Millionaire Wives Club (13 page)

“Give me a kiss.” Yusef looked at Milan.

“A little later,” she whispered and patted his hand. “I don’t wanna pull down my pants in front of company.”

“So,” Kendu said, attempting to get past the exchange that had just happened between his guests, “Yusef, since you’ve been off the court, what’ve you been doing?”

“Trying to convince Milan to let me get on her back and shovel snow.” He cracked up laughing.

“Oh-kay,” Evan said, and they all finished their meals up quietly.

The evening lasted for another hour before Yusef and Milan prepared to leave. “Thank you so much for inviting us,” Milan said.

“Yeah, this was fun,” a half-drunk Yusef agreed. “I’ma go to the car.” He pointed toward the door. “I think the driver just pulled up.”

“Mommy! Mommy!” Aiyanna yelled at the top of her lungs. “Come ’mere quick!” she cried. “I just had a bad dream.”

“Thanks for coming, Milan,” Evan said. “But the boogey man never goes away.”

“Take care, Evan.” Milan waved as she watched the cameras follow behind Evan.

Kendu walked Milan to the door, and as soon as Evan was out of their sight and the double mahogany doors that led to the bedroom quarters were closed behind her, Milan turned swiftly around and said, “What the fuck is your problem?”

Her sudden change in disposition and her flaring attitude caught Kendu so off guard that he automatically took a step back. “Huh?”

She pointed her index finger admonishingly in his face. “I have enough fuckin’ problems. I don’t need for you to be coming on to me!”

Kendu closed and locked the doors to the entryway where they were standing, blocking them off from the rest of the house. He walked up so close to Milan that her mouth was practically kissing the base of his neck. He leaned over her and looked down into her face. The sweet essence of his cologne was drowning her. “I can’t undo the pain my choices may have caused you. And either you understand that or you don’t. But I wasn’t coming on to you. I was holding a conversation with you.”

“Whatever, Kendu. I forgot you’d joined the church of the self-righteous.”

He chuckled a bit. “Know what, just say it.” He looked Milan in the eyes. “You have something that apparently you’ve been wanting to express, at least all night, so say it.”

“I just don’t like the shit you did.”

“Why? Tell me.” As she was about to speak he placed his index finger at the center of her lips. “And don’t lie.”

“All those memories … remember,” she said mockingly, “when we were broke.”

“This isn’t about us being broke. Try again,” he said matter-of-factly.

“And noodles…” She twisted her neck. “Remember that.”

“This damn sure ain’t about noodles.”

“You didn’t have to recall the shit in front of your wife.”

“You’re concerned about my wife?”

“I don’t give a damn about her ass.”

“So get to the point.”

“I’m at the fuckin’ point.”

“You know what, Milan, let me hit you with this real quick—”

“No, let me—”

“Interrupting me is a bad habit. Stop it. Now, we’ve always been cool. Always. I could tell you anything and you know you could tell me anything. In college I enjoyed your company like you were my sister, but after we made love you could no longer be like my sister.”

“The problem was you were fucking me and Evan.”

“But I was with her first.”

“And I was pregnant first!”

“You were pregnant?” Kendu paused. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”

“What, it would’ve been the tiebreaker? Kendu Malik, please, I had an abortion, so it’s fine.”

“I don’t believe you did that. You could’ve told me that.” He shook his head in disbelief.

“And what would you have said?”

“To give me a minute.”

“I didn’t have a fuckin’ minute then!”

“So what do you have now? I’m here. I’m listening.”

“I have nothing to say.”

“You have a lot to say. So what? Wassup?” He paused and seeing that she didn’t respond, he carried on, “See, your problem is that you’re in love with me, and this whole shit, this reality show, this shit with Yusef, this shit with Evan, and this holier-than-thou routine, this shit is an act.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“What, how much Evan loves you?”

“Please, Evan doesn’t love me. Evan loves what I represent.”

“So what? She’s with you for the money?”

“It’s more than the money. It’s about the power, the ability to have access to so much, and the high it gives her. If she could nut off having the world at her fingertips she would … hell, maybe she does. But so what? I can’t be her knight anymore.”

“So what are you telling me this for?” Milan wasn’t sure why, but tears had welled in her eyes. “I don’t see where any of this is my business.”

“Just tell me you love me, and you want me, because in a minute you gon’ explode and I can’t love you back if you burst into pieces.” He pressed his lips against hers. “Tell me you love me,” he whispered, “so I can tell you back.”

“I can’t do that.” Tears slipped between her lips. “I can’t.”

“Tell me.”

“Knott.”

Kendu licked the outline of her lips. “You’re the only person I still let call me that.”

“Knott.” Milan found herself pecking him back on the lips repeatedly.

“Tell me you love me in three words.”

“I can’t.”

“You too fuckin’ hardheaded,” he said as they started to kiss, slowly at first and then rapidly and repeatedly, swallowing each other’s breaths and liquidating their thoughts of needing to have the other, yet knowing the reality.

“I’m not going to be your mistress.” Milan broke their kiss. “I love me too much to play background to Evan again. Besides I have a husband.”

“Do you love him?”

Milan took a step back. “I gotta go.” She attempted to walk away and Kendu pulled her back to him.

“When you start running from me?”

“When you start coming on to me?” Milan squinted her eyes and snapped, “I have enough problems. I don’t need to be your reject bitch.”

“I’m not Yusef.”

“Look, I really have to go.”

“Talk to me. What the hell is your problem?!”

“I’m miserable!” she practically screamed. “That’s what the fuck the problem is, and I’m tired, I’m so fuckin’ tired.”

“But you don’t have to be.”

“Milan!” Yusef screamed as he had the driver lay on the horn. “Bring ya ass. You know Bobby Brown’s reality show
Gone Country
is about to come on, and if I miss that shit it’s gon’ be a problem!”

“Misery’s calling.” Kendu opened the door and nodded toward the car.

Milan stepped out the door and within a matter of moments she and Yusef were driving away.

“You coming to bed, baby?” Evan walked up behind Kendu and kissed him on the neck.

“Evan.” Kendu was startled. “What are you doing?” He turned around and spotted the camera and the boom mic hanging over his shoulder.

“Shhh… let’s just finish this night in peace. Make some beautiful love.” Evan wrapped her arms around him. “I want you, Kendu.”

“Stop it.” He turned to face her, while watching the camera in his peripheral vision.

She grabbed his hands. “Please don’t do this.”

Kendu snatched his hands back. “I said stop it.”

“We have to work through this. You’re just mad,” she said in a panic. “You’re just upset, but we can do something about this. We can.”

Kendu shook her. “Evan, what the fuck!” he said frantically. “You’re driving me crazy! Do you hear yourself? Do you? When are you going to stop crying and begging me? Damn, just leave me the hell alone or, better yet, act like I don’t even exist.” And he turned away, brushing Carl on the shoulder as he passed him by.

Evan stood there for a moment before walking down the hall and through the French doors to the back of the property. The buzz she’d acquired from her nightly cocktail of Vicodin and alcohol slowly faded away. She walked to the edge of the ocean, the crescent moon bathing her back; she continued to walk out into deeper waters until the bottom began to dance from beneath her feet. Not wanting to venture too far, Evan turned around and headed back toward the shore. Once she’d returned to the pebble-laced sand Evan studied how the moon scribbled calligraphy on the rising water and marveled at what it would be like to be buried in such beautiful waves.

“I
have reached a point in my life,” Jaise spoke into the camera, as she placed clear tape over the opening of a cardboard box she had marked
SALVATION ARMY
, “where I don’t tolerate nonsense from men.” She stacked the box on top of another. “You see,” she said, taking a deep breath, “when you’re cried out and you realize you deserve better, it becomes a cakewalk for you to move on.”

Jaise stopped talking and seemingly out of the blue started singing Aretha Franklin’s “Respect.” It wasn’t necessarily her jam; it’s just that she was spitting out so much bullshit, that she was losing her train of thought.

Jaise pushed back the custom drapes in her living room and watched the sprinkling of snow falling from the sky. “I’m thinking of buying a home in Scotland. I hear the winters there are fantastic,” she said for no rhyme or reason other than to say something that sounded ridiculous and expensive.

The phone rang just before she could make her next unsolicited comment. She quickly looked at the caller ID: Trenton. Her heart raced and her palms began to sweat. Immediately she
knew she needed to be calm and hold a decent conversation. No going off and no cussin’. She went to reach for the phone just as Jabril raced into the room. “This chump is on the phone!”

“Alright, Jabril, he is still an adult. Show some respect.”

“Yeah, ai’ight, you want me to tell him you cold on his mark ass or you wanna cuss him out for yourself?”

“Don’t start minding my business.”

“See, I told you he would be back.”

“It’s just a phone call.”

“Yeah, right, all I know is if I wake up in the morning to take a leak and see an extra toothbrush it’s gon’ be a situation.”

“Give me the phone.” Jaise snatched it from Jabril’s hand.

Jabril stood there while he and the cameras watched Jaise closely. She turned her back to them and spoke into the phone, “Hello?”

“What the fuck,” Trenton snapped instead of saying hello. “What was all of that?!”

“That was my son telling you that this is over, we’re through. We need some space.”

“Yeah,” Jabril said in the background, “a lot of it.”

Jaise covered the receiver. “Don’t you have something to do, Jabril? It’s Saturday, go outside.” She reached for her purse and took a hundred-dollar bill out. “Go do something.”

“I thought I was on punishment.”

“Go!”

“Yeah, ai’ight,” Jabril said as he walked backward out the front door.

Jaise returned to her phone conversation. “What did you just say, Trenton?”

“You heard me. Never mind your disrespectful-ass son, why would you call my phone and leave me all kind of crazy-ass messages about coming to get my shit or you’re donating it?”

“You know why.”

“So what are you saying, Jaise? You really want us to be over,
you really want me to go? Because I will and you know it. Here I was feeling bad about you seeing me at a business meeting with Katoya, hoping and praying that you didn’t think that the brunch date was more than what it was, and when I wake up and make up my mind to call you and explain, I check my voice mail and you’re acting like a psycho.”

Jaise was boiling on the inside; she was beyond sick of his lies. “I’m no damn psycho! And you’re lying.” Jaise knew her intentions were to stay calm, but fuck it, all bets were off. “You were at brunch with that skanky bitch, and I know you’re fuckin’ her!”

“You’re delusional.” He laughed.

“Oh, I’m delusional, so how come when I texted you, you told me you were sleeping and I was in the back of the restaurant watching you kiss that trick in the palm of her hand?”

“First of all she’s French, and that’s how they greet one another!”

“That bitch’s name was Katoya. Her ass is from the goddamn hood! Liar!”

“Well, if I’m lying and you seem to know the story from beginning to end, then why should I keep talking? You seem to have it from here.”

“Trenton, please.”

“And here I just came back from taking my mother to church and was on my way over there.”

“It’s Saturday.”

“So, she goes to prayer meeting on Saturday, your point?”

“You know what. I don’t have time for this. Your ass was caught, and instead of you being a man and admitting it so we can work through this, you act as if I’m a fool, like I don’t have eyes. Like I don’t have feelings! Like I’m just supposed to sit back and tolerate this shit!”

“Look, I don’t have to lie to you. And the truth is if that’s what you thought, then that says to me that you really don’t trust me and maybe, hell, maybe I need to be gone for good and give you
some space to think. Your son certainly didn’t make it a secret that he wants me gone. So maybe I need to take the hint and leave.”

“All I said is that we needed to talk about this,” she said evenly, doing her best to control her emotions.

“Talk about what? I told you it was business, but the truth of the matter is, yeah, I was attracted to Katoya. I noticed that she was nice looking but I felt drawn to her because I love you so much and you’re stressing the hell out of me. You don’t trust me and you’re constantly accusing me. It’s as if you don’t appreciate who I am. With as much money as I have I can have whatever woman I want, but I chose you. But you … you cause me grief and I didn’t feel that with Katoya. She made me laugh, made me feel appreciated, and she certainly didn’t make it a secret that our relationship could’ve been more than business. But do you know what I did and what I said to her? I told her I loved you, and look what I get in return? Nagged.”

Jaise rubbed her temples. “You should’ve gone to church with your mama so you could stop lying.”

Trenton snorted. “I rebuke you, Satain!”

“Yeah, you’re just the person I need to come and lay hands on me.”