Millionaire Wives Club (28 page)

“I know that wasn’t the peacemaker,” Milan snapped as security rushed into the room.

Chaunci looked at security and spat, “I just had a flashback, so you know what, this may as well be the reunion show, because I’m done, and don’t call me for another goddamn get-together.” She looked at Milan. “Let’s go.”

“Let’s.” Milan grabbed her bag as she and Chaunci stormed out of the restaurant.

Bridget looked at Evan and Jaise, who were being shielded by security. “What are you two pissed off for? Smile, they’ve just guaranteed us a second season.”

T
he morning when it hit Milan that she’d been lying in Kendu’s bed, grooving for far too long to silence and dancing with loneliness, was when she realized she didn’t have any more tears left.

It’s not as if she didn’t know from the onset that she’d been holding on to nothing. It’s just that nothing had ever felt so good as it did today … well, yesterday … back when they had enough passion between them that Milan could emotionally afford to ignore the obvious, that he was married and had a family. But not anymore. Not today, at least. Milan knew she had to leave, because if she didn’t, she would be fighting for the rest of her life and the rest of her love with Kendu, to desperately get in where she fit in.

She’d applied for an apartment on Church Avenue in Brooklyn on an emotional whim, a spur-of-the-moment type of thing, when she couldn’t reach Kendu no matter how much she’d called or how many messages she’d left. She did it because she needed to make believe—at least at the time—that she had the nerve and the heart enough to say, Fuck him, she didn’t need him, despite how
bad she hurt inside. So, she combed the paper, found an apartment, completed the application, and a few days later, surprisingly, she was approved. And yesterday, when her soul whispered to her that her willingly lying in Kendu’s bed, two weeks after not hearing anything from him, was too long, was when she went straight from work and signed the lease.

Milan looked around at the beautiful space she was leaving behind and knew that she’d worn out her welcome. She’d derailed her own plans and this time she had to get back on track. To hell with the name brands, the wealthy friends, and all the other artificial things that controlled her life.

She had to leave, especially now that she had the keys to her new place in her purse and the moving men were downstairs with her boxes of clothes and some of the things she salvaged from her old place with Yusef.

Milan threw her purse onto her shoulder, grabbed her last box, tossed the keys to Kendu’s apartment in the middle of the floor, and walked out the door.

She attempted to swallow the lump in her throat repeatedly, but it felt as if the ball of emotion resting on her tongue was too much to push back into her stomach. This left her with no choice but to accept that the pain of leaving here would be around for a while.

“Ready, ma’am?” the driver said to her, as he placed his keys in the truck’s ignition and turned his aged baseball cap around backward.

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” Milan forced her lips to curl into a smile.

“Let’s be out then.”

Milan looked out the window as the driver pulled off. She closed her eyes for the remainder of the ride. She didn’t care about the route the driver took. All she wanted was to arrive at her new place.

Twenty minutes of riding with the wind cutting across her face,
and then Milan opened her eyes and the driver said, “Looks like we’re here.”

Milan didn’t respond. She looked at the people walking swiftly up and down the mixed block of apartment buildings, row houses, and single-family dwellings. Milan was moving into a fifth-floor apartment in a tall brick building filled with mixed-income people, some working and some chilling on the block. It was a far cry from the upscale apartments of doormen, dog walkers, and living lavishly. Instead this was real life, and real shit went on here.

Strangely enough, as if she were suddenly high off contact, Milan didn’t feel like she had hit rock bottom. She felt on top. Like she was able to do this—this place and this space was freedom, a detox of sorts, where all the fucked-up love could ease from her pores and let her become sound again.

As Milan placed her keys in the door and the movers brought in her things, she knew this was where she was supposed to be.

After an hour of moving boxes into the one-bedroom flat, and the moving men had gone, Milan felt as if she had mastered her situation. But then, unexpected or perhaps expected, yet unwanted, tears filled the back of her eyes and her heart started melting into an emotionally drained piece of shit. Suddenly, she felt empty. Like all that she’d been through, the glitz, the glamour, the money … the millions… and millions … of dollars … and all she had left, and all she’d been able to accomplish in all of her thirty years … was nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Milan crouched to her knees in the middle of her wood floor, among the sea of boxes, and cried until she couldn’t cry anymore.

“Y
ou sure you can’t be Daddy’s date?” Kendu teased Aiyanna as he stood in her doorway dressed in his two-piece black Armani suit.

Aiyanna coughed as she sat up in bed. “Daddy, can you stay home and I can be your date in front of the TV?”

“Well, that’s awfully selfish of you, Aiyanna,” Evan blurted out as she walked up next to Kendu in her royal blue cocktail dress and placed her hands around his waist. “This is very important to Daddy, and that should mean more to you than him staying home.”

“I just feel really sick.” Aiyanna looked at Kendu with tears in her eyes.

Kendu brushed Evan’s arms from around his waist. He walked over to Aiyanna’s bed and kneeled beside her. “You really want Daddy here with you?”

“Yes.”

He unbuttoned his jacket. “Ai’ight, then I’ma stay here.” He pressed his hand against the back of her head. “She has a fever,” he said, looking at Evan.

“She also has a nurse.” Evan walked over and grabbed Kendu’s hand. “And you don’t need to stay home. Aiyanna is fine. You just have her spoiled. There is more to life then the life and times of Aiyanna Malik. You are the recipient of the Arthur Ashe Courage Award for the all the hard work you do with our charity. You deserve this.”

“But she’s sick.”

“Aren’t you always telling me she will be okay?”

Kendu nodded.

“Well, then she will be fine. This is an opportunity of a lifetime. Now, I insist that our child understand that Mommy and Daddy love her but we have to go.”

Kendu stared at Aiyanna and held her hand. “You know I love you, and when I come home I’ll read you a story, no matter the time.”

“Daddy, please stay home with me.”

“This is enough,” Evan interjected.

“Back up, Evan.” Kendu shot her a look that told her to take it down.

Kendu cleared his throat. “Listen, Daddy does spoil you a lot, because you’re Daddy’s main girl. But I think it’s important that Daddy attend this function. After all, I’m getting the Arthur Ashe Courage Award. Do you know who he was?”

“No.” Aiyanna shook her head as Kendu wiped her tears away.

“He was a great man,” Kendu said, his voice animated. “And he loved his community, and he did a lot of things to help other people.”

“Like you do, Daddy?”

“Exactly, and you know why I do that?”

“Why?”

“Because when Daddy was a little boy I didn’t have a mommy or a daddy. I lived in a lot of foster homes, and when I turned ten your granny adopted me. So it’s my way of giving back to my community.”

“So you’re a great man too, Daddy?”

“Of course he is.” Evan smiled.

“You’re like Superman, Daddy?” Aiyanna laughed.

“Yeah”—Kendu chuckled—“I think I like being on the same level as Superman.” He placed his right hand like a visor over his eyes. “It’s a bird … it’s a plane…”

Aiyanna stood up on her bed. “No, it’s my daddy!”

“Aren’t we well all of a sudden?” Evan said. “No standing on the bed, and we will see you later.”

“Bye.” Aiyanna sat back down and poked her lips out.

Evan waved and walked out in front of Kendu, who turned around and whispered to Aiyanna, “You can stand on the bed. Daddy paid for it.”

“Sweetie,” Evan said to Kendu as they walked the red carpet, “would you be still so we can pose for a few pictures?”

“Aiyanna is calling me.” He pulled his BlackBerry from his pocket.

Evan snatched it from his hand and before he could protest she turned it off and tossed it in her purse. “It’s your show tonight. If it’s an emergency the nurse has my cell phone number.”

“Kendu! Kendu!” a few reporters yelled, as he and Evan posed for pictures. “How does it feel receiving such a great reward?”

Kendu smiled and said, “Like Superman.” And he headed inside to the ceremony. He mingled with a few of his teammates and athlete friends, while Evan felt like a superstar in her own right as many of the athletes’ and entertainers’ wives were dying to know how she managed to be taping for such a hit series.

When the awards ceremony began, Evan was boiled over in excitement when Michael Jordan was there in person to present the award to Kendu. “On behalf,” Michael said, “of every great athlete that is here, that ever lived, and ever will be, we present to you, Kendu Malik, the great Arthur Ashe Courage Award!”

Everyone stood up and the crowd erupted in cheers.

Evan kissed Kendu on the cheek. He stood up and walked toward the stage.

“Man,” he said into the mic once he reached the podium. “Wow.” He looked around. “God is good. When I started doing this, I never thought of recognition or admiration. All I thought about were the kids and making a difference …” As Kendu continued on, one of the escorts for the awards ceremony walked up to him and whispered that he needed to speed things along, because he had an emergency at home. “Thanks to all of you.” His mood quickly changed. “God bless.” He hurried backstage, where one of the backstage assistants told him he needed to call home.

“Kendu,” Evan said as she rushed backstage, “what happened? Why’d you cut your speech short?”

“It’s an emergency at home.” He dialed Aiyanna’s nurse. “What’s the problem?” he said when she answered.

“Aiyanna,” the nurse’s voice trembled, “started having convulsions, and before I knew anything she’d fallen off the bed and hit her head. She won’t stop bleeding! The ambulance is on its way. We will meet you at the hospital.”

“What’s wrong?” Evan panicked.

“Aiyanna,” Kendu said as he started walking swiftly toward the car. “She started having seizures and she hit her head. The nurse said something about a lot of bleeding. I knew I should’ve stayed home!” he said as he jumped into the car and sped up the highway.

Milan sat on the edge of the nurse’s desk wondering how she would tell Kendu that she’d moved, both mentally and physically. That there was no way she could continue to love and to live like this, especially since she was losing herself in the process.

“Eight-year-old girl, convulsing,” she was startled to hear as EMT workers burst through the doors with doctors running beside them. When she looked up, Kendu was staring her in the face
and the doctors were spitting orders at her about what they needed to do. Milan broke her gaze from Kendu and swiftly began to follow the doctors’ orders.

As they transferred Aiyanna to the hospital bed, Milan started cutting Aiyanna’s clothes off of her and asking Kendu and Evan questions. “What happened?”

“She was sick earlier,” said Aiyanna’s nurse, who was also there.

“What was she sick from?”

“I’m not sure,” the nurse said. “I thought she was feeling better because she started playing. I left the room for five minutes and when I came back she was unconscious, having seizures, and had hit her head.”

“Does she have a history of seizures?” Milan did her best not to look at Kendu for longer than she had to.

“No,” the nurse said.

“Any family history?”

“No.” Evan shook her head. “Stop asking us questions and help my child!” she cried.

“I’m trying,” Milan said as she looked at the doctor. “This is a lot of bleeding. Her blood should’ve started to clot by now.”

The doctor squeezed the IV. “This is not good.”

“What’s not good?” Kendu asked in a panic.

“You need to leave,” the doctor said to Kendu. “Please, we need you and your wife to leave the room.”

“I’m not leaving my daughter.”

“Mr. Malik, I’m trying to explain to you—”

“You can’t hear? I’m not going any-fuckin’-where.”

Milan looked at Kendu and then to Evan. “Please. I know you are upset, but this is standard procedure, and we can’t get to the bottom of this if you’re in here. Please.” She looked Kendu in the eyes. “Leave. We will keep you informed every step of the way.”

“I need to know what’s wrong with my daughter.”

Milan grabbed Kendu’s hand. “Let us find out.”

Kendu stood there.

“Please.”

Kendu stepped reluctantly out of the room with Evan following behind him.

The team of doctors examined Aiyanna and sent samples of her blood to the lab. “She needs a blood transfusion,” the doctor said. “Her blood’s not clotting, and she’s losing a lot of it.”

“What’s wrong?” Milan asked, suppressing her panic.

“I don’t know, but I know we have to do this in order to save her life.”

“I’ll go and tell the parents,” Milan said.

“Yes,” the doctor said, “and go quickly. We need to find out in a hurry who’s the match or if they both are. That would be even better.”

Milan walked swiftly down the corridor and was met midway by Evan and Kendu, who were visibly upset. “What’s going on?” Kendu spat.

“Listen,” Milan said, “Aiyanna’s blood won’t clot.”

“What do mean it won’t clot?!” Kendu snapped.

Milan could tell by the vein jumping in Kendu’s neck that he was two seconds from kicking somebody’s ass. “Knott,” she said, knowing that calling him by that name always calmed him, “Aiyanna is really sick.” She looked over at Evan. “And in order for us to help her we need to give her a blood transfusion. And we need your consent.”