Abnormal Lives (11 page)

“Work.”

“And that would be what? Laying bricks, drug trafficking, plumbing, I mean, what?”

The man paused for a moment and frowned. Simone could tell that she had succeeded in irritating him.

He placed his arm over Simone's shoulder and began to walk her back in the direction of the service area. “I'm a boxer,” the man announced proudly.

“What you mean? Like, street fights or something?”

“No, I'm a professional boxer.”

“What's your name?”

“Wayne.”

“Do you have a last name?”

“Jasper.”

Simone sucked her teeth. “I don't believe you.”

“If you don't, you don't. That's neither here nor there; all I'm asking you is to let me take you out for dinner tonight.”

“I don't see anything wrong with that,” Simone said. “Unless what they say about y'all is true.”

“What's that?”

“You know, the stories about how y'all like to grope all the girls at the club so you can get them all hot and bothered and lure them to your hotel room and when they refuse, y'all toss y'all drinks
on them and call them every degrading name you can think of.”

“Whoa, hold on, ma.”

“Simone.”

“Excuse me?”

“My name is Simone.”

“Simone. That's beautiful. You look like a Simone. Anyway,
Simone
, you can't judge me by what you heard someone say about somebody else. Know what I mean?”

“I guess.”

“And besides, I thought you didn't believe me.”

Simone grinned. “Maybe I'm starting to.”

“So are you up for dinner or what?”

“Sure, I don't think it will be a problem.”

Wayne entered Simone's name and number into his cell phone and they continued to make their way back to the service area where they parted company. Wayne headed for the door and Simone took the seat beside Stefan where a magazine lay to reserve her spot.

“Damn, you met somebody already?” Stefan asked.

“That's right,” Simone teased. “And guess what.” She slapped down on Stefan's thigh. “He's a boxer and that was his car.”

“Stop playing.”

“I ain't playing.”

Stefan sucked his teeth. “Then he's lying.”

“Why he got to be lying?”

“'Cause, if he's a boxer, what the fuck he doing down here?”

“I don't know; maybe he has family down here.”

Stefan rolled his eyes. “I'll be damned.”

“Believe what you want; all I know is he's gonna be my baby daddy.”

“Just be thankful that I ain't get to his ass first.”

Simone frowned. “What?”

“You heard me.”

Simone looked Stefan up and down. “Whatever.”

“Please, did you see the way his pants were hanging off his ass? He's begging for some dick,” Stefan said. “I swear, I think that shit is sexy as a bitch.”

“Whatever; he ain't like that.”

“Yeah right; he'd probably say the same thing if he heard about your after-hour activities,” Stefan said. “You'd be surprised what niggas be into.”

Simone aimlessly flipped through the pages of the magazine, trying to draw her attention away from Stefan to let him know she wasn't interested in taking their conversation any further and that he could stop running his mouth since she wasn't listening. She wondered why every time she had a moment of happiness, Stefan would go out his way to shoot it down. She could say numerous things about his relationship with Eugene. Like, if he's your man, why do you only see him once a week? Who's with him the other six days? Or I hope you ain't letting him run up in it without a rubber because you don't know how many men he was sleeping with while he was in the pen. But she didn't. She held her tongue and that's what Stefan needed to do sometimes; hold his tongue.

Choo-Choo;
Simone's text message alert went off. It was a sound she didn't hear too often so when she did, she snatched her cell phone from her purse and quickly flipped it open.

Meet me at the Berkley Hotel in the lobby at eight o'clock.

Simone could feel her blood rushing to her face as she blushed.

“Who is that?” Stefan asked.

“Wayne.”

“Who is Wayne?”

“The guy I just met.”

“Oh, let me see.”

Stefan leaned over to read the screen of Simone's cell phone, not giving her adequate time to turn it in his direction. Stefan was especially interested in the signature portion of the message.
The mind is a powerful thing.

Stefan sucked his teeth. “That's some bullshit.”

Simone grinned. “Watch this.”

Simone hit reply and responded back to Wayne's message.
See you then. P.S. So is my pussy.

Stefan laughed. “You ain't right.”

Wayne responded right back.
Am I gonna find out?

Stefan leaned over and read the message along with Simone. “Don't front; we both know it's as good as his.”

“We're talking about me, not you,” Simone said.
We'll see
, Simone replied back and then flipped her cell phone closed.

“So I guess you won't be sitting at home by yourself, eating pizza, dripping tomato sauce all over those sketches of yours, huh?” Stefan said.

Simone giggled. “You're jealous.”

“Damn right,” Stefan said. “I see you didn't ask him if I could come along.”

9

T
he cab driver dropped Paris off in front of Michael's apartment. Michael lived on the first floor of a Victorian-style house that had been renovated into an apartment building with four units. Paris carried the paper bags that contained the dinner he'd made Michael for his birthday up on the porch. Michael had taken him to the beach for his birthday so Paris wanted to do something special for Michael in return. He hoped Michael had gotten over their fight at the bar. It was nothing out of the ordinary. They often fought and a week or two later, they were back in love again. He knew the night would be special. He had it all planned out. They would have a candlelight dinner and then he would put on his red lace teddy and put on a show, grinding to the slow jam CD he had brought along.

Paris rang the doorbell and waited for Michael to come to the door.

Paris rested his hands on his hips.
What's taking him so long?
he thought. Michael was there. He could see his car parked on the corner.
Maybe he's asleep
, Paris thought.

Paris stuck his key in the door and turned the knob. He was unable to open the door because Michael had a deadbolt lock put on it.

“Who is that?” Paris heard someone whisper on the other side of the door.

Paris banged on the door. “Michael, you better open this damn door before I kick it in.”

Michael cracked the door open and peeked out at Paris.

“Hey, baby, happy birthday; I made you dinner,” Paris said.

Michael glanced down at the paper bags in Paris's hands. “That was nice of you, but now isn't a good time.”

“Why not? What are you doing?”

“Me,” Jewel said as he walked up behind Michael and placed his hand on Michael's chest.

“Oh hell naw!” Paris shouted.

Paris tried to force his way into the house but Michael shut the door and put the deadbolt back on. Paris kicked the door, trying to get in. “Michael, if you know what's good for you, you'll let me in.”

“Don't worry about it, baby; let's go back to your room and finish what we were doing,” Jewel said.

Paris tried to open the windows but they were all locked. He didn't want to hurt himself by breaking the windows out with his fists. What sort of condition would he be in once he got inside if he did that? He wanted revenge but not at his own expense. Paris screamed to the top of his lungs and then went into a frenzy, slinging the dinner he had prepared all over the porch while the neighbors watched in amazement.

“The nigga wasn't lying!” Simone yelled out to Stefan, who was directly across the hall in the bathroom with the door wide open.

Simone was excited about all of the information that her Internet search had pulled up on Wayne. She stood there scanning her grandmother's room, noticing how the spiders had made claims to it and how dust covered the dresser and windows. It hadn't been cleaned since their grandmother had died and that wouldn't
change anytime soon. She tapped her foot on the floor, eager for the printer to finish printing her people search results so she could get the hell out of there.

“What does it say?” Stefan asked.

“I'm printing it now so I can show it to you.”

“Don't be using up all the damn paper.”

“Ain't like you be using it,” Simone said. “This paper has been in here for years.”

“You just make sure it stays in there.”

Simone sucked her teeth. “Whatever.”

“You heard what I said.”

Simone sighed. “Yeah, I heard you.”

The results to Simone's people search printed out. She rushed into the bathroom, took a seat on the counter, and began to share the results with Stefan.

Simone bounced around on the counter with excitement. “Wait 'til you hear this.”

“Damn, don't keep me waiting; just tell me.”

Simone organized her search results in order of importance, saving the most important for last. “Awight, here we go.”

Simone was distracted by the sound of running water and then realized it was the sound of Stefan urinating and gave him a puzzled look.

“May I help you?” Stefan asked offensively.

“Shouldn't you be standing up?”

“I don't think it matters.”

“Well, that's how most guys do it,” Simone said. “I've never seen a nigga piss with his dick in the toilet.”

“In case you haven't noticed, I'm not your average Joe,” Stefan snapped. “Now get on with it or get out.”

Simone sucked her teeth and continued. “Okay, let's see, this right here says Wayne was twenty-four years old and the middle-weight
champion in 1998 and hasn't fought in a match since he lost his title in 2002.”

“So he's 37 now, in the ‘11.' Damn, that means he's fifteen years older than you.”

Simone nodded. “Um-hmm.”

“I'll tell you one thing; you sure can pick them.”

“Anyway, it also says he got a divorce in 2006 and he has five kids,” Simone said. “I wonder if they're all by his wife.”

“Who gives a damn? I don't want to hear that shit,” Stefan said. “Damn the nigga's kids. I want to know about his money.”

“The background check I ran says he has three homes, one in Florida, one in Pennsylvania, and one down here. Look at the value,” Simone said, handing Stefan the background check.

Stefan looked at the value of the homes. “Oh, this nigga is getting it.”

“Eight hundred thousand apiece; I'd say so,” Simone said. “And look at how it lists everybody's name and age that lives in the house.”