Janessa stood up and leaned up against one of the wood beams supporting the roof of the shelter. She didn’t want to look Tempest in the face. She was so ashamed. “I can’t go to college because I’m pregnant!”
Janessa clamped her eyes shut, expecting Tempest to start yelling all sorts of disparaging comments at her, but none ever came. Finally she turned around and saw that Tempest had laid her head down on the table, engulfing it with her arms. Probably trying to hide her anger, Janessa figured.
The thunder was getting closer, and Janessa saw a flash of lightning in the near distance. “Hmph, now you’re the one that has nothing to say, huh, Tempest?”
“It’s not that,” Tempest whispered, her voice barely audible. “I’m just thinking.”
Janessa went over and sat on the top of the picnic table with her feet on the bench beside Tempest and her knee touching Tempest’s shoulder. “What’s there to think about? My life’s finished, over, kaput.”
Tempest looked up at her, and Janessa could tell she was fighting back tears. “On the contrary, your life is just beginning.”
Janessa smirked. “How do you figure that? The last thing I need right now is a baby. I was just beginning to get my shit together so I could become independent enough to get my own place and a car, and most importantly, so I could get a college degree. At first I didn’t give two shakes of a rat’s tail about going to college. You know that! But finally I got excited about the whole thing and was ready to go for it.” Janessa fingered her well-toned stomach. “Now this.”
“Did you tell Dvontè already?” Tempest saw the eye-roll, lip-smack combination Janessa threw at her and guessed she had. “Well, what did he say?”
“What didn’t he say is more the question! First, he started cussin’ like all hell. Not necessarily at me, but at life in general. Then he said he would call an abortion clinic the next day and set up an appointment, like it was a given I would get rid of it.”
“Is that what you want to do? Have an abortion?”
“I don’t know what the hell I want! I’m so confused, but I know you can relate to what I’m feeling. We’ve been here before, you and me.”
Tempest didn’t even want to go there, but it was inevitable. “Yeah, but this time the shoe is on the other foot.” She reached out and rubbed Janessa’s knee. “If you’re not ready to handle this, then we’ll deal with it together. You were there for me, and I’ll be there for you. Just say the word, and I’ll go to the clinic with you. I’ll even pay for it if you need me to.”
“That’s the one thing Dvontè has no problem with. Giving me money to have an abortion.” Janessa wiped the tears off her left cheek with the sleeve of Tempest’s jacket. “I told him we needed to think this through. He became belligerent and threw me out of his car on the Fourteenth Street Bridge.”
“I sincerely hope you’re kiddin’, Janessa.” Tempest was appalled at the thought of him tossing her out like a piece of trash. “He put you out on the street?”
“Yes, he treated me like a tramp, a nobody. Dvontè and I have been seeing each other just as long as you and Geren. I knew he didn’t love me. I’m not even sure I love him. But I never thought he would diss me like that.”
“I’m going to kill him!” Tempest barked. “Nobody treats you like that! Wait till I get my hands on him!”
“Forget about it,” Janessa insisted. “It’s over. Whatever I do about this baby, I can’t and don’t expect Dvontè to have anything to do with it. He made himself perfectly clear, and I hope I never have to lay eyes on him again.”
Tempest decided becoming violent wasn’t a viable solution. Geren was in NYC on business, but as soon as he got back, she would fill him in and let him deal with Dvontè. If nothing else, Tempest knew how Geren felt about kids. The mere thought of him expressing how much he wanted children to her the first night they made love proved that.
“You know what’s really ironic, Janessa?”
“What’s that?”
“You becoming pregnant when Dvontè doesn’t want a baby, and me knowing that I’ll never be able to give Geren the ones he craves so badly.”
Janessa ran her fingers through Tempest’s damp hair. “You haven’t told Geren about what happened that summer, have you?”
“No, I don’t know how to.” Tempest broke out in tears, and Janessa slid down on the bench beside her, taking Tempest into her arms to comfort her. “How can I tell him something like that?”
“Things are getting serious between you two. Eventually he’s going to pop the question, and you’re going to have to fess up.”
“I know,” Tempest admitted. “I love Geren, but I can’t marry him. Maybe the best thing to do is just break it off before I allow him to buy into an impossible dream.”
Janessa started laughing. Tempest looked at her like she had gone mental. “What’s so funny?”
“Us! If we’re not the queens of drama, then I don’t know who is!”
Tempest giggled, wiping away her tears. “Well, I guess drama is what makes life interesting.”
Janessa got up and headed to the car. The rain was finally letting up. “Come on, we’ll deal with our issues later. Right now, let’s go to Baskin-Robbins and get some triple-scoop ice cream cones.”
Tempest got up and followed her out into the mud. “I’m with that! You know stressed is desserts spelled backward!”
CHAPTER 22
reactions
the first thing Geren noticed when Tempest answered her door was the strained expression on her face. She favored a deer caught in a pair of headlights.
“Tempest, what’s wrong?” he asked in growing concern, having never seen her look so desolate before.
“Shhhhhhh!” Tempest placed her forefinger to her mouth and made no effort to open the door wider so he could come in. “Janessa’s sleeping.”
“Janessa? What’s she doing here?”
Tempest rolled her eyes. “She’s sleeping, like I just said.”
Geren sighed heavily, a symbol of his growing irritation. “Tempest, aren’t you forgetting something?”
Tempest was clueless. “Not that I know of.”
“You were so adamant about me taking you to the charity benefit tonight that I cut my business trip short so I could be here.”
Tempest clamped her eyes shut. Damn, how could she have fucked up so royally?
“Geren, I’m so sorry, baby! It completely slipped my mind. This whole thing with Janessa has me trippin’ hard.”
It took Geren all of three seconds to put two and two together, but he decided not to jump the gun. He’d warned Dvontè on numerous occasions to always wear a raincoat with the ladies he dealt with, but to no avail. “What whole thing with Janessa? What’s going on, Tempest?”
Tempest glanced behind her to make sure Janessa was still asleep on the couch. She could hear light snoring, and Janessa’s legs were sprawled out like scissors as usual, so she came out into the hall, leaving her door slightly ajar. “Let’s talk out here.”
Geren followed her down the hallway to the landing and sat down on the stairs beside her. He waited patiently for her to break the silence.
“Janessa’s pregnant,” she finally blurted out.
“How many months?” Geren asked, a little too casually for Tempest’s liking.
“How many months? Is that all you have to say?”
Geren shrugged. “It seemed like a logical question. What else am I supposed to say?”
Tempest stood up and took off like a bat out of hell down the stairs. Geren caught up to her at the bottom.
“Tempest, come on, baby. Don’t be like this.”
“Like what? Concerned?”
“I know you’re concerned. So am I, but what’s done is done. The only thing left to do now is live with the consequences.”
“That’s easy for you to say. Janessa’s been so excited lately, making plans for her future. She was all set to enroll in college in the fall, and now this.”
“
Well, there’s no reason why she still can’t go.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes, and you should know that better than anybody. You see this every day.”
“You’re right, I do, and as much as I hate to admit my failure rate, a lot of the women who come to me for help have to let go of their dreams when a baby enters the picture.”
Geren chuckled. Tempest didn’t see a damn thing funny.
“Tempest, those are young girls. Some sorry-ass boys that are still sucking on their mommas’ tits knock them up. They don’t know anything about responsibility. At least Janessa got pregnant by someone like Dvontè. He might be a playa at times—well, most of the time—but this will settle him down. He’ll do the right thing by her.”
Tempest smirked. “Well, obviously you don’t know your boy half as much as you think you do.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Tempest started pacing around Geren on the sidewalk. “It means Dvontè told Janessa to basically fuck off and die.”
Geren was speechless.
“He told her that he never wanted to hear from her again unless it was to accept the abortion money he offered her,” Tempest added snidely. “He even put her ass out of his car on the Fourteenth Street Bridge.”
Geren grabbed Tempest by the wrists to hold her in place. “That must’ve just been his initial reaction. Dvontè’s never been through this before.”
“Neither has Janessa!” Tempest snapped back at him. “I should’ve known.”
“What?”
Tempest tried to free her wrists, but Geren tightened his grasp.
“I should’ve expected this. You’re making excuses for him.”
“No, I’m not!” Geren let go of her wrists and hugged her around the waist. “Look at me, baby!”
She did. “How can you stand here and defend him? You know what I think about shitty-ass men like him. Men who abandon their children.”
It hit Geren like a ton of bricks. The problems between Janessa and Dvontè might possibly cost him the one woman he’d ever truly loved.
“Listen to me.” He placed his forehead on top of hers. “Promise me that no matter what happens, this won’t affect our relationship.”
“I love you, Geren. I do, but—”
“I love you, too, and I won’t lose you over this.”
Geren closed his eyes, trying to fight back tears. Tempest kissed him gently on each eyelid and then on the mouth. Their lips parted, and a passionate kiss ensued.
Geren ended the kiss suddenly and started for his car, parked a few spaces down from the building entrance. “Go back inside. I’ll be back in a little while.”
“Where are you going?”
“To take care of something,” was his only reply.
Tempest watched him pull off, knowing exactly where he was going and hoping his mission turned out a success.
CHAPTER 23
them there are fightin’ words
dvontè knew it had to be Geren the second he heard the banging on his door. He came out of the bedroom and took a deep breath before unlatching the dead bolt, hoping they wouldn’t end up having a full-blown altercation.
“Geren, what’s up, man?” Dvontè asked cautiously, as if he didn’t already know.
Geren stormed into his apartment. “Don’t even pretend you don’t know why I’m here! I just left Tempest’s, and Janessa’s an emotional wreck!”
They stood in the foyer for a few seconds, shooting daggers at each other with their eyes.
Dvontè kicked the door shut with his left foot and headed into the living room. “Janessa knew what this shit was about from jump! I never promised to love or respect any damn body! She just needs to forget about me and move on!”
“Forget about you?” Geren barked, walking right on his tail. “How in the world can she forget about you when she’s carrying your child inside of her?”
“Not for long,” Dvontè stated confidently. “I’m hoping she takes my suggestion and gets rid of it. I made myself perfectly clear. I have no intention of becoming a daddy.” He sat on the couch and picked up the opened beer off his coffee table. He’d been drinking heavily for the last couple of days, trying to make the whole nightmare go away. “Not now, anyway,” he added. “Maybe further on down the road, when I find the right woman.”
Geren sat on the coffee table, facing him. “Do you even hear yourself? First of all, we’re not discussing an it. We’re talking about a human being. Secondly, you should’ve never made love to her if she wasn’t right for you.”
“Made love?” Dvontè smirked, raising an eyebrow in disgust. “Hmph, we never ‘made love.’ We fucked. Pure and simple.”
“I can’t believe you,” Geren said, equally disgusted. “I knew you were a serious poon hound, but I never thought you’d turn your back on a baby.”
“Well, I guess you don’t know me half as much as you think you do.”
Geren folded his arms across his chest, trying to hide the fists his hands had involuntarily become. “I guess not,” he agreed. “All of this time, you sure had me fooled.”
Dvontè didn’t want to lose their lifelong friendship over what he felt amounted to a bunch of bullshit and drama. He took another swig of the beer, trying to calm his own flared temper. “Look, Geren, it’s not that big of a deal. I’ve been through this drama before. I’m more than willing to shell out the cash to get this over and done with.”
The word before hit Geren like a ton of bricks. “What do you mean, you’ve been through this before?”
Dvontè sighed, realizing his slip. He mistakenly dug up a past he intended to leave buried. “You remember that fine girl Yvonnè from high school?”
“Yeah, I remember her. What about Yvonnè?”
“She and I used to kick it every now and then.”
“I never knew that,” Geren said, recalling Yvonnè Lewis, a timid bookworm who seemed scared of her own shadow most of the time. He couldn’t imagine her hooking up with Dvontè. He was nothing but a pussy bandit, even back then. “You never mentioned it. How come?”
“There was nothing to mention. It was strictly a sex thing. That’s when I first figured out that most of the shy-acting sistahs are really kinky in the bedroom.” Geren rolled his eyes and sighed. Dvontè could tell he didn’t want the long, drawn-out version, so he got to the point. “Anyway, she lied about being on the pill and got knocked up. I pawned a couple pieces of my stereo equipment and took care of my business.”
Geren thought back to the day Dvontè went into hysterics after they went into his garage after school and some of the equipment he used for mixing rap albums had disappeared. “You said your stuff was stolen. You called the police, filled out a report, and everything.”
Dvontè threw his hands up in the air, spilling a little of the beer on his red Fubu tee. “I had to make up something to tell my moms. She would’ve strung my ass up if she knew the real deal. She always told me to keep my dick in my pants before I got someone pregnant. You remember all those lectures she used to give both of us around the kitchen table?” he asked rhetorically, knowing there was no way either he or Geren could ever forget them. She used to practically go ballistic on them.
“I can understand about your mother, but why’d you lie to me?”
“I felt it was a need-to-know thing, and you didn’t need to know. Shit, I just wanted to get rid of the nightmare and go on with my life.” He paused and then added, “Which I did. Yvonnè and I both did. All of that studying paid off for her. I hear she’s some big-time journalist in L.A. now.”
Geren was stunned, but he figured Dvontè and Yvonnè had a mutual agreement about terminating her pregnancy. Yvonnè didn’t strike him as the type that would be willing to admit an unplanned teenage pregnancy to her parents. “So you think that since things went your way the first time, they will again? Janessa’s not a teenager. She’s a grown woman, and you’re a grown man. This isn’t hardly the same situation.”
br /> “I don’t know what’ll happen, but I do know this. If Janessa insists on having that baby, she’s raising it by her damn self, because I have better things to do.”
Geren’s fists tightened even more. “You bastard!”
“Whatever, man!” Dvontè said indignantly, picking up the remote and flicking through the channels until he got to ESPN. “I do like the honie, but not enough to play house with her. She should’ve protected herself, and this shit would’ve never happened.”
“You sound like one of those ignorant brothas on talk shows. She didn’t get pregnant all by herself. Where the hell was your protection? You can buy condoms just as easily as she can.”
Dvontè leered at Geren out the corner of his eye and slightly chuckled. “Look, if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times. I don’t do rubbers! I’m sick of your judgmental ass getting in my business. If you got a woman knocked up you didn’t want to be bothered with, you’d drive her ass straight to the abortion clinic. Don’t even front! You’ve just lucked out all of these years.”
Geren had to admit to himself that he had been lucky. There had been rare occasions when he’d bedded down women he wasn’t romantically interested in. “That’s where you’re wrong. If I did accidentally get a sistah pregnant, I would see it for the blessing that it is and cherish my son or daughter.”
“Yeah, right! Maybe if it was Tempest. It’s obvious your ass is pussy-whipped, but if it was one of the sistahs you used to have casual sex with, things would be different.”
“Not really!” Geren insisted. “Even if I wasn’t in love with the person, I would still love and take care of my child. You don’t have to marry Janessa or shack up with her, but you damn sure better be there for the baby if she has one.”
“Damn, did I stu-stu-stu-stutter the first time? I’m not taking care of jack! My daddy never did shit for me, and as far as I’m concerned, turnabout is fair play.”
Geren lowered his eyes to the carpet. He couldn’t even stand the sight of Dvontè right at that moment. “Your mother would turn over in her grave if she heard you say that.”