by Nina Perez
I smiled and nodded, then cast a quick glance down the hall where the ringing of the phone continued. Had Patrick heard me laying into Lawrence’s lying ass when he first arrived? How embarrassing, I thought. If he had, he was gracious enough to pretend the phone ringing off the hook was normal as he checked out the walk-in closet.
"Excuse me for a minute." I ran to the living room and turned the ringer off of the phone. I took a deep breath before returning to the bedroom. The only person that day who seemed halfway sane and Lawrence was about to scare him away. I entered the bedroom ready to apologize.
"I know you've probably met a bunch of women today that you'd consider letting move in here, but I have to tell you this is an awesome apartment and I'd love to move in. I'm polite, I have a job, I can cook, I clean up after myself, I don't play my music too loudly, I snore but I doubt it's loud enough for you to hear from your bedroom, and I promise to put the toilet seat down."
This time I was treated to the full smile, and I swore a little glistening star appeared on his left dimple, much like something that has been shined to perfection in the cartoons, complete with the little ding sound effect. I shook my head to clear it. Then I lied. "You're right. I have met some interesting people today." Well, that wasn't too much of a lie. "I'll have to sleep on it for a day or two and get back to you. Is that okay?"
Patrick put his head down for a moment and then placed his hands in his pockets. He looked up at me, half-grin melting my resolve. "Fair enough. Listen, I'm really sorry if you felt blind-sided today. It wasn't my intention."
"I know. Don't worry about that. I probably overreacted since I have a lot of things going on."
"Yeah, I can tell."
He had heard. I cringed inwardly. "I promise I'll call you by Tuesday to let you know what I've decided. I know you're probably looking at other places, so I won't leave you hanging."
"I've looked at a few, but as far as I'm concerned this is it for me,” he said while looking me in the eyes.
My stomach did little flip-flops. Was I nervous? It sure felt like it, but why? Was he flirting with me? I walked him to the door and we shook hands while I, once again, promised to call by Tuesday.
***
Later that night after I had checked for Lila's emails and set up the early morning meetings she’d requested, I settled into bed with my thoughts. I was 99.9% positive that none of the ladies I had met that day would be moving in with me. Rebecca and LaKeera would annoy me to no end, and while Cynthia seemed like a very nice woman, I didn't think living with her was such a good idea. Her problems needed to be solved elsewhere. And frankly, Heather scared me.
My thoughts kept returning to Patrick. He seemed like a nice guy with a stable job and aspirations besides, but I still had reservations. What those reservations were exactly, and why I had them, was what kept me up most of the night. Although I had admittedly not given much thought to living with a male roommate, if they could pay their share of the bills and respect our living space then I didn't have a real problem with it. Then I thought of the race thing. Was I bothered that Patrick was a white male?
There had to be plenty of other black girls living with white men in New York City, romantically or otherwise. Would I be reacting the same way if Patrick were a brother? I didn't think I'd much care for a black male roommate. Everyone would assume we were sleeping together simply because we were of the opposite sex, but same race. Who needed that drama? Maybe living with a white male would be easier. People wouldn't automatically assume we were getting it on simply because he was white and I was not, right?
Who was I fooling? Even now in 2012 with a black president, some people would trip, but most would not.
Get some sleep, girl. Stop stressing this so much. You're how old again? A grown-ass woman, that’s how old. Who cares if your roommate is a man or a woman?
My mama did, that's for sure.
Chapter Four
Sistah Gurls
Chloe
My mother, Mrs. Adrian Brooks, has been known to bring grown-ass men to their knees. Literally. She is tough and beautiful. She is opinionated and loyal. People who meet her like her, even if they are intimidated. Her biggest flaw is her annoying habit of always being right.
My parents met and fell in love when they were sixteen. After high school, they got married and each became a civil servant: my father a mail carrier and my mother a police officer. When I was six, my father was killed in a car accident. My mother mourned long and deep, but then made it her business to ensure what was left of our family didn't fall apart. She continued with the police department, making detective and finally retiring at forty-five. She moved to North Carolina to collect her pension in peace.
Growing up, my mother never let me forget what a good man my father was. There were always pictures of them around our tiny apartment in Brooklyn. Richard Brooks was a handsome man, with his long sideburns and Afro. Every picture of the two of them together showed a smiling, happy, and loving couple. My favorite pictures were any of the three of us together. I had very vague memories of my father, and those pictures helped reaffirm that I came from love. In so many ways my mother was a strong woman. She had to be; dealing with my father’s death, working in a profession that had few women, much less black ones, in the late 80s, raising me alone, and making sure that I didn't give in to the many temptations on the streets of Brooklyn.
I'd seen her tired and aggravated, but she never made me feel as if I was a burden or that she minded having to work so hard to take care of me. Don't get me wrong: When I cut up, as I so often did growing up, she would whip me with her belt and sharp tongue. Ms. Adrian did not play. She definitely had the Brooklyn attitude to match the accent.
My mother wasn't thrilled with my decision to major in marketing. She’d have preferred I’d chosen English and became a teacher. Adrian was big on service and giving back to your community, but I’d always dreamed of something a little more creative. I got a rush out of the idea of influencing consumers and helping companies promote their products. I admired my mother for always pursuing her passions and wished she afforded me the same. Hearing how much she enjoyed her new life filled with me happiness. She loved living in North Carolina. She'd bought a house in Durham soon after moving there. Most of her time was spent gardening and going to Rotary meetings, and she'd even taken some art classes. She'd joined several women's groups, most of them geared towards helping women of all ages start their own businesses, invest their money wisely, and purchase their own homes. My mother went from nine-millimeter Glocks and handcuffs to ladies-who-lunch-bourgeois in two years.
I wasn't sure which Adrian called me that Monday afternoon as I sat in my office trying to juggle a million tasks at once—hard-as-nails detective or newly-bloomed southern belle?
"Hellooo, darling." She rolled the "o" and called me darling; it had to be the bourgeois Adrian.
"Hello, mother.” Had I been greeted by the Brooklyn Adrian, I would have said, "Hey, Ma." It was a game we played.
"Chloe, I tried calling you yesterday several times. Didn't you get my messages? Where were you?"
I hadn’t listened to my voicemail because I’d assumed that all messages were from Lawrence. I didn’t want to tell my mother that because she too had warned me he wasn't a suitable companion. I decided skirting the question and giving a little info was better than outright lying.
"I'm sorry. I was so busy showing the apartment I didn't have much time for anything else."
"Well, how did it go? I know I've said this already, but you have to be very careful placing ads like that. I don't know why you won’t get Myra to move in with you."
"Mother, Myra has a lease at her place and our relationship stands a better chance of surviving if we don't live together."
"Hmmm. Yes, well, what kind of people have you interviewed?"
"All kinds. I haven't made a decision yet. I know I'm running out of time, but I don't want to make a hasty decision."
"Good girl.
How's Lawrence?"
Damn. This had to be handled carefully. I didn't like keeping things from my mother, but I wasn't ready to get into it about Lawrence, especially not at work where there were little ears everywhere. I glanced at my open office door. "I haven't spoken to him much this weekend. Like I said, I've been busy." Check me out. Didn't lie yet. "Listen, I have to run. Lots to do today."
"Chloe, is something wrong?"
"Yes and no. I'll call you later in the week and we'll talk, okay? Don’t worry."
Amazingly, she didn't press. "Fine. I'm running late anyway. I'm speaking at a Women's Auxiliary tea this afternoon."
We said our goodbyes and I called Myra to see if she wanted to go out for lunch. I felt the need to get out of the office and I had yet to tell her about the day before. We decided on Lindy's Deli a few blocks from the office building. As usual, it was crowded with executive types frantically trying to catch a bite before heading back to the world of meetings and conference calls. We had just gotten our trays when two white women vacated a table by the window. We hustled to grab it before someone else could.
"Whew. You see how they are, right? They were trying to hold this table for those white girls behind us even though we were ready first. Shady."
Myra was my closest friend and we'd known each other since high school, but she had parts to her that rubbed me the wrong way. Sometimes she'd go into what I liked to call Sister-Gurl Mode. Everything was "the white man this" and "the white man that.” I could see her point sometimes. We were both shocked by some of the attitudes expressed openly during the presidential election, but not every problem in my life was at the hands of "The White Man.” Myra seemed to disagree.
No matter what was going wrong in her life, she managed to work race into it. If she didn’t get the repair appointment she wanted from the cable company, it must be because she’s black. If a vacation request at work was denied, gotta be The Man! Menstrual cramps? Well, you know how those white folks do. Okay, so that last one was an exaggeration, but you see my point. It was tiring to be around.
"Anyway, girl, tell me what happened yesterday,” she said.
I told Myra all about the shower fiasco and my colorful interviews. She nearly spit out her turkey sandwich when I got to the part about Patrick.
"A white dude?” She laughed. "I would have given my favorite Coach bag to see your face."
Her laughing was contagious. "Girl, and to top it all off, I was on the phone with Lawrence at the time."
"I know you didn't call him."
I gave her a look like she'd lost her mind. "Please. He called saying he wanted to explain things. I told him there was nothing to explain, my eyes are not faulty, and it was exactly what it looked like."
"Good for you."
"So I hung up on him, he calls back, blowing up my phone. There was a message from him on my office phone when I got in this morning. He‘s tripping cause a guy came to see the apartment. He thinks I was letting a man move in to make him jealous. Can you believe his ego?"
"Yes, I can, because he's a man. Still thinking he has the right to an opinion on what happens in your life. And when you tell him Patrick isn't moving in, he'll swear he had something to do with it."
I was suddenly very interested in my ham sandwich on rye. Myra noticed since I'd barely touched it since sitting down. Damn, she knew me too well.
"Chloe. You are not considering letting that white man move in with you, are you? Chloe, look at me."
"Myra, listen. I know I told you about them, but you had to see those women to believe it. There's no way I could live with any of them."
"So, that means you have to let him move in? And Lakeera didn't sound that bad."
Again I shot her the "You Must Be Crazy" look.
"What? Are you forgetting where you came from? We grew up in the same neighborhoods that girl lives in; now you're too good to live with somebody like her?"
Here we go. I had no desire to cuss out my best friend in front of a bunch of strangers. I took a deep breath. "First of all, Myra, I'm not saying that I'm better than anyone. LaKeera seemed to have the same immature mindset as most of the girls we grew up with; the way she carried herself, the way she talked... I could just tell we wouldn't get along. Second of all, I've never forgotten where I came from. I just don't hang on to it and wear it like a badge. Just because I'm from the hood doesn't make me of the hood."
"You are so bourgie."
No. She. Didn't.
"What did you say?"
"You know, bourgie, short for bourgeois.” Myra said.
"I know what it means. I just can't believe you called me that. How am I bourgie? Because I don't wanna let some stripper move in with me, I'm bourgie?"
"That girl is doing what she has to do to make ends meet. You have no right to judge her."
"Like you're judging me, Myra?"
"Whatever."
"Are you done?” I gestured toward our half-eaten lunches.
"I am now."
We didn't say a word the whole three-block walk back to the office. I hated fighting with Myra, but I refused to be the one to break the silence. I was hot. How dare she call me bourgie when she was the one who always had to have the Coach handbags, Louboutin shoes, and Armani gear? Talk about a sister living beyond her means, and all to prove to the white people at the office she wasn't poor, or uneducated, or whatever it was she was trying to prove. I was so pissed at her butt that I giggled loudly—louder than I normally would have, anyway—when one of her heels got caught in a sidewalk crack outside our office building.
Served her stink ass right.
Being the only two in the elevator, I guess Myra decided it was safe to get in the last word right when the doors opened on the thirtieth floor.
“If you let that white boy move in with you, you a fool.”
***
For the next two days I avoided Myra like my hair was freshly relaxed and she was the rain. Our fights didn't normally last long, but I knew this time I wasn't about to be the one making the first move. She was wrong, period. That "I’m blacker than you are" attitude was wearing on my nerves. She always felt the need to prove her blackness and never missed an opportunity to tell me I was losing mine. In college, Myra decided to stop processing her hair, go natural, and cut it short. The style looked good on her. For years she has been getting on me about my hair, which I get relaxed regularly. Once I let my hairdresser experiment with blonde highlights and Myra hit the roof.
"Who are you? Beyoncé? Next you'll be wearing blue contact lenses,” she'd said.
Over and over I had explained to her that I had no desire to be white and that my hair preference had more to do with styling flexibility than a racial identity crisis. Heaven forbid I have a civil conversation with a white person at work or, even worse, have one with a smile on my face; Myra would label me a race traitor on the spot. To most people at work I'm sure I came off more approachable. Myra, on the other hand, had a "back da hell up, whitey" air about her. She seemed to relish portraying the angry black woman, but I had no idea why she was always so damn mad.
***
With Lila in Chicago there wasn't much for me to do on Tuesday. I took advantage of it by leaving work early, picking up a pint of Ben & Jerry's "Everything But the..." ice cream, and plopping down on the couch when I got home. I checked voicemail. In the time it took me to watch an episode of Scandal, Lawrence called three times. All calls were ignored and went right to voicemail. Unfortunately, there were no calls about the apartment.
The show made me realize I hadn’t spoken to my cousin Crystal in more than a week. We usually dished about the steamy sex scenes and Kerry Washington’s wardrobe. Crystal was the daughter of Uncle Troy, my mother’s only sibling. He ran Home Sweet Home, a soul food restaurant in Harlem. Since we were both only children, Crystal and I bonded and became like sisters. Some of my fondest childhood memories involved the two of us hanging out in her dad's restaurant, sampling the food before the customers, p
laying "restaurant" and fighting over who got to be the chef while the other was stuck with being the lowly waitress.
We were the same age, but our lives were very different. Crystal had gotten pregnant when she was just seventeen. Seven months into her pregnancy the baby's father, Jermaine, disappeared. People in the neighborhood had passed on gossip they'd picked up over the years. Some heard he'd moved to Jamaica, while others heard that he lived in Brooklyn and had married a Puerto Rican girl with four kids of her own. Crystal wasn't sure what to believe and Jermaine's family was no help; they were as trifling as he was. The whole situation left Crystal bitter, but very much in love with her daughter, Brianna. I picked up my cell and dialed her number from memory.