The Company We Keep

by Mary Monroe

  “What brought this on? I was really interested in hearing more about my future.”

  “You just did,” Carla said, rolling her eyes.

  CHAPTER 24

  “The future I meant was my job.”

  “Your job?” Carla lifted her chin and gave Teri a critical look. “Teri, it’s a sin and a shame if you feel that the only important thing in your future is your job.”

  “I didn’t say that. I’ve never said that…” “You didn’t have to,” Carla exclaimed, giving Teri an incredulous look.

  “You’re talking about Harrison Starr, aren’t you?” Teri asked in a gentle voice, looking at her fingers. When she looked up, Carla was sitting with her hands folded on the desktop, looking like a sphinx.

  “It doesn’t take a psychic to know that. Stevie Wonder could see that that man is crazy about you.”

  “We tried to have a serious relationship last year but it didn’t work out. I really don’t know if it’s worth another shot…”

  “So what? If I had a dime for every woman who gave up on the man she loved because ‘it didn’t work out the first time’ I’d be on the cover of Fortune magazine. You’re different, Teri. You usually know what you want and you don’t stop until you get it. You’ve proved that with your job.”

  “So you’re saying I should use the same approach with Harrison?”

  “Why not? I would, and I am sure half the women in this house would, too. I know I am older than you, but you are still old enough to know that good men are getting harder and harder to come by.”

  “I do care about the man…Harrison. He makes me nervous and he knows it. Like tonight. Every time I bump into him I want to run out the door. It’s just that sometimes I get so afraid.”

  “Afraid of what? What is there for you to be afraid of? The man is not a snake so he’s not going to bite you. The man’s a man!”

  “Carla, in my case, relationships can cause just as much pain as pleasure. You know how hurt I was when Dwight and I broke up.”

  “Harrison and Dwight are from two different planets. You shouldn’t even be mentioning those two men in the same breath. Dwight is a hound dog.”

  “Some women feel that all men are dogs,” Teri offered with a casual shrug. “My grandmother even says that.”

  “That’s true. Men are dogs. Some are pit bulls.” Carla paused and nodded toward a picture on the wall of her and Reuben. It was the first picture they’d posed for at their wedding so many years ago. “Some dogs are faithful, obedient, and dependable. I wouldn’t trade that mutt of mine for Prince Charles.”

  Teri gave Carla a stunned look. Carla had never spoken so openly about her own relationship before. “Just be patient with Harrison, but don’t let him get away. What you are feeling is normal, Teri, so you shouldn’t be afraid.”

  “I really don’t know where all this is coming from or where it’s going,” Teri said. There was a hint of a smile on her face, and despite the fact that she was confused, she was curious.

  “Wild women, they don’t wear no blues. Now that’s coming from my old granny, may she rest in peace until I get there,” Carla said with a heavy sigh. “That’s what you have to do.”

  Wild women don’t wear no blues? Now what in the hell did that mean? Teri wondered. She was even more confused now, but not enough to ask for clarification. All she wanted was for this reading to be over so she could return to the party and possibly reconnect with Harrison. Just in case…

  “Carla, you know I always appreciate these, uh, sessions. And to be honest with you, it’s the unplanned ones like this that I enjoy the most. I know it’s not what I pay you for, professionally, and it is something extra, but it means a lot to me. You and Reuben are like family to me. Especially now…”

  “I know all that.” Carla laughed. “And when we talk like this, it’s on the house. I enjoy doing this, especially with subjects as complex and interesting as you.”

  Teri blew out a loud breath. “I’m going to have to be careful about what I do in the bedroom if I don’t want to be embarrassed. With the right man, I might do things I don’t want you to know…”

  “You already have.” Carla laughed again, rising. “Now let’s get out of here before I tell you something you don’t want to hear.”

  The party was finally coming to a close around midnight. Small groups of guests walked, some staggered, to their cars. Teri attempted to locate Harrison and invite him to have a cup of coffee with her, or something. She had given a lot of thought to what Carla had said in their session. If things didn’t work out between them the second time around, she’d move on to someone else. But she could at least say that she tried.

  “Did Harrison leave already?” she asked Carla.

  Carla had already started to clean up the mess in the living room.

  She gave Teri a sorrowful glance and then she looked toward the door. “They just walked out the door,” she said, nodding toward the exit.

  “They?” Teri was confused. “Oh.” She looked at the floor, then at the door. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” she said, leaving. Nicole was right behind her.

  They got outside just in time to see Harrison and Mia walking toward his car holding hands. Holding hands! What the hell? And Harrison was the man that Carla told her she needed to pursue. Mia? Harrison and Mia? He was not just a run-of-the-mill dog. He was a hound from hell! Well, if he wanted her, he had to come after her and she was not going to make it that easy for him now.

  “Well, look who is taking Miss Black Saigon home with him,” Nicole said as they strode toward Teri’s car.

  “Better her than me,” Teri huffed, her eyes burning with red hot anger. She was horrified when she saw Harrison haul off and kiss Mia. And if that wasn’t bad enough, that half-breed cow was in the driver’s seat of his car! He was going to let her drive! The nerve of that motherfucker! How the hell did he expect to make amends with her by acting like a dog in heat with another woman? And in public at that, Teri wondered.

  “I heard that,” Nicole said, climbing into the passenger seat of Teri’s BMW. She flipped on the radio.

  “Spend your early morning hours with me right here at 98.6 on your FM dial. L.A.’s best…” Harrison’s recorded promotional plug was the last thing she or Teri expected, or wanted, to hear. Especially since they could still see him and Mia still kissing! “…from six A.M. to one P.M., Monday through Friday, start your day with me, the Morning Starr.”

  “Correction—falling star is more like it,” Teri said nastily.

  Nicole sucked on her teeth and mumbled profanities under her breath. Teri got dead silent and was breathing through her mouth, thoroughly horrified. Watching the man she was supposed to be trying to resume and establish a relationship with kissing on another woman was excruciating.

  She turned off the radio so fast she broke a nail. She cursed, shook her hand, sucked on the damaged nail, and then she started her car. She almost sideswiped Harrison’s Jaguar as she shot out into the street. But Harrison was so busy with Mia, he didn’t even notice.

  CHAPTER 25

  Harrison was in the studio sipping coffee and murmuring into the microphone. It had been a struggle for him to roll out of bed, shower, get dressed, and make it to work on time.

  He regretted spending so much time at Carla Andrews’s party the night before. But more than that, he regretted hooking up with Mia. “Damn,” he muttered, rubbing the inside of his thigh where she had bitten him. She had bitten him in a few other places, too. How in the world had she managed to bite one of his big toes and he not remember it? he wondered.

  He didn’t understand women like Mia. First of all, she had manipulated her way into his condo, claiming that she couldn’t take him to her place because she had houseguests. That was one thing. That couldn’t be helped. After Teri Stewart had turned him on like a light switch, he wanted some so bad he would have fucked a stump—and he didn’t care where he got it.

  But as soon as Mia got her scheming ass inside his p
lace, she immediately started talking all kinds of shit about how good she could be to him, what a striking couple they made, how much more class he had than Dwight, and how proud her folks would be of her for reeling in such a big fish. Like he would have been fool enough to start a long-term relationship with her in the first place! While he was in the bathroom, she even had the nerve to take her skanky ass into his kitchen and put on a pot of coffee. Naked at that.

  Staring at her bare ass in his kitchen with his dick so hard he could hardly walk, his plan was to hit it as quickly and thoroughly as he could and drive her home. Then she had to say the wrong thing: “I can’t wait to see that uppity Teri’s face when she finds out about us,” she’d said, cackling like the witch she was.

  His erection had gone south so fast it made his head spin. Without giving it much thought, he immediately asked her to leave.

  “What’s wrong with you, man? What did I do?” she wanted to know, scrambling around his living room for her clothes. When he couldn’t offer an explanation for his sudden change of heart that satisfied her, she bombarded him with such labels as “fag-ass punk” and “cheesy-ass motherfucker.” Mia was so angry she refused his offer to drive her home. And when he escorted her to the cab he had called, she viciously slammed the cab door shut on his arm on purpose as he helped her in. Now he was sitting here with a throbbing shin, too. And he was still horny!

  Harrison loved his job. In some ways it was more like an interesting hobby. He had some great coworkers, the pay was good, and he loved his hours. This was the advantage to working for a small independent black-owned radio station that operated by its own rules. And a popular station at that. In addition to nailing down a huge portion of L.A.’s black audience, a lot of white folks and Asians tuned in. Not only did they play all the latest hits, everything from hip-hop to reggae, they often interviewed black authors, recording artists, and a few people in other areas of the entertainment industry.

  Last week he had interviewed a thirty-two-year-old former porn star who had offered a lot of sound advice to discourage young people, especially females, from contemplating a career in the adult industry. Harrison had been so impressed with the reformed actress that he invited her to lunch afterward. Over iced tea and ham-and-cheese sandwiches on rye, he learned that the woman had contracted HIV while engaging in unprotected sex in front of a camera. It made him profoundly sad to know that a woman his age would have a shortened life. And all because of her foolish choices and reckless behavior.

  It never ceased to amaze Harrison what some people would do to get attention. Even though he had already agreed to “spend some time” with Mia the night before, she’d still offered to give him a blow job in his car that would “blow his mind” before they even left the Andrewses’ property. He had been tempted. However, he was now proud of the fact that he had turned down her offer. He decided that he was not such a dog after all. Either that or he was lame as hell, like Mia had laughingly called him after the blow job rejection.

  What impressed Harrison was when people like the former porn star admitted their mistakes and bad choices. He had made a lot of bad choices of his own.

  Teri had no idea that she was on Harrison’s mind that morning as she sat in her own office preparing for another painful staff meeting. Harrison was on her mind, too. But not in a pleasant way. She still could not believe that he had left Carla’s party with Mia and that he didn’t even try to hide it. Had he given up on ever resuming his relationship with her? It seemed that way. Well, it was his loss. Now all he was to her was Mia’s leftovers. And some sloppy leftovers at that. She rose from her desk with a lump in her throat. Her eyes were still slightly red from the crying she had done in Carla’s office last night. She kept telling herself that her tears were for the parents she never got a chance to know, not Harrison and her lackluster love life.

  “I feel the way you look,” Nicole said, peeking into Teri’s office. “This is not going to be a pleasant meeting.”

  Teri cleared her throat before speaking. “Is it ever?” she asked. “The numbers for that new album we just released are not good.”

  Victor was his usual cantankerous self, grunting and growling under his breath like a wolf as he lumbered into the conference room. He just waved his gnarled hand when Teri spoke to him and he didn’t even bother to look at her. When he did look up from the report that he had asked Miguel to prepare, it was just long enough to fire Miguel again.

  Miguel didn’t even wait for Victor to dismiss him from the meeting. While Victor was doling out wolf tickets about how he was thinking about selling or closing the business and moving to the Bahamas, Miguel let out a few grunts himself. Then he collected his copy of the report that had Victor in such a tizzy and stood up to leave the room.

  Victor stared at him in slack-jawed amazement. “Excuse me, Miguel. This meeting is not over,” he yelled, spit flying out both sides of his mouth.

  “It is for me,” Miguel announced with a casual shrug. There was no anger or sadness displayed on his face. He looked at Teri and gave her a wink. Nicole and Teri both gave Miguel a conspiratorial “thumbs-up” smile as he quietly left the room.

  The meeting went even more downhill from there. While Teri was giving her report, which was well prepared as usual, Victor abruptly ended the meeting and rushed out so fast he left his BlackBerry behind.

  Teri and Nicole were the last to leave the room. Nicole went quietly to her workstation to plow through a ton of e-mail and Teri headed for hers, instructing Nicole to hold her calls. As soon as Teri shut the door to her office, Nicole noticed that her line lit up and a few seconds later Victor’s did, too. Less than two minutes later both lights went out.

  “Do you have Miguel’s cell number?” Teri asked, walking in Nicole’s direction with her hands on her hips. She had that triumphant look on her face that had become so familiar to Nicole over the years.

  Nicole gave her a puzzled look. “Yeah…what’s up?”

  “Get him back here. Get him back here right now,” Teri ordered with a heavy sigh and fingers snapping. “And…tell him I need that Wilson piece for Can Do Magazine on my desk ASAP.” She paused and massaged the back of her neck. “One of these days, girl…one of these days.” Nicole didn’t ask any more questions. She promptly looked up Miguel’s cell number and called him.

  CHAPTER 26

  Miguel came strolling back in less than five minutes later. This time he had not even bothered to pack his personal belongings, collect his briefcase and laptop, or leave the building. This was the third time that Victor had “fired” him in less than two months and each time he’d rehired him. The last time Victor was in a firing frenzy, the victim had been John, his long-suffering secretary.

  “I don’t know how you put up with Victor’s shit, Miguel,” Nicole said to him, shaking her head. “The first time he fires me will be the last time.”

  “One of these days I won’t come back. Believe me,” Miguel told her with a serious look on his face.

  “Want to have lunch?”

  “Sure, chica. This time it’s on me. You pick the place,” Miguel said before he left to return to his office with a proud strut in his walk, whistling all the way.

  Nicole’s desk was busy most of the time, but like almost every other person in a position similar to hers, she always found time to manage her own agenda in the workplace. Teri was trapped in a midmorning sales meeting with Victor and other employees from the sales department. Miguel, one of the few people at Eclectic whom Nicole liked to interact with, was busy working on the report that Teri had requested.

  Nicole looked around before she snatched up her telephone and made a few personal calls. She made an appointment to get her nails done, she returned a call to her cousin Wodell Scruggs in Compton who owed her fifty dollars, and she called her mother in San Jose.

  Unlike Teri, Nicole didn’t have a pleasant relationship with most of her family. For one thing, Wodell and the rest of her cousins usually called her only when the
y needed money or wanted to dump some sob story on her. Last month her cousin Lola Boone showed up at her door one night with her twin nine-year-old daughters, looking for a place to hide from a boyfriend whose favorite sport seemed to be slapping her upside her head.

  The next day when Nicole got home from work there was Lola stretched out on the sofa that Chris slept on drinking and smoking like she didn’t have a care in the world. But the worst part of the scenario was that the same abusive boyfriend that Lola had fled from was in her kitchen frying the last of her pork chops! And Lola’s girls were all over the place and into everything—fucking with her makeup, making long-distance calls to their daddy’s relatives in San Francisco, and jumping up and down on her bed as if it were a trampoline.

  By the third day of Lola’s presence, Nicole was ready to slap her upside her head herself. As soon as she put her foot down, Lola packed up and left in a huff. But a week later she apologized profusely in a voice mail message she’d left on Nicole’s work phone.

  Nicole dialed Lola’s home phone number, expecting to get her voice mail. Despite her cousin’s trifling ways when it came to men, she was one of her favorite relatives. Next to Teri, Lola was the only other sister she admired from afar for her accomplishments. Lola was not just another thirty-five-year old black woman walking up and down the streets of L.A. She had a lot going for herself, even though she often didn’t make the most of her talents.

  Anyway, Lola had a degree in journalism and a kicked-back job writing investigative pieces for New Century L.A. magazine. She wrote about everything from the city’s gang problem to which L.A. hotels to avoid. Nicole hung up when the abusive boyfriend answered.

  One thing she could not understand was how some women could put up with just about anything to have a man. It was even more baffling when the woman involved had as much going for her as Lola. Lola’s excuse was always that she didn’t like being lonely. Hell, yes, she was lonely, too, Nicole thought to herself. She knew she could have kept Greg in her life if she’d been stupid enough to put up with his infidelities and other foolishness. And from all the hints he’d dropped since their divorce, he’d come back to her in a heartbeat if she’d let him. She was not even going there. She realized now that that Korean heifer he’d married had actually done her a favor by taking him off her hands. She’d remain alone for the rest of her life if Greg Mason was the only man she could get.