The Next Best Thing

by Deidre Berry

  “My one and only favorite!” he said, and kissed me on the cheek.

  That’s the way Daddy and I have been greeting each other since I was about fifteen.

  “Smells like you have everything under control.”

  “Yes indeedy,” he said, sipping his beer. “It’s gonna be a wang-dang-doodle, today!”

  My folks may have left Shreveport, Louisiana, over twenty years ago, but my father is still as country as a bucket of moonshine. For example, phrases like “wang-dang-doodle.”

  “Let me go in here and check on Mama,” I said, walking up the few steps leading onto the deck.

  “Alright, sweet pea,” Daddy said, using a spray bottle to mist the meat with marinade.

  My mother was putting a pan of peach cobbler in the oven when I walked into the kitchen.

  “Hi sweetie,” I said, kissing Mama on her cheek.

  “Hey baby,” she said, wiping her forehead with a paper towel. “Whew! I’ve been up cooking since last night. I think I’m gonna have to go take a power nap.”

  I put the deviled eggs in the refrigerator and grabbed a can of soda.

  “Where is Aunt Vera?” I asked. “She’s usually here helping you do all the cooking.”

  “Chile, she done up and ran off to Las Vegas,” Mama said, checking on a pot of greens. “And, with Brother Edwards from down at the church!”

  “Whaaaat?”

  “Ain’t that some shit? I’m telling you, the older Vera gets, the ornerier she gets.”

  “Look who’s talking!” I said. “I could say the same thing about you, with the way you’ve been cursing up a storm, lately.”

  “Shit, dealing with all the crazy folks in this family, I have to do something to let off steam.”

  “So who’s making the five-cheese macaroni and cheese?” I asked, popping the top on a Red Cream Soda.

  “I went ahead and made it,” my mother said. “And since I know the recipe backwards and forwards, I doubt that anybody will be able to tell the difference.

  I don’t know…There was damn near a riot last Easter when Aunt Vera didn’t feel up to making her legendary signature dish.

  While my mother is an excellent cook, there are some traditions that you just don’t dare mess with.

  Mama’s pecan rum cake is one, and Aunt Vera’s five-cheese macaroni and cheese is another.

  The backdoor opened and Junior walked in, followed by my nephew Trey. “Auntie!” Trey said, running over and wrapping his arms around my knees.

  “There’s my little buddy!” I said, scooping Trey up in my arms and kissing him on the lips.

  “I miss you,” my nephew said, reaching up to play with one of my gold chandelier earrings. I laughed because Trey is only three years old, and what he meant to say was, “I missed you.”

  “I miss you, too,” I mimicked, and gave him a big squeeze.

  “What’s up, Tori?” Junior asked, attempting to cut himself a piece of rum cake, only to have Mama slap his hand away.

  “Wash your hands first!” she said.

  “So, how is Federal Express coming along?” I asked Junior, as he washed his hands in the sink.

  “It’s cool,” he said. “My three-month probation is almost over, and I’m about to get full benefits.”

  “Congratulations!” I said, putting Trey back down on the floor. “So now that you’re working steady, can I put you on a payment schedule to recoup some of the money you owe me?”

  Junior’s mouth was stuffed with cake at that moment so he held up a forefinger like an usher, and mumbled, “Wait a minute.” Then he got a call on his cell phone, and left the kitchen without answering the question.

  The problem with Junior is that he is well on his way to becoming a professional freeloader. Just like our Uncle Blue.

  He’s financially irresponsible, does everything half-ass, and is spoiled to the point that he is now handicapped and he can’t even do simple things, like cook a decent meal, clean house, pay bills on time, or even wash a load of laundry without ruining everything.

  Mama likes to believe that her baby boy is just trying to find himself. But the way I see it, Junior is living this prolonged adolescence where he gets to do whatever he wants to do, except be responsible and take care of business the way grown people do.

  A few hours later, there were so many people coming and going from my parents’ house, it was like being in the middle of Grand Central Station.

  There were a lot of folks dancing to The Best of the Blues CD compilation Daddy had blasting on his Bose stereo, and there were several cutthroat games of spades and dominoes going on at different tables throughout the house.

  At my table, Uncle Woody and I were partners, playing against Cookie and Uncle Blue.

  “Umph! Gimme that!” Uncle Blue said, sweeping up the last hand of cards.

  Cookie said, “Oh, Tori. I know what I forgot to tell you, girl.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “I saw your girl Veronica at the casino last Friday night with some of her little raggedy-ass girlfriends.”

  “You saw her, but did she see you?” Uncle Blue asked Cookie before I could respond.

  “Come on now, y’all know me,” Cookie said. “I made sure that heifer saw me, by accidentally-on-purpose spilling my strawberry daiquiri right down the front of her white shirt!”

  “Now you know you’re wrong for that Cookie,” I said. “Tell me you didn’t do that for real.”

  “I sure did!” Cookie said.

  “And what did she do?” I asked.

  “What could she do besides stand there looking all kinds of stupid? Shoot, she’s lucky I already have a case pending, otherwise I would have mopped her ass up all over Harrah’s Casino.”

  “Watch your language…” Uncle Woody warned, studying his hand.

  “Come on now, Uncle Woody,” I teased. “You know you’re the one who taught us all how to cuss.”

  “No I ain’t neither!” Woody said, highly offended. “Don’t you put that on me!”

  “Well, come on, Unc,” I said, displaying the big joker and winning the hand. “Let’s set these fools!”

  “Booyah!” Uncle Woody slapped the little joker down onto the table, causing us to beat Cookie and Blue for the third game in a row.

  “Yeah!” I said, giving Uncle Woody a high five. “They can’t handle this!”

  “Whatever, y’all cheated,” Cookie pouted, before getting up and leaving the table.

  “Come on Tori, let’s go cut a rug,” Uncle Woody said, grabbing my hand and leading me to the middle of the living room where everybody was dancing to “Let the Good Times Roll,” by B. B. King and Bobby Blue Bland.

  Despite being a very large man, Uncle Woody is an expert two-stepper, and I’m fortunate that he taught me everything he knows.

  “For such a bad little girl, you actually turned out pretty good!” Uncle Woody said admiringly, as we twirled and bopped to the music.

  I said, “With you for a godfather, how could I go wrong?”

  Daddy came and cut in when Z. Z. Hill’s “Down Home Blues” came on, and between Uncle Woody and my father, I danced the night away.

  13

  The day following Labor Day was business as usual.

  The first half of the day was spent running around town getting things in order for The March of Dimes’ five-hundred-dollar-a-plate fundraiser that is scheduled for next February. The day had been so hectic, it wasn’t until two o’clock that my assistant and I managed to squeeze in time for lunch at the Peachtree Restaurant, located in the Power & Light District.

  Our waiter was a good-looking black guy in his mid-twenties, with high energy and enthusiasm.

  “You ladies ready to order?” he asked, filling our water glasses.

  “I’ll have the sweet tea, rotisserie chicken, and a house salad,” I said, handing him my menu.

  “And you?” he asked Erin, who was studying the menu as if it were a textbook.

  “I’ve never
had soul food before,” she said. “What do you suggest?”

  “Well, my favorites are the baby back ribs, macaroni and cheese, and sweet potatoes,” he answered.

  “Then that’s what I’ll have,” Erin decided, and as she handed the waiter her menu, I noticed that the two of them were eyeballing each other flirtatiously.

  While waiting for our food to arrive, I took out my iPhone to do some multitasking.

  “Erin, I got an e-mail here from the Susan G. Komen Foundation, saying that they are still waiting to receive those vendor invoices.”

  “Oh!” she gasped. “I had so much going on this morning, it completely slipped my mind.”

  “That’s unacceptable,” I said. “Erin, you can’t keep dropping the ball on important tasks. Do you know how unprofessional that makes us look?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll take care of it as soon as we get back to the office.”

  “Okay, and what was the figure that Harrison Floral gave us earlier today?”

  “You mean the first florist we visited?”

  “Yes…” I said, trying to maintain the utmost patience. Erin is a nice girl, but being related to Sophie is the only thing that has kept her ass from being fired.

  Erin flipped through her notebook, and looked at me like a two-year-old who had just pooped on herself. “I don’t have that number here.”

  “Erin you were supposed to be taking notes.”

  “I know, I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m going to get better at this, I promise.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” I said. “Just remember that in order to be successful in this business, you have to write everything down, then make sure you have everything in writing.”

  “Will do,” Erin promised, holding up the Girl Scout sign.

  After lunch, our hunk of a waiter brought us the check, and Erin whispered, “He’s a cutie pie, isn’t he?”

  “Very nice,” I had to admit. “But most restaurant servers are aspiring to be something else, and I prefer men who already know what they want to be when they grow up.”

  “I wasn’t talking about for you.”

  “Uh, oh!” I said. “Is the little country girl from Omaha crossing over to the dark side?”

  “Maybe…” she said with a sly wink. “I’m going to write ‘call me’ on my business card and leave it along with the tip.”

  “That’s a bold move,” I said. “But you know what they say about going black.”

  “That’s what I heard,” Erin said in such a sassy way, it made me wonder if there was more to my unassuming assistant than meets the eye.

  Outside of the Peachtree Restaurant, Erin and I were walking to my Navigator, when we were accosted by a homeless man.

  “Miss Ladies, Miss Ladies…anything you can spare would be a big help,” he said, pitifully.

  Erin gave the man a handful of change, but I rushed past him and said, “Sorry, I don’t carry cash.” As I did, our eyes locked for a split second, and I realized that there was something vaguely familiar about this guy.

  I did a double-take, and so did he.

  “James?” I asked, my jaw dropping.

  “Tori Carter?” he asked with a rotten-toothed smile. James was my high school sweetheart and the first man besides my daddy that I ever loved with all my heart. He looked something like El DeBarge, left a lingering trail of Cool Water cologne everywhere he went, and was Kennedy High School’s all-star wide receiver.

  Neither of our parents approved of the relationship.

  They tried numerous times to break us up and keep us apart, but like Romeo and Juliet, all that adversity made us love each other even more.

  It was the two of us against the world, and no one was going to stop us from getting married right after graduation. In fact, I was so determined to become Mrs. Crawford that I was seriously considering turning down the full college scholarship I had earned so that I could stay in town close to my man.

  James saved up his McDonald’s paychecks to buy my ring. It was a quarter of a carat cluster—nothing but diamond dust really. But I thought it was beautiful.

  Somehow, my parents got a whiff of my plans to ditch college and before I knew it, I was shipped off to Kansas University so fast I didn’t even have time to pack properly let alone say good-bye to James.

  I cried the ugly cry, all the way up to the Lawrence campus. “But, Daddy, I love him!” I wailed.

  Daddy looked back at me in the rearview mirror, but was nonplussed. “That’s okay, goddamnit,” he said. “You’ll get over it.”

  James and I put up a valiant effort to stay in touch, but the relationship eventually died a slow death.

  Many years later, here I was face-to-face with my first love, who happened to be wearing a filthy plaid jacket, tattered jeans, and a pair of Air Force One Nikes that had definitely seen better days. “Damn girl, you got big!” he told me. “How many kids you got now?”

  Life had obviously not been kind to James, yet it was amazing that he still had enough nerve to clown me about my weight.

  Ain’t that a bitch?

  “Yeah, I packed on a few pounds,” I said. “But what the hell happened to you?”

  James’s smile faded and his shoulders slumped.

  “Life,” he said stoically before walking away. “Life…”

  No matter where you go, there you are.—Confucius

  WEDNESDAY

  Seeing James today drove home the point of an article I read in O Magazine recently. Or maybe it was Essence. Anyway, some psychologist was saying that whenever a breakup occurs, nine times out of ten, it is for the best. Yeah, it hurts like hell at first, but you should take some comfort in the fact that when the smoke clears, the next man you get into a relationship with is going to be a step up from the last one. For example, list every guy you ever loved in chronological order.

  If you are truly learning and evolving as you should be, then you should be able to go down that list and see where each man in your past was always better than the one before him.

  1) James

  2) Shane

  3) Vincent

  4) Joseph

  5) Roland

  I can definitely see the pattern. Now, there wasn’t always a huge step up from one man to the next, but it was a step up nevertheless.

  14

  It felt like déjà vu all over again. For the second weekend in a row, Nadia showed up at my door trying to convince me that hitting the town with her was the answer to what she perceives to be my depression over man troubles.

  “Nadia, baby, I know you have ADD, but try to stay with me, okay?” I said, grabbing her face with both hands and looking her square in the eyes. “I’m fine, alright? I have a lot coming up at work this week, and I just want to relax and recharge my batteries. ’Kay?”

  Nadia removed my hands from her face and said, “Bullshit! You can lie to me all you want, but at least have the dignity not to lie to yourself.”

  “Make that the last time you ever try and psychoanalyze anybody,” I laughed. “Because you have the most issues of anybody I know.”

  “Don’t hate me because I live an adventurous life,” Nadia said defensively.

  “Sweetie, you’re thirty-one years old, and at your age, packing up everything and following some man wherever he leads is not adventurous, it’s just plain stupid,” I said.

  The girl is like a gypsy. Eight cities in thirteen years is a horrible track record, but she goes wherever her heart leads her, which is usually influenced by some smooth-talking charmer she hasn’t known for very long.

  I had obviously struck a nerve, because Nadia haughtily flipped her long black hair, and gave me the stank-eye.

  “Anyway!” she said. “We are not talking about me, we’re talking about you, so come on and get dressed. We’re going out.”

  “No!” I said, waving her off. “My hair is a mess, and I don’t have a thing to wear.”

  “Now you know I know better than that. There’s more designer shit i
n your closet than in mine, and that’s saying something!”

  “They’re mostly work clothes, not party clothes,” I said. “Which reminds me, when am I getting back my Armani blouse that you borrowed?”

  “Soon…it’s at the dry cleaners. Now, come on, because we’re going dancing and we’re gonna meet some men,” Nadia said, doing a little two-step.

  I wasn’t stoked.

  Meeting men in clubs is not a big draw for me. Mainly because I have exchanged phone numbers with lots of guys in many a club over the years, and have never had a decent relationship come from any of those encounters. I may have dated someone for a week or two, or even a month or two, but in the end, it never pans out.

  So now, I am wise enough to know that you flirt with these guys and have fun with them for the night, and that’s it. After the club, meet him at the Waffle House and let him treat you to breakfast, but you do not take him home with you, and you definitely don’t go home with him.

  It is never worth it.

  “Nadia, I’m trying to avoid bullshit-ass men, not draw them to me. Besides, decent men don’t hang out in clubs. Especially if they’re over thirty-five.”

  “Normally that would be the case, but tonight we’re going where the ballers are,” Nadia said, rubbing her hands with glee. “I’m talking about NFL, MLB, and NBA, baby!”

  Nadia tried to pull me to my feet, but her little size-four body was no match for my solid 146-pound frame.

  “Seriously Nadia, I’m sitting this one out,” I said, firmly planting my feet on the floor. “Go ’head now!”

  Nadia sighed, just as exasperated with me as I was with her. “What is it, movie night again?” she asked.

  “Yep!” I said. “Tonight is a celebration of the musical. I got Dreamgirls, Chicago, and Hairspray.”

  “I thought you might say some shit like that. That’s why I brought reinforcements.” Nadia opened the door for Simone and Yvette, who were standing on the other side dressed to impress, and ready to party.

  Initially, Yvette, Nadia, and Simone only knew each other through me, but now the four of us are such a cohesive unit, it feels like we all grew up together.