Cheaters (57 page)

She moaned. “Say something. Please. Say something.”

I cleared my throat.

I flinched, blinked. I hadn’t blinked for a long while.

Softly I asked, “Why didn’t you tell me this yesterday?”

Shelly’s didn’t look the way I thought it would, not at all. Quite a few people had left, but there were enough around to make it feel like late-night after hours. Balloons, streamers,
everything was still in the Mexican palm trees. Banners danced with the breeze that was bringing a hint of the smells from the strawberry and cow fields to the south. Here and there brothers and sisters were strolling, exchanging smiles and numbers, trying to get their romance going. I expected that ambience after everything had settled down, but there were no whispers about any kind of pandemonium. I’d passed by a couple of people I knew who were down near the coffee house. They said that nothing had jumped off. No angry wives had come to claim their husbands.

I wondered what the hell had happened in my absence.

I followed the soft sound of the music.

Darnell’s car was gone. So was Tammy’s.

I heard her arm filled with silver bracelets jingling before I saw her. Chanté and Karen were leaving the club, looking exhausted and running their fingers through their hair at the same time, avoiding the pack of scavengers who were trying to get their last-chance mack on.

Chanté saw me and stopped in her tracks. Her dark lips didn’t part. Her arched brows were still.

I looked at her without compunction.

Short skirt that hugged her with possessiveness. Tall block-heel shoes. Silver bracelets. Blue sleeveless blouse open just enough to show off her tight belly and that silver earring in her navel. Wild hair that was moving with the breeze. Intelligent as night is dark. As beautiful as the sun is hot.

She glared with probing eyes that said she was through with me. The way her judicial gaze was slamming on my face made a lump as big as a fist pop in my throat. Just like that, she had used her powers to chill the light breeze.

She was so complicated.

My life had been so complicated.

So I kept it uncomplicated.

I opened my arms, plain and simple.

Before I could open my mouth, her frown dissolved into a smile. She opened her arms and came to me, bracelets jingling all the way. Slow steps toward my wide-open wings. Then she had the softness of her chest to my chest. I folded my arms around her like it was home. She shifted side to

side. I felt her tremble in rhythm with my own. Heavy breathing as she squeezed me.

Then there was calm.

Karen sashayed right by us. She said, “Take care of yourself, Chanté.”

“You too, Karen.”

We stood and held each other for a while.

She said, “So, Mr. Hyde has turned back into Dr. Jekyll.”

“I was about to say the same thing to you.”

She asked, “Where you been?”

“Went to visit Marilyn Manson and Ellen Degeneres.”

“What?”

I asked, “Where’s Tammy?”

“Her and Darnell should be doing the shout right about now.”

“You’re joking?”

“Nope.”

“They left together?”

She nodded.

I left that at that.

While people walked by, I kissed Chanté. Kissed her lips. Her face. Let my lips warm up that butterfly on her flesh that I missed. She kissed me back. No resistance. No smiles to make this seem not so serious.

She hugged me tighter and put her head deeper into my chest and mumbled, “Sorry.”

“Me, too.”

We savored that moment of forgiveness.

She whispered in my ear as she kissed the side of my face, “Roses are red, violets are blue, Stephan Mitchell, I love you.”

I kissed the side of her face.

She asked, “What you think of my impromptu poem?”

“Don’t quit your day job.”

“Jerk.”

“Jerkette.”

She smiled a little.

Music wafted down from the club. We rocked side to side. Without Tammy’s voice this place seemed so plain. Hollow like a big house that had large rooms, wooden floors, and no furniture.

She whispered, “We need to talk.”

I nodded.

She said, “I’ve got to think about my future.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Every day we get older.”

“That’s a law.”

“Can I stop by your place so we can talk for a while?”

“Okay.”

“Just talk. Nothing else.”

“Okay.”

“I think it’s time for me to listen to my friend’s wisdom and slow down.”

“So, you’re slowing down?”

“Stopping would be better.”

Juan and Rebecca were coming out of their place when me and Chanté walked up my stairs. Juan had on jeans. Rebecca had on a short dress. I couldn’t see any panty lines.

I asked, “Where’re you lovebirds going at two in the morning?”

Both of them smiled. It was a naughty smile.

They held hands and headed wherever they were going.

I watched them. Watched the way they touched each other. The subtle glances. Communication in silence.

After they disappeared, Chanté was still looking in the direction they went. She set free a heavy sigh, a groan.

I asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I wonder if I’ll have to wait as many years as they did to find what they’ve found. That would really be depressing.”

I thought about my daddy. “Yeah, I guess it would.”

Chanté asked, “Why did you get a new door?”

“Termites.”

“Stephan, termites don’t just attack doors.”

I stopped Chanté before she could get through the door, slowed her stroll and put my hand between her legs and squeezed.

She said, “Ouch. What was that all about?”

“Just making sure you’re a woman.”

As she stepped inside, a strange look came over her face. A deep, serious expression. Her head tilted like she was contemplating. I could tell that she was in a reflective mood.

I asked, “What’s the matter?”

“You said ‘a woman.’”

“And?”

She shrugged. “Just thinking. Feeling. I have a long way to go up that road to get there, to be the kind I know I can be.”

“You’re a great woman.”

“Negative, not yet. My voice rings out in the tone of a woman. I feel pain like every other sista I know, or every sista who will be. I sure as hell can make love like a woman. But every third day I fall apart like I’m my daddy’s little girl.”

I felt solemn after she said that. I admitted, “So far as being a man, same thing here.”

She quizzed, “Any idea how to get there?”

“Manhood is a process. It’s not overnight. You train yourself to act a certain way and hold yourself accountable.”

She said, “Same thing goes for being a woman.”

With a slight bob of my head I said, “I guess.”

“Want to walk that road together?”

“For how long?”

She shrugged. “Awhile, if not forever.”

“Do I hear an escape clause?”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

We stood at the door and kissed for a while.

I asked her, “What do you want to do right now?”

“First tell me what you want to do.”

“Love you.”

“Good thing we don’t judge a man by the size of his thoughts, or there’d be no men left to judge.”

“Ouch. That was sexist.”

“I’m learning.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to sleep in your space. Put on one of your T-shirts, some of your paisley boxer shorts and a pair of those big, thick socks and cradle my head in your lap and sleep.”

“Sounds good.”

“But first I want to feel you swelling inside me.”

“Thought you wanted to slow down.”

“Tomorrow. Change is hard.”

“Tell me about it.”

She spoke in a wispy tone, “If I had never been in love, I wouldn’t crave the wonderful, crazy and euphoric feeling it gave when it was working. If I had never had sex, I’d never ache for the eroticism while I worked it with someone I wanted to have my heart. If I had never been heartbroken, I wouldn’t fight the feeling of love when it came.”

“You’re fighting it?”

“I wouldn’t be fighting the feeling now. So much betrayal from so few people has left me so jaded.”

“I understand. You don’t have to be ashamed of what you feel.”

“I know. But sometimes I am.”

“Don’t be. Not with me.”

“If the truth be told, Stephan, I have to be honest.”

“Okay.”

“My failed relationships were built with an oatmeal foundation. I want something solid. That thang called l-o-v-e has made a social call, but never really moved into my life. Love should be one hundred percent and not graded on a curve.”

I let her know, “You’re getting deep on me.”

“I’m emotional. Very. So the intensity I get from loving somebody I’m in love with is remarkable. Damn near uncontrollable. I love hard, love deep, love long.”

We kissed for a while.

I told her, “Love is like finding fresh water. I want to drink of you, Chanté.”

“Good, ‘cause I’m thirsty too.”

She opened the curtains, let the light from the street light outside my window shine through the vertical blinds. I turned back the sheets nice and slow. I took off my shirt while she pulled off her silver bracelets. Tied her hair back.

I said, “Leave it down.”

“It’s already sweaty.”

“I like it wild.”

“You don’t have to comb it.”

“I’ll comb it for you.”

“Ooooh. Next you’ll be painting my toenails.”

“Never know.”

I readjusted the pillows and watched her satin bra fall to

the floor. She stared at me and set free a soft sigh. Unsnap. Unzip. Down to her thong panties. Then to her dark and beautiful flesh. Flesh to flesh. A long embrace. I was that animal again, smelling her. She was smelling me.

She started giggling.

I asked, “What’s funny?”

“Nothing. Don’t frown like that.”

“Was I frowning?”

“It was a cute frown.”

“Why were you laughing?”

“I was looking at your buck fifty—”

“My what?”

“Your thing-a-mah-jig.”

“And?”

“It was moving side to side, real slow.”

“So?”

“I started thinking about a windshield wiper.”

The morning sunrise was as beautiful as the glow in her eyes. I had a strong feeling of melancholy. Things were on my chest.

I talked to her about my daddy. It wasn’t easy sharing myself, but I did my best. I told her about the last time I saw him on that humid day down in Mississippi. Let her know that the man who used to be my daddy’s best friend was now my stepdaddy. Told her how he did things for me, like teach me how to fix cars, the trips to Disneyland, things he did not because he liked or loved me, but because somebody had to step in and ease the burden my daddy had left behind. Didn’t know where I’d be without Pops. I guess I was trying to say that I owed him a lot. Told her how I never got a chance to say good-bye to my daddy. I had to tell her all of that because Daddy had come to me in a dream and I woke up feeling heavy, stopped up with emotion.

I admitted, “I’m afraid to die alone like he did.”

She asked, “You crying?”

“Nah. I don’t cry.”

“Then your eyes have a leak.”

“Get some duct tape.”

Her voice was feather soft. “Let me hold you.”

“Let me hold you back.”

“I never knew you could be like this.”

I asked, “Like what?”

“So yadda yadda yadda.”

I masked my emotions with a manly chuckle.

She traced her fingers around my chin. “I like this side of you too.”

I still missed him. Guess I always would. Missed him, but not his wisdom. I was on another road now.

Life would get busier, more crazy, and I wouldn’t see Jake for a while. A few times our paths would cross and we’d hang out in L.A. Catch a party at Little J’s. Duets. Hook up at the Shark Bar. Club Fifty. Or on the Avenue of the Stars.

All of that would get old. It always did.

Without Charlotte in his life, Jake wouldn’t have any reason to keep coming out east to hang out in the Inland Empire. A few months after the dust settled, he’d be on television. A fire broke out on Fairfax Avenue, at the Cienega Apartments right behind LA Hot Wings. That sudden blaze burned down a section of the building that faced the fire station.

Jake would be the one who ran in and saved three children, then came back out. But he’d say that he heard the voices calling him. Voices of other children. No one heard those cries but him. Other firemen tried to stop him, but he ran back into the jaws of the flames.

There was silence.

The type of silence that surrounded death.

Then Jake burst through the smoke, like Wesley Snipes in an action movie, coughing, hanging onto two crying children, one in each arm. He collapsed, but after a good dose of oxygen and a few days in Cedar Sinai, he was okay. In every newspaper, he was a hero. The man of the hour.

Every time I talked to him, he asked about Charlotte. A tentative smile of regret lived in the corner of his lips, on the surface of his eyes. She never asked me about him. I never talked about him in front of her. Every year, at Christmastime, Valentine’s Day, and on her birthday, without fail, a dozen long-stemmed roses would show up on her doorstep. Flowers and a card that had no signature.

Dawn had a miscarriage before Darnell’s first book was

published. The first one was the bomb. In the second one I’d see some of all of us, too much of me between the pages. Things that I’d done that didn’t look too cool on paper. Not everybody could stand looking in the mirror. Darnell was still working at the FAA during the day, then writing at night.

Dawn threw book parties at their house. Side by side, she and Darnell would smile and be the perfect hosts. Sometimes I would go, a lot of times I didn’t. Dawn didn’t get along with Chanté, so that made it uncomfortable for everybody.

One day Darnell called me and asked to give him a ride to LAX. He told me he had to catch a flight to Phoenix to handle a trial against an airline carrier. Something about a hidden shipment. He left his car at my condo early that morning. At LAX he had me pull over at the Tom Bradley Terminal.