After The Dance (27 page)

Later, after we’d parted ways with Dr. Goldstein and Scoobie was seeing me back to my room, I turned to him and said, “Of all the stunts you had to go and pull, why this one? You used my son to lure me down here just so you could sit me down in front of some stranger and tell me what an undesirable cow I am?”

He tried to act all hurt and innocent, as if I was the one who’d just publicly humiliated him. “How could you ever think such, much less say it? All I’ve done since we got back together is try and help you. That’s been my only intent.”

I told him, “Has it ever occurred to you that I don’t need or want your damn help?”

He was like, “You know, you can really be one hard-headed, evil Black woman when you want to be.”

I said, “Maybe if you fed a sister something besides sticks and twigs every once in a while you’d get a more chipper response.”

Suffice to say, rather than go out like we’d originally planned, we bid each other some right chilly good nights before marching off to our separate suites.

A half an hour or so had passed and I was sitting on the side of the bed getting ready to dial up room service and order me the burger and fries I’d been craving, when I heard a knock at the door. Yeah, it was him, girl. And he came in talking about, “I don’t want us going to bed angry with one another.”

“Why?” I said. “You thinking it might throw off your golf game tomorrow?”

He strolled over, stretched out next to me on the bed, and said, “Come on, babe. Aren’t you at least willing to let me try and make it up to you?”

“Depends on what you have in mind,” I said, thinking
to myself that a little nookie in lieu of a burger and a side order of seasoned fries might not be such a bad trade.

Unfortunately, breaking his vow of celibacy isn’t exactly what brother Scoob had in mind. He said, “For starters, as far as dinner tomorrow is concerned—how’s a filet mignon, a twice-baked potato, a nice-sized Caesar salad, and a slice of chocolate cherry cheesecake for dessert, all lovingly prepared by your very own personal chef, Venard ‘Scoobie’ Payne, sound to you?”

I couldn’t help but smile and ask him if the potato came fully loaded and, even more important, if a pitcher of sweetened iced tea accompanied the whole shebang.

He chuckled and said, “I’ll do you one even better. Why not call Nora and have her come and join us? Matter of fact, I’ll go so far as to set her up in a room here and have all of her expenses added to my tab. I’m serious, babe, I’ll make sure everyone here is informed that you’re both my guests and that you’re to be treated accordingly.”

And, girl, if that in and of itself wasn’t rich enough, no pun intended, mind you, the brother reached into his jacket and pulled out a thick envelope. “And this,” he said, “this is just a little something extra—you know, in case you’re out somewhere and you or Nora see something you really, really like.”

With that, he leaned over and planted a wet one on my cheek. But before he got up to go he told me, “If you need me, I’ll be downstairs in the kitchen. After all, I do have a cheesecake to tend to.”

After he left, I got on the phone with Nora and on hearing the deal, the first thing she had me do was count the money. Turns out it was an even grand, all in brand-new, crisp fifty-dollar bills. Nora said, “You know the slick bastard is up to something, don’t you?”

“Look, girl,” I told her, “we’re here, so we might as well make the most of it and try to enjoy ourselves. Besides,
with Scoobie footing all the expenses, it’s not like it’s gonna cost us anything.”

Nora was like, “Don’t fool yourself, Faye. Everything comes with a price, especially when and where Scoobie is involved.”

I keep trying to tell Ms. Vic I got way too many real kids to clothe and feed to be out here fronting like I got enough extra to spare for the role of sugar daddy. She acts like she ain’t trying to hear me, though. Not only has she repeatedly told me that money wasn’t no thang, she’s even gone as far as to inform me that her last two boyfriends were older than me. I think she said the one dude was on the other side of fifty and the other was in his early sixties.

I was like, “Dag, girl, is you got a geriatrics jones, or what?”

Older guys just treat her better is what she told me. She said, “Take yourself, for instance. As long as you and I have known each other and as many times as we’ve been alone together, you have yet to try and work your way into my drawers.”

And that’s true enough. I haven’t tried. But between you and me, man, there’s been many a night, especially since Faye’s been gone, that I’ve laid up in bed thinking about doing just that and then some. Ain’t no need of me lying, it’s tempting, not to mention extremely flattering to have a young hottie like her jocking me.

But I don’t know, man. It’s more than just the age thing. I’m saying, in between all the petty bickering, me and Faye actually did have quite a few insightful and stimulating
conversations about books, music, sports, sex, Black folks, and the stuff of life in general. Even given the nine to ten years’ worth of age difference between us, I wasn’t always having to stop and bring ol’ girl up to speed when it came to certain cultural references and icons. But with my friend Ms. Vic, it’s a whole ’nother kind of party, and the longer I hang out with her, the more I realize that.

Take the other night, for instance. She called and asked what I was up to. It was a Friday and I told her I’d just buttered my popcorn and I was getting ready to sit down and watch one of the movie classics I’d rented.

She was like, “You’re an old-movie fan? See, I told you we had a lot more in common than meets the eye. I’m something of an old-movie buff myself. Elvis’s
Blue Hawaii,
Jimmy Stewart’s
It’s a Wonderful Life,
and Doris Day and Rock Hudson’s
Pillow Talk
are some of my all-time favorites.”

Now you know I was through at the mention of Elvis and
Blue Hawaii
but rather than bad-mouth the girl, I just told her, “No, I’m talking the quote-unquote Black classics—like
Carmen, Cotton Comes to Harlem, In the Heat of the Night.
”

She said, “Ooh,
In the Heat of the Night,
sounds pretty steamy. What’s that all about?”

I said, “You know,
In the Heat of the Night
, featuring the one and only
They Call Me Mr. Tibbs
, Sidney Poitier?”

When all I got back from her was silence, I said, “You do know who Sidney Poitier is, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” she said, real sheepish-like, before confessing to the unthinkable. “I sorta know his face, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in anything.”

I was like, “Uh-uh, wait a minute. You’ve never seen a Poitier flick? Never? Come on! No
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
?! No
Raisin in the Sun
?! Dag, girl, I mean, what about the stuff he did with the Cos—
Uptown Saturday Night
?
Let’s Do It Again
?”

Shocked doesn’t even come close to describing what I initially felt, man. Try appalled. Pardon me if I come off sounding pompous, but in my book that’s like somebody saying they’re a jazz lover, but they’ve never listened to a single note of Miles or Coltrane.

She seemed so embarrassed about the whole thing that I couldn’t help but start feeling sorry for her—so much so that when she turned around and asked if she could come over and watch the movie with me, I almost fell for the bait.

But just in the nick of time, a fuzzy image of me and baby girl naked, sweating and getting straight buck in the middle of my living room, flashed before my eyes and I came to my senses. I lied and told her, “Ah, you know my ex is supposed to be dropping the kids off by here tonight, so maybe we’d best save that for another time.”

Even with both of our BS barometers sitting right up there on high alert, don’t think that Nora and I didn’t take full advantage of homeboy’s guilt-laced hospitality. Late Friday afternoon, after having spent several hours running around town, spending dude’s money like it wasn’t no thang, we’d come back to the hotel and stepped into its full-service salon and spa, looking for a massage and a chance to sit in the sauna, when we should bump into who but Tina, that worrisome wench I told you I’d clashed with at Scoobie’s party. And just like the last occasion, she had that wild child Evan with her.

Actually, Evan is who we bumped into first, and I do mean that in the literal sense. Apparently, after having wreaked a wide path of destruction throughout the spacious
lounge at the spa’s entrance, the pint-sized tornado was trying to avoid capture when he came tearing around the receptionist’s desk and collided with us, screaming like a banshee all the while.

Nora recognized him first, probably because she’s the one who ended up on the floor with him after having caught a head-butt in the abdomen. She said, “Hey, isn’t that the same little badass who terrorized everybody over at Scoobie’s that night?”

I was in the middle of scolding homegirl for mouthing off like that in front of a minor when his mama suddenly appeared. “Oh, my dear,” she said, trying to sound like somebody who was sincerely horrified and genuinely remorseful. “I am so sorry. Are you all right?”

As soon as she saw it was us, she dumped the front and went back to her witch ways again. “My, my. Don’t you two get around?” she said, trying to pass off mean-spiritedness as a playful jab between old friends.

Rather than pop open a can of whup-ass, I smiled back at her and said, “Nice to see you again too, Ms. Tina. It just so happens we’re here on Scoobie’s invite. And you?”

The heifer had the nerve to bat her eyes and say, “Oh, you know when you have your own money, dear, you’re free to come and go when and where you please.”

Nora, who by this time had picked herself up off the floor, grunted like she does when she’s about to dive tongue-first into her ’round-the-way-girl routine. The only thing that kept her from going there was the “slow your roll, sister” warning glance I shot her.

In true diva fashion, and totally oblivious to how close she was to getting some of that yak hair snatched out of her head, Ms. Tina brushed what looked like a freshly manicured hand over her Diana Ross–like do and said, “In any case, I have some urgent business that needs tending to, so I must be on. But truly, it was lovely seeing you again.”

At that point, believe it or not, the wench actually leaned forward and extended me one of those puckered-lip, cheek-brushing air kisses. She probably would have treated Nora to some of the same if homegirl hadn’t been standing there wearing an expression that clearly said, “Honey, try that mess with me and I will deck your hainty behind from here, clean into tomorrow …”

Before gathering up her son and gliding past us, Tina said, “Oh, and do have Venard give me a buzz while you’re here. Time permitting, perhaps we could all get together and, you know, have lunch, drinks, or something.”

Nora waited until the two had skipped their happy little butts on out the door before reading me the riot act. “Girl, you must be slipping. I can hardly believe you let Ms. It get away with that ‘when you have your own money’ bit.”

I was like, “You’re right. Maybe next time I oughta just backhand the ’ho and be done with it.”

Nora grumbled, then reiterated the sentiments she’d expressed after our first formal meeting with the Dumas clan. “I still say there’s something funny ’bout those folks, especially that kid.”

“Funny like what?” I asked her. “You think the boy might have a set of triple sixes in his head or something?”

She looked at me with her eyes all bucked as if to say, “Hey, now that’s a thought.” But after a few more seconds of consideration she was like, “Well, I haven’t exactly figured it all out yet. But when I do, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

Naturally, I had my own suspicions, particularly about the coincidental timing of slim’s visit to Atlanta. But instead of rushing off to jump up in Scoobie’s face about it, my plan was to wait until homeboy and I were alone to broach the topic.

I didn’t have to wait all that long. Later that evening, after treating me and Nora to the dinner he’d promised and that, I must say, was both filling and absolutely scrumptious,
Scoobie invited me up to his room for a nightcap. Caught off guard by the request, I was about to tell him that Nora and I had already made plans to scope out the late-night happenings around the hotel’s outdoor pool.

But the kick girlfriend was quick to issue me beneath the table brought me back to my senses. Here was my opportunity to try and further peep the game I suspected Scoobie of playing. So, yeah, I accompanied the man to his suite, sat out on the balcony with him, had a glass of wine, and, for nearly the umpteenth time, listened to his larger-than-life image of himself and his even grander plans for blowing up in the future.

You know after spewing so much bull, your mouth has a tendency to get dry, so when he finally stopped to wet his palate, I slid on out there with the ol’, “Guess who I bumped into today?”

I’d expected him to ask, “Who?” then take another sip from his glass, at which point I was going to tell him, “Tina,” and watch as he either sprayed wine everywhere or else started choking and gagging.

Instead he sat his glass down, looked at me with the sweetest smile, and said, “Well, my first guess would be Mrs. Dumas.”

He seemed so pleased with himself on having guessed correctly, I couldn’t help but try to put a damper on his spirits by jumping straight to the point. “So, you two still screwing around or something?”

Again, he looked me straight in the eye and said, “Absolutely, positively
not.
”

I said, “So you want me to believe her showing up here was just one of those weird coincidences that sometimes happen in life?”

Still staring at me, like he was some kind of expert shrink and I his newest basket case, he leaned back in his chair, clasped his hands, and said, “As if I couldn’t very
well ask the same of you about your friend, Nora. Oddly enough, you seem to be forgetting this is both a free country and Morris-Morgan’s corporate headquarters. Tina could be here for any number of reasons, whether to accompany her husband, Frank, on some legitimate business or for some purely social purpose. Whatever the case, it neither involves nor concerns me.”