by Mary Monroe
“Lola, I don’t mean to be rude, but I have to go talk to Vernon for a few minutes. He approached me with a real sweet business deal last week, and I need to get more information from him.” Elbert didn’t give me time to respond. He leaped out of his seat and walked briskly over to the table his friend occupied.
Less than ten seconds later, my cell phone rang again. I expected to see Reed’s name on the caller ID, Bertha’s, or Joan’s. I almost choked on my tongue when I saw Calvin’s name! I pressed the answer button so fast and hard, the tip of my finger felt like I’d stuck a pin in it. “Hello,” I said, answering halfway through the first ring.
“Lola, I’m sorry I couldn’t talk to you longer when you called earlier. Are you busy?”
“Um, kind of.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Then I won’t even bother to tell you why I called. . . .”
“Don’t hang up!” I hollered, forcing myself not to sound too frantic. “I’d really like to know why you called.” Of all the men I’d ever known, Calvin was the only one who made my heart skip a beat and the rest of my body tingle whenever I heard his voice. He had to be my soul mate.
“I wanted to know if you could meet me somewhere as soon as you can. I have a really busy schedule, but I’m free for the next couple of hours.”
“You want me to meet you right now?” I wailed. The Tuesday before last when Calvin asked me to meet him at the spur of the moment, I had taken off early from work to do so. That’s how badly I had wanted to be with him. I’d enjoyed our first sexual encounter, and I’d enjoyed the second one when we got together last Saturday. As much as I cared about him, I was not about to disappoint Elbert again by running out on him before we even finished lunch so I could go have sex with Calvin—if that was what he wanted. I loved him, but I had to draw the line somewhere. I didn’t want him to think that I’d be at his beck and call, any time he wanted me.
“If you can’t make it . . .”
“I can’t make it today. I’m having lunch with a friend at the moment.”
Calvin hesitated before he responded. “I see. I’m sorry, Lola.” I could tell from his flat tone that he was as disappointed as I was! “I don’t know what I was thinking. Ever since I talked to you earlier today, you’re all I’ve been able to think about. I thought it would be nice to enjoy your company before I go back on the road tomorrow. A lot of things are coming up with my work, so I might have to spend more time down South this week than I usually do after a run.”
“I understand. I know your work keeps you very busy. I hope your invitation for me to spend your birthday weekend with you in Frisco is still on. . . .”
“I still want you to spend my birthday weekend with me, but July is so far away. Oh well. Do you think you’ll have some time for me in the next week or so?”
“Uh-huh.” I tried to sound as nonchalant as possible. I didn’t want Calvin to know just how anxious I was to see him again. What I really wanted to do was jump up on the table and do a happy dance. “I’ll even take off a couple of days from work and we can spend as much of that time together as possible,” I offered. There was no way in the world I’d ever tell Joan that I’d made such a bold suggestion. I hadn’t even told her that I’d tried on a wedding gown and picked out a name for my first child with Calvin.
“Baby, you just made my day.”
I saw Elbert shuffling back to our table. “Uh . . . same here. I have to hang up now. Bye.” I turned off my phone and slid it back into my purse. “I hope you had a nice conversation with your friend,” I said when Elbert sat back down and dragged his chair closer to mine.
“I did, but I didn’t want to waste too much time with him as long as I have you all to myself for a little while.” Elbert sniffed and looked at me like I was something good to eat.
“Oh,” was all I could say.
Chapter 6
Calvin
“WHO WERE YOU TALKING TO?” SYLVIA ASKED, ENTERING HER LIVING room with nothing but a towel wrapped around her slender body. She stopped in front of me with her hands on her hips.
She rarely busted me, so I didn’t have much experience in wiggling my ass out of tense situations. When Sylvia got in my face—and it was almost always for something as petty as my not putting the toilet seat back down—I apologized. When she got on my case about something more serious, like me eyeballing other women when we were out in public, I got loud and defensive. I was not in the mood for any drama, so I decided to go easy on her this time by playing dumb and innocent. “Huh?” I paused and cleared my throat. “Who, me?”
“Yes, you,” she snapped, pursing her lips into a self-satisfied smirk.
“It was nobody.” My response was pretty stupid because she had obviously overheard me talking on my cell phone. I prayed that she had not heard too much of my end of the conversation.
“Nobody? That’s strange. I heard you tell ‘nobody’ you couldn’t wait to see them again.”
I was edgy, but I didn’t show it. “It was one of my coworkers. You remember that goofy, fat white dude named Roger?”
“Oh, I’ll never forget him and his three chins.” Sylvia laughed. “I can still picture that snaggle-tooth hillbilly gnawing on eight chicken wings, three plates of collard greens, two huge pieces of corn bread, and three servings of sweet potato pie last month when we invited him to dinner. Then he had the nerve to load up a plate to take home.”
I nodded. “He had such a great time; he said he can’t wait to have dinner with us again. I told him I couldn’t wait to see him again too.”
Sylvia plopped down into my lap. “I hope he doesn’t eat like a hog at our engagement party in Vegas tonight.”
“That was another reason he called. He won’t be able to make it. His son was arrested this morning for breaking into somebody’s house. Roger has to stay in town to deal with that.”
Sylvia let out a loud sigh and rolled her big brown eyes. “Kids. Every parent I know is having one problem or another with their kids.” She gave me a pleading look while she massaged my shoulder. “But they are still a blessing, and I can’t wait to be a mother. I’m glad you agreed we could start our family right away. Even then, we’ll be well into middle age by the time our kids reach their teens, so we’ll really have our work cut out for us.”
“Baby, don’t you even start worrying about us having problems with our kids,” I said as I stroked her hair. “Everything is going to be just fine.”
“I know it will be, Calvin. As long as we work together and trust and believe in one another, we’ll have a wonderful marriage and family.”
I was relieved because Sylvia had dropped the subject of my telephone conversation. No matter what I did, she didn’t like to ruffle my feathers, so we rarely squabbled. I couldn’t get over how lucky I was to have found such an amazing woman. I would have married her even if she looked like a baboon. But I was glad she had an attractive face and a nice body. I puffed out my chest as I looked around her living room. The brown leather couch and matching love seat she’d purchased two months ago still smelled and looked brand new. She was an excellent housekeeper. There was not a speck of dust or clutter anywhere in sight. Sylvia was the only person I knew who organized the dozens of books in her bookcase in alphabetical order by title. I often asked myself how come I had waited five long years to propose to this well-rounded woman. She gave me a quick kiss and excused herself to go get dressed.
Fifteen minutes later, she returned wearing a denim jumpsuit. She sat down next to me and squeezed my crotch. “We have time if you want to get busy before we leave for the airport,” she told me in a husky voice.
I definitely wanted to “get busy,” but not with Sylvia. I wanted Lola. “Baby, you must have read my mind.” I stood up and reached into my pocket for a condom. Before I could even open the wrapper, the landline on the end table rang. I shook my head and gave her an exasperated look. She answered it anyway.
“Oh, hi! I’m so glad you called. I wanted to check in with you before we left
for Vegas,” she said with a huge smile. A split second later she frowned and then she remained silent for about a minute. “Shit! I forgot all about it! I’ll be there in ten minutes.” She hung up and gave me a sad-eyed look.
“Who the hell will you be seeing in ten minutes?” I asked hotly.
“That was Sonia. Remember the lawsuit she filed after she got hit by that bus when she visited our grandmother in Brazil last year?” Sylvia and her three younger siblings had been born and raised in the States, but their mother had been born in Brazil, where most of her family still resided.
“Yeah. What about it?”
“The lawyer who’s handling her case sent her a stack of documents she needs to read and respond to. Everything is in Portuguese, and I need to go translate.”
“What the fuck?” I yelled, waving my hand. “Why would a lawyer send her something in a foreign language instead of English?”
“Baby, English is a foreign language to some people. I promised Sonia yesterday that I would do it, but I got so busy today, it completely skipped my mind.”
“Your sister speaks Portuguese and so does your mother,” I pointed out. “Why do you have to translate?”
“Mama’s on a retreat with her church group. And, yes, Sonia speaks the language, but she can’t read or write it that well. She needs to get the papers completed, then notarized and back in the mail by Monday morning.” Sylvia gave me an apologetic look, but I was still pissed off, and horny as hell.
“Well, go on so you can get back in time for a little fun before we leave for the airport,” I said gruffly, waving her toward the door.
“Honey, we’ll make love as soon as we check into our hotel. We’ll have a little time alone before the party starts.”
“Aw, shuck it! I can’t wait that long!” I poked out my lower lip and pouted.
“Baby, calm down. You’re behaving like a two-year-old.” It was hard to tell which one of us was more exasperated. Sylvia blinked hard and wrung her hands. I sucked in a ton of air and shook my head as she continued. “I’m going to be with Sonia at least a couple of hours, so I doubt if I’ll be able to get back in time for us to fool around before we leave.” She looked around the room and then back at me. “Why don’t you go out and have a drink with one of your neighbors or one of your friends? I don’t want you to sit here by yourself.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “I just might do that.” I still had an erection and I had to get it taken care of soon—not hours from now.
Five minutes after Sylvia left, I dialed Lola’s number. She picked up right away, and I wasted no time asking her if she could meet me somewhere ASAP. She claimed she was having lunch with a friend, so getting a piece of tail from her wasn’t going to happen today, but I was not worried about her. I practically had this nasty heifer eating out of my hand, so I knew I’d get ahold of her sweet little ass again real soon.
* * *
When we entered the lobby at the Venetian, one of the most exclusive hotel/casinos on the Vegas strip, I got agitated. For one thing, it was more crowded than usual, and I hated crowds. They made me paranoid and nervous. “Is there a big convention or something going on?” I asked the young clerk when we finally got up to the registration counter after standing in line for twenty-five minutes. It was a few minutes before ten p.m.
“Yes, a couple. We also have several A-list celebrities on board this week, and they’re all traveling with a mob of assistants and bodyguards,” he told us.
“Oh,” I said dryly. One thing I didn’t want to deal with was the kind of chaos that followed big-name celebrities when they came to Vegas. The last time we stayed at the Venetian, the celebrity guest list had included Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. Grim-faced security guards, photographers, and drunken patrons hogging the elevators and acting crazy had turned that visit into a nightmare for us.
I didn’t plan on gambling much or hanging out in the clubs. I wanted to get the party over with so I could focus on other things. Despite the fact that Sylvia was over-the-moon happy, and a couple of my former marine buddies had driven all the way from Sacramento, I felt sad. I cared about her, but I didn’t love her the way she thought I did. Because Glinda had mistreated me so brutally, I would never trust or love another woman. However, Sylvia made me feel special and as comfortable as I’d felt with a woman since Glinda. The main reason I was marrying Sylvia was because I wanted to live like a “normal” man. I wanted to be free of the painful anger that I’d been carrying around for so many years. I was tired of killing women, and I was more than ready to be a father. I was also getting married because I didn’t want to grow old alone. Sylvia didn’t look her age, but she was nearly five years older than me, which meant she was pushing forty. I could understand why she was so anxious to have her first child.
I was convinced that she had never cheated on me, and never would. I couldn’t say the same about myself. I still believed that it was unnatural for a man to be happy with just one woman, but after we got married, I would be faithful to Sylvia for as long as I could.
“Honey, you don’t look too happy,” she noticed. We had just entered our suite.
“I’m fine, baby. I . . . I . . . just had a mild flashback on the way up in the elevator,” I explained as we started unpacking.
“That’s what I figured. It must have been a bad one, because I’ve never seen such a hopeless look on your face like the one I saw a few moments ago. I hope that someday you can forget about the hell you went through in that damn war in Afghanistan.”
“I’m sure I will. I’ll be just fine after a few drinks,” I said, forcing the biggest smile I could manage. “It would take something stronger than a flashback to ruin tonight for me.”
Flashback my ass. Sylvia truly believed that because of my experience in Afghanistan, I suffered from a mild case of post-traumatic stress disorder. It was the lame excuse I used whenever she noticed me looking sad or distracted. The truth of the matter was, I rarely thought about the war and the few nightmares I’d experienced because of it. I had to focus on the real source of my distress: Lola. She was currently my only and worst nightmare. Killing that miserable, whorish, stupid, disgusting bitch was going to be even more pleasurable and exhilarating than killing Glinda.
Chapter 7
Lola
IT WAS ONLY FOUR-THIRTY P.M. AND I COULDN’T WAIT FOR THIS PARTICULAR Saturday to end. I cussed under my breath as I dug through some of the junk on our back porch, breaking two nails and almost dropping a heavy Crock-Pot on my foot.
All kinds of thoughts floated around inside my head. Turning down a date with Calvin because I was with Elbert was the main thing on my mind. I couldn’t understand why Elbert was so interested in me. He could have dated so many other women and probably be married again by now, but it seemed like the more I put him off, the more he pursued me. I knew that he would not give up as long as he thought there was a chance for us to have a serious relationship.
Bertha had told me that she and I would clean off the back porch together, but she hadn’t lifted a finger so far. When I had almost finished stuffing all kinds of junk into boxes that we would transfer to the garage, my forty-four-year-old stepsister, Libby, came out to the porch. “Didn’t you hear me calling you?” she snarled.
I turned around with a forced smile. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t hear you.” Even though she almost always spoke to me in a harsh tone, I went out of my way to sound pleasant most of the time. “Do you need something?”
Libby stood in the doorway with her hands on her double-wide hips. She and her twin brother, Marshall, had mistreated and abused me since my late daddy married their mother, eighteen years ago. Like Bertha, Libby was plain and overweight but she carried herself as though she had been crowned Miss Universe. “Joan’s husband is here. He’s got some crazy notion that she’s been shopping with you since she left home this morning. I told him that you didn’t leave this house until Elbert picked you up for lunch a few hours ago and you’ve been home ever since he
dropped you off.”
As soon as Libby twirled around and went back inside, I snatched my cell phone out of my blouse pocket and dialed Joan’s number. When she didn’t answer, I called the operator at the Hyatt and told her to ring John Walden’s room. He answered right away.
“Uh, I’m a friend of Joan’s,” I began. My heart was beating like a drum. This was the first time I’d called Joan while she was with a date. I didn’t know how much she had told John about me, but she’d told me a lot about him. He was a very successful attorney who lived in Phoenix with his wife and their three kids. Joan had this man so whipped, he had asked her several times to leave Reed and move to Arizona to be his mistress. He’d offered to buy her a house or a condo, put her teenage son in a private school, give her a generous allowance every week, and let her pick out any vehicle she wanted. So far, she had turned him down, but whatever she was doing to the man, it had to be damn good. Every time he came to the Bay Area on business, he made a date with Joan. He had come a couple of times just to be with her. Once he’d even left a safari in Kenya three days early so he could spend the rest of his vacation with her.
“And you are, luv?” he asked. Joan had not told me that John had an English accent, but I should have guessed. He was originally from Jamaica, but he had lived in London for years.
“I’m Lola. I apologize for disturbing you, but I need to speak with Joan about something very important,” I said quickly with my eye on the door. Libby was so sneaky, I had to stay alert at all times. I didn’t even let down my guard when I was in my own bedroom. One night last month, she’d entered my room while I was in a chat room having a steamy conversation with a club member in anticipation of a date. I’d abruptly signed off in the middle of my last sentence. When Libby left a couple of minutes later, I tried to resume the chat, but the dude ignored me. There was no telling how she would react if she returned to the porch and overheard what I was talking about now. I lowered my voice and continued. “I’m a member of Discreet Encounters too and I . . . uh . . . well, she’ll know why I’m calling. Is she still with you?”
