Diamond Playgirls

by Daaimah S. Poole; Miasha; King Deja; T. Styles

  “So I guess seeing someone famous overly excites you, or is this how you land all your clients?” Candace sneered, as she pulled a weekly tabloid magazine out of her pocketbook and threw it on the table.

  Dior’s mouth dropped open when she looked at the picture staring at her. There she was in front of Pacino’s restaurant with her breasts cupped in his hands while he kneaded her nipples. Beneath the picture was the caption PACINO GETS A HANDFUL AT HIS RESTAURANT’S GRAND OPENING IN JANUARY.

  “Oh my God, this is so fake!” Dior protested. The gasp that escaped from the other women at the table caused her to furiously blush.

  “So you weren’t at the grand opening?” Candace began interrogating.

  “Yeah, I was there, but—”

  “But you didn’t lift your shirt?”

  “I lifted my shirt, but—”

  “But what?”

  Dior looked around the table and the women were all looking at her waiting for her response. “I was just getting an autograph. I love Al Pacino and I never saw him up close before and, well, I didn’t have anything for him to sign so I, you know…”

  “So you had him autograph your breasts?” Barbara asked in an incredulous voice.

  “No! Not my breasts, just my chest. My breasts were covered. It wasn’t like I flashed him. For God’s sake, I was wearing a bra!”

  Candace picked up the article and laughed. “Not in this photo you’re not. If you ask me, it was more than an idea that made them give you the account.”

  “Well, who’s asking you?” Dior grew furious. “First of all, I didn’t even know that Al Pacino’s restaurant would be my first account! Second, I am very professional! I get clients based on my ideas, my presentation, and overall my results! I have a proven track record! That’s why I was hired here in the first place! And third, that photo was doctored. I never showed him my breasts!”

  Embarrassed and angry, Dior excused herself from the table. But before she could walk away, Barbara placed her hand on her arm and told her to sit back down.

  Dior did so, while grimacing at Candace.

  Then Barbara said, “You have a point, Dior. The opening was before I told you about the possibility of our getting that account, so there’s no way you could have done that to land it. And”—she coolly picked up her apple martini and took a sip—“to tell you the truth, when I first moved here twenty years ago I was a huge Bruce Willis fan. I’m not going to tell you what piece of my anatomy I had him sign.”

  All of the women at the table, except Candace, exchanged stares, then burst out into laughter.

  “Of course I was a college sophomore at the time, and you’re supposed to be a professional woman, but we all have our little misjudgments in behavior,” Barbara said, glancing over at Candace, who was now beet red. “So, how about we just get rid of this?” She picked the article up off the table and began to crumble it.

  Dior stopped her and asked, “Can I have it?”

  “For what?” Barbara quizzed.

  Dior blushed and shyly responded, “For a keepsake.”

  Barbara laughed and Dior and the other ladies followed, except, of course, Candace.

  Barbara gave Dior the article and Dior thanked her. She then folded the paper neatly and placed it in her pocketbook. She felt relief as she picked up her menu and continued on with her evening. Deep inside, she was glowing. She hadn’t been living in New York for but a second, and already she was being harassed by a hater and a tabloid. She felt like a star. Now all I need is a teacup yorkie, she thought.

  “Hey, Dior, did Barbara tell you your campaign is starting in a couple of days?” Larissa appeared at Dior’s cubicle a few weeks later, cheerful as usual even on a Monday morning.

  Dior lifted her eyes off her computer screen and landed them on Larissa. “Yeah, I know,” she said. “I can’t wait to see it.”

  “Well, the account execs have a list of the time slots. I’ll grab you one when I go down there later.”

  “That’ll be great. Thanks, Larissa,” Dior said, returning her eyes to the numerous unread messages in her MySpace inbox.

  Dior read and replied to several of the messages that were pretty general from people she didn’t know. Then she came across four messages from Mr. Good Black Man and she kind of froze up. He was asking how she had been and he wanted to make sure she was all right since he hadn’t heard from her in a while. She looked at the date of the last message. It was more than a week ago. He must have finally given up on her.

  She wanted to reply to him, but she had grown such feelings for Chris that she didn’t feel that it was necessary to continue going back and forth with Mr. Good Black Man. Plus, realistically, Chris was her better bet. He did exist and every quality was proven, whereas Mr. Good Black Man was still a mystery, nothing more than a person who could type. On the other hand, Mr. Good Black Man had piqued Dior’s curiosity. She did get to know and like him and if she didn’t go further with him, she knew she would always wonder if he really did look like Blair Underwood.

  As she was contemplating what to write back to Mr. Good Black Man, her cell phone vibrated on her desk. She took her hands off the computer keyboard and picked up her phone. Mandingo appeared in her caller ID. She pressed the Talk button instantly to avoid missing the call from Chris.

  “Hey,” she said, using her soft I’m at work tone.

  “What’s up? Are you busy?” Chris asked, considerate of her time as usual.

  “No. Just sitting here on the computer at work.”

  “Oh, is that what your eight hours is used for?” Chris joked.

  Dior checked him. “Actually, I am on lunch. I just decided to stay in today. It’s so cold outside.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Chris agreed before getting to the point of his call. “Listen, I was wondering. I mean, this is probably short notice, and I should have asked you before, but I was wondering if you’d like to go out Thursday…” He paused. “For Valentine’s Day.”

  Dior leaned forward, placing her elbows on her desk. She smiled and said, “I have to check my calendar, but I can tell you right now, it’s looking like a yes.”

  “Well, I hope so. I have somewhere I want to take you. So check your calendar and call me with the results. In the meantime, I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed,” Chris said.

  “Who are you talking to?” a deep voice sounded in the background of Chris’s phone.

  “Hold on,” Chris told Dior. “Matter fact, let me call you back.”

  Dior was slightly confused, but she didn’t think much of Chris’s sudden need to hang up with her until seconds after ending their call, he called her right back. She pressed TALK and put her ear to the phone anticipating Chris’s explanation. But instead, she heard the male’s voice again.

  “I heard you, Chris!” he said. “You sounded like you were damn near having phone sex!”

  “Cut it out,” Chris’s voice returned. “I was talkin’ to a customer!”

  “A customer? So do you ask all your customers to spend Valentine’s Day with you? Is that some kind of special you’re giving out?”

  There was a brief silence.

  Then the male’s voice said, “Uh-huh! See, Chris, I caught ya ass this time! I was standin’ right outside that door! You really did it with this one! You hear me?”

  Chris finally broke his silence. “Baby, it wasn’t like that at all. I’m tellin’ you. You caught the conversation wrong.”

  Dior’s mouth dropped open as she realized what was going on at the other end of her phone. She felt like she had to throw up. She ended the call and hurried to the bathroom. Inside a stall, she sat down on a toilet seat and held her hands over her face. She was trying to gather her thoughts and calm her stomach. She was disgusted. Thank God she hadn’t violated her golden rule of never doing it without a condom. But even still. She stood up quickly and leaned over the toilet, retching until it felt like the lining of her stomach was going to make an appearance in the commode.

  After a
while, she left the stall and went up to the sink to rinse out her mouth and wash her hands. She looked at herself in the mirror, and the feeling of her having to throw up returned. She leaned over the sink waiting for something to come out, but nothing happened. She patted her face with warm water and wiped it afterward with a paper towel. She finally got herself together and went back to her desk.

  She picked up her phone to call Chris and curse him out and she noticed she had a missed call from him. She opted to check her voice mail first before calling him back.

  “Dior, I’m sorry about that. My roommate and his friend were arguing. Call me back when you can. Bye.”

  Dior pressed 9 to save the message, then hung up and dialed Chris. Who did he think he was fooling?

  “Chris, hi, it’s Dior.”

  “Yeah, my bad about that,” Chris started off.

  “Chris, there’s no need to drag this on,” Dior said. “You called me back by accident and I heard your whole conversation and I know it was you arguing and not your roommate and his friend.”

  Chris didn’t say anything so Dior took it upon herself to go on.

  She rested her head in her palm and said, “I should have known you were gay.”

  “No, no. See, you’re wrong! I’m not gay!” Chris all but shouted.

  “Yeah? Well, is it called something else in New York?”

  There was a long pause before Chris finally said, “Dior, I am bisexual. But—”

  “There are no buts, Chris,” Dior said.

  “Listen,” Chris pleaded, “I know I should have told you up front, but it wasn’t like I was planning on messing with you while I was messing with a man. I’m very considerate when it comes to that. If I’m dating a woman, then I’m straight and monogamous at that time. And when I’m dating a man, I’m gay, but still monogamous at that time.”

  “Even if that was acceptable, and it’s not, but even it was, I don’t trust that it’s the truth,” Dior said.

  “I’m telling you—” Chris started to beg.

  “What you’re telling me and what I heard are two different things and I prefer to go with what I heard. Good-bye, Chris.”

  Dior hung up her phone and put it on her desk. She rested her head beside it. She couldn’t believe how wrong she was about Chris. She had misread men before, plenty of times actually, but good grief, this topped them all. She was hurt, but more confused. A million questions twirled in her head and she didn’t have an answer for one of them.

  She felt so shitty she actually wanted to call out sick the next day, but she managed to drag herself into the office two hours late. But try as she might she couldn’t concentrate on her work. Everybody who walked by her desk asked her what was wrong, even Candace. She told them that she was just a little tired, but that was it. She wasn’t one to tell her business, especially to coworkers. It would be all over the office if she did. She shuffled papers around for about an hour or so, then gave up on even trying to put on a pretense.

  She logged on to the Internet and immediately went to MySpace to see if there were any new messages from Mr. Good Black Man 2008. She was so disgusted and disappointed with Chris that she needed somebody to talk to immediately.

  Hey, she started her message, I’ve been a little busy with work. My campaign is being run and a lot of finishing touches had to take place in the past few days. Anyhow, I’m freed up again so you have my undivided attention. What’s been up?

  She waited anxiously for Mr. Good Black Man to reply, but he wasn’t online so she didn’t expect it to be soon. Dior was restless, looking for things to do to take her mind off Chris. She walked to the front lobby to see if Larissa had gone and got the time slots that indicated when her commercials would run. It turned out that Larissa was at lunch. She started walking back to her desk, deciding to hell with it, she’d just go home after all.

  “Okay. What’s wrong with you?”

  “I’m fine, just a little tired.” Dior stuck to her story.

  Gordon crossed his arms and gave Dior a full up-and-down look before continuing in a more gentle tone.

  “Tired of what?” he asked. “What did he do? You can tell me, I won’t say anything.”

  Dior was suspicious of Gordon’s persistence, but for some reason she felt comfortable talking to Gordon more so than any of her female counterparts. Plus Gordon was gay and maybe he would have some advice for her pertaining to Chris.

  “You have to swear to me you won’t say anything to anybody,” Dior said.

  Gordon touched his forehead, his chest, his left shoulder, then his right shoulder, making a cross with his finger. Dior trusted in his gesture and gave him the spill. His lips were tight and his eyes were intense as he hung on to Dior’s every word. When Dior finally got to the punch line, Gordon fell back into his chair and put his hand over his mouth as if he had heard the most shocking story in his life.

  “Girl, no!” he gasped.

  “I am in shock, Gordon,” Dior said, shaking her head despondently. “I was really feeling something for him. I didn’t see that one coming at all.”

  Gordon sat back up and leaned forward on his desk. “Well, let’s take it back some. You said when he first came to your house to deliver the furniture, he looked real nice?”

  “Yeah, you know, put together nicely.”

  “Okay, I can understand him being all dolled up when y’all went on your date. But coming to deliver sofas and stuff, I don’t see a man getting shitty sharp for that. So that there, Ms. Dior, should have told you one of two things about Mr. Chris—either he was a playboy whose sole purpose of being a delivery boy was to entice his lady customers and see how many of them he could end up in bed with, or he was gay.”

  Dior smirked at Gordon’s snap analysis, but then shrugged. Hell, who was she to disagree with him? She was the one who had just been played for the fool. “You might be right.”

  “Damn right, I’m right.”

  Dior sighed. “I wish I had this talk with you much sooner.”

  Gordon grinned. “Well, you got me now, so put me to use. What else you need to know, girlfriend?”

  Dior chuckled and then she had an idea. “Well, I do have one other prospect. I should let you read his profile and see if there are any warning signs I should look out for.”

  “Profile? You met him on one of them online thingees?”

  Dior nodded her head reluctantly. “On MySpace.”

  “Girl, please. Don’t be embarrassed about that. I’ve met many men on MySpace who checked out. I love it!”

  Dior grew excited. “Really? Well, let me pull up my page real quick and read these messages of his that I saved. Tell me what you think and tell me what I should write back.”

  Gordon walked behind Dior’s chair while she logged on to her MySpace page on her computer. The two of them read all of the messages between Dior and Mr. Good Black Man from the first to the last.

  “Um, um, um, he sounds spicy!” Gordon said.

  “Does that mean gay?” Dior worried.

  “No! Oh, God no. I would have said tangy if I meant that. He’s straight—definitely straight. Now, everything else, like how white his teeth are and the size of his penis, those are all up for grabs, you know what I mean. But it’s worth a chat and chew,” Gordon instructed.

  “So you think I should pursue him?” Dior asked.

  “Uh-huh. If you don’t, I will,” Gordon teased.

  Dior gave Gordon the look. “You know that’s a sensitive subject.”

  “I’m just playing.” Gordon laughed. “Okay, back to business,” he said, getting serious again. “When he writes you back, no matter what he says, you reply by asking him out tomorrow for Valentine’s Day. Now, don’t say Valentine’s Day in the message. Just say Thursday. You don’t wanna sound too mushy asking him to be your Valentine. Plus, this will be a clear sign of whether or not he’s taken. Because if he says I have something to do and asks to make it for another day, then the truth of the matter is, he is spending V-day
with his primary. And I’m not talkin’ ’bout a doctor. You keepin’ up?” he asked, looking up at Dior.

  Dior nodded her head.

  “Now, if he accepts the date for Thursday, then you propose to meet him at MoBay—”

  “You know about MoBay?” Dior cut in. “That’s one of his favorite clubs.”

  “I know, I just read all his info, remember?” Gordon began writing something on a Post-it note. “It’s a nice little spot in Harlem and they have jazz musicians play there on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. But you don’t want to go on Friday or Saturday, why?” He turned to Dior.

  “Because I specifically want to spend Valentine’s Day with him.”

  “Because why?” Gordon further tested.

  “Because that’ll tell me that he’s single.”

  “Right! Ooh, Ms. Dior, you learn so quickly. I can do this with you all the time.”

  Dior hugged him enthusiastically. “You know, you’re my first real friend here in New York. And I’ve been here over a month.”

  “Really? You haven’t made any girlfriends yet?” Gordon asked in surprise.

  Dior shook her head. “I’ve got three women my age who live in my building, but they all seem very busy and maybe not too friendly.”

  Gordon waved his hand. “Well, child, don’t even worry about it. Every girl needs a male gay friend and now you got one. Now go ahead and handle your business.”

  Dior grinned and took the neon-pink Post-it note that Gordon had given her. She glanced over it and saw that it had the name and address of MoBay on it. It also had Good Luck written on it with a smiley face beside it.

  Gordon gave Dior a hug and headed back to his office. “Don’t let one monkey stop ya show, girl!”

  Dior glanced down when her cell started vibrating. When she saw it was Chris’s number she turned the phone off without hesitation.

  After that, she went on Gucci.com. She knew she had work to do and she had every intention on getting to it, but first she had to clear her head. And even though Gordon’s talk did her some good, a new Gucci pocketbook would top it off. That would make her forget all about Chris. And in order for her to get back into her work, that was exactly what she needed. Besides, if everything went according to Gordon’s plan, she would have a hot date the next day for which she would need something new to wear, and every woman knew that the pocketbook was the staple to any wardrobe. So let’s start there, she thought.