Unfaithful Ties (43 page)

Heading towards the living room I hear a woman sobbing.“ “You were right
” She says. “I should have listened to you. She was telling the truth. I found child pornography on his computer”

I’m shocked when I reach the living room and I see Jennifer buried inside Malik’s arms, crying.

“What’s she doing here?” She hisses.

I glance at Malik, wanting him to say that I’m here because he wants me to be here. Instead he’s standing here looking like he’s torn between us and says nothing. I feel my heart twisting and turning all over again. I swear it feels like it’s going to quit working. This feels like our history repeating itself all over again.

“Don’t worry I was just about to leave” I say and go get my belongings. I feel like a fool.

Malik runs after me. “
Stace it’s not what you think.”

I say, “It looks like you two were having a little love connection to me.”

I angrily collect everything that I brought with my and stuff it into my suitcase.

“As soon as I opened the door she just rushed into my arms
” He pleads.

“You couldn’t even answer the damn question when she asked you what I was doing here?”

“You didn’t give me time”

“Whatever Malik. Find another attorney. I’m not going to let you use me.”

“Stacy that’s not what I’m doing”

“Save it Malik”

I’m storming back to the front door now. I’m done with Malik for good this time. I open the thick wood door and I almost pee on myself, there’s a woman standing on the porch holding a shot gun that’s as long as the front door. A diaper bag is thrown across her shoulder. She’s pregnant.

“Leaving so soon” She says, jabbing the gun in my stomach. “I don’t think so.” She laughs wickedly.

Jennifer screams

I freeze up

“How did you get out?” Malik asks.

“You’d be surprised how far this pretty face can get me
” She says.

“Regina, please don’t hurt her.” Malik begs

My voice trembles. “Malik what’s going on?”

“Regina she doesn’t have anything to do with this. Please put the gun down”

“What is it about her Malik? What’s she got I ain’ got?” She pokes the tip of the rifle further in my stomach. “Go”

I take backward steps. “I have money if that’s what you want”

“Sweetie it’s not your money that I want. I want your life”

Jennifer cries. “Please don’t hurt us”

Regina closes the door with her foot.

“Please Regina it’s me that you want?” Malik says.

“Wrong! There was a time that I wanted you but all you wanted was anybody but me”

“It’s you that I want” Malik says, and even I can tell that he’s lying “You and I, we…we can raise our baby together, Just let
Stace and Jennifer go”

“
You don’t want me. You’ve had all the time in the world to be with me.” All of you sit down on the sofa and don’t move and if one of you tries to call the police by the time the police get here neither one of you will be able to tell them what happened because you’ll be dead”

We all walk over to sofa and sit down.

“Regina you should think about the baby. If you kill me, you’re going to go to jail who’s going to raise the baby?”

“There is no baby
” She says and snatches off the prosthetic baby bump “Ah that feels better.”

She sits down on the small loveseat across from where the three of us are sitting and pulls out a pack of cigarettes.

She lights it. “I really didn’t want for it to come to this Malik but I’ve worked too hard to make you fall in love with me. First I had to persuade Jennifer to leave you. Hell, that wasn’t too hard she was cheating on you anyway. And then I had to accidently bump into you at the convenience store although it wasn’t what I’d call accidental; I’d planned it perfectly. I’d studied your daily ritual for months. My plan was moving along just as I’d hoped until you had to fuck it up.” She takes a long drag of the cigarette and continues, “For some reason you just wouldn’t love me the way that I loved you. That’s why I had to do something that I knew would hurt you, I knew how much you loved teaching and coaching those boys and I wanted to take that away from you. Convincing my niece Karina to falsely accuse you of engaging in a sexual relationship with her was easy. The things a teenager will do for a few outfits and an expensive pair of shoes.”

She laughs.

“Why me?” Malik asks her.

“Because I’m sick of men hurting me. It started with my father. He’d come in my room every night, touching on me, and making me put my mouth on places I was too young to even know about.” She takes another drag from the cigarette and it looks like she’s drifting off into another world.  “Come on and be a good girl for daddy, he’d say. It started when I was five and it lasted until I was fourteen. I was pregnant by then and they made me get an abortion. I killed him in his sleep. He got what he deserved.”

“So what are you going to do now, kill me?”

“Well that was the plan until I got here and noticed you have company. Now I’m going to make it look like Jennifer killed you and your little girlfriend Stacy when she walked in and caught you cheating on her”

“Please just let me go. I don’t have anything to do with this” I beg.

“Like people are really going to believe that Jennifer came home with a loaded shotgun
.” Malik points out.

“I didn’t say she was going to use this silly. She’s going to stab you to death and I’m going to watch. Don’t worry Jennifer I’ve been to prison it’s not so bad”

“I can’t do it” Jennifer cries. “Please don’t make me do something like this”

“
Shh, shhh, shhh” Regina insists as if she hears something. “I hear you sweetie, mama’s coming.”

I don’t hear anything and I think that this lady is mentally unstable.

“You…get up” She tells Malik,  “Push this sofa up against the front door”

She grabs the rifle, gets up from the sofa and watches Malik push it against the front door.

Once he sits back down she says, “If I hear that chair move I’m going to shoot each one of you in the leg and watch you suffer” She threatens and heads to the back. “Mama’s coming sweetie”

“Who in the hell is she talking to Malik
? and what in the hell have you gotten us in?” I snap.

He whispers. “I didn’t know she was crazy until after I’d already screwed her.”

“That figures” I say.

Malik says to Jennifer “When she gives you the knife I need for you to try to attack her.”

“You know I’m not the fighting type” She argues.

“Do you want to die?” He whispers.

“Use this” I say tossing her the small bottle of mace that’s attached to my keychain.

She slides it into her pocket.

The psycho bitch walks back in. She’s holding an imaginary baby and singing hush little baby.

She puts the imaginative baby on the loveseat that’s blocking the door.

“How old is your baby?” I ask.

“He’s six months” She’s says as if she thinks that she’s really holding a baby

“What’s his name?”

“
Antwan. I’m never going to let anything bad happen to Antwan. Never going to let anyone do to him what my father did to me” She digs into the diaper bag and pulls out a butcher’s knife. “That’s enough about me, you three walk slowly to the bedroom. And you” She says looking at Jennifer. “Don’t try anything slick”

We do just as she says

“Climb in” She yells once we get inside.

Malik and I climb in. I’m sure we’re both thinking the same thing.

Lord please give Jennifer the courage to pull this off.

Regina sets the knife at the foot of the bed and orders Jennifer to take Malik’s life first.

Before Regina has the chance to draw her rifle on Jennifer, Jennifer pulls the mace out of her pocket and sprays it in her eyes. She grabs her eyes while aiming the rifle at Jennifer. She squeezes the trigger, missing Jennifer by the grace of God. Malik has jumped up by now and he and Regina are tussling with the rifle. Her finger is still on the trigger. The nose of the gun is pointed towards the ceiling. Shots go off. Chips of the plaster fall from the ceiling. I grab the knife. She and Malik are still tussling but I manage to move around them. I hate to do it but I have to because if she regains control of the rifle were all going to die. I close my eyes and force the knife in her lower back. She screams in pain. Malik has the gun now. Regina is staggering. Blood is gushing out of her like a water main pipe that has burst. She hits the floor hard “My baby” she cries crawling on her stomach “Who’s going to see about my baby”

Jennifer gets her phone and calls the ambulance. God I hope this woman doesn’t die. How am I going to sleep tonight? I run and grab plenty of towels from the linen closet. I use them to apply pressure to Regina’s back. She has to survive. She just has too.

When the ambulance arrives Regina is still breathing. She’s lost a lot of blood.

The moment she recovers she’s definitely going to be headed to Duvall County Jailhouse. She’ll be fine. After all, she did say that being locked up is not as bad as people make it seem.

****

Back at work

Pam’s voice blares from the phone on my desk. “Ms. Mooreland Malik Shaw is on the line”

“I don’t want to talk to him so just tell him that I’m busy”

“He’s not going to keep buying that. After a while he’s going to know that I’m lying.”

“Pam
tell him whatever you want to tell him.  I don’t care!”

“Well fine then Ms. Stubborn”

I get up and walk over to the window in my office, like I always do when my mind is brooding. This is my last week at this firm. It still hasn’t quite dawned on me that next week I’m going to be out of a job. Not that I’ll have a hard time getting a job at another firm. It’s just that I’ve worked my ass off for this company and now I’m leaving without ever making partner, without them ever truly respecting me, or acknowledging how hard I’ve worked.

Pam walks into my office carrying a bouquet of flowers. “Aren’t these cute.” She asks.

“They are cute aren’t they? You must’ve really been on some man’s mind last night?”

“Girl please…
.they’re for you. Looks like you have an secret admirer”

“Really?” I grab them from her and smell them. They smell wonderful.

“So what does the card say?”

“It says to Stacy”

“Well excuse me sister girl”

“I’m just joking” I say and open the envelope.

Stacy I’m sorry for the other day

Malik

So who sent them?”

I walk over to the wastebasket and dump the tulips.

“I guess that means they came from Malik?” She says.

“I just want him to give it up
” I hiss.

“The man loves you Stacy. Give him another chance. Only a man that you loves you will make himself look this desperate”

“The man doesn’t know the meaning of love.”

“And you don’t know the meaning of forgiveness”

“You’re wrong. I have forgiven him”

“If this is what you call forgiveness I’d hate to see how you’d treat him if you hadn’t forgiven him. Why won’t you just pick up the phone and call him? I know you want to. You’re just acting hard.”

“Pam can we just drop this subject?” I sit down in my chair. “I’ve got one million things on my mind and Malik Shaw is not one of them”

“Fine then Ms. Stubborn.” She smiles. “I hate that this is your last week. I’m going to miss you” She walks around my desk and hugs my neck.

“I’m going to miss you too but as soon as I’m settled in a new firm I’ll definitely be offering you a job.”

“And you know that I’ll come running. Any who I’ve got to get back to work”

She prances out of my office.

Clearly Malik and I don’t belong together! Why won’t he just let it
go. If we were meant to be together God would have never allowed that woman to show up at Malik’s door. God knows that I don’t have tolerance for that type of mess so I’m taking it as a sign that Malik is not the man for me. Besides, he hasn’t changed one bit. Who in their right mind would get involved with a woman that crazy? Obviously he still lets his dick make all of his decisions for him. He might as well get over me because I’m not about to get caught up in his drama. Not now. Not ever.

“Ms. Mooreland Malik’s holding on the line again.” Pam  says
but only this time I can hear the aggravation in her voice.”

“I’m still busy
” I say.
Give it up for Christ sake.

I collect my things and head home.

****

Layla
and her new beau John are headed out of the door when I get home. “Where are you two headed?” I ask.