What's Real

by Daaimah S. Poole

  “I know, I know,” I said as I agreed with Janelle.

  “Nat, sometimes people need time apart to find themselves, cool their head. Then they can come back to the situation as a new person, or he really wants out.”

  “I wanted out too, but not like this. And he told me his mother was right all along about me, that I was a whore and wasn’t shit,” I said.

  “See, Ms. Renee needs a good ass kicking. Maybe you could come down, Nat.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, Damon said that I could invite someone to keep me company while he is away at his games.”

  “Oh, I need that. When I get my money together I will be down.”

  I was going to have to continue helping my mom out and work off the money I was about to borrow.

  “Mommy, can I borrow some money?”

  “What you need it for?”

  “Anthony didn’t pay the day care, so now I owe them three hundred dollars.”

  “Why don’t you let Donna watch him? Then you can come help me.”

  “I’m going to help you. But I want to get a real job.”

  “Natalie, how much do you need?”

  “I don’t know. Whatever you can spare, Mom.”

  “I got five hundred for you and it’s not a loan. I’m giving it to you for my grandson.”

  “Thanks, Mom. I love you,”

  “You’re welcome.”

  I read baby Anthony a bedtime story. He was so funny trying to grab the pages and put the book in his mouth. I was trying to make him right-handed, but he favored his left hand. After I put him to bed I took a long, hot bath. I needed to soak. I just sat in the tub thinking that my marriage was over. It was really over and I couldn’t believe it! I was missing Anthony so much, I wanted us to be back together. I wished I could call him. I wanted to hold him and tell him let’s try to make our marriage work. I wanted to tell him to stop listening to his mother. She is just miserable because she doesn’t have a man. He is being so mean to me. I got out of the tub and dried off and threw on a nightshirt. I turned the air conditioner and television on and watched the rest of Law & Order. That was my show. I decided to call this guy I used to date named Darnell. I dated him before I got serious with Anthony. I almost didn’t marry Anthony because of Darnell. Darnell was immature though, so I left him alone. The only thing that made me want to speak with him now is I knew it would make Anthony so mad, because he hated him. I dialed his number and he answered.

  “Hey, Darnell,” I said.

  “What? I know this is not . . . no, can’t be.” He acted like he didn’t know who I was.

  “It’s me, Natalie,” I said.

  “What are you doing calling me, Miss Married?”

  “I’m separated now.”

  “Yeah, right. I doubt it.”

  “No, I am serious, we are separated.”

  “That man is not letting you go. He is crazy over you. Separated don’t mean single. You still legally married.”

  “We’re getting a divorce.”

  “Whatever,” he said.

  We talked a little more and I realized why I broke up with him. He still sounded immature and only made me want to talk to Anthony more. I called Tanya for advice and she said the answer to all my problems was to get another man. Once Anthony saw I wasn’t chasing him anymore, he would start to wonder why and come running back to me. Then she said, “Have some hot shit parked outside your door and he will be mad like, ‘who the fuck is in my house?’”

  “You might be right, Tanya. But I don’t feel like meeting anyone right now.”

  “Well, at least you got your mom and dad to help you out.”

  “Yeah, I guess I’m lucky.”

  “So why don’t you lose some weight? That will make him run back.”

  “It is not that easy to lose weight. I have tried.”

  “Well, can’t you go to one of those places?”

  “Places like what?”

  “A fat diet place.”

  “Tanya, shut up. I’m hanging up. Good-bye.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Janelle

  I was looking for a new hair salon. I didn’t know what the black or white areas were in Miami. I heard one of the black areas was in Liberty City somewhere. Kelly said the girl at her salon did really good hair, but I wasn’t about to let a white girl do my weave. It was time to take these tracks out. They had been glued and reglued and I needed my hair touched up with a perm. Basically I need the works. I got the yellow pages and called a few salons. I asked the receptionist at each salon for the best stylist. The last one I called said this girl named Livia was the best. But she didn’t have any openings for two weeks and she put me on hold. Then she came back on the line and said what do you need done?

  I told her a straight natural weave. She asked if I wanted it sewn or glued in. She said, “We charge a hundred for glue and a hundred and fifty for sewn in.” She gave me an appointment and said if I couldn’t make it, to call.

  I was a little skeptical about trying a new hair salon. I didn’t want all that high hair with hard curls with a lot of spritz that I have seen on southern women. I know Miami was pretty fly and up to date on most things. I was ready to fly back home just to get my hair done.

  I got to the hair salon and I was scared to let the girl Livia touch my hair. She had a bald head with little pencil tip curls at the top. On the side of her head she had pink hair slapped on with her track showing. My mom always said to beware of the hairdresser with no hair. She said she always wants to cut your hair and make you bald like her. I took that into consideration about the hairdresser with messed-up hair. She might have me looking like her. But I let her do my hair. She had a lot of clients. All of their hair looked nice. It was my time to get in the chair, and she didn’t let me look in the mirror until she was done.

  I looked in the mirror and my hair looked so good. She had layered it and made tight bouncy curls. I loved it. I gave her a thirty-dollar tip and made another appointment.

  I shook my hair in the wind. I turned my radio on. I was getting tired of all that boom-boom bass music. So I put in a CD.

  I met Kelly at her and Carl’s house in the Coral Gables section of Miami. We were going shopping, then to the spa. The house was huge. Carl was getting money. Kelly said his sign-on bonus was a half a mil. Carl made like 1.5 million a season and he had a few small endorsements. Damon made a good salary, but only about a quarter of that. Kelly said James’s and Stephen’s salaries were in the millions too. Some people are just so lucky. Carl was doing the right thing with his money. The house was so big and nice. I walked in and saw a crystal-clear coffee table aquarium. All types of tropical fish were floating around in it. There was a white baby grand piano and white furniture. Kelly just walked around the house in her slippers like, so what, this is nothing. She said, you think this is nice, you should see Lisa’s house.

  “Girl, I love your hair. Where did you go?”

  “Some place I found in the yellow pages.”

  “They did a great job, but aren’t you going to ruin it at the spa?”

  “No, I’m not going in the sauna room or Jacuzzi. I just want a massage and get my feet and nails done.” We went to the mall and Kelly literally spent four thousand dollars in one store and she only had two bags. I couldn’t talk; I had wasted money on things I didn’t need like a plain Juicy Couture T-shirt for seventy dollars, Jimmy Choo sandals for three eighty-two, and a pair of Blue Cult jeans for a hundred and fifty two dollars. After our light shopping we drove to the spa. The ladies welcomed us in the spa. They had the soothing sound of water flowing playing softly in the background. We undressed and put our clothes in lockers. They had white robes and brown plastic slippers for us. I followed Kelly to the waiting room. She picked up a magazine, and drank lemon water. There were cucumbers chilling in ice. I picked two up and placed them over my eyes. I heard Kelly’s name then mine. I took the cucumber off of my eyes and followed the masseuse to the massage room
. She asked me what kind of massage I wanted. I told her a Swedish. She rubbed my back so good. I didn’t get the full benefit because I went right to sleep. It was so relaxing. That was my first non-boyfriend massage. The masseuse tapped my shoulder and said, “I’m done.”

  “Thank you,” I said as I awakened from my sleep.

  “Drink a lot of water to remove all of the toxins,” she said as I left the massage room. I felt so relaxed and rejuvenated. I was getting used to this life.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Natalie

  Anthony has not come home yet. A whole month and some change has gone by. Either he is really not coming home or he is taking this too far. I have been looking in the paper and calling around looking for jobs. The baby has been staying home with me. I didn’t pay his day care and I’m not until I know I’m going to have more money. I said as soon as I get a job I was going to pay my balance and send him back. He is my son, but I’m getting tired of him. I think he is getting spoiled being around me all day. He wants me to hold him and he won’t let me put him down. At least when Anthony was here I had a break. Now I can’t even go to the bathroom without him crying. I have to creep out of my bed to get five minutes alone. I guess he misses his dad and doesn’t know how to express it. I miss his dad too. But life goes on.

  I braided the baby’s hair and got ready for the Fourth of July block party. My parents cooked out every year. I still hadn’t mastered getting me and him dressed at the same time. It takes me like three hours. I had to bathe, dress, do my hair, make bottles, and check the diaper bag to make sure there were diapers inside it. Then wash the baby, dress him, feed him, and if I was lucky, I would make it out the door by 5:00 p.m.

  I couldn’t park on my parents’ street because it was blocked off for the block party. Everything was set up in the street, the tables, chairs, and umbrellas. My mom saw me struggling up the street with the baby. She grabbed my baby bag off my arm and my dad grabbed the baby.

  “You need to do something with that baby’s hair. I don’t like those braids. He looks like a little girl,” my dad said.

  “I got to keep it braided. I can’t cut it,” I said.

  “No, you don’t cut a baby’s hair before they’re one,” my mom said as she took the baby out of my dad’s arm.

  “Why not?” my dad asked.

  “You just don’t. If you do, the baby will talk slow.”

  “That’s not true. Cut this boy’s hair. I don’t want to see him with girlie braids.”

  While my dad held the baby I helped my mother put all the food on the table and set it. “Mom, you need a spoon for the potato salad,” I said as I sneaked a taste, dipping my finger on the side.

  She brought the spoons out of the house and said, “Natalie, I have been thinking. I think you need an older man. Your father is five years older than me,” she said as she gathered serving utensils. “I was reading an article in the newspaper yesterday. It was about people getting married in their twenties. They called them starter marriages. They said the starter marriage prepares you for your real marriage in your thirties.”

  “Mom, that’s the dumbest thing I ever heard!” I said.

  “I just think Anthony is too juvenile for you. He was your starter marriage. Now you’re free to meet someone new.”

  I had no response for my mom.

  My dad was cooking barbecued beef ribs on the grill. All my cousins were sitting around with their men and husbands, so I felt really sad. I was sitting all alone. Then my little cousin on my mom’s side came up to me, felt my stomach, and asked if I was having another baby. That made me feel sadder. No, I told him. I wasn’t pregnant, but I felt like I was having another baby. I helped myself to everything at the table at least twice. If that wasn’t bad enough, my uncle Charles came over to me and said he heard about everything that was going on. He said, “If you need me to go set your husband straight I will.”

  My uncle Charles is crazy. There is one in every family. He drinks too much, says off-the-wall things, and wears outdated tight clothes.

  After the cookout was over my mother and I went to see the fireworks. They are at the Art Museum every year. We parked off Spring Garden Street and walked to the parkway. I thought the baby would love to see the fireworks. But when he looked up into the sky and saw bright lights and heard the noise, he started crying.

  I came home and put Anthony to sleep, took off my clothes and got into the bed. My stomach felt like a water bed. It was like you could push it in and it would bounce back out at you. There is a point in your fatness when you say if I ever get that big, I will just stop eating and starve myself. Today is that day for me. I had eaten way too much at the cookout. I examined myself in the mirror. I needed to go on a diet. Or I’m going to do something extreme like gastric bypass surgery or something to get this fucking weight off. I know I don’t qualify for gastric bypass, because you have to be about a hundred pounds overweight. And I think they staple your stomach and make it the size of an egg. I don’t want all that done. I’m only about thirty pounds overweight. I can lose weight the old-fashioned way. But in the past nothing has worked for me. I have bought into every diet plan. Weight Watchers, Slim Fast shakes, L.A. Weight Loss. Diet pills always made me sick and sped up my heart, giving me the jitters and I couldn’t sleep. I would wake up and start cleaning the house in the middle of the night. I bought Tae Bo tapes twice and never used them. The weight wasn’t going to come off by hoping. I really had to make a conscious effort.

  The next day I went to the YMCA in my neighborhood and I inquired about their aerobics classes. I peeked in on the workout class. Ladies were doing aerobics. Fast techno workout music was playing. A short, feisty lady was running around the room with a headset on yelling, “Two and three and one more. Two more, three more.”

  I watched for a few more moments, then walked back to the front desk. The lady who was instructing came out of the class and jogged up behind me, asked if I was interested in taking a class.

  “Yes, but I don’t have anybody to watch my baby.”

  “He can sit on the side in the back in his car seat. It’s time to get that baby weight off. Right?”

  I gave her a glance like, excuse me? But she was right. The lady said her name was Gina and that if I’d like to start I could sign up and get a flyer from the front desk.

  I started the class the next day. I went and bought new sneakers, a water bottle, and a yoga mat. The baby did sit in his car seat.

  The music started and I was doing fine at first. Then it was time for crunches. Can you say “owie”? I did about twenty. Then she kept saying five more. She said that like four times. Oh, really. I just stopped doing them. Then she walked to the back of the class and said come on and do ten more. “I can’t,” I said.

  “Yes, you can. Give me five more.”

  Out of breath, I curled my body up and did five crunches.

  Chapter Thirty

  Janelle

  I was hungry and tired of eating healthy food. I wanted a cheesesteak or burger. Damon didn’t have anything in his refrigerator but health stuff. We ate out all the time and the housekeeper brings in a few things, but I wanted some real food.

  “Damon, we need real food. I can’t eat all this health food stuff,” I said as I looked in the refrigerator.

  “Rita brings in everything we need.”

  “No, I want to go to the market and get some cereal with sugar on it. Like some Cocoa Pebbles or Honey Nut Cheerios. Baby, let’s go to the market. I want some shrimp and salmon and maybe even a cheesesteak.”

  “You going to make me a cheesesteak.”

  “Yeah, okay. Let’s go.”

  We went to the Publix Market to get groceries. I filled the shopping cart with cereal, milk, cheese, and all types of juice. I wanted some turkey breast lunch meat. There were a million and one people in the deli line. We took a number.

  “Damon, I want some pizza too! You ever make a homemade pizza?”

  “No.”

>   “They taste good. I’m going to get the pizza and you wait for the lunch meat.”

  I walked over to the frozen food aisle. I was only gone about two minutes. I walked up behind Damon and this Hispanic girl was all in his face. She was bagging her oranges and rubbing them suggestively. I watched to see what Damon’s reaction was going to be. The woman was like, don’t I know you? You play for the Dolphins. I knew she was a groupie. Kelly had warned me about women like this. She said they hang around the practice sites, markets, places that they know the player eventually will have to go. I continued to watch as the groupie made small talk with Damon. He was cool. He didn’t fall into her trap. I heard him say, “Thanks, but no, thanks.”

  That was my cue to walk right over to him and say, “Babe, what kind of cereal did you say you wanted?”

  He turned around and said, “Baby, you know I like Cocoa Pebbles.”

  “And you are?” I said as I extended my hand out to her. She didn’t say her name, she just walked away.

  “Well, nice meeting you,” I said as she walked away. “You’re bad, Damon,” I said. “What were you doing talking to that girl?”

  “Please, I don’t want her. I told her I was good.”

  “You better had.”

  We went home and watched The Matrix II on DVD. I don’t know why he likes that stupid movie. I’ll never get it. I still couldn’t get over the aggressive nature of the woman from the grocery store. I was curious to know if Damon would have talked to her if I wasn’t there.

  “Damon, have you ever knowingly dated a groupie?”

  “No, but if I wanted to it would be so easy. I just don’t want no woman that is just about my money.”

  “What about a white girl?”

  “No, why?” he asked.