“No,” she said, and then stood up. “I’d rather starve.” Imani turned to her left, ready to walk out the door.
“Aren’t you doing that already?” Edward called out.
Imani slammed the office door behind her. The gall, she thought as she headed for the subway terminal. She wanted to take a cab, but with only three dollars in her pocket and a box of raisins for dinner in her apartment, a taxi trip was a luxury that she couldn’t afford. Besides, a taxi trip from Manhattan to Brooklyn would wipe out her savings in the bank—if you could call it a savings account. She barely had a hundred dollars in her checking and savings accounts combined. Calling her parents for a loan was out because the first thing her mother, Dorothy, would say is that she needed a real job and acting was a dream she needed to give up. Her father, Horace, would tell her that it was time for her to join the family business of home restorations.
She could be in charge of the interior design aspect of it, even live in a historic home in beautiful Savannah, Georgia. Imani wanted no part of it. Her dream was to act, sing, or dance. Her career of choice was considered an insignificant pipe dream by her family. She’d graduated with a degree from the Juilliard School and hadn’t asked her parents for a penny, despite the fact that she went into major debt paying for the expensive performing arts college.
Frowning as she headed to the subway entrance, Imani tried to figure out how she was going to take a free trip on the subway because she wasn’t sure if she had the money to make it home. When she saw three New York City Transit officers arresting a group of teenagers who were also trying to get a free ride home, she knew she’d have to walk. She was only about two miles from her place in Fulton Ferry and she could use the exercise. Besides, the walk would give her a chance to think about the reality show.
“I’m not doing it,” she mumbled to herself. By the time she had walked five blocks, her feet were throbbing like a heartbeat. “Maybe I should do it. The Apprentice made Omarosa a star and she’s not even an actress. But then she did that stupid dating show on TV One,” Imani said to no one in particular as she unsnapped her Steve Madden sandals, took them off, and flung them over her shoulder. “But,” she continued musing to herself, “I trained at Juilliard. I shouldn’t be subjected to this.”
Imani was half a block away from her home when she decided that she wasn’t going to go on the reality show. She held her head high and walked up to the door of her building, ready to prop her feet up and relax with her Variety magazine. Before she could put the key in the lock, reality sucker-punched her in the stomach. A pink note with big red letters was tacked to her door. “Eviction,” it read. Imani snatched the note off the door. She pulled her cell phone out of her tote bag, pressed speed dial number three, and waited for Edward to answer.
“Funderburke and Associates, Edward speaking,” he said.
“It’s Imani. I’ve done some thinking,” she said as she read the eviction notice for a second time. “I’ll do the stupid show.”
“Well, don’t sound so excited about it,” he replied. “What made you change your mind?”
Imani made a mental note of the thirty-day deadline she’d been given to come up with the back rent. Then she balled up the notice. “Let’s just say I know this is what I need to do right now.”
Storming into her place, Imani decided to watch a little television to take her mind off her current situation. But that was the wrong thing to do. As she flipped through the channels, lamenting her career, she stopped on a sitcom that she’d auditioned for.
“LisaRaye is not a better actress than I am,” she exclaimed as she came across a rerun of All of Us, and then flipped the channel.
Next she landed on a Lifetime movie about an abused wife who’d killed her husband. As she watched the unknown actress overdramatize her lines, Imani knew that she would have done so much better in the role, had it been offered to her. She remembered that she’d once told Edward that the last thing she wanted to do was a Lifetime movie. Now, she wished that she’d never made such a crazy statement.
Then she came across her movie on the FX channel. Fearless Diva was a bomb, but it wasn’t J. Lo in Gigli or Halle’s Catwoman. If she was honest, she’d admit that it was worse. But she wasn’t practicing honesty right now.
That role should have led to something, she thought as she watched herself prance across the screen in a skintight leather catsuit. At least my clothes were fierce. Twirling a lock of hair around her finger, Imani critiqued her performance. She was pretty awful in the movie, but it wasn’t her fault. The script was horrible and the cameraman, who also called himself the director, didn’t know how to operate the camera because every scene looked as if the wind had gotten hold of the equipment.
Maybe Imani did deserve those Razzie award nominations she’d gotten. But someone had to see her potential, didn’t they? As tears welled up in her eyes, Imani wondered if her family had been right about her career. Were they right to have no faith in her? Was she chasing a pipe dream that had no chance of coming true?
The phone wouldn’t stop ringing at the Palmer Free Clinic in Harlem. And that was the least of their worries. The receptionist had left for lunch three hours ago and never returned. That left Dr. Raymond Thomas juggling answering calls with seeing patients, writing down appointments, and taking messages. What he didn’t have time for was a game-playing prankster. “Look,” Raymond said, a frown darkening his handsome face, “this is a place of business. No one here has time to play with a lowlife small-timer like you.”
“Sir, this isn’t a joke. I’m Elize Harrington, a producer with the WAPC Network. You’re a candidate for our new reality show, Let’s Get Married. Your name was submitted to us and we reviewed your qualifications and we want you on the show,” she said, her voice in a near plea.
“Ms. Harrington, who put you up to this joke?” Raymond dropped his pen on the desk and held his finger up to the patient in front of him waiting for her prescription.
The woman sighed. “Again, sir, this isn’t a joke. Our show is going to air later this year, but the ten weeks of filming start in a few weeks. We just need you to come in and take a screen test and sign a waiver.”
A rush of people were vying for Raymond’s attention. All at once, he had a patient trying to make a follow-up appointment, a nurse questioning him about his orders for a different patient, and the same woman who’d been waiting for ten minutes still wanting her prescription. As Raymond’s head began throbbing, he silently wished he could write himself a doctor’s note and go home.
He mumbled yes to the producer, told her to call his cell phone, leave the details about the show on his voice mail, and he would call her back. Raymond hung up the phone and, putting his composed doctor face back on, turned to his patient. When things calmed down, Raymond was going to get to the bottom of this reality TV show mess. It was already pushed to the back burner.
“Mrs. Wentworth,” he said, taking the elderly woman’s hand, “can you come back in two weeks?”
The caramel-colored woman smiled at him. “I can do that and my grandbaby, Emma, can bring me. She’s real pretty and she can cook, too. Our family is originally from the south and southern women know how to do one thing better than anyone else does, and that’s cook. Dr. Thomas, you don’t get many home-cooked meals, do you? You’re not married, are you?”
“No, ma’am,” he replied with a smile, even though he wanted to push her out the door. If Raymond had a penny for every elderly woman who wanted to fix him up with her granddaughter, niece, or daughter, he would be rich enough to fund the clinic himself.
Mrs. Wentworth shook her head. “That’s a shame. You need a good woman to take care of you. You’re way too skinny. I like a man with a little more meat on his bones, but my grandbaby would love you.”
Nurse Karen DeSalis dropped a chart in front of Raymond. “Mrs. Wentworth, I’ve been telling him that for years, but he doesn’t listen.”
Raymond rolled his eyes. Who had time for lov
e or romance? He and his fraternity brother, Keith Jacobs, had opened the Marion Palmer Free Clinic, named for their favorite first-grade teacher, three years ago in Harlem. They’d gone to Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia, together and did their residency at Grady Memorial Hospital. When their residency was over, the native New Yorkers returned to Harlem ready to make a difference. Luckily for them, they had help. Keith and Raymond received a three-million-dollar grant from the Harlem Revitalization Group to buy equipment. The city donated the building and donations from businesses helped the men with the first year’s operating costs. Then September 11 happened and everything changed. As donations began to dry up, Keith and Raymond poured their savings into the clinic. They could barely pay the staff, which was why they were on their fourth receptionist in a month.
“Karen, have you seen Keith?” Raymond asked as Mrs. Wentworth walked out the door.
“He’s eating lunch in the doctor’s lounge,” she replied. “But what about these orders?” She placed her hand on his sculpted arm, preventing him from leaving the front desk.
Raymond picked up the chart. “Discharge Loretta, give her meds for the pain, and have her come back in a month. What’s the question?”
“Sorry, doc, I’m not fluent in chicken scratch.”
Raymond playfully sneered at her and then broke out laughing. “Watch the door and phones for me. Five minutes, okay?” She nodded, and then Raymond took off for the doctor’s lounge, which was more like a storage closet with a dingy window.
Keith was sitting at the small table, more akin to a TV tray, eating a salad and a roast chicken sandwich. “What’s up, Ray?” Keith asked, catching his partner’s stare.
“You tell me, brother.”
Keith stood up, stuffing the last of his sandwich in his mouth. “The only time you call me ‘brother’ is when you’re pissed off. What did I do now?”
Raymond raised his eyebrow. “You’re going to stand here and pretend that you don’t know what you did? I got a call that I’m sure you know all about. Some TV producer called me about the show Let’s Get Married.”
“Finally! I’m glad they got to my letter,” Keith said excitedly. “I thought all of my writing had been in vain.”
Raymond was tempted to grab his best friend by the throat and choke him like a chicken ready to be plucked and fried.
“Keith, have you lost your mind? First of all, I don’t want to get married, and second of all, I’m not reality TV material.”
“Think about it Ray. This show guarantees people will hear of the Marion G. Palmer Free Clinic over and over again. And I’m sure the ladies will swoon over tall, muscular Dr. Ray-Ray, just like they did in college. We can’t pay for this kind of publicity. It’s not as if we can afford it anyway. Bro, we’re in trouble. At this point, we need to do anything to keep these doors open.”
Raymond shook his head. “Why don’t you go on the show?” he snapped.
“Number one, Celeste would kill me; she’s been trying to get me to marry her for three years. Number two, I know the limitations of my charm. I’d be voted off the first show. And number three, I don’t want my momma to see me on TV like that.”
“I don’t want to do it,” Raymond said, “and I’m not going to do it. Besides, do you actually think you can run this place without me? Do you know how busy we’ve been today? There’s no way we can afford to have either one of us out of pocket for any amount of time.”
“It’s fifteen thousand just to do it. That doesn’t even include the prize money, should you win,” Keith said. “This is a great way for us to get some free publicity. I know one thing for sure. If we don’t start getting some income coming in, the doors aren’t going to be open much longer.”
Raymond rubbed his chin, thinking about the clinic’s finances. The books were in the red. Medicare was slow to pay for the services the clinic provided, but that didn’t stop Keith and Raymond from providing quality health care to the people in the community who wouldn’t otherwise be able to get the help that they needed. The clinic had never been about the two of them getting rich. They wanted to help the people who reminded them of the women who’d helped raise them. Keith’s grandmother could’ve been Mrs. Wentworth, a hardworking woman who, as she aged, needed help managing her health but couldn’t afford health insurance.
“That’s a lot of money for a one-time gig. Maybe I can make myself get voted off after two episodes,” Raymond said as he fingered his goatee.
Keith nodded. “See, that’s the spirit. But don’t be evil or anything like that. Just make yourself seem pitiful. You have to win them over if we plan to milk donations from people who watch the show.”
Raymond looked at himself in the reflective material on the side of the file cabinet. He was hardly a vain man, but he knew there was no way he could make himself seem as if he were some pitiful soul who couldn’t find a date. Raymond was the kind of man who made a woman’s breath catch in her chest after she got a look at his creamy caramel skin, dark wavy hair, and shimmering green eyes—which had been known to put a woman in a trance if he looked at her just the right way. People often snagged him for charity fashion shows and bachelor auctions, and asked him to pose for bachelor calendars. Raymond always brought in top dollar when he was auctioned off.
“I’m going to do it, but I tell you what—you’re going to pay for this,” Raymond said, pointing his index finger at his friend.
Keith patted his partner on the shoulder. “All right. I knew you would see it my way. Now stop yakking and let’s get to work.”
Raymond took off his white lab coat. “You work, I’m going to lunch. First thing you need to do is relieve Karen at the front desk.” Then he dashed out the back door.
Many people who saw Raymond walking down the street would peg him as another New York pretty boy player. Though he enjoyed having fun with the ladies, he was also hoping to experience the love that his parents had shared during their fifty-year marriage. Lorne and Helen Thomas never had much; however, what they lacked in material possessions, they made up for in the love they’d shared. He had memories of seeing his parents hugging and kissing every time either of them entered the room. Lorne had always showed his wife the utmost respect and affection, and if they’d ever argued, Raymond wasn’t around. Until the end, they worked as a team, and that was the kind of life he wanted with the right woman.
Raymond was beginning to believe his woman wasn’t in New York. He didn’t think he was going to find her on a TV show, either. Marriage wasn’t something to be entered into for the hope of a big payoff. Doing this show was not a good idea, because it made a mockery of marriage—in his opinion. If his parents were alive they wouldn’t approve of him making a joke of marriage on national TV. What am I getting myself into? he asked himself.
DAFINA BOOKS are published by
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Copyright © 2012 by Cheris Hodges
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