The Cheating Curve (18 page)

S
ean woke up just after dawn on Christmas Eve, thankful that it was a Friday. He was anxious to get his holiday started. He had been even more anxious than his students to exit Boys and Girls High School yesterday afternoon. So much, in fact, he had stepped on one kid’s foot rushing out the door.

“Yo, Mr. Rogers, watch the Timbs, son.”

“My bad, Marcus, I’m rushin’ home to wifey,” Sean lied. “You know how it is?”

Marcus didn’t but nodded his head anyway, thinking if his Shawna looked anything like that dime Mr. Rogers was married to, he’d fuck up fifty pairs of new Timberlands to get to her, too.

Usually, Sean slept late on Christmas Eve. He’d take the day off whether it was an official school holiday or not.

He and Langston typically spent December twenty-fifth house hopping, gift delivering, and food sampling. In direct contrast, the twenty-fourth was an all-day, indoor love fest reserved exclusively for the two of them.

On the afternoon of their very first Christmas Eve together, Lang had stacked all her gifts on Sean’s dining room table while he’d prepared Belgian waffles in the small kitchen of his co-op.

“What are you doing over there, Langston?” Sean had asked, topping the waffles with fresh strawberries and powdered sugar. “You know Christmas isn’t till tomorrow, young lady.”

“Oh, I don’t wanna wait, Sean,” Lang had whined, shaking a weighty box. “Let’s open them today, please.” They did and had every Christmas Eve thereafter.

Breaking tradition was never easy, but this year it simply couldn’t be helped. Sean had promised himself peace and some solitude on Jesus’ birthday.

He showered and dressed quickly as Lang slept soundly that Friday morning. Before loading up the BMW with gifts for his parents, Alia, and Amir, he slowly scanned their bedecked living room.

Lang loved trimming their home for the holiday season. A stunning arrangement of three dozen dark red calla lilies in a crystal Baccarat vase that Fame and Aminah had given them last year for their third wedding anniversary stood in the center of their coffee table. Fresh mistletoe and pepperberry sprays hung over the arches, cream poinsettias with gold-splashed leaves topped every other stair step, and a spicy blend of cinnamon and something citrusy faintly cologned the air. Sean could never figure out how Langston kept that scent perpetually lingering. He made a mental note to light the fireplace when he returned.

Sean picked up a present from Langston more out of instinct than out of curiosity. Whoever had said Christmas was for the kids never got good shit. Say what you wanted about Lang, but that girl had impeccable taste and gave as good as she got. Sean counted seven gifts from his wife. He’d gotten her only two this year.

On the drive down to his parents’ in Moorestown, New Jersey, Sean thought about all the fun holidays he and Lang had shared together—all the laughter, good memories, all the joy. They outnumbered the bad (because really there was only one). A couple blemishes here and there, sure (but only one scar). Did it make sense to abandon all that? Today he’d confront his wife.

“You know, I wasn’t expecting you till tomorrow,” Sean’s mother said an hour and a half later, placing a plate of salmon cakes, home fries, and scrambled eggs in front of him.

“I may still drive back down,” Sean said, breaking off a piece of the hot, flaky salmon cake.

His mother immediately popped him with her dishcloth. “Boy, you know better than to partake without giving thanks first.”

Sean rubbed his upper arm, said a quick grace, and shoveled a huge scoop of home fries into his mouth.

“And what do you mean
may
drive back down?” Mrs. Rogers asked indignantly.

“Aw, Ma, don’t be offended,” Sean said, one-arm hugging his mother around her waist. “I’m just switching things up this holiday, that’s all. I’d rather do all my running around today and relax in my own home on Christmas. Makes more sense.”

“Now hold on one minute. Is something going on between you and Langston?” Mrs. Rogers asked suspiciously.

“Ma, why would you ask me something like that?”

“Mmmm-hmmm. I knew it.”

“Knew what?”

“Sean Sekou Rogers, you act like I didn’t know you before you knew yourself. First of all, you show up here on Christmas Eve
without
your wife, and I’m not supposed to notice? And how many times have you told me, ‘Do not disturb us on Christmas Eve? You can call us the twenty-third, and you’ll see us on the twenty-fifth, but do not, I repeat, do not disturb us on Christmas Eve lock-down,’” Mrs. Rogers said, mocking her son.

“Don’t even respond to that, son,” Mr. Rogers said, strolling into their spacious country kitchen.

Sean stood up to embrace his father. He strongly favored him, not only in appearance, but in demeanor as well.

“Let the boy eat in peace,” Mr. Rogers said, kissing his wife on the cheek and discreetly squeezing her rear end.

Mrs. Rogers swatted her husband’s hand away. “Lee, you’re not the least bit concerned that our son drives down from New York
alone
on Christmas Eve, the day of their festive love shut-in?”

Lee Rogers shook his head as he washed his hands at the kitchen sink. He joined his son at the table and waited for his plate.

“You look good, Sean.”

“Thanks, Pops. I feel good too.”

“Well, there you go, Leatrice,” Mr. Rogers said to his wife. “Our one and only son looks and feels good—now, what better gift is there, huh?”

“Hmph,” Mrs. Rogers uttered under her breath, placing a hot plate of food in front of her husband and then turning abruptly, walking toward the kitchen sink. “A grandchild or two—now that would make a great gift.”

Sean ignored her last comment. He and his dad were having too much fun predicting the outcome of tomorrow night’s game between the Lakers and the Heat to let his mother ruin it. Shaq and Kobe going head-to-head as opponents would make for an exciting game.

Sean outsang Donell Jones crossing over the Verrazano Bridge back into Brooklyn. He flowed easily to “U Know What’s Up” and “Shorty (Got Her Eyes on Me).” He reflected on how much he’d enjoyed his father’s company and his mother’s meal. Actually, he’d enjoyed his time with her as well until she’d mumbled something about not having grandchildren.

Sean came from a pair of only children—he was the only child of two only children. Both his maternal and paternal grandparents came from extremely large families and had vowed to have small ones. In fact, Lee Rogers’s mother had instilled so deeply in Lee that the rich got richer while the poor had babies that after Sean was born, he’d had a vasectomy.

While Leatrice Rogers didn’t mind having just one child—it afforded a very nice life replete with plenty of vacations, weekend getaways, and a historic landmark home in one of the nation’s top school districts for her only child—she did look forward to spoiling at least a couple of grandchildren. Her best friend’s bumper sticker read:
IF I’D KNOWN GRANDCHILDREN WERE GONNA BE THIS MUCH FUN
,
I WOULD’VE HAD THEM FIRST
. Leatrice was envious.

Sean ejected Donell Jones and loaded Stevie Wonder. Felt like Donell had more insight into his wife’s straying on “Where I Wanna Be,” like he was justifying Lang cheating on him—
“She doesn’t fully understand me. That I’d rather leave than to cheat.”
He’d felt many things over the last few weeks; however, empathy wasn’t one of them. “Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You)” echoed his mind state precisely:
“Very well, wish that you knew me too. Very well, and I think I can cope with everything going through your head.”

Sean drove through the monogrammed Anderson gates a little after one in the afternoon. It was still very strange for him to be greeted by Fame instead of Aminah.

“How’s it going, man?” Sean asked Fame sincerely.

“Oh, you know how it’s going,” Fame said, patting him on the back.

Fame missed Aminah terribly. He’d spoken to her nightly. And while their conversations were more civil, he couldn’t say they were necessarily more loving. The children had recently gotten his hopes up though. Both Alia and Amir had reassured him that their mother would be home for Christmas. It was only Christmas Eve, but still…

“Don’t look so happy to see me, man,” Sean joked.

“No offense, Sean, man, but you ain’t my wife,” Fame said, relieving him of his packages. “Hold up, whatchu doing out the house on Christmas Eve anyway?”

Sean laughed. “Damn, I just left my parents, and my mom asked me the same exact thing.”

“And where’s Lang?”

Sean laughed again.

Actually, Lang had been blowing up Sean’s phone since ten o’clock that morning. He’d told her he had some errands to run and that he’d be home before five. Since Thanksgiving weekend, he’d been telling her everything and asking her nothing. Lang didn’t protest, especially since last week had left her feeling like a victim of sodomy. She confronted a Sean who was somewhat criminal—physically hostile and emotionally vacant.

Last night had been the extreme opposite though. It was the first time they’d even cuddled since Sean’s bout with that stomach virus last month. The tenderness of the moment had caught Lang off guard—Sean, too. Lang had attempted to straddle him, but he had gently slid her off him and held her through the night, inhaling her lavender-scented, smooth skin. She fell asleep appreciating the return of her husband.

Prior to that, there’d been no tender love-making in the Rogers’ home. No sex whatsoever in their bed either—rough sex on the granite kitchen counter, the mahogany staircase, and bent over their espresso linen sofa, but not the bed. Lang had ruined the appeal of sex in bed; it was simply a resting place for Sean now.

While this new aggressive creature had initially excited the hell out of Lang—especially since she’d given up Dante—she found herself missing, longing even, for his gentle, naturally sensual self.

When Lang woke up Christmas Eve morning and discovered that Sean was already out of bed, she’d hoped to find him downstairs brewing coffee and preparing their traditional Christmas breakfast of homemade Belgian waffles topped with strawberries and confectioners’ sugar. Instead she found a few gifts missing from under their tree. She no longer knew how to interpret Sean’s actions. Hated that she even needed to. He’d used to be so transparent to her.

“Lang’s at home,” Sean finally replied. “Where are my godchildren?”

“They’re wrapping gifts in front of the tree,” Fame said, leading Sean toward the living room.

After conversing with Fame for a while and playing with Alia and Amir most of the afternoon, Sean mulled over exactly how he’d confront his wife on his drive home. He was firm on his decision though. Had been since that afternoon with Aminah up at the Ritz-Carlton. His emotions, however, were ping-ponging again. The only consistent feeling that afternoon was jealousy. He not only admired and desired what his parents had, he envied it. And even without Aminah, Fame had his children. He was jealous of him, too.

Lang was just finishing up dinner when Sean arrived a little before five. She’d made waffles.

“Merry Christmas, baby,” Lang said, handing Sean a peppermint martini.

“Thanks.”

“You hungry?”

“Not really. Maybe later. You go ahead and eat though.”

“No. That’s okay,” Lang said, a bit disappointed. “I’d much rather open presents.”

Sean placed his martini on the coffee table and tended to the logs in the fireplace as Lang went for the largest box as usual. He watched her tear off the wrapping paper.

“Oh, my God, Sean,” Lang exclaimed. “Is this what I think it is?”

He’d gotten her the rare Kopi Luwak coffee beans. The few coffee-houses that occasionally served it charged somewhere in the range of fifty dollars a cup and two hundred dollars per pound.

The luwak, a cousin of the mongoose in southeast Asia, ate “coffee cherries” off the tree. The undigested coffee beans were manually retrieved from its feces, and supposedly the fermentation process in the luwak’s digestive tract made for a distinctive, flavorful cup of coffee.

Yeah, Langston,
Sean thought, squinting his eyes and nodding slightly.
I wanted you to have something really shitty
.

“Yummy. Do you know how hard this is to find? I can’t wait to drink it.”

“I knew you’d appreciate it,” Sean said, smiling.

“Okay, you next,” Lang said, handing Sean one of his boxes. Inside was a Burberry trench coat. He’d wanted one for as long as Lang could remember, but never could bring himself to spend a thousand dollars on a raincoat. Lang admired how distinctive her husband looked in it.

Lang picked up the Tiffany box and sat back down on the sofa to open it.

“Oh, Sean honey, these sterling-silver napkin rings are so nice,” Lang said after pulling back the tissue paper. “Oooo, these aren’t napkins inside the rings though,” Lang said, smiling and pulling out the sheets of paper, expecting to read a travel itinerary to Anguilla or St. Barths. She’d been hinting to Sean all year long that it was time they returned to the Caribbean.

“There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known,” Sean recited from the Gospel of Luke.

“Huh? Sean, baby, what’d you say?” Lang said, distracted by the rolled-up document.

“What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.”

Lang unrolled the piece of paper. “A petition for divorce?” Lang asked, confused. “What in the hell…?”

“I waited, Lang,” Sean said calmly. “I waited to see if you were ever gonna tell me. Confess to me.”

“Tell you what, Sean?”

“And even now you continue to insult me. I know about your affair, Langston. Just tell me who he is, Lang. Somebody in the industry?”

“There’s nobody else, Sean. I don’t know what you think…”

Sean raised his arm, as if to slap Lang, but she stopped him.

“Are you crazy?” Lang asked, holding Sean’s arm.