by Ni-Ni Simone
“The last time I promised a favor, I was in K-Town, twerkin’ on a bar top, next to a dragged-out Westwick—catch that tea—the bartender whispered something to me. And I said, ‘Sure. I got you. Anything you need.’ And before I knew it, I was naked, being videoed, and my truffle butter was about to be snatched—”
“Oh my God! Stop right there! I can’t breathe!”
A vision of Coco’s naked pancake bootie almost killed me. I dry heaved and was seconds away from throwing up in my mouth, while Coco leaned back in his chair, giving me a moment to soak his nasty story in.
This mothersucker had to be high and cray-cray.
I squeezed my eyes shut and put my hands up, hoping to rid my mind of the visual bullet that just shot through it. “What the freak kinda story was that?” I popped my eyes open wide. “You see me drinking my frap! You see this! Ugg!”
I sucked my teeth, and Coco looked down at his hot pink nails and picked at a cuticle. “Bish, don’t do me.” He lifted his head and swung his bangs, and his tiger-eye contacts pierced through me. “You know how I get down. Jesus is real. And thou shalt not be naked on a video is one of the eleven commandments. It’s in the book of Thotla-tions, next to Rich’s picture.”
Just when I was ready to reach across this table and slap the ish outta Coco for being so gross, I fell out laughing!
The librarian shot me the “shut up” face. And I shot her a face back that clearly said, “Whatever.” Then I topped it off with a flick of the wrist, that said, “Girl, bye.”
I returned my attention to Coco. His story was entertaining for about two point five minutes, but then it went left, and he was going on and on too freakin’ long. Pissin’ me off all over again.
Coco carried on, “Did I tell you about this rapper C-Biddy?”
I didn’t answer. I just twisted my lips.
Coco never noticed. He batted his lashes and continued, “Well, honey, he must’ve forgotten I had hair on my chest and thought I was a fish. So I had to tell ’em, don’t let this padded bra get you messed up, bruh. You better sit down. And guess what he was mad about?”
I couldn’t care less. “What, Coco?” I said with a drag.
“’Cause I didn’t wanna be his down-low secret. I told him, ‘Either love me up high or don’t love me at all. I got standards. And if you wanna get up in my groceries, then you gon’ have to respect me . . .’”
I couldn’t believe this.
It never failed.
Ev. Ver. Reeeeeee time I wanted to talk about me, and what I was going through, he alwaaaaaaaaaays turnt up and turned it into Coco’s drama hour. And he knew the bell would ring in fifteen minutes, and the hallways would be full with weed and pill heads on deck.
He knew this.
Yet.
He always flapped his back-alley, pig-fat-injected lips, moaning about his life and his whacked-out business, until time was up and all I got to say was . . . well . . . nothing.
But that was gon’ end today.
I cleared my throat, sucked my teeth, and tapped my nails on the table. Coco continued running his mouth, so I did it again. Cleared my throat, loudly. Sucked my teeth. Long and hard. And practically banged a fist into the table.
Coco looked at me like I had lost my mind, but before I could say anything, the scrawny librarian with the bleached-blond hair and the fake orange tan was at our table. She spewed, “Excuse you, but this is a library. Quiet.”
“That’s what I’m saying.” Coco added, giving me fever. “WuWu, how rude. I mean really. You bringing drama to the library? I had no idea you were so hood. What are you over there going through?”
The librarian squinted and shook her finger with every word. “If I have to come to this table again, you two will be paying Mr. Westwick a visit.” She grunted and stormed away.
Coco blinked and whispered in disbelief, “That was so low budget of you. You need to change your ways and get that ratchet fish outta you. What you need is a pinch of beauty. I got a lil taste for you on the house. ’Cause you real bugged out right now. And I don’t need you servin’ my customers all crazy and deranged.”
“You know what, Coco, you got hella nerve,” I said in a hushed tone. “As much as I do for you, I say the words ‘Do me a favor’ and you lose it. The only favor I wanted was for you to listen to me without judgment.”
Coco yelled in a loud whisper, “I resent that! I never judge! I am live your life and twirl, honey.” He snapped his fingers. “And you know this. Don’t play me crazy, Daisy.”
“Then why didn’t you just say yes instead of telling me some nasty story about your truffle butter?!”
“Nasty?” Coco blinked. Blinked again. “I’ma let that go,” he said in an exhausted undertone, “’Cause right now you’re acting like you need a hug. So go on, diva. Proceed. Coco is here for you, baby. Coco is here. What’s going on? Camille tripping again? Kitty back to making you piss litter style and do things her way?”
“No.”
“Don’t tell me you’re homeless again? You know that time you was in rehab and I paid y’all rent? Well, Camille never gave me back my money, so I can’t do that again. You my girl and all, but I’m done withcho moms. If it’s up to me and you need my money, y’all gon’ be back on the streets.”
I snapped, raising my voice and then quickly lowering it. “My rent is paid up for the year. Thank you.”
“Eww, I’m impressed.”
“Funny.”
“So tell me. Wassup?”
I took a deep breath, looked around the room. The librarian rolled her eyes at me and then returned to looking at her computer screen. I looked up at the clock. I had five minutes left to spit this out.
“What?” Coco said impatiently.
I took another deep breath. Just say it. Okay... here goes. “Remember you gave me my welcome home party at Club Noir Kiss?”
“Yeah, girl! Miss Coco did that! That party was the B.O.M.B. It was er’thang. Yaaaaaaas, bish. Yaaaaaaas! I remember it.” He vogued in his seat, then stopped abruptly. “What about it?”
“Well . . . I met this girl.”
“So. And?”
“Well . . . ummm . . .” I popped my lips. “Okay . . . umm . . .”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Serious about what?”
He leaned into me, struggling to control the low tone of his voice. “What’s with all the umms and lip pops? Just spit it out!”
“If you would be quiet, I could finish my sentence.”
“I wish you would.”
“Look, I met this chick.”
“You said that. Now what about her?”
“I, umm, think I kind of like her.”
Coco stared at me like I was crazy, then he grabbed his Birkin bag and started packing up his things. “I didn’t come here for no foolishness. I came here about my money, and you playin’. So you like her. Big deal. And what does that have to do with me? Unless you’re saying you’re done with the Coco? What, you don’t love the Coco no more? Is that what you’re telling me?”
He can’t be serious. “You trippin’.”
He stamped his heeled foot. “So whatchu sayin’, Miss Heather?” He popped his lips and swung his bangs out of his eyes.
“I’m saying, I like her. Like her, like her. Like I kind of have a teeny, tiny, little bitty crush on her. Just a small one. I mean, I’m not on it like that, but I’m on it. Get it?”
Coco’s jungle eyes drank me in. “Like feeling her? Like taste the rainbow feeling her?”
“Like she’s cute and I don’t know... it just feels different. And I think she likes me back.”
Coco got up from his seat, rushed over to me, and pulled me into his embrace. “Mama is so proud of you. I knew you would cross over to my side of the world. I knew you were about that life. I knew it. Even after you played rodeo, when you were in rehab, with that dried eggplant counselor of yours, I knew you were a pillow princess with boxing shorts beneath your gown. OMG! We can d
o pride together now! Yaaaaaaasssss, honey, yaaaaaaas!”
“You two will need to leave.” The librarian walked over to our table and demanded.
“Would you chill?” I snapped. “There’s nobody else in here but me, you, and Coco. So step away from the table before I call Westwick and have him handle you.”
“I will not tolerate you speaking to me like this!”
“Good. Don’t.”
“Listen to the kitties roar.” Coco laughed. “Heather, it’s almost time for us to take our post. We can walk and talk.”
“I suggest you do that.” The librarian snapped before returning to her desk.
Coco and I packed up our things and caught the elevator to the seventh floor, where he always took one end of the hallway and I took the other. But for the moment we stood together, leaning against a random locker. I glanced down at my watch. We had five minutes left before the bell went off.
Coco popped his glossy lips and said, “Okay, bish, now tell me how you’re about to bust out the closet.”
I frowned. Looked him over from his bangs, his gelled back hair, his sunken eyes and thin, Candy-Yum-Yum-covered lips to his lime green Armani suit with no shirt beneath to his seven-inch red bottoms.
Out the closet? Clearly he had the wrong idea about this. I never said I was a fruit loop.
Coco curled his top lip. “Stankeesha, why are you eyeballing me all crazy, like you want some Asian cookie? You know I don’t bump pocketbooks. Ain’t no way you gon’ get in these panties.”
I twisted my lips. “Eww. I’m not trying to get in anybody’s panties. And out the closet? Slow down. Relax and fall back. I’m never coming out the closet, because there’s no closet for me to come out of. I’m not gay.”
Coco clutched his chest. Paused. Then said, “Gay? Who said that? I’m not gay either. I just love who I love. I don’t do labels. I do freedom.” He twirled. “I do let go and live, honey. Now tell me. How did you two bikinis meet?”
“Well . . . like I said . . . we met at Club Noir Kiss and, umm . . .” I hesitated, and for a moment, no words would come out of my mouth. I’d never admitted this to anyone. Any. One. But I needed to get this off of my chest, otherwise I was gon’ go crazy. So I took a deep breath and said, “A’ight Coco, here’s what happened. And you better not tell nobody.”
He zipped an index finger across his lips. “You know I don’t spill tea. I take it all in.”
“You better,” I said and then began to tell my story, “She came up to me and said . . .”
“Girl, you killed it!”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. And this dress! You’re wearing the hell out of it.” Her eyes drank me in, working their way from my hair to my spilling cleavage to the outline of my hips. “Girl, you are beautiful.” She said more to herself than to me, as she boldly tucked some of my hair behind my right ear and smoothly slid a single fingertip down my blushing cheek. “Heather, you did your thing out there, for real.”
I didn’t know what surprised me more: her touching me, her calling me Heather when everyone in the club that night called me Wu-Wu, or that her eyes were drinking me in again.
I didn’t know what to say, so I fell back on “Thank you.” And by the time my eyes drifted to her thighs, I realized what I was doing, so I quickly snatched my glance away and turned back toward the bar, sipping my drink again.
“Heather, what are you drinking? Let me buy you another one.”
I did my best to resist the blush I felt creeping back onto my face. “No. Thank you. But no . . . I can barely get through this one.”
“Okay.” She’d smiled, her beautiful teeth gleaming. “I won’t hold you.” She swept up and twirled the end of a lone curl of her hair before winking and sashaying away.
I refused to let my eyes follow her, and instead, as unwanted butterflies danced in my stomach, I sank my smile into my glass...
Coco dabbed the corners of his eyes and sighed. “How beautiful. Touching. The story of how two carpets came together. No shade. You should write a book. It would be fire. And I got the perfect title: Carpet Licker.”
See, this is why I didn’t want to tell him! “Would you knock it off? For real!” I clenched my jaw and squinted.
“Eww, why are you so touchy? My goodness. This girl must be awfully special.”
“She is.”
“So then what’s your issue?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, you know. You’re too busy worried about what other people will say. And what they’ll think. Girl, you better getcho life and say effem, honey. Being worried about other people had me trying to commit suicide. Chile, please. Don’t worry about these fools out here. Half of them wish they had the balls to swing and to go after what they want. If you wanna swim in the lady pond, then getcha breast stroke on! Do. You. And do it well.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I mean . . . maybe Coco was right. At least it felt like he was right, but still . . . “What if I’m wrong though and she doesn’t like me?”
Brggggggg!!!
Freak! The bell rang, and instantly—as if someone had snapped their fingers and performed a magic trick—the hallway was full and bustling.
“Coco, did you hear me?” I pressed.
“What?” he said, turning toward his post, as the stoners lined the hallway.
“What if she doesn’t like me?” I said.
“You said you thought she did.”
“I don’t know for sure, though.”
“Actions speak louder than words.”
“I can’t tell, though. Coco, I need your help. I need some advice.”
He sucked his teeth and pointed to the stoners, who paced aimlessly. “Girl, you cuttin’ into my coins.” He huffed. “But since you my ride or die, I’ma hit you with some advice real quick. You ready?”
“Yeah.”
“You listening?”
“Yeah.”
“Here’s what you should do.” He paused.
My eyes popped out. “What?”
“Tell her how much you really like her, and then ask her does she like you.”
16
Spencer
“Girl, can you believe that thirsty trick!” Rich spat, pacing the floor like the wild animal she was. Her eyes were as wide as two flying saucers. “That bish stepped to me this morning, trying to set it off. Telling me I’d better watch my back because she was coming for my man . . .”
Well, he was her man, first.
Heeheehee.
Rich was so stupid. Clueless. And maybe . . . if she was a deserving friend, I’d tell her that what London had told her wasn’t a lie, that her thug daddy had been poking his pole all up in Low Money’s fish factory long before he’d been poking around in hers, that they’d been undercover lover-boos since her days in New York.
Maybe.
How did I know?
Oh, heehee. I told you. Mother Spencer knew all. Besides, that ole make-believe man-child, that, that . . . ole puff pastry, Anderson Ford—London’s pretend ex-boyfriend— had poured me the tea, the juice, and the strawberry marmalade when he’d told me all about that sham of a relationship. How he was London’s cover-up, while she played naked twister with her thug love.
I ran my fingertips over the Cartier diamond necklace he’d given me one evening aboard his three-level yacht, Buff Daddy.
Ugh.
I was still praying to the love gods for mercy and forgiveness for wasting all of my good seduction juices on that low-down cooter teaser. Two weeks of nothing. Oooh, I get hotter than a batch of fish grease thinking about it. Shame on me!
Spencer, girl, don’t do it. Don’t paddle yourself back across that muddy river.
Hmmph. Annnnyway, I’d had a poor lapse in judgment and a moment of weakness when I blindly tried to welcome him into my love cave. But, noooooo. Anderson Ford wasn’t ready for this sweet pudding. He’d turned me down. Rejected me. Left me standing in my little sheer flyaway soaked i
n desire. Then he practically tossed me off his yacht the moment Queen Kong called him in distress. Then he’d had the audacity to tell me that the only thing I’d ever be to him was the sidepiece. Me. Moi?
His dingdang sidepiece! Oh, that boy had the tick-tac-and-the-toe all crisscrossed and crazy. I wasn’t interested in playing his sidepiece. I wanted to be the main piece. The front piece. And maybe the back piece. But not some dang sidepiece!
But Anderson Ford wasn’t interested. Nope. That nasty trash licker had me wasting good panty sets on him. Hmmph.
Then realization smacked me upside my pretty head. Anderson was in love with London. That Lorax! I’d seen it in his eyes. Heard it in his voice. The way he’d said her name. The way he’d defended her whenever I called her out of her name. But he couldn’t have her, because she didn’t want him.
Heehee.
No. Bigfoot was hogtied to that little chocolate thug delight. She was dumbly in love with that ruffian Justice Banks. That, that R & B–crooning panty-hound. And now she didn’t even have him. He’d dumped her. Tossed her out like the trash she was.
Heehee.
Then he picked up some new trash. Rich. But whatever! Not my story to tell. Anyway. He’d probably realized that Prudezilla (uhh, London, duh) was really a man in disguise, with her big burly, long-necked self.
And Anderson . . . well, he was a big ole, three-way tri-sexual from what Heather claimed. She’d sworn Anderson liked sword fighting with the lady-boys. Although I didn’t really subscribe to rumors, especially second-hand mess coming from the mouth of some so-called reformed junkie-whore, what she claimed about ole Buff Daddy—whether fact or fiction—explained a lot.
Mmmph.
All that good man meat gone to waste!
It was sinful.
“How dare that crazy whore try to do me!” Rich ranted, pulling me from my horrid thoughts. I blinked her back into view. She was standing in the mirror with a pair of tweezers, plucking something from beneath her chin. Probably strands of hair, I thought to myself. That little piggy had the ability to be a hairy cavewoman if she didn’t stay clipped and groomed.
Scandalous.
“She’d better be glad I’m a damn lady. Otherwise I would have busted these fists upside her damn head. Lumped her face up real good! Coming at me with her lies.”