Liar's Game (7 page)

She said, “You’re moving too fast.”

“Yep. This wound has been cauterized. My life is fantastic.”

I didn’t tell her anything I didn’t want her brother to know.

I’d been on the phone long enough for me to end this parley without being rude. I turned the shower on so she could hear it running, told her I had to get ready for work.

She said, “You’re gonna keep in touch?”

“Yep. I’m glad to hear from you.”

That was a lie. The day I called, every nationality in the five boroughs of New York would be on the Brooklyn Bridge, holding hands and singing “Kumbaya”while Giuliani tap-danced with Hillary Clinton.

I let her go back to her world. I went back to mine.

Part of a dream about New York came and went, bagels and potato chips. I had a sudden craving for both of those, but those desires faded and dissolved into the place wherever old dreams go to get their rest.

As I got ready for work, my eyes went to the mirror over my sink. The bathroom had misted up, and the writing that Vince had left in my mirror a few days ago came to life.

That came from a Saturday morning two weeks back. After I showered at Vince’s, I’d left a message in the glass.

The night before, we had been cuddled, relaxed, sipping wine, laughing and pillow fighting and watching movies I had brought over, fantasy stuff like
Notting Hill
and
Runaway Bride
, did the cuddle and talk until the break of dawn thing. Somehow we drifted into a conversation about marriage. I don’t know how, or which one of us brought that issue up, probably neither one of us, maybe both of us, hell maybe it was Julia Roberts in those damn movies, but he told me how I was the best thing to happen to him in years, how he wished he had met me about five years ago, how he hoped he could be with me in a forever kinda way.

Then he asked me the ultimate question, told me we should think about it.

I stopped blinking: “You serious about us getting married?”

“You know I am.”

I was stunned. “Don’t think you have to say that because—I mean, there ain’t no pressure to—”

“We can make this unofficially official. I just want you to know what I want from you. When I get a little money, we can get you a ring and you can wave it at everybody.”

“Wow.” I didn’t know what to say. Then out of my mouth tumbled, “Engagement ring, wedding ring, then suffering.”

“What’s that?”

“That’s what—” I blinked out of my trance, cleared my throat, erasing that bad memory. “Nothing. Just thinking about something I heard some idiot say back in New York.”

 

I had a hellified day. Had to pick up checks from a buyer in Mid City, then drive to a Crestwood escrow in Inglewood. I was zooming the streets, eyebrow pencil on standby, shades on, bottle of Evian at my side, looking Cali-fied. Most of the morn, my cell phone was glued to my ear, setting up appointments for a physical inspection on a property in Windsor Hills, making sure buyers were looking at property elsewhere, then to Edgehill for another physical inspection at one o’clock, biz that lasted two hours, so I sat there the whole time, going over the report.

Edgehill is in Leimert Park, not too far from Vince’s ponderosa, and when I was done with the inspection, I had to go potty.

Two minutes later, I had parked across the street from Vince’s, barely found a spot because Audubon Middle School was letting out. All the African American, Hispanic, and Asian parents were in their own separate-but-equal racial cliques, waiting for their noisy rug rats in their blue and white school uniforms, clogging up the sidewalk, school police driving back and forth, making sure the kids didn’t get into any after-school fights.

Vince’s mailbox was at the base of the stairs, and I saw that he had put out some letters for the mailman to pick up. Since they looked like they were about to slip out and fall, I tried to tuck them back into the narrow gap between the mailbox and the wall. Phone bill. Electric bill. Car insurance.

One was a plain white envelope. Written in his small handwriting, addressed to Joanne Jackson in San Bernardino.

I sniffed the letter. No cologne on the outside. It was sealed too tight to open and put back without tearing the damn thing. I held it up to the sunlight. The shape of a rectangular piece of paper showed.

“Can you believe they curse so much in public? They saw me and kept on using the b-word, f-this and f-that. No respect for adults at all.”

I jumped. Juanita was walking up behind me, shaking her head, talking to either me or herself. She had on a black pantsuit, similar to the olive one I had on. I tried to stuff the mail back in, but I nearly dropped half of the letters. Such a fool for spying. Finally I got them wedged in.

I stooped to get the mail. “Hello, Juanita.”

“Did you hear them cursing? The girls are worse than the boys. And I wished they would stop dropping paper in front of our property.”

Pro-black sisters with blonde hair, for some reason they look like oxymorons. But we came in all shapes, sizes, and shades of Miss Clairol.

She stopped to check her mailbox, which was empty, and out of nowhere, she asked, “Didn’t I see you at FAME last Sunday?”

“Probably. Didn’t know you went there.”

“Naiomi and I usually attend Agape. Did you enjoy the message?”

I was ashamed to admit that I couldn’t remember what the sermon was about, hell, who does, but I said, “It was cool.”

“I had a hard time with a portion of the sermon. Naiomi and I didn’t see eye to eye on the matter. Maybe I could get your opinion.”

“Oh.” I’d been sucked in. “Like what?”

“Following men wherever they lead, regardless if they are capable of leading. Propaganda like that is passed off as righteousness. It’s aimed at keeping men in charge and women in a role of subservience. We should be getting empowered, not devalued. We get fed bigoted indoctrination with a smile, and forget all about the push ahead for equality. That biblical attitude that propagates a one-sided slave mentality is truly outdated.”

“Did we hear the same sermon? Maybe we were at different churches.”

She went on, “The white man used the Bible to justify slavery, held us down for centuries with the spirit of his God. Now our own men are still using the Word to keep a woman in a submissive place.”

“Whoa. Submissive?”

“Yes, submissive. There is a lot of sexism in organized religion.”

I sidestepped just in case lightning was about to strike. I played the whole thing off with a smile, glanced at my watch as we headed up the stairs.

She smiled a strange smile as she took out her keys. “Maybe you would like to meet and discuss some issues that we as women should address in order to move forward and claim our rightful place in society. We have the numbers, statistics show that, but true power is in unity and knowledge.”

I blinked. Her voice had changed, softened up the way mine does when I’m talking to Vince. Couldn’t make up my mind if she was hitting on me, schooling me, or just keeping me from going to the bathroom.

I pretended I didn’t hear her last sentence. “I saw you out last weekend.”

“Saw me out . . .” Her smile went away. “Really? And where was this?”

“Yeah, last Friday night, me and a girlfriend dropped in at Duets. I was upstairs, leaning over the rail, and I looked down and saw you.”

She shifted.

“When ‘Back Dat Ass Up’ came on, you started backing that ass up.”

“That was not me.”

“I watched you dance with that girl for a good thirty minutes.”

“You’re mistaken.”

We stared. She was trying to do a Jedi mind trick and make me forget that I’d seen her wild side when she was clubbing on the DL. Hell, we all have wild sides, and Duets was the place everybody let theirs run free.

She went inside, left without saying adios senorita.

I rushed inside Vince’s apartment, danced out of my Enzos, wiggled to the rest room, did my biz. After that, I went to his nightstand, took out his box of condoms, counted them. Outside of the ones we’d used, none were missing. None were ever missing. Every other man I’ve dated has flunked the condom count at some point.

I took chicken and frozen veggies out, left that on the counter so it could thaw. Thought about Juanita. Yep, everybody has their wild side. I’m the leader of that pack.

The letter. I had forgot.

I grabbed my purse, my keys, hurried to the front door and got ready to satisfy my curiosity.

The mailman was at the foot of the stairwell, grabbing all the letters. That note to Joanne was getting stuffed in his mailbag.

That was the end of that.

When my errands were done, I rolled down Manchester into the bourgeois city of Westchester. So many palm trees and so much green grass, the scenery was redundant. All the way to my gig, my windows were down, music blasting until I pulled up into the parking lot at ReMax. My day wasn’t done. Transfer-disclosure statements, affidavits, had to do all of that and complete an agency relationship letter, plus fill out an earthquake and hazard booklet.

My mind kept telling me something wasn’t right.

I stepped in the door, spoke to a few of my co-strugglers. A couple were on their phones cold-calling and trying to drum up business. When I went to the receptionist area and pulled my mail, a familiar sealed envelope that came monthly was waiting for me.

A co-struggler walked up. She’s tall with long legs, tanned and blonde. “Your desk fees have come in.”

I made a displeased face. “How’re you doing on yours?”

“Almost two thousand behind. I’d hoped I’d have a little money when my commission check came in, but they took half of that up front for my fees.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, you’re doing much better than me. I don’t think I’m ever gonna get out of this hole.”

I moved on, went to check with a superior on setting up a payment plan for what I owed ReMax. “I closed on a property in Inglewood, so I could be down some on my arrears.”

The supervisor pushed a button on her computer, said, “Let’s see. Your balance is right at three thousand, a little less.”

Some stress crept into my mood. Right now there wasn’t much of a difference between three thousand and three million. “Tell me something I don’t know, like the numbers to this week’s lottery.”

Laughter.

Small talk for a hot minute, then she lowered her voice and asked, “Dana, why has Gerri been looking so run down?”

“What do you mean?”

She put her hand on mine, sounded so sincere. “That worries me. I came in one morning, and she had her head on her desk. Snoring loud. I heard that things have been rough and she’s working two jobs.”

I chuckled, used that to stall while I thought up a way to skirt the subject. “Well, you know she’s got two kids running her crazy. Plus, you met her young buck when he came down here to take her to lunch.”

She playfully fanned herself. “That lucky girl.”

“A young man will keep an old woman up all night.”

We laughed that naughty laugh.

I went to my office, feeling more pressure because I’d been covering for Gerri for a while. I put the paperwork to the side, fired up the PC on my desk, and went into AOL.

 

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That was the kind of crap people were forwarding all day every day. I deleted all of that junk, saw I had nothing important out there, then clicked on the People icon. Two mouse clicks later, I’d found AOL’s search feature that Renee was bragging about this morning.

I filled in the blanks: put in Joanne Jackson’s name. Put in San Bernardino. Clicked Find, folded my arms, and took a breath.

Only one popped up, just like that. The same address out in the boondocks that I’d seen on Vince’s letter, plus a phone number, everything on her popped up.