The Next Best Thing

by Deidre Berry

  “Shoot, you just wish you had a man to keep tabs on your whereabouts.”

  “I do, I’m not gonna lie, but I’ll be damned if I juggle two and three jobs and foot all the bills while he plays the starving artist role,” Yvette said.

  “Well it works for the two of them,” I said. “And that’s all that matters.”

  “I’m baaa-aacck. Wake up, wake up!” That was Nadia, letting herself in the front door. Unlike Yvette and me, Nadia had showered and looked well-rested.

  “Alright ladies, here it is.” Nadia said, placing a clear plastic bowl of what looked like gumbo on the island counter. “My mother’s surefire hangover remedy.”

  Yvette and I joined Nadia at the island. She removed the lid from the bowl and a foul, funky stench filled the room. The smell was so repulsive it gave me the dry heaves, and if I had already eaten something, it surely would have come right up.

  “Ooh, girl, don’t nobody want that shit,” Yvette said, covering her nose.

  “Try it before you knock it,” Nadia said, shoving a heaping spoonful of the concoction into Yvette’s mouth.

  “Mmmm!” Yvette said, helping herself to another spoonful. “Mama Chen can throw down!”

  “I told you!” Nadia said proudly. “Come on, Tori, try it. Why do you think I’m so perky right now? And I probably drank the most out of all of us.”

  I was still skeptical. Not only did it stink to high heaven, but there were also too many unidentifiable objects floating around in there for my liking.

  “No offense to your mama,” I said, holding my nose and fanning the air with my latest copy of Gourmet Magazine. “But what’s in that stuff that makes it smell like week-old assholes?”

  “That, my friend, is an ancient Japanese secret,” Nadia said, mysteriously.

  Ancient Korean secret is probably closer to the truth.

  Either way, I wasn’t about to eat that mess.

  But my stomach had other plans. It made this loud, weird grumbling noise that I’ve never heard it make before.

  “Damn, Tori!” Nadia said. “You’re obviously hungry, so you might as well try it.”

  “It really is good, girl,” Yvette told me, slurping her bowl and reaching for yet another helping.

  “Well, if Yvette said it’s alright…” I sampled the concoction, which was so tasty, I went ahead and fixed myself a big bowlful. The taste reminded me of hot and sour soup, and I had eaten half of it before asking, “Nadia, what is this spongy, noodle-looking stuff?”

  “That’s tofu.”

  “No this…” I said, brandishing the spongy, noodle-looking thing in question.

  “Oh, that?” Nadia said casually. “That’s just cow brains.”

  I am at least grateful that I made it to the bathroom without throwing up all over myself.

  Nadia’s hangover remedy worked like a charm for Yvette. But because it was nearly four in the afternoon, and I still felt like stir-fried shit, I was forced to place the dreaded phone call to let the folks know that I wasn’t coming for dinner.

  It is an official rule in my family that the only acceptable excuses for missing Sunday dinner at my parents’ house are:

  1) You are dead

  2) You are working

  3) You are on your deathbed

  It took nearly twenty minutes to convince my mother of the latter, and before I knew it, Junior was beating down my door, sent over by Mama with a plate of food and a get-well kit, which consisted of 7Up, a bag of oranges, and a jar of Vicks VapoRub.

  My brother noticed right away that I wasn’t fever-and-chills sick, just hung-over sick.

  “Ah, damn!” Junior said when I opened the door for him. “I can smell the booze seeping from your pores!”

  “Well, you ought to know what it smells like,” I said. “Weren’t you king of the frat boys?”

  “For three years straight,” he said with pride. “Q-Dogs in the house!” And he topped it off with those loud, irritating barking noises.

  “Alright, settle down, Rover,” I said, popping two more Advil and swallowing them dry.

  Junior put the bag in the kitchen for me, then immediately made himself at home by flopping down on my couch and putting his feet up on my glass coffee table.

  “So, you kicked it last night, huh?”

  “Just a little bit.” I put my fingers up to represent an inch.

  “Well, I don’t know what you told Mama, but she was running around acting like you were on your deathbed, or something.”

  “I sure feel like I am.”

  “And you look it too,” he joked, ruffling my hair even more with his huge mitts.

  “Who-all showed up for dinner?” I asked.

  “The usual: Uncle Woody, Aunt Rita, Aunt Vera, a few of the cousins; plus I had my little soldier with me for the weekend.”

  “Oh yeah? How’s my nephew?”

  “Ah, Trey’s cool. I just dropped him off with Ashley.”

  “You two getting back together?” I asked.

  “Nah, it’s over for good this time. I’m not trying to be with somebody who calls me a nigger every time she gets mad.”

  Fucking with them white girls! Like Chris Rock said in his routine, it just doesn’t pay off in the end.

  Junior is twenty-five, and has had a rocky on/off relationship with Ashley since he was a star athlete at Kansas University. I liked the girl initially, but I soured on her when it became clear that she was only with my brother because it looked like he was on his way to making millions in the NBA. After Junior blew out his knee and wasn’t picked for the draft, it was all downhill from there. By that time, Ashley was already pregnant with Trey.

  Junior reached into his back pocket and handed me a couple of envelopes. “Here, I brought your mail up.”

  “Thanks,” I said, taking the mail and sorting through it. “But I want my keys back, Junior, and I’m not playing.”

  “Come on, sis. You never know when I’ll need them again,” he said, trying to keep the keys out of my reach.

  “You’ll never need them again,” I said. “Believe that!”

  Junior is my heart, but the eight months he lived with me and Roland was a hellish experience that need not be repeated. Ever!

  The boy is just trifling for no reason.

  During the time Junior stayed with us, he didn’t help buy groceries or contribute towards one bill. His nickname was Captain Couch Potato, because he slept well into the afternoon, and didn’t budge an inch when I cleaned or vacuumed around him.

  But aside from all that, trifling was taken to a whole new level when Roland and I came home a day early from our Jamaican vacation and walked in on Junior and Ashley screwing in our bed like wild monkeys.

  And I know Mama and Daddy raised him better than that.

  “You think you’re slick, don’t you?” I said. “Mama already warned me that you are on the verge of losing yet another apartment, so don’t even try and butter me up for a place to stay.”

  Junior picked up the remote control and turned the television to BET. “That’s what you said last time. And the time before that, and the other time before that.”

  “Well I mean it this time, because I can’t afford you anymore,” I said. “It’s time for you to finally get yourself together, and stand on your own two feet for more than just a few months at a time.”

  Junior waved me off. “I ain’t trying to hear all that, Tori!”

  “Well that’s just too damn bad, because you’re gonna hear it,” I said, holding my hand out. “Keys please!”

  “You don’t even have to do me like this,” Junior said, giving a wounded hound-dog look before dropping the keys in my palm. “We’re family, man.”

  “It’s called tough love,” I said, knocking his feet off my coffee table. “Get used to it.”

  16

  It’s true. There is never any rest for the weary.

  Later on that night, I was finishing research for an initial consultation that I have coming up this week.
Eugene Campbell, better known as “E-Money,” is an up-and-coming local rapper who wants to throw an album release party.

  Being a jazz, neo-soul, and R&B girl, I personally have never heard of E-Money, but this is a project that Sophie dropped in my lap last week, giving me the usual spiel about me being her number one superstar and the only employee she can trust to pull this off.

  My plate is full enough as it is, but I don’t mind this last minute addition because if all goes well, E-Money’s record company will hopefully contract with SWE exclusively to put on all of their future events.

  Cha-Ching!

  My knowledge of hip-hop is limited mostly to the old-school artists I grew up listening to, so I called Yvette’s daughter Alicia, and asked what she knew about the guy.

  “Hey, Auntie Tori!” is the way Alicia answered her cell phone, and if I didn’t know better I would have sworn she was white.

  “Hey sweetie,” I said. “I need a favor…”

  Aside from thinking E-Money’s single “Pop Dat Boo-Tee” is “Tha bomb!” the only other information Alicia knew about him was that he was an “ex drug-dealing gang banger who was shot fifteen times and lived to tell about it.”

  That didn’t tell me much since that happens to be the bio on half the rappers in the music industry. I did a Google search on E-Money and wrote down a few notes.

  1) Signed to Bullet Hole Records, a local label that is making a name for itself with other acts such as the Red-Headed Step-Chillren, and a female rap group who call themselves the Princess Posse.

  2) Lengthy criminal record with a case pending for felony assault against a former business associate.

  I got a phone call while conducting my research and, ironically, the caller ID read:

  Kansas City Missouri Police Department

  I almost didn’t answer, thinking my cousin June Bug was just shit out of luck this time. However, my curiosity got the best of me and I answered the call.

  It was Junior.

  “Tori, I need for you to come and get me,” he said, and I distinctly heard a trace of fear in his voice.

  I sighed. “What kind of trouble have you gone and gotten yourself into?”

  “I ran into Roland.”

  Enough said.

  The waiting room down at the Police station was noisy and filled mostly with concerned relatives and apathetic, gum-popping baby mamas who were letting their hardheaded kids run wild. I signed my name on a stack of documents and handed over eight-hundred dollars in cash.

  “He should be processed out, any minute now,” said the clerk behind the bulletproof glass.

  I took a seat on one of those hard, plastic chairs and picked up a copy of People magazine to kill the time.

  “Any minute now” turned into three hours, and counting.

  While reading an interesting article about Michael Jackson and his comeback, I heard a familiar male voice say, “Hey…How’s it going?”

  It was Roland. Standing there in front of me sporting a big black eye.

  “Hey, yourself,” I said, struggling to keep the laughter out of my voice. “What happened to you?”

  “I was on my way up to the condo when I ran into Junior and his fists.” Roland winced, and placed a can of cold soda on his eye.

  Atta boy, Junior! I hope you got a punch in for me, too.

  But I was also thinking that even with his right eye discolored and almost swollen shut, Roland is still one sexy M. F.

  “Look, I don’t agree with what Junior did and I hope you don’t think that I put him up to it,” I said with all sincerity.

  Roland shrugged it off. “Your brother always was a loose cannon. Not to mention a freeloading loser.”

  “Now see, it wasn’t even necessary for you to go there,” I said with an angry edge in my voice.

  Awkward silence. I mean, really awkward.

  Finally, Roland sat down next to me and asked, “So, how are you doing these days, Tori?”

  It was such a simple question, but I smiled when he asked me this because it had been such a long time since he had.

  “Good,” I said. “How about yourself?”

  “I can’t complain. Well, you know, except for…” Roland gestured towards his eye, which was turning blacker by the minute. No small feat for someone as dark as he is.

  “Is there any particular reason you were on your way up to the condo?” I asked, trying not to sound too hopeful.

  “Well for one, I’m pretty sure my BlackBerry is still around there somewhere.”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure I packed up all of your things,” I said. “Where do you think it might be?”

  “It could be under the bed, or else in the nightstand on my side of the bed.”

  My side of the bed. Something about that made my heart sink into my shoes, because even though I had been secretly hoping for reconciliation, it could quite possibly never be his side of the bed again.

  “No, Roland, I can’t say that I have seen your BlackBerry,” I said. “But if I find it, I’ll be sure to send it over to your office.”

  “And how is that?” Roland asked, glaring at me with his one good eye. “Damaged, just like you sent all the rest of my valuables?”

  I didn’t appreciate his sharp tone of voice or the evil way he was eyeballing me, so I gave Roland a wicked smile and said in a cutesy way, “Damaged valuables? You need to check with the shipping company about that, because I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Look Tori, I know I didn’t handle things the way I should have handled them with you, but I have a lot of important information stored in that BlackBerry, so please don’t do anything childish and petty.”

  “Childish and petty? Like breaking up with someone on their wedding day via text message because you were too chicken-shit to let it be known that your friend was actually your baby mama?” I said it all in one breath, my anger rising by the second.

  “Nuh-uh, no he didn’t!” said a young woman sitting across from me. “Niggas ain’t shit!”

  “Listen,” Roland said, now conscious of the fact that we had an audience. “Now is really not the time or place to discuss all of that. I would just appreciate getting my BlackBerry back in good, working condition, okay?”

  “And I would have appreciated not being made a fool of the way I was for three years, but there’s not much I can do about that now, is there?”

  “Come up off of the victim role, Tori. You’re a big girl; you knew what time it was.”

  I knew that he and Veronica were sleeping together?

  That statement was so fucking absurd that it was comical as hell. He was obviously grasping at straws, trying to come up with any excuse to make himself feel better about being such a coward.

  “That’s the best you can come up with?” I asked, and laughed until tears came to my eyes.

  Meanwhile, Roland just sat there looking at me as if I had completely flipped the fuck out.

  My laughter only seemed to enrage him. The politeness he had displayed at the beginning of our conversation evaporated into thin air.

  “Don’t fault me for your own stupidity. You would have to be naïve as hell to fall for that good-friend-of-the-family bullshit,” Roland sneered at me, venom dripping with each word he spoke. “I’m glad things went down the way they did, because I am exactly where I want to be, which is with Veronica, raising our daughter.”

  The cold, callous look in Roland’s eyes sent a chill through my soul, and he suddenly became extremely repulsive to me.

  What in the hell was it that I ever saw in this man?

  At that moment, I felt as though I never really knew him, that he never really loved me, and the Roland I thought I knew was just a figment of my imagination.

  I was just about to get up and move to the other side of the room, when Junior finally appeared from behind a closed door. He looked no worse for wear, but immediately noticed the tension between Roland and me.

  “Is there a problem here?” Junior aske
d me, while looking Roland dead in the eye.

  “No, tough guy, there’s no problem,” Roland replied calmly. “But that attitude of yours is part of the reason why your scrub-ass didn’t make it to the NBA.”

  Uh-oh. Roland knew good and well that that subject was a sore spot for Junior.

  “Man, you’s a little bitch!” Junior tried to lunge at Roland, but I stood between them, holding Junior back.

  “See a bitch, smack a bitch,” Roland said.

  “I already did that, remember?” said Junior. “And I don’t have a problem cold-cocking your ass again, either, punk!”

  “Whatever, boy,” Roland said, looking like a chump. “According to the restraining order you’re fifty feet too close, so back the hell up out of my face.”

  Everyone in the waiting room was tuned in to the commotion. I pushed Junior towards the exit before anything else could pop off. “Come on, Junior, let’s go,” I said, not wanting to be the next one to have to call somebody to come bail me out of jail.

  “It was a pleasure to see you two again!” Roland taunted, suddenly brave now that Junior and I were headed in the opposite direction. “Oh, and Tori, you can send that ring right along with the BlackBerry, too.”

  “Sure thing,” I said, with a smile on my face. “You got that coming.”

  Just as soon as there is peace in the world.

  I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.

  —Martin Luther

  SUNDAY

  Seeing Roland tonight reminds me of two important tasks that have yet to be completed.

  The first order of business was to call a 24-hour locksmith to come change these locks, and to add an extra deadbolt for good measure.

  While waiting for the locksmith to show up, I grab the thick photo album from under the coffee table, and toss every picture with Roland in it into a trash bag. Three years’ worth of Christmases, Thanksgivings, birthdays, vacations, and just happy times in general.

  Or, what I had always thought were happy times.

  Looking at Roland’s face in those pictures, I can see the deceit written all over him. The emotionless eyes, the hardness of his jaw, and the cocky smile all add up to a lowdown snake that was harboring a deep, dark secret.