Playing Hard To Get Read online

  “Don’t use water,” Tasha said quickly. “That’ll make it worse. Get the broom and sweep.”

  “I can’t leave them in the bathroom,” Lionel said.

  “Put them in their cribs and tell Toni to sing ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.’ That’ll give you five minutes to get the broom and sweep up the powder.”

  “Really? Wait a sec.”

  There was movement, Toni was singing, and then Lionel was back on the phone.

  “Now, what did you say?” Lionel asked as he swept.

  “I said I’d go back to therapy,” Tasha repeated, her voice breaking on every word as she cried. “Whatever you want. I just want my family back. I need—”

  “They need you,” Lionel stopped her as his feelings made his throat swell. “I need you.” This call wasn’t supposed to go this way. Lionel was supposed to be angry. In his mind, the next time his wife called, he was to request a divorce, tell her to come get her things, and find the nastiest thing he could say to make her feel the worst she ever had. But as the days went by and he was managing nannies and appointments and his life with the lives of his children, he saw just how hard Tasha’s job was. And sleeping alone in a big, wide bed made specially for him, he felt how lonely she must feel each night without him. As he played her role, he realized that much of what he’d hated her for, he could in some ways understand. She wasn’t right for leaving the way she had, but she wasn’t wrong for feeling the way she felt. In the images of his own beautiful life and beautiful family, the beautiful player Lionel had somehow forgotten to take care of one important thing—his beautiful wife.

  “I know I need help. I’m fucking up,” Tasha said.

  “I think we both have things we need to work on,” Lionel admitted. “But it’s going to take time and we have to commit ourselves to it this time. I accept you for who you are, Tasha. And I know you have your faults—I do too, but we have to be a team on this. For our family. Do you want that?”

  “I’m nothing without you all. I don’t want anything else and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to keep us together. I love you,” Tasha pleaded.

  And then, the player and the player’s wife were silent, as an ugly exit in their play was transitioning to a beautiful entrance that would surprise both of them for years to come. There was nothing else to be said. Everything they needed to hear was in the silence they felt.

  “Hey,” Lionel said suddenly. “I have someone who wants to say something to you.”

  “What?” Tasha asked.

  “Hold on a sec.”

  “Ma! Ma! Mama! Mama!”

  “That’s right, baby. Say it again. Say it so she can hear you.”

  “Mama!” There was a gurgle and then the word Tasha had wanted to hear for so long from the one person who seemed to refuse to say it, was repeated as clear as a bell in the wind.

  “Mama. Mama.”

  “You heard that?” Lionel asked, but Tasha couldn’t respond. She slid from the windowsill to the floor and was cradling her face in her hands as she wept. “Say it again, Toni. Say it for Mommy on the phone. That’s right! Your mommy is on the phone.”

  “Mama,” the toddler said and this time even she herself wanted it to be clear that everyone could understand what she was saying. “Mama.”

  “Yes, baby girl,” Tasha said, “it’s your mommy.”

  “Mama,” Toni repeated and then she requested in the only way her two-year-old mind could what she wanted most. “Mama…home…home.”

  “Yes, Mama’s coming home.”

  

  Later in the night, and much closer to the morning, on another stage in another part of the city Tasha would soon leave for good, another player was also preparing for her grandest performance to date.

  Troy was in the bathroom of her brownstone, sticking gold cones to the tips of her nipples to match her thong and blond Farrah Fawcett wig. “Lady She-Ra” was what the package containing this costume read when Troy had retrieved it from the shelf at a sex shop downtown. “He-Man” was the matching ensemble—a cape and a studded crotch cover, which Kyle thought was a headband—being showcased in the bedroom by her costar. He had a golden sword and golden boots. She had a golden whip and golden stilettos.

  It was one of Kyle’s fantasies. To save a damsel in distress. To save mankind. To save the world, using the power of his sword.

  “I am the princess of power!” Troy practiced, shaking her golden nipple covers a bit to be sure they didn’t fall off. “Can you save me? Do you have the power in your sword?” She toughened and softened her voice, unsure if she should sound hardened or needy. “Do you have the power in your sword? Do you have the power in your sword?”

  “Ready!” she heard Kyle call excitedly from the bedroom. He was standing in the center of their bed wearing his crotch cover on his head and nothing beneath his cape.

  Troy kicked the bathroom door open and stepped onto the threshold, her legs wide apart as the light from the bathroom pushed a shadow through her thick thighs. Kyle smiled immediately at his wife.

  “I am the princess of power!” Troy said. “Can you save me? Do you have the power in your sword?” Her voice was innocent, helpless.

  “Yes! I do, Queen She-Ra!” Kyle answered, pointing his sword at Troy.

  “Well, save me!” Troy demanded, using a line she hadn’t practiced. She cracked her whip and as it rippled, it flicked the underside of the door, slamming it suddenly against her face.

  Kyle leapt from the bed, racing to her just as it cracked against her nose and almost sent her crashing to the floor.

  “Oww!” Troy cried, falling into Kyle’s arms.

  “You okay, baby, you okay?” Kyle asked frantically. He moved the loose blond hair from her face.

  “My nose! The door hit my nose.” She covered her nose with her hand.

  “Let me see.”

  Troy moved her hand so her husband could see her nose. She looked into his eyes as he searched for bruises. His crotch headband had slipped over his eye and the right collar of his cape was poking into his cheek.

  “I don’t think anything is broken. There’s no blood,” Kyle said. “You feel okay? You want me to get some ice?”

  Troy smiled at him.

  “You’re the most handsome He-Man I’ve ever seen,” she said.

  “What?” Kyle looked at her, confused. He’d forgotten the outfit and the occasion and was just caring for his wife.

  “I’m slipping away,” Troy said dramatically, resting the top side of her hand over her forehead in mock distress. “I see a light and I am slipping away into another life!”

  “Really?” Kyle asked, catching on.

  “Save me, He-Man! Use your sword to save me! That’s the only thing that can wake me up!” She-Ra’s hand fell heavy to the ground as she fainted and went limp in He-Man’s arms.

  Kyle stood and carried his damsel to the bed. He placed her on top of the sheets and she (while allegedly comatose) managed to arrange her body into the position of a sexy offering.

  “By the power of Grayskull,” Kyle shouted solemnly, raising the pretend sword over her body. “I must save She-Ra, the princess of power!” He dropped his weapon and proceeded to use his other sword three times into the morning to fight the forces of evil and save the damsel’s life. She called his name so loud, the neighbors and theirs beside them complained of children watching cartoons too loud.

  When Troy recovered from her injuries and was awakened by the sun coming in the window beside the bed, she looked to see that Kyle was awake too.

  “Can’t sleep?” she asked. They were naked.

  “No. I don’t want to wake up,” Kyle answered. His eyes wide, he looked from the window to his wife. She pecked him on the chest.

  “Thank you,” he said, “not for the kiss. For everything.”

  “No,” Troy started, “don’t say that. Don’t ever, ever say that. What you wanted was what anyone would want. What everyone has a right to want from the people they love�
�to be accepted for who they are, where they are, and for what they want.”

  “You think so?”

  “I know so, honey.”

  Kyle kissed Troy passionately and feeling his tingling again, he turned her onto her back and ran his hand between her thighs.

  “Again?” she asked.

  “I said I don’t want to wake up,” Kyle replied as they laughed.

  “But we don’t have on our costumes anymore,” Troy said as one of her nipple covers fell from the ceiling.

  “We don’t need them. We don’t need anything.” Kyle kissed her again. “Wait a minute!”

  “What?”

  “Did you know She-Ra was He-Man’s sister?”

  “Really?” Troy covered her mouth in shame. “So…we just…?”

  Kyle nodded.

  “But the man at the store told me that…” Troy tried, but she was laughing again.

  “Don’t blame it on the man at the store,” Kyle teased. “I said I wanted it freaky, but not that freaky.”

  

  Tasha was right. The wig was a perfect fit. It looked just like Tamia’s old hair, straight and beautiful, bouncing and behaving. And the suit Troy picked out, black, a single-button jacket and classic trouser, was standout and made Tamia look like she was in charge of everything she walked past. The perfect sling-back heels, a matching bag with a golden chain-link strap, Versace perfume, freshly manicured fingernails, and a face painted to perfection, Tamia once again became the 3T they knew—and perhaps she was better, perhaps more confident, perhaps more powerful, perhaps more brilliant.

  These were the things Tamia said to herself as she stood in the elevator, descending the levels of Trump Towers with a latte in one hand and an attaché case holding Malik’s file in the other. The late summer sun was up now and the stage was set for a grand performance.

  “No subway this morning, madame?” Bancroft asked, extending his hand to Tamia to guide her to the taxicab he was holding for her. He was surprised she’d phoned ten minutes earlier to request the car.

  Tamia smiled introspectively, memories of the subway, Miss Lolly and her hula-hoop, and Badu and his incense, pulling her for a moment from her focus.

  “No, Bancroft,” she said. “I probably won’t be taking the subway for a while now.” There was no emotion in her voice.

  “Duly noted.” He nodded and helped her into the car. “Might I say a word?” he asked before closing the door.

  “Sure.” Tamia looked at him. It was the first time she’d ever heard Bancroft use the word “I,” and his usual stiffened demeanor was softened.

  “While I think you look lovely today, I preferred your look yesterday. The change suited you. I think it was the first time I ever really saw your beauty.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” Tamia said, stunned. His remarks were so intimate, Tamia was thinking she was hearing his real voice for the first time and she wasn’t sure Bancroft was even from England. “I guess I didn’t think anyone here cared about who I really am.”

  “We all wear costumes,” Bancroft said, removing his hat and revealing a nude, red head, “but when we remove them, we see who we really are.”

  After riding to the courthouse, Tamia was standing in the bathroom, looking at herself in the mirror as she prepared for an exit. For the astute and determined player, who began this stage in her life pretending to be something she wasn’t, realized she simply couldn’t pretend anymore. In the car, she kept thinking about what Bancroft had said about costumes and remembered all of the people she’d known who’d been wearing them—by force, familiarity, fear, even fierce desire. Charleston, Malik, Phaedra, Naudia, Ayodele, even her. They were all caught up in these images of playing who the world wanted to see, when the world wanted to see it. The only way out was to stop playing. “I did what they said I did…And I’ll do it again,” she remembered hearing Malik say the day they met. And he was right. For that minute, he’d stopped being innocent, accepted his guilt, and took off his costume to do one thing he thought was right, even if it meant losing his role. And now she was making him play by the rules again. Now she was playing by the rules again. But there was something about moving forward that makes turning back impossible, she thought. While she was back in her role and playing by the rules, she couldn’t unchange, unlearn, or unaccept the things she thought about her old world now. Seeing things for what they were was the ugliest thing she’d ever done and the only way she could make her world pretty again was to walk away from those things and embrace a new reality. She didn’t know where that reality was or if she would ever even find it. She might even need to die again and be reborn a million times just to get closer to it. She didn’t care what it took but she knew she had to do it and she’d never be able to do any of that, or embrace her newer self when she found her, if she was busy holding on to who and what she used to be. This was the last day of her old life. She pulled off the wig and stashed it into the attaché case. She looked at herself in the mirror and didn’t smile a bit. She just looked. Really looked. And saw herself.

  “I need to give you something,” Naudia said, coming up beside Tamia as she made her way into the courtroom, unsure if Malik would even show up.

  “What is it?” Tamia asked peacefully.

  “Wait, what are you doing? Where’s your wig?” Naudia whispered so the other people in the courtroom couldn’t hear her. “I thought you were going to—”

  “It’s in my bag. What did you need to give me?”

  “It’s from Charleston. He dropped it off at the office this—”

  Tamia put her hands up.

  “I don’t want—”

  “I think you should look at it,” Naudia said.

  “Not right now. I’m in a place—and I can’t handle his—”

  “You need to look,” Naudia insisted, and handed Tamia an envelope.

  Tamia held the envelope but couldn’t bring herself to open it. The last thing she needed was more bad news.

  “Open it,” Naudia said. “Just trust me.”

  Tamia looked at Naudia.

  “Trust me.”

  There was a note on one of Charleston’s desk cards:

  I’ll never say I was wrong. But I can show you that you were right. 2X as right. Use this however you please.

  —Charleston

  “What is this?” Tamia pulled the note from a clip that fastened it to another piece of paper.

  “It’s a check,” Naudia said excitedly.

  “A what?”

  “$60k,” she said. “A check. The money…!”

  Tamia looked at the figures on the bank note and shook her head.

  “Charleston,” she said lightly as more people came into the courtroom. “That man…”

  “You can use it to pay your mortgage…to get yourself back together and—”

  As Naudia considered how the money might change her boss’s life, Tamia thought of how it couldn’t.

  “You take it,” Tamia said.

  “…you could use it to—What?” Naudia said. “What did you say?”

  “Yeah…you take it,” Tamia repeated, handing the check to Naudia’s already shaking hand. “You take the money.”

  “But I…this is a check for $60K! I can’t…It’s—” Naudia tried. “You know this is crazy?”

  “You’ve been my assistant for so long, trying to chase your dreams. Now here’s your chance. Take the money and go to school.”

  “But I—”

  “I’ve never seen anyone who works as hard you. You know exactly what you want and you know exactly where you want to be. You deserve this money, Naudia. Take it.”

  “You really mean this?”

  “Just promise me that when you get to where you want to be, if it’s nothing like you thought, that you’ll see it for what it is and you won’t be afraid,” Tamia said, “you won’t be afraid to walk away.”

  “Yeah,” Naudia said, knowing that in her words her boss was telling her that that was exactly w
hat she was doing—walking away. “Thank you.”

  They hugged and laughed, agreeing that Naudia would actually beat Tamia by becoming the first black female Supreme Court justice.

  “I guess this is it,” Naudia said, looking around the full courtroom. “You think he’ll show up?”

  “What I think and what he’ll do are two different things,” Tamia answered. “I can only control myself.”

  “Hey,” Naudia said before turning to take a seat. “I know this might be a bad time and all, but you do realize this check is made out to you…. I’m just trying to say I can’t use—”

  “Naudia, deposit it into my account and we’ll get you a check in your name,” Tamia said, laughing. “You’re a mess.”

  “I’m just saying…No sense having a great big check I can’t use.”

  “Hey, Ms. Lovebird,” Troy said, coming up behind Naudia. Behind her was Tasha, asking where the wig was.

  “Ts, you’re here!” Tamia said excitedly.

  “We wouldn’t have missed this,” Tasha said. “We had to come out to support our favo bestie.”

  “Thanks, guys.”

  “So, where’s Nelson Mandela? He here yet?” Tasha asked.

  “No,” Tamia said.

  

  Fifteen minutes after Tamia took her seat at the front of the courtroom and the rows were full of every face she’d ever seen at the Freedom Project, the district attorney walked in with his case full of papers and slammed them on his table. He was confident. The case was in the bag. An easy kill. In a while, the bailiff would seat the judge, and court would be called to order. Everything was a go. Everything was together. But everyone wasn’t there.

  Tamia sent Naudia into the hallway to call Malik, but there was no answer.

  “Have you seen him?” Kali asked, bending over the railing separating Tamia from the spectators.

  Tamia only shook her head and looked at her watch.

  She couldn’t believe that after all they’d talked about, after all they’d been through, he would pull this in the end. If he didn’t show up, he’d go to jail. Bottom line. Then he’d be locked up and the Freedom Project, the place she loved so much, the place that changed her life, would be shut down. She didn’t care about Malik anymore. She didn’t even care about herself. But that place. What it did for her people, for all people, it had to keep on going. And if she was willing to sacrifice her feelings, to put aside her anger, so that could happen, why couldn’t he? Why did his brave heart have to be so foolish?