Playing Hard To Get Page 12

  “Oh, you mustn’t believe that.” Venus laughed a bit, using a faux European accent she’d picked up two husbands ago.

  “Of course, beautiful,” Venus gushed, stepping back to pretend to admire Tasha’s frame, yet she’d already seen and felt the extra thirty pounds Tasha was carrying. “You know I’m everywhere that’s somewhere. This city can’t get nothing on without me. Wish we could say the same for you, darling.”

  It was a statement, said flat and to anyone not privy to Venus’s tricks, void of expectation. But Tasha was no anyone and Venus had attempted to put her beneath the knife so many times that she knew the words were more of a question/indictment demoting Tasha from the former front-running socialite she’d once been to a sometime nobody who was lucky enough to have married the right man and been invited to an event she had no business actually attending. Yes, Tasha got all of that from “Wish we could say the same for you, darling.”

  “I’m around, bitch,” Tasha said, giggling so her words sounded more friendly than feisty. “Just not around you.”

  The women laughed off the short spar heartily. It was a draw.

  In Tasha’s old life, the one before she’d been calmed by the suburban breeze and quieted by children’s cries that were louder than her own, she would’ve won this challenge. But she was tired and actually happy to see someone she knew—even if it was a frenemy.

  “How’s my favorite Knicks player?” Venus asked, resting her hand on a set of stacked abs Tasha could see rippling beneath her purple chemise. More pretty than beautiful, Venus made up for the difference by working out so much that her muscular, fat-free frame that revealed nearly every bone and muscle through its casing could’ve been featured on the cover of ESPN magazine.

  “Oh, I sure hope he isn’t your favo,” Tasha joked. “We know how you do with the men.” The women laughed and quickly spied each other’s purses. Tasha’s Birkin, though old and passed down from her mother, won by a long shot over Venus’s brand-new Gucci BoHo.

  “I’m not that bad. Am I?” Venus batted her eyes innocently. “No, really. Where have you been hiding yourself, Ms. Tasha? I heard you moved to New Jersey….”

  “Sure did. You know I’m actually happily married and my husband and I moved there to raise our family. Do you have children yet?”

  “Well, at least it’s Alpine,” Venus said, ignoring Tasha’s question. No man she’d married had been crazy enough to get her pregnant yet. “I couldn’t stand to see another family go into poverty because they couldn’t afford to live in Manhattan anymore. This recession is killing everyone.”

  “There’s a recession?” Tasha asked, faking surprise to poke fun at how ridiculous Venus’s statement was. “I didn’t know.”

  “I’ll tell you what else you didn’t know….” Venus’s voice was saturated in secret. She put her hand on her hip and her bony elbow poked out from her body like the tip of a witch’s broom.

  “What don’t I know?”

  Venus looked away. She wanted Tasha to beg. The moment had arrived in the common exchange where even the words of a frenemy became desired. While Tasha’s hate for Venus was a sure thing, she was also sure that Venus knew everything that went on in the city that mattered. Her thirst for fresh blood and new friends/victims never failed to put her in the right place at the wrong time. It was the only reason Tasha ever tolerated her.

  “What do you have?” Tasha demanded. She hadn’t ever really learned to beg anyone for anything. It really was the best she could do. “Oh…tell me.”

  “Well, since you asked, a certain blond and blue-eyed cheerleader snuck into a certain player’s hotel room last weekend.”

  Tasha’s eyes, squinted and cautious, asked the questions she couldn’t. Venus’s eyes went to Tasha’s wedding band. Yes, that’s who she was talking about.

  “Lionel!” Tasha hollered, looking around for her husband, who’d slipped away to chat with his former agent. Any couth or calm she had was exiting the building. There were two games Tasha simply didn’t play—knock-off shopping and cheating.

  “No, no, no, calm down.” Venus grabbed Tasha’s arm before she ran off to put Lionel beneath her own real knife. “Listen to me.”

  “Listen to what? You just said that some white slut slept with my husband. What the hell do I need to listen to? Which hoe is it? That’s all I need to know.” Tasha reached into her purse and pulled out her cell phone. She didn’t have some ghetto hit man waiting to do damage, but she had her girls, Tamia and Troy, and they’d all take a ride at night if they had to.

  “First, she isn’t white. The eyes are fake and the hair is imported from Switzerland.”

  “So, she’s black? Is it Carmen? I’ll kill her! And she’s from LA.”

  “It’s not Carmen. Look, do you want to hear the rest?”

  “Go ahead.” Tasha paused and now her hand was on her hip.

  “Apparently, a new cheerleader, Lisa Henderson—something or other—snuck into Lionel’s room and, while I’m sad to say it, every single report I have says he kicked her out.”

  “What?”

  “Right out into the hallway. Naked as a broke stripper.”

  “He did?”

  “According to three sources who stayed on the floor…and Mamacita.”

  “Mamacita saw it?” Tasha said. Mamacita was the Knicks’ oldest and most respected groupie. She knew the traveling schedule before it was posted on the Website and usually had her airfare and hotel room paid for by some rookie who’d fallen in love.

  “That’s right. She’s the one who helped the girl back to her room. And you know Mamacita doesn’t lie. He didn’t touch the girl. Didn’t say a word to her,” Venus whispered.

  While seconds ago Tasha was considering who would raise her children once she’d killed her husband in a room full of people and was sentenced to life in prison, now she was feeling a small sense of pride, vindication at Venus’s revelation.

  “You can smile, bitch,” Venus said, smiling herself. “I know you want to smile. That kind of scene is as rare as a black man becoming president.”

  “It is kind of cool, isn’t it?” Tasha smiled.

  “Yeah, it’s cool, but don’t get too happy.” Venus’s smile turned to a stare. “You know what the incident means. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten. You haven’t been out of here for that long.”

  “I’m slipping,” Tasha admitted, her smile washing away as she spotted Lionel at the bar, laughing with his former agent and two groupies, whose status was marked by exposed torsos and tramp stamps, heart-shaped tattoos on their lower backs.

  “That’s right,” Venus confirmed. “No cheerleader or real groupie would step to the husband of a wife who was on the scene. Out of sight, out of mind.”

  Tasha looked at Venus.

  “I know you’re over in Jersey enjoying the good life, but this is real life and the longer you’re away, the sooner someone will snag him away. They’re just waiting for you to slip up. And I can already see that’s happening.” Venus looked to the shawl Tasha was wearing to hide her belly. It was expensive, probably cost more than Venus’s entire ensemble (purse and shoes included), but both women knew what it was for.

  There was no recovering retort for Tasha. She rewrapped her shawl and held her Birkin out on her wrist like some security doll a child would clutch.

  “Well, it’s been nice chatting with you, beautiful!” Venus’s smile reappeared like lightning striking a tree. She pulled Tasha into her arms and held her tight, kissing her on either cheek. “Take care of you. It’s a jungle out there,” she whispered in her ear before disappearing into the crowd of beautiful friends to gather another glass of wine and find a new victim.

  Tasha exhaled and waved at one of Lionel’s teammates. She wanted to go over to the bar to gather her husband, but knew the rule of these functions. A hanging-on wife was worse than an eager groupie. She could only come and go, smile and drift away to network in her own circles.

  “Where’s Tamia?” Tasha
asked herself, knowing better than to look at her watch. The bored wife was worse than the hanging-on wife.

  Attack of the Frenemies: Surviving the Ultimate Extraterrestrial Expereince

  Rodney King was wrong—we all can’t just get along. And when the foe is also a friend, the result is even worse—we manage to get along and fall out all at the same time. Every woman is bound to have a frenemy in her lifetime. She’s the woman she loves to hate, and hates to love. Her life would probably be better without the frenemy, but she needs her for something. And while the relationship might cause some bumps and bruises, she endures the enemy’s pain to get the friend’s pleasure. Here are tips for dealing with frenemies and surviving an encounter from out of this world.

  Dos:

  1. Know your enemy and her weapon of contact (usually her mouth).

  2. Know yourself and what weapon you have that can trump hers.

  3. Keep your cool and kill her with kindness.

  Don’ts:

  1. Fall for her petty games.

  2. Forget that this friend is an enemy, so keep your business to yourself and do your dirt alone.

  3. Play frenemy if there’s nothing to be gained. If the relationship is truly worthless, it isn’t worth your time.

  

  While most men relished the idea of coming home to a freshly prepared dinner, before he even got married Kyle realized that a home-cooked meal by Troy came with a price tag—she’d usually done something wrong and after she finished crying he would have to order takeout and dispose of the garbage to get rid of the smell of whatever cut of expensive meat Troy had charred to a dry mess.

  After smelling the now familiar scent of what he identified as burning beef when he walked into the house, he immediately asked his wife what the matter was and thwarted her phony half smile with an eye roll. He insisted it was something and she insisted it was nothing.

  “Why can’t I just do something nice for you? For my husband?” Troy asked, standing beside Kyle at the kitchen table.

  “You call this nice?” He pointed to what looked like a mass of tar at the center of a silver platter.

  At least the platter looked nice, Troy thought. She’d actually put fresh parsley sprigs and baby carrots on the side to dress it up.

  “It’s for you.”

  “Look, just tell me what’s wrong, baby, so we can go get something to eat—”

  “So you’re not going to eat it? It took all day to cook that.”

  “Yeah, it looks like it’s been cooking all day. And what is it? What was it?”

  Troy pouted and went to the sink. How did he know something was wrong? The plan was to get him full and butter him up before she told him about what happened at the meeting. The last thing she needed was to stall and let Sister Glover get to him first. Even in her un-right mind, Troy knew that wasn’t quite the right thing to do. She stared into the empty sink and tried to find the right thing to say. There was no way Kyle was going to eat that steak, or roast beef, or London broil, or whatever it was supposed to be. She might as well get on with it.

  “I need you to ban Sister Glover from the Virtuous Women.”

  “What?” Kyle was half listening as he looked through his cell phone for the number to the Chinese restaurant. Troy hadn’t left the sink.

  She turned to him.

  “I need you to ban her…from the Virtuous Women.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. It’s a church, Troy. We don’t ban anyone from anything and she’s the president, isn’t she? Wait.” He looked at her. “What happened? Did something happen at the church, with Sister Glover?”

  “No. Nothing happened. I just, I just kind of kicked her out of the group. That’s all.” Troy smiled composedly, plucked a bowl of rice from the counter, and sat it on the table as if they were going to eat the meal.

  “You kind of did what? Troy, what happened? What did you do to her?”

  “What do you mean ‘what did I do to her?’ I’m your wife. Don’t you mean, what did she do to me?” Troy looked at Kyle hard.

  “Just tell me what happened.” He sat down beside the burnt meat and tried to relax his shoulders.

  “She’s crazy. She’s just crazy,” Troy blurted out. “And I told her it was time for me to take over the group and she said I couldn’t, so I kicked her out of the meeting and told her she’s banned. Now I just need you to agree. We’re supposed to stick together. Right? ’Til death us do part. That’s what you said. Right?”

  Kyle looked at the dark cherry cabinet he’d drilled crooked into the wall.

  “I can’t believe this. Troy, I was just trying not to have any drama at the church. I can’t have all this crazy stuff going on. You know folks are already acting funny about me marrying you because you didn’t belong to the church…or any church…and you’re not saved. This is just going to give them more wood to stoke the fire.”

  “Are you kidding me? I’m helping them stoke the fire?” Troy sat down angrily in the chair beside Kyle and the two were silent for a while.

  “Look, I’m doing the best I can,” Troy started again. “For two years I’ve been running around here playing Little Miss Perfect Christian First Lady Bride Saint for you and for them and for us. And you know what? It’s hard. It’s fucking hard to be perfect. It’s so fucking hard. They make it hard on fucking purpose.” Troy hadn’t cursed in so long, the f-bombs were dropping all around the table like pelts of rain. It felt good and she wasn’t even thinking about pulling out her new prayer pad.

  “I never asked you to be perfect,” Kyle said.

  “No, but you and everyone else makes it clear that I should be. I mean, that’s what this is all about. Being saved? Sanctified? Right? Just say it.”

  “Say what?”

  “That you want me to be saved. That you want me to be like her.”

  “I didn’t marry her. I married you, just the way you are. And of course I want you to be saved. Of course. Why wouldn’t I want that for you?”

  “It’s impossible. It’s just impossible. I can’t do it. Just can’t.”

  “Can’t do what?”

  “Because I’ve been doing good and acting right for so long.” Troy kept talking as if she hadn’t heard Kyle’s question. “I walked away from my entire life to do this and nothing is happening.”

  “What is supposed to be happening?”

  “I’m all this on the outside, but inside I’m just…I’m still me. I’m still me but I’m drowning and waiting for this fucking light to shine down from heaven to say, ‘Hey, Troy Helene Hall, you’re saved.’ Is that how it happens?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know if anyone knows,” Kyle said carefully. “And the ones that claim they do are lying. God is just a voice and salvation is a whisper. And it doesn’t come to people just because they act good or right. Salvation can come to a killer, to anyone.”

  “So it’s me.” Troy wiped a tear from her cheek. “It’s me. I can’t get saved.”

  “You, Troy,” Kyle said, reaching to cup Troy’s face in his hands, “are one of the most genuine, funny, loving, and just real people I know. You have a good heart and whenever I see you, I hear God whisper in my ear that you’re the woman that was assigned to me. And I don’t want anyone else.”

  Troy looked at her husband, into his serious, honest eyes, and felt the whole, true weight of his love. A love she never requested, a love she never truly felt she deserved, and began, very softly, to weep.

  

  “Sorry I’m late, Ms. Lovestrong,” Tamia said, tapping Tasha on the shoulder after sneaking up on her at the party.

  “Damn, I thought you weren’t coming.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t leave you alone to endure looking at all of these beautiful men…not after what happened last year,” Tamia said, referring to last year’s body issue party, where a perfectly chiseled twenty-three-year-old football player decided to share his perfectly chiseled ass with the entire
party. Luckily, Tasha had her camera phone out and was ready to record full video footage. “I was in Harlem,” Tamia added, “and would you believe that none of the cabs I stopped would bring me all the way downtown? I had to get two cabs.”

  “Yes, I would believe that, but the really crazy part was that you were uptown.”

  “What? I’m always in Harlem.”

  “Since when? Since Troy’s last dinner party?”

  “Okay, maybe I never go to Harlem. It’s a new client,” Tamia admitted, feeling then that “client” was such an odd word to put next to Malik’s name. Nothing they’d done or discussed was like anything she’d ever experienced with a client. “So how are you holding up? Any streaks yet?”

  “No streaks; just freaks,” Tasha said. “I ran into Venus.”

  “Oh no.” Tamia frowned and plucked a glass of wine from a tray passing by. “The original Cruella DeVil with fifteen last names? God, I hate that woman. Now, there’s one I will never understand. How can that witch find, like, thirty husbands and I can’t get one?”

  “The law of opposites. Men love everything they hate. They say they need a nice girl, but they really want a bad girl.”

  There was laughter, loud, bold, and female, coming from the center of the room. All eyes shifted from drinks and faces that pretended to be listening to overused bar stories to discover the commotion, the party within the party, that was evidently more exciting.

  “Lynn Hudson,” Tasha said in two gruff words after the shoulders before her peeled back so she could see the source of fun. “The team’s new publicist. The child is hardly out of elementary school and she’s already head of the class.”

  Tasha and Tamia looked on openmouthed at Lynn, who was sipping on a glass of champagne as the handsome streaker from the year before whispered in her ear. Pretty as a honeysuckle and as sexy as a rose, she giggled and giggled like whatever he was saying was the best-kept secret in the room. Three girls at her side had the same kind of attention from other football players whose asses were probably just as nice as the one Tamia saw in the picture on Tasha’s phone. They giggled too and sometimes went to share what was being whispered to another girl in the pack.