Juliet

Chapter 23 #4

“Me and Ken fought for years because he wanted to sell the house and move us to Humble to be closer to his parents, but I couldn’t do it.

I couldn’t break my promise to your daddy.

” She runs her hands down the length of her jeans, looking back at me.

“I didn’t expect Lovie to blow into town during all this chaos.

One minute I’m cooking dinner trying to figure out how to convince your daddy to see that neurologist and get Melo to talk to me, and the next thing I know she’s getting dropped off outside the house with nothing but the clothes on her back after being away for two years. ”

She eases into the chair closest to Senior’s bed and scoots it over until the arm touches the bed frame.

When she first came back around, she only showed up at Beatrice’s when I was here, like she didn’t trust herself alone with Senior.

She always kept her distance—staying exactly six feet away from him until one day he woke up from a nap and croaked out a “C’mere.

” That chair ain’t moved from his bedside since.

“So once you finished worrying yourself over us and our problems, did you ask Lovie why she showed up back at home like that?” I ask. “You ever known her to show up like that?”

“What are you insinuating, Rich?”

“I ain’t insinuating nothing. I’m asking you a question.”

Her nostrils flare. “Don’t do that. I did ask.

But Lovie is as delicate as she is difficult.

If you keep poking and hit the wrong spot, she’ll take off like a bat outta hell.

She’s just like her mama was. You’ve known her for a few weeks, but I’ve known her her whole life, so don’t come at me that way.

You and her obviously been doing some talking. ”

I lean back, crossing my arms and staring at her. “It was just a question.”

“AJ told Kenny he’d take care of Lovie in New York. It ain’t like we wanted her to go, but football is his job and they said they were in it for the long haul. He proposed to her.”

I huff out a laugh. “And you believed him when he said he’d take care of her? You trusted his word?”

“We met his people. Kenny loved them. Hell, he loved AJ—still does. He seemed like a decent kid besides the typical stuff me and Lovie had already discussed. But she told me she could deal with his odd ways and that lifestyle.”

“Didn’t you just say she was delicate? You actually thought a delicate girl like her could survive that life? Do you hear yourself right now?”

“She wanted that life. She wanted him. If I wouldn’t have let her have him, she would’ve run off and done it, anyway. I learned with her mama that if I pushed too hard, I’d just push her away.”

“But she ain’t her mama.”

“I’m not saying she is.”

“I’m trying. You know that, right?”

“What you mean? Trying what?”

“I’m tryna be reasonable. Tryna understand you and Kenny’s brains.

” I stab my finger to the side of my head.

“I’m tryna understand why everything is so much more goddamn important than Lovie—Senior’s health, a Family Fun Day, a cleaning business, a boxing gym, my shit with Melo.

Y’all always been this motherfuckin neglectful? ”

“Neglectful?” she hisses. “You don’t understand what life was like with her mama. If I pushed, Sonia pulled. If I asked about the busted lip, I was the bad guy—not Tony. If I suggested she leave because he was fucking his co-worker, I was jealous.”

She stabs herself in the chest. “I was the jealous one living over in the Bottoms with my man who fought to bring home the bill money every Sunday but couldn’t even raise his voice at me when he got mad.

She said I was jealous. So you tell me what I’m supposed to do with her baby who had the nerve to look at me like I had two goddamn heads when I asked why she wouldn’t leave a boy who couldn’t stop cheating on her?

Huh? He apologized to her, then he came and sat in our living room and promised us she wouldn’t want for anything, and ever since then she hasn’t.

So what was I supposed to do? Keep fighting her on it and pushing her closer to him? ”

“So when he sat his lyin ass in your living room that day, did he even look you in your eyes when he made that promise? Huh?” I ask. “Because every time Jamari came around me, that motherfucka was looking at my goddamn feet.”

“I wasn’t thinking like that. I…I just saw a boy who made a mistake by letting his temptations get the best of him.”

I shake my head, letting out a sarcastic laugh. “You said Lovie came home from New York with nothing, but she came back with something, alright. You just ain’t try hard enough to find it.”

Her eyebrows furrow. “What you mean?”

I swipe my nose, sitting back.

If I believed in ghosts, I’d think Jamari was haunting us all the way from Dallas and making me relive all those nasty emotions that came out when he was still here—back before I knew anything about tact.

“Man, do you know what the fuck I’ll do to AJ Boyd?” I ask.

“Junior…” she hisses.

“Do you, Faye?” My voice climbs into an ugly shrill.

She sits forward, pushing my chest. “Don’t talk like tha—”

“I will kill that nigga as soon as I get the chance.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t you say that.”

“Why not? It’s the truth. Get over it and go tend to my baby ‘cause she’s the one who really needs you—not me—not Senior. We two grown-ass men.”

An uncomfortable silence settles between us after that word flies out of my mouth and into her ears. If I could’ve caught it and stuffed it back inside myself, I would have.

Faye’s fingers curl into my shirt.

“You said y’all ain’t sleeping together,” she mutters.

“We ain’t…”

If we were, I’d be done for.

I pinch my eyes shut. “We…we not.”

“So why would you call her that then?”

“I…I just—AJ broke her and she needs you. She needs a woman to guide her through this…this shit she’s going through.”

“What the hell is she going through, Rich? Just say it.”

I swallow the words I really wanna say. If Arnez wasn’t pissed at me, she’d be proud of the tact I’m showing.

I shake my head. “It ain’t my place to tell her story.”

“She told you that?”

“It’s in her head, Faye. I know everything going on in her head. She’s shame…and scared to disappoint you. And you thought it was Terrica this whole time that wanted me? You seen Terrica since Lovie came home? Talked to her? She been around to help Lovie through this breakup? Man, fuck Terrica.”

She cuts her eyes at Senior, but he doesn’t move.

Afterward, she lets my shirt go and buries her head in her hands. “This is my fault. I should’ve asked more—done more. I…I shouldn’t have sent her over to your house. I was just trying to—”

“You were tryna get to Manvel.”

She rubs her eyes.

“Rasheeda told Arnez you been by twice.”

“I just wanted to get a better understanding of what we owed Melo.”

“We?”

“Don’t act like I’m not included in this. I’m in too deep already.”

“You can’t be in this deep. You got another family. You got Kenny…and Lovie.”

“You sound like Arnez.”

“But it’s the truth. This ain’t back in the day. Those days are gone. So how much longer you gonna live with your heart in two different places?”

She pulls her face from her hands and looks over at Senior’s pinched face. She tugs at the blanket he’s swaddled in, pulling it up to cover his arms.

“You hear that, Senior? Your boy says my heart is in two different places.” She scoffs when he doesn’t wake up to respond.

“Your baby boy—the one I used to sneak and cuddle with and save from whippings. The one I promised to take care of, no matter what. I keep forgetting he’s thirty now and not a baby. ”

She reaches out, stroking the top of Senior’s low-cut hair. I feel like I’m intruding on an intimate moment until the solitaire diamond on her wedding band catches the light.

“I went to Melo’s ranch again this morning while I sent Lovie to clean Ms. Farris’ place and run a few errands for me,” she says.

“I got there right before Rasheeda and Chubbie did. His wife answered the door. I told her I was there from New Bethel and I wanted to talk to him about Pastor Frankfurt solidifying his endorsement for the campaign since it’s so close to election time. ”

She chuckles. “Boy, he flew to the door. He tried to leave when he saw it was just me, but I wouldn’t let him.

I couldn’t let him. I pushed my way inside and saw the opulent foyer they had decorated with expensive art and knick-knacks and…

all I could think about was you—how all you’d done was what your daddy taught you to do and how it got you swept up in Melo’s orbit.

One time I asked Senior if what was happening to us was just a streak of bad luck.

He said, ‘It’s just life, Faye-baby.’ But I can’t understand how God would let something like this happen to us—how he could drop a boy like Jamari in Arnez’s life and let her fall for him after what your daddy taught her—how he could align things so perfect that our lives got upended by some boy whose parents didn’t raise him right. ”

She reaches over, running her finger over Senior’s pale cheek. “I told Melo to name his price. I told him whatever it was he wanted, we’d pay it.”

“Faye…”

“He laughed and said I was tough for waltzing my narrow ass up into his place of business with no appointment—said he could kill me right there for trespassing on his property and the Brazoria County sheriffs wouldn’t do a thing about it because he had them in his pocket too.”

I swipe my hands down my face. “If he would’ve touched you…”

“But he didn’t,” she mutters. “He’s crazy, but he ain’t that damn crazy.”

My fingers curl into my palms, and my body wants to move—to run—to go pick up Slim from wherever she is in the city and bring her back to Joliet so I can hold her and think about something other than this.

“He wouldn’t give me a number at first. But then his son came bouncing through the foyer with his backpack on that was bigger than him, and his daughter came after him with a mouthful of braces and her head buried in her phone.

They had their Rhodes uniforms on and were ready for that drive to Bayou Crest…

and you popped up in my head again, but this time, Arnez popped up with you.

So I looked at them and then at Melo and I asked him, ‘Did you ever teach your son how to protect your daughter? Did you ever teach him his responsibilities as a man? Because Rich ain’t end up in your crosshairs over some silly street shit.

He was only doing what a man is supposed to do. ’”

I close my eyes and instead of thinking about this mountain of a problem sitting on my shoulders, I’m thinking about Slim again and how long it took for AJ to realize there was no man around her to do what needed to be done.

“He wants two million,” Faye mutters.

My eyes spring open. “What?”

“It would’ve been one if you hadn’t beaten up his brother.

That’s…that’s why I wanted you to come by here today so I could talk to you and Arnez together, but then she started her bullshit…

” She looks past me. “It’s a lot of money…

I know. But I’ve been saving every penny that comes my way anyways.

I know your daddy put the house in your name a while back; maybe you can sell it.

Then I can take an equity loan out on the gym since it’s in my name, and I can talk Kenny into getting one on the house. That’ll put us at close to a mil.”

“So then I’ll owe you and Kenny Fairchild?”

“You’ll never owe me.”

“But I’ll owe your husband. The man you married. I’ll owe him the money his wife loaned to her ex’s son.”

“Rich, please. You’ve…you’ve got to stop talking like that. I told Melo to give us a year to come up with all of it, and once we pay your debt off, you’ll go away.”

“Go away? What you mean ‘go away’?”

“Kenny’s friend, Chico, has a buddy with a boxing gym in Vegas.

You’re gonna go up there and live and train after we pay Melo the money.

We just need to convince Kenny to set you up with him and Chico, but he can’t keep putting his reputation on the line for you if you’re not serious.

If you just come by the house…and…and have a civilized conversation with Ken—”

“Vegas?” I croak with my stomach in knots. “I ain’t going to no Vegas.”

“I’m gonna talk to your daddy and—”

“I’m grown, Faye. I ain’t a kid no more. This ain’t no argument about me going to school or not. You can’t make plans for my life.”

“If you stay here, you’ll die.”

“That’s always been the plan, ain’t it? To live and die right here.”

She folds her lips under her teeth, shaking her head. “Rich…once he’s done shaking you down…that…that’s it for you.”

“I ain’t going nowhere,” I hiss. “And you ain’t taking out no million dollar loan to bail me out of this.”

“Just let me talk to Senior—”

“What about your husband, Faye? What the hell does he have to say in all this? You gon’ ruin your marriage over us—over me and a decision I made?” I shake my head and try to push up from the chair, but she reaches out and holds me down with that strength I always remember her having.

“I told you and your daddy I’d take care of this mess, and I did.

I told him I’d always take care of you and Nez no matter if he was here or somewhere in the dirt, and I kept my word.

So I guess I’ll go tend to your baby now.

I just hope that when you’re holding her and loving on her, you ain’t pouring sugar over shit.

You tell her exactly how this life goes.

You make her understand exactly what you did because I told you she’s delicate, and if you know as much as you say you do, you should know why. ”