Grown Folks Business Read Online Free Page B

this news got out? Why did Quentin leave? What did she do? She sniffed back her tears. Crying wasn’t giving her the answers. She needed to go to the source. Find out from Quentin what she’d done, how she could fix it now and bring him home. She looked at the clock. In a few hours, Quentin would call, she was sure of it. And they’d talk then. She took a deep breath. She could make things right. By this time tomorrow, her husband could be back where he belonged.
     
    The black machine stayed quiet, as if it were punishing her with its stubborn silence. It was after ten and Sheridan couldn’t believe Quentin hadn’t called. He hadn’t called to check on her or the children. He hadn’t called to tell her he’d made a terrible mistake. He hadn’t called to say he was coming home.
    She grabbed the telephone and punched numbers into the handset. She tried to control her breathing as the telephone on the other end rang. After two rings, it was answered.
    “Hey, girl, I was just going to call you,” Kamora said. “I’ve gotta tell you about this bozo I had dinner with last night. The love handles on this guy were thicker than twenty-two-inch tires.”
    Sheridan couldn’t find her laughter. “Do you have time for your best friend?” she asked with tears in her voice.
    “What’s wrong?” Kamora’s cheer was gone.
    That question released the floodgates. “Kamora, you’re never going to believe…” Sheridan paused through her sobs. This would be the first time she’d say it aloud to someone other than her reflection. But if she didn’t let it out, she’d burst.
    “What’s wrong?” Kamora repeated with urgency.
    “Quentin…”
    “You’re scaring me,” her childhood friend cried. “He wasn’t in an accident, was he?”
    Sheridan almost wished it was something like that. An accident. Something simple. Something she could fix. Something she could understand.
    “No, Quentin’s fine, but still, can you come over?”
    “Is Quentin home?”
    “No,” she managed to say through the cries that rose from her center. Her husband would never be home again.
    “Give me fifteen minutes.”
    Ten minutes later, Kamora stood at the front door, with a shopping bag in her hand.
    “What’s that?” Sheridan asked, still wiping water from her eyes.
    Kamora held up the brown bag. “Some wine, girl. Three bottles. The way you sounded, I knew you needed something.”
    “I don’t drink,” Sheridan whispered as she closed the front door and led Kamora up the stairs to her bedroom.
    “Don’t you think I know that?” Kamora hissed. “But even Jesus understood the importance of wine in serious situations. Girl, why do you think his first miracle was changing some ghastly well water into one of life’s finest liquids?” She held up one of the bottles, then used her foot to close the bedroom door behind her. “Anyway, this is plum wine. There’s more plum than wine in this.”
    Sheridan wanted to laugh, but instead the tears came again, and she wondered if this emotional hydrant would ever drain completely.
    “Sweetie,” Kamora said, resting the bottles on the nightstand. She wrapped her arms around Sheridan. “What’s wrong?”
    Sheridan sniffed. “You’re never going to believe this.”
    Painful seconds passed as this morning’s episode played itself out for the thousandth time in her mind.
    Sheridan sat on the edge of the bed and squeezed her hands together. She didn’t want to say it, but at the same time she couldn’t wait to put the words out there. “Quentin left me.”
    “What?” Kamora exclaimed as she knelt in front of her friend. “I don’t believe you.”
    “It’s true.”
    “Why would he leave you? This doesn’t make sense.”
    Sheridan looked at Kamora, and her tears spoke for her.
    “He left you for someone else?” Kamora whispered.
    Sheridan nodded.
    “Oh, my God. I cannot believe this.” Kamora stood and paced. “Not Quentin Hart, Hope Chapel’s Man of the Year. How could