Breaking All My Rules (8 page)

“What did she say?” Ashley asked.

Jason paused for what seemed like a long moment before responding. “Nothing, really. She just kept apologizing. But enough about her. Do you ladies want to order dessert?”

Ashley shook her head. “None for me.”

Although Erica wanted to order the caramel layer cake so badly she could practically taste the brown-sugar treat on her tongue, she refrained. After the night they'd had, she knew that Ashley and Jason needed to leave so they could talk in private. Plus, she could see that Jason's expression had changed from one of comfort to one of anxiety after Ashley asked him about the she devil's response.

A few moments later they stood outside the restaurant's front entrance as Erica gave Ashley and Jason a hug good night. She turned down their offer to drop her off at home and instead slipped into the back of the cab that Jason had hailed for her.

As the cab pulled away from the curb, Erica looked out the window at Ashley and Jason. They were walking away in the distance, holding hands. Ashley's head was leaned tenderly against the side of Jason's shoulder as they headed to the parking garage. Erica smiled, knowing that no matter what anyone said, the two lovers were a perfect match for each other.

“I hope Ashley realizes what she's got,” Erica whispered to herself as she relaxed her legs across the backseat, preparing to go home, alone.

Chapter 7

J
erome removed his dark sunglasses from his face and stretched his lean, muscular body as he surveyed the bright sky above. The sun was beaming, and the clouds looked like giant puffs of cotton that he could reach out and touch. Working outside was always iffy, so he was grateful that Mother Nature had agreed to go along with the forecast that the local weatherperson had issued.

“Can't ask for a better day than this,” Jerome said aloud. A small trickle of sweat traveled down the side of his chiseled face as he wiped his brow and inhaled a cleansing breath of fresh air. He smiled slightly, thinking about her, the woman in red, who'd been on his mind since yesterday. He couldn't shake the vision of her or the sweet smell of her skin when he passed her in the hallway at the courthouse. Even though the work he was now doing required his total concentration, he was stuck because every little thing reminded him of her beauty and elegance.

As he stood atop the roof of the house on which he'd been working since shortly after the sun rose, Jerome turned his attention to the large plot of land below.
This is the kind of crib I'm gonna have one day,
he thought, gulping the last drop of water from his bottle.
I bet she lives in a place just like this.

Jerome looked out over the home's expansive backyard, with its custom-built deck, gourmet outdoor kitchen, and beautifully landscaped stone and marble walkway. The mosaic tile pool had been drained and covered in preparation for the fall days just ahead. As he scanned the rest of the street, admiring the mammoth-size houses sitting on majestic green lots, he wondered about the lives of the people residing inside them. What did they do for a living? What kinds of vacations did they take? What kinds of vehicles rested behind the doors of their four-car garages, and how had they come into their wealth?

Jerome almost laughed at his inquisitive thoughts, because there was a time when he didn't give a damn about what other people had or did. But now his life and its trajectory were both on a very different path. He was a man on a mission.

“I better stop daydreaming and finish laying these shingles,” he said aloud. “I need to knock this out so I can get on up outta here.”

Normally, as with most every weekend, Jerome wouldn't have minded working first thing on a Saturday morning or even late into the evening, but today was different. Today was his son, Jamel's, thirteenth birthday, ushering his only child into young manhood.

Jerome had originally planned to spend the entire day hanging out with Jamel. Fresh haircuts at the barbershop, followed by breakfast at IHOP, and then a quick game of pick-up basketball before ending the day at the party that Kelisha—his ex-girlfriend and Jamel's mother—was throwing for him at a neighborhood community center later that afternoon. That was how Jerome had planned to spend his Saturday. But instead he was working on a last-minute home repair project.

He'd heard the slight disappointment in Jamel's voice when he called to tell his son that he had to work and would be able to spend time with him only at his birthday party. “We'll hang together all day Sunday, okay?” Jerome had told him, offering the small consolation.

He knew that Jamel understood, because that was the kind of easygoing kid he was, but he hated letting his son down and not keeping his word. “A man's word is his bond,” he'd always told Jamel.

Jerome wanted to instill a sense of responsibility and honor in his son, and he wanted to do it by setting the example. But when the opportunity for extra work came along, he felt he had to take it, especially since this particular job was so important to Jamel's future. The small last-minute home repair project Jerome was working on this morning was going to pay off in big ways.

A client for whom he'd done a spectacular kitchen remodeling job had referred him to the current client on whose roof he now stood, and this new client just happened to be a commercial real estate developer with considerable wealth and influence, and a big name in the building trade. Jerome knew that this powerful man could lead him to more business, and in particular, to large-scale projects that would put him on the road to achieving his goal of owning his own business.

He wanted to quit the city government job he'd held in the Department of Public Works for the past ten years so he could start his own contracting company. Picking up and hauling trash paid the bills and afforded him a modest living, but more important, it provided him with good benefits and reliable health care for his son. Jerome felt as though he was dying a slow death every morning he had to report in to work at the crack of dawn, handling the discarded remnants of other people's lives until his shift ended in the early afternoon. But when he picked up his tool belt, hammered a nail, laid a brick, or repaired something that was broken, he felt complete satisfaction.

Jerome loved working with his hands, and in many ways his talent made him feel like an artist, building and creating just about anything he envisioned. It was a gift he'd been blessed with since he was a little boy, putting together model airplanes and boxcars, and repairing things around the broken-down apartment he shared with his mother and older sister. But it was a talent that he'd ignored in favor of the streets, and now he hated that he'd wasted so much time on the wrong things.

And again, that was why this job was so important. He knew he was fortunate to have gotten this referral, and he planned to make the most of it. When he was just a young teenager, he'd learned how important it was to know the right people. But what he'd only recently discovered was that it was what those right people knew about you that really mattered. And for his part, Jerome made sure his work reputation was nothing less than stellar.

But it hadn't always been that way. His name had once been associated with wrongdoing, illegal activity, and street violence. It had been hard for him to remove that stain, and in some circles it still remained. But he'd vanquished that old life years ago, and the people and places that occupied his world today were very different. That was how he'd ended up where he was at the moment, laying twelve-by-thirty-six-inch shingles atop a roof, which was going to lead him to more business than he could handle.

One referral leads to another,
was his steadfast motto, and it was how he'd managed to grow his home repair business over the past two years.

Jerome wanted his son to have more opportunities than he'd had growing up, and he was determined to provide Jamel with the financial and emotional resources he'd never received from his own father growing up. So if it meant sacrificing a few hours of his time today, he would gladly do it.

Jerome smiled to himself as he envisioned his future, one that until ten years ago he wouldn't have thought possible.

Jerome Kimbrough was a man of many talents and dreams, and equally as many hardships. He was born and raised in southeast Washington, D.C.—the wrong side of the tracks—in one of the city's most notorious housing projects, nicknamed The Hole, because once you lived there, getting out was like trying to climb out of a bottomless pit. Each day spent in his neighborhood was a test of one's will. Living was a game of survival for every resident, young and old, weak or strong, shiftless or determined. One had to be on the lookout for trouble at all times, because one was either avoiding it or in the middle of it. Jerome usually found himself mixed up in the latter.

By the time he'd turned nine, he was skilled at shooting craps and was an aficionado at three-card monte. When he reached his son's age, he'd graduated to running drugs for the neighborhood dealer, before moving on to selling on his own. His mother had worried day and night about his safety, hoping he wouldn't succumb to the deadly streets. Mabel Kimbrough had been the only person in Jerome's life besides his sister, Clarice, who he felt truly cared about what happened to him.

But despite his mother's prayers for him to clean up his act, and his desire not to disappoint her, the streets and their dangerous allure had held Jerome in their grasp. His father had been largely absent from his life until just a few years ago, so he'd never had a male figure to look up to. The only role model he'd had was the neighborhood pusher, who'd steered him to the way of wrong. So he continued on a course leading to certain disaster.

The death of his sister, the birth of his son, and the promise he made to his mother a few years later were the events that had finally changed him. It had been a rainy Wednesday afternoon, and Jerome was supposed to pick up his then three-year-old son from day care. But instead, he was at a buddy's house, smoking a joint, trying to erase the pain of losing his sister to cancer just one month earlier. Because he was nowhere to be found, his mother had to shoulder the responsibility of picking up Jamel. On their way back home a truck slammed into them on the slick road, spinning grandmother and grandchild head-on into oncoming traffic.

By the time Jerome arrived at the hospital later that evening, blurry eyed and with alcohol on his breath, his son had just finished getting the cut on his right leg stitched, and his mother was coming out of emergency surgery.

That night, after sobering up on weak-tasting hospital coffee, he stood over the bed where his mother lay with tubes leading to her nose, mouth, and arms, and made a promise to get his life together. Ever since that day he'd been faithful to his word.

Every now and then when Jerome looked back on the things he'd done over the years, he wished he'd made different choices in his life. He knew if he had, he wouldn't be so far behind today. But he also realized that life was about the slow and steady race, not the quick and easy finish. Quick and easy had led him down dark alleys and into unseemly situations with unsavory characters. But taking things slow and steady had pulled him up from a life that was heading nowhere and had put him on a path that, he now knew, was full of infinite possibilities.

He was excited about what his future held, about the new people he was destined to meet, the faraway places he planned to travel to, and the exciting things he was going to learn. As he thought about a world teeming with new experiences, his mind once again took him back to yesterday, and to the woman in red who had mesmerized him at first sight. He hadn't wanted to serve on jury duty, but after encountering her, a pack of wild dogs couldn't keep him from being the first one at the courthouse Monday morning. She was part of what he envisioned in his new world of possibilities, and he was anxious to see where it would lead.

 

 

Several hours later it was early afternoon, and Jerome had just replaced the last shingle on the roof. He was glad that he'd finished so quickly, but more important, he was pleased with the job he'd done. He prided himself on the detailed craftsmanship of his work, and he knew his clients would be impressed.

Jerome reached in his pocket and pulled out a small tin of cinnamon-flavored Altoids. He popped one in his mouth and then walked across the roof to double-check that he hadn't missed anything. After surveying his work one last time, he packed up his equipment and carefully made his way down the extension ladder, descending to the ground. But once his size thirteen Timberlands hit the grass, he was startled to see the lady of the house standing just a few feet away from where he'd landed.

He was normally very observant about his surroundings—the streets had trained him to be—but he hadn't seen her on his way down, and it seemed as though she'd popped up from out of nowhere. He hoped she wasn't going to bombard him with a million questions about the work he'd performed, or ask to climb the ladder to inspect it for herself. He was used to overbearing clients and knew exactly how to handle them with his calm and relaxed manner. But today he didn't have the time or patience for it, because he needed to hit the road so he could go home and change clothes before heading to Jamel's birthday party.

He was prepared to tell the woman that if she wanted to view his work, she and her husband could easily gain access to the roof through their skylight. But he didn't have to say a word, because her lips held a smile, rather than the inquisition he'd expected. He was about to return her friendly gesture, but then he quickly stopped himself. Apprehension spread through his mind when he noticed the gleam in her eye and her outstretched hand holding an ice-cold glass of lemonade.

“I thought you might be thirsty after being on the roof all day,” the woman said with a come-hither smile.

Jerome recognized trouble when he saw it, and he knew that the woman standing in front of him, holding the refreshing beverage, was danger and drama all mixed up into one deadly concoction. Her husband had left shortly after Jerome had arrived, so he knew she was home alone, which put him on alert. He immediately felt uneasy and looked around to see who else was within eye- or earshot, just in case he needed witnesses if something funky went down.

He'd seen the woman watching him when he came over to inspect the roof and do a repair estimate a few days ago, and then again when he first arrived this morning. But both times she had stayed in the background, letting her husband run the show and give direction. But now that she was all alone, she'd decided to come out and play. Jerome knew he had to proceed with extreme caution.

“It's not freshly squeezed,” she said, “but it's all-natural, organic.” This time she licked her thin, pink-colored lips as she made the offer.

“That's very hospitable of you, but no thank you,” Jerome responded. “I was just about to let you know that I'm finished repairing your roof. Your husband said the check would be ready when I'm done.” He chose his words carefully, and spoke without a smile or any gesture of nicety, because he didn't want to engage the desperate housewife beyond what was strictly business.