Flawfully Wedded Wives (14 page)

—
Lawson Kerry Banks

 

After a two-hour flight, Lawson, Sullivan, Reginell, Angel, and Kina found themselves sunbathing on one of the powdery sand beaches in the Bahamas. After a lazy afternoon spent on Grand Bahama Island, the ladies retreated to their secluded, luxuriant four-bedroom Bahamian villa for dinner, prepared by the personal chef Kina had hired.

Reginell looked over their veranda facing the beach and took in the salty sea air. She released her breath. “Now, this is the life!”

“Indeed it is,” Angel agreed, sliding her feet into the sparkling swimming pool. “I didn't realize how badly I needed this vacation.”

Kina began distributing the frozen cocktails that she'd whipped up in the kitchen while they waited for the food to be served. “I think we all did. I don't know about you, but I'm starting to have a real appreciation for the good life.”

Reginell tossed back her pineapple and banana daiquiri. “Dang, Kina, you didn't spare any alcohol, did you?”

Angel shook her head, mixing the drink as Kina approached her. She watched the sun set over the ocean, leaving streaks of orange and purple painted across the sky. “This place is so beautiful. How can anyone look around at all of this and not believe there's a God?”

Sullivan donned her sunglasses and stretched out on a lounge chair. “I've seen better, but it'll do.”

Lawson lifted a frothy glass from Kina's hand and joined Angel at the pool. “Are you going to be a sourpuss all weekend? If that's the case, we could've left you in Georgia.”

Sullivan lowered the brim of her oversize hat to block out the sun. “Fine. This place is amazing. Is that what you wanted me to say?”

“It's a start,” Kina mumbled, flopping down on one of the plush chairs outlining the swimming pool. “Dinner will be served in about twenty minutes. He's cooking curry chicken, fresh steamed vegetables, and island-style rice. It smells incredible!”

“Twenty minutes, huh?” Reginell reached into her bag and pulled out a marijuana cigarette. “Perfect timing. The munchies will start kicking in around then.”

Lawson winced. “Reggie, please don't tell me that is what I think it is.”

“I don't know what you
think
it is, but one of the locals was kind enough to hook a sister up!” Reginell lit up the blunt and took a pull from it.

“A local? Well, that sounds safe,” retorted Sullivan.

“Reggie, why are you reverting to your old habits?” Lawson scolded her. “This is beneath you, both as a Christian and an engaged woman!”

Reginell blew out the smoke. “Chill out, Lawson. I'm on vacay. Everybody in the Caribbean smokes weed. It's probably not even illegal over here.”

“You're a Christian,” repeated Lawson. “You don't have the luxury of doing what everybody else does.”

“Whatever,” grumbled Reginell. She offered the joint to Sullivan. “Do you want some?”

“Do you honestly think I'm going to put my mouth on anything your mouth has been on? I have to kiss my husband and daughter with these lips.” She flung her hand. “Go smoke over there somewhere so I don't have to smell it.”

“And you already know better than to ask me,” asserted Lawson.

Kina spoke up. “I'll try it.”

“See? Now, there's an adventurer!” Reginell passed the blunt to Kina.

Kina examined it, trying to balance both the drink and the blunt. “Goodness, I haven't smoked so much as a cigarette since I was seventeen years old.”

Reginell smiled. “I promise that this is a little more grown up than Uncle Tommy's cigarettes you used to sneak and smoke behind the house.”

Kina inhaled the drag she took.

“Wait. . . . I've got to get a picture of this!” Reginell rushed to grab her camera.

Kina blew out the smoke. “Don't be posting this online, Reggie!”

“Really?” Sullivan smirked. “Don't you think the fans would get a kick out of seeing the head Christian in charge blaze one up?”

Reginell snapped a picture. “No worries, mon. What happens on the island stays on the island.”

Lawson shook her head. “Kina, you're a mother. Is this the example you want to set for Kenny?”

Kina passed the blunt back to Reginell. “I just wanted to try it, Lawson.”

“And you're about to become a mother too,” Lawson pointed out to Reginell. “Mark has two impressionable teenagers. Do you think he'd approve of this?”

Reginell was undeterred. “You're such a buzz kill. Mark ain't here. Neither is Mariah and neither is Namon, and what they don't know won't hurt them.”

Lawson frowned. “You're the one I'm worried about getting hurt, li'l sister.”

“You want to hit this?” Reginell thrust the joint in Angel's face.

“Do you think the quintessential health nut is going to defile her body that way?” Sullivan joked.

“Don't be such a prude. Weed is from the earth,” Reginell said, quoting, then inhaled.

Sullivan raised an eyebrow. “It's never a good sign when you have to resort to quoting Smokey from
Friday
in an argument of persuasion.”

Angel shook her head and shooed Reginell's hand away. “I can't. I think the smell alone will send me heaving to the nearest toilet.”

“Come on, everybody. Lighten up,” Kina implored the others. “This weekend is supposed to be about all of us fellowshipping and reconnecting and trying to reestablish some of the bonds that have been severed due to time and distance, lack of communication, or—”

“
Betrayal,
” Sullivan said, chiming in.

Kina sighed. “Or betrayal. Sullivan, part of the reason I wanted you to come is that I want us to get back to the closeness we had before everything got all crazy.”

Sullivan sat up. “
Everything
didn't get all crazy.
You
got all crazy, Kina! How could you do that to me?”

“Sully, do you really want to do this right here, right now?” asked Lawson.

Reginell finished her drink and held up her empty glass. “If you are, it sounds like we're going to need some more of these!”

Sullivan looked Kina squarely in the eyes for the first time in over a year. “Yeah, Kina, let's do this right here and now. I want to know how one of my friends—one of my best friends, at that—could try to ruin my marriage and destroy me life.”

Lawson jumped into the conversation. “Sullivan, you're the one—”

Sullivan held up her hand to shush Lawson. “Stay out of this, Lawson! I want Kina to answer.”

“I'm not going to sit here and let you attack my cousin.”

Sullivan contorted her face. “Lawson, why don't you go on the beach and pick some coconuts or something? This is between Kina and me, not Kina, Sullivan, and Lawson!”

“It's all right, Lawson. I can handle it.” Kina took a deep breath and a sip of her drink. “There's no one answer I can give you, Sullivan. There's certainly not an answer to justify what I did to you and Charles. All I can tell you is that I was really,
really
messed up after E'Bell died. Yeah, I was glad that the abuse had stopped, that the name-calling and insults had stopped, and that I didn't have to walk around my own apartment in fear anymore, but nothing prepared me for how alone I felt.”

“Kina, you weren't alone. You had us,” Angel told her.

Kina took another sip, building the courage to be honest with each swallow. “Not really. At that time, you had just gotten engaged to Duke and were trying to build a life with him and the girls. Lawson and Garrett had just gotten married. Sully and Charles were busy trying to pick the pieces back up after the whole Vaughn fiasco, and Reginell was off somewhere, doing her own thing. Once I came home from work, I didn't have anybody. I was so lonely, but I couldn't tell anyone. I mean, how could I admit to all of you that I actually missed the guy who had beat on me for breakfast, lunch, and dinner?”

Lawson's heart went out to Kina. “Kina, you could've told us that. We wouldn't have judged you.”

“I didn't want you to know, just like when E'Bell was abusing me. When you're in that kind of violent situation for so long, you get very good at hiding the truth and perfecting whatever image you want people to believe in, even those closest to you.”

“Was loneliness the reason you got involved with Joan?” posed Angel.

Kina nodded. “You know, being with Joan was never about whether I was really gay or straight. She was someone who was there, showering me with the attention and affection I needed. God knows she treated me better than any man ever did, but in the back of my mind, I always knew that she wasn't what I was looking for.”

“And that's when you decided to go after Charles,” Sullivan said, surmising Kina's motivation.

“I was so thankful to him for giving me a job at the church, and he was so supportive and caring. He loved the Lord, and it seemed like he knew everything about life and God and how to treat people. I'd never met a guy like that before, and I couldn't help myself. I convinced myself that God wanted us to be together because he was the kind of man I'd prayed for my whole life.”

“Yes, but he was
my
man!” bellowed Sullivan.

“Now, Sullivan, if we're going to keep it real, we're going to keep it one hundred all the way,” began Lawson, now fueled by liquid courage. “Everybody here knows that for years, you treated Charles like crap with all your running around and flirting, withholding sex when you felt like it, and only God knows what else you've done and haven't told us about. A lesser man would've left your butt a long time ago. Your only saving grace is that Charles loves the Lord more than he loves you, and he tries to do what's pleasing to God. Charles must know that you'd be an even bigger mess without him. So before you start hollering about how Charles is
your man,
think about how much love and appreciation you've shown to
your man.
”

Sullivan rolled her neck around to address Lawson. “I doubt that you want to go there with me, Lawson. If you knew that much about being a good wife, Garrett wouldn't have been in the bed, folding Simone up like a basket of laundry, would he?”

Lawson narrowed her eyes and hissed, “That was below the belt, Sullivan.”

Sullivan gave Lawson the once-over. “The truth hurts, doesn't it?”

Kina went on. “I wasn't trying to hurt you, Sully. Truth be told, I really wasn't even thinking about you. The only thing I could see was that Charles was a good man, and I needed a good man. I guess once you got pregnant and we were all convinced that the baby was Vaughn's, I took it as a sign from God that Charles and I were meant to be together. When I told him how I felt and he continued to profess his love for you, I just snapped.”

“But why?” asked Angel.

“I guess because it seemed like no matter what Sullivan did to him and no matter how much she hurt and humiliated him, Charles still wanted her. I thought if he knew about Vaughn and the baby, it could be the one thing that could make him take the blinders off and see Sullivan for who she really was.” Kina faced Sullivan. “I regretted telling Charles right after I blurted it out, but by then, it was too late.”

“So you don't think I deserve a man like Charles?” charged Sullivan.

“No, you don't,” answered Lawson. “There . . . I said it.”

Sullivan glared at Lawson, then took in a mouthful of her cocktail. “So I'm not good enough for Charles, huh?”

Kina, Reginell, and Angel braced themselves for what might come next, not knowing who among them would be the recipient of Sullivan's rage. When Sullivan was mad while sober, she was unpredictable. Who knew how she'd respond under the influence of alcohol?

“Don't you think I know that?” Sullivan added after a few moments of silence. “I know I don't deserve a man like him, who's kind and decent. I know he deserves much better than me—a woman who wasn't even in love with him when we got married. I was a lazy twenty-three-year-old who didn't want to work and knew I needed to find a man rich and gullible enough to subsidize my lifestyle. Charles fit the bill perfectly.”

“So that's all he's ever been to you? A paycheck?” asked Angel.

“No.” Sullivan began tearing up. “Look, you've got to understand that where I come from, men don't love women. They use them. They hurt them. The trick is to get everything you can out of a man before he ups and leaves. For a long time, I didn't care how I treated my husband. I just knew that I had to use him as much as I could before he left me. After a while, however, I saw that he wasn't trying to leave, that he genuinely loved me—even being the screwup that I am. That's when I knew that it was safe to love him, and I cherish that love. It's the same way with you all.” She looked around at her friends. “Like Charles, you loved me and stayed by my side no matter how many times I self-destructed. I value this friendship we share almost as much as I value my relationship with Charles. I thought you all felt the same way.”

“We do,” Lawson assured her. “Sullivan, you're our sister.”

“Admittedly, I'm a screwup. I find a way to destroy anything I touch, but when I met you all and you accepted me just as I was, I made darn sure I wasn't going to screw up being a real friend to you. That's what made it hurt so much, Kina. You know, I can handle you catching feelings for Charles. Why wouldn't you? You were working closely with him, he's a good-looking man, and he's the sweetest thing that ever walked this earth. You're not the first or the last woman at Mount Zion to fall for my husband. I would've understood had you come to me and told me how you felt about Charles. I wouldn't have liked it, but I would've understood. I would've even understood you telling Charles about Vaughn and the pregnancy if you did it out of love and concern. But no, everything you did was solely out of spite and jealousy. Our friendship, which meant everything to me, meant so little to you that you could betray me without so much as a second thought.
That's
the part that hurts, Kina! It was never about you and Charles. This was always about you and me.”