Being only eleven months apart, Corey and Rico were raised like brothers and expected to look out for each another. But Corey felt more like a sidekick, a scapegoat, and a mere speck in Rico’s world. With Rico in their house the year or two that Pop dabbled in sportscasting, suddenly, it was all right to break curfew, skip church, and be sexually immoral.
Rico was a regal six feet two, olive-colored, and curly-haired starting point guard that followed the breadcrumbs left by his dad all the way to the NBA. He was tossed around the league for five years before leaving with a chronic knee injury. Corey was considered too short at five feet nine for even a college guard position since he only possessed mediocre talent and lacked the will to practice hard. So the family’s dream of two NBA stars in the next generation was dashed. Corey took a different path, and the cousins, naturally, grew apart.
Both Rico and Rico Jr. ran a sports development corporation that ran a series of basketball clinics and camps. Rich people paid hundreds of dollars so their nine- to sixteen-year-olds could play with former teammates of Pop and son, and thousands to be groomed with a chance to scrimmage before scouts. To most people, they had the ideal life.
Corey’s father, Emory Taylor, followed Corey out to the hallway. After trying several doors, they found a church assistant in a Sunday School classroom. They were allowed access to the trustees’ office that they could use as a coat closet for the event.
“Your mom is in heaven right now. She claimed she never likes surprises, but this one is different. You all have outdone yourselves,” his dad said, checking his pockets before taking off his overcoat.
“Pop and Rico sure swept in here in the nick of time,” Corey said. “I’m surprised there was room on the white horse for you.”
Corey’s father looked at him. Corey couldn’t quite make out what he saw there in his dad’s eyes, but it made him look away in shame.
“It’s your mother’s day.”
“I know, I know.” Corey lowered his head as he busied his hands with hanging up coats on the coatrack in the corner.
“Anything that makes her happy is all right with me. We’re all proud of Pop—not just for his stint in the NBA, but all he does through his foundation and working with kids in those camps. Do you know when I first met your mother I couldn’t even court her properly? She was too busy working. She worked two, sometimes three jobs to support the family left in her care. Pop’s success and even Rico Jr.’s success is your mom’s success,” Corey’s father preached.
“Right,” Corey said, ready for the conversation to be over.
“It was a childhood dream, Corey. Rico just happened to be the one chosen. Very few people make it to the NBA, or any professional sport, for that matter. I have yet to figure out what happened between you and Rico Jr., though. Working at the basketball clinics would have been perfect for you. But you were on your own little quest. You chose your life, married the girl you wanted, right? Be happy.”
“I am happy.” Corey’s words were coming out louder than was acceptable by his father. He took a huge breath. How could he make his father see that basketball wasn’t his dream—to follow in Rico’s shadow wasn’t his dream either? That he was content with the way his life is right now. How could he explain how much it hurt to know that everything he did or would do ultimately paled in comparison to their ideals?
“The bottom line is that we put a smile on Wilma’s face today. We’ve got Pop and Li’l Rico to thank for making it that much brighter.”
Corey kept silent as they made their way back to the banquet hall. It had been six years since Rico left for the good life in the NBA. That was the same year Corey moved from his parents’ house into his own. He struggled, some would say unnecessarily. His mother eventually stopped working at the insistence of Uncle Pop and even Corey’s dad retired early to finally spend quality time with his wife. But they all had their eggs in Pop’s basket.
Corey didn’t want to have to rely on his family for anything. At that time, he reestablished his faith in the Lord, moving his membership from his mom’s church in the historic Jackson Ward to Dominion Baptist Church right outside the Richmond city limits in Ashton. He prayed fervently to the Lord for financial security, but got so much more.
For the first time in his entire life, he felt the emotional support of someone who had a greater resolve than his mother’s, a greater will than his dad’s dream for him, and greater resources than Pop and son would ever have. He felt the Lord truly had his back. His faith gave him the ability to seek a life of his own.
Corey thought about what his dad had said as he sat with the rest of his immediate family at the head table. There was one thing he was truly thankful to Rico Jr. for, and that was unknowingly introducing him to his wife.
Chapter 5
Corey remembered falling in love with Pill instantly as she exited her shiny black Honda Accord in front of the Marriot Hotel in downtown Richmond. The night was electric as it seemed that the whole city was out to celebrate their favorite son’s twenty-fifth birthday. Corey was standing outside with Rico, who graced those unfortunate individuals who were waiting in line with an appearance. When Rico and Corey saw Pill’s car approach, Rico panicked.
“Yo’, I can’t believe she came,” Rico said.
“Who, her?” Corey pointed toward Pam. He immediately stared, snapping his finger, trying to jar his memory. “I think I know that girl.”
“I know. She’s hot, right? That’s the girl I was telling you about.”
“Which one—on which day?” Corey said with a sinking feeling. “I can’t keep up with you and your women, man.”
“The one that acts like she don’t know whether she wants to get with the program or not, headstrong hairdresser, won premier tickets through the radio station to that movie I was in, short and sassy, boots . . . remember?”
Sometimes keeping up with Rico was like training for the FBI. Everything was in code. This time Corey remembered the boots. Rico had met him at the UPS warehouse one day after he brought the truck in. Corey asked him to wait a few seconds while he browsed through the quarterly rummage display of damaged and otherwise undeliverable packages. He didn’t expect his cousin to come in and browse the items also, and he definitely didn’t expect him to come out with a pair of women’s designer boots in a crushed box. If there were two things Rico knew, they were expensive things and what women liked. He said it was for a prospect that he was trying to draft to his team: code for add to his harem.
Now that he knew who they had been for, he had plenty. The most important one being did the boots seal the deal?
“Yo’, this could get dicey, so I need you to help me do a substitution. I’m going in and sending Monica out to set up for the afterparty in my hotel suite uptown.”
“Don’t you have a suite upstairs?” Corey asked.
“Indeed. That’s where I plan to end up with chocolate dip. I’ll give her another chance to roll with my program. That’s why Monica has got to go,” Rico said.
“What about Yolanda and the girl with the blond weave?” Corey asked, thumbing inside.
“Yolanda is second string. She knows what’s up, and Mira ain’t even made the cut. She better not start trippin’.”
“Matter of fact, when you get back, you can take your choice,” Rico said, giving him a quizzical look. “They are all you, dog.”
“I’m good,” Corey said, waving off the notion that he needed help in the romance department. But he had to admit he hadn’t really honed any gaming skills when it came to attracting the ladies. He didn’t have to, being Rico’s cousin, because even Rico’s leftovers were served on a silver platter. He wasn’t proud of those conquests. Corey was convinced that it was time to move from devouring the crumbs off the floor of another man’s table to savoring his own delectable meal at the head of his own table.
“You sure? Don’t say Daddy ain’t never gave you anything. Stall her for me, Cuz,” Rico said, looking at the Accord in the valet line. “Her
name is Pam.”
Corey watched Rico walk toward the entrance of the overstuffed club. The crowd waiting to get inside seemed to part like the Red Sea to let Rico inside.
Pam approached, looking perturbed. She wore a silk ivory tunic over leggings that would have looked obscene on anyone else except she was so compact. Of course she sported the ivory boots that his cousin picked up for her secondhand. Her complexion was ebony, and her jet-black hair was spiked on top. She ID’d Corey as the guy standing with Rico and immediately asked about Rico’s whereabouts without so much as a hello. She couldn’t have been any more that five feet five with the boots on, but her presence made her seem taller.
At that moment Corey had made his choice. He was determined that Rico wasn’t going to add this petite package of chocolate perfection to his team. So instead of picking up one of Rico’s handouts, Corey helped himself to Rico’s new girl.
Corey remembered Pam complaining about the crowd and the audacity of Rico to think she was going to stand in line to get in after showing up there upon his request. Corey’s memory failed him as he tried to recall anything original to say to this woman. She was so gorgeous. He imagined those designer boots traipsing over his back like a doormat. She was way out of his league.
Her edgy, yet angelic face was a truth serum that made him walk a thin line between persuading her to leave and totally ratting his cousin out. “I don’t know where Rico was going, but he must be crazy leaving you out here. You don’t strike me as someone who needs to wait in line for attention,” he remembered telling her. She didn’t storm off immediately, and he wondered if she was waiting on Rico to explain or to give him a piece of her mind. A part of him wished she was there when he got back so he could get another opportunity to talk to her.
When a sullen Monica came out with her walking papers, the two women sized each other up quickly. They exchanged a look so lethal Corey wondered if they had figured out the deal. When Monica yelled out, “Let’s go,” Corey was forced to leave Pam in line outside the club to cart his cousin’s main girl away.
Corey saw Pam with another woman that next Sunday as he handed out programs at the sanctuary door of Dominion Baptist Church. He knew he remembered that face from somewhere. His cousin may have known her shoe size, but he felt he knew her heart. She was seeking the Lord just like he was. That made her all the more appealing. At first she didn’t recognize him, but then she did a double take on her way out. Posted up at the sanctuary door was not exactly the place to get his mack on. He wasn’t able to catch up with her that day, but he vowed to meet up with her again.
The next two Sundays came and went without him seeing her. He saw a slightly older woman that, by appearance, must have been her sister. She told him that Pam preferred to go to 7:30 A.M. service.
The early-morning worship became his service of choice too. Sure enough, Pam was in the early service the next weekend. For weeks, he admired her from afar, smiled at her from his pew like a goon, and failed miserably on two separate occasions to spark a conversation with her. He wondered if he should just give up. If she played hard to get with Rico, then she wasn’t playing with him at all. Finally, he got up the nerve to ask her out. Maybe it was how they met, or who he was associated with, but she was relentlessly skeptical.
“Look, I appreciate you looking out for me that night at the club,” Pam said, making sure to bring her voice down, as if mentioning an evening at the club would bring on fire and brimstone. “Now each week you’re coming at me like you need to hitch a ride, and I’m the only bus going downtown. I don’t know what you think you know about me, but I’m not the girl that hops from one dude to his cousin. And, I’m not some club hopper either—that’s not my scene. I don’t hang out every weekend, then suddenly get holy on Sunday.”
“Me neither,” Corey said, holding up his usher gloves for her to see. “If you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly big and flashy, high off a fast lifestyle. I don’t hunt down every party either, and I surely don’t run game on women. I’m here every Sunday because I’m trying to cancel my subscription to all those issues and lead a simple life. You know what I mean?”
That gave her pause. Corey could tell she was thinking about it as he walked out with her to her car.
“You say that like it’s just that easy. Just push ‘cancel’ and all the drama—my past—it’s gone.”
Corey remembered her looking up at him with such a wide-eyed sincerity. He tried to be just as sincere. “Not easy, but necessary. The greatest part of being saved is finding that Dumpster. You know, get rid of what’s toxic and eating away at you. I get in my prayer so that everything before that point is forgotten and forgiven.”
He thought he heard her mumble, “It’s all toxic.”
There was a period of awkward silence that people experience when they think they are just making small talk and someone goes deep. Corey caught a glimpse of her soul. They stayed in the parking lot long after the majority of people had gone.
He asked her if she wanted to hang out. When she asked where they could go on a Sunday afternoon, he could tell she was really considering his invitation. He wanted to wow her. He noticed her eyes light up when he absentmindedly mentioned a Sunday drive up to the beach just an hour and fifteen minutes away. When she agreed, he met her at her house half an hour later after changing clothes, and they headed toward their destination.
Pam confessed that she had never actually been to a beach before. Corey only had to look at how she marveled at the vastness of God’s creation to know she was telling the truth. He watched her. Corey marveled at her beauty as she stood at the ocean’s edge with her bangs swirling around her head in the wind. It was a perfect day where the sun kissed the shore, the fall breeze massaged their skin and hair with ocean mist, and the waves sang a lullaby. They picked a remote section of the beach just south of where people fished from the pier where they spent hours just looking at the waves crash on the shore without even talking. Just being there with her, he began to believe that fairy tales did come true.
“How is it you got to twenty-two years of age and have never been to the beach?” he finally asked.
“My mother wasn’t big on family vacations,” Pill said, picking up a nearby shell and shaking it free of sand, “or any recreation other than her own.”
“What’s up with that?”
He remembered her looking directly into the sun overhead, then shielding her eyes before looking at him as if his stare were brighter. “Do you need to know all that? It’s in the Dumpster, right?”
“Yeah, the Dumpster; okay, sorry I brought that up,” Corey said.
“My mom is no longer with us,” Pill said rather curtly.
“That’s rough. Again, I’m so sorry.” Corey made a mental note to leave it alone. If this date was like a fantasy for him, it seemed like more of a retreat for her. He didn’t want to remind her of unhappier times.
After that first date, Corey walked her to the door of the house that she shared with her sister. She had a faraway look as she mentioned how much she enjoyed herself. It was the kind of look that bore through him as if she were looking past him to all the other guys before him.
“My sister’s not home, so I guess you can come in if you like.” There was no joy in the invitation.
A long moment of silence seemed to pass as he contemplated the course he wanted this relationship to take. “No, I better go. I’ll just catch you later,” Corey said, walking toward his car. Then as an afterthought, he backtracked before she could get the key in the door. “For the record, don’t ever give me cause or invitation to be less than a gentleman to you. Rico may be my cousin, but I’m not from that same mob. Like I said, I want to get to know you. Hopefully, you’ll let me continue do that. So, I’ll call you, all right, love?”
She smirked, “Love?”
“Calm down, it’s just an expression. I guess I’m trying it out on you.” Noticing her chuckle, he asked, “What’s so funny?”
“You ar
e . . . You’re all starched shirts and usher gloves,” she said, pointing at his extremities while shaking her head repeatedly. “And knobby knees that are kinda cute now, but must be gawd-awful underneath those brown uniform shorts you told me you wear at work.”
He turned his back on her. He couldn’t believe she was dissing him to his face. Once again, he imagined her petite feet walking all over him. He responded out of anger, “Oh, so you want that cool-cat type, that iced-out thug. Maybe you want a dog like my cousin. I can go call him so that you and Monica, that girl you saw me take home that night at the club, can duke it out over him. Maybe I should just step off then—save a little of my dignity. Don’t worry, though; I don’t think you’re in the least bit shallow.”
“No.” She caught up to him by skipping down the stairs to the landing and pulling at his arm playfully. “It’s just that you’re so different than a lot of guys I’ve met.” Her eyes were a beam of light. “Believe me, that’s a good thing. Where other guys claim to be all decent and honest, I think you actually might be.”
Corey’s light complexion bore the marks of her compliment and embarrassment for overreacting on his cheeks. “It’s the new swagger that girls find hard to resist. Good guys are making a comeback.”
With that, she pulled him down so that her lips made contact with his cheek. “Make me a believer,” she said before going inside.
That was the green light. Their relationship progressed steadily from there. Since she was a hairstylist, Sundays were the perfect days to spend together. Way into the fall they would pack up after early service and would go to the beach to watch waves and walk along the sandy shore. They even went to antique malls where he would slip her money for must-have items she spotted from window-shopping. He didn’t realize then that almost everything was a must-have to her.
Taylor Made Page 4
