Should Have Known Better

“But what about the book?” I held up The Great Gatsby.

“I’ve already read it,” she said. “Keep it.”

I told Sharika everything. From the blond curls on my white bedsheets, to Goodnight Moon and begging Reginald to stay. As I got sad, she grew mad. Mad like she was me. Mad like she’d been the one haunted in her nights and ignored in her mornings. I’d expected her to try to calm me down. Stop me from crying and say I was exaggerating. She’d tell me everything was probably fine. I’d go home and Reginald would be there waiting. But no. She just wagged her eyes from side to side as she considered the awful series of events.

“So this whore came up in your house and flaunted her bony ass in front of your family and now your husband hasn’t come home?”

I nodded.

Sharika’s eyes wagged some more. Her hand went to her hip again.

“Now why was this whore here again?”

I hated the way that word sounded. Like Sasha was a thief. Or a murderer. Someone no one in her right mind would allow in her home. But, you know, looking back now, I think mayb

e that speaks to the nature of a whore. Of a thief. Of a murderer. They’re skilled. They don’t show up in some T-shirt branding who and what they are. They just go to work and leave you to figure out the direction of the assault.

“She was at a conference. Some journalist’s conference downtown. I don’t know. I didn’t ask,” I replied.

“How’d she know how to get in contact with you? You said you hadn’t spoken to her in years.”

“I don’t know, Sharika,” I said. “Maybe she looked it up online. Maybe someone in the sorority—I don’t know. I mean, why are you making it sound like I did something wrong?”

“I never said such a thing. I’m just trying to get my facts straight. You should, too. Look, if—and I’m not saying she did—but if this whore has somehow convinced your husband to up and have a rendezvous or whatever this is with her, then you need to know the truth of the matter, the beast you’re up against. I knew that chick was trouble the moment I smelled her. Had that sugary-ass perfume on. Smelling like a stripper.”

“You think she took Reginald from me?” I asked.

“I don’t know for sure,” Sharika said. She cocked her head to the side suspiciously and put both of her hands on her hips this time. “But I do know you need to figure out what your next move is.”

“Excuse me, ma’am . . . ma’ams,” a thin boy with thick glasses whispered. “Do you know where the most recent anthology of stories about the Star Trek series is located?”

“What?” Sharika shifted her weight from one hip to the next in her seat and shot her eyes at him. “Can’t you see we’re talking here?”

“But I—”

“It’s out right now. It’s usually in PN1997. It’s due back next week.” She turned back to me casually as if she hadn’t identified a call number off the top of her head.

After a few confused stares, the boy gathered his things and went back to his seat.

“So?” she asked.

“I’m not going to do anything. I can’t. I have to wait for him to call,” I said. “What, you think I should call her?”

“Call her for what? So some whore can have the pleasure of telling you where your husband is? Hell no!”

“So, what?”

“So . . . I don’t know . . . I don’t know.” Sharika shook her head worriedly. “You . . . you’re always talking about love and what people do for love. You have to do something.” She stopped and looked at the picture of Reginald and me floating on my computer screen and then looked back at me with wild eyes. “You have to get him.”

“Get him?”

“Yeah. Go to her house and get him.”

“I can’t go to her house. I don’t even know where she lives. Just the street name,” I said, remembering Lover’s Lane. “And even if I do find the house, what am I supposed to do? Drag him outside and make him come home?”

“No. You need to go there to stare this man you love in the eyes and demand that he tell you what’s going on. Because something is going on.”

“Yeah, that all sounds really good, but I’m not some teenager confronting her boyfriend. I’m a woman. A mother. And going to her house for any reason sounds irrational. It sounds crazy.”