Forever An Ex (3 page)

Oh. My. God. Bobby didn't want to talk about us; he wanted to talk about taking my daughter away from me.

“It's not going to happen, Bobby!” I snapped. Every bit of my emotions came out in those six words. I was mad, I was hurt, I was heartbroken. He was trying to take my daughter away from me
and
he didn't want me?

“I don't want you to be upset,” he said.

“Then don't mention this again.”

He shook his head. “I can't do that because our daughter is so talented, she deserves for us to have this conversation. She deserves this chance.”

“You think I don't want to give her the chance to pursue her dreams? We're in Los Angeles, for God's sake. She can do whatever she wants right here . . . with me, her
mother
,
by her side.”

“I understand what you're saying. But, we all need to sit down and talk about this. Come to some agreement.”

I stood up and crossed my arms. It was time for Bobby to go.

But he didn't make a move, so I said, “There's nothing to talk about, not now, not ever.”

With a sigh, he stood, too. When he reached toward me and put his hand on my shoulder, I flinched. Not that I didn't want Bobby touching me. It was just that I'd expected that the next time I'd feel his hands against my skin, he'd be my lover.

“I want the best for our daughter and I know you do, too. All I'm asking is for us to sit down . . . me, you, Angel . . . and Caroline.”

Hearing his wife's name was the final stake that stopped my beating heart. For
thirteen days
, I'd been thinking that Bobby was about to get rid of her, but he just wanted to talk about getting rid of me.

“We're going to have to talk about this at some point, Asia.”

He said that as if it was a threat. As if I was afraid to have this talk. Well, I wasn't afraid. There were a million ways I could say no, and I could say no a million times.

I pushed Bobby's hand off of me and stomped toward the front door, thinking that Bobby better get the hint if he wanted to walk out of here on his own two feet. 'Cause as hot as I was, I would've been able to lift him up and throw him out.

Bobby was right behind me when I opened the door. His eyes drooped with sadness and I wondered why. He didn't have a dang thang to be sad about. All of this hurt today belonged to me.

As he passed by me, I looked away, staring at the floor. I didn't even want to look at him. Not because I was so mad. I just didn't want him to look at me and see the tears welling in my eyes. Because then he would know this wasn't just about Angel. He would know he'd broken my heart once again.

“I'll give you a call,” he whispered before he stepped over the threshold.

And my answer to him: I slammed the door in his face.

Then I leaned back against the door. How could I have been so dumb? How could I have thought that Bobby would ever want me?

I slid down until my butt met the carpet. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” I cried as I banged the heels of my hands against my forehead. “Just stupid.”

Tears burned my eyes, but I fought hard to keep them in check. Really, there was nothing to cry about. It wasn't like Bobby was leaving me again.

But the tears came anyway. Because it was clear now, Bobby was never coming back.

Chapter

Four

M
om, are you sleep?” Angel whispered from my doorway.

With a quickness, I clicked on the nightstand light. “No, baby. What's wrong?”

She scurried across the room in her red-and-white one-piece footed pajamas and jumped into my bed the way she used to. When she tucked herself under my arm and rested her head on my chest, all kinds of memories rushed me. The best times of my life were when Angel and I would be just like this, cuddled together, watching cartoons, eating ice cream, or just having one of our girl talks about fashion.

I pulled her closer. “You couldn't sleep?”

“I kept falling asleep, but then I kept waking up.” She sighed as if the world weighed heavy on her.

“What's wrong?” I asked, wondering what tween angst I had to deal with now. Were girls picking on her, bullying her the way I'd been? I understood adolescent envy, and for young girls, there was a lot to envy about Angel.

“I just have a lot on my mind,” she said.

I chuckled. “Angel, you're eleven. You shouldn't have anything more on your mind than what you're going to wear to casual Friday at school tomorrow.”

“I'm not that shallow. I may not be grown, but I'm really mature for my age.”

“Okay,” I said, chuckling. I didn't know why my daughter was so determined to be grown. “What's on your mind?”

She released a long-drawn-out sigh. “My future.”

In that instant, I knew where this conversation was going. I'd been able to avoid it with Angel for two weeks since I'd first heard this nonsense from Caroline. And I certainly hadn't said anything about the talk I had with Bobby. To me, this was a closed subject, though it felt like my daughter was about to kick it wide open.

Angel began, “Dad said that you guys talked about me going to New York. That's why he came by the other morning, right?”

I spoke slowly because everything I said had to be on point. “That's right.”

She lifted her head from my chest and looked straight at me. “Mom, I really want to do it. I want to go to school in New York.”

I'd said no to Bobby, but saying no to Angel wasn't going to be so easy. And clearly saying no to Bobby didn't mean much since he'd still gone behind my back and talked to Angel anyway.

“I don't want you to be mad at Dad,” she said, as if she'd heard my thoughts. “It's just that today, I asked him if he had talked to you and he told me he did and that you weren't happy about it.”

“He shouldn't have done that,” I told her. “He shouldn't have talked to you about what he and I discussed. This is grown folks' business.”

“I know, but Dad treats me differently than you do. He treats me more like an adult.”

“And that would be wrong since you're a child.”

“Well, maybe not like a grown, grown, grown adult, but he treats me like I'm mature, so we talk about everything.”

The next time I saw Bobby . . .

Before I could plot out all the ways I was going to handle him, Angel said, “Mom, why don't you want me to go?”

“It's not necessary.”

“But it is! Because my whole life I've wanted to be a singer, and a dancer, and an actress, and a model. And I know that if I want to do all of those things, I have to be really trained. And the School of Performing Arts is the best place in the world for me to get my training.”

“I think ‘the best place in the world' is a slight exaggeration. We're in L.A., this is the home of actors and models and dancers and singers. Look at all the classes you're taking.”

Angel looked at me as if I had a “Big Dummy” tattoo on my forehead. “Okay, Mom,” she said. “I know you're spending a lot of money on everything for all of my lessons and classes and I'm really grateful. But these classes right here—they're amateur hour compared to the training I'll get in New York at the School of Performing Arts.”

I had to shut my mouth and look at my daughter for an extra minute before I answered. She was starting to sound—a little grown.

“What do you know about the School of Performing Arts?” I asked, trying not to sound like I was getting an attitude. And believe me, I was getting an attitude because I (with Bobby's checkbook) paid a lot of money for her dancing classes with Debbie Allen, her acting classes with Raquel Wendy Robinson, and it had cost a small fortune for Bobby to fly in one of the best photographers in the country for Angel's modeling portfolio. I was doing everything to help my daughter pursue her dreams, and everything that she wanted and needed was right here in Los Angeles.

Angel scooted away from me and crossed her legs yoga-style. Her face glowed as she said, “Mom, you should see the school. It's amazing.”

“You've been there?” I asked, wondering when Bobby and Caroline had snuck Angel to New York.

“I haven't, but I know a lot about it. Mom Caroline and I used to watch this old TV show called
Fame
. It was about all these kids who wanted to grow up to be all kinds of performers, and after every show, Mom Caroline always said that I was better than all of those actors. She said that she thought that would be a good school for me.”

When Angel said Caroline's name, my ears perked right up. “So, it was a TV show about the high school?” I asked, crossing my arms.

“Uh-huh. There were all these cool actors and a long, long, long time ago even Janet Jackson was on it. She was way younger then, but, Mom, so many famous people graduated from that school. Like Robert De Niro and Al Pacino and Ben Vereen and Jennifer Aniston.”

How did my child know all of this?

“I did my research,” she said, anticipating my question. “I've been reading everything I can. I looked on the Internet and Mom Caroline found out a lot of stuff about the school, too. She even had them mail me some information.”

I was beginning to smell a rat. A refined, rich, well-dressed rat! “And where is all this information?”

“At Dad's. Mom Caroline kept it, but after we got it, we talked to Dad and told him that I really wanted to go there. And he said that it sounded like I'd thought it all out in a mature way, so that's why they're changing their whole life around. Just for me.”

I wanted to ask my daughter why she'd done all of this with Caroline. Why hadn't she talked to me? But it was beginning to sound like this hadn't been Angel's idea alone.

“That's all good, but why move across the country when you're living where all the movies are made? If you need better acting lessons and dance classes, we'll find them, but—”

“No, Mom.” She sighed like I didn't know anything. Then she went on to school me. “Most movies are filmed in Atlanta or even Canada now because of tax breaks.”

How did Angel know this?

“L.A. used to be the film capital of the world, but not anymore,” she said, shaking her head as if she were an expert.

“And really, as an actress, I think I'd like to try theater rather than film because it's live acting and you get to interact with the audience, and get immediate feedback. Being on the stage, being on Broadway, now that's real, real, real acting.”

It had to be all over my face—I was in awe. My child was weeks away from being twelve, but just like Bobby said, she'd put a lot of thought into . . . her future.

Was going to New York really the best thing for my child?

No!

Especially not if it had been Caroline's idea.

“Well,” I began, “you've given me a lot to think about and we still have a couple of years—”

“It's not that far away,” she said, not letting me finish. “There's a lot to do. It's a public school, you have to be a resident of New York, so Dad has to pull some strings. He said I might have to do my last year of middle school in New York.”

What!

She continued, “And I have to get prepared to audition.”

After a moment I said, “I'll think about all of this . . .” I kept the rest of the words to myself—and my answer would still be no.

“Thanks, Mom!” She kissed my cheek. “You're the greatest.”

I opened my arms expecting us to snuggle once again, but she didn't even notice. She jumped up, and then the same way she'd come into my bedroom, she scurried right back out.

She stopped suddenly, though. Right at the door, she turned around. “Mom, this is really important to me. Probably the most important thing that will ever happen in my whole life. I've been dreaming about this forever.” She pressed her hands together as if she was about to pray. “So please, Mom, really think about it enough to say yes!”

I nodded 'cause I didn't want to lie out loud.

“Really, really, really. Please, please, please,” she added before she dashed to her own bedroom.

I just sat there, staring at the now-empty doorway. But I still imagined her there, and heard all the words that she'd said to me. Her voice, her tone, the way she pleaded—that was a child. But the thought that she'd put behind her words—there were grown people who didn't do that much thinking and planning. She was thinking and planning for New York the way I'd schemed to hook up with a pro ballplayer. And, I had succeeded.

But I didn't want Angel to go. If she were in New York, what would that mean for us? We wouldn't be together during her high school years, and I wanted to be there for her first date, when she got her driver's license, and even when she had her first heartbreak. I wanted to spend those years cheering her on through every triumph, and wiping her tears through any trials.

But if she were in New York, my time with her would be limited to holidays and maybe part of the summer—if she wasn't too busy to come home. Angel would be spending all her time with Caroline, and I had this feeling that Caroline was doing more than just being the kind stepmother.

I clicked off the lamp on my nightstand and slid back down in the bed, but didn't close my eyes. Inside the darkness, all kinds of questions swirled around me. What if Angel really wanted to do it? What if this wasn't Caroline's idea and it was all Angel? Could I eventually find a way to say yes? If I said no, would I be holding her back?

The seconds turned to minutes, and with each new hour, new questions came to mind. I never closed my eyes because my thoughts were too loud. So, I just stayed awake and tried to make sense of the noise.

My mind never quieted, I never slept. Somewhere around four in the morning, I let insomnia have the victory. I sat up, grabbed my cell phone, and sat in the dark, waiting for more time to pass. It was way too early to make any telephone calls. I'd have to wait for a more decent hour—like seven.

But I was never one to do things decently and in order. By the time the digital numbers on my clock flipped to six, I was already pressing the phone icon on my cell.

“Sheridan,” I said to the groggy voice who was one of the most important people in my life. “I really need you. Can we talk?”