You're the One I Want (25 page)

“What did I do this time?”

“You throw stuff like this out there and then when someone calls
you on things, you back off like you're so innocent, like you didn't do anything.”

“Fine. I'll hush my mouth then.”

“Why didn't you ever tell me that Edrick wasn't my real daddy?”

“Is that why you're acting like a fool up in this place?”

“Thirty. Thirty years, Ma, you had me believing that this man I loved and looked up to was my father and you never opened your mouth.”

“Edrick was the only father you needed to know.”

“Oh, so that's my fault?”

“You need to hush about this.”

“No. I want to know the truth. Who is our real father?”

Ma paused, like she was searching for something to say. “Yvonne, baby, can you go get me a soda? I'm thirsty.” Ma reached inside her purse and pulled out a few dollars and handed it to Yvonne. “Get whatever you want.”

“The reason why I didn't tell you boys who your real father is, is because for thirty years, I've tried to put it all behind me, hoping, praying that, as your mother, this day would never come.”

“What are you talking about?”

“When I was nineteen…” Ma got up and started pacing the lobby of the police station. “When I was nineteen, I was raped.”

“What?”

“It was by one of my mama's boyfriend's. Willie Patterson was his name, some stray she pulled out of some juke joint. Mama always left me home alone with Willie when she went off to work. He was a drunk and quickly took a shine to me. I was washing and putting up clothes when he came into my room. That night, I was surprised that the man could barely stand. He stormed in, calling me a tease, telling me that I was nothing but a tramp. I told him that he was a drunkard, that he should go sleep off the gin. That's
when he slapped me, telling me that he hated women who sassed him, saying that…I needed to be taught a lesson, so he threw me on the bed and undid his pants.

“Stop,” I said. I couldn't hear anymore. “What did Grandma do?”

“When I told her that Willie raped me, she didn't believe me, accusing me of coming in between her and him, saying that, ‘He wouldn't do that. He's a good man.' She told me to never talk about it again, so I didn't.”

“Until you found out you were…”

“Until I found out that I was pregnant with you boys, yes. When I told Mama, she called me a tramp and kicked me out of the house and tossed every strip of clothing I had out onto the street. I'll never forget what she said: ‘A trash bag for trash.' ”

“My God, Ma.”

“Luckily, I had some money saved up and stayed at a motel for a week until your Aunt Gertie took me in and fed me. That Dutch apple cheesecake that's your favorite?”

“Yes.”

“Ms. Gertie, bless the dead, taught me how to make it.”

“Did you ever go to my real father and tell him you were pregnant?”

“No. He has no clue that he has children in this world, and, as far as I'm concerned, I don't want that rapist bastard to know about my boys.”

“I never asked you this, but how did you meet Daddy, the man who adopted me and Deanthony?”

“I was walking out of the grocery store when I almost tripped over something. It was your father's wallet. I called him and told him that I found it. He came to Ms. Gertie's to pick it up. Your father was so handsome, Kashawn. He was a proud man, like his brother. I cut him a piece of apple cheesecake that day, and he
told me that a woman who makes cheesecake this good, has to be his wife, and the rest was history.”

“How did Daddy react when you told him you were pregnant?”

“I didn't go into details about what happened to me. Edrick said it didn't matter, and that he wanted to raise you boys as his own. I knew then that your father was nothing but God-sent.”

I wrapped my arms warmly around Ma. “I'm sorry.”

“For what, baby?”

“For everything.”

“I tried to find the right time to tell you about him, but I discovered there's no such thing.”

Yvonne returned with two cold cans of grape soda.

“Look, I know y'all are upset about what Bree has done, but she has really gotten me through a lot of crazy…excuse my language, and the past few weeks have been hard for both of us.”

“I know, baby.”

“What I'm saying is, I don't care what Bree did in the past. We all got a past, and sometimes it's nothing pretty. Not us, you, or anybody has a right to judge her. Especially me.”

“What do you mean?” Yvonne asked.

I took a deep sigh as I leaned back into my chair. “I cheated on Bree with Tangela.”

“Oh, Lord. Kashawn,” Ma said with an air of disappointment in her tone.

“I'm no angel and I haven't been the perfect husband. I want to change that. I want to be the husband that Bree married by first telling her the truth. I love her and nothing and nobody is going to change that. I don't care what she's done. There are people out here who have done worse things than she could ever do. I'm tired of everyone pointing fingers like she assassinated somebody. I haven't done right by her and that stops now. I'm going to be
the husband she needs me to be, Ma. If I didn't love Bree, I wouldn't be here.”

Ma began to caress the side of my face with her hand. “Have I told you how proud I am of you?”

I let loose a grin. “Yes…but I never get tired of hearing it.” I rested my hand softly on top of Mama's.

“I'm sorry, baby, and you're right. There needs to be a change, because at the end of the day, family is all you have, and Bree needs that more than ever right now if she's going to get through this.”

As we waited, Deanthony blew in through the double glass doors of the police station. Needless to say, the man who slept with my wife was the last man I wanted to see.

“What are you doing here?”

“Don't be mad, baby. I called him,” Ma said.

“He doesn't need to be here. I don't need him here.”

“He's your brother, Kashawn. Your twin brother.”

“Is it true?” Deanthony asked. “She got arrested for killing somebody?”

“We're trying to find out what's going on,” Ma said.

“Speaking of which.” I walked back up to the front desk to find out what was taking them so long. “Excuse me.” The blond, porky-faced cop looked up at me annoyingly from a stack of papers she had sprawled out in front of her. “Can you tell me what's going on with my wife? Her name is Bree Parker. She was brought in like an hour ago.”

Katherine McGhee,
her silver-plated name tag read. “They may not have processed her yet. Let me find out.”

“Thank you.”

Katherine picked up the phone and pressed a number. I waited anxiously to get word on Bree. I could barely hear what she was saying due to the plate glass that separated us. “No, they haven't processed her yet. She's in holding.”

“Can we see her?”

“She's only allowed one visitor at a time.”

I walked back over to Ma and Deanthony to tell them what was up. “They've already processed her. They said she's only allowed one visitor.”

“Go on in, baby. Give Bree our love.”

I sauntered back up to the help desk and gave Katherine, the pie-faced cop, my name. She tapped on the keyboard with her plump fingers. The light from the flat-screen Dell reflected in the lenses of her wire-frame glasses. She slid a laminated visitor pass under the dip cut in the plate glass and buzzed me in. I pinned the name tag on the breast pocket of my pajama shirt before I walked through the heavy, steel door. I walked down a cold corridor where the walls were lined with photos of cops past, men and women smiling big in their uniforms, followed by plaques of those in recognition for their lengthy years of loyal service upholding the law. To the right of me was a long desk where three male cops sat. They gave me a sinister glare as if they were ready to tear into my black ass if I made any sudden moves. One of the men, a brother, who had to be like seven feet tall, chest like a bird, arms like sledgehammers, told me that I had to be searched for weapons. He told me to spread my legs and hold my arms out to my side. He patted me down, running his hands along the sides of my arms and thighs, careful not to graze my balls. This man looked at me like he wanted to rip my head off. I was trying to think of the last time I was patted down by a cop. Fucking never.

“What's in your front pocket?”

“Oh, they're just my car keys.”

“Place them in the bowl,” he said. He walked back behind the desk. “Walk down the hall, make a right, take the elevator to the fourth floor, level E.” He sounded like he ate bullets like they were Fig Newtons. “You got thirty minutes.”

The hall smelled sickly of bleach. I took the elevator to level E and sat in front of more plate glass. I looked about, but all I could see were jail cells and female cellmates prancing around in orange jumpsuits and white, plastic sandals. I saw Bree before she saw me. I knocked on the glass to get her attention. She ran toward me, crying when she made me out. We pressed our hands up to the glass as we picked up the phones and placed them up to our ears.

“Baby, are you all right? How are you doing?”

“I've never been so glad to see you, Kashawn.”

“Baby, what happened?”

“I just wanted to talk to her, that's all.”

“Talk to who, Bree?”

“Katiesha. I swear I found her like that. I didn't kill her.”

I exhaled breath that I had been holding in ever since Bree called me.

Bree looked awful, like she had been up all night.

“What happened?”

“I went to Risqué to look for Katiesha. She wasn't there, so I went to her crib. I knocked on the door and there was no answer. I saw blood coming from under the door, so I went in and there she was, dead on the chair. My hand to God, baby, that's what happened.”

“Okay, I'm going to get you out of here.”

“Kashawn, you believe me, don't you?”

I searched Bree's eyes and knew right then that she was telling the truth.

A
s soon as I strolled into Top Flight, all eyes were on me, men zeroing in on my ass like they were heat-seeking missiles. I wasn't doing cute. I was doing drop-dead gorgeous with my leopard-print skirt, black blouse, and candy apple-red, fuck-me pumps. A girl can work up a sexual appetite when plotting to steal her best friend's man. I was in need of some serious unwinding. I thought to go home and soak in a warm bubble bath with a nice glass of red wine by my side, but I was in the mood to mingle. I was tired of being around chatty chicks at the salon all day, running my fingers through somebody's nasty hair. I loved my boss, but, damn, sometimes she got on my last nerve. If she wasn't complaining about one thing, she was nagging me about another. By the time six o'clock came, I was good and ready to take my ass home. I had Leandra in my ear, and Bree, who had been blowing up my phone. I was supposed to hook up with her at Risqué, but that only would have gone against my plan to fuck her life up. I was in no mood for the latest in Bree drama. I needed some me time every now and then. I was sick of being her damn shoulder to cry on.

I thought about going to Grown Folk's Night at The Moon, but decided I wanted to flip the script a little bit. I was over the same old, same old. The trolls in pastel pimp suits and snakeskin dress shoes, pushing and rubbing up against me, trying to holla, blowing their boozy, pungent breath in my face. Young dick was what this pussy needed.

I saddled up to the end of the bar where I could still feel ravenous eyes ripping off my clothes. This shirtless, dark-chocolate brother wandered over to where I was sitting. He looked like he had a smidgen of East Indian in him.

“How are you tonight?” he asked.

I felt myself starting to droll to his muscular arms in the white tank top, oiled skin glistening under the club's red and blue strobe lights. He set a small white napkin in front of me.

“What can I get you to drink?” He had to be about six-three, looking like he should be playing professional ball instead of slinging drinks in a bar. He had pretty, pearl-white teeth as he flirted. He looked to be in his early twenties. Twenty-two, twenty-three, maybe.

“I'll have a watermelon martini.”

“Wow, I haven't made one of those in a while.”

I smiled. “Do you know how to make it?”

“I think I can manage.” He smiled.

“I trust you.”

I watched him mix the drink, adding the right amount of alcohol and watermelon schnapps, finishing it off with a cherry as a sweet afterthought. He set the martini in front of me.

“Tell me what you think.”

Oh, trust, I will.

I took a sip. “This is actually one of the better watermelon martinis I've had.”

“I aim to please.” The fine bartender smiled. “I have all night to make it better for you.” If flirting was an art form, this man was a regular Basquiat. “My name's Amir.” He extended his hand to greet mine.

“Tangela.” My hand intertwined with his. His palm felt warm and damp from slinging drinks.

“That's a pretty name,” Amir said.

“Yeah, my mama told me that any name that begins with a vowel, you can stick any letter in the front of it and it will make sense, so she said she always liked the name Angela, but my aunt took the name for her daughter, so Ma went a step further, stuck a ‘T' in front of it, hence the name Tangela.”

“Well, it's definitely a name you will never find on a key chain.”

I started laughing. “This is true.” Little did Amir know he was already scoring major points with me. Ten for making me laugh and ten more for looking like sex on a platter.

“You have a pretty smile.”