Every Woman Needs a Wife (14 page)

Tanya slowly exhaled. “It’s all right, I’m sure this is new for you, too.”

“Well, I have a plan.”

Brandi waited until Tanya looked up again. “My husband had you free and clear for six months…” She hesitated, blinked, then picked up the
glass of orange juice, and took a small sip. “So I think it’s only fair that I get six months of service.”

Tanya’s head whipped up. “No ass.”

“You seem a little disappointed about that,” Brandi said, grinning. “Are you asking me to reconsider?”

“Don’t even go there.”

“Now you’re
really
sounding black.”

This time Tanya’s eyes twinkled with mischief. “Y’all don’t have a monopoly on that term. Six months, huh?”

Brandi nodded.

Tanya’s gaze darted around the room before leveling on Brandi. “That’s fair.”

“And I have a contract for you to sign.”

Tanya’s hand halted halfway to her mouth. “A contract?”

“That’s right. I want it in writing.”

“You…when?”

“I slipped out and did my thing right after Vernon’s boys carted him off. My lawyer hasn’t seen it yet, but after you sign it, we’ll have it notarized and it’ll stand up in court.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“To prove a point,” Brandi said softly.

“You’d trust me in your house?”

“Honey, you’ve already
been
in my house. Every time he made love to you, then came home and rolled me over and did me, we became intimate by indirect contact, with no choice in the matter.” Then her gaze narrowed. “Did he
always
use a condom with you?”

Tanya failed in an effort to smile. “After he asked me to marry him, he stopped.”

“I rest my case.”

“So this is all about revenge?”

“Not just that. This is about justice and fairness.” Brandi slid the single sheet of paper across the table, then picked up one of her own and read Tanya the terms of the contract.

♥♥♥

Brandi knew she’d never have a marriage like her parents. She chuckled, remembering how they still made eyes at each other after twenty-five years of marriage. They acted more like kids than Brandi and Donny, who were nine years apart. Heaven forbid if Papa had made a date in the middle of the day and Mama, going about her business, would suddenly remember it when she was driving on the expressway. Jean Caldwell would cause a major five-car pileup just to get to the nearest off-ramp, and tear off to meet Papa at a restaurant or a nearby hotel. Their cryptic way of talking wasn’t lost on Brandi, who soon knew that “four hours” meant one of those four-hour-nap motels on Stony Island. “Victuals” was short for vittles, meaning a quick bite to eat without the children. “Louis Vega” meant a quick, on-the-spot trip to Vegas.

But one night in particular showed her that a man could love a woman more than life itself…

Mama had passed out in the kitchen right in front of the stove. Papa called the ambulance, keeping his hand on the woman stretched out on the floor, hair spread out around her like an angel’s halo. Brandi stood frozen at the door. Mama couldn’t die. Mama was supposed to live forever. Papa, a tall, slender, caramel-colored man with thick lips and bushy eyebrows and a calm manner, gently scooped his wife from the floor and cradled her lovingly in his arms. His eyes glistened with tears as his lips moved in a silent prayer.

The ambulance came and whisked her out of the house, with Papa trailing close behind. “Stay here until your brother calls.”

For a moment she stood on the porch. Then fear guided her footsteps.

Unwilling to stay in the house alone, Brandi ran behind her father, climbed onto the steep ramp leading into the ambulance, and gripped his waist. The paramedic gave her a quick glance before pulling the doors shut. With a jerk, the ambulance tore down Ninety-Fifth Street, sirens going full blast.

The gray-eyed paramedic’s fingers trailed over the moist skin of her mother’s chest only to begin compressions a moment later.

The monitor registered a faint, almost non-existent heartbeat.

Brandi could only pray as she gripped her father’s trembling hand as though his massive fist contained a ray of hope.

The driver called in the condition: “Black female about three hundred pounds, Five feet, six inches…you should have an OR ready, she’s probably gonna need surgery.”

“Surgery, Papa?” Brandi yanked her father’s arm. “Why does she need surgery?”

In a sad tone, with a faraway look in his eyes, he said, “Her heart, it’s not doing so good, baby.”

“She’s gonna be all right. You wait and see,” Brandi said, ignoring the seriousness of the situation.

When they got to the hospital, Papa ran behind the gurney, struggling to drag Brandi along, finally picking the twelve-year-old up in his arms without breaking stride.

A nurse whirled around to face him, stopping them on the outside of the silver doors. “Sir, you’ll have to wait in the family room…”

They weren’t a full family—the biggest part of their lives was about to be split open because the little muscle that kept life flowing to every part of her body was in distress.

Brandi sat on the brown plaid sofa in the soft blue room with vending machines along one wall and a desk along another. Her father cradled her in his strong arms. They were alone.

Suddenly her father stood up as a tall white man with reddish-brown hair entered, peeling off a mask. “Sir, we’re trying to get her heart to return to a regular rhythm.”

Papa just stared at him.

“Heartbeats normally go like this.” The man opened and closed his fist again and again. “Your wife’s heart is going like this.” He shook his hand from side to side as though he had received an electric shock. “We can’t do surgery when it’s like this, but the moment it’s stable we’ll be able to go in and—”

“Do what’s best, but I want my wife to live.” Papa gripped the doctor’s
surgical scrubs. “Don’t look at her as just another Black woman with no insurance. That’s not just my
wife
on the table—that’s my
life
on the table!”

With that, Papa—the one who could move mountains with a powerful baritone voice that could belt out a hymn in church, to stir even the most hardened sinner, the man who worked two jobs just so Mama didn’t have to work if she didn’t want to—did the most unsettling thing Brandi would ever see. He cried. That big, strong man who had shown her the world and taught her how to run, fish, and survive a grueling summer at camp, broke down in sobs so intense it scared her.

Brandi reached up, wrapping her arms around her papa’s waist.

“It’s okay, Papa. Mama’s gonna be fine, remember?”

Brandi was right. Mama pulled through, but had a little pacemaker in place to help things along.

As they stood next to Mama’s bed, Brandi’s dad kissed the recovering woman’s hand. “I don’t ever want to live without you.”

“You don’t have to worry about that.” She smiled up at him, eyes moist and alive.

The grin that split his face was a minor miracle. Brandi could feel the love between them. If she ever got married, that was the kind of love she wanted. Not that dreamy, running through the daisies, fairy-tale kind of love with eighteen bridesmaids, enough flowers to start their own shop and ride in a stretch limo. But maybe in this day and age it might be too much to ask.

Her parents were right about one thing—Papa never had to live without Jean Ellis Caldwell.

He died two months after his wife left the hospital.

A
fter William’s sermon in the library, which in no way resembled Christ’s famous Sermon on the Mount, Vernon had stretched out on the sofa, mulling over the events of the evening. How the hell could Brandi and Tanya get along well enough to pull this type of stunt? They should be at each other’s throats by now. Not teaming up like high school chums. Women!

Footsteps shuffled across the carpet, ending just a few feet in front of him. Vernon’s eyes flew open. His father, clad in green silk pajamas that stretched to cover his huge frame, stood over him like a menacing shadow.

“You can’t stay here tonight.”

“Why not?” Vernon lifted his head from the sofa’s comfortable pillow. “It’s just until Brandi gets a grip.”

“Well, since you’ve never been in control of your wife, there’s no telling when she’ll ‘get a grip.’ You can’t stay here.”

“Dad, I lost my wallet. I have no ID, my credit cards were in there, and I can’t get to any cash right now. What’s the big deal?”

“I…I, um…”

Julie walked past, offering both men a drink. She wore a sheer blue negligee and killer stilettos. Her gaze rested a little too long on Vernon’s groin, then traveled the length of his body to his face. She smiled. Without thinking, he smiled back as she sauntered out of the library.

William moved to block his son’s view. “I just don’t want you here, that’s all.”

“Oh, I understand,” he said, taking in the scowl on his father’s not-so-friendly face. “You don’t want me near Julie. Like I’d want that skinny woman.”

His dad’s lips curled into a sneer. “Well, your mistress is sort of skinny, so maybe your taste has changed from fat and out-of-shape to the more man-pleasing type.”

“Brandi’s not fat,” Vernon shot back. “She’s…pleasingly curvy. And I like curvy. And Tanya’s not skinny. I can see Julie’s rib cage when she breathes hard. That’s not sexy, that’s sick.”

“Call it whatever you want,” his father said angrily, “but you’re not staying here.”

♥♥♥

Vernon jolted awake in the backseat of his car. A scratchy blanket from his trunk had served as a covering from the chilly night air. Anger raged inside him as he remembered how he’d spent hours trying to get into the house he had bought for Tanya. Only Brandi could have gotten the locks changed and temporary bars on the windows that fast!

He shook himself, trying to get a strange dream out of his head. He had been on a cruise ship going to Nassau, Bahamas, and somehow had lost his wallet and identification. They wouldn’t let him back on the ship without it. Instead, they put him on a yacht with a sandy-haired captain with a mustache that curled at the ends at the wheel. As the crew from the cruise ship dropped Vernon onto the deck, he glanced around and noticed the group of men chained to various places on the yacht. Not slaves, but businessmen—all looking like duplicates of Vernon, briefcases on the ground right next to them. Each had on an engagement ring like Tanya’s, all gleaming brightly in the morning Caribbean sun.

The ship pulled away from port, speeding away from the Bahamian shore. Vernon looked up again and saw Brandi at the wheel, grinning down at him like a woman who had hit the lottery on the first try. She turned the yacht out to sea, and a school of mermaids swam past, all with blonde
hair, blue eyes, and faces just like Tanya’s. Struggling against his restraints, Vernon broke free, jumped into the aquamarine water, and stroked through the cool waves like the very devil was on his heels. The mermaids opened their mouths, baring three rows of sharp teeth. They each took a bite out of him. As he tried to swim back to the safety of the ship, Brandi wheeled away, leaving him to the vicious attention of the Tanya-like mermaids. One even took a single bite of his dick and snatched it straight off. He was sinking…sinking…sinking…

When he got to shore, Antonio Banderas and Melanie Griffith were there to pull him in. He begged the actors, “Please help me get back to Chicago, back to my life, back to my wife…”

♥♥♥

“Jesus, it’s cold out here,” Vernon said, turning the SUV on for heat. October wasn’t supposed to be this cold. But then again, Chicago’s weather was unpredictable—one of the main reasons he kept a trench coat, umbrella, Windbreaker, boots, and a winter coat stashed in back of the vehicle.

A light came on in the house off to his right.

Yes! Finally somebody was up.

Vernon scrambled out of the car, ran up the bricked path leading to a newly constructed town house. He scanned the area, noticing how empty the block of Ridgeland was at seven in the morning, then rang the bell.

Jeremy Shipp stepped outside, wearing a dark green robe and plaid boxers, his wavy hair mussed from sleep. He looked the same as the first day Vernon met him on the lawn in front of Morehouse—like a man who should be on the silver screen instead of owner of a national chain of restaurants that specialized in mesquite-grilled beef ribs and beef hot links, instead of the normal pork. The man had made a killing in the industry.

Dark, piercing eyes zeroed in on Vernon, who stood on the doorstep rocking from foot to foot, shivering in the crisp Chicago air. “Hey, man, what’s up?”

Vernon blew warm air into his hands. “I need a place to hole up for a minute.”

“Oooookay,” Jeremy said in a singsong voice as he scratched his head. “Barbara Ann’s Motel is still on Cottage Grove, right?”

Been there. Done that. Actually, he had checked into a “four-hour nap” motel on Stony Island—the only kind he could afford at the moment. At first he thought his only worry would be that his truck, packed to the roof, would be stolen from the parking lot—which did not bode well for a good night’s sleep. But he had only been in the dank, musty room for ten minutes when he realized that the insect life—roaches and carpenter ants—already had the place on lock-down. He bowed out gracefully, realizing that he couldn’t win against things he couldn’t outrun. Trying to get a refund provided the motel manager with the best laugh of the night. Now Vernon was totally broke. Well not totally, if he could count the two quarters and a dime he found in the seat cushion.

Vernon swallowed his anger. “I don’t want to stay in no damn motel!”

“Well, you can’t stay here.”

Wrapping the blanket tighter around him, Vernon demanded, “Why not? You’re my boy!”

“And I feel that, but ahhh…” Jeremy glanced quickly into the house, then to his friend shivering on the front porch. “You’re not one of Lissette’s favorite people right now—”

“What did I ever do to her?” Vernon asked, as disappointment moved anger aside.