After that visit, I went home and packed up our clothing to be shipped to the one-bedroom suite at the Residence Inn I’d be staying in. I didn’t have time to find an apartment in Atlanta before moving. My partners wanted me back in the office within two weeks of my announcing to return. I placed all our furniture in storage with plans on having a mover drive it down to me once I was settled. The last thing I had to do was place a “for rent” sign in the yard outside the house and place an ad in the paper with the Jeffersons’ contact information. I had asked them to be the landlords for us and to keep us updated on any issues they came across with managing the property.
I spent Thanksgiving with the family and went Black Friday shopping the next day for all of Sade’s Christmas gifts, which I left with my daddy, then off to the airport I went early Saturday morning.
I didn’t realize I had missed Atlanta until I felt myself getting excited as the taxi drove past downtown’s skyline on Interstate 75. I couldn’t wait to have breakfast at Gladys Knight’s Chicken and Waffles and get some shopping in at Atlantic Station. Atlanta felt more like returning home than when I had moved back to California. That’s because I had nothing but bad memories in California, and returning only left me with more bad memories to add to the list. They say, “Home is where the heart is,” and my heart was here in Atlanta. This was my first love, and you never forget your first love.
I was filled with warmth and happiness... until I checked into the hotel. When I gave the front desk attendant my name, her face lit up like a candle at a match’s touch. She stepped back into the staff’s office and returned with more than likely every staff member that was on duty. Then she reached under the desk and handed me a welcome home basket with an unsealed card. With a grin the width of her ugly black face, she said, “Ms. James, this arrived for you earlier today.”
Even though there wasn’t a signature on the outside envelope of the card, I already knew who the sender was by its contents. The basket was filled with condoms, a whip, a two-headed extralarge dildo, and an all-black leather outfit in my size with a rhinestone matching paddle. Under the outfit was a dental dam, oils for heating, edible panties, spray-on body candy, a silver bullet, a box of suckers shaped like dicks and breasts, two pornos—one of them being a lesbian flick and an extralarge tube of anal lube. The card inside read, “Welcome home, Savannah. Let’s see how many people and their lives you can manage to fuck this time.”
How embarrassing. If Stephanie really wanted to go to war with me, I’d accept this as the first attack. I thanked the staff, who were all smiling and grinning, and asked if they enjoyed the show. One by one, they returned to the office, and the front desk agent handed me my room key, but not before she reminded me, “There is no prostitution of any kind allowed in our hotel. Please keep in mind some small children live here and keep your visiting guests to a minimum.”
I need to find an apartment ASAP, I thought.
By sunrise, I was dressed and heading out the door. The clothing that I shipped hadn’t arrived yet, but I had carried enough clothing with me to last until they did. Unsure if the staff from the night before was still on duty in the lobby, I bypassed the office and decided against calling a taxi by cutting through the parking lot and jumping on the train. I hadn’t ridden Atlanta’s public transportation before, but I knew I had made an early start, and getting around on public transportation would allow time for businesses to open.
The first stop on my agenda was getting a nice cup of coffee in me and a Southern-style soul food breakfast. I asked a few people on the train for some recommendations by upcoming stops and was referred to a place called K&K Soul Food. No one told me that it was in the hood, but it didn’t matter now, because after I transferred from the train to the bus, I was there.
The food was just what I needed to start my day. It wasn’t the best cup of coffee, but who cared about coffee when the food tasted as good as theirs did? My eggs were scrambled hard with cheese, my chicken was smothered in the best-tasting brown gravy I’d had in years, and my potatoes were seasoned so perfectly that at first bite, I pushed the ketchup bottle away. I’d definitely be back, but not for breakfast. I wanted to sample their lunch and dinner menu next. I overheard some people talking about the oxtails and mac’n cheese they served here while I ate. Now I had two more reasons to come back. I was too full to walk back to the bus stop. My first adventure on public transportation for the day was over. I called a taxi to pick me up. It was now 9:00 a.m., and I was sure there was a car dealership open somewhere in Gwinnett. I told the driver my destination while answering the ringing of my phone.
“Good morning, Dre.”
My greeting was followed by a recording informing me that I had a collect call from “Dre.” A prerecording of him saying his name played, then it was followed by, “An inmate in the Davidson County Hill Correctional Center...”
The recording, which I had grown to memorize, advised me to press “1” if I wanted to accept the call. Dre had told me he could hear me before I accepted the call, but I couldn’t hear him until I pressed “1.” The urge to tease him came over me.
“I don’t know if I want to press ‘1,’ operator. My fiancé has been up for the past three hours and only decided now that he wants to talk to me. Maybe I should wait three hours before I accept his call too....”
I stayed silent for a minute. Then the recording played again from the beginning. I immediately hit “1” on my touch screen before it gave me the option to press it again.
“Girl, you better stop playing with me,” he chuckled a little in his morning voice. He must have gone back to sleep after he ate breakfast this morning because I’m sure this wasn’t his first time waking up today.
“Ugh, Dre, listen to you. You must’ve just woken up. You sound horrible.”
He confirmed my suspicion while he tried to clear his throat to make himself sound slightly better.
“Yeah, baby, we ate around 5:30 this morning, and then I worked out. I would have called you earlier, but the phones were tied up, so I lay back down and ended up falling back asleep. How was your flight?” I went to open my mouth to answer, but before I could, he was already on to his next question. “What’s all that noise in the background? Sounds like you’re in a car or something. Who you got taking you around early this morning? It’s only eight o’clock. How long have you been up?”
I really disliked this jail version of Dre. He was so quick to think the worst of me and drown me with questions. He knew I hadn’t been through this jail stuff with a man before, and now I see why I’ve never been willing to. Every time he called, he wanted every little detail of my day. This was getting old and irritating fast.
“Damn, Dre, don’t I need to get a car and an apartment? I’m in a fucking taxi leaving from eating breakfast by myself. I’m on my way to the dealership to buy me a car. I used MARTA to get around this morning, so I got an early start. Do you want to know what I’m going to do after I get the fucking car too, or what color panties I put on after I got out of the shower?”
“Hell yeah, I want to know. Especially the part about the panties.”
He laughed, making a joking out of it like he wasn’t serious about knowing my next move, but I knew he was. He treated me like I’d cheated on him before. Even though I had, he didn’t know it. The most he had ever caught me doing was I once came home smelling like cologne. I gave him a lie that covered up my slipup, and he never brought it back up. As far as my creeping was concerned, Dre had no proof of me doing any of it.
“Dre, if you’re going to twenty-one question me every time we talk, maybe we should put off conversing until we’re face-to-face. I don’t like feeling like I’m under interrogation because you’re sitting behind bars stressed.”
“Interrogation? Only those suspected of committing or witnessing a crime get interrogated. Are you feeling guilty about something because I questioned you to make sure your ass is safe? Don’t forget that there are motherfuckas that don’t want you
breathing out there!” he roared back at me.
“Bye, Dre.”
I hung up the phone, turned my ringer volume to silent, and made sure to drop it at the bottom of my purse. I wasn’t about to argue with him every time we talked. He needed to realize me answering my phone wasn’t mandatory. I did it because I loved and missed him. He being in jail allowed us to talk more and really get to know each other, and I can’t lie, I fell in love with him all over again, but his jailhouse instantaneous menstrual cycles were getting on my last nerve. He always used that “protecting me” line to cover up his spying, like the tracking system he had placed on my car. When I confronted him about that, he said the same thing.... “I did it so I could know where you were just in case you got caught up somewhere.”
I knew he’d be mad when he called back and only got my voicemail, but he’d have to get over it.
It took going to three different dealerships to find what I wanted at the price I needed it to be, but I got my all-black Charger. I missed my old one, and since the only reason I gave it up in the first place was to hide from Dre, I felt it was only right that I got another. I was on a tight budget now, and the 2009 version of it was in my price range. The new car smell had me feeling good and made me forget about Dre’s overly protective self. I was driving around in no particular direction, breaking my car in like I didn’t have business to handle. When I finally snapped out of my daze, I was a few blocks away from Atlantic Station.
“Time for some shopping.”
I heard myself say those words out loud. Good thing my car windows were tinted, or the passenger in the car next to mine would have thought I was taking to myself. Looking past the car next to me, I saw a “Now Renting” sign on The Metropolis at The District. I knew these to be luxury apartment homes, and I hurriedly signaled and got over. Business had to come first, and finding a place was next on the list. I put in my application, paid the deposit to hold the unit I wanted if approved, and now it was time to shop. Seeing that it was Sunday, I wasn’t expecting to hear anything back from The Metropolis until Monday or Tuesday.
I went crazy in this new boutique that had just opened in Atlantic Station. Everything I saw I wanted to take home with me, which was fine because the prices were reasonable, and I needed new work clothes. After hitting up 80 percent of the stores, I rested in a chair outside the ice-cream parlor with a double scoop of butter pecan ice cream. This was another thing I loved about Georgia. No matter what time of year it was, it was never too cold for a scoop of ice cream. Here it was, the first week of December, and there still wasn’t a need for me to wear a jacket.
“Look who the cat dragged out.”
The wrong use of the cliché with that heavy accent meant it could only be one person standing behind me: my old Jamaican fling, Amir.
“I wasn’t sure if that was you at first, den my eyes got a good look at that booty and knew it was you,” he laughed.
“Then you need to tell your disrespectful-ass eyes to stop looking at something you will never get to have again. Excuse me.”
Grabbing my bags and leaving my half-eaten cup of ice cream on the table, I pushed my way past him. His ass was stupid to think I had forgotten how badly he talked to me at our last encounter. When I made it to the escalator that would take me to the underground parking garage, I glanced back in his direction. He was standing in the same spot I left him in, cuffing his dick through his jeans and watching my departure. I had to laugh and shake my head at him because I knew he didn’t have any drawers on.
Why did Amir have to be so damn sexy? He had this famous Jamaican singer-songwriter face, accept he had greyish green eyes that threw it all off and was slightly younger than the handsome man’s face that was pictured everywhere reggae music could be heard. With a body build similar to a light heavyweight mixed martial arts fighter, lying in those arms felt like protection. He had light skin to where he almost looked Hispanic and actually spoke more Spanish than he did English. Amir made all those rumors about big muscles equaling a little dick pure fabrication. He was working with a banana boat, aka a donkey dick—or so I liked to call it because when he whipped it out, he surely acted an ass. I got to enjoy his Caribbean loving for slightly over six months, and it would have been longer if it weren’t for his smart-ass mouth. Before fooling around with him, I knew nothing of Jamaicans, and I’m not saying I can judge them all from my interaction with one, but I learned they had no shame about speaking their minds. From what I could see, Jamaican men had strong beliefs and lived by them. I hope that living in America where everyone ran wild and free wouldn’t change him or what he stood for because, in a strange way, I liked it. The only real problem I had with his beliefs was I wasn’t ready to be submissive and follow them.
I wasn’t surprised that I ran into him. What shocked me was after all this time away from him, he still turned me on, and I knew why. Amir had turned me on to the pleasures of limitless sex—not in quantity but in freedom. Sex with him had no restrictions, and anything edible could be used to bring pleasure. He showed me the ecstasy of getting my salad tossed and the joys and painful pleasures of anal sex. He was a master of exotic pleasure, and even though his sex wasn’t as emotionally fulfilling as Dre’s, he was a close second place.
There you go fucking up again, I thought to myself, feeling the moisture in between my legs consume my panties. It had only been seven weeks since Dre had laid me down, but to the beast in between my legs, it felt like years. The beast always wanted to be fed, but this time, she’d have to starve, because the only person who would ever feed her again was locked away in jail.
I dug my keys out of my purse and pulled out my cell phone too. As I unlocked the trunk to throw my bags in, I looked at my phone’s screen. I had nine missed calls from Dre. I turned the ringer back up so I wouldn’t dare miss another one of his calls. I needed to hear his voice to get me back focused on what it was that I now wanted out of life: him.
The hungry beast between my legs and lust had me broke and miserable. Allowing myself to be fed by someone other than Dre had taught me a very important lesson. It didn’t just clear out my bank account. I learned that sex with whomever I wanted wasn’t better than the love of a good man. There wasn’t a need for me to cheat on him. The only reason I did it was because he tried to cut me off of it. That was like telling a heroin addict to stop using cold turkey. It wouldn’t work for them, and it wasn’t going to work for me. I’d need to be tapered down, but in Dre’s eyes, tapering wouldn’t be as effective as cutting me off completely. If he only knew his method didn’t work and sent me to get it elsewhere.... Otherwise, he’d never attempt to teach me that way again.
With thoughts of sex filling my mind, Stephanie’s welcome home basket wasn’t looking like such a bad idea. There was a porno I could watch, a silver bullet and a dildo I could use, but when I made it back to my hotel, I decided against it. I wouldn’t give her the pleasure of knowing that she knew me well enough to know that I’d actually use the gift. Instead, I put on my black stretch pants and a blue, oversized T-shirt and went to work out in the on-site fitness center.
I was in the room alone with full control of the TV and remote. I turned on CNN, then hopped on the exercise bike. While I was getting my fill of current events, it dawned on me that I never called my daddy to let him know that I made it to Atlanta.
“Hey, Daddy, sorry I didn’t call you sooner, but I made it here, and I’m safe.”
“I know you made it, baby.” He exhaled the smoke from his lungs, then said, “Dre had his mother call me earlier with him on the line. He said something was wrong with your phone.”
Dre knew the only thing that was wrong with my phone was I wasn’t answering it for him. “My phone is fine, Daddy. It’s Dre that’s the problem. He wants to call me day and night just to start an argument about nothing. I can’t keep arguing with him, so I turned my ringer off.”
My daddy was wrestling with something in the background. I could hear the sound of plastic bei
ng crumpled, and then it stopped. A lighter was stroked, then he inhaled deeply.
“Daddy, didn’t you just smoke a cigarette? You know how I hate you smoking them things, and now you want to start chain-smoking. You need to quit, Daddy, I’m—” I stopped talking because my brain had finally caught up with my mouth. Something was wrong. The only time I’ve known my daddy to spark up a cigarette back-to-back was when something was bothering him. “Daddy, what’s wrong? And don’t you say nothing.”
“Savannah, Savannah, Savannah.” He said my name three times in between exhaling and chuckling, then said, “You think you know your daddy, don’t you?”
“I do know my daddy, and if you’re chain-smoking, then something’s wrong. Come on with it, Daddy, I don’t need the suspense.”
He coughed like his lungs were going to give out on him at any second. He always owned a smoker’s cough, but it sounded like it was full of phlegm, and I was right because I heard him spit next.
“I’m just tired, baby. I’ve lived my whole life trying to do what I thought was best for everybody but myself, and now I sit back and look at everything that has happened in it, and the only thing I can be proud of is that I never committed suicide during it all—”
“Daddy!” I yelled into the phone. I had never heard him talk like this, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to.
“No, Savannah, it’s the truth. It’s been one heartache after another. No matter how hard I tried to make my mama happy after my father went to prison, I never saw her smile again. Then I made sure to love your mother with everything in me, but I could never keep her satisfied. Either she complained that I was giving her too much, or it just wasn’t enough. Then she left me but gave me a piece of her that I could always hold to, you and Memphis. And with all the protecting and sacrifices I made to keep you and your brother from being anything like your mother, I failed again.”
He took another puff of his cigarette and inhaled it deeply. There was no way that my father just sat around, and depression attacked him out of nowhere. Something had to have triggered it. “Where is all of this coming from, Daddy? Something had to have happened.”
Kismet 3 Page 10
