“On no, he’d love to know how well you’re doing here in America. He’ll be so jealous.”
“Listen, Sylvester,” I intervened, refilling my empty cup to the brim. “Étie and I are going to circulate a bit, okay? Why don’t you stay here and catch up with Frankie.”
“Love to,” he said as I maneuvered Étie out of the kitchen.
“So how is good ol’ Edgar?” I heard Frankie gush as we vacated the scene.
Somebody was playing the piano in the living room and Jennifer Hudson—up for the role of Effie in Dreamgirls—was belting out a show tune.
We let the momentum of the crowd sweep us toward the sassy performance. But as good as it was, I was distracted by the very idea of Sylvester and what I considered his intrusion into our lives. The web we were weaving was getting more and more tangled, and the presence of Sylvester in the mix was a highly unwelcome knot.
By the time the crowd was applauding and cheering and begging Jennifer for another song, Frankie was entering the room alone. I could see Sylvester still in the kitchen chicken-hawking some young bit actor I’d seen on a bunch of shows playing thugs and gangsters. The poor kid now had the gross misfortune of wandering into the kitchen and into Sylvester’s lascivious web.
“Excuse me, baby,” I whispered to Étie. “I’m gonna go out and get some air.”
“Okay. I be here.”
I stumbled through the crowd with my drink, grabbed Frankie by the arm and clumsily dragged her out through a pair of open French doors that led to an outdoor terrace.
“What?” Frankie fussed.
“So what was he talking about in there?” I heard myself slurring.
“Who?”
“Sylvester.”
“Not much of anything.”
“Well, you had to be talking about something. You two were in there together forever.”
“We were just comparing Edgar notes.”
“He told Trudy that your husband is my lover, you know.”
“Relax, Junie. You know as well as I do that half the married men in Hollywood have a male lover on the side.”
“How can I relax?”
“Look, I don’t know why when it comes to Sylvester you have such a stick up your ass.”
Her wording made me wince. “Look,” I said with a recovering sigh. “I’ve got a lot on my mind. I mean, a lot’s getting ready to happen.”
“What?” she asked. “What’s about to happen?”
“Something big,” I said hopelessly, succumbing to my can’t-keep-a-secret M.O. “I didn’t want to tell you, but…”
“Tell me what?”
“Promise you won’t say anything to anyone?”
“Listen, I’m not the one with that problem,” she said, trying to take my drink away from me before I could take another sip.
“Just promise me!” I demanded, spanking her hand and snatching my drink out of her reach.
“All right, Junie. I promise.”
“Nobody else knows but Étie and my agent.”
“Are you going to tell me or what?”
“All right. Here goes.” I took a deep breath and blurted it out. “I have a meeting with Oprah Winfrey next week.”
“What?!”
“She’s thinking about using me to shoot her fiftieth birthday party in Montecito.”
“Get the fuck outta here!”
“Yeah.”
“That’s fabulous, Junie!”
“Well, it’s not a done deal yet. I’m flying to Chicago Sunday night to meet with her.”
“Is that why you’re worried about Sylvester? I thought you told me he’s not really her cousin.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about.”
“Then what?”
“I just have this weird feeling.”
“It’s called being sloshed.”
“No-no-no-no-no-no-no!” I defended, momentarily forgetting what I was defending. “It’s just that…it’s just…that, that son-of-a-bitch might try to sabotage us!”
“What are you talking about?”
“You do realize that this whole bogus marriage thing is a federal offense, don’t you?”
“So is cheating on your taxes.”
“Not the same thing, sis. All it would take is for somebody like that son-of-a-bitch Sylvester to drop a dime.”
“But why would he do something like that?”
“Because he’s Sylvester Winfrey, Francesca!”
“You think he would really do something like that?”
“He would really do something like that.”
For the first time in a long time, I saw real concern on Francesca’s face. As cavalier as she had been, she was beginning to realize what could happen if the wrong kind of person made the right kind of call. Sylvester Winfrey could be that wrong kind of person.
We both looked up with a fright when we heard someone storming out from Trudy’s house.
“God I hate these stupid Hollywood people,” Sylvester grumbled as he marched onto the terrace, lighting a cigarette indignantly. “Nobody in this screwed-up city fucking smokes anymore, and if you do smoke, they banish you to the outside like a goddamn leper.” After taking a soothing drag, he looked up and noticed the tension on our faces. “Oh sorry. Did I interrupt something?”
“No, we were just getting some air,” I said with more attitude than I had intended, or maybe not.
“You mean you left that delicious piece of man of yours in that vulture’s cave?”
“He’s a big boy, Sylvester,” I said pointedly. “He can take care of himself.”
“If it were me—”
“Well it ain’t, Sylvester. In fact, if it were you, you wouldn’t even have somebody like Étie. All you would have is a temporary bed warmer!”
“Excuse me?” he said in a huff, grabbing his imaginary pearls.
“I mean, isn’t that what you always say?” I tried a quick save. “‘Fuck love and the ass it rode in on’?”
“Touché,” he finally agreed, exhaling and easing into that shit-eating grin of his. “I see you know my credo well.”
“Yes.” I nodded. “I know your credo well.” I then turned to Frankie. The look on her face was too tenuous to disguise the fear she was feeling. This little tête-à-tête was about to turn into verbal fisticuffs, or worse. “Frankie?”
“Yes?” she answered with a near startle.
“Why don’t you go keep Étie company,” I suggested, sweet as pie. “I wanna have a man-to-man with Sylvester.” I took another sip of my drink.
“Sure. No problem,” she said, gathering herself nervously. “See ya in a bit, Sylvester.”
“See ya, Diva.”
While Sylvester lit another cigarette, Frankie gave me a warning look before scatting inside.
I turned to Sylvester and smiled broadly, although the cloud of smoke that billowed rudely between us threatened to send me into a coughing fit.
“You know something, Sylvester?”
“What?”
“We’ve known each other a long time.”
“Yes we have.”
“And you know what the difference is between us?”
“And what might that be?”
“I’m a lover and you’re a hater.”
“Wow,” he said, lifting an eyebrow. “That’s pretty damn presumptuous of you, don’t you think?”
“No. It’s not pretty damn presumptuous at all. It’s just a pretty damn good observation.”
“I see.”
“I mean everybody knows that about you, man. In fact, you know it about yourself. You hate on anybody in love. I mean I get it. If you don’t wanna be in love, that’s cool. But why you got to be hatin’ on anybody who happens to like love, who happens to be lookin’ for love, who happens to be in love, huh?”
“Finding a certain behavior abhorrently foolish is not hating, Miss Jessica, it’s calling it like I see it.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“What?”
“Miss J
essica. The name’s Jesse.”
“Okay, Jesse. What’s this all about?”
“I would hope that you would be a bit more respectful of Étie and me and our relationship.”
“I wish you and Étienne nothing but the best.”
“So why all the little snide remarks?”
“Snide remarks?”
“‘You look so fed and fit, Étie. Edgar would be so jealous.’”
“Well, he does look fed and fit. You’re doing a good job of taking care of him.”
“That’s condescending bullshit and you know it. We take care of each other.”
“I’m so sure.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“To hear Edgar tell it, your boy is packin’ a major torpedo down there, and Edgar says he knows exactly how to detonate it. Is it true?”
“Well first of all, Sylvester, I don’t discuss what my partner and I do in bed. Second, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t talk out of my man’s pants. And third, I thought you said Edgar said Étie was such a lousy lay.”
“Did I say that?”
“Yes you did.”
“My bad. Maybe I meant some of Edgar’s other round-away trade, because according to Edgar, your boy is far from lousy. Care to co-sign?”
“I think I made my position on that very clear.”
“I can imagine how clear your position is, handling all that. Now that’s what I call being taken care of.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m just saying. All that thick Dominican dick must be quite a challenging treat for that tight little ass of yours. Or has it loosened up over the years?”
“I beg your fucking pardon?”
“Age and steady practice will do that, you know.”
“What makes you think you know anything about my ass?”
“I’ve heard.”
“From who?”
“From those who’ve taken the tour.”
“No you haven’t. Other than Étie, you don’t know anyone I’ve been intimate with. And Étie wouldn’t tell you jack!”
“You’d be surprised who I know, Mr. Templeton.”
“I know how you know.”
“Really? How?”
“Because you fucked me.”
“What?”
“You fucked me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You dropped a roofy on me and you fucking date-raped me!”
“What are you talking about?”
“When we were running track back in college? In your room at the Bonaventure? The bottle of Cristal?”
“Jesse, you’re hallucinating. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I ain’t hallucinatin’ about nothin’, bitch! And you know exactly what I’m talkin’ about!”
“Oh my, a little booze really brings out the ghetto in you.”
My God, what was I doing? What was I saying? I couldn’t believe the words shooting from my mouth, verbal projectiles, salted with venom and viciousness. But I couldn’t stop myself.
“Booze ain’t got nothin’ to do with it, mothafucka!” I screamed, rolling my head, my face in his face, the stench of my liquor-thick breath stinging his eyes and bouncing back up my nostrils.
“I think I better go back inside,” he said, his shit-eating grin contorted into something akin to fear and disgust. As he turned to walk away, I grabbed him by his boney biceps with my free hand and snatched him around toward me.
“Don’t you fucking turn away from me, you rapist punk-ass bitch!”
“Let go of me,” he growled haughtily. Thin shards of smoke shot from his flaring nostrils as he tried to wrangle himself free. But I had him locked down in my one-handed grip. Then in a last-ditch indignity he elbowed my other hand with an upswing. I gasped as wine splashed my face like the glove of a Frenchman and soaked the front of my expensive dupion shirt. I suddenly went blind with a rage I’d not known. I shrieked, then swung a hard left fist and slammed him in the jaw. I then punched him in the mouth, splitting his lip, knocking him down. He hit the ground with a thud and a groan.
The fog of my fury blurred the sight of the spectators, drawn from the house by the sound of the skirmish. I was this close to stomping his head when I heard someone yell NO!
There was a gasp from the crowd, then an obstinate bear hug restraining me, lifting me up off the ground, and her voice in my ear, “Come on now, chile, calm down, get a grip.”
I looked all around me, above me, below me. Shocked and disgusted faces surrounded me. Someone was helping Sylvester up off the ground. I was a dangling rag doll in Trudy’s thick meaty grip, with barely the strength to stand on my own.
“Now I’m gonna let you go, okay?” she whispered in my ear. “And you’re gonna be real cool, right?”
I couldn’t speak. All I could do was close my eyes and nod pathetically. When she let go of me, I felt myself falling into someone else’s arms. I opened my eyes. Étie was holding me, wiping away the tears I didn’t know I had shed. He held me tightly, walked me away from the scene, through a path of shame where on either side of us the dismayed and disgusted eyed me like a convict being led to the gallows. Even Frankie looked at me differently, in a way that had reduced me from the big brother she had so looked up to, to a distant relative who brought shame on the family name. It was a near unbearable look.
“I think it’s time for us to go,” she said, looking away from me, searching the retreating crowd for the host.
“Trudy, I am so, so sorry about this,” I heard her say as Étie led me toward the side gate that led out to the street.
“Girl, shit happens,” I heard Trudy answer in a forgiving tone.
Étie and I waited on the sidewalk a few feet from the front of Trudy’s house.
“You want to talk about it?” Étie asked softly.
“Baby…” I whined.
“You don’t have to.”
He hugged me again, then kissed away the new falling tears. I nearly collapsed in his embrace.
The clang of the gate slamming shut startled us both. We looked up and saw Frankie coming toward us in a huff.
“So where’s the car?” she asked stiffly, without looking at me.
I looked up and around, helplessly. My disorientation was the only thing I was clear about.
“It’s…it’s…” I heard myself stumble and mumble as I looked from one end of the block to the other, then across the street, then back at Frankie. She huffed in disgust.
“This way, I think,” I said, pointing north.
“All I can say is you better be glad Miss Trudy is an understanding doll,” Frankie snapped curtly as she marched us down the street. “She could have called the police on your ass.”
We continued the march to the car in silence, save for the curt, rapid pounding of my sister’s obstinate pumps on the sidewalk concrete and Étie dragging me along as we pulled up the rear.
“Keys!” Frankie commanded when we reached the car. Étie dug in my pocket and pulled out my key fob, aimed it and unlocked the car doors. “Étie, are you driving or me?” she demanded.
“I’ll drive,” Étie answered as he gently loaded me into the front passenger seat.
“Fine,” Frankie snapped as she climbed in the backseat and slammed the door behind her.
I was a slouching, drunken, disheveled and blithering mess, with an aching left hook. Étie, silent and unreadable, drove us away.
Then Frankie tore into me as if she was gutting a pig. I suppose I deserved it, though her berating did nothing to ease the already liquor-spawned pounding inside my head.
“Well if Sylvester Winfrey didn’t have a reason to fuck things up before, he sure as hell has a reason to fuck things up now,” she started. “I mean, what the hell got into you, Junie?”
“I…don’t know.”
“You’re Mister Non-Violent. I’ve never known you to ever hit anybody!”
“It’s just…I just got carried away.”
“You can fucking say that again. Jesus Christ. This is fucking Bobby Brown shit. I mean, aside from your no-drinking ass drinking like a fool, what happened to make you haul off and hit him?”
“He was talking shit.”
“What kind of shit?”
“Shit, Frankie, shit! Shit about Étie! Shit about me!”
“And you let that get to you?”
“I guess I did.”
“Jesus Christ, Junie.”
“I just wanted to get some things straight with him, man-to-man.”
“Well that was no man-to-man, my brother. That was mouse-to-man.”
I didn’t know what else to say. It seemed Frankie was through, so we resumed the chilly silence that had already engulfed Étie. I looked over at him as he stared out toward the road ahead of him.
“I am so sorry, baby,” I whispered.
“Is okay,” he answered, glancing at me, then turning back to the road.
But I knew it wasn’t okay. That long silent drive to Frankie’s place was a painful reminder of how un-okay I had made things.
When we reached Frankie’s place, Étie started to climb out. “I walk you to your door,” he said to Frankie.
“No, Étie, I’m fine,” Frankie insisted.
“No. I walk you,” he said, getting out.
“You know what your problem is?” Frankie said to me as Étie circled the car. “You’re not used to having a good man. You’re always saying you want a relationship like Mom and Dad’s, like Andre’s. So here’s your chance to have that, and what do you do? You threaten it with all the fucking toxic bullshit still lingering in your stupid mind from all those assholes you’d been with too long and too often. Maybe you’re just too tainted by your past, big brother. Maybe you’re just too ruined for a good man like Étie.”
Étie tried her door, but it was locked. He waited patiently. “You think about it,” Frankie finished, then unlocked the door. Étie opened it, took her hand and walked her to her door.
Chapter Ten
It seems I do most of my deep soul searching when I’m cruising at thirty thousand feet. So there I was, on a red eye flight from Los Angeles to Chicago to meet with arguably the most powerful woman on the planet, and leaving behind me one of the tackiest blunders of my life. What I truly realized in that dark and lonely center-seat void between heaven and earth, was there was much for me to lose. And the greatest loss was not shooting Oprah Winfrey’s fiftieth birthday celebration—although that would be way up there in the loss department—but the threat to something I had aspired to all my life. True love. Happiness. Togetherness.
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