“Just edge me up, old man.”
Herman snapped out the cape and then wrapped it around Taariq’s neck. “All right now. I done told you about all that old man mess.”
Taariq laughed and then turned his gaze toward the mounted flat screen that stayed religiously on ESPN. “How are our Braves doing?”
“They’re still looking pretty good,” Herman said, turning on his razor.
The bell over the door rang and Bobby, Herman’s college-aged grandson and J.T., the local street hustler, strolled through the door at the same time.
“You’re late, Bobby,” Herman chastised, while giving Bobby a stern look over his wire-rimmed glass.
“Sorry about that, Grandpa. I guess my alarm is broken.”
“It’d work if you set it.”
“Point taken.”
J.T., of course, made a beeline straight to Taariq. “Yo, T. My main man. How’s it hanging? You know I got some great merchandise for you today.”
“Man, I ain’t looking to buy nothing today.”
“Yo, that don’t mean that you can’t do a little window shopping. NawhatImean?” He jerked open his coat, which he’d been wearing in eighty-degree weather, and flashed Taariq with his latest inventory of gold and silver chains.
“I’m going to have to pass, man.”
“You sure, man? You being my man and all, I can offer you a good discount.”
Taariq laughed. “I’m sure.”
The bell above the door jingled and Derrick and Stanley strolled into the shop. A round of greetings ensued as they made their way over to the barber chairs.
“Hey, T, man. Whassup?” Derrick exchanged dabs with him.
“Nothing much. I’m just getting this noggin’ cleaned up for the ladies. You know how I do.” He turned his fist toward Stanley and waited for his dab, but his brother left him hanging. “Oh, it’s like that now?”
Stanley shrugged his shoulders. “Do you remember what you did to Anna?”
Taariq lowered his hand as he huffed out a long breath. “Man, I told you. I didn’t do nothing to your girl. The girl is crazy.”
“Women don’t just throw drinks in people’s faces for no reason,” Stanley countered.
“Right. Hence why I called her crazy.”
Herman turned off his clipper. “You want to be still or you want to walk around town with your head looking jacked up.”
Taariq huffed at the rebuke, but kept still.
“That’s what I thought.” Herman turned the clippers back on.
Stanley continued to stare Taariq down, weighing whether or not he should believe him.
Taariq was offended. “C’mon, man. Have I ever lied to you?”
At last Stanley relaxed. “I’m not accusing you of lying. I just find the whole thing strange. That’s all.”
“You and me both. But I’m not going to sweat it or anything. It is what it is.” He said it so smooth that he almost believed it himself. Truth was ever since she tossed that drink in his face, he’d been racking his brain about what he could’ve possibly done to deserve to be embarrassed like that.
“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter, since I’m the one that scored a date with her.” Stanley puffed out his chest. “Clearly she’s into me.”
“The other white meat,” Derrick said and cracked up all of those who were listening.
“Ha. Ha. Chuckle it up,” Stanley told him. “All of y’all are a bunch of haters anyway.”
“Hardly,” Taariq barked. “You average about one real date a year, not counting those pity booty-calls with that chick down at the Waffle House, and we’re supposed to be hating on you? Brother, please.” More laughter.
Stanley brushed his shoulders. “Whatever, dog. Say what makes you feel better because I saw how you were peeping ole girl out before I swooped in and got the digits.”
Herman shut off his clippers again. “Wait. Let me get this straight. Breadstick over there stole a girl out from under you?”
Every head in the place swung from SportsCenter over to Taariq. Surely they all thought that their ears were playing tricks on them.
Taariq felt the heat. His reputation was about to take a monstrous hit. “C’mon now. Y’all ain’t going to believe that, are you?” He tried to laugh, but it was clearly forced and awkward.
“Well, I never thought I’d see the day,” Herman said and then swung his gaze back over to Stanley. “Looks like your haircut is on the house today, Stanley.”
The fact that the old man called him by his real name and not by one of his many monikers wasn’t lost on the crowd and a raucous cheer sounded off.
Taariq’s ego was a little bruised, but seeing Stanley getting mad respect from all the brothers in the barber shop made him feel good for his Kappa brother. “So when is this little date happening?”
In between the many congratulatory pats on the back, Stanley shrugged. “Probably sometime this week. Her schedule is a little crazy, but it’s definitely on.”
Taariq started to bob his head when he received another warning from Herman.
“Be still or I’m going to have to shave it all off.”
“All right, old man. Chill.” He looked back over to a grinning Stanley. “So where are you taking Anna?”
“I’m thinking about taking her over to the Atria in Buckhead.”
Bobby whistled. “That place is nice.”
“I figured some low lighting, soft music, good food and then she won’t be able to turn down these baby blues.” Stanley tossed Taariq a wink.
“Well, I hope y’all have a good time.” He grinned back and tried to ignore the hard kick in his gut.
Chapter 6
“I’ve decided to become a lesbian,” Emmadonna announced at the beginning of the Lonely Hearts Club’s monthly book club meeting. Currently, it was a book club that never really got around to reading or discussing any books. It had long transformed into a two-hour gossiping session between old college-girlfriends that leaned heavily on the male-bashing side.
A collective gasp rose from the other three members, while their eyes bulged.
Anna’s mug slipped in her hand, splashing hot coffee into her lap. “Damn it!” She jumped to her feet, sat the mug down and then proceeded to vigorously wipe the coffee from her lap while a scroll of profanity rolled off her lips.
“Glad to see that you guys are taking it so well.” Emmadonna snickered.
“Are you joking?” Jade asked and then quickly turned to Ivy. “She has to be joking, right?”
The petite and usually soft-spoken Ivy boomed, “She better be!”
“Wait. Wait.” Emmadonna held up her hands. “Hear me out.”
Anna ignored the need to race back to her bedroom to change out of her comfortable sweatpants to do just that. “This better be good.”
“Well, when you think about it, it makes logical sense. How long have I been coming to these meetings bitching about how hard it is to find a good man—five years? Hell, I’m not getting any younger and nowadays we have to fight off the whole rainbow nation chasing after straight men with just as much vigor as the women. Single black women are getting killed out here.”
“So your solution is to become gay yourself?” Anna asked for clarity.
Emmadonna’s big shoulders shrugged. “If you can’t beat them, join them.”
The women chuckled and shook their heads at what they clearly perceived as a joke.
Jade rolled her eyes as she brushed her auburn, curly locks back from her shoulder. “You’re either attracted to women or you’re not. You don’t just wake up one morning and decide to become gay.”
Emmadonna waved off what was clearly common sense and crossed her thick legs. “I don’t see why not. Besides, I hear that doing it with a chick is so much better anyway. We know what gets us off—mentally and physically.”
“I’m not having this conversation with you,” Anna said, finally making her exit from her living room to go change her pants. She didn’t believe tha
t Emmadonna was going to swing to the other side of the fence any more than she believed Idris Elba was going to knock on her door and propose with a long-stemmed rose clenched between his teeth.
“Y’all will come around. Watch,” Emmadonna shouted behind her.
Anna rolled her eyes one more time and then slammed her bedroom door behind her. Sure, it was a hell of a landmine out there in the dating world, but batting for the other team was going a bit too far. She didn’t have a problem with gay people, but for her she was strictly dick-ly, despite the multi-year dry spell she was on. Nowadays she tried to convince herself that she really didn’t mind the fact that she hadn’t been in a serious relationship for a while. After all, she had dated her fair share of thieves, liars and cheaters—actually, a little more than her share. As a result, she’d decided to take a little break—the operative word being little. Turned out that once she jumped out of the dating pool, she got used to not swimming with sharks or playas as they liked to call themselves. It had been rather nice not always having to dissect and discern what men said versus what they truly meant anymore. Things like “No. I’m not seeing anybody” usually meant, “What my girl don’t know won’t hurt her,” or “Sorry I didn’t call you back, I’ve been having problems with my phone” meant, “I was out screwing around with another girl.”
Maybe Shakespeare had it right. All the world is just a stage and everyone’s an actor—in a very bad play. Searching for something real was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. She hated to admit that she had given up, but in reality she had. If a man smiled at her, she would give him her best get lost stare. If a brother got past that and tried to talk to her, she’d give simple one-word answers in a monotone voice. If he asked her for her number, she’d ask him point-blank—why? The one thing she wouldn’t do was get her hopes up.
Hope was for teenage girls.
Disappointment was for those same girls twenty years later.
“Anna, are you coming back out here or what?” Emmadonna’s bullhorn voice easily penetrated her bedroom door.
“Coming!” Anna quickly changed out of her gray sweatpants into her navy sweatpants. Hey, it was her normal weekend attire and when something works, you stick with it. “All right. Where were we?” she asked, rushing back out to her circle of friends.
“We’ve been out here listening to Emmadonna’s crazy B.S. while you were hiding in the bedroom.”
“It’s not B.S.,” Emmadonna countered while jabbing a balled-up fist against her thick waist. Despite looking like an angry Amazon woman, the rest of the group still refused to take her seriously.
“Does anyone want more coffee?” Anna asked, grabbing her mug.
“I’m good,” Jade answered.
Everyone else shook their heads.
“Sooo,” Emmadonna shouted toward the kitchen. “When are you going to tell us what that whole thing between you and Taariq Bryson was about?”
Anna almost dropped the coffeepot. “What?”
“Don’t play crazy. You left that man standing there, looking like a fool. What did he do?”
Acted like he didn’t remember screwing my brains out and then dumping me back in college. “Oh. It was nothing.” She finished pouring her coffee and then went back to join her friends.
They all stared at her with their arms folded.
“What?”
“Surely you don’t think any of us is buying that story,” Jade said.
“Just drop it. I don’t want to talk about it,” she said curtly.
The girls all looked at each other and then tossed up their hands.
“All righty then.” Ivy cleared her throat. “I have an update on that Jamaican brother that I finally went out with last week if anybody wants to hear about it.”
A fresh dating story grabbed everyone’s attention.
“You mean that Mandingo god that was grinding up all on you at Gisella’s wedding a few months back?”
Ivy bobbed her head while her usually pretty caramel complexion darkened a deep burgundy. Everyone picked up on the telltale sign at the same time.
“Ooooooooh!” they chorused, scooting up in their seats and leaning toward Ivy as if that would ensure they would hear the dirt faster.
“I thought your ass was walking funny when you rolled up in here this morning.” Jade snickered.
“I did, too,” Anna admitted, dropping back into the chair closest to Ivy. “C’mon. C’mon. Don’t leave us hanging. Did you sleep with him?”
“Wait. Don’t you want to hear about where he took me for dinner?”
“No!”
Emmadonna clarified. “All I want to hear is, how big is he? How long did he go? And how many orgasms did you have?”
“Then you can tell us about dinner,” Anna added as if that would make their inquiry seem less crass.
“And which was better, the food or the sex?” Jade added. “I say the sex because I came a few times just watching him work those hips on the dance floor.”
Emmadonna’s head swiveled in Jade’s direction. “You, too?”
“Hey!” Anna waved a finger at them. “Don’t be rude. You two could be talking about Ivy’s new man. Besides, I thought you were gay now, Em?”
“Oh, yeah.” Emmadonna frowned. “This may take a little more time getting used to.”
They rolled their eyes and shook their heads in sync before returning their attention to Ivy who was steadily turning beet-red.
“First of all, I didn’t intend to sleep with him.”
“Of course not,” Jade said, placing a hand on Ivy’s knee for reassurance. “You’re a good girl.”
“Yeah,” Anna cosigned. “None of us even remembers those ménages à trois you used to participate in back in college.”
“Or the swingers’ club you and your ex used to frequent a few years back,” Jade added.
Anna held up a finger. “And don’t forget when you used to juggle those three boyfriends back in the ’90s.”
“Yeah. Weren’t they cousins or something?” Emmadonna asked.
“I think so.” Anna struggled to remember.
Jade turned back to Ivy with a deadpan expression and said, “We take it back. You are a slut.”
“It’s always the quiet ones,” Emmadonna added.
Ivy’s jaw dropped open, but instead of protesting she cracked up. Once she started, they joined in.
“Y’all ain’t nothing but a bunch of jealous heifers,” Ivy said.
“Jealous?” Jade countered. “How do you figure?”
“Because I’m the only one in the group that has gotten laid since Obama got in office.”
Their laughter quickly dried up with Jade mumbling under her breath, “Oh, no, this heifer didn’t.”
Ivy tried, but couldn’t stop laughing since she had successfully delivered a zinger that shut them all down. Her getting the best of the loud group was a rarity, and clearly she was going to milk it.
“Fine, bitch. Keep your damn stories to yourself,” Emmadonna finally countered while she wiped the invisible mud off her face.
“C’mon.” Ivy jumped out of her chair to go hop into Emmadonna’s lap and wrap her arm around her wide shoulders. “You know I love you, girl.”
“Better not sit in her lap long,” Anna said. “She might start feeling you up.”
Ivy popped up like a toasted Pop-Tart and rushed back to her seat. The women howled, especially Emmadonna.
Anna just barely made out a knock on the front door. “Hold that story, Ivy.” She jumped up and rushed to answer it. Just because she wasn’t having sex, didn’t mean that she couldn’t live vicariously through her friends…or friend, since Ivy so rudely pointed out that she was the only one nowadays getting some action. Had she really not had sex since the Bush years?
With her mind still calculating the hard math, she opened the front door. Then that whole sex thing was wiped clean from her head when a very pregnant Gisella beamed a smile at her from the other side of the door.
Gisella waddled her way into her sister’s arms and asked in her thick French accent. “What? I have to have a reason to come and visit my own sister?”
“Of course not,” Anna said, giving her a good hug. “You know that you’re welcome here anytime.” Then she added in a lower voice. “You know what day it is, right?”
Gisella pulled her sister’s arms. “Oh. Are the girls all here?”
“Is that Gisella I hear at the door?” Emmadonna’s booming voice asked from the living room.
“Does that answer your question?” Anna said.
Gisella just smiled and then proceeded toward the sound of laughing women. The moment she entered the living room, there were squeals of delight before they rushed to pull her and her very pregnant belly into warm hugs.
“Oh, my God. You look like you’re getting ready to drop that load at any second,” Jade marveled.
“She better not. I just had this carpet cleaned,” Anna joked.
The women laughed, but waved off the concern.
“You’re definitely having a boy. I can tell by the way you’re carrying.”
“Doctor says I’m having a girl,” Gisella informed them.
“Oh, please. What the hell do they know?” Emmadonna said, rubbing Gisella’s belly.
“And how many babies have you had?” Anna asked, shaking her head. Let Emmadonna tell it, she was an expert on everything…except on how to keep a man.
“Okay. Believe fat meat ain’t greasy if you want. I call them like I see them and I haven’t been wrong yet.”
“Fat meat ain’t what?” Gisella asked, twisting her face. “I don’t think I know this American expression.”
“It’s a Southern thing,” Ivy reassured her. “It just means you can choose not to believe the obvious.”
“Oh,” Gisella said while the other women laughed at her bewilderment. “Well, I don’t care what I’m having as long as it has ten fingers and ten toes…and will stop laying on my bladder like it’s a La-Z-Boy.”
The women shared another laugh and then took turns trying to feel the baby kick. When Anna placed her hand against her sister’s belly and felt her little niece or nephew deliver a karate chop against her hand, she was surprised by the rush of tears.
My Only Desire Page 6