Any Way the Wind Blows

by E. Lynn Harris

  When I got back to my Harlem apartment, Brandon’s number was on my caller I.D. I couldn’t believe he wasn’t smart enough to have a restricted phone number. I guess having a B.S., an M.B.A. and a law degree didn’t give Brandon a whole lot of common sense.

  I dialed the number, and sure enough wifey answered the phone.

  “How are you doing?” I asked.

  “Fine. Whom am I speaking with?”

  “You don’t know me, but I know you,” I said.

  “How may I help you?” she asked.

  “Oh, you can’t help me, but maybe I can help you.” I wanted to mess with her a little more, but she lost patience and demanded to know who I was.

  “Are you in the bedroom?” I asked.

  “Listen, if this is some kinda sick sex call, then I’m warning you, my husband is an important man in Atlanta and we will get you.”

  “I know who your husband is,” I said. “Are you in the bedroom?” I repeated.

  “Yes,” she said. If I were her, I would have hung up, but I guess she liked my voice.

  “I was in your bedroom recently, and since you weren’t there, I decided to leave you a little gift.”

  She didn’t respond, so I continued.

  “Why don’t you look underneath your mattress?” I suggested. There was silence for a few moments and then I heard an audible gasp.

  “Did you find the present I left you?”

  “Who are you?”

  “Just answer my question. Did you find my black Lycra Jockey boxers I left for you and Brandon? He really seemed to like them. I know Brandon only wears Calvin Klein briefs. You buy them by the box. Right?”

  “Who are you and what were you doing in my bedroom?”

  “Are you holding them?” Oh Bart, you are a bad, bad boy.

  “Stop it,” she yelled. “Who are you and why are you doing this?”

  “Ask your husband, and ask him to tell you how he was screaming my name so loud I’m surprised you didn’t hear me all the way in Paris.”

  “What are you saying?” she asked. She had begun to cry, but I didn’t give a flying fuck. I doubt she would’ve cared that for years I’d cried myself to sleep over losing Brandon to her.

  “Ask your husband to tell you about Bartholomew Jerome Dunbar,” I said. And then I hung up, sweetly satisfied.

  When I told my best friend, Wylie, what I had done, he called me everything but a child of God. “You’ve most likely destroyed a family. Ain’t you got no shame?”

  When I defended myself by telling Wylie how Brandon and his wife had destroyed my life, first with their affair and then with their marriage, Wylie responded, “That was years ago. Grow up and get over it!”

  Get over it? Get over this: At twenty-one, I believed in love lasting forever. At twenty-eight, I know nothing lasts forever … except maybe revenge.

  Basil’s Back

  Have you ever heard news so shocking that you feel like someone has pulled the rug out from under you, then picked up the table and pimp-slapped you upside your head? Two months ago that shit happened to me, and I’m still trying to recover.

  I was rolling out of bed with my special lady friend, Rosa Matthews, after some pulse-popping sex. She had that special afterglow I’ve been known to lay on the ladies, and a few men for that matter.

  “I’ve got something to tell you,” Rosa said. Despite the sleep in her eyes, Rosa was beautiful. Her long black hair was pulled back and she was wearing one of my T-shirts. I looked up at her as I launched into my preshower round of 200 sit-ups. (I do them in the nude, of course, to make sure my body stays tight.) I am proud of the fact that despite being thirtysomething, I don’t have an ounce of fat on my 6′2″, 215-pound body.

  “What? You got another weeklong trip?” I asked. Rosa is an international flight attendant for United.

  “Basil, I’m pregnant,” she said calmly.

  “You’re what?” I stopped mid-crunch.

  “I’m pregnant,” Rosa repeated.

  At one point in my life those words would have made me angry and fearful, but recently I’ve harbored the strong desire to have kids, and Rosa would make a great mother. I grabbed Rosa and pulled her toward me and kissed her passionately, but she pushed me off and pulled away.

  “How many months are you?” I asked.

  “Three.”

  “And you’re just telling me?”

  “I wanted to make sure everything was all right. I went to the doctor yesterday and actually heard the baby’s heartbeat.”

  “You did! I want to hear it,” I said as I moved my ear down toward Rosa’s stomach, but she brushed my head away.

  “What’s the matter?” I quizzed.

  Rosa was silent, and tears started to roll down her face.

  “Baby, what’s the matter? Everything will be fine. You know how much I want children. Is there something wrong with the baby?” Rosa didn’t say anything, and while I was trying to figure out why she was crying, she said, “Basil, it’s not your baby.” Her voice was so soft, a whisper, and I wanted to make sure I had heard her correctly.

  “What did you say?”

  “It’s not your baby.”

  This time I heard her loud and clear.

  “What do you mean it’s not my baby?” I said, suddenly feeling rising anger. Since the first time we met, almost a year ago, Rosa and I had been talking about how much we both loved and wanted children. It was one of the reasons I was attracted to her.

  How could she give me this kind of news now? A few months earlier my sister Campbell’s husband was promoted and the family relocated to Pittsburgh. I’d told Rosa on numerous occasions how much I missed my nephew Cade, and she had even offered to give me flight passes so I could visit him on a regular basis.

  “Basil, I’m sorry. But I thought we’d agreed we weren’t ready to be exclusive, especially with both of our schedules,” Rosa said, never raising her eyes. Good, at least she was feeling guilty. Yeah, we’d agreed not to tie each other down. I loved the fact that Rosa was independent. I didn’t need a woman who wanted to be my shadow. I’d gotten used to getting calls from her telling me she was on her way to Paris to shop on her days off. Sure, I was still dibbling and dabbling with some of my female freaks I kept on the side, but I wasn’t having unprotected sex with them.

  Rosa and I had actually talked about having a child together, although neither one of us wanted to be married. We’d discussed hiring a nanny and getting our child into the best schools in New York, and we even kicked around names. Rosa was such a cool lady, I was convinced coparenting would have worked.

  Lately, though, my business was growing by leaps and bounds, and I found myself spending more and more time on the road and longer evenings in the office when I was in New York. My company, XJI (Ex-Jocks Incorporated), had opened two more satellite offices and hired additional staff. We were battling the big sports agencies player for player. It’d been months since we (my partners, Brison, Nico and I) had lost a player we wanted to one of the large agencies.

  “Yeah, but I didn’t know you were out there having unprotected sex with some dude you met on a layover.” There was a part of me that wanted to grab her and shake her and make her tell me what all our baby-planning conversations had been about. How could she be certain the child wasn’t mine? I had used condoms when we had sex, most times. But there were several shower sessions where we had only soap and water for protection. Had Rosa been diddling with me the whole time? Was she playin’ me?

  “Basil, look, I still want to see you. We can work this out,” Rosa pleaded.

  “You want to see me? Well, sweetheart, you better take a good long look right now, because this is the last time you’re going to see me and this jimmie,” I said as I headed to the bathroom. I knew Rosa was smart enough not to still be sitting on my bed when I returned.

  When I walked back into my bedroom after a long shower, I realized I was right about Rosa. Not only was she gone, but so were her clothes and personal ite
ms she kept at my place.

  Good. I’m cool with that. I’m ripe for another ride on the rough-and-ready freeway of love. Oh, my bad. I mean, that good old freeway of lust. I’m going back to my old motto: I’m sexing everybody, and the good ones twice.

  Motown’s New Diva

  I overheard two women whisper, “That’s Yancey B,” as I walked into the conference room at Motown Records’ Los Angeles office and took my seat at the head of the table. Some little skinny assistant with bad skin, named Lucy or something, looked at me and said, “That’s Mr. Hudson’s chair.”

  “Oh, it is? I’m sure he won’t mind,” I said as I sat down without hesitating and opened my purse for a mint. A few minutes later, Marc Hudson, a big bear of a man, walked in cheerfully and took the seat right next to me. I wanted to whisper to him that suspenders didn’t look good on big men, but I resisted.

  “So you ready to rock and roll, Yancey B?” he asked with a huge smile.

  “As ready as I’m going to be.” I smiled.

  “Then let’s make some money,” he said as he opened his leather portfolio.

  “Lucy, can you get me a notepad and some carrot juice?” I asked. She looked at me, rolled her eyes and then looked to Mr. Hudson for confirmation.

  “You heard our new star, Lucy. Get this lady a pad and some juice. Let’s go over the plans.”

  This was the final meeting before the official launch of my album. My first single was due to be released in a couple of days, and I was ready to meet and greet my fans. There were five other people besides Lucy and Marc sitting around the table. They all had pads of paper and held their pens nervously like anxious executives on the brink of losing their jobs if they didn’t come up with a fresh idea soon.

  “Anthony, what was the feedback from the listening party?”

  “Very, very positive. Everyone loved the album, and they’re all on board for the promotions,” Anthony said.

  “So are we all agreed on the first single?” Marc asked.

  “Yeah, everyone loved ‘Any Way the Wind Blows.’ Everyone thinks it’s going to be a big hit,” Anthony added.

  “Is anyone concerned about the lyrics?” I asked.

  “Great question, Yancey,” Marc said with another smile. He then turned to a plump sista who was obviously a member of the Fake Flowing Hair Club and quizzed, “Vivian, what are the radio programmers saying?”

  “Well, Marc, they think it will be controversial, but it’s such a beautiful song, and Miss Yancey B delivers on the vocals. Bottom line, they think it will help … if …,” Vivian said.

  “If what?” I asked.

  “If you’re willing to talk about the contents of the song,” Vivian said as she looked down at her yellow pad.

  Before I could answer, Marc’s strong voice boomed, “Of course she’ll talk about it. With the song and the video we plan to shoot, everyone will be talking about it.”

  “I’ll do whatever it takes to sell records,” I said, making eye contact with everyone at the table to let them know I meant business. Lucy came back into the conference room with the carrot juice and a fresh legal pad and placed them in front of me.

  Anthony reviewed the cities where I would do promotional performances and record store signings.

  “Of course, we’ll do the key major markets, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Detroit, and since Yancey is from Tennessee, I thought we’d add Memphis,” Anthony said.

  “How does that sound to you, Yancey B?” Marc asked.

  “That’s great, but what about Los Angeles? And do we have to do Memphis?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Of course we’ll do Los Angeles. And if not Memphis, how about Nashville? I think we need to do New York first, so we can kill two birds with one stone by shooting the video and having the showcase performance in the same week.”

  “Let’s just skip Tennessee altogether,” I said. Then turning to Marc, I asked, “What’s the concept for the video?”

  “If you think the song is going to be controversial … wait for the video.” Vivian laughed.

  “We are ready for you in New York,” said Michel Rodriguez, a small cute Hispanic man who was going to be my main contact in New York. He had come out the day before, and the two of us enjoyed a “get-to-know-you” lunch at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills.

  “Any Way the Wind Blows” was a beautiful ballad that told the story of a young woman, me, whose groom leaves her at the altar for another man. It was one of the first songs Bobby had written for me after I told him what my ex-fiancé, Basil, had done to me.

  The plan was to shoot me all dolled up, in fabulous gowns, with a large canopy bed in the background. When I hit the final note, I was going to turn with a forlorn look on my face toward the bed and discover two well-muscled and good-looking men going at it, while tears rolled down my face.

  I didn’t know if I was ready to talk about my personal life and would have preferred that the company make my cover of “I’m Not in Love” the first single, but it was their record company. I just hoped the world, and especially Basil, was ready for the way the wind was about to blow.

  • • •

  My ringing phone awoke me from a sweet dream. I was dreaming that I was at the Grammys receiving an award for Best New Artist from Lenny Kravitz. Just when I was about to make my acceptance speech, the phone rang.

  I rolled over and picked up the phone. “Hello,” I mumbled. I figured it was Malik trying to get a little sumthin’ sumthin’ early in the morning, but then I remembered that he had a key and his wife was in town.

  “Do you miss me, Mommy?” the voice of a little girl asked.

  “Who is this?” I asked as I sat up straight in my bed.

  “Do you miss me, Mommy? I miss you.”

  “Who is this?” I demanded.

  There was silence for a few moments, and then an adult female voice came over the phone and said, “I’m sorry. My daughter is playing with the phone.”

  I was quite relieved. “You need to keep your daughter under control!” I said as I hung up the phone.

  Drop ’Em, Bart

  The third week of January was proving to be much better than the first. I had been able to pick up two night wait shifts and had two “go sees” in one day. I knew that didn’t mean I was going to get the job, but at least I was getting in front of clients.

  I showed up ten minutes early at CBS Music on Avenue of the Americas, where I was welcomed by a lobby of good-looking black men. The same ones I saw on most calls. From the look of the lobby, the client hadn’t specified light or dark, since the room was filled with men with skin tones that ranged from vanilla-yellow to chocolate fudge. I nodded and gave my fake glad-to-see-you smile to a couple of guys I always saw on castings. I checked in with a receptionist who seemed to be enjoying all the male company, took a seat and pulled out USA Today. I had just finished the Life section and was looking over the front page when the receptionist announced, “Bart Dunbar! You’re on.” I grabbed my bag and rushed to the desk.

  “Someone will be out here in a few seconds,” she said. A few moments later, a short black girl dressed like a boy said, “I’m Audrey. Come with me.” I followed Audrey down a long hallway and then into a conference room.

  “This is Bart,” Audrey said to a tall, thin white boy with slouching shoulders and a big-boned, brown-skinned sister with an auburn pageboy wig on that didn’t fit her round face.

  “Come on in, Bart. I’m Steven, the casting agent.”

  “Nice meeting you,” I said as I shook his frail hand.

  “This is Suzy, the casting assistant,” Steven said.

  “Nice meeting you, Suzy.”

  “Have a seat. Did you bring your book?” Suzy asked.

  “Sure,” I said as I pulled out the large black binder filled with pictures of yours truly. I passed the book to Suzy, and she and Steven began to look at my photos.

  “Oh, that’s a nice one. Great-looking body,” Steven said to Suzy. They both were acting as though I
wasn’t there. When they finished they looked at me like I was a piece of prime sirloin hanging in a meat freezer.

  “We’re looking for someone to be in a music video. Can you dance?” Steven asked.

  “I do all right,” I said. Great, I thought, a video, which meant if I wasn’t cast as a principal, I would end up making about two hundred dollars for unlimited hours of work.

  “You’ve got to have a great body,” Suzy said.

  “No problem,” I replied quickly and confidently.

  “Do you mind standing up, taking off your sweater and dropping your pants to your knees?” Steven asked.

  “Sure,” I said, grateful I had decided to wear underwear. I stood up, pulled off my navy blue turtleneck and dropped it on the table and then unbuckled my belt and dropped my jeans, not to my knees but to my ankles. I figured they should see the entire package. I gave Steven a look like if Suzy weren’t here, I would make sure you gave me this job in sixty seconds.

  “Turn around,” Steven directed.

  I turned around slowly like I was on top of a music box, and then back again.

  “You have a great body,” Steven gushed.

  “Thank you. Do you need to see more?” I asked with a wicked smile.

  “Oh, no. You can pull your clothes back up,” Suzy said.

  “Do you mind answering a few questions?” Steven asked.

  “No.”

  “Tell us about yourself,” Suzy said.

  “I’m from Cleveland,” I said, thinking, Oh no, this is one of those let’s-play-male-beauty-pageant calls. I could anticipate the next question.

  “Give us one word that describes you,” Steven said.

  “Expensive.” I smiled.

  “How long have you been modeling and acting?” Suzy asked.

  “I don’t consider myself an actor. I’ve been modeling for about five years,” I said.

  “What type of music do you like?”

  “All types, but mostly jazz and R and B,” I said.