Playing Hard To Get (15 page)

“Ashay Ashay.” Malik smiled and Tamia was sure it was the first time she’d seen his teeth. Nice.

“Okay, look, I don’t understand the purpose of your questions. What do a bunch of books I read at Howard have to do with your case?”

“Sister, what I do…what we do here is about the Afrocentric community. About helping African people displaced in America find some semblance of freedom, understand who they were, who they are, what they could be, and who wants to stop that from happening,” he said with as much pride in his voice as Tamia had when she listed her accomplishment. “And if you don’t understand that, if you don’t believe in that, if you’re just another one of these blind niggas walking around on the plantation, thinking slavery is over, I don’t think you can help me. See, I’m not interested in participating in some exercise in the American Injustice system, so they can just lock my African ass up. If that’s what those devils want to do, they’ll do it. It don’t matter what ‘case’ we present. The devils run the system, the judge, the lawyers, the verdict. To them, a nigga selling five keys of crack is the same as a brother educating fifty former niggas—that’s fifty years. But what they don’t know is that I’m going to keep doing what I do out here in there.”

“So, you don’t believe in the criminal justice system?”

“Well, it’s called the
criminal
justice system—not the
people’s
justice system. And no, I don’t. I don’t see how any African could.”

“You’re one of those militant brothers,” Tamia said.

“Militant involves the military. I’m a warrior,” Malik responded. “I don’t take orders. I deliver results. Every African man has to do his own part if we’re going to get back to Akebulan.”

Tamia didn’t know what Akebulan meant and at that point, she didn’t care. Malik’s logic was smothering her thoughts. How could he virtually sign up to go to prison? He was correct. Black people, some of the best, went to prison every day for a number of reasons that had nothing to do with them. But most of those people simply had poor representation. The verdict was a reflection of their lack of control of their image. A guilty person with a lawyer who was in control wasn’t guilty anymore. She’d seen it. She’d done it.

“So…” Tamia tried to put words into the silent space in the conversation. Once again, he’d shared nothing about the actual case. “You want to go to prison?”

“What?” Malik shook his head and leaned over the desk to hand Tamia a piece of paper he’d written on. There was an address.

“What’s this?”

“The Royal Ankh,” he said. “I’ll be there tonight. Come out and see what we do. There’ll be a lot of sisters from the community there.”

“Oh, I don’t do that—I’m not a—”

“It’s not like that.” Malik laughed and again there were his teeth. Later that night Tamia would think of how much she liked hearing his laugh and seeing his teeth. It would be great to find ways to make that happen more often. “Just come.”

“I can’t. I promised a friend I’d meet her at this party…and…” Tamia had been invited to countless events by countless clients and turned them down countless times. But somehow this one seemed different. Saying no made her uneasy. The way Malik had written the address on the sheet of paper—for her—wasn’t like any other offer from a client to an attorney, hoping to get an edge, to build a relationship. He didn’t seem like he was trying to get anything.

“Well, you have the address. Use it if you can.”

5

There are no good girls gone wrong, just bad girls found out.

—
Mae West

V
enus Jenkins-Hottentoten-Hoverslagen-Jackson, a black woman with the most ridiculous last name of any woman in the city on account of two failed marriages to Swedish bankers and one mediocre, yet standing, marriage to a Knicks starting player, was scanning a crowd of beautiful people for the most beautiful victim her eye could spy. Only, to Venus Jenkins-Hottentoten-Hoverslagen-Jackson this beautiful somebody was not a victim. In her mind, they were all friends, who unfortunately fell beneath her social knife from time to time. While the Southern society snob fancied herself a socialite with friends abounding everywhere, the only thing she was truly good at abounding was husbands.

Staring through a crowd of these beautiful friends and possible future husbands (if the Knicks thing didn’t work out) at the annual cover party for
ESPN
magazine’s body issue in Gramercy Park, Venus spotted a familiar face she hadn’t seen in a while.

“Look what the cat dragged in here!” Venus happily exclaimed as if she was greeting a best friend. People around her looked on as she sat down her glass of wine and pushed past a few couples to wrap her arms around the new find.

“Oh, Venus,” Tasha cheerfully countered in the middle of the tight, overperfumed embrace. “My favorite frenemy.”

“Oh, you mustn’t believe that.” Venus laughed a bit, using a faux European accent she’d picked up two husbands ago.

“Of course, beautiful,” Venus gushed, stepping back to pretend to admire Tasha’s frame, yet she’d already seen and felt the extra thirty pounds Tasha was carrying. “You know I’m everywhere that’s somewhere. This city can’t get nothing on without me. Wish we could say the same for you, darling.”

It was a statement, said flat and to anyone not privy to Venus’s tricks, void of expectation. But Tasha was no anyone and Venus had attempted to put her beneath the knife so many times that she knew the words were more of a question/indictment demoting Tasha from the former front-running socialite she’d once been to a sometime nobody who was lucky enough to have married the right man and been invited to an event she had no business actually attending. Yes, Tasha got all of that from “Wish we could say the same for you, darling.”

“I’m around, bitch,” Tasha said, giggling so her words sounded more friendly than feisty. “Just not around you.”

The women laughed off the short spar heartily. It was a draw.

In Tasha’s old life, the one before she’d been calmed by the suburban breeze and quieted by children’s cries that were louder than her own, she would’ve won this challenge. But she was tired and actually happy to see someone she knew—even if it was a frenemy.

“How’s my favorite Knicks player?” Venus asked, resting her hand on a set of stacked abs Tasha could see rippling beneath her purple chemise. More pretty than beautiful, Venus made up for the difference by working out so much that her muscular, fat-free frame that revealed nearly every bone and muscle through its casing could’ve been featured on the cover of
ESPN
magazine.

“Oh, I sure hope he isn’t your favo,” Tasha joked. “We know how you do with the men.” The women laughed and quickly spied each other’s purses. Tasha’s Birkin, though old and passed down from her mother, won by a long shot over Venus’s brand-new Gucci BoHo.

“I’m not that bad. Am I?” Venus batted her eyes innocently. “No, really. Where have you been hiding yourself, Ms. Tasha? I heard you moved to New Jersey….”

“Sure did. You know I’m actually happily married and my husband and I moved there to raise our family. Do you have children yet?”

“Well, at least it’s Alpine,” Venus said, ignoring Tasha’s question. No man she’d married had been crazy enough to get her pregnant yet. “I couldn’t stand to see another family go into poverty because they couldn’t afford to live in Manhattan anymore. This recession is killing everyone.”

“There’s a recession?” Tasha asked, faking surprise to poke fun at how ridiculous Venus’s statement was. “I didn’t know.”

“I’ll tell you what else you didn’t know….” Venus’s voice was saturated in secret. She put her hand on her hip and her bony elbow poked out from her body like the tip of a witch’s broom.

“What don’t I know?”

Venus looked away. She wanted Tasha to beg. The moment had arrived in the common exchange where even the words of a frenemy became desired. While Tasha’s hate for Venus was a sure thing, she was also sure that Venus knew everything that went on in the city that mattered. Her thirst for fresh blood and new friends/victims never failed to put her in the right place at the wrong time. It was the only reason Tasha ever tolerated her.

“What do you have?” Tasha demanded. She hadn’t ever really learned to beg anyone for anything. It really was the best she could do. “Oh…tell me.”

“Well, since you asked, a certain blond and blue-eyed cheerleader snuck into a certain player’s hotel room last weekend.”

Tasha’s eyes, squinted and cautious, asked the questions she couldn’t. Venus’s eyes went to Tasha’s wedding band. Yes, that’s who she was talking about.

“Lionel!” Tasha hollered, looking around for her husband, who’d slipped away to chat with his former agent. Any couth or calm she had was exiting the building. There were two games Tasha simply didn’t play—knock-off shopping and cheating.

“No, no, no, calm down.” Venus grabbed Tasha’s arm before she ran off to put Lionel beneath her own real knife. “Listen to me.”

“Listen to what? You just said that some white slut slept with my husband. What the hell do I need to listen to? Which hoe is it? That’s all I need to know.” Tasha reached into her purse and pulled out her cell phone. She didn’t have some ghetto hit man waiting to do damage, but she had her girls, Tamia and Troy, and they’d all take a ride at night if they had to.

“First, she isn’t white. The eyes are fake and the hair is imported from Switzerland.”

“So, she’s black? Is it Carmen? I’ll kill her! And she’s from LA.”

“It’s not Carmen. Look, do you want to hear the rest?”

“Go ahead.” Tasha paused and now her hand was on her hip.

“Apparently, a new cheerleader, Lisa Henderson—something or other—snuck into Lionel’s room and, while I’m sad to say it, every single report I have says he kicked her out.”

“What?”

“Right out into the hallway. Naked as a broke stripper.”

“He did?”

“According to three sources who stayed on the floor…
and
Mamacita.”

“Mamacita saw it?” Tasha said. Mamacita was the Knicks’ oldest and most respected groupie. She knew the traveling schedule before it was posted on the Website and usually had her airfare and hotel room paid for by some rookie who’d fallen in love.

“That’s right. She’s the one who helped the girl back to her room. And you know Mamacita doesn’t lie. He didn’t touch the girl. Didn’t say a word to her,” Venus whispered.

While seconds ago Tasha was considering who would raise her children once she’d killed her husband in a room full of people and was sentenced to life in prison, now she was feeling a small sense of pride, vindication at Venus’s revelation.

“You can smile, bitch,” Venus said, smiling herself. “I know you want to smile. That kind of scene is as rare as a black man becoming president.”

“It is kind of cool, isn’t it?” Tasha smiled.

“Yeah, it’s cool, but don’t get too happy.” Venus’s smile turned to a stare. “You know what the incident means. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten. You haven’t been out of here for that long.”

“I’m slipping,” Tasha admitted, her smile washing away as she spotted Lionel at the bar, laughing with his former agent and two groupies, whose status was marked by exposed torsos and tramp stamps, heart-shaped tattoos on their lower backs.

“That’s right,” Venus confirmed. “No cheerleader or real groupie would step to the husband of a wife who was on the scene. Out of sight, out of mind.”

Tasha looked at Venus.

“I know you’re over in Jersey enjoying the good life, but this is real life and the longer you’re away, the sooner someone will snag him away. They’re just waiting for you to slip up. And I can already see that’s happening.” Venus looked to the shawl Tasha was wearing to hide her belly. It was expensive, probably cost more than Venus’s entire ensemble (purse and shoes included), but both women knew what it was for.

There was no recovering retort for Tasha. She rewrapped her shawl and held her Birkin out on her wrist like some security doll a child would clutch.

“Well, it’s been nice chatting with you, beautiful!” Venus’s smile reappeared like lightning striking a tree. She pulled Tasha into her arms and held her tight, kissing her on either cheek. “Take care of you. It’s a jungle out there,” she whispered in her ear before disappearing into the crowd of beautiful friends to gather another glass of wine and find a new victim.

Tasha exhaled and waved at one of Lionel’s teammates. She wanted to go over to the bar to gather her husband, but knew the rule of these functions. A hanging-on wife was worse than an eager groupie. She could only come and go, smile and drift away to network in her own circles.

“Where’s Tamia?” Tasha asked herself, knowing better than to look at her watch. The bored wife was worse than the hanging-on wife.

Attack of the Frenemies: Surviving the Ultimate Extraterrestrial Expereince

Rodney King was wrong—we all can’t just get along. And when the foe is also a friend, the result is even worse—we manage to get along and fall out all at the same time. Every woman is bound to have a frenemy in her lifetime. She’s the woman she loves to hate, and hates to love. Her life would probably be better without the frenemy, but she needs her for something. And while the relationship might cause some bumps and bruises, she endures the enemy’s pain to get the friend’s pleasure. Here are tips for dealing with frenemies and surviving an encounter from out of this world.

Dos
:

1. Know your enemy and her weapon of contact (usually her mouth).

2. Know yourself and what weapon you have that can trump hers.

3. Keep your cool and kill her with kindness.

Don’ts
:

1. Fall for her petty games.

2. Forget that this friend is an enemy, so keep your business to yourself and do your dirt alone.