Unfaithful Ties (19 page)

****

Lena twisted the blinds shut, gathered her notes and briefcase, and headed for the elevator. Her office suite was on the ninth floor and she didn’t feel like taking the stairs. When the elevator started going down those images of her and Chris were haunting her again. She pulled herself together. She had to because it was going to take God and a whole lot of praying to sell the two houses that had been on the market for over six months. Driving her own car would only be a hassle so she’d already called a taxi. Hopefully the driver was already sitting out front.

Kenneth, who’d been standing beside the elevator waiting to go up, caught her by surprise when she stepped off.

There were a few people around, dressed in dark suits and Italian shoes, skirt suits and stilettos, most of them coasting by hurriedly as if they were almost late for an important meeting.

Lena was carrying her briefcase, dressed in a black wrap dress, stilettos, and her hair pulled into a bun.

“Kenneth what are you doing here?” She asked as they began walking.

“You didn’t get my message?”

“No. What’s wrong?”

“My car was towed today”

“For what?”

So this was the game she was going to play?
The I don’t know why game. That enraged Kenneth even more. He raised his voice from a whisper to a roar, “What in the hell do you mean for what? You put a lien on my title and now you’re going to pretend that you don’t know what in the hell is going on?”

Lena didn’t say anything but her eyes said it all. He’d pissed her off coming to her job with this bullshit. Couldn’t this wait until they got home? He was embarrassing her.

He asked, “Oh so now you can’t talk?”

She gave him an evil stare and didn’t respond. Her anger was growing. “Can we talk about this at home? I’m on my way to a meeting and you’re embarrassing the shit out of me” “I’m not going to have this conversation right now” She mumbled, attempting to keep the people surrounding them out of their business.

“I’m embarrassing you. Please let’s not talk about embarrassment. Because I’m the one that was embarrassed today” He said, raising his voice even more.

His deep baritone voice could hardly go unnoticed and a few people walking by them glanced at them as if they were crazy or as if they
frightened them. Kenneth and Lena both ignored them and continued to move along.

“Well I don’t want to talk about it later. I want to talk about it right now”

She sped up, walking a few steps ahead of him.

Kenneth took her by the arm after he’d caught up with her, and yanked her closer to him. “I’m sick of this shit Lena. I’m so sick of it. What kind of financial crisis do you have us in that’s so bad that you had to pawn my damn title”

Trying to do it as discreetly as possible, she jerked away. “Let go of me” she mumbled. “You want to talk about this right now, fine…but not right here. Let’s go back to my office and if I miss out on my meeting and we end up losing everything that we’ve worked hard for, you’re the blame” She told him with nastiness in her voice.

They headed back towards the elevator, both choleric and full of agony, then stood and waited. The elevator doors open
ed, people stepped off, glanced at them, indicating that they could sense the tension between them. They both were so pissed that they didn’t notice or maybe they just didn’t care.

They stepped on, started going up, both on opposite sides of the elevator. Like two unfriendly strangers alone in a very tight room they were silent. At each stop someone new got on, talking…laughing…smiling, still they remain quiet. Antsy to get to the ninth floor. When they got to their stop, quickly they stepped off and paced to Lena’s office where they argued as soon as the door closed.

Kenneth yelled. “The lies stop today. Right here. Right now. You’re going to tell me everything”

He didn’t expect that she’d keep pretending that nothing was going on with her. He expected that she’d come clean. But she didn’t.

She threw both arms to the ceiling. “Tell you what Kenneth? There is nothing to tell”

“Lena cut the bullshit.  On your birthday, I bought you a diamond bracelet from Tiffany’s and you insisted that I take it back because you said that we couldn’t afford it. And now, today, my car is towed because you took out a lien on my title. What in the hell is going on with you?”

She continued lying
“Nothing”

I’m not going for that bullshit ass lie Lena” Kenneth yelled. “Not today. Either you’re going to let me know what’s going on right now or we’ll stay here until you do”

Lena remained speechless.

“Fine then. You’re the one that has a
so-called important meeting to attend. Me on the other hand? I have all the time in the world”

After collapsing into the seat of her desk chair Lena cried “
We’re broke Kenneth. I’ve made some bad investments and we’re broke. We have twenty thousand dollars in savings and that’s it. Once I pay the mortgage,  the insurance and the utilities, and Mckhi’s tuition for next semester, we won’t have any more money.”

“Are you telling me that three hundred thousand dollars’ worth of savings are gone?”

“Yes” She yelled panicky. “It’s gone.  All of our money is gone”

“How did this happen?”

I made some investments that I thought would gross some steady income and they weren’t good investments.”

“When did all this start?”

“Two years ago”

“And what about my car? How were you able to pawn the title without my signature?”

“One of my clients that I’ve grown close with over the years owns a title pawn company and she agreed to let me forge your signature, so I did it. I accepted the minimum loan amount which was ten thousand dollars and I haven’t been able to make the monthly payments since”

“Damn it Lena, I’ve been telling you for years that your spending habits and your need to keep up with the Jones’s was going to bankrupt us. All of those four hundred dollar dinners with clients, your high-priced designer shoes and attire,
Mckhi’s expensive ass tuition, because you don’t want him to go public school, has done to us exactly what I predicted that it would do” He voiced. “For years you’ve portrayed yourself as this woman that has it all together, the business, the nice car, the marriage, the extravagant lifestyle…For what?.”  He yelled. “These people your portraying this false image to are paying their bills. I bet they’re not about to lose their cars. They probably have retirement money in the bank. The money for their kids to go to college is secured. And look at us?” he roared. “Damn near on the verge of losing everything all because you want to impress people. Anything else that I should know about? Are there any more secrets? Because if so I suggest that you tell me now”

“The mortgage hasn’t been paid in four months”

“What exactly have you been paying? Don’t you think that the mortgage should have been paid first” He argued.

“I’m the breadwinner and I didn’t have it. I had no choice”

“You had no choice?” He shouted. “Shit Lena!” He was now pacing the room, his head lowered, hands in his pocket. “If you knew that we were behind on the mortgage, why didn’t you come to me?”

“
Pleassse, Kenneth! Your paycheck can barely pay the cable bill. Where would you get the money from?”

“You weren’t complaining about how much money I make when you were out spending it all. Putting us in debt. Which one of us had the most savings in that account?” He roared. “I did…And who’s going to get us out this
shit you’ve put us in?...I am.”

“When have you ever been able to get us out of anything?” Sometimes I feel like I’m the man in this marriage.

Kenneth rushed across the room, stood in front Lena’s desk, his brow raised, hands still in his pockets. “What did you just say?”

“I said that I feel like I’m the man in this marriage”

“You know what? If you weren’t my wife I would call you a selfish bitch because that’s exactly what you’ve turned into. Everything that I’ve done for this family, and you say that to me!”

“What you did for
Khi and I was years ago and you haven’t been able to do much since. I am the breadwinner in this partnership”

“You call this a partnership?”

“Refer to it as whatever you want to. I really don’t care.”

“Oh …so you don’t care?”

“Kenneth I don’t have time for this right now”

“Answer the question. You don’t care if I leave?”

“Will you lower your damn voice? People are going to hear you. Like I said I don’t have time for this right now, I need to get to my meeting.”

“Oh yeah?” He smiled, and headed for the door. Opening the door he shouted. “Since your employees want to hear what I have to say let me make it easier for them.”

Lena rushed to the door and closed it back. “Your so damn ignorant.”

“Listen to me” He suggested. “You can choose to come down off that high horse and start treating me better, like I am a man, your husband and not one of your employees that you can just boss around, or you can end up broke and single. Just because I make less money than you
don’t mean that you can treat me any less than the man that I am and ridicule me. Now I am going to get us out of this jam that you’ve put us in and from now on, no more secrets.”

“And just how do you plan on doing that off of your salary?”

“With my savings”

“What do you mean?”

“Life insurance check from my parents death. A half of a million dollars.”

Lena was stunned, her mouth and eyes both stretched as wide as she could stand. “So, you’ve also been keeping secrets”

“Please stop it…okay!” He suggested. “Don’t try and flip things around on me with all the secrets that you’ve been keeping. Good thing I didn’t tell you about the money. Otherwise we’d really be broke.

****

Kenneth slammed the door shut and headed towards the elevator. The whispering ceased as he sauntered by the nosey employees with a disturbing expression etched on his face. He could tell that they’d been eavesdropping. He hoped that they’d had an earful.

Standing outside of the tall building he pulled his mobile out of his pocket and dialed Storm.

“Storm where are you?”

“Down at the station”

“Do you remember where my wife’s office is located?”

“Of course I do”

“Will you come by and give me a ride to the stati
on?”

“I sure will. I’m on my way”

If Kenneth couldn’t depend on anyone else he could always depend on Storm. Not long after they hung up she was rolling her car to a stop directly in front of the building. He raced to the Crown Victoria and clambered in. “Well hello there Mr. Gibson.” Storm smiled.

“What’s up!
” He spoke.

She could tell by his body language that he wasn’t too happy. “What’s wrong with you?”

“It’s a long story” He said, looking out the window as Storm pulled out into the traffic.

“Well you’ll just continue to have that desolate look on your face if you don’t tell someone what’s bothering you. You look sad”

“I’m not sad Storm. I’m just frustrated. Very frustrated. And miserable”

“Marriage problems again?”

“How’d you know?”

“Because it’s the only thing that gets you down like this”

“I just don’t understand Lena, ya’ know? No matter what I do she’s never satisfied. Nothing I do is never good enough. And lately she’s been keeping all these secrets. Do you know why I had to ask you to come by and get me?”

“No. Why?”

He turned to Storm. “Because my wife pawned my title and my car was repossessed.”

“Damn. Can you get it back?”

He continued peering out of the window. “If not the title company will have a lawsuit on their hands because I haven’t signed anything.”

“She forged your signature”

Glancing over at Storm he sighed “Yes” Then focused his eyes on the traffic in front of them.  “I’m getting sick of this shit. How can you be with a woman damn near your entire life and not know her? I don’t know what’s gotten into her lately but I’m burned out”

“Kenneth if I ask you something will you
promise not to get mad?”

“Storm you know that you can ask me anything.”

“Why do you put up with her crap. You are good catch. Any woman with eyes can see that you’re fine as hell. You’re respectful. Outgoing. You can have any woman you want”

“Because I love her and I want my marriage to work”

“Some marriages are just not meant to be. It takes two people to make it work. Be honest with your self, do you think that she tries to make your marriage work as hard as you do? What you need is a woman that has your back. That loves you for you. That respects you. Does she? I’ve seen you two together and I’m not convinced that she does.”

“Honestly if we’d been together two years instead of twenty-two years. I think that she would have left years ago.”