Two Thin Dimes (4 page)

“Jai, he's about the same age as you are, test him,” LaChina told her. “If he fails the test, I won't say anything else about him.”

Jamaica shook her head. “You're crazy.”

“If I am, then you drove me to insanity. But anyway, just humor me.” LaChina turned Jamaica in the direction of the group and shoved her toward Tameer. “Attack!”

Tameer laughed and nodded. “Yeah, I'll be walking across that stage in May,” he told Jemia.

“I just graduated from Spelman,” she replied. “Next fall I'll be heading to Berkeley to start my medical schooling.”

“That's good!” Tameer told her. “So you went to Roosevelt High School too? I wonder why I never saw you there, even though you were a grade ahead?”

Jemia shrugged her shoulders. “I don't know. Did you play football or anything?”

Tameer laughed. “I played everything. I was their running back for four years, starting from my freshman year.”

Jemia covered her mouth. “Wait a minute. You're not
the
Tameer Harris? All Star, All City, All Regional, All State, All Nation, All World, All Universe, Team USA, ALL Everything, are you?”

Tameer blushed. “Yep, that was me.”

Jemia hugged him. “Boy, I used to go and watch you play!”

Jemia leaned back and examined Tameer for several seconds, and then slapped him across his arm. “I thought that you left and went to play for Notre Dame.”

“Nope.” Tameer shook his head. “I took an academic scholarship at Trinity instead.”

“Why?” Jemia asked. “You were so good at football!”

This time, he shrugged his shoulders. “You know, I just wanted to do something else with my life. I didn't want to waste it playing sports.”

Bingo!
LaChina thought. She nudged Jamaica.

“Do you have a number so that I can call you?” Jamaica asked.

Tameer recoiled.

Jamaica was beautiful, but she was also mean, inconsiderate, and extremely full of herself. He wasn't interested in her. He wanted to talk to either LaChina or Jemia. Anyone, but the beautiful mean one.

“It's just so that I can know where to get in touch with you, and send you the bill for my glasses,” Jamaica told him.

Tameer wrote his number down on the back of the receipt from the record store. He handed it to LaChina, who in turn, handed it to Jamaica.

“I'll be home about six,” he assured them.
I hope Dad paid the telephone bill this month,
he didn't say out loud.

LaChina smiled and waved, as she, Jemia, and Jamaica turned and walked away.

God
, Tameer said to himself.
Please let Dad have paid that bill!

LaChina pointed her finger accusingly at Jamaica. “Jai, you owe me!”

Jamaica nodded in agreement. “Ask me for another favor.”

LaChina folded her arms in defiance and shifted her weight to one side. “Jai.”

Jamaica folded her arms in defiance as well. “No. And besides, we're leaving tomorrow anyway.”

LaChina shook her head. “No, we're not.”

Jamaica sprang from the bed. “What do you mean, we're not?”

LaChina exhaled forcibly and turned away from her friend. She began pacing, as she prepared herself to give the explanation that she had rehearsed all morning. “Jai, the reservations at the hotel in the islands got all screwed up. Besides, the Sea World promo is going to take longer to wrap up than I originally thought.”

Jamaica was furious.

“Wrap up?” Jamaica shouted. “What do you mean, ‘wrap up'?”

Jamaica's arms flailed through the air as she became hysterical and stomped across the hotel-room floor. “I touched the fish, I hugged the fish, I kissed the fish, hell, I even rode the damn thing! They got their concert, what more do they want?”

“Jai, it's more that that. We're negotiating a big performance deal for the other Anheuser-Busch theme parks.”

Jamaica wasn't convinced.

“Oh, no!” She shook her head, waved her hand through the air, and flew to the closet. “No more fish kissing for me. I am not the Little Mermaid!”

Jamaica quickly began emptying the closet, throwing all of her clothing onto the bed. LaChina grabbed her.

“It's not for Sea World. It's for Busch Gardens, and their other theme parks.”

Jamaica froze. She stared coldly into her friend's eyes for several moments. “Why is it that I don't believe you?”

LaChina stuck out her bottom lip and began to pout. “You trust me, don't you…sister?”

Jamaica closed her eyes, she absolutely detested that expression. “Don't give me that look!”

LaChina persisted.

Frustrated, Jamaica quickly strode back to the bed and sat down. LaChina followed.

“Please…,” LaChina whined.

“Uuuuuggggh!” Jamaica groaned loudly, and fell onto her side. She buried her head inside of the pillow. “You know how I hate it when you do that!”

Sensing victory, LaChina sat on the bed next to her friend. Her pouting face remained.

“Please…,” she whimpered.

“Aaaargh!” Jamaica's tiny fist pounded the feathery pillow. “You got me! You know I hate it when you put on that ugly, sad-looking face.”

Jamaica lifted her head and stared at LaChina. “Look, I'll do the damn concerts, but why do we have to stay here? You can conduct business from New York.”

LaChina knew that Jamaica was right. She hadn't thought of covering that issue. She had to think fast.

“Sure, guess you're right. Beverly was just telling me today how she felt that a week in the islands was too much. In fact, she thinks that the few days we've been here, is long enough for your fatigue to have worn off. Well, I guess she was right.”

LaChina rose from the bed and walked to the closet. She leaned inside and pulled out one of the large suitcases that they had brought with them from New York.

“Let's go back to New York,” LaChina said sadly. “I'm sure Beverly has all sorts of interesting things for you to do.”

Jamaica buried her head into the pillow again. “You don't play fair at all, do you?” she asked in a muffled voice.

After several moments of silence, Jamaica lifted her head from the pillow. “That's it! I just figured it out! You are the best friend from hell!”

Jamaica lifted her finger and pointed it accusingly at LaChina. “That's why you and my mother get along so well. That's why she loved it when I hired you. When she's not around to torture me, she knew that you would continue in her place.” Jamaica's head rose, and she shifted her gaze toward the ceiling. “What is my sin?”

It was too good of an opportunity for LaChina to pass up. She quickly cleared her throat and mustered the deepest voice that she could. “Your sin is not getting any!”

Jamaica's mocha cheeks turned a coppery red. She grabbed a pillow from the bed and slung it at her friend, striking her in the head.

“I can't believe you said that!” Jamaica told her.

LaChina's laughter didn't stop. “Well, girl, it's true. You're gonna have to loosen up.”

LaChina sat back down on the bed next to Jamaica. “Look, I'm going to call our friend, and you are going to go out with him. I have work, you do not. He is going to take you out, and you are going to enjoy it. You are going to shop, see the sights, and unwind. Just consider it a practice vacation, clear?”

Jamaica lifted her legs onto the bed. She curled up, wrapping her arms around her right leg. “I am not going out with him.”

“You owe me.”

“You go out with him!” Jamaica protested.

“I get mines every now and then.”

Jamaica grabbed another pillow and flung it at her. This time LaChina ducked.

“Okay, okay.” LaChina raised her hand signaling her surrender. “I'm teasing. Look, Jai, you don't have to sleep with the guy, just be a normal person for a while. Hell, get out of my hair while I'm trying to work!”

Jamaica tilted her head to the side and exhaled in defiance.

“Jai, I'm going to call him,” LaChina told her. “But first, I'm going to call Jemia and have her bring you some clothes. Then, I'm going to have her take us to a motel. We are going to stay there, and I am going to work. You, on the other hand, are going to act like a normal person, and do normal things, like go out on a date with a man.”

Jamaica licked her lips and held up both of her hands. “Okay, baby, you had me on everything until you said the ‘M' word.”

LaChina leaned back, moving away from Jamaica. “What ‘M' word?” She peered at Jamaica strangely. “Man?”

Jamaica smacked her lips and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Motel!”

LaChina leaned forward again and placed her hand on her chest. “Girl, you almost scared me for a moment.”

Frowning, Jamaica tilted her head and shook it. “I'm not staying in anybody's motel.”

“Jai, if he sees where we're staying, he may get suspicious and realize who you are,” LaChina explained.

Jamaica's arms flew through the air. “So what, let him!”

It was LaChina's turn to smack her lips and look unimpressed. “That's not the plan, Jai. The plan is to be normal, to relax, and to be Jamaica. Not Tiera, Jamaica.”

“It's not like I'm going to keep seeing the guy,” Jamaica told her. “One or two dates, and that's it. Hell, dating me will work wonders for his ego!”

LaChina exhaled loudly.

Jamaica folded her arms defiantly. “I'm not staying in any motel, and that's final!”

“Jai, do you remember when we were sixteen and you wrecked Beverly's brand-new convertible Corniche? Do you remember me jumping behind the wheel and taking the blame?”

Jamaica leaned forward and hugged LaChina. “Yes, and I still love you for it.”

“I'm going to tell her,” LaChina said flatly.

Jamaica's eyes flew wide. “What?”

“I'm going to tell her everything,” LaChina continued. She jabbed her finger into Jamaica's chest. “Every rotten thing that you ever did in your life, I will tell. From the time when we were eight, and you stuck the wet/ dry vac into her ten thousand-gallon fish tank and sucked up all of her tropical fish, to last year when you got drunk on Chateau Lafite Rothschild and threw up all over Beaver Creek.”

Jamaica shook her head. “You wouldn't.”

“Motel, Jai.”

“What?” Jamaica asked incredulously.

LaChina reached for the telephone. “I'm dialing.”

Jamaica's eyes flew wide once again and she leapt for her friend's hand. “Okay, okay, motel! I'll even date your damn boy toy!”

“Incognito?” LaChina asked.

Jamaica nodded. “You drive a hard bargain. You know what?”

“What?” LaChina asked.

“I'm starting to think that you didn't go to Spelman,” Jamaica told her. “I'm starting to think that you studied business at a fruit stand in Chinatown.”

“Jai, it was either going to be the rough and tough, John Wayne style, or the pouting baby face. Since I used the pouting earlier, I didn't think that it would work again so soon. Besides,” LaChina smiled, “I didn't want to seem redundant.”

Jamaica folded her arms and pouted. “Bitch.”

“Thank you.”

They hugged.

“Hello?”

“Hi, this is China. Remember, the mall?”

Tameer quickly sat up on the couch and adjusted the phone.
How could he forget?
“Yeah, I remember the mall. How's your friend?”

“She'll live. As a matter of fact, since you asked, she would be doing a lot better if she had someone to show her around town.”

“Hold on, I can get the Yellow Pages and give you the number to one of our local tour companies.”

“Ha, ha, that's real funny. You know what I'm getting at.”

“I know, and it scares me,” Tameer answered. He decided to be frank. “Your friend's a snob. a mean snob.”

“She's not, really. You just have to get to know her.”
Damn, he already knew her,
LaChina thought.

“I guess,” Tameer replied.
I hope that never happens
, was what he really wanted to say. “So, is this part of my punishment for breaking the sunglasses?”

“You could say that. But, I'd rather you thought of it as being a gentleman, and showing a nice, single, young lady around town.”

“You, nice. Her, well…I'd rather pay for the sunglasses.”

“I'm taken, and the glasses cost twelve hundred dollars.”

“Twelve hundred-dollar sunglasses!” Tameer shouted into the telephone. “Are you crazy?” The last part slipped out.

“No, and she had just purchased them. We still have the receipt, you can see it if you like.”

LaChina had played all of her cards, now she could only wait in silence to see if he would bite. He did.

“I'm sorry, I don't have twelve hundred dollars cash to pay for any sunglasses. I can make payments.”

LaChina smiled. It was what she was hoping to hear.

“Well, we weren't going to be in town for very long,” she told him. “Can you pay two hundred dollars a day, for the next six days?”

Of course, he couldn't. She knew it, she was banking on it.

“Two hundred dollars a day! I can't pay two hundred dollars a week!” Tameer exhaled into the receiver. “I was thinking something along the lines of a hundred bucks every payday.”

LaChina smiled even wider. He was not doing anything illegal. He was perfect!

“Well, we really weren't planning on being in town that long.” She breathed in heavily and counted to five. “I'll tell you what. I have a proposition for you.”

“I'm listening.”

“Well, you take my friend out, while I finish my business negotiations, and I'll pay for the glasses.”

“You're willing to pay twelve hundred bucks just to get rid of her for a couple of days?” Tameer asked.

Together they laughed.

“She's not that bad,” LaChina told him. “She's real sweet, you'll see.”

“Well, I don't know if I can afford…”

“I'll pay for all of your dates,” she interrupted. “I'll pay for the dates, your transportation cost, the glasses, everything. Please, take her out, show her the city, and let me conduct my business!”

“You're desperate, aren't you?” he asked. Her frustration was apparent.

“Yes, I am,” she admitted.

“I've always been a sucker for a beautiful lady in distress,” Tameer said. He exhaled loudly. “I'll do it.”

“Oh, thank you, Tameer! Thank you! You are so sweet! I knew that chivalry wasn't completely dead. Listen, I'll give you our address so that you can pick her up…”