“Damn, I gotta pee again.” This was like Simone’s third time peeing in one hour. Not to mention she stopped at McDonald’s to use the bathroom on the way here. Meanwhile, I found the perfect outfit with shoes to match. It killed me to pay the grand total of five hundred dollars, although it was a savings from my usual sprees. Simone finally came out the bathroom. The cashier handed me my change. “How much,” Simone asked as if she was financing me.
“No big deal,” I said as if I had a Swiss bank account or something. “You wanna check Nordstrom’s? They usually have all the flavor designer shit. They even got a fat lady department,” I kidded her.
“Nah, I got everything I need,” Simone said. “Just chill.”
At Simone’s apartment, everything became clear. In her big Coach bag, Simone had every outfit she’d picked up and admired at the store. She even had one of those machines that removes the metal alarms from the clothes. She also had accessories, belts, costume jewelry. She had shit I didn’t even see her pick up. In her closet, she had more shit, some with the tags still on ’em. She had two and three of the same items in different sizes. Straight up, Simone was a professional booster. The pregnancy, she said, has increased her take. She made more money now ’cause she could walk out with more layers of clothes on her body and not look suspicious. “You look shocked,” she said.
“Nah. I’m not shocked. I’m mad as hell that you stood there and let me drop five hundred bills when I could’ve got all my shit for free.”
Simone exhaled. “Yeah, you was always paid like dat Winter. Don’t worry, you can take that shit back and I’ll pick it up for you later.”
“I’m wearing this outfit tonight.”
“We’ll just return it Monday. We can do that but you gotta watch it. They’ll ask to see your ID and if your name pops up on the computer as returning too much shit, next thing you know they’ll be knocking at your door with a badge. You gotta watch these stores, they be updating their tricks everyday. I’m on top of it, though. I know all the tricks.”
“How many tickets you got to the show?”
“Four,” Simone said. “It was supposed to be me, Natalie, Toshi, and Zakia. But Natalie’s going with Will. So you can have her ticket.”
“Who’s Will?” I asked.
“This nigga from Fort Greene. He’s a player. He got a custom-made yellow Land Rover, rimmed out. You should see it, it’s phat. Natalie gon be acting up. Nobody gonna be able to say shit to her tonight. That nigga bought the whole box seat section for the show. He began lacing her lovely with all the butters every since they hooked up.”
How the fuck was we getting to the show? I wondered to myself. Am I supposed to take a train, or walk, or hop out a yellow cab while Natalie was styling in a Rover?
Uh-uh. There had to be a better way. “You got a phone book Simone?”
“What?”
“A Yellow Pages. Let’s rent a limo.”
“Alright, let’s do it.”
9
Brooklyn’s finest, Uptown and the Boogie Down filled the concert hall. As usual, the show outside the theater was the biggest. Females in spring leathers, patent leathers, plastic, lace, cellophane shorts, skirts, the works. Enough gold on necks, arms, and teeth to fill Fort Knox. Players was rocking fresh Nike, Fila, Armani, Versace, Kani, Mecca, and all the flavors. Hip-hop vibes hogged the airwaves and we filed in looking every person up and down and side to side, checking for authenticity. It was a car show, a hair show, a fashion show, and a hoe show all rolled up into one. Each male and female in the audience was as important as any star on the stage.
At showtime, the crowd went wild as the biggest names in hip-hop blew up the stage. The huge speakers blasted out the hottest jams, and the crowd rocked to one rhythm. The MC had the niggas chanting “Make money money” while the ladies overpowered them with our “take money money, take money money!” Natalie was up in the box seats with the kid Will whose hands were holding all kinds of shine— jewels and other signs of big cash flow.
Everything was cool until I saw her standing up, clapping, with a sky blue thirty-five-hundred-dollar Chanel skirt-suit on. This bitch pops out of nowhere with some wears that was strictly my style and overreaching for her. In all the noise, a silence surrounded my head. My body shook with anger at Santiaga and Mom. I also thought of Midnight leaving me when that could have easily been us in those box seats, profiling. Now what was I supposed to do while Natalie was pretending to be me? I leaned over close to Simone’s ear, “Do you see Natalie?”
“Yeah, everybody see Natalie up there!”
“That suit she got on is banging,” I painfully admitted.
“The security at the Chanel store is too tight or else I’d have that suit on! I told you, that nigga Will is shot out on Nat.” I had only been living in Long Island for one year. Was shit actually moving so fast that Natalie had become large? “Since when did Natalie become a high roller?” I asked.
“Girl, you don’t know the half. Ever since she made that little video movie with you, she been like a little star around our way.”
“What little movie?”
“Don’t front, Winter. That video with you and Bullet and her and Slick Kid. In one part she was sucking Slick Kid’s dick real nasty-like. Now niggas is sweating her like she Vanessa Del Rio or something.” Natalie waved to us when she spotted us looking up in her direction. She was all excited. She signaled us to meet her afterwards. Simone smiled, nodded yeah, and turned to me, “Yeah, she’s a little bigheaded but she alright.”
The last performers came on, ripping shit down. I moved with the crowd but I was still boiling inside. The MC came on to close the show, then shouted, “A special thanks to Sister Souljah for putting this show together, all proceeds going to her children’s program.” Sister Souljah came out the side of the stage wearing some shit she mixed and matched from the Macy’s clearance rack. People clapped for her. How is this bitch supposed to help the community when she don’t even know how to rock her shit? I checked her arm, no Rolex, not even a Timex, nothing. No weight on her neck, nothing. Her hairdo was phat but that don’t mean nothing when you don’t know how to accessorize. Besides she could use a few sit-ups for her belly. Humph, Midnight got some nerve. I sure wasn’t asking her for shit.
“What’s up, girl?” Natalie was smiling ear to ear as we all crammed in to the concert hall lobby. “Winter, I called you this afternoon to ask you if you wanted to chill up top with us but you was gone already. So come on, girl,” she said, clutching Will’s arm. “Roll with us to the diner.” She elbowed me and whispered, “It’s on Will. You want to ride with us?”
“Nah, we got a ride,” Simone jumped in.
“What you pushing, Winter?” Natalie asked.
“We pushing a limo, a driver, champagne, the whole nine.”
“Alright cool. Tell the driver to follow us. We’ll meet over there and eat before we head up to the after party.” Now Natalie was giving directions!
There was something sexy about Will. I didn’t know exactly what it was. Maybe it was the 1-karat diamond stud in his ear. Or maybe it was just me wanting dick, being stressed out, and ready to get fucked no questions asked. It could be the fact I didn’t like him being with Natalie. He made her act different, like she was better than somebody else or something. If all she had to do to get that Chanel suit was suck his dick good, I could’ve gotten a whole wardrobe.
Brooklyn heads jammed into Junior’s restaurant. I was checking niggas I ain’t seen in a long while. People had different ways of dealing with me but nobody tried to front on me like I fell off or something because, father or no father, I was wearing this Isaac Mizrahi dress like nobody could. My hair was hooked and my face looking fresh and sensual. We all stuffed into a booth and ordered all kinds of things. Natalie talked loud as usual. “It’s on me, y’all. Order what you want,” Natalie said loudly.
Will acted like he was the Lion King surrounded by all us women. He was quiet. He paid and profiled for a
ll niggas who only had the pleasure of having one woman’s attention for that night. We was laced, all of us, a crew of girls dipped in the finest shit, ordering shit we knew we weren’t gonna eat, and just talking, joking, and having a good time.
The money in my bra was sticking me in my right tittie. I headed to the bathroom to adjust it. Afterwards I glanced in the mirror and threw on some more lipstick. I licked my finger to lay down a piece of my hair that was about to get unruly. As I was coming out of the bathroom, Will was standing at the pay phone. The thing that ran through my mind was, what’s up with him using the pay phone? I had already noticed him carrying a Motorola Startac cellular. I threw my right leg out to push right on by him.
“Santiaga’s daughter right?” he asked, even though he already knew the answer—everybody did.
“Yeah, what about it?” I asked defensively.
“Nah, nah, I got a lot of respect for him. I see life is still treating you good.” His eyes were concentrating on mine, like he was tryna hypnotize me or something.
“I take care of myself,” I responded, letting him know there was no reason to feel sorry for me.
“Yeah, I can see that. What you need to do is let me take care of you.” I flagged my right arm to show him no, I’m not interested. “C’mon girl. Just give me your phone number. I know you’re with it. It’s all in your eyes.”
“Listen man. I don’t even get down like that. Natalie’s my girl—”
“And you would look better in that Chanel suit than she does. Just give me the word. I’ll tear that shit right off her ass and put it on yours.”
I thought about it for a few seconds. I’d be a liar if I said it wasn’t a good offer. He smiled slyly, flashing his gold teeth, chewing real sexy like on his bubble gum.
“C’mon. Give up the number. I’ll drop her ass at home, swing around and pick you up. Then we can talk, get to know each other for the rest of the night.” My nipples hardened. They started sticking out of my tight dress. He saw them too, licked his lips, and smiled some more.
I opened my Coach bag to get a pen. He pulled his pen out quicker. He scribbled on a book of matches as I recited, 555 … when Natalie appeared in the doorway. She looked at him.
“Why you using the pay phone?” she asked, just to have something to say. When he did not answer, she looked at me with my bag open. Then looked at him with his pen in his hand and said, “You little sneaky bitch. You fucking low-down sneaky bitch.”
“Wait a minute, Natalie. He asked me—”
“He asked you what? What did you ask her?” She spun around to Will.
“Baby, I didn’t ask her shit. She needed a pen. I had to make a call. I didn’t want it traced to my cellular so I used the pay phone. I was giving her the pen and that’s it. C’m here. Why you so suspicious all the time?” He pulled her and gave her a big bear hug to calm her down. As she buried her face in his wide chest, he looked over her shoulder at me for the last four digits. I silently mouthed 4728. Still embracing her, he mouthed, “I’ll call you.”
Back around the table, none of the girls at the table knew what happened but everybody could feel that things had tensed up. Our food had arrived and Natalie wasn’t saying or eating nothing. She was all back on Will’s dick, but looking at me like I was a murderer or something. Finally Natalie blurted out to me, “Nice dress.”
Toshi said, “Yeah, that shit is banging.”
“Did Simone pick that up for you?” Natalie added in a sarcastic voice. Simone cut her eyes at Natalie then looked at me for a sign of what was going on. My teeth were locked with anger.
“Nah, she bought that today,” Simone said. “I wish I would of picked it up for her because half that dough she spent on it would be in my pocket right now.” Everybody except me and Natalie laughed at Simone’s unending one woman comedy show.
“Yeah, your little suit is nice, too,” I responded in a snotty voice. “It’s just my style.”
“Yeah, I picked it up for fifty dollars at the auction the FBI did at your house in Long Island, along with some other fancy shit.”
I lunged across the table for Natalie’s neck. Zakia jumped in between, tryna separate us with her arms as Simone held me back. Toshi held Natalie and Zakia told Will to step back.
“You sneaky bitch,” Natalie yelled. “You always thought it was all about you. Nobody could have shit but you! Here I am being a friend and you stabbing me in my fucking back. Here the whole block talking about your crazy-ass crackhead, bald-headed mother and your broke, homeless ass. I’m taking up for you and you tryna cut my throat. Don’t think you ain’t gonna take no ass-whipping for that. Later for Will. This is about me and you.”
“You ain’t nothing but a low-class hoe Natalie. You been biting my style forever ’cause you don’t have no style. And for the last time, your man came to me. If your shit was all that, he wouldn’t be sniffing up and around my ass. So get it together.”
“I’ma fuck you up, Winter. Don’t let me catch your ass in the hallway or anywhere. I’ma fuck you up.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Y’all coming?” I asked, getting up from the table to leave. All of them was looking back and forth to see what each one was gonna do. Simone hopped in the limo with me, the others stayed with Natalie.
“If I wasn’t pregnant,” Simone said, “I’d have your back. But I gotta look out for this one here,” pointing to the belly. Me and Simone stayed up drinking the rest of the night. I stumbled into Aunt B’s at 5 A.M. and fell asleep in my clothes.
By 5 P.M. Sunday evening I woke up with a headache, peeled off my clothes and stepped into the hot shower. My mind flashed back on the past twenty-four hours and my tears mixed with the shower water. The idea of my personal business being yelled out at Junior’s restaurant had me shaking still.
Will called at six. “So what’s up? You ready? I’m coming to get you.”
“Stop playing. You didn’t even check for me last night when your girl was going off on me.”
“Don’t pay that no mind. If I would have stepped in, she would have only got more dramatic. The way I handled it was to let her blow off some steam until she tired out.”
“Ooh really,” I said, nonchalant-like.
“Come down at seven. I’ll pick you up. I’ll be driving my green Q45, not the Rover.”
“Alright, meet me in the back of the B building.” I knew I was living dangerously, but I wasn’t worried. What Natalie didn’t understand was that I needed Will for business purposes. She was way too dumb to relate to the ideas and business plans I had put together. She had crossed the line when she tried to play me out in public. I was about to build an empire so I didn’t have to be concerned with lowlifes like Natalie and her off-the-wall comments.
Outside, the car was dark green and crisp. Mint-green custom upholstered leather seats with dark green piping. The rugs were mint green, too. I slid my shoes off as I entered the car, afraid to get even a lint ball on his interior. “Pretty feet, Winter. So how about the bottoms?”
“What?”
“The bottom of your feet. Are they soft like silk or hard and crusty like sandpaper?”
“Don’t compare me to the second-rate women you’re used to.”
“Second rate, huh?” he repeats quietly without sounding the least bit insulted.
“Yeah, the ones with ashy ankles and elbows. The ones with the hard feet and the chipped nail polish. That’s what you’re used to,” I laughed. “And the ripped panties and dingy bras with the wire popping out and the stinking hairy underarms and—”
“I got you, Winter … I get the point.”
“Good. Don’t insult me and I won’t insult you. Where are we going?”
“I want to check the new Bruce Willis flick.”
“Oh,” I responded, uninterested.
“Why, what do you wanna do?”
“I want to talk.”
“Damn. Why do women always want to talk? I just met you. What do we have to talk about?”
; “Something that’s important to me—business.”
He laughed. “Ha, “business.’ What kind of business?”
“You know what kind of business.”
“Oh,” he said, then paused. “You don’t want to talk about that. That’s a man’s game. Business is a rough sport, like football or worse. You don’t want to get into that.”
“I been around it all my life. I know what I’m dealing with. Right now I’m in a tight spot. I need to make some dough, fast money. I know you can relate to that.”
“You know how I know you ain’t ready for this conversation? Because you don’t even know me and you talking about some shit you can’t trust nobody in.”
“I already thought about that but the deal is I gotta start somewhere. Panicking about who to trust and who not to trust ain’t getting me nowhere. I’m ready to take a gamble. The way I see it, whoever gambles with me, gambles too. We both have something to lose.”
“Yeah, but I ain’t the person. This ain’t the angle I came in on. I asked for your number because I think you’re a classy chick. I wanted to spend some time with you. Shoot the shit, catch a movie. Now you trying to muscle in on something else. I can’t do business with you, Winter. I play hardball, the major leagues.”
“Alright, look at it from another angle. Think of me as an investor. I give you my money to invest in your trade, you give me the return on my money.”
“What if you give me your money and I don’t give you back nothing? See? This business is like a chess game. You gotta think of every possible move any and every player in the game can make. To every move you gotta have a smart reaction. You don’t have no crew holding you down, then where’s the threat? What’s gonna prevent any nigga from jerking you, robbing you, killing you? Santiaga’s gone, his whole crew is gone. It was good while it lasted. That’s why I’ma pile up my dough and get out before it’s too late.” My face dropped. Will saw my sadness. “Alright, how much you working with.”
“I got twenty-five hundred dollars,” I said proudly. Will laughed and laughed and laughed. “What’s so fucking funny?”