Sinful (12 page)

A
fter four days of questioning every aspect of his life and how it could have turned on him so viciously, Marvin found himself wandering through the aisles at the supermarket. With two arms full of perishables to restock his barren pantry, a smile came over Marvin, when he literally bumped into Kim and her precious 4-year-old, Danni. “Ahh, I'm sorry, Miss,” he apologized, when turning directly into their shopping cart. Packages of chips and microwavable pasta dishes flew from his hands to litter the aisle.

Danni squealed with delight. “Yay, tell him to do it again, mommy.”

“I don't think that's a good idea, sweetheart,” Kim said to her daughter as well as to
him
. “Marvin's having a bad enough week as it is.”

“Kim, I really am…” he started to say before she waggled her finger in his face.

“No need for another sorry.” Actually, she was growing weary of apologies from a man who appeared to have it together before agreeing to house shop. “But did you honestly think that you'd make it to the checkout stand with all that?”

Marvin chuckled. “Yeah, actually, I did. I figured, you know, that shopping for one might not require a cart.”

Kim wrinkled her brow while Marvin collected his groceries off the floor. “Shopping for one?” she asked, as if it were a huge piece of a bigger puzzle.

“That's right. You couldn't know what postjail has been like for me.”

“Why don't you put your things in my cart, in front of the boxes of Frosted Flakes,” she offered, “and I'll let you in on a thing or two.” Much to the chagrin of an excitable child looking forward to another loaf of bread to go whizzing by her face, Marvin carefully placed his items inside of the wire cart, with big boxes of cold cereal separating his things from theirs. “Did Chandelle tell you that she came to see me earlier this week?” Kim inquired cautiously.

“No, I haven't spoken with her at all,” Marvin said with regret. “I'm not sure there's anything we'd agree on discussing.”

“Uh-huh, I thought that was about the size of it,” Kim said. “I got a call that Chandelle showed up at the office, huffing and puffing and accusing me of being on the down-down with you.”

“Down-down?”

“Yeah, that's what Kristy called it, but I think she got the message confused. I'm sure Chandelle thought there was something between us. Obviously she found out I paid your bail and drew her own conclusions from there. Take it from me, not knowing about your husband is a monster to deal with.”

Marvin grabbed the cart handle with both hands. Kim accompanied him, stopping to make additional selections as he tried to make sense of things in his scrambled mind. Danni, with her little legs swinging from the seat, glared at Marvin with her arms folded. “Kim, you wouldn't know it, but I do not handle my affairs like this. I can't take all the credit for the jacked-up state of things, but I wish it would stop.”

“I can understand how she'd be upset, coming to find out her man has been released on another woman's dime. You should have predicted at least that.”

“Maybe so,” he admitted, “but there wasn't any way to predict getting fired and all of the furniture looted from the apartment. Chandelle has taken things too far.”

Kim cleared her throat as she placed a liter of grape juice in the cart. “Uh, did you bother talking to her before calling me? Ah-ha, thought not.”

“I couldn't get by at being your man either,” he jested. “You're hard on a brotha.”

“My man wouldn't have to call anyone else if he found himself in trouble, and besides, it pays to be hard on occasion. Some women like it rough. Me, I like it hard.” After Kim witnessed Marvin's mouth pop open, she took one calculated step back. “Now I'm apologizing. That came out wrong and sounded despicable.”
Actually, it came out just as I thought it would, with some heat on it,
Kim thought to herself. “Okay, let's pump the brakes. Chandelle's decision to pack up and move into the house alone is one thing that has nothing to do with me. However, you having no way to pay me back, now that's a Kim and Marvin problem.”

While studying the price of dry spaghetti noodles and sauce, Marvin agreed. “Yes, true. I still can't believe after being the top salesman for four years that the owner of a store just up and let me go after Chandelle complained to him. Mr. Mercer said he didn't want to but his wife wasn't having ‘no wife beater' working at the family business. I wonder what she'd have to say about the cashiers' kids who look just like him.”

“She won't hear it from you because that's not your concern,” Kim answered near the toiletries. “He lost a valuable employee but the question is, what are you going to do about it?”

Marvin reached for the bath soap Chandelle liked before it occurred to him that she wouldn't be around to use it. He picked up a three-pack of Irish Spring instead. “Well, until I figure it out, I'm going to hibernate in my empty cave.”

Kim found it difficult not to laugh in Marvin's pitiful face. “She really took everything?”

“Everything that wasn't nailed down and a few things that were,” he answered jokingly. “I'll swing by and pick up a bag of apples and meet you at the register to divvy up the goods if that's okay with you.”

“No, I have some produce on my list too,” Kim offered, not ready to part ways just yet. “Who knows, maybe you can make another mess over there. Danni would love that.”

“Yay, do it again,” the giggling little girl cooed with optimum zeal. “Do it again.”

 

Chandelle considered it good fortune that she was a few minutes away from the grocery store when receiving the call from Dior. Her intuition was working overtime yet again. The chance that she would have the perfect vantage point to see Marvin and Kim together was a divine coincidence. On the short drive over, she prepared for one heck of a fight. “I'ma set this right,” she heard herself say, in a tone that reeked with unbridled insolence. “Humph, I'll see what Marvin has to say about running around with that freak in sheep's clothing and in public like he's single. Ain't nobody gonna shame me like this. Just wait 'til I roll up on 'em. I'ma set it off!”

Chandelle flew down the streets of Dallas weaving in and out of traffic like a NASCAR driver zooming toward a checkered flag. “Move!” she screamed at an elderly driver teetering down the avenue below the speed limit. “Come on…come on…move!” With reckless abandon, Chandelle cut off a pickup truck to make her turn into the supermarket parking lot. “Whatever!” she howled, when the truck driver cursed at her for putting his life in danger. “Yeah, then you're another one.” Circling the collection of parked cars, Chandelle spotted Dior waving her hands near the front of the store. “Uh-huh, I see you, cuz. It's about to be on now. I should have brought my pepper spray.” She rolled into a handicap parking space and hopped out with her pricey handbag dangling from her clenched fist.

Dior drew in a deep breath as Chandelle stomped in her direction. “Hold on a tick,” Dior said, grabbing the human tornado by the arm. “I said wait!” Dior exhaled slowly, then positioned herself so that Chandelle couldn't dismiss her grave expression and exacting plea.

“What, why are you holding me?” Chandelle asked, with her heart beating like a college drum line. “Come on so you can hold my purse.”

“Uh-uh, Marvin and them ain't going nowhere, but I need to be straight on something. I don't want to be in y'all's mix so you cannot tell Marvin I was the one who ratted on him.”

Chandelle squinted. Her eyes narrowed into thin slits as she tried to understand why Dior was adamant about being discharged from duty before the confrontation ensued.
Something isn't on the level here,
she thought.
Dior's usually up for a fight, especially if she's the one watching it.
“Okay, I'll keep it to myself, but we're going to speak on this later,” Chandelle told her, while pulling off her earrings. “It's time to be about mine.” She left Dior standing alone and determined to ruin a successful marriage.

While stalking the grocery store aisles, Chandelle was fuelled by what Dior had put in her mind. What she did discover in the produce section made her nauseous. Marvin was pushing a grocery cart with a little girl aboard. Chandelle couldn't believe it.
Has he already jumped into a fling and started playing baby-daddy?
she feared, before staring up at the ceiling. “Lord, please forgive me for what I might say in front of this child, but I'm about to go slap off on her momma,” she said. Her life was spiraling downward and nothing on earth could stop it, including her desire to save face.

“I knew it!” Chandelle spat as she hurled herself toward them. “I knew you were up to some mess when I carried my behind downtown to see about getting you out of jail. So, how long you've been tapping her, Marvin? Huh, tell me how long you and this Single-Momma
Barbie
been getting all chummy like this? Okay, I can admit to jamming you up. That was on me, but this,
this
is unacceptable. Imagine me losing sleep over you in the county. Now that you got street cred' for being locked up, yellow women ain't good enough for you no more, Marvin?” Chandelle was talking so fast and furiously that she didn't notice how her tirade drew attention from other shoppers. Danni covered both ears with her tiny hands, then buried her face in Marvin's chest. He laid his hand over her head and glanced down.

“As for you,” Chandelle said, sneering at Kim from head to toe as if sickened by every inch of her, “you thought you were slick, smiling in my face while creeping around my back door.”

“Chandelle, you need to lower your voice and calm yourself,” Marvin asserted, while heeding his own advice. “You don't have any reason showing up and talking about what is and isn't acceptable. I'm the one with a felony charge hanging over me. Me, not you! I'm the one who went in to work to find out my wife had a hand in getting that twisted too.” When he realized his voice had elevated, Marvin backed down for the sake of the Danni. “The only thing between me and Kim is her generosity. Yeah, I called her and she came through. Whatever crazy ideas you got in that hard head of yours have nothing to do with me.”

Kim was poised while taking in the spectacle. She'd been involved in a scene like this one previously, although it caught her on the other end as her ex-husband's mistress confronted her for messing up an extramarital affair when the rent was due. Kim saw through Chandelle's paper-thin bravado for what it truly was, a desperate plea to be heard. As her eyes darted back and forth from Danni to Chandelle's finger pointing, she decided it was more prudent not to offer an opinion since she hadn't been asked for any.

“You need to back off and go back to
your
new house,” Marvin huffed. “At least you have something to sit on while you give some thought on how we got crossways.”

“Shows just how little you know about me,” Chandelle debated smugly. “I'm sure your girlfriend told you about my early move-in arrangements, but here's something you didn't know. I put our furniture out on the street for the Salvation Army to swoop up. And another thing, I'm living all to the good with a whole ‘slew of new.' Uh-huh, that's what's up. I pimped out the house and still have the tags hanging off every piece of furniture I ordered. That's right, I'm upscale now and digging it.”

“You didn't?” was Marvin startled reply. “While I'm dealing with all this, you threw out our stuff and went on a shopping spree?”

“Why not?” Chandelle fired back. “I'm living single just like you.”

“Forget that nonsense,” he countered, “where's all this new money of yours coming from? I'm scrappin' and you're buying out the mall?” Marvin raised Danni out of the shopping cart and gingerly passed her to Kim before directing his utter shock toward his wife. “Chandelle, keep playing games like this…you're gonna fool around and get yourself hurt.”

“Well, you already took care of that by nuzzling up to her,” she snarled viciously. “So, I decided to get even.” Chandelle cast a nasty scowl at Kim, who hadn't seemed all that concerned over the woman's rants.

“You'd better check your step, Chandelle,” Kim warned finally, as the store manager came tramping up behind their war of words.

“Too bad you're in my step,” Chandelle answered hastily. “You don't have anything on me. I'm his first love, his first!”

“Whoa, hold on!” the manager shouted. He approached the scene like a crossing guard who had taken his small amount of authority with a bit of overexuberance. With his hands spread apart, he wedged himself in the middle. “Ma'am, sir, I don't know anything about who's first or last, but I don't want it discussed further in here. Please figure out a way to settle this or somebody's got to go.”

“No stress,” Chandelle sighed. “I'm already gone.” She turned to walk away, mad at herself, mad at Marvin, and mad at the world in general. She exited the supermarket with less than she entered with, her shortage of self-respect was only the half of it. Chandelle predicted Marvin had no choice other than to outright hate her when he did attempt to use his debit card for the groceries. She'd cleaned out both bank accounts and their savings the day before.