“Is something wrong?” he grunted uneasily.
“Nah, not with me, but that big ol’ thang of yours looks like it hurt. How long it’s been swollen up like that?” Richard fought off the urge to laugh, but it still came pouring out.
“I hope you’re getting your kicks. Got me standing up here like some kind of nervous patient?”
“Uh-uh, we’ll play naughty head nurse next week,” she moaned. “Don’t worry though; I’ll go ahead and work on that little problem you got today.”
Dior eased her thong panties down past her knees then stepped out of them. Richard leaned against the vanity counter with his arms folded. He observed the clinical manner with which Dior checked the water temperature, tied up her hair with a long multicolored scarf, then sprinkled in a powder substance from a glass canister resting on the back of the bathtub. It didn’t appear to be rehearsed but he could tell she did it the same way every time, whether or not she had an audience. Dior didn’t let his presence affect her routine. He doubted she’d let any man change her beyond the person she intended to be. There was something to be said for that, something to be admired.
Against his better judgment, Richard climbed into the water facing Dior. “Ouch, it’s kind of hot!”
“Ouch, you kinda sound like a punk,” she smarted. “Big old baby. Stop crying and hand me that loofa so I can relieve some of that tension of yours.” Dior lathered Richard’s body from head to toe, bathing every inch in between. He enjoyed the time she spent on his
in between
the most. Afterward, he tried his best to reciprocate but was all thumbs. Dior gave him a pass then told him she’d expect a better effort in the future if he wanted more of the same from her. “A man who’s bathed daughters before ought to be more accomplished at this sort of thing,” she hissed jovially, while nestled against his chest.
“Believe me, I wasn’t any better at it then,” Richard admitted. He caught himself before saying something stupid to bring his wife into the conversation. There wasn’t enough room in that tub for all three of them so he redirected the discussion. “Hey, you told me at the shop you’d looked me up on the Internet. If I Googled you, what would I find?” Not that he expected to run across articles written about a young salesperson who was more than likely shelling out her entire paycheck on a charming little house, expensive clothes, and a small luxury car to keep up appearances. He’d been wrong before.
Dior shrugged tenderly. “I tried it once myself but nothing popped up,” she lied. “Really didn’t think anything would, since I’m no big-time celebrity like someone else I know.” Dior was such an accomplished liar that it came just as easily as breathing. She could have been up front and told Richard how she’d been arrested more than once for boosting clothes before getting paid under the table by Giorgio to hawk them in his store. She neglected to mention her former employment as a naughty nanny, the mobile escort service she built on her back, or the fact that it got her girlfriend killed when one of the clients went too far during a bout of sexual acrobatics. Dior also could have added how she almost ruined her favorite cousin’s marriage by climbing into the bed with her husband after splitting them up. She merely acted as if her answer to Richard’s question was sufficient and then she left it alone.
He bought it. Without a reason to distrust her, he held Dior close, wrapped snugly in his arms. He’d quickly grown to respect her brand of quality time. He wouldn’t have thought it possible to transcend the awkward sexual phase in a relationship without actually having any. On the other hand, she did take care of that swelling problem of his, which was no small feat.
Lounging intimately like old lovers instead of newly acquainted hedonists out for a sporty fling suggested to Richard there was more to Dior than met the eye, although she was quite nice to look at. She was also deliberate in her actions when pleased and quick to snap otherwise. Dior was unlike any woman he’d ever met: self-assured, outspoken, and skillful enough to back up a gang of attitude if cornered without provoking an all out war. There was definitely more to her than she allowed him to see thus far. Richard was respectful of that. He was a guest in her home, a visitor in her life. She trusted him and asked for the same in return. Unfortunately they were playing with two distinctly different sets of rules, both adequately justified in their own mind.
What-ever
D
uring the twenty-minute drive home, Richard had a long time to think about his fledgling relationship with Dior. He leaned on the fact that he hadn’t actually had sex with her much in the way a former president denied having relations with a female intern. Richard laughed at himself because it sounded just as preposterous as when he’d heard Clinton’s flawed rationalization on CNN. Wrong was wrong regardless of how he tried to slice it. Richard spent the last five minutes of his drive deliberating just how far he was willing to go with Dior. He honestly believed he could resolve his curiosity with a taste before getting it out of his system. Unbeknownst to him, steamy bubble baths were only the beginning.
Loud chuckles poured from the family room when Richard closed the front door. His home sounded happy, full of love. Hearing laughter warmed his heart and put a grand smile on his face. The smell of chicken frying in the kitchen snatched it off. “Hello, Daddy’s home,” he shouted over the television. His oldest daughter, Mahalia, sixteen, paused the movie on the big screen. She was a pretty girl with a honey-brown complexion and eyes a shade lighter than that. Mahalia’s slight frame had been a sore spot for most of her life and she’d often complained about being too skinny. Richard hadn’t noticed that her rants of self-pity were now nonexistent; neither did it occur to him that her body had recently undergone several flattering developments.
“Hey, Daddy” she said with an effortless wave. “Mom is almost finished with dinner.”
“Where’s Roxy? I could have sworn I heard her in here with you.” Richard grinned when he felt someone sneaking up behind him. He remembered a time not so long ago when Mahalia tried her hardest to do the same. Now it was his eight-year-old’s turn. Joyful that someone was excited about him being home, Richard played along. “I wonder where that Roxy is. Maybe she’s in the backyard, trying to dig her way to China like she did last year. No, maybe she’s on a magic carpet ride. Trips around the world can’t last forever.”
“What-ever,” Mahalia scoffed. “I don’t have time for this. I’m getting back to my movie.”
“Boo!” yelled Roxanne, plowing into him from the side. “I’m right here, Daddy!” Roxanne giggled as he hoisted her over his head. “I scared you. I finally did it.” She giggled gleefully through a gaping hole where two teeth used to be.
“Uh-uh, you didn’t,” he debated playfully. “I ain’t scared of nothing.”
“Uh-huhhh, you got scared when Mama thought she was having a baby.” Richard lowered Roxanne to the floor after the wind had suddenly been let out of his sails.
“She got you there, Daddy,” Mahalia seconded. “When you overheard Mama telling Auntie Rose about it you looked like you just ate a bug.”
“
What-ever
,” he said, mimicking the same annoyed tone she’d used earlier. “Y’all ought to be ashamed, double-teaming your old man like that.”
“It’s okay, Daddy, fifty isn’t so old,” Roxanne offered on his behalf.
“Fifty?” Richard howled humorously. “Who’s fifty? Tell her, Mahalia, I’m barely forty.”
“Yeah, and that won’t last forever either.”
“I think I liked it better when you didn’t have time for us. Nadeen! Come in here and whoop my oldest child please.”
“Go on and do it yourself, I’m busy!” she snapped from the kitchen. “And get it done before the dinner rolls come out of the oven.”
Richard began to creep toward Mahalia just as Roxanne had done to him. When she heard her younger sister snickering, she peered over the back of the sofa. “Stop, Daddy,” she said, inching away from his tickling tentacles. “I’m too old for this.” Richard chased Mahalia around the den, to Roxanne’s delight.
“Catch her, Daddy!” Roxanne yelped loudly. “Catch ’Halia and tickle her until she pees her pants. Pee pants, pee pants, pee pants,” she chanted.
“I’m just the man to do it, too,” Richard threatened.
Mahalia leaped over the love seat to get away. “I’m not playing with y’all. This is not funny.”
Roxanne frowned miserably when it was clear her sister had no plans of giving in. “It would be if you peed your pants.”
For the first time, Richard realized that Mahalia was no longer the darling little girl who craved his attention and his indefatigable tickling. She scowled at him, fled from his affection and, more so, his desire to keep her forever young. “Let’s get washed up for dinner,” he asserted finally, “before it gets cold.”
Assembled at the rectangular kitchen table, Richard sat across from Nadeen with the girls on either side. He said grace over the food, giving thanks for blessing and health, then forked three helpings of vegetables onto his plate. When he neglected to remove any of the chicken from the meat platter, Nadeen questioned it. “Is something wrong with the way it looks?”
“It looks scrumptious like always,” Richard answered.
“You used to love my pecan-crusted fried chicken.”
“I still do, Nadeen,” he replied insistently, to strongly suggest she drop her passive-aggressive assault. “Fried chicken will always be my favorite but I could stand to lose a few pounds.”
After he’d eaten an extra helping of peas and a second salad, Nadeen started up again. “Richard, that’s barely enough food for a child. Since when are you eating like a rabbit?”
“Since today. I’m forty, a hard age for a man. Taking account of my life up until now made me realize I’m on the other side of the bridge. I need to look and feel the best I can from here on out.” Mahalia opened her mouth to crack on him until Richard cut his eyes at her, stifling the opportunity.
Roxanne built a pyramid out of corn in the center of her plate, oblivious to the tension mounting around her. Nadeen felt that Richard’s reaction toward Mahalia was a bit harsh, then she determined his restrained animosity was misguided and meant for her. “You’ve been a forty-year-old for five months, and I think you’re making the best of what you got. It’s good enough for your wife.”
“Thank you, sweetheart, but it’s not nearly good enough for your husband.” Richard cringed when his self-assessment came out like one of her slick snipes previously leveled at him. “I need to do better when I can. It wouldn’t hurt me to get fit and fine.”
“Mahalia got a crush on a
fine
boy at her school,” Roxanne sang, as if it was her turn to contribute to the discussion.
“Mahalia
has
a crush on a fine boy at school,” Nadeen corrected her.
Mahalia growled at her sister. “You little snitch.”
“Skank!” Roxanne fired back.
“Excuse me,” Nadeen huffed, taking offense at the conversation and to Richard’s apparent decision to stay out of it.
“Oh, not you, Mama, I was talking to Mahalia,” Roxanne apologized, as if that made what she said any easier to take.
When Richard passed on another opportunity to discipline the children, Nadeen jumped in again. “Hush up with all of that vulgar talk. Where’d you pick up such a dirty word anyway?” Everyone’s eyes were glued to the eight-year-old, who couldn’t muster up the gall to tell them. Instead she pointed at Mahalia.
“I heard her say that Trevy Dempsey was a sk — one of those, for kissing two boys behind the building after a basketball game.”
Mahalia jeered at Roxy as if she could have strangled her. “Ooh, I can’t stand you. You run your mouth too much.”
Richard wiped his lips with a cloth napkin once he’d had his fill of dinner and their assault on one another. “That’s not nice, Mahalia. Apologize to your sister. And next time watch the name-calling.” He dismissed the girls with a soft suggestion that they try harder to get along. Nadeen began to collect the dishes from the table. Richard appeared puzzled about something. “I could be wrong but last I heard Mahalia and Trevy were best friends.”
“Yes and maybe one of the boys that
skank
kissed was the fine boy Mahalia has a crush on,” Nadeen surmised. “Then all of this would make perfect sense.”
“You think Gloria knows about her daughter Trevy being with boys? She couldn’t be sexually active? Could she?” he asked as an afterthought.
“With too many of the girls in the congregation growing up too fast, I’m surprised Mahalia isn’t.”
Nadeen continued puttering around the kitchen as if she didn’t just drop a bomb on Richard’s head. He wasn’t ready to concede that she liked boys or happened to be turning into a vibrant young lady, although both were transpiring right under his nose. “What makes you think she’s halfway mature enough to run behind boys, kissing and all that?” he questioned frantically.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with maturity, Richard. It has everything to do with hormones. Young or old, it really doesn’t matter. Hot in the pants is hot in the pants.” Richard’s eyes fell toward the floor. “I don’t know why people get all bent out of shape over sex. It’s been a problem since before Genesis and more than likely will be long after Revelation. Some folk can’t seem to do without it and others can’t give it away.”
Richard wasn’t 100 percent certain that was a dig at him but it stung nonetheless. “Are you suggesting that I’m getting it somewhere else because I wasn’t in the mood one time?”
“You tell me what was behind it. I couldn’t reach you at the church today. Nobody could remember seeing you, then you come strolling in the house with liquor on your breath, Brother Pastor.”
“For your information, I was buried in my office behind closed doors and a pile of papers. I left early to hit the gym then stopped by Chili’s for a bowl of low-fat clam chowder and a glass of wine.” Richard’s explanation sounded credible enough so he remained on his soapbox. “Need I remind you that according to the Word: First Timothy, chapter three and verse eight:
Leaders of the church must be reverent and not given to
much
wine.
I only had a glass of merlot.” Richard cleverly omitted the part about not being double-tongued. “Besides, Jesus’ first miracle was turning water into wine. Obviously, he didn’t have a problem with it so why should you?” His indignant attitude bothered Nadeen. She set the dishes on the counter and stared at Richard.