Flyy Girl Page 2

  “Yeah, well, I’m gon’ tell you what, soon you ain’t gon’ need me, because I’m a little worn out from this dumb stuff.”

  Patti started to undress. “Dave, it ain’t all that bad.”

  “Yes the hell it is,” Dave snapped. “Matter fact, they’re not coming over here anymore. Period.”

  Patti stopped undressing and stared at him. “Why, Dave?”

  “Because I said so. That’s reason enough.”

  “Now you know that ain’t even fair,” Patti retorted. She caressed Dave’s chest under the sheets. Dave pulled her hand away and rolled over. “Baby, come on,” Patti pleaded.

  “No, now, get off of me.”

  Patti sighed and turned the other way.

  “Turn the TV off,” Dave demanded.

  “You’re the one that turned it on.”

  “I don’t care. You just got in bed. You’re not all that comfortable yet.”

  Patti stayed in the bed, refusing to move.

  Dave turned to face her. “What do you think, I’m playing? I told you to turn the shit off,” he snapped, nearly pushing her out of bed.

  Patti caught her balance to avoid falling onto the floor. She then went and turned the TV off. I don’t know who he think he is, she thought to herself as she strolled back to her side of the bed.

  “Are you satisfied now?”

  Dave was playing his ugly tough-guy role. He had learned it years ago to keep Patti in check. And Patti enjoyed pissing him off. It was her childish entertainment.

  Dave jumped up in an instant and grabbed her arm.

  “What are you doing?” Patti whined.

  “I’m tired of you playing that young-girl shit. You sleep on the damn couch tonight.”

  “Why?” Patti said, holding Dave gently by his waist. She gently squeezed him, hoping to turn him on.

  “Get off me, Patti. You’re a damn kid, girl, I swear,” he told her as he knocked her hands away.

  Patti shoved her breasts up against his chest. “Please, I’m sorry, baby,” she pleaded. She tried to plant a kiss on her husband’s lips. Dave turned away to avoid it.

  “No, get off of me,” he persisted, still trying to push her away.

  Patti sighed and began walking toward her daughter’s room.

  Dave asked, “Where are you going?”

  Patti teased him with a sly grin. “I’m going to sleep with my baby. She’s the only one that cares about me,” she told him.

  “Look, I’m gonna give you about two seconds to go downstairs and sleep on that damn couch, like I told you,” Dave warned her.

  Patti really knew how to get to her husband. She smirked and said, “Okay already.”

  Dave mugged her in the back of her head. “You think this shit is a damn joke, don’t you?” he asked her, pinning her to the hallway wall.

  “Now wait a minute, Dave, you’re hurting me.”

  “I’m hurting you? Shit, you’re hurting me with these stupid-ass games you play all the time,” Dave told her.

  “How the hell am I hurting you? It looks like you’re the one that has me pinned up against this damn wall,” Patti retorted.

  “Look, you’re fucking with my peace of mind, Patti. Now we’re damn near thirty years old. We’re getting too old for this role-playing shit.”

  Patti looked at him seriously for a moment. “Dave, you’re the one that started it. You could have turned that TV off yourself.”

  “Yeah, well I’m gonna end it, too.” He released the hold on his wife and walked back into his bedroom, locking the door in her face.

  Patti shook her head and grinned. She reminisced on the many other occasions where she had argued with her husband and ended up making sweaty love. Those were their best nights. She thought that maybe they would be having another one if she played along with him, but she was wrong.

  Dave was seriously fed up. He longed for a more mature woman who would cooperate with him instead of aggravating him and forcing him to play Mr. Sweet and Mr. Sour. In fact, Dave had become so good at it that he couldn’t tell the difference between his real self and his roles. He was beginning to feel like he was up for a living Academy Award.

  Patti fell asleep on her living-room couch and spent the night there. She had anticipated her husband coming down to carry her back to their bedroom and make passionate love to her. But it never happened.

  “Come on, Tracy, it’s time to get up,” Patti called.

  “Okay, mom,” Tracy answered, wiping out her eyes. She stepped out of her twin-sized bed and followed her mother to the hallway bathroom.

  “Did I wake you up from a dream, baby?” Patti asked her.

  “Yup. I was Cinderella, and the prince was just like dad.”

  “Just like dad? Well, didn’t you have a beautiful dream.”

  Tracy smiled and said, “Yup, mom.”

  “Well, let’s get you cleaned and dressed so you can eat your breakfast.”

  “Mommy?” Tracy asked, getting undressed for her bath.

  “Yes, Tracy.”

  “Why does dad never eat breakfast with us?”

  “Because he has to go to work early.”

  Patti helped her daughter into the tub.

  “Why does he have to go to work early?”

  “Because that’s his job, honey?”

  “Did you and dad fight last night, mommy?”

  “No,” Patti lied to her. “Why would you think that?”

  “Because I heard you and dad in the hall last night.”

  “Well, we were out in the hallway, but we weren’t really fighting.”

  Tracy looked in her mother’s hand mirror while getting toweled off. “Why my eyes different from yours, mommy?” she asked.

  “Because you got them from your father.”

  “Unt unh. Daddy’s eyes aren’t pointy like mine. And they shiny, too,” Tracy argued, still looking inside of the hand mirror.

  “Yes they are, Tracy. You just can’t notice them on your father as much as you can on you, because you’re lighter than your dad,” Patti explained.

  Tracy put her arm next to her mother’s arm to compare complexions. “I’m tanner than you, mommy,” she said.

  “Yup, you came right in between me and your father.”

  “How that happen?” Tracy asked, as her mother put on her new birthday clothes.

  “Ut oh, my daughter looks sharp to-day,” Patti said.

  Tracy smiled and spun around in her baby-blue dress. But she hadn’t forgotten her question. “Hunh, mommy, how’d that happen?” she persisted.

  “What?” Patti asked.

  “How did I get like this?” Tracy asked again. She raised her arms up high to show Patti her color.

  “You ask some complicated questions for a little girl, now don’t you?”

  They went down into the kitchen to eat.

  “Tell me, mommy,” Tracy pressed, as she took a seat in a kitchen chair.

  “From genetics, sweetheart.”

  Tracy frowned. “Genetics? What’s that? What’s genetics, mom?”

  Patti just couldn’t believe how tenacious her daughter was. She’s going to be a very assertive girl, she told herself. “I’ll tell you what, you ask dad when he gets home.”

  “Awww, see, you don’t tell me nothin’.”

  Patti looked at her daughter with piercing slit eyes. “You watch who you’re talking to, girl! You hear me?”

  Tracy nodded and began to eat her breakfast with a long face.

  Tracy loved going to school. She had perfect attendance and was smart and popular. She drew attention like a magnet. She wanted as many friends as possible. School was where Tracy could show off. And the teachers praised her participation in class.

  “Yup, and then my cousins messed it up. They always mess it up,” Tracy was telling her group of girlfriends, Celena, Pam and Judy.

  “I don’t like my cousins either, ’cause they always wanna race and stuff,” Judy said, standing short and chunky.

 
; Celena, the tallest of the group, rose from their small bench at the far end of the schoolyard. “Aw, you just say that ’cause they always beat you,” she said to Judy.

  “Shet up, girl. That’s why you gon’ fail in school,” Judy retorted, facing off with her.

  “I got better grades than you,” Celena said.

  “No you don’t.”

  “Yes I do, ’cause on our first spelling quiz, I did better than you.”

  “Well, we just started, and that was the only one we had anyway. Now! I busted your bubble,” Judy responded, bumping flat chests with Celena.

  “You can’t beat me in nothin’, little girl,” Celena contested, staring down at her shorter friend.

  “Who is you callin’ ‘little girl,‘ Stinky?”

  Tracy loved to hear the girls argue. It reminded her of her aunts and her mother.

  Pam, the quieter friend, sat and watched the action herself.

  “I’ll kick you in your butt, Big Mouth,” Celena said as they bumped each other again.

  “Do it then, Stinky,” Judy dared.

  Both girls were pushing and shoving. Tracy got up to stop what could’ve turned into a real fight. “Stop y’all, we all friends,” she said, moving in-between them.

  “Well, that’s why Celena ain’t got no hair. At least I ain’t bald-headed like you,” Judy said, starting up again.

  “I ain’t bald-headed, girl. I got more hair than you,” Celena snapped.

  “GET OUT THE WAY, THE BALL IS COMING!” a boy shouted, running past.

  The girls didn’t move out of the way quickly enough. Judy got knocked down on her plump behind.

  “Ay, boy? Why you do that?” Pam yelled at him. She was quiet, but a fighter.

  “I’m sorry,” the boy responded.

  One of his friend’s overheard him apologizing. “Ay, Tommy, don’t say sorry to her, man,” he said, staring and bumping into Pam. She swung immediately. The boy blocked it and punched her back in her neck.

  “See, boy, I’m gon’ tell on you,” she whined.

  “Go ’head then, girl. See if I care.”

  “See, Aaron, you always hittin’ girls. My dad told me that boys who hit girls are sissies,” Judy screamed at him.

  “So what, girl? Who asked you?” Aaron retorted. “Come on, y’all, let’s finish playing ball,” he told his rowdy friends.

  “Go ahead, you scared sissy,” Judy taunted him.

  Tracy loved it. School was exciting.

  Tracy’s father picked her up from school, and she would tell him everything that had gone on while he listened to her constant chatter. Tracy went to work with her questions as soon as they entered the house.

  “Daddy, how did I get like this?” Tracy asked, raising her arms.

  Dave stretched out on the couch, failing to notice his daughter’s raised arms. He stared up at the ceiling with his head plumped on a cushion.

  “Daddy?”

  “Yes, pretty,” he answered her wearily.

  Tracy raised her arms in front of him.

  “How did I get tanner than mommy and lighter than you?”

  “Because, God did it,” Dave told her. He then closed his eyes.

  “God did it?” Tracy mumbled to herself. Confused by her father’s simple answer, she decided to crawl up on his chest and rest there on the couch with him.

  “Hello, hello, sleepy-heads,” Patti said, stepping through the front door an hour later. She hung up her jacket and immediately headed for the kitchen.

  Tracy got up off her daddy’s chest and followed her mother. “Can I help you, mommy?” she asked with wide eyes.

  “Unh hunh, now get the little frying pan.”

  “Okay . . . Now what?”

  “All right, now get the Kool-Aid mix.”

  “Okay, mommy . . . Here, mom, now what?”

  “Go upstairs in my room and bring down the cups and bowls so mommy can wash them out.”

  “Okay, mom. I’ll be right back.” Tracy ran up the stairs and grabbed all the dishes she could find. “What now, mom?” she asked, running back inside the kitchen and breathing heavily.

  “Aren’t you full of energy,” Patti commented. “Well, why don’t you go and see if your father needs any help.”

  “Okay,” Tracy said, running. She tugged on her father’s arm at the living-room couch. “Daddy, wake up.”

  “Yes, pretty?” he answered, with his eyes still closed.

  “Can I help you with something?”

  “Yeah, sweetheart. Can you help your dad get up?”

  Tracy looked at his long, lean body and remembered the last time she had tried, unsuccessfully, to lift him. She stepped back and shook her head. “No, I can’t lift you, dad.”

  “Yup, well, I guess you can’t help dad then,” Dave responded to her.

  Tracy, still filled with energy, hurried back to help her mother in the kitchen.

  “Well, did you help your dad, sweety?” Patti asked her.

  “No-o-o. Because he want me to help him to get up, and I don’t have no muscles,” Tracy whined.

  Patti laughed at her. “You have muscles; they just aren’t strong enough to lift your dad.”

  “Well, when I grow up, I’m gonna have bigger muscles. Right, mommy?” Tracy asked, tugging on her mother’s apron.

  “Yup, and you’re gonna be as tall and as pretty as me.”

  Tracy smiled, pleased with herself. “I’m gonna marry me a man like dad, too.”

  Patti gave her a curious smile. “Do you like boys yet, Tracy?” she asked of her young daughter.

  “NO! Boys get on my nerves!” Tracy shouted.

  Patti chuckled. “Why do you say that?” she quizzed.

  Tracy pressed her little hand on her hip and shook her head. “Because, ’dey rough and bad. And this boy named Aaron hit my friend Pam today,” she huffed.

  “Why did he do that?” Patti asked her.

  “ ’Cause his friend Tommy knocked Judy down when ’ney was playing ball, and Pam was gon’ hit him for it. So then Aaron came to get in it for Tommy, and he punched Pam in her neck.”

  “Well, did she try to hit him back?”

  “Yeah, she tried to hit him first, but he blocked it with his arm.”

  “Did the boy get in trouble?”

  “Mmm hmm, but he didn’t even care though.”

  “Yeah, he sounds like a bad boy,” Patti said, continuing with her cooking.

  “My friend Judy said that boys who hit girls are sissies. Is that true, mom?”

  “Who told her that?” Patti quizzed, turning to face her daughter.

  “She said that her father told her.”

  Patti grinned. “Well, you go and ask your father if that’s true.”

  Tracy ran back out and into the living room. “Hey, dad, are you a ‘sissy’ if you hit a girl?” she asked, tugging again on her father’s arm.

  Dave opened his eyes and stared at her. “Did your mother tell you to ask me that?”

  “Mmm hmm,” Tracy hummed. Then she smiled.

  “Well, you tell her that I said she can’t beat it.”

  Tracy ran back to her mother and stuttered, “He, he said you can’t beat it, mom.”

  “Well, you tell him that I love him anyway.”

  “Mom said she loves you, dad,” Tracy yelled out to him. Her father didn’t respond. “Well, dad?” Tracy asked, expecting him to send another message.

  “Well, pretty, I guess it’s almost time to eat,” he mentioned to her instead.

  Dave still hadn’t responded to Patti’s message as they sat down to dinner.

  Tracy was confused. Her daddy didn’t say that he loved her mother. Why not?

  “You don’t love mommy, dad?” Tracy asked him at the table.

  Dave looked frozen, as if he had lost his appetite.

  Patti came to his rescue. “Of course your daddy loves me, Tracy. What kind of a question is that?”

  Tracy backed off and hunched her shoulders. She was still a b
it confused and apprehensive about the tension she had caused at their dinner table.

  Dave quickly finished his food and headed out of the house after dinner.

  Tracy was left alone to ask her mother plenty more of her questions.

  “Mommy, where does daddy go at night?”

  “To his friend’s house,” Patti answered while cleaning pots and pans inside the kitchen sink.

  “Does daddy love you, mommy?”

  Patti was getting agitated. “Yes, he does, Tracy. Now what is wrong with you?”

  “How come he never says it then?”

  “Look, now, stop bugging me. Okay?”

  “But does he, mommy?” Tracy persisted.

  Patti sighed, surrendering. Had she pushed Dave to his limit? Did he still love her? “I hope he still loves mommy, honey,” she said to her persistent daughter. “I hope and pray he does.”

  Dave walked in at eleven on a Wednesday, early compared to some of his other nights out. He had begun to spend more of his free time away from home. He failed to touch Patti or talk to her for weeks at a time. He only chatted with her on occasion, kissing her every now and then.

  He walked to the kitchen and got out a spoon with the cherry vanilla ice cream and started eating it from the box. Patti waited upstairs, listening to his footsteps. After a few minutes of debate, she decided to walk down the steps to join him. Carefully, she approached him as he sat inside of the kitchen. She calmly slid her hands over his shoulders from behind. Dave moved forward to release her hold. Patti then sat in front of him to look into his eyes.

  Dave got up and went to the bedroom without a word, leaving the box of ice cream on the table and daring Patti to comment on it. Once upstairs, he walked inside of the bathroom to take a shower. Patti followed after him.

  “Dave . . . where do you go at night?” she finally asked, trembling.

  “I go the hell out. Where the hell do you think I go?” he answered while running warm water. He closed the door behind him and took a fifteen-minute shower.

  When he had dried himself off and returned to the bedroom, Patti was waiting for him.

  “Dave . . . are you seeing another woman?” she forced herself to ask him.

  “What if I was? You wouldn’t care. You’re still my number one, right?”

  Patti pressed the issue. “Are you, Dave?”