Don't Ask My Neighbor (16 page)

Twenty-Seven

________

Big Mistake

Ryle

YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY: BETTER prepared than never. I didn’t expect Judge Gabriel Milsap to throw the book at my client, DeVince Paxton, but I didn’t suppose she would be as lenient as she was when she rendered her verdict. I heard she carried a special place in her heart for young black men, especially those who presented a biography like DeVince’s. I just didn’t know that place was a sinkhole. You were considered lucky if you had the opportunity to defend a client with judge Milsap presiding. Trouble always had a way of finding the son of a preacher man or, in Judge Milsap’s case, the son of a judge. It wasn’t a secret that her son was currently serving a ten-year sentence at the Eastern Kentucky Correctional Complex, sent there by a judge who she said had no mercy.

I spent the better part of the Thanksgiving week in Judge Milsap’s courtroom presenting my best argument, trying to keep a good kid out of someone’s cell. Priscilla and I exchanged stares, keeping our elation subdued. Judge Milsap also frowned upon attorneys with visible displays of victory, because her decisions were not for us to make another mark in the win colum
n—though I quietly noted my victory—but to help a young man pursue his dreams without a blemish on his record, all because of his moment of stupidity. That’s what she called it, because in DeVince’s case, nothing about him said stupid.

I was more than satisfied with the outcome of this case, but my delight was short-lived. At the light at the corner of 3
rd
and Indiana, I stared at my image in the side mirror.

I’d put Samantha on the back burner since my unexpected visit. I kept a low profile, waiting for her to make her next move. I left her with her only directive, but I knew her too well to even think I had done anything more than rattle her cage. She could sit around and call my bluff, since, unbeknownst to her, after I left her office my next stop was to the closest FedEx to send J.B. his personal copy of his fiancé’s sexcapade. I expected him to call, which he did, and this time I actually listened to his long-winded apology, which was not needed. I stopped being upset with J.B. soon after the ordeal ended. I knew him and how easy it was for him to be blinded by lov
e—if that’s what you want to call it. I knew eventually he would come to his senses, even if it meant I had to help him get there. 

I knew meeting Samantha was going to bring changes to my life, but the chaos she brought was not what I bargained for. She wasn't supposed to disrupt all the things that were already going right for me. It wasn't much, but the plans I made for mysel
f—for my future—were still unrealized even now, years after meeting her. I worked my ass off at Boston University, and even earned my J.D. degree at Harvard like I had planned, following in both my parents' footsteps. Then Samantha happened, and although I’m ashamed to admit it now, I was love-struck when we first met her. The disaster she was then led me to Georgetown Law, convinced I would still graduate on my own merits—I had the transcript to prove it—and not because my great grandfather's name was etched in stone above the entrance of a freshman dorm. My grandmother had directed me to the good women in the church, but she forgot to tell me about the devil’s reject that was Samantha Wells. I guess I can’t blame my grandmother for my choices. The world didn’t owe me anything. “The man” who usually gets blamed for every adversity in a black man’s life wasn’t keeping me down. But everything that was given to Samantha—everything she took—came at my demise, and she single-handedly orchestrated my defeat. She stood aside with a ruthless smirk on her face, and watched me lose everything I labored for.

The only thing wrong with what would have been an otherwise perfect day was the traffic heading back across town to the office. Priscilla sat on the passenger side of the car with a look of relief on her face. The car window was down slightly to enjoy the fifty-seven degrees that displayed on the dash; all sun, no clouds. I finished up my conversation with the receptionist at the office, and disconnected from the Bluetooth.

“Did she really say community service?” Priscilla questioned, throwing her head back in the seat.
She laughed—something she wanted to do from the moment those words escaped from Judge Milsap’s mouth. Fortunately, she had been able to contain herself.

“I wanted to get outta there fast before she changed her mind,” I said, taking a quick glance at Priscilla and smiling. 

“Looks like you and lady luck are back on good terms.”

“No offense, but I doubt luck is a lady.”

Priscilla didn’t respond to my subtle dismissal. Instead, she said, “Speaking of luck and lady, not that I think she epitomizes either, what’s the latest with your girl, Samantha?”

“You and I both know she’s not my girl. More like the bane of my freaking existence.” I laughed. “I haven’t paid too much attention to her since my little visit.”

“And does that mean you’re done with your plan?”

“Am I supposed to laugh at your absurdity?” I asked in jest. “I won’t be done until I’m dancing on her grave, and it doesn’t look like I have too much longer to wait. I gave her a simple task, but I already know she hasn’t yet crossed that off her to-do list.” 

“Do you think she will?”              

“Oh, I know she won’t. She’ll wait to see how I play my hand, as if this is a damn poker game. And she’s going to wear the face to match, as if she’s not at all fazed by my revelation. I know she’s been sleeping with one eye open, if she’s sleeping at all. As much as she’s pretending, I bet she’s shaking in her boots. She’s probably spending her nights trying to figure out what Jelani knows.”

I didn’t think Samantha would go quietly into the night, or back to the hole she crawled from with her deceitful plan to win my best friend’s heart and destroy my life in the process. She’s just not that type of person. Everything about her was shrewd. She was filled with hatred, which she directed toward anyone, especially if they appeared to be an obstruction to whomever she set her mind to concur. I was curious where her repugnance came from, but even after marriage, I avoided that discussion because I didn’t think she would be forthcoming. What the hell am I talking about? I knew she wouldn’t oblige. I supposed I had some doubts then, still I set the few that I did have and went boldly into building a life with her. Even conversations with Samantha’s mother, Joyce Garrett, yielded nothing that could help me understand the origin of her hate. I wouldn’t have given much credit to anything she divulged anyway. She was Samantha’s mother, and which mother’s first instinct isn’t to protect their child?

“Are we grabbing lunch before heading back?” I asked Priscilla.

The coffee and croissant I had before leaving home for the nine o’clock hearing had long been digested, and hunger had settled in the pit of my stomach again. The emptiness I felt inside was overwhelming. I kept my head forward, but caught Priscilla’s face in my peripheral. She looked at her cellphone and held a permanent smile.

“Oh, hell,” I said, laughing quietly.

I was too familiar with this behavior. Cellphone in hand, smiling the way she was, only meant one thing when it came to Priscilla.

“What?”

“You got that new-man smile again,” I said, jokingly.

Priscilla didn’t respond, but I knew I was right. Hell, she deserved it. I loved Priscilla like she was my sister. She was a great lawyer, too, a faithful friend, and would even make
the man she marries a very happy husband, but she usually missed the mark when it came to picking the right man to give her attention, among other things.

Trent Whitaker, Vander Mayes, and Wes Osgood were disasters from the beginning. Ford Tolliver, the worst of all, could’ve used a class in Dating 101, or should’ve read the little yellow book,
Dating for Dummies,
since all he did, even when I was around, was talk about himself, his impending divorce, or a mother-in-law who never thought he was good enough for her daughter, even though she wanted to bone him, too. That man had an ego the size of Hoover Dam. I praised Priscilla for being optimistic when it came to these men. With each one of them, she thought the more she drank, the more interesting they would become. A glass away from a Saturday morning hangover and nothing about a date with them ever got better, except she was near drunk and had the best steak. I think she drank to forget the mistake each of those men were.  

“So, what’s this bastards name?” I asked, flashing another mischievous smile, cause she picked her men as if she were selecting them from a line-up of criminals; no one of them was better than the others.

“E.J. Marshall,” she said bashfully.

“And let me guess. You don’t know what his initials stand for, do you?” I asked out of concern.

“Considering we just met, it’s ok that I don’t.”

“I’ll take that as no. You had that conversation with yourself again, didn’t you?”

“What conversation?”

“The one where you tell yourself this year was going to be different. That’s what you always tell yourself to make it through. Hopefully this man won’t have you sitting on your couch, or mine, with me or a glass of wine keeping you company, waiting for your private promises to ring true. I don’t want you giving too much too soon, only to end up disappointed again.”

“But, Ryle,” she interrupted.

“And before you get too deep, no second chances,” I continued, not even acknowledging her interruption. “He won’t do to you what Wes did. He won’t have the opportunity to come back into your life, and then leave, just like he did three years before that, giving you no reasons or explanations, just the phone call you waited for that never came. Remember, he left you wondering why he sought you out after all that time. Even more so, you wondered why you thought his second time was going to be different.”

“Wow. You’re already talking about my end with E.J., when we haven’t even experienced our beginning,” Priscilla said, folding her hands across her chest. This was the stance she usually assumed whenever she got upset with me.

“That’s not it. I just don’t want to see you hurt,” I pleaded.

Without Priscilla’s input, I had selected a place for lunch, settling on Rasika, an Indian restaurant in the Penn Quarter section of D.C. It was one of the best places I could think of to celebrate this easy victory. Indian cuisine was also my favorite, and despite our discussion—’cause we never called them arguments—I was with one of my favorite persons. Jelani and I used to go there, too. Priscilla and I sat in the car in front of the restaurant, waiting for the Valet.

“He’s not like them, Ryle,” she said with confidence, and she believed it. Hell, why go into a relationship with reservations?

“And that doesn’t sound familiar to you?” I asked, finally looking at her. I knew what this conversation was doing to her, but I wanted my friend to be prepared for what has been a constant possibility with the men she gave her heart to in the past. “You said the same thing about Vander, and the man before him, and the one after him, and not one of them turned out to be all that different. It’s as if the heartache that breaking up with the last one caused, and your plans to never fall for one more false promise or trick were pushed to the back of your mind as soon as you allowed his love to take over.”

It was just like Priscilla to fall for the ones who didn’t deserve her, and they were too foolish to recognize a good woman had just fallen into their grasp. Maybe it was her five foot ten inch, slender frame that challenged them. It was, perchance, her Cornell education that left them feeling inferior, unable to hold their own. Or perhaps it was that AKA flair, that unquestionable beauty, or that perfectly placed confidence that made men query their own ability to keep a woman like her. I often wished she treated them like how I saw them: a stepping stone to an awaiting possibility, an eventual past soon to be forgotten when the future that awaited her finally arrived.

"You still believe a fool for love, is a fool for the pain love always caused, so you're still running," Priscilla said, shifting in her seat.

"And you're still allowing yourself to get caught by the same impostors, only to feel that identical, well-known hurt,” I shot back. “Look, Priscilla, this isn’t about me.”

“And I’ll prefer it if you don’t make this about me, either,” she requested. “Anyway, why are you talking to me as if you really care?”

“I don’t just care.”

“What?” She whipped her head in my direction.

“I don’t just care, Priscilla,” I repeated, although I knew she heard me. “I love you.”

She looked at me with surprise, and I wondered if I said something wrong. It’s not like I’ve never said those words to her before. Priscilla has had her bad streak, and I had been there when she was happy to be starting over, and in the end, I was still there, loving the fragmented woman they left behind, making promises things would be all right; promises she believed only when the next man made his presence felt. Hopefully her meeting this E.J. guy will do more than just add to her already tainted record. Hopefully this time he wanted it all, and not just the parts of her she would allow him into. Hopefully this one wanted more than just one night of love, or maybe he wouldn’t run when she was in too deep.

Priscilla kept her stare until the valet opened her door.