by Bell, Kris
I cleared my throat and pulled my shoulders back. Turning slightly in Chloe's direction, I addressed her without looking at her. “Hello, Chloe. This is my good friend Isabel Maldonado. Isabel, this is Chloe Childs.”
Isabel extended her open palm towards my evil ex-girlfriend and gave her a Colgate smile. God bless her; even though the look Chloe gave her was harsher than a sheet of coarse sandpaper, Isabel's pleasant countenance never wavered.
“Hi. Nice to meet you,” Isabel said.
Chloe looked Isabel up and down with a smirk and ignored her hand. She then rolled her eyes toward me and said, “Maldonado? What kind of name is that for a black girl?”
The nerve in my left eye started twitching in fierce agitation. Not only was Chloe’s mere presence annoying the shit out of me, but her question was ignorant enough to cause anyone an immediate headache. However, before I could rip Chloe a new asshole over her rudeness, Isabel withdrew her hand and spoke up again.
With a tone cold enough to freeze water she replied, “Actually, I’m Black and Puerto Rican, but thanks for asking.”
I couldn’t help but grin. It was nice to be on a date with an actual lady. My ex-girlfriend, who was anything but lady-like, didn’t think Isabel’s comment was funny, though.
“Anyway,” she hissed as she turned her whole back to her. I caught Isabel shaking her head in disapproval. I was not about to have this chick ruin our time together.
“Look, Chloe, it was nice seeing you and all, but we’re trying to have a nice dinner, so…feel free to leave.”
“Well, I’m not gonna keep you. I just came over to check out the competition.” She rolled her eyes towards Isabel again, sucking her teeth. “You sure didn’t waste any time to find another bed warmer. I hope you changed the sheets after I left last week.”
Ooh, this woman! It took everything in me to fight back the urge to knock her upside the head and toss her out a window. I was so irritated just being in her presence I clenched my fist around my cloth napkin so tight it was permanently wrinkled.
It was the reaction she wanted. Chloe's evil grin expanded at my now boiling red face.
“Goodbye, baby! I’ll call you later tonight.” Chloe made an about-face and walked back the way she came, twitching her hips in a seductive stride.
“Don’t bother,” I growled after her.
I took a chance and glanced at Isabel as I tried to steady my nerves once I took to my seat. It was clear she was perturbed by the brief encounter with my ex. Needless to say, I was too. Of all the times for Chloe to pop up!
“I’m sorry you had to be subjected to that, Isabel. Yes, she is my ex, but trust and believe when I say we haven’t been together in a long time. She’s just a really nasty female with a jacked up attitude to match.”
Isabel offered me a little smile. “It’s okay, Rich. You don’t have to explain. I didn’t even know you last week, so who am I to get upset in the first place?”
“I know that, but still. I’m sorry she came over here.”
“You guys were together a long time?”
I took a sip of my water. "For about three years. Almost got married twice, but she wasn’t ready. She had a slight problem keeping her legs closed for anyone but me.”
My date nodded and fidgeted with her napkin.
“She was one of those types, huh? Physically beautiful and perfect? Thought the sun shone only when she told it to? Always had men at her beck and call?”
“Something like that. She damn sure had me fooled. It wasn’t until I found out she had an abortion behind my back that I finally got some sense knocked into me. Rhys told me from the beginning that she wasn’t shit, but I refused to believe that. She was my perfect woman and my ignorant ass was in love.”
“There’s no such thing as a perfect woman, Richie.”
I looked up and took a good look at Isabel. She was still playing with her napkin, but she held her gaze to me and didn’t break away. I knew her statement was the truth even though I really didn’t feel like hearing it. Wasn’t the only one to make that kind of mistake in life, and I damn sure wouldn’t be the last.
“Well, it doesn’t even matter anyway,” Isabel sighed after a moment of awkward silence. “I really shouldn’t be one to talk about perfection. Lord knows I’m not. I tend to hold my fiancé, Kyle, in a pretty high regard, although I’m starting to think I shouldn’t. He hasn’t treated me anywhere near as bad as your ex or anything, but that doesn’t really matter, does it?”
We sat in silence for a few moments as our dinner was placed down in front of us. I started picking at my steak, my appetite long gone. Isabel broke the silence.
“Well, anyway. What’s a night out without a little excitement? A little birdie told me this place plays some good music upstairs. I assume you know how to move?” She grinned as she sipped her chardonnay.
I grinned back. Maybe this date could be salvaged after all.
ISABEL
A few months later...
As I sat in my mother’s small, neat apartment in the heart of Hampton, I thought back to my one and only date with Richie Reyes. It had started out well, hit a speed bump, and then ended great. We were supposed to be hooking up later tonight to catch a movie, but I was seriously starting to doubt if my mother was going to let me leave on time.
I admit, at first, I had been intimidated by Chloe Child’s presence at Toriello’s. She was so statuesque and beautiful with her face and style…until she opened up her mouth and spewed her ignorance all over the dinner table. I only had to endure her presence for less than two minutes, but in that time, she showed me all the attitude and cockiness I needed to see. Chloe would never be someone I could buddy up to. It’s a wonder how Richie stayed ignorant of her negativity and selfishness all those years.
Well, then again, maybe not. Men have gone stupid over women with less than a quarter of Chloe’s attractiveness. I guess a pretty face and good sex will do that to you.
After dinner that night, Richie and I ended up in the dancehall on the restaurant’s third floor. I normally didn’t dance, but Richie was so pissed about Chloe's antics that I was anxious to cheer him up. The brief conversation we had afterward about his ex and my fiancé only added fuel to his building fire.
I was nervous as all hell when he took my hand and led me to the center of the dance floor. The DJ was in the middle of a reggae set, and the crowded room was going bananas. Richie too. The man was in his element as he danced circles around me. It took a few minutes for me to start moving, but once I did, it was official. I was grinding and swaying my hips harder than some of the skinny chicks. I owed that to Richie. He made me feel so comfortable with myself; it was almost as if it was just the two of us in the whole building.
We didn’t make it back to my place until 3 a.m. Once we got good and settled in, we drank a couple of beers and relaxed on the couch. We talked about everything underneath the sun, including where our newfound friendship was going. Despite me and Kyle’s temporary separation, I knew I did not want anything to come between us, especially now that he was making an effort to communicate with me. I wasn’t about to abandon a relationship that I cherished for someone I barely knew, regardless of how nice he was. Besides, after Richie’s tough breakup with Chloe, he didn’t think it would be wise to get close to another female until she was completely out of his system, which she evidently wasn’t. We decided right before we fell asleep lounging on my sofa that we would just be friends.
I couldn’t wait to meet up with Richie later. I was definitely going to need some serious “me” time after dealing with this woman and all these phone calls.
“Mama, maybe this is a sign telling you to leave Petey alone,” I said as my mother ended another call and slammed her cell phone down on the coffee table for the millionth time since I had arrived. Well, actually, it was the twelfth time in the last hour.
“Look, Izzy,” my mother said to me as though I were five years old, “Petey is my man. We have had over five yea
rs together. I’m not about to let one of these trifling, ghetto females mess that up!”
Her voice may have wavered on maternal, but her expression read “I’m about to hurt somebody.” Like a highly pissed off bull, her nostrils flared out, and her mouth was twisted into the deepest frown. When she spoke, it was almost like a snarl. I could not remember ever seeing my mom this livid.
I rolled my eyes. “Correction, Mama. They have been five painful years. Why would you want to hold onto something that’s not good for you? This shit ain‘t healthy!”
My mother whirled around and gave me a stern glower. I may be 27 years old, but I still cast my eyes down when she gave me that look, just like I did when I was little.
“First of all, Isabel, Petey and I may have had our troubles in the past, but he loves me. Do you understand that? He loves me! That’s not gonna change. You don’t know what it’s like to have a man love you like Petey loves me. I need to hold onto that. So what if he slipped up in the past and slept with another female! She don’t have nothing on me! He comes home to me. At the end of the day, I'm his woman. That’s what matters!”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples, trying to calm myself. Not only was I getting even angrier at my mother’s naivety, but also I started to feel sorry for her. She had been treated like crap for years by so many people that she didn't even realize her potential. She could do so much better than what she settled for. Mama is a smart and beautiful woman. Any man she wanted, she could have. A good man! Petey wasn’t worth the spit in my mouth, and deep down inside, I knew she knew that, but hearing her talk like a love struck 15 -year-old girl just broke my heart.
The phone rang again. I couldn’t take it anymore, so I reached for her cell to give the bitch on the other end a piece of my mind. I may disagree with my mother on a lot of things, but I'd be damned if I allowed someone to disrespect her in my presence.
My mother saw me reaching for the phone on the table between us, by she snatched it away before I could grab it. She accepted the call.
“What is it?” she growled into the phone.
Even though I was a few feet away from the phone, I could easily hear a female voice leaking through the phone calling my mom every name in the book except "saint."
The situation was getting out of control. Instead of my silly mother hanging up the phone and ignoring this dumb woman on the other end, she continued to listen patiently as though the woman was someone asking her about her day. But I could see her face getting tighter by the second. It wouldn’t be long before her fury broke. I had to do something.
I mouthed to my mother, “Hang up the phone,” but she didn’t listen to me. She was too busy listening to the other woman. So instead of staying quiet, I got loud.
“Mother, hang up the phone! Now!”
“Look, bitch, I don’t know what you’re used to or who you think I am, but you keep talking shit to me and I’m gonna make you regret every little thing you say!” my mother exclaimed. Yep. The dam was breaking and Mama’s Christianity was quickly washing away. She jumped up and began pacing the floor of her small living room as she continued spewing threats to the unnamed woman. I stood up as well.
“Mom, you need to hang up the phone. Don’t feed into that. That’s what she wants.” I tried to grab the phone from my mother as she passed in front of me, but she pushed me to the side like a rag doll. Oh hell no! My mother seldom put her hands on me as a child and never since I was an adult. I didn’t like where this was going, especially since I had overheard the woman on the other end say she was on her way to the house to whoop my mother’s ass.
That was it for me. I grabbed my mother around her waist as she yelled random expletives into the phone and snatched itaway from her. I pressed “end” and tossed the phone onto the couch where I had been sitting.
“What the hell are you doing?” my mother yelled in my face. I couldn’t remember the last time she was like this. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her like this! Her pretty, dark brown eyes were bloodshot from crying and her face was so red it looked swollen. “What the hell are you doing?” she repeated.
“Why are you stooping to their level?” I yelled back to her. Now I was getting heated. I hadn’t planned on this shit. I just came over for a quick mother/daughter visit before I headed over to the movies with Rich. “Why are you acting like a goddamn child? You are forty-five years old! Petey ain’t worth this fuckin’ drama! Let those silly women have him!”
My mother stormed past me so hard she damn near knocked me on my ass when she went by. If it weren’t for the wall behind me, I would’ve been on the floor, and I doubt she would’ve looked back. “You don’t know shit, Izzy! If she tries to come over here, I’ll be ready for her. That ain’t a problem!” she yelled as she headed upstairs to her room.
She slammed her bedroom door. After so many years of being a parent to my mother when it came to trifling men, I was beyond tired of it. She should have been giving me relationship advice, not the other way around. The trouble really started five years ago when she met Petey’s ignorant ass I had no respect for Petey whatsoever. Since we never talked even if we’re in the same room, I guess it’s safe to say the feelings were mutual. It didn’t matter, though. My mother may have had her faults, but she didn’t deserve to be disrespected in her own home. We don’t know these women from Adam, and since this one in particular reeked of “hood rat” on the phone, it was likely that she wouldn’t be alone if she did come over.
Thinking I needed some help, I took my cell phone out of my pants pocket and dialed Tara’s number. She didn’t live too far from my mom, but I had to abandon the idea of her coming over to help once her voicemail picked up.
Not knowing who else to call, I dialed Richie’s number. I prayed he would answer even though I didn’t really know what I would tell him. “Pick up, pick up,” I whispered as the phone rang.
“Hey, babe,” he answered.
I exhaled in a rush of relief and said, “Hey, Richie! Listen, um, where are you?”
“I just left my office, headed home. What’s up? What’s wrong?”
I wanted to tell him to come over and rescue me, take me away from this ridiculous drama. But why would he? He doesn’t have anything to do with me or my suddenly crazy mother.
“I think I might need you to come over to my mom’s house, like, right now.”
“Why? What’s the matter? Is she okay?”
“Well…” I began. I could hear my mom cussing someone out upstairs. She refused to calm down. No point in interfering. It was pointless.
“Well,” I repeated, “I think some women my mom’s boyfriend have been messing with are trying to come over here and start some drama. She’s upstairs right now getting ready to meet these chicks outside. She’s not listening to me. I don’t know if I should be worried or what.”
Richie didn’t waste any time asking questions. He simply said, “Give me the address.”I did, and that was the end of the conversation. It was just in the nick of time, too. I heard a car pull up to the front of the apartment.
I rushed to the front window and looked out hoping I didn’t see some chicks armed with baseball bats coming up the walk. I was relieved to see that it wasn’t them, but disturbed to see that it was Petey’s little girl, Sabrina. She was about 10-years-old and technically lived with Petey, but my mom kept her most days because her sorry excuse for a father always had something more important to do. What could be more important than spending time with your child? I don’t know, but since my mom had a big heart and looked at Sabrina as another daughter, she took it upon herself to play “mommy” with this little one. Not that I resented it. Sabrina was a good child, but a part of me wished my mother did for me all the things she did for this kid who wasn’t even her own flesh and blood. That’s the drawback to having a young mother, I guess.
I flung the front door open as Sabrina walked up, slinging her overstuffed book bag on her arm. I heard
my mom fussing again. All sense of her Christianity was long gone by now.
Sabrina heard the commotion as she walked through the door. “What’s going on with Mama?” she frowned.
I stifled my fleeting jealousy and quickly donned a phone smile. “Nothing! Mom’s just a little upset. Why don’t you go upstairs and get your homework done?”
The little girl immediately protested. “But it’s Friday. Mama never makes me do homework on Friday. Why can’t I go outside and play, Izzy? Is Mama upset with me?”
I wanted to say, “She ain’t your mama!” but instead I replied, “Well, Brina, like I said, Mom is just a little upset. It’s not anything you did, honey, but I need you to go upstairs to your room for a few minutes. Then you can go outside and play for a while.”
The last thing I wanted to do was put this little girl outside of the house and have these ghetto bitches pop up with unnecessary trouble. I didn’t want Sabrina to see them fighting her “mama." I prayed to God that I was blowing everything out of proportion, but something kept nagging me about the whole situation. I hoped Richie would get here soon. Lord knows I could use the reinforcements!
“Izzy, I want a snack. Can you get me something? Please?”
I looked at this little girl like she had lost her mind. I could’ve sworn I just told her to go upstairs and play in her room for a while. But I knew it wasn’t fair to take out my frustrations on her, so I kept my mouth shut and walked into the kitchen. I heard my mom fumbling around her room again at the same time I heard a car door slam. Oh, that’s gotta be Rich, I thought. I grabbed a Capri Sun and small bag of mini Oreos and passed them over to Brina as I ushered her upstairs. I started to move a little faster, though, once I caught a glimpse of the front yard through the living room window. It wasn’t Rich.
I damn near shoved Sabrina up the stairs as I talked a mile a minute to assure her that nothing was wrong. I’m sure she knew I was lying. Children are not as ignorant as we tend to think they are. But I couldn’t risk having her downstairs. Three women I had never seen before were making their way up the walk towards my mother’s house.
