“Whoa!” I smiled. “I say you just go on with business as usual. Don’t let him know that you know.” My heartbeat was racing for her. “So we have a wedding to plan, huh?”
She screamed with joy. “Oh my God.”
“I’m jealous,” I said. “I want a big fat diam—”
My sentence was interrupted by Tremel’s voice. “Sarai.”
“Oops.” I had forgotten all about Tremel’s good news, but I didn’t want to prematurely discuss anything. Plus, it was Nat’s moment. “My man is calling me. Let me get back to you.” I hung up and walked into the living room.
“Did you find it?”
Tremel stared at me like he had seen a ghost.
“Is that it?” I asked, looking down at the oversized envelope in his hand.
“No.” He pointed to the manila packet on the sofa. “That’s it.” He reached inside and showed me the contents. “But I found this.”
Even after taking a deep breath, I realized that there was nothing I could say to explain the pictures he handed me of his uncle and me doing it doggie-style. My life slipped into a coma. I knew that when I woke up nothing would make sense and everything that I had before would be worthless.
“What the fuck is this, Sarai?” His eyes welled up with tears and seeped with anger and disbelief. He hit the photos. “What the fuck is this?” He snatched the pictures out of my hand and flipped through them quickly. “How could you do this to me?” His lips trembled with fury. “My uncle?”
“It’s not what you think. I can explain, Tremel.” I wanted to reach for him but was too afraid, so I took a step toward him instead.
He stepped back.
“That didn’t happen in Cleveland. It happened awhile ago.”
“My uncle?” He frowned at me as though I had an odor. “My fuckin’ uncle?”
“I didn’t know that he was your uncle back then.” I was trying to sell him on that statement.
“Back when? Why didn’t you tell me that you knew him?” He threw the pictures and sent them scattering all over the floor. “When did this shit happen?”
My emotions caught up with me, but more devastatingly, so did my lies. I was crying. “When I went to Atlanta.”
“‘Atlanta’?” He did a quick calculation. “Weren’t we together then?”
I was sobbing. “Yeah,” I whispered. “Please let me explain.”
“You were supposed to be there for a job interview. I can’t believe this.” He couldn’t keep still, but he kept his cold, cheerless eyes on me. “You cheated on me.”
“No. It’s not what you think. I wasn’t cheating on you.”
He yelled. “You weren’t cheating?” He picked up one of the pictures and pushed it in my face. “If you weren’t cheating, then what the fuck were you doing, Sarai?” He shouted, “You cheated on me. You lied to me, you . . . you did it with my uncle.”
“It’s not what you think,” I said weakly.
“It doesn’t matter what I think. I think that that’s blatantly obvious,” he shouted. “You don’t give a damn about me.”
“I do.”
I reached for him, but he turned away.
“Please just hear me out.”
“Hear what? You don’t have to say any more. I don’t want an explanation.” He pointed at himself. “I gave you no reason to cheat.”
“I did it for money,” I blurted out in an effort to be understood.
“‘Money’?”
“I was broke, Mel. I had no money, nothing.” I tried to contain myself. “I was about to get kicked out of here, my car was about to be repossessed, and my dad’s fuckin’ nursing home bill had to be paid,” I shouted and cried. “I slept with men for money.”
“Whoa. Wait a minute. Men? How many men?”
Before I could say a word, he was back at me again. “You’re a prostitute?” He chuckled out of madness. “I can’t believe this shit. Here I am respecting you, wouldn’t even sleep in the same bed with you until we both decided to be exclusive, and you’re a fuckin’ ho.”
“I needed the money.”
I grabbed his hand, and he yanked it away from me.
“Just listen to me, please,” I begged.
“I have nothing to listen for. And you don’t have anything to say to me. Don’t say anything else to me.”
He disappeared into the bedroom, and I followed him.
“I’m getting the fuck out of here.” He grabbed his already packed suitcase then pulled clean clothes out of his drawers and began stuffing them into his luggage. “Just get the hell out of here so that I can do this.”
“Tremel, I love you.”
He stood still and looked at me. “You don’t love me. You didn’t even like me in the beginning, when you learned I didn’t have any money. You never thought anything of me. I offered to help you with the rent, and you told me that you didn’t need my help. Trying to be all independent instead of—”
“That’s because I knew that you couldn’t afford it.”
He yelled, “Don’t tell me what I can and can’t afford. I offered to help you many times, and you wouldn’t allow me to. You made it seem as though you weren’t hurting.” He walked over to me. “I might not be Damian or them other cats, I may not be able to afford to pay rent here, but if I knew that you didn’t have the money, we could’ve moved into something that I could afford.” Tears were streaming down his cheeks.
“You refused my help and allowed other men to help you by sleeping with them. I guess you really haven’t changed from the night of that party. I guess it really does matter that I don’t have a business card, a flashy sports car, or a house of my own.” He looked me up and down. “I guess I’m just your charity case, huh? Well, I’d rather sleep on the damn street tonight than sleep with you.” He zipped up his suitcase.
His words were like grenades; he threw them, didn’t care where they landed, and left me wounded and confused.
“Please don’t leave me,” I begged. “I’ll tell you the truth about everything.”
“The truth don’t mean shit to me now.” He put his hand in my face.
“Okay, just please don’t leave me.” I was hyperventilating, and snot was draining from my nose. “Just hear what I have to say.”
“What?” His eyes looked back at me and hit me like a fist. “What in the fuck do you have to say, Sarai?” He backed up into the dresser and leaned on it. “You have the floor—What in the hell more does your sorry ass have to say?”
I spent the next hour telling Tremel the truth. It all started with Damian leaving me penniless and me losing my job. I confessed that it all started in the Bahamas as a mistake but turned into the only way it seemed my life would get better.
I told him about my doctor, the men in Virginia, my Atlanta trip, and my trip to Trenton to take the photos.
Without issuing the gory details, I stayed completely honest with him. However, I didn’t tell him about Julian and Jump Records. I worried that he’d think he didn’t deserve the chance and wouldn’t take it.
When I was done, he asked me tons of questions that I could tell he couldn’t stand the answers to. Though we were both in tears, he wouldn’t let me get close enough to comfort him.
It wouldn’t have mattered if I had said sorry in every language; Tremel made it clear that he was through with me.
In silence, he grabbed the handle to his suitcase, picked up a couple of pairs of shoes, and strolled out of the bedroom.
When I heard the front door close, it felt like he had physically closed it on my heart. I let out a scream so loud, I was sure that my neighbors were contemplating calling 911.
Though I had done many outrageous things to obtain it, now that I had it in abundance, I couldn’t use my money to get what I needed most—Tremel’s love.
“The last time I saw him he was walking down
Lover’s Lane holding his own hand.”
—Fred Allen
Bank Statement # 16
Account
Balance: $56,639.27
A week went by, then two, then came the holidays. I drank no eggnog, didn’t put up a tree, and refused to hang a stocking. The only thing that made it feel like a holiday was the pain of being alone. On Christmas Eve, I claimed I was too ill to attend Nick’s Christmas party. On Christmas, I complained that I thought I was coming down with the 48-hour bug that had been plaguing Miami. I was fine! I stayed home and watched TV specials, cried, and waited for the phone to ring.
On Christmas Day, I sang carols all alone and opened up my one gift. It was perfume, Weekend by Burberry London, from Nat. I had a gift for Tremel, in case he came by. It was music and songwriting software for his computer. I typed up and printed out over fifty songs that he had handwritten in a notebook. He didn’t come.
On January 3, two men showed up at my apartment with a letter from Tremel. It read: Ms. Emery, I’ve hired movers to collect my possessions. Please be kind enough to show them what belongs to me. Thank you for your cooperation. Mr. Colten.
In front of two strangers, I was forced to realize that he really wasn’t coming back. I allowed the movers in, and while they moved his musical equipment, I heard them bickering about how long it’d take them to drive to Boston.
“Boston?” I wept as I folded Tremel’s clothing and stacked it neatly into the three boxes the men provided for me.
In two hours, the only physical remembrance of Tremel I had was the dead crab in the freezer and a bottle of his cologne that it would kill me to part with. Ever since the night he walked out, I sprayed a little on the backside of my hand so that through the night I could pretend he was close by.
“Boston,” I said again, when I let them out.
I turned on my Billie Holiday CD, poured a glass of Kendall, and rummaged around the Internet to find out the exact distance between Miami and Boston—1,520 miles.
I sipped my wine, and after the alto saxophone cried, Billie sang, Good morning, heartache, you old gloomy sight. Good morning, heartache, thought we said goodbye last night.
The song was over fifty years old, but it seemed like it was written just yesterday for me. How did Billie know?
In one of the boxes with his clothing, I put his still-wrapped Christmas gift, and along with his songs I typed out, I included one that I wrote for him, entitled “Come Back.”
Didn’t know how good I had it until I didn’t have it anymore.
Thought you were coming back when you walked out the door.
I can’t bring myself to wash your pillowcase,
I need your smell near . . . just in case
I get lonely, I get worried, or I get scared.
My house can’t be a home if you’re not in my bed.
Chorus:
If I said I’m sorry in every language, would you forgive me?
You’re right, what I did was wrong, and I have no good reason.
I miss you, return to me; in you arms is where I long to be.
If love grew on trees, this would be my season.
Make an exception; I know that you don’t backtrack,
but baby, just come back. Please come back.
Damn, I was stupid. How could I hurt you that way?
I remember our first date just like it happened yesterday,
I still think of the night you came over and never left.
That was the same night that I reported a blatant theft.
You walked in and stole my heart without a gun to my head.
Look at me now. Pull the trigger, ’cause I’m better off dead.
Chorus:
If I said I’m sorry in every language, would you forgive me?
You’re right, what I did was wrong, and I have no good reason.
I miss you, return to me; in your arms is where I long to be.
If love grew on trees, this would be my season.
Make an exception; I know that you don’t backtrack,
but baby, just come back. Please come back.
Come back, come back.
Yes, I’m down on my knees.
Come back, come back.
Not ashamed to beg, please.
Come back, come back.
I don’t know what else to do.
Come back, come back.
I can’t go on without you.
Come back to me.
Come back to me.
I didn’t expect anyone to pity me or feel sorry for me, and I couldn’t say that people were wrong for uttering the words, “that’s what she deserved,” when they thought of me. Some said that I got what was coming to me; others said that I didn’t get enough. But they all agreed on one thing, and that was that I rode the wave of my lies too happily and for too damn long.
When I told my story to people, I changed my name to Deborah, to protect the guilty, and the general consensus was, “That’s a nasty bitch. If I were Travis, I would’ve left her too.”
The more feedback I received, the harder it was to keep coming home to an empty house.
As I rolled over in bed and looked at the clock, I whimpered, “Boston.” It had actually become one of the first words out of my mouth every day since I heard the movers say it, and that was two months ago.
It was early March. I was giving myself until Saint Patrick’s Day to get over Tremel, or I’d check myself into an institution.
Tremel and I were only together for four months, but it felt like four years, and I was acting like it. I was still crying over spilled milk like it had chocolate cookies in it. Women only mourned over a man this long if he was hella fine, rich, or throwing it up and slapping it back down in the bedroom. Tremel was two out of three and had me about to lose my mind. Lord, if he had money, I think I would be in a diamond-studded straightjacket right now.
When the phone rang, I was still answering like it could be him. “Hello?” I said anxiously.
Nat asked, “When are you going to get over it? I can still hear it in your voice.”
“Well, good morning to you too.”
“Good mornin’, Ms. Emery,” she joked. “What are your plans for the day?”
“Why?” I looked at the caller ID. “Where are you?”
“On the road.”
I scanned the calendar for a holiday. “No school?”
“I called out. I have something important that I need to get done.”
“What?”
Nat never missed school unless it was a real emergency.
“Put on some clothes and pack a bag. We’re going to Naples for the weekend. I’ll be picking you up in twenty minutes.”
Before I could protest, she continued, “I’m already on my way.”
I hardly ever left my apartment these days. As we spoke I was still in bed. “You should’ve called me and told me before right now, Nat.”
“What in the hell do you have planned, other than sitting and thinking about the dick that got away?—Not a damn thing. So get out of that bed and be ready.”
“Oh my God. Are you serious?”
Nat yelled, “Yes!” Then she asked, “Do you have five hundred dollars cash on you right now?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Just bring it. I’m not coming up there. I’ll call you when I’m downstairs.” With that said she hung up in my face.
What a friend! “Shit.” I jumped out of bed, ran into the bathroom to turn on my hot curler, brushed my teeth, and jumped into the shower.
After that was done, I raced around the room talking to myself as I threw clothes into a suitcase. “How in the hell did she just plan a trip to Naples?” I gathered a few pairs of shoes. “She could’ve asked me first.” I curled my hair. “What is in Naples anyways?” I gathered my things. “Isn’t that where all the old people move when they retire?”
Nat actually gave me an hour. It was close to noon when she phoned and told me to get downstairs.
In the car, she stuffed my money into her purse then informed me that during our weekend, if I spoke Tremel’s name, she’d deduct ten dollars each time. If I
cried, she’d take twenty-five, and if she caught me with a frown, for whatever reason, the price was fifty dollars. Those were her rules, and she didn’t wait for me to agree. Those were the rules.
Pulling up in front of The Ritz Carlton in Naples was all I really needed. The lobby was a treat all by itself. I was already in a better mood. The Gulf of Mexico was right in back of the hotel, so Nat and I wasted no time changing into our bikinis and walking out to the beach.
After lying out in the sand and talking for a while, we decided to get into the water. Nat was afraid of the fish; even the tiniest guppy had her screaming like the people did in Jaws. We were in water up to our belly buttons, which was as far as she was going.
“I can’t believe that you’re scared of these little things.” I tarried closer to the shoreline with her.
“It’s the little ones that cause the problems.” Nat stared into the water and jumped whenever she saw anything fishlike. “They can swim up inside of you and lay eggs.” She laughed. “Soon you’ll be walking around thinking you got a yeast infection, but what you really got is a two-piece fish and chips plate.”
“You are foolish.” I laughed like I had been wanting to for months. “You are too foolish.”
She got serious. “I’m so happy that you came with me.”
I playfully threw some water her way. “Thank you for inviting me.”
She pointed out into the distance. “They say that the ocean is supposed to be soothing, so go out there and soothe yourself, and don’t come back until you’re cured.” She smiled. “I’ll be right here waiting for you.”
I joked as I swam off. “That’s if the fish don’t take you away.”
Going Broke Page 24
