The Company We Keep (25 page)

“O
h shit! Baby, I didn’t know you were coming! Why didn’t you call?!” Harrison shouted. “Damn! Damn! Damn!” His voice was so shrill and high pitched he sounded like a hysterical woman. Sweat had already started to slide down his face like molasses.

“I did, goddammit! That whore you picked up said you were in the shower! Now are you going to buzz me in or not?”

“Teri, I need to talk to you before I let you in here…”

“I bet you do!”

“Listen, baby—you’ve got it all wrong. I know what you’re thinking, but this is not what you think!” Harrison said in a desperate and feeble voice. He turned to look at Yvette still kicking back on his sofa with a puzzled look on her face.

“Uh, what’s going on?” she asked, rising. It was a struggle for her to keep a straight face. “I hope I didn’t cause you any trouble.” She had to force herself not to bust out laughing. Instead, she pressed her lips together and wrapped her arms around her chest, trying to look distressed. But Harrison hadn’t seen anything yet. His goose was being cooked and Yvette was the chef that had shoved him into the oven.

“You just stay cool,” he told Yvette, holding up his hands. “Let me handle this.” There was a worried expression on his face as he
looked toward the door. It was locked, but as angry as Teri sounded, it would not have surprised him if she kicked it down. “Listen, let me run downstairs for a minute and try to straighten out this mess. I’m sorry about all this. I know you’ve already got enough trouble; you don’t need this, too. And I sure as hell don’t need this shit!”

Harrison grabbed his keys and ran out the door. It didn’t help his case that he was sweating like an ox and so nervous his hands were shaking. Even though he was innocent of what Teri suspected, he looked guilty as hell.

Teri had her face pressed against the window in front of the building lobby when Harrison got downstairs. “Baby, please calm down,” he began as soon as he made it outside, holding the lobby entrance door open with his foot.

“What the hell is going on?” she demanded, trying to push him out of the way.

“Nothing is going on. I ran into a…uh…a young lady I know. She needed some help and I…”

“What kind of help? A mercy fuck?”

“No, nothing like that! It’s Yvette and you probably know that Eric kicked her out. I was just trying to do her a favor.”

“I bet you were and I bet you did. What is your problem? Are you so fucking sleazy that you couldn’t wait a couple of hours for me? I can’t meet up with you when you want me to, so you go off with another bitch? Is that the way it is?”

“That is not the way it happened. When I didn’t hear from you by midnight, I didn’t think I would.”

“I left you a message on your cell phone!”

“I didn’t get it! There was no damn message on my cell phone from you!” Harrison yelled.

“Get out of my way. I’m coming in.”

Harrison stepped from side to side, blocking Teri. “Baby, please go home and cool off. We’ll discuss this later.” He looked toward the elevator, then the stairs. He was confused and flustered, and he didn’t know what he expected Yvette to do. He prayed that she would not bring her ass to the lobby and make matters even worse.

“Motherfucker, move!” Teri used both hands to push Harrison
out of the way. She pushed him to the side so hard he fell and hit the back of his head on the mailboxes on the wall. He was dazed, and it took him a few moments to compose himself and get up.

“Teri, you…you’re hysterical,” he stammered, trying to reason with her even though it was obvious that she was beyond that point.

“You got that right!” The elevator was taking too long so she ran up the stairs two at a time. Harrison was right behind her rubbing his head, vigorously proclaiming his innocence.

“She’ll tell you herself nothing is going on! What do you think I am?” he yelled.

He had left his front door ajar. The first thing Teri saw when she entered his living room was Yvette coming out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her naked body.

“Oh shit,” Yvette said in mock horror. She covered her mouth with her hand to keep from laughing. It didn’t take her but a few seconds to realize that there was nothing to laugh about. Harrison looked at her as though he wanted to strangle her, and it did cross his mind. Teri let out a muffled shriek and started stumbling backward until she hit the wall.

“What the hell are you doing, girl?” Harrison yelled, running toward Yvette. She was not prepared for his reaction. She backed up against the wall, with a look of pure terror on her face. “What the fuck is all this? Is this how you thank me for helping your trifling ass?” Harrison turned to Teri. “Baby, I swear to God, this is not what it looks like!” Teri stood against the wall looking like she’d just seen thirteen ghosts.

“You son of a bitch. You low-down funky black dog!” Teri screeched in Harrison’s horrified face. She had yelled so much, her voice had begun to sound hoarse. She coughed to clear her throat. Then she turned to Yvette, who looked like a cross-eyed deer caught in somebody’s headlights by now. “You low-life slut. You can have this hound from hell. You two deserve each other.” She turned back to Harrison. “And I thought Mia was bad! The little comedy you played out with her was scraping the bottom of the barrel! Have you no shame? This time, with this oafish bitch, you settled for straight-up shit this time! I wouldn’t let you fuck me again with a magic wand.”

“Nothing happened between Mia and me! I already told you that!” Harrison hollered with his hands in the air. He looked from Teri to Yvette. “Yvette, get in your fucking clothes and get the hell out of my place before I throw you out!”

“You still going to give me the cab fare to get to my uncle’s place?” Yvette whimpered, holding the towel around her body as tight as she could.

“Hell no! I don’t give a fuck how you get to your uncle’s place! You can crawl on your belly like a snake for all I care!” he roared, giving Yvette the disgusted look she deserved. Then it dawned on him what Yvette had tried to do. And from the looks of things, she had succeeded. Other than Eric evicting her damn ass, he wondered if any other parts of her story were true. “
You fucking set me up!
Why me?”

Yvette had done a lot of stupid things in her life that she lived to tell about. But she wasn’t so sure she’d come out of this alive. The way Harrison and Teri were looking at her, she didn’t know which one to fear the most. All she knew now was that she had to vacate the premises while she was still able. She stood in the middle of the floor with a wounded look on her face, looking like
she
was the victim of this evil prank.

“Yvette, don’t you ever come near me again as long as you live!” Harrison was so busy chewing out Yvette he didn’t even notice Teri leave. As soon as he did, he ran after her. He got downstairs just as she was starting her motor. He stopped her from leaving by grabbing the door handle on her side, banging on her window. “Teri, please let me explain.”

“Explain my ass, motherfucker. Don’t you ever fix your lips to speak to me again as long as you live!” she shrieked. “I am through with you! And
for good
this time!”

“Teri you know me better than that! You know I wouldn’t be that damn stupid as hard as it was for me to get back with you! I was set up! Yvette set me up!” he insisted, giving Teri a pleading look, hoping she would soften. But Teri didn’t get to be where she was in life by being soft.

“She sure did, motherfucker!”

Harrison didn’t leave the spot where he stood in the street until Teri was completely out of sight.

By the time he made it back to his living room, Yvette had put her clothes back on and locked herself in the bathroom.

“Yvette, I want you to get the hell out of here right now,” he ordered, slapping the bathroom door with the palm of his hand.

“I’m going,” she hissed, slowly opening the door, rubbing lotion on her arms. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

“Why, Yvette? Why did you do this to me?!” Harrison boomed, grabbing her by the wrist. “What the fuck is the matter with you?!”

“Turn loose my arm, motherfucker, before I yell rape, too,” she threatened. Harrison was so angry he was shaking. He wanted to slap that sneer off her evil face. Somehow, he managed to control himself. He released her immediately and stared at her with his mouth hanging open as she strutted back into his living room and plopped down on his couch with a groan, taking her time putting her shoes back on.

“I want you out of my sight. I want you out of my sight now,” Harrison told her, stomping across the floor to the couch. He stood in front of her with his fists balled. When she didn’t move fast enough, he lunged at her and snatched her up by her arm. She stumbled as he dragged her to the door. “If you ever fuck with me again, I will hurt you,” he said in a voice so calm and low that she didn’t hear everything he said.

“What did you just say?” she asked, struggling with him as he opened the door to push her out.

“I said, if you ever fuck with me again, I will hurt you,” he repeated, this time loud and clear enough for her to hear every single word.

“You could go to jail just for threatening me,” she snarled, smoothing down the sides of her dress as she backed toward the elevator.

“And it would be worth it,” he told her before he slammed his door shut.

H
arrison locked his door and leaned against it for a minute, massaging his temple with both hands. He wanted to bang his head against the door, but it was already spinning like a top and throbbing on both sides.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he chanted, punching the wall with his fist, wishing that the wall was that no-good Yvette’s empty-ass head. He sucked in some air and tried to make some sense out of what had just happened. A black man couldn’t win for losing, he thought. He’d fucked up more than one relationship, but now that he was trying to walk the straight and narrow with his vision of a dream girl, another party took it upon herself to monkey wrench all his efforts! That bitch. That no-good homeless bitch! He slapped the side of his head with the palm of his hand, chastising himself for being so gullible. How many times had he heard stories from dudes at the gym and the barbershop about some of Yvette’s antics? “If you lay down with dogs, you get up with fleas,” one brother had warned him after he’d revealed how Yvette had rewarded him with a dose of genital warts. He rubbed his chin and nose and went to the window just in time to see Yvette flag down a taxi. He didn’t leave the window until the taxi left with her in it.

He moved from the window and immediately called Teri’s cell
phone number. He didn’t expect her to answer once she saw his name on her caller ID. But he left her a message anyway. “Teri, please call me back when you get this message. I want to tell you what really happened. I…I love you and I wouldn’t hurt you for anything in this world.”

He called her home number and left the same message. Then he called Nicole, but he hung up as soon as she answered. She was indirectly responsible for this mess because she had taken Eric from Yvette and now Yvette had to take it out on whomever she could get to first. Because of his relationship with Nicole’s best friend, Harrison had become a victim of Yvette’s retaliation by default. But after thinking about it for a moment or two, he didn’t want to drag Nicole into it until he had done enough damage control to get Teri to at least hear his side of the story. It wouldn’t have done him any good anyway. While he was sitting on his couch in the same spot that Yvette had occupied a few minutes earlier, Teri was on the phone with Nicole, telling her all she knew.

“He did what?” Nicole hollered. “Girl, hold on. Eric’s on the other line. Let me get rid of him.” Teri sat in her car in the parking lot of a liquor store six blocks from Harrison’s condo. This was something that couldn’t wait for her to make it home to call Nicole. “I…I can’t believe my ears! Oh, the man’s got to be out of his mind. There is no other explanation! Yvette? Poor Eric. She’s the worst thing that ever happened in his life. Did Harrison want some pussy that bad?”

“Tell me about it,” Teri said with a painful sigh.

“There is just no telling what all kinds of activity have been going on inside that black hole between her thighs. If I were you, I’d make Harrison cover up with
two
condoms from now on before I let him stick his dick in me again. Eeyow!” Nicole made gagging sounds, and for a moment Teri thought she was going to vomit all over the interior of the beautiful car that she keeps as neat and clean as a pin.

“Ha! That’s one thing I’ll never have to worry about again!”

“Oh? What are you going to do?”

“What the hell do you think I’m going to do? Do you think I am going to go on like nothing happened? Do you think that I’d
let him touch me again after this? I am not going to settle for a man who cheats on his woman, and I don’t know why any woman with half a brain and some self-respect would, either. She’s a damn fool if she does! All a woman is getting when she settles for a man who cheats on his woman is a man who cheats on his woman.” Nicole remained quiet, so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. “Did you hear what I just said?”

“I heard you. I guess that includes me, too, huh?”

“Includes you how? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Eric cheated on Yvette with me,” Nicole said in a flat tone of voice.

“So? He’s not with her now and he’s much better off with you than he was with her.”

“But how is what he did to Yvette any different from what Harrison did to you?” Nicole asked.

This time Teri was the one who got so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Then she said, “I don’t think I like the ugly direction that this conversation is going.”

“I think it’s already there,” Nicole told her with a heavy voice. “I love Eric and he loves me. His relationship with Yvette was doomed from the start. She hooked him by claiming she was pregnant. A month after he moved her in with him and his daughter, she got her period. Then she claimed that the pregnancy ‘must have been a false alarm.’ By then it was too late for him to get rid of her. She had no place to go.”

“Well, despite what I just said about men cheating on their women, I am glad things seem to be working out between you and Eric. He is a good man.”

“So is Harrison.”

“Girl, are you not listening to me? That ‘good’ man Harrison was with another woman. I caught him. I saw him with her with my own eyes! If he’s what you call a good man, I’d hate to think of what you’d call a bad man.”

“Oh, there are plenty of them out there. We don’t even have to look hard to find them, they usually find us,” Nicole said, impressed with herself for sounding so philosophical.

“Listen, I am going to go on home and pull myself together.”

“Where are you?”

“Sitting in my car in a liquor store parking lot like a fool.”

“Call me when you get home if you feel like it,” Nicole suggested.

“This is one fucked-up night. I finally told my grandparents about Harrison and me being back together and they couldn’t have been happier. The first thing Grandma did was pull out her address book to make sure it was current so that everybody would receive their invitations to my wedding on time. Grandpa was even worse. He’s already made plans for him and Harrison to go fishing.”

“Shit. Just tell them it didn’t work out after all.”

“Shit! I just remembered something.” Teri slapped her steering wheel and let out a disgusted sigh. “I just remembered that I told them he’d be coming to our upcoming cookout on the Fourth,” Teri whimpered. “Shit! Me and my big mouth!”

“That’s still a month away. Maybe by then…” Nicole didn’t have to finish her sentence. Teri knew what she was going to say and she didn’t like that one bit.

“No way. I’m too through with that man. There is no way in hell I will let him get away with this.”

“Teri, I know you look at life too critically these days. So do I. But no man, or woman for that matter, is perfect. Shit happens. We deal with it, try to correct it, then we move on. A strong, smart woman can find something positive in the worst situations when it comes to her man. But because she’s strong and smart, and if that man is worth hanging on to, she deals with it. Look at Hillary Clinton. Do you think she’d be happier if she’d kicked ole ‘I didn’t sleep with that woman but I let her suck my dick’ Bill to the curb? Most of the other high-profile women do the same thing Hillary did.”

“Tina Turner didn’t take Ike’s black ass back.” Teri hung up and snapped her cell phone shut.