Liar's Game (2 page)

NEW YORK 10014.

 

I was making love to En Vogue.

Not the group, but one majestic woman in a royal blue negligee. She had Cindy’s intelligent smile, Maxine’s sexy disposition, Terri’s womanly grace. Her negligee slipped off her shoulders, slid down across her breasts. Inside her moan, she sang my name. Inched me toward her warm soul.

Dana hummed with the feeling. “You love me, Vince?”

Okay, I was about to tell you my name, but I guess Dana beat me to the punch. Vincent Calvary Browne Jr. And the woman I was holding, the one who had my face flushed, toes curling while I sang her name, the angel who was squirming ever so slowly in pleasure, that was my woman. The one I wanted to have forever. The last one I ever wanted to make love to.

I’m almost thirty and don’t have a lot of family. Not now anyway. Not since my divorce. Not since Moms and Pops died. Moms had colon cancer and it spread up. That was when I was nineteen. Pops had it in his throat and it spread down. That was right after I made sixteen. Moms didn’t have me until she was almost forty; Pops was in his fifties. So I guess I came from an old egg and some old sperm. That’s why people always tell me I have an old soul. People have always said that I acted and sounded ten years older than I was. A baritone voice makes anybody sound older. But I’ve always felt ten years younger. Mistakes make a man feel like that. Hard living and bad loving ages a man.

Divorce ranks right up there with death, so I’ve lost more in a few years than most men lose in a lifetime. The biggest loss was when my ex-wife had an affair, divorced me, then vanished with my little girl.

I met Dana a few months back, up at the Townhouse. That’s a soul food restaurant that doubles as party central up in Ladera, a black middle-class part of Los Angeles not too far from LAX. That night Jaguars, Rolls-Royces, and Benzes were corralled at the east end of the strip mall, dark-haired Mexicans doing the valet parking. The club had a live band up front, playing sassy, Marlena Shaw-style jazz. An unknown all-girl hip-hop group, Dangerous Lyrics, was supposed to hit the small stage in the back room a little later.

In the meantime, a D.J. was keeping the flow going in the rear. A few sisters were under thirty, maybe under twenty-five, most showing as much flesh as legal. And a few were the victims of gravity and time: old babes in young dresses. This was where the generation gap collided over jazz and drinks. A few brothers had some age on them too; older-than-dirt players who were strutting around, Poli-Grip on their breath, acting like they knew they were still the shit. If this was a meat market, some of this beef needed an expiration date.

It was easy to make eye contact with the lonely and broken-hearted. I know because I was one of them. Hell, I was both of them. Right before Dana drifted into the room, I was kinda leery about trying to start a conversation, because I’d just gotten a rejection slip from one sister.

Earlier that night I’d met this long-legged creature with stilettos and a slinky dress. She’d come to me while I lingered at the bar in the back room. Said she worked at UPS, been there ten years. Her Bugs Bunny overbite said that she hadn’t taken advantage of her dental plan, but the more I drank, the less that was a problem for me. She was perky and had personality. Stood out from the women who were clinging to dirty old men twice their daddy’s ages. She made at least twenty duckets an hour, bragged about her 500-series BMW, even showed me a Polaroid of her new ride, but was crying broke because of the twelve-dollar cover charge.

We danced on the itty-bitty wooden floor, grooved to Blackstreet and Mary J. Blige, then hung out close to the fireplace and had a damn good time for the left side of thirty minutes. Bought her two glasses of wine while we laughed about this and that. Her eyes were all over my dark suit and off-white linen shirt, flirting strong, and my mack was on target, more persuasive than Johnny Cochran’s closing argument.

Then she asked me, “So, brotherman, are you married?”

I told her, “Divorced. You?”

“Single.” All of her youthful features started to sag, like air being let out of a balloon. “So, you have kids?”

I sipped my chardonnay. “A daughter. I have a daughter.”

Midnight-colored clouds came from nowhere and darkened her brown eyes. Her shoulders slumped and she let out a sigh. Real quick, she gulped down the last of her wine, lost the pep in her voice, said, “Well, it was nice to meet you, Reggie.”

I said, “Vince. My name is Vincent Browne.”

“My head is hurting. I’m going home.”

I asked, “Well, can I get your number?”

“Ahhhh . . . give me yours.”

I did. My eyes were on the back of her head as she headed up the hallway, passed by the pictures of Billie Holiday and Malcolm X, kept moving by the exit sign, made a right, and vanished. Minutes later she was up front at the octagonal-shaped bar, on a new yellow brick road, jazzing it up, in another man’s wallet, a brother older than Grady from
Sanford and Son
.

That wasn’t the first time I’d gone through rejection. It wasn’t always about the marriage thing; sometimes it was about income, even went on a date with a sister and she saw I wasn’t rolling around in a new hoopty, the kind of ride she wanted to be seen cruising Pacific Coast Highway in. Nope, rejection ain’t nothing new and doesn’t discriminate geographically. It’s happened at First Fridays. At the L.A. Social Club on First Saturdays. At the Los Angeles County Museum during a cultured happy hour. Happened at church on communion Sunday. On-line in AOL, sisters were either looking for an Adonis or a brother with a mega bankroll. Always looking for love in all the wrong faces.

So that’s where my head was at: frustrated and pissed off.

I’d wasted an hour of my life, and because of the cover charge and the drinks my pockets were thirty dollars thinner. I was about to say three tears in a bucket and give it up; going to a club searching for a quality woman was like going to Target and hunting for Saks Fifth Avenue merchandise—ain’t gonna happen.

Then I made eye contact with Dana. Rapturous midnight skin in a golden business suit. White pearls. Hair in thin, spaghetti-style braids, the kind that were loose on the ends and could be curled or put in pretty much any style. Classic, conservative, fashionable, and feminine. A womanly shape that should be engraved in stone from the heart of the motherland. A few brothers with their momma’s breast milk still on their breath put down their cellular phones, craned their necks, and peeped. A number of the rusty players with Geritol dripping out of the corners of their mouths rubbed their receding hair-lines and checked her out, head to toe.

She eased into the room, her tight eyes my way.

She smiled.

I smiled.

A smile is the shortest distance between two people. The musician Victor Borge said that. One-thousand-one, one-thousand-two—I counted how long she held my gaze. By one-thousand-five, Dana’s superior gravitational pull had me bumping through the crowd, heading her way, adrenaline rushing.

By the time I made it to her zone, she stopped dancing in place. Her arms folded across her breasts. She shifted like she didn’t want to be bothered. I would’ve let it go, but her eyes. Tight light brown eyes that hypnotized me. Her eyes, her build, the physical package was there. I couldn’t walk away, not without a try.

I gave her another easygoing smile. Introduced myself. Dana Smith did the same. We shook hands. Her hands were soft, fingers thin, but she had a good grip. Very business, very questioning, that signal established a thick line. As far as I could tell, she’d come in alone.

Before I got cozy she said, “I’m meeting somebody up here.”

East Coast. I recognized that metropolitan accent, flair, picked up on the bright lights, big city tone in her words. That with her straight back and straightforward posture, her urbane style, made her so different from the rest. Made her mysterious, exotic, and fascinating in my eyes.

She wasn’t a born and raised L.A. woman. I didn’t know if that was good or bad. Based on my track record with West Coast women, it had to be good.

I said, “Place is pretty crowded. You see ’im?”

“Not a he, a she. Geraldine”—she caught herself—“I mean Gerri Greene. We work in the same real estate office.”

Nervousness ran through my blood, a fresh heat dried my throat. Her buddy’s name sounded too damn familiar. I wondered if her friend knew my ex-wife, or me, for that matter.

I asked, “She married?”

“Divorced.” Dana checked her watch. “She should’ve come by now. I should page her before she gets here and wastes twelve bucks.”

“Uh-oh. What’s wrong?”

Dana looked at the clientele, frowned. “No curb appeal.”

“Curb appeal?”

“Don’t look good from the outside. Real estate talk.”

“Gotcha.”

“Somebody call George Lucas, this looks like a Chewbacca convention.”

I laughed.

She went on with her ranking: “And that sister over there needs to quit getting dressed in the dark. She has on more colors than a pack of Skittles. Quick, somebody give Grandma Cellulite a fun house mirror.”

Comical. Intelligent, thick, bedroom voice that made a brother wonder what she sounded like when she whispered sweet things. Perfume dabbed behind her ears, in the crevice of her breasts. Long black braids pulled away from her face, clipped in place. Nails clear, not overdone with a million colors. One small diamond in each ear. Classic, classy, smooth.

And she had a job. She gets bonus points for being gainfully employed.

I wanted to know, “How did you end up in real estate?”

“I have an older cousin, Dawn, who was out here doing real estate. Did it for about ten years. Hubby dumped her for a singer. Dawn moved back to New York after she divorced, but always talked about how great the market was out here. Guess I wanted to pick up where she left off.”

A waitress dressed in fake black leather, a purple wig, and a top that made her breasts look like pyramids stopped in our faces holding a tray of shots: “Would you like to try a Crown Royal tonight?”

I shook my head and asked Dana if she wanted a drink, my treat. She wanted a 7UP. I took out my wallet, invested four dollars in my future.

We moved over by the light blue rails and white walls, watched people who had denied their last ten birthdays struggle with a Lauryn Hill groove, and fell into the typical conversation people have when they’re sizing each other up: the age, what do you do to make your ends meet, where you from thing. Told her I was twenty-eight, born July 17, in Pasadena. In between singing along, Dana said she was born at Mount Sinai, June 14, twenty-seven years ago, had packed up and come out here by herself.

I’m a moody Cancer and she’s an unpredictable Gemini.

Fire and dynamite. A dangerous combination in any season.

Midsentence, she stopped and motioned. “There’s Gerri.”

Dana waved at an amazon of a woman who had on dark linen pants, white blouse. A small waist, everything the right size, in the right places. Cinnamon skin, round face, freckles, light brown hair in a bob. I saw all of that while Dana’s buddy made her way through a crowd of ancient brothers who hovered over her like vultures on a prairie. Four men tried to stop her stroll; four men were ignored.

Dana and Gerri hugged, short and intense. I expected them to start talking in that silly, high tone that women use when they’re trying to act like girls, but they didn’t. Their voices stayed smooth, even. I stayed in the background, tapped my feet to the hip-hop, and played it cool.

Gerri frowned. “Dag. This place is usually popping.”

Dana introduced us. Her buddy had a faint southern accent, added down-home sensuality to her strong presence. Gerri had a young face with a mature demeanor. That had to come from being a parent and raising kids. What stood out was the weariness underneath her eyes. To me it looked like she’d had a busy life. No dirt was underneath her fingernails, but hard workers recognize hard workers.

Dana asked, “What took so long? Had me waiting.”

“Shit.” Gerri took a deep breath. “Today has been hell on wheels. Had to drop my kids off at my ex-in-laws—that’s where my ex is going to pick them up. His weekend with the crew, so I’m free from parental servitude for forty-eight hours. Anyway, my son didn’t want to go. He met this girl.”

“Oh boy.”

“That’s why I want him gone, gone, gone. I ain’t trying to be nobody’s grandmomma. Anyhow, to top that off, my daughter wasn’t feeling good, so I had to stop and buy her some of that nighttime, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever so I can rest medicine.”

Dana laughed. “Could you just say NyQuil?” “Then I ended up getting there the same time Melvin did, and we had a few financial things to talk about. We almost got into a shouting match, but you know I didn’t want to show out in front of my kids.”

“You tell him things have been a little rough?”

She nodded. “And I let him know that I’m tired of being patient and I’m talking to an attorney. A Jewish attorney at that. I don’t want the white man all up in my biz, but like my momma used to say, when a nigga don’t do right, call Mr. White.”

“You’re taking him back to court?”

“I don’t want to. But a sister gotta do what a sister gotta do.” Gerri tsked. “So, I’m going to have to keep working my other paper route twice a week. That extra cabbage is really making a difference.”

Dana was single, no kids. Gerri was the one with two kids and an ex-husband, a profile that was damn close to mine. For a few seconds I wished that Gerri had sashayed in the room first. Empathy would live in her corner. Maybe. But then again, maybe her plate was already too full.