Playing Hard To Get (25 page)

“You remember all of that? Now that’s a real friend.”

“It’s easy. I have a photographic memory—when it comes to shopping,” Tasha said. “So, you’re really going to ask her?”

“Yeah. I am.”



For the second time in the second week in a row, Tamia had been summoned to a meeting in Mrs. Phaedra Pelst’s office. Sitting on the opposite side of the desk, listening to Phaedra as she took her second phone call, Tamia thought of how ridiculous it was that she was sitting there anyway. Phaedra wasn’t really her boss or direct supervisor. She had authority in that she’d been there longer than her and led many of the cases she’d helped with when she started, but now that Tamia was off the Lucas case, there was no reason for them to interact for the time being.

“Thanks for being so patient with me,” Phaedra said, smiling a thin and flimsy greeting.

“No problem,” Tamia replied, returning the smile. “So, what did you want to talk about?”

“Just wanted some words with you about the Holder case. Richard Holder. Ring a bell?”

That was either a stupid question or a clever way of insulting Tamia’s level of commitment to her case. Likely it was the latter.

“I certainly am familiar. Holder and I have met several times and the case is progressing.” Tamia could play too. “We’ll be ready for his hearing.”

“Yes,” Phaedra said. “Well, I am not wholly concerned about the case itself, but rather some things that have come up surrounding it. Some team issues…”

“Team issues?” Tamia said. “There is no team. How could there be issues?”

“Well, as you know, a favor was phoned in to someone upstairs on your behalf,” Phaedra said, beginning the lie she’d come up with to get information out of Tamia. There was no phone call made to anyone upstairs about the case. The favor was an exchange for sex between her and Charleston at a sex club. So far, she, Charleston, and Tamia were the only three people in the world who knew about the trade. But what Phaedra didn’t know was why Charleston was so interested in helping Tamia. At first she bought the whole “she’s a black woman” routine Charleston gave her one night when she was rushed out of his place because Tamia was on her way up in the elevator. But now things were out of hand. “A call to have Jones dropped from the case. Do you know about that?”

Tamia didn’t shake or nod her head. She just sat there, her heartbeat quickening.

“Do you know why it was done? Do you know anything?”

“Pelst, what do you want?” Tamia asked. While rumors among the black people at the company had connected Tamia with Charleston a long time ago, he didn’t want everyone to know yet.

“Well, it seems Jones found out you wanted her off,” Phaedra explained.

“She what?”

“And she’s pretty upset.”

“Oh, my God. I didn’t mean for this to get back to her.”

“Don’t worry about her,” Pelst said. “She’s about to float to the top of the water anyway.”

“For this?”

“Among other things.”

Tamia felt ill. Like she’d just cheated her best friend.

Phaedra knew this would be her reaction. The sensitivity among the black women in the office was so ridiculous. She didn’t see how they didn’t know that there was no space for such alliances in power.

“I know you don’t want her feelings to be hurt, and I’m trying to fix it.” Somehow Phaedra was able to make her eyes red, as if she was crying. “But I need to know who made the call upstairs.”

Tamia didn’t move. She didn’t trust Phaedra. And it didn’t matter how red her eyes got.

“Now, I heard it was Charleston,” Phaedra said, watching Tamia’s eyes as she threw in a name, her second-to-last resort before the question she was about to ask. “Is there something I should know about your relationship?”

Tamia still hadn’t moved. She couldn’t believe another person, another black woman, was losing her job because of her. Because of some advice she’d taken about how she could further her own career. She was willing to fight to get to the top, but putting people in jail, getting people fired? That wasn’t the fight she wanted to make.

“Is that all?” Tamia asked, standing up.

“
Is
it?” Phaedra asked, the Howard Beach girl inside of her jumping out into the room. “Look, just tell me if you’re screwing him. Are you screwing Charleston?”

“Yeah, that’s it,” Tamia said, Phaedra’s whole plot and purpose now coming together in her mind. Jones wasn’t likely anywhere near the guillotine. Phaedra was bluffing to get information. “I’ll show myself out.”



Good Girlfriends Guide

Men are cool. Money is okay. Wine is all right. Louis V will do…. But what’s the sense having any of these things if, as Billy Dee said in
Mahogany,
“you don’t have someone you love to share it with”? Well, Billy was talking about the comforts of the opposite sex, but most women know that a cool sisterfriend will also sweeten the ride. There’s no sense having it if you can’t chat about it and she’s always there to lend an ear. While the rules of engaging a good girlfriend are established on the playground, it doesn’t hurt to remember the top dos and don’ts to maintaining a strong relationship with your best gal pal.

Dos
:

1. Support her goals and dreams.
   
2. Give her advice, but know she will follow her heart.
   
3. Know that sometimes it is all about her and play second.
   
4. If you know what she needs, don’t ask—just do it.
   
5. Good or bad, tell her about herself when she needs to hear it.
   

Don’ts
:

1. Judge her or give up on her.
   
2. Tell her secrets to others or talk about her behind her back.
   
3. Date her ex—even if she says it’s okay.
   
4. Support self-destructive behavior—drinking, smoking, sex, etc.
   
5. Allow her to lie to you or herself.
   



“Are you sure this is what you want to do?” Malik asked, walking down a street in the lovely 10013 zip code of New York City, known to the world as TriBeCa and to the 3Ts as Tasha’s new home.

“What do you mean, am I sure?” Tamia said, walking beside him. “I wouldn’t have asked you for the number if I wasn’t sure. You came all the way down here to meet me just to ask me that?”

That morning, after turning and tossing through the night with everything that happened with her at work and with Ava at the party and what she’d actually considered doing with Malik’s case, Tamia had finally decided she wanted to join Baba’s circle on the path to spiritual enlightenment. She’d jumped out of bed and ran to her phone to tell her client the news and ask how she could get in contact with Baba. Looking at the golden powder still sticking to the tips of her gray shoes, she thought she was ready for a change.

“Look, I know people say this all of the time and it’s become cliché, but this is serious. You can’t go to Babatunde if you aren’t sure,” Malik said. As usual, he was wearing one of his T-shirts from the Freedom Project. This one had a picture of Malcolm X on it. It had been raining that morning, so he also had on his military jacket and for the first time since Tamia had met him, he had his hair pulled back off of his face and into a headband. She’d always thought he was a beautiful man, but now, with his entire black face and sharp eyes looking at her, she saw that maybe he was more than beautiful and there was no word for that.

“The journey he’s going to take you on will only work if you’re open,” he went on, “if you’re completely open to changing.”

“I’ve got this,” Tamia assured him, thinking he seemed awfully concerned about her decision to join Baba’s path. His eyes were pleasant, smiling at her in a way that made hers smile back. “I’ve got me. I can handle change.”

“He’s going to make you cut your hair off.”

“Say what?” Tamia felt something tingle at the nape of her neck. Suddenly change seemed crazy. She’d invested a lot of time, energy, money, and then more money into her hair. Not to mention the hundreds of Indians who’d also contributed to her weft.

“Your hair,” Malik said. “It will have to go.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not conscious. It’s a shackle. A symbol that you’ve bought into the white man’s image of beauty. That you believe your own nappy hair isn’t good enough, or pretty enough, to wear just the way it is. The way it was when you were born.”

“I wasn’t born with nappy hair,” Tamia said, stopping in front of Tasha’s new/old abode. “You know it takes some time for those naps to show up.”

Malik couldn’t help but laugh with her.

“Why don’t you cut your hair?” Tamia asked. “It’s all long…. Isn’t a man’s hair supposed to be short?”

“That’s the white man too,” Malik said. “Dreads are the hair of the original black man. He only cuts his hair if there is great turmoil in his life. If he needs to leave something from his past behind that has been locked into his hair.”

“Locked into his hair?”

“Yes. Spiritually. You carry the weight of the things around you,” Malik said. “What about you? Why wouldn’t you cut your hair?”

“It’s too much work. Too much of a hassle,” she said, but that was because she’d heard someone else say it. She’d never once worn her hair natural and had no plans of doing it. It just had no function in her world, and it wouldn’t occur to her until a week later, just before Kali was shaving her head, that this was a problem.

“A hassle?” Malik repeated. “Who you are is a hassle?” He locked his eyes on hers. “I think who you are is beautiful. Without all of the hair. I think she’s beautiful.”

“You think I’m beautiful?” Tamia asked.

“No,” Malik answered, pulling a card from his pocket and waking Tamia from a dream she didn’t know she was having. “I mean, not specifically you—like, all black women. All sisters.” He handed her the card. “Here’s the number.”

If the front of Tasha’s married-and-acting crazy/bachelorette TriBeCa pad was a schoolyard, someone would’ve run by that particular moment and told Tamia to pick up her face.

“Thanks,” she said dryly, taking the card.

“So what is this place?” Malik asked, looking up at Tasha’s building. “I’m not trying to be in your business but…”

“It’s cool. One of my best friends lives here. She has some kind of emergency. She sent me a text last night.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hold you up.”

“It’s no problem…she…she has emergencies…once…twice a week,” Tamia explained. “It’s kind of been that way recently.”

“Maybe she needs to call Baba,” Malik suggested jokingly.

“That’s probably never going to happen,” Tamia said, thinking of the kind of arguments Baba and Tasha might have after sitting in the same room for five minutes.

“Why?”

“She’s…” Tamia started, but then she saw Troy out of the corner of her eye and turned just in time to see her friend grinning and snapping a picture with her camera phone. “What?”

“Who’s that?” Malik asked.

“One of my friends. One of my soon-to-be-dead friends.”



“Hakuna matata…and whatever else they said in the
Lion King,
” Tasha said, looking at the picture of Malik in Troy’s cell phone. She was tucked tight in her bed with empty juice bottles and Lean Cuisine wrappers all over the floor. “Who the hell is this long-lost Ashari king, looking to save a damsel in distress?”

“Ashari?” Troy said, sitting beside her in the bed. Tamia was on the other side. “That’s not an African tribe. It’s Ashanti.”

Tasha rolled her eyes as Tamia snatched the phone from her and handed it back to Troy.

“What’s going on with you? Why did you send out a 3T text?” Tamia asked. “You’re just lying in bed. What could possibly be the emergency—aside from the fact that you clearly need to clean this mess up. And frozen food? This is New York. Haven’t you heard of takeout?”

“Well, if you must know, I called you two here to tell you that I…” Tasha stalled. “I beat both of you! I’m the queen of the 3Ts!” She stretched her arms out but then one of the muscles in her stomach jumped. “Ohhhh,” she cried.

“What happened?” Troy asked, reaching for Tasha’s stomach.

“My plan,” Tasha said wickedly. “I got the operation.”

“What operation?” Troy asked. She hadn’t been at the ESPN party when Tasha mentioned liposuction to Tamia in the bathroom.

“Lipo?” Tamia said. “Your ass got freaking lipo?”

“Full body, baby,” Tasha said proudly.

“I can’t believe you did it…. I mean, I know you mentioned it, but that was like…like, two weeks ago,” Tamia said. “Who does that? Who just gets up one day and gets liposuction…to their entire body?”

“Someone who wants to be Queen Bee,” Tasha explained. “I’m a woman of action. A woman of power. Now, I told you I wanted my old life back and here I am…back on track. My old things, and soon my new body. And later, my old business.”

Tamia exhaled. She couldn’t even respond to her friend’s craze.

“How much did this cost? Like $10K?” Tamia asked, noticing that Troy was quiet.

Hearing about surgery and thinking of how much it must have cost her friend, Troy, who once lived a life where thinking of price was passé, was busy thinking of how and when she could pay the church’s credit card off without Kyle knowing about it. It had been on her mind constantly since she’d used the card in the store, and while one side of her believed if she returned the money quickly, everything would be okay, the other side knew better.

“Who cares how much it cost,” Tasha said. “I won. I won and I won and I won.” Though she was still a little weak, Tasha did a little dance in the bed before aggravating her stomach muscle again and hollering in pain.

“So what are you supposed to do now? How long are you going to be in bed eating bad food?” Tamia asked.

“Just a few days. Miller’s surgical methods come with little to no swelling. He said I should be back on my feet in two days. In the gym in three weeks.”

“Well, that’s good news,” Troy said, though her mind was still far away.

“So, after I get up and can get my skinny jeans back over this quarter-pounder
²⁴
—because you know I had him leave that alone,” Tasha said, “I will be expecting you chicks to take me out to celebrate my winning. And I will take cash and checks instead of gifts. Well, a new Louis Vuitton boyfriend will do too.”