Second Thoughts (23 page)

“You couldn’t satisfy Dillon or DaMarcus. One left you with a child. The other just…” Vanessa paused and then turned, staring at me with her hands folded across her chest. “The other just left you.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, sister dearest.” I walked closer and stood with our noses practically touching. “I got my satisfaction. And I also have his…”

“Taylor,” Dillon interrupted.

“What the hell are you doing?” Vanessa asked.

“I’m not keeping this secret anymore, Dillon,” I said.

I walked over to where DaMarcus stood.

“The longer I wait, the harder it’s going to be, and more people are going to get hurt.”

“Look, Vanessa,” Dillon finally called out again.

“What?” she barked louder than before.

“I wasn’t with Taylor yesterday, and she wasn’t who I sent those messages to this morning,” Dillon admitted.

“Then who the hell is T.D.?”

“My guess is T.D. will be showing up any minute now,” Dillon responded without a tremble in his voice.

He was surprisingly calm, as if he had been waiting for these truths to unfold.

“I mean, wasn’t that part of this plan? This has to be how you intended it to play out, right?” 

The words had not left Dillon’s lips long enough before there was a knock on the door. We stood frozen, looking at each other. Even though she stood closer to the door, Vanessa did not move. She stared at Dillon with a wicked expression on her face.

The visitor stood in the door holding her clutch purse in front of her. Her sand-color hair swept across her face and fell to either side. She was dressed for an evening out, wearing a pleated white print summer casual dress and red extra high open toe pumps.

“I’m sorry,” she said, sensing she had walked into a tension-filled room.

She stepped back and checked the room number on the outside wall.

“I was told Dillon Aldridge was occupying this room.” She was very polite.

“And you are?” Vanessa asked, before turning around to face her. She stared her down from head to toe.

“Torrie Davenport,” she announced, extending her hand to Vanessa.

Chapter
26

Vanessa…

Who’s That Girl?

My mind wandered all day at work. My patients
and paperwork got less than the 100% of my attention I usually gave them on a normal day, but there was nothing normal about this Tuesday. Usually I would drive to work listening to my girl Anita Baker; eighties Anita was my favorite. This wasn’t a usual morning. I didn’t want to hear “Sweet Love” because, as of this morning, everything about love suddenly tasted sour. I didn’t want to hear “You Belong To Me” because, according to Dillon’s messages to T.D., last night he belonged to someone else, and “Giving You The Best That I Got” would only remind me that the best that he got had been given to her, too. So, instead of clearing my head during my morning commute and listening to Anita sing from her soul, I was driving to work listening to the confusion going on in my head.

“I’m working late.”

That was the excuse Dillon gave me when I called him last night to ask if he would be making it home in time for dinner. I had asked Taylor if she would be staying for dinner as well, but she was dressed and on her way out the door, dragging Quinton behind her. I never asked where she was going, but now I know she probably dropped my nephew off someplace and was somewhere playing house with Dillon. I didn’t plan on eating at my dining room table by myself, but that was exactly what I ended up doing.  After dinner, I spent the evening waiting for my husband to return, sitting up in bed with a glass of Tempranillo, watching “The Other Woman” on DVD.  When Dillon came home, he kissed me on the side of my face and headed straight to the bathroom.  Now, I know he was probably washing her from him. I didn’t say much to him when he was dressed and snuggled beside. 

I was sitting in my office with so much on my mind, and I spent my first thirty minutes trying to put my thoughts into some kind of logical order, finishing the last bit of vanilla latte and glazed vanilla cake from the Starbucks in the cafeteria. I could have had coffee and pastries at home, but I needed to get out of that house as fast as I could. I stared at the phone on my desk and thought about returning DaMarcus’ call. During our conversation earlier, I’d told him I wanted nothing to do with his plans for Taylor. Until those messages and my phone call to Taylor’s secret number, that was true. I’d listened to his plan just as he’d asked, but I was convinced my sister was a changed woman. I’d given her the benefit of the doubt until I found Dillon’s phone and message to her. Unknowingly, I had my own version of ‘The Other Woman’ unfolding in my own house, but to think she was my sister. Taylor and I had shared the same mother and father, but my husband wasn’t something I’d planned on sharing with her. As you could see, I didn’t have a choice. I guess whatever Taylor wants, Taylor gets, but who she wasn’t going to get was Dillon Aldridge; at least getting him wasn’t going to be as easy as she thought.

When I finally decided to pick up the desk phone to dial DaMarcus’ number, my cell phone buzzed.

“So, are you in or not?” he asked. I didn’t answer immediately. “Please don’t tell me you’re still thinking…”

“I can’t be there until after 3 p.m.”

I retyped my password to confirm my appointment. I had another full day ahead of me, and they rarely cancel. My first patient, a nine-year-old girl named Janice, was on the schedule to be seen at 9:15 a.m. She’d been coming to CRCA every week for the last year. I’d nicknamed her Pooh. The Pooh Bear was her favorite toy, and she never came to an appointment without him. I loved my younger patients the most. They were so young, but their bravery never ceased to amaze me.

“After my 1:30 p.m. patient leaves,” I added.

“Renaldo Wallace, right?” DaMarcus assumed.

I ran my index finger down the computer screen and stopped at the name.

“Yes. Renaldo Wa...,” I paused. “How’d you know?”

“It’s simple. I needed a way to get to you.  I made that appointment using an assumed name.  That was the best I could come up with. It was time I thought I was going to have to use to break the news.  So, I’m letting you know Renaldo won’t be there.”

“You do know you took away an appointment time slot a patient with real concerns could have used?”

“I’ll make sure I ask God for HIS forgiveness tonight,” he said matter-of-factly. “I need to get this cab to the hotel.”

“You’re in Philly already?”

“Did you think I wasn’t serious?”

After hanging up from DaMarcus, I spent some time scrolling through the electronic file of another patient. His name was Sterling Carmichael. I’d lost his mother a week ago, finally succumbing to breast cancer. She was my patient. She was diagnosed five years ago. Two years later, Sterling was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

“You need to keep your mind on Sterling,” I said out loud. “And not on the fact that your husband and sister…”

I stopped to wipe the tear streaming down my face. I guess I had no one else to blame but myself. Shelby tried to warn me, but I thought with all the other men she had in her grasp, and then Chad and DaMarcus, there was no way my Dillon could have been on her already long hit list. I got up from my computer and walked to the waiting room to Sterling. His visits always put a smile on my face, and with his mother’s passing and this Dillon and Taylor situation, I needed the biggest smile. It always amazed me how he managed to keep such a positive attitude every month, not knowing what the next day would bring.

•   •   •   •   •

“They’re here.” That was the last thing DaMarcus
texted to me before I exited the car and handed my keys to the valet.
Before that he’d given me the suite number, Suite 1248, and instructed me to come straight up to the room. After getting the room number from DaMarcus, I immediately sent that information to Taylor. I was hoping I’d gotten to the hotel before she did and was relieved to find out that I had. 

I rode in the elevator not knowing what I was going to walk into. Telling me “they’re here” wasn’t telling me too much. After I exited the elevator and turned right, I stopped for a moment and breathed. 
How could Taylor already be there if I had just sent her the text with the room number,
I thought, but then I realized DaMarcus had probably sent her the text just in case I’d reneged on my participation. I stood at the room door listening to the exchange occurring between Taylor, DaMarcus, and Dillon. I knew why DaMarcus was there, but I couldn’t wait to hear the explanation from Dillon and Taylor. What was she doing meeting my husband in a hotel room? But according to Taylor, she didn’t owe me anything, but that’s where she was wrong. She owed me more than that. I stood with tears streaming down my face, my lips quivering as they always did whenever I was furious. When I entered the room, I stood and listened to Taylor’s attempt to feed me more bullshit, expecting to convert me into a believer when she looked at me with eyes that were supposed to be apologetic and said, “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Dillon stood across the room and didn’t even flinch when he saw me. I gave him a chance to come up with a good lie. I tossed him his cell phone and finally confronted him and Taylor about the text messages Dillon had sent her early that morning, thanking her for a night filled with pleasure. Those weren’t his exact words, but I knew a thing or two about reading between the lines, and between those lines was the fact that my sister was fucking my husband. Just as I expected, they both denied any encounter on the previous evening.

But when Torrie Davenport stood in the doorway, I learned another ugly truth about my husband.

“Start talking, Dillon,” I ordered.

I stood looking at this woman from the sand-color brown hair to those red Prada patent leather chrome heel pumps.

“And this better be a fucking coincidence. Or a well-dressed servant for room service, because this shit,” I said, pointing at her.  I paused.

She stared at me from smoky brown eyes. I’d noticed her when I’d walked into the foyer of the Radisson Plaza. She sat relaxed in the chair against the wall with her legs crossed. She was beautiful, and I wasn’t the only one absorbed in her beauty as I hurried passed her towards the elevators.  I didn’t think a few moments later she would be standing in that room where she had been invited to meet up with my husband.

“I need to tell you something, Nessa!” Dillon yelled again.

I was sure what he had to say had everything to do with the woman in front of me, but at that point, I had no interest in anything he had to say. Anything he had to tell me he had every opportunity to tell me before now.

I whipped my head to quickly look at Dillon; he had walked closer to me. Then I turned to stare back at Torrie Davenport.

“You don’t get to explain anything,” I said with my back towards him. I want to hear it from her.”

“And the plot thickens,” Taylor announced.

She’d walked to the chair closest to the door and sat with one leg over the other and her arms folded across her chest. She sat poised, waiting to hear whatever explanation came from Ms. Torrie Davenport’s mouth.

“I bet you didn’t plan on this happening, did you DaMarcus?”

Without an invitation into the room, Torrie walked passed me and stood beside Dillon.

“Where should I start?” she asked.

“How about from the beginning,” I quickly interjected.

“Dillon asked me to meet him here.” She removed her cell phone from her purse. “If you don’t believe me, here,” she continued, offering me a peak at the message.

Of course, I believed her. There was one problem: it wasn’t Dillon that sent her that message. The message I’d read from Dillon to T.D. wasn’t one he had sent to my sister, but to his chick on the side. I’d sent an invitation to my husband’s other woman.

“And what is your relationship with my husband?” I asked, as if the writing on the wall wasn’t written in bright, bold letters.

“Well, according to this,” she said as she held up her left hand and dangled the diamond engagement ring, “I’m his fiancé.”

“Holy shit,” Taylor said out loud.

I shot a look in her direction.

If it were possible to shit bricks, I’d just done it.

“So that means?” I asked. My heart was pounding. My feet had become anemic beneath me, but somehow I was finding the strength to stand.

“I want a divorce,” Dillon said.

There was no hiccup, no stutter in his request.

I was stunned. Calm. I didn’t disturb the tears that were once again tickling my face. I couldn’t believe what was happening.

“And you couldn’t have told me before today?”

“This wasn’t my idea, remember. I’m going to assume he had everything to do with this, too,” Dillon said, looking in DaMarcus’ direction, “Your plan was to unveil whatever you thought was going on between Taylor and me. But now, thanks to you, I don’t have to hide this anymore.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“Two years,” Torrie answered with pride. “This is what happens when you love your job more than your own husband. How many nights was he going to come home to an empty house, or to your sister and her bastard son?” she continued.