by L. V. Lewis
As I walk into Wicked tonight, I almost shit a brick. Who’s the first person I see on the dance floor rubbing his junk up against the backside of a different skank? Blake—I mean Byron. Just as I’m about to turn to avoid him, he sees me, and actually smiles. I’m like the proverbial deer in headlights, frozen in place. He whispers something to the skank and makes a beeline for me.
I slip out of my shoes and get into my ass-kicking stance. I recoil when he leans in, and whispers into my ear. “Keisha, you look damn good in that dress.”
Shocker! That was so not what I was expecting. He picks me up and swings me around, and I have no choice but to throw my arms around him and hang on, the silver shoes dangling in my hands behind him.
“Where you been?” He asks.
“Um, I been chillin’, jus’ working with my girl Jada tryin’ to get our recording studio up and runnin’.” I speak ebonically to put him at ease, and flash him a nervous grin.
“Hey, no hard feelings about that shit that went down before, a’ight, Boo?”
I’m dumfounded, but I play it cool and say, “A’ight.”
“Hey, I’mma bout to kick it on stage and open up for Princess Danai, but I wanna buy you a drink later, okay?” The way he pronounces Princess Danai’s name sounds like Princess Danny.
“You know her name is pronounced Duh-Neye, right?”
“Danai, Danny, same difference,” he says.
I give up. “Where’s Princess Danai right now?”
“She up in VIP with the owner of da club.”
I hold up my lanyard. “You think this’ll get me in?”
#
Wicked is packed. Princess Danai is red hot in the industry and has been for a decade. I find my way to the VIP lounge upstairs which is guarded by two gigantic bouncers. I flash my pass, but they don’t budge.
“Don’t let me have to tell Princess Danai you didn’t let her girl in.” They look at each other, and then step aside and allow me to enter.
The VIP lounge is like a whole ‘nother club in the club. I wend my way through the somebodies, and the nobodies pretending to be somebodies until I see Princess Danai in a roped off private lounge area with her entourage in the back. She’s personally flanked by none other than Tristan White, and another white guy I don’t recognize. Tristan looks bored, and I shiver thinking he’s recognized me, but his eyes shift to the door, as if he’s looking for someone else. Then I remember, I’m wearing my natural hair down with a fuck-ton of makeup, and he might not recognize me from that distance.
I go to the bar and order a drink. Hopefully, I’ll be able to lure Princess Danai away somehow, so I can get a chance to talk to her alone. The sooner the better, too, because I want to get out of Wicked before Blake, I mean Byron, finishes his set.
I’m slurping down my drink too damn fast, and I realize too late I haven’t had anything to eat or drink since lunch. The alcohol goes straight to my fucking head, and I’m reeling on the bar stool like an old fashion spinning top that’s about to wobble and topple.
My Triple-G purses her lips and sucks her teeth like my mama used to do when I was at home. Tsk, tsk, tsk. I lick my tongue out at her, and attempt to give her the double middle finger which, I know, is overkill. But when I start listing to the side, I give up and grasp the edge of the bar to keep from falling off the stool. I’m usually not such a lightweight. I signal the bartender and ask for a bowl of nuts.
“And give me some fresh ones, not those you got sitting in those bowls over there. People are nasty, and I don’t want anybody else’s germs.”
He looks taken aback by my demand. I flash him my lanyard with all my backstage passes attached, and he acquiesces.
I gobble the mixed nuts like a starving person, then I remember I need to retain some dignity, because I’m cute and might just be turning off some interested party by being such a pig. I exercise self-control, act blasé, and eat as a proper lady should. I feel better in about a half hour, during which time I’ve turned down four guys who’ve asked me to dance, and two who just got down to brass tacks and asked me to go home with them.
“Do I look like a hooker?” I ask the last one who propositions me.
His face screws up as if I’ve asked him to do an algebraic equation in his head without the use of any scratch paper. I stand, rub my hands together to dust off the salt from the nuts, and walk away. In my periphery, I see Tristan White isn’t in Princess Danai’s section anymore, so I check my posture and make my way to the velvet rope cordoning her off from the other party goers.
I walk up to a solitary bouncer who eyes my passes and removes the velvet rope. Princess Danai smiles when she sees me approaching her. I knew the sister would recognize me, tracts or not.
“Keisha! I thought you weren’t gon’ make it before I had to go on,” she says, and kisses me square on the mouth. If the future of Kente Studio Records didn’t depend on me winning this bitch over, I would’ve clocked her ass for kissing me like that. We are not Madonna and Brittany Spears. However, I play it chill, and grin back at her when she pulls back.
Good thing she’s wearing a diamond-encrusted grill, so she didn’t try to give me any tongue action.
I take the seat Tristan occupied next to her, even though she makes room for me on the loveseat. “I wouldn’t have missed tonight for all the Russian Mob’s money in Chicago.”
“Blake’s going on now,” Princess Danai says. “We can watch from up here.” That’s when I notice the section we’re in is next to a glass wall that overlooks the stage and dance floor downstairs.
One of her entourage presses a button and the glass splits horizontally, the upper half disappears into the ceiling. We move to the lower half of the wall and look down over the throng of partiers.
Blake is on stage screaming, “Make some noise!” And the crowd obliges him. I roll my eyes when some girl throws her panties on the stage before he even gets going. You might regret throwing those up there, chick, if you know like I know. My Fairy Hoochie Mama yawns and hops onto her mini chaise to take a nap.
Byron was a selfish lover who rarely ever got me off, and his equipment ain’t all that impressive either. It was all about getting his, and forget any action from him downtown.
Oh, he wanted me to give him blow jobs, but he acted as if my vajayjay was diseased or some shit. He insisted the best girlfriends let their boyfriends come in their mouths, and I was like, “Boy, that shit don’t taste as good as those fucking porn stars pretend. Jizz is nasty!” We’d reached a stalemate. I stopped giving him blowjobs, and advised him that he wouldn’t get any more from me until he reciprocated. It never happened. Bastard!
Princess Danai presses her front to my back and leans over me to whisper in my ear. “I’m dedicating my show to you.”
I giggle, nervous as goldfish in a house full of cats. “Thanks,” I say. “That’s real sweet, Princess Danai.”
“Call me Darnelle,” she says. “I only let my close friends call me by my real name.”
“I’m so glad you consider me a friend.” She has her arms on either side of me pinning me against the bar across the bottom half of the glass wall. I turn in the circle of her arms, and using the guise of bracing myself, push her back off me. “As a new friend, I have a proposition for you that might prove beneficial for us both.”
Grinning, she folds her arms and cocks her head to one side. “You ain’t no gold-digging groupie, are you? You didn’t look like one when I ran into you in Tristan’s office.”
“No way,” I say. “I’m a business woman, and I know you are, too. I want us to be real friends, not just somebody you kick it with a minute, and then kick me to the curb. I have a lucrative proposition I want to run by you. A legit opportunity that will make you even more beloved by your Chicago-land fans.”
“I’m listening,” she says. She waves her hand at Blake. “I’ve seen dat niggah's show a hundred times. It ain’t all that. Let’s sit down and have a drink while you tell me about this opportunity. Shi
t, I’m always looking for ways to keep my money. On the real, yo.”
We sit close on the plush leather loveseat, and I go through as much as I remember of the business plan. I want to kick myself when I realize that along with my purse, Tristan White still has the copy that Jada gave me.
When I tell her how Kente Studio Records is different from other studios, having the record and music store component, and location in a neighborhood where we can screen talent to refer to entrepreneurs in the music business like herself, she seems genuinely interested.
She smiles when I’m done. “You sure I can’t talk you into us becoming better friends if I can get you another backer for your business? Tristan White fronted me when I started. He’s always looking for business ventures to invest in. I can’t believe he didn’t jump on this.”
“Oh, he tried to jump on something all right.”
Princess Danai’s eyebrows rise. “Word?”
“Gospel,” I say.
“I’ve seen that stud with a lot of chicks, but never a sistah.”
“And I ain’t trying to be his first chocolate beck-and-call girl, if you know what I’m sayin’.” Liar, liar, pants on fire, my Triple-G chants.
Princess Danai nods. “I hear you, baby.”
“I’ll tell you what,” I say. “My business partner, Jada Jameson will be back on Monday. Let’s get together one day next week and hash this out. What do you say?”
Princess Danai scans my figure and thinks for a few seconds. “A’ight, deal.”
“You won’t regret this, Darnelle,” I say. “If you’ll give me your digits, I’ll call and make an appointment with you on Monday.”
“How bout you give me your digits, and I’ll have my assistant call you first thing Monday to set up an appointment.”
I recite my cell phone number, and she programs it into her Smartphone. I grip my clutch and stand, but Princess Danai takes my hand and pulls me back down on the loveseat. “Come on, baby girl. Having a drink to seal the deal is business 101.”
I sit and cross my legs. Princess Danai signals a waitress and orders a bottle of Cristal, the official Champagne of rappers. I want to roll my eyes, but I smile until the waitress comes back with a chilled bottle in a bucket and two champagne glasses.
We are on glass number two when Byron shows up.
“So, you know my ex?” He shouts to Princess Danai over the music. Princess Danai looks askance at me, and I shrug. I lean into her and whisper. “You were right. He ain’t all that.” She laughs.
Byron scowls, and I remember, he hates it when people whisper around him. He’s paranoid like that. However, he lets his face relax into impassivity, and I wonder if he really scowled.
Byron signals a waitress and grins at me and Princess Danai. “The next bottle of Cristal is on me.”
He sits on the leather chair adjacent to me, the one the guy sitting next to Tristan occupied before. We listen to the comedian who’s taken the stage now, and laugh at his jokes until the waitress brings us the second bottle of champagne. We’re almost done with the bottle when one of Princess Danai’s people walks over to us. “You’re on in fifteen,” he says.
Princess Danai pours our last glasses of champagne. As she does so, a rather imposing figure appears in our line of sight. Fuck! It’s Tristan White. I didn’t make it out of here before Byron showed up, but I thought I would at least get out of here before Tristan returned.
“Ms. Beale, fancy seeing you here,” he says, his tongue caressing my surname in a succinct purr, like a lion. His smooth baritone does weird things to my nether regions. My Fairy Hoochie Mama jumps up off her chaise and does an African dance, shaking everything her mama gave her.
“Yeah, fancy that,” I say, flippantly like Maggie Gyllenhaal said to Christian Bale in The Dark Knight. The Cristal has emboldened me, but it’s not as if I need it. I’m always in rare form. Byron reaches across the table and palms the glasses of champagne and hands them around to us. I take mine absently, because Tristan’s eyes and mine have locked, and he doesn’t look away until Byron hands him a glass, too.
Tristan folds his frame into the leather chair next to Byron, dwarfing him, facing us. He even looks like a big, predatory cat about to pounce on its prey. “I’d like to have a word with you in private after you finish your drink,” he says. “I still have something that belongs to you; however, our attempts to connect with you to effect its return have been ignored.”
I take a huge gulp of champagne, my mouth having gone dry. I giggle nervously. “I worked an early shift at the store, and had to receive a shipment of fixtures at KSR. You didn’t have to go to the trouble. I’ve replaced all my personal property that matters.” Princess Danai and Byron look from him to me as if they’re watching a cage fight, or tennis match, I can’t decide which.
“I didn’t go to any trouble. I can’t say that Darryl wasn’t frustrated a time or two. Apparently you’ve been indisposed each time he tried to contact you.”
“I’m a working girl,” I say, then rephrase, “I mean, a business woman. I’m usually busy.” I didn’t want to give him any ideas about jumping my bones anymore, although truth be told, I’d knock boots with him something fierce if given half the chance.
“I can see that,” he says with a sardonic expression.
I narrow my eyes at him and take another sip. He even makes champagne taste different when he’s around. My Triple-G does a little two finger point to her eyes and his, as if to say, I’m watching you, Mister.
Princess Danai leans in to me and whispers in my ear, “Girl, your pheromones must be doing triple-time, you got two cocks and this banty hen all after your ass tonight. You sure you don’t want to do business with a venture capitalist like Tristan, and we kick it for real?”
I don’t know what comes over me, but I smile and kiss her cheek. “You’re too sweet, Darnelle, but I’d rather just do business with you. Tristan scares me.”
She looks at me with a mixture of lust and commiseration. “His growl is worse than his bite.”
Darryl, whom I didn’t know was in the club comes over to deliver a message to Tristan, who stands, and points menacingly at me. “Stay here until I get back. Don’t make me have to search for you again.”
Damn, he’s bossy. But I sit my happy ass right where I am.
“You gon’ let him talk to you like that, Keisha,” Byron says when Tristan is out of earshot. I can’t help it, but I watch Tristan’s every move as he walks over to the bar to talk to the other guy who was with him and Princess Danai earlier. Darryl stands a few feet away from them like the good little assistant he is.
I give Byron my best side-eye, and toss as much vitriol into it as I can. “He has something that belongs to me, and I intend to stay here until I get it.” I am confused when I say this with a slight slur. I stand, and my head is so fuzzy, I sit right back down, and rest my head on the backrest of the loveseat. Darnelle’s face looms in front of mine.
“You, a’ight, Keee—shuh?” Her voice goes from tenor to bass in two syllables. I grin goofily at her.
“It’s all g-good,” I say, and my voice sounds like one of the Chipmunks. My Triple-G stands with her arms folded, tapping a foot on a miniature white tile floor in time with the buzzing of her tiny white wings, and shaking her head.
Byron’s face hovers over me next, and I laugh at him like a hyena. He puts his lips next to my ear and says. “We’ll see who’s gon’ be laughing when I get your ass home.” I bat his hands away, but when I look into his face he’s smiling at me as he used to when we first started going together.
He didn’t say that. Did he? I must be hallucinating. I smile back, and try to fold my arms, but they won’t work right. My head spins like Leonardo DiCaprio’s totem in the movie Inception, and nobody truly knows if that damn thing ever stopped spinning.
“She’s trashed,” Princess Danai says. “My hotel is right down the street, I’ll get one of my people to take her there, so she can sleep it off.”
“No!” Byron snaps. “I’ll take her to her mama’s house. I know where she lives.”
Byron takes both my hands and pulls me up off the sofa. I don’t want to, but I fall up against him, and then try to steady myself again.
“Come on, Keke.” He uses my nickname as he did when things were good between us.
“No,” I whine and plop back down on the sofa. Princess Danai supports me, so I won’t slide off the leather onto the floor. The situation has gone to majorly concerning. I fumble for my cell phone, but I can’t get the snap undone on my clutch. Javier, Jr., my brother lives just north of downtown, and I’m hoping he’ll feel like doing the designated driver thing for me.
Byron doesn’t give up, he takes one of my hands, holds my waist to steady me, and then slings me over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.
“No-o, By-ron,” I say in slow motion. “Put me down.”
“I’m just gon’ take you home now,” he says as he grabs my clutch from Princess Danai and turns to leave with me. He’s already breathing hard before we get to the door.
“By-ron. I don’t wanna go with you.”
“Aw, fuck!” Byron swears and stops.
“I think the lady has made her position clear,” an angry baritone says in a hard, even tone. I contort my head to peek around Byron. Tristan stands in front of the door. He looks mad as hell.
Byron lowers me off his shoulder, and lets me go. I stumble headfirst into Tristan’s junk, but he doesn’t even grunt, and I know I have a fucking hard head. He just grabs my arms, hoists me up against him, takes his thumb and forefinger, and pries open one of my eyes.
“What did you give her?” Tristan growls.
“I ain’t give her shit,” Byron says, holding his hands up as if in surrender. “Talk to that damn dyke. That’s who she was drinking with before I even got here.” By this time, Princess Danai has come over and overhears the end of Byron’s disparaging remarks.