Chapter 3
Corey felt the mounds of his wife’s posterior on his hand and arm as she sleepily changed positions in their bed, arousing him. She wore a satin pajama camisole and shorts. One of the straps gave way to expose her bare shoulder that was equally as smooth as the material. He ran his hand down her shoulder and the length of her forearm, admiring the stark contrast in their skin tones—her chocolate to his pound cake. Her hair wrapped just over her bangs with a silk paisley scarf made her look like a sexy gypsy.
Looking at the clock, he realized it was still early yet. Predawn. His body was programmed from the workweek to wake early. Pill’s alarm clock was set for six A.M. on the Saturdays that she expected her Morning Glories at the shop. He debated whether he should wake her. There was something about that early morning love, he thought. It seemed like this was the only logical time that he and Pill could rendezvous since they both were usually exhausted by day’s end.
Corey gingerly rolled on top of her, supporting most of his weight through his forearms. He began nuzzling and nibbling at her neck like a hungry lion until she began to stir. He ignored her mumbles of foggy objection. His desire begged for her total cooperation. His aim was to convince her that sleep could wait. His urge couldn’t.
“C’mon, baby,” he begged.
“What?”
“It’s been more than two weeks. Don’t you think it’s about time you show your hubby some attention?”
“Not now, Corey, I’m sleepy,” Pill whined, curling away from him in a fetal position.
Corey pressed his body into hers, hugging her close from behind. She tried to shrug him off. He waited a few minutes before sliding his hands toward her midsection. She slapped them away as he attempted to go exploring under her top. They played this game back and forth, back and forth, until the alarm clock sounded.
Pill didn’t seem in a hurry to silence it. Resisting the urge to hurl it across the room, Corey yanked back the covers and stomped off to the bathroom. He needed to calm down before he lost control of his temper. He thought about what Deacon Tripp said to the men at the husband’s-only session of Marriage Maintenance. Every arousal isn’t an urgency. He thought the deacon was joking. That was something men told their teenage sons so that they wouldn’t engage in premarital sex, but he was married.
It seemed what he desired wasn’t even an inclination to Pill. Deacon Tripp also coached them on the importance of setting the right emotional atmosphere before expecting to be intimate with their wives. He called the session, “the climate before the climax.” They were provocative titles for a provocative subject. No man wanted to admit that he was having problems in that particular area. I must be doing something wrong with Pill, Corey thought. He refused to believe the flame was gone after only six months of marriage.
After a few more minutes of pouting, he returned to find her in their walk-in closet, pulling stacks of jeans off the shelf and onto a nearby ironing board for inspection. He piled their pillows on top of one another to create a prop for his bedside view. He was always in awe with the beauty and glow of her skin that left her looking flawlessly fresh, even straight from bed.
“What I got to do, Pill? I’m serious; let me know.”
“Don’t start that, Corey,” she pleaded, coming out with a pair of denims slung over her right shoulder. “Gosh, can’t a person get a decent night’s sleep?”
“That’s all you want to do.” He felt his temper flaring again. “You’re twenty-four and already acting like an old lady.”
“Great, now we’re name-calling,” she said in that curt and condescending way that he hated. “Sex is all you ever seem to think about.”
“Can I help it if I’m incredibly turned on by you?” He was sitting up now, trying to appeal to her. “It would be nice to feel every once in a while that my wife wants me.”
“You should have known that when I married you, I didn’t sign anything that said I had to show you every day.”
“It’s going on three weeks,” he yelled.
“Love doesn’t keep score, Corey. Isn’t that what Deacon Tripp said? Now you’re keeping an attendance record of our lovemaking.”
If I were taking attendance, I would have to mark you absent the last couple of times we actually had sex, Corey thought. It was like she was phasing out that part of their relationship without any prior warning to him.
He watched her add a shirt and undergarments to the wardrobe she carried on top of her shoulders before taking off to the bathroom. The sway of her hips tormented him.
“That’s what I’m talking about. You don’t even get dressed in front of me. A brother can’t even get a peek? Was sup with that?” he called to her through the bathroom door that was left ajar.
“First off, you’re going to stop yelling. Second, I got a lot to do today. I’m trying to get ready,” Pill said. He could hear her brushing and rinsing her teeth before beginning again. “I’m trying to hurry up to meet my first client. Hopefully, that will give you some space to calm down.”
He wanted to scream, “I don’t need space. I need to get busy,” Corey managed through clenched teeth.
“Charming,” he heard her say.
When he tried to be charming, she rejected him. He knew he needed to let it go. Chalk it up to a lost cause. He crawled under the sheets with the intentions of going back to bed until he caught a whiff of her scent with the slight hint of her favorite body cream, Paris Rain. She had all his senses open. His hormones were making a case for him to try yet again.
Corey tiptoed downstairs. By the time Pill came out of the bathroom, he was at the foot of the bed with a single rosebud surrounded by baby’s breath from his mother’s bouquet chilling in the refrigerator for her party later. Pill couldn’t help but smile at the token. He was ready to make up.
“Have a great day, baby. I’m sorry for yelling. Let’s make up as only man and wife can before Momma’s party. What do you say? Later would be greater,” he suggested, offering her the flower with his best devilish grin.
He felt optimistic when she walked between his outstretched legs and kissed him, giving his full bottom lip a slight pull before releasing it. A new fire brewed in his thin pajama bottoms. He wouldn’t let her go.
When she kissed him again, he felt it. It was like a free fall into bliss followed by a tense hesitation. That jolt had interrupted their recent interludes, like the violent head jerk that wakes a person from nodding off into la-la land.
“Dag, girl, how can you kiss me like that, and then walk away?” he said, rubbing his bare chest.
“Corey, I have to go,” she begged.
He watched as she placed the rose on her nightstand amidst rings, bangles, and other jewelry. Then she went on the pursuit of the appropriate footwear for her outfit. She was on her knees searching under the bed. Corey felt that for a woman who loved clothes and shoes, she didn’t take care of them very well. It was time they cleaned up. She had hundreds of shoes, purses, and belts strewn about. “What time are you getting off? Three or four?”
“It’s probably going to be more like six. I got to do this favor for Carmen,” Pill replied, taking her search to the closet.
He knew which shoes she wanted. He had pushed her ivory boots behind the closet door in hopes she wouldn’t find them. “You told her that it is my mom’s party tonight, right? Six will put you here too late. We’re going to miss the surprise. Just tell her you can’t help her today.”
“I can’t; I owe—” She stopped abruptly like she had said too much already.
This time, he met her at the door of the walk-in closet. “Wait a minute. You did pay your booth fee, right?”
The silence gave him his answer.
“What the . . .” He stopped and measured his breaths in an attempt to control himself. “What in the world happened to your booth fee?”
“It will be sported on your mother’s back tonight.”
Oh no, she didn’t. He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it.
“Yo’, don’t go there. I know you are not even trying to blame this on our contribution to Momma’s gift, which wasn’t nearly six hundred by the way.”
“I wanted to keep my money separate, but you demanded I deposit my earnings.”
“It’s our money, and I told you to make a deposit because you have a big gaping hole in your smock or something. It’s funny that the money the clients give you never makes it home at bill time. And now you don’t even have your entire booth fee? If you’d just write down what you spend, we’d be all right. Or better yet—stop spending.” The words marched out of his mouth with no regard to tone or volume.
“Oh, like you wrote down your last get-rich attempt that ended up costing us money.”
That was low, Corey thought. He and his buddy Tyson had been talking over a year about owning their own moving and hauling business. They started using an old flatbed truck Ty inherited from his uncle to pick up odd jobs on the weekend. Corey borrowed the truck one weekend Ty was out of town to haul away a few downed tree limbs for a few residents in the adjoining neighborhood following a recent storm. After pulling into the development, he realized the jobs were way more than he could handle himself, and he had to end up paying a couple of buddies to assist.
“I bet we’ll find out where your money went when you reveal your outfit for the party. You are like the Cash Money Millionaires. Got to be the Number-One Stunner.”
She rolled her eyes at him to show that she didn’t appreciate being compared to the tattooed, iced-out, grill-wearing rappers.
“Did you at least pay the cell phone and electric bill?” he asked, trying to mentally figure out their finances.
“Yeah, I think so,” Pill said, no longer looking for the boots, neither looking at her husband.
“Think so?” He was yelling again. “This is stuff you’ve got to know. I can’t understand why you’re so nonchalant about our money.”
“The lights are still on, right? I bet if you push the talk button on your cell phone, you’ll get a dial tone. You’ve got me to thank for that,” she said, looking around in a quandary.
“Good. That’s what you’re supposed to do.”
“And you’re supposed to bail me out with my booth fee when you go to the bank today to cash your paycheck. I’ve got to get Carmen off my back.”
“I’m not cashing my check. I’m depositing it. You want a roof over your head, right?”
“Are you going to help me or not?” Pill tossed her head to the side to get her bangs out of her face. She had finger combed her hair straight, but would come home with it fully coiffed.
He thought about what she was asking. “Are you going to give me some tonight?”
“Okay, I’m going to pretend like you didn’t just proposition me like some prostitute. I’ve got to go,” Pill said after practically hitting him with the closet door as she finally spotted her favorite ivory boots with the spiked gold heels. She gave a satisfied smile after pulling the ankle-length boots on. “Do what you got to do so you won’t be late to your mother’s party. I’ll meet you there.”
Corey got a whiff of the Paris Rain as she waltzed past him. This was not how he wanted his morning to go. He knew he could forget about taking attendance, but he had a feeling that their love life would be on hiatus for a while.
Chapter 4
Corey cashed his entire paycheck after all, rather than deposit it. It felt odd carrying around all that money. In general, he felt a man needed a little pocket money for incidentals. He felt that a knot in his pocket reassured him that he was not working in vain even if that knot was full of ones and fives most of the time. In the short time he declared his independence from his family, he’d come to base his life on faith and the tenth of his earnings owed to the Lord. He always subtracted his tithes that he would give on Sunday and felt content to live off a tenth himself until the next time he got paid. It was his twenty-eighty rule. His wife didn’t live off that philosophy.
He wasn’t certain whether he was going to bail Pill out, especially since she neglected to tell him that their account was overdrawn, a common courtesy. An overdraft on their account was a hard thing to recover from. He knew firsthand that banks didn’t mind people owing them money. That way, they can charge an astronomical fee on top of the deficit. So they would have to spend the next two weeks to a month holding their breath, making sure nothing else was drawn off their account. He called it living lean. The only problem was that Pill didn’t know how to cut the fat. As far as he was concerned, Pill could just sweat it out with Carmen until she learned a lesson. Let her see how it feels to come to the bank and find no money in it.
He called his sister, Danielle, or Dani as she was called, before heading over to meet her at the banquet hall inside his mother’s church where the party was to be held. The excitement surrounding months of preparation coming together brightened his mood about his current financial issues as a few relatives and family friends went about the task of decorating. The church banquet hall was already ornamented with glass and brass chandeliers, tabletop candles, and wall sconces. He acted as an assistant to his big sister as he performed tasks that required him to reach high places or use brute force. Danielle had the floor plan, guest list, and vendor contracts. Corey was just a bystander. After an hour or two of virtually getting in the way, he was dismissed with the task of keeping close tabs on their father, who was bringing the guest of honor.
Corey came home to a message on the answering machine from Pill detailing what she thought that he should wear. She often picked out his outfits when they went out together, as if he were fashion-challenged. She suggested the gray pinstripe suit, white shirt, and lilac tie. Although a part of him wanted to rebel, he laid the ensemble out on the bed and was pleased with the combination. The fact that she left a message at home meant that she wasn’t ready to talk to him. That was cool with him, except that they were going to a family function and he didn’t want a color scheme to be the only thing that linked them together.
A good number of their invited guests had arrived early when he entered the church hall. His mother was the oldest of four siblings and helped to raise them all after their parents’ death. She was so busy in the lives of her brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews that it came as a total shock to everyone when she got pregnant with Dani and Corey at age forty and forty-one. That made Corey the youngest cousin of the family. Instead of being spoiled like most in that birth order, he often felt neglected.
“Where is your wife?” his sister asked, who hadn’t put her clipboard full of notes down long enough to realize the party was in session.
Corey put on the same fake smile he used with his aunts who had asked the same question earlier and recited the company line of, “She’s running late at the shop. You know how beauticians are.”
“Miss Thang better not spoil my surprise,” she said.
“Don’t you mean Mom’s surprise?” he threw right back at her.
“Whatever, Corey. I run this show, and that wife of yours is known to be a showstopper. Call to see where she is,” Danielle demanded while looking at her watch. “Mom is due to be here in less than thirty minutes.”
“What about Pop and son? What’s the deal with them? Did they even send over a gift?” Corey asked, referring to his mom’s youngest brother, Rico, or Pop, as he was known in the NBA, and his son, Rico Jr.
“You never know with Uncle Rico. I’m not sure they’re even in town. Call Dad and ask him. Also find out how long before he and Mom arrive,” Danielle said.
Before he could get the call off, in walks his mother, arm in arm with his Uncle Pop on one side and his cousin Rico on the other. His father was left to bring up the rear.
“Surprise, everybody! Guess who I bumped into in the parking lot?” Pop exclaimed.
Welcoming cries followed by a roaring round of applause went forth, not just for the guest of honor, but also for her escorts who were making a rare visit at a family occasion.
Another sou
nd could be heard from Corey’s sister standing nearby. It was one of air slowly being expelled from a balloon. Corey turned to look at his sister, who shrugged her shoulders. No one in his family could seem to bear honest emotion and be angry when it came to the Johnny-come-lately duo, Pop and son.
“This is so nice. And I thought seeing two of my favorite guys was surprise enough. Look at all this,” Wilma Taylor said, still holding on to her brother and nephew’s hand. She pointed and waved at her guests as they made their way toward Corey and Danielle standing in the center of the room.
Corey made his way to his mom when she finally let his cousin and uncle go. He wanted to avoid the awkwardness that crept into conversations with his cousin Rico recently.
“Happy birthday, Mom,” Corey said, leaning down to kiss her cheek.
“Thanks, baby. Everything looks so nice. I know this was all Dani’s doing. You all got me good,” his mother said, taking off her leather coat. “Find a place to put my jacket. Oh, and get Rico and Pop’s coat as well.”
“I just hung mine on the back of my chair,” Corey said, thumbing in the general direction of his seat.
“Well, certainly, dear, you don’t have to worry about someone damaging or trying to take that old thing. Please, just find a deacon or someone to put our coats in one of the classrooms.”
Corey took his mother’s coat as he was told. He tapped his uncle on the back of his shoulder and grabbed his leather trench coat as well after sharing a spirited handshake and half hug. He figured Rico could fend for himself.
“Hey, Uncle Rico,” Danielle sang with open arms, practically knocking Corey over to get to the object of her affection. Suddenly, it was as if she were five again, waiting to tell him a joke so she could get a ten-dollar donation for her piggy bank.
Rico Proctor Sr. and Rico Jr. were the diamonds in the family jewels. Pops, more than fifteen years younger than Corey’s mother, was the sibling that made it big, playing for nearly ten years for the NBA’s Detroit Pistons, Atlanta Hawks, and eventually the Portland Trail Blazers before retiring. He was a cool cat that was good hair fine according to the ladies. It was rumored that he had a slew of women in every city where he played, which explained why he never felt the need to marry. The only serious relationship was with a brash and bossy Dominican woman named Elaine, Rico Jr.’s mother. She eagerly returned to her country after turning over sole custody to Pops for ongoing support when Jr. turned nine so that Pops could begin to groom him for his own professional basketball career.
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