Millionaire Wives Club (25 page)

“Look, he didn’t come home last night.”

“That’s your kid, you find him,” Lawrence snapped. “You know I stopped doing him a long time ago. I told you to send him to live with me and you wouldn’t, so, hey, whatever happens is on you.”

“What the hell is your problem?! Jabril is your son!”

“Calm down, Jaise,” Bilal said, turning over the fish he was cooking, “you don’t have to argue with him.”

“Who is that,” Lawrence snapped, “your new boyfriend?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“You’ve always been a whore any-fuckin’-way strip-a-rella!”

“Fuck you. You must have me confused with your mother, stupid motherfucker. You think you gon’ always talk shit to me because I left you. I don’t—”

“Listen, is he able to tell you where Jabril is?” Bilal asked Jaise, setting her plate in front of her.

“No.”

“Then hang up. What are you arguing with him for? Stop that and the issue of him acting like an ass is solved.”

Jaise smiled. Was it really that simple? This was exactly why she loved him. “You’re right.” She hung up on Lawrence and turned to Bilal. “I hope nothing happened to my baby.” Her voice trembled.

“Call his friends,” Bilal said, sitting down beside her to eat. “Let’s see if he went over to their place.”

“I don’t have their numbers.”

“What do you mean you don’t have their numbers?” He raised one eyebrow. “I just don’t.”

“Call his cell phone.”

“I did and he’s not answering.”

Bilal shook his head. He picked up his cell phone and called the police stations in Brooklyn and the neighboring hospitals. When he came up with nothing he looked at Jaise and she knew he was beyond pissed. “You know you not knowing his friends or having any other numbers to call is ridiculous, right?”

Jaise was offended. “Look, I know that we connected and all, but in case you haven’t noticed, I don’t do well with anyone telling me about my son.”

“Oh, I noticed, and I noticed that’s something you need to work on.”

“I got this. I have been raising him by myself for many years.”

“Should I kick back and listen to this or should I stop you now?”

“What?” she said, put off.

“Jaise, I’m not trying to hear that. I’m your man—”

Even in the midst of being pissed Jaise liked the sound of that.

“And if I can’t tell you when I see something that you need to improve on,” Bilal continued, “then who can?”

“And what if I see something you need to improve on?” she snapped.

“Then tell me.”

She leaned up close to his face. “You’re too much in my business with my son.”

“This isn’t about your business. This is about me caring. If I didn’t I wouldn’t open my mouth. Now, listen, Jabril is doing his own thing because he knows your bark is bigger than your bite, so he takes advantage.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that you are so busy trying to compensate for Lawrence being fucked up that you’re fucking up. You are raising a man and you have the ability to do that.”

“I’m not a man!”

“That’s an excuse and it’s a foolish one. You’re his mother. Make him get a job after school, have him pay a bill, a small one, to teach him some responsibility. Make him save his money, and accept nothing less than the truth. Now, we don’t know where he’s at, and neither one of us is going to be able to do anything today until we know where Jabril is.”

Jaise sat and stared at Bilal for a few minutes. “You really care, don’t you?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“I … don’t know… I mean, I just never had a man who was really into my kid … at least enough to care about him.”

“Listen, my mother married my stepfather when I was a kid, and not for one day did I ever feel like somebody else’s child. When he was serious with my mother, he was serious about both of us. I was his son. He never used the word ‘stepson.’ He loved me like his own, and even to this day my brothers say that I’m his favorite.”

Jaise laughed.

“So he taught me when you meet a woman and she has a child or children, if you can’t accept the package then leave. More harm is done if you stay. You understand where I’m coming from?”

“I do.” Jaise shook her head. “Now more than ever.”

After double-checking Jabril’s school and being told he wasn’t there, Jaise looked at Bilal. “I really hope nothing extreme happened, but if the goddamn Brooklyn Bridge didn’t fall down, taking the train down with it and this li’l mofo isn’t floating on the lone piece of concrete in the Hudson River … and I know you hate it when I cuss … but I’ma kick his motherfuckin’ ass.” She rose from her chair. “Excuse me, but I have a headache.” She headed to the bathroom, and as she stood looking through the medicine cabinet she heard a soft female voice say, “Bril, wake up.”

Jaise stood stunned. She knew she’d heard wrong, at least until the girl spoke again: “Brilly Bril, wake up. We’ve overslept.”

“You got that the hell right!” Jaise screamed, tossing the door to the guest room open.

“Are you okay?” Bilal rushed in behind Jaise. “Whoo!” He shielded his eyes and turned his back. “Is she naked? Are they naked?”

Jaise’s knees wavered as she almost fainted on the floor. She
gasped as Jabril hopped out of bed naked. “Oh shit, Ma.” He shielded his middle while the girl he was with looked frightened and frantically started grabbing her clothes.

“That’s your mama?” the girl said, “Bril, you told me this was your place.”

Jaise was doing her best to talk herself out of gut punching Jabril and slapping this girl for being stupid. “I said this’ll be my place in a few years,” Jabril said.

Jaise slapped Jabril across his head so hard that he tilted to the side and fell down. “Ma!” She smacked him again. “Bilal! Tell her to stop,” Jabril yelled as the girl attempted to run out of the room, but Jaise stopped slapping Jabril long enough to block her path.

“You came in through that window?” Jaise pointed to the open window on the other side of the room.

“Yes, ma’am,” she said as she dressed frantically.

“Then leave yo’ fresh ass right out that same damn window. You ought to be ashamed of yourself laying up in some boy’s house when you need to be in school.”

“Ma, don’t make her leave out the—” Jaise shot Jabril such a look that he turned to the girl and said, “Yo, watch them bushes when you jump. Remember the last time you hurt your foot.”

“The last time?” Jaise popped Jabril for a few seconds more before she started screaming again. “You lied to me! You having a damn orgy in my house! Oh my God.” She started in on him again.

“Alright, Jaise, that’s enough.” Bilal pulled her off him, but not before she had slapped Jabril one last time for GP sake. Bilal turned to the young lady. “I think you should leave.” The girl started crying as she turned toward the window. “Jaise,” Bilal said, “let her walk out the door.”

“Hell no.” Jaise pointed. “Out the window!”

The girl cried as she placed her foot on the ledge and hopped out the window.

“Jabril!” Jaise screamed, “I’ma beat your ass. Every time you see
me, know that it’s on. Matter fact, you going to live with your father!”

“Ma.”

“Jabril,” Bilal said, “go put some clothes on.”

“But—”

“Go! Trust me.”

Jaise paced the floor. “I can’t do this,” she said to Bilal.

“You don’t have a choice. He’s your son.”

“But he doesn’t listen.”

“You have to hold him accountable.”

“I’ma punch him in the face!”

“And what good is that going to do? I told you before to tell him what you expect, and you didn’t. Now you need to do something or else he’s going to get into something he can’t get out of.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know, but you have to talk to him.”

“Are you going to come with me?”

“Absolutely not. That’s not my place, not yet. When I marry you then we’ll go in there together. But until then you and your son need to have this discussion.”

“So you’re just going to leave?”

“No, I’ma go in the media room and watch the news.” He left her standing there.

This was the quietest that Bridget had ever been while recording. Jaise figured it was because she was getting her dramatic jollies off. She followed Jaise upstairs to Jabril’s room. Jaise knocked softly and pushed the door open. As soon as Jabril saw his mother standing there he took cover.

“I’m not going to hit you,” Jaise said. “I’m done, though. And I’m disappointed as hell.”

“Ma, let me explain,” Jabril said, seeing a look of utter disgust and disappointment on Jaise’s face that he’d never seen before. “Ma, I know I was wrong.”

“Oh, you know this? Good, so you’ll understand that I’m done playing with you. You think that I’ma joke—”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do, otherwise you wouldn’t have disrespected my house by laying up in here with some li’l streetwalker.”

“She’s not a streetwalker.”

“You challenging me?”

“No, Ma, you’re right,” he said, intimidated. “A streetwalker.”

“I’m done with you, Jabril. Yo’ ass and all your li’l special privileges are cut off.”

“Ma—”

“Say ‘Ma’ again and see if I don’t backhand the shit outta you!” She paused. “I thought you’d gotten better, and here I was planning something with MTV for your birthday, but that’s blown. And since you want to act crazy, then here’s the deal. Get your ass a job, ’cause I’m not buying you shit. You will pay your cell phone bill or the motherfucker will be cut off. And you have to be in the house by nine on school nights and eleven on the weekends.”

“Ma—”

She popped him in his forehead. “Didn’t I tell you not to say ‘ma’ again? If you don’t like my rules, then tough, because you have no choice but to get it together. I’m disgusted with you!” She stormed out of his room and immediately returned. “And hurry up and get yourself ready for school. You getting the hell outta here today!”

“Ma!” he yelled behind her.

Jaise spun on her heels. “Oh, and next year Christmas is cancelled, too. Yo’ ass’ll be down at the Goodwill serving in the soup kitchen.”

Bridget shot Jaise a high five. “Couldn’t have done it better if I’da written the script.”

C
haunci looked up and down the street, wondering how she’d gotten here, to this place and this space, where she just wanted to escape. She had fought not to be a statistic, and here Idris had thrust her into a whole new baby mama category: unyielding, unforgiving, and labeled as interfering with her baby and the baby daddy’s relationship. But that wasn’t her. And, yeah, she may have been pissed, but she wasn’t angry. Being angry would mean she wanted revenge, wanted to destroy her child’s father, but she wanted to do none of that. She simply wanted to be left alone, and anything else she needed to deal with, when the time came, she would handle it. But the court had decided that the time for her to deal with Idris was now.

“Can we get out of the car now, Mommy?” Kobi interrupted her thoughts as they sat in front of Idris’s Brooklyn brownstone.

“Yes, of course.” Chaunci eyed Kobi in the rearview mirror. “Let’s go.” They got out of the car and grabbed their bags. Kobi skipped up the stairs and Chaunci walked behind her. A few seconds after they rang the bell, Idris opened the door. “Daddy!” Kobi yelled as he picked her up and swept her into his arms.

“How’s Daddy’s girl?” He kissed her on the cheek.

Chaunci hated that question; the sound of it was like nails raking across a chalkboard, and Kobi’s answer was like those same nails screeching again: “I love you, Daddy.”

Chaunci stood there, no longer able to fake a smile; instead she was grimacing and doing her damnedest to ignore the fact that Idris was standing at the door wearing a pair of baggy gray sweats and a tight and fitted-right wife beater that caressed his sixpack. And his shadow beard, which was usually perfectly trimmed, was now slightly rough and seemed only to enhance his sexiness. The Cool Water cologne he wore smelled like heaven as Chaunci pushed her way through the door and into Idris’s living room.

Chaunci held her weekend bag in her hand and turned to Idris. “Where should I put this?”

“Oh, I have a room all set up for Kobi. You really don’t even have to bother with packing her a weekend bag. You can actually take that back home with you. It’s fine.”

Chaunci pointed to a hot pink Chanel duffel bag. “Kobi’s bag is over there. This one is mine.”

“Yours? Was that in the court order?” he asked sarcastically.

“Well, you may as well call the police, especially if you think I’m leaving my baby here with you. I don’t know you like that and I don’t care what that judge says, I’m not leaving.” She sat down on the couch and crossed her legs. “Where my baby goes, her mother does also.”

Idris smiled. “Why would I call the police? I have my own handcuffs.”

“Shhhh.” Kobi held her finger up. “Does anyone hear that?” She paused. “Is that a dog barking?” She started running down the hall.

Idris and Chaunci walked swiftly behind her, and the closer they came to Kobi’s new bedroom the louder the dog’s barking was. Kobi ran into her new room, which was painted pink and white, with a chandelier hanging from the ceiling, a full-size bed
with a headboard shaped like a dollhouse, every toy imaginable, and in the center of the floor was a hot pink dog bed with a brown and black Maltese puppy in it.

Chaunci was instantly pissed as she watched Kobi run to pick up the dog and kiss it. “I don’t believe you brought her a dog,” Chaunci said to Idris, tight-lipped. “You didn’t think to ask me if she could have one?”

“Ask you?” He turned to her. “You won’t even talk to me. I had to get a court order just to meet
our
daughter. Stop being so tight and we can discuss some things.”

“Whatever.” She waved her hand.

“Chaunci,” Idris said, steadily growing tired of giving in, “listen, the dog can stay here, okay?”

“Oh, now you want to make me look like the witch in all of this?”

“I’m not doing this with you.” Idris stepped away from Chaunci and over to Kobi. “Kobi, what are you going to name him? Spot?”

“Oh no, Daddy”—she shook her head feverishly—“his name is Bird.”