“That's what I mean when I say you don't keep it real. I feel so stupid!”
“I am!” he boomed. “Fuck Tina. You're the one I'm loving and fucking with.”
“I just want to go home and think about this. I'd like a ticket back to New Jersey to-fuckin'-day.”
“Babe, you buggin'. Please relax,” he tried to reason with her.
“I want to leave today.” Simone stood her ground.
Now it was Freddie who became pissed. “You better stop acting like a little-ass girl and grow the hell up. This ain't no fuckin' game. You just can't up and go back to Plainfield,” he pointed out. “You think they're not looking for you too?” he reminded her. “We're in this together. I'm sorry I made you feel like however you feel and that she made you feel some kind of way, but that broad ain't no factor,” he said all in one breath.
Freddie shook his head, silently embarrassed and annoyed as she continued to rant about it. He pulled the car in front of their place. Simone hopped out before Freddie could even put the car in park. Once they were inside the room, Simone began to put into her suitcase any clothes left out in the open.
“Simone, please relax,” Freddie asked, nicely.
“Fuck you!” spat Simone in response.
This time, with a firm, hard voice, Freddie said, “Calm the fuck down!”
But she continued hauling clothes into her suitcase, like a madwoman. Freddie walked over to her, snatching his belt through the loops of his jeans. He grabbed her body in one arm and locked her hands in front of her. He took the belt and tied her hands together, and pulled the belt strap through a loop, causing the leather to tighten around her tiny wrists. Simone looked into his dark, smoldering eyes, unable to get any answers from his ferocious expression. A sense of fear swept through her body.
“I'm not gonna hurt you,” he assured her. “I just need you to calm down. You wildin' so I'm restraining you.” He chuckled.
But Simone found no humor in his joke. She sighed, asking herself to think reasonably about how to handle this. Calmly, she spoke: “I just feel like you're a different man now. Not the same Freddie I knew when we left Plainfield.”
“Baby, I'm the same man.”
“Well, I guess that's not a good thing, right?”
“Stop with this bullshit,” he bellowed. “Chill. Relax,” Freddie said as he threw his arms around her. Simone rested her head on his chest and let her tears fall on his chest.
I can't keep doing this
, she thought.
My heart can't take it.
Freddie kissed her on top of the head and began stroking her hair. “Tina or nobody else mean more to me than this right here.”
His words were all that was needed to ease Simone's heart for the moment. Only he could soothe her pain, no matter who had caused it.
Chapter Twenty-six
Slug and Kiki got married quietly but the party that Saturday was anything but. The Boro turned out in full force to wish the happy couple a prosperous life.
“Nigga snuck and got married so we wouldn't see his whipped ass cryin' at the altar! I do!” A.B. yelled like he was crying, “Oh, baby, I do!” The fellas laughed and clowned a jovial Slug.
“Man, fuck you niggas, yo,” he replied.
“Don't sweat what these niggas is sayin', yo. I'm proud of you,” Freddie said, patting him on the back before adding, “You finally admitted to the world that Kiki got that ass wrapped around her finger!”
Slug laughed. “Oh, and Simone don't?”
“Hell no!”
They held the party at the rec center, thanks to Slug's mother who was still mad at Slug for getting married without letting her help plan the wedding. She scolded the couple good-naturedly with a smile. “Kionna, I can't believe you let Eric convince you to cheat me and your mama out of helping you plan the happiest day of your life.”
“Miss Carolyn, I'm sorry, but you know Eric. Ain't no tellin' with him. So I figured I'd better take him up on his offer before he changed his mind. Now he's mine,” she boasted with a girlish giggle. Even li'l Chris' father, Big Chris, showed up. He had moved to Charlotte, but when he heard that Kiki was married, he wanted to see for himself. She paid him no mind. Even li'l Chris gave him a hard time.
“You ain't my daddy! My daddy's name is Slug!”
Slug walked up and heard li'l Chris say that to Big Chris. The man looked like all the air had been let out of his balloon, totally deflating it. Slug knew why li'l Chris said what he said, because the cat really wasn't shit, but the puppy dog look on the man's face made Slug call li'l Chris to him.
“Li'l Chris! Come 'ere!”
Li'l Chris jumped at the sound of Slug's voice and ran over to him. Slug picked him up. “Dig, shawtie, don't play your pops like that. He came all the way down here to check you out.”
“My mama said he ain't shit. You my daddy!” Li'l Chris pouted.
“What I tell you 'bout cussin'? I got to talk to yo' mama 'bout her dirty-ass mouth too, but dig: you my li'l man but, Chris”âhe looked up at Big Chris, made eye contact, and spoke loudly enough for him to hear his next wordsâ“that's your daddy. And trust me, he's gonna do better. So give him a chance. Not everybody's got a pops, shawtie.”
Li'l Chris nodded as if Slug's word was law. Slug put him down and he went back over to Big Chris. Slug followed.
“What up, kinfolk?”
“What's up, Slug? Congratulations, man, you got a good girl,” Chris said, extending his hand. Slug shook it.
“Yo, call me sometime, a'ight? I know it's paper in Charlotte,” Slug asserted.
Chris had been looking for a job but with little success. “Good lookin', cuz.”
Slug just nodded and left him to his son.
“Congratulations!” Freddie told Kiki after he hugged her. “Take care of my li'l cuz for me.”
Kiki took one last look at her fantasy standing next to Simone. Freddie was slap yo' mama fine, but Slug made her happy, and that was all she really wanted.
“Thank you, I will. Now, when you gon' finish what you started with my girl right here?” Kiki asked with her hands on her hips.
Freddie looked at both Kiki's and Simone's inquiring faces. He cleared his throat. “Simone knows I marry her more and more every day in my heart,” he replied, knowing that corny comment wouldn't get him off the hook with the sharpness of not one, but two likeminded black women. They both laughed.
“Hmm. That's all good, Mr. Smooth, but how about you take your heart and your ass down to the church or courthouse.” Kiki chuckled.
“You really know how to put a nigga on the spot, don't you, Ki?” Freddie mused.
The party was in full swing and Simone and Freddie danced, enjoying themselves. Everything was all right until Tina caught his eye. She made eye contact with him and licked her tongue ring out at him, enticing him more than the mere sight of her did already. Slowly but surely, Freddie had gone back to his old ways, and Tina was the chief temptation on his list. As Simone got rounder, Freddie became less interested in sexing her. He still loved her, but Tina's luscious shape became more and more appealing. After Tina, more females got added to his hit list. But Freddie convinced himself he was doing nothing wrong. Home was taken care of, paper was coming like water, and the females flocked to him in droves. Once again, he was caught up.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Tina nodded her head toward the bathroom, then swung her ass in that direction. Freddie turned to Simone. “Be right back, boo. Let me holler at this cat.”
“Okay, baby,” was her easy reply, and he stepped off to the bathroom.
A few minutes later, Simone approached Slug while he was talking to A.B. and Shaq. “Slug, Kiki is ready to take pictures. Do me a favor and find Freddie, too.”
Slug knew exactly where Freddie was but said, “Tell Kiki I'll be there in a minute. Freddie's talkin' to Mandrell.”
As soon as Simone walked away, Slug jogged off to the men's bathroom and found it locked. He put his ear to the door and the slurping sounds he heard confirmed what he already knew.
Slug banged on the door. “Freddie! Ay, yo, bring yo' ass on. Simone lookin' for you.”
Freddie's eyes were damn near in the back of his head. Tina was giving him head and driving him crazy with the way she worked her tongue ring. “A'ight, yo. Tell her I'm comin'!”
“Yeah, bet you is, nigga.” Slug chuckled to himself, then hit the door one last time. “Hurry up!”
Freddie cleaned himself up and rushed over to the photographer. Kiki, Slug, and Aunt Ann were taking pictures. Aunt Ann's and Freddie's eyes met and she nodded knowingly.
“Come on, cuz. Me and you gonna take a few,” Slug urged. He and Freddie flicked it up, then he, Freddie, Kiki, and Simone got together and posed.
Aunt Ann whispered in Freddie's ear, “I need to see you, nephew.”
Freddie looked at her and replied, “Yes, ma'am?”
“Come on.”
“Ma, where you goin'?” Slug called after her. “You ain't takin' no more flicks?”
“Mama tired, baby. Let me sit a spell wit' my nephew and I'll be ready.”
Freddie and Aunt Ann sat in the back of the center watching the people dance and Slug take pictures.
“Freddie, I don't usually mess in you young folks' affairs, so I'll make it quick. Simone is a good girl. She come way down here wit' you after all you done did. She down here because of you, and what you doin' ain't right,” Ann told him.
Freddie knew what was up, but wondered how and just how much she knew. “I'm sayin', Auntie, I ain'tâ”
“You ain't what? Comin' out a public bathroom with some home-wrecking heffer? I saw you, Freddie! So if I saw you, imagine who else saw you. Not only are you doing her wrong, but you disrespectin' that gal, Freddie. She's carryin' your child. Don't that mean anything to you?”
“Yes, ma'am, that's my world right there. What you saw, that don't mean nothin' to meâ”
“Then why do you do it?” Ann asked, cutting him off.
Freddie couldn't answer. He had asked himself the same question repeatedly until he had just given up and accepted that it was just in him.
“Freddie, you may not want to hear this, but you gonna hear it. You actin' just like your father.”
That roused his total ire. “My father? I ain't nothin' like my father!” He tried to control his tone because he was talking to his aunt. “I ain't leave my family for dead! I'ma be there for mine!”
Ann looked him in his eyes. “You think your father didn't provide? That is, until your mama got pregnant. Then he went back to his doggish ways, womanizing. You look just like your daddy, and you act like him, too. If you don't change your ways, you gonna end up just like him.”
Freddie had never heard this about his father. His mother never talked about him. He didn't know his father was a womanizer, a Christianized term for what he himself was: a player.
“What happened to my father?” Freddie asked.
Ann rose slowly from her seat, then looked down at him. “Stabbed to death in his own bed. His lady friend did it.” She watched his expression until the story had sunk in. “It's truly a thin line between love and hate, baby.”
Freddie watched his aunt as she slowly made her way back over to the photographer. Simone caught his eye and waved, then she blew him a kiss, totally unaware of the situation unfolding around her.
Kiki watched Simone with pity in her eyes. She was so caught up in the web Freddie was weaving, she couldn't see her hand in front of her face.
“Slug, come here,” she called him as he was talking to the photographer.
He walked over. “What up, Ki?”
“Slug, you need to talk to Freddie.”
Slug sipped his Heineken. “About?”
Kiki raised one eyebrow. “Nigga, don't play stupid. Kionna don't miss shit when it comes to these triflin' bitches. Especially Tina nasty ass in the bathroom, Slug!”
“Ay, yo, mind your business, Ki. That's on them,” Slug warned her. “Don't say shit to Simone.”
“Oh, trust me. I dig my girl, but I done seen too many bitches blame the one who told 'em, thinkin' they want they man. You right, that is on them, but what I'm talkin' about is Tina. You know she known to set a brother up; that's what I'm talkin' about holler at him for.”
Kiki was on point and Slug had to acknowledge that. He had been meaning to talk to Freddie but kept putting it off. Freddie was a grown man. And even though niggas was gritting their teeth, he could pull his own weight. But what Kiki had reminded him about threatened him as well as Freddie, and he damn sure wasn't gonna let Freddie's dick knock him in the dirt.
* * *
The only thing that came out of his talk with his aunt was another lavish gift for Simone, provided by his guilt. He copped her a 2003 forest green BMW 325i with a peanut butter interior. Simone couldn't believe it. She failed to see that the gifts always seemed to come after some unexplained absence, an act of infidelity that Freddie foolishly thought he could compensate for with material things. In reality, it was just creating a bigger void in their world.
But Simone was getting caught up herself. Subconsciously, she began to isolate herself. Freddie's transparent lies weren't the only blame, because for a lie to manifest itself there must be someone willing to believe it. Simone wanted to believe. She needed to believe, no matter what that tiny voice inside her head whispered. So she continued to ignore the obvious, until the day the obvious refused to be ignored.
Simone went to Nina Simone's hair salon for her weekly touchup. There were a few females there, including Tina who was getting her nails done. Tina eyed Simone evilly when she came in, but Simone only smiled at her hate. Nina could feel the tension in the room so she tried to keep Simone occupied with chitchat and idle talk.
“Didn't Slug and Kiki go to Cancun for their honeymoon?” Nina asked, as she streaked Simone's ebony mane with subtle red highlights.
“Cancun? Try Cancun and Hawaii,” Simone replied.
Nina hummed with envy. “Damn! Slug doin' it up big, huh? It's good though. I'm glad they got married 'cause they been together like forever, yo,” Nina said.
“And don't they look good together?” Simone commented. “Almost as good as me and my Freddie.” She giggled, directing that last comment to Tina.
Tina sucked her teeth loudly at the mentioning of Freddie's name, so Nina tried to find a safer topic. “Simone, didn't you say you were from Jersey? I got family in Jersey,” Nina informed her.
“For real? What part?” Simone inquired.
“She need to take her ass back to Jersey,” Tina huffed, and her voice carried across the salon.
Simone turned her head in Tina's direction. “Excuse me?”
Nina could see it coming and tried to head off the collision. “She wasn't talkingâ”
“âShe' has a name, and yes, I was talking about her,” Tina hissed with much attitude.
“Tina, chill!” Nina told her. “Don't start no shit up in here, now!”
“Who startin' shit, Nina? I said what's on my mind and I don't bite my tongue for no-damn-body.”
By now, the whole salon was all ears. Both girls were itching to put the other in her place. They didn't like each other from jump because they looked too much alike. Both were dark chocolate, Simone being only a shade lighter than Tina's Brazilian midnight complexion. Tina was easily the thicker of the two, but Simone's facial features complemented her more, giving each the ups in the beauty department. But that wasn't why Simone wanted to put Tina in her place. Simone felt like she had what Tina wanted. But she was about to find out Tina had already had it.
“Tina, you got a problem wit' me or something? You don't know me, so wassup? My car? My jewelry? My man?” she stated firmly, an obvious question seeking an answer.
Nina's heart dropped. She liked Simone but knew she had bitten off more than she could chew. It seemed like everybody knew about Freddie except her. But now that she had asked for it, she was about to get it.
“Your man?” Tina said, laughing as she stood up. She had been waiting for a moment like this. To her, Simone was a square bitch who thought she was all that and needed to be checked. “Your man, bitch? I don't have to want Freddie; I got Freddie, I had Freddie, and I can have him whenever I want!” Tina stood in the middle of the floor.
“Simone, just leave, girl. You ain't even gotta stoop to her level,” Nina tried to convince her. She hated for Simone to find out about Freddie like this. She could see how much she loved him, so she knew what was coming would hurt her badly.
“Naw, Nina. It's cool 'cause this bitch lyin'! You a sad bitch!” Simone spat.
“Sad? No, you sad and dumb! Everybody knows I'm fuckin' Freddie. That's why Nina tryin' to get yo' dumb ass outta here before your heart get broke. What? You think you the only bitch pregnant by Freddie? You better ask somebody!”
The word “pregnant” hit Simone like a hammer. The idea of another woman carrying Freddie's child enraged her. She quickly leaped up from her chair. Nina was surprised a woman four months pregnant could move that fast. She just barely got to Simone before she reached Tina.
Tina never moved. She just got into her bitch-stomping stance and held fort. “Naw, Nina. Let her go. I'ma beat the baby out her dumb ass!”
“Let me go!” Simone struggled against Nina.
“Tina, you need to leave for real! The nails are on me. You gotsta bounce up outta here!” Nina commanded, taking control in her shop.
“Ask Freddie, bitch!” Tina continued. “Ask him where he at when you call him talkin' 'bout, âBring me some rocky road.' Ain't that your favorite ice cream? When he comes home smelling like Pink, ask him about them scratches on his back, that âT' I scratched in his back! Ask him!”
“Tina!” Nina thundered, now mad 'cause she hadn't left yet. “Fuck all that other shit! You in my spot and I said leave!”
Tina had said all she needed to, she could tell by the expression on Simone's face. Simone was no longer struggling to get at Tina. Every one of Tina's words had been like a fist, and it had knocked all the fight out of her.
“Yeah, bitch, who sad now? Tell our babies' daddy I said hello.” And with that, Tina was out the door.
Simone didn't move. She didn't speak. She felt humiliated and couldn't believe Freddie had put her in a position to be humiliated in front of strangers.
“You okay, girl?” Nina consoled her. “I'm sorry you had to hear it this way.”
Simone felt like a fool. The pain was too deep for tears, the anger too fierce for words. All she wanted to do was get out. Get out of the salon, out of Goldsboro, out of the clothes on her back, just out.
She didn't respond to Nina because she barely heard her. She just pulled away from her, grabbed her purse, and headed for the door.
Her first intent was to confront Freddie, but just the thought of seeing his face, hearing his voice, smelling his scent made her sick, physically sick to her stomach. She had to stop the car at a green light and quickly open her car door to vomit. “How could you, Freddie?” she begged into thin air. “How could you?”
The child she was carrying, which up until that point had made her feel so warm inside, now just made her feel full. Cheap and meaningless. He had given his seed to another woman. She couldn't face him. She felt like, if she saw him, she wouldn't be able to restrain herself from doing something she'd regret for the rest of her life.
Go home,
the little voice inside her urged.
Go home
. She knew the voice wasn't referring to the apartment she and Freddie shared; it was referring to Jersey, and she obeyed it without hesitation.