The Boss

by Aya De León

  “How tall are you now?” she asked.

  “Six feet,” Amaru said with an aww shucks in her voice.

  “I’m looking forward to your game Tuesday,” Tyesha said.

  “It’s just an exhibition thing,” Amaru said. “One of the coaches from Syracuse is in town and she wanted to see me play.”

  “That’s fabulous, girl!” Tyesha said. “Don’t sell yourself short.”

  “So enough about that,” Deza said. “Let’s get my demo going.”

  “I been telling her to put the best stuff first,” Amaru said. “But she don’t want to listen to me.”

  “Your sister’s right,” Tyesha told Deza. “You want to start off strong.”

  Deza shook her head. “I don’t want it to go downhill,” she said. “It’s gotta build momentum.”

  “But what if they don’t listen to the whole thing?” Amaru said. “It’s not like a basketball game where they stay to see who wins.”

  “Yeah, well, this isn’t basketball,” Deza said. “This is him taking my auntie out and trying to get in good with her. He gonna listen.”

  Deza set up her laptop to burn the CD and turned to Tyesha. “So what are we doing with your hair?”

  That day, Deza’s own hair was a combination of weave, flatiron, natural texture, several bright colors, and the original dark reddish brown that the three of them shared.

  “Something much simpler than what you got going,” Tyesha said. “Just press it straight with a little bump of a curl on the bottom.”

  “One of these days you gotta let me do something interesting,” Deza said.

  Tyesha rolled her eyes. “So, Amaru, sounds like basketball is really your thing, huh?”

  “I’m serious about it,” Amaru said. “But certain people can’t seem to see it.”

  “Zeus wouldn’t pay for Amaru to go to an athletic boarding school,” Deza said. “Mama been on Zeus.” Deza began a shrill impression of her mother. “As much money as you got with yo cheap ass. You need to spend some real cash on yo kids. Not just cute outfits.”

  Tyesha knew it was more complicated. Their dad, Zeus, was an OG, almost old enough to be Jenisse’s father. Tyesha knew that the girls were born before Jenisse was exclusive with Zeus. They were probably his kids, but not definitely. Maybe, without the certainty of paternity, he was willing to pay for them to look cute but not the bigger investment of boarding school.

  “I think it’s also connected to this trip to New York,” Amaru said. “I think he’s fucking with some crazy Ukrainian mob guys here. He doesn’t know what his income is gonna look like for the next four years.”

  “Well, if he wanna save money,” Deza said, “he need to fire that motherfucker Reagan.”

  Tyesha recalled the man in question, Zeus’s bodyguard and right-hand man.

  “Ever since my titties started to grow, he been sniffing around,” Deza said.

  “Me, too,” Amaru said, looking down at her chest, which was mostly pectoral muscles. “Even without much titties.”

  Tyesha recalled him from her own teenage years. She didn’t see him much, but he always had a leer for her, sort of secretly, outside of Zeus’s view.

  “Did you tell your dad?” Tyesha asked.

  The girls rolled their eyes.

  “ ‘He don’t mean nothing by it,’” Deza mimicked her father. “Besides, Reagan is always a perfect gentleman in front of Zeus.”

  “He says he’s like a son to him,” Amaru said, bitterness in her voice. Tyesha waited for her to say more. She wondered if Amaru was upset because she, the butch daughter, had been passed over for such consideration. Or maybe it was because Zeus’s actual sons—Deza and Amaru’s older brothers—had tried to be part of their dad’s business, but it landed them in jail.

  “Do you think we could kill Reagan and blame it on the Ukrainian mob?” Deza asked. “If Zeus wasn’t paying that motherfucker’s bills, he’d have money for Amaru’s school.”

  “Nah,” Amaru said. “I don’t really want his money for school. I’ma make my own way. Like Auntie Ty did.”

  “God bless the child that’s got her own,” Tyesha said.

  Chapter 6

  Later that morning, Tyesha rode the subway to the steakhouse where she and Thug Woofer had had their first date. Actually, their very first meeting had been a different kind of date. Marisol had sent her, Kim, and Jody to do an unofficial engagement party for Woof’s brother. They had done a surprise strip show, and Tyesha was supposed to have sex with Thug Woofer. But he had been too drunk.

  Tyesha had definitely gotten paid up front. She was ready to leave, but Thug Woofer was vomiting, and she couldn’t seem to lay him on the bed in a position where he wasn’t at risk of choking. A consultation call with Marisol had led to her getting paid overtime to study there all night instead of at her own apartment. It wouldn’t do to have a dead rap star and three escorts wanted for questioning by the police. When Thug Woofer woke up in the morning, Tyesha was ready to go take her test. The rapper, however, had a hangover and the mistaken impression that she’d stayed to get the sex he’d been too drunk to offer the night before. He went from smug to belligerent when Tyesha wasn’t interested. Initially, he had offered cash and refused to make an appointment with the madam. But when his attitude escalated, she had cussed him out and made a dramatic exit.

  She assumed that was the end of it. A bad client. But then he had wooed her, showed up at her office with roses and good manners. He took her on a real first date and didn’t press for sex at all. Then he had taken her to the Oscars. She was just starting to like him when he acted like an ass again. His words on the Melvyn album seemed persuasive, but was this just more Jekyll and Hyde?

  * * *

  As she strode from the subway to the steakhouse, she took a deep breath of summer air. Fortunately, it wasn’t so humid to undo all of Deza’s work. It had rained the night before, and she had an umbrella just in case. Why was she even making such a fuss? This lunch was for Deza. It didn’t matter whether Woof had changed or not. All she had to do was get the demo into his hands. A good meal was just a bonus.

  As she approached the restaurant, she could see him waiting out front. He held a bouquet of flowers—no, as she got closer, she could see it was an orchid.

  He looked up and down the street, brightening when he saw her. He set down the orchid and pulled her into a hug.

  “Tyesha Couvillier,” he said.

  As she pressed against him in the hug, she realized she had forgotten how cut he was. His chest and arm muscles were thick and taut—she could feel them even through his light rain jacket.

  “Can I still call you Woof?” she asked.

  “Call me whatever you want,” he said, as they walked into the restaurant.

  The waitress swept them immediately to the same table they’d had before. Woof ordered a whiskey, and Tyesha got a rum and Coke.

  “This is for you,” Woof said, after the waitress left. He slid the orchid across to her.

  “Thank you. It’s gorgeous,” Tyesha said. “And I brought you a little something.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Really?”

  She slid the CD out of her purse and onto her lap. “See, it’s really my niece you should be thanking. She’s the one who got me to listen to your new work.”

  “Please pass on my appreciation,” he said. “Would she like an autograph?”

  “Not exactly,” Tyesha said. “She’s a rapper, and she made me promise that if I liked your album, I’d ask you to listen to her demo CD.”

  Tyesha handed him the disk.

  As he took it, his hand lingered on hers. It was cool to the touch, the skin smooth and the palm firmly muscled.

  “Okay,” he said. “I promise to give it the usual demo treatment. I’ll listen to thirty seconds. Then it either goes into the ‘listen further’ pile or the recycle pile.”

  “She’ll be thrilled,” Tyesha said.

  The waitress brought their drinks and took their f
ood order. Woof ordered steak with greens and mashed potatoes. Tyesha got the same thing she’d gotten the last time: fried chicken with yams and cornbread.

  “So what about you?” he asked. “You graduated from Columbia?”

  She nodded. “I’m the director of the clinic now.”

  “Does that mean you’re also the new madam?”

  Tyesha nearly choked on her drink. “Hell, no,” she wheezed and sputtered. “We shut down the escort service after . . . after we got a big donation. I just run the clinic.”

  She continued to cough, and he stepped around the table to pat her on the back. She took a sip of water.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said, her voice still a bit hoarse.

  “So I gotta ask,” he said, sitting back down. “How did you get into the escort business in the first place?”

  “It’s not really that much of a stretch,” Tyesha said. “I grew up on the South Side of Chicago, in South Shore. You grow up a broke hot girl in my neighborhood? Everybody trying to holla so you have your pick. You look around at the generation before you to see how their choices turned out. You could date young Mr. Broke But Sincere. End up with three or four kids—because when you get pregnant, you wanna keep it since you so in love—and you end up being broke along with him. Meanwhile, you don’t get to go to college, so you work at some dead-end job all your life and raise your kids. Maybe you save up to go on a cruise once a year. Or you do like my older sister. You hook up with a drug dealer, and you have money, but he’s always the boss. None of those roads was for me. I learned you could date brothers with money, but not get all wifed up. Just hook up and let them do something for you. Your hair, your nails, your clothes. Get you a job interview, a scholarship. Something. That’s how you get out the hood and end up in New York getting your master’s. Only a short step from that to cash.”

  “You started as an escort?”

  “I guess the Sugar Daddy was the gateway drug,” she said, laughing.

  Woof laughed, too. “You mentioned something about that last time we were here.”

  Tyesha shook her head. “He started out as a boyfriend, til he said he was married. So I told him straight up, I didn’t have time to be some married man’s plaything for free. I had to keep up my grades, plus I was working four nights a week at some stupid-ass waitressing job to pay rent. I couldn’t be wasting my precious time fucking with a relationship that wasn’t going anywhere. If he wanted to date me, he needed to pay my bills so I could quit my job. I only got in the escort biz when his wife found out and he quit me.”

  “You thought he was gonna leave his wife?” Woof asked.

  “I was never that naïve,” she said. “That’s why he needed to pay my bills.”

  “I wish I was as smart as you when I first got into the music business,” he said.

  “You got taken for a ride?” she asked.

  “I was the naïve one,” he said. “I was like, yeah! Money, girls, spotlight, and shit,” he said. “I bought my mama a house. But soon I realized I hadn’t looked out for my own interests. The fame gets tired fast, and then you’re just running around twenty-four-seven making money for someone else. Now I know why Prince had ‘slave’ written on his forehead—may he rest in peace. When you and I first met, I was in a bad place with my career. It’s no excuse for acting like a dick, but I’ve since renegotiated my contract, and I feel more like a human being. So I can act more like one.”

  “So who’s the real Thug Woofer?” Tyesha asked. “The guy across from me or the guy on Wikipedia?”

  He laughed. “Oh, Lordy. My manager pays people to make dangerous allegations on there, like I killed somebody or I have three baby mamas.”

  “Any of it true?”

  “No,” he said. “Just part of the image. No murders. No kids.”

  “No murders is good,” Tyesha said. “But other than your condom anthem ‘Roll It On’ I’m surprised about the no kids part. Seems like it goes with the territory.”

  “I got some good financial advice when I was starting out,” he said. “The biggest financial drain on a male artist is child support.”

  “Or marriage,” Tyesha said.

  “Yeah, but nobody gets married by accident,” Woof said. “No matter how drunk you are . . . unless you’re in Vegas”

  “Speaking of marriage,” Tyesha began. “How are things going with your brother’s engagement?”

  “Crazy.” Woof shook his head. “None of the women in my family—my mama, my aunties—got married, never even really shacked up much, so they trying to live out they dreams in this wedding. They probably trying to get the girl all up in some white disco dress from the seventies.”

  Tyesha laughed. “If I ever get married—and I doubt I will—I’ll just go to city hall.”

  “You don’t want a big wedding?”

  Tyesha shook her head. “If there’s one thing you learn in my business, it’s how many men cheat. The man has five lovely children and still wants to get laid every Friday night like clockwork. Gotta outsource. Half the households in America oughta have a sex worker on the goddamn holiday card. Just Photoshop the girl on the stripper pole into the family vacation shot from Disneyland.”

  “That’s so cynical,” Woof said.

  “No it’s not,” Tyesha said. “I just wish people would be honest. In most marriages, if it’s not strippers or escorts, it’s porn for sure. I’m just saying, if marriage in America is supposed to be a sacred covenant between one man and one woman, then how come it’s really between mister, misses, and a chesty redhead named Bambi?”

  “You don’t think I shoulda hired y’all for my brother’s party?” Woof asked.

  “I think his fiancée can make a choice to see reality or live in denial. She knows her man is on the road with you, and she knows how you get down,” Tyesha said. “Speaking of the road, you traveled anyplace interesting lately? I heard you were in Dubai . . .”

  Suddenly, he came around the table and knelt beside her. “Tyesha, I can’t small talk with you. I got your niece’s demo, but I’m not gonna make it through this meal if I don’t know whether you’re just here to give me that CD. I swear I’ll listen to it either way, but you gotta let me know. Do I still have a chance after fucking up twice?”

  Tyesha wasn’t expecting so much so fast. She cleared her throat. “I think that depends on you,” she said. “You’re gonna need to show me that you can be the same person for more than one date. This here,”—she put up her hand and swirled her wrist around to indicate him—“this guy, this nice guy needs to be the guy I deal with. I don’t need flowers every time I see you, but I need some basic standards. Like no pressuring me for sex. Ever.”

  “I gotta ask,” he said. “Are you still—I mean, is your job just in the office or do you sometimes—?”

  “No,” she said. “But it shouldn’t matter whether I’m still doing sex work or not. No pressure ever.”

  “No pressure,” he said.

  “I need to know . . .” Tyesha searched for the words. “. . . that you’re not just being nice because you want to get something. That you really respect me. That you have respect for women in general. I can’t really fuck with you if you’re still making music like your early stuff.”

  “I know,” he said. “I mean, I didn’t always have respect. Obviously. But I took the Rapper Respect Pledge. And I been learning some lessons about changing how I see women.”

  “Well, that’s what I learned,” Tyesha said. “From dating you. I thought you could treat other women like shit in public but still be good to me. Because I was special or something. But it didn’t work that way.”

  “If you give me a chance,” he said, “I can show you that I’ve changed. Not only the lyrics that I rap, but how I treat my woman.”

  The waitress came over with their plates, and he walked back over to his seat.

  The moment the plate of fried chicken landed in front of Tyesha, she dug in. She realize
d she hadn’t eaten all day.

  “So I was seeing this therapist,” he said between bites.

  Tyesha froze, a bite of food nearly entering her mouth.

  “Boy, you really tryna make me choke to death today.” She laughed.

  “It wasn’t like I went in search of therapy,” he said. “But that last date we went on, and I was acting like—”

  “Like it was my duty to have sex with you because I was a sex worker,” she added.

  He cringed. “Yep, that night. So after you walked away from me, I got mad. I got drunk and threw a chair through a plate-glass window at my recording label’s office.”

  “Wow,” Tyesha said.

  “They sent me to this lady for anger management,” he said.

  “She gave you tips on how to calm yourself?” Tyesha asked.

  “Actually the opposite,” he said. “She was always trying to provoke me. Get the anger going. She called me a coward.”

  “Really?”

  “ ‘Punk-ass bitch’ was how she put it,” Woof said. “I was so mad that I picked up my chair and threw it through her window.”

  “Oh, shit,” Tyesha said. “Did she call the cops?”

  “Nah,” Woof said. “It was special glass. The chair bounced off and fell on the floor of the office. Then she just sat there behind her desk and looked at me. ‘Well, that didn’t work, did it?’ she said.”

  “Damn,” Tyesha said. “She’s a badass. I might need her info to refer a few clients to her.”

  “Probably out of your price range,” Woof said. “She mostly works with famous people. They call her ‘The Narcissist Whisperer.’”

  “I’m surprised she hasn’t moved her practice to DC,” Tyesha said. “But in this city, I bet her calendar is full.”

  “So, I was standing there in her office,” Woof said, “my whole body shaking with rage. And she just had this really matter-of-fact voice. ‘So this is where you break the window, and I call for help and your anger gets to be the problem. But your anger isn’t the problem. It’s your shame and fear about showing yourself to the real world. And you cover them up with the anger. That’s what you need to deal with.’”