Cheaters (24 page)

“Stephan Mitchell,” I whispered as delicate as a snow-flake. “I know you’re going to look back to see if I’m looking.”

He kept moving away from my life.

I said, “I have power. You better recognize that, partner.”

Then he glanced back and saw my silhouette pondering down on him. From where I stood, the way his face looked flushed under the streetlights, I felt him, his energy, his raging undercurrent, sensed that his breathing was just as disturbed as mine. He paused, stared like he couldn’t decide which way to go.

All he could see was my dark shape, couldn’t feel the mixed-up part of me that was wondering what kind of signal I’d just put out, couldn’t see the tears that were in my swollen eyes.

He waved.

So did I.

With slow, heavy steps he moved to his car.

Stephan drove off.

I stood there, staring at the spot where he had parked.

I spoke over the lump in my throat. “Twice is begging.”

Ten p.m. Out in the Inland Empire it had been almost a hundred degrees all day, not a record high for the beginning of May, but hot enough to avoid any outdoor activity. It had calmed down to a warm night. All of the lights were

off, except a black and golden lamp on my mahogany desk. I had been at the computer, writing. This was where I’d been since I made it home from the FAA at six, three hours and five pages ago.

The garage door whirred open, broke my stride. By my watch, Dawn was more than three hours late. Not that it mattered.

I tried to wrap up the paragraph, not lose my thought before Dawn made it inside. Keys jingled in the back door. I imagined her bringing in her briefcase, the negativity, the other things she dragged home from her office. The door that led from the garage to the kitchen opened and closed.

“Darnell, sweetheart?”

“I’m in the office.”

“Doing what?”

“Working. You need help with something?”

“No.” She paused. Paper was ripped, sounded like mail. Lights came on in the other part of the house. She asked, “What are you working on?”

I stopped typing and rubbed my temples. “Work.”

“Legal work?”

I didn’t reply.

She yelled, “Are you finishing up your unlawful detainers?”

I started to tell her what she wanted to hear, say I was using Dissomaster software and punching in info on a paternity action I had picked up from one of our neighbors, but I didn’t lie. I said, “No. Working on my novel.”

“Oh.” Her tone changed. “So, you’re playing.”

“No, I’m working.”

“You’re playing.”

Dawn’s shoes click-clopped over the tiles in the kitchen, changed beats when she crossed the hardwood toward the bathroom. That door opened and closed. A minute later the toilet flushed. The door opened again, her heels click-clopped across the living room, then softened when she made it to the carpet. Her shadow eased down the hallway, crept into the office, stopped in the doorjamb. She had on green pants, cream-colored top. I was in plaid boxers and a plain white T-shirt. Her reflection was in my monitor. She was watching me, shaking her head.

I asked, “You worked this late?”

Her response was curt. “No.”

She left it at that.

I asked, “Where have you been?”

She paused. “Sweetheart, you shouldn’t stare at the screen so long. You might go blind.”

“Thought masturbation did that.”

“I’ll let you know in a few weeks.”

“What does that mean?”

“Means what it means.”

“Which is?”

“If I have a baby that looks like my right hand, don’t be surprised.”

I let her snide remark go.

Again I asked, “Where have you been?”

She paused before she said, “I left work early.”

“For what?”

“I rode up to San Fernando.”

San Fernando was on the other side of Hollywood, a good ways from here in ruthless L.A. weekday traffic. “You skipped work and went all the way out to visit your mother?”

She clicked on the light, entered my world, destroyed my darkness. She didn’t answer my last question.

I asked, “She all right?”

She tossed my mail on my desk, dropped her mail on hers. “What are you insinuating?”

“Nothing.”

“If you have something to say, then say it. Don’t try to use that backdoor tactic that lawyers use. Don’t lawyer me.”

“I wasn’t
lawyering
you.”

“I haven’t been home five minutes and you’re asking more questions than are on
Jeopardy
!”

“Well,” I contrived a chuckle, “lately you’ve been doing a pretty good imitation of Alex Trebek yourself.”

“You the one grilling me over where I’ve been.”

I raised my palms in defeat. “I was hoping my mother-in-law wasn’t sick and you weren’t telling me, that’s all.”

Dawn backed off. She relaxed back in her chair, eyes pointed at the ceiling, stared deep into the overhead light.

I asked, “How is your mother?”

“She’s my mother. I’ll only have one. She doesn’t have

to be sick, it doesn’t have to be a weekend for me to go see her.”

“You didn’t let me know where you were.”

“I didn’t know I had to check in whenever I left home.”

“Just asking for the same courtesy you demand of me.”

Her eyes came back to me. “Demand?”

I said, “Okay, ask—with an attitude.”

She kicked her shoes off. “I see.”

“I’ll remember that the next time I walk out the door.”

“You do that. But even when you’re here, you’re gone, so I don’t think there will be much of a difference.”

Dawn unloaded some papers from her briefcase. Unsnapped her bra, pulled it off, but left her blouse on. She never said exactly what she wanted, and I guess that made it my job to figure out what she was thinking. Mars and Venus were colliding.

She clicked on her computer. Whirs, clicks, the sounds of the machine and her separate printer coming to life. She went out into cyberworld and checked her e-mail. I went back to typing. Trying to, anyway. Dawn mumbled to herself while she read her messages, noises that wrecked my flow.

My thoughts were gone. Crushed.

She clicked off her PC and faced me. Her knee bumped against the paper tray on the printer when she spun around. I felt her watching me, but I pretended I didn’t.

“Darnell, how long’re you going to be up, sweetheart?”

“Don’t know. Why?”

“I want to talk to you about something.”

I didn’t stop typing, feigned like I was deep into my work. But I wasn’t. The moment that my wife said that she wanted to talk to me about something, Tammy came to mind. I wondered if someone had seen us together over the last two weeks while we sat and critiqued work, sipped cappuccinos, ate scones, laughed.

“Darnell, sweetheart. Did you hear me say we need to talk?”

“Yes, sweetheart.”

She rolled her high-back chair across the tan carpet. “Can you stop with the hobby and give me your attention for a moment?”

I repeated, “Hobby?”

“Is what you’re doing generating household income? Have you claimed what you’re doing as an occupation with the IRS?”

“You know I haven’t.”

She emphasized,
“Hobby.”

I smiled, kept my blooming resentment for her feelings, or lack of feelings, for my
hobby
to myself.

She asked, “Think you can pull away from tip-tapping on your little computer long enough to give your wife a hug?”

I hugged her, spoke in a gentle way, “Hey.”

She kissed me, then softly asked, “How was your day?”

Her kisses were sincere, but her speech was rote, so I sensed that moments of affection were what she wanted. I turned away from my computer and faced the beautiful creature who wore my wedding ring. She held on to me, rubbed my bare back underneath my T-shirt, ran her hands over my head, kissed my brow. I did the same to her.

She was creeping up on what was bothering her. I felt it.

Finally she said, “Darnell.”

I waited. She made a sound like she was coming up for air.

She asked, “Do I satisfy you?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“What you did.”

“What do you mean, what I did?”

“That evening in the garage. What you did to me.”

“When we made love?”

“No, when you
fucked
me. You shoved me up against my truck like I was some dime-store hooker and
fucked
me.”

We were eye to eye, treading in new bitterness.

“I felt degraded. Defiled. You just pushed yourself up inside of me like you were twisted and psychotic.”

“Twisted and psychotic,” I repeated.

I waited for her to take those words back, maybe rephrase what she’d accused me of, but she gazed at me with disdain.

I rocked in my swivel chair, smoothed my hands over my bare legs, gave up a primal grunt that signified that I felt confused. Perplexed because in that moment when we had been standing up, loving with so much fervor, she had let out back-to-back screams of passion. Now I was lost in my

own house, lost in this marriage. Pain and animosity peppered my timbre. “You make it sound like I raped you.”

Dawn ran her hand across her hair. “I wanted you to know how I felt.”

“Are you saying that I raped you?”

“I’m simply trying to express to you how I felt about what happened. Don’t turn this around and make it all about you.”

“Yes or no, are you saying that I raped you?”

“You’re the attorney, you tell me.” Her tone was cruel and smooth. “What would you call it? You forced yourself on me in the broad of day, with the garage door wide the fuck open. I’m saying you treated me like I was less than what I am. As a woman, as your wife, I’m saying I felt degraded and humiliated.”

Quiet and distance fell on us, asphyxiated us.

Sinking, sinking. My soul felt ill. Diseased.

She’d snatched the last twinkle of light from heaven.

I turned my computer off. Pulled on my khakis, Nikes, and changed into a gray T-shirt. Hopped in my car and went for a long ride.

It was 10:20
P.M
. and I was reading
Seize the Night
when the phone rang. Damn phone was always ringing. I’d called Samantha, then hung up when her answering machine kicked on, so I bet a week’s pay that she was doing a *69. Either that or she saw my name on her caller-ID box and figured she’d better straighten things out right now.

I was wrong.

“I want my stuff,” Toyomi said. “You ain’t shit.”

“That depends on who you ask.”

Her voice was bitter. You’d definitely get more kindness from some old-school KKK at a Juneteenth celebration.

I hated when relationships dropped to that pitiful, juvenile,
I’m coming to get my stuff, you come and get all yours
point.

She said, “I want my television.”

“You’ve lost your mind. That is not your television.”

“That is
my
TV,” she insisted. “I paid for it.”

“You gave it to me for my birthday.”

“I’ll be damned if you and some other skank are going to be laying up watching my TV. And I want the comforter. I want my sunglasses that I left over there. I want my plants.”

“What you did to my car wasn’t necessary.”

“What you did wasn’t necessary.”

“You gonna pay for my car?”

“Hell, no.”

“Then I don’t give a damn what you want.”

I wanted to hang up, I should’ve, but she’d sucked me down to her level, made me so mad that spit was flying out my mouth, and I couldn’t back off. God, I was glad that I got to see this side of her before it was too late.

Her remarks were scathing. “
You will.
Trust me,
you will.
You’re going to regret this.”

I snapped, “What about my suits you messed up?”

“I left your junk out by the trash. Shar did the rest. Call that no-good bitch.”

“What did Shar do?”

“As far as your car is concerned, you knew better than to come out here after what you tried to pull.”

“So,” I asked, “you’re not gonna reimburse me for anything?”

“I’m coming over to get my stuff after you leave.”

“Oh, you’re going to break in?”

“Don’t have to. For all you know, I might have a key.”

“How’d you get a key?”

She laughed.

Again I asked, “How did you get a key?”

“Never know. I could’ve had it duplicated.”

I couldn’t tell if she was real or gaming.

“Well,” I paused and found me some calm, “I’ve already called the homeowners and told security about our situation. Rebecca’s always at home, and I told her we broke

up, so if you come inside without my permission, she’ll be dialing 9-1-1 before you—”

“Stephan, go to hell. I have personal property inside your place, and I know my rights. I’ll bring Five-O with me when I come. You’ve left a key out plenty of times. Droopy-titty Rebecca’ll be more than happy to testify to that.”

“Forget that. I didn’t give you a key.”

“You want to get me arrested? I’ve given you over a year of my life, wasted…” Her anger came on strong, and she choked on her words. “That’s messed up. Both you and Shar are fucked up.”

“What did she do?”

“I should’ve seen right through you and that bitch from the get-go.”

I did feel bad. But I was more afraid of her than I ever realized. I tried to calm her down. “Toyomi—”

She howled like a bleeding canine. “I’m going to fuck you up fuck you up fuck you up fuck you up.”

She slammed the phone so hard the vibrations rode the freeway, created a new fault from her heart to my front door.

Toyomi had played hardball, tried to rattle me.

It worked. Too well it worked.

As I licked my lips, Toyomi’s threats echoed in my ears. There was only one door to my condo. One way in, one way out. I made sure the door was locked, put the chain on, made sure the patio was secure just in case she decided to climb up and surprise me, kept the inside dark so I could see her crazy ass first, waited for that lunatic to pull up.

I was so on edge that I’d be up half the night, pacing, jumping whenever a car hit the speed bump outside my window.