by Mary Monroe
“I can’t leave you out here. I can give you enough money for a room. I know some reasonable motels that you can stay in for a couple of nights, if you want to. That’s just in case your uncle doesn’t make it back from Vegas until then.”
“Well, I could do that, but I don’t want you to be out any money trying to help me. I mean, I’ve cost you enough just in gas. If it’s all right with you, I can stay at your place until I can go to June’s place. It’s only an hour,” Yvette said with a pleading look in her eyes.
For her sake, it was a good thing she was a pretty woman. Had she not been, the DJ would not have allowed her to enter that nightclub for free even if she’d promised him ten blow jobs. Her beauty didn’t impress Harrison, but she thought it did. And she planned to use it to her advantage. It never occurred to her that he would have helped her regardless of what she looked like. She batted her eyes at him and sniffed.
“I promise I will never ask you for another favor again as long as I live. You don’t know me that well, so if you don’t want to do it, that’s cool.” When Harrison didn’t respond fast enough, Yvette started to open the door on her side.
“What if I take you to my place and give you enough cab fare to get you to your girl’s house? How’s that?” Harrison asked, rubbing the back of his head, which by now was throbbing like a bad toothache.
“That’ll work.”
Harrison stopped at an all-night gas station to fill up his tank. While he was doing that, his cell phone, which he had left on in the cup holder, rang. Yvette picked it up, and what she saw on the ID screen made her flesh crawl: Teri Stewart. She had just enough time before Harrison returned to erase the message that that bitch had left.
Once they made it to Harrison’s swank condo, which was a converted unit in a stately old building near the border of Long Beach, Yvette rushed inside behind him and made herself right at home, complimenting him on his good taste in décor. What she said was one thing, what she thought was another. His place looked like something out of a Tarzan movie. Who in the hell did this fool think he was, Shaka Zulu? She never could figure out why so many black Americans slapped some of the most loathsome African masks they could find onto their walls. That was bad enough. But this suit-wearing baboon had spears and other voodoo-looking shit displayed all over his place. There was just no telling what his bedroom looked like, but she planned to find out.
Just when she thought she’d seen everything there was to see, she looked at another wall and did a double take. Was that a picture of a witch doctor right next to a picture of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr? Did Harrison, and others like him, think that doing shit like that made them more of a “brother” or more of a “sister” to the real Africans? If they really wanted to show some solidarity and human kindness, why didn’t they send some money to those starving African kids they showed on TV all the time? Why didn’t they go to Africa and adopt some of those little orphans like those white celebrities? As far as Yvette was concerned, Angelina Jolie and Madonna had done more for the Africans than any black American she knew, while the rich black Americans were spending their money on outlandish jewelry and gold teeth. She had always suspected that Harrison Starr was a confused jackass. The way he had decorated his place confirmed her suspicions.
While Harrison was in the bathroom, Yvette kicked off her shoes and wiggled out of her pantyhose. When he returned to his living room, he stopped in his tracks. He looked at her bare feet, then her face.
“What’s all this?” he asked with his jaw twitching.
“Oh, my feet were hurting from all that dancing I did,” she replied, rubbing the sides of her feet. “I hope my feet don’t smell.”
“Uh, don’t worry about that. Would you like something to drink?” he offered, not too pleased to see her so kicked back on his couch, too.
“You got any beer?” she asked, still rubbing her feet. And they did stink. They smelled like stale vinegar, and Harrison could determine that from halfway across the room. He planned to spray his crushed velvet blue couch pillows with some Febreze as soon as she left.
“No, I don’t have any beer, but I have just about everything else, though. How about some rum and Coke?”
“That’ll work,” she said, rising.
“Make yourself at home,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. But she was too dense to know that. “I’ll be right back.”
Yvette saw that Harrison had left his cell phone on a glass-top table by the door where he’d dropped his keys. While he was in the kitchen, the telephone by the couch rang. It rang four times before Yvette decided that Harrison couldn’t hear it from the kitchen. She picked it up.
“Hello,” she said, trying to sound as sultry as she possibly could. She did a good job, because on the other end Teri almost dropped her telephone.
“I’m sorry! I think I dialed the wrong number,” Teri wailed.
“Are you calling for Harrison?”
Teri hesitated before she replied. “Yes, I am,” she said firmly. “May I ask who you are?”
“Oh, I’m just one of Harry’s good friends,” Yvette cooed. Harry?
“If Harry is in, could you tell him that Teri is on the phone, please?”
Yvette was elated. This was going better than she thought it would! She took her time responding, knowing that that would irritate Teri even more. She cleared her throat and yawned.
“Hello? Is somebody still there?” Teri hollered.
“I’m still here…” Yvette cooed.
“If Harrison is there, will you please let him know that Teri Stewart is on the phone and I’d like to speak with him right now.”
“He’s in the shower right now.”
Teri hung up. She was stunned and frustrated, but optimistic. She had to give the man the benefit of the doubt. There had to be a reasonable explanation for what she had just experienced. There just had to be! But if Harrison had picked up a woman in the same club that he had told her to meet him in, he was a straight-up fool. And she would be just as big a fool as he was if she put up with that. He didn’t answer his cell phone when she called him earlier, and he had not returned her call. Now here was a strange woman answering his telephone while he was in the shower! Oh, hell no. He had some explaining to do.
Teri had already left her grandparents’ house and returned to her residence to change clothes. She was in no mood to go to the club, so she had decided to call Harrison to see if he wanted her to come over or if he wanted to come to her place. As soon as she heard a woman’s voice answer his cell phone, she’d pulled into the parking lot of a convenience store near the Staples Center.
She’d snapped her phone shut and headed toward Harrison’s neighborhood. She stopped her BMW so abruptly she almost jumped the curb in front of his building. His condo was in the front of the building. It looked like every light in his place was on. She took a deep breath before she rang the buzzer.
“Yeah,” Harrison said, sounding like he was out of breath.
“Let me in,” she ordered.
Harrison responded with hesitation. “Who is this?”
“You know who it is! Shit!”
“What? Teri? Teri, is that you?” Teri could tell from the way he spoke that he was surprised and disappointed to hear her voice. If what she suspected was true, he was dog meat.
“Who the fuck else? Or were you expecting another one of your whores?”
CHAPTER 48
“Oh shit! Baby, I didn’t know you were coming! Why didn’t you call?!” Harrison shouted. “Damn! Damn! Damn!” His voice was so shrill and high pitched he sounded like a hysterical woman. Sweat had already started to slide down his face like molasses.
“I did, goddammit! That whore you picked up said you were in the shower! Now are you going to buzz me in or not?”
“Teri, I need to talk to you before I let you in here…”
“I bet you do!”
“Listen, baby—you’ve got it all wrong. I know what you’re thinking, but this is not
what you think!” Harrison said in a desperate and feeble voice. He turned to look at Yvette still kicking back on his sofa with a puzzled look on her face.
“Uh, what’s going on?” she asked, rising. It was a struggle for her to keep a straight face. “I hope I didn’t cause you any trouble.” She had to force herself not to bust out laughing. Instead, she pressed her lips together and wrapped her arms around her chest, trying to look distressed. But Harrison hadn’t seen anything yet. His goose was being cooked and Yvette was the chef that had shoved him into the oven.
“You just stay cool,” he told Yvette, holding up his hands. “Let me handle this.” There was a worried expression on his face as he looked toward the door. It was locked, but as angry as Teri sounded, it would not have surprised him if she kicked it down. “Listen, let me run downstairs for a minute and try to straighten out this mess. I’m sorry about all this. I know you’ve already got enough trouble; you don’t need this, too. And I sure as hell don’t need this shit!”
Harrison grabbed his keys and ran out the door. It didn’t help his case that he was sweating like an ox and so nervous his hands were shaking. Even though he was innocent of what Teri suspected, he looked guilty as hell.
Teri had her face pressed against the window in front of the building lobby when Harrison got downstairs. “Baby, please calm down,” he began as soon as he made it outside, holding the lobby entrance door open with his foot.
“What the hell is going on?” she demanded, trying to push him out of the way.
“Nothing is going on. I ran into a…uh…a young lady I know. She needed some help and I…”
“What kind of help? A mercy fuck?”
“No, nothing like that! It’s Yvette and you probably know that Eric kicked her out. I was just trying to do her a favor.”
“I bet you were and I bet you did. What is your problem? Are you so fucking sleazy that you couldn’t wait a couple of hours for me? I can’t meet up with you when you want me to, so you go off with another bitch? Is that the way it is?”
“That is not the way it happened. When I didn’t hear from you by midnight, I didn’t think I would.”
“I left you a message on your cell phone!”
“I didn’t get it! There was no damn message on my cell phone from you!” Harrison yelled.
“Get out of my way. I’m coming in.”
Harrison stepped from side to side, blocking Teri. “Baby, please go home and cool off. We’ll discuss this later.” He looked toward the elevator, then the stairs. He was confused and flustered, and he didn’t know what he expected Yvette to do. He prayed that she would not bring her ass to the lobby and make matters even worse.
“Motherfucker, move!” Teri used both hands to push Harrison out of the way. She pushed him to the side so hard he fell and hit the back of his head on the mailboxes on the wall. He was dazed, and it took him a few moments to compose himself and get up.
“Teri, you…you’re hysterical,” he stammered, trying to reason with her even though it was obvious that she was beyond that point.
“You got that right!” The elevator was taking too long so she ran up the stairs two at a time. Harrison was right behind her rubbing his head, vigorously proclaiming his innocence.
“She’ll tell you herself nothing is going on! What do you think I am?” he yelled.
He had left his front door ajar. The first thing Teri saw when she entered his living room was Yvette coming out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her naked body.
“Oh shit,” Yvette said in mock horror. She covered her mouth with her hand to keep from laughing. It didn’t take her but a few seconds to realize that there was nothing to laugh about. Harrison looked at her as though he wanted to strangle her, and it did cross his mind. Teri let out a muffled shriek and started stumbling backward until she hit the wall.
“What the hell are you doing, girl?” Harrison yelled, running toward Yvette. She was not prepared for his reaction. She backed up against the wall, with a look of pure terror on her face. “What the fuck is all this? Is this how you thank me for helping your trifling ass?” Harrison turned to Teri. “Baby, I swear to God, this is not what it looks like!” Teri stood against the wall looking like she’d just seen thirteen ghosts.
“You son of a bitch. You low-down funky black dog!” Teri screeched in Harrison’s horrified face. She had yelled so much, her voice had begun to sound hoarse. She coughed to clear her throat. Then she turned to Yvette, who looked like a cross-eyed deer caught in somebody’s headlights by now. “You low-life slut. You can have this hound from hell. You two deserve each other.” She turned back to Harrison. “And I thought Mia was bad! The little comedy you played out with her was scraping the bottom of the barrel! Have you no shame? This time, with this oafish bitch, you settled for straight-up shit this time! I wouldn’t let you fuck me again with a magic wand.”
“Nothing happened between Mia and me! I already told you that!” Harrison hollered with his hands in the air. He looked from Teri to Yvette. “Yvette, get in your fucking clothes and get the hell out of my place before I throw you out!”
“You still going to give me the cab fare to get to my uncle’s place?” Yvette whimpered, holding the towel around her body as tight as she could.
“Hell no! I don’t give a fuck how you get to your uncle’s place! You can crawl on your belly like a snake for all I care!” he roared, giving Yvette the disgusted look she deserved. Then it dawned on him what Yvette had tried to do. And from the looks of things, she had succeeded. Other than Eric evicting her damn ass, he wondered if any other parts of her story were true. “You fucking set me up! Why me?”
Yvette had done a lot of stupid things in her life that she lived to tell about. But she wasn’t so sure she’d come out of this alive. The way Harrison and Teri were looking at her, she didn’t know which one to fear the most. All she knew now was that she had to vacate the premises while she was still able. She stood in the middle of the floor with a wounded look on her face, looking like she was the victim of this evil prank.
“Yvette, don’t you ever come near me again as long as you live!” Harrison was so busy chewing out Yvette he didn’t even notice Teri leave. As soon as he did, he ran after her. He got downstairs just as she was starting her motor. He stopped her from leaving by grabbing the door handle on her side, banging on her window. “Teri, please let me explain.”
“Explain my ass, motherfucker. Don’t you ever fix your lips to speak to me again as long as you live!” she shrieked. “I am through with you! And for good this time!”
“Teri you know me better than that! You know I wouldn’t be that damn stupid as hard as it was for me to get back with you! I was set up! Yvette set me up!” he insisted, giving Teri a pleading look, hoping she would soften. But Teri didn’t get to be where she was in life by being soft.
“She sure did, motherfucker!”
Harrison didn’t leave the spot where he stood in the street until Teri was completely out of sight.
By the time he made it back to his living room, Yvette had put her clothes back on and locked herself in the bathroom.
“Yvette, I want you to get the hell out of here right now,” he ordered, slapping the bathroom door with the palm of his hand.
“I’m going,” she hissed, slowly opening the door, rubbing lotion on her arms. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
“Why, Yvette? Why did you do this to me?!” Harrison boomed, grabbing her by the wrist. “What the fuck is the matter with you?!”
“Turn loose my arm, motherfucker, before I yell rape, too,” she threatened. Harrison was so angry he was shaking. He wanted to slap that sneer off her evil face. Somehow, he managed to control himself. He released her immediately and stared at her with his mouth hanging open as she strutted back into his living room and plopped down on his couch with a groan, taking her time putting her shoes back on.
“I want you out of my sight. I want you out of my sight now,” Harrison tol
d her, stomping across the floor to the couch. He stood in front of her with his fists balled. When she didn’t move fast enough, he lunged at her and snatched her up by her arm. She stumbled as he dragged her to the door. “If you ever fuck with me again, I will hurt you,” he said in a voice so calm and low that she didn’t hear everything he said.
“What did you just say?” she asked, struggling with him as he opened the door to push her out.
“I said, if you ever fuck with me again, I will hurt you,” he repeated, this time loud and clear enough for her to hear every single word.
“You could go to jail just for threatening me,” she snarled, smoothing down the sides of her dress as she backed toward the elevator.
“And it would be worth it,” he told her before he slammed his door shut.
CHAPTER 49
Harrison locked his door and leaned against it for a minute, massaging his temple with both hands. He wanted to bang his head against the door, but it was already spinning like a top and throbbing on both sides.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he chanted, punching the wall with his fist, wishing that the wall was that no-good Yvette’s empty-ass head. He sucked in some air and tried to make some sense out of what had just happened. A black man couldn’t win for losing, he thought. He’d fucked up more than one relationship, but now that he was trying to walk the straight and narrow with his vision of a dream girl, another party took it upon herself to monkey wrench all his efforts! That bitch. That no-good homeless bitch! He slapped the side of his head with the palm of his hand, chastising himself for being so gullible. How many times had he heard stories from dudes at the gym and the barbershop about some of Yvette’s antics? “If you lay down with dogs, you get up with fleas,” one brother had warned him after he’d revealed how Yvette had rewarded him with a dose of genital warts. He rubbed his chin and nose and went to the window just in time to see Yvette flag down a taxi. He didn’t leave the window until the taxi left with her in it.