by Tia Williams
“Right, you came here to get publicly shat on by your shorty.”
“Awww, fuck you,” chuckled Git.
“Look, I’m out.” He missed Billie. “You leavin’?”
“Naw, I’ma chill for a minute. I’ll holla at you later, man. Keep it gutter.”
“All right, playa. Hold your head.”
Jay headed back across the floor, thinking about Git’s situation. Vida really did have a point, but goddamn if she wasn’t out of line. It was so humiliating. Billie would never drag personal business out in the open like that. She had class. She was…
“Tammy!” Suddenly, she was standing right in front of him. Where had she come from?
* * *
• • •
They stood awkwardly in front of each other, not knowing whether to hug, or shake hands, or what.
“Hi.” Her voice was controlled. She looked gorgeous. Her fiery, dyed-red pixie-cut hair was extra flippy, and she wore a short, emerald-green slipdress that clung to her petite figure.
“What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m…uh…here with my editor.”
“Hmm. She must be fancy.”
“Yeah, well…” He trailed off. “What about you? Is Pete here?”
“No, we broke up. I’m here with Mariah Carey.” She tried to sound nonchalant.
“Word? I guess I didn’t see you behind all her hair.”
“Yeah, I’m working with her on her new video. She just asked me to go on tour with her.”
“That’s hot, Tammy. I’m proud of you.”
“Yeah. Let’s cut the bullshit.”
“What, already? What. Why did it take you three weeks to return my calls?”
“You really don’t know?”
“I have no fuckin’ idea.”
“I can’t believe you, Jay.”
“What did I do?” He was pleading with her.
“You treated me like you didn’t even know me. Like I’m not your family. You got all vague and secretive with me about this girl, and then insulted me by telling me to go get my own piece of ass. I don’t deserve that. First of all, when have you ever not been able to talk to me about a girl? About anything? It hurts to think that you can’t tell me that.” She couldn’t believe the lies she was telling.
“Look, Tammy, I’m sorry. You know you’re my family.”
“I know you better than anyone else, Jay.”
“I know this.”
“Why won’t you talk about her? Is she here? I want to meet her.”
“I…uh…no.”
“Why are you stuttering?”
“She ain’t here.”
“Are you ashamed of me?”
“Jesus.”
“Does she know that you like to fuck your ex-hooker best friend when you can’t sleep?”
Jay felt like he’d been punched in the stomach.
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” Tammy walked away, leaving him standing alone.
* * *
• • •
Jay found the girls as the old school classic “The Glamorous Life” banged through the club. He wanted to go.
“I was feeling abandoned,” Billie said, smiling up at him. “What were you guys doing?”
“Deconstructing the power struggle between the sexes.”
“He hates me,” Vida anounced to no one in particular, suddenly worried that Git really was mad at her. He hadn’t returned with Jay.
“Naw, he’s chillin’. Just give him a minute.”
“I think I really got in his craw,” Moses said sadly. Renee, who was happily drunk, gently patted his arm. She was in a good mood. A full night of oral sex awaited her.
“Naw, you’re good,” Jay said, dismissing him. “Yo, I’m tired. What time is it?”
“It’s almost two,” said Billie. Her feet were killing her. “I’m tired, too, actually. Are you ready?”
He was so relieved she didn’t want to stay. The couple said their goodbyes, assured Vida that this was the best party ever thrown, and made their exit. Jay held his breath, hoping they wouldn’t run into Tammy on their way out. They didn’t.
He felt sick anyway.
* * *
• • •
So did Git. He was still at the bar, on his fifth tequila shot, when a pretty, petite girl with fiery-hued hair elbowed her way up to the counter next to him.
“Can I get a gin and tonic, please? With lime.”
Git stared at her. She was an elfin, delicate little thing, but there was a sexy toughness about her. He stared until she shot him a look that said, “What the fuck do you want?”
“What’s that for, ma?”
“You’re staring at me, and that’s rude. You’re throwing my energy all off.”
“Your energy’s already off.”
“How do you know?”
“You seem mad sad.”
“You seem wack, Jack.”
“I’m a rapper. The rhymes come natural.”
“Hmph.” Tammy got her drink, threw the straw on the counter, and took a hearty gulp.
“What’s wrong, ma?”
She looked at Git for a long moment, and decided he had kind eyes. And she liked the soft way he called her “Ma.” What the hell? “I think my heart is broken.”
“Maybe I got the tools to fix it.”
Any positive thoughts she had about him disappeared at that moment. He’d just revealed himself to be The Jackass at the Bar. She began to walk away, and Git stopped her.
“Wait, wait, wait. I’m sorry. My game’s all fucked up tonight. The thing is, I think my heart’s broken, too.”
“Is that right.”
“Yeah. My girl, yo, she really played me tonight. I ain’t fuckin’ with her no more.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Yeah. Maybe they don’t deserve us.”
“Maybe.” Tammy sipped her drink. She wished she could believe that.
“What’s your name?
“Pandora.”
“Awww, girl, that’s your club name. What’s your real name?”
She glared daggers at him. “That is my real name.”
“Oh. That’s…uh…exotic. My name’s Git.”
“Git? Git what?”
“TaSteppin.”
Tammy spit out a mouthful of her drink all over his Knicks jersey. She was laughing so hard she couldn’t catch her breath. I’m gonna die, she thought to herself. I’m gonna die in a club with a stranger named “get to stepping.”
“I know, it’s clever, right?” Git looked pleased. Tears streaming down her face, Tammy tried to wipe off his jersey with tiny cocktail napkins. “Chill, it’s all good, I don’t care. I’m happy I made you smile.”
After she regained her composure, she looked at Git and thanked him. “I needed that.”
He smiled and nodded at her, struck by her sad eyes. Then, he did the inexplicable and kissed her hand.
“Why did you do that? You don’t know me!” She was shocked but wondered why she wasn’t more incensed. She usually got very loud and belligerent when guys took liberties with her. She supposed she was too forlorn to work up the energy.
“I want to, though. Can I…uh…can I get your number? Or can I give you mine? I just wanna call you sometime.” He paused to note her attitudinal expression. “Would you pick up the phone?”
She decided she must be drunk because this flew out of her mouth: “Fine, gimme your number. But hurry up because I’m leaving.”
He scribbled his cell number on the back of Gracie Cullen’s card, and Tammy stuffed it in her clutch.
* * *
• • •
> Traffic was a mess of limos and paparazzi and security, and there wasn’t a cab in sight. Hoping that they’d find one farther east, Billie and Jay walked down Spring Street toward Broadway. It was 2 A.M., but outside it could easily have been 2 P.M. It was a clear seventy degrees, the sidewalks were full of hipsters and Soho nightcrawlers, and the cobblestoned streets were illuminated by the strobe lights flashing outside Heaven.
For the moment, Jay felt incredibly lucky. He’d been saved from a potentially disastrous situation, and he was with the woman he loved. Walking with Billie on his arm (leaning heavily as a result of her four-inch stilettos), the night’s close call seemed far away.
“So, what did you think?” Billie asked with a hopeful smile. “You had a terrible time.”
“I had a great time.”
“You lie.”
“I was with you.” He kissed the top of her head. “I like your hair like this. Why you always wear it straight?”
“Come on, Jay. Be honest. The thing with Sam was horrible.”
“Yeah. I absolutely did not appreciate that shit.”
“That’s all you’re going to say?”
“What can I say? You work with that person. You two have a professional relationship and I have to respect that. I couldn’t say what I really wanted to say.”
“There was more than the Oz comment?”
“Was that out of line?”
Billie grinned. “No, I was glad you said it. His expression was priceless.” She walked in silence for a while. “I’m really sorry. I guess I’m just used to how offensive they can be, you know? It’s almost like I don’t even let myself hear it anymore.”
“I ain’t trippin’.” Jay shrugged it off.
“So what else did you think?”
“About what?”
“Okay, there’s something you don’t understand. After a party of that magnitude, we’re supposed to break the whole thing down. You know, dissect the entire night. That’s half of what makes it fun.”
“This is mandatory?”
“Yes.”
“Hold on, lemme think. I thought Naomi Campbell and Tyra and Jennifer Lopez were sexy as hell…. Ow!”
Billie punched his arm. “That’s not the kind of dissecting I’m talking about. What did you think of the beauty girls?”
“They were cool, I guess. They were regular white girls. There was a lot of squealing and kissing and excessive complimenting. I don’t know, it seemed kinda fake.”
“Well, duh.”
“The whole night woulda made a brilliant sociological study.”
“The fake thing is just part of the game. Like, I really did like Monica’s shoes, but I wouldn’t die for them. Everything is magnified to the nth degree. It’s how you get on the inside, you know? You can’t get ahead without speaking their language.” She paused. “You thought it was gross, huh?”
“No, I just can’t believe you do all that shit. That would wear me out.”
“What would?”
“All the acting and speaking the speak and all that. The drama. I guess I don’t get the whole game thing.”
“Oh please, Jay, everybody has to play some game to get ahead. Especially us. What black person doesn’t wear some kind of mask? Finance people do, doctors do, we all do. Mine just happens to talk like Isaac Mizrahi.”
“I hear you, but I don’t wear masks. Never have. What you see is what you get.”
“How can you say that? Look at your life, Jay. How did you get through four years at Eardale Academy? How did you get into UVA? How’d you end up at the Playhouse?”
He shrugged. “Hustlin’. Hustlin’ and hookups.”
“Same thing. Hustling is seeking out people who have something you want, and getting it by giving them what they want.”
“But I never change my personality.”
“What, so you talk the same around Git as you do around people at Crawford & Collier? No.”
“Clearly not, but that’s just being black in America, ma.”
“Exactly.” Billie paused, stuck on his earlier comment. “Hustling and hookups. You’re so funny. Did you ever notice how many of your so-called hookups were through women? Who booked your first reading? LaLa. Come on. You dropped that vocabulary, and those dimples, and your whole poetic-thug thing, and the world was yours. That’s playing the game.”
“Hold up. I do have vocabulary and dimples, and I’m from around the way. That’s me, shit. What anybody else does with that is on them. At the bottom of everything is what you do and how well you do it. If it’s hot, it speaks for itself.”
“That’s awfully naïve, sweetie. This is New York. There are a lot of very talented people walking around who can’t get a job to save their lives. You have talent, but you’re also a hustler and you know how to get what you want. And so do I. That’s where the squealing and air-kissing comes in.”
Jay looked down at Billie. Softly, he ran his palm along the back of her neck, drew her face up to his, and kissed her. And kissed and kissed her.
“Point taken,” he said when he finally stopped.
Billie felt dizzy. “We’re more alike than you think.”
“Maybe so.” What he didn’t tell Billie was how naïve she sounded, telling him what hustling was about. In the fifth grade, he had more game in his size-five Adidas kicks than anyone at that party could ever hope to have. He hustled to survive. It was either get out there and sell the shit out of some crack, or eat grape jelly for dinner and hope the rat that bit you in your sleep wasn’t carrying anything lethal. When Billie talked about hustling and playing the game, what she really meant was that she was ambitious. She was a go-getter. She set high goals for herself and met them, exceeded them. But the bottom line was that she had been born into a supportive, loving, comfortably middle-class family that took care of her and nurtured her and provided a security blanket. Jay came from nothing. Worse than nothing. He could take or leave all this New York industry bullshit. To Jay, he’d made it when he saved enough money to stop dealing drugs.
But he kept this to himself. He didn’t love to talk about his former life, and besides, he didn’t want to make her feel silly.
“Hey, I just got an idea.” She looked around and noticed that they’d walked to Chinatown. “You wanna go to Double Happiness and get a drink? I just got a second wind.”
“What about your feet?”
“I’m one Cosmo from not feeling them.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and looked into his eyes. “I love you.”
“I love you, too. You hustler, you.” He kissed her and squeezed her and wished that moment could last forever, that they could be transported to a place where there was no controversial past, no Sam C., and no Tammy.
That last, unnecessarily evil thought would fuck with him for days.
9.
nobody puts billie in the corner
The night had held so much promise. Paige had asked Billie and Jay to dinner with herself and her fiancé, Mario. This was totally unprecedented. Paige hinted that she had something to tell her, some breaking news that she wanted Billie to know before anyone else, but she wouldn’t give any more details. Billie’d been antsy the whole worksday, wondering what exactly the dinner was about.
Instead of the fascinating evening she’d imagined, she got this: At 6:45 Jay called to tell her he couldn’t make it.
“What?” Billie was aghast. “I hear the words, but I’m not understanding you.”
“I just really can’t go. I’m sorry, I know I shoulda called sooner—”
“Jay, what are you talking about? This night is so important to me, don’t flake out. Please.”
“I have to turn in my first draft by the end of the week. I can’t come out,” Jay said. He sounded weird—guilty, even. “Baby, I love you. But
my draft can’t wait.” And this really was true. He did have to work, and he couldn’t concentrate around Billie. “I gotta do this, ma.”
Billie’s lower lip trembled. “And I gotta do this.” She hung up on him and stormed out the door.
Now, the threesome was dining at the outrageously hot restaurant Nobu. But she hardly appreciated the gourmet Japanese menu. Her mood was a mixture of humiliation, confusion, hurt, and blind rage, and her teeth were clenched so tight she could barely speak. Her head was exploding. Her social skills weren’t happening. She couldn’t understand why Jay would do this to her. Maintaining a close relationship with an industry icon like Paige was wonderful for her career. Jay knew this. How could he be so selfish? So inconsiderate? All he had to do was come out for, like, two hours. That wouldn’t have killed him.
But based on the past week, his behavior wasn’t so out of the ordinary. An unfortunate pattern was forming. It seemed that when things were going really well between them, he freaked out and pulled away. He was so inconsistent. After the Sam C. party, Jay became distant again. He stayed home almost every night to write, and the one night he did spend with her, he was sullen and far away. Billie was patient. She realized how important the writing was to him, and she wanted to give him space. The last thing she wanted to be was one of those obsessive, needy girlfriends…not a good look. And she understood that he probably had all kinds of commitment fears as a result of his traumatic childhood.
But, dammit, where did she fit in? She couldn’t take one week of ravenous love, one week of nothing, and back and forth again.
So there she was, having green tea ice cream with Paige and her ridiculous Eurotrash man.
“…so, cut to me telling him that he must be snorting again to think we’re running that vile fragrance.”
“It smells like Glade,” Billie said automatically, her lips barely moving.
“At some point, we have to retain some semblance of integrity. Plus, we’ve done enough for Sam. I’m through with him.” Paige was ruthless. “That party was a disaster. Too many celebrities, too much hoopla. That kind of thing doesn’t work anymore. It’s so eighties. Now, it’s all about a lounge, a Cosmo, popping a Vicodin. The social scene is much more civilized than it used to be.”
