“Do you have to say it like that?”
“Trisha, do you want me to lie to you, or do you want me be real with you?”
“I want you to be real with me, but God. I like her, okay?” Trisha felt like crying.
“I know. I’m sorry. I need you on Sunday. Can you come over and sit with the kids for a few hours?”
“Yeah, I said I would. You have to work, or are you going to sleep for a bit?”
“I have a date with an old guy I met on Facebook.”
“Right.”
“Alexis can come with you if she wants. She can hang out at the house.”
“Okay.” That actually made Trisha feel better. Alexis’s family might not accept her, but at least her mom was already open to having Alexis around. She agreed to be at her mom’s house around ten in the morning. Hopefully, Alexis could come. Who knew what family stuff she had to do on Sunday morning?
Chapter Six
She hadn’t seen Trisha in almost a day, but Alexis still felt hot. It was like Trisha had plugged in an electrode under her skin the moment they'd met, and ever since, she’d been increasing the current, upping the voltage more and more to the point where now, even though she was nowhere around, just the thought of Trisha made Alexis’s whole body tingle and vibrate.
She just wished she had more time to enjoy these feelings. Her mom came home shortly after Trisha went to work. Then it was dinner with her parents, then a movie on TV with her mom’s running commentary. She retreated to her room when the pressure became too much. She didn’t like to think about Trisha in front of her parents. Trisha was this raw spot, new healthy skin that she needed to protect, but every time she thought of Trisha, she could feel herself reacting. Her skin started heating or a smile popped up out of nowhere, and she’d start to fidget. Then her mother would ask questions while her dad stared at her, just daring her to say something he thought was a little off so he could go on hating her. So she hid in her room for the rest of the night, too afraid to touch herself because she knew her mom would check on her. But she thought of Trisha as she watched TV on her laptop. She thought about Trisha until she fell asleep.
In the morning, the good night text Trisha had promised was there. Alexis was sad she’d missed it, but she texted back, praying Trisha would answer before she had to get on with her day. She didn’t get a reply before she and her mom left to pick up Sasha.
Today it was furniture shopping and lunch. Her dad was golfing with his powerful black men clique, so it was time for the Chambers ladies to make a day of it. Usually, Alexis was okay with these outings. She wanted to see her sister, and her mom seemed more at ease with her when Sasha was around, but things were different now. There was Trisha now. She needed more time to process the newness of wanting to feel, but family called.
She walked beside her sister as she and her mom gabbed about married life. Alexis turned everything they said into a scenario about Trisha.
“Michael’s mom told me...” I wonder what Trisha’s mom is like.
“I tried that recipe...” I haven’t even asked her about her favorite food.
“He’s threatening to get a dog...” Does Trisha like animals? I bet she’s a dog person, too. Then Alexis imagined her being tackled by a bounding gang of puppies, little black labs making Trisha giggle and smile that smile that made Alexis’s knees wobbly.
And then she thought of her naked. She thought of them touching in her closet, and she had to slow down. Her head was starting to spin.
Alexis had had a vision of what sex was in her mind. It was something you do. Something you’re supposed to do if you’re normal. Something to check off to achieve a certain level of coolness and respectability and adulthood. She’d always thought sex was something she would suffer through, battling her embarrassment in herself and her body until the deed was done. But when it went down with Trisha? It was nothing like the task she’d dreamt it to be. It was...
Alexis looked up ’cause her mom was looking at her with this odd smile on her face. She was trying to comfort Alexis. She knew Alexis still struggled with anxiety, but for some reason the look annoyed her. She wanted to tell her mother she was fine. She had someone now.
Sasha broke up the tension. “I should have done this before I moved in.”
“Oh, that wouldn’t have worked. You don’t know the horrors of a man’s place until you actually live with him.”
“Mommy, he had the place cleaned while we were away, but I’m still finding gross, weird stuff in bizarre places.”
“That won’t stop, but at least you can find gross, weird stuff under a new couch. How about this one?”
Sasha plopped down on one of the floor models of a sectional sofa.
“Lex, sit with me.”
Alexis looked up from the floor when her sister patted the cushion of the couch they were checking out. Alexis sat down and ran her hand over the textured fabric.
“Does this place do same day delivery?” Sasha asked their mom.
“That’s a good question,” she replied as she looked around. “Does anyone even work here? You two keep looking. I’m going to find someone.” Their mom turned and marched further into the mega store.
“It’s nice,” Alexis said.
“Eh. Not sure about the color. We need something darker. How are things going with you?” Sasha asked.
“Good.”
“School’s going well?”
“Yeah. It’s actually been kind of easy. I feel like I can focus now.”
“Good.” Sasha reached over and squeezed her hand. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Alexis knew what Sasha meant, she felt it. Alexis had wanted all the noise in her life to go silent. She didn’t want to put up with the horrible things that some times still banged around in her head. She had never really given a lot of thought to how her parents would have felt if she'd succeeded in what she'd tried to do the previous year, but she knew her sister would have missed her a lot. Still, Alexis changed the subject. “I have a girlfriend.”
“What!” Sasha sprang forward on the cushion. “Since when?”
“Yesterday.”
“Lex. Oh, my God Lex. This is huge. Tell me all about her.”
Alexis didn’t know if she should, but she trusted her sister not to say anything or make it weird. “Her name is Trisha, and she’s in my computer class. The new friend I mentioned before. We started dating.”
“And you said you weren’t sure she liked you! This is so cute. Lex has a girlfriend. Tell me more.”
“She has her own place.”
“Nice, nice.”
Alexis blurted the next part out, tore the Band-Aid right off. “And she’s a stripper. One of the strippers from your bachelorette party, to be exact.”
“Uh...”
Alexis sank into the couch and started fiddling with the leather cuff she had on. “Please don’t freak out.”
“I’m not freaking out. Okay. Okay. So she’s a stripper, but she’s in school. Plenty of strippers pay their way through school.”
“I mean, even if she wasn’t in school I would still like her.” They would have never seen each other again, but that was just a minor detail.
“Right, of course. Which one was she? I was kinda drunk that night.”
“The one who asked you my name.”
Sasha leaned back and squinted at the industrial ceiling of store. “I think I remember. She was cute.”
“Yeah, she is.”
“You’re blushing. And smiling! You really like her. Aww, Lex.”
“Yeah. I like her. I want you to meet her, like during the day and stuff, but I don’t think it’s time to do the meet-the-family thing yet. We haven’t really talked about it, and I don’t know how much she’d want Mom or Dad to know about the stripper thing.”
“Are you cool with it?”
“Yeah. It just sucks that she has to work at night. Tonight I’m gonna hang out with some girls from school, but I wish Trisha could come with us.�
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“Yeah, that’s tough. Eek, Lex! I’m glad you have a girlfriend, and I’m glad you like her, and I’m glad you’re smiling. And you’re being social. I told you things would be okay.”
“Thanks, Sash. You know what I am worried about? Dad. I don’t think he’ll take it too well.”
Sasha leaned closer and lowered her voice. “He doesn’t have to know, you know. You think I tell Dad everything? You think Mom tells Dad everything? He might trip over you having a girlfriend, but that’s his problem. Everything else though? Eh. You’re eighteen now. Yeah, you’re still under Dad’s roof, but he can’t make that decision for you anymore.”
Alexis hadn’t thought of that. She was afraid of her father in a lot of ways. Afraid to upset him, afraid to disappoint him even more. He would not approve of her dating Trisha, she knew it.
“Remember Todd Grayson?” Sasha asked.
“Yeah?”
“That’s who Dad wanted me to marry.”
“You hated Todd.”
“I know, and we never even dated, but the good doctor thought Todd would be an excellent provider. As if Michael is living in a box or something.”
“We are buying him new furniture.”
“Shut up. Michael’s buying me furniture so I can stand to live with him forever. You know he has a nice place, but the furniture? No.”
“So, you think it’s okay?”
“Yeah. It’s very okay. What do you think of this one?” Sasha rocked back and forth a few times on the cushion. Alexis kneaded the empty spot next to her.
“It’s a little too firm. It feels like a waiting room couch, not a watching-movies-and-cuddling-with-your-husband couch.”
“You’re right. On to the next one.” Sasha stood and tugged Alexis off the sofa. “And you can tell me more about your girl before Mom comes back.”
*
That night Alexis had dinner with her mom and her sister, then Sasha helped her get ready for her night out with Kami and her friends. She wanted to wear something loose; baggy jeans and some sneakers, a white tee, but Sasha braided her hair and did her makeup. She grabbed a neon green sweatband that matched the bits of color on her sneakers then drove over to campus, but not before her mom and her sister made a big fuss about her going out for the first time with her college friends. They didn’t know how much time she’d been spending out with Trisha, so she left that alone. She also didn’t argue when her mom asked her to call or be home by two. A curfew seemed unfair, but she doubted she’d want to stay out with Kami and her friends all night long anyway.
Alexis had been with them for twenty minutes, and already she wasn’t sure she’d make it to ten o’clock, let alone two a.m. She met Kami, her roommate, and two girls from the track team over at the freshman dorms. The roommate—this tiny, mousy black girl from Colorado named Pauline—was cool. They were actually in the same bio lecture, though they hadn’t spoken to each other. Kami had texted Alexis, saying Pauline was tagging along because she was having a hard time making friends. Alexis understood. The other two girls, Terry and Christina, were chill. They were both black and in great shape, taller than Kami, but not as tall as Alexis. They just wanted to talk about track and all the friends they’d already made. Alexis sat on the bed with Pauline, watching them go back and forth for that whole twenty minutes.
Finally, Kami remembered she was there. “What should we do tonight?” she asked, looking Alexis’s way like she had a suggestion. Alexis thought they had plans. She thought she was tagging along.
“Let’s go to the Kappa party. Will and James invited the whole team,” Terry said.
“They mentioned the party at practice, but they didn’t invite the whole team,” Kami replied.
But Christina was on Terry’s side for this one. “We should go.”
And so was Pauline. “Yeah, let’s go to the party.”
Then Kami looked at Alexis like she was the deciding vote, like they weren’t already outnumbered. Alexis gave a noncommittal shrug, even though she didn’t want to go. “We can check it out.”
That was enough to get them amped and out the door. They walked across campus to the Greek housing. The whole street seemed to be holding some sort of party behind closed doors, but as Christina explained as they walked up the steps to the Kappa house, it was illegal to have alcohol out on the street, so everyone kept their parties pretty contained. They made it two steps into the house before two older girls on the track team swept through the crowd. One of them glared at Terry and Kami.
Alexis stood there eyeing their little standoff. She couldn’t really hear what the older girls were saying over the music, but she caught a few words about making Kami, Christina, and Terry fetch drinks. The rest was clear from their body language. They weren’t welcome at this party. She almost felt bad for Kami. Almost. This kind of hazing was stupid and childish, but she had a feeling Kami and the other girls had known this would happen, but they’d wanted to try the party anyway. Alexis made up her mind then. She was going to leave. She didn’t care what Kami and her track buddies were going to do, but hanging around while they begged and bargained just seemed stupid.
Alexis tapped her on the shoulder. “Kam—”
“No, it’s fine, Lex. We’ll go.”
That wasn’t what Alexis had been getting at, but okay. Kami turned first, and Alexis followed her out of the house.
Back out on the street, Terry looked like she was about to cry. “That was embarrassing.”
“That was bullshit,” Kami said.
Pauline asked the next logical question. “What do we do now?”
Alexis knew exactly what she wanted to do—she wanted to see Trisha—but she wasn’t exactly sure she should invite them along. She had the open invite to come by the club, but her thoughts on Kami and her friends hadn’t really changed. Trisha was too cool for them. And Treasure would blow their minds. But before she could think about it any further, Alexis opened her mouth.
“How do you guys feel about strip clubs?”
*
The Luxor Lounge was packed, which made sense, since it was a Saturday night. Luckily, since the club didn’t serve alcohol, they were all of legal age to get in. Alexis’s heart was in her throat as she handed the bouncer her ID. Please don’t get mad. Please don’t get mad.
The bouncer waved them through, and Alexis exhaled as the wave of music and the smells of sweat and cologne hit her in the face. Kami and her friends were chattering behind her, but Alexis had one thing she had to do before she could get into the festivities with them. She had to find Trisha. She had to let her know she was there.
Like last time, two girls greeted them before they got halfway across the floor.
“Can we get you something to drink?” the shorter one asked. She was a tiny white girl Alexis remembered seeing on the pole. The other girl had helped pulled Trisha away for their trip to the private room. She’d know where Trisha was.
Alexis ignored the drink invitation and leaned down to talk into the girl’s ear. “I’m looking for Trisha. I mean, Treasure.”
The girl’s eyebrow went up. “She just got off the pole. Is she expecting you?”
Maybe people didn’t ask for her by her real name very often. Alexis gulped. Please don’t let her be mad.
“No, but if you can tell her that Alexis is here. Please?”
“Oh! Oh, you’re Alexis? Right, the new boo! Sure, she’s probably changing, but let me go tell her.”
“Thanks.”
“Angel will grab you guys some sodas.”
The white girl, Angel, smiled and waved for them to follow her. There were no seats near the stage, but there was a table open in a little alcove along the back wall.
“Who are we waiting for?” Terry asked.
Alexis knew how ridiculous she was about to sound, but she told the truth. “My girlfriend.” She ignored their stares and watched the direction the other girl had just disappeared to.
A few seconds later, Trisha’s friend came
back almost skipping across the floor in her platform heels.
“Did she seem mad?” Alexis asked. Please don’t be mad.
Mystic, that was her name, shook her head, waving Alexis’s fear off. “No. She’ll be right out.” She slid into the booth and cozied up beside Christina. “So, what brings you ladies out tonight?”
Alexis stared down the door to the back room and let Christina explain her version of how they’d ended up on the other side of town. Nothing cooler than getting kicked out of a party.
Finally, Trisha appeared from a door near the restrooms. She looked a little pissed at first and kind of confused, but as soon as she saw Alexis, Trisha smiled. Alexis smiled back. Trisha made her way across the club, pausing to politely blow off a guy who caught her hand when she tried to slip by his chair.
She looks so good, Alexis thought to herself as Trisha got closer and closer. She was back in her tall heels, wearing scraps of silver and black that just barely covered her more important bits.
Alexis didn’t really think, she just stood, and Trisha walked right into her arms. The kiss they shared was an automatic thing, too. Trisha had on this thick lip gloss, but Alexis didn’t care. She was kissing her girlfriend.
Trisha pulled away and wiped Alexis’s bottom lip with her thumb. “Sorry. Got that shit all over you. What are you doing here?”
“Plans didn’t really work out. Is this cool?”
“Yeah, of course. I’ll hang with you for a little, but then I’ll have to work the room for a while.”
Trisha asked Mystic to go check on the guy who’d tried to stop her then slid into the booth and snuggled close up to Alexis. Under the table, Alexis took her hand. Alexis introduced her around the table, doing her best not to laugh at the look on Kami’s face. This wasn’t the Trisha she’d met before.
Treasure Page 7
