All About Me

by Marcia King-Gamble

  “The others decided to stay in the van,” the red man said to his wife. Others? Don’t tell me there were more. He shook his jowls at me expecting me to cower. “Where’s Manny?”

  I handed him a business card. “I’m in charge.”

  After glancing at my card, he tossed it aside. “I want Manny not you, Cherie.”

  “The name’s Chere as in Sonny and Cher. Manny’s not here and I’m not about to manufacture him. Who are you, anyway?”

  “Thomas Houston. Mr. Houston to you. That there’s Mrs. Houston and those are my children.” He pointed to the obnoxious woman who’d arrived with the kids that were now whirling through the room like a tornado. They were totally out of control.

  I was going to kill Manny when I got ahold of him. I was going to grab him by his little wiener and squeeze hard until it got big.

  I didn’t want to be rude because I didn’t want to lose a job I had just started. So I said, “Because Manny said I should help you, I will.”

  “Help us do what?”

  We were going around in circles and I was more than a little pissed. I didn’t care about being professional.

  “You’re here to buy a condo, right?” Based on the size of that family they should be buying an entire building or two.

  “We were looking to buy several condos but not from you.”

  There was something about me they didn’t like. Well I didn’t like them either. I was considering telling them to get the hell out of the sales office when a voice I recognized said.

  “Hey, Tom, what seems to be the problem?”

  Quen. He was standing in the doorway taking in the sight of me all puffed up, and those children skating across the floor and diving off my desk.

  Thomas Houston on spotting Quen seemed to come down off his high horse.

  “Hey Quen, old man, long time no see.” They did one of those bear hugs that only men do. “I’d been expecting Manny to show me around not some chick. Now he’s done a disappearing act.”

  So that was the problem. It wasn’t my skin color that bothered him. It was me being female that was the problem.

  “You look nice. Think you can help Tom and his family, sugar?” Quen said, entering the room and glaring at the out of control brats. “Okay, enough already, kids. Time to clean up. Get those papers off the floor. Get yourselves off the desk, and Randall since you’re the oldest one, you make sure everyone gets this place in order. Now.”

  And just like that the madness ended. I could have thrown my arms around the man and kissed him. Then Quen turned to the Houston man and said, “Chere Adams is the best Realtor this town has. She’s a straight-up gal with a lot of smarts and she’s handling two of my properties. If I were going to buy an apartment it would be from her.”

  How sweet is that? And you wonder why I had the hots for this man?

  Chapter 5

  “Five pounds, sugar. You’ve lost five pounds.”

  Quen high-fived me and I did a little mambo. I’d finally learned that move from step class, but it had taken me several classes to get it down.

  Losing that weight felt good, having Quen’s hands on me felt even better. I liked him touching me, moving an arm or leg into position as I struggled with a machine. Sometimes I struggled on purpose, and although his touching me could be considered part of his job; there were times I fantasized different.

  I smiled into those chocolate eyes and tried not to lick my lips. I loved it that he called me sugar. Although weight loss and sweetener didn’t go together, we were at least making progress. I was sick and tired of being called thick, and now that skinny Joya was coming to town I needed to get the weight off. She would be my incentive.

  When you’re busy like I’d been lately, you don’t have time to eat properly. My meals had been candy bars and a bite or two of a sandwich here and there, but the weight was still disappearing. Jen said it was because I was exercising and on my feet showing real estate, and I wasn’t just stuck behind a desk or laying on the couch watching mindless TV.

  And now, after crawling out of yoga class at a ridiculous hour, Quen had waylaid me and insisted on a weigh-in. He handed me a power bar.

  “Your reward,” he said, sounding solemn. His eyes didn’t have their usual sparkle.

  “I thought you’d be excited for me. How come you’re PMS’ing?” I quizzed, giving him a chicken neck, eyes popping.

  “I am excited, sugar.” One finger flicked my cheek playfully. He was treating me like his kid sister again and I’d better take it for what it was, or I’d be melting in a pool at his feet begging him to do me.

  “Everyone should sound like you when they’re happy.”

  “My ex is coming back to town, and it’s kinda thrown me,” he admitted.

  “Holy Toledo! Joya’s coming back?” I faked surprise. “I thought she’d had it with Flamingo Beach and we down-to-earth folks. What’s she coming back for?”

  Quen’s smile seemed strained. “According to her grandmother, she burned out on the flight attendant job, took a leave of absence, and now needs to recuperate.”

  “So why did she choose here?”

  He shrugged.

  I didn’t mean to sound sour but Joya’s arrival was going to cause me grief. Plus it was going to put a kink in the plans I had for me and Quen. How could a girl my size compete with size two? In a small town like this I’d be sure to run into her even if we didn’t move in the same circles.

  “It’ll be okay, sugar. It’ll have to be.” Quen chucked me under my chin and I got that warm fluttery feeling in my tummy.

  He didn’t know how big a crush I had on him, and how much I disliked it that Joya had shared his bed. Some said she’d really broken his heart. I was all for volunteering to repair that heart and make it whole again.

  “I may have sold my first condo,” I said excitedly. “Can I take you to dinner to celebrate?” I caught myself and added, “We can discuss renting your condos. There’s all the paperwork to go over.” I held my breath.

  “You can take me anywhere you want, sugar, as long as it serves good healthy food.” He chucked me under the chin again and began walking off. “Call me.”

  Quen had just given me the kind of opening I needed. I planned on calling him. Soon.

  Later that evening, I couldn’t open my apartment door no matter how much I jiggled my key. The stiff, stubborn lock refused to move and I kicked at the door in frustration.

  “Open up you damn thing!”

  I stalked down the hallway swearing and cussing. On top of everything else I was juggling, I now needed to call a locksmith to get into my place. The key had worked just fine this morning.

  The door of an apartment creaked open. Shirley Babcock who had five children and no man in the house stuck her head out.

  “The landlady was here,” she announced.

  “What do you mean, Shirley?” I asked. “Speak plainly now.”

  “She said you didn’t pay your rent and she was going to lock your sorry ass out.”

  “She did not!” I bit back a stream of colorful cuss words. My back hit the wall of that hallway. I wanted to bang my head, have a temper tantrum and cry.

  “What did she do with my stuff?” I asked.

  Shirley’s neck wobbled from one side to the other. “She said she was going to pitch it.”

  “She did not!”

  Gawd! I couldn’t let that happen. I had some expensive stuff in that apartment. My red leather sofa for one, and my antique glass table with the elephant feet and painted toenails; at least I thought it was antique. It cost me big money as did my zebra-skinned divan with the matching pillows where I watched my TV. My stereo was a Bose and my round bed, which was my pride and joy, was the kind that gyrated. I was still paying for them on time. I wasn’t about to donate these items.

  I dug into my purse, found my cell phone and stabbed at the landlady’s programmed number. To hell with Mr. Cummings and his queen’s English. This required plain old street language; ghe
ttoese with a few well placed cuss words tossed in between. It was the only thing the ugly bitch would understand.

  Wouldn’t you know it? I got the bitch’s answering machine. I left her a message and I gave her a certain time to get back to me. And just in case she didn’t get it, I told her my posse would be coming to get my furniture one way or the other.

  Shirley Babcock must have got me and so did the entire floor, because by the time the machine cut off Shirley’s door was closed, and there wasn’t a sound coming from any of the other apartments. No stereos, no people fussing, no babies crying. Nothing. Unusual, because in my building there was always a racket.

  I pressed another button on my phone and waited.

  “Yes, Chere,” Jen greeted.

  Thank God she at least answered. I explained my dilemma and waited, fingers crossed for what I hoped she would say.

  “You can move into my apartment early if you want,” she offered.

  I made the sign of the cross and I wasn’t Catholic. Now what was I going to do about clothes?

  One thing at a time Chere. You have a roof over your head.

  “Would you like me to come and get you?” Jen offered. Her niceness made me feel guilty. Here I was trying to get a promotion at the Chronicle, and ready to go over her head if she didn’t come through.

  “Nah, I can drive. I’m just so freaking mad.”

  She made these soothing noises meant to calm me down. I wasn’t calm, hell who would be if everything you owned was in some woman’s possession? And that included your full refrigerator with the ham, rack of ribs, frozen burgers and Dr. Peppers. That food wasn’t cheap.

  Burning rubber out of that parking lot, I made it over to Jen’s place in record time.

  As soon as she let me in, she handed me a spritzer; you know wine and water. I don’t drink wine except when I’m trying to impress someone, but Jen wasn’t a Colts kind of girl. In any case I especially appreciated the gesture.

  She waited until we were seated on her sectional couch and I had shed a tear or two, before saying, “Your landlady can’t just lock you out without arranging for you to pick up your things. You can take her to court you know.”

  “With what? I have no money. I’m hoping this deal with the Houstons goes through so that I can get my commission check and pay down some of my bills.”

  “File in small claims, it only requires a nominal fee. I’ll lend you the money.”

  I shook my head. It was a sweet thing to offer. “My things cost more than the allowable amount.” There had to be another way.

  “Okay, okay.” She patted my shoulder awkwardly, “So what’s the plan now?”

  “Hope that I scared the living bejesus out of the witch, and she allows me access to the apartment.”

  “That would be good.” Jen stood and handed me the apartment keys. “You know where everything is. If there’s something you need you know where to find me. Just knock on 5B.”

  I remembered I didn’t have clothes so I asked, “Think Tre will lend me a T-shirt and a pair of boxers so that I can get comfortable? And you think we can work out of here tomorrow so I don’t have to launder a whole bunch of stuff?”

  Jen squeezed my shoulder. “I can make both happen. Now you try to relax while I go find you something to wear.”

  She was back in half an hour with clothing draped over one arm. By then I had gone through her refrigerator eating everything and anything I could find. And there hadn’t been much. I was beginning to realize there was a reason skinny people were skinny. What she had were the fixings for salad, a container with tuna fish and a plastic bag with pita. I was still starving.

  Jen handed over a couple of Tre’s T-shirts; the kind that had WARP written all over the front. Tre was the on-air personality for the radio station and made big bucks because they wanted to keep him. Now he had his own show which he and Jen co-hosted two nights a week, bringing down the house with the Jenna and D’Dawg show. The man was so whipped he’d even given her first billing.

  “That’s the best that I could do,” she said, not adding that my caboose wouldn’t fit into Tre’s shorts

  I thanked her and was thinking about underwear. I supposed I could hand wash what I was wearing and go comancho for one night, just until I could buy some tomorrow or that evil-assed woman let me into the apartment. There was no one here to see my fat bare ass except me.

  “You don’t look too good, Chere,” Jen said giving me that compassionate stare, eyes slightly narrowed. “I’d be glad to stay the night and keep you company if you would like.”

  I didn’t want no company. I wanted to be left alone to wallow in self pity and plan vengeance on my miserable land lady.

  “No, no. I’ll be okay. I’m going to take a shower, wash my underwear and change into a T-shirt.”

  Jen hesitated. What did she think I was going to do, kill myself because some old broad had decided to lock me out of my apartment?

  “I’ll be fine,” I insisted.

  The minute she was out the door I turned on the television. Jen had one of those expensive wall units that fooled you into believing you were watching a movie on the big screen. Right now some skinny woman was on BET talking about the importance of good nutrition, and that America had a huge obesity problem. She was going on about what an undisciplined bunch we were. Over eating was an oral fixation she said, not that I exactly knew what that meant. When I think of oral, something totally different comes to mind.

  Using the remote, I snapped off the television. Then I turned on the stereo and found a rap station. That was much better. When all you heard was thump, thump, thump, it didn’t give you any reason to reflect.

  I dragged my butt up the hallway and into Jen’s bedroom, which was huge, almost the size of my apartment. It had French doors that led out to a balcony overlooking the boardwalk and gave a clear view of the ocean. The bed had fancy sheets on and a cover that matched the drapes at the windows. Well I’m not so sure they were drapes actually, they were material that dipped and curled, outlining the frame.

  Right there in the middle of that room, in front of those French doors, I began taking off the clothes that I’d worn to the office. No one could see. I crossed the room to examine myself in the full length mirror to see if losing those five pounds made that much of a difference. My weight had always been my best friend. I trusted those folds and dimples more than any man. I’d been heavy for most of my life and truthfully it felt comfortable.

  As a teenager I’d begun piling on the pounds, hoping that my appearance would protect me, especially when I started getting unwelcomed male attention. I’d been dumbfounded when the teenage boys that I’d known all of my life and played hide-and-seek with wanted to play an entirely different game. And when the neighbor’s husband, who used to give me candy suggested that we play hide the eggplant and see what developed, I began to develop serious trust issues.

  When I refused, he forced me to, threatening that he would tell my family I’d come on to him and was making him uncomfortable. This went on until I was sixteen and then one day when he whipped that old eggplant out I doused his thing with a plentiful amount of red pepper and that was that. From then on, boyfriend kept his distance.

  Men! The majority are pigs; pigs with a one-track mind. And so I wallowed in my fat and pretended to be this happy, jolly woman with more confidence than most. But Ian Pendergrass who owned the Chronicle had seen how smart and vulnerable I was. It was he who’d given me an opportunity to better my life. But even Ian had expected something in return for being kind.

  Now I was plain old wary of pretty much every man. For the most part I preferred it if they left me the hell alone; except for Quen. He was an old friend that I had this unexplainable thing for. Maybe it was because he never looked at me as if he wanted to toss me into bed. He treated me like his kid sister, nice comfortable Chere, easy to be around. I had mixed feelings about that. I wanted to be seen as a woman. His woman.

  I was about to change that; s
tarting with the dinner we two would have supposedly to discuss renting his apartments.

  Crossing the white tile floor, I entered Jen’s spotless bathroom. A huge, gilt mirror hung over the sink and I stared into it wondering if others saw me as I did. I didn’t think of myself as particularly pretty. I had huge brown eyes and these double chins. What I’d always had was a great personality.

  I walked over to the Jacuzzi tub. It was the kind you stepped down into and had big chrome knobs. Four large fluffy towels, a cool shade of mint, were folded in apricot-colored wicker baskets on the floor. Surrounding the tub were scented candles of various shapes and sizes. The woman must have quite the life.

  I turned the water on full volume. Because it was a warm spring evening, the air conditioning hummed. I waited for the mirror to mist up before stepping under the shower and washing my underwear. I draped it over the sides of the tub and positioned my body under the jets. How long I stayed there I don’t exactly know, but it must have been a while because when I finally turned that water off my bones no longer hurt. I wrapped my body into one of those mint towels. I was still hungry but in a far better mood. And now I had a plan.

  I used one of Jen’s expensive lotions to cream down my body then I tugged on Tre’s shirt. Cell phone in hand I climbed onto Jen’s big bed, pressed a button and called Sheena.

  “I didn’t expect to hear from you,” she said.

  “And why’s that?”

  “’Cause you’re no friend. Friend’s don’t move in on another friend’s man.”

  Sheena had no particular man that I knew of. Every man was her man.

  “Come again,” I said.

  She got straight to the point. “Why you moving in on Manny?”

  I kept forgetting how fast news travels in this town. But wait a minute, there’d been no one else around, so it had to be Manny who’d told her he saw me.

  “Let’s not forget Manny’s dating Lizzie,” I reminded her.