Getting to the Good Part Read online

  As I struggled to free it, my eyes gravitated upward to the white flyer taped to the door.

  Black Barry’s Pie Auditions.

  I managed to get my bag free and hurried out onto Twentieth Street. I didn’t even want to acknowledge what just went on in there.

  I walked across Twentieth toward Sixth Avenue, barely aware of what was going on around me or the people that I passed.

  Damn!! What made me even think I was good enough to be picked?

  Misty was right. I was crazy for thinking I could jump my ass into a theatrical production, just like that. With no experience. Who the hell did I think I was, anyway?

  Misty was the career girl. She was the one who got all the breaks. I must have been outta my mind to think that something like this was just going to happen for me.

  I kept walking. I was humiliated, sweaty and stank. I could smell every orifice of my funky, sticky body.

  I frantically waved for a cab, heading uptown on Sixth Avenue.

  One slowed down and was about to pull up alongside the curb.

  The man took one long look at me, standing there like a two-dollar hoe in my sweaty clothes, and kept on going.

  Shit.

  This was not my day.

  • • •

  Finally, one guy pulled over and picked my sorry ass up.

  His cab reeked of curry, and his black turban was so wide and so tall that, once I got in the car, it blocked my entire view of the left side of the street ahead.

  The turban was wrapped tightly, and just kind of teetered and tilted, as if, at any given moment, it was going to topple over and take his head right along with it.

  “Wearrr-do?” he grumbled in an Indian accent, rolling his tongue thickly over his r’s.

  “West Seventy-fifth and Amsterdam,” I sighed, sinking back into the torn-up seats of his funky cab. “The Milano building.”

  The cabbie zapped the meter and sped off from the curb.

  His cab was so raggedy on the inside, it’s a wonder I was even able to sit on the seats without getting a shredded ass from the cut-up leather.

  He turned up the radio and began singing this wack-ass Hindu song. Loud. Like he was crazy. Like I wasn’t eeemuch in the car.

  He weaved and bobbed through the heavy traffic, working his head and the Tower-of-Pisa turban to the music.

  I leaned forward and looked at his reflection in the rearview mirror. Around his neck, he wore a Star of David.

  What the… ?!

  Surprised, I quickly glanced at his ID, which was openly displayed on the visor of the passenger side of the front seat.

  Mustafa Klein, it read.

  “Damn!” I squealed, laughing out loud for the first time that day. “New York is sooooooo fucked up!!”

  He continued to ignore me, happily singing and bobbing away.

  I collapsed back on the seat again, a smile still lingering on my lips.

  Not for long, though. As the cab raced its way uptown, I sat there trying to block out the details of my embarrassing audition. Most unsuccessfully.

  I kept seeing the look on the face of the chick who tried to get me to stop dancing, skinning and grinning at me as I made a fool of myself on stage.

  Dang!! A chill ran through me and my skin flushed.

  Nothing… well, almost nothing… embarrassed me. But this was bad. I couldn’t block it out.

  I kept seeing that heffah’s jeering expression.

  “Shit! Shit! Shit!” I muttered. “Damn! If Tyrene only knew how I messed this one up!”

  Tyrene is my mom.

  And, check this out: my dad’s name is Tyrone.

  I know, I know… that’s about as goofy as it gets, but I don’t even try to understand it. It’s one of those situations where you figure two people were just made for each other, from their names on down.

  They were two vulgarly rich, black-as-they-wanna-be attorneys who ruled the world (and the law firm their thrones sat at the helm of) with an iron fist.

  Between their two names, they came up with mine… Teresa.

  I know—the obvious, ghetto thang for them to have done was name me Tyreoné (with an accent… gots to have the accent at the end).

  But my folks ain’t never had no parts of the ghetto in ’em.

  I was their only child. The one they tried to mold into their image. The one they threw money at with both hands, in the hopes that I would conform to their ways of thinking.

  The one on whose shoulders they rested the fate of Western civilization as they knew it.

  I called my parents by their first names to let them know they could not rule me or force me to carry the weight of the world on my back. Calling them Tyrone and Tyrene was a habit I established long ago, which they indulged at first.

  They actually thought it was quite cute, coming from their outspoken little yellow-faced daughter, running around in her dashiki with her head full of braids. The two of them always smiled when I referred to them in my strong, but tiny, little voice, as Tyrone and Tyrene in front of company.

  After a while, as I grew older (and more rebellious), they began to be annoyed by it, and that mess got old. But, by then, it was too late to make me change. We were officially on a first-name basis.

  At this stage of their lives, and mine, I could truly say they hated me addressing them that way with a passion.

  Yeah. If Tyrene knew about my attempt, and failure, to make my mark in the Big Apple, she would be right up here, giving me an earful. Handing me a check. Demanding that I come back home to Fort Lauderdale.

  Telling me to stop being so foolish and do something meaningful with my life.

  Damn!! Maybe she was right. Perhaps I did need to get a grip and move on to something normal.

  I closed my eyes, taking deep breaths to try to relax myself and clear my head. That diddle-diddle-diddle-diddle-ding-ding music piping through the car didn’t help me at all. Neither did all the squawking coming from the kosher swami in front of me as he tried to sing along.

  What I needed was some Maxwell.

  I could just see him now, looking all sexy on the back of his first CD—my favorite, with that crazy head of tangled hair, turning me on with one of his sexy tunes.

  It would be even better if I could actually throw down with Maxwell while he was crooning to me. Yeah. Wouldn’t that just make everything all right?

  So what, every hot-blooded sistah in America was probably jonesin’ for him, just like me? A girl can dream, can’t she?

  Misty didn’t feel it when I got into my Maxwell mode, but she was weird anyway.

  She obsessed over Denzel.

  Pleeeeez.

  Denzel ain’t have nuthin’ on the Blackarican Lover.

  Misty said Maxwell was too young for me (another giveaway that she was way too conservative for my tastes sometimes).

  Too young? Please. Youth was insurance that the sex would be even more thorough. Besides, all the books said that men reached their sexual peak way earlier than women. The way I saw it, me and Maxwell (sexually speaking, that is) were perfectly matched.

  Just thinking about Maxwell made the ol’ Bermuda Triangle itch a little. Which, in turn, made me unconsciously rub my thighs together. Which, in turn, made me aware that my shorts were kinda sweaty in the front.

  Which, of course, reminded me of that fiasco of an audition.

  “Great,” I mumbled, my eyes still closed. “There’s just no escaping this.”

  The car hit something, a bump in the road, or the curb for all I knew, as it careened recklessly through traffic. My eyes popped open just as we were passing Forty-ninth Street and the neon red lights of Radio City Music Hall.

  I thought about the Rockettes. As a kid, I’d always wanted to be a black Rockette. Have my fast ass up there on that stage, flashing my tight, toned gams at the world as I kicked ’em high for all to see.

  Guess that dream was a long ways off.

  I sighed, and leaned back against the seat, closing my eyes once m
ore.

  The simultaneous sound of smacking and the smell of something rank made me abruptly open them again.

  Homie drove using one hand and ate furiously with the other. We weaved and bobbed, barely missing other cabs and cars struggling to get through traffic.

  “Excuuuuuse me!” I shouted. “What is that you’re eating?”

  “Wdut?!”

  “What are you eating?! Whatever it is, it’s making me sick!”

  “This?” he asked, waving his hand in the air.

  “Get that out my face!”

  “You ask. I show. Is gefilte fish. Is good. You want try?”

  “No! Just get me the hell home!”

  Swami Klein turned back around, tossing the piece of fish into his mouth.

  I was thrilled as hell when we finally pulled up in front of my building.

  “Five seventy-five,” the Swami declared, announcing the total, not even turning around to look at me.

  “I’m gonna need my change back,” I said flatly, handing him a ten.

  “Sure,” Mustafa said happily, finally turning around. He smiled, taking the ten out of my hand with his gefilte fish fingers.

  He grabbed another piece of fish and quickly tossed it into his mouth. Then he reached into a zippered bag he had on the seat beside him. The smile still plastered on his face, he offered me four one-dollar bills and a quarter. I looked down at the money.

  The bills were wet with gefilte fish from his fingers, and so was the change.

  That muthafucka. Ol’ slick-ass Mustafa.

  “Just keep it,” I grumbled, wondering how my day could get any worse. Was the whole world determined to screw me?

  I exited the cab in a digusted huff. I was barely out of the car before Mustafa sped off, in search of another fool.

  Len, the doorman, was standing there in front of the apartment building, cheesing at me like a hungry rat.

  “Having a good day so far, Miss Snowden?”

  I was so annoyed, I didn’t even bother to answer.

  I swept past him, into the lobby, and rushed on to the elevators.

  I pressed the Up button, hoping that it wouldn’t be too long of a wait.

  To my relief, the elevator doors opened immediately.

  I quickly stepped inside.

  The doors squeezed shut, and the elevator whisked me away.

  I found myself wishing I could be like Charlie Puckett, in that scene from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, where he and Willie sped up in the elevator, bust through the glass roof, and shot off, clean out into the stratosphere.

  As wack as my day had been, I wouldn’t have minded being shot out into space. Not one little bit.

  I knew Misty wasn’t home, but I really needed to talk to her.

  She was a corporate bigwig. Misty worked every day of the week, and half the night sometimes.

  Or so she said. Of late, I’d been having my doubts about what she was doing with her nights. Something about the way she’d been behaving smacked of being a little bit more involved than just working late.

  Tired and frustrated, I stepped off the elevator and trudged down the tiled art deco corridor, groping in my bag for my keys. By the time I reached the door to our apartment, I was mentally deflated and in desperate need of a place to just fold up and hide.

  I fumbled with the lock for a second or two, then lazily pushed against the door with all my body weight.

  I tossed my duffel bag to the side as I walked through the pale beige marble foyer. It was old marble in an old building, but it was elegant nonetheless.

  I beat a path across the room. I knew exactly what I needed, and made a beeline for it straightaway.

  Our living room was a series of warm browns and russets, rusts and golds. The floor was an endless, sprawling expanse of deep rich hardwood. And we had a view of Central Park, that was, baby, simply to die for.

  The walls were the color of butter. It was such a welcoming tone that it immediately set your mood when you walked into the room.

  There was a big cushy armchair made from a soft and velvety rust-colored material. It was Misty’s personal favorite.

  The matching sofa was my spot. Made from the same fabric, it was all pillows and comfort, and had served as a bed for me on many a night I was just too damn lazy to crawl to my room.

  Our black art covered every possible square inch of wall space. It was like a gallery in there, with her Frank Fraziers and Art Bacons dominating the east wall, and my Varnette Honeywoods and Leroy Campbells dominating the west.

  The works of Charles Bibbs, beautiful, colorful, engaging pieces of long-limbed people swathed in stunning regalia, populated the foyer. And the hall leading to the bedroom was a collage of African masks that were, at once, both magical and frightening.

  Misty’s treasured collection of Senegalese African villagers was showcased on a small round table in the southeasternmost corner of the room. The table was covered with kente cloth and the villagers were gathered proudly in a huddle on its surface.

  In addition to the sofa and the armchair, we had found a couple of cute, eccentrically flavored chairs in the shapes of open hands. We’d gotten them from Ikea, a store I loved for its quirkiness and flair and, most of all, for the fact that you could get some really cool furniture there for really, really cheap.

  On the squat, mahogany coffee table in front of the sofa was a funky blue vase made out of cracked glass. And in the middle of our living room was a massive fixture that housed the TV and all the other audiovisual equipment. If it hadn’t been carved from such a beautiful pickled wood, we would have literally considered it the armoire from hell, and had the thing moved outta there on the day we moved in.

  Instead, the armoire’s beauty was its saving grace. But it was a lumbering thing that gave us much grief, with its popping panels and creaking shelves. Its doors often ricocheted open unexpectedly, damn near hitting you in the face when you passed. Sometimes, the TV shut off for no reason, right in the middle of the best part of a movie or a show. CDs often skipped at will.

  Mind you, the same equipment was totally operational when we removed it from the armoire’s housing. Bizarre stuff only happened when we put it back inside.

  Misty thought the thing was possessed. Sometimes, I swear, I thought so, too.

  I found the electric blue CD, sitting faceup on the middle shelf, on top of the audio equipment. I pressed the Eject button on the CD player, the tray slid out, and I very gingerly placed the disc inside.

  I pressed the button again, and the tray retracted.

  I pressed the Skip button, fast-forwarding to cut number two.

  Home at last, I thought, as the soothing sounds of “Welcome” by Maxwell began to pour from the speakers.

  Finally, I could relax and allow myself to forget about all the crazy shit that had happened to me.

  The heavy beats of the music came thumping out of the speakers.

  I stood there for a second, swaying to the beat, and then made my way over to the couch. I flopped down, lying back against its velvety cushions.

  With the heel of my right foot, I pushed the sneaker off my left foot. When the shoe came off, I did the same with the other one.

  I lay there, my left arm across my forehead, eyes closed, and breathed in and out, in and out. Trying to calm my frazzled nerves. The music was like medicine. It was slowly but surely taking me away.

  “… make yourself at home, ’cause you’re welcome…”

  By the time the song was halfway through, a physically exhausted and psychologically battered version of me had drifted off to sleep.

  I found myself basking in the glow of a peaceful dream of me and Maxwell, him rubbing my sore muscles, making everything feel better.

  As for me… in the dream, my fingers curled happily around one of his tangly locks, as I prepared to take his young and tender ass on the ride of his life.

  I was awakened by the phone ringing.

  I sat up on the couch, groggy, looki
ng around.

  There was no Maxwell, musically or otherwise.

  How could he just dip on a sistah after that nice-nasty little session we just had?

  Well… so much for that.

  I rubbed my eyes and reached for the phone on the coffee table.

  “Hello?”

  “Well, helloooo, Miss Reesy!”

  I blinked a few times, trying to get myself to fully wake up.

  “Uh-huh. Who’s this?” I mumbled.

  “It’s Hudson,” the deep, seductive voice went on.

  “Hudson who?” I asked, not moved in the slightest.

  “Reesy,” he reprimanded, “it’s me, Hudson Webb. We’ve got a lunch date today, in case you forgot. You didn’t forget, did you?”

  Lunch date? Hudson Webb? Who the hell was this…

  Ohhhhhhhhh!!!!

  Suddenly, I remembered.

  “Hey, Hudson!” I chirped, trying to clear my throat. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine, baby. You sound a little tired.”

  “No, I’m straight. I was just taking a quick nap. My morning was kinda busted.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “Well yeah, you did. But I needed to get up anyway.”

  “Are we still on for lunch?”

  “Yeah,” I replied. “Lunch is still fine for me. Can we make it a late one, though? Maybe around one? I need to shower and change.”

  “One is fine. How about China Grill?”

  “China Grill is good. Fifty-third and Sixth, right?”

  “Exactly. The reservation will be under my name.”

  I stretched, drinking in his soothing voice. Perhaps Hudson had other things that were just as soothing. I could use some soothing right about now.

  “All right. I’ll be there at one.”

  “Okay, gorgeous. See you when I see you.”

  I hung up the phone.

  I had forgotten all about Hudson Webb. How could I forget about him, and that lunch date we had planned well over a week ago?

  Hudson was a tall, buff, cafe-au-lait brother with deep, deep dimples. Very handsome. He was a Wall Street broker, but he wasn’t one of those tight asses, like so many of them were. He had flair and flash about him.