Getting to the Good Part Read online

“I know this,” she agreed. “I’m not judging you. We’ve just always been different in that regard. You’ve always explored the limits of your sexuality. I’ve always been the conservative, uptight, what-exactly-does-it-mean-to-be-in-the-buck person in this friendship.”

  I giggled and sipped some more of my drink.

  “Remember when you told me what that meant? I had no idea! I had been misusing the phrase for years. Had started plenty of conversations with Whenever I’m in the buck…”

  “Misty, shut up!” I laughed. “Don’t remind me. Besides, this ain’t funny.”

  “That’s what I’m saying! The fact that you like sex and know a lot about it doesn’t make you a hoe. So don’t even sweat it. And don’t worry about Dandre. Things are gonna work out. He really loves you.”

  I shook my head.

  “You don’t even feel me,” I murmured.

  Misty knitted her brow.

  “Obviously, I don’t. Run your mouth. Tell me what’s up.”

  I took one more swig, bracing myself for the confession.

  “Dandre’s not the only one I’m seeing,” I admitted.

  Misty was quiet. I saw a hint of disapproval in her eye.

  “I know, I know…” I protested before she could speak. “You really like him. I like him, too. Sometimes I’m confused about how much I like him. I’m not supposed to like him.”

  “Why aren’t you supposed to like him? That’s a crazy thing to say!”

  “Because of that shit he pulled at Burch.”

  Misty clucked her tongue.

  “Damn, Reesy. I thought we were adults. I truly thought that you’d let that whole thing go.”

  My eyes flashed at her.

  “Have you let go of what Roman did to you that time? Marrying someone else without even a bye bitch?”

  “Yes, Reesy. I’ve let that go.”

  “Liar.”

  “I’ve moved on with my life,” she insisted.

  “Whatever,” I replied.

  “So who’s this other guy?”

  I didn’t say anything. I just dipped back into my coffee.

  “Come on!! Tell me!!”

  I lowered the cup.

  “Helmut,” I barely whispered.

  Misty sucked in a breath of wind so deep, it’s a wonder she didn’t pop her stitches. Her eyes were bugged clean outta her head.

  “There’s something wrong with me, ain’t it?” I asked.

  Misty was turning blue, she was holding her breath so tight.

  “Girl, answer me!!” I cried, shoving her on the arm. “You’re making me feel worse than I already do, looking at me like that!!”

  She exhaled and stared at me like I was crazy.

  “Girl!!” she whispered. “The show’s backer?! The white guy?” Oh no, ma’am, not you!!! Not Miss Welcome-to-the-Revolution!! I can’t freaking believe this!!”

  “Stop it, Misty,” I pleaded.

  “Are you sure this is you?” She felt my forehead, then rapped it with her knuckles. “Are you sure you’re not Reesy’s doppel-ganger?”

  “What the fuck is that?!” I exclaimed.

  “An evil twin.”

  “HMmph!” I grunted. “Shit. The way I’ve been acting these days, I’m beginning to wonder about that my damn self!”

  Misty sat her cup of coffee on the nightstand beside her. I took another big gulp of mine. Bump that fact that I had, by this point, singed off nearly all my taste buds in the process. I handed her my empty cup and she placed it alongside hers.

  “Look at this,” I said.

  I pulled up the sleeve on my left arm and showed her the bracelet. I’d had the sweatshirt pulled down over it, hiding it from plain view.

  “Don’t tell me he gave you that, girl!” she exclaimed, grabbing my wrist and ogling the ice.

  She spun the bracelet around.

  “Girl, this aint’ no joke! How could you take this from him?”

  I shrugged indifferently.

  Misty pressed her lips together.

  “Now, you know that nuthin’ is for free,” she warned.

  “I didn’t ask him to give it to me,” I replied.

  “But still,” she countered, “you took it. And possession is nine-tenths of the law, baby.”

  I sucked my teeth and clucked my tongue dismissively.

  “Does Dandre know?” she asked.

  I shook my head, reaching behind me for one of the pillows. I wrapped my arms around it, suddenly feeling alone and insecure.

  “Reesy,” she said quietly. “Don’t hurt him, please. He’s a really nice guy. He’s in love with you.”

  “He hasn’t told me that. And I’m not planning on hurting him.”

  How I managed that one with a straight face, I’ll never know.

  She leaned back against the remaining pillows beside me.

  “So what you gonna do? Mildew or barbecue?”

  Another obvious Rickism slipping into her conversation. I shrugged.

  “I’m thinking about maybe going to see a shrink. I think that maybe I’ve got sex issues or something. You know. Some kinda power or control thing. Maybe nymphomania.”

  “You’d go to a psychiatrist?”

  “I’on know. I don’t want to. Maybe. Yeah, I guess. I never really believed in that shit. And black people ain’t really ones to go running to no head doctors to be talkin’ shit out, ya know? We’re problem-solvers, not whiners.”

  “That’s good in theory, Reesy,” Misty said, “but the truth of the matter is, sometimes you do need someone with medical expertise to help you work your way through stuff. Ain’t nuthin’ wrong with that.”

  “You say that like you’ve been to one,” I said.

  Misty nodded.

  “I have.”

  Now, that shut me straight up. Ol’ girl had actually been holding back something from me.

  “Let’s work through this together,” Misty said, holding my hand. “Just keep the lines open and talk to me. I’ll help you. It would kill you to go to a shrink. You’re definitely not the type.”

  “You’re right.”

  “And Reesy…”

  “What?” I asked, feeling silly for even being in such a fucked-up situation.

  “You’re… not… a… hoe,” Misty said dramatically.

  “You just play one on TV!” she threw in with a laugh.

  “Bitch!” I shrieked, and smacked her with the pillow.

  We fought and threw pillows until we ended up in a giggling heap, relieved to have each other to dump our burdens on.

  I spent the night at Misty and Rick’s, borrowed some of her clothes, and the next morning she and I went out shopping for wedding stuff.

  I had to give it to her. She had everything in order. The hall was lined up. The dresses were all made. Her wedding dress was bought, and the cake had been ordered.

  It was going to be a pink and gray wedding. Misty had seven bridesmaids, our line sistahs from when we pledged back in college.

  Misty was the type who kept up with everybody.

  I, personally, had no idea where a number of folks had gone after graduation. I stayed in touch regularly with three of my line sistahs, but had long lost track of the other four.

  Shoot, half the time, I barely knew where I was my damn self.

  Misty joined the graduate chapters in each city she lived in. I, however, was always too scattered to join anything more than a candid conversation.

  But when we were in school, my sorority had played a major role in my maturation. I learned so many things from my sisters. They were my family away from home.

  Me and my sorority sisters forged a tightness and love that, even though I’d lost touch with some, was there for the long haul despite the passage of time. If I saw them tomorrow, I knew we could pick things up right where we had left off.

  We stopped by the caterer’s.

  Misty and Rick were getting married in Mount Vernon, where he was born and raised. His family still lived there. He and Mi
sty were getting hitched in the neighborhood church.

  “What denomination is Rick?” I asked, flipping through a pricing book of all the different catering plans a person could get for a reception. There was the fifty-dollar-per-head deal. The sixty-dollar-per-head deal. The seventy-dollar-per-head deal.

  “He’s a Baptist,” Misty answered absently as she wrote out a check. “But he said they never really went to church when he was growing up. His folks just started going to this church a few years ago.”

  I flipped through some more pages. Whoa. The eighty-dollar-per-head deal. That meal included fried chicken, ham, and shrimp for the guests.

  What a combo. It was a recipe for gastronomic disaster.

  And besides, wasn’t no fried chicken, ham, and shrimp dinner worth eighty dollars a head!!

  Shit. For that price, you oughta get to take home the freaking plates, and at least a couple of pies!!

  The name of the catering company was Soulful Savorings. I kept looking for things on the menu that could justify the prices they were charging.

  I remember shopping with Grandma for some of the things they listed. Like greens. Greens were dirt cheap. A dollar, dollar-fifty a bundle, at most. And fried chicken didn’t cost anything to make.

  But Soulful Savorings had themselves a little racket going. For fifty bucks a head, you got the base meal: fried chicken (dark meat only), a side of mustards (the funkiest, least-liked greens of all), yellow rice, and cornbread. No dessert was included. And the tea was unsweetened.

  They knew doggone well nobody wasn’t going to want to serve their guests no dark meat chicken and mustard greens. Most people just naturally gravitated to the next level up. The sixty-bucker.

  It had candied yams instead of yellow rice, which was better, but no cigar. And, of course, those stankin’-azz mustards were still hanging around on the plate.

  For seventy bucks a pop, you got fried chicken (mixed), collards (the best), macaroni and cheese (which every negro on the damn planet wanted), candied yams, and a selection of corn-bread, rolls, and biscuits. The tea came sweetened or unsweetened, and each guest got a slice of sweet potato pie and a piece of peach cobbler.

  Soulful Savorings should have been ashamed of themselves. With the prices they were commanding, they were flat-out janking people.

  Misty tore the check from her checkbook and handed it to a sistah behind the counter. I continued to peruse the catalog, now totally intrigued at the endless variations on a theme it offered.

  “How many people are coming to the reception?” I asked, still riffling through pages.

  “A hundred and sixty have RSVP’d,” she answered, putting her checkbook back in her purse.

  “A hundred and sixty?!” I exclaimed, looking up at her. “Which package are you getting?”

  “The one for seventy dollars a head,” Misty replied.

  “That’s eleven thousand two hundred bucks!!” I exclaimed.

  “I know how much it is, Rain Man, thank you,” Misty said with a gritted-tooth smile. She cut her eyes in embarrassment at the sistah behind the counter.

  Sistah was a petite li’l brown thang with short curly hair. She was immaculately groomed, down to every last detail. Her makeup had a lacquer finish, and her lipstick was a fiery red shellac that, if you stood in just the right spot, you could see your own reflection in. Face was so glossy, it looked like it had been dipped in Wesson. Somebody needed to teach sistah-girl the meaning of the word matte. She had on a velour pantsuit in that deep purple color you saw so much of in the winter. It was sharp. ‘Cept it was a wee bit too early for her to be busting out with just yet.

  But, despite the season, girlfriend was fly. You could tell she had doled out some paper for her getup and her look.

  No wonder she’s so decked out, I thought. She’s making a fortune picking folks’ pockets in broad daylight.

  Misty smiled at the sistah.

  And the damn customers were aiding and abetting the crime.

  I shook my head and closed the book.

  “You ready?” I asked.

  “Let’s go,” Misty said to me graciously. “I’ll be talking to you, Imani.”

  “Hotep, my sistahs,” Imani chimed.

  We were barely out the door before I was running my mouth.

  “Hotep, my azz!!” I snapped. “How the hell she gon’ give you that Afrocentric send-off after she just raped you the way she did!!!”

  Misty slipped her arm through mine and rushed me toward the car.

  “Girl, stop tripping! How did she rape me? She’s just charging what any caterer would charge. And I wanted to give the business to my people.”

  “Yeah, Misty,” I protested, “but seventy bucks a head for some damn fried chicken?! Do you know how many buckets you can buy from the Colonel for that?”

  Misty burst out laughing. We were standing beside the Boxster.

  “Get in the car, fool!” she giggled. “You ain’t got the sense God gave Goober.”

  “Whoever the fuck he is,” I mumbled, unlocking the car. “I bet Goober ain’t stupid enough to buy eleven thousand dollars’ worth of fried chicken, I know that much.”

  We both got in and I cranked up the car.

  “All caterers charge you too much for too little,” she said. “And chicken is what they specialize in.”

  “Then you should have gotten your mama to fry it, and saved yourself some money.”

  I pulled away from the curb.

  “You remember my mama’s chicken, right?” Misty asked, giving me a twisted little smile.

  I thought about it. Then it hit me.

  Mrs. Fine couldn’t cook worth nothing. That’s why Misty was always coming over to my house for Sunday dinners when we were growing up.

  Her mama cooked everything on high. I mean everything. Bacon, chicken, rice. Actually, nothing was ever cooked, per se. It was always just kinda seared. Charred on the outside, but mostly raw on the inside.

  I mean, Mrs. Fine was a nice lady. She really was. But ol’ girl just didn’t have time to be lingering over no meals. She had better things to do.

  She’d throw some food on the stove, turn the eye up as high as it could get, and then proceed to go about her business. She actually burned up the kitchen wall that way once.

  It’s a wonder Misty and her dad had ever made it out alive, living in that house with her.

  Misty sat there, still smirking, waiting for my answer.

  “Naw, girl,” I laughed. “I wanna make it outta your reception without a case of ptomaine!”

  “That’s what I thought,” she replied. “So drive, heffah. We got other thangs to do!”

  We had one more trip to make.

  She had taken the day off to get stuff done. And since she was the boss, she could do whatever the heck she wanted.

  Saks Fifth Avenue was the last stop on the schedule. It was an easy drive into the city from Mount Vernon.

  I put the Boxster in one of those overpriced parking garages that cost damn near seventy-five dollars a day.

  We sifted our way through the third floor, looking through all the designer clothes, for suitable evening wear. We made our way through each boutique.

  Misty and Rick were going on a Mediterranean cruise for their honeymoon, and she was looking for something breezy and seductive.

  They were going away for a month. Some honeymoon, huh?

  “So what are you going to do about Helmut?” she asked, picking through a rack of strappy dresses by Calvin Klein.

  “Don’t know,” I mumbled, looking through the rack along with her. “Here, this one’s nice.”

  I handed her an electric blue number with straps all across the back. It would have accentuated her figure quite nicely.

  “Not my color,” Misty said, dismissing the dress. “That thing has Reesy Snowden written all over it. Shop for me, not for you.”

  I stuck the dress back on the rack.

  “So what are you going to do about Helmut?” she repeated.r />
  Damn. Now, why was she bringing this up? I was not in the mood to talk about any of that mess, you know what I mean?

  “Told you before. I don’t know.”

  I found a ruby-colored velour dress with thin spaghetti straps.

  “This is pretty. It looks like you.”

  Misty took it from my hand and held it a ways from her, studying it.

  “Now… that could work. That could definitely work.”

  “It should definitely set things off if you wear it that night after you leave from the wedding.”

  “Ya think?” Misty asked, smiling wickedly.

  “Oh yeah, honey,” I laughed. “I know. That dress is da bomb!”

  She threw it over her arm.

  “Okay,” she said, convinced. “I’m going to go try it on.”

  “Cool,” I replied, lingering at the rack of dresses.

  Misty walked toward the dressing rooms.

  “You’re not coming?” she called. “I need you to tell me how this thing looks on me.”

  Dang! I thought I was gon’ have a minute of peace.

  I knew her. Once she got in that room and got to changing, she’d begin her grilling all over again.

  A razor-thin salesgirl who looked like she could use a few sandwiches let Misty into the dressing room. The girl was really pretty, with dark black hair and deep-set blue eyes. She was very tall. I guess, to some people (more than likely, the ones who hired her at Saks), she looked like a runway model.

  But, child, let me tell you… that waif look was doing her too wrong. Her legs were so spindly and weak, if she happened to mess around and stumble or twist her ankle, she probably would have just crumbled up into a bundle of bones.

  It’s a shame how white girls go for that starvation thang. A quick bite of chicken wouldn’t have done her no harm.

  I found myself a seat while Misty tried on the dress. Maybe she would just slip into it and not go into her usual mode.

  She was quiet for a few. Cool.

  I closed my eyes, letting my body sink into the cushy chair outside the all-beige velvet dressing room.

  What was I going to do? I hadn’t seen Dandre all day, and I had dipped on him last night before he could even get a chance to see me backstage after the show.

  Damn. I couldn’t just avoid him forever.

  “So what you gon’ do about Dandre?” her psychic behind hollered. “You can’t just string him along, you know.”