Liar's Game (16 page)

Under an overcast sky, I was running from the devil on the route known as the Inglewood Ten, ten miles of concrete hills. Once I ran Presidio back to Stocker again, it would be almost over. Downhill all the way, less than a mile. Opened up my stride until I stopped at Degnan, breathing hard.

My Indiglo stopwatch read 1:11.56. Two minutes longer than my best. Legs ached; I was walking on raw muscle. Knees yelled for me to lighten up and stop punishing myself. My body was soggy from the top of my head down through my Thorlo socks.

The moment I made it to my building, a golden hard-top Jeep pulled up and parallel-parked right in front of me. A classic 1980-something CJ7 with wide tires. Naiomi was sporting cherry USC shorts over black spandex, and a dark, damp SHEILA’S AEROBICS midriff top. Her navel ring sparkled, so did the ring in her right eyebrow.

She put her Club on, hopped out, slung her orange gym bag over her shoulders. Lean arms. Small hips. Fist-hard Jamaican booty that was hard to ignore. Her braids were rust-colored, I think her hair had been dyed again. At least ten bracelets jingled a perky tune as she walked my way.

“Hey, Mr. Browne.”

I wrung sweat out of my tank top, said, “What’s up, Miss Naiomi?”

Under a tree, one with green leaves and pink things blooming on the tips, was where I had stopped. Three of those trees were in front, framing the walkway to the building.

She smiled. “Nice legs. Never noticed all that before.”

“Better watch that kinda talk.”

Her smile changed into a mild laugh. “Especially since we’re standing out here half-naked.”

Her cherry USC shorts were damp, some on the backside, mostly in the crotch area, probably from her workout. Dried sweat was on her face, made her right jaw look ashen, but wasn’t enough to damage her cuteness. Naiomi went natural most of the time. Hardly wore makeup.

“Neighbors have been talking since Miss Smith left here fuming.”

“I bet they have.”

“Ten-to-one odds that you’re an old maid again.”

“You putting in your application or just being nosy?”

She motioned toward her apartment. “I’ve got enough drama.”

“Ain’t you two getting married?”

“Don’t know. We wanted to, but—” She stopped and hunched her shoulders with her thoughts. “Ever feel like you’re just not good enough for somebody? She can be too extreme. It would be easier pleasing God.”

“You two seem like the perfect match.”

She sighed. “Heck, I don’t know, might be me. I’ve got too much gypsy in my blood. This is the longest I’ve stayed in one spot for years. Heck, my first marriage didn’t last this long.”

Naiomi dropped her gym bag so she could tie her braids back.

I asked her, “How’s your little boy doing?”

“Otis is fine. Maybe you’ll get to meet him one day.”

Naiomi pointed east. Dana was pulling up, parking a few cars back, closer to the other end of the block at Edgehill. She chuckled. “Who taught her how to parallel-park?”

My wall was going up. I didn’t say anything.

Naiomi talked until Dana got out. They made brief eye contact, waved. Naiomi told me a halfhearted good-bye, adjusted her gym bag, jogged up the three steps in front of our building, her silver bracelets jangling.

I glanced upstairs. Juanita was in her bay window. I didn’t know how long she’d been there. Didn’t know if her windows were open. No one had air conditioners in this part of town, but it wasn’t hot, so there was a chance. I waved. She did the same, then vanished from her window.

Dana had on khaki shorts and a red and yellow Winnie-the-Pooh sweatshirt. Dark baseball cap on her head. Wearing dark shades on a cloudy day. Like she was trying to change the season. She motioned at the darkening sky with a nod, made a face like she was pondering something.

“Can I get my belongings before it starts to storm?”

I wiped my salty face with a corner of my Speedo tank top and headed toward the stairs. She followed, stayed five or six steps away.

All of the panties, bras, her precious books, and other stuff had been neatly placed in a long white box, right along with her liquid soap, cotton balls, tampons, and candles.

I told her, “If you wait a minute, I’ll carry it to your car for you.”

She went to the tower of CDs that were next to my twenty-four-inch television. The Nas, DMX, Mase, TuPac, all of those kinda CDs were either hers or ones I didn’t really care about. Bobby Blue Bland, Etta James, B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, those were mine. Chanté Moore, Regina Belle, Ginuwine, the newer R&B CDs that we’d bought since we’ve been together, we agreed that we’d have to decide who would get what.

“If it’s okay with you,” she said, “I’ll make three stacks. Yours, mine, and a gray area. I’ll do the same with the videotapes we bought.”

This was a déjà vu. Same exact thing, damn near the same words that I’d shared with Malaika about a week after that night. Only then Kwanzaa was in the room, crying, restless, like she was picking up on the bad vibes that were in the room at the time.

It was the same, but it was different. There were no shared bills to be discussed, no visitation, no talk of courts and rights, no being mad because she’d been fucking around, no watching her pack up her life and hurry out of my place only to drive to another man’s home.

It was too much to bear, so I headed for the shower. Cleaned myself, caught my breath, tried to center my soul before we started doing the petty things people did at the end of a romantic journey.

A tap on the door.

“Yeah,” I said.

The door opened. She opened the shower curtain.

We stood there for a moment, staring at each other. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms, lower lip trembled, skin reddened. Tears rose to the surface. She showed me all of the damage I had done. That made me uneasy, rub the back of my neck, struggle to breathe.

She said, “I can’t handle this.”

Dana stepped in the shower, came in with all her clothes on.

She kissed me. Did it like she was trying to see if anything was left between us. I gave her all I felt. We kissed awhile, warm water soaking her clothes.

Her words had the intensity of a Maya Angelou poem when she said, “It’s been so damn rough without you. Haven’t been able to sleep.”

“Same here.”

“This is too abrupt.”

More kisses.

“If I stay in your life,” she told me, “I’m gonna make you suffer.”

Right there she undressed. We left her soaked khaki shorts and Winnie-the-Pooh sweatshirt, her drenched panties and bra on the bathroom floor, made it as far as the hallway before passion weakened our knees and dragged our wet bodies to the carpet. I spread her wings wide, wanted to make her fly, licked her deep, licked her shallow, made her melt like chocolate on a hot sidewalk. Did that while she scooted her wet bottom across the carpet, tried to escape my fervor and earned rug burns on her backside. The wall slowed her retreat, but I didn’t stop my feasting on her natural juices. She held the top of my head, fingers raking through my short hair, cried out a song so soft and sweet, a melody that told me how much she cared about me.

After I put on a condom, Dana pinned me down on the carpet and loved me with so much intensity it scared me. In the middle of all that goodness, while my toes were curling, my mind exploding, for a quick second my thoughts drifted. Memories had been stirred up. While I made love like I was trying to cast a spell that would make her mine forever, I thought about Malaika. Thought I was about to say her name when my love gushed out and my little soldiers charged into the thin barrier between me and Dana’s womb.

Years of repressed frustration seeped out, made me ride Dana like I wanted to brand her for the scars somebody else had left behind. And the more maniacal I became, the more her face winced in torture, and her moans and pleas for me not to stop became high and hysterical.

When we were finished, silence. Silence and the fear of the unknown.

Pain woke up my knees. I touched two spots of raw flesh. Rug burns.

I had wanted to escape inside her as far as I could. Yes, escape. I needed to escape all that was wrong, from everything I was afraid of, from what I couldn’t run from, and find myself in a warm place, the womb of a woman.

Sniffles. Rugged breathing. Dana was still crying, but it was the end. She put her head on my chest, wiped her eyes, chuckled.

“You tried to kill me with your penis.”

“Sorry.”

“That’s okay. Part of me wanted to die.”

 

I downed about a gallon of water, put on my jean shorts, white socks, and sandals. Made myself look like a black Spartacus. Dana put on my sweatpants and T-shirt, some Nikes she’d left over, put all of her panties and candles and CDs back, then made us a huge cup of French Vanilla Kaffee.

We sat on my back porch, overlooking the rows of garbage cans in the T-shaped alleyway, sipping exotic Java, breathing fresh air, eating fruit. Dana massaged my legs, rubbed my back, put me in a divine trance.

She asked me about Malaika. Drilled me. Wanted to know where we got married. Vegas. Where we honeymooned. Maui. How long we honeymooned. A week. If I had wedding pictures. Malaika had snatched ’em all. And if I did have them, with the stiffness in Dana’s voice, I didn’t think it would be a good idea to share those kinds of memories.

She stated firmly, “I need to see your divorce decree.”

“For what?”

“I have to be sure.”

“No problem.”

Her words were easy, but there was a look in her eyes that was new to me. Something crafty, sly, maybe cruel. Could’ve been all of those things, could’ve been none, just my own derangement come to life.

Then she wanted to know how tall Malaika was, how much education she had. Five foot five; a business degree from U.C. at Riverside that she never used. She had been working part-time at Mervyn’s jewelry counter when I met her, and after we married, she made it my job to make all of the money.

Dana said, “I feel threatened.”

“Ain’t no need to be.”

Dana sipped her coffee. “No need at the moment.”

We were outside, glancing toward our future, but the past was rat-tat-tapping us on our shoulders.

My phone rang. I stepped in and grabbed the phone on the kitchen wall, clicked it on. Nobody was there.

Dana asked, “Who was that?”

I sat back down on the steps, told her it was a hang-up.

She went inside, picked up the phone on the wall in the kitchen. She said, “You really should get a cordless phone.”

“I will, if that one breaks,” I called out. “Checking your messages?”

“Doing a *69.”

That was the first time she’d done that to me. There was a difference in her. In us. A hardness that comes when trust has thinned. Both of us had flipped, become the other side of a dented coin. Some sort of a smile was on her face, but traces of her history were in her eyes.

Things had changed. No way to go back and be who we were before.

She said, “A recording said the call came from outside this area.”

Sounded like her skepticism wanted a stronger justification.

Dana held my hand. Gray skies darkened. Air was getting cooler.

She said, “Six times. I’ve moved fifteen times in my life. Six times in the last three years. Always packing and unpacking. Afraid to buy anything because I know I won’t be anywhere too long. I want to get somewhere and be stable.”

She told me that her landlord had sold the condo, and she’d been out all day trying to find another place to live.

“It’s easier finding somebody else a house than it is for me to find my own apartment. The areas that fit my budget are dangerous.”

“Move in with me.”

“No can do. Don’t think because we had sex that everything is settled. If we’re going to move on, we have a lot of issues we have to talk about.”

“Like?”

She sighed. “Since you’re telling me things, there is something that I did that you should know. You’d find out sooner or later.”

A steel hand clutched my heart, squeezed so tight. I waited to hear about her and another man, waited to hear her tale of infidelity.

In a counterfeit tone of reassurance I said, “I’m listening.”

“Part of your income will be going into someone else’s household. Money that would impact our quality of life. This wasn’t exactly what I had planned. That’s a whole new kinda life. I’m really into debt management, really want a quality life for myself, and that’s not just talking about money. But a lot of it is. If I sound too extreme, it’s because . . . well, okay, let me back up.”

“Okay.”

So much stress was in her body, its aroma rising from her pores. She confessed, “I’m having a hard time getting an apartment because everybody wants to do a credit check.”

She said that like I was supposed to understand, maybe ask something. I waited a second. “And?”

She asked, “Want some gum?”

I answered, “Sure.”

She opened a pack of Big Red, licked the stick top to bottom, then eased it into my mouth.

“I’m coming off a bankruptcy.”

“What bankruptcy?”

In a nervous tone she told me about her jacked-up credit, how she had run up her cards into the five-digit arena doing her promotions thing, started borrowing from Visa to pay MasterCard, from Discover to pay American Express. In the end, she’d gotten almost as much in cash advances to start over, filed Chapter 7 right after that, spent quite a bit of her nest egg when she bought her car, paid cash because with her credit rating they wanted to charge her damn near credit card rate, took real estate classes, got her career started. Not all in that order, but that was the sum of what she confessed to me. Something that would definitely make a difference if we married, would be in our faces every time we went to make a major purchase for the next seven years.