Man Swappers

by Cairo

  “Besides...” I walked over to where my sisters were sitting. I stood behind them, placing one hand on each of their shoulders. “You always told us to never fight over anything, and to share everything.”

  She looked at me incredulously. “I taught you girls to share material things, to share your secrets, and your fears, not share your goddamn men. I want this nastiness to stop, today. You hear?” Although the question was directed at all three of us, she stared at me, knowing I was the culprit behind it all. And she was right. I was. It took some coaxing—okay, and a little bullying—but not much since we had been known to play pranks with our boyfriends and friends in high school—to get Paris and Porsha to consider it. But, they are my sisters, and we’re all cut from the same freaky cloth, so I knew once they experienced it, there’d be no turning back.

  I kept my eyes locked on hers. “We’re not stopping. You may not like what we’re doing, and that’s fine. But, we’re grown. And you can’t tell us what to do, or who we should be doing it with.”

  She slammed her hand down on the table. “What do you mean, you’re not stopping? Paris? Porsha? What do y’all have to say about this?”

  “Persia’s right, Mom,” Paris meekly said. “Sorry. But we enjoy it. And we don’t wanna stop.”

  “It’s not like we’re hurting anyone,” Porsha added. “What we do in the privacy of our own bedrooms is really no one else’s business.”

  “Well, it becomes everyone else’s business when you flaunt your nasty ways in public,” she snapped. “Do you girls have any idea how embarrassing this is? I done cussed your aunts out, and now I gotta go back and apologize to them for being right.”

  “Mother, really,” I said, rolling my eyes up in my head. “Why would you really care what anyone said, especially Aunt Lucky and Aunt Fanny? It’s not like they don’t have dirt of their own to worry about. At the end of the day, we’re still your daughters.”

  “Yeah, who are sharing and fucking each other’s men. And nothing any of you have said has made any damn sense as to why you would want to stoop to some nasty shit like that? I can’t believe y’all out there carrying on like a bunch of hot-ass hoes.”

  Paris’s mouth popped open in shock. “Mom, we’re not hoes. We’re uninhibited, and we like experiencing new things.”

  “It’s nasty,” Mother said, rapidly shaking her head and turning her lips up in disgust, “and sinful.”

  I forced a laugh, knowing there was nothing funny about what I was going to say to her. “And what do you call a woman who knows her man is cheating on her, but continues baking and cooking and cleaning and sexing him up, knowing that the first chance he gets, he’s going to sneak his ass across town to the next woman? What do you call that?”

  She huffed. “Stupid. That’s what it is. And watch your mouth.”

  I rolled my eyes. “And what do you call a woman who is crying and begging for her man to stop running out on her every time she catches him cheating on her, but still keeps taking him back? What do you call that same woman who will leave her kids alone in the middle of the night while she goes out looking for her man all over town?”

  She looked at me, perplexed. I could tell she was cautiously treading to see where I was going with this. “I don’t know,” she said, getting agitated. “Desperate.”

  “No, Mom, it’s you,” I said, glaring at her. Contempt dripped from my voice. She had a look of shock on her face when I said that. “You were that woman for as long as I can remember. Do you think we were that naïve to not know that Daddy was out cheating on you? You really thought we never overheard the hushed arguments, or your whispered phone conversations to Aunt Lucky and them? Do you not think we saw you crying over him? Well, we did.”

  “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” she snapped defensively. “Your father was a good man, and a good provider.”

  “There you go, justifying. Yeah, he was a good father. And, yeah, he was a good provider. But he was also a damn good cheater with a good and stupid and desperate wife who”—I jabbed a finger in the air at her—“flitted around this house pretending everything was alright, playing Suzy-Goddamn-Homemaker while Daddy was out fuc—”

  Before I could get the rest of my words out, she lunged toward me and slapped me, causing me to see stars. Porsha’s and Paris’s eyes popped open. “Don’t you ever,” she said through clenched teeth, “talk to me like that, again!”

  I could see the hurt and embarrassment in her eyes. I had struck open an unhealed wound. She fought back tears. In that very moment, I knew that in our mother’s anguish she saw the enemy—me, my sisters, and any other woman who shares another woman’s man. For her, we were the home-wreckers, even though we tried explaining to her that we weren’t sharing a man who was already attached to another woman. To her, it made no difference. It was all in the same.

  I sigh, shaking that night out of my head as I reach into my bag and pull out my BlackBerry Torch, then scroll down to turn the ringer back on. I have thirteen emails, three text messages, and two missed calls.

  Against my better judgment, I return my mother’s call, first. “Hey, Mom,” I say the minute she answers, pulling out the latest issue of Vogue from my desk drawer. I start flipping through the pages.

  “Hey,” she says, sounding out of breath. “I tried calling you girls earlier, but didn’t get any answer.” I smirk, knowing she called Paris first—since she’s her favorite, then Porsha. And, when she couldn’t get a hold of either of them, she called me.

  “We were out,” I tell her, purposefully leaving out that we were out having breakfast. I sit back in my chair, knowing she already knows, anyway. “Is everything okay?”

  “Of course it is.”

  “Ohhhhkay, so why are you calling me?”

  She lets out a loud, frustrated sigh in my ear. “Persia, I don’t know why you must always be so goddamn—excuse my French, snotty.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I say sarcastically. “What were you calling for?”

  She huffs. “To see if you and your sisters were RSVPing for Pasha’s wedding.”

  Pasha is my mother’s first cousin, and technically my second cousin. Pasha’s grandmother is my mother’s aunt, and my great-aunt. She’s considered a success story in our family. Having lost both of her parents to murder, she’s the owner of one of the hottest hair salons in the Tri-State area. And, quiet as it’s kept, engaged to one of the biggest dope slingers in the game. He’s been home from prison for close to two years and word has it, he’s still up to his same old shit. I guess bad habits don’t die easy. The Feds are hot on his ass, but somehow he keeps slipping through their fingers. You’d think after doing four years in prison, he’d learned his lesson. Oh, well. Not my business, nor my headache.

  “I don’t know,” I tell her.

  “You know your Aunt Harriett would love to see you and your sisters. She always says you girls don’t even call her.”

  Mmmph, I think, rolling my eyes. That’s because her ass is always trying to get us to sit in church, or starts spewing scriptures. “The invitation didn’t say anything about us being able to bring a date, so maybe not.”

  “It’s nothing personal,” she calmly states. “With the baby and that gigantic house they recently bought down there by the shore, they’ve had to downsize the guest list...”

  Yeah, from one-hundred-and-seventy to a hundred guests, I think. Word has it that she and her fiancé, Jasper, purchased an eighty-seven-hundred square foot mini-mansion on three acres of sprawling property. It’s where the entire wedding celebration will be. I pull the white and red embossed invitation from out of my top desk drawer, then stare at it:

  IN THE CELEBRATION OF LOVE...

  MRS. HARRIET ALLEN

  REQUESTS THE HONOR OF YOUR PRESENCE AT THE MARRIAGE OF

  HER GRANDDAUGHTER

  Pasha Alona Allen

  TO

  Jasper Edwin Tyler

  ON SATURDAY, THE TWENTY-SEVENTH OF AUGUST


  TWO THOUSAND AND ELEVEN

  AT FIVE O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING

  She sighs. “...It seems like everyone else’s daughters are getting married, except for my own.” She sounds disappointed. I toss the invitation back into my drawer, rolling my eyes up in my head, again.

  “She’s marrying a damn convict and drug-dealer, for crying out loud!” I snap in my head. I keep my thoughts to myself. Decide to fuck with her instead. “Well, don’t worry, Mom. We’re waiting for that right man to come along to sweep us off our feet, a man who will honor and obey us, handle our ravenous sexual appetites, and submit to our freaky whims.”

  “Ugh! For the love of God,” she says, disgust dripping from her tone. “I know the three of you aren’t entertaining no nasty shit like that?”

  “Why not, Mother? It’s no secret we sleep with the same men. And we’re raw-dogging it and sharing each other’s spit every chance we get.””

  She lets out a disgusted grunt. “Persia, who in the hell are you talking to like that? Have you forgotten who the fuck I am to you? I want to know if you girls have even considered what would happen if the three of you end up pregnant by the same man, and you have the audacity to want to make smart-ass comments.”

  “Of course we have,” I taunt, grinning. “We’ll give you beautiful grandbabies who’ll be cousins and half-siblings all in one.” The line goes dead. “Love you, too, Mother,” I say, laughing.

  Paris

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Paradise Boutique, this is Paris speaking. How can I help you?”

  “Hi, yes,” the woman on the other end says. “I, um...was in your consignment shop a few days ago...”

  “We’re not a consignment shop, ma’am,” I inform her, slightly annoyed that I have to keep telling people this. “Nothing in our boutique is secondhand. And most of our merchandise is one-of-a-kind exclusives.”

  Geesh. This shit never ends. I’ve worked hard to build up my boutique’s reputation as one of the premier shopping experiences in the Tri-State area, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let anyone refer to it as a damn consignment shop. After graduating from college and several jobs later, I realized that working a traditional nine-to-five was not something I could successfully do, so I decided that opening my own business was the most practical thing to do, for me.

  After college, I landed a job as an assistant buyer for Bloomingdale’s on Fifty-ninth Street in New York. Although I loved my job, I realized after six months of being there that it wasn’t something I wanted to do for someone else for any long period of time. I worked there for two-and-a-half years while going back to school to get a degree in Fashion Merchandising at FIT—Fashion Institute of Technology, for those of you who might not know, then did an internship at a major fashion house for a year.

  Two years later, with savings and a small business loan, I opened Paradise Boutique—a chic, upscale clothing and handbag store in Montclair, New Jersey that specializes in one-of-a-kind fashion by new and up-and-coming designers, as well as, highend designer handbags. Then two years after I opened its doors, Persia and Porsha bought into the business, and have become partners. Persia maintains and manages the website and does all of our marketing, while Porsha handles the bookkeeping, utilizing their degrees in marketing and accounting, respectively. And thanks to them, Paradise Boutique has become one of the hottest boutiques around.

  “Oh, well, excuse me,” the woman says, bringing my attention back to her. “I thought it was one of those high-end consignment shops...” Well, you thought wrong. I purse my lips. “Anyway, you had a lovely oval beaded clutch there and I’m hoping you still have it.”

  My ears perk up, and my tone immediately changes. “Oh, yessss, you’re talking about the Judith Leiber piece. Yes, we still have it. It’s an absolutely stunning bag.”

  “Yes, it is. I have a wedding to go to in a few months, and it would go wonderful with my dress.”

  Dress? This clutch is for an evening gown. I imagine her wearing some church-type getup instead of a chic gown, or flowing cocktail dress. She’s about to fuck up this purse wearing some dumb shit. “Oh, I’m sure it will. It’s not only eye-catching; it makes an elegant statement.”

  “And what’s the cost for such a statement?”

  “It’s on sale for nineteen-hundred-and ninety-five dollars.” I walk over to the glass case and unlock it, then pull the crystal and beaded bag out, locking the case back. “If you’d like, I can hold it for you for twenty-four hours.”

  “Nineteen hundred dollars, for a bag? Oooh, that’s a bit pricey. Would you consider coming down on the price a pinch?”

  I blink, frowning. What the fuck kind of store does this bitch think I’m running? I just told her ass this isn’t a consignment shop, and it isn’t some damn flea market where you can haggle down prices. “Unfortunately not,” I tell her flatly, immediately unlocking the glass case and putting the bag back. “The price is firm. But, if you’d like an evening bag that is a little more inexpensive we have a gorgeous pleated satin clutch.” She asks if I can describe it to her. “It has a sleek design of alternating crisp and softly ruffled gold satin stripes with a Swarovski crystal closure. It also comes with a chain strap tucked inside. It’s definitely a gorgeous piece.”

  She grunts. Tells me she doesn’t think it will go well with her dress. “And how much is that bag?”

  “It’s on sale for four-hundred-and-thirty dollars.”

  She coughs. Repeats what I’ve said. “Well, do you have anything a little cheaper than that?”

  I pull in my bottom lip. Try to catch myself from going off. “No, we don’t.”

  She huffs. “In this economy, those kinda prices for a purse is a bit ridiculous. Some people are barely making ends meet.”

  Then why the fuck are you calling here? I hear myself ask in my head. “I hear your concern, ma’am. But, that’s why they have Marshalls and TJ Maxx to cater to those same people. They offer designer wear at discount prices for people who have to pinch their dollars. This is a boutique; not a bargain basement store. Those who can afford the prices will gladly buy. And those who can’t, won’t. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

  “I don’t think I like your tone,” she says defensively. “And I don’t imagine you getting much business with that kind of attitude. I wanna speak to the owner, if you don’t mind.”

  I smile. “I sure don’t. You’re speaking to her. And as I said, this is a high-end boutique, with high-end fashion at high-end prices, ma’am. No disrespect. But customers who come through these doors...are already prepared...to spend...top dollar for our merchandise. You can either afford it, or you can’t.”

  I hear a man’s voice in the background saying something to her. I can’t make out what he’s saying, but he’s asking her a bunch of questions, then the sound gets muffled as if she’s covering the mouthpiece. I hang up. Two minutes later, the phone rings again. It’s her, again. “I believe we were disconnected.”

  I know hanging up on a potential customer is definitely not a good look for business, but I don’t have the patience to go back and forth with a customer on a purchase. Either you’re going to buy it, or you’re not. It’s simple as that. I’m not in the business of begging or twisting someone’s wrists to get a sale. “Ummm, yes, we were,” I lie. “I accidentally hit the receiver.” Of course I wanted to say, “No, we weren’t, bitch. I hung up on ya cheap ass!” But me being the diplomat that I am, I would never be that blatantly rude. But Persia would. And what I thought is exactly what she would have told her.

  She grunts. “Mmmph.”

  I shift the phone from one ear to the other. “But, I am surprised you called back since you seemed to take issue with our store’s prices, and my tone. I figured you weren’t interested in buying anything.”

  “Well, after hearing those outrageous prices, I wasn’t. And you’re right. I didn’t like your snotty tone. But my son just told me that he’ll buy the purse of my choice for my birthday, sin
ce it’s in a few days. And, because I really want the one I saw in your shop, I’m going to make an exception to patronize your store. So I’ll let all that slickness slide this time...” I blink. Oh this bitch really wants to see the other side of me. “I’ll take the beaded clutch. Be a dear and hold it for me? My son will be down there in an hour or so to pick it up.”

  “And what name would you like me to hold it under?”

  “You can put it in his name,” she says curtly. “His name is Desmond.”

  “Okay, I’ll have it right here for him; all boxed and ready to go.” She hangs up in my ear. Rude bitch!

  Before I can go back over to the case to pull the clutch out to place it behind the counter, the phone rings, again, as two women walk through the door. I answer the phone, eyeing them.

  “Paradise Boutique, how can I help you?”

  “Did you get my message?” my mother asks, sounding a bit annoyed that I haven’t returned her call. The truth is I wasn’t in the mood this morning to have to listen to her whining or complaining about things that neither of us can change. And I’m really not in the mood now.

  “Yes, I did,” I tell her as another customer walks through the door. I take her in, then shift my eyes back to the two women over in the corner going through a sale rack.

  “Well, why didn’t you call me back?”

  I frown. Take a deep breath. “Mom, I planned on calling you later today when I had time to talk. Is there something urgent going on?”

  She huffs. “No, there’s nothing urgent. I just thought it was strange that I called all three of my daughters, and the only who returned my call was Persia. And she couldn’t wait to let me know how none of you like being around me. Is that true?”

  I sigh. “Mom, please. Let’s not do this now.”

  “So, it is true.”

  “Mom, don’t put words in my mouth. I didn’t say that.”

  “You don’t have to. The three of you call your father almost every day, and I’m lucky if I get a call at least once a week without me being the one to initiate it.”