“That’s right. Get your girl,” the woman said as Tamia tried to settle Tasha.
“Don’t nobody need to get me,” Tasha charged.
“Besame el culo!”
“What you say?”
“Stop it! Just stop it!” Tamia shouted to Tasha, pulling her into the stable and a few feet from where the woman stood beside the stroller.
“How is he gonna send—”
“I don’t know, Tasha,” Tamia said stiffly. “But I do know that you don’t need to be acting like an ass out here in front of your children. Now let me handle this.” Tamia let Tasha go. “You stay right here.”
“Mierda! Mierda! Mierda!”
“Here,” Tamia said, brushing hay off of the phone and handing it to the woman.
She took the phone.
“I didn’t even do anything and now I’m going to lose my job!”
“No,” Tamia said. “Don’t worry. She’s just upset. That’s all.”
“Mr. LaRoche told me to bring them. What was I supposed to do?”
“Look, what’s your name?” Tasha asked. She could hear Tasha screaming into her cell phone at Lionel.
“Mercedes,” the woman answered. “I just got this job. I wasn’t trying to fight anyone. She came at me.”
“I know. I know,” Tamia said. “Look, you go. I’m here with her and the girls. Everything will be fine.”
“This isn’t about us,” Lionel was saying to Tasha on the other end of the phone. “It’s about you spending time with the girls. Why did I need to be there?”
“We’re a family,” Tasha said.
“No, we’re not,” Lionel said. “You changed that when you ran off to New York to do whatever the hell you’re doing there.” While Tasha thought that being separated from her husband would make him miss her and realize how much he loved her, it was having the opposite effect at the moment. He did miss her. But he was beginning to grow more angry at how childish and self-centered she was behaving. He was so angry, in fact, that he decided he couldn’t stand the idea of looking at her. He was afraid of what he might say, or do. And he didn’t want that to happen in front of his children.
“So what are we going to do? Never see each other again?” Tasha asked.
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Lionel said. “You asked to see your daughters. They’re there. Spend time with them and call me when you’re done. I’ll have Mercedes come back to get them.”
When Tasha walked out of the barn, she saw that Tamia had pushed the stroller with Toni and Tiara over to a fence where they could see a few of the other horses playing in a pen. Tamia had taken Toni out of the stroller and was holding her in her arms.
“What are you doing here?” Tasha asked Tamia flatly. The last time they’d seen each other was at the restaurant when they fought.
“I’m your attorney,” Tamia said. “Lionel called me this morning to tell me what was going on.”
“Bastard,” Tasha said. “I can’t believe he did this. Can you believe he sent that woman here with my children? They are his responsibility. And now he’s passing them off on someone else. He has some nerve.”
“What else was he supposed to do? He doesn’t know what to do with them.”
“Be a father,” Tasha shouted and both Tamia and Toni jumped. Toni started to cry.
“I’m sorry,” Tasha said, reaching for Toni. “I’m so sorry.”
She tried to pull Toni from Tamia’s chest, but the
toddler wouldn’t budge. She stopped crying and wrapped her arms around Tamia’s neck.