Thirty-Five
Just as I reached the entrance of my apartment building, Kendrick pulled up to the curb and honked the horn. I turned to meet the glowing smile of the man I loved, and all the dark thoughts of Chevy that had clouded my mind all day disappeared.
“Well, hello,” I said, pleasantly surprised.
“Hey, baby,” Kendrick answered as he leaned over and opened the passenger door. “How about dinner?” he added.
As tired as I was, I should have taken my ass upstairs and straight to bed, but knowing our busy schedules and the lack of time we seemed to have for each other lately, I jumped at the opportunity. And besides, I needed to talk to someone other than Geneva about what was going on with Chevy and Noah.
“Sure,” I said as I hopped into the car and threw my Gucci handbag into the backseat.
We ended up at Eugene’s, a favorite restaurant and lounge in Chelsea, which we both loved. My mouth was already watering for the goose pâté.
The intimate setting and warm lighting always seemed to put me at ease, and as the waiter pulled my chair out for me I could already feel the tension of the day slipping away.
“A bottle of Veuve Clicqnot ’95,” Kendrick said as he unfolded his cloth napkin.
“Ooooh, are we celebrating something?” I asked as I perused the menu.
“Well, maybe, if you say yes.” He grinned and folded his hands beneath his chin.
“Yes”?
Oh my God, was he going to pop the question? Our conversations never turned to marriage, even though I mused every chance I could on how it would be. What kind of wedding would I have, and where?
The Caribbean, definitely the Caribbean. On a private white sandy beach, with a steel band playing “Here Comes the Bride.”
My heart fluttered in my chest, and I could barely look him straight in the eye when I asked, “Well, let’s see—what’s the question?”
“I’ve been thinking, baby,” Kendrick began as he reached over and took my hand in his. I could hardly breathe and was so nervous that spots of perspiration were seeping through my blouse.
“Yes?” I croaked.
“That we should take the next step.” He said it so seriously, I felt my head spin. Already my eyes were filling with water and I squeezed his hand in mine.
“Oh, Kendrick,” I moaned. “Yes . . . I—I’m ready,” I said in a quivering voice.
“Good.” Kendrick smiled. “I’ve started the renovations on my apartment, and I thought I would be able to deal with the dust and noise, but it’s really aggravating my sinus condition.”
Okay, I thought. Okay. Where’s the ring? Why isn’t he on his knee? Well, I really don’t necessarily need him to be on his knee. But where’s the ring, and why the hell is he talking about renovations and sinuses?
“So I figured this would be a good time for me to move in with you. Kind of see if we can live together first before doing anything we might both regret.”
What?
My smile slowly faded and the tears of joy that were brimming in my eyes quickly turned to those of disappointment.
“Live together”? “Regret”?
“I—I don’t understand,” I said stupidly as I slowly retrieved my hand.
“Oh, sure, I could stay in a hotel,” he continued as if my face wasn’t cracked and lying in pieces on my bread plate, “even rent another apartment. But this is the perfect opportunity to see if we’re really a match made in heaven.” He winked.
I was speechless.
“So what do you think, darling?” he said as the waiter stood over us and eased the cork from the bottle.
I thought I was worth more to you than that. I thought shacking up was for people in their early twenties who were too young to commit to any one person. What I thought was This is some bullshit!
But “Of course” is what I said as the waiter filled my glass flute with the bubbling champagne.
Thirty-Six
Oh?” is all I could think to say when Crystal called me that night and shared Kendrick’s indecent proposal.
I was stretched across the couch, Ben and Jerry’s in one hand, a plate of chicken wings resting on my belly, and a half-finished glass of cherry Kool-Aid on the floor beside me.
I had my Tae Bo tape in the VCR—muted, of course—as I watched Billy Blanks kick and punch his way to good health.
“Well, maybe this is a good thing,” I said. “It’s important to get used to each other before taking the next step.”
“Maybe,” Crystal said in a faraway voice.
“When is he moving in?”
“This Saturday.”
“Oh,” I said as I removed the plate from my stomach and pulled myself up and into a sitting position. “So have you heard from Chevy yet?”
“No, still no word. I thought we’d try to get over there on Friday.”
“You’ll have the address this time, won’t you?” I said, using my Ben-and-Jerry’s-carton-free hand to imitate Bobby and punch at the air.
“Yes, ma’am,” Crystal snapped, and then, “Lemme go—I gotta go take a run and clear my mind.”
“Yeah, okay. I’m going to get up and do some Tae Bo.”
“Really? That’s great, Geneva.”
“Uh-huh, bye.”
“Bye.”
I punched the air a few more times and then lay back down and finished my Rocky Road.
Thirty-Seven
I looked like a bum. A vagabond. A freaking homeless person! My process was long overdue to be reprocessed: I had naps the size of tumbleweeds growing beneath my waves. And I had a fiveo’clock shadow that was five days’ thick.
I’d been locked up in the house for days now.
Chevy and I had bumped into each other a handful of times, but I didn’t bother to ask what was going on with her and she did the same for me.
But something was happening, because she’d been quiet. So quiet I hardly even knew when she was there, and that’s not like Chevy. She’s so loud and flamboyant, if she weren’t a black heterosexual female I would swear she was a flamer!
Whatever.
I had my own problems, and to top it off, Zhan was flying in on Labor Day. I told him that I had the flu and that I thought it would be best if he’d hold off on coming, but that only made him change his flight in order to get to me sooner.
I was spending all of my time on the Internet, in search of some type of support group that could help me with this problem of mine, and I’d finally found one.
Homosexuals with Heterosexual Tendencies. HHT.
They’re a small group that meets twice a week on the Upper West Side. I’d called and spoken to someone named Bob. Not his real name: “We believe in anonymity here at HHT,” Bob had said in a calm and even voice. “What name would you like to go by, friend?”
I racked my brain for a few seconds. “Um, um . . . Wayne?”
“Wayne it is, then,” Bob said. “We have group sessions—they usually last for two hours and the cost is one hundred and seventy five dollars per session.”
“Wh-what?” I stammered, thinking about the hit my bank account was going to take.
“Yes, well, while you may think the cost of these sessions is high, especially because you’re sharing your time with others, I want you to reflect on the benefits involved.” Bob took a breath and then sipped something from a cup. In my mind I’d already put together a visual of him. White, thin, neat. Pinky finger at attention as he sipped.
“We have members who have conquered their heterosexual issues, and they can impart knowledge on newcomers that can make a newcomer’s road to recovery an easier journey.”
“Well, if they’re recovered, why are they still plunking down one hundred and seventy-five dollars a session?”
“Well,” Bob began, and then stopped to sip. “Just like alcoholics, gamblers, and other addictive peoples, you have to continuously work the program to remain well.”
“Uh-huh,” I moaned.
I was so desperate
that I would have paid five hundred dollars a session. I jotted down the address and told Bob that I would be at the next meeting, which was Friday night.
My only worry was what would happen to me between Brooklyn and the Upper West Side.
Thirty-Eight
Crystal Kept calling, but I continued to ignore her. Right now my focus was on this room, packed tight with pretty shopping bags from boutiques from all over the city.
I looked at the clock and it said it was just past ten in the morning. I was nowhere near getting up, but a horrible nightmare nearly made me jump out of my skin. I was at LAX, waiting for my Louis Vuitton overnight bag to come around the carousel, when a young girl came up to me and tugged on my hand. “I’m lost,” she said. “Can you help me find my mother?”
Now, I don’t usually do children. Don’t really like them too tough. But I took her little hand and started walking around the airport in search of her mother.
But as I was walking, I felt like I had to shit. I told her that we needed to stop at the bathroom. We went in and I placed her by the sink, telling her to stay right there while I went into the stall to do my business.
Once inside, I squeezed out the condoms filled with drugs. No shit at all, just the drug-filled condoms. So many of them came out of me that I could no longer see the bottom of the toilet bowl, or the water.
As I gathered the condoms out of the toilet and piled them into my purse, I yelled out to the girl that I was finished and would be right out. When I finally opened the stall door, the little girl was still standing there, but she had a snarling German shepherd at her side and a DEA badge hanging from a chain around her neck!
What a nightmare, I thought as I turned over and onto my side.
It won’t happen that way, I told myself as I tried in my mind to put together an outfit for dinner that night.
I had to tell them tonight if I was going to do it. And I guess I either had to do it or leave town, because I didn’t have a dime left of the good faith money Abimbola had given me.
I told myself that federal time is much easier to do. The cells are cleaner; you get more yard time than state criminals. And if I got caught it’d be my first offense, so how many years could I really get?
I was starting not to feel so bad about what I was going to do, and then I thought, What will become of my wardrobe? My shoes, boots, and coats? Can I bring them to jail, or would I have to put them in storage while I was locked up?
“Stop it, Chevy,” I hissed to myself. “You don’t have to worry about those things, because you’re not going to get caught!”
My eyes began to grow heavy with sleep again, and just when I felt myself slipping back into dreamland, Noah clicked his television on and I was bombarded with the heavy breathing and groaning sounds of male-on-male sex!
My eyelids flew open.
The fucking I could handle—it’s that goddamn background music that was going to drive me crazy!
I got up and began banging on the wall that separated our rooms and screamed, “Noah, Noah! Not all of us are sex addicts and need to hear that shit fifteen hours out of the day!”
The volume on the television went up a notch.
“Get some help!” I screamed in rebuttal before I leapt back into bed and pulled the pillow over my face.
Thirty-Nine
Well, hello, Brooklyn—didn’t think I’d be seeing your country ass so soon,” I said as Crystal and I made our way down Fulton Street for the second time in two weeks.
Crystal turned around and threw me a pained look. “Brooklyn is nice. Stop putting her down.”
“I just called her country, is all,” I said in my best Georgia drawl.
Crystal laughed. “Brooklyn is just as cosmopolitan as Manhattan.”
“Hush your mouth!” I said and swatted her on the shoulder. “How dare you insult Manhattan in that way. If that gets back to her, she might not let us back in.”
We walked along, Crystal always three steps ahead of me. Even though I had my sneakers on and she was in pumps, I still couldn’t keep up. Well, maybe I could have if I’d put out my cigarette and stopped topping off my fried dinners with ice cream.
We stood staring up at Noah’s brownstone. It looked almost unlived in. The sidewalk outside the house was littered with debris, and the potted petunias on the stoop and down the steps were all dried up and dead.
Looking at the windows, we saw that all the shutters were closed.
Crystal and I exchanged looks and then climbed the stone steps.
We rang the bell, knocked on the door, and tapped on the parlorfloor window, and still nobody came.
I gave Crystal my “See what I mean?” look, flopped my big ass down on the top step, and lit a cigarette.
“What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m smoking a cigarette,” I said and took a long puff.
After a while, Crystal came and sat down beside me.
“Some people just don’t want to be helped,” I said as I tilted my head back and cocked off three smoky circles.
“I guess,” she said, deflated.
“I ain’t coming back here again,” I said matter-of-factly. “You’re on your own next time.”
Crystal just smirked at me.
“C’mon,” I said and hoisted my body up. “Let’s go home.”
Crystal gave the brownstone one last sorrowful look before we descended the steps and started up the street.
Forty
Dinner at Chez Annie’s, a French restaurant on the Lower East Side. Just Abimbola and me. Thank God—that Cassius woman gives me the creeps.
“You look beautiful, Chevanese,” Abimbola whispered in my ear as he pulled my chair out for me.
“Thank you.”
And I did look beautiful. After Noah ran me out of my bed with his porn videos, I decided to use the last bit of the money to get a wash and set, as well as a manicure. I wanted a salt scrub but was down to twenty dollars, and not even Brooklyn spas were that cheap.
“So have you thought about my offer?” he said as he unfolded his linen napkin and spread it across his lap.
“Yes, I have,” I said.
“And?” He leaned forward expectantly.
“And . . . I’ll do it,” I said.
His face lit up and he clapped his hands together. “Waiter, a bottle of your best Merlot, please!” he boomed across the small dining establishment.
I made a face at the mention of Merlot. Red wine is not a favorite of mine.
“But,” I interjected, bringing his joy to a halt, “I’ll need to have double the money you promised.”
I’d had a coming-to-Jesus session with myself after that nightmare, and if I was going to put my life in jeopardy, I was going to have to get more than a measly three thousand dollars.
Abimbola leaned back into his chair and folded his hands across his chest. Those bulging eyes of his studied me for a while, and then he unfolded his arms, leaned forward again, and brought his hands down onto the table. “You are a shrewd businesswoman, Chevanese,” he said with a wry smile.
I nodded my head, quite proud of my business savvy.
“I will pay you another three thousand upon delivery. But,” he said, holding one long index finger up, “you will get forty bags of Hades instead of twenty.”
I didn’t expect a “but.” I stared down at the blue linen tablecloth as I considered his offer. What was the harm of swallowing twenty more bags?
“Deal,” I said.
“Deal,” he repeated and stuck his hand out for me to shake.
Forty-One
I expected so much more. I mean, moving men and boxes everywhere, and my trying to find space for his stuff. But there was none of that. Just Kendrick and a few suitcases filled with clothing and shoes.
“Where are all of your things?” I said when Kendrick walked in dragging two large Louis Vuitton suitcases.
I was more than prepared to spend the day unpacking and reorganizing
my space. I mean, I had picked out an outfit and everything—an old blue sweatsuit complete with a blue and white kerchief for my head.
Now, as I stood there holding the door with one hand, the other came up and pulled the scarf off my head.
“Right here,” he said, and then, “and three more down in my car.”
“That’s all? Just clothes?”
Yeah, I’d made space in my walk-in closet and in my bureau, but I’d also shifted my couch around to accommodate his favorite reading chair and had even cleared out one of the cabinets in the kitchen so he could store the Asian-inspired black ceramic plates he was so fond of.
“Yeah—what else was I supposed to bring, my leather sectional?” He laughed as he dragged his suitcases across my hardwood floors, leaving long, scraggly seams in the thick layer of polyurethane.
I cringed, bit back a nasty comment, and then made a mental note to call Joe, my floor guy, and book a date for him to come and buff the scratches out.
Following Kendrick into the bedroom, I said, “Well, no, not the sectional, but I was expecting . . .”
I really didn’t know what I was expecting, but certainly more than what he’d come with.
“Baby,” he said, “this is just a temporary situation. All of my belongings are in storage.” He came and put his hands on my shoulders. “You have a big space here, yeah. But not enough to handle all of my stuff, and would it even make sense? I mean, once my apartment is finished I would be moving right back in.”
I had assumed that this was the beginning of the rest of our lives together and that he would have at least brought a damn lamp or some silverware.
I had imagined that once the apartment was finished that he would have grown so used to being with me, loving me, that we would start making wedding plans and he’d put the apartment on the market.
But I now saw that those were just my silly fantasies.
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