Monday excerpt

GRANDMA'S HANDYMAN published by Lady Leo Publishing



It was quiet in the apartment when I unlocked the front door. I figured that Leon was probably still asleep. I smiled, thinking it was because I’d worn him out last night. I couldn’t have been any more wrong. As I got closer to the bedroom, I heard the unmistakable groaning of the bed springs. Unless Leon was doing sit ups in bed, something was going on that I wasn’t going to be happy about seeing.

I opened the bedroom door to find him straddled by our next-door neighbor, Leticia. Her eyes were closed as she rode him like a prize stallion. His eyes were closed as well, but it was the damn smile on his face that bothered me more.

My throat closed as my head began to throb and I suddenly found it hard to breathe. Hurtful tears began to fill my eyes as I stood there watching him do our next door neighbor in our bed. Hadn’t last night meant anything to him? Or was I just his nighttime lay? I thought he loved me—and only me.

Suddenly the hurt I’d felt a moment ago was replaced by growing anger. I had the uneasy feeling that this thing with Leticia could have been going on for quite a while. That skinny little corn-rowed hussy seemed mighty at ease with my man. And that wasn’t right.


I controlled my desire to smack her as I walked over to my side of the bed to retrieve my glasses. That’s about when Leticia noticed me and gave out a primal scream that could have awakened a comatose person.

“Shawna! What are you doing here?” Leon asked.

“Up until a few minutes ago, I lived here.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re a smart boy, you figure it out,” I said and left, slamming the bedroom door behind me as hard as I could. I heard something fall off the wall and hit the carpeted floor with a dull thud. At the moment, I couldn’t have cared less if the entire place fell down. I was fuming.

A few minutes later, a naked Leon caught up to me and grabbed my arm. “Shawna, wait!”

“Don’t touch me!” I wrenched my arm from his grasp. “Don’t ever touch me again!” I
screamed at him with all the rancor I could muster.

“But…I can explain.”

“Don’t bother. A picture paints a thousand words. And I had an eyeful. I’ll be back for my stuff,” I said, fleeing the apartment before my tears fell and gave my false bravado away.

I sat in the car a long time before I was able to stop crying. My whole body shook as I sobbed my heart out. I couldn’t believe what I’d just witnessed. It was as if I were having some kind of a nightmare or had fallen into a parallel universe. None of it made any sense. Hadn’t Leon professed his undying love to me? And last night? Didn’t that mean a thing? My head was spinning with all these unanswered questions. A huge one wiggled its way out of the warren of tangled thoughts in my head. What was I going to do now? And I wasn’t referring to whether or not to go back to work.