Later that evening Robin’s mother, Bernadette, insisted on watching the girls so that Monique could take Robin out to dinner to clear her head. Ross and Sterling had called to invite themselves to dinner, so they all agreed to meet up at Catherine’s, a small southern cuisine restaurant located on the seedier side of town. The food was well worth the drive and the staff treated its customers like their money mattered, even if they could only afford a two-dollar chicken sandwich. It was a Saturday night so the restaurant was packed and there was a twenty-minute wait for a table. The girls signed in with the hostess and waited in the lobby for the guys to arrive. Robin talked excessively about her plans to purchase a new condo and how she wanted to remodel it. She seemed extremely excited and to Monique she appeared to have forgotten all about the issues she was having with her husband.
“I looked at one on Rivendale Drive and it was really nice, but the kitchen needs some work. I would definitely have to call a contractor to come in to install new cabinets, countertops and I definitely would have to get new tiles for the floors.” Robin said, her eyes staring off into space undoubtedly imagining what her kitchen would look like after she’d finished her renovations.
“Robin, are you sure you should be buying a new condo? It hasn’t even been two weeks since you and Jay separated. Maybe you should just keep staying at my house until things between you and Jay calm down. I mean you guys could still get back together. You-“ Monique started.
“Jay and I are over, done, finished!” Robin interrupted, her mood quickly shifting from pleasant to somewhat bitter. She snapped, “There’s nothing he can do to undo this baby situation, so there’s nothing he could ever do that would make me even think about forgiving him”
“Damn Robin,” Monique said with just enough disappointment in her tone to really get Robin’s mood to shift from bitter to angry. She continued saying, “You aren’t even going to try to save your marriage after all of the crying and constant going back and forth you were doing last week. Y’all have been together for a long time and even through all of the ups and downs you two have always been able to work things out. Now you’re talking about buying a new home. It just doesn’t make any sense.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Robin huffed refusing to let Monique carry the conversation any further, “I’m sorry but weren’t you the one telling me how he wasn’t shit a couple of weeks ago and now you’re talking about me not trying to save my marriage. You need to make up you mind about what side of the fence you want to be on, because either you think he’s a low down dirty s.o.b and you want to help me move on with my life or you thinks he’s a poor guy who made a mistake, in which case you need to be over there rubbing his hand and feeding him a dose of this bullshit that your trying to feed me! ”
“Okay, let’s get one thing straight. I’m talking about you rushing out to buy a house when you haven’t made any plans or made any real effort to even get a separation, let alone a divorce!” Monique snapped back her voice elevating enough to cause stares from the other patrons waiting to be seated. She continued, “So, I’m not feeding you any B.S.! I’m feeding you reality! The reality of the situation is that you just want to buy a house so that you don’t have to deal with what’s going on in your life. You have some nerve to stand in here and snap on me for asking you a practical question.”
“Okay, would you please lower your voice,” Robin said noticing the staring eyes of the other customers. She lowered her voice hoping it would encourage Monique to do the same saying, “ I’m sorry that I snapped at you like that. I just have a lot of things on my mind and this stuff with Jay…I’m sorry. It was directed towards you but it was meant for Jay.” She giggle which cause the wrinkles in her cousin’s forehead to disappear, so she continued, “And just for your information, I hired J.C. Winters to represent me in the divorce and not only is she a no nonsense kinda girl, but she was referred to me by Melody Montgomery, so you know she’s good. I filed my petition for divorce yesterday.”
“Melody Montgomery? When did you talk to her?” Monique asked careful to change her tone to a more empathetic one.
“I was at lunch with mommy one day last week. I think it was Tuesday…” she said pausing as if she were trying to pinpoint the date in her mind. She then continued, “Yes…it was Tuesday, because that’s when mommy got her hair done. Anyway, we were having lunch at Chloe’s and in walks Melody Montgomery, all diamond studded, bling blinging like a celebrity. She sees mommy and just about dies. They’re both screaming and squealing like high school girls…I was so embarrassed. Finally, she sits down and they just start blabbing away…nonstop gossip of course. Well, mommy starts telling her about me and Jay…even about the outside baby. I wanted to slap her…that is until Ms. Melody started talking about how I should hire this top divorce lawyer in her husband’s firm named J.C Winters. Oh and then she started talking about her goddaughter…you know, Nikki and how J.C. Winters is representing her also. Anyway, she keeps talking about her goddaughter with her sorry husband and how she put her husband out without a dime. She was saying how Nikki was having a hard time getting her daughter to understand what was going on and how Nikki’s parents want her to give Ricardo another chance. She said Nikki won’t have anything to do with Ricardo and won’t even accept his phone calls. I guess, she said Tia could have his sorry ass. Mrs. Montgomery kept talking and I kept listening, Honey. You know that I was all ears to hear about someone else’s troubles.”
“Well, you know today was my first day at the shop so they had us come in and paint the last wall as some kind of sentimental togetherness exercise or something. Anyway, Ricardo shows up and he’s all over Nikki, you know hugging her, kissing her on the cheeks and neck. Well when I was setting up the rest of my stuff in my booth, I overheard them talking and Ricardo suggested that they go over to Tia house since it was right around the corner. I started to call Tia and tell her but I don’t want to get in the middle of their mess. But what kind of dirty man would take someone to another girl’s house for sex and what kind of girl would go. I guess Nikki figures it’s just one more way that she can get back at Tia and he is technically still her husband.”
“Rico ain’t shit and Nikki ought to be ashamed of her nasty self. Why is she taking her anger out on Tia? Tia isn’t the one she should be mad with. She should just worry about getting back at Ricardo’s sorry ass but she over there laying up with him, rewarding him and punishing Tia. I can’t believe they went over to that girl’s house to do it. Nikki just never seemed like the kind of girl that would do some crap like that”
“I guess she figures she’s done all she can do to him. You know he ain’t got no money of his own. I heard she got him fired…you know her uncle owns Secur-Corp. Hell, he probably owes her every penny he makes anyway. I heard she has him under contract to pay her back for paying off his student loans. Plus, you know she has to feel betrayed by Tia. They were best friends growing up and Tia even helped get them together. Hell, she was the maid of honor in the girl’s wedding. I’d be pissed too.”
“That’s right. I don’t know how I forgot that Tia was in her wedding. In that case, I would have layed my religion down and beat her ass.” Robin replied seemingly shocked by this bit of information. “Dang, but she took everything he had didn’t she?” Robin giggled. The darkest part of her heart wished that she could do something like that to Jay, but she had done all that she had planned to do. She had cried, screamed and tried to wish it all away to no avail. For years she had felt as if she were trying to make herself stay in love with Jay to hold her family together, but now that she didn’t have to, she felt as if a weight has been lifted.
“Just about.” Monique replied her voice trailing off. She had had just about enough of talking about divorce when she couldn’t even find a man to take her on a date. “What are you going to ask for in the divorce?”
“I don’t want nothing from Jay, but a divorce.” Robin said as if she had given the subject some thought. She wanted child support but not from Jay. She decided that she would make a clean break from Jay, allowing sleeping dogs to lie and letting him carry on with his other family.
“What…why?” Monique puzzled but not completely shocked. Ever since Robin’s comment about telling Jay who Justine really belonged to, she had been expecting some kind of confession from Robin. Still she hadn’t gotten one and she didn’t intend to ask Robin, but she did want to try to force the truth out of her.
“I just don’t.” Robin said hunching her shoulders. She wanted to end the conversation before she had allowed too much to slip out. She had already said too much the other night and she hadn’t planned to say anymore. Her secret was her own and she was prepared to take it to the grave. She knew Monique wouldn’t let it go that easily, so she was glad to hear their name being called for a table. Robin could see Monique forming a question in her mind but she considered herself saved when she saw Sterling and Ross walk in with an unexpected guest close behind…Velle.
Monique felt her stomach doing flip-flops as her cousins announced that her new boss would be joining them for dinner. She tried to remain emotionless as he first greeted Robin with a kiss on her cheek, and then made his way over to her to do the same. To her surprise, his gentle kiss sent tiny tingles down her spine. She tried not to blush when he took her hand, held it and just stared at her smiling. She didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t say anything. She just gently pulled her hand away from his placing it inside her jacket.
During dinner the group reminisced about when they were in high school and laughed about the hijinks that had gotten the guys in mounds of trouble in their youth. They talked about old sweethearts and heartaches, fights and lost friendships, failures and successes. Everyone had his or her own story to tell but Monique. Monique could only listen as she had been a model student and obeyed all of her aunt and uncles rules the entire time that she had lived with them. She would laugh when they laughed even though she sometimes didn’t quite get the joke. She enjoyed the conversation even though she couldn’t really be apart of it.
Velle was leading the conversation when somehow the topic of marriage and dating was brought up. Monique hadn’t said two words since they sat down to eat and he wanted to hear her voice so he directed his question to her saying, “When are you going to get married, Momo?”
Monique was completely caught off guard saying, “What…me…I’m…me. I’m not even dating anybody right now.” She said shoveling the remainder of her dinner around on her plate with her fork. His question had come completely out of left field and was certainly not the kind that she wanted to answer in front of her two older cousins, whom he thought of as her brothers.
Velle didn’t press the issue. He had gotten the answer that he wanted. She wasn’t dating anyone, which meant she was free to date him and that was just what he wanted to hear. She had fumbled over her words trying to give him an answer, which meant his question had thrown her in such a way that her answer could only have been the truth.
He found it almost impossible to keep his eyes off of her during dinner, as she was seated directly across from him. Everything about her made his blood race, from the cute way she laugh to the puzzled expression that washed over her face when she didn’t quite get a joke. Every now and then she would bite her bottom lip in such a manner that her found almost irresistible. She had a shy schoolgirl aura about her that he found extremely attractive. But it was those dark, sensual, bedroom eyes draped by butterfly lashes that seemed to be casting a spell on him. She was slowly seducing him and she didn’t even know it.
