I moved my head from side to side.
“Okay, well I do,” she said. “If I were you, I would not see these three days as a vacation; I would see it as an opportunity to get my priorities in order. Do you want your career or do you want this man? From where I’m sitting, it looks like you could lose both.”
CHAPTER 5
April
Destination Wedding Meeting #4
ON A WHIM, SENALDA swung her BMW into the Barnes & Noble parking lot on Camp Creek Parkway on her way home from work. Since she was always reading books on how to effectively manage her team, generate new clientele, and advance in her career in general, she thought she could browse the bookstore’s self-help department for books on relationships and how to meet and catch a mate. The rows and rows of relationship books were overwhelming, but she was undeterred, scanning until one title, How to Get a Date Worth Keeping, seemed to separate itself from the others. The author, psychologist Dr. Henry Cloud, became a dating coach for a woman who hadn’t been on date in two years. He bet her that with his help, she would be dating in six months. Only five months later, she was in a “significant dating relationship!” He also ended up officiating her wedding!
She hadn’t ever considered that a psychologist could also be a dating coach. So she mined her network until a woman recommended Dr. Catherine Cleghorne, a psychologist who also specialized in dating and/or romantic relationships. The woman said the psychologist’s counseling helped her to meet her husband. After perusing Dr. Cleghorne’s website and a quick telephone interview, Senalda set up a conference call for the psychologist to explain her services to the Destination Wedding group. The conference call would be their fourth Destination Wedding Meeting. Whitney decided to be on the call too. Now that she had confronted Richie about his pornography, she wasn’t sure what to do next and hoped the psychologist would have some ideas.
“Hello ladies, we are in our fourth month of our Destination Wedding project!” Senalda began the call with enough enthusiasm to spare. “Can you guys believe it? Last month, we worked on the outside, and I hope all of us incorporated what we learned at The Veronique Experience. But now I think it’s time to work on the inside. Dr. Cleghorne, would you mind telling my friends more about you and what you have to offer?”
“Not at all.” She cleared her throat and took a noisy, prolonged sip of some liquid. “I apologize. This Atlanta pollen kills me every year! What was I saying? Oh yes, where do I start? I guess my name is a good place to start. My name is Dr. Catherine Cleghorne, but everyone, including my clients, calls me CC. I am a licensed psychologist. I opened up my own practice, Cleghorn Counseling, in 2008—or was that 2007? Menopause makes you lose your mind! I specialize in romantic relationship counseling, but I’m also passionate about career counseling, so that is one of my other specialties. That’s the abridged version of my bio. Do you have any questions for me? I’m better at answering questions than reciting information these days.” She cackled and then was quiet.
“Yes,” Whitney chimed in. “Do you counsel married couples or just single ladies?”
“With the divorce rate like it is, most of my business is married couples,” CC said with a laugh that ended in a snort. “How can I help you, dear? Are you married?”
Whitney paused for a beat before she replied. “Yes, I am. Seven years in August.” The tone of her voice was suddenly artificially high-pitched, as if she had inhaled helium from a balloon.
“Oh, coming up on the seven-year itch, are we?” CC chortled. “Who’s cheating? You or him? Don’t answer that! In all seriousness, the seven-year itch phenomenon is very real. Many couples divorce after being married for that amount of time, so if you and your hubby have anything going on, I highly recommend that the two of you get counseling, even if it is not with me.”
“Nobody’s cheating,” Whitney declared. “My husband has just been watching naked women online and—”
“Don’t kid yourself, dear,” CC interrupted. “Call it what it is. Is he watching pornography? That can be very destructive to a marriage, but it doesn’t have to be a death knell unless it is ignored. So is that what your husband is doing, dear?”
“I guess so, but I only think it’s only been going on for a few months.”
“That you know of. Have you spoken to him about it?”
“Yes.” The tone of Whitney’s voice now seemed as deflated as a popped balloon.
“Again, no need to despair. If you husband is open to counseling, I would like have the two of you come into my office and flesh everything out. Let me get my appointment book. Hold on, dear.”
The women heard rustling papers, what sounded like a belch followed by deliberate footsteps, but there was radio silence on their end.
“Awww, let’s see. Luckily for you I had a cancelation for a 5 p.m. Monday appointment. Otherwise, it will have to be on April 15 at 6. Which would you like dear?”
“Dr. Cleghorne—” Whitney started.
“Please call me CC,” she interrupted.
“CC, let me speak with my husband about his schedule. He’s an OB-GYN, so his schedule changes frequently.”
“Fine, dear, but don’t delay too long. These types of issues only get worse, never better, if they are untreated. Senalda dear, I have another appointment that I need to get ready for, but I hope your group has a good idea about my services.”
“Yes, thank you very much.” Senalda said a little too loudly as if she had been awakened from a trance.
“Thank you again, dear, for inviting me. Goodbye to all of you. Whitney, dear, a time bomb is ticking in your marriage. Don’t let it explode. I’ll be expecting your call. And one more thing for the rest of you: So many modern women plan their professional lives but don’t plan their personal lives. And then they wonder why, when they are finally ready to marry, there is no one left to marry, or they are too old to have a baby. Alright dears, I really must go.”
CC hung up then.
“Dayum.” Mimi expressed the collective reaction of the group as the rest were silent.
“I really thought that CC was too kooky to take seriously until her last words about modern women,” Whitney finally said. “But she is right. I knew that I wouldn’t graduate from college without having met my husband. If y’all had planned to meet your husbands back then, there would be no need for this project now. You will never have as many good men to choose from as you did in college.”
“You may have had a plan to get yo man, but what’s yo plan to keep him?” Mimi retaliated with a snicker.
Mimi
I scrolled through emailed invites on my phone. As a radio personality, I received hundreds of them to events all around the A, from block parties in the hood to upscale parties with celebrities from Atlanta to Hollywood.
Today, I deleted one invite after the next. None caught my attention until I got to the very last one. ABC News was coming to town to host a “Nightline: Face-Off” to debate “Why Can’t a Successful Black Woman Find a Man?” on Friday in Decatur. After its interview of the four single black women in Atlanta went viral, they thought it would be educational and entertaining to have a live debate. Steve Harvey, Sherri Shepherd from The View, actor Hill Harper, journalist Jacque Reed and author Jimi Izrael would be on the panel.
“Now, I gotta go to this,” I said out loud. After confirming with Angela that I was going to do a live broadcast from the debate and setting it up with ABC reps, I forwarded the press release to my girls.
Senalda responded first: “Definitely coming! Sounds like a perfect outing for our Destination Wedding group! I still can’t believe that single black women in Atlanta were singled out on Nightline in the first place!”
Jarena’s text arrived next: “Count me in. I don’t know if there is anything new to debate, though.”
• • •
After my show was over, I drove from the station to my condo near Piedmont Park. Every few days I changed my route because fans can be crazy sometimes. A few times some ev
en followed me home. While I was driving, I wondered what Jovan was doing that very second. He told me that he and his son were in Florida this week for spring break, and the following week he was flying out to L.A. for business meetings.
I had met his son once, when his baby mama dropped him off at Jovan’s Fayetteville house, but I had never spent any time with Jovan Jr. For the first year of our relationship I didn’t mind, since we only saw each other every now and then anyway. But two years later, I thought he would have officially introduced to me to Junior by now. But then again, maybe Jovan thought at ten years old, Junior was too young to be introduced to a woman who was not his mother. Who could blame him fa dat?
Just then, my phone rang. For a second, I thought I conjured up my man.
“What’s up?” I said softly, disappointed when I didn’t recognize the number.
“Hi, may I speak with Mimi? This is Ian.”
“This is me,” I said, regretting that I answered the call.
“Oh, I could barely hear you,” Ian said, “so I didn’t know that was you.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I wasn’t sho who was on the other end myself.”
“I’ll try not to be offended that you don’t recognize my number yet,” Ian said with a laugh that I didn’t return. He didn’t even take the hint and kept right on talking.
“So I can take you to dinner sometime this week?”
Since my girls told me I should call Ian after he pretty much hunted me down in Veronique’s store, I followed through because I didn’t have anything else to do that night anyway. Dude took out me to dinner. I cannot even really remember where. When I’m bored, I forget details. I even fell asleep for a hot second when he went to the bathroom, but I played it off. When he walked back to the table, I told him I had to rub my eyes because somethin’ got in em. If a nigga didn’t make me feel like I was bungee jumping or riding my Harley or anything that pumped up my adrenaline, it wasn’t even worth getting to know him. So I didn’t call him again and avoided his calls the couple of times he called me. But this time, he caught me off guard.
“Oh, I’m booked at events all week long so I won’t be able to have dinner with you.”
“Sorry to hear that, but I understand,” Ian said. “Maybe we can meet sometime next week then.”
“Okay, I will give you call next week,” I lied. “Talk to you soon. Bye.”
“I’m looking forward to it. Goodbye.”
Although I was known for being off da chain and not afraid to look crazy if the situation called for it, ereone thought I would say anything, anywhere, to anybody. The truth was that I had a hard time being mean to nice people. That was my weakness. I was just sensitive like that. So sometimes I lied just to be nice. I just hoped that when I didn’t call Ian next week to meet him for dinner or anything else, he would finally get the message and leave me alone.
• • •
On Friday morning, I texted my girls: “Bitches, if y’all plan on coming w/ me, y’all need to be there at 4:30 because the radio station will be setting up then.”
The day couldn’t go by fast enough. All week I had been thinking ’bout how my dating life got to be where it was. I was gonna be thirty-two years old this year, and I didn’t want to celebrate my birthday with work friends, my girls, or alone, especially since I had a man. Except in the three years I had been dating Jovan, he always found a way to not see me on my birthday. The first year he told me that he wasn’t serious and just wanted to kick it. The second year he was on vacation with his mama and son. The third year he texted me “Happy Birthday,” but he was in New York working. I wondered what was up for this year. I decided if he dodged me on this birthday, I would finally admit to myself that he was not my man.
As my booth was set up for the live broadcast, I saw women were already in line to get inside of the Porter Sanford III Performing Arts and Community Center auditorium. The line was damn near around the whole building, and the debate wasn’t going to start for two more hours. And I bet all of them, including me, couldn’t figure out this man thang. Jarena, who rode with me to the auditorium, went outside to look for Senalda.
This is gonna be da shit!
I spoke into my mic. “Heeey laaadies, we gonna get right tonight!” I waved my arms from side to side like I was performing at an old-school rap concert. “Holla if ya hear me! I need a good man to stick by me. Aine that right, ladies? And we gon work that situation out tonight!”
The women cheered like they were at a football game.
I waved toward Senalda and Jarena as they walked into the center, directing them to the area of the auditorium that was sectioned off for the media.
“Y’all, I just noticed that we all have on our outfits from Veronique’s store,” I said, checking out my girls’ clothing as I adjusted my baby-blue booty dress. Every now and then I had to make sure it wasn’t ridin’ up too high on my ass.
“You’re right,” Senalda said. “I’m usually talking about your outfit by now in my mind, but I hadn’t noticed that I wasn’t doing that.”
Senalda put her hand on Jarena’s arm, and they laughed together.
“You know what, heffas? If I didn’t love y’all like sisters, y’all would be good and cussed out.”
“Seriously, though, you look really nice tonight,” Senalda said. “We all do. Since there are so many women out here tonight, I’m hoping some men will show up too.”
“I thought you were trying to get at Dexter, Bossy,” I said.
“Nothing wrong with a few backups in case your first choice doesn’t work out. You should think about that too.”
“Senalda, that wasn’t nice,” Jarena said.
“I aine even worried about her,” I said. I laughed to show Senalda hadn’t fazed me, but maybe she was right.
An hour later, the auditorium was so packed that people were being turned away. The energy in the room was off da chain. Finally, the debate host, ABC’s Vicki Mabrey, announced she was ready to start. She began by asking how many single black women were in the audience. Over half of the room raised their hands as they laughed. She explained that ABC was hosting the debate in Atlanta after the Linsey Davis report went viral. The crowd applauded as Linsey Davis stood up. She said Linsey Davis was looking for a man too which is how she came up with the idea for the report.
A few minutes later, Vicki Mabrey hit the panelists with questions. As she listed all of the negative statistics, the same kind of negative statistics from the December interview, I felt lucky to have a relationship with Jovan at all.
She said that by the time they were thirty years old, only 50 percent of black women will get married, black women outnumber black men in higher education by two to one, and that there are almost two million more black women than black men. She asked if black women were too picky or were black men the ones with issues.
Jacque Reid’s answers hit me hard. She said that some men think they shouldn’t be even expected to have one woman because it was in their nature as men and that some women let their men cheat because of that.
“Ummm hmmm,” some of the ladies said to each other as they hi-fived and nodded.
I’m a real fool for Jovan. For all I know he’s probably with some other woman right now. He aine never gonna feel ’bout me the way that I feel ’bout him.
But then I remembered all the late-night conversations me and Jovan had. Ereone was always telling me he wasn’t my man because of how he acted in public, but in private he acted completely different. It was like we had a spiritual connection. One Father’s Day, he was at my place and we talked about our fathers. He told me that his first priority was being a good father to Junior because his father, who had several women around town including Jovan’s mother, was never there for him. I told him my father was there for my family physically, but I could tell he didn’t want to be there. In my mind, I knew he loved me, but I just couldn’t feel his love. He never said it, and when I tried to hug him, he always got all stiff like I like made him un
comfortable, so I stopped trying. My parents divorced months after I graduated from high school, so that told me I was right. He was never happy with us—my mom, my older brother, and me. Jovan held me as I cried and I even noticed a tear or two on his face. Those were the moments that nobody saw, and I knew they meant something. They had to.
I interviewed women in the audience for the station too. Some thought that the women were the problem.
“Sometimes we are our own worst enemies when it comes to criteria. If a woman has an MBA, she has to marry a man with an MBA. Or a man has to be appealing to my girls,” said a woman who called herself Donette the Dating Diva. Donette told me that she met and married her former husband when she was a Coca-Cola executive and he was just a meter reader. “I looked for someone with character. Formal education is not equivalent to intellect. I know a lot of educated fools.” But they did get divorced after seventeen years. She said it wasn’t cuz of the different status levels though. “I’m better because of the marriage.”
Nadia Night, a flight attendant, told me that she started checking for white men because some black men did her wrong. She met her husband, a white man, at Johnny’s Hideaway, a club in the A, and they have been together ever since.
Senalda and Jarena talked about my interviews.
“I can’t see myself supporting a man. That’s why I want a man to make what I make or more,” Senalda said.
“And even though I haven’t had one in years, black men got so much swagger,” Jarena said. “I can’t see myself living without that. And I don’t want to explain why I tie my hair up every night or don’t wash my hair every day.”
I was halfway listening to them because the Jovan I knew in public and the Jovan I knew in private were battling each other in my head. In that moment, surrounded by hundreds of women who wanted what I wanted, real love, I realized I wanted—correction—I needed a man who wanted to be with me everywhere in public and in private. Shit, I deserved it. I interrupted my friends. “Y’all I think I’m gonna finally do it,” I said. “I think I’m gonna stop seeing Jovan.”
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