Real Wifeys: Get Money

by Mink, Meesha

  The waitress came and refilled our glasses. I took that moment to send Make$ a text:

  LOVE U. HAVE A GOOD SHOW. XOXOXO

  Goldie rolled her eyes as she watched me. “That nigga got you sprung,” she teased, smiling even though her eyes were filled with pity for me.

  I hated when Make$ was touring. I wasn’t crazy. My man was in the middle of groupie central. Straight pussy patrol. But being onstage was how he made his money—shit, our money—and I didn’t want to knock his hustle. Still, all the wondering about just what his ass was up to when he was out of my sight had me feeling like I was losing my mind sometimes.

  I sat my BlackBerry on the table next to the python Gucci hobo Make$ surprised me with just last week. It was just material shit and I’d take one hundred percent of his heart over all the shit he laced me with.

  Not that being the wifey of a hip-hop star didn’t mean enjoying a nice shopping spree or being able to open my walk-in closet and pick out clothes that would make most chicks salivate. But there’s shit in the world more important than the latest red-bottom heels or designer labels. Still, it was a nice surprise. To me it was more about the gesture than the actual gift. It could’ve been a single rose and I would’ve smelled it every day and tried to water it and cut the stem to give it as much life as I could. And even when it died, I would press the rose in my memory book and keep it for the rest of my life.

  Like I said, I loved that ninja.

  Bzzz . . . Bzzz . . . Bzzz . . .

  I looked down at my vibrating BlackBerry. I couldn’t lie. I felt mad disappointed that it wasn’t my man, my heart, my love, Make$, calling.

  Not really in the mood to yap it up with my cousin Eve, I let the phone go to voice mail. That chick was all about her three G’s: gambling, gossiping, and going shopping. I was enjoying my wine-and-dine with Goldie, and even if I wasn’t, sitting on the phone talking about how much she won at bingo, cute clothes, or rumors about this one and that one was irrelevant to me.

  Not like my heart.

  That was mad important.

  “So there’s no one you would risk it all for?” I asked.

  Goldie pushed back her chair and crossed her legs in the distressed denims she wore with a pair of navy suede heels that perfectly matched the color of the jean. I didn’t need to see the bottoms to know they were red-lacquered. “Honestly, I was really feelin’ this dude I was in business with, a dude named Has. Fine motherfucka. Dreads. Tall. Dark. Swagger. Nigga was on ten for real. But . . . I’m glad I followed my head and not my clit, because a few months later that nigga got caught up in a Fed raid and I’m not the prison-wifey type, you know? Writing letters, putting pussy on lock, sending care packages, and putting my hard-earned money on his books and shit? Nah, I’ll pass.”

  She picked up her cell phone and scrolled through it with her thumb before she pushed the BlackBerry across the table at me. I turned it around and looked down at the photo of a dude with long, neat and slender dreads. The picture wasn’t that clear, but there was no denying that this tall man posted up outside a corner store was hella fine. I pushed the BlackBerry back at her.

  “It’s blurry ’cause I snuck and took a picture of him when he wasn’t looking and he moved,” she said, looking down at the picture. The look she made, twisting up her mouth and waving her hand to fan herself, made me laugh.

  “But . . . I still think about what if,” she admitted, picking up the billfold our waitress sat on the table. “I just know that nigga can do a serious fuckdown. He walk like he gotta keep his thighs open ’cause his dick swinging. You know? One of them dangerous dicks.”

  Their waitress smiled as she began to clear our plates.

  Goldie winked up at her as she slid a folded fifty-dollar bill into the woman’s lean hand. “That’s your tip. I don’t care what they say—you don’t split your shit,” she said with a “so there” look.

  I gathered up my bag, keys, and BlackBerry as the waitress thanked Goldie. She always tipped heavy—probably remembering her days on her feet at Dino’s.

  “Did Make$ talk to you about Goldie’s Girls dancing for him?” Goldie asked, sliding on a pair of oversize shades as we left the restaurant.

  My steps faltered and I flashed back to my birthday party last month. I’d walked outside to find Goldie and Make$ talking alone. That shit had fucked with my head and had me feeling some kind of way for a sec, like “What’s up with this shit?” I couldn’t help it: Goldie was the type of chick you imagined every man wanted.

  I questioned Make$ later that night but he got me straight that a redbone, half-breed chick like Goldie wasn’t his type. He liked that deep chocolate he found all over me. And that night I fucked and sucked him extra hard just in case he forgot the quality of pussy he had at home.

  “When did that go down?” I asked as we strutted in our stilettos to our cars. A spring breeze pressed our clothes against our bodies and these two white guys—probably Portuguese—took in the free show.

  We both deactivated our alarms. Boo-doop. Hers a convertible cherry-red Lexus, and I was whipping Make$’s shiny black Jaguar XF while he was out of town.

  Goldie tossed her oversize clutch onto the passenger seat before looking at me over her shoulder, her shades still in place and shielding her eyes. “His management heard about the shows and didn’t even realize that me and Make$ met through you,” she said with ease. “He made an offer and the money was too good to turn down. Fuck that.”

  I nodded like I understood even though my mind was racing as I opened the door to the Jag. “Good thing I quit working for you, huh?” I said. “I don’t think Make$ want his girl up onstage like that.”

  Goldie shrugged. “You good?” she asked, still looking at me.

  I knew damn well she wasn’t checking if I was full from my meal of garlic shrimp and yellow rice. Before I could answer her truthfully I had to do a little gut check for myself. Did I want my friends to dance for my man? Dancing onstage wasn’t stripping but I knew damn well Make$’s manager, Chill Will, wasn’t hiring Goldie and the crew because they could dougie they ass off.

  I had to remember that Goldie didn’t want Make$. I couldn’t even see them together, plus she could be my eyes and have my back to make sure my man wasn’t on a straight pussy mission when he was away. “I’m real good,” I assured her, feeling my worries drift away.

  Goldie nodded before she slid into her Lexus and drove away with a brief toot of her horn.

  It wasn’t until I was behind the wheel of the Jag sitting at one of the million lights along the stretch of the Ironbound section that it hit me. Make$ didn’t even bother to ask me if I wanted my friends dancing for him or to answer my text. . . .

  A horn blared behind me and I cut my eyes to the rearview mirror to see some big dude in an SUV behind me. I shifted my eyes back ahead to the green traffic light before I pulled off, deciding he wasn’t worth me even flipping his swollen-neck ass the bird.

  Besides, wasn’t no need taking my mess and stress out on some nondescript Negro. Wasn’t his fault that there was anything I’d rather do than drive to our two-bedroom apartment in the Twelve50 luxury apartments. Wasn’t his fault that there wasn’t shit waiting for me but another lonely-ass night.

  The towering streetlights lining the downtown Newark street flickered on as the sun faded. The sidewalks were filled with people finishing up their shopping and rushing to their cars or waiting at corner bus stops for whatever bus got them closer to home. Newark was a smaller version of New York with just as big a heart.

  As I drove the Jag into the parking garage next door to the regal-looking high-rise we called home, I picked up my BlackBerry and called Make$’s phone again, knowing even as I dialed his number that I was wasting my time.

  “I’m somewhere making money. No time to talk. Get at me.”

  “Terrence, this Luscious,” I began, meaning to use his given name to make sure he knew I was testy as hell as I climbed out of the car with my bag in my hand and pop
ped the trunk. I grabbed the glossy shopping bags from my mini shopping spree at my favorite boutique in Montclair. Soon the five-inch heels of my sandals clicked against the hard concrete as I left the parking structure.

  I made my way into the lofty apartment building with the phone pressed to my face with the same urgency I felt to hear from him. “Yo, I haven’t talked to you all day. This shit is damn bananas. You know? I can see not answering when you practicing or performing, but that shit is not all day, Terrence, so why you playing? Why you keep acting fucked up and shady when you touring—”

  As I noticed the concierge stare openly in my face from his spot behind a large wooden station in the middle of the grand lobby, I bit back the rest of my words and gave him a polite smile. The Twelve50 was a long way from the apartments in the other wards across the city—in more than just distance. It was a stylish building for young up-and-coming professionals in downtown Newark. Our neighbors were young attorneys, businessmen, and local politicians. I knew I couldn’t put my nigger on in front of these bougie folks. I pressed a glossy thumbnail to the PDA to end the call. Hell with it. I was just parroting the other twenty messages I left since Goldie and I parted ways at the restaurant. I felt like a fiend chasing a fix.

  Wishing I was there. Feeling out of control. Thinking all kinds of crazy shit.

  Truth be told, sometimes it felt like I was losing my mind worrying about what he was up to. I loved that nigga. We was a team out there. I had his back and there wasn’t a damn thing I wouldn’t—or hadn’t—done for or to him. Nothing.

  I just didn’t know if he was holding me down with the same ferocity . . . or loyalty.

  “Welcome home, Miss Jordan.”

  I pushed my sixteen-inch jet-black weave behind my ear as I nodded my head in greeting at the uniformed concierge and kept moving across the polished floors to the elevator lobby. It was hard to ignore the sophisticated beauty of the décor. Twelve50 wasn’t shit like the Pavilion over on Martin Luther King Boulevard, where I had a shitty studio apartment that was smaller than Goldie’s living room in the low-rise projects where we used to strip on the weekends.

  The Twelve50 had a twenty-four-hour doorman and concierge service, a state-of-the-art health club with locker rooms and saunas, a six-lane bowling alley, an indoor basketball court, and an entertainment room complete with flat-screen televisions.

  Not bad for Newark. Not bad at all.

  Now I wasn’t crazy. I knew the building wasn’t touching the high life of those luxury apartments on New York’s Upper East Side. Far from it. Our rent was twenty-five hundred, not twenty-five thousand. Still . . . I was happy to leave that studio apartment on MLK behind when we moved in two weeks ago.

  As soon as I walked into our spacious apartment I immediately felt at home. The interior designer we hired took Make$’s need for dark leather and my love of soft neutrals to create a spot for us that was stylish and comfortable. I kicked off my heels and padded barefoot from the foyer. I stopped just long enough in the gourmet kitchen to set my hobo on the granite countertop and to pour a goblet of premium moscato before moving into the living room. The row of windows offered up views of the cityscape. Being on the thirty-first floor had us looking down at the city that raised us.

  Humph, he moved me up like George did Weezie, but as beautiful as our apartment was, the loneliness I felt? There wasn’t a damn thing pretty about that.

  I let out this pitiful-ass sigh into my glass, feeling sick and tired of my damn self.

  Brrrnnnggg . . . Brrrnnnggg . . . Brrrnnnggg . . .

  I took another sip of my wine and looked over my shoulder at the ringing cordless phone. Setting the goblet on the windowsill, I made my way across the hardwood floors to pick it up. It was the doorman.

  “Yes.”

  “Uhm . . . Ms. Peaches and guests are here,” he said.

  I rolled my eyes heavenward. “Okay, thank you,” I said, even as a fire fueled by irritation burned my stomach.

  Peaches and them was Make$’s mother and two sisters. All of them bitches had issues that kept them hopping on my last damn nerve. Lonely as I was, them hood hos was company I could do without.

  “Shit,” I swore, fighting the urge to block the front door with our sectional.

  Instead I rushed around the apartment and grabbed up my purse and any random bills or personal items we had lying around, including Make$’s stash of weed, coke, and pills from the huge wooden box on the oversize ottoman in the center of the living room. As far as I knew, Peaches smoked weed and got fucked up on the regular, but our apartment was not going to be her cop spot. I carried everything into our bedroom and set it on the middle of the bed, not taking time to notice the plush linen and décor—more of the stylish work of our designer out of Maplewood.

  I locked the door—and double-checked that it was a hundred percent secured—before I headed back to the living room just as someone banged on the door like they was the police enforcing a damn search warrant.

  “You better not be in there fucking some other dude in my son’s crib,” Peaches yelled through the door before going at it with her fist again as she laughed like the straight-up fool she was.

  Bam-bam-bam.

  She probably was scaring the hell out my neighbors on the floor. They already side-eyed me and Make$ like we were not be trusted.

  “Dumb bitch,” I muttered under my breath before I put on a big fake-ass grin and opened the door with my keys still in my hand.

  My eyes widened at the sight of Make$’s mother. It was amazing that after seven months this crazy bitch could still shock me with her ways. “What’s up, Peaches?” I said, fighting hard not to stare at her petite four-foot frame in skintight jeans and a flashy gold strapless bra underneath a black sheer tank with thigh-high suede boots that it was entirely too hot for.

  “Whaddup,” she said, heading past me and straight for the kitchen.

  Looking like a fucking dancehall reject or some shit. There was many things Peaches’ ass was wrong for—like having Make$ when she was just thirteen—but the top two errors was her thinking she had style and class. Coming from me—a college dropout, ex-stripper, without job the first—that was saying just how low the chick could go.

  His twenty-year-old twin sisters, Heaven and Earth, strolled in next, smelling of too much knock-off perfume and dressed from head to toe in matching Baby Phat like their ass owned stock in the company. One was on her cell phone, motioning with her neck and finger like the bitch was having a seizure.

  “Girl, I told him if he wanted me to do that to him and for me to let him do that to me then it was going to take more than a trip to Dr. Jays and some appetizers from Applebee’s! What-what?” she said, before turning to high-five her twin like she just gave an uplifting speech instead of revealing she was a trick. And a cheap trick at that.

  I sighed on the inside as I pushed the door closed, wishing they was on the other side. This bullshit right here could turn into an all-night affair of me entertaining they ass—at my cost. In their eyes this was Make$’s house, and if they felt like chilling, enjoying the 3-D flat-screen and all the other luxuries, then in the words of Sheree from Real Housewives of Atlanta: “Who gone check them, boo?”

  I eyed them already kicking off they rubber-bottomed, pleather shoes. “What y’all doing on this side of town—”

  The door wouldn’t close and I turned with a frown. But that shit dropped from my face quick as hell at the sight of Make$ standing there with a big grin on his thin face, his usual toothpick in the corner of his mouth. My eyes took this nigga—my nigga—all in as I smiled like a cat getting stroked.

  He was about thirty shades lighter than me—all light-bright fine and shit—but his tat addiction had him covered all on his neck, arms, and chest. He was just my height and slender, and I loved to see him naked and grinding above all my thickness.

  As I stepped into his arms, removed his shades, and kissed him like I hadn’t seen his little sexy ass in months instead of days, I
thoroughly blocked out the sight of his entourage piled up in the hallway behind him or his mother clapping and carrying on about tricking me. I didn’t give a fuck about none of that or none of them as I gently sucked his tongue into my mouth, tasting his liquor, weed, and cigarettes.

  My man was home and it was water for my thirst.

  His hands came down to grab my thighs before moving up under my skirt to grab my ass in the silk thong I wore. I felt his dick get hard against my stomach as my clit tingled.

  “Put her dress down, I don’t need to see all that black ass,” Peaches said with attitude from behind us.

  “Fuck them,” he whispered into my mouth, reaching down to grab my hand. “Come give me my pussy.”

  I licked my lips and pressed my face against his shoulder as he led me to our bedroom. It had been like this since our first night. When it was on, it didn’t matter where, and we didn’t give a fuck about nobody. Fuck it, enjoy the show, you know?

  “Y’all so fucking nasty,” Peaches called behind us, just seconds before the front door shut and the sounds of more voices and loud music suddenly filled the air.

  Bump her. I was about to fuck the hell out of her son.

  Make$ pressed my back against the closed door and tore the top of my dress. He lifted up his diamond pendant of the world and unscrewed it to dust my nipples with the cocaine hidden inside of it. I didn’t give a fuck that he just ruined a four-hundred-dollar dress. I felt a thrill as my nipples went numb from the powder. He circled one nipple with his tongue before sucking it between his moist lips. My pussy just got wetter. The nigga’s tongue game was bananas and better than his dick game. He sucked. I fucked. We balanced each other to make sure our ish wasn’t bullshit. You know?

  “Yes. Yes,” I moaned, arching my back as I pressed my hands to the back of his head as he snorted more of the coke off my chest.