Finding Mrs. Wright Page 11

  “You don’t owe me anything for coming to see Brianna. But if you’d like to take me out to dinner, then I’d be glad to go.”

  Was she flirting with me in front of my parents? “A’ight then. Let’s go.”

  I kissed my mom and gave my dad a man hug. “I’ll be back in a little while. I don’t want Brianna to go to bed without a hug and a kiss from me.”

  My mom kissed my cheek. “Okay, sweetie. No rush though. Take your time.”

  “Yes, Ma.”

  My dad shook my hand and gave me a look that said everything without saying a word. I knew the thought in both my parents’ minds:

  You better not let this girl go.

  Twelve

  Me and Cassandra decided to drive separate cars and meet at the restaurant so she could go on home and I could head back to the hospital after we finished eating. She pulled up beside me in the parking lot and we walked into Applebee’s together.

  I didn’t realize how hungry I was until we walked in the door and the smell of steak sizzling on the grill filled my nose. My stomach started turning some serious flips. Thankfully, it didn’t take long for the hostess to get us seated in a booth near the door.

  For some reason, I was feeling a little twitchy. I tried to tell myself that it was because of everything going on with Brianna. But honestly, after Cassandra had worked her magic with explaining the diabetes and helping Brianna through getting her finger stuck, I felt much better about the whole diabetes thing. It was still bad, but for the first time, I felt like we could actually manage it. The twitchiness had to be coming from somewhere else.

  When we got seated at our table, I flipped around with the menu, even though I knew what I wanted to order already. I said to Cassandra, “Thanks for everything you did for Brianna. She’s been so sad all week, crying and sleeping all day. I didn’t know what to do with her. I guess I was kinda sad myself.”

  “My pleasure, Devon. She’s such a sweet little girl. I hate that this happened to her but you both can’t let it take over. She can still have a wonderful, happy life.”

  “I know. Just . . . thanks.”

  “Don’t go all soft on me, playa. It’s what I do.”

  “It’s what you do?” I figured this was as good a time as any to get some of the blanks filled in about her. “What exactly do you do? Who you work for that you can get off at two in the afternoon?”

  “Myself.” She flipped through the menu, frowning like she didn’t know what she wanted.

  “Yourself? You have your own business?”

  “I have my own nonprofit. Kidz-Arts. I get grants to take the arts to kids in different churches and youth homes. I do the Saturday arts classes Brianna is in as part of a contract with my church.”

  “Wow. That’s cool. How’d you get into that?

  “I used to teach school but wanted to do something different. And I wanted to work for myself. So I thought it up, launched it, got some great grants, and here I am.”

  An ex-schoolteacher. Made sense. Maybe that was why I liked her so much. They say men marry their mamas and my mom was a retired school teacher. It also made sense that she was so good with Brianna.

  After the waitress came and took our orders, Cassandra asked and I told her about my boring job in IT.

  “Do you like it?”

  “It pays the bills.”

  “That’s not what I asked you. Do you like it? Is it what you always wanted to do?”

  “You can only ask that question because you don’t have any kids. Once Brianna came along, it wasn’t about what I wanted anymore. It was all about her. Especially since I can’t count on her mother for anything but trouble.”

  “So you sacrificed your dreams for your daughter? What did you want to do before she came along?”

  “It’s not like I had any dreams per se. I’ve always liked computers. And I like solving problems. I like my brain being challenged. But as far as a dream . . .” I shrugged. “I don’t even know anymore. I do what I have to do to take care of my child. Haven’t thought about anything else in a long time.”

  We sat in silence for a few seconds. Cassandra finally said, “So, your steak is gonna be at least another twenty minutes. Is that enough time to tell me how you ended up with a crazy baby mama?”

  I laughed. “Oh yeah . . . that.” I gave her a smirk. “You never answered my question. Are you asking for a reason? ’Cause you said it best. You don’t need to be all up in my business unless you’re asking for a reason.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “I’m not the one with the issues. I’m free, clear, and ready. You’re the one who needs to make some decisions.”

  The waitress came and put our drinks on the table.

  “Dang, girl, do you always have to be so direct?”

  “I’ve learned from a bunch of bad experiences that it’s the safest way to be. No room for assumptions, questions, misunderstandings, or any of that other stuff that gets your heart broke.”

  “It’s like that?”

  “It is, Devon. I feel like my heart has nine lives and my last ex took the eighth. I only got one time left to get this thing right and unless the next time works, I’m out of the game. For good.”

  “That’s a lot of pressure to put on a dude. Get it right or else. No dude wants to be the last man to break your heart.”

  “I’m sorry, playa. I don’t know what it is about you that makes me so blatantly honest. Trust me, I’ve learned how to protect my heart. I won’t let you in it to the point where you could break it until I think you’re safe enough to deserve that place.”

  “And how will you know that?”

  “I’ll know.” Cassandra gave me that pretty smile. “Why you asking? You trying to be that dude?”

  Am I? I fidgeted with my glass for a second.

  “You don’t have to answer that. I think we’re cool getting to know each other. A’ight?”

  I nodded, grateful for the reprieve.

  “Speaking of getting to know each other, are you gonna tell me the Shauntae . . . I’m sorry”—she paused dramatically—“the Quartisha story?”

  “Why you always gotta have jokes?”

  “You know you like it.”

  I made a sour face at her. “It’s not pretty.”

  “I’ve met Quartisha. I don’t expect it could be.”

  I took a long sip of the beer I had ordered. The ice coldness of it felt good going all the way down to my stomach. I let out a long, deep breath. “There was this girl I was dating. Natalie.” My mouth felt funny saying her name. I had hardly spoken it in the last seven years. “Me and Natalie were seeing each other for a while and I was really, you know, feeling her. After we had been dating for about four years, I asked her to marry me.”

  “Four years? It took you four years to propose? Seriously, playa?” Cassandra took a long slurp on her Sprite.

  I gave her a look. “Do you want to hear the story or not?”

  She made a zipping motion across her lips.

  “So, we were making all these plans and stuff. You know how y’all women do. Renting a place, flowers, tuxedos, dresses, everything. The deposits cost me a grip. I was just . . . you know . . . trying to make her happy.”

  I took another sip of beer, wishing I hadn’t started telling this story. I didn’t know if it was because I was drinking a beer without having eaten any food or what I was talking about that was bothering my stomach. “We got down to a few months before the wedding and Natalie had kinda moved in with me . . .” I paused, pretty sure that was a bad sin in Cassandra’s world.

  She nodded for me to keep talking.

  “And one night we got in an argument.” I scratched my head. “To this day, I can’t remember what in the world we were arguing about. And I should be able to because that argument . . .” I let out a slow, deep breath.

  I fiddled with my silverware for a minute. Seven years later, it was still hard to talk about. Felt like it was yesterday.

  “I said some stuff I
never should have said, and I know I hurt her real bad. We sat around the house mad for a while and then she got up and left. I called and called and called, but she didn’t answer. I thought it was because she was mad.”

  I took another long drag on my beer, but I knew it wouldn’t do anything to help what came next in the story. “The next morning, her best friend, who she lived with before she moved in with me, called. She said that Natalie had come over to her apartment when she left my spot. Natalie woke her up in the middle of the night, short of breath. She called 911 and the ambulance came and took her to the hospital. They hadn’t been in the ER for an hour and . . . Natalie was gone. Craziest of all things. She had a blood clot in her lungs.” I gripped the edge of the table.

  Cassandra reached across the table and squeezed my other hand. She seemed to have this instinctive, comforting touch thing. Reminded me of my mother.

  “The doctor said it was probably from the birth control she was on.” I shook my head slowly from side to side. “Isn’t that crazy? We were trying to be responsible. And she died from birth control. A few months before our wedding and she was . . . gone. Just like that.” I let go of the table. “I really loved that girl. Really.”

  The next part of the story was harder, but in a different way. “After that, I . . .” I paused. “You know the rest of what happened would seriously offend your Christian ears.”

  “I can take it, Devon. I’m a big girl.”

  “After that, I kinda . . . went downhill for a while. I lived . . . drunk. I know it’s not good, but it was the . . . only way I knew how to deal with it at the time. I didn’t want to think or feel or deal with it. I just wanted to be numb.” The waitress came up to the table and started to say something, but Cassandra waved her away.

  “I’m not a drinker and I’m definitely not an alcoholic.” I looked down at my almost empty beer glass. “I mean, I have a beer when I go out and on game days and occasionally at the house, but before that time and since back then, I’ve never been drunk.”

  “You don’t have to explain yourself.”

  I pushed my beer glass away from me and kept talking. “One night, I ran out of liquor at the house and I was tired of drinking by myself. So I went to this club not too far from where I was living at the time. I started drinking. After a few drinks, Shauntae showed up. You have to admit that she’s . . . you know.”

  “Yeah, she’s gorgeous. Until she opens her mouth.”

  “Yeah, well she didn’t open her mouth much that night. Next thing I knew, I was waking up with her in the bed with me. I had never done anything like that ever in my life,” I said quickly. “I never was that kind of guy like Chuckie . . . I mean, he’s a . . . well he was a player of the highest order.”

  Cassandra frowned.

  “Was . . . back then he was.” No way I was gonna tell her that back then was actually up until he met Tisha. That was for him and Tisha to discuss. “I only dealt with one woman at a time and never, you know, slept with anyone I just met.”

  “You don’t have to keep explaining yourself, playa. I got it.”

  “I just want you to know I’m not that kinda guy.”

  “Devon, whatever you think I’m thinking, I’m not thinking. And I know the rest. You got her pregnant on a one-night stand. That’s harsh.” Cassandra lifted up her glass when the waitress passed by so she could get a refill on her Sprite.

  “I wish I could say that. That would be less embarrassing.”

  Cassandra raised her eyebrows.

  “She came back. Again and again. She would come late at night, ring the doorbell, wearing something . . . wearing very little underneath a long coat. And I would let her in and we would . . .” I let out a deep breath. “We didn’t talk hardly at all. Which is why I had no idea how ignorant she was.”

  If Cassandra was shocked or disgusted, she did a good job of hiding it. I wanted to ask what she thought but she couldn’t be thinking anything worse of me than I thought of myself.

  “You didn’t use any protection?”

  It was the question I hated. I had truly been playing Russian roulette with Shauntae those few weeks after Natalie died. “She told me she was on the shot.” I held up a hand before Cassandra could speak. “I know birth control isn’t the protection you were talking about.” I shrugged. “I didn’t care about anything then. It made me feel better. I didn’t care about any consequences . . . until she told me she was pregnant. But it’s not something that I did all the time. Just like the drinking, it was just then. Up until that time, I always used protection and since then . . .” I stopped myself. I didn’t want her to think I was having sex with a bunch of women. I was sure that was a major sin in her world, too.

  The waitress came and set our plates down on the table, but Cassandra didn’t even pick up her silverware. She seemed too engrossed in my tale of woe to eat.

  “Then we started having conversations and I realized I was in big trouble. And then I realized I had been trapped by a gold digger who thought I was her meal ticket. And I wasn’t even paid like that.”

  I unwrapped my silverware from the napkin and put the napkin in my lap. “And so here we are six years later. I love Brianna with all my heart but I’d give anything to go back to that time and change what I did.” I slathered my steak in A1 sauce and scooped half the butter and sour cream out of my baked potato.

  “So any girlfriends since then?” Cassandra finally picked up her fork.

  I shook my head. “No one I would actually call a girlfriend. Just . . . people I was hanging out with for a while.”

  Cassandra nodded slowly like she was realizing that the kind of man she was sick of dealing with was me. She started to eat. Not saying a word. She was a quarter of the way finished with her shrimp dish and she had hardly looked up at me and definitely hadn’t said anything.

  “Is your food that good?”

  She nodded and kept chewing. She covered her mouth with her napkin. “Yeah, I was really hungry. Hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast.” She gestured toward my plate. “Your steak is getting cold.”

  I looked down at my plate and pushed the broccoli around a little but didn’t eat anything. “So you asked and I told you. Now you ain’t got nothing to say?”

  “What can I say? What happened with Natalie was . . . heartbreaking. Unreal. You made the stuff I been through with dudes sound like nothing. I can’t imagine having gone through anything like that. As far as what happened with Shauntae . . .” She shrugged and went back to eating.

  I didn’t know what to make of it. I had gotten all open and honest with her and then she went silent on me. That was kinda foul. Was she thinking I was worse than dirt because I slept with a woman I didn’t know who turned out to be crazy and ignorant? It was embarrassing and that’s why I had only shared it with my boys. I didn’t know what made me share it with her.

  I sawed off a piece of steak with my knife and stabbed it with my fork. I chewed a few bites, convinced that I had turned Cassandra completely off. I wanted to get a to-go box for the rest of my food and go back to the hospital to the only little woman I ever needed to have in my life. Forget Cassandra. I wasn’t trying to live up to all her requirements anyway.

  Out of nowhere, a big smile broke out on her face. “I almost forgot . . .” She started digging in that monstrous bag of hers and pulled out a huge book. She put it on the table and slid it to me. “Got you something.”

  I picked it up. It was a black, leather-bound Bible. I looked up at her with my eyebrows raised. She took it out of my hands and turned and pointed to the spine. “It’s a New International Version. No ‘thee’s’ or ‘thou’s.’ I promise when you read it, it’ll be a lot easier to understand.”

  I fingered through the thin pages with the golden edges, not sure what to say. She gave me a Bible? “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” Cassandra picked up her knife and fork and went back to eating like it was the best food she ever tasted. She was the most confusing chick I had ev
er dealt with.

  “Why?” I finally asked.

  She put down her fork and took a sip of her Sprite. “Huh?”

  “Why?” I held up the thick book. “Why did you get me a Bible?”

  She frowned. “You said you were having trouble reading it. I figured it was because you needed a more modern version.” She looked at me strange.

  “I mean, why did you get me a Bible? Why did you buy Brianna diabetic candy? Why did you spend an hour dancing and singing with her in the hospital?”

  She slowly pushed a piece of shrimp into her mouth and chewed it even slower. She finally swallowed and looked me straight in the eye. “I don’t know.” She shrugged her shoulders and went back to eating.

  My cell phone rang. It was my mom. I felt my heart start beating faster. Had something happened to Brianna? “Hey, Ma, everything okay?”

  “Everything’s fine, dear. Brianna’s just asking if she could have some of this candy by the bed. It says diabetic, so I thought it was okay, but I wasn’t sure where it came from so I thought I’d better ask.”

  I let out a breath of relief. “It’s fine, Ma. So she’s okay?”

  “She’s doing great. She had to get her finger stuck and had to get some insulin. You should have seen her. She closed her eyes, started singing, and didn’t even flinch when the needle went in. I was so proud of her. Devon, I don’t know what happened but she’s so much better. She’s not looking sad and grumpy like she has been the past few days. It’s like her whole spirit has changed. I think . . . I think she’s gonna be okay with all this.” Mom got a little choked up and I could hear her sniffling.

  My dad’s voice came through the phone. “Your mama done got all emotional. Everything’s fine, though. I hope we’re not disturbing your dinner.”

  “It’s cool, Pop.” I actually welcomed the interruption. I needed it to be able to end this dinner. My parents would be disappointed to find out that Cassandra wasn’t going to be their daughter-in-law.

  “Okay, we gon’ let you go. Your mother—”