Tastes Like Chicken Page 12

  “What was that all about?” Rick asked, his cheeks full of bird. He shoveled more food into his mouth before he swallowed what was already in it.

  “The Larchmont account,” she said, staring into her plate. She didn’t want lying to come as easy as it had of late in her marriage. It wasn’t a smart foundation to build upon, she knew. But this was a small lie, she thought, so there was no harm that could come of it. Besides, she didn’t have the energy to deal with what it would mean to disclose the truth about Tyrene’s call.

  “I heard you mention something about somebody having a bullying attitude,” Rick said.

  “It was nothing, baby.” She picked at her biscuit. The sight of the food was making her sick. “Just one of the tenants. I told the on-site people to handle this. It should have never made its way up to me.”

  “But Larchmont’s in my portfolio,” Rick said. “Why didn’t I get the call?”

  “Who knows? Fuck it. It’s no big deal.”

  Rick glanced up from his plate into his wife’s face. Her eyes were troubled and she seemed tired. Her language was even a little harsher than usual. I’ll give her some extra loving tonight, he decided. That might put some life back into her. He figured he’d start with running her a hot bath, then he’d give her a nice long massage. And then it’d be on.

  Yeah, he thought. A long night of loving was just what Misty Hodges needed.

  Tyrene was still at her desk two hours later, the lights of the city behind her the sole source of illumination in the room. She tapped her fingers with their excellent manicure against the desk. She was vexed, at a crossroads with herself. Why am I doing this? she thought.

  “I don’t like him,” she said aloud. “But I don’t know how to leave him alone.”

  She was still upset at Tyrone for what had happened between them in New York. She was accustomed to the two of them handling situations in tandem. That was their rhythm, bad cop–bad cop. Tyrone would rumble the trunk of the tree and she would make sure the branches fell. She didn’t like weakness in men.

  She couldn’t afford it. Deep inside herself, Tyrene believed she was too weak to face the world without the support of someone strong. That was what had attracted her to Tyrone in the first place.

  Even in the earlier days of their relationship when there had been so much free sex, it was an environment thick with machismo. Together they’d planned to be instrumental in the revolution, but their leaders would be chest-beaters, men who weren’t afraid to step up to the challenge of building a new world order.

  Tyrene felt Tyrone had carried those very principles into their practice. With her by his side, the two of them had created a revolution of their own.

  But in a moment of unexpected weakness, he had abandoned her and their established rhythm. He’d left her out there, giving her the appearance of a shrieking loon. Tyrene had always been able to count on his booming voice to cover her own. Instead, everyone at the hospital had treated her like she was some type of hysterical shrew, and Tyrone’s standoffish behavior and resonating “fuck you” had made it seem as if he concurred.

  She wondered what would happen if Misty chose to say something to her daughter. She couldn’t imagine what Tyrone would do.

  Tyrene wanted to believe that Misty wouldn’t say anything about what she’d witnessed. She was a nice, meek girl who didn’t like drama and was quick to back down whenever Tyrene stepped to her about something she deemed inappropriate. This thing with Hill wasn’t serious, she knew. It was a heady moment in her life that was compensating for several things, one of which included resenting Tyrone for smoking again. Her fascination with Hill would pass soon. She couldn’t let it escalate to something unmanageable. Tyrene vowed to herself that she would let go before it threatened to jeopardize her relationship with Tyrone.

  The first line of her phone rang. She picked it up at once.

  “Tyrene,” she said.

  “What are you wearing?” asked the voice on the other end.

  She leaned back, a twisted smile on her face, relaxing her legs into an open position.

  “I wondered what was taking you so long.”

  “You miss me?”

  She gave a cavalier laugh.

  “Yeah,” Hill said. “You miss me, old bird.”

  “Don’t get cocky,” replied Tyrene. “All I miss is your raggedy dick.”

  I’m Going Going Back Back 2 Cali Cali

  “Are you sure that’s the address and phone number?”

  “Yeah, man,” Rick said. “Misty had it written on a notepad by the phone. She had to call the freight company so they’d know where to send Reesy’s stuff.”

  The two friends sat across from each other in Swank’s, one of their favorite uptown haunts. It was a dark place with dim lighting, a bar and grill designed for secrecy and conspiring. Swank’s was where they used to meet to plan dirt, back in the days when they were apt to get dirty. It was a spot where they had taken chicks they didn’t want to be seen with in the light of day. It was a place where they were assured discretion. Those days were long past.

  This meeting wasn’t about conspiracy. Dandre just wanted to get his woman back.

  His face was weary and his eyes had been bloodshot every day since the-wedding-that-wasn’t. He’d grown a beard. It would have suited him, Rick thought, if it weren’t so unkempt and he didn’t look so distraught.

  “Shave that shit off before you head out to see her,” Rick said.

  “You look like a two-dollar Danny Glover.”

  “Fuck Danny Glover,” Dandre mumbled, downing his fifth warm scotch in less than twenty minutes. He signaled to the waiter.

  “Hey man,” Rick said, “Danny Glover’s cool people. Because of him, you stand a better chance of getting a cab in this town.”

  “Then fuck you.”

  “Right,” Rick said, leaning back against the cushion of the booth. “Fuck me. After I just gave you her address. As if enough people haven’t been fucked already.”

  The waiter approached.

  “Another scotch, no chaser,” Dandre mumbled.

  “Bring us some bottled water,” Rick said. “No more drinks for this guy. And maybe some chicken wings and a basket of fries.”

  The waiter nodded and left.

  “I don’t want any fucking fries.”

  “You need to eat. When was the last time you had a decent meal?”

  “Scotch is food.”

  The waiter returned with two glasses and a bottle of Pellegrino.

  “I hate that shit with the bubbles,” Dandre said to Rick. “You know that.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Rick told the waiter, “could you bring us something noncarbonated?” The waiter reached for the Pellegrino. Rick slipped him a five-spot in advance of the tip that would be forthcoming. The guy had been putting up with a lot from Dandre. “We appreciate it, man.”

  “No problem,” the waiter said.

  Dandre smirked. “No problem. Right. His whole life wasn’t just turned on its ear. What the fuck does he know about problems? I wish I had no fucking problems.”

  Dandre’s shoulders slumped and his eyes grew teary, something that had been foreign to him before he got involved with Reesy. Now it seemed to happen all the time.

  The first time he’d cried was when he’d learned she was playing him as payback for costing her a job. She had blamed him for her getting fired from her job as an administrative assistant when he complimented her on being such a talented stripper. His words weren’t intended to be malicious. When she used to dance at the Magic City in Atlanta, she’d been one of the best he’d ever seen. But he’d acknowledged that fact in a roomful of people at Burch Financial, where she worked.

  That’s when she had laid out her plan for revenge against him. She wanted him to fall for her, and fall he did.

  When he’d come upon Reesy and Helmut naked at her place in Harlem, he thought he’d never get over it. Instead, after days of being separated from her, his heart had opened e
ven wider. That’s what made him go to her in the middle of the night and propose. He’d gotten her pregnant that same night; he was sure of it.

  All of it was still fresh in his mind because everything had happened just three and a half months ago. Reesy and Helmut. The pain in his heart. It took the devastation of that moment for him to realize that he didn’t want a life without her in it. Now that was just what he was facing…again.

  His shoulders shook and tears spilled onto the table. He didn’t bother to wipe them. He just let them splash and fall into his empty glass.

  The waiter returned with a bottle of Evian. Rick opened it, poured some into a glass, and pushed it in front of Dandre. The glass sat there, untouched, as Dandre’s tears ran down his face, snagged by the tangle of his ragged beard.

  “Rejeana came by,” Dandre mumbled.

  “What? Are you kidding me?”

  Dandre nodded.

  “So that was her at the wedding,” Rick said.

  “Yep.”

  “Shit.”

  Rejeana had been one of Dandre’s old steadies. Not a real girlfriend, he’d never had one of those before Reesy. But she was someone he’d kept on rotation. She’d been on rotation for years.

  Two years back, she’d gotten it into her head that she and Dandre were going to the next level. Rejeana had begun demanding more time and access. She’d started showing up places when he was out with other women, always confronting the women, never Dandre.

  For a while it had amused him, until the night she showed up at One Fish, Two Fish, whipped out a knife amid a roomful of people just trying to enjoy their dinner, and threatened to cut Dandre’s date. He hadn’t dealt with her since and Rejeana, he believed, had just gone the way of dropped broads and the dinosaur.

  “Why’d she do it, man? Were you seeing her again?”

  Dandre glared at Rick. Rick shrugged.

  “I’m just asking. You were about to get married. Sometimes the thought of that makes a brother revert.”

  At the words “about to get married,” Dandre’s eyes began to tear again.

  “I wasn’t fucking around on Reesy. Especially not with Rejeana. She just wanted the last word.” He reached for the glass of water. “The bitch just had to have the last fucking word.”

  “What’d she want?” Rick asked. “Did you wring her fucking neck for what she did?”

  Dandre knew Rick was being dramatic. That kind of thing wasn’t a consideration for either of them. But his palms had been itchy when he saw Rejeana standing on his doorstep. If she’d been a man, he would have folded her whole body up into that big bubble ass.

  “She wanted to say she was sorry,” he said. “That she was still in love with me and was jealous because of how I dumped her and was marrying somebody else.”

  “But you dropped her ass two years ago.”

  “The bitch is crazy. That’s why I stopped messing with her to begin with.”

  Rick stared at the table.

  “Tell me something,” he said. “If she was so damn jealous, how’d you get her to do that whole threesome scene?”

  Dandre shook his head, flinching at the memory.

  “She did it for me. She was down for anything she thought would make her top dog.”

  “Damn.”

  Dandre drained the glass of water and reached for the bottle of Evian.

  “I told her Reesy had a miscarriage. You know what she said?”

  “What?”

  “‘Good.’ That lunatic looked me right in my eye and said, ‘Good.’ I wanted to strangle her, Rick.” He clenched his fists in front of him as if he had the real Rejeana in his bare hands. “I wish I could have just squished the living fuck out of her. At least I’d feel halfway better.”

  Rick watched his friend across the table, remembering a time in his life when he’d gone through something just as traumatic. It was long before Misty, and was an epic loss that had upended everything in his world. Back then he couldn’t imagine things ever getting better. But they had, and he wanted his friend to realize that the situation he was in would also pass.

  Dandre had been with him through those terrible moments. He was the one who rescued Rick from a year-long abyss of self-pity, isolation, and borderline alcoholism.

  As far as Rick was concerned, Dandre had saved his life back then, and now he was going to do everything in his power to return the favor. Even if it meant incurring the wrath of Misty, to whom he’d sworn not to tell of Reesy’s whereabouts.

  “We shouldn’t get involved,” she’d said.

  “But, baby, he loves her.”

  “Then let’s let them try to work that out. They’ve got enough complications already without us getting in the middle.”

  There’d been a resentful, almost angry undertone in his wife’s voice when she said those words, which surprised him, because he assumed she was sympathetic to Reesy and Dandre’s plight. Rick didn’t take the conversation any further.

  He knew how Dandre felt about Reesy. He’d known Dandre forever, it seemed, and no woman had ever affected him the way this one had. Rick was going to help, if he could, starting with giving him Reesy’s address. He didn’t break his promise to Misty. He didn’t tell Dandre. He wrote the address down and handed it to him.

  After that, it was on Dandre.

  Rick just hoped he could get it together enough to make the right moves.

  “So what are you gonna do when you get there?” Rick asked as he pulled into JFK, headed for the American Airlines terminal.

  “You can’t just pounce on her, you know. That’ll make things even worse.”

  “I know,” said a clean-shaven Dandre. His eyes weren’t as red, compliments of Visine. The weeping wasn’t over, he’d just gotten better at hiding it. “My dad has a place on Hermosa Beach, which is right next to Manhattan Beach. My cousins have been staying there.”

  “The twins?” Rick asked, looking over at him.

  “Yeah. Zoe and Chloe have been in the house since they first moved to Cali.”

  Zoe and Chloe Renfro were video hoes; starlets on the make, twin visions of walking, talking sexuality. The girls had been featured in a host of rap videos, from Snoop Dogg’s to Master P’s. Their specialty was straddling the hoods of expensive cars and flashing their breasts.

  They were statuesque, free-spirited girls with honey-brown complexions and corkscrew curls of auburn hair tumbling every which way. Their doe-eyed expressions belied their zest for freakiness. The tattoo on the left cheek of each girl’s ass—a pair of red lips with a big, bright outstretched tongue—hinted at their true, wanton nature.

  During Rick’s period of depression, Dandre summoned Zoe and Chloe to help rescue him. Dandre drove Rick to his place on Martha’s Vineyard, had Zoe and Chloe flown in, and—within the course of one bizarre hedonistic afternoon—Rick had experienced a mental and physical rebound. Dandre had admitted to partaking of the two women himself in past crazed encounters. He did it again that day at the Vineyard. He claimed they were distant cousins, so distant, he never even bothered to mention them to Reesy. Rick always suspected distant just meant they lived three thousand miles away.

  “So you’re sure that’s gonna be cool?” he asked. “Those girls are probably into some pretty wild shit. Who knows what goes on up in that house? The last thing you need is for Reesy to get wind of it. That’s why this whole situation went down to begin with.”

  “I’m not trying to be up in any mess,” said Dandre. “It’s a big, two-story house on the Strand, facing the water. I’ll crash there for a while in one of the rooms upstairs. I figure I’ll stay as long as it takes.”

  He had one carry-on bag with him.

  “By the looks of things, you don’t expect it to take very long,” Rick said.

  “I can buy whatever else I need when I get there. I wanna travel light.” Dandre glanced over at this friend. “I just want her back, man. Do you think there’s any chance I can ever get her back?”

  Rick put his han
d on Dandre’s shoulder.

  “Of course there is. As long as you have faith and your heart’s in the right place, you can do anything, and that includes getting your woman back.”

  “Right.”

  “One more thing,” Rick said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Whatever you do, don’t cry too much. Reesy’s tough. You know that. She’s already seen you cry and she left anyway. Restrategize. Don’t be too hard, but don’t punk out either.”

  “I’m not a punk,” he said, his eyes growing red again. “You’ve known me all my life and never saw me go out like that. How can you call me a punk?”

  “I never said you were. I’m just saying…” He watched Dandre pull the Visine from his pocket and squirt it in his eyes.

  “You cried every day for a year after what happened with Keisha,” Dandre said.

  Rick grew quiet. That had been a very hard time for him. The pain he felt back then was real, and nothing about it had to do with being weak. He lost Keisha right when he realized how important she was to him. He never wanted to make that mistake again. He thought about the desperate measures he was taking now to make sure that would never happen with Misty.

  “You’re right, man,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Reesy’s the one. I can’t lose her.” Dandre cleared his throat, choking back his emotion. “This shit is tearing me up.”

  “I know,” said Rick. “Just think about how you’re gonna step to her. This might be your last shot. Don’t blow it again.”

  “Puppies,” he said.

  “What’s that?” asked the flight attendant passing his row in first class.

  “Huh? Oh. Nothing,” Dandre answered, shocked to discover he was thinking aloud. He was three hours into the more than five hour trip, and he’d been searching for some kind of ice-breaker that would allow him to contact Reesy again.

  The woman gave him a questioning look, then went on.

  Puppies, he mused. Yeah. That’s how he would make his way in. As hard as she tried to act like she wasn’t, he’d discovered that Reesy was a real softie. Once they’d become open about their love for each other, she was affectionate and nurturing, a real homebody with a domestic streak. She had babied him and had been planning to baby the baby even more. They had talked about having the whole shebang, the two-point-five kids, the white picket fence, and even a dog. He was looking forward to all of it. He’d never had a pet as a child, but always loved animals. Reesy seemed to love them too.