by Cydney Rax
“Would you want me looking at photos of naked men?” I ask.
“Look, do whatever you want to do.”
“You mean that?” I ask. “Does that include throwing this stuff—”
“Yeah, I–I don’t trust myself enough to…”
I immediately collect magazines in an empty cardboard box. The awful Girls Gone Wild videos go, too. When I’ve discarded every piece of material I can find, I wrap a tight ball of string around the heavy box and load it into the backseat of my Honda.
I can’t allow myself to place this box out on the curb with the rest of the garbage. I get in my car and special-deliver Neil’s addiction to the nearest trash compactor myself.
23
* * *
Neil
Midweek Anya calls me at work to remind me that today is Wednesday.
“Anya, I really don’t want to go anywhere. I’m tired from working hard.”
“Don’t care. No excuses,” she says.
“Anya…”
“Neil, we all get tired, but if we really want to do something…”
“Yeah, but—”
“Quit whining and butch up. I’ll be dressed and ready when you get here.”
I would’ve protested more but she hangs up. After I get home and wash up, Vette agrees to watch the kids. Anya and I enjoy a relaxing dinner at the Olive Garden, where we eat spaghetti and meatballs that rival her own.
After we walk out the front doors and reach the parking lot, Anya says she wants to show me something. We hop in the SUV. Although I am in the driver’s seat, Anya tells me where to go, giving me detailed directions. Her hands rest on her lap while I drive. It’s twilight, the time of night that hides you from the day. We travel east on North Braeswood. Anya instructs me to turn left at a street where several apartment buildings are located.
“Park on the side street,” she says in a soft voice. I pull into an empty space near the end of the corner. She gets out of the ear and I follow her lead. We walk down Braeswood past the Nob Hill Apartments complex.
“Remember this?” Anya asks, her voice quivering.
I glance at her, then at the building. We’re standing in front of a two-story brick structure that has lots of windows with green shutters.
“This is the first place we lived when we got married,” I remark.
She smiles and nods.
“Before Reesy, before the craziness. This was our beginning, Neil.” Anya shivers and rubs her shoulders even though it’s warm on this early-summer night. “You carried me over the threshold once we got back from Cozumel. And what’s the first thing you did after we got home?”
“Did I turn on the TV?” I ask.
“No.”
“Go use the bathroom?”
“No, silly.”
“Uh, I give up,” I tell her.
“Neil, you told me you were happy to be finally living with your best friend.”
“I said that?”
“Neil! Why don’t you remember?”
“I–I dunno. Maybe I was feeling so good that night I couldn’t take it all in.”
“Okay. Fine,” Anya says. “I may not remember everything, but that’s one moment I haven’t forgotten. I know we were very happy that we did things right. We didn’t shack up until we felt we could handle the marital thing. We insisted on having trust, true trust, to forge ahead without first giving our commitment a trial run.”
“Yeah,” I tell her, allowing her words to lift me back to where we used to be.
“We started out with so much trust. But why does time change everything, Neil? Sometimes I wish—”
“Don’t. Won’t do any good, anyway.” I can understand her yearning for the past. It’s something everyone wishes for once they don’t have it anymore.
“These are our good ole days, Anya. Right now. Remember how we used to trip out over that? The times we were living in back then? We’d reminisce about when we first met, the first few dates and all that. And we thought our past was the good old days, not our present.”
“Yep,” she says. “No one can re-create the past. And based on some things, I really wouldn’t want to repeat it, anyway. I just want to guarantee that we don’t commit the same mistakes, so we don’t keep going through useless mess day after day. How can we prevent that, Neil?”
“Well,” I tell her, “maybe what you did tonight is a start. Anya, you made me come with you, do you realize that? When we first met, you were the same way. You didn’t take no for an answer, and that got my attention. I felt you were very decisive in those days. But years later it seemed you were content to go with the flow.”
“Not necessarily,” she replies in a snappy voice. “I do what I have to do because you don’t listen. You don’t take me serious. And I get sick of screaming and hollering, trying to convince you—”
“Man, you know, I’m sorry about that,” I say, seeking peace.
“There you go again saying ‘sorry.’ How many times you expect me to forgive you, Neil?”
“As many times as necessary.”
“Is that so? You can make mistakes over and over again and you expect me to just accept them, no matter what, time after time?”
“Yep,” I tell her matter-of-factly. “I do.”
“But how—”
“Anya, that’s the only way we’re going to make it. The only way any couple will make it. If you want a marriage to survive, you have to let things go, big or small, no matter what.”
“Hmm, so what if I started doing these Neil-type mistakes? Would you feel the same way then?”
“Anya, let’s get one thing straight. The state of our marriage is a reflection of both of us. Not just me. Yeah, you’re a great cook, loyal, a caring and committed mother, but think long and hard. You weren’t fulfilling every part of the arrangement, either.”
Anya fails to respond. She seems to enjoy playing the victim, but is unable to admit I’ve been victimized, too. Denying a man sex on the regular makes him function differently. At least it’s like that for some men. I just want her to realize that every bad patch a couple experiences starts with a few wrongs that lead to greater wrongs. And if Anya pays me back for my wrongs, she’s just as guilty as me. And if and when things go there, the mistakes aren’t all about me anymore.
A couple days later…
“You son of a bitch.”
“Hey, hey.” It’s Dani. She’s calling me on my lunch break. She wants to tell me how her interviews have been going. I haven’t had time to take her calls or see her the past two days.
“Neil, I don’t believe you don’t have time for me. You’ve always had time for me.”
“Yeah, well, things change.”
“No, no, I don’t want change. And didn’t you tell me it wouldn’t ever be that way?”
“Calm down, Dani.” She sounds like she’s trying to keep her composure. I hate hearing her cry. She’s a pro at making me feel like an ass. “You know how things have become lately.”
“And so? I still don’t want you to forget about me. I will not be abandoned, Neil. I’m so tired of this shit. What’s the matter with me that I can’t have a good relationship?”
“Dani, w–we can’t really be—”
“Yes we can, Neil, we can. I–I love you.” Her voice breaks. “Don’t you know that?”
I can’t speak. I feel twisted inside. As much as my head steers me to do the right thing by Anya, there’s something about Dani that makes it hard to give her up 100 percent.
“I said I love you, Neil,” she sniffs, “and I know you love me.”
I stand up with the phone pressed to my ear, thinking about her words.
“What are you wearing?” I say in a thick voice, my eyes glazing.
She moans. “A pink miniskirt, white cowboy boots.”
“Mmmm, that’s enough, be quiet.”
She laughs, then gets serious. “You gonna answer my question? I just want to hear you say you don’t love me, and if you don’t, I’l
l leave you alone.”
“Oh yeah? N–no you won’t. I don’t believe that.”
“Do you love me, Neil?”
Who am I kidding? I don’t lie to Dani. She knows me too well. She’s like my twin, and we’re too connected. Sometimes I wonder what would’ve happened if I’d met her first. Would we be deep into a satisfying, compatible relationship? Would we be making love every day and she’d be stroking my ego like I need it to be stroked? Or am I wasting time thinking about this ’cause it’s never going to be reality?
“I’m listening.” She catches her breath, the sound of fear stealing her volume.
“You know I do, Dani.”
She starts weeping again, and for a rare moment I’m tempted to cry with her.
After Dani and I indulge in some sweet talk, I manage to take a break and dial the twenty-four-hour prayer line. I ask for Zaire, the same woman who prayed with me last time. I say to her, “What if I do the right thing but keep backsliding? I know it’s wrong, and I try to resist, but…”
“Do you put yourself in these situations?”
My silence provides Zaire’s answer.
“Brother, listen to me. Don’t be like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Protect your boundaries.”
24
* * *
Dani
It’s Wednesday night during the week of Easter. I’m going next door to pick up Brax, but before I do, I change into my casual gear—some tight jeans and an Usher T-shirt that’s tied into a knot so my belly button is showing. When I enter the house, Neil is upstairs getting the baby ready, and Anya and Reesy are watching American Idol. But me? I have the pleasure of being cornered in the kitchen by Neil’s sister.
“Are you afraid of going to hell?” she says, staring at my clothes. I’ve never been asked anything so rude in my life.
“I don’t believe in hell,” I snap back. “It’s the figment of someone’s imagination.”
“If you believe that, you’re more stupid than I thought!”
She looks at me likes it hurts to look at me. I can’t believe she and Neil are blood-related. Being loud and ignorant is not an admirable combination.
“All I’m saying is,” Vette continues, “you should take your hot ass to church sometime. I’m sure Anya wouldn’t mind if you join her and Riley.”
“Uh, last time I checked, you haven’t joined them for church, either. So why are you so concerned about the state of my spirituality?”
“I dunno.” She stares me up and down. “Seems like some folk need more help than others.”
“Oh, and I’m supposed to believe that you actually care about me? You sincerely want to help me?” She has some nerve.
“I don’t really care about you. I care about my brother.”
“That’s not how he describes it.”
She’s now up in my face. I don’t back away or blink. I won’t allow her words to scare me.
“Oh, I guess he talks about me to you, huh?” she asks.
“Sometimes.”
“Not surprising since he also tells me things about you—like how you gave him that nasty disease.”
“What?” I widen my eyes. I can’t believe he’d tell her something like that; it was so long ago. “Well, Neil says worse things than that about you, like how you’re probably still a virgin, and that Michael Jackson can get more men than you.”
“Not funny, not true.”
Neil has never said that, but I want to hurt her like she’s hurt me. “Whatever, I just don’t see how you can get in my face about him when you two don’t seem all that tight. Always going at it.”
“Don’t fool yourself. We may fight,” she admits, “but Neil has my back, and I have his.”
“That’s wonderful,” I say. “But Neil’s grown. He can take care of himself. Your brother is an awesome man, a great father. Anya is lucky to have him.”
“Right, she does have him, and don’t you forget it.”
“Forgotten.”
“What?” Vette looks shocked that I’m hanging with her insult for insult. But I’m not in the mood for her. Not today.
“You don’t have to remind me to behave myself,” I inform her, “nor caution me about hell, or any other thing. I’ve been in the world a lot longer than you, and I’ve done all right so far. I’m not planning on staying in this situation forever, so keep your advice to yourself, because I do not take orders from you, Sharvetta.”
She doesn’t correct me. She leaves me alone. She watches me walk away from her. She hears me running upstairs so I can see what’s taking Neil so long. What she doesn’t hear is when I stop off in the bathroom, sit on the toilet seat, and cry. I plead with God to change my life, if only He’d listen.
The next week, I go on another interview. I make sure not to act too cute or get personal with this man. I dress conservatively. I maintain eye contact and note my strengths. When it’s over, I’m not sure how it went but my fingers and toes are crossed. On my way home, I go to the Hallmark store and buy a blank card that has roses on the front. Damned card costs four bucks, but I hope the expense is worth it.
I sit in my car and write:
I’m sorry if I said anything that offended you. I really want us to coexist peacefully. Truce?
I seal the envelope and write Vette on the front.
The next day, I check in with Neil by phone and he tells me, “Vette said you almost made her cry.”
“She didn’t almost make me cry, I did cry. She’s tough.”
“Not any tougher than you. Ya’ll need to chill.”
“I extended her an olive branch, but I just want her to stay away from me. I mean, not be so intense and all. I remember when I was young, when girls would get all up in my face sweating me just because I was eye candy, and light-skinned with long hair. It’s not like I asked to be born with these features, so when they’d come at me swinging, I always did what I had to do. They’d corner me, shove me against the wall, pull out blades. We’re talking seventh grade here. I didn’t enjoy fighting but fought, anyway. Luckily, some of my brothers and sisters would jump in. But I handled these girls on my own real good to show ’em they couldn’t treat me any way they wanted.”
“You Long Beach girls are so ghetto,” Neil jokes.
“It’s not about the ghetto, Neil. Survival is everywhere. You have to be hard. Being soft doesn’t get you far.”
“You’re a combination of soft and hard, so…”
“And that’s how I should be. I just wonder if it gives the wrong signals. I want to be feminine but let people know I won’t be treated bad—not for long. I think I tend to take more mess from men than women. I don’t know why that is.”
“Because you love us,” Neil exclaims.
“Yep, I do. I’m strictly dickly. Love me some nice, masculine hunk of a black man.”
“You’ve never dated outside your race?”
“I’ve had the opportunity,” I say, and yawn, “but never went there. I don’t know. Not against it, just haven’t tried it.”
Neil laughs. I wonder if he’s happy about that little disclosure.
“Well,” he says, “as soon as you hear any good news, be sure and call me.”
“Oh, you know it. You’ll be the first one. And if something good happens, I’d like to treat you, Neil. Maybe we can do lunch. Anywhere you want to go.”
“Anywhere?”
“As long as it’s a spot where you gotta get decked out and spend a grip. Wendy’s, KFC, Whataburger—anyplace where we can go all out. My treat.”
“You’re so bad, Dani.”
I laugh. “That’s not true and you know it. I’m just…I’m the way I need to be, and I hope that’s acceptable. I need to know you’re with me, ride or die. Once I get a job, I don’t want you to do a disappearing act. I want to stay in touch, you hear?”
Neil doesn’t say anything. Maybe he’s imagining what will happen after we’ve rid ourselves of the madness. Maybe he knows I can’t be up under him forever, t
hat I will sincerely want a man of my own, because as much as I act like he’s mine…
But if things were different, if Neil were free and available to hook up, I believe we’d be happy. We’d be normal. That’s all I really want…in my perfect world. Can you imagine? He and I living together in a wonderfully furnished house in one of Houston’s master-planned communities? I’d want everything on one spacious floor. Me and Neil’s master bedroom would be in one wing, so when we made love we could scream as loud as we wanted. And we’d have a floor-to-ceiling shower with a Jacuzzi. And we’d amorously christen the Roman tub, the veranda, and the top of the breakfast bar. We’d have one more child, a girl hopefully, who’d run around the house joyfully playing (or fighting) with her brother. We’d manage our lives together, of course, allowing Reesy to be a part of it. I’d never have to worry about finding a good man, and Neil would never stray within our marriage, because I alone would fulfill him.
We’d shop for each other. I’d buy him nice gear, and he’d buy me lots of jewelry so I’d know what it feels like to be Jenny from the block, back when she had Ben Affleck. And whenever we could, we’d fly to San Diego or the Poconos, Switzerland or Brazil, and lounge about in luxury suites. We’d be deliriously happy, crazy in love, and life would be so complete.
I am engrossed in my thoughts, fantasizing about what I could have if only my wildest dreams materialized. Then Neil interrupts my daydream and says, “Dani, there’s something you need to know. My wife and I have been making a few strides in our relationship. She wants us to go hang out tonight and I told her I’ll do it. Make sure to pick up Brax early.”
His wife?
And the dreams, yearnings, and visions of love, hope, and happiness are gone…just that quick.
