“What’s wrong?” Sheila asked.
“Nothing,” I said, as I started combing her hair. “You have a little breakage.”
“Yeah, I noticed my hair was breaking off.”
“That’s all right. I’ll have to give you a little trim,” I said, as I tried to reassure her.
I cut her hair in a fly, feathered, layered style. Her hair was sharp when I got finished. I had avoided a major bomb. After that, the receptionist told me I had a call.
“Hello, this is Gina,” I said, as I picked up the phone.
“Hey, Gina. This is Tiffany. Can I come in today?”
“What you getting done?”
“I want to get a ponytail weave.”
“I’m kind of busy right now. Can you come around three?”
“Yeah. What kind of hair should I buy?” she asked.
“How do you want it?”
“Just straight back.”
“Okay, I’m about to go to pick up my lunch. I’ll pick some hair up on my way.” I hung up the phone, and Stacy yelled across the shop, “Gina, we are out of black rinse and we need more deep conditioner.”
“I’m about to go get my lunch. I’ll pick it up,” I said. I don’t like buying supplies with my money because the owner acts like he can’t reimburse me for the money I spend. He wants me to write it down and attach a receipt. Most times, I throw the receipt in the trash. But he is going to give me back my money today. I had one client under the dryer, and the other on her way. I had just enough time to run to the store.
Every time I go to the beauty supply store, it always amazes me that Black hair care products are being sold by Koreans. There were rows and rows of different textured and colored weave hair and wigs and creams to make your skin glow and make it lighter. Cocoa butter, press-on nails, callus cutters, and a vast assortment of nail polish and lip gloss. My phone started playing “My Boo” by Usher & Alicia Keys. I know it’s corny, but that’s my man’s song. I took the call.
“Hey, baby. I called you,” I said into the phone.
“I know. I’m sorry. I was in a meeting with the program director.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing. She is just getting on my damn nerves. I keep spinning the same shit over and over again.”
“That comes with the job. You coming through this weekend?” I asked.
“I’m going to try. I miss you, girl.”
“I miss you too. You better come. It’s been two weeks and I need a major workout.”
“I got you. You know I miss your ass more than you miss me,” he said.
“Yeah, all right,” I said.
“I have been burning the candle at both ends. It’s about to pay off, though. I got to go. I might be getting my own set on Saturday nights. That’s major.”
“Congratulations, baby,” I said, uninterested.
“Why you sound like that?” he asked.
“No reason.”
“I know you, Gina.”
“I want to see you. I’m ready to come down today,” I whined.
“You know you can’t do that. We will spend all next weekend together, all right?”
“Okay,” I said, ending the call. I can’t wait to see my baby. I miss him in the worst way. I need to get a rubdown and tuned up. Bianca’s got wild beast in her bed while I’m sitting here waiting for mines to come to town. Sometimes life is not fair.
I went back to the shop. The bootleg man came in with a duffel bag full of CDs and DVDs. I bought a few CDs. Then the costume jewelry girl came through. After that, my girl Reeva showed up with all these Juicy Couture jeans, in my size, size 6. She always came to my station first. She knew I would hook her up. I don’t know how she got the real stuff. I didn’t ask.
As I finished up with Tiffany, my last head for the day, she told me she overheard Nyree talking shit about me, saying she was about to quit. That was the final straw. I thought about all the drama that Nyree had caused today and decided I had to fire her ass. I couldn’t wait to dig in Nyree’s ass. Unfortunately, she had already left for the day. Okay, no problem, I thought. I’m going to call her cell phone. After Tiffany left, I dialed Nyree’s number. Right after the first ring, I got her answering machine.
“You’ve reached the N-Y-R-E-E. It’s Nyree. If your number is blocked, I will not answer the call. Leave a message and I’ll holla.”
Little stupid bitch, I’ll show you.
“Yeah, Nyree, this is Gina. I heard you are about to quit on me. Don’t bother coming back. There have been a lot of complaints against you. You have just not been on your job. So I got to let you go. And you can come and get your couple of dollars.” I ended the call. Now I got to find me a new shampoo girl, I thought.
* * *
I came home tired from the day’s events. All I wanted to do was get in the shower. When I entered the apartment all of the lights were off. I walked to my bedroom, undressed, and put on my robe. As I walked into the bathroom, I walked in on a naked guy, peeing. Khalil.
“My bad,” I shouted, backing out of the bathroom.
Bianca came running out of her bedroom. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?” I snapped back. “Let a bitch know when you got company so I won’t walk around in my robe,” I said.
“Yeah, you bad,” Khalil said, as he walked his bowlegged butt back into Bianca’s room. I went into the bathroom. Though embarrassed, I did get a good look at Khalil’s ass. It was tight. His legs were well developed and he had a huge, thick, cucumber-size dick. Bianca was not exaggerating at all. All I can say is, damn, she got that? I wish I did. I need a piece of that. I should have stepped to him. He could have been my “in the meantime” piece.
* * *
The next morning, I realized I only had a month to do my holiday shopping. My family didn’t really celebrate Christmas. My mom and dad stopped celebrating when we were teenagers. No tree, just a gift, and sometimes it was wrapped, sometimes it wasn’t. My mom and dad started celebrating Kwanzaa instead, but I still bought everybody gifts.
I wanted to go shopping in New York. A lot of people think New York is all high-priced fashion. But if you know where to go, you can get really good deals.
Bianca wanted to go shopping with me, so we decided to start at the strip where they sell knockoff bags. I’ve never bought a fake bag. I work in a salon and people be checking out everything, down to the zipper. But I do want to see what they look like. I remember one time Janea walked in with a fake bag, and they clowned her for a week! She had bought it for three hundred dollars.
Bianca, however, has been down with the knockoff game. Instead of completely faking, she mixes the right amount of fake with authentic. People think she has money, but really she is broke. But I make enough. I make about one thousand dollars a week, so I can afford to buy any bag I like.
We took the train from Philadelphia into New York and got a cab to Canal Street, knockoff heaven. There was every kind of “fake” bag and name brand you could imagine. The sidewalk was crowded and the wind was whipping. It felt like it was ten degrees colder than at home.
“We should take some of these home and sell them,” Bianca said, as she held up a replica of a blue Coach embroidered bag. The bag looked real and it was only twenty-five dollars. I negotiated with the vendor and got three bags for sixty bucks. I was going to take them back to the shop and sell them.
“Look at these earrings. This is where Reeva be getting all her shit! I gave her twenty dollars for this set, and look, this shit only cost three dollars!”
“Everybody got to make a dollar,” I said, as I looked over the jewelry.
After shopping we had lunch a the Shark Bar, hoping we’d run into someone famous, just so we could go back and tell everybody who we saw.
“We should come up here for New Year’s Eve and watch the ball drop. Then go try to find P. Diddy at his restaurant, Justin’s,” she said, as she ate a fried shrimp off her plate.
“I thought you
got over that whole Puff Daddy crush.”
“I thought I was over it too, but I think I still love him,” Bianca said.
“You are so silly. Well, sorry, but my boo and I are going to be somewhere cozied up on New Year’s Eve, sitting back, drinking champagne, and toasting.”
“Your imaginary man. Chris, right?” she asked, like she didn’t know him.
“What? My man is real.”
“I don’t know how you deal with that shit. I need to see my man.”
“I get to see him enough,” I said self-consciously.
“Well, if it works for you, fine. I just know I couldn’t go for that.”
We caught a cab to Penn Station and boarded our train. I put my bags underneath the seat, and settled back for the ride.
“When I get back I don’t know who I’m going to get with,” Bianca said.
“I’m going to get with some sleep,” I said, hoping Bianca would realize I’m not in the mood to talk.
Minutes later her cell phone rang. She tapped me on my shoulder. Smiling, she whispered, “It’s Khalil, the anaconda.” She answered the call, saying, “Me and my girl Gina are coming back from shopping in New York. Yeah, I got you something. Uhmm hmm, yeah, maybe,” she said softly. “I’ll see if she wants to go out with us. All right, I’ll call you when I get to town.” She disconnected her phone and asked, “You want to go out with us?”
“No. I’m going to chill,” I said. I turned back around and stared out the window as trees passed by. As Bianca got back on the phone making her hookups, I wondered what I was going to be doing. Nothing. I think Bianca could be right. I don’t have anything to do but go home and go to sleep. I’m ready to give up on Chris. He is too far away. I need to have someone right now in my life. I always dream that we will get the opportunity to be together, on an everyday basis. People who have that don’t appreciate it. It’s one of the simple things. I get phone calls and flowers, but I would love to hug my boo and be inhis arms anytime I want. I just want to wake up and see him beside me.
CHAPTER 3
Cold winter mornings remind me of growing up and getting ready to go to school. My mother loved a chilly house. She was good for telling me, if I was cold, to put on a sweater. Now I am grown. I turned my heat all the way up to 90 degrees if I wanted to. The weather makes me reminisce about when Chris and I first met last year. Back then, he had a lot more time for me. Now he has to schedule me in. Men always do whatever they need to do to get you. But once they’ve got you, forget about it. This kind of weather is for snuggling under warm covers, watching football on Sundays, black leather jackets, cute shoes, and hot cocoa.
I am going to visit Chris in D.C. I can’t wait to see my baby. I’m going to tear him up. I usually go down on Saturdays after work and come back Monday evening. I left Bianca a note on the refrigerator telling her to clean up the apartment, and to smoke her cigarettes outside. I’m starting to see burn marks on my sofa. She didn’t buy my furniture so she is not going to fuck it up.
Most times when I go to visit Chris, we drive to Georgetown for dinner and drinks. Our favorite restaurant is the Seafood Grill on M Street. There are pros and cons to having a favorite spot. The cons are, you always have the same meal and drink. The pros are that you know what to order and you get to know the staff. Chris promised me he would change our routine. So this time, he was cooking dinner for me. Because we only see each other a couple of times a month, I always make it my business to look good. As I pulled up to his apartment I looked in the vanity mirror and lined my lips with my nude gloss. Once I looked perfect I called his phone.
“Boo, I’m downstairs.”
“I’ll be right down,” he said.
In less than a minute he was at my car door to take my bag from me. As I set the alarm on my car, I admired his loose-fitting jeans, slippers, and black T-shirt. His hair was cut low with light waves. Damn, my boo looks so good! We embraced and kissed, and then walked to his apartment. It was so cozy. His fiber sectional was hunter green with green-and-white-striped pillows. His bench press and weights were in one corner. In the other corner, he had a makeshift office. Yellow Post-it stickers were on the wall above the desk. He had CD cases and magazines on his coffee table. I heard a slow beat, with a drum, guitar, and light scratching coming from his room as we sat down on the sofa.
“What’s that playing?” I asked.
Chris got real excited and said, “That’s hot, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it sounds good,” I replied, thinking he wasn’t this excited when he met me at my car.
“It’s a group from Dayton called Rizeup. I want to break this song on the radio. I was just arguing with my program director about it. She doesn’t want to play it.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not commercial enough. It’s too slow. She wants to keep playing the same songs, over and over, like everybody else.”
“Well, y’all will figure it out. Where is my dinner you promised me?” I asked, changing the subject.
“In the kitchen,” he said, as he walked me toward the kitchen. He squeezed and hugged me from behind, and kissed me again.
I lifted the lid off the pot to see what smelled so good. “You going to give me the recipe?” I asked, after sampling a little with a spoon. He shrugged his shoulders, playfully acting like he didn’t know the recipe.
“You don’t want to tell me? I’ll remember that later,” I joked.
“My mom would kill me if I gave out her secret.”
Dinner was delicious. My boo knew how to cook. We ate by candlelight at his iron and cherrywood dinette. He poured me a glass of white wine.
“Here, I picked these up for you.” He handed me a gold Godiva chocolate bag. I loved Godiva chocolate, but would never spend my own money to buy it.
I gave him a hug.
“You deserve it, baby. I’m mad because I don’t get to spend as much time with you as I would like.” He poured me another glass of white wine, then began to massage my feet. He rubbed the arch of my foot with his thumbs, and let his knuckles soothe the rest.
“Boo, I left my other bag in the car. Can you go get it?” I asked, taking the last sip of my drink.
“Where are your keys?” he asked, as he put on his slippers. I pointed to the coffee table. He picked up the keys and left. I wanted to change my clothes while he was gone. I was going to look sexy by the time he got back. I went into the bathroom, changed, and made sure my stuff was still in place. I had to make sure no other chicks had been coming over. My deodorant was still next to my douche, tampons, and pads. I left them there just for show.
When he returned, I was lying across his bed, dressed in a white lace negligee I had just bought at Frederick’s of Hollywood. It had a cutout for my breasts and a slit in the bottom for him to enter without taking anything off. I was posed with the bottle of wine between my legs.
“You ready for me?” I asked.
He pounced on me, took the bottle, and placed it on the floor. He gently kissed me, then teased my nipples with his tongue until they perked up. Then he kissed and nibbled his way down my body. When he began kissing my pussy, greedily, I put my arms behind my head, grabbing my hair. I could barely take the pleasure he was producing between my legs, and I began grinding my hips closer to his face. He parted me with his hands, and slid his tongue through several times. It felt so good. The one thing that was good about not seeing my man regularly was that it was always so good. I was so turned on, I wanted to be his whore, his nasty girl.
We switched positions so I could take my turn to service him. He held my hair as I took all he had in my mouth. I licked up and down. Then I slurped side to side in a swirling motion. I looked up to see that his eyes were closed tightly and he was breathing heavily. I sucked harder and Chris’s body tensed up like he was doing sit-ups. He almost let out a burst, but he held it back. I released him from my mouth and rolled over onto my stomach. I put a pillow underneath me. My ass was in the air as he gently pressed
his muscular body into mine. I bounced back on him, our bodies swaying into each other. I flinched and shook as he smothered me with his dick. He started forcing his body farther into mine, banging again and again until I lost my balance and fell flat on the bed. I was too tired to get up, but it didn’t matter. He pulled me in tighter to him, and pushed into me faster until I screamed out in ecstasy. Then he jerked and released himself into me. Anytime I think about leaving this man, times like this remind me why I should stay.
* * *
My weekend was perfect. I drove home thinking about Chris. He was everything a woman could want in a man. I just wished he lived a little closer. As soon as I walked in the apartment, all my happy feelings fizzled away.
I saw a strange woman sitting on my sofa, smoking a cigarette. Some niggah was lying on her. They were watching television, and when I came through the door they both looked at me like “Who the fuck are you?” I placed my keys on the coffee table and my bag on the floor.
“What’s up, Gina? You have fun this weekend?” Bianca asked as she came out of her bedroom.
“I told you to have this place clean when I got back,” I said, as I looked around my messy house.
“Yo, come on now. Get it together. I pay rent here too! Don’t be walking in here all crazy.”
“But it’s not your place. It’s mine.” Bianca’s female friend looked at me, then turned to Bianca and began to laugh.
“What? Hold up. Bianca, let me talk to you for a minute,” I said.
But she wanted to act like she was tough. I pulled her into the kitchen and tried to reason with her. She kept trying to be hyped, getting all loud. Then she walked away. I stood there looking around the room. I got a niggah on my sofa, and some bitch smoking cigarettes. Bianca must have thought I was sweet.
I was walking toward my room when I heard Bianca’s friend say, “That bitch came in here on some ‘I’m your mom’ shit.”
“What did you say?” I asked, as I headed for the living room.
My Boo Page 2
