“Thanks, Danielle,” Chaunci said, pushing the double doors to her office open to reveal an array of red and white fully bloomed roses that were set out all over her office. A smile lit up Chaunci’s face. She couldn’t believe it. She loved flowers. She just didn’t know who they were from. She looked up at Bridget, who said, “Is this from the mystery man?”
Chaunci ignored her and read the card: “I’m sorry. Love you and miss you, Edmon.”
Chaunci blushed, sat down at her desk, and began sorting through her mail. She noticed that the certified letter was from Manhattan Family Court. Anxiously she tore the envelope open. Her heart pounded as her eyes scanned the letter: a court hearing … Idris…asking for visitation.
Chaunci couldn’t believe it. She wanted to cuss and scream, but she couldn’t get the words to come out. Instead tears rolled down her face as the letter slid to the floor. She could hear Bridget gasp as she picked up the letter and read it, but at the moment there was nothing Chaunci could do. She was paralyzed and couldn’t move.
Jaise
“Where are you going dressed like that?” Jabril said as he walked into his mother’s room without knocking and sat on the edge of her bed. “What kinda clothes are those?”
Jaise stood back and looked at herself in the full-length mirror. She wore a fitted chocolate Yves Saint Laurent halter dress with a V that dipped down the front, showcasing her abundance of cleavage, and caressed her hips like a second layer of skin. The bottom of the dress had two splits on the sides, showing off her Tina Turner legs, and her stiletto heels enhanced her heart-shaped bottom. “I thought I looked nice.”
“You look ai’ight”—he waved his right hand from side to side—“but, for real, for real, Ma, you like thirty-five years old and you don’t need to be dressing like you’re young and everything. All of that you got hanging out,” he said, pointing to her cleavage, “that isn’t necessary. And where are you going anyway? On a date?”
“Yes, is that okay?”
“I hope it’s not Trenton.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Oh, well, I guess maybe you can go then. But, then again, who are you going with?”
“Bilal.”
“The cop?”
“Yes.”
“Where is he taking you?”
“Out to dinner. Wait a minute.” Jaise caught herself. “Why do I have to explain this to you, and why are you asking me so many questions?”
“Just asking.” Jabril folded his arms across his chest. “Can you bring me back something to eat?”
“I’m not coming back right away.”
“That’s cool, just bring it back in like an hour.”
“Jabril—” Before Jaise could go on, her doorbell rang, and the nerves in her body settled in her stomach. “Oh, goodness,” she said, looking at herself in the mirror again, “how do I look?”
“Well, personally, I think you need to put on a blouse underneath that dress.”
She waved her hand. “Never mind, just get the door.”
Jabril grumbled, “I have to wait for my food and answer the door. Just treat me like a slave.”
“Shut up,” Jaise said, popping a peppermint in her mouth, “and do what I just told you to do.”
Jaise took a series of deep breaths as Jabril opened the door. When she heard Bilal asking Jabril how he’d been, she walked out of her room and made a grand entrance at the top of the stairs. No matter what Jabril said, she knew she looked fabulous and her confirmation was Bilal stopping mid-sentence and stroking his chin. He was dressed to the nines in a gray Armani evening suit and square-toed wing tips.
Jaise smiled. “Mr. Asante, good evening.”
“Good evening, Ms. Williams, you look radiant.”
“And you as well.”
“Oh my God,” Jabril groaned.
“What you say, Jabril?” Jaise asked, walking down the stairs.
“I said y’all look hot.” He shook his head.
Bilal held out his arm and Jaise took hold. “Good-night, Jabril.”
“Good-night?” Jabril frowned while walking her to the door. “You mean good-night until tomorrow morning? So when am I gon’ get my food?”
Jaise ignored him as she started looking around for where Bilal’s car was. “Bring me a double cheeseburger,” she heard Jabril say from behind her.
Bilal removed his keys from his inner suit pocket and pressed the remote for his car alarm. Jaise heard the alarm disarm but she didn’t see his car. She prayed like hell that he didn’t have the remote for show and his car was actually the city bus pulling up to the curb.
“Bilal, sweetie,” she said as gently as possible, “where is your car?”
“Right here.” He tapped the hood of a block-long Deuce and a Quarter, rusted green with a faded black ragtop. He opened the door and it practically fell off the hinges, just missing her feet.
“Oh hell no,” she mumbled. “What is this?”
“Something wrong?” he asked, smiling.
“Ahhh … you know what?” She thought about how he was a cop and his income was more than likely limited. “We can take my car.” She pointed. “I think I see a leak or something under there.” She pointed to the liquid by his front tire.
“Ma,” Jabril called from behind her, “that’s his ride? Oh hell no.” He cracked up laughing. “I betchu glad Bridget isn’t here to see this. Call me, Ma, if you need me to bring my scooter and come get you.”
“Close that damn door!” she growled. Jaise could hear Jabril laughing as he closed the door.
“Look,” Bilal said, “if you don’t want to go out, let me know. No hard feelings.”
“No,” she said, “it’s fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yes,” she said as she slid in, “I’m positive.”
Jaise sat in the car doing her best not to look around or pay any attention to the sagging vinyl ceiling liner that was touching the top of her head. “You might want to place your hand up there to hold that up. Otherwise the foam underneath might start snowing on you.”
“No, this is fine—ahhh!” Jaise screamed and whipped her neck around. “What was that?” she asked as Bilal started the car. “The engine.”
“Geezus.”
“Bilal, sweetie.” Jaise cleared her throat. “Why are we in the drive-thru for Crown Fried Chicken?”
“What, you rather have Burger King?” He smiled, and she could’ve slapped the shit out of him. Certainly he was too fine to be this cheap. Already this was the date from hell.
“I think ahhh, I’ll pass,” she said. “I’m not really that hungry.”
“Are you sure? You know what? I’ma get a bucket anyway.”
A bucket. Jaise looked around. Maybe this was some shit that Bridget had planned, Bilal was going along with it, and somehow—some way—and somewhere this was going to turn out to be a joke. Oh, wait a minute, maybe—maybe—this was an episode of Hell Date. “Bilal, honey,” Jaise said in a soft voice. “You know I don’t really like practical jokes. I really hate when people pull those.”
“Okay, baby. Well, I don’t tell jokes. I mean, I like to laugh, but not at someone else’s expense.”
Jaise felt like screaming, because obviously this motherfucker was serious.
Bilal placed the order and a few minutes later he received an oversized plastic bag, which he placed directly in Jaise’s lap. “Hold this for me, baby.”
“Sure.” Jaise arched her eyebrows and mumbled, “Why the hell not.”
“You say something, Jaise?”
“Oh no, I didn’t say a thing.”
Jaise could’ve sworn that Bilal’s car had hydraulics the way it bumped up and down and then took off like a bat out of hell while they were driving into Harlem. This was crazy. Never in her life, not even in high school, had she experienced any shit like this. When they pulled up in front of the concrete box that Bilal insisted on calling a club, she knew right away she was dumping his ass. Forget it. He was nice
, extremely fine, and he was the only man who made her wet simply by the words that came out of his mouth, but if this was what he was working with, she didn’t want it. “What is this?” Jaise struggled not to frown.
“It’s a cool spot. They have live blues, and remember you told me you would sing for me?”
“I could’ve sang for you after we had dinner at Tavern on the Green. We didn’t need to come here.”
Bilal tilted his head to the side and gave Jaise a sexy grin. “You go in here, we have fun, and believe me there is more where this came from. Loosen up, I promise you’ll like it.”
Jaise hated that all he had to do was smile and she was putty in his hands.
Bilal grabbed the bag from her lap and Jaise noticed three grease spots on her dress. “Hold your head down for a minute, baby.” Bilal started dusting bits of yellow foam residue that had fallen into Jaise’s hair. “It’s out now.”
Before Jaise could think of what to say or how she should feel, Bilal walked around the car and opened the door. Jaise could see that he was holding the door up so that it wouldn’t hit the ground and drop off. She clutched her purse to her chest like an extra heartbeat as she walked in. The place was called Lucille’s, and apparently it was a chicken and waffles joint. They supplied free waffles, dollar shots, and the customer supplied the chicken.
“Bilal,” the owner, Lucille, called out to him. Lucille was about sixty with hair dyed the wrong shade of red for her brown complexion. She was what most people would call big-boned, but she had bird legs. She kissed Bilal on the cheek. “Nice to see you remember an old woman. I almost divorced you.” She had a serious South Carolina drawl.
Bilal laughed. “You too much, Lucille.” After placing the plastic bag on the counter he placed his arm around Jaise’s waist. “Lucille, this is a dear friend of mine, Jaise.”
“Nice to meet you, honey, and welcome to my place. Have a seat.” She pointed to the bar stool. Jaise started to ask would a table be too much to ask for, but seeing that there were only a few and the place was packed, she decided against it and instead when Bilal pulled out her bar stool she sat down.
Bilal unbuttoned his suit jacket and laid it on the stool next to him. “I know this is different for you.”
Jaise attempted to laugh. “Oh no, I dine like this all the time.”
Jaise blew air out the side of her mouth as live blues played in the background. Lucille took their chicken and placed it in a white bowl next to a stack of homemade waffles. She gave them two plates, cutlery, and two shots of White Owl.
Jaise watched Bilal begin to eat his chicken. There was so much grease on the plate that she could feel her arteries clogging just from the sight. She did her best to take her mind off the food, but the waffles smelled too inviting.
“Forget it,” Jaise said under her breath. “When in Rome, or better yet the ghetto…” She took one of the wings from Bilal’s plate and covered it with hot sauce.
“How you gon’ take my wing?” Bilal laughed. “And the last wing at that? I didn’t take any of your waffles.”
“You can have some,” she said, breaking off a piece with her fork and placing it to his lips. Bilal looked her dead in the eyes as he slid it off her fork with his tongue. Jaise almost lost control. She had to fan her face just to bring herself back.
After a while of eating some of the best cardiac-clogging fried chicken and sweetest waffles in the world, Jaise forgot about being dressed in a five-thousand-dollar dress with grease spots, two-thousand-dollar shoes, and carrying a fifteen-hundred-dollar handbag. She didn’t even think about how she’d ridden in a car that looked as if a broke-down Foxy Brown and Shaft should be stepping out of it.
All Jaise could see was this man sitting next to her whom she was feeding from her plate. The very man who was making her laugh, genuinely laugh, and making her forget everything that had ever haunted her. Not even her father had been able to chase this many demons away. Jaise leaned over and graced Bilal with a soft kiss.
“Sing for me,” he whispered against her lips.
Jaise eyed both sides of the small and dim one-room juke joint. She could tell that not much had changed in this place since Lucille had opened it in the seventies, yet Jaise felt nervous. It wasn’t that she couldn’t sing. She’d been able to sing since she was five, and sang at her grandmother’s funeral and brought everybody, including the pastor, to their feet. Oh, she could sing, but she’d never in her life felt as nervous as this. “Alright,” she said shyly, “I’ll sing.”
Bilal winked his eye at the piano player as Jaise eyed the people in the place. Different people had been singing all night, some blues songs they created on the spot and others, songs that were classics. And those who didn’t sing danced until their heart was full.
Jaise stepped onto the makeshift stage, which was a wood platform set about an inch off the floor. She whispered her song selection to the pianist and stepped up to the mic. “I’m a little shy, y’all,” she said, laughing as she addressed the audience.
“That’s all right, sugar-doll,” one of the old men in the audience yelled, “’cause big daddy is just the one to work all that shyness out of you.”
“Hush, Willie!” Lucille said. “Always got somethin’ nasty to say.” She looked at Jaise. “Sing, baby.”
Jaise sucked in a breath and on the internal count of three she opened her mouth and pure bliss floated through the air. She had the sultry voice of Aretha Franklin with a killer range. She looked at Bilal and sang “Natural Woman.”
Jaise sang like she had never sung in her life. Couples slow danced across the floor, and though the place was full, the only person Jaise could see was Bilal.
Jaise didn’t know what to make of what she was feeling. She didn’t believe in love at first sight. It was too sappy, too fairy-tale, too much like Cinderella. She didn’t have that kind of faith, but she knew that something was different. Her heart beat a little faster when she was around him, her smile grew wider, and her blush a little higher. Maybe love at first sight didn’t exist, but she had no doubt at this moment that paradise did.
When she was done, everyone who wasn’t already standing stood to their feet and clapped feverishly.
Before Jaise could say thank you, she heard a familiar voice saying it for her. “Thank you, thank you.” She turned and there was a crying Bridget, walking out of a blackened corner with Carl, pointing a mini video camera at her and wiping his eyes. “That was beautiful,” Bridget said. “I had no idea that following you around would lead to this, but that was beautiful. Carl,” Bridget said, sniffing, “mental note: When they edit this, play As the World Turns music right here.”
Jaise shook her head, astonished at the lengths Bridget had gone to. Jaise walked offstage and into Bilal’s embrace. “Now, that was beautiful,” he said.
“Thank you,” she said as they began to kiss passionately. “Thank you.”
Milan
It was déjà vu. Karma. A life full of desolate boomerangs that would set Milan up to have an affair with Kendu for the second time in her life, yet with no real possibility of their ever being together. When she had decided to leave Yusef she had plans, but ever since she had become Kendu’s mistress … again … she hadn’t followed through with any of them. If anything, she felt herself slowly accepting the role she’d become known for: the waiter. Waiting for him to come over, waiting for him to find the right moment to leave his everyday life and be with her, waiting for him to leave his wife, waiting, waiting, and more fucking waiting. Denying herself and doing everything on his time because this was the only way to perfect the role she’d been assigned to play.
She was tired, tired of always feeling like his wife’s understudy. If Kendu didn’t love Evan, then he needed to leave the bitch, and if he didn’t want to leave her, then Milan had to be a big girl about it and realize that once again she had brought the ruckus on herself. So as she lay next to him, his broad chest and hard stomach pressed into her back, she decided that
it would be the perfect time to test him and see just how far he’d be willing to go to make her happy.
Milan knew Kendu loved to be awakened with his dick being sucked. It was a freaky thing she liked to please him with. He was more than filling, and sucking him required a certain technique; otherwise the thickness and the length of his Johnson would cause her to gag.
“Shit, baby,” Kendu said, his eyes still closed, and his hands running through her hair. “That feels so good.” The slurping sounds of her mouth were a beautiful melody, like a Picasso painting turned into music. Once Milan was done and Kendu had complimented her skills by calling her name and filling her mouth with salty rain, he flipped her over and returned the favor, by eating her from the back wall of her dripping sex. Kendu’s tongue was a python, so it never took Milan long to cum, and within a matter of minutes they were joined as one, their heads spinning, their bodies dancing, and their mouths making promises that neither of them could keep.
After they’d graced each other with orgasms and had taken their morning shower together, they lay back on the bed and Milan noticed Kendu watching the clock. This was his routine; at first it seemed mundane, then it was aggravating, and slowly it had become heartbreaking. In the beginning he would spend tranquil nights with her, then he started coming at around midnight, after Aiyanna was asleep, making love, and then leaving before six in the morning so he could return home before Aiyanna awoke for school.
It was now five a.m.
Milan stroked the hair on his chest. “Kendu, I was thinking that we should go away.”
“Go away?” He slid his hands over her ass. “Go where?” He peeked at the clock.
Milan could feel him easing toward the edge of the bed, so instead of continuing to trace along his eightpack, she lay on top of him. “I’ve always wanted to tour my namesake in Italy.”
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