Playthang (16 page)
Authors: Janine A. Morris
“Yeah, 'cause I'm sure your time ain't cheap,” Eddie interjected.
“Not at all,” Jordan said, looking straight into Donovan's eyes.
“Understandably so,” Donovan said, looking directly back.
Tayese and Eddie continued picking at their appetizers, as if they didn't notice the unspoken words being said at the moment.
Jordan felt her BlackBerry vibrate and removed it from the clip to check it. It was a text from Tayese that read, “Isn't he cute?” Jordan looked up at Tayese and smirked as she tried to play off her confirming response. Jordan quickly typed back, “Which one?” Jordan took another sip from her drink as Eddie and Donovan exchanged a few words about something. Jordan felt her BlackBerry vibrate, and when she looked at it, Tayese had replied, “Donovan.” Jordan just smirked, trying to also disguiseher confusion. “Yeah, he is,” she typed back.
The waitress approached the table with a large tray with plates of food. Their eyes locked on their food, and their mouths began to water. The waitress placed the four plates down in front of them as she called out the names of the dishes. The steam from Eddie's stir-fry filled the table and his nose.
“Mmm, this smells good,” Eddie said.
“It looks good,” Donovan said, looking at Eddie's meal and not at the lemon chicken with linguini that was placed in front of him.
“Get out of my plate,” Eddie said, picking up his fork and getting ready to dig in.
Forks were picked up and mouths began to fill.Within secondsthere was silence at the table. Everyone was enjoying their meal and too focused to incite a conversation. As Jordan took forkfuls of her fettucciné Alfredo, she was realizing that she still didn't know exactly what was going on at this table. There weren't any flirtatious or implicative comments made, no one was sitting too close to anyone else, there was nothing to draw from to say what was going on one way or the other. Jordan wasn't sure if Tayese's comment about Donovan meant she had her eye on him or she was encouraging Jordan to go for hers. Jordan didn't know if this was a date, a business dinner,a casual dinner, or just four young black folks getting to know each other better in New York City.
29
J
ordan was driving home with a full stomach and feeling beat for the night. She'd had a long day at work and had just left a three hour dinner with Tayese, Donovan, and Eddie. By the time the cab dropped her off by her car and she was en route to home, it was already midnight. She had her radio tuned to 98.7 KISS FM as usual, and she was listening to Bugsy's reports on the weather, news, and celebrity drama in between her songs. Bugsy was filling in for Lenny Green, and he kept her laughing and entertained while she drove.
ordan was driving home with a full stomach and feeling beat for the night. She'd had a long day at work and had just left a three hour dinner with Tayese, Donovan, and Eddie. By the time the cab dropped her off by her car and she was en route to home, it was already midnight. She had her radio tuned to 98.7 KISS FM as usual, and she was listening to Bugsy's reports on the weather, news, and celebrity drama in between her songs. Bugsy was filling in for Lenny Green, and he kept her laughing and entertained while she drove.
She was driving down the street, heading toward the midtowntunnel, when her cell phone rang. She pressed the button on her steering wheel that turned on her Bluetooth connection.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hey there, miss,” the voice on the other end said. “It's me, Donovan.”
“Oh,” Jordan said with a giggle.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“Heading home, are you?” Jordan said.
“Come meet me. I'm at the W on Seventeenth Street.”
“What?” Jordan said, not expecting that request.
“Come meet me. I'll be here for a while.”
“I just left you,” Jordan said.
“Well, that was fun, but this will be just the two of us,” Donovan said.
Jordan was surprised to hear him make such a leading comment. Still, she felt like she had been misled before by his statements.
“Why do we now need to spend time just the two of us?” Jordan asked.
“Because now we can really have fun and really get to know each other better,” Donovan said.
Jordan knew that Donovan had a couple of drinks at the restaurant, and he seemed a little touched when he was getting in the cab afterward, but now she could tell that he must have been feeling really free.
“So that we can see if we want to do business together?” Jordan asked, trying to regain control of the conversation.
“Yeah, that's why,” Donovan said in a sarcastic tone.
“I'm right by the tunnel,” Jordan blurted out, realizing how tired she was and how she really didn't feel like hanging out any longer.
“Oh, come on.You live once. The night is still young and so are we. See you soon?”
Jordan let out a loud sigh and slowed her car down.
“See you soon, Donovan, but I'm not staying long,” she said.
“OK, that's fair. See you soon.”
The black BMW truck made a slow, cautious U-turn on the wide city street and headed away from the tunnel. All the lights were green or were just turning green as Jordan approached,so the drive was going quite quickly. There were no moments for her to sit still and think about her decision and change her mind. The farther away from the tunnel she got, the more she felt that there was no turning back. In theory she wanted a good reason to turn back around and go home. The problem was there wasn't any really good reason. There was nobody waiting at home for her. No one waiting on her, period,other than maybe her mother who would prefer a call from Jordan to let her know that she got in safe. The closer Jordangot to the W, the more depressed it made her that her life had become one with no “reason to turn around.”
She stepped out of the car once she found parking and then reapplied her Covergirl wetslicks lip gloss as she headed toward the dimly lit lobby of the W Hotel. Once she stepped inside, the variety of faces reminded Jordan she was out of her realm. She was there to meet a guy that she barely knew, and she didn't know where he was, either. She thought to pick up her phone and call him, but she knew with the loud music that wouldn't help. She was going to text him, but she figured she would look around for him for a bit first.
All the swanky New Yorkers were chatting it up with the friends and colleagues that they had decided to spend their Fridayevening with. Most of the ladies and gentlemen had drinks in their hands, some also typing into their BlackBerrys. Jordan knew the look of “being important” with the usage of one's BlackBerry a mile away. It was a look that she mirrored quite often, not intentionally but essentially. Jordan excused herself past several people, trying to make her way to the back where there seemed to be more available space than there was in the front. One woman looked as if she didn't want to move for Jordan. She was dressed in a gray and black sweater dress, that must have been hot to death, if Jordan had to say so herself. She was rocking the new Gucci bag with the gray mink all over it, and some black Gucci stilettos. Something about this woman's attireand attitude told Jordan that she thought she was somethingextra special. Jordan wasn't impressed by much, though, so she pushed her way past the lady when she didn't move after Jordan's second request.
“Did she just push me?” the lady said to someone she was standing with, once Jordan made her way past.
Jordan overheard her and was very tempted to turn around, but she figured if the lady wanted her attention she would have directed the question at her. Jordan kept heading toward the area in the back, by the second bar. As she looked over some people, she recognized Donovan sitting by the bar talking to a young lady. Jordan walked in his direction without him having noticed her just yet.
Once she got within his eyesight, he looked up and appearedquite surprised to see her before him.
“Hey, Jordan,” he said.
“Hey there. Why do you look so surprised to see me, like you weren't expecting me or something?”
Donovan giggled at Jordan's blunt comment and dismissal of any games he may have been trying to play in front of his little female company. Jordan didn't come all this way to be bothered with any nonsense, and she was making that very clear.
“Not at all,” Donovan replied. “I was expecting you, I just didn't know that you had made it here so fast,” he continued.
“I wasn't that far away,” she replied.
The young lady sitting at the bar beside Donovan pretendedto not be paying attention as she sipped her drink and looked at her phone.
“Come take a seat,” Donovan said as he patted the stool beside him.
As Jordan walked toward the stool that was waiting to relieveher feet from the pressure of the three-and-half-inch elevationin her shoes, Donovan gestured toward the young lady.
“Jordan, this is Nicole: Nicole, this is Jordan,” Donovan said to the two of them.
Jordan extended her hand to shake Nicole's. “Nice to meet you,” Jordan said as the girl shook her hand. Jordan then sat on the stool, still curious as to who this Nicole was, but she knew she didn't care enough to be so curious.Whoever she was, this was Donovan's web that he had woven, and all she knew was that he better find a way to fix it without putting her in any drama.
“Can I get a Malibu pineapple, please?” Jordan asked the bartender the second he came over to Jordan's area.
“Not wasting any time,” Donovan said to Jordan in a jokingmanner.
“Well, I see you are, so no, I'm not.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked.
“You had company, so why did you call me to come join you?”
“Do I sense jealousy?” Donovan asked.
“No, you sense irritation.”
“Jordan? What's wrong?” he asked.
Jordan realized that she was being quite nasty. It was a mixtureof the crowd that annoyed her on the way in, her anger from not having anyone waiting at home for her, and a variety of other personal issuesânone which had to do with him.
“Nothing. Just a rough day.”
The bartender sat her yellow-colored drink down in front of her, and Jordan began to sip on it.
“You were fine a little while ago at dinner,” he said.
“Yeah, I know. Just been going through a lot of stuff. It keeps me a little bit moody.”
“I understand. Well, let's try to work you back into a good mood tonight,” Donovan said.
Jordan just looked up at him, letting him know that she had her eye on him. She didn't bother looking past him to where his friend was sitting, and for a moment she forgot she was sitting there. Nicole must have felt she was forgotten as well, because as soon as Jordan turned back to her drink, she noticed Nicole rising up from her seat in her peripheral vision.Still unaware of who exactly she was, Jordan watched as she gave Donovan a not-so-sincere good night.
Once she was out of sight, Jordan looked back over at Donovan and cracked a smile.
“Oooh, you are in trouble,” she said through her slight smirk.
“Oh, you think you're funny, don't you?” he said.
“Me? No one told you to try to be a player and have a double date with two women.”
“I wasn't trying to be a player,” he said in defense of himself.“And who said that either of you were a date?”
Jordan cut her eyes over at him to catch his expression and determine whether he was being funny or trying to play her. Before she could reach a conclusion, he continued.
“I was on a phone call and she just sat down beside me. When I was done with my call, she was still sitting there and the bartender had brought me over a drink and said it was orderedby her. I began to have light conversation with her, but by no means was it a date or me trying to be a player. It was just conversation.”
Feeling a little silly about her accusation and his explanation,Jordan replied, “You don't have to explain anything to me.”
“Whatever,” Donovan said.
Jordan didn't even really care if he was bothered by her comments. A large part of her didn't want to be there in the first place, and she definitely wasn't in the mood to be treated like some jealous crazy chick. He invited her back; she didn't ask to be there. Still, she didn't take the time to come back just to have a miserable time with Donovan, so she decided to change her tune and make the best of it.
“So you come here often?” she began.The attitude-imprinted expression she had been wearing for the past ten minutes was erased.
Donovan looked at her; it was obvious he was curious where this change of heart was coming from. He didn't ask any questions, though, or provoke her anymore.
“From time to time, it's real chill on Friday nights.”
“Is it? I have been here a couple times, but the crowd has never been the same, so I couldn't tell.”
“Yeah, I usually enjoy the crowd and the music. It's a cool after-work spot.”
“It's your own little Cheers?”
Donovan chuckled. He seemed to be enjoying the lighter side of Jordan much more. Jordan was reaching in her purse looking for her BlackBerry when she felt a nudge. Jordan's eyes scanned the room in the direction the nudge had come from. She caught Donovan's eye as she scanned, and he was looking to the left of Jordan. Jordan looked to her left and noticedthe woman in the gray and black dress from earlier steppingon the stool beside Jordan, trying to get the bartender's attention. Jordan could only assume that this was the person who accidentally nudged her, and although she knew it could've been innocent, she figured it was childish, intentional retaliation.Jordan knew that she was just as noticeable as this chick in gray, and the girl was probably threatened by that, as ridiculous as it may have been. Jordan was rocking her black high-waist pants with the suspenders over a white ruffled button-down shirt and her black Gucci stilettos with the Swarovski crystal heels. She was looking quite sassy and chic herself, so she wasn'tthinking about that lady once she passed by her.
“Did she just push me?” Jordan asked Donovan, pointing behind her with her thumb and imitating the scene from earlier.
Donovan laughed and didn't respond.
“People got issues,” Jordan said as she went back into her purse and pulled her phone out.
“Are you talking to me?” the lady in gray asked Jordan.
Jordan looked up and stared the lady dead in her eyes.
“Did I say your name? Did I look in your direction? If I was talking to you, trust me, you'd be the first one to know it.”
Donovan stood up to get ready to stand in between the two ladies if need be. He could tell from the looks on their faces that their interaction wasn't going in a productive direction.
“Oh, it just appeared that you were speaking about me,” the girl said back with an attitude.
“About you, yes. To you, no. Like I said, if I was speaking to you, you'd be the first one to know.”
“Oh, about me, yeah?”
“Listen, I don't stutter. If you have a problem or want to ask me a more direct question, get to it. Otherwise, I'm not interestedin getting to know you better.”
Jordan wasn't sure why she was so short-tempered this evening, but she knew that she wasn't hesitant in any way to let this woman know that she wasn't in the mood for her antics. Donovan finally stood in between the ladies, as he realized more people were noticing their unfriendly contact.
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