The Deal, the Dance, and the Devil (31 page)

In just forty-eight hours, my world had been rocked.

I wasn’t imagining this. This wasn’t paranoia. This was agony, inflicted on me deliberately by Shay-Shaunté. That’s why I’d been calling Adam all day. I needed to talk to him. I needed him to know what she was doing—how she was trying to twist my belief in my husband.

The break room incident had been bad enough. But Shay-Shaunté didn’t stop there. Every time I was near, she had something to say about the beauty of her birthday.

But it was the last thing that was the last straw. I tried my best to stay away from her, hanging out in the HR department as long as I could. But when I returned to the twelfth floor, the picture in front of me took my breath away.

Shay-Shaunté was perched on the corner of Rachel’s desk surrounded by at least a dozen women—mostly clerical employees whom I was sure Shay-Shaunté couldn’t call by name. But there they all stood, with the boss holding court.

Shay-Shaunté’s head was back, her eyes were closed, her mouth was open, as if she was in the middle of a laugh. Whatever she said, it must’ve been funny, because the floor rocked with laughter, the women sounding as silly as my teenagers.

I paused; surely, I was in a parallel universe. Shay-Shaunté chatting and laughing? This was so out of character. It was as if after this weekend, she was a different woman. Just like Adam was a different man.

I took slow steps around the crowd, not wanting to draw any kind of attention to myself. But then Shay-Shaunté’s head tilted, her eyes opened, and she saw me.

“Yes, you could say he’s my new man.”

Her words made me freeze, but only for a moment. I ran and locked myself inside my office, as if that could really keep her away. Behind my door, I paced and dreamed of one hundred and one ways to kill her.

I thought about waiting until she was alone, then marching
into her office and demanding that she start behaving like an adult. But I chose the coward’s way. It didn’t matter to me that it wasn’t even one o’clock. I grabbed my coat and bag and walked right back out into the crowd.

Only Shay-Shaunté noticed. “Leaving, Evia?”

I didn’t even turn around.

Once again, the elevator wasn’t an option. I would’ve had to stand there, listening to more chatter, more laughter, and only God knows what else Shay-Shaunté would’ve said to tear at my heart. So I made my escape down the stairs.

More than an hour had passed since I’d had to endure that scene. But in that time, I had relived it five million times.

“I have to speak to Adam,” I cried out to the walls in my home.

My voice bounced around, then died. There was nothing more that I could do. I had to just sit and wait in the emptiness of our home for my husband to return from wherever he was.

Chapter 52

I
RESTED.
I
N THE MIDDLE OF
the day. In the middle of my bed. Not because I was tired but because I didn’t have the energy to do anything else. I didn’t feel like cooking, I certainly couldn’t eat. And so I lay in the bed and waited for sleep to come.

But just like it did night after night, sleep eluded me; ran from me as if it hated me. So I fell back on my new hobby—watching the clock.

Outside, I heard car after car, door slam after door slam. But none of those sounds were for me. There was still nothing from Adam.

Then I heard the two beeps of the alarm. But I didn’t move because it was my children’s voices that floated into my bedroom. I was surprised, though—I heard the twins and Ethan. It was unusual for the two vans to drop them off at the same time.

Their voices still sounded a bit far away—like they were in the mudroom—and I wondered why they’d come in through the garage.

I pushed myself up; I needed to greet them, hug them, kiss them, and then tell them to order a pizza.

Then I heard Adam’s voice and I bounced off the bed. I rushed into the living room just as the four of them came traipsing in from the other side, all filled with glee.

“Hi, Mom!” Alexa said first. With a hug she added, “Daddy came to pick us up.”

“Me, too!” Ethan cheered.

“And then we stopped at Maggiano’s,” Alana explained. “We picked up dinner.”

“Yeah,” Alexa continued the story. “Dad let us order all our favorites.”

“Mine, too!” Ethan piped in.

Adam held up the shopping bag and grinned like he expected a medal. “And then we stopped by Grace’s and got your favorite—banana pudding,” he said.

If I didn’t have such an attitude, I would’ve noticed that he was the old Adam.

He said, “I didn’t want you to cook tonight.”

Was it the way I folded my arms or was it the way I glared at Adam that stopped them all cold?

Alana was the only one who stepped closer. “Are you all right, Mom?” She kept her voice low, as if she was afraid that even a decibel louder might set me off.

I nodded, but my stare stayed on Adam. “I need to talk to your father.”

Not another word was spoken as the children’s eyes darted from Adam to me.

“Can you girls take the food into the kitchen?”

Alana grabbed the shopping bag and the twins dashed away. Ethan bolted up the stairs, putting distance between himself and trouble.

I glared at Adam some more before I turned and stomped into our bedroom.

“What’s wrong?” he asked after he followed me and shut the door behind us.

“Where were you?”

At first, he stared. And then he sighed. It was all over him—how he was already tired of hearing that question from me. As if he had no intention of answering, he walked by me, loosening his tie as he passed. That was when I noticed for the first time how he was dressed. In one of his suits. A designer suit. A serious one.

I was not going to be denied, though; I still needed an answer. After all, men in suits had affairs all the time. But I did soften my voice. “I … I just really needed to talk to you earlier today,” I said. “I called. And I couldn’t find you. And I called. And then, I called back. And you didn’t return my calls. And … and … and.” I don’t know what happened after that. My lips trembled, my shoulders shuddered, tears crept from my eyes. I could not believe that I was crying.

I was not one of those women who cried to foster sympathy from a man. But my tears flowed, and just like any other man would, Adam came right back to me.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was at the Entrepreneur’s Expo at the Convention Center. I didn’t know that you’d called. See, here.” He grabbed his phone from the holster on his hip. “It’s on silent. When I got out, I thought about the kids, and so I went to get them. I’m sorry,” he apologized again.

I bowed my head. “I didn’t know you were going. …”

“Yeah,” he said, easing me down onto the edge of the bed. “Remember, we talked about it a few weeks ago. You were the one who suggested it.”

I covered my face with my hands.

“Evia.” Even though he whispered my name softly, my heart yearned for Shine to come back. He said, “I don’t know why you’re doing this. I don’t know why all of a sudden you don’t trust me.”

“Because you won’t talk to me,” I cried.

“About this weekend?”

“Yes!”

He stood. “I’m not gonna do that.”

“Don’t you see that not talking about it is worse? Because now I have to imagine what went on.”

“Don’t think about it,” he said, as if it was that simple.

“Even if everything was normal, it wouldn’t be that easy. But now it’s impossible not to think about it because of Shay-Shaunté.”

He shook his head. “I keep telling you; there’s nothing going on—”

“No, I don’t mean that.” I recounted my day for him. Told him how she used every opportunity to get inside my head, to trudge all over my heart. When I told him that she’d called him her man, he dropped back down onto the bed next to me. Leaned forward a bit, rested his elbows on his legs. “I don’t know why she’s doing this.”

“I can come up with a million reasons—and they’ll all lead back to her just wanting to get to me. But that’s why I have to quit.”

“You can’t do that, you can’t let her win.”

“But she is winning because every time I see her or hear her, I wonder. I know my imagination is worse than reality. …”

I waited for him to agree with me, but he didn’t.

I said, “That’s why I need to know. I’ve heard it from her, and now I have to hear something from you.”

His lips became a solid line, pressed together like he planned to never speak another word ever again.

I pushed on, “I need us to be how we used to be.”

“Talking about this weekend won’t take us back there. Because if we talk about it, everything is going to change.”

“We’re already changed!” Just like I’d never been a crier, I wasn’t a whiner. But nothing was the same anymore. “Can’t you see it? We’re already a lifetime away from where we were before you left on Friday.”

In the quiet that followed, we both thought about the truth of what I’d said.

“You’re right,” Adam said softly. “But we’ve got to find another way back to each other. Because trust me … you don’t want to talk about this weekend.”

The only thing that stopped me from screaming was that after he said those words, Adam leaned over and hugged me.

I held him, too, and kept my mouth shut, even though his words played again and again in my mind.

Trust me … you don’t want to talk about this weekend.

Why not? What happened?

But I stayed silent—at least on the outside.

Chapter 53

T
HIS WAS WAR
!

And like any good military woman or gang associate, I decided to plan. So, I spent the night strategizing, plotting how I was going to win this war with Shay-Shaunté. Adam was right—I couldn’t let her win. I was Evia Langston, and up to this point, I’d always won. Why should this be any different?

So when I walked into Ferossity, I was convinced that today would be my day of triumph. The first day that—no matter what—Shay-Shaunté was not going to get to me.

The first good sign was that I walked into the building without a glimpse of Shay-Shaunté. I didn’t really care if she was already inside, or if she had not yet made it in. All that mattered was that she wasn’t in my face.

When the elevator doors parted, there was another good sign. The space was empty. No one was congregating around Rachel’s desk, surrounding Shay-Shaunté like they were the members of her royal court.

This was going to be a very good day.

My steps took me closer to Shay-Shaunté’s office. I heard her voice—that was surprising, because she never talked on the telephone, never had a meeting with her door opened. It was that privacy thing that she cherished—or at least, she used to.

The plan was to just keep it movin’ until I heard, “I always wanted a baby.”

My first thought was that she had better be talking about adoption. I stopped. When I didn’t hear another sound, I held my breath, and slowly, slowly, slowly leaned forward. I didn’t want to take the chance of Shay-Shaunté seeing me when I peeked in.

She was sitting, facing the window, her back to me; she was on the telephone, listening.

Then she spoke. “Well, that was my hope. To be pregnant.”

I tried, but I couldn’t hold my cry inside. I rushed to my office—wrong direction, because I already felt the bile rising up in me. I was only two steps inside before I grabbed the wastebasket, knelt down, and paid homage to the container. It was only emotions that spilled from me, since I’d ingested so little food in the past days. But even when there was nothing left inside, I was too spent to move.

So I just sat there, with my coat still on, resting on the floor and letting her words replay.

“I always wanted a baby.”

No! No way! She’d only been with Adam for two days and just three days had passed since then. How would she even know if she was pregnant?

“That was my hope. To be pregnant.”

Was this her plan all along? I trembled at that thought. But somehow I knew in my soul that this was a trick—by a trick, for a trick. She was fifty, for God’s sake! She was not pregnant.

Her words played some more in my mind, and each time,
I actually became stronger. I pushed myself from the floor and grabbed the bucket.

I couldn’t fight if I gave up. This heifer was playing some sort of game, and up to this point I’d let her. I’d stayed on the sidelines, like a spectator, for the last three days.

Well, her free pass was up; I was gonna get in the game. Shay-Shaunté just didn’t know. For me, this wasn’t about playing. I never showed up just to play; I only showed up to win.

God! That was the only way to explain why I didn’t call up Brooklyn and have her bring me one of her switchblades. I guess it was another one of those lessons that Big Mama had taught me—revenge belonged to the Lord. So I’d let Him handle the getting-back-at-a-skank part. But I still had business to handle.

After I washed out my mouth and dusted myself off, I marched right into Shay-Shaunté’s office. She was still facing the window, her back to me. If I was low-down, I would’ve attacked her and she would’ve never known who’d knocked her upside her head with that paperweight that rested on her desk. But all I did was close the door. Really, I more like slammed it, hoping to shake her up a bit.

But she didn’t flinch. Just said, “Hey, Evia,” without even turning around.

Okay, this wench was scary. How did she know it was me? What was up with this clairvoyant crap?

But I didn’t let her spook me. I strode straight to her desk and got straight to the point. “Are you pregnant?”

Slowly, that throne of hers rotated until she faced me. It was almost as if she was laughing, the way her eyes danced and her cheeks were high, the way her lips were spread into a smile that filled her face. But still she said, “What?”

I folded my arms, leaned slightly to the left, one leg just inches in front of the other. A fighting stance. And I was ready for a fight when I said, “You heard me.”

“What would give you that idea?”

“I heard you.” There! Now what?

She leaned back on her throne. “You were listening to my private conversation?” Putting her hand across her chest, she asked, “Were you eavesdropping?”