Millionaire Wives Club (3 page)

“Don’t try and put this on me! You were the one working all the time.” She pointed her finger at his face. “I needed you, our child needed you, and instead you were out tossing some fuckin’ ball around. You never listened to me when I reminded you that you had a family!” She pushed him on his shoulder.

“Go ahead,” he said, more as a warning than a statement. “Enough.” He waved his hand under his chin.

“You had a wife…,” Evan continued, as she shoved him again.

“Ai’ight now!” He grabbed her hand but she slipped from his grip and pounded into him.

“You practically forced me to be with someone else. You didn’t
give a damn about me! Do you know what you had?!” She pushed him. “Why are you doing this to me?!”

He grabbed her wrists. “What you want me to say, Evan? Huh? I told you I wanted to leave. But you don’t seem to hear that! So tell me what you need to hear to get the goddamn hint? Do you want me to tell you that I can’t stand looking at you? That I hate to even see your fuckin’ face? That I’m not attracted to you, and that the only reason my dick gets hard is because you suck it so goddamn well? Is that what you want? I’m tryna be a man and tell you that I’m done as peacefully as I know how, but that’s not enough for you. I
don’t
like you anymore, Evan. I
don’t
want you anymore. Even the perfume you wear stinks to me. I’m sick of fuckin’ lookin’ at you. Do you get it now? Do you understand that I want you out of my life?!”

“We are a family!”

“You are
not
my fuckin’ family!”

Evan was stunned. Her mind told her to kick his ass, but judging from the way the veins on the side of his neck were jumping she thought better of it. Instead, she wanted to be taken out of herself… because this here, this shit that Kendu was doing, was some bullshit, and last she checked there was no rehab for it. Here she’d been injected with raw, throbbing, and excruciating heartbreak and this niggah had the nerve to feel himself … all because she had made one mistake, and now suddenly he was above loving her and she should get over anything she felt for him? Forget about the time when he said she’d given him the most precious gift of all: a beautiful baby girl?

Did he understand all the lonely nights she had spent, or had he forgotten? And now suddenly his ass wanna buck? He wasn’t getting off that easy. Fuck that. Evan turned to Kendu. “You want space?! No problem, you only have to tell me once. Your wish is my fuckin’ command.” She charged down the hall. “You don’t have to leave, we’ll leave! Aiyanna!” Evan screamed. “Aiyanna!

We’re not a family?” she said, quickly turning around and squinting her eyes at Kendu. “You would say some shit like that to me?”

“What are you doing, Evan?” Kendu followed her as she stormed into their eight-year-old daughter’s room, pushing the double French doors open on Aiyanna, who was sitting with her legs crossed Indian-style in the middle of her canopy bed amid Bratz dolls and her dog, and watching
High School Musical
on TV. Evan yanked the girl off the bed by the elbow. Aiyanna instantly started crying and the dog barked in a frenzy.

“We’re leaving! Your daddy said we aren’t a family!” Evan said frantically. “He doesn’t love us anymore, and he wants us gone! So hurry, we don’t have much time! Get your dog and get your shit!”

Immediately Aiyanna started screaming like never before. Kendu didn’t know if she was hurting from the pain of her mother’s hold on her elbow or the gut punch of her words. “Let her go, Evan,” Kendu said calmly, attempting to get her to let go of Aiyanna.

“No!” Evan snatched Aiyanna around. “Didn’t you just say that you wanted us out?! So we’re leaving!”

“Evan … I’m warning you.” He turned Aiyanna toward him. “Daddy loves you—”

“Your father’s a fuckin’ liar.” She snatched her daughter back. “You know he left you before, and he just told me he’s going to do it again. So all your friends will know! Your teacher will know! Everyone!”

“It’s not like that.” Kendu turned Aiyanna toward him. Evan twisted her back. “You listen to me, he wants another family.”

“Aiyanna.”

“He ain’t shit. He said we weren’t his family! We’re not good enough. Don’t worry, I’ll work on getting you a new daddy—”

As soon as Evan said that Kendu drew back his hand and smacked her so hard that her entire body froze before she fell to the floor, screaming, “You put your fuckin’ hands on me?! I been
waiting for this day, motherfucker! Call the cops! Give me the phone, Aiyanna!”

“No! Mommy!” Aiyanna yelled. “Don’t call the cops on my daddy! Please, not my daddy!”

“I’ma have him locked up!”

Aiyanna screamed as if she were going crazy, and though Kendu heard her crying he couldn’t stop himself from lifting Evan off the floor by her neck, and pressing his left thumb and index finger deeply into her jugular vein. “You keep testing me because you don’t believe that I will kill you. Well, you better believe it, because I will take you outta here, Evan, I swear to God I will!”

“Daddy!” Aiyanna pulled on his leg. “Daddy, stop!”

“You gon’ tell my daughter some shit like that?!” Kendu yelled.

“Daddy, I know you love me! Daddy, please.” Aiyanna started to hyperventilate and wheeze profusely.

Evan started to gag, and Aiyanna continued to pull on Kendu’s legs. “Daddy, please stop! You gon’ kill Mommy, Daddy! Please, don’t kill my mommy!”

Instantly Kendu removed his hand from Evan’s throat and she slithered to the floor like a dying snake.

“Daddy!” Aiyanna coughed and wheezed, still holding on to his leg. Kendu could feel the tears pushing against the back of his eyes. He hated to see his daughter crying like this, and he especially hated that he had put his hands on her mother.

He picked his daughter up and held her in his arms.

“Shh, calm down, you need your asthma pump.” He picked it up off her nightstand and Aiyanna took two whiffs.

“Don’t leave me, Daddy.”

“I’m not.” Unexpected tears rolled down his face. “Daddy loves you. Daddy would never leave you.”

Aiyanna wiped his eyes with the back of her hand. “Daddy, do you want me and my mommy to leave? Say no, Daddy,” she cried.

“No, not you. I don’t want you to leave.” He was now wiping her tears away.

“You love me, right, Daddy? Say yes.”

“Yes, I’ma always love you.”

“You love my mommy?”

Kendu stared at Evan, who was still holding her throat. He wanted to say no. “Yes, baby.”

“Then make up,” Aiyanna cried. “Make up and say sorry, Daddy. You said boys not s’pose to hit girls.”

He placed Aiyanna on the floor and looked at Evan. “You’ll never know how sorry I am.” Kendu walked over to Evan and helped her up off the floor.

As Evan was steady on her feet Bridget and the camera crew walked into the room.

“Oh, Bridget.” Evan faked a laugh. “I didn’t expect you so soon.” She held on to Kendu as if she were giving him a hug. “How’d you get in?”

“The door was open.”

“The bell works,” Kendu said as he slyly pushed Evan away.

“I don’t believe ringing it is in my contract.” Bridget looked at Evan. “Why do you look so disheveled? And what was all the commotion we just heard?”

“Kendu was just teaching us some football techniques. You know he loves contact sports.”

“Yo,” Kendu said, disgusted and disturbed by what had just occurred, “I gotta go.”

“Honey, wait.” Evan kissed him on the cheek and he whispered to her, “Get the fuck away from me.”

Kendu looked back at Aiyanna. “Daddy needs a minute.”

“Wait, Daddy!” Aiyanna cried.

“Why is she crying?” Bridget pointed toward Aiyanna.

Evan ignored her, and as Kendu continued out the door she turned to Aiyanna. “Get dressed,” she said with precise diction. “I am going to get my purse. Today is the day they film us shopping.”

“C
lose your eyes and count backward,” the nurse said as Milan lay on the gurney.

Only a week had passed since the show had begun taping, and already Milan was avoiding the cameras. Today was supposed to be one of her shooting days, but there was no way she could allow this to be taped.

As Milan was anesthetized into sleep her mind felt like it weighed a thousand pounds and her thoughts even more. She knew that one day she’d pay for this, but that was a chance she’d have to take. She was definitely pro-life, but right now the life she was pro was her own … and at this moment her desire not to wallow in defeat gave her little room to think of any other options.

Besides, the day that she sat at the kitchen table with morning sickness, bills overflowing like water, and Yusef sitting at the other end of the table, complaining that he wasn’t about to get a job and be reduced to a minimum-wage piece of shit, was the day when she knew this had to end.

There was no way she could worsen her situation by having
this baby. It didn’t matter how much she wanted Yusef to change. What mattered was that instead of gold he’d turned out to be the pot of shit at the end of a pissy-ass rainbow, and she could make no more excuses for it.

There was no way to explain away how in the last year her life had gone to hell. How they had gone from living in the lap of luxury to being the king and queen of late payments. From being carefree to being stressed out all the time. From having a staff to keep the apartment clean to her being solely responsible for the maintenance. No one in their right mind would understand this nonsense.

Therefore she had to do what she had to do. She had enough liabilities. And she needed time to think and regroup, because right now she was drowning in fear. Fear of having to leave all of her plans behind and start anew.

“Ms. Andrews,” the nurse whispered and patted the side of the bed. “Ms. Andrews, can you hear me?”

Milan lay still for a moment before she realized that the nurse was calling her by the false name she’d checked into the clinic under. Milan peeled one eye open at a time and scanned the room. She was no longer in the operating room; she was lying in the recovery room, separated from the other women by a white curtain.

“Try and sit up,” the nurse said. “As soon as you get yourself together, you can go home. Would you like for me to call you a cab?”

Milan nodded as she grabbed her clothes. After a few minutes of collecting herself and fighting off the drowsy side effects of the anesthesia, Milan began to dress.

A little while later the nurse peeped back into her section. “Your cab is waiting.” She smiled.

Milan nodded and made her way out of the clinic.

Rain poured from the sky and beat against the cab’s hood as she slid in. Once she gave the cabby her address she heard a knock on the window. Milan looked up and a protestor had plastered a
picture of a dead fetus against the wet glass with a bleeding handwritten note:
STOP SLEEPING WITH THE DEVIL
.

The protestor ran off, and until the cabby removed it, the picture stuck to the window.

As they took off down the highway tears ran down Milan’s cheeks.

As she approached her apartment she could hear a throwback of Boogie Down Production’s “Bridge Is Over” screaming from the CD player. She turned the knob, and the smell of fried chicken and weed filled her nose.

“Happy Birthday!” Yusef smiled, holding his right arm out and puffing on a blunt with the left. He walked over, held Milan in his embrace, and kissed her on the lips.

Milan looked surprised; she glanced up at the calendar: October 5. She looked at the small card table and saw a birthday cake. She turned thirty today. She couldn’t believe it; she’d actually forgotten one of the biggest days of her life. The day by which she had promised herself she’d have a white picket fence, two point five kids, and a dog.

“I was hoping to surprise you.” Yusef smiled. “Where’ve you been?”

Milan didn’t respond; she couldn’t, especially knowing how much he wanted a child. Instead of answering she walked over to the small, round table, held her hair back, blew out the candles, and then lay down on the suede sectional.

“What the?” Yusef mashed the blunt in the ashtray and said in disbelief, “You sick or some shit?”

Milan turned over on her back and looked at the ceiling. “Yeah.” She nodded. “Yeah—I am.”

“Oh, I was ’bout to say, black man can’t do nothin’ for yo’ ass.” He laughed.

Milan arched her eyebrows and turned back on her side. She wasn’t in the mood to discuss his version of race relations.

“Yo, dig,” Yusef said, walking over to her, “I been thinking …”

Milan could tell by the way he was breathing that this was the intro to an argument. “Yusef … I’m not in the mood.”

“So what is you sayin’, Milan, fuck Da Truef?”

Milan rolled her eyes. “Look, I never said that.”

“So what is you saying?”

She carefully took a deep breath. “I’m not saying anything.”

“Ain’t no sweat, Milan. If you too high and mighty to hear what Da Truef got to say, it’s cool.”

“Know what? Just tell me.”

Yusef sighed. “Ai’ight.” He sighed again. “But first, just let me talk. Don’t interrupt, ’cause I don’t wanna hear no bullshit and no opinions. Just hear me out.”

“What is it?”

“I made a career change, baby.”

“A career change?”

“Look, I ain’t gon’ tell you if you gon’ be sighing and shit.”

“Would you say it?”

“I’m tryin’ to.”

“Oh God.”

“Why you always gotta start an argument?”

“Would you say it!” she screamed.

“Ai’ight, I invested some money in this dude from Wyoming to train me.”

“Wy-who? What?” She sat up. “What did you just say to me?” She looked at him, confused, hoping she had heard wrong.

“Check it, I’ma ’bout to be in the WWE. You heard of Superman, well I’ma be Da Truef Man!” He jumped up in glee. “Yo, I’ma be knockin’ suckers out!” He rocked from side to side. “I’m ’bout to the best fuckin’ wrestler they’ve ever seen. The Rock ain’t gon’ have shit on me.”

Milan blinked. Maybe the anesthesia had made her delusional. “What just happened here? You about to be a who?”

“A wrestler.”

“Oh…my…God… are you that desperate for the limelight?”