Playing Hard To Get (12 page)

Malik, having sized Tamia up in an equal way, felt the opposite. Tamia wasn’t unique enough. The card he was given said “Da-Asia Moshanique Jones,” and while he wasn’t excited about taking the hookup one of his father’s former employers arranged, he thought at least “Da-Asia” sounded like a sister—a real sister, who was probably coming from where he was from and could understand his situation. But what was before him, in Tamia, was a sister but not what he’d call a “real” sister. Her monkey suit was the color of the wallpaper, her hair was processed, and what was up with the way she’d said “Malik”? On her mouth it sounded like a lock or illness.

“Weren’t we supposed to meet later this afternoon with Attorney Jones?”

“I was in the neighborhood and figured I’d come by earlier. Is that a problem?”

“Well, we have a pretty orderly way of running things around here,” Tamia said, and while she certainly wasn’t trying to sound patronizing, there was little way out of it because inside she was really thinking
who doesn’t know you can’t show up at a corporate office unannounced…or anywhere these days?
Hell, even the tiniest of downtown restaurants now took reservations.

There was silence now as the accidental adversaries sat on either side of Tamia’s desk thinking things about each other they’d later share with other people. While Tamia was thinking about how clear and shiny his eyes were, big like a little boy’s, she’d tell Troy about how ridiculous it was that he’d shown up for a meeting with his attorney dressed like a storm trooper, and while he was thinking of how soft and silken her wrists looked he’d complain to his neighbor about how he knew this would be a waste of his time and he’d probably be better off with some white boy than this bourgeoisie wannabe. But that would be all of the talk later. Now Malik was looking at the degrees on the wall and Tamia was swallowing spit she’d gathered from beneath her tongue. They could hear the pendulum on the clock in Maria’s office next door ticking.

“Do you have any questions for me?” Malik asked. “This is an interview, right?”

“Yeah.” Tamia took a pad from her desk and tried to remember what she’d read in the folder that morning on the treadmill. While she was usually prepared to meet a new client with a list of questions, a recorder, and sometimes Naudia taking additional notes, she’d planned on letting Jones lead Malik’s questioning and only half read the first few pages. “Let’s see…” She flipped open the case file.

“I’m just gonna come out and say this so there’s no confusion,” Malik said. “I did what they said I did. It’s not what they’re calling it but I did do it. And I’ll do it again.”

“What?” Tamia looked at Malik like he was crazy and this time she did nothing to hide what she was thinking. “I don’t think you need to say that right now. Not here.” Her voice was hushed. “My job is to maintain your innocence. You tell me what happened and I’ll decide what you did and didn’t do and until then I don’t want to hear you say anything like that again.”

“I know the game you’re playing, but I’m saying I don’t want to play games. They say I enslaved my own brother. I say I freed him. I’m a conscious brother and I can’t lie about something I did that I knew was right just because a bunch of unconscious people said it’s unethical. Have you ever had to do that, sister? Put your head out there to do something that was right, even though the law said it was unethical?”

Tamia nervously swallowed what was inside of her mouth again and nodded.

“Sister, are you conscious?” Malik leaned in toward the desk as if he was saying a secret, but his voice was still loud enough for someone walking past the office to hear.

“Excuse me?”

“Conscious? Are you conscious?”

“As opposed to unconscious?” Tamia smiled uneasily. “Sure I am.”

“That’s not what I mean. I’m asking if you’re conscious about the war against African people in this world. About how white supremacy threatens the very existence of blackness”—his voice was getting louder with each word and Tamia wanted to close the door to her office but she was afraid if she got up she would have to walk farther away and he’d only get louder still—“That whiteness is a genetic mutation and—”

“Mr…. Mal-ik…I need you to stop.” Tamia put her handsup crossly. “I am sure all of this stuff—”

“Stuff?”

“—is very important to you and where you’re from—”

“Where I’m from?”

“—but this really isn’t the place for it.”

“Not the place?”

“We need to focus on your case. On the facts. Not your rhetoric about…whatever that was.”

“Rhetoric?”

And just like that the accidental adversaries were easy enemies and Malik was on his feet.

He grabbed his knapsack and as he bent down Tamia rolled her eyes.

“I knew this was going to be a waste of my time. I’m out. Peace.”



As Tamia’s cautious client was making an abrupt exit in Manhattan, Troy’s righteous rival had yet to arrive at the meeting of the Virtuous Women in Harlem. And it was a bad thing too, because Troy had come to the church early to meet with Myrtle and inform her of her decision to take over the organization before she told the rest of the women. This was step one of her Queen Bee competition goal and thus far, she was falling short.

She sat, quiet and nervous, in the corner of the meeting room, watching as women robed in an outdated mix of floral patterns sauntered in, thanking the Lord for the day he’d made and following up with a bit of premeeting rumor dispersal.

“You okay, First Lady?” asked Kiona, pulling up a chair beside Troy. As usual, she was underdressed in jeans and a tight T-shirt—an outfit that would no doubt prompt Sister Glover to open the meeting by talking about the “proper image of a Virtuous Woman.”

“I’m fine, KiKi,” Troy tried to reassure her.

“I’m saying, we’re just planning the next bake sale today. It’s not that serious…well, unless Mother Wildren insists on bringing her prune pie again.”

Troy and Kiona chuckled at the memory of the pie and its aftereffect stinking up the building. Over the time Troy had been at the church, she’d found Kiona to be one of the most real and hated members. It was funny, she thought, how that seemed to go together there. Sometimes she wondered why Kiona remained at the church and why they hadn’t run her off yet. But the truth, Troy learned, was that while Kiona and her jeans and wild comments had made lots of enemies over the years, she loved God and worked harder than almost everyone at the church. Not one bake sale or drive or Girl Scout meeting went by without Kiona, her tight jeans, and her opinions.

“Hey, Kiona,” Troy started, “you were here before my husband became the pastor, correct?”

“Sure was. Pastor Brown. Lord, that was a wonderful man of God.”

“So you were also here when the Virtuous Women were started?” Troy asked, watching a few more women come in and sit at the table.

“Guilty as charged,” Kiona answered. “First Lady Brown started the Virtuous Women to bring the women of First Baptist together for true fellowship and service. It was so much fun.”

“What was she like? Like, how did she handle being the head of an organization with so many spiritual women? She must’ve been like a saint or something.” Troy laughed, but really she was serious.

“Please, that woman was far from a saint. She was late to most of the meetings and forgot a few events. That woman was a trip.” Kiona looked at Troy. “But, you know, there was something about her. Something human and real and just plain good that just made all of us love and respect her. Women were fighting to join this organization just to be close to her. It was like you knew that no matter where you’d been or what you’d done, she’d love you and embrace you. And, if you ask me, that’s what we should look for in any First Lady. Especially one leading the Virtuous Women.” Her voice quickly went low. “Not the riffraff we have leading us right now…but you didn’t hear that from me.”

“Oh, stop it,” Troy chided, playfully spanking Kiona’s hand.

The exchange between the two women quickly turned from a conversation to a confessional, as Troy opened up and informed Kiona of her decision to lead the Virtuous Women as she was expected to. For Troy, who needed to let someone outside of herself and the other Ts know of her plan, it let a bunch of guilt and anxiety off of her shoulders. She actually felt good when the meeting was finally opening and Kiona promised not to tell anyone of her plan. But she immediately realized that even the most real, most well-intentioned woman couldn’t keep a piece of hot gossip like that to herself—not for very long. And the wildest thing was that while Troy hadn’t even seen Kiona speak to any of the other women in the room, one by one, they turned to Troy with speculative stares. It was as if the bit of communication was being transported among these heavenly women telepathically…or via text message.

Robed in a leopard-print duster that kissed the floor beneath her six-inch leopard-print heels, Sister Glover shifted into the room like a judge prepared to hear her next case. She greeted her jury, smiling pleasantly at their waves, took her seat, and clasped her hands on the table.

“Let us begin with prayer, sisters,” she said with a weak nod to Troy, who was seated to her right.



“I need you to do something!” Tamia began rattling off her demand before she fully entered Charleston’s office.

Inside, at the far end of a triangular corner enclave whose size would be the envy of any high-rolling New York office, stood Charleston beside a floor-to-ceiling window that looked out over the city. His assistant, Christina, an Irish redhead with envious, lime-colored eyes, was sitting in a chair beside his desk, typing as he spoke. Together, they looked up at Tamia.

“That’ll be all,” Charleston said.

“But we haven’t finished the letter…” Christina knew better than to push. She saved the file on her laptop and hustled out of the room as quickly as her rented Prada heels would allow.

Tamia stood before the sleek chrome and glass desk, her arms crossed, her teeth tight in a grimace. There was nothing else to say. Malik and his words had ignited fire in her in some way she didn’t know, couldn’t explain. The nerve of him to speak to her in such a way when he needed her, Tamia kept thinking as she charged upstairs to Charleston’s office. And what did he mean anyway? Her “level of consciousness”? The only thing he needed to be conscious of was keeping himself out of jail. That was the problem with men like him; they were always focused on the wrong things.

“People are going to start to believe we’re sleeping together,” Charleston joked, walking around to the front of his desk and sitting before Tamia. His jacket was off, revealing matching Burberry suspenders and a bow tie. It was pretentious, but that’s what he was going for.

“I’m not in the mood for games, Charleston. I just had the worst face-to-face in my career and I want out. I want you to do something. Get me out of this!” Tamia demanded. “Incense-carrying! Muslim oil–smelling! Dirty dreadlock–having! Son-of-a—”

“Whoa, girl! This is a place of business.” Charleston went to close the door. “Who are you talking about? The doughnut man downstairs?”

“My new client. He’s some ’hood rat with no class. He came into my office and attacked me,” Tamia said. “You’re right. This case is a dog. I have to get out of it and I need you to help me. I can’t—no—I refuse to work with that…that…ruffian!”

“Wait, he attacked you?”

“Well, he was very nasty. Asking me questions and sitting at my desk. Whoever heard—”

“That’s not the same as an attack. You know that.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Tamia said before lowering her voice to a secretive whisper. “Look, I know how these things work. I’m with you and there has to be some benefits to that. I need you to talk to your people upstairs and pull me out of this.”

“I already did that,” Charleston revealed softly as he prepared to tell his tale. That morning, when he walked into the office, he’d gotten a tip from an older and nosy security guard about Tamia’s suspicious night visit to the office. Just a brother looking out for another brother. The man laughed loud and long, imagining how slick Charleston would need to be to worm out of not being where he told a sister like Tamia he would be. He was sure there would be hell, but Charleston’s laugh was louder and longer. He’d been there before. The trick to getting caught in that kind of lie, especially with a woman he cared about, was to tell her what she already knew before she approached him about it and cover with a better lie that was wrapped around her. It worked like a charm. It always did.

“What?” Tamia uncrossed her arms and looked at Charleston sensitively. “You already spoke to someone?”

“Look, the other night, after we had dinner with Nathaniel, I went and had a drink with someone high up to talk about the case. Someone who owes me a favor.”

“Really?”

“Well, you seemed upset and I just, I couldn’t let you go out like that. So, instead of coming to the office, I went and tried to pull a rabbit out of a hat. Now, I got them to drop the co-counsel so you don’t have to deal with Jones anymore.”

“I guess that’s why Malik said reception forwarded him to my office.”

“But no one wants to step on toes and they won’t completely reassign the case.” Charleston’s tone was even and frank, like a salesman in the middle of his “I’m not pitching” pitch. He was telling the truth about not going in to the office, both he and Tamia knew that already, and he did have an important meeting with a colleague, but it was at a swingers’ club and included both the colleague and two of her married, yet bored gym buddies. Needless to say, there was little talk of Tamia. Awaiting a sexy tap from the whip a nude Charleston was holding, Phaedra had agreed to remove Jones from the case if he would have sex with her.

“I can’t believe you did that for me,” Tamia said, feeling foolish for stalking Charleston’s office and even considering that he’d lied to her. She’d been the one pushing him away.

“Yeah, well, you’re my woman and I want to protect you,” Charleston said, grinning at Tamia. “But it looks like the old plan is going to have to stand. Do what you have to do to get in good with this guy and just let the dog die. I’ll work on my side to make sure your next case is front page.”