Bad as in Good

by J. Lovelace

CHAPTER 32

  Erin

  “Get dressed. We’re going clubbin’.” I read Loraine’s text briefly. I hadn’t heard from her in a couple days. I blew her phone up wanting to make sure she was all right, but I never received a response. All the while, Louis had been blowing me up looking to rekindle what we had. He had more time to think, and he was ready to forgive; I was done, though. Tariq hadn’t said a word. I wasn’t in the mood to go clubbin’. My mind was an emotional dumpster, and I couldn’t handle strangers asking for dances I wasn’t in the mood to give. I also didn’t feel like avoiding flirtatious innuendos. When Loraine wanted to go clubbin’, she was lookin’ for an outlet to release a frustration that liquor couldn’t wash away. Still, I wanted to lie in bed and watch Lifetime movies.

  Tariq texted me. After he kicked me out of his condo, I hadn’t expected to ever hear from Tariq. I didn’t want to. I relished in the possibility of being rid of him. My purpose in going to see Tariq was to end things. I couldn’t be with a man who couldn’t end a marriage he refused to address. Still, I had to read it. When his three-and-a-half-line text appeared in my inbox, I sat up and wiped the Goldfish cracker crumbs from my sweatshirt. “She signed the divorce papers, it’s done. I can’t get you out of my mind. I wanna talk to you.”

  I texted back, “I’m done with you. I thought you were done with me too.”

  The three minutes it took to receive a response were the longest three minutes of my existence. I shouldn’t have been looking for a response, but I figured one was coming. When it finally came through, I hesitated. I was scared of what he had to say next. My hand shook. I had to stand up and pace my bedroom floor. There were so many thoughts going through my mind. Two nights ago, my lover and my man had it out, leaving Louis bloody and swollen. I cringed when I felt a pain creep up the left side of my skull. I took a deep breath and prepared myself for whatever was about to come next. “I don’t know if I can ever be done with you. Throwin’ you out like that was fucked up on my part. My mind was gone. Can I come over?”

  My hand shook badly, I jumped when my phone banged against my carpeted bedroom floor. I finger-combed my hair and held my headboard for support when I felt the room spin. I didn’t respond. I closed my eyes and stopped breathing. I refused to open my eyes until things started making sense. This morning, I was happy with the way things ended with Tariq. With Tariq married, there was no future for us, no matter how well he tried to sell it. Now, Tariq gave me options. Options that I should ignore. I didn’t want to hear it anymore. I wanted peace of mind. Instead of texting back, I ran into the shower and left my phone on the floor.

  As I toweled off from a quick and hot shower, I saw the red indicator on my phone blinking. I ignored it. I rummaged through my closet in search of an outfit. When I found my beige Herve Leger bandage dress, I squeezed into it and slipped into snakeskin platform pumps. I combed my hair down, pinned the front up, and let my diamond studs sparkle. Dressed to kill, I finally picked my phone up from the floor and sighed. The first text was from Loraine. “Are you down, or not?”

  I swiftly replied back. “On the way.”

  The second text was from Tariq. “After all I put you through, I can’t blame you for wanting to be done with me. But I need to spend the night with you. Can I come over, please?”

  “I already made plans with Loraine.”

  I grabbed my keys and clutch purse as I rushed out the door. My haste suggested the possibility that I was fleeing from a predator. I was. I couldn’t handle my love life preying on my psyche as it did. Now, I needed strange men asking me for a dance and flirtatious innuendos. I could handle that. Those men meant nothing to me. I could easily flip my hair in their faces as I strutted off with no remorse. I held the power as I rejected their advances and pretended not to hear their dance requests.

  Once I sat in my driver’s seat, I let go of my chaos and embraced a night full of tipsy slurs and overcrowded dance clubs filled with overpriced cologne and too-tight freakum dresses. Another text from Tariq came. “Call me when you get back. Doesn’t matter the hour.”

  I threw my phone down in the cup holder and flew down the 408, leaving my confusion in the wind.

  • • •

  When I got home around three-thirty in the morning, tired and drunk, I forced Loraine to stay the night with me. I was vulnerable. She barely put up a fight. The first half-hour of the club was slow. People were gettin’ their drinks, and the DJ kept playin’ songs no one heard of. The dance floor was bare, and I had already dodged three dance requests, one coming from the typical eighty-year-old man who spent his nights reliving his glory days by putting on his high school Cosby sweater, snot-colored slacks, and old-man penny loafers. When he ran his fingers through his balding, gray hair and smiled a mouth full of gold teeth, I gave a quick head turn as Loraine and I laughed ourselves to another corner.

  I ignored texts from Tariq all night. I needed my space, and he would not let up. I deleted his many texts. “Don’t forget about me tonight” and “I’m willing to put it all out on the table. You can come over here if you want.” With each text he sent, I downed another green apple martini. Eventually, I upgraded to Long Islands before stepping up to the big boy leagues and gorging shots of Patrón and Hennessy. I wouldn’t have gotten so drunk had it not been for Louis’s text message. “I didn’t run back to Teona. I still want to make this work. I think you were the one.” That text is what led me to the shots.

  Soon, I stopped declining dance invitations and found myself gettin’ low to the flo’ halfway through the night. I even gave Cosby Sweater a chance. I rubbed his beer belly and pumped my fists to the music of Jessie J. Loraine stopped short of grabbing me by my ear when she dragged me out the club before I went down as one of those girls.

  “I need you to stay with me tonight,” I mumbled through slurred speech.

  Loraine helped me up to my apartment and laid me down on my couch. “I might as well. You can’t drive me home.”

  I threw my arms up and wrenched her close to me into a forced hug. “Thanks, girl. I can’t be alone tonight.”

  “Apparently.” Loraine pulled away, kicked her shoes off, and slung her jacket across my armchair. “You can barely sit upright, let alone take care of yourself.”

  “No, that’s not what I mean.” I slung myself over my couch and closed my eyes. The room spun, and I couldn’t think straight while my living room ran laps around me. “I’m gonna call him if you…if you leave…me.” I could barely get my words in order with all the thoughts attempting to clamber out of my dehydrated mouth at once.

  “Call who? Louis?”

  I grabbed the purse that fell through my fingers to my hardwood floors and searched through it. I shook my head and mumbled, “N…no.” When I found my phone, I silently reread one of the texts Tariq sent me. “U home yet? I hope you not still mad at me. I need you here wit’ me.”

  I let my phone fall back to the floor. Loraine watched me with perplexity as she tried to read my mind. “Who are you gonna call, Erin?”

  We eyed each other with confusion. “What are you talkin’ about?”

  “You said you were gonna call him. Who’s him?”

  I closed my eyes and tried to remember the last thing I said to Loraine before more thoughts scurried through my brain. I unclipped the front of my hair and scratched my scalp. When I glanced at my phone, I frowned. “Oh,” I shouted. “Tariq.”

  “Tariq?” Loraine shouted back. “Why are you gonna call Tariq? After how he treated you?”

  I kicked off my shoes and turned over on the couch to where my back faced the TV. Tired of how fast the room spun, I wanted to close my eyes and prepare for the weekend. My mind wasn’t in the right place to hold a rational conversation with Loraine. I kept my eyes closed and dreamt about a two-headed lion that pleasured himself on my bed. One head belonged to Tariq, and the other one belonged to Louis. Before they had the chance to beckon my inclusion in their threesome, I felt an incessant tapping on my shoulder.<
br />
  I turned over to see Loraine standing over me with her hands on her hips. “What?” I grunted.

  “Why are you gonna call Tariq?”

  “Tariq called?” I snatched my phone from the floor and scrolled through. Another text from Tariq that came through. “You got my mind trippin’. I keep starin’ at my phone waitin’ on you to call. I got some shit to get off my chest.” I shrugged my shoulders.

  Loraine snatched the phone from my hand and smacked my shoulder. “Erin, answer me.”

  “Answer you? Answer you about what?”

  “Tariq! What’s going on? Are you still seeing Tariq even after he kicked you out of his place?”

  I blinked a few times in hopes that I could blink away my bad dream. “I dunno what you’re talkin’ about. Can I go to sleep?”

  Loraine stood over me for a while. Soon, the area around her faded to black. The last thing I saw was Loraine rolling her eyes as everything went dark. Suddenly, the two-headed lion reappeared in my bedroom and asked me to join in.

  • • •

  When I heard my shower running, I shot up from my couch. The sunlight raked through my blinds, almost blinding me. I threw the back of my wrist over my face to block the searing sunlight from burning my retinas. As I sat up, I massaged my scalp, tryna bore out the sound of chirping in my skull. The more conscious I became, the more rapidly the chirping upgraded to loud chiming. I squeezed my eyes shut as I shunned the effects of a hung-over morning. When I looked down and realized I was dressed in my Victoria’s Secret pajama pants and Old Navy sweatshirt, it became clearer that my night last night was more hectic than I hoped. The sound of the shower increased as it jammed its presence into my earlobes, banging against my eardrums and compelling me to pay attention.

  Finding my BlackBerry on the floor, I picked it up and hoped I could make sense of everything. As I scrolled through my text messages, my post-drunken binge evolved into a horror film. The last text I got from Tariq was, “I’m ’bout to roll through.” The text wouldn’t have freaked me out as much if the text seven minutes after it from Louis hadn’t read, “I have some things to discuss with you. I’m coming over.”

  The fight scene from Tariq’s condo flashed through my mind. I jumped off my couch and rushed toward the sound of my bathroom shower. There was no sign of Loraine, and I didn’t know who was in my bathroom. I rushed into my bedroom, hoping I’d see the scattered clothes of the intruder showering in my bathroom. I dropped my phone on my bed and set my sights on my bathroom door. I stormed through the door and stopped when I realized who had been showering.

  “What the hell!” Loraine shrieked as I stood in the bathroom door more confused than I was before I walked in there. She promptly turned the shower off and grabbed her towel from my towel rack. Having wrapped herself in my guest towel, she walked out and asked, “Are you okay?” Her question sounded more like, “Are you crazy?”

  I felt crazy. There was no sign of Louis or Tariq, and I didn’t know what happened after getting those two messages.

  Tired of being confused, I sat on my toilet seat and dropped my thumping head between my thighs. “What happened last night?” My words were muddled through clenched teeth and dry lips.

  Loraine took a deep breath as she finished drying off. “You were drunk last night.”

  “How much did I have to drink?”

  “I had to pretty much carry you out the club.”

  I sat back up and leaned on my bathroom sink. Loraine stood in the doorway, blocking the rays of sunlight that tried to barge into our conversation. I had to know. “Did anyone come over?”

  “You mean, did Louis come over?” I nodded my head and hoped that’s all she knew. She smiled and asked, “Or are you wondering if Tariq came by, too?”

  I put my head back between my thighs and tried not to hyperventilate. “What happened last night, Loraine? I can’t remember anything.”

  “I didn’t think you would.” Loraine walked into my bedroom closet and searched for some old clothes to throw on while she let me sit literally on the edge of my seat. I sat in the steamy bathroom catching my breath until I finally followed her into my bedroom. I collapsed atop my mattress and stared at my ceiling. When she walked out of my closet, I watched as she threw on an old pair of sweats. She tied her dreads up and sat next to me. “I should’ve been the one drunk last night. I’m mad you stole my thunder.”

  “Girl, Louis and Tariq kept blowing me up last night. I needed to drown my frustrations. What happened with Louis and Tariq, though? Did they come over?”

  “No. I texted them and told them you were takin’ care of me ’cause I was too drunk to take care of myself. They were both pretty understanding.” She lay back and sighed, rubbing her forehead.

  “Why didn’t I see those texts? The last text messages in my phone said they were coming over.”

  “I deleted the ones I sent. Wanted to scare you. I was really mad that you stole my thunder.” She giggled.

  “What do you mean?” I closed my eyes and gasped when I realized that I hadn’t spoken to Loraine since she went to confront Julian. When I stared at her, her face was pale and lifeless, almost as if I already knew the outcome of their confrontation. “What happened when you saw Julian?”

  She pulled a loc from her ponytail and pursed her lips. “He didn’t say shit.” She sat up and slouched her shoulders forward. “I told him I needed to see him. We met up at Chili’s. I told him what Lorenz told me. He didn’t even look surprised. He kept his mouth shut. Like…” She sighed. “I asked him would he have told me if I did agree to have sex with him, and the nigga shrugged his shoulders.”

  I raised my eyebrows in disbelief. Loraine kept playing in her hair as she spoke softly and slowly.

  “The man I met before wasn’t there. He was a completely different person. He was heartless and showed no regard for my well-being. He could’ve killed me, literally, and he didn’t care.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this last night?”

  “I didn’t expect you to get so drunk.” She smiled as if to tell me she didn’t blame me. I still felt bad. She obviously needed a friend, and I turned last night into her taking care of me. She inhaled and wiped her cheeks as a few tears trickled down. “I dunno what to think.”

  “Have you spoken to Lorenz?”

  “And say what? That I left him to be with a man who wanted to kill me?”

  “You dodged a bullet. I know what he did was messed up, but this could’ve been really bad. The worst that came out of this is a broken heart.”

  “Somehow, I still don’t feel better. I would’ve protected myself. I carry my own condoms in case something happens. But, I thought he was the one, or real close to it. He fooled me. How the fuck could I be so stupid that I’d fall for a man who…a man like that?”

  “You’re not stupid, Loraine. Men are good at their game when they need to be.”

  “You know what he did tell me?” Loraine dug her fingernails into her palms and tightened her jaw as she stared aimlessly at my bedroom wall. “He’s not sorry. He had real feelings for me, and he knew I wouldn’t have felt the way I did had I known. He said he was happy for the time we spent and was hurt by the fact that I was ending things. He was fucking hurt.”

  I felt my phone vibrating on the bed behind us. I grabbed it and frowned at Tariq’s interruption. His text read, “Good morning. Hope you slept well. Breakfast?” I wasn’t in the mood.

  “Are you gonna see Lorenz?”

  Loraine shook her head and sucked in her bottom lip. “I’m too embarrassed to face him.”

  “You know he’s gonna call, asking if you spoke to Julian.”

  “I know.” Loraine shrugged her shoulders and twisted her dreads. “Erin, what am I gonna tell this man? What if he laughs in my face?”

  “He’s not gonna laugh in your face.”

  “I would. I threw him aside. I was ready and willing to throw him to the curb for one of his oldest friends, only to find out that I was th
e idiot. I don’t know when I’m gonna be able to face him. I know it won’t be soon, though.”

  Another text came through. “Is your friend still there? Can we talk?” asked Louis. I sighed and felt it was time to turn my phone off and put on some regular clothes. “Let’s go somewhere.”

  Loraine lay back and threw her arm over her eyes, shielding her tears from me. “Where?”

  “Anywhere. You can cry on my shoulder. We can watch old movies and can contemplate spray-painting Julian’s car with the word ‘Murderer’ in scarlet-red lettering.”

  Loraine smiled a quick smirk that I almost mistook for a face spasm. “If I was the one who got drunk last night, we’d be over there right now spray-painting. Hell, I considered hacking into his online account and plastering his sexually transmitted disease status all over his profile to ward off other unsuspecting women.”

  “I know a guy at work.”

  Loraine paused. Reluctantly, she whispered, “No. Not now at least. Talk to me after you carry my drunk butt up my driveway, and I might be more inclined.”

  In an effort to lighten the mood, I went back to my previous suggestion. “Let’s get a hotel room and get away from the drama in our lives.”

  Loraine sat up and stared at her feet. After a long and hard sigh, she sniffled and dropped her shoulders. “I need somethin’ like that.”

  “Let’s go—right now. Leave your phone here and we’ll get away.”

  Loraine picked up her phone. We both noticed the flashing red indicator. “Julian has been callin’ me all night. No texts. But my phone is flooded with his empty calls every ten minutes.” She shot up and headed for my bathroom. When I heard the toilet flush, I shot up, too. We both stood at my toilet as the water rose to the top, Loraine’s phone stuck at the bottom.

  Whenever we got back from our hotel getaway, I was gonna be pissed as I spent the next three hours on the phone with my maintenance man tryna explain why there was a phone in my toilet. But right then, I chuckled as Loraine’s first smile in days finally peeked through.