Heaven Forbid (18 page)

“Princess, it’s me.”

“Rafael?” Princess whispered into her cell phone even as she squinted at the clock. It was one in the morning, Pacific Standard Time, which meant that in Kansas it was three a.m. Immediately alarmed, she sat straight up in bed. “What’s the matter? Why are you calling so late?”

“Me and Lauren just broke up.”

“Ooh, boy, you just scared the mess out of me. I thought someone had died.” Princess’s heart was pounding in her chest. She placed a hand over it and tried to calm down. She’d been on edge ever since getting the phone call about Kelvin’s near-death accident three weeks ago. As her heart quieted, she got out of bed and went into the bathroom so she wouldn’t wake Sarah, her new dorm mate. “So what, y’all just had a big fight or something?”

“You can say that. She came over earlier, accusing me of something I didn’t even do.”

“What’s her name?” Princess asked wearily.

“Who?”

“The woman Lauren thinks you’re cheating on her with.”

“How’d you know that that is what it was?”

“Because, Rafael, that’s always what it is.”

Rafael sighed into the phone. “Aw, this other girl don’t mean nothing to me. We just get along well because we work together and both love politics. She has a boyfriend, and I told Lauren that. But she wants to play the paranoid female role, and that isn’t going to work with me. She was even jealous of you, and you’re almost two thousand miles away!”

Princess knew this was true. She also knew that while nothing could drive a man away faster than a jealous woman, nothing could be more reliable than a woman’s intuition when it came to her man’s fidelity. “Were you cheating on her, Rafael? And remember, you’re not talking to Lauren—you’re talking to Princess.”

“I know who I’m talking to.” Rafael’s voice took on a sultry, flirty quality. “I’m talking to my girl, from back in the day!”

“Shut up, boy. I was never your girl.”

“Oh, so junior and senior year in high school was just, what, my fantasy?”

“No, that was real.” Princess became quiet. It had been a long time since she’d thought back to those fun, carefree days when she and Rafael were joined at the hip. When they’d finished with their extracurricular activities—sports and the debate team for Rafael, drill team and the school newspaper for Princess—the two would spend the rest of their free time together. Sometimes they’d drive to the Plaza or head to Gates Barbeque for short ends and chicken plates to go, and then drive to either Swope Park or Loose Park, where they’d eat and share dreams. On the weekends, friends would join them as they went roller-skating or to the movies. Sometimes Rafael and Princess would just hole up in either of their bedrooms and listen to their R&B/hip-hop favorites: Snoop Dogg, Kanye West, Destiny’s Child, and Fantasia. And while Princess left the relationship the same way she came in—a virgin—she not only counted Rafael as her boyfriend, but as her best friend as well.

“I didn’t cheat on Lauren,” Rafael said firmly, mistaking the reason for Princess’s silence. “That’s what made me so mad. She’s accused me of cheating ever since we got together. And I was totally faithful to her. That kind of nagging makes a brothah want to go out and do what he’s being accused of doing anyway.”

“Why do you think she didn’t believe you?”

“Probably because it’s her butt that’s foul. I heard that she was rockin’ it with this dude in Kansas City. Some thug life situation. I heard that about a month ago and didn’t even sweat her on it because I trusted her.

“But tonight? Me and my boys was sitting here chillin’, and she comes in all gangster and stuff, demanding to know where I was earlier and going into my bedroom like she paid rent, looking for somebody who I guess she’d been told was in here. It was downright embarrassing, Princess. I’m not trying to live with the female drama situation. I’ve got plans and I’m going places. I need a woman who’s going to be with me, not fight against me.”

Again, the conversation lulled as both Princess and Rafael ruminated in their thoughts. Rafael had never stopped loving Princess and had been more crazy about her than he’d let on when they dated. Princess had always viewed Rafael more as a brother than a boyfriend, but she had always believed he was a good guy. She still did. She just didn’t have the depth of feeling for him that she felt one should for their man, like the way she’d felt about Kelvin, almost from the beginning.

“So how’s your boy?” Rafael asked, as if reading her mind.

“Who?”

“Please, girl, don’t even try it.”

“Okay, I guess. He’s recuperating at his father’s. They’ve hired a full-time nurse and a slew of specialists and therapists to try and help him, you know, get back to normal.”

“I never cared much for old boy, especially after how he treated you, but it’s a hard thing that happened to him.”

Princess agreed. It had been a hard thing that happened to Kelvin: in a coma for almost a week, a broken left arm, broken left leg, bruised spine, and a plethora of cuts and gashes. Princess, Joni, and Brandon had flown into Phoenix the day after his accident, but after an afternoon of prayer and one-sided conversations by his side, Princess had taken a red-eye back to Los Angeles. A side from the fact that she felt she’d done all she could, old feelings she thought dead and buried started to resurface, and after a stunning woman with an island accent arrived on the scene, Princess knew those feelings must stay buried. So she’d fled the scene and reimmersed herself in ministry.

“Yeah, it’s hard,” Princess said with a yawn.

“Look, it’s late. I probably should let you go.”

“Yeah, I’ve got a class at nine.”

“So, Princess, when are you coming home?”

“To Kansas?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know, sometime after graduation, I guess.”

“You’re moving back here?”

“I don’t know, Rafael. Why?”

“Just asking.”

“Well, get out my business and get some sleep.”

“Princess…”

“What?”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Princess.”

“What, boy?”

Rafael paused. “I love you.”

Kelvin strained against the weight of the pulley above his bed. His therapist had told him to take it easy when it came to maintaining strength in his upper body and right side, but Kelvin’s mind was focused on one thing only: next year’s season with the Phoenix Suns. He did a couple more repetitions and then fell back against the bed. The weights made a loud clanging noise as they fell to the bottom of the device. Kelvin wiped sweat from his brow with a fluffy white towel. He clenched his left fist and frowned at the cast that covered almost his entire left arm. His left leg was encased from his thigh to below his knee. Kelvin “the KP” Petersen looked a far cry from the ferocious ball-stealing, play-making, point-scoring guard for which he was known. Now he looked like what he was: a beat-up, scruffy twentysomething, carrying the weight of the world.

Kelvin reached for a pair of massage balls and twirled them slowly as he contemplated his life. He couldn’t believe he was where he was: flat on his back instead of practicing for the game tonight. The Nuggets were huge rivals on any given day, but with him injured, the teams were swirling like vultures, each team counting the Suns out, trying to lock up the western conference early. It rankled more than a little that his point-guard replacement, Guy Harris, was doing very well and had scored double digits in the last several games. Kelvin deduced that Fawn thought she was doing well, too—Kelvin had seen her sitting in the section reserved for girlfriends. It didn’t surprise him that Fawn was dating a married man. Wherever there was bling, she’d hang around. And while he felt sorry for Guy’s wife and newborn baby, he was also grateful. The nanny had dropped off Little Kelvin for his last visits, and he hadn’t talked to Fawn in over a month.

Which brought his thoughts to Stephanie, the Caribbean queen who’d made him smile again. As if on cue, his phone rang. It was her on the line.

“I was just thinking about you, baby.”

“You only think about me now, or you haven’t stopped thinking about me?”

Kelvin laughed. “I’m always thinking about you.” He loved Stephanie’s sense of humor, and the sexy lilt of her voice, the way she clipped certain words and left out others altogether. He wasn’t in love with her, but he was definitely “in like.” And while he enjoyed staying in the lavish Montgomery abode, especially since they’d practically redecorated a wing to accommodate his hospital bed and training machines, he couldn’t wait to get back to Phoenix and to Stephanie. “So, what’s up? Are you coming to see me this weekend? I can put you up at the Beverly Hills Hotel. It’s not far from the house. You’ll get to meet the one and only reverend extraordinaire, Derrick Montgomery, and his lovely wife, Vivian. And I’m telling you now, my little brother, D2, is going to fall in love with your fine ass so—”

“Kelvin!”

“What, ma?”

Stephanie hesitated. “I’m not coming to Los Angeles.”

“I understand, baby. After all, it was short notice. But no worries, the ticket is fully changeable, and we can change the dates on your room as well.”

“That’s not what I mean, Kelvin!” Stephanie’s voice was more clipped than usual, each word enunciated fully. She paused a moment and then said the words she dreaded saying. “I’m going home.”

“To the Bahamas?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, baby, but chill out. How long are you going to be gone for?”

“That’s just it, Kelvin.” Stephanie was crying now. “I’m moving back home, to stay. It’s all happened so suddenly, but there is some kind of major controversy going on in the government, a scandal that involves my father. He’s totally innocent, understand, but it’s putting a horrible strain on my mom and our businesses, and, well, we had a family conference call last night, and it was decided that we would…circle the wagons, as you Americans say. My brother is coming back from Paris, my sister from Geneva, and I’m flying home tomorrow. It’s a one-way ticket, Kelvin. I’m so sorry.”

Kelvin was a bundle of emotions. The one bright cloud on his horizon had been the burgeoning relationship he saw happening with this woman. Being with her was one of the things that motivated him to work so hard to return to physical perfection—his livelihood as a professional athlete notwithstanding. Kelvin was disappointed and did little to hide this fact.

“So, you’re going to leave me, just like that? I thought we had something, Stephanie. I thought this was more than a way to pass the time for you.”

“It was, Kelvin. I’m devastated to have to leave you. But family comes first. And I don’t want you waiting around for me when it can be months, or even years, before everything gets sorted out. I also know I can’t ask you to drop everything and move to the island. I mean, it is paradise, but I realize it would be a lot to ask.”

“But you didn’t ask, did you?”

“Should I have? Really, Kelvin, would you consider—”

“No.”

“I figured as much.”

“So tell me something, Stephanie. Would you have been so quick to run back to Daddy if I was healthy, if I was still the starting superstar for the Suns?”

Stephanie was taken aback by his obvious insinuation, so much so that she could think of nothing else that had to be said between them. “Good-bye, Kelvin.”

She hung up on me!
Kelvin held the phone in his hand for a long moment before flipping it shut. He dropped the massage balls and adjusted his bed to a semiupright position. He stared at the ceiling for answers to the myriad of questions forming in his mind.
Why did this happen to me?
He’d been totally healthy before the accident, for the first time in months. He’d been prepared to celebrate his return to the starting lineup, ready to reclaim his crown. Instead, he was lying up in the home of his father and stepmother, reconciling the fact that he’d just been abandoned by the woman he’d planned to make a more permanent fixture in his life. He’d planned to ask Stephanie to move in with him when he returned to Phoenix.

“Damn.” Kelvin rang the buzzer for his nurse. Stephanie’s news had aggravated his leg, or perhaps that’s just how it seemed. He just knew that suddenly he’d become extremely uncomfortable. The nurse came in at once, rearranged his pillows, and left to prepare a mild sedative so that he could go to sleep. Minutes later, he was feeling more comfortable and knew that sleep wasn’t far away. As he closed his heavy lids, welcoming slumber’s escape, it wasn’t Stephanie’s face that appeared in his consciousness. It was Princess.

Lord, please heal Kelvin’s body and let him know that You are in control of his life.
These are the words that Princess had uttered, that had pierced his unconsciousness during her hospital visit and resonated somewhere in his heart. When he’d awakened, she was gone. But she’d been there. Princess still cared about him. But did she care enough to let him back into her life?

Mama Max smiled as she opened the door. “Well! To what do I owe this pleasure? My world-traveling son and his busy first lady stopping by to see me is good news indeed. Come on in, y’all!”

Tai Brook and King, her husband and Mama Max’s son, entered the living room.

“Y’all hungry? I just made a batch of fresh rolls, and there’s some homemade strawberry jam to go with it. Beef stew will be done in about thirty minutes. You thirsty? I’ve got some Kool-Aid in there, though I know y’all say you don’t drink it no more, as if you didn’t have it almost every day of your lives growing up. Why are y’all standing there like a couple of strangers?” For the first time since opening the door, Mama Max stopped and really looked at her son and daughter-in-law. That’s when she noticed they weren’t smiling. “Well, what in the world? Who died?”

King stepped forward and hugged his mother. “Mama, we need to talk.”

Tai gave her a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek as well. “Why don’t we go into the living room?”

Mama Max put a hand on her ample hip and stood her ground. “We don’t have to go anywhere. Whatever news y’all got can be delivered right here in this foyer. Now, what’s going on?”

“Calm down, Mama,” King said, his tone quiet but stern. “We want to talk to you about you and Daddy and this divorce situation. Now, can we go into the living room?”

“Don’t know what there is to talk about. But, yeah, y’all come on in.”

King and Tai sat on the couch while Mama Max sat on the love seat opposite them. “So, out with it. What do y’all think you can tell me about my marriage that I don’t already know?”

Tai looked at King, who took a deep breath and began. “I talked to Daddy this morning.”

Mama Max’s eyebrows rose into a look of righteous indignation. “And?”

“And he said he left a message for you last week that he’d…cleaned the house.”

“Unh-huh.”

“Mama, Daddy misses you. Now, I know you’ve said you don’t want to talk about what happened that caused you to move back here—”

“That’s right, I don’t. Did your daddy tell you why I left Texas and why I filed for divorce?”

King rubbed his eyes. Unfortunately, his father had told him everything, more information than a child would ever want to know about one’s parent. He’d been surprised for sure. He knew his father wasn’t perfect and remembered incidents from his childhood that suggested his father wasn’t always faithful.
But a sex doll?
If a million dollars were on the line, he’d never had guessed that was what plagued his parents’ marriage. Having this knowledge, however, didn’t deter him from the goal of today’s visit: to keep his parents together. If he and Tai could withstand his multiple affairs with real women, surely his staunchly Christian parents could withstand one with a doll.

“He told me about the doll, Mama.”

“He did?”

“Yes,” Tai answered.

“And have you ever imagined a nastier piece of filth in all your life?”

“I admit we were shocked, Mama, but—”

“Shocked? I hope you were appalled, repulsed, and disgusted! Who knows how long your daddy cheated on me with that…fake floozy.”

King looked at Tai as if to say, “Your turn.”

Tai rose from the sofa and joined Mama Max on the couch. “Mama Max, you know I completely understand how you feel. Finding out that there’s another woman doesn’t feel good, even if the other woman is…well…rubber.” Tai fought to maintain her composure, because suddenly the entire situation seemed extremely amusing.
Reverend Doctor O?
Tai simply couldn’t imagine, nor did she want to. “But you came to me many times when I was ready to leave your son, and you gave me very sound reasons for staying in my marriage. Now, I’d like you to consider those reasons for staying in your own.”

“Daddy misses you, Mama,” King added, feeling that Tai had gained some leverage. After all, they were a perfect example that there could still be marital life after affairs. “You know he can’t cook, and he hates fast food. I think he’s losing weight, not to mention sleep.”

“Oh, so he didn’t tell you that he’s not lonely for company?”

Tai and King looked at each other with confused expressions.

“Oh, he didn’t tell you everything, I see. Well, he’s not alone down there in Texas. I have it on good authority that a real-life floozy has been making herself available since I’ve been gone, that she’s been over to my house at least twice. And I haven’t heard anything about him not letting her in. So, children, your daddy might have gotten rid of the doll, but there’s still trash around the house.”

“You don’t know that, Mama,” King pressed. “It’s probably just some member coming by on church business. Or maybe it’s one of the mothers dropping off food.”

“She’s a mutha all right.”

King’s eyes widened. His mother had always been feisty, but he’d never seen her act quite so stubborn. He decided that he and Tai had done enough for one visit and decided to leave her with some food for thought.

“You’ve been married a long time,” he said, rising from the couch and going to stand directly in front of his mother. “And you’ve weathered everything from relocations to sicknesses to drama from your children. I don’t think you’re the kind of woman who’s going to let a little
trash
drive you from your own home. You run things, Mama, always have. And you know good and well you don’t want to divorce Daddy. It’s time for you to start acting like the mother who raised me, the one with some sense.”

Mama Max was stunned into speechlessness. How dare her son talk to her any kind of way. But by the time she’d gotten her mouth to working again, Tai and King had given her hugs and made a quick exit. Mama Max stood with hands on hips, watching her son and daughter-in-law get into their car and drive away. Finally, as she watched the taillights turn the corner, she found her voice and asked her question to an empty room. “Just who do you think you’re talking to?”