“She’ll get tired eventually,” I said, following my dad into the dining room. I sat in my seat, the same seat I’d sat in since I was a kid.
Dad got quiet for a while. Then he said, “Son, I raised you better. She deserves closure. I hope you’re not one of those men that enjoy having women chase you.” He stared at me, peering above the rim of his black-framed eyeglasses. “When it comes to relationships, women are smarter than us. She might stop calling for a week, a month, maybe even a year, but trust me, if she stops, it won’t be because she got tired. Forget about Honey for a minute. Isn’t your big meeting about partnering with Trevor Williams today?
I smiled, thinking back to yesterday morning. Wonder-pussy was not going to influence my decision. I had my professional reputation riding on the merger, not to mention the ten-million-dollar preapproved business loan I was prepared to take out for my half. If I followed through with the plans, I couldn’t afford to lose, either. The real-estate deals with Trevor appeared solid, but I wasn’t sure what was going on with that strip club Stilettos. That was the part that didn’t feel right. I knew sex and strip clubs were lucrative, but they were also seedy. One bad decision or incident at Stilettos and the Atlanta city government would place a moratorium on the development of all our hotels and condos. If that happened, we could lose hundreds of thousands of dollars each day.
Shaking his head, my father stared at me. “Son, never make a business decision or a marriage proposal based on emotions. It always seems good on the surface. Take time to scratch a little.”
On high school graduation day, my friends got keys to cars. My father handed me the deed and the keys to my first home. I continued making sound real-estate investments. Every income stream from every piece of property I owned was attached to the 411-unit condo building and hotel I was developing in Atlanta. Partnering with Trevor would give me collateral leverage to build additional properties.
Mom entered the dining room. She stood behind Dad’s chair, as she often did to quietly show her support of my father.
Dad said, “Back to Honey. Son, your mother came to me. Ain’t that right, baby? But…” Dad paused, then continued. “I chose her. Not because she’s beautiful. Not because she’s white. I chose your mother because she has a loving heart.” He turned around, slapped Mom’s behind, then said, “And a big booty. Son, never marry a woman who believes you are responsible for her happiness.”
I watched my mother massage my dad’s shoulders. He stretched his neck side to side. Mom scratched his back.
“I love you, Ma,” I said, easing out of my chair to kiss her cheek. My mom was my number one lady, and my dad was my hero. “I disagree. I am supposed to make and keep my wife happy. Isn’t that right, Mom?”
Mom’s eyes widened, and she looked toward Dad. “I’ll be back. Tell him,” she said. Leaving the room, Mom glanced over her shoulder at dad. “Tell him now.”
Dad exhaled. “Yes. But deep down inside, an unhappy woman is bitter about something someone else did to her, and she expects you to make up for it,” he said. “You can’t make a fractured woman whole. Honey wasn’t prostituting because a hooker showed up at her high school on career day, telling her about the benefits. Something happened to her. That’s not your fault. Let her go. Please, son, marry a good woman, one with a loving heart and a big butt like your mother, and notice whether her eyes light up for you so bright that you can feel the goodness resonating from within her. That is the woman who will never forsake you. It’s better to learn to love a good woman than to fall in love with a bad one.”
I heard my mother yell from the kitchen, “Baby, snap out of it. She’s got you in a trance.” Reentering the dining room, Mom insisted we eat. She placed hash browns topped with sautéed onions, fluffy scrambled eggs, turkey sausages, and wheat toast, neatly arranged on a plate, in front of me and another plate in front of my dad.
She placed my plate down first. Oh, oh.
“Grant, your father is right. She’s not the one, baby,” said Mom, placing her hand on Dad’s shoulder. “Go on and tell Grant the truth. If you don’t tell him before I return, I will. I’ve got to go to the hair salon. Call me later and let me know how things went.”
I was grateful my parents had taught me how to be a good man before becoming a father, lover, friend, or husband to a woman. I knew the woman I wanted to marry was Honey. Hopefully, my dad wouldn’t try to decide for me. Despite her lies, Honey had a sweetness I couldn’t deny. I just prayed she didn’t hurt me like Valerie had.
“Uh, uh.” Dad cleared his throat, looked directly into my eyes, then said, “Son, why are you still worried about that woman? Your brother already told you she’s bad news. Besides, if for no other reason, you don’t want to date a woman who’s dated your brother.”
“Not date, Dad. Marry. I want to marry Honey.”
A man never forgot his first love, and I’d never forget Valerie Jamison. In Economics 101, I fell hard for her the moment I saw those never-ending legs reaching from her ankles to her torso. We dated our freshman and sophomore years, but I couldn’t give Valerie enough of me no matter how hard I tried. Valerie lived for the spotlight. Depending on what sport was in season, she fell in love with the most popular athlete on campus.
A puff of air shot out of my nostrils. Placing a forkful of hash browns in my mouth, I tried eating my breakfast. “Since he has so much to say, let him say it to my face. Where is he?” I asked.
“I already told you I put him out,” my dad said emphatically. “He’s trouble. You made up your mind about that merger?”
Nodding, I said, “I’ma go for it.”
“Don’t. You’re not thinking clearly. Give it some time. Take every detail under consideration, and then consult with your lawyer for a month or so.”
“But—”
“But nothing. This Trevor guy needs you, dammit. You don’t need him. Just like Honey. You don’t need her, either. You’re wealthy, smart, successful, young, and good-looking. The right woman will come along.”
Yeah, right. What made any woman the right woman?
I never expected Valerie or any other woman to want me solely for my physical appearance. What if I got hit by a car or disfigured in a fire? What if my dick stopped working? Would the woman I loved still love me? I wanted the woman who would unequivocally answer yes, without hesitation.
I was no athlete like my brother, but my body would beg to differ. I worked out five times a week. The definition from my Adam’s apple to my dick formed a straight line; I had no bulging belly like other guys. My smooth six-pack abs were accented by parentheses. And my tight ass sat high above my thighs. I knew women wanted to fuck me before finding out I had a big dick. Damn. Where’d I put that card I got yesterday? Had I missed the party?
Biting my bottom lip, I couldn’t get Valerie off of my mind. When she’d said she was pregnant with my first child, the first words out of my mouth were, “Will you marry me?” I didn’t ask her to marry me before our baby was born because I felt obligated. I loved Valerie with all my heart. I wanted to do all the right things for and with her. But when Valerie said that she couldn’t keep my child, and that she’d had an abortion the day before she’d told me we were pregnant, I felt like my heart had stopped beating. I couldn’t breathe.
My dad picked up his plate, then said, “Keep thinking about everything, son. That’s good.” Then he walked into the kitchen.
I sat at the table, stirring my eggs in with my hash browns.
A few months later, Valerie got pregnant with the star quarterback’s baby. I’d never seen her so happy, until she discovered four other women on campus were also pregnant by him at the same time. Valerie ended up joining the seventieth-percentile ranks of those girls and black women who were single parents, while the quarterback walked down the aisle with his high school sweetheart shortly after going pro and clinching a thirty-million-dollar contract.
Valerie dropped out of college, and I couldn’t say I was sorry that I didn’t
see her again. Why did black women claim they wanted a good man, then carelessly and continuously give themselves to men who were unworthy of them? If I ever saw Valerie again, I’d ask her one question. “Who’s loving you?”
My dad walked back into the dining room, placed his hand on my shoulder, and said, “Son, stand up and look at me.”
“All right.” Slowly, I pushed back my chair.
As requested, I faced my father and listened. “Son, your brother says she’s a murderer. That she killed a man,” said my dad. “Your mother and I are afraid that she might kill you, too. I hope that’s convincing enough. If you don’t let Honey go for yourself, do it so you won’t kill your mother. I can’t live without my wife.”
CHAPTER 8
Red Velvet
Whoever believed sex was overrated must’ve been asexual. I wished I could’ve stayed in D.C. another day with Grant, but after our fuck session, I had to fly back to Atlanta and go straight home so I could care for my son. This morning I fed him instant oatmeal with strawberries and walked him four blocks to his kindergarten class. Then I walked back down those same four blocks, bypassed my house, and walked three more blocks to work at the hotel. I stood on my feet from eleven to seven, with no break.
“See you tomorrow, girl,” one of my coworkers said as we walked in opposite directions.
“Not if the movie producer calls me, you won’t,” I said, checking my text messages.
We weren’t allow to text or make personal calls while working. I smiled. I’d missed one voice mail from Grant, or G, as I’d started calling him, and he’d sent four texts: Velvet, thanks. I’d love to see you again. I’ll call you again later. I want to take you to dinner when I get to Atlanta. Grant was so nice, but I wasn’t confused. Grant wanted to hit this good pussy again, and I wanted him to.
I texted him back: G, can’t wait 2 c u…miss u already.
The sun was setting. I didn’t mind walking the three blocks to get home. I hated that there was no time for me to rest my tired feet. I wanted to take off my shoes. The balls of my feet stung; the heels of my feet ached. My mother thought it was a good idea for me to work at this hotel since it was close to home and my son’s school.
“Velvet, take that job, because you need to be close to home in case anything happens to Ronnie,” she’d said. “I’ll pick him up for you. I’m not going to sit at home worrying about how to get to him if something bad happens.”
The day I was born, I was naked, pure, and innocent; I wasn’t put on this earth for my mother to validate my existence. Control what was between my thighs. Constantly tell me how I should live my life. Give me advice, knowing at some point in her own life she’d been exactly like me: undereducated about her body, inexperienced with sex, and clueless about love. My mother was thirty years older than me.
While raising me, all she could say was, “Velvet, keep you legs shut. Stay a virgin as long as you can.” Why? Who was I saving myself for? She had made wrong choices for the wrong reasons, and she’d survived. Why couldn’t I do the same? If she’d wanted me to make smart choices, why hadn’t my mother taught me about sex? About my body? Probably because she still hadn’t figured it out for herself.
All the women I knew chose guys who didn’t love them. If they did love them, it didn’t last long. My mother had had her chance to screw up; now she wanted to preach what she hadn’t practiced. I wasn’t trying to impress my mother or be a role model for younger girls. I was going to continue taking risks and fucking up until I got tired, ’cause nobody I knew had gotten love or sex right.
I unlocked my mother’s door with my key.
“Hi, Mama,” I said, giving her a hug.
“Hey, baby. How was your day?” Mama asked, opening her mail while looking at me.
“I’m tired,” I answered, pouring a glass of cranberry juice.
“I have just the break you need,” Mama said, nodding.
Uh-oh. Here we go. Reluctantly, I said, “Tell me what you’ve come up with this time.”
“Baby, it’s sweeter than honey. Honey Thomas is helping women empower themselves, and I figured if you could start getting child support, you could stop stripping at night.”
“Mama, I don’t know this Honey Thomas woman you’re talking about, and neither do you. I like stripping. I don’t like standing on my feet for eight hours.”
Sitting at my mother’s glass-top dinner table for four, I removed my shoes, then rubbed my tired feet. “Ronnie, you’ve got fifteen minutes to play video games. Then we have to go home.”
Mama said, “Stripping doesn’t have health benefits for my grandson.”
Working in customer service, I’d learned that people were fucking selfish and rude, just like my mother. They didn’t give a damn. I could be puking up my guts, and in the middle of heaving, they’d ask, “Can you give us directions to Atlantic Station?” They wouldn’t even apologize for interrupting me. One day soon I wouldn’t have to answer to those your-mama-should’ve-raised-you-better tricks or my mother.
“Okay, Mommy,” my son yelled from the living room. In an hour he’d be right back at my mom’s, ’cause I had to be at my second job by nine.
“Baby, she’s new to Atlanta, and her commercials are on Michael Baisden’s show all the time. Honey is going to help women get out of abusive situations,” said Mama.
I didn’t know that woman and had no desire to. “Anybody can advertise on the radio, Mama.” Honey was probably a rip-off chick, out to make a quick hustle by preying on desperate women. The fact that my baby’s daddy had never seen our son or paid a penny of child support wasn’t abuse; that was neglect, and I didn’t want to see his trifling, rusty, married behind ever again.
“Ronnie,” I called out to my son, “let’s go!” Looking into my mother’s eyes, I said, “Ma, please. This one time listen to me. Don’t contact that woman.”
Picking up my shoes, I left my mom’s house and went next door to mine. If I didn’t need my mom to keep Ronnie so often, I’d encourage her to go back to work. She’d taken an early retirement buyout from her federal government job to help me out.
“Hey, Ronnie. Hey, Red. That sure is another nice suit you have on today. They have any more of them concierge openings at that new fancy hotel you been working at?” Mrs. Taylor asked as she sat on her porch. “I could use me some new clothes, too. Never mind, chile. I’m just dreaming out loud. They probably ain’t got no positions for a sixty-year-old woman. Besides, I can’t walk all them blocks back and forth like you do. You sho’ look good, Red. Them Hollywood producers call you yet?”
The heaviness weighing down my heart was invisible. No one, including Mrs. Taylor, could look beyond my sexy smile and big booty to see that my fucking feet were hella tired from standing all day, exotic dancing all night, and running to or from men that didn’t deserve me.
Some of those lazy Negroes wanted me to cook, talkin’ ’bout, “My mama cooked, cleaned, worked two jobs, and took care of us. That’s the problem with y’all black women. Y’all don’t know how to keep a man happy.”
Fuck that. I wasn’t doing that domestic bullshit. I told that nigga, “Yeah, your mama did all that for you, and look at where it’s gotten you and her. She still doing the same shit, and your ass ain’t shit. Get the fuck outta my face. And before you leave, if your mama is such a good woman, let her suck your dick! Trick!” I got mad just thinking about how stupid and lazy some black men really were. Bunch of underachieving sons of bitches! “I’m handling mine. Stay your black ass out of jail, and get a real job,” I added.
If it weren’t for my child, only God knew where I’d be. I smiled. Probably in Hollywood, starring opposite Denzel or Jamie or opening up for Steve Harvey or Mo’Nique. Everybody I talked to knew how badly I wanted to act. I was super-talented and eager to launch my career. My last audition, for the movie Something on the Side, was six weeks ago. I’d auditioned for the part of Coco Brown. But I hadn’t heard anything. Maybe they thought I didn’t weigh enough. I�
�d gladly gain weight if I had to.
I stopped smiling.
Single parenting was so hard. I hated it. If it weren’t for my unconditional love for my child, I would’ve killed myself immediately after giving birth to him. Alone, in a cold operating room with a doctor and strangers poking, probing, and pulling between my legs, I’d cried. Not for joy. I’d cried because I wondered where my baby’s father was. Probably out raping somebody else with his nasty fifty-plus-year-old dick.
When a woman was twenty (the age I was when I met him) and a man was forty-five, they didn’t seem so far apart in years. But now that I was twenty-five and he was fifty-one, his ass seemed hella ancient. He hadn’t showed up at the hospital, and I hadn’t seen Alphonso Allen since I told him I was pregnant.
Standing by my side, my son said, “Hello, Mrs. Taylor.”
Mr. and Mrs. Taylor’s porch was separated from mine by a waist-high white wooden fence. Mrs. Taylor still believed in knowing her neighbors and keeping watch over our block. The suits I wore were different styles, but they were the same navy-colored, mandatory hotel concierge uniforms. Still, Mrs. Taylor liked them.
“Baby, your cell phone rangin’,” Mrs. Taylor said, staring at my Sidekick like it was a foreign object.
“I know. I’ll call ’em back later,” I said, silencing the ringer.
I doubted Alphonso ever told his wife about our five-year-old son. The day we met in Los Angeles, I’d just finished auditioning for a lead role in a movie called Married Men. I was going to play Jay’s girlfriend. That opportunity was long gone, I guessed. I hadn’t heard anything yet, about any part, but each day I held on to hope.
“You okay, chile?” Mrs. Taylor asked. “You’ll get the part, Red. Don’t worry. Worrying ain’t never done nobody any good, anyways.”
I dug in my purse for my keys, answering, “Yes, ma’am. I’m good.”
That day Alphonso was driving the bus route along Wilshire Boulevard. I’d gotten on, and he’d given me his cell phone number when I got off at my stop, promising to take me to dinner that night. I showed up at Harold & Belle’s on West Jefferson Boulevard and waited for hours. I told myself that maybe he was in one of L.A.’s traffic jams I’d heard about or had to work late. I sat at the bar, by the door, drinking Patrón Silver margaritas with salt on the rim. I speed dialed his cell every half hour, in between drinks, but after six failed attempts, I gave up and left the restaurant.
Whos Loving You Page 4