The Glamorous Life (18 page)

After a few weeks of going out to various restaurants every night, they both agreed to try their hand at cooking for one another. Neither one of them was even close to being a world-class chef, but together they did their best. One morning Lynx lay in the bed as she fed him a meal of scrambled eggs, Canadian bacon, fried potatoes with onions, toast with marmalade, and coffee. She felt proud of having prepared it for Lynx, although half of it was pie-cooked and she only had to heat it up in the microwave.
Damn, I literally have him eating out of the palm of my hand,
she thought.

They were making small talk when she blurted out, “Lynx, I don’t want your money.”

“What?”

“Look, I heard what your friend said about me that day when we were in the KFC, and yes, I do like money. Shoot, I love money, every dime of it I can get, but”—she looked into his eyes and told him—“I don’t want or need your money, for real. You seem cool, and I don’t want you to treat me a certain way because of what people say.”

“Listen, I’m my own man, got my own mind, and make my own decisions.”

She cut him off. “I see that, but I want you to know that I have my own money. I have a very successful party-planning company that I built from the ground up. I also have another field of prey, and that’s pussy hounds. That’s kind of a side job.
When a chump sticks his head out there, I cut it off and put his ego in his pocket, and when I’m done with him, he never wants to see a bitch like me again. I mean, shit, it’s not like I’m giving up any pussy or anything—shit, the nigga really be just plain playing himself. So, am I wrong?”

He smiled, respecting her honesty and hustle even more. “That’s gangsta! I can live with that. I ain’t no weak nigga, and I appreciate you running your game by me. Anything I give you, it’s ’cause I want you to have it, not because you whine for it or anything like that. It’s simply because I choose to.”

“Well, now you know what I do on a regular. Now give me the four-one-one on what you do.”

“Baby, I’m just a dope dealer. Ain’t nothing fancy about that. Your job is way more complicated than mine. I can handle that and what’s to come. Basically, I don’t want to get into it too deep with you, because if they ever come for me, I don’t want them to come for you, too. If you don’t know nothing, you can’t tell nothing, right?”

“If I knew I wouldn’t rat anyway,” she said, trying to convince him. “I respect what you saying, though.”

He hugged her tight and gave her a long wet kiss.

CHAPTER 18

Captain Save-a-Ho

B
ambi sat on Lynx’s boat, paging through his
Don Diva
magazine as he fished. She had already paged through all of his car magazines and damn near every other male magazine he had bought. “I can’t believe I left my bag with all my entertainment,” she said. He knew for sure that she really cared for him because she was out in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay on a boat that wasn’t a cruise ship or party boat.

“But it’s all good ’cause it gives us time to talk while we’re out here,” she said. “Other than the little stuff you tell me about your brother, and I hear your mother call your cell phone asking you for money, I know nothing about your family. Tell me about your childhood, your family.”

Lynx took a deep breath, opened up, and filled her in on all the details about growing up. When Lynx was young, he’d watched his mother, Lolly, time and time again swindle man after man out of money to pay their bills. When she knew her two sons were watching, she’d told him and his brother Cleezy,
“This is how women will do you. Never trust them or a word they say because all they want is yo money and anything else you’ll give them.”

Lynx explained to her that he’d never cared about women or what his mother had to say about them. He’d had his own mind, and all he’d wanted from his mother was one thing. He’d begged and pleaded with her: “Ma, can you teach me the game? Ma, please teach me to be a hustler just like my daddy. Daddy had a lot of money and took care of you and a lot of other people. I want to make a whole bunch of money and have the respect of a lot of people, too.”

He and his mother would have this conversation over and over again. She never quite knew how to respond to her son. She really didn’t want her son to follow in his dad’s footsteps, at least not at such a young age anyway. When Lynx turned eleven years old, she couldn’t ignore the questions any longer and decided to tell Lynx everything about his daddy, so that Lynx would not make the same mistakes his father had made. He wouldn’t be much good to anyone if he was in jail or dead.

“Dang, that’s deep.” She searched for more words to say to comfort him, but just then he hooked a big fish and the conversation switched to the fish.

L
ater that night at Lynx’s house, they lay in the bed.

“I gotta holla at you ’bout something.”

“What, baby?” Bambi asked.

“You told me that you’d give me one shot, and I think I have proved myself to you. Listen, we’ve been kicking it for a minute and seems like we get along. I want you to be my lady.”

Now he wants to go and mess things up. It seems like everything has been going well, but as soon as we make a commitment, the bullshit comes. I really like him, and I don’t want to mess things up between us.

“Honestly, I don’t see nothing wrong with the way we are now. I’m comfortable,” she told him.

“I feel you. I like it, too, but I really feel like I want you to be my girl,” he said, sounding just like a little boy.

“Me and how many others?”

“Just you!” he said as he looked into her eyes.

“Yeah, right, I saw that ho Unique up in your face at Tall Daddy’s party looking like she was about to drop to her knees and give you some head on the spot.”

“Man, please. I know her man, Took, that’s locked up,” he said to her, gazing into her eyes. He was surprised that she still had Unique on her mind. The party had been months ago.

“So what that mean? That ain’t never stopped that ho before.”

“Look, I am not on that type of time with her. She was telling me something about how she was struggling, about to lose her house, and how Took wanted to know if I could help her.”

“What? So you are Captain Save-a-Ho now?”

“I had just talked to Took, and he didn’t mention anything about her conniving ass. I know her story and her stello, so don’t worry. Baby, listen,” he said as he lay on top of her, kissing her face and gazing into her eyes. “Look, she got a better chance giving Jesus Christ some head than me, and that’s on everything I love.”

She fell out laughing.

“You are crazy,” she said to him as he moved and lay beside her, still looking in her eyes.

“Nah, I’m for real. Right now it ain’t nothing none of them chicks can do for me. I’m trying to be with you exclusively. I
done had plenty of pussy and head. Half of them would fuck me and then my crew or, shit, would fuck half of Richmond. I never even claimed to love any of those chicks, never even spent the night with none of them hos. Yeah, I took them to the hotel, but soon as I finished, I left. And that coming over to my house, laying up in here, that shit is dead! You da first girl that ever even been over here before. I don’t play that shit.”

“I hear you talking,” she said nonchalantly, but her ears were wide open listening.

“This ain’t talk. I’m just keeping it real. I am not going to lie. There have been times when I called my comrades and told them to go up to the hotel room and hit a chick I just got finished knocking off. They’d go up there, and for a few dollars the chicks would give it up. That’s how much I cared for them. I didn’t love none of them hos. Yeah, I gave them a few dollars, but that’s why I gave them money so I won’t have to see them until the next time. It’s a business move. I never even kissed them hos, hugged them, or nothing. Broads think I’m cold, but I’m not. I just don’t need them to feel attached to me in no kind of way.”

“Is that right?” she said, smiling, joking on him for being modest.

“Look on da real, I don’t have to campaign for no girl. Shit, I’m one of Richmond’s most wanted niggas. But I don’t want them. I want you! I wanna be here for you. I want to try my hand at this relationship-type shit wit you.”

“Look, all that sound lovely. I mean that whole spill is big, but I don’t know if I can let a nigga have my heart. I promised my mother about two years ago that I would never let another man have my heart.”

“What is it? I mean, what is the big deal? Do you hate men? Shit, do you need to tell me you bi or something?” he asked.

“
Helllll nahhh,
it ain’t shit gay about me! I am strictly dickly!”

“Well, then what is it then? Let a nigga know what time it is, ’cause this cat-and-mouse shit, I ain’t feeling.”

Bambi was quiet for a while. He gave her a cold look, and she said, “It’s just …” She took a deep breath and continued. “It’s just every single man I’ve ever loved, every man I let get close to me, has wound up hurting me. It’s been like that my whole life, it seems, and I don’t want to take another fall.”

“Damn, baby, tell me all about it. I’m going to show you that I’m going to be the man you need me to be. Whatever those dudes lacked, I got.”

“I hear you talking. Shit, you must plan to fill some big shoes, then.”

“Tell me about every dude that ever crossed you, then.”

“It’s too much to get into.”

“Well, I got years to listen to what you got to say, because I am not going anywhere.”

She inhaled and was silent for a minute.

“Well, first it was my dad. He made up all kinds of excuses why he doesn’t and won’t claim me. He feels my mother trapped him.”

“That’s some ol’ cop-out type shit,” Lynx said after smacking his lips, sympathizing with her.

“I know, but it was also because he had a wife and kids when he got my mom pregnant, and he’s always said his wife would never accept me. But I’m like, what kind of woman wouldn’t accept an innocent child?”

“A weak, insecure woman.”

“When his wife did finally find out about me, she told my dad that she would make it a big scandal if he ever had anything
to do with me. He was soooo concerned with his career that he never had a thing to do with me. He only sent checks, but other than that he was never a part of my life. There was never any father-and-daughter picnics that I could attend. He never came to pick up any of his Father’s Day cards that I would make for him. I never got to go for ice cream with Daddy Dearest. I never had my daddy to lean on, to protect me from the mean world, or to school me when niggas tried to play me, nothing! I mean, I didn’t turn out bad, but I bet I would have turned out better had my dad been a part of my life.”

“Well, baby, don’t worry, because I’ll claim you. If I have to, I’ll rent the Goodyear blimp to let the whole world know you’re mine! I’ll be a crutch when you need me to lean on. We can go get ice cream. I’ll protect you from the evils the world tries to send your way. I’ll school you to whatever game you need for the outsiders. Next …”

His promises made her feel good, but could he keep them? Or more importantly would, he?

“Next, there was Douglas ‘the Doo-doo’ Dames.”

“What did he do?”

“He used to live up the street from me when I was a kid, and our moms used to carpool together every since we were in nursery school. He used to come over my house to play and act like he was my brother, but whenever we were around the other children at school, it was a whole ’nother story. He was mixed, and he fit in with those white kids better than I ever could. Once we got to school, to score his own brownie points he always cracked on my dark complexion: ‘She so black she sweat tar’ or ‘She so black that she could show up buck naked at a funeral and no one would ever know she was there’ or ‘She so
black that when her momma put Vaseline on her, she looks like patent leather.’ He would just go on and on, embarrassing me in front of the other kids with no shame.”

“Baby, fuck him, the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice.”

“Yeah, that’s what my grandma always told me.”

“You know you my Black Beauty, right?”