Finding Mrs. Wright Read online

  “Miss Sherece did it. We was up all last night until she finished.”

  “We were, Bree. We were up all night.”

  “You was up all night too, Daddy?”

  “No, Brianna. You said, ‘we was.’ It’s ‘we were.’” I tried not to let her see the frustration in my eyes. Seemed like I was correcting her more and more lately. I constantly fussed at Shauntae about using bad English around our daughter. She said it wasn’t that serious and she didn’t want our child being all uppity and proper like me and my family. And she knew I hated Brianna being around Sherece. Or any of her ghetto fabulous friends for that matter. They were probably up all night drinking and smoking and talking about all sorts of grown-up stuff while putting the tiny, intricate braids in Brianna’s head.

  “It’s pretty, baby. Real pretty.” I was glad for the hairstyle, though. God knows I couldn’t do my little girl’s hair to save my life. When she didn’t have braids, I had to take her by my mom’s house on the way to school to get her hair done. When I was running late, I’d enlist the pity of her homeroom teacher by walking in with her hairbrush and a “helpless father” look on my face.

  “What you got to eat, Daddy?”

  “You want to make some pizza?” One of our favorite things to do was make homemade pizza together.

  She shook her head. “Takes too long. I’m hungry.”

  “You haven’t eaten today?”

  “I had Pop-Tarts.” Brianna must have seen the anger in my eyes. “It’s okay, Daddy. I didn’t want Mama to cook me nothing.”

  “Anything. You didn’t want Mama to cook you anything.”

  “Yeah, anything. What you got to eat?”

  “What do you have to eat.” I frowned at her. “Brianna, you know better.”

  “Yes, Daddy. Sorry, Daddy.” Her face looked sad, so I bent down and gave her a big kiss. I hated fussing at her and correcting her, but I wasn’t willing to let her keep talking bad English.

  I led Brianna out to the kitchen to heat up some leftover spaghetti. As I watched her shovel in mouthful after mouthful like she hadn’t eaten in days, I had to fight back anger. Something had to give.

  I had to do something to get my daughter away from her crazy mother.

  Two

  After Brianna ate, I made her get ready for bed and then we talked about her weekend and reviewed her school assignments for the next week. Then we watched a few That’s So Raven episodes until she passed out. I needed to let her get into a deeper sleep before I tried to put her to bed. Usually the first day she came back from her mother’s house she was real clingy. If I put her to bed before she got into a good, drooling sleep, she’d wake up crying and want me to rub her back until she fell asleep again. It was easier to let her snuggle against me on the couch for an hour, and then put her to bed.

  I flipped the remote to turn from the Disney Channel to watch Sunday Night Football. I couldn’t let all of Sunday pass by without me seeing at least one game.

  I really needed to get up and straighten up some to keep my spot looking nice. My house was literally a page out of an IKEA sales catalogue. I wasn’t much of a decorator, so I had gone into the massive store one day with the torn-out page in one hand and my checkbook in the other. My place had an urban, Euro-style feel to it, and it looked like I had mad skills and good taste. I could only do something like that before Shauntae started eating into my pockets. I hadn’t been able to buy too much of anything new for me since Brianna was born.

  My cell phone rang. I looked down and noticed it was the fourth missed call from Regina, the woman I was seeing. After dealing with Shauntae, I wasn’t in the mood for dealing with anyone of the female persuasion, other than the little one nestled into my side. I’d call her tomorrow.

  I started to get annoyed when the phone rang again, but I saw it was Charles calling so I answered it. “What’s up, man?”

  “What’s up, dawg? Just calling to check on you. You missed a great game. You should have seen it. We won in overtime. There was this one play—”

  “Chuckie!” I stopped him before he got started with his detailed game highlights. “I ain’t trying to hear all that. You didn’t call to check on me. You called to rub it in.”

  “Aw, sorry, man. I ain’t trying to rub it in. But it was this one play, eighty-three-yard touchdown on a punt return. And there was this interception—”

  “Chuck, I’m ’bout to hang up in three seconds. For real.”

  “A’ight, man, my bad. I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry you had to waste that good ticket. I’ll get you back on that.” I scooted away from Brianna to see if it was safe to get up. I was getting hungry. She had finished all the spaghetti so I needed to make myself a sandwich or something.

  “Well . . . uh . . . you don’t have to do that. I didn’t waste it exactly.”

  “Oh for real? Who’d y’all take?”

  Chuckie was silent.

  “Chuckie?”

  “I took Tisha.”

  “Tisha?” I racked my brain for a second trying to remember if I should know that name. I hardly ever paid attention when Chuckie mentioned a woman’s name. It would be soon replaced by another name, and who had time to remember all of them? “Who’s Tisha?”

  “Don’t play dumb. You know, Tisha. The girl I been dealing with for the last few months.”

  “Last few months? Dawg, what you talking about? When have you ever dealt with a woman for more than a few weeks? And you took a woman to a football game?” I grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator and a bag of Doritos out of the cabinet. Not much of a meal, but there were only bread heels left so I couldn’t make a sandwich, and I didn’t feel like cooking anything. I threw the bread bag in the trash.

  “Whatever, man. Anyway, I called to see you if want to hang out this weekend. I can get us tickets to the comedy club. I was hoping you’d bring Regina. AJ and his wife are gonna get a sitter and come, and then I would bring Tisha.”

  “And when did you start wanting to hang out in couples? What’s wrong with you, man? You going soft on me?”

  “Naw, man. Not soft, but you know.”

  “No, I don’t know. What?”

  “Nothing, man. Why you gotta give me a hard time? You’re the one always talking about how I need to stop dealing with so many women. I’m taking your advice.”

  “When did you ever take my advice?”

  “Whatever, man. It’s gonna be this Friday night. You coming? That is, unless Shauntae got another emergency planned.”

  “Why you gotta be a fool?” I sat in the chair next to the couch and tried to open the chips without the bag rustling too much. “Maybe, but I’m not bringing Regina. I don’t want her to think she’s in there like that.”

  “Man, you need to leave that girl alone then. You ain’t doing nothing but playing with her heart. That’s wrong.”

  I looked down at the phone like it was a foreign object in my hand. “Who am I talking to? This ain’t Charles Nelson.”

  “I’m just saying. You know she’s all into you. And you don’t mean her any good. You keep doing this over and over again. You date one girl for three to six months, make her think it’s going somewhere, then you drop her like she’s got herpes. You either need to deal with them light like I used to do, or—”

  “Used to do? Man, you tripping. You deal with one woman for more than two weeks and now you want to give me relationship advice? Wow. . . .”

  “Man, we ain’t getting any younger. And I ain’t trying to end up being an old G like my dad and uncles. You gotta settle down eventually.”

  I looked down at the phone again, like it was a snake about to bite me. “Settle down? Are you talking about getting married? Who is this Tisha? Maybe I do need to meet her. You weren’t acting like this earlier today when you were all up in Shauntae’s face.”

  “I’m still a man and I still got eyes. But it’s time for me to turn in my player’s card. And Tisha’s a good woman. A sweet church girl like my m
ama.”

  “What?” I looked around my living room for hidden cameras. “Am I being punk’d?”

  Chuckie laughed his goofy laugh. “Whatever. So you down for this weekend?”

  “Let me think about it.” It was hard to say no when it seemed so important to him. “I’ll have to have another talk with Regina to remind her that I’m not trying to be in a relationship. You know if she’s sitting at the table with me, my boys, and their women, she’ll start hearing wedding bells.”

  The doorbell rang. I got up and looked through the peephole. “What the . . . ? Oh, no, sir.”

  “What?”

  “Speaking of Regina. She just rang my doorbell.”

  “Did you know she was coming over?”

  “Of course not. Brianna’s here. She knows not to come over without calling. See, this is the problem when you let them get too close. I gotta go, man.”

  “Handle your business, bro.”

  I opened the door and stepped onto the porch. Regina threw her arms around my neck in a strangle hug. “Surprise!” Her voice echoed off the porch ceiling.

  I peeled her arms from around my neck and whispered, “What are you doing here?” I put a finger to my lips and gently pushed her away from me.

  “I hadn’t heard from you in a while and I missed you. I needed to see you.” She looked over my shoulder, craning her neck, trying to see into the house.

  “You know you can’t come over without calling.” I pulled the door tightly closed.

  “Why?” She put a hand on her hip. “You got someone in there?” She looked all hurt like she had caught me cheating.

  “Yeah. My daughter.”

  “Oh.” Her smile returned in her obvious relief that I didn’t have another woman in my house. “But it’s Sunday. You don’t have your daughter on Sundays.”

  I started to explain, but she wasn’t in any position to deserve an explanation. “Well, she’s here today. Which is why you have to go.”

  She looked hurt again. “Can’t we just spend a few minutes together? I haven’t seen you since last weekend and now that you have your daughter, I won’t get to see you until this Friday. That’s too long,” she whined. She tried to put her arms around my neck again, but I put a hand up to keep her at a distance.

  She flinched a little and looked like she wanted to say something smart, but I gave her a look that let her know she had already crossed too many lines and needed to back up off me.

  “Stay out here for a second.” I walked back into the house and peeked over the couch to make sure Brianna was still asleep. I picked her up and she instinctively linked her arms around my neck and squeezed me in a hug. When I turned around to walk toward her bedroom, I saw Regina breaking her neck looking in the window at us. I hurried and took Brianna to her room. Last thing I needed was for her to wake up and see some crazy broad peeping into the house.

  I tucked my daughter into her bed and closed her door firmly. I needed to get rid of Regina quick, in case she woke up. I stepped back onto the porch, leaving the front door slightly cracked. I led Regina down the front porch steps and into the driveway. For early September, it was still pretty warm and humid outside to be this late in the evening.

  Regina started talking a mile a minute. “She’s really beautiful. She looks just like you. I mean, it’s like you spit her out. I didn’t realize she was so big. It’s Brianna, right? How old did you say she was? She’s the cutest thing in the world. I can’t believe how much she looks like you. Do you—”

  “Regina, you’ve got to go.” I hoped she didn’t think talking about my daughter was going to endear her to me. She was about to get cut and no amount of complimenting Brianna was gonna fix it.

  She grabbed my hand and held it tightly. “I shouldn’t have shown up unannounced. I definitely wouldn’t have come if I knew you had your daughter here. Please forgive me.” She stepped closer to me and pressed her body up against mine. “I missed you, Devon. I haven’t seen you since last Sunday and you haven’t returned my calls all week. I thought after last weekend . . .”

  There was the problem. I should have never let her spend the night. When a woman gets some good loving, then sleeps in your bed all night, and then you let her cook you breakfast the next morning, it makes her ring finger itch. And I wasn’t trying to scratch it. “You thought what? That it was okay to come by unannounced?”

  “I said I was sorry. You should let me make it up to you.”

  Even though I was pissed beyond pissed, her rubbing up against me like that was making me forget what I came out here to say. She pulled my head down and met my lips with a kiss.

  For a second, I thought about the fact that Brianna’s room was on the opposite side of the house from mine. As Regina slid her tongue into my mouth, I thought about how long it might be before I would have a woman in my arms again after I cut her loose tonight. Might need a li’l sump’n sump’n to hold me over for a few weeks. I shook the thought out of my head and gently pushed her away from me. She pushed one of her thighs between my legs and tried to kiss me again.

  “Stop.” I held her arms firmly. “My daughter is in the house. I told you when this first started that I don’t have women around my daughter.”

  Regina stepped back like I had slapped her. “When ‘this’ first started? What exactly is this, Devon? Don’t have ‘women’ around your daughter? So I’m just any old woman? Are you saying I don’t ever get to meet your child? What kind of relationship is that?”

  Relationship? I looked back at the house. “Could you please keep your voice down?” I let out a deep breath. “This is exactly what this was when we first started seeing each other. I told you I wasn’t looking for a relationship. You said you weren’t either. You said you were cool with us just spending time together.”

  “But . . . I thought . . .”

  “You thought what?” Why did she have to have such a hurt look in her eyes? Made me pull up a little. “Look, Regina, like I’ve told you all along, I can’t be in a relationship right now. I enjoy spending time with you, but it can’t be anything more than that.”

  I knew women well enough to know what was next. I needed to get this chick out of my driveway before the tears started falling.

  Too late. A single tear fell down her cheek. Dang. How could I cut her off if she was crying? I thought about waiting a few days, but when a chick shows up at your house unannounced, that spells stalker tendencies and this needed to end. Tonight.

  “I’m sorry, Regina, but I think we need to let this go. I wasn’t trying to hurt you. Which is why I made things clear up front. Nothing has changed since then.”

  “Let this go? What do you mean?” Now she looked all confused. And the tears were flowing in full force. I would never understand women. Not as long as I lived.

  “What I mean is, even though we agreed on the terms of our . . . dealings from the beginning, you seem to want more out of this than I do. And I can’t give you what you want. So we should let it go.” Maybe if I kept stressing the fact that this was what we both agreed to from the start, I wouldn’t come out of this looking like a villain.

  “Terms of our dealings? What do you think this is, Devon? I . . .” She burst into loud sobs. “I . . . I love you.”

  “Love me?” I stepped back from her like she had the plague. I looked back at the house to make sure her dramatic outburst wasn’t loud enough to wake Brianna. Dang, I didn’t need to be dealing with this. First baby mama drama, and now this chick. What’s a brother to do?

  “Yes, I love you. And I thought . . . I thought you loved me too. I mean, we spend all this time together and we talk about everything and last weekend was . . . amazing.”

  Forget sparing her feelings. This girl had to go. The “L” word was way too serious for me. “Last weekend, we had amazing sex. That’s all it was. I don’t love you, Regina. And you don’t love me. We had fun together, but . . .”

  “Don’t tell me how I feel.” She turned toward her car and started sobb
ing so hard her shoulders shook. She was crying like her daddy had died or something. Why did she have to make me feel like crap?

  I put a hand on her arm. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I thought when we talked about—”

  She shook my hand off and opened her car door and got in. “You never meant to hurt me? You just led me on like this was going somewhere.” She started up the car. “Let me ask you something. Do I mean anything to you? Do you feel anything for me?”

  I tried not to look her in the eyes. I had seen that hurt look too many times before and I didn’t need to go to bed with it on my mind.

  “Do you, Devon? Or is that all I ever was to you? Some good sex and a good time?”

  I let out a deep breath and shoved my hands into my pockets. I was smart enough to know this wasn’t the time to answer that question honestly.

  “At least do me the decency of looking me in the eyes.”

  I looked at her and there it was. That heartbroken look that made me feel like the world’s worst dog. And I wasn’t. I never dealt with more than one woman at a time. And I always told them up front that I wasn’t looking for a relationship. If they let themselves believe otherwise, how was it my fault?

  She nodded her head like she finally accepted what I was saying. “Okay, Devon. We’ll let this go. And I won’t ever call or come by again. But you have to make me one promise.”

  I looked down at the ground again. The pain in her eyes was too much for me. “What?”

  “Promise me you won’t do this to anyone else.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “What did I do?”

  “You treated me well. Made me feel like a queen and acted like you really cared. You made me believe there are some good black men in the world and that I could actually be happy in a relationship one day. And now I’m supposed to let it go? Promise me that you’ll learn from breaking my heart not to break anyone else’s heart. If you’re not trying to be in a relationship, then don’t act like you’re in one. Act like the rest of the dogs out there and just do a booty call every once in a while. Okay?” She put the car in reverse and peeled out of my driveway, leaving me standing there with one thought.