Morgana was about to leave her office that Monday evening when her telephone rang. April was on the line.
“What the hell did you have to come barging in on me and Stewart for?”
Morgana took the phone from her ear. She was in two minds whether to hang up or not. She went and locked her door before picking up the phone again.
“I went to return my engagement ring to my former fiancé. I can’t see what’s wrong with that or what that has to do with you.”
“You wanted to give Stewart back his ring and you chose twelve midnight to do it. I know what your motive was, but I’m still sleeping with him and you can’t stop that again.”
“You and who else is sleeping with him? Bobbette may have gone and gotten married, but I’m sure that there are and will be others.”
“I don’t know of anybody else and he never intended to marry you in the first place. He was using you and he’s so happy that you’re out of his life.”
Morgana was getting angry at April’s jestering.
“If he was using me; what is he doing to you now? At least I got a ring out of him. I wonder what you’ll have to show when he turns his back on you.”
“You don’t worry about me and Stewart. The two of us are soul mates and you just remember that I was before you. And talking about rings, you were just being a big fool when you took his ring. He was just using it to get you to spend more time in his bedroom.”
“And before I forget what a way you and Brad have gotten comfortable. One of my friends saw you in Gordon Town with him. You’re lucky; it’s because I know that he and Rick are your colleagues why I don’t come down there and give you a beating.”
“What I do with Brad is no concern of yours and I would advise you to keep out of my affairs. As for threatening me, I’m not afraid of you.”
“I wouldn’t be interfering in your affairs as you call it, if you hadn’t come barging in on us. You can’t even find a man of your own, you have to be trying to steal somebody else’s man,” April said and hung up leaving Morgana fuming as she packed her bags and left the office.
***
Stewart took Treena partying to Crystals that night. She
never hesitated whenever he invited her to go partying with him, although she knew that he had a fiancé who according to
him he didn’t care about. As far as Treena was concerned, she had boundless sexual energy and she had displayed it each time she was with him. As far as Stewart was concerned, she was a sex goddess, who was satisfying his needs now that Morgana and Bobbette were gone and his relationship with April was still in limbo. He was still seeing Meesha and Raileen and was building up the relationship until they were ready for something more.
***
Tuesday night, Morgana was getting ready to go to bed when the telephone rang. Thinking that it might be Brad she picked it up. It was Jenna. Morgana took the phone from her ear. Why would Jenna be calling her? She put back the instrument to her ear.
“Morgana, you just couldn’t wait until you heard that we’d broken up officially before you barged in. I know you were after him, but I won’t let you have him.”
Morgana wondered if she was hearing right. She never expected this tirade from Jenna.
“Jenna, I’m surprised at you. Brad is my friend and colleague and he has always been there for me. What’s wrong if I show him some compassion?”
“All I’m saying is that you shouldn’t get too comfortable with him because I’m not ready to give him up as yet.”
For a moment Morgana was ready to tell the girl that she was ready to fight her for Brad. But she thought better of it.
“After what you did to him, I don’t know how you can be saying that.”
“Your womanizer of a fiance took back his ring and the first man you see around is Brad. If looks could kill I would have been dead already. But I’m going to make sure you don’t get him.”
Morgana knew that the girl was telling the truth. Maybe she deserved this for the hard time she had given her.
“You hurt Brad bad, you owe him more than an aplology. He’s my soul mate and I’m prepared to fight you for him, so you’d better make up your mind.”
“Oh, I see, so it’s been Brad all along. You weren’t prepared to fight Bobbette, April or the dozens of other women over Stewart. But you’re prepared to fight me over Brad. This will be a fight to the bitter end.”
“So let it be, girl. Anytime you’re ready.”
“You’d better not let me see you near Brad again.”
“I’m near him every day. Don’t forget that we work at the same place,” Morgana replied, but Jenna had already hung up.
Morgana took a seat in one of the chairs in her bedroom. She got up, turned off the air condition unit and opened the windows. Jenna had really upset her. She now had time to think and maybe she had spoken out of turn with some of the things she said.
What if the girl went to Brad with what she told her? She could either deny it or leave it up to him to decide. She stood up and turned off the light before going to lie down. She now knew that she wanted Brad and if Jenna
wasn’t gone out of his life, she was prepared to fight her for him.
After she hung up on Morgana, Jenna sat there with her head bowed. Much of what she said to the girl she had no intention of going through with. She was just testing her. All her suspicions had proven correct. The girl was already pursuing Brad and had threatened to fight her over him.
She still didn’t know where she stood with Selwyn. After Brad left her apartment both of them had sat down and had a long discussion. They had both confessed to other affairs. She had told Selwyn about Robert and he told her about Naomi and two other women, Kaleigh and Amanda. He had a child with Naomi. They had quarrelled and Selwyn had left in a huff. He had called her later that night and they had talked and agreed to have another long discussion to resolve their differences.
Jenna knew that she had been trying to upset Morgana, to play devil’s advocate. She was still upset that the girl had rushed in so soon. It confirmed her earlier suspicions that Brad would be her first quarry once she broke up with Stewart.
Until Nereta Stanley came into his life, Jenna had thought that she and Robert were in a long term relationship. She would use the time to untangle herself from this web she had been caught in. One of her friends had told her about
Nereta. She had gone to one of his stores and saw her. She had called the girl and asked her and she denied it. Robert also denied it until she went to his house and saw the girl there. She had been adamant that she had to leave. The girl had locked herself in a room. Robert refused to send her away. She never saw the girl again, but she knew that with so many businesses it would be foolish of her to try and locate her. To her queries Robert only said that he had sent her back to the country. Since she knew otherwise she had broken off with him.
She later heard it on the grapevine that Robert and Nereta had broken up after he came to visit her at the house he rented for her and found her supposed cousin there in only his underpants. Robert didn’t believe her, Jenna thought, hence his reason for ending the relationship. She didn’t know who was his girlfriend when he and Bobbette started talking.
After she and Robert stopped talking in December 2000 she had been friendly with one other guy, Sean Castell. They had gone around for a year and some months. Then she started hearing rumors about him and a girl from Ewarton, Petra Danvers. Sean lived in Linstead and she was living in Bog Walk at the time. When she asked him about it he denied it but one day she met a pregnant Petra in a pharmacy in Spanish Town. She had confronted her there and then and she had tearfully admitted that she was carrying Sean’s baby.
When she phoned Sean he was still in denial mode. But Jenna had enough and broke off the relationship. Then Selwyn began to call her again. She wanted to know why she wasn’t hearing from him. They agreed to see if the relationship could be worked out. They had quarrelled after he refused to come to Jamaica to visit her or her to visit him over there. She had accused him of having other women that he hadn’t told her about. The communication lines between them were almost severed and their relationship was at a low ebb for a couple of years.
When she and Brad started talking it was months after she last head from Selwyn. She had to put down the decision
to start talking to Brad as wanting to have a man in her life. When she last spoke to Selwyn she had told him that she couldn’t wait for him forever. She had to blame him for her decision to start talking to Brad and to become intimate with both Robert and Sean. But now Robert, Sean and Brad were in the past. She couldn’t go back to Brad unless she wanted to fight Morgana. The girl had stepped in from out of the cold to claim him and there was nothing she could do.
Jenna got up and began to get ready for bed. In a way she missed Brad’s virile body and what he did to her each time they made love. She could never imagine him with another woman, but knew that woman was destined to be Morgana.
She knew that this was a new Selwyn she was dealing with and at twenty seven was capable of igniting fires in her body and then slowly putting them out. Jenna got up and went to look on Jaimie and Kailen. Both of them were sleeping peacefully and she returned to her room. As she threw the covers over herself she knew that she missed having a man in her bed. She loved feeling a man beside her, a man to fill her needs and she to do likewise. With Brad it had only been part-time and she hated when he had to leave her so early in the mornings. She wanted companionship, but wasn’t prepared to pay a high price for it. If she and Selvin couldn’t resolve their differences, then both of them would have to go their separate ways. She would then have to find another man, one to suit her needs, but she vowed never to make compromises. If she couldn’t find the right person she would remain single and raise her son, maybe having an affair now and then. Although she had said that Jaimie’s happiness came first she knew that children were never happy in bad relationships. Finally, Jenna felt herself dropping off to sleep and before she knew it she was fast asleep.
***
Brad was at home that Wednesday evening when his telephone rang. Jenna was on the line.
“Brad, I have to talk to you,” she said and when Brad hesitated, she said.
“I’ll understand if you don’t want to talk to me.”
She decided not to mention the quarrel she had with Morgana on Tuesday evening if he didn’t say anything about it.
“Ok, I’ll talk to you, but why not now?”
“Now wouldn’t be convenient, I have to go somewhere with Selwyn.”
“If not now, when?”
“You can come by me tomorrow evening.”
“Listen, I hate to go sneaking behind your husband’s back.”
If Jenna was stung by his reply, she didn’t show it.
“You won’t be sneaking around his back and you’re only coming at my invitation and because I want to explain everything to you.”
Brad was still non-committal. If Morgana wasn’t such a confidential person, it would be all over the office by now.
“Are you coming or not?”
“Why can’t you just say it over the phone?”
“Because it would take too long, please come. I don’t want you to hate me for what I’ve done,” she said before hanging up.
***
Brad sat, shaking his head a few feet away from Jenna, Thursday evening. The girl had virtually poured out her life story to him.
“Brad, I know that I should have told you, but I was scared. First that you wouldn’t have talked to me and secondly you would have left me after you found out what I had done to Robert.”
“Now that I’ve heard everything I don’t know what I would have done. I certainly would have appreciated it if you had told me everything and let me decide what to do.”
“I’ll be truthful to you. I started to have my doubts about you after that house opening. Then Selwyn called and I decided that I needed my happiness and Jaimie needed his real father.”
“We had a relationship going, that could have blossomed into something bigger. We didn’t have to spoil it.”
“We never had it. Maybe we thought we had it, but we never did. For one, my life was so complicated. Then I wasn’t sure how acceptable to your
parents I would be.”
“But do you think your life will be any easier when Selwyn's family finds out about you?”
“We’ll be working on it. Selwyn and I still have some issues to work out. Life isn’t a roller coaster.”
“You’re telling me.”
“I always wish people happiness. Now that you’ve explained everything to me, I feel a lot better. The only person I told about it was Morgana and she agreed to go up to Gordon Town to help me thaw out.”
Jenna knew how sensitive he was about Morgana so she refrained from making any negative comments about the girl. She also decided to stick to her earlier resolution not to mention anything about her quarrel with her on Tuesday.
“I’m glad that she was there to give you a helping hand.”
“Saturday night there was a big shoot-out at Corners. This guy came in and started firing shots. When everything cleared up it was the same guy, who had been threatening Morgana. He accused this ex-policeman of double-crossing him and pumped some bullets into him, but he got taken out by the guy’s bodyguards.”
“I heard about but I didn’t know you were there and also Morgan. It must have been very frightening for all of those patrons, especially Morgana.”
“One of her colleagues had to drive her car home for her.”
Once again the discussion had turned around to focus on Morgana. Jenna knew that Brad would talk about her for the rest of the evening. She knew that she had made the right decision. Whether he knew it or not Brad was in love with Morgana and she had no doubt that the girl shared the same feelings. In the time that she had remaining on the island she was certain that she would see the culmination of that love affair. Although she wasn’t sure how long it would take after Selwyn filed for her and Jaimie that they would go up.
“Was she okay at work? I mean it must have affected her somehow.”
“She showed no signs of it.”
“So now that she has thrown her ring back at Stewart, isn’t she looking somebody new?”
She saw how tense Brad had become at the question and knew she had hit a raw nerve in his body.
He laughed and finished drinking his beer. He got up.
“I suppose so, but she wouldn’t tell me and I’m not going to ask her.”
For a moment Jenna wanted to tell him that he and the girl were so close that he would know all her plans, but she stood up and came to give him a light kiss.
“What was that for?”
“It’s my goodbye kiss and I hope we can still remain friends in spite of everything.”
Brad hugged her and she followed him to his car and waved him goodbye and out of her life.
***
Jenna and Selwyn had agreed to meet at Lydia’s Lounge that Friday evening to try to resolve their differences. Jenna thought there was nothing more for Selwyn to know about her and Brad. She had confessed to him about her affair with Robert and he had told her about Naomi, Kaleigh and Amanda. Selwyn hadn’t been pleased to hear about her affairs. She had appealed to him for understanding, claiming that she was a young woman in need of love and he was abroad and she wasn’t even hearing from him. She took a taxi down to Lydias and saw that he was already there. He was drinking a beer and ordered a fruit punch for her.
“You told me about Darnley and that she wanted to return to her former lover. What about Naomi and those other two women, are you still seeing them?”
“If I was still seeing any of these women I wouldn’t have come out here for you. I’ve tried to explain that to you. Kaleigh and Amanda were before Naomi and Darnley and I didn’t have any children with either of them.”
“What I don’t like is the fact that I had to dig up the information about Naomi, Kaleigh and Amanda out of you.”
“I was reluctant to talk about them because as I’ve told you before they were before Darnley. I still support the child I had with Naomi but I’m no longer seeing her.”
“I thought Darnley was before them.”
“I have never dealt with two women at the same time. Obviously I don’t mean that because I was married to you while I was dealing with those women.”
Jenna relaxed a little, she had thought Selwyn had a child with Naomi after he and Darnley had broken up. She was relieved that he didn’t have any children with those two other women. Things were complicated as they were but it would have made them much more so and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to be a part of that.
“Okay, so I told Robert a lie about Jaimie and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to deceive him. He just had this big amount of money splashing around and I was in a quandary. I was married to you, and you were gone away and I couldn’t tell my parents about it. Robert was there and available and then I started missing my periods and knew that I was pregnant. I knew it couldn’t be Robert because of the time, but I told him that I was pregnant for him and he believed me and decided to support Jaimie.”
“He found a woman by the name of Bobbette Greene and got married to her, but before he got married to her he used to support Jaimie. But since he got married to her he has stopped supporting him. Robert and I broke up in December 2000 and I was seeing Sean. After we broke up I spent nearly two years without a man until I met Brad.”
Selwyn didn’t want to sound cruel. He was still in a quandary as to why Jenna had given this guy, Robert Parsons, paternity over his son. He had told her when she phoned him about her pregnancy, to move and live somewhere else but he never knew that she hadn’t registered the boy in his name. In the States life had been hard for him at first and he hadn’t been able to give her the type of support she needed to bring up the boy and then he got involved with those women.
“I still don’t like the idea of you giving my son to another man.”
“You wanted me to tell my mother and father, my sisters and brothers and my other relatives that I was going to have a baby for you. They would demand that I do an abortion.”
“I didn’t have to send away Brad, although I told you that there was a girl who wanted him and I thought he liked her. I could still have been prepared to fight her for him.”
Selwyn didn’t want to get Jenny agitated.
“So now that I’ve explained to you about Naomi and those two other women what do you think?”
“I believe you. I only wish that you would understand what I did. I’ll call Robert and explain everything to him and offer him my apologies.”
“You do that and we can meet again and try to settle things some more.”
“If you don’t want me then I won’t stop you from returning home and let things be as they are.”
“I told you what I came out here for and I intend to see it through. I want us to meet again to do some more work on our relationship.”
“Okay,” she said. He ordered another round of drinks before he dropped her back at her apartment.
***
Stewart and Treena had been hitting the club scene all week. She had decided to stay with him during the week and he would drop her home before her mother got in. He had told her that he and his fiancé, April, had a big bust up and weren’t talking to each other. April had told him that she had called and told Morgana off, but she was giving their relationship a short break. Every night he would find out what April was doing before he let Treena stay with him.
He still hadn’t talked to Morgana yet, but April had reported to him about her friend, Anneisha Mc Phail, seeing her in Brad’s sports utility vehicle. He had no doubt that she was sleeping with Brad and was probably even living with him.
He was glad that she had told Morgana off. He felt some amount of regret that Morgana had taken up with Brad as he considered the man a friend, maybe not a close one but certainly a friend. He should have seen it from the beginning that the man was after her. He would see him one of these days and congratulate him.
Tonight they were in Gordon Town and he saw Treena coming towards their table.
“Stewart, I’m really enjoying myself. I saw some people over at that table in the corner giving us some mean looks.”
Stewart looked over to where she was pointing. They were Monique, Sally and their beaus, Val and Vernon. He shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t know them. They’re probably saying that I’m too old for you,” he told her as he took her hand.
“How do they know how old I am? I am twenty-one for their information,” she said as she followed him onto the dance floor. As he danced with Treena he knew that Sally would be sure to break the news to Morgana that she had seen him out with a new girl. He wondered if he wasn’t playing a dangerous game. April was really upset at what Morgana had done. He knew that she would soon be in his bed again, but he couldn’t resist Treena’s voluptuous body. They would probably stop at Corners before heading home.
Both Meesha and Raileen were down on him to start going steady with them. He thought that was what he was going to do.
***
April got up and looked at the clock and realized that she had overslept. She had thought of shunning Stewart for a few weeks because she felt that he should have broken off with Morgana a long time ago. She put on her clothes and called a taxi to drop her down at his apartment. She thought he must be very lonely as Morgana was now along with Brad. She had stopped sleeping with him long before she, April, returned home. She had no fears of finding him with another woman and wanted to surprise him.
She wondered why he hadn’t called her. Normally every night since Morgana barged in on their lovemaking, he would call and beg her to be with him but she would always put him off. Well, not to worry Stewart, she’d be giving it to him good to make up for all that time since, that they hadn’t been together.
April opened the door of Stewart’s apartment with the keys she had taken from Morgana when that girl had thrown them and her engagement ring back at him. Morgana had actually left the keys in Stewart’s front door. She turned on the lights in his living room and went to open his bedroom door. She heard shouts and muffled sounds and knew that Stewart was there with a woman.
“Who’s there?” she heard him shout out and she took out the scissors and opened the door.
“What are you doing here?”Stewart shouted, sitting up in the bed.
“You dirty wretch!” April shouted rushing at him with the scissors.
Stewart jumped off the bed in his shorts and held her right hand. Treena started screaming.
“Let me go, Stewart, let me get at her,” April shouted.
“Behave yourself, April,” Stewart cried, still trying to get the scissors from her. Treena jumped off the bed, still screaming and ran to the bathroom and locked herself in it.
April seeing Treena run to the bathroom stopped fighting Stewart for the scissors.
“Are you crazy?” he asked and turned on the lights in the room.
“Crazy, I bet she doesn’t come out of that bathroom until I’m gone. It’s you I should have gone after with my scissors.”
“I shared you with Morgana and then Bobbette and look who I have to be sharing you with, a slut, a tramp. I have a good mind to drag her out of that bathroom and really give her a good beating.”
Suddenly Treena burst out of the bathroom.
“Hey, girl, I heard what you’re saying about me. Stewart doesn’t belong to you and neither does he belong to me,” she shouted and before Stewart could hold her back April had attacked Treena.
The two women fell to the carpeted floor with April on top of her, but Stewart managed to drag her off a weeping Treena.
“Why are you holding me? She scratched my face with her nails. Let me go so that I can get at her again,” April begged Stewart.
Stewart looked at April’s face.
“I don’t see the scratches you’re talking about. April, you’d better go home,” Stewart warned her. Treena had gotten up off the floor, but the flimsy nightie she had on was torn exposing her left breast.
“I should have torn that thing off you. Why don’t you go and look a man for yourself? Why do you little girls have to come fooling around other women’s boyfriends?”
“I told you already that Stewart isn’t your boyfriend nor is he even your fiancé,” Treena shouted.
Stewart was blocking April from attacking her again.
“Give me back my scissors and let me be on my way.”
Stewart shook his head and said.
“If I give them back to you, you’re going to attack Treena again.”
“Oh, so you care about her or else you wouldn’t be so protective.”
April picked up her bag and then burst into tears.
“I returned to Jamaica and wanted to stay as far from you as was humanly possible. But you sought me out and wouldn’t let me be until you got me in bed again. But one thing I can tell you is that you won’t catch me again with all that sweet talk,” she said and left.
The security guard called a taxi for the still sobbing April. He knew which apartment this woman was coming from. April went into the taxi as soon as it showed up after giving the guard a five hundred dollar bill. She would get back one at Stewart, she swore as the car drove off.
***
Stewart kept looking around the room as Treena finished dressing.
“She tore my nightie and wanted to stab me with her scissors. You think I was afraid of her? She’s bigger than I am and I didn’t want to fight her and let my mother find out about it. As for those scratches on her face, they were self inflicted.”
She had thrown away the torn garment in his wastepaper basket.
“I’ll buy back one for you.”
“I don’t believe that girl is you fiancé. You think I’m a fool. I know your fiancé and she’s not that girl.”
“How can you tell and you never saw her before?”
“I saw the pictures of the wedding you attended when you left me here and that girl’s picture wasn’t there. Don’t forget that you told me that your fiance was the lady’s bridesmaid. I don’t know how many more women have keys to your apartment. I won’t be coming back down here because I don’t want to be in any confrontation with any of them.”
“That girl is shy. There were several bridesmaids and she was one of them.”
“You take me for a fool if you think I believe that girl would be camera shy.”
Stewart wondered if when she had complained to him about Sally and Monique and their beaus giving her some mean looks she hadn’t recognized any of them from the wedding pictures in the papers. Maybe that hadn’t been her focus.
Stewart was fully dressed now.
“What’s the hurry? It’s just after twelve o’clock.”
“Like I said I don’t know how many of your other women have keys and could be on their way here now.”
“It was only her I gave a key. I don’t know why I didn’t take it away from her. So how am I going to see you again when your mother quarrels every
time I come to look for you.”
“So what am I, only good to you as a sleeping partner? Let’s take it easy. If you want to take me out you know my number. As for now it’s best for you to stick to your fiancé as your sleeping partner,” she said moving past him.
Stewart dropped her home still in deep thoughts as to what he would tell April. When he reached back home and went into his bedroom and turned on the lights and looked at his dresser and wardrobe, he realized that nothing had been broken in the fight between the two women. He knew he had made a mistake in passing off April as his main woman and financially supporting her. He would cut off all that. Damn her, why did she have to come and fight Treena? It’s a wonder none of the neighbors hadn’t called the police. He took off his shirt and lay on his back. April had shown him a different side of her. She and Morgana and she and Bobbette had quarreled, but they had only used words to each other and she had gotten into a