She threw her garment bag over her shoulder and walked back through the crowd.
Three hours swiftly passed by and Dior felt like a million bucks, perusing Manhattan’s most luxurious strip carrying countless shopping bags and sipping a Starbucks latte. She had spent just about up to her limit when she decided to run across the street to Gucci just to see what new things they had. She promised herself that she wouldn’t buy impulsively, but then she spotted the most beautiful handbag she’d seen since in Vegas two years earlier. The oversized signature brown and gold leather hobo seemed to be calling out to her. She tried to ignore it, but to no avail. It screamed classic, and if there was one thing in the world Dior could never pass up, it was a classic purse. Pocketbooks were her weakness, but a classic pocketbook would be the death of her.
After trying the bag on and talking to the sales rep about its material, its style, and its price-to-use ratio, Dior convinced herself that the bag was worth its eleven-hundred-dollar retail value. She counted out seven hundred dollars in cash and then put the balance on her Visa.
Dior flagged down a cab and gave the driver her address. As he pulled away from the curb, she peeked down her shirt just to see that the autograph was still in place. She got a warm feeling just looking at it. Sitting back in the seat, Dior smiled. New York, New York, she thought. Imagine what the summer’s going to be like. I need to go bra shopping. She had wanted to shop for a few household items, but that was out of the question as Dior had spent all of her money on attire and accessories. She had about one hundred dollars left on her Visa, but she would need that for food to last her until her first weeks of pay ahead. She was a little doubtful that she had made the right decision by buying the Gucci bag over the important things on her list, but what the hell, you only live once, she thought. She got comfortable in the backseat of the cab and zoned out for the rest of the ride home.
Twenty minutes later the taxi driver pulled up to Dior’s house and double-parked. Dior dug in her wallet to collect the $16.22 that she owed for cab fare. To her surprise, she only had two dollars and forty cents to her name. She looked up at the cab driver, who was eyeing her suspiciously in the rearview mirror. Then she looked down at her bags that were laid out beside her on the backseat. She looked back at the driver and in a single moment she gripped her bags, opened the door, and jumped out of the cab.
“Hey, what are you doing?” the driver asked as he jumped out after her.
“Here,” Dior said, handing him the two dollars. “I have to go inside and get the rest of the money.”
The driver reached out and took the money with one hand and then gripped Dior’s bags with the other.
“Well, leave your bags out here, then,” he said.
Dior was alarmed. She knew she didn’t have the rest of the money in her house and even if she did, she was not leaving her bags with a complete stranger. She tugged on the bags to try to get the driver to release them and instead he tugged back. The next thing Dior knew, she was having a tug-of-war with the taxi driver.
“Let go of my bags! What is wrong with you?” Dior shouted.
“What is wrong with me?” the driver shouted back. “What is wrong with you? You’re the one trying to stiff me for the fare!”
Cars riding down the street were slowing up as the people inside them were trying to see what was going on. Neighbors started to come to their doors. Everybody was wondering what the fuss was about. Dior was embarrassed and wanted so badly to diffuse the scene, but she’d be damned if she was letting go of her thousands of dollars in merchandise over a petty fourteen dollars.
“Yo, what’s the problem, B?” the smarmy guy from the day before said as he approached them.
The driver looked at the guy and maintained his grip on Dior’s bags.
“This lady owes me sixteen dollars and she’s trying to give me two and run. I’m not having that,” the taxi driver said.
“I said I would get the rest of the money out of my house!” Dior rebutted.
“Well, if that’s true, then why won’t you leave your bags out here until you get back?”
Dior was so mad she could have exploded. “Do you know how much I paid for this stuff?”
The taxi driver responded sarcastically, “Let me guess, too much that you can’t pay for your cab?”
“Oh my God, how dare you insult me like that!” she snapped at him.
The guy looked at Dior and at the driver. He chuckled at the two of them, then pulled three crumpled five-dollar bills from his pocket. He handed the money to the driver, who finally let go of Dior’s bags but not before he sneered at her. The driver got in his cab and angrily took off.
“Thank you. I will give you the money back,” Dior told the guy as she walked toward her door.
The guy walked beside her. “We haven’t been formally introduced, but my name’s Jerome. I live right up the street, so we’re neighbors.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Jerome,” Dior said as she put her key in the door.
“Do you know that I have a fetish for small, light-skinned women with Chinese eyes and straight black hair and foreign accents?” he asked while flashing his yellow toothy grin. “It’s a coincidence that you fit that description, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is. I’m flattered. Listen, how about you come by in two weeks and get the money I owe you?” Dior suggested, trying to brush Jerome off.
“I’ll do you one better,” Jerome began. “How about you give me your number and we call it even?”
“No, that won’t be necessary. I can pay you the money back. It’s just that I don’t have any cash on me at the moment.”
“Oh, so I can’t have your number?”
Dior shook her head no, told Jerome good-bye, and attempted to close her door.
Jerome put his hand up on the door, keeping it open.
“Well, you’re going to have to give me the money now. I’ll stand right here and wait,” he said.
Dior was irritated beyond words. She had already gone through a mess with the cabdriver and now Jerome was pestering her with nonsense. She couldn’t believe how he had gone from a charming gentleman to an ignorant jerk in seconds. She wanted to tell him to go to hell, but she was in his debt, so she played nice.
“I can’t give you a number that I don’t have,” she explained. “I just moved in, remember?”
“Oh, well, let’s try this,” Jerome said. “I’ll leave you alone if you promise to give me your number when you get a phone or the money when you get the cash, whichever one comes first.”
“Deal,” Dior agreed. Anything to get you off my doorstep, she thought.
The minute Jerome walked away and Dior retreated to her air mattress in relief, her doorbell rang. Annoyed, she got up and walked to the door to see who it was and what they wanted. It was Margie, standing with one hand on her hip and the other bringing a cigarette to her mouth. Dior opened the door and forced a smile. Before she could say hello, Margie started talking.
“Hey. Listen, I just thought I’d tell you a few things that will help you out in the future. Number one, if you can buy Gucci, but can’t afford a cab ride, walk or take the bus. Number two, I warned you about Jerome yesterday. Give him more than a minute of your time and he’ll be at your door every day. And number three, Margie doesn’t play when it comes to collecting rent, so you better not think about trying to get over on me like you did that cabbie. Okay?”
“Okay,” Dior said wearily before Margie cued her to close the door.
Exhausted and confused about how she had overspent, Dior went back in her bedroom and plopped down on the floor. Her shopping bags were scattered about before her, but she didn’t even have the desire to go through them and try on all her new stuff like she normally would. Not even her new pocketbook made her feel better about what had just happened.
The sun burst through the windowpane, disturbing Dior’s sleep. Squinting, she stretched her arms above her head and let out a yawn. She felt around on the floor for
her cell phone and picked it up. Despite the bright sunrays, she was able to make out the time. It was 7:15. She couldn’t believe that she had woken so early on her first weekday off in months. She lifted the quilt off her and stood up from the air mattress.
She went into the kitchen and grabbed the half-drunk twenty-ounce bottle of orange juice that she had bought the day before in the airport. She finished it off and placed the empty bottle on the counter. Maybe I should have bought a trash can instead of that Gucci bag, she thought.
She grabbed her laptop computer and set it up on the kitchen counter. Since she was up so early she decided to spend some time on the Internet. While she only had that hundred dollars on her Visa, she still had her American Express card. She hated using it, because the balance had to be paid in full every month, but she did need something to sit on, after all. Besides, by the time the bill came in she’d have received her first paycheck, so everything would be all right. She found a quaint leather sectional that would go perfect in her living room. She also ordered a glass coffee table and two leather chairs to complete the modern look she was going for. For her bedroom, she came across a low-to-the-ground bed and the dresser and nightstands to match. It was all black/brown wood and sleek. She couldn’t wait for it to be delivered.
After making her purchases and checking her e-mail, she Googled nightspots in New York to see which Harlem club she should check out that weekend. A spot called MoBay Uptown seemed interesting, she decided. It was right on 125th Street and had jazz on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Usually she liked going to dance clubs, but she’d always heard that the jazz spots in Harlem were something else, and this was her chance to find out firsthand. Besides, it probably wasn’t as expensive as the downtown clubs, and she was going to be cash poor for a while.
She scrolled down the page to check out more links about the club and in the process a link for a MySpace profile appeared. Dior clicked on it to see what the MySpacer thought of the nightspot.
According to Mr. Good Black Man 2008, it was a hip spot for African-American professionals and a perfect place for meeting attractive singles. She chuckled at the thought of going in and seeing wall-to-wall cute men in suits. That would be heavenly, she thought. She started to close the profile page but decided to read more about the person giving this bit of networking advice. She was disappointed to see there was no picture, and no description except that he was “a single black entrepreneur who lived in Harlem.”
Hmmm, she thought, he lives in Harlem, I live in Harlem. Might be worth checking him out.
She clicked on the link that said Send Message, but a blurb came up saying You must be logged in to do that. She’d always toyed with the idea of becoming a MySpace member, and since it was free, and she wasn’t doing anything else, she figured this would be as good a time as any. Twenty minutes later she had put up her own profile page. It was only barebones, but she could hook it up later, she decided. Right now she was on a mission. She clicked back on to Mr. Good Black Man 2008’s profile page again.
Hi. I’m new to Harlem and new to MySpace. I came across your page when I was looking for advice about MoBay’s. Do you really think it’s worth checking out?
Kind of lame, but it would do as an icebreaker. She hit the Send button, then retrieved another bottle of juice from the refrigerator. She had gone back to the computer to turn it off when she saw that she already had a MySpace message. She smiled when she saw it was from Mr. Good Black Man 2008. That was fast. She noticed his online now cursor was blinking.
Hey, Newcomer, welcome to the neighborhood. Yes, MoBay’s is a great place. You should really try it on a Thursday night. The saxophonist is off the hook.
She took a sip from her juice, then typed:
I didn’t expect to hear back so soon. Thanks. How do you like living in Harlem? I just moved here from Montreal.
A few minutes later she received another message:
I’ve traveled almost all over the world, and I can tell you that there’s no place like Harlem. You’ll love it here.
They went back and forth with polite niceties for a while before Dior finally typed:
I notice that most people have their pictures on their profile page. Why don’t you?
Ten minutes later:
I used to have my picture up here but I kept getting messages from women telling me how cute I was, and how they wanted to meet me. I’m not into superficial people who only care about what someone looks like, so I decided to take it down.
Wow, Dior thought. He must really be good looking if women were on him like that. Wish I knew what he looked like, though.
Mr. Good Black Man 2008 must have been reading her mind, because just a few minutes later came another message:
You sound like a nice person, so just between you and me, I’m tall, chocolate-colored, and have been told I look like Blair Underwood.
The scene from the movie Set It Off where a shirtless Blair Underwood came out of his house to say good-bye to Jada Pinkett popped into Dior’s head. She started salivating.
So what do you look like? was the next message Mr. Good Black Man 2008 wrote.
Dior smiled to herself as she wrote I would tell you, but I like your original philosophy.
Touché, was his reply. So what do you do for a living? Or would that be too personal?
Actually, I start my new job on Monday, she wrote him.
She told him her job title and a brief description of her upcoming duties. He wrote back that her job seemed interesting and that he might have to hire her agency one day to advertise his business. Dior lit up like a Christmas tree and in her next message she asked him what kind of business he owned. He told her that his primary business was an investment firm, but that he also owned lots of real estate around Manhattan. Dior didn’t know how to act. Dollar signs were floating all through her head and she started seeing doubles of her Gucci bag.
They went back and forth for another hour before Dior said she had to go, but asked if they could stay in touch.
We certainly can, came back the reply. I’d love to be your Harlem tour guide. Just message me when you’re ready to see the sights.
Dior was tempted to message him back to say she was ready at that moment but decided against it. She turned off the computer, stretched, and went back to bed.
Dior was excited about starting her new job. She stepped out her door with pride. Being senior copywriter, she had to dress the part and she did, in a black Nicole Miller skirt suit and some black and white Chanel pumps. Her thigh-length mink shielded her from the January cold and with her black crocodile briefcase in tote, she looked like she meant business. She walked over to 116th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard to take her first rush-hour subway ride, feeling like a true New Yorker. Luckily, she was able to find a seat and immediately realized most of the people who had seats also had reading material. Duly noted, she thought, she’d bring a book or magazine along to pass the time on her next ride. She nonchalantly glanced over at the newspaper the woman next to her was reading. Her eyes widened as she saw pictures of Al Pacino in front of his new restaurant signing autographs.
“Do you mind if I look at your paper?” Dior asked eagerly.
The woman looked at her like she was crazy, but said, “You can have it. I get off at the next stop.”
Dior quickly scanned through the photos on Page Six of the New York Post. No, she wasn’t in any of the pictures. Damn the luck.
When she arrived at her office in the heart of Times Square, Dior was in awe. This is what I’m talking about, she thought. She went in the revolving doors and was greeted by a security guard. She told the guard where she needed to go and he pointed her in the right direction. She took the elevator up to the fifteenth floor and immediately after getting off she walked to the glass door that read KACEY AND PATNICK and introduced herself to the receptionist.
A few minutes later a short redheaded girl came into the lobby to meet her.
“Hi, I’m Larissa, Barbara’s
assistant,” the girl said. “Follow me.”
“Dior Emerson, hello,” Barbara said with a warm smile. She shook Dior’s hand and waved her to a seat. “So, we finally meet.”
“Yes, and it’s my pleasure,” Dior said.
“Well, here’s the thing.” Barbara took a sip of her coffee. “Normally your first day would be pretty laid-back, but something’s come up. If you don’t mind, we’d like to put your orientation off for a while. We’re trying to land a new major account, and we want all of our best people on it. And although you’re new, we’re all familiar with your work and we’re confident we want you to be in on this.”
Dior eagerly leaned forward in her chair.
“Al Pacino opened a restaurant here in the city a couple of days ago. We heard word that he’s about to fire the advertising company he hired because he was dissatisfied with the coverage he got for the grand opening. He wants a major campaign in place immediately, and we’ve already reached out to him and told him we have one ready for him to look at. Of course we don’t. The meeting with him is scheduled for this time next week, so by then we have to have a presentation that will blow him away and land us the account. So we want you to get to work immediately trying to come up with some ideas. We don’t have much time, so we’ll screen the ideas that the copywriters come up with, pick one, and have them ready to present it to Mr. Pacino personally when he comes into the office.”
Diamond Playgirls Page 2