A Gangster and a Gentleman Read online

  “Richard, what do you mean you’re moving out? Leaving? What the fuck is going on?” I cried as I searched his cold eyes for answers.

  “Melody, you act like you don’t know. I mean, we haven’t had sex in months—or did you not notice between all of the shopping and bullshit party hopping you’ve been doing?” Richard snapped.

  I felt weak. How fucking dare he!

  “What are you talking about? I did everything for you! I only go out when you’re on one of your fucking many business trips or working late!” I screamed. I could feel my face filling with blood. “I could give it all up! I won’t shop. I won’t party! Richard, this is too drastic. What are you thinking about? We are happily married!”

  “Face it, Melody. I’m just not in love with you anymore. It’s over,” he told me sharply, and then he stepped by me and headed down the steps. It was like he didn’t even want to be in the same breathing space as me. My heart felt like it had exploded. Vomit crept up my throat, and I hunched over from the cramps that trampled through my stomach. I honestly could not believe that my husband of ten years had just uttered the words that he didn’t love me anymore and gave me my walking papers. I felt an overwhelming sense of desperation.

  “Richard! You are not going to just say some shit like that and think it’s going to be that easy!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

  I raced down the stairs after him. I wasn’t about to let him just walk out of our fucking house without a fight. Part of me wanted to show him that I still wanted to work on our marriage, but another part of me just wanted to hurt him, claw his eyes out or scratch his smooth face.

  “You bastard! You just gonna say you don’t love me anymore? Huh? Do you realize what you’re doing?” I spat, on the verge of hysteria. “After everything I’ve done for you, Richard!” My face was now a mess of makeup and tears.

  He was totally ignoring me. He walked past the bag with his gifts inside and kicked them slightly, like he had just done with my heart. I felt like I had to try a different approach. The desperation was mounting. He was walking swiftly around our parlor, gathering up the pictures he had of himself along with a couple that he had of his parents from the mantel over our fireplace. I was hot on his ass. I was panting—hyperventilating was more like it.

  “Richard, please! I’m asking you, do not do this! I need you! I love you!” I sobbed. That was my attempt at trying the loving, desperate wife approach. Richard was acting like I didn’t exist. I grabbed his arm roughly, more desperate attempts to keep him from doing this.

  “Answer me, Richard! Say something! Say we can work this out,” I demanded with a death grip on his bicep.

  He yanked his arm away from me and gave me a shove. “Melody, don’t reduce yourself to these type of antics,” he shot coldly, his glare enough to back me down a bit. Then he turned around casually, giving me his back again. “What do you want me to say? I told you, there is nothing to explain, nothing to save, nothing to talk about. I don’t love you and I’m leaving,” he said, finishing his verbal murder.

  I stomped my foot. “Nothing to talk about? Nothing to say? After every-fucking-thing I did for you? After everything I gave up for you?” I hollered, feeling the veins in my neck throbbing against my skin.

  Richard had the nerve to laugh at me. He was actually laughing at what I had said. This motherfucker had forgotten. He had really forgotten that I had given up my college career, my dreams of being a lawyer, to work long, hard hours in his fledgling fucking law firm when he didn’t even have so much as one fucking client. I had spent hours and hours typing briefs, scouting out leads, reading press releases, anything it took to build his firm. I was the bitch who went out and recruited soon-to-be stars to hire Richard. I had used some of my past modeling connections to get him some leads on clients, like rappers and actors who had gotten into trouble with the law. Now he was standing there telling me we had nothing to talk about. In my book we had plenty of shit to talk about. I charged into him like a raging bull.

  “You fuckin’ ungrateful bastard. You are not just going to leave me like this!” I screeched. I started throwing wild punches at Richard’s chest. He grabbed hold of my wrists roughly. I could feel his strong hands bearing down into the bones of my wrists. I would’ve never believed my husband would ever put a rough finger on me.

  “Let’s not do this right now, Melody. It is so unnecessary,” he said through clenched teeth, releasing me roughly. He had the nerve to try to walk away. When he tried to pass me to go into the kitchen, I blocked him. Now I know what people mean when they say they felt their world crumbling before their eyes. My heart was aching and I needed to express it. “We will do this now. Because you’re not leaving until you do. You owe me that much, Richard!” I roared, throwing myself in his path.

  He sighed loudly. “I knew I should’ve just never come back. I should’ve just left all this material shit here. I knew you would act the damn fool,” he gritted.

  In a knee-jerk reaction, I reached up and slapped his face. I was immediately sorry.

  He folded his face into a scowl. “I’m out of here!” he growled. He started moving away from me again. He looked like he wanted to just kill me. I grabbed on to him from behind. Clutching on to him for dear life. “Richard, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for whatever I’ve done. Please just tell you won’t leave. Not today! We can sleep on it. Let’s make love—it will fix everything.” I continued to sob.

  Richard let out a loud, cacophonous laugh. “You just don’t get it, do you? I’ve just outgrown you. You don’t satisfy me anymore. It’s as simple as that,” he hissed, his words dripping with venom. He was trying to hurt me. That much I had figured out. For some reason, the man I had sacrificed my entire life for wanted to stab me in the chest and turn the knife round and round.

  Trying desperately to see his eyes through my tears, I said, “No. Don’t say that. You know you don’t really mean that. You told me that we were best friends, remember? And that we were partners for life.” I started rambling, recalling things from early in our relationship.

  He laughed at me again, this time more evilly than before. “You think I just stopped fucking you because I was traveling or working? Think about it, Melody. Men take pussy even if they’re dead-dog tired. You had to know,” he said, followed by a short chuckle. It was like it was a real big joke to him. I was flabbergasted.

  “But I tried to give you your space. I didn’t want to crowd you since I know you’ve been traveling. I tried to be understanding of the fact that you were either gone or working late hours with your new partner at the firm every night for the past year. Remember, you’re the one who’s always complaining that you’re tired,” I said, and then I fell silent. It was like something hit me like a hammer on the head. I had solved the mystery without even doing anything. My own words had brought clarity to the situation. I immediately covered my mouth. Richard had tried to make me feel like I was crazy when I met his new partner, Christina Cox, and immediately became suspicious of their relationship.

  A whole year of suspicion and numerous speculations had just been confirmed by my own words. “Oh my God, Richard. How could you? You’re having an affair with Christina, aren’t you?” I shrieked. My eyes lowered into slits, and I bit down into my bottom lip until I drew blood.

  “I’m out of here! No more of this bullshit!” he snapped. I jumped in front of him again as he headed toward the front door.

  “You fucking piece of shit! I can’t believe you’re leaving me for that bitch!” I yelled. It was like an evil force took hold of me. Without even thinking about it, I jumped straight on his back and started pounding on his head. “You son of a bitch! I knew it. All of this time you tried to make me feel like I was crazy!” I screamed as I pounded on him. He was whirling around, trying to get me off of him. “I knew deep down in my heart that you were sleeping with that whore behind my back. I’m gonna kill your ass!” I spat, trying to bite his fucking ear off. He struggled for about a minute and a half to get
me off his back.

  “Get the hell off me, you crazy bitch!” he yelled.

  And when he finally was able to wrestle me to the floor, I was crying uncontrollably and panting. Richard was out of breath too. But it didn’t prevent him from bailing out the front door.

  “I’ll be back to get my shit later,” he snapped with finality.

  I was too exhausted to fight him anymore. I was emotionally and physically drained. I lay in a heap on the floor. “You tell that home-wrecking bitch I’m gonna kill her when I see her!” I roared into the air about two seconds before he closed the front door. The entire scene was like some shit out of Waiting to Exhale. It was the kind of shit that happened in movies, not to me. I kicked and flailed my arms like a baby missing her best toy. I felt like dying. After about an hour of staring into space with tears running out of my eyes as if they were faucets, I was struck by a sudden burst of energy. I sat up like a woman possessed by an evil spirit. It wasn’t over. I wasn’t going to let it be over. I swiped the tears off my cheek and stomped over to Richard’s bags. He wanted to act like this was a movie, well so would I. I opened our front door and began tossing all of his shit outside. I did that until sweat covered my entire body. “This is just the beginning, Richard Goldman!” I screamed from the door. I didn’t give a fuck who heard me. I was a woman possessed. And by the time all of this was over, the entire neighborhood and the city would know what a low-down husband I had.

  2

  The night Richard left me, I cried and cried until I made myself so sick I was throwing up nothing but my stomach acid. I didn’t even have enough energy to go up to my bedroom that first night, so I slept curled up in a fetal position by the front door, a few feet away from the bag of gifts I had bought for him. It wasn’t until the next day that I was able to drag myself to the bedroom. I lay in bed, tossing and turning, replaying Richard’s betrayal in my head over and over. My emotions ran the gamut from sorrowful to all-out rage.

  Finally, after three days of a mentally debilitating roller coaster, an unnerving calm suddenly came over me like a warm blanket. I bolted up in the bed as if possessed by a demon. Suddenly, I mustered enough strength to pull myself out of bed. “Melody, you’re better than this,” I gave myself a pep talk as I stood on wobbly, weak legs. With a mission in mind, I showered and set out to try and piece my life together as best I could. With my face painted with extra foundation to cover the huge bags under my eyes, I slipped into a lady Brooks pantsuit and my favorite Gucci pumps. I wouldn’t say that I was my usual stunning self, but I looked decent enough to go out in public.

  The first thing I planned to do was go to the bank and check on my financial stability. Richard had come completely out of left field with the whole leaving thing, so there was no telling what else he had up his sleeve. I needed to make sure I had money, just in case. I had depended solely on Richard for ten long years for everything—including the drawers on my ass. He had doled out money to me in a monthly allowance of $5,000. It was good enough for me. I could shop, party, take girlfriend trips or whatever I felt like doing for the month. Richard also paid all of the bills for the house and for my car lease. I didn’t have to worry or want for anything. It worked. All along I had always felt our arrangement was a fair deal for what I had sacrificed to help him before he became wealthy.

  When I met Richard, I was working as a low-paid paralegal in one of the largest law firms in Virginia. I had just started law school, and I was focused on becoming an entertainment lawyer. I also did modeling stints in the evenings to pay for school. I was strikingly beautiful. When I walked the streets, I turned heads and that was a fact. My five-foot-seven-inch statuesque frame and caramel, blemish-free complexion garnered lots of attention and made it pretty easy for me to make a few bucks with print ads and some low-level catwalk stints. I was fully independent and loving it. I had escaped my childhood, and at twenty-five, I had my own apartment, my own car, and I was holding my own in general. I wasn’t thinking about a man. I had watched my mother put men before me all of my life.

  As a kid, I was determined to make my own way and never to depend on a man. I was also determined to show my mother that I could do it without her. Sometime over the years, the lines got crossed and shit got blurry for me. Meeting Richard had changed my “I-am-woman-hear-me-roar” attitude so fast I couldn’t even remember how it all happened. Richard had come into the law firm for an interview on a rainy afternoon. He was soaked, yet I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. He was fine in a Boris Kodjo type of way. He had smiled at me and asked if I could show him where he could clean up before his meeting. I had snickered at him, because he had looked kind of worked over. I gave him a roll of hand towels and told him the secret of using the bathroom hand drier to dry his shirt, tie, and suit jacket. We exchanged glances and smiles the entire time he was there. I was immediately smitten, but I never thought he would want me—the office paralegal. Richard was half black and half white, and he had taken the best attributes from both races. He stood six foot two inches tall and kept his body chiseled. His teeth were straight and magazine-quality white. He was articulate, well dressed, and as charming as a fucking fairy-tale prince. Even if I had tried to play it off like I didn’t like him, my face flaming over each time I looked at him would’ve given it all away.

  Richard asked me out once he’d gotten the job at the firm. I accepted and the rest is history. At first, we worked together, pretending we didn’t know each other. Sometimes I think our acting was so bad that we had blown our own cover. The pretending didn’t last long. Richard had been brought into the office of one of the firm’s partners and warned about their fraternization policy. That night, over wine and sex, Richard decided that I would quit the job as he prepared to go off and start his own firm. At first, I was very leery about giving up my paycheck and independence to turn around and depend on Richard. I voiced my fears to him, and he assured me I could go to school full-time and not have to worry. Richard had put his hand over his heart and swore to me that he would always take care of me. I don’t know what I was thinking, being that I had never trusted anyone, not even my own mother, but I followed my heart and did what Richard had asked. Besides, at the time, going to school full-time seemed like a good plan.

  Then Richard came up with the idea that I would start running his fledgling office as he began to get his own practice off the ground. It was too much to handle—the demands of law school and working more than fourteen hours a day helping Richard. Needless to say, I eventually quit school. Again, Richard promised I wouldn’t have anything to worry about. He swore before God that he would take care of me for life. As soon as he made his first big case, Richard proposed. I was elated. It seemed like he was definitely making good on his promises. No more dealing with my trifling-ass mother and no more working like a slave. Richard was taking care of everything just like he’d said he would. In the end, I had given up everything—my apartment, my car, my job, and my dreams. I was just Mrs. Melody Goldman, wife of Richard Goldman, Esq.

  I took one last long look at myself in the mirror before I stepped out of my door. I exhaled and prayed for the best. I wasn’t sure what I would encounter at the bank. With his erratic behavior, there was no telling what the hell Richard would do. Most of our accounts were joint, but Richard had some solo accounts.

  I pulled back the door, and the sunlight hurt my eyes. “Damn, Melody, you stayed in the house way too long,” I grumbled, fishing in my purse for my shades. Just as I covered my eyes and got them to focus, I noticed a man on my lawn. I crinkled my brows and looked down over the top of my shades. “Hey!” I screamed out at the man. He was banging something into the ground. He looked up at me, waved, and continued to bang. I stomped down the porch stairs and stormed toward him. “What are you doing?” I huffed as I approached him. He looked at me like I was from outer space. “Answer me! Why are you on my lawn?” I snapped, eyeing him evilly.

  “Miss, the owner of the house is putting it up for sale. I am here puttin
g in the for sale sign,” he said with an attitude, as if I should’ve known why he was there.

  “Who sent you?” I barked. It was the only thing I could say. I felt like melting into the well-manicured grass. Here I was saying it was my house, but I didn’t know the shit was being put up for sale. My cheeks flamed over right away.

  “Uh . . . a Mr. Richard Goldman,” the man read from a paper he’d pulled out of his back pocket.

  A flash of heat came over my body so fast I snatched the piece of paper from the man and ripped it into shreds. Fucking Richard! Bastard! I screamed in my head.

  “That’s what I think of your fucking sign! Get the fuck off my property!!” I screamed, jutting an accusatory finger at the man.

  The man backed away as if he were being attacked by a rabid dog. He stumbled toward his pickup truck, which read RE/MAX. I rushed over and picked up the red, white, and blue tin sign he’d left lying on my grass. “And take your fucking for sale sign and shove it up your ass!” I hollered as I used what energy I had left to toss the sign into the street. The loud clang of the tin sent a chill down my spine, and not in a good way. I had come completely undone. My first day out trying to pick up the pieces of my life and this is what I have to deal with. I hated Richard at that moment.

  My face was painted with a scowl, my wig was loose, and I was sweating through my damn clothes. My chest heaved up and down wildly. “He wants to sell the fucking house right out from under me, huh? I got something for Richard’s ass,” I mumbled to myself as I rushed back toward our three-car garage. I hit the garage door opener that was connected to my keys and waited for the door to go up. When the door was fully up, I almost dropped down. Another fucking low blow. My car was gone! I whirled around in a circle, feeling lost and crazy. It couldn’t be possible. There was no way someone could steal my car from a locked garage. “What the fuck? It can’t be!” I bellowed. I felt like some unknown force had snatched my breath away. I walked into the garage slowly, feeling like my legs weren’t even connected to my body.