“The invitation wasn’t my idea,” I explained. “Jackson asked me to invite you and Giovanni.”
“He only did that because he has no knowledge of us. And Giovanni, he wasn’t going to come.”
“And why not?”
“Because I told him.”
“You told him what? There’s nothing to tell. It was just dinner.”
“What I told him had nothing to do with dinner, or Jackson’s invitation. I told him about us, Trevor. I told him about the feelings I have for you, and that I couldn’t ignore them. I told him about Chicago, the game, dinner, and that night. He asked me if I had made love to you and I told him.”
“Why didn’t you lie?” I asked.
“You mean like you’ve been lying? That’s not what you do to someone you love.”
“Oh, and you haven’t lied to Giovanni? So now that you’ve gotten what you wanted, you’re all sanctimonious.”
“I didn’t make you do anything you didn’t already want to do. But you’ve been lying, and you keep lying to yourself and to Jackson about our friends-with-benefits relationship. If you don’t want the man, just tell him.”
“But I do want him,” I said, not knowing if I was convincing enough.
“Then while you do love him, while you still have him, do what you need to keep him.” Dexter paused. “You know I ruined my Thanksgiving night with Gio. In our moment of passion, when I wanted to make his night beautiful, I called out your name.”
Dexter’s admission stunned me. “Why’d you do that?”
“What do you mean, ‘Why’d I do that’? Why do we do so many of the things we do? I don’t know. I hadn’t planned it. You’ve been on my mind constantly. I tried to concentrate on him. Even in the moment I’m trying to remind myself I’m making love to this man I love, but that doesn’t even work. I looked at him and saw your face, and then your name followed. I saw the hurt and disappointment in him. I felt his body shrivel under mine. I knew how he felt, and I hated how that made me feel.”
“So you’re blaming me.”
“No, I’m blaming me. But you’re being greedy and selfish, and I’m not going to perpetuate this greed and selfishness anymore.”
“So what now?”
“Like I said in the letter, Trevor, where we go from here is up to you, but I have someone who I’ve hurt, someone I need to love, and love him like he deserves. And honestly, Jackson sounds like a good man. And you are, too. That’s all I can offer you right now.”
“Then I guess I should say thanks.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know yet, but thanks.”
I was sitting in my living room, a glass of wine keeping me company. I wondered if I actually had the nerve to tell Jackson the truth. I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Did I want to risk losing what I had, what I had wanted from Kelvin but never got? I guess I had some thinking to do, but at least Dexter had removed himself from the puzzling equation. I realized my suspicion that Jackson was out there doing his own thing didn’t exactly excuse my own actions.
I tried keeping my mind from refocusing on the words in Dexter’s letter. This wasn’t going to happen by just sitting here. I picked up my cell phone and dialed Denise’s number. When she didn’t answer, I left her a message asking her to call me back. I tried to speak without a sense of urgency, but I wasn’t sure I had done a good job pulling off that disguise. After I hung up, I dialed Caela’s cell phone number.
“Hey, Caela, what are you doing?”
“Enjoying my week off with The Plague of Doves, this new novel by Louise Erdrich.”
“How’s it so far?”
“Are you kidding? I’ve waited years for a book from her. I finally get a chance to just sit and read. I said I wasn’t going to start reading until I had time to finish it and I’m not putting down this book until I’ve turned the last page.”
“You sound like a fiend,” I said, jokingly.
“Call it what you may, you cheap trick.”
“Where’s my godson?”
“Trevor, you know he’s in school. What’s wrong? You’re beating around the bush about something. Avoidance to the max.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about?” I asserted.
“Fine. I’ll pretend right along with you.”
Caela knew whether it took me two minutes or two hours, I was going to tell whatever was on my mind so she could chop and dissect it without any objection from me. I loved my working relationship with her. But what I loved most was the relationship we had after my shirt and tie and her black stilettos and pencil skirt came off. If I could ever have a sister, I would want her to be just like Caela—serious when I wanted her to be, crazy as hell when I needed her to be, and never afraid to tell me when I was being naive, gullible, or just dead wrong.
“So what chapter are you on?” I asked, stalling again. How bad was what I had to tell her anyway?
“You’re doing it again.”
I told Caela about the letter I received from Dexter. I remembered her asking me what was I going to do if Dexter wanted more than the romp between the sheets, but I guess now I didn’t have to contemplate doing anything, since his letter and his revelation had taken that away from me. I sat and waited to hear her say, “I told you so,” those four words I hated so much. And even though she hadn’t said it yet, I was sure she was just holding back. I knew her that well. It was on the tip of her tongue. I could sense it.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“Like what? I don’t know what you want me to say besides I told you so.”
“You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t say that.”
“And you know I can’t be anyone else. But, friend, I warned you about this thing you got going on with Dexter. And the scary thing about this is, whether or not you want to admit it, you feel something for him, too.”
“What are you talking about?” I said defensively.
“Come on, Trev. You know, sometimes I think I know you better than you know yourself. Some people can have affairs and not get emotionally attached, but you’re not one of those people. And you know damn well that’s why you don’t do it. You invest in one person, that’s it. That’s you. You don’t like to share the person you love, and you don’t want to share the love you have for him, either.”
It wasn’t that Caela knew me better than I knew my own self. I went to sleep and woke up with me every morning. It was simple. What she was saying I just didn’t want to admit, and as long as I didn’t admit it, it wasn’t true.
“So you were right.”
“You don’t have to admit that to me. I already knew it. I was hoping I wasn’t,” Caela said, and I knew she was sincere.
“Now what am I going to do?”
“Trevor. Trevor. Trevor.” I heard her the first time she called my name. “Are you hearing yourself? I don’t think what you have to do is too hard to figure out. Dexter has separated himself from you. Leave it at that. If he hasn’t done so emotionally, he has physically. Concentrate on what you have with Jackson.” She paused like she always did when she wanted to make sure she was about to ask the right question or make the right statement. “What has Kelvin done to you?”
What has Kelvin done to you? Her question replayed in my mind like echoes. Until then I hadn’t thought Kelvin had done anything to me. Besides making me question my worthiness of love, and taking away the trust I had for love, I didn’t think he had done anything to me.
30
Why Should I Care?
Trevor …
This January weather is so damn unpredictable, I thought, opening the back door and staring at the rain that had been falling all week. It was the middle of winter and nothing in the form of snow had fallen.
“Chance of a late day thunderstorms my ass,” I said out loud, closing the door. “Meteorologists and politicians are the only people I know who can lie and still keep their jobs.”
I walked to the closet near the front entrance, grabbed my
midnight black leather Aaron Barak umbrella and proceeded again towards the back door. I walked swiftly down the walkway towards the car, turning around only to push the away button on the remote control, setting the alarm on the house. I stopped for a moment and listened for the four continuous beeps that always followed. My umbrella was wide enough to protect my suit and briefcase from the morning’s element, but my shoes were shown no mercy. After pressing another remote to unlock the car door, I opened the back door, threw my briefcase and umbrella in the back seat, pressed my foot against the gas pedal, gently pressing it to the floor, and reversed my Range down the long driveway.
Until the highway, I had been making good on time. The traffic signals on the neighborhood streets worked in my favor, almost as if my Range had some controlling device installed somewhere between the V-8 engine and the front grill. As I drove, throwback sounds of songstress Whitney Houston calmed my nerves, distracting my mind from the slower-than-normal traffic and the bad news that overwhelmed the NBC TV station while I readied for work: Iraq, President-elect Obama, troop withdrawal, Iran and their nuclear power plant, the economy, job loss and unemployment, and foreclosures.
Apparently, everyone sharing the road with me had the same bright idea pop into their heads: leave early to avoid the Monday morning traffic only to get caught in it. Sitting in traffic wasn’t my idea of a great start to my workweek.
As I neared my downtown exit, the rain that had been falling my entire thirty-minute drive came to an abrupt end. I continued my drive to work without incident or further interruption. I thought I was home free, but as I turned right into the driveway to the underground parking garage and waved my badge against the keypad, my cell phone rang, interrupting a text message that was coming in from Jackson at the same time.
“I said you would be hearing from me again,” Bran began when I answered. “I know you haven’t told him about your disloyalty.”
“How do you know that?”
“’Cause you’re stubborn, and like most stubborn people, you don’t act until it’s too late,” he explained. “And it’s almost too late.”
“You seem to know a lot about me and Jackson. So, I’m going to presume you know what he’s been doing?”
“What he’s been doing?” Bran chuckled. “If you think Jackson is being unfaithful then you really don’t know the man who loves you. But since it’s something you believe, please, do tell.” He laughed.
I told Bran about seeing Jackson at Java House and the man I saw with him. I gave him a full description of this person, and although Bran listened, he didn’t say too much about me suspecting Jackson was sneaking around. After each admission, he just laughed. Here I was feeding my enemy arsenal he could use to destroy me.
“This is what I mean when I say you don’t deserve him. You don’t even know him.”
“Right. And you do. I know what I saw.”
“Are you sure you didn’t see what you wanted to see? You know people in your situation do that quite often.”
People in my situation? Ok, this man, whoever he is, has some nerve. I drove up the ramp to the second floor and assumed my parking space. I put the gear in park and since I had a few minutes to kill, I sat in the truck going back and forth with Bran. I wasn’t sure what I was going to accomplish, if anything, by talking to him, but I entertained him anyway.
“People in my situation?” I finally asked.
“Yes. You’re running out of time, Trevor. Before you no longer have a say in what happens to your relationship with Jackson, end this friendship you have with Dexter.”
I wasn’t going to tell him Dexter had already ended whatever we had. “Why are you so invested in my situation?” I asked, adjusting the volume on the radio.
“Trevor, you are no stranger to unhappiness or heartbreak. You do remember what that felt like, don’t you? You remember how many times you went to sleep alone, crying, hurting, and feeling no one understood your pain?”
“Yes, but…?” He was talking to me as if he were a best friend I shared everything with.
“And the only person you wanted to hear the words ‘I’m sorry’ from was so busy involved with himself you swore he didn’t care? Remember when all you wanted was for someone, him, to love the hurt away? You knew love wasn’t supposed to make you feel the way you felt, but that was how it made you feel, and there was nothing you could do. You sleep but don’t remember sleeping, you dream but can’t remember what you dreamed about, you laughed but don’t remember laughing because everything was blurred by the pain that enveloped your heart.”
“Yes, but…”
“Stop interrupting. I’m not interested in your explanations.” He paused. “Don’t think you’re going to put Jackson through that. He doesn’t deserve to feel that way. Don’t you know love, Trevor?”
“Don’t I know love?” I repeated his question, buying time until I had a response. I thought I knew love.
That simple question brought back a flood of memories of those I had pushed out of or to the back of my mind. There was the love Kelvin Phillip Patterson alleged before he was with Lawrence professing the same. There was Landry Carlisle who loved me Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights, but never on weekends, which were reserved for his wife, and never on Sundays since that was his family day with the twins and the older Landry, Jr. And how could I forget Teric Keron Hunter. He was a star basketball and all-America football player, a receiver on our high school team. I loved the way his dreads dangled from underneath his helmet as he raced down the sideline, running forty, fifty, sixty yards to a touchdown, increasing his yards-after-reception stats. I was too busy watching his body move before my eyes. “I love you,” he said, just before he took my virginity the weekend his parents left him home alone. That next Monday morning at school, he looked at me like I was the new boy, as he stood at his locker staring into the eyes of Sienna McLean, my best friend. Though Sienna and I shared everything, I kept what happened between Teric and me to myself. That was the last time Teric ever spoke to me, even though we sat beside each other in Trig class.
Bran knew I was stalling.
“Yet those tears still came at night,” he continued. “And now, look what you got.”
So all I knew about this man was the name he gave me, an alias. He was either closer to me than he was telling me, or closer to Jackson. I still hadn’t figured that out. He was doing an excellent job keeping his identity under wraps. As much as he didn’t want me to hurt Jackson, he didn’t want to hurt him, either, or else he would have disclosed all this information to him a long time ago. I could always call his bluff except I wasn’t sure he was bluffing. For someone on the outside, he sure did know a lot. He knew the right questions to ask and something about him told me he already knew my answers.
I looked at the clock on the dash. It was almost 9 o’clock and I had a full day ahead of me. “Look, Bran. I have to go.”
“Remember what I said. You’re running out of time,” he warned.
“Goodbye, Bran. And I won’t be answering your calls again.”
“If you come clean with Jackson, or end your so-called platonic friendship with Dexter, you won’t have to worry about ever hearing from me. But until then, you have no choice. You’re a curious one, and your curiosity won’t stop you from answering. Like I told you on Christmas, if you don’t tell him, I’m going to make sure he knows what you’ve been doing.”
“Say what?”
“Enjoy your day, Trevor,” Bran said and hung up.
On the elevator, I sent a text to Jackson wishing him a good day. It seems we’ve been texting more and talking less, but I guess it was better than no communication at all. I wanted to call him since I hadn’t spoken to him at all yesterday, but knowing how much he hated to be late for anything, I figure he was already in his 9 o’clock meeting. When I came off the elevator, Morgan was entering the Agency. This was his late day.
“Hey, Morgan, hold up a second.”
“Good morning, Mr. Harrison,?
?? he said, holding the straps dangling from his black Columbia bag.
“Question.”
“Answer,” he said, smiling. His pearly whites glistened.
“That friend you told me about in that meeting. How is she? Did she work out her situation?”
“She’s trying to figure it out. I’ve kind of followed your advice.”
“I forgot. What advice was that?” I lied.
“I’ve cut her some slack,” he said, opening the door. “Have
a good day, Mr. Harrison.”
“And you do the same, Morgan.” As I turned down the hall, heading to my office, I called out, “Morgan.”
“Yes.” He stopped.
“Won’t you join me for lunch, if you don’t already have plans?”
“Well, I brought a brown bag, but I guess I can save it for tomorrow. Sure.”
I tried to focus. No luck. What had Bran done to me? I didn’t think what I did was wrong, because I had good reasons. Yet my conversation with Bran developed a feeling of guilt in the pit of my stomach. His “don’t I know love” question really jolted me. Whatever happened to Landry Carlisle? And the last time I saw Sienna McLean, she was ending her reign as Ms. New York. I still catch a glimpse of Teric Hunter during a Sunday or Monday night football game. He hadn’t changed much, except he was now a millionaire. He still looked sexy in his winter-white football pants, his ass lifted by his jock straps and his helmet in his left hand, just as he did on the sidelines during our high school football games. The last time I Googled him, there was still no mention of a Mrs. Hunter or kids.
I lounged in my chair behind my desk, rocking back and forth as if I was lulling myself to sleep. When my phone buzzed, I answered without thinking. With the luck I’d had, I figured it was none other than Bran.
“Yes,” I said, sitting up and placing my elbows on my desk. I hadn’t heard his voice and yet I had an immediate headache.
“Yes?” he questioned. “Is that any way to greet your old man?”
“Oh. What’s up, pops,” I said with a quick grin. It was good to hear my father’s familiar voice. I hadn’t been able to speak to him as often as I would like. With Jackson, Dexter, and Bran and his confusing, menacing phone calls, I hadn’t been able to make time. I wasn’t making excuses. Yet how could I not have time to speak to the only man who had been in my life all my life?