The Lying Game

19.

I wake up to humming. I'm not humming, so I don't know who could be humming this early in the morning. My eyes slowly shutter open. I jump at the sight of a lady in a maid uniform at the foot of my bed. Her hair, which stretches to her lower back, is tied back in a simple french braid.

She turns and forces a warm smile onto her tired face. " Hola."

"Hola?" I sit upright and pull my covers tighter. "I'm sorry, but who are you?"

She smiles again. "I'm Berta, cleaning lady. William rehired me." She nods and walks out of my room. When did William do this? Our recent fight happened just yesterday. He probably hired her a while ago and Berta's first day was today. At least one problem was resolved after this big mess. I reach for my phone at the nightstand. I see my notifications and see a text from John from last night.

Sorry I missed your call last night. Call me back when you can.

Another thing I did last night after coming back from the center was call John. What William said about him was still in my head and I wanted to talk it out with John. He must've sent this right after I fell asleep. I click on his contact and hit the facetime button. The sound plays and finally the connecting words pop up. John's handsome face come into view.

He smiles with his teeth. "Hi"

"Hi" I give him a tight lipped smile.

"So what's up," He looks to be in his bed as well.

"I wanted to talk with you about a few things," I answer. "Did you just get out of bed as well?"

He shakes his head. "No, I just came back from walking my dog."

"Oh my god, you have a dog?"

"Emani." He says, "Quit stalling, what did you want to ask me?"

"When you're not with me are you with another," I pause, looking for the right word. "Client?" I don't like the word.

John shakes his head. "No, you are my only client for the duration of the period we are together."

"Someone knows their contract by heart." I mutter. "So then," thinking of another question. "Why aren't we together more?" The question came out wrong and I didn't mean to sound too needy.

John chuckles. "I would love that, but you have a husband remember?"

My shoulders drop. "Oh right."

"How many clients have you had?"

"Three, including you, in the four years I've been doing this job."

"Okay, can I ask you a personal question now?" John nods. "Why are you doing this job?"

John pauses and contemplates an answer. "Life is a game of chance. You can't choose what role you play in the game. You're either on the winning side or the losing side. In this country, the odds are even more stacked against you with color in your skin. I have to be twice as smart just to get a half a step closer to the white man. I have dreams Emani, big dreams. Unfortunately we do things we never thought of as going just to get ahead, because black men don't have a lot of options in this game."

♠️♠️♠️

The security escorted us to the rally in Albuquerque. William was oddly quiet during the car ride. He usually tries to make conversation which leads me to then ignoring him because of something ignorant that he said, but today was different. He just sat and looked out the window the entire ride. He didn't even look at his notes to go over his speech during the car ride. William is either trying not to talk to me or he's too focused on his work.