tip. I’m not starting from scratch. I’m not going backwards and have to work hard all over again to get back to where I was when I left.”
Why not? Deborah thought. That’s exactly what she’d have to do now. She’d managed to go backward in her Christian walk, sleeping with Elton again even after what happened the last time. Now she’d have to work hard all over again to get back to where she was before Elton had come. She couldn’t help but wonder if this was some sort of payback, if Elton had come back to Malvonia to seduce her the way she’d gone to Chile and seduced him.
“But there is something I don’t mind going backwards and having to work hard for all over again.” He briefly took his eyes off the road and looked over at Deborah. “And that something is you.” He admired her. “I missed looking into your eyes, those model-like high cheek bones”—he rubbed his index finger down her nose—“and that perfectly pointed nose.”
Deborah thought she was going to melt like a bar of chocolate right there in the leather seats of Elton’s Hummer he’d been leasing since arriving back in Ohio.
“But I need to know if you are willing. Are you, Deborah Lucas, willing to start over and do things right this time?”
She thought about what she and Elton had before the abortion. They’d been so in love, inseparable. There’d been no major fussing and fighting. Disagreements, yes, but no saying hurtful things to one another that they’d eventually regret. They never could stay mad at each other. Even after he dumped the abortion money on her, left the country, and took over a month to call her again, she didn’t get angry with him. She just reasoned that he needed time to deal and heal, just like she did. Even after he broke off the engagement, stating that he was too consumed by the game to focus on being a husband, she didn’t get angry with him. Again, she reasoned he needed more time—so much time that eventually he stopped calling her at all.
No one at New Day ever really knew what happened. They just assumed Elton had gotten caught up in the status of being a pro ball player, ended up falling into the trap set by groupies, and called off the wedding. No one asked, figuring if Deborah wanted them to know, she would have told them. She didn’t, though. She never told them the wedding was off. The wedding just simply never happened.
“So, Little Debbie, are you willing to give ya boy Elton here another try?” Elton asked after exiting the highway and stopping at a red light.
Deborah, without a single doubt in her mind, replied, “Yes.”
> “Yes!” Elton shouted as if he’d just scored the winning point during finals. He reached over and hugged her. “Oh, Deb, you have just made me the happiest man in the world. As a matter of fact…” He reached into his pocket. “I know I’ve only been back in town a few weeks, but it has been a blessed few weeks. I honestly feel in my heart that God has allowed us to pick up where we left off. I don’t know about you, but in a sense, I don’t feel like we have to start completely over again. I just feel we need to do what we should have done years ago.” Pulling a box out of his pocket, taking the lid off and revealing the largest diamond stone Deborah had ever seen her life, Elton did something Deborah hadn’t seen coming: he proposed…again.
“Deborah Lucas, I have never stopped loving you, and I feel in my spirit that you’ve never stopped loving me. Even after all of this time, baby girl, we still have a connection. That connection is God telling us that we belong together. Let’s do what’s right this time. Let me make an honest woman out of you, Deborah. Marry me.”
“Elton…” Her words trailed off as he slipped the ring onto her finger. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say yes, baby. Say yes, that you will marry me.”
Before Deborah could reply, the car behind them blew its horn.
“The light is green. You better go,” Deborah said, stalling.
“Forget that light. The guy behind us can wait. This is more important.” Looking down at the ring and then into Deborah’s eyes, he asked, “Deborah Michelle Lucas, will you marry me? Will you be my wife? The wife I will love, honor, cherish, and never, ever take for granted? The wife I want to make a new home with, a new life, and to be the mother of my child—the child we should have had together five years ago?”
Could this really be happening? Could God really be giving them a chance to go back in time and erase the bad mistake they’d made? Just in case He was, Deborah didn’t want to give up this chance, this opportunity to wipe her slate clean. So, without further ado, she replied, “Yes, Elton, I’ll marry you.”
Chapter Twenty-six
“Surprise! Honey, I’m home, and I’m all yours.”
Paige could hear Blake calling out as he walked through the front door. She rolled over in bed and looked at the clock that read 5:30 P.M. What was Blake doing home at five-thirty in the evening? Though that might have been a normal time for the average red-blooded, hardworking American, it wasn’t so normal for Blake. In the past few months, eight o’clock in the evening had been the earliest he’d ever made it home, unless he was dropping in to get cleaned up for a business dinner, cocktail party, or something. Even then he was right back out the door again.
Any other time, Paige would have been excited to have her man home early, and from the sounds of it, he planned on staying. But not now. It was too late. She’d slipped into her funk, the funk no one really knew about, or had ever witnessed because she’d been alone all of her life.
“Babe, get up and get dressed, I’ve got a surprise for you.” Blake was excited enough for both of them. He sat down on the bed next to Paige, who was wearing a red plaid flannel pajama pants set. He noticed that the slicked back ponytail she usually wore wasn’t so slicked back. Hair was sticking every which way out of the twisty holder. He lovingly patted her hair down.
Paige flinched when he touched her, and put her hand up as if to tell him not to touch her hair. She thought maybe he needed to check out Chris Rock’s movie, Good Hair. Messed up or not, a woman did not like for a man to be touching all up in her hair. That was reserved for the paid stylist.
“What’s the matter? You not feeling well?” Blake asked. Now he touched her forehead, checking for a fever.
“I’m fine.” Paige’s voice made it sound like she was fine, but her looks begged to differ. Blake had never seen her look so defeated. He was used to walking through the door and finding her at her best regardless. He’d even teased her about being a great candidate for a soap opera on the nights she’d wear light makeup to bed. She’d sleep stiff on her back so not to make a mess of the cream-colored pillow cases. But now there was a mess on the pillow, all right. The mess was her.
“Well, I’m glad you’re fine, because I want you to get dressed.” He looked down at his watch. “I’m gonna change out of this suit as well.” He stood up and loosened his tie. “And if we hurry, we might make it before tip-off.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out two tickets. “I scored another set of tickets to the game, and this time I’m taking my baby.”
Paige couldn’t match his excitement if she tried. “Take Klyde.”
Blake’s excitement was beginning to evaporate like water left in a vase too long. “I don’t want to go with Klyde. I want to go with you. Besides, the reason I’m able to even go is because Klyde is sitting in on a meeting for me. He owed me.”
“Then take Norman,” She shrugged. “He’s good company. I should know; I’ve been dating him ever since I got married.”
Now all of Blake’s excitement was completely gone. His tone was laced with concern more than anything. “And just what is that supposed to mean?”
Paige darted up in the bed. “You know exactly what it means. It means you’ve been pawning me off on him like I’m Dennis the Menace or something. Like I bother you so much that you can’t stand to be with me.”
Blake was thrown for a loop. “Wha…what are you talking about? Where is this coming from?” He sat back down on the bed.
“Oh, please. Don’t play dumb. You’ve been dodging me like the plague. If you didn’t want to be married, then you should have just said so.”
“Are you kidding me right now? You can’t be serious.”
“No, you’re the one who can’t be serious. I’ve been doing everything I know how to get your attention, and now all of a sudden because you’ve got a moment to spare, you want to spend it with me. Well, I don’t need your charity. Go to your meeting, Blake. Give Klyde the tickets; let him take his wife.” Paige’s eyes watered. Blake hadn’t seen tears in his wife’s eyes since he’d looked her in the face on their wedding day and told her that she was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
“I guess I don’t know what to say besides I’m sorry.” Blake stood and ran his hand down his chin. He fiddled with the chin hairs he’d been allowing to grow for a new look. “I honestly didn’t realize you felt this way. I honestly didn’t realize I’d been acting this way.” He thought for a moment. “I guess I have been working nonstop these past months, but I’ve been doing it for us, Paige. For me and you. For you especially. I just want you to have the best. I want you to have everything. And when we decide to have children, I want to already be prepared for them.” Blake’s jaw tightened. “I don’t ever want them going without. Ever! Don’t you understand that?”
Paige flinched once again, but this time it was out of fear. She’d never heard Blake raise his voice like that. She’d never seen him in an angry state. Realizing he’d frightened her, he went and sat back down on the bed and took her hands into his.
“I’m sorry, baby,” Blake apologized. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. It’s just that…” He paused as his words trailed off. “Look, I love you, girl. Every vow I spoke, I meant, including until death do us part. Nothing is going to come between us, but I need you to just hang in there with me while I prepare for our future. The Bible says if you don’t work, you don’t eat. I just want to make sure that my family never has to worry about where their next meal is coming from. We’re young. Let’s sacrifice now and reap the benefits of our sacrifices later.”
Blake sounded so convincing that Paige almost wanted to agree completely.
“I’m just scared,” Paige confessed. “I’m scared that sooner or later you’re going to divorce me and marry your job. Soon I’ll just become the mistress in my own home.”
Blake threw his arms around his wife and assured her, “That will never happen, baby. I promise you. Just let your man do what he needs to do to get us where we need to be, ok
ay? I don’t want to be one paycheck away from homelessness like some of the rest of the world is living. Let me provide us with that security we need.”
“But you’re all the security I need,” Paige told him.
“And you’ve got me. I’m going to try to do better at showing you that. Okay?” He kissed Paige on her nose. “’Kay, sweetheart?” He kissed her again, this time on the lips.
His kiss was so warm, soft, and buttery to Paige, like having popcorn in a dark theater. He kissed her like it was a secret, like she was his secret that he didn’t want to share with a single soul.
“Okay,” Paige agreed, kissing him back. Then kissing him again. She reached to grab his head, to caress it, but then he pulled away.
“Now do like I said and get dressed. I don’t want to miss tip-off. Maybe we can even grab a late dinner afterward.”
Before she could say a word, he was floating off to the bathroom and closing the door. She pouted like a two-year-old. The heck with tip-off and dinner, she wanted to shoot right for dessert. She wanted him to be her dessert and she his, but once again he’d left her high and dry. He’d talked a good game, dang near killing her softly with his words; then he yanked the needle off the record, and just like that, things were back to how they had been only moments before he’d entered the room. Just overnight it seemed she’d gone from being made to feel like the only woman in the world by Blake to feeling like the only woman in the world…period.
She couldn’t live like this. She wouldn’t live like this. Something had to give or else she was going to give up.
Chapter Twenty-seven
“And you should have seen her, dressed up like a sunflower. It was the cutest thing I’d ever seen, I promise you,” Maeyl said. He was talking about Sakaya and her role in the play at her preschool. Ever since they’d sat down at Family Café all he’d talked about was his little girl. “Me, volunteering in the CDC Head Start classroom: who would have thought it? But you know, this Daddy thing, although I was scared to death at first, just came natural. Sakaya just looks so proud when she sees her daddy walk into that classroom when I read to the kids. And you know, the other kids love to see me coming too. You can tell a lot of them don’t have fathers at home. I wish there was some way to get more male involvement in the classroom. I mean, why is it that just the moms are room parents and at the PTA meetings? Seems like if more men stepped up, then we’d have less troubled boys and young men in prison, if you know what I mean. My father always taught me…”
