Sinful (24 page)

Marvin was mesmerized. It made his situation pale by comparison. “What happened? What did the man do?”

“That man was your father, Marvin. Don't think any less of him because he loved your mother with all his heart. He kept his mouth shut to her like he was supposed to and like I told him he'd better do. He cried though and I cried, too. If you're looking for something to call a big mess,
that
was it. As it turned out, several other cats in the neighborhood enjoyed the young girl's company as much as your daddy did. The baby wasn't none of his. The way it stands now, you're one up on him.”

“How do you mean?” Marvin asked, while processing the revealing information.

“Because you're worrying over what we old-timers call an egg that ain't been laid. Marvin, first you need to double back and grill the hen. Hold her feet to the fire so she'll tell you what's what. You're a business man, get out there and handle your business…man. If Chandelle learns about her cousin's roadside ways and your uh…undetermined willingness to participate, better it be your tongue doing the wagging when she does. She's your wife. You owe her that much.”

“I guess I do at that,” Marvin agreed. “But hey, you didn't tell me what became of the girl with the baby.”

Dave clasped his hands and smiled uncomfortably. “Well, I send the mother a little something from time to time to help her get by and my daughter Monique is a practicing dentist now,” he answered, beaming wide to show off his daughter's handiwork. “She's making out just fine. Ain't nothing new under the sun, young blood. People have been trying to figure out what to do about life when it don't go according to plan since the dawn of man. You're not the first and don't think you'll hardly be the last.”

“Wow, don't you think it's a lot to get over considering what I saw?” Marvin replied solemnly.

“That's a good question.” Dave threw back across the table. “What did you see? I mean really? If Chandelle had walked in on you with her relative, that would be a whole 'nother issue.” When Marvin couldn't say with certainty what had transpired before he arrived, the weathered veteran gave him a knot to cut his teeth on. “If you haven't learned anything else today, remember that things in this funny world are rarely what they seem. Do yourself a favor and find out for sure.”

“Yes, sir, I will,” Marvin said with the utmost sincerity.

Dave stroked his chin and chuckled heartily. “That's the smartest thing you've said all morning.”

Marvin got up to leave. He shook hands and grabbed his coat. “Thanks for everything, Dave. What you've said means a lot to me, all of it. Uh,” he said, to clear everything in his mind, “I'm confused about what you want me to do with your last two rental properties?”

“Oh those, why don't you take them off my hands? I'm willing to let them go
to you
at half the value.”

“That's generous, but I can't accept that,” Marvin objected.

“That's nonsense. Where's that waitress?” he joked, looking around the restaurant for her. “Marvin, you're the son I never had, but I'm as proud of you as if you were my own. Besides, you've been a good friend and haven't once asked me for a dime. Now go on and get the papers drawn, I've got to call a woman about a long boat ride.”

Marvin stood longer than Dave figured he should have, so he glared at Marvin and then frowned. “Why didn't I marry Monique's mother when I should have? You didn't hitch your cart to a broken wagon back then. It took five years for me to discover I was the one who broke it. Shame stood in my way then. Now I'm flat out of excuses and Sadie has turned out to be a fine lady. I'm hoping it ain't too late for her to give me a second chance to do the right thing. In all honesty, I loved that girl more than your pops did. That was the real reason I cried so hard when he thought her baby was his.”

Marvin walked out of the restaurant with his breakfast wrapped in styrofoam and his mind in a million little pieces. He'd gotten the lesson of a lifetime from a man who cared enough to pass down massive chunks of wisdom and a small portion of history for his benefit. Dooney was right about him. Marvin was the kind of man to take marriage seriously. Although he didn't know where to begin about sorting out the details that led him down a disastrous path, he realized there were now three obstacles standing in his way: the truth, a lie, and a maybe.

C
handelle awoke at 5:00
A.M.
She had dreamt of her first date with Marvin. The memory put a smile on her lips just thinking about it. The reservations he made at an upscale restaurant off the tollway impressed her, the hour-long wait despite their reservation did not. Chandelle, very hungry at the time, asked if it was all right with Marvin if she traded in her date at the fine restaurant for a bite at the first full-service snack shop they could find. What they found was an open table at a nearby Taco Bueno and had their fill for ten dollars and change.

Life was so simple then, Chandelle thought while flicking on the lamp on the nightstand next to her bed. She opened the top drawer and pulled out a notebook and an ink pen.
Since Marvin won't talk to me
, she reasoned,
maybe he'll let me talk to him this way.
Chandelle propped two pillows behind her back as she closed her eyes for a silent prayer to ask for the right words to convey the feelings she held so deeply, heavy with remorse and reconciliation. She took an exaggerated breath and began writing a letter she hoped he'd someday read.

Chandelle placed the letter inside an envelope. On her way into the office, she wrote Marvin's name on it, and then slid it inside of the mail slot at Hightower Realty. She felt that he might be more inclined to read it if someone else handed it to him.

 

Marvin recognized Chandelle's handwriting the second he picked it up from the reception desk. Moved that Chandelle had the nerve to wander into unfriendly territory, Marvin couldn't wait to see what had inspired her.

On a lonely side road off the freeway, Marvin broke the seal on the envelope. Apprehensively, he pulled out two pages of yellow paper and unfolded them slowly. Looking at the ink bleeding through the paper in various spots, Marvin could tell that Chandelle had also penned the letter with her tears. “Marvin, I love you,” he read aloud, thinking how long it had been since he'd heard that from her. He read further, only silently until he reached the part she'd written about the things she'd missed about him. “I miss toweling you off too,” he said with regret. “And the way you rubbed my back. Working a double did have its rewards. You always cheated at cards and I loved kissing your pouting lips when you lost.” Marvin's eyes watered as he read the rest of Chandelle's unabridged epistle of regrets, culpability, and love. He glanced out of his car windows, hoping no one saw him choking on emotion. “You miss holding me?” he whispered to the pages now stained with his tears as well. “I know what that's like. I miss you calling my name too.” As he read her final words, he pulled a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his suit coat. “Whew,” he sighed wearily.

Marvin wiped his face, then put the letter aside. He couldn't help but wonder whether Chandelle would develop a change of heart when he broke the news about his romp with Dior. After baring her soul, Marvin felt compelled to do the same, and tell Chandelle everything. As far as he could see, there was no way of getting around it.

Nervously, with knots bunched in his stomach, Marvin whipped out his cell phone. His first call went to Dooney at the barber shop, who provided a way to contact Dior. Marvin thanked him, then put in a call to her. She answered on the first ring, openly admitting how glad she was that he reached out to her despite all of the trouble she'd caused.

“I need to meet you right away,” he told her. “Somewhere private.”

“Okay, but isn't…” she started to ask until Marvin interjected.

“I don't want to talk about it over the phone. Meet me at the park next to the school on Whitehurst in ten. You know the place?”

“Yeah, I do. See you,” Dior answered. She was anxious with questions and trepidations over seeing Marvin after having been with him under false pretenses. She'd promised to Dooney, under duress, to make good on helping to rebuild Marvin's marriage with Chandelle. Before she had the chance to talk herself out of it, Dior collected her keys and purse from the dresser in her bedroom. “I've got to go do this thing,” she informed Kevlin, sadly. As she stepped into the designer jogging suit, which had been thrown onto the floor an hour ago, Dior returned his curious leer with a curt response. “Chill out, I'ma be all right. It's a family affair.”

 

Marvin was already idling by the curb when Dior arrived at the playground. She pulled in behind him and left her car running too. A manufactured smile traced her lips. Marvin nodded “good morning” before the words came out of his mouth.

“Hey, Marvin,” Dior replied, as she approached his relaxed stance against the SUV. “I know what you want to talk about, but meeting you here feels kinda like we're hiding something.”

“It's more like plotting to uncover a cover-up,” he answered, obviously looking for telltale signs of shifts in her weight. Dior folded her arms when she picked up on it. It was the first time she felt dirty when a man tried to undress her with his eyes. Perhaps it was the reason why Marvin peered at her that way that bothered her so much.

“I'm not having a baby, if that's what you're checking me out for?” she said, reading his mind. “Good thing too. It's hard out there hustling with a rug rat on your hip.” Dior also noted Marvin's relieved expression morph into another question needing to be addressed. “Don't worry, I ain't gonna tell Chandelle. She's got enough problems paying for that house and the Volvo at the same time. I offered to kick in a few hundred, but she ain't on time for that or having nothing to do with me.”

“Y'all haven't talked since that night?” Marvin asked, expecting to extort information about Chandelle and Tony if the opportunity presented itself.

“I've called and sent cards, but you know how she is, all prideful. She always was as stubborn as a mule.”

“Hardheaded too,” Marvin threw in.

“I'm keeping hope alive that she'll let me make it up for getting her busted out on her front porch. I could really use a break and my best friend back in my space.” Dior pushed authentic tears from her eyes, not like the ones she produced to get out of jams in the past. These were the genuine article. “You got me up here boo-hooing and stuff,” she spat playfully. “I can't stand for nobody to see me cry, never could.” Dior accepted the handkerchief from Marvin. “Thanks. It's a little wet, though,” she joked. “Ooh, I'ma have to keep a better tab of my sins. Done messed this up so bad for everybody. I miss Chandelle like crazy, Marvin.”

“That makes two of us, Dior,” he offered in a comforting tone.

“So, what do you want to do now? Dooney told me to mend my ways, but he didn't have to tell me to apologize to you. I'm sorry. It was me who got Chandelle and Tony together. Chandelle getting drunk on Cristal, that's on me too. And I pulled a fast one so he'd have to take her home.”

Marvin couldn't believe his ears. He replayed Dior's sentence in his head. It was troubling to say the least, but he'd figured as much. The thought of having Dooney to deal with seemed more imminent now that his head was clear. “Wait a minute! You told Dooney about us, what we did?”

“Didn't have to, that fool twin brother of mine knows just about everything. You can't put nothing by him or over on him; trust me, I've tried.” Dior laughed, though her merriment died a sudden death as another thought pushed the other aside. “He's got an old soul. Well, that's what this bag lady said, who roamed around the project where we grew up. She'd say,
‘Dooney is a fine boy, the good twin,'
and then she'd turn her big nose up at me.
‘And Dior, well, you ain't nothing but sinful. Dooney, he's the righteous child and you's what was left over in yo' mama's belly.'
Strange thing was, I believed her,” Dior admitted honestly. “Sometimes I still do.”

Marvin almost reached out to give her the hug he was certain she needed, but the image of Dior straddled over him and gyrating kept running through his mind. He quickly put that inclination to rest. “That's a cruel thing to say to a little girl,” Marvin uttered, feeling sorry for her but wise enough to keep his distance.

“Who you telling? My mama heard that old witch going off on me, more than once, but she didn't think to argue.” Dior turned away to clean her eyes with the handkerchief. “That seems like forever ago so it don't matter anymore. I'm all grown up now.”

“You went through a lot of trouble to get between me and Chandelle,” Marvin commented, thinking how she probably hadn't changed much from the bag lady's early assessments. “What made you do it, pulling the bait and switch in my bedroom that night?”

“I've seen how much you love Chandelle and care about her. Y'all were the only real love I've seen up close,” Dior explained. “I wanted that dream to come true for myself. Huh, I used to think getting married was for old people and white folks.”

Marvin had to remind himself that Dior's mentality often permeated the Black community, but he wasn't willing to let her off so easily. “Come on now, Dior, you're young and attractive. Why didn't you just hook up with a single brotha and get started on your own dream?”

Dior looked at Marvin as if he were an idiot in a fancy suit. “Man, please! What, do you think there's a gang of men coming home from college trying to fall in love and get married? Tell me when and where, because I want in. That sure was a dumb thing to say coming from such a smart man. Let a sistah know when educated black men start interviewing for something more than a booty buddy because that's what's up.”

Honestly, Marvin had been the only man fitting Dior's criteria who wanted to be someone's husband. Only thing was, Chandelle got to him first and sealed the deal. It was excruciating for her to be close enough to touch it and too far away to enjoy. When the temptation grew too large to restrain, Dior wanted to do more than merely see what it looked like. She threw caution to the wind and got herself a taste.

 

That evening, Chandelle followed a group of associates off the elevator on the first floor. She had been second-guessing her decision to leave the envelope in the mail slot opposed to handing it over personally.
What if Kim discovered it and threw it in the trash, to get even for accusing her of man stealing and worse
, she'd pondered. When Chandelle exited her office building, a herd of what-ifs roamed through her head. So many that she couldn't keep them separated.
What if Kim gets the letter and throws it out?
she thought.
What if she gets the letter and reads it? What if it gets lost in the office mail? What if Marvin charges me with punking out for writing it all down instead of convincing him to hear me out face to face? What if he serves me with divorce papers?
she dreaded. As Chandelle rounded the building toward the side parking lot, a thought occurred that she hadn't considered all day.
What if he shows up with flowers, wearing a brand new suit and a beautiful smile?

“Hey, you,” Marvin greeted her, with a fresh bouquet of yellow roses.