Taylor Made

by Sherryle Kiser Jackson

  “Me too,” Candy slurred.

  “Don’t bring another drink to this table, you hear me? It’s obvious they both have had enough. Bring the revised bill, okay? That’s what you can do,” Pill snapped.

  Although the crowd was sparse, they were making a scene. Pill looked into the faces of some of the other patrons. One in particular looked oddly like a friendly greeter from her church, who just shook her head. This made Pill snap out of angry-sister mode. That reminded her God was watching. She so needed to repent. She was ready to go. Just like when she was younger, she wouldn’t leave filled.

  Both Deena and Candy spoke at the same time, but couldn’t piece together enough words to ask Pill where she came off canceling their drinks. Mercedes was not as intoxicated because she knew she had to pick up her boyfriend at midnight.

  “Y’all just drinking away. As much as Candy been eating lately, I thought the child might be pregnant again,” Pill said by way of explanation.

  That comment made Candy hide her face with her hand. She teetered over in Pill’s direction until her head hit hard on Pill’s shoulder. She began to sob uncontrollably.

  “Aw, sweetie, are you?” Pill whispered, trying to stuff the cat back into the bag.

  From her semiprone position, she nodded her head. No one was eating. They each were trying to fathom her position.

  “Candy, you’ve got to stop drinking so much if you’re pregnant,” Mercedes said, crawling onto the booth side of their table beside Candy and Pill.

  “Drinking period,” Pill interjected. “Do you know . . . who the father is?”

  At that, Candy raised her head and pursed her lips as if she were offended. Tears streaked her face, and she lay her head down gentler this time.

  Pill hadn’t heard her mention a new love and suspected she was on the hunt for Mr. Right-Now like her girl, Deena, who was surprisingly quiet.

  “Are you two together?” Pill ventured to ask.

  Candy shook her head wearily. They were all silent. Pill took in a deep breath and immediately thought of how comforting it was to know that she could dump the guilt and shame of her mistakes on God and ask Him to forgive her. Her sister used to caution her about replicating one of her mother’s many scams and schemes. God is watching. He took Momma away. I don’t want Him to do the same with you. Trust Him. He’ll take care of us. It was her sister’s way of teaching her the morals her mother had failed to teach them.

  Candy was resting on her shoulder again, in need of similar words of comfort. This was not the time to be judgmental. Pill wanted to pass on what she now knew to be true.

  “Guys, you ever thought about whether we should be living this way? This club hopping, sleeping around, and drinking is not cool anymore. We’re getting older.”

  “Listen at Ms. Married over here,” Deena said dismissively. “Ain’t been married but a minute, and now she’s preaching. Booshie doesn’t mean Baptist.”

  It’s bourgeoisie. She didn’t know what was wrong with Deena. Maybe she had forgotten how much they all talked around the shop. She knew how much Mercedes wanted to find a decent man to take care of her and not the other way around. She also knew how Candy craved a decent father figure for her kids. Deena was so scarred from a past relationship, she tricked herself into thinking she didn’t want one again. Pill was reluctant to be God’s spokesperson because she knew she wasn’t perfect, but something was weighing on her heart.

  “No, for real, Deena, I’m not telling you this to be self-righteous; I’m telling you this ’cause I know. That’s why I stopped. I played the ultimate strategy game, trying to hook up with guys I thought could put me in a better position in life—guys with money,” Pill said, trying to decide just how candid she was going to get. “Found out those guys had their own agenda that didn’t involve being loving, respectful, or faithful to me.”

  “So, basically, you were selectively screwing around and ended up getting screwed,” Deena paraphrased.

  Pill was stunned by her crudeness. In a sense, Deena was exactly right. She accurately categorized her relationship with Rico. She went in looking for money but expected to come out with love. She prayed that God would show her a better way when Rico started casting her aside for other women. She put all her trust in that one prayer. Somehow today, she wasn’t ashamed to admit it.

  “Yep, Deena, you’re right.” A stubborn tear broke through the corner of Pill’s eyelid and trailed through her makeup. She didn’t even try to clean up. “Now I can’t even give it to my own husband without some type of head trip. This could be you.”

  Pill thought she heard a collective gasp from both Candy and Deena. Maybe it was the sudden revelation that she wasn’t as perfect as she put on around the shop or the shock that someone could have a license from God to have sex but still refrain.

  “It?” Mercedes asked. Pill hoped Mercedes was asking that question to gain clarity and not from cluelessness.

  “It is what you’re doing to keep Jerome’s old broke behind,” Candy chimed in.

  “I love you, honey, but you can do so much better, Mercedes,” Pill interjected, glad to shift the spotlight off herself. “I think you know it too, but are afraid to do something about it.”

  Mercedes fought the quiver in her lip to form her reply. “Y’all just don’t know Jerome.”

  “Why don’t you mind your own business, Pill?” Deena said smugly. “You just told us prim and pristine is not all it’s cracked up to be. Oh, but I knew that. You forget we go way back. I guess that explains how you went after the baller and ended up with the cousin. I guess it don’t matter, right, Pill, as long as the money is growing on the family tree?”

  She felt Candy and Mercedes fix their stares on her to see how she would respond. The scathing accusation of Deena’s last comment had stung. If she were in Mosby Court, her earrings would have been off, and she would have been reaching for her Vaseline. Was it the overall impression that she preferred Rico but settled for Corey? Did people really think that? Did Corey?

  “The drunk and desperate shouldn’t speak, especially about topics they know nothing about. Don’t get it twisted. I love Corey; that’s why I married him.”

  “I’m just sayin’ you’re the one that said you’re having a hard time showing him,” Deena replied. “And for the record, I ain’t desperate. I enjoy, and I do mean enjoy, playing the field.”

  “Look, I’m not trying to knock anyone’s lifestyle, not even yours. Everyone’s game was exposed tonight, okay? All I am saying is Mercedes deserves a man that will support her. And, Candy has three, soon to be four, kids. Maybe she can’t hang out with you at the clubs every weekend,” Pill said.

  She used the small space between the booth and the table itself to turn her back on Deena so she could talk to the other two who had been sitting next to her. She wasn’t going to let Deena stop her from saying what was on her heart. “Obviously God trusts your ability to be a good mom because He keeps allowing you to have kids. Maybe He’s telling you that the kids are enough, boo. Bam, D’Marc, Princess, they all adore you and are going to require more of your time.”

  Pill didn’t know where any of this was coming from. She thought about her sister again and how she owed her so much.

  “I don’t know about four, Pill.” Candy’s uncertainty drew her face into a tight ball. “I just don’t know.”

  Pill rubbed her eyes and admitted, “I don’t have the answers. That’s why I go to church. If you ask God, He’ll help you raise ’em, you know?”

  They were each a cautionary tale, weeping and comforting each other, except for Deena. Her eyes had rolled circles inside her head at the sight of the three of them lamenting over the choices they had made.

  “Some of us just want to have fun. Which is what I’m about to do. Y’all sitting around looking like a bunch of raccoons. I’m trying to hit a few spots before y’all really kill my buzz. Peace,” Deena said before making a dramatic exit, first in the wrong direction, and then again when she figure
d out where the front door was.

  Pill was glad to see her go.

  Mercedes sat up, rested her elbows on the table in front of her half-eaten pasta, and said to Candy, “Pill might be small, but she is like our big sister. I don’t know about you, but I love when she tries to school us like that, you know, real talk, without being all mean like she is in the shop.”

  “I’m not mean,” Pill said, smoothing the alreadyslicked sides of her hair down with her hands.

  “Not mean, booshie,” Candy chimed in, her smile breaking through the fog of her despair.

  “It’s bourgeoisie,” Pill corrected with her hand on her hip.

  “See, there you go,” Candy replied.

  “Naw, seriously, I’m just like you guys—just better dressed.”

  They all laughed. Then an alarm went off in Pill’s head, waking her, and she stood up suddenly. “Deena!”

  “Girl, she is long gone,” Mercedes said with a casual yawn afterward.

  Pill contemplated running to try to catch her. “She ran off without paying her part of the bill.”

  “Girl, we got this,” Candy said, digging around in her average-sized purse. Twice she came up with random articles from inside, but no money.

  Mercedes also went into excavation mode in her pint-size purse. “Look, Jerome replaced the twenty he borrowed. He is sweet, y’all. Really, he is.”

  Pill scratched her head as Bradley, their waiter, approached with the bill enclosed in a leather billfold. She thought about her tip-sabotage plan gone awry and the scene they had made earlier. Then she thought of her face-off with Carmen. They knew she was flawed, but they didn’t have to know how much. Bourgeoisie kicked back in. There was nothing worse to her now than for them to scrounge around as if they had not anticipated their own bill.

  By the time Bradley got across the dining room to their table, she met the bill and a few after dinner mints with her Silver Sliver savior. “Don’t worry about it, girls, I got it.”

  Chapter 13

  Pill was attacked as soon as she came through her front door from dinner. Her assailant was her husband. Corey framed her body against the wall, and then planted a kiss on her so ferociously that her fight or flight reflexes kicked in.

  She felt her upper lip thread between her teeth from the force of his mouth on hers. There was no tenderness. He was palming and groping her like a wild animal yanking ripe fruit from a tree. He tried to force her off-the-shoulder tunic further down her midsection. She could hear the fabric ripping at the seam. She pushed desperately against his broad shoulders and muscled arms to get some space—to get him off of her.

  Finally, she relented, realizing that the narrow entryway and her husband’s strength allowed her no escape. Clearly, her cooperation meant nothing. One bite of the lip or knee to the groin would shut his whole program down, she thought, but she didn’t want to hurt him. She went for the lip, biting down on the edge of his bottom lip with the hope that it was not his intention to hurt her either.

  Her countermove did little to stop his assault. Corey’s lips parted hers and charted a new course, as if their natural route to desire was through his dominance. The hands that held and restrained her clumsily caressed and touched her in a way he was banking that she couldn’t help but respond to.

  At that point, she wanted to show him he didn’t have to force himself on her. She wanted to somehow make the moment ideal.

  She was confused.

  As if sensing her confusion or grappling with his own, he stopped. Just like that, he relinquished her lips and released his grip.

  Pill checked her mouth with her hands for signs of swelling. She kept her hand there, covering her mouth, as if to stop herself from voicing what it was she was feeling. She felt as if she could hear his heart rocking in his chest, or maybe it was her own heartbeat.

  He steadied himself with one arm against the same wall that he had pinned her against. Furtive glances were all either of them could take in of this scene. Their eyes darted everywhere but on each other.

  He was breathless but managed to speak. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to come at you that way.” He took in a deep, cleansing breath. “I don’t know, to be honest, maybe I did. I just need you.”

  He stepped toward her, and she stepped back, which halted his advance. He could not give her enough space right now. “It’s time to squash this thing—whatever it is that’s keeping you from me. Please.”

  She noticed he still wore his brown uniform, buttoned down and hanging about his waist to reveal his tee. He fit the profile of one of the boyfriends her mother took up with after leaving a thirty-day alcohol treatment center, the one that introduced her to her next addiction. Her sister found a carbon copy of him to live with and assist with the bills when Pill was still in high school and in her care. Both were bitter and angry black men. Both were abusive in their own way.

  Is he like them? Am I like my mother and sister? Am I susceptible to abuse, addictions—more abandonment? Those thoughts allowed her no means of escape from her present reality, no way of coping.

  Pill wondered how long Corey had sat after work and planned this ambush on her. She didn’t know how to respond to him. This wasn’t Corey. Happy-go-lucky, accommodating, patient—that’s the man she knew and loved. Where was her adoring husband?

  “I guess I’m not The Man—but I thought I was your man. Maybe I’m not the one you want anymore.” Corey didn’t wait for a reply from her. He crossed in front of her and headed for the stairs and whispered, “I’m waiting.”

  She took her first breath when he took the stairs two at a time to the second level. Only then did she allow the tears that were rushing the banks of her eyelids to fall. First, there was the restaurant episode, and now this.

  The Lord sure has a way of showing you that you are truly alone in your own despair, she thought. Before she could convert that thought to fact, she knew she couldn’t blame God. Pastor Rawls often said, “He is always there with a rescue plan or survival kit.” And to think, she had passed out spiritual advice earlier. It was she who had not prayed for His guidance or deliverance. She was so new to her faith she didn’t think she had the power to evoke the change that she wanted in herself, let alone her relationship. She was not the wailing mother at her church. She could not name one prayer she had uttered that had been answered since she was young.

  That was not true either. God had sent her someone who had accepted her, no questions asked. Her husband made room for her, not knowing how much baggage she was carrying through the door with her. Was God rescinding that gift?

  She sniffed and dabbed up her tears with the pad of her thumb as if it were necessary to preserve her makeup. Corey was waiting for her. She hoped he meant in that overarching sense that implied when she was ready, and that he was not upstairs with the lights low and his clothes off.

  She wanted to show him how much she needed him. She had put him off so many times before. How was she supposed to face him, let alone give herself to him intimately after what had just happened? How could she comply, not knowing that when he looked at her he wasn’t seeing a younger, more vulnerable version of her mother that he could tame?

  She didn’t want to believe what experience had already taught her about men, her mother’s men, her sister’s men, and the few guys she had dated. All men wanted to do was control you. Sex, money, and good ole brute strength were the tools they used to gain that control. They got away with treating you horribly but reaping bountifully in a relationship. If you were lucky, you might get away with a couple of outfits and a few pairs of shoes.

  It had been different with Corey, though. Was he proving that he was no exception?

  She wandered into their den, dizzy with her own thoughts, and took a seat in the recliner still warm from her husband’s apparent stakeout. It was there that she eventually found rest.

  Chapter 14

  The next morning, Corey woke Pill to remind her that they were meeting later at the church for their six
-month marital session with Deacon and Mrs. Tripp. He didn’t have time to talk, and she didn’t have time to listen. There were so many things left unresolved as they both started their day.

  That afternoon, Corey was waiting for her in the church parking lot when she arrived so that they could walk in together. They were over fifteen minutes late for their seven o’clock appointment. His eyes brushed over her monotone turtleneck shirt dress, leggings, and swing coat ensemble, appreciatively at first. He was always attentive. He always noticed everything about her. Another sweep of his eyes revealed his disgust. He probably sniffed out the newness or estimated the ensemble’s cost.

  He had managed to change from his uniform to a pair of jeans and a sweater. She grabbed his arm before he reached for the door.

  “Last night . . .” she started.

  “We didn’t find the time to talk about it then,” he said curtly. “We definitely don’t have time to do it now. We’re late.”

  “It’s not necessary to bring it up here. We should get our story . . .” Pill started, not realizing he was already inside.

  She let him walk ahead of her. He passed through two doors before allowing her to catch up to his quick pace. They waved to a few and did the customary “God bless you” hug to members they saw as they made their way to the back. Pill could see Deacon Tripp waiting through the cutout window in the door of the conference room. She tapped out a melody on the door with her knuckles to serve as an announcement and an apology for being late.

  Pill led the elephant into the room with a cheesy smile. Apparently, it took up so much space that Corey preferred to stand slightly behind her rather than directly beside her. Deacon Tripp rose from the head of the oblong table to greet them. He extended a palm for them to sit. Pill positioned her seat to face Deacon Tripp. Once again, Corey was in her blindside.

  “How’s it going, Brother and Sister Taylor?” Deacon Tripp asked.