Up to No Good (40 page)

Egypt and Isis were followed five minutes later by the two ladies I considered to be the life of any book club meeting, my very spirited and passionate Delta Sigma Theta line sister Nikki and her crazy-ass roommate, Tiny. My husband let them in on his way out to his spades game. As soon as the door was closed and Tim was out of sight, Tiny started yelling, “BGBC in the house,” then cupped her ear, waiting for our reply.

We didn’t disappoint her, as a chorus of “BGBC in the house!” was shouted back at her. BGBC were the initials of our book club and stood for
Big Girls Book Club.
We had one rule and one rule only: If you’re not at least a size 14, you can’t be a member. You could be an honorary member, but not a member. It wasn’t personal; it was just something we big girls needed to do for us. Anyway, we’d never really had to exclude anyone from our club. I didn’t know too many sisters over thirty-five who were under a size 14. And the ones who
I did know were usually so stuck-up I wouldn’t have wanted them in my house anyway.

About fifteen minutes later, my cousin and our final member, hot-to-trot Coco Brown, showed up wearing an all-white, formfitting outfit I wouldn’t have been caught dead in. I know I sound like I’m hatin’, but that’s only because I am. I couldn’t stand the tight shit Coco wore. And the thing I hated the most about her outfits was that she actually looked cute in them. Coco was a big girl just like the rest of us, but her overly attractive face and curvy figure made her look like Toc-cara, the plus-size model from that show
America’s Next Top Model.
Not that I looked bad. Hell, you couldn’t tell me I wasn’t cute. And I could dress my ass off too. It’s just that the way I carried my weight made me look more like my girl MóNique from
The Parkers.
I was a more sophisticated big girl.

Taking all that into account, some of my dislike for Coco had nothing to do with her clothes or her looks. It had to do with the fact that she was a whore. That’s right, I said it. She was a whore—an admitted ho, at that. Coco had been screwing brothers for money and gifts since we were teenagers. And to make matters worse, she especially liked to mess around with married men. Oh, and trust me, she didn’t really care whose husband she messed with as long as she got what she wanted. Now, if it was up to me, she wouldn’t even be in the book club, but the girls all seemed to like her phony behind, and she met our size requirement, so I was SOL on that. I will say this, though: If I ever catch that woman trying to put the moves on my husband, cousin or not, she is gonna have some problems. And the first problem she was gonna have was getting my size 14 shoe out of the crack of her fat ass.

As soon as Coco entered the room, she seemed to be trying to take over the meeting before it even got started. She was stirring everybody up, talking about the book and asking a whole bunch of questions before I could even start the meeting. And when she and Isis started talking about the sex scenes in the book, I put an abrupt end to their conversation.

“Hold up. Y’all know we don’t start no meeting this way.” I wasn’t yelling, but I had definitely raised my voice. “Coco, you need to sit your tail down so we can start this meeting properly.”

Coco rolled her eyes at me and frowned, waving her hand at Nikki, who had already made herself a plate, asking her to slide over. Once Nikki moved, Coco sat down. Now all eyes were on me like they should be. I was the book club president, and this was my show, not Coco’s—or anybody else’s, for that matter. But she still had something to say.

“Please, Tammy, you should’ve got this meeting started the minute I walked in the door, because this book was off the damn chain.” Coco high-fived Nikki.

“I know the book was good, Coco. I chose it, didn’t I?” I know I probably sounded a little arrogant, but I couldn’t help it. Ever since we were kids, Coco was always trying to take over shit and get all the attention. “Well, once again, here we are. Before I ask my momma to open the meeting with a prayer, I just hope everyone enjoyed this month’s selection as much as my husband and I did.”

Egypt raised her eyebrows, then said, “Wait a minute. Tim read this book?”

“No, but he got a lot of pleasure out of the fact that I did. Can you say chapter twenty-three?” I had to turn away from them I was blushing so bad.

“You go, girl,” Isis said with a laugh. “I ain’t mad at you.”

“Let me find out you an undercover freak,” Coco added.

“What can I tell you? The story did things to me. It was an extremely erotic read.” Everybody was smiling and nodding their heads.

“It’s about to be a helluva lot more erotic in here if you get to the point and start the meeting,” Coco interjected, then turned to my mom. “I don’t mean no disrespect, Mrs. Turner, but we’re about to get our sex talk on.”

“Well, then let’s bow our heads, ’cause this prayer is about the only Christian thing we’re going to talk about tonight. Forget chapter twenty-three. Can you say chapters four and seven?” my mother said devilishly, right before she bowed her head to begin our prayer. From that point on, I knew it was gonna be one hell of a meeting, and Tim would appreciate it later when he came home and found me more than ready for round number two.