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Authors: Niobia Bryant

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Chapter Forty-Five
Cristal
Y
ou never think about your man working where you work or where you live . . . until he becomes your ex-boyfriend. I walk into the lobby of The Top and my eyes fall right on Mohammed. It has been a week since I saw him and his new love chilling at The Caribbean. Love, regret, anger, and jealousy have me nauseous as I tilt my chin up.
I know I look good in my turquoise strapless silk dress and white platform peep-toe shoes. I strut with my best overtly sexy walk. I just want him to know that Evette could not compete on her
best
damn day.
So we do not speak. We pretend like we never shared time in each other's lives. He is mad at me and I am pissed at him about Evette but we really shared an amazing connection. Some other level shit that people dream about it. Now we act like we do not even know each other.
I step onto the elevator and come face to face with Winthrop Blanchard III, sexy white man and my ex (sorta) making out with a tall, curly-haired look-alike of Eddie Murphy's ex-wife. They must have rode the elevator up from the underground parking garage.
I give them both a polite smile and turn to roll my eyes as the elevator doors close. I dated him very briefly. He was only good to me for eating pussy and buying me nice pieces of jewelry that I cashed in to help pay my bills. One racial slur from his ass and I tossed him (but not the gifts) out the door.
“Hello,
Danielle
.”
I do not miss the way he stresses my name. I look over my shoulder briefly at them and frown at the way her blue-green eyes are checking me out from head to toe. I swallow back my greetings. Does this six-foot freckled-face, blue-eyed black woman think I want her man? I just turn away from them both and fix my eyes on the silver elevator door.
“This is my
new
girlfriend, Kai,” Winthrop says with satisfaction in his voice.
I look over my shoulder and lock eyes with Winthrop. “Best of both worlds, huh?” I ask, alluding to her obvious mixed heritage.
I take pleasure in the way his neck reddens. I turn back.
My brows rise as I hear smacking noises and little moans from behind me. “I would say get rooms but since you are almost home why not wait until you're behind closed doors.”
When the elevators stop at my floor, I am grateful. I think I hear the rustle of clothing and I do not want to catch a visual. Winthrop and his new bitch are already forgotten as I walk into the apartment. Only the lights from the kitchen and the bar are on and it gives the spacious apartment a really nice and mellow feel.
I love my friends and the kids but I am so glad that I have the apartment to myself for once. It reminds me of those long forgotten days when I would just chill at home with a glass of wine all by my lonesome.
I have just kicked off my shoes to just snuggle down deeper into a corner of the couch when the front door bursts open. My whole family (and they are my family) walks in with laughter and way too much happiness.
“Hi, Auntie Cristal.” I sit up as Kimani climbs onto the couch and gives a big, wet, and sticky kiss on my cheek. It is probably the
only
time I do not care if my MAC makeup is messed up. The kisses of a godchild are way better than a perfectly made-up face.
“Guess what?” Mo asks as she sits down and lifts Tiffany from the car seat.
Alizé peels off her blazer and flings it over her shoulder as she makes a beeline for the bathroom. “Y'all fill her in. I gots to pee,” she says, already hitching her skirt up over her waist.
“We just talked to Mohammed and he swears he is just friends with Evette,” Mo tells me.
I sit forward and reach my hands out for my other godchild. As soon as she is in my arms I bury my face in her neck and just inhale the smell of innocence and sweetness.
“Trust me, I asked. No fucking. No fuck buddies. Nothing,” Dom tries to assure me. I guess she took my silence for hesitation and doubt.
Alizé hollers out from the bathroom and we all look that way, look at each other, and then look that way again.
“Ze, you alright?” I holler out to her.
“I'm . . . I'm good,” she hollers back.
“So . . . we just saw Mohammed in the lobby and we talked to him about everything—”
I cut my eyes at Moët. “Oh, y'all did?”
“We sure did.”
I cut my eyes over at Dom.
“Do you want him back or not?” she asks boldly.
I nuzzle my face against Tiffany's smooth brown cheek. My head is tilted to the side as I smile down into her face as she smiles back at me. “Yes, I want him back,” I admit, before I lower my head to kiss her cheek.
“Well good, y'all want the same thing then.”
My eyes shoot up to Dom and my eyes are filled with questions.
Dom lights up a cigarette as she kicks off her Air Force 1s. “Dinner. Tomorrow night. He will pick you up at seven o'clock. He has been set straight to take you
anywhere
but The Caribbean.”
Another chance for Mohammed and me?
I press my face back into the sweet crook of Tiffany's neck to hide my big and goofy smile. If we can talk things over and make things better, I swear I will never take him for granted again. I love him too much and I have no way of knowing if there will be a third chance for us.
Girl Talk
C
ristal eyed each of her friends as they all sat around the living room in their pajamas. “It's time to get back to the way we all used to be,” she begins. “Everyone is putting on a good front but I can tell there are some heavy things going on with each and every one of you. Things you're not sharing.”
Dom blows smoke rings through her pursed lips.
Alizé frowns a bit before she digs in her purse for a BlowPop.
Moët reaches up to touch the diamond cross pendant around her neck.
“I thank you for stepping in with me and Mohammed but it is time that we shoulder more than just
my
burdens. I know I pulled away from our friendship and I am grateful that when it is all said and done you three bitches are right here riding or dying with me. Trust that. Believe that. But right now? Right here? It is time for the realness.”
Dom flicked the ashes from her cigarette into the ashtray on her lap. “There's a lot going on that I just keep to myself but the biggest thing for me was going back into drug counseling because I . . . uhm . . . I almost relapsed. That shit about my father and this constant bullshit with Diane. I'm proud of me for throwing that dope out the window that day. It was the scariest and the bravest shit I ever done. Ever.”
Dom locks eyes with each of her friends and in their depths she sees and feels their love and belief in her.
Alizé feels their eyes on her and she shrugs. “Me and Moms are doing much better—”
Cristal shook her head and held up her hand. “No, no, no. We all know about that. Tell us something we do not know.”
“Okay.” She picks up her glass of Alizé (of course) and takes a little breath. “I'm glad that Cameron has been out of town on business . . . I found out last week that Dr. Locke gave me trich.”
“Eew,” the ladies all said in unison.
Alizé made a sarcastic looking face. “Oh
eew
is right. Trust. My pussy ain't never itch so much in all my damn life.”
Three sets of eyes drop down to her crotch. “Hey,” Alizé says loudly as she snaps her legs shut before she laughs. The girls begin to laugh too and Alizé holds up her hand to silence them. “Trust me, we all laughing but ain't a damn thing funny.”
They all sipped from their drinks as they cast their eyes at Moët. She smiles at them. “I got saved,” she admits simply and then drops her eyes from theirs. “So I did want to ask that we drop the Moët thing. I mean I really can't be saved and have people calling me by my champagne. You know?”
Dom, Cris, and Alizé share quick looks. “Are you still going to be our friend?” Alizé asks.
Moët looked at each of them in disbelief. “We all have been through so much together. I mean there are things in my life I couldn't have gotten through without y'all. So yes, I am still your friend. I am still Moët . . . just better. New and improved. But I know that I couldn't find three better friends in the world and I'm not going to pull that holy conversion mess like my parents. You are my friends and I love y'all just the way you are. And you can believe that.”
“To friendship,” Cristal said warmly as she held her glass up.
Dom, Alizé, and Moët gladly did the same.
Chapter Forty-Six
Alizé
T
wo hundred phone calls.
Even more crazy-ass voice mail messages.
A dozen drive-bys at my last count.
Five dozen bouquets of roses.
Twice getting caught sitting outside my house all night.
One case of trich.
Oh, a bitch like me done had enough.
Cameron would be home this week and it is time for me to get this bullshit with Dr. Locke as cleared up as my nasty ass case of the trich.
The very last thing I need is Cameron and I being on a date and I look and see Dr. Locke's fruitcake ass sitting there peering at us while he jacks off. Trust me, I think this freak would do it.
So a bitch like me is on the grind. And if this doesn't work I'm going to have to call the po-po on his ass. For real.
I can't take the phone calls at three in the morning just to breathe on the phone or to tell me my pussy is good.
I can't take walking off campus or out of a store or out of Braun, Weber to see his ass sitting in his car waiting for me.
I can't take living my life and looking up and he is there. Watching me from a distance or coming up to me to beg me to take him back.
I am sick of the flowers.
I am sick of the sex toys he has delivered.
I am sick of his motherfucking ass.
It's time to flip the script.
I get out of my car and walk around to stand on the sidewalk in front of the two-level colonial house. Nice picture of a happy home.
Dr. Locke's freakiness might just be his downfall.
I walk up the stairs big and bold and ring the doorbell. I'm feeling nervous as the door opens until I look up into Dr. Locke's shocked face. I give him that “How you like me now” look as he steps back to close the door. That would have been fine if I didn't throw my hip against the door to bumrush it back open.
“Who is it, Hunter?”
I recognize his wife's nice pleasant voice. Wonder how pleasant it would be if she knew what his freak nasty ass was up to. “Yes, Hunter, who is it?” I said in a mocking voice.
His whole face changes and he look like he is 'bout ready to shit himself.
“Not fun opening your door and having your life intruded on . . . is it?” I snap to him in a low voice. “How would you like it if I sat outside your fucking house all night long or called your house all night and hung up? I've had it with your bullshit. I gave you some ass and I don't want to give you no more . . . so leave me the fuck alone or I will wreck this shit you call a happy home for real.”
“You had no right coming to my home,” he whispers to me harshly as he reaches out to grab my wrist.
“Oh, it was okay for me to come to your house when you wanted to fuck me in your wife's bed, though, right?”
He drops my wrist with a quickness.
“Should I call her to the door and tell her what color her sheets are, Dr. Locke? Or describe that flat mole on your dick? Or the way you squeal like a fucking pig when you're cumming? Or the way you like your ass licked after I suck your dick? Or should I tell her how your dumb ass gave me a fucking STD? You took trich to a whole 'nother level,
trick
.”
He looks offended. This crazy motherfucker got the nerve to look offended. He takes his hand and put it square in my chest to push me back. “Stay the fuck away from my house and my family.”
“
If
you stay the fuck away from me,” I throw back.
He slams the door and I am more than happy to feel the wind on my face as it closes.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Dom
May 2007
I'm back writin' in my journal by hand since I have finally started using the computer for starting my first book! Damn right. Fuck Nike. I'm gonna be like TI and “Do it, do it, do it.” And there is no dope, no weed, or no liquor like gettin' my ass lost in the crazy world of Club XXXCite. Who knows the world of stripper better than a bitch like me fresh off the pole? And the lead character Lick Mee is wild. Not I ain't trying to say anybody will ever buy this motherfucker and publish it. But I'm gone finish it. Fuck it. I'm having fun regardless. And not just with my writin'. My life don't feel as heavy as it used to. It ain't as fuckin' dark and depressing as it used to be. I ain't the best I will be but I'm better. Having Willie—my daddy—in my life is different. He calls just to check up on me and Kimani. He asks me if we need anything and even though my ass is still strugglin' like a bitch I ain't took one red cent from him. Now that I'm gettin' to know him I don't want shit but to make up for lost time. And Kimani loves having a new granddaddy and an auntie that's the same age as her. Her and Hiasha are really inseparable now. Kimani is tickled fuckin' pink to have a new family. They've even asked if she could spend the night but the funny thing is that last year I would gladly dropped her ass off with a smile and a wave. Now? I'm feelin' like I don't know them well enough for all that . . . yet. I guess time does change a lot of things.
The sounds of Mary J Blige loudly echoed from inside my white leather hobo bag. Several eyes in the waitin' room look my way. I stick my pen inside my journal and reach over to grab my cell phone. It's Corey. A smile big as the Kool-Aid guy's spread across my face.
“Hey you,” I say, as I snatch up my bag and rise to strut my ass outside.
“Hey,” he says in that voice that makes my fuckin' insides warm. “I was thinking about my little chocolate baby.”
I laugh just the way he wants me to. “Boy, you swear you Martin Lawrence or some shit.”
“And you love it,” he says.
“Yes. Yes, I do,” I admit softly as I watch the New Jersey Transit bus pull to the curb across the street.
“Damn, baby girl, you sound serious as hell. Don't get me sad and you don't meant it,” he jokes.
I just laugh as I bite my lip to keep from tellin' him the truth. I don't know why my ass is afraid to admit to him that I love him. Maybe the doc can help me get to the bottom of
that
shit in our meeting today.
“I'll come by your apartment as soon as I get done,” I tell him as I watch a drug deal goin' down on the next block.
“Hey, you doing okay with everything, right?”
Translation: Your ass ain't back snortin' up dope is it?
I watch the woman shove her hand into the pocket of her dingy jeans as she walks up the street towards me fast as hell. I can't look away from her. I see myself in her or at least what the fuck I almost become. As she gets closer to me I see her yellow eyes and her jacked-up skin. I smell all the unwashed days she been through. And I feel how badly she wants to snort.
As she walks by me and gives me a little look before she continues on like she marching to war, I feel like I should stop her and say somethin' to her. I mean damn, I'm an ex-junkie standin' in front of the rehab clinic when she walks by me.
She turns and looks back at me.
Say somethin'
.
But I don't and just then she turns the corner and she's gone.
I ain't Mo but I'll be damned if that didn't feel like somethin' the Great One wanted to go down.
I turn and jog to the corner but she's gone. I do see an old beat-up car pullin' away. Maybe she's in there. Damn.
I hug my damn self with my arms and walk back to the clinic.
“Dom.”
I look up and every fuckin' thing seems to freeze as I see Diane standin' her ass in front of the clinic. I ain't spoke to her since the day she signed Kimani out of school without my permission. Once I hung up on her, she actually brought Kimani straight to me. That shocked the hell out of me but it didn't stop me from slamming the front door in her face. I ain't heard from her since.
“What you doin' here, Diane?”
She reaches in her Gucci bag and pulls out her soft pack of Newports. “I'm tryin',” she says as she shakes a cigarette loose and offers me the pack. “You wanted me to be here and I'm here.”
I take the cigarette and just hold it between my fingers. “Do you want to be here, Diane?” I ask her, tryin' to sound hard towards her. I failed.
She lights her cigarette, inhales, and blows out a stream of smoke as she shifts her eyes away from me. “I'm here, ain't I,” she says, before she looks me right in the eye.
See, this the shit. This woman standin' before me has hurt me and she has done me so wrong but she is my mother. I can call her Diane all I want but she is still my mother. I wanna think so bad that she did the best she could with what she knew.
I want to forgive her. I want to love her. I want to try.
I drop the cigarette and put it out with the toe of my shoe before I walk over and open the door to the clinic. She drops her cigarette too and walks over to step inside.
She's here and even if we can't work through our bullshit, it means so fuckin' much to me that she even came and that's for real.

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