The Next Best Thing (14 page)

It's true. There is never any rest for the weary.

Later on that night, I was finishing research for an initial consultation that I have coming up this week. Eugene Campbell, better known as “E-Money,” is an up-and-coming local rapper who wants to throw an album release party.

Being a jazz, neo-soul, and R&B girl, I personally have never heard of E-Money, but this is a project that Sophie dropped in my lap last week, giving me the usual spiel about me being her number one superstar and the only employee she can trust to pull this off.

My plate is full enough as it is, but I don't mind this last minute addition because if all goes well, E-Money's record company will hopefully contract with SWE exclusively to put on all of their future events.

Cha-Ching!

My knowledge of hip-hop is limited mostly to the old-school artists I grew up listening to, so I called Yvette's daughter Alicia, and asked what she knew about the guy.

“Hey, Auntie Tori!” is the way Alicia answered her cell phone, and if I didn't know better I would have sworn she was white.

“Hey sweetie,” I said. “I need a favor…”

Aside from thinking E-Money's single “Pop Dat Boo-Tee” is “Tha bomb!” the only other information Alicia knew about him was that he was an “ex drug-dealing gang banger who was shot fifteen times and lived to tell about it.”

That didn't tell me much since that happens to be the bio on half the rappers in the music industry. I did a Google search on E-Money and wrote down a few notes.

I got a phone call while conducting my research and, ironically, the caller ID read:

Kansas City Missouri Police Department

I almost didn't answer, thinking my cousin June Bug was just shit out of luck this time. However, my curiosity got the best of me and I answered the call.

It was Junior.

“Tori, I need for you to come and get me,” he said, and I distinctly heard a trace of fear in his voice.

I sighed. “What kind of trouble have you gone and gotten yourself into?”

“I ran into Roland.”

Enough said.

 

The waiting room down at the Police station was noisy and filled mostly with concerned relatives and apathetic, gum-popping baby mamas who were letting their hardheaded kids run wild. I signed my name on a stack of documents and handed over eight-hundred dollars in cash.

“He should be processed out, any minute now,” said the clerk behind the bulletproof glass.

I took a seat on one of those hard, plastic chairs and picked up a copy of
People
magazine to kill the time.

“Any minute now” turned into three hours, and counting.

While reading an interesting article about Michael Jackson and his comeback, I heard a familiar male voice say, “Hey…How's it going?”

It was Roland. Standing there in front of me sporting a big black eye.

“Hey, yourself,” I said, struggling to keep the laughter out of my voice. “What happened to you?”

“I was on my way up to the condo when I ran into Junior and his fists.” Roland winced, and placed a can of cold soda on his eye.

Atta boy, Junior! I hope you got a punch in for me, too.

But I was also thinking that even with his right eye discolored and almost swollen shut, Roland is still one sexy M. F.

“Look, I don't agree with what Junior did and I hope you don't think that I put him up to it,” I said with all sincerity.

Roland shrugged it off. “Your brother always was a loose cannon. Not to mention a freeloading loser.”

“Now see, it wasn't even necessary for you to go there,” I said with an angry edge in my voice.

Awkward silence. I mean,
really
awkward.

Finally, Roland sat down next to me and asked, “So, how are you doing these days, Tori?”

It was such a simple question, but I smiled when he asked me this because it had been such a long time since he had.

“Good,” I said. “How about yourself?”

“I can't complain. Well, you know, except for…” Roland gestured towards his eye, which was turning blacker by the minute. No small feat for someone as dark as he is.

“Is there any particular reason you were on your way up to the condo?” I asked, trying not to sound too hopeful.

“Well for one, I'm pretty sure my BlackBerry is still around there somewhere.”

“Well, I'm pretty sure I packed up all of your things,” I said. “Where do you think it might be?”

“It could be under the bed, or else in the nightstand on my side of the bed.”

My side of the bed. Something about that made my heart sink into my shoes, because even though I had been secretly hoping for reconciliation, it could quite possibly never be his side of the bed again.

“No, Roland, I can't say that I have seen your BlackBerry,” I said. “But if I find it, I'll be sure to send it over to your office.”

“And how is that?” Roland asked, glaring at me with his one good eye. “Damaged, just like you sent all the rest of my valuables?”

I didn't appreciate his sharp tone of voice or the evil way he was eyeballing me, so I gave Roland a wicked smile and said in a cutesy way, “Damaged valuables? You need to check with the shipping company about that, because I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“Look Tori, I know I didn't handle things the way I should have handled them with you, but I have a lot of important information stored in that BlackBerry, so please don't do anything childish and petty.”

“Childish and petty? Like breaking up with someone on their wedding day via text message because you were too chicken-shit to let it be known that your
friend
was actually your baby mama?” I said it all in one breath, my anger rising by the second.

“Nuh-uh, no he didn't!” said a young woman sitting across from me. “Niggas ain't shit!”

“Listen,” Roland said, now conscious of the fact that we had an audience. “Now is really not the time or place to discuss all of that. I would just appreciate getting my BlackBerry back in good, working condition, okay?”

“And I would have appreciated not being made a fool of the way I was for three years, but there's not much I can do about that now, is there?”

“Come up off of the victim role, Tori. You're a big girl; you knew what time it was.”

I knew that he and Veronica were sleeping together?

That statement was so fucking absurd that it was comical as hell. He was obviously grasping at straws, trying to come up with any excuse to make himself feel better about being such a coward.

“That's the best you can come up with?” I asked, and laughed until tears came to my eyes.

Meanwhile, Roland just sat there looking at me as if I had completely flipped the fuck out.

My laughter only seemed to enrage him. The politeness he had displayed at the beginning of our conversation evaporated into thin air.

“Don't fault me for your own stupidity. You would have to be naïve as hell to fall for that good-friend-of-the-family bullshit,” Roland sneered at me, venom dripping with each word he spoke. “I'm glad things went down the way they did, because I am exactly where I want to be, which is with Veronica, raising
our
daughter.”

The cold, callous look in Roland's eyes sent a chill through my soul, and he suddenly became extremely repulsive to me.

What in the hell was it that I ever saw in this man?

At that moment, I felt as though I never really knew him, that he never really loved me, and the Roland I thought I knew was just a figment of my imagination.

I was just about to get up and move to the other side of the room, when Junior finally appeared from behind a closed door. He looked no worse for wear, but immediately noticed the tension between Roland and me.

“Is there a problem here?” Junior asked me, while looking Roland dead in the eye.

“No, tough guy, there's no problem,” Roland replied calmly. “But that attitude of yours is part of the reason why your scrub-ass didn't make it to the NBA.”

Uh-oh. Roland knew good and well that that subject was a sore spot for Junior.

“Man, you's a little bitch!” Junior tried to lunge at Roland, but I stood between them, holding Junior back.

“See a bitch, smack a bitch,” Roland said.

“I already did that, remember?” said Junior. “And I don't have a problem cold-cocking your ass again, either, punk!”

“Whatever,
boy
,” Roland said, looking like a chump. “According to the restraining order you're fifty feet too close, so back the hell up out of my face.”

Everyone in the waiting room was tuned in to the commotion. I pushed Junior towards the exit before anything else could pop off. “Come on, Junior, let's go,” I said, not wanting to be the next one to have to call somebody to come bail me out of jail.

“It was a pleasure to see you two again!” Roland taunted, suddenly brave now that Junior and I were headed in the opposite direction. “Oh, and Tori, you can send that ring right along with the BlackBerry, too.”

“Sure thing,” I said, with a smile on my face. “You got that coming.”

Just as soon as there is peace in the world.

 

I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess.

—Martin Luther

SUNDAY

Seeing Roland tonight reminds me of two important tasks that have yet to be completed.

The first order of business was to call a 24-hour locksmith to come change these locks, and to add an extra deadbolt for good measure.

While waiting for the locksmith to show up, I grab the thick photo album from under the coffee table, and toss every picture with Roland in it into a trash bag. Three years' worth of Christmases, Thanksgivings, birthdays, vacations, and just happy times in general.

Or, what I had always thought were happy times.

Looking at Roland's face in those pictures, I can see the deceit written all over him. The emotionless eyes, the hardness of his jaw, and the cocky smile all add up to a lowdown snake that was harboring a deep, dark secret.

Why couldn't I see this before?

The locksmith showed up to do his job, and nodded knowingly as I cut Roland's image out of picture after picture. Now I'll bet he has some fucking stories to tell.

It takes me almost two hours, but when I'm done, I haul the trash bag down to the incinerator where my sincere hope is for that bastard to burn in hell.

With that done, I start searching for that damn BlackBerry. I find that it had fallen behind the nightstand on Roland's side of the bed, and is still connected to the charger.

After fishing it out, I promptly drop it into the toilet. The thing hums, vibrates, and buzzes all at the same time. I watch as the lights flicker on and off, displaying these weird patterns and symbols. Then it just goes dead, which to me, symbolizs our relationship.

 

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes of mind.—William James

MONDAY

I woke up this morning feeling more refreshed than I have in months.

Why?

There are so many reasons to celebrate the absence of Roland and his many trifling-ass habits, like:

 

1) Blowing his nose at the table while I'm eating.

2) Often forgetting to flush after #2.

3) Clipping his crusty-ass toenails in bed and leaving them for me to clean up.

4) That extreme lactose intolerance of his that chronically flares up in the middle of the night.

5) The globs of toothpaste splattered all over the bathroom sink, along with disgusting remnants of his last meal.

6) Being startled awake by his sharp toenails piercing my skin.