Every Woman Needs a Wife (15 page)

Jeremy pulled the door closed a little more, whispering, “You cheated on Brandi. She doesn’t want me to get any ideas that I can do that shit, too.”

“I thought you were the man of the house.”

“Same as you, my man,” Jeremy said, eyes narrowing just a little. “But I don’t want to be outside holding my dick in one hand and a raggedy-ass blanket in the other, either.”

“Oh, that’s low, even for you,” Vernon snapped. “Why don’t you at least ask?”

“Do you see what I have on?” Jeremy said, pointing to his old pajamas.

Vernon allowed his gaze to pass over his friend. “Some shit I wouldn’t wear on my worst day?”

Jeremy’s gaze narrowed to slits.

“All right, clothes, man, clothes.”

“Yeah, and I wanna keep it that way.” Jeremy peered back into the house. “Lissette drilled me from the time we left that surprise anniversary—coming-out—divorce—or whatever the hell that was last night ’til the time she finally went to sleep. She thinks because you’re sneaking around that I am, too—just because I kept quiet about you.” His iron gaze almost bored into Vernon’s soul. “Now I’m on the hot seat and there’s only so much sex that’ll smooth things over.” Then he grinned as he cracked his neck left, then right. “But I’m working on it.” His grin disappeared as he poked Vernon’s chest. “And I don’t need anyone messing that up. Especially the man who started this shit.”

Vernon took a second to absorb that. “So I can’t stay?”

“Sorry, man, I’ve gotta keep my marriage together. Having you here would put a serious damper on things. She’s taken sides with your wife, so—”

“I can’t believe this. You’ll let me stay out in the cold?” Vernon shook his head, mumbling, “With your punk ass.”

Jeremy’s light skin darkened to an angry brown. “Call me what you want, man. I still have a working furnace to keep me warm and a place to lay my head.” He leaned in, grinning. “And my wife isn’t playing house with my mistress. So you really need to think about things or you’ll be back here next week, still looking for a place to live.” Just as suddenly as it appeared, Jeremy’s anger vanished. “Why don’t you stay at Tanya’s house?”

“Brandi changed the locks.”

Jeremy coughed a few times, obviously holding in a laugh. “Damn, she moves fast.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Vernon said, bristling at the fact that his friend found things so funny. “I can’t find my wallet. All my credit cards and cash were in there.”

“So you’re strapped for cash?”

Vernon shrugged. “Yeah, something like that.”

“Hold on a minute.”

Jeremy went back into the house. Reappearing moments later with a maroon leather wallet, he pulled out a few bills.

Vernon fanned the money between his fingers. “Eighty dollars? That’s all you have, man?”

“Do I look like a damn ATM machine to you?” Jeremy growled, favoring Vernon with an angry glare. “That’s my part of our weekly allowance. We’re saving for the baby.”

“Allowance? Man, stand up and take charge of that shit.”

“Like you’ve done?” Jeremy snapped back. “If my wife and I handle our finances together, there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s what marriage is about—honesty and sharing.” He whipped out a long index finger and waggled it at his friend. “So if you want to consider me weak, then that’s your issue. What I have is a warm bed and a gorgeous woman next to me. Can you say the same?”

Vernon parted his lips to speak, but Jeremy didn’t give him a chance.

“I told you to end it with Tanya when you first met her two years ago, but nooooooo, Mr. Spencer said he had everything under control. Now I’m paying for your mistake. If it costs me our friendship because I won’t try my wife’s patience, then so be it. I love my wife and I plan on rolling over at ninety, dentures and all, and still having the woman I married lying next to me. So fuck you!” Jeremy stepped inside and slammed the door.

Vernon drove to The Perfect Fit on South Chicago, thinking he’d crash on the couch in his office. Unfortunately, the key card he needed to get in was not-so-safely tucked away in his wallet—a wallet he hadn’t seen since he’d left Tanya’s place. His life was in that wallet!

Vernon trailed back to the house on Wabash Avenue, testing the bars first to see if he could find a way in. No such luck. He reached in his pockets and pulled out the chump change his “best friend” had given him. Flipping the bills within his fingers, he came up with a brilliant way to show Brandi and Tanya he meant business.

T
anya leaned back in the vinyl chair in the solarium, scanning the contract a third time.

Brandi slowly read the terms, her voice polite, almost questioning. “Breakfast at seven, eleven on weekends, a packed lunch for the kids every day and one for myself when I request it. Dinner at seven every evening, whether I’m here or not. By the way, we don’t eat pork or catfish.”

“That’s half of the good stuff. Are you guys Muslim or something?”

“No, but my good parents were.” Brandi lowered her gaze back to the document. “Laundry, dusting, grocery shopping, the beds made. Kids’ doctors’ appointments, track, volleyball.”

“Gardening?”

Brandi’s liquid brown eyes twinkled with mischief. “No, we have a guy that comes in once a week.”

“Windows?”

Brandi shrugged before taking a long, slow breath. “Schedule a service for the windows. As many as this house has, I wouldn’t wish them on my worst enemy.” Silence extended between them for several seconds before she shrugged. “No pun intended.”

“This seems so…strange,” Tanya said, taking a long sip of juice. “Why would you help me this way? You don’t even know me.”

Brandi was silent for a moment. “Because despite outer appearances, you’re me with the same broken heart, you’re me with the same broken dreams and no direction. And I truly believe we’re both victims here—not
enemies. I just think that we’ll both come out ahead on this one—and Vernon will get a lesson he’ll never forget.”

Tanya sighed. “I guess I’ll just have to look at it as a new job—one with benefits.”

Taken aback at Tanya’s summary of the situation, Brandi asked, “What kind of benefits?”

“I can’t have children. My mother forced me to have an abortion when I was about twelve.”

A sudden welling of compassion flooded her soul. “She forced you? Your own mother? And you were pregnant at twelve?”

Tanya’s expression crumbled as a flash of pain leapt into her eyes. “It’s a long story. But it’s one of the reasons I had to finally leave Georgia when I was fourteen. Why I was so happy that Vernon had children, and now…”

Reaching a hand across the table, Brandi grazed Tanya’s arm with a soft, gentle touch. “You can always adopt.”

“I didn’t want to raise a child by myself.”

“Remember, you’re not alone now. You have a…
husband
for anything that doesn’t require a dick,” Brandi said. They both laughed.

The morning sun splayed brightly onto the linoleum floor. Tanya looked up from the contract. “You know, speaking of dick, people are going to think we’re lesbians.”

“I don’t care what people think anymore,” Brandi replied evenly. “I’ve always followed the rules—now I’m making them.”

Tanya took a few minutes to absorb that. “What about the kids?”

“Wait a minute,” Brandi said, bristling with uneasiness. “What’s with all the sudden backpedaling? Whose side are you on here?”

Tanya, who never liked to be yelled at, blinked back tears. “Theirs. They could be hurt by this.”

Brandi became suddenly still.

“I came here last night because I was angry and pissed off at how everything had changed so quickly,” Tanya said hoarsely. “Never in a million years would I have thought you were serious.”

“I wasn’t.”

Tanya’s lips pursed as she wiped away a single tear.

Brandi lowered her gaze, grinning. “Well, at least not at
first
. Now I’ve put my mouth out there and I’m not taking ‘I told you so’ from anyone. We’re going to make this work even if it kills us. Unless you’re having second thoughts?”

“Third and fourth,” Tanya said, searching Brandi’s eyes for some sign of malice. “For every practical reason, you should hate me.”

“I don’t hate you. And between you and me, I don’t hate him, either,” she said, sipping from her second cup of coffee. “I’d still like to give him a swift kick in the rubber parts, though.”

Tanya let out a peal of laughter, breaking the tension.

“I have an application I need you to fill out, too.” Brandi reached into the folder and pulled out another sheet.

“A contract
and
an application?”

“So you can get health and life insurance from The Perfect Fit. I’m taking you out of the database as a client and putting you on the payroll. That way his money’s paying part of your keep. When I get court-ordered maintenance it’ll pay the rest.” Then Brandi’s eyes narrowed. “And another thing…”

Tanya sighed wearily before lifting two fingers to rub her temple.

“During the next six months you’re here, take your ass back to school and get a GED or something.”

Tanya relaxed slowly. “This is too much.”

Brandi became quiet, looking down into her cup. “Did you love him?” She looked up into Tanya’s eyes, waiting.

“Vernon made it very hard to love him. I appreciated the security. He was safe, or at least I thought he was. Truthfully, there’s never been a time in my life that I could open myself up and trust anyone,” Tanya said, her voice just above a whisper. She picked up the application. “Now I’m trusting the one woman on this planet that has no earthly reason to keep me nearby.”

“Proving a point is a powerful motivator.”

“Yes, but it can also hurt more than just Vernon. Did you think about that?”

Brandi took a sip of coffee. “I’m too numb to think, I can only react.”

Those words didn’t sit too well with Tanya. What would happen when the numbness went away and the pain truly kicked in?

♥♥♥

After enduring a nosy old woman’s questions at the currency exchange, the contract was official, with two signatures and a notary. They stopped by Avie’s house to pick up the girls.

Avie’s keen gaze narrowed on Tanya, who stared right back. The lawyer leaned on the driver’s side door, saying, “Brandi, let me talk to you for a minute. Having her in your house will mess up my court case. You’re supposed to be the victim here, not trying to make lemonade out of a sour situation. That’s my job.”

“She stays and that’s final.”

Minutes later, the girls sat on the couch across from the two women in the solarium of their home. Brandi said, “Mommy needs to talk with you about what’s going on, okay?”

Sierra, the younger at ten, looked from Tanya to her mother, then to Simone. The older daughter was dressed in a miniskirt so short even Tanya would think twice about wearing it.

“Tanya’s going to live with us for about…six months or so.” Brandi looked at Tanya for confirmation. “She’s going to take care of things, like keeping the house and getting you girls back and forth to track, gymnastics, and volleyball.”

“We help around here. What do we need her for?” Simone demanded. “You’re always saying you have three dishwashers: Kenmore, Sierra, and Simone.”

“That’s true, pumpkin,” Brandi said, running a hand over Simone’s hair. “But Mommy’s been working a lot and there’s more to it than just loading the dishwasher. You know what I mean?”

Simone eyed Tanya warily. “What about Daddy?”

“Well, um, Daddy’s a little upset about things right now—”

“Why?” Sierra piped in, her soft voice so much like Brandi’s.

“I think he wanted Tanya to live somewhere else, but right now I need the help, okay?”

Simone pulled a pillow from next to her and placed it on her lap. “Are you and Daddy getting a divorce?”

Brandi shook her head. “No, not that. We still love each other. It’s just a little grown-up misunderstanding.”

“A misunderstanding that has to do with his client?” Simone asked, glaring openly at Tanya.
Did the little girl know more than they thought?
Brandi thought. All she said was, “We’re just working some things out. Don’t you worry about a thing.”

Sierra piped up. “Is Tanya still going to teach us how to bake Red Velvet cake?”

“I’m sure she will. Why don’t you two get your room together and lay out your clothes for school next week.”

When the girls were gone, Tanya let out a long sigh of relief.

Brandi laughed, giving her hand a gentle pat. “Let it go. I’m not going to blast you every time someone makes mention of Vernon. And I’m not blaming you for anything. Unless there’s something you’re not telling me…” Her gaze leveled on Tanya as she waited a few moments. “No? Then it’s a done deal. Our contract will stand no matter what the outcome of my marriage or what happens in your life. If no one else stays true to their word, we, as women should. Deal?”

“Okay, okay,” Tanya said, shaking Brandi’s outstretched hand. “No matter what, we’ll fulfill the terms of the contract.”

“And you can’t keep turning red every time someone makes reference to your relationship with Vernon.”

Brandi was very much at ease with being in control of things, just like Mama Diane, Tanya thought, who had run a household of four girls and three boys with a warmth that had never graced the halls of the Van Oy mansion. The fact that the wheels were still turning even after she had closed in for the kill reminded Tanya of her own mother.

Margaret Van Oy Jaunal, a woman once known for her warm nature
and sunny disposition, had become cold and distant by the time Tanya turned ten. The woman wouldn’t stand up for herself even if Gloria Steinem gave her personal instructions. She stayed home to take care of her husband, relishing the fact that a mistake she had made in her teenage years had turned out to be the best mistake of her life.

Wilbur Jaunal actually couldn’t read and write, but he could fake it by talking a good game and keeping only a few people close to him. Margaret Van Oy had spent time in between their romps on the backseat to teach him how. So with the help of his wife, they formed a plan to break down the structure of Social Circle.