The Last Street Novel (7 page)

When Shareef closed his novel and made eye contact with the crowd, they began to exhale and celebrate.

“Whuuuuww! Give us more!”

“Somebody turn on the air! It’s
hot
in here!”

“I know you’re not stopping on us there!”

Daryl started grinning from the back. Even The Spear cracked a smile. And the sister in the lavender business suit had been smiling since she walked into the store.

Shareef laughed out loud from the front. He said, “One thing I’ve learned in this publishing industry is only to read enough to wet your whistle, and let you read the rest. Besides, we still got books to sell and I don’t want to bore anybody.”

“You’re not boring us. Read some more,” one woman stated.

“They said your books are sold out tonight,” another woman pouted.

“They’ll have more in stock tomorrow,” Shareef responded quickly. The hustle was the hustle. He said, “And at this point, we’d like to start our Q and A’s.”

The crowd asked the usual questions about his writing process; his inspiration; how they could become writers; who he liked to read; what was his take on the state of African-American literature, sex, and relationships in the new millennium; books to feature film deals; e-books and Internet dating; science fiction and fantasy writing; how to sell poetry; how to get a publishing deal; how to market your work—the list went on before the sister in the lavender business suit asked her question.

“Have you ever thought about writing something other than romance? I mean, your writing skills are obviously above average. I just feel that you could do so much more by writing more universal subjects.”

The Spear looked at her and nodded his head in agreement. The woman continued to turn him on. Someone had to break away from the idolization and bullshit that was going on inside the store.

Shareef looked the woman over and answered, “Yeah, I’ve thought about it. But ultimately there’s no subject more universal than love. Don’t you think?” he asked her back.

She was easily one of the finest women in the room. She looked just below thirty, but her smooth, young face could pass for a fresh college grad.

“I mean, we have a million books published about black love, but how many great books do we have about the everyday struggle?” she questioned.

Shareef read her position and liked the woman. She wasn’t grandstanding at all, she was simply expressing her mind, just like he would.

Before he could answer her, The Spear spoke up and added, “Yeah, this
Full Moon
book, to me, sounds just like
How Stella Got Her Groove Back.
I mean, what’s the difference?”

Shareef backtracked. “Well, let me answer her question first, then I’ll come back to yours.”

He answered, “I would say, yeah, it is true, we don’t have many great books about everyday struggles. But who wants to read those kind of books? We want to get away from struggle when we read. So when those great books are written, how many of us are really willing to pay attention to them?”

He said, “And as far as
The Full Moon
being similar to Stella’s
Groove,
I would say that the only things in common between the two is the island romance, and the fact that a woman has to talk herself into saying yes. But this book is not about an older woman and a younger man.
The Full Moon
is about people in their prime years and beyond, having the courage to say yes to love in general.”

The Spear mumbled, “Yeah, all right, it’s all the same thing to me.”

Daryl overheard him and didn’t speak on it. Nor did the sister in the lavender suit.

Clara took center stage again. “Well, as everyone can see, Shareef has a gang of books to sign tonight, so we want to limit each person to two books.”

As soon as she made that announcement, some of the readers with three books or more to have signed began to grumble.

Shareef spoke up on their concern immediately. “Nah, if they bought my books, I wanna sign everything they bought. I’ll just have to sign them quickly. So please forgive my handwriting.”

The first young woman in line said, “Thank you.” She was holding five of his books to have signed.

So Shareef took a seat, pulled out his platinum pen, and started signing away while thanking the readers.

“Thanks for coming out tonight.”

“Keep reading my work.”

“Thanks for your love and support.”

“Okay, I’ll use your name in the next one. I promise.”

There were several women Shareef wanted to ask out to dinner, but there were just too many books to sign. He could barely lift his head up to signal his driver in the background to ask one of them. Nor did he spot any of his Harlem homies who had promised to make it out to the bookstore that night. He didn’t count on that anyway. Book events were not their thing, so there were single women to talk to everywhere.

When it came time for the sister in the lavender suit to have her four books signed, she made sure she got his undivided attention. Not only did he smell her, remember her look, her question, and her poise, she managed to write her name and a question mark on a piece of paper for him.

“Hey, thanks for the tough question back there,” he commented as soon as he spotted her at the front of the line.

She only smiled at him with no words exchanged. Then she slid him the piece of paper on the table in front of her books.

Shareef looked down and read the name.

“Coffee? Your name is Coffee?”

She continued to smile at him. “That’s what they call me,” she responded.

He paused for a minute, imagination running wild.

“Why?” he asked her.

“I just have a lot of energy.”

Shareef was ready to signal his driver for her for sure.

Then he read the question mark below her name.

“What does that mean?” he asked her.

She looked him in the eyes and answered, “Whatever you want it to mean? It’s up to you.”

On cue, Shareef spotted Daryl toward the back of the room. Daryl caught the look and already knew. He had peeped her out as soon as he walked into the store. She was the one he would have went after himself, just like the camouflage-wearing brother beside him had tried and failed before she stepped up into the line.

Daryl grinned and nodded. Shareef nodded back and went back to work.

He signed her books with the normal messages of “Thanks for your support,” blah, blah, blah. Then he told her on the sly, “Stick around for a minute.”

The woman called Coffee heard him and nodded. Their understanding of each other was clear. She was reading his real-life book and he was reading hers. Nothing else needed to be said until later.

When she was close enough, Daryl pulled her aside and made sure that his words were perfect.

“Mr. Crawford would like to know if you would be available to join him for dinner this evening.”

Daryl wanted the invitation to sound as professional as possible to keep himself out of any trouble. A complimentary dinner seemed innocent enough, and that’s all it had to be. If the dinner led to more, then it was none of his business, nor was he responsible for their actions once they were outside of his vehicle.

Coffee looked pleased by the invite. She answered, “Yes, I would love to.”

The driver nodded to her and looked back toward Shareef. Shareef caught the nod from his table at the front and nodded back. It was all nonverbal language.

Coffee asked Daryl, “Does he want us to wait in the car for him?”

She was taking the proposition to the next level with confidence and speed. Daryl was stunned by it.

He said, “Well, okay, I guess we could wait out in the car.” She was the only woman Shareef had given him the signal to ask, and she had already agreed to dinner, so what was there left to wait for? He led her out of the bookstore and to the waiting limo.

The Spear jealously watched the whole scene, but was powerless to alter the script. Coffee had sent the alley cat scampering away so she could snag the prized lion.

Aw, that fake-ass, wannabe Diana Ross. They deserve each other,
he told himself as the woman left with the limo driver.

Let me get the hell out of here. This was a big waste of my time.

And the rival author left empty handed and spiteful.

B
Y
9:03
PM,
Shareef had signed every book and said his final good-byes to the store owners, staff, and the rest of his dedicated fans before Daryl opened the limo door for him to climb back inside.

“Looks like you had quite a successful book signing tonight, mister,” the woman named Coffee commented. She sat on the left side of the limo, behind the driver’s seat. She was applying a fresh coat of gloss to her lips for extra shine and sex appeal.

Shareef looked her over and grinned. “Yeah, and I even get to leave with the finest girl in the place. Must be my night.”

She chuckled and said, “Must be.” Then she asked him, “So…are we headed anywhere in particular?”

“It’s this place in Times Square that feels like you just left the country and went to Asia. It’s called Ruby Foo’s. Have you ever been there before?”

“I know where it is, but I’ve never been there.”

“Well then, tonight is your night.”

W
HEN THEY ARRIVED
at the corner of Broadway and 49th Street, Shareef walked Coffee inside Ruby Foo’s restaurant and ordered a table in the back for two.

He told her, “I want to square away my driver, then I’ll be right back in to join you at the table.”

“Okay. I’ll be here.”

He stopped and joked to her. “You mean, none of these rich white guys in here can snatch you away from me while I’m gone?”

She smiled at him and answered, “Not a chance.”

“Good. I’ll be right back then.”

He ran out to meet Daryl at the curb. He dug in his wallet and pulled out a fifty-dollar bill.

Daryl put his hand up and shook it off. “You know what, I don’t even need that. It’s just been a pleasure driving you today, my friend. So whenever you’re in town again, just call me up on the card I gave you.”

Shareef told him, “That’s all good and I appreciate the gesture, but you need to take this fifty before I put it back in my wallet. And I’m only gonna ask you once.”

Daryl started laughing out loud. “Man, you just too real, brother.” He went right ahead and took that fifty-dollar bill, too. He said, “But be safe with that. I mean, I know she fine and everything, but…”

Shareef cut him off and said, “That’s the only way to be with it. I already know the rules. I got it all covered. I’ma send her right home in a taxi, and it’s all good.”

The driver nodded. “Okay. If you got it all covered, you got it all covered.” He shook Shareef’s hand and said, “Again brother, it’s been a pleasure all day long.”

“Same here, man. Now go on and get that book back home to your wife.”

“Oh, you know that’s right. It’s time for me to go do some book reading together.”

W
HEN
S
HAREEF JOINED
Coffee at their table toward the back of the restaurant, she was just finishing her cell phone call.

He sat down with her and flirted immediately. “You were just telling your mother that you won’t be making it back home tonight?”

She laughed and said, “Mr. Crawford, I don’t think I agree with how you’re reading me. Do you do this all the time?”

“Would you believe me if I said no?”

She smiled. “I’m just asking to make sure?”

“Well, while we’re asking each other these questions, what is your real name? That’s first of all.”

He hadn’t asked her anything personal while inside the limo with Daryl. He wanted to save the detailed interrogation for the restaurant.

“My name is Cynthia. Cynthia Washington.”

“And you tell everybody that your name is Coffee?”

“No, only people who I want to know.”

“I guess you wanted me to know then.”

“Yeah, I did.”

He nodded and asked her, “Do you have a lot of energy left over tonight?”

She smiled wide and kept her mouth open.

“Why do you wanna know?”

He told her, “Game recognize game. I got a lot of energy, too.

She grinned and kept her thoughts to herself. She couldn’t tell him too much too early. That would ruin the mystique.

She looked around the restaurant and continued to take it all in. She nodded and said, “You’re right. You walk in this place and forget you’re still in New York. Everything looks so real. And it’s so big in here.”

He said, “They use every inch of space to make you feel like you’re actually in Asia. That’s why I like this place. It’s like going away without really going away.”

She nodded. “You get a chance to travel a lot, don’t you?”

“Not as much as these rappers.”

She asked him, “Do you envy them?”

Shareef stopped and thought about it.

“I think we all do to a degree. I mean, nobody generates attention and income like those guys do. They get twenty G’s just for showing up at a party. I think I can do without the police attention, though. I hear a lot of those guys can’t travel without being harassed.”

Cynthia grimaced. She said, “You just had nearly two hundred women come out to see you with no sound stage, no bright lights, no entourage, commotion, or security everywhere. I mean, if you ask me, that seems a lot more powerful and gratifying. And they were all paying strict attention to you.”

“Yeah, but how many brothers were in there? And that guy in camouflage was hatin’. But these rappers, they get the respect from all the brothers.”

“Oh, so all the brothers still respect Ja Rule? And the hard-core guys still respect Puffy? And the New York guys still love Jay-Z and hate Nelly? I mean, that stuff is all so campy,” she commented. “It’s just like professional wrestling. One week they’re all over Atlanta, and the next week they’re all over Memphis and Houston. That stuff is all high school to me. And then they all try to act like they’re gangstas. They’re not real gangstas. I know real gangstas, and they’re damn sure not thinking about rapping, dancing, or giving concerts.”

Shareef nodded to her right as their waiter appeared to take their orders.

“Can I get you anything to drink?”

They both ordered martinis and told the waiter to return a little later for their food orders.

When the waiter, a twenty-something white man with dark hair in a ponytail, disappeared, Shareef joked and said, “That part of the restaurant didn’t leave the country. It’s still American in here with the service.” He figured he’d change the subject and make their conversation a little lighter.

She said, “Well, they couldn’t possible have a huge restaurant like this right in the middle of Times Square without hiring the regular people of New York.”

“The popular TV shows did it.
Seinfeld, Friends,
a few others,” Shareef said, naming two long-running television series that seemed to paint New York as lily white.

“What about the
Law and Orders, CSI: New York,
and
The Closer
?” Cynthia commented.

Shareef smiled. “Yeah, any show dealing with crime, that’s when the blacks and Hispanics show up.”

However, the woman continued to impress him. She was ready and willing to go point for point with him on every subject.

“You seem to know a lot for a girl,” he told her.

She gave him the evil look for that.

“That sounds very chauvinistic, especially coming from a man who owes his career to the women who read his books.”

“Yeah, but a lot of those women are only interested in girly issues. That’s why I haven’t written anything else. I know where my audience is. And that audience is very selective in what they want to read about.

He said, “That answers your question from earlier. But I’m not dumb enough to say it out in public. All that does is piss the audience off. I learned that when I first started my career as a novelist. You keep them happy and they’ll keep you happy.”

She said, “But it’s up to you to take them somewhere different. You have to challenge yourself and challenge them.”

Shareef nodded and took a sip of his water. Their conversation was more philosophical than he expected or desired. He respected the woman’s intellect. He respected her wit from the moment she opened her mouth inside the bookstore. But she was also a sexy woman, and at ten o’clock at night, less than five blocks from his hotel, he wanted to deal with their ideas of each other as a man and a woman on a romantic night, at a romantic restaurant.

He leaned back in his chair and gave her another good look with his glass in hand.

“So, ah…what time do you need to be at work tomorrow?”

She took a sip of her own water and grinned at him over the rim of the glass.

“Actually, I took off from work tomorrow.” She left her answer at that.

Shareef nodded to her. That was the kind of answer he wanted to hear.

“What are you going to do with all this extra time on your hands?” he asked her.

“Enjoy it. I’m enjoying it now.”

“How much of this night are you trying to enjoy?”

She continued to smile at him mischievously.

“Are you trying to ask me something in particular?”

He leaned forward with both elbows on the table and said, “Maybe I am. Do you know what I’m trying to ask you?”

She stared into his dark, intense eyes and answered, “Maybe I do.”

“Are you offended by it?”

She shook her head. “Why would I be offended?”

“Some women are. For some women it’s disrespectful on a first date. But I don’t judge respect off sexuality. A woman should be allowed to express herself like any man. So I try to keep the two separate.”

“So do I,” she responded.

He paused and looked into her pretty brown face.

“So I’m allowed to be frank now.”

Cynthia paused herself and slowly nodded to him.

“Yeah, I’m a big girl. Be frank.”

Shareef asked her, “Are we fucking tonight?” And the man didn’t flinch when he said it, either.

Cynthia tried her hardest to match his steely demeanor but couldn’t. She started cheesing and hid her face behind her hands, embarrassed that she couldn’t take his forwardness.

She said, “You know, I had heard about you, but…wow.” She shook her head and tried to look him in the face again. “I mean, I thought I could….”

She couldn’t get her words together.

On Shareef’s end, he had planned to sock it to her with bluntness as soon as she got him interested in her at the bookstore. She wasn’t the typical soft-stepping sister. She could take it. So he allowed her a chance to recover from the initial shock before he said anything else.

“Umm…” She looked down at the table where her menu sat. Then she looked back up into his eyes. “I’m supposed to say yes now, right? Is that how it goes?”

“You’re supposed to say what you feel,” he told her. “I’m just trying to make sure we don’t get anything twisted.”

She said, “Well, it’s not twisted. We straight. But…I think you could have used a better choice of words. I mean, you are a writer, right? Be more creative.”

Shareef shook his head and wouldn’t let her off the hook.

He said, “Nah. Understand me for a minute. There are certain kinds of women a guy may feel soft emotions for, and other women where the emotions are stronger. You follow me?”

Cynthia smiled and was speechless. She wanted to hear more, and he gave her more.

He said, “Perfect example are them two white girls; Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie. I probably wouldn’t even deal with Jennifer Aniston. She seem soft, boring, and like it would take all night to nut. But Angelina Jolie? Shit, a guy might fuck around and nut just from looking at her too long. So at the end of the day, I can’t blame Brad Pitt for leaving. They didn’t have any kids, and he got tired of making love. He wanted to fuck. So he broke off from Jennifer and got with Angelina. And then he got her pregnant immediately. So that tells you how strong he was feeling about that nut.”

The woman was so floored by his bodacious logic that she couldn’t speak. She couldn’t even move. She just sat there grinning.

Shareef told her, “So don’t get it confused. Like I said, I still respect you. You’re a smart woman. But if we’re talking about sex, then it is what it is, and you gon’ have to take it how I give it to you.”

He said, “You’re a sexy grown woman. You don’t have that little girl vibe no more. So I’m not changing my words. I meant that shit.”

Cynthia sat there, stunned into silence, wondering what she had gotten herself into. She opened her mouth and whimpered, “Okay.” And that was it. She would lay down and submit to him.

Shareef leaned back in his chair again and was satisfied. He said, “I’m glad we understand each other.” Then he looked around for their waiter. “Now where is this guy at? He should have returned with our drinks and taken our food orders by now.”

But Cynthia was no longer thinking about the food and drink. She was thinking about his dick, how long it was, how hard, and how strong was his stroke?