The Coldest Winter Ever (31 page)

My nerves were on edge. I kept telling myself,
This is an investment. This is an investment.
In less than twenty-four hours I would emerge as the baddest bitch in the universe. Some trick in that party was gonna bankroll all of my fantasies one way or another. Just to keep it real, I had my eyes set on the big catch, GS. I knew if I could hook him, my problems would be over. Life would be all Range Rovers, rugs, chips, cheddar, and pleasure. He was wasting his time with Souljah. She was no trophy. That’s why he picked her up at night. He left her before the sun came up. You can’t sport no bitch like her. I am the girl you go to bed with and wake up with. The one you bring the dough home to and leave it on the counter so I can take care of the house. I’m the girl who gets other niggas to envy you, want to be like you, want to kill you. Me, it’s all about me, and real niggas know that. Real niggas love drama. Otherwise life ain’t no thrill. If there ain’t no drama, what’s the point? A live nigga needs a bitch who’s so bad that other bitches know when they see her to just lay the fuck down. Now,
the other chick might of got some dick from the nigga at some time or other, but in the presence of wifey she knew all she could do is shut the fuck up and be mad.

With only enough money in my bag to buy one last dinner, I stepped into the Benz with Souljah, Lauren, and Doc. I couldn’t understand why Doc was coming to the party. Her time had already come and passed. But I wasn’t sweating the small stuff, especially because Doc was the driver, and she was pushing my kind of whip.

The thick of things is putting it mildly. When we rolled up, there were scores of people outside the club, everybody dressed to kill. The November breeze was chilling thighs and giving gobs of goose pimples to girls with no nylons. With cars parked in all directions, traffic was jammed. Luxury vehicles were everywhere and only the music was pumping louder and faster than my heart. Doc swung into the thirty-dollar parking garage that others were avoiding, based, I guess, on the price alone. It was not even a second thought to her. Those platinum and gold credit cards erased her worry over that.

When we walked up Souljah signaled security and they parted the crowd in seconds. As we walked up the slim aisle to the special entrance all eyes were on us.

“That’s Sister Souljah.”

“Who’s that?”

“That’s Sister Souljah,” they whispered. I felt like a movie star as our tight little foursome entered the building with no problem, leaving the little wannabees hanging on the outside only to imagine what was going on inside.

Inside, players were seated in booths, sipping Moët, Cristal, and Alizé. Some were talking to each other. Some were kicking it with females. One big, buffed bouncer type invited himself to our table.

“You ladies want drinks? The bar is open till 10 P.M., after that it’s gonna cost you.”

“Why is everybody outside? Let ’em in, let’s get this party started,” Lauren said.

“The bar is free until ten. We’ll let them in after ten, get it?” He smiled at Lauren like he was interested in her. We all went and got drinks and left Souljah in the booth.

By ten-thirty, the party was shoulder to shoulder. The music was loud. More than that, the music was crisp. It was the difference between
a car radio, a house radio, a stereo system, and a club. The club system took it up ten notches. It was like the music had hands that ripped off your clothes and made you naked and crazy on the dance floor. With only the liquor to slow me down, my whole body was hypersensitive and completely sexual. When someone accidentally rubbed up against me the sensation was magnified. Wet lips looked even more enticing, and the more the scene sucked me in the more I liked it. Me and Lauren stuck together. We were looking for the celebrities. We weren’t sure where they were. But we knew they were here.

“Souljah and Doc disappeared,” Lauren said to me at eleven.

“So,” I said, “let’s go have some fun.”

“You don’t get it,” Lauren said, as she tried to shout over the music that nobody’s voice could compete with. I turned my head so she could speak directly into my ear. “If Souljah’s gone and we can’t find any celebrities, that means all of them are somewhere in a separate section, the VIP room.”

“Well, come on, let’s go to the VIP room.” The place was huge. We had to move slowly through the growing crowd to each side and corner of the club to find out where the celebrity section was. When we finally found it, Lauren whipped out her VIP laminates and flashed them at the security guards that had the secret entrance sealed off. Facing us was the same big security guard from earlier. He stopped us.

“Wait a minute, Shorty. You can’t do nothing with those,” he said to Lauren, flashing his smile.

“VIP,” she said, like he didn’t see them the first time.

“Check this out. You got the wrong color laminates. They was orange, but they switched them to blue.” He flashed his blue laminate. “Now to get inside you need a blue laminate.” Lauren leaned on him a little, brushed his chest with her titties, and asked, “How can I need a blue laminate when you have one?” He flirted with her and laughed and all that, but still didn’t let her in.

She was talking so much she must have been telling him her life story. After a while I wasn’t even listening no more. He was getting off on joking with her, didn’t believe or didn’t care that she was Souljah’s sister and definitely didn’t believe she knew GS personally like she said she did.

Seconds later, the celeb door opened and four guys came out. My eyes were searching their faces to see if they were anybody. If they was leaving, at least they could give up their laminates and let us use them.
As one particular face drew closer my mouth dropped open. Recognizing him shook me up a little.

“Winter,” he said, with mad passion.

“Bullet?” I said, more like it was a question. He grabbed my two hands, pushed me back a step, and said, “Damn, you look like a million dollars.”

“Ain’t nothing change, nigga,” I said, noticing how sexy he still was, but giving him much attitude. With his mouth open, playing with the toothpick between his teeth, it was like he was talking but no words were coming out.

“Damn,” he said again. He pulled me close to him and picked me up with his strong arms like I didn’t weigh nothing.

“Put me down. I ain’t forget, nigga.”

“Forget what? I ain’t forget either. I been looking all over for you forever. Man, I asked Natalie, your girl Simone, Natasha, Reese, I even asked your mom where you was at.”

“I ain’t forget about the videotape. I heard how you let niggas disrespect me down at Moe’s place,” I told him, with thick attitude.

“Ah that shit wasn’t nothing. That was Slick illing, not me. You know that kid is sick. I don’t get down like that. I see you still got your shine,” he said, looking at my diamond tennis necklace and matching bracelet. Watching him surveying my whole body with his eyes, my body temperature intensified. What I dug about Bullet was he was a real lover. He knows how to rock a woman’s entire body. He’s a guaranteed orgasm. “Come on, why don’t you take a ride with me?” he asked. My eyes peeped his black baggy slacks, leather jacket and heavyweight gold link. I wanted to say yes, but I kept thinking about what Midnight said about Bullet being down with Santiaga’s enemies. What I wanted was battling my loyalty to Santiaga. But I know loyalty comes first. So I resisted. I still asked the important shit though.

“What you pushing?” Then the nigga started fidgeting, mumbling something which amounted to the fact that he was a passenger in another nigga’s car. That made it easy for me to tell him no.

“Come on, Winter. You sleeping on this nigga,” he said, patting his chest with his heavy hand. “A nigga been stacking chips, I’m about to cop something lovely. I got a little business on the side making moves. I’m about to come into something real big soon.” I turned him down not with words, but with my eyes. The bottom line was right now I had a chance at getting with GS. Why should I fold my hand to
pick up some unknown cards? He sensed my rejection, and didn’t want his boys to see me turning him down. But he was gonna go for it anyway. “Winter, straight up, this nigga got love for you.”

Knowing how to be cool and not play him out, I leaned over, gave him a kiss on the cheek and whispered in his ear, “Maybe some other time. Not tonight.” He smiled, with 100 percent confidence. It was this kind of certainty that made me want to undress.

“Let me get those digits,” he pulled a pencil from behind his ear and flipped open a book of matches to write it down.

“No phone. I don’t have no phone,” I told him.

“C’mon, Winter, don’t try to play me.”

“I don’t. I haven’t been wanting no calls, that’s why. I just been staying to myself.”

“Where you staying at?”

“You asking too many questions,” I told him.

“Well, how’s a nigga gonna get up with you then?”

“You give me your number,” I told him.

“Fuck that. Come here.” He signaled over to his man, one of the three rolling with him that night.

“Give me your pager.” His man looked confused.

“What?” he said, unwilling to give it up.

“You heard what I said. Give me your pager.” He snatched the pager from his man’s hand.

His man protested, “I just got it today.”

“Here, take this.” He handed me the pager. “You gonna see how serious a nigga is. Learn how to respect a man when he talks. I’ll page you when I finish setting up. Seeing is believing. You’ll see. My code is 000.” He hugged me again. “You gonna be mines.”

“What’s the phone number for the pager,” I asked.

“You don’t need it. I’m the only one calling that number,” he said strongly.

It was hard passing up good dick. It was easy to pass up a broke passenger nigga. Tonight my aim was much higher. As Bullet walked away, I tapped his arm and asked for his laminate. He laughed and said, “Nah.
Why would I feed you to the sharks?”

Lauren had it all worked out, or so she said. By this time she knew Frankie the security guard personally. Frankie couldn’t let her in, but he let her know that GS was having a private party out in his house in
Alpine, New Jersey, at 2 A.M. All we had to do is meet Frankie around the back of the club. The four black trucks in the back would be bringing the party to Jersey and … “All the finest honeys get a free ride with security.”

Four trucks, sixty chicks, and a caravan of niggas following behind in Benzes, Lexuses, Rovers, Rangers, Acuras, you name it. Twenty girls left standing on the curb ’cause security said they were either too fat or too ugly.

What do you know about five chicks sitting in the seats and four chicks sitting in they laps in each row of the Suburban? Now I was sitting on some girl ’cause I definitely wasn’t gonna let her sit on me. I wasn’t gonna say a word ’cause I already decided it was better just to watch. Besides, I wanted to check out the competition. The first thing I realized was me and Lauren were younger than most of these girls. A whole bunch of them was in college. I heard them talking about a football game, Grambling U. versus somebody. Some of them was talking like they came from far away. They mentioned that they was up for the weekend or drove all the way up from Washington, Baltimore, and Virginia.

Four of the girls in the back sitting on laps and positioned right near my ear were wilding. Every song that came on was, “Ahh, that’s my jam!” Then they would make a high-tone screeching voice—skee wee skee wee skee wee—every time. It bugged me out when they started bouncing to the beat while sitting on the girls who I’m sure had to have black and blue knees and legs by then.

We invaded this private first-class neighborhood like an infection. GS’s mansion was accentuated by an array of colored lights, which lit it up like the Walt Disney palace. The driveway was more like a parking lot at the cineplex theater. Manicured bushes and evergreen trees gave the place the air of seclusion. Inside there were more rooms than you’d care to count, three floors with steps leading to the west wing and the north and south side of the house. Cristal, Moët, fine wines, cheeses, buffalo wings, pineapple turkey meatballs, shrimps, and crab cakes were plentiful finger foods available to all special guests.

It wasn’t but half an hour before everybody started asking where’s GS? Where’s LX? Where’s this celebrity or that celebrity? After a while, I started getting vexed with security ’cause I wasn’t sure if they just wanted to keep all the women for themselves.

At 3 A.M., one of the security guys stood on top of the couch and
shouted, “OK ladies, GS is ready for some pussy. Who wants to give up the pussy?” We all jumped up. “If you’re not here to get your freak on, bounce now. Any virgins in the house bounce now.

“Now y’all know it’s too many of y’all. GS told me to bring up the baddest female in the house.” All the girls were screaming, raising hands, trying to get security’s attention.

“Hold on now. Hold on. Here’s what we gonna do. We gonna have a contest. Line up. Get up. Line up. If you too drunk to stand up, sit down. You’re out. You’re not in it. We gon’ have a beauty contest.” In the huge living room there were ten rows of six girls each in the contest.

“I’m the host,” one of the other security guys said. He was supposed to be big and intimidating. As far as I was concerned he was just big and fat. He walked through each row of girls with his tall, fat, sloppy self, carrying a vodka tonic in his right hand. Then he started pointing. “You ugly, sit down. You ugly, sit down. You ugly, sit down.” The three girls was mad, mumbling all kinds of insults to him. One of ’em said it loud enough for everybody to hear.

“You big fat bitch,” she called him.

The second girl said, “I thought you left all the ugly girls at the club?” Fat ass sipped his drink and said, “It was dark, I missed you three. Now sit down and shut up.”

“Alright now, hold out your hands.” Each row of girls stuck their hands out. “Man hands sit down. Goddamn, what your mother do, burn you with cigarettes? Sit the fuck down.” He was eliminating contestants.

Next the other security guard stood up. He walked up and down the aisle like he was a military drill sergeant. For seconds he didn’t say nothing. Then he started pointing, “Cheap shoes, sit down. Cheap shoes, sit down. Cheap shoes, sit down.” I looked behind me and one of the girls he told to sit down was Lauren. She caught my eye. I just raised my eyebrows at her as if to say I’m sorry. I knew them cheap shoes would be her downfall.