“And Ms. Betty,” Taj said, reminding Vera of his stepmother. “I’ll never forget when she called me and said, ‘Junior, that wife of yours has got something special on her hands. My hair is smelling a little strange but it’s thick and growing.’ ”
Vera smiled. “And the scent is perfect now and it comes in coconut, apple, and berry scents.” She turned to the camera as if she were recording an infomercial. “Get your jar, because supplies are limited.”
Taj chuckled. “Vera—” His cell phone rang before he could finish his sentence. He patted his pockets as his eyes scanned the room. “Have you seen my phone?”
“No.” Vera paused. “Yes, I have. I moved it this morning. You left it in the bathroom.” She quickly ran into their adjoining bedroom. “I’ll get it for you.”
“No,” Taj said, on Vera’s heels. “Just let it go—”
“Hello?”
“—to voice mail.”
“They hung up anyway.” Vera shrugged and handed Taj his phone.
He kissed her. “I have to go. Make sure you call the attorney so he can handle the business part of HSN’s proposal.”
“Taj, the attorney is already on board.”
He smiled. “Look at you. HSN won’t know what hit ’em.”
“No, they won’t,” Vera assured Taj as he walked toward the door and then quickly came back. “I love you. I’ll be a little late coming in. I have to pull some long hours at the hospital.”
“Okay.” Vera looked into his eyes and for the first time in the ten years they’d been together she wondered if he was telling her the truth.
Taj walked out of the kitchen. Just as the front door slammed, Carl tapped a sleeping Bridget. “What? What? What?” she sputtered.
“It’s over.”
The Club
After a few hours of being filmed at two of her salons, socializing with her stylists, taking care of business in her offices, and shooting her weekly interview, Vera was thankful when Bridget announced that she and Carl had had enough and were leaving.
Now she could be at peace … whatever the hell peace was.
The sound of Mary J. Blige’s sultry voice rose from Vera’s Hermès bag as she sat in her Manhattan office at her computer Internet surfing. She pulled out her cell phone and checked the Caller I.D.: Jaise.
“Hello?”
“Vera?” Jaise said. “Hey, girl. How are you? Are you busy?”
“Hey, Jaise.” Vera paused. “I’m well. And, umm, no, I’m not busy. I was actually finishing up at one of my salons. What’s going on?”
“I wanted to invite you to dinner at Café Noir.”
Really? “Oh, I haven’t been there in forever and that food is soooo good.”
“So we’re on?” Jaise let out a sigh of relief.
“Sure. I’d love to meet you for dinner. What time?”
“Now.”
Now? “Oh … kay. I’m on my way.”
Click.
“Finally, somewhere to go,” Jaise said as she sat in her SUV with a thin cloud of cigarette smoke easing from her lips. She’d been sitting in Central Park in her ivory Range Rover for hours, her mind filled with a million thoughts, and she didn’t want to think anymore, because every thought centered on Bilal and Jabril, and she was sick and tired of those mind-wreckers.
She needed a break. Some time to be free. Free to screw up without Bilal breathing down her neck. Without wondering what Jabril was going to fuck up next. Free to stomp her pointed heels and her voluptuous hips down the crystal staircase of her life and for once, for once, not give a damn if it was shattering behind her.
She was tired of a few things and at this moment one of the things that tore up her nerves was knowing that she’d spent hundreds of tearful, knee-bent nights praying for a black man who had more to offer than a big dick, and now that she had one who was about his business, she had no idea what to do with him.
Vera hailed a cab and slid into the backseat. “Café Noir. 125th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard,” she said to the cabbie as she watched the dance of New York City traffic. Her eyes brightened as the cab whipped by the building where her first salon used to be. Though it was now a bodega, she couldn’t help but smile at the memories.
“I know you’re getting ready to close.” An unknown chocolate Zeus walked into Vera’s salon as she flicked on the neon “Closed” sign hanging in the window. “And I can come back tomorrow. I will come back tomorrow. But I just wanted to know if you cater to dreads.”
Vera’s eyes eased over each and every inch of him, from his thick Bob Marley locks, pulled back and tucked beneath a rasta tam, to his navy hospital scrubs and white lab coat, with the hospital I.D. that read “Dr. Taj Bennett.”
She tried to control her smile but couldn’t. “It depends on whose dreads need catering to.”
A one-sided grin of his full lips. “Mine.”
“Sure. But you don’t have to come back tomorrow. I’m open now.” She flicked off the “Closed” sign and he removed his tam, his dreads falling to the small of his back.
She washed and then twisted the roots of his hair. Her eyes made love to every tight muscle that she imagined lay beneath his scrubs. And upon inspecting the mountainous shape in his pants, her mouth watered and her body wondered what it would feel like to absorb his middle.
After she finished his hair and he paid her, he stepped into her personal space. “Sistah,” he said, “I truly hope you don’t mind me saying this to you, but I think you’re beautiful and I’d like to know if it’s possible—and I’m hoping like hell it’s possible—for me to take you out for dinner.”
And dinner led to breakfast … and breakfast led to ten years … and ten years led to right now … this moment …
“We’re here,” the cabbie said in a thick East Indian accent as he double-parked and pointed to the shabby-chic sign that hung above Café Noir’s doors. The café was in a hundred-year-old brownstone that in 1910 was a school where black women learned etiquette, how to speak French, and how to cook Creole food. A hundred years later it had been transformed into a full-fledged upscale Creole café.
Vera slid a twenty-dollar bill into the pocket of the cab’s Plexiglas divider. “Keep the change.”
———
Jaise walked into Café Noir’s Victorian parlor, where the hostess curtsied and said, “Bienvenue, or welcome, if you prefer I speak in English.”
Jaise forced herself to smile. “Merci.”
The hostess grinned. “Parlez-vous français?”
“Oui.” Jaise pointed to the table where she spotted Vera sitting. “Mon parti est juste la bas.” She followed the hostess and greeted Vera with a tighter hug than either of them expected. “It’s good to see you, girl.”
“You too,” Vera said.
“Pardon me,” the hostess said to Jaise and Vera. “Permettez-moi apporter vous Mesdames vin?”
“Oui.” Vera smiled. “Vin blanc, si’l vous plait.”
Jaise’s eyes grew bright and obviously impressed. “Même pour moi.”
“Okay.” The hostess nodded as she went to get their white wine.
Jaise smiled at Vera. “You speak French? I’m impressed.”
“Merci beaucoup,” Vera said, “But truthfully I understand it a lot better than I speak it. I studied French in college. It’s a shame I don’t use it more often. But you seem to be holding your own quite well.”
“I grew up speaking French,” Jaise said. “My father is Haitian, and he would only speak to us in French. Needless to say,” she continued as their server placed glasses of wine on the table, “since Daddy was the one with the money I learned how to say, ‘J’ai besoin d’une somme d’argent’ real quick.”
Vera cracked up. “Girl, you’re a mess. My ass would’ve learned how to say ‘I need some money’ too.”
“You know what I’m saying.” Jaise chuckled as she picked up her glass of wine and sipped. She wondered if Vera could see the stress she was feeling. She wa
nted desperately to confess and lay this shit on somebody’s shoulder, anybody’s shoulder, so she could get it off hers. But she didn’t know how to do that. Hell, she didn’t even really know Vera. And, yeah, they’d hit it off the other night on Vera’s yacht, and sure, Jaise had invited her to dinner, but that was a far cry from placing her business on the table.
“Are you ladies ready to order?” the waitress asked.
Vera quickly combed the menu. “What are you having, Jaise?”
“Crabmeat Ravigote and a side of dirty rice.”
“Umm, sons délicieuses.” Vera smiled. “I’ll have the same.”
After a few minutes, the waitress returned with their food. “Bon appetit.” She smiled and walked away.
“So how’s being on the show working out for you?” Jaise asked Vera, stuffing a bite in her mouth. “Are you ready to kick Bridget’s ass yet?”
Vera dabbed at the corners of her lips as she chewed and swallowed. “Bridget is a hot mess. Oh, my God. I had no idea the producers acted like that. Seriously, when I watched the show last season I didn’t see her on camera at all. No one knows all the shit she does behind the scenes.”
“Her team edits the hell out of a show,” Jaise said. “Yes, she is truly working behind the scenes like a damn overseer. Give it a minute, you’ll be wanting to backhand her. Just sneak her real good, and then stand back clutching your Louis and holding your chest and say, ‘Oh my, what happened to you?’ ”
Vera laughed so hard she almost choked. “Please, stop!” she howled. “Because I can imagine Bridget getting her ass kicked and somehow managing to say, ‘Roll tape, Carl.’ ”
Jaise cried with laughter and nodded in agreement. “Yes, that’s Bridget.” She sipped her drink. “A mess.”
They ate in silence, both wondering what to say next. Then Jaise took a chance. “Vera, can I ask you something?”
“As long as the answer doesn’t end up in the tabloids,” she joked.
Jaise smiled. “No, none of that.”
“Then shoot.”
Jaise chewed the corner of her lip. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Just say the shit. “Have you ever been so stressed that all you wanted to do was run away and never look back?”
“Hell, yes,” Vera nodded.
“Well, please tell me the secret of how you handle it,” Jaise said.
“It depends on what I’m stressed about,” Vera responded.
“Hell, where do I start?” Jaise said. “Because I’m stressed about a laundry list of shit. My Range Rover has a rip in the back of the passenger seat. I think my housekeeper has been stealing my loose change that’s lying around the house. My sixty-year-old uncle recently decided he wants to be my aunt. My sister keeps having babies by a different Mr. Right every other year. My son fucks up every other day, and my husband doesn’t understand that I can’t stop being a mother simply because my son is nineteen with two kids.” She tossed back the last bit of her wine.
“Damn,” Vera said. “You need some Calgon.”
Jaise chuckled. “Calgon? I’m about to sue their asses. I have dumped box after box and nothing. Absolutely nothing. And when I soak in that shit, not only do I get up smelling like the perfume aisle at Walgreens, I’m still in my hundred-year-old brownstone, soaking in an antique tub, dealing with the same ole shit. Damn, I need a cigarette,” Jaise said, exhausted.
“Me too,” Vera said. “I need one for you. And I don’t even smoke.”
“See, I told you. Stressed, honey.”
“But you can deal with that. Park the Range Rover and buy a new one. Fire the maid. Let Uncle be Auntie if he wants to. Your sister, her children, and Mr. Right, that’s on her, not your business. Your husband, try and work it out, and your son and the second baby, this may sound harsh, but that’s for your son to deal with. He has to be a man and you have to let him be a man. Nineteen-year-olds are employable and child support can come out of their checks. Oh, and Calgon, yeah, sue their asses.”
“I wish it was that simple,” Jaise said.
“Do you think it’s that hard, or do you think we make shit harder than it has to be?”
“Good question.”
“Sometimes,” Vera confessed, “I do things that I know should be simple, but it feels so damn complicated.”
Jaise said, taken aback, “So this shit is not exclusive to me?”
“No, girl, they are not designer problems.”
“Thank ya, Jesus.” Jaise waved her hands. “So what’s on your back?”
“Chile,” Vera sipped her wine. “My husband thinks I work too much and he wants me to play soccer mom. And I’m not interested in that shit. I love my husband but he married the wrong woman if he was looking for Justine Simmons or June Cleaver. Shit.”
“Why don’t you tell him that?”
“I did. But the way I did it was fucked up.” Vera shook her head.
“What did you do?”
“We had a screaming match on camera.”
“Girl, don’t you know the worst shit always happens on camera? Chile, please, try your son getting arrested twice. And right after you swore this season they would see you doing nothing more than cooking and humming a few tunes. I planned on coming so correct this season that I had an entire episode I wanted to do that showed me joining the church.”
“The church?”
“Church. Every other word out of my mouth was supposed to be Jesus—not fuck this and fuck that.”
Vera laughed so hard that tears fell from her eyes. “That is funny as hell.”
“No, that’s a mess. Vera,” Jaise said with glassy eyes. “I’m a wreck.”
Vera hesitated. “Why are you crying? What’s going on?”
Jaise paused.
“Just say it,” Vera encouraged. “It’s cool. I’m a good listener.”
Jaise hesitated. “How do I”—she paused—“tell my son that I’m tired of being his mother?”
Silence. Complete and utter silence.
Jaise took her napkin from her lap, held her head down and cried into it. “That makes me feel sooo fucked-up.” Her voice ached.
Vera scooted as close as she could to Jaise. Jaise seemed stressed but she had no idea how broken she really was. She rubbed her back as Jaise continued. “I’ve been his mother since I was seventeen. Seventeen. Eleventh grade. And I just want out. I look at my son and I feel so guilty. Thank God he has a trust fund, because he would die on his own with no money. He can’t keep a job. It’s one trifling, ratty-ass girl after another. He wants to rap and do a buncha dumb shit. He’s getting locked up every damn time I turn around, and it just makes me … so … sick. I try to retrace my steps to pinpoint where I fucked up. Because if my child is fucked-up, then that has to mean I fucked him up.”
“Jaise, I’m sure you did your best.”
“No, I didn’t, and I know I didn’t. I could’ve done better. I should’ve done better.”
“We can only work with what we have. With what we know.”
“I just wish I could pinpoint that moment … that moment when things took a turn. Was he eight, nine, ten? When did this happen? If I knew then maybe I could redo some things in his life. In my life.”
“Everybody makes mistakes.”
“Yeah, but when you fuck up your kid, you don’t get to do that over again. And now I just want to throw in the towel and walk away … but I can’t.”
“He’s nineteen, Jaise. It’s okay to let go.”
“But I can’t let go, because if I turn my child loose and he’s not ready for the world then what does that say about me? I have to save him.”
“You can’t keep saving him. You have to let him be a man.”
“Vera,” Jaise wiped her face. “Jabril wouldn’t know how to be a man if I paid him to act like one.”
“Where’s his father?”
“I hope he’s dead and in hell. But if he didn’t get there yet I’m sure he’s at home with his white wife making cream kids.”
Ver
a laughed and she and Jaise wiped tears from their eyes. “Thank you.” Jaise mustered a smile. “Thank you.”
Vera smiled, continuing to wipe her eyes. “I’m here, Jaise.”
“Okay.” Jaise sniffed. “Enough of true confessions. We’re Millionaire Wives.”
“And what does that mean?”
“It means we can’t be sitting here crying.”
“Why not?” Vera asked.
“Because it’ll wreak havoc on our makeup.”
Chaunci
Chaunci wore a sexy black dress that stopped midway down her thighs and complimented her healthy cleavage. After the day she’d had she needed a drink, a nice conversation, and a relaxing night—so Henri’s was the right place to be. It was a ritzy supper club in the heart of Harlem that played live instrumental jazz and served the world’s best Chateau Briand with a special clam and garlic sauce. People came from all over the world to enjoy the romantic atmosphere, where the ceiling shimmered like a star-filled night. The tables were individual booths that could be enclosed by red velvet drapes for privacy, and the service was impeccable.
The hostess greeted Chaunci. “Good evening.”
“Good evening.” Chaunci smiled. “I have reservations for eight thirty. Party of two.”
“Right this way, ma’am.”
As Chaunci took her seat the hostess said, “Your server will be here momentarily. Would you like to start off with something to drink?”
“No, thank you. I’ll wait.”
“Very well.” The hostess nodded and smiled, as she turned away.
Chaunci sat at the table, fighting off every thought that told her to cancel this date, go home, and suck down a gallon of ice cream. Don’t be pathetic.
“So, Chaunci,” Bridget said. “Tell the camera what you’re thinking right now.”
“That this has been the day from hell.” Chaunci looked into the camera and parted her lips into a fake smile. “And that I can’t believe I let Milan hook me up with this blind, excuse me,” She looked at her watch. “With this late-ass, blind date.”
Ring … Ring …
She looked at her cellphone. “This better be him. Hello?”
Money Never Sleeps Page 15
