The Cocktail Club (16 page)

“Felicia, remember those possible clients you were telling me about?”

We were holed up inside Escalante's Mexican Restaurant in River Oaks, and Felicia had just sat down.

“Yeah, I got one of 'em joining us for lunch in a little bit. Why you ask?”

I picked up my martini and took a healthy sip. “Girl, Geneva's been on my back after a client complained.”

“Oooh, that's not good,” Felicia said. “You order yet?”

“No, I just got a drink while I waited for you.”

She glanced around the busy restaurant.

“Our waiter should be back in a sec,” I told her.

“Okay, cool. That drink looks so good,” she said.

“It tastes even better. You should have one.”

Felicia shook her head. “Girl, I'm not like you. When I leave here, I gotta go back to the office. You get to go home and crash if you want until happy hour.”

“Girl, it's customary to have a cocktail with lunch.”

Felicia eyed me suspiciously.

“No, I'm serious. Back in the day when the workforce was filled with men, that's how they used to get down. Some of the largest deals were brokered over drinks. People think decisions are made in the boardroom; chile, please. The movers and shakers do it right over there.” I pointed to my left where the bar was packed with men and women dressed in suits and other professional clothes.

“Call it what you want, but I ain't taking my butt back to the office smelling like liquor. Next thing you know, folks start whispering and the higher-ups get wind of it. No thank you! I don't need that kind of headache.”

I picked up my glass by the stem and sipped. I savored the taste of the alcohol and allowed it to slowly move down my throat.

When the waiter came, Felicia looked at him. “We're waiting on another person. Will you bring another place setting?”

We ordered, and I watched as the guy as he walked away. “Oh, I'm sorry,” I called after him. He turned around and returned to the table. “Can I get another one of these?”

“Sure thing,” he said.

“Okay, so, let me tell you about Wayne before he gets here. He and his business partner put on events,” Felicia said.

I frowned.

She stopped talking and looked at me.

“What? What's the matter?”

“Girl, I need some serious clients. I ain't got time to be playing with no middle-aged man who's still hung up on his hip-hop wanna-be-a-rapper dream.”

“Damn, Ivee, I thought you said you wanted a new client.”

“Yeah, but if I realized that's who you were talking about, I woulda told you not to waste my time or his. I'm talking some serious
money potential here. Girl, it makes my stomach turn when I see a grown-ass man walking around with his starched jeans sagging, wearing a T-shirt, with a baseball cap on his head, and Jordans on his feet. I'm like, when will our brothas learn? Who's gonna take you seriously if that's your uniform?”

“You can't be serious, Ivee,” Felicia said.

“What? Don't tell me you don't agree,” I said.

I stopped talking when the waiter came back with my second drink.

“Your food will be out in a second,” he said.

I sipped the drink and finished my tirade. “Girl, I'm so doggone serious. One of my coworkers invited us to her house for this party she was having. Her place is laid, I mean top notch all the way. It was a very nice, upscale, mixed crowd; then this thug-looking man walked in. When she introduced him as her daddy, girl, I nearly spit my drink out!”

Felicia laughed so hard, she nearly sprayed her water. “Please stop, Ivee. You are wrong!”

“I'm wrong? His ass was wrong! Nucca, you pushing sixty and walking around with some starched jeans, a jersey, gold chains, and his little Afro was blacker than his daughter's hair! Men think that mess is cute, but ain't nothing cute about that!” I sipped my drink. “I felt embarrassed for her.”

“Well, now that I know how you feel, what'd you call them?” Felicia asked.

“A middle-aged man who still hung up on his hip-hop wanna-be-a-rapper dream,” I repeated.

Suddenly, Felicia's gaze moved up, her eyes wide and her mouth agape. That meant my words had fallen on ears that weren't meant to hear them.

I turned my head to see a mass of a man with mocha-colored skin, and dark-brown eyes. He smiled mischievously as if he had stumbled upon a great secret.

“Damn, y'all kinda hard on a brotha, huh?” his deep voice boomed.

“Hey, Wayne, this is my girl Ivee I told you about,” Felicia said. “Ivee, this is Wayne Ledger.”

The waiter came with our food at that moment. He looked at Wayne, who took the seat to my right, and said, “Sir, can I start you off with something to drink?”

“I'm having exactly what they had,” he said. He moved his hand in a sweeping motion across the table. “It's a whole bunch of fun happenin' at this table. Forget the fact that it's at the expense of men.” He turned to me. “What did you call those worthless, wanna-be-rapper bums again?”

Warm embarrassment washed over me. “You only caught the tail end of what I was trying to say.” I tried to defend myself.

“Oh no, no, no, no!” Wayne shook his head. “Don't try and clean it up now for me. I can take it, baby. I'm a real man. I may wear jeans, but shit, if that's your truth, who am I to question it?”

“See, you walked up at the wrong time,” I said. “Tell him, Felicia,” I begged.

“Nah, don't try to drag her into it. I only heard
you
talking. Felicia here was probably uncomfortable with everything you were saying,” he joked.

Wayne was friendly enough, and if he hadn't mentioned it, I wouldn't have noticed he'd worn jeans. He had on a sports jacket and a button-down shirt, so he was all right by me.

“My firm handles specialty events. We do about five million annually,” he said.

The thing about Wayne was, he didn't brag. He came to lunch with the idea of meeting a business prospect, and once the joking
was over, he jumped right in. Every so often, Felicia would glance up at me as if to say, “I told you so.”

The only reason I didn't kick her under the table was that by round four, I wasn't sure which leg was hers. I may not have said it then, but she had been absolutely correct.

By the time lunch was over, Wayne and I had exchanged business cards and made promises to set up a meeting the following week. I'd see Felicia later at happy hour, and I couldn't wait to thank her properly for the hook up with Wayne.

Images of the multiple packages I'd be able to sell him danced around in my head, and I couldn't wait to bring my new find to Geneva.

I was so excited and happy, thoughts of how much alcohol I had consumed never even crossed my mind.

PETA

“Was that your daddy?” I asked Kendal when I walked into her room to drop off clothes I had folded.

She had just hung up the phone.

“No, Ma, he called me earlier, but I missed it. Why? What's wrong?”

I was tempted. I couldn't think of a time I'd ever come so close to dogging Kyle out. That dirty bastard had avoided my calls for more than a week. I wanted to kill him, and he had to have known that ignoring me wasn't gonna make me go away.

Between issues with the trucks, my dwindling savings account that had kept me afloat, and the way I chased Kyle, I didn't know if I was coming or going.

The insurance company gave me the runaround just as much as Kyle. If they didn't lose some paperwork, they changed claims adjusters who never seemed to be quite caught up on my damn case.

It was two trucks!

“Well, tell me again how it works,” one of the adjusters had said. “I mean, so it's a mobile boutique? We don't have any of those up here in Dallas,” she twanged.

I rolled my eyes. What difference did it make that Dallas didn't have any mobile boutiques? Neither did any other damn city in America. I had started to get really frustrated. I felt like everyone was out to get me. I needed them to pay the damn claim. Instead,
they kept asking useless questions.

When the phone rang again, I snatched it before it could ring a second time. My heart kicked in my chest each time a call came in. I needed it to be Kyle. I needed him to clear up the mess he had created.

“Hello?” I screamed.

“Peta, I, ummm, I wanted to thank you for the help you sent since the other two trucks have been down, but exactly how long do I have to work with this woman?” Farah wanted to know. “It's already been two days too long for me!”

I exhaled. I wasn't in the mood to have this conversation. My anger over Kyle and the insurance company felt like it had gotten the best of me.

“Farah, I thought you could use the help. Also, since her truck is down, it only made sense that she'd hop on to help you out,” I snapped.

“Peta, I'm not talking about Beverly. I'm talking about that new one you sent down. With all those darn questions every time I turn around. She's just worrisome!”

My waxed eyebrows dipped into a frown. Beverly had called and left a message. In it, she said something about food poisoning, but I didn't think she meant she wouldn't be on the truck to help Farah. And if Beverly hadn't been there in the past couple of days, then exactly who had been there?

“So, Farah, you're not talking about Beverly?”

“Peta, haven't you heard a word I said? Beverly got herself sick eating those quail tacos. I was there when she left you that message saying she'd be gone for a few days,” Farah said.

I was baffled. “So, if it wasn't Beverly, then who has been on that truck?”

“Well, didn't you send her? She's a pretty little thing, but upstairs,
the lights are completely out!” Farah laughed.

She wasn't funny, and she wasn't much help. I needed to get to the bottom of what happened or what was happening.

“What's her name?” I asked.

“Oooh, wee,” Farah said. “What is that child's name? It's on the very tip of my tongue.”

“Do you expect her back in the morning?” I asked.

“That's what I'm calling you to say. I don't want her back. I'd be better off all by myself.”

Farah's truck was out at the BP Campuses in Katy. That was less than a twenty-minute drive from my house.

“Okay, Farah, I'll call you, and let you know the plan. I'm sorry she's caused you problems, but I should have a solution for you real soon.”

Could this mystery person be connected to the vandalism on the trucks? I considered calling the detective, but reminded myself that Beverly could've had one of her cousins or a friend fill in for her.

I called Kyle's phone again and got voicemail. If my smart phone weren't so expensive, I would've thrown it against the damn wall. It had become really hard to keep my mind straight.

Once Kendal settled in for the night, I crashed on the couch in front of the TV. I was tired of all that had gone wrong. I went to the kitchen and stumbled upon the massive bottle of Skyy Vodka that the bastard had brought to woo me.

“He had me pegged the moment he knocked on the door,” I said.

There was probably enough for a couple of drinks left in the bottle. We'd had more than our share and, boy, had it cost me!

This time, when the phone rang, I didn't even budge. I used my finger to stir my drink and made my way back to the sofa.

It was Gordon.

“Hey, Gee, what's up?”

“You know you ain't right, man,” Gordon said.

I already knew what he was talking about. I closed my eyes, and suddenly, I wished I had ignored the call.

“Gee, I got too much going on right now,” I began.

“Gon' with that BS, man! How you gonna not even call a brotha after what I did for you? What we did for each other?”

I wanted to tell Gee to
man up!
My entire world had damn near crumbled, and he was upset because I had neglected to call after the last pity-bang?

“It's like you expect me to be here waiting for you to call and bless me with some pussy!”

I had to clamp my lips shut to avoid the harsh words I really wanted to say. If Gordon was with someone, I'd totally understand. In fact, I wouldn't even care. What bothered me most about him was the way he constantly bitched.

Something in me told me to let him get it all off his chest. I half-listened as he complained and allowed him to get it out. He wasn't gonna see me soon, so it didn't really matter.

Gordon finally let me off the phone when I agreed to reach out by the end of the week. I polished off the last of my drink, made sure the house was secured, and headed upstairs.

I wanted a hot shower and a good night's sleep. There was only one person who asked too many damn questions. It drove everyone, including me, bat shit crazy!

•  •  •

The next day, early Thursday morning, I nearly beat Farah to the location at the BP Campus off of I-10. I wanted to be one of the first faces she saw when she parked.