The Next Best Thing

by Deidre Berry

  Aunt Vera has been married and divorced several times over, which indicates that her judgment when it comes to men is not much better than mine, but her being seventy-five does count for something.

  When an elder speaks, one damn sure ought to listen. Which is why when I left Aunt Vera’s house and found a scrap of paper with Chris’s phone number left under my windshield, I didn’t think twice about tearing it in half.

  27

  Nelson’s silver Cadillac Escalade was the first thing I saw when I pulled into the parking garage of my condo building. Clearly, he was at home, which meant that I had to go into stealth mode.

  I took my keys out of my purse while I was on the elevator, so that I didn’t have to fumble for them in front of my door. I didn’t want all that jangling to alert Nelson.

  I tiptoed to my door, feeling like a thief about to break into my own place. Just as I put my key in the door, Nelson’s door creaked open, and he stepped out into the hallway.

  “You weren’t trying to avoid me, were you?” he asked, in a teasing way.

  “No! Of course not!” I laughed nervously.

  “Good, because I would like to talk to you if you have time.”

  I sighed like I was being put upon, which I was. “Right now?”

  “No, the day after tomorrow,” he joked. “Yeah, right now. That is, if you can spare me five minutes.”

  I followed Nelson into his condo, and noticed the devilish glint in his eyes when he asked, “Would you like a glass of wine?”

  “No thanks,” I said tersely, and watched while he poured himself a glass of Chardonnay.

  Looking at his body language, the way he suddenly tensed up and became anxious, it all became clear to me. Nelson got sprung on my poonanny, and has been fiending for a hit of Tori ever since. Poor thing. Now I had to crush his hopes by letting him know that he and I can never be.

  I felt so badly for him, I wanted to hug him. But I refrained, deciding it would be a nice touch to save the comforting hug for after I broke his heart.

  Nelson offered me a seat on the sofa, and sat down beside me. “I’ve been thinking about that night we spent together,” Nelson said, taking my hand.

  Ohmygoodness, he’s about to propose marriage!

  I know my honey pot can be addictive, but damn. This is much too soon.

  “I like you a lot, Tori,” he continued, gazing at me intently. “And I just want to clear the air by offering you a sincere apology for what happened, and for how things were left off between us.”

  A shocked “What?” escaped my mouth before I could stop it.

  My face cracked in a million pieces, and I hoped it didn’t show, but I knew it did.

  Well fuck you then! I screamed at Nelson in my head. It wasn’t like I was ready to order the invitations and call the florist, either.

  “Is something wrong?” Nelson asked, looking very concerned.

  “No, not at all!” I said, recovering nicely. I hoped. “I was just thinking that no apologies are needed because that night, we were two consenting adults who had too much to drink and then went with the flow of things, you know? No big deal. No hard feelings.”

  “You sure?” he asked, with a smile.

  “Positive!” I said, reaching out and giving him a reassuring hug. “And you know what, Nelson? I am so glad you wanted to put this out on the table because the truth is, there is someone special in my life now, and I can’t even tell you how deeply I regret that night we had. I seriously wish it had never happened.”

  I got a degree of pleasure watching his face crack into a million little pieces. After picking his face up off the floor, Nelson offered me a handshake. “Friends?” he asked.

  “Friends.”

  The beginning is always today.—Mary Wollstonecraft

  WEDNESDAY

  I woke up this morning thinking about the conversation that I had with Nelson last night, and I realize now that I should have gotten some clarification on that. Is that friends with, or without, benefits?

  And just what is his angle anyway?

  One minute he’s celibate, the next he wants to fuck, and the minute after that, he just wants to be friends.

  Can men and women be friends once they have already had sex? It depends. If you have two individuals who are extremely mature, well-adjusted, and who have no hidden agendas, then maybe it can work. Otherwise, I don’t think straight men know how to be “just” friends with women. The very best they’re able to do is bide their time by putting you in the “I’ll-catch-you-at-a-vulnerable-moment-and-tap-that-ass-when-the-time-is-right” category.

  Men like to play the sensitive, caring brother for a certain length of time, but getting the coochie is always the ultimate goal. Of course, he’s not going to tell you this. Nevertheless, that’s the deal.

  It’s too soon to tell if this is where Nelson is coming from. All I can say for sure, is that I am not going to be his across the hall booty call, someone he can screw, with no strings attached, whenever he’s feeling horny.

  28

  I walked into my office Monday morning, to find a bouquet of flowers, a gift basket, and a note of apology from Vincent that said: Call me if you think we can get past this. If not, I will understand.

  Negro, puh-leeze!

  How stupid does he think I am?

  You can’t try to blackmail me into having a threesome and then expect me to forgive you.

  I tore the note card in pieces, then gave the flowers and gift basket to the first person who walked by my office, which happened to be Demetrius.

  “For me?” he squealed, as if I had just crowned him Miss Gay America.

  “For you, darling,” I said. “Enjoy!”

  After that, I walked down to the conference room for our daily status meeting. When Sophie asked, “Tori, what’s latest on the Dawn McKinney sweet sixteen party?”

  I had with no choice but to announce that it was a no-go. Sophie nodded and, thankfully, continued the meeting without probing any further, but the second the meeting was over, she pulled me aside and said, “Tori, my office. Right now!”

  I followed Sophie into her plush corner office, which puts all the other offices in the company to shame.

  If things work out as planned the office will be mine someday, with its leather furnishings, expensive paintings, hideaway wet bar, mini-fridge, TV, and floor-to-ceiling windows that offer spectacular views of downtown Kansas City.

  “Have a seat,” Sophie said, closing the door behind us.

  I sat in the wing-backed chair across from her massive glass desk and waited anxiously for whatever it was she had to say.

  “So,” Sophie began. “Mr. McKinney has decided not to work with SWE after all?”

  “Unfortunately, that is correct,” I said.

  “Well I’m confused, because the way I understood him before he met with you initially, was that it was pretty much a done deal. What the hell happened?” Sophie asked, with a look of suspicion on her face.

  Think fast…Think fast…

  “After some discussion, Mr. McKinney decided it would be better to buy his daughter a new car and send her on a first-class trip to Paris in lieu of the party,” I lied.

  Sophie’s facial expression relaxed a little, and she seemed to buy it.

  “And what about the album release party for Eugene Campbell?” she asked. “Why didn’t that work out?”

  Now that one was easy.

  “Because as great as I am, Sophie, I am not a magician,” I said. “There is just no way to put together a decent event for five hundred guests on a measly ten thousand dollar budget.”

  “Tori, I know you’re used to clients with unlimited budgets, but one of the first things I taught you about this business is that nothing is impossible. Granted, you had your work cut out for you, but you could have humbled yourself by finding a way to make it work.”

  “Well, let’s not forget that the man is a rapper,” I said. “The cost of insurance and security that we would’ve
needed would have been twice the amount of that measly little budget.”

  Sophie folded her arms and gave me a look that said, Have you lost your rabbit-ass mind? “You blew it! That young man is going to be incredibly rich and famous one day,” Sophie said. “And when he can afford to throw parties in excess of one-hundred thousand dollars, he’s going to go somewhere else because he’ll remember that we told him his money wasn’t good enough for us. I can’t tell you how disappointed I am in you, Tori.”

  I quickly wiped at the beads of sweat that had suddenly popped up on my forehead, and silently thanked God for the melanin in my skin. If I were a few shades lighter, I would have been fire-engine red at that point, because I was definitely in the hot seat.

  “Well, I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree,” I said in my own defense. “It just could not be done, Sophie. And I will stand by my decision, even if it means losing my job.”

  Sophie smiled at me as if I were an exasperating brat.

  “That’s a commendable stance to take, especially since you have lost two potential clients, and managed to alienate one of our best caterers. All in six months’ time.”

  My mind raced, trying to backtrack and pinpoint which caterer I worked with recently that I could have pissed off. Then it came to me.

  “Colin?” I asked tentatively.

  Sophie nodded, confirming my suspicions. “That’s right. He called me a few days ago, requesting that he not be paired with you on any future events he should contract to do with SWE.”

  That nasty motherfucker.

  I had not planned to use Colin’s services anymore anyway, but I definitely would have told Sophie about his booger habit if I had known that he would turn the tables on me like this.

  Now it looks as though I’m the problem. I had no choice but to launch a counterattack.

  “Sophie, the situation with Colin is that I walked in on him picking his nose.”

  Sophie looked unfazed. “Under what circumstances?” she asked calmly, as if we were talking about the weather.

  “I’m sorry?” I asked, not quite comprehending the question.

  “Under what circumstances did you catch Colin picking his nose? Was he actually in the kitchen cooking at the time of this alleged nose picking?”

  “No, he wasn’t cooking at the time,” I admitted, feeling like I was on trial. “But it’s still a disgusting habit for a chef to have. I mean, I can’t conscionably use Colin’s services again, knowing that he has such a disgusting habit.”

  “Let me get this straight: you caught Colin picking his nose one time, and that one instance led you to believe that he would be so unsanitary as to pick his nose while he was in the kitchen cooking?”

  It was a surreal moment. Two grown, professional women having a conversation about boogers.

  “All I’m saying is that it’s a possibility,” I said. “And when it comes to providing the best catering services for our clients, that is a chance I am just not willing to take.”

  Sophie leaned back in her swivel chair, and started tapping her pen against the desk, something she does when weighing a tough decision.

  After a long moment, she finally said, “Tori, nose picking, just like farting, is something we all do from time to time. Now, I have to tell you I think your reasoning is way off on this matter, and frankly, you have been uncharacteristically ineffective since April third.”

  That was an extremely low blow.

  April third was the day I was supposed to have married Roland.

  “Just what are you alluding to, Sophie?” I snapped. If I was going to be fired, I refused to go out like a punk.

  “Simply that you need to take some time off to recharge your batteries,” Sophie said. “Consider it the time you should have taken after your relationship fell apart, instead of coming right back to work as if you were Superwoman and Wonder Woman all rolled into one.”

  “Do I have any say in the matter?” I asked.

  “No,” Sophie said firmly. “And if it were anyone else besides you, they would have been shit-canned.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that! Now, you can call it a sabbatical, a mental health break, or just a plain ol’ vacation, but I want you to take six weeks off.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but Sophie shut me down with a hard look that indicated she had given this a lot of thought, and her mind was already made up.

  And just like that, I was temporarily unemployed.

  I left the building feeling like I had just been fired.

  From my office all the way down to the parking lot, Sophie’s voice echoed in my head.

  Call it a sabbatical, a mental health break, or just a plain ol’ vacation…

  Of the three, vacation sounded best.

  In the years I’ve spent building my career, the words “time off” mysteriously vanished from my vocabulary and “vacation” was something I viewed as overrated and unnecessary. Mainly because there’s no money in it.

  We get vacation pay, sure, but bonuses and commissions are my bread and butter. They account for over half of my yearly income, which is a hefty amount of money to miss out on. And for what? Rest and relaxation?

  Shit, I need to make this money while I can make it, because one thing’s for certain, I’ll get plenty of rest when I’m dead.

  But all of that is neither here nor there. I couldn’t go back to work even if I wanted to, because Sophie confiscated my employee ID badge and the electronic access card that allows me to gain entry to the building.

  All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without benefit of experience.—Henry Miller

  THURSDAY

  Being home in the middle of day feels so strange, I don’t even know what to do with myself.

  Today, I slept in until almost 10 o’clock, had breakfast, and then tuned in to The Young and the Restless while I cleaned up my place.

  I first got hooked on Y&R the summer I fell out of a tree and broke my leg in two places. While I was recuperating, Mama would drop me off with Aunt Vera during the day while she went to work, and the two of us would have a ball eating bon bons and watching “the stories,” as she called them. I was nine years old that summer, and for me it was all about the romance between Cricket and Danny Romalotti. We got to see graphic footage of Katherine Chancellor getting a facelift, and Aunt Vera loved to hate Victor Newman, who at the time was an abusive bastard that kept his first wife locked up in a closet.

  During my college years, sisters Drucilla and Olivia were dealing with their crazy-ass mama, Lillie Belle, while also vying for the affections of the Winters brothers. Today though, I just could not get into my once-favorite soap opera because the only characters I recognized were Nikki and Jack Abbott.

  Soap operas may not be as titillating as they used to be, but there is still plenty of daytime drama to go around, thanks to the court shows. I never realized there were so many scandalous, lowdown people in the world until I got acquainted with judges Judy, Mathis, Toler, Brown, and Hatchet.

  After a full day of watching these shows, I figured out there are mainly two types of cases, and I was over it.

  1) Exes suing over money and unpaid bills.

  2) Ex-friends feuding over unpaid, ridiculously high cell phone bills.

  The bottom line is to never loan money to anyone, and never under any circumstances get a cell phone in your name for your friend to use. Hello! If their track record is that bad where they can’t get a phone in their own name, chances are, you’re getting stuck with the bill.

  No wonder I’m bored already. And to think, five-and-a-half more weeks to go. Yahoo!

  29

  I throw birthday parties for each of my parents every year, and Daddy’s fifty-fifth birthday is less than two months away. Because I never wait until the last minute to put things together, I had a menu tasting with Chef Pierre Jean-Claude Basquiat this evening at Rembrandt’s, a fine dining establishment that specializes in European fare.

  Chef B
asquiat is from France, and I chose him to cater Daddy’s birthday party because the James Beard Foundation has named him “Chef of the Year” for the past seven years in a row, which makes him not only the best chef in town, but the best in the entire country.

  What better gift to my father than to have a five-star gourmet chef serve all of his favorite foods?

  Set back off of Barry Road approximately one-hundred feet, the two-story restaurant sits on a sweeping fifteen-acre estate. I drove down the long entry drive lined with well-pruned foliage and white-barked sycamore trees, and was awestruck by the serene beauty of the place.

  Inside, the restaurant exuded an old world charm.

  Original oil paintings by Rembrandt, hung in the foyer and were illuminated by opulent handmade chandeliers.

  “Chef Basquiat has been anticipating your arrival,” said a charming hostess as she escorted me back to the kitchen.

  “Ah, Mee-sus Carter!” The chef greeted me with open arms. “So good to see you again. Please, sit.”

  I sat down at a table, and the chef proceeded to serve me sample after sample of foods that were far from what I had requested he prepare.

  There is no love lost between black folks and European food. Pizza and pork chops, we know. Foie gras and escargot—not so much. And the portions. It might not be so bad if they at least served you enough to get full and satisfied, but the entrée-the-size-of-a-deck-of-cards thing does not work for us.

  Nevertheless, I tasted everything that was put in front of me, and pretended to like it whether I did or not.

  Mostly not.

  “This is the last dish,” Chef Basquiat raved in his heavily accented English, “and it is the highlight of the entire meal!”

  He presented me with something that resembled a steaming pile of horse manure in a butter cream sauce, then wrung his hands in eager anticipation of my assessment.