The Ex Factor: A Novel (11 page)

“Did I say I wasn't coming?”

“Are you here?” Monica yelled.

“No, but I'll be there. Plus, the wedding is tomorrow.”

“Oh.” Monica smirked. “I'm glad you remembered. Will you be here or is this get-free party lasting for two days?”

“Whatever, yo.” Imani sucked her teeth. “You just hatin” cause you don't have a man.”

“Don't you worry about it and furthermore, keep me lonely if I gotta have somebody like Walik's triflin' can't-stay-outta-jail sorry ass!”

“Monica, I don't have to listen to this!”

Monica was too disgusted to keep speaking to Imani so she hung up on her and walked back into the dining room. There she saw that most of the guests were even more disgusted than when she'd left. “These bitches is servin' Care Bear fruit snacks for dessert,” Mama Byrd said, shaking her head. “And they call me crazy.”

Before anyone could comment, spotlights shot back and forth across the room with one shining toward the door. In walked a six-foot-three-inch man with large muscles, cornrows braided straight to the back, and a well-fitted tailor-made gray Versace suit. As the man started to dance, Ready for the World's “Let Me Love You Down” began to play.

“Awwl shit!” Starr started bouncing her shoulders.

“Take it off!” Mama Byrd yelled, “take it
all
off!”

Slowly the dancer started peeling his clothes off. He stared at Starr seductively and pointed his finger, motioning her to come to him. Starr placed her hand over her heart. “Oh Lord, what are you going to do to me?”

“Stand here and watch me,” the dancer demanded as the music played.

“Do that shit, baby!” Mama Byrd yelled.

“Hell yeah!” all the women in the room yelled, each of them starting to sweat. Once the dancer was down to his G-string he turned Starr around; with her ass glued to his shaft he bent her over and started pounding. She could feel his hard dick as her ass bounced in the air.

“Oh shit!” Mama Byrd yelled as Starr started panting. Slowly the dancer laid Starr on the floor. He moved his body like a snake, opened her legs, and made motions with his head as if he were eating her pussy.

Monica and Celeste couldn't believe their eyes. They didn't know whether to be embarrassed or in shock. Starr lay on the floor with her legs gaped open and shaking as if she suffered from epilepsy.

Once the dancer worked Starr over, he walked over to Buttah and pushed her against the wall. He bit each of her nipples. She felt chills running through her body.

The other women couldn't control themselves and started putting dollar bills in his G-string.

“Let me see that dick, ma'fucker!” Mama Byrd yelled.

“Oh, you want some?” the dancer asked Mama Byrd.

“Bring it on, baby boy, bring it on.”

“Can you handle this?”

He walked over to Mama Byrd, and immediately she turned around, lifted her duster over her ass, and bent down. “Hit it, niggah, hit it!”

The dancer started banging her in the ass. She turned around, dropped to the floor, and spread her legs. “I want you to make me have a seizure.”

“Mama Byrd!” Imani's friend Sabrena yelled. “What is that between your legs?”

“Gray carpet!” Mama Byrd yelled. “Now, come on, firecracker,” she invited the dancer, “ 'cause this ole clit need a flame lit!”

“Y
OU KNOW WHAT I wonder?” Celeste spoke into a stream of smoke after the guests had left. She watched Monica hang up her electric-blue bridesmaid's gown and then pull out a black silk nightgown from her overnight bag. “I wonder if she ever thinks about what she's doing to my family.”

Monica cocked her neck to the side. “Who is ‘she'?”

“The other woman.” Celeste took a drag.

“Why are you thinking about some shit like that?” Monica took the rest of her things from her bag. “Cool it with the bullshit, please. The guests just left and despite the grits used for dip, somehow we pulled this evening off. Now Ma and the rest of her old-ass-ghetto-wedding crew are downstairs trying to sleep. Why can't you just chill, damn!”

“Fuck chill. Chill ain't done shit for me but make me fat and have another bitch sleeping with my man.”

“Oh God,” Monica sighed. “Why don't you stop acting so innocent? Like everything is always so perfect until someone else comes along and messes it up. Take some responsibility.”

“Responsibility?” Celeste mashed her cigarette in the ashtray
and immediately lit up another one. “I can't believe you, but I forgot you don't know shit about how I feel because no man of yours ever stayed around long enough to count.”

“I'm not the one being cheated on, sweetie. Let me inform you,” Monica looked at Celeste and smirked, “I steal, I don't get stole on.”

“And you're still alone.” Celeste blew out the smoke. “So spare me. Need I remind you of what Mommy went through with yo' daddy?”

“Don't talk about my daddy!”

“Why shouldn't I? He's the one that fucked up our family!”

“Bitch, please!” Monica looked Celeste up and down. “Yo' daddy was a basehead and you look just like him with that cigarette stuck in yo' mouth! Mommy didn't want him, get the fuck over it.”

“My father wasn't a basehead, tramp!”

“Tell it to the morgue, I don't give a damn.”

“Bitch!”

“Correction, Ms. Bitch!”

“Yeah, Ms. Bitch with the rotten-ass womb. Let's see if your one fallopian tube makes you another baby!”

“What?” Tears rushed to Monica's eyes.

“Yeah, I said it and what?”

“I'ma get the fuck away from you because right about now I feel like punching you dead in the mouth!” Monica grabbed her car keys. “Dumb bitch!” She ran down the stairs and slammed the door behind her.

As Monica hopped in her car, Sharief parked his Excursion directly behind her. He threw the SUV in park, hopped out, and opened the back door to wake his sleeping children.

Monica rolled her window down. “Could you move, please!”

“Woooo, homes, slow it down.” He looked at his watch. “Where are you going?”

“I'm getting the fuck outta here before I end up beating your wife's freckle-faced ass! I'm going to a motel—”

“Motel?” Sharief said. “Let me find out you got some niggahs up there tryna run a train on you,” he chuckled, “tryna get a li'l short stay and shit.”

“Do I have ha-ha-ha on my forehead? Do I look like I wanna fuckin' laugh? Get away from my car and back up that raggedy piece of shit you got.”

“Don't talk about Abdul.” Sharief shook his head. “Ab ain't never done shit to you.”

“I have heard it all—a damn truck named Abdul!” Monica huffed, but she was even more pissed that she felt like laughing at Sharief. “Such a stupid ass!” she seethed.

Sharief walked over to Monica's car and opened the passenger's-side door. He slid in. “You still mad with me?”

“Being mad with you is not on my mind right now.”

“Well then,” he whispered, “tell me you love me.”

“Are you crazy?”

“About you. Now tell me you love me.”

“I will not,” she said, tight-lipped.

“You don't love me?”

“Of course I do, but this is not the time. I can't stand this and I don't even know why I'm here. Celeste and I argue every time we see each other.”

“Cut it out.” Sharief frowned. “And stop acting ridiculous. You and Celeste need to stop arguing and focus on your mother. Now cut the engine off and get your ass back in the house.”

“Psst, niggah, please.” Monica waved her hand.

Sharief placed his hand on her knee. “What did I say?”

Monica glanced at Sharief's hand and saw that it was bandaged properly. “Did you go to the hospital?”

“Yeah, I went by my mother's and she had a fit …I told her I hurt it at work and she insisted that I go to the hospital.”

“Stitches?”

“Yeah, twenty inside and out.”

Monica couldn't hold it in anymore and started sobbing.

“Baby, don't cry; I've had stitches before.” Sharief held his head down. “See this scar on the side of my head, my brother pushed me when—”

“I'm not crying because you got stitches!” she screamed, cutting him off.

“Well, damn, you gotta say it like that?”

“Be quiet.” She chuckled in the midst of crying.

“Ahh, there it is, my smile.” Sharief wiped Monica's tears. “Tell me what happened, ma.”

“I just can't take it.”

“Take what? Me?”

“No…yes…I don't know…,” Monica sobbed. “It's just that some of the shit Celeste said really hurt me.”

“Oh baby, don't cry over that. It's me she hates, she's just taking it out on you.”

“No, Sharief, you don't understand. She's obsessed with this other-woman bullshit. And it's driving me crazy.”

“You can't fuck and feel guilty too.” Sharief turned Monica's face so that she was looking him in the eyes.

“What?” Monica said, taken aback. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Sometimes I wonder if you can handle this.”

“Handle what? You are so selfish; why does everything have to be about you? Plus, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you tell me that I was only your sister-in-law? So what is there to handle?”

“Oh, so you want me to step?”

“You're the one who stepped. I didn't tell you to go.”

“Yeah, ai'ight. I don't think you can handle this.”

“You know what
I can't
handle?” Monica pointed her finger. “I can't handle our relationship going nowhere and knowing that I can never wake up one day and call you mine.”

“Is that what you want?” he asked.

“In the midst of all this crazy shit—” She hesitated. “That's what I wish.”

“Be careful what you wish for.”

“Yeah.” She smirked. “I just might get it.” Tears flooded her eyes again and raced down her cheeks.

“Shhh.” Sharief ran his index finger across her lips. “Come upstairs please. It's late…you can sleep in the guest room. Just chill.”

“Don't tell me to chill.”

“Look, it's late as hell, I'm not letting you leave. Your mother is getting married tomorrow. Just calm down; you don't need to be driving like this.”

Monica looked at Sharief, and his eyes pleaded with her to stay. “Come on, baby,” he assured her. “It'll be all right. I want you to come upstairs… please…”

She gave in. “Okay. I left my things upstairs anyway… Let me help you with the girls.”

After Monica helped Sharief lay the girls down, she went in the guest room and changed into her nightgown. She sprawled across the bed with the echo of Celeste's cruel words troubling her mind. Somewhere along the way she'd settled with not being able to have children, but now that Celeste had tossed the reality of it in her face she didn't know what to do. Almost instinctively, she pressed on her abdomen and felt the hardness. She made a mental note to have an ultrasound done, then quickly changed her mind: denial seemed to be easier to deal with.

“Monica.” Sharief peeked in the guest room after knocking repeatedly. “Are you sleep?”

“Damn, you scared me.” She clutched her chest. “I was thinking about something.”

“Like what?” He walked into the room, closed the door, and lay horizontally across the foot of the bed. “Tell me.”

“Sharief, get off the bed. Don't you think that's just a bit much?”

“Girl, please,” he laughed. “I'm not on no bullshit. I care about you. I really, really do. And you were so upset earlier that I wanted to check on you. I won't be in here too long.”

“You checked, I'm fine, now go back to your wife.”

“Cut that shit out. What things were you thinking about?”

She sucked her teeth. “You really wanna know?”

“Yeah,” he turned his head toward her, “I do.”

“I was thinking about the baby I had at fifteen.”

“Baby?”

“Yes, a baby.”

“And the baby is where…?”

“Dead… And now I can't have any more children.”

Sharief didn't know what to say.

“Speechless?” Monica asked.

“A little.”

“I'll be all right. I just didn't expect Celeste to throw it in my face.”

“How did the baby die?” Sharief asked.

“The cord wrapped around her neck in the womb, and she was stillborn.”

“But why can't you have more children?”

“When I was seventeen, I had two fibroid cysts and my left fallopian tube had to be removed.”

“Wow, baby, you've been through a lot.” “I know…Oh, and let me just tell you this: Celeste cussed me about my father. I could've slapped the shit out of her.”

“Why would she do that?”

“Because we have different fathers and she acts like I'm responsible for her father's death because our mother loved my father and not hers.”

“Don't take that on.” Sharief curled his lips. “That's Celeste's issue, let her deal with it.”

“Yeah, but damn. Hell, look at Imani, none of us knows who her father is. All we know is that her last name is Reid.”

“Reid? All these years I thought Imani was a Lewis.”

“No, Lewis is my father's name.”

“Wait a minute, now, Jamal's name is Lewis.”

“Yeah, 'cause that's his sorry-ass daddy's name. Walik Lewis. Imani is a Reid and Celeste was a Parker, trust me.”

“Yo, that's deep.”

“Well, it's not my fault, and I don't appreciate Celeste throwing it in my face!”

Sharief took two pillows and tucked them under his head, placed Monica's feet on his chest, and started massaging them. “Don't let that stuff bother you anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Because you got me, and I love you.”

“Oh, Sharief, please.” Monica frowned. “You don't love me, you just wanna fuck me.”

He chuckled. “I've been fuckin' you for months and truth be told, it wasn't that hard.”

Monica took the pillows and snatched them from under his head. “Niggah—”

“Niggah what? Fucking you and loving you are different. I've been loving you for a minute. I can't put my finger on exactly when but it's been awhile.”

“Shhhh…,” Monica said, “talking like that could only make this situation even more fucked up.” She closed her eyes. “I'm going to sleep. Close the door when you leave.”

S
TARR STOOD ON the patio and took in the fresh summer air. It was eight o'clock in the morning, and today was her wedding day. She wanted to spend a few moments reflecting on her life and how far she'd come since her days of being a struggling single mother, looking for somebody to love her. “Thank God for better days.” She chuckled, fanning her face with her hand. She sat down in the reclining patio chair and crossed her ankles. As she closed her eyes and started to think of her handsome groom she heard a slight grunting:
“Grrrrr.”