There is no denyin’ that this bitch is in love. “If I can give you advice . . . you really should cut off Dr. Love.”
She looks surprised.
“I overheard you telling Moët about him.”
Alizé picks up her purse and looks down in it. I can tell her ass is tryin’ to figure whether to be mad or not that I know her business even though she didn’t want me to.
“After lookin’ at how Cristal completely fucked up a good thing with Mr. Lover Lover, I just don’t want another one of us to fuck up.”
Alizé pulls out her MAC lip-gloss as she looks over at me. “Well, bitch, since you all up in the mix any damn way. I already decided that Doc’s supply of goodies have been shut down. After what me and Cameron shared today in that elevator another man is going to find it very hard to top it. Trust,” she says dreamily before she coats her lips with clear gloss.
“The elevator! You nasty bitch you,” I tell her.
“And you know that.” She winks at me and does this fake shiver that make my ass laugh.
And it feels so damn good to laugh, gossip, and just shoot the shit with my friend again.
I moan in pleasure as Corey presses a kiss to my lower back and then each of my butt cheeks. I wiggle it playfully for him and then giggle like a damn little girl when he bites down onto one ass cheek.
“I have a surprise for your sexy chocolate ass.”
I lean up and look down over my shoulder at him. “I don’t do rim shots.”
He laughs and slaps my ass before he rolls out of bed. I turn over and the sheet drops while I watch that little sexy motherfucker strut over to the closet. He pulls out this big gift-wrapped box. “My birthday ain’t for months,” I tell him as he walks over to the bed.
He don’t say shit and just sits the box in front of me before he drops back down onto the bed.
I open the box like my ass is five and it’s Christmas. I’m shocked as hell to see a laptop computer. I look up at him and this little motherfucker is smilin’ and showin’ all his teeth and shit. “Damn, you got me a computer?”
“It’s from a pawn shop but it works real good and when you write that first book you better dedicate it to me.”
Okay, so this the shit. I always fucked with dudes that had mad cash flow. Dope dealers. Hood boys. Duffel bag boys. I have been taken on trips to the Caribbean, taken on shopping sprees most bitches would die for, I have enough ghetto gold jewelry to start my own store, and I’ve gotten wads of cash big enough to choke a fuckin’ pit bull. I have been spoiled by these niggas.
As I rub my hands across the computer and open the lid I know that this is the best gift any motherfucker has ever given me.
See why I love this nigga for real?
Corey lays down on the bed and pulls my head over to rest on his chest. We don’t fuck or nothing. We just lay there and hold each other and it’s the best time we ever had in bed.
For real.
Chapter Forty
Moët
Ihave a million things I could be doing. There are files on my desk to be completed. Cases to be investigated. Calling my attorney back. Checking on Cristal and making sure she doesn’t have a mental meltdown. Calling my parents to check on Tiffany.
All of it has to wait. I couldn’t move from beside this child’s bedside even if it meant saving my own life.
Parents are supposed to do whatever, whenever for their child. We are the first line of defense against them being hurt, exploited, used, or abused. We are their protectors.
But what is a child supposed to do when it’s their own parents doing the using and abusing?
Tears raced down my face as I look at the eight-year-old boy whose life has forever been changed because his mother is a no-good bitch who would pour hot grease down on him. He has third degree burns on sixty percent of his small frame. They don’t know if he will make it through the night.
I know I am here in a profession but right now this is so personal for me. I am a social worker. I am a protector. I am a mother.
Any guilt I feel over fighting for my daughter always leaves me when I come face to face with situations like this. As a mother and a protector, I have done and will do anything for my child. God and everyone will just have to forgive me.
And I do feel guilty. I wanted to take the high road but Bones knocked the game into the gutter and to win I had to get down in the gutter with him.
I don’t know how long I sat there or how many different prayers I sent up to the heavens. For this motherless child. For my child. For Bones. For myself.
Hours later, as I left the hospital, I finally checked my voice mail messages. The one from my attorney makes me hop in my car and speed home.
It’s over. I thank the Lord for that.
I feel my entire body slump with relief as my attorney tells me via speakerphone that Bones has agreed to joint custody. Tears fill my eyes as everyone in the living room begins to clap.
Someone presses Tiffany into my arms and I hold her so tight and bury my face into her warm neck. “Thank you, Jesus,” I whisper against her cheeks as I cry with no shame.
“Don’t cry, Mo,” one of the girls tells me as they hug Tiffany and me close. It’s Alizé. I can tell from her perfume.
They’re all here. Everyone that means something to me beat a fast trail to the apartment once I gave them the heads up that my attorney was meeting with Bone’s attorney today. My parents. My sisters. Alizé. Dom. Cristal. Taquan. Even my godchild Kimani is waiting around with us for the news. And my baby girl, Tiffany.
Taquan bends down beside me. I feel his arm around my shoulders and his lips on my cheek. “We thank you Heavenly Father,” he says aloud.
“I would thank Him even more if she didn’t have to share custody at all with a crackhead,” my father throws in for good measure. Like I haven’t heard that enough.
I just hold my child because right now that’s all that matters to me.
“That is something to think about, Mo,” Alizé adds. “I heard on the news that he might get dropped from Platinum Records.”
“Oh, the streets is talkin’ ’bout him. Y’all really think he a gay sex freak who smoke crack?”
Everyone laughs at Dom’s words but I shake my head to clear it of their conversation. Their gossip. Even my parents are putting in their two cents. I don’t want to think about those tabloid papers or the rumors in them. Or what those rumors are doing to Bones. I just want to enjoy the end of this custody battle. That’s all I can focus on right now or else I might not be able to stand myself.
Girl Talk
The four friends were all in Cristal’s bedroom in the apartment. They said nothing to each other. Cristal sighed as she shifted her body deeper under her covers on the bed.
Alizé nervously sucked her lollipop as she flipped through the latest Essence magazine while she sat cross-legged on the end of the bed.
Dom bit her bottom lip in determination as she sat typing away on her laptop computer in between blowing cigarette smoke out the open window.
Moët’s eyes were troubled before she closed them and put her hands to her chin in prayer.
No words were spoken but everyone knew that each had their own battles to win. Each was deep in their own thoughts and their own worlds. Still, it was important for them to just be together.
Chapter Forty-One
Cristal
When I was a little girl there were two things I used to want so badly: love and money. They were the two things I lacked for the most. They are the two things that run my life. Last year I gave up the money for love and now I have lost love blindly chasing money.
Am I so fucked up that my adult life is going to stay this crazy ass teeter-totter between one or the other?
I can see from the look in my friends’ eyes that they pity me. I do not blame them. They always wished they had a good brotha like Mohammed. Trust me, I have not missed that jacked-up irony that now they all are in love with good guys and I am alone.
>
It hurts more than ever that I threw him away. It hurts like hell.
I wish I could press rewind on all this high society bullshit with Carolyn. I get embarrassed every time I think of what everyone thought of me hanging out with her. That I was her paramour. Her concubine. Her bitch.
I feel so damn stupid.
“Carolyn, you look beautiful . . . as always.”
My heart stops. I look up at Moët’s attorney, Helen, standing at the reception desk as she looks through her messages. I shift my eyes over and have to bite my bottom lip to keep from cussing Carolyn as she walks over to us. The dyking bitch looks as fabulous as ever in a linen sundress that I know is Gucci. I shift my eyes again to the young curvaceous woman at her side. I have to do a double take to make sure my eyes are not lying to me.
Is that that woman Kelle? Kelle. Kelle!
I almost thrown my damn pen in exasperation. After that big a scene she made of herself at the restaurant, this silly bitch is right back digging her lips in Carolyn’s ass?
These lesbian bitches are crazy.
I am not worried about losing my job. Carolyn is a smart woman and as soon as she throws salt in my work game I will go straight to Mr. Ingram and spill on every freaky-deaky little detail I know on her scandalous ass. She lucky I did not call the police on her sexually-assaulting ass. Can you imagine the scandal? Not Carolyn. I just was not having it.
Neither one of them speaks to me, but I do not miss the way Carolyn’s hand lingers on Kelle’s lower back as she guides her through the door to the inner offices behind Helen.
Well, better Kelle’s pussy than mine.
I pick up the phone and call Alizé at her internship. “Let’s all meet for dinner,” I say as soon as she picks up.
“Girl you must be psychic. I was just about to call your ass anyway.”
I frown in concern. “What’s wrong?”
“I have to pick between Cameron and the internship at Braun, Weber.”
My frown deepens. “Ooh.”
“Ooh is right.”
“But I thought the internship is over in a couple of weeks anyway,” I tell her as I pick up a pen and scribble Mohammed’s name.
“Yes, but I was invited back for the summer and this internship is important for my career. Shit.”
“And Cameron?”
“He’s still in Japan.”
I do an eye roll. “I meant how do you feel about him,” I stress patiently.
“He’s important for me,” she says without hesitation. “But I have doubts about his marriage really being over. I would hate to hurt my career for that.”
“Then I guess you have a choice to make, my friend.” I take a lot of pleasure in drawing a huge dagger through Mohammed’s name.
“See, it’s time like these that I miss dancing.”
“You could go back to teaching,” I offer as I take the sheet I scribbled on and tore it into a million pieces.
Alizé sighs into the phone. “I don’t have time to teach and besides it hurts like hell being in the dance studio and knowing I can’t get down like I used to.”
“Well, hopefully Rah is somebody name Bubba’s bitch by now,” I joke, just to hear her laugh.
“Ooh, baby, I hope they make it do what it do.”
We laugh like crazy.
Someone clears their throat and I look over my shoulder at Carolyn standing there looking down at me. Suddenly the vee neck of my silk dress feels too low as she eyes me like a glass of ice water on a hot day. I shiver in repulsion at the memory of how her hands felt on my body.
“Ze? Dyke alert. Let me call you right back.”
Carolyn’s face gets even tighter. I have to make myself not laugh. “Yes?” I say with plenty of attitude.
“Just double checking that we have an understanding that whatever happened between us stays between us,” she says in that haughty tone of hers.
“Oh, trust me. Whatever happened between us is behind us.”
“So your job is safe.”
“And so is your marriage,” I fling right back at her. Oh, I still have plenty of hood in me no matter how much I try to hide it.
The door to the inner office opens and Kelle walks through with a mean face at seeing Carolyn talking to me. She stands beside Carolyn but her eyes are on me as she says, “I played in my pussy while I was in the bathroom.”
Kelle quickly runs her finger across Carolyn’s mouth and Mrs. High Society’s tongue darts out to taste the other woman’s juices from her lips. They both eye me like my feelings should be hurt. Please. These bitches are dumb as hell.
“This is a dyke-free zone, ladies. Keep it moving please,” I tell them with satisfaction as I pick up the phone and ease my finger close to the button labeled Mr. Ingram.
Carolyn catches the move and shoves her clutch under her arm before she gives me one last longing look and turns to leave. Her little flunky is right behind her like a dog on a leash. Or would it be a pussycat on a leash? Whatever.
Maybe I am crazy for wanting to go to Mohammed’s favorite restaurant. Just because we are over does not mean he has a lock on good food. And The Caribbean has the best food this side of two stars. Besides, after all my drama with high society I am determined to get back in touch with the good things about Newark. I need to learn to be happy about who I am and where I am from.
I park my car inside the fenced-in lot. I see Dom’s Lexus and the Camry Ze drives parked side by side. I was so caught up in chasing dreams that I missed most of their mending of the friendship. Regardless I’m just glad that the four of us can hang out again.
Hell, I am happy as hell that they are such good friends that they forgave me for kicking them to the curb to sniff under Carolyn’s ass. That is what friends—best friends—are all about.
I slide my shades on to block the summer sun as I walk out of the parking lot to the front of the colorfully painted brick building. I stop in my path as Alizé, Dom, and Cristal all come out of the restaurant at once. I smile at them. “I know I am running late—”
Ze and Mo wrap their arms around mine and literally turn me around. “Girl, it’s so crowded in that motherfucker,” Dom says as they try to make my body move forward . . . away from the restaurant.
I lock my legs and plant my feet to the sidewalk just as the sun begins to set in the sky. “Hey, I am starving and I have been thinking about curry—”
“Let’s just go, Cristal,” Moët says with emphasis.
My eyes shift to each of their faces. I do not like what I see. “What’s wrong?” I ask.
At their silence, I snatch my arms from them and turn to look through the front glass window of the restaurant. The sun glints off of it and I cannot see through it clearly. Still, I know before I even walk closer and peer in with my hand over my eyes what I am going to see.
It does not stop me.
Sure enough, there in the back snuggled in a booth together is Mohammed and that goddamn Evette. I feel like Peeping Tom as she leans over to wipe something from his mouth with her thumb. It is an intimate gesture. That of a woman looking out for her man.
“Come on, Cris, let’s just go,” Moët says again.
This time I let my friends pull me away.
Chapter Forty-Two
Alizé
“Cameron, this is me. I was just missing you and wanted to hear your voice. I forgot about the time mix-up. I wish I was there with you. Holding you. Kissing you. Loving on you.”
I bite my lip a little as my emotions fill me up as I talk softly into my cell phone. “Sometimes I think you scootie-booted right out of town not to deal with me . . . and you. Us.”
I pull my mom’s old Camry into the driveway. “I know we want to wait until the divorce is final and I decide about the internship but I . . . I—”
The rest of my words catch in my throat as I climb out the car and meanmug Dr. Locke’s SUV parked in front of the house. Man, what the fuck is this shit all about?
He’s been blowing up
my cell and I’ve been steady sending his ass to voice mail.
“Cameron, baby, we’ll talk more when you call me later. Bye.” I snap the phone close so hard that I mighta broke that bitch.
I walk into the house and drop my keys and briefcase onto the wooden kitchen table. I hear voices in the living room as I kick off my heels.
“Elaine, I’m glad that I was able to help you in any way,” Dr. Locke says.
“I can tell Monica thinks a lot of the reason she sees a therapist is because of my relationship with her father,” my mom says.
I walk closer to the doorway and pause.
“Of course I can’t discuss the specifics of Monica’s therapy with you—”
I roll my eyes. What the fuck he gone tell her? Lately the specifics of my therapy been a steady merry-go-round on his dick? Negro puh-leeze.
“I do think there are some issues concerning your divorce that you need to deal with.”
And what the fuck you need to deal with?
“Monica thinks that’s the reason my new boyfriend is so much younger than me.”
“And what do you think?”
I lean in closer at the silence.
“I think that it was time for me to feel wanted. I’m a woman—a good damn woman—and this man that I love—who knows I love him—had overlooked me for years and now he’s marrying someone else.”
“Is the younger man and the new image another cry for attention from your ex? And if it is, when will it stop?”
Okay, I know this motherfucker in there quizzing my mama is a damn quack, but I want to know the answers to this question.
She remains silent.
I guess me and Mama done had enough.
I walk into the living room and they both look up at me. “Hi, Mama. Dr. Locke, can I speak to you outside for a second?” I ask, sounding phony as hell.
“Are you okay? Dr. Locke said you’ve been missing your therapy appointments so he came to check up on you.”
I lock my eyes with his as I paste a smile on my face. “And that was so . . . nice of him. Dr. Locke?” I wave my hand towards the front door.
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