Ladies Listen Up (22 page)

“Do you even know my mom’s name?”

“No.”

“Well, you ought to know, it’s Alicia.”

We went with Heaven.

Life-changing was the
word I’d use to describe the kind of month that April had been. I was, in fact, a father and had felt as if my life was now being transformed by a tiny little person. For the past month I’d spent time with Gina and the baby, unsure of what the results would be. But we didn’t waste any time, and two weeks after she’d brought the baby home, we had the test performed.

Getting the results had hit home in a serious way and I felt as though I had to make some changes in my life. The first thing that I’d decided to do was get to know Gina. We didn’t put any pressure on ourselves to try to all of a sudden become a couple. We both were content with just trying to build a friendship. I definitely had been attracted to her, at least before she got pregnant. She was sexy, and she was smart enough, but that was all I really knew.

In the meantime, I had Paige, who was taking care of all my other needs. She was more like a girlfriend, only she was married to someone else, which remained alarmingly comfortable for me. I couldn’t help it, though; she always made me laugh and had begun to get to know me beyond the surface, and the sex was no holds barred, off the meter, hot. The catch was that we could only take it so far. She had a life and home and I still hadn’t addressed my demons enough to stop doing what I knew was wrong.

Surprisingly, Paige was very supportive when I told her about
the baby. It didn’t affect what we were doing at all. “I’ll babysit, but I’m not changing any Pampers” was her only rule.

There was one
night when Paige and I were lying in bed and Gina called. She didn’t really want to discuss anything to do with the baby, just to chat. I gave her a few moments of conversation before politely telling her that I was in the middle of something and would call her back.

Paige had rolled over and said to me, “You care about her, huh?”

“Gina?”

“Yeah. I can hear it in your voice. There’s something there.”

“I don’t know about that. I think I might care about her feelings.”

“Diego, there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s a bond between the two of you that will probably grow. I respect that.”

I stared into her eyes and thought that other than her being a cheater, I really had respect for Paige as a woman. “Thanks. But I don’t know if she and I would ever be more than friends and co-parents.”

“That’s fine, too. Just as long as you can be decent to one another. But you do seem to be getting attached to little Heaven.” She smiled. “The daddy bug has bitten you hard.”

“You think?”

“Brother, you light up when you talk about that little girl.” I smiled at the mention of her. “See, I told you.”

We kissed and then she climbed out of the bed stating she had to run. She put on her gym clothes. She’d been working out for the past few hours if anyone, meaning her husband, asked. This gave
her the perfect excuse for her hair being a mess and for jumping in the shower as soon as she came through the door.

We had our little thing down to a science and it was working for me. It wasn’t too heavy and it was just enough to keep me occupied.

The real shocker
had been the conversation that I’d had with Jacob as we ate dinner at Fridays in Greenbelt. He confessed a bundle of confessions that had me reeling. After the cover-up of Anna’s rape, I didn’t think he could do any worse. But that had died down. Instead of playing it safe and being thankful, he gets involved with one of his students. I was a man and I could understand him lusting after a high-school senior, but he’d taken it to the limit.

“Pregnant?” I asked, stunned.

“Yeah, that’s what I heard.” He told me his sources and how he’d been trying to track Elise down for the last two months to no avail.

It didn’t end there, though. When I asked him how he felt about it he responded with, “I love her. I want to be with her.”

“Jacob. Man, you’re almost thirty. She’s almost eighteen,” I said in a concerned voice.

“Well, it’s a little late for me to be thinking about all that. Plus, I just turned twenty-nine, thank you.”

I shook my head. “Well, what you gonna do?”

“As soon as the school year is over I’m going to Indianapolis to find her. I’m going to bring her back. Wherever I go, she’s going with me.”

“But she broke it off with you,” I said, wondering if he had considered the possibility that she no longer wanted to be with him.

“She was upset and it just didn’t seem right. I think her aunt
really pressured her. I know she loves me, too, and I’m going to her.”

“You don’t think that anything will come out of it…you know, legally? You’re not scared of this getting out?”

He paused, and after a second he said, “Hell yeah, but what can I do? What can I do?”

“You could leave well enough alone,” I said, and took a sip of my Corona. “You can slip out of Dodge with no one the wiser about any of the shit you’ve done this whole year. That’s what I would do. Go for the clean getaway.”

He stared into my eyes and then laughed. Then he abruptly switched tones and said, “There’s no such thing as a clean getaway. Remember that.”

I would.

A week later,
Jacob and I left the Land Rover dealership and headed down the Pike. We had both taken off on a Friday. We had sick days that we would never get a chance to use again. No looking back.

I had just purchased the vehicle of my dreams and was ecstatic about it. I’d gotten Jacob to ride with me. After leaving the dealership, we were going to go get haircuts, do some shopping, and hang out like we hadn’t done in a while. I’d bought some clothes for the baby and Jacob some things for Elise. He was still bent on finding her.

My brother, Lee, and I had made up after the incident with his wife and he was supposed to meet up with us after he got off work. I was sure Nicole was still beating his ass, but I had decided that there
was nothing I could do about it. She had actually talked about pressing charges against me for causing her to go deaf in her left ear, but Lee had told her that he would leave her if she did. After all, she had been the one trespassing. I was hoping that Lee would get the chance to talk some sense into Jacob, even though taking advice from a brother in Lee’s predicament seemed a little crazy. Lee always managed to play the religion card and that would get Jacob’s attention.

It was an extremely warm day and I was anxious to slide the roof back on my brand-new Range. Jacob, for his part, was obsessing with the stereo. He immediately tuned in to Natalie Case’s show on 102.3. A second later both our heads were bobbing as Patrice Rushen’s “You Remind Me” blared through the premium sound system. As far as I was concerned, I’d made it. My show was going to be a hit and I had convinced myself that I might as well enjoy the fruits of my labor. It was a Friday afternoon and we were going to hang out for a while until the sun went down, then we planned to paint the town red, even if we never climbed out of the truck.

Jacob had signed his deal and was preparing to head up to New York to do some work on his CD in less than a month. He was going to work in Electric Lady, the same studio Jimi Hendrix had made famous more than thirty years earlier. The school year was winding down. There was less than a month left and we had both turned in our resignations and were looking forward to moving on to new lives.

We ended up going to Takoma Station, where Jacob’s old band was performing along with Eric Roberson. Jacob felt a little uneasy, since only one member of the old band was still speaking with him. Freddie, the backup singer, had not only been happy for Jacob, he’d been happy for himself. He was now the lead singer. He wasn’t do
ing too bad either. He was no Jacob, but he was definitely holding his own.

I’d found a spot right across the street from the club, which had been the only way I would have parked my truck there. We went in and quickly ordered a plate of wings and a couple of drinks before the show started.

“Jacob, what’s popping, bruh?” Freddie said the second he’d realized that we’d come through the door. “What’s up, Diego?”

“Everything’s good,” Jacob said.

“I’m chillin’, how about you?”

“Just try’na make shit happen.”

“Indeed.”

The show started and we sat at the bar drinking shots of Petrone, talking and listening to the band. The place was packed, plenty of women walking around trying to look cute, and brothers looking for women.

Lee never showed up, so instead of a bunch of talking, we really had a chance to listen to the performance and judge how badly the band was missing Jacob’s voice.

The liquor had my boy acting really animated. “Damn, he murdered that note,” Jacob said. Subsequently, he cringed every time Freddie didn’t hit a note that was up to his standards. Before someone overheard him, I had to remind him that everyone wasn’t blessed with his voice.

We barely left our seats the whole night. I asked him if he missed performing with his group. “Of course,” he said as we walked out the door.

“But are you ready for the big time? No more small clubs like this.”

He nodded. “I always planned on making it there. Everything was a stepping-stone to get where I planned to go.”

“I hear that.” I laughed as he pimped in front of me.

It was almost
midnight and my phone rang as I’d thought it would. “What’s up?”

“Where you at, boy?”

“On the way to the house.”

“How far away?”

“I have to drop Jacob off first. So about twenty minutes.”

“So, did you pick up the truck?” Paige knew that today was the day I’d planned to get it. I hadn’t stopped talking about it for the last three weeks.

“Yeah, I got it.”

“Mmmmmm, I can’t wait to see it. Well, drop him off, then meet me at Jasper’s over in Largo. I want you to fuck me in that new truck, in the parking lot. That’s if you’re down.”

“Oh, I’m down.”

“Well, hurry. I only have about an hour before I have to be in.”

I pressed on the gas just a little harder.

Jacob entered his
house and headed straight for his refrigerator to get some water and then he grabbed a couple of aspirin. He hadn’t drunk in a while and his head was spinning from the tequila. He was also hot and decided to open the windows. He turned off all the lights and headed upstairs.

He was in his bedroom getting ready to take a shower when the
doorbell rang. He was startled and went to the window to look out. Since he’d already lifted the window, he looked out and yelled, “Who is it?”

They didn’t answer but instead hit the bell once again. “Stop fucking playing. Who is it?” he asked again.

After a brief silence Jacob heard the vaguely familiar voice say, “Mocha2munch.”

Jacob made his way down the steps and headed for the door. He pulled it open, and standing there with a slick smile on her face, she said, “Surprise, surprise.”

“Alicia?”

She stood in front of him in a white linen sundress. Her nipples were plainly visible through the material, and when he looked her up and down he saw that she was even more voluptuous than when he’d last taken a real look. Without asking, she walked right inside of his door. “You weren’t going to leave me standing out there all night, were you?”

Jacob was confused and it showed on his face. “I’m not really understanding. You’ve been sending those e-mails?”

“I think you understand quite well,” she said, pointing down to his underwear. His dick was semierect. Then she smiled. “It took a lot for me to actually knock on the door this time. I’ve come so close so many times, but I just got scared at the last minute.”

“You’ve been to my house before?”