Guilty of Love (5 page)

“
Will do. Thanks.” Rainey
disconnected.

She considered going to the festival,
but somehow a crowd would only make her feel lonely. As Cheney set
the phone back in its holder, she took a look around her house. It
wouldn’t be hard for her to find something to do, but she had to
start getting out. If not, her palace would become her
prison.

***

Parke was dreaming about the house on
Benton Street when a buzzer startled him, but before he was fully
awake he dreamt he heard his mother say, “Don’t dismiss your
thoughts while sleeping. Your dreams could be telling you something
about the future.”

He chuckled at the absurdity of the
statement. There was nothing on that block that could be part of
his future. When his doorbell buzzed again, he dragged himself out
of bed. In the bathroom, he quickly washed his face and brushed
teeth at the same time. A trick he learned as a kid when he got up
late for school. After stepping into sweatpants and putting on a
T-shirt, he hurried down the stairs.

Opening the door, he wasn’t surprised
to see his younger brother leaning on his doorbell without any
regard. “Knock it off, Malcolm. I’m not deaf. What’s
up?”

“
Thought you might be up
for a whippin’. Name your poison—slam dunk or one-on-one,” Malcolm
Jamieson challenged, wearing a cocky grin and workout clothes. He
thrust the ball into Parke’s chest.

“
You’re trying to kill me,
ain’t ya?”

“
Yep.”

“
Where’s your better
half?”

“
Thanks for asking.
Hallison’s at the beauty shop.”

Parke smirked. “And I bet you’re like
a lost puppy without your woman. Judging from your bulging biceps,
you’ve probably already been on the court for hours.” Malcolm’s
weightlifting regimen made his body appear thicker and heavier than
Parke’s.

Identical facial features, including
long noses and dimpled smiles, mirrored the brothers. Each sported
short, wavy jet-black hair and thick silky eyebrows. Whereas Parke
wore a long, thin mustache; Malcolm preferred a well-groomed beard.
Ladies often mistook them for Rick Fox of the L.A. Lakers. The
youngest brother, Cameron, was away at college.

“
What can I say? Hali and I
have a standing gym date every other Saturday.”

“
And a non-stop romantic
dating experience the other days of the week.”

At twenty-six, Malcolm was three years
younger, but stood an inch taller at six-foot-five. His honey skin
was a shade darker than Parke’s cocoa-butter complexion.

The Jamiesons were confident Black men
in their professional goals. But their similarities ended when it
came to the opposite sex. Malcolm preferred consistency in a
relationship, dating one woman at a time. Parke lost all his common
sense when it came to women, playing them like a deck of cards. The
search wasn’t a game he played as he looked for the Mrs. Jamieson
to bear Parke K. Jamieson VII.

“
You and your Miss
Dinkins,” Parke teased, swooping up his keys from a nearby hall
table. He nudged his brother out his door and locked it. “I’ve got
a better idea. How ’bout we take a short run around the hood?
C’mon. You can keep up, can’t ya?”

Parke leaped off three steps, landing
on the brick walkway of his turn-of-the-nineteenth-century house.
He dashed down the sidewalk for a jumpstart. Malcolm sped by him.
Their jog increased to a marathon race as they passed
chemically-treated green lawns, luscious flowers beds, and elegant
homes. Some houses were too massive to hide behind the aging oaks
and spruces lining Darst Avenue.

There was no way Malcolm would figure
out Parke’s reasoning for the zigzag route. Two blocks north; two
streets east, a shortcut through a pathway, and then one long block
south to Benton Street. For weeks, it had become a nagging habit to
cruise five blocks in the opposite direction of where he lived
before going home.

Malcolm stopped and bent down,
panting. “PJ, wait. What’s with the obstacle course? Why are we
going this way? Wabash Park is on the other side.”

“
Yeah, I know.” Parke
jogged in place. “There’s a house I want to check out.”

As they stood stretching, a cherry-red
Chrysler convertible slowed down. Two Halle Berry look-alikes
honked the horn, blew kisses, and sped away.

“
Women, you’ve gotta love
’em,” the brothers said in unison as their hands met in a high
five.

“
The market isn’t
performing to your expectations? Are you contemplating forsaking
your stocks and bonds for investment property? Smart
move.”

“
Although all my moves are
deliberate, my interest has nothing to do with financial
investments this time, bro. For a while, I’ve been watching the
progress of a neighborhood eyesore. Man, death almost kissed me as
I drove past that property.”

“
Death?”

“
I’m serious. I nearly
broke my neck trying to see if the house sold. When I turned
around, I was face-to-face with oncoming traffic.”

Malcolm burst out laughing. “It
must’ve been a sight to see you almost ruin your Envoy.”

Parke shivered at the thought of that
ramshackle house causing his demise and sending his pride and joy
to a body shop. “You know it! Plus—” He veered to another side
street and emerged into a slow trot. “I wanted a glimpse at the
losers who would buy anything to boast an Old Ferguson zip
code.”

“
Now you’re a nosy
neighbor, huh? I’m glad I’m not worthy of your visits or you’d
snoop on me.”

As they rounded the corner, Parke
slowed and rested against a tree. Crossing his arms, he stared
across Benton Street. The house in his dream was Cheney’s. He
choked on his own air.

“
Okay, what’s so
fascinating, or did I wear you out, old man?”

“
You wish.” Parke pointed.
“Impressive, isn’t it?”

“
Who ya talkin’ about? The
house or the babe inside?”

Parke squinted. A rag was tied around
Cheney’s head like Aunt Jemima as she wiped inside a bay window.
“It’s a toss-up.” The previous night, he had seen her rolling pale
blue paint on a bedroom wall.

“
C’mon, man. Haven’t you
seen enough?” Malcolm shoved him back toward his house. “Who are
you bringing to Juneteenth later?”

“
Hmm. I thought about
Kelsi.”

“
Kelsi, again? That’s two
dates in a row, but who’s counting?”

“
You, and probably her. So
far, she’s fitting the profile.” Parke shrugged.

“
Run your profile by me
again.”

Annoyed at his brother’s
forgetfulness, Parke rattled off, “Intelligent, sexy—meaning
petite, good-looking legs, and a warm personality. So far, Kelsi’s
got the sexy part right.”

“
This is where you lose me,
PJ. Why bother?”

“
Because I enjoy her other
assets.” Parke winked. He and Kelsi had one thing in common. They
played each other for what they could get.

“
Okay, keep it up and
you’ll have a houseguest in your castle.”

“
That’s why I dumped
Vanessa last month.” Parke sucked in his lips. “It hurt to cut her
loose. That woman had the most gorgeous, milk-chocolate legs I’ve
ever seen. But I needed a honey who’s makin’ her own money so I
could throw my hands up at her,” Parke paraphrased the old lyrics
to Destiny’s Child’s
Independent Woman
.

“
Slow down, playboy, that
profile of yours might lead you astray. We control our destiny, not
the gods of the kings and princes of our ancestral
tribes.”

“
I won’t ignore the past,
Malcolm. It holds the direction of our future.”

“
Maybe. I just don’t
believe that rule applies to our soul mate. Now back to Vanessa.
Wasn’t she the elementary school teacher who invited you to a
career day?”

“
Yep, and I was up against
a firefighter, a black race car driver, and a TV news
anchor.”

“
Stiff
competition.”

Parke loved these philosophical
exchanges with his brother so he wasn’t ready to change subjects.
“I can’t turn on or off our ancestral connection. The warrior in my
blood tells me the right woman will be from a line of African
queens.”

“
God help the poor woman.
Let’s not digress, PJ. I’m talking about the career day event. You
know, the firefighter, news—”

“
Yeah, right. Not one kid
had any questions for me. A little White boy raised his hand once
he learned I was an investment broker. He couldn’t have been more
than eight years old. He announced he had stock in McDonald’s,
Microsoft, and Walgreens.”

Malcolm snickered. “Watch out, the
next Bill Gates. We need to reach out to our youth about saving and
investing. Okay, refresh my memory on Kelsi?”

“
She’s the loan officer I
met a few weeks ago after one of my investment seminars. She’s
about 5’5” with short hair. Man, her skin is like bronze. She’s a
hottie who drives a yellow BMW convertible, and likes her men to
lavish her before…”

“
Okay, okay, we’re having a
G-rated conversation here. That’s too much information; so Kelsi is
coming with you to the Juneteenth celebration.”

“
I said I was thinking
about it. I think I’ll give that honor to Monica.”

Malcolm slapped Parke on the back.
“Work it, my brother. Work it.”

“
I am.”

A half hour later, Parke punched his
security code on the keypad after he closed his exquisitely carved
black front door. The previous owners had the mouse-gray house
custom-built. The structure greeted, invited, and sheltered its
homeowners while beckoning curious visitors inside.

His footsteps echoed as he crossed the
polished mahogany floor. Detouring to the family room with four
double theater seats and a forty-two inch plasma screen television
as the focal point, Parke hiked up the stairs to shower, then
noticed the flashing green light on his phone that tempted him to
check his missed calls.

Eying the name, he smirked when former
girlfriend Annette Barber’s number appeared on the caller ID. It
had been awhile since they had spoken. She also was a knockout with
her gorgeous, tiny but mature body, but it was her gregarious
personality that opened many hearts and doors. Despite all her
assets, she wasn’t “the one”.

Annette had refused to indulge in
intimacy with Parke without a commitment. So it was his appetite
for other women that resulted in the dissolution of their romantic
relationship. Incredulous as it seemed, she liked him enough to
maintain a friendship. Now the bombshell left Parke baffled with
her excitement about church. His party partner and close friend was
trading in the “good times” for pew warming.

“
I’m happy for you,” he had
lied.

Her conversion was twenty-four-seven.
Not the usual “do whatever I want through the week, and repent on
Sunday”. Since her recent salvation, Annette, in one breath,
classified Parke as her best whoremonger, woman-chasing friend whom
God was counting down the days before his salvation.

But Annette had changed the course of
Parke’s life without knowing it when she introduced him to her
great-grandmother. Mrs. Land was a fascinating and determined woman
who started investing in the early 1960s with one hundred dollars.
Parke couldn’t believe a Black woman had engaged in the stock
market in the middle of the civil rights era. Because of her
discipline, she had put five daughters through college. The payoff
was opening her hat and dress shop. Mrs. Ada Mae Land now lived
comfortably in an upscale assisted-living apartment
complex.

Then three years ago, Annette invited
him to attend an investment seminar. That meeting resulted in
Stiles, Davis, and Crowley Brokerage recruiting Parke as an
investment rep in its minority-training program. They enticed him
with a six-figure earning potential.
Only fools turn down an
opportunity
, he thought, so Parke began a personal mission to
help every Black family become financially secure. So in a way,
Annette and her great-grandmother had contributed to his
success.

One day his boss, Mr. Crowley, pulled
him aside. “You’re wasting your time. There’s no money in the Black
community. They spend it as soon as they get it. Focus on the White
middle- and upper-class families. They’re bred to invest in the
market and pass their wealth on to the next generation to
succeed.”

Not knowing if the older White partner
was insulting his race or advising him, Parke did revamp his
thinking. He expanded his prospects, concentrating on whoever would
give him thirty minutes—Blacks, Whites, Hispanics, or Asians—and
Parke didn’t regret his decision as his clientele and bank account
flourished.

But his true love was uncovering
African-American history—slave bills of sale, probate court
records, or post-slavery marriage certificates. His weekend trips
to Black cemeteries were commonplace. However, Parke’s dates never
seemed to share his passion. Their craving was to get him down the
aisle.

Parke had yet to meet a woman who knew
her heritage. He couldn’t fault them entirely. Blacks and Whites
read the same history books in school, and Black folks didn’t
always appear in them. He stopped his mind from drifting and
retrieved his messages.