Naughtier than Nice (26 page)

Everyone laughed.

Tommie said, “We're a happy family, Beale. We have speed bumps, but we're very happy.”

Then there was silence. Awkward silence with Beale holding the pages of whatever Tommie had given him in his hand, his body language telling me he was two seconds from reading it all out loud.

I said, “Y'all keep going. Livvy, I see Tony over there looking for you. He's with a tall Asian woman. Anyway, I was chatting with Beale and now I need some space, people. I know my lips are dry and cracking, but all of y'all are happy couples and I'm single and trying to get my flirt on over here.”

Blue took Tommie's hand, and they headed away, the Santa Monica breeze cool on our faces. Tommie glanced back at me, but not at Beale Streets. She was scared.

I said, “Maybe I came at you too direct, too strong, and for that I will apologize. Now, I'm asking politely, will you please give me whatever correspondence Tommie gave you, Beale?”

“With all due respect, Frankie, this correspondence belongs to me.”

“‘Miss McBroom' to you.”

“I love Tommie and Tommie is in love with me, not Blue. She loves me. I won't embarrass her out here, but let me tell you this truth. She's had enough of him. He's using her and has no intention of giving her what she deserves. He had a vasectomy in order not to get her pregnant. I would give her the world.”

What I saw in Beale Streets's pretty eyes was profound, love and obsession swimming together.

Then I saw Tony and the tall Asian woman. She was as tall as Tommie. She was dressed casually. Jeans and flats, a UK flag on her sweatshirt, a
SANTA MONICA
hoodie dangling in her hands. I guess she'd bought that on the boardwalk. They were laughing, heading toward Livvy. She hugged both of them. My suspicion that Tony had gone creeping down baby-making Cheaters Row again went away.

I walked away from Beale Streets, went over, and they introduced me to the Asian woman. She was a doctor from the UK. Her accent made her hard to understand, so that ended the conversation.

Tommie didn't come over, wasn't interested in meeting the Asian lady.

I felt a chill and looked for Franklin again. As I walked through the crowd, someone followed me.

“Frankie McBroom?”

I turned around to see whose unfamiliar voice had called my full name like I owed him money.

I saw him, saw his smile, and said, “Daniel.”

He handed me a blue Gatorade.

I asked, “Why are you giving me Gatorade? What's the significance?”

“You said you'd want a sports drink when you were done. It's what they're giving out.”

I looked around, noticed a hundred runners carrying the same sports drink.

I accepted, opened it, and took a long chug, replenished before I told him thanks.

Beale Streets was still there, off to the side, rereading whatever Tommie had given him.

People came over to him, tried to start conversations, but he brushed them all away.

He was dealing with heartache. An abrupt heartache that had blindsided him.

Tommie clung to Blue like she was afraid. She was scared but was playing it off.

Blue smiled, but his eyes frowned. Tommie held his hand, but he didn't hold hers back.

They might be breaking up after all, only it wouldn't be Tommie leaving Blue.

While Daniel was excited and talking, I cut him off, asked him to excuse me for a moment. I checked my phone before sending Driver a text. He called right away and the news he had scared me.

He said, “Okay, the social security number you gave me for Franklin and the one on the military papers seeking divorce are different social security numbers. He's lied to either you or the government.”

“What else is there to lie about?”

“He has a felony theft from 2004.”

“He's a felon? Franklin Carruthers, the man I was falsely engaged to, is a felon?”

“I'm not done. Actually I'm only at the top of his rap sheet.”

“Jesus. How many offenses does he have?”

“He has one from '04, another from '05, forgery from '06, felony forgery from '07, and a bail-jumping charge from 2008.”

“Why didn't anyone come after him, like in the movies?”

“Maybe he fell through a crack. All I can say is it looks like he got himself a fake social and changed—well, modified—his last name. Somewhere along the line he found seed money to start his business. He's living the life but hasn't shared any of his wealth with his wife. He's a one-percenter and she's in the military, drawing a salary that next to his would look like the taxes on a welfare check, if there were taxes on welfare checks.”

“What is his real last name?”

“It's spelled C-a-r-o-t-h-e-r-s and pronounced the same way as C-a-r-r-u-t-h-e-r-s. He did a minor makeover, grew dreadlocks, and reinvented himself. He's not from Alabama. He was born in
Houston, grew up in one of the six wards, then moved to Oklahoma. When things got too hot with the law, he gave himself a new state, Alabama. The only thing the same is the Southern accent. If he hadn't married his wife using his new identity, the one that made him a bona fide 'Bama man, he never would have needed a divorce to marry you. He could've just walked away from that old life and been your husband.”

I was speechless. I was humiliated. I had introduced that con man to my family and friends. I had traveled the world with him. Had planned a wedding, and was trying to make a baby with him. I was numb. Couldn't think, could barely speak.

Driver said, “Take a deep breath. We have more things to discuss before we hang up.”

“Okay.”

“Did he have access to your personal information?”

“He was with me day and night, lived at my home, had access to my entire life.”

“You told me that you saw him while you were running today?”

“He could've hit me in the back of the head, that's how close he was to me at one point.”

“Are you safe, Miss McBroom?”

I told Driver that I was with my family, with other men who could protect me, so I was cool.

We ended the call.

I took a deep breath and with mixed feelings gave my attention back to Daniel.

I tried to fake the funk, but the anxiety was insurmountable and pretending wasn't my style.

I said, “Let me be honest. This isn't going to happen. My life is complicated at the moment.”

“So you're not single.”

“I am. But I have to resolve a major issue before you and I can go any farther. And after it's resolved, I don't think I can see you. I
don't think I will be able to see anyone, not romantically. Don't take it personally, Daniel. It's my mess.”

“What happened?”

“That's not up for discussion.”

“May I ask what the odds are of you calling me again?”

I said, “Thanks for the Gatorade. Vodka mixed with Jack Daniels would've been better, but I won't complain.”

Monica ran over. She gave me the tightest hug and told me she was proud of me. I waved good-bye to Daniel, walked away holding Mo's hand.

“Auntie, you're
awesome
. You and Mommy ran the entire marathon and never stopped.”

Monica was pure love. She was like Tommie, and that almost made me wish I had a kid. Almost. The damn kid had stolen all our hearts. In my mind she was already a McBroom.

Seconds later, Rosemary Paige weaved through the crowd and sprinted over to me in a hurry.

She pulled me to the side and spoke with urgency, her concern nothing to do with real estate.

She said, “Frankie McBroom. Hurry and come with me. Someone vandalized your car. They carved
bitch
and
whore
in the paint, broke out all of your windows, and flattened all of your tires.”

“No, no, no, no, no.”

“I hate to be the one to bring you the bad news.”

“I don't believe he did this again. I don't believe he's treating me like this.”

“You know who did it?”

“I know who did it.”

Panic gave me an adrenaline rush. Franklin had found and attacked my car because of last night. I didn't want Mo and Livvy to see that, didn't want Tony and Blue to know. That made my heart pump and without pause I left with Rosemary Paige, running to get to her car so she could hurry me back to mine.

Around the same time I was hurrying off with Rosemary Paige, Driver was receiving his information on Franklin's wife.

The woman he had married, then tried to dump to marry me, had also become a thief. The car with the Texas plates wasn't hers. She had driven back and forth, had gone from San Antonio to LA twice, had driven fourteen hundred miles one way, no doubt wearing a diaper to reduce potty stops, in order to track me down, had found me, then gone back to the base before finally going AWOL.

Driver knew exactly where she was and was calling me as he tried to rush to pick me up. The GPS on the car she had stolen from a friend in the military, a friend who was still deployed in the Middle East, showed she was already in Los Angles. Her maiden name was Phyllis Rosemary Paige.

I didn't see that coming.

It was hidden in plain sight and I never saw it coming.

As I jogged away with Rosemary Paige, Mo sprinted behind us.

I heard her calling out for me over the celebration and its rumble. She zigzagged through the crowd and caught up.

Mo thought I was going to the bathroom and needed to go real bad, so Tommie had sent her to go with me. I looked back and saw Tommie, waved at her, saw that things now looked tense between her and Blue, assumed that Beale Streets had created damage, and if things were going to be said, I preferred that Monica not be there to witness or hear those words, so I grabbed Mo's hand and hurried her along.

Even in the midst of my most trying moment, I was still their big sister, still had responsibilities, and I was doing my best to protect my siblings, doing what I could to make sure my family was okay, but I felt our world falling apart.

Beale Streets. My friend. Read this. Please read every word.

Pardon the blotches on the page. Ink runs when mixed with salty water. I'm crying.

I'm engaged and now I know how a cheating woman feels. I hate the feeling, but true love is so strong. I should feel like a queen with Blue as my leader, not a pauper. I want to marry him, wanted to marry him long before we had even kissed the first time, because he's a great guy, he's humble and hardworking, and he would be a great husband, but the things that he brought with him, his leftovers, have left me in a state the opposite of bliss. We have issues that love might not be able to erase or mend. I'm confused. I'm afraid. After all we've shared, I don't want you to think badly of me.

I hope to have the courage to give you this ridiculous letter that reads like a manifesto.

I want to look you in your eyes, be a woman, not a coward who sends a text or tweets, or sends a message on Facebook, to tell you that we are done, that this is over. I will tell you, then go back to my life. Tonight I will be in bed in the modest three-bedroom home that I share with Blue. We have a home, not a house. We have love in every room; we have the sounds of joy and pain.

We are family.

I will sleep with my back to him and he will snuggle up against me.

He will mold his beautiful body against mine as he has done since we started our journey.

I will wear a T-shirt and no bottoms. He will touch me, feel that skin, and understand the signal.

He will pull me to him and kiss me, give me his tongue, then pull my just-put-on T over my head.

He will go down the hallway to check on Mo, then come back, ease our door closed, and turn the lock. He will want me and I will never tell him no, because I always want him. I want him to always want me. I have never stopped wanting him. I wouldn't know how to breathe if he stopped wanting me.

It is the intrusion of his ex that has set me on the wrong path.

We will try to be quiet, and I don't mind.

Love doesn't need to shout to be heard.

Love is most powerful as soft whispers and softer moans.

I will make sure he has an orgasm. If he wants another, I will please him again. When we're done, I'll get up and unlock the door, pull on a T-shirt, then tiptoe down the hallway and check on Mo again.

By the time I make it back, he will have pulled his boxers back on.

We will once again cuddle. No talking. Eyes closed. Hearts beating next to each other.

He will fall asleep first and I will lie there with my eyes open, wondering what my life would have been if I had never met him. I will wonder why he was the man I fell in love with at that time of my life.

I will wonder why I love him now.

I will wonder what he sees in me.

I will wonder what would have happened if he had never moved into the apartment across the street from mine, if I
had never developed a crush on him after watching him be so good with his daughter. Maybe I thought that he was the type, that if we had a child, he would be good to our child too.

But we did meet.

I pursued him.

I have to remember that I was the anxious one in this relationship.

This was my choice.

I promised him that I could handle anything that came my way.

I promised my sisters that I could handle this the way our mother handled all of us.

I had thought that by now we'd be an official family, that he and I would have made at least one beautiful child together. He didn't live up to what he had promised. Maybe my expectations were too high.

It can be a horrible thing to expect so much from someone else.

It can be so unfair, asking them to commit to our own selfish needs.

Maybe the unhappiness isn't about Angela.

It could be about me not getting what I want.

Maybe I am behaving like a spoiled brat.

Maybe this is my way of throwing a temper tantrum.

Maybe it's about that other definite thing that happened between Blue and me that made things indefinite. Maybe the vasectomy is the root of my anger. That was the first time I felt the enormous weight of that emotion called betrayal. It was debilitating. Not every betrayal is about someone having sex with another. When we don't get what we want, when we feel swindled, misdirected, that is disloyalty as well. I had been loyal to Blue in all ways. I had been honest, up front, considerate, and loyal. I was ride or die. I was
his virgin whore. Sexual betrayal is the effect, the cause deeper than the roots of a cottonwood tree.

Now, day and night, I stare at the elephant in the room.

Our elephant is bold but has no balls.

I still wondered if he had a vasectomy because he was seeing someone else.

There was no proof. I looked high and low, went through all of his accounts and receipts.

Nothing.

It confused me that he would do that for no reason. Or maybe he didn't trust me and felt the need to simply outsmart me. It left me feeling emotionally dismantled.

I had played our relationship out in my mind, from our wedding to our first child.

A woman can plan. A woman thinks she needs a man for nothing in this world but soon realizes she is wrong. The same way every black-owned business has to acquire goods from a white distributor, women have to do business with men, be it professional or personal, to achieve too many of our goals.

They have the goods.

I guess I could say Blue kept his goods from ever being shipped from the warehouse.

I wonder if I really want to have a baby or if it's just because he took that option off the table.

I wonder if he was trying to force me to turn to another man in order to fulfill my dreams.

You have said many things that hurt me, but I have to thank you for the truth.

I didn't like feeling deceived. But he is still there with me, in love with me. Supporting me in all I do. If I had become pregnant, then I suppose he would have felt trapped. I will try to refocus on the commitment I have made to him and
his daughter, will make love to him, will comb her hair, will make us breakfast, as she calls me Mommy, as Blue calls me his future wife. I want this.

When I am angry at Blue, when I feel that bottomless disappointment, then I feel fear, and in those moments I have to be careful, have to not seek you out as the remedy, because that is not a cure, only a poison. Sex is more than physical and the act of exchanging energy in that manner is different for a man than it is for a woman. Men penetrate women, take corporeal shape inside of us, and we surround you, envelop you, feel the intrusion into our physical bodies. You touch our spirits.

A man enters a woman and for that duration he is inside of her in many ways.

Therefore a man becomes part of her in all ways.

Man throbs. Woman feels.

She feels him as he fills her up.

A man moves inside a woman.

You took up residence inside of me.

You were part of me.

You lived inside of me.

I held you captive inside of me and I did not want to let go.

We were one, without beginning, without end. A man can feel a woman, but he puts his energy of life inside her. Whether you're on your back with me on top of you, or if you're behind, or on top of me, you'll never comprehend what a woman feels. You control her and only feel pleasure. A woman feels pain and pleasure caused by a man, and the man only feels pleasure. A woman feels more.

The imprint does not fade when the sex is over.

The shape of you has changed the shape of me.

I can't allow two men to live within me.

I can't keep changing shapes mentally, physically, and emotionally.

I can't be a mother to Monica and a lover to you as you are a lover to me.

I can't have the seed from two men battling for victory inside of me.

But there can be no battle. Not when one is unarmed.

If you won, then I would gain what I think I desire but lose everything my heart wants.

I can't be on my back with you between my legs, sucking on my neck, my ear, my tongue, arousing me as I hold your erection, guiding it inside of me again, starting what I won't want to end.

For me the connection between love and sex and orgasm is strong.

I've always led my sex life with restraint.

I am an artist, a liberal, but I am not a libertine.

I am not a liar, yet I have become both.

You are a beautiful dream that I run to when the sun is high. You are my daydream. You are the light that I bring to my darkness. I have to abandon all daydreams and face the truth.

I hope that you are still reading.

I hope the blotches, the tears, haven't washed away my words.

This has to end.

Eventually Blue will suspect.

I think he already does.

He doesn't suspect you.

He suspects that someone is distracting me.

I was getting to the point where I didn't care.

I was almost at the point where I wanted him to find out.

Eventually he will see your fingerprints on my skin, smell
you on my breath, or taste you on my tongue. Or worse, I will become too emotional and want him to find out. I will sabotage myself.

I can't come back to your bed, your floor, your wall, your chair, your stairs, your shower. Coming back to fall into that liberating madness with you again and again will do nothing more than destroy my future. Or destroy the future of an innocent child who loves me so much. Destroying her would destroy me. I love that child more than anything in the world. More than I could ever love you. More than I love Blue. Mo needs me the way I needed Frankie and Livvy's mother. That little girl was born of another woman, but I am her mother on this earth. I am her role model. Having her in my life gives me purpose.

You were unhappy, a man who longed to know his real parents.

I was in a state of rage I didn't know how to deal with.

We both were in search of our identities.

We both wanted to know who we really are.

We filled empty spaces for one another.

We gave each other a place to put our rage.

We can't control our lives, so we tried to control each other.

When one person is heartbroken and the other is unhappy, misery is the common enemy. When unhappiness meets misery, it is easy to fall in love for the wrong reasons.

Letting that love go is hard. Love comes fast but fades slowly, slowly, slowly. I am fighting gravity. Scared tears roll down my disingenuous face. It is the pain from my excoriated heart. Remembering you inside me. Many rooms. Countless positions. I am hiding from those sensations and stirred emotions in the bathroom of my home, a coward with insomnia due to childish chaos. Existing between
come-stained sheets in my mind. I exist between here and there. Between greed and hunger. Between the taste and smell of you and the taste and smell of him. Between happiness and misery. Between lie and truth.

I exist in this space for the last time. You have existed in my space for the last time.

I have chosen and the choice was not an easy one. I wrote Blue a farewell letter before I began to pen this one. But that letter will not be delivered. I did not choose you, Beale. I am sorry.

Tears fall as I write these simple words.

I am sorry.

Never meant to
heart
you.

Never meant to
hurt
you either, because I
heart
you so much.

I can say that now that it is over. I heart you.

I heart you so much, and yet not enough at the same time. I could never heart you the way I heart Blue. I would never leave Blue to be with you, but if we were together, despite the chance to have a better life, despite all of your trappings of success, even if we were married with children, I would leave you for Blue in the beat of a broken heart. Each day I would live to catch a glimpse of him again, to have him see me, to have him welcome me. If he wanted, I would have an affair with him. My heart would explode and you would become insignificant. I would leave you and abandon the children to be with him again.

I would leave all you have and choose to be poor with him.

That's love, Beale. That's real love. That's beyond choosing what feels good at the moment.

I've been hurt before. Physically and mentally abused by my first boyfriend. That violence was my secret. That pain I
felt, I would never wish that on anyone. If I have hurt your heart, forgive me.

Forgive me.

If not now, then in your own time, in your own way.

Just forgive me.

I have to go back to the family I love.

I will go back to our arguments, because those are our arguments.

I will go stand by Blue and face the dawn, each time ready to fight at his side.

It has never been my goal in life to heart someone and then hurt them like this.

I want you to find your parents, if that is what will give you your peace.

I want you to try again with Tanya Obayomi, if I was the cause of your rejecting her.

She loves you. I know she does. It's impossible not to love you. She bloodied her knees for you. She sang for you, from her soul. She made herself look stupid in the name of love, and that is love.

I want you to be happy. Let us both thrive on happiness, not pain.

I am a happy person. I used to be the happiest person I knew.

I want to find a way back to being her again, but only for Blue.

This is my first step.

Saying good-bye to you is the necessary first step.

With each word I pray that you own the emotional maturity to understand.

If I had owned emotional maturity, this never would have commenced.

I take the fault for all of this. I take the blame.

I write this much partly because I am scared. This letter has been partly me debating between my needs, my fantasies, stability, and curiosity. You are my secret. You felt right, but you are my wrong. I need you to not reveal yourself. I need you to be my friend. If you love me as you say, be my ally, my second self, not a false friend gathering ammunition and waiting for my weakest moment to start firing secrets.