Feelin' the Vibe (28 page)

I tried shaking my head. He said, “Don’t fucking play with me, Clark.”

He raised the knife and the point headed for my head. My life flashed before my eyes. I saw the knife darting toward me. Then
a loud sound of it piercing through the door startled me as I looked at it from the corner of my eye. He let go of my throat
and my body dropped to the floor. He yanked the door open and walked out. I got to my feet and hobbled after him. “Kenneth!
Kenneth!”

“Go back in the house.”

“Baby, please.”

I grabbed his arm and he pushed me away, nearly knocking me to the ground. “Leave me the fuck alone.”

“Let me explain.” He looked at me. I felt his pain. “Please, baby. Let me explain.”

He wiped the sweat from his face. “Explain what, Clark? You’ve been fucking him our entire marriage.”

“No, I swear.”

“You think I’m supposed to believe you? The goddam reporter just told me y’all had an on-and-off affair for ten years.”

“You have to know that’s a lie.”

“Why the fuck should I believe you? Tell me that—why the fuck should I believe you?”

I looked him in the eye. “Because I believed you. I never once asked you if what Raven said was true, because I know the man
I married. And you should know me.”

“Marriage doesn’t mean shit to you, Clark.”

He headed back toward the house and I stood there and watched him stroll back down the street. Tears rolled down my face.
I didn’t know what to do or say. I followed him down the street and before I made it to my house, the door slammed. When I
tried the door, it was locked. I banged frantically, before realizing that I could just enter the code into the garage. When
the door rose, my heart pounded. I wondered if I should go in or just stay on the steps. I didn’t have keys or a purse or
a phone, but I wasn’t sure it was safe to be in there with him alone. I walked back to the front of the house and sat on the
steps. My head rested in my hands, and I wondered if I had willed this to happen. I wanted adventure. I wanted exhilaration,
but it wasn’t worth it. I wanted to go back to a stiff, regular life.

As I sat there, crying uncontrollably, Mia’s silver Hyundai Accent swerved into the driveway. She jumped out of the car and
ran to me. “Are you okay, Ma? Taliah called me and said y’all were fighting outside.”

Taliah was a girl across the street. I was slightly embarrassed, but I couldn’t focus on that at the moment.

“What’s going on?” Mia asked.

I shook my head. I didn’t want to talk about it.

“Did that girl do something else?”

“It was me this time, Mia. It was something I did.”

She adjusted her teeny-weeny denim shorts and sat on the brick steps with me. “Whatchu mean? What happened?”

It pained me to say it. I couldn’t find the words, so I just shook my head.

“Where’s Daddy?”

“He’s in there, but he’s very angry.”

She looped her arm through the Louis Vuitton doctor’s bag that I’d handed down to her and stood, pulling her keys out. I jumped
up. “Mia, you shouldn’t go in there.”

“He can’t be that angry.”

She put her key in the door and I stood behind her. The door swung open and I crept in her shadow. I wanted to be sure the
coast was clear. She walked into the family room and called him hesitantly before I peeked around the corner. He had yanked
the phone out of the wall. She trotted over to him and I stepped into the kitchen to see his response.

She hugged him. “Daddy, are you okay?”

He wept in her arms, exposing a side of him that I’d never seen. “Mia, my life is fucked up. I don’t have anything. I’ve lost
everything.”

She kept repeating, “It’s okay, Daddy. It’s going to be okay.”

“We’re going to lose our house. I won’t be able to pay for you to go to school. We have nothing. All I have is you, Mia.”

“Daddy, Mommy’s here. She’s not going to leave you.”

“She’s not your damn mother! How many times do I have to tell you that?” he snapped.

My heart shattered and I couldn’t believe my ears. I knew he was angry, but the way he said it let me know they’d had this
conversation in the past.
Not her mother
. Mia’s biological mother left her with Kenneth when Mia was five and went off to marry some guy and then some other guy after
that. She had only been a casual presence in Mia’s life. From the beginning of our relationship, I had been there day in and
day out: her first period, her first boyfriend, her first everything.

I walked closer to him and tears fell from my eyes. “How could you say that?”

The emotion in the room forced Mia to cry, too. “Daddy, please.”

“Please nothing. Ask her, Mia. Ask her! Ask her to tell about how she’s been fucking somebody else our entire relationship.”

She gasped and I looked at her apologetically. “Mia, that’s not true.”

“Daddy?”

“Check out the
Washington Post.
It’s all in the paper today.”

Mia glared at me. I shook my head, but her expression told me she believed him. I didn’t get the benefit of the doubt she’d
given him. I guess blood
was
thicker than water. Kenneth slouched back into his seat and dropped his head in his hands. Mia’s deep-set eyes pierced through
me. Her chocolate skin was red with anger, as she and I stood face-to-face. She was not my daughter and I was not her mother.
I was just a woman who had hurt her father.

“Mia, listen to me. I never meant to hurt him. I love him. We’ve been having a really hard time and I did something I shouldn’t
have done.”

“What did you do?”

“I had an affair.”

“What are y’all doing to each other?” she yelled, as she stormed out of the house in tears.

I went to sit beside Kenneth, rubbed his back, and poured my heart out. “Kenneth, you have to believe me. I never meant to
hurt you. This was a one-time thing and I broke it off. I believe in you and I believe in our marriage. You have to know that.
You haven’t lost everything, because I’m not going anywhere. I’m here for you, Kenneth. I’m here for you.”

He leaned back and looked at me and I didn’t know how to interpret his expression. Finally, he spoke. “I believe you.”

I hugged him tightly and he halfheartedly hugged me back. “We’ll get through this. All of this. These things make relationships
stronger.”

I probably should have packed up and rolled out, but I didn’t. His emotions had just gotten the best of him. He would never
hit me. It was just what he was dealing with that had forced him into that rage.

I wondered about Devin and how his wife handled the news. If the media were blowing up my phone, surely they were parked outside
of his house.

Kenneth stroked my hair. “How did we get here?”

“I don’t know.”

“I just want it to be like it used to be.”

I nodded on his chest. “Me too.”

Kenneth was out of control and it was killing him. He’d always been the one with all the answers. Now he was a victim in need
of therapy. He was off balance and angry at the world. We turned the television off and lay down on the family room floor
in silence, like we were waiting for the earthquake to pass.

J
ennifer called me three hours and fifteen minutes later. “Devin, do you want me to come to the house?”

“No, there are reporters camped outside. I’ll give you directions to the day camp.”

“Wow, Devin. It’s that bad?”

I laughed it off. “Real bad.”

“I’ll see you in a minute. Give me the address. I’ll plug it into the navigation system.”

I felt slightly choked up as I gathered Nicole’s things. I owed her a more stable life. This just wasn’t fair to anyone. When
I pulled from my driveway, reporters snapped pictures of me, and I just couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t let us deal
with this in private.

Curtis called just as I was driving off. “Why the hell haven’t you been answering your phone?”

“I thought you quit.”

“Man, I’m not going to let you drive off the cliff alone. I believe in you and I’m working with a publicist that’s excellent
with damage control. Don’t talk to any reporters—and more importantly, don’t call that woman.”

“I won’t.”

“Let me smooth this situation over.”

“I’m sorry, man.”

He laughed. “Shit, if you win despite all of this, I can manage any campaign I want.”

“Yeah, man. Look on the bright side.”

We shared a few laughs in the midst of the turmoil, because at the end of the day, I would either win or lose. Really it was
that simple. The press was just a bunch of nosy-ass, inconsiderate-ass people trying to break a bigger story than the next
reporter. It had nothing to do with the race or me; it was just a job.

When I pulled into the parking lot of Mitchellville Christian School, Jennifer was sitting in her black Porsche Cayenne, typing
on her BlackBerry. I took Nicole’s bags from my trunk and walked over to the truck. I tapped on the passenger-side window,
and she unlocked the door. I climbed in and she looked at me. Her long, curly, dark brown hair was pulled back into one ponytail.
Her pale cheeks were flushed and her large almond eyes dimmed.

“Devin, you’ll get through this. You always do.”

I often kicked myself for abruptly divorcing her. I blamed her for losing Clark, but it was no one’s fault but mine. The least
I could say about Jennifer: she was one constant in my life.

“I know. It’s just crazy.”

“Politics is hard,” she said.

“Yeah, I messed up.”

“As long as I’ve known you, I’ve never known you to be a cheater. You usually walk out before you cheat.”

I smiled. “You’re right. I’ve never cheated on anyone until now.”

“Why now? In the middle of your campaign.”

“It was Clark.”

She looked away from me. “Why did I know that?”

“I don’t know.”

She folded her small lips tightly and shook her head. “While I was driving down here, I told myself that the only woman that
could deter you from your path would be Clark.”

I looked at her and she looked at me. Tears formed in her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Devin. I was so young and dumb. My parents
told me to go to law school and snag the man with the most potential and I did.”

“Yo, Jennifer. Don’t start blaming yourself for this.”

“You had something very special with Clark. You loved her instinctively. You know?”

I took a deep breath. She had summed up those feelings that just wouldn’t go away. If I had control, I would have let this
shit go a long time ago.

She continued, “Is it over? Is she still married?”

“Yes and yes.”

“So, what is Taylor saying?”

“She found out at the press conference that it was Clark, and she pretty much stormed out in tears and hasn’t answered her
phone since.”

“Damn, Devin. I don’t know. It’s harder for women to get over cheating when they know you really love the other woman.”

I leaned my head back on the headrest, ran my hand down my face, and sighed. “I know.”

“What do you want?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You know what you want. You’re just not sure it’s the right thing, that’s all.”

We walked into the camp together. Nicole looked as if she wanted to cry when she saw Jennifer. The look in her eyes upset
my stomach, but she was cool enough not to fuss or fight. She looked at me and said, “It’s okay, Daddy. I’ll see you when
you come to New York.”

I kissed them both. They headed out of the parking lot, and I was left to sort out my mess.

It wasn’t until I walked into the house and saw that Taylor had trash bags full of her things that I half-knew what I wanted.
I didn’t want her to walk out. Not yet, anyway. We could get over this. I stepped around the bags and rushed through the house.

“Taylor!” I yelled, as I ran upstairs.

She frantically threw clothes and shoes and jewelry in huge trash bags. I looked at her and asked, “What are you doing?”

“What if we were wrong about each other? What if you were really made for me?” she yelled.

“What!”

She hurled a shoe at the closet. “Motherfucker, that’s what you said about her the very first day I met you.” She shook her
head. “I knew then that you weren’t over her. And I should have listened to my intuition. I always knew.”

“Taylor, there is no way you could have known anything. It was something that happened and was over very shortly after.”

She walked to the closet door. “Devin, you may have had a short physical affair with her, but you’ve had an emotional affair
with her for a long time. She’s your one that got away, Devin! She’s the one that got away!” She started crying. “You never
get over that person, and you wait your whole life for them to forgive you. Remember all the talks we had when we first met?
They were all about her. You’ve spent your whole life wanting her forgiveness.”

“Taylor, I want
you
to forgive me. I don’t want
you
to be the one that got away. Clark is committed to her marriage. You don’t have to worry about her. She’s not leaving her
husband and I have no plans to leave you.”