Crossroads Read online

  Randall was more than pleased to learn that Amaryllis had gotten saved when she was in Las Vegas. He prayed with her, giving her advice on how to survive in the Christian world, and sent her on her way with a clean heart.

  Amaryllis knew without a shadow of a doubt that Randall hadn’t vandalized her car.

  “What about Darryl?” Bridgette asked.

  Darryl. That was a name that Amaryllis had hoped to go to her grave without ever hearing again. “I haven’t seen or talked to him in a long time, Bridgette. Last I heard, he was doing time for rape.”

  Bridgette exhaled a sigh of relief. “Good for him. But had you pressed charges against that fool and his boys for raping you, he wouldn’t have had the chance to rape another woman.”

  Chills ran down Amaryllis’s back in the ninety-degree late August heat. She’d never forget the horrible pain that Darryl, a guy who had much more money than Randall, and three of his professional athletic friends, had inflicted on her. She had gone to Darryl’s house for what she thought was one of their regular booty calls. It turned out that Darryl had another plan in mind when Amaryllis arrived at his mansion in Long Grove, Illinois.

  What started out as a one-on-one fling went wrong when Amaryllis felt a hand—not belonging to Darryl—caress her back. That visit had ultimately landed Amaryllis in the hospital with a broken pelvic bone and plenty of bruises.

  She remembered arriving at Darryl’s mansion. When she walked in the unlocked front door, Darryl had yelled for her to come upstairs. In the master bedroom he was lying on the California king-size bed. Darryl was naked, and Amaryllis knew that foreplay wouldn’t be necessary. He was ready for her.

  She asked Darryl who the other three cars parked in his driveway belonged to, and he told her that friends of his had stayed over the night before.

  Amaryllis undressed and got into bed with Darryl. He sat up and asked her how freaky she could be and how far between the sheets was she willing to go. Amaryllis told Darryl that for the right price she could be very freaky. In other words, as long as the money was right, there were no limits. He reached beneath his pillow, pulled out a money clip full of dollar bills, and gave it to Amaryllis. She removed the clip and counted ten thousand dollars. Amaryllis smiled at Darryl and said, “For this, I can be extremely freaky.”

  Soon after Amaryllis straddled Darryl, she felt a strange hand touch her right shoulder.

  When she looked around, Amaryllis saw three naked men standing next to the bed. She recognized their faces from a time when she had danced at a bachelor party that Darryl had hosted at his home. The man who touched her shoulder was the groom. She saw the ring on his finger.

  When she tried to hop off Darryl and cover herself with the sheets, Darryl yanked her arm and pulled her back on the bed. He reminded her that she had just been paid to allow the three men to have their way with her as well.

  “You said that you could be very freaky,” Darryl smirked.

  “Yeah, as you wanted me to be, Darryl, not them.” As she responded to Darryl, Amaryllis eyed the other men in disgust.

  When Amaryllis told Darryl that his strong grip was hurting her arm, he gripped even tighter and held her down while the men raped her one by one. As much as Amaryllis fought back and screamed, they had overpowered her.

  Later, Amaryllis left Darryl’s house with a broken pelvis and was driving herself to Illinois Masonic Hospital when she passed out behind the wheel of her late model Nissan Maxima. She veered into a ditch on Interstate 294. It was only by the grace of God that she survived such an attack and car accident.

  When Amaryllis woke up at the hospital, she couldn’t remember how she got there, but she did recall Darryl telling her that if she mentioned his name in what had happened to her, he would kill her. So she lied and told the doctor that she had slipped and had fallen down the stairs at her house.

  Amaryllis shook the shivers and all thoughts of Darryl from her mind. “Look, Bridge, Darryl basically told me that if I even thought of mentioning his name in what happened to me, he’d kill me. You know, as well as I do, that he’s crazy enough to do it but I honestly don’t believe that he’s terrorizing my car.”

  The sun was beginning to set as their three-mile run was coming to an end.

  “Well, if Darryl isn’t your stalker, who could it be?”

  Amaryllis stopped running and bent over to place her hands on her knees. She panted for air. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  Bridgette mimicked Amaryllis and placed her hands on her knees, barely getting enough air into her lungs. “What…about…Randall?”

  Amaryllis looked at her running buddy. “No way. Absolutely not. Black is happily married with three kids now. He’s also an assistant pastor. He ain’t thinking about me.”

  It hadn’t gone over Bridgette’s head that Amaryllis still referred to her ex-boyfriend, Randall, by the nickname she’d given him years ago. “You still call him that, huh? You still call him Black?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” Amaryllis shrugged.

  A very dark-skinned man with dreadlocks jogged passed them. “Good evening, ladies.” His Jamaican accent was evident.

  “Good evening,” Amaryllis responded.

  Bridgette took a good look at him when he ran by. His glistening muscles sparkled.

  “It is now.” Bridgette got a whiff of his cologne in the wind. “Ooh, he smells good. Did you hear his accent?”

  “Yeah, it kinda makes you wanna go to Jamaica, doesn’t it?”

  Bridgette thought about that question. “Let’s do it, Amaryllis. Let’s go to Jamaica.”

  Amaryllis stopped panting and looked at her friend. “Are you serious? When?”

  Bridgette raised the tone in her voice. “Yes, I’m serious. We both have a week off in November.”

  “Really? I mean, are you really serious, Bridgette? Don’t play with me.”

  Bridgette raised the octave in her voice to prove her point. “Yes, I am.”

  The roommates started to walk toward their apartment building. “Okay, I’m game,” Amaryllis agreed. “When we get home, we’ll search the Internet for prices on all-inclusive packages. I can go for some fun in the sun.”

  Bridgette looked behind them and saw the man with the dreadlocks a quarter of a mile away and said with a Jamaican accent, “See ya’ in Jamaica, mon.”

  When the two women turned the corner on Ada Street, Amaryllis noticed a light-skinned woman wearing dark sunglasses and a long black wig. She was sitting behind the wheel of a black Lexus SUV parked across the street. As they got closer to their high-rise building, Amaryllis was sure that the woman was watching them.

  “Hey, Bridge, is that woman in the Lex watching us?” she discreetly nodded in the woman’s direction.

  Bridgette looked in the direction that Amaryllis had nodded. “Who is that?”

  Amaryllis shook her head. “Heck if I know.”

  They stared at the woman as she stared back at them. They watched as the mysterious woman inhaled smoke from a cigarette and blew it in their direction. She then tossed the cigarette out of the driver’s window, switched the gear from park to drive, pressed down on the gas pedal, and burned rubber away from the curb.

  Bridgette got a glimpse of the license plate that read HOT ICEE “Who’s Icee?” she asked.

  Amaryllis didn’t have a clue. “Icee? I don’t know anyone named Icee, but I sure could use one in this hot weather.”

  They quickly dismissed all thoughts of whom Icee could be and entered their condominium building. Upstairs on the seventh floor, after entering their unit, Amaryllis pressed the play button on their answering machine that sat on an end table in their living room.

  “Hey, baby, this is Ty. I’ll be over there around eight o’clock tonight to bring the money for your window. Can you make some of that spaghetti? The kind you put your feet in.”

  Then she walked into the kitchen and saw Bridgette standing there laughing. She knew Bridgette’s chuckles were a result of Tyrone’s m
essage.

  “Amaryllis, you got that brotha hooked. I remember that time when you actually put your foot in a pot of spaghetti and stirred it. Tyrone licked it off your toes like he was eating peach cobbler.”

  Amaryllis laughed at the memory. “Yeah, Tyrone is a fool.”

  “I don’t know who’s the fool. You for sticking your bare foot in a pot of spaghetti, or Tyrone for sucking tomato sauce from beneath your toenails.”

  Amaryllis chuckled as she filled a pot with water to boil noodles and set it on top of the stove. “Apparently, Tyrone thought he was gonna get some nooky that night. I have to constantly remind him that I’m not knocking boots with him.”

  Bridgette gave her friend a high five. “All right, Amaryllis, go on with your bad self. You ain’t done the nasty in how long?”

  Amaryllis was proud of herself for keeping her legs closed. She had reached a milestone. She was saved, looking forward to becoming sanctified, and actually enjoying being celibate. Though it had been a struggle, she had managed to keep her promise to God. She vowed to remain celibate until marriage. There had been nights when Amaryllis slept with a pillow between her legs, crossed her ankles, and prayed to the Lord to keep her from giving in to her boyfriend’s advances.

  “It’s been a few months. And if that’s what Tyrone is hanging around for, then he can just press on, because my thighs are closed and under construction. God is repairing some thangs. Tyrone can’t even sniff it.”

  Bridgette laughed and gave Amaryllis another high five. “I’m with you on that, girl. You sho’ can’t let him get close to it. ’Cause if you do, it’ll be all over. Tyrone will be following you around like a puppy dog with its tongue wagging. I can just picture him out in the hallway, sniffing and scratching all around the door sayin’, ‘Open the door, Amaryllis, I know you’re in there.’”

  Amaryllis laughed. “That’s true, Bridgette. These fools out here are crazy. Back in the day when I was in the world doing my thang, I dealt with this guy who wanted to have my scent in his mustache just so he could smell me all day.”

  Bridgette’s mouth dropped wide open. “Ooh, Amaryllis, you ain’t saved.”

  “I am saved. I said that happened back in the day.”

  Bridgette exited the kitchen and made her way toward the back of the apartment.

  “I’m gonna hop in the shower. Before you stir the spaghetti with your foot, set aside a bowl for me.”

  At two minutes after eight o’clock, Bridgette answered a knock at the door. She looked through the peephole, then opened it. “Hey, Tyrone, come on in.”

  Amaryllis’s boyfriend entered the condominium and closed the door behind him.

  “What’s up, Bridge? Where’s my baby?” Tyrone greeted.

  “She’s in the shower. Have a seat in the living room. She’ll be out soon.”

  “Maybe I should, uh, go and hurry her up,” Tyrone said mischievously.

  Bridgette gave him a stern glare. “Maybe you should sit your behind down in the living room like I said.”

  Amaryllis’s celibacy was in full swing and going strong. Bridgette intended to keep her friend on the fast track. That was the deal they had made with one another when they had gotten saved a month ago. Bridgette would do all she could to help keep Amaryllis’s panties on, and Amaryllis would return the favor and help Bridgette stop cursing.

  Tyrone knew that Amaryllis and Bridgette were straight-up ghetto and didn’t take any mess from no one. So he did exactly as he was told. In the living room he sat on the sofa, grabbed the remote control, and surfed through channels.

  Bridgette filled a bowl with spaghetti from a green pot. While she was showering, Amaryllis had opened the bathroom door, poked her head outside, and told Bridgette not to eat from the black pot. Bridgette got a glass of grape Kool-Aid, then took it and her bowl of spaghetti to her bedroom, closing the door behind her.

  Tyrone was into a wrestling match when Amaryllis came into the living room, dressed in a pair of jogging pants and a tank top.

  “Hi, honey,” she greeted him.

  Tyrone admired her beauty as she came and sat next to him. When she plopped down on the sofa, he inhaled her aroma. “You smell yummy. What is that?”

  “It’s the new body wash by Issey Miyake. My sister, Michelle, sent it to me from Vegas.”

  Tyrone pulled Amaryllis into his arms then sniffed and kissed her neck. “Well, I’m gonna have to make sure you don’t run out of that stuff, ’cause I likes me somma dat.”

  When he released Amaryllis, she saw a long scratch on his right arm. “What happened to your arm?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She ran her fingers over the scratch. “This scratch on your arm, it wasn’t there yesterday.”

  Tyrone looked at his arm as if seeing the scratch for the first time. “I don’t know. I guess it must’ve happened at work today.”

  “Ty, you teach the eighth-grade. How can you get a scratch like that while grading papers? This looks like a knife cut.”

  Tyrone snatched his arm from her grip, then stood up. It wasn’t his intention for Amaryllis to see the wound. He reached in his pocket, pulled out three one hundred-dollar bills, and handed them to Amaryllis. “Here’s the money to get your window fixed.

  I can come by here tomorrow evening and take you to get your car from the shop.”

  Amaryllis took the money from him, folded the bills, and inserted them in her bra.

  “Thanks for the offer, but Bridgette will take me to get my car after work tomorrow.”

  “Cool. Did you cook the spaghetti?”

  Amaryllis wasn’t done with her interrogation. “Is that a knife cut on your arm?”

  The octave in Tyrone’s voice changed. Clearly he was becoming irritated. “No. It’s not a knife cut, Amaryllis. I don’t know how the cut happened, okay?” He turned and walked toward the kitchen. “Can we please eat?” His words were quick and to the point, as though he really wanted to change the subject.

  A warning siren went off in Amaryllis’s head. She sat on the sofa wondering what the heck his problem was. She was only showing concern for Tyrone, but his strange behavior caused suspicion. Now, she became even more curious about the wound.

  They had only been dating for three weeks. The wound on Tyrone’s arm was fresh. Amaryllis didn’t want to believe that he had gotten caught up in domestic violence with another female; however, Amaryllis was from the streets. She had seen it all, and she had done it all, and the only way to remind Tyrone that she wasn’t to be played with or played on was to put fear in his heart.

  She followed him into the kitchen and got a plate from the cupboard, then topped his plate with spaghetti as she spoke softly to him. “You know, Ty, where I come from, all I have to do is buy a crackhead a pack of cigarettes and a forty-ounce, and they’ll do almost anything. For example, if I ever caught you cheating on me, I could have you kidnapped, then taken to a secluded area where you’d be tortured and buried alive.” Her tone was calm and mellow. She spoke as if she were simply asking Tyrone what time of day it was.

  Tyrone sat at the kitchen table looking at Amaryllis. She stood at the stove, in front of a black pot, preparing a plate of spaghetti with her back to him. He didn’t say one word as she brought his plate to the table and set it in front of him. He watched as she filled another plate of spaghetti from a green pot and placed that plate on the table, then sat across from him, bowed her head, and closed her eyes.

  “Father God, we thank You for this meal…” she began to pray.

  Tyrone swallowed hard and didn’t close his eyes. He kept them open throughout Amaryllis’s entire prayer. Deep down inside, he knew she meant what she had just said.

  Anybody who could make a statement like that and immediately pray to God was unstable and not to be played with. And they were eating spaghetti from two separate pots. Tyrone couldn’t help but to wonder why.

  “…In Jesus’ name, amen.” After saying her prayer, Amaryllis opened her eyes, looked
across the table at Tyrone, and blew him a kiss. She could tell by the expression on his face that she’d put something on his mind, and that was exactly what she had meant to do.

  Amaryllis inserted a forkful of spaghetti into her mouth and noticed that Tyrone wasn’t eating. “Go ahead and eat, honey. I put my foot in it, just like you requested,” she teased.

  Tyrone looked at the spaghetti and wondered what else Amaryllis was capable of putting in it. At that moment, he thought that maybe she really was unstable. She was Creole, after all. Tyrone had heard horror stories about Creole women and the lengths they’d go to get what they wanted. He could only imagine what was in his spaghetti.

  The sauce wasn’t orange, but a deep red. Maybe that was why Amaryllis was eating from a different pot. He took a bite and swallowed.

  All of a sudden, Tyrone got sick to his stomach. He put his hand over his mouth and ran to the bathroom. He made it to the toilet just in time. Amaryllis heard him in the bathroom hacking and coughing and puking his guts out, but she remained at the kitchen table enjoying her dinner. There was a time when she could have taught a class on cheating. She was the champ at doing it. But cheaters don’t like to be cheated on.

  Bridgette was already dressed for work Friday morning when Amaryllis stepped out of the shower. As usual, Amaryllis was causing them to be late.

  Bridgette was at the bathroom sink putting the finishing touches on her makeup.

  “Amaryllis, would you please hurry up?”

  Amaryllis quickly dried her body and hurried to her bedroom. “Okay, Bridge. I promise I’ll be ready in ten minutes.”

  Bridgette followed her. “You should’ve been ready ten minutes ago. You know I’m trying to get this promotion, girl. I can’t be late.”

  “Bridge, you ain’t even gotta trip, because no one else applied for that job, which means it’s automatically yours. Get somewhere and sat down before you bust a blood vessel.”

  Bridgette made fun of Amaryllis’s newfound English. “Sat down?”