Playing Hard To Get (11 page)



The Check-Out:
One pound a week can equal fifty-two pounds lost in one year! Taking the LSAT, researching schools, applying, and getting accepted can lead to a future lawyer. Paying tickets one by one will surely add up to a returned license. A class, a competition, and a trophy can make you the next ballroom dancing star. After a few short-term meetings, have a final, preplanned check-out date where the long-term goal is to be completed. The sisterfriend who has come closest to achieving her goal is the Queen Bee and must be crowned and celebrated with awe. A most luxurious gift and kind words should mark the occasion. This sister has worked hard, so don’t be cheap or short on praise. Other sisters should be happy too, though. While they aren’t yet Queen Bees, they’ve done something about getting closer to making their dreams a reality, and one more competition could put them on top.

3

Well-behaved women seldom make history.

—Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

T
hough she was only two years old, Toni was fast learning Ulrich’s abovementioned astute observation. When she cried, Tasha looked upset and usually left her alone. When she hollered, Lionel looked heartbroken, and usually picked her up and held her close. For her, this pattern of events provided the two things she wanted most—to be away from her mother and alone with her father. It was emotional ecstasy—two-year-old style. And while her brain hadn’t yet processed how she’d make this daily achievement a part of a permanent history, she was well on her way to developing a concrete plan.

However, one little girl behaving badly seldom topped a big girl behaving badly, and especially not when it came to the big girl’s man.

The morning after the Queen Bee Competition went into official 3T effect, Tasha had one thing on her mind—taking her husband on a date and having mistress-worthy sex with him (while on the date). And no amount of crying and hollering on the part of a little girl was going to stop her.

Toni’s shenanigans started in the morning when she overheard Tasha on the phone arranging an afternoon visit from Milania, a seventeen-year-old babysitter who lived a few houses down. She remembered what happened when her mother said the name “Milania” and understood the word “come.” Eating chopped bananas her father fed her with a silver spoon, Toni knew this meant one thing—he was leaving her. But he’d just gotten back. And they hadn’t taken a nap on the hammock in the backyard like they always did after playtime in the pool. She hadn’t smelled his spicy cologne and felt his heart beating in her ear as she drifted off to sleep.

Soon, Toni was crying, screaming, hollering, choking, and wailing on the floor.

Soon, Milania had arrived, was handed a wide-eyed Tiara, and was left standing beside Toni’s tearstained face.

Soon, Tasha was pushing Lionel into the car and pulling out of the driveway.

“We can’t just leave her like that,” Lionel said, turning and looking at the house as his wife drove up the street. “What if she doesn’t stop?”

“It’s a tantrum. She has them.” Tasha’s voice was flat, focused. Her eyes were locked on the rolling pavement.

“But she was choking and what if—”

“Baby, trust me. She’ll be fine.”

“I just feel bad. Coming home and leaving her alone. Maybe we should’ve waited and done this tomorrow—after I spend some time with the girls.”

“You have to be at practice tomorrow morning, remember?”

Lionel nodded sadly. He’d spent so much time away from his daughters practicing when he was at home, and when he went away, only for three or four days, and returned, he noticed something different, new about them. Tiara could grab his key chain. Toni had learned a new way of laughing at the old game of peekaboo.

“Look, honey,” Tasha said, “I just want to go to the spa to relax a little bit and unwind. I want to spend time with you. We can put the girls to bed together tonight. How does that sound?”

Lionel looked at Tasha.

“Okay,” he agreed. “Okay.”



Lionel and Tasha held hands throughout their massages. They winked and grinned like teenagers as they stole glimpses of each other’s oiled, nude bodies being touched by petite ladies with large hands. The dizzying scent of lavender filled the air and hot stones dissipated every care from their bodies. Soon, as the masseuses crept from the room, they were asleep, but still holding hands. Tasha dreamed of her husband on top of her and he dreamed of his wife on top of him. Together bodily in this world, and united mentally in another time, it was the most intimate they’d been in over a year. When he woke up, he found her asleep, her arms and legs splayed on the leather table, the thick white towel slipping away. He let it fall to the floor and threw his on top of it. Tasha’s nipples were hardened and facing the ceiling as she continued to dream. Lionel wrapped her legs around his head and consumed his wife in this world and in another time. She shook and writhed, calling his name so loud a collection of masseuses and clients had gathered outside the door. “How much is the couple’s massage?” one woman asked. She already had her husband on the phone.



“I fucking love you,” Tasha joked, sipping on cucumber water beside the indoor pool at the spa. She and Lionel were wrapped in thick, white terry-cloth robes.

“I’m sorry about the other night. It was just…I was stressed out and tired. You know I would’ve—”

“No, baby.” Tasha stopped Lionel. “Let’s just be in the moment and enjoy our date. I mean, maybe this is what we need. A little more us time, so we can get back…you know? To how things used to be.”

“Get back to what?” Lionel looked past Tasha to see that a woman who was reclined in a chair with only a small towel to cover her body had noticed him and was smiling hello with her eyes.

“Us…like the way we were before we had the girls and moved out here to Jersey. Do you remember how it was? We were so hot and young. We couldn’t keep our hands off of each other. People envied us.”

“But we have a family now, Tasha. It’s what we both wanted. It’s why we got married. Right?”

“Yeah, and I love our life. I love our daughters. But sometimes it’s so heavy. It’s so much. I just want to go back to how we were.”

“So that’s what’s wrong with you.” Lionel looked away from the woman, who moved her towel down to the tips of her nipples and peered at Tasha keenly.

“Wrong?” Tasha shot up. “What do you mean ‘wrong’?”

“I’m not the only one who’s been coming up short. Sometimes the way you touch me isn’t the same either. It’s like it’s good, but you’re tired,” Lionel said, admitting something he hadn’t told anyone else. Sex with Tasha was seldom without surprise and complete seduction, but lately, it seemed her passion had become practiced and ritualistic. She moaned and groaned, hollered and hooted, but sometimes he wondered if she even wanted to be there. If the show was more for him than anything.

“Tired? I’m fine.” Tasha shifted back into her chair and tried to laugh it off, but suddenly she felt as if Tiara and Toni were sitting right on her lap.

“I was thinking,” Lionel started, “maybe we should get a nanny. Like a real one. Someone to move into the house. Hell, we have seven empty bedrooms.” He tried to make this idea sound as spontaneous and lighthearted as possible.

“Why would we need a nanny?” Tasha was trying to be just as lighthearted. “I’m home with the girls.”

“I don’t know, Tash. Sometimes when I come home, you all seem like you’re just tired of each other. They’re hollering. You’re trying to get them to go to sleep. And why is Tiara still in the room with Toni?”

“I don’t need any help, Lionel.” Tasha’s attempt at duplicating lightness evaporated with the last sip of her water. She’d become defensive. She slid her shades back on and crossed her arms. “They’re just at an awkward place. Two babies. We’ll be okay. Besides, I have to pull my own weight.”



Out of the spa and in the city, Tamia was struggling with her commitment to behaving badly. Her first Queen Bee goal was to win her big-city corporate brawl by losing her small case. It was a simple plan. Pretend she cared, build an effortless case that any opposing attorney who’d tried more than three cases could pull apart in seconds, sit back and let them bury her in facts and fiction, wave the white flag, and move on with her life. While the dramatic plot was new to her, she knew it was nothing new to top attorneys. People brought and sold cases every day in the Big Apple. Favors were used. Old frat boys from Yale and Harvard leaned on shields and no matter the verdict, both sides would meet up for drinks and jokes as soon as the gavel of judgment fell. The only uninvited party would be the client, in the dark.

Standing in the bathroom at the office, she looked for something in her reflection in the mirror. Something to speak to her and tell her that this was part of the game. How the big boys got to the top. She was a winner, always had been. And if winning this time meant losing, she would have to do what she had to do. It wasn’t her proudest moment, but certainly there would be many prideful moments to follow. But what would her father, the great Judge Dinkins, think? He’d had his own life and no doubt had to make these decisions on his own about what was ethical and what was easy. Now it was her turn.

She buttoned her jacket and stepped back to look at her outfit, a charcoal gray power suit that hugged her thighs just enough.

“Please tell me that’s your brother,” said Maria, another attorney, bursting into the bathroom as if they were at any high school. “Your cousin…your nephew. Anyone but your boyfriend!”

“What? What are you talking about?” Tamia turned to her.

“That man.” Maria’s blush lips quivered. “He is so…rugged.”

“What man are you talking about?”

“The one in your office. He’s sitting at your desk.”

“A man in my office? What?” Tamia threw a tissue she’d sat on the counter into the garbage and hustled out of the bathroom.

Outside, women were gathered in clumps she knew meant new gossip. As she walked past, they looked at her and smirked jealously.

“What?” she murmured, adjusting her jacket as she turned toward her office.

Months later, when she was on her way to becoming homeless, hairless, and wearing only a sari, she’d try to remember how this thing went. How she saw him first. Was it the smell? The sound? The face? Or just him, all of him sitting and waiting for her as if he’d always been there?

By then, with everything that led to that moment, she’d forget what came first, but really, it was the smell.

When Tamia walked into the office, her heart nearly racing with anticipation of nothing she was expecting and everything she didn’t know, there was this aroma, this enveloping scent that wafted so clearly around her that she’d felt suddenly like she was standing in a field of flowers or sitting in a pew at midnight Mass as the priest walked past, shaking an incense ball filled with frankincense and myrrh. It was sugary and fiery, clean and complex. Standing in the doorway, Tamia thought it was everywhere, but there was nothing she could see to connect it to. The office was empty. Her chair was turned and facing the window, as it had been when she’d left for the restroom.

“Naudia,” Tamia called, turning to see if Naudia had returned from lunch and let someone into her office.

“It’s funny how they make these windows. So big and wide. Like they’re daring you to go outside. I say jump.” There was a laugh.

“What?” Tamia turned back to her desk, where the voice, knowing and a bit detached, maybe arrogant, was coming from.

The chair swiveled around and inside there was this man. A dark man with dark eyes and long, dark dreadlocks that because of his complexion seemed more a part of him than not. He was sitting back and wearing a military jacket with a thin T-shirt beneath. He looked like he was about to pitch a tent or start a war. She couldn’t decide which one, but knew neither activity seemed right for her office—not in her seat either.

“Are you looking for Tamia Dinkins? This is my office.”

Flat out, Tamia was put off. And she didn’t know if it was because of what she was looking at or where it was seated. She stepped in from the doorway and saw a tan knapsack on the floor beside the desk. Buttons and patches with little sayings crowded every side. It seemed like the perfect accessory for him. She’d seen men like this before. In undergrad at Howard at poetry readings and selling incense at the student center. They were always angry and usually high. Well, she’d never spoken to one but that was how they looked.

“Yeah, they told me to come see you.”

“They?”

“I’m Malik. I’m from the Freedom Project.” Malik stood up and his 6'5" frame seemed to erase every available square foot of space around Tamia. He was on the other side of the desk, but everywhere at the same time. She tried to find her breath. Looked at the wooden beads around his neck. Stood there.

“I apologize, sister.” Malik looked confused. He held his hands out defensively. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Oh,” Tamia tried, breathing again. “I’m just not used to people—you know…” She gestured toward the desk.

“I’m sorry. My bad,” Malik said, stepping back from the desk and walking toward Tamia. They had the awkward moment of trading positions in the small space, their bodies nearly brushing against each other. “I just wanted to see the view. See what the real people look like walking by the tower.”

“It’s okay really. I just…” Sitting down, Tamia looked at her schedule on the computer screen. “I’m sorry, my notes say I’m working with a man named Richard…”

“That’s me. But I go by Malik.” He sat down.

“Oh, well…then,” Tamia said slowly, and had her mother not died when she was just a little girl Tamia would’ve known that she sounded just like her at that moment. “That’s fine…Mal-ik.” She was trying to sound welcoming, but she never understood the concept of black people with perfectly good names “going by” something else. Gerard became Little G and Taylor became Tee Tee. And then everyone in the ’hood was complaining about why they couldn’t get out. It was a sad state of affairs where being unique meant being held back, and while Tamia would never let anyone hear her admit it, she always thought her own name was a little too unique.