The Cheating Curve (4 page)

“Okay, finding them desirable is one thing; fucking them, mentally or physically, is crossing the line,” Aminah admitted, removing Lang’s hand from her face. “Don’t you think it cheapens the love and destroys the trust and weakens the relationship? It’s disrespectful to the union, Lang.”

“Wait a minute, now, are you asking me about my relationship or yours?”

Aminah didn’t answer. She wasn’t sure. She was confused her damn self. Lang and Fame were one and the same to her right now.

“Well, no, I don’t think it weakens my relationship with my husband,” Lang admitted. “If anything it enhances it. I can separate sex from love. Though we as women are not socialized to do so, I can, and that doesn’t make me a bad woman or a bad wife.”

“Maybe that’s true for you, Lang,” Aminah said. “But if this is how you want to operate your life, you shouldn’t have dragged Sean unknowingly into it. If you knew he wasn’t enough for you sexually, you should have declined his marriage proposal. I have never had a problem with your strong, albeit unusual, sex drive. My issue with you right now is your regard—rather, your disregard—for your marriage. I love Sean like a brother, and I can’t believe you have been deceiving him these past three months.”

While Aminah loved Fame with everything she had, for the first time she thought that maybe she deserved a husband more like Sean, and Fame should have been with a wife like Lang.

“I never thought of you as a liar and a cheat, Lang,” Aminah said angrily. She’d had enough of listening to her titillating version of an affair.

“What? I’m not a liar, Aminah.”

“Does Sean know about your affair? Has he cosigned it? Given you the green light and a thumbs-up to go fuck another man?”

“Now wait one goddamn minute, Aminah,” Lang said, not appreciating her girlfriend’s self-righteous questions. “It is not easy for me to stand here and admit to you that I am cheating on my husband who’s done nothing but love me. I realize that. Call me stupid. Okay, go ahead. I might give you that. You can even label me a cheater. I’ve earned that one. But don’t call me a liar, Minah. I haven’t lied to Sean about anything.”

“Lang, you sound so ridiculous right now,” Aminah said. “How is it possible to cheat and not lie?”

“Hey, if he doesn’t ask, I won’t tell,” Lang replied, smugly folding her arms.

That stung Aminah. Not only was it a variation of Bill Clinton’s gays-in-the-military policy, but it was Fame’s marriage philosophy as well. He had told Aminah when they’d gotten engaged that he loved her enough never to lie to her, so before she asked or accused him of anything she should be absolutely certain she could deal with the brutality of an honest answer.

Prior to their engagement, while Aminah was still in college and his success and popularity as a deejay was steadily growing, he’d also suggested she stop looking for the “proof” she didn’t really want to find. She’d heeded his advice for the most part. And Fame kept his word. He’d been painfully truthful when questioned. “You stop asking, Minah, and then I won’t have to tell,” Fame had told her on more than one occasion. “But I respect you too much to lie to your face, baby girl. So why not do us a favor and spare us both the drama and don’t bother to question?” Aminah had shaken her head in disbelief.

“How do you lie in bed next to Sean, profess your love for him, and then, hours later, be with another man?” she asked Langston.

“It’s selfish, I know. I can admit that,” Lang said, shrugging her shoulders. “But I can’t help it. I can’t just end it. Not now. I’m in too deep. How does Billy Paul sing it?
We both know that it’s wrong, but it’s much too strong to let it go now.”

Aminah couldn’t stand what seemed to be Lang’s cavalier attitude. “And, really, Lang, how could you when you’ve watched me suffer through all of Fame’s mess?”

“Unlike Fame, I’m not that arrogant,” Lang responded defiantly. “I have no intention of ever letting Sean find out. I love him too much to be so careless.”

“You’re already hurting him and your marriage.”

“How can I hurt him with something he doesn’t know about?” Lang asked.

Aminah didn’t respond right away. She gazed at her best friend with tears brimming, waiting to spill over and run down her cheeks, but she wouldn’t let them. She batted her eyes and looked away.

“If Fame were more discreet, and you never found out about the other women, would you be hurt, Aminah?” Lang asked more rhetorically than sincerely. “Could you be hurt? No, because you wouldn’t know.”

“So that’s how you see it, huh?” Aminah asked. Lang raised her right eyebrow but said nothing.

Aminah wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, slid her Stella McCartneys back on, climbed into her car and started it while Lang just stood there. “You want me to drop you off at home?” she asked through the lowered window.

“No, I think—”

Aminah didn’t even let Lang finish her sentence. As soon as she heard no, she pulled off, leaving her best friend standing in front of one of the handsome brownstones.

A
minah was spent. Usually after her Sunday outings with Lang, she’d take herself to the movies before meeting up with Fame and the children for dinner at either her parents’ or his mother’s home. It was the only day Fame didn’t work in “the lab” or make the necessary music-industry party rounds. Sunday was his family day. Every day was family day for Aminah, of course.

This Sunday, Fame, Alia, and Amir were visiting his mother out in Hempstead, Long Island. Aminah really wanted to skip dinner with Fame’s mother altogether and drive out farther east to visit her own mother in Sag Harbor, but she knew Fame wouldn’t hear of it.

Her parents had owned their summer home out there decades before either P. Diddy or Russell Simmons ever discovered the Hamptons. The Philipses had purchased their beachfront property in Azurest in the early seventies right after Aminah’s father had opened his second dental office. He’d been the premier African American dentist serving the Hempstead community and had decided to expand his practice by opening a second office in St. Albans, Queens, doubling his patient load and tripling his income.

Aminah’s dad had been a Howard University freshman rooming with a direct descendent of an 1840s black whaler whose family had owned property in Sag Harbor for almost one hundred years. One incredible summer weekend visit on the beach surrounded by so many prosperous black folks, and the young Nicholas Philips promised himself he’d someday own property in Sag Harbor’s historic, affluent African American community. Mission accomplished.

Though Aminah loved her mother-in-law dearly and enjoyed Gloria Anderson’s company immensely, she needed guidance from a more mature woman of wisdom. Glo was more like an older sister than a mother-in-law. In fact, Gloria was only fifteen years Aminah’s senior. The day Alia was born, Glo became the sexiest thirty-eight-year-old grandmother on Terrace Avenue.

Aminah, though not too optimistic about the outcome, called Fame, hoping to persuade him to let her skip Sunday dinner at his mother’s house. She tried his cell, but it went straight to voice mail. She called her mother-in-law.

“Hey, Glo, how are you doing?” Aminah asked, trying to sound as upbeat as possible.

“Fine, girl, you know I always feel good around my grandbabies. You on your way out here, sugar?”

“Um, well, that’s what I wanted to talk to Fame about. Is he there?”

“Hold on, sugar, lemme get him for you. He’s out on the deck playing with the kids. You know, I never did figure out how to use this intercom you had installed for me throughout the house. That thing gives me the creeps.”

Fame tried his hardest to get his mother to leave Hempstead altogether and move to either New Jersey or a nicer part of Long Island, but Gloria simply was not having it. It was bad enough she had let Fame convince her that Terrace Avenue was no longer safe for her. She’d lived there for almost twenty years and knew damn near everyone by their first name. If she didn’t know them personally, she usually knew someone who was kin to them. Make no mistake though, everybody knew Miss Glo—“Miss G-L-O,” as she liked to be called.

Originally touted as affordable housing for low-income families, Terrace’s quality of life had deteriorated slowly and steadily over the years like a neglected cavity in the mouth of a dentalphobe. Drug peddling, random shootings and stabbings, teen pregnancy, and all the other vices that plague inner cities affected Terrace as well. Ironically enough, Aminah’s father was currently a member of the zoning committee spearheading the destruction of the low-income projects for the erection of high-income town-homes.

Glo loved her friends on Terrace and didn’t want to be too far from them. So much so that she continued to host her Friday-night spades party and fish fry in her Georgian colonial brick home. Fame had eventually succeeded in moving her to a more “appropriate” section of Hempstead, a section that bordered Garden City, a wealthy, overwhelmingly white town that housed Nassau County government officials, Wall Street power brokers, and the actress Susan Lucci, aka the infamous Erica Kane from
All My Children.
Ironically, though, Glo was still in walking distance—a good walk, but a walk nonetheless—of Terrace.

Glo would slowly stroll down her current too-quiet street listening to all the silence. She thought the manicured, lush lawns looked way better than that expensive, plush, money-green
carpet
her old Terrace next-door neighbor Neesie had laid down just last year right after she’d hit the number. “This grass looks firm enough to deep-sleep on,” Glo often thought, laughing to herself. The intimidating yet sculpted lofty hedges of her current neighborhood were a more aesthetically pleasing way than, say, a white picket fence for her current “neighbors” to maintain their privacy and keep their distance.

Unlike on Terrace, Glo knew neither the family on her right nor left. She did say good morning to them nonetheless when she went outside to grab her
Newsday
as Neighbor on the Right slid into her Jaguar and Neighbor on the Left into his Lexus.

“Aaron!” Gloria yelled. “Pick up the phone. It’s Minah, and she don’t sound too hot. You feel better, sugar, and come see me later this week if you’re not up to coming out today, okay?”

“Sure thing, Glo. Thanks for understanding.”

“I got it, Ma, hang up the phone!” Fame yelled back. “Hey, baby girl, what’s the matter?”

“Um, Fame…” Aminah paused.

“What is it, baby girl? Is everything okay?” he asked, genuinely concerned.

“Yes. Well, no, not exactly.” Aminah sighed. “Listen, Fame, I really need to visit with
my
mother today. Would you mind if I skipped dinner with you all tonight, and we met at home later?”

“Baby, we’re going to see your folks next Sunday,” Fame said, walking down the teakwood steps off the deck and away from the children. “You know the deal. My mother’s house this Sunday, your parents’ home the next. Minah, you know it’s the only day I have to spend with my family.”

“I understand all that, Fame,” Aminah said, clearly agitated. “But it’s not about family time for me today. I get plenty of family time every day. What I need is to spend some one-on-one time with my mother. What I really need is to discuss some things with her and—”

“Stop being so selfish, Minah,” Fame said. “‘What I need, what I need.’ Listen to yourself, Minah. What Alia and Amir need is to see us operate as a unit. You know how I feel about this, baby girl. Now, you had your so-called ‘me’ time earlier today with your girl Lang. So hurry up and bring your fine ass out here and give your husband and your children some of that precious time.”

“Selfish?” Aminah couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She was so pissed she had to slam on her brakes to prevent herself from running into the back of the Maxima stopped just inches in front of her. “Damn it! Fame, are you fucking kidding me?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold up, Aminah. Who do you think you’re talking to right now?” Fame asked, glancing back at his children, making sure they were out of earshot.

Aminah paused and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry for cursing at you, Fame,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“You better watch your mouth, Aminah,” Fame said sternly through clenched teeth. “What’s with all the hostility anyway, Minah? I ain’t do shit to you.”

Fame was getting riled up. Aminah could tell. Whenever he got upset, proper grammar and pronunciation went out the window.

“Listen, Fame, I’m still dealing with that blind item from
Cindy Hunter—
”

“Not that shit again, Minah. Come on now, I’m done talkin’ ’bout that.”

“Well, I’m not done dealing with it, Fame.”

“What? Your girl Lang got you all bent out of shape? Lemme guess, she thinks you should leave me, right? That you can do better? That you’re stupid for staying?”

“No, Fame, for your information Langston is the only girlfriend I have who doesn’t think I’m stupid for staying.”

“Oh, well, that’s ’cause Lang got her own good thing goin’ on,” Fame said, switching his melody rather abruptly. “And by the way he be talkin’ at the basketball games, she knows how to treat him right and keep him happy. Them other chicks is just jealous. They’d be the first in line to try and get wit’ me if I gave them the opportunity. Take my word for it, Minah, them very same girls that want you to leave me would kill for a chance to get wit’ me.” Fame chuckled at the memory of one of Aminah’s old college roommates propositioning him earlier this month up in Oak Bluffs over the July Fourth weekend. “C’mon, Minah, baby we been through all this. Our bond is strong. Nothing and nobody can destroy it.”

“Nothing and nobody but you,” Aminah said weakly.

“What was that?”

“Nothing, Fame. It’s just humiliating for me to walk around as the loyal doting wife of this successful music producer who can’t say no to new pussy. Do you ever think about me? How your messing around affects me? How it hurts me, Fame? How it hurts our family?” Despite her conscious effort not to do so, Aminah’s eyes watered, and her voice cracked.

“Baby, you crying?” Fame asked, sounding as worried as he felt. The idea of Aminah driving and crying concerned him deeply. He couldn’t bear the thought of her getting into a car accident.

“No, I’m not,” Aminah lied, wiping her eyes and sniffling. “I think I’m coming down with a summer cold or something.”

“Listen, baby, why don’t we just talk in person?”

“No, I want to talk now,” Aminah whined insistently.

“Okay baby,” Fame said softly. “Just be careful driving. I don’t want you to get hurt or nothin’.”

“That’s ironic, Fame, you don’t seem to mind hurting me any other time.”

“Minah, don’t I give you everything you ask for? Huh?”

“Materially, yes, Fame, you do.”

While financially Aminah lived a more than comfortable life, internally she did experience some discomfort. She felt as though her life had been a series of television commercials in which she superbly played the principal roles of the compliant wife supporting her husband’s career, the patient mother who happily attended all school events and seamlessly transformed into the punctual after-school chauffeur, the obedient daughter, and the ideal daughter-in-law. None of those roles were providing her any comfort right now.

“Materially?” Fame asked in disbelief, sitting down on his mother’s teak chaise longue by the pool. “You can’t be serious, Minah. You know you’re the only woman who’s ever gotten everything I have to give. There is no other woman out here who’s even worthy of bearing my seeds, never mind sharing my insecurities, my thoughts, my heart, Minah. That’s priceless to a man. No one knows me better than you. Haven’t I kept my word to you and your father?”

“Which word are you talking about, Fame?” Aminah asked dully, heading eastbound onto the parkway.

“Remember the summer you left for UPenn, and I told your father I was going to marry you when you graduated?” Fame asked. “He laughed and said only if I could provide you with the standard of living you were accustomed to—that was his minimum requirement. He ain’t believe I could do it. He thought you’d drop my project ass for one of them corny-ass college dudes. But the day you graduated, what I have waiting for you, baby? Huh? You remember that?”

Aminah said nothing.

“C’mon, baby, reminiscence with me. Just for a minute.”

Aminah said nothing again.

“C’mon, baby girl, don’t leave me hangin’.”

“What’s the point, Fame?”

“Minah. Baby. I love you. Even when you’re angry with me, I know you know that. You can’t question that. Don’t be like this, please, Minah. You’re too sweet to be cold. You tryin’ to tell me you don’t remember your graduation day?”

For the first time in a few hours, Aminah smiled. “You know I do,” she replied sweetly.

As far as Fame was concerned, those other chicks only got to taste his sex—most of the time anyway. Aminah got his whole body, his most intimate thoughts, his tireless energy, his wallet, his bank account, everything. She was his heart. The mere idea of Aminah leaving him shook him to the core.

Fame just couldn’t fathom his life without Aminah, and the idea of another man with his wife was absolutely unbearable. Not to mention that there was no way he was ever going to settle for
visiting
his own children on the weekends and holidays. He already didn’t spend enough time with them as it was.

Aminah leaving him simply was not an option. It was not a part of Fame’s legendary MAP—his Master Actualization Plan. He’d developed it not too long after he’d graduated from Hempstead High School in 1989. He’d turned down an academic scholarship to pursue his career as a deejay. Glo wasn’t the least bit happy, but she told him if he was gonna hike the mountain less climbed, he had to have a plan. It wasn’t so much that Fame was forfeiting an education for future success—he just needed present money, “right-now cash,” income he could see and use immediately. So in the summer of ’89 when most of his boys were kissing their moms on the cheek and either heading off to college or starting their nine-to-five, he had presented Glo with his MAP, a detailed four-year outline of his career and life goals. In the fourth year he planned on having a million dollars after taxes and on proposing to the love of his life if she stood by him the whole time. It was incredibly ambitious, but it had worked.

“I was so proud of you that day, Aminah,” Fame said, cradling the cordless phone in the crook of his neck. “Proud and honored.”

At the end of Aminah’s graduation ceremony, Fame, dressed in a loose-fitting white linen suit, a princess-cut diamond in his left ear, a Rolex on one wrist and an iced-out platinum bracelet on the other, stole her away from her family and friends to walk her over to a campus parking lot. He presented Aminah with eight long-stemmed white roses—one for every year they’d been together—and a brand-new white CL500 Mercedes-Benz with a big white bow.

After Aminah had finally stopped screaming, Fame had knelt down on one knee.

“You know I don’t need a piece of paper to make you my wife, baby girl,” he had said, brushing over his low-cut waves with his right hand. “We’ve been together since we were freshmen in high school. Then you went off to this elite university, got your degree, and stood by your man the whole time. You supported me when my deejaying career took me around the world. Remember when I flew you into Tokyo to spend your spring break with me? You didn’t even laugh when I told you I wanted to transition into producing. Instead you bought me my first SP and 950—the equipment I needed to jumpstart my producing career—and I love you for that, baby. That kind of love is rare.”