Playing Hard To Get Read online

  “Really, Tasha? You’re gonna burn the house down with your children inside? Think about it.”

  Tasha sank back down to her heels.

  “Let me in,” she demanded.

  “No.”

  “Let me in.”

  “No, Tasha.”

  “Let me in! Let me in! Let me in!” Tasha was pounding into Lionel with her fists, screaming and hollering so loud Toni was awake and had crawled out of her bed and made it to the top of the stairs where she sat in a space her parents couldn’t see. “They’re my kids. I want to see them!”

  With one hand, Lionel was able to collect his wife and her things. It broke something in him to do it, but he had to keep the other parts of himself together. He dragged a fighting Tasha down the walkway and to her car.

  “No,” she pleaded the whole time. Now they were both crying.

  Lionel opened the car door and stuffed Tasha inside.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Get out of here before the cops come,” Lionel said. “I don’t want to be embarrassed.”

  

  Two long and seemingly sunless days later, Troy was sitting before two puffy-eyed friends at a wine bar.

  “Maybe we should’ve had a breakup party,” Troy said. Tamia was slumped over in her seat and Tasha held such a posed pose, everyone walking by knew she was hiding something. She slid a pair of huge shades on. “You know, so you guys can get over this—”

  “I cut off my hair for that fake kente cloth–wearing clown,” Tamia said, shaking her head into her third glass of wine. This wasn’t exactly a smooth transition for someone who hadn’t had any food in more than a month. She was skin and bone, and the alcohol went right to her head and would find its final resting place in the toilet after she vomited later.

  “But it’s growing back, right?” Troy was padding her voice with pleasantness, but she’d been sitting there with those two like that for two hours and was running out of sane-sounding things to say.

  “I can’t believe he won’t let me see them. He said I have to wait until this weekend…to see my own children. Who does he think he is?”

  “He doesn’t mean that,” Troy answered Tasha. “He’s just angry and he needs space. Like you did when you moved back to the city.”

  “I didn’t want space. I wanted Lionel to follow. He was supposed to follow me.”

  Feeling their friend’s pain, both Tamia and Troy reached out and held Tasha’s hands as tears slid from beneath her sunglasses.

  “Tasha, I don’t know how to say this, but I think you need to know that there was nothing Lionel could do,” Troy said. “You boxed him into a corner. You know he couldn’t move back to the city with you. You two have children. It’s not that easy for him to chase you around anymore. He has other priorities. And you should too.”

  “But what? What could be more important than us?”

  “Your daughters,” Tamia said.

  “What?” She pulled the glasses off and flicked them onto the table. “Are you two accusing me of not loving them? Of not caring for them? Because I love those girls more than anything in the world. I’m just fucked up. That’s all.”

  “I know that,” Tamia said. “We both know that. But it’s not so easy for everyone to see. You put these walls up and—”

  “What walls?”

  “It’s not easy…I mean for other people…to see how good of a mother—”

  “Look,” Tamia broke in, “what she’s trying not to say is that you abandoned them and your husband when you moved out.”

  “I didn’t abandon anyone,” Tasha said.

  “Really?” Tamia was frustrated and found it hard to placate her friend’s feelings. Maybe a soft voice and easy opinion wasn’t what she needed. It was the truth. “Tasha, you almost forced Lionel to have Toni and then after she got here and you were finally the great mother that you only wanted to be to get back at your own mother—”

  “Tamia,” Troy said, stopping Tamia, “you’re going too far.”

  “No, don’t stop her,” Tasha said. “I want to hear everything. I want to hear what you two really think of me.”

  “It’s not about what we think, Tasha.” Tamia was raising her voice and the waitress taking orders nearby turned and came over to tell the table to quiet down. People were starting to look. “It’s about what any sane person looking at your situation would think. You checked out on those girls a long time ago and now you’ve checked out on Lionel for this…” Tamia paused and looked around the room at all of the people, their glasses held in their hands as they looked at her. “For this? Look at it. Look at it! It’s not everything. You know? It’s nothing. You have everything with Lionel. You always have. You’d know that if you weren’t so busy complaining about everything and worrying about yourself. You’re too fucking selfish.”

  Tasha’s slap was so hard and so fast Tamia didn’t bother to block her or fight back. A hush fell over the room.

  “You don’t judge me,” Tasha growled with tears so heavy coming from her eyes it was clear she was crying for both herself and what she’d just done to her friend. She got up from her seat and Troy jumped up to get between her friends, afraid of what Tamia might do next.

  “Excuse us, ladies,” the waitress said, standing before a much taller, male waiter. “Do you think maybe you want to take this outside?”

  “Oh, we’re okay,” Troy answered. “We’re just—”

  “No,” Tasha said, plucking her purse from the back of her seat, “you two stay. Enjoy the rest of your meal.”

  9

  Every woman is a rebel, and usually in a wild revolt against herself….

  —Oscar Wilde

  Troy was embarrassed. For a woman who’d spent most of her life having everything, she now felt like she had nothing. And, really, aside from the touchy-feely things people say when they’re broke—love, health, and happiness—it was true. Her pockets were so deflated, the sides stuck together. What made it worse was that because she’d never been in such a place and didn’t know how to ask people outside of her family for money, she couldn’t even depend on her friends for support. She felt the shame of saying “I need” to anyone would certainly force her into a lifelong coma where Kyle was forced to wipe the crusted drool from around her lips while he and Myrtle made out in the bed beside her lifeless body.

  Aside from asking the other 2Ts for financial support, her other smart option might be to sell some of her things on eBay or on the corner of Adam Clayton and 125th Street and make double what she owed, but that never even came to her, so she appealed to the best loan agency she’d ever known.

  “Troy Helene, I can’t give you the money. I’m sorry,” Lucy said. Ms. Pearl was up on a brunch pillow, which sat in a chair beside hers at a golden bistro set in the middle of her rooftop atrium.

  “But I—” Troy tried, but Lucy only waved her off.

  “I promised your mother I wouldn’t give you any more money.”

  “You promised?” Troy repeated. “But you never keep a promise to her.”

  Lucy gave her a look. Even Ms. Pearl woke up from her nap to look at Troy.

  “What? It’s true,” Troy said.

  “Well, since we took that ridiculous therapy workshop—‘What Mommies—’”

  “‘—Can Do.’” Troy finished the title of the three-week workshop she’d taken with her mother and grandmother after her true lineage was revealed.

  “Whatever it was…Anyway,” Lucy went on, “she asked me not to intrude anymore and I’m taking my hands off of it.”

  “But it’s not intruding if I am asking you for the money, Lucy. And I am asking. It’s really important. I—”

  Lucy waved her off again.

  “She said you’d have a story and I was to respond that if you weren’t stripping or using drugs, I could say no.” Lucy dropped the piece of biscotti she was holding. “Oh, my Lord, is it drugs? Did you turn to cocaine?”

  “No, Lucy. It’s not that.”
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  “Troy, I know this is painful for you. And I hate to admit it, but that mother of yours is right,” Lucy said. “I’ve spoiled you. Given you too much for too long. Now it’s time for you to get your own. You went to college. Law school too. I didn’t do either of those things. I had to depend on people all of my life to get the things I have. The things I’ve given you. But the point wasn’t for you to depend on me. The point was for you to be able to go out into the world and be able to depend on yourself.”

  Troy stared at her grandmother.

  “What?” Lucy shrugged her shoulders and the extra fabric of the Yuzen floral caftan that covered her petite frame fell to the floor.

  “You sound just like her,” Troy protested. “Did she make you memorize that?”

  “Word for word.”

  

  While she was standing in a stall with an all-black horse named Shalamar, Tasha looked like she was either going on a date or trying to find one. And this was because she wasn’t simply visiting the exclusive New Jersey boarding stable to feed hay to the impulsive birthday present Lionel had bought for Toni when she’d turned one. She was indeed awaiting the arrival of a very special date—a play date. Lionel had agreed to bring the girls to the stable for an afternoon picnic. A promise of spring in the wintry overcast meant that she could wear her tan Lauren riding pants with a fitted blouse and Burberry scarf without looking cold. She looked fabulous, stunning. The only thing that could make her trip to the stables more complete was a photographer and maybe better lighting. By now Lionel had to miss her and she wanted him to see why. She’d stopped at Gray’s Papaya on the way to the tunnel into Jersey. She had Lionel’s favorite—three naked dogs and a grape fruit drink in the picnic basket.

  Tasha was practicing how she’d run toward the girls when she noticed a white woman pushing a stroller carrying two black babies toward her. Well, the woman wasn’t white, she was Latina, but with the poor lighting and Tasha’s quickly changed demeanor that wouldn’t matter when she shared the details with Troy later that night on the phone.

  “Who the hell are you?” Tasha demanded, walking toward the woman and leaving the basket of food on the floor where Shalamar could have a special treat. “And why the hell do you have my children? Where’s Lionel?” Tasha twisted and turned her neck in every possible direction to find her husband.

  Tasha snatched the stroller from the woman, shaking the girls from side to side. She felt fear in the center of her chest and then fury in the balls of her fists at even the idea of this woman touching her children, caring for them. And who was she? Toni looked up at her mother and then at the woman who’d been changing her diapers for three days. Without saying a word from Tasha, the woman pulled a cell phone from her purse.

  “He’s on the phone?” Tasha snatched the phone.

  “No, you didn’t just grab my phone,” the woman snapped, reclaiming the phone with more force than Tasha. Then Tasha realized that she wasn’t dealing with a stereotypical caretaker or whatever clichés she was thinking about the woman. She wasn’t docile or slow or scared. She spoke perfect English. And her voice had enough snap-crackle-and-pop28 in it to let Tasha know in a second that she was a boricua, a nuyorican29 and while Tasha didn’t know that she was on a full scholarship at Columbia University and only babysitting to keep her little sister in private school, it was clear that she was ready for whatever fight Tasha was serving up. Really, that was why Lionel had chosen her of all the nannies he’d interviewed.

  But Tasha had her own snap-crackle-and-pop too.

  “I’ll snatch whatever I want to snatch!” She took the phone back from the woman for no reason other than to prove that she could.

  Again, little Toni looked from her mother to the woman.

  “Oh, hell no!” The woman snatched the earrings from her ears, balled up her fists, and pushed her weight back on her right leg.

  “What are you going to do?” Tasha threw the phone down and balled up her fists too. If anyone was anywhere near the stable that Shalamar shared with two other horses, which happened to be away at competition, now would be the time to step in and stop the madness, but no one was and so it was on like Elizabeth Taylor at a diamond shop.

  Toni chucked her bottle onto the ground, but neither woman—her mother nor her new nanny—noticed.

  “Whooooaaa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Wait!” Tamia said, running up to the women and jumping between them just before the two began to tussle.

  “I’ll beat your little ass,” Tasha said as Tamia held her and pushed back.

  “That’s right. Get your girl,” the woman said as Tamia tried to settle Tasha.

  “Don’t nobody need to get me,” Tasha charged.

  “Besame el culo!”

  “What you say?”

  “Stop it! Just stop it!” Tamia shouted to Tasha, pulling her into the stable and a few feet from where the woman stood beside the stroller.

  “How is he gonna send—”

  “I don’t know, Tasha,” Tamia said stiffly. “But I do know that you don’t need to be acting like an ass out here in front of your children. Now let me handle this.” Tamia let Tasha go. “You stay right here.”

  “Mierda! Mierda! Mierda!”

  “Here,” Tamia said, brushing hay off of the phone and handing it to the woman.

  She took the phone.

  “I didn’t even do anything and now I’m going to lose my job!”

  “No,” Tamia said. “Don’t worry. She’s just upset. That’s all.”

  “Mr. LaRoche told me to bring them. What was I supposed to do?”

  “Look, what’s your name?” Tasha asked. She could hear Tasha screaming into her cell phone at Lionel.

  “Mercedes,” the woman answered. “I just got this job. I wasn’t trying to fight anyone. She came at me.”

  “I know. I know,” Tamia said. “Look, you go. I’m here with her and the girls. Everything will be fine.”

  “This isn’t about us,” Lionel was saying to Tasha on the other end of the phone. “It’s about you spending time with the girls. Why did I need to be there?”

  “We’re a family,” Tasha said.

  “No, we’re not,” Lionel said. “You changed that when you ran off to New York to do whatever the hell you’re doing there.” While Tasha thought that being separated from her husband would make him miss her and realize how much he loved her, it was having the opposite effect at the moment. He did miss her. But he was beginning to grow more angry at how childish and self-centered she was behaving. He was so angry, in fact, that he decided he couldn’t stand the idea of looking at her. He was afraid of what he might say, or do. And he didn’t want that to happen in front of his children.

  “So what are we going to do? Never see each other again?” Tasha asked.

  “Don’t be so dramatic,” Lionel said. “You asked to see your daughters. They’re there. Spend time with them and call me when you’re done. I’ll have Mercedes come back to get them.”

  When Tasha walked out of the barn, she saw that Tamia had pushed the stroller with Toni and Tiara over to a fence where they could see a few of the other horses playing in a pen. Tamia had taken Toni out of the stroller and was holding her in her arms.

  “What are you doing here?” Tasha asked Tamia flatly. The last time they’d seen each other was at the restaurant when they fought.

  “I’m your attorney,” Tamia said. “Lionel called me this morning to tell me what was going on.”

  “Bastard,” Tasha said. “I can’t believe he did this. Can you believe he sent that woman here with my children? They are his responsibility. And now he’s passing them off on someone else. He has some nerve.”

  “What else was he supposed to do? He doesn’t know what to do with them.”

  “Be a father,” Tasha shouted and both Tamia and Toni jumped. Toni started to cry.

  “I’m sorry,” Tasha said, reaching for Toni. “I’m so sorry.”

  She tried to pull Toni from Tamia’s chest, but the
toddler wouldn’t budge. She stopped crying and wrapped her arms around Tamia’s neck.

  “What is this?” Tasha grabbed Toni’s chin and turned her face to her, but the girl wouldn’t look at her. Tasha’s heart sank.

  “She’s just—” Tamia started, but she didn’t know what else to say. There was this anger, this raw anger in Toni’s face.

  “You hate me, don’t you?” Tasha said to Toni. “You always have.” She began to cry and think about Porsche, how much she’d hated her when she was so young, so angry at her mother abandoning her in the same way Tasha had done to Toni. “Oh, my God!” Tasha cried just thinking about what she’d done. How she’d left her family. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that I’ve been such an awful mother to you,” she said to Toni. “But I never had a moth…” Her voice cracked and she knew if she finished her sentence a rage would grow so strong inside of her, she might never recover. “I’m trying my best…No, that’s a lie. I could do better. And I’m gonna do better. For you.”

  Toni finally broke her grimace and looked at her mother.

  “I’m so sorry,” Tasha said to her again. “You can trust me. I’m not gonna let you down again. I promise. I promise.”

  Toni’s little hands loosened from Tamia’s neck and this time, when Tasha tried to hold her, she went to her.

  

  Far away from her birth father, there was nothing more sweet to Tamia than seeing her spiritual father’s face. She was upset with Malik and had vowed to keep their relationship on a professional level until his case was over. Then she wouldn’t have any contact with him. After getting over her initial anger about what happened at his place, she decided that she would continue her journey with her new sisters at the Freedom Project. And when Baba called, asking to meet her for a chat in the park, she was honored and happy he’d reached out to her.

  She couldn’t lie to her sisters about the reason for distancing herself from the circle for a while and she was certain Baba had been given the information. Even though she agreed to meet him, she promised herself she wouldn’t share any words about Malik. That was her professional life and she had to keep it that way. However, after discussing the mating patterns of birds and how the clouds were much thicker this spring than they had been last spring—and on that very day (what a memory)—he made it clear that he had no intention of honoring this desire.