Bad Blood

by Mary Monroe

  “What was your mama trying to say about why Seth broke up with you?” Paulette asked.

  “Uh, my brother, Ernest, and my sister, Janet, are mentally challenged,” I replied.

  “What?” Patrice’s eyes bulged out like they were trying to escape.

  “Mentally challenged how?” Paulette asked.

  “My brother, Ernest, is autistic, and my sister, Janet, is paranoid schizophrenic. We have other relatives with serious problems, too. All mental.” You could have heard a feather fall to the floor. “Janet hears voices. She claims she heard Seth on the telephone, telling somebody he couldn’t marry me, because of... my family’s mental problems. But she’s always hearing voices.”

  “Did you ask Seth if that’s the reason he dumped you?” Patrice asked. She actually looked like she was enjoying the fact that I was distressed. There was even a hint of a smile on her lips.

  “You should ask him,” Lucy added.

  I shook my head. “I am not going to ask him, because I don’t believe that’s the reason he broke up with me. He’s out of my life, and I’m going to move forward.”

  “Girl, if I was in your shoes, I’d be moving forward with my fist going upside his head,” Paulette hollered.

  “You’re probably better off without Seth, anyway. But I wouldn’t let him get off so easily,” Patrice yelled. “If it was me, I’d make him wish he never laid eyes on me.”

  “The man doesn’t want me. That’s no crime. And the bottom line is, I don’t want to be with somebody who doesn’t want to be with me,” I insisted.

  “Well, you’re a better woman than I am. Here I am with herpes for the rest of my life. As soon as I see the bastard that infected me, I’m going to slap the shit out of him, and then I’m going to put the word out about his nasty, diseased dick all over town. And you should at least do the same thing to Seth! What he did to you is just as bad as what asshole Gary did to me! Maybe even worse!”

  “Seth was good to me. I don’t want to hurt him because he fell out of love with me,” I said. “I have to give him credit for telling me before we got married.”

  “So you’re not going to do anything about it?” Paulette asked. “I can get one of my thug relatives to whup his ass for you.”

  Somehow, I managed to laugh. “As long as Seth doesn’t bother me, I’m not going to bother him,” I declared.

  Chapter 17

  Seth

  I DID A LOT OF THINKING AS I DROVE FROM RACHEL’S APARTMENT. I knew that to some people, it would look like I had betrayed her. I didn’t feel that way. I was doing only what any other man in my shoes would do. And I was not doing it just for myself. I had my family to think about. They had very high expectations for me. I cringed when I imagined the remarks that Damon or his snooty wife would probably have come up with if I had married Rachel and produced a mentally ill child. Seth, you’re batting a thousand. Didn’t you cause the family enough heartache when you got that ghetto woman pregnant? Now you have two idiot kids to raise!

  And poor Mother. Her not having a good relationship with my first child was enough of a source of misery for her. I could not take a chance on her having to cope with another one. Or several more. Rachel had repeatedly indicated that she wanted at least two or three children. Well, she could have all the children she wanted. But they wouldn’t be mine.

  Yes, I had disappointed her, and I felt badly about it. As a matter of fact, I felt like a piece of shit. Especially knowing how much she loved me and how anxious she had been to get married.

  But I was optimistic. Knowing how strong a woman Rachel was, I was convinced that she’d get over me and move on with her life. With that in mind, my main concern now was my own happiness and my future with Darla. With Rachel out of the picture, I could openly focus on that now.

  I should have been elated, but I had another thorn in my side. My mind would not let me rest, the way I thought it would, even though I had dropped Rachel. I could still see the hurt look on her face and the tears in her eyes. Because of that, I got so agitated, I didn’t want to go home. And I certainly didn’t want to talk to anybody yet about what I’d done.

  I glanced at my watch. I decided to stay out until I was sure my folks had gone to bed. I didn’t want to face either one of them tonight. I couldn’t decide what I was feeling. But whatever it was, it was a strange feeling. It felt like a cross between guilt and elation. Guilt because I had hurt Rachel, and elation because I had climbed out of a deep, dark hole that I had slid down into.

  I meandered around for hours, driving around in circles and up and down streets I had never been on before. I even sat in a Walmart parking lot until a security guard gave me a menacing look. I started up my motor and began to drive around some more. I needed a drink, and Father kept our liquor cabinet well stocked with booze, so I’d drink at home tonight. With Father and Mother in bed, I could drink to my heart’s delight without their interference. I planned to drink myself into oblivion when I got home. At least if I was passed out, I wouldn’t have to think about Rachel.

  It was almost midnight by the time I made it home. All the interior lights were out, but the front porch light was on. I let myself in and tiptoed all the way to my room. I wanted to change clothes before I started drinking. I had left my cell phone on the nightstand. I checked it and the landline on the same nightstand for messages. Darla had left one on each phone. “Honey, call me as soon as you get this message. I don’t care how late it is,” she said, sounding so sweet. I dialed her number immediately.

  “Hey,” I began when she picked up on the second ring. “I see you called while I was out.”

  Darla took her time responding.

  “Darla, are you still on the phone?”

  “Yes, I am. Seth, I’ve been thinking. We did rush things, and lately, you’ve been acting somewhat distracted. Now, if you are not ready to get married next month, you need to let me know now. After what you’ve been through with that woman, you might want to have your space to yourself for a while, and if that’s the case, I understand. But if you still want to see me, that’s fine, too. We can even just date, if that’s all you want.”

  “Baby, I do want to marry you next month. The sooner I do, the sooner I can get on with my life. I apologize if I’ve seemed distracted. I had a little business issue that had been bothering me. I resolved it a little while ago. Now I can focus on you and our wedding.”

  “Are you sure we won’t have to worry about that woman now?”

  “Rachel is out of my life forever,” I said with a lot of confidence, because I really thought that that was the case. I never expected to hear from her again. I had already made up my mind that if I ran into her on the street, I would be civil, but I would not encourage or even participate in a conversation with her.

  “I’m so glad to hear that. She put you through so much, and I hope she’s sorry about it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I hope she offered you some kind of apology the last time you saw her. Did she?”

  “Yes, she did. She even suggested we remain friends, but I told her it was better if we didn’t.”

  “She didn’t threaten to kill herself again?”

  “Uh, no. She wasn’t at all happy the last time we talked, but she wished me well.”

  “Hmmm. That sounds mighty tame for a woman who had been giving you so much trouble about breaking up with her. Maybe she’s already got a new fool.”

  “She probably has. She’s the kind of woman who gets around, if you know what I mean. That’s another reason I couldn’t marry her. She was a big flirt and had already had numerous lovers before she met me. Some were still calling her, so she couldn’t be trusted.”

  “You won’t have that problem with me.”

  “I know I won’t.”

  “Let’s celebrate this weekend.”

  “I was going to suggest that. I want you to join me and your future in-laws for dinner again this Sunday. They’re having a few folks over, and I want them a
ll to meet you. We can tell them all about us getting married next month.”

  “How do they feel about Rachel? Don’t you think your folks will be concerned about you marrying me so soon after you dumped her?”

  “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about my folks. They all want me to be happy.”

  Darla had told me that her mother had told her she was a fool for being my “backstreet woman” for so long. Lucky for me, Darla never paid much attention to anything her mother said. The bottom line was, I had kept Darla in the dark long enough, and that was something that a lot of women would not have put up with. I was eager to show my woman off now because I wanted her to know just how much I loved her. And since I was off the hook with Rachel, I saw no reason to continue seeing Darla on the sly. She was going to be my wife soon and the mother of my children.

  My main concern was how Rachel was going to react when she found out there was another woman in my life—and had been for some time. And since we had so many mutual friends, I knew that it was just a matter of time before she found out. I hoped that Darla and I were married by then.

  Rachel called me a week after I’d met with her at her apartment.

  “I can’t talk right now,” I told her as soon as I realized she was the person on the other end of the line. “I’m very busy.” I was sorry I had to sound so brusque, but I wanted to make sure she knew I was in no mood to talk to her.

  “When can we talk?” she asked. “There are a few things I’d like to say to you.”

  “Rachel, whatever it is, it’ll have to wait until I have the time to talk to you again, and the interest in doing so,” I said firmly. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have to go.” I didn’t wait for her to respond. I hung up immediately, and then I told my new secretary—a cute, docile young Korean woman who never gave me the headaches Sister Beulah had—not to put any more calls through from Rachel.

  Rachel began to make a pest of herself. She left numerous messages for me at the office and on my cellular phone over the next few days, and I ignored them all. She even had the nerve to send me a card with a note in it that she “needed to talk to me in person right away.” I had no idea what she wanted to say to me, and whatever it was, it was not going to make any difference.

  Chapter 18

  Rachel

  UNFORTUNATELY, I HAD TROUBLE SLEEPING AT NIGHT, THANKS to Seth. I had been getting up at around four each morning since he’d broken up with me. Almost every day I went to work a couple of hours early so I could read the morning newspaper with my coffee. This enabled me to be relaxed by the time my coworkers arrived.

  I rarely talked about my personal life with anybody at work, except Lucy. Most of my straitlaced, stuffy coworkers seemed interested only in work, so they kept their personal business to themselves, too. I had mentioned to my supervisor and a few others that I was engaged, but since nobody had asked me about that since I’d told them, I assumed they wouldn’t care one way or the other about what had happened between Seth and me, so I decided not to mention it unless someone asked. That was one consolation. I planned to take life one day at a time and hope for the best.

  Life was too short, and even shorter for some folks, as I was about to find out.

  It was 5:45 a.m. on that day during the second week in September when a special news bulletin interrupted the jazz radio program I listened to every morning. I was shocked when the announcer reported that a jet had crashed into one of the World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York City. I finished my coffee and shuffled down the hall to the break room to get another cup. When I returned to my office a few minutes later, the same announcer broke into the radio program again. I was getting annoyed because “Caught Up in the Rapture” by Anita Baker had just come on. But when the man said that another plane had hit the other Twin Tower, I got scared. I didn’t find out until an hour later that the plane crashes had been deliberate. By then, some of my coworkers had come in. We all gathered in our conference room to watch the events unfold on a portable TV.

  “My sister lives in New York,” Donna Handel, one of the teachers, said, choking on a sob.

  “My nephew works in one of those buildings,” one of the male teachers said.

  We all turned to Mrs. Trumble, our birdlike, white-haired principal. “In light of this situation, we’ll close for the day and remain closed until further notice,” she told us.

  People immediately began to scramble out into the hallway, cussing and crying. I turned off my computer, gathered my things, and prepared to leave. The principal and a few other staff members were at the front entrance, sending kids back home. I was in such disbelief, I didn’t even remember the short drive home.

  Mama had already called me and left three messages, so I called her immediately.

  “I know I’ll never get on no airplane now,” she declared. “You lock your doors and stay inside until we find out what else them terrorist fools done cooked up. In the meantime, you take care of yourself.” Mama cleared her throat, which told me she had more to say. “Uh, you and Seth still ain’t back together?”

  “No,” I said sharply. “And we won’t be.”

  “Oh, well. Everything happens for a reason. Maybe it wasn’t meant for you and him to be together.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t,” I agreed. “But I’ll do just fine without him, Mama. Don’t worry about me.”

  “You get on with your life, sugar. Don’t let this setback set you back.”

  Mama’s advice was good, but it was too late. The breakup was always on my mind, and the hurt was still as painful as it had been the moment Seth told me our relationship was over. I had been eating like a bird since the last time I saw him. It was so ironic that I had lost another eight pounds because of that.

  I did everything I could to keep myself grounded so I wouldn’t think about the breakup too much. But I did. I thought about it day and night, every day. I’d even called Seth a few times, trying to get him to talk to me. So far, I had not been able to catch up with him, and so far he hadn’t returned any of my calls.

  After we returned to work two days after the attack, I began to work overtime. I knew it would help for me to keep myself busy. I spent more time with my friends, I read books that had been sitting on my bookshelf for months, and I continued to go to the gym.

  I had seen Darla Woodson at the gym, but we had not spoken since Seth had dumped me. But the following Monday evening, when she climbed onto the treadmill right next to me, she immediately began to walk at a slow pace and talk about her love life.

  “Girl, I never thought I could be so happy,” she gushed. “I am so in love!”

  I was taken aback because Darla didn’t seem the least bit concerned about last week’s terrorist attacks. That was all everybody at the gym was talking about. “I can tell. How is your boo doing?” I asked, speaking in a dry tone of voice. I assumed she was avoiding the terrorist issue because it was so painful and she didn’t want it to interfere with the state of bliss she was in.

  “Oh, he’s doing just fine. Everything is going so much better than I even expected!”

  “You must have had some weekend,” I said, smiling to conceal my smoldering envy. “Do you know anybody in New York or D.C.?”

  Darla gave me a puzzled look. “No. Why do you ask?”

  “Some of my coworkers have relatives in New York and D.C. They’re okay, though.”

  She gave me another puzzled look. Either this woman had just crawled out from under a rock or she had a short memory. Then her eyes suddenly got big. “Oh! Are you talking about the terrorist attacks?”

  I nodded.

  “I don’t know anybody in New York or D.C., but my hairdresser had a sister on the plane that crashed into the North Tower.” Darla shook her head and let out a sorrowful sigh, but her sympathetic gesture didn’t seem sincere. “Oh, well. We all have to go sometime.” That was all she had to say about the biggest tragedy that had ever occurred on American soil in our lifetime. I was stunned and disappointed to know
how indifferent she was. With a huge smile, she waved her hand in my face, pointing to the ring on her finger. “Can you believe this? It was his grandmother’s ring.”

  “It’s lovely,” I mumbled. Seth had not asked me to return the engagement ring he had given to me. An hour after our breakup I had removed it from my finger and put it in a Ziploc bag. I was storing it in the same kitchen drawer where I kept my notions, such as my needles and thread, safety pins, and such. “You’re one lucky girl.”

  “You don’t know the half of it. We got married at his parents’ house last Saturday afternoon. We had not planned to take the plunge so soon, but last month, all of a sudden, he wanted to do it this month. And that was fine with me.” Darla began to walk at a slightly faster pace. “Since it was so sudden and unexpected, I had to rush and find a dress. I had always wanted to have a big wedding, and that’s what we had talked about. But, you know, it was real quaint to have a little ceremony at his parents’ house, with just family and a few close friends.”

  “That sounds so nice, Darla. Congratulations,” I muttered.

  An apologetic look suddenly crossed her face. “I’m sorry to be hogging the conversation and talking about me. What have you been up to since the last time I saw you? You look like you’ve lost a few pounds. Did you find a dress yet? Have you and your fiancé picked a date yet?”

  I shook my head. “I won’t be needing a wedding dress.” I kept my voice strong and my head held high.

  Darla gasped. “Oh? What happened? Did you change your mind about getting married?”

  “Something like that.” I cleared my throat and blinked hard to hold back my tears. I had shed a lot of tears in the past few days, and I didn’t want to shed any more. “He broke the engagement.” I reorganized my thoughts and kept my chin up. I was determined to keep my wits about me. I refused to show my pain, especially to a person I hardly knew.

  “Oh, shit! Well, I hope you’re still going to be friends with him! Maybe he’ll change his mind later on.”