The last time I was jealous was when WAG Watch leaked the picture of AJ’s side chick’s positive pregnancy test. AJ didn’t even quell any of my jealousy afterward, though. He just scolded me for caring that he gave another woman something that should’ve been reserved for me. After that, I learned how to hide my jealousy so well that it only bubbled to the surface but never leaked out. Now, it’spouringout, and Rich Lovelace knows another damn embarrassing thing about me: I’m a jealous woman.
I chuckle under my breath as a plane flies over the downtown skyline, flashing its lights into the dark sky. My stomach jolts as if I’m on it, heading to a new place I’ve never been.
“What you over there laughing at?” Rich asks, stifling a yawn.
“You want to know something?”
“Mhmm…” he hums back. “Tell me, mama.”
“You’re boring—like insanelyboring…and if you ever tell anybody else how boring you actually are, I’ll have a problem with that. You know that, right?” I laugh harder.
He shakes his head, laughing. “Nobody cares enough to even figure that out about me. I told you not everybody is as tender…or jealous over me like you are—not even Rasheeda.”
“I guess I’m really not so tough after all, huh? I can’t be tough with all these tender and jealous feelings swirling inside me.”
“You can have feelings and still be tough. Sometimes we need both ends of the spectrum to balance us out. We can’t be all good and all bad, or all hard and all soft. The balance makes us tougher. And I ain’t pouring?—”
“Sugar over shit. I know.” I smile. “So you think therearesome good in men, then?”
“Yeah,” he replies with a sigh. “But it don’t change the fact that we all still stupid—still too angry, still have too much power, and still want too much control.”
For the first time in my life, I think I understand Rich’s strange ideology about men, but there’s a problem. He’s the exception to that ideology, but he doesn’t want to be.
I giggle. “You’re such a misandrist.”
He reaches over, squeezing my cheeks. “And you such a nerd. I hope your kids are just as nerdy and jealous over their daddy as you are.”
Another pesky feeling sneaks from that clusterfuck in my stomach and makes me shift in my seat. I can’t put my finger on this one, but it’s heavy even though I know he’s not talking about fathering my phantom babies. He’s talking about some strange future man who’s supposed to come sweep me off my feet and love me more than I love him.
Just as the light turns green, that familiar face Aunt Faye waves at and slips money to every time she sees her, stumbles into the street. Her blonde wig sits on top of her head in a sad, wet, crooked heap. She’s less zombie-like tonight, and that makes me feel better.
I push my face against the window to get a better look at her before we drive off. Our eyes meet just like they did when I was in the back of Christophe’s Uber. She waves, ignoring the crosswalk and ambling toward Rich’s truck with her red Solo Cup dangling from her hand.
I reach down into my purse that’s on the floor between my legs and as soon as I curl my hand around one of Rich’s crisp hundred-dollar bills, he flicks his blinking light on, turning his wheel to make a left.
“Wait,” I blurt. “Don’t le?—”
He lays on his horn just as a sporty BMW speeds toward her.
“What the fuck?” he belts.
I brace myself against the dashboard while the BMW’s tires let out a piercing screech. The car jerks to a stop as soon as she lifts her arms to cover her frail body.
Rich shoves his truck’s gearshift into park and slams his hand on the driver’s side door, rolling my window down at the same time the BMW’s driver’s side window rolls down.
A young boy pushes his hood-covered head out and his big, red eyes dance across my face then dart behind me toward Rich.
He holds his arms up with his phone curled in his hand like he’s ready to be frisked while a TikTok plays in a mindless loop. The annoying music from the video blasts through his speakers and fills the awkward silence between us.
“My fault, Pup!” he yells over the music. “I…I was lookin down at my phone and when I looked up, she was right there. I swear to God I wouldn’t do no crazy shit like that, man.”
He pushes the car into park, keeping one arm hanging out of the window. I swing my head between him, a hard-eyed Rich, and the lady as she hobbles over to the driver’s side of Rich’s truck with her chapped lips set in a frown.
The boy gets out, and two more cars glide up to the intersection, laying on their horns as they swerve to miss him walking toward us.
“You know my daddy…Terrell,” he says with a wild look in his eyes. “He be down at Lucky’s. They call him Big T.”
He approaches my open window, and my palms grow misty at the harsh way his chest rises and falls. It’s the same wayWendell’s chest moved when I watched from behind Beatrice’s screen door while he talked to Rich.
