I’m still not sure what category Faye fits into, but by the time she and slick pulled into the parking lot and slithered out of his pretty ride, I’d decided if a show is what ol’ girl wanted, then doggone it, a show is exactly what I was gonna give her. Even now, I don’t regret what I did. They brought it on themselves, man, standing out there lollygagging, like neither of ’em had a doggone care in the world, while I was sitting inside with my drawers twisted and working on a seven-hour seethe.
HER
When Scoobie and I arrived back at the condo, it was pushing 7:30. We might have been back sooner, but after leaving the restaurant Scoobie took it upon himself to make an unannounced detour. Yeah, girl, we were riding along, making small talk, when before I knew anything we were pulling into the long circular drive of what looked to me like some rich good ol’ boy’s plantation estate.
Scoobie parked in front of the antebellum mansion with its thick columns and sprawling veranda, then turned to me with a self-satisfied grin and said, “This is where I live. You like it?”
I stared at the white-on-white monstrosity, fully expecting at any second for some Butterfly McQueen type to come bustling out the front door, waving her apron and hollering, “Lord, chile, where is y’all been? Massa John and da missus is all fit to be tied. Hurry up and pull dat dere buggy on ’round yonder ’fore we all gets a tail lash or two.”
But before I could say anything, Scoobie said, “I just thought you’d like to see what lots of hard work, sound investments, and a firm commitment to walking on the right side of the Lord can do for a brother.”
Honey, please. I rolled my eyes and said, “Huh, I’m happy for you. We should all be so blessed.”
When he rolled down the car’s windows and started rattling off details about the house’s square footage, the number of bedrooms, baths, fireplaces, and other amenities, I said, “Hold up! Aren’t we getting out?”
He said, “What? And have you misinterpret something I say or do as an attempt to get some? Not a chance. Maybe later when you’ve come to trust me a little more.”
“Scoobie, quit,” I said. “This isn’t even your place, is it?”
He fished out his driver’s license, showed me the address, then said, “Faye, you really think I’d bring you all the way out here to tell you a lie?”
I looked at him sideways and was like, “Is money green?”
“See, my point exactly,” he said. “You don’t trust me. But that’s okay, ’cause I’ve got faith. And I know it’s only a matter of time before you’re singing a totally different tune.”
Then dude up and started talking about inviting me and Nora to this book party he was having at his place a couple weeks from now. Yup, just when I thought I’d heard and seen it all, the brother pulled another something out on me. Supposedly he’d put together a collection of recipes, entertaining ideas, and etiquette tips. From what I gather, his goal is to evolve into the Black man’s version of Martha Stewart, B. Smith, and Miss Manners, all rolled into one.
Anyway, that’s how we spent the next twenty minutes cruising the grounds of homeboy’s property with him steadfastly refusing to take me inside for even the quickest of look-sees. We’d spent so much time together that day I thought for sure he’d be anxious to be on his merry little way when we finally returned to my humble abode. But nooo, not Scoobie. He still had plenty more he felt needed to be said before the day was done.
Yeah, girl, so there I was in the parking lot, patiently listening to dude attempt to sell me on letting him come inside and try to make nice with Nora, when who but Carl should decide to make an appearance.
And, honey, you should have seen him. Instead of his usual quick-footed gait, he’d adopted one of those leg-dragging, pimp-daddy kind of struts, which only accentuated the fact that his pants were hanging all off his behind, like some middle-age gangster wannabe.
And his hair, girl, it was just plain awful. Remember James Evans from the Good Times series and how messed up his ’do would look on those shows when he was supposed to be mad, frustrated, tired, and having a bad day? Well, that’s what Carl’s poor head looked like—with possibly a few more naps, matted patches, and clusters of lint.
As if all that wasn’t bad enough, the scowl on the brother’s face reminded me so much of Mr. T’s, I thought for sure the first thing out of his mouth would be, “What you looking at, fool?!”
I nodded, still hoping to keep things pleasant, but the three seconds’ worth of teeth Carl flashed me in return looked more like a grimace than a smile. He didn’t say a word, but I could tell by the way his eyes never left mine as he pimp-walked to his car that he’d come outside for no other reason than to clown.
Soon as I realized Carl’s intent I should have sent Scoobie packing, hightailed my butt on into the house and locked the door behind me. The reason I have for not doing so is the same as I mentioned before—I wasn’t in my right mind. I couldn’t have been, because the thought that any serious trouble might arise didn’t occur to me until Carl had flung open the trunk of his car and started rummaging around inside.
And by then, it was too late to do much of anything besides map out the best direction in which to duck, dive, and roll.
HIM
I’m not the violent type. A physical confrontation isn’t what I set out looking for. Not that I couldn’t have served up a serious beat-down, if push had come to shove and I’d been so inclined. But man, dude wasn’t even worth all that with his scrawny, high yella, Shemar Moore–looking, homemade wave-wearing behind.
And as far as Ms. Faye is concerned, she best be glad she didn’t say anything when I stepped outside, ’cause I probably would have gone off. There’s nothing more potentially explosive than an angry Black man who doesn’t have plan the first.
Yeah, that was me. Even after all those hours I’d spent brooding, I was still without a proper clue as to how I might get ol’ girl to recognize and acknowledge that she’d messed with the wrong somebody this time around. How else you think I ended up barefoot in the parking lot, thoroughly hacked and rutting ’round in the trunk of my car, like I actually knew what I was searching for besides an excuse to be out there?
Likewise, me grabbing up the crowbar wasn’t anything beyond a mindless macho act of complete desperation. Tell me what man hasn’t found himself caught up in the middle of something he knows is totally stupid, but pride won’t let him back up off it? Well, that’s what happened to me. Having already put myself out there, like a fool, I didn’t know what else to do but see the act on through to the end.
HER
Girl, when Carl came up out that trunk with a crowbar, I literally stopped breathing for a few seconds.
Scoobie had been standing with his back to the brother and initially was too engrossed in his own game to give too big a flip about what might have been going on behind him. But the loud bang Carl’s car trunk made when he slammed it shut cut into Scoobie’s blabbering and made him swivel around for a look.
Even then, he obviously didn’t see what I did—an angry, deranged Black man with a weapon in his hand and murder on his mind. Scoobie even went so far as to say, “Hey” to the fool and ask how he was doing before he swung back around and said, “So, where was I?”
Oh, only on the verge of getting your freaking head bashed in is what I might have said, had I not been scrounging around in my purse for my canister of mace. Seriously, girl, I’d all but made up my mind to give my crowbar-toting buddy one good blast to the eyes before making a run for it. Fortunately, rather than get ignorant enough to make me hurt him, Carl took his pimp-daddy macking self back into his condo.
After breathing a sigh of relief, I switched my attention back to Scoobie only to discover that he was trying to ask me out—on a date—and to the Al Jarreau concert, no less. He promised to take care of everything, from the tickets to the backstage passes and VIP party afterward. He even offered to arrange for a limo to take us there.
I hemmed and hawed and finally just
broke down and told him the truth—well, most of it, anyway—which was that I’d sorta, kinda already been asked by someone.
“Is this somebody you’re serious about?” Scoobie asked, just as Carl decided to bring his crazy self back outside again.
“Serious? No, I wouldn’t say that. We’re barely even friends” is what I told him as I watched Carl go into his trunk again and this time drag out the spare.
According to Scoobie, that was all the more reason for me to go out with him. He took out a business card and proceeded to jot down all the numbers I’d ever need to reach him—at home, at work, or by cell.
Meanwhile, spare-tire-toting Carl is about halfway through act two of his award-winning performance. Unfortunately for him, he was so busy glaring at me that he wasn’t mindful of where he was walking. And before I knew anything, girl, blam! Brother had misstepped and hit the curb. The tire went spinning in one direction and poor Carl in another—hopping, cursing, and reaching down to soothe his stubbed toes.
Probably wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d had sense enough to put some durn shoes on before showing out. But noo, homeboy was out there stomp-barefoot, trying to act a clown.
You know it took everything in me not to burst out laughing, especially when Scoobie glanced over at him, then back at me with a frown and said, “What’s up with your neighbor?”
All I could do was shake my head and tell him, “I don’t even know.”
While Carl gathered his spare and limped into the house with it, I went ahead and gave in to Scoobie’s request for my number, sparing us both the fifteen extra minutes he undoubtedly would have spent pestering me for it.
After he finally got up out of there, I went inside and quite naturally the first somebody I saw was Nora. She’d kicked back in one of our living room recliners with her legs crossed and her face buried in the pages of an Essence as if I was really supposed to believe she’d been reading all this time instead of peeking out the blinds and tripping off me. Her tired little scam might have gone over better had she not been sitting there with her reading material turned all upside down.
I snatched the magazine from her, handed it back right side up, and asked if she’d given Carl my message.
“Yep,” she said, still acting like it wasn’t no thang.
I said, “So what did he say?”
She raised the magazine back over her face and said, “Pretty much that for all he cared you could jump in a lake, kiss a snake, and crawl out on your stomach with a bellyache.” She went on to ask why I’d want to hurt Carl when all he’d ever done was try to be nice to me.
I told her I couldn’t see what the fuss was all about. Carl and I were just kicking it. Wasn’t like we’d had what you’d call a “real” date planned. Matter of fact, a good solid fifteen minutes would have been more than enough to take care of all I’d had in mind to do with him that day.
Nora shot me a look and lowered her voice to just barely above a whisper, like she does when she’s about to dispense a bit of her own special brand of advice and wants to be taken seriously, which, thank goodness, isn’t very often. “Faye, how many times am I gonna have to say this? You just can’t be playing with folks’ feelings. One of these days while you’re out there, just kicking it, you’re bound to trip up and fall so hard on your face, even I won’t be able to help you put all the pieces back together again.”
“So what would you have me do?” I asked her. “Go over and apologize to him?”
“Sure, why not?” she said. “It couldn’t hurt.”
HIM
Hey, man, as hard as I ran up on that doggone curb, it’s a wonder I didn’t break a toe or two. After a stunt that stupid, wasn’t nothin’ left for me to do but tuck tail and hop on into the house, where I could drop the bad-boy act and express the full extent of my pain in private.
I’d all but finished my cursing and crying and was in the process of doctoring my busted foot, nursing my wounded pride, and trying to convince myself that the crowbar and the spare I had sitting up in the center of my living room were all the company I needed, when who but Ms. Thang should show up at my door looking to do even more damage.
Still full of herself, she came in talking ’bout “I take it you’re upset.”
I told her, “You’ve got a hell of a lot of nerve, you know that?”
“What?” she said, trying to act all innocent. “I told Nora to tell you something had come up.”
“Oh, she told me all right,” I said. “And I told her to tell you to just forget about it. So why are you here? What part of ‘forget about it’ do you not understand?”
The sister pulled the old hands-on-hips routine on me and said, “I know you’re not fixing to cop an attitude over this.”
I snapped back at her with, “And why shouldn’t I? It’s bad enough you didn’t tell me you already had a boyfriend, but then you had to go and flaunt him all up in my face. You ever heard the word ‘discretion’?”
At that point she dropped what little was left of her polite veneer and came at me swinging hard, fast, and loud, like a straight-up gangsta “b”. “First of all, he’s not my boyfriend. And secondly, even if he was I don’t owe you an accounting of my time or who I choose to spend it with. I told you from the git, I wasn’t trying to be down with you like that.”
“True dat,” I said. “I know it’s your game, but I mean, come on, Faye. Before I step up to the plate, I think the least you could do is let me know just how many players you’ve got out here running the bases.”
Her face softened for a second and in a more conciliatory tone she said, “Carl, for all it’s worth, the guy you saw me with tonight is an old acquaintance. And what happened between us was over with a long time ago.”
I have to give it to her—the girl tried, at least in that particular instance. And if anybody’s to blame for what quickly turned into a failed attempt at a peace negotiation, it’s me for being knuckleheaded enough to try and sneak in a sucker punch.
“Well, of course,” I said, dishing out the sarcasm with a smile, like it was ice cream. “I suppose that explains why you stood me up to spend half the doggone day with dude. Hey, if you want to hump slick for old times’ sake, that’s your business. Who am I to say anything, right?”
“Right,” she said, slinging a big scoop of my own mean-spiritedness right back at me. “Especially given the fact I had every intention of humping your tired, stuck-in-the-past behind, and you’re definitely not all that.”
Hopping around her on my one good foot, I said, “No, but you, my dear, most definitely are all that and a big, fat bag of cheese puffs to boot!”
My intent had only been to crank it up a notch and show her I wasn’t about to be shouted down in my own house. But I could tell by the way her eyes went from glimmer to glass that she’d taken my comment the wrong way.
With a noticeable quiver in her cheeks she pushed past me and said, “Yeah, I figured the ‘fat girl’ jokes would be next.”
“See, you’re wrong, Faye. You’re wrong,” I tried to tell her. “I didn’t even mean it like that.”
“Man, whatever,” she said, looking for all the world like she was going to backhand the taste out my mouth if I didn’t let go of her arm, which I’d grabbed to keep her from heading out the door.
What I should have done was gone ahead and apologized for what she’d wrongly perceived as me making a wisecrack about her weight. Instead I told her, “Faye, listen, I’ve already bought the tickets for the concert. If you don’t want to go I’d appreciate you letting me know now so I can make other arrangements.”
“Negro, please,” she said, before jerking away from me and storming a trail out my door.
HER
I left the brother’s apartment mad as all get-out and vowing never, ever to speak to his ignorant ass again. So you know the first thing I did when I got home was find his number and call him up. Yeah, girl, there were still a few more things I wanted to share with him, none of them too nice, mi
nd you. But about all I managed to get out after his “hello” were a few choice expletives before he hung up in my face.
Later I remember thinking to myself, Why am I even wasting my breath, much less my body on this lunatic? Please, there are plenty more deserving men out there who’d be only too happy to spend some quality time with me. I’ll just call Scoobie … then I caught myself. Call Scoobie? Oh, hell no!
I stretched out across my bed, eager for a moment of peace and hoping to put the events of the day behind me. Of course, as soon as I laid down and closed my eyes, all I ended up doing was falling asleep and having the weirdest dream.
I dreamed I’d accepted Scoobie’s invitation to the concert. We’d strolled up in there arm-in-arm, both of us dressed to the nines—Scoobie in a tux and me in a full-length mink. Yeah, like I don’t know it’s almost June and in this Memphis heat I would have durn near cooked to death. It was a dream, girl! Anyway, not only was I sharp, but I was my old slim self again—the fine, sleek mamma jamma I used to be before I ate my way into the forty or more extra pounds I lug around with me now.
So there I was, strutting and flaunting my stuff as Scoobie and I made our way to our front-row seats when Carl’s big head popped into the picture. He was there with his little boy on his lap and the twins on either side of him, and they were all laughing and having a good ol’ time until they spotted me and my date. As we glided past them, I heard, first the baby crying, and then one of the twins ask, “Hey, isn’t that Ms. Faye?”
And, girl, when I turned around to wave and flash them my best Diana Ross “Some Day We’ll Be Together” grin, the kids had all disappeared. It was just Carl sitting there with his bandaged foot, the crowbar, the spare tire, the James Evans hair, and this sad-sack expression on his face. With Scoobie tugging at my sleeve, I stood there and watched until Carl finally picked himself up and limped out the amphitheater, head hung, like some scolded and whupped puppy.
After The Dance Page 8