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  “Yeah, it’s like that, Negro,” I retorted.

  Deeka sighed, rolled his eyes, and sat up. “So do you want me to leave?”

  Of course I didn’t want him to leave, but my mouth said, “Do what you want. I don’t care.”

  I was really regressing.

  “Are you about to be on the rag or something?”

  “Fuck you,” I shouted, and shoved his head off my lap. In a split second I was on my feet and across the floor.

  Deeka sat on the couch, shaking his head in amazement.

  “I’m out, girl,” he mumbled and pulled his six-foot frame to a standing position. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I watched him walk to the door and put his hand on the knob. He threw one last look over his shoulder that said Last chance…

  I sucked my teeth and turned my head away.

  Geneva

  okay, so Christmas in May might seem like a strange concept to some, but to me it’s not.

  You see, last Christmas, Deeka and my son, Eric Junior, had to go out of town to perform. And when I say out of town, I mean waaaaaaaay out of town. To South Africa, to be exact.

  To make things worse, not even my girls were around to celebrate with me. Crystal was in Antigua with Neville, and Chevy was in the south of France with her boss, Anja.

  And Noah was skiing in Switzerland with his lover, Zahn. Even my mother went out of town.

  Leaving Charlie and me no other choice but to spend Christmas with my crazy family in Queens.

  If it wasn’t for Charlie, I would have been content sitting in front of the television with a Pop-Tart and a pint of Ben and Jerry’s.

  So when Noah called last month and said he would be spending the summer in New York, I got the unique idea of celebrating Christmas all over again with my nearest and dearest. Of course I wanted it to be a surprise, so I just told Deeka and the rest of them that I was cooking a welcome home dinner for Noah.

  Won’t they be surprised when they come through the door and see my artificial tree decked out in all its Christmas flair!

  I’ve hung silver and gold tinsel everywhere, and I even have plastic mistletoe dangling from a piece of dental floss I tacked to the ceiling.

  Outside it may be seventy-three degrees, but in apartment 6C, it’s Christmas!

  Eric Senior called just as I finished basting the turkey, mixing the ingredients for the stuffing, and skinning the yams for baking. Crystal had promised to make the potato salad, and Deeka was going to Brooklyn to pick up a strawberry cheesecake from Junior’s.

  There wasn’t going to be ham because over the past year everyone I knew had given up pork except me. I guess I could forgo the swine this one time.

  I had just lit a Newport (I was down to a half a pack a day) when the phone rang.

  Eric Senior and I exchanged greetings and I was even contemplating inviting him over when he took a deep breath and lowered the bomb.

  I just stood there for a long moment, staring at the phone like it was some kind of foreign object. I could hear his voice coming from the earpiece, calling my name over and over again, but I couldn’t seem to find the will to answer him.

  The sound of a car backfiring outside my window jolted me back to life and I pressed the phone against my ear and asked, “What the fuck did you say?”

  Eric sighed and repeated his question: “Would it be okay if I take Charlie with Jamie and me down to Florida?”

  Jamie was wife number four for Eric Senior, and Eric was husband number three for her.

  Jamie Amelia Lopez, a Cuban Dominican woman, was a good eight years older than Eric, and, believe me, it showed. I could tell that at one time in her life she was a striking woman, but now her face, which was almost always made up like a Hollywood starlet’s, was beginning to crease.

  I knew Botox would be the natural next step for her.

  But even as her face failed her, her body seemed to get younger and tighter.

  Jamie went to the gym religiously, ate plenty of green vegetables, and drank gallons of water.

  I suspect she’s had a breast lift, because I didn’t know any women who’d birthed and breastfed five children, and not to mention were knocking on fifty’s door, with tits like hers.

  Come to think of it, I didn’t know too many twenty-year-olds with tits like hers!

  Don’t get me wrong: I like Jamie, but I didn’t know if I liked her enough to send my baby girl on a trip with her and a father who’d only recently started to take a real interest in his daughter.

  “Um, I don’t think so,” I stated, pressing my fist into my thick hip and rolling my head on my neck. “Over my dead body,” I added.

  Eric sighed. “Geneva, I am her father. I should be able to take my daughter on vacation.”

  “Mama’s baby, Daddy’s maybe,” I spat.

  “Stop it, Geneva. You’re being unreasonable.”

  In the background I could hear Jamie whisper, “What did she say? It’s okay, yes?”

  I could just imagine her, dressed in her tight black spandex capris, stilettos, and tube top. She was a grandmother, for goodness’ sake!

  “Let me talk to her,” Jamie demanded, and then there was scuffle, a few refusals from Eric, and finally Jamie’s voice with its heavy Latin accent saying, “Hello, Geneva, how are you?” Which came out sounding like How ark jew?

  “I’m fine, Jamie, and you?”

  I sweetened my tone. I hated that I liked her. After Eric proposed marriage, she had demanded to meet me. I was a little apprehensive; none of his other wives ever showed any interest in me or the son Eric and I had together, so this was a new one on me.

  We met at McDonald’s. She greeted me with a large hug and began to tell me how beautiful I was and then looked around at Eric and asked what the hell was wrong with him, letting go such a beautiful woman?

  I didn’t know what to expect, but I certainly didn’t expect that. And as I ate a Big Mac and fries, I actually felt myself starting to slip into some sort of weird adoration for Jamie.

  She was so jovial and carefree. Someone that I thought could be a real good friend if she weren’t married to my ex.

  “I’m good. Look, Geneva, we want to take the baby with us to Florida for the summer. Eric is retiring next month, you know, and we have the house in Miami, and it would be good for her to be able to go to the beach. You know, fresh air, fresh food.”

  I just blinked. “What?” I coughed; Eric hadn’t said anything about Charlie staying for the “entire” summer.

  Jamie rattled on as if I’d said nothing.

  “I told Eric to invite you too. Why not—we are all family, sí?”

  Jamie was on some Demi Moore–Bruce Willis–Ashton Kutcher shit.

  “That’s very nice of you, Jamie, but I can’t get away—”

  “Oh, no, maybe next time. But Charlie, she can come, sí?”

  This woman had just invited me on vacation with her family and my ex-husband, even though she knew my history with Eric. I mean, I got pregnant with Charlie while he was married to his last wife. Neither one of us were angels! Wasn’t she concerned that a small flame still burned? Didn’t she think that maybe a little hanky-panky could happen while she was on the beach, sunning her forty-four double-Ds?

  Either she was crazy or real confident. Maybe she was a little bit of both. I caved.

  “Sí, she can go,” I said.

  Crystal

  i guess Adolph Fisher was wrong about me being premenopausal, because I was PMSing like a son of a bitch!

  I could see that it was going to be a salty month; I was already craving peanuts, potato chips, and french fries. Last month had been a sweet month and I’d gobbled down Heath bars and ice cream like they were going out of style.

  I leaned in closer to the mirror. The two new pimples were growing in size.

  I plucked up a tube of MAC lip gloss and quickly applied the copper-colored gloss to my lips. My hand hesitated a moment over the tube of mascara but then just came up and smo
othed back my hair. I didn’t even have the strength to style my hair, so I would be sporting a ponytail today; it was just Geneva’s house, just the gang.

  I yawned loudly. I was so tired, so goddamn tired.

  Oscar the doorman tipped his hat and said, “Have a good day, Ms. Atkins.”

  I smiled and wished him the same.

  The day was warm, the sky clear, and the streets were bustling with people. I felt my spirits lift a bit. With every step, I felt lighter, happier.

  I was actually smiling by the time I reached the corner and still smiling when someone from behind called my name.

  Spinning around, I came face-to-face with my past, and my smile and good mood dropped away just like that.

  Noah

  saturday afternoon found me standing on the Utica Avenue station platform. I had just missed the A train, but the announcer on the busted speaker advised passengers that a C train was just five minutes away.

  My mind was pondering my Zahn situation. I was missing him desperately. I missed his warm body against mine at night when we slept. I missed his corny jokes and how he tugged at the loose flesh beneath his neck whenever he was pondering something.

  I missed the sex. Lawd, how I missed the sex!

  The night before I was scheduled to leave, I believe we had the best sex ever. It was angry, urgent, and raw!

  We sucked each other off and then I bent over and let him have me. He’d never felt so big inside of me. I was biting so hard on the pillow that I left a hole in the material.

  Just thinking about it was getting me hot, and that combined with the warmth of the subway station got me to perspiring.

  I shook off the memory and concentrated on the dark tunnel. I saw no indication that a train was anywhere near.

  “Noah?”

  I turned around. “Will!” I yelped with surprise.

  Will Somers was an old flame who I’d had some trouble getting over.

  We embraced and I allowed my fingers to roll across his muscled back. He still had his football player’s physique, and as we separated, I realized he’d also maintained his boyish good looks.

  “Hey, long time,” I said, genuinely glad to see him.

  “Yeah, last time we saw each other was in London, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, yes, it was.” I smiled as the memory floated back to me. I’d been visiting with Zahn and had decided to take a morning stroll, after which I popped into a small café and was enjoying the morning paper and a cup of tea when I looked up and Will was standing over me.

  I had been astonished to see him so many miles away from New York, but that wouldn’t be the last surprise of that meeting.

  Will announced that he was getting married the very next day. Imagine my surprise: I had had that man’s cock in my mouth just twelve months earlier, and now he’d gone and switched teams.

  But it gets better—just as I was trying to digest the wedding information, his wife-to-be walked in.

  Merriwether Beacon, a woman that I’d had relations with during the summer I lost my mind and started sleeping with women.

  Thank God for my therapy group, Homosexuals with Heterosexual Tendencies: they saved my life and put me back on the homosexual track.

  I chanced a quick glance at Will’s left hand. There wasn’t a wedding band there, unless that aquamarine stone wrapped in silver twine was it.

  “So how are things?” I ventured, hoping he would bring up the wife before I did.

  “Oh, same ole thing. But tell me, are you living here in Brooklyn or in London?”

  I unfolded my life in London for Will, but as I did I was also checking him out. He didn’t look like any heterosexual husband I knew. For instance, his eyebrows were very well groomed—not just groomed but waxed so thin, they almost looked drawn on. And was that lip gloss? And while yes, many straight men as well as gay men wore earrings in both lobes, how many wore gold chandelier-shaped danglers?

  My eyes continued to travel…down.

  The gray T-shirt he wore was cropped and fit his torso like a glove. I could make out every cut of his chiseled physique through the slinky thin material.

  His navel was pierced, and below that was a tattoo, some statement in Latin. On his feet he wore pink suede Timberlands that laced up to the knee.

  I stopped talking right then and there and abruptly asked, “What the hell is going on with you?”

  “What?” Will said, blinking stupidly.

  “Last time I saw you, you were Mr. Macho, Mr. I’m Taking a Wife. So what’s this?” I said, indicating the pink lace-ups with one hand and the belly ring with the other.

  “Oh, this.” Will giggled girlishly and waved his hand at me. “The marriage didn’t work out.”

  “Can I guess why?” I asked sarcastically.

  Will just nodded his head and murmured, “Uh-hmmmmm.”

  “Damn.”

  “Oh, please, honey child, it’s not like she didn’t know what she was getting.”

  My eyes popped. “She knew?”

  “Of course she did. She met me at a gay club, for God’s sake!”

  “Langston’s?”

  “The very same. But listen, Noah, it’s funny that I’m running into you like this, ’cause she has really been wanting to contact you.”

  “She? Merriwether? For what?” I said, already having flashbacks of the three-hour fuckfest we’d had some years earlier.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t have a number or anything to pass on to her, so I just told her to scout the hangouts and maybe she’d bump into you.”

  I took Will in once more; I just couldn’t believe what he’d turned into.

  “Anyway, you got a cell phone with you? I’ll give you her number and you can lock it in, call her if you want to. I won’t say I saw you if you don’t. Cool?”

  “Cool.”

  After I’d punched in Merriwether’s number, I asked, “So how long did it last?”

  “Shit, less than three months, and good thing too, she’d started eating like a pig and got fat as a cow!”

  My jaw dropped. “What?”

  “You heard me,” Will said as he fished a compact from his front pocket. Flipping it open, he checked his glossy lips. I watched in quiet amazement.

  After he was done primping he turned to me, rolled his eyes seductively down my body, leaned back on one leg and asked, “So you free or what?”

  I looked at Will like he’d lost his mind. “No, I’m in a relationship,” I said, balking beneath the thundering sound of the approaching train.

  Crystal

  i was still in a daze when I arrived in front of Geneva’s building. Deeka was just walking up. “Hey!” he called out to me.

  I offered him a weak “Hey yourself.”

  “You okay, Crystal?”

  I wasn’t okay.

  “Yeah, yeah, just wondering if I turned the oven off,” I lied.

  “Oh, you better go back and check, then.”

  “No, no, I’m sure I did,” I said, and forced a smile. “So how was your trip?”

  “It was exhausting, but worth it.”

  “That’s good.” The muscles in my face began to quiver. Holding a phony smile is no easy task.

  “You look wonderful as always.” Deeka beamed. “Have you been on a beach somewhere? You’re glowing.”

  “Huh?” I didn’t hear a word he’d said.

  “I said, you been away? You’ve got a wicked tan.”

  “Thanks,” I piped, my hand coming up to touch my face. “I was in Antigua, but that was last month.”

  “Oh.”

  We stood there smiling at each other for a while. I liked Deeka, but we hadn’t really gotten a chance to get to know one another. We’d been in each other’s company a few times, but he was either coming in when I was leaving or vice versa.

  Just when I felt like the silence was a moment too long, Deeka took me by the elbow and led me away from the building into the center of the courtyard.

  “Hey, Crystal, it
must be fate that we showed up at the same time, because I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”

  Deeka’s face was suddenly a mask of seriousness.

  I folded my arms in preparation for what he was about to share with me.

  “Really,” I breathed, bracing myself. I had no idea where this was going.

  “Well, you see,” he began nervously as he shot a look up at Geneva’s window. “I, um, want to…well, I think I’d l-like to,” he stammered.

  I was really getting nervous now. All sorts of thoughts were running through my head. The main one was that he was trying to tell me he was going to break up with Geneva.

  “Yes,” I said, my voice tight.

  Deeka took a deep breath, exhaled, and then said very quickly, “I want to propose to Geneva.”

  My face went slack. I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard.

  “Crystal?”

  I was trying to recover, but I couldn’t catch hold of the words that were swirling in my mouth. Deeka took a step toward me.

  “I said I want to ask Geneva to marry me.” He spoke slowly, deliberately, as though I had a learning disability.

  It still took me a few moments to find my voice, and then all that came out was a whisper: “Oh my God.”

  I must not have been smiling, and I have to admit that my tone carried more apprehension than joy, because concern bloomed in Deeka’s eyes.

  “Aren’t you happy for us?” he asked in a quiet voice.

  “Why, of course I am. I think I’m just in shock is all,” I said, and then forced a smile. I pressed one hand against my heart and used the other to dramatically swipe my brow. “Whew—I didn’t know what you were going to say.” I laughed.

  Deeka’s face darkened. “What did you think I was going to say?”

  I didn’t want to share those thoughts with him, so I just stepped in and gave him a tight hug and quick kiss on the cheek. “I am so happy for the two of you. Really, I am!”

  And I was happy for them. Geneva was my girl, my ace boon coon, and she had found her knight in shining armor. I was overjoyed for them…I just felt sad for myself.