Fixin’ Tyrone (10 page)

But still, she couldn’t stay mad at him. And for what it was worth, he did have a good rapport with TC and Mica.

When Tyrone said he had to leave, the kids started to fuss, but Mia sent them to the dining room to eat a dinner Crystal had ready for them. They bid their adieus and Tyrone said he would come back later in the week, most likely on Friday, to visit with them again. He hugged them both, and they scampered off, leaving Tyrone and Mia in the living room alone.

He started to say something, but Mia led him outside first. Tyrone took a few steps down the sidewalk, then turned to face her. She saw that he’d brought his mother’s car, and it squatted in her driveway like a hippo at a football game. The ’88 Bonneville was long and ugly and so out of place in her neighborhood that Mia wondered if someone might think she was being robbed.

“You did good, Mia,” he said. “You got a nice house.
Real
nice. I never thought you were gonna be so successful.”

Yeah, I bet you didn’t
, she thought, but said nothing. She wore jeans and a sweater now, and socks with no shoes.

“And you look good, too,” Tyrone went on. “You still got your figure. You’re as fine as you were when I walked up to you at that movie theatre. You remember? When you were downtown with your friends from college.”

Of course Mia remembered that day. It would be ingrained in her psyche forever.

“You look nice too, Tyrone. I see you’ve been working out. Got some new tats. What’s that one on your right arm?”

He smiled. He raised his sleeve and Mia’s legs felt weak for a second. With his arm bent, that bicep swelled like a grapefruit.

“This is for TC. I wanted to have him with me. I got this when I was on my second year. I was gonna get another one with Mica’s name over here.” He pointed to a spot under the TC tattoo.

“I don’t know why you would do that,” Mia said. “She’s not your daughter.”

“I know,” Tyrone said, still smiling. “I just wanted it for when I got out. I told you I want to raise—”

“Yes, Tyrone. I got your letter. You want to raise Mica like she’s your daughter, but I don’t need you to do that. She’s fine. You and TC can have your relationship and whatever, but Mica’s not your child.”

“I know she’s not,” Tyrone said, his smile faltering for the first time. “But I was hoping that if you and me—”

“Let’s get this straight right now,” Mia said. “There is no and will be no ‘you and me.’ What we had was good, but that was a long time ago, Tyrone. We weren’t even going together by the time you went to prison. I don’t know why you picked me to have this fixation with, but you need to let it go. It’s over, has been for damned near a decade.”

Tyrone’s smile went away entirely. He nodded. “What about my son?”

“You can see him. I don’t have a problem with that, just call. Once you get a job we can have a visitation schedule.”

“I don’t want a
visitation schedule
,” he said. “I want to live with him and raise him.”

He looked pretty upset, but Mia stuck to her guns. “Tyrone, you’d have to live with m
e
to live with him, and you’re no
t
going to live with me. We’re through. Been

through.”

He nodded again and seemed to accept this.

“All right,” he said. “Well, can I at least have a hug before I go? I haven’t seen you in a long time.”

Mia thought about it for a second and softened. “Okay.” She took a step forward. Tyrone met her halfway and threw his arms around her. Mia reciprocated, and for a moment it felt good to have him close again, but that changed quickly. Tyrone’s arms slid down her back, and before she knew it he had her ass in his hands,
both hands
; one hand per cheek.

Mia pushed off quickly, but Tyrone was already backing away. His big smile was back, and he held his arms out in a
Who me?
gesture.

“Don’t ever do that again.”

“I’m sorry,” Tyrone said, laughing now. “I’m sorry. I haven’t touched a woman in six years, Mia. I didn’t mean to do that, but,
damn
, it felt good.”

“You’d better leave.”

“All right,” he said. “But I want to say something right here.” He looked to the sky. “Before God and all his angels, I’m going to say this: I want to be with you, Mia. I want to
marry
you, and I’m not going to stop feeling like this ’til you got a ring on your finger, either mine’s or someone else’s.”

Mia didn’t know what to say. “Call before you come by this weekend,” she managed. Her heart thudded like she had a kicker box in her chest.

Tyrone turned and walked to his mother’s bucket. “I’m serious,” he called over his shoulder. “And quit looking like that. You woulda hit me in the face if you didn’t like it.”

He got in and the muffler sounded like it was going to explode when he started the car. Mia stood on her porch and watched until he was out of sight. She went back inside and leaned with her back on the door, her chest rising and falling. For the life of her, she couldn’t understand why she was smiling.

* * *

“How long are you going to be gone?”

The sisters faced each other in the two-car garage. Mia stood between her Lexus and Crystal’s champagne Tahoe. Crystal stood on the steps leading to the kitchen.

“I don’t know. Nine, nine-thirty. In time to put the kids to bed. You got something to do?”

“I’m supposed to go over Sydney’s house,” Crystal said.

“To do what?”

“Nothing. Just kick it.” She grinned.

“All y’all seem to do is
kick it
. When are you gonna bring him by so I can meet him?”

“He been by here before.”

That was news to Mia. “When?”

“He comes by after classes sometimes, and we go eat lunch.”

“Why don’t you bring him this weekend,” Mia offered. “Why are you hiding him? He got a hunchback?”

“Naw,” Crystal laughed. “You gonna like him. He finna get a contract.”

“A
contract
? Doing what?—And please don’t say
rappin’
.”

“What’s wrong with rappin’?”

Mia rolled her eyes and opened her car door.

“You should change clothes,” Crystal noted. Mia wore the same sweater and jeans she put on when Tyrone came by. The sweater reeked of Soccer Mom. The jeans were comfortable but didn’t hug her thighs like her typical date outfits.

“What’s wrong with what I have on?”

“Nothin, if you ain’t tryin to get none.”

“I’m
not
trying to get none,” Mia said.

“Still thinkin about Tyrone, huh?” Crystal smiled and licked her lips.

“No, I am not thinking about Tyrone. Why would I be?”

“He practically proposed to you,” Crystal said.

“A lot of guys have proposed to me,” Mia reminded her. “And most of them had a job, had never been to prison, and didn’t drive ’88 Bonnevilles with bad mufflers. They had a ring, too.”

“Yeah, but he looked
good
,” Crystal reminisced.

“You’d sleep with a handsome hobo,” Mia predicted.

Crystal opened the door, and TC and Mica could be heard clamoring inside.

“You liked it when he grabbed yo booty,” Crystal teased.

“I don’t know what part of my story gave you that impression,” Mia said, a little surprised by her sister’s take on things.

“You woulda hit him in the face if you didn’t like it,” Crystal said and disappeared inside the house.

That was odd. Mia never even told her Tyrone said the very same thing.

* * *

Eric wore dark slacks, black, square-toed Stacy Adams shoes, a white button-down, and an unbuttoned black sports coat. He stood and pulled Mia’s chair out for her.

“I thought we weren’t getting dressed up,” she said as she sat down.

Eric sat across from her. “I’m sorry. You’ve had so many bad impressions of me already, I just want to make sure all the rest of them are positive. You look great, by the way. You look good in anything you have on.” He grinned, but Mia didn’t smile back.

“You don’t know how happy I am,” he went on. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

“Where are the pictures?” she asked.

“Wow, straight to the chase, huh?”

“Well, they
are
important.”

A redheaded girl approached their table. She wore a white blouse with black pants. “How you guys doing? I’m Sarah. I’ll be taking your orders tonight. Would you like to start off with our boneless buffalo wings?”

“Mmm, I’m not sure.” Eric picked up his menu and Mia did the same. “Do you want an appetizer?” he asked her.

“No. I just want dinner,” Mia said. “I could order right now, actually.”

“Okay, and what would you like?”

“The Cajun chicken pasta,” Mia said. “Bleu cheese on the salad.”

Eric looked at her over his menu. “You have to be home soon?”

“Crystal’s going out tonight. I can only stay a couple of hours.”

Eric ordered the same thing she was having and sent the waitress away with their menus.

“So, where are the pictures?” Mia asked again once their waitress was gone.

“I have them.” Eric reached and produced a blue notebook from the seat next to him. “You still think I’m lying, don’t you? You can’t see, for half a second, how I might be telling the truth?” He placed the folder on the table before him, and Mia looked down at it.

“Sure I can see how you might be telling the truth,” she said, then looked into his eyes. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. But you’ve got to admit this whole thing is pretty hard to swallow. You have a perfect explanation for everything. This twin brother of yours is pretty convenient.”

“You’re right,” he said. “I would have told you about him on our first date if I thought she would use his kids to hurt me. But we really haven’t talked about our families a lot. I don’t know much about your mother and brothers . . .”

“But you know they exist,” Mia said and looked down to the folder again.

“Well, my brother exists, too,” Eric said and opened the folder. His index finger trembled a little as he did so, Mia thought. But it might not have. There
was
a flickering candle on their table.

Eric produced three photographs. He handed each of them to her, and Mia studied them with a feeling of tremendous guilt rising within her. The twin brother was a spitting image. He and Eric had the same haircuts, the same features, and even the same clothes in one of them.

“His name is Anthony. We’re both thirty-four, and we’re identical. That one is us when we were seven, at Coney Island. The other one is when we tried out for football. We went to Skyline, in Dallas. Here’s our most recent one. Christmas, two years ago at Mom’s.”

He then handed her court documents.

“This is the restraining order I filed against Shareefa. See, here’s me as the complainant, and there’s Shareefa’s name.”

He reached over the table and pointed to the areas of interest. Mia wasn’t an expert in legal jargon, but the restraining order appeared to be legit. Eric even had a six-page affidavit where he described his ex-fiancée as abusive, obsessive, and neurotic. There were at least ten instances of stalking noted. According to the affidavit, Shareefa Tamara Jones had done everything from harassing Eric’s mom to slicing his tires. The court order was finalized just two months ago.

“She never could accept that we weren’t together anymore. She has showed up at my job, gone through my mail . . .”

Eric’s voice started to fade out. Mia put the restraining order down and studied the pictures again, two of them in particular.

“These two. You say you were seven in this one, and this one was when you were in high school?”

“The football one? Yeah. We were freshmen.”

Mia flipped the pictures over. “These look new. They aren’t the originals, are they?”

“No,” Eric said. “Those were in my mother’s photo album. When I went to visit last Christmas, I got her to make a copy of them for me. I tried to get the originals, but she wouldn’t give them up. Had them for years.” He narrowed his eyes. “Why? Is there a problem?”

“You only have these three pictures?” Mia asked.

“Well, I have more pictures of him at home, with his wife and kids. I’ve got some of him in his uniform, too. Why? What’s wrong?”

Nothing
, Mia thought,
except the only pictures you have of the two of you together look brand new. And there are websites on the Internet that specialize in fake celebrity nudes
.
If someone could fabricate a picture of Jennifer Anniston in the midst of a sticky gangbang, then you could have pictures of a secret twin brother.

But how farfetched was that?
Mia wondered. Was she so paranoid she was going to
make
his story a lie no matter what evidence he provided?