All Up In My Business (17 page)

“Q.”

“Who?” Adam asked, taking another step toward her.

“M-my personal trainer,” Candace stuttered as she took another step back and bumped up against the large island in the middle of the kitchen. “It was only one time,” she continued
in a rush. Technically, this was true. They’d only done it raw one time. “I didn’t mean to, Adam. I …”

“You didn’t mean to what, Candace? Cheat on me with some lowlife or give me the got-damn clap? Which one?”

Candace’s head shot up. “No!”

“You heard me. That diseased muthafucka you’re screwing is why my dick is itching and why it burns when I piss. You have
gonorrhea
, Can, and you passed it on to me!” Adam seared Candace with a scathing look, then whipped around and stormed out of the room.

“Adam, wait!” Candace began, hurrying behind him. “I can explain …”

“Don’t try and explain shit to me right now,” Adam said, quickly turning around to face her, his arm out to stop her progress. “And don’t come any closer, Candace. I mean it. I’ve passed up a boatload of pussy to stay faithful to you, and this is how you thank me? No. Don’t come to me and say another word. Matter of fact, you’d be wise to get your shit and get as far away from me as you can right now. Give me a chance to try and calm the fuck down. Because if I have to look at you a moment longer, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

M
alcolm’s invention was still on Toussaint’s mind as he rolled up his sleeves and washed his hands.
You pulled a fast one on us, brothah. Now I have to step up my game
. The Livingston family competitiveness was legendary, and Toussaint now felt even more pressure to succeed on the Food Network show. Which was one of the reasons he was in his kitchen on a Thursday night.

Like most Livingston men, Toussaint loved to cook and was as at home in the kitchen as he was in the bedroom. As he placed vegetables and herbs on the prep table and set out appropriate bowls, knives, and other cooking utensils, he was reminded of how little time he’d had to cook lately, and how much he missed it. Preparing for a potential show on the Food Network gave him the perfect excuse to stand behind a stove, as did his dinner guest.

It hadn’t quite been a week since the dinner with Alexis, where she’d broken down about her father. They’d talked for two more hours—about fears, hopes, and dreams—and had had brief phone conversations during what had been a busy week for both of them. Tonight was the first chance they’d had to see each other since then, and Toussaint was preparing a small feast. He wanted everything to be perfect.

The smooth sounds of Kem blended seamlessly into those of Blu Cantrell, Corinne Bailey Rae, and other neosoul artists as Toussaint prepped his vegetables. He’d decided to try out some of the health-conscious, upscale soul food he planned to feature on the menu at the West Coast Taste location and on his network show: sautéed greens with tomato and fennel, black-eyed peas and arugula salad, wild rice, and baked mahi-mahi with a barbeque glaze. He planned to serve the entrée with spicy corn bread but would make sure that Alexis left room for dessert—maple-glazed yams in a puffed pastry.

He’d just removed the fish from the oven when the doorbell rang. He smiled, and there was a pep in his step as he walked through the dining room, quickly lit the candles in the living room, and continued to the front door.

The seductive greeting he’d planned died on his lips as he looked out the peephole. “Mama?” he asked after opening the door. “What are you doing here?” He then noted the carry-on next to her.
WTH?
“Mama, what’s going on?”

“I’ve messed up, son.” Candace stepped forward, and Toussaint quickly stepped aside for her to enter his home. “Your mother has screwed up royally, and I don’t know if this problem can be fixed.”

Toussaint watched, dumbfounded, as his mother passed him and walked into his living room. She plopped down on the couch and put her head in her hands. It was her first visit since he’d had the house decorated, yet she said nothing. It was as if she hadn’t noticed. Toussaint’s concern increased exponentially. Something was very, very wrong.

He walked over to the couch and sat beside her. “Mama, what is it? What’s wrong?”

When Candace looked up, her eyes shined with tears. “It’s me and your dad, son. We had a fight.”

“Daddy hit you?” Toussaint asked incredulously.

“No, but I may have felt better if he had. I deserve it.”

Toussaint’s mind raced with the possibilities of what could
be wrong. He thought about Malcolm and the problems that Victoria’s pregnancy had created in their marriage. That couldn’t be the case with his mother, could it?
Do women get pregnant at fifty-three?
“Maybe a glass of wine will help,” Toussaint said as he rose from the couch. “Is merlot okay?”

“Thanks, Toussaint.”

Toussaint was almost to the bar area of his dining room when the doorbell rang again.
Alexis
. As Toussaint thought her name, he also remembered the food in the kitchen. He rushed to the kitchen and turned off the burners, and then hurried to the front door as sounds of light knocking pierced the stark quiet. Candace looked toward the door, and then around the room. Belatedly, she took in the lit candles, heard the light music playing, and noticed the huge transformation to her son’s home.
Damn. I’m interrupting
. She stood as Toussaint brought his guest into the living room.

“Mama, this is Alexis.” Toussaint’s introduction was perfunctory at best. He’d barely spoken to Alexis before pulling her inside the room, still reeling from the comment his mother had made.

“Hi,” Candace said dismissively. She reached for her luggage without waiting for Alexis to reply. “I shouldn’t have barged in here like this, son. I’m leaving.”

“Are you sure, Mama? You seem pretty upset.”

“I’ll be okay. Oh, and I like what you did to the house.”

“Alexis is an interior designer. This is her work.”

There was an awkward silence as Toussaint awaited his mother’s response. Since she had been a subscriber to
Architectural Digest
for years, he felt that even in her disheveled state, she’d be impressed with Alexis’s handiwork. If she was, she didn’t say it. Candace simply reached for her purse and walked to the door.

Toussaint followed her out. “Mama, what is this about?” he asked again after he’d shut the door. “What happened between you and Daddy?”

“Never mind, son. Don’t worry about it. I shouldn’t have come here and involved you in our personal affairs. Everything’s okay.” Candace said this, but she didn’t believe it.

“Is that why you’re rolling up in here with luggage, your eyes full of tears? And ignoring my guest? Because things are okay?”

Candace ignored his questions. “I’ll be staying at a hotel tonight. If you need me, call me on my cell.”

Toussaint watched his mother get in the elevator before slowly turning around and going back inside the penthouse.

Alexis still stood where he’d left her. “I’m sorry to have interrupted.”

“It’s okay. I wasn’t expecting her.”

“Is everything all right?”

That’s what Toussaint wanted to know. And after his mother had come to his home, ruined the seductive mood, and destroyed his appetite, he was determined to find out.

“T
hat’s fucked up,” Ace said as he sat in his den, his expensive Cuban cigar burning unnoticed. He still couldn’t believe what his brother had just told him. “I’m sorry, man.”

Adam was in his library, nursing his third tumbler of cognac. He shifted the phone to his other ear. “I still can’t believe she cheated on me. I mean, I had no idea!” While calmer than two hours ago when he’d confronted Candace, Adam was still quite upset. “And with a nasty clap-carrying dog at that. What in the hell was she thinking?”

“She wasn’t thinking. That’s clear.” Ace paused. “Did she tell you who it was?”

“I could tell she didn’t want to, but yeah, she told me the sorry muthafucka’s name. It’s that thug who owns the gym.”

“Her personal trainer?”

“Can you believe that shit? Here I’ve been blocking Joyce twenty ways from Sunday while that bitch has been taking her workout to a whole other level.”

Ace winced at the name Adam called his wife. He understood the anger but had never heard Adam call her that, not in over thirty years.

“I hope that muthafucka is worth what it’s getting ready to cost her.”

Ace sat up. “Now, man, I know you’re angry. This shit is beyond fucked up. But don’t do anything now that you’ll regret later, nothing that will cast a shadow on the business.”

“I don’t give a damn about the business right now!”

“Well, think about the Livingston legacy, then, about Mama and Daddy. God only knows how they’d react if they found out.”

“If? You mean when, don’t you? Man, I’m divorcing Candace as soon as my attorney can draw up the papers.”

Ace wisely held his tongue, knowing that his brother wasn’t in a place to hear reason. Ace thought about Diane and their sex life. Then he tried to imagine finding out that she’d given his good loving to someone else. He couldn’t even imagine it but felt that he’d probably feel the same way his brother did right now—ready to put her out of his house, and his life.

“Do me a favor, Adam,” he finally said. “Hold off on calling the attorney. Just for now, until after the business trip with Toussaint to LA I’m helping him prepare—the schedule is jam-packed until then. But once I get back, we’ll put our heads together and work this thing out.” Ace did have a hectic schedule, but more importantly, he wanted Adam to have a chance to calm down and think more rationally. “Twin … will you do that for me?”

Adam’s smile was bittersweet as he heard the endearment. It’s what most family members had called them and what they still called each other. “I don’t know about anything getting worked out, but yeah, I’ll wait until you get back from LA.”

C
andace pulled up to the valet parking area of the Ellis Hotel. She’d read about the extensive renovation done on this historic landmark and had commented to Adam about spending a weekend there. The irony was that it was precisely because she’d spent time with someone else that she was now at the Ellis, alone.

Thankful for a relatively fast check-in and a near-empty lobby, Candace kept her head down as she took the elevator to her floor. She’d prayed that nobody she knew would be there attending a meeting or on a rendezvous, and it looked as if her prayers had been answered.
So far, so good
. She eyed the room numbers as she hurried down the hall.
Almost there
. Candace slipped her card in the slot and eased into the spacious, well-appointed room. Its modern, sleek décor made her think of Toussaint’s new digs that she’d barely noticed, and the woman he introduced, whom she’d noticed even less. Thoughts of her son temporarily diverted her from the ache that throbbed in her heart and the tingling that she now clearly felt on her vagina’s outer lips.

A free spirit during her early days, including the uneventful loss of her virginity at age sixteen, Candace had considered herself careful when it came to sex. With a steady stream of
partners until Adam, and in almost thirty-five years of marriage, she’d never had a disease.
And the one time I decide to be unfaithful, the one and only time, this is how I get caught. Me. With gonorrhea
. It’s a disease she would have thought beneath her, impossible for her to contract. But she had it. And all because of a man named Quintin Bright.

Candace’s cell phone rang. She thought it might be Q returning her call but saw Ace and Diane’s number instead. She hesitated in answering, not sure if she wanted to talk with either of them or hear what they had to say.

“Can’t hide out forever,” Candace told herself. She answered the phone.

“Candace, Ace just got off the phone with Adam. What is going on, girl?” Diane’s voice was a mixture of shock and concern.

“What did Adam tell Ace?”

“That you’ve having an affair! Tell me that’s not true, Can.” Candace sighed. “I could, Diane, but I’d be lying.”

“Oh my God, Candace. I had no idea you and Adam were having problems.”

“
We
weren’t having problems. I was. Well, I wasn’t either, exactly. It’s just that … it just happened.”

Diane, who was sitting in the dining room where she and Candace had discussed another troubled marriage earlier in the month, got up and paced the room.
Was she having this affair while talking about her son’s marital woes?
“How does an affair just happen, Can? And why didn’t you feel you could talk to me about it?”

“I don’t know,” Candace said softly. “I guess cheating on your husband isn’t something you discuss over coffee.”

Both ladies were silent as they pondered the gravity of Candace’s actions. “Where are you?” Diane finally asked. “Ace said Adam put you out.”

“Downtown. At a hotel.”

“Candace! You know you can stay here.”

“I know, but …”

“No buts. Where are you?”

“I’m at—” Candace’s answer was interrupted by a beep in her ear. “Hold on, Dee. On second thought. Let me call you back.” She clicked over to the new call without waiting for a response or saying good-bye.

“ ‘Bout time you called me back. How long have you been infected, Quintin?” It was the first time since meeting him six months ago that Candace had used his full first name.

“Infected? What the hell are you talking about?” Quintin knew exactly what she was talking about. It’s why he’d called. But her accusatory tone had immediately put him on the defensive, and as he’d done since he was five years old and was threatened with a whooping for stealing, he resorted to what had become a natural defense mechanism—playing dumb.

“Oh, so you haven’t had any symptoms, Q? No burning sensation when you use the bathroom, no swelling or discharge? And just how many women at the gym are you screwing besides me?” Candace realized that she could have casually chatted with any number of Q’s women while jogging on the treadmill or using the unisex sauna.

When Q replied, his tone was soft. He was busted, knew it, and felt bad about it. “I just found out, baby. That’s why I’m calling. So you can get treated before, you know, you’re with your husband again.”