Free An Inconvenient Friend by Rhonda McKnight

that more than anything on God’s green earth, but she wasn’t getting pregnant. No matter how she timed her ovulation, and no matter how much love making they did, every month her period came like clockwork, and Greg refused to see a fertility specialist.
    Angelina had no idea how long she’d been sitting there when she heard the garage door rising, but the tears she’d been crying had long dried up. She brought the picture frame to her lips, kissed it gently, and put it back in the drawer. She stood to her feet and made her way around the enormous California king-sized bed. The shredded, lipstick stained shirt lay on Greg’s side; an ugly reminder of her pain and temper that had been abated by her mother’s words. Keep your eyes on the prize.
    Angelina reached for the shirt, opened her closet, and threw it into a corner. She stepped into the bathroom, wet a face cloth, and washed the stains of her pain from below her eyes. She shook out her hair and applied a fresh coat of lip gloss to bring some color to her face. It was time to go downstairs and greet her husband. She was ovulating and all she could hope was that he hadn’t left all the virile sperm somewhere else.

Chapter 9
    â€œSam-Sam-Marie ...” that crap was playing in my head like music when I woke up this morning. I don’t know why my mama did that to me. It was like her way of reminding me of my past, but all it did was remind me of my daddy. He would sing that to me. Sang it until the day he walked out of my life. I shook my head. Probably her daggone way of being mean. Mean was her specialty.
    I raked hangers back and forth across the rack in Neiman Marcus like I was trying to see which one would make the most annoying scraping sound. After a few minutes, a sales clerk was at my side, taking a hold of one of the hangers I’d discarded, like I’d bruised her baby.
    â€œIs there something I can help you find?” Her voice had an air of friendliness, but her body language delivered a completely different message. She was annoyed at by my mishandling of the merchandise, and she had come to put an end to my abuse.
    I put a hand on my hip, looked her up and down from head to toe before I gave her the evilest eye I could manage. She backed up. Good thing or I would have had her fired before lunch. I wasn’t in the mood.
    I turned and looked at a rack behind me and realized I’d found what I was searching for. The same, or almost the same, brown suit Angelina had been wearing the other night. I looked at the silk blouses they had flanked with it and chose an etched floral pastel that was similar to the one Angelina sported with hers. It was boring. My preference would have been something red, but if I wanted to be a doctor’s wife, I had to look the part. Greg would be impressed, and that’s all that mattered.
    I took my items to the cashier’s desk and prayed my Neiman’s card wasn’t maxed out again. The hanger police accepted my items with a smile, cleared her throat, and took care of my transaction. I was back in my ride within minutes. I was on my way to White Gardens again. I’d had June Bug’s drugs for a few days, but thought I’d let him suffer through without them. Who knew, if he started to convulse, maybe somebody would have to call an ambulance and take his drug addicted behind to rehab. But my fantasies of my cousin’s painful journey to recovery were not to be so. My mama called last night, looking for the package I’d promised.
    My phone rang, and I was pleasantly surprised to see it was Angelina. After the dramatic way I’d scooted out on her, I wasn’t sure what she thought of me.
    â€œHi, Rae. I was calling to see if you were coming to Bible Study on Wednesday?”
    I paused like I was thinking about it. That’s what a visitor would do. “I’m not sure,” I teased. “I was thinking about passing this