Chapter 6
“I
'm getting married,” Hannah said.
Reyna heard the words, but she took a minute to respond. Her mind computed it, and instantly, she felt happiness, jealousy, anger, joy, sadness, and fifty other feelings all at once. She was happy for HannahâGod knew Hannah deserved some happiness in her lifeâbut Reyna couldn't help but wonder why she herself wasn't engaged yet. What in the hell was taking her boyfriend so long? She had been with him way longer than half the married couples she even knew. It was times like these she wondered why she was still dealing with his crap. Then again it was times like these that reminded her why, because if she ever wanted to walk down the aisle anytime soon, she couldn't waste time starting over with some new guy. Dang, her options sucked, and she knew it, and for that matter, so did her boyfriend. She wished she had the guts to just say to hell with it and leave his ass for making her wait so many years for him to pop the question. She worried deep down that by the time he did, she would have so much resentment in her heart, it wouldn't be quite the fairy tale anyway.
“Congratulations,” Reyna blurted out as if that had been her sole thought and reaction.
“Thanks. Jerry asked me yesterday while we were at dinner.”
“Aw, how sweet!”
“I love the ring, too. He did a great job,” Hannah replied.
Laughing, Reyna said, “Well, that always helps the proposal.”
“Yeah, girl. You are next, I'm sure.”
Reyna hated that fake sympathyâshe saw right through it. That was an “I expect you to be jealous” comment. Thing is, what Hannah didn't know was that Reyna didn't want to marry just anybody like Hannah or a lot of her friends did, she wanted to marry the man she loved and had been with for nine long years. She didn't envy Hannah's engagement, because Reyna knew she herself couldn't have told Jerry yesâif she were Hannahâafter all the dirt he had done to her. So at the end of the day, Reyna preferred to wait for her man to propose than to have to settle like a lot of people. At the end of the day, that was Reyna's bright side. She felt as though she truly did have that rare true love she barely saw in most relationships, and she was happy that Michael hadn't ruined that yet.
Once she got off the phone, Reyna instantly realized how hard she had been on Michael. After she'd gotten home from Wal-Mart the day of their argument, he had apologized and explained that he hadn't meant it the way it had come out. The very next day he'd bought the dual hampers and added his-and-her hooks in the closets. When she came home from work, he'd had a candlelit dinner waiting. She really never did tell Michael how much she appreciated him, and she knew she could be a bit overbearing. She knew they shared something more special than most couples, including the newly dating and married couples. She wanted to stop holding against him the fact that he had his own agendaâhow could she blame him when she did, too? Of course, she would have been happier if their two agendas were perfectly aligned, but she knew she couldn't fault him because they weren't.
Some guys didn't propose just to propose and then still cheat and act single. Some guys didn't wait until they were old, had nothing left to offer, and then propose to the one girl who had invested so much in them they wouldn't mind going ahead and marrying them. Some guys took marriage seriously, and Michael happened to be one of those guys. He wasn't going to rush into marriage, because he knew he wanted a lot of things to be right before he did that, and Reyna didn't want to hold that against him. At least, that was how she felt today at that momentâshe just hoped she could remember this feeling next time she thought of her wedding day or saw that gorgeous engagement ring she had been waiting for.
Reyna took out her phone and dialed Michael.
“Hey, babe,” she said once he answered.
“Hey, Rey,” he replied.
His tone didn't have as much excitement as hers, but that was OKâshe felt like she'd just had an epiphany.
“Hey . . . I just wanted to apologize to you.”
“Apologize for what?”
“For giving you such a hard time when you were just being honest.”
Michael didn't say anything, as though he was fishing for a setup.
“I know we have been having a rough time lately because we haven't been seeing eye to eye. I do feel we need to figure out how to compromise more, and you need to be more sensitive to my feelings,
but
I, too, need to do the same.”
“OK, I feel you,” Michael said.
Reyna wasn't going to let his demeanor discourage her efforts.
“Really, Michael, I know marriage isn't everything. I also know there are empty marriages all over this world, and there are cheating and disrespectful spouses everywhere you look, so, obviously, vows and a ring don't make a couple special. What two people shareâthe history and the love and the common goal to stand the tests of timeâare what make a couple special, and that's what I want.”
Something must have registered because suddenly Michael opened up some.
“Rey, no one said we won't have the marriage and the kids. We will. I just don't see why that is most important. I have seen a lot of my fellas move too fast and mess up their relationships. I know that what we have is forever, so there is no major rush. We still have a lot to accomplish and figure out before we go adding more to our plates.”
Reyna was tempted to challenge him and state how marriage wouldn't make things any different, but maybe even better. Instead she chose against it. She knew they had different points of view on this, and it was about time she heard his view with an open mind for once.
“I understand,” she limited herself to saying.
“We will get married, and when we do we are going to have a fabulous life and grow old together. My architecture firm will be established by then and will have gone public; you will have a permanent position at the hospital. We will be more stable to sustain the house we want and support the children we want. I just want us to do this right.”
Reyna thought to say,
This is right. Let's just start this great life now. Why wait? My eggs won't last forever. Tomorrow isn't promised.
Instead she held her tongue and remained silent.
“You deserve the best, and I just want to give it to you. We are still young. We have time. Let's just enjoy this time we have now, and when the rest of our life together unfolds, we will enjoy that, too.”
Reyna had to admit that the things Michael was saying were quite convincing. In many ways she knew if and when they had been married for several years with some noisy kids running around, she would miss the days of spontaneity and less responsibility. She was being like the preteen girls who just couldn't wait to grow up, and then when they were twenty-nine wished they could have back some of those years of carefree youth. She took what he was saying, and knowing she had been that preteen girl at one point, reminded herself why she had called in the first place. She had called because Hannah's bragging actually had made her appreciate what she had even more, and she wanted to tell him that.
“I like how that sounds, baby. That's why I called. Hannah is getting engagedâ”
“Hannah?” he asked before she could finish her thought.
“Yeah, Hannah,” she replied with a giggle.
“Didn't the guy she was with, like, get some other girl pregnant a few months ago? And, waitâdidn't she just say she was pregnant by someone else a couple weeks ago?”
“Yes and yes,” Hannah replied, not feeding into where he was going with his recollections.
“Wow, OK. Let's bet how long that will last.”
“That's not nice. I'm not going to do that. They have just as good a shot as anybody.”
“Yeah, sure. If they do last, they will not be happy. She barely has a career, and they have had way too much damage already. It won't be wedded bliss, I bet you.”
“I'm not betting, but I am going to end this conversation. It's not nice.”
Michael laughed. “OK, if you say so. I know you are thinking the same thing, but you just don't want to be mean because that is your friend.”
“Yup,” she replied.
Reyna eventually ended the phone call, and, surprisingly, she felt extremely optimistic about her future with Michael. She wondered how, with so many issues with her friends and family and her extremely demanding medical career, she managed to make Michael her main priority. She knew it had to be a woman thing, the whole biological clock thing, but still she felt so weak sometimes for allowing him and their life together to consume her. All the “strong, single sisters” told her to put herself first and not put no man that high on a pedestalâand every other sisterhood quote ever made. The thing Reyna had to remember was that not only were those sisters single, they were looking for Mr. Right constantly. They tried to act as if they were setting their standards high and were comfortable being single, so there was no rush, but that wasn't the case when they were out at clubs or home alone complaining. So Reyna paid them no mind; no woman or man really wanted to live this life alone, and she was no exception.
Chapter 7
I
t was his first day back on air since the prior week, and DJ KD had a mouthful. As soon as he cracked the mic, he blew up, so much so that he didn't introduce himself or give the station call letters. The first thing he did was clarify that the story Tryme had been spreading all through the media was false.
“Tryme, that's all you can do is try, but you will never succeed, not over my dude.” Vice, the board operator, didn't know what the proper protocol was when a jock threw a tantrum over the airwaves, but he stood with his finger close to the dump button just in case.
“That fake thug came up in here thinking he was running things. Nobody tells me what to doâI do what I want to do. You need me, I don't need you. Your team should've told you you were overstepping your boundaries, but they didn't let you. They let you step into the ring for a nonwinning battle. You mad at me 'cause I didn't want to play your wack records. Then you tried to try meâand you got your ass beat! Then you want to go on the radio and say you did some damageânegro, please! Get the incident report from the policeâthe police that got called on me! You can spread whatever lies you wantâbut I'm here every nightâyou will never get the last word.”
KD was just filled with anger. It was bad enough he had been off the air for days, but he had been itching to respond to clear his name, and it showed. Vice finally signaled to him that he had to wrap up for commercial, and because no one played around with ad time at Drama 99, KD cut it short and took a seat.
As soon as he made sure the sponsors were well into their sales pitch, Vice looked over at KD.
“You alright?” he asked.
“I'm good,” KD replied.
“You just blacked out live.”
“He better be glad I didn't see him last night at that album release party. It would've been round two.”
Before KD could turn to see what had caused Vice's expression to change so rapidly and drastically, he heard the voice of Madison ripping through the doorway.
“Are you out of your damn mind?” she said.
KD looked up to gather his response, but he didn't think quickly enough.
“Do you think this microphone is your personal diary for you to vent your personal issues?”
“No, I was justâ”
“It's not. You keep your drama and bullshit off my airwaves, or you will not be on them again, are you clear?”
“Madison, I was just responding to all the stuff being said. My listeners want to hear my side.”
“Don't try to make this about your listeners or good contentâthis is about your ego.”
KD started to contemplate if he should have just left well enough alone.
“His record label just called, and they are pissed off. You are trashing their artist on the air, and they just had him up here to give an interview,” Madison continued.
“Is that what this is about? Kissing some label's ass?”
“No, it's about not wanting added drama spoken over the airâ”
“We can't speak of any drama at Drama Ninety-Nine FM?”
“Real funny, KD. I'm not in the mood tonight. Unless you want Vice finishing your show, I suggest you relax.”
“I
am
relaxed. I just don't understand why I can't speak my mind just because the record label is upset. I don't work for the record label.”
“Yeah, well, you work for me, and I said cut that shit out.”
Madison exited on that note. She was well aware KD was one of her top DJs, so she wasn't trying to take him off air any longer than he already had been, but she wasn't in the mood for added drama.
KD was just as pissed off back in the studio. He was sitting in the swivel chair playing with the pen in his hand.
“We are back on in sixty seconds. You ready to rock?” Vice asked.
“Yeah. I was trying to tell you that you was blacking out and to be easy, but then I seen her out of nowhere,” Vice said as he adjusted the levels on the board.
“You was saying to relax because of Madison or the investigation?” KD asked.
Before Vice could respond, he was silencing KD and counting his fingers down from five.
“WDRD, it's your boy, KD, bringing you the drama like I do each and every day. For those of you just joining me, I just let the tristate know that nobody's favorite rapper, Tryme, is a fraud, but due to music business politics, I am going to say no more about it.”
Vice looked over at KD, shocked that he had made that stab at Madison over the airwaves like that, but he turned back away quickly in case KD decided to redirect his aggression. KD continued with some more banter about the music world and some of the drama within it before he got into some regular entertainment news.
Although KD and Vice expected Madison to appear back in the studio, she didn't. She was sitting in her office trying to get her stuff together to get the hell out of there and wondering why she had her behind still in the building that late. By the time KD was on air, she was well into overtime hours. She knew that the on-air staff that came to work after she was gone felt a little more free to take risks. She knew KD was shocked to see her pop in the studio, but she was more pissed that he had made his slick remarks on air even after he'd known she was listening. It was a good thing for him, though, that she was in no mood to care. The station was consuming all her energy, and on this particular night she was ready to throw in the white flag.
Â
Â
An hour had gone by, and Madison was home and dressed in her comfy pajamas. Her hair was wrapped up, and she had her red and blue scarf tied around her head. She was all ready for bed and went into the family room to spend some cuddle time with her man in hopes to take her mind off the stressful day at work. When she walked in, he was sitting on the couch with the remote in his hand. He wore a pair of gray sweat pants, and his hairy chest was exposed through a saggy wife beater. He didn't look up or acknowledge her when she walked in, but she just continued on her way to sit beside him. Once she plopped down next to him, he looked at her.
“Damn, do you have to jump down so hard?”
“Jump? How do you jump down, Jamahl?”
“Never mind,” he said and turned back to the television.
Before he'd just annoyed her, Madison had wanted to rest her head on his shoulder, but he had just diffused that feeling with his attitude.
She sat there for a few moments looking at the sports news he was watching. A few moments went by, and no words were exchanged. All Madison could think was,
what happened to the generic welcome-home questions? What happened to enjoying spending some quality time together? What happened to us?
“So, no âhow was my day'?” she asked.
“I was watching something,” he replied.
Madison bit her bottom lip to prevent from speaking too quickly because she knew it wouldn't be very nice. She didn't want to argue, but his unpleasantness was pissing her off quite fast.
“How was your day?” he asked with an obvious hesitation.
“It was fine, Jamahl.”
“So why did you ask me to ask?”
“Oh, my gosh, are you serious?” she said as she turned to look directly at him.
He just looked back at her.
“Did it hurt you to open up dialogue with me?”
“No, but I am saying you acted as though you had something to say, when really you just wanted me to say something.”
“I didn't act like anything. I just asked you why you were sitting here speechless like I didn't just come home and join you on the couch.”
Madison knew where this petty bickering was headed, so before he gave his counter she got off the couch.
“Never mind, Jamahl, enjoy your alone time. I am going to bed.”
Jamahl made no attempt to change her mind; he just watched her walk down the hallway toward the staircase.
Madison reached her bedroom and was beyond annoyed. She sat on the side of the bed and rubbed her toes on the plush maroon carpet in her bedroom and tried to let her blood pressure drop some before she turned on the television. She told herself to shake it off and start a new dayâthe last thing she needed was to go down her Jamahl-gets-me-sick road. Once she got into bed, she hit POWER on the remote. A familiar tune filled the room. It was Polytics's new video on BET. Madison felt guilty, but watching him shirtless and rubbing on all the young video chicks was clearing her mind and cheering her up. Even though she knew everything about that was wrong.