Can't Get Enough of Your Love (17 page)

“I like it.”

“You'd like to make milk chocolate babies with me?”

“I would love to make milk chocolate babies with you.”

I stick my tongue out at Izzie. “Well, that's all I wanted to know. See you soon.”

“Can we talk later tonight about our little show?”

I think my stuff could handle a little phone sex. “Sure.” I lick my lower lip and smile at Izzie. “And maybe one or more of those people watching us will join us this time.”

“Oh … boy,” Roger says. “Are they, um, women or men?”

“I'll tell you later. Bye now.”

I click off my cell.

Izzie's face looks flushed. “My my,” she says.

“It's getting hot in here, huh?”

She nods. “You've just added a few more fantasies to my brain.”

I nod. “Glad I could help you.”

“Whoo.”

“Roger would marry me in a heartbeat.” A tiny little lie. “He says he would love to make milk chocolate babies with me.” Who would have flaming red hair. Hmm. I guess we can dye their hair. Maybe their hair will come out orange. Brown clown children?

“Are you going to call Karl now?” Izzie asks.

“I already know Karl's answer. He'll say I'm trippin'. I already asked him this morning if he wanted to move in, and he said no.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Sounds like there's trouble in paradise.”

“There isn't.”

“Sounds like two of your three men don't want you all that much.”

True, but… “You're just jealous, Izzie, and I bet if I talked to Juan Carlos and Karl one-on-one, I could convince them of anything.”

“Do you want to bet?”

Geez! The humoring continues. “Sure, Izzie. What's the bet?”

“I bet … that if you were
pregnant
…”

“What?”

“Come on, girl, you've had three men in a matter of, what, a week or two? It could happen. You could be with child at this very moment.”

I sit up. “We use a condom every time.”

“So one of the condoms breaks. I hear it happens all the time.”

Oh God, I hope not. “You want me to tell each of them that I may be pregnant?”

“Right.”

“I can't lie to them about something like that.”

“You lie about everything else.”

True.

“And it's not really lying to tell them you're late. Just tell them you're late and see how they react. If all three of them react positively, you win the bet … and I'll bring you Sunday lunch for the rest of the year.”

“Can you bring something other than chicken sometimes?”

“Yes.” She smiles. “And if even just
one
of them reacts negatively, you have to give me Karl's pager number.”

The hoochie! “No!”

“It sounds to me as if you aren't sure of your men.”

“I am, it's just … You want Karl's pager number?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I like what I saw.”

And she hasn't seen Juan Carlos or Roger. She might like Juan Carlos, but Roger … a definite no. “And all you want is a pager number?”

“That's all I'll need.”

She's too sure of herself. But am I sure enough about my men? I can't show any fear in front of Izzie. “It's a bet.” I remove the bags of ice, now turned to cold water. “You really want Karl?”

“He would be the only one I'd want.”

At least Juan Carlos is safe now. “Karl is hard to pin down.”

“That's okay, as long as he's down with me.”

I laugh. Izzie doesn't normally sling the slang. “He'shard
to find, Izzie. Do you want a man who shows up out of the blue, knocks your boots, and leaves?”

“Yes.”

I sigh. “It's no picnic having a man with little conception of the time or the calendar.”

“So we'll be spontaneous.”

Izzie and Karl? Church and Street? Gospel and Hip-Hop? The Lady and the Warrior? The Woman Who Loves God and the African God? “Why not Juan Carlos?”

“He's too much of a mama's boy.”

Too true. “What about Roger?” I ask just to ask. I already know her answer.

She snorts the kind of laugh that makes her look ugly. “Never.”

I shake my head, my blood pressure rising. “You know what, Izzie? We don't have to have a bet.”

“Are you afraid you'll lose?”

“No. In fact, I'm going to give you Karl's pager number right now.”

Izzie blinks. “Right now?”

“You know a better time? Get some paper.”

She rushes out and comes back with a black book. “It's my address book.”

I'll bet it's empty. I give her the number. “He may not ever call you back, and if he does, I promise that he won't give you the time of day.”

“He will. I'm psychic, remember?”

“Right.”

She whips out her cell phone.

“What are you doing?”

“Paging your man.”

I watch her punch in some numbers, wait a few seconds, and hang up.

“He won't—”

Her phone rings.

The son of a bitch!

“Hello?” She winks at me. “Hi, Karl. I'm a friend of Lana's.”

The bitch! Throwing my name in it like that will help!

“Yes, I understand that you have some Coach bags for sale.”

Ho! Tramp! Pavement princess!

“Yes, I would love to see them tonight. Your place or mine?”

I cannot believe—

“Your place?” She raises her eyebrows. “Wonderful.” She writes down his address. “I'll see you then. Bye.” She presses the
END
button on her phone with sculpted nails I'll never have.

“You … witch!” I shout.

She starts for the door. “I have to go now. I hope you don't mind. I have to get ready for my date.”

“And you're meeting him—”

“Yes, at his place. He gave me the address.”

The … snake! The dog!

“And you thought he wouldn't give me the time of day, Lana. How sad you must feel.”

As she walks out of my room, I yell, “It's all about business to him. You ain't nothing but a customer.”

“I may surprise you, Lana,” she calls out. “After all, I've learned from the best, right? See you next Sunday.”

“Don't bother.”

She returns to my room. “Well, I have to visit you, and this time,
I
will have a story to tell
you
.”

“Izzie, you're not going to tell him about the other two, are you?”

“If I have to.”

Oh damn. “You wouldn't.”

She shakes her head. “Lana, I won't have to resort to something as low as that to get his interest. Besides, I am your best friend, right? Just consider this another test.”

After the front door closes, I start to worry. What have I just done? I've declared open season on one of my men! Karl won't … will he? Didn't I just give him some good lovin'? Won't he be too tired?

Wait.

Karl has amazing powers of recuperation. “Gimme fifteen minutes, and I'll be ready,” he tells me.

Shit.

I call Izzie's cell phone. “Izzie,” I say before she can respond, “I don't want you to—”

“You don't trust Karl? My my, I thought you had everything handled.”

“I do, but …”

“Bye, Lana.”

“You ain't nothin' but a—”

Click
.

“Pavement princess,” I say to Jenny's yellow walls.

I sit and stew for a bit. She wouldn't. She's a church girl, a member of polite society, a high school guidance counselor, and Karl's, well, Karl, tattooed, streetwise, roughneck Karl. That would never work … would it? But she's so beautiful, and he's a man, and—

I call Karl's pager. I need to warn him about Crazy Izzie, the man-eating, Christian perv. I need to remind him of where he was this morning, whom he was with,
what he did, how well he did it, how often he did it, and where he can get some more.

My cell phone isn't ringing.

I page him again. He calls a new number
immediately
, but he can't call me! He calls an unknown number before a known number! I need to tell him that he can store his fake shit here. I need to tell him he can visit as often as he wants and that I won't bring up the M-word ever.

My cell phone isn't ringing.

“C'mon, Karl, call me back!”

I page him off and on for the rest of the day and into the evening.

My cell phone doesn't ring once before I fall asleep.

I hate Karl.

But I hate Izzie more.

K
arl finally calls back after midnight.

“What?” I say with attitude.

“Got your page, girl. What's up?”

I have been practicing what to say all day, and I can't get “I want you to spend the night with me” from my brain to my mouth. “I paged you all day, man. Why didn't you call back?”

“I been busy, you know, doing my thing.”

“Or doing someone.”

A pause. “You know I'm not like that, girl.”

“Then why didn't you call me back immediately?”

“We just saw each other, Peanut.”

Now what the hell kind of answer is that? “What if I needed you, Karl?”

“Did you need me?”

Not really. His going away made my booty like me again. “Of course I did, Karl. I ran out of Motrin, and I needed you to get me some more.”

“You did?”

No. I'm trying to make you feel guilty, fool. “Yeah. Didn't you notice how swollen my ankle was?”

“I just figured, you know, it must have been all right. It didn't seem to bother you when we were getting busy.”

Those were screams of pain, not pleasure! “Look, if I page you, it means I have something important to tell you, all right?”

“All right, all right.”

“So call me back immediately next time, all right?”

“I said all right.”

Time to check on Izzie. “So, did you see my friend Izzie tonight?”

“Who?”

I roll my eyes. “Isabel.”

“Oh, yeah. She came over and bought some bags. Thanks for sending her my way.”

I don't say, “You're welcome.”

“I didn't know you had friends like her.”

What's that supposed to mean? Pretty friends? Shit. “Did you charge her full price?”

“Sure did, but she didn't have enough cash on her, so she's out at an ATM getting some more.”

Sure. She just conveniently didn't have enough money. But if she's out, then he's not
in
her. That's good. Time to ruin Izzie. “Look, Karl, Izzie's not the person you think she is.”

“Huh?”

“She's, well, how do I say this? She's not quite all there, you know?”

“How do you mean?”

“Well …” I need to lay it on thick. “I mean, she's sort of attractive, right?”

“Yeah.”

Damn. He was supposed to disagree and say she wasn't his type or something. “Well, would you believe
that she's really pushing fifty and has four grandchildren?”

“No shit?”

“No shit, and all five of her kids have different daddies, so watch out. She has been known to use sex instead of cash to buy things.”

Some silence. “And she's a friend of yours?”

Hmm. This is starting to look bad for me. “Well, she visits me every Sunday to witness to me.” Sort of true.

“She's all that
and
she's a church lady?”

“Hard to believe, but it's true.”

“But she can't possibly be pushing fifty, Peanut. How you know that?”

Oh shit. He has
really
been checking her out. “Um, I didn't believe it either when she first told me.” That ought to be enough. I mean, if she said it to me, he has to believe it.

“Well, she sure likes Coach bags. If she buys all the ones she's picked out, I may have to go back to New York soon.”

Nuh-uh! So
that's
her plan. She figures that if she buys him out … “You just make sure she pays you in cash, understand?”

“Oh, I will.”

I hear a knocking in the background. “Is that her?”

“Yeah.”

“Call me back after she's gone.”

“All right.”
Click
.

And then, I wait.

And wait.

My phone rings after two. It's Roger.

“How are you feeling?” he asks.

Pissed. “Okay.”

“I, uh, I hope I didn't wake you.”

“I'm having trouble sleeping,” I say.

“Me, too. I keep thinking about what you said.”

Oh yeah. I'm supposed to be having phone sex with Roger. “Uh, me, too.”

“Would you
really
let our spectators join us?”

I sigh. “No. You're all I need, Roger.” Oh God, another damn lie. “Though it might be … interesting to let one or more of them inside, you know, let them get closer to us.” And it might be. Shit. They might just stand there and watch, or raid Roger's refrigerator, I don't know.

“What if they …” His voice trails off.

“What if they do what?”

He sighs. “What if she—or he—”

“Or them,” I interrupt.

“Yeah. What if they try to, you know, get between us?”

Whoo, I'm warming up. “Are you inside me?”

“Yes,” he whispers.

“And are you grabbing my ass tightly?”

“Yes.”

“Then there's no way anyone can get between us—” I hear a beep. “I have a call on my other line. Can you hold?”

“Damn,” Roger says. “Just when it was getting good! Sure, I'll hold.”

“Hold it tight,” I say, and click over to Karl.

“Hey, Peanut,” he says.

“Don't you ‘hey, Peanut' me. It doesn't take two hours to complete a sale.”