Her Good Thing

by Vanessa Miller

  “Did you hear me?” Shelly asked as she nudged Marshall’s shoulder.

  “Huh, what?”

  “I asked if you wanted to dance. They’re playing my slow jam, and if you play your cards right, this could become our song.” She flirted with every word that left her mouth.

  Shelly was fine and had a lightweight modeling career going on. A while back he had thought about asking her out, but now he couldn’t even muster up enough interest to get on the dance floor with her. “I’m a little tired, but maybe later, all right?”

  She shrugged. As she walked away from him she said, “Your loss.”

  Yeah, my loss, Marshall thought as he sat down in a chair in the back of the VIP section. This was one of the more popular clubs in town for professionals. The place was packed. Men with degrees and good-paying jobs were in the house, so the women naturally followed. Marshall had spent many nights in this place—dancing, drinking and hooking up with one woman after the next. As he thought about that fact, he felt kind of hypocritical for being so upset about Danetta’s attitude toward them hooking up. Hadn’t he told countless women that he wanted sex with no strings? But right now Marshall was thinking that there had to be more out of life, and he was determined to find it.

  “Man, what are you doing hiding in this dark corner?” Kevin asked as he approached Marshall. He stretched out a hand and waved toward the dance floor. “Will you look at them, man? It’s like Christmas came early,” Kevin said while letting his eyes do the walking up a long-legged female’s thigh.

  Marshall was in a foul mood. He didn’t want to be there, so he had no problem raining on someone else’s good time. “Kevin, why are you up here frontin’ like you gon’ step to that woman? When I know and you know that Marla’s got you on lock.”

  “Who me?” Kevin took a step back. “Uh-uh. Not me, not happening.”

  “You know what bothers me about you, Kevin?” Marshall poked a finger in his friend’s chest. “You’ve got a good woman who loves you, but instead of doing right by her, you’d rather do something dumb and mess it all up.”

  “Well, hello pot,” Kevin said with a smirk of irritation on his face.

  “I am nothing like you, bro. If I had a woman who loved me like your girl, I wouldn’t be out here trying to get into something that won’t even matter in the morning.”

  Irritation turned to anger and Kevin spat, “You had somebody and you did her worse than I’ve ever done Marla, believe that.”

  Marshall waved him off. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, so you think it was just fine to parade all those women in Danetta’s face year after year while she sat there taking care of your business and probably crying herself to sleep every night?”

  “Danetta and I are just friends. And weren’t you listening to me earlier? I told you she wanted no strings attached. Does that sound like somebody in love?”

  “Payback is a mother, ain’t it?” A waitress walked up to him with the drink he had ordered. Kevin took it from her, downed it in one swallow and then turned back to Marshall. “Look, man, you obviously don’t want to be here. So, why don’t you just go home.”

  “I rode here with you, remember?”

  “That’s right, so sit down somewhere and shut up.”

  He knew that if he opened his mouth at that moment he would lose a friend. So he turned and stalked off.

  “Hey, come on, bro, don’t leave mad,” Kevin called after him.

  Marshall threw up a hand. “I’m out.” He pushed and shoved his way through the crowd.

  When he stepped outside Marshall asked the valet to call a cab for him. Feeling like a chump who’d lost in the game of life, he stood with shoulders slumped, waiting for the cab. The door to the club kept swinging open as groups of people left and more partygoers arrived. They had the look of expectation on their young pretty faces, as if they hadn’t blown through that door a hundred times and received the same good-for-nothing results. He didn’t know why people didn’t tire of places like this...that could only offer twenty-four-hour relationships that left you waiting by the phone for the call that never comes. Then the eventual shame begins to creep in for what a woman would do in the wee hours of the morning for a man who wouldn’t even remember her name the next day. But they come back to the club the very next week, dressed in their best, and ready to commit insanity once again.

  As he continued to watch women walk into the club and men creep out of the club with arms draped around some unsuspecting woman, anger penetrated his soul. It was at that moment that he decided that he no longer wanted to be a part of that game. He wondered if he would be absolved of all his wrongdoing if he gave these women the 411 right now. Or maybe he needed to go find a priest...sit in that booth and tell the man about all the women he had tricked. Maybe if he remembered all of his misdeeds, he wouldn’t feel so bad about the way Danetta had treated him like a piece of meat tonight.

  He still didn’t understand why he was so angry with her. Why hadn’t he stayed and taken what she was freely offering to him? Hadn’t she said that she’d rather be with him than any of the other men she’d been dating? But who would she want to be with next week, or next month?

  His head was starting to hurt with all of this thinking. He put his hand to his temple to rub it. And that’s when he saw her. He still didn’t remember the woman’s name, but this time he had no problem recognizing her on sight. He rarely forgot the faces of women who slapped him. The last time he saw this beautiful woman had been at the business retreat he’d attended about a month ago. She’d been angry with him because he’d slept with her and then never called. At the time, he couldn’t understand her anger and had even told her that she knew what time it was when she stepped into his hotel room. But now he was beginning to see the light.

  Her purse was swinging and she had keys in hand as she stepped out of the club. He tapped her on the shoulder. “Excuse me.”

  She turned, smiling, toward him. Once she recognized who was standing in front of her, the smile got lost in a sea of frowns. “What do you want?”

  “I—I, uh.”

  “Spit it out, I don’t have all night.”

  Just give me a moment, Ms., ‘I can spend all night with you in bed, but I can’t spend ten seconds waiting on you to come up with a coherent thought.’ That’s what he wanted to say, but he had the good grace to say, “I just wanted to apologize to you.”

  Hands on hips, she put the sistah-sistah neck roll in action. “Look, I don’t know if you are drunk or what, but I suggest you get out of my face. I’m the kinda sistah who carries mace and I will use it on a dog like you.”

  He held up his hands fending her off. “You wanted me to get mine, so that I would know how you felt...remember? Well, it happened. And you were right, I didn’t like the way it felt to know that someone only wanted me for one thing.” He shrugged. “So, I’m sorry for the way I treated you, okay?”

  As her hands came down off her hips, her guard also seemed to fall. “I’ll tell you what...say my name and I’ll forgive you.”

  Marshall’s face dropped. He would have been better off in that confessional booth. So many one-night stands with nameless, faceless women who all thought they were putting it on him so tough that he’d never be able to forget them, but in truth, the women had all melded into one. In the midnight hour, he’d found nothing different, nothing special about the sex that any one of the women had given him to make him want to stay. Maybe he was finally growing up, because he’d never felt bad about any of this stuff before.

  “That’s why I’m apologizing,” he began. “When I had sex with you I wasn’t thinking about who you were as a person, what puts a smile on your face or anything like that.”

  “So, you’re admitting that you don’t know my name?”

  Shame crossed his face as h
e nodded. “But I’d like to know now.”

  She cocked her head to the side and grinned at him. “What do you want to know...who I am as a person or what puts a smile on my face?”

  “Let’s just start with your name.”

  “All right, it’s Marrisa Miller.”

  The cab pulled up. Marshall stuck out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Marrisa.” As they shook hands, Marshall wondered if he would have been able to develop a relationship with this woman if he had given it half a chance. He probably would never know. “This is my cab, but it was nice seeing you again, Marrisa.” He turned and began walking toward the cab.

  Marrisa yelled, “Wait...don’t you want to know the rest?”

  Marshall turned back to face her. “Why don’t you give me your number and I’ll take you out to lunch so we can talk. I promise I’ll do nothing but listen.”

  She shook her head and lifted her keys for him to see. “You’re not getting away that easy. Send your cab away and I’ll drive you home.”

  He looked at her skeptically for a moment and then asked, “You just want to talk, right? Because I don’t need any more guilt on my shoulders about being a ‘love ’em and leave ’em’ kind of guy.” Marshall couldn’t believe his own ears. Was he actually turning down sex for the second time in one night? Forget the priest, maybe he needed to see a shrink instead.

  She dangled the keys again. “I’ve got a lot I’d like to tell you. And I’d like to have your undivided attention while I’ve got it.”

  “Okay then, I’m down with that.” He waved the cab off and headed toward the parking lot with Marrisa Miller. He didn’t know anything about this woman, except her name, but he had a feeling that before the night was over he would discover everything that made Marrisa tick, and none of his discoveries would be made between the sheets. The knowledge of that actually put a smile on his face.

  * * *

  Danetta had a fitful night’s sleep. She kept seeing Marshall’s horrorstruck face as she told him that she just needed sex from him, and nothing more. But she’d thought that he’d wanted to hear that. He had bragged to her and his friend Kevin dozens of times about the countless women to whom he’d said the same thing. So, she didn’t understand his reaction at all.

  As bad as that had been, the way they spoke to each other had been worse. She’d never talked to Marshall like that before and he’d never so much as raised his voice at her. She didn’t know where the partnership stood, but one thing was clear to Danetta: their friendship had suffered a blow. After talking to Ryla, the anger Danetta had felt toward Marshall had subsided, because she realized that Ryla might have been right and she might have read Marshall’s intentions all wrong.

  At about five in the morning, Danetta got out of bed and went for a run. She hadn’t done that in months, but she needed to clear out the cobwebs, and she wasn’t getting any sleep anyway. When she arrived back at the house, she jumped in the shower and then changed into a jogging suit. She wasn’t going into work that day; there was no way she would be able to concentrate with everything that was going on with her aunt and with Marshall. Danetta had made up her mind to drive to Marshall’s house that morning and clear the air. Then she would go to the hospital and sit with her aunt.

  She opened her top dresser drawer where she kept a few of her accessories and pulled out a pair of dark shades. There was no sun in the sky that day, but Danetta didn’t need the glasses to protect her from the sun. Her game plan to get to her aunt’s hospital bed without experiencing another anxiety attack was to enter the hospital through a door that she had never walked through before and to wear her shades, so that she could see as little of those dreaded corridors and hospital rooms as possible.

  She got in her car and drove to Marshall’s house. She had to talk to him, because there was no way they would be able to work together without coming to an understanding about what happened between them the night before. But as she sat in her car in front of his house, Danetta didn’t know what to do. A car was in his driveway that Danetta had never seen before.

  She had convinced herself to drive away and just call Marshall on the phone so that they could talk about their problems, when the front door opened. A laughing woman with sparkling eyes and a long flowing weave stepped out of Marshall’s house. Marshall walked out behind her and closed his door. He put his arm around the woman as they walked to his driveway; they were both laughing and smiling as if they were about to bust a gut over something one of them had said. As Danetta eyed them, she wondered if maybe Marshall was telling a joke about his dumber-than-a-box-of-rocks business partner, who’d foolishly offered him her body, but he hadn’t wanted it. And why would he want plain ol’ Danetta Harris when he could be with someone as beautiful as the woman he was now laughing it up with?

  They stopped at the woman’s car. Marshall kissed her on the forehead; she smiled, touched his cheek and then got into her car and drove off. Marshall got in his SUV and started backing out of the driveway. It was then, as he turned his head to look for oncoming traffic that his eyes locked with Danetta’s. If looks could kill he would have, at the very least, been hospitalized and told that he’d barely escaped with his life.

  Marshall put his car in Park, got out and began walking toward Danetta’s car. Danetta sped off.

  Tears streamed down her face as she broke speed limits in order to get away from Marshall. How could he do this to her? How could he make her feel bad about wanting to spend the night with him, when he clearly wasn’t above one-night stands. Why did he try to act so offended when he could have just told her the truth? That it wasn’t the one-night stand that bothered him—he just didn’t want to be with her.

  Fearing that she was looking like a maniac to some of the drivers on the street, she wiped the tears from her face. But when another river flow replaced the last one, she banged her hand on the steering wheel and screamed. Life was just not, not, not fair.

  She stopped at a red light and again tried to fix her appearance. But as she wiped away the tears this time, Danetta noticed a donut shop that was calling her name. She pulled into the parking lot and got out of her car.

  Inside the donut shop, which was really no more than a hole-in-the-wall type of place, there were so few customers that they actually had a mannequin in one of the window seats. Danetta didn’t care, she just needed a sugar fix and she needed it now.

  “How you doing, honey?” the cashier asked with a bit of a southern drawl.

  “Not too good,” Danetta answered. “But I think three brownies and two wheat donuts will get me through it.”

  Chapter 14

  She made it to her aunt’s room without breaking down and having herself strapped to a gurney and wheeled to the fifth floor where they had the nice padded rooms. Her plan was to take her sunglasses off once she sat down with Aunt Sarah, but since she’d been crying her eyes out and they were now red and swollen, she thought it best to leave them on.

  “How are you feeling today, Aunt Sarah?”

  Her aunt had several pillows behind her head, propping her up in the bed. She turned to Danetta and said, “Oh I’m fair to middlin’. But I’m more concerned about you and why you have sunglasses on when it looks quite cloudy out my window.”

  “To tell you the truth, Auntie...” well, she could tell part of the truth anyway, “I had a panic attack when I walked through the emergency room yesterday. If Marshall hadn’t been with me, I probably would have ended up in the bed next to yours. So, I decided to wear these glasses to block out some of my vision as I walked to your room.”

  “I’m glad you were able to break through your fears, sweetie.” She patted Danetta’s hands. “And I’m sorry that the ambulance brought me to this hospital. This is the last thing I ever wanted to do to you.”

  “I know that. It’s not your fault.”

  “Okay, well then take
those shades off and watch some TV with me.”

  Danetta hesitated, but she knew there was no way around it. Her aunt would not rest until she took the glasses off. To keep the peace—her aunt was, after all, a heart patient—she did as she was told. The glasses came off and Danetta grabbed the remote so that she could find a program for them to watch together. “What do you want to see this morning?”

  Aunt Sarah didn’t answer. She was too busy studying Danetta. She lifted Danetta’s chin and turned her face toward her.

  Danetta averted her eyes. “Oh, they have the Hallmark Channel. You love watching the movies on that channel.”

  “What’s wrong, baby? Tell me what happened.”

  “If you don’t want to watch the Hallmark Channel, they also have the Turner Classic Network and TBN, the station that all those preachers come on.”

  Aunt Sarah took the remote out of Danetta’s hand. “Talk to me; I can tell that something is wrong. And I have a feeling that it has nothing to do with me laying in this hospital bed.”

  She had never been able to hide anything from her aunt. Sometimes, Danetta thought that her aunt knew her better than she knew herself. She put the remote down. “I’m so embarrassed, Auntie, I don’t even know where to begin.”

  “Did something happen with one of them men you’ve been dating?”

  She shook her head.

  “Well then it has to be Marshall. What did he do that’s got you so upset?”

  Anger flared in Danetta’s nostrils as she said, “He didn’t do anything. That was the problem. I all but threw myself at him last night and h-he turned me down.”

  “What do you mean, he turned you down? What did he say?”

  Danetta really hated talking about these things with her aunt. She knew how Sarah Davis felt about promiscuity. It had been drilled into her head so much, that Danetta had rarely gone all the way with a guy. “He asked me if I was looking for a relationship or for marriage and I told him no, that he didn’t have to worry about that. We could just, you know—” she had the good sense to be embarrassed by what she was about to say, “—hook up, no strings attached. And then he got mad and accused me of just trying to use him for sex. I couldn’t believe the way he reacted about the whole thing.”