All That Drama (15 page)

A
fter Sammie filed for divorce from Jessie, we became regular bar flies. We stayed in the clubs. That’s not really anything to be proud of but we were still young, single, and we both loved to dance. We would start on Thursday night with ladies night at Chit-Chat on Candler Road in Decatur and would continue at various clubs until Sunday night for the All-Male Revue at Faces on Glenwood Road.

We didn’t like going to the ritzier clubs ’cause number one, since they were too far away, we didn’t want to get caught driving under the influence; and number two, the niggas in those other clubs acted like they were too cute to dance.

We made that mistake one night when we went to Hairston’s in Stone Mountain. It wasn’t far from our houses but the people were too stuck up for us. We came to party and that is what we did! Those perpetrators acted like they could not even work up a sweat. That’s when we swore off the swankier clubs. Since most of the people there were pretending to be something that they were not.

Sammie met Curtis Brock at Chit-Chat one Friday night after about a month on the club circuit. That first night, he could not keep his hands off her. They danced to nearly every song, and he bought her a rose when the flower peddler came around. That was a first for Sammie. I occasionally got a rose or a teddy bear from an admirer but it had never happened to her and it opened her nose for real. Curtis was not necessarily handsome but he wasn’t barf bag material either.

In short, he was an okay-looking man with a fairly decent body. He had a short Afro cut into a fade. His most striking feature was the peculiar shade of his brown eyes—we later learned were colored contacts.

I could not help but to mentally pick him apart but I didn’t let Sammie know of my concerns. His clothes were rather ordinary and the soles of his shoes were run-down and badly needed new heels. His only saving grace in my opinion was the way he treated Sammie. I knew she needed to be pampered as a princess. This was what had been missing in her life for as long as I had known her. Coming so soon on the heels of Jessie, Curtis was just what the doctor ordered.

After watching those two carry on, I envisioned Sammie and Curtis going steady, courting, and eventually getting married and having 1.5 babies. I’ll admit it, I got carried away with my fantasy for them, but Curtis was doing and saying all the right things and I liked it. He got an “E” for effort in my book. He was attentive to her needs all night long, and I did not have to worry about whether she was having a good time or not for a change.

Normally I would have to hold myself back from too much fun just so I could make sure she was having a good time. Because if Sammie got bored, then she would want to go home and if she was driving, that meant I would have to go home, too. I kept thinking,
Uh-oh, this might be the one to straighten her ass out
. But she fucked it up and took the nigger home. She broke the number one rule of dating: never take a man home on the first fucking night. I was pissed and she knew it, but that didn’t stop her.

The next day, Sammie and I had a major falling-out about going to the club. In my heart, I knew that if she saw that nigga again, he would dis her and I would be left to pick up the pieces.

“What are you wearing tonight?” Sammie asked when I picked up the phone.

“Well, good evening to you, too,” I sarcastically replied.

“Oh, my bad, girl. I guess I’m still tripping about last night.”

“Yeah, you and me both.” She did not catch on that I was truly irritated with her.

“I had so much fun last night! I can’t wait to get back there. What are you wearing?” she asked again.

“I don’t think I’m going out tonight,” I responded.

“And why not?” she said, finally picking up on that attitude I had.

“If I do go out, I’m thinking about going somewhere different. We are wearing a hole in Chit-Chat’s and I don’t want to be labeled a ‘regular.’”

“What’s wrong with being a regular? It has its perks; half the time we don’t have to pay.” I could picture her sitting up in bed with her hands on her hips. I knew that she was not out of the bed since chill was all Sammie did when she was at home.

“Nothing, really. I just don’t want to be one.”

“Oh, I think I detect a little hate-a-ration,” she huffed.

“Hate? Oh no you didn’t just say that to me. Why the hell do you think I’m hating on you?” I demanded.

“I just detected a little jealousy in your voice, that’s all.”

“Jealous, of what? Now you really are tripping!” I said, suddenly pissed.

“You know, about Curtis and all,” she said with a tee-hee to take the sting out.

“Sammie, I am pleased as punch you found a man but I have absolutely no reason to be jealous of you.”
Shit
. “Hey, I changed my mind. We will go back to Chat’s tonight and see your ‘man’ but you are driving. Call me when you are ready to leave,” I said and hung up the phone.

I stomped around my bedroom slinging clothes and talking to myself. She had suckered me into her plan to go to the club and I didn’t even realize it until after I had hung up.

I was searching for the perfect outfit to wear that night. I was going to show that heifer just how bad she fucked up by sleeping with Curtis on the first night. Keira and Kevin were still at my mother’s, and Tyson and Kendall were old enough to stay at home alone so the coast was clear.

I decided to let my shoulder-length hair hang down instead of pinning it up like I usually did. I picked a brown suede skirt outfit that clung to my hips and showed off my sexy legs and phat ass. I knew I looked good. Sammie came over and she was wearing a tired black cat suit that left nothing to the imagination.

One of these days, I was gonna tell Sammie that just ’cause designers made something in her size didn’t mean she should wear it. But for right now I was going to keep my mouth shut. I was still pissed at her.

Even though I was upset with her, I didn’t want to wish bad luck on Sammie. Before we left, I prayed that God would seal my lips from saying, ‘I told you so’ if Curtis decided to clown on her.

Sure enough, the nigga was clowning. You would have thought he never laid eyes on Sammie because he did not even acknowledge her presence. I mean nothing. Nada. He did not even nod to indicate that he even knew her in the first place. I was hot and I could only imagine how bad Sammie felt. To her credit, she kept her chin up and tried to have fun even though her eyes stayed glued to him all night long. That shit was foul. I even made a point to dance right next to his stank ass shooting him evil glares. He looked right through me as if I wasn’t even on the same planet that he was on.

When the song was over I left my partner and returned to my seat. Sammie was rooted in place with this fake ass smile on her face still following Curtis’ every move.

“Girl, fuck him,” I said, trying to break her trance. She ignored me completely. After staring at her upturned face for a few seconds, I left the table in search of more fun. Curtis did not come around to speak to her until the club was closing and had the nerve to pretend that it was the first time he had noticed that Sammie was even there.

Shit, as big as Sammie had become, you could not miss her in a club—I don’t give a fuck how much you had to drink. The last song was playing when he slipped up next to her.

“Hey, baby, when did you get here?” Curtis said with this stupid smirk.

“She’s been here all fucking night, watching your dumb ass,” I said before I could stop myself. Sammie shot me a look that said,
Shut the fuck up and let me do this!
Well, I could take a hint and she was right, so I sat back to watch my girl tear a piece out of the fucker’s ass for real. As much as I liked to be proven right about situations, I hated, in this incident, that I had seen the writing on the wall.

“Hey, yourself,” she said, batting her eyes and twirling her hair. Dumbstruck, you could have rolled me off the fucking chair I was so outdone. Curtis started whispering in her ear and kissing her neck and she was lapping it up. I guess she had forgotten the last four hours she’d spent watching his ass hump on all the other women in the club. It must have also slipped her mind that when she looked him dead in the eye that he turned away as if he didn’t even see her.

When Sammie stood up and kissed that maggot I excused myself and went to the car. I would have left her ass, but she was driving. I stood outside for fifteen minutes before they finally came out of the club. Sammie knew that I hated being in the club when the lights came on, and she also knew that I hated waiting outside by myself, but none of that mattered to her that night.

They came out of the club all hugged up like they had just spent the night together dancing their cares away. I stood by the passenger door waiting for Sammie to unlock it. When she got to the car, she looked at me for a moment as if she didn’t remember I was even riding with her. In fact, she looked annoyed that I was still there. I threw an eat-shit-and-die look at Curtis and began to open the door.

“Uh. Marie, Curtis is going with us,” Sammie said with a giggle. I shot Sammie that bitch-is-you-crazy look, but she promptly dismissed me. She reached over the seat, unlatched the back door and gestured with her eyes that I should get in the back seat. As Curtis squeezed past me to get to the front seat, he made sure he rubbed up against my ass. My head rocked back as if I had been slapped. I stepped quickly away from his groin towards the back of the car but I could not make myself grab the handle. I looked around to see if there was anyone I knew that would give me a ride ’cause just the thought of riding in a car with him or her made me sick.

I stepped away from the car. I would walk before I allowed her to treat me like a goddamned stranger. The deejay and I went way back and I knew that he was still inside. I decided to ask him for a ride ’cause I could not and would not ride home with those two. I knew there was a chance that I might have to fight the deejay off me by the time we got to my house since he had been trying to tap my ass for weeks, but I had my mace and was not afraid to use it.

“Sammie, my bad; I didn’t know you would be having company. Three’s a crowd so I’ll holler at you later,” I said while backing away from the car with my hands up in the air. A part of me was hoping that she was not going to let me go out like that, but she acted like nothing was wrong.

“All right then, I’ll get with you tomorrow.” Sammie got in the car and they pulled off leaving me in the dark parking lot alone. She did not even look in the rear-view mirror to see if I had waved or not. After her taillights disappeared, I had a true hissy fit complete with talking to myself and cussing a lot. I even kicked the tire of a nearby car, which damn near crippled me.

I looked towards the entrance of the club and noticed for the first time that most of the people who had been in the parking lot when I had come out were gone. I was alone with the exception of a few cars that had probably been left by their owners when they went home with someone else. I felt sure that the deejay was still inside but after I thought about it, I decided that I did not want to have to explain why I was still there with no ride home. It was painful enough without having to explain it to someone else so I walked to the curb and hailed the first cab I saw.

After I was seated in the cab, I decided that was the last time I would ride anywhere with Sammie. Having to pay my hard-earned dollars for a cab when I had a perfectly reliable car at home helped to stiffen my resolve. During the ride home, I thought long and hard about my friendship with Sammie and as bad as the night had been, I still was not ready to give up on her. I just needed to learn to put conditions on our friendship.

The next day, I waited for an apology from Sammie for her behavior the previous night but I got nothing. I don’t know whether they spent half the night and the whole day fucking or what, but eventually I decided to go out and let my hair down. I was going to the club solo. Friday and Saturday night had been ruined by Sammie’s trifling antics, but I was determined to make Sunday night my night to party and enjoy myself without her. I didn’t mind going solo. I had done it before and from the looks of things, it was going to become a regular routine.

Before I got ready to go out, I called my mom to check on Keira and Kevin. Mom insisted on keeping them for the weekends and although I missed them I needed my down time, too. Since Dad had died, I had worried about her being in that big house alone. The kids kept her occupied and I was grateful for the time it gave me. She enjoyed it and didn’t complain much—that is unless I took it to the ninth power and went overboard. Then she would go on strike until I cooled my ass down. After she and the kids assured me that they were having a good time, I started to get dressed.

While I was adding the final touches to my makeup, the phone rang. I looked at the caller ID and saw Sammie’s name listed. For a brief moment, I contemplated not answering the phone but I was still expecting an apology so I answered just as the answering machine picked up. I told her to hold while I turned it off and made her wait a few additional minutes for good measure.

“Hey, girl, what’s up?” Sammie said nonchalantly.

“You just caught me heading out the door.” My voice was cool but hearing her voice reminded me of last night’s ill feelings and I felt my anger rising again.