Should Have Known Better

by Grace Octavia

  “Well, I took him back. I figured moving would fix that little ditty. But then he slept with my assistant.”

  “He was a womanizer!” I said.

  “No, girl; my assistant was a man,” Sasha revealed, crumbling to the table in defeat and bouncing her head against the wood.

  “That’s awful,” I said, reassuring Sasha by rubbing her hand from across the table. “I can’t believe he was a . . . a gay man who also slept with lesbians.”

  “And painted houses,” Reginald added before I kicked him again.

  “No need to feel sorry for me.” Sasha straightened up in her seat and exhaled. “I’m in counseling now and I realize that I’ve been picking the jerks. I need to make better decisions for myself.”

  “That’s right, girl,” I said. “There are good men out there.”

  “Exactly! Look at Reginald,” she said. “He’s a good guy. Husband. Father. Who would’ve thought you two would’ve lasted this long? It’s been . . . what . . . twelve years since Spelman. Who would’ve thought you’d still be together?”

  I looked at Reginald with a soft smile.

  Sasha had been there when Reginald was outside of our dorm giving his little speeches about the ailments of the black upper class. I felt sorry for him. I stopped. I thought his ideas were silly, easily disproved, but I was impressed by his belief in the things he was saying. Most of the men I knew only meant what they said for a time, when they were in public, when people were watching. But in Reginald’s eyes, I saw sincerity. When Sasha tried to pull me past him, saying he was just an angry lawn-mower man, I thought I saw someone who loved his people and really wanted what was best. When he finally asked me out, I said yes.

  “Who wouldn’t think we’d still be together?” Reginald asked, though he knew exactly what Sasha meant. And any answer she could give would simply indulge him in confirming all of the things he’d always thought about her and “you people” back then.

  “I’m just saying, Dawn was seven years younger than you. She was a Spelman girl. There were Alpha brothers across the street at Morehouse just dying to get with our Dawn.”

  I laughed, but quickly straightened my face when I saw how Reginald was looking at me.

  “No, they weren’t,” I said, brushing her off.

  “Oh yes, they were!” she insisted.

  “Well, she made a good choice,” Reginald interjected. “Seeing as how they’re all gay and have five baby mamas and want their women to pay for stuff and all—Dawn doesn’t have to worry about that stuff. She has a good man. Don’t you, babe?”

  “Yes, babe,” I said.

  “Your house is paid for. You don’t have to work. And while your kids aren’t in private schools, they live in a great community and never have to wonder where their next meal is coming from. You have everything a woman could want.”

  He smiled and pinched my cheek.

  The door to the guest room where Sasha was staying was ajar.

  A spare quilt wrapped neatly over my arm, I pushed the door open a little.

  “I brought you an extra blanket,” I started before peeking inside and seeing Sasha bent over her suitcase in nothing but a red thong. “Oh, I’m sorry!” I stepped back out quickly and shut the door, embarrassed at my intrusion.

  “Oh, it’s OK. Come on in,” Sasha called from inside of the room.

  I pushed the door back open, sure Sasha had taken the few seconds alone to put on a T-shirt or robe, but there she was, standing in front of her suitcase looking as if she’d just stepped out of a Victoria’s Secret thong photo shoot.

  I rubbed my hand against the unpredictable patterns of the quilt my grandmother had made before she died, pulling it against my cotton nightgown. I couldn’t think of anything to say. Sasha was almost naked. I couldn’t remember ever looking like that in my underwear.

  “I’m sorry for pushing in. We don’t really have very many unlocked doors around here when we’re changing clothes,” I said awkwardly. “It’s the kids.”

  “Oh, I understand.” She slid on a thin red chemise she’d pulled from the suitcase.

  “I brought a blanket for you. It gets cold in here at night, even with the weather changing. I thought you might need it.”

  “Thanks, soror; always looking out for me.” Sasha came over and took the blanket before kissing me on the cheek. “Stay and chat me up for a bit. I know I won’t be able to sleep after all that debating.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, stepping into the room. “Reginald just gets so caught up . . . and then he goes on and on—”

  Sasha had placed red cinnamon-scented candles all around the room. She had jazz playing on her laptop.

  “It’s no biggie. He’s fine.”

  “You travel with candles?”

  “Yes,” Sasha said. “And wine!” She pulled a bottle of red wine from her suitcase and bounced onto the bed laughing.

  “I guess that’s a fine way to travel.”

  “Please, I stay in so many hotels for work, I have to try to make my own space. And when that doesn’t work”—she paused and held up the expensive-looking bottle of wine—“I drink.” She got up and gathered a glass and bottle opener from the nightstand.

  “Oh, it can’t be that bad, Ms. CNN. You’re a household name. Everyone knows who you are. And it must look great in your bank account.”

  “Yeah, I worked for all of that. I sacrificed a lot,” she said, opening the bottle. “News is hard on you and being a black woman in the business is even worse.”

  “How so?” I sat down on the bed.

  “People just expect you to be a hard-nosed bitch. So you try not to be. And then they run over you, and then you have to be a crazy bitch just to get what you want. Anderson Cooper says he wants a certain shot, he gets it. I say I want a shot, they ask my producer. I say, fuck the producer. He wouldn’t have a job if it wasn’t for me.”

  “But there are way more black people working in television . . . at least more than there were when we were growing up. What about A. J. Holmes? I love that brother’s work. He can’t be like all of the other good old boys,” I said, bringing up a black reporter who did special segments on CNN. He was probably one of the most handsome men on television. He looked more like a model than a news reporter. I snuck to watch him in the bedroom on Sunday mornings when Reginald was in the living room watching football.

  “He’s actually pretty cool,” Sasha said. “Fine as all get-out.”

  “Don’t I know!”

  “But he’s still one of the boys. And when it comes down to it, he’ll side with them.”

  She poured a glass of wine and tried to hand it to me.

  “Oh no, I can’t,” I said, feeling the weight of the wine I’d already had at dinner.

  “I insist, soror,” she said. “Take a load off!” She held the glass of wine out right in front of my eyes.

  I reached for it.

  “But what will you drink out of?” I asked. “Let me go into the kitchen and get another glass.”

  “No, no,” she said. “I have the bottle.”

  Thirty minutes later and the guest room had become a dorm room at Manley Hall. Lying in the bed beside Sasha, my head felt so heavy, but I just couldn’t stop laughing.

  “And that girl, you know the dark-skinned pretty one who refused to pledge with us . . . What was her name?” Sasha went on after sharing what I was sure was an embellished tale of a classmate who was caught making out with one of her students behind a high school in Phoenix. It wouldn’t have been so unbelievable had the student not been a girl who the police first thought was a boy. Turns out the girl was on the football team. Now the news was about a classmate who’d just gotten a divorce. “What was her name?”

  “Black Barbie?” I answered. “You mean Black Barbie? Marcy’s best friend?”

  “Yes . . . Kerry. That was her name. Kerry Jackson.”

  “I remember her well. We took biology together over at Morehouse when Spelman didn’t have the class. She was so
pretty. God, it was hard just walking into the classroom behind her,” I said, recalling how it seemed like some kind of R&B music video whenever Kerry was near. Her long, jet black hair, normally parted down the middle, would blow in an invisible breeze that always missed me, and boys would look on and grin like she was a piece of chocolate candy. She never budged though. Never gave them any attention.

  “You know she married that fine-ass Alpha frat brother Jamison. Well, apparently he was having an affair with some woman his mother hooked him up with from her church!” Sasha gushed.

  “That’s madness,” I said, again thinking Sasha was just talking dramatics. “Impossible. Who would cheat on someone like Kerry? She came from a good family and everything.” I looked over at Sasha. What she didn’t know was that my mother had been Kerry’s mother’s maid for the past fifteen years, and I’d already known about the divorce.

  “I know she had a good family,” Sasha said and I could hear the wine in her slurred voice. “And she was pretty to be so dark. You know what I mean?”

  “Please, I almost couldn’t pledge because I was darker than the bricks outside of Manley.”

  “Anyway,” Sasha said, frowning. “Kerry took Jamison’s trifling ass back and he did it again. Flew out to California and got shacked up with the woman he’d cheated with. Got her pregnant. He was so whipped he almost lost his business.”

  “Rake It Up?” I said.

  “Yeah, a million-dollar lawn care service she helped build. I wish a Negro would try that with me!”

  “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to hook Reginald up with him,” I said, thinking of Reginald’s sagging business list. The recession had many of his once-loyal clients cutting their own lawns now. He had to go corporate with his list or he’d be shut out. It was my biggest concern. But mentioning corporate to Reginald was like asking him to sell his soul.

  “He’s thinking of expanding?”

  “We’re considering some things,” I lied. “It’s just so damn hard to get him inspired. He’s gotten all caught up in his white and black thing and then there’s the uppity Negro thing.” I sat up. “I just want him to see that there’s more to life than . . . Augusta!”

  We both laughed.

  “Well, you know what to do!”

  “What?”

  “Put that thang on him!” Sasha squirmed around in the bed like she was having sex.

  “Oh . . . that thang hasn’t been happening up in here in some time,” I admitted and I was surprised I’d let that come out of my mouth. I hadn’t told anyone about our sometimes sour sex life. Months could go by. As long as Reginald had Sports Center on at night, he wouldn’t touch me.

  “Are you kidding me?” Sasha’s eyes got wide. “You better handle that thing in there. His fine, chocolate, big ol’, hay-bale tossing, slave-looking ass!”

  Sasha and I laughed so hard, we bumped heads.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to,” I said. “I love having sex. But he gets tired and bored sometimes, so we just wait until the spirit moves him.”

  “The who moves what?” Sasha asked. “And when does that happen?”

  “Like two times a month,” I claimed solidly. “Maybe three.”

  “Well, have you tried other things? Like toys and movies . . . a threesome?”

  “Oh, no, he’d never do that!” I laughed at the idea.

  “But you would?” Sasha looked into my eyes.

  “Well, I’d consider it . . . I guess if he wanted to,” I spat, nervous in her stare. “You’ve done that?”

  She winked at me flirtatiously

  “What? Have you?” I pushed.

  “Dawn, it’s like an appetizer in Atlanta,” she confessed indirectly.

  “Really?”

  “A second girl in bed means a second date.”

  “Wow,” I said. “But where’s the commitment in that? If he’s so busy having sex with other people, how do you know if he enjoys sex with you?” I was a little embarrassed that I was so ignorant about this. I couldn’t imagine that Reginald would want something like that. We’d never even discussed it.

  “I don’t really care,” Sasha answered dismissively. “As long as he’s having sex and still with me, it’s all good.”

  “But aren’t you looking for love? For a good man? Do you think a good man will want all of that?”

  “Any man would.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Please, the time for pressure and convincing dudes to settle down with me is over,” Sasha said. “The next fool who rolls up in me without a condom will thereby be known as ‘Baby Daddy.’ ”

  She laughed, but I could only offer a slight and uncomfortable giggle. Something in her voice was just too serious.

  “You’re joking, right?” I asked. “What about what you said at dinner? About therapy?”

  “Dawn, I’m ready to be a mother. And if I can’t get a ring by spring, I’ll get a father by fall.”

  “But don’t you think he has a right to know? Like, are you gonna tell the guy your plan?”

  “Look, I don’t want to sound like some kind of evil sociopath. I am all for disclosure, but the truth is that men like Reginald are gone,” Sasha explained. “They just don’t want to get married anymore. They want to play around. They want to love you. But the responsibility that comes with marriage just isn’t something they desire. I get that. But I need to do what’s best for me. I’m not getting any younger.” She flicked at her breasts as some sort of example, but they looked pretty firm and high to me. “Implants,” she whispered.

  I looked at her boobs again with my mouth aghast.

  “Really?” I mouthed.

  “Really,” she mouthed back.

  I shook my head and forced myself to look away from her breasts.

  “But what about the ones who are marrying?”

  “Please; they’re either weak and depending on the woman for whatever reason, on the down low and hoping to hide, or expectant fathers—let’s hope mine is the latter,” Sasha joked.

  “Sounds like you have it all figured out,” I resigned.

  “I’m not expecting anything from anyone. I make enough to support me and my child. He can dip if he wants.”

  Short on rational things to say, I smiled and replied, “Well, I’m sure looking like you do, you’ll find one to stay in no time.” I tossed one of the blond curls hanging lazily from Sasha’s head back behind her ear.

  “Oh, yes, Blondy catches them every time,” Sasha said.

  “Blondy?”

  “Yeah, my wig. Men love it.” She pulled the wig off and showed off a head of tight black nappy curls that hardly stretched beyond the tips of her ears.

  I actually gasped, remembering how many times I’d looked at and studied and envied those curls when I saw Sasha on television.

  “It’s a wig?” I quizzed, amazed. “A wig?”

  “Yes, a lacefront. Cost me $7,000. Some white girl in Cali cut off all of her hair for me.”

  “That’s a lot of money.” I fingered the thing on the bed between us. It looked something like a blond Yorkie or cocker spaniel.

  “And well worth it,” Sasha said. “If a nice car is a chick magnet, Blondy is a dick magnet.”

  I don’t know when I decided to go back to my bedroom after sharing my grandmother’s quilt and two bottles of dark red wine with Sasha, but I did. My feet were ripened watermelons. My head was a pumpkin ready to be plucked from a patch. Everything on me felt heavy and weighted. And every step I took beyond the last brought me closer to sleeping on the cold hallway tile—funny how cold floors look so comforting when you’re inebriated.

  I nearly fell into the bedroom door instead of pushing it open with my hand. What was right in front of me wasn’t quite as close as I’d thought and when I tried to straighten up and consider that maybe the doorknob was farther away, it was two inches closer.

  “Ouch,” I groaned, hitting my hand against the space above the doorknob and then cracking my forehead on the wood when
I tried to console my aching thumb. “Shit!”

  Embarrassed by the sound of myself cursing so loudly in the middle of the night, I looked around for witnesses and then laughed at my suspicions.

  “Who’s out here, Dawn?” I joked with myself. “No one! No . . . one!”

  I finally managed to get ahold of the doorknob and attempted to sober up before walking into the bedroom.

  “Get it together, Dawn,” I scolded myself firmly before turning the knob and opening the bedroom door just a little to see if Reginald was still asleep.

  In a flash, I saw that the bedroom was dark, but the television was on. I didn’t look directly at the screen. It was hanging on the door beside the wall. But I heard Sasha’s voice and saw the colorful lights patterned on the bed.

  Beneath the mosaic reflecting onto our comforter, I saw Reginald’s eyes wide open. The comforter was up to his neck. Something that looked like a teepee was erected near his midsection. I was quiet for a second, listening to Sasha’s voice and watching the top of the teepee rise and settle.

  I thought to say something; I don’t really recall what it was, but just the idea of shaping my drunken thoughts into a sentence made me stumble and fall into the cracked doorway.

  Reginald was obviously surprised and he shot up quickly like the bed had turned to fire.

  “Dawn!” he yelled like I wasn’t supposed to be walking into my own bedroom. He jumped right out of the bed.

  “What are you doing?” I asked in a haze. I stepped in to see the television. It was another taped episode of Sasha’s show. She smiled brightly into my bedroom with a purple halter top that showed a line to her cleavage.

  “Just watching the news,” Reginald offered.

  “Sasha’s show?” I said. “We never watch that.” I made my way to the bed and just tossed my whole self onto it without digging into the covers.

  Reginald was still standing where he’d landed. His gym shorts were hanging low at his knees.

  “What? Why are you looking at me?” he asked.

  “What? I always look at you.”

  “You’re drunk.”

  “No,” I said and even in that one syllable I managed a slur. My head on the pillow, I watched as Reginald straightened his shorts and sat back down on the bed. “Why did you get up if you were going to sit back down?”