EXCERPT: "Tumbled"
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"...she writes people. Real, relatable people."
-Best Selling Author Renee Swindle Chapter One After the love is gone is a riff from a song that no one wants to sing. Dajah Moore was no different. But that song could have surely been playing inside the one-bedroom apartment on Merrick Boulevard in Jamaica, Queens, New York as she stood surrounded by boxes. It wasn’t supposed to be her background music, especially after being so sure that the love she’d sought was finally hers. Especially |
Love wasn’t supposed to leave after that. Love was supposed to stay and grow and swell like a seed planted in springtime soil with heavy rains and plenty of sunshine. Love was supposed to be like a summer melon ripening, ready to burst under the slightest touch.
Someone’s touch did burst Dajah’s and Jeff’s ‘love,’ exploding sanguine chunks all over her emotions, the walls of her soul; leaving her drippy and messy and messed up.
No woman wanted to be. No woman wanted to be so victimized by a crime of the heart that in the aftermath, who they were, how they thought, walked, talked, behaved, analyzed, was changed.
But Dajah was changed, her life, her thoughts, her heart, all different.
Now, her after were the cardboard boxes from U-haul marked ‘bathroom’, ‘kitchen’ and ‘shoes’. Her after were the sad eyes of Jeff’s Irish setter Kelly, who sat silent and guiltily, as if the dog had been a part of the undoing.
“I think that’s everything,” Jeff decided, looking around.
“Yeah,” Dajah said absently.
With wedding plans and honeymoon dreams, she’d moved in with Jeff because his bedroom and closets were roomier than hers. Living together suited them. They’d taken drives out to Glen Cove to look at three million dollar homes on the waters edge, hosted dinners with her friends and his; their guests oohing and ahhing over lobster macaroni and cheese and Thai-styled grilled tilapia.
They’d come up with names for their children. Planned to honeymoon in Cozumel. Placed the promise of that first grandchild in their parents hearts. But all there was to show was her departure.
“Gonna take these down,” Jeff’s able hands holding the biggest box. It was those hands that had brought forth the damage; hands controlled by a mind that convinced him that one last fling before the ring would be okay because Dajah would never know and trusted him completely.
He was supposed to be beyond his philandering ways, beyond wanting to stick his jank into Syreeta and Joy and Lisa and Jill and who ever else welcomed the fine, smart, handsome, wise Jeff between their thighs.
But what had been loosed from him reappeared; the proof was Jill coming to the apartment, armed with text messages and a cell phone picture of Jeff naked and sleep in a bed that wasn’t his.
Jill had been one of the many women Jeff had been seeing when he’d first met Dajah. At Dajah’s insistence, Jeff had let Jill and the rest go. But Jill had made a come-back, showing up at Jeff’s front door, proof of their affair on her Nokia cell.
Dajah didn’t remember lunging, only that Jill’s phone ended up in her hand. She’d been on the verge of throwing it when Jill grabbed her wrist. It could have gotten nasty but Dajah realized that that was exactly what Jill wanted—she wanted a Jerry Springer moment full of hair pulling and name calling.
Only her thoughts—I’m so much better than this--stopped her. She took a breath, handed Jill back the phone. Thanked her for telling and opened the door to let Jill out, finding Jeff, key in hand, on the other side.
The look on his face brought it home. The sheer shock and guilt made it real. Jill and Jeff’s voices collided around her as she stepped out the apartment and headed for the stairs. She took them quickly, bursting out into the warm early spring air, breathing hard and long and forever.
Dajah was still standing on the sidewalk when Jill brushed by her. Still there when, a few seconds later, she felt Jeff’s touch. She didn’t resist his pulling her close. Didn’t resist the arms that held her or the tears she shed. Didn’t resist his request to come back up stairs.
Sat stoic and numb on the couch as he tried to explain the why.
She had no strength to tell him to keep it. There wasn’t enough ‘whys’ on all of God’s green earth to make her stay. She was gone from him by the time her head hit the pillow that night, the king size bed empty of Jeff, swallowing her whole.
That had been two days ago. Now with her things packed, she was exiting his apartment and his life, forever.
“These are light.” Dajah blinked, surprised to find Jeff back gathering up more of her boxes. “I can probably handle two.” His tone — conversational. Did he really expect her to say one word more than what was necessary to leave his life? Did he really? “If you put that one on top,” he was asking.
“What? So I can be gone faster?” Her nasty tone betrayed her. Dajah wanted to snatch the words back and shove them into her mouth. She wasn’t going to be bitter or mean or cruel or unkind. She was better than that.
“No Day, that’s not what—,”
She stopped his talk with her hand. Refused to add ‘keep it.’
She was moving in with Frieda because her old apartment had been rented and she hadn’t found a new place yet. Dajah was going to live with her best friend because her best man had done her dirty.
Not a failure, she reminded herself as she piled one box on top of another. Not, she reminded herself as Jeff left the apartment and Kelly got up and nuzzled her hand.
Not, she whispered as Kelly whimpered and sat at her feet; large brown eyes, beacons of pain that hurt her in the worse way.
Soon there were no more boxes. Soon all that she owned was packed into Jeff’s SUV. Soon he would follow her down Merrick Boulevard, making a left on Baisley and a right on 129th Avenue. But it didn’t feel soon enough, as she started her car and put on her signal. Not soon enough as she moved into the flow of traffic, the midnight blue GMC right behind her.
She had been sure, so damn sure. Sure that Jeff could be the man that Rick hadn’t, that she didn’t think David was, Michael before and Christian before that.
There had been a long line of men who couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t. Too long of a line. She wasn’t a spring chicken. Wanted babies and a real life as a real wife. Want doesn’t have a thing to do with need. She chuckled to herself, the sound, disturbing.
I’m not going to trip over this. I’m not. I never have tripped over a man. Not about to start now. But she had. Dajah had tripped and fallen over Jeff. Despite her best intentions to protect herself, she’d crashed. And the landing hurt. It was throbbing by the time she pulled up to Frieda’s, with no relief in sight.
***
“He forgot.” Her voice was soft, distant and hushed in the dark night.
“Forgot what?” Frieda asked in between a yawn. It was late. She was sharing her bed and just wanted Dajah to stop talking so she could get to sleep. But best-friend duty was upon her, so Frieda yawned again, waiting for an answer.
“Who I was.”
“Yeah.” Frieda didn’t know what Dajah was talking about, but she didn’t have to. It wasn’t about Frieda understanding. It was about Dajah talking.
“He did,” Dajah said with a little more fire.
“I agree.”
“Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Frieda paused. Enough truths had done her friend in. She didn’t dare add more to the pile. She reached over and turned on the side lamp. Adjusted her head scarf as she sat up. Looked at her friend with sad eyes. “No, I really don’t. But it doesn’t matter Day. I don’t have to as long as you do.”
Dajah nodded, some great truth unburdened from her. Turning her back to her friend, Dajah moved her head around the pillow that smelled of a softener she didn’t use and was too soft to support her neck.
“He still loves you Day. He really does.”
Dajah knew that, so hearing it from Frieda didn’t help. “Please make that the last time you tell me that.”
“Okay.” Frieda turned off the light. Tried to get comfortable in her own bed. Didn’t, not once.
***
Desperation, like dried river beds, carved Jeff’s face. His eyes were somber, saddened. Gloomed. “Another?”
It was already late and Martin had a wife at home waiting. Martin shook his head no. “Nah man, I’m good.” He swallowed the last of his Heineken. “What about you? You feeling better?”
Jeff sat back, smiled. Lost it as his eyes drifted over the neon Bud sign on the back wall of the bar. “No, I’m not.” He blinked back tears. Felt the need to hit something. A wall. His own stupid head.
He had called Martin because Martin was the oldest and wisest of all of his friends. He’d called Martin who had been successfully married for a few years, in need of guidance. But so far Jeff hadn’t gotten anything he could use.
“You messed up, big time. No getting ‘round that.” Jeff nodded. “And Dajah ain’t the type of woman who’s going to forgive you.”
“I know that.”
Martin leaned forward. “So what you going to do? Sit in this sad ass bar every night and drink Heinies? Cause as much as you’re my boy, I can’t sit here with you.”
“I know you can’t.”
Martin patted Jeff on the back. “Well, good. Least you know.” Leaned back. “Now, you told me why you stepped out on Dajah with Jill, but you need to figure out the real reason.”
Jeff looked at his friend, trying to latch onto an answer too fleeting to grasp. “I don’t know.”
“You gotta know. You may not like what the real answer is, but you got to figure out what the real answer is. If you don’t, twenty years from now, you’re going to be making the same damn mistake, ‘cause that’s what it was—a mistake. Cost you much, but I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
“I. Don’t. Know.”
“Yeah? Well I see a couple choices here. You can go on with that line of ‘I don’t know’ and end up like our boy Casey, clueless and lonely as shit, or you can get to the root cause and, with every cell of your being, make sure you don’t do it again. Dajah ain’t regular. You messed up on a damn good thing.”
Jeff raised his hand again. “Enough, okay?”
Martin stood, tossed some bills on the bar. “I’m out.” He extended his palm. Jeff slapped it, both of them snapping their fingers in the aftermath. “I’m here for you, but at some point, you have to be here for yourself.”
Jeff watched Martin leave. Looked at the clock over the bar. It wasn’t quite eleven yet. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Casey. “Yo, Case. What up?”
Fifteen minutes later Casey was coming through the door. Jeff didn’t need judgment, just a drinking buddy. As long as Jeff was buying, Casey was down for his cause.
***
The next morning found Dajah aching. She had pain in her shoulder, the dip in the back of her neck. It hurt to roll over, her reward for sleeping in Frieda’s bed. “Uhh.” Dajah didn’t mean to utter that. Had no intentions of announcing to Frieda or anyone else how this first night without Jeff and the comfort of his Sleep Number bed had done her.
But the bed was empty. Dajah listened for sounds of life in the apartment. There was none.
She was alone.
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Includes Free Shipping and Signed Copy after the imperfect Jeff had changed his flaws into near perfection, with monogamy and ring talk and I’m-ready-to-walk-down-the-isle talk and Dajah had taken his words and meld them into her heart with a good enough fit to say: Okay, we can do this. We can get married, have babies and live that happily ever- after.
Someone’s touch did burst Dajah’s and Jeff’s ‘love,’ exploding sanguine chunks all over her emotions, the walls of her soul; leaving her drippy and messy and messed up.
No woman wanted to be. No woman wanted to be so victimized by a crime of the heart that in the aftermath, who they were, how they thought, walked, talked, behaved, analyzed, was changed.
But Dajah was changed, her life, her thoughts, her heart, all different.
Now, her after were the cardboard boxes from U-haul marked ‘bathroom’, ‘kitchen’ and ‘shoes’. Her after were the sad eyes of Jeff’s Irish setter Kelly, who sat silent and guiltily, as if the dog had been a part of the undoing.
“I think that’s everything,” Jeff decided, looking around.
“Yeah,” Dajah said absently.
With wedding plans and honeymoon dreams, she’d moved in with Jeff because his bedroom and closets were roomier than hers. Living together suited them. They’d taken drives out to Glen Cove to look at three million dollar homes on the waters edge, hosted dinners with her friends and his; their guests oohing and ahhing over lobster macaroni and cheese and Thai-styled grilled tilapia.
They’d come up with names for their children. Planned to honeymoon in Cozumel. Placed the promise of that first grandchild in their parents hearts. But all there was to show was her departure.
“Gonna take these down,” Jeff’s able hands holding the biggest box. It was those hands that had brought forth the damage; hands controlled by a mind that convinced him that one last fling before the ring would be okay because Dajah would never know and trusted him completely.
He was supposed to be beyond his philandering ways, beyond wanting to stick his jank into Syreeta and Joy and Lisa and Jill and who ever else welcomed the fine, smart, handsome, wise Jeff between their thighs.
But what had been loosed from him reappeared; the proof was Jill coming to the apartment, armed with text messages and a cell phone picture of Jeff naked and sleep in a bed that wasn’t his.
Jill had been one of the many women Jeff had been seeing when he’d first met Dajah. At Dajah’s insistence, Jeff had let Jill and the rest go. But Jill had made a come-back, showing up at Jeff’s front door, proof of their affair on her Nokia cell.
Dajah didn’t remember lunging, only that Jill’s phone ended up in her hand. She’d been on the verge of throwing it when Jill grabbed her wrist. It could have gotten nasty but Dajah realized that that was exactly what Jill wanted—she wanted a Jerry Springer moment full of hair pulling and name calling.
Only her thoughts—I’m so much better than this--stopped her. She took a breath, handed Jill back the phone. Thanked her for telling and opened the door to let Jill out, finding Jeff, key in hand, on the other side.
The look on his face brought it home. The sheer shock and guilt made it real. Jill and Jeff’s voices collided around her as she stepped out the apartment and headed for the stairs. She took them quickly, bursting out into the warm early spring air, breathing hard and long and forever.
Dajah was still standing on the sidewalk when Jill brushed by her. Still there when, a few seconds later, she felt Jeff’s touch. She didn’t resist his pulling her close. Didn’t resist the arms that held her or the tears she shed. Didn’t resist his request to come back up stairs.
Sat stoic and numb on the couch as he tried to explain the why.
She had no strength to tell him to keep it. There wasn’t enough ‘whys’ on all of God’s green earth to make her stay. She was gone from him by the time her head hit the pillow that night, the king size bed empty of Jeff, swallowing her whole.
That had been two days ago. Now with her things packed, she was exiting his apartment and his life, forever.
“These are light.” Dajah blinked, surprised to find Jeff back gathering up more of her boxes. “I can probably handle two.” His tone — conversational. Did he really expect her to say one word more than what was necessary to leave his life? Did he really? “If you put that one on top,” he was asking.
“What? So I can be gone faster?” Her nasty tone betrayed her. Dajah wanted to snatch the words back and shove them into her mouth. She wasn’t going to be bitter or mean or cruel or unkind. She was better than that.
“No Day, that’s not what—,”
She stopped his talk with her hand. Refused to add ‘keep it.’
She was moving in with Frieda because her old apartment had been rented and she hadn’t found a new place yet. Dajah was going to live with her best friend because her best man had done her dirty.
Not a failure, she reminded herself as she piled one box on top of another. Not, she reminded herself as Jeff left the apartment and Kelly got up and nuzzled her hand.
Not, she whispered as Kelly whimpered and sat at her feet; large brown eyes, beacons of pain that hurt her in the worse way.
Soon there were no more boxes. Soon all that she owned was packed into Jeff’s SUV. Soon he would follow her down Merrick Boulevard, making a left on Baisley and a right on 129th Avenue. But it didn’t feel soon enough, as she started her car and put on her signal. Not soon enough as she moved into the flow of traffic, the midnight blue GMC right behind her.
She had been sure, so damn sure. Sure that Jeff could be the man that Rick hadn’t, that she didn’t think David was, Michael before and Christian before that.
There had been a long line of men who couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t. Too long of a line. She wasn’t a spring chicken. Wanted babies and a real life as a real wife. Want doesn’t have a thing to do with need. She chuckled to herself, the sound, disturbing.
I’m not going to trip over this. I’m not. I never have tripped over a man. Not about to start now. But she had. Dajah had tripped and fallen over Jeff. Despite her best intentions to protect herself, she’d crashed. And the landing hurt. It was throbbing by the time she pulled up to Frieda’s, with no relief in sight.
***
“He forgot.” Her voice was soft, distant and hushed in the dark night.
“Forgot what?” Frieda asked in between a yawn. It was late. She was sharing her bed and just wanted Dajah to stop talking so she could get to sleep. But best-friend duty was upon her, so Frieda yawned again, waiting for an answer.
“Who I was.”
“Yeah.” Frieda didn’t know what Dajah was talking about, but she didn’t have to. It wasn’t about Frieda understanding. It was about Dajah talking.
“He did,” Dajah said with a little more fire.
“I agree.”
“Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Frieda paused. Enough truths had done her friend in. She didn’t dare add more to the pile. She reached over and turned on the side lamp. Adjusted her head scarf as she sat up. Looked at her friend with sad eyes. “No, I really don’t. But it doesn’t matter Day. I don’t have to as long as you do.”
Dajah nodded, some great truth unburdened from her. Turning her back to her friend, Dajah moved her head around the pillow that smelled of a softener she didn’t use and was too soft to support her neck.
“He still loves you Day. He really does.”
Dajah knew that, so hearing it from Frieda didn’t help. “Please make that the last time you tell me that.”
“Okay.” Frieda turned off the light. Tried to get comfortable in her own bed. Didn’t, not once.
***
Desperation, like dried river beds, carved Jeff’s face. His eyes were somber, saddened. Gloomed. “Another?”
It was already late and Martin had a wife at home waiting. Martin shook his head no. “Nah man, I’m good.” He swallowed the last of his Heineken. “What about you? You feeling better?”
Jeff sat back, smiled. Lost it as his eyes drifted over the neon Bud sign on the back wall of the bar. “No, I’m not.” He blinked back tears. Felt the need to hit something. A wall. His own stupid head.
He had called Martin because Martin was the oldest and wisest of all of his friends. He’d called Martin who had been successfully married for a few years, in need of guidance. But so far Jeff hadn’t gotten anything he could use.
“You messed up, big time. No getting ‘round that.” Jeff nodded. “And Dajah ain’t the type of woman who’s going to forgive you.”
“I know that.”
Martin leaned forward. “So what you going to do? Sit in this sad ass bar every night and drink Heinies? Cause as much as you’re my boy, I can’t sit here with you.”
“I know you can’t.”
Martin patted Jeff on the back. “Well, good. Least you know.” Leaned back. “Now, you told me why you stepped out on Dajah with Jill, but you need to figure out the real reason.”
Jeff looked at his friend, trying to latch onto an answer too fleeting to grasp. “I don’t know.”
“You gotta know. You may not like what the real answer is, but you got to figure out what the real answer is. If you don’t, twenty years from now, you’re going to be making the same damn mistake, ‘cause that’s what it was—a mistake. Cost you much, but I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
“I. Don’t. Know.”
“Yeah? Well I see a couple choices here. You can go on with that line of ‘I don’t know’ and end up like our boy Casey, clueless and lonely as shit, or you can get to the root cause and, with every cell of your being, make sure you don’t do it again. Dajah ain’t regular. You messed up on a damn good thing.”
Jeff raised his hand again. “Enough, okay?”
Martin stood, tossed some bills on the bar. “I’m out.” He extended his palm. Jeff slapped it, both of them snapping their fingers in the aftermath. “I’m here for you, but at some point, you have to be here for yourself.”
Jeff watched Martin leave. Looked at the clock over the bar. It wasn’t quite eleven yet. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Casey. “Yo, Case. What up?”
Fifteen minutes later Casey was coming through the door. Jeff didn’t need judgment, just a drinking buddy. As long as Jeff was buying, Casey was down for his cause.
***
The next morning found Dajah aching. She had pain in her shoulder, the dip in the back of her neck. It hurt to roll over, her reward for sleeping in Frieda’s bed. “Uhh.” Dajah didn’t mean to utter that. Had no intentions of announcing to Frieda or anyone else how this first night without Jeff and the comfort of his Sleep Number bed had done her.
But the bed was empty. Dajah listened for sounds of life in the apartment. There was none.
She was alone.
Price $19.95
Includes Free Shipping and Signed Copy after the imperfect Jeff had changed his flaws into near perfection, with monogamy and ring talk and I’m-ready-to-walk-down-the-isle talk and Dajah had taken his words and meld them into her heart with a good enough fit to say: Okay, we can do this. We can get married, have babies and live that happily ever- after.