Cheaters (4 page)

One of the kids asked, “Who’s that lady, Daddy?”

Michael talked as he rushed. “Get your butt in the car.”

“Mommy, don’t cry.”

“Hush. Get in the car with your daddy.”

Mrs. Michael slowed and stared back at me.

Both of us had a Soul Train of tears running down our faces. My middle-class multi-ethnic neighbors were either outside or peeping out their windows.

Michael’s dysfunctional ass rushed his two into his Lexus

and screeched up Diamond Bar Boulevard toward the freeway. His mate for life strapped the toddler into a car seat, then crawled into her Volvo wagon. She shot one last glare back toward my asylum. It was one of those crazed scowls that said two things: He’s mine; I know where you live.

She had been through this before.

I dabbed my eyes, tied my hair back, blew out candles, picked up rose petals, tried to figure this shit out. Michael had played me big-time. I met him last month at Borders bookstore in Montclair. Both of us were in the itty-bitty black folks section of the store. We started chitchatting, exchanged business cards, and since that day he’d been sending cards and flowers. Guess he was spending his household income driving out from the Valley, taking me to lunch at the Cheesecake Factory, and to dinner at California Pizza Kitchen. Has never forgotten to call. Gave weeks of passion. Perfect in every way.

Except his Alzheimer’s kicked in and the bastard forgot to tell me he was married. And I would have to be all romantic and get freaky with him a week before Valentine’s Day. But hell, it had been three months since I got me some.

Now this fool—talking about myself—realized why Michael never answered his phone when I called; he had given me a voice-mail number. That’s why it always went
beep-beep-beep
at the end of the outgoing message. A damn pager.

When I had told him that I wasn’t fond of the freeways, that bastard had kissed my eyes and said, “You know, with all the carjackings and freeway shootings and drive-bys, I don’t mind coming to see you.”

My little red buggy did have its own problems, the kind that could leave a sista stranded in the middle of the night, so I didn’t argue with those warm and kind words.

I feel it changing. My heart. It’s getting cold.

Roses were tossed in the trash. I yanked the sheets off my bed, crammed them in the trash, too.

I stood in the shower, tried to scrub and scrub all of him off me. It was hard to scrub away a memory, but just like I’d been doing since Craig wrecked my world, I tried. I mixed some hard California water with my bitter tears, tried to scour away what everybody had left behind.

God. Let me stop crying. Let my head stop hurting. Make my body stop feeling so heavy.

At daylight I still had my arms folded across my breasts, pacing from room to room, talking to myself, cursing from wall to wall.

I closed all of my Venetian blinds and collapsed in the middle of my bed. I dialed my job at Moss Adams, one of the largest accounting and consulting firms in the U.S. of A., got ready to leave a message with the head cheese and tell them that their favorite double minority was sick and disabled. Then I realized it was Sunday morning. I didn’t have to work today.

My head was jacked up.

I’m too smart for this kinda madness. I have a B.S. in accounting from Cal Poly at Pomona. But I guess there are some things they just don’t teach a sista in college.

By ten a.m. Ma Bell had been chiming. Fifteen times in a row. When I finally answered, Michael whined and whimpered, tried to apologize, begged to come over. I told him hell no.

“How did your wife know where I lived?”

“The card you sent me. She found it.”

“Divine intervention.”

He begged, “Drive up to Fullerton Road, meet me at Mimi’s Café so I can explain my predicament.”

I chuckled. “Predicament?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Let me simplify it for your lying ass. You’re married. You were married when we met. You slept with me when you knew you had a damn wife waiting for your dick to get home. If your memory is that damn bad, start taking a handful of Gotu Kola every morning while you feed Cream of Wheat to your busload of rugrats. Is that simple enough for you?”

“So, we’re not going to be together on Valentine’s Day?”

I hung up, soft and gentle.

Blew out so much air I thought my lungs were about to collapse. The phone rang again. I answered cursing, making threats that involved a sharp knife and a short penis.

A pregnant pause. It was so quiet I heard a fly buzzing around the room.

A friendly voice that flowed like a poem said, “Chanté?”

“Karen?”

“Damn.” She paused. “What happened this time?”

I repeated, “This time.”

She repeated, “This time.”

I stood up, gradually became aware as I struggled to gather my senses. “I’m sorry. Thought you were that nigga Michael.”

“How did Michael get demoted into the depths of Niggaville?”

I didn’t say a word. Didn’t say a goddamn word.

Karen said, “Don’t tell me you slept with him?”

My insides felt ruptured. Sometimes she was super caring. Other times she was the queen of chastisement.

Noises of shame and disgust were flowing from my mouth.

“What’s wrong?” Karen asked over and over. “You there?”

Karen was comforting, questioning. I couldn’t breathe. I inhaled, my body locked up until my face turned blue, then I exhaled hard enough to make my Venetian blinds sway.

I answered, “I just went through this crap with Craig.”

“That’s why I was calling.” She sighed, then anger peppered her tongue. “He’s back. I saw Craig walking around the mall.”

“When?”

“Five minutes ago. He was passing through Mervyn’s.”

A new hostility came to life. “Who was he with?”

“Nobody.”

“He see you?”

Karen stalled. “Chanté, he had the nerve to come over to my register.”

“He ask about me?”

“No.” She hesitated. “But he had the nerve to ask me out.”

“When he asked you out, you said…”

“I went off on his ass.”

I rubbed my forehead hard enough to start a fire.

Karen asked, “What did Michael do?”

The sound I made, well, it had to be the wail of a bear with a box of salt being poured on an open wound.

I’ll never come out of these blues alive. It’s always heads they win, tails I lose.

“Darnell, how long’re you going to be up, sweetheart?”

I didn’t answer. Dawn used the word
sweetheart
like it was a substitute for other curse words. Maybe it was her hard New York accent that made it sting. I stopped typing on my PC because she’d wrecked my train of thought. Had to stop and massage my temples. Felt stress coming on strong. I felt my ideas thinning out. She knew I was in the middle of something, and she knew she was disturbing my creative process, wrecking my flow.

It was after midnight. The first few minutes of Monday.

A moment later Dawn appeared in the doorway. The hall light allowed her six-foot frame to cast an eight-foot shadow across the wall that held all of our laminated degrees, on my proclamation from the city, darkened the wall nearer to the side with her desk. My desk was nearer the window. At night I clicked off all the lights and worked by the illumination of the PC. The darkness all around me blocked out the outside world, made me feel focused in the fantasy that I was creating.

“Darnell? How long’re you going to work on that book of yours?”

“Another hour or two.”

“No, Darnell.” Again, the way she said my name sounded like an abomination. “I mean how long. You’ve been doing this one for over a month. The other book you wrote is over in the corner collecting dust. You have a job. Your degree is not in writing books, for crying out loud.”

“You want to read what I’m working on?”

“It’s late. We have to get up early. I’m going to bed.”

I turned back around, trying to find my place in the story, trying to get back into the characters. Trying to get back into character. Dawn was still in the doorway. I felt her presence the same way I saw her restless shadow moving side to side.

“Darnell? Sweetheart?”

Again I rubbed my temples. “Yes, honey?”

“I didn’t marry a book writer.”

“Did you marry a man or an occupation?”

“You know what I mean. You’re an attorney. You have a good job. We have plans to do other things. You’re thinking about quitting your job to write a doggone book—mind you, that you do not have a degree in journalism—”

I cut her off. “Grisham, Clancy, Files, none of them have a degree in journalism.”

“Sweetheart, I hate to burst your bubble, but you’re not Grisham, Clancy, or Files.”

“And before Grisham there wasn’t a Grisham.”

She said, “I’m just being honest. What, am I supposed to put having
our
first kid on hold just because you have a writing bug up your ass? And if you quit work to investigate this new avenue, until you get that
lump sum
check from a yet to be named publisher, do you expect me to pay the mortgage on this three-bedroom house, foot the bill for two car notes and insurance, pay for electric, buy food and clothing, do all of that on what I make selling real estate? You know how my job is. You know about its highs and lows.”

“We could cut back.”

“Cut back? You mean, move out of Walnut and go back into Los Angeles? I don’t think so.” She shifted side to side. “Baby, I love you. You went to Whittier Law School, and I supported you; now you’re an attorney with the FAA, and I still support you. And as far as the FAA goes, you need that job so we can pay back the student loans that enabled you to become an attorney.”

We’d been over all this before. “Did you read the five pages I gave you day before yesterday?”

“It’s in my briefcase with the other stuff you gave me.”

I hated the way she referred to what I did as
stuff.

But still I asked, “Have you looked at any of it?”

She turned to walk away. “No.”

I said, “Stephan thinks it’s good. He liked the suspense. Said that he could
see
the people and everything.”

“When did he stop hoeing around long enough to become a critic? What did Jake say about the stuff you wrote?”

“Jake doesn’t read fiction. What did you think?”

“I was reading my Sue Grafton novel. I’ll get around to reading yours. Why don’t you turn that computer off?”

My head was throbbing. “In a minute.”

“Stop running up our electric bill and come to bed at a decent hour for a change. In the old days, nighttime used to mean something to married people. Something special. It’s a shame when a woman has to beg a man to be her husband.”

“And it’s a damn shame when a man has to beg his wife to be his friend.”

“I didn’t marry you because I needed a friend. I have plenty of them. I married you because I wanted you to be my husband.”

“Or just because you wanted a husband.”

“I wanted you to be my husband; I wanted to be your wife.” With that, she left.

I tried to get back into the groove of what I was doing, but that groove was gone. I tried to get focused. That lasted five minutes.

Pictures that Dawn and I had taken on our honeymoon way back when were on the wall between our desks. I looked at them. Looked at us.

Me and Dawn met at church. Faithful Central. Singles Bible study. That was when all of us—Jake, Stephan, Dawn—were living in L.A. I’d come in church late because I’d been working out with my buddies at the gym, sat next to her, and when it came time to find the scripture in the Bible, it took me forever to find the passage in Corinthians. Church wasn’t one of my playgrounds, and outside of Easter, it hadn’t been my parents’ favorite place. Seemed like everybody else was in Corinthians, reading along, and I was still flipping pages. Dawn peeped over at me struggling, smiled. She leaned close to me and whispered, “It’s in the New Testament.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

I struggled a few more seconds.

She added, “Between Romans and Galatians.”

I fanned through Luke. John. Acts. Still lost.

She said, “First Corinthians.”

She leaned over and helped me. Helped me find my way the rest of the evening. We ended up in the parking lot, discussing the Word. We were so in sync, like two of God’s instruments playing the same tune, harmonizing in faith. She had me engaged before I could protest. Back then she claimed her goals were to become a real estate broker, open her own office. But she’s stopped chasing that dream and settled for working at someone else’s office. And after she found what she’d come to church to get, church wasn’t as important. Just the three W’s of the wedding—when, where, and what time. I thought she was in love with me, but deep down I’ve always felt she was more in love with being married, with the white picket fence, two-car garage image of marriage.

Eight years of being career-driven people, of having shifting priorities, of working and studying on weekends, Sundays included, has changed us both.

This world has changed us like it changes everything.

She interrupted my thoughts of yesterday, of yester-her and yester-me: “Darnell. Sweetheart. Baby.”

I heard Dawn down the hallway in the bed. Shifting around.

I clicked the PC off.

Forget about my dreams deferred.

I went and put my head on my wife’s bosom.

Gave her the attention that she deserved.

Became her husband.

Valentine’s Day.

By nine a.m. we were all at Mountain High, skiing the blue runs on the east resort. Blue means intermediate slopes.

Jake was a little ahead of me, whizzing around fallen snow boarders. His fiancée, Charlotte, was right behind him, skiing down the groomed track like a serious snow bunny. Charlotte’s in her late twenties, about five-foot-five, slim and trim. About the same height as my girl Toyomi. My woman for the day.

Jake pointed toward the advanced run. The one labeled Wildcard. “We’re going to hit this black diamond run.”

I said, “Can you handle it?”