“It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few are shocked by deceit.” That was an amazing quote that I read last week by Noel Coward and as I mapped out today’s events I found it rather fitting. On the first and third day of each month, Titus and his crew worked in overdrive flipping cash and collecting monies due to them. These were the days Titus had dubbed as his fundraisers. They were the days that most of their customers got paid, so in essence it was their payday, as well.
I loved the first through the third, not because of the money, but because I didn’t have to worry about Titus or any of his goon heads tagging along behind me or snooping around in my business, especially if I wanted to go somewhere. I got out of bed early, around seven in the morning, brushed my teeth, and poured me a tall glass of water. I have a few things to check up on, and if my suspicion was on point, today would be as good a day as any other day to set things off the right way, I thought.
After showering and applying a nice body butter to my skin, I dressed in a peach form-fitting tank top, Bermuda Gucci pants with the matching Gucci black shades, Gucci purse, and Gucci shoes, to boot. Back in my bedroom, I surveyed myself in the mirror and did my rendition of Jay-Z’s ‘Ya Girl is Back.’ I was a natural born showstopper.
“Sorry, haters, ya’ girl is back,” I said to no one in particular, with swagger pushing one hundred and twenty percent. I collected my purse, keys and shades from my dresser and hit the road. My naturally wavy hair bounced in the wind as I crossed the Alabama-Georgia line on I-85 headed in Lee County’s direction. The crisscross twists that my stylist had designed in the front if my hair were absolutely gorgeous.
This was it. This was the day of reckoning. It had finally come. The reason for my early morning rising and outing? I had not heard from Rhonda in three weeks, nor had I heard from Titus in two days. I had a pretty good notion that Rhonda’s house would be where I could find my husband. My destination was to her upscale townhouse division on the north side of Auburn – Regis Square Homes. Every time I asked her how she could afford to live in that townhouse, she would say, “I have my ways.” Yeah, I bet she did have one way. Mr. Wilson – my worst half.
For the first time since I caught him red handed with Rhonda last month, Titus hadn’t bothered to come home or call for an entire weekend. And when I called him – just like the bad ole’ days – my calls went straight to voicemail. I’d called Street to find out what was going on, but he only assured me that Titus was okay. He gave me some lame story about Titus saying that he would be out of touch for the weekend, because he had some business to handle on the west side. If that was true, then why couldn’t he just pick up the phone and tell me that? I could tell Street was caught off guard when I had called because he had a hard time putting that story of no substance together.
I sent up a silent prayer as I pulled into Rhonda’s apartment complex, praying to the God above that I would not find my husband’s car on the lot. “Lord, please don’t let my husband’s car be in this parking lot. Please Lord, keep them honest, if only this once. Lord, hear my call.”
Hoping for a tiny bit of leniency from the powers up above, I prayed that neither of my husband’s cars would be in my best friend’s parking lot. This was the first time in years that I had gone out checking behind Titus. I had learned that this type of behavior only led to heartache in the past. Unfortunately prayer wasn’t enough to stop the treachery. As sure as shit stinks, his car was not only on the lot, but it was parked directly in front of Rhonda’s apartment door as if it was his own personal parking space. These muthafuckas just bold with their little fling! I thought. I knew that if Titus was comfortable enough to flaunt his affair with Rhonda at least half of the town, if not everyone in town, knew about it.
I sat in the car in a daze with my eyes fixed on Rhonda’s front door. In my mind, all I could see was Titus pinned against Rhonda’s living room wall as Rhonda gave him another Super Head job, like the one I witnessed on my security tape. Titus had the security system installed in case someone got froggy enough to want to break in and was dumb enough not to even think about erasing the security video after his little indiscretion. The video had been what verified what my eyes didn’t see. Obviously, Titus had forgotten all about the security cameras in every room in our home, probably because they were not installed for the purpose of making sex tapes like the one he and Rhonda starred in. Men are so sloppy with their cheating.
Derrick Simmons was on point with his movie, Women Do It Better. In affairs, women damn sure don’t tend to leave a trail of bread crumbs leading their husbands right to the scene of the crime in the middle of the crime. When a woman gets caught cheating, it’s because she was ready to be caught – ready to give up the marriage or relationship, anyway.
Knowing that Titus was so sloppy made me wonder, how did I miss all of the signs in the first place? I must have had a permanent pair of blinders on. I knew Rhonda could be scandalous, dating back to high school when she tipped under the bleachers with Carlton and thought I didn’t know about it. It wasn’t like I was in love with that boy, but it was messed up that she had sex with him and didn’t have the decency to tell me about their little escapade under the bleachers. We told each other everything, but it took a random female to tell me about the Carlton ordeal. She just wanted to give me the heads up on Rhonda.
At the time, I didn’t want to believe it, and so I minimized it. But like they say, what’s done in the dark always comes to light – when you least expect it to. As I thought about it, as long as we had been friends, as soon as I told her that I liked a dude, she would start catching some kind of feelings for him. Once a snake always a snake! Sitting in the car hotter than the first round out of a shotgun,
I yelled, “This should be an interesting confrontation. I hope they’re ready!”
Once my heart rhythm returned to normal and my breathing went from erratic to near calm, I shut off the car engine and gave myself a once over in the mirror. Finding the confidence to complete my mission, I gave myself a quick pep talk. “Go on and handle your business, Shay. What they are doing is foul,” I told myself.
I opened the car door, got out, and walked toward Rhonda’s front door. I knocked and saw the blinds quickly rise and fall, but no one answered the knock. After a minute or two of beating on the front door, I still got no answer. My blood pressure was shooting up, and I was seeing red.
I knocked harder this time, screaming, “Ronnie, I know you’re in there, so open the got damn door, bitch! And tell my trifling ass husband to get out of there, now. Both of you cheating and conniving bastards are not worth the air you’re breathing!”
There I said it, without warning and unapologetic. My true feelings were in the air. And “it” whatever “it” was, was about to be set off. Then I heard noise that sounded like people bumping into furniture inside of the apartment. Oh, to say I startled them would be an understatement. I knocked again, but this time more calmly. Attempting to steady my voice, I bellowed, “Your cars are out here, Titus and Rhonda. Plus, I saw you peeping out the blinds, Rhonda, so open up this door! Face me like a woman.”
Even though I knew the real reason that I was standing in front of my best friend’s door banging and cursing like a wild woman, I had a twisted hope that I would find out that Titus wasn’t actually over Rhonda’s house for what I thought he was. I almost wanted there to be some sort of lame explanation for him being gone away from home for two days. I wanted him to tell me something believable regarding why I found him at Rhonda’s townhouse. The thought that I would now get the hard truth was still too painful to bear. To manifest that thought fully to the end would be giving in to the reality that my husband was having an affair with the woman that had been like my sister since I was a child. The commotion I was causing outside of Rhonda’s apartment door must have gotten Titus’ attention, because I heard my husband’s groggy morning voice ask, “What’s that noise, baby?”
To say that I was enraged hearing him ask her that question would be an understatement. Suddenly, the rage blew up inside of me, and before I knew anything, I was full body ramming the door repeatedly with all of the force I had in me. If things were about to go down like I thought they were, I was about to lose my natural born mind. “Open up this door, Rhonda! Titus!” I demanded, banging as quickly as my little hands would move. I heard Rhonda tell Titus, “It’s her.”
“Who?”
“Shayla.”
“Shit!” Titus said, and then had the nerve to open the door like he was the man of the house. He was calm and collected, as if he was supposed to be there at 9 in the morning. “Heeeeeyyy, babe! What are you doing over here?” he went in for a kiss and stroked the loose strands of my hair back into place. I quickly yanked back and shot him a disgusted look.
“What am I doing here? That’s a neat trick, muthafucka! The question is what are you doing here? And don’t act like I don’t know you’re sleeping with that tramp that calls herself my sister.” I turned my attention to Rhonda. “You have worse things coming to you in life than eating second off my plate. You are messing with God’s child and screwing over your blessings, which is the worst thing you could ever do to yourself. I was a true friend to your low life, trifling self. For years! I loved you like you were my blood, and gave anything to you I had. This – sleeping with my husband – is how you repay me?”
Taking control of the situation, Titus stepped in front of me, but by that time I was all in Rhonda’s face. I wanted her to say one wrong word, and it was going to be a massacre in her high-priced townhouse. Instead of saying anything, this heifer, standing there in a pink negligee, threw her hands in the air, turned away from me, and walked off.
“Oh, no you didn’t! Don’t you walk your tramp ass away from me. I’m not done with you yet. You’re always trying to walk around acting ghetto, so get ghetto bitch! I will show your evil ass how it’s done for real.” I tried to push my way around Titus to get to her, but he grabbed my arm.
“Shayla, calm down. You’re out of line.” He started stroking my hair again, as if he possessed the power to calm me down. I knew then that he had me messed up, too. I yanked my arm nearly out of the socket to get it away from his hold.
“Negro, please! You have not been home all weekend, and I find you at Rhonda’s house early Monday, calling her baby?! She’s wearing practically no clothing when you open her front door. Is this shit supposed to be normal?”
I shot Rhonda a your-ass-is-mines’ look, because as soon as Titus wasn’t standing between us, I was going to school her on messing with your sister’s man. I then went back to reading Titus like a book, “All bright and early Monday morning, you’re over here and got the nerve to ask me what I’m doing here? What are you doing here nigga? Don’t even answer that. I know the answer!”
From the looks of Titus, I would have guessed that that he was just stopping through. He was fully dressed in his black Ecko T-shirt and jeans, black Timberlands and Atlanta Falcon cap. But Rhonda’s pink silk negligee that barely covered her torso told the true story. While Titus was holding me back and attempting to talk to me, Rhonda had gone to her bedroom and came back up the hall wearing sweat pants and a t-shirt. And she must have put on some nerves in her bedroom, too, because she jumped in the conversation I was having with my husband, saying, “Shayla, you are so over reacting, as usual, sweetie. Calm down, and let the man speak, and maybe you’ll know something. Otherwise, you are going to have to keep it moving with the drama, and get up out of here.” She yawned and acted completely bored with my whole façade. She stood in my face like everything was honky dory after she just had a pink negligee, shear robe, NO PANTIES, and some hot pink stilettos on! Dressed like a straight hooker with my husband at her house… early in the morning… after he’s been gone all weekend… and after she sucked him off in my living room! This outfit was definitely not what friends were for.
Oh, and don’t you just hate when someone calls you “sweetie” in the middle of a disagreement? Talk about patronizing. They actually wanted me to believe that I was the one acting crazy. No, it was Titus and Rhonda that were ready for the Oscars, but I was about to show them something.