After The Dance (11 page)

The sister pulled the old hands-on-hips routine on me and said, “I know you’re not fixing to cop an attitude over this.”

I snapped back at her with, “And why shouldn’t I? It’s bad enough you didn’t tell me you already had a boyfriend, but then you had to go and flaunt him all up in my face. You ever heard the word ‘discretion’?”

At that point she dropped what little was left of her polite veneer and came at me swinging hard, fast, and loud, like a straight-up gangsta “b”. “First of all, he’s not my boyfriend. And secondly, even if he was I don’t owe you an accounting of my time or who I choose to spend it with. I told you from the git, I wasn’t trying to be down with you like that.”

“True dat,” I said. “I know it’s your game, but I mean, come on, Faye. Before I step up to the plate, I think the least you could do is let me know just how many players you’ve got out here running the bases.”

Her face softened for a second and in a more conciliatory tone she said, “Carl, for all it’s worth, the guy you saw me with tonight is an old acquaintance. And what happened between us was over with a long time ago.”

I have to give it to her—the girl tried, at least in that particular instance. And if anybody’s to blame for what quickly turned into a failed attempt at a peace negotiation, it’s me for being knuckleheaded enough to try and sneak in a sucker punch.

“Well, of course,” I said, dishing out the sarcasm with a smile, like it was ice cream. “I suppose that explains why you stood me up to spend half the doggone day with dude. Hey, if you want to hump slick for old times’ sake, that’s your business. Who am I to say anything, right?”

“Right,” she said, slinging a big scoop of my own mean-spiritedness right back at me. “Especially given the fact I had every intention of humping your tired, stuck-in-the-past behind, and you’re definitely not all that.”

Hopping around her on my one good foot, I said, “No, but you, my dear, most definitely are all that and a big, fat bag of cheese puffs to boot!”

My intent had only been to crank it up a notch and show her I wasn’t about to be shouted down in my own house. But I could tell by the way her eyes went from glimmer to glass that she’d taken my comment the wrong way.

With a noticeable quiver in her cheeks she pushed past me and said, “Yeah, I figured the ‘fat girl’ jokes would be next.”

“See, you’re wrong, Faye. You’re wrong,” I tried to tell her. “I didn’t even mean it like that.”

“Man, whatever,” she said, looking for all the world like she was going to backhand the taste out my mouth if I didn’t let go of her arm, which I’d grabbed to keep her from heading out the door.

What I should have done was gone ahead and apologized for what she’d wrongly perceived as me making a wisecrack about her weight. Instead I told her, “Faye, listen, I’ve already bought the tickets for the concert. If you don’t want to go I’d appreciate you letting me know now so I can make other arrangements.”

“Negro, please,” she said, before jerking away from me and storming a trail out my door.

I left the brother’s apartment mad as all get-out and vowing never, ever to speak to his ignorant ass again. So you know the first thing I did when I got home was find his number and call him up. Yeah, girl, there were still a few more things I wanted to share with him, none of them too nice, mind you. But about all I managed to get out after his “hello” were a few choice expletives before he hung up in my face.

Later I remember thinking to myself,
Why am I even
wasting my breath, much less my body on this lunatic? Please, there are plenty more deserving men out there who’d be only too happy to spend some quality time with me. I’ll just call Scoobie …
then I caught myself. Call Scoobie? Oh, hell no!

I stretched out across my bed, eager for a moment of peace and hoping to put the events of the day behind me. Of course, as soon as I laid down and closed my eyes, all I ended up doing was falling asleep and having the weirdest dream.

I dreamed I’d accepted Scoobie’s invitation to the concert. We’d strolled up in there arm-in-arm, both of us dressed to the nines—Scoobie in a tux and me in a full-length mink. Yeah, like I don’t know it’s almost June and in this Memphis heat I would have durn near cooked to death. It was a dream, girl! Anyway, not only was I sharp, but I was my old slim self again—the fine, sleek mamma jamma I used to be before I ate my way into the forty or more extra pounds I lug around with me now.

So there I was, strutting and flaunting my stuff as Scoobie and I made our way to our front-row seats when Carl’s big head popped into the picture. He was there with his little boy on his lap and the twins on either side of him, and they were all laughing and having a good ol’ time until they spotted me and my date. As we glided past them, I heard, first the baby crying, and then one of the twins ask, “Hey, isn’t that Ms. Faye?”

And, girl, when I turned around to wave and flash them my best Diana Ross “Some Day We’ll Be Together” grin, the kids had all disappeared. It was just Carl sitting there with his bandaged foot, the crowbar, the spare tire, the James Evans hair, and this sad-sack expression on his face. With Scoobie tugging at my sleeve, I stood there and watched until Carl finally picked himself up and limped out the amphitheater, head hung, like some scolded and whupped puppy.

I woke up with a start, like I have in the past when I’ve dreamed about falling. And crazy as it sounds, I knew if I tried to go back to sleep without first making a genuine effort to clear the air between me and Carl, I was only going to have the same durn dream, or some variation thereof, all over again.

A couple hours had passed since I’d last dialed his number, but I didn’t really expect him to be any more receptive than he’d been when I’d called earlier to express my sentiments. And sure enough, after a couple of rings, his answering machine clicked on.

At the beep I said, “Pick up, Carl. I know you’re there. And I know you know it’s me.” When he didn’t respond I said, “Fine. Be that way. I was just calling to apologize …”

He picked up and said, “Go ’head. I’m listening.”

I told him that I hadn’t planned for things to turn out the way they had and that if I could do it all differently, I would. “You still mad?” I finally ventured to ask after about thirty seconds of waiting for him to say something.

He said, “Why? You got more salt you want to rub in my wounds?”

Rather than let him bait me into another battle, I went into my Iyanla Vanzant “save yourself” bit. I smacked myself on the forehead, sucked in a deep cleansing breath, blew it out slowly, then told him in a voice totally devoid of all spite and rancor, “You know, Carl, maybe it would be best to call the whole thing off and just forget about trying to be anything other than friends.”

“Is that what you want?” he asked, this time sounding more hurt than angry.

I took a moment before telling him point-blank, “I told you last week, and in no uncertain terms, exactly what it was I wanted.”

He was like, “So what’s changed? I still want that too.”

I said, “Yeah, but if the way you were acting tonight is
any indication, Carl, that’s not all you want. How are you going to act when this game we’re playing is over?”

He jumped from my inquiry to one of his own. “You dumping me so you can get with him?”

I told him, “See, there you go acting like a jealous boyfriend again. Didn’t I already tell you there wasn’t anything between me and dude?”

He mumbled something about seeing Scoobie kiss me. “Sure,” I said. “On the cheek. And did you by any chance see me kiss him back? No, case closed.”

He wasn’t about to let me off that easy, though. He said, “Tell the truth, Faye.”

I said, “I am telling the truth, Carl.”

Homeboy kept on. He said, “He’s the one, isn’t he?”

I was like, “The one what?”

Then in a voice so serious I couldn’t laugh, even though I wanted to, Carl said, “You know, the one Nora told me about. The one who ran roughshod over your heart, forever ruining you for the rest of us.”

Yes, “roughshod.” Look, don’t hate me ’cause I’ve got a vocabulary and I’m not afraid to use it. Faye thought it funny too. I could feel her cheesing through the phone. But rather than give in to her urge to giggle, she said, “Is that what you think I am, ruined?”

“You’re not answering the question,” I said, sinking even deeper into my “I ain’t playing” voice. “Is he or isn’t he?”

See, by then I’d figured it out. Having gotten a good look at dude up close and personal, it had gradually dawned on me that he was the joker from the pictures Nora had shown me that night we’d sat around waiting on Faye.

Finally, ol’ girl went ahead and fessed up. She told me she’d known him about as long as she’d known Nora. “And yes,” she finally admitted, “he was the first guy I ever fell head over heels for. The first guy I ever made …”

Right there in midsentence she slammed on the brakes and changed gears. “Well, he was the guy I lost my innocence to. We had an off-and-on relationship for years. But like I told you, that’s all ancient history now. And that’s exactly how I’d like to leave it.”

I asked why she’d stopped short of saying he was the first she’d ever made love to.

“Because that’s not what it was,” she said. “We didn’t make love. And we certainly weren’t in love. Even though there was a time I thought differently, I know better now.”

Never one to step clear of an obvious challenge, I said, “Do you? What could you possibly know about love when from the looks of things you’ve spent half a lifetime running from it?”

Her response to that was, “Well, maybe one day we can sit down and you can tell me all about it—being you’re such an expert and all.”

Rather than go there, I laughed her off and asked, “So what exactly did you and Scrotty do today?”

She made a big deal about correcting my mispronunciation of dude’s name, like I was supposed to care. “Scoobie, Scrotty, hump buddy, boyfriend—what difference does it make?” I asked. “All I want to know is where you went with him that I couldn’t have taken you?”

Her story involved running into dude at church and him supposedly talking her into going to meet his fitness trainer. Quite naturally that led to a workout, after which he took her to get something to eat, and so on and so forth.

All in all, it sounded pretty lame to me, but it did provide me with an opportunity to clear my name. I told her even though I thought her timing pretty lousy, I didn’t see anything wrong with her striving to get toned. “But for the
record,” I said, “I was not, I repeat, I was not making fun of your weight when you were over here earlier.”

Man, I might as well have been talking to myself. “If you say so,” she said. “But for future references, I’m well aware that I could stand to shed a few pounds. It’s not like I don’t own a mirror or a scale.”

And if that didn’t beat all, right in the midst of me trying to tell her that I thought she looked fine, she jumped in and said, “Let’s just drop it, okay? It’s late and I need to get off this phone so I can get ready for work tomorrow.”

You get the picture? Pretty much she was aiming to tell a brother to hurry up, shut up, and be gone already. What she didn’t know is that Keith Sweat don’t have nothing on me when it comes to begging. I said, “Faye, you know I still want to see you—even if it means I have to take a number and stand in line in order to do it. So come on, don’t have me laying over here wondering if you want me to go away, wait for you to wrap up your unfinished business with this brother, or what.”

“Are you through?” she asked in the pause I took to catch my breath.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Are we?”

I’d closed my eyes and was waiting for her to verbally nail my balls to the wall when she started laughing. When she finally stopped, she said, “Carl, I’ve just got two questions for you. Number one, what time does the concert start? And two, next time, instead of the spare, why not go for something a little less dramatic, something a little less injurious to your health—like, say, the jack or the jumper cables?”

Ha, ha. Let her make jokes. Ain’t no black off my back. Man, long as I get what I’m after, I don’t even care. Believe that!

Finally, all systems were fired up and ready to go! For the rest of that week I was darn near beside myself with anticipation. The wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am I’d been wanting and needing for oh, so long was finally about to come to fruition. At least, that’s what I thought.

So not only did I agree to let homeboy treat me to dinner before the show, but like a trouper I played along with the sappy-sweet talk over the meal, and the hand-holding afterward, even though public displays of affection typically make me ill. Call it my way of compromising, if you will. And the truth is, it really wasn’t that bad.

The brother’s choice of restaurants—an upscale Italian eatery in the heart of downtown—went a long way in launching the evening on a high note. The food was absolutely wonderful, the service excellent, and Carl did quite a commendable job of playing up his boyish charm for all it was worth.

And the concert, girl, was pure heaven. The night was clear and cool with a slight breeze. The lights from the city’s bluffs were flickering across the water. Jarreau and his band were jazzing it up on stage, filling the air with nothing but good music. And of course Carl was there treating me to a steady flow of wine coolers and compliments,
and an occasional hand across my thigh. Chile, let me tell you, by the time we got back home I was feeling real good.

Still, I didn’t want to seem too eager. Not yet, anyway. So after we got out of the car, I led him over to the front door of my condo, as if I was ready to turn in for the evening. “I had a good time tonight,” I told him.

He raised his eyebrows and said, “Had? The night’s not over yet. According to my copy of the rule book, the night’s not over until after the dance.”

“Oh yeah?” I said, real casual-like. “I thought it was after the kiss.”

He leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Well, what do you say tonight we break some of the old rules and make up a few new ones?”