Naughty or Nice (21 page)

“Nah.”

We keep feather-touching each other. I'm calm and tingling. Fear is gone.

“I like you, Tommie. Like you a lot. Mo loves you.”

“But?”

“I don't bring women around Mo. I'm very protective of her.”

“You're supposed to be. My daddy was the same way.”

Some thinking time goes by before Blue speaks again. “I've got a lot going on.”

“We all do.”

“Guess so.”

I say, “If you can accept my baggage, I'll accept yours.”

We laugh, but I laugh harder and longer.

I start back singing my duet with Bonnie.

Blue listens.

When I'm done, I rest in my thoughts and desires. I say, “I've never had an orgasm.”

“You're joking.”

“Why does everybody think that's a damn joke?”

“That's another wow.”

“I want to have one with you.”

“Whenever you think you're ready, we'll try again.”

“Thanks.”

“I more than ‘like' you, Tommie.”

“I know.”

Silence.

I tease my fingers through my wild mane. “I've been reading stuff like
203 Ways to Drive a Man Wild in Bed, Kama Sutra, Unleashing the Sex Goddess in Every Woman
—”

He repeats,
“Unleashing the Sex Goddess in Every Woman
?”

We laugh.

Laughs change to light chuckles. Chuckles evolve into erotic stares. To light touches.

We kiss. The fire returns and we drink each other. I float away.

I inhale his heat, kiss him, and whisper, “Guess I've been studying for the big moment.”

“Some things a book can't teach you.”

Another blistering kiss and everything becomes . . . ethereal. Haunting. Heavy breathing creates evocative sounds. Intoxication quilts me. My fingers play in his wooly hair, move down his back. All that is cold turns warm, and all that is warm catches fire. In this moment, I have no scars, no old wounds. And I feel it, like in my dreams. My heartbeat moves from my chest, down my stomach, and settles between my thighs, blends with fire and wetness.

I'm wet. God, I'm so wet.

I feel him against me. He's firm.

Erotic desires decorate my rising moans. He kisses me like I'm delicious.

I take his hand, move it between my thighs.

I whisper, “I'm not scared anymore.”

The theory, not the song.

M
y photo smiled at everyone the moment they came into the lobby. There I was, Miss Happy to Work Here, in my gray-and-white uniform advertising Dermalogica products, my image on a white wall decorated with purple blocks. The quote under my picture jumped out at me.
THE FACE IS A MIRROR OF THE SOUL
.
Employees were in the poster-sized ads up and down the hallway. We always joked that this place looked like either a clinic or an asylum.

“What are you doing here, Livvy?”

“Hey, Jenny.” I took my sunglasses off. “Came to buy products. Making baskets.”

“Want to help with a European skincare class while you're here?”

“Short-handed?”

“Need someone to work as a student. I mean . . . no pressure . . . up to you.”

I smiled. She had read my face the way some specialists examined organs to diagnose patients. Didn't matter. Everyone knew. Coworkers had been at the dinner party, witnessed my humiliation. My business echoed in these halls, another reason I kept working on the road.

I ended up being at work half the day, first helping out with the class, then sitting in the break room, reviewing articles on aromatherapy treatments and Chinese diagnosis on the skin.

I finally broke free and made it to the cashier, paid for all of my goodies, everything from cleansing gels to daily microfoliants to skin renewal boosters. A group of us were jaw-jacking near the window that faced the parking lot, talking and laughing with a couple of the other instructors, when I looked out and saw a red-haired woman jogging away from the building. Could've been one of the students. We trained several hundred women a week.

If I hadn't turned my back, I would've seen her speed away in a red Miata. I would've seen that the back window of her car had been torn, then repaired with duct tape. If I had seen her face, I would've remembered her from that club in San Diego.

F
rankie! Come back, Frankie!”

I was so livid that as soon as I saw his ass, I turned around and stormed out of the friggin' restaurant, pushing people out of the way and kicking down doors. The only reason his ass caught me was because I had to wait for damn valet parking to bring me my damn car.

“Frankie! Frankie!”

“What the hell do you want?”

“What did I do?”

“Besides looking under my damn dress?”

“I didn't look—”

“Then you started cracking jokes. ‘I didn't know Bush had a Hitler mustache on his lips.' That was . . . I should kick your ass.”

“It was a joke.”

“Pervert.”

“It wasn't intentional, besides . . . one look at me and you got an attitude—thought a little humor would make it—”

“Damn right I have a fucking attitude.”

“What did I do?”

I snapped, “Your profile said you were six-two and your picture looked like Taye Diggs.”

“That
was
Taye Diggs.”

“You sent me a friggin' picture of Taye Diggs?”

“Can we just finish the date?”

“Tell ya what, I'll e-mail you. We can meet and get a Happy Meal. Booster seats on me.”

“You're racist.”

“You're fugly.”

“Discriminating against short people.”

“Oh . . . grow the fuck up. You ain't tall enough to get on this ride, baby.”

Valet pulled up in my car. I pushed Mini Me out the way.

I got in my car, revved the engine, and fought the urge to make his little ass roadkill.

He yelled, “Whoooo hoooo! Bush does have a Hitler mustache!”

I sped away, top down, heater on full blast, my middle finger saluting him in the wind.

 

“That was a short date.”

“Tommie, you just don't know how short it was.”

An hour later I was at Tommie's crib. She was in her living room with a little girl. The girl was pretty, had on Old Navy sweats, her hair in braids, she had on glasses. She looked like a genius in training. The little girl was a straight-up type-A, bouncing all over the place, doing cartwheels in between laughing and watching Tommie wrap presents.

I looked around and asked, “Somebody break in and steal everything?”

“Ha ha.”

After I got over how clean her space was, how beautiful her living room looked with the Kwanzaa setup, I went to the bathroom, walked into her bedroom, saw three empty condom wrappers in her trash can, then came back into the front room feeling like a space invader.

I smiled, asked the little girl, “What's your name?”

She smiled. “My name is Monica Mitchell.”

“My name is Frankie. I'm Tommie's big sister.”

“Tommie, I didn't know you had a big sister.”

“I have two big sisters.”

“You're really, really, really tall, Frankie.”

I smiled. “You're pretty tall too. You're taller than my date was.”

“Wow. I want a sister one day. I want her name to be Nia.”

“Really?”

“Uh huh. Nia means purpose. I used to want my sister to be named Keisha, but I like Nia better now, because Nia means purpose and I don't think Keisha means anything.”

She went back to running and flipping.

I asked Tommie, “Where's Livvy?”

“Called her. Got her voicemail.”

I nodded. “Soooo . . . you're baby-sitting?”

“Not really. Just hanging out, e-mailing Santa, stuff like that.”

“Uh huh.”

“Her daddy needed to go
s-h-o-p-p-i-n-g
for a
B-a-r-b-i-e
and other stuff.”

I raised a brow. “Creamy Vanilla with the LL thang? . . .”

She blushed. “Yeah.”

“Something going on I need to know about?”

“Why you all up in my grill, Frankie?”

I sucked on my bottom lip, arms folded, foot tapping, the image of what I'd seen in her trash can in my mind. All of a sudden I felt like . . . geesh . . . like . . . like her friggin' mother.

I asked, “His name wouldn't happen to be Blue, would it?”

“Please don't tell me he's on your B-list or C-list or whatever.”

“I don't mix biz with my personal life.”

“Thank God.”

“And why are you
d-a-t-i-n-g
your
n-e-i-g-h-b-o-r?
”

“Not now, Frankie. Please, not now.”

“Are you having . . . Are you . . . you know.”

“I know you don't want to start a question-asking party up in here.”

I went to the bay window and looked out on the streets. A red Miata was parked across the street. A white woman got out and stood there for a moment.

I said, “Looks like we're in the midst of gentrification.”

Tommie came to the window. “I saw her out there yesterday.”

“Looking at properties, a place to squat, or trying to get some coffee in her milk?”

She shrugged. “She was just sitting there like she was waiting on somebody.”

“Looks like she's coming over here. Is that Monica's mother?”

Monica was between us, holding Tommie's hand. “My mother's hair is yellow, not red.”

Right about then, an SUV slowed down in front of her. It was Womack and his family. They said a few words, and then the woman hopped back in her sporty little car and sped away.

I sat on the floor, grabbed some wrapping paper, and started helping Tommie wrap a few gifts. Most of the stuff she had was from either Old Navy or Pier 1.

She said, “Pick which one of those sweatsuits you want and put your name on it.”

“I'll take the gray one because it looks like Blue is your color.”

“Don't hate.”

“How did you meet him?”

“Sometimes you have to open the curtains and look out the window.”

 

Not long after that I kicked my shoes off, changed into a pair of Tommie's sweats. We cranked up Radio Disney and danced like we were losing our minds, Monica leading the way. Then she sat at the kitchen table and talked me to death while she bounced and ate a peanut butter sandwich. When I was tired of the preschool jaw-jacking, I went back into the front room and
watched them interact. I'd never seen Tommie like that, playing the mother role.

Monica told me, “I'm practicing my spoken word for Daddy's present.”

“Really?”

“I'm going to be a poem writer when I get bigger. Want to hear it?”

“Sure.”

She jumped up, did a cartwheel, then ran to the middle of the room. “I
love
my daddy when he works so long it makes me saddy call him on the phone—”

“Whoa, whoa. Slow down, Monica.”

“Now I'll have to start
allll
over again.” She took a deep breath. “Call him on the phone. When he's gone too long. Always wish he were near. Wish he were here. I
love
my daddy.”

Tommie and I applauded. Monica smiled and went back to doing her cartwheels.

Tommie's phone rang. She was busy doing cartwheels and backbends with the kid, so I answered. It was Womack calling.

He said that the woman out front was looking for Livvy.

A hand went to my hip and I raised a brow. “Looking for Livvy?”

“She was asking questions.”

“Like?”

“If that was where she lived, then wanted to know if I knew who lived in your building.”

“Was it somebody from Dermalogica?”

“I backed down with the talking. Something about her . . . Her ass was being too friendly, smiling too much, you know? Didn't wanna say too much, know what I mean?”

“What did she say?”

“After I started asking her a question or two, she got uncomfortable, kinda freaked out, just ran to her car and took off. Frankie, that woman burned rubber like she'd seen a ghost.”

“Thanks, Womack.”

I hung up and told Tommie what that call was all about. Her expression was the same as mine, hoping Tony didn't have a string of paternity suits heading this way.

She took the phone from me and called Livvy's cell phone.