Friends and Lovers (21 page)

“Lay down with me until I doze off. Come here.”

Shelby pulled on a pair of my plaid boxers, a pair of my thick white socks, then tied a silk scarf around her hair. A minute or two later she pulled back our Aztec patterned comforter and eased into the bed.

I said, “Did you put your glass on a coaster?”

“No. Sorry.”

I touched her; she shuddered like I had offended her.

“Shelby, you okay?”

“Yeah.”

I patted her stomach and kissed her cheek. She moved my hand from her belly. I tried to make my eyes stay open.

I asked, “What’s wrong?”

She said, “Get some sleep.”

Her body was hot. Words not. I dozed when she kissed the side of my face and put her head on my chest. She was restless. Humming a church song. Shelby slowly danced her fingers through the hair on the back of my neck. That was how I fell asleep.

The next morning I trimmed my goatee, picked out a suit, then stared out my window at the park. Birds sang in the pine trees. Cars zoomed through the high-rent neighborhood and raced to participate in the bumper-to-bumper smog factory on the freeway.

Shelby was in the kitchen making herbal tea. Moving like her feet were made of iron. She’d been quiet all morning.

I asked her about going to see Faith.

She smiled under melancholy eyes, then said, “Don’t have to. I got my period. Cramp man stopped by and hooked me up.”

She said her cycle was off because of stress, her unpredictable sleeping schedule, and other things. She yawned, turned away from me, started unloading the dishwasher.

“I’m on the pill, remember?”

Her tone was matter-of-fact. Housed disappointment.

She changed the subject and asked me about the event that me and Leonard participated in at Drew Medical. While I sipped hazelnut coffee and ate a banana nut muffin, I told her it was an open carnival for preteen kids, impressionable youngsters they wanted to encourage toward the positive before they made it to gang-joining age. They had pony rides and games all afternoon. I’d spoken for about ten quick minutes before Leonard stole the show, had them doing positive chants and singing kids songs.

Shelby beamed, “That’s good. ‘Cause by the time those rug rats get to be twelve, most of ‘em are wearing hundred-thirty-dollar Air Jordans and packing a .45.”

“Not most, just some.”

We debated about that for a minute or two before I steered her back to the real issue. Something changed
inside me. I felt a hardness coming on. Not sexual. I was far from that. A hardness in my stomach, that same rigidness of mixed-up love and hate and sadness and resentment I had when I sat across the table from Lisa at our last supper. But I sat on top of what was rising, held it down with calmness and shallow sips of coffee.

I said, “So, when did you get your period?”

“Right before the plane took off day before yesterday morning.”

I’d just emptied the bathroom’s small trash can into a larger one and taken the refuse down the hall to the garbage chute. There weren’t any tampon wrappers or whatever in the trash can.

I nodded. “Thought the test was positive?”

“What test?”

“The EPT.”

“Aw.” She hesitated, twisted her lips. “I made a mistake.”

“How?”

“Ty, Faith said a man could piss on one of those cheap-ass things and it’ll say he’s pregnant.”

“So you talked to Faith?”

“Not really. Not recently.”

“Thought you went by the clinic to pick Debra up yesterday?”

“I did. I mean I saw Faith, but we didn’t have a conversation. Women know EPTs can give whacked readings like that.”

“I doubt that.”

“You don’t know everything.”

“Didn’t say I did.”

Shelby put some wheat bread in the toaster.

I said, “What did you do all day yesterday?”

“Shopping. You read the note.”

“You were too weak to stand up for five minutes, and you went to the doctor, bought flu stuff, then shopped all day?”

“Being sick ain’t never stopped a sister from getting thirty percent off.”

“Why didn’t you call me at the job and tell me you started?”

She drummed her fingers on the fridge and scowled at me like I was Scrooge on Christmas Eve. Each of her words sliced Like a deep cut from a rusty stiletto: “What the fuck you want me to do, send you a postcard when I get my fucking period? Why are you asking all these stupid questions?”

“You ever think I might be worried too?”

“What the hell do you have to worry about?”

I let silence buffer what was happening between us. Tried to let it soften what hostility was growing and burning in my gut. She saw I didn’t appreciate the way she was talking to me.

I said, “You weren’t too busy to send up smoke signals when you took the test.”

“Overreacted. My period wasn’t due anyway. Told you that.”

“I can work with, deal with, and understand that. But what about the EPT?”

“What about it?”

“Did you get an abortion?”

She paused long enough to tilt her head sideways. “I don’t believe you could accuse me of doing some shit like that.”

I said “That was a yes or no question.”

She spoke with venom. “Why can’t you get it, huh?”

Shit changed real quick. We were both ready for an all-out, no-holds-barred fight.

I demanded, “Show me the pills you took last night.”

“What?”

“Let me see the pills.”

“I’m not showing you my medicine.”

“You were damn sure you were pregnant two days ago, right?”

“Dammit, I made a damn mistake. I said I
thought
I was pregnant. Now I don’t think I am. All right? That okay with you?”

“What about the pregnancy test?”

“The test was wrong.” She shook her head like she
was confused and shrugged. “Shit. I told you in plain English what happened. Now would you please get the hell out of my face and get off my damn back?”

I touched her shoulder to get her to look at me. I had to see her eyes. She repeated what she had told me, then jerked free and stormed off.

I said, “I want to believe in you, Shelby.”

She stopped in her tracks and slowly walked back. She said, “You trying to say that you don’t believe in me?”

“I’m questioning a lot of things right now.”

“Like?”

“Your character and integrity.”

Tears were in her eyes, but none fell. She whispered, “Then why are we together?”

I said, “You tell me.”

“Guess you just needed a bed warmer, huh?”

“Guess so.”

Curses. Screams. Heated things were said. Just half of the stupid, irrational, immature, ignorant things that we said had a tone that could damage the best relationship.

“And if I was pregnant, what the hell would I look like walking around with a baby in my belly and I’m not married. Or is that your kind of character and integrity?”

Her words were blistering. Sometime during the emotional fire, she snatched the closet open, damn near pulled it off the tracks, and started throwing her wardrobe on the bed.

“What’re you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m leaving.”

“Then pack your shit and go.”

She stopped and glowered at me. That look would’ve sent most brothers running for the hills. But I didn’t move. Shelby’s eyes widened over her quivering lip. She frowned at me for a moment before she exhaled, took short pants, softened her shoulders, adjusted her stance, twisted her hair. Her head bobbed a few times. Her eyes watered up, but she held on to the tears like they were the last thing she had in the world.

“I meant I was going to work. I have a flight.” Her
voice dropped to a low tone, cracked. Saliva hung from her top teeth to her bottom lip. It didn’t break when she talked. She said, “I’ve got another two-day trip. But if that is how you feel, then hey, fuck this shacking up shit, and fuck you.”

“Shelby …”

“When I get back, I’ll pack my shit and go.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Get your motherfucking hand off me.”

“Watch your language.”

“Don’t touch me.”

“Neighbors don’t need to hear.”

“Do I look like I give a shit?”

“Shelby—”

“Move out of my way.”

I sidestepped her ire, lowered my tone in proportion to the amount she’d raised hers, hoped she’d do the same. I took a breath or two, then said, “I didn’t mean for it to sound—”

“That’s what you said, so I guess that must be what’s on your mind, what you really want. I don’t believe you disrespected me and said something like that to me.”

“I’m not gonna let you turn this around.”

“I never should’ve moved in here in the first place. You want me to get out, I’ll leave.”

“No, Shelby. I thought that’s what you meant.”

“No, you wished that was what I meant.”

It was sounding too much like a riot, so I raised my palms to the sky and tried to stop the argument from ballooning. The condo had become too small, so I went and stood out on the patio.

My daddy did it to my family. Lisa did it to my hopes. People always made decisions that affected the remainder of my life and didn’t ask me how I felt about it until
after
the fact. And that was
if
they asked. I was part of the equation but always left out of the loop.

Now maybe Shelby had done the same bullshit.

Or maybe I was just paranoid.

I tried to cool off before I hopped into my blue suit and Italian tie and landed in the middle of corporate
America. I ran my fingers through my hair, over my goatee and reminded myself, Always leave personal problems at home and arrive to work with a smile and positive words. That would be hard to do today.

I didn’t turn around when I heard Shelby walk into the living room. Hard, angry steps that dented the carpet. Her perfume came over and irritated my senses, tickled the hairs in my nose. Her heels went back and forth across the room. Sounded like her luggage-on-wheels was in tow behind her. The dead bolt clicked. The front door opened. Maybe she was standing there waiting to speak her mind, but she didn’t. She might’ve been waiting for me to say something, maybe thought I’d fall into that
PleaseBabyPleaseBabyPleaseBabyBabyPlease
routine. Didn’t happen. I kept my back to her.

She said softly, “You need to learn to talk what you know.”

The door closed. Soft and gentle.

My gut sank like I’d been kicked over the side of a sky-high waterfall. Falling, falling. I sighed out my animosity.

I moved across the carpet, made a couple of steps in her direction, wanted to go after her and not let this argument be an open wound, but when my fingers touched the doorknob, I changed my mind. I wasn’t about to chase what shouldn’t be running.

Then pack your shit and go.

A moment or two passed before I realized the stoplight had changed to green. I probably would’ve cried through another green-yellow-red cycle, but a car behind me was blaring its horn. I was too busy staring at my reflection in the glass. Saw how nasty and smudged it
was. Saw fingerprints from yesterdays. Everywhere, on every car on Sepulveda, fingerprints.

That was why I burned rubber getting to the clinic.

The Bugs Bunny test Debra gave me showed up positive. I shook my head and told Debra I wasn’t gonna keep it. Debra led me from the examination room into the back office, made two cups of herbal tea, and tried to talk me out of it. Maybe not talk me out of it, just tried to get me to talk about it, because I had clasped my lips. Trepidation was the glue that shut me up. I was hardly speaking to myself, let alone anybody else.

Debra moaned. “Shelby, you know how I feel about this.”

“Well, obviously we don’t feel the same way.”

I waved my hand and told her that if I couldn’t get it taken care of with people I trusted, I’d drive across the street from USC, step over the crack pipes and syringes, and take a number.

“Debra, I’m afraid.”

“I know. I can tell you are.”

“I need you to be my best friend.”

“Don’t be selfish this time.”

“Just be there with your favorite selfish bitch, from paperwork to dismissal. Can you please do that?”

Debra closed her eyes, like she did when she was praying, patted my hand over and over, asked, “Are you sure?”

“Debra?”

“Yeah?” Her tone rang like she knew I’d changed my mind.

I picked my cuticles and said, “Since I’m your patient, this means you’ll have to exercise patient-client confidentiality.”

Her posture weakened. She nodded and spoke in little more than a whisper, “Thanks for putting me in this position, Shelby.”

“What about my position? Everything ain’t always about you.”

“Never said it was.”

“Then stop trying to make me feel guilty.”

“Guilt is internal. I can’t
make
you feel anything.”

I was two seconds from going off on her trying-to-be-psychological ass, but Debra held my hand the way my momma used to do after she knew she’d said the wrong thing.

“We’re family, Shelby. What you, or any of us do for that matter, affects us all.”

“You and Leonard are family. Me and Tyrel are two people living together. We haven’t made any promises. We have separate checking accounts and separate charge cards.” I stood up.

Debra said, “Where are you going?”

“Outside. I need some air. How long will I have to wait?”

“Not long.”

I went back out to the lobby, stalled next to the two quarter candy machines and became mesmerized by the picture on the wall: a photo of a shirtless brother in jeans, holding his newborn daughter in his dark arms, smiling down on his baby while his baby smiled up at him.
L’Enfant.
I’d looked at that tri-matted picture a thousand times, but that was my first time
seeing
it.

I sat down. A chill ran through me and I started having second thoughts for the tenth time. I was about to call it off, leave, go trade my Z for a Saturn, then drive by Kids “R” Us and see how much this was going to set me back. All I wanted to do was crawl into a crack-and-crevice and suffer the consequences.