Body By Night (3 page)

“What’s with this ‘doll’ stuff; is that the new
in
word I haven’t heard yet?”

“Naw, it’s an old school term and the goal I’m setting for you. Speaking of old school, remember the Commodores song, ‘Brick House’? Well, I’m going to turn you into another type of house, a
dollhouse
. When I get through with this body you’ll be ‘D’Andra the living doll.’”

D’Andra laughed. “That’s so corny.”

Thankfully Night had gotten over the pain that being laughed at used to cause him. “Yeah,” he drawled. “But you liked it.”

D’Andra tried but couldn’t stop the smile that lit up her face. For the first time since they met, she felt comfortable. To be that fine yet talk that dorky…maybe they could be friends after all. And even though she hated men, the least she could do was be polite.

“Who was that fat chick?” Marc, the Bally employee who’d checked D’Andra in and taken her picture, grabbed a dumbbell and began doing curls next to Night.

Night copped an attitude. “What do you mean, fat chick?”

“Well, she was; no disrespect or nothin—”

“It sounded disrespectful…”

“My bad, man; but she is a big girl. What, you tappin’ that ass or something?”

Night held himself rigid as he executed perfect chin-ups. “What are you trying to do, Marc, piss me off?”

“I’m not trying to jock you man.” Marc laughed. “You came in with her, helped her work out and everything. Just wondering who she is, that’s all. You’re acting all protective and stuff, like she’s either your girl, or your little sister. What’s up with that?”

It was a good question. Night didn’t know why he felt protective of D’Andra, but there was something about her that brought out his chivalrous side. He also thought she’d be perfect for one of the workouts he intended to offer at his gym, and had shared these thoughts with her. Still, Night couldn’t fully explain why his friend’s comments had riled him. Maybe it was because unlike Marc who’d been a pretty boy all his life, Night knew what it was like to be teased.

“I don’t know what’s up,” he answered finally. “I just met the girl out in the parking lot. It took a lot for her to come in here, trying to lose weight and what not. I thought I’d help her out a little, that’s all.”

Sweat gleamed from Marc’s toned body as he moved from the dumbbells to the bench press. He added forty pounds to the load and grabbed the bar with his hands. His arm muscles rippled like coordinated ocean waves as he repeatedly pushed the bar toward the ceiling.

“What’s this, the new and improved Night? I’ve never seen you help a girl without an MO. Jazz got you seeing the error of your ways?”

“Man, the only error Jazz showed me was the judgment I used in messing with her as long as I did.”

At one time Jazz Anderson was the love of Night’s life and would-be business partner. But that was before jealousy and insecurity overshadowed beauty and intelligence. Night had conducted private work-outs in his home gym for years. Jazz didn’t have a problem with it, at first. Not until she started hearing wedding bells. Night heard them too, was helping to make them ring. Then she had to go and mess up the melody by demanding he not work with female clients in his home gym unless she was there. He refused. “Them or me” was her ultimatum. “Them
and
me” was his counter offer. After months of arguments and false accusations, he chose them.

“When’s the last time you seen her?” Marc asked.

“Jazz? About a month ago; ran into her at a concert.”

“Is she still fine?”

“Is the sky still blue?”

Marc let the weights fall with a clang. “My money’s on y’all getting back together. She’s a walking ad for sexy, dude. No man walks away from something like that.”

“This man did.”

And unlike when Jazz walked away, as she had several times over the course of their relationship, Night had no intention of returning. He couldn’t argue Jazz’s classic beauty: jet black hair, her own, which cascaded over smooth café au lait skin, feline eyes, high cheekbones, satiny lips. Her breasts were lush and full, booty nice and tight. She could easily fill the pages of any beauty or fitness magazine.

But for all her beauty, Jazz had an ugly side. She could be witty and charming, but she could also be verbally vicious and unnecessarily rude. It was enough that Night witnessed this treatment by Jazz to strangers. But when she used these antics with the one and only Val Johnson, it was the last straw. Nobody disrespected his mother and remained his friend. Not even someone as beautiful as Jazz.

He finished his workout and headed for the exit. Passing the treadmills on his way out, he thought of D’Andra. His mother would love her, he decided. Not that there was any reason for him to think such a thought. D’Andra would never meet his mother. She wasn’t his type. He liked women who were confident, comfortable in their own skin. He’d sensed the opposite in D’Andra. Unfortunately, he was a builder of muscle, not self-esteem. It was a moot point at any rate. For now his focus was on one thing only: opening his business by the Fourth of July weekend. But even as he envisioned his luxury facility of rubber, steel, music and flat-screen TVs, somehow the scene was not complete without a dollhouse.

D’Andra turned up the radio as she navigated traffic on her way home. She was still trying to process all that had happened to her at the gym. It was enough that she’d successfully gotten through almost thirty minutes of exercise, but with the aid of a fine personal trainer? That she hadn’t expected. She thought the afternoon could contain no more surprises but as she discovered in a conversation as she left the gym, she’d been wrong.

“You did well today,” Night had said when her work-out was over.

“For somebody who almost passed out I guess I did all right.”

“You were fine, and it will only get better.”

Night continued to walk with her from the gym to the parking lot. She didn’t have long to wonder why.

“I have a project in mind that you’d be perfect for,” he said.

“Me?” D’Andra couldn’t imagine any type of project she’d be good at where he was concerned.

“It’s for my gym. See, I want to reach out to big women,” he imagined how that might have sounded to D’Andra and hurried to explain. “All women, of course, but I especially want big women to feel comfortable in my gym.”

D’Andra immediately knew the reason, and said so. “For your aunt?”

Night nodded. “I plan to structure a program in her memory specifically for large women. Her name was Jewel, and that’s what I’ll call this special group, my jewels. I’m getting a banner designed to go across the wall of the main group exercise room:
Join Exercise With Enthusiasm & Look Sensational…J.E.W.E.L.S.

“That’s a sweet tribute to your aunt and a great idea,” D’Andra admitted. “The first thing I noticed when I walked into the gym was that hardly anyone in there looked like me. Most everyone else was already fit; it was a bit disconcerting.”

“I usually charge a steep hourly rate,” Night continued. “But I’d like to offer you my services for free in exchange for your becoming the poster girl, so to speak, for this project.”

“But what if I don’t lose the weight?” D’Andra was moved by his thoughtfulness. Being fine
and
nice was quickly wearing down her man-hater wall.

“If you don’t lose, then I don’t win. I figure you want to lose, say, forty-fifty pounds, right?”

D’Andra nodded.

“I can help you do that over the next six to seven months, right around the time my gym opens. I’ll put together a program that’s aggressive without being over the top. You can run the regimen past your doctor and once he gives the okay, we’ll be ready to roll. I’d like to get before and after shots of you, and use you as a motivator to get other women to first join then continue the program.”

“I, I don’t know what to say.”

“Well if you’re not going to say yes don’t say anything. Just come by my house this Tuesday so we can get started. You’ll be in shape in no time and healthy as ever.”

He’d given her his card then, and with a wink turned and jogged back to the gym. Now, thirty minutes later, the shock had worn off and D’Andra was warming to the idea for a variety of reasons. First, she’d get serious help in losing weight. Second, his desire to help women get healthy mirrored her own desire.

After being diagnosed with high blood pressure and Type II diabetes, the reasons for her unexpected emergency room visit, D’Andra had gone online to find out more about what her doctor had casually mentioned as “a problem common to women of color.” She’d been offended until she’d gone online and read the facts: that two of the leading causes of illness and death in the Black community were diabetes and heart disease. D’Andra had clicked on the various links offered on the site for further information and was shocked but not surprised at what she read: as of 2007 one report showed that one out of seven African-Americans suffered from diabetes and that they were twice as likely as Whites to develop the disease. There was also an alarming increase of Type II diabetes, the diabetes most closely linked with diet and exercise, among children. Some experts suggested diabetes was reaching epidemic proportions in Black America.

As D’Andra neared her home, she recalled how she felt after watching a panel on cable television about the state of Black health:

“We’re seeing a shortening of life spans,” the moderator said.

“People are dying earlier from heart disease and strokes,” added Dr. Duane Smoot, chair of the medical department at the Howard University Hospital.

“There are just so many problems associated with diabetes. It causes people to have more problems with aging. For example, it causes aging of your blood vessels, so hardening of the arteries occurs more frequently. We talk about aging gracefully, but with this disease, it makes it more difficult to have a good quality of life. We have very firm data that tells us that diabetes itself has reached epidemic proportions in this nation as a whole, but more specifically in the African-American community.”

Recalling the program and focusing on her conversation with Night, D’Andra realized how she could accomplish the second major life change she wanted to make as a result of her “emergency gurney journey” brought on by a blood pressure spike that had reached 210/120—to study nutrition and somehow help teach her community the value of proper diet and exercise.

She hadn’t told anyone of the life changes she was working on but meeting Night today felt like some kind of sign that she was headed in the right direction. Maybe by helping him, he could help her reach the community through his gym.
Fate must be smiling down on me
, she thought as she turned the corner on to her block. And for the first time in a long time, D’Andra was smiling back.

But not for long. Her smile turned upside down as soon as she noticed the blue, four-door Toyota parked in front of a row of small, yet well-kept townhouses. Cassandra was home, which meant the peaceful Saturday afternoon she’d imagined wasn’t going to happen. Ever since her sister had moved in with her three children two months before, the house had been pure chaos. Cassandra had sworn at the time that the situation was temporary. But temporary was turning into permanent, which brought D’Andra’s thoughts to the third thing she wanted to change in her life…her address. Even as she walked toward the house, her mind whirled with thoughts of where she could go to escape.
Maybe I’ll go to the mall, or see a movie.

“It’s about time you got home,” her mother yelled before D’Andra got completely in the door. “I told you I wanted those greens for dinner.”

“Ooh, Aunt DeeDee, you fixing greens?”

“What you fixing with them Aunt DeeDee?”

“Can we have some Kool-Aid, Aunt DeeDee?”

Cassandra’s three children, seven-year-old Kayla and five-year-old twins, Tonia and Antoine, bum-rushed D’Andra in the foyer. She loved her nieces and nephew but it still didn’t stop her from wishing they’d click their heels three times and go home. That was the problem: they were home. She’d thought the two-bedroom townhouse just big enough when her mother had asked her to move in after the breakup with Charles. Now that the two-person household had become a six-person one, five of them female, the living space was downright suffocating. D’Andra took a deep breath, and tried to keep a rein on her blood pressure.

“Where’s y’all’s mama?” she asked, pushing her way through tiny hands and feet.

“She gone,” Kayla responded.

Oh no she didn’t leave these kids here again for me to watch
, D’Andra thought, her blood pressure rising despite her resolve to keep it down. When the doctor had asked if there had been any recent events that would have precipitated the spike in her blood pressure, D’Andra knew Cassandra’s returning home was part of the reason. That she was selfish enough and felt entitled enough to think she could dump her children on D’Andra without asking was too much. She marched into the living room where her mother was lying on the couch flipping channels with the remote.

“Mama, I told Cassandra I can’t be watching these kids every weekend. I’ve already got a job. I’m tired after working all week and need to be able to relax on the weekends.”

“Those kids ain’t bothering nobody,” Mary said as she grabbed a pillow and placed it under her head so she could see the TV better. “Your sister’s been through a lot, it’s good for her to go out and have a good time. I told her I’d watch the kids.”

Bringing up Cassandra’s messy divorce didn’t change D’Andra’s position. She knew how her mother watched kids. What she watched was D’Andra, making sure her orders to feed, clothe and entertain them were carried out.

“She’s been through a lot and I haven’t?” she argued. “Two weeks ago I was in the hospital, in emergency. And I was there because of all this added stress from Cassandra and her drama. I can’t work, cook, clean
and
take care of her kids.”

“Cassandra had nothing to do with you being in that hospital,” Mary said with a big yawn. “Yo’ big fat ass is what got you there. Cassandra’s out with that pro baseball player she just met, trying to make a better life for herself, and for her mama in the process. He’s got money, owns his own house and everything. She’s my only hope of getting out of this rundown neighborhood. It ain’t like you’re ever gonna find a man. Charles was probably the best you were gonna do, and you couldn’t even keep him.”

D’Andra felt a slow throb begin at the back of her head and fought down a series of snide comments. She hadn’t told her mother what happened between her and Charles. And for all of Mary Smalls’ issues, she was still her mother and deserved respect. But Cassandra was another story. She was tired of putting up with her sister’s crap and today was the day she was going to tell her so. It was also the day she was going to get on the computer and find another place to live. Enough was enough.

D’Andra decided to keep this impending change to herself, as she had all the others. Her mother and sister derided everything she tried to do. Plus she knew her mother would try and convince her to stay, for the portion of rent she paid if nothing else. But she was through being pushed around. Let Cassandra’s baseball boy foot the bill. That decision made, D’Andra ignored her mother’s comment and headed upstairs to take a shower.

“Aunt DeeDee, we’re hungry,” Kayla said quietly, her big, brown eyes looking up expectantly as D’Andra came down the stairs.

“What have you eaten?” D’Andra asked.

“Just some cereal,” Antoine piped in. “We want some real food.”

“And I don’t want no more of that baked chicken,” Mary said as D’Andra headed toward the kitchen. “We like our meat fried around here. There’s some pork chops in the refrigerator that’ll go good with some mashed potatoes and gravy.”

D’Andra stopped and looked at the mother who was more overweight than she, then thought of Night’s aunt, and concern overrode the animosity at being treated like a short-order cook.

“Mama, you know why I’m baking instead of frying. Both of us need to lose weight; it’s a healthier choice.”

“You trying to lose weight don’t mean I’m trying to. I’ve always been fat and am always gonna be fat, and so are you. Cassandra’s the only skinny one in the family, got her daddy’s genes. A little grease never hurt nobody girl; whether that food is baked or fried, you’re still gonna be fat. So you might as well cook it how it tastes good.

“Kayla, go bring Big Mama that bag of chips on the table. And look in the refrigerator and get one of those sodas.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Kayla said, giving D’Andra an understanding look as she passed. Kayla had obviously become Mary’s legs when D’Andra wasn’t around.

D’Andra tried, but washing off her mother’s caustic comments was not as easy as removing the sweat from her workout. She’d endured taunts her whole life. If it wasn’t her family, it was her classmates. She thought she’d grown beyond the envy she used to feel at her mother’s obvious favoritism toward Cassandra but her younger sister moving in had brought it all back to the surface.

The first time D’Andra noticed their being treated differently was when she was six years old and Cassandra was three. Her mother had purchased dresses for them to have a family portrait done at Sears. Cassandra’s dress was a beautiful yellow concoction of satin and lace. D’Andra’s navy blue sailor dress with the dreary red ribbon paled in comparison. When they got to the photography studio, Mary and the photographer made a fuss over Cassandra while D’Andra was treated as an afterthought. Her feelings showed on her face, evidenced in her frown amidst Mary and Cassandra’s happy countenance. No matter how hard the photographer tried, he couldn’t get D’Andra to stop scowling. It wasn’t until Mary threatened a whooping that she pasted a fake smile on her face. D’Andra was eternally grateful when a busted upstairs water pipe in their childhood home had soaked and ruined everything below it, including the grouping of family pictures Mary had on the wall. Even thinking her ardent wishes to have the picture gone caused the pipe to burst wasn’t enough to make D’Andra feel bad it had happened.

The second major incident that led to her feeling inferior and less loved happened when D’Andra was nine. She overheard her mother talking on the phone with Sam, Cassandra’s father. He was married at the time Mary got pregnant, and while he provided for Cassandra financially and visited her once or twice a month, he had refused to leave his wife. On the other hand, D’Andra didn’t know anything about her father aside from the few photos of a medium-height, golden-brown man holding her when she was a baby, and a name, Orlando Dobbs. Her mother would shut down every time she inquired about him and after a while, she stopped asking. Especially after eavesdropping on a conversation she wished she’d never heard.

“If I’d met you first, you would have been the father of both my girls. Cassandra is the pretty one, looks more like you every day.”

Sam must have said something because her mother was quiet a moment.

And then: “Orlando? I don’t know where he is. He can be dead for all I care.”

D’Andra’s hopes of ever meeting her father, at least with her mother’s help, faded to black.