Take Her Man Read online

  “Natasha,” Porsche said, standing up.

  I grabbed Tasha’s arm and turned her around to face me.

  “I’m telling you this because I’m your friend and I love you,” I said quickly. “You have to make amends with your mother before you become one. Remember what my mother said.” I pointed to her stomach. “I’m not asking you for much. I just want you to talk to her. That’s all, Tasha. Just talk to her.”

  Tasha pulled away from me.

  “Talk? Oh, that’s what this bull is about? You just want me to talk to the woman? Let’s see how this goes.” She sighed and turned back around. “Hello, Porsche.” She sat down at the table, leaving Porsche and me standing.

  “Hello, Ms. St. Simon,” I said, shaking Porsche’s hand. I sat down next to Tasha. “I love your work.”

  “Well, thank you, darling.” Her voice sounded so smooth and wispy that I imagined that she was an old movie actress like Dorothy Dandridge. “Forgive me. I’ve taken the liberty of ordering you ladies fruit platters. Nothing does the body better than fresh fruit in the morning, I always say.” She sat down nervously.

  “Thank you,” I managed.

  “So, Tamia, how do you know my daughter?” Porsche asked.

  “She’s not Tamia,” Tasha said. “She’s Troy and we met at Howard. You know, in D.C., where I ran away to after you left me sitting in that damn hotel alone for two weeks?”

  “Natasha, you weren’t alone. You had the finest of care, and it wasn’t two weeks, either,” Porsche said. It was uncanny how much Tasha sounded like her.

  “Whatever.” Tasha picked up an apple slice. “So why are you here, Porsche? Publicity stunt? Trying to get on Oprah? Dying? Or did that twenty-two-year-old boyfriend of yours take all of your money? What kind of stunt are you pulling now for attention? For your career?” Tasha looked out of the window.

  Suddenly, I wished I could be invisible. I felt like I was on the set of a soap opera.

  “Well, if you must know, Natasha”—Porsche reached across the table and took Tasha’s hand—“your friends called me and told me about the baby.” Tasha immediately threw darts at me with her eyes. “And I wanted to talk to you.”

  “About?” Tasha said, pulling her hand away.

  “Look, I’m the first to say I wasn’t the best mother, Natasha.” Porsche tossed her hair over her shoulder. “I had you when I was young and I made a lot of foolish choices trying to chase my dreams. I was a fool.” She looked into Tasha’s eyes. “But even fools have to grow up. I want to be a part of my grandchild’s life.”

  “Why should I let you do that?” Tasha asked.

  “Because I want to give that baby all of the love it deserves, Natasha—all of the love I didn’t give to you. I want to give that baby a family.”

  “I don’t know, Porsche,” Tasha said. I saw tears welling in her eyes. “It may be too late for all that.”

  “Baby, it’s never too late. It’s never too late to make right what you’ve done wrong in the past. Just let me make it up to you. That’s all I’m asking. Just let me be a part of this. I’ll do anything you want.”

  Tasha looked down and started to cry. I began rubbing her shoulders softly. I looked out of the window to see a small crowd of photographers gathering in front of the restaurant. A camera flashed and Tasha looked up at the window.

  A man carrying a camera bag came up to our table in the restaurant with a tape recorder in his hand.

  “Porsche, is it true that you’re reuniting with your daughter, the wife of star basketball player Lionel Laroche?” he asked.

  “What?” Porsche looked stunned. “This is a personal matter.”

  “Get the fuck out of here!” Tasha said, getting up. She looked at Porsche. “What the hell is going on? Did you do this?” She pointed to the cameras that were flashing constantly outside the window. “Did you set this up for publicity? I knew it.”

  “No, baby,” Porsche said frantically. “I wouldn’t do that.” She looked at me. “Maybe it was someone at the hotel. A leak or something.”

  “Whatever. Don’t flatter yourself.” Tasha began to walk away. “This has your bullshit written all over it. You used me when I was young to get close to my father…and your tired ass is trying to use me now.” She ran out of the restaurant.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. St. Simon,” I said, getting up to follow Tasha. “She’s really upset.”

  “She walked outside,” said the woman at the front desk when I walked into the lobby of the hotel.

  I ran outside and down the street behind Tasha.

  “Wait up, Tasha,” I screamed.

  “You don’t know that woman,” Tasha cried. “You don’t know her like I do.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “Yeah, you didn’t know, so you should’ve minded your fucking business.”

  “I’m sorry, really. I thought it was a good idea,” I said, trying to make Tasha stop walking away from the hotel.

  “You know why she had me, Troy?”

  “No.”

  “My mother got pregnant by one of the producers of the show. That’s how she got on that damn soap opera,” Tasha cried. “She got knocked up with me. And when he got tired of playing Daddy behind his real wife’s back, she tossed me to the side. She locked me up in a hotel to be someone else’s problem.”

  “Okay. I hear you,” I said calmly. “But Porsche was right. That’s the past. You’re all grown up now and you have to let that go.”

  “Don’t you fucking tell me about letting go. Your life is perfect,” Tasha said, pointing at me. “It’s fucking perfect. Your parents are together and you don’t have to worry about this kind of shit. If I didn’t have Lionel, I wouldn’t have anything. So don’t you dare tell me about what I need to let go of.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that and you know it. And if anyone knows that my life isn’t perfect, it’s you.”

  “You know”—Tasha turned to face me—“I think it’s time you turned around and went back to the hotel. I really don’t want to talk to you any more.”

  “What? Where are you going?”

  “Where I’m going is my business. Just like my life. So stay the fuck out of it.” Tasha turned and walked away.

  I was shaking and crying uncontrollably by the time I made it back up to the suite. Tasha had run away and I couldn’t find Porsche anywhere. I didn’t know anything about Los Angeles and I had no clue where Tasha might have gone. I felt so helpless, and my head was flooded with questions about why Tamia and I had done what we did. We might’ve ruined our friendship with Tasha forever. She was a good friend and she didn’t deserve to be hurt or embarrassed. What were we thinking? Now this was added to all the stuff with my family and Julian. My entire world was spinning and I was finding it hard to hold my ground.

  “Tamia, Tasha left,” I called, walking into the suite. There was total silence. I went into her room and she wasn’t there, so I instinctively headed toward the bathroom. “Tamia,” I called, knocking on the closed door. Again there was silence. I knocked again and then I turned the doorknob. As soon as the door opened a little bit, I could see Tamia’s body on the floor in front of the basin. “Tamia!” I screamed. I pushed my way in and fell to the floor beside her. She was laying there, completely cold in a little pool of what looked like blood and vomit. I kept shaking her, but her body was so heavy and stiff, I couldn’t lift her up.

  “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” I cried forcing myself to get up off of the floor and get to the telephone. “I’m in the penthouse. I need help. I need an ambulance,” I screamed into the phone at the woman at the front desk. “Her name is Tamia Dinkins. I don’t know what’s wrong with her. She’s just lying on the floor. I think…I think she’s dead.”

  I hung up the phone and tried to wake Tamia again, but she still wasn’t moving. The bathroom was beginning to feel smaller and smaller. I was fighting just to take in air so I wouldn’t pass out.

  “Please, Tamia,” I cried. I
tried checking for a pulse and to see if she was breathing, but I was shaking so badly, I couldn’t feel anything. “Please don’t be dead. I need you here with me. I’m sorry I left you alone. I’m so, so, so, so sorry, Tamia. Please.” I started shaking her. “Oh my God, what is happening to my friend? Please help her. She doesn’t deserve to die. She just needs your help,” I prayed, holding Tamia in my arms.

  I sat there in the bathroom with Tamia’s lifeless body, waiting for what seemed like hours for someone to come upstairs. I said every prayer I ever knew, even some I didn’t, asking God that he might see me through and save my friend if it wasn’t too late. I’d already lost one in some small way, and I couldn’t lose another—not like that.

  The room was soon filled with people from the hotel, cops, paramedics, and people asking me questions about who we were, what we were doing in Los Angeles, and what we had done the night before. They asked if we used crystal meth, cocaine, heroin, crack, marijuana. No, no, no, I answered all of their questions. It was just alcohol. Just some drinks.

  After they informed me that Tamia was not in fact dead, they began asking me questions about her and what I thought might have happened. I didn’t know if I should tell them about the over-the-counter pills Tamia had been taking. I was sure she’d stopped using them like she’d promised me she was going to. But after one of the cops asked me to get her purse, I found something that made my heart heavy for my friend and myself. Tamia had an empty bottle of Stay Up in her purse.

  “It’s not conclusive yet, but we think she had a minor heart attack and then she went into cardiac arrest. We pumped her stomach and it was clear that she’d just taken the pills. They were found throughout her system,” a strange doctor said to me in a strange hospital. He went on to ask if I knew she had been using the drugs and how long it had been. I kept telling him over and over that Tamia was not the kind of person he thought she was. She wasn’t some junkie. She was an A student, she was going to be a lawyer, she was the smartest person I knew.

  “Ms. Smith, this is very common,” he said after telling me that Tamia was in what they were calling a mild coma. “No one’s judging your friend. I actually see this kind of drug abuse a lot in young professionals. You get so caught up in being perfect that you get afraid when you realize that you’re not. And then you try harder and harder, often abusing these over-the-counter drugs to help you stay up longer and focus harder, but then you keep hitting that brick wall when the drugs aren’t enough. And one pill becomes two, then three—then you’re drinking cups and cups of black coffee, then not eating, using starvation to stall sleep, then drinking, then you finally come crashing down. Your friend is crashing down right now, Ms. Smith. I can’t give you the specifics of her illness, but she shut down her whole system with those drugs. We’re just lucky nothing happened to her central nervous system, so we’re expecting a full recovery when she wakes up. It’s a good thing you got back to the room when you did. She could not have survived much longer with no oxygen getting to her brain.”

  I fell into the doctor’s arms, crying as he held me. His words went exactly as the story did with Tamia. I knew because I had been there for the whole thing and I’d allowed it happen. I didn’t do enough to make her stop. I didn’t do anything.

  “When will her father be here?” the doctor asked.

  I’d used Tamia’s phone to call her father in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Through solos, he said he would be on the next flight and not to leave his baby until he got there. “Don’t leave her. Don’t leave her,” he cried like a child as he ran out of his office en route to his car.

  “I don’t know what flight he was able to catch out of D.C., but I gave him all of the information about the hospital and he was on his way, so he should be here in the next few hours,” I said, looking at my watch.

  “Good. I think she’ll be up by then. I hope she’ll be up by then. It’s usually really hard for the parents,” the doctor said, looking in from the hallway at Tamia’s body hooked up to all the machines. “They don’t understand how their children could end up here.”

  I didn’t understand it either. It felt like a nightmare that wouldn’t stop. Just twenty-four hours ago we had been laughing and picking out clothes for a night on the town. It was girls’ night and things were as they always had been. The 3Ts were together. But everything was fading away from me and I felt as if I was all alone in the world. I was miles and miles away from my home, my family, and now my friends.

  I needed someone to talk to. Someone to assure me that everything would be okay, that Tamia would pull through as the doctor said she would, and soon we’d be back in New York living out our lives as we had before. I sat down in the hallway in front of Tamia’s room in case she woke up, and I called Tasha, but she didn’t answer the phone. I supposed she was still upset and had no clue what had happened to Tamia.

  I called my mother and father but they weren’t home. I figured they off doing their usual Saturday afternoon routine, so I didn’t leave a message with Desta. I didn’t want them to get it and be alarmed.

  Then I found myself dialing Julian’s number.

  “Hello?” Julian said.

  “Oh, it’s Troy. Did I wake you up again?” I asked. I could hear sleep in his voice.

  “Nah, I’m fine. Just getting some shut-eye before I go in for my next shift. How’s L.A.? You’re still there, right?”

  “Yeah, I’m in a bit of a jam.” I started crying.

  “What’s wrong, Troy?” Julian asked. “You sound upset.”

  “Tamia just, Tamia just…we’re at the hospital,” I managed. “She passed out, they pumped her stomach, and she went into cardiac arrest—”

  “Wait, slow down, Troy,” Julian said. “How did this happen? Was she sick before?”

  “No, I just found her on the floor in the hotel. And that was it. She was just lying there.” I started crying harder. I couldn’t tell him about the pills.

  “Oh, baby, she’s going to be okay. Stop crying like this. I heard everything you’ve said and it sounds like your friend will be okay. Just listen to the doctors. Are you alone? Where is Tasha?”

  “I had a big fight with Tasha and she left the hotel before I even found Tamia. She doesn’t know what happened,” I cried hysterically into the phone. “And now I’m just here alone at the hospital waiting for her father to get here. I feel so alone. I just feel so alone.”

  “You’re not alone, Troy. There are professionals at the hospital who can help you.”

  “That’s not what I mean, Julian,” I cried. “I just feel alone. That’s why I called you. I don’t have anyone else. I don’t know these people.” All of the pressure from the past two days was crashing down on me and I just wanted support. I just wanted him to support me.

  “Troy, your friend will be okay. You just have to be strong and know that. You have to stop letting things get you so upset.”

  “My friend is in a fucking coma,” I cried. Everyone in the hallway looked at me.

  Julian exhaled.

  “You’re getting irrational,” he said. “I was just trying to comfort you. That’s all.”

  “Well, you’re certainly doing a fine fucking job at that,” I said weakly. Suddenly I felt wrong for even calling Julian.

  “Look, Troy,” Julian said distantly. He sounded the same way he had at the restaurant when we broke up. “I’m going to get off the phone now before I say something I don’t want to say. Just call me if you need me.” He hung up.

  I hung up the phone and shook my head. I needed him now. Now. I needed him now. I needed… Just then Kyle’s face came to me and I went to find his number in my phone. I dialed his number and it seemed that almost immediately, he picked up.

  “Helen of Troy.” Kyle laughed into the phone. “To what do I owe this splendid honor?”

  I was quiet. He sounded so happy, I didn’t even want him to hear my voice. I didn’t want him to hear me crying.

  “Troy?” he said again. “Now
I know you are not trying to prank call a brother. I can see your number.” He started laughing again. “Is that you? Are you crying?”

  “No,” I replied, trying to straighten out my voice. “I mean, yes, it’s me, but I’m okay.” My voice cracked and I started crying again. I turned around to see Tamia still asleep in the bed.

  “You don’t sound okay, Troy. Tell me what’s wrong. Why are you crying?” His voice had the same kind of urgency as Tamia’s father.

  “I’m at the hospital. My best friend had a heart attack. She was taking some pills and my other friend ran away from me. I just embarrassed her and made a fool of myself.” The words came from me like a prayer. They escaped my heart before I thought of keeping secrets. I had to put them on someone. Kyle listened patiently like he already knew everything I was saying.

  “Angel, stop crying,” Kyle said when I finally finished rambling through the story. “It’s not your fault. You were just trying to be a good friend. Stop crying. There’s work to do.”

  “I know, but that doesn’t change what’s happening. I don’t know, Kyle. I’m just worried.”

  “The good Lord didn’t take your friend from you, and the other is simply lost. She will find her way back to you. You just have to believe it, Angel. And rest assured in that gift of grace.”

  “I know, I know.”

  “I know it’s not easy. And sometimes when we want to be strong and not cry, we feel like crying and not being strong, but just know that everything is going to be all right. Everything is going to be all right.” Kyle was speaking to me in a way I’d never heard before. He was more than a friend, he was a man of God comforting me. “Our God is a waymaker,” he went on. “He is a God of change, of lifting up and bringing to excellence. You need to see that right now, Troy. And you have to know that even if this thing finds itself not as you wished, God is still God.”