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  Anna caught Jacob off guard and gave him a hug. “Thanks, Mr. Marsh.”

  When she pulled away he said, “Listen, Anna—”

  She cut him off. “Look, Mr. Marsh. You don’t have to say a thing. I know. I will not breathe a word about any of this. I know that you could get into trouble, and believe me, I just want to put the whole thing behind me, starting today.” She winked at Jacob and said, “This will be our little secret.”

  Her words made him uneasy, but he prayed with all his heart that she meant them. Thirty seconds later, he heard her car start up and he looked out his window, hoping none of his neighbors saw her leave. Not that they would have known that she was a senior in high school who had just spent the night at her teacher’s home. Nevertheless, he hoped the onetime sleepover would have no witnesses.

  When my phone rang at ten minutes to seven, it startled the hell out of me. I had drifted back to sleep after Erin left and was dreaming of my ex again, and thought the call was part of a good dream. When I answered it without hesitation I called her name. I was thrilled that she’d decided to give me another chance. “Alicia, baby, what’s up?”

  “Diego, what did you call me?”

  “Huh?” I said in a groggy voice.

  “Listen up.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Diego.” She yelled this time and snapped me out of it. “Wake up. This is serious.”

  I caught her voice. It was Erin. “I’m up. I’m up.”

  “I was coming in from your house, and when I got to my building that nigga was in the bushes.”

  “What bushes?”

  “He was outside my apartment hiding in the bushes. My neighbor said he had been out there since like midnight.”

  I looked over at my clock. Erin had left my house almost two hours earlier. “So why you calling me now?”

  “The nigga wouldn’t let me go inside. He kept me in the parking lot talking to me. Hitting my head with questions that he didn’t want to know the answer to.”

  “Yeah,” I squeaked out.

  “He kept asking me who I was with.”

  I sat up in the bed, and if I had time to pray, I would have done so before asking nervously, “You didn’t say me, did you?”

  “Of course not. But he did end up snatching my cell phone before he left, and if he scrolls through my call log, he may see your name and that I called you a few times today and right after I called him the last time to say I was going out. I’m not sure, but he might call you.”

  In my head I said it. Oh, fuck. I figured she was going through enough herself and I didn’t want to pile it on any thicker. “So are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m cool.”

  “So, what was the outcome of it all?”

  “He says he knows I was fucking someone. He kept telling me he wanted to smell my pussy and dumb shit like that.”

  “So did he break up with you?”

  “I’m not even sure. I’m going to sleep, though. I just wanted to give you a heads-up in case he calls. I’m sorry for getting you involved in this.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. On the real, I was pissed. This nigga had my number and now I was trying to think of ways that I could avoid the drama.

  An hour later I pulled up into the parking lot at the same time as Lisa. She greeted me with “What’s up, bitch? How are you this morning?” Noticing an unusual look of anguish on my face, she changed her tone and came with, “What’s wrong with you this morning? You look tired.”

  “Drama.” I sighed. “I got it.”

  “I told you about them hookers.” Noticing my total lack of enthusiasm for any conversation, she added, “Well, at least we don’t have any students today. Get your report cards handed in and get the hell out of here.”

  I grunted a response and headed in to work.

  A couple hours passed before Jacob had the opportunity to meet up with Dean. He’d been tied up in meetings all morning, but the whole time Jacob was obsessing over how things would go when he got the chance to confront Dean.

  When they were inside Jacob’s office, Jacob stepped to his student teacher as if he was talking to a thug in the streets. “Yo, man. What the hell is wrong with you?” His voice was threatening and the look on his face was unlike anything the young man had ever seen from his instructor before.

  Dean was literally in tears as Jacob delivered the news to him. He looked Jacob right in the eyes and said, “I swear I didn’t rape her.”

  “Well, that’s not what she said.”

  “Mr. Marsh, I did just like you told me to. She did it willingly.”

  Jacob stood up from his desk and walked up to Dean. “I’m going to ask you this one time. Think really hard.”

  Dean nodded. “Okay.”

  “Did she at any time tell you no or say ‘stop’?”

  Dean stared back into Jacob’s eyes. In his heart he knew that he hadn’t raped Anna. Or had he? He recalled her saying no and perhaps even “stop” a time or two amid the passion, but he hadn’t forced her. As his mind replayed the session over and over, he recalled more clearly her saying the words to him as he was thrusting away; he looked down at the floor in self-disgust and that was enough for Jacob.

  “Dean, you let me down. Have your program coordinator call me. I won’t tell her the real reason why, but we’ll have you reassigned, effective Monday. I’m sorry.”

  “What’s going to happen?”

  “Well, lucky for you, Anna doesn’t want to go to the police with this and you’ll still be able to graduate. As long as you don’t press the issue about whether you’re guilty or innocent, you should be okay. But the last thing you want to do is wind up with a Kobe situation facing you. Without his kind of money, you’d be done. Your teaching career will be over before it starts. Now, if I was you, I’d never discuss this with another living soul. It’s over.”

  With that, Dean packed his things and left the school. Though in his mind he hadn’t raped Anna, he realized that it was her word against his. As a black man in America, he was better off running with his tail tucked between his legs.

  Jacob sat down at his desk and stared at the wall, in deep thought. By today he had planned to have Anna off of his scent and hot onto Dean’s. Things had gone way to the left, and instead of her becoming fuckbuddies with someone else, she’d managed to get dangerously closer to him overnight.

  Anna was sitting in her car drinking a Red Bull as she saw Dean leave the school with his bags in hand and his head to the ground. He walked across the parking lot and headed to the bus stop, his future in a state of sad upheaval. Anna’s smile turned into a laugh as she pulled off and said to herself, “See you round, sucker.”

  7

  Protect Ya Neck

  I’d been watching my cell phone all day. Every time it rang, my heart skipped a beat and I’d think it was Erin’s man Kenard. When it rang five minutes before I was ready to head out the door, immediately I dreamed up a scenario where he was going to tell me which door to come out of, where he’d be waiting with his weapon of choice. A pistol, a knife, maybe a baseball bat. As visions of me on top of his lady played through my mind, I barely looked at the screen of the phone as I hit the answer button. I hope the bitch was worth it, I heard him saying to me as he caught me by surprise. I shook the thoughts from my head as I answered, “Yeah.”

  “Yo,” the voice on the other end said.

  It was Jacob. “What’s up, man?”

  “Everything. I had the night from hell and today wasn’t much better.”

  “You serious? I thought you had a date with what’s-her-face.”

  “Kendra. Yeah, I did. Everything was looking lovely, too, till I got a knock at my door.”

  “What you mean?”

  “Listen, some crazy shit went down. I need to talk to you,” he said. “I’m…I…um.” Jacob was stumbling out his words. “I might be in some trouble at work. I don’t want to talk on the phone.”

  I wanted to share my own drama with Er
in, but I didn’t. Jacob’s voice was shaking and it wasn’t like him to fold under pressure. “Sure, so what time you want to hook up? Should I come scoop you?”

  “That’ll be cool,” he responded. “I’ll be home by five, so five-thirty, quarter till six.”

  Just then it crossed my mind that I’d told Lisa that I would escort her to a function downtown. Jacob’s situation took precedence, but there was a chance I could kill two birds with one stone, “Listen, do you mind if we go have a drink in the city? Lisa’s husband’s company is sponsoring some reception down at the Black Caucus. He’s one of the hosts and gave her some extra tickets, she asked if I would come, but she has like four extra tickets. You have to wear a jacket.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” He didn’t sound thrilled, but it was clear he just needed to talk.

  “Okay, I’ll see you in a bit.”

  Five minutes after I hung up the phone, Lisa walked in my room. “Hey, Papi.” She had a thousand pet names. One minute it was “bitch,” the next it was “fag.” She was nuts.

  “Hey,” I responded. “Listen, Jacob is going with us tonight. You don’t mind? Do you?”

  “Did you already invite him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter if I mind anyway. As long as you two doo-doo chasers aren’t late, I don’t care. What about your brother’s punk ass?”

  “What about him?”

  “I got Lee a ticket. You asked for one last week.”

  “Oh yeah. I did. No wonder he called me last night.”

  She pursed her lips and said, “Yeah, if you weren’t so busy with your whores—”

  I cut her off. “Okay, I may have him just meet us down there. I have to pick up Jacob, then I’ll be by to get you.”

  “Diego,” she said.

  “If you’re late, I’ll fuck you up. It starts at seven.”

  “Okay, I got you. Gimme an aspirin. I’m getting a headache.”

  “You better smoke some chronic, and get rid of that pressure. You been walking around here like you got a brick stuck in your ass all day.”

  I nodded and waved her off. “You got one or no?”

  Lisa dug in her purse and tossed a bottle of Motrin at me. “There’s only two left in there.”

  “Cool.”

  In the hustle of the week, Lisa’s event had almost slipped my mind. Luckily, when I looked in my closet I had two suits fresh from the cleaners. I put on the tan, Donna Karan, single-buttoned, and grabbed a pair of Gucci loafers. I couldn’t find a pair of socks, so I headed for the dirty-clothes hamper to dig out the pair with the least amount of funky flavor.

  I sniffed three pairs before finding a set that I could live with.

  I dialed Jacob’s number. “I’m on the way,” I said. Heading out the door, I peeped up the block a little, paranoid for no reason. Kenard had no reason to suspect that there was anything up with me and his girl. I didn’t know any other teachers who stepped outside the bounds the way I routinely did. Maybe a little on-the-job romance, but parents and teachers were only supposed to get together for conferences. There was no way Kenard should have thought otherwise. As long as Erin stuck to her story, I was good.

  I blasted my Lyfe Jennings CD as loud as my factory stereo would permit and rolled back the moonroof of my Beemer.

  I hit the horn and Jacob walked out of his house as if he’d been waiting on the other side of the door. He was sporting a dark blue suit, a crisp white dress shirt, even a rocking white silk tie. He had a plastic cup in his hand when he opened my car door.

  “You’re looking real clean, bruh man.”

  “Yeah, well believe I look better than I feel.”

  “You didn’t need the tie,” I said, pointing to his collar. “Unless you running for Congress or some shit.”

  “Didn’t you say formal?” I nodded. “Well, formal means wear a tie, my nigga.” He shook his head in disgust with my lack of couth.

  As we backed out of his driveway he spilled a few drops of his drink on his knee and said, “Damn.”

  “Napkins right there.” He reached into the pockets on the door and began wiping the drops on his pants.

  As we hit the corner to exit his parking lot, I looked out of my rearview mirror and could have sworn I saw someone climbing out from behind his bushes. I didn’t say a word. My mind is gone, I thought. I was cutting Erin off first thing in the morning. Thoughts of getting caught up were wearing me out.

  “You want some of this? I got an extra cup.” He had pulled a pint of VSOP out of my inside jacket pocket.

  “Yeah, that’s on point.” He poured a couple shots into a cup for me.

  As we hit the Baltimore-Washington Parkway he went right into the drama that was unfolding for him. I couldn’t believe it as he disclosed how he’d orchestrated a plan that had gone so far off course.

  “Jake, man…” I paused. I didn’t want to come down on him, but he and I always kept it real. “You too smart for that. Why didn’t you just go to your principal and let him know that the kid was making you uncomfortable?”

  “I can’t really tell you. You never know how these things are going to turn out. I guess I wasn’t really sure if I’d done anything to lead her on.”

  I tilted my head in confusion. “So what you sayin’? You didn’t…”

  “C’mon, Diego. Hell no. But I did let her hang around a lot. She was grading papers, cleaning the room, and just being useful. The next thing I knew, she was a friend. You know how women do.”

  “Yeah, but still.”

  We went back and forth over the details and his options. Jacob had always been there for me. He had consoled me for the last couple of months. Just listening when I felt like venting about Alicia. So I returned the favor and never even got to mention what I was going through.

  In the end, my advice was going to be the same that he had just given me. “Pass out them fucking umbrellas, baby boy.”

  8

  Knocking Opportunity’s Boots

  People were standing around looking important and elegant. A few men were actually in tuxes, and I could have sworn I’d seen a sister in a mink stole. There were bars set up all around and Vivian Green was performing, trying to loosen up the somewhat stiff crowd. Lisa’s husband, Derrick, had gotten us a table in a prime location in the center of the ballroom, making it easy for us to people-watch. Mostly, though, I sat and listened to Jacob go on and on about the situation he faced. As I talked him through every imaginable scenario he frowned and grimaced as he focused on the worst that could happen.

  Finally he came to the realization that he was going do his best to keep the whole situation under wraps. He ended up trying to relax and had enjoyed a couple glasses of cognac when Lisa showed up and asked, “What’s wrong with you?”

  He tried to act normal, but she sensed that he wasn’t his usual upbeat self. It wasn’t long before she had him opening up. Now that another person was willing to listen to him, he opened up the floodgates of his woes. The next thing I knew, my brother, Lee, had shown up and I knew the round-table discussion was about to kick off.

  It wasn’t like I wasn’t glad to see Lee. In fact, I’d invited him out, but truthfully, I was surprised that he’d been able to get out of the house. Ever since he’d been married, he’d become somewhat of a henpecked bitch, to put it lightly. On top of that, he was a born-again, which was cool, but he tended to get a little preachy, given the opportunity.

  “Jacob’s an ignorant son of a bitch,” Lisa had said, laughing. “So you got the bitch raped? I don’t want to hear any more of this scandalous shit.” She was on her third glass of champagne.

  “Jacob, you got to put this in the hands of the Lord, man. He knows your heart,” Lee had chimed in after hearing the quick and dirty version from Lisa. “Check it. Before we even see the problem, He has already provided us with a way out.”

  Hearing that, I excused myself. “I’m gonna take a walk. You comin’, Jake?”

  “Nah, I�
��m good. I’ma talk to Lee for a minute.”

  Assuming he wanted to get a different perspective from my brother, I made my way out of the ballroom for some air. The D.C. Convention Center was humongous and the Black Caucus had put together a week’s worth of events. None of which I planned to attend after this one. This reception was for the media, and people from all over the country were in attendance, but mostly it seemed there were people who belonged here.

  I was a schoolteacher and had no desire to network with these people. Unless someone here was going to get me a raise for being overworked and underappreciated, there wasn’t much for me other than the drinks and the free concert. I made my way to the bar and pulled out the free-drink tickets that Lisa had given me and ordered a double shot of Hennessy and Coke to wash it down.

  I stepped outside the bar and made my way across the expansive carpeted hallway. The whole side of the building was glass and it was a beautiful night. I walked over to a window and stared down to the street below. A flow of cars passed underneath and just across the street there was a well-lit park with a historical look to it.

  The difference between the loud music inside the ballroom and the peace of the lobby sent my mind swirling. All of a sudden I had time to think. I found myself looking down into that park wishing that I was down there with someone I cared about. With Alicia.

  I missed her. No one knew how much. Sure, I’d talked to Jacob, Lisa, my mom, and even my barber, but not a soul truly knew how much it hurt me that we weren’t together. I had spent the last couple of months thinking about how I’d done nearly everything possible to ruin our relationship. I’d fucked other women and possibly gotten one pregnant. I’d allowed the dirt I’d done in the streets to follow me home, which broke rule numero uno of the player’s code.

  Looking back on it all, I wished that I had simply jerked my dick off because, truthfully, all the pussy I’d gotten just didn’t seem worth it now. Women never understood that at the time men just didn’t know that. It’s like we have to see it to believe it. But now that I’d punched that ticket, I was out in the cold.