Zane's the Other Side of the Pillow

  “You haven’t told me the bad news yet. What is it?”

  I wiped my mouth, sighed, and put my cloth napkin back across my lap. “While I didn’t flat-out confess to it, Tevin asked if you and Floyd knew about my pregnancy. He had no idea that you and I were even talking on the regular. When I mentioned that I was having lunch with you, he nearly lost it.”

  Courtney seemed irritated.

  “Aren’t you going to respond?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “See, this is why I wanted you to tell him from jump. Trust and believe, there will be drama.”

  “Let’s hope not.”

  “Oh, it’s about to go down. Floyd and Tevin are a lot alike but they’re also very distinctive when it comes to their emotions.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “They’re both type A personalities.”

  “Which means what?”

  Courtney put her napkin on the table after finishing a massive slice of strawberry cheesecake. “I’m stuffed and I’m tapping out.”

  “As much as I pride myself on knowing it all, what makes our men type A personalities?”

  “They’re both ambitious overachievers, organized, proactive, impatient, good at managing their time, and they prefer people to get straight to the point.”

  I laughed. “I can see that in both of them.”

  “Indeed, but that’s where they part ways.”

  “Uh-oh, not the parting of the ways,” I joked.

  “Tevin is an idealist and Floyd is a protector. Well, in essence, they are both those things but there is always a dominant personality.”

  “You’re too smart to be a stay-at-home mother. I keep telling you that.”

  Courtney had a degree in psychology from American University but had chosen to raise the kids while Floyd worked. Still, I was often amazed at how she would go from talking about swimming lessons and day camp to really deep shit.

  “One day, I’ll go out into the world and make my own millions. Right now, my life is all about making sure my kids make honor roll, have dinner on the table, and that they feel loved.”

  “Well, I can’t give up my career, but I will take maternity leave.”

  “And no one is suggesting that you should.”

  I had to admit that I felt some kind of way about the way the conversation was headed. While I could understand women making the decision not to work to stay home with their children, it was not for me. I had struggled too hard to get where I was and it was more important for me to allow my child to see me become successful.

  “I realize that you’re not suggesting it. In many ways, I admire the fact that you’re there with the kids all the time. You’ve had a husband from day one while I was somewhere being mistreated, beaten, or humiliated. I had to learn to fend for myself.”

  “The past is the past, Jemistry. I really pray that you can let all of that go. Tevin has a lot of values and I don’t believe that he’ll relinquish them for any reason. If he didn’t think that he could be the man you deserve, he’d walk away first.

  “When you broke up with him, he was devastated . . . beyond devastated. He would try to hide it around me, when he was coming over and heading down into Floyd’s so-called man cave. But he couldn’t mask his pain. I’ve seen it before, and not to compare apples to oranges, but he took losing you at least as hard as he took losing Estella.”

  “Speaking of Estella, do you think Tevin’s still in love with her? Be honest.”

  Courtney stared at me from across the table.

  “Seriously! Tell me what you think!”

  “Okay, I’ll tell you what I think. Sure, I think he still cares for her. Tevin’s not the type to marry someone he doesn’t truly love. There’s probably something still there, but it’s not what it once was. If she was in some kind of dire situation, I’m sure he’d try to help her, but he’s a doctor. He’d do that for a stranger on the street, or on the operating table, so one would expect him to be there for those who matter to him.

  “But he’s very loyal, and extremely honest. He’s not going to do anything to hurt you, Jemistry. He deserves a chance at happiness, and so do you.”

  After we paid and left DC Coast, Courtney and I decided to hit up a few boutiques to look for maternity clothes. I couldn’t believe that I was about to have a baby. Then I felt the fetus kick for the first time.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  “True love doesn’t have a happy ending because true love has no ending.”

  —Unknown

  The first day of each school year could always be either exciting in a positive way, or straight up ridiculous in a negative way. It really depended on the attitudes of both the students and the faculty. The incoming freshmen were nervous no matter how you sliced it. Even the ones who thought they were the shit and had huge egos because they were the most popular in elementary school and middle school got a reality check—fast, quick, and in a hurry. The ones who had always been shy, afraid of their own shadow, or bullied had it the worst since they expect more of the same treatment.

  High school is a totally different experience, though. It is an opportunity to “reinvent” yourself. Even if the ones who made your life a nightmare were in some of your classes, the student body was at least three times larger than middle school since several fed into Medgar Evers. The ones considered weak in eighth grade could become student body president within two years; the ones that were most popular could end up being bullied and find themselves outcasts within mere months.

  A lot of the weight on how a student flourished or fell off the cliff rested on their parents’ shoulders. Despite societal views, and seeing so much negativity on the Internet and in the media about wayward youths, most parents still wanted the best for their children. They wanted their children to surpass anything that they had ever accomplished. They wanted to try to ensure that their children had a good education and were established in financially stable careers before they had to leave this earth and their offspring behind. Most worked hard to provide for their families and struggled every day to make sure that their children did not have to endure the same struggles. Most of them. And those were the parents who came to PTA meetings, and made sure their kids participated in organized sports and various academic clubs. The ones who sent their kids on college tours, were proactive in trying to seek out financial aid and scholarships for them to get a higher education. The ones that burned the midnight oil to help them complete science fair projects and homework on time, and drilled them on test material until they had everything memorized. The ones that would hire tutors that they may not have been able to afford if they saw their children slipping in any given subject.

  Then there were the parents that I called “the others.” The ones that I never blamed for their actions because I realized that a lot of it stemmed from deep issues, dark secrets, and generational curses. Those parents also believed that they were doing the right thing . . . most of the time. If they had to beg, barter, and steal to survive because their parents begged, bartered, and stole, that was all that they knew. If they grew up watching their parents, aunts, and uncles strung out on drugs or alcohol, and skating through life by the skin of their teeth, many believed that was all life had to offer them. Sure, they heard stories about and saw successful people in the media, or worked for some, but they never believed they could achieve success like that.

  I considered a great portion of my responsibility trying to make those children “see” that they could achieve greatness. To present them with case studies of famous people—inventors, doctors, lawyers, politicians, celebrities, professional athletes—who grew up in conditions at least as bad as them, and not only survived but thrived.

  I arrived an hour before school opened to get settled in my office. There were already some kids standing around anxiously, even though the doors were still locked. In DC, children who lived within a mile radius of the school were required to walk, be dropped off by a parent, or take public transportation.
No school buses unless it was a greater distance. While I could see the health benefits of making them walk—that was the only exercise many of them would get because they had no choice—I took issue with their safety being placed at risk. Many walked alone. And in the winter months, since DC rarely closed down the schools in inclement weather, we always ended up with children sick and missing a lot of days that could have been avoided by keeping the schools closed for one day. It made no sense but if we took too many snow days, it meant extending the school year.

  I was gathering a crate of paperwork out of my hatch when I spotted Winsome approaching me from across the parking lot.

  Great! Just what the fuck I need this morning!

  She didn’t even say hello first. “Jemistry, we need to talk. We’ve gotta hash this out.”

  I closed the back of my SUV. “I can’t believe you showed up on my first day of school. You know this is one of my most hectic days.”

  “What I know is this is the one place I could find you this morning since you’ve been avoiding me for months.”

  “I haven’t been avoiding you. I don’t want to be bothered with you at all. Avoiding implies that at some point I plan to deal with you again. That shit’s not happening.”

  We stood there looking each other in the face. Then Winsome squinted. “You’re pregnant!”

  I wondered how she knew that. I had on a loose dress; I wasn’t trying to announce my pregnancy right off the break to anyone at the school. Not even Lilibeth.

  “You’re tripping. I’m not pregnant.”

  “I can see it in your face. It’s not fatter or anything, but you have that glow.”

  “I went to Saint Thomas for a few days. It’s a tan.”

  Winsome stood there and started tapping her foot on the concrete. “Humph, you can’t fool me. I’ve seen your ass when you’ve come back from vacation before and I’ve had enough chicks in my family and friends who’ve had babies to tell a pregnancy glow.”

  I was in a panic. Not because I cared about Winsome figuring it out, but I wondered if other people at school would figure it out. My faculty was comprised of people who had at least one child, if not several. And Lilibeth had grandchildren.

  “How many months are you?” Winsome asked, snapping me out of my trance.

  “None of your business,” I replied, walking past her. “I don’t have time for this. I have more than two thousand students to get situated and organized. I need to finish writing my back-to-school speech.”

  “I’m sure you finished writing that a month ago.” Winsome smirked. She was right. I would never wait until the last minute for something like that. “You look good, girl. So I take it that you and Tevin are back together. He is the father, right?”

  That does it!

  “I don’t have whore tendencies like you!”

  Winsome sucked her teeth. “Wow! You just gonna stand there and call me a whore. So that’s where we are now!”

  I sat the crate down on the ground. “No one told your ass to come here, to my place of employment, trying to start some kind of spectacle with me. You already know. I don’t do theatrical performances.

  “And that’s why we are nowhere now. I didn’t come for you; you came for me. Now you can turn your scandalous, stank ass around and go crawl back into the cave you came out of.”

  “Jemistry, I swear. If you weren’t pregnant, I’d—”

  “Tell you what. Meet me here on the first day of school next year. Same place, same time, and we can go out in the woods behind the school and fight until I knock your fucking block off.”

  Winsome was obviously shocked. Truth be told, I was shocking myself by talking and acting that way.

  “You think resorting to violence is the answer?” I asked her. “That says a lot about your character, or lack thereof. Grown women discuss matters. Little girls throw punches. But if you want to go there, like I said, next year, and we can make it happen.”

  She was about to say something, opened her mouth, and then shut it again while she thought of a comeback and digested my words.

  Meanwhile, I attempted to regain my composure. People were starting to stare at us, sensing that something was wrong. The last thing I needed was to end up on some YouTube video and end up losing my job. Winsome wasn’t worth it.

  “Winsome, this is exactly why we can’t be friends.” I waved my left hand up and to the side. “There’s nothing left. You went too far. I did nothing but support you, love you like a sister, and even paid your bills when that bullshit job you were doing fell off. I bet you’re somewhere mooching off someone else right now.”

  She dropped her eyes, letting me know that I was on point.

  “We’re too damn old . . . you’re too damn old to still be trying to figure out what direction you want to take with your life. You’ve had twenty different jobs since I’ve known you, none of them with any chance for progression. You’ve been crawling your way through life instead of getting your ass up and running.

  “I’m sick of it. What you did to Tevin was the final act of a tragic Shakespearean play.”

  Winsome glared at me. “What I did to him?”

  “Oh, please!” I exclaimed in disgust. “Even now, you’re prepared to still stand there and lie to my face. I admit that you had me there for a hot minute. Hell, months even. You made me break off the first real thing with the first real man that I’ve had in years, over your weak-ass self-esteem.”

  “How dare you?”

  “No, how the fuck dare you?” I retorted. “You’ve been riding the fence your entire damn life. Not sure what you want to do for a living. Not sure what you want to study in school. Not sure whether you want to settle down with a man or a woman. Not sure about jack shit.

  “And then you wonder why no one has ever loved you, or even tried to love you.”

  Winsome started trembling. If I weren’t pregnant, she actually may have jumped me she was so mad.

  “Damn, Jemistry. Why not just whip out a switchblade and carve my ass up? Better yet, a machete and chop my head off?”

  “I’m trying to tell you the truth . . . for once. People have always sugarcoated shit for you, including me. In many ways, I’ve been your crutch—something that’s supposed to be a temporary easement so that strength can be regained in a limb.”

  “You’re not my crutch. I’ve always taken care of myself.”

  “Again, you’re standing there lying.” I looked around the parking lot. People were walking into the building and waving at me, but no one was currently within earshot. “And for whose benefit? You and I both know that’s not true.

  “It was a bad idea for you to come here, Winsome. I don’t hate you. I’m done with you. I’m done allowing you to bring havoc and chaos into my life. There was a time when I needed that. I craved it like a crack junkie craves a pipe. We were perfect for each other. Two hurt people, living together, wallowing in pity together, and licking each other’s wounds.

  “But I’m in love now. I’m in love with a man who genuinely loves me back, and I’m not risking my last shot . . . my one shot at happiness for you or anyone else.”

  Winsome started walking backward toward her car. “I hate you.”

  “I’m going to pretend like you really don’t mean that, but if you do, I accept that. If having you hate me means having Tevin love me for the remainder of my natural life, I’ll accept that.”

  “I can’t believe you’re choosing him over me.”

  “Winsome, you’re my friend. You were never my woman.” I paused, picked my crate back up, and then added, “I hope that you find love one day, but that’s never going to happen until you’re receptive to it. Trust me, I speak from experience.

  “I wasted so many years trying to deflect men that it made it impossible for any man to get through my barrier. I finally decided that I don’t want to die with a lot of regrets. I want to grow old with someone. I want to die in someone’s arms, or have them die in mine and know that I am there for them, o
r better yet, die in each other’s arms.”

  “So that’s it? You’re casting me completely out of your life? After I came here to work things out?”

  “This can’t be worked out. Working this out would mean crawling back down in that hole with you and burying my face in the sand, and I’m not doing it. Working this out would mean going home to Tevin tonight and disrespecting him by telling him that I’m dealing with you again. I can’t do that.”

  I anticipated Winsome saying something else sarcastic, going the hell off, or at least saying something deep and reflective . . . in an attempt to get in the proverbial last word. Instead, she just turned and walked away in silence.

  I yelled after her. “You need to go talk to someone, Winsome! Please go talk to someone!”

  By the time I got to the front steps of the school, she was peeling out of the parking lot. One of the male students offered to carry the crate inside for me.

  I looked at him and forced a smile. “Thanks, and welcome to Medgar Evers. What’s your name and what grade are you in?”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  “Love doesn’t make the world go ’round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.”

  —Unknown

  Tevin met me at my OB/GYN’s office for my prenatal checkup after school. He was excited and asked a thousand questions even though he was a doctor himself. You would’ve thought he was back in medical school and that I was a test subject with an assigned number like E-105.

  After Dr. Horton assured him that both the baby and I were fine, he calmed down a little. I made an appointment for four weeks later and Tevin walked me to the parking garage. He had found street parking.

  He suddenly seemed quiet. A few moments earlier, no one could shut his ass up.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I asked him, locking my left arm into his right. “Dr. Horton said everything’s great.”

  “And that’s fantastic. I can’t wait until the next visit so we can see the sonogram.”

  “I meant to ask you about that. Do you think we should find out the sex?”