Cheaters (49 page)

During the last act, Tammy strutted across the stage in a risqué red dress. She brought her dress to life with her wicked walk. Her homeless character had become rich and she’d come back to the ghetto to help some of her down-fallen people. A bit contrived, but a well-meant message.

Tammy did a spiritual up-tempo solo during the closing number. She lived inside the music. The spotlight followed her as she sang her way through the audience, touching and shaking hands.

Everyone was good, but in my eyes Tammy was the show. The way she moved. One moment she’d had the crowd laughing so hard they could hardly breathe, then next on the verge of tears. Dawn felt that power. I could tell by the way she held on to me. Even if she denied it, she couldn’t ignore the way her friends had laughed uncontrollably, how people had popped out Kleenex and dabbed their eyes when it was crying time.

Tammy went down the row, smiled and sang right in Dawn’s face. Dawn had to shake her hand. Had to smile when she did.

The cast joined in, held hands, sang along, took their bows.

When the lights went up, the applause was strong. Dawn’s unblinking eyes, her halfhearted smile lived on Tammy. They drifted across the other actors, but Tammy had her attention.

Most of the crowd started leaving, but quite a few people were hanging around. I tried to lead our pack out of the theater, but Dawn didn’t let us get two feet from our seats.

Dawn told our group, “Let’s wait.”

I asked, “For what?”

“So we can meet the people in the play.” Dawn became group leader and said, “Don’t you guys want to hang for a few and meet the people in the play? At twenty dollars a ticket, they should be happy to sign our programs for us.”

Dawn playfully nudged me. “Don’t be rude and leave. Don’t you want to tell your friend how good she was? You were tee-heeing and ha-haing, smiling and falling over laughing at every joke, so I know you want to thank her.”

One of the actors came out. People applauded. He went to his friends. Actresses came out. More applause. Then Tammy appeared. She’d changed into a pear brown skirt, a tan blouse.

Everyone applauded, except Dawn.

She’d created this situation, now I was willing to play it through. Chanté was the first one to take her smiles and hugs to Tammy. That was when I noticed Chanté’s eye was bruised.

Tammy’s eyes drifted our way, her eyes smiled, then went right back to her friends.

Dawn held my hand and we all filed that way, weaved through the crowd, went straight to Tammy and her group.

Tammy was being silly, accepting compliments and flowers from her friends. “Tank you berry mucho grande taco bell.”

Dawn chiseled her way into the conversation. “Chanté, I’m surprised to see you again. What in the world happened to your eye?”

Chanté said simply, “I bet you are. I slipped and bumped it, that’s all. Hey, Darnell.”

Dawn was watching without looking, waiting to see how we reacted to each other. I wanted to take Tammy’s hand. Wanted to hug her. Wanted to kiss her and make her vagina shudder with desire to feel me living deep within.

Tammy smiled. “Darnell, hey, buddy. Surprise, surprise. I’m so glad you could make it out here to the ‘Wood.”

I told her, “You were great.”

“Hush. How’s the writing coming along?”

“It’s coming.”

She hugged me, told everybody else who was in our space, “Everybody, listen up, this is Darnell, the guy I was telling you about who is writing a novel.”

One of the actresses said, “Oh. The
brilliant
writer.”

A few people laughed, shook my hand like I was the man.

When Tammy let me go, Dawn took my hand again, pulled herself up so close I couldn’t tell where my face ended and hers began.

I shifted, told Tammy, “This is Dawn.”

She shook Dawn’s hand and said, “So nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Dawn said. Her handshake was brief, all business, then she took her hand back and hooked it around my arm. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Tammy.”

“Your husband is so very talented. Have you read his book?”

Dawn’s plastic smile was there. “Not yet.”

I said, “Dawn skips over me to get to Sue Grafton.”

Everybody laughed.

Dawn slipped in a question, “Where did you and Darnell meet?”

“I was singing at a club…” Tammy made a subtle face of thinking. “Oh, yeah. His friend Jake was trying to get my phone number, and somehow all of us started talking about writing. Well, not all of us. Anyway, Darnell knew what he was talking about.”

I had cut my eyes toward Charlotte when Tammy made that comment regarding Jake. At the mention of his name, Charlotte grimaced. Her face couldn’t hide what she felt. Then she gestured for her date to follow her outside. No matter where she went, something to do with Jake was there.

I asked, “Where’s your friend Karen?”

No reply.

Tammy stood in my wife’s face and said, “Dawn, listen, me and Chanté are going to pop in the coffee house and

chitchat with the cast for a moment. Why don’t you hardworking people come hang out with us starving artists?”

Their smiles were sturdy, eye contact was strong. Reading.

Dawn declined, said she needed to get Charlotte and her friend back to our home.

Chanté touched the bruised side of her face, said some things. The conversation changed, other people took over, more laughter came and went. Then we were leaving. Tammy was in front of me. I kept my eyes to the ground to keep Dawn from being able to accuse me of any wrongdoing.

Dawn went with me to get the Range Rover. I was going to circle the block, then pick Charlotte and her friend up out front on Santa Monica.

Inside the Rover, Dawn told me, “She’s pretty.”

“There’s more to her than a face.”

“What do you think about when you’re with her?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just the writing? Other things? Tell me. Be honest.”

“Dawn, don’t start.”

“Trust is like sex. Both are best when it’s a little painful.”

“Dawn, let’s not go there.”

“Feels like I’m building a sand castle, and you’re going to let someone else stomp on my dreams.”

“Didn’t Tammy answer all of your questions?”

“Tammy’s a good pretender, and so are you. But Chanté’s as transparent as water.”

“Tap water or bottled water?”

“Fuck you.”

“Dawn, don’t.”

“Don’t patronize me.” Her words came slowly, but with the authority of King Solomon. “I saw it all there. Chanté
knows.
She was too uncomfortable.”

“Knows what? There’s nothing to know. She was uncomfortable because of what happened at Stephan’s parents’ house.”

“Have you put your hands on Tammy’s hips?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I’m fat, remember? Why would someone as pretty as she is find a Chubby Checker like me attractive?”

She growled, “Have you fucked her?”

“What’s your definition of
fuck
?”

“Okay, Mr. Lawyer. Since you want to play it like that, have you made love to her? Gone down on her? Has she pretended she was Monica Lewinsky and gone down on you? Has she touched your dick? Has she seen your dick? Have you put your fingers inside her?”

I answered all of that with a simple “No.”

“If you have, Darnell,” she sighed, closed her eyes, sounded desperate, a tone I rarely heard come from her, “we can get past this. I can understand if you’re feeling disconnected from me, me not being there when you needed me, that you need something and don’t know how to handle the neglect I’ve been giving you.”

I asked, “Why so paranoid?”

“Because I love you. It takes two to make a relationship.”

“But only one to mess it up.”

“Yes. Only one.”

She didn’t say a word for almost two seconds. That felt like ten years of peace.

“Pull over, Darnell.”

“They’re waiting for us.”

“Please?”

I did.

“You know what a tort is, Darnell?”

“Of course I do.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a legal term that mean offenses against people.”

“Wrongful acts.”

“Yeah, wrongful acts.”

“Such as negligence. Emotional distress. No, even better,
intentional
infliction of emotional distress.”

I patted the steering wheel. “Just like false imprisonment.”

“So is trespassing.” She was looking at her wedding ring. “Which is when your ass is on somebody’s else’s property when you should have your ass at home.”

“So, what are you saying?”

Dawn asked, “Have you kissed her?”

“You sure you want me to answer that?”

“Oh, God.” Her eyes stared straight ahead for a second.

Then she mumbled, “You can’t be married and be a Lothario at the same time.”

I nodded. “You finished preaching yet, or should I take up a collection and sing ‘Amazing Grace’?”

“Jake was the catalyst for this. Jake’s foolishness caused this. Well, I’m not having it.”

With that, I pulled away from the curb. I was passing all the single-story family homes, getting ready to make two rights and head back toward the din on Santa Monica Boulevard.

Dawn said, “I’m going to tell you something you don’t know.”

“Which is?”

“I almost left this marriage. When you were in law school, and this didn’t feel like a marriage was supposed to feel, I was going to leave you. All you ever needed was for me to help you memorize something, or dub a tape.”

“That’s what friends do.”

Dawn asked, “Does she kiss better than me?”

“I’m not answering that.”

“Do you want to lick the honey between her thighs?”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“In the game of sex, a kiss is only the first step. I
know
that for a fact. You don’t kiss people unless you want to fuck them. They don’t kiss you unless they want to fuck you.”

I was tense, but I didn’t release my anger.

Dawn hit the dash, snapped, “Talk to me, dammit. I’m fighting for my happiness. At least I’m trying. Dammit, I don’t know how to fight, not when it comes to shit like this.”

“Dawn—”

“I know you’re unhappy. You know I’m not happy.”

I let it alone.

But Dawn didn’t. “I bet you’ve fucked her and hurt her and made her come and rocked your hips against her ass and banged your balls against her—”

She stopped, shook her head. She gasped, “I don’t believe I just said that.”

I’d made it around the block and was pulling up in front of the theater. Dawn smiled at the people we were approaching.

Charlotte and the nerd got in, both holding cups of cappuccino. There was no passion in their date. Before the door closed, they were laughing and chattering about the

Play.

Charlotte glimpsed at me, then turned away.

She knew. Before she came to my home, she’d known what the entire evening was all about. She’d known that she was going to be riding with me.

Right inside the door to the theater, Tammy was standing, talking to others. She looked at me, sending her thoughts toward me, asking if she did okay with Dawn, if everything would be all right for me.

I winked at her.

She winked back.

I talked to Tammy the next morning, bright and early. She told me that she had almost lost it when she walked out and saw me and Dawn in the front row. That was why it took her so long to get to her first line. She went blank and had to improvise.

Tammy said, “Your wife is a very pretty woman.”

I didn’t respond to that compliment.

She said, “I want to see you.”

“Me, too.”

“Next weekend will be my last weekend before I go to Paris.”

“This weekend?”

“No, the weekend after this one. I’m ten days from Europe.”

My insides sank. It felt like part of me was being yanked away. My heart was heavy. I stared at my ring and told myself that I didn’t have the right to feel what I did, but I did.

Softly she told me, “My schedule will be hectic. I’ll be busy with the play. I’ll be packing when I can, selling most of my furniture to friends and neighbors, and that Saturday night will be my last performance with the band at Shelly’s.”

She paused, let me think that over.

She said, “I’ll be near you. Sunday, I’ll be on a Concorde flying over the ocean to a new world.”

I understood what she was telling me. Our clock was ticking.

With so much feeling, enough to last me for two millennia, she said, “I have to see you the night before I go. If I can’t take you with me, I have to say good-bye to you the right way.”

I asked, “You want me to come by your place afterward?”

“I’ll rent a room nearby the club. Up by restaurant row. There’s a Hilton right up the street at the 10 freeway. We’re going to be partying, so I know nobody’ll be driving too far.”

“You’re going to get tipsy?”

“No. With you I want to be sober. If your kisses affect me like champagne, then the rest of you will be more than enough to get me super-duper high. I want you straight, no chaser.”

“Two Saturdays away, then,” I said. “Straight, no chaser.”

“Ten more days without you. I don’t know if I can take it.”

“Seems like a lifetime away.”

“Two lifetimes, baby. Two lifetimes.”

Tammy hopped to her feet before I did. Maybe because she cared more than I did. She got up so fast, she stumbled. The cheap plastic Kmart chair she was in turned over and bounced on the dark tile floor.

My own chair bumped into the beige wall hard enough to chip the cracked paint. Both of us were startled when we heard the old white man yell out my name. He was flipping through the paperwork I’d filled out as he hurried over toward us.

He looked up at Tammy’s statuesqueness, extended his leathery hand upward, said, “Miss Chanté Ellis?”

Tammy shook her head and moved to the side.

He turned to me, said, “Miss Ellis?”

I cleared my throat. “Yes.”

“Harold Levis. How are you doing this morning?”

I responded to the mechanical question with a programmed answer, “Fine.”

“Come with me.”