Cheaters (6 page)

I yawned, rubbed my eyes, and listened to the fear of a six-foot-one firefighter. I said, “What else you see?”

“This time there was a man, might’ve been a woman, in a mask.”

“What, they’re trying to jack you?”

“No, no. It’s like, I dunno, maybe like a surgeon.”

I waited.

He said, “Maybe not a surgeon. But I know it ain’t the Lone Ranger. Whoever it was, they were dressed in black, standing there with their arms folded, watching the whole thing.”

He shut down for a minute.

I said, “Maybe it’s time for you to slow down and jump the broom with Charlotte.”

He massaged his goatee.

After we made a few more runs up and down the mountain, we called it a day, changed into our after-ski gear, and began loading up the vehicles. Charlotte and Jake had ridden with me. Toyomi had chauffeured Shar out from Palm Springs. I dropped my skis off at my car and asked Jake to secure them in the ski racks on my roof, then walked down to the opposite end of the lot with Toyomi and Shar to help them get loaded up.

Toyomi kissed me. “Am I going to get to see you tonight?”

I said, “I have Jake and Charlotte with me. You could come by my place.”

“You know Shar’s with me.”

Actually, this inconvenience was a preplanned convenience. I had an all-night date planned for later on. But I played along.

I gave her my warmest smile, told her how beautiful she was, said, “The important thing is that we spent today together.”

“It’s a lover’s holiday. That’s why I want to be with you tonight. Skiing is fun, but I’d rather have something, you know, more romantic. One on one.”

“Me too.”

“Well, when are we going to get together?”

“Maybe next weekend. But you know I have to go kick it with my momma and stepdad on Sunday. We’re doing the family thing up at Coley’s Jamaican restaurant.”

“That’s what I love about you. You have a beautiful relationship with your mother. You don’t have all of those issues other men carry around. That’s important to me.”

Another kiss. I said, “You better get on the road.”

Toyomi’s face bloomed like a rose, but her eyes housed a ton of disappointment. Leaving me was the last thing she wanted to do. She let out a soft cry of distress. “I don’t like this.”

“Like what?”

“The geographical distance between us. Sometimes I need to see you more than on the weekend. And lately it’s been more like every other weekend. Any idea what we can do about it?”

I didn’t feed into that conversation. When she loosened her grip, I became busy securing her skis to her car roof. Then I let my hands stay active packing her and Shar’s boots and poles into her trunk.

Over the last year, sometimes Toyomi has had the severe PMS mood-swing crap. Today she was super sweet, the moods weren’t swinging like Tarzan through the jungle. Under the bright skies and snow that was blanketing everything my eyes could see, she was the way I loved her to be. But in a heartbeat she’d flip out and we’d have vulgar arguments about irrelevant bullshit. And I had to be honest and ask myself if that was the kind of woman I wanted to kick it with for the next sixty years. The problem was that usually a brother didn’t find out who he was really dealing with until after the morning after. After the sex has happened and the best behavior has faded.

Toyomi gave me another good-bye hug, holding me closer than Siamese twins, her short, thick fingers rubbing up and down my back. Her back was to her childhood friend. Shar raised her shades, winked, darted her tongue

at me, then smiled and eased into Toyomi’s brand-new Subaru.

In my ear Toyomi whispered, “Charlotte’s ring is very nice.”

If she only knew. Charlotte refused to make love to Jake before they got married. That was why after six months of heavy petting he dragged his blue balls over to Charlotte’s mother’s house and proposed. And as soon as she had that promise of forever on her finger, the morals softened and her vow of celibacy disintegrated like a cracker in boiling water. Hard to stop the sexing once the can of carnality has been opened. If her morals hadn’t weakened, they’d’ve been married a year ago.

That doesn’t make her a bad person. At least not in my book. I have a lot of love for Charlotte. She’s ambitious. Speaks Spanish and works her ass off. Independent and gives Jake a lot of space. A lot of rope. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her bitch about anything. She is the kind of woman that I’d love to be with in that eternal kind of way. Which was why I wished Jake would recognize what he has before it’s gone.

Toyomi kissed me again, then finally eased inside her car.

The tires of her Subaru crunched across the melting snow and ice as she gave me that good-bye wave and those longing eyes.

This year Valentine’s Day ended up being just another day. I’d had enough of watching the women at work running to the guard’s desk, then coming back with an armload of flowers, balloons, and smiles. Bragging about how their beaus were taking them to a Love Jazz festival at UCLA tonight.

That was why at noon I said enough was enough, took

my butt home, and romanced myself. I picked up a bouquet of flowers from the florist in the mini-mall across the street, gave myself a nice long bubble bath, then watched my soaps while I pampered my dark and lovely skin with a much-needed facial.
One Life to Live. General Hospital.
I laughed all afternoon. It was nice to see somebody whose life was worse than mine was.

Karen and Tammy came over later in the evening; no roses for them either, so that said a lot about their love lives.

I’m a year older than Karen, but my round face and soft eyes make me look younger. My girl is only five foot four—three inches shorter than me—and weighs a hundred pounds when she is soaking wet. Maybe what I’d been through, or was going through, made me feel so small.

Tammy showed up a little while later. She’s an Amazon: five eleven, one hundred sixty pounds, the complexion of Irish cream, ample breasts, golden streaks in her light brown weave—oh, I could go on and on describing that statuesque diva.

These are my girls. My sistas. My friends.

I didn’t have any real food because I wasn’t a culinary queen unless I was in the mood, and I wasn’t, so we decided that we’d stop counting calories and order a pizza. In the meantime, I raged while we held hands and ran across Diamond Bar Boulevard to Lucky’s grocery store.

Tammy was pushing the cart while Karen sashayed like a vixen and helped me pick out my goodies. Tammy’s face reddened as I told her the story. Her voice had a touch of anger when she said, “His wife had his kids out at three in the morning?”

“Yes, the heifer did.” I threw some apples, grapes, grapefruit, and oranges into the basket, right next to the jar of prunes Karen had tossed in. My insides felt locked up; I was so upset I knew I’d be constipated for a month. I added, “The skank was in rollers and house shoes.”

Karen stormed, “That’s disgusting and irresponsible. What kind of sista would expose her children to that?”

Tammy sniveled, “Please tell me he wore a condom, Chanté.”

“
Huh-ell yeah.
You know I made him wrap that pickle

up. And the fool didn’t even snatch the jimmy off before he ran out.”

I described how his rugrats were yelling like nitwits, and acted out how Michael lost his mind, was naked and tripping over every damn thing, stuttering and shaking, and we cracked up.

Karen’s laughter shut off in mid-stream, and her lips curved down. She stopped in her tracks, a very dramatic move, then said, “What’s wrong with this picture?”

We were heading toward the liquor section of the store, and up ahead was a tall, lean, dark-skinned brother holding hands with his tanned, blonde-haired, blue-eyed dream. She had on aerobic clothes, the kind of leotards that flossed the crack of her butt.

Tammy was putting three bottles of Asti Spumante in the basket when we saw them laugh, giggle, share a kiss, pat each other’s backside, then push their baskets our way.

My eyes and Karen’s eyes went toward the couple; then we looked at each other and tsked. Tammy didn’t help us out in the Department of Righteousness. She actually backed off a step.

As we passed Karen said, “Hey, O.J.”

The brother stopped and frowned our way.

Karen stood firm, did a slight neck thing, and said, “Oops. I thought you were somebody else,
black
man. My
brother.
”

He looked like he wanted to say something, but the Bambi he was with pulled him right along. The silver earring in her tongue clacked against her teeth when she said, “That’s okay, honey. Just ignore her. She doesn’t know any better.”

Karen obstinately said, “Tell him to ignore the fact that skinheads up in Lancaster are still assaulting black men with machetes. Or are you helping him close his eyes and ignore that reality as well?”

The white woman was speechless.

The next thing I knew, homeboy’s full lips had balled up like a fist. It looked like some mess was about to blow up, but he just shook his fat head and moved on. Back to the plantation.

Tammy exhaled like she was glad a ruckus didn’t break out on aisle nine. “Karen, that wasn’t necessary.”

With a nod and a sigh, I agreed. “It’s not like he was cute. He looks like a cross between Dennis Rodman and Shaq.”

“This is Chanté’s neighborhood,” Tammy said. “This is where she shops every day of the week. If you want to act a fool in Riverside, then do that. But respect Chanté’s space.”

Karen said, “It must be an epidemic. Everywhere I look, I see that shit. At the DMV, at the mall. How can a black man—who came from a black woman—chase everything but a woman who looks like his mother? The brother has deep issues.”

“You have issues,” Tammy snapped, her voice barely above a whisper because a few multicultural people were passing by. “How can you go to church on Sunday, then be prejudiced on Monday?”

I answered for her, “We’re Americans. That’s what we do.”

Karen chastised, “Tammy, you’re light-bright-and-damn-near-white, so you’re not going to bear witness to the truth.”

Tammy’s eyes said that she didn’t like that joke, not at all. It went deeper than Karen’s remark. Tammy never talked about her family. They live a few hours away, and not once have we met them or heard her say that she was going to visit them.

Tammy retorted, “I’m too busy trying to pay my own rent to be worrying about who’s dating who. I have a life.”

“That’s very Republican of you,” Karen fired back.

I chided, “Karen, you have a strong black man. Victor.”

That was the pet name Karen had given her vibrator. Her over-the-counter, Mandingo-strong, chocolate-colored, D-battery powered lover who had the hang time of the Energizer Bunny, but had about as much personality as a Black and Decker screwdriver.

Karen’s eyes broadcast her ill feelings for what I’d said. “And since you went there, Chanté, there are a few issues I feel obligated to discuss with you.”

“What
issues
do you feel obligated to discuss with me?”

She nodded, sucked her teeth. “It can wait.”

*  *  *

A little while later, we were back at my condo. Karen had pulled out a Glad bag full of weed before the door closed.

I said to Karen, “What’s up with the illegal activity?”

She retorted, “Don’t worry. I’m not going to funk your place up. I need to step out for a minute and get my head right.”

I surprised everybody when I said, “It’s cool, this one time. Maybe we all need to get our heads right.”

I looked at Tammy, checked her reaction. So did Karen.

Tammy groaned, “Oh, God. Last thing I need is peer pressure.”

I called across the street to Rudy’s Pizza and Pasta and ordered two medium vegetarian pizzas. We huffed and puffed and moved my oval wrought iron and glass coffee table aside, then spread out a red, black, and green Mexican blanket on the cream carpet.

I was in one of those moods where I longed for days gone by. Wanted to go back to when Now and Laters were a meal, Josie and the Pussycats were the bomb, and getting my hair wet at a water plug was better than a trip to Six Flags. Wish I could be that little girl with skin the color of C&H brown sugar who disliked boys, and loved for her daddy to tickle her until she almost peed in her granny bloomers. Kickball. Pac Man. I missed it all.

But those days were memories that colored the back of my mind, so the best I could do was get my girls to help me drag my old Magnavox record player out of my storage closet. I found my favorite music collection, funky tunes my momma and daddy used to dance to, and we powwowed to the sounds of an old, scratchy Ohio Players album. Did some old dances and roughed it. No glasses, drank Spumante straight out the bottle, and ate pizza out the box. This was our buppie town camping trip.

Tammy took a hit, gagged a bit, then passed the potent J my way. “Damn, I don’t believe I’m doing this.”

“That makes do of us.” I choked. “I mean,
two
of us. Now I see why I haven’t smoked any of this mess since high school.”

Karen said, “Well, after your last batch of relationships, a J or two won’t seem so bad.”

Tammy was in salmon-colored satin PJs. Mine were emerald. Karen’s, vermilion. We were barefoot, satin dolls.

We got tipsy as hell. Buzzed. Speech slurring.

Tammy leaned and swerved. “Well, I’m tore up. So I know we ain’t going to Shelly’s to party tonight.”

I shook my head. “No can do. Last thing I need is to be in a room full of couples who’re gonna be grinding on each other and sucking face.”

Karen nodded. “I think we’re in for the night.”

I went back to venting about Michael, tried to pretend it didn’t hurt so bad by making it sound like I was the winner in the ordeal. That I was Miss Billy Bad Ass when his wife showed up on my doorstep. I tried to convince them and myself.

With a mouth full of pizza, Tammy said, “Well, don’t sweat it. You still have Thaiheed ringing your phone off the hook.”

Karen raised a brow. “That’s a new name. Who’s Thaiheed?”

I hesitated when I saw that disapproving look in Karen’s tight, red-rimmed eyes. “I met him a while ago. He lives in Upland.”