Playing Hard To Get Page 5

  “I always do what?”

  “You always—”

  “Don’t tell me what I always do.” She cut him off, though she had asked the question. “I’m a grown woman. I know what I do and how I do it.” Tasha’s voice had already been loud and now it was getting louder. “This ain’t even about what I do. It’s about what you don’t do!”

  “Can you keep your voice down? You’re going to wake them up.”

  “Wake them up?” Tasha turned to Lionel. Her forehead was crowded with angry wrinkles. On her tired, frustrated ears, Lionel’s request sounded more like an accusation. “I take care of our daughters all by myself. I don’t need you or anyone else to worry about if I wake them up. They wake up when and where I choose. And if I want them up right now, then so be it!”

  That must’ve been what Tasha wanted, because they were up, and they were crying, and later that night, when they all got back to the house, she put them to bed alone.

  

  “Salt and Pepa! Finesse and Sequins! Latifah and Monie Love! We’re about to be all of them.” Jones was laughing, but Tamia wasn’t.

  She was too busy trying to remember who Finesse and Sequins were while looking at the open door of her office. She’d told Naudia too many times to close the door whenever Jones was in there and come in after ten minutes with an urgent call. Neither of those things had happened.

  Jones was the firm’s latest equal opportunity hire. A Howard Law School grad whose supreme understanding of the law was constantly undermined by her lack of an understanding of how to conduct herself in a law office. According to a laughing Charleston one evening over dinner, Jones had the “big/little issue” that many unpolished black females had at the firm—big mouths and little clothes. This sad stereotype stung Tamia’s ears when she’d heard it, but even right now, Jones, whose full name was Da-Asia Moshanique Jones (which she insisted on having put on the nameplate on her office door), was proving him right.

  “You know, I’ve been waiting, just waiting for this firm to finally give me a case I can sink my teeth into, something where I can help my people, you know?” Jones said, grinning.

  “Know? What do you mean?”

  “The case…with Richard Holder—the Freedom Project—us…We’re on it together!” Jones wiggled in her seat happily. Tamia saw wide gold hoop earrings peek out from beneath the mop of wet and wavy curls Jones had braided to her scalp.

  “We’re what? Partners? Who told you that? Pelst?” Tamia kicked the inside of her desk.

  “Yup! Aren’t you excited? I mean, what are the odds that the only black girls on the team get to work together? I needed a break from those white folks anyway! Always being all nosy. I know my job. How to do what I do and they want to know everything other than that—where I live, who I date, what I eat. Damn. No, I don’t want to eat no damn hummus. I ain’t no bird. Know what I mean?”

  “Yes,” Tamia agreed, nervously watching the door. She really did agree with what Jones was saying, but couldn’t understand why she had to be so loud saying it or what made her think it was cool to say it at work in the first place. Luckily, Naudia, who Tamia was sure could now hear Jones’s speech, finally came and closed the door.

  “We can do this together and do it right. Blow everyone away. I’m ready. Know what I’m sayin’? Know what I mean?!”

  Tamia nodded her head in agreement, but she really didn’t “know what” Jones was “saying.”

  Class for Classy Ladies

  Being a unique individual is admirable, but being an undisputed ignoramus is unacceptable. To avoid being identified as the latter in any classy situation that requires class action, it’s necessary for every classy girl to know…how to act. Yes, we love Macy Gray, but some situations call for her to comb the dome, and while Mary J. Blige is our girl, even she had the good sense to get those tattoos covered up. Bluntly, unless you ARE prepared to be locked out and led away, don’t confuse being yourself with being unprepared. It just might make the difference between making your dream a reality, or going back to bed for a lifetime of nightmares.

  25 Classy-Girl Rules of Class Action

  1. Know when and where to wear flip-flops. Never to work. Always to the beach.

  2. Don’t talk on cell phones at the dinner table, in a church, or on the train.

  3. Never get too drunk or too full. Know when to back away from the table or bar.

  4. Don’t pop your gum or blow bubbles—unless you’re playing a stripper in a movie.

  5. Wipe your sweat off the gym equipment after use.

  6. Know who the baby’s daddy is…. And if you don’t, avoid going on Maury to find out.

  7. Don’t hand the checkout girl your credit card when you know you’ve reached your limit…and follow it up with another card that will be declined.

  8. Don’t get tattoos on any part of your body that might sag after menopause, or usually requires jewelry—the neck.

  9. Own a nice set of matching luggage—never travel with plastic bags.

  10. Have a bank account—stay out of the check-cashing place.

  11. Don’t get loud at work or with your boss; if it’s that bad, quit.

  12. Don’t wear anything to the office that requires choreographed movement, a thong, a strapless bra, no bra, or pasties.

  13. Avoid wearing too much perfume or makeup that bleeds onto your teeth or clothing.

  14. Don’t litter.

  15. Don’t wear platform shoes to work, unless the job includes a stage.

  16. Don’t kiss and tell, or leave video footage of the encounter—Eve and Fantasia discovered this the hard way.

  17. Don’t sit down at a dinner table if you can’t afford the 20 percent tip.

  18. Don’t leave traces of baby powder, deodorant, hair gel, or body oil on your body at any time—rub it in, or get it off.

  19. Don’t have more than two colors on your fingernails at one time, or try too hard to match the polish to your outfit.

  20. Don’t have fingernails that are longer than your fingers and/or a bar of soap.

  21. Don’t have sex with anyone for any reason other than having sex—intimate relations don’t lead to marital relationships.

  22. Always know the way home and have a way to get there.

  23. Perform community service.

  24. Don’t discuss personal matters at work. No one needs to know about your breakup.

  25. Don’t wear your cell phone earpiece unless you are engaging in a conversation and not sitting near someone who can hear it.

  “It’s like this woman wants me dead, or worse, fired,” Tamia complained, walking behind Charleston as they entered the Blue Note, one of the city’s oldest and most respected jazz clubs. Nathaniel, Charleston’s college roommate and fraternity brother, who’d never completed a day’s work on anyone’s payroll since they’d graduated, was celebrating the release of his first jazz album and invited the pair out for a toast with his latest dinner date, Ava.

  “You can’t take Phaedra that personally. She wants everyone dead…and fired. Being on top is what drives her.” Charleston was giving his comfy grin and looking at Tamia like she was an insect. He’d dated a lot of beautiful women, but Tamia, with her long, thick hair and classic beauty, was among the top ten. Plus, he always reasoned, she had a good upbringing and brains. He always loved pretty girls, but wanted the one on his arm to be the triple threat that made them the perfect pair. Tamia, he thought, even with her naive ways, fit the bill. “Look, you want me to be honest?”

  “Yes.”

  “The case is a dog. And your partner is even worse. You can’t win even if you win.”

  “What do you mean?” Tamia stopped him.

  “It’s nigger work. The two black women at the firm, one who’s up for partner soon and another who won’t make it three years, get the nigger case to keep them nigger busy. Basically, if you lose, they’ll say they can’t give you the bigger cases because you messed this one up, and, Lord, if you win…” He pause
d.

  “What?” Tamia’s chest tightened.

  “Then you’ll get all the nigger cases from now until infinity. And everyone will say it’s a good thing, great, you’re doing service for your people, but the only place that can lead to is an office somewhere in Brooklyn. Six figures tops. You’ll go from making headlines to hoping some community rag will give you ad space.”

  Tamia’s mouth was hanging open. Everything she’d worked for, everything she’d sacrificed was ablaze in a tinker house in her mind.

  “I knew this was a trap. I have to get out of it!”

  “No way out, babe. You override Phaedra and they’ll say you’re not a team player.”

  “So what would you do?”

  “I’d take the loss and work my way back up. Pray for the best.” Charleston shrugged. He felt his phone vibrating in his pocket.

  “You’re saying lose the case? On purpose?”

  “No, babe. I’m saying survive.”

  “Oh no,” Tamia said, still processing Charleston’s words as he started to walk again. “I just wish I knew why she’s all over me like this.”

  “Buck up, grasshopper,” Charleston said, navigating toward Nathaniel, who was standing up and waving toward them. “Don’t let crazy Phae get you down.”

  “Did you just call her Phae?”

  

  After feeding, clothing, and forcing to sleep her two little daughters, who seemed to want to have nothing to do with her and everything to do with their father, Tasha slid on her cutest boy shorts and sauntered, ever so casually, between her husband and his laser focus on Sportscenter. After the fight in the car, and a wordless dinner, she didn’t want to come on too strong, but certainly wanted to get it on. The little shorts, hot pink and so tight they almost looked like swimming bottoms, were the perfect mix of “I’m just walking around doing housework” and “come and get it!” She really just wanted his attention, and even if he was still upset about the fight earlier, she knew he had to be missing her attention just the same.

  She was hoping for a night of mind-erasing sex that could release her from the tension that was burying her, and decided that maybe it would be better not to tell Lionel, who began palming her backside as soon as she walked by, about the little platinum hair she’d plucked. There was no sense talking about getting old with the one person she wanted to see her as young, vivacious, and supple. Yes, he’d seen the stretch marks and hardened nipples that were delivered with the babies, and lifted without a word the little sack that formed atop her once taut abs, which, contrary to what any personal trainer told her, wouldn’t return with any amount of crunches or sit-ups. But even with all of this, he was still grabbing at her and whispering things like “You trying to walk past Big Daddy with those shorts on?” as if they weren’t married and two children in. And Tasha never wanted that to change.

  Sucking in her sack and poking out her back, she responded nonchalantly, “Who, me? I’m just cleaning up.” She giggled but still found her way to bend over his knee. It wasn’t the most appropriate position to send up a prayer of thanks, but she did, and vowed to hide away what she was thinking, so she could feel something better. And she might have been able to keep this up had Lionel been able to keep himself up. Five minutes into the lovemaking, Big Daddy wasn’t so big anymore.

  

  Tasha wasn’t the only 3T who was hiding something. On the fourth floor of her Harlem habitat, Troy was on her knees, stacking a brand-new pair of $1,500 silver Jimmy Choo water-snake pumps behind an older brand-new pair of $1,500 black Jimmy Choo water-snake pumps. Natural black curls sticking to her sweaty forehead, she was moving fast like she was hiding someone else’s Christmas present, but Kyle was the only someone else who lived in the brownstone, and he had no clue who Jimmy Choo was or that his wife had over $50K worth of his shoes. And that wasn’t the only thing stuffed in the back of Troy’s closet.

  “What are you doing?” Kyle asked, walking into the room and seeing Troy’s backside and feet poking out of the closet. He’d heard rustling, what sounded like little squirrels burrowing in the walls, as he walked up the stairs.

  “What?” Troy’s response was fast and breathy. Something slammed and in a second she was on her feet with the closet door closed.

  Kyle bent toward her to look at the door before repeating his question.

  “I was just praying.”

  “In the closet?”

  “Yeah…” Troy turned and looked at the closet coyly. “Praying for my clothes.” She was trying to sound confident to stop Kyle from going over and opening the closet door. She felt bad, though, and reminded herself that she would need to say two prayers before bed now—one for buying the shoes (and the scarf and purse she’d already hid) and another for lying to her husband. Nervous, Troy laughed and went over to kiss Kyle on the cheek. She wouldn’t and couldn’t tell him all she had within that covered sliver of space. In fact, she didn’t know how. The pretty little things she’d been pushing and pressing in there had come from so many places she’d loved long before she even met Kyle and she wouldn’t know where to start. There was only “why?” And even that escaped Troy’s knowledge.

  “Oh, you’re kissing me now?” Kyle said, his voice quickly turning from concern to passion. He slid his arms around Troy’s waist, grabbing her buttocks. After they’d gotten married and Troy stopped working, she’d put on an extra ten pounds that he loved. A Southern gent, he liked the feeling of really holding his woman and knowing she wouldn’t back away. But she did.

  When Troy felt Kyle’s penis hardening on her navel, she remembered the silver ring, the incubus, and the succubus, and jumped back.

  “What did you come up here for? I thought you were in your study, memorizing your sermon for next week.” Troy wasn’t really sure about this, but that was usually where Kyle was, and that was usually what he was doing. The sturdy penis and thoughts of the sex demons who Troy believed were no doubt running free in her bedroom at that very moment made her want to be alone again so she could look at her pretty things.

  “Oh,” Kyle said, slapping himself on the forehead playfully. “I almost forgot. Lucy’s downstairs.”

  “Lucy?” Troy repeated, with the ridiculous prospect of Kyle’s claim laced in her tone.

  “Yeah, your crazy grandmother, with her crazy dog.” Kyle didn’t usually label people in such a way, but Lucy and her toothless dog kept his temperance teetering.

  “She’s downstairs?” Troy jetted to the window and there it was, Lucy’s antique white Rolls stopped in front of the brownstone, taking up half the street. Paul, her driver, was leaning against the door. “But she never comes here. She never comes to…Harlem.”

  Troy was pushing her hair back and pulling off her clothes. A new top and jeans; no, a dress; no, a purple silken lounge set was on the bed and then on her—that quickly.

  “Is the house clean?” she asked.

  “Clean?” Kyle replied. “It’s always clean. You know we—”

  “Is it really clean? You know what I mean!”

  The newlyweds looked at each other to find understanding. As they grew older, this would turn into a telepathic ability to know what the other was thinking, but now the new groom was just too slow. Before he could remind his wife that they hadn’t dusted in a few weeks, there was a call from the bottom of the steps. It was purposefully weak and highly dramatic, little more than a whisper with a Southern drawl, from a woman who hadn’t lived a day in the South.

  “Troy Helene, darling, you really must dust this…home. Ms. Pearl is liable to get a sickness in here…typhoid…or…swine flu.” Her voice dragged and it was clear she was looking at things, frowning and certainly not touching. “Hell, I might get a sickness in here.”

  

  Throughout dinner, Charleston and Nathaniel kept the women laughing and the stories coming. Leaning back carefree and as pompous as princes, they’d loosened their Zenga ties and shoved platinum and mother-of-pearl cuff links into their pockets.
They’d commandeered the most expensive bottle of scotch from the bar and took turns demanding ownership of the tab. How important they were and how much money they had was apparent to anyone walking past the table. It was black yuppie heaven and these two were singing like angels in the choir.

  “Honestly, though, I told him, and I swear this is what I told that white boy, ‘I don’t care how many units this shit moves, I have the money,’” Nathaniel said coolly as he continued a rant about how he was about to be the next big thing in jazz and the world had better watch out for him. According to Charleston, Nathaniel, who was apparently a saxophone player, hadn’t even played in the band in college. But this was his new thing. He was an artist, a jazz musician, and he’d poured his entire self into it—even picking up a few drug habits to prove his dedication. “I want the fame,” he went on. “Just get me on the networks!” Nathaniel laughed a little louder than his joke called for. He was drunk and Tamia had noticed two dinner dates ago that when he got drunk he got louder and more obnoxious. While Nathaniel was what the 3Ts called a beach ball,9 he had the nerve to be handsome anyway. His brown skin was without defect. And like Charleston, he had perfect teeth and his grooming was impeccable. When Tamia met him at some rapper’s film premiere in Chelsea, and the two shook hands for the first and last time (it was more traditional to hug and trade dry kisses), she’d noticed how soft and moist his palms were. Like a newborn baby’s, they felt as if he’d just walked right out of a hospital nursery that very day. He then whispered in her ear that she should only call him by his full name—not Nate or Nathan. He claimed he was the fifth Nathaniel Cecil in a line of Burris men that predated the Civil War and it would be a shame to dishonor this history, but really it was just because he liked the way the formal version sounded. “Nathaniel” was the perfect accessory. It matched his ascots, argyle sweaters, and penny loafers.

  “You’re so funny, sweetie,” chimed Ava, who was smiling beside Nathaniel. Thus far, Tamia had met three of his women, but Ava seemed to be sticking around. She was as skinny and dainty as a dove feather. Her skin was the color of the inside of a banana peel and there was not a trace of a crinkle in a strand of her shoulder-length auburn hair. It took Tamia hours of painstaking pressing and perming to get hers right, and she envied just looking at Ava’s slick roots. She must be mixed, Tamia thought, mixed with something somewhere in her family.