Up at the College

by Michele Andrea Bowen

  Regina was wearing a forest green two-piece St. John’s suit with black suede boots and a black suede shoulder bag. Her immaculate light brown weave with reddish blonde streaks running through it was straight and hanging down around her shoulders. Regina was tall and striking, and she didn’t do a thing for Curtis right now. The girl didn’t have an ounce of personality. And Curtis was not happy with the way she was suddenly so chummy with Gilead Jackson.

  Yvonne didn’t have on anything close to what Regina was wearing and she looked ten times better. First, her work attire didn’t always call for a business suit. But it was clear that Miss Lady was suited up for work and looking fit and good, too.

  Curtis thought her black overalls with the tiny red bows all over them, long-sleeved white tee, red oversize oxford shirt, and red-and-black LeBron James athletic shoes were perfect. Her dark brown curly ponytail was pulled through a black hat with red bows that matched the overalls. Curtis knew that ponytail was real and didn’t have an ounce of weave in it. He had to refrain from the urge to tug at it.

  Those overalls fit Yvonne’s body so well that Curtis could only surmise she’d bought the outfit at Miss Thang’s Holy Ghost Corner and Church Woman Boutique. It was the only place he could think of that would have those overalls and the matching hat.

  “Do you think you can quit tap-tapping on that laptop before Jesus returns,” Regina snapped.

  Yvonne cut her eyes at Regina Young and said, “What could you possibly know about Jesus, with all of your rotten fruit clinging to you like mold?”

  Gilead and Kordell wanted to say “Ouch” because that little janitor had just sliced Regina down to the bone.

  Normally, Regina would have torn somebody talking to her like that to shreds. But she opted to back down this time. The glint in Polly Pocket’s eyes let her know that she would do well to leave Yvonne alone.

  Plus, she was eager to get on with the business of the day. And after getting exactly what she wanted earlier this morning, Regina knew that Gilead was expecting her to make good on the promises she had vowed to keep during a pivotal moment in their earlier meeting—mainly finding an airtight way to keep Kaylo Bailey, LeDarius Johnson, and Sherron Grey on the bench during the Bouclair College game.

  Right now Gilead Jackson was frustrated, exhausted, and mean as a snake. In addition to all of that action with Regina, there was Prudence Baylor, and of course his wife—couldn’t forget her. Folks just didn’t understand. Life could get real stressful and complicated for a brother like him.

  “Done what?” Gilead asked, wondering what all of that tippy-tippy tapping-tapping on that prissy-looking computer had to do with him and this meeting. Yvonne Copeland had been summoned here to sign papers certifying that the three players in question were failing her class. And she was also expected to sign another set of papers that indicated that June Bug Washington and DeMarcus Brown were in good standing and could play in the Bouclair College game.

  “I’ve calculated and sent in the grades for the five players, so that your department can put the three with passing grades in the game, and give June Bug and DeMarcus a helping hand to the bench, where they belong.”

  “But you can’t do that with incompletes,” Kordell said, jumping up in Yvonne’s face. He could not believe that this goofy little heifer was messing up everything with a click of the mouse on that pink laptop. Who did important business on a pink laptop?

  Yvonne backed away from Kordell Bivens, reached down in her overall side pocket, and pulled out a pair of red-handled pliers that she kept on hand when working with those athletes. Some of those little negroes could get crazy if grade time clashed with a big game.

  Maurice jumped up but wasn’t as fast as Curtis, who practically leaped over that table to get at Kordell, who was about to cuss his own self out for acting so impulsively. He was always getting on Rico about acting without thinking things through, and here he was needing to take his own advice.

  Kordell backed away from Yvonne fast. But not fast enough to escape Curtis’s fist making contact with his face. He fell backward against the wall, and was getting ready to throw his own punch when Maurice body-slammed him against the wall and Yvonne, with her little self, advanced on him with those dainty red pliers.

  “Don’t you ever, ever blink at this girl wrong, Kordell,” Curtis hissed. “Or I swear I’ll mess you up. I’ll mess you up, man—MESS YOU UP.”

  Regina was now at the door, with all of her fancy, bogusly drawn papers still in her briefcase, while Gilead made a feeble effort to break up the fray between his coaches. He was careful, though. He knew this heifer was Maurice’s cousin, and that those Fountains loved a good fight. But he had not expected such a reaction from Curtis Parker—never thought a Goody Two-Shoes like Yvonne Copeland, or whatever her name was, held any appeal for a player like his head basketball coach.

  Kordell collected himself and left. As mean and hateful as he was, Kordell Bivens was still smart. He knew that he could not win this fight. In fact, if he stayed a moment longer he was going to get his tail whipped, not to mention lose his prowess as Herr Doktor if Yvonne got a hold of him with those pliers. He’d forgotten how gangsta the Fountains and Parkers were. They had all grown up in Cashmere Estates when it was still the projects. He, on the other hand, had grown up in the middle-class Hillside Park.

  “So,” Gilead Jackson said, “three players are back in the game, and June Bug and DeMarcus are benched for the rest of the season.”

  “I didn’t know that Kaylo, LeDarius, and Sherron had ever been out, Gilead,” Maurice said.

  Gilead chose to ignore that comment and said, “So which one of you is going to call the Athletic Department’s biggest supporters and tell them that their grandson and son are not eligible to play?”

  “You are the only one with Bishop Sonny Washington’s and Reverend Marcel Brown’s phone numbers, Gilead. So I guess it’ll have to be you,” Curtis told him and made a gesture toward Yvonne to get her things.

  “The Washington and Brown families always express their feelings through their bank accounts,” Gilead said. “When they are happy, they give generously to the school and to our department. And when they are pissed, well, I don’t want to think about how they’ll act when somebody like Yvonne here pisses them off. Humph, they may even let Sam know that he doesn’t need people like her here.”

  Gilead was about to jab his finger in Yvonne’s direction but thought better of it when he saw the deadly expression in Curtis Parker’s eyes.

  Parker’s nose is wide open over Polly Pocket. Makes me wonder how that “I love to go to the library” Zeta flew low enough under his radar to get that close to the brother’s emotions, Gilead thought.

  “Come on, Cuz, let’s get out of here,” Maurice said, thinking that Gilead Jackson was full of Hell and didn’t have any business running the Athletic Department. Sometimes it was so hard to wait on God to work things out. But he knew that this was something that only God could work out. Putting his finger in this pie would be the precursor to creating a great big mess.

  Yvonne gathered up her things and hoped that she could keep her tears from falling while she was still in this building. Curtis noticed that she was getting close to losing it. He grabbed her hand and led her out of the conference room.

  It was taking everything in him not to wrap the baby up in his arms and make it all better for her. Curtis couldn’t remember the last time he had felt like this about a woman. He stood at her car waiting for her to open the door and get in. He liked this car—chic, artsy, and classy, just like Yvonne. Maurice came and stood next to Curtis to make sure his cousin was okay. He hated to see those tears streaming down her cheeks. The girl had already been to Hell and back and didn’t need this.

  “Baby, don’t cry,” Curtis said, heedless of the expression on Maurice’s face. “Nothing is going to happen to you, your job, and those baby girls. You hear me, Yvonne. Baby, you are going to be all right.”

  Yvonne nodded and tried to
stop the tears. It felt as if the weight of the past two years were pressing down on her like a ton of bricks. Part of her hurt like heck, and the other part felt that she was being washed clean with some kind of sparkling elixir from Heaven. It was a most incredulous, yet confusing feeling.

  Curtis took her hand off the steering wheel and kissed it. “You okay now?”

  Yvonne nodded and smiled through her tears.

  “Where you headed?”

  “The hairdresser.”

  “Will I see you tonight?”

  Yvonne sniffed up the last of her tears and said, “Tonight? What’s going on tonight?”

  “I saw your name on the list of folks with invitations to the Athletic Department’s Annual Fall Semester Reception at the Sheraton Imperial.”

  “You mean ‘The Negro Imperial,’” Yvonne told him with a smile. In the middle of all that was going on, she’d almost forgotten about tonight—the main reason for getting her hair done and the makeover her sister had been pestering her to get for months on end.

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Curtis said. “There is my baby’s winning smile.”

  He conveniently ignored Maurice’s poking at him and whispering, “Can you school a bro on what’s happening.”

  “You know that just about everything that’s hip, hot, and happening in black Durham goes down at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel.”

  “True dat,” Curtis said. Black folks in Durham loved themselves some Sheraton Imperial, and were always holding some kind of major event there.

  “So, Curtis,” Yvonne said, smiling, “I’ll see you there tonight.”

  “Why don’t you pick her up at the house, dawg? She lives in Cashmere Estates, less than a mile from your town house.”

  “Oh, really,” Curtis said, grinning. This was getting better and better. He said, “Well, since we are neighbors, I’ll just have to pick you up fo sho’. What time?”

  “Six,” Maurice told both of them. “The reception starts at seven, so pick up Cuz at six.”

  “Six it is,” Curtis said and closed Yvonne’s car door. He stood on the parking lot watching her car until it was no longer in sight.

  “You got it bad, you know that don’t you, dawg?” Maurice said.

  “Forget you, man,” Curtis said. But all Maurice did was laugh. He was enjoying this. Never thought he’d see his best friend fall for a woman worth falling for.

  FOURTEEN

  Yvonne was running way behind for her hair appointment. Now that she had her first date in two, no almost twenty years, if she counted the time she was married, the girl definitely wanted to get her hair done. Rochelle had set up four appointments trying to get her in to see Elaine for a new do and makeover. But every time Yvonne had come up with a reason to cancel.

  She couldn’t explain why she kept canceling. But it had taken this much time for Yvonne to let go of what Rochelle called “The Excessive Intellectual’s Wife Do.” Rochelle had told her, “Okay, so now that you have been liberated from postmodern I’m-so-smart-I’m-crazy, do you think you’ll get the hookup like the regular sistah that you are? Or do you want to walk around looking like Bettina?”

  As soon as those words left Rochelle’s mouth, Yvonne ran to her bathroom mirror and studied her hair.

  “Ooh, yikes. It really is time for a new do.”

  “Uh-huh,” Rochelle said, coming up behind her.

  “Yeah, Mommy,” D’Relle said, standing next to her sister behind their aunt. “You need some crunk in your system real bad.”

  Yvonne reached up and touched her bouncing afro puff sitting on top of her head.

  “But I don’t look as bad as Bettina, do I?”

  “Naw. Don’t nobody look that bad. You know she got that thang under lock and key,” Rochelle said, laughing. “But the point is this—you can look so good. And it’s time for you to get out of the rut you’ve been in, so you can really enjoy moving forward with your life.”

  “And the bad thing about Bettina,” Danesha said, putting in her customary unsolicited two cents, “is that she thinks she looks good. But she don’t. And I don’t know why Daddy doesn’t tell that lady to pull those sundresses she is always wearing out of her booty. It don’t look right. And I bet those crease parts that go in Bettina’s booty smell like booty.”

  Yvonne and Rochelle were cracking up. Danesha was the only person they knew who always voiced what everybody else was thinking.

  “Yeah,” D’Relle said, laughing. “Bettina looks like this in those ugly dresses. Don’t know why Daddy won’t make her wear some different kinds of clothes.”

  D’Relle stuck her pants way up in the crack of her butt, sucked in her behind and started walking around. She looked just like Bettina when she was walking around thinking she was all that and a bag of chips with some dip.

  Yvonne was making good time until she came up on two red lights that seemed to last forever. When they finally turned green she shot off, only to come upon another set of lights about to turn red. She zipped through those intersections when she knew good and well that those yellow lights were practically orange, they were so close to red. Yvonne was still racing the car as fast as her heartbeat when she came to the third yellow light and decided that it would be a good idea to stop when she reached the intersection.

  The car jerked and lunged forward, spilling the contents of her purse on the floor. House keys, lipstick, mirror, gum, change, mints, comb, eyeliner, pen, coupons, tampons, and cleaners’ tickets were all over the place.

  “Daggone it!” Yvonne exclaimed as she tried to reach down and get her stuff before the light turned green, and then gave up after the car behind her honked for the fourth time.

  She slowed down and took a deep breath. It had been a long and emotional morning. First, dealing with Gilead Jackson. And then Kordell Bivens jumping all up in her face, like he was actually going to make her do what they wanted her to do. What was up with that? And who could forget Regina Young, who called herself going with Curtis, and all the time had been sleeping with that nasty Gilead Jackson.

  Rochelle kept telling her to take a chill pill where Curtis Parker was concerned because that mess he was doing with Regina had been doomed the day it began.

  She said, “Girl, Regina is knocking boots with Gilead Jackson. She’s only with Curtis to make Gilead jealous because he keeps her in the cut—something Regina cannot stand. That hussy loves to be in the spotlight when she is kicking it with a man. Plus, if the truth be told, Regina is in love with Charles Robinson. She’d do anything to get Charles to hook up with her again.”

  “How do you know all of this, Rochelle?”

  “Her office is down the hall from mine. Regina is stupid and talks too loud. Plus, she’s a Delta—although most of my sorors are not too fond of Soror Young.”

  “Y’all the ones who let her pledge grad chapter, Rochelle. I told you to tell your girls not to let that skank into the ranks. But y’all wouldn’t listen to me.”

  “No, some of the other sorors wouldn’t listen. A handful of them were momentarily bedazzled by her credentials because the girl looks pretty good on paper. But most of us wished they would have turned her down. Honestly, Yvonne, there are times when that girl makes me want to snatch her Delta card out of her hand and cut her with it.”

  “Well, we wouldn’t have had her,” Yvonne said.

  “You are a Zeta, Yvonne, and you know that Regina was not trying to go for the blue and white. Regina always wants to be part of what she has determined to be the coolest group with the most clout of anything.”

  “She ain’t a Zeta because the finer women of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Incorporated would not have had her.”

  Rochelle shook her head. Her sister was all Zeta—earnest, studious, and just as happy to be a Zeta. Yvonne could have pledged any of the other three sororities when she was an undergrad. Both the Deltas and the AKAs came to her and asked her to pledge on their next lines. The only reason she didn’t get an invite from Sigma Gamma Rho wa
s that they didn’t have a chapter nearby at the time Yvonne decided to go on line. But for whatever reason, Yvonne appreciated the more low-key and quieter style of her sorors. And despite the jests and teasing, Rochelle believed that being a Zeta suited her sister just fine. Yvonne was a walking, breathing testament to what loyalty and “Finer Womanhood” truly were.

  “Why did Charles Robinson quit going with Regina?” Yvonne asked.

  “Why does Charles break off with any woman, especially skanks like that ho-hussy-heifer who think that they are more than they are? He gets tired of them, and they get on his nerves. Plus, Charles has a serious crush on Veronica Washington.”

  “Robert Washington’s ex-wife?”

  “Ummm, hmmm. Charles would love to hook up with Veronica. He is crazy about that girl.”

  “But I know for a fact,” Yvonne told her sister, “that Veronica is not trying to hook up with another man who doesn’t know the Lord—not after what Robert put her through when he left her for that thang up in Baltimore.”

  “The woman with the head shaped like Stewie’s on Family Guy?”

  “Yeah,” Yvonne said, laughing. “Tracey Parsons’s head definitely qualifies her as a double for Stewie Griffin.”

  “When did you see Robert and that woman, Yvonne?”

  “At Southpoint Mall.”

  “So what she look like?” Rochelle asked.

  “Okay, Rochelle,” Yvonne said real slowly. “Tra-cey looks like Stew-ie with a bunch of blonde braids on his head. Okay?”

  “Well then, what did she have on?”

  “Blue-jean capris, matching blue-jean slip-on sneakers, and a green-and-blue print T-shirt.”

  “Oh … oh … heck-ee naw. Heck to the naw …” Rochelle said. “I know Robert was not at the mall flaunting boo-boo kitty head supreme, and this heifer was wearing blue-jean capris? Girl, do you know how many times that negro told Veronica that he hated capris and that she better not wear them out to the mall with him?”