by Pat Tucker
“So, you hear Evelyn say we probably need to take a trip to L.A.? She got some real important people she wants me to meet.”
That’s when the moon could’ve dropped from the sky.
Chapter Thirty-Five
By the time my interview hit the airwaves, I was more surprised than anyone. Once again, Yesterday had been right. It seemed like everyone was interested in hearing about Coop and the things he had done to me. And the repeats were crazy. It was like almost all stations had picked up clips from the original interview.
One afternoon, I was on the bus heading home after a job interview. I paid, took my seat and was about to pull a novel out of my bag.
“’S’cuse me, but didn’t I see you on TV last night?”
The older lady wasn’t a person I’d strike up conversation with, but she’d asked me a question.
“Yes, ma’am, that was probably me.”
“Umph.” She had twisted up her mouth. “You never know what a man will do to a woman. My daughters and granddaughters love that man’s music, but I told them, it was something about those eyes.”
“Well, nobody is perfect,” I’d said.
A wrinkled finger had shot up to quiet me. “No, don’t make excuses for him. Men like that; they don’t deserve an ounce of success. I don’t care where they came from or how hard they worked. You can’t mistreat people, then expect them to go quietly.”
Everything she’d said was correct, but what good was it to complain to a complete stranger?
“Men like him, they don’t deserve nothing good in life!”
She’d said it was such conviction, I knew without asking that she’d probably been with some just as bad in her day. She’d clearly spoken from experience.
“I’m glad you told your story. Think how many other women going through the same thing.”
“Yeah, that wasn’t how I looked at it, but I guess you have a good point there.”
“Of course I do.” She had leaned in, and I’d caught a whiff of an old fragrance my grandmother used to wear. “Look at you, you’ve bounced back. They see you happy. Now that you’ve moved on with your life, it gives them inspiration to do the same.”
She’d patted my thigh.
If only she’d known.
“Ya did the right thing; big star or not, ya can’t let no man treat you any ol’ kind of way. If you do, they do what they want, how, and when, and you left stuck trying to pull everything back together.”
When the bus had pulled up at my stop, I had popped up from the chair like burned toast running from the heat. She was putting me in a state of mind I wasn’t ready to be in.
“Nice talking to you; this is where I get off,” I’d said.
She had looked around like she wasn’t sure whether it was her stop too.
“Oh, okay, well, you have a blessed day, ya hear me?”
I had gotten off the bus and made the nearly one-block trek to my apartment. The woman’s words had rolled around in my head for a while, but I’d told myself it didn’t matter what other people thought. She didn’t know me, and if she’d gotten the impression that my life was together because I had left a selfish, abusive man, then maybe others who watched the interview would think the same.
As I’d dug for my key, at the front door, I’d told myself that it would be my turning point. I’d do a few more interviews, save the money, and try to get a lawyer who could help me get joint custody of my son.
It was dark when I’d pushed my door open and wondered how much time I had before I needed to get ready for my part-time job.
I’d felt around on the wall next to the door and flipped the switch on. My purse and the small bag I’d carried dropped to the floor at the sight of him.
“How the hell did you get in here?”
My eyes had searched the room for something I could grab and use to defend myself. He had no right to be in my apartment. If I was supposed to stay away from them, quite surely, they needed to stay away from me.
The emotions that had started to flare up in me were hard to ignore. My eyes instantly had started to swell with tears; I was so angry I wanted to kill him with my bare hands.
“You finally happy? Is this what you wanted?” His words weren’t as sharp and crisp and his arms had flared. “My label is talking about delaying the release of my next single. We are going to lose lots of money over this.”
His usually mesmerizing eyes had looked dull and glassy; he was broken. He would never actually say so, but the sound of his voice alone had told off on him. I’d felt an incredible sense of accomplishment, and I was nowhere near being done.
Could I have ruined his career, probably not, but if I could have caused him and my sister some misery, I would’ve been happy with that.
“You don’t get it, do you?” he’d asked.
My tears had dried suddenly. There was so much I wanted to say to him, but I couldn’t make the words sound right. I couldn’t figure out how to hurt him half as much as he had hurt me.
“Get what, and where’s Evelyn?”
His eyes had danced around the room, and suddenly, it had looked like he wasn’t sure what to focus on.
“She had to go to L.A. to try and iron out a few things,” he had admitted, with great reluctance.
“That bad, huh?”
I was celebrating on the inside at the sound of that news. I’d hoped it would take her a lifetime to clean things up. I couldn’t wait for the next interview to air, and I was excited about doing even more. I’d talk to his high school paper, if they’d have me.
“We wasn’t right for each other. You tried, you worked your ass off to try and help me get to where I am, but in the end, you just couldn’t do it.”
Talking sense wasn’t Cooper’s thing. He must’ve had lots of time to think about what he was going to say to me. I’d understood what he was trying to say, but I’d also understood that he probably didn’t know how to piece the words together right.
I had done so much for us, but at the time, I thought I was working as much for my future as I was for his. It never dawned on me that he only saw me as a step toward his ultimate goal, and given the opportunity, he would take everything and leave me alone and with nothing.
“Evelyn was the real deal. She made the business side of it do what I couldn’t, but Coop, I tried to warn you. I told you she wouldn’t rest until she had you.”
“So that’s it, you still love me?”
His question had touched me to the core. It wasn’t that I still loved him; I didn’t. He had taught me enough to know, if he was able to treat me the way he did, it was clear Cooper only loved himself. But it was his arrogance that was hard for me to swallow.
“Still love you?” I had balked.
Cooper’s expression had twisted ever so slightly. I couldn’t determine whether he was surprised by my admission, or hurt that I wasn’t still carrying a torch for his simple behind. The only thing he could do for me, was pay some of what was rightfully mine. Anything else was of little interest to me.
“Get real, Coop. You have taken extreme pleasure in stripping my life down to nothing and making me suffer. It was about time that I started to tell my side of the story. I did a lot for you. I did some shit—I’ll never be able to say out loud, some shit that still keeps me up at night—and your funky ass is living life to the fullest.”
He had hung his head low and taken his face into the palms of his hands. He had sighed hard and loud. But it wasn’t until his leg had moved that I’d seen the tall, half-empty bottle.
Cooper had stood and looked down at me. “Where’s the bathroom?”
He must’ve already been drunk. There were only two doors in my apartment, and he had already walked through one.
Despite what should’ve been obvious, I had pointed to my right, and he’d stumbled toward the door.
> Alone with my thoughts, my mind had gone back to more memories of the pain he had caused.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Regardless of how badly I wanted and needed to go to L.A. with Cooper and Evelyn, we couldn’t afford it. She or Sony paid for his ticket, but they weren’t budgeted for mine. Every extra dollar we had went toward bills, so I had to stay back and watch my husband go on a business trip with the woman who was determined to ruin my marriage.
The thought that money was so crucial for us made me want to start looking for a regular job. In addition to not being able to move around like I needed, there were times late at night when I lay next to a snoring Coop, all I could do was think about how we’d eat the next day.
“So, are you just gonna keep blowing me up, even though you know I’m here on business?”
That was how Cooper finally answered the phone when I called for the umpteenth time. They had landed more than three hours prior to my call, and he didn’t have the decency to let me know the plane didn’t hit a mountain or anything like that.
“Well, hello to you too, husband!”
“Licia, why you trippin’? You know I’m working.”
I heard Evelyn in the background, and I wanted to choke the shit out of her for being so close to him.
“Coop, you really need to relax before our meetings. I told you to turn the ringer off.”
Could she be any more thirsty? Why would he need to turn his ringer off to relax before meeting his new colleagues? Evelyn was full of shit and she knew it. But she also knew my husband was talking to me on the phone and that her little comment would keep me up all night.
“Yeah, good point,” Cooper said to her. I was sick because it was clear he no longer had a single independent thought of his own. If Eve didn’t say it, it must not have been so, and I was sick of it.
They had flown out at six in the morning. They were in L.A. with time to spare by noon.
“Where are you guys stating?” I asked. I figured I could act as though I didn’t hear Evelyn as she tried to coax him off the phone.
“We’re at the Beverly Hills Hotel,” Coop said. But the way he said it was almost like he was bragging. He kept up the drama between Evelyn and me. Anytime she did the smallest thing for him, he behaved as if it were earth-shattering. But when I worked my ass off for him, nothing was ever good enough.
“Coop, we really need to go over these notes, then I want you to take a nap,” Evelyn said.
Again, her voice came across so loud, if I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought they were in the same bed and not about to have a conversation, either.
“Look, Licia, let me go. I need to rest before out meeting later tonight.”
“Later tonight? What kind of meeting is this that happens at night?”
Cooper blew out a breath that was meant for me to hear.
“It’s industry stuff, Licia. They don’t conduct business out here during banker hours; nine to five is for the working poor out here,” he said.
When I heard Eve laugh, it made me real desperate to commit murder. It was like she wanted me to hear her in the background. She knew I couldn’t make the trip. But that was okay because I had something for both their asses.
“Coop, the masseuse is here,” I heard Eve say, of course loud enough for me to hear. They needed a masseuse? What for and how was that a part of business?
“Look, I need to go, so I could relax before tonight,” he said.
The minute I hung up with him, my cell rang, and it was the call I had been waiting on.
“This is Felicia Spears,” I answered. I struggled to contain my excitement.
“Yes, this is Veronica Jackson, with Quick Payday Loans. We’re calling to let you know that your loan has been approved, and the money will be deposited into your account within five minutes.”
“Great! Thank you for the call.”
Payday loans were the worst, with their incredible interest rates, but I was desperate. Eve thought she had the upper hand because she thought I couldn’t make it to L.A. I couldn’t wait to show up at the Beverly Hills Hotel and witness the look on their faces.
The ticket was already on a seventy-two-hour hold, so I just needed to pay and get to the airport.
“Mom.” I called my mother the second I finished packing. “I need to bring Trey over.” I couldn’t tell her over the phone, but I needed to make sure she’d be available to watch him. “Something came up, and I needed to make sure he could stay there for a couple of days.”
I picked up on the confusion in her voice, and I knew she had a million questions. But instead of allowing her to drill me, I talked fast and tried to convey the fact that I was in a hurry.
It didn’t take long to get to her house, and like I knew she would be, she showed up in the doorway looking disheveled. She watched as I made my way into the house.
“What, where’s the fire?” She wiped her hands on the apron she wore.
“I need to go to L.A.,” I said.
My mother looked confused. She frowned a bit, then her head tilted ever so slightly.
“What you mean you going to L.A.? Like where Coop and Eve are?”
“Yes, that’s the only L.A. I know,” I snapped.
“Jesus be a fence!” my mother hollered, and her arms flared. I wasn’t in the mood for any of her antics, and I was not about to be discouraged.
“I just need you to watch Trey. If my husband is meeting his team, as his wife, I need to be by his side. I should’ve flown out with them earlier.”
Tabitha at a loss for words was not something that happened often. She stood in the doorway with an expression on her face that said she wasn’t sure what she needed to do, but something was necessary.
“Well, chile, do they know you coming?” Her voice was laced with concern, and worry lines had invaded her face.
That’s when I stopped cold in my tracks and whipped around to face her.
“Why would they need to be warned that I am coming? I am Cooper’s wife. Truth be told, he should not have left without me in the first damn place.”
My mother sighed, and retreated. She knew what I said was nothing but the gospel, and I dared her to challenge it, but she didn’t get a chance.
When I heard the horn honking outside, I grabbed my bag and slid past my mother.
“My Uber ride is here. I’ll call you once I land.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The flight to L.A. was bumpy with lots of turbulence and a baby who cried during most of the flight. Despite all of this, I was more eager to land than anything. I couldn’t wait to see the looks on Cooper’s and Evelyn’s faces when I showed up.
It didn’t take long for the shit to hit the fan. I landed, hopped into another Uber and was taken directly to the Beverly Hills Hotel.
As I stormed into the lobby, it dawned on me that I never stopped to make a reservation or anything. I slowed down a bit and tried to think fast on my feet. How would I find them? And where would I stay?
“Ma’am, are you checking in?”
If that bellman hadn’t asked that question, I may have had time to think clearly. But in front of all those people, I simply nodded and walked up to the registration desk. There was no turning back, so I decided to take my chances.
“Hi, I’m Felicia Spears, and my husband left a key for me,” I said with all confidence, as I stepped up to the clerk who asked if she could help. Of course, he had done no such thing, but I was hoping I could catch someone off their game.
The clerk was young, cheerful, and seemed eager to please.
“Okay,” she said, and started typing. She grinned hard and wide as her eyes focused in on her computer screen. “Let me see here.”
Perspiration began to drizzle down the middle of my back.
The smile seemed to melt from her face, quickly
replaced by a frown. “Uh, I don’t see any notes,” she stammered as she studied the computer screen.
“It’s okay. I just need a key to my husband’s room.”
She gave me a blank stare, then looked down at her screen again. Suddenly, her face turned red and she stammered. She glanced around as if she were looking for help. When I didn’t see anyone rushing to her aid, I got firm.
“Look, I’m tired, I’ve been on an hours-long flight, and I want to get into my room and relax. I need a key to the room, so I can go up.”
“Ma’am, uh, I don’t see any notes on Mr. Spears’ account.”
“I didn’t ask what you see. I’m telling you I need a key to the room.” I pulled my wallet and snatched my Texas driver’s license out, and smacked it onto the counter.
“Do you see what this says?” I pointed at my name beneath the photo.
The clerk looked down at it, then around again. She cleared her throat and focused back on the computer screen.
“Ma’am. I cannot give you a key to a room unless a note is left for you that specifies that.”
“Where is your manager?” I asked. I got a little loud. I was wrong, but it wasn’t like I had a plan.
“Ma’am, I’ve already reached out to him. I think he’s out to lunch. I just need you to calm down.”
“Calm down? Don’t tell me to calm down! My husband is here for an important meeting, and he needs my support, and you’re here acting like it’s a crime to give his wife access to his room.”
The line behind me was growing. Suddenly, another desk clerk walked up.
“Lacy, is everything okay?” He didn’t look friendly, and I figured it was time for me to give up and think of another plan.
“You know what, it’s okay; I’ll call his cell and tell him to call you guys.”
Before she could explain everything to her coworker, I stepped aside and watched as they struggled to help other people in the line. It pissed me off that I couldn’t bully Lacy into giving up the key or even the room number.
