Someone to Watch Over Me (26 page)

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Authors: Michelle Stimpson

BOOK: Someone to Watch Over Me
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“Because I do love you.” His words came slower now. “Honestly, you're the only one I would seriously consider marrying.”
“You're not making sense.” I slapped his knee.
Startled, he snapped back, “What?”
“I want to know why you asked everyone to marry you except me?”
“I was going to one night. A long time ago. Before we even moved in together. I asked you to fly with me to New Orleans, but you said you couldn't leave work. That was the weekend I met Taylor. She dropped everything for me.”
“So you hooked up with her.”
“Yessss,” he admitted. “But I never stopped loving you.” He leaned against the headrest.
“You know what the saddest part is, Kevin? You actually believe your own lies.”
No response.
“Did you hear me?”
Nothing. Once again, I'd been wasting my breath on him.
By the time we walked in the door of our apartment, it was almost three o'clock. Kevin's drugs had taken full effect. I helped him onto the couch, where he drifted off again with his injured arm slung across his chest.
I texted Lexa to see if she'd really meant good on her threat to meet with me any time I became available.
Preston and I still here.
Gr8. On my way.
Why did she always need someone else there when we met? Since we met last, plans for Inner-G had shaped up nicely. The numbers worked, the projections were promising. Our meeting today shouldn't be a groundbreaking experience.
As I swept up the glass in the kitchen, a sense of thankfulness in turn swept over me. Only a few hours earlier, I'd been trembling in this same area, hoping Taylor wouldn't kill Kevin right before my eyes. Praying she wouldn't get extra crazy and kill me, too. I'd even considered the fact that she might kill herself and leave Kevin and me to our guilt. “Thank You, Jesus, for protecting me.”
For some odd reason, I wanted to call Jacob, but I knew better. No need in exposing him to my craziness, putting my sanity on trial.
I shelved the situation with Kevin the way I'd learned to push people, and pain, aside in order to function. A normal person would be seething, yelling, screaming, boo-hooing. Not me. I was raised by Margie Carolyn James. She taught me how to activate the little “disconnect” switch in my head that immediately released me from all emotional turmoil. Off to work.
Jacquelyn felt it her duty to fill me in on the latest office gossip while I waited for Lexa to get set up in the conference room. Two people in accounting were pregnant by a married man. One of our newly hired employees was fired for visiting questionable Web sites. “Getting crazier by the day, I tell you,” she said, laughing.
“We'd better get to praying,” I commented. Maybe, before all the drama with Kevin, I might have been slightly amused. Suddenly other people's misfortunes weren't so funny anymore.
Don't go there with her.
Jacquelyn did an about-face. “You are so right.” She changed tunes almost immediately. “Yesterday, my pastor preached about the power of prayer. He had everyone jumping out of their seats! We shouted for thirty minutes, I tell you!”
I gave her a flat-lipped nod. “And while you're at it, could you pray for me, too?”
“What's wrong?”
I wasn't foolish enough to share my business with Jacquelyn, but I did want her to know that some of us were no longer on the gossip mill. “Just pray God's will be done in my life.”
“That's the best prayer ever.”
“Amen.”
Lo and behold, the foundation for Lexa's panic presented itself in the first minutes of our meeting. Lexa, Preston, and I would meet with Inner-G's VPs Wednesday morning.
“Okaaaay. This is certainly useful information.”
What is this—surprise Tori day?
Preston asked, “I thought you knew?” He faced Lexa.
She fumbled through an explanation. “I . . . thought I sent you an e-mail.”
“Nnnooo. You didn't. If you had, I would have probably come in a day or two last week.”
Preston's eyes traversed between Lexa and me. One of us was lying and he knew it. “Each time I've texted or e-mailed Tori, she's replied within a day.”
Yes! Tell her, Preston!
Lexa touched her phone's screen. “I don't understand what's happening with this thing.”
“I do.” He shut her mouth.
Me, too! She's not using it!
“Lexa, you need to get to the bottom of your communication problems or any
other
problem you might have with Tori.” Preston stood. “I'll be in my office until at least six. Let me know if you need my help with anything. Inner-G is finally on the right track, but we're not out of the woods with their execs yet. We need to look sharp Wednesday.”
Preston excused himself. Lexa followed suit. I sat there wondering what she expected me to do with all this paperwork but no partner.
Ten minutes later, Lexa returned with puffy eyes and a red nose.
I leapt from my seat and closed the conference room door. We couldn't afford to be seen as the emotionally unstable women behind the wheel of this reckless account. Preston might have our back to some degree, but there were always sharks like Brian lurking in the water. One whiff of blood and he'd strike to take both our spots.
“Lexa, calm down.”
She leaned forward until her forehead thopped on the table. She thopped again and again.
I reached across her body and pulled her shoulders upright. “Lexa, this will all work out. It is not that serious.”
“How can you say such a thing? This is everything—my life, my whole career!” she croaked.
“Your career is not
you.
” Look who's talking.
“Yes, it is.” She escaped my grip and settled her head on the table again. “I've given everything—I mean
every single part
of me—for this account. And now the whole thing's backfiring.”
I didn't have the nerve to ask her to run that “every single part” by me again. Suffice it to say, her actions told the complete story.
“Lexa, I'm gonna tell you something that changed my life.” This time, I swiveled her chair to face me. Mascara etched a river of sadness down her face. She struggled to maintain control of her bottom lip.
“Listen. The day of your funeral, what do you think your coworkers are going to do after the ceremony?”
Her droopy eyes questioned. “I don't know. Cry, I guess.”
“No. They're going to go to lunch.” I stated the facts just as Ms. Sanchez, the hospital social worker, had done for me. “Then they'll come back through the office, rummage through your desk for fresh stacks of Post-it Notes. The next week they'll welcome the new girl.”
She sniffed, wiping her face. “But you guys are like my family. I got passed around when I was a kid—this is the first time I've ever really fit in. Are you going to lunch after my funeral, too?”
“I mean, I'll be sad, but, yeah . . . I will probably go to lunch with them. What I'm saying is, come in, do the best you can at work. But do
not
give this job every single part of you. We work for companies whose goal is to manipulate the general public into buying their products—good or bad. In the grand scheme of life, what we do is not that serious. Save some of you for Lexa.”
A trancelike expression covered her face. “But I did some . . . really,
really
bad things to land this deal.”
“Lexa, if it helps, we've all done really, really bad things for wrong reasons.”
“Like what? I mean, how many people do you know who've slept with a ratty-looking hip-hop rapper's manager just to get a tentative appointment with his agent?”
Slow your roll, Lexa, I'm not a priest.
“I don't personally know anyone who's done
that
. . . um . . . I just know you have to forgive yourself and move forward. And it helps to have someone who'll help you forget.”
“Who helped you?”
The sound of her heart creaking open was almost audible, as though our time alone had been divinely ordered. “My Aunt Dottie—the one I'm helping in Bayford. She was my rock when I fell on the consequences of a bad decision. I leaned on her, she leans on Jesus.”
“Oh, God, no. Not Jesus!” She buried her head in her arms on the table. “My grandfather is a Baptist minister. Are you trying to kill me with guilt?”
I threw her a lifeline. “Lexa, Jesus doesn't make people feel guilty about what they've done wrong. He's the answer, not the problem.”
Honestly, I wanted to excuse myself and leave Lexa to her meltdown, but now that I'd brought Jesus, the epitome of compassion, into the picture, bailing on her didn't seem possible.
She endured another crying spell while I sat by helplessly.
What would Aunt Dottie do right now?
Probably the most unprofessional thing in the book—touch her. I placed my hand on Lexa's back and traced big, gentle circles. “It's going to be all right, Lexa. No matter what you've done, you can get up and move forward. Jesus will help you.”
Her sobbing subsided, finally. She whisked wetness from her face, sniffed up her snot.
Atta girl!
“I'm sorry.”
“No need to worry about getting things right with me, Lexa. I think you know Who's top priority.”
“I didn't mean to spazz on you.” Quickly, she reassembled her businesslike persona, shuffling papers, avoiding eye contact. She unhooked her ponytail clamp, shook out her mane, and then fastened the holder again. “Can we just pretend this never happened?”
“If I were you, I wouldn't.”
Snap!
That wisdom came out of . . . somewhere deep inside me.
Chapter 27
L
exa and I worked until almost eight, bringing my long day to a whopping close. Every i dotted, every t crossed. Tuesday we'd review, Wednesday we'd hit 'em hard, make Inner-G's representatives forget all about our previous blunders.
I stopped for sushi—the dish I missed most while in Bayford. While at the counter, the cashier asked if this order was “for here or to go?” Kevin's image popped in my head.
“To go. And double the order, please.”
The source of my kindness couldn't be explained. Phantom Tori wanted to finish Taylor's job. Who could blame either of us? Kevin was a cross-country player who'd used his job to live a triple life. If both of us snapped, it would make a really cool movie: one of his fiancées shot him, his live-in girlfriend delivered the fatal blow.
Was I actually his live-in girlfriend? Did he have a place in Phoenix and New Orleans, too? Suddenly our living arrangements made sense. He didn't want my name tied to any of his bills. Maybe the other women were snoopers. Maybe they had better sense than me.
He must have gotten pretty bold when I went to Bayford.
Kevin lay in the same spot where I'd left him five hours earlier. “Hey, ba—Tori.”
I'd worked myself up so on the way home, I felt like throwing his container of sushi across the room, aiming directly for his arm. Instead, I tossed it on the coffee table.
“Thanks for everything.”
“You're not welcome,” I sassed, entering my bedroom and slamming the door shut behind me. My appetite for sushi vanished during the route home.
How could he do this to me? Why am I doing this to myself?
I ran a hot bath and soaked until my toes and fingers shriveled up. I wondered if this was how wives reacted when they discovered husbands' affairs. Did they sleep in the same house the night of the discovery? I mean, wives had to be around the lowlife tricksters for at least a day or two before counseling could be arranged. Many of them had kids to protect and didn't want to alarm the whole family if they intended to salvage the relationship. Not so, in my case.
Shouldn't I be in a hotel right about now?
Kevin shuffled into our room, stripped down to his birthday suit and crawled beneath the covers. He used throw pillows to prop up his arm.
His big nasty behind all up in my bed after fooling around with Taylor. “Aren't you going to take a shower?”
“Can't.”
“Then go back to the couch.”
“Can't.”
“You don't have a choice,” I fussed from the tub.
“Come on, Tori,” he whined. “My arm is killing me. I really need the bed. Don't worry, I just took more pain meds. You won't even know I'm here.”
“I can't sleep in the same bed with you, Kevin.”
“Please.”
Here we go. Once again, weak, pushover Tori—the one who was always smiling and doing the right thing, the same one who even tolerated Kevin's presence—said, “He's in pain, Tori. Give him the bed.”
Old Tori argued, “He ought to be in pain! He's a cheater, a liar, a bad dad! He's pitiful.”
Then have pity on him, just as God has pity on you.
I wondered how much time should lapse before I obeyed the command. Couldn't I postpone being nice until the next day, or until the day I moved out? Besides, what did God have to do with all this anyway? He doesn't like liars, either. There.
“You are
not
sleeping in this bed tonight, Kevin. Take some more pills and make yourself a pallet on the floor.” Guess I wasn't spiritual enough yet to whip my attitude around so quickly.
Kevin failed to rustle out of bed.
“Did you hear me?”
No movement.
I sat up in the tub and raged, “Kevin, I'm talking to you!”
“Huh?” in bewilderment.
“Get out! Get out of our bed!” The anger converged behind my eyes, compromising my composure.
Where's my disconnect switch?
“Are you serious?”
“Yes. Get up, get your pillow, get out, or I'll move you myself.”
The mattress springs squeaked. “This is ridiculous, Tori.”
“No. You're ridiculous. You think you can cheat on me, have a baby with another woman, get shot, then come home and roll in the bed like nothing happened today? You're lucky I'm here, willing to look after you, making sure you don't bleed out in your sleep!”
Slowly, he stumbled out of the room. “It's not my fault I got shot.”
“Yes, it is your fault. You should pick your secret fiancées better.”
Score one last point for Phantom Tori.
 
Jacob texted me way too early Tuesday morning. After my comment about Kevin bleeding to death, I had to climb out of bed twice to make sure my prediction hadn't jinxed him. Seven twenty-five
A.M.
seemed more like five twenty-five.
How r things n H-town?
The only honest reply on my fingertips:
U don't want 2 know.
Since I was up, I called Aunt Dottie's to catch DeAndre before his bus ran.
“Hey, kiddo. You ready for school today? Don't forget, baseball practice tonight. You got your glove?” I sounded like a card-carrying, minivan-driving soccer mom.
DeAndre didn't answer either of my questions. “When are you coming back?” Sadness tinged his voice.
“Maybe tomorrow. I'm not quite sure. Why? Is everything okay?”
“Can I come to Houston with you?”
“No. I don't have time to drive back to Bayford. You all right?”
“Can Pastor Jacob bring me to Houston?”
“DeAndre, what's wrong?”
I heard rustling, followed by Joenetta's voice. “Ain't nothin' wrong with him. He just don't wanna mind, that's all. Got mad 'cause I wouldn't take him to the library. I told him I ain't none of you. I can't be runnin' all over town catering to him, spoiling him rotten.”
In what world does taking a child to the library constitute spoiling? “Is his book overdue?”
“I don't know. Too bad if it is. You gon' have to pay the fine 'cause I ain't goin' to no white folks library.”
It occurred to me just then that Joenetta needed counseling. How else could she be so bitter before eight in the morning? I wondered what must have happened early in her life to propel her onto this gloomy path. For the first time, I realized I needed to pray for my
other
aunt rather than despise her.
“You're right. I'll handle the library issue when I get home,” I agreed.
“You ain't got to tell me I'm right. I
know
I'm right,” she pushed.
I held my tongue for a second. “Can I talk to DeAndre again?”
“He's already outside at the bus stop.” Then she hollered, “Get off at your daddy's house again after school today, DeAndre!”
After my hearing returned, I asked, “Why's he going over to Ray-Ray's?”
“If you must know, I'm keepin' baby Shanisha. Ray-Ray and Fontella ain't got no money for day care this week. DeAndre's a big help,” she reluctantly explained.
Despite my gut feelings about Ray-Ray and Fontella, I figured it might be good for DeAndre to spend time with his little sister. “Awww . . . How old is the baby?”
“Too young to be talked about on the phone long distance. You got somethin' else to say?”
“Have a good day, Joenetta.”
She grunted, “Uh huh. Why you bein' so nice to me all of a sudden?”
Because you're pathetic.
No. Couldn't say those words. “I'm a nice person.”
“People aren't nice, not 'less they want something,” she accused.
“People can be nice for no reason at all, just for the love of God inside.”
“Hmph. You talkin' like Dottie now.”
“Thank you.”
“Bye.”
I doubt this conversation affected Joenetta one way or another, but my attitude changed. No matter what she did or didn't do,
I
could choose to treat
her
well.
Yes!
Ever have one of those moments when, suddenly, everything makes sense? Those verses Jacob and I discussed our first night at Starbucks—the night of the marvelous massage—First Corinthians thirteen. Love. Being forced to care for cheating-lying-Kevin, working with trifling-Lexa, and dealing with she-needs-Jesus-Joenetta taught me to preserve my own sanity through love.
Thank you, God, for revealing this inside me.
Jacob would be so happy for me. I sent him another text:
Will b home n time for service 2morrow. Dinner after?
He answered:
u cookin?
Cooking? Me? Don't get me wrong, I knew how to boil water, but most of my creations were far too healthy for Jacob's palate. For Bayford's palate.
I had to warn him:
u like lettuce wraps?
Willing 2 try.
Ok. See you.
He surprised me with
Miss u.
Awww . . . miss u 2. LOL!
LOL?
I forgot he was a newbie.
Means laughing out loud.
Gotcha. LOL! C u later. C, I'm trying to get this!
I fell back on my bed in laughter. Jacob's refreshing sense of humor set me up for a wonderful day.
Kevin's rumblings called. I dressed and joined him in the kitchen. He'd done a decent job of making one-armed scrambled eggs from the carton of whites we kept in stock.
“Morning,” he said with his back to me.
“Same to you.”
“Want some eggs?”
“Yeah.”
I took a seat at the bar while he whipped up another serving for me. I would miss admiring Kevin's legs. His no-worries approach to life. His insistence on paying major bills, as ill-inspired as his motive might have been. In light of the love scriptures, there was much to love about Kevin. He would make a good husband, if he could stop cheating. Maybe if he didn't travel as much, he could maintain a substantial relationship.
With one good agile arm, he slid my eggs onto a plate. He opened the refrigerator and grabbed an apple. Two slices of whole wheat toast popped out of the toaster. He put one on his saucer, one on mine.
He served my food on the bar counter. “Here you go.”
“Thanks.”
“Least I could do.”
“Yep.”
He leaned back against the mini-island. “I know it's over between us, but I would like to remain friends.”
His statement struck me oddly. Taking our relationship down a notch wouldn't affect much. “I don't think we've ever been more than friends.”
He took a bite of toast and chewed. Tossed his head back and forth. “You're probably right.”
“No offense, but I've never been super mad crazy about you. Not like”—
Jacob
—“the thought of you makes me smile inside.”
He swallowed eggs. “Yeah. I know what you mean. We're roommates. With benefits.”
“No more benefits,” I declared.
He bowed in agreement. “I want you to know that I am sincerely, truly sorry.”
“Did you take meds already?”
“No. I'm in complete, sober pain right now,” he declared.
“As you should be.”
“Touché.”
We finished our breakfasts. I rinsed our dishes and placed them in the dishwasher.
“What's on your agenda today?” he asked.
“Going in to work.”
He laughed. “I can't believe you're still here.”
“That makes two of us.”
“You're so . . . over everything that's happened. I mean, I know you. You should
so
be in a hotel or moving out right now.”
“I
am
moving out. Give me a few weeks to handle the details.”
He nodded. “Sure. Take all the time you need. I figured you would be leaving. But I'm saying—you're so calm. Except when you kicked me out of my own bed, but otherwise . . . you're acting like this was all
supposed
to happen.”

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