Don't Even Go There

by Brenda Hampton

Genres: General Fiction; African American Urban; African American Women's Fiction; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

Essence bestselling author Brenda Hampton presents Don’t Even Go There, the story of Chase Jenkins, a troublemaking, backstabbing diva, who will stop at nothing to get what she wants, even going after her boss’s husband.

Release date: June 8, 2011

Publisher: Urban Renaissance

Print pages: 288

Sample

As the saying goes, there are always two sides to every story. There was his side: “I’m sorry, she didn’t mean anything to me. Please forgive me.” My side, however, was the only one that mattered. If Plan A didn’t work, I was sure to have a Plan B.

I sat in my cubicle, filing my nails and thinking about what I had done last night. I would have given anything to see Drake’s face up close, but his yelling and screaming at me through the phone was enough to put a smile on my face. Why? Because Drake deserved it.

It all started after I had gone to Norfolk, Virginia to see my father. He has prostate cancer, but don’t feel sorry for him, because he has done things to me that a father should never do to his daughter. I returned home early from my trip. I decided to surprise Drake, who had been my beau for the past three years, and showed up at his house unexpectedly. I’d shown up unexpectedly plenty of times before, so not calling in advance wasn’t an issue. That, of course, changed last night, when I swerved into his driveway and spotted a gray Acura parked next to his car.

I paced to the door, then quietly inserted my key into the lock. The door squeaked just a little, but the soft music playing was sure to drown out any noise I’d make. The dining room was to my left, and I immediately noticed two tall cream candles that had already been burned. Leftover food was on two plates, and a half-empty bottle of wine was chilling in a glass bucket of melting ice. Drake was doing it big, but there was no doubt that I was anxious to see what was transpiring in his bedroom.

My eyes scanned the T-staircase that led to the upper level, and, one by one, I tackled the carpeted stairs. Midway, I took the tip of my burgundy stiletto to kick aside the lace black panties and bra. I guessed the woman could have been at least a size 11/12 like me, and after seeing “Victoria’s Secret” scripted on the tags, she obviously had good taste. To see her underwear dropped on the stairs, I knew there obviously had to have been much anticipation to get to the bedroom. I definitely knew how that was, as Drake was always a spontaneous and creative lover.

When I reached the door, I wasn’t nervous at all, simply because I’d warned Drake about something like this ever happening. He knew what kind of woman I was, and if he ever doubted what I was capable of, he’d soon find out.

The double white doors to his bedroom were closed. But from the outside, I could hear the loud moans and groans. You’d better believe he was giving it to her good, and to hear my man ask, “Who does this pussy belong to?” and her reply, “You baby. You know it’s you,” I was stunned. My perfectly arched brows went up, and as I listened to Maxwell set the mood for them with his lyrics, I cracked the door, peeking inside of the room. All I could see was her long chocolate legs poured over his broad shoulders, and his naked ass tightening with each thrust. The headboard was hitting the wall and the squeaky mattress that he and I had worn out was being put to work. I watched his lips give passionate kisses on her legs, and due to the exchange of loving words, this couldn’t be classified as a one-night stand.

With that in mind, instead of doing the obvious, I closed the door and backed away from it. I quickly moved down the steps, causing my long trench coat to blow open. I exited Drake’s house, and when I got to my car, I took a deep breath to calm my nerves that had started to rattle. I drove to the nearest gas station, and removed two red gasoline containers from my trunk. I never thought the containers would come in handy, but there was a purpose for everything I’d purchased. I filled the containers with gas, then drove back to Drake’s house, slamming my car into park. By then, I was pissed. I was upset because I had just spoken to Drake earlier, and he expressed how much he loved me. He said that he was so lonely while I was away, and asked me to hurry home. He seemed so concerned about my ailing father, and when I expressed my emotions to Drake over the phone, he wished like hell that he could be there to comfort me.

To make matters worse, just last week, he made mention of us getting married. He was so ready to settle down, and I was the woman he had waited a lifetime to find. No doubt, Drake was full of it, but he wasn’t the only one. Yeah, some people want you to believe that there are still good men out there, but that’s a bunch of bullshit. “A good woman can find a good man” is a lie, and if another person feeds me that crap, I have one suggestion: you’d better have a Plan B. To me, faithful men didn’t exist, but I was so willing to give Drake one last chance to prove me wrong. We’d dated for three years and had begun to talk marriage. Last night, though, he failed to prove to me that he was different from all the others, and for doing so, he’d have to pay.

I got out of my car and doused the front and side of his two-story house with gasoline. My trail led from the front door, and stopped when I reached the back door. The smell of petroleum made me feel high, but not as high as I was going to feel when I saw this baby go up in flames. I emptied both containers, then stood by his front door. I reached for my cell phone, and after redialing his number three times, he finally answered.

“Hello,” he said in a groggy tone, as if he were asleep.

“Are you asleep?” I teased.

“Yeah, baby, I was,” he softly replied. “I just got in not too long ago, and as soon as I hit the bed, I was out. I’ll call you in the morning, okay?”

I placed a cigarette in my mouth and dangled it around. “By then, it might be too late,” I said.

“What you say? Too late? Too late for what?”

I backed up a bit, lit the cigarette and flicked it in front of me. Within seconds the fire ignited and started to blaze around his house.

“Too late to apologize.”

His voice was now clear. “Apologize for what?”

“For setting your ass on fire. In a few seconds, that dick of yours that you can’t contain will melt, and so will your porcelain doll who’s in bed with you. Good luck with that, honey, and I guess I don’t have to tell you never to call me again.”

I leaned against my car that was now parked on the street. I saw Drake pull his curtain aside, and his hollering rang out through the phone.

“Hell, nah,” he yelled, looking out of the window at me and the growing flames around his house. “What in the fuck have you done? Are you crazy?”

I slammed my phone shut, and jumped into my car. I slowly drove away, but from my rearview mirror, I saw Drake and his slut run out of the house with a little of nothing on. He used a fire extinguisher to try putting out some of the flames, but it was to no avail. By the time I was less than a half a mile away, I could hear the fire trucks en route.

That was last night, and as I continued to think about it while sitting in my cubicle, I placed the nail file on my desk, chuckling from my thoughts. I expected the police to arrive soon, and right before lunch, they did. The receptionist called me into the lobby, and when I got there, two officers, one black and one white, stood waiting for me. The black one couldn’t help but check me out. I was neatly dressed in a navy blue, fitted suit that hugged every curve of my hourglass figure. A lime green silk blouse was underneath and it matched my hoop earrings. My hair was in a sleek, weaved-in ponytail that could have been classified as my own. My slanted hazel eyes were said to be addictive, and many thought that I resembled a younger Lynn Whitfield. I had watched her in the movie A Thin Line Between Love and Hate, and needless to say, I loved it. She damn sure had her Plan B.

“Cha… Chase Jenkins?” the black officer asked, standing in a trance.

“Yes. How may I help you?”

I folded my arms, but the officer suggested that we step away from the receptionist’s desk. I swished my hips from side to side, asking the officers to follow me to the black leather chairs in the far corner of the lobby. I took a seat, crossing one long, moisturized leg over the other. My skirt hiked up a bit, and I could only imagine the thoughts that swam in both of the officers’ heads. They were all smiles, and their eyes scanned me from head to toe.

“Do you know Mr. Drake Wilkerson?” the white officer asked.

“Yes, I do. He’s my ex-boyfriend.”

The black officer removed his cap and tucked it underneath his arm. He remained standing in front of me. My eyes flirted with the growing hump in his pants, but when he spoke, I turned my attention to him. “His house was set on fire last night and he says that you’re the one who did it. Were you at his residence last night?”

I threw my hand back and sighed. “Officer, Mr. Wilkerson is a very bitter and upset man. I ended our relationship a few weeks ago, and he’s had a difficult time moving on. I just returned from a trip last night, and I don’t know anything about a fire at his house. From what I do know, though, Mr. Wilkerson has several female companions. Anyone could have been responsible, but I assure you that it wasn’t me.”

“He says that he saw you outside of his house. Said you called him directly and told him his house was on fire. Did you call him?”

“As a matter of fact, I did. Only because he called me numerous times, cursing at me and making threats because I ended our relationship. I told him to stop calling me, and I warned him that I would get a restraining order if he didn’t. I can’t believe he’s gone this far, and if he burned his own house to put the blame on me…” I paused, blinking away the fake tears rushing to my eyes. “That’s just crazy.”

The black officer felt sorry for me, and when he reached out to give me a Kleenex that was on the table beside us, I took it. “Thank you,” I said, dabbing my eyes. I took another glance at his hump, sucking in my glossy bottom lip.

“You’re welcome. And if you feel as if this gentleman is a threat to you, then my suggestion would be for you to take immediate action.” The white officer’s walkietalkie went off and he excused himself, moving a few feet away. “As I was saying,” the black officer continued. “Take action and handle your business. Don’t be afraid to report these kinds of jerks. You really need to be careful.”

I nodded and felt relieved. “Do you have a card or any information as to where I can get a restraining order against him? I’ve never had to do anything like this before, and I’m so afraid of what he’ll do.”

The officer didn’t hesitate. He reached out to give me his card, then advised me to go to the courthouse if I needed to obtain the restraining order. I held his card in front of me, thanking him again for the information he’d provided.

He cleared his throat. “That will be all, Ms. Jenkins. But, if you ever want to use my card for your personal use, you can. Have a good day, and I hope to hear from you soon.”

I stood and gave no reply to what he’d said. All I did was nod, and walked away with all the confidence in the world. When I got back to my desk, everyone was being nosy, trying to find out what was going on. Even my boss, Liz, was standing by her office, waiting for me. She couldn’t wait to question me.

“Everything is fine,” I said, entering my large cubicle. “The police wanted to question me about my ex-boyfriend. His house was set on fire last night, and the police had to make their rounds to see if I had anything to do with it. I told them that I was out of town, so that cleared my name pretty quickly.”

Liz smiled and sipped from her cup of black coffee. “How dare they come up here asking for you? You would never do anything so ridiculous and your ex should feel stupid for even mentioning your name.”

“I agree.”

Liz rubbed my arm, then told me to get ready to join her in our eleven o’clock department meeting. I was her secretary, which was a downgrade for me. I had a degree in business administration, but with the economy being so bad, I had to find a job that would help pay the bills. Liz wanted me to take the minutes in our meeting, so I gathered my thick note-pad to do so. My other coworker, Claudette, looked over her cubicle and into mine. She was always being so damn nosy, and I despised women like her. Plus, she thought that God had blessed her with the best man ever. She had pictures of the two of them inside of her cubicle and displayed on her computer monitor. They had taken plenty of trips together. She’d always come in bragging about how much fun they had, and where he was taking her to next. The day he proposed to her, we couldn’t get a darn thing done at work. She rambled on about how much she loved him, and he loved her. When the red roses showed up, I could have choked. She cried, and couldn’t wait to call and thank him. I listened in as she told him how much he meant to her and that she couldn’t wait to be his loving wife. Everybody was so happy for her, and the people around here couldn’t wait to hear all about her business. I never told anybody anything about my personal relationships. They knew I dated, but my business was my own. There were some things Liz knew about me, only because she was my boss. And those things were limited to my age, which was thirty-one, my address, and my salary. My salary was $41,500 a year, and my other two coworkers, Claudette and Veronica, always wanted to know how much I made. We all were very competitive, and with every little thing, we always tried to outdo each other.

Truthfully, neither of them could touch me with a ten-foot pole. Claudette was too darn skinny; her light skin and long hair barely got her by, but I was sure her big lips came to good use. As for Veronica, she was brown skinned like me. She weighed about two hundred plus pounds, and her self-esteem issues drove me nuts. She always had to get approval about how she looked, and the no-good boyfriend she bragged about wasn’t helping her self-esteem issues one bit. I’d listened to her cry plenty of times over the phone, asking him why he did this or that to her. It was so ridiculous for any woman to put up with that much mess, and that’s why I didn’t. You basically had one time to mess me over, and I wasn’t in the business of forgiving. Before my mother passed away, she taught me a lot about men. She and my father argued all the time, but she never tolerated much from him. They’d been separated for years, and he was now with his other woman. When my mother died of breast cancer, I promised myself that I would always live by what she told me. That was to see about me, myself, and I. “Never let a man control you,” she said, and I just couldn’t do it.

As for my father, he had prostate cancer, but he was hanging in there. I never really had much of a relationship with him, other than when he would come into my room at night and touch me. I told my mother about it, and we got the hell out of there. That’s what a woman with Plan B will do, and I disliked my father ever since. Per the suggestion of my counselor, just in case my father kicked the bucket, I thought I’d go see him so it wouldn’t be on my conscience if something happened to him. I had no other siblings, but that was fine by me. I was known for being selfish, but that suited me just well. As I said, I was looking out for me, and I suspected things would remain that way for a long time to come.

“Did you check your messages yet?” Claudette asked, still looking over my cubicle. “Your phone was ringing off the hook while you were away.”

“I’ll check them when I get out of the meeting. Aren’t you going in there too?”

“I may be a little late, but I’m coming. Korey is supposed to drop off some money for lunch, so I’m waiting for him to arrive.”

I thought our meetings were mandatory, but Claudette was known for having her way with Liz. Now, Liz and I got along pretty well, but all of us could tell that Claudette was her favorite. She was soft-spoken and came off as being polite as ever. Her image was perfect and her work performance was always commended. Mine was as well, but that’s because I knew how to put on a good front. I was a Gemini, so therefore I had two sides to me. In no way was I crazy, or anything like that, but I knew when to turn it off, and how to turn it on. There was a place and time for everything. My professionalism was on display at work, but I could turn into the real me at home. I considered myself to be a very nice person, but just don’t rub me the wrong way. Drake got a piece of that action last night, and even though I knew it was him ringing my phone at work, I ignored it.

I headed into our meeting, and when I got to the boardroom, at least ten—people from some of the other departments, too—surrounded the round mahogany table with black leather chairs. Everyone was talking, making the room noisy as ever, but when Liz walked in, the noises calmed down. Liz was a black woman in her late forties, but looked good enough to pass for thirty-something. She was slim, very classy, and wore her hair almost cut bald. It was always trimmed to perfection and everyone knew she was definitely about business. She scooted her chair up to the table, and when she flipped open her notes, we knew it was time to be quiet and tune in. She did a quick head count, noticing that Claudette’s seat was empty.

“Claudette will be joining us in a minute,” she said. “I’m going to wrap this up as quickly as I can, as I know some of you haven’t had your lunch.” She turned to me. “Chase, if you wouldn’t mind going to get all of us some sodas and cups, I’d appreciate it. Also, I forgot my blue folder on my desk. Stop in my office and get it for me, please.”

I left the room to retrieve the folder for Liz and grab some sodas from our break room. It was difficult trying to carry the sodas, so I placed them on a tray, along with some plastic foam cups. As I was on my way back to the boardroom, I was bumped by a man . . .