Sinful

by McGlothin, Victor

“And I’m making sure you keep your word.” Chandelle was glad that there weren’t any neighbors looming about to witness the outcome of her thunderous entry into the Jennings’s home. “Dior,” she said, shoving her into the compact car. “What were you planning to do once those people had used you up and thrown you out?”

  “They were just getting some kicks. Ain’t nobody tryna to use me.”

  “Don’t be a fool your whole life. That man was about to ride you like a birthday pony with his wife watching. That whole scene is triflin’, and it won’t ever turn out like you thought. I’ve got too much on my mind to go casket shopping for you over some hot mess.” Chandelle was seething. She roared out of the subdivision with her tires smoking. “And don’t think for a minute that this ends here, Dior. Get out your cute little flip phone and call to cancel your ten o’clock with Giorgio. One Viagra pill-popping white man a night ought to be enough.”

  “Giorgio don’t do pills and he ain’t white, he’s I-talian,” she fussed, with her purse sitting on her lap. “Anyway, how’d you find me, how do you know about my ten o’clock, and what is up with the itsy-bitsy car?”

  “Do not even comment on the car, all right. It’s going to get us home, I hope.” Chandelle felt Dior’s eyes piercing holes in her side. “Oh, and I found the black book of yours, the one you had hidden under your bed,” Chandelle answered. “I saw the loot, too, but I won’t go into that. What’s done is done.”

  Dior froze. “The book? What…you read my stuff?”

  “Yeah, I read it, had to. How else was I going to find you before some pervert went too far?”

  “What else did you read…in the book?” Dior asked soberly.

  “Don’t stress, I read about the judge, too, but that’s not as bad as this,” she replied, guessing she was afraid of the judge’s affair getting out. “Oooh, Dior, you make my head hurt. Nobody’s perfect, but you don’t have to be stupid. And oh, you’re going to church with me too.”

  Dior smacked her lips in direct opposition. “No, I’m not!”

  “You want to bet? You can go standing up or like I found you, tied up with both hands behind your back. But you are going, if I have to drag you in by that raggedy weave of yours.”

  “Chandelle, quit playin’. You’ve done your good deed, but you can’t make me go to church. You ain’t my momma.”

  “You’re right, I’m not, but since she’s doing a bid and can’t help straighten you out, I’m going to step up and put my two cents in until she gets released. You could use a dose of house arrest.”

  “Humph, you’re trippin’,” Dior smarted off.

  “And you’re coming to church with me on Sunday.”

  That’s what she thinks, Dior said to herself. We’ll just see about that.

  35

  It’s Complicated

  The following morning, Dior opened her eyes to a strange room. She popped up in the bed, looking around to gain her bearings. Oh, I’m at Chandelle’s, she realized, then leaned back to finish resting her head. It felt good, thinking of all the trouble Chandelle went through to find her, acted in what she considered a highly overprotective manner, and later refused to let Dior out of her sight. She almost laughed at the way Chandelle had marched her up the stairs, cranked on the shower, and forced her to wash the filth off her body before allowing her to sleep in the bed. Then Chandelle set the house alarm, dared her to attempt an escape, and slept at the foot of her own bed to discourage any further foolishness.

  Dior found herself wondering where Chandelle was now. Certainly Chandelle didn’t think that the sunrise was enough to stop Dior from leaving if she really felt like it. Unbeknownst to her, Chandelle had her own issues to contend with.

  “Chandelle,” Dior called out from the bed. “Chandelle! I’m hungry!” She swung the cover aside to climb out of bed, wearing a borrowed flannel nightgown. “It wasn’t that cold last night,” she huffed, shrugging it off. Dior opened the second dresser drawer but found a collection of flattering panties. “Ooh, I like her style, but where does she keep the T-shirts?” When she looked in the top drawer, Dior discovered a white plastic bag from a local pharmacy. She stood on her tiptoes and craned her neck to search inside without disturbing it too much. “What the…” she muttered, trying to calm her voice and surprise. Inside of the bag, Dior counted three Early Pregnancy Test kits; only one hadn’t been opened, the other two read positive. “Chandelle’s gonna have a baby,” she sighed nervously. She plopped down on the bed in a strange daze, unable to be joyous because of the situation she’d manipulated with Chandelle’s old boyfriend Tony. Dior’s mouth felt dry. She leaped up, pushed the bag closed, and snatched a shirt from the drawer. As she wrestled it over her head and exited the bedroom, she heard a peculiar sound coming from the other side of the closed bathroom door in the guest room. “Chandelle?” she said, leaning against the door. She tried to twist the knob but couldn’t. It was locked. “Chandelle, what’s the matter with you?” No one answered but Dior heard more of the gargled groaning like before. She began pounding on the door. “Come on, Chandelle, I can help you.” Dior didn’t know how to feel—torn, helpless, or guilty, but elated wasn’t one of them. She took a fast step backward when the toilet flushed. “I know you’re in there,” she yelled, growing increasingly impatient. Water from the wash basin ran for a while before the door opened.

  “You didn’t have to bang on the door,” Chandelle replied finally. “There are two other restrooms.” Dior didn’t move when Chandelle took a calculated step to get past her. “Move, Dior, I must be coming down with something, maybe it’s the flu,” she said, with her eyes half closed and a lie fully exposed.

  “You’re coming down with a baby,” Dior said, with sad eyes that were a close resemblance to Chandelle’s. “I saw the EPTs, both of them.” She watched as Chandelle turned an odd shade of green as she clutched at her stomach and then bolted for the toilet again. “I didn’t mean to snoop but…you saw mine last night and now I’ve seen your secret too.” Dior pulled a washcloth from the cabinet. She ran cool water over it, and then placed it on the back of Chandelle’s neck as she spat up violently. “Go on and get it out,” Dior said, like a doting sister. “We’ll go to the doctor today. I can tell by the way you’re hiding things that you haven’t been.”

  Chandelle shook her head sorrowfully and pointed at the vanity area. “The cup,” she said painstakingly. Dior filled it halfway but felt fully responsible for Chandelle’s plight despite just having learned about the pregnancy. Dior watched her rinse from the cup and spit into the bowl repeatedly.

  “What are we gonna do?” Dior asked, offering to be there every inch of the way.

  “You act like you know something I don’t,” Chandelle whispered, with her back against the wall.

  “I know something you haven’t told anybody and why it’s so hard to admit it to yourself,” she answered. “You haven’t told Marvin because it might not be his child. You haven’t told me because it could be my fault. I’m not stupid just because I do stupid things.” Dior stared straight ahead, distressed more than Chandelle would have ever predicted. “Girl, I know exactly how you feel.”

  “How could you even fix your mouth to say that?” Chandelle whined, feeling another surge rumbling in her stomach.

  Dior licked her dry lips and hunched her shoulders hopelessly. “I can say it because I’m pregnant too.” Chandelle’s eyes bucked as she pounced toward the toilet bowl for the third time. Her body shook as she began to cry. Dior went to her aid, like she promised. “It’ll be all right. You’ll be all right. I’ll get you something to eat and we’ll talk about it.”

  “This is a mess, Dior,” Chandelle said sorrowfully. She idled on her knees with her head lowered, her mind racing laps in her head. It wasn’t long before she remembered the shoe box filled with money, the appointment book, and notes regarding Viagra and sex toys. “Uh-uh-uh…” she sighed, trying to exhale away the thought that made her want to cry all over again. “Do you know…who the
daddy is?”

  Dior cracked a labored half smile. She knew with one hundred percent certainty. “Yeah, but it’s complicated. Just my luck, he’s already in love with somebody else.” Chandelle threw her arms around Dior and held her tightly, rocking back and forth.

  “Ahhh, Dior, you’re concerned about me and you’re in a jam too,” Chandelle cooed, unaware of what a jam Dior’s pregnancy potentially placed her in as well. “I wanted to tell someone but couldn’t figure out how to say I’m having a baby but I’m not sure if it’s with my husband.” They sat on the floor, empathizing with one another. Chandelle looked like death warmed over. Dior felt like it on the inside.

  “That’s why you haven’t gone to the doctor?”

  “I’m scared,” Chandelle admitted. “I’m scared that of all the times Marvin and I tried to conceive, a one-night mixup might have beaten us to it.”

  “The doctor could tell how far along you are,” Dior suggested, secretly having visited one herself recently.

  “Yeah, but what if the dates don’t add up? Marvin and I still have the same insurance policy. He could find out before…”

  “Before you decide if you’re keeping it,” Dior answered for her when the words got stuck in her throat. “Well, you can’t keep walking around getting sick like nobody’s gonna catch on.”

  Chandelle closed her eyes, wishing she had the answers. “I’ve driven by a public health clinic three times this week, but I didn’t have the nerve to stop.”

  “I’ll drive you,” Dior offered, holding her cousin’s hand. “You don’t have to make any decisions, but you do have to find out how far along you are. All of this crying might be for nothing.”

  “Nothing? Have you forgotten that you’re practically in the same boat? You should be crying too.”

  Dior’s labored half smile made a second appearance. “Who said I haven’t been?”

  After finishing off two bowls of Cheerios, Dior convinced Chandelle to nibble on a slice of cinnamon toast before accompanying her to a clinic she had learned was open on Saturdays. They packed it into the rental car and set out on a very difficult journey, which actually didn’t begin until they reached the oatmeal-colored brick building off the interstate. Dior proceeded in first. Chandelle lingered behind a few paces, still not wanting to commit one way or the other. The black woman who asked them to fill out a form attached to a brown clipboard smiled briefly. However, it quickly faded when she noticed that Chandelle was about to lose her breakfast.

  “It’s right over there, sweetie,” the woman informed her, motioning toward the women’s restroom. Chandelle rushed inside, bent over at the waist, and hurled into the public toilet. She washed her hands, then rinsed her mouth with two handfuls of water from the sink, all the while looking at herself in the mirror. Not so much that most people would notice, Chandelle’s face had begun to change ever so slightly. Her cheeks appeared puffy and the sharp angle of her chin was beginning to round. She didn’t know who she was any longer, standing there debating whether she would go through with it if it happened to be Tony’s DNA commingling with hers instead of Marvin’s. There had to be another way out, but she couldn’t see one through the fog.

  Eventually, Dior came in to check on her. “Hey, I was filling out the paperwork, but they’re asking all kinds of stuff about you that I don’t know. Like about allergies and stuff.”

  “I’ll be right out,” Chandelle answered, taking one long, lasting look at motherhood in its earliest stages. She stared at her reflection, smiled wearily, and placed her hand on the hand in the mirror. “What are you doing?” she asked, but the reflection simply returned her curious expression. “You don’t know either, huh? That makes us even.”

  Chandelle exited the restroom, feeling weak. She took the plastic chair next to Dior’s. “Let me have that,” she said, reaching for the information form. “I don’t see why they need all of this to get in to see a doctor. I’m not allergic to anything that I know of. I haven’t been sick a day in my life, and it really isn’t anyone’s business when my last sexual encounter was or how many I’ve had in the past six months.”

  Dior was glad no one was asking her those questions. She would have had to guess anyhow.

  “And look at this, sexually transmitted diseases, none. Blood type? How am I supposed to know?” Chandelle was growing more agitated with each mounting question. “Dior, I’m going to ask that woman how much of this paperwork I need to fill out before I change my mind altogether. This is ridiculous.” She stood up too fast, took two steps, and fainted on the spot. The last thing Chandelle remembered was being carted off in an ambulance.

  Dior was frantic. She dialed Marvin’s cell number. He didn’t answer so she left a message explaining that Chandelle was at the Riverdale Clinic when she passed out and was now being taken to Texas General Hospital for some tests.

  Dior paced outside the clinic, dialing Tony’s number and hoping she was doing the right thing. If he was the father, he needed to be with Chandelle, she reasoned. It was clear that she was not going through with an abortion regardless.

  Tony answered, with loud chattering going on in the background. He didn’t want to have another conversation with her, but she made him listen. After she told him Chandelle was having a baby, he said to leave him out of it, then hung up in Dior’s face.

  On the way to the hospital, she did something that she hated more than anything. Dior called Dooney and asked for his help.

  “What you done did now?” he asked, with a barber shop busting at the seams with customers.

  “You know I wouldn’t be calling you, Dooney, unless I had to,” she wailed.

  “I would have figured you’d gotten yourself thrown in the clink, but you’re calling from your cell?”

  “Nah, I’m straight this time,” she answered hurriedly. “It’s Chandelle. She’s on her way to the emergency room at Texas General Hospital.”

  Dooney burst into his office and closed the door, leaving a man in his chair with a partial haircut. “What? The hospital? What you done did to Chandelle?” he shouted loudly.

  “Why you always got to be blaming me? I ain’t done nothing to her!” Dior explained how she’d taken Chandelle to the clinic to see about her pregnancy, hoping Dooney wouldn’t put that one on her too. Sure enough he did. “Shut up and let me tell you why Chandelle needs you. She’s been trying to get with the guy I set her up with, but he had her kicked out of his restaurant when she went to speak with him. I just called him, told him what I told you, and he said he didn’t want no parts of it.”

  Dior counted down from three. By the time she reached one, Dooney was asking her where to find this Tony who had slept with his cousin, then had her strong-armed afterward. Dior gladly revealed his whereabouts and his cell number in case he had a mind to move around. With Dooney on Tony’s scent, Dior revved up the motor in the Neon and whizzed onto I-75 like a stock car driver going for a checkered flag.

  “Where’s Chandelle Hutchins?” she yelled frantically to yet another receptionist at the emergency department check-in area. The white woman was moving too slow for Dior’s taste, so she prompted her again. “Hey, stop stalling and tell me where my cousin is. Chandelle Hutchins, they should have brought her here a minute ago.” Annoyed that Dior thought she deserved preferential treatment, the receptionist rolled her eyes.

  “Quiet down and I’ll check for you,” she said, picking up the phone to dial another extension. “Did y’all just admit a Hutchins, Shandrelle?”

  “Chandelle,” Dior corrected her. “You’re tryna be funny.”

  “Oh, I see,” replied the woman to something said over the phone. “I’ll pass it on. Thanks.”

  “Pass what on, what?”

  “Ms. Hutchins is being seen to now,” she advised Dior.

  “That’s Mrs. Hutchins,” Dior spat nastily. “Some of us black women do have husbands.”

  “We are talking about the woman who was brought here from the Riverdale Clinic?” the receptionist
debated to make her point.

  “Yeah, and…it’s complicated,” Dior snarled.

  “I’m sure it is. Mrs. Hutchins will be a while so you can take this clipboard and sit over there until it’s been filled out.”

  “Again with the clipboard,” Dior huffed. “Give it here. Her husband is on his way.”

  “Her husband is right here,” Marvin grunted, standing directly behind Dior. The way he was grinding his teeth made the white woman giddy inside. He was overwhelmingly upset and she didn’t doubt that Dior had something to do with it.

  “Hey, Marvin,” Dior greeted him, in a voice so soft she didn’t even hear it come out of her mouth.

  “Don’t hey Marvin me. I was breaking my neck to get here when I realized where you said Chandelle was when she passed out. What was my wife doing at an abortion clinic?”

  “She—she…I—I,” Dior stuttered to the delight of the eavesdropping receptionist. “It’s like this,” she started saying, when a black supervisor thundered over and demanded they keep their voices down.

  “Ma’am, I’m just here looking for my wife,” Marvin argued. “Chandelle Hutchins, have you admitted her?”

  “Uh-huh, she’s in the back with the doctor now,” replied the black woman, with graying temples and attitude to spare. “If you don’t want to be escorted out, keep it down.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” answered Marvin, scratching his head. “Will somebody please tell me what she was doing at Riverdale?”

  “See, I woke up this morning and Chandelle was throwing up. I started telling her how she needed to tell you that she was pregnant and…”

  Marvin’s chest heaved out when he heard the word pregnant. “Chandelle’s pregnant?”

  “Uh-uh, I told her that everything needed to be out in the open.”

  “What else did you tell her, Dior?”

  “Nothing about us, I swear.”

  The receptionist snickered then. “Maybe y’all need to go into the conference room to discuss what wasn’t said. These walls have ears,” she warned.