Babygirl and the Mean Boss (17 page)

“
Why did you curse out Fred that day?  Was it because of me
?” 

“No.”  He looked surprised.  “I was pissed at him
…
or maybe just pissed in general
.  But it was because
of Mrs. Carpenter
, or rather,
Sister Carpenter
; t
hat poor old nun.  S
he lives at the convent
and she
told me once that the food
there
is horrible. 
She once said to me that h
er one sin is coming in to the restaurant to eat, but only when she can afford it. 
You
know, the nuns that live at the convent make very little money.  I’ve once seen her pay her bill with change, down to the pennies…
I
’ve
tried giving her free meals but she won’
t take, what she calls charity.  Imagine
a nun refusing to take charity.”  He had a brief look of reflection on his face as he told the story.  “But anyway, we kinda came up with a way to benefit both of us.  I get to give her
s
ome good home
cooking and she doesn’t take a hand out.”  Marty looked at her.  “So yeah, that’s what that
wa
s about.  But I told him
about it
and we got it cleared up.”

Nicole didn’t know what to say.  “Well
,
why did she
call him a ‘boy?’” 

His brow went up.  “She’s seventy.
  She calls me boy.”  He chuckled and then seeing her serious expression he ran his thumb tenderly over her knuckles. 

“Baby, Fred and I are good.”

“Ok.”  She whispered, staring deeply into his grey eyes. 

“Ok.”  He repeated.  “And you and Fred.  How good are you t
w
o?”

Nicole r
eflected on how long she’d had to stew, contemplating the nature of the relationship between Marty and
Kendall.  Well she wouldn’t be mean
and make him suffer as she had
, but she did intended to give him a teeny bit of payback.

“
Oh Fred is great
.
He’s
probably my best friend.”  Marty looked crushed.
  “
I mean,
when I need
a friend
sometimes he’s the only person I have to turn to.”
  Which wasn’t a lie.  He was
the only person that she could call ‘
friend
’
.

Marty
looked into her eyes so deeply that she could see his eyes
tracking every movement of hers.  Damn, she had never been looked at that hard.
She decided to come clean.

“
He is
a great guy.  I’m sure his boyfriend appreciates his friendship as much as I do.”

His eyes widened. 
“His what?”  He suddenly smiled.  “You’re evil.”

She laughed
until she fell back on his bed and then she
stuck out her tongue
at him
. 

He just froze.  “Damn that’s sexy…”
  He kissed her again, quicker, more passionately t
hen he had
before
, his bare arms on either side of her, supporting his body above hers.  She ran her hands up his body, not believing the hardness of his muscles beneath his loose fitting
t-shirt
.  She could not believe that she was touching the body that she had admired for so long. 
He was perfect.  He was hard and sculptured without being hulking.  Nicole felt herself begin to throb
erotically. 

But there was something she had to do
. 
Because he had been brave, she would be as well. 
So instead of enjoying his kiss, sh
e placed her hands flat against his chest and gently pushed him away. 
Slipping from beneath him, she slowly walked across the room.

“What’s wrong?  Am I moving too fast?”

“No, that’s not it.”  She turned to him and the
re was a
look of pain deep in her eyes.  “Now it
’
s my turn to tell you something…and it
’
s not a pretty story.”

Marty
stood, pulling her
into
his
arms.  “Baby, I told you the most horrible story about
myself
and you listened without judgment
. 
You don’t have to do this now. 
There is nothing that you can tell me that will affect how I feel about you-
”

“
But
I have to tell it
for me
.
”

Reluctantly Marty released her.  He sat back down on the bed.  “
If it’s that important to you, I’ll listen to whatever you need me to hear
.”

Nicole
stared at an invisible spot on the carpet.  This w
asn’t a story that she could tell and look Marty in the face with the telling of it.

“I grew up in the projects…I guess you’d call it the ghetto.  My life…wasn’t good.  My mother was single.  She had five kids—that lived.  We all had different
f
athers and my own Daddy had twelve kids—at last count.  None of my brothers and sisters
were
close.  We all had different Daddies and
so, for
the most part
,
a lot of my
siblings
would be off with other relatives that I didn’t even know. 
Actually, my youngest sister
; I
’ve only seen her a few times in my life.  She lived with her Dad’s family, s
o really,
m
y Mama was all I had.  And I loved her
;
don’t get me wrong by what I’ve just said.  I loved my Mama with every breath of my body.
”  She sighed.  “I guess my world
revolved around her.  She was…G
od, as far as I was concerned.” 
She remembered something that she had heard from a movie once; to a child
mother is the word closest to G
od….

Nicole cleared her throat as she recounted the events of her life.  She didn’t see the carpet that she was looking at, but the linoleum floor of their townhouse home; the one that she’
d had to get down on her hands a
n
d
knees once a week in order to scrub the old wax off before another sibling put the new wax on.

“We were on welfare so I never had much.”  She turned to look at him reluctantly.  “Welfare was all I knew.  I figured I’d grow up, have kids and be on welfare, too.
 
Then there was school, which I was horrible in.  I got held back in 9
th
grade twice, then I just quit.”  Marty looked at her surprised.  “Once I dropped out I just hung out with friends, smoked dope…nothing too hard.  James, my boyfriend got me a little job at the stadium
.
He was much older th
a
n me
; a
ctually he was a grown man.  I was just 16.

“The Stadium was the best thing that ever happened to me.  It wasn’t the ghetto and I got to see the other side-
-
life outside of the projects.
”  She was finally brave enough to meet his eyes. 

“I
guess seeing different people with nice things made me
decide that I wanted more
,
so I joined the Job Corps.  I got my GED high school equivalency and then went to trade school.  I received certification in accounting, childcare and computers.  I was there for two years
but I couldn’t seem to learn enough.  I was like a sponge and I wanted to know more
.  I also
liked the structure so I decided to join the Army.”

When Marty rais
ed a surprised brow, Nic
ole just nodded and smiled briefly.  “I fulfilled my two years and stayed for another two. 
I probably would have been a lifer. 
I have a bachelor’s in communications and was
just
a few months shy of my
masters
in computer programming when I received news that my Mother had died.
”

“
Ho vissuto in un piccolo appartamento fuori di Napoli
.”  She said in fluent Italian.  “That means; I lived in a small apartment in Napoli…and that’s about all the Italian I can remember.”  She smiled briefly and Marty did too,
knowing that
he
c
ould never
have
figured out this side of this amazing woman on his own.  He just
knew that he
admired her even more than ever that she’d been able to pull herself out off the hell she’d been living.

“
I
n Italy I made re
al friends for the first time in my life.  I lived in this little
apartment owned by this chubby little Italian woman w
ho wanted to m
arry me off to one of her sons.”  She had a reflective smile on her face.  “Tomas was the youngest and he was unlike anyone I’d ever met before.  He thought I was a goddess.”  She chuckled.

M
arty knew that he should probably be jealous of this Tomas, but he also knew that she needed someone to see the beauty in her and therefore he was happy that he had been there to show her. 

“
But then I got the call about my mother.
”  She had promised them that she’d return, but had never even called.
 
“
When I got home I saw that nothing had changed
there.  I had
. 
But e
verything
there
was just the same
, even that fucking linoleum floor that I’d had to scrub once a week since I was nine years old
.  You have to understand,
Marty.  M
y Mother was my life in the projects.  I mean, she was hard on us.  You could call it abusive.  But I loved
her
.  Being back there without her made me feel isolated
;
alone.  It made me want to seek out my family connections again…
w
hich, in my case, had been the streets.

“I discharged from the Army and got an apartment and a decent job in an office.  But I was back to hanging out with my friends on the str
eet, smoking dope…and now
I could afford the harder stuff.”  Nicole closed her eyes and when she opened them again she stared into the distance.  “I started using
h
eroin, and coke.  James
;
my old boyfriend, and I got back together.  Before I knew it I was pregnant.

“For a hot second I got some sense and kicked James to the curb and stopped doing dope.”  She shook her head angrily.  “But then my job let me go because I was pregnant.”

“What?  But that’s illegal.”

“Yes, but they did it in a way that made it appear that they were just downsizing.  I was last hired so I was first fired.

“It killed me to do it, but I couldn’t find another job so late in my pregnancy.  So…I had to get on welfare.”  Nicole swallowed.  “I really worked hard so that I would never have to resort to that life.  But with all of my training in the workforce, still a pregnant 25 year old black woman was no big catch.”
 
Marty looked at his feet silently.

“I was alone so…back came James.  But I didn’t use, not while I was pregnant
; n
ever when I was pregnant.”  Marty didn’t look up.
 
Nicole took a deep breath and despite her resolve, felt her eyes sting.  “
Alicia
was born and…she was so beautiful.  She looked like a little Angel.  Everybody told me to get her into modeling or movies.  I just…”  Nicole paused.  “I found myself a little job when she was a couple months old…but there was no way, Marty, no way that I could afford a place out of the projects, daycare and a baby on that salary.  So I let James back in my life with dreams that we’d get married and be a family.  Together we could make it…well… he didn’t share my vision.