Take Her Man

by Grace Octavia

  “He’s mine, heifer.” I grabbed her hand.

  “No, he’s his.” Tasha pointed to Larenz. Another man with dreads walked up to him and gave him a hug that lasted a little too long for friends. They locked arms and walked out of the restaurant together.

  “Well, I guess my dreams of finding a husband out here are shot down,” Tamia said, looking at the menu.

  “No, not if you want to marry a fake actor or a wannabe Spike Lee,” Tasha joked. Tamia and I looked at each other and sighed. “I’m saying, it’s not that bad, y’all. L.A. is just a place to have fun. That’s all.”

  The waitress finally came to the table after twenty minutes and took our orders. I usually would’ve complained about how long it took for her to mosey on over to our table, but it took me a while to decide what I was going to order. I’m a fan of eclectic eating, but the menu was out of control. Tamia told us Shonda’s was a soul food restaurant, but looking at the menu, I couldn’t tell what “soul” she was speaking of. They had fried chicken, but it was pineapple-infused fried chicken on top of a bed of wild rice. What a match. I settled on the pork chops in wine sauce. I was accustomed to high dining and even fusion, but some things should just be left alone.

  By the time the waitress brought our food to the table, Tamia was completely intoxicated. She’d had three Midori sours and a glass of white wine a secret admirer had sent her from the bar. She was waving at every man who walked by, and she even got up and talked to a man who looked like Steve Urkel.

  “Why y’all looking at me like that?” Tamia slurred, getting back in her seat.

  “Because you were talking to Webster’s older brother,” Tasha said.

  “He was fine, Tasha. Don’t hate the player; hate the game.” Tamia put her hand up in the air so I would give her five…but I didn’t. “What? You’re hating too, Troy?” Tamia asked, looking at me accusingly.

  “He was kind of scary, Mia. I’m just saying.” I took a sip of my brandy Alexander.

  “Really?” Tamia looked at the guy. He made his way to the bar. He was standing there waving at Tamia with his pants so high it looked as if his belt was wrapped around his neck. “He’s ugly? Oh no. Do y’all think I’m drunk?” Tasha kicked me under the table and we started laughing.

  “Yes, baby. You’re intoxicated,” Tasha said, prying the fourth Midori sour from Tamia’s hand. “But it’s okay. Go ahead and get drunk. Both of you. I’m the designated driver for the next eight months.”

  “I’m just a little stressed—you know, with the trial and everything,” Tamia said. “I just want to unwind. That’s why I’m glad y’all are here.” She did a little drunken cry. “Y’all my girls.”

  “Oh, baby.” I rubbed her back reassuringly. “It’s okay. You know we get down like four flat tires.” I looked up to see a chocolate brother walking toward our table. He was handsome, but the blood-red, Suge Knight suit he was wearing made me feel like I was in a rap video.

  “Oh shit, let the games begin,” Tasha said, spotting him. “Mr. Wonderful is on his way.”

  “Who’s Mr. Wonderful?” Tamia asked way too loud. I eased down in my seat, hoping he hadn’t heard her.

  “Diamond,” the man said. He sat down next to Tamia. “That’s my name, honey. And who are you?”

  “Who told his ass to sit down?” Tasha whispered in my ear.

  “Her name is Egypt and I’m Star,” I said, volunteering our club names—the names we used when we weren’t interested in men we met at the club and didn’t want them to know our real names.

  “And who is the lovely flower sitting next to you?” Diamond asked, looking at Tasha.

  “Her name is Beyoncé,” Tamia giggled. “Beyoncé Knowles.” I had to look away to keep from laughing.

  “Mm, I love that name. It suits you.” The man took Tasha’s hand and kissed it. “Beyoncé…Beyoncé…Beyoncé…”

  “Yeah, my husband does, too,” Tasha said, flashing the real diamond Lionel had bought her in the fake Diamond’s face.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Beyoncé,” Diamond said. “I just had to compliment such a lovely lady. I’ve been watching you since you came in here.”

  “Sounds like a stalker to me,” Tasha said, hiding her words with her hand.

  “Tell your man I’m jealous,” he added. “I’m saying, I’d do anything.” He paused. “And I’d give anything to be with a woman like you.” He slid six hundreds on the table.

  “What?” Tasha said, looking annoyed. She grabbed her butter knife. “Are you trying to say I’m a damn hooker?” She was about to get up. I put my hand on her knee.

  “Not in here, Tash,” I said to her. Just then mini-mini skirt woman walked up to the table and smiled at Tasha. Mini-mini Skirt whispered something into Diamond’s ear and kissed him on the cheek. Diamond shook his head and she walked away. Tasha and I looked at each other, confused.

  “No, baby,” Diamond said, looking back at Tasha. “I just wanted to show you ladies where a brother’s coming from. I know y’all are from out of town because everyone up in here knows Diamond and Diamond knows everyone. Let me guess you ladies are from the East Coast…New York. Right?”

  “Yeah, how did you know?” Tamia begged. I kicked Tasha under the table and tried to get Tamia’s attention, but she was too busy grinning at Diamond.

  “Oh, baby girl, that’s because Diamond is flawless. I can’t go wrong, like my jewels.” He held up his hand so we could see his rings—all eight of them on one hand. It looked like he’d been playing in Grandma Lucy’s jewelry box. “Anyway,” he went on, “I figured that money would cover your meals and the bottles of Cristal the waitress is about to bring over.”

  “Cristal?” Tamia jumped in.

  “Yeah, one for each of you.” Diamond snapped his fingers like he was Tony Montana in Scarface. “The prettiest ladies in the restaurant.”

  “Diamond, we don’t really need any more drinks, and we can pay for our own food,” I said, just as two waitresses came to the table carrying bottles of Cristal.

  “Don’t trip, sweetheart. Let Diamond treat you like a diamond,” he said, smiling at one of the waitresses as she bent over to pour him a glass. He grabbed her butt and groped it like he was searching for spare change. I was sure she was about to turn around and slap the crap out of him, but she just laughed and playfully said, “Stop, Diamond.”

  “Heeeeeeeeeeeey,” Tamia said, sounding like she didn’t have an ounce of sense in her drunken body.

  “Drink up, ladies.” Diamond raised his glass. “You don’t drink, Beyoncé?” Diamond asked Tasha, who was simultaneously sipping on her cranberry juice and giving Diamond the evil eye.

  “No, I do drink, but my baby doesn’t,” she said dryly. “I’m pregnant.”

  “Oh, you’re breaking my heart, redbone. How are we supposed to be friends if you’re pregnant?”

  “Well, I figured that was cleared up when I said I was married,” Tasha replied slyly.

  “Fly and feisty.” Diamond sat back in his seat. “I like you already.”

  “You know this motherfucker is a pimp, right?” Tasha whispered, pretending to nibble on a piece of bread.

  “A pimp?” I looked over at Diamond sitting across from me—his gold teeth, red suit, and cane with diamonds encrusted in the top…Then there was how the women who came to the table reacted to him and how everyone in the restaurant was staring at us…Yeah, Diamond was a pimp. “Since when did pimps start hanging out in restaurants?” I whispered back to Tasha. She shrugged her shoulders. “Why is he talking to us?” Tasha sat back and gave me the “you know” face. “What?” I said, trying to figure out if I wanted to laugh or call the police.

  “You better get your girl,” Tasha said, pointing at Tamia feeding Diamond one of her shrimp.

  “So what are we getting into after dinner?” Diamond asked, pouring Tamia another glass of champagne she didn’t need.

  “We’re going home,” I said quickly.

  “No, we’re going to the Rapture,�
�� Tamia jumped in. “I heard that’s the hottest spot in L.A. tonight.”

  “Hell, no.” Diamond laughed. “That club is wack. Look, I’m going to let you ladies in on a little secret. The only way to party in L.A. is private parties. There are too many people at the clubs.”

  “So where’s the party?” Tamia asked.

  “Troy, we have to get the hell out of here before this Negro spends any more money on us. He isn’t going to go away,” Tasha whispered to me.

  “You ladies need to come to a little party me and my associates are having at my house later,” Diamond said. “You girls ever been to a mansion overlooking the Hollywood Hills?”

  “No, and we won’t be going tonight,” Tasha said.

  The girl with the mini-mini skirt came back over to the table. Diamond didn’t look so happy to see her again. She tried to whisper in his ear, but I could hear her and was able to make out: “That bitch is fucking your money up.” Diamond got up from his seat with heat in his eyes.

  “Ladies, I have some business to attend to,” he said. “Sit tight and Diamond will be right back.” He turned and walked out with Mini-mini Skirt following behind him.

  Tasha got up and grabbed her purse.

  “Let’s go, before he comes back,” she said, pulling Tamia’s arm.

  “Why do we have to leave? I’m having a good time with Diamond,” Tamia whined. I got up and took Tamia’s other arm.

  “What about our bill?” I asked, following Tasha out.

  “He said he had it,” she said, pulling the car keys from her purse. “Let him get it.”

  Tamia talked us into going to the Rapture after she promised not to have another drink or talk to any more men. It took us thirty minutes to convince her that Diamond was not marriage material.

  By the time we finally made our way around the maze that’s called L.A., with Tamia singing every song that came on the radio full blast from the backseat of the drop-top, the Rapture was packed. We decided to go to the club across the street. The line outside the club was what Tasha and I call “diverse,” sprinkled with white girls here, black boys there, and everything else in between.

  “I hope it’s not one of those places,” Tasha said as we walked in. By “those places” she meant the kind of diverse clubs we’d discovered in New York after college—the so-called mixed clubs where black men went to chase white women. One night we had gone to a club in the Village that had turned into the black man–white woman connection. While the line outside had been full of black men, not one of them would dance with us. They didn’t even look in our direction. They had other things in mind.

  “I don’t care at this point,” I said now to Tasha as we made our way to the dance floor. “I just want to dance and forget about Diamond.” I laughed.

  Biggie Smalls’s “Going Back to Cali” came on and Tamia ran to the center of the dance floor, screaming, “That’s my song, girl.” Tasha and I followed right behind her. Everything was her song at that point.

  We danced so hard I felt like we were back at Howard. I forgot about the people around me and just moved my body back and forth to the music, acting a fool right along with Tamia. I forgot about Julian and school and all of the other drama going on back in New York. I was in Cali with my girls.

  After Biggie went off, another one of Tamia’s “songs” came on and the one after that and the one after that. A handsome white man slid up behind Tasha. Tamia and I laughed as he struggled to keep up with her. Tasha took it down to the ground in front of him and the man looked like he was holding on for dear life.

  His friends, who I later learned at the bar were Stephen and George, came over to dance with me and Tamia. They were investment bankers in L.A. for some convention. They treated Tamia and me to a beer—which I insisted we split—and begged us to dance with them. Now, if there was one thing I knew about white boys from watching my grandfather with Grandma Lucy and hanging out with the ones I met in law school, it was that they knew how to have a good time. White boys loved to party and drink beer, and Stephen and George were no different. They got Tamia and me out on the floor and we had a ball—I guess we had a connection of our own going on.

  Before I knew it, we’d been on the dance floor for two hours. At around 1 A.M., Tasha’s feet gave out and we decided it was time to call it a night. Tasha and I had the guys carry Tamia to the car and we headed back to the hotel. We had gotten the party started and now it was time to get the sleeping under way.

  Going Undercover: Club Names

  It’s bound to happen to every fine woman in her lifetime—you meet a man at “da club” you have no intention of getting to know. Because you’re a gracious queen who would never be completely rude to someone—unless you had something to gain from it—you decide to be nice to the poor guy and not pretend you don’t see him standing right in front of you. Then he does it—he asks your name. Now you have two options: You can give this Tito Jackson look-alike your real name and listen to him call it all through the club all night, and run the risk of seeing him out somewhere else and calling you by your name, or you could simply give him your “club name.” Don’t settle on something simple like Ann or Kim. Nah! This is a great time for you to get creative. Try these hot club “standards” if you haven’t chosen a name yet. Remember: Simple is good. The last thing you need is Mr. Dragon Breath standing too close and asking, “What did you say?”

  Hangover

  Rrrrrring. Rrrrrring. Rrrrrring.

  I could hear the hotel phone ringing from beneath the two pillows I had piled on top of my head.

  “Get the phone.” I groaned, rolling over. I peeked out from underneath the pillows to see the sun blazing through the balcony window. I looked at the clock. It was 8 A.M.

  Rrrrrring. Rrrrrring. Rrrrrring.

  “Fuck.” I looked across the suite into the second bedroom to see Tamia spread out on her bed with Tasha lying in the bed next to hers.

  “Hello?” I mumbled, wondering who could possibly be calling the hotel at eight in the morning.

  “Good morning. This is the front desk. I have someone down here for Tamia Dinkins, please,” said the person on the other end.

  “Tamia?” I looked across the room again. “She’s asleep. Who is it?” I asked just as I remembered that Tamia had arranged for Tasha’s mother to come to the hotel for breakfast.

  “It’s Porsche St. Simon,” the woman said anxiously.

  “Mia,” I tried to whisper. “Mia!” Tamia didn’t move.

  “Um…yes, please tell Ms. St. Simon we’ll be right down. We’ll meet her in the restaurant.” I hung up the phone and headed to Tamia’s room.

  “Tamia, wake up.” I nudged her. “Wake up; she’s here.”

  “Noooooo,” Tamia cried. “My head hurts.” She jumped out of the bed and ran to the bathroom. “Urrrrp,” I heard coming from the bathroom. She was throwing up. “Oh, hell no, Tamia,” I said, heading toward the bathroom. “Not today. Not a hangover.”

  “I can’t do it, Troy,” Tamia garbled, emerging from the bathroom. “You have to take her down there. You have to do it,” she whispered so Tasha couldn’t hear her.

  “But I can’t. I don’t even know the lady.”

  “Neither do I.” Tamia climbed back in the bed. “But I can’t help. I’m sick.”

  “Tamia, how am I supposed to get her down there? Have you even thought about that? How am I supposed to get Tasha downstairs?”

  “For breakfast? I’m cool with that,” I heard Tasha say. I turned around to find her standing in the doorway brushing her hair. “I’m starving.”

  “Great, so you two can go to breakfast together,” Tamia said, rolling over.

  “Just let me put something on and I’ll be ready.” Tasha turned and walked toward the bathroom.

  “There you go,” Tamia whispered. “Just take her down there and let her mother handle it from there. It’ll be cool.”

  I frowned at Tamia. Somehow I was sure that wouldn’t be the case.

&nb
sp; Maybe I was suffering from the effects of a hangover, but I felt like Tasha was talking a mile a minute as we headed down to the restaurant. First she went on and on about how much she missed Lionel, then she talked about the baby, and on the way downstairs in the elevator, she contemplated whether she’d have eggs and bacon or fruit for breakfast. All the while, I nodded my head, trying to figure out what I was going to say when she saw Porsche.

  “Do you think I should do a fruit and vegetable diet for the rest of my pregnancy?” Tasha asked me, walking into the restaurant. “I read in Cosmo that a lot of celebrity mothers do a vegan diet when they’re pregnant. It helps the baby or something.”

  “Yeah, girl,” I said. My head was pounding terribly. I felt like I was going to faint. Tasha could’ve said she was trying a pork and beef diet for the rest of the pregnancy and I would’ve agreed just to make her stop talking. I looked around the restaurant. I couldn’t see Porsche anywhere. Maybe she’d left, I thought. Maybe she’d left. Great.

  “You’re here,” the host said, picking up two menus. It was clear she was expecting us.

  “Yes, we’re here,” Tasha replied, still oblivious. “See, these folks expect you when you walk in. That’s what I’m talking about. Good service.” She turned and took my hand. “Come on, Troy. You’re dragging your feet. Are you hung over, too?” she asked, looking at me over her shoulder. I could see Porsche sitting at the table the host was leading us to. I closed my eyes and said a short prayer everything would work out and that Tasha wouldn’t slap anyone.

  “What the hell is she doing here?” Tasha said when she turned around and Porsche caught her eye.

  “Just sit down,” I urged Tasha. “Just sit down and talk to her.”

  “Talk to her?” She looked at the host putting our menus on the table. “What is this? Did you do this, Troy?”

  “Um, yes, Tasha,” I mumbled, hoping she wouldn’t hear me. I looked at Porsche. I’d never seen the woman in person and I rarely caught the show, but there was no way I could mistake her for anyone other than Porsche St. Simon. Tasha looked just like her—from the smooth jet-black hair to the dimple in the middle of her chin, there was no denying this mother-daughter pair. Porsche was stunning, but by looking in her eyes, I could tell she was hurting and afraid of how Tasha might react.