Project Queen II

by Teresa D. Patterson

  “Take your ass home and sober up before I show you what a nigger might do.” Before she could say another word, he slammed the door in her face.

  Chapter Fourteen

  When Shae pulled up, she saw Larry parked in the driveway, just sitting in his car, leaning back in the seat. She got out of her car and retrieved the three bags of groceries from the trunk.

  On her way to the house, she stopped at the driver’s side window of Larry’s car.

  “Larry, what are you doing here? Imani is still at Vivian’s with the baby-sitter. Did you come to see her?”

  “No, I came to see you, Shae. I really need to talk to you,” he said. He wore a sad, puppy-dog look on his face. Over the last few weeks, he had a chance to think about a lot of things. He realized that he didn’t want his marriage to end. He still loved his wife and he adored his daughter. Danielle hadn’t been worth it. If Shae would have him back, he’d never stray again.

  He remembered telling her that he wouldn’t grovel. Well, if groveling is what it took to get his family back, grovel is what he’d do.

  “Well, come on inside. How long have you been sitting in the car?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe an hour or longer,” he said. “I was just thinking about everything that went down.” He got out and closed the door. He saw that Shae had a few bags of groceries. “Let me help you with those,” he said, taking them from her.

  She unlocked the door and let him go inside ahead of her. He took the bags into the kitchen and began putting the groceries away, just like he used to when he lived there. He caught himself.

  “Maybe I should let you put your stuff away. I forgot that this isn’t my house anymore.”

  “It’s still your house. You pay the mortgage,” she reminded.

  Larry had been very generous in their separation agreement. He continued to pay the mortgage, her car note and insurance, childcare expenses for Imani, and all of the utilities. It was like he was still there, just invisible.

  “Would you like something to drink?” she offered.

  “Yeah, you got some of the Publix brand sweet ice tea?” he asked.

  “You know I do.” She smiled slightly and got the gallon jug of tea out of the refrigerator. She poured both of them a glass, with no ice. It’s the way both of them liked to drink it. She got a straw for herself.

  “Thanks,” he said when she handed him the beverage.

  “So, what do you need to talk about?” she asked, getting straight to the point.

  He let out a deep breath as he stared down into his glass. “I made a big mistake, Shae. The grass is not greener on the other side. I miss Imani and…I miss you.”

  Shae’s eyes clouded over. “What are you trying to say, Larry?”

  “I’m saying that I don’t want a divorce. I want my wife back, but the one I married. Not the jealous, suspicious, distrusting woman that you’ve become.”

  Even though his words stung, she knew them to be true. She decided not to argue the point. “What made you decide this?” she asked, twirling her straw around in the glass.

  “You mean besides the fact that I discovered Danielle is a psychotic, bipolar bitch?” he said sarcastically.

  “What? I thought black men chose white women because they were so submissive and bowed down to them,” she said curtly.

  “Don’t believe that bullshit. Danielle is worse than any black woman I’ve ever come across. She is the devil personified. Can you believe that she called me a nigger to my face?”

  “She did?” Shae almost laughed aloud. She wished she could have been a fly on the wall when that happened.

  “Yes. She was sloppy drunk at the time, but I felt like hurting her. I knew if I put my hands on her, she’d call the cops and I’d be going to jail.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  “Man, I was so wrong about her. She actually wanted to date a black man just so she could parade him around her snooty, stuck-up friends. She didn’t give a shit about me. It was all an act. I feel like a damn fool.”

  Shae couldn’t just forgive and forget because the hurt was still deeply etched in her heart. “Larry, I know you want to hear that I forgive you, and you want things to go back the way they used to be, but they can’t. We have too many issues that need to be worked out.”

  “I know,” he said. “I’m still pissed off about the fact that you slept with someone else. But, I think I can handle it. I really want us to talk to someone, though.”

  “You mean a marriage counselor?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m okay with that. For the record, I never slept with Danielle. It was only oral sex, but I’m not trying to justify my actions,” he added quickly.

  “I don’t need to know the details.” Jealousy shot through her at the thought of another woman putting her lips on Larry, especially that blonde bimbo. She had to count to ten to steady her voice. “I’m just glad you came to your senses and left her alone.”

  “True. It’s a good thing I own my business because I had to fire her. She let our personal affairs spill over into the business. Can you believe she keyed up my Land Rover? I couldn’t have it.” He shook his head. “Security had to escort her out the building.” He pictured her kicking and screaming like a banshee. It hadn’t been a pretty sight. “I don’t want to ever lay eyes on that mad woman again.”

  “Do you think she’ll file a lawsuit?” “At this point, I don’t care. It is what it is. We’ll cross that bridge if we get to it.” Larry sighed. “Anyway, let’s look into some marriage counseling right away,” Larry suggested. Shae

  got up, grabbed the yellow pages and flipped through them. She located a marriage counselor who offered a two-hour intensive session or a half-day intensive session.

  “Do you think two hours is enough time to voice all of our issues and concerns?” Larry asked. Shae shook her head “no.” “Well, I guess we’ll do the half-day intensive and take it from there.”

  “I think the half-day will work better. It lasts four hours. I’ll call and set up the appointment.”

  “Thank you for giving us another chance, Shae. You won’t regret it.”

  “You can move back in, but I think it would be best if you take one of the guest bedrooms. I’m not jumping right back into bed with you because I’m still hurt by your betrayal. I really want to be sure your heart is with me before I give you my body again,” she said.

  “Hey, I can’t argue with that. It’s more than fair,” Larry said. “I’m just glad to be back at home—where I belong.”

  On the day of their counseling session, both of them were nervous as they walked into the therapist’s office. She was a dark-skinned, professionally dressed woman with micro-braids swept up into a French roll.

  “Hello,” she greeted warmly. “Thank you for coming in.

  I’m Mrs. Karen Bankston.”

  “I’m Larry Walker and this is my wife, LaShae.” “You can call me Shae,” Shae interjected. They both smiled

  nervously and took a seat that the therapist offered with a hand gesture.

  “So, tell me a little about yourselves. How long have you two been together?”

  “Almost three years. But we’ve known each other since the second grade,” Shae said.

  “Our anniversary is next month,” Larry said. Shae was surprised that he remembered in lieu of everything that had been going on.

  “I see. Did you live together before you got married?

  “No. We just jumped right in because I was pregnant.”

  “That’s not the reason I wanted to marry her, though,” Larry explained. “I loved Shae and wanted her to be my wife.”

  “Well, expecting a baby right off must have been quite scary.” Both of them laughed nervously and nodded. “How many children do you have, and tell me a little about them?”

  “We just have one girl who’s two. She’s beautiful and the joy of my life. Larry just spoils her rotten. You can say she’s daddy’s little princess.”


  “His apparent devotion to your daughter must mean a lot to you. You appreciate that about him, right?” Shae nodded, giving Larry a grateful look and a slight smile.

  “She’s great with Imani, too. Shae’s really a great mother,” he said. Mrs. Bankston just nodded and wrote something on a legal pad.

  “Is this the first marriage for both you?”

  “Yeah,” Larry answered.

  “Yes,” Shae said.

  “Okay. Well, what brings you into my office? How can I help?” She folded her hands and stared at them as she waited.

  “Do you want to go first?” Shae asked Larry.

  “No, you go ahead,” he said quickly.

  “Okay. Well, starting about six months ago I guess, I just started to feel distant from him, like something had changed.” She spoke and looked directly at Mrs. Bankston. “I didn’t know why. I knew I loved him as much as I ever did. I thought we were a happy family. But we just weren’t connected, you know what I mean? I started worrying about it all the time. I would ask him what was wrong. I asked him if he was involved with someone else, and he said that he wasn’t.”

  “I can understand why you would be worried. You feared that something bad had happened to your relationship, something you didn’t even know about,” Mrs. Bankston stated.

  “Exactly. After a while, I started to really believe there was someone else. I even accused him of having an affair with my sister. He swore that he wasn’t cheating, but I didn’t believe him. Once, I checked his text message and saw that he’d been texting a woman that worked with him. They’d made plans to do lunch. Being suspicious, I decided to contact a private investigator. Well, the PI got me all the incriminating pictures I needed to confirm my suspicions. He and this ska-” Shae stopped and cleared her throat. “He and this woman were in all types of uncompromising positions. I was livid. I had no clue that my husband was seeing someone behind my back. They were carrying on an office affair, going to lunch every day, staying late… I felt like a damn fool. If he wasn’t happy with me, he should have said something, not go cheat behind my back.” Shae got choked up, but tried to hold it in.

  “That must have felt like such a betrayal. And I can see that while you’re sitting here now, thinking about that day, it still hurts,” Mrs. Bankston said.

  “I was mad as hell. I had always trusted him. I found out that he had something going on with another woman. And then I realized, to add insult to injury, he’d been lying about it, denying it when I asked him. Like I said, I felt like such a fool,” she ended.

  They attended a few more sessions after the first one. Through counseling, Shae learned how to rebuild the trust that had been destroyed. She was also able to understand what she’d done to push Larry away.

  ***

  Shae wanted her husband and knew she couldn’t go much longer using her vibrator. Larry was holding back, waiting for her to decide when the time was right for them to make love again. She’d made up her mind and was planning a special night. She cooked his favorite dish; linguini pasta with clam sauce.

  He was pleasantly surprised when he got home from work. The candles were lit and the table set elegantly.

  “What’s the occasion?”

  “I just wanted to show my husband that I appreciate him,” Shae said.

  “Oh?”

  “Plus, I think it’s time for you to move back into our bedroom.”

  Larry’s mouth fell open. “Are you for real? Does this mean-”

  She winked at him. “It means that tonight, it’s straight on and poppin’!”

  “Goo googly goo!” he said, imitating Grady from Sanford and Son. Shae laughed.

  “I fixed your favorite dinner and I even made dessert.”

  “I think you’re all the dessert I’ll need,” he said, giving her the once over and licking his lips. She looked sexy with her hair up. He didn’t understand why she still had on her robe though.

  Throughout dinner, they stared at each other lovingly as they enjoyed the meal.

  Shae’s cell phone rang and she answered. She listened with a serious expression on her face. Once she hung up she stared at Larry.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I’m a match for Jimmy’s blood transfusion.” She hadn’t even thought about it a few weeks ago when they’d all gone down to get their blood tested.

  “Are you thinking about not going through with it?” Larry asked.

  “I don’t know if I can, Larry. I mean, he left us for all those years. I keep thinking that if he had been there, none of the things that happened to us would have happened.”

  “I know you don’t want to hear it, but it’s in the past. You’ve got to forgive him. It wasn’t his fault that your mama turned to drinking. She didn’t have to take her anger out on her kids. That’s her fault. Jimmy didn’t make her poison the twins and your grandmother. That was all her doing. Yeah, his leaving caused a lot of problems, but ultimately, it was your mother’s bad choices that broke your family apart.”

  “I want to hate him, but I can’t. He’s my father and I don’t want him to die.”

  “You don’t have to force yourself to go through with it. There are other options. Someone else could donate blood that matches his,” Larry said. They sat in silence, eating their dinner.

  “I want to do it,” she finally said.

  “Are you sure?” Larry asked.

  “Yes. I’ll do it. He’s my father.”

  Larry lightly pulled her off the barstool, and into his arms. He wrapped his arms around her. “I love you. Do you know that?”

  “For a minute, I forgot,” she admitted, staring into his eyes.

  “I’m sorry for everything. When things started getting out of hand in the beginning, we should have talked it out,” he said.

  “That’s true. I was just so angry that I kept it bottled up.”

  “The more you held it inside, the further the distance got between us. I didn’t want to argue and fight with you, especially when I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I hated it. I hated the way it made me feel.”

  “I know that now. That’s why I really want us to attend a follow-up session of marriage counseling. We got married young. We’re never going to know all there is to know about being married.”

  “I see no problem with it if it’s helping. Another thing,” he said slowly. “Maybe we can think about helping Della get her own place. I know she’s family and all, but we need our space.”

  “I’ll talk to her. In a way, I feel sorry for her. Jimmy told me all about her life when she lived with her mother. She didn’t have it easy.”

  “You didn’t have it easy either, Shae. It’s up to me to make up for all the bad things that happened to you in the past. It’s time for me to start working on that again. I slipped up, but I promise to be a better man, a better husband. I don’t want to ever lose you.”

  “What did I do to deserve you?” Her eyes moistened.

  “You took that band-aid I offered you for your scrapped knee when we were in the second grade. I was lucky you didn’t punch me out.” He smiled, leaned in and kissed her on the forehead.

  “The next time you even think about leaving me for a white chick, or any other chick, I will punch you out,” she said evenly. “That’s a promise.” She hugged him, stepped back and untied her robe. Underneath was a sassy French maid outfit.

  “Whoa!” His eyes widened. “I guess it’s time to get dirty so you can clean me up.”

  Shae didn’t answer. She just let the robe drop to her feet and sashayed up the stairs. Larry followed, singing Betty Wright’s Clean Up Woman.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Della checked to make sure her leather gloves were in her purse. The Lady Derringer caliber was strapped to her inner thigh, under her mini-skirt. No one could tell that she was packing heat. Feeling the gun next to her skin made her feel empowered.

  “You reap what you sow,” she muttered as she got out of her car. She’d carefully planned on how she�
��d exact revenge on Steve and Donald, every intricate detail. It was time to act on it.

  She thought about how she’d shoved the vibrator up Lester’s ass and made him cry like a baby. She’d do something more horrible to Steve and Donald. They were the ones who violated her in the worst way and they had it coming.

  The heels of her stilettos clicked on the sidewalk as she sashayed up to the door of the Nightriders Motorcycle and Van Club.

  “Hey Red,” a guy standing at the door greeted her.

  Another guy who was apparently the doorman just gawked with his mouth open. She could see the cavities on the bottom row of his teeth.

  “What’s up?” she said. “Y’all know if Steve and Donald are in there?”

  “Steve? Um? I think I know Steve.” He rubbed his chin in thought. “Is he a chubby dude?” he asked.

  “Yeah. He’s about five-eight, round face?” Della said and the guy nodded.

  “And Donald got dreads?” he inquired.

  “Yeah, he’s brown-skinned, medium-built,” she told him. “Kind of tall.”

  “Oh, yeah. Bet. They came together. They in there playing Spades.”

  “You need anything, Red?” the doorman asked, breaking out of his trance and closing his mouth. She knew he meant drugs.

  “Not right now. Thanks.” She was polite to him because she might use him later. She liked to get high from time to time and could score some X from him. She knew asking Toby for drugs was out of the question. He’d most likely preach to her instead of sell her drugs. He was the only drug dealer she knew that had a conscience.

  She went inside the smoke-filled club. It was Grown Folk Friday. People sat around tables covered with mixmatched tablecloths. They were drinking and eating fried fish, hungrily licking their greasy fingers. Others played cards.

  “Can I get you something?” A fat waitress with a manly face appeared out of nowhere. “The wings are all gone. Them greedy niggas attacked them like they was at the Last Supper.” She paused and sucked air through her teeth. “Anyways, we still got some fish left. It’s good. Mullet.” She had a big mustache that needed to be waxed off. It had to itch like hell. Della frowned.