Lies and Alibis Read Free

be thirty.    Grow up a little.  Let a grown man take you out sometime.”
      He doesn't have to remind me that I'm turning thirty on my birthday.    No wedding dress or babies in my immediate future.  No warm body to snuggle up to at night.  My stomach feels like he landed a body blow.
    I stand and walk from behind the nurse's station until I'm toe to toe with Lucas.  I'd love for it to be nose to nose, but he's a foot taller than me. 
    “ When a grown man asks me out, then maybe I'll say yes.”
    I march away from him, pull the rubber band out of my hair and shake my hair down my back for a dramatic effect.  The nurses roar with laughter.  I don't look back to confirm, but I'm sure Lucas is picking his face up off the floor.
    I hope he doesn’t consider this a challenge.  I am so not in the mood.
     

 
     
    ~3~
    Dionne
    “Did you have fun on your trip, Rod?  How was Birmingham?” I ask as Rod relaxes in front of his movie theater sized television screen, watching a pre-release version of the next big Hollywood action flick.
    I practiced the question a million times before Rod got home so that I wouldn’t sound like a mad black woman, but I don’t think I ’m successful.  If I can detect the venom at the edges of my words, I’m sure Rod doesn’t miss it.  Or maybe he’ll be distracted by my cute boy shorts and baby tee. 
    Rod sighs.  “Don’t start Dionne.  I saw the blog.”
    “ What blog?”  I walk over to him in my clear plastic stilettos.  He should like these shoes…I bought them a stripper boutique.
    Rod scoots to the end of the couch, leans over and slaps my behind.  My stomach muscles contract – automatic cringe. 
    “Dionne, I know you go online every day, even though I tell you not to do it.”
    “ I’m not sure what you’re talking about Rod.  But if I had been online, like you suggest, what would I have missed?”
    I ease down onto the carpet in front of Rod, and cross my long legs in front of me.  I had to get my behind out of his reach, because if he slaps it again, I’m going to go ballistic and scratch his eyes out.  And that would be the opposite of what I’m trying to accomplish tonight – an all night long love-making session that leads to me being successfully impregnated with Rod’s first child.
    “ Okay, I’ll play along,” Rod chuckles.  “If you didn’t see anything online, then neither did I.”
    “ What’s her name, Rod?  Bambi, Synful, Lexi or Pepper?”
    No missing my tone that time.  It’s all out poison, now.  Cyanide laced hatred cake covered with arsenic frosting.
    “Her name is Peach.”
    I let out a loud, maniacal laugh.  “Peach?  Don’t you mean Peaches?  What type of illiterate hooker calls herself Peach ?”
    “ Apparently, it has something to do with a tattoo that she got when she was a teenager.  It was supposed to say Peaches, but the tattoo artist left the ‘es’ off by accident.”
    “ So, you got the chick’s whole life story?  I didn’t know there was much time for conversation when you’re up in the spot, making it rain.”
    “ Typically, there isn’t any conversation, but since Peach is going to be the newest female emcee for Knight Records, I think I need to get her history.”
    I’m glad that I’m already sitting down, because the room starts to spin.  Rod just signed a stripper to be his new artist.  A stripper that likes to give him lap dances and get photographed by blog paparazzi while doing it.
    A stripper that probably wants to take my spot.
    “ What part of offering someone a record deal requires the chick to sit in your lap, spend the night in your hotel room and walk out hand in hand with you?”
    “ Baby, I don’t know why you’re always getting twisted,” Rod says.  “All of that was for the paparazzi.  Everybody knows her name now. I only have one wife, and that’s you.”
    “ One wife, but how many concubines?”
    Rod throws one hand up in the dismissive motion he always