Summary: "Do you still love me?" Over 30 years later, Cookie's summer secret finally comes to light.
Notes:
- CAPA High is the Philadelphia High School for Creative & Performing Arts.
References:
"What have I told you..." From Déjà Vu.
___
Curtis Institute of Music
June 1984
"Lori?"
"Dwight?" Cookie scowled up at the gorgeous, light-skinned boy who had gotten her into so much trouble in the first place. "What do you want?"
Dwight Walker smiled and flashed his assistant instructor badge. "I'm your warden for lunch and dinner detention for the next three days." He held up stacks of music theory books and blank sheets of music paper. "Might as well get started."
"Are you serious?" Cookie tossed her fork in her chicken-fried steak so hard that gravy splattered onto her camp t-shirt. The brilliant sophomore from CAPA High who worked as an assistant instructor to cover his tuition first spotted Lori Holloway on the third day of camp. She was singing and dancing to Michael Jackson's "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough" in the square outside of the cafeteria during lunch.
Cookie was at her boldest then, mesmerized by this older boy as he effortlessly played along with his acoustic guitar. Cookie lifted her shirt up to show her navel as she gyrated her hips as seductively as a 13-year-old could. She got hit with three days' lunch and dinner detention for her trouble. "First of all," Cookie corrected, all Badlands teen girl attitude, "nobody calls me Lori except these white teachers. My name is Cookie."
The boy nodded. "Well...my name isn't really Dwight," he admitted.
"It's not?"
"Nah. It's Lucious. Lucious Lyon. And I'm not really a sophomore at CAPA like everybody thinks I am," he admitted. "But don't tell anybody, okay? If they knew who I really was, they'd never let me stay."
Cooke couldn't have handled Dwight Walker, the college-bound 10th grader from Chestnut Hill. But Lucious Lyon from south Philly was a hustler who had done what he had to go to get where he wanted to be – into Curtis, into dinner detention as Cookie's sight-reading instructor, and later into Cookie's dorm room. He'd even paid money to have Cookie moved from a double dorm into a single one. There was only one way a guy like Lucious could make that kind of dough.
The first time Lucious snuck into Cookie's dorm, they laid on their backs side-by-side in Cookie's bed and talked about their love for music and their plans for the future. Cookie told Lucious about how she hated school at the Franciscans and how she got into Ursuline and wanted to be an engineer, and even how she cried when some kids at school ruined her science fair project two months prior. "That's messed up," Lucious mused, taking Cookie into his arms for the first time. "You work hard and jealous-ass people wanna mess up your stuff. What was it about?"
"What, my science project?"
"Yeah."
"Hydroponics."
"What's that?" Nobody had ever asked Cookie before, because nobody ever cared.
Temperatures grew hotter as the summer went on, and so did Lucious and Cookie. Lucious always brought cold treats for Cookie – ice cream or a cold soda or a Tas-T-Freez – and they would work on music together. Every night ended with a frustrated Cookie sweeping sheet music to the side with tears in her eyes. "I don't need to learn this shit!" she cried one night, then snatched Lucious's mini-Casio keyboard from his hands and played a complicated classical piece with great flourish.
"What is that, Bach?" Lucious asked, impressed. He was an excellent pianist, but classical music wasn't exactly his thing.
"No, Haydn. And I didn't need to learn no damn music theory to play it, either," Cookie grumbled. But Lucious urged Cookie to stick with it until Cookie could finally read the notes and symbols on Lucious's paper – a song that he had written just for Cookie. That was the first night all their clothes came off, and they were both left panting and trembling, clinging to one another and mutually blown away. It wouldn't be the last.
"Move, Lucious!" Cookie teased night after night when it was all over and Lucious – street thug that he was – wanted to cuddle with the girl he had fallen so hard for. "It's too hot for all that, dang!" Of course, it was never too hot. Lucious and Cookie laid in each other's arms every night, dreaming about the future and learning new ways to please one another. The daytime was for learning and rehearsing and trips and lectures, and Cookie rarely saw Lucious during the day. But the nights belonged to them.
Their last night together, all Lucious had was a cup of ice to bring her, but it felt wonderful against her skin in the heat. Lucious caressed Cookie across her neck, her swelling stomach, her sore and tender breasts and everywhere else, always warming her back up with his lips and his tongue. In time, Cookie would do the same. She knew that only hoes took their boyfriends in their mouths, but then again, eating a girl out made a dude gay, and Lucious was definitely all man. To hell with them, Cookie thought as she fell asleep in Lucious's arms. We'll make our own rules.
Cookie had prayed and prayed that she was wrong, but the stolen test from the corner store turned pink before Cookie finished washing her hands. She couldn't bear facing Lucious and telling him that she was pregnant. How would he react? She'd seen the way boys treated their girlfriends when they got pregnant. "We'll take care of it," Candace promised when Cookie called her in tears. "Just come home."
With four nights left before the final summer performance – after all the rehearsing and all the practicing and all the nights with Lucious going over sight reading - Cookie slipped out of her dorm room without even leaving Lucious a note. Lucious would never want her with a baby, and Cookie had both their futures to think about. Breast milk and Bunsen burners just didn't mix, and neither did Pampers and pianos.
Lucious, as it turned out, had other ideas. Even now, Cookie had no idea how Lucious found out where she lived, but he was banging on her door and yelling her name so loud that Cookie had no choice but to drag him into her house, even though her mother wasn't home. "How the hell did you find me!?" Cookie gasped.
"How could you just leave like that, Cookie!?" Lucious grabbed by the shoulders before he held her in his arms. "You just ran away and didn't even tell me goodbye!" And Lucious began to babble about how much he missed Cookie, even though they hadn't even been separated for a week. He didn't know what he'd done wrong, but he would fix it, and he was sorry for what he'd done or what he hadn't done. "Cookie, please, don't break up with me," he begged, and by that time, Cookie was crying. Nothing Cookie could say would make Lucious stop loving her, except...
"Lucious, I'm pregnant."
Just like that, Lucious became the boy that Cookie just knew he would be. "You're pregnant? Cookie, what the fuck?!"
"I'm sorry!" Cookie grabbed at Lucious's arm, but he jerked away from her. "Lucious, I swear I didn't mean for this to happen! I'm sorry!" Until then, Cookie didn't realize how much Lucious's opinion meant to her. Lucious made her feel beautiful and wonderful and loved, and she wanted to hang on to that feeling for the rest of her life.
"Pregnant...oh, my God..." Lucious began to pace back and forth. The anger and hurt in Lucious's eyes was what Cookie had been trying to avoid when she slipped away in the middle of the night. He would never be the boy who brought her cold treats again, and that made Cookie cry even harder. "I can't believe this...how could you, Cookie? How could this happen!?"
"I'm sorry!" was all Cookie could say over again. The boy who bought her frozen drinks and wrote her songs and danced with her in front of everybody in the quad was the boy she wanted to remember for the rest of her life. To Lucious, Cookie was special. Now, she was as common as all the rest of the neighborhood skeezers. "I'm so sorry, Lucious...I didn't want to tie you down..."
Lucious stopped pacing. "You know what? Fuck it." He took Cookie by her waist, and the look in his eyes was half love and half insanity. "Cookie, let's get married."
"Married!?"
"I know this is crazy, and I know we just met. But I'm in love with you." Right in the middle of Cookie's living room, Lucious went down on both his knees. "I want you to be my wife. We'll get married, okay? You me, the baby...we can be a family. And I'll take care of you."
"Lucious, are you crazy? I can't marry you - I'm only 13!"
"But when you turn 14, we can get married. As long as you're pregnant and your mother agrees-"
"I can't just marry you because I'm pregnant! And I barely know you! Shit, I didn't even know your real name until you told it to me!" She was about to say that her mother would never marry her off to a 15-year-old dope-dealing thug, but Cookie wasn't sure if that was entirely true.
"So you're gonna sit on your ass and collect welfare like everybody else?" Lucious asked as he got back to his feet. "You don't have a problem with being a mother, but you don't wanna be my wife?"
I'm not going to be a mother, Cookie thought, but knew that Lucious would lose his mind if he knew she was having an abortion. "Look, I like you, Lucious," she added, her heart breaking as Lucious's face crumpled up. "I really do. But I'm not dropping out of school just to get married and have a baby."
"I don't want you to drop out of school!" Lucious cried. "You can still go to school. You can do whatever you want to! Just...please, Cookie, don't leave me again." Cookie couldn't believe that there were tears in Lucious's eyes. "I swear I'll take care of you," he begged, pulling Cookie close to him. "Cookie, please don't leave me again. Please! I love you, Cookie Holloway."
"I..."
"Loretha!"
All the blood in Cookie's brain rushed to her feet. She scrambled to stand, but felt so dizzy that she had to sit down. "M...Mama?"
"Why you got a boy in my house and I'm not home?" Jeanette Holloway demanded. "You know better! And who are you, anyway?" she asked Lucious. Jeanette knew all the local boys in the neighborhood, and this glinty-eyed DeBarge wannabe definitely wasn't one of them.
Oh, God. Cookie could see the determination in Lucious's eyes. She knew what he was about to do. She just knew it. "Please, Lucious..." Cookie said weakly. "Please, don't..."
"You hear me talkin' to you, boy?" Jeanette asked again.
Lucious looked over at Cookie, her eyes pleading with him not to ruin her future. But Lucious already knew that he had no future without Cookie. "I'm Lucious Lyon, ma'am," he introduced himself, looking Jeanette square in the eye. "I'm here to marry your daughter so we can raise our baby together."
___
"Ooh, I could've killed you!" Cookie chuckled and stroked Lucious's unmoving face. "You just stood there tellin' all our business...you went for it, boy. And you got it." Cookie kissed Lucious on his chin. "You got me."
Cookie cried for days when Jeanette ordered Cookie to pack her things. She didn't know Lucious from a can of paint, and Jeanette was already making Cookie move in with him. Cookie begged her mother not to kick her out of the house, especially since school was starting the following month. But the last thing Jeanette wanted was Carol around a teenage mother. "You might as well fix your face, Loretha, 'cause you ain't about to live in my house with no baby! You gettin' married as soon as you turn 14!" Who knew it would all work out the way it did?
As for prison, Cookie had to forgive Lucious for that. He did what he thought was best, as did she, and they'd both made mistakes. The truth was that Cookie had the strength to live without Lucious, but Lucious couldn't live without Cookie. As awful as it sounded, it was a kindness that Lucious would die before she did. But to die at 47...Cookie never thought her life could be any crueler until now, wanting Lucious to wake up and wanting him to die so she wouldn't have to be the one to make the decisions that would ultimately take his life.
There were three days left in the month. Come Monday, Cookie was slated to take Lucious off life support. No matter how many logical statements were made, no matter how much it was the best thing to do – for Lucious, if not for anyone else – the closer the date time to setting Lucious free, the weaker her resolve.
"Mrs. Lyon?" Bibi asked from the doorway. "I'm sorry, but visiting hours..."
"Oh!" Cookie didn't realize how much time she'd spent with her husband. "Sorry." Cookie gathered her things and kissed Lucious goodbye. "I'll see you tomorrow, baby," she promised and left.
Please wake up, Lucious, I can't be without you...
Please go ahead and go, Lucious, I'll see you when I get there...
Please, Lucious, die so I don't have to be the one to kill you.
As she did nearly every night, Cookie's last stop – other than the candy machine – was the hospital chapel. Cookie hadn't gone to Mass since she left the Franciscans, not even when she was in prison. Lucious wasn't particularly religious, and Cookie wasn't the kind of hypocrite to call on God just because her husband was dying. But she found peace there. Sometimes, Cookie prayed with Andre. Sometimes she prayed with all her sons. During the day, there were one or two people there. They'd always share their stories and pray for one another's loved ones or friends and comfort one another.
Late at night, like now, the chapel was usually empty. Cookie felt most at peace when she was alone. Most of the times, she didn't even pray at all. She just sat silently, taking in the peace and the silence. Tonight, she wasn't alone. There was one other person there, a man. He was stock still at the kneeling altar, head down, so solemn that Cookie could almost see the light and love of God radiating all around him. Even from the back, Cookie knew exactly who it was.
"Malcolm."
From the kneeling bench, Malcolm turned to see who had called his name. When Malcolm he saw Cookie, a bolt of rage shot through his body that was so intense that it nearly blinded him. It didn't go past Cookie, who almost trembled in his presence. Malcolm no longer had that beautiful aura around him. He looked hard and mean. Rikers mean. "Hello, Cookie," he said, and there was no respect in his voice this time.
"What are you doing here? Get out!" Cookie ordered. How dare Malcolm walk around free, breathing the same air as her husband while Lucious lay dying?
"Cookie, you can't make me-"
"Get out!" Cookie demanded. "Get out!"
"It's a public hospital, Cookie." Malcolm turned his back to her. "I'm praying. And I'd appreciate it if you'd leave me alone." Malcolm had quite a bit to pray for. Nobody would ever believe him, but Malcolm had actually gotten used to solitary in Rikers. All this freedom was driving him a little crazy. Malcolm actually found himself staring into space, missing his floating dots, sad at the loss of his roach friends. For days, he flicked the lights on and off, on and off, disbelieving that he could. He still wrote his wife several letters in his mind, as if he couldn't just call her on the phone.
And there was one more thing, one very shameful thing: Malcolm couldn't hold an erection to save his life. Back in the navy, it wasn't unusual to have to discipline himself to an extreme level to keep sex off his mind. A lot of times, it was necessary just to stay out of trouble and avoid catching a case or a disease. A lot of the guys sat around in solitary jacking off – how, Malcolm had no idea – but he'd just cut his mind off instead. Now he couldn't turn it back on. Not even two straight days of hardcore porn had done anything for him.
How could Malcolm face his wife again when he couldn't perform like a man? What possible explain would Malcolm have for not being able to make love to his wife when he hadn't seen her for eight weeks? He desperately wanted to talk to Anika. He'd missed her so much that only the memory of her kept him alive in solitary: Dear Anika, I'm so sorry this happened...dear Anika, I'm dreaming of the day that we can be together again...Dear Anika...
"I should've let your ass rot," Malcolm heard Cookie say.
Malcolm turned around again. Right, Cookie. Cookie was the reason why all of this had happened. Lucious being damn near dead. Anika being gone. Malcolm being frozen from the waist down. "Cookie," Malcolm said in measured words. "I can't make you leave. But I can ask you to leave me the hell alone. And if you push me, I will make you leave me the hell alone."
"Like you did Lucious?" Cookie spat.
Malcolm shrugged. "If it comes to that, fine."
If it comes to that...it was official. The Malcolm DeVeaux Cookie knew was dead, and she'd killed him just as sure as she'd killed her husband with her actions and her words. "Is that a rosary?" she asked absentmindedly, gesturing towards the small piece of jewelry in his hands.
"Yes," Malcolm wondered how Cookie could remember such a thing, then remembered that Cookie had been a product of a Catholic school upbringing. Just one more way that this miserable bitch was nothing but a fraud.
"Why are you saying a Catholic prayer if Lucious isn't Catholic?" Cookie asked.
"What makes you think I'm praying for Lucious?"
"Because you're here." The animus in Cookie's heart started to fade. There was a tiny glimmer of the old Malcolm there, still. "There's no other reason why you'd be at this hospital unless you were praying for Lucious to get better."
"I'm not praying for Lucious to get better."
"Then what are you praying for, Malcolm?" Cookie felt herself growing heated. Was Malcolm praying for Lucious to die now that he was out of Rikers?
"I'm praying that God's will be done." As much as he disliked Cookie, he didn't want to hurt her. "And as for why I'm using a Catholic prayer, we believe in the same God...I think. Praying the Rosary makes me feel better."
"About all this?" Cookie asked, waving around her.
"Yeah. About all this," Malcolm admitted. Hurting Lucious, losing Anika, and Cookie...well, to hell with Cookie.
"Did you pray the Rosary at Rikers?" Cookie asked, curious as to the source of Malcolm's strength.
"Several times a day," Malcolm answered, then turned around again. It was hard not to stare at him. He looked so calm and devout and...beautiful. Like an ebony statue come to life, strong in his faith. So strong that he came out of a hellhole unscathed.
"Can I pray with you?" Cookie blurted. There was something about Malcolm that was so sure and so peaceful that she longed for a part of it. The peacefulness, that was, not the man who possessed it. She desperately wished for that kind of composure, even if Malcolm wasn't the one with the dying spouse.
Perhaps Malcolm knew what was in Cookie's heart, for instead of telling Cookie to go to hell, he gave a small gesture. Cookie knelt next to Malcolm at the altar, and they both crossed themselves. "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit," they said together. Cookie hadn't said the Nicene Creed in over 30 years, but she still remembered it as if she was still at school. "We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all that is, seen and unseen..."
Cookie closed her eyes and tried to focus on the words, which she'd spoken hundreds of times in her life. She found that the words still brought her comfort. But would they be as lovely if someone else was saying them, and not Malcolm? Malcolm's voice was so calm and soothing, just like it had been when they were together in the Berkshires. As the two of them made their way through the notoriously long prayer, Cookie's mind began to wander before she even knew it.
___
Puberty didn't stop just because a girl was pregnant, and Cookie's pregnancy wreaked havoc on her still-growing body. Over and over again, Cookie cursed Candace into convincing her to keep her baby. Cookie thought Candace was nuts – especially with this sudden change of heart – but Candace was sure that they could so it. Cookie was smart enough to miss a year of school, though her English scores were nothing to brag about. The two of them would raise the baby together. "We're Holloway girls, right?" Candace asked when Cookie wasn't so sure.
"We got this," Cookie finished, and they smiled and hugged.
Candace might have been a bougie bitch, but she was right more times than most. Besides, she had done one thing that Cookie would always be grateful for: she'd stopped the marriage that her mother was trying to force between Cookie and a 15-year-old street kid. "Get out of here! I told you, she's not gonna marry you!"
"Just...can I talk to her? Please? Cookie? COOKIE!!!" Knowing that her older sister was a freshman at Penn State, Lucious had done the totally rational thing and asked nearly every black student on campus about a Cindy Holloway until somebody figured out he was talking about Candy Holloway and pointed Lucious in the right direction.
"Do you see her standing here, Lucious? She don't wanna talk to you!" That wasn't exactly true. Cookie missed Lucious so bad that it hurt. But that half-crazed boy in her living room who declared his eternal love to her...who the hell was that? She was scared of him.
It was a relief when Lucious stopped coming around, until he showed up again when Cookie was at her most miserable. Five months. Too far along to abort, not nearly close enough to shit the damn thing out. "Why are you here?" Cookie demanded. And how the hell did he keep finding her, anyway? Cookie still had no idea how Lucious found her the first time.
"Chill, shit!" Lucious was hoping for a truce, at the very least. "I just came to bring the money you asked for, that's all. I didn't wanna send this much through anybody else."
"I ain't never asked you for no money!" Holloway pride made Cookie's back as straight as she could make it. Why the hell would she ask Lucious for money when she hadn't even told him she was going to keeping the baby?
Cookie could see that Lucious was trying hard not to stare. He saw something in Cookie's blossoming motherhood that Cookie couldn't see. "So you saved up enough money for the doctor? That's cool. Is everything okay? I'm sorry I was late this week, but-"
"Late for what?"
"For the money. You know, for the baby."
"Lucious, I ain't never asked you for no money. Me and my sister are taking care of my baby!" We're Holloway girls. We got this...
"I know. You all independent n'shit. A feminist," he spat out, though deep down, it was Cookie's feminist attitude that kept Lucious so sprung. "Well...keep it." Lucious pulled out a thick wad of bills, more money than Cookie had ever seen in her life. "You can buy a nice crib or something...maybe start a college fund. Add it with the rest of the money, okay?"
"Lucious, what in the hell are you talking about? What money?"
"The money I've been giving you for the baby," Lucious answered back. "What do you think I'm talking about?"
"The money for the baby...what, you send it in the mail or something?"
"What? Hell, no! I drop off money for you and the baby every two weeks."
"Drop it off where?"
"Drop it off here. With your sister. You ain't got none of it?" Lucious asked, confused. "I swear. I give it to your sister every other Wednesday."
"My sister? Candace?" Candace, who went with her to every doctor's appointment, who had converted her spare bedroom into a nursery, who sat around with a baby book while they strung together crazy names for the baby. Who, just days after they'd planned to go to New York for Cookie's shady-ass abortion, had suddenly encouraged Cookie to keep her baby. We got this...
"Cookie?" Lucious asked. "Cookie, are you okay?"
She'd been crying and she didn't even know it. Cookie just knew that Lucious's arms around her were the most comforting thing that could happen to her. Candace, her own sister, had been stealing the money that was meant to take care of her child. And Lucious – who she hadn't spoken to in months – had been taking care of Cookie and her baby all this time, not even knowing if he would see her again. Lucious still went out of his way to provide for her, for the family he had begged Cookie to make with him.
Even worse, Cookie realized as she looked over the letter that she had supposedly written, the letter asking for $5,000 to see the doctor hadn't been written by Candace after all. Cookie could see how Lucious was fooled, for Jeanette, like Cookie, had impeccable cursive writing, whereas Candace wrote in a sprawl. Jeanette had gotten greedy, and that was the only reason why Lucious was here. "You know they wasn't giving me the money, right?" Cookie asked. Candace was her mother's girl, and she wanted nothing more than to earn Jeanette's love. It was the only thing that kept her sister's face intact, though Cookie never forgave her.
Lucious nodded sadly. "I was hoping you might get some of it."
"Do you still wanna get married?" Cookie barely recognized her own voice, and she didn't see the joy in Lucious's eyes when he hugged her and kissed her and told her they would be together forever. But would her mother sign the paperwork...? For the $5,000 she'd asked for, Jeanette did exactly that. By the end of the week, Cookie Holloway was Cookie Lyon.
"Cookie, everything is going to be okay. I promise," Lucious pledged while they laid in bed after it was all over. "You and me and the baby...we're going to be a family. I'm gonna take care of you, I swear." Lucious knew the circumstances behind their marriage were terrible, but he didn't care. He had Cookie, the love of his life, and he would be a father soon. Despite everything, Lucious was ecstatic. Cookie, on the other hand, felt nothing at all.
___
"Cookie?"
Cookie opened her eyes, startled by the glare. "Huh?"
A ghost of a smile crossed Malcolm's lips. "Prayer's over, Cook." He was surprised that Cookie didn't pass out on her knees – the Rosary wasn't a prayer that one tended to say with eyes closed, and she'd stopped praying long ago. She was exhausted, Malcolm could tell.
Cookie stood up and stretched. "Why do you pray for Lucious if you hate him so much?"
"Face it, Lucious could use all the help he can get. And you're not here to discuss the Catholic faith with me, Cookie." Malcolm rubbed his neck, which had been bent in prayer for nearly an hour. "You're here to start another fight with me. No haps."
"You beat the charges," Cookie reminded Malcolm coldly. "So why are you here, praying for my husband?"
"Is it that hard to believe that I don't want Lucious to die?"
"Well, he's going to. So much for your prayers, Malcolm." The good will Cookie was beginning to feel towards the altar boy was beginning to fade. "He's going to suffocate to death or starve to death, but he's going to die next week. I have to do it, you know." Cookie's voice began to waver. "I have to be the one to kill my husband because of you!"
"You have to take your husband off life support because you can't stop running your mouth, Cookie. I couldn't even have Jesus to myself, and you hate me."
That wasn't true. Not at all. Deep down, Cookie knew she was the catalyst for all of this, but it was so much easier to blame it on Malcolm, and especially Anika...Anika. Anika."How could you marry her, Malcolm?" Cookie said without thinking.
"Who, Anika?" Malcolm asked, confused as to where Cookie was going with this. "What does my wife have to do with anything?"
"My wife! My wife! My wife!" Cookie exploded. It was almost as bad as Anika's my husband hang-up. "Why do you always say that? Do you have to remember that she belongs to you instead of being community coochie?"
Deep down, Malcolm didn't know whether to laugh the insult down or slap the shit out of Cookie. "Community coochie." He was leaning towards the latter.
"Do you have any idea what kind of girl she is?" Cookie asked, almost pleading with Malcolm to reconsider. "I could understand you gettin' with her, maybe making her your side chick, or even your main side chick. But you gave her your last name! And she's having your baby? Or at least she says she is-"
"Watch your mouth." Malcolm's voice could have cut steel, and Cookie knew she'd gone just a step too far. Then she remember Malcolm's quip about Cookie liking bulls and became furious all over again. "What? What are you gonna do, hit me?"
"What are you going to do if I do?" Malcolm asked evenly. It went unsaid that running to tell Lucious would never be an option for Cookie ever again. "Why are you so worried about my wife's past, Cookie?" Malcolm asked, genuinely curious as to the older woman's ire. "Why are you pressed about Anika?"
"I'm not pressed," Cookie denied. "I'm lookin' out for you, Malcolm. You're trying to turn a ho into a housewife, and that ain't good."
Malcolm let out a rip of a laugh. "This from somebody who got pregnant at 14."
13, Cookie thought reflexively, but she slapped Malcolm so hard that he staggered anyway. "Don't you ever compare me to that bitch again, Malcolm."
Malcolm rubbed his jaw and glared at Cookie. The old Malcolm would've at least apologized. "You always thought I was soft, Cookie. Be honest. Ever since that time at the gas station, you always thought I was a punk. You wanted me to be all up in that guy's face like, 'Ey, mayne? You talkin' to my bitch, mayne?" Malcolm mocked Lucious to a T. "I'ma fuck you up, mayne.'"
"You shut up!" Cookie slapped Malcolm again, even though he was right. On the way back from the Berkshires, Malcolm and Cookie had gone inside a gas station to pay for gas and some snacks. The minute Malcolm left to pump gas, another man came up to her and started flirting with her, openly so. Malcolm, always silent in his steps, was behind the rent-a-thug in a heartbeat. "Cookie?" he asked. "Are you ready to go?" And that was it. Lucious would've cut out the guy's tongue, but Malcolm didn't even raise his voice. The ride back to New York was silent, and breaking it off with Malcolm had been easier than he would've ever suspected. Deep down, Cookie knew that Malcolm was just as tough as Lucious was. But Cookie liked her men rough and rugged, and Malcolm's vagina was bigger than hers.
"You are a punk, Malcolm," Cookie finally choked out through her tears. "The only reason why you married that bitch is because you know you could never handle a woman like me. You like weak-ass hoes you can take to your friend's cabin and make them feel pretty."
Malcolm winced at the words friend's cabin, but fired back. "I'm so sorry that I made a weak-ass ho like you feel pretty, Cookie."
Enraged, Cookie reached up to slap Malcolm again. This time, Malcolm caught Cookie hand and bent it ever so slightly, just enough to cause Cookie discomfort and politely remind her that if Malcolm wanted to, he could snap her wrist like a twig. "What have I told you about putting your hands on me, Cookie?"
A smirk spread across Malcolm's face that chilled Cookie to the bone. "Let me go," she instructed, trying to hide the fear in her voice.
"You're pathetic, Cookie. You know that? Pathetic. Being a SEAL and defending my country - that wasn't enough for you. But sitting around in some bullshit day camp like Rikers? That really turns you on, doesn't it?" Malcolm looked Cookie up and down the way she'd done to him at Lucious's house so long ago. "This is turning you on, isn't it?" He grinned at Cookie, whose face was starting to flush. "Look at you, getting all juiced up."
"You're sick." But even now, Cookie knew that, despite how it appeared, Malcolm would never hurt her. Lucious would've put Cookie in her place long before now. The fact Malcolm that was finally taking charge of the conversation made Cookie almost respect Malcolm as a man. Almost.
"You know," Malcolm observed when Cookie didn't deny Malcolm's accusation, "if you were more honest with yourself, you probably wouldn't be such a miserable human being. You can't even tell the truth about your nerdy-ass past or even when and where you met your husband. Like that's some big deal."
Highly annoyed, Malcolm began to walk Cookie to where her back was up against the rectory office wall, around the corner from the front. Cookie had no choice but to walk backwards or have her wrist broken. "You look down on my wife," Malcolm hissed, his lips brushing Cookie's ear and making her shiver, despite everything that was happening. "But at least Anika didn't rot in prison for 17 years behind some sorry bastard who divorced her the minute he had the chance. And then you married him again, Cookie. Don't you know what a joke you are in these streets, marrying a man who dogged you like that?"
"Please let me go," Cookie was begging now. She was trapped in this room with this killer who could break her in a million pieces. So why did feel so safe at the same time?
Malcolm released Cookie's wrist, but Cookie didn't move. Malcolm pulled Cookie so close to him that he could feel Cookie's heart beating against his own chest. Intertwining his fingers with her, Malcolm held Cookie's hand up to his lips and kissed her throbbing wrist. Tears pooled in Cookie's eyes, and they spilled down her cheeks when Malcolm cupped her face in his hands. "How could you marry him, Cookie?"
Whether Malcolm kissed Cookie first because he didn't know what else to say or Cookie kissed Malcolm because he didn't have to say anything, neither one of them were sure. All Cookie knew was that just for a few minutes, Cookie wasn't planning a funeral. She wasn't watching the man she'd loved all her life wasting away before her eyes. She wasn't praying for a miracle. Just for now, Cookie did not have be Mrs. Lucious Lyon, the salvation of Lucious Lyon. And Malcolm, who had watched porn for days with no physical response, was so hard that Cookie could feel him throbbing against her stomach.
Cookie ran her hands up and down Malcolm's chest as he palmed her ass in his hands and squeezed gently. Malcolm felt so good...but he didn't feel right. Malcolm's body was too chiseled, his hands too large, his grip too rough. His lips were as soft and full as Cookie remembered, but they didn't know the secret spots all over Cookie's body. Lucious's body fit Cookie like a glove. Malcolm's body fit Cookie like a pair of shoes that were half a size too tight.
With horror, Cookie realized that not only was she kissing another man, she was kissing the man who killed her husband. Furious, Cookie shoved Malcolm away and slapped him so hard that he bit his tongue. "How dare you?" she said tearfully. How dare to come to me acting like Lucious?
A slow, cruel smirk spread across Malcolm's face. "I'll wear it like a kiss," he taunted. Before Cookie could say anything else, Malcolm walked over to the priest's pew, found a pen, and scribbled his address on a small sheet of paper. "Come see me when you're done here. And while you're at it, pray for both our souls." Because Malcolm knew he was certainly going to hell for this little stunt.
"Are you serious?" Cookie couldn't believe what Malcolm had just suggested. "You think I would betray Lucious with you?"
"You just did." Malcolm left Cookie in the chapel, still crying. That meant that Malcolm had also betrayed Anika, but that wasn't the point just then.
___
In his youth, Malcolm had always been the rash one, the one who did things without thinking. Jump off the highest diving board? Go get Malcolm. Ride the fastest, tallest roller coaster? Malcolm. Hot wire the principal's car? Malcolm. Flash the commandant during the annual inspection? Malcolm, as if his bare black ass couldn't be identified in a school that was 96% white? Malcolm.
But this? This was more than crazy. This was tempting fate. His crazy-ass ex at his house while her husband lay dying...what the hell was I thinking, inviting her here? Right about then, Malcolm didn't even want to see Cookie right now, and possibly never again.
Malcolm was still rock hard when he got home, and he took no chances. Two months of cum came busting out as the hours passed, and every time he finished, he found himself wanting to see Cookie less and less. By around two in the morning, Malcolm got ready for bed. He never thought he'd be happy to get stood up, but he was thankful for it this time.
The knock on Malcolm's door came at about a quarter to four. Soft, at first. Dear God, no. Please don't be at my door. Just as Malcolm convinced himself that he was dreaming, it started up again. Do not answer that door, Malcolm thought, because he knew that if he did, it would be all over. And the minute Malcolm laid eyes upon Cookie, her eyes swollen and bloodshot, it was.
"Do you still love me, Malcolm?" Cookie asked.
At no time in Malcolm's life did he ever tell Cookie that he loved her. "You think just because we made out in a church that I love you?"
That mean side of him was coming out, and Cookie couldn't take it. "Just answer the question."
"Why are you doing this, Cookie?" Malcolm asked wearily, not yet resigned to the inevitable. He was tired and he was irritated. He was also getting hard again. "Do you want to destroy Anika this badly?"
"This isn't about Anika, Malcolm."
"It's always about Anika, Cookie!" Malcolm fired back. "That's my wife. She is the one I'm in love with. She is the one I'm going to spend the rest of life with, not you! And I don't do anything without her at the back of my mind. You got that?"
Malcolm had said this with so much authority and passion that Cookie might have believed him if she didn't know any better. "Just answer the question."
Malcolm looked up at the ceiling. "Goddamn it, Cookie, go home. Just go home. Forget this ever happened-"
"Malcolm, please!" Tears welled up in Cookie's eyes. "Just tell me, please. Do you still love me?"
Malcolm closed his eyes. He was too tired and defeated to argue. "Yes..."
Cookie nodded slowly, as if that confirmed whatever it was she was wanting to confirm. "When first I met Lucious, it was summertime...and I was at music camp...and I was pregnant." She lowered her eyes, unable to look at Malcolm anymore. "Please let me in."
Like everybody else, Malcolm knew The Story like the back of his hand. Street corner, dancing, spitting rhymes in the wintertime - that was The Story. A six-pound, four-ounce premature baby boy. That was The Story. If even one part of what Cookie had just told Malcolm was true, the timeline of The Story was thrown off. And if everything Cookie just told Malcolm was true - and Malcolm knew that Cookie was telling the truth - then that meant...
Sitting on the couch, Cookie stared into space until she could pull her thoughts together. "When Lucious dies, every journalist on the planet is going to write about what a genius he was, and what all he gave to music, and how he passed it all down to his three sons...and they're all going to come with The Story. The story of a boy and a girl and a dance contest and a love that was eternal from the moment we met..." Cookie begin to pull her hair so tightly that her eyes stretched back. "I...I can't take that right now. I just can't...if you still love me, Malcolm, just let me have tonight. Give me just one night of peace before I go bury the man I love."
There was a difference between having love for somebody, as Malcolm did for Cookie, and being in love with somebody, as Malcolm was with Anika. Malcolm wanted Anika, not Cookie. He needed Anika, not Cookie. He was in love with Anika, not Cookie - not then, not now, and not ever.
But Anika was as available to him as Lucious was to Cookie, and both of those things were Malcolm's fault. And Malcolm was so damned sorry for what he had done to destroy everybody's life - his own, Cookie's, Anika's and especially Lucious's. If carrying a burden like betrayal on his back could atone for what he'd done to Cookie, if Malcolm could just ease Cookie's pain, even for a little while...
Malcolm took Cookie into his arms for another deep, tantalizing kiss. Cookie closed her eyes and let her tears fall back as Malcolm unbuttoned Cookie's silk shirt and pushed it off her shoulders, trailing kisses down her navel and back up again. Malcolm's rosary, which Malcolm left at the chapel, was now around Cookie's neck, and the crucifix dangled between her bare breasts. That made her look more vulnerable than ever. The sacred and the profane was sitting right in Malcolm's living room.
Take these cookies. Take 'em. I won't tell.
Without words, Malcolm stood, lifted Cookie from the couch to the floor, and placed his body on top of hers. "Thank you, Malcolm," Cookie whispered as Malcolm wiped her tears away before he began to plant kisses down her neck, between her breasts and down to her navel. "Oh, God...thank you."