As I made my way past them, one of them called out, “Yo, Miss McKnight. Can you tell Frank we are burning up in these work trucks? They need to be serviced. It’s ninety degrees outside. They have to get this AC fixed. I shouldn’t be sweating like this when they got all that money.”
“Okay, I will. I’ll let him know.”
“Please, ’cause someone should tell him that air-conditioning is not a luxury. It is a necessity.”
“Okay. I’ll call him as soon as I go in the building.”
“Miss McKnight, I have to give you my time sheet,” Hector said.
I didn’t bother to turn around. I just kept walking and said, “Make sure you get it to me by the end of today.”
I sashayed off of the showroom floor, filled with hanging rugs on display and living room, bedroom, and dining room sets, and headed upstairs to my office. I worked as the front office/human resources manager—and any other title they decided to give me—for Zinoloi Rugs, Carpets, and Exotic Furniture, with seven locations in New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. Mr. Zinoloi, the owner, was really nice and gave me a job almost nine years ago, and then he retired and his son, Frank, took over and started cutting corners everywhere he could, like not getting the air-conditioning fixed in the work trucks. I entered my spacious office and dialed him. He never answered, so I left him a message.
“Hey, Frank. Listen, the guys are complaining that they don’t have air in the trucks. Please give me a call so I can get approval to have them repaired.” Before I could complete my sentence, Hector walked up to me, grabbed my butt, and lightly bit my lip. He was a twenty-four-year-old, sexy-ass Puerto Rican from Kensington—a rough North Philly neighborhood. He had a low, wavy haircut and a trail of colorful bad-boy tattoos going down both of his muscular arms. From afar, someone would mistake Hector for a thug, but he was not one. He was one of the sweetest men I knew. He would be my man if I hadn’t married and wasn’t now divorced, and if he were a few years older and didn’t have a girlfriend and a kid. Because of all our obstacles, he had to be content with just being my YB, or young boy.
“You better be careful and make sure no one followed you up here,” I warned.
“They didn’t. They made a McDonald’s run. So we have, like, ten minutes.”
“Uh-huh. Where is the time sheet?”
“Right here,” he said as he patted his pocket, where part of a bulge was visible.
“Stop playing.”
“I’m not playing. The way your ass was moving in that skirt . . . it took everything in me not to grab you. How’s my lady doing, anyway?” he asked as his hands glided up my skirt massaging my ass.
“She’s great. She misses you.”
“Tell her I was thinking about her this morning in the shower.”
“Okay, I’ll be sure to let her know.”
“When can I see her again?”
I walked from beside him and said, “Hector, I have a lot going on. I don’t know. Sometime soon.”
“How you going to give her to me, then take it away?”
“I’m not taking her away for good, but she can’t right now. Hello. I just went through a divorce, Hector. I’ll call you tomorrow. We will get together then. I promise you. Right now I have a lot of work to do.”
He gave me a kiss on my cheek and told me he was holding me to my promise. I had a seat at my desk and began to prepare checks to pay a few dozen invoices. My work phone rang and interrupted my work flow. I hoped it was Frank approving those new air conditioners. But it wasn’t; it was my best friend Geneva. “Are you going to come to Caribana and party with us Trini style?” Geneva asked with a fake island accent.
“I told you I can’t go to Canada. I have so much going on right now.”
“Vette, you need this trip. Every year I go, and every year when I come back, you complain that you should have gone. This is going to be the closest we’ll ever get to Carnival. You’re a newly divorced woman that needs some fun in her life. Plus, we want this to be your divorce party weekend.”
“My divorce party weekend,” I repeated back to her. “Who came up with that idea?”
“Stacey did. She is getting you a cake with a dead groom to sit on top of it.”
“A dead groom. Really? You know what? That actually doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Can you put the real dead ex on a cake, too, for me?” I laughed.
“Vette, you are crazy. Come on and go. We’re going to have fun. Please come.”
“It sounds like fun, but I have a few things called bills standing in the way. This is my rent check.”
“What about your check from the house?”
“That check didn’t come yet. It will be here any day. I have to call the Realtor.”
“Vette, come on. You haven’t been anywhere this summer. It will be fun with all three of us. You are going to miss it. Think about it.... When will be the next time all of us will be able to get out of town at the same time?”
“I don’t know. Probably never.”
“You’re right—never—so you have to go.”
“Let me see what I can do. Maybe I can pay everything when I get back. I’ll think about it. Who’s driving?”
“Stacey is driving.”
“Good. Because you drive too slow. Give me a minute. I’ll call you back.”
I giggled a little at the thought of a divorce party and the fact that I was thirty-three years old and about to be twice divorced. If you started as early as I did, it was easy. I married my first boyfriend straight out of high school. He was leaving for the army, and I wanted to go with him, so we got married. Six years later I had two children and was divorced. I couldn’t blame Doug for anything; it wasn’t his fault that it didn’t work. I was bored with him and tired of moving all around the world, and I cheated on him. Now, looking back, I should have worked it out. He was a very good man. My first ex-husband now lived in Panama City, Florida. The kids had just gotten back from spending their summer vacation with him. He was a good guy and father. He sent me money for them and coparented from afar.
I went into my second marriage like I was going to make it work and be a good wife. What a mistake! His ass cheated on me like crazy. My ex-husband Phil was a bus driver for SEPTA, and in case you didn’t know, bus drivers had fans and groupies, too. Their fans were the ladies that sat daily in the front of the bus and talked their ear off the entire ride. Well, one young girl took a liking to my husband, and, well, he couldn’t resist. She was only nineteen and was so in love, she knocked on my door, claiming she was pregnant by my man. This little girl knew everything about me—where I worked, my schedule, my kids’ names, what kind of car I drove—and she said she had been to my house several times. So of course I wanted to leave my husband for cheating on me. But when I confronted him, he assured me it was over.
Most women that got cheated on were somewhere crying and asking why. I did the opposite: he cheated on me, and I said, “Oh, that ain’t nothing, boo. I’ll cheat on you, too, and I’ll do it better.” So when the opportunity presented itself for me to get revenge, I did . . . with Hector. Phil knew how to give it but couldn’t take it. The minute he learned I had an affair, the world was over. I’d forgotten to turn my ringer off, and Hector had texted me all these messages from YB on my phone. They said that he was falling in love with me and couldn’t wait to fuck me again. I came out of the shower, and Phil was in tears. He cried, “How could you? How could you think about being with another man? What? I don’t satisfy you?”
I didn’t know what to say. I tried to tell him I cheated because he did, but he was furious and was not trying to hear my argument. We had a long discussion that night, and he said he forgave me. I believed him at first, but then he would come in the house, slamming things and picking fights with me. Of course, I always said, “You cheated first!” But all he could say to that was “I’m a man.” I guess that meant he got a pass and I didn’t. He constantly questioned me about what YB stood for and who YB was, but I told him it did
n’t matter and we should work on our marriage. I promised him the cheating was a one-time occurrence and not a full-fledged affair. He would have died if he knew it was with someone on the job.
And I think our other issue was jealousy and him wanting to compete with me. He was envious of the relationships I had with my parents and my sisters. He would always tell me I was lucky I had good parents, because his mother and father had neglected him and had let him raise himself. His parents chose drugs over him and I think he almost resented the fact that my parents were there for me. Then there were other signs throughout our entire relationship. For instance, if I said I was thinking about going to the gym, then he suddenly got interested in lifting weights. If I said I was thinking about buying something, he would go buy the bigger, better version. We were having a lot of problems, and we finally went to counseling. I thought it would save us, because for a little while everything got good again, but it didn’t last. Then reality set in: Phil would never get over the fact that another man had touched his wife.
So, after all the cheating and counseling, we decided to just get a divorce. We agreed on no high lawyer fees; we did a do-it-yourself divorce. It wasn’t like we were rich, and we didn’t have a whole bunch of possessions. The only thing we gained in our marriage was our house. Our house was a brick single-family home in Cheltenham. It was on a tree-lined street, with a big front lawn and a double garage. It was a few minutes outside of Philly, but it seemed like it was miles away. Our neighborhood wasn’t affected by the recession, and we were fortunate enough to have equity in our house. I wanted to stay in the house, but we both needed the money to move on with our lives. We were going to split the profit and then go our separate ways. My share was twenty-five thousand dollars, and with that money I planned to find a house to rent, pay my daughter Mercedes’s tuition for the year, get a nice used car, fix my credit up, treat me and the kids to a few things, and put the rest up.
In the meantime, while I waited to go to the real estate settlement, I got a temporary small apartment with a month-to-month lease and put most of my big things in storage. All of this divorce stuff was so aggravating. I regretted meeting and marrying my ex Phil. I regretted our big, expensive wedding. Had I known I would be divorced after only three years of marriage, we would have just said “I do” at city hall.
During the drive home I realized Geneva was right; the summer was almost over and I hadn’t been anywhere. My rent was due, but I could pay my landlord as soon as I got back with my next check. I needed to go on this trip. I called Phil to find out our exact settlement date. I hated his voice, the way each syllable came out of his mouth.
He didn’t say hello or anything. He just answered, “Yeah, we are going to the settlement sometime next week.”
“Okay. Well, I wasn’t calling only about that. I was making sure you were okay, too.”
“I’m fine. Yvette, don’t act like you like me or even care about me. When I get the exact date and time, I’ll call you,” he grumbled, and then the phone went silent. He was a nasty, miserable-ass man. That was exactly why I was happy. I wasn’t with him anymore.
I dialed my mom to see if Brandon and Mercedes could stay with her and my father for a few days. My father answered the phone, and I put on my baby voice, which had worked on him since I was three.
“Daddy, where’s Mommy?”
“She is in the living room. Why? What do you need?”
“I don’t need anything, Daddy. I was just wondering if maybe the kids could come over for a few days.”
“Uh, I don’t see why not. Sure, no problem. Where are you going?”
“Just getting out of town for a bit. You know, with the divorce and everything, Geneva thought it would be a good idea for us to get away and relax.”
“Yeah, that sounds good, and I’ll be home this weekend. Your mother won’t mind. You can bring the kids. We’ll probably get Nasir and Jewel, too.”
“Okay, I’ll bring them over now, because we are leaving first thing in the morning.”
Now that I had a sitter, it was time to leave Frank a message letting him know I wouldn’t be in tomorrow, and call Geneva back and let her know I was going.
I was now extra excited and began packing for my trip. I had so many things I needed to do. I had to do something with my hair, get a pedicure, go to the bank, pick a few things up from storage, and drop the kids off. I called down the hall to my son. Brandon was fourteen and was starting high school in a few months. He thought he was grown, but he was still part baby. He came in my room, smelling like an entire basketball team after practice.
“Go pack. You’re going to Mom Mom and Pop Pop’s for a few days.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going out of town with Ms. Geneva and Stacey for a few days.”
“Man, I don’t want to go over there. It’s boring! Pop Pop’s going to be telling all those back-in-the-day stupid stories.”
“You don’t have a choice. You can’t stay here by yourself.”
“Can I at least take my Xbox?”
“I don’t care. Take your game, but take a shower and get ready.”
My daughter, Mercedes, whom we all called Mimi, wouldn’t be as hard to break the news to. I could leave her anywhere as long as she had a few books to read, her skates, and a rope. Mercedes came in my room, bouncing and lively. She was very thin and smaller than the other nine-year-olds in her class.
“Mom, where are you going?”
“On a little trip with Miss Geneva.”
“Where are we going?”
“To Mom Mom’s.”
“No, Mom, please. I don’t want to go there.”
“Too bad. Get ready. I think Jewel will be there, too!”
“She will?” Her attitude changed a little, like maybe she could deal with her grandparents if her cousin was with her.
“And whatever you do this time, do not talk to her about Santa Claus not being real or her dad’s college.”
“Okay, Mom, but there isn’t such a thing as Santa Claus, and her dad is in jail, not college. Why does Aunt Crystal tell her that stuff, and why does she believe it?”
“Because she does, Mercedes. Just go get ready.”
I pulled up to my parents’ West Oak Lane home. It was a semidetached brick home. The neighborhood had changed a little, but it was still a decent area, where everyone worked, trimmed their hedges, and swept in front of their home. My mom came to the black iron security door. I could tell she was surprised to see us. I was tall, caramel brown and shapely like she was, but I didn’t inherit her thick brown hair, which she kept flipped up at the ends.
“What are y’all doing here?”
“Daddy didn’t tell you? The kids are staying over for a few days.”
“Your father doesn’t tell me anything. But, of course, they can stay.” My mother reached her arms out to Mercedes and Brandon. Mercedes gave her a pathetic hug, and Brandon quickly patted her side.
We walked in the house that I grew up in. Everything was still the same: My parents still had the big black sectional, next to the wall unit that took up the entire wall, pictures of all our proms, hung on the wall. The pictures reflected a time when we had long ponytails, missing teeth, too many barrettes, and hadn’t quite grown into our looks. My dad came out of the basement. He gave me a quick peck on the cheek.
“Daddy, why didn’t you tell Mommy we were coming?” I asked.
“Oh, I forgot.”
“Brandon, your grandfather was just saying he was going to call you to see when you wanted to finish working on the planes in the garage,” my mother said.
Brandon looked over at me like, Why, mom? I turned away, laughing to myself.
“Here is some money if they want to order a pizza or something,” I told my mom.
“A hundred dollars for pizza?”
“Yeah, Mom, and if they need anything else. Call me if you need me. Love y’all.”
“Yeah, bye, Mom,” Brandon shouted with an attitud
e as he lowered his eyes at me from the top of the steps.
Mercedes pouted, her lips poked out and her arms crossed.
“Don’t worry about them. They’ll be fine,” my dad said.
“I’m not worried.” I wasn’t worried. They could spend a few days with their grandparents while their mother had much-needed fun.
CHAPTER 4
Crystal
It was a quarter to one, and the line was already wrapped around the corner of the family court building. I wasn’t excited about taking a paternity test, but at least my sister would be there with me. The only problem with Dana was she thought she knew everything and she didn’t. I never got why she was always in someone else’s business and giving out advice. She was not married, either, and didn’t even have a steady boyfriend that I knew of, but she was quick to tell someone what they were doing wrong in their life. However, she was the first one to go to college in our family and had a really good job and a nice apartment, but that didn’t make her life perfect.
I walked into the dreary beige room filled with rows of empty, blue, hard plastic seats and sat in the back. I wanted to have a full view of the room when Kenneth arrived. I looked out the corner of my eye and saw Kenneth and Syreeta walk in the room. He gave me an evil stare, like I was the enemy. Behind him was his manly looking sister, Syreeta. She was skinny and tall, dressed in sagging blue jeans and an oversize orange polo shirt. Her brown hair was two inches long and slicked back with gel.
Kenneth made me so angry. Here he was, a few feet away from his only child, and he wasn’t even acknowledging her. I had to put my head down and try not to let them get to me. But even with my head down, I heard Syreeta say something like “That baby ain’t yours. Look at her.” Instead of responding to her, I gave Kori her bottle and checked the time on my phone, because I was only minutes away from the truth.
A few moments later I heard the click of high heels approaching. I looked up and saw my sister. I smiled and spoke to Dana very loudly. Kenneth and Syreeta looked up, and I gave them a look like “What now, bitches? I have back up, too.” Dana grabbed Kori from me, gave her a kiss, and started playing with her, which garnered more hateful stares from “the uglies.”
Another Man Will Page 3
