Can't Get Enough

by Connie Briscoe

  Marilyn didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. Her silent look of disapproval and the tightening of her lips spoke volumes. Barbara was beginning to regret telling Marilyn about Noah. But she and Marilyn had been the best of friends for so long. They shared everything, and it wouldn’t have felt right hiding the relationship with Noah from her closest friend.

  “Barbara Bradford?”

  Barbara looked around to see Ellen Johnson, one of her neighbors in Silver Lake. Ellen lived on a huge estate near the Silver Lake Country Club. She was always immaculately dressed and coiffed, and today was no exception.

  “Hello, Ellen. How are you?”

  “I’m fine. And you?”

  “Just great,” Barbara said, and introduced Ellen to Marilyn. All the while, Barbara couldn’t help but notice that Ellen was checking her out thoroughly, from the designer jeans to the casual sandals. “Well, you’re certainly looking different these days, Barbara. You look so fresh. And happy.”

  “Thank you.”

  Ellen glanced down at the Gap bags Barbara was toting. “Shopping for Rebecca and Robin?” she asked.

  Barbara gripped the bag handles tightly. “Um, yes, as a matter of fact, I am,” Barbara said, relieved that Ellen had answered her own question and saved Barbara from having to think up a lie.

  “Well, tell them I said hello. And Bradford. How is he?”

  “Oh, he’s fine,” Barbara said. “Tell Marlon and the kids I said hi.”

  They walked in opposite directions, and Barbara breathed a sigh of relief. “Nosy busybody,” Barbara muttered under her breath.

  “Well, what do you expect?” Marilyn said. “You’ve changed, Barbara. You even look different. People are going to ask questions.”

  “I deserve some happiness, Marilyn,” Barbara said firmly.

  Marilyn sighed. “Of course you do. I just worry about what it will do to you in the long run. All new clothes and now you’re risking meeting him in public places. Even if you’re going to out-of-the-way places, you and Bradford are so well known. Does anyone else know about you and Noah?”

  “Only Veronique.”

  “You told her? You barely know her.”

  “We’ve become friends lately.”

  Marilyn sighed deeply. “What does she think about it?”

  “She’s happy for me. She helped us get together.”

  Marilyn frowned. “That explains a lot. She’s influencing you.”

  Barbara shook her head. “Absolutely not. I’m an adult. I can make up my own mind.”

  “Well, can you trust her to keep her mouth shut? What if she tells someone and it gets back to Bradford? Have you thought about that?”

  “Veronique wouldn’t do that.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  PEARL UNLOCKED THE door to her salon, and Lee and Juliette ran inside, giggling like schoolgirls at a pajama party. They called them sleepovers now, but to Pearl they were still plain old pajama parties.

  “Wow, this is nice,” Juliette said as she slipped out of her jacket and looked around.

  “Not bad,” Lee agreed.

  Pearl smiled proudly. She had worked in many salons owned by others while Kenyatta was growing up. When she had finally saved enough to start her own, she found an old building in a strip mall not far from Silver Lake and had it renovated with all of the best features from the salons where she had worked before. One wall was covered with mirrors from floor to ceiling, and she had stations for three other salon workers, all with the finest equipment. She had an area for manicures and pedicures, with two luxurious leather vibrating chairs.

  Juliette hopped up onto one of the leather chairs. “This is what I want.”

  “We’ll do one thing at a time,” Pearl said. “Hair first, then foot massages. OK, Lee. Hop on up.” She patted the back of her salon chair. “You’re getting a perm, cut, and style.”

  Lee looked reluctant as she ran her hands over her cornrows. “I don’t know about this.”

  “It can’t get much worse,” Juliette said, only half joking.

  “Don’t start that,” Pearl said sternly. “You want your turn?”

  “Sorry,” Juliette said.

  Lee cut her eyes at Juliette and slid into the chair. Pearl threw a smock around her.

  “Don’t make me look like no hootchie mama up in here,” Lee said.

  Pearl laughed. “Now why would I do that?”

  “Can we get color?” Juliette pleaded. “I wanna be a blonde when I go back to school.”

  Lee rolled her eyes skyward.

  “No,” Pearl said firmly. “You’re too young for that, and I don’t want your mama coming after me.”

  “She wouldn’t care,” Juliette said.

  “Well, I do,” Pearl said. “No color.”

  Pearl unbraided Lee’s hair and let it fall. Lee had a nice head of thick dark hair, but it looked like she hadn’t had a professional cut recently, if ever.

  Pearl proceeded to transform Lee’s hair as Juliette stood beside her chatting and giving pointers and tips. An hour later, Pearl was working on Juliette as Lee sat under the hair dryer and flipped through the September issue of Essence magazine.

  After Pearl finished with the hair and the foot massages, Juliette reached into her purse and pulled out a little red bag of cosmetics.

  “You carry all that crap around with you?” Lee asked as Juliette removed foundation, loose powder, blush, eye shadow, mascara, and lipstick from the bag.

  “Watch the mouth,” Pearl said.

  “Sorry,” Lee said.

  “I never leave home without it,” Juliette said. “You need to start carrying a purse, too, girl. You should always have lipstick. Want me to do your face? I’m good.”

  “Pft. No way.”

  “Let her do it,” Pearl said. “You can always wash it off and, who knows, you might like it.”

  “OK, but I’m letting you put this gook on me just this one time.”

  Juliette worked on Lee’s face and then her own as Pearl washed out the sink and swept the floor. Then Juliette and Lee stood in front of the mirror oohing and aahing over how they looked. Pearl watched and smiled. They both looked lovely, and it was nice to see them making an effort to be nice to each other for a change. She had given Lee a short sassy cut that matched her fiery personality, and she had cleaned up Juliette’s weave. Juliette had begged nonstop for color the whole time Pearl worked on Lee, and Pearl finally relented and gave her a few soft blond highlights.

  “You’re a diva now,” Juliette said. “They won’t even know you when we go back to school next week.”

  “Oh, please,” Lee said, primping her hair. “I do look kinda hot, don’t I?”

  Pearl rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “Oh, no. What have I done? Created two monsters?”

  After pedicures, they walked back to the car with Juliette and Lee laughing and chatting about their new hairdos. Pearl drove them to Jasper’s for lunch.

  “I’m glad to see you two getting along better now,” Pearl said after they had ordered from the menu. “And I know your daddy is happy about that, too.”

  “It took me a while to get used to Lee,” Juliette said. “But she’s all right.”

  “Likewise,” Lee said to Juliette. “We’re nothing alike. But you’re not so bad. At least, I found out that I couldn’t trust Phillip when he started fooling around with you. I broke up with him.”

  “So did I,” Juliette said. “That’s one thing we have in common.”

  “You have more than that in common, you know,” Pearl said. They looked at her doubtfully.

  “We’re like night and day,” Juliette said.

  “You have the same father, and he adores you both.”

  They glanced at each other and smiled.

  “I like having a sister,” Juliette said. “I never really liked being an only child. I mean, I like the part about being spoiled and all. My mom will get me just about anything I want, but I like having a sister better.”


  “Well, I was never spoiled, but I have to admit that having a sister is cool.”

  They finished their meals then piled into Pearl’s car for the ride home. They found Patrick waiting for them in the living room. He looked up from the television set as they entered and did a double take.

  “Where are my daughters?” he asked as he pretended to look around for them.

  Juliette and Lee giggled and Patrick wrapped his arms around them. “You both look beautiful.” He ran his hands over Lee’s new haircut. “And this is a big change. I can’t get over this.”

  Lee pulled away from him. “Hey, man, watch it,” she exclaimed as she patted her hair back into place. “Don’t mess up my hair.”

  “Uh-oh,” Patrick said with mock despair. “Now, I’ve got two divas.”

  “Tell me about it,” Pearl said.

  Lee and Juliette slapped high fives. “Divas in the house,” they exclaimed as they danced around the room.

  BARBARA LAUGHED SOFTLY into the telephone as Noah told her one of his cute jokes. Bradford had left early that Sunday morning to go to the office—or so he’d said. For all she knew he was with one of his mistresses, but she wasn’t going to worry. All she really cared about was that she had some time to chat freely with Noah until Bradford returned and they had to get ready for a dinner party at Marilyn’s that night.

  They would be out all evening, and Barbara had wanted to hear the sound of Noah’s voice before leaving. So she sat in her bathrobe on the white love seat in the sitting room off the master bedroom and dialed Noah’s number from the antique phone on the end table. She had planned to talk to him for about ten minutes before stepping into the Jacuzzi for a leisurely soak. That ten minutes had quickly turned into an hour.

  “You always crack me up,” she whispered.

  “Good, ’cause I love to hear you laugh. When am I gonna see you again? Tonight?”

  “No, not tonight, I’m afraid. We’re going to a dinner party.”

  “Oh, right. At Marilyn’s. Tomorrow afternoon then? After I get off from work at school?”

  “I’ll try to meet you . . .” Barbara stopped speaking. Bradford had poked his head in the doorway between the sitting room and bedroom and was looking straight at her. Damn stupid carpeting, she thought. She hadn’t heard a thing.

  “Um, so you think the Wrights might put a contract on that property here in Silver Lake sometime soon?” she said as she sat up straight.

  “He’s back, right?” Noah whispered into the phone. “Call me later tonight after you get home and he’s in bed. We can make love over the phone.”

  “I’ll definitely get back to you later on that. Bye.” She hung up and stood, tightening the belt to her bathrobe.

  Bradford set his briefcase down on the small white antique desk in the room. “Who was that?”

  “That? Oh, um, just Noah from the office.”

  “On a Sunday evening? You seem to be talking to him an awful lot recently.”

  “Business is booming.”

  “Uh-huh. What’s gotten into you lately, Barbara?” he asked, turning to look at her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re dressing differently, spending a lot more money on high-end casual clothes, for one thing. Blue jeans, low-cut silk tops. Even when you go to work you look different now.”

  She shrugged. “I want to look good for my clients and sometimes that means looking younger. Or trying to. Why? Am I going too far with it?”

  “Actually, no. It’s a nice change. I just wondered why now and why you’re talking to Noah on the phone all the time.”

  Barbara cleared her throat. “Noah thinks Bernice and Bernard may finally have found a house they both like here in Silver Lake. You know the one the developer is building near the country club?”

  “Oh, yeah. Nice house. Well, they’ve been looking—what? Almost six months now?”

  “They keep flip-flopping with the divorce, and she’s very picky.” Barbara strolled toward the bathroom. “I won’t be long.”

  “Wait a minute,” Bradford said. “I’m not done yet.”

  Barbara held her breath. Bradford was obviously getting suspicious. Maybe someone had seen her somewhere with Noah. They had been very discreet over the past couple of months, spending most of their time together at his place. They had been out together only twice outside of work—to a restaurant and bowling alley, both times way out in Frederick, Maryland. Still, Bradford had friends and business partners all over the place.

  “Yes?” she said finally.

  “You’ve also been spending a lot of time on the phone with Veronique lately.”

  She nodded. “We’ve become friends.”

  “I wouldn’t have expected that. You have so little in common.”

  “She’s a lot of fun. I like her.”

  “What do you two talk about?”

  Barbara shrugged. “Girl stuff. Shopping, hair.” Men, or rather one man in particular, she thought.

  “Mm-hmm. Does she say much about Atlanta? Or her ex-husband?”

  “Very little. Why?”

  “Nothing. Just curious.”

  Barbara frowned. It was unusual for Bradford to take such an interest in her girlfriends. But then again, Veronique was different from her other friends, and she supposed it could simply be curiosity. “Anything else?”

  “Not about that but about a business trip,” he said as he sat on the love seat and removed his shoes.

  “Yes?”

  “I have to go to Seattle for several days.”

  “Oh?”

  He smiled proudly. “A huge telecommunications deal with U.S. West.”

  “That’s wonderful, Bradford.”

  She used to hate it when Bradford went away on long trips. She always suspected that he was either taking another woman with him or meeting one wherever he traveled, especially if he refused to take her along with him. But things had changed. With Bradford out of town, she would be able to spend whole nights with Noah, rather than only a few hours at a time. He could even come over here in the evening after Phyllis had left for the day and leave in the morning before she arrived.

  “So. When will you be leaving?”

  “In a few weeks. First Monday in October. I have a meeting that Tuesday morning.”

  “I see. When will you get back?”

  “That Friday or Saturday morning, depending on how things go.”

  Hmm, Barbara thought. That would leave her at least three nights with Noah and possibly four. “Well, good luck with your meetings. I’m sure everything will turn out fine.”

  Bradford frowned. “Good luck? That’s all? Normally you would be asking if you could tag along to do some shopping.”

  “Um, well, yes. I do wish I could go. But I promised to show houses to a client that week.” That was a lie. Barbara hadn’t shown a house in ages and had no plans to do so. She still went to the office once in a while, mainly to see Noah, but she had cut her work hours way back. To be successful at real estate took too much time, time she didn’t have, especially now that she was seeing Noah and helping him decorate his house. She had kept up the pretense of still working in real estate only to have excuses to get out of the house to see Noah.

  “Postpone it,” Bradford said.

  “I . . . I don’t think that’s a good idea. I could lose my client.”

  “What about Noah? Don’t you sometimes fill in for each other?”

  “Well, yes, but I don’t want to do that with this client. I, um, don’t want to split the commission.”

  “My, my, Barb, getting greedy, are we? It’s not like we need the money.”

  “It’s not about the money, Bradford. It’s about me closing this deal by myself.” Or spending time with Noah, she thought. “You said yourself that I needed to ‘think big.’ ” She made quotation marks with her fingers.

  “Is this about the deal with Bernice and Bernard Wright? If it is, I can talk to Bernard. He’ll . . .”

 
“No, Bradford,” Barbara snapped, and immediately regretted it. He was already suspicious enough. “It’s not Bernard,” she said calmly.

  “Suit yourself,” Bradford said. “I’m just surprised that you’d pass up a chance to shop on Rodeo Drive.”

  Barbara’s eyes lit up. “You didn’t say anything about Los Angeles.”

  “I wasn’t planning to go to L.A., but we could stop there for the weekend if you wanted to do some shopping.”

  Barbara paused. Rodeo Drive was very tempting. And Bradford’s sudden interest in taking her along on one of his business trips would have flattered her at one time. But no, she’d take a moment with Noah over all the baubles in L.A. any day.

  “Maybe another time, Bradford.”

  He stared at her with obvious surprise as she left the room and entered the master bath. She shut the door and sat on the edge of the Jacuzzi. Bradford was obviously getting suspicious. Sooner or later she was going to have to come up with a better story than showing houses.

  She turned on the water, reached for her bath oil, and poured in a few drops. Did she feel guilty about spending all this time with another man? Yes, in a way she did. Was she going to stop seeing him? No. She was learning to live with the guilt because, frankly, Noah was worth it. He made her feel years younger. He made her feel wanted. Bradford could give her clothes, cars, houses, jewels, and trips all over the world. But he didn’t know how to give of himself.

  And if she couldn’t get what she needed from her husband, she would get it elsewhere. She was tired of doing without. It was as simple as that.

  She turned the water off, slipped out of her bathrobe, and sank down into the bubbles. She rested her head on her little white bath pillow, closed her eyes, and pictured Noah in her mind.

  JOLENE DECIDED TO take a detour on her way to the mall that Monday evening just so she could drive past Pearl’s hair salon.

  She looked out the window of her Bentley and saw the shop sitting there, looking shiny and nice as usual. Even worse, Veronique’s Rolls-Royce was parked outside with her snooty chauffeur snoozing as he waited. Jolene knew that the salon was normally closed on Monday, so the baroness must be getting special treatment.