Going Down (37 page)

“What I’m saying it that somebody told me that you gotta have a dream if you wanna make a dream come true. I just couldn’t see it, and I was too selfish to ask. That night after the show, me and Angelique, without going into any detail, found some common ground, too. It made us stronger than we ever were. I thought my dream was one thing, but in reality, it was something else. So like you said, if this thing comes together with us in business, it would be like a dream come true. Doing something that matters and building something that would benefit not just me, but all of us.”

“It’s a beautiful thing.”

“Yeah, it is. I gotta call Tyhedra and tell her,” I said.

“Who?”

“Tyhedra. She’s the one who told me that you gotta have a dream if you wanna make a dream come true.”

“Tyhedra, Tyhedra Crawford?”

“You know her?”

“Yeah, I know her. She’s the one who got me back into playing my horn. She told me the same thing: that you gotta have a dream if you wanna make a dream come true.”

“Tyhedra Crawford, sexy as hell, long black hair?” I asked, hoping he’d say no, but knowing that he wouldn’t.

“Same chick.”

“Damn. You fuck her?”

“That night at the club. She’s the one I wanted to introduce y’all to, but she was gone. You fuck her?”

“Yeah.”

“You think she knew?” Tavarus asked.

“I don’t know, but I doubt it. I mean, we never really talked about any of my friends.”

“Now that I think about, I don’t think I ever mentioned you and Chris to her, either. We used to talk about music, the subject of my friends never came up.”

“I’m gonna need another drink behind that one,” Tavarus said, and headed for the kitchen. “I hope Chris got some weed.”

I followed Tee into the kitchen. “I’m gonna need a double. He keeps the weed in the cabinet over the refrigerator.”

I followed CJ outside to see what she wanted. I had to laugh a little. I could tell by the look in Tavarus and Zack’s eyes, that they were surprised to see CJ there. I didn’t think anybody needed to know that she had been staying here. And she is, just staying here. It had been a few weeks since she left Manny and I still haven’t told her how I feel about her. But it’s been great having her here. CJ had him served with the divorce papers last week and as expected, he’s contesting it. For what, I don’t know.

In the meantime, me and CJ have been having the best time. Other than the fact that we worked in different places, we are inseparable. We’ve done every museum and art gallery we could find. Now we’ve started cruising Black art stores. We’ve been bowling, to the comedy club, we even went to hear Tee play a couple times. We sat in the back to be sure he wouldn’t see us.

We’ve just been having fun together. Like one day we were out riding and I challenged her to do something she’s never done before. She agreed, but only after I agreed to do it with her. So despite the fact that neither of us has ever played, we tried our hand at tennis. We drove to the nearest Wal-Mart, brought two rackets and a couple of cans of balls. It was the funniest thing you ever wanted to see.

We cook together, eat together, and clean up together. We do everything but sleep together. And we talk. We talk all the time.

“What’s up, CJ?” I asked, and followed her to her car. CJ walked toward me.

“Chris, I wasn’t trying to listen to your conversation earlier, but I heard what Zack said. How come you never told me that you were in love with me?”

“Because you’re married, CJ. I never wanted to get in the way of that.”

“Try again. What I heard him say was ‘Kind of convenient her living here since you’ve been in love with her since the first time you saw her.’ That is what I heard him say, wasn’t it?”

“Okay, CJ, I’m guilty. That’s what he said and he said it because it’s true. I have been in love with you since the first time I saw you.”

“How come this is the first time I’m hearing about this? Usually when you love somebody, you tell them.”

“I was arrogant and stupid.” I hated admitting it out loud. Being stupid I mean. “I—I—” I shifted my weight from side to side. I was nervous and I didn’t know why. Here I was telling CJ what I always wanted to say to her, and the words weren’t coming. I took a deep breath. “CJ, I was—you see, when I met you, I could feel something between us. I thought you felt it, too. But instead of pursuing you I waited, like a fool, for you to come at me.”

“I did feel like there was something between us, too.” CJ smiled. “Boy did I feel it.” She looked at me with those beautiful eyes. “But I didn’t think you were interested in me. You said you just wanted us it be friends.”

“That was only after you started going out with Manny.”

“We went out one time before you told me that.”

“I don’t like competing. And now, I didn’t think that with all you’d gone through, that you needed me bum-
rushin
’ you with how I felt about you. I want to be with you, CJ; I always have wanted us to be together. I knew you were kind of vulnerable right now and I thought that you needed me to be your friend. If it was gonna be, it would come in time. I waited this long to be with you, a few months, a year, whatever, wouldn’t make that much more of a difference. But I wasn’t going to let you get away again. I love you, CJ.”
 

CJ hugged and kissed me on the cheek. “Go talk to your friends. We’ll talk about this some more when I get back.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah, that’s it. You waited this long to have this conversation, you can wait a little longer.” CJ got in her car. I stood there while she started her car and then rolled down the window. “I will tell you this.”

“What’s that?” I asked, hoping that she would say that she loved me, too.

“I guess I’ve always known how you felt about me. And I’ve always known that I felt it, too.” CJ put the car in reverse and backed out. It wasn’t I love you, too, but I would take it.

I went back in the house and found Zack and Tee in the kitchen. Tee was pouring drinks and Zack was rolling a blunt. They were both laughing. “I see you found the weed,” I said, and leaned against the counter.

“Yeah,” Zack said. “In the cabinet over the refrigerator. Does the lady of the house know you smoke weed?”

“Yes, and she smokes, too.”

“Not CJ,” Tee said, and put a drink in front of Zack. “Sure you won’t have one?”

“I’m sure. Like I said, I’m giving that oil a rest for a while.”

“I can’t understand that. The lady of the house probably was in no mood to go from one drunk to another,” Zack said.

“Right. Now, what’s so funny?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Tavarus said, and sat down. “Me and Zack was just trippin’ on how we were both fucked by the same woman.”

“Anybody I know?”

“You know somebody named Tyhedra Crawford?” Zack asked, and lit the blunt.

“I’m gonna need that drink now.” I sat down at the table and Zack handed me the blunt.

The three of us sat around that table, and each of us told the others about our Tyhedra experience. Not about the sex we’d all had with her, but about how our Tyhedra experience had changed each of our lives for the better.

Tavarus found his music and was back together with Carmen. I didn’t see that happening. Zack worked out some issue none of us ever knew he had with Angelique. They both said that us getting together and forming a business, something that I always thought would be good for all of us, would be like a dream come true.

“What she do for you, Chris?” Zack asked.

“Don’t tell me she got you and CJ together,” Tavarus said.

“No, nothing like that. Tyhedra made me a better businessman. She taught me a lot about how to present myself to prospective clients. She was the one who helped me stabilize one of my big accounts and turned me on to some new ones. That made it possible for CJ to come on board full time, and for us to be in a position to make the offers we just made to the two of you.”

“Sounds like she dropped CJ in your lap to me. And having CJ always was your dream,” Tavarus said.

“I guess you’re right,” I reluctantly agreed, even though I didn’t want to admit it. Tyhedra had, in her own way, given me an opportunity to have to two things I wanted most in life.

“Hey, Chris. You think she knew that we were all friends?” Zack asked.

“I can’t remember calling y’all by name.” I didn’t even want to think about that. Even though the three of us had sexed the same woman in the past, I didn’t even want to entertain the idea of them having sex with Tyhedra. I had begun to develop real feelings for her, and she for me. At least it felt like that. If she didn’t abruptly put the brakes on it, maybe things might have turned out different.

Maybe the fact that she was having sex with two of my friends, and who knows who else, was the reason she ended us the way she did. I would never know, and maybe it was better that way.

“I think we need to find out,” Tavarus said.

“I think so, too,” Zack added.

“Why?” I want to know.

“I just wanna know,” Tavarus said.

“I wanna thank her,” Zack said.

“So how you gonna do that?” I asked. “You just gonna call her and say, ‘Hi, Tyhedra, are you fuckin’ all my boys?’ ”

“Something like that,” Tavarus said, and pulled out his cell.

“No.”

“Don’t worry, Chris. I’ll be a little more diplomatic than that,” Tavarus said, and dialed the phone. “Hey, Tyhedra, it’s Tee. How you doing?”

I was surprised that she answered, since she didn’t take my calls anymore. I literally held my breath while the two of them made small talk. Then the question came.

“Hey, Tyhedra, I need to ask you something.” Tyhedra said something and then Tee said, “Oh, okay, well why don’t you stop by the club tonight before the show.” Tavarus listened for another second or two. “See you there.” Tavarus ended the call. “That was easy.”

“So she’s gonna meet us there?” Zack asked.

“Before the show,” Tavarus said, and turned to me. “You don’t have to go if it’s gonna be too painful a reunion for you.”

“That’s all right, I’ll be there,” I said, because there was a part of me that needed to know, too.

Later that night, the three of us were seated at the club when Tyhedra came in. As she always does, Tyhedra looked fantastic. Tavarus stood up and waved her over to the table. Both Zack and I had our backs turned so she couldn’t see our faces when she walked up.

“Hey, Tyhedra,” Tavarus began. “I want you to meet some friends of mine.”

“Any friend of yours—” It was obvious from the shocked expression on her face that she had no idea that we were friends. That made me feel a little better.

“Hello, Tyhedra,” Zack said, and got up to hug her. I said nothing and she avoided making eye contact with me.

“I was about to say that any friend of yours, is a friend of mine, but I didn’t know how true that was,” Tyhedra laughed a little and sat down between Zack and Tavarus. “I’m gonna need a drink.” She flagged down a nearby waitress and told her what she was drinking. “So—you guys are friends, huh?”

“Best friends,” I offered.

“I was telling a friend, Maritza,” she turned to Zack, “you remember her, don’t you?”