Man Enough For Me (29 page)

“I know you already have my number, but I’m giving it to you again,” Sharifa said. “Call me, and we can set up a time to talk about this some more. If you need me, girl—and I know you gonna need me—I’m here for you. We PR girls gotta stick together.”

“Thanks,” Jules said, smiling gratefully. “I just need to decide if I can really do this.”

Sharifa cocked her head to the side and looked at Jules.

“Let me tell you something, girl,” she said. “I’ve seen the way you juggle this job and work with Truuth. You’ve got it in you to do this. Plus, you have something I never had. You have that connection to Triad—and that’s a wealth of new artists who are going to need representation but don’t know the first place to look for it. You can use that.”

Jules nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks again, Sharifa,” she said, hugging the woman.

“No problem,” Sharifa said, slipping her bag over her shoulder, “Just don’t steal all my clients when you go big-time,” Sharifa teased.

Jules laughed. “I’m not making any promises.”

“S
trawberry or chocolate?” Tanya asked, as she dug through her open freezer.

“Chocolate!”

“Neither.”

Tanya and Maxine turned to look at Jules in surprise. They had never heard her refuse ice cream.

“I’ve been binging on ice cream every weekend for the past couple months. It’s time to have some restraint.”

“Well, I’ll have her share then,” Maxine called to Tanya from her position on the couch.

“Hey, you ain’t no guest here,” Tanya said from the kitchen. “Come get it yourself.”

Jules watched in amusement as Maxine pouted before dragging herself off the couch to the kitchen. It never ceased to amaze Jules how Maxine suddenly became demanding whenever she was around Jules and Tanya. Jules figured it was because both she and Tanya had spoiled her. They couldn’t help it, though; at twenty-three Maxine was the youngest, and therefore the baby of the three of them.

Jules stretched out her legs and looked around Tanya’s large, sunken living room. It was good to be somewhere other than her apartment. Since her last encounter with Germaine
she had gone back to hiding in her apartment. Everything that had happened had helped her realize she needed to take a step back and figure out where she was going with her life. And she needed to do that without any distractions from Tanya and Maxine, or anyone else.

However, this Thursday afternoon, her best friends had had enough. Without warning they had shown up and practically dragged her out of the apartment to Tanya’s house for a girls’ night. Although she had protested at first, she was glad they had. Too much time alone wasn’t good for anyone.

“So,” Maxine began, when she and Tanya had returned to the living room. “You should probably know, a lot of stuff went down while you were MIA.”

“Like you telling Truuth that you’re pregnant?” Jules asked pointedly.

“Oh, yeah, that,” Maxine said with a lot less enthusiasm.

Jules looked at her friend closely for what was the first time in a long time. She had lost weight; her skin also looked a bit dull, and her eyes were tired. Jules could understand why. After Maxine’s parents had found out she was pregnant they had put her out. Since then she had been bunking it with Tanya. It had been a major adjustment for Maxine, and to some extent she was still coming to grips with the whole situation.

Jules had never understood how parents could cut their daughter off at a time in her life when she needed them most. But the Simpsons had. They called it tough love, and they said it was the only way Maxine could understand the true gravity of what she had gotten herself into. Jules shuddered. She was glad God didn’t “‘love” us like that, or we’d all be in a lot of trouble.

“What did Truuth say when you told him about the baby?” Jules asked, pushing her negative thoughts about Maxine’s parents out of her mind.

Maxine shrugged. “Nothing. He’s been acting really weird about the whole thing, like’s he’s not sure how he’s supposed to feel about it. Sometimes he gets excited; other times, it’s like he’s so ashamed about it that he …”

Maxine sighed heavily as she tried to search for the words to explain. Eventually she gave up.

“I dunno.”

Jules looked across at Tanya, who just shrugged, indicating that she didn’t know any more about the situation than Jules did.

“So … have you guys talked about what you’re going to do?”

“Not really,” Maxine said, playing with the hem of her blouse. “I don’t think he’s ready to talk about it yet.”

“But Maxine, you have to—”

“Look, it will be fine, okay?” Maxine said impatiently. “Let’s not spoil the evening with this.”

“Maxine—”

“Guys,” Maxine said firmly. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Let’s just skip it, okay?”

Jules and Tanya looked at each other worriedly. If Maxine was locking down on the issue, then there must be a reason. But it was clear that she wouldn’t say more about it until she was good and ready.

“Okay,” Jules agreed, shrugging.

“Okay,” Maxine said, forcing a smile and seemingly shrugging off the conversation.

Only a few moments later, it seemed as if she had truly forgotten about it and was back to her old self. “Anyway, like I said, Jules, a lot has been going on.”

“Like what?” Jules asked with mild curiosity.

Instead of answering, however, Maxine stared purposefully at Tanya. Tanya, though, buried her face in her bowl of ice cream and refused to look at either of them.

“Well, aren’t you gonna tell her?” Maxine asked. When Tanya didn’t respond, Maxine rolled her eyes impatiently.

“Okay, fine, I will,” Maxine said, turning back to Jules. “Tanya and ‘Dre went on a date.”

Jules raised one eyebrow in surprise and looked over at Tanya questioningly.

“It wasn’t a date,” Tanya argued. “We just went out as friends. Just to talk things out.”

“And?” Jules asked, trying to be casual.

While she hoped just as much as Maxine did that things would suddenly work out perfectly with Tanya and ‘Dre, recent experience had taught her that it might not.

“He said he didn’t know I felt that way about him, and asked me why I didn’t say anything before,” Tanya said after a moment. “Then he said he’d never thought of our relationship that way, and that he cared about me a lot.”

She sighed again and looked down at her ice cream that was turning into mush.

“Then he said he wouldn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize our friendship.”

Jules bit her lip as she watched her despondent friend. Tanya was trying to act like she was okay with everything, but Jules could tell that it was breaking her heart. Even Maxine, who almost always had something to say, was unusually quiet.

“I’m sorry, T,” Jules said quietly, with Maxine nodding her agreement.

Tanya nodded. “I guess that’s the way it is sometimes.”

“So what now?” Maxine asked quietly after a moment.

Jules saw Tanya shrug and give a small sniffle.

“Now we let it be,” Jules said quietly but firmly.

Tanya raised her watery eyes to Jules curiously.

“Tanya, you already prayed about this, remember?” Jules said. “You asked God to let His will be done in this thing. So you have to let Him do His will. He has a plan for both you and ‘Dre. And truthfully, it may or may not involve both of you being together, but whatever it is, it’s definitely better than anything you could do for yourself.”

Tanya nodded solemnly and sniffled again.

“You’re right, Jules,” she said. “Thanks for reminding me of that.”

Jules smiled.

“Well, I’m glad you’re being so positive about this, Jules, ‘cause there’s something else we have to tell you,” Maxine announced.

“Maxine …” Tanya began.

“We said we would tell her, Tanya,” Maxine said seriously. “Better she hear it from us than find out the hard way.”

Jules looked back and forth between her two friends apprehensively. She had a feeling that the calm she had been working on all week was about to be no more.

“What is it?” she asked cautiously.

Maxine and Tanya looked at each other nervously.

“Ladies,” Jules said impatiently.

“Uh … Germaine is dating someone,” Maxine said, watching Jules carefully.

“We don’t know if he’s dating her,” Tanya said, trying to soften the blow. “I only saw them out together once. It was the night that I was out with ‘Dre.”

Jules swallowed hard and tried not to react, even though her insides were churning.

“It’s okay,” Jules said with more calm than she felt. “We’re not together anymore, and he’s a grown man. He can date whomever he wants.”

Despite her assurance that she was fine, Jules saw a worried look pass between Maxine and Tanya.

“There’s something else,” Maxine said hesitantly. “The girl he was out with? You know her.”

Jules felt her stomach begin to spin even more. Germaine on a date with some random girl—that she could deal with. But Germaine with someone she knew. That was a whole other thing.

“Who was it?” Jules managed to choke out.

Maxine looked at Tanya for support.

“It was LeTavia,” Tanya said.

“LeTavia Dixon? From church?” Jules asked in disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

Tanya shook her head solemnly. “I’m sorry, Jules.”

Jules laughed humorlessly. Who would have thought history would repeat itself so perfectly.

She had been here with LeTavia before. Four years before to be exact. At that time, the guy had been Demore Scott. He had
been Jules’s boyfriend for almost a year. In her twenty-two-year-old innocence, she had even thought that they might have gotten married. But then rumors had started circulating that LeTavia, Jules’s supposed friend, had been making a play for him whenever Jules wasn’t around.

Jules had brushed the rumors aside because she knew that church people sometimes gossiped more than regular folk. But then Jules and Demore had had a major falling out, and before you could say “man-eater,” LeTavia had shown up on Demore’s arm. Needless to say, her friendship with LeTavia had died a swift and sudden death.

Jules grimaced as she thought of how the issue had divided their friends at Scarborough Memorial. Even though she had never confronted LeTavia about it, a lot of people had felt the need to take sides over the issue. Demore and LeTavia had not lasted very long, but some of the division that had occurred because of it had.

Jules sighed. All that fuss over one guy, who wasn’t even around anymore. She wouldn’t let that happen again.

“So what are you gonna do?” Maxine asked, with an air of hostility. Jules looked up at her flighty friend, who seemed to be gunning for a fight.

“Come on, Jules, you can’t let her do this to you again.”

Jules herself had expected to feel some sort of anger, but instead a strange calm seemed to wash over her. A verse kept repeating itself over and over in her mind, seemingly of its own accord.

“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.”

Jules shrugged. “She’s not doing anything to me, Maxine. LeTavia is just being LeTavia. I can’t blame her for what happened with me and Germaine.”

Jules stretched her legs out in front of her lazily, looked thoughtful for a moment. “You know, when everything with Germaine first blew up, I was really upset. But I’ve had a lot of time to think about it, and I realize that all of this could be God’s way of teaching me something.”

“What a way to learn a lesson,” Tanya said wryly. “I hope you at least figured out what it was.”

Jules shrugged. “I think the lesson was that it’s not about me.”

Tanya and Maxine looked at her in confusion.

“It’s like what you said the other day, Tanya,” Jules explained. “You know that I always try to do everything myself, try to figure out everything on my own, and when something goes wrong I try to fix it by myself. It’s like, I had given my life to God, but I was still holding on to the reins.

“But it’s not about me making things work. It’s about God. It’s not by my might or my power, but by His Spirit.

“So, even though I know you heifers were looking for a battle,” Jules said with a mischievous grin and a flick of her hand, “it’s not gonna happen.

“I still miss him. But it’s out of my hands. I’m gonna do what I should have done a long time ago. I’m gonna let God take care of it.”

“Well, look at you, acting all grown and evolved,” Maxine said with an air of admiration. “I’m glad to hear you talking like that, though,” she continued, breathing a sigh of relief. “ ‘Cause I thought we were gonna have to go old school and beat a sister down!”

“Not even,” Jules said with a laugh.

“Girl, you know I’m too cute for prison!”

T
hough she had acted strong with Maxine and Tanya, Jules knew LeTavia and Germaine together was the last thing she wanted to see. But not even that could keep her away from her home church on the day of Easy’s baptism. From the moment she stepped into Scarborough Memorial she felt that something special in the air. It was the feeling you get when you know something wonderful is about to happen.

It was the first time she had been back at her home church in almost a month. In her efforts to avoid any kind of drama, she had alternated between Toronto East and Apple Creek, where Easy usually went with his grandmother. But Easy had spent a lot of time talking with Pastor Thomas and had subsequently decided that Scarborough Memorial was the place where he wanted to make his decision to follow Christ public.

That was great for Easy, who got to be with Truuth and the rest of the Triad family. Not so great for Jules, who had to alternate between avoiding everyone she knew and answering questions about where she had been for the past couple weeks.

And then there was the whole Germaine and LeTavia thing.

Sitting together in a pew near the middle of church, they were the first two people Jules saw as she stepped into the sanctuary
She closed her eyes for a quick moment and tried to remember the text she had read that morning.