Up to No Good (27 page)

“Yeah, I’m here.” I picked the phone back up. “Mo, was the woman with my father about our age?” I already knew what her answer was going to be.

“Yeah, and, girl, even in that suit she was wearing you could tell she had a body.”

I hated to admit it, but Sandra did have the kind of body that turned heads—and now she was using it to cast her spell over my father. What could be worse?

“Girl, your daddy’s the talk of the church.”

“So, were they standing close?” I asked, trying to hold on to some small hope that there was another explanation for this. Maybe Daddy and Sandra had struck up a friendship, you know, like a father-daughter type of thing, and he was just trying to get her into church.

I knew I was grasping at straws with that scenario, and Monica proved me right when she said, “Standing close? Girl, I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. She was holding on to him for dear life.”

“Oh, really?”
What she should be doing is holding on to that pumpkin head of hers before I knock it off,
I thought.

I glanced up at Louis, and since I wasn’t standing over a hot stove cooking our meal, he didn’t seem happy. But with news like this, neither was I. Monica’s conversation had ruined any appetite I had. Still, I had promised Louis a big meal of crab cakes and eggs, so it was time to get off the phone.

“Yeah,” Mo continued, “and let me tell you about the bangin’ suit she was wearing. The two of them both had on white, and—”

“Mo, we’re about to eat, so let me holler back at you later.” I slipped the phone closed before she could get in any more comments.

Louis must have seen the expression on my face and known something was wrong, because instead of nagging me about the food, he came closer and asked, “Everything all right?”

“I’m going to kill her ass.”

He took a step back. “Who?”

“Sandra.”

“Sandra? Why?”

“Get this—she’s screwin’ my father.”

“Nah!” He seemed surprised, but in typical guy fashion, he looked like he would have been impressed with my father’s catch if I weren’t standing in front of him. “You sure?”

“He took her to church. Do you know how embarrassing that is?”

“Well, maybe they’re just friends.”

Louis was using the same rationale that I ’d tried on Monica, but now it just sounded stupid. “We’re talking about James Black here, Louis. Be for real. He’s slept with half the female congregation, for God’s sake. Why would he need to bring a ‘friend’ to church with him?”

“I don’t know. Does it really matter?”

“Of course it matters! It means he was trying to let everyone know he’s unavailable!”

“Is that really a bad thing? Maybe your father is finally ready to settle down after all these years. You should be glad if he’s found someone he cares about enough to bring her to church.”

“Uh-uh,” I protested. “That dirty heifer knows exactly what she’s doing. Trust me; she is not the one for him.”

“Honey, your father is a grown man,” Louis said, just like he did every time I tried to vent about my father’s dating habits with him.

“My father is a man who thinks with his dick!”

“Maybe he really likes her.”

“He doesn’t know her. I know her, and she’s a gold-digging tramp. I’m gonna pull out all her hair! How dare she do this to me?”

“To you? Come on, she’s your friend. And how is her dating your father a problem? She seems like a nice enough girl.”

“That ho deliberately set out to get my father. She’s after his money.”

“You ever think maybe she really likes him?”

“Oh, please. She really likes his bank account.”

I headed toward the bedroom, pulled out my clothes, and got dressed in a hurry. I was going over to Daddy’s house to handle this.

“You are not leaving,” Louis said sternly.

“I have to put a stop to this!”

“It’s their business, Jamie.”

“Well, I’m about to make it mine.” I picked up my keys. “I’ll be back in a while.”

“Jamie!” I heard him calling after me as I walked out the door, but there was no stopping me now.

I was hot as I pulled out of the driveway and drove toward my father’s place. There was no way I would allow Sandra to keep her hooks in my father, because I knew there was no way she really cared about him. If she did, she would have understood how close Daddy and I were, and she would have come to me in the beginning. Not that she needed my permission to date my father, but out of respect, she should have said something. I gave her the opportunity early on when I asked about her mystery lover, but no, like a lying tramp, she refused to give me any details while she snuck behind my back and started seeing Daddy.

I couldn’t wait until I got to Daddy’s house to speak my mind. When I got there, I would deal with him, but in the meantime, I wanted to talk to Sandra. I put on my Bluetooth and dialed her cell phone number.

“Hello?” Sandra sounded all cheery, like she’d just gotten some. Of course, I thought. I should have known she would still be with him if they’d left church not too long ago. I felt like throwing up. It took everything I had not to curse her ass out yet. That would come in due time, but I didn’t want to alert them or they might leave the house before I had time to get there.

“Hey, girl.” I tried to sound as upbeat as possible.

“Hey, Jamie.” She said my name as if she wanted someone else in the room to know I was on the phone. That wench really thought she was slick.

“What’s up, girl?” she asked.

“Nothing. I was just riding. I’m out over by your house, and I was gonna stop by. What you doing?”

“Oh, girl, I’m not even home. I’m over at my man’s house.”

I wanted to punch something the way she said “my man” all romantic and shit.

“That’s right. You two go to church today?”

“Yeah. It was nice. What about you? You go to church?” This chick was trying to be funny. She knew damn well I hadn’t gone to church. If I had, she’d be picking her teeth up off the floor.

“So, did you get to meet his people yet?”

“No, not yet, but soon.”

“Girl, what you waiting for? You really like him, don’t you?” I asked as I pulled up to the curb in front of Daddy’s place.

“Yeah, but we want the timing to be right.”

“No time like the present. You never know. You might meet one of them today.” I was really struggling to keep the sarcasm out of my voice now. “Hey, Sandra. Let me ask you a question.”

“Sure. Anything.”

“Well, this question’s a little personal.”

“You can ask me anything, girl. There’s no secrets between us.”

I wrapped my fingers tight around the steering wheel, wishing it were her neck. I took a deep breath. “No secrets? Okay. Here goes: Sandra, are you screwing my father?”

There was a distinct pause before she asked, “What would make you think that?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe ’cause I can see you through the front window of his house.”

“Oh shit! James!” I saw her peering through the curtain, pointing at my car.

When Daddy came into view, I just lost it. I jumped out of the car and raced to the front door.

Daddy pulled open the door and stepped outside, his body like a road block to the entrance.

“Jamie, that’s far enough for right now.”

“Let me by, Daddy. I’m gonna kick her half-Korean ass.”

He put his hand out like a stop sign. “You’re not getting in my house unless we’re going to talk about this like adults. And you’re not acting like one now.”

“How am I acting, Daddy? Like I just got betrayed by my friend and my father? This is worse than what Darnel went through with Keisha!”

“I didn’t want you to find out this way.”

“What way did you want me to find out? How could you do this to me?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry I caught you?”

“I didn’t intend it to happen, but it did.”

“She’s a tramp, Daddy, nothing but a gold-digging whore.”

“Jamie, she’s one of your closest friends.”

“Newsflash, Dad: a close friend doesn’t seduce your father behind your back.”

“It wasn’t like that,” he insisted.

“So she hasn’t been lying to me all this time? And you haven’t been lying to me?”

“We have to get past this.”

“I’m never getting past this. I hate her.”

“If you can’t, then we’re going to have a problem, because I love her.”

Did he just say he loves her?
This just kept getting worse.

“Daddy, you and I will never have a problem, but me and Sandra? Our friendship is over, and we will always have a problem.”

“Then I’m sorry, Jamie, but you can’t be here.” He turned and placed a hand on the door knob. “When you’re ready to act like an adult, then you can give me
a call and come by to talk. Other than that, I’ll see you at work.” And then he did something I would not have expected in a million years: he went back inside and closed the door in my face.

“I hope you’re enjoying your sushi,” I whispered into my cell phone to Keisha. “But I thought you didn’t like Japanese food.”

From where I was sitting in my car on the second-tier parking lot, I had a perfect view of Keisha and her date sitting inside the sushi restaurant. Earlier, I had followed them from her apartment, careful to trail them by half a block so they never saw me. Lucky for me, they went to a restaurant with large picture windows, and they were seated at a table right in my line of sight.

I had sat in my car and fumed for a while as they ordered their food and chatted. It was torture watching how relaxed she looked, laughing and giving him flirtatious smiles and patting his hand. And that dress she wore—dude was practically getting a free peep show as low cut as it was. I had planned on just watching and taking some video to use against her later, but I couldn’t stand it anymore after I watched that fool feed Keisha a piece of sushi with his fingers. She ate it like she was performing a sex act. I swear, she licked that brother’s
fingers, no doubt letting him get a preview of what she would be doing with her tongue later.

That’s when I picked up my phone and called her.

“Darnel? How’d you know where I’m at?” I watched her jump up from the table and leave her date. Now she was no longer in view, but I could hear the panic in her voice. The guy she was with was no Prince Charming; he didn’t even bother to follow her to see if she was all right.

“I can see you,” I told her in my best imitation of a horror-movie voice.

“Where are you?”

“I’m in the same place you’re at.”

As I spoke to her, I took a few more pictures of the guy at the table. Whoever he was, he probably had a wife or a girlfriend. Once I found her, I ’d be sure to share my photos with her.

“Why are you doing this to me?”

“Hmm, you think you slick. Think you can be with any man you want. But I ain’t having it.” I clicked off my phone.

I watched her head back to the table and start talking to her date, who had finished half the order of sushi while she was gone. She was gesticulating wildly, waving her cell phone in the air, a panicked expression on her face.

As Keisha and her date started looking nervously around them to see if I was seated somewhere nearby, I thought back to some of the more romantic dinner dates Keisha and I had been on over the years. For a moment, I felt nostalgic. I really loved doing those things with her: eating under the stars, finger-feeding each other, playing footsie under the table. Yeah, this had been our foreplay. We had a way of looking at each
other that was our silent language when we were ready to get busy. But now that was all over—or so Keisha thought.

I went from the warm-fuzzy feeling of reminiscing about the past to straight rage. How did Keisha think she was going to end it with me and pick up with some other guy—or should I say other guys—just like that? It’s like we never even happened. What about all our dreams to have children and build a life together? Didn’t that count for something?

Everything Keisha knew about pleasing a man, I taught her: how to cook my meals, how to run my bathwater, and how to wash my back. At one time, I thought I was the one who taught her how to make love so a man would never want to leave her. Keisha had a muscle inside her that would drive a man out of his ever-loving mind. Shit, look what it had done to me. Now she thought I was going to let her give all that good lovin’ to someone else? Was she crazy? I invested too many years in her to let her go this easily.

In the restaurant, I saw Keisha handing her phone to her date. He punched a few buttons, and then my phone began to ring. I flipped it open.

“Yo.”

“Man, you better stop bothering her.”

“Brother, you better watch yourself or that bitch gonna give you a disease like she did me. You know she got herpes, right?” I lied. “You think I’m trippin’ for no reason? She’s burning, dude. Ask anyone.” Then I hung up.

He said a few things to Keisha at the table, and then I watched them leave the restaurant, their meal unfinished.

Good. Now, that’s what I’m talking about.
I pumped
my fist in the air, feeling victorious. But I also knew the show wasn’t over yet. I leaned forward in my car to enjoy the scene that was about to unfold before me.

I watched brotherman hand the valet his ticket and wait in front of the restaurant with Keisha. Finally, the valet pulled up with his Range Rover.

Keisha’s date’s face changed as soon as he got a good look at his ride. His eyes flew wide open, and he looked absolutely livid. Just reading his lips, I knew he was screaming, “What the fuck?”

He started shouting and cursing his behind off. He stalked around the car, looking at the deep key scratches running down both sides. In a flurry of motion, he began stomping; then he grabbed the valet attendant, who was a small man, by the collar. I could tell the valet was pleading with him, telling him he didn’t know what had happened to his truck.

Meanwhile, Keisha was jumping up and down, screaming for her date to stop. She tried to pull him off the valet, but her date just kept shaking the little guy up and down like a rag doll. Keisha looked totally distraught.

I was laughing my ass off. What a mess!