“Dreamgirls? Honey, are they still doing that show? And aren’t we a little too old to be playing teenagers?” Della asked with a feigned sympathetic smile.
“The director and producers don’t seem to think so,” Nicole snapped back as she took her seat.
Yancey started looking for the waitress. When the waitress saw Yancey waving her hand in the air, she came over and asked what she needed.
“Can you move these plates and bring us two cups of coffee? And please don’t take all day. We’re in a rush,” Yancey said with a great deal of disdain. “She is so slow,” Yancey said after the waitress scurried to get the coffee.
Nicole looked at Yancey, wondering why she was being so rude toward the waitress, and then turned back to Della. “So are you still in the business?”
“That fake shit? No way,” Della said. For the next five minutes Della stood hovering over Nicole and Yancey’s table telling Nicole about her wonderful life while completely ignoring Yancey. It was like a Shakespearean monologue with a little “drama mama” thrown in for good measure. “My husband, Mike, is an import-export dealer. He made a lot of money with the market and now he has his own company. We do a lot of business in London and South Africa. You know, there is a lot of business over there with all the changes. It’s such a beautiful country. Have you ever been? We even had dinner with Nelson Mandela, it was just so grand. Mostly, though, we just spend a lot of time traveling all over the world. Right now we’re redoing a place on Fifth Avenue, so I’m spending a lot of time with my designer when I’m not in Sag Harbor, where we also have a house,” Della said triumphantly.
“Sounds like everything is going great for you,” Nicole said as she looked at Yancey and rolled her eyes.
“Yes, it is. I’ll have to invite you and your husband to one of our parties. Last summer when we gave our housewarming at our place in Sag Harbor, everybody who was anybody was there. Barbara Smith, you know she owns B. Smith, her husband, Dan, Russell Simmons, Puffy Combs, and Ed Bradley. People are still talking about it.”
“Sounds like it was a fabulous party,” Nicole said.
“What, no Veronica Webb?” Yancey asked, her voice full of sarcasm. Della ignored her question.
“So, Nicole, what does your husband do? You didn’t marry one of those fine chorus boys, did you?”
“No, I didn’t. My husband, Jared, is a vice-president at Morgan Stanley. He just got a promotion and we still have a home in Atlanta.”
“Isn’t that nice? So, Yancey, what do you do?” Della asked as she finally turned her head in Yancey’s direction.
“Is knowing what I do important to the continuation of your happy life?” Yancey asked.
“Excuse me?” Della said, her voice expressing complete surprise at the tone of Yancey’s question.
“You heard me, Miss, or should I say, Mrs. Ghetto Fabulous, or whatever your name is. You’ve been standing up here running your mouth, completely ignoring me, and now you want to know what I do? I don’t think so,” Yancey said as she took a sip of coffee. Nicole was looking at Yancey with a shocked expression, but she wanted to stand and applaud her and sing out, “Brava, diva.”
Della looked at Nicole and then back at Yancey and then, in a huff, turned and left the restaurant without so much as a “good-bye.”
“Yancey, girl, you are too tough,” Nicole laughed.
“Who does that bitch think she is? She made me want to pull up on her.”
Nicole drank some coffee and then told Yancey how she and Della used to compete for roles on Broadway and national commercials.
“She competed with you? That dumpy-looking bitch? Look like somebody broke the seal on the biscuit can. And what was that she was wearing? Did she walk into a hotel lobby, look at the rug, and say, ‘Make me a dress out of that’?” Yancey laughed.
Nicole smiled and said, “She has gained a lot of weight. But life and those biscuits must be good. I just don’t know how you could tell right off she was bad news. I mean, you picked up on that right away. It usually takes me a little more time,” Nicole said.
“Honey, I can see trouble coming, even when it’s disguised as a high-society wannabe,” Yancey said. She thought it didn’t make sense for Nicole to be as old as she was and still naïve when it came to bad seeds.
“Della was very talented. I mean sistah could sing and act her butt off, but she was always stirring up a mess. She’s one of those girls who could best be described as an ‘I’m tired of talking about me, why don’t you talk about me’ kinda girl,” Nicole said. “A lot of people used to call her Evilene behind her back, ’cause she’d smile in your face one minute and stab you in the back the next. Rumor has it that she was understudying a role in Ain’t Misbehavin’, and one night she put the star’s dress in the toilet right before curtain. Everywhere Della showed up, trouble followed,” Nicole added.
“If she did that to me, I would still be beating her down. I guess most of us have some evil bitch in our past. Mine was this child named Nisey Mitchell. Her father and mother were both attorneys and thought they were hot shit. Nisey and I were in dance class and pageants together ever since we were about eight years old. Always the only two black girls. But she was so two-faced, and she had about as much talent as an ant. But in a small town that doesn’t stop you. I got her ass good in the end, though,” Yancey said proudly.
“What happened?”
“She wanted to be a cheerleader so bad, but couldn’t even do a cartwheel. But we had this rule at our school that since most of the football team was black, then there had to be at least one black cheerleader. Everybody wanted me to try out, but Nisey pleaded with me to try out for drill team. She even offered to pay for my uniform and drill team camp. So during her junior year it looked like Nisey was going to live her dream by default ’cause she was the only black girl trying out for the cheerleading squad. But then, even though I had promised her I had no interest in being a cheerleader, I showed up at tryouts,” Yancey said.
“Did you make it?” Nicole asked.
“Of course I made it,” Yancey said with a laugh. She and Nicole slapped palms in a midlevel high five.
“So she never got to be a cheerleader?” Nicole asked, suddenly wishing she hadn’t given Yancey that high five. She felt like black women needed to stick together, but reasoned that Yancey was still young.
“Not really. She was selected as an alternate, but when I quit right before the season started, they wouldn’t let her on the squad because she didn’t know all that stupid stuff they do. Like I said, I had no interest in that shit. I was trying to concentrate on my dancing, not shaking some pom-poms.”
“It’s sad to see black women treat each other so badly, but I guess in this business we’ve all got a Della or a Nisey in our past,” Nicole said mournfully. She was thinking of some of the evil young ladies she had met during her pageant days.
“Yeah, girl, but that’s where they need to stay. In our past,” Yancey said as she picked up the check.
17
Basil was feeling talkative and launched into a long narrative moments after taking a seat in the leather chair.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about whether or not this is helping. You know, I still haven’t confronted my father or my uncle about what happened and to tell the truth I don’t think about it until I come into this office. When I do think about it, I keep hoping you’ll have some kinda magic pill that would make everything all right, but we both know that ain’t gonna happen. It’s not like I’m some crazy gonna-shoot-somebody-or-myself mofo. I should just maybe say the shit happened, it’s over, move on.”
“Is that what you want to do?”
“I mean, what’s the point? I’m still attracted to dumb-ass women and knucklehead mofos. You ain’t been holding back on me, Doc, have you? You don’t have some kinda magic pill that’s going to stop these desires I have, do you?”
“You know that’s not possible, but let me play the devil’s advocate here for a moment. If there was such a pill,
would you take it?”
“Damn straight,” Basil said firmly.
“Then that means your feelings for Raymond are only sexual?”
“I didn’t say that, but I see what you gettin’ at. My thing with Raymond is that if I’m going to have these desires about men, then I want it to be with him or somebody like him. I mean, I still have to keep my shit tight. Even though I’m not playing ball, I can’t be out there just sleeping around with every mofo that looks my way. I mean dudes talk about who they sleep with much more than the honeys, and they lie.”
“So you’re not clear on what you expect from a relationship with Raymond?”
“I’m clear I want to make that mofo pay for ignoring my letter. When I found out he was up for that judgeship, I figure now would be the time to bust his ass. But knowing his honest-Abe ass—that mofo has already told them he was into dudes.”
“You’ve never considered that Raymond didn’t know how to help you?”
“Then he should have said that! Look, I don’t want to talk about Raymond. Let’s talk about something else.”
“What do you want to talk about?” the doctor asked as he scribbled in his notebook that Basil kept changing the subject whenever something bothered him.
“I went out to breakfast with Campbell. We had a nice time, but the conversation was kinda strange.”
“How so?”
“I don’t think she’s interested in me sexually. I think she’s just looking for a friend.”
“What makes you say that?”
“First of all, she showed me these pictures of this white dude she been going out with. I mean, they live together, got a kid, and have a couple of dogs and she seems pretty happy. And I was right about her being mixed, but she didn’t say which one of her parents is white,” Basil said. He didn’t tell the doctor how he had thought about bedding Campbell when she showed up in tight jeans and a yellow sweater that highlighted her breasts and skin tone.
“Does that disappoint you?”
“Not really. Getting close with some honey right now is the last thing I need. I lost my heart not that long ago, and I’m not going down that road again.”
“Not even with Raymond?”
“I was talking about Campbell,” Basil said firmly.
“So are you going to see her again?”
“Yeah, ’cause I really like talking to her,” Basil smiled.
The doctor asked Basil what he was smiling about. At first, Basil started not to answer because it reminded him of the times women and men had asked him what he was thinking about when he became silent. It drove him crazy. But Basil answered the doctor anyway.
“I was thinking if I continue to feel so comfortable talking with Campbell, then I won’t need you. I mean I could just schedule a lunch or a dinner with her once a week and talk to her,” Basil laughed.
“Why do you feel comfortable talking with her?”
“I don’t know, maybe because she makes me think about things I’ve tried not to think about.”
“Like what?”
“She asked me about what kinda ladies I dated.”
“What did you say?”
“I told her I dated all kinds of women. Started to tell her my jimmie didn’t discriminate,” Basil laughed.
“Do you think she’s interested in dating you?”
“Naw, ’cause she went back to that mother shit. Asked me if I’d known my mother, would it make a difference in the type of women I dated.”
“What did you say?”
“I said maybe. I told her there were things I think I missed by not having a mother.”
“Were there things you missed?”
“Yeah, sorta. When I was a little boy and I would see other children with their mothers at school or at a football or baseball game, I knew I was missing a big part of my life. All I had was my aunt and whoever my father was bonin’ trying to take the place of my mother. I mean, maybe if I had a close day-to-day relationship with a mother, then maybe I would have more respect for women.” For a moment, Basil’s mind wandered back to the Little League playing fields in Jacksonville, Florida, where he had first excelled in sports. But now he only saw the faces of the mothers of all his friends and heard his father’s voice shouting, “That’s my boy.”
“Didn’t your father teach you to respect women?” the doctor asked.
Basil didn’t answer immediately. He was thinking about when he was a little boy, and his father would sometimes use his lady friends as live-in baby-sitters for him, while he played cards and chased other women with his buddies. When he couldn’t recall any of the ladies’ names or their faces, he finally broke his silence.
“My father taught me to be a man and to try and do what’s right.”
“And don’t you think treating women with respect is the right thing?”
“You have to earn respect,” Basil said defiantly with a disapproving stare.
18
“So you think they think we punks,” Trent teased.
“That was an educated crowd, they figured it out,” Raymond said.
“Madam chairwoman sure did have a nice house,” Trent said. “I really loved the way she had the buffet set up.”
“It was nice, wasn’t it?” Raymond agreed.
“And the food was off the hook.”
“Yeah, sister laid it out,” Raymond said, speaking of the elaborate buffet of cold tiger shrimp, pastas, chicken, salads, and roast beef.
“Didn’t you think it was funny that most of the wait staff was white or Asian?” Trent asked.
“I guess like they say, we’ve come a long way, baby.”
The two were sitting at the kitchen table late Saturday evening. They had just returned from a dinner given in Raymond’s honor by the local NAACP chapter. Lisa had warned Raymond they would be checking him out, even though many of the members already knew him from his work in the community.
“What did you think of Charles Pope?” Raymond asked. He was another one of the lawyers being considered for the bench. He was a partner with one of the larger firms in Seattle making big bank. A native of Washington, Charles had graduated from the University of Washington and Yale Law School. He had also clerked for Supreme Court Justice Marshall. Rumor was he was a big womanizer and had far too many skeletons in his closet, including a child out of wedlock with his law clerk. He seemed particularly interested in Raymond and Trent’s relationship, but something prevented him from asking them point-blank if they were more than roommates.
“He seemed like a nice guy. But his wife didn’t match,” Trent said.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, she seemed so shy, almost matronly, but she was certainly gulping down those vodka gimlets. There is an awful lot of pain going on there,” Trent said about the woman who had sat next to him at dinner.
“I didn’t talk to her that long,” Raymond said.
“Yeah, that’s why I think they knew what the deal was. You know with the seating arrangements. They sat me next to Mrs. Pope and you next to the hostess’s husband. Something right out of B. Smith’s book on entertaining,” Trent said.
“Yeah, I did notice that,” Raymond said.
“Charles asked where we met,” Trent said.
“Did you tell him?”
“Yeah, you know he’s a frat.”
“I didn’t know that. I’ve never seen him at any meetings.”
“He ain’t true. He pledged in the grad chapter in one of those walk-right-up-and-sign-in things.”
“I guess that explains why I didn’t know he was a brother.”
The last two weeks had been busy for Raymond. Not only was his calendar filled with sudden social obligations like dinners and drinks, but he was also spending a great deal of time with Lisa preparing for his hearing. When he wasn’t in meetings with Lisa, Raymond was boning up on recent court rulings and scheduling appointments with members of Washington’s congressional staff members. All of this time spent shoring up support for
his nomination was causing a little concern around his office. Their small size made a billing lawyer a valuable commodity. Feeling the subtle concern, Raymond had decided to resign. The partners wouldn’t hear of that, but felt maybe a leave of absence might be better. Besides, they knew it would be an honor for them to have a former partner on the bench, one who felt supported by his firm. They never knew when a lawyer from the firm might end up trying a case before Judge Raymond Tyler, Jr.
There wasn’t a major concern about Raymond neglecting his clients or his workload. Most of his clients on retainer weren’t experiencing any major legal problems. But now every time a new case was presented at staff meetings, Raymond had to decline it because of his impending hearing. Because the firm wasn’t large enough to have a partner doing very limited billing, Raymond understood perfectly that a leave of absence was in order.
“So you sure you can take care of me in the lifestyle I’ve become accustomed to?” Raymond asked Trent. He really didn’t need Trent to support him. He had a nice savings account, and his investments were paying off. It just felt nice knowing that if he needed help, Trent had his back.
“Of course, but you’ve got to turn over all your credit cards and develop a taste for fried baloney and egg sandwiches,” he teased. “What do you want to drink?”
“I know I shouldn’t, but let me have a little wine. I don’t have to get up early in the morning,” Raymond said.
“What did your father say about you taking the leave?”
“He thought it was a good plan. Said I need to use all my energy getting ready for those fools in D.C.”
“You’re not going to have a problem,” Trent said as he handed Raymond a glass of white wine.
“Cheers,” Raymond said as he tapped his wineglass against Trent’s beer bottle and smiled.
“I had a nice time and I was real proud of you,” Trent said.
“Thanks for going. It felt good having you near. I know how much you hate those type of things,” Raymond said. Usually Trent only accompanied Raymond to the annual office Christmas party and sporting events. When Raymond needed an escort, he would invite his paralegal, Sara. Recently Sara had met her future husband while escorting Raymond to a client dinner party.
Abide with Me Page 8
