“Yeah. Thank God.”
“How long do you think the default judgment is gonna take?”
“No idea. Regardless of how long it takes I can’t sit in a holding pattern. I’m gonna give the bed and breakfast about two more weeks, then I need to head back to Chicago. I think it’ll be easier to facilitate all this divorce stuff and starting over if I’m athome. Plus, I need to get back to work. I can’t afford to lose my job.”
Hearing her talk about going back to Chicago made me feel some kind of way. “Damn, you don’t live here permanently, huh?”
“I do not.”
“We formed a little rapport. A little . . . homie-ship. Who’s gonna have midday picnics on my tailgate with me? Who’s gonna go running with me in the mornings? I’mma be getting my juice shot by myself. I’mma be out here on this deck every Sunday by myself.”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry. Maybe you can slide Perkins into my place.”
I gave her a blank stare. “Perkins is bossy. I don’t like her as much as I like you.”
Bailey gave me a grin. “Aww.” Before she could say more, Alisha walked out onto the deck with Bayliss right behind her.
“Mr. Wallace just called me, and I pulled this footage from the security camera at the house.” She turned the phone’s screen toward Bailey.
As the video played, I could see who I knew was Bailey’s soon-to-be ex-husband on a front porch having what I could only describe as a meltdown. His face was scrunched into a mean looking scowl as he paced back and forth across the porch. Every now and again he would stop pacing and press the doorbell repeatedly. “I know you’re in there, you dumb bitch! I see your fucking truck in front of the house!”
The pacing, yelling, and pressing of the doorbell went on and on. Finally into minute number four, the ex-husband went out of frame. When he came back in, he had a garbage can hoisted above his head. There was a collective “ahhhh” from both Bailey and me when dude hurled the garbage can at the plate glass window on the front of the house. Luckily, the glass didn’t break.But the fact that he couldn’t break it seemed to infuriate dude even more. A few seconds later he dropped the garbage can and turned his attention to something happening out of view and to the left of him.
“That’s when Mr. Wallace went out there with his shotgun and told Xander to carry his ass home,” Alisha explained.
Bailey shook her head. “I need to go home and deal with this.”
“Not by yourself you don’t. Let’s make a plan. When you’re ready to head back, Bayliss and I will go with you for a few days. I don’t like the thought of you there by yourself, Bailey Boo.”
“Xander’s not gonna do anything to me, Mom.”
Alisha eyed her. “You sure about that? I mean, I just watched him repeatedly throw a garbage can at my plate glass window. You think he’s gonna walk up and talk calmly to you?”
Bailey huffed out an aggravated sigh.
Alisha folded her arms across her chest and let her weight fall onto her back leg.
It was the battle of the attitudes.
“I know you’re a grown woman and I really do try to mind my business. I have stayed out of your marriage as much as I possibly could. But at the end of the day, even when you turn one hundred years old, you will still be my daughter. I’m concerned. This man is not stable. Keep that in mind.”
“Because I will kill that little nigga, Steppy.” Bayliss’s voice was gruff.
I watched Alisha and Bayliss walk back into the house.
“Can you please drive me back to Perkins’s?”
“We haven’t even eaten. I?—”
She cut me off. “Can you drive me or not? I need to get out of here. I have a lot to think about.”
We drove to the house in silence. It was in my nature to always look on the bright side, but in this particular situation, I had nothing. I kept my mouth closed and let her think.
Before she got out of my pick-up, I turned to her and spoke. “I’m not even gonna try to talk you outta whatever space you’re in mentally and emotionally. You need to think what you think and feel what you feel. You need the space to deal with whatever. Just tell me if you still want to run in the morning. Just because the 5k is over doesn’t mean we have to stop running.”
“I still want to run. I’ll see you in the morning.”
The next dayafter we finished running and stopped by the Jackson Falls Juice Company for our post-workout juice shots, Bailey admitted to me that she didn’t feel up to doing manual labor at the bed and breakfast.
