The Glamorous Life (19 page)

“I hear you, baby,” she said with a smile. “One Halloween we wore our costumes to school. He painted his face all black and drew some real big red lips and told everyone he came as me.”

“If we ever see that nigga, I’m going to smack the shit out of him just for picking on my baby. ”

She chuckled. The thought of someone wanting to get Douglas back for all the years he’d antagonized her made her feel better.

“Nah, I don’t even know where he is now, but I have heard he is some bigshot in the military,” she said.

“Baby, look, I want you to know that I care about you whether you are black or blue. Baby, you are so beautiful. Now, who else crossed you?”

“Then there was my ex, Reggie.”

“What did he do?” he asked. She figured he had heard a few of the rumors about Reggie circulating around town, but he needed to hear it from her.

She exhaled and took her time. “I don’t even want to talk about him, because I’ll break down and cry.”

“Didn’t I tell you that you got my shoulder to cry on?” He could see the pain and hurt on her face. He took her in his arms and held her tightly as she burst into tears. He kissed her on her forehead and wiped her tears away.

“He made me into the person I am today. He hurt me the
most.” She sniffed as she took a few minutes to get herself together. He continued to comfort her.

“First he introduced me to the street life. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I wanted to know about it, but he had me living it, flipping birds while he was in prison. I held him down and believed in him like no other could. You hear me? I gave him all of me. I hustled for him, kept his money together, never jerking off a dime of it. I knocked the doors down to visit him while his ass was doing a funky-ass ninety-day bit. And instead of him giving himself to me, he gave himself to another man. The nigga turned out to be a homo-thug. Had me looking all stupid and shit, got me running down the jail seeing him every visiting day. Even convinced me to let a guard look down my shirt so I could get in to see him every visiting day, and the whole time as soon as he leaves the v-room … he probably went back and fucked Tom or Thomasina or whoever. Oh hell nah,” she said.

“Baby, I feel you. That right there, you damn sure ain’t got to worry about as far as I’m concerned. And if it makes you feel any better, a bunch of dudes do that shit. It’s just that the girls don’t ever find out,” he said, trying to ease her pain a little.

“I didn’t find out until I was at my engagement party. Shit, I loved this man and was ready to give my life to him. I was the last person to find out he was a faggot.”

“Baby, some chicks never find out or find out when it’s too late and they got AIDS. So be grateful for that.”

“Oh, I have been tested. But check this out, you haven’t heard the worst. He might as well have killed me, because I have to live with the fact that he almost killed my mother.”

“What? What do you mean he almost killed your mother?”

“Well, you might as well say he killed her. He stripped her of the most important thing my mother felt she had to offer: her
beauty.” Bambi broke down and cried, whimpering while trying to explain the attack to him.

“So, where is he now?”

“He’s doing time, but they got him on all this medication talking about he ain’t right. But what is jail? Shit, he’s free for real. A faggot in jail with nothing but dicks floating around— shit, he’s in heaven.”

A look of anger passed across Lynx’s face, and that touched Bambi. She felt safe with him, as if he could be her knight in shining armor.

Just then her cell phone rang. At first she didn’t answer it because she didn’t want to interrupt the mood. But it kept ringing, so she finally answered it. A bartender informed her that her mother was drunk and had passed out in one of the bathrooms. She hung up the phone and gathered her clothes, saying, “Look, I’ve got to go take care of something important.”

“At this time of night? I’m going, too.” Lynx sat up in the bed.

“No, you can’t.”

“Yes, I’m. I’ll drive you.” He got up and slipped on his jeans.

“No, you can’t go, Lynx, for real. I’ve got too much drama, and I don’t want to drag you in on it.”

“Baby, I already told you. Yo drama is my drama. You got beef, I got beef. If it’s with a bitch, then we’ll double-bank that ho,” he assured her as he slipped on his Prada sneakers. There was something about Lynx and the way he handled her that made her want him more. He listened to her, he comforted her, and he accepted her for who she was. And when he had to put his foot down, he didn’t hesitate to do so.

She sat down on the bed. “Look Lynx, I never finished telling you. After my mom was burned, she turned to the bottle.”

Lynx looked at her. “Okay.”

“I mean she drinks like crazy and doesn’t know when to stop. Like now I have to go pick her up. She’s passed out in the bathroom at Terry’s Lounge.”

“Well, what are we waiting for? We need to go and get her. Come on.”

Lynx was everything she needed. Right then and there she made up her mind that she was going to give him the chance he asked for.

A
fter they picked up Tricia from the club, Bambi decided to spend the night at her mother’s, and Lynx stayed with her. The next morning she told Lynx, “You can leave if you want. I know you got stuff you need to do.”

“Nah, baby. I got workers and employees just like you do. I can be away from the fort for a couple days if I need to. I’m here for you. I love your momma like she pushed me out her womb. And if you need to make any runs, I’ll be right here for her until you get back.”

She thanked him with a long, passionate kiss. She wondered if he knew that the way to a girl’s heart is through her mother.
And damn,
she thought,
he done stole my heart in a big way.

Lynx, Bambi, and Snowball spent the next two days with Tricia, who was an excellent cook and made dinner for all of them. Then Lynx stayed up half the night, playing cards with her and listening to Tricia tell childhood stories about Bambi. Tricia got to know Lynx, and for once she actually approved of a man who wasn’t a doctor or a lawyer.

When Lynx finally left to do some business, Bambi asked Tricia, “Mommy, what you think about him?”

“I think he’s a keeper, and he’s worth you breaking our pact.
I am pretty sure your heart may be safe with him.” Very surprised at her mother’s comment, she knew that the misfortunes in Tricia’s life had made her lighten up a little. Tricia realized for the first time in her life that money isn’t everything. It’s more important to have love and happiness.

Bambi hugged her mother. Maybe their luck was finally changing.

CHAPTER 19

Disappearing Act

A
fter Bambi and Lynx left Tricia’s house, they both agreed to spend one more day together away from everyone and everything. In the morning when they were in the shower, Lynx got down on his knees and lightly kissed Bambi on the butt, saying, “Don’t ever tell me to kiss yo ass, because I already did that.”

“Don’t ever give me what you gave another, because I want what we have to be special,” she said to him, astonished at how sweet he was.

Lynx walked Bambi to her car and kissed her on the cheek before allowing her to pull off. She rolled down the window as he strolled over to his truck and said, “Tonight you can come and stay over at my place.”

“What, finally I get to come to your house?”

“Well, my little humble apartment. I moved out of the house when I left Reggie.”

“Well, I don’t care if it’s a one-room shack. As long as I’m with you, I’m cool.”

“I’m going to call you later and give you the address and directions.”

“Call me when you get to work,” he instructed her.

“I will, but I gotta go home first; then I am going to the office.”

Three hours later Bambi headed to the office, and when she arrived Zonna came to the door. “Girl you’ve got a big-ass vase of flowers in here.”

“For real?”

“As a matter of fact you got two dozen roses in one vase, and then about an hour later another delivery came for you with another dozen.”

She ran to the phone to call and thank Lynx, but it went straight to his voice mail. For the rest of the day, every hour on the hour, flowers continued to arrive. Not just roses, but violets, forget-me-nots—heck, the office began to look like a florist shop! She continued to try to call Lynx, but all she got was his voice mail. When the eighth delivery arrived, the card read: “The eight weeks we’ve been together have been nothing but the best … simply because I have spent them with you. I’ve got something big planned for us tonight!”

She read the card three times before she tried to call him again. This time when she called, the voice mail was full. She waited and waited for his call—but it never came.

After a week she tried to call again, but she still got no answer. She was sick to her stomach from missing Lynx. She had no choice but to crowd her days with things to try to keep her mind off of him. But that didn’t work. After a few days of his phone going straight to voice mail, she began blocking her number when she called—and still it went to the voice mail. Finally
after a month went by, his phone was disconnected. She rode past his house, but his truck wasn’t there. She was convinced that karma had finally kicked in. Lynx had played her.

Why am I kidding myself ? I’ve got to chalk this up as a lesson. He got me. I guess this is my payback from all the dirt I’ve thrown, playing niggas for weak. I guess the saying “What goes around comes around” is true, after all. Damn, what the hell was I thinking? I slipped up again. I gave this nigga all of me. I believed in him, and he only looked at me as “a wham, bam, thank you ma’am.” Shit, I might as well give myself a quarter, because I played myself.

Again Bambi’s heart had been shattered. Even though they had only spent eight weeks together, she had been without a man so long that she had let herself get used to Lynx being around. That alone injured her the most.

She looked at the caller ID for the next few days as the phone rang and rang, but she never answered her friends’ calls. She didn’t feel like explaining to them that she had been left high and dry. She knew they would understand, but she felt too embarrassed to tell them. At first she couldn’t sleep at all, tossing and turning missing Lynx. Then for the next few nights she took Tylenol PMs so she could get to sleep. Snowball could sense that something was wrong, so he cuddled with Bambi. As much as she wanted to cut all ties from Lynx, Snowball was the only connection she had to Lynx, and she treasured him.

Finally a few days went by, and she checked her messages. She heard Egypt: “Hey, girl, I know you are probably hanging out wit yo dude, and I ain’t mad at cha. But holla at yo girl. Give her some details of how life is with the real thing instead of a big ol’ dildo.”

She wanted to smile, but she only cried, and somehow she dialed Egypt’s number.

“Getting away from good dick ain’t easy?” a happy Egypt answered the phone. She saw it was Bambi calling from the caller ID.

“Hey.” Bambi could barely get it out as she broke down and started crying.

“What’s wrong?” Her joking manner turned serious.

“He left me …,” she managed to get out in between whimpers.

“What happened?” Egypt asked.

“I … I … don’t know. He just left me.”

“Hang up. I’m going to call you from my cell phone. I am on my way over there.”

When Egypt arrived at Bambi’s house, she was wearing some short-short Levi’s cutoffs and a T-shirt that she must have spilled bleach on somehow. The T-shirt almost covered her shorts, making it look like she had nothing on under the T-shirt. She had on some white slouch socks and a pair of wheat-colored Timberland boots. She barged through the door.

“Get yo shit on! Take me over this nigga’s house. We ’bout to double-bank his ass. I don’t play when it comes to my friend, and nobody asked him for his lies. Lying-ass nigga,” she said, tying up her shirt in a knot on her stomach.

Bambi smiled a little and wiped her tears away.

“Girl, I am not playing. I’m tired of playing with these men-folks. You hear me? As soon as he come to the door, I am gonna hit him dead in the lip,” she said, throwing a punch into thin air as if she was practicing how she was going to hit Lynx. “And as soon as I pop him, you come and kick him right in his balls. And he’ll fall over, and when he do, we gonna get him on the ground and start stomping the shit up out of him. I am dead serious.”