Rose, a medium shade of brown, was as tall as most men and built like a battleship. At age forty-five, her face was full, but the glowing features that drove her husband, Phillip, crazy fifteen years ago were still visible. Large round brown eyes sparkled beneath the perfectly tamed coif framing her face. Two almond shaped dimples anchored a joyful smile, and her full lips bolstered attractive accents. Rose knew she looked good, regardless of forty extra pounds of voluptuous womanliness she’d padded on over the years. “
Fine is fine
,” she told Phillip on more than one occasion, when he strongly suggested she diet. “Don’t bring up should’ve, would’ve, and shortcomings because I’d like to alter you a few inches in one place in particular but I don’t beat you over the head with it.” After shutting Phillip down, she prayed for repentance although she meant every word at the time.
An inviting aroma of freshly brewed coffee guided Rose into Nadeen’s kitchen. As usual, she dropped everything when receiving a call from a sister in need. And, as usual, she broke her neck getting to some juicy gossip and a pot of expensive Colombian blend. Rose let herself in, which was par for the course. She didn’t see herself as a visitor in the Allamay household for two reasons: Richard was her first cousin, and Nadeen had become her dearest friend. Despite strong family ties, Rose’s alliance lay elsewhere. She often cited how women had to stick together, “especially when men started to feeling themselves at a sistah’s expense.”
“Nadeen?” said Rose with a careful grin, walking softer through the room when her high heels click-clacked too loudly against the imported tile. “Ooh, sorry.”
Nadeen raised a glass dome then eased half of a pound cake from beneath it. She glanced at Rose peculiarly with a question in her eyes. “Why are you apologizing? I’m just a little troubled. I’m not asleep.” She almost asked why Rose’s blue jeans and blouse were so tight but reasoned it wouldn’t change the way her friend dressed or the fact that Rose didn’t care what other people thought about her somewhat provocative attire.
“Because I can see you’ve got a headache from here. I came as fast as the good Lord would allow. Now that I’m here, why don’t you get me some of that coffee I smell so we can talk about the reason you called me away from my stories.” She set her purse on the granite countertop gingerly, carefully watching Nadeen’s every move. “God knows I don’t want to rush you but this has all the signs of a heavy heart. You might as well go on and cut me a thick slice of that cake too.” Nadeen moved at a slower clip than Rose was accustomed to seeing. “You sure Richard didn’t try to make you do anything you said you wouldn’t?” Secretly, she wished Nadeen would take an occasionally broader step on the wild side so she’d feel better about sharing her own sexploits openly.
“Not everybody is all wrapped up in alternative sex, like someone I know,” she answered with her nose in the air. “Besides, one day you and Phillip might get stuck doing that thing the Bible says you’re not supposed to.”
“Huh!” Rose laughed. “You don’t have to worry about that. I got a bottle of oil by the bedside. Never needed it yet but I keep hope alive.” She blushed over the lewd comment then motioned at the saucers Nadeen took from the cupboard. “I wasn’t playing about the cake either, so come on now. I ran three red lights and a stop sign knowing what you had sitting under that glass.”
Nadeen poured two cups of coffee, set the sugar caddy in the middle of the breakfast table, and then picked at her slice with a fork. She didn’t have any conclusive evidence of Richard’s wrongdoing and didn’t really know where to begin. “Maybe I shouldn’t have called you, Rose. It’s probably nothing.”
“Probably nothing?” Rose repeated. She was disappointed when it appeared Nadeen was stalling. “Don’t make me guess what’s got you looking like you just got fired off a good job.”
“Funny. In a way, that’s exactly how I feel.” She sipped from her cup then held on to it like a crutch, as if she’d lose the courage to speak her mind if she set it down. “How many couples have we known to break up over the past five years?”
“Hmm, too many to count,” Rose replied with a disappointed sigh. “It’s like the flu. When it gets around, it touches a lot of people in the same house. What goes on in the world is bound to touch those we love. M.E.G.A. is a great place to worship and grow in the Lord as any but it’s also a reflection of what goes on outside the church doors. Off the top of my head, I can recall twelve or thirteen families that split for some reason or another. Since most of the wives come to us for a shoulder to cry on, you know as many as I do. Sad, how we seem to get hit by one flu epidemic after the next.”
“Yeah, there’s no getting around it. That’s for sure.” Nadeen lowered her head as if it weighed a ton. Rose’s eyes narrowed. With grave distress, she waded away from church talk and farther from shallow waters.
“I hope you’re not trying to tell me you think you’re coming down with something?” Rose made it a point not to use the word
divorce
unless it was pertaining to people she either didn’t know or didn’t like.
Nadeen fiddled with her cake awhile longer before diving into the deep end with Rose. She forced an uneasy smile on her lips, dreading the conversation about to ensue. Discussions regarding potential wayward husbands were the most troublesome to initiate so Nadeen jumped right in. “It’s hard to say and even harder to imagine but I believe Richard is seeing someone,” she whispered, as if others might hear her words and judge them. Nadeen stared into her coffee cup, filled with a muddy hue, matching her suspicions. “I can’t prove it but there’s something going on with him.”
“Oomph” was Rose’s quiet response. She remained uncharacteristically silent. She’d held her marriage in the highest regard, even after learning of Phillip’s indiscretion in Denver. Cheating husbands was such an ugly business so she knew to tread lightly. “Well, maybe it’s not what you think,” Rose muttered, her mouth taut and dry.
“I don’t know Richard anymore. He’s staying out late, in meetings, he
says.
Most mornings, he’s up and out the door before I can say hi good.”
Rose didn’t want to ask the natural question begging to be released from her pursed lips. “Where’s he going so early?”
“To the gym, I guess. At least that’s what he tells me,” Nadeen added. The expression latched to her face was blank and empty. “There must be some truth in it because he has been trimming down. He really looks good, when I think about it.” She took a brief sip of coffee, still neglecting to make eye contact with her confidante.
“I’m not one to tell you what to do, but this unrest isn’t healthy for you. Richard is a busy man with lots of things on his mind. The church pulls at him something awful at times. People count on him for so much. And so far you haven’t told me anything that sounds like adultery.” Rose wanted to believe her friend’s marriage was safe. Early morning workouts aside, it seemed all else was well. “Has anything else changed?” When Nadeen heard the loaded question, her eyes drifted up to rest on Rose’s.
“What hasn’t changed? Richard hardly answers his cell phone anymore. When I phone him at the office, he’s either on a call or out running errands. He’s distant mentally, the times I do get to speak with him. We used to share so much, about life, about the kids. Mahalia’s friends are at that age where they’re playing with fire. You know, flirting with sex and seeing how close they can get to it without actually getting burned. Richard used to be so in tune with her. Mahalia is becoming a young woman and he doesn’t realize it. I feel like a single parent, like I’m going it alone.”
“Have you told him how you feel? I mean, it’s clear you’re hurting over this.”
“I started to sit down with him several times but our rhythms are off. He’s tired, I’m sleepy, it’s late, or he leaves too early. It never seems like the right time to talk.” Suddenly the corners of Nadeen’s mouth rounded into a playful smile. “I could make time but then I’d have to loosen the bridal reins when the rides have been pretty good lately.” She almost laughed at the befuddled look on Rose’s face. “Girl, I’m so bad I’m too ashamed to say.”
“Oh yes you will say or I’m moving in to see for myself.”
“Okay but I wouldn’t advise trying this at home. It could get tricky.”
“Nadeen?” Rose said, raising her voice. “Hurry up now. You know I like tricks.”
“Yes, I am well aware of that,” she mused. “Well, since Richard spends so much time away from the house doing God knows what, I make him pay a toll when he gets in.”
“A toll? You got your husband paying for sex?” That sounded like a great deal she didn’t mind working on her end.
“No, I make him pay
with
sex. See, I’m alone and worrying about what he might be getting into so I tax his behind for coming in late, staying away, and leaving early. He’s got to compensate me for my pain and suffering.”
“Ooh, sexual healing is the best kind,” Rose agreed wholeheartedly.
“Hallelujah. God is good.”
“Raise your hand and say amen.” Rose was laughing so hard, she didn’t notice right off that she was laughing alone. “What’s the matter, Nadeen? Seems to me that freak fee you got going on is working out fine. Shoot, you have me thinking up a way to tighten the bridal reins in the Evans bedroom. I’m due for a good ride too.”
“I’m making fun of a difficult situation, but it isn’t as fun as it sounds. For instance, I taxed him last night. We made some good, long, loud loving too. It felt sort of strange though, like somebody was watching us.”
“Uh-oh. Look out now. Y’all got it on video?”
“No, Rose, it’s not that kind of party. It was Richard. His eyes were open the whole time. He held this cold blank gaze on me for darn near an hour.”
Rose jerked uncontrollably, spilling coffee on her hand. “An hour! Sixty minutes? God sure is good! This is turning out better than my soaps. I wish Phillip could hold it straight for that long. I’d let him stare at it, videotape it, and take a picture too. I wouldn’t give a flying flip what he was doing as long as he kept it going, okaaay.”
“You are so crude.”
“Me? Uh-uh, you’re like those slim cigarettes from Virginia. You’ve come a long way, baby, and I’m proud of you. Look, if Richard isn’t living up to his vows the other signs would be there. Men get evil when they mess around. They pick fights, stay on their periods, and cannot be satisfied with anything you do for them. I can’t tell you the stories I’ve overheard while women figure it out a little at a time at the beauty shop. If something is going on, it’ll show itself. Satan always does. Otherwise you just keep raising the taxes until he gets his act together or gets too whipped to leave the house.”
Nadeen pushed the cake saucer aside then peered into her tepid cup of coffee. “You’re probably right. I’d just hate to sit back and be made a fool of like so many other women I know. My mother was a prime example. Remember, I grew up in a minister’s house and was raised by a minister’s wife; who often got the scraps after Brotha Pastor had spent all night
seeing to the concerns of the church
,” she said, mimicking her father’s pious justification for creeping. “What he was seeing to were his own concerns. We found that out when two sisters from the congregation turned up at the maternity ward on the same day, both claiming my daddy was the one who done it.” A solemn sigh passed between her lips as she thought back on that miserable era in her life. “I saw my mother’s hair fall out, in clumps, over church mistresses. I will not let that happen to me, and my girls don’t need to know it’s possible for a woman to hurt that bad because her husband can’t keep it in his pants. History won’t repeat itself here,” she asserted adamantly. “I’d leave him first and take my children with me.” Nadeen huffed violently and lifted the fork from the table. She stabbed it into the slice of cake then stuffed a big piece of it into her mouth.
Rose watched in awe. Nadeen looked like a breath of fresh air. “Whew, I feel better already,” she announced emphatically.
“I see that. Got milk?”
“Uh-huh, got more than that too. Got my dignity and I got my friend Rose.”
Pulpit Pimpin’
F
riday evening found Dior in the middle of a bragging session with Tangie. “Yeah, girl, I got that brotha tossing and turning,” Dior boasted over cappuccinos at the nearby coffee bar. “He said,
baby . . . you got me reaching for you in my sleep.
”
Tangie howled at the tiny table and didn’t care who cut their eyes at her for doing so. “Whuuut? That’s my ace. That’s what I’m talking about. I figured you’ve been up to something since it’s been taking you three or four days to return my calls. So, out with it. Who is he? What does he do?”
“He’s into marketing. You might say he’s a public speaker,” Dior said, after wiggling in her seat to feign false excitement. “I heard him do his thing too. He’s real good. People get all excited when he gets to going.”
“Public speaker?” Tangie said, like those words stunk. “What kind of product is he pushing?”
“Books, motivation, and stuff,” Dior answered, wishing the subject changed all by itself. “Tangie, I don’t want to spend a lot of time getting in his business. I done already got where I really need to be with him.”
“In his heart and in his head?” Tangie questioned, like a hopeless romantic.
“Uhhh, in his pants and in his pockets. You don’t hear me.”
Tangie leaned back in her chair then sneered down her nose. “Dior, I thought you were really feeling this one, having been stowed away for days at a time and him wanting you in his sleep and whatnot?”
“I never said we stowed away,” Dior pouted defensively. “Not yet, anyway. He’s got a lot going on but my time is coming. I’ll get my hands on more than just his money. I want the whole enchilada, the platinum package, big house, kids, and a diamond ring.”
“Are you sure someone hasn’t already booked that very exclusive trip? Why haven’t I met him and have you ever been to his house?” Tangie queried skeptically.
“No, but thanks for asking how I’m handling mine. I haven’t seen his house and don’t want to. His father’s house, that’s what I want. It’s a mansion.” Dior felt her chest swelling with resentment for having to discuss Richard’s personal business. “I’ll be sure and let you know when I get all moved in. I might even let you be in the wedding,” she offered, to move the conversation along. “That’s right. I’m going to be his wife. It’s still early so he hasn’t asked me yet but he will. I got him stuck on my stunts. That upside-down thing I do off the edge of the bed, it turned him out. I keep him weak. He didn’t even care that he left his cell phone and gold watch under my bed.”