Cheaters (55 page)

“Kiss your grits?”

“Suck ‘em till you choke.”

“Why are you so soft on Karen?”

“I’m soft on you too.”

“Why?”

Tammy hunched her shoulders. “Because we’re all alike.”

“I don’t think so. I don’t do sloppy seconds.”

“For real,” Tammy said. “We do stupid stuff.”

“Not too tight to get with your friend’s man.”

“He wasn’t your man. He curbed your butterball booty and left you blowing snot bubbles and slinging boogers on your birthday. Want me to act it out for you? ‘He didn’t call me. How could he do this to me? Woe is me. Nobody loves me but my momma, and she’s in Australia breastfeeding kangaroos.’”

I laughed a little. “I didn’t say ‘woe is me.’”

“I improvised.” She patted my hand. She said, “C’mon, Chanté. Tell the truth. She did see Craig first.”

“And last.”

“You shouldn’t’ve been advertising and bragging about how good he was in bed.”

I huffed, “He wasn’t all that.”

“Remember what you said about him being a two-dollar man?”

“I said buck fifty.”

“Okay, a buck fifty.”

I said, “You know I can’t count.”

I glanced toward Karen as I held Tammy’s fingers.

“Chanté, please,” Tammy said. “I’m going to Paris in the morning. I’ve never asked you for anything. I wanted her here because I want you two to make it right before I leave.”

“I can’t believe you invited her.”

“I did. I’ve talked to her every day. So now you know.”

“I don’t believe she had the nerve to show her face.”

Tammy said, “I know it won’t be the way it used to be, but let’s see what we can do.”

I groaned.

Tammy said, “She’s been through hell.”

“Where the hell do you think I’ve been, huh? My life ain’t been no Disneyland lately.”

“Somebody’s pissed off.”

“Geesh. How could you tell?”

“‘Cause you use double negatives when you’re mad.”

“Shaddup.”

She gripped my little finger and said, “Just be cordial.”

I gave up much attitude, tsked. “Don’t expect anything.”

Tammy led the way. Karen was alone with a soda in front of her, watching clouds walk by in the sky, swaying to the music.

Another awkward moment was born when we stopped in front of Karen’s table. Eyes roamed from person to person in search of feelings and words. I stared. Karen shifted. Tammy massaged one hand with the other. Everything was vague.

“Who you waiting for?” Tammy asked.

“Nobody. I didn’t want you to have to make excuses for me,” Karen admitted. “I wanted to be woman enough to see my sistas and ask for forgiveness face-to-face for what I did to us.”

My breaths were so short I could’ve used Primatene.

Karen tried to smile. “I miss hanging with both of you.”

I kissed Karen on the cheek. Karen kissed me back.

We smiled. Painful, unsure smiles.

Karen said, “Sit down if you want. Actually, I want you to.”

I copped a squat. Tammy smiled like she’d had a great day at the U.N. doing something significant for humanity.

“So,” I exhaled, “they dropped the charges?”

Karen pulled a folded newspaper clipping out of her purse and handed it to me. Without touching Karen’s hand, I picked it up. It was an article from Riverside’s
Press Enterprise
on the military “implementing disciplinary actions and imposing monetary fines against Craig Bryant.” He’d pled guilty to all charges and was “facing correctional custody or Leavenworth” plus a guaranteed dishonorable discharge.

I was stunned. So was Tammy.

This victory was supposed to feel good, but it didn’t.

Karen looked so uneasy and childlike as she apologized

in ten different tones. I listened, said very little. Watched her shift and suffer inside her own skin.

Tammy said, “It’s getting late. I’ll be leaving soon.”

Karen asked, “For Paris?”

Tammy shook her head, spoke softly, “Darnell and I are going to have a few moments together before I leave.”

I asked, “Nervous?”

“As a virgin about to be tossed in a volcano.”

Karen asked, “Why nervous?”

I said, “Duh, hello. She’s leaving so she can get her freak on with a married man.”

Tammy made light of it. “Well, if you were leaving town, wouldn’t you be trying to get hooked before you hit the road?”

Karen didn’t comment on that. I didn’t say any more. I guess that Karen and I had had our own indiscretions. Our own regrets.

Karen asked, “Who’s the sista who keeps staring over here?”

I asked “Who?”

She motioned behind her, toward the parking lot and a couple of big trucks. She said, “She must’ve left. She was right there when I came out a minute ago. She was upset, staring at y’all.”

Tammy’s eyes were on Darnell. His eyes were on hers.

Tammy said, “It’s a good thing I’m going to Paris.”

I asked, “Why?”

“I’d be so in love with him I’d start thinking about babies and PTA meetings and learning how to microwave chocolate cakes.”

All of us actually laughed at the same time.

The band came for Tammy. She was going to do a few more songs before she left with another woman’s husband. The band was going to party hard until damn near two a.m., but Tammy was going to be rocking somebody’s headboard and screaming a different song at midnight. In other words, at the stroke of twelve, she’d be getting stroked.

We all bumped through the crowd and headed back into the warmth and alcoholic fragrance of the club. Tammy held Karen’s hand. Grinned and held her close. Karen walked a few steps before she glanced back at me. She was as uneasy as I was.

She stopped, left her eyes on me as she said, “Tammy, why don’t you go ahead and go inside? Sing your songs.”

I nodded.

Tammy’s eyes went from Karen to me before she said, “Don’t get ugly, okay?”

At the same moment Karen and I said, “We’ll be fine.”

We walked toward the movie theater, away from everybody, then stopped close to the driveway that led to Foothill Boulevard. By then Tammy’s voice followed us out into the dark, telling Porgy how much she loved him. She sang with so much desire. So much that it touched me. Jarred me deep within. Softened me up.

I pushed my lips up into a nervous smile. I offered, “Come and get your stuff from my house.”

Karen kicked the pavement with her feet, then shook her head. “Not until I give you the last penny.”

“Please?”

“No. I don’t want your charity.”

“At least come and get the television. I hate to think you’re sitting up in there with no TV.”

“Well, I do miss
ER
and the
X-Files.
”

“And
Ally McBeal.
”

“You like that crap. I hate that show.”

I insisted, “Follow me home and get your idiot box.”

“Let me think about it. I’ll call you and let you know.”

I paused, admitted, “I still care about you, Karen.”

“I love you too, Chanté. And I’ve
always
respected you.”

“Stop it.”

She said, “Can you keep a secret? It’s about me.”

“You’re pregnant?”

“No.”

I said a reluctant “Okay.”

“Chanté,” Karen was struggling, “I’ve always been jealous of you. You’ve always had it going on. Independent. Secure. You own property.”

“Geesh. Thanks for the compliment.”

“I’m still stuck in a damn box in Riverside. Short on my damn college credits. Got so many bills I don’t know when I’ll ever go back and get that weak degree from a junior college. Don’t know if I’ll ever see the inside of a real university.”

“You can do it.”

She shrugged. “Your folks are there for you. If I had to wait for my people, I’d still be in jail.”

“Well, bring up everything, why don’t you?”

“Chanté, listen.” Karen had a painful smile. “I’ve got the floor.”

“No, you listen. You’ve been engaged
twice.
”

“Three times.”

“Even better. That means
three
men wanted you the rest of their lives.”

“I was engaged to the same guy twice.”

“So what? I haven’t been proposed to once. All I ever get is propositioned, never a proposal. I can get a j-o-b at Moss Adams, but I can’t even keep a boyfriend. Guess my dating DNA is screwed up, or I’m boyfriend-impaired or something—”

“Chanté, let me talk—”

“Karen, my life ain’t all that. If you want it, I’ll give it to you. Bills, raggedy car, heartache, bunions, and all.”

“There you go again. Always have to have the last word.”

I stuck my tongue out. “So.”

Karen was serious. “But not this time. Give me that. The last word. Don’t yadda yadda yadda when I’m speaking my heart.”

I shut up and braced myself. I’ve never been a big fan of truth, especially when it was my truth.

She said, “You’ve changed. You’ve become rude. Bitchy. Self-centered. Arrogant. Spoiled to the teeth. And worse of all, promiscuous.”

My eyes lowered to my feet.

Karen added, “Things I wish I could be most of the time.”

We chuckled a bit.

She said, “Slow down. Please? I want you to outlive me. At least try to. ‘Cause I’m sure as hell trying to outlive you.”

Silence.

I said, “Thanks.”

A cappella, Tammy was singing another song. A poem, actually. Images. Telling how a black woman often overlooks her own beauty, how she thinks her brown body has no glory.

Nobody in the area was moving. Everybody was listening.

The words were so strong, I wanted to cry.

I said, “In a few she’ll be leaving with Darnell.”

“So, she’s actually going to do it.”

“They’re going to a hotel to finish celebrating, or should I say start consummating.”

Karen shook her head. “She has the fever for him.”

I muttered, “Just like I have the fever for Stephan.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah. I’m back in love again. You just don’t know. I got the fever and it’s making me crazy. I haven’t been in love with anybody since Craig, which was a waste of good emotion.”

It became very uncomfortable. Karen cleared her throat and shifted away from me.

I asked her, “You love Craig?”

“Yeah. I had the fever for him.”

“I see.”

“But jail has a way of making a woman reevaluate her life.”

Silence.

It became a lot more uncomfortable.

She tensed up, gripped her purse. Trembled a bit. Then she exhaled and loosened up a bit. It was coming, I felt her emotions rolling out of her in waves.

“Chanté,” her voice was fractured, deliberate, “you’ve always said things to me that hurt my self-esteem like no one else ever has.”

“Words, Karen.” My voice was hardly there, fading and unclear, static-filled like a Walkman that had weak batteries. “They were just words.”

“And a rope is just a rope, until it’s around your neck.”

I asked her, “What about the things that you’ve said to me?”

“I’ve only said things that would help you.”

I told her, “That’s the same thing I did.”

“I only wanted to give you empowerment.”

“I wanted you to be empowered too.”

More silence as Tammy chanted and chilled the air.

With a whisper I asked Karen, “Do you think I’m a fool?”

“What do you mean?”

“The things I do. The things I’ve done.”

“Sometimes. But hey, if the woman who wrote
Ten Stupid Things a Woman Does to Mess Up Her Life
can end up with naked pictures out on the Internet, I don’t think we’re doing too bad.”

“True.”

With sadness she said, “At least you haven’t been incarcerated.”

I said, “Just because you can’t see the bars doesn’t mean I’m not incarcerated. Sometimes we create our own prisons.”

We listened some more.

Then Tammy was done. While everyone stood and applauded, Karen and I blinked, sniffled at the same moment, came out of whatever reality Tammy’s words and emotions had created back into pur world. Into this cradle of humanity. Both of our eyes had teared up. Not from crying. I don’t think that we’d blinked while Tammy was singing.

We saw Tammy getting ready to leave with Darnell.

I wiped my eyes and said, “We better get back to the party before we start crying.”

“Or fighting.”

We chuckled a little. Not much.

A tingle, an electric sensation ran through me. A surge that said everything would be better. Not all right, but better. We gave each other a single soft kiss.

I said, “One more thing, Karen.”

“What?”

“A secret between me and you.”

“Okay.”

It was hard for me to say, but I confessed, “Ten.”

She only looked confused for a second; then her eyes sparkled when she knew what that number meant.

Karen admitted, “Eighteen.”

I was surprised. My mouth dropped open. “Eighteen?”

“Yeah.”

“Damn, Karen.”

She added, “Nineteen if you count Victor.”

We laughed.

“Eight-fucking-teen.” Karen’s words rode on a sigh. She picked at her nails, said, “Would you believe that? Lost

my virginity in the backseat of an abandoned car that was parked on a side street. Lost it to the guy who turned me on to pot.”

I suggested, “Why don’t you quit getting high?”

“Man made beer; God made herbs. I know who to trust.”

Some laughter.

I ran my hand over my wild mane and told her my story. “I was damn near out of college. In the backseat of a car at a drive-in. A damn Eddie Murphy movie. Not a romantic movie, a damn Eddie-Murphy-telling-ten-minutes-of-fart-jokes movie.”

Karen chuckled, “Well, at least you got a movie.”

I was quiet.

She asked, “What you thinking?”

My tone was sad. “Wondering who number eleven is gonna be. How many nights he’ll last. How it’ll end.”

“Yeah. I feel you.”

We didn’t say anything else on the subject.

The impulsive side of me took over. The check that Thaiheed had given me, I signed the back of it. I pulled out my checkbook and wrote another check for five hundred. I made Karen take them both.

I told her, “Maybe this’ll help. Pay down some of those bills.”