Dirty (3 page)

Chapter Three

Simone wasn’t quite sure what had come over her to allow Paul liberties with her body. What she found the most disconcerting about the entire encounter was how much she’d liked it. The way his hands had roamed her body
,
sent her pulse racing.
Heat seared through her so intensely, it was nearly impossible for her
to speak. That it had been Paul who brought these feelings out
of
her was a surprise.

His accusation was true. She had spent the better part of the last several months staying out of his way
and not just because of the incident at the charity event. She’d
believed him to be the kind of guy that made a woman his wife and cherished her forever. She’d seen him as the kind of decent guy who held doors open for ladies and
was
led by a code that kept chivalry alive. She
thought
he was one of the decent ones. Too decent for someone like her.

Apparently
,
she was wrong. He was just like most of the men she’d encountered in her thirty-one years. She couldn’t get past how much he’d changed, appearance-wise. Without his glasses, he’d gone from Clark Kent to Superman. There was no denying that Paul had always been an attractive man, good-looking even but now he had a slightly dangerous look about him that gave him bad
boy
appeal. It wasn’t just the edgy
haircut
, stubble or even the stylish clothes. The difference wasn’t simply superficial. Paul had a swagger about him from the way he walked and talked that hadn’t been there before. But then again, maybe it had always been there and she just hadn’t noticed.

Whatever it was
,
there was no denying that Paul Winters was the epitome of the bad boy your mother warned you about. Though Simone couldn’t quite wrap her head around what had happened between them
,
she
was determined to keep her distance. The more she thought about it, Simone realized it would complicate things. She’d tried so hard to be good this past year and she felt that with Paul, she could quite easily fall back into a destructive pattern that could derail everything she’d worked hard for.

It’s why she’d ignored his calls the past week hoping he’d get the hint. Just as that thought entered her mind, her favorite song that was programmed as her phone’s ringtone started blasting. Simone nearly jumped out of her seat in surprise. Warily, she grabbed the phone and took a deep breath before taking a look at the screen to see who the caller was. She frowned when she spied the number. Though she didn’t recognize it, she was all too familiar with the area code. It was from her home town and she hoped it wasn’t who she thought it was. Tempted to send the call to voicemail, she pressed the answer button to confirm her suspicions. At least that way, if it was who she suspected, then she’d know how to handle
any
calls from
this number
in the future.

“Hello?” she answered cautiously.

“Simone.” There was no warmth in that greeting. The
gruff
voice belonged to the one person she least wanted to talk to right now
, especially
when she already had
so much
on her plate.

“Mother,” she replied with the
same
amount of ice injected into her own tone.

“Yes, it’s your mother. I guess
,
I should be grateful that you remember who I am. You went off to the big city and think you’re too good for your family.”

Simone pinched the bridge of her nose feeling
a
headache coming on. “How did you get my number?”

“Is that all you have to say after all this time?”

Simone could have gone much longer without talking to her mother. After all, she had changed her number after the last time she and her mother had spoken which was over a year ago. It was simply too emotionally draining to maintain a civil conversation, let alone an active relationship with First Lady Frieda Morris-Carter Johnson. “How did you get my number,
Mother
?”

“I don’t know what I ever did to
make you
treat me this way, Simone. I only carried you for nine months and was in labor for thirty-two hours. I almost died giving birth to you. I clothed and fed you and took care of you and this is how you treat me? This is a disgrace. I will continue to pray for you, because the devil has got a hold of you
,
girl.”

The guilt trip and the religious references were tactics her mother had used on her in the past
but they
had little effect on Simone now. The fact that her mother was using them before the conversation even started could only mean one thing. She wanted something and considering how their last talk had gone, Simone wasn’t inclined to be generous. “Are you finished? Because if so, I have things to do. Goodb—”

“Wait! Don’t hang up
!
Look, I didn’t call you to argue. It’s just not natural for mother and daughter to be estranged. How are you?””

This was a new tactic. If Simone didn’t know better, she’d actually think her mother was really interested in her life. “How about telling me how you got my number first
?”

She was met with a measured pause. “You know, you were always a stubborn child. I’d always hoped you’d grow out of that. But if it’s that important for you to know, I got the number from Tanisha. She was very sympathetic to me. She couldn’t believe that we hadn’t spoken for so long.”

“And exactly how did
you
get
her
number? You two don’t know each other.”

“I called that little store of yours. Imagine my surprise when I was flipping through one of those magazines in the checkout line at the grocery store and I see one of those celebrities mention your designs. I read a little further and it said you run a successful boutique. It wasn’t hard to find the number to your shop once I knew the name of it.”

Simone could practically hear the smug
self-satisfaction
in her mother
’s
voice
and it
made her cringe.
Simone had
given Tanisha a job at the boutique after
Tanisha
was laid off
.
Simone wished her friend had exercised some prudence in giving out Simone’s personal information so freely. While Tanisha didn’t know why Simone and her mother were estranged, she did know their relationship wasn’t a close one. She made a mental note to talk to Tanisha about being more discrete in the future. “Well, now you found me. What do you want?”

“What makes you think I called you for any other reason than to hear the sound of your voice? There’s really no need for you to
be
so rude. God is watching.”

“Oh yeah? Was he watching
Melvin
when—”

“Simone
,
you really need to let that go. Besides, we both know there was a little more to it than that. I’ve forgiven him because that’s what God would want me to do and I know he’d want you to do the same.”

Simone began to shake. Her hands trembled and she nearly dropped the phone. She should have hung up when she’d first confirmed
that
it
was
her mother
on the line
. Frieda always managed to make Simone
relive
her nightmares with just a few nonchalant words. She took a few calming breaths to slow her rapidly beating heart. Simone was sure her blood pressure was probably through the roof from the stress of this call. “Look, I’m very busy. So I need to go.”

“You didn’t even ask about your brothers. Damon’s in trouble.”

“What else is new?” While her relationship with her mother had always been contentious, Frieda doted on her sons as if the sun rose and set on them. When
Simone
was younger, nothing
she
did seemed to please her mother. If she brought home a report card with straight A’s
,
her mother would shrug it off while praising Damon and Derek for even the most mediocre accomplishments. Simone had gotten good grades, did everything she was told, went to church,
and
participated in various extracurricular activities. Simone had even learned how to sew her own clothes. The only time she ever received praise was when her mother was bragging to the church ladies about her children’s achievements
,
only then was Simone worthy
of
being mentioned. But behind closed doors
,
the praise was nil.

While Simone had walked the straight and narrow and often ran in to criticism from her mother, Damon and Derek could do no wrong. When Simone did begin to act out, her mother had heaped
on
all kinds of mental and physical abuse. She’d put Simone in the middle of a prayer circle
to
exorcise a demon that apparently possessed her. After a while Simone grew numb to her mother’s criticism, but she couldn’t help but note the hypocrisies where her brothers were concerned. Each of her brothers got horrible grades but managed to squeak by mainly because they had been athletes. When Damon got a girl pregnant in the eleventh grade, Frieda had laid all the blame at the girl’s feet, claiming the girl “wanted to trap her baby”
.
Despite a positive DNA test, Damon barely lifted a finger to help his child’s mother. By the time he graduated high school, he had two more girls claiming he was the father of their children. Both children had turned out to be his.

As for Derek, he’d gotten it into his head that he wanted to be a rapper. Not being the brightest person, he decided that in order to get ‘street cred’, he would have to commit a crime. So
,
he had robbed a convenient store with a toy gun. Unfortunately for him, the clerk had a real one and had shot him. Though the gunshot wound wasn’t fatal
,
there were still fragments of the bullet inside of him the doctors couldn’t remove and on top of that, Derek received seven years in prison. And through it all, Frieda proclaimed Derek had been set up because there was no way her child was capable
of
such an act.

Simone had never been particularly close to either of her brothers because they had taken their cues from Fried
a
. They’d taken pleasure in teasing and torturing her beyond most sibling dynamics. Once her mother had bought the boys each a pack of gum and had conveniently forgotten to get one for Simone. When she had asked her brother
s
’ for a piece. The boys had chewed the entire two packs in her face and when they were done, they’d taken the masticated wads and put them in her hair. She not only had to get a ‘boy’ hair cut to get it all out, her mother had given her a lecture for bothering the boys in the first place. And that was her life at home.

They would hide or break her personal items, make up lies about her to see her get in trouble. And through it all
,
her mother would shrug it off as boys being boys. Frieda somehow made it Simone’s fault. It was always her, never them. Eventually Simone realized they got some kind of maniacal glee in getting a reaction from her, particularly tears, so she locked her emotions on the inside never
giving
them the satisfaction of seeing how badly they hurt her. After a while
,
Simone refused to give them the reaction they craved and they finally left her alone for the most part although there were the occasional times they’d
still
get under her skin.

The only thing bearable about living with her family was when Noelle had come to live with them. Her cousin was the little sister she’d never had. She had someone to watch over and protect. Once Simone graduated high school, she didn’t hesitate to leave that hell she’d once called home. She worked hard and saved up enough to come back for Noelle. Once she’d convinced her cousin to come stay with her, Simone never looked back. The last she’d heard, Damon was on his fifth kid and he still lived at home, while Derek was in an out of prison. Even though her brothers’ lives had turned out like talk show guests, Simone didn’t take pleasure in their misfortune. Even though they were both assholes, they were also victims of her mother’s shitty parenting. Because no one had ever
held
them accountable, Damon and Derek thought they could do whatever they wanted. She would go months without hearing from her mother
but when she did,
it was usually because her mother wanted something.

After the last soul destroying conversation Simone had had with her mother, she had changed her number
.
Hoping
that
by
cutting communication
,
her mother would get the hint. Apparently not.

“I should have known better than to think that maybe you’ve had some time for a little
self-reflection
after the last time we talked. But
,
you’ve always been willful and selfish. I’m probably wasting my breath by even telling you, but Damon is in a bit of trouble. He’s a little behind on his child support and those whores he calls baby mamas are making a big deal about it. They know he hasn’t had a job in a while because of his bad back. He’s doing best he can.
Those
sluts are only causing trouble because they want to use the money to get their hair and nails done. They won’t even let my baby see his children. They won’t even let me see my grandkids. That’s absolutely disgraceful. Why should he have to pay a dime if they won’t allow him to be a father? And now the courts are saying if he doesn’t pay this back support, he’s going to go to jail.”